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J ERUSALEM 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 
 
JERUSALEM 
 
 ITS HISTORY AND HOPE 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. OLIPHANT 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'makers OF FLORENCE," 'MAKERS OF VENICE,' ETC. 
 
 ' Mount Zion which cannot be reiHoreii, but abiileth for et<er ' 
 
 WITH WOOD ENGRAVINGS FROM DRAWINGS IIV HAMILTON AIDE 
 AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY V. M. GOOD 
 
 ILoution 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 1891 
 
 Ail rights reserved 
 
3 
 
 0^ 
 
 UEr.Ar.iA!:'5 riii:o 
 
NOTE 
 
 The writer scarcely needs to say that this book is no 
 record of Eastern travel : her experiences in the Holy 
 Land having no special importance, save as making 
 more vivid to herself the scenes to which the following 
 history is devoted. It may be well, however, to say 
 that these holy places may be visited with no exertion 
 that is beyond the powers of a person in ordi- 
 nary health, though neither young nor adventurous. 
 Nothing can exceed the care and kindness of the 
 attendants who escort the not-robust traveller through 
 a region where convenience and comfort are by no 
 means the rule of life. And she has a special 
 remembrance to make of the kindness of the Greek 
 ecclesiastical authorities in Jerusalem, and of the 
 constant attention of the excellent dragoman, David 
 Jamal, who was the Providence of her little party. 
 
 21G387 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The story of Jerusalem is one of the most wonderful in 
 the world, besides being of unparalleled importance to the 
 human race. Insignificant in power even at its greatest, it 
 has been, through all the ages of secular history, no better 
 than a tributary and dependent of great empires which have 
 risen and fallen and passed away, yet left this little city on 
 its hills, always the most interesting spot on earth, inde- 
 structible, the source of the mightiest influence, the founda- 
 tion of the greatest systems of earthly law and thought. 
 Before the literature of Greece had been thought of, song 
 and story and the noblest inspirations of philosophy and 
 poetry had come to being upon the little crests of Zion 
 and Moriah : the Temple had been built there which has 
 never faded, though destroyed, burned, broken down a 
 dozen times, swept far from sight and knowledge — from 
 the memory and imagination of men : and the records of 
 humanity had begun to be put forth in full splendour of 
 character and impulse and feeling, in chronicles which are 
 as fresh and living now as when they were transcripts of 
 the life of three thousand years ago. We go no farther 
 than the heroic age of Hebrew genius when we name this 
 date : beyond, in the mist of the ages, before even ancient 
 Egypt had begun to engrave her rigid annals upon stone, 
 the record goes back, not in hieroglyphics, but in histories 
 
 b 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 of living men. A learned sect studies and scrutinises with 
 painful confusion of images what a great Rameses may- 
 or may not have done : but the child of to-day wants no 
 better entertainment than that story of Joseph and his 
 brethren which is told in every language and never fails 
 to touch the simple heart. Before Homer had begun his 
 primitive minstrel strain to celebrate the fights and wiles of 
 the chiefs and kings, Isaiah had risen to the highest heights 
 of poetry, had opened the great dim gates of Hades, and 
 had revealed, on the other hand, a dazzling glimpse of a 
 Heaven in which one God sat upon a throne of light, and 
 judged and tried the spirits of men. There is no such 
 record in all the histories. The psalms which began with 
 David, breathe forth the deepest emotions of our race 
 to-day. The wisdom which throughout all the tenacious 
 East bears the name of Solomon, has never been outpassed 
 by any successor. And when we descend the course of 
 the ages and come to a still more glorious and wonderful 
 history, it is Jerusalem still which is the scene both of 
 tragedy and triumph, of the greatest and most wonderful 
 life which was ever lived among men. 
 
 We are told that the successive histories in which all 
 this line of life and being is preserved, having now been 
 exposed to the researches of modern criticism, have been 
 found to be untrustworthy, and that all our views of histori- 
 cal truth, and all our faith in ancient and sacred personages^ 
 must be given up. The labours of half-a-dozen learned 
 Germans working by no light except that of their own 
 genius, upon the most ancient literature in the world, amid 
 all the difficulties attending research in a language which 
 contains nothing else with which to compare or collate 
 the works under examination, and belonging to a period 
 when language was being formed, and when science, 
 either in that or in any other region, did not exist — form 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 the sole standing -ground for this demand. Very few 
 people know the Hebrew language, or are able to test these 
 assertions, except by such light of ordinary criticism as 
 they may happen to possess, by the laws of literature 
 and the force of nature ; but I think that few, compara- 
 tively, will be tempted to transfer a faith, in which they 
 have been trained from their childhood, to a small group 
 of unknown persons, whose motives are dubious, and their 
 methods more ingenious than ingenuous ; and to reject on 
 their authority, as a series of often fraudulent fables, the 
 history so full of nature, so instinct with every feeling of 
 humanity, which has been the food of our imagination and 
 the inspiration of our thought, all our lives. It is a blind 
 confidence which is required by them, not an intelligent faith. 
 When we say that these writers are inspired by dubious 
 motives, we mean that they are moved by a foregone con- 
 clusion, the determined conviction that everything which is 
 based on supernatural influences, and records communica- 
 tions between God and man, is necessarily untrue — which is 
 a very large assumption to begin with. The disingenuous- 
 ness of their methods is a matter which could only be set 
 forth in detail, but will, we imagine, always strike the ordinary 
 reader who has himself no parti pris. I have no claim to 
 set myself forth as one who has any authority in these 
 matters; but I may say on my own part, what every individual 
 has a right to say, that to transfer my faith and confidence 
 from the writers of the Old Testament to the Herrn Wcll- 
 hausen, Kuenen, etc., would seem to me the wildest insanity. 
 Moses I know and Samuel I know ; but who are these ? To 
 me, and to far the greater number of readers, they are but 
 names and no more : and to pin my faith to their utterances 
 in any matter either human or divine is what I am incapable 
 of doing. The little which I have read of these utterances 
 does not impress me with any sense of reality. To listen to 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 a dull voice proclaiming authoritatively that this one verse 
 in a narrative is true and all the rest fictitious : that this 
 little group of words is to be received as genuine, but the 
 other part is a modern interpolation (by modern being under- 
 stood a date two thousand seven, or five, hundred years ago), 
 conveys neither satisfaction nor enlightenment to my mind. 
 I have some small knowledge of how human character is 
 depicted, and the means by which a man who has departed 
 from this world is made to live and breathe again : and I 
 know that this is not done as a bird's nest is constructed, 
 by thieving here and there, a scrap from one and a scrap 
 from another. There are but two ways which I can 
 recognise in literature of producing a recognisable and 
 genuine human being : the one is by the tale of his life as 
 it happened ; the other is by the effort of genius conceiving 
 and creating such a man, under great laws of truth to nature 
 which cannot be transgressed. And the history of the Bible 
 is above all things biographical, the records of individual 
 lives. These men are no things of shreds and patches, 
 but human beings far more clearly distinguishable, far 
 more real, than the moles of erudition who poke about the 
 roots of all history, and endeavour to make the world as 
 blind as themselves. 
 
 I must add that I have read a little, but only a 
 little, of the original critics themselves : but some of their 
 English exponents, and their great French disciple and 
 commentator M. Renan, are sufficiently practicable reading, 
 and require no learning to understand. The information of 
 the latter is so minute, not to say self-confident, that 
 the careless reader may well be confounded by his light- 
 hearted assumptions of knowledge. He can tell little 
 details about the construction of the Pentateuch so that 
 it is scarcely possible to doubt that he must have private 
 intelligence on the subject, if not that the different editions, 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 "redactions," of which he discourses so glibly, must have 
 been entered at some ancient Stationers' Hall of which 
 the register has fallen into his hands. M. Renan tells us 
 cheerfully that no such person as Abraham ever existed, 
 and that on another page of his own book {Lc Peuple 
 (V Israel) there will be found " des donnhs plus solides " upon 
 this imaginary personage. But when we turn, somewhat 
 anxiously, to that previous page, we find nothing but the 
 statement of M. Renan, unsupported even by any suggestion 
 of proof — a statement which seems to me the least solid of 
 all foundations of belief That he is also certain that David 
 was merely a skilful performer on various instruments, but 
 did not write any psalms, on the authority of the book of 
 Jasher, is a confusing statement, and awakens an impression 
 in the mind that the book of Jasher is a new document 
 which may throw much light upon the old. But when we 
 find that M. Renan knows no more of the book of Jasher 
 than we ourselves do — that is, by means of two very brief 
 allusions to it in the historical books of the Old Testament 
 — that impression gives way to another very distinct one, 
 which is, that the device of throwing dust in our eyes is not 
 a new one, but is very ingeniou.s, and a favourite method in 
 this argument. This is the proof he brings forward to 
 invalidate the force of a tradition which, according to his 
 own showing, has been persistent and unbroken for two 
 thousand eight hundred years among the most tenacious 
 people in the world. An English expositor of the same 
 doctrines, a clergyman, but too insignificant to name, varies 
 this assertion further, and informs us very confidently that 
 David wrote nothing but drinking songs : and this on the 
 authority of a verse in the Prophet Amos, where he upbraids 
 the careless for their indifference to the fate of their country 
 while occupied with smaller matters, such as inventing in- 
 struments of music, like David. The reader will judge 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 whether his faith in Abraham or in David — men whom he 
 has known from his youth up, of whom he has in his hands 
 the unvarnished record, in which there is nought extenuate, 
 but everything good and bad impartially set down — is 
 shaken by such assertions. 
 
 The chief principle laid down by the new criticism is 
 that the laws of Moses, and all the authoritative teaching of 
 the Old Testament, were gradually invented, put together, and 
 made into a code, by a series of priestly writers, amplifying 
 and enlarging in every generation the religious system which 
 put an unlimited sway into their hands, forging, interpolat- 
 ing, inventing in one case a whole new book of the law, at 
 one stroke, in the name of God, and under the lying pretence 
 that it was all ancient and directly inspired by Him. The 
 principle (proclaimed) of the critics is the antagonistic one 
 that nothing came from God at all, that there is no super- 
 natural authority for anything, that communications between 
 God and man are impossible, and therefore could not be. We 
 have thus two parties to the debate, according to their ideas, 
 occupying an exactly similar standing ground, both working 
 towards a foregone conclusion: the priests and scribes to invent 
 their law, and make it as lifelike as possible ; the critics to 
 prove that it is all invention ; neither one nor other caring 
 much for that ideal Truth in whose name so many lies are 
 accumulated, but only seeking "proof," which is a very different 
 thing, of their own theories. Of the priests and the scribes far 
 off in the mist of the ages we can ill judge, save by these 
 works which they have left, and which, to most of us, prove 
 the marks of their true origin very clearly : but of the critics 
 we are at full liberty to judge, for they do not conceal the fact 
 that everything they do is done with the distinct motive of 
 proving their own negative. M. Renan rejoices, as the 
 accomplished end of their inquiries, that every one is now able 
 to form his own romance about the origin of religion, it 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 being clearly proved that no religion has any supernatural 
 origin, and that God, if there is a God, never spoke to man 
 at all. In what then can the unlearned take refuge? In 
 proofs like those quoted above ? in the disintegration of a 
 consistent and living record ? My own conclusion is very 
 simple. I will take Herr Wellhausen's word for nothing, 
 above all for nothing on which he has formed his theory 
 before he began to inquire into the subject. I will take 
 M. Renan's word for less than nothing, were that possible, 
 because he has abundantly proved himself incapable of 
 judging in respect to all the higher mysteries of human 
 character, thought, and feeling. Abraham I know and 
 David I know ; but who are these ? 
 
 In speaking thus, I speak only as one of the masses, 
 unacquainted with the ancient language in which these 
 researches are carried on, as is the case of most people, and 
 entirely unqualified to enter into its earliest utterances, or 
 judge in any matter of codexes or subtleties of accent for 
 myself I cannot understand how, setting aside the only 
 record in existence of those times, a man of our own can 
 pronounce authoritatively that another certain man living 
 three thousand years ago did not do what that record says 
 he did, and what all the ages since, and especially his 
 own nation, by all its traditions, consistent and unbroken, 
 have asserted and believed him to have done. Without 
 that record we may say that no such person as David 
 ever existed, as the reader knows it has been already 
 asserted there was no such person as Abraham. But why, 
 in the face of that only witness, admitting his existence, 
 we should take from him those works by which he is most 
 chiefly known, I am unable to conceive. The use of criti- 
 cism may justifiably come in to examine and judge, according 
 to the differing style and references of the Psalms, which 
 may be most surely attributed to David, and which to later 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 writers. This commends itself to reason. I do not think 
 the other does so, especially as I find nothing but mere 
 sweeping denial of a fact which rests not only upon the 
 assertion of the only existing witnesses, but on the unbroken 
 tradition of a people whose records arc avowedly the most 
 ancient and the most continuous of all nations on the earth. 
 I believe it has been quite impossible (in a very much less 
 important matter) to come to any certain conclusion in 
 respect, for example, to the so-called poems of Ossian, a 
 publication of this century, of avowedly modern redaction. 
 Are they genuine ? are they not so? It is difficult to believe 
 that any natural and genuine bard ever uttered anything so 
 inflated and artificial : yet it is equally impossible to deny 
 that there is foundation in the floating traditions of the 
 Highlands for much that was published by Macpherson. 
 Thus, in a question of our own age, with all the materials 
 within our reach, no absolute certainty has ever been 
 attained, notwithstanding that the internal evidence is against 
 those high-flown strains. But in the case of the Psalms of 
 David, the internal evidence is all in favour of the identity of 
 the poet. They are not high-flown : they are the voice of a 
 natural man of high genius and strong emotions in the very 
 circumstances in which David is allowed to have been 
 placed. So natural are they, utterances so true of the 
 troubled or the thoughtful mind in the midst of the struggles 
 of life, that our deepest emotions find expression in them 
 to-day. What object, then, can there be in seeking for them 
 another author ? The Bacon to that Shakspeare must have 
 lived with him, suffered with him, rejoiced with him, if it is 
 not himself who thus pours forth his heart, in the fields of 
 Bethlehem, under the great stars almost projected out of 
 heaven in their grandeur — or in the high places of Israel, 
 and the gates through which, with songs and rejoicing, he 
 carried the Ark of the Lord. Who is it ? what closest 
 
INTRODUCTION XVU 
 
 comrade ? what dearest friend ? what all-devoted poet ? if it 
 is not David, the sinner and sorrowful, the man of passion 
 and strife, of penitence and confession, the man we know ? 
 To another man whom I do not know, whom no one ventures 
 to name, I will not transfer the songs that have been sung 
 as his for three thousand years, the first strains of divine 
 poetry ever revealed to mine and to many another infant 
 soul. 
 
 This book, it will be seen, has no claim upon the 
 attention of the erudite. Let them not lose ten tickings of 
 their watch on this unprofitable writing. It is addressed 
 only to those for whom the soil of Palestine, so fondly and 
 so long known as the Holy Land, is peopled with the 
 known and loved, the poets and sages and kings with whom 
 we are familiar as with the records of our own lives : and 
 consecrated to all time by One, more wonderful than it had 
 entered into the heart of man to conceive, until He came, 
 the climax and divine completion of the old world, the 
 divine leader, teacher, and Lord of the new. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 THE HOUSE OF DAVID 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Shepherd of Bethlehem .' 
 
 CHAPTER n 
 The Outlaw in the Wilderness 
 
 The King of Israel 
 
 Solomon 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 PAGE 
 3 
 
 27 
 
 60 
 
 127 
 
 The Kings of Judah . .164 
 
 PART II 
 THE PROPHETS 
 
 Isaiah 
 
 Jeremiah 
 
 Ezekiel 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 203 
 
 242 
 
 291 
 
XX CONTENTS 
 
 PART III 
 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Zerubbabel — Ezra . . . . . . . .317 
 
 CHAPTER H 
 Nehemiah .......... 347 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 The Maccabees 368 
 
 PART IV 
 THE FINAL TRAGEDY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 The Son of, David 387 
 
 CHAPTER n 
 Messias 
 
 435 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 The End of the Jewish Dispensation . . . . 467 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The Church of the Holy Sepulchre . . Frontispiece 
 
 Distant View of Bethlehem 7 
 
 Ravine of the Kedron, Wilderness of Engedi . . 31 
 
 Hebron 65 
 
 The Ancient Jebus. Jerusalem of David's Time (con- 
 jectural) . . . • 70 
 
 The Jerusalem of Solomon (conjectural) . . .71 
 Absalom's Pillar. Valley of Jehoshaphat . . .107 
 The Wall of Wailing : ancient Wall of Temple En- 
 closure 133 
 
 A Cedar of Lebanon 136 
 
 Valley of Jehoshaphat, with Rocks of Siloam, the 
 
 Dwelling of the Tyrian Masons . . . -139 
 
 Yamuch, a Port of Lebanon 142 
 
 The Interior of the Temple Enclosure : the Golden 
 
 Gate 153 
 
 Sebastieh (Samaria) 169 
 
 Samaria: Ruins of Crusaders' Church in Foreground. 175 
 
 A Street in Jerusalem 180 
 
 Pool of Hezekiah 189 
 
 David's Tomb, Jerusalem 219 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Jericho and the Dead Sea 225 
 
 JEZREEL 254 
 
 The Valley of Jehoshaphat: Ascent by Moriah . .261 
 
 Ancient Manuscript at Shechem 270 
 
 BANIAS : NEAR the ANCIENT DAN 280 
 
 Jerusalem : North - eastern Corner. Neby Samwil in 
 
 THE Distance 282 
 
 The Golden Gate 311 
 
 Dome of the Rock, situated on the Site of the an- 
 cient Temple 323 
 
 In the Temple Enclosure: the Tomb of Elias . , 333 
 
 Sculptured Capital 337 
 
 Sculptured Capital . . . . . . . -339 
 
 North-east Corner of Wall, Temple Enclosure (Haram- 
 
 esh-Sherif) . 352 
 
 Western Wall of Jerusalem, with Jaffa Gate . -357 
 
 Open-air Pulpit in the Temple Enclosure , . . 364 
 Village of Banias (C^sarea Philippi), on the Sources 
 
 OF Jordan 383 
 
 Nazareth 389 
 
 The Bethlehem Road 392 
 
 Rachel's Tomb, on the Way to Bethlehem . . . 394 
 
 Convent of the Nativity, Bethlehem .... 396 
 
 A Street in Bethlehem 401 
 
 Lake of Galilee : the Horns of Hattin, on which the 
 
 Sermon on the Mount was preached, in the Distance 409 
 
 Tiberias: Lake of Galilee 421 
 
 Tiberias 437 
 
 Ain-et-Tin : Lake of Galilee ...... 440 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS xxill 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Pilgrims' Tent: Ain-et-Tin, near Bethsaida . . . 442 
 On the Shores of the Lake of Galilee . . .445 
 Khan on the Road to Jericho, by Tradition that of 
 
 the Good Samaritan 460 
 
 Jericho Road: Traditional Spot where the Man fell 
 
 AMONG Thieves 465 
 
 From Bethany, looking towards Jericho . . . 470 
 Syrian Children with Palm Branches . . . .475 
 
 On the Hill of Evil Counsel 477 
 
 El-Aksa : IN THE Temple Enclosure .... 485 
 
 Ancient Olive-Tree in the Garden of Gethsemane . 494 
 
 Fountain near the Gate of the Chain .... 497 
 
 The Via Dolorosa 501 
 
PART I 
 THE HOUSE OF DAVID 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE SHEPHERD OF BETHLEHEM 
 
 In the days when Israel first desired a king, when the 
 troubled period of the Judges had come to an end, and 
 rising strength and numbers impelled the Hebrews to a 
 more full and thorough carrying out of the conquest of 
 their promised land, one of the strong little cities peculiar 
 to the country, where every village was planted upon a hill- 
 side, for natural defence and strength, stood in an exception- 
 ally strong position, surrounded on three sides by the ridges 
 of protecting hills, a city of the Jebusites, which, during all 
 these wild years of war and bloodshed, had retained its 
 little nationality, and withstood the assaults of the invaders. 
 In the early days, when all as yet was chaos in history, the 
 strangers from the wilderness, swarming into the land, took 
 and lost again many strongholds, which were reoccupied by 
 their native inhabitants as the fluctuating horde rose and fell, 
 and a fairer region, or one more ready for their uses, tempted 
 an individual band, even after victory, to stream on to further 
 conquests, indifferent to those already made. In this way 
 the Jebusite city more than once fell and rose again. 
 
 But when David became king, and united, after civil 
 war and many disturbances, the whole nation of Israel 
 under one head, something in the form of a capital, or 
 centre of royal authority, from whence laws might pro- 
 ceed, and where government should dwell, must have 
 become necessary. David was at this time living in 
 Hebron, at the farther end of his kingdom, a place with 
 
THE HOUSE OF DAVJD 
 
 no claim either to central position or special strength. 
 Saul, his predecessor, had, it would appear, entertained no 
 idea of royal state or central authority. He was a man 
 of war, and no statesman ; the experiment of kingship was 
 new, against all the previous ideas of the tribes : and the first 
 king, in his confused and troubled intelligence, and life of 
 excitement, warfare, and mistake, had little time for those 
 ideas of consolidation and permanent establishment which 
 are necessary for the maintenance of authority and govern- 
 ment. We are not told in what way David was directed 
 towards the little stronghold of the Jebusites as the site of 
 his throne. It would seem to have been his own personal 
 choice, not indicated to him by any oracle. He must have 
 been acquainted with it in his youth, must have skirted the 
 hill on which it stood many times in the course of his early 
 wanderings and dangers ; and, lover of Nature and of all 
 things beautiful as he was, no doubt the little city set on a 
 hill, always so charming an object, as well as the more 
 practical recommendation of those steep slopes and ridges 
 of rock almost impregnable to the efforts of early warfare, 
 must have caught his dreaming eyes on many occasions 
 long before he was conscious that one day or another he 
 should there found a royal city and set up a throne. 
 
 The spot had other associations, though they are not 
 mentioned in the narrative, and probably have been en- 
 larged and dwelt upon only in later times. If there was 
 any tradition of Abraham's sacrifice lingering about the 
 green but rocky hill which lay opposite the Jebusite city, 
 it must have been faint and dim, especially as, at that time, 
 when places of sacrifice were many, and every famous 
 inhabitant had somewhere built an altar, even so great 
 and memorable a sacrifice as that of Abraham would 
 scarcely bear the importance which has attached to it in 
 later days. We have no reason to suppose that the 
 young warrior had as yet conceived the great idea of a 
 temple to be placed upon that twin hill, and the double 
 strength of altar and throne to be thus given to the capital 
 of his kingdom. But the Jebusite city at once pleased his 
 
THE SHEPHERD OF BETHLEHEM 
 
 eye and satisfied his mind as adapted for his purpose. It 
 was, if not in an absolutely central position, as near so as 
 could be while still within the vicinity and protection of 
 the tribe of Judah, the kindred and natural partisans and 
 followers of the new king. As it stood there, high on its 
 rocky height, looking over the rounded summit of Moriah 
 to the loftier slopes of the mountain now known to us with 
 all its pathetic and sacred associations as the Mount of 
 Olives, the sun dwelling upon it in all his course from east 
 to west, the steep streets in it so strong that the blind and 
 the lame, according to the brag of its ciders, were enough to 
 defend it even against that man of valour, the great chief 
 and warrior David — the little city was full to him of every 
 fierce and every gentle attraction, a much -envied prize, a 
 place which had scorned and defied him, a mount of vision 
 and beauty satisfactory to all the poetic fancies of his heart. 
 That jest about the blind and the lame would seem specially 
 to have piqued the young conqueror who had overcome so 
 many things and was not now to be daunted, only excited 
 and drawn on by the temerity of the rash Jebusites, a little 
 people of no account, who thus dared and defied the Lord's 
 anointed. And we know that neither these feeble defenders 
 nor all the strength of the townsmen could keep out the 
 victorious bands of Judah. The city was taken, the fortress, 
 high upon the western height, and all the low square and 
 windowless hovels which hung about it. In all probability 
 there has been little change since then in the strange little 
 dark dwellings which Arabs and Syrians still inhabit in our 
 own days, and which arc rather shelters from the sun by day 
 and the dew by night for a people whose life is chiefly spent 
 in the open air, than dwellings such as we understand. 
 Many a hillside throughout Palestine still shows around the 
 one point of distinction, the fort or mosque which is its 
 centre, those level lines, square and low, with openings of 
 wide doorways and flat roofs of mingled clay and straw, or 
 something less savoury still, which are the houses natural to 
 the soil, often expanding into chambers darker, yet cooler 
 still, wrought out in the rock below or behind. 
 
THE HOUSE OF DAVID 
 
 Such, no doubt, was the city which David took, and 
 which he made into the city of David, the stronghold of 
 Zion, a city which has had more influence on the world than 
 any other on the face of the earth. Great has been the 
 power of Athens, great that of imperial Rome, but from 
 Jerusalem has come an inspiration more lofty, an influence 
 more continuous, than cither. The springs of life which 
 rose within that rocky enclosure flow yet through all the 
 world — through all our world it would perhaps be more just 
 to say, seeing that as yet the far-distant East has been little 
 influenced by them : though it would be indeed a mistake to 
 assert that the creed of Mahomet was unconnected with that 
 potent fountain-head from which it has derived almost all 
 that is worthy in it. In the meantime, however, our object 
 is more limited than to discuss the influence which that little 
 strip of country, that little rocky stronghold, have had upon 
 the world. In the first place comes its actual early history, 
 and that of the Eastern hero and warrior, the shepherd, the 
 poet, the feudatory chieftain, the king of Israel, who first 
 made for it an everlasting name. 
 
 David, the son of Jesse, of the tribe of Judah and the 
 town of Bethlehem or Ephrath — the latter being the ancient 
 name of the time of the patriarchs — was the youngest of a 
 large family possessing land and some importance in the 
 district, which was one of much agricultural and pastoral 
 wealth. The soft slopes on which the town is placed, the 
 green and smiling valley, broader than those ravines among 
 the hills which are so characteristic of the land of Judea, 
 give it a character of peacefulness and primitive wealth. 
 The gray town lies along the side of the hill in a prolonged 
 line, as if it never had been gathered together for protection 
 under any rude little stronghold ; and indeed there is little 
 record of fighting about this chosen and fertile spot. The 
 valley is so green, so wide and level, that it might almost, in 
 this land of rocks and hills, be called a plain ; and, no doubt, 
 all that genial expanse was filled with corn and productive 
 trees, while the grazing land occupied the farther slopes and 
 edge of the valley. Though Jesse was a substantial man, 
 
THE SHEPHERD OF BETHLEHEM 
 
 rich enough to send liberal supplies to his sons with the 
 army, and offerings to propitiate their captain, his household, 
 like all families of the time, was fully occupied by the care 
 of the family property and possessions, on a footing very 
 little different from that of the servants born in the house, 
 who were a sort of humble brethren and counted among 
 its children. David was the shepherd-boy, the lowest and 
 least skilled of the brothers in those early days, when 
 Samuel, the old prophet from Ramah, paid a visit to their 
 
 DISTANT VIEW OF BETHLEHEM 
 
 city, and honoured the house of Jesse by choosing it for his 
 resting-place. The public reason for this visit was to offer a 
 sacrifice, an object apparently accepted as natural and just 
 by the elders of the town ; but Samuel's chief motive and 
 interest was in his review of the sons of Jesse, seven young 
 men of fine stature and good looks, any one of whom 
 appeared to the prophet fit for the divine choice ; but not 
 among them was the chosen of the Lord. 
 
 The youngest was absent, keeping the sheep — a boy of no 
 particular account in the presence of the firstborn and his 
 stalwart brethren, yet a beautiful lad, ruddy and fresh as the 
 dews of the morning, as are still the handsome and gentle 
 race which inhabit Bethlehem. In the leisure of his occupa- 
 tion — the most thoughtful and poetical of all rural pursuits — 
 no doubt this youth had begun to feel the rising of the 
 poet's passion, the elation and inspiration of that gift which 
 more than any other lifts up the heart. The light that 
 
THE HOUSE OF DAVID 
 
 never was on sea or shore lit up for him the beloved valley, 
 the encircling hills. He had already seen in his waking 
 dreams, in the early light, the sun, all radiant in triumph 
 and glory, come forth like a bridegroom from his chamber : 
 and had considered the heavens which God had made, when 
 suddenly, as the day ended, the moon and the stars came 
 forth, silently proclaiming the praises of the Lord. All 
 these natural sounds and sights had entered into his heart, 
 which was full of that tender piety of youth not always 
 maintained in maturer life, which is one of the most beau- 
 tiful aspects of humanity. That he also possessed great 
 courage and strength is evident from the statement of his 
 struggle with the lion and the bear in defence of his flocks. 
 
 But, great as was the promise of his early years, 
 young David, amid the members of the household, was 
 but the junior — a youth unacquainted with the world and 
 its fiercer enjoyments of battle and raid, at the time of the 
 old prophet's visit. How it was that the anointing of 
 David, which was Samuel's special mission, attracted so 
 little notice, it is difficult to tell ; but neither the family 
 nor David himself seem to have attached any import- 
 ance to it. It must have appeared to them only a 
 special kindness, a mark of affectionate interest in the 
 youth from the old man, and was probably rather a 
 favour accorded to Samuel himself, to show him where 
 the king more worthy than Saul was to be found, than any 
 sign of future sovereignty made known to David. His 
 brothers do not even taunt him with it, as Joseph's brethren 
 taunted him with his dreams, though the firstborn, the head 
 of the house, was so wroth with his presumption on an after- 
 occasion in venturing to put himself forth as the champion 
 of Israel. That such compliments were not unknown may 
 be seen from various allusions throughout the sacred writings ; 
 " Thou anointest my head with oil," David himself says 
 in the 23d Psalm, meaning, it is evident, a sign of favour 
 and kindness, not a sacred consecration. When the sacrifice 
 and the feast which Samuel came to make at Bethlehem 
 were accomplished, the townsfolk, no doubt, escorted the 
 
THE SHEPHERD OF BETHLEHEM 
 
 old prophet back upon his way to his house at Ramah, 
 young David, to whom he had shown such special favour, 
 first among the nimble youths that ran by the old man's 
 side as he ambled upon his mule along the narrow paths 
 between the fields, as still the young attendants run, to 
 anticipate any wish of the great man they escort and accom- 
 pany, to lead his beast over the hard places of the way, and 
 render him that reverential homage which is never so perfect 
 as in the East. And then the soft landscape, the young 
 shepherd-lad, disappear from our vision for a time, and the 
 prophet goes his way to the disappointments that awaited 
 him — -the endless chidings and heartburnings which attended 
 the troubled path of Saul. 
 
 Of the shepherd's youthful life we have no further record 
 unless in the songs which, whether produced then or in an 
 after day, are doubtless the product of his early thoughts 
 and experiences as he watched his flocks by night, like those 
 other shepherds in the same fields to whom the birth of 
 David's Son and Lord was announced in the after ages — or 
 led them about during the day by hillside and deep valley, 
 by the green pastures and beside the quiet waters. Perhaps 
 he did not acquire so much command of language in his 
 early youth as to compose that Psalm which we all know so 
 well : but it must have been floating in his mind as he led 
 his sheep over the pleasant slopes and flowery turf of his 
 father's pastureland. The reader will forgive me if I quote 
 that Psalm in the version dear to Scotland — the first that 
 every child in that country learns, the homeliest, yet faith- 
 fullest translation of David's shepherd song — 
 
 The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want. 
 
 He makes me down to lie 
 In pastures green : He Icadeth me 
 
 The quiet waters by. 
 My soul He doth restore a<jain ; 
 
 And me to walk doth make 
 Within the paths of righteousness, 
 
 Ev'n for His own name's sake. 
 
 Yea, though I walk in death's dark vale. 
 Yet will I fear none ill : 
 
THE HOUSE OF DAVID 
 
 For Thou art with me ; and Thy rod 
 
 And staff me comfort still. 
 My table Thou hast furnished 
 
 In presence of my foes ; 
 My head Thou dost with oil anoint, 
 
 And my cup overflows. 
 
 Goodness and mercy all my life 
 
 Shall surely follow me : 
 And in God's house for evermore 
 
 My dwelling-place shall be. 
 
 Another picture never to be obliterated came into his 
 dreaming soul when he sat by night, with that great 
 Eastern heaven stretched out above him — the balmy breath of 
 the wonderful atmosphere, the great stars so near in the pulsa- 
 tions of ineffable light, the broad serene calm of the moon. 
 
 When I consider the heavens, 
 
 The work of Thy hands, 
 The moon and the stars. 
 
 Which Thou hast ordained ; 
 What is man. 
 
 That Thou art mindful of him ? 
 Or the son of man. 
 
 That Thou visitest him ? 
 
 Modern critics are eager to assure us that these wonder- 
 ful words could not have come from the lips of the shepherd 
 youth of Bethlehem. But there is no proof to be given of 
 this assertion that can weigh for a moment against the 
 long-continued tradition in their favour of his nation, the 
 only one on earth which can claim any historical connec- 
 tion with times beyond the farthest ken of the science of 
 history. They have borne his name for thousands of years : 
 they follow all the indications of his life. Few poems even 
 of the latest times can have a more satisfactory guarantee. 
 
 Thus he sat and sang his happy songs in the pleasant 
 valley and upon the fragrant hill, with the low line of the 
 roofs of Bethlehem and the distant enclosure of his father's 
 house shining under the broad radiance of that Eastern 
 moon, and all manner of great thoughts swelling in his 
 youthful bosom, ambitions perhaps — the vague ecstasy of 
 those visions of distinction and fame, and of making a great 
 
THE SHEPHERD OF BETHLEHEM 
 
 name, which arc common to the dreaming boy, whether in 
 the east or in the west, in ancient ages or at this day. He 
 who invented instruments of music in his latter days, and 
 took so much pains with the choirs and anthems of the 
 national worship, we may be sure had made himself some 
 shepherd's pipe upon which to play, more melodious, let us 
 hope, than the doleful Arab pipe which sounds upon those 
 slopes in the present age. In that same valley, so full of 
 associations, Ruth, the young widow from the land of Moab, 
 whose name has become a symbol of faithful affection, 
 gleaned " among the alien corn," and won the heart of the 
 rich landowner Boaz ; and in an age scarcely then forgotten, 
 Rahab, another foreign woman of less creditable antecedents 
 but equal faith, came up from the deep banks of the Jordan 
 into this fertile and tranquil place, and found, we may be 
 permitted to suppose, in the house of one of the men whose 
 lives she had saved at Jericho, a home and refuge. The 
 blood of both these women ran in the veins of Jesse's son. 
 He was thus of kin to other races, with a mingling in him 
 of foreign instincts, and perhaps had inherited tastes and 
 dreams of beauty and luxury unknown to the desert- 
 wanderers of Israel from the older civilisation of the rich 
 Jericho and the cities of Moab. But chief of all, he had 
 the blood of the conquerors in his veins, the tradition of 
 those victorious bands who had overrun the rich country, 
 and pulled one by one the little monarchs of the land from 
 their seats. His thoughts were of all these things while he 
 fulfilled his youthful occupation about the pleasant hills. 
 An English youth with perhaps a Spanish grandmother, 
 with the tradition of some dazzling beauty from the East 
 among his progenitors, might thus feel himself the inheritor 
 of all the races, mingling the romance of his foreign ances- 
 tresses with the masterful confidence of the Englishmen who 
 had conquered and assimilated all these alien glories. And 
 David, in the fair country in which he was born, must have 
 felt the thrill of the stranger inspiration, the poetry of the 
 beautiful women thus made to contribute to the perfection 
 of his race. I have heard a hot theorist deny the proposi- 
 
THE HOUSE OF DA VI D 
 
 tion disagreeable to him, that our Lord Himself, according 
 to the flesh, was a Jew, by reference to this, so far back, 
 mingled parentage, the woman of Moab and the woman of 
 Jericho — a very futile argument. But to David, though a 
 Hebrew of the Hebrews, they were not far back, and the 
 romance and tradition of them were warm in his veins. 
 Here she of Jericho must have passed in the conqueror's 
 train, clinging perhaps to the desert warrior whom she had 
 saved, and who had saved her in return ; and here Ruth 
 had wandered, forlorn among the women of the place, with 
 no one to take her part save the astute old woman in the 
 village whom she had followed far from her own people. 
 Thus every element of poetry and romance lay about young 
 David's feet as he led his sheep through the gate at which 
 his forefather Boaz plucked off his kinsman's shoe, and past 
 the well for whose waters he longed afterwards in the ex- 
 haustion of battle. Poetry and romance are not the ideas 
 which many people associate with the Old Testament narra- 
 tives, and yet how full of both these records are ! 
 
 The curious incidental description of how the youth of 
 Bethlehem, on account of his fame as a musician, was 
 sought to soothe the troubled moods of Saul, is independent 
 of chronology ; yet this must have occurred between the time 
 of Samuel's visit to Bethlehem and that important expedi- 
 tion to the army to see his brethren which decided David's 
 after fate. It is strange to find Saul inquiring who was the 
 stripling who went forth to defy Goliath after the intimate 
 intercourse which apparently preceded this, when we are 
 told that Saul " loved greatly " the young harpist who 
 stood and played before him when his fits of gloom and 
 depression occurred. It might be that when the king saw 
 the lightly-clad shepherd youth with his sling going forth in 
 face of the two armies, he could not believe it possible that 
 this could be David whom he had just seen armed in his 
 own breastplate, and therefore in his astonishment imagined 
 that a new champion had arisen. But this of course is only 
 a conjecture, as everything must be which is concerned with 
 all incidents beyond the record. Nothing could be more 
 
CHAP. I THE SHEPHERD OF BETHLEHEM 13 
 
 picturesque and vivid than the account of that crisis in the 
 young hero's life. The scene was one of those narrow 
 valleys which are the most characteristic features of the land 
 of Judah. A few slightly sloping fields lie on either bank 
 of the stream — a small thread of water in a very broad stony 
 bed, such as is to be seen constantly in the East, and which 
 travellers who have not gone so far will remember in Italy 
 and the south of France — evidences of the moment when 
 swollen by rain the little stream becomes a flood, and rages 
 between those wide banks which are so disproportionate to 
 its usual phase. It is but a thread of water, a brooklet easy 
 to step across during most of the year. On either side rise 
 the hills upon which the rival armies were ranged, contem- 
 plating each other from a safe distance, neither ready to 
 make the rush into the comparatively level ground below. 
 
 By winding ways among the hills, strong passes here 
 and there, and slopes of pastureland, David had come 
 eager and expectant* from Bethlehem, with his burden 
 of parched corn for his brothers, and home-made cheeses 
 for a present to their captain ; and one of the first things 
 that attracted him, eager for every sign of battle, would 
 be the sight at which the two armies were looking 
 on, and which interrupted every movement. Between the 
 opposing hosts upon the bank of the stream, in sight of 
 both, strode forth the swashbuckler, Goliath, daring the 
 armies of Israel, a big man, blazing in his rich armour 
 under the sun, with the huge spear in his hand which has 
 been part of the equipment of so many giants since his time. 
 There arc few things more apt to be exaggerated in the most 
 exact of records than the size of an exceptionally tall and 
 strong champion, and it is evident that David himself was 
 able to wield the giant's sword in later day.s, so that it is not 
 necessary to conclude that there was anything miraculous 
 about his great size. That the sight of him, shouting out 
 his defiance in the narrow valley, should have caught the 
 attention and fired the spirit of young David with that 
 sudden perception of the opportunity which to a youth of 
 genius and daring is all that is lacking, is the most natural 
 
14 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 incident, as are also the impatience and displeasure of his 
 elder brothers, no doubt aware of something of those high- 
 reaching dreams which were in the lad's mind, as if he were 
 better than the others of his family. " I know thy pride 
 and the naughtiness of thy heart," cries Eliab, vexed with 
 the lad's eager question, and seeing the sudden flame light- 
 ing up in his eyes ; " with whom hast thou left those few 
 sheep in the wilderness ? " The few sheep were David's 
 concern, not the battles which were for his elders and 
 betters. The reproach is as old as human nature, and 
 ready to be repeated to-day. 
 
 David made no more reply than any other young hero 
 made light of among his kindred. He took his way into 
 some other indifferent group, indifferent to himself, wholly 
 occupied with the brag of the Philistine and the humiliation 
 of having no man among them who would venture to meet 
 him : and listened to every word that was said. Great pro- 
 motion and honour, the king's daughter to be his wife, a 
 place unequalled among the host which stood there over- 
 awed at the sight of the bully. It is too early an age for 
 love-stories, or it might be imagined that David had already 
 raised his eyes, as to one altogether out of his reach, to the 
 daughter of Saul, the sister of Jonathan who loved him. 
 But it must be remembered also that love had already 
 begun to bear a part in the history of the Hebrews, which 
 no other ancient history has allowed. Jacob, that man of 
 riches and rapacity, true parent of the grasping Jew of 
 modern times, had loved his Rachel like any Christian 
 knight, transmitting thus from the very dawn of human 
 records an absolute romance such as never entered into 
 the thoughts of any graceful Greek. But it would be trivial 
 and unnecessary to bring in such a notion to the story here. 
 David had evidently everything to gain, had there been no 
 Michal in the case : the opportunity first of all of distinguish- 
 ing himself, of vindicating his nation, of beating down the 
 pride of the oppressor — objects enough, any one of them, to 
 .set a gracious spirit on fire, not to speak of the still deeper 
 impulse of a high indignation against the heathen braggart 
 
CHAP. I 7'HE SHEPHERD OF BETHLEHEM 15 
 
 who dared to set himself up in his brute strength against 
 the Hving God. David in his after years was far from being 
 a blameless man, as everybody knows. He fell under the 
 temptations and abused the privileges of power, and his 
 passions were strong and unrestrained ; but when he came 
 fresh from those fields where he had considered the heavens 
 the work of God's hands, and where, in the fervour of his 
 youth, he had felt himself to be the object of a heavenly 
 care and love more deep than his own devotion to the few 
 sheep in the wilderness, which yet he had guarded at risk 
 of his life — the passion of his young soul for the honour of 
 the God of Israel, the living God, the Lord who needed not 
 that His champion should bear sword or spear, was as a fire 
 in his heart. Something of the absolute trust which is more 
 easy to youth than to any other period of life, an almost 
 braggadocio of self-abnegation, generous scorn of all pre- 
 caution, the confidence not so much of a hero as of a child, 
 is in his attitude and equipment. " Who is this uncircum- 
 cised Philistine?" man enough to keep a whole vulgar host 
 in dread before his challenge, and to fill his own side with 
 arrogant triumph, yet at the mercy of a shepherd's sling in 
 the hand of a lad who stood for God. The favourite subject 
 of poetry ever since, nay, the highest theme of all that has 
 been sung and said on earth, is this triumph of faith, this 
 victory of the simple and small over the proud and strong, 
 the humble hero over embattled hosts, the champion of the 
 oppressed over the oppressors. It is not to be found in any 
 primitive literature but that of the chosen people. Strength 
 and valour are the universal subjects of the applauses of 
 the olden ages, whether cultured Greek or wild Scandinavian. 
 The Hebrew poet alone has celebrated that race which is 
 not to the swift, and the battle which is not to the strong. 
 
 The death of Goliath threw the army of the Philistines 
 into the greatest disorder ; the greater part fled dismayed, 
 making a stand Ijere and there, band by band, as in that 
 spot where there was " a parcel of ground covered with 
 barley," where Eleazer the son of Dodo, the Ahohite, inter- 
 cepted them, and destroyed that remnant of the retreating 
 
i6 THE HOUSE OF DA VID part i 
 
 army.^ " The men of Israel and Judah arose and shouted, 
 and pursued the PhiHstines," David no doubt, if not at the 
 head, at least in the front rank of the wild triumphant host, 
 whose spirit, tamed by oppression, had suddenly come back, 
 as in the days of their fathers, at the touch of victory. What 
 the fight and slaughter must have been is shown by that 
 unfortunate utterance of popular applause with which the 
 young hero of the fight was received as the triumphant army 
 swept and straggled along towards Gibeah, the headquarters 
 of Saul, the women streaming out of every village to celebrate 
 their victory. Not very long before the same rejoicing 
 groups had come out upon the passage of Saul proclaiming 
 his name to all the echoes : and the fickleness of that popular 
 applause, its ready transfer from one to another, came bitterly 
 to the knowledge of the deserted king, as it has done to 
 hundreds since — " Saul has slain his thousands, and David 
 his tens of thousands." Had there been no contrast, had 
 the shouts been confined to David's personal prowess, it 
 would have been less invidious ; but the comparison went to 
 the very heart of the leader, whose place was no longer the 
 first in the opinion of the turbulent people so little accus- 
 tomed as yet to any veneration of the crown. Thus the 
 star of David rose while that of Saul began to set. 
 
 The record of Scripture is sternly impartial, whosoever for 
 the moment is its subject. Jacob is chosen to carry on the 
 line of Israel because, no doubt, of the strength and native 
 resolution of his crafty and persistent nature ; but it is over 
 Esau that our hearts soften and our tears fall. In the same 
 way Saul, fallen from his high estate, cast down to the very 
 depths of that excitable and sensitive nature which made him 
 so subject to all external influences, makes the heart of the 
 reader ache with pity : and but for the wild chivalry and 
 generosity which soon show themselves in David, would draw 
 away our sympathies altogether in his forlorn and heaven- 
 
 1 This feat of arms M. Renan, rejecting the whole story of GoHath, states 
 wildly, on his own authority, as the chief incident in the encounter, graciously, 
 however, allowing David to have fought by the side of Eleazer. It is not certain 
 that the incident took place, indeed, on this precise occasion, but I think we are 
 justified in accepting it as having done so. 
 
CHAP. I THE SHEPHERD OF BETHLEHEM 17 
 
 abandoned kinghood, in his wild impetuous hastiness and the 
 mistakes of his desperation, from that young and applauded 
 hero, of whom it is said that all he did pleased the people. 
 David, however, escapes that un pleasing contrast of the pros- 
 perous with the unfortunate by the quickly following romance 
 of his story. In the next access of that partial madness to 
 which Saul was subject, which sometimes showed itself in 
 raving utterances, having apparently some resemblance to the 
 rapture of the prophets, David was called from his military 
 command, as he had been called before from his shcepfold, to 
 soothe the distracted king with music ; and Saul, in his insane 
 excitement — not without method still, the bitterness of his soul 
 breaking through the mist of his faculties — snatched a javelin 
 from the wall, and flung it at his supplanter in the affections of 
 his people. This would seem to have been the first overt act 
 of that dire jealousy which was part of the madness, yet part 
 of the anguish too — a passion which is so comprehensible 
 and so piteous. For not only did Michal love this upstart 
 of the fields, but Jonathan, the heir, if any thought of heir- 
 ship was, and clearly the beloved son and constant companion 
 of his father, loved him too, exchanging with him the closest 
 vows of brotherhood and admiring friendship. Thus the 
 young supplanter had penetrated into the very domestic 
 stronghold, stealing away the household hearts that were his 
 own from the unfortunate chief 
 
 It is a contrast full of all the elements that touch the 
 hearts of men, and one cannot but wonder how the com- 
 mentators, whose criticisms arc supposed to destroy the 
 consistency of these records, making of them a mass of 
 disjointed scraps put together to serve certain purposes of 
 statecraft by various hands at various times, have been able 
 to free themselves from the charm and spell of human 
 sympathy which is in these marvellous narratives. Two 
 more distinct human creatures than Saul and David 
 never existed, nor can we imagine a story more deeply 
 moving, more tragically true to nature. The great warrior, 
 now fading from the glory of his youth, never a man 
 of judgment, ha.sty, passionate, mistaken, unable to learn 
 
 C 
 
THE HOUSE OF DAVID 
 
 the self-command and obey the restraints that hem about 
 the footsteps of a ruler, yet full of a certain primitive 
 greatness, standing high above the mass of ordinary men, 
 both in the heyday of his valour and the tragedy of his 
 despair ; and modest in his presence, reverent of his office, 
 yet perhaps scarcely capable of keeping out of his thoughts 
 the paeans of the admiring Israelites, the consciousness already 
 of knowing better and of being more capable of rule — the 
 younger hero, more engaging, more attractive, than the 
 moody and excitable Saul could ever have been, a man to 
 steal the hearts of all who came near him, young, fortunate, 
 full of charm. David made no mistakes in that difficult 
 position — almost a son of the house, deeply beloved by some 
 of its chief members, yet hated and feared by its head : 
 whereas Saul's career had been full of mistakes, and he had 
 never been able to find the medium between hasty over- 
 obedience and wilful transgression of the commandment. 
 He must have seen that Jonathan, with his heart completely 
 stolen by that interloper, would strike no blow and make no 
 stand for the kingship. It was the youth of Bethlehem, the 
 shepherd-lad of the valley of Elah, the mere musician who 
 had called forth, as such menials do, a certain tribute of easy 
 praise, to whom the eyes of all men were turning. To David 
 the Ephrathite, the son of Jesse — to him who had been 
 nobody till the other day, and was nobody save as the king's 
 favour made him ! It is but too easy to understand the 
 exasperation, the keen sense as of a useless struggle, yet 
 fierce determination to get rid of and overthrow this disturber 
 of his life, which was in the mind of Saul. 
 
 And how full of life and nature is the whole scene ; the 
 consultations of the younger members of the household who 
 love him with the persecuted and threatened David, the 
 troubled talks and anxious expedients for his safety. " My 
 father will do nothing without showing it to me," says the 
 unquiet and disturbed Jonathan who " delighted much " in 
 his sworn brother and friend : and again and again the crisis 
 was tided over, the catastrophe averted, sometimes by Jona- 
 than's anxious explanations, sometimes by a new campaign 
 
THE SHE r HERD OF BETHLEHEM 19 
 
 against the Philistines in which, it being well known that 
 David would need no wile to place him in the forefront of the 
 battle, the king might always hope that a chance dart would 
 deliver him from his rival. At last when the danger could 
 be averted no longer, the brother and sister to whom David 
 was so dear had to take the matter into their own hands. 
 It was Michal's part to get him off suddenly from the 
 threatened destruction, letting him " down through a window," 
 doubtless upon the outer wall, on the summit of one of the 
 rocky slopes of Gibeah, where Saul's residence was. While 
 the enraged and gloomy king waited for the return of his 
 messengers, to bring him news that all was over and the 
 danger, once for all, removed from his path, David, breathless 
 with the sense of death so barely escaped, was already out 
 of reach in the darkness of the night which had favoured 
 his escape, at last convinced of the deadly peril in which he 
 stood, and not knowing where to find refuge. To go home 
 to Bethlehem does not seem to have occurred to him. 
 Probably he was not assured of any welcome there if he 
 arrived suddenly, a fugitive from the wrath of the king ; 
 perhaps even more likely, for his father and mother were 
 still living who could not have refused him a shelter, he was 
 afraid to draw upon his kindred the anger and vengeance of 
 Saul. But more near than Bethlehem, more secure than 
 any common house, there was the old prophet at Ramah to 
 appeal to, he who had shown so much kindness to David, who 
 had refused to allow the feast to begin till the shepherd-boy 
 had been called, and who had kissed and anointed the ruddy 
 lad fresh from the fields, as he had not done to Eliab or 
 any of the stalwart brethren. Though I think it is quite 
 clear that David did not know what that anointing meant, 
 yet it was a token of favour ; and as he cast about in his 
 mind where to turn for succour the recollection of Samuel 
 must have flashed across his thoughts like a sudden light. 
 
 Nothing more wild and strange than the description of 
 his temporary shelter with the old prophet could be. 
 Samuel would seem to have taken the fugitive to some 
 more secure refuge than his own open house in Ramah 
 
THE HOUSE OF DAVID 
 
 where for years he had judged Israel, and which would 
 naturally be accessible on all sides -to those who came to 
 consult him, and bring their difficulties to be solved. It 
 was to " Naioth in Ramah," " the house of learning," that he 
 transferred himself and his guest, no doubt some secluded 
 school of the prophets, where special instruction and training 
 might be given to those who were to instruct the people. 
 " The company of the prophets prophesying, and Samuel 
 standing as appointed over them " — was the sight that Saul's 
 messengers saw when, hot in their bloody errand, they 
 reached this place. It was probably what we should call the 
 college of the consecrated Levite youths, studying their future 
 functions under the superintendence of the deeply experienced 
 and highly gifted old man, who had served God from his 
 infancy, and was the acknowledged head of all sacred science 
 in Israel. That this instruction, however, was accompanied 
 by ecstatic manifestations now coming upon one, now upon 
 another, would seem to be implied in the strange narratives 
 that follow. 
 
 The messengers, men of the sword, soldiers of Saul's irre- 
 gular army, came suddenly, unaware of what they were about 
 to see, thinking only of their fierce commission, into the midst 
 of this wonderful scene, and, excited, overawed, seized by that 
 contagion of strange emotion which the primitive mind is so 
 easily affected by, fell into a nervous imitation of what they 
 saw, and " prophesied " also. So still the rude recruits of 
 a " revivalist " meeting are sometimes affected with an in- 
 comprehensible yet evidently in many cases unfeigned con- 
 vulsion of nature unaccustomed to such strong spiritual 
 stimulants. That the same effect should be produced upon 
 the second band, who saw their comrades thus weeping and 
 praying and calling out to God, was perhaps less wonderful. 
 And when Saul himself came after them, fierce and troubled, 
 his mind already half-overturned with hate and terror and 
 revenge, and perhaps remorse — moved by the sight of those 
 scenes where his first consecration had taken place, where he 
 had previously shared the vigils and the ecstasies of the 
 young prophets, the wonder is still less that his impassioned 
 
THE SHEPHERD OF BETHLEHEM 
 
 spirit should have given way. So many recollections must 
 have risen before him — the high aims and resolutions of his 
 youth, the self-devotion of which he must then have felt 
 himself capable, the high renunciation of everything but the 
 service of God and the care of God's people : and now what 
 was this erring and passionate man ? a king who had failed 
 in his mission, the anointed of the Lord turned into a miser- 
 able avenger of his own unworthy quarrel, a would-be 
 murderer, hot to shed his neighbour's blood. All these 
 thoughts must have overwhelmed the impassioned and 
 despairing soul, whose hate against David was so much 
 made up of a still deeper sense of his own inadequacy and 
 failure. He had not seen Samuel since the day when he 
 parted with him in anger, after the death of Agag. And 
 here, so near the scene where his future greatness was first 
 communicated to him, now when that greatness was so 
 smirched and faded, and nothing but downfall and ruin 
 before him, to feel the eyes of the prophet, which saw 
 through and through all the wild and furious movements 
 of his spirit, upon him once again ! The wild access of 
 passion and trouble, which he had never had sufficient self- 
 control to restrain, burst upon him with giant force. He 
 tore off his insignia of royalty, his garments themselves, and 
 fell down, shouting out what wild movements of self-denun- 
 ciation, of woe to Israel, of judgment, judgment and the 
 wrath of God, who can venture to imagine ? A king whose 
 kingdom was passing from him, a great warrior overpowered 
 and outdone, a man who had lost all guidance, and was 
 stumbling and crashing downward on the wrong way — and 
 last and worst of all, who saw and knew that he was so 
 doing through all his miserable moods, and in the severe 
 clear shining of that old prophet's eyes. 
 
 David, it would appear, did not wait to see the issue of 
 these strange incidents ; he went back hurriedly to Gibeah 
 as soon as he saw that the absence of his pursuers was thus 
 ensured for a little time, and hastened to Jonathan his friend 
 and brother. " What have I done," he said, " that your father 
 should seek my life ? " " God forbid," said the generous 
 
THE HOUSE OE DA VID 
 
 young man, trying even now to defend both father and 
 friend. " It is not so ; my father will do nothing great or 
 small without letting me know : and why should he hide this 
 from me ? " It would appear from these words that Jonathan 
 had not been aware of that expedition to Ramah. A touch- 
 ing arrangement was then made between the two young men. 
 It was close to the time of the new moon, when Saul and 
 all great men made feasts for their households, and where 
 David's place would naturally be an important one, both as 
 the king's son-in-law, and as one of the great warriors and 
 captains of Israel. Jonathan consented to make an excuse 
 for David's absence on this occasion, and thus to ascertain 
 the mind of Saul towards him, while David, either secretly 
 returning to his own house, or in hiding somewhere near, 
 awaited the issue of the trial. When this was arranged 
 between them in some private place of meeting Jonathan 
 drew his friend into " the field," probably near to some 
 sacred place, to give solemnity to his engagement ; and 
 there under the cover only of the sky, beyond which, in 
 all ages men have looked for the dwelling of God, appealed 
 to the Supreme Disposer of events to ratify the bargain, the 
 Lord God of Israel who knew and beheld in all their ways 
 the sons of men. If he were not true to David, did not 
 warn him, did not save him, " the Lord do so and much 
 more to Jonathan " he prayed. If this story came to us 
 without any sanction of Holy Writ, if it were but part of the 
 epic of a Hebrew Homer, the reader would need no such 
 solemn adjuration to convince him of the truth of Jonathan. 
 There followed after this a succession of the most 
 exciting scenes. The king returned from that wild pursuit 
 to Ramah, perhaps ashamed of his passion, perhaps in 
 the return of his sober consciousness feeling it advisable 
 to make no further show of his hostility to David, who 
 was one of the props of his throne : and prepared as 
 usual for the feast of the new moon, himself presiding, 
 seated " as at other times upon a seat by the wall," 
 the head of the primitive table, with Abner by his side, 
 his commander-in-chief For the first day he took no 
 
CHAP. I THE SHEPHERD OF BETHLEHEM 23 
 
 notice of David's vacant place ; but on the second demanded 
 an explanation. " Why does not the son of Jesse come to 
 meat, neither yesterday nor to-day ? " Upon this question, 
 Jonathan made the excuse that had been agreed upon. 
 There was a feast of the family at Bethlehem, and David's 
 brother — which looks as if Eliab was now head of the family, 
 perhaps acting so on account of the age and weakness of 
 Jesse, for there is still mention of the father later on — had 
 commanded him to be present. Upon this Saul burst forth 
 into fury upbraiding the folly of his son. " Do not I know 
 that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own con- 
 fusion ? " he cried. It was not David, not the familiar name 
 of the household, the name too famous in Israel, which the 
 angry king employed, but that of the alien house, the opposed 
 clan, a name of Judah which had always assumed to be the 
 first in Israel. " As long as the son of Jesse liveth upon 
 the ground thou shalt not be established nor thy kingdom," 
 exclaims the king, with a feeling more honourable than that 
 of his own fierce enmity. And there can be little doubt that 
 Jonathan him.self had a prevision of this since he had already 
 appealed to the time when David's enemies should be cut off 
 every one from the face of the earth, and commended his 
 own race and house to the protection of the hunted and per- 
 secuted man. Yet he stood with all the faithfulness of his 
 nature for the fugitive. " What hath he done ? " he asked, 
 while all the company sat silent, keenly attentive of this dis- 
 cussion. But Saul in the transport of his anger and disap- 
 pointment and fierce incapacity to bear opposition, snatched 
 a javelin from the wall behind him, and flung it at his son, 
 as he had before done at the object of their quarrel. It 
 became evident that no more was to be said, nor the name 
 of David named again in that primitive court, where it would 
 appear no voice was raised for the ambitious young captain 
 but that of the heir alone. 
 
 The reader's heart goes with Jonathan, as so often in 
 these records. Saul and David are the chief figures in the 
 struggle, one with the painful crown of tragedy, the other 
 the laurels and the pa;ans of success. But between them 
 
24 THE HOUSE OF DAVID parti 
 
 Stands the noble young man, fated to share the sorrow and 
 punishment which he had no hand in incurring, his sympathy 
 all with the persecuted, his duty all with the persecutor, his 
 love divided between them who were so fiercely separated 
 from each other. It would seem that there had been in 
 other matters a special closeness of union between Saul and 
 his firstborn. They are named together in all the first 
 campaigns of the reign before David comes upon the scene, 
 Jonathan like a young knight -adventurer, a gallant heir- 
 apparent, performing rash feats in which 
 
 Desperate valour oft made good. 
 Oft with its daring vantage rude 
 
 Where prudence might have failed." 
 
 " My father will do nothing great or small that he does 
 not let me know," Jonathan himself says ; and " that they 
 were lovely and pleasant in their lives," almost like twin 
 brothers rather than father and son, is the testimony given 
 afterwards. And no sign of failure from his father's side 
 is ever recorded of Jonathan, though he would seem to have 
 accepted the signs of fate, and foreseen the triumph of the 
 other who was his natural enemy and supplanter yet his 
 most beloved friend. The situation is one that calls forth 
 every sympathy and makes of this pure and chivalrous 
 figure the highest light in the wonderful picture. Jonathan 
 went forth sad and angry, with that wrath of love that 
 " works like madness in the brain," as soon as the morning 
 dawned after this troublous scene, and took down his bow 
 from the wall, and called a boy from among the many 
 retainers to go with him, striding forth with a clouded brow, 
 as all would understand, to divert his troubled mind with a 
 favourite exercise. " The field " in which these meetinrrs 
 took place must have been some sheltered spot, some hollow 
 on the other side of the hill, where there were rocks and 
 caves, such as abound everywhere in Palestine, in which a 
 fugitive could be hid ; for it would seem that all this time 
 David had been lurking near, no doubt in one of these 
 caves. There Jonathan shot his arrows according to the 
 
CHAP. I rilE SHEPHERD OF BETHLEHEM 25 
 
 sign agreed upon, and perhaps with some show of impati- 
 ence not to have hit a desired mark, gave his bow to his 
 attendant as soon as the arrows had been gathered up, and 
 sent him hastily home. When the lad had disappeared 
 the hidden fugitive stole forth into the dewy field. It was 
 morning, all still and solitary, before life or work had begun. 
 These strange new circumstance.s, and perhaps his melan- 
 choly vigil, and the sense that his life was in the hands of 
 this generous young prince who had adopted him as his 
 brother, brought home, no doubt, to David the wonderful 
 difference between himself, a homeless fugitive, and the son 
 of Saul the king. He bowed himself three times to the 
 ground, falling on his face, in all the abasement of Eastern 
 reverence. He was no longer the great captain, the husband 
 of Michal, the honoured of Israel, but once more the son 
 of Jesse, youngest and least important, the shepherd of his 
 humble family, of little account even in his own tribe, how 
 much less here among the cities of Benjamin. But when 
 the friends met all these artificial distinctions would seem 
 to have been swept away, and Jonathan and David kissed 
 each other and wept. It was as if the friendly earth, upon 
 which their young swift steps had gone together on many 
 an errand both of war and peace, had been rent between 
 them. Few words were needed, if any : the abyss was not 
 one which could be bridged over with hopeful speech of 
 better days and other meetings. They were silent in the 
 rending asunder of their lives. " Go in peace ; and the 
 Lord be witness of that which is between me and thee," 
 was all that Jonathan could say. " They wept one with 
 another till David exceeded." The fugitive, the poet, the 
 man of quick emotions, lost his self-control in the misery 
 of his banishment : while Jonathan, perhaps still more deeply 
 sad, without that power of self-expression, turned back with 
 a heavy heart to the city, where he had to put on a face of 
 stone, and know nothing of David any more. 
 
 While he lay thus forsaken in his cave during the three 
 days that must have elapsed between these interviews, 
 reflecting with all the intensity of his youth upon his home 
 
26 THE HOUSE OF DA VI D 
 
 SO near yet so far away from him, on Michal anxious in her 
 soHtary chamber, and Jonathan more anxious still amid the 
 laughter and mirth at his father's table — seeing most likely 
 from his refuge the lights of the little city on the hill, hear- 
 ing the shouts of the festivity, himself fasting, deserted, in 
 danger of his life, was it with such a strain as this that he 
 consoled himself, his courage as yet unbroken though his 
 heart was sore ? 
 
 In the Lord put I my trust : 
 
 How say ye then to my soul. 
 
 That she should flee as a bird to the hill ? 
 
 For, lo, the ungodly bend their bow, 
 
 They make ready their arrow upon the string, 
 
 To shoot privily at them that are true of heart. 
 
 The Lord is in His holy temple. 
 
 The Lord's seat is in heaven : 
 
 His eyes behold, His eyelids try, the children of men. 
 
 The Lord trieth the righteous : 
 
 But the ungodly and him that loveth wickedness 
 
 Doth His soul abhor. 
 
 For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness ; 
 His countenance will behold 
 The thing that is just. 
 
 To most minds the constant reference of the Psalmist to 
 his enemies is a continued jar and discord : but it would be 
 strange indeed if David in his hunted life, never from this 
 time allowed a moment of rest, should have left out of the 
 songs by which he encouraged his own heart amid all his 
 troubles, any allusion to his persecutors. This Psalm, prob- 
 ably the first of these utterances of his soul in trouble, is 
 purely abstract in its reference to them. They are the 
 ungodly abhorred by God because they work wickedness, 
 and upon whom He rains snows, fire and brimstone, storm 
 and tempest. The fugitive, the sufferer, calls down no 
 curses on his own account out of the patient skies. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE OUTLAW IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 This was the beginning of the most ^painful portion of 
 David's life : that probation in the wilderness which is the 
 portion of most men who are destined to greatness. He 
 stole away from the neighbourhood of Gibeah, from all his 
 brief prosperity and happiness, from his position as com- 
 mander at once and minstrel, prince and poet, the favourite 
 and the hero, whom the people loved : the companion of 
 Jonathan, the husband of Michal : now a fugitive far more poor 
 and solitary than ever could have been the shepherd-boy 
 who had come so suddenly to all those distinctions. It was 
 probably by night that he left the neighbourhood of Gibeah, 
 escaping through the silent fields, with none of that noble 
 retinue which was his due as a leader of Israel, yet probably 
 a faithful retainer or two sadly following his uncertain steps 
 across the wilds, without provisions, without arms, not 
 knowing where he went, travelling vaguely towards the 
 south. 
 
 The first place to which he came was Nob, where it is 
 apparent there was at that time a sanctuary and centre of 
 worship, though in the confusion of the period it is diflficult to 
 know precisely what this means. The geography is confused 
 as well as the economy of the disturbed and unsettled land, 
 still overrun with continual raids of the hostile races which 
 surrounded Israel on every side, and with no established 
 centre of authority either secular or sacred. For Saul's 
 headquarters at Gibeah were no more a royal capital than 
 
28 THE HOUSE OF DA VID part i 
 
 the dwellings from which the judges who preceded him 
 had partially and confusedly ruled the people, each in 
 his own house. And neither the ancient tabernacle of 
 the wilderness which was at Gilead, nor the temporary 
 re-establishment of the Ark at Kirjath-Jearim (the latter, 
 it would seem, entirely fallen into forgetfulness), had 
 been received as a national shrine : each tribe or district 
 forming, as it would seem, their own religious centre for 
 themselves with as much of the established ritual as was 
 within their power. David arrived faint and weary at the 
 house of the priest, answering to the astonished question 
 of how he came to be alone, i.e. with no formal retinue, by 
 the excuse of a sudden commission and urgent business 
 for the king, which had compelled him to leave home 
 without aide-de-camp or officer, even without his weapons. 
 " Give me some bread," he asked ; " whatever you may have." 
 But the priest had no bread except the sacred shewbread 
 which he had just taken from the altar, and which was to 
 be eaten by the Levites alone. 
 
 It must thus have been on the Sabbath that David, 
 fasting and faint, arrived at the sanctuary ; for it was 
 on the Sabbath that the loaves or cakes of the hal- 
 lowed bread were replaced by new, and removed from the 
 holy table. The analogy was therefore doubly complete 
 between this and the incident in the life of our Lord to 
 which He Himself compared it. Neither the priest nor 
 David seems to have entertained any Pharisaical hesitations 
 on the subject, mercy and succour having been at all times 
 recognised as of first necessity even under the bonds of the 
 Jewish law. When he had secured for himself and " the 
 young men" that needful food, David asked if there were 
 any weapons in the peaceful shrine ; and it must have been 
 a great encouragement to his soul when the priest drew forth 
 out of its wrappings no other than the sword of Goliath, 
 " whom thou slewest in the valley of Elah." It must have 
 been as if God Himself had thus laid up in store for him the 
 weapon to which no man had so clear a right — the sign of 
 his first and greatest victory. " There is none like that ; 
 
THE OUTLA IV IN THE WILDERNESS 29 
 
 give it to me," he said, with a fervency of utterance in which 
 we can fully sympathise. 
 
 It is less easy, however, to understand after this sign, 
 which must, one wouFd suppose, have appealed to his imagi- 
 native nature by every argument of encouragement, how he 
 should have gone to Gath girded with the very sword of 
 their champion to seek refuge among the enemies of Israel. 
 Perhaps in the bitterness of his soul and the extravagant 
 despondency of the first misfortunes of youth, he took it for 
 a sign that he was cut off from Israel, and had no resource 
 left but to throw himself among an alien people : perhaps 
 the very sight of it suggested the hostile city whose chief 
 enemy was the same Saul who had cast out and was pursuing 
 himself And it is scarcely possible to believe that, notwith- 
 standing the persistent national hatred, there should not have 
 been private ties between individuals of the two races so 
 near together within the narrow boundaries of Palestine. 
 Thus Scots and English in the old fighting days, though 
 nationally the deadliest enemies, yet found friends, brides, 
 and husbands among the hostile race, and took refuge when 
 in disgrace at home in the court of the other kingdom, 
 always bland and complaisant to the fugitive, proving in its 
 courtesy how much better worth serving it was than that 
 from which he had come. There is no reason to suppose 
 that the flight to Achish was more than the flight to an early 
 James or Henry of a discontented or injured baron on either 
 side. 
 
 But terror was in the soul of the fugitive. He found 
 threatening faces about him from the moment he entered 
 the foreign city, which was not wonderful considering 
 what his achievements had been. He was like Corio- 
 lanus in Corioli, a man who had gained his name at the 
 expense of those whose succour he sought ; and it was 
 soon apparent to him that safety was not to be found 
 there. Perhaps he had hoped that he would not be recog- 
 nised, but might pass as a mere Hebrew refugee in trouble 
 with his own people, seeking service in the neighbouring 
 court. But he soon became aware that a soldier so dis- 
 
30 THE HOUSE OF DA VID part i 
 
 tinguished could not remain unknown. " Is not this David ?" 
 said the very first ofificials to whom he addressed himself, 
 " David the king of the land ? did they not sing one to another 
 of him in dances, Saul has slain his thousands, and David his 
 tens of thousands ? " Before even the news was carried to 
 Achish of this visitor whose appearance created so much com- 
 motion, David had begun to perceive how great a mistake 
 he had made. The wonder, which was so ready to turn into 
 a menace, as they hurried him to the king's presence, showed 
 him his danger ; and though the expedient of feigning mad- 
 ness was not a dignified one, it was not unusual in the East. 
 When Achish, eager to see the newcomer, but perceiving as 
 he thought a mere maniac, turned upon those who had 
 excited his curiosity and alarm, scornfully with the question, 
 " Have I need of mad men, that ye have brought this fellow 
 into my house ? " the fugitive does not seem to have lost a 
 moment in making his escape. 
 
 What was he to do, driven out at once from Israel and 
 from Israel's enemies ? No doubt it was hard for the young 
 man to throw himself into the life of an outlaw, to lurk in 
 caves and desert places, to snatch a painful living from those 
 who were weaker than himself The son of a plentiful 
 householder, of honest and well-known folk, who had probably 
 known what it was to suffer from the incursions of such 
 wanderers, it might have appeared to him a better way to join 
 the enemy as Coriolanus did, to be able to enforce terms 
 upon his old persecutor, than to become in his turn a perse- 
 cutor of the peaceful dwellers in the land, with whom all 
 his sympathies were. But David had now no resource. He 
 went back from Gath towards his own country again, a 
 troubled and discouraged soul, the few retainers who had 
 followed him drooping their crests as they toiled along the 
 plain, until they reached that strange and wild district lying 
 between the country of the Jebusites, the as yet unknown 
 Jerusalem, and the Dead Sea, where the soft rock of the 
 limestone hills, gray and gloomy, is hollowed out into 
 numberless caves enough to give such lodging as was 
 sufficient for their primitive necessities, to many men. 
 
CHAP, n THE OUTLAW IN THE WILDERNESS 33 
 
 The wonderful impartiality ^ of these biographies which 
 form the Scriptural record was never more evident than in 
 the description of the troop which gathered here about the 
 exile. Had the story been of the Middle Ages — and it is of 
 those daring and chivalrous times that we are most reminded 
 by the varied and endless adventures of this wandering 
 paladin — an air of romance would have been thrown even 
 upon his surroundings. Knights full of devotion to the 
 bravest among them, casting in their lot with him, re- 
 solved if need were to die with him, would have formed 
 a circle round the hero. And that there was such a 
 circle round David is clear. His " three mighties," and the 
 thirty who were also examples of valour, though not so 
 distinguished as the first three, the captains of his army 
 in later days, when it was the legitimate army of Israel 
 — were about him from the beginning of his wanderings. 
 But the account of his band, though picturesque and 
 graphic, has no false halo of romance. " Every one that 
 was in distress, and every one that was in debt (pursued 
 by his creditors), and every one that was discontented, 
 gathered themselves unto him." The company of those 
 broken men reached to the number of four hundred, some 
 of them escaped from justice, many of them " bitter of 
 soul " — a band of refugees dangerous to any country. The 
 thirty or thirty-three heroes are not even mentioned in the 
 official record, though probably they too were men with 
 grievances like the rest. 
 
 A more respectable contingent was brought by the arrival 
 of his brethren and kindred, probably driven out from Beth- 
 lehem either by some actual attempt on the part of Saul, or 
 terror of what he might do, and including such formidable 
 elements as his three nephews, the sons of that unknown but 
 evidently high-spirited mother in Israel, whose name remained 
 to David the characteristic designation of her still more 
 
 • M. Renan, by means of those private sources of information which he 
 evidently possesses unknown to the world, informs us that these details were 
 probably taken from David's own accounts in later life, a sort of oHicial narrative, 
 such as he wished to have received in his own favour — whiclnnakes the imparti- 
 ality more remarkable still. 
 
 D 
 
34 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 dangerous sons. The silent caves, with their far-stretching 
 branches running deep into the entrails of the hills, suddenly 
 filled in every corner with dark warriors, and murmurous 
 with the hum of a crowd, form a wild and wonderful scene. 
 These fastnesses of nature were in no way so inharmonious 
 with the habits of the Hebrews as they would have been 
 even with those of the wildest mediaeval troop in the 
 different climate of the North. A cave was the familiar 
 and most secure nucleus of the homestead on many a plea- 
 sant hillside, the coolest and the safest. The darkness did 
 not discourage them, accustomed as they were to seek refuge 
 there from the glare of day. Each man would bring with 
 him for as long as it lasted his easily carried provision of 
 parched corn, his cakes of bread and handful of fruit. 
 There would need no hecatombs of slain cattle to maintain 
 these eastern warriors : yet many a raid must have gone out 
 from the stronghold of Adullam, to keep four hundred men 
 alive — raids, however, in which the prey carried off was prob- 
 ably stores of bread, raisins, and figs and parched corn, 
 as in the story of Nabal, with an occasional sheep, rather 
 than the " lifted " cattle and utter desolation left behind 
 them of modern reivers, a much less destructive kind of 
 plunder. There must have been wild animals in those wild 
 regions to make a substantial addition to the fare of the 
 exiles. It is pleasant to find in this record of a wild and 
 lawless episode that the outlaw of Adullam took pains to 
 secure a safe shelter for his father and mother in Moab, 
 where there would still be kindred on the side of Ruth to 
 welcome her descendants. 
 
 Another addition to the numbers of this wild band, which 
 must have been of the greatest importance to its prestige and 
 character, soon followed in the person of Abiathar, the son and 
 successor of the priest Ahimelech, who had received David 
 so kindly at Nob, and whom Saul, on the malicious report of 
 Doeg the Edomite, had sent for with all his family to Gibeah, 
 and massacred, his own followers refusing the office, by that 
 miscreant's hand. The young priest who thus, in terror 
 of his life, took refuge with the outlaws, brought to them 
 
CHAP. II THE OUTLAW IN THE WILDERNESS 35 
 
 the appointed order of national worship and the permitted 
 method of "enquiring of the Lord," whatever that may 
 have been ; and no doubt by his very presence put many 
 scruples, in no bosom more strong than in that of the 
 leader of the band, at rest. But not for a moment did 
 the pursuit of Saul relax. He had justification now for 
 all the rigour of persecution. David, though he had set 
 up no organised rebellion, no attempt upon the crown, 
 was yet in arms, in self-defence, no more to be dealt with 
 as an individual. Though he had been driven to it by the 
 force of circumstances, and though he never raised his arm 
 in offensive hostilities, not even Jonathan, who loved him, 
 could plead now as in former times for the pardon of the 
 misguided brother. Once again indeed that faithful friend 
 came to him in the wilds where he had taken refuge, to 
 warn him of renewed pursuit, and to repeat the covenant 
 or oath of brotherhood between them : but after this hurried 
 and secret meeting these two friends saw each other no 
 more. 
 
 While shifting from one stronghold to another, from 
 cave to forest, " in the hold " of those natural fastnesses, 
 David had the opportunity of delivering the town of Keilah 
 from the Philistines, a piece of legitimate work which must 
 have delighted his soul, but to which it would seem his 
 followers, demoralised by continual flight and that sense 
 of being hunted like wild beasts, which destroys at once 
 courage and self-respect, were averse, afraid of trusting 
 themselves in the low country and having little confidence 
 in the gratitude of men, a scepticism afterwards fully justi- 
 fied. Their leader insisted, however, encouraged by the 
 promise of success from God, which must have been ob- 
 tained by some dream or spiritual consciousness alone, 
 since Abiathar, it would appear, only joined him with the 
 ephod and recognised means of spiritual communication 
 after the deliverance of the city. For what reason except 
 the generous one of delivering the oppressed town and aim- 
 ing a blow at the acknowledged enemies of his people, or 
 the astute one of thus securing to himself friends and a 
 
36 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 refuge, David should have interposed in this matter, which 
 of course was the business of the legal defenders of Israel, 
 it would be difficult to imagine. If it was the latter argu- 
 ment which moved him, he was soon destined to discover 
 how futile was any such trust. King Saul, who had not 
 stirred to rescue the city, heard with delight that David had 
 ventured into " a town that hath gates and bars," and at 
 once gathered together his followers to besiege the rebel, 
 concluding with premature triumph that " the Lord hath 
 delivered him into my hands " ; not so quickly, however, 
 but that David had time to escape, having first assured 
 himself that Keilah had no mind to stand a siege on his 
 behalf We may well imagine that the addition of six 
 hundred outlaws (to which number the band had now in- 
 creased), with the wildness of their wandering life about 
 them, to feed and lodge, could not be an agreeable element 
 in the life of the crowded hillside town, and acknowledge that 
 the men of Keilah had some excuse for desiring to be rid 
 of them. The harassed exile had nothing to do but to 
 return to the wilderness, and once more take refuge in the 
 caves and woods. The area of his wanderings is but a 
 limited one, and indeed it is almost inconceivable how 
 small the limits are, altogether, of this w^onderful country 
 so full of story and recollection and influence on the world. 
 The inhabitants settled on the borders of those desert tracts 
 were evidently in greater sympathy with Saul than with 
 David, whose bands of hungry men, with neither fields nor 
 pastures of their own by which to live, must have been a 
 perpetual danger to their peaceful neighbours. 
 
 An instance of their dealings with these temporary 
 neighbours is to be found in the story of Nabal, a true 
 Eastern romance, picturesque and vivid. The rich niggard 
 of the fields was celebrating his feast of sheep-shearing, 
 when David's messengers, " the young men " so often de- 
 scribed, approached him with Eastern courtesy. Their 
 desire for a share of the good things of the feast was less 
 a petition than an inference : " Thy shepherds were with 
 us and we hurt them not, nor was anything missing unto 
 
CHAP. II THE OUTLAW IN THE WILDERNESS 37 
 
 them all the time they were in Carmcl. Therefore let the 
 young men find favour in thy sight." Nabal replied to 
 them with taunts and injuries. " There be many servants 
 that break away from their masters," he said. " Who is 
 this David ? this son of Jesse ? " One asks one's self whether 
 David expected this defiance and insult, and thus meant to 
 justify himself for the destruction of Nabal, and absorption 
 of all his wealth. This at least was the effect upon him of 
 the rash and contemptuous message. He called his six 
 hundred desperadoes together to avenge the insult and take 
 the spoil, an enterprise that could not but be agreeable, 
 faring sparely as they were in their desert fastnesses, with 
 no joys of sheep-shearing, no new moon festivals, in their 
 way. 
 
 The alarm of the peaceful herdsmen, when in the midst 
 of their feast they heard their master's insulting reply to 
 the " young men " with their spears and swords, is easy to 
 imagine. To have that horde brought down upon them, 
 unarmed and unprepared as they were, simple agriculturists 
 and shepherds, was a sentence of destruction to every harm- 
 less soul among them. And the master was such a son of 
 Belial that no one dared speak to him. So while he 
 bragged and plumed himself, not perhaps without a secret 
 misgiving now that the deed was done, the dependants, 
 who would be the first to suffer, sought the women's 
 quarter where their wiser mistress was superintending the 
 feast. " They were a wall to us both by day and by night," 
 they cried in their consternation. The reader knows what 
 the rural lady of some three thousand years ago, the rich 
 farmer's wife of the Judean valleys, did : she took a plentiful 
 supply of the provisions of the great pastoral establishment, 
 leaving, one would fear, but little for the disappointed sheep- 
 shearers thus forced to redeem their lives at the cost of their 
 feast — " two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine " (skins 
 no doubt like those in the grotesque blunted shape of the 
 animal to which they belonged, which are still employed by 
 the watersellers about the streets of Syrian cities), " five sheep 
 ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn," besides a 
 
38 THE HOUSE OF DA VID tart i 
 
 liberal supply of fruit. Abigail was not a moment too soon ; 
 she met David and his men " by the covert of the hill " in 
 warlike array with their swords girded on them, coming 
 swiftly on to execute judgment. The record does not say 
 as it does on so many occasions that Abigail was beautiful, 
 but only that she was wise, and as is evident, possessed the 
 gift of eloquent words. She acknowledged with the fulness 
 of conjugal certainty and indignation her hu.sband's folly, 
 and also set before David the extreme inexpediency on 
 his own part, with the future that lay before him, of 
 making enemies or leaving memories that might be brought 
 up against him — so powerfully that his hasty wrath was 
 quenched. It will be remarked that the offering made 
 was not of a kind to impoverish permanently any great 
 house : it was the product of the wealthy establishment, not 
 its property or means of sustenance, a gift which probably 
 made the feast a poor one for the revellers but imposed 
 distress or destruction upon none. 
 
 The end of the story, the death of Nabal, turned to 
 stone by the tremendous risk he had run, and the conviction 
 of his danger and his folly ; and the reception of Abigail into 
 that harem, in which David it must be allowed did not stint 
 himself, reads like pure romance ; but so indeed do many 
 incidents in the most sober life. 
 
 There are two other episodes in the tale of the wander- 
 ings of David to which we could understand the critics' 
 objection, had it been possible to conceive that they were 
 foisted into the record in the days of Froissart, in the 
 thirteenth or fourteenth century. But as the most scathing 
 criticism ventures on nothing worse than the suggestion 
 that David's history was written some hundreds of years 
 after David, and acknowledges that everything that savours 
 at all either of the supernatural or romantic must have 
 been introduced into it in the days of the Jewish kings, we 
 are but strengthened in our conviction that the easiest 
 explanation of these wonderful talcs is that fact which 
 is much stranger than fiction. No one in Homer, who 
 was a later writer even than the scribes of the days of 
 
CHAP. II THE OUTLAW IN THE WILDERNESS 39 
 
 Hezekiah, which these writers have selected as the age when 
 Hebrew genius developed, had any conception of such 
 chivalry as that of the Jewish outlaw in the wilderness, 
 when he cut off the skirt of his enemy's mantle and let the 
 enemy himself go free — or when he penetrated into Saul's 
 camp in the depths of night and brought away the spear 
 that was planted by his bedside, but aimed no blow at him- 
 self lying there unprotected in his sleep. These are actions 
 which would have become the blameless I^ayard, which Sir 
 Lancelot or Sir Galahad might have performed. But who 
 should have suggested them to the Hebrew scribe, what 
 could have made them possible to the exile of Judah in his 
 hard struggle for life ? This mystery is one which no learned 
 savant pretends to explain ; it is far more wonderful than 
 any arithmetical discussion of the numbers of the Israelites 
 or other such highly important question. That numerals 
 should change and be altered in the process of time and the 
 multitude of transcriptions is likely enough. But who put 
 such a thought into the mind of a Hebrew writer before 
 chivalry had any existence ? All the learning in the world 
 will not clear up this. Hebrew accents and Chaldean idioms 
 may occupy the learned philologist for ever if he will, but 
 will never make him aware how it was that in this primitive 
 age a story worthy of the most magnanimous Christian 
 chivalry could find a place — or more wonderful still be 
 invented, where no code of manners or of morals existed to 
 make such an incident possible had it not been true. 
 
 We are all acquainted from our cradles with these twin 
 tales. David, hunted from place to place, now driven from 
 the city he had rescued, now from the woods and wild 
 recesses of the desert, was lurking with a band of his followers 
 in a deep cave where perhaps they were listening breathless 
 to the crash of Saul's soldiers upon the rocks, and their 
 stumbling progress over the tufts of bristling desert herbage 
 and thickets of thorny growth : when lo ! Saul stood in the 
 entrance of their cave alone. The men who crowded in 
 those dark crevices pressed upon one another's shoulders 
 to ga/e, and with fierce whispers and gestures pushed for- 
 
40 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 ward David to seize the opportunity. Could it be more 
 evident that the Lord had delivered his enemy into his 
 hand ? It must have required no small force to resist that 
 fierce impulsion, even had no deliverance depended upon it. 
 But David was incapable of taking his foe at a disadvantage, 
 though it was not upon this ground that he held back : " The 
 Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my master, to 
 stretch forth my hand against him, seeing he is the anointed 
 of the Lord." But half for policy doubtless, half in poetic 
 impulse, he cut the skirt of Saul's garment to prove what 
 had been in his power. The king's train we may suppose 
 had scattered over the rocky hillside, clambering up its 
 wild terraces as they could, thinking their master in no 
 danger ; and when Saul resumed his way he was still 
 virtually alone. David followed him out of the cave with 
 the bit of stuff in his hand. He called after Saul and stood 
 face to face with him, man to man : and few interviews more 
 affecting were ever recorded : " I have not sinned against 
 thee. Why huntest thou my soul to take it ? " he pleaded. 
 " Moreover, my father, see, yea, see the skirt of thy robe in 
 my hand : for in that I cut off the skirt of thy robe, and 
 killed thee not, know thou and see that there is neither evil 
 nor transgression in mine hand. The Lord judge between 
 me and thee, and the Lord avenge me of thee : but mine 
 hand shall not be upon thee. As saith the proverb of the 
 ancients, Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked : but 
 mine hand shall not be upon thee." Who taught the 
 primeval outlaw that noble appeal to the better nature of 
 the enemy whom David had never been able to learn how 
 to hate, notwithstanding all his cruelty ? And Saul, a man 
 of swiftly changing moods, of quick perceptions, with a 
 strain of wild generosity too in the heart which was subject 
 to the sway of passions so dark, and that despair which is 
 so often poisonous in the depth of its gloom — was not un- 
 responsive to the appeal. " Is this thy voice, my son 
 David ? " he cries, penetrated to the heart. 
 
 The other scene is still more picturesque. Again there 
 is treachery at work but with more excuse than that of the 
 
CHAP. II THE OUTLAW IN THE WILDERNESS 41 
 
 men of Keilah. No doubt David and his six hundred were 
 uneasy neighbours for the Ziphites, and held them in per- 
 petual alarm, and it was little wonder that they should send 
 word to the king, who was known to desire nothing so much 
 as the capture of the son of Jesse, that the outlaw was there, 
 lurking among the hills, and with little possibility of escape 
 were the pursuing force sufficiently strong. The news was 
 brought to David, we may be sure, as soon as the tents 
 were pitched upon the opposite slopes whence Saul intended 
 to encircle and crush his victim. The wanderer looked out 
 from the height upon the encampment below and saw the 
 place where his pursuer lay. " Who will go down with 
 me to Saul to the camp ? " he asked after long gazing 
 at the spot. Abishai, his sister's son, was the man who 
 offered himself for that dangerous service, and when the 
 night came, the two Eastern heroes, lightly clad, and softly 
 shod, descended noiseless into the midst of the slumbering 
 multitude. 
 
 Again we are reminded of the ages of chivalry, 
 of the minstrels' tales, and romance of modern thought. 
 The two gliding figures reached the very centre of the 
 encampment where the king lay, with his spear stuck in 
 the ground within reach of the piled mats or carpets which 
 formed his bed. Once more Abishai whispered that the 
 moment had come, that the Lord had delivered their enemy 
 into their hand. " Let me smite him, I pray thee, with the 
 spear even to the earth at once," said the fierce murmur in 
 David's ear, " and I will not smite the second time " — grim 
 promise which the son of Zeruiah would not have failed to 
 redeem. But no such thought was in the mind of the 
 noble outlaw. There is in the utterances of David at these 
 moments a strain of emotion which is very remarkable. 
 One would say as of a man in whose heart there was still 
 a great yearning of affection for that doomed king, of whom 
 he now knew that he was, yet never desired to be, the most 
 dangerous rival — the king who was so capable of being 
 touched by the truth, yet so incapable of continuing in it, 
 or departing from the rage of jealous fear and certainty of 
 
42 THE HOUSE OF DA VI D part i 
 
 doom that was in his heart. It is still more remarkable to 
 see how that certainty had become by this time the acknow- 
 ledged feeling of all who were most closely concerned. Not 
 a word of it comes from the lips of David, but the others 
 do not hide their conviction. " Behold I know well that 
 thou shalt surely be king," says Saul himself after the 
 encounter in the cave ; and even at an earlier date Jonathan 
 had expressed the same conviction. They were fighting, as 
 they knew, a lost battle : it was David finally to whom all 
 the honour, all the success, must come ; and this conviction 
 in Saul's mind, fiercely resisted no doubt with wild outbursts 
 of fury and despair, gave bitterness and passion to all his 
 actions. When Abigail camx upon her mission to David 
 she expressed the same sentiment, which shows that it had 
 already affected the popular mind : " When the Lord shall 
 have done to my lord according to all the good that he 
 hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed thee 
 ruler over Israel." It would seem that no one but David 
 himself had any doubt that the outlaw who went in daily 
 danger of his life pursued from wilderness to wilderness, 
 was the future King of Israel — and least of all the family so 
 closely connected with him, between whom and himself 
 there were such ties of love and hatred, the household of 
 the king whom he was to supplant and to succeed. 
 
 Still more like a romance of the days of chivalry was 
 the action of David after that night visit to the camp of 
 Saul. When the morning broke, and they had stolen their 
 way through the sleepers eluding any watch that might 
 have been set, or careless sentinel — David and his attendant 
 stood upon the hillside opposite, and called to the astonished 
 host. It was Abner whom he called, the commander, 
 upbraiding him with the inefficient watch he had kept. 
 " Art not thou a valiant man ? And who is like to thee in 
 Israel ? " he cries, " Wherefore then hast thou not kept thy 
 lord the king ? For there came one of the people in to 
 destroy the king thy lord." " One of the people ! " There 
 is a careless pride in the phrase which bears no resemblance 
 to the pride that apes humility. David would not say that 
 
CHAP. II THE OUTLAW IN THE WILDERNESS 43 
 
 it was himself: the greater shame to the ineffectual guard 
 that it was one of the people, any man so to speak, who 
 had been able to thread the sleeping ranks and carry off the 
 king's spear, Saul was a man of unusual stature, and no 
 doubt his spear was known among the people like that of 
 Goliath, " like a weaver's beam." And to see it, with its 
 glittering blade shining in the morning sun on the other 
 side of the ravine in the hand of the poet-orator, whose 
 indignant yet tender remonstrance came pealing over those 
 depths, must have affected powerfully the listening and 
 eager host, as it affected the unhappy king himself, in whom 
 once more his better nature burst forth. But Saul's moods 
 of compunction were evanescent, and it was his only policy 
 to destroy David if that might be. The knot was cut in 
 this instance by the sudden alarm of a Philistine invasion : 
 Saul was compelled to turn back from his private vengeance 
 to meet the public foe. 
 
 But it would seem that save for this unexpected diversion 
 the outlaws surrounded in the wilderness had little prospect 
 of escape before them. And David having made that last 
 attempt to move the heart of his pursuer, fell himself under 
 the heaviness of despair. He had escaped for this time, but 
 one day or other in face of such a desperate and ceaseless 
 pursuit he must perish by the hand of Saul. To what end 
 should he struggle further ? Deeper and deeper had he 
 burrowed in those desolate places, in the wildest caverns, 
 the most dreary deserts, even down to the arid shores of the 
 Salt Sea, that region accursed, with all its dismal memories. 
 It must have given an additional pang to his warlike .soul to 
 know that the very necessity which saved him and called off 
 his pursuers was one in which, had things been otherwise, 
 he himself would have been the champion, the leader sent 
 against the Philistines. Once more we may find a parallel 
 to David's case in that of a Scots noble in di.sgrace betaking 
 himself with shame and wrath to the protection of the Eng- 
 lish, with whom he had been in warfare all his life. In the 
 .same way the Douglas banished sought refuge in England, 
 nay even a Stuart, Alexander of Albany, who was perse- 
 
44 THE HOUSE OF DA VI D part i 
 
 cuted by his brother James III. on warrant no greater than 
 that of Saul, followed the same example : both, however, fall- 
 ing into the guilt of plots against their native kingdom from 
 which David kept himself free. 
 
 The story of David is indeed that of a blameless 
 knight, a cavalier sans peur ct sans rcproche up to this 
 time. He had done all in honour from the first moment 
 of his appearance, putting forth no pretensions, behaving 
 himself with all the grace of a perfect hero. What little 
 transactions there may have been in the wilderness with those 
 six hundred and their train of women and children to pro- 
 vide for, there is no record ; but at all events he would 
 seem to have been courteous and conciliatory even to those 
 from whom he levied supplies, as in the case of Nabal, where 
 there is an ingratiating tone of friendliness and modesty in 
 the first demand, remarkable in the case of a brigand chief, 
 as David has constantly been called, who was so able to 
 take without apology what he desired. Blackmail, to be 
 sure, is an ugly word : but the most carefully constructed 
 system of taxes is in reality nothing but blackmail, the 
 payment for that protection which an established government 
 gives, and which it has no moral right to exact except on 
 that supreme and universally acknowledged argument. The 
 days of David were very primitive days, and Saul's authority 
 or power of protection as king must have been limited : so 
 that the outlaw who was, according to Nabal's herdsmen, 
 " a wall to us both by day and by night," was in reality 
 the only representative of a protecting government to those 
 defenceless people. Any defence of David, however, on 
 this score is sophistry to us, and would have been the most 
 unnecessary thing in the world to him. 
 
 At all events, the severest critic can find little else to 
 reproach David with in this period of his career. He was 
 forced into — not rebellion, for no act against Saul's authority 
 is ever suggested — but into a wild and feudatory life by 
 incessant pursuit and persecution ; yet he raised no hostile 
 banner, put forth no pretensions to the crown. And when 
 in despair and sickness of heart he turned away and directed 
 
CHAP. 11 THE OUTLAW IN THE WILDERNESS 45 
 
 his steps once more to the Philistine court to seek the 
 protection of the enemies of Israel, it was not like Coriolanus 
 to ruin Rome, nor like Albany to sign secret treaties against 
 the independence of his country, but only to shelter himself 
 from a ceaseless pursuit, and to give rest to the land harassed 
 by that perpetual search and invasion. 
 
 And while he thus found his only home in those caves 
 and secret solitudes the poet-wanderer poured forth in many 
 a troubled strain the sorrows of his heart to God. So many 
 of the critics as consent to his part in the Psalms at all, 
 tell us that these are rough and untuneable, the most primi- 
 tive accents of poetry (perhaps as Milton in his learned 
 superiority spoke of the immortal diction of Shakespeare 
 as "wood -notes wild"); but to the multitudes who have 
 used for thousands of years those very words of David to 
 express their own sorrow and pain, and have found no such 
 perfect utterance in all the system of modern hymns and 
 canticles, the criticism means little. It must be amazing 
 to the musician who knows the elaborate structure of his 
 own art, to see how easily proficiency in that science, so 
 much less simple than poetry, is attributed to this primi- 
 tive singer. The music to which these psalms were set 
 in after years, or to which — who can tell ? — David himself 
 simply adapted them as he sat in the mouth of his cave, 
 or at the door of his tent in the clear Eastern nights, 
 in those intervals of peace when the pursuers were not 
 at his heels, was probably a mere chant with cadences, 
 that wild natural strain nothing in itself but an aid to the 
 utterance of the poem — the minstrel's story, or the mourner's 
 lament, or the psalm of triumph and joy — which is the begin- 
 ning of all primitive music. And such as the following were 
 the songs of the desert, the cry of the exile and outlaw : — 
 
 O Lord my God, in Thee do I put my trust : 
 Save me from all them that persecute me ; 
 Deliver me : lest he tear my soul like a lion, 
 Rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver. 
 
 O Lord my God, if I have done this ; 
 If there be iniquity in my hands ; 
 
46 THE HOUSE OF DA VI D part i 
 
 If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me ; 
 
 (Yea, rather I have delivered him 
 
 That without cause was my enemy :) 
 
 Let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it ; 
 
 Yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth, 
 
 And lay mine honour in the dust. 
 
 Arise, O Lord, in Thine anger, against the rage of mine enemies : 
 Awake for me. Thou who hast decreed justice. 
 So shall the congregation of the people compass Thee about : 
 For their sakes return Thou on high. 
 
 The Lord shall judge the people : 
 
 Judge Thou me, O Lord, according to my righteousness 
 
 And according to the integrity that is in me. 
 
 Oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end ; 
 
 Establish Thou the just : 
 
 For the righteous God trieth the hearts and the reins. 
 
 My defence is of God, 
 
 Who saveth the upright in heart. 
 
 God is a righteous Judge ; 
 
 He showeth His indignation every day. 
 
 If (the wicked) be turned not. He will whet His sword ; 
 
 He hath bent His bow, and made it ready. 
 
 He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death ; 
 
 His arrows are as flame against the persecutors. 
 
 Behold, the wicked travaileth with iniquity ; 
 
 He hath conceived mischief. 
 
 And brought forth falsehood. 
 
 He made a pit, and digged it. 
 
 And is fallen into the ditch which he hath made. 
 
 For his mischief shall return upon himself, 
 
 And his violent dealing upon his own head. 
 
 I will praise the Lord according to His righteousness : 
 I will sing praise unto the name of the Lord most high.^ 
 
 Another psalm which breathes the same spirit of ahnost 
 despair, rising by the heahng action of poetic utterance and 
 deep reflection upon the grace of God into confidence and 
 hope, we have aheady identified with that agonising pause 
 in David's Hfe when he waited in hiding for Jonathan's 
 message. Again, and it might well be after those en- 
 counters with Saul when he had hoped by generosity and 
 
 1 One or two veiy slight deviations from the authorised version of the Psalms 
 are taken from the critical exposition of Messrs. Jennings and Lowe. 
 
ciiAi'. 11 THE OUTLAW IN THE WILDERNESS 47 
 
 affection to touch his pursuer's heart, he breathes forth that 
 appeal of the sufferer so often repeated through the ages : 
 " How long, O Lord, how long ? " 
 
 How long wilt Thou forget me, O Lord ? for ever ? 
 How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me ? 
 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, 
 While sorrow is in my heart daily ? 
 How long shall mine enemies be exalted over me ? 
 
 Consider and hear me, O Lord my God : 
 
 Lighten mine eyes, 
 
 Lest I sleep the sleep of deatJi ; 
 
 Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him ; 
 
 And those that trouble me 
 
 Rejoice when I am moved. 
 
 But I have trusted in Thy mercy ; 
 
 My heart shall rejoice in Thy salvation. 
 
 I will sing unto the Lord, 
 
 For He hath dealt bountifully with me. 
 
 It is, as has been already remarked, a commonplace to 
 say — what every devout reader must have felt in personal 
 use of the Psalms — how often the denunciations of the 
 enemies of the writer come in with a jarring discord into the 
 prayers and vows of the supplicant : yet so far as David 
 personally is concerned there is not only much excuse, but 
 his force of malediction is in reality much less than is 
 supposed. Doeg the Edomite, who betrayed the fact of his 
 brief passage through Nob, and the kind offices of the 
 unfortunate priest, thus bringing about the massacre of that 
 priest and all his family, was, for instance, a ruffian who 
 would have had short shrift in any community : while on 
 the other hand it is to be remarked that David's prayers 
 for vengeance arc limited to the desire that his enemies 
 should fall into the net which they have laid for him, and 
 the pit they have digged. That their craft and evil devices 
 should fall back upon themselves, is, in the age when an 
 eye was to be for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, a very 
 moderate denunciation. It is remarkable indeed that to 
 Saul himself David never from beginning to end shows any 
 bitterness, and that he is always fully capable of appreciating 
 
48 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 the honesty and valour of such a character as Abner, with 
 whom he has no quarrel. Curious too we must add again 
 is the absolute want of partisanship in the record. Saul 
 with all his faults never loses our pity, almost it may be 
 said even at his worst moments, our affection. Abner is 
 fully recognised in his manly simplicity, made vivid to us 
 by a few lines of portraiture. One might be warranted in 
 saying that no such impartial history exists, and that never 
 in any record, especially of civil war and much personal 
 conflict, did the opponents of the eventually successful side 
 get so fully their due. 
 
 The second visit of David to the Philistine king was 
 very unlike the first. It was indeed equally the movement 
 of despair which led him : but he was no longer a solitary 
 and powerless man, whose life might have been at any 
 moment the forfeit of his temerity in thus venturing into 
 the stronghold of his enemies : but at the head of a valiant 
 and desperate band, certain to have sold their lives dearly 
 if hospitality had been refused them. It is clear, as has 
 been already said, that neither at this time nor at any other 
 during Saul's lifetime had David any thought of an avowed 
 and formalised rebellion. He was not a rival candidate for 
 the throne : nor was he even stung by continual and unceas- 
 ing pursuit to set up any rebel standard. The necessities 
 of existence drove him to the ordinary predatory life of a 
 desert chief, which was not then or for many centuries after 
 a reproach to any man. It is a little difficult to understand 
 how in Adullam or the other desert places where he after- 
 wards found refuge, there could have been sufficient booty 
 procurable to maintain such a body of men. Rich caravans 
 from Egypt or from Tyre, wealthy travellers from south to 
 north or north to south, the manufacturers of Damascus, or 
 the traders from the already noted cities of the coast, would 
 scarcely have passed that way : and it is little likely that the 
 agriculturists or pastoral farmers around, whom he rather 
 protected (as in the case of Nabal) than assailed, could have 
 furnished enough had they been devoured altogether, for 
 such a band — though it is difficult to imagine any other 
 
CHAP. II THE OUTLAW IN THE WILDERNESS 49 
 
 means of support which they could have had. But if they 
 plied the outlaw's usual trade there is not the slightest 
 evidence that they had ever thought of raising the banner 
 of King David in opposition to King Saul, nor did the 
 wanderer ever attempt to meet in battle the armies brought 
 against him, notwithstanding the fact that a number of the 
 greatest warriors of Israel had followed him into the wilder- 
 ness. Had the six hundred made a descent from their 
 vantage-ground on the hill, upon that sleeping host through 
 which David threaded his way to the very tent of the king, 
 who could doubt that the result would have been most dis- 
 astrous for Saul and his careless followers ? But no such 
 idea ever seems to have entered his mind. 
 
 The cynical reader may say that the strength was too 
 certainly on Saul's side to make any such attempt possible : 
 but that consideration has never restrained any rebel of 
 David's prestige and importance, nor probably could any 
 ordinary levy of three or four times their number have stood 
 before these tried and renowned warriors led by such a chief 
 It is most singular and remarkable that no project of resist- 
 ance ever seems to have been considered. David and his 
 men disappeared into the fastnesses which they knew so well, 
 when they were pushed by their pursuers ; twice, as we have 
 seen, he attempted to overcome the strong hostility against 
 him by parley and the evidences of his own veneration for 
 the Lord's anointed. But when neither continual failure, nor 
 those signs of a magnanimity which Saul had the heart to 
 appreciate though they made no permanent difference in his 
 actions, failed to cut short the pursuit, the harassed outlaw 
 could hold out no longer. " And David said in his heart, 
 I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul : there is 
 nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape 
 into the land of the Philistines ; and Saul shall despair of 
 me, to seek me any more in any coast of Israel : so shall I 
 escape out of his hand." This step, doubtful as it may 
 appear to have been, as adopted by a Hebrew patriot, was 
 the dictate of necessity no less than of a weary despair : and 
 it seems to have been successful in its immediate object. 
 
 E 
 
50 THE HOUSE OF DAVID tart i 
 
 Perhaps Saul felt that the rival whom he so feared had put 
 himself at a disadvantage in thus seeking the protection of 
 the common enemy : just as the Scots in their early history 
 found it difficult to pardon a Scottish knight who had ac- 
 cepted the protection of England. And the result was that 
 the pursuit was stopped, and David was left alone in his 
 exile. It was no doubt an advantage also to the harassed 
 country, continually troubled by a kind of civil war, though 
 the action was all on one side. 
 
 The career of David in the land of the Philistines was 
 a strange one. It may well be imagined that Achish, a 
 king of a traditionary race, possessing all the civilisation 
 of the time, and much more advanced than the Israelites 
 who were still only a few generations out of the desert, 
 should have had no desire to keep these six hundred wild 
 men out of the wilderness with their multitudinous train of 
 women and children, about him in his capital. But he never 
 seems to have hesitated about receiving them, and the friend- 
 ship and society of the wandering paladin would appear 
 to have been delightful to him as to almost all whom David 
 encountered. Uniting policy with hospitality, however, 
 Achish speedily allotted to his formidable visitors the city 
 of Ziklag, by what summary process of turning out its 
 previous inhabitants, or forcing this tremendous invasion 
 of guests upon them, we have nothing to show. Let us 
 hope that Ziklag had been previously devastated by some 
 pest, or emptied of its people by some petty war, neither of 
 these unlikely events. It would seem probable indeed, from 
 the fact that Ziklag continued to be the property of the 
 kings of Judah, that it was given over entirely as a gift to 
 David. It cannot be said that he behaved so nobly in 
 respect to Achish as he had done to Saul. But here again 
 the record is wholly impartial, making no attempt to put 
 any gloss upon his actions. He was no sooner settled in 
 Ziklag than, necessities of existence no doubt coming in, he 
 made a raid against the southern people between Philistia 
 and the land of Egypt, allies or tributaries of his protector, 
 " the Geshurites, the Gezerites and the Amalekites," all, it 
 
CHAP. II THE OUTLAW IN THE WILDERNESS 51 
 
 must be allowed, ancient enemies of Israel, and accordingly 
 fair prey to a Hebrew warrior — destroying both cities and 
 people and carrying away all their substance. That this 
 was recognised as his means of living is evident from the 
 highly characteristic question, put in all civility and friend- 
 liness by Achish, over whom the Hebrew chief had exercised 
 his usual charm. " Whither have ye made a raid to-day ? " 
 said this indulgent monarch. The magnanimous David 
 did not hesitate to tell a politic lie. He pretended that 
 his expedition had been against the south of Judah. It 
 was much as if a Scots knight under hiding in England 
 had made his foray against some peaceful dale on the 
 south side of the border, but explained to the English 
 authorities that it was from Liddesdale that he had brought 
 those herds of lowing cattle. In both cases the reason would 
 have satisfied his own conscience that his raid was justifiable 
 by the fact that these were the enemies of his own country 
 whom he had despoiled, whatever might have been its 
 effect upon his hosts. David went a step farther with true 
 Oriental cruelty and completeness. He " saved neither 
 man nor woman alive, lest they should tell on us saying. 
 So did David, and so will be his manner all the while he 
 dvvcUcth in the country of the Philistines." Achish fell 
 completely into the trap. He believed that the raid had 
 really been made upon David's own race, and that " he hath 
 made his people Israel utterly to abhor him ; therefore he 
 shall be my servant for ever." To offer any excuses for 
 David is no more the part of this writing than of the strictly 
 impartial and just record. His name must bear this 
 reproach as it has other and still more grievous reproaches 
 to bear. 
 
 After, however, he had lived more than a year in Ziklag, 
 doubtless employing himself in various expeditions of the 
 kind above recorded, and settling himself more and more 
 comfortably in his newly-acquired residence, like an Italian 
 captain of the Middle Ages, a Sforza or a CoUeoni, there 
 came an alarming crisis in this lawless yet carefully ordered 
 life. War was again declared between the Philistines and Saul, 
 
52 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 and there was a general gathering of the forces of the plains 
 against those of the mountains. Here was a test which 
 David perhaps had not foreseen, in the first impulse of his 
 despair, that he should be called upon to join the army of 
 his protector against his own people. It was no doubt a 
 bitter moment ; but the severe and self- restrained record 
 gives us no glimpse into the musings of the exile, torn in 
 two as he must have been by the cruel situation, which was 
 terrible to every sentiment as well as destructive to every 
 ambitious desire or hope for the future : for how could 
 Israel ever forgive the sight of her own son fighting 
 against her in the ranks of her bitterest enemies ? Yet how 
 could he desert the friend who had sheltered him in his 
 worst need ? The mediaeval captain to whom we have com- 
 pared him turned his arms gaily from one side to another 
 according to the remuneration offered him. But David was 
 no mercenary, and as yet had done nothing, except the 
 mere fact of living among the Philistines, contrary to his 
 allegiance. 
 
 The moment of trial, however, had now come. " Know 
 thou assuredly," said Achish, calling his guest to him, " that 
 thou shalt go up to battle with me, thou and thy men." 
 There is something authoritative, even threatening, in this 
 intimation. And whether the reply of David was intended 
 for an equivocation or not it is difficult to tell. " Surely 
 thou shalt know what thy servant can do." Did he mean 
 to be " falsely true " to Achish as the king understood him, 
 or did he intend a treachery which the stronger ties of 
 patriotism and kindred might have justified to himself? A 
 more exciting moral crisis could not be. But we shall never 
 know how it would have ended : whether faith unfaithful, 
 and the honour of a fugitive so deeply indebted to his pro- 
 tector, or natural feeling and all the strong inducements of 
 ambition and policy, would have carried the day. Fortunately 
 for David the Philistine leaders here interfered. There were 
 among them no doubt many whose relations and friends 
 had fallen by David's hand, many who had filed before his 
 hot pursuit after that battle in Ephes-dammim, and others 
 
CHAP. II THE OUTLAW IN THE WILDERNESS 53 
 
 not identified in history — many too who were jealous of his 
 favour with Achish and who had no faith in the truth or 
 fideh'ty of an Israelite. When these leaders found that 
 Uavid and his men were in the contingent which Achish 
 himself led to the rallying - point, they turned upon the 
 king with remonstrances which show how little superiority 
 the fact of kingship gave among those independent captains. 
 " What do these Hebrews here ? " they asked fiercely. 
 Achish was plausible and conciliatory in his explanation. 
 " Is not this David, which has been with me these years, and 
 I have found no fault in him?" Is not this David ! Well 
 did they remember who this David was, the man of whom 
 the Hebrew women had sung, " one to another in dances, 
 saying, Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten 
 thousands." " Make this fellow go back," they cried with 
 one voice, not without an angry gibe at the partiality of 
 Achish. " Let him return, that he may go back to his place 
 which thou hast appointed him, and let him not go down with 
 us to battle, lest in the battle he may be an adversary to 
 us : for wherewith should he reconcile himself to his master? 
 should it not be with the heads of these men ? " 
 
 It is easy to imagine with what a sensation of relief 
 David must have listened to the echoes of this controversy, 
 which no doubt had flown through all the camp as every 
 new detachment arrived, and soon penetrated to where the 
 Hebrews — heavy and sad — pitched their tents among the 
 alien host. " Their honour rooted in dishonour stood : " every 
 claim of gratitude and loyalty bound them to the generous 
 king : and yet when they saw before them the standard of 
 their country, and recognised the ensigns each man of his 
 tribe, what pangs must have been in every heart ! The 
 rage of the Philistine leaders no doubt fell like balm from 
 heaven upon David and his men. He made a little polite 
 objection, a little remonstrance to his royal patron — " What 
 have I done ? What hast thou found in thy servant that I 
 may not go up against the enemies of my lord the king?" 
 But Achish was happily peremptory, and anxious, it would 
 seem, to avert any possibility of collision. " As soon as yc 
 
54 THE HOUSE OE DAVID tart i 
 
 be up early in the morning, and yc have h'ght, depart," he 
 said. One can imagine with what alacrity, with what 
 thanksgiving to the God of Israel who thus prevented 
 such a sin against Himself and His people, the hardy 
 warriors sprang up in the dawning and vanished from the 
 warlike scene. Their faith to Achish forbade them to draw 
 sword for their brethren, and no doubt there were many 
 anxious thoughts over the issue of that day to Israel: but at 
 all events they were preserved from the horror of fighting 
 against them, and on the enemies' side. 
 
 This providential deliverance was carried out and made 
 still more emphatic by the next incident which occurred to 
 David and his men : a terrible incident enough, yet one 
 which must have been always possible in their lives. They 
 returned to Ziklag to find their town in ruins, smoke and 
 flame still bursting from the roofs, the place deserted, not 
 a woman nor a child about to greet their return, and every 
 sign of a successful raid such as those with which they were 
 themselves familiar, not a living creature left in the desolate 
 place to tell the tale. With the same measure which 
 they had meted out it was measured to them again : but 
 perhaps that is not a reflection which consoles any one, 
 especially not a band of men, returning to find their homes 
 empty and everything belonging to them destroyed or 
 carried away. In the first moment of anguish and horror 
 even his brothers-in-arms turned upon David. There was 
 wild talk among the men of stoning him in the rage of their 
 desolation, as the cause of this trouble : which of course was 
 as foolish as it was unjust, since it was David to whom they 
 owed their homes and possessions, and he was himself as 
 great a sufferer as any. It would seem, however, that he 
 soon found means of quieting these murmurs and of decid- 
 ing what course to pursue. There must have been some 
 spectator, some old man, or useless person hidden among 
 the ruins who stole forth at sight of the returning band, 
 and informed them that it was the Amalekites,. one of whose 
 cities David had treated so cruelly, who had taken this venge- 
 ance, but who, more merciful than David, had killed nobody, 
 
CHAP. II THE OUTLA W IN THE WILDERNESS 55 
 
 SO that there was still hope of recovering the captives. 
 David put heart and courage into his men by consulting 
 God, in the extraordinary way which it is so difficult to 
 understand, by means of the ephod, and receiving a favour- 
 able answer, re-formed at once his weary followers and set 
 out in pursuit. The men had been marching all day, and 
 when they reached Ziklag were already exhausted with their 
 journey ; but the occasion was too urgent for rest. Two 
 hundred of them, however, were so faint that they could not 
 go far, and had to be left behind half-way while the others 
 went on. The end was that the fierce and anxious pursuers 
 came down upon their spoilers in the moment of repose, 
 when they had stopped for the night, and, secure in the ab- 
 sence of all the warriors of the country and the impossibility 
 of pursuit, had given themselves up to feasting and rejoicing. 
 It was not only Ziklag that had been spoiled but the borders 
 of Judah, and those of Philistia, both nations in preparation 
 for the coming conflict having been compelled to leave their 
 frontiers unguarded ; and the night camp was surrounded by 
 bleating of sheep and lowing of cattle, as well as by the 
 unhappy groups of women and children huddled together, 
 not knowing perhaps the moment when the caprice of their 
 conquerors might inflict still greater misery. Upon them in 
 their moment of relaxation the fierce Hebrews, full of the 
 rage of exhaustion as well as revenge, fell like wolves upon 
 sheep. They took them with the cup at their lips, with their 
 arms laid aside : " they smote them from the twilight even 
 unto the evening of the next day." Four hundred " young 
 men who rode upon camels " are said to have escaped. The 
 numerals of the Old Testament are always confusing, and the 
 whole strength of David's band was but four hundred. But 
 such victories over overwhelming numbers are characteristic 
 of primitive warfare, and the young men on the camels may 
 have been some advanced guard, who believed all Judah to 
 be upon them. At all events David's band recovered their 
 wives and children, which was their first object, besides an 
 immense spoil. 
 
 This may be said to have been the end of David's career 
 
S6 THE HOUSE OF DA VID part i 
 
 as an outlaw. His conduct after this extraordinary victory 
 was full of wisdom and policy. He not only ordained and 
 settled as a law in Israel that the men who had been left 
 behind should have their share in the spoil, but he sent 
 portions of it to the cities of Judah in which he himself had 
 found succour and refuge in his earlier wanderings, recalling 
 himself thus to their recollection, and proving how very 
 differently he had been employed than in the army of the 
 Philistines, where no doubt the rumour had already run that 
 he was in arms against Israel. Much the reverse ! pursuing 
 the Amalekites in a totally different direction, avenging his 
 own quarrel and those of his compatriots, recovering the 
 spoil which he thus generously shared with all his friends. 
 The generosity and chivalry of David's character, so unex- 
 ampled in his time, need not make us overlook those 
 qualities of policy and astute calculation in which he was 
 likewise strong. He was not a knight of romance alone, 
 though he was so in a manner unknown to any other 
 primitive literature of any nation — but at the same time he 
 was a far-seeing and clear-headed Oriental chief, aware of a 
 great future before him, and with no mind to neglect any 
 just means of conciliating the popular favour. That he 
 should have been able to turn that decisive moment when 
 fate seemed against him — when it seemed all but certain that 
 he must compromise himself for ever with Israel by fighting 
 on the side of her enemies — into a triumphant vindication of 
 his patriotism and unfailing sympathy for his country is the 
 most wonderful instance of the way in which fact itself, and 
 the contrarieties of human sentiment, fight for the man who 
 knows how to use them. Had the Philistine lords been 
 wise like David they would have forced him into that self- 
 committal instead of affording him the means of turning the 
 situation to his advantage in every way. The very Ama- 
 lekites helped him in that futile raid of theirs, which for the 
 first moment looked like the overturn of his fortunes and 
 happiness. 
 
 He was still in the flush of his triumph dividing his 
 spoil, sending out his presents here and there, perhaps in 
 
CHAP. II THE OUTLAW IN THE WTLDEKNESS 57 
 
 his excitement almost forgetting the great battle that had 
 been raging on the plains, when a fugitive with all the 
 signs of woe upon him, his garments rent and earth upon 
 his head, ostentatious in his show of mourning, arrived with 
 news of the fight. The Israelites had been beaten ; they 
 had been driven back dispersed and flying before the 
 Philistines, and Saul and Jonathan were both killed. It 
 was not a Hebrew but an Amalekite who brought the 
 news, a man with no natural occasion for such lamentation, 
 whose attempt to curry favour with himself was evidently 
 more clear to David than his sorrow for the calamity. And 
 when he proceeded to tell a fabulous story of how it was 
 he who had killed Saul at the prayer of the defeated king 
 " because I was sure that he could not live after that he 
 was fallen " — evidently with a confident hope that he was 
 thus recommending himself to the highest favour — David 
 made short work of the braggart who deserved his fate. 
 It was policy, it ,may be said, thus to give the clearest 
 proof that this news was no joyful news to the exile. 
 But it is fully consistent with all we know of David to 
 believe, that the rage of sudden grief which is not less bitter 
 perhaps but rather worse, from the fact of separation and 
 grievance between us and those we mourn, was not less 
 the motive of this act than of the song of sorrow, the 
 beautiful elegy that burst from his full heart. There is a 
 curious touch of realism in the interpolation " also he bade 
 them teach the children of Israel the use of the bow," ^ 
 which is put in at the beginning of this song : " for Saul 
 had been sore wounded by the archers " in the course of 
 the battle, before in his misery and downfall he fell upon 
 his sword. It recalls the fervour with which the first 
 James of Scotland pursued the same exercise, apparently 
 without effect in cither case. But the wonderful song of 
 
 1 This interpol.-ition, quoted from the book of Jasher, is the foundation upon 
 which M. Rcn.in founds his st.ntement tli.it David wrote no I'sahns, but only an 
 occasional " copy of verSes " on public subjects. Another veiy usu.al argument 
 that the supposed Psalms of David are impossible to l)e his .as exprcssintj senti- 
 ments much more elevated than were known in his time, could scarcely have a 
 stronger contr.adiction than this, one of the most l)eautiful poems in any language. 
 
58 THE HOUSE OE DAVID part i 
 
 both national and personal sorrow, the lament of Israel 
 at once and of David, whose affections had never been 
 altogether alienated from Saul, the first patron of his youth, 
 by any intervening events, and who loved Jonathan as a 
 brother, is one of those immortal songs which to all nations 
 and in all languages become the utterance of the heart. 
 
 How are the mighty fallen ! 
 
 The beauty of Israel 
 
 Is slain upon thy high places. 
 
 Tell it not in Gath, 
 
 Publish it not in the streets of Askelon ; 
 
 Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, 
 
 Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. 
 
 Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, 
 
 Neither rain, upon you, 
 
 Nor fields of offerings : 
 
 For there the shield of the mighty is cast away, 
 
 The shield of Saul, 
 
 As though he had not been anointed with oil. 
 
 From the blood of the slain. 
 From the strength of the mighty. 
 The bow of Jonathan turned not back, 
 The sword of Saul 
 Returned not empty. 
 
 Saul and Jonathan 
 
 Were lovely and pleasant in their lives. 
 
 And in their death 
 
 They were not divided : 
 
 They were swifter than eagles. 
 
 They were stronger than lions. 
 
 Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, 
 Who clothed you with scarlet. 
 Who put on ornaments of gold 
 Upon your apparel. 
 
 How are the mighty fallen 
 In the midst of the battle ! 
 
 Jonathan, 
 
 Thou wast slain in thy high places. 
 
 1 am distressed for thee, 
 My brother Jonathan : 
 
CHAi'. II THE OUTLAW IN THE WILDERNESS 59 
 
 Very pleasant hast thou been to me : 
 Thy love to me was wonderful, 
 Passing the love of women. 
 
 How are the mighty fallen, 
 
 And the weapons of war perished ! 
 
 Thus the first half of the life of David, his probation 
 and training, came to an end, in great calamity and confusion 
 and national overthrow. Nothing could have ended more 
 disastrously to the Hebrews than that first essay at the 
 kingship which they had so much desired. It remained 
 yet to be seen whether the house of Saul could make any 
 head among the shattered people, or what new settlement 
 of the affairs and constitution of Israel was in the hand of 
 Providence. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE KING OF ISRAEL 
 
 The romance of David's life is so full of attraction that we 
 are a long time arriving at Jerusalem, which is the special 
 aim of this narrative. We will not therefore linger upon 
 the intermediate steps, or the confused period which elapsed 
 before his full recognition as King of Israel. It was only 
 after receiving the Divine command that he left Ziklag and 
 adventured himself in Hebron, in the southern part of Judah, 
 as far removed as the boundaries of the tribe permitted from 
 the home of Saul: and which had always been an important 
 place, the ancient city of Abraham, still deeply venerated as 
 such even in the present day. Here he settled with a certain 
 tentative air, his men scattering themselves among the 
 villages, many, no doubt, finding after all their wanderings 
 their native homes again. His tribe which, no doubt, had 
 followed his erratic career with interest, and heard a thousand 
 reports and half- fabulous tales of his prowess, besides the 
 still more attaching influence of those songs in the wilder- 
 ness, which had flown from lip to lip as oral literature does 
 everywhere, but nowhere so surely as in the East — must by 
 this time have felt that its own power and greatness as the first 
 of the tribes was bound up with his fame. And they lost no 
 time in taking the bold step, dangerous if Saul's family had 
 been able to retain their power, of anointing David king. 
 One of his first acts was to reward and promise special 
 protection to the men of Jabesh-Gilead who had recovered 
 Saul's remains from the Philistines and given them honour- 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 6i 
 
 able burial ; and no doubt the strains of the funeral song 
 were sung over the whole country at once in celebration of 
 the dead and honour to the living. But David had yet 
 many difficulties before him ere his position was established. 
 These difficulties were not only with his enemies but among 
 his friends and defenders ; for it is only now that another 
 figure, more rugged and far less attractive than David, but 
 full of character and power, a strong shrewd Hebrew with- 
 out embellishment or grace, apt to do whatever commended 
 itself to his powerful practical sense without favour or scruple, 
 the bold and ready Joab, appears fully on the scene. His 
 two brothers Abishai and Asahel, shadows of this strong 
 primitive figure always accompanying him, add to his terrible 
 presence an additional power. They would seem to have 
 moved and fought and thought together, a sort of threefold 
 champion, devoted to the interests of their kinsman which 
 were their own, but by no means inclined to consider those 
 delicacies of feeling, those scruples of sentiment, which distin- 
 guished David, nor capable of understanding the chivalrous 
 side of his character. Not for the sons of Zeruiah was that 
 mission of pure romance, like the finest inspiration of the 
 Middle Ages, totally unlike anything in Greek or Roman 
 story, on which the three mighty men of David's band 
 fought their way through the Philistines to bring their chief 
 a draught of water from the well of Bethlehem. Joab was 
 by far too hard-headed, too practical a man to have lent 
 himself to such an enterprise ; one can almost imagine the 
 snort of indignant scorn with which he would watch the 
 three, all breathless from the struggle, bringing that precious 
 draught to the tent door where their leader sat. What a 
 waste of strength and effort he must have thought it ! but 
 when the question was one of hard fighting and the responsi- 
 bilities of a great command, Joab and his attendant brothers 
 were never at fault. 
 
 The first great event in David's reign was the battle 
 between the supporters of Saul's family under his great 
 general Abner, and the host of Judah and servants of David 
 under Joab. Abner, though he occupies but a small place in 
 
62 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 the record, is so set before us as to acquire all our sympathies. 
 It would be hard to say precisely why this is, for we have 
 few details of this manly and noble personage and can 
 scarcely give a reason for the attraction we feel towards 
 him. His was all the real strength that belonged to the 
 impoverished house of Saul shorn of its natural leaders, the 
 heir as well as the head of the race. Abner it was who set 
 up the feeble son that remained upon an insecure throne, and 
 gathering all the forces at his command sought the test of 
 battle without delay, hoping no doubt to crush the rival of 
 his master at a blow. The fight took place at Gibeon, 
 though it would seem to have been unlike Joab's prudence 
 to allow himself to be drawn so far from home, and to risk 
 the newly established kingdom of David on such a hazard. 
 Once more the account of the battle might have come out 
 of Froissart. The armies placed themselves, " sat down," 
 one on each side of the pool of Gibeon. " Let the young 
 men now arise and play before us," said Abner. " Let them 
 arise," said Joab. Was this tragic play, this ordeal of battle 
 — twelve champions of Benjamin against twelve of Judah, 
 meeting between the two watching armies — a test perhaps 
 of eventual success, a rehearsal of the fight ? 
 
 Who spills the foremost foeman's life. 
 His party conquers in the strife. 
 
 We are not told what was the issue of that preliminary 
 struggle — though no doubt it was mutual slaughter : 
 but in the end Abner was beaten and his followers broken 
 and dispersed, though not without a melancholy incident 
 to spoil the triumph of the victors. The youngest of the 
 three brothers, Asahel, was " as light of foot as a wild roe," 
 and as Abner retreated pursued him, no doubt fired by 
 the thought of distinguishing himself and emulating the 
 exploits of his uncle David in his youth. Abner turned to 
 warn the hot-headed lad again and again, bidding him seek 
 a more fit antagonist, almost imploring him to save himself 
 But when such arguments proved unavailing and there was 
 no alternative but to kill or be killed, the regretful general 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 63 
 
 struck the youth with " the hinder end of his spear," hoping 
 perhaps to disable without kilh'ng him. When the other 
 pursuers came to that barrier on their way, the body of the 
 swift-footed young warrior lying across the path, they stood 
 still and went no farther, though Joab seems to have sounded 
 the bugle of recall without knowing what fatal object it was 
 which had checked the pursuit. That the fierce and down- 
 right Joab would take the first opportunity of avenging his 
 brother was of course certain — but the peremptory roughness 
 with which he questioned David when Abner, offended by 
 Ishbosheth, his own mock king, came to offer his allegiance, 
 shows with what red-hot material David had to deal. " Why 
 is it that thou hast sent him away ? is he quite gone ? " cried 
 the furious captain, taking his own measures with all the 
 swiftness of an avenger to intercept and call back the visitor. 
 When Abner returned unsuspecting, believing himself to be 
 recalled by David, Joab met him in the gate of Hebron with 
 a treacherous aspect of kindness which could scarcely, how- 
 ever, deceive a man as well acquainted with the usages of 
 the time as himself, and taking him aside " to speak with 
 him quietly " killed him there. According to the morals of 
 his age he had a right thus to avenge his brother ; but it 
 was a tragic incident with which to begin a reign. There 
 was a universal mourning over the great general, who was 
 honoured even by his adversaries : and some three thousand 
 years after the people wept for Abner, we too, who read 
 the story, acknowledge a remorseful regret for the great 
 career cut short, the noble knight laid low. David's wail 
 over him is not so fine, nor so clear, as his lament for Saul, 
 being dictated by no such intimate connection. The un- 
 toward event, however, called forth indignation as well as 
 regret. 
 
 Died Abner as a fool dieth ^ 
 
 Thy hands were not bound, 
 
 Nor thy feet put into fetters : 
 
 As a man falleth before wicked men, 
 So fellest thou. 
 
 Perhaps this was a little hard upon Joab, to whom 
 
64 THE HOUSE OF DA VID part i 
 
 David was so deeply indebted in after years, and who stood 
 by him doggedly through many troubles, without ever 
 awakening that sympathy in his poetic nature which went 
 out so warmly towards Jonathan, and felt so deeply the 
 charm of Abner's character. The sons of Zeruiah were 
 faithful servants to their kinsman, yet hard taskmasters too. 
 
 There is nothing said in sacred history of the plans 
 that matured in the mind of David while those years were 
 passing in which no great event occurred. He was seven 
 years in Hebron, reigning over his tribe and its dependants, 
 no doubt doing much, both in the subjugation of foes around, 
 and in the ordering of laws and living within ; but it would 
 appear, except for that one eventful battle which made a 
 blood feud between Joab and Abner, and decided the fate 
 of the latter, taking no distinct step to procure for himself the 
 entire sovereignty of the nation, or to disturb the feeble sway 
 of Ishbosheth in the midland tract of Palestine which recog- 
 nised his authority : notwithstanding the constant muttering 
 of hostilities, never brought to any decisive battle, which existed 
 between them. In any case it is apparent that his views of 
 kingship were very different from those elementary views 
 of Saul who was more the champion of Israel than its 
 monarch, and had not changed his residence nor probably 
 much modified his living on account of that imperfectly 
 comprehended charge. The kings of the surrounding 
 nations were kings of cities, of small subdivisions of the 
 country, without importance enough to favour any lofty 
 view of the royal office. It was a king to go out at their 
 head in battle, to give coherence to their host, which Israel 
 had asked when the idea first occurred to them. The King 
 of Philistia even, lord of the plain and sea-coast, though 
 wealthier and stronger, and no doubt much more advanced 
 in civilisation than the king of a mountain-tribe, must yet 
 have held a petty empire in comparison with that headship 
 of a nation, and sway from Dan to Beersheba, of which David 
 dreamed. Even that was a little kingdom enough in any 
 modern sense of the word. If the modes of communication 
 of our present time were ever introduced into Palestine, 
 
CHAP. HI THE KING OF ISRAEL 67 
 
 from Dan to Beersheba would scarcely be a day's journey : 
 yet when compared with the kingdoms of Tyre and Sidon, 
 for instance, the dominion over the Hebrews must have 
 appeared a mighty empire. David would seem to have 
 been the first since Moses who had thought upon that 
 peculiar people as an indivisible race : and it would appear 
 that among his other qualities he knew how to wait. He 
 looked on while Ishbosheth alienated Abner : and even when 
 the hopes of that general's action in his own favour were 
 closed by his sudden death, would seem to have taken no 
 steps to precipitate matters, but to have kept in full fidelity 
 his promise to Saul not to cut off his house. In the mean- 
 time, however, it is impossible to doubt that his mind was full 
 of thought and deliberation over the high part which he had yet 
 to play and the best means of consolidating and establishing 
 on the soundest foundations that kingdom which he foresaw. 
 Hebron was at the extreme end of the territory of Judah, 
 much less suited than Gibeah had been for a capital. With 
 our present ideas it would have seemed to us very natural 
 that the historian should have spoken here of the sacred 
 recollections of Mount Moriah, and of that great act of 
 Abraham which had made it so memorable. To the Jew 
 of later times, as well as to the Christian, and to the 
 Mohammedan, that association would assuredly have occurred, 
 and have been stated, as an important motive in the choice 
 of Jebus for the future capital ; but ancient tradition is 
 by no means clear upon the fact, and the more ancient 
 writer occupies himself with that alone and leaves the 
 motives to evidence themselves. The city of the Jebusites 
 had other recommendations. Its position was strong and 
 central. The mountains encompassed it about like a natural 
 guard ; towards Philistia, for example, on the south and 
 west it was defended by a series of rocky defiles, where 
 a few men could have held an army at bay, and though 
 these natural fortifications were less towards the north, 
 that was precisely the point of the least importance 
 when the tribes of Israel should have become one nation. 
 In no other place were there the same advantages com- 
 
68 THE HOUSE OF DAVID lARr i 
 
 bined. It is curious to find that little Jebusite town, 
 upon the scarps and shelves of its rocks, which had been 
 counted from the age of the first incursion into Canaan 
 among the cities allotted to Judah, still holding its fierce 
 local independence five or six generations after : but it is 
 evident that this occurred with no small number of the 
 towns which had been given over on paper, as we should say, 
 to the invading tribes, but which sloth or an unusually firm 
 resistance, or the intervention of other motives of a more 
 immediately urgent kind, had induced them to leave alone 
 until a more convenient season. 
 
 It would almost appear as if David had made overtures 
 of some peaceful mode of acquiring possession of this 
 little city, for we have its answer full of defiance and vain 
 confidence. The message is confused in phraseology or has 
 become so through defective translations. " Even the blind 
 and the lame. He shall not come in," says the improved 
 version on the margin of our Bibles : meaning no doubt a 
 brag that the blind and the lame were strong enough to 
 defend the rocky streets and steep ascent against any 
 troops that could be brought against them. David took 
 up the gibe and called to his bravest captains to sweep away 
 those blind and lame from his way, promising the post of 
 commander of the army to him who did so. Those mighty 
 men whose feats are recorded, the great Benaiah, the gallant 
 Eleazer and the rest, David's favourite brothers-in-arms, 
 were probably less skilful in this kind of service ; and it was 
 Joab, the dour and long-headed captain, who won the day. 
 The Jebusites, punished in their pride, were dislodged : and 
 their city with its strong fort on the crest of the hill, its 
 deep ravines below, the ledges of rock upon which its 
 dwellings were perched, came out for ever from the ob- 
 scurity of the ancient ages, and was made into — not the 
 centre of Israel alone, but of a great undiscovered world of 
 which its conquerors knew nothing — empires mighty and 
 famous, races undeveloped or unborn, of which its little 
 history, its insignificant forces, its strange people, should shape 
 both the character and the fate. 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 69 
 
 Strange and wonderful destiny for a rude Eastern village 
 wrapped round with the stony involutions of inhospitable 
 hills ! Athens was not as yet, far less any trace in the 
 darkness of imperial Rome ; nay, even Troy was not, nor 
 any knowledge of its legendary struggles. It is the most 
 bewildering thought when we attempt to look' back, with all 
 our modern theories of advancing progress and the develop- 
 ment of the human race, and see amid the mists that covered 
 all the rest of the world, that incident as vivid as if it had 
 happened yesterday, far more clear, than the events which 
 are taking place, for instance, in India, notwithstanding all 
 the electric telegraphs in the world. What was there in 
 that little town among the hills that it should thus come in 
 for ever into the moral landscape, be taken and retaken, 
 ruined and burned, and raised again, century after century, 
 age after age, without ever losing its supreme place in the 
 thoughts, or its supreme influence over the destiny, of the 
 human race ? How the Greek — invented, himself and all his 
 works, centuries later — would have scorned, and the Roman 
 laughed at, such a possibility ! Yet there it stands, having 
 outlived and transformed them all, having printed its history 
 upon the very souls of nations unborn, standing still among 
 its ruins, waiting in silence for who knows what final demon- 
 stration ? The scientific philosopher does well to keep his 
 questioning, his gibes, his arguments for a miracle of a 
 moment, for which the narrator had no leisure, and saw no 
 necessity, to furnish proof But he does not attempt to 
 explain that miracle of the world, or demand of the great 
 witness of all the ages how such a prodigy could be. 
 
 The writer may here confess, if a personal fancy, prob- 
 ably fantastical enough, may be permitted — to a strong 
 desire to communicate to the reader what it was an in- 
 dividual interest to attempt to trace — the original aspect of 
 this future capital, in one sense, of the world. Two hills, 
 which are not much more mountains than are the seven hills 
 of Rome, may be traced in profile from the higher ground 
 on the other side of the valley of Hinnom : The western 
 hill rising to a point against the morning sun slopes down- 
 
70 
 
 THE HOUSE OF DA VI D 
 
 ward, the modern wall marking the outline of the descent ; 
 then that line of defence rises to the summit of an angular 
 platform on another eminence, square and bold, from whence 
 the eastern slope falls abruptly, almost at one point a pre- 
 cipice, to the second valley below. Beyond this, inseparable, 
 is the third hill of the little range, the Mount of Olives, now 
 painfully crowned by a high white modern campanile which 
 has no business there. We cannot dissociate this third 
 eminence from the scene, though it is not Jerusalem, but 
 
 THE ANCIENT JEBUS. JERUSALEM OF DAVID's TIME (CONJECTURAL) 
 
 only the everlasting attendant and spectator of Jerusalem. 
 This is how they lie, the distinctive contour half buried in 
 ruin, modern houses grown like weeds upon the buried 
 masses of ancient houses, palaces and public places, which 
 are only to be traced and followed in their original lines by 
 excavations many feet deep under the modern surface. The 
 little conjectural illustrations here given show what the first 
 aspect of the little town must have been, and its transforma- 
 tion when the Temple was built. Much increased building 
 and the filling up of all hollows, more or less, with ruin and 
 the debris of the past, have made the aspect of the modern 
 city that of an almost continuous slope from the height 
 
THE KING OF ISRAEL 
 
 71 
 
 of Zion to the fortified wall of the Temple enclosure, the 
 present Haram-esh-Sherif, from which the grass-clad declivity 
 of Mount Moriah descends into the little glen of the Kedron, 
 the valley of Jehoshaphat. 
 
 But when Joab's soldiers swarmed up these slopes from 
 the deep valley now called the Tyropoeon, the primitive 
 buildings of the Jebusites were upon the western hill alone. 
 The little town lay, as the towns of Judah still lie, upon the 
 side of the eminence, its little stronghold planted upon the 
 height, its low houses clinging to the rocky sides, probably 
 
 THE JEKUSAI.EM OE SOLOMON (CONJECTURAL) 
 
 in many cases with a cave for the innermost room, and 
 founded upon the ledges and layers of the living stone. 
 They were so much higher it would seem, in civilisation then, 
 than are the Arabs even of the present day who content 
 themselves with mud huts plastered against the protecting 
 slope — that their houses were of stone, a distinction due to 
 their stony country which provided the materials of such 
 solid construction. Across that deep low trench of a valley 
 lay a green and rounded hill, through which broke points of 
 rock, sloping softly upward on the side which was towards 
 the town, but steep on the further declivity. We may be 
 permitted to conjecture that its slopes were covered with 
 corn, that a primitive farm spread out its long sheds and 
 
72 THE HOUSE OF DAVID tart i 
 
 shelters for man and beast somewhere upon the western 
 slope looking towards Jerusalem, and that the farmer had 
 placed his winnowing floor upon the height where all the 
 winds would help him in his work, close by the rocky altar 
 on which Abraham had made his sacrifice. There must 
 have been so many rudely-built altars all about the country, 
 that perhaps that traditional place was less remarked — or it 
 might be that the farmer hoped it would bring him good 
 fortune to thresh his corn near a sacred place. It must, 
 however, again be noted that we know nothing of any ancient 
 Jewish traditions as to this spot, which explains why it is 
 that no mention of the sacred associations of Mount Moriah 
 is found either in the history or in the many psalms and 
 sacred songs which have to do with the Ark and Temple. 
 Was it Mohammed, in his anxious selection of novelties 
 wherever he could find them to grace his new system, 
 who first insisted upon the shrine of Abraham, and founded 
 one of his holiest centres there — thus recalling to the 
 Christian and even to the Jew its primeval consecration ? 
 But that is a question to which we cannot reply, the sole 
 answer being that the mount upon which the Temple was 
 built is called Mount Moriah, briefly and without any refer- 
 ence to its sanctity, in the description of the Temple of 
 Solomon, but is nowhere else mentioned in Scripture except 
 in the story of the sacrifice of Abraham, which was made 
 in " the land of Moriah." We have, therefore, really no 
 warrant for believing that the site of the new capital was 
 chosen for any motive beyond that of its extreme con- 
 venience and almost unique adaptation to the desired use. 
 That the adjoining hill should be the site of the great Temple, 
 their pride and glory, the most magnificent work of their 
 race, even it would appear splendid enough to be the glory 
 of the time, though Tyre and Sidon and other accompany- 
 ing nations abounded in luxuries and splendours unknown 
 to Israel, was evidently enough for the Israelites. 
 
 It was presumably soon after the murder of Ishbosheth, 
 which he avenged summarily, as he had avenged Saul upon 
 his self-alleged slayer, that David took the stronghold of 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 73 
 
 the Jebusites and made it the seat of his power. It was 
 within the borders of Benjamin, yet also within close reach 
 of his brethren of Judah, and stood high upon a mount of 
 vision where any proposed invasion could be guarded 
 against. Possibly it was a conciliatory measure towards 
 that tribe of Benjamin thus cast down from its high position 
 as having given a king to Israel, to place the capital of the 
 kingdom within its territory. David had no sooner taken 
 possession of the place than he set to work to strengthen 
 and beautify it, and above all to add to it the sanctity of 
 all that was most sacred and full of hallowed associations in 
 Israel. One of his earliest acts after the full establishment 
 of his kingdom was to proclaim a day of high festival 
 throughout the country which, bit by bit and tribe by tribe, 
 had acknowledged his sway, inviting all to come with him 
 to bring up the Ark to the new centre of the national life. 
 The Ark had been left at the village of Kirjath-Jearim on 
 the road between Jaffa and Jerusalem, and close to the 
 border of the Philistine country, when it was sent away in 
 terror by the Philistines according to a previous narrative ; 
 and had remained there from the early days of Samuel till 
 now, there being probably no pause long enough among the 
 distractions of the time to suffer any ruler to think of its 
 proper disposal, or place sufficiently strong and safe to keep 
 it permanently. It is probable enough that in the continual 
 struggle for life, the recollection of that sacred emblem at 
 once of their history and their faith had faded in great 
 measure out of the minds of the warring race, whose mere 
 physical necessities were so overwhelming, and who had 
 to hold their own on every side against strong and watch- 
 ful enemies. Nothing can be more deceptive than our 
 calculations of policy as solely actuating such a movement. 
 Had David not been moved by strong religious faith, and a 
 boundless conviction that God was with him, and all things 
 in the Divine hand, he never could have attained the position 
 he now held ; and it would be out of harmony with all that 
 we know of him could we suppose that he was not himself 
 the most fervent of the worshippers who filled the valley 
 
74 THE HOUSE OF DA VID tart i 
 
 with their songs as they went along towards the village on 
 its little elevation, where, half forgotten in the long neglect, 
 yet no doubt surrounded with a superstitious veneration, the 
 ancient Ark of the desert, symbol of all the touching and 
 wonderful story of Israel, the Ark which had passed before 
 them through the wilderness, which had stood in the bed of 
 Jordan when the people passed over, and accompanied them 
 through all early dangers, remained where chance had carried 
 it when sent forth from Philistia. 
 
 There would seem to have been no attempt made 
 before to bring it into any consecrated place. The 
 death of the priests, the destruction of the house of 
 Eli, and universal distraction of the country, only half 
 conquered at the best, full of enemies both within and 
 without, had prevented any such effort. Various places 
 of worship had set themselves up in various parts of the 
 small area : — the tabernacle from which the Ark had been 
 taken was at Gibeon : — at Gilgal, at Ramah where Samuel 
 lived in his patrimony, at Nob where a whole Levitical 
 family were destroyed by Saul, centres of worship had been 
 established where some attempt to carry out the appointed 
 ritual of worship was made, sacrifices were offered and the 
 people " inquired at the Lord " in that curious way which it 
 is so hard to understand. But these were probably old 
 shrines either adapted from the surrounding nations or 
 instituted hastily to meet an everyday necessity. Kirjath- 
 Jearim lies on a soft little knoll in the sunshine, its level 
 lines of low houses surrounded by trees more luxuriant than 
 are usual in Palestine, its position especially peaceful and 
 smiling — though so near the border line, where the fierce 
 Philistines must have watched, one cannot but feel, those 
 strange proceedings of the now conquering and prosperous 
 Hebrews with much curiosity and some alarm. The pro- 
 cession must have surrounded the house of Abinadab which 
 was " on the hill," with their music and their songs, waiting 
 till the Ark was brought forth upon " a new cart " or car, the 
 sons of Abinadab, one in front and one behind, conducting 
 it. In that very valley the men of Bethshemesh had been 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 75 
 
 punished for their vulgar and profane curiosity in opening 
 and looking into the sacred treasures. But that was already 
 an old story, and perhaps the popular delight and excite- 
 ment of the festival had made the crowd of followers almost 
 forget what was the sacred occasion of their rejoicing : and 
 by the time that the music and the rhythmic dance — 
 those convolutions of almost solemn movement, which are 
 so unlike anything that we know under the name of dancing 
 — had reached the southern valley under the hill of Zion the 
 wild excitement of the crowd had probably reached a climax. 
 As we have no reason to suppose that natural causes are 
 not used by Providence in all ages, it is legitimate, we think, 
 to believe that the sudden death of Uzzah, who is said to 
 have taken hold of the Ark to steady it, and thus called 
 down upon him the wrath of the Lord — was due to the 
 fatigue and excitement, the pressure of the crowd and the 
 blazing of the sun : but the incident which was so emphatic 
 an interruption of their mirth affected as nothing else could 
 have done the imagination of the multitude, and recalled 
 them to a sense of the sacredness of that symbol of God's 
 presence which in the delight of their holiday they had been 
 so ready to forget. 
 
 David was as much startled and terrified as the least 
 instructed of his followers by this incident, and the terrible 
 Ark was hurriedly dragged aside to the nearest farm-steading, 
 where it was placed once more upon a threshing-floor and 
 abandoned, the gay processionists dispersing to their homes 
 in terror and dismay. " David was displeased," indignation 
 mingling with alarm in his heart that God whom he had 
 meant to honour should have " made a breach upon Uzzah." 
 He called the fatal spot by the victim's name as he hurried 
 away to hide his head in his castle on the hill. The im- 
 partial record has no indulgence for him, but puts down 
 this sullen fit of anger with the same composure as his 
 most pious acts. It is not a sentiment unknown to any 
 of us, even the mo.st devout ; yet none of our historians 
 now would venture to say that we were " displeased " with 
 what was recognised to be an act of God. 
 
76 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 But this mood did not last. The king looked down 
 from his fortress night and day upon the valley in which 
 was hidden that sacred symbol : and as he came and went 
 beheld on his way the empty tabernacle, the folds of the 
 closed and vacant tent where he had meant to place the 
 venerable token of God's presence with his people. It must 
 have become a growing preoccupation, an eager longing 
 and desire ; indeed, from this period the fixed idea of a 
 House of God, more splendid than any tent or tabernacle, 
 seems to have taken possession of David's mind. And then 
 there came tales of how everything throve in the house- 
 hold of the man who had given to that sacred symbol 
 the shelter of his roof, until by degrees the superstitious 
 terrors wore off, the project was taken up again, and the 
 wish of the king's heart was temporarily fulfilled. 
 
 A feast more joyous still than the former which 
 ended in so much trouble, made the shout of the newly 
 named JERUSALEM echo to the skies, as all the splendour 
 of Israel, everything that the warlike people possessed 
 of glittering armour and waving ensigns, and many- 
 coloured robes, in the brilliancy yet harmony of hues 
 which is natural to the East, poured down into the 
 valley. David had taken advantage of the pause to 
 secure that duly qualified and appointed persons should 
 be there to convey the solemn burden to its place, and 
 satisfy all the reverential laws which hedged about the sacred 
 Ark of the testimony. The white-robed band of Levites in 
 the midst arranged in their orders, singers and harpists, and 
 all the fit attendants, with the priests at their head, must 
 have made a wonderful shining centre to all the dark array 
 of the mighty men of valour, the captains and champions, 
 sunburnt with their life in the wilderness, who were insepar- 
 able from their leader, his brothers-in-arms : and all the 
 commoner train that crowded after them. We have no clear 
 information where it was exactly that Obed-edom and his 
 sons wielded their flails, while the winnowing winds through 
 the open shed drove the useless chaff away. But no corn 
 would be threshed or labour of the field go on on that great 
 
CHAP. HI THE KING OF ISRAEL 77 
 
 day. All the way up to the city gates through the ravine, 
 all gay with many-coloured crowds, what a sight to see that 
 procession wind ! — the first of many wonderful sights, the 
 beginning of the link which bound the lesser hill to the 
 loftier, the throne of national worship to the throne of the 
 house of David. And as the choirs mounted towards the 
 city, and the dark escort surrounded their white ranks, and 
 the dancers marched and swayed in time, this was how the 
 Levites without and within answered to each other and sang : 
 
 Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord ? 
 Who shall stand in His holy place .'' 
 
 He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart ; 
 Who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, 
 Nor sworn deceitfully. 
 
 He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, 
 And righteousness from the God of his salvation. 
 
 This is the generation of them that seek Him, 
 Of them that seek Thy face, 
 Even of the house of Jacob. 
 
 Lift up your heads, O ye gates ; 
 Be ye lifted up, ye ancient doors. 
 That the King of glory may come in. 
 
 Who is this King of glory ? 
 The Lord strong and mighty. 
 The Lord mighty in battle. 
 
 Lift up your heads, O ye gates ; 
 Lift them on high, ye ancient doors ; 
 And the King of glory shall come in. 
 
 Who is the King of glory ? 
 
 The Lord of hosts. 
 
 He is the King of glory. 
 
 The curious story which follows shows us from some 
 window in the wall a woman looking out upon the approach- 
 ing procession, a woman sad at heart, torn from her ancient 
 surroundings, brought back perhaps to a husband whom she 
 had ceased to love, expected to wear a face of joy at the estab- 
 lishment of a new kingdom over the ruins of her father's 
 house. Michal had loved David and saved his life in the 
 
78 . THE HOUSE OF DA VI D part i 
 
 early days of their devotion. But since then years of trouble 
 and change had elapsed and other loves had taken the 
 place of that romance. She had been restored not with- 
 out reluctance on her part, forced perhaps by the extra- 
 ordinary manners of the time, brought back with weeping 
 to find other women in David's house and a crowd of 
 children with whom she had nothing to do. Her heart, 
 most like, was weary for an occasion to pour forth its bitter- 
 ness. And when Saul's proud daughter saw the new king 
 leading that dance, dressed in the scanty white tunic of a 
 priest with his armour and his splendour laid by, all these 
 accumulated griefs burst into that satire and ridicule which 
 are the sharpest weapons of an angry woman. " How 
 glorious was the King of Israel to-day ! uncovering himself 
 in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants:" — lowest vanity 
 of all, to please the miserable women who were not worthy 
 to look at a king, seeking their admiration, always the 
 bitterest gibe a woman can find, " like one of the vain fellows." 
 Truth to say, the reader in these distant days is apt to agree 
 with Michal in her scorn, knowing nothing of what these 
 dances were, or of the conditions in which they were 
 accounted a reverential service. David, who was at all 
 times a man of fervent emotions, throwing himself into the 
 act of the moment, had no doubt been as superior to the 
 vile motive which she attributed to him as are to this day 
 many men on whom angry kinsfolk throw like aspersions — 
 and answered indignantly : " I will yet be more vile than 
 this, I will be base in my own sight," he cries. "It was 
 before the Lord, who chose me before thy father, and before 
 all his house." This altercation breaks painfully into the 
 beautiful scene full of national devotion and sacred triumph, 
 but embittered, as so often happens, by domestic discord. 
 Michal had no child until the day of her death. She re- 
 mained alone in the crowded household passionate and soured, 
 she who had been the hero's first love. Let us hope she 
 had not left children behind her who were not his in the 
 distant Gibeah from whence she had been torn. But prob- 
 ably the old friends who looked on, distressed at this bitter 
 
CHAP, in THE KING OF ISRAEL 79 
 
 breach, were helpless to intervene, knowing, as we say to-day, 
 that on both sides there was a great deal to be said. 
 
 David had now attained the height of his glory, and the 
 people of Israel had entered upon that period in which 
 their greatness as an independent and united nation came to 
 a climax. On every side enemies were subdued and neigh- 
 bours conciliated, and the full force of the promises which 
 gave to the children of Abraham if not full possession, at 
 least supremacy, over the whole land of Canaan, began at 
 last to come trup. 
 
 It was probably during one of the episodes of this interval 
 of fighting, before the final conquest of the Philistines, when 
 that strong and warlike people had spread themselves in the 
 valley of Rcphaim while David, probably unwilling to risk 
 his newly-acquired stronghold, had gone down to " a hold " 
 — perhaps the familiar ground of those old caves toward 
 the east of Judah, with which his warriors were so well 
 acquainted, or some strong natural fort thereabout where 
 his headquarters could be established — that one of the 
 most romantic incidents of his career took place. Day 
 after day the battle raged, irregular, the reinforcements of 
 the foe swarming to the front, with ever-renewed zeal. 
 The whole country would seem to have been occupied by 
 them ; they were in force at Bethlehem, and had over- 
 run all the fruitful fields and peaceful pastures of David's 
 youth. It must have been at the end of one of those 
 continuous days of fighting when tired and harassed, not 
 certain what was the response of the Lord to his prayers, 
 he sat down by the mouth of his cave and sighed for a 
 draught of that water from the well at the gate of Beth- 
 lehem which had refreshed him on many an evening when he 
 came in with his flock from the distant pastures. As tired 
 as the king himself, as hot and worn with the conflict of the 
 day, must have been the three mighty men of valour who 
 overheard the exclamation and looked at each other with a 
 simultaneous purpose, true brothers-in-arms — accustomed 
 to stand by each other shoulder to shoulder — knowing, in 
 the true humility of generous souls, that the king, who 
 
8o THE HOUSE OF DA VI D ' part i 
 
 bore the burden of care for all, was of more value than all 
 three to Israel and the world. They must have stolen out 
 from his presence into the night breathless with that common 
 thought, to make their way through those crowding hosts 
 with whose breathing the very air of the desert was heavy, 
 and heedless of watch or picket about Bethlehem, to the 
 well at the gate. Eleazer was one of them, he who has 
 had the honour of being selected as M. Renan's favourite : 
 and two others whose names vary in the record — Jashobeam 
 the son of Hachmoni, and Shammah from Harar, men who 
 knew every step of the way. They forced their passage 
 through the night, through a hundred deaths, like knights 
 of the Round Table, like followers of Robert Bruce or Coeur 
 de Lion. The entire tale is pure chivalry, worthy of the 
 age in which such sheer devotion was the ideal of the spot- 
 less character. And like the high hero of the poet's dream, 
 the Arthur who never was by sea or shore, David whom we 
 all discuss with so many disparagements, the ambitious, the 
 schemer, the voluptuary — David received this proof of 
 supreme devotion like the prince and poet he was. " My 
 God forbid it me," he cries, " that I should do this thing : 
 shall I drink the blood of these men that have put their 
 lives in jeopardy ? for with the jeopardy of their lives have 
 they brought it." No drop of that precious cruse was for 
 human lips. He poured it out before the Lord. Where 
 did they learn this sentiment, unrevealed to the gracious 
 Greek or noble Roman, the flower of Christian devotion and 
 grace, those heroes of obscure and uncivilised tribes, the sons 
 of herdsmen, the reivers and outlaws of the desert ? This is 
 beyond the power of any critic or commentator to tell. 
 
 In the life of every man, whatever he may be, the chief 
 period of interest is that of struggle and suffering. Of the 
 prosperous life, the successions of good fortune, the conquests 
 and the triumphs, there is little to say. Who cares for the 
 addition of feoff to feoff, and victory to victory ? When the 
 hero wades deep in troubled waters, when his life is a series 
 of hairbreadth escapes and incessant efforts, then it is that 
 men care to look on, to mark and listen, to watch with long- 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 8i 
 
 drawn breath the successive billows that roll over his head, 
 the tide that threatens to submerge him altogether. If one 
 might risk such a conjecture as that the innumerable worlds 
 which form the universe were peopled with faithful hosts who 
 have never broken the law of God nor been placed in the 
 conditions of temptation, one might imagine this little tragic 
 earth, the abode of sorrow, to be in its way, to that great 
 audience, an endless centre of interest and spectatorship, an 
 unfolding drama, with its great rolls of story full within and 
 without of lamentation and mourning. It is the common 
 idea of humanity that its own extraordinary and incompre- 
 hensible being is in some sort the centre of the universe, an 
 idea of which it would be impossible to disabuse the primi- 
 tive mind, and which it is difficult even for the most fully 
 informed to forgo. We know that the stars are greater 
 worlds than our own and that they are innumerable in their 
 greatness, but still the inalienable poetry of nature compels 
 us to see in them the lights that fill our nights with beauty, 
 the spectators of our wayward courses. It may be that we 
 are indeed the object of continual interest in this other way. 
 The record of happiness is blank : the moving story, the 
 eloquence, the poetry, even the keener flashes of delight, 
 must all be the accompaniments of mortal distress. We 
 can purchase the attention of the spheres in no other way. 
 
 And in David's case the time had now arrived of success 
 and widespreading victory. He overcame all the peoples 
 round him, taking homage and tribute from the Moabites 
 and Philistines, and from distant Damascus, the renowned city 
 where he " put garrisons," bringing from it golden shields and 
 " much brass " : a curious token that the same industry which 
 flourishes still in that ancient and wealthy place, was already 
 one of its known attributes. One can imagine the Israelitish 
 warriors, unused to such wonders, prowling about the great 
 bazaars, probably little different from those of to-day, and 
 gazing amazed at the glittering wares high piled upon every 
 side, the wonderful carpets, the vessels of gold and silver, the 
 garments woven in many colours : carrying off that for the 
 king, and this to gladden the eyes of these daughters of 
 
 G 
 
82 THE HOUSE OF DA VI D part i 
 
 Israel who would greet their returning steps with song and 
 pour out from every village to hail the conquerors. 
 
 The supremacy of David soon received a wide acknow- 
 ledgment, and the great traders of Tyre, perhaps to divert 
 his attention from their wealth, and the fact that they had 
 no army on land sufficient to resist him, offered their friend- 
 ship, their gifts, and skilful workmen to build the king a 
 palace worthy his great name. It was perhaps the first intro- 
 duction of anything that could be called luxury into the 
 spare dwellings of the hitherto but partially settled tribes : 
 and the wonder must have spread through the little rocky city 
 as the caravans arrived with their spoils, and the Tyrians with 
 their loads of cedar : and the great hewn stones, Cyclopean 
 masses which still are the wonder of the excavators of the 
 nineteenth century, were dragged up the steep slant to that 
 mount where the new palace walls began to show, a miracle 
 of strength and beauty. The city of the Jebusites had come 
 to as great promotion as had the king himself who had tended 
 his few sheep in the wilderness some dozen years before. 
 
 The decorations of his new house abashed David 
 himself in all the elation of his victories. His astonish- 
 ment at his own greatness took the form, in a mind so 
 open to all generous emotions, of compunction. " See 
 now, I dwell in an house of cedar, but the Ark of God 
 dwelleth within curtains," he said to that uncompromising 
 prophet, Nathan, who here makes his earliest appearance in the 
 record. Not to David, however, was this privilege given. 
 Nathan, who had at first encouraged his wish to build for the 
 Lord a still nobler palace than his own, came back to his 
 royal patron with another message, full of grace yet of 
 severity. God would not accept the offering : yet He rewarded 
 the intention by a promise to establish the house of David, 
 given as would seem in compensation for the refusal. He 
 would not accept from the warrior who had shed much blood, 
 that Temple in all its magnificence, the house for the Lord, 
 which already had shaped itself in his fervent imagination. 
 Not for him, with blood upon his hands, was this great and 
 crowning achievement of life to be. To the poet, framing in 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 83 
 
 his mind all glorious things, who had already begun to muse 
 and dream of the great walls, the fragrant portals of cedar, 
 the wreathed work of the cornices and capitals, this was no 
 doubt a terrible check and disappointment. Many years 
 after when he unfolded his plans to his son Solomon, David 
 described all the decorations which he desired to be carried 
 out in the yet unbuilt Temple, with a sigh of unaccomplished 
 desire. " All this," he said, " the Lord made me understand 
 in writing by hand upon me," an expression in which there is 
 all the pathos of a cherished hope unfulfilled. 
 
 When Nathan left him after this interview David entered 
 into the tent where the Ark dwelt in solemn gloom under its 
 curtains, and poured out his soul in thanks to God, who had 
 promised to establish his house for ever. 
 
 Who am I, O Lord God? and what is my house. 
 
 That Thou hast so brought me hitherto ? 
 
 Yet was this but a small thing in Thy sight, 
 
 O Lord God ; 
 
 But Thou hast spoken also of Thy servant's house 
 
 For a great while to come. 
 
 And is this the manner of man, 
 
 O Lord God ? 
 
 It was not the manner of man : and yet there is a 
 poignant note of pain in the outpouring of thanksgiving. 
 The Lord had given him far more than he had thought of 
 or demanded, not only a son to sit on his throne after him, 
 but an everlasting throne to be established for ever, the throne 
 of a greater than man already divinely indicated to the hopes 
 of the world. Yet hidden in this bountiful giving there was 
 a withholding which wrung David's heart : more a hundred 
 times than he could have asked or imagined, but not the 
 desire of his soul. He had had his share of glory, the glory of 
 great fame and honour and incalculable promotion, the renown 
 of a great leader and ruler. He had established the dominion 
 of Israel, and — crowning happiness in the eyes of an Eastern 
 prince — he was thus proclaimed father of a never-ending line 
 of kings to be : but that Temple of his dreams, more glorious 
 than was ever built with hands, that great psalm erected in 
 
84 THE HOUSE OF DA VI D part i 
 
 everlasting stone and lined with gold and filled with music, 
 that beautiful imagination was refused to him. To know 
 that Solomon should do it, was no doubt a great thing : but 
 yet a man's son, though dear, is not himself. His was the 
 imagination, his the heart in which this great thought had 
 been conceived : but not to him should be the blessedness of 
 carrying it out. His thanksgiving is, we cannot but feel, 
 almost aching with a humility and pathetic acknowledgment 
 of the overwhelming mercy of the promise, too great almost 
 for human thanks, yet acute with an unexpressed pang with- 
 in. " O Lord God, Thou hast spoken it ; Thou hast revealed 
 to Thy servant ' I will build Thee an house.' " But in the 
 pouring out of that blessing God had brought his servant to a 
 sudden pause. It was not for him, that man so favoured, to 
 have the last boon which above all things he desired most. 
 
 Thus David also had his great disappointment in the 
 midst of all his glory and success. 
 
 It would have been well for his future peace had the 
 record of these years of success and peaceful consolidation 
 of the kingdom, varied by much building at Jerusalem, and 
 increase and decoration of the capital, contained no darker 
 story. But the severe impartiality of the history spares David 
 not a line of the condemnation due to him : although it is 
 true that this impartial history itself says not a word either 
 of blame or praise — and only reflects as in an incorruptible 
 mirror the incident which is the chief reproach of his life. 
 By this time he had retired from the active conduct of the 
 wars which were still going on all around under the generalship 
 of the redoubtable Joab. David himself had been prevented 
 by the strong remonstrance of his counsellors and the people 
 generally from leading his own army as in former times 
 " lest thou quench the light of Israel," and had yielded to 
 that reasonable prayer : so that now " at the time when 
 kings go forth to battle," a curious indication of the war- 
 like habit of the nations round, " David sent Joab and his 
 servants with him, and all Israel " to destroy Ammon, or 
 whatsoever other work of the kind might be in hand. " And 
 David sat in his house " — set aside, although on the com- 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 85 
 
 plimentary argument that his Hfe was too valuable to be 
 risked : and dreamed of the Temple he was not to be allowed 
 to build, and entered in all the force of his mature life and 
 passions into the storm of fierce temptation, never so strong 
 as with those whose active life has thus come to a pause. 
 
 There were in those days no scruples in Israel as 
 to polygamy, and David was in this respect very far 
 from a saint. He seems to have celebrated his conquest 
 of Jerusalem, for instance, by taking more wives out of the 
 newly-acquired city, the one event following the other as a 
 natural consequence in a manner almost comic to our eyes. 
 But to take into his house the wife of another great warrior, 
 a man of sufficient importance to appear among the list of 
 the thirty heroes, was a more serious matter. It is unfortu- 
 nately in all history an incident so common that it would 
 scarcely have counted as a reproach in any other literature, 
 and few kings have the right to throw stones at David. 
 But the careful record of his attempts to conceal the shame 
 of the woman and avoid the vengeance of the man whom 
 he had dishonoured, brings the whole matter before us too 
 clearly to be ignored. David dared not, it would seem, risk 
 such a scandal in his new capital, and to hide his guilt had 
 recourse first to mean expedients and then to a bloody and 
 desperate act. Failing in all attempts to seduce Uriah, he 
 sent to Joab in the field that commission of murder and 
 treachery. " Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle." 
 To be in the van is at all times a credit for a soldier, the post 
 of honour, as of danger : probably Uriah was made to feel 
 himself the selected champion, and so, let us hope, met his 
 death gloriously with no consciousness of the shameful cause. 
 
 It is curious to remark that the uncompromising Joab, 
 who was by no means certain to give to his master's orders 
 a servile obedience, made no remonstrance in this case as he 
 did so often, nor, it would seem, ever asked a question. He 
 was accustomed to carry out his own schemes of vengeance 
 with the utmost indifference to David's opinions, or to any 
 motive cither of mercy or policy : and probably he took it 
 for granted that this was a personal quarrel, which the king 
 
86 THE HOUSE OF DA VID part i 
 
 proposed to avenge otherwise than by his own hand : or if 
 he had any information on the subject of Bathsheba, the 
 motive would be still more simple. He carried out the 
 order with prosaic straightforwardness, and a certain grim 
 despatch : sending back the king's messenger with an account 
 of the proceedings in which there is a fine irony of which 
 David could not but be conscious. " Tell the king " such 
 and such details, says Joab. " And if the king's wrath arise, 
 and he say unto thee. Wherefore approached ye so nigh 
 unto the city when ye did fight ? knew ye not that they 
 would shoot from the wall ? then say thou. Thy servant 
 Uriah the Hittite is dead also." 
 
 Who can venture to imagine what was in the heart of 
 the king when he received this message ? He was a man 
 full of generous impulses, if also of passion and determina- 
 tion to satisfy all his desires. There was a hideous pause 
 during which the wife of Uriah mourned for her husband, 
 which seems to the reader an additional horror in the 
 mockery of sorrow. But let us hope that Bathsheba knew 
 nothing about the cause of his death, and that even the 
 guilty satisfaction with which she must have felt that this 
 event secured her own safety, would stir up compunctions 
 in her mind and make the mourning not all a pretence and 
 mockery. To enter into the harem of the king in such 
 circumstances would be not unattended by trouble we may 
 be sure, to the woman whose story would be whispered with 
 many a commentary from one to another by those free- 
 spoken women of Israel, who, notwithstanding the .bondage 
 of polygamy, were never slow to express their opinions, even 
 to their lord himself But for David there was reserved a 
 more emphatic condemnation. The incident would have 
 been swept aside, like so many similar incidents in the lives 
 of kings, perhaps would never have secured a mention in 
 the chronicle, but for the Divine reproof that followed. If 
 as M. Renan ^ supposes the records of David's life were taken 
 
 1 That great authority is of opinion that the story of Uriali is a mere fable, 
 though he does not tell us on what grounds — perhaps as a compensation to David 
 for taking his Psalms from him : and certainly a great relief to all our minds 
 could we take M. Kenan's word for it. 
 
CHAP, m THE KING OF ISRAEL 87 
 
 from his own account, favourably shaped in his own interest, 
 it would be difficult to imagine what the motive could be for 
 introducing the parable of Nathan — unless that the poet 
 gained mastery over the man, and David felt himself incap- 
 able of keeping back a story so instinct with poetry and 
 feeling. The king was in the flush of passion satisfied, and 
 the excitement of a new incident in the life of comparative 
 inactivity, to which he was now condemned, when Nathan 
 appeared charged with his message. The prophet came 
 as to the judge of Israel bound to see right and justice 
 administered everywhere, with his brief but tremendous 
 indictment. 
 
 " There were two men in one city ; the one rich, and the 
 other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and 
 herds ; but the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe 
 lamb, which he had bought, and nourished up ; and it grew 
 up together with him, and with his children : it did eat of 
 his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his 
 bosom, and was to him as a daughter. And there came 
 a traveller unto the rich man ; and he spared to take of his 
 own flock, and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring 
 man that was come unto him ; but took the poor man's 
 lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him." 
 Nothing could add to the beauty and simple force of the 
 parable. It has become for all time the protest of the 
 weak, the strongest plea against the oppressor. David hasty 
 and generous was in arms in a moment against the riithless 
 tyrant. " His anger was greatly kindled against the man ; 
 and he said to Nathan, As the Lord liveth, the man that 
 hath done this thing shall surely die. And Nathan said 
 to David, Thou art the man." 
 
 In all history there is no situation more striking — the 
 prophet strong in the inspiration of his message from on high, 
 probably fired also with human indignation, facing the all- 
 powerful Eastern chief in whose hands were life and death, 
 the royal lover who had shrunk from nothing in the carrying 
 out of his desires. If there ever was a moment in which 
 David was minded to strike down his accuser, there is no 
 
THE HOUSE OF DA VI D 
 
 sign of it in the record. That fiery arrow went to his heart. 
 " I have sinned against the Lord," is all that he can say. 
 
 It is curious to note the character of the immediate chastise- 
 ment, first sign and symbol of much more to come, which is 
 said to have followed. The loss of a new-born infant would 
 seem but a small matter in that overflowing Eastern house, 
 swarming with the sons of the king ; yet no father of one 
 sole heir and hope could have felt it more deeply than 
 David appears to have done. As he lies on the ground in 
 an agony of humiliation and prayer all the night through, 
 beseeching God for the life of his child, absorbed and 
 swallowed up in his penitence as he was before in his plea- 
 sure, the heart of the reader melts over the stricken man. 
 His punishment was far from being over in the death of that 
 innocent. Absalom lay before him in his way, and Amnon, 
 and many a grief connected with his children : not easily or 
 lightly was his expiation to be made : but no man, and still 
 less any woman, wJio has passed through such a vigil, will 
 refuse the tribute of sympathy to David. What was one 
 little life among so many ? but of each was it not possible 
 that he was the chosen one, the seed of David who was to 
 sit upon David's throne for ever ? When all was over, and 
 he rose from his prostration in that calm which his astonished 
 servants could not understand, those words, with which 
 millions of bereaved parents have endeavoured to staunch 
 their wounds, fell from David's lips : " I shall go to him ; but 
 he shall not return to me." The child had a better fate than 
 that of any king's son : the father went out to his duties a 
 changed and sobered man. 
 
 The very next step in his career plunges him into 
 his more real and bitter punishment, into those troubles 
 of a father among a tumultuous company of high- 
 spirited and privileged young men, which the father of 
 princes can perhaps best understand, but which are not 
 unknown to humbler spheres. That " evil against him out 
 of his own house " which Nathan had denounced was not 
 slow to come. It is impossible to understand the story, so 
 painful and revolting to our ears, of Amnon and Tamar, nor 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 89 
 
 how it could be possible that a legitimate and permitted bond 
 could exist between the son and daughter, even though by 
 different mothers, of the same man. But the vengeance of 
 Absalom is quite comprehensible, justifiable indeed according 
 to every rule of that primitive period. It opens to us another 
 glimpse of the economy of Israel and the manners of the time. 
 It would seem that Absalom was in special favour with 
 his father, one of the chief among the king's sons, to all of 
 whom in his excess of parental love David was over-indulgent. 
 His mother was a king's daughter, who must have caught 
 the roving eye of David in his raid from Ziklag against the 
 kingdom of Geshur : and he was himself the most handsome 
 and distinguished of all his contemporaries, " without blemish 
 from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot," a son 
 of whom any father might be proud. Probably his birth on 
 his mother's side designated him more or less surely as the 
 heir, notwithstanding Amnon's seniority : and he must have 
 been able and ambitious as well as distinguished in other ways. 
 The party of pleasure, which he made — a sheep-shearing, 
 which was the great festival of the time, upon his pastoral 
 farm at Baal-hazor, near Ephraim — is the first note of his 
 individual story after his reception of his unfortunate sister. 
 It would be strange if some spectators in Jerusalem had not 
 .seen the outraged Tamar go weeping by, with dust upon 
 her head, and the fair apparel of the king's daughter rent in 
 the anguish of her shame, or known of her abode, in solitude 
 and sadnes.s, in her brother's house. But the doer of the 
 wrong had evidently escaped punishment: and was not afraid, 
 which is still more remarkable, to trust himself in the power 
 of the brother whom he had thus grievously insulted. 
 
 The young men went down out of Jerusalem joyously 
 to their merrymaking, each with his little retinue of familiars, 
 his counsellor and henchman at his elbow, making the streets 
 gay with their finery and their jests. Jerusalem by this time 
 had blossomed into something very different from that strait 
 little city of the Jebusites. David's great new palace blazed 
 in the sun upon the height, and the new wealth, the constant 
 acquisition of territory, the tributes and offerings of the people 
 
90 THE HOUSE OF DA VI D part i 
 
 pouring into his treasury, had no doubt made itself felt in the 
 expansion of all his surroundings. He had built houses 
 innumerable for the officials and chiefs who surrounded him, 
 and filled the town with swarming inhabitants and enlarged 
 it on every side. It was " builded as a city that is compact 
 together " according to a later description, and must have been 
 surrounded with new and enlarged fortifications, walls and 
 ramparts from which the watchman could sweep the whole 
 country, and the surrounding valleys both north and south. 
 Winding along through the pleasant fields on the comparative 
 level of the northern side, the group of gay young cavaliers 
 must have been a cheerful sight to the gazers who came out 
 to the gates after them to see the revellers pass by. The king 
 himself had refused — -as probably it was certain he would do — 
 the invitation of his son, with a smile and a blessing. The joys 
 of youth were by this time over for David, and he and his 
 graver court would have been a hindrance to the rustic mirth 
 and jollity. Young Solomon was in all likelihood but an 
 open-eyed all-observant child, of no account, not thought of 
 among the festivities of the elders, when the king watched his 
 beautiful boy, that gallant son of whom he was so proud, with 
 his abundant locks upon his shoulders, setting off down the 
 stony street. There is perhaps a more exquisite pleasure in 
 sending forth the children in their glory and joy of youth, 
 than there was in that joy when possessed by ourselves. 
 David must have turned back to his graver life with the 
 smile and the blessing still upon his lips. 
 
 But very different was the return. Towards the evening, 
 while it was scarcely yet time to look for the home-coming 
 of the revellers, a hasty post came wildly up the hill, with 
 clang of hoofs and breathless shout of evil tidings — the 
 king's sons all killed, the sheep-shearing turned into a car- 
 nage. Before it reached David the cry had become more 
 definite. " Absalom has slain all the king's sons, and there 
 is not one of them left." The king heard the evil news, 
 and it would seem did not doubt or question. Was Absalom 
 so masterful, so intent upon being the first, that there was 
 something in it which sounded possible, even likely, to the 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 91 
 
 father's heart ? He tore his garments and threw himself on 
 the earth in his despair, while all the servants stood weeping 
 round. The king's nephew, however, Jonadab, interposed 
 the voice of reason. We feel with indignation that he was 
 the last who should have dared to speak, since it was he 
 who had counselled Amnon to the crime which had now 
 received its punishment. Was he jealous of the king's sons 
 and plotting their destruction, this " subtil man " who had 
 pretended to be Amnon's friend ? He consoled David by 
 heightening the certainty at least of a portion of the disaster. 
 " Let not my lord suppose that they have slain all the young 
 men, the king's sons ; for Amnon only is dead. By the 
 appointment of Absalom this has been determined." Perhaps 
 this adviser of evil was the confidant of both : at least he 
 divined what must have happened. 
 
 While he spoke the watchman came in with news 
 that a train of many people was coming up " by the 
 way of the hill - side behind," a roundabout perhaps 
 adopted in their panic to deceive the possible pursuer : and 
 immediately there burst into the hall the frightened and 
 breathless company of the young men who had left home 
 so gaily. " They lifted up their voice and wept sore : and 
 the king and all his servants wept." They were safe, but 
 one brother was dead, and one fled with the stain of blood 
 upon him. There would be among that distracted group 
 some for Amnon and some for Absalom : the brother who 
 had brought shame on the whole family and the brother 
 who had avenged that shame so bitterly : but they were all 
 probably very young and in their sudden terror unfit for 
 anything but flight. And was it, perhaps, already floating 
 through all minds that the foolish indulgence of David, 
 who had not chastised the crime of the first, was thus to 
 blame for the whole catastrophe ? but on these points we 
 can but conjecture, the record says nothing. Amnon was 
 the firstborn of David's sons, and perhaps that distinction 
 made it more difficult for him to visit one who was next to 
 the head of the house, and held a certain right of authority 
 over the others, with the punishment he deserved. It was 
 
92 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 also no doubt an additional motive to Absalom in whose 
 heart the hope of succeeding, if not already the idea of 
 superseding his father had taken root, to remove his elder 
 brother out of his way. 
 
 This was the beginning of the tragedy which over- 
 shadowed the remainder of David's life and brought him 
 into affliction and downfall greater than in all the troubles 
 of his youth he had ever known. Jerusalem, after the time 
 of mourning was over which filled her lately rejoicing streets 
 with woe, came back to her usual aspect and went on with 
 her building and thriving, covering the hill-side with new 
 houses, extending her boundaries day by day, welcoming- 
 back her armies crowned with victory, and her visitors who 
 came, with designs and ornamental works, from all the 
 regions in which art flourished to show what they could do 
 to the king. The city throve, the kingdom increased in 
 extent and order, the soldiers of Israel and their general 
 returned to their homes in the stormy season, and went 
 forth with their banners flying in the spring. The natural 
 course and order of all things went on as before. But the 
 King of Israel in his house of cedar, the palace that shone 
 in the sunshine, was cheered neither by conquest nor tribute, 
 nor by the vessels of gold and silver which he was laying up, 
 nor the plans which he was drawing out for the future house 
 of God. His heart was heavy for his children, not only for 
 Amnon dead, but for Absalom in exile, whose gallant 
 presence he missed at every point and for whom he sighed 
 night and day, although justice forbade him to call the 
 sinner back. No doubt there would be many besides 
 David who sighed for Absalom, his mother, and his friends, 
 and the populace which loved him, and remembered with 
 pride and regret his beauty and his graciousness, and did 
 not condemn too severely the vengeance which commended 
 itself to every wild law of natural justice. 
 
 Absalom in the meantime had sought refuge with his 
 mother's brother at Geshur, still, it would appear, in its small 
 way an independent kingdom ; and three melancholy years 
 elapsed, during which " the soul of King David longed to go 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 93 
 
 forth " to his banished son, but could not withdraw his sen- 
 tence from the murderer of his brother. The blunt and 
 uncourtly Joab perceived the state of affairs when laid up in 
 winter quarters in enforced leisure, no fighting practicable in 
 the stormy season, when the rains flooded the great rivers, 
 and wild winds dashed every tent to the ground. He might 
 feel that nothing he could himself say in his stubborn way 
 would much affect the matter, and yet that he must do some- 
 thing to cut the knot. His expedient was full of the sim- 
 plicity yet primitive wisdom of the time. He sent a wise 
 woman to David as he sat sad and moody in the place of 
 judgment, with a simulated story. Her two sons had 
 quarrelled in the field with no one near to act as peacemaker, 
 and one had killed the other ; and now her whole kindred 
 had risen against her, desiring vengeance, and the life of her 
 only remaining child was in deadly peril. David listened no 
 doubt with many a sad thought in his own heart, and 
 promised her protection for her son ; whereupon the woman 
 put forth her trembling plea for Absalom. " The king," she 
 said with that boldness which the women seemed to share 
 with the prophets, though their sex was but a small protec- 
 tion to them in those primitive times, " the king doth speak 
 this thing as one that is faulty, in that the king doth not 
 fetch home again his banished." 
 
 How could he punish her who advised him to do what his 
 soul most desired? David divined the hand of Joab in 
 the contrivance and was not angry. Joab no doubt had 
 done what he could to plead the cause of Absalom before, 
 and now he had his reward and was sent to bring the exile 
 home. It is evident that David never loved the son of 
 Zeruiah of whom he speaks in angry bitterness, always in 
 the plural as if he were a tribe, probably because the 
 brethren were involved in Joab, thinking and acting with 
 him, .so as to give to his single personality the force of 
 .several men. But there was a great deal of ingratitude in 
 this dislike, for Joab's rough good sense and sagacity were of 
 use to him often in the great crises of his life. It is doubtful 
 if this was good advice which he offered now ; but it would 
 
94 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 not seem that any one as yet had suspected the ambitious 
 side of Absalom's character. He had been the representative 
 of grace and all that was beautiful and noble in youth, an 
 ornament to the too abundant family and undeveloped court. 
 But most likely nobody had taken the handsome youth 
 seriously until that deed of blood which distinguished him 
 still more effectually than his good looks and royal parentage, 
 from among the crowd of his brethren — or indeed thought 
 of that action now as anything but a well-deserved and not 
 dishonourable revenge. 
 
 Two years of humiliation followed during which Absalom, 
 though permitted to inhabit Jerusalem, was not allowed to 
 enter his father's house, or see his face, years which were no 
 doubt more hard upon the king who loved his son than upon 
 the .son who was plotting how best to overthrow his father's 
 throne. It is difficult to account for so long-continued a 
 punishment in this case, while Amnon had been allowed to 
 go free. Was it that an injury to a woman counted for 
 so much less, even in Israel ? but this was not according to 
 the law, which showed a singular impartiality in that respect ; 
 or was it because his firstborn was more or less out of David's 
 power ? for that he did not love Absalom less but rather 
 more is apparent from every line of the record. Perhaps the 
 very love he bore the offender was a reason for special 
 severity, his sense of the necessity of justice being intensified 
 by the weakness and yearning of his own paternal heart. At 
 last, however, upon the mediation again of Joab the last 
 barrier was thrown down. During this long period when 
 the guilty son of the royal house was in Jerusalem, but 
 unacknowledged by his father, many unsuspected intrigues 
 were going on, and the young man must have drawn about 
 him a sort of secondary court of the disappointed and dis- 
 contented, such a court as, in our own history, a Prince of 
 Wales has sometimes held, full of dissatisfaction and bitter- 
 ness, of open ridicule and suppressed rebellion, and of those 
 gibes which the populace loves. David and his old-fashioned 
 ways, his poetry, his music, his inactivity, his continual poring 
 over those plans for the impossible Temple, his encourage- 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 95 
 
 mcnt of foreign artists, filling Jerusalem with useless dilet- 
 tantism, taking the bread out of his warriors' mouths, would 
 no doubt be the subject of many a lampoon, whispered from 
 guest to guest, with bursts of profane laughter. Who was to 
 carry out those plans and put away all that treasure from 
 the use of those who were young and full of the faculty of 
 enjoyment ? Not Absalom one might be sure, who loved to 
 have everything beautiful and splendid about him, and had 
 all the royal instincts of magnificence which David, humbly 
 born, directed to that dream of a house of God. And the 
 people who loved David in reality, yet never can resist the 
 influence of such jests, no doubt laughed too, pleased to 
 make that harmless rebellion against constituted authority, 
 and full of malicious hostility to the foreigners, the artists 
 who would be closeted with the king for hours while even 
 his own son was kept out. And all that was young and 
 gay would collect about Absalom who had pleasure and 
 advancement to bestow in the future, and for the present a 
 lively youthful house full of sport and brightness, instead of 
 those sober chambers of the monarch where care dwelt and 
 serious thought. 
 
 When the embargo was removed from this dangerous 
 prince, and the king had received him with ill -deserved 
 effusion of long-suppressed love, Absalom became bolder 
 still. He set up a household beyond the pretensions even 
 of a Prince of Wales, like a king, with aQ army of running 
 footmen when he went forth to clear the way before him, 
 and all the tokens of Oriental greatness. He had learned 
 that fashion no doubt at his uncle's court at Geshur, where 
 the uses of royalty were more firmly established than among 
 the democratic Hebrews. And he took another step of such 
 cruel policy that the hand of Ahithophel, the wisest of the 
 Israelites, must have been already in it, though that great 
 counsellor was not yet openly on Absalom's side. He 
 made a practice of going out to the gate where it was the 
 king's duty to sit in judgment and hear all the cases that 
 were brought before him, placing himself in all his bravery, 
 and with his gracious bearing, in the way of the litigants. 
 
96 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 It is implied though not said that David had become 
 perhaps careless of this duty, came seldom to the seat of 
 justice, was more and more preoccupied and absorbed, as 
 it would be the policy of the plotters to represent, with that 
 Temple of his, and his plan of hiding away for its future 
 use or ornament all the treasures of gold and silver in 
 the public treasury, from being of any use to the people. 
 Outside the gates upon the open square where travellers 
 paused to take breath after the steep climb upwards, what 
 a sight to see would be that young prince, the handsomest 
 man in Israel, with his train of followers ! and so friendly 
 in his splendour, stepping forward to inquire " Of what city 
 art thou ? " nay, more courteous still, to give the kiss of 
 peace to those who paid him the tokens of respect due to 
 his position, and to ask what was their business, to hear 
 their case, to commiserate their grievance whatever it was, 
 and agree that they were right, with only the deep regret 
 " Oh that I were judge, that I might do justice ! " and 
 shaking of the head over the sad fact that there was no 
 man deputed from the king to hear, or stranger still that 
 no man from the king downward would listen to the plaints 
 of the people. " So Absalom stole the hearts of the men 
 of Israel." 
 
 It was not within Jerusalem, however, that the rebellion 
 broke forth. Notwithstanding Absalom's popularity and 
 wiles, David was too firmly seated in his own city, tiie 
 place which he had changed from a fortified village into 
 the capital of a kingdom, to be cast violently off his throne 
 there. The rebel pleaded a vow which he had taken to 
 perform sacrifices at Hebron, and received his father's per- 
 mission to leave Jerusalem for that purpose with a strong 
 following, all his own intimates and their trains, and two 
 hundred men in addition who apparently formed the escort 
 of the pretended pilgrims. Some time elapsed before it 
 became known in Jerusalem what this expedition meant, 
 and then we must suppose from his after conduct that it 
 burst like a thunderbolt upon David, who had either been 
 unaware of all that was happening, or had turned a deaf 
 
CHAP. Ill TIJE KING OF ISRAEL 97 
 
 ear to any further accusation against his son after having 
 been separated from him so long. The conduct of David 
 seems unaccountable in this sudden and great emergency. 
 Not a thought of resistance or the maintenance of his own 
 right seems to have been in him, nothing of the spirit of the 
 old warrior. It is true that he was already an old man ; 
 but that does not seem to account for the complete collapse, 
 not only of power, but of spirit, in him. The first thoughts 
 in his mind when he heard that his son was in open revolt 
 were those of terror and submission. " Arise, and let us 
 flee ; for we shall not else escape from Absalom : make 
 speed to depart, lest he overtake us suddenly, and bring 
 evil upon us, and smite the city with the edge of the sword." 
 The one word of generous feeling in this, the desire to pre- 
 serve Jerusalem from the horrors of a siege and the vengeance 
 of the successful rebels, is the only thing that softens the 
 reader's amazement and almost contempt. The great David, 
 the hero of so many fights, the conqueror not of Jerusalem 
 alone but of so many lands and cities, he who had been 
 celebrated in song in his very boyhood as the slayer of 
 tens of thousands — that he should rise and fly without a 
 word or attempt at holding his own is so extraordinary 
 that the spectator can but look on aghast. 
 
 What was it that took all the strength out of the old 
 warrior ? Was it those long years of inactive life, the 
 creeping sloth of age, the loss of every habit of enterprise, 
 the preoccupation with other things ? Had his essays in 
 art, his pattern drawing, his plans of architecture, taken 
 the spirit out of the old hero ? But even in an old war- 
 horse, full of years and corn, there will still remain the ashes 
 of his former fires. One cannot but feel that there must 
 have been more in it, the sense of a long-deferred, but all 
 the more potent, punishment, that evil out of his own house 
 which had been promised to him many years before when 
 he himself was in the heyday of life. He had thought, and 
 perhaps Nathan his instructor had also thought, that the 
 death of Bathsheba's infant was a sufficient blow to a father 
 so exceptionally tender : but what words were those which 
 
 H 
 
98 THE HOUSE OF DA VID tart i 
 
 came back now, echoing in his ears ? " Therefore the sword 
 shall never depart from thine house." " Evil shall be raised 
 up against thee out of thine own house." " Thou didst it 
 secretly : but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before 
 the sun." 
 
 Who can doubt that these threatenings were in 
 David's ears ? and that the sense that not only Absalom, 
 his cherished son — a thought in itself enough to crush the 
 father's heart — but the Lord was against him, took all strength 
 out of his spirit ? What sight more sad was ever seen than 
 that melancholy train hurrying out of the protecting walls 
 which he had built and strengthened, leaving behind the 
 desolated house which he had built for his dynasty, himself 
 and his sons after him, the palace and the city of David ? 
 What a different place was that which he left with a wail 
 of trouble rising round him, from the strait little city of 
 which he had taken possession so many years before ! He 
 had enlarged it on every side, embellished and enriched it, 
 made it the centre of law, the chief city of Palestine, already 
 the glory and the pride of Israel. There is not a word to 
 say that the inhabitants rose against him in his distress. 
 His guards were faithful to him, the Cherethites, the Pelcthites, 
 and the Gittites, the Swiss Guards, so to speak, whom he 
 had banded about him to keep the peace and defend the 
 city when the soldiers of Israel were at the wars. The 
 captain of these mercenaries is the cause indeed of one of 
 the pauses in David's evidently hopeless flight. " Return 
 to thy place, and abide with the king," he says with the 
 strangest instantaneous abdication of that dignity in his 
 own person. " For thou art a stranger, and also an exile. 
 Whereas thou camest but yesterday, why should I this day 
 make thee go up and down with us ? seeing I go whither 
 I may, return thou, and take back thy brethren : and mercy 
 and truth be with thee." We recognise our generous hero 
 of the Adullam days, the magnanimous young soldier who 
 never sacrificed a friend, in this episode : and it is good to 
 feel that the brave Gittite was worthy of the consideration, 
 and faithful to his protector. 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 99 
 
 Something of the same care for others mingling with 
 a reverential unwillingness to disturb the worship of God, 
 must have been in David's mind when he sent back the Ark 
 which the priests and Levites had brought out of the city, 
 and set down probably on the platform before the gate, in 
 imitation of the days when that sacred Ark was posted in 
 the middle of the way until the marshalled ranks of Israel 
 had gone over — whether Jordan or other dangerous passes : 
 once more the priests, the descendants of Aaron, set down 
 their sacred burden while the troubled train poured forth 
 " until all the people had done passing out of the city." 
 Hut David with his old compunction returning in all the 
 despair of remorse into his heart, would not assume for 
 himself the position of that ancient Israel, the people of 
 the Lord, travelling under His sanction and guardianship. 
 How could a guilty wanderer flying from the vengeance 
 that had been denounced upon him lay that flattering 
 unction to his soul ? It seems to have brought a faint 
 glimmer of hope, however, into his mind to see the sacred 
 symbol and feel that the sympathies of the priests were 
 with him ; for a thought of coming back breaks in now for 
 the first time into his despair. " Carry back the Ark of 
 God into the city," he says. " If I find favour in the eyes 
 of the Lord, He will bring me again, and shew me both it 
 and His habitation." 
 
 The mournful procession must have paused while the 
 priests took up their burden, and turned sadly back : and 
 David stood gazing after it, with death in his heart. Was 
 it for this he had brought it back out of the neglect and 
 indifference of many years, for this that he had bidden 
 those ancient narrow portals to be lifted up, the old doors to 
 be thrown open to their widest, that the King of Glory might 
 come in ? But on what side now was that King of Glory ? 
 against David as his own beloved son was against David, 
 and all the vials of wrath poured out upon his head. Very 
 different now were those great gates and lofty columns from 
 the narrow arch which had framed the doorway under which 
 the Ark first passed. He must have watched it disappearing, 
 
THE HOUSE OF DA VID 
 
 the white attendants winding along between the dark houses, 
 the daughters of Jerusalem gazing and weeping at every 
 window — then turned away, with his face towards the desert 
 once more. The dark crowd moved downward into the 
 depths of the valley and across the brook, winding round 
 the southern side of Moriah, all green and fertile, with 
 nothing but Araunah's farm -buildings upon its crest, and 
 took its way towards the wilderness. " And all the country 
 wept with a loud voice, and all the people passed over : the 
 king also himself passed over the brook Kidron." One 
 cannot but remember how often in after days He who was 
 the Son of David passed over that brook, going to His 
 sacred meditations in the garden, or coming back to the 
 cross and the grave. 
 
 " David went up the ascent of Olivet, and wept as he 
 went up, and had his head covered ; and he went barefoot : 
 and all the people that was with him covered every man 
 his head, and they went up, weeping as they went." This 
 was evidently more than a mere flight : it was a penitential 
 procession, a confession of the half-forgotten sins for which 
 now, at last, retribution had come. He was going back to 
 those old haunts where his troubled youth had been spent : 
 and he remembered his errors and bowed his head before 
 that justice which had tarried long but never had forgotten. 
 It might have been said of David as it was of Job — had he 
 served God for nought ? What promotion had been given 
 to him, what prosperity, what glory ! " I have seen the 
 wicked flourish like a green bay tree." How his own words, 
 the utterances of his prosperous and glorious days, must 
 have poured back upon his mind as he went forth leaving 
 all behind him. And, deepest pang of all, by the hand of 
 his son whom he loved, who had brought misery and shame 
 upon him, but towards whom his heart never ceased to 
 yearn. Those who scoff at David and set forth his great 
 crime as the central point of his life can never have followed 
 the tragedy through its after scenes. That was indeed its 
 central point to his own consciousness, the grand contradic- 
 tion to all the generosities and magnanimities of his life, the 
 
THE KING OF ISRAEL 
 
 one occasion on which passion made him false and cruel, he 
 whose nature was so chivalrous and kind. What humilia- 
 tion was too great for the man who had so sinned, whose 
 offence had thus been brought back to him in all the terrible 
 and vivid light of Divine judgment ? He had forgotten it 
 in the calm of many prosperous years : but God had not for- 
 gotten it. What else but this could have taken the heart 
 out of the old warrior, the mighty man of valour ? We all 
 remember against him the death of Uriah : but few take any 
 account of the stricken father, the fugitive king, the self- 
 humiliated penitent, his head bowed under the veil of mourn- 
 ing, his feet torn upon the stony ways, his glory departed 
 from him, and most of all his son turned against him, his 
 son whom he loved. Not only the death of Uriah, but 
 many an error besides was no doubt in David's mind, and 
 that sense of supreme failure which is so bitter in the heart 
 of a parent whose children are unkind and undutiful : — the 
 consciousness of weak indulgence, of misplaced severity, of 
 a house not well ordered before God, must have added the 
 gnawing of the serpent's tooth to all other distresses. A 
 thankless child ! and the thought that had he himself been 
 otherwise, more just, more firm, less dispo.sed to humour all 
 their fancies, these sons might not have been the passionate 
 tumultuous tribe who already had cost him so much .sorrow. 
 Amnon dead : Tamar shamed and broken-hearted : Absalom 
 in fierce rebellion, seeking his father's life. David might 
 well go upon his way weeping, overwhelmed with the bitter- 
 ness of his downfall. Many a man was there in Israel who 
 had sinned more grievously and met with no such punish- 
 ment. 
 
 The adventures of the way were partly consolatory and 
 partly grievous. Ziba, the steward of Mephibosheth, into 
 whose motives David did not inquire in the practical comfort 
 furni.shed by his politic contribution of food and wine ; 
 Shimei who came out like a cur to gibe at the fallen monarch, 
 and curse him in his humiliation ; the faithful Hushai whom 
 with a momentary gleam of spirit he .sent back toconfound 
 the counsels of Ahithophcl, all broke for good or for evil the 
 
THE HOUSE OF DAVID 
 
 monotony of the journey ; and when the mournful party 
 came to a halt, the liberal succours afforded both by friends 
 and former enemies — the King of Ammon among others, with 
 generous forgetfulness of old feuds, sending supplies to the 
 camp — must have softened the first sensation of unmitigated 
 distress, as the necessity for exertion in itself and the experience 
 of every new event must always do more or less. David 
 was still so self-abased in his keen consciousness of Divine 
 chastisement, that he would permit no vengeance to be taken 
 upon the vulgar abuse of Shimei who threw stones at him 
 as he passed. " Behold, my son seeketh my life : how 
 much more now may this Benjamite do it ? " he says as he 
 passes on. 
 
 In the meantime a terrible scene was being enacted in 
 Jerusalem, one of insult and affront to the king, which is 
 inconceivable to modern minds, not to speak of individual 
 shame and horror, which is never taken account of at all in 
 any primitive record. The distracted city had not stopped 
 its weeping for David when Absalom and his train came 
 clanging up the steep ascent making the walls ring 
 with their shoutings and the noise of their cavalcade. 
 The women at the windows with the tears not dried in 
 their eyes, would yet, no doubt, flash forth a glance of 
 welcome at the newcomer, the handsome Absalom, in him- 
 self a spectacle to drive care away. He who had all the 
 charm that had distinguished his father in his youth would 
 not be wanting, we may be sure, in salutations flung here 
 and there on every side, at each familiar face, the touch of 
 his rapid hand from his breast to his brow, heart and head 
 engaged in the old allegorical greeting — with all his young 
 men after him, flushed with excitement and daring, and the 
 hope of advancement to come. The crowd would gaze and 
 sway and change, as crowds do, welcoming, as every crowd 
 must, the relief of pleasure after mourning, the happy pos- 
 sibility of forgetting that any one is injured, in the satisfaction 
 of restored brightness and triumph. And the throng would 
 surge on after him, pushing up the streets, pouring out of 
 every house, towards the palace which stood vacant in the 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 103 
 
 guardianship of those ten poor women — empty for any man 
 to seize and take possession of it. One wonders whether 
 that dark counsellor by Absalom's side, a mere speck 
 among the bravery of the brilliant train, had wrongs or slights 
 to avenge against David who knew his force, at least, whether 
 he had employed him or not ? or if it were mere cold wisdom 
 and policy which dictated his advice ? ^ Ahithophel was well 
 aware that hereafter no compromise was possible, and that 
 the wisest thing to do was to press the matter at once to its 
 violent conclusion. He knew, though the foolish young men 
 did not, that David's spirit must come back, that the country 
 must come to its senses, and that the -greatest captains, 
 as well as the most trustworthy of the people, were, 
 though scared and silenced for the moment, on David's side. 
 When therefore Hushai came in with his counsel of delay, 
 the real conspirator felt at once that all was over. What 
 need to wait till David came back, till legitimate vengeance 
 disposed of his head, his property, and all that was his ? 
 Most likely the wild young following of the prince, and 
 Absalom himself in the heat of his triumph, were glad when 
 that serious plotter turned from them in disgust and despair, 
 taking away the dark shade of his dissatisfied face from the 
 night of uproar and commotion which would follow such a 
 day. He who foresaw the inevitable results could have 
 looked on with little satisfaction at the revel had he remained, 
 and the sound of the hoofs of his mule, as he turned again 
 down the stony street and an.swered the challenge of the 
 watchman at the gates, would no doubt be a good riddance 
 to the triumphant crew who felt that, counsel or no counsel, 
 everything was now at their feet. 
 
 Meantime David, having put the Jordan between himself 
 and the rebels, had established himself in Mahanaim, a city 
 near the borders of Israel, near enough to Ammon to flutter 
 
 ' Ahithophel is traced in the lists given in the Book of Samuel as having l)een 
 the fatlicr of a certain Eliam. And liathshcba, David's wife, was the daughter 
 f)f Kliani : whence it has been supposed that she was the granddaughter of 
 Aliithophel. Hut Kliam is not an unconinum name, and it is difficult to under- 
 stand how the wise man could Ix; the deadly opponent of his grandchild's 
 husband in the interest of another branch of the family. 
 
I04 THE HOUSE OF DA VID part i 
 
 the hearts of the Ammonites, who were not guiltless towards 
 him, though they had hastened to propitiate him by presents. 
 For by this time the fugitives had grown into a host, with the 
 greatest generals of Israel at its head, men who were entitled 
 to make but light of Absalom, a man of pleasure and not 
 of war, though he had Amasa of their own warlike blood, a 
 grandson of Jesse of Bethlehem, as were the sons of Zeruiah, 
 to lead his followers. What Joab's sentiments were about 
 the matter it is not difficult to imagine ; a deep wrath and 
 disgust with his showy and specious cousin must have been 
 in his self-restrained and stubborn spirit. It had been he 
 who had induced David to follow the dictates of his own 
 longing and bring home his rebellious son. He had in a 
 manner answered for Absalom, that now all would go well. 
 And the man he had thus protected and served had over- 
 turned the kingdom which was founded on the labours of 
 Joab's life as well as David's, after many a tough struggle 
 and weary watch. In Joab's heart there was none of that 
 love which had weakened the judgment of the king. He, 
 too, no doubt, had regarded with affection in his way the 
 beautiful boy who had grown up under his eyes, his gracious 
 young kinsman, gay and pleasant, who had charmed all 
 Israel. He had been seduced into believing that to be 
 restored to his own house and his people was all that Absalom 
 wanted. But now that he was undeceived there was no indul- 
 gence in Joab's heart. Had he been a man of policy alone we 
 might imagine that the certainty that Absalom so long as he 
 lived would be a standing danger to the crown, was what moved 
 him most : but though his strong sense made that too ap- 
 parent to him, Joab had thus more poignant reasons still for 
 being remorseless towards Absalom who had deceived him. 
 
 Nothing could be more vivid, or more touching, than the 
 picture of the setting out of the forces from their city of 
 refuge to meet the rebels. The king was not allowed to go 
 forth with them for reasons that are evident ; but he came 
 out and stood by the gate to see them march past " by 
 hundreds and by thousands," in companies and battalions as 
 we should say ; and as each captain appeared at the head 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 105 
 
 of his troop David stopped the march a moment for a part- 
 ing word. It was not any counsel of war that the experienced 
 old soldier gave to his officers. " Deal gently for my sake with 
 the young man," was what the anxious father said. " And all 
 the people heard when the king gave all the captains charge 
 concerning Absalom." With pity, with sympathy, with anger 
 and impatience no doubt they listened, the common men, 
 always the most accessible to emotion, touched and softened, 
 while their leaders chafed, impatient of such a restriction. 
 The rebel, the usurper, the traitor, condemned by all laws ! 
 was not this a weakness more than could be borne on the 
 part of the king, who had been hunted from his home, the 
 crown taken from his head> the allegiance of his people 
 stolen away, by this same Absalom of whose safety now he 
 thought more than of the welfare of all his faithful servants ! 
 Joab, for one, must have given neither answer nor pledge, 
 but marched on with his stubborn countenance and certainty 
 that if he found that dainty gallant in his way there should 
 be short shrift. Thus the army went forth to the battle. 
 
 And David " sat between the two gates." He was still 
 the light of Israel, not to be risked in such a conflict, and 
 perhaps his heart was too faint with the unnatural struggle to 
 seek a point of vantage whence he could see the approach 
 of the messengers or the far-off dust of the battle. He sat 
 where he could catch the first runner from the field, and 
 hear the first news, but not see, perhaps, the rush of fugi- 
 tives retiring, perhaps his son dragged hither a prisoner. 
 When the watchman called out from above that some one 
 was visible on the way and that his running was like that of 
 Ahimaaz the son of Zadok, the king in his anxiety answered 
 that his news must be good for he was a good man : but it 
 was not Ahimaaz, but the blunt Cushi, the other Levite whom 
 Joab, not loving him it would .seem, had charged with that 
 dire news, who told it. David did not ask what was the issue 
 of the fight, he said, " Is the young man Absalom safe ? " 
 What did kingdom or crown matter in that awful moment — 
 his son, his son ! And how many a heartbroken man and 
 woman, father and mother, have echoed that cry of anguish 
 
io6 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 after him, which burst from his lips when the talc of victory 
 was told. " O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom ! 
 would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my 
 son ! " Earth and Heaven are silent before that cry — there 
 is no more that words can say. 
 
 " And the king went up to the chamber that was over 
 the gate, and wept," the first place where he could hide his 
 head, caring to hear nothing more. In all literature there is 
 no such picture, so brief, so poignant and true. All policy, 
 all satisfaction in his deliverance were forgotten. " O my 
 son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son ! " This was 
 the cry that the returning victors heard as they came back 
 triumphant to the gates of the city, where, no doubt, the 
 scared and sorrowful people were standing about, wrung to 
 the heart by that outcry. The music stopped, the -warriors 
 huddled together, feeling, each man, as if he were a murderer. 
 They broke out of their ranks and " gat them by stealth into 
 the city, as people being ashamed steal away when they flee 
 in battle." Nothing could be added that would not diminish 
 the wonderful effect of such a description. The day was 
 won, yet it was as if it had been lost.^ 
 
 But so true, so real is the tale, that when Joab strides in 
 once more with his stubborn sense and practical force, even 
 the most deeply-touched spectator cannot contradict him or 
 disapprove. Short of that removal of the rebel, what peace 
 could there have been for Israel ? and the mourner who lay 
 there with his face covered from the light of day, was a king 
 first, and not a father at liberty to express his anguish. 
 " Thou hast shamed the faces of thy servants, who this day 
 have saved thy life, and the lives of thy sons and daughters," 
 says the stern captain with his coat and heart of steel ; " in 
 that thou lovest thine enemies, and hatest thy friends : for 
 thou hast declared this day, that thou regardest neither 
 princes nor servants ; for this day I perceive, that if Absalom 
 
 1 I need say nothing to those critics who find in David's attitude a hypo- 
 critical pretence at sorrow. They may know philology and other learned 
 sciences : but not the heart of man, that more wonderful thing still. M. Renan 
 is naturally one of those apes of genius who mock this profoundest utterance of 
 human sorrow. 
 
ABSALOM S PILLAR. VALLEY OF JF.HOSHAPHAT 
 
THE KING OF ISRAEL 109 
 
 had lived, and all we had died, then it had pleased thee 
 well." 
 
 David could not resist this voice of reason. For a king 
 there is little time for the indulgence of sorrow, or indeed for 
 any man or woman encompassed with the cares of life. Pie 
 descended from that retirement and sat in the gate, and 
 received the captains who came before him, discouraged, with 
 drooping crests, and such of the warriors as had not dispersed 
 already, half indignant, half sorry, to their homes. All that 
 he could do to make up for his momentary failure it is clear 
 that he did, but probably with but partial effect. And it is 
 equally clear that Joab, never beloved, was in disgrace from 
 that day. No doubt David heard of the personal share he 
 had in the slaying of Absalom, and resented doubly on this 
 account the abrupt disturbance of his seclusion by the very 
 man who had struck the blow. He made overtures to 
 Amasa, who had been Absalom's general, with some thought 
 of policy perhaps, but assuredly more in bitterness and deep 
 resentment. He would have nothing more to say to those 
 sons of Zeruiah, who had always been as thorns in his flesh. 
 When Amasa failed him, or seemed to fail, on a later occasion, 
 it was to Abishai, the less important brother, and not to 
 Joab, whom David turned. But it was not long before that 
 determined man regained, in his usual unscrupulous way by 
 bloodshed and force, the command which was evidently his 
 by right of nature. Whatever private feeling might do or 
 say, this great general was not to be put aside or ignored. 
 
 David came back to Jerusalem in a kind of melancholy 
 triumph. He would have no vengeance taken upon the 
 miserable Shimei who came down, like a cur, to the bank of 
 Jordan to proffer his abject prayer for pardon. " Shall there 
 any man be put to death to-day in Israel ? for do not I 
 know that I am this day king over Israel ? " he said. It is 
 bad for David's fame that the matter did not rest there : but 
 the most sentimental spectator could scarcely feel any sym- 
 pathy for Shimei in his baseness. And David was lavish in 
 his gratitude to Barzillai, the aged chief of Gilcad, who had 
 succoured him in his distress. * His conduct to Mcphibosheth, 
 
THE HOUSE OF DA VI D 
 
 the son of Jonathan, whom he had protected all his life, is 
 less creditable : he had made a hasty promise of all that his 
 master possessed to Ziba, the steward of Mephibosheth, who 
 had hurried after him on his flight with provisions for the 
 retinue, and a false story of his master's hopes of recovering 
 the kingdom. When the lame prince came hurrying out to 
 the gates to meet the king, David — his heart heavy no doubt 
 as he approached that fateful place where such orgies had been 
 held in his absence, where Absalom had flashed through his 
 brief reign of a day, where all the events of that brilliant 
 young life, which was now over in trouble and shame, had 
 taken place — was in little case for other thoughts. This 
 lame son of Jonathan, this disabled man, lived and was faith- 
 ful, while the tragedy of the other was ended. There are 
 moments when even the goodness of another is bitter to us 
 in comparison with the failure of our own. And he was 
 weary and sick at heart with all the demands upon him which 
 triumph and victory made. When it was made apparent to 
 him that his decision in favour of Ziba had been a rash one, 
 he replied in that weariness and impatience with which a man 
 harassed beyond his powers turns from the error he cannot 
 undo : " Why speakest thou any more of thy matters ? I have 
 said. Thou and Ziba divide the land." It was unjust and 
 unkind, but David was driven to the end of his strength. 
 Was it not enough that he had to keep a smile upon his 
 face, to keep up a joyful bearing, to reply to the plaudits and 
 the songs, to look as if he were coming back as a conqueror, 
 proud and glad of the downfall of his adversary — although 
 his adversary was his son, his best beloved for whom he 
 would willingly have given his life ? That fierce son of 
 Zeruiah behind him, with his stern reason would not spare 
 David a jot of the triumph. Perhaps it gave him a little 
 ease to thrust poor Mephibosheth from him, Mephibosheth 
 who had understanding, who did not insist, but fell back 
 from the path of the suffering king. 
 
 After this return to Jerusalem there is but little remain- 
 ing to record of the life of David. There was another 
 rebellion, that of Sheba the s'on of Bichri, of which we are 
 
THE KING OF ISRAEL 
 
 told little except in so far as it affected the disgraced general, 
 Joab, who took the opportunity in his old trenchant way 
 to rid himself of the man who had been put over him — 
 Amasa, his cousin, who had been Absalom's general, and 
 whom David had promoted, whether from policy or from a 
 perverse regard for the man who had been his son's support, 
 even against himself — or from sheer hatred of Joab and 
 determination to get rid of him, it is impossible to say. 
 Amasa had been a laggard, had not done all that was 
 required of him ; and Abishai had been sent out in his 
 place to lead the hosts of Israel, Joab and his men follow- 
 ing, apparently without any protest. But after Amasa was 
 killed we hear of Abishai no more. Joab must have stepped 
 into his natural place the moment the army was in the field 
 and generalship was needed — generalship and policy as well. 
 For it would seem that there was need of caution in dealing 
 with the agitated country, and when the rebel had been 
 tracked to his last stronghold even the fierce commander- 
 in-chief was glad to secure a victory without bloodshed 
 through the means of that woman of Tekoah who spoke 
 to him from the wall. Joab, it is evident, did not despise 
 the mediation of a mother in Israel. He had himself 
 employed the same means in former times. And it is a 
 curious instance of the singular mixture of respect and dis- 
 respect with which women were treated in these primitive 
 times, that we see them on one page exposed to the 
 unimaginable careless cruelty practised by Absalom, and 
 by almost every usurper, the last affront that could be 
 offered to a deposed monarch without any consideration of 
 the immediate victims ; and on the next find a woman 
 negotiating for her city, describing herself with the confidence 
 of an assured superiority as " one of those who are peaceable 
 and faithful in Israel." "A mother in Israel." The same 
 anomaly, however, still exists in the East. It is no doubt 
 an instance of the great power of individual character in 
 the primitive conditions of life. 
 
 There are other details of David's life into which wc 
 can scarcely enter. His conduct to the house of Saul had 
 
THE HOUSE OF DA VI D 
 
 been hitherto almost free of reproach : but it is hard to 
 account for the giving up of those sons of Rizpah who, 
 nameless as they are, have found a place in everlasting 
 remembrance from the devotion of their mother. Let it be 
 said in qualification of his conduct that as soon as he was 
 told of Rizpah's terrible watch he lost no time, himself an 
 ever-mourning father, to give what consolation was possible 
 to her misery. Otherwise, save in that other moment of 
 trouble at the gates of Jerusalem, when poor Mephibosheth 
 was mulcted of half his lands, he was never unfaithful to his 
 vow to Jonathan, or allegiance to his early patron. The 
 troubles of Saul were of his own seeking. David was not 
 the origin of any of them, but throughout, with these 
 exceptions, bore himself with magnanimity and generosity 
 of the most chivalrous kind. 
 
 And towards Israel he never failed, unless in those 
 mysterious numberings of the people — the repeated census, 
 which seems harmless enough, and was so evident a suggestion 
 of legislation : yet which were in some strange way imputed 
 to him as offences against God. At all events they 
 cannot in any way be considered a transgression of 
 morals. He made his people great, he welded the tribes 
 together as never had been done before, and made a united 
 kingdom of the differing clans and districts which had been 
 so apt each to fall into a little local centre of its own. He 
 turned the little Jebusite city into a capital, distinct in the 
 history of the world, and to be renowned through all time. 
 It was he in whose fertile mind first rose the conception of 
 that great Temple, which was one of the marvels of the 
 ancient world. And whatever the caviller and critic may 
 say in the uncertain, often mistaken, constantly superseded 
 suggestions of their science, which at the best cannot be 
 more than conjecture, there can surely be no evidence half 
 so weighty as the tradition of his race and the internal 
 witness of these noble poems, against his character as a 
 poet. After thousands of years even his words, the ex- 
 pressions of feeling which belong to his life rather than to 
 his works, his wail for Absalom, his remonstrances with 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 113 
 
 Saul — come to our lips still as the expression of our 
 deepest emotions. And no other poet, not even Shake^ 
 speare, has entered so deeply into the hearts of all men. 
 The race of mankind has " considered the heavens " for 
 all these centuries, yet has never found anything so 
 magnificent to say of them as the words in which the 
 shepherd of Bethlehem, the King of Israel, described 
 the sun as coming like a bridegroom out of his chamber, 
 and rejoicing like a giant to run his race. The astron- 
 omer may tell us that the sun does not move, that the 
 description is inaccurate, just as the philologist tells us, but 
 on far inferior evidence, that the Psalm is the interpolation 
 of some nameless scribe. But the astronomer is a fool for 
 his pains : for to us mortals as long as we live under the 
 conditions of earth, the sunrise and the sunset are as certain 
 as our own existence. And the moon and the stars which 
 God has ordained, which are the Divine language by which 
 day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night shewcth 
 knowledge, are to us as they were to the ancient singer, the 
 lamps of heaven, the lights of this little earth — of which we 
 are not more sure in our advanced knowledge that it is but an 
 atom in boundless space, than he felt it to be in his sublime 
 ignorance when he cried in the midst of that overwhelming 
 glory, " What is man, that thou art mindful of him ? " 
 What Newton, what Herschel, could say more ? 
 
 Thus said David, if the evidence of the most carefully 
 preserved records in the world is not altogether without 
 truth : and if, what is more infallible still, the indica- 
 tions of true literary criticism, the truth to nature, the 
 accord of those great lyrics with the occasions of a 
 much troubled life, are not without truth — which latter 
 we believe to be impossible, even should there be any 
 weakness in the tradition. The story and the song 
 illustrate each other, and give and take a mutual interest. 
 They show David to us as a man ready to the touch of 
 every emotion, open to all nature, moved, like the harp upon 
 which he played, by every breath, pouring forth his com- 
 plaints, his adorations, his triumphs, the depths of his soul on 
 
 I 
 
1 14 THE HOUSE OF DA VI D part i 
 
 the frequent occasions when that fervent soul was deeply 
 affected, with a voice which is now like the softest air of 
 heaven and now like the storm that rends the rocks ; and 
 in which no note is false, whether it is that which celebrates 
 the springs that run among the hills, and the birds that sing 
 in the branches — or that which declaims the grandeur of 
 Him who flies upon the wings of the wind. This great 
 singer, this impetuous, impassioned prince, this man whose 
 voice is as distinct and far more magnificent than that of any 
 contemporary we know, proves his own reality by every 
 sign of genius and life. 
 
 The man after God's own heart ! to many this has 
 been a wonder and stumbling-block, remembering Uriah and 
 all that wild and terrible story. It is no excuse to say that 
 it is a story which would never have been remembered or 
 thought of in the history of any other Eastern king, who 
 probably would have bow-stringed Nathan for his remon- 
 strance and thought no more of it. But great as that sin 
 was, it was bitterly expiated. The severest judge could not 
 have desired a more terrible punishment for the worst 
 criminal than the stormy history of these few years in 
 David's house, the tragedies of Amnon and of Absalom, 
 the flight and return of the father-king who could not draw 
 his old sword, the sword of Goliath, against his son, and was 
 not permitted to mourn for him. To follow him in his 
 triumph as he rode back through Jerusalem, received with 
 acclaim, every gay carpet and garment hung out, the whole 
 city shining with joy and welcome : and Joab behind him, 
 the murderer of his boy, great Joab, the greatest warrior of 
 his day, the most successful general, with a stern eye upon 
 the king lest his smile should fail, and the outcry of his 
 heart break forth : and not to fling himself on David's side, 
 to take the part of that sufferer, is impossible, we think, to 
 any sympathetic reader. But in all this, as we say, he took 
 his punishment like a man — if we except, perhaps, that 
 moment when his courage gave way altogether at the sight 
 of Absalom in rebellion, and he fled in what seems like an 
 undue and humiliating panic from Jerusalem, a panic which 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 115 
 
 the recollection of Nathan's message years before, mingled 
 with the pang of so unnatural a pursuit, can alone account 
 for. It is evident that this, too, was an element in a 
 character so full of the play of human emotion, so sensitive 
 to love, so doubly sensitive to hate. His first flight from 
 Saul has the same element of panic in it, a sense of the 
 intolerable, as if life were over for the man against whom 
 his own familiar friend, his almost father in one case, his 
 favourite son in the other, had turned. In both cases that 
 quick overwhelming movement and sudden despair have 
 something cowardly in them to our more self-restrained and 
 impulse-concealing race. 
 
 But it is this very play of feeling which makes him so 
 full of attraction, so supreme in the affections of his surround- 
 ings, that the historian translates his charm and fascination 
 of nature by that superlative phrase. His life is a poem 
 from beginning to end, not a point in it which does not 
 touch the spectator. His early youthful imaginative valour, 
 that quintessence of boyish daring which made of him at 
 once, fresh from the sheepfolds, a hero, and prince among 
 his people : the love that sprang into life everywhere 
 on the appearance of the beautiful youth, half wondering, 
 half adoring, the love of the fickle Michal, and the faithful 
 Jonathan — and scarcely less the unjust and bitter hatred 
 produced by no act of his, the jealous dread of Saul's moody 
 spirit : the cruel reverses that followed his good fortune, the 
 wanderings in the desert, the drama of that roving life, the 
 magnanimity and chivalric generosity of his conduct to the 
 king : every incident as it occurs leads on the imagination 
 as through the most perfect composition of romance. The 
 extraordinary vitality and activity of thought and emotion 
 which never flag, the hasty succession of great impulses, with 
 the occasional break of a withdrawal equally hasty, as when 
 overwhelmed by awe he leaves the Ark on the way, and 
 hurries home disappointed in imaginative alarm and distress, 
 all carry us along with him in a rush of sympathy and 
 interest. The story of Bathshcba breaks in with a sudden 
 violent light of passion into the talc, the keenest flash of 
 
Ii6 THE HOUSE OF DAVID vart i 
 
 illumination surrounded by the most sombre shadows. 
 When it is over, that sudden tragedy, we see the sinner 
 prostrate in the dust, unresistant, self- condemned, without 
 a thought of excuse or apology. Neither does his historian 
 put forth for him any plea. And then the unquenchable 
 life springs up again and a hundred projects throb and 
 quicken in his brain. A splendid city, the joy of the whole 
 earth — a still more splendid house of God : and then again 
 the pause, the crushing disappointment, the quick recovery. 
 A man of impulse throughout, obeying in hot haste the 
 ideas, almost always generous and noble, that crowd into 
 his mind, the quick inspirations of a great genius — there is 
 a spontaneousness, an unconsciousness, a warm spring of 
 nature in everything about him which is an unfailing delight. 
 He is a perfect impersonation of humanity, so genuine a 
 man all through, so unguarded, so little given to any arrange- 
 ment of circumstances or calculation of self-interest 
 (notwithstanding the quick eye of Eastern policy, which 
 could not overlook a visible advantage), that the ima- 
 gination is never weary of him. An erring man with 
 hot and unruly passions, a hasty soul plunging into many 
 snares, a father how foolish, how fond, how over-trusting ! 
 Yet with a splendour of force and purpose in him which 
 carried all before it, not to speak of that stubborn and dark- 
 browed Joab behind, who opposed and bullied and remon- 
 strated, yet always with a fierce devotion, fascinated and 
 held captive through all disapproval and opposition. 
 
 David returned, no doubt, after this terrible break in his 
 life, to all his occupations, and specially to his plans and 
 designs for the Temple which he was not to build : and pro- 
 cured himself a little distraction, let us hope, from sadder 
 thoughts, in overlooking the artists from Tyre as they de- 
 vised decorations and embellishments, perhaps suggesting 
 himself, adding a rough sketch, an idea for the carving of a 
 capital, for the wreathed flowers of a cornice ; or arranging 
 with Asaph and his men the service that was to be, the 
 chorus and antiphon, the adagio and allegro of the music, 
 and how to fit to its primitive strain the verses which critics 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 117 
 
 tell US are so rude and ill-adapted for music, of his primitive 
 Hebrew — which nevertheless must have been the best Hebrew 
 facing in that day or long after, as it has ranked among the 
 noblest poetry going through all the centuries since then. 
 But a chill would seem to have come over that bright spirit 
 in his later years. It is no strain of the imagination to 
 believe that it was said in Jerusalem of the king that after 
 the death of Absalom he never held up his head again. 
 How often have such words been said ! Calamity comes, 
 death comes into his house, when a man is still in full vigour, 
 his eye not dim, nor his natural force abated : and soon every 
 bystander will tell you with shaken head and bated breath 
 that he has never held up his head again. It is true that 
 in those thanksgivings for delivery in which the entire 
 assembly took part, those who had unthreaded the rude 
 eye of rebellion, and those who came up when all the trouble 
 was over to congratulate the king — there is no diminution of 
 energy or force. Perhaps the very heat and passion of his 
 grief made it more possible to him to keep up in this way 
 the fictitious joy which Joab and policy insisted upon in his 
 return to his capital. And it must have been a relief for 
 the sorely wounded father to put the blame upon Ahithophel 
 and other evil counsellors, and to exult with stern delight 
 in their overthrow. How the air of Jerusalem must have 
 rung again, and what a shout passed over the valley when 
 the choirs answering to each other poured forth their song ! 
 
 TIic Lord is my rock. 
 And my fortress, 
 And my deliverer ; 
 
 In Him will I trust : 
 
 He is my shield, 
 
 And the horn of my salvation, 
 
 My refuge, and my tower. 
 
 I will call upon the Lord, 
 
 Worthy to be praised : 
 
 So shall I be saved from mine enemies. 
 
 The waves of death compassed me about, 
 The floods of ungodly men 
 Made me afraid ; 
 
ii8 THE HOUSE OF DAVID 
 
 The sorrows of hell compassed me about 
 The snares of death 
 Stood in my way ; 
 
 In my distress I called upon the Lord, 
 
 And cried unto my God : 
 
 And He heard my voice, 
 
 And my cry entered into His ears. 
 
 I have pursued mine enemies, and destroyed them ; 
 I have consumed tiiem, and wounded them : 
 Yea, they are fallen under my feet. 
 
 For Thou hast girded me with strength for the battle : 
 Them that rose up against me 
 Hast Thou subdued under me. 
 
 Then did I beat them as small as the dust of the earth, 
 
 I did stamp them as the mire of the street. 
 
 And spread them abroad as the dust before the wind. 
 
 For who is God, 
 Save the Lord 1 
 And who is a rock. 
 Save our God ? 
 
 God is my strength and power : 
 He maketh my way perfect. 
 And my feet swift as the hinds'. 
 
 He teacheth my hands to war ; 
 
 So that the bows of steel are broken. 
 
 He setteth me in my high place. 
 
 The Lord liveth ; 
 And blessed be my Rock ; 
 And exalted be the God 
 Of my salvation. 
 
 With .such strains as these the Levites answered to each 
 other in their companies, and the harps and the psalteries 
 thrilled the air, while the king in his high place, and the 
 warriors fresh from battle stood by, and the concourse of the 
 women, a many - coloured crowd, moved and murmured 
 through the courts outside, around the folded curtains which 
 concealed the Ark, the symbol of God's protecting presence 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 1 19 
 
 and of so many victories past. But David, though he gave 
 expression to this cry of triumph, went back mirthless to his 
 house with death in his heart. 
 
 One great pubh'c ceremonial still remained in the life of 
 David. It had probably become apparent to all that in the 
 tumultuous state of the king's house, to avoid the inevitable 
 struggle that must come afterwards, it was necessary that he 
 should solemnly select and appoint his successor. How it 
 was that the choice fell on Solomon, whether because of his 
 intrinsic qualities or from the special love borne by his father 
 to Bathsheba, there is no mention in any of the histories : 
 but in Chronicles it is fully related as the immediate choice 
 of God and for a particular end. He was far down in the 
 list of the king's sons, but it may well have been that the 
 boy's natural greatness and superiority to the host of ordinary 
 young men about him was already apparent to all, though 
 that has seldom been an effectual argument with men. At 
 all events, upon whatever ground the choice was made, the 
 alleged reason for it was distinctly that of the great Temple 
 that had to be built and for which Solomon had been 
 indicated as the builder. In the solemn assembly of all his 
 chiefs and people which David held for the purpose of this 
 selection, there is no mention of wars abroad or legislation at 
 home, but solely of the house of the Lord which was to be 
 the great glory of the Hebrew race. " David assembled all 
 the princes of Israel, the princes of the tribes, and the captains 
 of the companies that ministered to the king by course, and 
 the captains over the thousands, and the captains over the 
 hundreds, and the stewards over all the substance and 
 possessions of the king, and of his sons, with the officers, and 
 with the mighty men, and with all the valiant men, unto 
 Jerusalem." He called together, as we should say, the great 
 officials of the kingdom, his ministers, the heads of depart- 
 ments, his privy-councillors and officers in high command, 
 the great men of the nation, with the military element pre- 
 ponderating as was natural — and presented to them his young 
 son, most probably to the great surprise of many, and no 
 doubt to the dismay and confusion of the elders of the family, 
 
THE HOUSE OF DAVID 
 
 and specially of Adonijah who was now the firstborn, after the 
 death of Absalom. The king himself would seem to have 
 felt that an explanation of this choice was necessary. When 
 he rose to address that assembly he reminded them how he 
 himself had been selected for the royal dignity : first Judah 
 " chosen to be the ruler ; and of the house of Judah, the house 
 of my father ; and among the sons of my father He liked me 
 to make me king over Israel." Among the assembly there 
 must have been many who remembered well the place which 
 David had held in his father's house : and all present were of 
 course aware that he was the youngest, and that his elder 
 brothers had served submissively in his army after the first 
 shock of his high distinction over them. When he had thus 
 established the antecedent, he set forth before them the reason 
 of his choice, which was that Solomon had been elected by 
 God to build His house. 
 
 It would seem that this house of God must have become by 
 this time an object of enthusiasm with Israel, as well as with the 
 king. They had all known his desire and his disappointment, 
 and the promise that had been made to him : and the object had 
 become a national one, kept always before the inhabitants 
 of Jerusalem and the provincial visitors to the capital by the 
 immense preparations which David was making, the hewing 
 of the great blocks of stone, the carvings which were intended 
 for the interior, the treasures of gold and silver which were 
 laid up for the decoration of that wonderful place. Jerusalem 
 must have been pervaded with the odour of the cedar which 
 was measured and piled up in masses of fragrant planks and 
 pillars : and throughout all Israel the women must have been 
 at work wherever there was one who was skilful in 
 embroidery, on sorne vestment or curtain. Thus it was 
 carried through every rank of the people, whose pride it was 
 to be, a great national work, an undertaking in which every 
 man should have his share. David told his parliament how 
 he had been hindered because he was a man of war with 
 blood on his hands, from this sacred work, and how God 
 had said " Solomon shall build me an house." One can 
 imagine the interest, the profound attention, of the assembly. 
 
THE KING OF ISRAEL 
 
 The ciders among them would feel with David the poignant 
 disappointment that the great work was not to be in their 
 day, but also that profound Eastern sentiment of satisfaction 
 in the establishment and continuance of their race, which was 
 doubly secured by the promise that their sons should carry 
 it out. And another promise was involved, one that must 
 have shed balm to the farthermost corner of the land, that 
 there should be peace upon Israel. Solomon was to be 
 no man of war like his father, but a king of peace. He was 
 to have rest from his enemies. The younger men among 
 the captains might hear the news without satisfaction, thinking 
 of promotion arrested, and no further spoils to bring home ; 
 but what balm the elder envoys would carry back with them 
 to the depths of the country, what encouragement to every 
 industry, what comfort to every heart ! " I will give him rest 
 from all his enemies round about : I will give peace and quiet- 
 ness to Israel in his days : for his name shall be Solomon." 
 It was in itself a promise and assurance to make the haras.sed 
 land rejoice. 
 
 When the king had made this oration he showed to his 
 assembled counsellors the preparations he had made, the 
 masses of hewn stone all ready for the building, the treasury 
 full of precious metals, the jewels, onyxes and glistening 
 " stones of divers colours " and marble in abundance, and 
 gold to overlay the walls of that precious house that was 
 to be. He showed them what had been the work of all 
 his later life, his collections of every kind, the results of 
 endless labour and thought. And, fired as they must have 
 been by the sight and by his glowing words, and invitation 
 to all to take their part in this great national undertaking, 
 the princes and the chiefs brought, in their turn, whatever 
 they had that was precious to add to the store, jewels no 
 doubt from many a source, taken from the necks of many 
 a captive, carpets of glorious colours, embroideries upon 
 which the women at home had spent their patient lives. 
 The wife working in the cool of the day at the tent door 
 or on the steps of her house had her .share like her lord. 
 There was a national contribution " offered willingly " from 
 
THE HOUSE OF DA VID 
 
 all the chiefs and the head men, and the treasuries of the 
 unbuilt Temple were filled to overflowing. 
 
 This was the last great public act of David's life. He 
 set his favourite project splendidly on foot, and settled the 
 succession of his kingdom, and made every arrangement for 
 the splendour of the age to come ; and then the princes dis- 
 persed — the parliament was closed, the keys turned on the 
 stores. Solomon went back to the quietude and training of 
 his youth, and David to such care of his kingdom as his 
 advancing age permitted : and then came that pause which 
 occurs continually in every history, the interval of every day 
 between the past and future, which happily has no record, 
 which is only our human life. 
 
 Almost the last stage of all seems to have been reached 
 in David's life, when another sudden disturbance came upon 
 the capital, dispersing the somewhat heavy and ominous 
 calm which hung over it, the weary suspense of an ending 
 life. David was old, shut up in his chamber under the 
 charge of his young nurse, unable for the weight of sovereignty, 
 and rarely seen, we may believe, in the city of which he was 
 the life and pride : and all men had grown weary of the 
 waiting, the pause in those celebrations and solemnities 
 which held the national life together. Solomon after his 
 solemn selection as the heir must have fallen back into the 
 quiet and occupied no prominent place : and it is no wonder 
 if the eldest of David's surviving sons, the legitimate heir 
 according to our modern ideas, a mature man in the full 
 force of life, deeply wounded and indignant no doubt by 
 that choice of a younger brother, an untried boy, to occupy 
 his place, should have made an attempt to recover his natural 
 rights. Adonijah was the next in succession after Absalom, 
 a " goodly man " like his brother, although of less strength, 
 fibre, and passion than he whom his father lamented so 
 deeply. And for the first time Joab, a man who under- 
 stood no such changes from the right of nature, who prob- 
 ably had an angry scorn for the woman who had been the 
 cause of so much harm, and resented the elevation of her 
 son : and to whom all those promises of peace and the dream 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 123 
 
 of the new Temple, and all the wasteful preparations for it, 
 were an offence : turned against the master to whom he had 
 been so rude an adviser often, but always so true a servant. 
 Yet probably he made it out to himself as no turning against 
 David but rather in his interest as well as that of the nation, 
 to set aside the foolishness of his old age, and establish a 
 successor after him who should follow the old conquering 
 traditions, and continue the old warlike life. What was this 
 boy Solomon that he should be chosen from among the 
 lowest ranks of the family, over the head of the gallant 
 prince who was the true heir ? Abiathar was of the same 
 mind, the priest who had been faithful to David through 
 all his troubles, who had been with him in the wilderness, 
 and among the Phili.stines, sharing all the evil as well as 
 the good of his life. It is very probable that even among 
 the priesthood there were two parties, one maintaining that 
 a tabernacle for the Ark was all that God had ordained, that 
 the Temple was but a dream, and all the silver and gold 
 more fit to be divided among the chiefs and people than to 
 be appropriated to this visionary use. To what purpose is 
 this waste ? Probably both Joab and Abiathar conceived 
 that it would be far more to the glory of Israel to diffuse 
 such wealth among the people than to accumulate it in this 
 one place, and alienate it from the use of man in order to 
 appropriate it to that of God, to whom it was as the dust of 
 the field. And Adonijah was the legitimate heir. They 
 were the true royalists, the legitimists of their day, the 
 Conservatives, or rather the Tories, of Israel, determined 
 against all innovations. And there is no doubt that they 
 had much reason on their side as well as force, with the 
 high priest and the commander-in-chief at their head, while 
 David dozed over the fire in his chamber in the chill and 
 lethargy of his old age. They might easily conclude that 
 they were delivering him, too, from the plotters about him, 
 from the influence of Bathshcba and Nathan, who had pro- 
 cured the elevation of that other young pretender to the 
 throne. 
 
 These great leaders, however, reckoned without their 
 
124 THE HOUSE OF DAVID parti 
 
 king. He was old, older than his years, for he scarcely seems 
 to have been more than seventy, which is by no means 
 invariably an age of decrepitude. And when the mother of 
 Solomon came in breathless with the news of the great 
 tumult in the city and the proclamation of the new king, and 
 eager appeal to him, and reminder of his promise that her 
 son should succeed him — followed immediately by the 
 prophet with the same news — David roused himself at once 
 from his lethargy and gave his directions, clear and brief 
 without any weakness or wavering. The king's name had 
 fallen into no contempt it is evident in Jerusalem, the city of 
 his own creation, for which he had done so much. And 
 when Solomon was led forth on the king's own mule, with 
 the heralds blowing their trumpets before him, the rebellion 
 collapsed in a moment. It was scarcely a rebellion indeed 
 at all. Adonijah, it would seem, was not a man to run the 
 risk of any irremediable act, nor were Joab and Abiathar 
 sufficiently bold to advise it. The legitimist party would 
 seem to have broken up in th'e most complete confusion and 
 panic, as if there was neither right nor reason among them. 
 They could have had no support from the people, and no true 
 soul even among themselves. The sound of the trumpets 
 blowing down from the city, and the other music which 
 accompanied them, when it reached the valley where the con- 
 spirators were assembled at Enrogel brought an immediate 
 pause. "Wherefore is this noise of the city in an uproar?" 
 The sudden news brought paleness to all faces and dispersed 
 the revellers like the chaff before the wind. Joab, remembering 
 well, no doubt, the many grievances that David had against 
 him, was the first to disappear from the scene. David's name 
 was stronger yet than any of their complots. The old king, 
 the old lion roused from his doze of age, and with a gleam of 
 long-restrained fury in his eyes, called to his bedside the son in 
 whose favour he had abdicated, the fortunate prince who was 
 to build the house of God, and make Israel glorious ; and 
 while the fading fire lasted gave him a few fierce brief coun- 
 sels, hot and bitter with that anger of old age which is all 
 the more strong that it has no longer any personal potency. 
 
CHAP. Ill THE KING OF ISRAEL 125 
 
 All that Joab had done came before him in a flash of angry 
 recollection, the death of Abner, the death of Amasa — who 
 can doubt, above all, the death of Absalom ? " Do thou there- 
 fore according to thy wisdom, and let not his head go down 
 to the grave in peace." Was this charge so dreadful as 
 appears to us ? Joab had served David well, but he had 
 never admitted any obstacle to his private vengeance, and he 
 was the most dangerous foe that young Solomon could have 
 while yet unassured upon the throne. That there should have 
 come into the old king's mind after this his own bitter 
 enemy and reviler, the Benjamite, who had thrown gibes 
 and curses and stones at him on his flight from Jerusalem, is 
 more difficult to understand. Perhaps the recollection flitted 
 across his failing mind in the temporary fury which the 
 name of Joab had raised. He had forgiven Shimei in order 
 not to stain with blood the day of his return to Jerusalem : 
 but had, perhaps, sgen reason since to regret his clemency, 
 and felt Shimei, too, to be a danger and probable enemy to 
 the new king. Upon this subject we can only conjecture. 
 The charge leaves a painful impression on the mind, as of a 
 man who could not in policy avenge his own quarrels, but 
 left the legacy of blood to his son. It can only be said 
 that not in these days nor for long centuries after had the 
 nobler thought that injuries were to be forgiven, not 
 avenged, been communicated to man : as also that the 
 flicker of suddenly- raised passion through decrepitude, 
 the last fierce impulse of a failing mind and temporary 
 outburst of the capricious fury of an old man's shattered 
 nerves and sinking strength, is scarcely to be laid to his 
 charge. 
 
 Here is a softer recollection, with which to take leave of 
 the hero, the song with which the words and the days of the 
 son of Jesse came to an end. " Now these be the last words 
 of David " — the young king, his eyes full of ardour and of 
 melancholy, the newly anointed, the great thinker and poet 
 of days to come, sitting thoughtfully by. 
 
 He that ruleth over men should be just, 
 RuUng in the fear of God. 
 
126 THE HOUSE OF DAVID parti 
 
 And he shall be as the light of the morning, 
 
 When the sun riseth, 
 
 A morning without clouds ; 
 
 Like the tender grass out of the earth 
 In the clear shining after rain. 
 
 Although my house be not so with God ; 
 
 Yet hath He made with me an everlasting covenant, 
 
 Ordered, and sure : 
 
 This is my salvation, and my desire. 
 
 There is something extraordinarily pathetic in the old 
 poet's comparison unspoken, of his own old and failing state 
 with that of him who was as the light of the morning : and 
 when we remember who that was, who was thus rising like a 
 morning without clouds over Jerusalem, the great ruler, the 
 most splendid and potent of all the monarchs of the East, 
 the sage whose disillusion has pervaded the whole earth, the 
 master and heir of all things, satisfied with none — the com- 
 parison grows more expressive still. 
 
 Thus David died, and the greatest romance of history, 
 let us seek it in what records we will, came to an end. And 
 Jerusalem sat solitary, as another poet in still deeper affliction 
 proclaimed of her in after days, and mourned for her king. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SOLOMON 
 
 The traditionary character of Solomon, the greatest potent- 
 ate and philosopher of the East, the man above all others 
 who has influenced the development of that vast world 
 of sentiment, passion and thought which the passage of 
 centuries has scarcely made more comprehensible to us, 
 the world of the subtle Jew and the dreamy, yet fierce 
 Mohammedan, was as different from that of his father as 
 can well be imagined. In such wonderful figures there is 
 certainly no heredity. How the warrior of the desert, the 
 shepherd of the hills and valleys, the paladin and hero of 
 romance who was his predecessor, could have produced that 
 man of observation and thought, that great spectator of 
 the ages, who was at the same time so great an actor on 
 the far distant and crowded stage that it is difficult to 
 conceive how little Judea could have contained him — is 
 beyond the imagination of man. He rises in that dim 
 distance the firstborn of all the philosophers, arriving at 
 conclusions which the latest have done little more than 
 carry out : the first great thinker, whose musings have 
 breathed through the whole world, neither corrected nor 
 rendered obsolete by all advancing lore or increasing 
 wisdom of mankind. What progress that race has made 
 since then ! how changed are all our conditions ! there 
 is no comparison between the circumstances of well- 
 being which surround the poorest among us, and those 
 precarious and painful conditions of existence in which our 
 
128 THE HOUSE OF DAVID parti 
 
 own early ancestors, much more the older ages of the world, 
 lived and died : yet beyond the rude poetry of David, and 
 the broken thoughts of Solomon, humanity has not advanced. 
 We express the loftiest aspirations of our hearts, and the 
 deepest and saddest convictions of our minds, in their 
 unchanged words to-day. Useless to attempt to examine 
 whether that poetry and those thoughts are but traditionary 
 of these two names, upon which subject we can never 
 perhaps arrive at any certainty either on one side or 
 the other. I have already ventured to say that when 
 the question is between unvarying tradition (not to take 
 refuge in any shelter of inspiration), absolute verisimilitude, 
 the accompanying picture of the two men of whose 
 history the Psalms and the Poem of Ecclesiastes are illus- 
 trations — and the researches of a small sect of German 
 philologists, I prefer to take the word of the older ages. 
 Since anyhow it must be a matter of faith in any case, the 
 evidence on the one side is, I think, infinitely more trust- 
 worthy than that on the other. But to the reader who 
 thinks that David had no share, even in the Psalms which 
 illustrate his life ; and that not Solomon but some nameless 
 sage is the author of Ecclesiastes, what can be said ? No 
 more, I think, than can be said to the man who believes 
 that Lord Bacon and not William Shakespeare wrote 
 Hamlet. This theory scarcely diminishes the antiquity to 
 our ken, and much increases the wonder of those surpassing 
 productions of genius. They come to us from the dimness 
 of a distance which there is no means of penetrating, and 
 remain still the earliest utterances of humanity, as they are, 
 so far as we are aware, upon their chief subjects, almost its 
 final word. Our ancestors in Scotland falsified history and 
 invented, to their own glory, a whole line of visionary kings : 
 but how far are they behind the splendid fictionists (according 
 to the critics) who flourished nameless among those primitive 
 Jews ! for Scots historians put no immortal poetry into the 
 mouth of their fabulous Fergus, no essence of human wisdom 
 to the credit of any Achaius. Solomon and his philosophy, 
 and David and his Psalms, on the contrary, are rooted among 
 
SOLOMON 129 
 
 the deepest certainties of the wide Eastern world which 
 brought them forth. 
 
 Solomon the man of rest is a new personality altogether 
 in primitive history. He rises out of that tumultuous, yet 
 vague, tribe of David's sons without any right of priority, 
 nay with almost the reverse, with, one would have imagined, 
 a prejudice against him as the son of the woman who had 
 caused the darkest tragic episode in David's life, chosen by 
 God in the exercise of a selection which, to our thinking, 
 might almost be called arbitrary, the same which took not 
 only David from the sheep-cotes, but Mohammed from 
 among the camel -drivers, and Dante from the Florentine 
 bourgeoisie, and Shakespeare from the actors of a primitive 
 theatre, to make of them, unheralded, unexpected, no better 
 than their neighbours, the instructors of a world. We are 
 not told even that Solomon was a " goodly man," to pre- 
 dispose Jerusalem to receive him, as she had tentatively 
 received his elder brothers. When he was led along the 
 stony streets upon his father's mule, with all its royal 
 trappings, the trumpets sounding before him, and, of all the 
 captains of Israel, only stout Bcnaiah behind, to where the 
 Ark within its tent stood awaiting the house in which he was 
 to enclose it, we may well imagine how the throngs in the 
 city, the men gathering in irresolute bands, the women at 
 every window and doorway, stood open-mouthed, not know- 
 ing for the moment which side to take. Adonijah's guests, 
 in all their bravery, had gone by but a few hours before 
 to the great feast in the valley which the splendid heir- 
 presumptive, the legitimate successor, was giving — and what 
 was this young prince, the man of peace, undistinguished yet 
 by either valour or greatness ? 
 
 The crowd must have gathered dumbly after him, 
 pouring down to the door of the tabernacle. But 
 when the priest came out from within the mysterious 
 curtains with the con.secrated oil, and in the sight of all 
 men anointed the grave young king, a sudden enthusiasm 
 would seem to have seized the crowd. The sound of the 
 uproar in the city blew downward upon the wind to the 
 
 K 
 
I30 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 cool margin of that well in the valley where Adonijah sat 
 with his guests. There was a moment, no doubt, of con- 
 sternation, of varying and panic-stricken thoughts, of pale 
 faces : and then the assembly melted hurriedly away. 
 Evidently the sound of those shouts was absolutely con- 
 vincing, and every man recognised that there was in David's 
 legitimate heir no stamina to stand against the young 
 usurper of his rights. Not so was Absalom ever abandoned. 
 Joab for once disappeared without a word to say. 
 
 It was no easy heritage which David left to his successor. 
 All the schemes of the harem were against him, the influence 
 of the priest Abiathar, still more the influence of the com- 
 mander-in-chief: and no doubt the prejudices of all the 
 military section of the people whose prosperity depended 
 upon war and plunder rather than upon peace and the arts of 
 peace. The summary manner in which he got rid of the 
 competitor to the throne, and of that obdurate and power- 
 ful Joab, whose unresisting end strikes us with amazement 
 after the masterful life in which he had carried everything 
 with so high a hand — must, however, have proved at once to 
 all Jerusalem looking on, that this new king though a man of 
 peace was not one to be trifled with or from whom any weak- 
 ness of clemency and toleration was to be expected. The man 
 of thought was also a man of action, prompt, trenchant, and 
 decided. No doubt it was policy which led him to make a 
 round of the ancient high places from which he was about to 
 take all the importance, and specially to that in Gibeon where 
 the ancient tabernacle of the wilderness, the tent in which 
 the Ark had been originally sheltered, with all its old-world 
 ornamentations, still stood, and the huge altar of brass upon 
 which sacrifices had been offered from the earliest days 
 of the national life. It would conciliate the people round, 
 perhaps startled by the idea that there was henceforward to 
 be but one centre of national worship in Israel to the dis- 
 credit of their own ancient shrine, that one of the first acts of 
 the new king should be to visit and offer innumerable sacri- 
 fices upon that altar. It is curious to realise what an 
 accompaniment to every religious service must have been 
 
SOLOMON 131 
 
 that odour of burning, the heavy smoke and smell of the 
 sacrifices, so much of them as was actually consumed upon 
 the altar, which all the incense, and the pure air of the open 
 eminences, the high places on which these altars were gener- 
 ally raised, could scarcely dissimulate. The best way of 
 doing so no doubt was that of the feast and reverent con- 
 sumption " before the Lord " of the greater part of the offering : 
 while the column of smoke ascending, so clear a symbol to 
 the mind of the beholder of the blood and fire with which 
 symbolically his own life, forfeit to justice, was redeemed, had 
 its aspect of stern yet solemn poetry as well, which must 
 have reconciled the minds of the people to this otherwise 
 disagreeable feature of their worship. There is not a word, 
 however, of this in all the record : no sensitive priest objected, 
 no worshipper had a complaint to make. The burning flesh 
 was a sweet savour unto the Lord. Close examination 
 however, shows that the amount thus consumed was com- 
 paratively small, so that, perhaps, the trial to the, in this 
 respect not very keen, perceptions of the East, might not 
 have been nearly so great as we suppose. 
 
 The remarkable vision which was vouchsafed to Solomon 
 in Gibeon, after he had accomplished all the rites of 
 religion there, is both touching and impressive, although we 
 are distinctly informed with greater emphasis than in any 
 other instance of a similar kind, that " Solomon awoke, and 
 behold it was a dream." Yet a dream full of instruction and 
 consolation. He was still " young and tender " according to 
 David's description ; " I am but as a little child " according to 
 his own. And his great heart was all absorbed in the thought 
 of that work which he had to do, inexperienced as he 
 was, and without help or counsellor. " Give therefore thy 
 servant an understanding heart, that I may discern between 
 good and evil." What more fit petition could be put forth by 
 any monarch ? It shows us better than anything else could do 
 that sensation of awe at his own responsibilities and absolute 
 preoccupation with them, which is one of the most impressive 
 aspects of royalty, and still more of royal youth. The ill- 
 fated heir of France wept in the tremor of that awe when 
 
132 THE HOUSE OF DA VI D part i 
 
 the news of his accession was brought to him ; and well 
 might he weep. Solomon was not of this mild nature : yet 
 his prayer shows the fixed idea of his mind, which was not 
 upon the splendours or greatness of his position, but on its 
 difficulty and the dread charge thus laid upon his shoulders. 
 " An understanding heart." We know little except in the 
 world-renowned example called par excellence the judgment 
 of Solomon which follows in the tale of the two women, of his 
 judicial wisdom : but that he possessed the understanding 
 heart in every sense of the words, his works leave no 
 manner of doubt. 
 
 The historian would seem to have considered that one 
 superlative instance of understanding and judgment to have 
 been enough, as who should stop to prove a thing so spread 
 about the world and everywhere known as the wisdom of 
 Solomon ? and, leaving that, transports us at once to 
 Jerusalem to the busiest scene of activity, the very climax 
 of life and occupation. The sheds and storehouses in which 
 all David's wealth of preparation for the Temple was laid 
 up, and where the armies of workmen he had employed 
 were busy in their labours, must have been outside the 
 gates, spread over the hollows where there would be room 
 for all their operations, yet near enough for constant super- 
 vision. The men must have clustered like bees about the 
 huge masses of stone which the excavators of our day have 
 discovered with amazement deep under the rubbish of ages, 
 the foundations of the great superstructure to come. They 
 look as if giants alone could have hewed them and elephants 
 dragged them to their place, though it was but the skilful 
 masons of Tyre with their Hebrew journeymen who 
 shaped and severed these prodigious blocks. The deep 
 quarries in which they were hewn and shaped lay close 
 by : and the workshops where the fine stone carvings were 
 prepared, the furnaces of the metal-workers, would all find 
 ample place in the valley between Jerusalem and Moriah, 
 along with the sheds for the carpenters with their piles 
 and stacks of fragrant wood. In the city itself, no doubt, 
 the fine work, wood-carving, and the beating out of the more 
 
TlIK WALL OK WAILINU : ANCIUNT WALL OK TBMFLB ENCLOSUKK 
 
SOLOMON 13s 
 
 precious metals into plates for the lining of the interior, and 
 all the ornamental work, in some cases adorned with pre- 
 cious stones, must have been carried on, in special workshops 
 and under close superintendence. It is apparent that all 
 this immense accumulation of industries must have been 
 going on for years during the reign of David, who had set 
 the masons to work to hew the stones, and " prepared iron 
 in abundance for the nails, for the doors of the gates and 
 for the joinings, and brass in abundance without weight " — 
 not to speak of the designs minutely prepared, and the cal- 
 culations of quantities and values required. How far we 
 may trust to the numbers and statements of weight it would 
 be difficult to say, for nothing is so likely to have suffered 
 in the course of innumerable transcriptions as these details, 
 which in many cases, and especially in the successive 
 numberings of the people, seem inconceivably large for so 
 small a territory. 
 
 What is more interesting is to realise the extraordinary 
 stir of national life which must have been occasioned by so 
 much employment, so much collected treasure, and the 
 growth of trade and communication with other surrounding 
 nations in the peaceful way of mutual use and service. 
 Tyre, the great trading centre of the age, was brought into 
 the closest relations to Jerusalem by this prodigious work, 
 and bartered her cedars against the grain and oil and wine 
 of the rich plains of Palestine, and lent her sailors to man 
 the ships that Solomon commissioned, and set up a close 
 alliance with those rude and warlike neighbours who were 
 now signalising their entrance into the brotherhood of civilisa- 
 tion and progressive life by so great an enterprise. Then 
 as now the Hebrews seem rather to have hired workmen 
 and skill in manufacture than to have produced them ; but 
 already the cunning of the negotiator and merchant must 
 have existed among them. They had long made use of 
 tributaries, the subject villages whose population had been 
 spared in their first inroad into Palestine, partly from weak- 
 ness and partly from policy, whose descendants probably 
 remain there to this day. And already the future manipu- 
 
■36 
 
 7'HE HOUSE OF DA VID 
 
 lators of European finance had found out the way of 
 exchanging the productions of their vassals, the Gibeonites 
 and Jebusites, who laboured the fields and worked the 
 winepress and crushed the oil-berries for them, for the manu- 
 factures of the trading Tyrians, and the wonders brought 
 from beyond the seas. This was their first introduction 
 
 A CEDAK OF LEBANON 
 
 into those commercial affairs in which they have had so 
 much importance since. 
 
 And thus the little hill city, built for defence upon the 
 rocks and declivities, with strait skirts gathered about her, 
 and a dwelling so steep that the lame and the blind were 
 supposed able to defend her against the boldest raid, ex- 
 panded in one generation into a great city enlarged and 
 beautified, towards which the wealth of the whole country 
 flowed, a centre of industry where every skilled workman 
 
SOLOMON 137 
 
 was sure of finding employment and every manufacturer 
 a market for his wares. The quickening of life, the new 
 activity, the change- from that restricted village fortress with 
 jealous gates ready to close at every rumour, is too mar- 
 vellous for description. Perhaps the momentary effect was 
 not at first one of improvement. If some old Jebusite 
 strolling forth upon the walls in the evening burst forth 
 into outcries of indignation like the wailings of Mr. Ruskin, 
 over the glow of the furnaces in the valley, the dust of the 
 masons' yards, which spread everywhere, instead of the 
 unbroken green and the breath of flowers that had been 
 wont to breathe upward upon the evening air, who could 
 wonder ? And when scaffoldings began to rise, and deep 
 pits of foundation to be dug, upon the green hill where 
 heretofore the peaceful labours of Araunah's threshing-floor 
 had been the only object which disturbed the serenity of 
 the landscape, the cornfields below and the terraced vines, 
 and here and there a group of feathery olives above — how 
 hotly would the old men talk of the ravages made by the 
 new ideas and the destruction of all that was most dear 
 and beautiful and homelike in that once verdant and fertile 
 scene ! No more an unbroken prospect of soft swelling 
 hills and green hollows, the Mount of Olives rising up to 
 the skies, the Kedron purling over its pebbles in the valley 
 below, the soft contour of Mount Moriah, one of those little 
 hills of Judah that were like lambs, filling the centre of the 
 scene — but all over the slopes, and in the low ravine beyond, 
 the disfiguring workshops, the gleam of the fires, the sound 
 of chisel and hammer, taking all the repose and sweetness 
 out of the air ! Thus the old inhabitant must have thought, 
 with a sigh for the good old times, when his own Jebusite 
 chief held the little town, and all was silence around : and 
 so, too, must have thought the group of old soldiers who 
 would look out, contemptuous, upon all those arts of peace, 
 and remind each other of the stirring trumpet notes when 
 great Joab, now dead and gone, or greater David, had called 
 them together and led them down, with clang of sword and 
 shimmer of spear, down into the plain to victory and spoil. 
 
138 THE HOUSE OF DAVID tart i 
 
 But while these old Conservatives had their grumble 
 apart, what robust life must have poured through the land 
 where everybody was busy, what commotion and activity in 
 all the streets ! Solomon, the young king, had other tastes 
 than his father. He made a splendid alliance with the 
 greatest of ancient kingdoms, bringing Pharaoh's daughter 
 to his palace on the hill, not contenting himself with any 
 wayside beauty as his father had done — Pharaoh's daughter, 
 a descendant of the race which had made slaves of Israel, 
 and which had suffered so sorely by means of that strange 
 and irreconcilable people ! What greater proof could be 
 of the new position of Israel and the final place which she 
 had won for herself among the nations of the earth when 
 the great King of Egypt did not despise her alliance ? 
 The Egyptian princess would come with new luxuries and 
 splendours in her train, always adding to the rising tide of 
 wealth and work and universal embellishment. And as 
 the seasons went on, and year followed year, the great 
 building growing on the hill would gradually absorb the 
 interest of Jerusalem, a perpetual object of observation and 
 criticism and remark, of national enthusiasm and pride. No 
 one could look out from the windows of the palace, from the 
 heads of the steep streets, from any housetop or rampart, 
 without seeing before him the rising walls, the vast edifice 
 taking shape, the great new thing slowly growing in white- 
 ness and noble proportion like a magic dwelling. The great 
 stones must have been dragged up the hill with shoutings 
 and outcries of men, and labouring breath of animals taking 
 their share, they, too, in their voiceless way, in the offering ; 
 but once there, were poised, without noise of building, one 
 upon another in their courses without sound of the hammer 
 or any. tool. It would become the first idea in the morning 
 with all that highly-stimulated and excited people to look 
 out and see how much had been done in the previous twenty- 
 four hours, what new doorway had become visible, what 
 sculptured lintel added, or wing of cherub, or wreath of 
 pomegranate. And what expeditions there would be on 
 the Sabbath Days and when the feast of the new moon 
 
SOLOMON 139 
 
 gave a little break in the continuity of labour, across 
 the valley where the forges and ateliers were for the 
 moment silent, to see the progress of that great object which 
 was the chief thing in life ! The women must have streamed 
 out in bands, with their veils and ornaments, to wonder and 
 admire and point out to each other the added height since 
 their last visit, the growth like enchantment of that house of 
 God which was more wonderful than any dream, and the 
 rising courses of the mighty wall surrounding it, rooted on 
 
 VAI.LEV OK JliHOSHAFHAT, Willi HOCK.s dl MLOA; 
 OP THE TVKIAN MASONS 
 
 the rock, from which, on the eastern side, they could look 
 down upon Kedron and the deep valley winding away south- 
 ward where, on the rocks of the opposite slope, the Tyrian 
 workmen had built their low houses, half excavation, half 
 construction, and on the quiet pool under the hill catching 
 the glimpses of the sun — the pool and the village of Siloam. 
 To us how full of wonderful association is that scene where 
 the Cyclopean blocks of the ancient foundations still lie securely 
 bedded in the rock ! the Mount of Olives, that sacred hill 
 of meditation, the road that winds along its side to little 
 Bethany round the corner of the hill, and deep down in 
 
I40 THE HOUSE OF DA VI D part i 
 
 the valley the old, old group of hoary trees which mark 
 Gethsemane, that spot full of awe and anguish. But no 
 such knowledge was in the mind of the lighthearted groups 
 which must have leant over to see the huge courses of new- 
 laid stones, the men explaining, the women wondering as in 
 any holiday expedition of to-day. These blocks of deepest 
 antiquity, perhaps, and certainly one other silent witness, the 
 dark mass of rock — now canopied and enshrined in one of 
 the most exquisite pieces of Oriental building, the so-called 
 Mosque of Omar, the Dome of the Rock — which may have 
 been Abraham's altar, but at all events is an unchanged 
 portion of the original hill-top — are the sole existing things 
 which saw the commotion and excitement of that day. 
 
 One other great work, a feat of engineering and con- 
 structive skill, must have been the bridges, the relics of 
 which have been found within this generation, with which 
 the deep but narrow valley between the city of David and 
 the Mount Moriah was crossed. The Arch called Robinson's, 
 and which is close to .the most ancient portion of the Temple 
 wall, now known as the wailing place of the Jews, where the 
 pilgrims of that nation or residents in Jerusalem still assemble 
 to repeat their litany of lamentation — and the other relic 
 near the south-east corner, known as Wilson's Arch, show 
 where those wonderful highways were. They crossed the 
 valley something in the same way as do the bridges in 
 Edinburgh, spanning the ravine, and making locomotion 
 more easy than when the slope of Zion on one side and 
 Moriah on the other had to be ascended and descended on 
 every passage. The acclivity of Mount Moriah on which 
 the Temple was placed was loftier than the terraced slope 
 upon which the new town of Edinburgh is founded, but 
 otherwise the North Bridge in that beautiful city affords a 
 good example of what Solomon's bridges must have been. 
 The Tyropoeon valley is now filled up with masses of ruin, 
 and houses built upon these masses, thus equalising more 
 or less the natural level, but still the ravine is sufficiently 
 marked and the bridge of Solomon, did it exist, would be a 
 great solace to the weary pilgrim, who has at present to 
 
CHAP. IV ' SOLOMON 141 
 
 descend the precipitous street of the city and mount again 
 long flights of steps to reach the area of the Temple, the 
 " Noble Sanctuary " of the Mohammedans, to whom it is, as 
 to us, though from different reasons, with one exception the 
 most sacred spot on earth. 
 
 It was not upon the Temple alone, however, that 
 Solomon, though it was his special mission, spent all his 
 thoughts. He would seem to have organised every kind of 
 industry and trade. His merchants, our authorised version 
 tells us, brought him " yarn out of Egypt," but this seems 
 based upon a mistaken translation, and it appears that it was 
 troops of horses which his messengers brought, and 
 chariots which hitherto had been rare in Judea, the strongest 
 arm of military service. He " made silver and gold at 
 Jerusalem as plenteous as stones," filling the country 
 with work and money, and the perpetual coming and 
 going of commerce. This it would seem could not be done 
 without a certain oppression of the people, corv^es as in 
 France, forced labour and interference with personal liberty 
 in order to swell the greatness of the king and kingdom. 
 The appeal of the elders of Israel in the succeeding age to 
 Rehoboam to case them of the grievous yoke which his 
 father had put upon them no doubt refers to this, a natural 
 expedient of the time, too common among the other races 
 to be remarked, though always resented by the fierce and 
 wayward independence of the Israelites. There is, how- 
 ever, no trace of resistance or discontent while Solomon's 
 powerful hand held the reins of state. His great alliances, 
 his great undertakings, the links of profit and mutual interest 
 which he formed between himself and all the surrounding 
 peoples, fully fulfilled the promise of his first years that he 
 should be a man of peace and have rest from his enemies ; 
 but yet he was no soft or effeminate prince, altogether 
 absorbed in the arts of peace. He would seem to have 
 extended the boundaries of Israel on all sides, and specially 
 to have completed the subjugation of those remnants of the 
 original people, the ancient Canaanitish races which the 
 invading tribes had not the strength, perhaps, let us hope, 
 
142 
 
 THE HOUSE OF DAVID 
 
 had not the heart to drive out of their cities. Neither did 
 Solomon drive them out ; he made of them useful servants, 
 sometimes indeed not much more than slaves, doing the hard 
 work to which the proud Hebrews would not bow their neck, 
 quarrying in the stony depths of the hills, and dragging the 
 loads of stones, the cargoes of wood from Jaffa, all the ruder 
 labours necessary. The number of these original inhabitants, 
 sometimes holding their own in spurts of little wars, as the 
 Jebusites had held their town against David, sometimes 
 
 VAMUCH, A PORT OF LEBANON 
 
 tolerated and linked by bonds of familiarity and neighbour- 
 hood with the conquering race, never so oppressed as were, 
 for example, the Saxons by the Normans, was evident^ 
 greater than we have any idea of, and continued to represent 
 a distinct element in the population for centuries, preventing 
 at all times the perfect homogeneity of the inhabitants of 
 Judea and the land of Israel, and the full realisation of the 
 promise. That a great part of the hard work of Solomon's 
 buildings fell upon their shoulders is evident, and as the use 
 of horses was a new thing, and the roads little adapted for 
 any cartage, all the heavy loads of material must have been 
 carried to Jerusalem either by mules or camels or by the 
 
SOLOMON 143 
 
 work of man. Neither mules nor camels could carry con- 
 veniently the great logs of cedar, still less drag forth the blocks 
 of stone from the quarries : therefore it must in some cases have 
 been by sheer hard labour of scores of men that the transport 
 was accomplished. All this heavy work would seem to have 
 been laid upon the tributaries, the aborigines of the country. 
 " Of the children of Israel did Solomon make no bondmen," 
 but the Amorites, Hittites, Perrizites, Hivites, and Jebusites 
 were levied en masse for this forced service. The corvee 
 would lose its unpopularity when thus exacted from the 
 natural vassals, and it does not appear that any rebellious 
 sentiment arose among those labouring crowds. The Israel- 
 ites filled the places of overseers and captains, and they 
 were sent to Lebanon, to the wood-cutting, in relays, their 
 period of service being one month in three. 
 
 How far all this quickened life and increase of work and 
 activity was to the real advantage and enrichment of the land, 
 however, it is very difficult to decide. A splendid capital is 
 a glory to a well-established and stedfastly-governed kingdom, 
 but it is doubtful whether the Israelites were sufficiently 
 tamed and civilised to appreciate it, or whether the distant 
 shores of Zebulun and Naphtali, the outlying tribes of Gad 
 and Dan, would care much for what went on upon the heights 
 of that far-off Jerusalem. The inhabitants of these regions 
 were described as " people that walked in dai"kness " so much 
 later as the times of Lsaiah, and it is scarcely po.ssiblc to 
 imagine that they could have felt a great interest in the 
 buildings at Jerusalem, for the sake of which they were 
 called upon to join the band of labourers, which made its 
 way every month through their country to Lebanon, unless 
 indeed it might be sweetened by pay and reward as is 
 doubtful. Yet even that train, travelling in its detachments 
 under its officers, increa.sed by contributions from every tribe, 
 must have caused a thrill of life and mutual acquaintance 
 through all the tribes as it went and came, with its new 
 experiences, so much to tfell of Jerusalem on one hand, and 
 of the mountains on the other : not to speak of the wonders 
 of the caravans from I'^gypt, the reports of the shij)mcn who 
 
144 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 went SO far into fabulous lands across incredible seas. The 
 country folk must have looked for the passing of that train 
 with all the excitement of rustics to whom a glimpse into 
 other worlds is thus afforded periodically. It is said in our 
 own days that nothing has so welded the newly formed 
 kingdom of Italy into one, as the military service which carries 
 the Neapolitan into the cities of the north, and makes the 
 hardheaded Piedmontese acquainted with Rome and Sicily, 
 revealing on all sides, to the astonishment of the narrow rustic 
 or narrower citizen, the unity of a great country, the Patria 
 which is something greater than the paese to which all his 
 thoughts have been limited. These journeys to Lebanon 
 and mutual occupation about one great work which was for 
 the glory of all Israel must, one would imagine, have had a 
 similar effect. And the continual passage of merchandise 
 and caravans could not but enrich the peasants who furnished 
 food for man and beast to the wandering traders and their 
 little army of camels 'and mules. It is possible, of course, 
 that the king's lavish expenditure on his buildings might 
 excite the discontent, especially of his subjects at a distance : 
 but scarcely credible that the increased movement and stir of 
 life and trade should not have benefited all. 
 
 Still more certain advantage must have been in the 
 reconstruction of ancient cities, the acquisition of new, in which 
 colonies of Hebrews could be placed, and the boundaries of 
 their sway enlarged. It seems very doubtful what is meant 
 by " Tadmor in the wilderness " — which has been generally 
 taken to be Palmyra, far away among the wilds, far beyond 
 Damascus, which for a great part of Solomon's reign was 
 unfriendly to him — unless indeed his workmen had attained 
 so great proficiency, both the Tyrian experts and their 
 Hebrew pupils, that they were sought for in their turn as 
 Hiram's workmen had been sought for, to form the mighty 
 columns and lay the prodigious stones of these wonderful 
 temples and palaces. It is now, however, considered more 
 probable that the desert on the other side, between Egypt 
 and Judea, is the wilderness indicated. But the narrative is 
 full of undertakings nearer home, " cities of stone," " cities for 
 
SOLOMON 145 
 
 his chariots and cities for his horsemen," the primitive vague- 
 ness of description revealing, if nothing else, a universal 
 activity and the continual addition of new centres of occupa- 
 tion and life. Still more wonderful is the glimpse into 
 immensity afforded by those ships which Solomon is said to 
 have built on the shores of the Red Sea, with their Tyrian 
 captains and overseers and Hebrew seamen, sailing away into 
 the unknown, a long uncertain three years' voyage, to the 
 mysterious land of Ophir, the wonderful ancient Arabia or 
 India whence gold and precious stones and sweet-smelling 
 sandal-wood, and, perhaps, some rare knowledge of inlaying 
 and fine works in ivory and gold, were brought. What were 
 the exchanges the subtle Hebrews, with their natural turn for 
 finance, would offer ? What could they bring that was not 
 already more plentiful in a world so overflowing with 
 primitive wealth ? Perhaps the wool and woven stuffs, the 
 embroideries of the women of Israel, the carpets and cloths 
 of goat's hair, the primitive furnishings of the tents. The 
 Venetians in their day, so much later, exported salt-fish 
 and wooden bowls and spoons, insignificant articles enough 
 to purchase the treasures of the East, but yet no doubt 
 answering to necessities still more imperative than any 
 need of luxury could be. The record does not enter into 
 these details. The voyages themselves are wonder enough, 
 the earliest record of extended trading and the navigation of 
 the unknown seas. And even the briefness of the statement 
 adds to its interest. What strange novelty, unknown to us, 
 who have so little left to surprise us, what excitement must 
 have been in that vague blundering about those brilliant seas, 
 what tragic experiences of cyclone and tempest, what loiter- 
 ing in strange places, waiting upon wind and weather, in the 
 long, long wandering of those three years ! 
 
 Was the Queen of Sheba, that mysterious and legendary 
 princess, the only royal visitor that came in her time out of 
 the invisible to sec the great king whose emissaries had 
 stirred the mists that veiled one part of the world from the 
 other ? She is, at least, the only one that makes a visible 
 appearance in the record, with her offerings and her great 
 
 L 
 
146 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 train, " the camels that bore spices and very much gold and 
 precious stones." Over what deserts had she come to see 
 the wonders of art and hear the words of wisdom that had 
 reached her in distant echoes so far away : or was she one 
 of the passengers in the returning ships, taking advantage of 
 those wonderful pioneers in the unknown seas ? This, of 
 course, we shall never know, nor who the lady was who 
 showed so great an appreciation of wisdom, nor even what 
 was the foundation of fact in the legend, to which its pictur- 
 esqueness gives an importance which it scarcely has in the 
 record. 
 
 How was it that this petty king, lord of a little land, no 
 bigger than Wales, filled the world with his greatness ? How 
 was it that his temple, which some of the critics of the present 
 day describe as a small edifice {edicnle M. Renan calls it) 
 not much more than a royal chapel, should remain down to 
 these times, after the passage of nearly three thousand years, 
 in the imagination and memory of the later ages, the symbol 
 of everything that is splendid and vast in architecture and in 
 riches ? The same critics tell us that in Solomon's time 
 there was a rage for building temples, and that all the little 
 nations were doing it, raising sanctuaries for their worship far 
 more imposing than that of Solomon. How is it then that 
 all of these have crumbled and departed, not only their 
 ancient walls — which is natural — but all memory and know- 
 ledge of them — while still the Temple on Mount Moriah 
 shines, where it stood three thousand years ago, in the 
 recollection of men ? The great temples of Egypt still 
 stand in solemn ruin, which were far more vast and 
 more splendid still : yet we have but the faintest under- 
 standing of them. Neither Tyre nor Sidon nor even 
 Egypt have sustained the remorseless destructions that have 
 swept over the holy place of the Jews : and yet they are 
 all gone into uttermost darkness, while the other remains 
 triumphant over time and all its revenges. . The vast blocks 
 of stone that recent excavators have laid bare fill us with a 
 wondering awe : but not upon them is founded the everlasting 
 memory which makes the Temple of Solomon as real to us 
 
SOLOMON 147 
 
 as St. Peter's at Rome, or our own minsters and abbeys 
 which our eyes have seen. The temples of the Greeks are 
 so much later that they are almost modern in comparison, 
 and their visible and splendid ruins are still wonderful in their 
 decay : but Solomon's Temple stands only in recollection, in a 
 history which has been a hundred times rent to pieces, and 
 which many a critic has fondly believed himself to have dis- 
 credited for ever : yet it stands as firm as when it was built, 
 a thing for reverence and admiration till the end of time. 
 One asks one's self why ? And hov/ is it that the heart of 
 the nineteenth century sobs forth its anguish in the words so 
 called of David and breathes over all earthly ways the sigh 
 which bears the name of Solomon ? Those to whom these 
 potentates of the ancient ages are the insignificant and half- 
 fabulous kings of an obscure people must answer after their 
 fashion. To the rest of us the explanation is sufficiently clear. 
 It is needless to touch here upon the immense place 
 which Solomon occupies in the imagination of the East, 
 or the mass of stories and incidents, many no doubt 
 quite fabulous, which have collected about his name. That 
 Mohammed should have adopted him with so much 
 fervour and faith is a proof of his legendary importance 
 among the peoples which were not his own, but which had 
 been already pervaded for ages by the reports and echoes 
 of his wisdom and his greatness. But we may with more 
 reason add to the brief record of his story the other produc- 
 tions, still more lasting than the Temple, which bear his 
 name. " The Song of songs, which is Solomon's " has 
 been represented by some writers as a popular ballad of his 
 time, setting forth how a certain beautiful maiden of low 
 degree clung to the shepherd of her choice and scorned the 
 advances of the king, a suggestion so completely foreign to 
 the character of the poem, in any natural interpretation, that 
 we leave it to those who can be persuaded into such a 
 theory. By others this poem, as well as Ecclesiastes, is sup- 
 posed to be the production of some anonymous poet of a much 
 later date, who, more disinterested than modern poets are, ex- 
 tinguished himself in order to place the name of Solomon on 
 
148 THE HOUSE OF DAVID i>art i 
 
 his work, for what reason it would be difficult to imagine. 
 It would have been as easy to have placed the name of the 
 real author and his description at the head of the poem as 
 that of " the Preacher, the Son of David," and more gratify- 
 ing to natural instinct, which never since has reached this 
 height of self-abnegation. Men have been found in numbers 
 to give their lives for their kings, to abandon comfort, and 
 happiness, and wealth for their sakes, but never once as in 
 this case to give up to them the dearer fame of poem or 
 work of genius. Such a piece of self-effacement is unknown 
 to any other language, to any race that ever existed. No 
 Greek gave the credit even of a ballad to the tyrant of his 
 state, or cut off his own name from the admiration and 
 knowledge of posterity in order to give fictitious glory to 
 his master. On what inducement the poets of Judea in 
 the dawn of consciousness should have done so, why they were 
 so far different (being so curiously like in other particulars 
 the most tenacious and self-seeking of men) from all other 
 human beings, is too deep a question for the ordinary intelli- 
 gence. We prefer to receive them, as at least from the 
 inspiration of Solomon, whether they may have been written 
 out or not, by his own hand. We are told that " he spake " 
 of many things upon which his utterances have perished : 
 beasts and birds, and trees and plants. The botany and 
 natural history, curious as they would have been, we can do 
 without. The greater treasure has been preserved for us. 
 
 The Song of Solomon has never had fair play, if we may 
 use such a word with the modern reader. Its strange mis- 
 placement (according to all nature and analogy) in the 
 sacred canon, the wonderful efforts that have been made 
 to twist its fervent strophes into a spiritual meaning, and 
 the strain of everything that is natural and seemly, as appears 
 to me, in the effort, has given a false character to the poem 
 from which it is difficult to disengage the imagination. 
 This, I am aware, is a very bold thing for the unlearned to 
 say, and I venture to say it only as one of the unlearned, 
 and according to mere literary instinct, no more. When we 
 treat it frankly as what it is, " a song of loves," it becomes 
 
SOLOMON 149 
 
 one of the most interesting relics of literature, the oldest of 
 love-songs, a little cantata, half lyrical, half dramatic, of the 
 happy meetings, the temporary estrangements, the mutual 
 adoration of the youthful pair, more beautiful to each other 
 than anything else on earth, and eager to prove to the world 
 around each, the superlative attraction of his or her choice. 
 The slight setting of the contemporary life by which the 
 lovers are surrounded, is clear as a picture. There are the 
 streets, the watchmen that go about the city, the keepers of 
 the walls, the silence of the night into which the lady strays 
 who has lost her love ; there is the spring awaking over all 
 the fields, the call of the lover to his love to come forth, like 
 Corinna to the maying. " The flowers appear ; the time of 
 the singing of birds has come, the voice of the dove is heard 
 in the land." There is the beloved at the window seeking 
 entrance, going " down " to his garden, to the beds of .spices, 
 to the gardens of nuts, to see the fruits of the valley, and 
 the budding of the pomegranates, to gather lilies ; or he 
 comes swift in his ardour over the mountains like a roe or 
 a young hart, or out of the wilderness " like pillars of 
 smoke," clouds of dust rising round the swiftness of his 
 coming. Whether it was the daughter of Pharaoh who 
 describes herself as " black but comely " while her lover 
 lavishes upon her every adoring attribute, or whether the 
 Shulamite was one of the many other loves with which the 
 king surrounded himself, who can tell ? Who indeed can 
 tell anything certain about this earliest of love-songs ? Its 
 broken canticles, its hyberbolc of Eastern detail, its love- 
 longing and wistfulness of pursuit, the constant eluding of 
 the supreme meeting which is the very soul of the love- 
 song, are perfect in their Oriental expression. And so are 
 the exquisite little vignettes of description, the glimpses of 
 the world around, which are so much le.ss important to the 
 singer than are the charms of his love, his fair one, the 
 fairest among women — or to her than the beloved who is 
 far more than any other beloved — 
 
 How shall I your true love ken 
 From another one ? 
 
I50 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part I 
 
 The sentiment is universal and runs through all the ages. He 
 is the chiefest among ten thousand : and of her she is but 
 one, the choice one of her mother : " there is none like her, 
 none." Sometimes she is even terrible in her beauty " like 
 an army with banners " to the adoring lover. The Jerusalem 
 that comes vaguely into sight behind these two beautiful 
 figures is settled and orderly, the slopes of its hills covered 
 with gardens, its inner economy safe and sure : — beyond its 
 walls, stretching out in the valleys, lie pleasant fields full of 
 vines and pomegranates and apple-trees : the rural paths are 
 sweet with flowers, lilies above all, of which it was said a thou- 
 sand years after, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 
 like one of these: a delightful link of association between 
 that far-distant scene and the past, less remote, which is so 
 much more momentous and dear. The great singer who 
 made the song may not have been Solomon, it may have 
 been out of pure loyalty to enhance his monarch's name that 
 he allowed it to Jdc attributed to Solomon ; or there may be 
 collected in it, strung upon the exquisite thread of its little 
 drama, other utterances of primitive song in celebration of 
 other beloveds. But it is full of unity from beginning to end. 
 Its passion is legitimate and chastened, not hot with anxiety 
 or any suggestion of the clandestine. It is a song of 
 espousals, of love with no darker shadow in it than the pass- 
 ing clouds, the little evasions, the keen momentary pang of a 
 meeting missed or a visit lost. 
 
 Ecclesiastes is a poem of a very different strain : yet there 
 is no discord between the two, nothing in one, though it is 
 the antipodes of the other, which could make us feel it incom- 
 patible that the author should be the same. On the con- 
 trary, that grave and musing philosopher who stands on the 
 eminence of maturity and experience, has by his own showing 
 sought with ardour all the triumphs and pleasures of life, and 
 tasted every joy, and fathomed every sweetness. Such a 
 man of all others is most like to have expanded himself at 
 once in the refinements and the ardours of sentiment, and 
 could scarcely have fallen into the monotonous garbage of so- 
 called passion during that youth of genius and high aspira- 
 
SOLOMON 151 
 
 tion " feeding among the lilies " which was capable of so 
 much finer things. He had now seen the emptiness of 
 all. Romance had died out from him : his Shulamite had 
 become like other women, his Egyptian princess a fellow- 
 creature moved with like passions as himself In all the 
 other pursuits of earth, having failed in this, he had sought 
 that supreme satisfaction which his heart had dreamed— and 
 found it nowhere. Not in wisdom, nor in pleasure, nor in 
 ambition, acquisition, any of those great things that excite 
 the wishes of men. His great public works, his agriculture, 
 his provisions of water for a thirsty land, those prodigious 
 reservoirs which still bear his name, his wonderful buildings, 
 his luxuries, his pleasures " the delights of the sons of men," 
 music in all its kinds, everything that was beautiful, had failed 
 like the rest. They occupied him but satisfied him not. 
 As soon as an undertaking was accompH.shed, he found it 
 to be vanity : it was neither so great as he had intended it to 
 be, nor did it produce the result he sought. Even in wisdom 
 and knowledge the end was the same : even justice and 
 equity failed to satisfy his soul ; for who could tell how soon 
 these wise decisions should be reversed, these able measures 
 overturned by the folly of the man who should come after 
 him, a sad but certain prevision which after events so con- 
 clusively proved ? 
 
 This last bitter thread of disappointment, the most 
 penetrating of all sad thoughts, the profoundest, perhaps, 
 of human griefs, runs through all his great and melancholy 
 musings, the same dread disappointment which had pro- 
 duced so much anguish to David. Yet David's had been 
 different, more violent, less like the canker that eats into 
 the life. Solomon was not a man to fight against a con- 
 clusion like the hotter human heart of his poet father ; nor 
 was his son a warlike, ambitious Absalom, which might 
 jjerhaps have been borne — as we think always of the griefs 
 that are not our own. What an end was that to all his 
 plans, his manifold designs and imaginations, the greatness 
 which had spread through the world, that he should be 
 succeeded by a fool ! We do not know nor does he tell 
 
152 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 US the preliminary steps which brought him to that convic- 
 tion, nor how, after the first almost equally discomposing 
 thought that he knew not who should come after him, the 
 succession out of his host of children should have been 
 changed and his choice narrowed down to Rehoboam, the 
 son of a mother quite undistinguished, an Ammonite, a 
 heathen woman, one of those for whom the too tolerant king, 
 — perhaps thinking lightly in his wisdom of the distinction 
 of names, and with a conviction in his great soul that every 
 god to whom offerings were made was but an adumbration 
 to the ignorant of the one God that filled heaven and earth — 
 had created a place of worship upon Olivet. Had he speci- 
 ally bound himself in the heat of passion to this woman that 
 her son should be his successor? or had the unhappy choice 
 been forced upon him by some untold calamity, some depth 
 of personal disappointment or sorrow, the absence of other 
 progeny, so unlikely in such a case, or the inroads of death ? 
 This can never be known to us : but it is curious 
 that while two daughters of Solomon are mentioned in 
 the record there is not a word of any other son : a silence 
 which of itself is full of suggestion, and seems to indicate a 
 still more profound depth of sorrow or destitution below. 
 Whether there had never been any others, whether they had 
 been swept out of his house by calamity, here he remains in 
 the end of his life, a wise man conscious that his successor 
 will be a fool. What were all his labours worth in sight of 
 that listless or frivolous boy, who was the heir of all ? perhaps 
 beloved as Absalom was, but concerning whom his father's 
 melancholy insight prevented all illusion. This also was vanity, 
 the most bitter of all. It is the keynote of the sorrowful 
 strain which is full of the composure of despair. The great 
 stillness of these musings is broken at the end with an 
 impassioned appeal to the young man rejoicing in his youth, 
 with which, perhaps, in the pathos of human weakness he 
 might have hoped to reach that careless heart. Perhaps the 
 shout of the revellers came borne upon the evening breeze 
 to the ear of the philosopher as he sat musing over all those 
 great achievements, pursued and carried out with such ardour 
 
SOLOMON 155 
 
 and delight which now began to appear to him like the 
 wrecks of life — who can tell ? That, too, was vanity, the last, 
 the most bitter, the most hopeless of all. 
 
 There is, however, something besides, another element 
 to modify this refrain which has been caught up all over 
 the world and through all the ages, and is, in one sense, 
 the unalterable verdict of humanity upon itself. There is 
 and always will be a revulsion of the soul in resistance to 
 so dreadful a conclusion : as well as also an indignant resist- 
 ance to that still more dreadful sense of the nullifying and, 
 as it were, annihilation of all the results ot a great man's 
 life, and even of his individuality, which is involved in the 
 sweeping downfall of every trace and effect of him, brought 
 about by the folly of another. The heart rises against this 
 profound injustice, the heaviest doom of nature and the one 
 which can be least guarded against. But it seems to me 
 that in no production of human genius is the alternation of 
 two different aspects of life so well set forth as in this great 
 poem, which has been taken by the world only as the dread 
 proclamation of one burden. Solomon, however, does not 
 insist more strongly upon that conclusion of all mortal things 
 that " this is vanity," than he does upon the individual 
 balance to it which we so often lose sight of and continually 
 ignore, the great compensation of the labourer whose work 
 .so often must come to nought. " There is no good but for 
 a man to rejoice, and do good. And also that every man 
 should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labour." 
 "It is good and comely ... to enjoy the good of all the 
 labour that he taketh under the sun . . . and to take his 
 portion and rejoice in his labour . . . because God 
 answereth him in the joy of his heart." This is not the 
 doctrine of the Epicurean though it may seem so to a super- 
 ficial glance. It is the deep conviction of the sorrowful man 
 who has had everything, and possesses all, and knows that 
 everything he pos.scsses is slipping from his grasp. He has 
 laboured above the power of ordinary men, looking con- 
 tinually for .some supreme result. He has embarked ujK)n 
 great undertakings and pushed them on with ardour to 
 
156 THE HOUSE OF DA VW parti 
 
 their end, with the swift concentration of every faculty upon 
 them, with the ever-renewed and ever-failing hope that in 
 that end will be the satisfaction, the sublime content, the 
 rest from his labours, which every man desires. He has 
 added city to city, and land to land, he has built temple 
 and palace :— and these being not enough has added ever 
 and ever some new thing, the house of the forest of Lebanon 
 on its fragrant thicket of pillars, and Gezer and Beth-horon 
 with their new colonies, and the storehouses, and the stables 
 and a hundred things besides : — but all the while in the 
 folly of his wisdom— for is not he, too, the wise man himself, 
 in this a fool ? — has not perceived till now that the work and 
 labour were the joy, and not the always imperfect, never 
 accomplished end. To rejoice in his labour because God 
 answcreth him in the joy of his heart ! Here is the one 
 thing that is not vanity. It is in the happiness of making, 
 of producing, of exercising the faculties that God has 
 given, of conceiving in his heart and working out with his 
 hands the work which he loves. A smile comes even upon 
 that sorrowful face at the thought of the working days, the 
 peaceful evening of rest, the awaking to all the joys of active 
 life. No more beautiful picture of the cheerful tenor of the 
 common life, the modest man among his fields, the workman 
 at his work, was ever made than that which comes from the 
 lips of this dark and sad philosopher upon the desolate 
 heights of being, warning the world that all is vanity. Yes. 
 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher. But yet — 
 
 Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry 
 heart ; for God now accepteth thy works. 
 
 Let thy garments be always white ; and let thy head lack no 
 ointment. 
 
 Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life 
 of thy vanity, which He hath given thee under the sun : for that is 
 thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under 
 the sun. 
 
 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. 
 
 " To rejoice in his labour : this is the gift of God." So 
 speaks the philosopher, the first great pessimist, who has 
 
SOLOMON 157 
 
 had this gift above most men, and thought little of it accord- 
 ing to the ways of man, always hurrying forward to a result 
 which, when attained, was not what he sought : but who 
 looking back sees clearly what that gift was, and the unthought- 
 of happiness that has been. David amid all his store of 
 preparations, his designs for the house of God which he was 
 not allowed to build, his patterns, his laying up of this and that 
 for the work, was more happy than he who accomplished 
 everything. But yet Solomon would not have had this 
 revelation had not he, too, recollections of the fulness of his 
 career, when he worked with all his might at whatsoever his 
 hand found to do, and rejoiced in his labour, and found every 
 day too short for the work that filled it. How little he had 
 thought of that in his eager pressing towards the end, 
 towards the result ! Yet it was his portion : the result was 
 not for him but for the world. 
 
 There was a preacher of our own day, scarcely faded 
 yet into obscurity, who once made a strange sermon upon 
 not only the fallacy of the hopes of men, which is a thread- 
 bare subject, but upon what he almost ventured to call the 
 fallacy of the promises of God. He had no profane or 
 irreverent meaning : but the burden of his teaching was that 
 God drew men on with delusive promises in order to lure 
 them to the better country in which all these promises were 
 to come true. He showed how Abraham had the promise 
 of the land in which he dwelt but never possessed more of 
 it than sufficed for his grave, and so with all the patriarchs. 
 How David was promised an established reign and throne, 
 and yet his kingdom was broken up in the second generation ; 
 and how the supreme Disposer of events, like the classic 
 Fates, " kept the word of promise to the ear, and broke it to 
 the heart." Mr. Robertson, of lirighton, was himself a man 
 of many disappointments, and it gave, no doubt, a certain 
 balm to his wounds to see how that bitter strain ran through 
 all careers and anticipations of men. But yet I think that 
 teaching of his was far inferior to the teaching of the 
 acknowledged preacher of disappointment, the philosopher 
 whose burden it is, proclaimed and assented to through 
 
IS8 THE HOUSE OF DA VI D part i 
 
 every age of human history, that all is vanity. Clear as 
 daylight in one reiteration after another he proclaims this 
 one thing that is not vanity : that a man should take 
 pleasure in the doing of his work : that he should rejoice in 
 his labour, that this is his portion and the gift of God, and 
 that God answereth him in the joy of his heart. From the 
 highest artist down to the ploughman, the straightness of 
 whose honest furrow is the delight of his life : from the 
 monarch — let us take a familiar example, the Queen of our 
 own days, who if ever man or woman might, could rejoice 
 in the results of her reign — yet who takes pride and pleasure 
 in her labour, most of all, and daily toil — to the seamstress 
 who sets forth overnight the work she is doing, her little 
 creations of ribbon and muslin, to inspire her when she 
 wakes, and rises with eagerness to continue. " For it is his 
 portion : this is the gift of God : because God answereth 
 him in the joy of his heart." 
 
 The reader will note what a magnificent pendant to the 
 Jerusalem of the " Song," embowered in its gardens, with the 
 watchmen upon the walls, and the silence of the safe and 
 slumbering night guarded by the keepers of the city, comes 
 in the end of this later poem, the conclusion of the tragedy 
 which was so fair and beautiful, a romance in its beginning : 
 when " those that look out of the windows are darkened, and 
 the doors are shut, and the daughters of music brought low," 
 when the bridegroom who once came over the mountains, in 
 the haste of his coming, like pillars of smoke, " is afraid of 
 that which is high, and fears every stone in the way." When 
 to him who fed among the lilies, the featherweight as of a 
 grasshopper becomes a burden, and to him who was so full of 
 life and love of life, even desire fails — " because man goeth to 
 his long home, and the mourners go about the streets." He 
 who traversed the city in those hours of youthful joy and 
 knocked at the window of his love, and played the pretty 
 drama of evasion to draw her after him — now looks down from 
 his palace roof, and sees in imagination the last scene, so 
 soon to come, the mourners rending their garments, passing 
 about the shadowed ways with bent heads, and dust upon 
 
SOLOMON 159 
 
 their foreheads. The one is as clear to him as the other in 
 the light of sombre anticipation, as in that of the voluptuous 
 moon, the evening light of memory. His life is complete 
 with all its ambitions between these two scenes, his lilies no 
 longer sweet to him, his burial cave open and ready beside 
 his father David, the work of whose life, like his own, is to 
 be scattered to the winds by that careless youth and his 
 boyish counsellors who are holding their revels close by. 
 Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Yet Solomon, too, had had 
 his portion — the gift of God. 
 
 Solomon, however, great as he was, was not all great. 
 The morality of that early age was all unsettled and un- 
 assured. In respect to the sexes no utterance had been made, 
 nor was ever made by authoritative command — a strange 
 thing to think of, but a true. The best of men had a 
 plurality of wives, and the number was but a detail, the 
 principle being thus granted. David celebrated his entrance 
 into Jerusalem by adding a number of women to his 
 harem. Solomon according to the record went far beyond 
 even that indulgence. He " loved many strange women, 
 together with " or in addition to " the daughter of Pharaoh." 
 The mother of his son Rehoboam was an Ammonite. 
 Probably something of the same kind of research, which was 
 afterwards carried into effect for king Ahasuerus, the col- 
 lection of all the most beautiful women of the time wherever 
 they were to be found, was made for the delectation of 
 Solomon, connoisseur as he was in every kind of beauty. 
 From Moab, from Ammon, from Sidon, the daughters of 
 kings, the most accomplished and perfect of the maidens of 
 all the surrounding nations, would be brought up for his 
 choice, the most delicate homage that could be rendered to 
 the potentate. Did the proud race of Judah, the no less 
 proud and independent tribes of Israel, his own people, revolt 
 against such a tribute, one wonders, and object to render up 
 the flower of their households to the caprice of the king ? 
 Such a conjecture at least may be permitted, in view of the 
 constant succession of strange nationalities in the list of royal 
 marriages. Perhaps in the busy life of such a man, the 
 
i6o THE HOUSE OF DAVID parti 
 
 fair new face, the piquancy of such varied manners as might 
 be possible among nations between which so Httle real 
 difference of race existed, gave a diversion not forbidden to 
 the many occupations and thoughts with which his mind was 
 full. To imagine that these surroundings made Solomon 
 into a mere voluptuary, above all into that most odious of 
 characters a feeble and senile libertine, is quite uncalled for. 
 It is not this which brings censure upon his head, but the fact 
 that the princesses and slaves of his household were " strange 
 women," foreigners, each bringing with her some foreign 
 worship. The critics tell us that it was the jealousy of the 
 priests, the pettiness of local prejudice, which made this 
 bringing in of " strange women " a thing so continually 
 denounced in Israel. But no reasonable judgment can fail 
 to see how fatal the force of such an influence must have been 
 upon the religious principles of the people. Rome, the wisest 
 of human corporations, has found it necessary in our advanced 
 times to take the strongest steps against this danger, well 
 foreseeing not only the risk of anything like justice in the 
 matter, of yielding up half of the children to the training of a 
 Protestant mother — but also the inevitable slackening of all 
 bonds, even when this is prevented. 
 
 It was more fatal still when the antagonism t was 
 between a national system struggling to keep intact the 
 worship of one God, and the idolatries that seem to have had 
 at all times so many attractions for light and unwary spirits. 
 The Jewish priests and conservators were like those re- 
 formers who looked on with angry and jealous eyes at the 
 royal chapel in which the foreign queen had to be permitted 
 to hear her mass, whatever reasons there might be against it. 
 The reasons were infinitely stronger on the side of the Jews. 
 But with Solomon, who probably looked on all those clinging 
 dependants round him with a certain contempt as far too 
 slight creatures to affect any man except for the fleeting 
 moment of their beauty and empire over his senses — it is not 
 difficult to understand the facility with which he might be 
 persuaded to provide for each her means of religious comfort 
 or distraction, her grove on Olivet, her cherished idol : nay. 
 
SOLOMON i6i 
 
 that he should have been led by one soft persuasion after 
 another to go with the queen of the moment and witness her 
 rites, he whose desire — perhaps whose weakness — it was to 
 approfondir everything, to know what was meant in every 
 vagary of human fancy, in every development of human 
 thought. What he did from such a motive, with the smile 
 upon his grave lip to see how far the folly and the wisdom of 
 mankind, its superstition and dim apprehension of the super- 
 natural would go : or dragged by some winning favourite to 
 satisfy her love or her pride by the triumph of his companion- 
 ship : would be of the most fatal example for the lighter 
 beings who were drawn along in his train, and who, perhaps, 
 believed it would please the king if they followed these gods 
 of the women : and still more for the ignorant and gaping 
 crowd for whom there were always so many attractions in 
 those mysteries of the groves and high places. Queen Mary's 
 mass in Holyrood was no such danger even for the courtiers 
 who surrounded her, yet we know how fiercely that was 
 resisted, with what denunciations, — Astartc herself meaning 
 nothing more terrible even to the most reasonable of that 
 time. 
 
 This is the shadow that fell upon Solomon's great career. 
 Perhaps also he fell into the abyss of luxurious self-indul- 
 gence which is the great temptation of Oriental life, in his 
 later years ; or at least so retired himself — having done all 
 and organised all and set the machine of government in full 
 operation — within the seclusion of royal solitude, as might 
 make it appear that he had thus fallen. And yet it is im- 
 possible to associate with his name any such anti- climax 
 of sensual decadence. The still despair of that conclusion 
 to which in his heart he had come, the conviction that a 
 man may do all, realise all, achieve all that his fancy can 
 conceive, yet remain for ever unsatisfied, achieving nothing 
 perfectly, incapable at his best of turning his ideal into 
 reality or accomplishing what he would : the still more 
 profound disenchantment with which all his early dreams 
 of human nobleness fell back upon his heart, leaving nothing 
 better than the possibility that one man among ten thousand 
 
 M 
 
i62 THE HOUSE OF DAVID parti 
 
 might be found that was true, but among women, not so 
 much as one — no doubt turned him away in a growing 
 distaste for the company of flatterers and deceivers, to his 
 forlorn isolation of kinghood and greatness. And who can 
 tell what private disappointments made his great heart sick ? 
 Had he no son but Rehoboam ? had some curse of barren- 
 ness fallen on his house, or some plague ravaged the chambers 
 of the children ? was there but one, and he a fool, O last 
 and most overwhelming of disappointments ! to inherit the 
 name of the great Solomon and carry on his mighty works, 
 his splendour and his power ? 
 
 All this is lost in the mists of a distance which no eye 
 can penetrate ; the wonderful thing is that we should know 
 so much of him, behold him thus in his palace and his re- 
 tirement, the most ambitious, the most energetic, the most 
 aspiring, the most deeply disappointed of all men : hurrying 
 through a thousand labours, organising every kind of enter- 
 prise, pressing the very progress of the world to forestall the 
 times and satisfy his soul : setting out like a bridegroom to 
 run his race in all the glory and joy of youth : standing at 
 the end upon his high tower of contemplation to deliver the 
 judgment of humanity upon itself He is no primitive hero, 
 no product of the primeval imagination. Such an image 
 belongs, we should say, to the very climax of civilisation, to 
 the most accomplished and exhausted age, when all has been 
 done that man can do. The mind of Solomon bears a far 
 deeper moral and consciousness than that of Alexander : the 
 one longing for more worlds to subdue, the other gravely 
 smiling upon a universe of which he has tasted all the 
 sensations, • acknowledging that were there yet a thousand 
 worlds before him, there would be in all but the repetition 
 of a failing experiment, a continually renewed dissatisfaction, 
 a dream always pursued but never realised. 
 
 But still more wonderful, more extraordinarily advanced 
 in progress and experience, is the conviction with which every 
 proclamation of his disappointment is accompanied : that it 
 is in the doing of the work, and not in the end and result 
 of it, that the happiness of existence lies. So cheerful, so 
 
SOLOMON 163 
 
 merciful, so consoling an utterance is not what we have been 
 taught to look for from Solomon : yet there it is, pervading 
 the gray twilight of that ending life with the reflections of 
 a glowing manhood : that a man should " rejoice and do 
 good in his life," that he should " enjoy the good of his 
 labour," " for it is his portion " — that he should " rejoice in 
 his labour : for this is the gift of God," " because God 
 answereth him in the joy of his heart " ! The other, the 
 darker sentence that " all is vanity " has been adopted by 
 acclaim, a conclusion in which he has simply forestalled 
 every generation of his successors, and all the wise men 
 who have followed him. But this, too, is the burden of 
 Solomon, not less emphatic : — that the joy of life is in the 
 doing : that the gift of God is that satisfaction which lies 
 in a man's work and the exercise of his faculties : that he 
 who does with all his might what his hand finds to do, is 
 the happy man. The sage and the fool, alike, hurry over 
 that wholesome happiness of the daily round, despising it, 
 looking for something better, for some pitiful result, some 
 poor achievement which is to make them demigods among 
 men. And this is vanity, vanity of vanities. But to rejoice 
 in his labour is not vain : it is the portion of man : it is the 
 gift of God. God answereth him in the joy of his heart. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE KINGS OF JUDAII 
 
 There could be no more tremendous comment upon that 
 conclusion of Solomon's philosophy than the history of 
 his own house and kingdom. The life of this great prince 
 was wholly occupied in building up and assuring the 
 monarchy which his father had founded. He had entered 
 upon an inheritance full of embarrassment and care, with an 
 elder brother in semi-rebellion, and the great chief of his 
 army, the head of all warlike enterprise in Israel, opposed to 
 him — while himself still young, untried, upon the top of that 
 wave of fickle popular enthusiasm upon which no one can 
 calculate for more than a moment. He had upon his 
 shoulders as his chief charge, his raison d'etre, so to speak, 
 the building of that great Temple which, no doubt, was to 
 many a devout imagination, and of which, perhaps, very few 
 foresaw the future importance as the one centre and rallying 
 ground for the national spirit and heart. Solomon had 
 before him the tremendous task not only of building that 
 Temple, but of making it accepted of the people — the distant 
 tribes who acknowledged his sway, but knew nothing of his 
 Jerusalem, and who had their own favourite shrines and 
 altars, sanctified by great names over all the country, and 
 perhaps saw no necessity for that centralisation of worship. 
 This work, as happens with so much great national work, be- 
 sides the glory and joy of executing it, — which he recognised 
 afterwards, as we have seen, as in reality the recompense of 
 his labour, and the best thing in his life, — was for the good 
 
CHAP. V THE KINGS OF JUDAH 165 
 
 of future generations rather than of those immediately 
 succeeding him. Its result, no doubt, was immediate dis- 
 appointment. After the effort of its construction, and the 
 great ceremonies which attended its consecration, and which 
 must for the mere pageant's sake, if nothing else, have caused 
 much excitement, and attracted crowds to Jerusalem — it must 
 soon have become evident to the king that the habits of the 
 people were too deeply rooted to be overthrown, and that 
 not in a day or in a lifetime would that revolution be accom- 
 plished, and the heart of Israel turned to a sole centre of 
 worship. Even in the time of Solomon himself it is very 
 probable that the attendance at the yearly ceremonies 
 dwindled away, and after the first curiosity was satisfied, and 
 the excitement calmed down, that Jerusalem alone, the king's 
 household, and the citizens, and perhaps the villages of the 
 surrounding country, furnished all or almost all the attendance 
 in its courts. This would be so natural that perhaps it did 
 not strike any one as wonderful in the composure of everyday 
 life which succeeded the transport of the great national 
 foundation, the new thing in Israel. That Solomon's own 
 action — whether in contemptuous toleration of the women's 
 wishes as things of little account, or in spectatorship of them 
 as curious moral phenomena which it was worth while to 
 study, or — what is much less conceivable — in actual diver- 
 gence from his own loftier way into the worship of those 
 idols which it was the first principle of the Hebrew creed to 
 denounce and condemn — should have been the first and 
 greatest interruption of the influence of the established creed 
 and worship, is wonderful indeed. Its extraordinary incon- 
 sistency is, however, even less amazing than the possibility 
 of a downfall of the kind in such a man. 
 
 It is still more wonderful to think of the sudden 
 breaking up of the kingdom which had been established 
 as it appeared on so strong a foundation, and which seemed 
 to have so many guarantees of security. That one slight 
 soul should have overturned with one act of folly the labours 
 of two great men, and changed the future of his race at a 
 touch, seems well-nigh inconceivable, if it were not that the 
 
i66 THE HOUSE OF DA VI D ' part i 
 
 period was one in which such catastrophes were frequent, 
 and in which not only individual kings and dynasties, but 
 great empires, disappeared in a day, and were succeeded by 
 others, as one wave follows another over the surface of the 
 sea : and also because the whole history of Israel is that 
 of a struggle between good and evil, a sort of great historical 
 lesson or parable written in the lines of nature and following 
 the laws of a succession such as all history records and 
 acknowledges : but yet in all its circumstances specially 
 answering to the great purpose, which has made this little 
 story, the chronicle of one of the smallest realms in the 
 world, into an example for the universe. 
 
 No doubt, however, Solomon's very splendour, and the 
 great things he had done, had some share in the rend- 
 ing asunder of the kingdom. He had inflicted a great 
 deal of compulsory work upon the nation which loved 
 fighting better than labour, and demanded contributions 
 which perhaps were not always given with a willing heart ; 
 he had laid upon their shoulders the yoke which national 
 unity implies, the expense of settled government, the taxes 
 — which it is so difficult to persuade a primitive people are 
 but their honest share of national expenses. All the stirring 
 up of new life and habits, the introduction even of new 
 industries, the work in Lebanon, the pressgang, perhaps, 
 which constrained the timid fishermen of the coast into 
 those voyages beyond sea which were the most wonderful 
 enterprise of the time — were disturbing influences to the 
 pastoral people, who, when they were not fighting, were 
 chiefly occupied with the care of cattle or the unlaborious 
 tillage of a soil in which the corn grew and the vine threw 
 forth its clusters, almost of themselves. And the final 
 consolidation of these wandering tribes into a fully-organised 
 nation was a delicate operation calling for both prudence 
 and power, neither of which the new sovereign possessed. 
 The disruption was as sudden as the formation had been. 
 The multitude dispersed as it had come together under one 
 prevailing influence. The attraction of a personal notability, 
 a great hero in whose prowess and power of defending them 
 
CHAP. V THE KINGS OF JUDAH 167 
 
 from all assault they were confident, had been the foundation 
 of the throne. And now the counter-influence, the sense of 
 weakness which could neither protect nor deliver them, 
 exercised a similar though contrary power. " To your 
 tents, O Israel ! " The multitudes who had formed the 
 larger portion of the kingdom melted away, and the house 
 of David was left upon its hill-top with its splendid Temple 
 and palace all glowing in gold and colour, far too magnificent 
 for its diminished resources and power. It had the promise 
 of continuance, and that it should be established for ever ; 
 but the greater part of its strength and prestige was irre- 
 vocably gone. 
 
 Yet the kingdom of Judah and Benjamin, the remnant, 
 overweighted with the relics of its own greatness, was in 
 much better case than the revolted Israel. For that self- 
 doomed people there was henceforward little peace. 
 Rebellion after rebellion rose among them : one usurper 
 succeeded another, and one idolatry was added to another 
 till anarchy and blasphemy reigned. It is unnecessary to 
 enter into the troubled and often confused story which is 
 in many respects the most like a collection of legends 
 strung upon a spare thread of history of anything in the 
 Scriptures. The story of the prophets Elijah and Elisha 
 contain some of the finest and most picturesque scenes and 
 some of the most rude and trivial. Nothing can exceed 
 the majesty of the lonely figure in the desert, his head 
 wrapped in his cloak, his soul enveloped in darkness, who 
 stands before the great invisible God through thunder and 
 earthquake in an extraordinary mingling of submission and 
 defiance, with a proud desolation and sense of abandonment 
 which is a reproach to his Maker, " I, I alone am left " : — 
 neither is there anything more wonderful in those ancient 
 records than the still small voice which is the voice of God, 
 nor that which it says, a statement so unexpected, an 
 answer which cuts the very ground from the feet of the 
 self-absorbed and self-asserting prophet : " Yet have I seven 
 thousand men in Israel who have not bent the knee to Baal." 
 Human folly and faithlessness in the midst cv^en of heroic 
 
1 68 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 suffering and solitude, confronted with the great calm and 
 knowledge of all secrets which are in the fathomless con- 
 sciousness of the Divine, were never more exquisitely or 
 more surprisingly set forth. But on the other hand the 
 atmosphere of miracle which surrounds Elisha brings us 
 back from those primeval wilds to something of the same 
 feeling with which we regard the petty prodigies of a 
 mediaeval saint in which mere convenience is sufficient 
 warrant for a breach of the laws of nature, and the sacred 
 workman fatigued hangs his axe upon a sunbeam, with a 
 comfortable composure which reaches the length of absurdity. 
 The almost complete freedom of the miracles of Scripture 
 from this continually -recurring debasement of all other 
 records of sign and wonder, is a striking distinction of 
 sacred story : only lost, I think, and for a very short time, 
 in these confused, probably abridged and bewildering nar- 
 ratives of a period of anarchy and trouble. 
 
 This history of continual overthrow and re-establishment, 
 the reign of might over right, — in which such supremacy as 
 there was, was within the reach of every strong man that 
 might arise, and no principle of patriotism or fealty survived 
 to protect the distracted race, — lasted for some hundred and 
 fifty years : when Israel was obliterated by the Assyrians 
 "and their race and record swept off without recovery. 
 That those "seven thousand" — a numeral of multitude 
 not to be rigidly interpreted — the undefiled souls, incapable 
 of infidelity, who were safe in the perfect understand- 
 ing of their God, maintained their religion wherever they 
 were driven : that many faithful bands and groups and pious 
 individuals retained during all changes the great ideal of 
 the national mission and its dwelling at Jerusalem, there 
 can be no doubt : or that many a humble family was left 
 when the miserable stream of captives disappeared into the 
 darkness — feeding their flocks upon the hills of Samaria and 
 keeping up the traditions of a purer faith among the 
 colonists of the north. But Israel, as a nation, with all 
 its anarchies and rebellion, ceased to be, in the natural course 
 of events, and was heard of no more. How it was warned. 
 
THE KINGS OF JUDAH 
 
 169 
 
 entreated, threatened, and besought to save itself in time, 
 to return to the Lord, and give up its idols, and live purely 
 and truly according to those teachings of the law which it 
 had inherited as much as Judah, the impassioned utterances 
 of the prophets prove. That they, too, fell into utter con- 
 fusion, and became by times a school of flatterers, promising 
 victory and happiness to please the king and keep their 
 popularity among the people, is equally evident. But there 
 rarely failed some independent voice to proclaim the sudden 
 
 SBBASTIEH (SAMARIA) 
 
 penalties which in those days were part of the economy of 
 moral government, the strong and unmistakable language 
 of a typical and primitive age. " But Israel would not 
 hear, my people would not consider." The ferocity of 
 nature, the wild forces of rebellion and anarchy, the impure 
 religions that were the special affliction and temptation of 
 the time, swept like a flood over the people, who had not 
 been able to preserve their individuality, and that mission 
 which has separated their race from all others in the records 
 of the world. 
 
 It fell to Judah to keep up that mission, to Judah 
 
170 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 already distinguished, which held the privilege of birthright 
 among the tribes, and which had already been chosen to 
 produce the reigning family, the throne established upon 
 the promise of the Lord. It is curious to find that Benjamin, 
 the tribe of Saul, which might well have entertained a grudge 
 against his supplantcrs, and set up its grievance, as a motive 
 for withdrawal more keen than any other of the tribes could 
 claim, should be the one faithful to the house of David which 
 had humiliated and overthrown its chief: but perhaps the 
 local bond, and the fact that Jerusalem was within its borders, 
 gave a counterbalance of attraction. 
 
 These two tribes were left with their splendid city, in the 
 smallest of kingdoms — less than a German principality, and 
 more than usually apt, with all the stores of gold and precious 
 things which were known over all the East as decorations of 
 Solomon's Temple, to call forth the cupidity of their stronger 
 neighbours. It was not indeed very long before this tempta- 
 tion brought up a raid of Egyptians, no doubt perfectly 
 informed through the attendants of Solomon's queen of 
 what wonderful things lay at the mercy of an invader with 
 so small a contingent to guard them. Rehoboam had been 
 but five years upon his diminished throne when this occurred, 
 and there is no record even of any serious resistance made. 
 The Egyptian hordes came up in numbers sufficient to over- 
 power all the feeble forces of Judah. They crushed the 
 " fenced cities," the little vanguard of defence each on its 
 hillside which stood between the capital and the desert of 
 the south. And when the princes gathered* round the king 
 in Jerusalem to consult what were their possibilities of de- 
 fence, the prophet who came into the midst of them with 
 his message forbidding resistance, was no doubt the most 
 prudent as well as the most safe adviser. Rehoboam 
 was no hero, neither had he the talents of a general. 
 He had been trained in the arts of peace rather than war, 
 and no doubt those foolish counsellors who had betrayed 
 him into the great misadventure of his life, were like himself 
 the product of a luxurious period of peace — or they would 
 not have let the enemy reach their very gates before they 
 
CHAP. V THE KINGS OF JUDAH 171 
 
 gathered, cowed and vacillating, round the king whom they 
 had already so sorely misled. 
 
 Oh for one hour of Wallace wight, 
 Or well-skiH'd Bruce to rule the fight ! 
 
 Oh for the Lion of the house of Judah, the grim Joab, the 
 three mighty men who once burst through the Philistine 
 hosts, to bring their chief a cruse of water from the well of 
 Bethlehem ! No such heroes were those who looked out 
 with pale faces from the ramparts of Jerusalem, and saw 
 the dark Egyptians with their strange ensigns swarming in 
 the valley. They " humbled themselves," the sons of those 
 men whose feet were on the neck of kings, the heir of great 
 Solomon, the successors of the heroes — and stood by with 
 what countenances we may imagine while the dark crowd 
 poured into the Temple, and carried off its riches, tearing 
 down the gold from cornice and lintel, bearing away the 
 great shields and splendid vases which must have made 
 the very paths burn and glow, the fierce sun striking out 
 dazzling reflections from every blazing surface, as the captors 
 wound down the hill carrying their trophies high. Not the 
 old men alone but those who were still in their prime must 
 have remembered how these same golden vessels had thrown 
 back the sunshine in triumph, as they were carried into the 
 Temple over the great bridge which spanned the valley, to 
 decorate the house of the Lord. Vanity of vanities, saith 
 the Preacher. But who, the darkest of dreamers, the most 
 austere of judges, could have imagined that it would come 
 so soon ? 
 
 The history of Judah is a long tale of national vicissitude, 
 of rising and falling fortune, such as has always distinguished 
 primitive history, especially in the East, where catastrophes 
 are so sudden, and the character of the monarch has so 
 much to do with the prosperity of the kingdom. There 
 were great examples of enlightened and powerful princes 
 who crushed the idolatry into which, up to a certain point 
 in their history, the Jews seem to have been so ready to re- 
 lapse, and preserved that national consecration as the people 
 
172 THE HOUSE OF DAVID parti 
 
 of God, which was their great distinction in the world, mak- 
 ing such a difference between them and their neighbours of 
 Moab and Edom, and even the highly civilised and wealthy 
 Tyre, as words cannot say ; while there were also on the 
 other hand kings of less note, most frequently the sons of 
 foreign mothers, to whom the debasement of idolatrous 
 worship was more congenial than the austere rites of the 
 Temple. That many a family group from the depths of 
 the country came up unmolested in their humility to keep 
 the feasts in the great national sanctuary cannot be doubted, 
 nor that there came great seasons of national compunction 
 when the memorials and associations of idolatry struck the 
 minds of the faithful with unusual horror, and caused sudden 
 uprisings of renewed devotion as well as of fierce antagonism 
 to the secret shrines and false gods which remained here and 
 there hidden among the trees in some luxuriant grove. On 
 the other hand it was more easy to a people busy with their 
 fields and flocks to offer their own sacrifices on some old 
 altar near at hand, sanctified by the recollection of patriarch 
 or prophet, than to put all secular business aside, and with- 
 draw the ass and the camel from the necessities of daily 
 work in order to present themselves at Jerusalem : so that 
 the two impulses acted and reacted upon each other, keep- 
 ing a perpetual rising and falling of the spiritual barometer. 
 Though we do not question that the prosperity and peace of 
 Jerusalem followed these risings and fallings, the quickened 
 religious life being a .symptom as well as a cause of quickened 
 energy and greater power, while the vice and superstition of 
 the idolatrous rites — probably pursued among the Hebrews, 
 who were nothing if not religious, with greater fervour than 
 among the careless peoples who knew no better — involved 
 debasement in every characteristic faculty : yet, no doubt, 
 all was worked out according to the ordinary rules of life 
 without bearing any specially miraculous character in the 
 eyes of those to whom it was the course of every day. 
 
 And there were great princes in the line of rulers who 
 succeeded each other for nearly three hundred years, son fol- 
 lowing father with an extraordinary continuance, while the 
 
CHAi'. V THE KINGS OF JUDAH 173 
 
 Other kingdoms about rose and fell, and Israel, the prey 
 of one victorious captain after another, at last disappeared 
 altogether from the scene. Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezckiah, 
 Josiah, brought back something of the wealth and 
 supremacy of Solomon's days again and again to the city 
 among the hills : they had their little wars, sometimes 
 against their brethren of the other tribes, sometimes against 
 the old traditional foes of Ammon and Edom and Moab. 
 And in the midst of these there suddenly rose up against 
 them a more powerful enemy, the new scourge of the East, 
 the great empire which had appeared like a portent marching 
 from the north over the necks of all the lesser sovereignties, 
 the Assyrians who swept Israel away, and made in the end 
 a long eclipse of Jerusalem. But even against this foe little 
 Judah held head for a long time, sometimes by diplomacy, 
 sometimes by arms. 
 
 It was a hard fighting life for the little kingdom which 
 lay surrounded by rivals and enemies, with its little circle of 
 fenced cities, its citadel on the hill of Zion, its sanctuary still 
 rich with spoil which might well have attracted envious eyes, 
 amid the other little brigands of nations camping to the east 
 and west, towards the coast of the Mediterranean on one hand, 
 and beyond the Dead Sea on the other. To this sanctuary 
 every one of the greater kings made such additions and 
 restorations of ornament and wealth as were possible, and 
 the advent of each new monarch of the higher and 
 better kind was signalised by a sort of reformation, now 
 greater, now less, casting down of high places, burning 
 of idols, national acts of worship — and a recall to the service 
 of God of those who so persistently and continuously fell 
 away from it as soon as the immediate pressure was with- 
 drawn. This curious struggle is of itself a sufficient answer 
 to those critics who would have us believe that Jehovah, the 
 great " I am " of early visitation, was a local deity appro- 
 priate to the Jews as Baal or Dagon were to other tribes about 
 them. The worshippers of Baal and Dagon had no objection 
 to a god of the Hebrews. When the colonists of Assyria 
 were settled in the place of the Israelites, all they wanted 
 
174 THE HOUSE OF DA VI D part i 
 
 was to be taught how to perform the worship of the deity of 
 their new habitation. They were quite willing and ready to 
 add that god to their other gods, and no prophet or even 
 priest objected in the name of religion. 
 
 But with the Hebrews there was no such toleration. 
 The struggle against idolatry was constant and undeviating ; 
 though it was also at the same time an ever-enduring attrac- 
 tion and temptation. The Jews, like every other conquer- 
 ing people, retained among them a great number of the 
 aboriginal inmates of the country ; they were their neighbours, 
 their servants, and even in some cases their defenders : and 
 there could be no such marked inferiority as is usually seen in 
 the subject race when Hittites and Jebusites were found even 
 among the " mighty men " of the primitive army. Closer 
 still was the bond made by marriages between the superior 
 and inferior races. Myriads of little Hebrews must have 
 been led under the cover of their mothers' draperies to watch 
 the mysteries of the grove, to kiss their hands to the queen 
 of heaven, in a ready childish devotion half made of natural 
 obedience and half of the charm of things forbidden ; so that 
 the earliest associations of life would be connected with those 
 stolen rites, with the fascination of the outdoor service, the 
 great stars looking down through every green tree to charm 
 the heart into natural adoration of that dazzling host of 
 heaven. The child brought up in a harem is naturally far 
 more the child of his mother than of his father, and, no doubt, 
 this fact, explains not only the continual relapses of the 
 Hebrews, but the denunciations of the prophets against 
 women, who, notwithstanding now and then the practical 
 example of a notable woman, like her who spoke to Joab 
 from the wall of Tekoa, are almost universally spoken of in 
 the Old Testament in a harsh and contemptuous tone. It 
 would be curious to inquire how much of the habitual con- 
 tempt of the tone of men towards women in all ages is 
 derived from this same source — the habit of the early world 
 to consider the often foreign and alien wife as in continual 
 secret opposition, baffling and bringing to nought the best- 
 laid plans of the head of the house, who was but one to 
 
ciiAi'. V THE KINGS OF JUDAII 177 
 
 resist the many, full of individual and differing characteristics, 
 whom all his efforts could never fathom or understand. The 
 deeply founded doctrine of feminine perversity and unac- 
 countableness may well be one of those survivals of the 
 unfittest sentiment, which mock science to its face. 
 
 This, hovv^ever, is too natural to require to be dwelt upon. 
 What is wonderful is that so evident a tendency existing 
 among its people was never recognised or yielded to by 
 the little kingdom which lay in the very heart of all 
 these idolatries. Why should the Hebrew have resisted 
 the tolerant philosophy of his neighbours and refused to 
 carry on his own worship in good-humoured fellowship 
 with all the others ? Why if Jehovah was but as Baal 
 should that little belligerent people have fought a con- 
 tinual battle for His supremacy and poured out of its heart 
 every denunciation, every scorn that human words could 
 express upon the things of wood and stone, the images which 
 had eyes and saw not, which had ears and heard not, the god 
 who perhaps was asleep, or on a journey — last and most 
 tremendous satire of all, who was cut from the same tree 
 with which the workman made his fire ? " He will take there- 
 of and warm himself: yea, he kindleth it and bakcth bread : 
 yea, he maketh a god and worshippeth it." Why this 
 irreconcilable intolerance, this struggle carried on from age 
 to age against every law of natural association, and all the 
 precedents and all the examples around ? 
 
 The critics can allege no better reason than a con- 
 spiracy of certain wild bards, half poet, half maniac, who 
 invented both history and law, not to speak of the poetry in 
 which it cannot be denied that they were supreme, in order 
 to make them.selves the rulers of the destiny of their people. 
 Ikit there is no explanation in this very artificial hypothesis 
 of the violence of Hebrew opposition, from their first 
 revelation as a distinct people, against all fellowship 
 with idols. The struggle was one of life and death, espe- 
 cially in the latter part of their career. Whenever there 
 was an infirm or feeble ruler, the relaxed authority led to 
 ever fresh fallings away of the people ; but whenever the 
 
 N 
 
178 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 government was in a capable hand it began with a reforma- 
 tion, a recalling of the original conditions upon which the 
 kingdom was constituted, and a determined stand against the 
 idols and abominations of the stranger. The anarchy and 
 continual revolutions of Israel pointed the moral of that 
 other and greater apostasy. Had their God been but the 
 local deity, the little Jehovah of the hill country and the 
 desert, how much trouble might all have been spared, how 
 much unnecessary pressure of the conscience, how many 
 national convulsions ! The other gods would not have 
 objected to .share their Olympus, such as it was, with an 
 additional pretender to Divine honours. There need have 
 been no trouble about the matter. A god the more was 
 far less offence than a nationality the more in that crowded 
 area : and what with perpetual bouts of fighting and endless 
 treaties and pacts between themselves in an ever-changing 
 balance of power, the.se crowded nations managed to exist 
 together and make what progress was possible. But between 
 the great God of heaven and earth and the idols that were 
 stocks and stones there could be no pact or compromise. 
 The fight in this case was unceasing, everlasting. There was 
 no remaining silent while that controversy went on. It was 
 as a fire burning in the veins of him who was compelled to 
 be a witness of the transgression of his people, an iniquity 
 which could not be condoned. 
 
 The reign of Hezckiah is, perhaps, the greatest era in the 
 later history of the house of David. We have a twofold record 
 of it, that of the historical books, and the more detailed 
 narrative of certain portions of his life which is to be found 
 amid the wonderful odes and lyrics of the prophet-poet 
 Isaiah. He was the son of Ahaz, one of the princes of the 
 line who had fallen away most fatally from the tradition 
 and mission of his race. The amplified record of the book 
 of Chronicles, represents that king in the blackest colours. 
 He not only fell into the most brutal of idolatries, that of 
 sacrificing his children to Moloch, but wreaked a sort of 
 superstitious vengeance upon the Temple when he found him- 
 self in the lowest depths of trouble, not only conciliating 
 
CHAP. V THE KINGS OF JUDAH 179 
 
 the Assyrians by the sacrifice of its treasures, which would 
 be comprehensible, but cutting down its altars with the 
 savage disappointment of an idolater whose god has not 
 responded to his appeal, and shutting up its desecrated doors, 
 so that, for a time at least, the authorised and established 
 services of religion must have come to an end. His son, as 
 sons so often do, no doubt a disapproving spectator of the 
 father's errors, began his reign upon a principle entirely dif- 
 ferent. It is strange to think what must have been the 
 thoughts of a young man who had himself in his childhood 
 perhaps " passed through the fire to Moloch," if that mysteri- 
 ous horror means anything less than absolute murder: or, at 
 least, had received an image of the horrible ceremony in its 
 fire and smoke and shrieks of suffering into his earliest 
 memory — when he himself in his turn assumed the power. 
 His mother was "the daughter of Zechariah " — probably a 
 Zechariah described in the reign of Hezekiah's grandfather 
 Uzziah as a man " who had understanding in the visions of 
 God " — at all events a Hebrew and not a stranger ; and he 
 had accordingly in all probability been trained in the faith 
 of his fathers, to abhor and abominate the system which 
 reigned in Jerusalem where there were " altars in every 
 corner " while the national sanctuary was closed and 
 desolate. 
 
 Hczekiah began his reign by opening and repairing the 
 Temple, calling together again the dispensed priests, and with 
 as little delay as possible restoring the system of worship 
 with all its solemnities. A proscription of priests has been 
 a sufficiently common occurrence in history since then — but 
 no restoration, perhaps, has been so complete as that of the 
 tribe of banished and persecuted Levitcs of all classes from 
 the high priest to the doorkeepers, whom I lezckiah " gathered 
 together into the east street," probably that which is still known 
 as the street of David, in order to commit the purification 
 of the Temple into their hands. They must have come up 
 from the villages where they were living, and out of the depths 
 of the city where they had been hidden, at the first proclama- 
 tion of the young king to whose accession, no doubt, all had 
 
I So 
 
 THE HOUSE OE DAVID 
 
 been looking with anxiety and hope. The streets of Jeru- 
 salem we are warranted in believing are little changed from 
 that day : with the same deep caverns of primitive shops and 
 houses, low arches opening upon a chamber with little shelter 
 from the passer-by outside : the precipitous narrow line of 
 
 A Sl'KEKT IN JEKUSALEM 
 
 way like a ravine cut deep between two walls of dark build- 
 ings inclining often towards each other, keeping out the hot 
 and fervid day : or covered with sombre arcades, here and 
 there debouching into a little opening which shows a blaze 
 of sunlight at the end of the darkness : and now and then 
 penetrated by some arrow of light from a window or slit in the 
 lofty arches overhead. The crowd still streams up and down 
 
CHAP. V THE KINGS OF JUDAH i8i 
 
 upon tlie steep causeway and continual rough steps of stone 
 that dive into the hollow with an abruptness modified by no 
 thought or possibility of wheeled conveyance passing that way. 
 We can imagine the young king in one of the open- 
 ings, addressing the servants of the Temple who streamed 
 into the arcade, an indefinite crowd in their white tunics, 
 while the priests stood round him below. " My sons, 
 be not now negligent : for the Lord hath chosen you to 
 stand before him, to serve him." Other than mere burning 
 of incense was the business required of them now. They 
 had to cleanse the house of the Lord, the priests bringing 
 out " all the uncleanness " — the ruins of those altars and 
 decorations which Ahaz had cut in pieces, the broken metal, 
 and fragments of the desecrated sanctuary — to the outer court, 
 whence all this rubbish, which once was hallowed to sacred 
 use, was carried by the Levites into the valley of the Kedron, 
 to be cast into the brook there. The process of cleansing 
 within the Temple occupied eight days, and on the sixteenth 
 day the restoration was completed. Then once again 
 Jerusalem put on her festal robes and the whole city 
 streamed forth following the joyful procession of the king 
 across the great bridge that spanned the valley, where the 
 crowd proceeding from one height to another must have 
 been a sight unrivalled to all the groups upon the housetops 
 and those that thronged the outer courts spreading green 
 and cool around the renovated sanctuary. The harps and 
 the cymbals, " the instruments of David," the priests with 
 •the silver trumpets sounded forth a welcome as the procession 
 drew nigh. " And when the burnt offering began, the .song 
 of the Lord began also, with the trumpets, and with the 
 instruments ordained by David the king." What was the 
 .song they sang ? 
 
 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised 
 
 In the city of our (]od, 
 
 In the mountain of His holiness. 
 
 Rcautiful for situation, 
 The joy of the whole earth. 
 Is Mount Zion, 
 
1 82 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 The city of the great King. 
 
 God is known in her palaces for a refuge. 
 
 Or was it this, the burden of which is repeated again and 
 again in all the accounts of the different restorations of the 
 Temple and its worship, as though it were the anthem fixed 
 for such occasions ? — 
 
 give thanks unto the Lord ; for He is good : 
 For His mercy endureth for ever. 
 
 Let Israel now say, 
 
 That His mercy endureth for ever. 
 
 Let the house of Aaron now say, 
 That His mercy endureth for ever. 
 
 Let them now that fear the Lord say, 
 That His mercy endureth for ever. 
 
 1 called upon the Lord in distress : 
 The Lord answered me, 
 
 And set me in a large place. 
 
 Open to me the gates of righteousness 
 I will go in unto them, 
 And I will praise the Lord : 
 
 This gate of the Lord, 
 
 Into which the righteous shall enter. 
 
 I will praise Thee : 
 
 For Thou hast heard me, 
 
 And art become my salvation. 
 
 Blessed be he that cometh 
 In the name of the Lord : 
 We have blessed you 
 Out of the house of the Lord. 
 
 Over the deep inner valley of the Tyropceon, spanned by 
 Solomon's great bridge, across which the long procession 
 wound — over the valley of the Kedron upon the other side of 
 Mount Moriah, now called the valley of Jehoshaphat, which 
 winds round the base of the Temple — the unaccustomed 
 music must have rung out awaking many echoes. The great 
 
CHAi'. V THE KINGS OF JUDAH 183 
 
 sanctuary stood between the two, upon its heights, walled 
 round with the ramparts of Solomon. Whether the king 
 inhabited Solomon's palace in the same enclosure, or whether 
 that — no doubt, ravaged as well as the sanctuary by repeated 
 invaders — had also fallen into ruin, there is no evidence. But 
 in any case crowds of passengers and many a processional 
 group from the faithful around must have streamed over the 
 bridge keeping up a continual flutter of movement and 
 colour, while the welcoming blessing rang out from the 
 sacred gates to those that came in the name of the Lord, the 
 blessing out of the house of the Lord which was so old and 
 yet so new, a liturgical drama as perfect as anything that 
 has been devised by all the refinements of ecclesiastical 
 ceremony. The music of the East has never been that 
 language of the soul which it has come to be in the reflective 
 and sentimental ages of modern Europe, and, no doubt, it was 
 a very primitive science in these primeval days, a chant in 
 which the words and meaning of the song were of more 
 importance than harmony and effective combinations of 
 sound. Yet when the great strain rose up to the skies with 
 many a heavy bass and many an untrained treble joining in, 
 (and, no doubt, also many a sob and outcry of religious 
 fervour) as the multitude poured along singing — " Open to me 
 . the gates of righteousness " : and was answered by the clear 
 pealing notes of the educated voices — " Blessed is he that 
 Cometh in the name of the Lord : we have blessed you out of 
 the house of the Lord," the effect of an appeal and answer so 
 universal, so comprehensible, the real voice of the people, 
 must have been far greater than the most admirably con- 
 structed service. 
 
 I once heard, in Notre Dame in Paris, at one of 
 the conferences dcs /tonunes, the Lenten course of in- 
 struction which occasionally fills that wonderful church 
 with an assembly of men, thousands together, the great 
 hymn of the Stabat Mater sung in plain song, in unison, 
 by the whole assembly. Musical connoisseurs who would 
 have listened with calm criticism to the most perfect 
 performance of Rossini's chef-d oeuvre, stood there speech- 
 
1 84 THE HOUSE OF DAVID i-ARr i 
 
 less and could only listen and tremble at the great song that 
 rolled through those noble arches, a volume of sound which 
 the imagination could not but feel more worthy of the ear of 
 God than the most melodious trills and intricate harmonies of 
 all the singing men and singing women in the world. And 
 thus with the wild Oriental note, the cadenced cry of a primi- 
 tive people, must the renewed service of the Temple have 
 sounded forth, filling the vibrating air and all the hill-tops of 
 Judah with the sound of the worship of a multitude, most 
 imposing and impressive hearing to be had upon this earth. 
 The same scene with more touching ceremonies still 
 was repeated shortly after, when the first Passover of which 
 we have any account in the histories of Judah as a kingdom, 
 was celebrated. It is a fact much relied upon by those who 
 support the strange theory that the elaborate ceremonials 
 of Jewish worship were invented, so to speak, in the reign of 
 Hezekiah, that this is the first occasion upon which it 
 appears in the national history. There were, however, many 
 reasons which make the detailed narrative here, on this 
 special occasion, very reasonable and natural. It was not 
 only the greatest expression of a national reformation and 
 revival of religion — but it was at the same time a most 
 politic act, perhaps the wisest that could be taken to bring 
 about a reunion of the so long separated tribes and to 
 re-establish Jerusalem as the general centre for all Hebrews, 
 not only the section of Judah and Benjamin. The kingdom of 
 Israel had just come to a disastrous end, and its constitution 
 as a separate economy was destroyed. Its king, its chiefs, 
 all the governing classes, the educated and the wealthy 
 portion of the people, had been carried away into captivity ; 
 only the insignificant and harmless part of the nation, the 
 pastoral dwellers in the fields, the defenceless villages in 
 which was no danger for the conquering race, were left — a 
 remnant in which, however, the very soul of a nation and 
 its best power of renovation often lies. To draw back this 
 remnant of Israel into its old allegiance to the house of 
 David, and to re-establish the ancient unity of the tribes, 
 was a work to which no true statesman could be indifferent, 
 
CHAi'. V THE KINGS OF JUDAII 185 
 
 nor any sound believer. And Hezekiah and his counsellors 
 proved themselves to be both (as well, perhaps, as ambitious 
 and astute men of the world) by making immediate over- 
 tures to that wreck of a nation. The King of Judah "sent 
 posts " over all the country with a proclamation, calling upon 
 the people to come up to Jerusalem to keep the Passover, 
 " for they had not done it of a long time in such sort as 
 it was written." His intention was that this invitation 
 should be published from Dan to Beersheba : but it would 
 seem that the messengers, in the distraction of the times, or 
 because the other parts of the territory of Israel had been 
 already colonised by foreign races, accomplished only a part 
 of their mission. The posts passed from city to city through 
 the country of Ephraim and Manasseh even unto Zebulun. 
 They were not well received in the house of Joseph : " They 
 laughed them to scorn and mocked them," we are told. 
 " Nevertheless divers of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun 
 humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem " — the remnant 
 of humble and faithful people which is always left in every 
 period of national apostasy. Had the Passover been a new 
 thing this call to the scattered Israelites would have been 
 mere arrogant folly, alienating instead of conciliating : for 
 what interest could Ephraim or the other tribes have had 
 in a new invention of the Jews ? 
 
 From all the immediate country, the land of Judah and 
 Benjamin, the households came, with that united force of 
 religious feeling and of the pleasure of a national holiday 
 which is in every pilgrimage. Those who have seen the 
 curious groups that come up from the country to Jerusalem 
 now, in slow and silent progress, the women mounted high 
 upon the camel, sometimes sheltered by a strange little 
 tent which sways and .shakes with every long measured step 
 like a boat at sea, the man armed to the teeth, with his 
 feeble old musket slung over his shoulder, his pistol and knife 
 in his belt, mounted upon the ass which always heads the 
 procession, or walking by its side — can form some idea of 
 what the travelling pilgrims mu.st have looked like, as in 
 solitary families, or groups and combinations, from town and 
 
1 86 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 village they came along towards the white walls and towers 
 gleaming on the hillside, and visible far off from the direction 
 of Israel, from all the paths that led to the north. The 
 religion of Mohammed in its skilful adoption of dates and 
 customs has organised a yearly pilgrimage from Jerusalem 
 to the so-called tomb of Moses, which makes a sort of 
 balance to the feasts of the Jewish Passover and the Christian 
 Easter, and thus calls together a crowd of pious Mussulmans 
 to hold in check the other crowds that pour into Jerusalem 
 at that season. And it is among the pilgrim groups, which 
 come from the distant desert and many a far-off village for this 
 ceremonial, that the most perfect picture of the primitive 
 pilgrimage is furnished. The pilgrim from Asshur or 
 Zebulun would have no rifle, no pistol, in his belt, with which 
 to defend his household — but he would have hJs knife, his 
 spear, perhaps a bow slung at his back : and his cloak of 
 camel's hair, the covering on his dark head of kerchief or 
 hood or twisted shawl would be much the same. And the 
 camel and the ass, strange companions through every 
 Eastern journey, the humble brother in front, the garrulous 
 burden-bearer behind, are identical. And the same is the 
 long slow journey day by day, the same patient progress, the 
 great soft swaying tramp of the laden beast, sinking and 
 rising in monotonous motion, the night encampments by 
 the little watchfire — as it is the same clear heaven and 
 glowing stars, vibrating in intensity of light, which shine over 
 the heads of the pilgrims. 
 
 When the Passover had been celebrated with all its 
 touching and significant rites, with the thin crackling cakes 
 of unleavened bread, and the blood of the lamb, the sign of 
 redemption, on every lintel — all Judah, assembled for the 
 feast, and the visitors from Israel who swelled their ranks, 
 made a raid forth into the country to all the dependent 
 cities, and in the fervour of their faith assailed the centres 
 of idolatry, cut down the groves and broke the images 
 which meant not only the worship of idols but every im- 
 morality and uncleanness. It is a mission which is always 
 congenial to a multitude, and, no doubt, the work of destruc- 
 
CHAP. V THE KINGS OF JUDAJJ 187 
 
 tion was not only a cutting ofif of the accursed thing but an 
 outlet for the pent-up excitement of so much. hot popular 
 feeling. The Israelites must have carried on the work as 
 far as they were able as they returned to their homes, for 
 it is recorded that it extended even into Ephraim and 
 Manasseh. We may well believe that enough of ancient 
 sentiment remained through the country to make a Hebrew 
 village still blush for the grove and the idol to which it gave 
 an intermittent worship, and that many would be ashamed 
 to resist this raid of reformation : even though they might 
 steal back as soon as the noisy train of reformers had swept 
 past, to pick up the fragments of the image which had not 
 known how to defend itself, and to cherish the quick spring- 
 ing saplings with which nature, more capable, would soon 
 make up her part of the mischief We hear no more of 
 the Passover in the days of Hezekiah, probably because it 
 became a matter of common use and wont and demanded 
 no further mention in the brief record which deals only with 
 the chief features of his reign. One result of the great 
 revival of faith was, however, that the people, in the impulse 
 of that renewed unity and devotion, offered their tithes and 
 contributions so largely, that for the first time there was need 
 of storehouses in which to lay up the superfluity which was 
 so much more than enough for immediate needs. 
 
 It was not very long, however, before Judah shared the 
 terror and disturbance which the new and great scourge of 
 the East, the Assyrian, carried all around. King Ahaz, the 
 father of Hezekiah, had invited the aid of that great power 
 against his familiar enemies of Damascus, and had accepted 
 the character of a tributary and vassal : and Jerusalem, no 
 doubt, had trembled yet exulted in its own safety as it saw 
 the other little kingdoms round carried off into captivity by 
 this irresistible conqueror. It must have seemed little less 
 than foolhardiness on the part of Hezekiah, notwithstanding 
 the victories over the Philistines with which his reign began, 
 to withdraw the submission which his father had made. 
 But he was, no doubt, made bold by his prosperity and 
 prospect of regaining supremacy over all Israel, and by a 
 
THE HOUSE OF DAVID 
 
 strong confidence in the succour and support of God. " He 
 rebelled against the King of Assyria and served him not " 
 is the brief record : but it was not long before he was 
 compelled to repent of this boldness, and renew the tribute 
 his father had paid. Not satisfied with this compromise, 
 however, the great Sennacherib, himself just setting forth on 
 an expedition against Egypt, sent his general Rabshakeh to 
 summon Jerusalem to complete submission, or in default of 
 this to take the city, with, no doubt, the inevitable carrying 
 away into captivity which usually followed. Nothing could 
 be more picturesque or striking than the scene in which these 
 envoys are made visible to us outside the walls of Jerusalem 
 parleying with the representatives of the king, and shouting 
 forth their message so that all the dismayed and eager 
 crowds, thronging every point of vantage, might hear. 
 
 Much had been done by King Uzziah, the great- 
 grandfather of Hezekiah, to strengthen the fortifications of 
 his capital. He had built " towers in Jerusalem at the 
 corner gate, and at the valley gate, and at the turning of 
 the wall," all probably on that exposed portion of the city 
 towards the north whence danger came — all invaders down 
 to Titus making their encampments, it would appear, about 
 Mount Scopus, and attacking from that side. The city had 
 sustained at least one siege in the interval, but the towers 
 still remained, huge erections built with great stones, no 
 doubt, like those pieces of ancient wall which still remain, 
 buildings of which the existing Tower of David may give 
 some idea. Hezekiah himself had " repaired the wall where 
 it was broken, and raised it up to the towers, and another 
 wall without, and repaired Millo in the city of David, and 
 made darts and shields in abundance." He had even 
 diverted the course of the waters which supplied Jerusalem 
 and stopped up the fountains, that there might be no water 
 for the besiegers. Perhaps some of the uncouth machines 
 " invented by cunning men to be on the towers, and upon 
 the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones withal," 
 might still remain in their old places — means of desperate 
 defence such as that made in later times when the Jews 
 

CHAP. V THE KINGS OF JUDAH 191 
 
 fought every inch of their doomed town and fortress 
 against all the strength of the Roman army : so that the 
 town was fully fortified and as able, perhaps, to encounter a 
 siege as any small and crowded town subject to blockade 
 on all sides by overpowering numbers could be. But that 
 was little even in days before artillery was invented : and 
 the heavy hearts of the Jewish Ministers may well be 
 imagined as they went out to meet the embassy which had 
 arrived outside the walls, at the hqad of some portion of 
 vSennacherib's army, enough to frighten into submission the 
 little royal town which could never have held head against 
 so great an invader. Sennacherib himself was besieging 
 Lachish in the plains, the capital of the Philistines : and 
 there was in the mission of his general an ' undisguised 
 contempt for the strength of Jerusalem, and conviction that 
 the mere sight of the Assyrians would strike terror to the 
 Jewish .soul. " He stood by the conduit of the upper pool 
 in the highway of the fuller's field" — having apparently 
 made a circuit to the western side of the city circling that 
 corner, " the turning of the wall," and anxious, no doubt, to 
 finish summarily this small piece of business, without the 
 trouble or expense of a siege. Whether he had tried his 
 arguments first upon the representatives of Hezekiah before 
 he lifted his voice, and addressed the crowd upon the walls 
 which had come to gaze and listen to the parley, we are not 
 told : but it is clear that he perceived the advantage of raising 
 a popular panic and gaining the town without fighting. 
 
 "In what does Hezekiah trust?" cried the envoy — "in 
 the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt ? But if thou say to 
 me. We trust in the Lord our God, am I now come up 
 without the Lord against this land to destroy it ? The 
 Lord .said unto me. Go up against this land, and destroy 
 it." Rabshakeh was evidently a man aware of the past 
 history of the Jews, though making the natural mistakes 
 of a foreigner in some important matters. He had heard of 
 the destruction of the images by Hezekiah, and he imagined 
 these to be images of the god of the country, the local 
 deity — sharing in this respect the views of the enlightened 
 
192 THE HOUSE OF DAVID part i 
 
 critics of the nineteenth century. " Is not this he whose 
 high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away ? " 
 The vengeance of that god was thus on his side as well as 
 the might of his master, and every element was combined 
 to strike the populace with terror. The entire, yet perfectly 
 natural, misconception in this address, and the curious differ- 
 ence between the great Lord of heaven and earth — of whom 
 the dullest Jew had some conception, as a Being standing 
 alone, eternally separate from and opposed to all the petty 
 gods devised by the imagination of man — and the assump- 
 tion of the cultivated Assyrian magnate who understood 
 nothing better, is full of instruction. He must have sup- 
 posed them a kind of infidels who had destroyed their gods 
 in pride and defiance of all spiritual influence. 
 
 Eliakim and Shebna and Joah, the ministers of Hezekiah, 
 listened with dismay to an address which was so well calcu- 
 lated to arouse the smouldering superstitions of all that 
 eager fringe of listeners on the walls. How easy to make 
 them believe that the vengeance of Baal and Astarte had 
 brought this proud invader upon them, and that these 
 offended deities smote by his arm ! They besought the 
 Assyrian to speak in his own language, which they could 
 understand, and riot in that of the people, the hasty and 
 incompetent judges whose panic might at any moment 
 precipitate matters. But this very prayer was, no doubt, 
 an inducement the more to make Rabshakeh raise his voice 
 and strengthen his argument. " Hath my master sent 
 me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words?" he 
 said : " hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the 
 wall ?" " They held their peace, and answered him not a 
 word," says the record. . . . But when Hezekiah's ministers 
 had returned wnthin the gates they rent their garments in 
 sign of sorrow and humiliation, and with bowed heads went 
 up among the anxious crowds of the people to lay the 
 message of the Assyrian before the king. Hezekiah received 
 them with equal distress and almost despair : for the fate 
 that awaited him and his people whether they yielded or 
 whether they resisted was equally terrible. The best that 
 
THE KINGS OF J U UAH 193 
 
 was offered was that they should be carried away " to a land 
 like your own land, a land of corn and wine"; captivity, in 
 any case, with all the horrors which no fine promises could 
 do away with, a fate which they had seen to overtake their 
 brethren of Israel. In this terrible conjuncture the anxious 
 king and his ministers could take refuge but in one hope — 
 the aid of God : and even that with all the trouble and 
 uncertainty which attends an appeal to the unseen, faith 
 itself trembling even in its utmost rapture lest, perhaps, the 
 will of the Supreme Helper might not have settled the 
 alternative so. The unhesitating response of the Prophet 
 Isaiah, here first introduced into the record, when called 
 upon to answer for the Lord, reassured, however, the 
 trembling questioners. " I will send a blast upon him, 
 and he shall hear a rumour." With what wondering 
 suspense must these words have been heard ! for what 
 rumour could conjure away the substantial might of the 
 Assyrian cohort lying outside their walls ? 
 
 The promise was, however, almost immediately fulfilled : 
 for in the meantime the Assyrian envoy without the walls had 
 heard that his master had withdrawn from the siege of 
 Lachish to Libnah, along with a rumour of the approach 
 of the King of Egypt with a great army which made it 
 expedient that all the forces of Assyria should be collected 
 together. In haste, then, intending a speedy return and 
 meaning to make short work, when he came back, of the 
 city, which was no more than a mouthful in comparison with 
 the conquests of Assyria, Rabshakeh sent his ultimatum to 
 the king. The idea of resistance in the ordinary sense of 
 the word does not seem to have occurred as possible to the 
 rulers of Jerusalem. Hezekiah did not call to the walls 
 the defenders whose hearts had been melted within them 
 by the Assyrian's defiance. There were among them men 
 who had fought and conquered in Philistia, but the very 
 name of the greater foe seems to have been enough to 
 quench all courage. What the king did was to go up to 
 the Temple, and spread out the insulting letter before the 
 Lord. The whole narrative is full of vivid life and pathos. 
 
 O 
 
194 THE HOUSE OF DA VI D part i 
 
 Classic story has no parallel for those conflicts of the weak 
 with the mighty, those struggles in which the race is not to 
 the swift nor the battle to the strong, with which the litera- 
 ture of the Hebrew nation has leavened our imagination in 
 these later ages. . The catastrophe which followed and which 
 for a time delivered Jerusalem from all fear of the Assyrians 
 brings the Hebrew record into sudden contact with the 
 beginnings of other history without diminishing the mystery 
 of the event or giving us any clearer understanding of it. 
 Sennacherib and his army had marched on to conclude 
 matters with Egypt, a foe more worthy of their steel, 
 meaning afterwards on their homeward way to crush the 
 little rebel Jerusalem : and had reached the Egyptian borders 
 when the silent and instantaneous overthrow of all their 
 forces occurred. The reader of the Bible record has 
 generally understood that the army destroyed in a night 
 lay outside the very walls of Jerusalem. But this is not 
 said : indeed it is clearly intimated that there was no army 
 lying outside Jerusalem at the time when Isaiah in the 
 Temple proclaimed the doom of the Assyrian. It is very 
 curious that, according to Herodotus, in the narrative given 
 him by the priests of Memphis, the preliminaries of this 
 destruction should be almost exactly the same, with the 
 difference that the King of Egypt was the suppliant, and 
 that the promise of deliverance came to him in the temple 
 of his god, a remarkable and somewhat confusing supple- 
 ment to that of the Bible. It leaves no doubt as to the 
 event : the explanation of it — the irruption of the field mice 
 and their destructive work, seems somewhat fantastic ; but 
 on this point the Hebrew record gives no information. 
 Whatever it was, it not only destroyed his army, but cowed 
 the spirit of Sennacherib. He returned hastily to his own 
 country, to his great Nineveh, thinking for the moment of 
 no more sieges or defiances of God. And, though he lived 
 to fight in other regions before his miserable death by the 
 hands of his own sons, he never came near Jerusalem again. 
 The story of Hezekiah's sickness and miraculous pre- 
 servation, the not very noble or generous satisfaction which 
 
CHAP. V THE KINGS OF JUDAH 195 
 
 he expressed in the exclamation : " There will be peace in 
 my day "... are personal incidents into which it is un- 
 necessary to enter. Perhaps that ejaculation is not so selfish 
 as it appears. It is a sentiment very natural to a man 
 growing old who has had his share of the struggles and 
 defeats of life, and who no longer feels himself able to cope 
 with the contradictions of the wicked. Such a man will 
 naturally breathe a sigh of satisfaction over the assurance of 
 a tranquil ending, an evening of life disturbed by no calamity, 
 even though he may recognise sadly that the troubles 
 which he sees gathering round will burst on his successor. 
 That successor will, at least, be a new man with strength to 
 bear them, not one disheartened and worn out by many 
 conflicts past. And this king though a great reformer and 
 pious man was not a hero. Of war or fighting he can have 
 known little, notwithstanding his successful struggle with 
 the Philistines. No impulse of resistance seems ever to have 
 been in his mind except against his sentence of death, for 
 the revocation of which he pleaded passionately — a good 
 but timid man, afraid to fight, afraid to die, though not 
 afraid in the direct service of God to defy the superstitions 
 into which his people had fallen, and make urgent and 
 trenchant reformation. 
 
 It has pleased the critics to choose Hezekiah as 
 the Pisistratus of the Hebrews, the Meca^nas of the 
 prophets, under whom a great literary movement sprang 
 up, and the beginning of that conspiracy and invention of 
 a religion which it is supposed arose in his days. In the 
 entire absence of proof it is, of course, quite simple to con- 
 jecture and assert anything of the kind, and Hezekiah 
 might have invented the loom for anything we know, or 
 can prove to the contrary. The only evidence for the 
 suggestion is that a number of prophets, the majority of 
 those whose writings are preserved to us, arose in or about 
 his time ; and that there was, in fact, during that period a 
 great outburst of poetry, the greatest perhaps known in 
 history, poetry full of the sublimest sentiments and endowed 
 with the most beautiful power of expression, besides its 
 
196 rUE HOUSE OF DA VI D part i 
 
 claim of prophetic inspiration and of opening the future to 
 the ghmpses of men. Such a great figure as Isaiah suddenly 
 arising in a limited circle is assuredly enough — or at least 
 may appear so to the after historian — to put a stamp upon 
 his age. We know, indeed, that our own great Milton, not 
 to speak of our still greater Shakespeare, made very little 
 immediate difference to the time in which they lived and 
 owed their greatness to no royal patronage. And we know 
 also, what is perhaps more cognate to the matter, that 
 Isaiah's writings are full of a perpetual protest against his 
 time and appeal to a better to come, as are those of most 
 great religious moralists and poets. But yet by right of 
 his prophetic character he occupied, no doubt, a certain 
 definite position, and was, we know, consulted on occasional 
 emergencies. The fact of his existence and of that of 
 Amos and other prophets, chiefly in fierce opposition to the 
 course of events and the conduct of society : and one little 
 verse in Proverbs which records the fact that the six 
 chapters that follow " are also proverbs of Solomon, which 
 the men of Hezekiah King of Judah copied out "... are 
 the sole evidence (the latter the only document) in proof 
 of the theory that the time of Hezekiah was something 
 like " the spacious times of great Elizabeth " in our own 
 history. 
 
 As for the further development of that theory which is, 
 that the law as well as the prophets originated in his reign, 
 and that the whole system of the Jewish economy was 
 invented by " the men " who copied out the proverbs, there is 
 no evidence at all in the Bible, which contains the only con- 
 temporary information. It may be so, as anything may be 
 of which we know nothing whatever, and have no means of 
 knowing : and the assertion is so far safe enough, because 
 we cannot prove that anything did or did not originate in 
 the age of Hezekiah : but that is all. It is seldom that a 
 Puritan king, destroying, as no doubt he did, some advanced 
 specimens of art in the high places of the idol worship, and 
 probably the finest statuary of the time in the images of the 
 idols, is at the same time a great patron of literature. But 
 
CHAP. V THE KINGS OF JUDAII 197 
 
 we may at least be glad that Hezekiah in this hypothesis is 
 spared the denunciations of the artist. All we can know 
 of him with any certainty is that he was a great reformer, 
 that he was no general, that he was unwise in displaying all 
 his stores and wealth of precious metal to the Assyrian 
 ambassadors when they visited him in the way of peace, 
 thus exciting their cupidity and inducing them to make 
 notes of future probabilities of spoil : — and that he was very 
 much afraid of dying and thankful to enjoy a tranquil old 
 age, putting away from him the thought of troubles to come. 
 This is not the picture of a very great king : and it is evident 
 that he had not the power to amend or even overawe the 
 society of his time, of which, as we shall hereafter see, the 
 prophets made so gloomy a description ; but he was very 
 zealous for the framework of religion and a pious though 
 timid man. 
 
 After Hezekiah came the long and evil reign of Manasseh, 
 who undid almost all that his father had done, and the short 
 one of his son Amon, who followed that example : followed 
 by the strong reaction of Josiah who once more enacted the 
 part of reformer, and in whose reign " the book of the law " 
 was found in the Temple. The critics, pursuing their former 
 theory of an elaborate conspiracy descending from age to 
 age, assert, of course, that this book of the law was not found, 
 but newly written, to answer the further exigencies of the 
 time, and imposed upon the guileless king and credulous 
 people by the high officials of the kingdom, in concert with 
 Jeremiah, the prophet, by whom it was written. It need 
 scarcely be pointed out that such a consistent long-extended 
 conspiracy is unique in the history of man, and that Jere- 
 miah's own writings are extant, from which it may be judged 
 whether he was likely to set his hand to a deliberate and 
 elaborate fraud. The book of the law which thus suddenly 
 burst upon the public of Judah was, as is asserted, the 
 book of Deuteronomy : and we may well envy the people of 
 that ancient time such a piece of good fortune. It is not 
 often, nay unparalleled and without any analogy, that so 
 great a contribution to national history, such a constitution 
 
THE HOUSE OF DAVID 
 
 and code of laws, should be published to a people in a 
 moment without warning or tradition. But in any case the 
 effect it produced was great and called forth a second 
 reformation of the same sort as that of Hezekiah, but still 
 more thorough — the idols, restored during the two interven- 
 ing reigns, being not only broken but stamped into powder, 
 that no model for later days might remain. The previous 
 reformation had been in the beginning of Hezekiah's reign, 
 which lasted twenty-nine years. His son Manasseh reigned 
 fifty-five, Amon two, and young Josiah, who ascended the 
 throne at eight, may be allowed to have attained something 
 near his majority before he carried out his work of reforma- 
 tion. There was thus very nearly a century between the 
 two religious revolutions, time enough amid all the vicissi- 
 tudes of the Temple for that book of the law to have been 
 hidden and forgotten. And what, if it did not exist, nor 
 any other recognised code, inspired the reformation of 
 Hezekiah ? but such a disturbing question does not enter 
 into the theories of the critics. 
 
 Josiah was the last King of Israel who had any claim to 
 greatness. One feeble youth after another of his sons 
 succeeded him, while the disorganisation of Hebrew society, 
 the weakness and wickedness of the people, grew under these 
 inconsiderable princes. And outside the walls of Jerusalem 
 reigned great and contending forces between which no little 
 kingdom could stand : the Egyptians in whose hands one 
 party of the Hebrews would fain have placed themselves, in 
 the hope of escaping the other, the terrible adversary who 
 came from the north. Anarchy and misery arose in the 
 devoted city where no man knew what to do, and least of all 
 the poor puppets of kings, one succeeding another, struggling 
 between the prophets who denounced, and the princes who 
 overbore and treated them as nonentities. The question of 
 entire destruction, in the face of an adversary so strong, and 
 in the midst of such divided counsels, and a structure of 
 society so entirely rotten, was, of course, but a question of 
 time ; and at length Judah fell crumbling into pieces in a 
 complete and overwhelming disaster which had been over 
 
CHAP. V THE KINGS OF JUDAH 199 
 
 and over again foretold. One poor young king was carried 
 off to Egypt, another to Babylon : and for the last of all a 
 still more dreadful fate was reserved. The details of the 
 catastrophe are so much more closely involved in the story 
 of the prophets, and more fully told, that we postpone them 
 to another chapter. It is enough to add here the virtual 
 conclusion of the kingdom. With famine in the streets and 
 every way of escape blockaded, the last defenders broke out 
 "of the gate between two walls, which is by the king's 
 garden," probably the slopes on the southern side under 
 the walls of the Temple enclosure, at one end of which 
 the king's palace was — and fled, under cover of the night, 
 towards Jericho and the desert, leaving the deserted city 
 to the mercy of the assailants. They were soon, however, 
 overtaken, dispersed, and destroyed, and Zedckiah, the last 
 king of the house of David, was dragged, a heart-broken 
 prisoner, in the final train of the captives to Babylon, 
 whither all that was considerable in Jerusalem, princes, 
 officers of state, priests and scribes, and wealthy persons, 
 had already been despatched in melancholy bands at the 
 pleasure of the victors. When they got as far as Riblah, 
 probably coming up there with -the victorious army, the sons 
 of Zedckiah were murdered before his eyes, which were 
 thereafter cruelly put out, and he himself carried off in 
 chains to end his days in prison. Thus the kingdom of 
 Judah came to an end. 
 
 The destruction of the city followed with a dreadful 
 completeness. The Temple, so often assailed and raised up 
 again, so often desecrated, where idols had been worshipped 
 instead of God, and every kind of rebellion against the 
 mission and purpose of the race had been carried out, was 
 burned to the ground. " The house of the Lord, and the 
 king's house, and every great man's hou.se " perished one 
 after another in those devouring flames. And the smoking 
 ruins were left under high heaven when the noise and the 
 tumult of the great army and its prisoners died away, a few 
 poor inhabitants only lurking in those houses that were not 
 worth destroying. These miserable remnants of the popu- 
 
THE HOUSE OE DA VI D 
 
 lation would, no doubt, steal out after awhile to find a silent 
 mass of burning houses and dead men who had died in 
 their defence — all that was left of that Jerusalem which they 
 had so proudly celebrated in songs and sacred anthems as 
 the joy of the whole earth. 
 
PART II 
 THE PROPHETS 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 ISAIAH 
 
 It is understood that all classes of critics, those who believe 
 and receive as well as those who doubt and question, have 
 come to a tolerably general decision that the prophecies of 
 Isaiah should be attributed to two persons — one the Isaiah 
 of Hczekiah, the other an altogether unknown, nameless, and 
 untraceable man. I have made no use of this hypothesis, 
 because it seems to me unnecessary. It is of course difficult 
 to apply the ordinary rules of literary criticism to a work 
 which is only known in a translation : seeing it is always 
 possible that the style of the translators, in this case so 
 admirable and homogeneous, may have obliterated the dis- 
 tinctions of the original. The restoration and return from 
 the often-prophesied captivity is indeed more clear in the 
 late chapters ; but if it may be difficult to account for this 
 and for the introduction of Cyrus by name, it is equally 
 difficult to account for so much of the noblest poetry without 
 a name : when even such scraps of verse as those of Nahum 
 and Obadiah preserve the identity of their writers. For my 
 own part I cannot feel that it matters much. Supposing 
 that there was a poet of the captivity who was willing to 
 sink his own fame in that of his predecessor, indifferent even 
 to " the last infirmity of noble minds," he, the evangelical 
 prophet, as he has been called, was still farther off from the 
 Man of Sorrows, whom he has described in such sublime 
 .strains, than the original Isaiah was from Cyrus. There is 
 no difficulty set at rest, to my mind, by the idea that there 
 
204 THE PROPHETS 
 
 were two : — but neither to the English reader nor writer is 
 the question one of much importance. If they are two, the 
 world is richer by an example of such humility as it has 
 never known before or since, combined with a splendour of 
 genius and inspiration to which the same terms may almost 
 be applied. 
 
 The only real basis of probability upon which the con- 
 jectures in respect to Hezekiah's age as the first literary age 
 of Hebrew history seem to rest is the fact that there was in 
 his days a remarkable school of prophets — whether associated 
 together or arising individually we have no way of knowing, 
 — what we may call a great outburst of poetry, and of poetry 
 not legendary or associated with the feats of bygone heroes 
 as primitive poetry is in every language, but having reached a 
 much more advanced stage, the poetry of ode and elegy, of 
 eloquence and sentiment, concerned with every moral theme 
 that can stir the imagination or touch the heart. The love- 
 drama, the deep burden of philosophy, the never-ending 
 human discussion of the ways of God with men, arose all of 
 them in this wonderfully gifted race before they were either 
 known or thought of by any other. Those silent yet wonder- 
 ful words which are writ in Egyptian stones, and which 
 have made the thread of primitive history more or less clear, 
 are all tersely historical, the memorials of reigns and con- 
 quests, — but the literature of the Hebrews holds everything 
 that has ever during the whole history of the world been put 
 into measured and orderly words — the lyrics, the oratory, 
 the morals, the thought, with an Eastern wealth of metaphor, 
 with a strain and vehemence of passion, with a music and 
 harmony of sound, which in all these centuries and millen- 
 niums have never been surpassed. The literature of the 
 Greeks is much later, but yet it is not so universal. It does 
 not touch every note of the harp as does that of the Hebrews 
 — and strangely enough that great literature, the foundation 
 of all modern learning, and in a certain sense the inspiration 
 of the whole world, is far less acquainted with the secrets of 
 the heart, and far less adapted to embody all aspirations and 
 sentiments, than that of the Hebrews. Socrates is great but 
 
CHAP. I ISAIAH 205 
 
 his voice is not that of the race of mankind as is Solomon's. 
 Even in that point the Greek is for the scholar, the Hebrew 
 for every man. The systems of the one are the basis of 
 learning, but the utterance of the other is the voice of the 
 heart. The common mind which would be plagued beyond 
 expression by the philosopher who pursued every subject to 
 its last corner of refuge, and convicted of fallacy every received 
 conclusion, recognises with a universal sentiment which 
 takes something of the sting from that dreadful decision, 
 that all is vanity. The one concerns thought alone, the 
 other feeling. Socrates has an amused satisfaction in 
 demolishing every stronghold that human futility has built 
 for itself; but the emptiness of all human satisfaction is as 
 the sigh of nature breathing from every soul. Strange to 
 think that the poet-nation which thus, almost before any 
 expression of emotion was, divined and gave it utterance, 
 should be now — still retaining as it does its marked and 
 separate conditions — so voiceless, so unbeloved, odious to 
 many, the object of admiration and enthusiasm to none. 
 The same thing has happened to a certain degree in 
 respect to the modern Greek, for whom the most devoted 
 classicist entertains no genial weakness, no impulse of in- 
 dulgence for the sake of his forefathers — but is still more 
 strong in respect to that strange people in whose words we 
 utter our deepest emotions, and whom in most cases we 
 repudiate and dislike. The effect is a very strange one. 
 
 The great outburst, as we have ventured to call it, of 
 Hebrew poetry occurred at a time when the two nations of the 
 Jews had great vicissitudes of power and of downfall, yet as 
 much or more of the former than of the latter. The reign of 
 Uzziah was a great reign until the disaster of the conclusion 
 which was rather personal to the king than affecting the 
 people. And the reign of Hezekiah was also a great reign, 
 full of wealth and progress, and great national deliverances, 
 besides being, if the opinion of the critics is any way to 
 be considered, a sort of Augustan age of literature. The 
 twenty years occupied by the deplorable reign of Ahaz came 
 between, it is true, justifying any kind of lamentation and 
 
2o6 THE PROPHETS 
 
 presage of evil. Yet it must be remembered that through- 
 out this whole period, at its highest as well as its lowest 
 fortune, the tenor of the prophetic utterances, the subject of 
 the impassioned poetical addresses which the poets of Judah 
 and Israel poured forth, are invariably the same cry against 
 national degradation and wickedness, the same denunciation 
 of evil to come. 
 
 Amos is the first of these great instructors and powerful 
 Protestants against the sin around him. His prophecies 
 were chiefly concerning Israel and were uttered in the period 
 during which Jeroboam IL, the son of Joash, reigned in 
 Samaria and Uzziah in Jerusalem, the two reigns being con- 
 temporary for fourteen years. Thus it was in the latter 
 years of the King of Israel, a great prince by whom according 
 to the record " Israel was saved " from many humiliations 
 and raised to prosperity : and in the early part of the reign 
 of Uzziah, at the beginning of a great, prosperous, and as yet 
 unblemished career, that his prophecies were composed. All 
 was well with the two kindred nations ; over them, no doubt, 
 as over all the other little powers in Palestine the shadow of 
 the great Assyrian empire was beginning to rise — but for 
 the moment Jeroboam had got the .upper hand of Syria, 
 which up to this time had been the strongest of Israel's 
 enemies, and held Damascus captive. Nothing but well- 
 being and prosperity seems to have existed, nothing but 
 auguries of good fortune to come would seem natural in the 
 circumstances. On the other hand, in Judah King Uzziah 
 was no idolater, but, till the presumptuous idea of himself 
 burning incense in the Temple seized him, a man who " walked 
 in the ways of his father David." Even his transgression 
 was not such as to bring down national retribution. He 
 was stricken in his own person, sadly enough, indeed, but not 
 so as to affect his people. How is it, then, that the burden 
 of the earliest as well as the later prophets is one unbroken 
 denunciation of trouble to come, of an overwhelming reign 
 of evil among the people, and of an approaching doom which 
 nothing but a swift and immediate change of national habit 
 and life could turn away ? But it is wrong to say that it is 
 
CHAP. I ISAIAH 207 
 
 unbroken — there is an alternative to the picture: — while 
 continually repeating that immediate deliverance is still 
 possible, if those who are exhorted to a complete change 
 of life consent to the course pointed out to them — it 
 is not that hope, a fallacious and unlikely one, as the 
 most careless reader can see, upon which they dwell ; it 
 is in the far-off future of a golden age, when such a King as 
 earth never saw was to spring from the root of Jesse, and 
 the whole world, covered with righteousness as the waters 
 cover the sea, was to own and rejoice in his sway. In this 
 hope, from the smallest to the greatest of these poets and 
 prophets, every one is agreed. Was it, perhaps, a young 
 Hezekiah, a young Josiah, of whom they fondly hoped in the 
 first place that he might be the deliverer? but if so — and in 
 the dim yet splendid vision that rose before them, the lines 
 were all indefinite, and who could refuse to hope that any 
 noble and gracious youth might unfold into that promised 
 prince ? — there is no insistence upon it, no affirmation, nor 
 even anything that could be interpreted into an assurance 
 that this was he. They had every inducement that men 
 could have to make their prophecies agree with the prognos- 
 tics of a new reign : but they never did so — nor did all the 
 prosperities and splendours of the present ever draw them 
 from their painful certainty of what was to come. 
 
 The critics, as has been said, have found it necessary 
 to invent a second Isaiah to account for the prophecy 
 concerning Cyrus which, according to their foregone con- 
 clusion, can only have been written after the fact : but they 
 do not explain how it was that Amos, of whose date and 
 authenticity no doubt is ever expressed, should in the 
 middle of the successful reign of Jeroboam have prophesied 
 not only the entire downfall of Israel, but the captivity 
 which did not take place till thirty years later, and which at 
 that moment, with a strong monarch full of conquest and 
 triumph on the throne, must have seemed as little probable 
 as any calamity could be. It was not without an indignant 
 protest that these denunciations were listened to : the 
 priest of Bethel made a stand against that prophet of evil. 
 
2o8 THE PROPHETS 
 
 He reported to Jeroboam that Amos had said : " Israel 
 shall surely be led away captive out of their own land." 
 " The land is not able to bear his words," said that un- 
 questionable witness. This incident is the fullest proof that 
 the prediction was made at a most unlikely moment when 
 Israel was in full prosperity under her powerful monarch. 
 "O thou seer," cries the disturbed and angry' priest, " flee 
 thou away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and 
 prophesy there : but prophesy not again any more at Bethel, 
 for it is the king's chapel, and it is the king's court " (or the 
 sanctuary and the house of the kingdom, according to the 
 marginal correction of the authorised version). " I was no 
 prophet," answers Amos, " neither was I a prophet's son. I 
 was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit : and the 
 Lord took me as I followed the flocks, and the Lord said 
 unto me. Go, prophesy unto my people Israel." The same 
 message with individual modifications is conveyed by all the 
 prophets of the day. In Micah there seems a hope, his 
 message being addressed to Israel alone, that in Judah the 
 people of God might find shelter and peace ; but the prophets 
 of Judah convey the same tremendous menace to their half 
 of the separated nation. 
 
 Captivity and desolation when they were at the height of 
 national prosperity and success ! their territories extended, 
 new acquisitions made, new fortifications, new strength. 
 Uzziah has cunning engines mounted upon his new towers, 
 Hezekiah makes still more elaborate preparations for defence ; 
 and both these monarchs extend their borders, and increase 
 their wealth. But through all the busy, rich, and gay city 
 peals the same cry of alarm — captivity ! something more 
 terrible than defeat or that adverse fortune which they have 
 met like their neighbours for hundreds of years, now beaten 
 down, now rising up, in the vicissitudes of war, and that per- 
 petual life of conflict which is natural to a small kingdom 
 surrounded by ambitious and warlike neighbours. From 
 Solomon's days there had been, perhaps, no king so hopeful, 
 so powerful, as Uzziah, and no reformer so happy, with so 
 much reason to look for assured comfort and wellbeing, as 
 
CHAP. I ISAIAH 209 
 
 Hezekiah. Assyria had not even arisen in the days of the 
 first monarch to make Palestine tremble ; yet even in Judah 
 was the trumpet of coming disaster sounded, " The cities 
 shall be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without 
 man, and the land be utterly desolate." 
 
 Who could wonder if this terrible prophecy was as 
 madness in the ears of the prosperous and powerful Hebrews, 
 " in the year when King Uzziah died " ? The city was full 
 of comfort and enjoyment, festivity and national well- 
 being. Tribute and quit-rent came flowing in, luxury had 
 found a place in many homes, no city of Palestine was 
 more forward in the march of civilisation, more advanced 
 in fashion, more likely to take the lead among the surround- 
 ing nations. Captivity, desolation, cities without inhabitants, 
 without a man left, the forlorn women clinging to any de- 
 fender they could find, imploring to have the protection of 
 his name — what did the madman mean ? Were these follies 
 of weight enough to disturb a single banquet, to make either 
 prince or moneylender pause ? The populace, always 
 ready to entertain any grumbler, might listen with that 
 satisfied thrill of excitement with which it hears every- 
 where its superiors threatened : — but who would give up a 
 dinner, who would sacrifice an advantage, who would restore 
 a pledge, for anything these wild fellows might choose to 
 say ? The Cassandras of fate are comprehensible enough 
 when the downward course has visibly begun, and the enemy 
 is at the gates ; but he who threatens thunder out of a clear 
 sky is less intelligible. In Isaiah's time there were even 
 special signs of God's favour, troubles averted, deliverances 
 given, yet without any cessation of the warning. Nay, there 
 were all the signs of outward piety in one portion of Isaiah's 
 time. There were continual sacrifices, offerings at the altar, 
 a great religious system carefully carried on — yet still the 
 same cry. The prophets unfold to us the state of morals 
 and manners which existed in both the fated kingdoms with 
 a sternness of censure which, no doubt, to their contemporaries, 
 seemed exaggerated, such a trenchant " criticism of life " as 
 even Mr. Matthew Arnold could not have dreamed. 
 
 r 
 
THE PROPHETS 
 
 It should always be remembered, however, that the 
 utterances of Hebrew prophets and preachers were not 
 addressed to individuals but to the nation. The absence 
 of all reference to after rewards and punishments and the 
 compensations of another life, remarkable as it is, would be 
 more remarkable still were these utterances recorded for the 
 comfort of the immediate sufferer, the support of the troubled 
 individual, as in Gospel times. Christianity does emphatic- 
 ally address the individual, but in the Jewish dispensation 
 it was not so. It is the fate of the nation which is always 
 the subject of the prophet. The poor man whom our Lord 
 adjured with heavenly tenderness to " take my yoke upon 
 you, and learn of me " is, not contemplated by the seer who 
 flings abroad with the vehemence of passion his addresses to 
 his race. Israel had been set as a wonder in the earth, 
 Judah as a sign to all nations, and they had disregarded, 
 scorned, and departed from their mission. Not even the 
 address " Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth " of Solomon 
 is in the thoughts of Amos or Isaiah. To them, too, per- 
 haps, as to Elijah in his despair, it may have been communi- 
 cated that there yet remained seven thousand men in Israel 
 who had not bowed the knee to Baal. These faithful ones 
 were in God's own hand, in the secret of His heavenly 
 consolations. Whatever might happen to them, it was well 
 with them — whatever might happen to the others individually, 
 was also the secret of God and in His hand. But it is to 
 the nation that the prophet's message is addressed, that 
 nation which had been set up as a witness and had forgotten 
 and abjured its testimony. Its special existence depended 
 altogether upon its fulfilment of that trust. Its national life 
 was an office, a service. From time to time fitfully that 
 office had been filled and that service performed more or 
 less well — now with enthusiasm so that all the world might 
 see — now languidly with doubtful arms and swaying banners. 
 And anon the standard of the Lord had been precipitated 
 into the dust and the mission of Israel had been forgotten. 
 This it was which was the object of the prophets, the burden 
 of every message. A country, a nation, has no hereafter ; 
 
CHAP. I ISAIAH 211 
 
 its duties are to be accomplished now and here, its rewards 
 or punishments awarded in this world — and such is the only 
 thought in the prophet's mind. He lays bare the corruption 
 of the nation with an unsparing hand. The king is a good 
 king ; he has made reformation, he has walked in the ways 
 of his father David — for him and for his day there will be 
 a postponement, an arrest of justice ; but the nation is 
 corrupt and condemned, and has abandoned and become 
 incapable of performing its great mission. The experiment 
 which has been tried in the face of all nations has failed. 
 " Israel will not know, my people will not consider." One 
 last outcry of warning, the greatest, the most continuous 
 ever made, for a time filling the very air with its manifold 
 voice giving the echoes no rest, is to complete the record 
 of God's ceaseless endeavours to induce His chosen people 
 to fulfil their office — but that like every other is to be in 
 vain. 
 
 I do not doubt that the very humblest thinker forms 
 some theory to himself, for the most part in silence, un- 
 expressed — myriads who have no words in which to set forth 
 their thoughts justifying or accusing the great Ruler of the 
 world according to their different imperfect reasonings upon 
 what they see and what they cannot see. Among these 
 humble hosts without authority, whose musings are incom- 
 plete and their conclusions framed without any thought of 
 scientific accuracy, I may venture to put forth my convic- 
 tion that the freedom of the human will is so complete that 
 God will force no one, neither individual neither nation, into 
 the right way. With the strongest belief that this world 
 contains but a portion of our existence, that it may be for 
 aught we know a great parable and lesson for the myriads 
 of other worlds which we know to be around us in space : 
 and without any attempt to enter upon that bewildering 
 certainty that the result of every man's decision must be 
 known beforehand and from all eternity, by the God to 
 whom a thousand years arc as one day, I believe that in no 
 way will the Creator force the steps of His creatures. What 
 to the simplest apprehension is compulsory goodness ? a 
 
THE PKOrHETS 
 
 thing without merit, if not a mere hypocrisy which is the 
 most common though unjust view — but always, at least, a 
 thing suspect, satisfactory to no man. Against this, which 
 is the very prerogative and privilege of humanity, the 
 theorist, and often the most lovable of theorists, gnashes his 
 teeth, in many cases taking it as a reason for denying God 
 altogether. Can a great and pure and loving Being exist, 
 and permit the crimes and miseries that devastate the earth ? 
 they cry with passion, and so great a show of tenderness 
 superior to that of God, and mercy above that of the All- 
 merciful, that many tongues are silenced — and it is perhaps 
 the most popular of all atheistical arguments. What, then, 
 do these indignant critics demand ? a race cut to conformity 
 with the model of goodness, a man in leading strings so that 
 he cannot err ? — and of what good, then, of what meaning 
 would be his virtue ? The God of Israel, the God of 
 Christianity, that most perfect of all the conceptions of 
 men of the one Being who is inexplainable and incompre- 
 hensible, yet is always more or less understood by the heart, 
 lays the case very plainly before every one of His creatures. 
 To the lowest intelligence, as to the highest, there is a 
 standard, a line which divides between good and evil. There 
 are a hundred arguments on either side, and the case has 
 been gone over and over again since the beginning of the 
 world in every generation under all circumstances. And 
 many* a breaking heart has cried and implored in every age 
 for the 'one thing that cannot be granted, that God would 
 force child or friend or husband or wife into that right way, 
 would annihilate the perverse will, and destroy the dis- 
 obedient instincts, and make men good who have no desire 
 to be good. It seems to me that this is the everlasting No 
 of which the philosopher writes. God, who has such pity 
 as a father hath, supplies every argument, every inducement, 
 that can affect a thinking and loving being ; but He will 
 not take away that power of choice which is the man's dis- 
 tinction in the universe, nor force the soul to obey Him. 
 The mortal father follows humbly, without knowing it, in 
 pain and sorrow, this same sole practice. With man it is 
 
CHAP. I ISAIAH 213 
 
 dictated indeed by the force of things, by the impossibih'ty 
 of confipelling another mind into any way which it does not 
 itself choose ; but with God I venture to beh'cve it is the great 
 secret which explains all that is inexplainable. The way 
 is clear, be it to the savage, be it to the sage : — the infinite 
 Pity watches over all and in many a silent moment enforces 
 unseen the open lesson — but leaves in this world the inalien- 
 able liberty which men have as men : to be exchanged, let us 
 hope, in another sphere, for that soft irresistible constraining 
 which the love of Christ exercises even in this life, and which 
 there may be, we trust, the universal rule. 
 
 This is a digression, and the expression of an individual 
 thought. But as it is impossible to avoid forming individual 
 theories upon matters which concern us all so deeply, I hope 
 the reader will pardon the momentary departure from our 
 immediate subject. On these lines, at least, the great par- 
 able of the Jewish history was carried out. Their mission 
 was set very clearly before them, the highest honour conceiv- 
 able for a nation : their law, so stern in rectitude, yet 
 accompanied with such wonderful shadings of charity and 
 kindness, was given to them centuries before any such code 
 was known in any other race (and this on the showing of the 
 most determined critics, who impute a system of wholesale 
 imposition to the leaders of the tribes, yet cannot deny 
 the antiquity of certain fragments, and these the most 
 essential) : and that well-spring of poetry which was their 
 privilege and distinction, entirely inspired by religious themes 
 and motives, sprang up in their midst with extraordinary 
 fulness before the most ancient ballad or list of names is 
 recorded of any other people, with the exception of the 
 hieroglyphics of Egypt. In all these ways did God en- 
 deavour to persuade that people to fulfil its mission. But 
 the resistance of an unsubdued human will, and the lower 
 inducements which had more force upon them than the 
 higher, and, perhaps, even that weakness of human nature to 
 which a lofty strain of purpose is always exhausting, over- 
 came every better impulse. The Hebrews seem to have 
 asked them.selves from the beginning of their national career 
 
214 THE PROPHETS 
 
 why they should have been chosen, and why they should 
 be bound to follow that higher purpose : why they should 
 be different from other men, why they should not eat 
 and drink and content themselves with the common course, 
 the feasts and license of their neighbours. Perhaps there 
 were some who thought such an assumption of superiority 
 arrogant and intolerable, who preferred to share the lot of 
 those about them to whom their purer creed would seem a 
 standing reproach. To take their chance with their neigh- 
 bours instead of assuming airs of sanctity, — might not that be 
 a thought not ungenerous, attractive, indeed, as more magna- 
 nimous than any self-salvation to many minds ? and the 
 always powerful current of custom round, and the shallow^ 
 poetry of an Astarte and Baal more cognate to the multitude 
 than the Diviner strains, recommended by aboriginal wives 
 and mothers, and by constant sight and association, must 
 have appealed to all the lighter impulses of the soul. The 
 charm of idol-worship is one which the modern mind is quite 
 incapable of understanding ; yet it is evident that it must 
 have been great ; and the Hebrews were alone in that wor- 
 ship which forbade any graven image, and tasked the powers 
 of the mind to imagine a great Spirit everywhere expanded, 
 yet nowhere seen, who demanded not external rites so much 
 as righteousness and truth, and held out no reward of 
 pleasure, but denounced and denied the gratification of the 
 senses as evil and not good. 
 
 This role in the world was too high for the race ; and 
 yet it pleased their pride to dally with it to be thus dis- 
 tinguished among other men ; and they would seem to have 
 had a certain superstitious reliance upon the protection of a 
 God who, for His own credit, so to speak, would not allow 
 them to be overcome, even while they rejected every bond of 
 duty towards Him. It is to this people that the prophets 
 address all their entreaties and warnings. Theirs is no 
 individual appeal calling upon every man to repent. The 
 threatenings of Divine justice are for the nation, for which 
 there is no future retribution, which has to accomplish its 
 warfare as a nation upon the earth, and to undergo the 
 
CHAP. I ISAIAH 215 
 
 recompense of final national apostasy, the penalty of national 
 destruction. I do not say that the absence of all but strong 
 inference — such a cry as "Whom have I in heaven but 
 Thee ? " the cry still of the most devout spirit — of the world 
 beyond the grave is not remarkable throughout the Old 
 Testament : but that in the impassioned utterances of the 
 prophets it would be inappropriate and is not to be looked 
 for, since it is the corporate body to which all their remon- 
 strances and menaces are addressed, the Jewish nation, in its 
 general system and economy, an economy essentially mortal 
 and earthly, made to run its course in the world as a system, 
 of which there was no promise nor any indication that it 
 could ever be transferred to another state of being. 
 
 The state of Hebrew society is made clear to us, within 
 the formulas of the national history, by this succession of 
 great poets. How the foundations of primitive law, the im- 
 memorial commands of Divine charity, were broken, and that 
 which was to be the reproach of the Jew through all ages 
 begun, is already one of the first things revealed to us. 
 " They lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge." 
 What more curious description could be made of the race 
 which is the moneylender of all humanity, the pawnbroker 
 of all the ages? It had not been denied to the primitive 
 Hebrew to exercise this all-congenial trade. He had been 
 allowed to accept the garment in pledge, the upper cloak 
 which a man did not require at his work, for the day during 
 which he was working : and, no doubt, it was implied if not 
 absolutely expressed that the borrower should pay out of his 
 day's wages the sum lent and reclaim his garment. But in 
 no case was it allowed by the law, payment or no payment, 
 that the pledge should be retained. The garment was not 
 only the completion of the workman's attire by day, but it 
 was his covering by night ; and the commandment is as 
 express and distinct as " Thou shalt not .steal " that it should 
 be restored to him. " If thou at all take thy neighbour's 
 raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the 
 sun goeth down : for that is his covering only, it is his rai- 
 ment for his skin : wherein shall he sleep ? " The Shylock 
 
2i6 THE PROPHETS 
 
 of modern history has put this charge far out of his ken, and 
 so had the Hebrew of the days of the last Jeroboam. They 
 lay down upon clothes laid to pledge — what we call now the 
 Arab cloak, which is his house, his cover from the scorching 
 sun, his bed and blanket in which he still lies down secure 
 under any tent or tree wherever it may chance to him to pass 
 the night. The poor man, unable to bring his penny of 
 redemption, must have shivered in the night air in his Hght 
 tunic while the traditionary Jew, the impersonation of the 
 usurer, stretched himself in the most primitive form of 
 warehousing, on the coverings of his debtors — the cruellest 
 form of pawnbroking. The next item in the indictment 
 follows closely upon this. " They sold the righteous for silver, 
 and the poor for a pair of shoes." What but bondage and 
 slavery remained for the unfortunate from whom his all was 
 thus taken ? Bondage, too, was permitted in such a case, 
 that a man should work out his debt, but not that he should 
 be sold by his countrymen, his kinsmen. Thus one of the 
 greatest offences of the race, an organised and systematic 
 breach of the law, is denounced by Amos. The Hebrew 
 instinct had been foreseen and guarded against in that law 
 with its special and strict enactments ; but here it appears in 
 full and flagrant operation, open to the eye of day. 
 
 Such an example has a more picturesque and convincing 
 effect than the more general condemnations of oppression, 
 of misprision of justice, of the taking of bribes, and the 
 falsification of judgment, all of which the prophets declare to 
 be common in Israel as is the idolatry which is the cause of 
 all. It would seem, however, in the midst both of idolatry 
 and law-breaking, that the Israelites continued to give a 
 certain worship to God in conjunction with their idols : for 
 the prophet indignantly exclaims against the meat offerings 
 and burnt offerings which God will not accept, which were 
 offered to him in shameful combination with the offerings 
 made to Jeroboam's calves at Gilgal, and to the other false 
 gods after whom Israel had gone. Not this impulse of 
 superstition and terror, but judgment and righteousness, 
 is what God requires of them : that they should " hate the 
 
CHAP. I ISAIAH 217 
 
 evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the 
 gate." 
 
 Not less striking is the picture of a dissolute and corrupt 
 society, which the prophet finds indifferently in both the 
 capitals, Samaria and Jerusalem. " Ye that put far away 
 the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near ; 
 that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon 
 their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the 
 calves out of the midst of the stall ; that chant (or quaver, 
 a significant correction, and one which throws a certain light 
 upon the primitive music of the time) to the sound of the 
 viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like 
 David ; that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves 
 with the chief ointments." Curiously enough, this imputa- 
 tion of luxury and self-indulgence, especially in wine, is 
 repeated in almost all these terrible and vivid pictures of 
 evil. " Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, 
 that they may follow strong drink ; that continue till night 
 till wine inflame them ! " says Isaiah. It is an unlikely 
 reproach for the sober East, but it is so often repeated that 
 it must point to a fatal weakness of the time. " Mighty to 
 drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink," 
 says another passage. " Which justify the wicked for money, 
 and take away the righteousness of the righteous ! " A 
 society depraved and corrupt, in which that craving for 
 money to supply their luxuries which is so constant a feature 
 of a falling state, leads to every kind of injustice and oppres- 
 sion : where the cause of the weak is unsafe, peculation in 
 every public office, the very hand of the judge not clean : 
 where ostentation and luxury prevail, the women's special 
 prodigality of dress calling forth an indignant protest as in 
 all other primitive indictments, the men's indolent effeminacy, 
 their vacant lives, and pursuit of pleasure reckless and bound- 
 less, filling in the details of the picture. Cruelty and oppres- 
 sion appear on all sides, exactions of all kinds, extravagance 
 and self-indulgence, the prophets prophesying falsely and the 
 people loving to have it so : the courts of law dcba.sed, the 
 lender turned into a usurer, the debtor threatened with 
 
2i8 THE rROPHETS 
 
 slavery, a society altogether disorganised, without efifective 
 authority, without rule, pervaded by license and a slacken- 
 ing of all bonds. 
 
 But in its very depravity and corruption what a picture 
 of supposed security is here ! There are no gatherings for 
 defence, no attempts to rouse the ancient spirit. The picture 
 is like that of the depraved Romans in the last stage of 
 the empire, or of Sardanapalus in his court. The princes 
 stretched out upon their couches, at their' long-drawn-out 
 luxurious repasts, with all the foreign affectations that have 
 come to them from Egypt or from among the millionaires 
 of Tyre : touching a careless viol, quavering a song of loves : 
 keeping all straight with heaven perhaps by a hecatomb of 
 burnt offering at which they would assemble their friends to 
 eat a morsel of the sacrifice, and propitiate the God who 
 could be so easily kept in good humour by the smoke 
 that offended their dainty nostrils : — then straying forth by 
 Solomon's beautiful gate, where perhaps their mules, or the 
 fine-limbed desert horses, which were the last word of Hebrew 
 luxury, waited at the gate, to take them across the valley in 
 a party of mingled pleasure and devotion, and up the slope 
 of Olivet to some favourite grove, where half clandestine, 
 half recognised, the gayer rites of another worship were 
 performed. Nothing like being on the safe side, one can 
 imagine the cynic nobles saying, as they came back to 
 envelop themselves in their silken robes, and lay them- 
 selves upon their sculptured couches with all the fine work 
 of ivory and gilding : — while steward and intendant outside 
 ground every farthing that could be got out of the misery 
 of the needy, out of the prodigal's greedy want and the 
 shivering poor man who had given his cloak for the pleasure 
 of a rude debauch. 
 
 Was this Israel, was this Judah, the chosen of the Lord ? 
 — was this the hill of Zion so often re-consecrated to God 
 where the solemn processions had passed but now celebrating 
 a renewed covenant ? The prophets cry their accusations 
 aloud in every market-place, at every gate, while still these 
 songs of sacred joy have scarcely died out of the echoes. The 
 
CHAP. I ISAIAH 221 
 
 mission of Amos was accomplished in two brilliant reigns, 
 that of Jeroboam II. and that of Uzziah. And the 
 Assyrian was not yet known in his day. And yet his 
 burden is captivity, captivity ! not punishment or calamity 
 alone, which came from time to time in the shape of the all- 
 devouring locust, God's army, or in tempests and convulsions 
 of nature: but destruction complete and hopeless, the carrying 
 away into a strange country, the loss of name and fame as 
 an independent nation. What wonder that the land could 
 not bear his words? What did he mean, this herdsman in 
 his sheepskin, with his wild looks and fiery eyes ? Captivity ! 
 when all was well in Israel : when Damascus had been 
 brought under tribute and all the north : when the kingdom 
 was stronger than it had been for generations, enriched by 
 all the wealth of the cornfields of Esdraelon, the fisheries of 
 Galilee, the little ports upon the margin of the great sea. 
 Yet for all this " Israel shall be captive in a strange land." 
 When he was hunted forth across the border into Judah, 
 even then his voice was not silenced. And that promise to 
 bring back again the captivity of Israel, what did it mean ? 
 and to build again the tabernacle of David upon which no 
 one had attempted to lift up a profane hand ? 
 
 It was more natural that during the reign of Ahaz, when 
 everything was overturned and the king himself profaned 
 the altar and closed the Temple, these cries of warning should 
 resound over the land. But Hezekiah and his reforma- 
 tions seemed scarcely to have silenced for a moment the 
 melancholy predictions of evil to come. Isaiah was a man 
 who had seen many changes in Israel. The ecstatic trance 
 in which he saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and that 
 mystic and splendid vision of the seraphs and their six 
 wings, " with twain he covered his face, and with twain he 
 covered his feet, and with twain he did fly" (which I have heard 
 a physiologist explain as in accordance with the structure of 
 the human body and capable of being realised in it in some 
 future purification of form, a devout imagination with which 
 the old doctor pleased his fancy), happened in the year in 
 which King Uzziah died. Jotham reigned sixteen years and 
 
THE PROPHETS 
 
 his son Ahaz sixteen, so that when the reign and the reforma- 
 tion of Hezekiah their son and grandson came, the prophet 
 must have been at least beyond his prime. He had seen 
 the most wonderful revolutions in Jerusalem. He had seen 
 conquest and triumph, the wealth of captured cities carried 
 across the great bridge to be laid up in the house of the 
 Lord : and anon a rage of destruction in that sacred place, 
 the spoils carried away, the golden lining stripped from the 
 walls, the Temple left desolate. And then the whirligig of 
 time had turned and he had beheld the restoration, the 
 re-dedication, a reverent bringing back of still greater glory. 
 He had seen siege after siege, the humiliation of the city before 
 the power of Damascus, its conquest by the King of Israel, 
 thousands of captives dragged from their homes, but coming 
 back again in the sudden compunction of the conquerors 
 moved by old brotherhood and kindness, notwithstanding the 
 severance and enmity of years. The mind of the prophet 
 must have been in itself a chronicle full of the vicissitudes 
 of national life. 
 
 And he was one of the greatest poets that had arisen in 
 Israel, a man full of high genius and the noblest powers. 
 Between him and David there had arisen no such exquisite 
 voice of song, no such large and splendid inspiration. Fire 
 from the altar had touched his lips. If any man was capable 
 of beholding the seraphim and even the glory of the Lord 
 upon his throne, this was the man. In his great poem or col- 
 lection of poems there is no monotony of denunciation. His 
 harp has many strings. The most triumphant measure as 
 well as the saddest is congenial to his great voice. He is 
 capable of the irony of the satirist and the sweetness of the 
 pastoral : he has forestalled Dante and given to Milton a 
 keynote beyond that great poet's compass. The hell of his 
 vision is more grand than that of the Florentine, his heaven 
 far more splendid than that of the English poet : his song 
 falls from the height of sombre grandeur to that 
 
 Sound as of a hidden brook 
 In the leafy month of June, 
 
 which Coleridge has described and exemplified as one of 
 
CHAP. I ISAIAH 223 
 
 the most exquisite expedients of poetic art — but not with 
 such grace and sweetness as Isaiah. The portrait of the 
 falling race, so true to many a last stage of empire since, 
 is not more clear in those dark lines of woe and misery than 
 is the triumphant vision of a time to come, in which all that 
 is joyful shall return under the reign of the Prince of 
 Peace, the root and the offspring of David, the King whose 
 name is Wonderful. He turns from one scene to another 
 with the freshness of a noble faculty to which monotony is 
 impossible, which from the depths of humiliation bursts 
 glorious into the deliverance to come, and cannot be confined 
 to one note. In his early years he is like the wild Ezekiel 
 among the miserable exodus of the captivity, a sort of 
 natural sign and parable to the people, he and his wife " the 
 prophetess " and his children : but in his elder age he is the 
 king's counsellor, a distinguished member of Jewish society, 
 the representative of all that is highest in religion. It is 
 to him the troubled statesmen go when they have met 
 Rabshakeh at the gate and have not been able to keep his 
 insolent message from the rabble that crowded the walls, 
 that foolish rabble thoughtful of nothing but its own safety 
 which might so easily make a disastrous panic within, and 
 force the hand of the king and his advisers, and precipitate 
 destruction. And it is he who dissipates those fears, who 
 calms the terrors of the crowd, and gives a tremulous con- 
 fidence to the threatened city : — to be followed by how 
 profound an impression when the news came of that 
 astounding and incomprehensible catastrophe which swept 
 Sennacherib's army from the face of the earth, and reduced 
 his power in a moment. How extraordinary, we say ! surely 
 enough to impress for ever upon the minds of the most 
 frivolous people the conviction that Isaiah's warnings must 
 be true, that his entreaties and' adjurations were worthy of 
 all their attention, that what was said by the prophet, so 
 tremendously attested by God, was as trustworthy when he 
 threatened punishment as when he promised deliverance : 
 and so it ought to have been by all human analogy, and so 
 by all human example it was not. The awe, the solemn 
 
224 THE PROPHETS 
 
 impression, the extraordinary relief in a moment to all the 
 terrors of the threatened city died with the day that brought 
 them forth, and the human routine went on as before. So 
 it has been in every age : and so it will be, no doubt, till the 
 race comes to an end, or some other impulse higher than 
 any known heretofore gives a higher possibility, an alteration 
 beyond all hopes to the well-known and long-established 
 " way of the world." 
 
 It is strange to imagine this great and remarkable 
 individual amid the crowded life of the ancient Jerusalem. 
 Amos and the other prophets were of different mould. The 
 herdsman taken from following his flock frequented the 
 woodland sanctuaries of Bethel, roaming by the wayside, 
 meeting the pilgrims who went and came, one of the outdoor 
 crowd, proclaiming his message to all the winds, a wild 
 figure of the sort that had never been unknown in Israel, a 
 rhapsodist, a wandering minstrel — but with something more 
 exciting still than the story-telling of the East, a message 
 which was, indeed, to all, but which the crowd of the needy 
 and poor would, no doubt, eagerly appropriate to their betters, 
 with that invariable satisfaction in the denunciation which is 
 natural to every crowd. In the beginning of his career in 
 the later days ofUzziah and the confused and miserable 
 reign of Ahaz there are similar features in the aspect of 
 Isaiah. In those strange bold symbolisms of fate, by which 
 he makes his own domestic life a parable, and audaciously 
 dates his prophecy of the destruction of the conspiring 
 powers which had brought trouble to Judah, by the birth and 
 growth of his child — Isaiah adopts the most tremendous 
 practical method of bringing his predictions home to his 
 hearers. His son Maher-shalal-hash-baz, " in making speed to 
 the spoil he hasteneth the prey " (hasteneth the moment when 
 he shall himself be the prey ?), was not in existence at the 
 time of the prophecy. The prophet had just taken to 
 himself that bride who is afterwards spoken of as the 
 prophetess. It was when the King of Syria and the King of 
 Israel had made their raid upon Judah, destroying the fenced 
 cities round about, and carrying away many captives, chiefly 
 
CHAP. I ISAIAH 227 
 
 it would seem from the valley of Jordan towards Jericho ; 
 and Jerusalem, naked of these advanced posts, trembled for 
 the moment when the triumphant army should appear under 
 her own walls — that these espousals would seem to have 
 taken place. Two witnesses were chosen by the prophet to 
 record the exact date. " For before the child shall have 
 knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of 
 Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away 
 before the King of Assyria." A strange test and a bold, 
 belonging to the language of symbol and fact which is always 
 so impressive to the primitive mind. The whole city must 
 have known that extraordinary wager with Providence. And 
 when the news came that the great Assyrian from Nineveh — 
 that distant wonderful city of which it was already known 
 in story and in .song that a prophet of the Hebrews had 
 been unwillingly sent to warn it of its wickedness — had 
 appeared in the north, calling back the Syrian king in hot 
 haste to defend his capital ; and when a little later terror- 
 stricken messengers brought the report that the hordes of 
 that distant and dimly apprehended power had swept away 
 Israel from Samaria, till there was left only the poorest 
 leavings — " As the shepherd taketh out of the mouth of the 
 lion two legs or a piece of an car," according to the simile of 
 Amos — with what awe-struck wonder must the inhabitants 
 of Jerusalem have gathered round the prophet's door, and 
 watched the little dark-eyed child stammering forth the Lo 
 and Ammi, the first .syllables of baby speech. In this way 
 it seems Isaiah established his authenticity before his race : 
 with great indecency, M. Renan and other critics say, but 
 that is scarcely the question. It is an incident that rtiight 
 occur even now, though probably not with the same universal 
 publicity, in the same unchanged and unchangeable land. 
 
 And was it, perhaps, at the same early period that he 
 stood — in one of those characteristic openings of the steep 
 dark street where the crowd that gathered to listen would 
 establish itself as in a theatre in the narrow depth of that 
 ravine of building, each line of glowing turban or kerchief 
 threaded with gold, rising a little higher than the other ; 
 
228 THE PROPHETS 
 
 and with the viol in his hand which was capable of serious 
 as well as frivolous use, sang in the hearing of half Jerusalem 
 " a song to my wellbeloved, a song of my beloved touching 
 his vineyard " ? Did the crowd expect it to be no more than 
 a song of loves, a variation upon the old familiar theme ? 
 Did those who knew the singer best pluck at their neigh- 
 bours' elbows, and bid the more serious pause because of the 
 moral that must be in it, though the beginning sounded like 
 mere poetry ? 
 
 My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill : 
 And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, 
 And planted it with the choicest vine, 
 And built a tower in the midst of it, 
 And made a winepress therein. . . . 
 
 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, 
 
 men of Judah, 
 
 Judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. . . . 
 
 Would there be some who would start and shift and 
 disturb the crowd, suspecting the unwelcome message that 
 was to come ? and some who would press nearer hoping, 
 perhaps, to exercise their sharp wits on a question of casuistry, 
 or to hear a tale of oppression, perhaps a tirade against some 
 patrician, or a piece of veiled and piquant treason such as 
 the mob loves ? 
 
 What could have been done more to my vineyard. 
 
 That I have not done in it ? 
 
 Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, 
 
 Brought it forth wild grapes ? 
 
 ■ And now go to ; 
 
 1 will tell you what I will do to my vineyard : 
 I will take away the hedge thereof. 
 
 And it shall be eaten up ; 
 
 And break down the wall thereof, 
 
 And it shall be trodden down : 
 
 And I will lay it waste : 
 
 It shall not be pruned, nor digged ; 
 
 But there shall come up briars and thorns : 
 
 I will also command the clouds 
 
 That they rain no rain upon it. 
 
CHAP. I ISAIAH 229 
 
 Then, one can fancy the louder note struck from the 
 instrument, the pause of the singer, the stir in the multi- 
 tude — 
 
 For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts 
 
 Is the house of Israel, 
 
 And the men of Judah 
 
 Are the plant of His pleasure. ... 
 
 One of the most wonderful of those early odes of Isaiah 
 is the wild and terrible song with its burden " For all this 
 His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched 
 out still," in which vengeance is denounced against a power 
 scarcely yet known. By the guidance at once of the sub- 
 ject matter of the poem, and of the date which precedes 
 a briefer lyric, it would seem to have been written or rather 
 delivered during the reign of Ahaz. All Jerusalem which 
 had lately trembled for the advance of the allied armies 
 of Samaria and Damascus, " Rezin and Remaliah's son " : 
 and whom Isaiah had reassured not only by prophecy but 
 by the curious limit of time during which that prophecy 
 and their destruction was to be accomplished : had after a 
 moment's exultation and relief begun again to apprehend 
 the approach of a greater danger in the still more powerful 
 conqueror from the north, who had overthrown its enemies ; 
 the Assyrian whom the King of Judah had been so unwise as 
 to call to his aid, not perceiving that he himself and his little 
 kingdom must be the next mouthful to that potentate, a far 
 more dangerous opponent than the other little kings with whom 
 there had always been a give and take of neighbourly warfare, 
 victories and reprisals going on from generation to generation. 
 Assyria meant nothing less than to sweep the whole stretch 
 of that rich historic country — the little territory which yet 
 held an importance altogether incommensurate with its area, 
 the country which included that mystic sacred Temple and 
 kingdom of Solomon, of which all the existing world had 
 heard, the dynasty which had lasted in lineal succession for 
 two hundred years — as well as the great and important 
 seaport Tyre, and many other rich cities full of spoil. 
 There would, no doubt, be men in Jerusalem who could 
 
230 THE PROPHETS 
 
 perceive and understand the ambition of this new empire, 
 far more vast and with much larger aims than any of 
 the surrounding kingdoms of Palestine, an empire which 
 destroyed and depopulated, not one whose incursions in one 
 generation could be repaid by the next as was the ancient 
 use and wont. And, perhaps, even the one threatening 
 troublous visit which Tiglath-pileser had made to his 
 trembling protege Ahaz, had impressed even the populace, 
 after their brief exultation in the removal of their immediate 
 enemies, with an uneasy sense of that great potentate behind, 
 who could crush Judah when he pleased still more easily 
 than he had crushed Israel. 
 
 It was probably in some special outburst of this 
 smouldering panic that the prophet came out to his door, 
 or took his stand in the great highway between the city 
 of David and the Temple, the opening where Solomon's 
 great bridge crossed the valley, or some other public 
 place ; and declaimed once more his message, " Thus saith 
 the Lord." How that many-coloured Eastern crowd would 
 swarm down every rocky lane and steep street to hear 
 what this message was, eager as all crowds are to hear 
 something new, more eager still because of the tremendous 
 fulfilment of his last great commission and the general con- 
 viction, tempered by practical scepticism, that God spoke by 
 His prophet. One can scarcely doubt that the little symbolic 
 child, the infant whose baby stammerings had marked the 
 time in which his father's prediction was to be verified, was 
 somewhere by, clinging to the prophet's robe, looking out 
 with childish eyes accustomed to the stare of the wondering 
 crowd, and to the sound of the great voice that pealed over 
 his head. What was it that this bold prophet had to pro- 
 claim — the destruction perhaps of some other poor little 
 kingdom by the great world - conqueror ? No! but the 
 destruction of that conqueror himself: vast Babylon a 
 wonder in the mystic depths of distance, a golden city, 
 miraculous in her extent, her wealth and greatness : and her 
 sublime emperor who defied even God Himself, who had 
 laughed at all the gods of the nations, who had devoured 
 
CHAP. I ISAIAH 231 
 
 race after race like a cluster of grapes, to whose following 
 and armies there was no end. The Assyrian ! that name 
 of fear ! What had the prophet to say of this avenger, 
 this universal victor, whose power overawed all the known 
 world ? In the little capital of this small kingdom, a speck 
 among the hills, amid a people terrified and helpless, debased 
 by effeminacy and fear, no longer the mighty men of the 
 heroic ages, this Hebrew stood up and poured forth the voice 
 of his vision. 
 
 Ho, Assyria, the rod of mine anger, 
 
 The slaflF in his hand is mine indignation. 
 
 I will send him against a hypocritical nation, 
 
 And against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge. 
 
 To take the spoil. 
 
 And to take the prey, 
 
 And to tread them down 
 
 Like the mire in the streets. 
 
 Howbeit he meaneth not so. 
 Neither doth his heart think so. 
 
 For he saith, 
 
 By the strength of my hand I have done it, 
 
 And by my wisdom ; for I am prudent : 
 
 I have removed the bounds of the people, 
 
 I have put down the inhabitants 
 
 Like a valiant man. . . . 
 
 Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith ? 
 Shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it ? 
 As if the rod should shake them that lift it up. 
 Or the staff against that (the hand) which is not wood. 
 
 We can only pause here to note how the prophet bursts 
 forth in the midst of this discourse, as of many others, 
 into that great proclamation of final deliverance which 
 throughout all seems to seize him from time to time by 
 an overmastering force, carrying him far beyond the partial 
 and temporary deliverances which are his immediate subject, 
 transporting him into a changed world which in his inspired 
 rhapsody is near at hand as to-morrow, the everlasting day- 
 spring, the fulfilment of all promises. So full is his mind 
 
232 THE PROPHETS 
 
 with that hope, that it bursts from him whenever he pauses 
 to take breath, raising no doubt a bewildering excitement in 
 the mind of all these eager listeners who had heard vaguely 
 of a Messiah, a great King, all their lives, and who would 
 recognise in the uplifted eyes, the illuminated face, the 
 change of voice, that the orator had been swept away into 
 that subject most co^ngenial to him. He returns to his present 
 theme with a sigh, a sob of altered utterance. " Therefore 
 thus saith the Lord God of Hosts, O my people that 
 dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian." No, not 
 even when he comes, when his hosts pour over the country, 
 when the terrified posts bring news of his advance day 
 by day, and imagination paints his progress over the deso- 
 lated country. 
 
 He is come to Aiath, 
 
 He is passed to Migron ; 
 
 At Michmash he hath laid up his carriages : 
 
 They are gone over the passage : 
 
 They have taken up their lodging at Geba ; 
 
 Ramah is afraid ; 
 
 Gibeah of Saul is fled. 
 
 Cry shrill with thy voice, O daughter of Gallim : 
 
 Listen, O Laish ! thou poor Anathoth. 
 
 Madmenah is scattered ; 
 
 The inhabitants of Gebim gather to flee. 
 
 This very day he will halt at Nob : 
 
 He will shake his hand 
 
 Against the mount of the daughter of Zion, 
 
 Against the hill of Jerusalem. 
 
 This is as who should say. The invader is landed at 
 Dover, he has abandoned his ships, he has passed Canter- 
 bury and Rochester, the men of Kent have forsaken their 
 villages, he has set up his camp at Woolwich and threatens 
 London. It is in imagination that the prophet sees this 
 terrible advance. But the trembling hearers knew that it was 
 a thing that might happen any day. It did happen when 
 Rabshakeh and his party made their way, their master to 
 follow as soon as he had completed the siege of Lachish — 
 to the gates of Jerusalem. But — 
 
CHAP, I ISAIAH 233 
 
 Behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, 
 Shall lop the bough : 
 The high ones shall be hewn down, 
 The haughty shall be humbled. 
 
 He shall cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, 
 And Lebanon shall fall 
 By one that is mighty. 
 
 More distinct and detailed is the burden of Babylon 
 which follows, in which her utter destruction is the theme, 
 and the Medes in their fierce disinterestedness,^ " which shall 
 not regard silver," rise up pitiless before our eyes : and still 
 more wonderful is the vision in which the prophet, suddenly 
 rapt as is his characteristic from the more practical and 
 immediate scope of his poem, and plunged with an over- 
 whelming force of impulse into the future and the unseen, 
 tears aside the dark veil of Hades and displays the great 
 dead, the monarchs of the past, rising to meet the fallen 
 conqueror — 
 
 Hell from beneath is moved for thee 
 To meet thee at thy coming : 
 It stirreth up the dead for thee, 
 Even all the chief ones of the earth : 
 It hath raised up from their thrones 
 All the kings of the nations. 
 
 All they shall speak and say unto thee. 
 Art thou also become weak as we ? 
 Art thou become like unto us ? 
 
 Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, 
 And the noise of thy viols : 
 The worm is spread under thee 
 And the worms cover thee. 
 
 How art thou fallen from heaven, 
 O Lucifer, son of the morning ! 
 How art thou cut down to the ground, 
 Which didst weaken the nations ! 
 
 * I take from the commentary of Dr. Payne Smith the remarkable note, 
 •• Xenophon makes Cyrus speak to the Medes of not having joined him from a 
 desire of money." 
 
234 THE rROPHETS 
 
 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, 
 And consider thee, 
 
 Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, 
 That did shake kingdoms ? 
 
 That made the world as a wilderness. 
 
 And destroyed the cities thereof; 
 
 That opened not the house of his prisoners ? 
 
 One may imagine how years after, when Sennacherib's 
 great army perished, and all the immediate alarms of the 
 Hebrews were silenced in a moment by the great news, and 
 the messengers were surrounded with excited crowds from 
 every street to hear each detail of that unhoped-for deliver- 
 ance — Isaiah's great ode which had been listened to in its 
 first utterance with troubled and wondering incomprehension, 
 may have been taken out from among the other rolls of 
 mystic writing and read with an understanding and awed 
 acknowledgment of its tremendous truth. Sennacherib's 
 fall was not the final meaning of that prophecy, yet 
 it might well have seemed so, a presage and preface. 
 Hezekiah no doubt had heard it proclaimed, when he 
 was a boy, in his father's troubled and disastrous reign, 
 when, perhaps, the utmost that was thought of it was that 
 it was an imaginative speculation, a vision of what might 
 be if ever that great and conquering power should fall. In 
 the same way, I believe, it was applied to Napoleon in the 
 time of his glory. And it can scarcely be believed that 
 there were not men in Judah who were capable of feeling 
 the force of the poetry and upon whose memory that picture 
 of Hades had imprinted itself with the vividness of youthful 
 recollection. When the first wonder, the first stunned and 
 startled sensation, the rapture of exultation in their deliver- 
 ance were somewhat abated, would not they bethink them- 
 selves — was there not something we have heard, a poem 
 beginning " Hades is moved," a vision that made the heart 
 beat? Surely it was of the Assyrian the prophet spoke? 
 Isaiah in these latter days was no longer, perhaps, the 
 minstrel prophet who had declaimed his warnings and his 
 promises in the public places, who had walked barefoot as 
 
CHAP. I ISAIAH 235 
 
 a sign and symbol, whose child had been the measure of 
 predicted time. He was the counsellor of the king, the man 
 to whom even the politicians made their resort when their 
 difficulties were overwhelming, the great and acknowledged 
 instructor as well as the most wonderful poet that was 
 known in Jerusalem. Did some gay deputation of young 
 lords pour into his chamber, all joy and tumult, more 
 sceptical than believing, rousing him from those great 
 dreams of the Deliverer to come, on which all his being 
 was intent, bidding him come and read to the king that 
 old thing of his, which the old men were talking of, that 
 vision, or whatever it might be, of Hades ? Let him arise 
 and bring it forth and read to the king. And with what 
 awe would Hezekiah listen, in his timid faithfulness, for 
 whom Hades would never be disturbed, whose hope was 
 for peace in his own day whatever might follow, and 
 perhaps a humble slipping into heaven at the end, no king, 
 but the least of God's servants. No exultation, no cry of 
 triumph was in that poem, but the awe of a great judgment 
 and a great suffering, a vast and dim unseen world where 
 there was neither fire nor flame, but a great suspense. 
 Dante has nothing so splendid in all his sublime Inferno. 
 
 Isaiah grew old like other men. He lived through 
 four reigns and filled Jerusalem with his voice : and 
 poured forth, pealing through those deep streets, such songs 
 as had never been heard among them save in the first 
 splendid age of national consolidation. There had been 
 wandering poets of lesser note in sheepskin and camel's hair 
 out of the wilderness, a herdsman like Amos, wild and 
 strange in the fatigue of his flight, banished out of Israel for 
 his words that troubled the land ; or a sudden apparition 
 undistinguished even by his father's name, Nahum the 
 Klkoshite, Micah the Morasthitc, appearing like meteors, 
 passing across the busy background of common life, listened 
 to for a moment by the rushing crowd ever eager for song 
 or story, and never unwilling to hear what terrors were 
 denounced against its neighbours of the northern kingdom. 
 But Isaiah must have been as well known to Jerusalem as 
 
236 THE PROrHETS 
 
 the towers of Millo, or the pillars of the Temple ; and in his 
 old age a certain change had come over his great voice. 
 Probably he came forth no longer to declaim his message, to 
 give expression to the confusion and terror of the popular 
 heart as when the whole city was stirred to listen for every 
 rumour of those dreadful deeds that were being enacted in 
 Samaria, and his cry " Watchman, what of the night ? " pealed 
 into every soul. He was now abiding in his house, an old 
 man, rapt more and more in the heavenly vision, in those 
 strong consolations which God had provided for the faithful 
 among his people ; yet still by times moved by what was 
 going on around, pouring forth his denunciations upon the 
 sins of Jerusalem, the extortion, the injustice, the cruelty of 
 men who made their appearance daily at the Temple services 
 and attempted in their folly and wickedness to flatter the 
 great God with sacrifices, as if the smoke of their offerings 
 might keep Him from seeing the burdens which they bound 
 upon the poor and feeble. " Is it such a fast that I have 
 chosen ? " he cried with indignant wrath and irony: " a day for 
 a man to afflict his soul ? is it to bow down his head like a 
 bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him ? 
 Is not this the fast that I have chosen ? to loose the bands 
 of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the 
 oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke ? " And 
 when the gentle Hezekiah died he poured forth his tribute 
 of lamentation : — not to mourn for him ; for why should the 
 old prophet mourn for a good man removed, taken away from 
 the evil to come ? " He shall enter into peace " : but yet it 
 was heavy on the patriot spirit to see that "the righteous 
 perisheth and no man layeth it to heart," and that now once 
 more is the time for " the sons of the sorceress " to lift up 
 their heads under the new reign, which is that of a child, 
 destined in his time to be one of the worst of Judah's 
 kings. 
 
 All these things does Isaiah remark in his seclusion with 
 a profound and indignant sorrow. Nor does he forget his 
 cry of " Woe to Babylon " nor the doom which he has already 
 so often denounced upon that still powerful and splendid 
 
ciiAi>. I ISAIAH 237 
 
 city, to which the seat of power of the Assyrian empire was 
 to be transferred, and whose final action as the scourge in 
 God's hand was yet to be carried out against Jerusalem, from 
 which the danger had been averted by the destruction of 
 Sennacherib, but only for a time. The wonderful details of 
 the destruction denounced upon Babylon, that come in, as if 
 seen by a gleam of lightning in the confused atmosphere of 
 disaster — the iron gates unbarred, the two-leaved gates, a par- 
 ticular also proclaimed by Nahum, with that sudden touch of 
 precision in the mist and rolling clouds of prophetic rhapsody 
 which recurs so often — and the indication of Cyrus by name 
 as at once the destroyer of the Assyrian power, and the 
 deliverer of Judah — arc so extraordinary that it is only 
 natural that critics to whom in their denial of all that is 
 supernatural this would be a deathblow, should contend 
 violently for a second Isaiah, not the prophet we know but 
 another, an equally great poet, but without so much as a sign 
 of his passage through the crowd. 
 
 These things, however, though they have so much im- 
 portance in history, are but accidental, the asides of the 
 great revelation in which the old prophet's whole soul is 
 ab.sorbed : which is that of the Messiah, the King of Right- 
 eousness, the Son of David, of whom and for whom all the 
 promises of the establishment of David's throne had been 
 made. That glorious prospect which rose upon him in the 
 quiet of his age while all the conflicts raged without, trans- 
 ported Isaiah by times into those old fervours of prophetic 
 ecstasy which are so characteristic of his splendid manhood 
 and passionate height of inspiration. He who proclaimed 
 trouble and distress so often, who even in his promise of 
 immediate deliverance had not concealed a darker day to 
 come, breaks forth anon into cries of joy that thrill the air. 
 Or if the reader pleases it is now the new Isaiah, the poet of 
 the restoration who speaks : 
 
 Awake, awake ; 
 Put on thy .strength, O Zion ; 
 Put on thy beautiful j,Mrments, 
 O Jerusalem, the holy city ! 
 
238 THE PROPHETS 
 
 Shake thyself from the dust ; 
 
 Arise, O Jerusalem : 
 
 Loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, 
 
 O captive daughter of Zion. 
 
 How beautiful upon the mountains 
 
 Are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, 
 
 That publisheth peace ; 
 
 That bringeth good tidings. 
 
 That publisheth salvation ; 
 
 That saith unto Zion, 
 
 Thy God reigneth ! 
 
 Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice ; 
 With the voice together shall they sing : 
 For they shall see eye to eye, 
 When the Lord shall bring again Zion. 
 
 Break forth into joy, 
 
 Sing together. 
 
 Ye waste places of Jerusalem : 
 
 For the Lord hath comforted his people, 
 
 He hath redeemed Jerusalem. 
 
 The Lord hath made bare His holy arm 
 In the eyes of all the nations ; 
 And all the ends of the earth 
 Shall see the salvation of our God. 
 
 By whom was this glory to come, this joy so far transcend- 
 ing everything that eye has seen or ear heard or the heart of 
 man conceived — not the salvation of Judah alone but of all 
 the ends of the earth, crowding round her as the holy city ? 
 It is by the King that shall reign in righteousness, the new 
 branch which shall spring out of the root of Jesse, "my 
 Servant " called by Jehovah, " Him in whom my soul 
 delighteth." And of what manner of being is this Holy 
 One of Israel ? This is what Isaiah asks, in vision, in high 
 and wonderful poetic musings, " searching," as St. Peter 
 explained long after, " what or what manner of time the 
 Spirit of Christ which was in him did signify." What did 
 it signify ? Something too strange for belief, too wonderful 
 for the most authentic vision. Was he but dimly conscious 
 what it meant? did he believe it allegorical, a similitude, a 
 spiritual picture, not a fact to be verified in every detail ? or 
 
CHAP. I ISAIAH 239 
 
 did he cry out like Peter and the rest " Be it far from thee, 
 Lord ! " in the first anguish and comprehension of what they 
 meant, those wonderful words ? 
 
 He is despised and rejected of men ; 
 
 A man of sorrows. 
 
 And acquainted with grief ; 
 
 And we hid as it were our faces from him : 
 
 He was despised, 
 
 And we esteemed him not. 
 
 Surely he hath borne our griefs. 
 And carried our sorrows : 
 Yet we did esteem him stricken, 
 Smitten of God, and afflicted. 
 
 But he was wounded for our transgressions. 
 He was bruised for our iniquities : 
 The chastisement of our peace was upon him ; 
 And with his stripes we are healed. 
 
 All we, like sheep, have gone astray ; 
 
 We have turned every one to his own way ; 
 
 And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 
 
 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted ; 
 Yet he opened not his mouth : 
 He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter. 
 And as a sheep before her shearers is dumb. 
 So he opened not his mouth. 
 
 He was taken from prison and from judgment : 
 And who shall declare his generation ? 
 For he was cut off out of the land of the living : 
 For the transgression of my people was he stricken. 
 
 And he made his grave with the wicked. 
 And with a rich man in his death ; 
 Because he had done no violence, 
 Neither was any deceit found in his mouth. 
 
 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him ; 
 
 He hath put him to grief: 
 
 When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, 
 
 He shall see his seed, 
 
 He shall prolong his d.iys. 
 
 And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. 
 
240 THE PROrHETS 
 
 When it burst upon Isaiah that this wonderful description, 
 rising line by line to his poet lips, concerned the King, the 
 Saviour, the God with us, of his own long-past prophecy, 
 did the old man fall upon his face before the Lord and cry 
 " Not so, not so " ? But the prophet has no longer anything 
 to say of himself. It is not his now to undo the sandal 
 from his foot and the sackcloth from his loins until these 
 things should come to pass. Far off in the distance in times 
 unknown lay this tragedy so fully told, so unmistakable. 
 " Abraham rejoiced to see my day : he saw it, and was glad." 
 But was not Isaiah rather glad that not to his eyes except 
 in vision should this anguish be ? Be it far from thee. Lord ! 
 so we should all have cried had we been in that secret. 
 What imagination of man could have dreamed of a 
 Deliverer like this ? And was it, perhaps, with some vain 
 human thought of averting that Sufferer's pain that the old 
 man at the end of his career flung up his arms to heaven 
 and cried, as so many since then have done after him, " O 
 that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest 
 come down, that the mountains might dissolve at thy pre- 
 sence ! " O that thou wouldest so burst forth upon the 
 world in manifest majesty, in glory that no man could gain- 
 say, that the stubborn race might be convinced once for all 
 in spite of itself! Who has not consciously or unconsciously 
 echoed that prayer ? but not such are the ways of God. 
 
 There is an old, old tree, supported by props of piled 
 stones, still standing near the waters of Siloam in the valley 
 of Hinnom, at the foot of Moriah — a hoary and venerable 
 tree like an old man in the last decrepitude of age, under 
 which, according to local tradition, Isaiah was cruelly put to 
 death by King Manasseh, the successor of the good Hezekiah 
 — sawn asunder says the legend. He must have been so 
 old that, let us hope, the hands of the executioners shook the 
 feeble life out of him before the atrocities began. Is the old 
 mulberry-tree the descendant of some tree that saw that 
 terrible deed accomplished ? for tradition is very tenacious in 
 those strange unchanging countries. At all events it bears the 
 most pathetic resemblance to the oldest of conceivable old men 
 
CHAP, I ISAIAH 241 
 
 — and as such may be accepted as a natural monument to 
 the old poet who has provided us with many of the most 
 glorious imaginations that have ever passed through the 
 mind of man, and whom we have known in his impassioned 
 youth and vehement manhood as well as in his old age, a 
 wonder and a splendour in the earth. 
 
 We might ask, supposing that Cyrus was added by an 
 anonymous contemporary, what hand pictured forth the Man 
 of Sorrows ? and how did even he, the imaginary Isaiah of 
 the captivity, know of that Divine Sufferer that was to be — 
 yet was not to be for many hundreds of years? Cyrus is 
 a trifle in comparison. But this is no place for vain argu- 
 ment. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 JEREMIAH 
 
 A PERIOD of about sixty years elapsed between the end of 
 Isaiah's career and the beginning of that of Jeremiah — a 
 period in which there were the usual vicissitudes, the fall 
 and the reaction which are so universal in Jewish history. 
 Manasseh, who had succeeded to the throne as a child, 
 became wildly profligate in his manhood and adopted the 
 most cruel and abominable superstitions, until, presumably 
 in his later years, trouble came upon him, and the humilia- 
 tion of being dragged to Babylon in the train of the con- 
 queror brought tardy conviction and penitence to his heart. 
 This foretaste of the destruction that was to come would 
 seem to have sobered and startled the rulers of Israel : for 
 Josiah his grandson, after the brief reign of his son Amon, 
 must have been brought up in the fear of God, since his 
 earliest acts are those of reformation, a reformation more 
 thoroughgoing than any that had preceded it, and fondly 
 hoped, it would seem, to have been decisive : since the idols, 
 with the fierceness of a vengeance upon those senseless things 
 which is very human and natural, were ground to powder, 
 thus securing that they should never be raised up again. 
 Notwithstanding in the fourteenth year of this good king's 
 reign, while these reformations were going on, the voice of 
 warning was again raised in Jerusalem, and this time with a 
 force which exceeded all previous threatenings in the un- 
 broken terror of its denunciations, as the events about to 
 take place exceeded all others in their misery. 
 
CHAP. II JEREMIAH 243 
 
 When Jeremiah began his prophecies Josiah his con- 
 temporary was twenty-two, a young man strongly imbued 
 with religious feeling, and anxious to conform his kingdom 
 to the regulations of its ancient worship. Judah however by 
 this time shared the diminished condition of every other little 
 kingdom round, overshadowed by the great Assyrian, and 
 retaining its separate existence only by his forbearance. 
 It was diminished in prestige if not in actual power: its 
 borders had already been devastated again and again, its 
 frontier cities taken, and its very capital visited by the con- 
 queror. It would not seem, however, that these disasters 
 had seriously affected the people, at least in a moral point 
 of view. There had, indeed, already arisen in that small 
 stronghold and sanctuary of national life among the^aills, an 
 Egyptian party, hoping to find in that great power, itself 
 just springing into vigour again after defeat and humiliation, 
 an ally who could defend them from the Assyrian : just as 
 there was in the Scotland of the Reformation an English 
 party much recommended by reason, but highly objectionable 
 to national feeling : the Egyptian party in the former case 
 being one to which the king himself was strongly opposed. 
 
 At the same time there existed a still more visible 
 conflict, the struggle of the king to bring about such a 
 revolution of feeling as might still save his nation, but 
 working almost alone with the aid of a " clerical party," 
 perhaps ; though the priesthood, too, seems to have been 
 supine, only able to effectuate any reform by the initiative 
 of the king — and the country entirely indifferent to any 
 such esoteric way of defending itself, intent upon other 
 methods, on getting more warlike races to fight its battles, 
 on securing by diplomacy its exemption from those evils 
 which had already overwhelmed so many little nations 
 under its eyes. King Josiah's idea that a reform of morals 
 could have any effect on the position of affairs was, no doubt, 
 folly and fanaticism in the eyes of his chiefs and captains, as 
 well as in those of the people generally, a devout imagina- 
 tion worthy of the most benighted times. No doubt they 
 turned with contemptuous impatience from such suggestions, 
 
244 THE PROPHETS 
 
 which might suit the old world, but were far too antiquated 
 and arricre for them, and lamented the Puritanism which 
 occupied itself with cutting down pleasant trees, and burning 
 many fine examples of Phoenician art in the way of deities, 
 when it ought to have been framing useful treaties and 
 making alliances of a profitable kind in preparation for 
 confronting the Assyrian. On the contrary, Josiah, it would 
 seem, was faithful to the treaty made with the Assyrian whose 
 tributary Judah had been from the time his grandfather, 
 Manasseh, figured among the captive kings at Babylon. 
 
 In those days a young priest of the highest rank — the 
 son of Hilkiah, the high priest, as generally believed — very 
 different in station and breeding from the other prophets 
 who ha(i made the air resound with their outcries in the 
 former generations — a young man, no doubt full of all the 
 learning of the time : was suddenly visited by that mysterious 
 impulse which like other breathings of the Spirit went where 
 it listed, calling one here and one there by an irresistible 
 call. The young priest was consecrated to God's service, 
 yet not in so strange and terrible a way — and his spirit 
 failed him when this vocation came upon him. " Ah, Lord 
 God ! behold, I cannot speak ; for I am a child," he cried. 
 He had not the innocent unconsciousness of the child-prophet 
 in the ancient tabernacle, the young Samuel who answered, 
 " Here I am " in the same simple faith to his master on 
 earth and his Master in heaven. Jeremiah, from his youth, 
 must have had a melancholy and troubled spirit, feeling to 
 the depths of his heart the uneasy condition of all about him, 
 the seething of all the disorderly elements, the decomposition 
 of the national life. He shrank in his timidity and sadness 
 from the terrible task put upon him. He had not the 
 splendid and fiery eloquence of Isaiah, the impetus of 
 genius and energy which carried that prophet, swift and 
 triumphant, to the heights and depths of his subject what- 
 ever that might be. And the rapid dramatic succession of 
 terror and deliverance, the parables, the songs, the visions, 
 the infinite variety of his predecessor were not his. He 
 could play but on one string, in one key, touching the 
 
CHAP. II JEREMIAH 245 
 
 mournful notes of lamentation, descending to the deep bass 
 of despair, but rarely rising to any happier tone. Indeed 
 there was little to move him that way. The sweep and 
 impulse of the stream, nearing the rapids, the growing velocity 
 of a course which was always downward, and in which there 
 was every day more certainty that it could never now be 
 arrested, was all around him — and his message was the 
 heaviest given to man, the proclamation of opportunities lost 
 and never to be recovered, of judgment no longer to be 
 averted, of punishment beyond reprieve. Other prophets 
 had amid their darkest auguries a gleam of light. It had 
 still been possible for the fated people to change their own 
 destiny, to turn aside disaster, to stay their steps in the 
 evil way. But now the time of possibility was almost over. 
 " Gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I 
 command thee : be not dismayed at their faces, lest I con- 
 found thee before them. For, behold, I have made thee this 
 day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls, 
 against the whole land ; against the kings of Judah, and the 
 princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the 
 people of the land. And they shall fight against thee, 
 but they shall not prevail against thee ; for I am with thee, 
 saith the Lord, to deliver thee." 
 
 What a charge was this for the trembling youth in his 
 linen cphod, with his timid habits of the cloister, so to speak, 
 the Temple courts, the service of the altars. All against him 
 — kings and princes, priests and people — and he to stand 
 and proclaim the anathema upon them all ! " Go and cry 
 in the ears of Jerusalem." His father, the high priest, head 
 of that troubled hierarchy, so often dismissed with obloquy, 
 so often hastily brought together again from their hiding- 
 places, to reorganise the national worship — with what terror 
 he must have seen his son separate himself from the other 
 harmless neophytes, thrust himself forward to the gaze and 
 gape of the people, defying all the powers that were ! Most 
 likely the office of the prophet was never a popular one : 
 but how much less popular now when there was nothing to 
 say but evil, nothing to promise but destruction ! And it 
 
246 THE PROPHETS 
 
 was not enough that this chosen messenger of doom should 
 put down his predictions upon the parchment, and write them 
 on a roll. Not so easily as this, in the quiet of his own 
 chamber within hearing of the songs of the Temple, with 
 the soothing routine of religious rites dividing the hours — 
 was his task to be accomplished. " Stand in the gate of 
 the Lord's house, and proclaim there this word, and say. 
 Hear the word of the Lord all ye of Judah, that enter in at 
 these gates to worship the Lord." 
 
 The whole scene comes before us in these words : 
 the crest of Millo, the town of David, the tomb upon 
 the height that covered the remains of Israel's greatest 
 kings. Across the deep cleft of the valley under the 
 Temple wall he could see the steep streets pouring down 
 their crowds towards the gates and the open country 
 beyond ; while across the great bridges streamed the devout 
 and the formal, and the fringe of idlers and curious persons 
 coming towards the Temple. He was no orator, " behold, I 
 cannot speak." He had not the confidence of the wild 
 herdsman from Tekoa in his sackcloth and sheepskin whom 
 nobody knew, and who might babble as he would to a mob 
 of strangers, without any personal committal or compromise. 
 But Jeremiah was well known — the high priest's son, a 
 patrician youth, yet one of whom all might say, how dared 
 he to put himself forward, a mere boy, presuming on his 
 father's office, and on the favour of his kinsfolk? No 
 wonder that he hesitated and held back : — yet the impulse 
 was too mighty to be resisted. " I am pained at the very 
 heart ; my heart maketh a noise in me ; I cannot hold my 
 peace : because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of 
 the trumpet, the alarm of war." " Run ye to and fro 
 through the streets of Jerusalem," cries the young envoy 
 delivering the message of the Lord, and throwing out his 
 hands to those streets with all their visible crowds, " and 
 see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, 
 if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judg- 
 ment, that seeketh the truth ; and I will pardon it." Once 
 more the argument of Abraham is brought forth, recalled 
 
CHAP. II JEREMIAH 247 
 
 in its impassioned prayer and pleading to his descendants. 
 " If ye can find a man ... I will pardon it." " Surely," 
 the prophet replies in his pleading, " these are poor ; they 
 are foolish : for they know not the way of the Lord, nor 
 the judgment of their God. I will get me to the great men, 
 and will speak to them ; for they have known the way of 
 the Lord, and the judgment of their God." But it is a 
 hopeless quest : as it was in Sodom and Gomorrah, so it 
 is now with Jerusalem. Even now, at this last moment, the 
 promise and the offer are repeated. If you can find a 
 man : — but the man is not to be found. 
 
 Is there, then, no longer the remnant, the seven 
 thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal ? These 
 remain always, but hidden in the depths, in the secret 
 places — timid souls, perhaps, overcome by the tide of wicked- 
 ness, without influence in the guidance of the people, 
 without courage or strength to strive against the over- 
 whelming current. But the nation as a nation hurries on, 
 without thought of her high commission, her place in the 
 world, feasting in the gay despair of the epicurean because 
 there is no hope and to-morrow we die : or striving in the 
 eagerness of statesmanship at its wits' end, to find some 
 foreign prop against the invader : or with a still more char- 
 acteristic sordid instinct, the hunger of that grasping greed 
 and love of acquisition which was to be their reproach to 
 the latest ages, spoiling every man his needy friend, his 
 starving brother, to add a little more to his guilty stores. 
 Zcdekiah, perhaps, the last King of Israel, was one of that 
 remnant, too weak to stem the tide, sitting helpless in his 
 palace, sorrowfully extending a little private protection to 
 the prophet, unable to contend with the princes who sur- 
 rounded him — a good man in all his innermost relations, 
 but not the Man : not one who could stand up strong against 
 a host, and hold the standard of justice and truth. 
 
 We arc, however, when the prophet's mission begins, 
 still far from that tragic moment : for once more it is in 
 a time of partial prosperity that it is first proclaimed. The 
 young king had but lately made his reformation, and in the 
 
THE PROPHETS 
 
 restoration and clearing out of the Temple the books of the 
 law had been found. It is the opinion of the critics, as has 
 been said, in the elaborate system of pious frauds by which they 
 conceive the religion of the Jews to have been instituted, that 
 Jeremiah wrote this book of the law, and that Hilkiah, the high 
 priest, found it where he had himself hid it, a fiction of the most 
 elaborate character, outdoing any simple device of the kind 
 that the world has known. There have been such attempts 
 made in our own century : but Mr. Ireland who invented a 
 new play for Shakespeare had short shrift, and even the 
 hapless Chatterton though a poet could carry on his decep- 
 tion but a very short time. But this trick was perfectly 
 successful the German gentlemen think, though Jeremiah 
 must have been still a youth, not recovered out of his first 
 fright and panic, when he accomplished this great piece of 
 work if their guess was correct : besides being a young 
 cheat and dishonourable lad without any truth in him, 
 though his entire life was overshadowed, as we know, by his 
 devotion to truth and denunciation of falsehood. Such 
 arguments, however, being only those of nature and of all 
 literary as well as human analogy, have no effect upon the 
 theory which is built upon a foregone conclusion. 
 
 But there is not the slightest reason, according to 
 nature and the sole record which even touches upon the 
 subject, to believe that Jeremiah was a hypocrite and 
 impostor, and that his supposed zeal for truth and purity 
 was an elaborate falsehood, the worst and most dreadful 
 of lies. To think of such a steadfastly-maintained, never- 
 avowed deception, in the presence of that sad and persecuted 
 man, oppressed by the weight of his prophetic burden, 
 struggling against it, remonstrating with his God who had 
 made him a messenger of woe, yet carried on by the impulse 
 within him which was more strong than all the rebellions of 
 the flesh — is a sin against every indication of humanity, a 
 shameful wrong and insult to an honourable name. For 
 there is neither prevarication nor sign of deceit in this 
 sorrowful soul. He is not sympathetic like Isaiah, he does 
 not make the heart beat or the spirit rise. It is sometimes 
 
CHAP, n JEREMIAH 249 
 
 a complaint of exquisite pathos which falls from his lips, 
 a lament that penetrates to the very soul ; but it is always 
 a lament, always a voice of sorrow with which he speaks, 
 touching the saddest minor keys, breathing forth the melody 
 of desolation, the hush, the faltering dying notes of despair. 
 It is true that he, too, knows of the better hope, the Deliverer 
 who is to come, the final triumph : and here and there bursts 
 forth into a solitary shout of the great Branch of David, the 
 King who shall reign and prosper, whose name shall be 
 called the Lord our Righteousness : but he has not the 
 heart to dwell upon that prospect. He knows of it to save 
 him from despair ; but his spirit has not elasticity enough to 
 rise to the height of a triumphant proclamation. He is made to 
 perform one symbolical act by buying a field from his cousin, 
 to prove his absolute faith in the return of the captivity. 
 And he proclaims over again the destruction of Babylon 
 with the same minute and vivid touches of reality which 
 we have already seen : but his first message is to his kindred, 
 a message of woe. 
 
 When he stood in the gate, shortly after the restora- 
 tion of the Temple, it was the most tremendous indictment 
 which with his still tremulous voice he proclaimed against 
 Jerusalem : " Will ye," he cries, always in the name of his 
 Master, " steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, 
 and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom 
 ye know not ; and come and stand before me in this house, 
 which is called by my name, and say. We are delivered to 
 do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called 
 by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes ? Be- 
 hold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord." He resumes 
 with stern and simple details which again bring before us a 
 glimpse of the idolatrous city as if cut with a diamond. 
 " Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in 
 the streets of Jerusalem ? The children gather wood, and 
 the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, 
 to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink 
 offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. 
 Do they provoke me to anger ? saith the Lord : do they 
 
250 THE PROPHETS part h 
 
 not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?" 
 The stern gravity of the rebuke that follows, the sorrowful 
 indignation of the Almighty Spectator, before whom this 
 constant human mistake of His great intention is perpetually 
 recurring, is in the highest tone of remonstrance, worthy the 
 Divine speaker if ever human words were. 
 
 " For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them 
 in the day that I brought them out of Egypt, concerning 
 burnt offerings or sacrifices : but this thing commanded I 
 them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye 
 shall be my people : and walk ye in all the ways that I have 
 commanded you, that it may be well with you." 
 
 How often had these remonstrances been made already ? 
 What to God were the cattle on a thousand hills ? the smoke 
 of their sacrifices was an offence to Him being devoid of all 
 meaning. What were these rites, without the heart to under- 
 stand and to obey ? And now that the service of God was 
 performed as if He were one among many, to share the 
 superstitious observances of a people from whom all know- 
 ledge of a spiritual worship had departed, the last word of 
 warning had been spoken. And now nothing but doom 
 remained behind. 
 
 This doom it was Jeremiah's mournful mission to pro- 
 claim without ceasing. It was not with his own will that he 
 did it. Again and again does he mourn his cruel fate, 
 cursing the hour that he was born, upbraiding God himself 
 for having put this yoke upon his shoulders, with that wild 
 audacity of suffering which breaks forth so often in the weak. 
 " O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was enticed," i.e. to 
 deliver this painful unwilling message, he cries : " thou art 
 stronger than I, and hast prevailed. I said I will not make 
 mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his 
 word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my 
 bones, and I was weary of forbearing, and I could not stay." 
 Thus, notwithstanding all dark looks, all threats directed 
 against him, and no doubt the restraints which his respect- 
 able kindred both in Jerusalem and Anathoth would attempt 
 to enforce, nothing stayed the melancholy messenger, who was 
 
CHAP. II JEREMIAH 251 
 
 there in all the assemblies of the people, a shadow upon 
 every brief rejoicing, an unyielding monitor monotonous in 
 the continued warning, which his melancholy countenance 
 uttered even when his voice was silent Sometimes he calls 
 upon the pastoral people coming up to the markets with 
 their produce to abandon their tents and villages and collect 
 in the defenced cities : sometimes he describes the progress 
 of that fierce nation from the north coming up from Dan 
 with a snorting of horses, till the whole land trembles : some- 
 times imitates the wild and confused cries of those upon 
 whom this sudden destruction falls : sometimes describes in 
 words of fire the desolate country without inhabitants, the 
 land lying waste, the silent evacuated houses, the fields in 
 which there is no voice of cattle, the streets from which every 
 sound of life has fled. " For the land shall be desolate." 
 And sometimes as he takes his stand not far from the Temple 
 gates, whence all the people coming and going must have 
 heard the voice which had become so familiar, Jeremiah pours 
 forth his lament with that individual voice, with that strong 
 cry of personal anguish, which is the most convincing of all : 
 
 Oh that my head were waters. 
 
 And mine eyes a fountain of tears, 
 
 That I might weep day and night 
 
 For the shiin of the daughter of my people I 
 
 Oh that I had in the wilderness 
 
 A lodging place of wayfaring men ; 
 
 That I might leave my people, 
 
 And go from them ! 
 
 For they be all adulterers. 
 
 An assembly of treacherous men. 
 
 It is no wonder, perhaps, that the men of Anathoth, when 
 the mournful prophet went down to his father's farm and 
 terrified the herdsmen and labourers with this cry of evil to 
 come, should have risen up against him : nor is it wonderful 
 that the authorities of Jerusalem interfered to prevent the 
 proclamation of the message, not only at the gate of the 
 Temple which even a cynical non-believer or all-believer which 
 was much the same thing — would allow to be privileged ground : 
 — but at the city gates where the crowd resorted, by which the 
 
252 THE PROPHETS 
 
 king went and came, and even at the very palace doors where 
 his presence could not be ignored. If it were not that the 
 habit of hearing him brought in the indifference of familiarity, 
 what could be so intolerable as that perpetual promise of evil, 
 " Except ye amend " ? while to amend was the last thing this 
 doomed people thought of They had evidently made every- 
 thing right as they thought with God by giving Him his 
 share with the others, the lowing cattle, the bleating sheep, 
 the smoke of the sacrifice — coarse primitive worship, not so 
 refined as that gayer service of the queen of heaven to whom 
 cakes and dried oflTerings sufficed, but still an easy tribute 
 enough to keep Him in good humour since that was what 
 He required. And this fellow for ever aboiit the streets, 
 hindering every function of life, stirring up old superstitions 
 among the common people, mutely assented to by the 
 devotees who shut themselves up in their houses and took 
 no share in public life — must have become insupportable to the 
 rulers of Jerusalem. He was a man, too, of rank who could 
 not be hustled away, the son of an exalted personage, with 
 many friends and connections who, though they might not 
 approve of him, would be irritated by any disrespect paid to 
 him. And it is easy to imagine that the sight of his white 
 figure in the priest's dress, conspicuous amid the many- 
 coloured crowd, would be a sight at once exasperating and 
 alarming to every official. To see the passengers arrested 
 in the open space outside the gate, the country folk open- 
 mouthed with wonder, the ear even of the officer of the guard 
 himself caught by that voice : to trace him through the 
 streets to the convenient place where he would pause and 
 pour forth his burden, to know that no hour and no place 
 was safe from these continual interruptions, must have been 
 more than ordinary patience could bear. 
 
 If they hoped to make any lengthened defence when the 
 invasion did come which everybody knew must come, then 
 these perpetual auguries of evil would steal the very heart 
 out of the defenders of Jerusalem : if they desired to forget as 
 long as possible the inevitable danger, and to snatch a fearful 
 joy from the ominous tranquillity while it lasted, the sound 
 
CHAP, n JEREMIAH 253 
 
 of that prophetic lamentation would disturb every feast. 
 Who could touch the careless viol and sing of love or war 
 when every passing breeze brought in the echo of that other 
 voice whose song was nothing but woe ? who could make 
 up his books in peace, and lay aside his pledges, and count 
 his riches, while at his very threshold the prophet might be 
 standing? The wonder is not that he was seized and 
 punished at last, but that his freedom from insult and injury 
 lasted so long. 
 
 It is only after we have been made to hear the long 
 scries of prophecies, modified, indeed, in word by the 
 repeated promise of salvation should repentance be shown 
 — which, however, the prophet does not expect in his 
 sorrowful experience of the temper and habits of his people : 
 and after we have seen him for years vaguely appearing at 
 city or at Temple gateway, proclaiming his message : that 
 he comes fully forth into the historical record in a manner 
 confusing indeed to the reader who finds himself plunged 
 into the quick-recurring scenes of a chronicle without chrono- 
 logy and full of broken sequences, chapter xx. relating events 
 which occurred four years later than those that arc set forth 
 in chapter xxvii., and so forth. The greater part of these 
 melancholy prophecies had been uttered, wonderful to 
 imagine, in the reign of the good King Josiah who had, no 
 doubt, used all the force of his influence and authority to 
 bring about the desired reformation, yet with little more 
 effect upon the people than to turn their idolatry into an 
 enlarged pantheistic system, taking in the God of their 
 fathers as one among the crowd of deities who peopled 
 their harsh Olympus. But when Josiah, happily for himself, 
 found an honourable death in battle at Megiddo, a new age, 
 a changed cycle, began. That king was the last of the 
 kings of Judah with any power or consistent kingdom worthy 
 of the name. Others had paid tribute and acknowledged 
 servitude. Josiah himself was probably no better than a 
 vassal of the Assyrian, and when he rashly met the forces 
 of Egypt did so in a chivalrous fidelity to his bond, to stem 
 the tide of that other great empire which was threatening 
 
254 THE PROPHETS 
 
 his suzerain. But after him the whole economy of the 
 Hebrew kingdom was in solution : the young sons whom 
 he had left behind to meet the emergency were wholly 
 unfit to face its difficulties, and probably the wisest and 
 bravest of his counsellors and champions perished with him 
 at Megiddo, leaving Judah as Scotland was after Flodden, 
 defenceless, at the mercy of the conqueror. The son who 
 succeeded him, Jehoahaz, not the eldest in age but probably 
 the child of a mother of superior rank, had a precarious 
 reign of three months during which time Pharaoh Necho be- 
 came master of the kingdom and city, exacted an enormous 
 
 indemnity, and dethroned and carried off the youth (old 
 enough, however, at twenty-three to have made a stand for 
 his country had it been in him), raising an elder brother 
 under the name of Jehoiakim to the insignificant throne. 
 
 This period of trouble and misery has little place 
 in the record : the city was a scene of disorder, fugitives 
 coming and going, the unhappy remnants of the army 
 who had fled from Megiddo : and conflicting, miserable 
 discussions going on, whether to attempt any resistance to 
 the invader or to leave him to enter at his will — which is 
 evidently what was done in the want of any fit head or 
 trustworthy defence. But Jehoiakim had a little more 
 promise, it would appear, of stability : and sad though it 
 must have been to see the captives who were led away in 
 the train of the conquering Pharaoh, the unfortunate young 
 king and so many of his princes and attendants as that 
 potentate chose — yet there must have been a great movement 
 
CHAP. II JEREMIAH 255 
 
 of relief in the national breast when the last dark Egyptian 
 band disappeared, and the exhausted and bereaved country 
 was left a little to itself. What would the new king do? 
 Would he prove another Josiah and lead a more effectual 
 reformation ? Would he at last carry the people back 
 towards Him in whom the only hope of Israel lay ? or 
 would he relapse into the painful intrigues of a small state 
 toppling over towards destruction, clutching desperately again 
 at the skirts of Egypt, which was so little like to confront 
 the hordes of the north unless it served her own purpose, to 
 rescue any dependent principality ? 
 
 It must have very soon been proved to the eyes of 
 those who were eagerly on the outlook for any sign of 
 penitence that Jehoiakim had no heroic intentions. And in 
 the beginning of his reign, Jeremiah, silent for a time as 
 may be supposed in the grief of his heart, occupied with 
 the mourning for Josiah, chanting the lamentation which he 
 made over the fallen king, " the breath of our nostrils, the 
 anointed of the Lord," or unable to gain a hearing in the 
 anarchy of those three terrible months before the Egyptians 
 had marched away : comes forth once more to the court of 
 the Lord's house to address the people coming up to wor- 
 ship and call upon them again to repent. His message 
 this time is like a stroke with a spear, sharp, sudden, and 
 penetrating. God commands him not to diminish a word 
 of the doom he is commissioned to pronounce. Once 
 more the opportunity is held out, the call given to obe- 
 dience and reformation. But " if ye will not hearken," cries 
 the prophet, throwing forth his arms towards the historic 
 Temple, so often spoiled, so often restored, polluted, and 
 desecrated, yet by this time certainly the pride even of 
 those who defiled it, a national distinction and glory : 
 " If ye will not hearken ... I will make this house like 
 Shiloh, I will make this city a curse among all the nations 
 of the earth." The crowd had no difificulty in understand- 
 ing his words. It was from Shiloh that the Ark had been 
 carried forth to procure, like a fetish, the triumph of the 
 Israelites who had come to look upon it as the heathens 
 
256 THE PROPHETS 
 
 looked upon their gods of wood and stone : it had been 
 disastrously lost in the lost battle : and Shiloh had become 
 Ichabod, a place from whence the glory had departed. This 
 prophecy, so appalling, so definite, so clearly comprehensible, 
 produced an immediate tumult in the crowd : they were no 
 longer under the sway of the pious King who protected the 
 prophets ; they were no longer afraid to raise their voices or 
 their heads in the presence of their victors. Masters for 
 the moment of their own city, free to do what they would, 
 with many an unsettled score of resentment against this 
 prophet of evil, the first outcry of the angry priests against 
 him lit up the excitement of the people into fury. How 
 dared he to say that this house should be as Shiloh ? The 
 priests seized upon the audacious speaker, the angry crowd 
 clustered round him. " Death" was the universal cry, the fierce 
 impulse of the uncontrollable multitude, their first word as 
 soon as they had the power, as when hundreds of years later 
 they cried " Crucify him." The noise of the sudden tumult 
 reached the " princes," the secular authorities of the country, 
 as they came up from the king's house, perhaps from a 
 palace on the site of Solomon's palace within the enclosure of 
 the Temple, perhaps from the city of David where his ancient 
 house had been : most probably the former, where they 
 would be near at hand and no tumult could escape their 
 notice. They went and took their seats in the entry of the 
 new gate, which was the eastern or sun gate, perhaps that 
 now called the Golden Gate (so carefully built up to 
 prevent the entrance of Messiah, in modern Mohammedan 
 times), and called to the rioters to bring the prisoner 
 before them. What had he done ? The priests answered 
 with an outcry " He is worthy to die ; for he hath prophesied 
 against this city, as ye (the cloud of witnesses round) have 
 heard with your ears." Jeremiah answered for himself, 
 undaunted before those grave judges in whose hands, at 
 least, he was safer than in those of the enraged mob. " The 
 Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and against 
 this people all the words ye have heard. Therefore now 
 amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of 
 
CHAf. II JEREMIAH 257 
 
 the Lord your God ; and the Lord will repent Him of the 
 evil that He hath pronounced against you. As for me, 
 behold, I am in your hand : do with me as seemeth meet 
 and right to you," 
 
 When he had thus seized the opportunity to repeat his 
 message, he awaited, with a courage which could scarcely 
 have been looked for from his downcast and heavy spirit, 
 the decision of his judges who were not always so merciful 
 to him as now. They were, perhaps, alarmed at the thought 
 of how far the popular rage might go were it to be per- 
 mitted such a victim, and they pronounced the prophet 
 innocent : " for he hath spoken to us in the name of the 
 Lord our God." In this they were backed up by certain 
 " elders of the people," tribunes one may suppose of the 
 humbler sort, old men who had seen other such sights, who 
 reminded the crowd how Micah the Morasthite had pro- 
 phesied in the days of Hezekiah that Zion should be as a 
 ploughed field and Jerusalem as heaps, yet had not been 
 silenced or punished, but on the contrary turned many 
 people to repentance. Was it some old sage nearly a 
 century old, at the last flicker of mortal life, who came 
 tottering through the crowd from where he had been 
 sunning himself on the steps of the Temple, to tell that 
 tale, as a thing he could him.sclf recollect ? At all events 
 Jeremiah's protectors were more powerful than those who 
 were against him, and for the time he went free. 
 
 After this events would seem to have followed each 
 other quickly in the prophet's life and in that of the doomed 
 nation. It was still early in Jehoiakim's reign when Jeremiah 
 was bidden to use for the first time the symbolism so 
 common with the prophets. His teaching up to this time 
 had been confined to words alone : now he was to employ 
 one of the most trenchant images ever held forth as a picture 
 before the eyes of the unlearned. He was commanded to 
 go down to the potter's house to watch that most interesting 
 and oldest of all industries. So bold and so telling is the 
 simile that it is impossible to see now that operation, so 
 little changed, the lump of clay in the potter's hand, the 
 
 s 
 
258 THE PROPHETS 
 
 flying rustle of his wheel, the absolute power he has over 
 his material, making one vessel to honour and another to 
 dishonour, without an almost awe of the simple and beauti- 
 ful labour so extraordinarily adapted to the metaphor, more 
 conspicuous and convincing than any force of words, the 
 oldest of all human crafts, which no new invention has ever 
 done away with. The potters carried on their labours in the 
 opening of the valley towards the south where Hinnom and 
 Jehoshaphat" join. Was this local habitation perhaps a relic of 
 the time when the Phoenicians formed their colony at Siloam, 
 bringing with them all the plastic arts ? for the sheds of the 
 potter must have filled the declivity at the foot of the village 
 on its rocky shelves. To be sure the art of the potter is too 
 primitive and universal to be introduced by strangers, and the 
 presence of the necessary clay and the pools close at hand are 
 enough to account for the workshops on that particular spot. 
 Jeremiah came from the Temple, probably by that 
 new gate where he had just been tried for his life, and 
 down the slopes of Moriah to where pleasant Kedron 
 ran in the bottom of the valley, following the stream to 
 the southern end where Absalom's tower rose up to point 
 the way. No doubt there were devout followers who would 
 not miss a movement of the prophet, who would point to 
 each other the way he had taken and go after him : and 
 no doubt also angry enemies eager to catch him in his talk, 
 and devoted in hate as the other in love to every trace of 
 his footsteps. There could be no more pleasant walk about 
 Jerusalem than that path by the purling of the little river 
 under the olive-trees: Olivet rising gently green on one 
 side, the slopes of Moriah crowfied with the fortifications 
 and the shining roofs and towers of temple and palace, on 
 the other. But it is scarcely possible that Jeremiah can 
 have had a great audience in that spot so far out of the town. 
 His sad musing would be half to himself, a conning over, 
 perhaps, of the lesson to be proclaimed after to the people 
 in their throngs at the public gate : but it was impressed 
 upon the memories of these few followers by the significant 
 vision, the symbolical work carried on before their eyes. 
 
CHAP. 11 JEREMIAH 259 
 
 " O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter ? 
 saith the Lord. Behold, as is the clay in the potter's hand, 
 so are ye in my hand, O house of Israel." While he mused 
 and spoke he must have become aware of the other followers, 
 not those of love, who whispered together in their indignation, 
 listening keenly to make his words an occasion of ruin and 
 destruction to him, thrusting their heads over the shoulders of 
 Baruch and his companions that they might hear everything, 
 and hurry with their report of treachery to the king. Did 
 Jeremiah take up the earthenware bottle from where the 
 potter had thrown it, with its twisted neck or imperfect form 
 unfit for use, and look back to call " the ancients of the people, 
 and the ancients of the priests," the old men born in better 
 days, who most probably were his friends and the salt of 
 Israel, to witness this final sign of doom ? or had they by 
 this time heard where he was and divined a more than 
 usually important message, and come out after him drawing 
 with them the usual accompaniment of the idle crowd, till 
 the valley was filled with the representatives of the nation, 
 those who were of much importance and those who were of 
 none, all eager to hear what he would .say ? 
 
 Jeremiah was well aware that half of his listeners at least 
 were hostile to him : but that made no difference in the 
 message which he pointed .so emphatically. The spot 
 near which he stood was already accursed ground, for the 
 potters' huts were at but a small distance from Tophet, the 
 lowest point of the valley, the place in which Israel had 
 most horribly and cruelly sinned, the hell on earth where 
 Moloch's bloody altars had stood, and the children had been 
 pas.sed through the fire. Here where "the blood of inno- 
 cents " had been poured forth filling the place with horror, 
 .should destruction and murder come. " This place shall no 
 more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, 
 but the valley of slaughter." Dreadful enough was the 
 former name, a .synonym for the darkest hell, the bottomless 
 pit : but more dreadful still would be the dark valley when 
 filled with the dishonoured dead, the slain whom the .soldiers 
 of Babylon would leave in heaps, and whom the miserable 
 
26o THE PROPHETS 
 
 remnant left would have no power to bury, who would be 
 consumed by wild beasts and vultures within sight of their 
 homes. The valley of slaughter ! dark Aceldama with its 
 shadows of tombs, a fatal slope which even now seems to 
 repulse the sunshine, the potter's field to be bought there- 
 after with the price of blood, frowned upon them where they 
 stood to listen : and no doubt many a dread memory of 
 scenes already witnessed there came back to every man's 
 recollection. And then the prophet dashed the bottle from 
 his hand upon the stones, shattering it in a hundred pieces, 
 startling every careless car, if careless ears were there, even 
 in that eager assembly, to attention. " Even so will I break 
 this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter's vessel, 
 that cannot be made whole again." The symbol was stronger 
 still than that of the clay which the potter could still, while 
 it was unbaked, mould into a better shape, crushing it in 
 his hands, moistening and softening it to be capable of 
 another form. But the spoiled thing out of the furnace was 
 capable of no amendment : to dash it to pieces against the 
 stones was all that could be done : it was good neither for 
 ornament nor use. 
 
 After the fervour and passion of this dreadful message, 
 weary with the long course from the city, the lingering 
 about those huts, the awe and terror of the vision which 
 rose before his eyes as he proclaimed it, the effort of 
 utterance : Jeremiah would return slowly to the gate and 
 mount the green ascent, or the long flights of steps towards 
 the Temple, in which, no doubt, was the chamber, among the 
 dwellings of the priests, where he lived. But the crowd 
 had melted before him, and many a lightfooted messenger 
 had already reached the courts above to carry news of this 
 last offence of so many, this crowning and unequivocal insult 
 to the kingdom and the hierarchy, and all that was powerful 
 in Judah, to the authorities there. So bold an image of 
 destruction had never been ventured upon before. It was 
 a thing to strike the imagination of the least instructed, 
 who might gape at the prophet's words and form to them- 
 selves some distorted idea of his meaning as is the habit of 
 
JEREMIAH 
 
 261 
 
 the ignorant, but who could not mistake the simplicity and 
 force of that sign. The high priest, perhaps, was absent, 
 perhaps unwilling to interfere with the son of his predecessor, 
 a kinsman and member of the same privileged class as 
 himself: but the second in rank, the deputy high priest. 
 
 TlIK VAI.I.KV iiK JEllUSIIAIMIAr : AStKN r IIV MOKIAH 
 
 Pashur, the son of Immer, was too deeply horrified and 
 affronted to stand on any such formula. He came out, 
 no doubt, to see the train that followed Jeremiah from the 
 valley, in hot indignation, but made no movement until the 
 prophet paused again "in the court of the Lord's house" 
 and began to repeat his prophecy. " Behold, I will bring 
 on this city all the evil that I have pronounced against it." 
 
262 THE PROPHETS 
 
 Then the priest could contain himself no longer. He gave 
 the order to seize and punish the prophet of woe. " Then 
 Pashur smote Jeremiah." This would apparently indicate 
 that, transported by a passion of resentment to hear him- 
 self and all the ruling party thus deiied, he inflicted not 
 only the shame of the stocks but the punishment of the 
 lowest offender, the forty stripes save one, upon his fellow- 
 priest, his kinsman whose natural rank was among the 
 highest in Judah. If as appears it was the nephew or 
 brother of Jeremiah who was the high priest at the time, 
 the fury of his deputy is the more extraordinary, though, 
 perhaps, not altogether without justification: since when this 
 strange scene occurred the force of Nebuchadnezzar was 
 approaching, and it might well have been supposed an 
 offence against every instinct of patriotism thus to dishearten 
 the possible defenders of the city. It might be, indeed, that 
 Pashur's rage was wholly politic, and that it was a strong 
 measure to discredit Jeremiah with the common people who 
 had been so deeply impressed by the parable of the potter's 
 vessel that was intended, rather than any vengeance upon 
 himself 
 
 This, however, was the end of the first portion of 
 Jeremiah's career. Was it while he sat or stood, fixed in 
 that pillory of disgrace through the falling of the day and 
 the long hours of the night, exposed to every scoff and scorn 
 that vulgar malice could put upon him, he who had been 
 born to respect and honour — with his face turned towards 
 that peaceful little Anathoth where his youth had been 
 spent, but in which now his countrymen and friends of 
 boyhood, the village folk amid whom he ought to have 
 had a shelter from persecution, had turned against him and 
 conspired to kill him — that his musings took the form of 
 the bitterest self-pity and almost complaint against his God ? 
 "O Lord, thou hast deceived me!" What words more 
 bitter and terrible could come from mortal lips ? vSo said 
 Elijah when driven into the wilderness, standing at the 
 opening of the cave which, in all the country he had served 
 and loved, was his sole refuge. "It is enough ; O Lord 
 
CHAP. 11 JEREMIAH 21^1 
 
 now let me die, for I am not better than my fathers." 
 " Cursed be the day wherein I was born," cries the later 
 prophet. The ribald crowd has been about him, smiting 
 his cheek, pulling his beard, spitting upon him, pouring out 
 gibe and insult. And when they disperse to their rest, 
 every man to his house, and the prophet is left alone in 
 the chill and darkness with every limb aching and every 
 hope giving way, his courage, too, deserts him and he feels 
 that he can bear no more. Many a man can endure suffer- 
 ing whose heart sinks at the touch of shame : and both 
 were here. Jeremiah was a man whose mind was full of 
 the poetry of Israel, the literature of his country ; and, no 
 doubt, the story of Job, the saddest book upon record except 
 his own, came now to his recollection. He went over his 
 whole career in the silence of those dreadful night watches, 
 his call to the prophetic office, his first disappointment and 
 deception in finding that the message he had to proclaim 
 was met with derision and mockery, his attempt to keep 
 silence, the fire in his bones, till he became " weary with 
 forbearing, and could not stay," the rising up of angry 
 listeners to report him as a speaker of evil. " All my 
 familiars watched for my halting." While these miser- 
 able thoughts circle in his mind, and every earthly hope 
 melts from him, there suddenly sweeps through him a 
 breath of strong consolation driving them all before it. 
 " The Lord is with mc as a mighty terrible one " : a thought 
 which in the midst of his trouble, in the darkness of his 
 abandonment all shamed and suffering as he is, makes him 
 break forth into a sudden burst of joy : " Sing ye to the 
 Lord, praise ye the Lord : for he hath delivered the soul 
 of the poor from the hands of evildoers." Did the watch- 
 man on the walls hear this sudden cry in the night and 
 come down to listen — overawed by the victim's triumph, 
 and, perhaps, not knowing that when that momentary shout 
 had died on the night air, the heart of the lonely man sank 
 again in his bosom, and in a despondency as sudden and 
 instinctive he cursed the day that he was born ? 
 
 For a long time after this Jeremiah appeared no more 
 
264 THE PROPHETS 
 
 in Jerusalem. He had filled the office of a prophet or 
 rather of the prophet of the time, for more than twenty 
 years. That there were other prophesyings going on during 
 this period is evident and referred to again and again, some 
 of them, as those of Urijah of whom there is a confused account, 
 whom Jehoiakim pursued to Egypt and killed, proclaiming 
 the same message as that of Jeremiah ; some like Hananiah 
 taking the other side, promising victory and deliverance, 
 false prophets whom he never hesitated to .denounce and 
 upbraid. Nay, Pashur himself who inflicted upon him so 
 much pain and contumely, would seem to. have been one 
 of those fair-weather prophets, flattering king and people 
 with false hopes. But of all these busy and conflicting 
 voices we know none, except that of the great prophet of 
 doom, the one poet -seer whose utterances bring the very 
 atmosphere of fate, the confusion and trouble of the city in 
 peril, the conflicting counsels, the hesitation and tumult, 
 before our eyes. 
 
 Where it was that Jeremiah found refuge after that 
 terrible night of dismay we have no indication. " I am 
 shut up : I cannot go into the house of the Lord," he says, 
 but no more. He who had been safe for so many years 
 under the protection of King Josiah, and the prestige of 
 his own father's name, it is very possible that the ignominy 
 of his present position was more than he could bear. His 
 ministry had in some measure changed even before this 
 turning-point. From the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim 
 he had been a man discountenanced, to whom other methods 
 than those of argument and exhortation were necessary. 
 He had been forced to adopt the symbolical teaching which 
 had been common to Isaiah and the other prophets, the 
 language of signs and pictures, and that of a most forcible 
 kind. He had put a yoke upon his own neck and bonds 
 on his limbs as a symbol of the subjection which was to 
 come not only upon Judah but upon all the surrounding 
 nations. He had brought up the Rechabitcs out of their 
 dwelling and offered them wine in order to show by the 
 contrast of their faithfulness to their ancestor's command 
 
CHAP. II JEREMIAH 26$ 
 
 how unreasonable was the disobedience of the Hebrews. 
 And last and most telling of all, he had broken the potter's 
 vessel, the bottle of brittle earthenware, to show how the 
 kingdom of David was to be dashed to pieces on the very 
 stones which formed its foundations. Was not this of 
 itself an evidence that his audience had ceased to be the 
 instructed and superior classes, and had come to consist 
 more and more of the mere multitude who would not have 
 understood his addresses, but who comprehended as by a 
 flash of lightning the primitive language of sign and parable ? 
 And was not he himself at the gate, standing fixed in that 
 disgraceful pillory, a sign above all others, a testimony that 
 Israel would not hear, nor God's people consider, that the 
 time of teaching, of warning, of reformation, was past, and 
 that nothing now but the fulfilment of all his terrible pro- 
 phecies remained ? 
 
 Yet one effort more, however, had to be made. Probably 
 Jehoiakim himself, at least since he became king, had heard 
 but little of what Jeremiah had to say. It is true that the 
 prophet had been commanded on more than one occasion 
 to stand at the gate by which the king went out and came 
 in, probably where he still sat to administer justice on set 
 occasions according to primitive custom. But of all persons 
 in the world a king can escape most easily from what he 
 does not wish to hear, and either the prophet might be 
 hustled away or the king break up the session to escape 
 from that persecuting voice. Thus there was yet one 
 individual in Jerusalem to wiiom it might be supposed that 
 the warning and appeal to repentance, and the promi.sc that 
 was invariably attached to a change of life, had not fully 
 come. Jeremiah was therefore instructed to write all his 
 previous prophecies in a roll, so as to keep a definite 
 record of God's purpose before the eyes of the nation : "It 
 may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil that I 
 purpose to do unto them : that they may return every man 
 from his evil way, that I may forgive their iniquity and 
 their sin." " The roll of the book " in which Jeremiah was 
 to write is one of the most primitive forms of literature : 
 
266 THE PROPHETS 
 
 yet it exists to this day, not only in ancient manuscripts, 
 such as that preserved at Shechem, but in the books used 
 in the Jewish synagogue, where, I believe, the roll, wound 
 upon two strong pieces of wood and enclosed in a case, is 
 still the form under which the law and the prophets are read 
 in the public service. The parchment was accordingly procured 
 and prepared, and the prophet's attendant and companion 
 Baruch began to write " from the mouth of Jeremiah " we 
 are told — though probably with the aid of various scattered 
 transcriptions of what had from the beginning of his career 
 fallen from his lips. In what place of refuge this work was 
 carried on, whether in the cave outside the northern wall of 
 the city, which is still called the Grotto of Jeremiah, or in 
 some humble house at Anathoth or other shelter, we are 
 not told ; but at all events, while it was going on the 
 prophet and his devoted secretary must have had an interval 
 of seclusion and peace. 
 
 In the meantime, while these last most significant and 
 momentous utterances were being collected, events had hap- 
 pened outside, of the highest importance, and which gave to 
 them all a double force of meaning. Nebuchadnezzar, who 
 had just won the battle of Lachmish against the Egyptians, 
 and once more cowed and broken that great power, bringing 
 dismay to all in Judea who had trusted to an alliance 
 with Egypt for their preservation — had passed by Jerusalem 
 on his way back to the north, exacting yet more tribute, a 
 tribute not only of money but of men, and carrying away 
 with him a certain number of captives : among whom were 
 some youths and children of royal race, especially Daniel 
 and his companions. This visit, though it would not seem 
 to have implied any fighting or to have been of a cruel 
 character — for the great conqueror meant no harm to his 
 young captives, whom he placed about his own person and 
 advanced to much promotion and honour — must have been 
 a symbolical lesson even stronger than those administered 
 by Jeremiah, and have given to his utterances the very 
 sharpest point, the most vivid justification. It was probably 
 after this visit that the prophet put a yoke upon his own 
 
CHAP. II JEREMIAH 267 
 
 neck to show the complete subjugation which was ordained 
 for his people, and broke the bottle in the valley of Hinnom. 
 The city was yet all agitated by the passage of the conquer- 
 ing army, the country torn asunder by different plans for 
 resisting him if he should come again, and by speculations 
 whether Egypt, crushed by such a blow, was still fit to be 
 trusted to, or if she were not more than ever the bruised 
 reed incapable of affording any support, which the mocking 
 Assyrian had long ago declared her to be. But no party, wc 
 may well believe, advocated, as Jeremiah did, the policy of 
 throwing aside all unavailing resistance, and rendering full 
 submission to the invader. It was not a patriotic policy at 
 the first glance. But we may believe, at the same time, 
 from the evidence, at once in these same prophetic addresses, 
 and in the national records which point to a state of utter 
 disorganisation and incompetence, that Jerusalem was quite 
 unfit to offer any serious resistance, and that any feeble and 
 hopeless, if still fierce and desperate, stand she could make 
 would result only in deeper downfall and overthrow. 
 
 It was in these circumstances then that the roll was 
 prepared and written. Jeremiah was "shut up," in hiding 
 perhaps, or at least in close retirement, avoiding publicity. 
 When the writing was complete Baruch took the roll 
 and went up to the Temple. There had been a fast 
 proclaimed, a day of humiliation, most probably after 
 that visit of Nebuchadnezzar, as soon as the conqueror's 
 back was turned. And what so fit for such an occasion as 
 the repetition of those impassioned addresses in which de- 
 liverance and safety were still promised as- the recompense 
 of a real and universal repentance ? Baruch went first to 
 the new gate in which so many of the incidents of this 
 mournful drama took place, going into " the chamber of 
 Gcmariah the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the higher court," 
 a room which must have opened upon the gateway, either 
 on a level with the stream of people coming and going, or, 
 perhaps, over the arch of the portal. It was at " the entry 
 of the new gate " which all the worshippers went through : 
 and no doubt the sight of the Babylonian armies which had 
 
268 THE PROPHETS 
 
 passed there, only as it were the other day, and of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar himself, the great conqueror, had deeply impressed 
 the mind of the crowd — as well as that sight, more moving 
 than any threat however terrible, of the train of captives 
 following his steps, and among them the royal boys, descend- 
 ants of good King Hezekiah to whom this very misfortune 
 had been prophesied. It would seem that Gemariah to 
 whom the room belonged was absent in attendance on the 
 king ; and when his son Michaiah heard the nature of the 
 prophecies which Baruch was reading he hurried down to 
 the king's house to inform his father and the other great 
 men of the court what was being done. It is extraordinary 
 that these prophecies which had been spoken by the prophet 
 himself again and again at this same gate, and many other 
 places all over Jerusalem, should now be treated as a new 
 and alarming thing. One wonders if the princes of Judah 
 had become accustomed to the sight of him and passed him 
 lightly by as a man half mad in his inspiration, too wild 
 and far astray from common life to call for serious attention 
 — and if this sudden appearance of a book read aloud as if it 
 were a sacred Thora, a book of the law, startled them as by 
 something more weighty, not to be neglected ? A book 
 is a thing imposing to the ignorant even now when there 
 are so many : and in those days was, no doubt, looked upon 
 with awe which no mere speech or utterance would inspire. 
 
 The startled rulers sent immediately for Baruch that 
 they might hear what the manuscript was. Probably the 
 appearance of Baruch, a well-known man of important 
 position, as the exponent of the prophet's views, increased 
 the effect of this new and alarming departure — as the 
 appearance of a philosopher of known name and ac- 
 quirements, as the convert and interpreter of certain 
 developments of what is called spiritualism, produced a 
 temporary sensation in our own day. But even this is 
 strange to hear of, for Jeremiah, too, was a well-known person, 
 not a nobody, and they must have both seen and heard 
 him on many occasions. However this may have been, 
 Baruch was sent for, and when he had read his book 
 
cnAi'. H JEREMIAH 269 
 
 (which probably contained but a chosen few of the pro- 
 phecies of Jeremiah) to this grave assembly, their conclusion 
 was that the king must be informed. " Tell us now, how 
 didst thou write all these words ? " they asked. Then Baruch 
 answered them : " He pronounced all these words unto me 
 with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in this book." 
 The grave men, concerned and troubled as by a serious 
 matter heard for the first time, appear to us like a picture 
 surrounding the young scribe with anxious looks, disturbed 
 beyond measure by what they had heard, not knowing how 
 the king might take it. Was it really possible that they 
 had never heard the prophet's message before ? There was 
 evidently no hostile feeling in their minds to the authors of 
 these utterances. " Go, hide thee, thou and Jeremiah," they 
 said, " and let no man know where ye be." Whatever 
 happened, they were anxious at least to save the bold men 
 who had thus proclaimed God's approaching judgments. 
 This troubled conclave gives us no impression of an obdurate 
 and impenitent race like those continually visible in the 
 passionate addresses of the prophets. They would seem to 
 have been unmistakably impres.sed by what they heard, 
 almost one would imagine agreeing, acknowledging the truth 
 of it in their hearts, anxious that the king should hear it as 
 a matter of public importance, and presenting the .still more 
 curious aspect of never having heard it before. 
 
 Its effect, however, upon the king was very different. 
 When the counsellors with evident seriousness and alarm had 
 reported to him something of the purport of this new book 
 he sent one of his attendants to bring the roll : and here 
 again we have a glimpse of the interior of life as it was led 
 in Jerusalem in those days. The king was in " his winter- 
 house," no doubt the southern rooms fully exposed to the 
 .sunshine, looking over the fortifications of the Temple 
 enclosure to the network of ascending and descending paths, 
 the intricate lines of height and hollow that stretch out 
 towards Bethlehem. In the middle of the room stood the 
 large open vessel which we call a brazier, filled either with 
 smouldering charcoal, or with the purer fire of wood embers 
 
270 THE PROPHETS 
 
 glowing red. The king sat near this centre of warmth while 
 the courtier stood up and read. There would be some such 
 stand as those now used for the Koran to support the heavy 
 roll. But Jchudi had not read above " three or four leaves " 
 when the king snatched it from him, and drawing a knife 
 
 ANCIENT MANUSCRIPT AT SHECHEM 
 
 from his girdle, divided the parchment with a stroke and 
 threw the pieces upon the fire, " until all the roll was con- 
 sumed." Three of the princes, Elnathan (who would seem 
 to have been the king's father-in-law) and Delaiah and 
 Gemariah, attempted by their entreaties to restrain him, but 
 without effect : the other courtiers would seem to have been 
 
CHAP. II JEREMIAH 271 
 
 released from their terrors by the king's audacity and in- 
 difference, for "they were not afraid, nor rent their garments," 
 when this sacrilegious act was done, and the last warning 
 thus rejected with contumely. An order to arrest Baruch 
 and Jeremiah followed, but the counsellors, as has been said, 
 had happily foreseen the possibility of this, and recommended 
 them to seek some secure refuge. " The Lord hid them " we 
 are told, so that Jehoiakim's rage was of no effect. It called 
 forth a denunciation of a dishonoured death to himself with- 
 out burial, the most dreadful doom that could be threatened ; 
 but except that in none of the records of his death is there 
 any mention, as is usual, where he is laid, or any description 
 of his funeral, we have no details as to the fulfilment of this 
 prediction. 
 
 Jeremiah and his attendant, however, disappeared from 
 that ever-darkening scene. Did they travel forth, two sad 
 pilgrims, to visit those of the first captivity in Babylon ? 
 The curious story of the girdle which Jeremiah was bidden 
 to hide in a rock by Euphrates looks like this. But at all 
 events they disappeared, and no man knew or could tell 
 where they had gone. In their seclusion, wherever it was, 
 the work which Jehoiakim had destroyed was done over 
 again. It was a serious matter in those days to destroy a 
 book of which only one copy existed: but even then it was a 
 futile effort. The prophet repeated in the enforced leisure 
 of his banishment all that he had before dictated to his 
 secretary, " and there were added besides many like words." 
 Then, as now, it was the most vain attempt that could be 
 made to crush the literature by which, and more then even, 
 than now, a nation lives. For what should we have known 
 of Jerusalem any more than we know of Edom, or Ammon, 
 or Moab, but for Jeremiah and his friend? A painfully 
 deciphered stone, the triumphant record of one man's doings, 
 calls forth the wonder and curiosity of the whole world, while 
 the living record of how men looked and talked and acted in 
 all the recognisableness of their humanity, is our legacy from 
 the Hebrews : over which naturally, it being so infinitely 
 more important, we make no such commotion, receiving it 
 
272 THE PROPHETS 
 
 calmly : or suggesting that it is, perhaps, all an invention, 
 and that no such angry king, no such anxious counsellors 
 ever were. 
 
 The chronology of the after-part of Jeremiah's life is 
 confused and bewildering, and the reader has to follow from 
 page to page in doubt and difficulty, now finding himself in 
 the time of Jehoiakim, now with a leap in the midst of the 
 last reign of all, that of the troubled and kind, but not 
 powerful, Zedekiah — now back again once more among the 
 princes who were favourable, under the young king who was 
 not so. The historical record of the period is very brief and 
 not very clear. Whether Jehoiakim died in some popular 
 tumult in the despair of the people at the approach of the 
 Babylonian hordes, or was taken prisoner by Nebuchadnezzar 
 in some sally, and perished so, outside the walls in neglect 
 and despair, it is impossible to tell. Nothing is said of the 
 actual manner of his death. He was " bound in fetters to 
 be carried to Babylon " we are told in the book of Chronicles. 
 But he never was taken there and disappears from history 
 with an abruptness that implies some sudden calamity. And 
 either in the middle of the siege or at some moment of 
 relief when Nebuchadnezzar was perhaps occupied with 
 another town, without, however, giving up his blockade of 
 Jerusalem, Jehoiakim's young son Jeconiah or Jehoiachin 
 was placed on the unstable throne, in his early youth — at 
 eighteen, as is said in one record, at eight in the other, but the 
 former would seem to be the most likely age — and reigned, if 
 reign it could be called, with a powerful enemy without the 
 gates, and a disheartened and starving population within, for 
 three weary and troubled months, a lifetime, no doubt, of 
 anxiety and trouble. At the end of this time the boy or his 
 mother or his counsellors took the wise step, recommended by 
 the prophet, of going out to Nebuchadnezzar and giving up 
 the futile resistance which could lead to nothing but further 
 misery. This submission would seem to have terminated the 
 siege for the time at least. And young Jehoiachin, accom- 
 panied by the best of his kingdom, ten thousand captives, 
 princes and mighty men of valour, and the most skilful of 
 
CHAP. II JEREMIAH 273 
 
 the craftsmen — the smiths being especially mentioned, so as 
 to cripple in the most effectual way any further resistance on 
 the part of the remnant left in the city — was carried away 
 to Babylon : where long after the boy-king, who had done 
 what little was possible to shorten the agony of his people, 
 had a peaceful end in honour and comparative wellbeing. 
 
 The city was left in miserable plight when all its best 
 and strongest men were thus drafted away : — the famished 
 crowds that remained were perhaps too eager for the chance 
 of food and some relief from their sufferings, to feel as they 
 otherwise would have done the desolation of so many homes, 
 in which some hapless old man or distracted mother only 
 was left where the pride of the race had been : or that the 
 sound of the anvil was silenced, and all the implements of 
 skill thrown aside. Thus Jerusalem was left, deprived of all 
 that was important or serviceable in her population. No doubt 
 Nebuchadnezzar had an eye to the advantage of his own 
 dominions in carrying off the ablest of the craftsmen, as well 
 as to the diminishing of Hebrew capacity and power. Before 
 he withdrew his vast army from the surrounding country the 
 conqueror set up a vassal king over the remnant that was left, 
 one of the remaining sons of the great Josiah, Zedekiah, the 
 last actual king of Jerusalem. He was young also, not much 
 older than his dethroned nephew, twenty-one only — though, 
 of course, that age means greater maturity in an Eastern 
 climate than in ours. The historians of Kings and Chronicles, 
 in whose brief records there would seem a hurry as of heart- 
 sickness and unwillingness to recall the circumstances of that 
 darkest spot in their national history, give but a rapid summary 
 of his reign, describing him as having done what was evil in 
 the sight of the Lord according to all that Jehoiakim had 
 done. But the story which is mingled with Jeremiah's 
 prophecies gives a fuller contemporary portrait, and one in 
 which the part of Zedekiah has a subdued and saddened 
 interest. He was young, i)robably in the distraction of the 
 times with little training and adaptation for his difficult task, 
 a younger son taken from among the crowd to be advanced 
 to this painful eminence : and his princes who remained must 
 
 T 
 
274 THE PROPHETS 
 
 have been either, Hke himself, unconsidered scions of the 
 great houses of Jerusalem, or mere officials not important 
 enough in the eyes of Nebuchadnezzar to be carried away. 
 Of all the names of the high officers of the court who stood 
 round Jehoiakim, with troubled faces, when Jeremiah's roll 
 was brought before him, there is none left but Gemariah : 
 though the sons of two or three of these men are mentioned 
 as might be expected. The high priest, the scribes, almost 
 all the officials, are changed. The Pashur who comes to 
 Jeremiah from the king is another Pashur from him who set 
 the prophet in the stocks. And it may easily be imagined, 
 if the serious men, bred under King Josiah and with all the 
 great traditions of his reign, were unable to hold head against 
 the invader, how much less able these inexperienced rulers 
 must have been. Jeremiah's unflattering parable of the two 
 baskets of figs — the one very good, the other " very naughty, 
 which could not be eaten, they were so bad," as symbols of 
 the portion of Judah which had been carried away and that 
 which remained — sets forth in the most uncompromising 
 manner the change that had taken place, and was not likely, 
 it need not be said, to endear him to the new men who had 
 the power in their hands. 
 
 Notwithstanding, the young king, when he found that 
 the prophet had come back to the city in the confusion 
 of that evil time, showed no trace of having inherited his 
 brother's rage against him. On the contrary, he at once 
 acknowledged his mission and importance. Though he 
 might have as little inclination as his predecessor to listen to 
 Jeremiah's message, he had a reverence, perhaps born of fear, 
 for himself. And the new rulers of Jerusalem, humbled as 
 they were, had not abandoned the hope of doing something 
 yet to help themselves. Pharaoh's army had again appeared 
 out of Egypt, and its appearance in the distance had been 
 the cause of the departure of the Babylonians. This was 
 enough to give a spring of renewed hope to the city even in 
 the midst of its abasement. And Zedekiah sent a deputation 
 from his palace to the prophet to ask his prayers and his 
 advice. " Pray now unto the Lord our God for us." Was 
 
CHAP. II JEREMIAH 275 
 
 it superstition rather than devotion that inspired this embassy, 
 as Balak had sent to Balaam to curse the Israelites ? Did 
 those unfortunate rulers of the doomed and impoverished 
 place hope that if Jeremiah could but be got to change his 
 mind all would go well ? Was it rather as a fetish than as 
 an exponent of God's will that they sought him ? If so they 
 were most quickly undeceived. The prophet after his wan- 
 derings, after the horrors of the siege and the captivity, the 
 fulfilment of so many of his predictions, was not likely to be 
 persuaded into other views by any embassy. His message even 
 was scarcely tempered by the offer of a place of repentance. 
 " Deceive not yourselves," he says, " saying. The Chaldeans 
 shall surely depart from us : for they shall not depart." It 
 must have been with anger and disappointment that the 
 baffled envoys \vithdrevv^ 
 
 And certainly Jeremiah's behaviour was not conciliatory. 
 He would seem to have gone about, with the girdle round 
 him which had been " marred " in the rocks by the Euphrates, 
 and with that yoke on his neck which he had made as a 
 symbol of the yoke of Babylon, and which was the occasion 
 of a curious scene in the Temple when a certain Hananiah of 
 Gibeon, one of the sons or school of the prophets, seized and 
 broke the yoke with a false prediction that the yoke of 
 Nebuchadnezzar would thus be broken in two years. The 
 parable of the two baskets of figs has been already referred to. 
 And when the messengers of Zedekiah were sent to Babylon 
 with the tribute money Jeremiah charged them (one being 
 his friend Gemariah) with a letter to the captives in which 
 he exhorted them to entertain no hopes of speedy deliverance, 
 but on the contrary to settle themselves in their captivity, 
 making the best of it, conforming as far as they could to 
 the customs of their captors. " Seek the peace of the city 
 whither I have caused you to be carried away captive, and 
 pray unto the Lord for it : for in the peace thereof shall 
 ye have peace." He adds, " for after seventy years be 
 accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my 
 good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place." 
 Seventy years ! too long a period to give hope to any living 
 
276 THE PROPHETS 
 
 man to see that return. How much more pleasant must it 
 have been to believe the voice of the flattering prophet who 
 promised deliverance in two ! It would not be in nature to 
 expect that the heart of the people, always longing to believe 
 what it wished, should not have preferred Hananiah to 
 Jeremiah. And how the hearts of those who sat down by 
 the waters of Babylon and wept as they remembered Zion 
 must have sunk within them when the letter was read ! and 
 yet it was the best advice that could be given to them, and 
 was evidently taken by many, since such glimpses as we have 
 of the captive Jews in Babylon describe a number among 
 them as rich and prosperous men. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at, however, that the authorities 
 in Jerusalem should look out eagerly for any opportunity of 
 sequestrating from the sight and hearing of their disturbed 
 and despondent people such an image and messenger of 
 trouble as this uncompromising prophet. Every appearance 
 of him in the streets or at the gates of the Temple with his 
 mildewed girdle and his yoke, must have been as a picture 
 to the populace of mournful meaning, though he might never 
 open his mouth ; and at length the opportunity came. The 
 next scene occurs at the moment when Nebuchadnezzar, 
 having found his puppet Zedekiah as rebellious and ready to 
 conspire as his brother and nephew had been, had returned 
 with his army to crush the ever- insubordinate city, but, 
 momentarily alarmed by the rumour of Pharaoh's army 
 approaching, had made a feint of raising the siege. As soon 
 as the ways were liberated and the gates open Jeremiah went 
 out " to go into the land of Benjamin " " in the midst of the 
 people," no doubt among the crowd which would pour forth 
 in search of food and refreshment after long famishing in the 
 blockaded city. But the captain of the ward saw among 
 the crowd the figure of the prophet, going in all probability 
 to his father's fields at Anathoth to bring in provisions for 
 himself and his kindred. " Thou fallest away to the 
 Chaldeans," he cried, seizing upon Jeremiah as he passed : and, 
 no doubt, the crowd would think the accusation a very likely 
 one considering how the prophet proclaimed the might of 
 
CHAP. II JEREMIAH 277 
 
 the Chaldeans and discouraged all resistance to them on 
 every occasion. Jeremiah denied the accusation, but in vain : 
 and he was hustled away through the throng to the Temple 
 enclosure, and thence to the house of Jonathan the scribe, 
 underneath which lay the dungeons hewn in the rock, and in 
 such evil condition as the ancients thought fit and meet for 
 serious offenders. Here, we are told, he remained " many 
 days," which means in Hebrew idiom a long time, long 
 enough we may suppose to admit of the return of the 
 Chaldeans and to quench the noisy triumph of the Egyptian 
 party in the city. Against this dominant faction Zedekiah, 
 it is evident, could not maintain his own authority : but in 
 the subsequent depression he took heart to have the prisoner 
 brought out and conveyed secretly to his palace. 
 
 There is much that is touching and attractive in the 
 character of Zedekiah as here exhibited. He was not a man 
 of resolution or courage. He was not strong enough even 
 to be sure of his own opinions or faith, but wavered accord- 
 ing to the changes of the moment : yet he had a feeble good 
 meaning at the bottom of all and a trust in the prophet of 
 his father's time, the man whom no flatteries or persuasions 
 could corrupt. He came " secretly " to the rescued prisoner 
 with all the soils of the dungeon upon him and asked, with 
 what trembling we may conceive, " Is there any word from 
 the Lord ? " Unhappy king with no real confidence in his 
 heart, forced forward and held up by those about him in the 
 futile and hopeless struggle ! In that secret chamber, with 
 no one near to excite panic or indignation, and with this 
 childlike, timid appeal in his ears, might not Jeremiah, might 
 not his God, find a word of comfort for the son of David ? 
 Alas, no ! " Is there any word from the Lord ? " " There is," 
 replied the prophet : " for, said he, thou shalt be delivered 
 into the hand of the king of Babylon." There is something 
 that seems inexorable, terrible, in this doom, a doom which 
 no individual supplication could now avert, not the feeble 
 attempt at welldoing of a powerless king. 
 
 For there had just passed an event of great importance 
 in the history of the race, a further demonstration by the 
 
278 THE PROPHETS 
 
 disobedient rulers of how little any amendment meant 
 which misfortune or terror might force them to. At an 
 earlier period, whether the beginning of Zedekiah's reign 
 or at some other of the lowest points of national despond- 
 ency, when their hopes had sunk so deeply that a hurried 
 attempt to propitiate God commended itself even to the 
 most rebellious, it had occurred either to the king or to 
 some one among the rulers to suggest the carrying out of 
 a command in the law which had long fallen into disuse. 
 This was the liberation after seven years' service of every 
 Hebrew bondsman. It was not forbidden to have slaves : 
 it was even permitted to buy a slave either from himself in 
 repayment of a debt, or by purchase from another who had 
 been his creditor, but with this powerful restraint and limita- 
 tion that at the end of the seventh year all the conditions of 
 bondage were annulled and the slave went free. He was 
 also by a similar law reinstated in his original patrimony 
 when the sabbatical year came round, so that neither slavery 
 nor confiscation of a permanent nature could exist in Israel. 
 This law, however, had fallen into absolute disuse, and 
 Hebrews had been retained in slavery as if they had been 
 strangers. It was a well-chosen act with which to show a 
 desire to return to the better ways of their fathers, and 
 render real obedience, not a mere ceremonial service, to 
 God. But when the immediate terror of the moment was 
 over, this just act began to represent itself, in what they 
 would, no doubt, call its true colours to the masters and 
 owners of these liberated slaves. What ! give up so much 
 wealth, so much additional importance as their property 
 in these workmen and servants gave them, sacrifice their 
 superiority, their money ; and for what ? For a doubtful 
 approval from the God whom they feared by times yet had 
 no true allegiance to : when here were the Egyptian banners 
 defiling out of the desert, and the Babylonian encampments 
 breaking up without any help from Jehovah, and ease and 
 safety coming back ! " But afterward they turned and cau.sed 
 the servants and the handmaids whom they had let go free 
 to return, and brought them into subjection." These slaves. 
 
CHAP. J I JEREMIAH ri<i 
 
 the men of them, had doubtless gone to the walls to help in 
 the defence of the city in the joy of their deliverance : but 
 what did it matter now about the defence of the city, when 
 Egypt triumphant was on her way to deliver Jerusalem ? 
 There was still a king of Judah captive in Egypt, Jehoahaz, 
 and no doubt a train of attendants with him ; but who would 
 think of that in the delirium of extravagant hope in any 
 prospect of safety, which is so often seen in a country on 
 the brink of destruction ? 
 
 No sterner denunciation ever came from Jeremiah's lips 
 than that which followed the miserable failure of this only 
 real effort after amendment made in the doomed city. It 
 was probably uttered in the dungeon where he lay, scarcely 
 capable of hearing, deep underground as he was, even 
 those " snortings from Dan," when they came, that sound 
 of a great multitude which would intimate to the whole city 
 that the besiegers were gathering again to their camp outside 
 the walls. " I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to 
 the sword, to the pestilence, and to famine ; and I will make 
 you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the world." It 
 had no doubt been after the manumission of the slaves that 
 Jeremiah promised to King Zedekiah though not deliverance 
 yet a peaceful end. But now he withdrew that favourable 
 sentence: " Zedekiah and his princes I will give into the hands 
 of their enemies, and into the hands of them that seek their 
 life, and into the hands of the King of Babylon's army, which 
 are gone from you. l^chold, I will command, saith the Lord, 
 and cause them to return to this city ; and they shall fight 
 against it, and take it, and burn it with fire : and I will 
 make the cities of Judah a desolation without an inhabitant." 
 It was in the midst of the jubilee and rejoicing caused by 
 the raising of the siege and the rumoured approach of the 
 Egyptian army that this last word of doom was said. 
 
 But that transport of fancied deliverance was soon over. 
 The Chaldeans came back and the state of the city was 
 worse than ever when Zedekiah took the prophet out of his, 
 subterranean prison. Whether from mere superstitious terror 
 of offending still further the incensed God whom Jeremiah 
 
28o 
 
 THE PROPHETS 
 
 served, or from a lingering hope that some good might still 
 result from the prophet's intercession, the king gave ear 
 to his anxious prayer not to be sent back to his dungeon. 
 " Cause me not to return to the house of Jonathan, the 
 scribe, lest I die there," and imprisoned him instead " in 
 the court of the prison," presumably a bearable confinement 
 which kept him out of the way of danger. Zedekiah gave 
 orders at the same time that a piece of bread should be 
 
 
 
 
 
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 C^T^^^^^ffifH 
 
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 ^^ ■ 
 
 BANIAS : NEAR THE ANCIENT DAN 
 
 given him daily out of the bakers' street " until all the 
 bread in the city' was spent," a significant proviso. And 
 there Jeremiah remained for some time in comparative calm 
 while the agony of the doomed city went on, and the enemy 
 pushed every day nearer, and the misery and starvation 
 increased. He never seems to have intermitted during all 
 this time his dreadful denunciations. It was, no doubt, the 
 kindest and best thing that could be done to convince the 
 people of the futility of the struggle and to exhort them by 
 all means in his power to conciliate and submit to, instead 
 of vainly endeavouring to hold at bay, the powerful monarch 
 at their gates ; but at the same time it was, no doubt. 
 
CHAP. II JEREMIAH 281 
 
 terrible that such a voice should rise without intermission 
 in the midst of that famished and despairing people : and 
 it is impossible not to feel a certain sympathy for the 
 harassed rulers at their wits' end, when they came once 
 more to Zedekiah to beg that the prophet who was almost 
 as great a terror as Nebuchadnezzar himself might be either 
 put to death or so imprisoned as to be made harmless at 
 this crisis of fate. " He weakeneth the men of war that 
 remain in the city, and the hands of all the people, in 
 speaking such words unto them." In this respect, no 
 doubt, they had right on their side. liehold, he is in 
 your hands," said the despairing Zedekiah : " for the king 
 is not he that can do anything against you." The result 
 was that Jeremiah was thrown into a still worse and more 
 terrible dungeon than before, into which he was let down 
 by cords. " And in the dungeon there was no water (pre- 
 sumably a better state of affairs), but mire : so Jeremiah 
 sank in the mire." If his prophecies were fatal to the 
 people, they brought, at least, nothing of advantage to 
 himself He was cast into this dreadful hole to starve 
 and die neglected while the tumult raged over his head. 
 Was it he who spoke in the Psalm of being brought out 
 of the horrible pit, and from the miry clay? Such was, 
 at least, the miserable place in which he now lay. 
 
 From this terrible plight the prophet was saved by a 
 stranger, an Ethiopian eunuch, most likely one of those 
 gigantic blacks who still guard the harems of Eastern 
 princes, a man of considerable authority and power in the 
 household though his position was so little elevated. He 
 was more pitiful, if not more pious, than the Hebrew princes ; 
 it is possible that as a proselyte he might be the latter too. 
 He went to the king " then sitting in the gate of Benjamin," 
 the gate that looked out towards the north, that of St. Stephen 
 or of Damascus, perhaps, in modern nomenclature, sadly 
 sitting looking out upon the great army that lay stretched 
 as far as eye could see, superintending, perhaps, the erection 
 of some new machine for stones or other missiles on the 
 walls. " My lord," said the eunuch, " these men have done evil 
 
282 
 
 THE PROPHETS 
 
 in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they 
 have cast into the dungeon ; and he is like to die of hunger 
 in the place where he is : for there is no more bread in the 
 city." Strengthened by the king's permission, Ebed-melech 
 hurried away and with thirty men to aid him succeeded in 
 drawing up Jeremiah with the aid of strong ropes and " old cast 
 clouts " (but this phraseology is far too Saxon for the Eastern 
 rags and fragments, indescribable scraps of apparel) — put under 
 his armholes to keep the cords from cutting into his emaci- 
 ated frame — from the horrible pit and out of the miry clay. 
 
 Jl'.RUSALEM : NORTH-EASTERN CORNER. NEBY SAMWIL IN THE DISTANCE 
 
 Then once more Zcdckiah took the prophet aside into 
 some chamber in one of the doorways of the Temple, " the 
 third entry that is in the house of God." " I will ask thee a 
 thing," said the anxious king ; " hide nothing from me," — 
 piteous question which it was unnecessary to explain or to 
 put into further words ! " If I declare it unto thee, wilt thou 
 not surely put me to death ? " answered Jeremiah : but when 
 the king swore " As the Lord liveth, that made us this soul," 
 most remarkable adjuration, the prophet once more opened 
 his lips. " Thus saith the Lord, the God of hosts, the God 
 of Israel, If thou wilt assuredly go forth unto the king of 
 Babylon's princes, then thy soul shall live, and this city shall 
 not be burnt with fire ; and thou shalt live, and thine house : 
 
cnAi'. II JEREMIAH 283 
 
 but if thou wilt not go forth to the king of Babylon's princes, 
 then shall this city be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, 
 and they shall burn it with fire, and thou shalt not escape out 
 of their hand." That this was now wise and patriotic advice 
 there is no doubt ; for resistance was hopeless, and only the 
 rage of despair carried it on. And Zedekiah was, in fact, a 
 revolted tributary who had accepted the kingdom under con- 
 ditions which he had broken, and whose part it evidently 
 was to make submission, since no higher role of heroism was 
 within his power. The king heard without anger, making a 
 feeble defence that the Jews who were among the Chaldeans 
 would turn against him, but listening in silence to Jeremiah's 
 further argument, feeling, we cannot doubt, its justice, though 
 afraid, shut in as he was among a fierce oligarchy of desper- 
 ate men, to take any step in obedience to it. All that he 
 said was to beg Jeremiah not to betray to the princes what 
 he had said, before he sorrowfully left the prophet, once 
 more in the daylight and fresh air, in that court of the prison 
 where life was at least endurable and where he remained 
 until his dread prophecies were accomplished. "He was 
 there when Jerusalem was taken," looking on with a break- 
 ing heart while the last horrors were inflicted, the 
 streets filled with the slain, the holy and beautiful 
 house he loved battered down, and fire raging among its 
 courts. No man harmed Jeremiah in that hour of fate : the 
 l^abylonian general would have given him honour and pro- 
 motion if he would have accepted them, knowing, no doubt, 
 by report that the prophet had always been on his side. 
 It would appear that when all was over, he was bound with 
 the rest in chains and went along with the mournful pro- 
 cession of captives as far as Ramah : where some one probably 
 told the general who he was, and he was immediately 
 released. " If it seem good to thee to come with me into 
 Babylon, come, and I will look well unto thee ; but if it 
 seem ill unto thee to come with me into Babylon, forbear : 
 behold all the land is before thee : whither it sccmeth good 
 and convenient for thee to go, thither go." 
 
 Jeremiah chose the latter alternative ; he went back with 
 
THE PROPHETS 
 
 Gcdaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, of a 
 family that had always been favourable to the prophet, and 
 who was now appointed governor over the poor refugees of 
 Jerusalem, who were left like the few berries on an olive-tree 
 that has been well beaten, like the few leaves on the ends of the 
 boughs swept by autumn breezes, like the two ears and part of a 
 leg taken by the shepherd out of the lion's mouth according 
 to the forcible metaphor of Amos. The land was before 
 him ! What irony was in the words ! the land with all its 
 vacant houses shattered, open to the rain and scorching sun ; 
 and Jerusalem a heap of smoking smouldering ruins. The 
 captives marching along the weary ways in their chains, two 
 and two, beating out footsore and heartsick the long, long 
 route to l^abylon, were scarcely so sad as the few who 
 remained and went back to find their beautiful city, the joy 
 of the whole earth, as they had proudly called her in their 
 songs, lying bare upon her hillside, her dead unburied, the 
 wretched relics of her populace coming out by night like 
 owls and bats, gathering what garbage they could find to eat, 
 afraid of their own shadows. Not any dread satisfaction in 
 the prophecy fulfilled, not any sense of relief in the catastrophe 
 accomplished, would reconcile the hearts of these miserable 
 Hebrews to the dreadful sight before their eyes. 
 
 The unfortunate Zedekiah, forced along by the impulse 
 of stronger wills than his own, had been persuaded to flee at 
 the last moment — or had been carried off by the superior 
 force of his counsellors — by night in the opposite direction, 
 passing the very spot where Jeremiah had watched the potter 
 making one vessel to honour and another to dishonour — away 
 wildly towards the plains of Jericho: but was pursued and 
 caught and brought ignominiously to Nebuchadnezzar at 
 Riblah far off on the way to Babylon. The conquerors, 
 enraged, no doubt, by the vain and futile resistance which 
 had only prolonged the siege and increased its horrors, 
 killed the sons of the unfortunate king — who, from his age, 
 must have been little more than children, and who, no doubt, 
 were among the captives who had been brought from Jeru- 
 salem- — before his eyes, ere these unhappy eyes were cruelly 
 
CHAP. II JEREMIAH 28s 
 
 put out and saw no more. He was then loaded with chains 
 and carried off to Babylon, not permitted even the evasion 
 of death ; such was the fate of a rebel and conspirator 
 against his suzerain in those days of blood and fire. 
 
 There is a cave, opposite to what is now called the Damas- 
 cus gate of Jerusalem, deep and black on the side of the little 
 hill, where once Jewish criminals were executed, and which 
 is supposed by some to be the real site of the greatest 
 tragedy that earth ever saw — which tradition calls the 
 Grotto of Jeremiah, and in which it is believed the prophet 
 took shelter, and wrote the great and heartrending poem 
 which we call the Book of Lamentations. Nowhere could 
 the desolation of the deserted city be more clearly seen. 
 It was there that the assault had been made, and the 
 shattered walls and ruined fortifications would afford clear 
 views of the horror within, the vultures descending in dreadful 
 clouds, the jackals stealing forth by night to seek an awful 
 prey. The smoke of the burning would hang over the 
 whole : and over Moriah the aching void where once 
 Solomon's beautiful Temple had been, would wound the 
 eyes that gazed and gazed and found no familiar outline 
 in the charred ruins heaped upon the hill. And sound 
 there would be none in the abandoned place, the openings 
 of the streets all hushed, their steep lines of descent between 
 buildings roofless, windowless, full of emptiness, pathetically 
 visible without a passenger. And there the prophet 
 of woe might well have looked forth under the black shelf 
 of the rocks, and framed his mourgful song — one of those 
 wonderful Hebrew poems which forestalled in the early 
 centuries all that later poets could say. 
 
 How doth the city sit soHtary, 
 
 That was full of people ! 
 
 How is she become a widow ! 
 
 She that was great among the nations. 
 
 And princess among the provinces, 
 
 How is she become tributary ! 
 
 She weepeth sore in the night, 
 
 The tears are on her cheeks : 
 
 Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her : 
 
286 THE PROPHETS 
 
 Her friends have dealt treacherously with her, 
 They are become her enemies. 
 
 The ways of Zion do mourn, 
 
 Because none come to her solemn feasts : 
 
 All her gates are desolate : 
 
 Her priests sigh. 
 
 Her virgins are afflicted. 
 
 And she is in bitterness. 
 
 The reader will remember how Dante, in the sudden 
 hush and stupefaction of the blow which seemed to darken 
 heaven and earth to him, could find no words so meet to 
 express his sense of that cessation of life and hope as those 
 of his ancient fellow-craftsman, the poet of desolation — exiled, 
 imprisoned, outlawed, like him, yet turning ever like him 
 with a heartbroken tenderness to the home of his love. 
 " How doth the city sit solitary that 'was full of people!" 
 Jeremiah's prophecies had not possessed, like those of his 
 predecessor Isaiah, the unfailing charm of a poetic genius 
 which never flagged, and had all the resources of unconscious 
 but supreme art at its disposition. The terrible monotone 
 of denunciation, just broken here and there by the melody 
 which he caught up from those who had gone before him, 
 the momentary vision which revealed the Sun of Righteous- 
 ness even to his weeping eyes, is too continuous in its rage 
 of sorrow for the general ear. We are tempted almost to 
 turn to the lighter side by times, to approve any tumult or 
 noise of discord which the doomed Hebrews could make to 
 escape from such an unbroken cry of doom. But when all 
 is accomplished and the poet's heart breaks out in that wail 
 of mourning, we recognise once more the great and crowning 
 glory of the race, the fount of poetry which flowed so full 
 and bright, first of all the celestial streams which have 
 watered the earth, first and most lasting, " above all Greek, 
 above all Roman fame." It takes its place among those 
 great poems which express in their different ways the 
 inmost passions and thoughts of humanity, the song of 
 love, the song of the vanity of human things, the song 
 of Job, the mysteries of God's dealings with man. The 
 song of sorrow fills up the wonderful tale. 
 
CHAP. II JEREMIAH 287 
 
 Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by ? 
 
 Behold, and see if there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow. 
 
 Mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, 
 Because the comforter is far from me. 
 
 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, 
 
 And keep silence : 
 
 They have cast dust upon their heads ; 
 
 They have girded themselves with sackcloth : 
 
 The virgins of Jerusalem 
 
 Hang down their heads to the ground. 
 
 The children and the sucklings swoon 
 
 In the streets of the city. 
 
 They say to their mothers. 
 
 Where is the corn and the wine ? 
 
 They swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city. 
 
 Their soul was poured out 
 
 Into' their mothers' bosom. 
 
 Arise, cry out in the night : 
 
 In the beginning of the watches pour forth thy heart like water 
 
 Before the face of the Lord : 
 
 Lift up thy hands towards Him for the life of thy young children. 
 
 That faint for hunger 
 
 In the top of every street. 
 
 Nothing can equal the force of thi.s picture painted in 
 the very colours of woe, dark against the blackness of the 
 silent awful night — the old men, the children and sucklings, 
 the mothers who have no food or consolation to give. Pitiful 
 women, helpless old men, still more helpless babes ! and this 
 is Zion, the glory of the Hebrews, the city of David, the 
 city of God ! " All that pass by thee clap their hands at 
 thee ; they hiss and wag their heads, saying. Is this the 
 city that men call the perfection of beauty, the joy of the 
 whole earth ? " Further words but mar the perfection of a 
 description so heartrending, so simple, and so sublime. 
 
 Yet as he sits and muses broken gleams of other things 
 flit across the poet's mind ; he recalls his past life, such a life 
 •as it has been, bowed down from youth up under the burden of 
 this foreshadowed desolation which now has come ; how he 
 was a derision to the people : how he called upon the name 
 of the Lord out of the low dungeon, how he was " the music," 
 
288 THE PROPHETS 
 
 the mountebank as it were, of the disdainful crowd : yet in 
 the midst of all sorrowfully reminds himself of the hand that 
 had sustained him; of how the mercies of God were new to 
 him every morning, and the Lord the portion of his soul. 
 All this floats like a film across his vision, the deepest 
 darkness, broken by a fitful gleam of light ; until once 
 more his mourning eyes turn to that city of death and 
 once more his heart rises to heaven in the cry of a pity 
 which is almost too poignant for words. The children ! it 
 is the sight of them in their destitution which is the most 
 dreadful of all. The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth 
 to the roof of his mouth, the young children ask for bread 
 and no man breaketh it to them : and there are still more, 
 and more awful horrors behind. Other cities have been 
 as Jerusalem left desolate by the destroyer, fire consuming 
 the walls and palaces for which men have died, the wretched 
 and helpless inhabitants left in their misery to perish slowly 
 over the spot where their natural protectors lie among the 
 heaps of the slain : but none have had the same celebration, 
 none has impressed itself in the same way upon the recol- 
 lection of men. 
 
 There came no peaceful end, no comfort in his old age, 
 to the prophet of woe. His protector Gedaliah the newly- 
 appointed governor of Jerusalem bore his mournful office 
 but a very short time, and was cruelly murdered at Mizpah 
 by a. certain Ishmael the son of Nethaniah who belonged 
 to the house of David, and therefore, perhaps, felt himself 
 the natural enemy of the governor appointed by the 
 Babylonians. This act overthrew all the feeble beginnings 
 of order and restoration and threw everything into renewed 
 anarchy and misery. The murderer carried off a few 
 relics of the people who had taken refuge in Mizpah, among 
 whom were the king's daughters, the children spared when 
 their brothers were killed, for the sake, perhaps, of their 
 harmlessness and incapacity to lead any future rebellion ; 
 but was stopped in his flight to Ammon by another captain, 
 Johanan the son of Kareah, who had gathered a few soldiers 
 round him and delivered these captives. The state of the 
 
CHAP. II JEREMIAH 289 
 
 country thus pervaded by wandering bands, suspicious and 
 full of alarms, not daring to go back to Jerusalem, afraid to 
 settle anywhere, is very vividly set forth. by these incidents. 
 Johanan made a halt near Bethlehem on the way to Egypt, 
 and there consulted Jeremiah — who being specially attached 
 to Gedaliah was probably among those who had been with 
 that unfortunate ruler at Mizpah — with much solemnity 
 as to what they should do. " Pray for us unto the Lord thy 
 God " ; in their cowed and broken spirits they seem incap- 
 able even of claiming the protection of Jehovah on their 
 own account as the God of their fathers. " That the Lord 
 thy God may show us the way wherein we may walk, and 
 the thing we may do." Jeremiah brought them back a 
 message full of comfort, bidding them to dwell in the land 
 and they should have peace ; but that in Egypt upon which 
 their minds were bent nothing but war and the sword 
 awaited them. The -anxious chiefs, however, would not 
 listen to this reassuring voice, and marched on with their 
 helpless hangers-on to Egypt, dragging the prophet with 
 them. There he found himself transferred but from one 
 nest of idolaters to another, the exiles of Judah throwing 
 themselves with greater fervour than ever into that worship 
 of the queen of heaven, the framework of nature, which 
 they had already carried on in Jerusalem. The story of 
 the prophet's meeting and contention with, first the women 
 who were evidently engaged in some great public cere- 
 monial of worship, and of the men, their husbands and 
 guardians who defended and adopted thdir action, is very 
 curious ; rest or hope was not for God's messenger either in 
 Jerusalem or among the fugitives. 
 
 In the last portion of his book his imagination warms 
 with a stronger and bolder strain, not unlike the inspired 
 rhapsodies of Isaiah over the seething and agitated world 
 around him. Sick, perhaps, of contention with his own 
 people he lets the cherished name drop from his lips, and 
 gazes far from him at the tumults of the other nations less 
 dear, to hide from himself the continued perversions and 
 wicked folly of his own people that were under his eyes. 
 
 U 
 
290 THE PROPHETS 
 
 He looks, over their heads as it were, far afield to the 
 great empire which had engulfed the kingdom of Judah, 
 to Edom and Moab and Philistia which had rejoiced over 
 its fall. Clouds and darkness are over them all, trouble 
 and misery and downfall coming even for the greatest, 
 Babylon, the great Babylon, doomed to perish even more 
 completely than Jerusalem : her conqueror approaching 
 out of the north as she herself came in her strength. But at 
 last — in the end of all — a brighter inspiration returns. The 
 prophet had sung in dungeons and prisons in the old days, 
 of that time to come when the Lord, the Branch of David, 
 should appear on the mountains of Judah, and when evil 
 should be redressed and every captive go free, and the 
 throne be established for evermore a throne of righteousness. 
 So now in the days of his fading life, amid the dusky 
 crowds of Egypt, amid the apostates of his own race, 
 everything hopeless about him, and , around flaming skies 
 of portent and evil omens, terrible flashings of the sword of 
 vengeance wherever he looked — there comes at last one 
 gleam of radiance over the hills, one voice of celestial 
 harmony in his strained and well-nigh hopeless ear. 
 
 In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, 
 
 The children of Israel shall come. 
 
 They and the children of Judah together, going and weeping : 
 
 They shall go, and seek the Lord their God. 
 
 They shall ask their way to Zio.n with their faces thitherward, saying, 
 
 Come, and let us join ourselves unto the Lord 
 
 In a perpetual covenant 
 
 That shall not be forgotten. 
 
 Thus the sun bursts once more from the clouds, and 
 sheds a glow of light ineffable upon the conclusion of that 
 troubled and darksome way. It is believed that he died 
 in Egypt in a depth of national distress more dark and 
 hopeless than that in Babylon : for the exiles in Egypt were 
 in a voluntary captivity and to them no promise of restora- 
 tion ever came. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 EZEKIEL 
 
 The prophet Ezekiel introduces an entirely new figure into 
 the record which is so full of human life and feeling, as well 
 as of the mysterious elements of revelation. He is not a 
 man like those whom we have already seen, inspired with 
 great moral teachings, and bent by every means upon press- 
 ing with all their might the high lessons of Divine justice, 
 the evils of human selfishness, weakness, and indifference, 
 upon the world. This has been the first and greatest motive 
 both of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Their visions of the future 
 were their reward, and a crown of hope to all those faithful 
 among the faithless, whose trust in the promises of God 
 was met at every point by the terrible contradiction of a 
 nation going ever and ever more hopelessly astray, and a 
 race which abjured every condition upon which those pro- 
 mises hacT been given. But their object, pursued by per- 
 petual remonstrance, appeal, threatening, entreaty, renewing 
 all the old pledges of Divine law, offering ever a new certainty 
 of continuance if Israel would only obey — was to bring that 
 unruly people to the better way, and to re-establish God's 
 kingdom among them. For this they sought every argu- 
 ment, exhausted every image, the highest resources of poetr}' 
 to persuade and induce, the strongest reasonings to convince, 
 the ever-reiterated presentation before the Hebrew audience 
 of what must follow disobedience, the fullest picture of the 
 forces oppo.sed to them, which in their own strength they 
 were incapable of meeting. The bold language of .symbol 
 
292 THE rROPHETS 
 
 when words failed, the picture -lesson adapted to the rudest 
 mind, of Isaiah's child, of the piece of pottery in Jeremiah's 
 hand — were all used for the same end. This was their 
 burden, their ceaseless effort. And when God permitted 
 these gifted souls, weighed down by the national destruction 
 that was so clearly coming, and by the contradiction of 
 sinners, and the hopelessness of averting that downward 
 course, to escape into the blessed contemplation of a remote 
 future, and the Deliverer who was to come — even then the 
 highest rhapsody of prophetic vision was, as may be said, 
 practical, no vague and radiant hope of a golden age, but a 
 distinct portrayal of Him whom they looked for, a description 
 in many points so exact that the wonder is how it could 
 have been mistaken when the fulfilment came. And what 
 is true of the chief among the prophets is true also of the 
 minor members in different degrees of poetry and percep- 
 tion, all of whom had the same lesson to teach, the same 
 burden of prophecy to proclaim. 
 
 But Ezekiel breaks into this brotherhood, a different 
 being, a strange figure with neither that hold upon the solid 
 soil of earth which his predecessors had, the common human 
 life, through which we see them passing among the crowds 
 and tumults of the city, and all its occupations — or that 
 hold upon the heavenly stores of life and truth to come 
 which made them bold to declare a new life and hope. A 
 wilder and a stranger figure is that which rises before us on 
 the bank of the Assyrian stream among the first captives, 
 in those early days when the failing kingdom still kept a 
 precarious life upon the cliffs of Jerusalem, and the tragedy 
 of its ruin had still to be played out. He is, if we omit, 
 perhaps, Elijah and Elisha, those prophets whom we know 
 only by their legends, so to speak, by their acts and the 
 historical record, not by any preserved writings — the greatest 
 mystic of Scripture, involved in musings incomprehensible, 
 seeing visions of which the import escapes us, overfull of 
 mystery and wonder for ordinary perceptions, dazzled by 
 glories and appearances which human words fail to interpret. 
 That he pursues throughout, though with so many strange 
 
CHAP. Ill EZEKIEL 293 
 
 variants, the same objects as the others, that he, too, warns 
 and threatens, entreats and beseeches, and that to him also 
 in other forms the glorious revelation of the future is also 
 permitted, is true indeed. But he is throughout a thau- 
 maturge, a seer in a meaning of the word very different 
 from that of Isaiah, a being full of unearthly knowledge and 
 strange visions, less of what is to come on earth, which is 
 the preoccupation of the others — than of what exists in 
 that unseen which is beyond human faculties, and of which 
 human words are incapable of presenting any clear idea 
 to men. 
 
 Along with this, however, we have in the scraps of nar- 
 rative which occur between his visions and prophecies a very 
 remarkable picture of an agitated period, full of the most 
 terrible alternations of hope and fear, of personal misery 
 and humiliation, and of a national agony which in all the 
 experiences of the world has never been so fully expressed, 
 or with so much pathos and passion. 
 
 By the river of Babylon, there we sat down ; 
 We wept when we remembered Zion. 
 We hanged our harps 
 Upon the willows in the midst thereof. 
 
 For there they that carried us away captive. 
 And they that wasted us, 
 Required of us a song, saying, 
 Sing us one of the songs of Zion. 
 
 How shall we sing the Lord's song 
 In a strange land ? 
 
 We have no parallel to this in all the world of literature, 
 or to the impassioned cry which no Greek, no Roman 
 patriotism has ever given utterance to with such heartrending 
 force : " If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand 
 forget her cunning!" It was among the exiles with whom 
 this was the prevailing sentiment that Ezekiel, a young man 
 at that recognised moment of fitness for office and privilege 
 and the highest work, his thirtieth year, was suddenly called 
 by the voice of the Lord, and consecrated by visions ineffable 
 
294 V THE PROPllErS 
 
 to the service of God and of his countrymen. He had been 
 presumably brought to Babylon with the young king Jehoia- 
 chin five years before, to rejoin many captives of the previous 
 reign already there : and probably also to find the remnant of 
 an older captivity still, the relics of Israel, half identified at 
 the end of a century with the people among whom they had 
 been thrown, yet, no doubt, preserving many points of contact 
 and much compassionate sympathy for the detachments of 
 the Jews arriving one band after another in the same con- 
 dition of dishonour and deprivation. Israel, however, had 
 now been long lost amid the hordes of aliens, and had no 
 national hope or centre to make a rallying point, except so 
 far as, in the ponderings of years, the wise among them may 
 have felt that in the one point of Jerusalem, and in the still 
 undestroyed throne of David, there lingered yet a forlorn 
 hope. That the minds of the captive community — from those 
 high-placed and princely boys who served Nebuchadnezzar 
 in his palace, to those who sat in the shade of the willows 
 and had as yet recovered no energy or sense of a life still 
 remaining to be lived out — were fixed with an intensity 
 almost beyond parallel upon their distant home, is apparent 
 to us in almost every record. Their gaze was turned upon 
 Jerusalem with something of the breathless and strained 
 attention with which spectators watch a doomed ship in the 
 midst of a tempest : her efforts to gain some sheltering 
 harbour, the efforts made on her behalf, the sinking and 
 rising of the broken hulk, with one poor flag of despair flutter- 
 ing in the wild winds upon a spar, which from moment to 
 moment may disappear in the blankness of the waves that 
 rage about it — enchaining their every thought. 
 
 Jerusalem was like such a ship, carrying one feeble 
 ensign of national unity and hope, upon which every eye 
 was strained as it rose and fell. The captives cared little 
 for the troublous incidents of their own daily life. Hope that 
 these were to endure but a little while, that some interposi- 
 tion would be made in their favour, some Divine deliverance 
 come to them, and that they might at any mofnent hear the 
 joyful summons to return, was what they dwelt upon. Their 
 
ciiAi'. Ill EZEKIEL 29S 
 
 very aspect shows this suspense, which kept all existence 
 in solution, and made all the common uses of humanity 
 as burdens. " I was among the captives by the river of 
 Chebar ... I sat where they sat, and remained there 
 astonished (silent) among them for seven days." The words 
 sound like a very realisation of the Psalm. Were they too 
 languid for any exertion, sitting under the willows, thinking 
 of nothing but their Jerusalem, the home of their hearts ? 
 The elders appear in after -glimpses, and sit before the 
 prophet waiting in a sort of deadly patience, abstracted from 
 common life, for the message he has to bring them. They 
 were, perhaps, a band of Levites, trained to no handicrafts, 
 but only the service of the Temple, who had come to this 
 pass, their occupation taken from them as well as their object 
 in life, and themselves considered by the Babylonians, their 
 masters, as a mere lazy company of professional musicians, 
 good for nothing since they would not even sing. It would 
 almost seem to have been in some such forlorn colony that 
 Ezekiel, the priest, the son of Buzi, was called to his office. 
 Somewhere about the same time Jeremiah in Jerusalem had 
 written a letter to the exiles — brought by the embassy sent 
 from King Zedekiah with tribute or renewal of homage to 
 the King of Babylon : in which he adjured them to disre- 
 gard the false promises of deliverance made to them by 
 unauthorised prophets, and to build houses and plant gardens 
 and surround themselves with families : in short to enter 
 upon all the routine of settled life in the country where their 
 lot was now cast, and from which in the lifetime of the 
 present generation there was likely to be no deliverance. 
 Perhaps, at the period of Ezekiel's call, this exhortation had 
 not yet reached Babylon in the long delays of the terrible 
 road four months' journey across the desert. Perhaps, it 
 never did reach the humble colony on the banks of the 
 Chebar, apart from the greater current of life. 
 
 The extreme absorption of their every thought and feel- 
 ing in the fate of Jerusalem, is vividly apparent in the .sort 
 of object-lesson which the prophet is told to give — whether 
 in some part for the instruction of the people, whether to give 
 
296 THE PROPHETS 
 
 him in his own person so vivid a sense of the inevitable 
 calamity that every utterance would be thereby strengthened, 
 it is impossible to say. He was " to portray the city, 
 even Jerusalem," upon a tile, with all the details of the 
 siege, the military mounds raised outside the walls, the 
 high tower which enabled the besiegers to discharge their 
 missiles with effect, the battering rams, and all other instru- 
 ments of war. No doubt the captives would gather round 
 to watch while he drew on the soft unbaked clay, upon which 
 the builders of Babylon scratched all manner of names and 
 symbols, the outline of the city with all its towers, and the 
 hosts encamped against it. What a thing would that be to 
 find in some Babylonian wreck or mass of ruins, the rude 
 drawing on the brick or tile, the indications of gateway and 
 rampart which every breathless watcher over his shoulder 
 would recognise, as he formed them with unskilful hand ! 
 There on the tower of the northern gate would be King 
 Uzziah's engines invented by cunning men " to shoot arrows 
 and great stones withal," and there, opposite, the last refine- 
 ment of war, Nebuchadnezzar's offensive works, confronting 
 the other to still the defensive battery. Would the prophet, 
 careless of personal comfort as are all the religious devotees 
 of the East, prepare his polluted food before them, and lie 
 down upon his side for days and nights to show how the 
 sins of Jerusalem weighed upon his heart, and how long and 
 tedious would the time be before deliverance ? Who can 
 tell ? Those symbols and wild lessons of dramatic repre- 
 sentation are the alphabet of the primitive races. For the 
 same end he shaved off his beard and hair, to show how, as that 
 hair was consumed and scattered on the winds, so should be 
 the fated city from which no deliverance could come. And 
 amid all the stern significance of those lessons what sights of 
 wonder came to him between — the incomprehensible glory 
 which human description can only confuse, the dazzling of 
 the great lights which were not for mortal eyes! 
 
 To impress still more upon his mournful audience that 
 burden of his soul, the doom of Jerusalem, the beloved 
 home from which the captives could not detach their hopes. 
 
CHAP. Ill EZEKIEL 297 
 
 which all that was best in them still clung to, with a 
 despairing conviction that at the last God must stand forth 
 miraculously to deliver the city which He had chosen, and 
 which was identified with His worship and name — there was 
 given to the prophet a vision, showing the moral condition 
 of that once holy city. A little more than a year after his 
 first call Ezekiel sat in his house, " and the elders of Judah 
 sat before me," waiting in melancholy silence for the expected 
 message ; when suddenly the prophet was rapt into that state 
 in which the faculty of vision came to him — fell, as we should 
 say, into a sort of trance — in which his spirit was suddenly 
 transported to Jerusalem, " to the door of the inner gate 
 that looketh towards the north, where was the seat of the 
 image of jealousy," no doubt some image of Baal, or other 
 idol such as many successive kings had not scrupled to bring 
 into the house of the Lord. Ezekiel had been familiar with 
 those courts and all they contained in his youth when, as a 
 priest's son, he had been brought up in the precincts of the 
 Temple. " The glory of the Lord was there " — that dazzling 
 radiance of holiness and light which Ezekiel with faltering 
 lips had endeavoured to describe to the astonished people : 
 but it remained outside the walls : and with that glory in 
 his eyes the prophet looked at the rigid features of the idol 
 in its immovable helplessness with righteous contempt. But 
 such a vacant monument of idolatry was little in comparison 
 with what remained. In one of the many buildings which 
 surrounded the Temple, and which were used as public 
 offices, treasuries, and arsenals, and also for the dwellings 
 of the priests as they served in their courses, he looked 
 in and saw " the idols of the house of Israel " painted 
 upon the wall : " every form of creeping things and 
 abominable beasts," the golden calves, no doubt, the 
 sacred cow of Egypt, the monkeys and snakes which have 
 in their turn represented the framework of nature and 
 its law to the debased imagination — the Ascidian, perhaps, of 
 our own disguised idolatry and mocking worship. Seventy 
 men of the elders of Israel — among them one whom he 
 recognised, Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, the degenerate son 
 
298 THE PROPHETS 
 
 of a good father — stood offering incense to these beasts and 
 crawHng things. Yet was not this all. Outside in the gate 
 the women, who seem in the distorted state of the race to 
 have been, not as usual the most faithful to the worship of 
 God, but foremost in every infidelity, sat weeping for Thamuz : 
 and passing by them, in the very inner court at the entrance 
 to the Temple itself — between the gate and the altar 
 which stood close to the gate — the prophet saw five-and- 
 tvventy men, with their backs turned to the Temple and their 
 faces towards the east, worshipping the sun, which shone over 
 Olivet across the deep valley upon all the glistening pinnacles 
 of the house of God. This was, we cannot but think, a more 
 refined and elevating worship than that of the reptile and 
 the brute : but it was equally the worship of those natural 
 forces in which no deliverance, but only a remorseless fulfil- 
 ment of the course of nature, lies. The course of nature 
 with Jerusalem was assuredly destruction under the hand of 
 a power far stronger than she. And to that course and to 
 those powers the city was given up. From the moral 
 government of God and His succour and help, as well as 
 from His ordinances and commandments which were the 
 condition of His promises, they had turned away, turned their 
 backs in the emphatic language of the prophet ; and now to 
 the course of nature they were irrevocably left. 
 
 When he comes back from his trance and takes up 
 once more the usual means of prophecy, Ezekiel is not less 
 emphatic in his unvarying tale. Jeremiah in the disturbed 
 and struggling city, and he so far away among the longing 
 exiles whose continual thought is Jerusalem, proclaim again 
 and again the same solemn message. They illustrate it by 
 every possible image, bring every symbol and picture within 
 their reach to their aid. In the case of Ezekiel the effort, 
 if not less discouraging and sad, could not, at all events, be 
 so distracting, so opposite to what might seem the last 
 heroic struggle of patriotism, as in his brother prophet : 
 but his view of the dreadful prospect before the doomed 
 people is not less sombre or terrible. To the elders who 
 come and sit round him, always hopeful, it would appear, 
 
CHAi'. Ill EZEKIEL 299 
 
 that some happier inspiration might be given, he never changes 
 his tone. Sometimes he turns with indignation upon them- 
 selves as men who still maintain their idolatries in their 
 hearts, though they would seem to have been effectually 
 startled and shaken out of them in outward manifestation — 
 and upon the false prophets both men and women who gain 
 a moment's popularity by flattering visions, by promises of 
 restoration and deliverance. Sometimes he thunders against 
 the puppet-king Zedekiah, with a curious forestallment of 
 the theories of legitimacy : although the question (even had it 
 ever been a dogma of the East) was doubly complicated in those 
 days, when a captive king in Egypt and another in Babylon 
 must have confused the minds even of those who refused 
 to consider Jehoiachin who was set up by Pharaoh, and 
 Zedekiah who was set up by Nebuchadnezzar, as true 
 sovereigns of Judah. 
 
 But whatever may be those side-glances of prophecy, the 
 one actual fact of the approaching destruction of the city and 
 with it all their present hopes, never varies. In his frequent 
 trances and transportations in the spirit from the plains of 
 Babylon to the heights of Moriah — whether he bursts into 
 the wild lyric of the sword, that mystic weapon which is fur- 
 bished and flashes to the sun to smite the princes of Israel, to 
 cut down the great trees, to hew asunder the gates, " A sword, 
 a sword is sharpened, it is drawn forth for slaughter ! " — or 
 paints with tremendous force the adulteries of the two 
 wantons Aholah and Aholibah, Israel and Judah, and their 
 love of strangers, the men " who were all of them like 
 princes to look at," his object never changes. These 
 wantons have had their will, they have turned from their 
 allegiance and broken every vow ; and now the inevitable 
 end has come upon them, which overtakes all wantons, 
 according to those very laws of nature which they preferred 
 to the law of God. 
 
 There is something very startling and wonderful in the 
 description of tho.se " men portrayed upon the wall, the images 
 of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion, girded with girdles 
 about their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads," 
 
30O THE PROPHETS 
 
 which he describes as having charmed the imagination of the 
 Hebrews before their revelation as conquerors and destroyers. 
 While Ezekiel, with his rapt eyes, beheld the prophetic vision, 
 while the silent elders sat round him, and saw with dismay 
 the great sword flash forth, and listened with downcast 
 heads to his parable of Judah's guilt — there were rising 
 gaily in Babylon and still surviving in the half- abandoned 
 Nineveh, great buildings, decorated with those wonderful 
 images, which have come to light only in our own day. 
 Those black -bearded Assyrians "all of them like princes 
 to look at," whose glory beguiled the daughters of Jerusalem, 
 now adorn our museums as they adorned the walls of every 
 palace and temple in Ezekiel's day in the freshness of their 
 crimson and gold. The artists were busy everywhere, 
 improving, no doubt, upon the Ninevite models, adding a 
 twisted scarf upon those black locks, a jewel to the girdle, 
 a pattern to the tunic, which even the captives would go 
 sighing forth to see in the desolation of their exile, a wonder 
 to behold. How strange to bring out the decorations of 
 those pictured walls thousands of years after, to show us 
 in the ends of the earth what manner of men were those 
 conquerors of the ancient world, like princes to look at, 
 the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Babylonians — the captors of 
 Judah, the victorious and not all unfriendly race ! 
 
 In another picture the prophet shows us the King of 
 Babylon standing " at the parting of the way, at the head 
 of two ways," to try by divination whether the time had 
 come to destroy Jerusalem. In his grasp were arrows, 
 marked with the lot, which he shook in his hand according 
 to an immemorial custom. And he also " consulted with 
 images, he looked in the liver," trying the auguries of 
 classic usage, which would thus seem to have been already 
 existing from the remotest time. Then came the day, the 
 dreadful day, when the decision was made. " Woe to the 
 bloody city!" cries the prophet: "I the Lord have spoken, 
 I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent : 
 according to thy ways and according to thy doings shall 
 he judge thee, saith the Lord God." With what terrible 
 
CHAP. Ill EZEKIEL 301 
 
 interest must the captives have h'stened, with what outcries 
 of remonstrance and indignation, " Be it far from us ! " with 
 what trembHng of heart ! Their sons and their daughters, 
 their fathers and mothers, were left behind in the doomed 
 city. If this were true, what was there more in Hfe to hope 
 for? How were they to endure the dread suspense, the 
 still more dreadful certainty of fate ? the horror of knowing, 
 the greater horror of not knowing, for long months of 
 anguish before the swiftest foot could cross the great desert, 
 the plains and mountains that lay between them and their 
 home ? 
 
 In the midst of their confusion and terror a sign of the 
 most appalling description was given to the exiles. " Son 
 of man, behold, I take from thee the desire of thine eyes with 
 a stroke." What was this mystic menace, this sorrow sent not 
 for Ezekiel's sake, but to make him more and more a sign and 
 parable, a living lesson to his people ? The desire of his eyes ! 
 yet he was to make no mourning, to shed no tears, to show 
 none of the usual signs of grief The company of the 
 captives must have kept the prophet's house in sight during 
 that dreadful day, wondering if fire would come from heaven, 
 if some great preternatural portent would appear : the 
 sceptics, perhaps, with an incredulous smile watching to 
 see what new antic the madman would be at — as, after the 
 event they would, no doubt, say it was nothing but a 
 natural occurrence, perhaps foreseen, callously calculated 
 upon to make an impression ! The prophet's narrative 
 is calm as despair itself " So I spake unto the people in 
 the morning," not knowing what the calamity was that 
 threatened him, but knowing it must be supreme. " And 
 at even my wife died ; and I did in the morning as I was 
 commanded." Not often in Eastern records is a wife spoken 
 of in this tone, God himself recognising the first object of 
 the man's heart. The desire of thine eyes ! it was the most 
 perfect symbol of that great desolation in which all external 
 emblems of woe would be forgotten, so tremendous and 
 universal would be the calamity. 
 
 Nothing can be added to this wonderful scene : the 
 
302 THE PROPHETS 
 
 whole Jewish community were like Ezekiel as he stood in 
 that moment of suspense. The fate of their nearest and 
 dearest was hanging in the balance : while they drew their 
 terrified breath the sword, the sword of which they had 
 heard, was coming down upon kindred and friends : torture 
 and misery, starvation, burning, every evil that the imagination 
 could conceive : while those unhappy listeners, spectators, 
 were helpless, unable to lift a finger. Would they follow 
 confused and terror-stricken while Ezekiel's wife was laid in 
 her strange grave, he, speechless man of many utterances 
 silenced by the same stroke that widowed him, stalking 
 tearless by the bier in his ordinary apparel ? " Ye shall do 
 as I have done : ye shall not mourn nor weep ; but ye shall 
 pine away for your iniquities, and mourn one toward another." 
 No cries of, O Lord ! or O my brother ! no ashes on the 
 head, no rites of sepulture — but only the silence of one 
 universal horrible calamity too great for human signs or 
 words. 
 
 After this tremendous picture and the predictions that 
 accompanied it the prophet would seem to have been dumb, 
 either metaphorically as saying no more upon this subject 
 which occupied all thoughts, or actually. There is a long 
 interval in his book (which by no means certainly, however, 
 implies a direct chronological succession) during which a 
 number of prophecies concerning other nations, comparatively 
 dark to us who have no material by which to judge of their 
 accuracy, are inserted : and it is not till nearly three years 
 after, that the next incident which more nearly concerns us 
 occurs. While he is sitting musing, perhaps writing down 
 the message that has been given to him concerning Egypt, 
 troubled all night with strange sensations, the premonitory 
 symptoms of some great event and visitation, the messenger 
 of fate accomplished suddenly appears before him. " One 
 that had escaped out of Jerusalem came to me, saying, The 
 city is smitten. Now the hand of the Lord was upon me in 
 the evening, afore he that was escaped came ; and had opened 
 my mouth, until he came to me in the morning ; and my 
 mouth was opened, and I was no more dumb." No doubt 
 
CHAP. Ill EZEKIEL 303 
 
 many public posts must have arrived in the meantime, and 
 the news of the great victory must have been known in 
 Babylon : but the captives by the Chebar were far out of the 
 capital, and most likely nothing but a vague murmur had 
 reached them, no detailed news, none of those overwhelming 
 particulars which would make every family aware more or 
 less what its own individual losses were, until the fellow- 
 townsman who had escaped — perhaps from the city itself in 
 the confusion of its overthrow, perhaps from some band of 
 captives — made his painful way, keeping out of public routes 
 and places where his unaccustomed garb and faltering speech 
 would be remarked, through the country ; and after long 
 delay and many adventures, reached the little mournful 
 colony who had hung their harps upon the willows. 
 
 Ezekiel, silent in his desolate house, had been troubled 
 all night with the sense of something coming : some 
 presentiment or more clear warning, a trance, or such a climax 
 of long-existing anxiety as makes the simplest of mankind 
 prescient of trouble, had disturbed the prophet's rest. He 
 had felt within him the. sensations of a change, the restora- 
 tion of his speech, the long-suspended movement of prophetic 
 utterance. " My mouth was opened, and I was no more 
 dumb." It requires no very vivid imagination to conceive 
 how the fugitive would be received, how the people would 
 gather round him, perhaps with those precautions which come 
 naturally to the captive, lest their kinsman's tale might be 
 interrupted or he himself endangered. He would bring not 
 only great excitement and a profound general sorrow, but 
 details of the slaughter and disappearance of kinsfolk and 
 relatives which would plunge every hut and house into 
 mourning — mourning which probably had to be disguised as 
 Ezekiel's was, lest those heathen captors who had called for 
 a song of Zion, should mock at their misery, or demand an 
 account of how the news had been received. Thus the full 
 force of the prophet's parable would be disclosed to them : 
 the melancholy little band would not dare to make itself 
 conspicuous by its mourning in the midst of a land resounding 
 with sounds of triumph. It would not venture to betray the 
 
304 THE PROPHETS 
 
 knowledge of individual calamity which it had received, at 
 least till the fugitive, no doubt hidden among them, repre- 
 sented as this man's brother or that man's servant, should 
 have found some refuge in which he could be secure. Those 
 who heard that day, perhaps of the extinction of their family, 
 perhaps of the death of some gallant son on the walls of 
 Jerusalem, or some daughter shamed and outraged in its 
 bloody streets — would make no outcry, would repress every 
 tear, bind their headgear upon their heads, and their shoes 
 on their feet, with a pang still more profound in the 
 renunciation of every sign of mourning, than we should feel 
 in a similar self-denial. " Ye shall pine away, and mourn 
 one towards another." What description could be more 
 pathetic or more real ? The father and mother would turn 
 towards each other when they were alone, in the silent 
 communion of sorrow, the woman clasp her child to her 
 broken heart, the sisters lay their heads on each other's 
 shoulders, in grief that uttered no word : then confront the 
 daylight with still faces and the dumbness of self-controlled 
 despair, as Ezekiel had done in that dark day when the 
 desire of his eyes had been taken from him. 
 
 And then it was that the prophet's mouth was opened 
 and he burst forth : — 
 
 As I live, saith the Lord God . . . Behold, I, even I, will both 
 search my sheep, and seek them out. According to the seeking of a 
 shepherd that seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his 
 sheep that are scattered ; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver 
 them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and 
 dark day. 
 
 And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from 
 the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them 
 upon the mountains of Israel, by the rivers, and in all the inhabited 
 places. 
 
 I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains 
 of Israel shall their fold be : 
 
 Then shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they 
 feed upon the mountains of Israel. 
 
 I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the 
 Lord God. 
 
 What a strain was this to pour over the heads of that 
 
CHAP. Ill EZEKIEL 305 
 
 despairing and heartbroken people ! They came about him 
 languidly in the apathy of their grief, past consolation, hoping 
 for no comfort. " So thou art to them as a very lovely song 
 of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an 
 instrument " had been the explanation of their attitude 
 towards the prophet long before. Even now in their despair 
 this was how they sought him, hoping, perhaps, for a moment's 
 distraction, for something that would occupy their self- 
 devouring thoughts. And this was what he proclaimed to 
 them — no dirge, no wail of mourning, no outcry like that 
 of Jeremiah : " Behold, and see if any sorrow is like unto 
 my sorrow." Such a cry, no doubt, was what they expected, 
 what would have most soothed their aching breasts. But no : 
 the prophet had said no word of lamentation over his own 
 symbolical calamity. He makes no response now to the 
 demand in their sorrowful eyes : but to the captive, to the 
 heartbroken exile, to those strayed far away in the obscure 
 corners of a foreign country, proclaims but one promise, that 
 of restoration, of returning, of safety and of home. 
 
 And from this moment the prophecies of Ezekiel, hereto- 
 fore full of the utterances of woe, have nothing but good 
 tidings to Israel, promises of union as when " the stick of 
 Joseph, the stick of Ephraim," and " the stick of Judah " are 
 made into one in his hand — (a prophecy so far fulfilled that 
 though there was no official restoration from captivity of the 
 kingdom of Israel, many remnants of that broken people 
 amalgamated themselves with the captive Jews, and returned 
 with them, keeping the name of their tribes in individual 
 instances, notwithstanding broken genealogies and lost tradi- 
 tions) — and renewed pledges that the land promised to their 
 fathers should again be theirs in all its beauty and fruitful- 
 ncss, its natural bounty revived, its desolate cities built again. 
 " The Lord shall build the ruined places, and plant that 
 which was desolate." " I will call for the corn, and increase 
 it, and lay no famine upon you" — "the waste cities shall be 
 filled with flocks of men." Best of all, " A new heart also 
 will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. I 
 will put my Spirit within you, and cau.se you to walk in my 
 
 X 
 
3o6 THE PROrHETS 
 
 statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. 
 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers ; 
 and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God." 
 Strange message to follow the crowning disaster of a race, 
 its destruction according to all precedent and every prob- 
 ability ! Great Nineveh had fallen utterly, great Babylon 
 was soon to fall. And no restoration came to these vast 
 empires and thrones. But to little Jerusalem there was 
 proclaimed another fate ; and after thousands of years, after 
 renewed and repeated destruction more complete, and a 
 dispersion still more hopeless, the scattered descendants of 
 the captives of Babylon, scattered in every corner of the 
 earth — forming a part of every nation, yet never united to 
 any — still hold that promise, and lift up their eyes towards 
 the little land which could not hold a tithe of them, yet 
 which mourns for them and waits for them till the end of 
 time. 
 
 I will set up one Shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, 
 even my servant David ; he shall feed them, and he shall be their 
 shepherd. 
 
 And I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David a prince 
 among them : I the Lord have spoken it. 
 
 David's house was ending in humiliation and woe, no 
 prince of that race ever again to occupy the fallen throne, 
 every branch of the royal line in captivity or extinguished 
 altogether. But Ezekiel, though his mission was more 
 sombre and his methods less clear than that of his brother 
 prophets, was yet not left without his share in the wonderful 
 message : the ideal King, the Hope of the whole earth, the 
 God -sent, the Anointed from heaven, stands out for a 
 moment clear amid all the terrible visions and smoke of 
 destruction. " I will raise up for them a plant of renown." 
 
 These proclamations of comfort and hope are, however, 
 far less characteristic of the prophet than the strange and 
 weird vision that follows them, in which he is transported 
 in the spirit " to the valley which is full of bones." It would 
 seem to have been the valley of Jehoshaphat, the deep glen 
 between Mount Moriah and the Mount of Olives, where the 
 
CHAP. HI EZEKIEL 307 
 
 dead of Judah lay, their bleached bones strewn over those 
 solemn slopes appealing to God. There flows the little 
 Kedron over its stones, and there stand the solemn old 
 immemorial trees of Gethsemanc, most sacred of all holy- 
 places. But when Ezekiel in his trance saw this once 
 peaceful valley, the traces of the carnage were still all visible, 
 the silent ruins of Jerusalem stood desolate under the pitying 
 skies, the dead who had fought for her, who had been flung 
 from her ruined ramparts, or killed as they made some 
 desperate sally, lay all around as the heaps of the valiant dead 
 lie round the standard which they have given their lives to 
 keep out of the enemies' hands. The sun had beaten and 
 the winds had blown upon those sad relics of the slain ; the 
 birds of prey had long finished their awful meal ; and wild 
 beasts ceased to rove round the city where there was no one 
 strong enough to resist them. Dry as the dust into which 
 they were to moulder were those remains of the bold and 
 strong, as the mournful prophet gazed upon them through 
 that mystic air of vision which was neither of the night nor 
 of the day. " Son of man, can these bones live ? " " O 
 Lord God, thou knowest," answered the powerless voice of 
 humanity. Then came the wonderful command, " O ye 
 dry bones, hear the word of the Lord." Nothing could be 
 more sublime than the description that follows. 
 
 I prophesied as I was commanded : and as I prophesied, there v/as 
 a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to 
 his bone. 
 
 And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, 
 and the skin covered them above : but there was no breath in them. 
 
 Then said he unto me. Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of 
 man, and say unto the wind, Thus saith the Lord God, 
 
 Come from the four winds, O breath. 
 
 And breathe upon these slain that they may live. 
 
 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into 
 them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great 
 army. 
 
 " These bones are the whole house of Israel," dry, 
 withered, worn by sun and rain, ravaged by the vultures 
 \K\\(\ the hyenas, the bones and mournful relics of a once 
 
THE PROPHETS 
 
 living nation ; yet — " saith the Lord God, Behold, O my 
 people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come out 
 from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel." 
 With what a throb of strange emotion must all those 
 troubled people have listened, remembering, how well ! that 
 valley under the now ruined walls : realising, how bitterly ! 
 the condition of the unburied dead, their brethren, their 
 sons : and held their breath to hear of that solemn rising, 
 which was a type of their own rise as a nation, as well as, 
 no doubt, to many an awakened heart, of another dimly 
 promised, little understood, yet faintly apprehended rising 
 that was to come ! 
 
 It will be seen that in all this it is never the individual 
 but the race and nation which is referred to. The twelve 
 tribes of Israel have their symbolical place even in the 
 heavenly land as conceived by every Jew : yet the organ- 
 isation of a nation save in symbol cannot be immortal. 
 Therefore it is the restoration of human fact which is the 
 prospect held out to them, and the continuance of human 
 and historical life. Few of the individuals who stood round 
 the prophet to listen, or sat before him, silent, awaiting his 
 message, could ever hope to see that restoration. The 
 prophet himself did not live to see it. With him and with 
 them as individuals, God had His own methods as He has 
 now and always. But to Israel and Judah the only 
 promise possible was that of renewed and continued 
 national life. 
 
 And was it a glorious dream of ecstatic patriotism and 
 faith, touched with the glamour of an inspiration which 
 was all symbolical, allegorical, visionary, the ethereal 
 atmosphere of a splendour that never was on sea or shore, 
 that produced that apocalypse with which the troubled life 
 and vision of Ezekiel came to an end ? The new Jerusalem, 
 the new temple, far greater and more glorious than that of 
 Solomon, which the angel measured as did he whom St. 
 John in Patmos, six hundred years later, beheld fulfilling 
 the same office, rose before the prophet's eyes, shining upon 
 the familiar hills. To John it was a new Jerusalem descend- 
 
CHAP. Ill EZEKIEL 309 
 
 ing glorious from the skies like a bride adorned for her 
 husband. But in Ezekiel's wild, yet strangely regular and, 
 as wc might say, architecturally scientific vision, the solid walls 
 are founded on the very soil, and built in the very fashion, 
 only more extended and more splendid, than that of old. 
 That there might be in the extraordinary details of this 
 vision a certain guidance for the restoration to come, a 
 glorified memory of what had been, a secure storing away, 
 as in the most sacred place, of those lines of construction 
 which were to guide the future — upon which the prophet 
 with the cadence and music of his own and other prophecies 
 of the after- glory in his ears, and a dazzling sense of 
 splendour to come irradiating all before him, looked forth 
 with the assurance of a heavenly triumph — we may well 
 be allowed to imagine. These promises were to be fulfilled 
 but temporarily according to the immediate sense put upon 
 them. Far more glorious, far more Divine, was to be the 
 tragic triumph, the everlasting dominion over the heart of 
 man, of the holy city, the scene of our Lord's life and death. 
 But by the rivers of Babylon at that dread moment the 
 human heart had had enough of tragedy. Isaiah himself 
 could but vaguely foresee that wonderful picture which he 
 made, " searching what and what manner of things the 
 spirit that was in him did prophesy," strangely revealing in 
 the midst of those mists of glory the countenance marred more 
 than that of any man of which he has left so affecting a 
 portrait. What they needed now was the assurance of re- 
 storation and blessing and joy. 
 
 Nor was that assurance vain even in fact. The return 
 of the Jews from captivity nearly seventy years after, was 
 such an event as is unparalleled in history. The strenuous 
 devotion of men born in exile to that ever -longed -for, 
 never-forgotten city, and the strange impression made on 
 the minds of the conquerors, by what means we are left 
 uninformed, which made that return possible, forms an 
 occurrence unique in the world, bearing no analogy to any 
 other ever known. Nothing could have seemed less possible, 
 nothing ever was more true. It was wonder enough to 
 
3IO THE PROPHETS 
 
 fill the dark horizon of the captives with exultation : and it 
 was once more the opportunity of the race to claim and 
 merit every ancient promise of blessing ; an opportunity 
 not taken, as we know, but which to the prisoners in Babylon 
 it would at that moment seem impossible that their progeny, 
 taught by experience so awful, could reject. 
 
 And with this assurance the prophecies close. It was 
 all literal to the poet and teacher whose every lesson had 
 been pointed by sight and sound, who had scratched the 
 ruined Jerusalem on his tragic tile, and who now drew his 
 lines unchangeable in solid substance of stone and wood 
 upon the mist of that future which was made all glorious 
 by the promises of God. At such an ebb of national history 
 when all seemed over and the eclipse of their nation and 
 city was to every mortal vision a catastrophe without hope, 
 there must have been something in those measurements 
 and details, the chambers for priests unborn, the great 
 splendid courts and galleries for a worship extinguished 
 and a people scattered to the ends of the earth — something 
 in the mingled impossibility yet certainty, that dazzle of the 
 contradictory which is in all human affairs but in none so 
 much as in the history of the Jews — which uplifted the 
 hearts of the captives as nothing else on earth could do. 
 
 I may note one local detail of Ezekiel's prolonged and 
 realistic vision which refers to " the eastern gate of the 
 sanctuary," occupying, it may be presumed, the place of that 
 which is now called the Golden Gate, a spot which has 
 always powerfully affected my own imagination. It is 
 almost opposite now to that garden of Gethsemane in which 
 our Lord reached one of the most bitter depths of His 
 anguish, so that had He entered the sacred precincts from 
 his favourite place of retirement, as, no doubt. He often did, 
 it would have been by that door. It is the gate which 
 Moslem tradition points out as the one by which Messiah 
 when He comes in triumph, treading down the Crescent and 
 all its cruel supremacy, will enter, and which accordingly, 
 with a precaution full of that strange childishness which 
 mingles with the subtilty of the East, they have built up 
 
1 in. 1.' u.i I -. I. A 1 1. 
 
CHAP. Ill EZEKIEL 313 
 
 by way of safeguard. Ezekiel was led to this eastern gate, 
 and found that it was closed. 
 
 Then said the Lord unto me, This gate shall be shut, it shall not 
 be opened, and no man shall enter in by it ; because the Lord, the God 
 of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. 
 
 It is for the prince ; the prince, he shall sit in it to eat bread before 
 the Lord ; he shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate, and 
 shall go out by the way of the same. 
 
 It is scarcely possible to doubt that this passage is the 
 origin of the Mohammedan tradition : and it adds a strong 
 additional interest to the always significant suggestion of 
 an entrance thus hermetically closed : by which the Prince 
 of princes has gone in, by which it may be He came forth 
 to His agony in the garden, and by which, in the wonders 
 and mysteries of a future of which we know so little, He 
 may yet return. 
 
 And here ends the first portion of the history of Jeru- 
 salem, the little city on the hillside, like so many others of 
 the little cities which still cover the hills of Palestine. The 
 small tough fortress that David took has grown into a 
 beautiful and splendid metropolis under our eyes — not vast 
 like Babylon, or Nineveh, those ancient centres of the 
 world — but with a splendour of the heart, the cradle of 
 music, of poetry and song ; with palace and temple, not 
 perhaps so beautiful as those of Greece that were yet to be, 
 but pervaded by a meaning far more beautiful, the presence 
 of a God one and supreme, the spirit of a law unique in its 
 tenderness as in its justice. We have .seen this city ri.sc 
 and fall again with all the vicissitudes of human contrariety 
 and changeableness and the caprices of a specially per- 
 verse and individual race. It has poured forth such pagans 
 of triumph and wailings of lamentation as never were 
 uttered from earth to heaven : and now it has fallen, fallen 
 from its high state — destroyed with a completeness that 
 never overtook either liabylon or Nineveh, those cities now 
 altogether wiped out from human habitation and ken — 
 smoking in utter ruin, all that was capable in it gone, a few 
 beggars and skilless poor left to creep about the deserted streets, 
 
314 THE PROPHETS 
 
 and seek a pitiful maintenance among the foundations of 
 the burnt granaries and the fruits of gardens trampled down. 
 And yet over this desolate place the air thrills with promises 
 of greatness to come, and far away in Chaldea the prophet 
 measures his mystic chambers and builds with incisive lines 
 that seem to cut the parchment, the walls and towers of 
 another temple more great than Solomon's. Could it ever 
 be that these promises should be fulfilled and that great 
 sanctuar)^ once more stand dazzling under the Eastern sun ? 
 
PART III 
 
 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 ZERUBBABEL EZRA 
 
 The captivity lasted, as Jeremiah had prophesied, nearly 
 seventy years, during which time the Jewish captives had 
 not by any means continued to sit and weep by the waters 
 of Babylon as in the first days. The generation which 
 was carried captive died in great measure and passed away, 
 though there is still mention of some, very old men as they 
 must have been, who had seen the glory of the first house, 
 yet who were still able for the toilsome journey back again 
 from Babylon to Jerusalem. In the intervening interval 
 the Jews, here first called by that name, as they emerge 
 from the obscurity into which they had fallen — had found 
 their way, in some cases, into important offices in the govern- 
 ment and court, and in many others had grown rich and 
 prospered in the exercise of those inalienable gifts which 
 still, more than two thousand years later, make them prosper 
 and grow rich wherever their wandering footsteps are stayed 
 — a faculty which has procured them much odium every- 
 where, especially when attained by that habit of " taking 
 pledges " and exacting usury which had been one of their 
 special sins from the beginning of their career. 
 
 The apocryphal writings, without any claim to be 
 received into the sacred canon, are full of valuable details 
 of Jewish life and history, and give us much information 
 concerning the settlement of the little nation in Baby- 
 lon, and the many rich and prosperous families living 
 such a peaceful life among their captors as strangers may 
 
3l8 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part hi 
 
 enjoy who have no special patriotic interest in the adventures 
 and misadventures of the country in which they have their 
 habitation, unconcerned whether it is a great Nebuchadnezzar 
 or a feeble Belshazzar who occupies the throne. Such 
 strangers unaffected by the vicissitudes of local feeling or 
 fortune may thrive and prosper whatever happens in the 
 alien land where they have full freedom of movement and 
 occupation. It is, indeed, the same manner of life which 
 that wonderful race has continued to live throughout the 
 whole civilised world. 
 
 And it was not only the least distinguished of the Jews 
 who contented themselves with this fate. Daniel the princely 
 boy " of the king's seed," well-favoured and well-educated 
 and full of that charm which seems to have dwelt with the 
 house of David even in its downfall, notwithstanding his 
 great genius, and wonderful adventures, and the mystic 
 visions, more strange even than those of Ezekiel, which were 
 vouchsafed to him, never seems to have struggled against 
 his circumstances, or attempted any change. He stands 
 a mystic yet most real figure full of vigour and courage 
 in the very court and palace of the conqueror, never swerv- 
 ing from his faith, always respected, full of honour and of 
 honours. During most of his life he occupied the highest 
 positions, one of the chief men of the kingdom : but he 
 was obedient to the doom of his people, accepting all its 
 humiliations and never attempting to throw off that yoke 
 which had been imposed upon himself individually in his 
 childhood. Mordecai or Mordocheus, the Jew, the foster- 
 father of Esther, though not so great, was a person about 
 the court, sitting in the king's gate, and sufficiently well 
 known to incur the jealous hatred of the vizier Haman. 
 But it is unnecessary to multiply examples. The calm 
 settlement of the majority of the exiles, combined with 
 their never - failing enthusiasm for Jerusalem and their 
 ancient home, is as remarkable as any other feature in 
 their history. Daniel prayed with his face towards 
 Jerusalem bewailing the sins which had banished his 
 race from that beloved city, as still the far-off descendants 
 
CHAP. I ZERUBBABEL — EZRA 319 
 
 of that wonderful people, coming on pilgrimages from all 
 the ends of the earth, wail and pray with their heads against 
 the ancient wall, older than all revolutions, which banks up 
 the slope of Moriah, enclosing the area where once the 
 Temple stood, and where now they are not permitted to 
 set foot. Strange constancy of faith, strange inability of 
 action ! In Babylon they fondly computed the hours of 
 the day by the old divisions, speaking of " the time of the 
 evening oblation," though neither oblation nor sacrifice existed. 
 But yet still lived on and throve and prospered, and fulfilled 
 great offices of trust and government in the strange land : 
 and neither then nor at the moment when the national 
 penance was accomplished and return was possible, attempted 
 to go back. Almost as extraordinary as the determination of 
 the race to restore their holy places and keep their distinct 
 nationality, is their acceptance everywhere of the exile which 
 has become their general fate. They are now the richest 
 and one of the most numerous of races. Could they be 
 moved by the Crusaders' spirit what an astonishing inter- 
 vention in the Eastern question might be made by an army 
 of Jews, countless, interminable, from all the countries under 
 heaven, with all the capitalists of Europe at their back ! 
 How soon might little Palestine, the beloved birthplace 
 which would not contain one thousandth part of them, 
 fall into their hands ! And something still of the old 
 enthusiasm, the old heroism, the desperate valour of their 
 ancestors, must surely remain among them. What is it, 
 stronger than ambition, more powerful than wealth, that 
 holds them back ? 
 
 The time came, however, when so far as regarded the 
 ancient Jews in Babylon this spell was broken. The fall of 
 the great empire which had been foretold by their prophets, 
 the opening of the great gates, the two-leaved gates, the gates 
 of the rivers, let in the Mede into the careless city lost in 
 banqueting and mirth, and Cyrus strong and great took 
 the place of Bel.shazzar. What movement then took place 
 among the Jews, or how was the attention of the conqueror 
 attracted to them ? liy what incident or scries of incidents 
 
320 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part in 
 
 was a special interest aroused in the mind of Cyrus for these 
 exiles ? No historical problem could be more interesting to 
 solve than this, but there is absolutely no information on the 
 subject. " The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of 
 Persia": that is all: and we know no more. There were 
 many subject races in his new kingdom, relics of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's conquests, but it was not the skilful Phoenicians, 
 masters of all the arts, nor the shipmen and merchants of 
 the seaports, which are always so valuable to an inland 
 empire, whom Cyrus restored. None of these, indeed, had 
 been swept into such complete destruction as that which 
 had overwhelmed Jerusalem. 
 
 But it is vain to seek for information as to the reasons which 
 directed the eyes of the new emperor towards the scattered 
 people, who had been, more than any other, rooted out and 
 torn away from their country. They had not even any remark- 
 able leader to attract his attention, for their great men were 
 old and secluded from the occupations and influences of life. 
 Was it the aged Daniel from his retirement who came forth, 
 with perhaps a roll of old parchment carried after him in its 
 case, to show the monarch his own very name in the fading 
 lines a century and a half old ? " Cyrus, my shepherd," of 
 whom God said " I guided thee though thou hast not known 
 me." In the criticism of recent times the mere fact that 
 Cyrus is named is evidence enough that the writer cannot 
 have been Isaiah but another man, the contemporary of the 
 great conqueror : but that would be an exceedingly poor 
 argument if Daniel or some other influential Jew actually 
 possessed the roll of Isaiah's prophecy in which these words 
 appeared. It is, we believe, a tradition that this was the 
 way in which the attention of Cyrus was secured, and that 
 in so effectual a manner, that he not only permitted but sent 
 the Jews, or at least such portion of them as were ready to 
 shake themselves loose of all their surroundings, and give up 
 the comforts they had gathered about them and the protec- 
 tion and established security of the great empire for that 
 visionary journey full of trouble and fatigue, to the Jerusalem 
 which very few could remember. The act of Cyrus was all 
 
CHAP. I ZERUBBABEL—EZRA 321 
 
 the more extraordinary, that his decree was accompanied 
 by the gift of the valuable sacred vessels, " thirty chargers 
 of gold, a thousand chargers of silver, thirty basons of gold, 
 silver basons of a second sort four hundred and ten," and 
 much more, a small treasure as well as trophy of past con- 
 quests. It might, indeed, have had a certain political effect 
 as humiliating the already crushed Babylonians, but few kings 
 are ready to part with bullion even on such an argument. 
 
 This decree, so wonderful and beyond all hope, must have 
 thrown an extraordinary excitement through all the scattered 
 colonies of the Jews. A return from captivity sounds like 
 something joyful and triumphant. The people had sown in 
 tears, but would return joyful carrying their sheaves with 
 them. Such is the aspect in which it appears to us ; but 
 that could scarcely be the view which presented itself to the 
 devoted chiefs and priests who conducted the expedition, a 
 venture almost as great as that of the first expedition from 
 Egypt to Canaan. It is difficult to form from our own 
 experience any idea of what such an undertaking meant. 
 No doubt the Jewish children had been brought up to call 
 the distant Jerusalem fondly by the name of " home," to hear 
 continual accounts of its glory, fondly exaggerated in the 
 recollection of the fathers and mothers who had passed away 
 with that name upon their lips. So do our Canadian or 
 Australian grandchildren think of the Imperial little island 
 lying far away in the dimness of the seas ; but they come 
 and go with ease and without danger to a civilisation more 
 advanced than their own, to a perfectly secure and highly 
 organised life — although we have little doubt with some 
 disenchantment and sense of having fallen from the ideal to 
 the real, when they accomplish that pilgrimage. But the 
 Jewish captives had before them a city in ruins, a country 
 which had fallen out of cultivation, almost into the condition 
 of a desert, full, no doubt, of predatory nomads, and with 
 vexatious neighbours on every side, hostile little peoples 
 looking out for every occasion of offence. That desolate 
 and devastated land was home to them only in name. And 
 between them and it, lay one of those long journeys of the 
 
 Y 
 
322 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part hi 
 
 ancient world, journeys almost inconceivable to us, when the 
 monotonous jog of the camel or tramp of the ass goes on for 
 long weeks, till the lines of the endless road whirl round the 
 passenger, in feverish endings and diminishings of long per- 
 spective, and all life becomes a confused and weary move- 
 ment which seems as if it never could reach any definite end. 
 That some forty-two thousand of the captives (as stated 
 by Ezra : the summing of the items does not come to 
 this, but to somewhere about thirty thousand ; it is very 
 possible, however, that the children of the many families 
 made up the larger number) had the courage to set out, and 
 to take upon themselves the task of building up that great 
 Temple which had occupied Solomon in its first construction 
 for years, and so many other kings in constant reparation 
 and restoration — is a proof of the great vitality and earnest- 
 ness of the national life among them. The very old and the 
 very young were in the vast party which moved slowly off 
 from Babylon, and from all the villages and cities in 
 which they dwelt, the entire community of their country- 
 men, no doubt, coming forth to see them start, watching 
 with eyes, half wistful, half ashamed, the heroic remnant 
 which was giving up everything for home. Many must 
 have thus looked on who had not the courage to go 
 with them, or who were so bound with the engagements 
 of life, the cares of wealth, or those of poverty, as to be 
 unable to join the train. Many, no doubt, had compounded 
 for their want of energy by buying back captives from their 
 masters, as is afterwards stated, and by undertaking the 
 expenses of the journey for their poorer countrymen. The 
 prince Zerubbabel and the high priest Jeshua have left little 
 sign of their personality upon the record : perhaps because 
 they did not possess the gift of expression which such an 
 incisive writer as the scribe Ezra exercised with so much 
 effect. They are voiceless, devoting themselves as the 
 pioneers of the nation, saying never a word, yet not less 
 important in the story, leading the forlorn hope not only of 
 Judah but of Israel. They had their little band of priests 
 about them, thirty-six members of well-known families, and 
 
CHAP. I ZERUBBABEL—EZRA 325 
 
 a number more who could not prove their lineage, a small 
 contingent of Levites and Ncthinims, servants of the Temple, 
 and a larger number of musicians, " children of Asaph," besides 
 the laymen rich and poor who formed the main body. " Two 
 hundred singing men and women " are mentioned among the 
 servants, in addition to these sacred singers of Asaph's race, 
 of whom there were a hundred and twenty-eight — so that 
 the great caravans must have had a sufficient choir of per- 
 formers, for those songs with which they beguiled the way. 
 
 By the waters of Chebar where Ezekiel lived and sighed 
 for Jerusalem, where the captives sat under the willows — 
 and from many another colony beside, knot after knot of 
 people would take their way, a camel conveying the baggage, 
 perhaps another camel with the women and children, an 
 ass for the servant, a horse for the man, riding at the head of 
 the party. Their way lay chiefly through the vast empire 
 all indeed under the Babylonian sway, enjoined by the royal 
 letters to aid and afford supplies ; but where perhaps, 
 in the outlying regions, it would scarcely be yet known that 
 Babylon had fallen, that the kingdom of the Medes and 
 Persians had begun, and that the king was Cyrus and 
 not Belshazzar. And among so many different satrapies 
 and peoples there must have been endless risks of encounter 
 with the lawless on the way, in distant regions out of the 
 reach of authority, and among the predatory bands roving 
 about the plains such as held the travelling caravans in 
 terror. Arabs and Bedouins as yet were not, but there were, 
 no doubt, relics of Ammon and Moab, who would look on 
 with angry wonder as they approached, besides the half- 
 savage aborigines to whom they were only a succession 
 of huge and straggling parties very open to robbing. They 
 took four and a half months to the journey which seems a 
 long time even with their primitive methods : but there must 
 have been endless delays incident to such a crowd, and diffi- 
 culties in the supply of food, besides the opposition of here 
 and there an irate commune to their passage, the enmity 
 which the very friendship of one town would raise in another, 
 as well as the constant risk of sickness among the family 
 
326 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part ill 
 
 groups, those swift epidemics of the East smiting down the 
 travellers. And when they arrived on the northern heights 
 from which they could first see Jerusalem, that point where 
 the mailed warriors of the Middle Ages shouted and wept in 
 the transport of their end attained, what cries, what wailings, 
 must have burst from the expectant crowd ! That heap of 
 ruins on the two hills, calm Olivet standing like a sentinel 
 over them, the valley of the Tyropceon cutting like the jagged 
 stroke of an axe between the upper and the lower city, the 
 low lines of humble roofs hid among the heaps of destruction, 
 what a sight to meet the eyes of the exiles ! Was this the 
 Mount Zion which was the joy of the whole earth, compactly 
 built, beautiful for situation, the city of the great King ? 
 
 It would appear that after the perils and fatigue of 
 their journey a period of rest ensued. The people "dwelt in 
 their cities," each forlorn household returning to where its 
 settlement was, the home of its fathers ; where the young 
 Assyrians, brought up among the luxuries of Babylon, must 
 have learnt to put up with the homely rock-hewn chambers 
 of Bethlehem, the huts of Anathoth, the ruined dwellings of 
 Bethel and Michmash, there being many families from the 
 ten tribes in the train, as well as those of Judah and Ben- 
 jamin. They dispersed " every one to his city," to form 
 some sort of economy of possible life amid those unknown 
 surroundings with which their acquaintance was only tradi- 
 tionary : while Zerubbabel and Jeshua would, no doubt, push 
 their way on to the ruins of Jerusalem which offered them 
 so sad a welcome, standing up roofless and desolate under 
 the blazing Eastern skies. 
 
 How long a time was allowed for these preliminaries 
 we are not informed, but it was in October, the seventh 
 month of the Jewish year, that the people were called 
 together to Jerusalem for the first act of restoration. 
 In the meantime the elementary difficulties of the posi- 
 tion had been overcome, so far, at least, that the charred 
 relics of the Temple had been partially cleared away, 
 and the sites of the holy places identified, so that it was 
 possible to restore the altar for the daily sacrifices in its 
 
CHAi'. I ZERUBBABEL—EZh'A 327 
 
 place in the porch of the ruined building : " for fear was 
 upon them because of the people of these countries," says 
 the record. Probably they were anxious not only to be able 
 to resume the characteristic rites of sacrifice which the exist- 
 ing generation had never seen, but also to make it instantly 
 plain to the surrounding and not friendly people that their 
 object was a religious one, and not an endeavour to found a 
 new kingdom or raise any standard of rebellion against the 
 great central power at Babylon which all obeyed or professed 
 to obey. " They set the altar upon his bases," building up 
 the foundations out of the fallen stones, the material that lay 
 ready to their hand, perhaps laying upon them the sheets of 
 ancient brass torn from their place, injured and useless, 
 which had lain in some corner of the royal chapel of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar and his sons, and had been delivered back again 
 to the captives along with so many other more valuable things. 
 It is a picturesque detail that the people kept the Feast of 
 Tabernacles during this first assembly. It must have simpli- 
 fied matters greatly that the time of year at which they 
 were called was that of this feast, for it is evident that the 
 booths or little erections of green branches which are still 
 built everywhere in Palestine, perched high upon a wall, or 
 supported by piles as summer dwellings, would be much 
 more wholesome, as well as pleasant, than any kind of 
 encampment among the ruins, extensive enough to have 
 lodged the people in strength. We remember to have been 
 told that these summer tabernacles were not only for coolness 
 but to escape the scorpions which swarmed among the ruins 
 of older and greater buildings surrounding a little modern town 
 of Palestine. The tabernacles of Jerusalem in that blazing 
 autumn weather, perched high over the broken walls and heaps 
 of indiscriminate ruin, would, no doubt, have this reason too. 
 
 From that time forth the smoke of the evening and the 
 morning sacrifice began to rise again over Moriah, never to 
 be wholly extinguished save for a brief interval, until the 
 great sacrifice, of which these rites were but the shadow, had 
 been accomplished there. 
 
 It was not, however, till the second year that Zerubbabel 
 
328 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part iii 
 
 and Jeshua found themselves in a position to begin the re- 
 building of the Temple. They had not only to clear the 
 site, during the course of which they would, no doubt, find 
 much valuable material in those stones in which, as sings a 
 poet of the captivity, God's people found pleasure, and in 
 the very dust which was dear — but to provide the finer 
 material of the interior, the cedar which Solomon had pro- 
 cured from Tyre, and for which the new restorers of his 
 Temple made a bargain similar to his, exchanging the crops, 
 which must have been abundant since they became thus at 
 once an article of barter, for the precious wood. What a 
 stirring once more in those dry bones ! Solomon's founda- 
 tions, no doubt, still stood, fast in the rock, as some portion 
 of them do now, Cyclopean blocks, marked with the sign of 
 their Phoenician builders : and many of the great courses of 
 stone must have withstood the axes of the destroyer, and 
 offered at once guidance and material for the rebuilding ; 
 while all about the valleys of Hinnom must have been 
 heard the shoutings and strainings of the workmen who had 
 dragged the great logs across the plain of Sharon and by all 
 the mountain ways towards the city. The Levites were ap- 
 pointed to the charge of the work, and as soon as the area 
 was cleared and the masons, no doubt also supplied by 
 Tyre, that home of industry, were ready to begin, a great 
 solemnity was held once more upon Moriah. The people 
 flocked again from their villages, the consecrated over- 
 seers were all in their places, the builders clustered about 
 the great foundation stone. Something of the glory of old 
 must have been about the sacred mount where " the priests 
 in their apparel with trumpets," glowing in their purple and 
 fine linen, the bells on the high priest's tunic tinkling as he 
 moved, " and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals " 
 stood all around : and once more the song of consecration, the 
 song of David, floated forth on all the winds. 
 
 Praise ye the Lord. 
 
 O give thanks unto the Lord ; 
 
 For he is good : 
 
 For his mercy endureth for ever. 
 
CHAP. I ZERUBBABEL — EZRA 329 
 
 And all the people shouted with a great shout, when the foundation 
 of the house of the Lord was laid. 
 
 But many of the priests and Levites, and chief of the fathers, who 
 were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation 
 of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice ; and 
 many shouted aloud for joy : so that the people could not discern the 
 noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people : 
 for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard 
 afar off. 
 
 What poets, what painters, were those Hebrews ! how 
 the mass of ruin suddenly becomes coherent, with a great 
 soul in it, upon the mount before our eyes, and the old 
 men weep for all the strange things that have been and arc 
 to be, and the young rejoice in the beginning of the work, 
 to which they were commissioned by the great God who had 
 distinguished their race through all the years of human 
 history, and the great king magnanimous and powerful 
 who was His servant though he knew Him not. The past 
 and the future crowded upon them as they sang and shouted 
 in their corner of little Palestine. Was it not the greatest 
 act taking place in the whole world, though that world, like 
 Cyrus, knew it not ? 
 
 After this joyful beginning however, the work was soon 
 brought to a pause. The people round had seen the 
 return of the Jews with envious and evil eyes. " The 
 adversaries of Judah and Benjamin " who now interfered, 
 are believed to have been the inhabitants of Samaria, their 
 nearest neighbours and in a sense kinsmen, a mixed 
 company in which a few legitimate remnants of the ancient 
 Israelites had so mixed themselves amongst the successive 
 waves of colonists that they were no longer to be identified 
 as of one nation or another — the invaders with the liberality 
 of heathenism having adopted the God of Israel into their 
 Olympus, willing to share an occasional act of worship 
 between Him and Baal. Their jealousy of the sudden 
 invaders who had thus taken possession of a vacant place 
 in which, perhaps, they now regretted not to have forestalled 
 them, was mingled, perhaps, with some lingering shame in 
 their own apostasy and desire to return to a religion which 
 
THE RETURN AND RESTORATION 
 
 now seemed a passport to the favour of kings. " Let us 
 build with you," was what they said : " for we seek your 
 God, as ye do." The Jews repulsed these deceitful overtures 
 with indignation. " Ye have nothing to do with us," they 
 replied ; " we ourselves together will build unto the Lord 
 God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath 
 commanded us." The result was that these uneasy neigh- 
 bours delayed the building by many devices, keeping up 
 a constant course of disturbance which lasted for many 
 years. They despatched letters to Cyrus, to Ahasuerus or 
 Cambyses his son, and to his successor, called in the 
 text Artaxerxes, continuing the process for seventeen or 
 eighteen years until the beginning of the reign of Darius. 
 The vexatious character of this opposition, the effect it 
 may have had upon the supplies from Tyre, and the 
 difficulties it would throw in the way of securing 
 workmen in the country round, from among those 
 aborigines, undisturbed by any political revolutions, who 
 still supplied Jerusalem with unskilled labour — must 
 have been very harassing to the Jews, and seriously 
 retarded the work which for the moment every influence 
 seems to have combined to prevent. The character 
 of the letters to the distant court at Babylon, where these 
 hostile neighbours hired counsellors to speak for them, may 
 be perceived from the extracts which are given in the text, 
 addressed to Artaxerxes : 
 
 " If this city be builded, and the walls set up again, 
 then will they not pay toll, tribute, and custom, and so thou 
 shalt endamage the revenue of the kings : " this astute 
 suggestion brought matters to a pause. Neither from 
 Cyrus nor his son could any decree against the Jews be 
 obtained, notwithstanding the counsellors whom their enemies 
 had bribed to support them. But the Artaxerxes of the 
 text was a usurper, probably terrified to transgress against 
 precedent, or to risk any portion of the revenue. " Why 
 should the king come to hurt ? " he says in his reply. He 
 caused a search to be made in the archives laid up in his 
 capital, and discovered that Jerusalem had been an inde- 
 
CHAP. I ZERUBBABEL — EZRA 331 
 
 pendent and very belligerent little kingdom, with which 
 Nebuchadnezzar had much trouble before he finally reduced 
 it to ashes. The decree of Cyrus in its favour was not 
 in that ancient record office, nor, perhaps, would it have 
 had much influence upon the man who had seized his 
 throne. Orders were accordingly sent to stop the building, 
 which was done by force, the Jews in Jerusalem being too 
 few and unwarlike to stand against their enemies. 
 
 Many disappointments and disenchantments, during 
 those troubled years, must have come to the enthusiastic 
 band which had laid with such shouts of joy and weeping 
 the foundation of the house of the Lord. No doubt they 
 had thought when they made the great renunciation of 
 their comforts and possessions and secure life at Babylon, 
 that the work to which they devoted themselves would, at 
 least, go on to a noble completion, and the praises of God 
 resound in their beautiful Temple to echo over all the world. 
 Instead of this they found themselves compelled to share 
 in a specially bitter way the common lot of humanity, 
 deceived in their warmest hopes, and instead of miraculous 
 help and reward, had to learn to serve God for nought, as it is 
 indeed the highest privilege of his servants to do. The work, 
 instead of progressing steadily from day to day, had to be 
 carried on as they could, a little now, a little then, as the 
 exigencies of a life lived among enemies, with constant 
 interruptions of their supplies and materials, permitted ; and 
 then was brought to a sudden and compulsory end. The 
 prophets upbraided them afterwards for dwelling in their 
 ceiled houses while the house of the Lord lay waste ; but 
 it is easy to imagine how the hearts of the returned exiles 
 must have sunk at last under so many discouragements, 
 and how their attempt to recover some individual comfort 
 by betaking themselves to the construction and ornamenta- 
 tion of their own dwellings was an expedient to keep life 
 in them, suggested by the weariness of their hearts. 
 
 The sudden uprising of Haggai the prophet, and his 
 violent call upon the people to resume the work of the 
 Temple, would seem to have put an end to this disastrous 
 
332 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part hi 
 
 pause. Whether the news had penetrated to Jerusalem, 
 travelling slowly as news did in those days, that a new 
 revolution had happened in Babylon, and a new monarch 
 had been raised to the throne : or if their persecutors, 
 satisfied with the edict pronounced against them, had 
 dropped apart and ceased to trouble, it is evident that some- 
 thing happened to revive the spirit of the colonists : and the 
 opportunity was seized to inspire the flagging patriots to a 
 completion of the great national work. " Ye have sown 
 much, and bring in little," cries the prophet. " Ye looked 
 for much, and lo ! it came to little," words which must have 
 penetrated into every heart. If he attributed this fact more 
 to their own sins and indifference than to any external agency, 
 no doubt in every man's conscience that also was true. 
 
 But the long-disused cry of prophetic reproach and 
 encouragement moved both rulers and people like a 
 trumpet-blast. They resumed the work, it would appear, 
 with such an impulse of renewed energy that it attracted 
 the attention of a more important personage than the 
 Samaritan conspirators who had procured the decree against 
 them. " Tatnai, governor on this side of the river," that 
 is, from Euphrates southward, the Satrap of Syria, came 
 in person to inquire into what they were doing. He was 
 not a national enemy or envious person, but an impartial 
 official representing imperial authority. His report to Darius 
 has all the calm of power in it, with no ulterior motive. He 
 found these men, who were too obscure and far off ever to 
 have attracted the attention of the great Darius, building in 
 the wilds " the house of the great God," evidently so magni- 
 ficent and unusual a work that it needed explanation. " The 
 work," he adds, " goeth fast on, and prospereth in their hands." 
 The viceroy, with his band, had gone up the hill to inquire 
 into this wonderful undertaking : " Who commanded you to 
 build this house, and to make up these walls ? " he asked. 
 The meeting took place, in all probability, outside the northern 
 gate, as was usual — unless, indeed, the satrap, in his surprise, 
 pushed on into the interior, into the midst of the very courts 
 themselves, not yet closed to Gentile feet, where the Tyrian 
 
IN THE TEMPLE ENCLOSURE: THE TOMB Oe ELIAS 
 

CHAP. I ZERUBB ABEL— EZRA 335 
 
 masons were building, and the Levite overseers measuring 
 and planning. 
 
 Zerubbabcl, of the house of David, a prince of a dynasty 
 which had outlived many empires, and Jeshua the high priest, 
 scarcely less dignified in descent, still more so in office, with 
 other leaders of the Jews, heads of well-known families, met 
 the Syrian prince with a demeanour which he, in high 
 authority himself, would be able to appreciate. " We asked 
 their names also to certify them," he says, reporting to his 
 master their statement that their permission to rebuild the 
 Temple of the God of heaven came from Cyrus himself, who 
 had given them back out of his treasuries " the golden and 
 silver vessels of the house of God which Nebuchadnezzar 
 took." " Now, therefore," says the Satrap, " if it seem good 
 to the king, let there be search made in the king's treasure- 
 house, which is there at Babylon, whether it be so." Tatnai 
 must have been impressed by the wonderful work of the.se 
 men, which was not for their own benefit but for the house 
 of " the great God, the God of heaven and earth," not the 
 God of the Jews, it will be remarked. Nothing so remark- 
 able had come under his cognisance before. This people had 
 travelled over hills and deserts, a long and weary journey, to 
 a ruined town, away from their safe establishment in Babylon ; 
 for wtiat ? For this house of God. It is clear that the 
 governor had no desire to stop the work now proceeding so 
 happily in the sudden new influx of earnestness and enthu- 
 siasm roused by the exhortations of the prophets, the strong 
 outcry of Haggai, the happy visions of Zechariah. There is 
 a serious interest in all he writes, a desire to do justice to 
 such singular enthusiasts, and to have a sufficient warrant 
 for their work, with which he has no inclination to interfere. 
 
 It would almost seem as if the same interest had com- 
 municated itself to the officials of the new empire : among 
 whom, no doubt, were Jews, determined to leave no stone 
 unturned for the benefit of their brethren and the great work, 
 dear, even when they had not elected to take part in it, to 
 every Hebrew heart : for they were evidently not content 
 with their fruitless researches in the record office at Babylon, 
 
336 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part in 
 
 the precious decree being found at Ecbatana, " in the palace 
 that is in the province of the Medes." InteHigence was 
 immediately communicated to the Syrian satrap that the 
 ediot had been found, and contained even more than the 
 Jews claimed, no less than a large contribution being pro- 
 mised to the expense of the building, and a subsidy of 
 animals and provisions to be given day by day without fail, 
 " that they may offer sacrifices of sweet savours unto the God 
 of heaven, and pray for the life of the king, and of his sons," 
 Darius established, accordingly, all that his great predecessor 
 had done, annulled the edict of the usurper, and charged his 
 viceroy to see that his orders were fulfilled. 
 
 There was henceforward no further opposition to the 
 great work. Four years more elapsed before the building 
 was completed, but in the sixth year of Darius the new 
 Temple was consecrated, and the Feast of the Passover kept 
 in the restored and renovated city. Whether it was con- 
 spicuously inferior to its predecessor, as various indirect 
 allusions would seem to imply, or whether it was really a 
 greater edifice, is a point on which there is much diver- 
 gence of opinion. The measurements as ordained by Cyrus 
 are much larger than those of the Temple of Solomon, but, 
 on the other hand, " the day of small things " mentioned by 
 Zechariah would evidently seem to refer to the comparative 
 insignificance of the building ; and Haggai asks, " Who is 
 left among you that saw this house in her first glory ? and 
 how do you see it now ? is it not in your eyes in comparison 
 of it as nothing ? " This, however, was said while the work 
 was still incomplete, and when the two or three venerable 
 fathers who might survive, if any such were, had shaken 
 their heads in the habitual usage of old age over the pos- 
 sibility that such raw new walls could ever equal the Temple 
 which they saw, more glorious than ever reality was, through 
 the mists of childish remembrance far away. Such old men 
 as could have seen " the house in her first glory " must by 
 that time have reached the extreme limit of mortality, nearly 
 a hundred years. It is very possible, as so often happens 
 in human affairs, that both of the differing views on this 
 
ZERUBBABEL EZRA 
 
 337 
 
 subject may be true — that the second Temple was larger 
 than the old according to the stipulations of Cyrus, but that 
 it was very far from being so richly and lavishly decorated, 
 a thing almost certain in the circumstances of its re-erection. 
 The record here stops, its special object being accom- 
 
 SCUl.l'TUREI) CAI ITAL 
 
 plished : and the personal narrative of Ezra begins. 
 Whether he was the author of the previous piece of history, 
 or merely its editor, is not known nor is it of the slightest 
 importance. It was natural that it should be written by 
 one who witnessed that remarkable episode, and there are 
 some touches in it such as that of the mingled sound of joy 
 and weeping at the beginning of the work which could only 
 have been made by an actual spectator : but the chief 
 
 z 
 
338 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION tart hi 
 
 figures of Zerubbabel and Jeshua are so wholly without char- 
 acter, mere names in the history, that it can scarcely have 
 been done by any immediate follower of theirs, and may 
 simply have been put together by Ezra from notes or oral 
 report. The greater part of the generation which had 
 built the Temple, and re-established the city, had passed 
 away before he appears upon the scene. Prince and 
 high priest were both gone, the latter replaced by his 
 grandson, the former, it would appear, not replaced at all, but 
 succeeded by a council of nobles and rulers. Ezra was him- 
 self no Hebrew official, but a most important visitor from 
 Babylon, apparently holding office in the government there, 
 although his special studies had been in the law of Moses. 
 But the fact that " the king granted him all his request " 
 shows that he had attained, like the Hebrews, great in- 
 fluence and favour with the reigning potentate. 
 
 This is calculated to have been Artaxerxes or 
 Xerxes Longimanus, the grandson of Darius : so that 
 rather more than half a century occurred between the 
 completion of the Temple under the protecting edict of 
 Darius, and the visit of Ezra. In the meantime there had 
 occurred in Shushan, which was the residence of the great 
 Persian monarch, that curious story of Providential guid- 
 ance as well as palace intrigue which we call the book of 
 Esther, a proof of the very general prevalence of Jewish 
 influence in the highest centres of Babylon, which, no doubt, 
 accounts for the almost invariable protection and favour with 
 which Jersualem was regarded. Ezra had, no doubt, heard 
 rumours of the laxity of morals in the holy city, and that 
 there were some points in which reformation was most 
 important if the independence and unity of the nation were 
 to be preserved. It would almost seem as if he had laid his 
 anxieties before the king and drawn that monarch into a 
 certain sympathy with them : so that Artaxerxes himself, 
 the husband of Esther, and naturally as may be supposed 
 taking an interest in her race, was led to charge the scribe 
 with a special imperial mission, to visit and inquire into the 
 spiritual state and position towards the law of the ancient 
 
ZERUBBABEL EZRA 
 
 339 
 
 people, " to inquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem, accord- 
 ing to the law of God which is in thine hand." That this 
 was a part only of Ezra's charge, and that he was also an 
 imperial commissioner to inquire into the government of the 
 whole state on " this side of the river," the satrapy of Syria, 
 
 SCULl'TUKtU CAl'llAI. 
 
 has been imagined : but it is a point on which there is no 
 information. That he had a very special mission for the 
 Jews is, however, evident from the fact that he was permitted 
 to take with him as many of the remaining exiles as desired 
 to go, some two thousand in all — chiefly, it would appear, of 
 the Levitical tribe which had held back on the previous 
 occasion, priests, singers, porters, etc., of a timorous mind, 
 whose descendants were ready to accompany the imperial 
 
340 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part in 
 
 emissary now that all danger was over. Ezra also took 
 with him a large contribution from the king and his 
 counsellors, " freely offered " this time " unto the God of 
 Israel," a title, no doubt, proudly imposed by the Israelite 
 official as claiming the great God of heaven to be especially 
 his own. The mandate is urgent and detailed, ordering a 
 subsidy up to " an hundred talents of silver, and to an hundred 
 measures of wheat, and to an hundred baths of wine, and to 
 an hundred baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how 
 much," which was to be supplied by the local government 
 " beyond the river." Ezra would be a most welcome visitor 
 to Jerusalem with all those treasures. By this time the 
 common tenor of life must have been re-established there, 
 although, no doubt, much was yet to be desired, and little had 
 been done towards the " beautifying of the Temple," the 
 purpose for which the gifts of Artaxerxes were made. 
 
 The work of Haggai and Zechariah was long over, and 
 neither prophet nor poet existed to make known the condition 
 of affairs : silence had fallen upon the sacred city, silence 
 and peace and the deadening influence of settled and quiet 
 provincial life. The Jews never seem for a moment to have 
 relapsed into idolatry, that continual danger of their previous 
 history. What was the reason of this extraordinary and 
 fundamental change we are nowhere told, nor is it even 
 commented upon by prophet or lawgiver : but it had silently 
 taken place, a change more great than captivity or restora- 
 tion. Though Ezra's mission was that of a reformer he finds 
 no high places to destroy, no idols to cast down. That 
 danger was over for ever, without remark. The captivity, 
 no doubt, had been a powerful lesson, but even that seems 
 scarcely enough to account for a revolution so complete. 
 Was it, perhaps, the fulfilment of so many prophecies, the 
 unexpected favour of Cyrus, in addition to the many 
 practical lessons they had received ? — or had the revelation 
 to them of another conquering people whose faith was in 
 one great God of heaven like theirs produced a salutary effect 
 upon their minds and helped to settle their faith ? The 
 state of affairs which Ezra went to set right was, however. 
 
CHAP. I ZERUBBABEL EZRA 341 
 
 calculated more than anything else could be to endanger 
 this satisfactory change. When the Jews found themselves 
 established and at peace, they had at once reverted to their 
 old practice of marriages with the aborigines, Canaanites, 
 Hittites, Jebusites, and the rest, and especially it would seem 
 with the mixed race of Samaritans, without consideration of 
 the dangers involved. These alliances had checked the pro- 
 gress of the people again and again, and restored idolatrous 
 practices in Jerusalem. It was necessary now to stop them 
 at once and with a high hand before further evil ensued. 
 
 Ezra arrived in Jerusalem in the fifth month from his 
 departure from Babylon. The journey had been long and 
 perilous, no doubt delayed by many pauses and round- 
 about ways to keep out of dangerous encounters ; for the 
 expedition was chiefly made up of men of peace, and 
 " I was ashamed," Ezra says, " to require of the king a 
 band of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the 
 enemy in the way : because we had spoken unto the king, 
 saying, The hand of our God is upon all them for good that 
 seek him." The danger of such a party carrying much 
 treasure of silver and gold, not only the offerings of the 
 king but those of the rich Jews in Babylon, and hampered 
 " with our little ones and all our substance," as is expressly 
 mentioned, would not be small : but their confidence was, 
 notwithstanding the fears of their leader, justified, and they 
 arrived at last in safety. It is difficult to tell exactly what 
 Ezra's commission from Artaxerxes was : " to set magistrates 
 and judges, which may judge all the people that are beyond 
 the river, all such as know the laws of God," seems a much 
 larger commission than anything that could concern Jeru- 
 salem and Judah. It would seem to have given him a charge 
 over the Samaritans also, who in a certain sense knew the 
 laws of God and in an imperfect way retained the sacrificial 
 system and the worship of the Jews ; and also over all 
 scattered knots of people settled on the south side of the 
 Euphrates who might be of Jewish origin and faith. But 
 Jerusalem was the chief point of the journey, and we hear 
 of none of his other proceedings outside its walls. 
 
342 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION tart in 
 
 He had scarcely arrived, however, and made his sacri- 
 fices, and paid his vows, when the princes and heads of the 
 restored community came to him witli their statement of the 
 circumstances, which had alarmed the visitor when he heard 
 of them in distant Babylon, and which filled the magnates 
 of Jerusalem with anxiety and perplexity. Not only the 
 common people but the priests, the Levites, the very princes 
 themselves, were involved in this national offence. It was 
 the beginning of a change which they felt might bring back 
 all the evils and the offences of old ; for who could secure 
 the children from following their mothers' faith, or make 
 true Hebrews of those who had been brought up to consider 
 Baal as equally sacred and powerful with the great God who 
 made earth and heaven ? 
 
 The genuine grief and distress of Ezra cannot be doubted, 
 yet his immediate actions were intended to impress and alarm, 
 with something of that eloquence of sign and external type 
 which was peculiar to the prophets, the imagination of 
 Jerusalem. His meeting with the princes must have taken 
 place either in the courts of the Temple or in one of 
 those chambers opening upon them, which were open to the 
 general view, like that in which Baruch had read the roll of 
 Jeremiah's prophecies to the people. When he heard their 
 report in the midst of the assembly, which had gathered 
 round, of " every one that trembled at the words of the God of 
 Israel, because of the transgression of those that had been 
 carried away," Ezra rent his garment and his mantle in the 
 sight of all, " and plucked off the hair of my head and of my 
 beard, and sat down astonied." The wonder of the eager crowd 
 pressing round to gaze at the great stranger newly arrived 
 with such a following, bringing such offerings, a man so 
 distinguished and important — when they beheld him thus 
 delivering himself to a transport of sorrow, was great and 
 overwhelming. He " sat astonied till the evening sacrifice," 
 like a man bowed down by grief ; and when that hour came, 
 and the smoke arose through the clear air towards the 
 serene heavens veiling themselves in the softness of the 
 coming night, this observed of all men rose up and once 
 
ciiAi'. 1 ZERUBBABEL EZRA 343 
 
 more tearing his ample robes fell upon his knees in sight of 
 all, and spread out his hands to God. 
 
 Ezra's prayer was (in a legitimate sense) addressed not 
 only to God but to the hearers on earth, whose sins and not- 
 his own he was confessing. " I am ashamed and blush to 
 lift up my face to thee, my God." He had been ashamed 
 to show any want of confidence in God's protection when 
 he and his band faced the dangers of the way without 
 escort. But now that all these dangers were over, and he 
 had arrived in that dearest spot on earth to all true Hebrews, 
 there was no joy, no triumph, on his lips. The crowd, 
 growing more and more silent as they listened, feeling 
 themselves arraigned before the bar, must have followed, 
 breathless, every word. " Should we again break thy 
 commandments," he cried, " and join in affinity with the 
 people of these abominations ? ... we who are but as 
 a remnant escaped. Behold we are before thee in our 
 trespasses ; for we cannot stand before thee because of 
 this." Conviction of the terrible danger they ran, of the 
 probable repetition of God's judgments which this time would 
 not leave a remnant to escape, seems at once to have pene- 
 trated the heart of the multitude. No doubt rumours of 
 the special object of the great envoy had already spread 
 among them, quickening their apprehension. Only a small 
 portion of them had really offended as yet, but they were all 
 so closely related, and the sense of their unity as a nation 
 was so strong, that the sin which struck at the very root of 
 that unity and special character as a people, affected all. 
 
 When Ezra rose from his knees he found himself sur- 
 rounded by a very great congregation of men and women and 
 children : and " the people wept very sore," and from the 
 midst of the crowd there rose a man of the people, not a 
 priest or Levite, who confessed the sin of which they had 
 been guilty, and proposed that a covenant should be made 
 " according to the law " for the sending away of the heathen 
 women. It was not a light matter, nor was it so treated. 
 When the people dispersed sorrowful and troubled, Ezra, 
 bearing his share in their distress, "did eat no bread, nor 
 
344 THE RETURN AND REST0RA7U0N part hi 
 
 drink water," fasting and mourning for their transgression, 
 and also a little, let us hope, for the hearts that were to be 
 wrung and the houses that were to be made desolate by this 
 decision. It is clear that his management of the matter had 
 been conducted with the highest wisdom : for he had not 
 himself pronounced any judgment, notwithstanding the wide 
 commission, with power of life and death, that had been 
 put into his hands. All his proceedings were calculated to 
 bring home the conviction of that astonishing folly as well 
 as sin to the minds of the offenders, so that the proposal for 
 its rectification should proceed from themselves. 
 
 Nor was there any haste or arbitrary cruelty in the 
 carrying out of this stern edict. Its necessity was allowed 
 by all ; but the whole city seems to have felt the inevitable 
 misery, and sympathised with the sufferers. " In the ninth 
 month, and the twentieth day of the month," that is to say in 
 December, the rainy season — and probably a bad one from 
 the repeated mention of it — the people collected from every 
 city in Judah and Benjamin for the settlement of this sad 
 national business. " All the people sat in the court of the 
 house of God, trembling because of this matter, and for the 
 great rain." The combination of mental and physical suffer- 
 ing and the influence of the floods pouring from those Eastern 
 skies, beating upon the heads and penetrating the clinging 
 garments of the crowd who could not find shelter under the 
 porticoes, but had to endure the deluge as they could in the 
 open unsheltered courts, adds a curiously graphic touch to 
 the narrative. Wet and cold and miserable, as only the 
 inhabitants of a hot climate can be, they stood and listened 
 to all the transactions, and gave informally their adhesion to 
 the great national covenant. There were, as it appeared, 
 but a hundred and thirteen cases after all, nearly a quarter 
 part of the offenders being priests and Levites. Ezra estab- 
 lished a sort of commission of inquiry, which proceeded 
 legally and with deliberate care to examine every case, 
 while the crowd, released, stole away to their lodging under 
 the wintry rain, everything concurring to make the occasion 
 painful. It is very seldom that the record of bad weather 
 
CHAP. I ' ZERUBBABEL EZRA 345 
 
 comes in in Scripture to aggravate any disaster, but it is a 
 very noticeable feature of the description here. Whether in 
 every case the individual husband consented to make the 
 renunciation, whether merciful constructions were allowed of 
 any doubtful case, or even a point stretched if the poor 
 women professed the faith of their husbands, we are not told. 
 It seldom happens in any modern tribunal that such soften- 
 ing expedients do not creep in : but judgment was more stern 
 in the elder ages. At least each wife would have her writing 
 of divorcement, and would probably consent, with the patience 
 of a creature born to slavery, to the fate which she would 
 know must have come sooner or later. It was according to 
 all modern codes a severe act ; but it was one of the utmost 
 necessity and wisdom for the interests of the Jews, and for 
 the preservation of their national life — the thing, which hav- 
 ing learned more or less their terrible lesson, they now felt 
 must be preserved at all hazards and by any sacrifice. 
 
 Whether Ezra disappeared altogether from the scene 
 after this trenchant act of reformation, whether he went 
 back to Babylon to give in his report, and discharge himself 
 of the responsibility of the supervision committed to his 
 hands, we are not told ; but many years elapse before we 
 find him again in the exercise of his office as scribe and 
 teacher in Jerusalem. A certain modern touch is in his 
 character and appearance altogether, which is that of a man 
 full of supreme earnestness for his work, and perception of 
 national necessities, yet capable as a few reformers have 
 been in all ages of seeing the advantage of a startling appeal 
 to the popular imagination, a certain histrionicism, if we 
 may use the word, a perhaps studied demonstration of real 
 feeling, an outburst having all the force of the uncontrollable, 
 yet, so to speak, done on purpose for the sake of the impres- 
 sion to be produced, although absolutely true in the emotion 
 expressed. There is no real contradiction in these words, 
 and nothing in the least false in the course of action. He 
 might have retired into his chamber, and uttered with strong 
 crying and tears that prayer and confession which he made 
 on his knees with his arms stretched out, before the Temple 
 
346 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part hi 
 
 gates, with all the startled people crowding round, over- 
 whelmed by the contagion of that passionate sorrow and 
 supplication. But nothing that he could have said in the 
 way of persuasion would probably have had the same effect as 
 the overmastering remorse and appeal of that prayer, poured 
 forth as on the impulse of the moment in the shock of the 
 news, by the great visitor clothed in all the power of 
 Babylon, who had come up with joy to worship in the 
 city of his fathers, and had been there suddenly prostrated 
 by the terrible information communicated to him. The 
 effect upon the imagination and conscience of the assembled 
 Jews was tremendous, as he had intended it to be ; and yet 
 in no way had the boundaries of truth been transgressed. 
 
 Whether the after result was as complete as Ezra hoped 
 may remain a question ; for the same difficulty seems to 
 have recurred later, even in such an astonishing instance 
 as that of the high priest Eliashib, who is mentioned as the 
 son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite, and in consequence 
 showing special favour to him and his secretary Tobiah, who 
 was also highly connected by intermarriage with that exalted 
 Jewish family. This case, however, may have been so far 
 modified that Sanballat had the blood of Israel in him, being 
 a Samaritan : and the law might have been stretched to 
 permit or at least to sanction alliances already formed, with 
 those who though not of the special seed of Judah were still 
 more or less Jews, sharing many characteristics of the 
 chosen race. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 NEHEMIAH 
 
 The mission of Ezra was a special one of deep importance 
 to the Jewish nation as cutting off the possibiHties of relapse 
 into the one master- sin which had heretofore been their 
 bane, and cleansing their internal economy ; but it was 
 brief and sudden and involved no external advance either 
 in the great constructions going on on all sides, or the 
 defence of the nation from its outward enemies. Another 
 personage very unlike Ezra, but still more distinct and 
 full of character, now appears against that tumultuous 
 background of the Jewish capital, so full of rebellions and 
 sudden repentances, the rising and falling of a popular tide, 
 more marked, perhaps, in its small stream of existence than 
 it would have been within more extended limits. The Jews 
 in Babylon fall altogether out, in a few generations, from 
 the story of their nation ; they had made their choice to 
 remain there, in some cases, no doubt, willingly, in some 
 with painful submission to a bondage of circumstances 
 which they had not strength or courage to break. They 
 had been on the verge of a universal massacre when 
 saved by the interposition of Esther ; they were sub- 
 ject to all the vagaries of a monarch's caprice and the 
 hatred of a vizier ; but at the same time they were wealthy 
 and safe from want and the dangers of every day, which 
 were compensations for the want of freedom, and the, by 
 this time, chiefly sentimental woes of exile. At the same 
 time there can be no doubt that they were deeply interested 
 
348 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part hi 
 
 in the story of their brethren, and the progress of affairs at 
 Jerusalem, and that the travellers who went and came, 
 whether on imperial business, or about their own affairs, 
 were eagerly surrounded and questioned whenever they 
 appeared. 
 
 By this means, and by such lingering slowly-conveyed 
 letters as were possible, they must have heard of the suc- 
 cessive troubles and triumphs of their race, of the delays 
 of the Temple-building, consequent on the necessity of 
 housing the pilgrims and their families, of the slow work 
 of clearing the ruins, of the opposition of hostile neigh- 
 bours, the sudden alarms of a threatened attack, the 
 constant state of harassed watchfulness in which the 
 enemies without kept the defenceless colony, encamped 
 within those broken walls which could not resist any 
 systematic assault. They must have heard, too, of the 
 completion at last of the great work with commemorative 
 meetings and sympathetic rejoicings among themselves ; 
 and of Ezra's mission with probably less sympathy than 
 reprobation of the weak brethren who thus risked a new 
 downfall for such a perishing thing as a foreign wife. The 
 interest with which every detail would be received even 
 when the eager listeners were no more than grandchildren 
 or great-grandchildren of the captivity, is plain enough ; 
 they listened for every rumour with the strained attention 
 which was more private and personal than public interest 
 generally is, following their distant brethren through stage 
 after stage. And when the renewed Jerusalem became an 
 established fact, once more a city full of people, full, at 
 least in the Temple treasury, of wealth, it is natural to 
 imagine that their satisfaction and joy blinded them a little 
 to the dangers still surrounding that capital of their race, 
 replanted in the midst of enemies, and with very ineffectual 
 means of defence. They had already subscribed and offered 
 a great deal for this vast national work : it is very probable 
 that they now felt they had done enough. 
 
 This, however, was not the sentiment of one young man, 
 of the class of those Hebrew courtiers who had found so 
 
NEHEMIAH 349 
 
 much acceptance with all the monarchs in Babylon, both of 
 Assyrian and Persian race : and the narrative carries us at 
 once to the palace of the ancient potentate, the great 
 Xerxes, where he dwelt at Shushan — to the vast cool courts, 
 emblazoned with stately decoration, and full of a pictur- 
 esque and every-varying ]^3astern crowd of courtiers and 
 suppliants. Among these was a group, brown and travel- 
 worn, of messengers from Jerusalem, to whom the king's 
 cupbearer Nehemiah, in the rich apparel of those that 
 dwell in king's houses, drew hastily near to ask what was 
 the news. The news was not cheerful. The population of 
 Jerusalem, " the remnant that was left of the captivity," 
 were in trouble and alarm because of the broken walls and 
 vacant gateways which left the way of access into the city 
 free to every enemy, doubly dangerous from the fact that 
 the whole surrounding country was full of hostile bands. 
 Nehemiah was deeply moved by these tidings : and he 
 was a man full of energy, little apt to content himself with 
 expressions of sympathy. A sudden resolution sprang up 
 in his breast. He wept and fasted and mourned " certain 
 days," praying and imploring " the Lord God of heaven " — 
 which seems to have been the special title of God among 
 the Persians — to have mercy upon his people and to grant 
 the prayer which he, Nehemiah, should make to his master, 
 " this man " into whose presence he was about to be called 
 to fulfil his period of service. " I had not been aforetime 
 sad in his presence," Nehemiah says in his autobiography ; 
 for he was young, a man of conscious power, doing what- 
 ever his hand found to do with all his might. The king, 
 it is evident, took a kind interest in his attendants, and he 
 remarked at once the cupbearer's change of mien. It was 
 a cheerful office, and the clouded looks of him who poured 
 out the wine diminished the king's satisfaction in the draught. 
 He paused to inquire what was the matter, with real interest. 
 " This can be nothing but sorrow of heart." Nehemiah was 
 " very sore afraid " notwithstanding the paternal kindness 
 of his monarch. He answered — with an internal prayer that 
 God would give him favour in his master's sight : " O king, 
 
350 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part hi 
 
 live for ever : why should not my countenance be sad, when 
 the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth waste, and 
 the gates thereof are consumed with fire ? " 
 
 Artaxerxes must have been by this time well acquainted 
 with the necessities of Jerusalem and her frequent appeals to 
 his charity. He answered indulgently as who should say, 
 " What is wanted now ? " They must have been good and 
 faithful servants, so unfailing was his toleration and bounty 
 for those Jews, of whose allegiance, as a people having 
 nothing to gain by any political overthrow, he must have 
 been certainly assured. When Nehemiah made his prayer 
 to be sent to Jerusalem that he might build the ruined walls, 
 the king would seem to have made no objection except a 
 flattering question as to how long the journey was, and when 
 he might be expected to return ; and granted him letters 
 " to the keepers of the king's forest " for timber, and recom- 
 mendations to " the governors beyond the river " to further 
 his undertaking in every way. It would seem that 
 Nehemiah was also invested with the authority of governor 
 or Tirshatha, there being at the time no sole responsible 
 authority in the city, but only a council of rulers, chiefly 
 priests, with, perhaps, the advice and help of Ezra, whom we 
 find once more in Jerusalem after an interval of twenty 
 years, on the arrival of his successor in the Scripture records. 
 Nehemiah took with him no such Jewish contingent as that 
 which had followed Ezra : a significant fact as showing that 
 the number of those willing to undertake hardship and 
 unsettlement of life for the sake of their religion and nation 
 was now exhausted. But the new Tirshatha had with him 
 instead an escort of " captains of the army and horsemen " 
 to guard him from the danger of the way. 
 
 For three days after his arrival Nehemiah would seem 
 to have rested from his journey and apparently said nothing 
 of his special object. We may understand that he was 
 received and acknowledged at once as in authority over the 
 city, the priests being in no condition to oppose any of his 
 requirements, and probably having no wish to do so : for the 
 succour of a strong officer of the empire backed by certain 
 
NEHEMIAH 351 
 
 spears, would be no small comfort to them in face of the 
 continued strife round about, and the machinations of enemies 
 not powerful enough to attack but continually threatening. 
 After this period of rest Nehemiah rose one night when all 
 was still in the city — " I and some few men with me " — and 
 went out to reconnoitre. His attendants followed on foot 
 while he rode round Jerusalem, coming out by " the gate of 
 the valley," a gate opening upon the valley of Hinnom in 
 something of the position of the present Jaffa gate, or a 
 little farther to the south at the extreme angle of the 
 city walls. This would bring him out on the slopes of 
 Zion, to the path which skirted the south wall, lead- 
 ing downward across the ravine of the Tyropoeon valley, 
 past the pools of Siloam and the gardens of Ophel till he 
 reached the valley of the Kedron, along which he rode " in 
 the night," as he repeats, " and viewed the wall." We may 
 take it for granted that the moon shone over the well of 
 Job, the widening valley towards the south, and the dark 
 hill of evil counsel : upon the outer wall of the Temple en- 
 closure, where Solomon's great blocks of stone were still 
 fixed everlasting on their foundation of rock : and glimmered 
 in the pool of Siloam and the glittering thread of Kedron, 
 making fantastic fortifications of the rocky village which the 
 Phoenician builders had founded, and throwing long shadows 
 of the gnarled olive-trees upon that spot, ever sacred to 
 memory, where our Lord went through His hour of anguish. 
 It was probably the same road as that which Jesus and His 
 disciples took in the darkening of the night from the tra- 
 ditionary spot where the Last Supper was eaten, to the 
 enclosure of Gethsemane. But that was still far in the 
 future when Nehemiah and his party stumbled among the 
 dark hillocks and inspected the broken walks. At this spot 
 the outer wall of the Temple enclosure is now the wall of 
 Jerusalem, and crowns a steep bank which is in itself a forti- 
 fication of nature : but then, it would appear, an outer wall 
 of defence doubled the strength of the city and the holy 
 place. There, it is said, he " turned back, and entered again 
 by the gate of the valley " bj' which he had come out ; the 
 
352 
 
 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION 
 
 natural sense of which is that he stopped half-way where the 
 traditional Bethesda glimmered black in shadow under the 
 side wall of the Temple and took no trouble with the other 
 fortifications where the wall trends towards the north. Per- 
 haps the city then extended but little beyond that point : 
 and he must have seen the state of the northern wall on his 
 arrival and probably did not need to repeat the investigation ; 
 the ruins there, always the point of attack, being so con- 
 spicuous as to require no private examination. 
 
 It was on the next morning, probably, after this secret 
 
 NORTH-EAST CORNER OF WALL, TEMPLE ENCLOSURE (hARAM-ESH-SHERIf) 
 
 circuit, that he called the rulers together and explained to 
 them his special mission. " Let us rise up and build," was 
 their immediate reply. There could be no doubt about the 
 necessity of the work, and probably Nehemiah's plan which 
 he divulged to them, by which every man should take part 
 in the labour, depending upon no slow progress of hired 
 workmen, but carrying on the whole simultaneously, each 
 division of the city and every family of importance working 
 at its own portion, commended itself at once to the minds of 
 the ecclesiastics who probably, unaccustomed to such practical 
 matters, had thought of nothing but the risks and cost of 
 
NEHEMIAH 353 
 
 a long undertaking, calling the attention of foes outside, and 
 perhaps drawing upon themselves direct attack. 
 
 Here the opponents and enemies of Jerusalem come 
 clearly into sight, watching with jealous eyes all that was 
 being done. Were they actually in the city, overflowing the 
 chamber in the Temple itself which Eliashib, the high priest 
 (though no traitor), had given up to them in consideration of 
 relationship ? or were they hanging about the outskirts with the 
 usual armed attendance of Eastern chiefs, hearing everything 
 that went on, and ever ready for hostilities and to stop any 
 dangerous movement ? " Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah 
 the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian," are 
 the three chiefs whose names are suddenly brought before 
 us. " They laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said. 
 What is this thing that ye do ? will ye rebel against the 
 king ? " Nehemiah, however, gave them no light upon his 
 plan, nor even upon the high authority which had been com- 
 mitted to him, but went on quietly organising his work. 
 " Ye have no portion, nor right, nor memorial in Jerusalem," 
 he said. The traditionary enmity between the Jews and the 
 Samaritans, kept up as we know for hundreds of years, 
 evidently originated in the proceedings of this period and 
 the obstinate but fruitless attempts made by the mixed race 
 to crush the Jews of the captivity and prevent them from 
 regaining their independence ; a course ol action natural 
 enough if we remember that, as has been seen, their 
 daughters were treated as heathens, and cut off from the 
 holy city, though they were themselves conscious and proud 
 of an Israelitish descent. That affront, never to be forgotten, 
 had, no doubt, exasperated the original jealousy which made 
 the Samaritans conspire against the peace of Jerusalem, and 
 the re-crection of the holy place : and which now burst forth 
 in many demonstrations of exaggerated spite and ill-feeling 
 — which were, however, impotent in face of a strong man 
 like Nehemiah, and the authority from headquarters with 
 which he was charged. 
 
 And then the plan, which, no doubt, he had matured in 
 his mind during the long days and nights of his journey, 
 
 2 A 
 
354 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION fart in 
 
 probably with the help of some rude image of the beloved 
 city such as that upon Ezekiel's tile, or the detailed and 
 often-repeated descriptions upon which the childhood of the 
 sons of the captivity was nourished — was carried suddenly 
 and at once into effect. When the common crowd opened its 
 eyes in the morning there was already a murmur of activity 
 in the city, of the masons' mallets and the movements of the 
 labourers, and the sound of the great stones rolled or lifted 
 into place, proceeding from every quarter. If there were any 
 of Sanballat's or Tobiah's belongings in that large chamber 
 in the Temple which Eliashib had cleared out for them of 
 the stores for which it was properly intended — how astonished 
 must they have been to see Eliashib himself superintending 
 the building of his portion of the wall, he and his brethren 
 with their robes girded, if not with trowel and mallet in their 
 own hands, yet, no doubt, busy in the humbler occupation of 
 bringing up the materials and pushing forward the work. 
 
 The high priest's portion was from the sheep gate, — 
 that by which animals intended for sacrifice were brought 
 up to the Temple, supposed to be in the eastern wall, some- 
 where near and above the pool of Bethesda, where the north 
 wall of the Temple enclosure forms an angle — to the tower 
 of Meah or Hananeel, unknown to modern topography. If 
 it was the wall of their own special domain which they forti- 
 fied it would be towards the south that they would labour, 
 on that side of the Temple square which now forms part of 
 the external fortifications : next to the priests started at the 
 same morning hour the men of Jericho : next to them Zaccur 
 the son of Imri : next to him the sons of Hassenaah who 
 built the fish gate, believed to be in the north wall from 
 which opened the road to Galilee. Whether these indica- 
 tions are to be trusted or not it is difificult to make out ; the 
 important matter is that more than thirty groups of labourers, 
 each under the command of a well-known member of the 
 community, began at once on the great work : each pursuing 
 his neighbours in the emulation of eager and patriotic toil, 
 not a matter of words but of independent and cheerful 
 manual labour. 
 
NEHEMIAH 355 
 
 Nothing could have been better calculated to raise the 
 spirit of the nation, cowed by much delay and mismanage- 
 ment, by the harassing treatment to which they were sub- 
 jected without, and the want of any strong ruler within, than 
 this outburst of activity — the very air quickening round 
 them with the sound of the tools, the shouts and outcries 
 with which men everywhere relieve the strain of labour, 
 the bustling of the overseers new to such work, and, no 
 doubt, full of anxiety and over^care. No one was left to 
 criticise or frame objections save the Tirshatha making his 
 rounds, stirring every set of builders to renewed vigour, 
 rewarding with a quick glance of satisfaction, a word of 
 praise and encouragement, those who made the best progress 
 — especially those who completed their own share and were 
 ready to help others, like the men of Tekoah, who, though 
 their nobles stood aloof, repaired not only their own portion, 
 but a part of the wall on the other side near Ophel, which 
 was the special charge of the Nethinims or servants of the 
 Temple. It was not wonderful that the ill-disposed neigh- 
 bours watching outside what was going on in Jerusalem 
 should be roused to a frenzy of rage and opposition when 
 the meaning of all this stir burst upon them. " What are the 
 people about ? " cried Sanballat, " will they fortify themselves ? 
 will they make an end in one day } will they revive the 
 stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burnt ? " 
 His spiteful outcry gives us a still clearer view of what was 
 going on ; for this, no doubt, was exactly what they were 
 doing, raising the great stones to which the burning had 
 done little harm out of the masses of broken lime and frag- 
 ments, and placing them once more in their old courses. 
 Tobiah the Ammonite was more spiteful still. " That which 
 they build, if a fox go up, he shall break down their stone 
 wall," cried this enraged looker-on whose wish was father to 
 the thought. " Hear, O our God : " cries Nehemiah in the 
 fervour of his indignant earnestness, " for we are despised ! " 
 But the rage of disappointed malice only confirmed the 
 resolution of the city. " So built we the wall ; for the people 
 had a mind to work." 
 
356 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part hi 
 
 When, however, Sanballat saw that his floutings had no 
 effect he and his friends seenn to have held a consultation 
 whether it would not be a wise thing to make a raid upon 
 Jerusalem before the fortifications were completed. No 
 doubt there were plenty of spies and informers on both 
 sides ready to run with a piece of news from one to 
 another ; and Nehemiah was not long in hearing of the 
 intended movement against him. The builders on the north 
 side, which was that most open to attack, would also be aware 
 of the comings and goings, the bands from different quarters 
 drawing together, making a brave show upon the rising 
 ground, the little troops of horsemen who would ride down 
 the Kedron valley, and point out to each other with flouts 
 and shouts of laughter the progress of the work, such walls ! 
 as a fox might break down. The wall had risen to about 
 half its intended height by this time round the entire town, 
 one band of workmen meeting another : and the labour 
 was severe. There was " much rubbish " which, no doubt, 
 crumbled away under the feet of the builders and impeded 
 every step, and " the strength of the bearers of burdens " 
 began to give way. Then the Jews who had been called 
 up from the country to aid in the work were full of alarm 
 for what might befall them as they returned to their villages, 
 especially those who dwelt upon the north road towards 
 Samaria— an alarm increased by urgent messages from 
 their homes, from timorous wives or parents left behind, 
 begging them to return and escape from danger. 
 
 A movement of discouragement thus again came like 
 a cloud over the city, and all might have been abandoned 
 and the ruin left as before, had Nehemiah been less 
 vigorous, or less determined. He seized the pause as an 
 opportunity of re-forming the method of the labour, and 
 rousing at the same time the warlike impulse which had 
 begun to rise with the prospect of independence. He 
 divided the working parties into two halves, one of which 
 carried on the active work while the others stood behind, 
 a guard ready for all emergencies, in mail coats, fully armed 
 with spears, shields, and bows. And every builder girt on 
 
CHAP. II NE HE MI AH 359 
 
 his sword before he took up the peaceful trowel, and every 
 hodman carried a weapon : and the Tirshatha as he moved 
 about from one part of the wall to another, was accompanied 
 by a trumpeter in order to call all the forces at once to a 
 given point if there was any sign of attack. We may be 
 sure that active Tirshatha was everywhere, seeing every- 
 thing that happened, riding about up and down, through 
 half-built street and encumbered hollows and hillocks, from 
 the city of David to the northern gate, and away again 
 to that door of the king on the east side towards the sun- 
 rising, by which only princes were to enter in. High priest 
 or learned scribe, or group of servants, or Shallum with his 
 daughters, or that Hananiah who was the son of an apothe- 
 cary, it mattered nothing to the active governor. And if 
 there was any movement visible in the encampment on the 
 hill where the Samaritans lay and looked on, and raged and 
 wondered, it is clear that the Tirshatha was there with his 
 trumpeter ready to sound the alarm, so that every man 
 might throw down his trowel or his hod and catch up his 
 bow or draw his sword, while he rushed towards the centre 
 of action. Never was a patriotic drama more strenuous, 
 picturesque, and spirit-stirring, with such mingled sounds 
 of labour and war, of a strong race on the alert, valiantly 
 and cheerfully contending for its life. The men were in- 
 spired at once with patriotism and strong indignation and 
 a sense that this was the crisis upon which the fate of 
 Jerusalem hung. 
 
 " So we laboured in the work : " says the terse and strong 
 historian, " and half of them held the spears from the rising 
 of the morning till the stars appeared. So neither I, nor 
 my brethren, nor my servants, nor the men of the guard 
 which followed me, none of us put off our clothes." Perhaps 
 if the labourers had not had this watchful unwavering band 
 to keep them at their work the .softness of use and wont 
 might have made the tools drop from their hands, and per- 
 suaded them of the expediency of yielding to Sanballat and 
 thus keeping on good terms with their neighbours. But 
 Nehemiah behind, who never rested, lying down in his cloak 
 
36o THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part in 
 
 to snatch an hour's sleep Hke any camel-driver, he the cup- 
 bearer of Artaxerxes the Eastern autocrat, used to perfumed 
 baths and silken robes — would hear of no submission. 
 " Remember me, O my God, concerning this," he cries, 
 when he winds up the stirring story. He was a man of 
 his age, not disposed to make light of his work, or to pre- 
 tend that he did not expect a recompense ; but few men 
 have ever worked for worldly recompense as did Nehcmiah, 
 every nerve in him braced, and every faculty strengthened 
 for the great work. 
 
 The community within was not without its troubles even 
 while this work went on ; once more there arose that cry of 
 usury, of the pledge retained and the sons and daughters 
 sold into bondage which was the evil against which Israel 
 had been so specially warned, the system of ruinous loans 
 upon land and individual belongings which is the pest of 
 every rural system in the East — and elsewhere. The Tir- 
 shatha assailed this evil, too, with a high hand, holding out 
 before the richer portion of the community, " the nobles and 
 rulers," his own example. " We after our ability," he said, 
 " have redeemed our brethren the Jews, which were sold 
 unto the heathen ; and will ye even sell your brethren ? " 
 The Jews in Babylon had been very liberal. Like the 
 modern Jews in Europe, they had sent contributions of all 
 kinds both for the Temple and the maintenance of the city, 
 and, no doubt, as Nehemiah says, had purchased the freedom 
 of many of the captives who returned, and borne their 
 expenses for the journey, only to find these delivered slaves 
 robbing the unprovided among themselves. " Then held 
 they their peace, and found nothing to answer," His 
 remonstrance, however, was effectual for the time : it is 
 evident that he was not a man accustomed to be resisted. 
 
 " Also I shook my lap, and said, So God shake out every 
 man from his house, and from his labour, that performeth 
 not this promise, even thus be he shaken out, and emptied. 
 And all the congregation said. Amen, and praised the Lord. 
 And the people did according to this promise." Nehemiah 
 again quoted his own practice of high generosity and disin- 
 
NEHEMIAH 361 
 
 terestedness, as an example for the future : at a later period, 
 near the end of his residence at Jerusalem : when he bade the 
 people remember how, during the twelve years in which he 
 held the office of governor — though it was his right in virtue 
 of his office to receive from those under him an abundant 
 revenue fgr his support and that of his household — he had 
 accepted nothing. Former governors had been chargeable 
 to the people, " had taken bread and wine, besides forty 
 shekels of silver ; yea, even their servants have rule over 
 the people : but so did not I, for the peace of God." He 
 describes besides, in this sometimes almost contemptuous 
 summary, how he had held a sort of royal state, an open 
 table, entertaining like a king a hundred and fifty of the 
 Jews and rulers daily " besides those that came unto us from 
 among the heathen that are about us," a curious addition. 
 Thus he lived, always with a lofty scorn of all meanness, 
 giving freely, accepting nothing, with perhaps, we may divine, 
 a certain scorn as of a high official of the empire, for the 
 pettiness of the province, notwithstanding his passionate 
 devotion to the holy place and to the faith of his fathers. 
 Such a mingling of high enthusiasm for a great object, with 
 an impassioned disdain of all the small self-interests that 
 gather about it and the unelevated persons who carry it out, 
 is not unusual in great national movements. 
 
 We need not dwell upon the devices of Sanballat and 
 his band who for all their gibes and boasting did not 
 venture near the half-built walls, nor had the courage to 
 assault the builders with that keen decisive governor 
 behind them, who could not be taken by surprise. They 
 endeavoured to inveigle Nehemiah out of the city on the 
 pretence of a quite unnecessary conference ; then they 
 accused him by " an open letter," intended like that of 
 Rabshakeh in Hezekiah's time for the ears of the populace, 
 of wishing to make himself a king, and threatened to report 
 to Artaxerxcs that he was a rebel against the imperial 
 authority. Finding, however, their attempts unsuccessful 
 and all their wiles powerless against him, they suborned one 
 of the priests to persuade him to take refuge in the Temple. 
 
362 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION tart in 
 
 " For they will come to slay thee, yea, in the night they 
 will come to slay thee." The Tirshatha confounded this 
 deceitful priest with his usual stern calm and that indignant 
 contempt which such futile temptations deserved. " Should 
 such a man as I flee ? " he asked with noble scorn. The 
 insignificance of them all before him, both enemies and 
 false friends, and the crowd which is overawed by his 
 greatness, but never understands him, is more conspicuous 
 in his simple record than if it had been descanted upon by 
 hosts of eulogists. It is scarcely in nature that such a 
 man should not despise the rabble which trembled at his 
 look and promised everything — yet fell back into its un- 
 patriotic alliances as soon as his back was turned. It is 
 the never-failing experience of the rulers of men. 
 
 But in the meantime he accomplished his work and 
 reorganised the entire society. The most picturesque and 
 striking ceremony of all, that with which Nehemiah wound 
 up his great undertaking, was the dedication of the walls 
 which the people under his constant stimulation and care 
 had built. The Levites were sought, out of all the 
 villages in which (in the intervals of their service at 
 Jerusalem) they lived, and all the singers and musicians 
 with their instruments. " Then I brought up the princes of 
 Judah upon the wall," says the governor, " and appointed 
 two great companies of them that gave thanks, whereof 
 one went on the right hand upon the wall . . . and the 
 other company of them that gave thanks went over against 
 them, and I after them, and the half of the people." Thus 
 they went, winding round and round the new-built ramparts 
 and by the gates — each with its great lock and bar, like 
 those, perhaps, which are still used in Damascus and other 
 Syrian cities, a bar with a rudely fitted perpendicular bolt 
 with iron projections falling into certain perforations in it, 
 which rises and drops by means of a wooden key. The 
 procession was attended, each half of it by the priests with 
 the trumpets, and a choir of singers, singing, perhaps, those 
 songs of the pilgrims with which the long and dreary way 
 from Babylon had been lightened. They circled the city 
 
NEHEMIAH 363 
 
 from the great pools of Gihon in the west, and the stairs of 
 the city of David, that bridge that traversed the Tyropoeon 
 valley, and along the irregular length of the north wall 
 whence they could see the tents of their Samaritan enemies 
 on the hill of Samuel or Mount Scopus, so often there- 
 after to be crowned with the armies of more formidable 
 invaders : while the other party made the round on the 
 southern side above the valley of Hinnom, and along the 
 front of the Temple, both coming together with whatever en- 
 signs of triumph they might carry, with the glowing colour of 
 Eastern gala dress, and the white robes of the Levites, and 
 the sound of the singing and shouts of the multitude, until 
 the marching lines met on the ramparts of the Temple wall, 
 opposite Olivet, and stood awhile to make their thanksgiving, 
 governor and princes and priests and people : " and the 
 singers sang loud " : for every evil prophecy was confounded 
 and every fear quenched and the work accomplished, so 
 that all the world might see. " Also that day they offered 
 great sacrifices, and rejoiced : for God had made them 
 rejoice with great joy : the wives also and the children 
 rejoiced : so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even 
 afar off-." 
 
 On another occasion, probably immediately after the 
 completion of the walls but before that ceremony, before 
 the men who had helped in the building withdrew to 
 their villages, they gathered " as one man in the court 
 before the water-gate," and a request was made to Ezra 
 the scribe, here re-introduced suddenly into the history, 
 that he would bring out the book of the law and read it 
 to the people. This had been his habit according to his 
 own record many years before, and either he had been 
 absent during the troubled period before Nehemiah's ap- 
 pearance in Jerusalem, or engaged, perhaps, in the busi- 
 ness belonging to his special profession of managing the 
 registers and all the laws and regulations of the city, since 
 no previous mention of him appears in the story of 
 Nehemiah : yet here at last we find him again, when the 
 Tirshatha's great work was over, coming forward into the 
 
364 
 
 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION 
 
 foreground in his natural position as an interpreter of the 
 law. He was placed in a "pulpit of wood made for the 
 purpose," such, probably, as the readers of the Koran occupy 
 at the present day in the mosques ; and round him stood a 
 band of priests, giving the sanction and weight of their 
 
 )FEN-AIK I'ULl-IT IN THK TEiVH'LK ENCLOSURE 
 
 presence to this popular expositor. He read from the 
 morning till midday " before the men and women and all 
 that could understand ; and the ears of all the people were 
 attentive to hear the law." When he opened the book all 
 the people stood up. " And Ezra blessed the Lord, the 
 great God : and all the people answered Amen, Amen, with 
 
CHAP, n NEHEMIAH 365 
 
 lifting up their hands : and they bowed their heads, and 
 worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground." This 
 scene opens upon us Hke a picture in the ancient usage of 
 instruction still familiar in the East ; it must have taken 
 place somewhere about the spot where now stands the 
 exquisite open-air pulpit of present use high in the midst 
 of the Temple enclosure. As Ezra read and paused at 
 the end of some difficult passage, the priests took it up in 
 turn and " caused the people to understand," expounding 
 and explaining. And when all the laws were read in their 
 ears which they had transgressed without, it is possible, in 
 the turmoil of the time, knowing them, great compunction 
 and remorse arose in their hearts. " And the people wept." 
 But the Tirshatha, wise and wholesome man, would not have 
 his triumph spoiled. He was a peremptory ruler, strong in 
 his ideas of work and recompense, and much of Solomon's 
 opinion that there was a time for everything. He desired 
 them to postpone their penitence to another day. " This day 
 is holy to the Lord your God ; mourn not, nor weep. Go 
 your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions 
 unto them for whom nothing is prepared : for this day is 
 holy unto our Lord ; neither be ye sorry : for the joy of 
 Lord is your strength." 
 
 The insistence upon this point is curious and exhilarating. 
 The Tirshatha would have none of their lamentations, even 
 though these lamentations were for sin : and the Levites 
 were set to " still " the people, repeating that exhortation 
 " Hold your peace, neither be ye .sorry." In the end the 
 multitude responded to this repeated injunction and ate and 
 drank and sent portions, and made merry, " because they had 
 understood the words that were declared unto them :" indeed 
 a very sufficient reason for such a course. 
 
 The postponed penitence had its course on the twenty- 
 fourth day of the same month, when a fast was held as 
 solemn as the thanksgiving, and the people put off all their 
 coloured garments and put themselves in sackcloth with 
 earth upon their heads and " separated themselves from all 
 strangers": that is, no doubt, closed the Temple gates against 
 
366 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part in 
 
 every intruder, and stood as a nation confessing their na- 
 tional sins before God. The Psalm which they sang is a 
 confession of their shortcomings and of the grace of God 
 which had restored again and again His erring people, and 
 their services ended with a proposal, in which is the very 
 soul of the determined Nehemiah, their inspiration in all 
 national matters — that a solemn covenant and promise now 
 and for ever of faithfulness to the God who had been so 
 gracious to them, should be signed and sealed, as a pledge 
 that they would err no more. The peremptory optimist who 
 was at their head must' surely have had secret misgivings of 
 the everlasting efficacy of such a covenant : but pious men 
 and great Reformers of far later date than Nehemiah have 
 tried the expedient as he did, undiscouraged by much failure : 
 and we can scarcely help thinking of Knox and his followers 
 and of the Covenants of Scotland, when we read the list of 
 " those who sealed " and " entered into a curse and into an 
 oath to walk in God's law "—that is, who invoked a curse 
 upon their own heads if they did not keep that vow. No 
 doubt it gave a solace to the heart of Nehemiah to leave 
 them so bound against all further possibilities of trans- 
 gression — bound by seal and signature, though {<i\\ of them, 
 we may believe, could write — signs of a bargain which would 
 be, it was to be hoped, more effectual than private resolu- 
 tion : to do all they ought to do, to make no mixed 
 marriages, hold no market on the Sabbath day, and main- 
 tain the ordinances of the Temple, the sacrifices and the 
 tithes, the first-fruits and offerings. When these vows were 
 put upon parchment and laid up in the holy place, was not 
 all done that could be done to bind a people at once so 
 fickle and so strange ? 
 
 But whether the Tirshatha remained to govern the city, 
 or whether he went back to pour out again the wine of 
 Artaxerxes, or to be promoted after all his labours to some 
 more important post in the imperial government, we know 
 nothing. The record ends here so far as the Scripture 
 history is concerned, leaving Jerusalem in outward peace, 
 but as yet little more than a ghost of herself, with elaborate 
 
NEHEMIAH . 367 
 
 laws, and a hierarchy carefully arranged, yet but half 
 populated, with a few scattered villages alone to keep up her 
 prestige and her claim to be considered among the nations. 
 The stronghold, however, was again safe from all but 
 imperial arms, the sanctuary cleansed, the race for once 
 convinced that apart from God and his Divine protection 
 they had no standing or security in the world. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE MACCABEES 
 
 Nothing can be more remarkable than the difference we 
 find in this ancient history when the guiding thread of 
 Scripture fails. The Apocryphal books are extremely 
 interesting and full of graphic details, but the difference 
 between them and the canonical books is very much like 
 that which exists between Shakespeare and the other 
 dramatists of the Elizabethan age. Many of these are 
 great writers taken by themselves, but when they arc placed 
 beside our supreme poet they pale and fade like the stars at 
 midday. 
 
 "Ye common people of the sky, 
 What are ye when the moon is nigh ? " 
 
 The difference is much of the same kind when we turn 
 to the history of the Maccabees after the stories of Ezra and 
 Nehemiah. The books of Kings and Chronicles are full 
 of curt passages, records from which the life has well-nigh 
 gone, but these are redeemed by passages glowing with the 
 movement and force of existence, with features of individual 
 life which nothing can make antiquated, which are as true to 
 human nature now as they were when the events recorded 
 came to pass. In none of them do we lose our way, nor do 
 our heads spin round as in the fightings of the Maccabees : 
 — in none of them does the curious mixture of pure legend 
 show itself in mingled extravagance and subtilty, as in some 
 of the other Apocryphal books. The narrative of Esdras, for 
 
THE MACCABEES 369 
 
 example, the amplified and legendary tale of which the 
 book of Ezra is the text, is in many parts a captivating 
 story. Its account of the manner in which the distresses of 
 the Jews were brought before King Darius is like a chapter 
 out of the Arabian Nights. The three young men in the ante- 
 chamber, and their emulation as to who shall write the 
 wisest sentence, and the recompense that shall be given him : 
 the ready acquiescence of the monarch in this competition : 
 the success of the third competitor and his statement of the 
 boon he desires, which is not to be clothed in purple and to 
 sleep upon a couch of gold, or even to sit next to Darius for 
 his wisdom and to be called the king's cousin, but that 
 Jerusalem may be succoured and built up : make such a 
 tale as Scheherezade might have told to her Sultan. But 
 then the thread of the story melts away and we know no 
 more of the three young men (one of them vaguely called 
 Zorobabel as if in some confusion of identity with thq Jewish 
 prince of Cyrus's days) nor hear of any connection they had 
 with that extremely real, succinct, and veritable personage — 
 Ezra the scribe, whose account of himself and his mission is 
 so genuine and satisfactory. The chronology of Scripture is 
 often difficult, but that of the Apocryphal books is impossible. 
 It is Nebuchadnezzar's captain whose head Judith carries in 
 her bag, notwithstanding that her time is after the captivity 
 and long after the very empire of that monarch has been 
 overthrown. De Bracy's famous description in Ivanhoc of 
 how the tribe of Benjamin in their difficulties sought counsel 
 of the Pope is scarcely more wildly astray. These are 
 examples of how a -story is told which has gone from one 
 mouth to another through a few hundred years. The critics 
 who consider this to be the way in which the whole 
 Scriptural record was built up have not apparently re- 
 marked this real illustration of what the outcome is in such 
 a case. 
 
 The narrative of the Maccabees, though confused, is a 
 more solid piece of history. By the time it was written 
 the world had attained the historical age, and there 
 are other records with which to compare and correct it. 
 
 2 B 
 
370 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION tart in 
 
 It is another chapter of the long-continued, little-varying 
 story, save that in this, as in a secular chronicle, the connec- 
 tion between the sins of the people and their punishment is 
 not insisted upon, and the political influence of situation and 
 character is more clearly revealed. Jerusalem is a little 
 realm of marked and peculiar institutions, many of which 
 offend and irritate her neighbours, as a profession of superior 
 sanctity or enlightenment invariably does offend and irritate. 
 These neighbours are always asking the world and each 
 other. What is she, this little mountain city, to make so 
 much commotion about her Temple, her rites, her claim to be 
 more wise than other people, her Sabbaths, forsooth, as if 
 she were more hard worked on the other six days of the 
 week, or had more to show for her labour, than her 
 neighbours ? 
 
 On the other hand, the little country of Judea, the 
 little obstinate wealthy town with her Temple, still more 
 or less lined and furnished with gold, and her precious 
 vessels, always a tempting prey, lay right in the way be- 
 tween two strong and warlike powers, the empire of Egypt 
 on the one hand, the northern empire once of Senna- 
 cherib, once of Cyrus, once of Alexander, on the other, 
 between which there was a continual struggle. Nothing 
 could be more dangerous than such a position, especially as 
 it would seem through all her history that Jerusalem was 
 most apt to take the Egyptian side, where a race ancient 
 and changeless as her own had stood against many incursions 
 of the continually modified and altered empire of the north : 
 until altered itself by that partition 6f the ancient world 
 which followed the conquests of the Greeks. There is, how- 
 ever, a special bitterness in the many wars of devastation 
 which swept over the devoted city, which adds something 
 more than the mere horrors of invasion, terrible as these 
 - were, to her tragic history. The continual insults to her 
 religion, the swine sacrificed on the altar, the overthrow of 
 all her characteristic customs, done with a fury and ferocity 
 which seem special to this place alone, are very remarkable. 
 One would imagine that the very existence of such a strong- 
 
THE MACCABEES 371 
 
 hold of national worship folded in the hills was an affront 
 and offence to the world about. They left the plains 
 on either side, to crush that sentiment of freedom, of indi- 
 viduality, and what was still more, of unbroken immemorial 
 faith, which stood in the middle of the way. 
 
 At last the indignities and insults of their conquerors 
 roused the spirit of the victims, and for the first time in 
 their history the Jews rose for their city and won it back. 
 On other occasions they had been delivered by miraculous 
 interposition, chiefly by the withdrawal of their enemies — 
 for their struggle had been defensive only, and the issue of 
 a siege is always destruction when there are forces enough 
 to blockade and shut it up completely. In the case 
 of the Maccabees they had the advantage of being outside 
 the walls, with the mountains behind them to retire to, and 
 room to attack as well as to defend. A valiant family of 
 priestly race, father and five sons, inhabiting the village of 
 Modin near Bethel, were the leaders and inspirers of this great 
 patriotic movement ; Matthias, or Mattathias, the father of 
 Judas Maccabeus, " of the sons of Joarib," was the man 
 who struck the first blow. According to the narrative 
 in the book of Maccabees the commissioner of Antiochus 
 had reached this little town among the hills with authority 
 to enforce the submission of the villagers according to 
 the method pursued afterwards in the persecutions of the 
 Christians at Rome, by requiring them to sacrifice " accord- 
 ing to the king's commandment " upon an idolatrous 
 altar : and probably the officers who had conquered Jeru- 
 salem anticipated no difficulty with this petty town. They 
 called upon Matthias first as " an honourable and great 
 man " to perform the necessary test of obedience. It is 
 quite possible that these officials might be prepared for some 
 show of reluctance and opposition, for they seem to have 
 stood parleying with the priest long enough to permit some 
 sycophant eager to curry favour to rush in before and light 
 the incense, or kill the victim. Matthias turned upon the 
 apostate with righteous indignation : " he was inflamed with 
 zeal and his reins trembled, neither could he forbear to show 
 
372 THE REl'URN AND RESTORATION part iii 
 
 his anger according to judgment : wherefore he ran and slew 
 him upon the altar." This sudden outburst of noble wrath 
 must have roused the spirit of the multitude, for it is evident 
 that the proselytising party could make no stand against the 
 father and his sons — " Also the king's commissioner who 
 compelled men to sacrifice he killed, and the altar he pulled 
 down." 
 
 The sudden flame of an unexpected rebellion so 
 swift and decisive must have ended in the destruction or 
 flight of the strangers : and henceforward the die was cast for 
 Matthias and his family. He " cried throughout the city with 
 a loud voice, saying, Whosoever is zealous of the law and 
 maintaineth the covenant, let him follow me." After the 
 degradation and despair which we have seen to steal over 
 the Jewish race in the later years of her unfaithful kings : 
 after the downheartedness of the captivity ; this sudden 
 trumpet voice recalls the heroes of Judah, the mighty men 
 of valour, David and his captains, stout Joab who feared no 
 face of man. They had to form their band and flee to the 
 mountains forthwith, leaving their little abandoned town to the 
 mercy of the invaders : but when they were protected by the 
 invulnerable hills the party of the patriots grew daily. In- 
 tolerable oppression had at last roused beyond endurance a too 
 long-suffering race. . Some, we are told, not brave enough 
 for open resistance, fled to the wilderness hoping to be safe 
 there, but were overtaken by an expedition from Jerusalem 
 who assailed them on the Sabbath day. The multitude, 
 unwarlike, unofficered probably, clinging with heroic weak- 
 ness to their rule, would not fight on that holy day, and 
 were massacred like sheep. "They answered them not, 
 neither cast they a stone at them, nor stopped the places 
 where they lay hid, but said. Let us die in our innocency : 
 heaven and earth shall testify for us that ye put us to 
 death wrongfully." " A thousand souls of men," whole 
 families, including wives and children (who probably made 
 resistance impossible), thus perished without striking a 
 blow. 
 
 These meek religious martyrs, however, raised such a 
 
THE MACCABEES 373 
 
 storm in Judah as carried all barriers away. " When 
 Mattathias and his friends understood thereof they mourned 
 for them right sore. And one of them said to another, If we 
 all do as our brethren have done, and fight not for our lives 
 and laws against the heathen, they will now quickly root us 
 out of the earth. At that time they decreed saying, Who- 
 soever shall come to make battle with us on the Sabbath 
 day we will fight against him : neither will we die all as our 
 brethren that were murdered in the secret places." This 
 is the first appearance, in our knowledge of the Jews, of the 
 new kind of idolatry which had succeeded in their strange 
 and perverse minds the dominion of idols. They had now 
 seized upon their law with all its severe conditions and put 
 that in the place of God. The reign of that tremendous 
 formalism which came to a climax in the time of our Lord, 
 when a breach of the Sabbath was a capital crime and 
 the husks and outside regulations of devotion had taken the 
 place of the spirit, is thus introduced with pathetic circum- 
 stances which silence even the impatience of the bystander 
 looking on at so unnecessary a sacrifice. But Matthias was 
 a man of sense, it is evident, as well as a hero, and able to 
 interpret according to the spirit, not exclusively by the letter, 
 the oracles of God. The book of Maccabees, however, is 
 full of instances of this growing dominion of the external 
 law, and also of supernatural appearances and prodigies 
 altogether unknown to the sober pages of authentic Scrip- 
 ture, and affording an excellent example of what such a 
 record is when compiled from primitive documents, as this 
 chronicle acknowledges itself to be. Young men in shining 
 armour, upon radiant steeds of heaven, come forth to head 
 the Jewish armies, and angels paralyse the impious invader 
 when he lays hands upon the treasure of the Temple. Such 
 occurrences never take place in the authentic record, save in 
 its very earliest pages : and even then the mysterious 
 " Captain of the Lord's host," who appears to Joshua, is a 
 veiled and mystic figure quite unknown to the crowd. 
 Neither the ancient kings of Judah nor strenuous Nehemiah 
 on the city wall had any such direct succours from the skies. 
 
374 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part hi 
 
 It is strange to find ourselves, in this confused history of 
 a disturbed country full of perpetual wars, suddenly brought 
 face to face with classical names and the materials of a wider- 
 spreading world history, revealing the extraordinary develop- 
 ment which had taken place since the wars of the Jews with 
 the little cluster of Canaanitish nations, when Damascus and 
 then Nineveh and then Babylon were the homes of the 
 conquerors, and Greeks and Romans were unknown. 
 Lysimachus, Nicanor, Gorgias, are the titles of the opposing 
 generals, Menelaus is an apostate priest, " Quintus Memmius 
 and Titus Manlius, ambassadors of the Romans," send letters 
 to the Jews. All is changed from the old world, yet 
 there is little change in the one obstinate self-contained 
 people which holds the central place, though visibly sur- 
 rounded by supernatural help as it never was in the older 
 authentic days. 
 
 For the same thing had again happened to Jerusalem 
 which happened to her before. The city " lay void as a 
 wilderness, the sanctuary was trodden down, and aliens kept 
 the stronghold : the heathen had their habitation in the 
 place : and joy was taken from Jacob, and the pipe with the 
 harp ceased." But the people were no longer captive 
 nor languishing terrified in scattered villages. They 
 ranged the country outside as David's bands did, under 
 their bold leader " who was like a lion," always with their eyes 
 fixed upon the deserted domes and towers, the silent and 
 desolate city over which the flag of the conqueror waved 
 from the heights of Zion. Other cities have been dear, but 
 none so prized, so sacred, as this. To think of the abomina- 
 tion of desolation in those deserted courts and profaned 
 sanctuaries was anguish to every Jew. They roamed the 
 country round, always with longing looks reverting to their 
 holy and beautiful place : lying in wait for every advantage, 
 rushing down from their mountains upon the unexpecting 
 army of their adversaries when the other half of it had 
 become involved in those rocky gorges in pursuit of them : 
 too rapid to await attack, taking everywhere the offensive, 
 in night surprises and sudden assaults, a handful of desperate 
 
CHAP. Ill THE MACCABEES 375 
 
 men rushing at the throat of an astonished host and by their 
 daring dispersing it on every side. Their watchword between 
 themselves was at one time " The help of God," and at another 
 " The victory of God." The Lord of Hosts was their leader, 
 and their whole trust in Him, so that no man took thought 
 of the odds against him. " They had neither armour nor 
 swords to their minds " : but " the camp of the heathen was 
 strong and well harnessed, and compassed round about by 
 horsemen : and these were expert in war," while as for the Jews, 
 their leaders were priests, and many Levitcs were, no doubt, 
 in their ranks. But what did that matter so long as God 
 was with them ? When the trumpets sounded they flung 
 themselves headlong like lions on their prey. In the great 
 army which Lysias led against them were a number of 
 merchants with " silver and gold very much " who had come 
 into the camp " to buj^ the children of Israel for slaves," and 
 whose flight, when Lysias himself turned tail, with their 
 money-bags, it must have been good to see. Let us hope 
 that the Hebrew warriors overtook some of those intending 
 purchasers and captured the money which was provided to 
 secure bargains of their flesh and blood. 
 
 The camp of the Greeks was at Emmaus, which, as we 
 all know, was but threescore furlongs from Jerusalem — and 
 when the victorious Jews, having encountered in succession 
 the main army, which did not look for any such attack, 
 and the army of Gorgias coming back, baffled and weary, 
 from its expedition to the mountains in search of them : 
 found themselves masters of the deserted camp with all its 
 treasures " and gold and much silver and blue silk and 
 purple of the sea and great riches " — they did not linger 
 among the spoil, valuable to them as that must have been. 
 " Then said Judas and his brethren. Behold our enemies are 
 discomfited : let us go up to cleanse and dedicate the 
 sanctuary." They ascended accordingly, unmolested, and 
 took possession of the deserted city. The little garrison 
 in the citadel were possibly restrained by regard for their 
 own safety from making any hostile demonstrations at the 
 sight of those Hebrew bands which they were evidently 
 
376 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part hi 
 
 powerless to resist. The Maccabees found not only the 
 sanctuary desolate as they were aware, but " shrubs growing 
 in the courts as in a forest," a sign of neglect which would 
 seem to have gone to their hearts. (The Temple enclosure 
 now is more than half covered with grass, and with many 
 fine trees, some of which look as if they might have 
 survived the vicissitudes of many centuries.) This forlorn 
 condition of the precincts called forth great lamenta- 
 tions, rending of clothes and every sign of horror and 
 consternation. " They fell down flat upon their face, 
 and blew an alarm with the trumpets, and cried toward 
 heaven." These expressions bring forcibly and vividly 
 before us the character of the rude and simple army, 
 taken from the plough and the field, with their harsh 
 trumpets for all music, and their minds on fire with the true 
 passion of religion and patriotism. 
 
 The Temple, however, seems, though profaned, to have 
 been left intact, only the priests' chambers being pulled down. 
 It was " with songs and citherns and harps and cymbals," 
 and with the old immemorial Psalm of adoration to the 
 Lord " for he is good : for his mercy endureth for ever," 
 that in a little while the dedication of the newly-built altar 
 was celebrated and all the rites of sacred worship, the 
 sacrifice and the incense, re-established, the mysterious veil 
 hung up again with awe between the Holy of holies and 
 the gaze of the multitude. No doubt the singers found 
 their instruments piled among the ruins in some half- 
 destroyed chamber, or dedicated the lutes in the Greek 
 tents to a better use than that of those songs of love and 
 wine which were the solace of their enemies. The sequence 
 of events is one which wc have already seen repeated over 
 and over again in the history of Jerusalem. The Temple 
 is profaned, it is desecrated, ruined, robbed, again and 
 again in the troublous story : but we have but to turn the 
 page to find the tide of power turned, the holy place 
 recovered, the work of purification instantly recommenced, 
 the altars rebuilt, every piece of spoil or ornament that is 
 worthy of such high use dedicated to the decoration of 
 
THE MACCABEES 377 
 
 that shrine at once of religion and of race. " They 
 decked also all the forefront of the Temple with crowns 
 of gold and with shields " — the personal ornaments and 
 works of art which they had collected from the deserted 
 camp. Thus had it been done for centuries past ; during 
 which the kingdom had been cut to pieces, conquered, beaten, 
 the people led into captivity ; yet always returning to regain 
 its standing upon the sacred mount, to light again its 
 sacrificial fires : and when it could no longer line its holy 
 house with gold, at least to hang up the shining shields, 
 the golden circlets won from the enemy, upon gate and 
 wall : while the song of priests and people once more 
 and again and yet again rang high unto heaven — 
 
 For his mercy endureth for ever. 
 
 It is curious to find, however, how completely the royal 
 element had been eliminated out of this extraordinary and 
 always characteristic people. It would seem as if Zerubbabel 
 had been the last of his race who occupied any post of 
 authority. He was not, perhaps, himself a man of strong 
 individuality, for the impression he makes upon the record is 
 very faint, and his very name fades away in the midst of the 
 dissensions and controversies of the restored captivity. He 
 had children, but they do not seem to have succeeded to any 
 place of authority. No doubt it would have been dangerous 
 for a people restored by the unexpected favour of the Persian 
 emperors to have set up their little royalty again in the face 
 of Cyrus and Cambyses — and the race of David had sunk, it 
 would seem, under the level of what is required for a ruler 
 even in a subordinate position. The race of Levi had sur- 
 vived in greater strength. The families of the high priests 
 could not lose their sacred right of domination descended to 
 them from far antiquity — long before kings were thought of 
 and from the direct appointment of God. Far more than 
 the scattered and impoverished house of David had they 
 retained their traditions and their power : and while the 
 family of Zerubbabel sinks into the rank of private persons 
 that of his colleague the priest goes on in unquestioned 
 
378 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part hi 
 
 authority. Eliashib, though not blameless in the matter of 
 life and discipline, had succeeded Jeshua in Ezra's time, while 
 the sons of Zerubbabel had gone back to the original 
 pastures at Bethlehem, from which David had been taken to 
 be made a king. And when we come to the time of the 
 Maccabees it is in a priestly family that the hero, or rather 
 heroes, father and sons emulating each other in valour and 
 patriotism — and the only real successor of the chivalrous 
 shepherd of Bethlehem, Judas the son of Matthias, is found. 
 The supreme authority remained in the hands of this 
 Levitical family till it was transmitted to those of another 
 hero of romance, the great triumphant and conquering 
 Herod, who was not even a Jew at all. For by that time 
 the purposes of God so long promised and determined were 
 working towards the birth on earth of that Son of David, 
 the Seed of the woman, in whom priesthood and kinghood 
 were combined, and whose appearance wound up the whole 
 economy of the ancient world, and made further returnings 
 from captivity, further restorations of Temple and sacrifice, 
 of no need nor avail. The fact is full of awe and instruction 
 that, after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, no attempt 
 was made on the part of the Jews to restore the sanctuary 
 which had been the inspiration and ruling thought of all- 
 the previous generations. It had been as completely 
 ruined by Nebuchadnezzar, as deeply desecrated by Antio- 
 chus, not to speak of the continual offences against it 
 of its own degenerate kings. It had been rebuilt, re- 
 consecrated, the interrupted worship restored more times 
 than it is easy to reckon. But after the great and wonder- 
 ful tragedy which sums up its story, neither priest nor 
 hero, neither patriot nor poet, ever stirred up those dry 
 bones again. 
 
 In the meantime, however, the family of the Maccabees 
 had a hard fighting life, recovering and losing again in 
 succession almost every inch of their country, although never 
 altogether losing their hold of Jerusalem. Once they were 
 shut up in the sanctuary itself which had independent forti- 
 fications of its own, within the outer walls, and held for their 
 
THE MACCABEES 379 
 
 lives upon that little platform, until dangers breaking out in 
 other parts of the empire made it policy on the part of the 
 Greeks to make peace with these indomitable patriots. 
 Chief after chief of the heroic family died in battle, but was 
 followed duly by his heir in a succession of strong and 
 devoted men unknown before in the annals of Israel. Judas, 
 Jonathan, Simon, and John called Hyrcanus, carried on the 
 noble strain, never relaxing the struggle, making alliances 
 like kings, aiding their allies from time to time with a 
 Hebrew contingent which seems to have struck terror 
 everywhere by its prowess and valour. 
 
 At the end the great spirit of the race dropped, and 
 the old too-well-known course of conspiracies and internal 
 divisions replaced the shoulder-to-shoulder struggle of the 
 devoted and united family. Then Hyrcanus, the second 
 of the name, fell into the hands of the Idumean (in 
 the olden days he would have been called the Edomite) 
 Antipater, the father of the great Herod. During this later 
 period we find ourselves suddenly brought into familiar 
 company, among well-known names, Seleucus, Ptolemy, 
 Antony and Cleopatra, Caesar and Pompey. The latter 
 of these generals took again the often -conquered city. 
 " He found the walls from their height of almost impreg- 
 nable strength with a frightful ravine in front of them," says 
 Josephus, " while within this the Temple was so strongly 
 fortified that even after the capture of the town it could 
 afford a second refuge." This had already been the case as 
 we have seen ; and was to be so still more remarkably in 
 the final and terrible struggle with Titus. It is difficult, 
 however, now to understand what is meant by a ravine 
 on the north side of the city, the country there being com- 
 paratively level, with nothing more than the gentlest undula- 
 tions between it and the hills. " The prodigious depth of 
 the ravine," which was filled up by Pompey's soldiers, is strange 
 to hear of; and it is a striking detail that it was during 
 the Jewish Sabbath when the Jews " refrain their hands 
 from every work " that he erected a shelter under which his 
 troops could work while filling up that fosse — and that 
 
38o THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part in 
 
 during this siege the smoke of the morning and evening 
 sacrifice rose up without interruption to heaven, notwith- 
 standing the showers of darts directed upon the sanctuary. 
 The priests, Josephus informs us, continued even when the 
 Roman army came pouring in " to carry forward the sacred 
 services, and were slaughtered while presenting libations and 
 burning incense." The Roman general must have been 
 impressed by that wonderful sight ; for though he went over 
 all the sacred places thus purified with the life-blood of the 
 ministrants at the altar, and with the keen curiosity of his 
 race put aside even the mysterious veil and went into the 
 Holy of holies — he carried nothing away, and did no harm 
 to that strangely beloved and defended shrine. He restored 
 Hyrcanus to be chief priest, and taking from the Jews the 
 cities they had seized in better times, " confined the nation 
 within its proper boundaries." 
 
 These continued wars, however, are far too many to find 
 record here. When the feeble Hyrcanus had run his course 
 through the tortuous ways of a weak and dependent ruler, 
 Herod the son of Antipater, his champion for a long time 
 and general, ill-rewarded and often doubted, assumed his 
 place. Hyrcanus had borne the title of king as well as high 
 priest. But Herod was a Roman general, and reigned over 
 Jerusalem by right of conquest and the strong hand, as 
 Tetrarch of Judea. It is unnecessary to enter into his 
 history. During all the vicissitudes of his reign, he at least 
 did his best to preserve the Temple from desecration. He 
 restored it afterwards, as Josephus tells us, at "incalculable 
 expense," enlarging the area, and building " ample colon- 
 nades around the holy place," which must have added greatly . 
 to the dignity and splendour of its general aspect. It was 
 under this form that our Lord must have beheld with human 
 eyes His Father's house : and no doubt, many of His con- 
 versations with the Jews were held in those same ample 
 cloisters, cool and shaded, where those who spent a great 
 part of their time in the Temple courts would find pleasant 
 shelter. The great tower, called of Antonia, at the north- 
 west angle of the enclosure was also built by Herod. Of 
 
THE MACCABEES 381 
 
 these superstructions it is needless to say no vestige now 
 remains. 
 
 It throws some light, however, upon the magnitudes of 
 antique description to read the account of the Temple which 
 this prince built to Cxsar at the sources of the Jordan. Herod, 
 half proselyte, half heathen, had all the tolerance of paganism, 
 and built many fanes of this kind while beautifying the great 
 centre of the most intensely exclusive religion of the world. 
 " Here," says Josephus, " is a mountain whose summit lifts 
 itself to a vast height, and close by a hollow at its ba.se, a 
 gloomy cavern opens from below, in which a yawning chasm 
 descends abruptly to an immeasurable depth, containing a 
 vast collection of still water hitherto found unfathomable by 
 any length of line." Thus are described the picturesque cliff 
 and bubbling waters of Banias, once known by the name 
 of Caesarea Philippi, the most northern spot, so far as 
 we know, of our Lord's journeyings, where Peter's great 
 confession was made. Perhaps these superlative adjectives 
 applied thus to a woodland dell may make it more com- 
 prehensible that the soft slopes on the northern side of 
 Jerusalem should appear to Pompey's troops a " frightful 
 ravine." 
 
 The reader knows what wonderful event happened in the 
 last days of Herod, and how, believing as he did, that One 
 was born who was sent by God to be King of the Jews, One 
 of whom the prophets had written, and of whom his learned 
 counsellors could tell him even the very place of the promised 
 birth : this strange Eastern potentate in his madness put forth 
 a bloody and a dreadful hand to nullify if he could the 
 decree of heaven. That such a thing should have been 
 done by an unbeliever would be natural enough — but the 
 act of Herod was that of a man who had no apparent 
 doubt that it was the actual ordinance of God, long ago 
 settled and foretold, which he attempted to make im- 
 possible. Such subtilties of the primitive mind are beyond 
 comprehension — all the more as the man who did so had 
 been a powerful guardian and protector of the nation. 
 Thus his was the hand which not only tried to cut off 
 
382 THE RETURN AND RESTORATION part in 
 
 the final and everlasting Monarch, but, at the same time, 
 adorned Jerusalem like a bride to await His coming — 
 glorious as in all her vicissitudes she had never been 
 before. 
 
 The literature of this long period of disaster, captivity, 
 and restoration is vaguely celebrated by supposition, and 
 by that restless desire for a new hypothesis which is 
 characteristic of the criticism of the day ; but must be left 
 in the mist of things for which there is no evidence. A 
 recent authority, in so dignified a medium as the Bampton 
 Lectures, has attributed, with a wonderful sweep of bold asser- 
 tion, the whole, or almost the whole, of the Psalms to the age 
 of the Maccabees, with a hardihood of conjecture which is 
 only permitted in discussions of the canon of Scripture. That 
 many of these sacred songs express the feelings of the exiles 
 no one will deny. The " horrible pit and miry clay " of 
 Jeremiah is evidence, excellent in literature, as is that utter- 
 ance of sorrow which came from the waters of Babylon. 
 The beautiful Songs of Degrees seem to reveal to us 
 the habit of those yearly journeys to Jerusalem which 
 we find existing in the New Testament, with a fresh and 
 delightful verisimilitude. Having no other evidence, the 
 literary evidence is enough to determine these songs as the 
 production of a people restored to their own land, going up 
 periodically to keep the feast. Further than this it is 
 difificult to go. The genius of the Hebrews would seem to 
 have fallen into legendary tales and those collections of 
 maxims which belong to the earliest habits of the race. 
 Their sacred songs are the " wood-notes wild," beautiful and 
 sweet, of minor poets; their histories, individual and fantas- 
 tical, " apocryphal," full of interest : but only as we have 
 said like the dramatists of Shakespeare's time in comparison 
 with him, when placed beside the Scripture record. Other 
 light than what is to be derived from themselves there is 
 none : and this is what, I think, those relics say. 
 
PART IV 
 THE FINAL TRAGEDY 
 
 2 C 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE SON OF DAVID 
 
 The existence of the Jewish nation after the time of the 
 return from Babylon until that in which it once more stood 
 forth as the glory of the whole earth, the centre of history, 
 the most wonderful and memorable of all places in the world, 
 was, as we have seen, little different from that of the many 
 struggling nationalities which were finally absorbed in the 
 great Roman empire, except for the romantic and striking 
 episode of the Maccabees, the obstinate preservation of its 
 special customs and worship, and the gradual development 
 of that idolatry of the law which replaced Baal and Astarte 
 in the mind of the nation, and produced the strange and 
 rigid casuistical science and pietism of latter years. When 
 the time had come for that great final tragedy which con- 
 firmed for ever the empire of Jerusalem over the world, the 
 external circumstances of the nation had changed in many 
 respects. Instead of the narrow limits of Judah and Ben- 
 jamin, in which all sacred associations had been enclosed, the 
 enlarged tetrarchate of Herod was full of faithful Jews 
 outside these narrow boundaries, though never extending, 
 as at first, throughout the ancient lines of Israel. The 
 Samaritans still occupied the central portion of Palestine, 
 unchanged in the divergency of faith which became conspicu- 
 ous after the captivity, and holding an attitude of hostility 
 more or less marked, though kept by imperial supervision 
 from all overt acts. The difference, always difficult to define 
 between that mixed race, which, if only half Jew, was yet 
 
388 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 not pagan, and insisted upon its traditions as much as did 
 the orthodox Judean and its kindred of Judah, had 
 consolidated into a sort of national opposition. " The 
 Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans." But the 
 northern part of the kingdom had returned to its allegi- 
 ance to Jerusalem, and was inhabited by vigorous and 
 devout Jews, whose habit of going up to Jerusalem to keep 
 the feasts was evidently quite established as one of the rules 
 of life. The inhabitants of " the land of Zabulon and the 
 land of Nephtalim," and those parts which lay " beyond 
 Jordan in Galilee of the nations," described by Isaiah as 
 " people that walked in darkness," were now among the most 
 pious members of the commonwealth, making their pilgrim- 
 age to the chief centre of the faith at least. once a year, 
 while maintaining the comparatively modern institution of 
 the synagogue among themselves. Jerusalem appears to 
 us something as mediaeval Rome did in the time when that 
 great city was the undisputed head of a powerful hierarchy 
 and the undeniable centre of Christendom — a city of am- 
 bitious ecclesiastics, of formal theologians and of priests, as 
 much concerned with politics as with devotion. The true 
 and humble hearts which held the spiritual part of religion 
 dear were to be found among the peasants and fishermen of 
 the north, bound to the centre of their religious economy by 
 a bond so strong that it neutralised distance and the great 
 tax upon life of one or more lingering journeys every year 
 for the celebration of the religious mysteries. The people 
 that walked in darkness had already seen a great light. 
 True piety had found refuge among them, even before the 
 Light that lighteth every man had been revealed. 
 
 It was among these simple northern folk that God found 
 the pure and tender maiden who was to be the instrument of 
 His purpose. She was found in no beautiful mediaeval hall, 
 half oratory, half palace, such as are those scenes in which 
 painters have enshrined her lowly sweetness. Was it, perhaps 
 in a rock-hewn chamber in a humble dwelling of Nazareth, 
 dim and cool and impervious to the blazing day : or, as she 
 sat and mused in a quiet moment with her pitcher at the 
 
THE SON OF DA VID 391 
 
 well, that the great radiance of the angel came into the 
 quiet, and Mary heard those strange words which have 
 mingled in the prayers of so many generations since then : 
 " Hail, Mary, full of grace ! " ? It was a greeting that troubled 
 her, so much too reverential and important as it seemed for 
 a humble villager, as if she were a great lady. But when 
 she heard the after-message, so much more wonderful than 
 any that was ever given to the greatest empress in the world, 
 her sentiments seem to have undergone a change. She 
 was no longer troubled as by a greeting more than was her 
 due. In the region of religion all things are possible. As 
 soon as she became aware of what the real question was, the 
 devout calm of her nature returned to her. Behold the 
 handmaid of the Lord ! disturbed to be approached with 
 external honour that was not her due, but receiving in an 
 awed yet undoubting calm, of deep reverence and obedience, 
 the far greater and more wonderful commission communi- 
 cated to her direct from God. 
 
 It is evident that the appearance of the angel in itself 
 did not alarm or disturb the sweet composure of this village 
 girl. Was it, perhaps, that Gabriel came with no effulgence 
 of heaven about him, but in the guise of a human wayfarer, 
 some wandering teacher or hakim, such as might pass with- 
 out special notice along the paths of Galilee? And how 
 natural was the impulse which led her when she had time to 
 think, to arise and go " in haste " to the village in which her 
 old cousin Elizabeth had also received a special visitation 
 which might throw light upon this ! No doubt the more 
 she thought the more wonderful would it appear, and her 
 heart would burn within her till the moment came when she 
 could join some band of pilgrims or travelling family, and so 
 make her way to that hill country of Judah on the other 
 side of Jerusalem where the home of Zacharias and Eliza- 
 beth was. The meeting between these women is one of the 
 most touching incidents in human history. It has been 
 selected by the instinct of art for frequent illustration, and 
 to women especially in their peculiar experiences must 
 always remain full of tender interest and sympathetic feeling. 
 
392 
 
 THE FINAL TRAGEDY 
 
 Many a woman pilgrim has gone with a wistful sense of 
 fellowship to gaze at such a picture as that of Albcrtinelli, 
 the great " Visitation " at Florence, during all the ages 
 since that wonderful meeting was painted — as many, many 
 
 THE BETHLEHEM ROAD 
 
 more have read and lingered over the still more touch- 
 ing narrative. But that mystery of motherhood is too 
 internal and profound for words. It had been, we must 
 remember, in all the previous ages of the Hebrews, the hope 
 and inspiration of that peculiar people. The deepest depriva- 
 
THE SON OF DA VI D 393 
 
 tion of life to a woman was that she should have no children : 
 it was almost a personal shame. " God hath taken away my 
 reproach" is what Elizabeth herself and many another 
 Hebrew mother had said ; for was it not always possible to 
 every one among them that in her child the Messiah, the 
 great Prophet, might be revealed ? There is no appearance 
 that Mary the daughter of David was disturbed by any 
 terrible sense of the miracle to be accomplished in her. The 
 whole history of her race was miraculous, and the entire age, 
 reaching even to such tranquil depths of lowly life as those 
 of Nazareth, was moved by the hope, the expectation of 
 some great change and Deliverer about to come. Nor is it 
 necessary to account for her attitude and state of mind by 
 special reference to the temper of her time. The pure- 
 hearted and visionary girl, most delicate flower of human 
 kind, is always more or less in the same mental condition, 
 disturbed to be greeted as a princess, not disturbed by 
 heavenly communication of a great mission, embarrassed by 
 the one, finding the other even natural. Joan of Arc was 
 not surprised to find herself a captain and leader of the 
 armies of France. A devout and simple acquiescence in 
 inconceivable mysteries is the inheritance of the spotless 
 soul. 
 
 Then came the other journey in a less propitious moment, 
 under the care of the devout and serious Joseph, a man a 
 little saddened, as the imagination cannot but conceive 
 him, by the strange circumstances, alarmed by the responsi- 
 bility, with an ache in his heart over the sacrifice required of 
 him, and the wonder of it all. The way to Bethlehem was 
 long and the inn was full. Perhaps the time of the year, and 
 certainly the circumstances, would make it impossible for 
 that little humble group from Bethlehem to spread their mats 
 and take their repose in the Court of the Khan, where, 
 doubtless, their natural place would have been ; and the inn 
 with its subterranean chambers and stables below, half natural 
 cave, half hewn and hollowed in the rock, would have prob- 
 ably very little accommodation above. No doubt the cjuict 
 of the underground nook, warm with the soft breath of the 
 
394 
 
 THE FINAL TRAGEDY 
 
 cattle, was grateful and in no way unusual to the young 
 mother, not unaccustomed to such close neighbourhood with 
 the docile creatures, and glad to be out of sight and disturb- 
 ance of men. This cave-chamber has been accepted by, I 
 think, the majority of recent investigators as the real spot of 
 the Nativity, notwithstanding the difficulty of the fact that 
 there is at present no entrance save by a stair ; the 
 
 RACHELS TOMB, ON THE WAY Tu IJETHLEHE.M 
 
 universal tradition of Jew, Moslem, and Christian hav- 
 ing so identified it through all the ages. There is a 
 recess where the carpets and mats would be laid just 
 opposite the rock-hewn manger, and the other rocky chamber 
 in which the mild neighbours, half seen, chewing the cud in 
 harmless quiet, would stand beyond. The manger is now 
 replaced with one of marble, a silver star shines on the floor, 
 the place is full of twinkling candles in the darkness, crossed 
 
CHAP. I THE SON OF DA VI D 395 
 
 by an intense blue ray of light from the rocky stair. And 
 yet it is difficult to stand in that still place and not recognise 
 its naturalness, the simple verification of all descriptions, the 
 possibilities of the scene. The dazzled shepherds would 
 probably stumble in through some cave-doorway now filled 
 up, seeing nothing till their eyes were accustomed to the 
 darkness ; and there would come the astonished astrologers 
 from the far Eastern plains, who had seen his star and come 
 to worship the Child who was born King of the Jews. I 
 cannot think the traveller lives, even were he mere tourist, 
 so lost to all sense of sacred things or — lesser, but still 
 potent spell — of all respect for the long long tradition 
 transmitted through the dimness of the ages, who could 
 stand otherwise than awed and silent in that holy place. 
 
 The King of the Jews ! Thus hailed in the hour of his 
 birth, thus certified to earth and heaven on the day of his 
 death, his royal seat in one instance the manger, in the 
 other the Cross ; proclaimed by two foreign voices, one the 
 representatives of great empires past, which had heard of the 
 promise of his coming centuries before, the other of that still 
 greater empire then existent, mistress of the world, which 
 was to be transformed by his name. Too wonderful to be, 
 too impossible to be believed, might any man say to whom 
 history was unknown ; yet not so wonderful, not so impos- 
 sible to flesh and blood, as the life that lay between. 
 
 The early career of the Child born in that underground 
 chamber is made known to us only by a vivid picture or 
 two, full of significance. His recognition in the Temple, 
 where he was carried, no doubt, in subdued and reverential 
 joy, with the young mother's humble offering of the doves, 
 and the two venerable figures of the aged saints " waiting 
 for the consolation of Israel," who gave that greeting to the 
 child who was " the Lord's Christ " : the flight to a place 
 of safety in order to save him from the murderous raid of 
 Herod : the anxious return to the home in Nazareth when 
 the danger was over : are all told in a few words. Nazareth, 
 in its little amphitheatre of low hills, was the most tranquil 
 home for the growing life, not like Bethlehem with the 
 
396 
 
 THE FINAL TRAGEDY 
 
 heights and hollows of Judah all spread around it, and the 
 associations of its royal race — but a humble little town hid 
 amid its trees, with little prospect of any kind, apart from 
 all high roads and channels of communication with the 
 great world. That yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem would 
 be the great event of its village life, a wonderful incident 
 indeed breaking the homely level of every day, a thing to 
 be looked forward to for the whole year. It was not till 
 the son of Mary, the son of the carpenter, had attained the 
 age of twelve, the early maturity of the East, that he joined 
 
 
 CONVENT OF THE NATIVITV, IJETHLEHEM 
 
 that jubilant throng, a great crisis in the life of a boy, and 
 marking a personal era. The first time in which the pupil, 
 the postulant, ascended the Temple stairs and went up into 
 the house of God, taking upon him the privileges and duties 
 of his birthright, must have been something like the con- 
 firmation, the first communion of the Christian Common- 
 wealth. We may easily imagine with what a tissue of 
 miraculous events the growing years of the wonderful Child 
 would have been woven had not a divine reticence and 
 modesty of nature restrained the biographers, who use no 
 such expedient to win our interest in the brief narratives 
 of the gospels. What is given us there is only what is 
 
rilE SON OF DA VJD 397 
 
 necessary to our understanding of the life and death which 
 form the central chapter in the history of the world. In 
 that little town of Galilee, too remote to know any of the 
 tales of distant Bethlehem, there would be no special cir- 
 cumstance to draw attention to the carpenter's son. In the 
 memory of his mother every incident was dear, but neither 
 did she know what was to come of them : and, doubtless, 
 the mystery of his birth was the secret of the household, a 
 remembrance of awe and wonder, but yet in the curious 
 composure of daily existence fallen into abeyance, not for- 
 gotten yet put aside in that familiar routine which makes 
 every wonder seem natural. The Divine Child was silent 
 in his slow growth into man, and probably so obedient to 
 the laws of the humanity which he had assumed as to 
 present no greater divinity to the eyes of the world than 
 that of spotless childhood and developing genius in the 
 midst of the common clay. We may partly conceive how 
 he would take pleasure, with a novelty of .sacred joy in so 
 strange a change of position, in all the sights and sounds ot 
 nature, the harmony of creation which that veil of flesh 
 might make him, for a time, half unconscious of having 
 shaped and formed : and that all the humble influences of 
 morning and evening, of the stars and dews, would enter 
 into his mind, perhaps, if we may say it, with a tender 
 surprise of changed perception from the sphere of the Maker 
 into that of the created. But these secrets ot the expanding 
 human soul, half divine even in the merest mortal child 
 
 Who by the vision splendid 
 Is on his way attended 
 
 are too sacred in the silence of the record for other handling. 
 And it is not till " the Lord " came " suddenly to his Temple " 
 that the veil is for a moment withdrawn. 
 
 That Temple, the centre of Hebrew life, the symbol of 
 national greatness, so often destroyed, .so often restored, so 
 long and mysteriously preserved through all the ages, takes 
 a singular and altogether novel place in the experiences of 
 the man Christ Jesus who came to abrogate it, and wind up 
 
398 THE FINAL TRAGEDY tart iv 
 
 the economy of which it formed so great a part. He seems 
 to have sought it during the years of his ministry as the 
 centre of all his own pursuits and occupations, but not with 
 the feeling of those who took pleasure in the stones of Sion 
 and to whom her very dust was dear. From the first 
 the Temple is doomed in his eyes, a thing awaiting 
 destruction ; and, if he gazes mournfully upon its beauty 
 and splendour, something of the holy indignation of one 
 to whom all the lost opportunities and divine purposes 
 travestied and mistaken, of which it is the embodiment, 
 are ever present, is in his look. 
 
 But when he came first to that historical monument, 
 that scene of so many revelations, the first impulse of his 
 mission was awakened in the young pilgrim. Was it a 
 desire to hear for himself, according to his human senses, 
 what were the things taught, and what the trifling details dis- 
 cussed amid all the problems of life and death, between 
 heaven and earth, in that sanctuary which had been founded 
 in order that God might dwell with man ? There was the 
 high priest in all his robes of office, there were the others in 
 their courses, punctilious over the minutest particulars of 
 service : and the scribes and doctors discussing sacred 
 numerals and symbols, and how often a certain word 
 appeared in the law and the prophets ; and the Pharisees 
 taxing their mint and cumin, and calculating what should 
 be the amount of the Corban which freed a man from the 
 law of honour to his parents. How strangely different from 
 those high questionings of the ways of God with man which 
 should have occupied the thoughts of a special and chosen 
 race ! The Evangelist has not thought it necessary to tell 
 us what questions the boy Jesus from Nazareth asked of 
 these pundits, nor how he lay down in a chamber of the 
 Temple favoured by some gentle priest whose heart burned 
 within him while he listened to the wonderful Child — and 
 rose again to pursue his inquiries from morning to morning 
 till the third day brought back the anxious pair who had 
 him in their charge. 
 
 How strange a scene ! The puzzled doctors, stopped 
 
THE SON OF DA VI D 399 
 
 in their unprofitable learning, putting impossible cases 
 to each other by one, by two, by three, like the school- 
 men in later ages — pausing, lifting their eyebrows, curving 
 a hand round a dull ear, to make out what that Child 
 was asking, some startling penetrating question — perhaps, 
 though of higher meaning, not unlike those which even 
 the merest child of earth has the gift of asking, to the con- 
 fusion of many subtilties. Whose was the Child ? Not even 
 a young Levite, of whom it might be hoped that His strange 
 genius would be shaped into the service of the hierarchy in 
 later days : but a peasant's son from Galilee, almost a Gentile, 
 though some one might know that he ,bore the lineage of 
 David. When the simple pair, anxious and displeased to 
 be brought back so many miles of their journey, appeared 
 in the midst of those crowded courts of the Temple, in the 
 chamber by the gate where the scribes disputed, with the 
 throng looking in if anything of interest was going on — one 
 can understand that the learned doctors were very glad to 
 be rid of their youthful questioner. A young Socrates pursu- 
 ing them to the end of their futile arguments with a cut 
 bono ? making them as fools to themselves by some piercing 
 interrogatory. It was his first inspection of his Father's 
 house, from the point of view of human intelligence, and, 
 no doubt, his childhood afforded an excuse and explanation 
 of that one appearance, which could not have been continued 
 without premature revelation of his mission in the after years, 
 when he must have come up with his family again and again, 
 silent and dutiful, fulfilling all righteousness. The boy could 
 do what the young man could not without betraying himself 
 And who shall penetrate the mystery of these silent 
 years during which the Son of God grew in wisdom and 
 stature in the calm of the little Galilean city ? The still 
 greater calm of the common human folk who surrounded 
 that place and did not see what was the wonder that 
 encircled Jesus, the son of Joseph, is the most wonderful 
 thought of all. His brothers or cousins James and Judas 
 must have known every feature of his life, and, perhaps, 
 there is something in that familiarity of boyhood which 
 
40O THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 gives to the after -teachings of James, so concise and 
 practical, an air of more complete devotion to the outside 
 duties of the Christian life than to the contemplation of 
 the Divine Master. But among all who walked those 
 familiar paths, and passed him with a morning greeting, 
 and saw him take his way when the day's work was over 
 to the solitude of the hill, to seek the Divine society from 
 which he was an exile — would there be none who pene- 
 trated that disguise and knew that Messias had come ? 
 " His mother kept all these sayings in her heart " — doubtful, 
 too, towards what they were tending, pondering many 
 times we may be sure that prophecy of his earliest infancy, 
 " a sword shall pierce through thine own heart also." What 
 sword could come to her through that perfect son, growing 
 daily in favour with God and man ? Perhaps she hoped, 
 with fond denials to herself of any power that could harm 
 one so divine, that the prophecy might fail ; perhaps looked 
 forward, with the all-submission of her own youth, " Behold 
 the handmaid of the Lord," to the future so full of awe yet 
 of hope, but knew nothing of all that was to be. 
 
 " Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's busi- 
 ness ? " It would almost seem that he was surprised that 
 she did not understand ; as he was surprised, notwithstanding 
 that he knew all that was in man, at the incapacity of his 
 disciples long after to knov/ what he could mean. 
 
 It is with hesitation and faltering that we venture to 
 enter upon the history of this most wonderful life. It has 
 been put before us with such divine simplicity and vividness, 
 and has, thank heaven, so thoroughly pervaded the very 
 atmosphere of all the modern world, that it has always 
 seemed to me a presumption to attempt to write a " life of 
 Christ " : as if such halting attempts at chronological 
 arrangement, or local illustration, as we can give, could in 
 any way enhance the wonder or the beauty of that history 
 which has no parallel. The present writer, above all, would 
 not have made any such presumptuous venture, had not 
 the story of the sacred city demanded that its last and 
 greatest era should not be passed over, even if from 
 
A STKERT IN nRTHLBHKM 
 
 3 D 
 

THE SON OF DA VID 403 
 
 motives of the deepest reverence ; for Jerusalem would 
 have had little meaning after all in the ancient ages through 
 which she held so pertinaciously her appointed way, re- 
 created again and again out of death and debasement like 
 the phoenix of the fable — but for him in whose appearance 
 all broken meanings became clear, the everlasting Truth ; 
 as she would have little meaning now, a little town in 
 Palestine, a trifling Eastern city, to be the object of so many 
 pilgrimages, and so much veneration, if it were not for 
 that one chapter of history, which is of more importance to 
 the human race than everything beside. 
 
 I venture, therefore, to take with reverence from the 
 only chronicle and record of that divine life the incidents 
 which occurred in Jerusalem, attempting little further except 
 what is necessary for the unity of the narrative : not- 
 withstanding that the charm is almost greater of the 
 Lake of Galilee and those events which centre around that 
 beautiful and tranquil spot, where more than any other 
 on earth the pilgrim feels as if he could almost see one 
 benignant figure walking by the shore, and meet the 
 group of anxious attendants bearing their sick, of feeble 
 sufferers creeping forth into the divine effulgence of that 
 look which carried healing wherever it shone. There, 
 at first, were no Pharisees to make that countenance 
 stern, no contention of scribes, no crowd gaping for a sign, 
 no organised band of formalists and self-righteous : but 
 only the common folk in their needs and troubles, the 
 fathers and mothers with their children, the cry to him 
 on all sides for help and succour, the petitions of love. 
 Pious commentators in modern days have bidden us only 
 to ask for spiritual gifts, to reckon upon no answer to 
 prayer in which personal advantage is involved ; but thank 
 God it was not .so in those old days in Galilee, where 
 every parent brought his sick child, and the women impor- 
 tuned him if he did not seem to hear, and all that were in 
 trouble sought his feet, plucked at his robe, never paused 
 to think that it was for their advantage to get well, and 
 for their happiness to have their children restored to 
 
404 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 them. Nor did he, the Lord and Giver of Life. To 
 my own mind there is nothing so futile in this miraculous 
 earth as the discussion of miracles which were a 
 natural radiation from the very touch upon mortal soil 
 of a being transcendent in power and goodness. He is a 
 far greater miracle than anything he did. Let it be shown 
 how such a one came into being, alone, supreme, unequalled, 
 not only in all history, but in all poetry and the loftiest 
 imagination of man, which has never produced anything 
 that can be placed near him — any more than art has ever 
 produced anything beyond the divine suggestion of an 
 infant, which is worthy in the most remote degree to bear 
 his name. Let this be explained to us, we say in the first 
 place, and then we may be at leisure to examine into that 
 mystery of the swine which seems so much more congenial 
 to some inquirers. No learning is necessary to know the 
 premises of the inquiry. It seems the first question to 
 settle, the very head and front of all investigation. 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth, as was the custom of the time and 
 race, waited until he had attained the full maturity of 
 manhood before beginning his work. It was the age at 
 which the priests assumed their office, an age in which 
 it was supposed, according to the early development of 
 the East, that the period of youth had passed and that of 
 full manhood and competence to undertake the gravest 
 responsibilities had arrived. John the Baptist whose birth 
 preceded that of his Lord only by a few months, had 
 followed the same rule, and thus appeared out of the 
 wilderness to fulfil his office at a corresponding age, the 
 work of the forerunner being of short duration though of 
 the most striking and indeed startling kind. The con- 
 junction of these two figures, the wistful and expectant 
 prophet, not knowing from which side to expect the 
 appearance of the Lord, looking eagerly upon every new 
 neophyte to see if perhaps this was he, and the calm 
 sublime of him who came to fulfil all righteousness, is 
 one of the most wonderful of Gospel pictures. " I knew 
 him not ; but he that sent me to baptize with water said 
 
THE SON OF DA VI D 405 
 
 to me " — The representative of all the prophets, the second 
 Elias, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, he who had 
 been a hermit living in solitary places out of the way of 
 men, had, no doubt, forgotten if in his desert life he ever 
 knew, the aspect of his young kinsman — until the Divine 
 sign was given which pointed him out as the Lamb of God. 
 After the revelation had been made, and his human life thus 
 consecrated to his mission, Jesus returned to his natural 
 home ; or rather, it would be better to say, to the shores 
 of the Lake of Galilee which was a day's journey from 
 Nazareth, but with which he had probably some con- 
 nection as so much of his time was spent there. His 
 mother, perceiving that his life was now to be shaped on 
 other lines, possibly as the time went on abandoned her 
 household and followed him there in order to care for 
 the wants of external necessity ; or still more probably, 
 her husband being dead, was naturally devoted to the care 
 of her son and transferred herself to the place that suited 
 him best. At the present moment, however, she was prob- 
 ably still resident in Nazareth, and he travelling towards that 
 lowly dwelling-place when he paused at the village of Cana 
 to attend the marriage feast. " Both Jesus was called and 
 His disciples to the marriage," which was probably an 
 important event in the countryside, though the bridegroom 
 was no wealthy inhabitant, but only a kindly connection 
 or neighbour of the same humble position as his guests. 
 
 Perhaps it was to give his attendance at this feast, 
 the wedding of some one who had been a companion of his 
 childhood, that Jesus paused on his way from the baptism 
 in Jordan to his own home. Recent researches of the 
 Palestine Exploration oflficcrs, most interesting of all 
 investigations into the past, have discovered a spot on 
 Jordan still bearing the name of Abarah, so like the 
 Bathabara of the narrative that it makes the transition 
 from the Baptism to the Lake of Galilee the easiest possible, 
 instead of a long journey as has been supposed, from the 
 scene near Jericho long identified with this event. Perhaps 
 after their first parting, and his assumption of his office, 
 
4o6 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 it was at Cana that the Virgin met her son, her heart 
 full of anxiety and insecurity, seeing that a great change 
 had occurred, wistful, not knowing yet what it was. She 
 must have been aware of this change, or she would not have 
 given that humble hint about the wine. What did she 
 know ? Had there been already some strange blessing in 
 the house . in Nazareth upon all that his .sacred hand 
 touched, though, perhaps, no one had noticed except the 
 ever- watchful eyes which followed him wherever he went, 
 never intermitting that tender vigilance, still and always 
 eager to know what the secret of his birth and of himself, 
 so different from any other, could mean ? Was she already 
 aware in an awe of unassured faith, ever wondering, of 
 some mysterious supply, some strange waxing of the 
 needed stores at home ? And it is strange to note that 
 he did not consent in words, did not reply as he did to the 
 many poor supplicants that came after, with divine courtesy 
 and patience ; but almost we may imagine in his knowledge 
 of the dangers of the future, and the position of goddess 
 which was to be forced upon that humble woman, with a 
 little sternness forbidding her interference. And there is no 
 appearance that he did it as any proof or sign of his own 
 power, but rather out of pure kindness to the poor cousin 
 whose popularity must have been so much greater than his 
 wealth, who had asked everybody, but could only supply a 
 little for their entertainment. Mary must have had some 
 authority as of a relation or she could not have bidden the 
 servants to obey him. But he made no mystic sign, said 
 no word, awaited no thanks. The mother saw, whose 
 anxious eyes were never long absent from him, and the 
 disciples saw who had followed him, by some attraction 
 they scarcely understood, who watched eagerly all his 
 movements, to justify to themselves the step they had 
 taken. There is no appearance that except by those two 
 the miracle called for anything more than a little wonder, 
 as to where the astonished bridegroom could have got it, 
 that marvellous wine. 
 
 There has been little said, I think, among the many 
 
THE SON OF DA VI D 407 
 
 discussions of the supernatural, of the entire naturalness of 
 these miracles. The initiatory miracle of all is, of course, 
 the Person by whom they are performed ; and if it can be 
 proved that there have been others like him in this world, 
 and that the records of history contain another who, 
 according to the common judgment of humanity, may be 
 placed by his side or near him, then I have no doubt the 
 lesser argument might come in : but granted the far greater 
 miracle of the two, the extreme naturalness of the others is, 
 I think, to a simple -mind, the most wonderful thing about 
 them. We are disposed nowadays to smile at them as 
 proofs, feeling that our Lord is his own transcendent proof 
 and that in his great presence it is a kind of well-meant 
 and pious blasphemy to produce any testimonials as it were 
 to his character. The Christian of the nineteenth century 
 would probably be easier in his mind if the miracles were put 
 out of the question, being a man of his time, as the writers 
 who recorded them were men of their time and loved every 
 detail of every prodigy. But even that sentiment it appears 
 to me is wrong, and calculated to take away something 
 from the benignity of that Friend who was what no other 
 man or friend has ever been. How could he hold his hand 
 being what he was ? how refuse what those helpless neigh- 
 bours wanted, whether wine for their feast or, still more, 
 healing for their sick } Healing could not but ray out 
 of him as he moved, as tenderness did, and love, and 
 thought of everything great and small that appealed to 
 his help. And it was such a little time in which that was 
 possible, in which the power of God and the visible acts of 
 man were to be conjoined ! I have thought often that 
 when "Jesus wept" at the grave of Lazarus, those tears 
 were called forth not by the thought of him who lay there 
 in his cave ready to rise, but of the many, many myriads of 
 graves at which women must fling themselves unsuccoured, 
 and endure that from which Mary and Martha were set free. 
 We must all recognise, and how much more he, that the 
 laws of Nature must go on in general, that death must be 
 a thing of every day, and mourning the garb of half the 
 
THE FINAL TRAGEDY 
 
 world, until the course of our dispensation is fulfilled. But 
 for the moment, while he was there, whose deep sense of 
 that great mystery brought tears to his eyes even in the act 
 of greatest joy ! The alms of a rich man to the poor, 
 whether given with the unreflecting liberality of ancient 
 time or with the more cautious enthusiasm of charity which 
 prevails now, were not more natural, not more simple, than 
 these works of wonder — wonder to those who crowded 
 about him, and felt and saw, but the natural outcome of 
 his presence, as natural as breathing, as simple as the day. 
 
 It was probably the yearly period at which all Galilee 
 was being moved to go up to the feast when that marriage 
 took place, and Mary of Nazareth might have preceded her 
 party but a few days for the wedding, and joined the 
 gathering troop as they went by, with her son, and those 
 young men of the country who had attached themselves to 
 him and who followed wherever he went. Jesus had, no 
 doubt, gone up many times to Jerusalem in the interval 
 between his appearance there as a boy and his present 
 journey, silent, fulfilling all righteousness, looking with 
 patience upon the defilements of the Temple, his time being 
 not yet come. And it is possible enough that the interest 
 awakened by that boyish apparition may have faded away 
 in the quiet of the years as the bystanders perceived that the 
 precocious boy was going no farther, but had sunk into the 
 stillness of life as so many promising talents do. It might 
 already be thought by some with disappointment that they 
 hoped it was to have been he who should have redeemed 
 Israel. This might probably cause still a certain curiosity 
 about his presence, a lingering desire to know whether after 
 all the prophecy of old Simeon was to mean anything, 
 among the devout frequenters of the Temple. But thirty 
 years is a long time, and so, indeed, is the eighteen which had 
 elapsed without any incident, since that Galilean boy had 
 stood among the scribes and asked them questions. He 
 had been seen going and coming s'ince like the others, paying 
 his tithe, making his offering: as now he came, but with some 
 rousing of popular curiosity, some rumour of new wonders, 
 
THE SON OF DA V/D 
 
 409 
 
 and that band behind, closely following him, breathlessly 
 watching everything he did. 
 
 It is very difficult to determine whether Jesus made that 
 scourge of small cords the first time he came to the Temple 
 after he had taken his ministry upon him, as well as on 
 a later occasion : or whether St. John's account has got 
 completely out of chronology as other incidents are in that 
 and the other gospels, from the fragmentary character of the 
 record. But it is evident that whether he assailed the 
 money-changers and sacrifice - merchants upon that first 
 
 LAKE OF UALILEE : THE HORNS OF HATTIN, ON WHICH THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 
 WAS PREACHED, IN THE DISTANCE 
 
 occasion or not he greatly roused the curiosity and interest 
 of the people. On "the feast day " — no doubt that which is 
 described on other occasions as " the great day of the feast " 
 — when the sacrifices had been accomplished, and the crowd 
 of joyful pilgrims and inhabitants had spread themselves 
 over all the courts of the Temple in enjoyment of the 
 holiday, the young prophet from the north would seem to 
 have been the centre of wonder. Saying little as yet. 
 scarcely coming out of the character of observer and spectator, 
 he yet could not withhold his divine hand from bestowing 
 those alms of healing and miracle which at last, after the 
 long and quiet probation of his youth, he had begun to 
 dispense so liberally. " Many believed in his name when 
 
4IO THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 they saw the miracles he did. But Jesus did not commit 
 himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed 
 not that any should testify of man : for he knew what was 
 in man." This is one of St. John's pregnant sayings full of 
 the inner knowledge which came to him by long pondering 
 upon the recollections of that sacred period. It was not 
 according to the designs of Providence that he should be 
 forced into notoriety, that the end of the great tragedy 
 should be hastened, as might have been had all the passions 
 of an urban crowd been aroused, so different from the 
 enthusiasm, more slowly growing and less impassioned, of 
 the simpler peasants. And the crowd at Jerusalem was 
 essentially fanatic. The city lived by its sacred character, 
 and the sale of the sacrifices must have been like the sale of 
 indulgences in mediaeval Rome. It was the centre of 
 religious agitations also, and there was nothing, the population 
 loved so much as controversy and the long-drawn quibbles 
 about the law, and questions of form and ceremonial. 
 Jesus of Nazareth had many things yet to do before he 
 came to the concluding scene of all, and this is a strong 
 argument against the occurrence of a preliminary driving 
 out of the traffickers in the Temple which would have made 
 a commotion in the city, such as he does not seem to have 
 desired so early in his career.^ 
 
 We may be allowed in all reverence to imagine the 
 manner of this first public visit to Jerusalem. If the full 
 revelation of his own mission had only been opened out 
 to his manhood after the Baptism, as seems to be indicated, 
 the previous glimpses and intuitions of divinity rising at once 
 into full manifestation : our Lord must now have begun to 
 
 1 I may be permitted to add that in the attempts at chronological arrange- 
 ment that follow, I have endeavoured to place myself in the position of one who 
 reads that narrative for the first time, and places the different incidents in what 
 seems to him a natural succession : not only with no authority but with no desire 
 to claim any knowledge beyond that of a reader accustomed to literary criticism, 
 and to note the sequence of natural events. I ask the indulgence of any Biblical 
 critic who may read the book on this ground alone. I have not attempted to 
 reconcile my impressions with those of any authoritative teaching. They are 
 those of a reader, not of a teacher : sometimes, perhaps, in the audacity of 
 ignorance over bold : but without any pretension except to the simplest individual 
 apprehension of facts which are open to all. 
 
CHAP. I THE SON OF DAVID 411 
 
 regard the Temple and the city which had hitherto been to 
 him the "Father's House" — in which he had fulfilled all 
 the commanded rites, and performed the duties incumbent 
 upon all pious Hebrews — in a different aspect. This 
 wonderful Temple, the pride of the nation, was henceforward 
 a thing about to dissolve and melt away. It was to be 
 destroyed which had cost so many years in building : but in 
 three days another temple, the temple of his body, was to 
 be raised up ; the temporal was about to give way to the 
 spiritual. All that elaborate system of types, of substitutions, 
 of sacrifice, the ransom by blood that had to be paid for 
 every Israelite, was coming to an end. The temple of his 
 body could only be builded by the preliminaries of his 
 death. As he went musing, silent, about those echoing 
 courts with the hum of many voices round him, he must have 
 already seen all the stranger, darker scenes that were so 
 soon to be. It was natural that he should say little in that 
 realisation of everything that was to follow, the winding up 
 of the dispensation that looked so firmly established, the 
 grimness of its death-struggle, the obstinacy of its self- 
 destruction : with, in the meantime against that background 
 of blood and fire, the dread scene of his own abandonment 
 at once by God and man, the loneliness of the Cross, the 
 struggle of the Agony. 
 
 All this must have appeared to him as he moved about, 
 followed ever by the impetuous Peter, who would not keep 
 silent, by John intent upon his every look, and the strong, 
 untutored fisher, Andrew, like some Scotch salt-water sea-dog 
 in London, wondering with a half disapproval, half worship, 
 over the splendours of the Temple. One wonders if it may 
 not have been now, and not at a later period, that the dis- 
 ciples, probably " those of Jerusalem," who had been attracted 
 by the sight of his unrecorded miracles, the droppings from 
 him of divine tenderness as he walked, " came to him for 
 to show him the buildings of the Temple." Probably these 
 men were privileged persons, able to take the little band of 
 strangers from Galilee into places not always open, perhaps 
 Nicodemus among them, whom he had so sorely bewildered 
 
412 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 by that strange statement about the second birth, and who 
 would hsten eagerly to hear the Master's comment on this 
 pride of the Jewish heart. And what strange words were 
 those which came from the young Rabbi's lips ? " There 
 shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not 
 be thrown down." What an incredible, impossible thing to 
 say ! Herod's Temple stood in all its splendour before 
 them, with its magnificent cloister, its beautiful gate, all the 
 wonderful architecture of it, strong as the rock on which it 
 stood — the courts full both of Jews and proselytes, every 
 entry to the enclosure, every gate, filled with a moving, 
 bright -coloured crowd. Perhaps the cicerones and eager 
 guides scarcely heard this sentence in the eagerness of their 
 explanations, and it was not till the little band of closest 
 friends went out to the Mount of Olives, and sat there round 
 him, gazing upon the shining walls where Jerusalem lay fair 
 in the sun, that he explained to them what he meant. 
 His human heart was sore for that dreadful necessity. Far 
 more than of what he was himself to suffer did he think 
 of this, returning to it with an anguish of lamentation again 
 and again. O Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! to which every heart 
 had turned, of which the captives in Babylon prayed that 
 their right hand might forget its cunning if ever they forgot 
 her, their chief joy — and which that little band of pilgrims 
 had approached, singing as they paced along the lingering 
 ways, by Jordan and Jericho, from their lake side, that Sion 
 was the joy of the whole earth, and that they were glad 
 when it was said to them : " Let us go up into the house of 
 the Lord." With what awe would they hear, looking over 
 the valley at those white pinnacles and the great walls 
 dazzling in the sunshine ! though they probably soon forgot 
 that impression with the unconscious incredulity of nature, 
 and felt that what was before them must still continue to be, 
 indefinitely, notwithstanding that the sentence was so true. 
 
 It would appear from the narrative of St. John that 
 Jesus and His disciples lingered in Judea for some time after 
 their first Passover, and that these disciples, probably eager 
 to get to work at that occupation promised them as fishers 
 
CHAP. I THE SON OF DA VID 413 
 
 of men, began to baptize in imitation of John, two of them 
 having been the companions of John, before they were 
 drawn, partly by his advice, partly by the mysterious attrac- 
 tion of our Lord's personality, to follow him. This is the 
 only indication we have that the methods of John the Baptist 
 were ever used during the ministry of Jesus ; and it would 
 seem that he left the place where this was done, possibly 
 the traditionary spot near the Jordan, which is still pointed 
 out, to avoid any appearance of interference with John, whose 
 mission had not yet been brought to an end. "When the 
 Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made 
 and baptized more disciples than John (though Jesus himself 
 baptized not, but his disciples), he left Judea." 
 
 It is at this point that the Evangelist places the inter- 
 view with the woman of Samaria. Pursuing their way 
 after the slow method of those times — still the method 
 of any band of villagers and fishermen returning from 
 Jerusalem to Galilee — the travellers went through Samaria ; 
 and Jesus, weary with the journey, sat down upon the wall 
 which surrounded Jacob's well, in the height of the afternoon, 
 when shade and quiet are specially welcome. It was not an 
 hour when the chattering throng of girls, with their bright 
 kerchiefs on their heads, would come to the fountain : for it 
 was, no doubt, already summer, and nobody would be about 
 who could help it, in the heat of the day. But the cool of 
 the little building over the well, the grateful damp of the 
 watery place, would be comfortable to the wayfarer, and 
 there, no doubt, it was decided to make their halt, while the 
 others went into the town to buy something for their meal. 
 Thus it was that when the " woman of Samaria," a woman 
 whom the other women avoided, whom the girls would not 
 be permitted to speak to, came out at an unlikely time with 
 her pitcher, she found that Pilgrim seated there. The usual 
 stream of pilgrims must have all passed by some time before, 
 returning to their homes : so that the country had fallen 
 back into the ordinary quiet in which a passer-by was some- 
 thing to wonder at. She had expected, no doubt, the usual 
 scorn of the Jew, the drawing away of mantle and robe, lest 
 
414 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 any contact with her very unpolemical figure should sully the 
 orthodoxy of the Judean. But the aspect of this Traveller 
 was not as that of other men. He asked her, to her great 
 astonishment, to let him drink from her pitcher, and after he 
 had received that simple favour sat still and talked with her 
 as none had ever done before.; neither because she was a 
 Samaritan, nor because she was a shamed and sullied woman, 
 did this traveller despise her. She was, probably, no ordinary 
 woman, or she would not have responded to him as she did, 
 or understood as she seems to have done. When the dis- 
 ciples came back their attitude was a very curious one. They 
 were still, we may believe, so little familiar with their Master, 
 having so recently thrown in their lot with him, that some- 
 thing of timidity mingled with the awe which they never 
 ceased to feel : they did not dare to interfere in this strange 
 dialogue which was going on, or to ask " Why talkest thou 
 with her ? " Neither did they venture to inquire afterwards 
 what had been the cause of the conversation. When she 
 went away they laid their little supply before him and 
 begged him to eat. But again, when he replied, " I have 
 meat to eat ye know not of," the confusion of their surprise 
 was so great that they knew not what to say. Had any one 
 brought the Master food while they were absent ? W^hat had 
 happened to restore him from his weariness ? Again and 
 again this wistful wonder appears in the narrative. Even at 
 the end, after they have walked in his steps and listened to his 
 words for the three years of his public career, the apostles 
 still watch his looks to discover what he means, with the 
 same anxious bewilderment of spirit. And when he bade 
 them lift up their eyes and behold the fields which were 
 already white to the harvest, they did so, no doubt, wonder- 
 ing, looking dumbly at the waving corn, slow to understand 
 that these Samaritans, who were by this time coming out 
 from the town, full of curiosity to see him who had told 
 their neighbour all that ever she did — were the harvest 
 which he meant. 
 
 It is not till another year that we find Jesus again in 
 Jerusalem, and once more the record is that of St. John. It 
 
THE SON OF DA VID 415 
 
 is at " a feast " not specified, which would make it appear 
 that it was not the Passover. Jesus had entered upon the 
 wandering life of a prophet and teacher, and was no longer 
 bound by the homely routine of living which kept the one 
 great feast of the year, the common Sacrament of the Jewish 
 faith, but had not the means of going to all. To him it was 
 now desirable that he should carry his message not only 
 among the quiet ways of Galilee, but wherever the people 
 were gathered together : and his journeys to Jerusalem were 
 probably many. It might be as he was entering the city 
 that he passed through the sheep-gate at the north-eastern 
 corner of the Temple enclosure, the gate by which the " lambs 
 for the slaughter," the sheep of the daily sacrifice, were 
 brought in, a touching coincidence. Near to that spot lay 
 the pool, supplied by what is now called the fountain of the 
 Virgin in the vale of the Kedron, a bubbling intermittent 
 spring, mineral water as is now explained, a pool in which heal- 
 ing was a.s.serted to be found. It is identified by tradition 
 with the Birket Israel, a deep pool much choked up by rubbish, 
 which lies close under the north-east angle of the Temple 
 wall ; but I believe that another situation has been suggested 
 near the present Church of St. Anne, by recent explorations. 
 A line of arched cloisters, a little colonnade, supported 
 on five .sets of pillars, the " five porches" of our translation, 
 was on the bank, with steps descending to the water — 
 a beautiful feature of Eastern architecture, very usual 
 and especially necessary where .so much ablution is u.sed. 
 Underneath the shade of the.se arches lay the sick folk 
 who were waiting for the " troubling of the water," the 
 effervescence and influx, as now explained, of the spring. 
 Jesus and his followers passing by, strangers arriving from 
 Bethany or some other of the villages near, or taking the 
 quiet walk of a Sabbath day's journey to that favourite olive 
 garden on the other side of the brook, which was .so good a 
 place of repose after the crowds of the city, ascended into 
 the grateful shade and coolness of the little arcade. And 
 there in the stillness of the Sabbath, no cure to be hoped for 
 on that day, lay the poor man on his carpet, who had spent 
 
41 6 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 SO great a part of his life awaiting the miracle. It is impos- 
 sible not to feel that he was not a very worthy object of 
 charity as we say, seeing that one of the earliest uses of his 
 restored strength was to denounce his deliverer to the enemy. 
 But the eye of the Lord fell upon him as he lay in his 
 abandonment of misery. He might be the only sick man 
 there, the others having been carried home who had friends, 
 lest they should be tempted to shuffle down into the water 
 and get themselves healed on the Sabbath day. But thirty- 
 eight years lying there, waiting, with no one to help him, 
 shows a man sadly without friends, perhaps an altogether 
 destitute person — and the Divine pity is as the rain which 
 falls upon the just and unjust. " Rise, take up thy bed and 
 walk," said the Saviour. The miracle had come to him who 
 was unable to go to it, even so far as the descent of these steps. 
 This would seem to have been the beginning of the great 
 Sabbath controversy, if we may use the words. The man 
 as he hurried away with his roll of rugs, was caught at once 
 by the spiritual police that abounded on every side. They 
 might according to the rigour of the law have stoned him for 
 this transgression : though it does not seem that any such 
 tragical intention was ever in their thoughts ; but they caught 
 and spoke to him roughly, reminding him what day it was, 
 and that it was unlawful to go into the town, as he probably 
 was doing, with that large bundle. A Scotch policeman would 
 have done much the same thing forty or fifty years ago. 
 Jesus had passed on his way, threading through the busy 
 crowds in the gate, avoiding further question, probably for 
 that prevailing reason that his time was not yet : and the 
 man did not know who the beneficent visitor was who 
 had bidden him to arise and go. When he met at a later 
 date his deliverer in the Temple, Jesus admonished him 
 as he never did on any other occasion of the kind : " Sin 
 no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee." And the 
 ungrateful cripple used his recovered limbs to hurry forth 
 and tell the religious persecutors who it was who had cured 
 him, i.e. made him guilty of the sin of carrying his bed on 
 the Sabbath day. 
 
THE SON OF DA VI D 417 
 
 The grave yet gentle dignity of our Lord's warning is 
 very remarkable. It would be hard to say whether it was 
 the spontaneousncs.s of his tender charity which had flowed 
 forth without recollection, as we might say, of the Sabbath ; 
 or whether it was by intention that he thus opened the sub- 
 ject. There had been an exemption from the severe law of 
 the Sabbath in its earliest institution, for works of necessity 
 and mercy ; but the Jew formalists had improved upon the 
 law, knowing no better spiritual way than to bind these 
 ceremonial restrictions tighter, making of it, as has been 
 already said, a god in the place of their old idols whom 
 they had outgrown. Most likely the apostles themselves 
 were startled at the breach of the rigid bond which was 
 one of the most marked points of the Jewish economy ; 
 but here there was no explanation given as of the parables 
 that puzzled them, no announcement of a change of plan. 
 It is curious to remark, in passing, that there was evidently 
 no objection on the part of the Jews to the dinner-parties 
 and entertainments of the Sabbath. These were permitted : 
 it was the healing that was objected to. The modern 
 champions of the Sabbatic law act in a contrary sense, and 
 would, no doubt, permit the healing were it possible, but not 
 the feasts. 
 
 It would seem to have been on this occasion that Jesus 
 for the first time began to teach in Jerusalem. And it is 
 remarkable to note at once the changed tone of his discourse. 
 He speaks not as he spoke in Galilee, instituting a new 
 economy of life, that enlarged and altered code of the Gospel, 
 the supreme rule for the thoughts and the heart, which flowed 
 from him, distilling like the dew, in the early dawn of his 
 ministry, a new revelation, full of tenderness towards men, if 
 also of the unfailing conflict between good and evil, the choice 
 betwixt God and mammon. But the Jews of Jerusalem 
 were a very different kind of audience. In those courts of 
 the Temple, where he now became a familiar figure, the 
 eager crowd which surrounded him was essentially a polemi- 
 cal crowd, defenders and champions of the faith. Foremost 
 among them would be the keen and subtle faces of the 
 
 2 V. 
 
41 8 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 doctors, ever ready to draw him into controversy, the scribes 
 with their trained and critical wits, the scornful Pharisees 
 with their broad phylacteries. The record at once becomes 
 that of a prolonged argument, controversy rather than teach- 
 ing. No room nor possibility here for any Sermon on the 
 Mount, no tender lingering of parable and similitude, of the 
 images drawn from that smiling nature around, the sower 
 sowing in the field, the white tower shining on the hill. To 
 Nicodemus he had already abandoned that milder ground, 
 and spoken of a change so fundamental that it was not too 
 much to say, " Ye must be born again " ; and when he takes 
 his seat in those high places of Jerusalem, it is without 
 hesitation or delay to put forth his own great claim, and 
 assert his mission in the most uncompromising tones, while 
 the highest intelligences of Israel stood listening round, eager 
 to argue, to object, to prove him wrong. " My Father 
 worketh hitherto, and I work " are almost the first words that 
 reach our ears from that eminence and centre of Israel : and 
 it is very clear that the Jews put no figurative interpretation 
 upon them. It did not occur to them, as it does to modern 
 interpreters, that Jesus spoke as any devout man might do 
 who felt God to be his Father. They charged him imme- 
 diately with blasphemy, because he said " that God was his 
 Father, making himself equal with God." Thus at once the 
 great controversy was opened, with no compromise on either 
 side. He was not shocked at the imputation of that blas- 
 phemy, as a good man without any divine claim would be. 
 Such a one would not have wasted a word on any other 
 subject till he had cleared himself from this. But our Lord 
 accepts and proceeds to demonstrate the truth of his claim. 
 
 In the great confusion of the chronology it is difficult 
 to assign to each incident and still more to each discourse 
 its right place. The address which follows the healing of 
 the impotent man in the record of John (John v. 19 to the 
 end), and which would seem to be the first address given in 
 Jerusalem, will probably appear to the natural student from 
 internal evidence rather to have followed such an event as 
 that of the raising of Lazarus. " As the Father raiseth up 
 
THE SON OF DAVID 419 
 
 the dead, and quickeneth them ; even so the Son quickeneth 
 whom he will." " The hour is coming, and now is, when the 
 dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God." What could 
 be more appropriate than this had it been said after the 
 miracle of Bethany ? It is rash for an ignorant person, 
 unacquainted even with the laws of Scripture criticism and 
 taking the history of the gospels like any other old and 
 irregularly constructed history, to venture upon a suggestion ; 
 but it seems to me that in a natural sense the address which 
 is given in the seventh chapter of St. John (vii. 16-24), 
 as delivered on a later occasion, would be more appropriate, 
 if it were substituted here for the wonderful discourse which 
 I have had the boldness to say appears rather to have 
 followed such a miracle as that of the raising of Lazarus. 
 When our Lord says " I have done one work, and ye all 
 marvel," his words seem to bear a natural reference to 
 something just performed of which all minds were full, 
 rather than to an incident which, though unique in their 
 experience and of the highest popular interest, had happened 
 several months before. It is true that it was wonderful 
 enough to have recurred to every one upon his next 
 appearance, and to have raised again the former commotion : 
 yet the words would be still more appropriate if it had just 
 occurred and was the marvel of the moment in all men's 
 minds. " Why are ye angry at me because I have made 
 a man every whit whole on the Sabbath day ? " he asks, that 
 question evidently being uppermost in the minds of his 
 hearers. It might, no doubt, have come back to them, in 
 the great and sudden popular excitement which blazed up 
 on the sudden reappearance in the Temple of the great 
 Sabbath-breaker, he who had so boldly set the law at 
 defiance. I do not know enough of Biblical criticism to be 
 aware whether such a suggestion has ever been made 
 before. I venture upon it solely from a literary and natural 
 point of view. It looks like a speech delivered on the 
 moment, while still nobody was able to forget that extra- 
 ordinary act, and the fact almost more extraordinary to the 
 common people, and thrust into greater importance still 
 
420 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 by the rulers, that he had done this, a thing forbidden on 
 the Sabbath day. 
 
 The scene of this conversation and address was, no doubt, 
 one of those chambers in the Temple to which so many 
 references are made, built close to the gate, opening prob- 
 ably by large archways or windows to the court, so that 
 the throng of worshippers or spectators going and coming 
 to the Temple might stop and listen as they passed, to the 
 argument going on in the cool depths within. Many of the 
 discussions given in St. John's narrative must have occurred 
 so, a band of the priests and literati, or dark -robed 
 Pharisees who were prominent in the society of Jerusalem 
 — that society which centred in the Temple — sitting about 
 the prophet of Galilee whom they would fain have con- 
 demned but could not : asking him now one, now another 
 artful question framed to catch him in his talk, fixing 
 upon him the keen attention of controversy, continually 
 baffled and silenced, sometimes touched to the heart like 
 him who acknowledged in full hearing of his fellows, that 
 to love God above all, and one's neighbour as one's self, 
 was indeed the whole law and the prophets in one. In the 
 absence of these pundits, the commoner crowd would but 
 flock round the more, throwing in the comment of ignorance : 
 " Who goeth about to kill thee ? " while the dark group of 
 humble Galileans stood behind, their homely sunburnt faces 
 gradually growing refined and expressive with all they were 
 hearing and seeing, the company in which they spent their 
 lives : while outside of all the multitude came and went, 
 sometimes gathering in a mass when the voices dropped, 
 and his alone, penetrating yet soft, would come forth upon 
 the air thrilling all hearts, though with an argument not 
 addressed to the crowd. 
 
 After this scene in which so great and startling a depart- 
 ure had been made from the formal traditions of the Jews, 
 strained and amplified as they were by the work of many 
 generations of ritualists upon the original teachings of the 
 law, our Lord departed from Jerusalem as the other pilgrims 
 would do and returned to Galilee. It is believed that the 
 
THE SON OF DA VID 
 
 421 
 
 commotion roused by this visit was so great that he did 
 not go up to the next Passover, but continued his work 
 upon the shores of his favourite lake, and among the 
 villages and towns of Galilee, specially in the great city of 
 Capernaum, and the district about. The entire district of 
 northern Palestine, indeed, from the Mediterranean to the 
 great inland lake, which was of more importance to that 
 country than the sea, was familiar with his footsteps ; 
 his centre of movement being always that lake, to 
 the banks of which his home would seem to have been 
 transferred after the beginning of his ministry. But when 
 
 TIIIBRIAS: LAKK OF GALILKK 
 
 the second year had come round again to the Feast of 
 Tabernacles he would seem to have been taunted with his 
 reluctance to go to Jerusalem. " His brethren," relations 
 incapable, as relations so often are, of seeing the greatness 
 of One whose strange superiority it was a sort of humiliation 
 to acknowledge, urged him to show himself to the world. 
 " For there is no man that doeth anything in secret, and he 
 himself seeketh to be known openly." The centre of all 
 things was Jerusalem, and no revolution such as that which 
 all in Galilee must now have been aware this great Prophet, 
 whom they followed with so much wonder, intended to 
 accomplish — could be carried out elsewhere than in the 
 capital of the race. The disciples never .seem to have 
 urged or even suggested any such step, for they had seen 
 the passions roused by his teaching, the fierce opposition 
 of .scribe and Pharisee. It was not in the purpo.se of our 
 
422 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 Lord, however, to go up again with that cheerful band, 
 gathering as they went with a new group from every 
 village, beguiling the way with song and story, which in 
 his earlier youth he had accompanied so often " to keep the 
 feast." But when the great caravan had departed in the 
 gay excitement of its periodical holiday, and with all the 
 commotion of the genial expedition, Jesus and his followers 
 took their way alone to Jerusalem. No doubt he was so 
 well known by this time and caused so much excitement 
 wherever he went, that it would be expedient to make 
 the journey " not openly, but as it were in secret," that he 
 might not be stopped by the crowds that would gather 
 wherever his name was heard. 
 
 In the meantime he had been looked for among the 
 pilgrims in every band that arrived from the north, curious 
 eyes, no doubt, scanning every group, and those of Jerusalem 
 asking each other " Where is he ? " as they met in the courts 
 of the Temple, in the rejoicings of the feasts, or out in those 
 green arbours which were planted on the housetops and in the 
 open spaces of the streets, watching the strangers go by and 
 greeting their friends from the country. " Where is he ? " 
 " Think you, will he come up to the feast ? " " For there was 
 much murmuring among the people concerning him ; " and 
 many discussions as to his character and claims among 
 those groups in the leafy tents. " Some said he is a good 
 man : others said, Nay ; but he deceiveth the people. 
 Howbeit no man spake openly of him for fear of the Jews." 
 The Jews here mentioned, as in all the accounts of the 
 subsequent story, mean, as is plain, those described in the 
 Old Testament as " rulers " or " princes," at this time the 
 Sanhedrim, the national government, a body made up of the 
 chief priests, the scribes or interpreters of the law, lawyers 
 or disputers on that all-prevailing subject, and members of 
 that strictest sect of formalists called Pharisees. The members 
 of this governing body were not all pious, though their very 
 livelihood depended upon the piety of the people. They 
 contained within themselves the lively scepticism of the cynic 
 as well as the obstinate formalism of bigotry : those who 
 
CHAP. I THE SON OF DA VID 423 
 
 held all religion lightly and believed neither in angel nor 
 spirit : and those who were bent on binding all human life 
 in the bondage of a detailed and exacting system to which 
 they added the glosses of their own interpretation, narrowing 
 its divinity day by day. And they, too, no doubt, looked 
 with all the heat and eagerness of the polemic for the 
 appearance of that new and strange Teacher whom some 
 of them had already met in the Temple, and some seen and 
 questioned in Galilee : and of whom so many additional 
 rumours of mysterious teachings and still more mysterious 
 deeds had been heard. The writer of the gospel did not 
 know nor does he suggest what was passing among that 
 learned circle, the superior classes of the city. He knew 
 the " murmurings " of the people, the questions from one to 
 another, but not how they would . ask each other at the 
 meetings of the Sanhedrim " Will he come ? " 
 
 These expectations must have partially died away, with, 
 perhaps, a relieved conviction on the part of the rulers that 
 he would not again confront them in their own region of 
 the Temple with questions which no one could answer, with 
 replies which reduced the questioner to confusion, when Jesus 
 suddenly appeared in the midst of the feast. The popular 
 discussion which had dropped for the moment instantly 
 arose upon the reappearance of our Lord in all the force 
 of the most graphic narrative. We seem to hear the mur- 
 mur and rustic, the confusion of many questions to which 
 there are no answers. It is full of nature and life and the 
 vacillations of the popular mind. Those who had whispered 
 about among themselves " Where is he ? Will he come ? " 
 and said, some that he was a good man, some that he was a 
 deceiver, now turned upon each other with another question : 
 " Is not this he whom they .seek to kill ? But, lo, he spcaketh 
 boldly, and they .say nothing to him." Among the.sc murmurs 
 were still bolder voices. " Do the rulers know indeed that 
 this is the very Christ ? " and others in the crowd who added 
 objections. " We know this man whence he is : but when 
 Christ Cometh, no man knoweth whence he is." Was this, 
 one wonders, from .some envious pilgrim of Galilee, and did 
 
424 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 our Lord catch the famiHar accent as he passed through the 
 crowd, and make it the subject of his address ? Anyhow, 
 whether he caught the flying word in this way, or spoke 
 out of the intuition in his mind and knowledge of all 
 thoughts, this was the theme on which he did speak, 
 briefly as would appear amid the turmoil and movement 
 of the crowd. " Ye both know me, and ye know whence 
 I am," he cries, " in the Temple as he taught," raising his 
 voice one cannot but feel to still the rising murmur. " And 
 I am not come of myself, but he that hath sent me is true, 
 whom ye know not. But I know him : for I am from him, 
 and he hath sent me." The crowd seethed and raged around 
 moved by conflicting impulses, while he stood calm having 
 thus proclaimed his high commission so that all could hear, 
 dominating the tumult. " They sought to take him," those 
 of Jerusalem who were on the side of the authorities : " but 
 no man laid hands on him, for his hour was not yet come." 
 
 There is, indeed, through every line a sense at once 
 of bewilderment and of awe, the surging of the throng, 
 the opinions as diverse as were the elements in that 
 mingled multitude, the bigots with their large phylacteries, 
 the country folk come up for their holiday, the more 
 serious pilgrims not knowing what to think. " When 
 Christ cometh, will he do more miracles than this man 
 doth ? " rises another murmur in the crowd. We are told of 
 no immediate miracle done in Jerusalem, but the Galileans 
 must have brought a hundred tales of wonder, and even 
 here there may have been wonders untold, blessings that 
 radiated from him as he moved, and which penetrated the 
 crowd with a sense of the presence of One in the midst of 
 them who was not as any other teacher had ever been. 
 
 These wonderings and questionings must have risen 
 into all the force of a popular commotion towards the 
 end of the day while the crowd was dispersing, repeat- 
 ing to each other those sayings which they could not 
 understand. What did that prophet mean when he said 
 " Yet a little while am I with you. Ye shall seek me, and 
 shall not find me." ? " Whither will he go ? " they asked 
 
THE SON OF DA VI D 425 
 
 among themselves ; " will he go to the dispersed among 
 the Gentiles ? " That, too, would be part of Messiah's 
 mission, to gather back the lost tribes of Israel, to bring 
 back the scattered race and make it one. "What manner 
 of saying is this that he said ? " they asked each other as 
 they poured down across the bridge and by the great stairs 
 as the evening was falling, towards their homes. 
 
 The members of the governing party heard these mur- 
 murs with dismay. The Sanhedrim must have collected, as 
 many of them as were within reach, in the council-chamber, 
 reporting with anxious faces what one and another had heard. 
 The excitement of the people could not be ignored. The 
 multitude must have collected from every side to that one 
 central point where Jesus stood, other teachings, even the 
 office of the evening sacrifice, neglected in their eagerness 
 to hear what he was saying, to see him, to behold, perhaps, 
 some miracle such as they had heard of, or seen on former 
 occasion.s. The council of the priests and Phari.sces were 
 filled with rage and terror, perhaps not wholly irreligious or 
 unpatriotic. An uproar among the people was of all things 
 the most undesirable at such a moment ; for if these tolerated 
 festivities and rites became in any way a danger to the 
 public peace, there was always a fear behind — an excellent 
 weapon for the hostile rulers, a continual scare for the 
 wavering — that the Romans might come and take away 
 their name and people. So at the present day, could we 
 imagine the appearance of a great prophet to stir into a 
 flame of new life the meek and pensioned Jews of Jerusalem, 
 would the Turks do, if permitted, not unwilling to have .such 
 a pretext. The end of the conclave was that officers were 
 appointed to .secure the person- of the Teacher on the next 
 day ; and then, no doubt, the rulers too separated, with 
 anxiety indeed, yet with satisfaction, all but Nicodemus 
 who must have watched the progress of the man who had 
 conveyed .so strange a new knowledge to his mind, with 
 continually increasing 'interest and wonder though without 
 any further act as yet. 
 
 Next day we may suppose, at least a day following 
 
426 ■ THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 closely after, the last day, the great day of the feast, the 
 people must have assembled early in the Temple courts, full 
 of the same excitement and curiosity. We are told that it was 
 part of the ceremonial used at the morning sacrifice to pour 
 out libations of water brought from Siloam for that purpose, 
 while the accompanying choirs sang an anthem in the words 
 of the prophet Isaiah. " Therefore with joy shall ye 
 draw water out of the wells of salvation." The procession 
 which brought in that water from the cold and fresh pool, 
 in the midst of the October heat and overwhelming 
 sunshine : the golden vessels of the Temple in which it was 
 conveyed blazing in the morning light, and the music rising 
 and falling as the water-bearers came up the slopes of Moriah 
 towards the Temple gates : must have been one of the most 
 striking and picturesque features of the great ceremonial, and 
 one which would always attract the crowd. It is suggested 
 that it was, perhaps, this ceremony which brought an image 
 he had before employed to the lips of our Lord as he began 
 the teachings of the second day. He " stood " and cried — 
 perhaps as the anthem ended, as the sparkling flow of the water 
 stopped, which he had been contemplating like the crowd, 
 pouring out like light itself on the shining stones : " If any 
 man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." Were there, 
 perhaps, eager pilgrims who put forth a hollowed hand to 
 catch some drops of that sparkling water as it flowed, with 
 a sense that it was half sacramental, a holy thing? It is 
 only what was, no doubt, the beginning and the ending of 
 this discourse which has been preserved for us, as seems the 
 case in all the addresses of this animated and busy time ; 
 but we know that he had already made use of that image 
 of the living water, so doubly full of meaning in the burning 
 East, on various occasions ; and the effect at this moment 
 would appear to have been very great, insomuch that " the 
 people -when they heard this saying " said " Of a truth this is 
 the Prophet," while others said " This is the Christ." 
 
 Nothing can be more vivid than these descriptions of 
 the crowd in the courts of the Temple which seem to have 
 occupied so much of the Evangelist's attention at so 
 
THE SON OF DA VID 427 
 
 critical a moment. Keenly observant of every change in the 
 throng of upturned faces, and every movement and question 
 among them, must these spectators have been who stood 
 behind their Lord, making what personal barrier of defence 
 they could for him amid the surrounding pressure, and 
 less regardful, probably, for the moment of what he said 
 — for could not they ask him when they gathered about 
 him in the evening, under the olive-trees in the quiet of the 
 garden ? — than of the changes of the crowd, the looks of 
 conviction or of menace, the wave of feeling that passed over 
 them, like a breeze over the corn. These lookers-on could 
 not disguise from themselves that his very life might be in 
 danger should some sudden impulse of bigotry seize . upon 
 the Jews, who must have formed a great part of the crowd : 
 or that any tumult and public uproar would react upon him 
 whom the rulers would certainly believe to have provoked it. 
 Perhaps — who can tell ? — they thought him rash to be so 
 open, to place his own supreme position before that multitude 
 so clearly, instead of confining himself to the sublime moral 
 instruction, the wonderful spiritual expositions of all things 
 in heaven and earth to which he had given utterance in 
 Galilee. Why now, they might ask, where he was so much 
 less secure, should he put the test of doctrines so much 
 more bold, challenging the very foundations of belief on which 
 the whole system of Jewish religion rested, at the very outset 
 of his ministry there ? 
 
 And their eyes were naturally fixed upon the multitude, 
 as appears in the entire narrative of John, watching intently 
 every change of sentiment, marking how the groups would 
 form and melt away, how the bearded Jews would turn to each 
 other, the women put forth a shriller voice of comment, heard 
 here and there among the murmuring of the deeper tones. 
 " Of a truth this is the Prophet ! " " This is the Christ ! " 
 mingled with the corrective comment which asked " Shall 
 Christ come out of Galilee ? " " Should he not come out of 
 the seed of David, out of the town of liethlchem ? " Perhaps 
 there were some there who remembered that scene in the 
 Temple so long ago when old Simeon blessed an infant of that 
 
428 THE FINAL TRAGEDY 
 
 race : perhaps some who never could forget the children slain 
 by Herod's cruel order that an infant King of the Jews might 
 not escape him. But this wonderful figure in the midst of 
 them, this voice which went to their very hearts, were they not 
 those of a man from Galilee ? Thus rose the tumult, the dis- 
 cussions, the close controversy, carried on half in pantomime 
 among the crowd, which fixed the eyes of the beloved 
 disciple, keen with anxiety for his Master's safety among 
 this mass of excited men, and aware, perhaps, of the officers 
 of the Sanhedrim who were making their way through the 
 debating groups, yet who could not help hearing what he 
 said, and could not escape the magic of his influence. The 
 narrative is so instinct with life, so full of the breathless 
 interest with which the writer saw and heard every new voice, 
 every rising murmur, every sign of enthusiasm or perplexity, 
 that our attention is almost drawn from the Divine speaker, 
 to watch as John did those vicissitudes of the crowd. 
 
 All the time the council lYiust have been sitting anxious, 
 too, and gloomy in their chamber awaiting further news, 
 expecting, till he was brought before them to be examined, 
 to be confounded in his pretensions by their superior wisdom 
 and learning, perhaps, they may have hoped, to be sent back 
 quietly to his native Galilee, and so got rid of without 
 further trouble. One can imagine how they remained there 
 impatient, hearing the sound of the great crowd, with some- 
 times a word or two of the clear voice which dominated its 
 murmurs coming in upon the air ; and how now one and now 
 another would go out with a curse in his heart at the folly of 
 the multitude, " this people that knoweth not the law," to see 
 the other courts empty and acquire the angry consciousness 
 that all men were going after the new teacher. 
 
 After long suspense, in the evening when the people 
 had dispersed, the officers of the Sanhedrim came back 
 abashed to tell their tale. They had not been able to arrest 
 him. The men were overawed, still under the influence of 
 their emotion. They did not put forth any pretext of having 
 been stopped by the crowd, or intimidated by the popular 
 enthusiasm, but stood without excuse abashed before their 
 
THE SON OF DA VI D 429 
 
 angry masters. " Never man spake like this man." What 
 an excuse to make to those in whose minds this was the very 
 reason for securing him ! The exasperated rulers would 
 seem to have been at the end of their strength as of their 
 patience, and could only fling a dart of scorn at the weakness 
 of their servants. " Have any of the rulers, or of the Pharisees, 
 believed on him ? " they asked with hot contempt. But this 
 speech seems to have awakened the dormant feeling of 
 Nicodemus, who had seen and heard the man of whom they 
 spoke, and whose sympathies, no doubt, were with the shamed 
 and silenced officials rather than with his brethren of the 
 Sanhedrim. He was not moved as yet to put himself 
 entirely on the side of the new prophet, and yet he could not 
 hear this cheap condemnation of him (knowing well as he 
 did that never man spake like this man) without protest. 
 " Doth our law judge any man before it hear him ? " he said. 
 In such a case even the claim of justice sounds like that of a 
 partisan. " Art thou also of Galilee ? " cry the bigots, turning 
 upon him. " Search, and look : for out of Galilee ariseth no 
 prophet." It was not much of an argument, perhaps, in 
 reply to those who had heard and seen for themselves ; but 
 such as it was it silenced Nicodemus, not ripe for any great 
 confession, as it had silenced the police and guardians of the 
 public peace. 
 
 Nevertheless, this hot discussion also seems to have 
 passed without con.sequence, for we find that early in the 
 next morning our Lord came again to the Temple, where 
 " all the people came unto him ; and he sat down, and taught 
 them." We are warned by all commentators not to take 
 the wonderful and beautiful incident here inserted as part of 
 the authentic record. It is suggested that the story of the 
 woman taken in adultery is probably a very old fragment of 
 tradition, preserved by being inscribed upon the margin of an 
 early transcript of the gospel, and from thence transferred to 
 the text by a succeeding copyist. It is one of the most 
 remarkable and, we might say, characteristic incidents in the 
 narrative, one of the most divine — in that austere calm of 
 mercy, unpunishing but all -convicting, which affords us so 
 
430 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 wonderful a view of eternal purity yet compassion. The 
 fact that it was not, as some say, in St. John's original 
 gospel is by no means an assertion that it is not true, but 
 only that it cannot be received as part of his witness to his 
 Master. It must, therefore, be set aside in the history, 
 though as an illustration there could be no more touching 
 or beautiful picture. We pass on accordingly to the 
 unquestioned record, which gives a completely changed 
 character to the discussions and conversations of this day. 
 
 The Feast of Tabernacles was by this time over. The 
 pilgrims had departed on their homeward way, the populace 
 of Jerusalem had returned to its daily life. Common work 
 and toil replaced the exceptional attendances at the Temple. 
 The throng of worshippers or holiday-makers, or both, had 
 gone back to the loom and the workshop, and the affairs of 
 the house. But the work of Jesus, which was not for the 
 multitude alone, was far from being accomplished, and when 
 he came back through the deserted courts and resumed his 
 teaching to the little group of the more devout who would 
 still assemble there, the interest does not lessen though the 
 scene is changed. He was in " the treasury," a place opening 
 into the court of the women, when he opened his instruction : 
 and the great golden candlestick which stood there is supposed 
 to have suggested the opening words of his address, " I am 
 the Light of the world." The spot was close to the council- 
 chamber of the Sanhedrim, where his voice could be heard 
 as he spoke, and, no doubt, there were members of that body, 
 or of its close adherents, among the Pharisees who immedi- 
 ately broke in upon him with their questions. " Thou bearest 
 record of thyself: thy record is not true," they said, rudely 
 interrupting his discourse. It is with perfect calm and 
 composure, and a lofty tranquillity, not allowing himself to 
 be disturbed, that Jesus replies. He had already, in a pre- 
 vious discussion of the same kind, referred to the witness of 
 John the Baptist : but he does not now recur to that. " The 
 Father that sent me " is now the sole witness whom he 
 cites. The questions which these hearers of the learned 
 class ask are less intelligent, as they are also less, much less. 
 
THE SON OF DA VI D 431 
 
 respectful than those of the crowd. They treat the preacher 
 with a contemptuous abruptness, breaking in continually upon 
 his discourse, " Where is thy Father ? " " Who art thou ? " 
 they cried: "Docs he mean to kill himself?" — to each 
 other, probably with a harsh laugh of angry criticism, when 
 he warns them, as he did the multitude, that the time is 
 coming when they shall seek him but shall not be able to 
 find him. In the midst of these interruptions there would 
 seem to have gathered a larger company of the devout, who 
 were in the constant habit of attendance at the Temple, 
 while he spoke with the Pharisees : and the fragments of 
 high exposition which these wranglers permitted to be heard 
 reached the judgment, at least, if not the heart, of the wider 
 group, which probably came by degrees towards the open 
 portico to look into the chamber where he sat, discussing 
 his own claim to be heard, with that unchangeable calm 
 unmoved by any impertinence. And " many believed on 
 him," a strange statement amid the opposition and angry 
 contempt of the others, and the broken fragments which 
 were all they could hear of what he said. 
 
 The inner circle, no doubt, dissolved from time to time, 
 one set of questioners dispersing to betake themselves to 
 some more important duty than that of cross-examining the 
 Galilean — whom, probably, they thought a personage without 
 danger now that the impulsive and easily- affected crowd 
 had gone : while another took their places from among the 
 fringe of silent listeners outside, whose faces bore signs of 
 more sincere interest and emotion. And there now ensued 
 a very remarkable conversation between these semi-converts 
 and the teacher to whom the hearts of all men were known. 
 He looked at them as they drew near to fill up the places of 
 those who had gone, and addressed them in words which 
 express at once the peradventure which was still in their 
 hearts. "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my dis- 
 ciples indeed ; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth 
 shall make you free." That he should have lifted that 
 benign yet austere countenance upon those proud Jews, strong 
 in the conviction that their national faith was but to be extended 
 
432 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 and made sovereign over all by the Messiah whom they faintly 
 began to see in him — and received their first beginnings 
 of faith with so penetrating a speech, is very remarkable. 
 He who would not permit his disciples to forbid the wander- 
 ing volunteers who cast out devils in his name, but did not 
 follow him, appears in a new light when he thus checks 
 the devotees of Jerusalem. " If ye continue," the doubt 
 might be tolerated, but not the strange promise made, as if 
 they were only simple Galileans, to these men, trained from 
 their childhood to exercise their faculties upon the law. It 
 roused at once the pride of race in the bosom of those 
 citizens of the holy cit)^, conservators of the law and worship 
 which they hoped were about to become universal. They 
 answered him with the quickness of wonder and dawning 
 offence. " We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage 
 to any man : how sayest thou. Ye shall be made free ? " 
 
 The test thus put to them was one they could ill bear. 
 Captivities and bondage they had known many, notwith- 
 standing this proud assertion of independence, and at that 
 very moment were within the rigid bond of the Roman empire. 
 But yet in their hearts they had always considered themselves 
 the reigning race, the chosen people, sole depositaries of the 
 truth of God, destined to subdue the world and enforce 
 everywhere the law which was theirs ; and even Messiah 
 could not be permitted to question their superiority. " We 
 be Abraham's seed " — Abraham, to whom the promise was 
 given that his seed should reign over the whole earth. They 
 must have grown more and more angry, revolting against 
 the doctrine which proclaimed them all the servants of sin, 
 as other men were, as he went on ; until at last their 
 arrogance and pretence of superiority drew from him the 
 tremendous accusation, "Ye are of your father the devil." 
 Had the Pharisees, the original controversialists, come back 
 by this time to take the part of their brethren ? The words 
 " Now ye seek to kill me " would seem to imply this : at all 
 events, the Jews who were around, notwithstanding their 
 partial belief, took up the challenge and threw it back upon 
 himself. 
 
THE SON OF DA VI D 433 
 
 Nothing could have been more dangerous for his own 
 safety than such a discussion ; for there was no longer round 
 him the partial protection of the multitude, the contagion 
 of their excitement and enthusiasm, but only the party whose 
 entire principle of life was struck at the very roots by his 
 assumption, and whom he never for a moment conciliates or 
 yields to. The gentleness, the pity, the toleration, and pro- 
 found understanding of every human difficulty which have 
 been so conspicuous in him here disappear. The sinner, 
 the publican, the beggar, all who were in misery, all who had 
 learnt the impossibilities of this life and their own powcr- 
 lessness, had been received by him with never-failing tender- 
 ness. Even after the young man who was not able to make 
 up his mind to the sacrifice of his wealth and importance, 
 Jesus had looked with an affectionate regret, not blaming, 
 only longing that he might learn a truer insight. But 
 with these men in the Temple all his tenderness disappears. 
 Their confidence in themselves, and certainty that they are 
 not as other men: their resistance to the spiritual meaning of 
 the teaching which has compelled the acquiescence of their 
 intellect, even when they are forced to believe in it : 
 their determination to understand him, the great revealer 
 of the Father, as but a new official in the service of the 
 Temple " restoring Israel " to the first place in the world, 
 and bringing themselves into the highest distinction — are 
 beyond even the tolerance of his perfect understanding. The 
 selfishness which is so often unconscious, of sinful nature, 
 can be turned into self-abnegation, the unclean can be made 
 clean, the demoniac sane : but what save the utter beating 
 down of judgment can change the Pharisee ? Not sons ot 
 Abraham as is their boast, but sons of the devil, doing his 
 works, maintaining his everlasting lie. " Your father Abra- 
 ham ! " Our Lord has come to a time and place in which 
 he no longer retains any reserve upon the facts of his own 
 wonderful being ; but we may, perhaps, be permitted to 
 imagine that the high human indignation in him, and con- 
 sciousness of all the wrong that had been done in that holy 
 and faithful name, a little forced his utterance. " Your 
 
 2 F 
 
434 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 father Abraham rejoiced to see my day : he saw it, and was 
 glad." This sudden extraordinary gleam of light into the 
 mystery and the unity of a world of which that was the 
 all-pervading ever-continued thread of story and of interest, 
 disclosed, in fact, the highest glory of Abraham's race. But 
 the hearers may be pardoned if, bewildered and overawed, as 
 they evidently were, it was the incredible fact thus suggested 
 that struck them most, " Thou art not yet fifty years old, and 
 hast thou seen Abraham ? " It would follow naturally in 
 the course of the narrative that here he rose, having con- 
 cluded his argument, to withdraw from that scene of con- 
 troversy which was so little congenial to him ; and there 
 standing, looking at those fanatics for Moses, those children 
 of Abraham, uttered the wonderful words, " Before Abraham 
 was, I am." 
 
 The majesty of these brief syllables, the extraordinary 
 grandeur and simplicity of the assertion, are beyond all com- 
 ment. " They took up stones to cast at him," the record 
 goes on, but vainly, who could doubt defeated by their 
 own hearts that beat and their own arms that trembled : and 
 " Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple," concealed 
 by the dazzling and bewilderment that must have come to 
 every eye. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MESSIAS 
 
 In the meantime, while these incidents had been taking place 
 in the consecrated city where all things were to be fulfilled and 
 accomplished, the wonderfijl background of life in Galilee 
 had gone on surrounding and enclosing all. It is not 
 needful for our purpose, as has been said, nor according 
 to our desire, to enter fully into that history which, what- 
 ever may be the beliefs of those who read it, must always 
 remain the most wonderful on earth. In Jerusalem our Lord 
 walks in the midst of contention and questioning, constrained 
 (if we may with reverence use such a word) by the pressure 
 of circumstances about him to answer for himself, to 
 maintain his high unwavering assertion of his own office 
 and character, to leave his adversaries no excuse. But in 
 Galilee the Son of God is also the Child of Nature, moving 
 in a harmonious circle of beneficence and wisdom, letting 
 no sufferer pass unheeded, no human want unsupplicd, 
 shedding forth from him without effort, as one who could 
 not help it, not only acts but words of grace, such as human 
 breath had never uttered before. 
 
 From the shores of the lake to the summit of those green 
 and rounded hills, where every slope seems to include a grassy 
 platform for the listeners, a knoll for the speaker, as they 
 descend in soft circles to the water line — all is eloquent with 
 recollections. Along the beach with its fishing villages, now 
 mostly swept away, with its fishing cobbles laid up on the 
 gleaming shore, and the soft hills on the other side in a haze 
 
436 THE FINAL TRAGEDY 
 
 of sunshine, the pilgrim feels as if there wants but a little, 
 and he might himself see that wayfarer moving along, calling 
 the sunburnt fishers from the boats, turning round benignant 
 to see those two following who had been with John in the 
 wilderness, pausing to cast a look of kindness upon the tax- 
 gatherer at his bar, whom no man cared to speak to, but whom 
 He bid to follow too. I can never forget a Sunday morning 
 there, a rapture of light and freshness, soft waters rippling on 
 the beach, soft airs lifting the opened hangings of the tent, the 
 lake lying calm in the great glory of the sunshine, the distant 
 outlines all veiled in mists of light, and a sense of still adora- 
 tion, hushed as if by His very presence ; nor the subsequent 
 voyage across the lake to where the city which rejected him, 
 that Capernaum which was exalted unto heaven, lies dumb 
 in inarticulate ruin, not one stone standing on another, upon 
 the water's edge. All blessed was the day, the light, the 
 hour, even the sudden quick wind that sprang up, so that 
 the boatmen, like those of old, had to " toil in rowing " against 
 the rapid rising of the waves : all blessed, though filled since 
 then with other poignant memories not to be forgotten, and 
 the sigh never long silent in the heart, 
 
 For the touch of a vanished hand, 
 And the sound of a voice that is still. 
 
 The associations which gather round this scene are of a 
 different order from those which belong to Jerusalem : not 
 that disturbance or contention was wanting in this more 
 than any other human scene : but no gloomy presence of 
 rigid law-perverting Pharisee, or spruce sceptic of a scribe 
 in borrowed plumes of heathen philosophy, can sully the fresh 
 morning of divine life, the harmony of holy teaching, the 
 blessings of the mount, the sacred story, fable, allegory 
 which He told as he sat, withdrawn a little in his ship 
 upon the silvery water's edge, to the eager multitude, and 
 explained as he walked along, or rested on the way, to his 
 wondering disciples. In Jerusalem that great tragedy is 
 ever tragic and the end never hid from the impassioned 
 and anxious spectatorship of all the ages. But the heart 
 
MESSIAS 439 
 
 turns to Galilee with a rebound of happiness, of loving 
 contemplation, and eternal hope, and wc all feel again as 
 if no cross or agony could be : " Be it far from thee, Lord !" 
 but only the spectacle of a whole world revolving about the 
 Sun of Righteousness, recognising its God walking as a 
 man among men. 
 
 Our Lord returned to his home in the north after the 
 controversies and the dangers of the Feast of Tabernacles. 
 But by this time all the privacy and sweetness of his 
 early life was over, and the province awaited him in a 
 fever of excitement, lit up by many causes. Not only the 
 fierce fire of opposition raging among those who found in 
 his teachings a contradiction of all their own rigid system, 
 a setting aside of the ceremonial law in which they lived 
 and moved and had their being : and that responsive 
 conflagration of enthusiasm which moved the people whom 
 the Lord fed and healed, to attempt to take him by force 
 and make him their king : but a thousand individual hopes 
 and expectations of deliverance from suffering, and salvation 
 from death, of satisfaction of doubts and confirmation in 
 faith : must have been growing in every village, by every 
 path along which it was hoped that he might pass. The 
 country waited for him, alert for every signal : many a 
 woman at her door intent upon the way, thinking of her 
 sick child or ailing husband, as well as the groups in the 
 synagogue and the coteries of the learned and superior 
 persons, who even in these simple regions clustered round 
 every centre of teaching. It must have been felt that when 
 he returned again after all those controversies and com- 
 motions at Jerusalem, something decisive must happen, 
 either the revelation in power of his office as Messiah, or 
 some demonstration that it was not he which should restore 
 Israel. Emissaries had come from Jerusalem, always with 
 the intention of entangling him in his talk, of finding some 
 occasion of judgment ; and Pharisees and Sadducecs, priests 
 and .scribes, were all on the alert to make this the final 
 episode in a career which shook their world to its 
 foundation.s. 
 
44° 
 
 THE FINAL TRAGEDY 
 
 Jesus himself would seem to have responded in the full 
 force of his human nature, not less affected by factious 
 opposition than by the tenderness of belief, to this great 
 excitement of feeling. He had never hesitated to pronounce 
 his judgment upon the formalist and the hypocrite ; but now 
 that all the powers of evil were rising against him, those 
 lips which had spoken nothing but blessing, and whose 
 familiar language was always that of love and charit}', 
 opened with lofty reproof, delivering the sentence of supreme 
 
 AIN-KT-TIN : SEA OF GALILEE 
 
 disapproval, the " Woe unto you Pharisees and Sadducees, 
 hypocrites," which joined together the two contending 
 sects, as far as the poles apart from each other, but yet 
 united in offence and bitter opposition to the springing 
 of the new life. They harassed his steps wherever he 
 appeared, making every detail of existence into a controversy, 
 plying him with cunning questions, converting the very 
 repast offered in seeming courtesy into an occasion of 
 wrangling. The crisis was now so near that all ordinary 
 restraints began to be broken. Out of doors the multitude 
 so thronged about him " that they trod one upon another." 
 When the rumour ran that he was coming, every house was 
 emptied of its inhabitants, every corner filled with anxious 
 
CHAP II MESSIAS 441 
 
 gazers, the sick brought out and laid in the streets in all 
 
 the horrors of primitive disease, an extraordinary feature of 
 the scene, hailing him with a clamour of beseeching voices, 
 maimed and wounded and forlorn, trembling with fever, 
 writhing with pain, holding up withered limbs, and uncover- 
 ing sores. Bad enough even now is the wretched throng 
 which crowds about the traveller from whom only money 
 is to be had, or the miserable shadow of money, the 
 infinitesimal Turkish coins of which a stranger rarelj' 
 understands the insignificance : but when it was health, 
 restoration, new life that was to be looked for ! And the 
 well-to-do of every village gathered conspicuous on the 
 road, the rulers of the synagogue, the lawyers who inter- 
 preted the law, and laid many burdens on men's shoulders 
 which they themselves did not touch with a finger : the 
 Pharisees, with all their pretences and exactions, lying in 
 wait, keeping an evil eye upon every movement, misinter- 
 preting every act and word : while the multitude closed in 
 around, all bent upon personal advantage, the recollection 
 of those miraculous meals, the bread of Bcthsaida, the wine 
 of Cana, and, probably, who could tell? the hope of other gains 
 and other prodigies from the hands which could command 
 everything — filling their minds with a passion of desire 
 and eagerness. The morning time of natural beneficence 
 and harmony was over ; they were ready to tear him in 
 pieces, in faith as well as in opposition ; on the one side 
 in fierce acquisitiveness to get what they wanted — on the 
 other in hatred to sweep him out of their path : but the 
 one as self-seeking as the other, a rage of belief as well as a 
 rage of wrath. Between the crowd, hungry for miracle, 
 impatient to have his mission proved by some great 
 convulsion of nature, and his enemies, desiring a sign and 
 watching his every movement, especially on the Sabbath 
 day, which their vigilant superstition made anything but 
 a day of rest — it would be hard to tell which was worst. 
 
 It was to escape from this tumult, so disappointing to 
 the human heart of him, who, though he knew what was 
 in man, had, doubtless, in the intense longing of his love, 
 
442 
 
 THE FINAL TRAGEDY 
 
 hoped, as many a reformer has done since, that this time 
 something different was to be looked for — with so much more 
 reason than any other, though with the certainty so much 
 stronger than any other, of the tragic end of all : that Jesus 
 left his favoured province and wandered forth towards the 
 great sea " into the borders of Tyre and Sidon," and even 
 farther afield " through all the cities of Decapolis," which 
 may have included Damascus. It gives a new interest 
 
 PILGRIMS tent: ain-et-tin, near uethsaida 
 
 to that city of enchantment to think 
 peradventure that " those blessed feet. 
 
 there 
 
 IS even a 
 
 Which nineteen hundred years ago were nailed 
 For our advantage to the bitter cross," 
 
 may have walked its unchanging streets. But of this journey 
 there is no record except in a faint glimpse here and there 
 showing the wandering party in unlikely places on that way. 
 It is supposed to have been on their return towards Galilee 
 that they passed by the fine Roman colony called Cassarea 
 Philippi, with its temples and grottoes, among the silvery 
 intricacies of the sources of Jordan, where still the relics of 
 
MESSIAS 
 
 443 
 
 the great Temple of Pan disturb the surface of the rocks, 
 and the little Syrian village of Banias stands brightly amid 
 a refreshing greenness of foliage familiar to Western eyes, 
 dearer than the gray olives, or dark pines, or palms of Eastern 
 vegetation. It was here that Peter's confession of the Lord 
 Christ was made, and rewarded by his Master's emphatic 
 approval and promise. The same journey has appeared to 
 many commentators to make it likely that it was on some 
 height of Hermon, under the level of the gleaming snows, 
 that the Transfiguration took place, instead of upon the 
 familiar Tabor of the home landscape, so round and green. 
 But these can only be regarded as suggestions, since neither 
 Hermon nor Damascus is mentioned in the record. It is 
 difficult, however, to imagine what could have taken them to 
 Caesarea Philippi, unless they passed there in the course of 
 a long journey : but Tabor would lie in their way on their 
 return from " the borders of Tyre and Sidon " to Galilee, 
 passing close by the little Nazareth, the name of which 
 Jesus still bore, and where his early years were passed. 
 
 Whatever may be the fact about these details, which are 
 of so much inferior importance, it is evident that the mystic 
 incident of the Transfiguration took place about this time. 
 It had become necessary that those disciples, who were soon 
 to become apostles, the chosen witnesses of 'his life, as of 
 his death and resurrection, should be prepared for the over- 
 whelming revelation which awaited them, of the end, so far 
 different from their hopes, of their Lord's ministry. It was 
 while travelling by the sea that his first intimation of what 
 was about to happen was received by his companions with 
 incredulity and even reproof, as the mere utterance of a fit 
 of depression, impossible to contemplate, a sort of gloomy 
 imagination not to be tolerated. Peter's exclamation, " Be 
 it far from thee. Lord ! " was indeed the most natural of 
 utterances, though it called forth the strongest expression of 
 displeasure to which his Master ever gave vent. " Peter 
 took him and began to rebuke him," for despondency, no 
 doubt, for too dark a view of men and their depravity. It 
 was on the same journey that the impetuous disciple had 
 
444 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 proclaimed his certain faith in the office of his Master, the 
 one utterance following the other with very little interval 
 between ; and the words of the Lord, " Blessed art thou, 
 Simon Bar-jona," had scarcely died out of the air, before he 
 had to bid the same eager speaker " Get thee behind me ! 
 for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the 
 things that be of man." And it was very shortly after that 
 he led them up into the high mountain apart, where they 
 saw a glorious vision, and heard the conversation of heaven 
 about that which they had refused to credit, that which their 
 minds refused to receive, the decease to be accomplished at 
 Jerusalem. It seems little likely that they derived much 
 benefit from this at the time. The glory was too much for 
 their dazzled eyes. The bewildered suggestion of Peter 
 about the three tabernacles shows how little comprehension 
 of the real object of that wonderful incident had penetrated 
 his mind ; the glorious robes, the shining countenances, the 
 sudden transportation into a new world of wonder, in which 
 external life disappears like a shadow, flooded his mind with 
 amaze ; and a shrine to shield the human eyes and make 
 worship possible was all his strained faculties could think of, 
 not the subject of that high discourse which was intended to 
 bring the things of God down to the capacity of man. But 
 they remembered afterwards, and knew what it meant. 
 
 Many of the most pregnant sayings of our Lord, his 
 most wonderful addresses and touching offices of mercy, were 
 done at this time. The repeated announcements of his own 
 approaching suffering and death were too clear, as it appears 
 to us who have known all our lives what followed, to be 
 mistaken or misapprehended : but it is evident that the dis- 
 ciples still continued to misapprehend, and did not, for some 
 time even after these anticipations were fulfilled, perceive 
 how distinctly they had been warned of what was to come. 
 It was now that he called a little child and set him in the 
 midst of them, and told these eager enthusiasts, still bent 
 upon great place and promotion in the kingdom of Messiah, 
 that they must become as little children if they would so 
 much as enter into the kingdom of heaven ; and instructed 
 
MESSIAS 
 
 445 
 
 them that if a brother offended not seven times but seventy 
 times seven he should yet be forgiven ; and gathering the 
 little ones about him, commanding to forbid them not, 
 blessed the little wondering group upon the way with a 
 tenderness never to be forgotten. And it was now that — 
 his divine heart more soft than ever in the solemnity of the 
 approaching end — he looked upon and loved the young man 
 who had kept all the Commandments from his youth up, 
 yet could not find it in his heart to gain perfection by giving 
 up all he had to the poor. That it should have been at the 
 
 ON THE SHORES OF THE SEA OF UALII.EK 
 
 very moment of this youth's shrinking from so great a sacri- 
 fice that Jesus loved him, is one of the most wonderful 
 touches of nature and humanity, past all conceiving. The 
 story of the Good Samaritan (was it told upon the way 
 as the travellers ascended slowly the steep scarp of the rocky 
 road that led from Jericho to Jerusalem ?) and of the Prodigal 
 Son belong to this solemn time : and it was now that with 
 a melancholy irony, seeing the guests crowding up to the 
 best places at the Pharisees' feast, at some town where he 
 rested, he bade them for more honour choo.se the lowest 
 room, so that they might be advanced, and not expose 
 
446 THE FINAL TRAGEDY 
 
 themselves to the ignominy of being made to give place to 
 their betters. But it would be vain to attempt to enumerate 
 all the wonderful words and acts either of that last season 
 in Galilee, the country of his predilection, while he still 
 lingered upon the shores of the lake, and by the pleasant 
 greenness of the hills, or in the lingering details of the wan- 
 derings between Galilee and Jerusalem which followed. 
 
 His setting out upon the journey from which he was 
 never to return save in the mystery of resurrection, was more 
 than usually memorable. He had sent out some time before 
 seventy of his disciples, two by two " before his face into 
 every city, whither he himself would come," and received 
 their joyful report as he went on, following in their steps, 
 group by group coming back to rejoin him as he proceeded 
 on his journey. It is recorded of one of the villages in the 
 Samaritan country which lay in the way to Jerusalem, that 
 they refused to receive him, in some access of hot local 
 opposition, and he had to turn aside to rest in another. 
 That James and John, those fiery spirits who a little time 
 before had desired of him that they should sit one on his 
 right hand and the other on his left in his kingdom, should 
 now, half in righteous indignation, half with the swelling 
 sense of supernatural power and desire to silence for ever 
 every cavilling tongue, have desired to call down fire from 
 heaven (in the exultation of their recent experience that 
 even devils were subject to them in his name) to consume 
 the churlish town — is so natural in the extraordinary circum- 
 stances that we feel with them the intolerable impatience 
 which such an affront would produce. But when he turns 
 and rebukes them, the higher nature is so natural, too, in 
 supreme comprehension and pity that every thought is 
 silenced. " Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of" 
 It was John, the apostle of love, who had spoken — a man 
 of vehement feelings, yet whose whole teaching and doctrine 
 merged in his later life into the reiteration of the lessons of 
 brotherhood. He would have destroyed in his hasty impulse, 
 love for his Master being so hot in him : but he would have 
 been the first to quench with tears and with horrified entreaties 
 
CHAP. II MESSIAS 447 
 
 the juin he had made. His Master knew him far better 
 than he knew himself. 
 
 That there might be a certain justification for the 
 villagers from an economical point of view in their refusal to 
 receive him with the multitude which followed, an endless 
 train — which, though no doubt it began to fall off as the 
 distance from Galilee increased, was still a vast crowd of 
 people enough to swamp any rural place — we may also 
 allow. That they fell off by degrees is apparent from the 
 broken words which came out of one band after another as 
 they paused, reason compelling them to perceive that, short 
 of the tremendous decision to leave all and follow him, they 
 had gone far enough. For Jesus was not now bound to 
 the great feast in which all Jews were concerned, but to 
 the Feast of the Dedication, at which attendance was not 
 obligatory : and it was now winter when the roads were at 
 their worst and the weather uncertain. As they came to say 
 farewell to him there must have been many a suppres.sed 
 sound of weeping, and lingering look behind. " Lord, I will 
 follow thee whithersoever thou goest." " Lord, suffer me 
 first to go and bury my father." " Lord, let me bid farewell 
 to my household." These were the cries which they uttered 
 in their emotion, not able to tear themselves away, yet 
 knowing they could not go on. Our Lord represses this cry 
 of strained emotion with, we may imagine, the usual smile 
 of tender understanding on his face. He knew when it was 
 only the passion of temporary sorrow, the pang of leave- 
 taking which burst forth in those cries, and in his divine 
 toleration did not blame them. " Foxes have holes, and the 
 birds of the air have nests ; but the Son of man hath not 
 where to lay his head," he says to him whose feelings had 
 been too much for him, who could not bear to go, yet prob- 
 ably was all unadapted to stay : and we may imagine him 
 looking after them with a look never to be forgotten, as one 
 by one in weeping and humiliation — not able for that sacri- 
 fice, bound by all the ties of home, yet almost equally unable 
 to separate themselves from his side : they turned back to 
 their impoverished and diminished Galilee, the villages and 
 
THE FINAL TRAGEDY 
 
 rural places he had loved, yet where he was to live, and 
 teach never more. Would that man whom the Lord him- 
 self had bidden to follow, go too, to bury his father, not 
 capable of the great renunciation ? Would they say to each 
 other as the windings of the road hid the band of pilgrims 
 from their sight, drying their eyes, recovering their voices, 
 that they would see him again when they went up for the 
 Passover — that next summer he would surely be back to bless 
 their fishing and console all their troubles ? 
 
 The diminished band went on, their faces steadfastly set 
 towards Jerusalem, held back by no obstacles, turning aside 
 to another village when rejected by the first, and now more 
 easily lodged in their decreased numbers, and more intimate 
 and near to each other than when distracted by the require- 
 ments of the crowd ; the twelve surrounding him most 
 closely of all, the companions of the seventy falling into the 
 band from point to point along the way, the women of 
 Galilee attending and ministering to him, his own mother 
 ever humble and reverent, assuming no superior place. 
 Nothing can be more difficult than to trace with any exact- 
 ness the wanderings of this prolonged and double journey, 
 broken up in the midst by a rapid visit to Jerusalem, or to 
 define what was done before that visit, and what after, during 
 the time which he spent in Judea before the final proceedings 
 of the last Passover. The pilgrims would seem, at all events, 
 to have lingered on the way, perhaps kept back at first by 
 the sweeping rains that pour down in torrents in the wintry 
 season : and if we conclude that they maintained their course 
 more or less directly for Jerusalem, there is little incident to 
 record except the first visit to Bethany, where the sisters, 
 afterwards so well known, and who would seem to have been 
 at once numbered among the dearest friends of his lowli- 
 ness, received him into their house. These two women 
 stand out at once before us in the extreme brevity of the 
 record, in a simple episode which makes them instantly 
 recognisable like neighbours of our own. Martha, the thrifty 
 housewife, cumbered about many things, was the mistress ot 
 the house, and anxious with all the affection and homely 
 
MESS2AS 449 
 
 pride of a rustic hostess to serve that visitor with her best, 
 and entertain him hke a king ; but Mary, the younger sister, 
 thought of nothing but himself, and how to hear every word 
 and catch every look. Jesus did not blame that notable, 
 good woman for her absorption in household cares, until it 
 became necessary to clear the rapt listener from the charge 
 of idleness and indifference. This is the only mention of 
 that little privileged household in any gospel but that of St. 
 John : and the brother is not named who might be the 
 master of another house, or absent upon his ordinary affairs, 
 on the occasion of this first visit. 
 
 It must have been from Bethany that Jesus and his 
 disciples went into the Temple, where they appeared quietly, 
 a little travelling band, without the multitude that usually 
 dogged their footsteps. There is something in the narrative 
 that follows which suggests the early morning, the 
 Sabbath day's calm, and no one near to disturb the quiet 
 and devout progress of the little group, which, no doubt, had 
 gone up early before the world was astir. They saw " as 
 they passed by, a man which was blind from his birth," 
 sitting by the city gate, or in a porch of the Temple in 
 the early sunshine. Our Lord stopped to look at him, his 
 attention called by the question of his disciples, " Lord, 
 who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born 
 blind ? " He must have been a man well known by the 
 frequenters of the Temple that his circumstances were so 
 familiar to these strangers. Jesus paused to see the object 
 of the question, and then with a curious unwonted ceremony 
 put the clay he had made upon the blind eyes and dis^ 
 missed him quietly to wash in the Pool of Siloam — perhaps 
 in order to avoid the tumult which so striking a miracle 
 would have caused : and proceeded — to all appearance almost 
 without interruption — with his teaching as if nothing had 
 happened. The whole transaction bears the mark of the 
 utmost simplicity and naturalness. The man was not 
 sought out for the miracle's sake : he uttered no petition, 
 was, one may believe, taken by surprise altogether by the 
 sudden operation ; and though he had faith enough to go 
 
 2 G 
 
4SO THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 down the Temple hill to the Pool of Siloam, it was probably 
 with no more than a wondering thrill of the strange possibility 
 that it might come true : for he was no believer, not a person 
 of awakened intelligence at all : the great prophet of Nazareth 
 about whom all men wondered, and whose character had 
 been so hotly discussed in these very precincts, being to him 
 only " a man called Jesus." But when he " came seeing," 
 according to the brief and simple narrative, meeting the 
 worshippers going up to the Temple, and all the neighbours 
 who had known him all his life, a growing commotion arose. 
 There is no reason to believe that he hastened back again 
 to thank his deliverer as would have seemed natural, nor 
 is there any sign about him of anything higher than a 
 shrewd practical intelligence, appreciating the advantage he 
 had gained and nothing more. He does not proclaim the 
 wonder to the world, but comes back soberly, a prosaic 
 person, pleased, no doubt, and happy in his restoration, but 
 not demonstrative, nor even roused to any enthusiasm by 
 the wonderful gift which he had received. 
 
 And now once more the scene of popular excitement 
 and questioning which the Evangelist John has so special 
 a gift of rendering, rises before us. The startled people 
 collected round, growing into a crowd, as the well-known 
 beggar of the gate, the blind man to whom they had given 
 their alms as they went to worship for years, met them, 
 with open eyes walking back towards his usual post. There 
 arose immediately a babel of voices questioning and answer- 
 ing. " Is not this he that sat and begged ? " some saying 
 " He is like him," others " This is he." The man himself, less 
 excited it would appear than the spectators, at once inter- 
 posed to acknowledge his identity and to explain what had 
 happened. The inconceivable calm of his attitude amid 
 the excitement of the people is wonderful to behold. He 
 seems as if he might be disposed to ask what all the fuss 
 was about. " A man that is called Jesus made clay, and 
 anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of 
 Siloam, and wash : and I went and washed, and I received 
 sight." Then said they unto him " Where is he ? " He 
 
CHAP. II MESSIAS 451 
 
 said " I know not." Some zealots, it would appear, now 
 joined the crowd, roused by the name, scenting again a 
 controversy, a prosecution, a breach of the law of the 
 Sabbath, in this sudden reappearance of the Galilean ; and 
 hurried the object of the miracle off to the Pharisees, perhaps 
 to the office of the Sanhedrim, perhaps to some lesser 
 bureau of government, where he might be examined at 
 length. The story goes on with an extraordinary fulness of 
 life and nature. Finding it impossible to deny the fact 
 which was before their eyes, the officials confused him with 
 questions, demanding his opinion — which could have so little 
 to do with the matter ! finally sending for his parents, poor 
 bewildered people who were yet wise enough to decline to 
 answer compromising questions, and to refer their examiners 
 to the chief actor himself. " We know that this is our son, 
 and that he was born blind," they reply ; " but by what 
 means he now seeth, or who hath opened his eyes, we know 
 not : he is of age, ask him ; he shall speak for himself." 
 The once-blind man seems to have been gradually aroused 
 by the fight going on over him. His faculties awakened 
 as his eyesight had done : his shrewd natural sense saw at 
 once the fallacy of the angry assertions of his questioners. 
 " Herein is a marvellous thing," he cried at length, " that ye 
 know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened 
 mine eyes." Among the fruitless, factious reasonings of 
 the disturbed officials, striving to convince themselves and 
 others that what they saw was not the fact, the shrewd 
 untrained beggar of the Temple gates stands forth as the 
 representative of sound sense and reason, unbiassed even by 
 the gratitude which he owes, but does not seem to be in 
 any way strongly affected by. 
 
 In the meantime, while that argument went on, all 
 would seem to have been quiet in the Temple above. The 
 most continuous discourse which has yet been reported to 
 us in Jerusalem, Jesus seems to have delivered without 
 interruption that day : not, we may be certain, without an 
 audience, but one most likely of an unpolitical kind, the 
 daily worshippers who never failed, with perhaps a greater 
 
452 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 leaven than usual of strangers and simple folk bound to no 
 official maintenance of ritual and tradition. One can 
 imagine the various committees of the Sanhedrim occupied 
 with the new wonder that had been brought before them, 
 messengers running to and fro with one communication 
 after another, and ever-new precautions to be taken to keep 
 this fact from the knowledge of the multitude : while all the 
 time an act more great, the enunciation of the great truths 
 of the Gospel, went on undisturbed. Once more as always 
 at Jerusalem it is his own great and unique mission, de- 
 clared in the fullest terms, which our Lord explains to his 
 hearers, without compromise or faltering. " I am the door of 
 the sheep," by which alone they can enter the fold. " I am 
 the good shepherd : I lay down my life for the sheep. I 
 lay down my life, that I may take it again. No man taketh 
 it from me, but I lay it down of myself I have power to 
 lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This 
 commandment I have received of my Father." Such words 
 as these had been already said privately to the Apostles on 
 several occasions, but had been received only with bewilder- 
 ment and never understood until after everything was 
 accomplished. Now they were proclaimed in the most 
 public place of Jerusalem, a mystery which was plain as 
 the daylight afterwards, but now, what ? nothing but 
 blasphemy. 
 
 All our Lord's addresses delivered at Jerusalem are, we 
 repeat, of the same nature. He does not repeat there 
 the teaching of the Galilean hills. All that he says at 
 Jerusalem is blasphemy — or else it is true. There is no 
 middle course. With the rulers, the judges, the learned of 
 his nation, he attempts no compromise at any time. To 
 them he does not show himself merely as a benign instructor, 
 the preacher of a new and divine code of faith and practice. 
 It is his credentials which he places before them, the high 
 assertion of his office, the claim of a position and authority 
 to which theirs is as nothing. The poor to whom it was 
 one sign of his divine mission that the Gospel was preached 
 were no judges in that question. The Pharisees, the Scribes, 
 
CHAP. II MESS/AS 453 
 
 the priests, were the representatives of the government of 
 Israel, the only tribunal of doctrine, the interpreters of the 
 law and the prophets. And the words which he addressed 
 to them or within their hearing were emphatically what they 
 declared them to be — blasphemy : or else the only truth for 
 the salvation of Israel and of mankind. 
 
 It could not be without a purpose that this great differ- 
 ence was made. And the words which he uttered in the 
 Temple court while all the commotion over the blind beggar 
 was going on in private, form the fullest and most connected 
 discourse in which it is presented before us. The teaching of 
 Jesus is never without this great claim : but in Jerusalem it 
 is almost the claim alone which is his subject. He is the 
 living water, the light of the world, the Good Shepherd — 
 finally, the one and only being in the human race who /ays 
 down his life that he may take it again. Martyrs there have 
 been before and since, sufferers involuntary, yet not unwilling, 
 consenting to God's decrees ; but never one of whom this 
 could be said, who would dare to say it. Blasphemy, who 
 could doubt it? — or else — : The alternative was plain. 
 
 And who can wonder that after the uninterrupted utter- 
 ance of that Sabbath morning there should have been " a 
 division among the Jews for these sayings " ? Not long 
 could that calm last. He who did not come to bring peace 
 but a sword, in this special region, to that organisation which 
 it was his mission to replace and transform if not to destroy, 
 could not long be left to tell the wondrous tale of his own 
 being and office undisturbed. Much he had said that was 
 wonderful before, but never anything so wonderful as this. 
 " Many of them said. He hath a devil and is mad," — what 
 wonder ? Take the words alone and they were more than 
 madness, they were blasphemy, and the most tremendous 
 assumption ever made by man. Yet those who looked upon 
 him, who followed the discourse to its end and studied the 
 speaker, knew that these were not the words of him that hath 
 a devil, and that never man spake like this man. And evi- 
 dently by this time the news of the last miracle had spread 
 among the crowd and moved the baser sort, so that even 
 
454 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 the Pharisees had begun to ask : " Can a devil open the 
 eyes of the blind ? " 
 
 The Apostle pauses here to give a touch of local de- 
 scription. " It was winter, and Jesus walked in the temple 
 in Solomon's porch," which is believed to have been 
 the great cloister running along the eastern wall, which 
 rested upon the vast vaults still existing called Solomon's 
 stables, and looked towards the Mount of Olives. Like the 
 Greek philosophers, the Hebrew teachers walked under the 
 sheltering portico surrounded by their disciples, and talked 
 and taught and explained, the spectators about ever ready 
 to suggest a doubt or ask a question. There no doubt it 
 was that he had found the blind man in the morning in 
 some sheltered corner, waiting for the alms of the passers-by 
 who knew him and his habitual seat. The whole scene is 
 clear as if it had occurred yesterday. And something of the 
 bewildered confusion of the officials who wrangled over the 
 beggar, incapable of denying the wonder that was before 
 their eyes, seems to have filled the minds of the ruling class 
 in the portico : once more brought face to face with this 
 strange Prophet who appeared and disappeared in so sudden 
 a way, and whom perhaps they had hoped after so long an 
 interval to have been rid of: as they met and stopped and 
 discussed among themselves, ever eyeing him who passed and 
 repassed in that public walk, talking with those about him. 
 At length some one more impetuous made himself the spokes- 
 man of the rest, backed up no doubt by a band that pressed 
 behind him. " How long dost thou make us to doubt ? If 
 thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." The interpellation is 
 rude and abrupt, and no doubt many of the questioners were 
 burning for an answer which should justify them in seizing 
 him then and there. Our Lord's reply is given from a 
 height of divine calm which it is evident exasperated his 
 questioners beyond bearing. It would seem to have been 
 half addressed to them and half a continuation to his own 
 immediate followers of the foregoing discourse. " I have told 
 you, and ye believed not," he says to his angry questioners : 
 " the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness 
 
CHAi'. II MESS/AS 455 
 
 of iiie : but ye believe not ; because ye are not of my sheep." 
 And then was it ? half turning to the more intimate band 
 around him, that he said : 
 
 " My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they 
 follow me : and I will give unto them eternal life ; and they 
 shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of 
 my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than 
 all : and none is able to pluck them out of my Father's 
 hand. I and my Father are one." 
 
 Could there be a more complete answer, a more thor- 
 ough satisfaction of their desire for a blasphemous utterance 
 than this ? And some of them were transported with rage 
 and horror and took up stones to stone him. These missiles 
 must have fallen from their hands when he turned upon 
 them, ever calm, and asked for which of the works he had 
 done they stoned him ? an expression which looks as if they 
 had actually begun to hurl at him the first pieces of marble 
 or stone they could pick up, fragments of the perpetual 
 reparation of the Temple. " For a good work we stone thee 
 not, but for blasphemy," they cry. And surely it was blas- 
 phemy, the most unhesitating, the most assured, blasphemy, 
 which by no possible excuses could be explained away. 
 
 It is most curious that at the final trial when Jerusalem 
 was ransacked to procure witnesses against Jesus, no one of the 
 men who seized those stones in their rage, who heard him 
 say " I and my Father are one," who listened, scarcely able 
 to contain themselves, to his assertion that he could lay 
 down his life and take it again, produced themselves to prove 
 these manifest blasphemies. Had they become his followers ? 
 were they so shaken by the majestic truth in him that they 
 dared not bear that witness which would have been con- 
 clusive ? Certain it is that only some trumpery accusation 
 about destroying the Temple to which nobody gave the least 
 faith was brought against him : and the hearers of these 
 extreme words were silent It is one of the most remark- 
 able .secondary details in the history. 
 
 But he had now done all that was needful in his 
 proclamation of his mission. He withdrew from amidst the 
 
456 THE FINAL TRAGEDY tart iv 
 
 gathering crowd. His time was not yet : there were still 
 things to be done and things to be said which made him 
 conclude this portion of his ministry summarily to avoid a 
 premature end. If there was anything supernatural in his 
 disappearance from among the crowd we are not told. 
 When they sought him to take him he was gone : and for a 
 few months more he returned to the life of the wandering 
 prophet and teacher, with this difference, that he went to his 
 own Galilee no more. 
 
 The place to which Jesus and his disciples betook them- 
 selves was that spot on the other side of the river " beyond 
 Jordan, in the place where John at first baptized," where he 
 remained fqjj some time sought out by many, and pursued 
 by questioners, by Scribes and Pharisees, by all the old traps 
 and snares in conversation to which he had been used, as 
 well as to many touching incidents and appeals. Many of 
 the most remarkable of the parables were told among 
 the people of this region, to whom his teaching was 
 new, and who came out in crow^ds to meet and to 
 attend him wherever he went. That the general interest 
 was very great is clear from every word. The rulers 
 from every synagogue, the lawyers and learned classes, 
 and those Pharisees who occupied the principal place in 
 every community, seem to have come out from every city 
 and village to hear this man whom so many asserted to be 
 the Messiah, but some an inspired demoniac casting out 
 devils through Beelzebub the prince of the devils. The 
 wondering crowd followed him everywhere, pushing even 
 into his private conversations with his disciples, following 
 the pilgrim band with a rapt attention. Sometimes he 
 turned from those intimate conversations, in his walks 
 through that warm and flow^cry region where the early 
 spring began to bloom, and the iris stood up in sheaves of 
 snowy blossoms about the way, to throw forth a little 
 apologue, a story to keep and ponder in the hearts of the 
 common folk. The grain of mustard-seed which grew and 
 waxed into a tree, the leaven which was hidden in the dry 
 mass of meal till it pervaded the whole, the emphatic tale 
 
MESSIAS 457 
 
 of the fig-tree which bore no fruit and was condemned, yet 
 spared till the husbandman had dug about its roots and 
 given it another chance for life : all short, all full of mean- 
 ing, teaching their lesson with one vivid illustration from 
 the common objects about. His more intimate intercourse 
 with his disciples seems to have been chiefly directed to 
 their encouragement and the strengthening of their faith 
 and trust in time to come. He bids them to look at the 
 birds twittering upon every bush, things of no account, yet 
 not one of them forgotten before God. He bids them con- 
 sider the lilies of the field which toil not rtor spin, yet are 
 arrayed as never was Solomon in all his glory : how much 
 more value are they than the sparrows, how, much more 
 than the flowers ? When they are brought before the 
 magistrates and into the synagogues to answer for them- 
 selves, he bids them take no thought what they are to 
 say, " For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in that same 
 hour what ye ought to say." How troubled and perplexed 
 they must have been as they listened, not knowing what 
 he could mean, nor why it was necessary thus to comfort 
 their hearts beforehand, as for some mysterious need yet 
 to come ; and how their excitement would be relieved 
 yet disappointed when he turned aside and looked at the 
 crowd behind and spoke his parable, leaving the germ of 
 Divine story to quicken and fructify in the common soil, 
 who may venture to describe ? They could not shut their 
 ears to the repeated references he made to something that 
 was about to be accomplished at Jerusalem, which would 
 make the next Passover a great era to them all : but, per- 
 haps, in the dread anxiety and sense of approaching fate, 
 would turn their faces from it, rather than confront that 
 mysterious catastrophe of which no one could tell what it 
 was to be. 
 
 Everything seems to become more emphatic as the 
 stream of life thus rushes towards its end. The parables, 
 save in one or two cases, are shorter, more condensed, cut 
 as it were in the stone. The Pharisee and the publican in 
 the Temple, which stands out like a picture, not with the 
 
4S8 THE FINAL TRAGEDY tart iv 
 
 soft touch of the earlier general teaching, but such a con- 
 trast as no one could forget : the man who bade his soul 
 to take rest, to eat and drink and be merry since he had 
 stores laid up for many years — have a character far more 
 intense and energetic than such allegories as that of the 
 sower, the wheat and the tares, and many which he had 
 spoken in the early days of his career, seated on the grassy 
 hillside or in his little ship. His voice is now that of one 
 who has no time to lose. 
 
 And yet the band must have lingered in the deep vale 
 of Jordan where the spring came sooner than elsewhere, and 
 where the people who had been the first hearers of John the 
 Baptist dwelt, with his revelation in their minds, doubly eager 
 to hear and see this man of whom John had spoken, and to 
 determine for themselves if he were in truth the Messias of 
 whom that son of the wilderness had proclaimed himself the 
 forerunner. There seem to have been constant comparisons 
 of his preaching, of his life and work, with those of Jesus. 
 " John did no miracle : but all things that John spake of 
 this man were true." There could be no closer test of John's 
 testimony than this progress through the very district that 
 had rung with it, and in which there would be a natural 
 inclination to exalt him at the expense of any rival. No 
 doubt, the eagerness of the crowd that followed Jesus where- 
 ever he went, to see a miracle, must have been its strongest 
 general motive : but there is no sign that our Lord did any- 
 thing to satisfy, even in that accidental way in which most 
 of his miraculous works were done, the curiosity of the 
 people. Seldom or never, at any time, did he seek an 
 occasion to show his power. It flowed from him when 
 need was, the alms of Godhead. Here was no wilderness 
 to demand a miraculous meal, the thing of all others which 
 had moved the multitude in Galilee : and it was only when 
 human need appealed to him that the Divine arm was 
 raised. 
 
 Yet were there some exceptions to this reserve, when 
 the need did present itself. At the entrance of a certain 
 village on the way there stood a miserable band of ten 
 
CHAf. II MESSJAS 459 
 
 lepers, not approaching closely, as was forbidden to them, 
 but standing afar off, moved by sudden hope as the rumour 
 on the road that preceded him reached their ears. It is 
 a sight that any traveller may see at this day in that un- 
 changing East. I shall never forget the thrill of horror 
 and pity and strange realisation as of a familiar scene, 
 that moved my own mind at the first sight of that line 
 of dark figures muffled and shrouded, yet letting a dreadful 
 face or shapeless limb appear to demonstrate their wretched- 
 ness — seated upon the edge of the road outside a smiling 
 village, with their cry of appeal to every passer-by and 
 the rattle of their money-boxes. Just so these men, dark 
 shadows with veiled faces in the evening sunshine, must 
 have stood as he approached, clamouring for an alms more 
 great than any coin. " Go, show yourselves to the priest," 
 was all he said, in a pause of his discourse : while probably 
 the others that followed were seeking out what minute piece 
 of money they could find to give to those most unhappy 
 mendicants. The shout with which they must have started 
 off on their hurried journey to fulfil that ceremonial necessity 
 which stood between them and their return to life — scarcely 
 pausing to see if the good news could be true, was, as the 
 reader knows, interrupted by but one who, seeing, perhaps, 
 his distorted hand take back some form of a human member, 
 changed that shout into a cry of praise to God, and falling 
 down upon his face gave thanks to his deliverer. Was it, 
 perhaps, for the more utter conviction of James and John 
 who had desired to call down fire from heaven on the hostile 
 village that our Lord paused to remark that this one grateful 
 soul among so many, only eager to prove their emancipation, 
 was a Samaritan ; and that the benevolent " neighbour " 
 whose story he told them to point the moral of perfect 
 charity was of that despised people too ? 
 
 When they got as far as Jericho upon their way, another 
 incident followed. There must always have been some 
 messengers going before to provide lodging and food for 
 so large a party, not to speak of that intangible rumour 
 which goes before the travellers announcing the coming of 
 
46o 
 
 THE FINAL TRAGEDY 
 
 any notable person, such as somehow arises even in our 
 own northern regions, and far more in the East. The bhnd 
 man by the wayside heard it, and roused himself, as the 
 lepers had done, to a new hope. Perhaps in the fellowship 
 of misery he might have heard the story from one of them 
 hurrying homewards to make his deliverance known. We 
 see incidentally from this narrative that there was again 
 a multitude accompanying the pilgrims as they moved 
 onward, no doubt a little crowd from every village eager 
 
 KHAN ON THE ROAD TO JERICHO, BY TRADITION THAT OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN 
 
 to hear, and still more to see, any prodigy, pressing upon 
 the steps of the wayfarers. The blind beggar by the way 
 could not see who was passing, but the hum of the multitude 
 reached his eager ears, and he would seem to have begun 
 his cry (possibly as he was in the habit of beginning his sing- 
 song appeal for charity) before it was possible it could be heard 
 by the ear to which it was addressed. " Jesus, thou Son of 
 David ! Jesus, thou Son of David !" He had been told that it 
 was Jesus of Nazareth who was passing by, but must have 
 had some other knowledge that dictated that name. It would 
 seem that the Apostles had become weary by this time of 
 those perpetual outcries of the multitude, or the cynical 
 
CHAP. II MESSIAS 461 
 
 ingratitude of the lepers may have disgusted them — for 
 those of them who were in advance rebuked the bh'nd man 
 for his ceaseless cry. Not so their Master, who heard no 
 cry for mercy unmoved ; and the train followed on to 
 Jericho with the once-blind man following, surrounded, we 
 may be sure, by the wondering and delighted crowd, strain- 
 ing his opened eyes, let us hope, to follow him whose 
 benignant countenance had been the first thing they saw. 
 
 The wintry weather had lost all its rigour in that ever 
 warm and fertile plain where, deep below the level of the 
 ocean, summer has laid out a teeming garden of everlasting 
 warmth and greenness. The dusty convoy had wound 
 along, seen like a moving speck across the levels of the 
 landscape, receiving from every hamlet its contingent, grow- 
 ing as it proceeded, with those that followed and with those 
 that came out to meet the wonderful travellers, during the 
 whole course of the day ; and Jericho itself had by this time 
 heard the news of the miracle, and rushed out of all its 
 streets scarcely more eager to see the face of the prophet 
 than that familiar figure of blind Bartimseus, known to 
 every child, the beggar on the roadside, now marching 
 along with the throng of wondering attendants and eyes 
 transfused with light and tears, that saw. The story of 
 the humble Zacchaeus, a man of so little account in his 
 smallness of stature and unimportance, that he would have 
 been swept by in the progress of the crowd had he not 
 climbed up into the tree where he could see and be unseen, 
 would come in as a still more effective parable to the 
 Pharisees, who in such an important place as Jericho must 
 have been many, and whose indignation at the Teacher's 
 preference of the despised tax-gatherer would break all 
 bounds. From that city of the plain, lying in the still 
 heat of its low level, Jesus might look across to the grim 
 boundary, the weird and contorted mountains with their 
 convulsed pinnacles and ravines like scars in the rock, 
 which were the scene of that early and mysterious episode 
 of his life which is called the Temptation : that was 
 the first chapter of his career, it was meet that he should 
 
462 THE FINAL TRAGEDY tart iv 
 
 pass by a spot full of such memories on his way to 
 the last. 
 
 The greatest of all the miracles, the crown and climax 
 of his work in this kind, was now preparing ; and it is 
 almost the only one in which we can suppose that there 
 was any predetermined intention, seeing that it did not 
 like all the rest spring from the necessities or occurrences 
 of the moment. In the case of Lazarus, our Lord did 
 visibly await the time in which this final act should have 
 its full solemnity as a sign and prodigy. In the case of 
 the young man at Nain, he had met the burial procession 
 and seen the anguish of the mother, such anguish as, being 
 there with that power in his hand, he could not pass by. 
 But in this, every circumstance was full of meaning. He 
 did not for once bestir himself at the first cry of the appeal, 
 " he whom thou lovest is sick " : but remained quietly where 
 he was " for two days," leaving the sickness to run its fatal 
 course. Where he was at this time we are not distinctly told, 
 except that it was beyond the bounds of Judea, and probably 
 still on the other side of Jordan, to which he returned after 
 his missionary journeys as for the moment his settled place 
 of abode. When at the end of two days he proposed to 
 his disciples to go to Judea, he was surrounded at once 
 by anxious remonstrances, " Master, the Jews of late sought 
 to stone thee ; and goest thou thither again ? " This would 
 seem to establish that there could have been no intermediate 
 visit to Jerusalem, since that attempt to stone him is the 
 last recorded. When they perceived that he would go, 
 there is a tragic resignation in the tone of the disciples. 
 " Let us also go, that we may die with him," says Thomas, 
 the sceptic, he who found it so hard to believe the deeper 
 mysteries of the Gospel. Clearly he perceived what was 
 personal and positive with no illusions. 
 
 It would be at once vain and presumptuous to retell the 
 story of that most affecting episode. " Our friend Lazarus " 
 was well known to the wandering band, who probably had 
 found rest and shelter in his peaceful village many a night 
 while spending the day amid the contentions of Jerusalem. 
 
CHAP. II MESS/AS 463 
 
 The name of Bethany must have meant hospitality, a kind 
 welcome, and peaceful repose to them all, far enough off 
 from the city to escape all its noise and distractions, yet 
 not beyond the limit of a Sabbath day's journey, or an 
 evening walk into the grateful quiet, the rustle of the corn 
 and the soft shade of olive-trees. They were so much 
 concerned, however, for their Master's safety, which was 
 their chief thought, that anxiety for Lazarus seems to have 
 held a very secondary place in their minds : and it is evident 
 that they took their way with great reluctance towards the 
 country in which his far more precious life was in danger. 
 
 It must have been with the sense of an escape, temporary 
 at least, from an ever-threatening peril, that after all the 
 overwhelming emotion of these scenes at Bethany, the little 
 band closed once more around their Lord, and encircled 
 him as he went down again from the pleasant slope, where 
 all the winds blow sweet and fresh over the hill-country of 
 Judea, into the valley of the Jordan and along the northern 
 road by which as yet no pilgrims were coming to the feast 
 This time there arc no further details of a public mission. 
 The little band goes silently away into the obscurity and 
 quiet, " to a city called Ephraim," which no one has 
 identified, but which probably lay to the north-east of 
 Jerusalem towards Samaria, but on the edge of the wilder 
 country about Jordan — out of the common route, perhaps 
 still within sight of those rocky and awful mountains of 
 the Quarantania with their terrible caflons and terraces, 
 where the Temptation had taken place. The town could 
 have been at no great distance from Jerusalem, as we 
 measure distances, but lost in the depths of an unknown 
 region to those who travelled everywhere on foot and who 
 avoided dangers by keeping to the accustomed way. 
 
 But how long Jesus remained there, or if he did 
 anything but rest in solemn anticipation of all the 
 mysteries that were about to be accomplished, we arc 
 not told. As it was the time of the Passover which was 
 to be the moment of his supreme offering, and he desired 
 "with desire," that is with all his heart, to accomplish those 
 
464 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part tv 
 
 rites for the last time, and eat that common supper with 
 his disciples, before fulfilling and abolishing the great 
 typical sacrifice, it was essential that he should remain 
 hidden and quiet until his hour had come ; for by this 
 time the factions of the Jews had thrown off all disguise, 
 and the high priests had given orders that he was to be 
 taken into custody wherever found. No doubt Jerusalem 
 had been stirred to its depths by the last and greatest 
 miracle which he had accomplished in that hurried and 
 unexpected appearance between two periods of exile, when 
 no one looked for him, appearing and disappearing again 
 before any warrant or officer could be sent after him. 
 And now absolute silence enveloped him around, for a 
 few weeks perhaps — it could scarcely be more : — before the 
 supreme moment came of the world's history, and the climax 
 of his work on earth. 
 
■'^ '^ \c 1/7 /> 
 
 4^^»^.¥ 
 
 2 H 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE END OF THE JEWISH DISPENSATION 
 
 It is a work beyond the necessities of this book, and beyond, 
 I am glad to think, at once the powers and the requirements 
 of a writer of the nineteenth century, to rewrite or to attempt 
 to ampHfy or render more clear the great story of that 
 Divine tragedy accomplished at Jerusalem, at once the 
 crowning glory and condemnation of the little Judean city, 
 thus made into the centre of history, a place of wonder and 
 awe and everlasting interest to all the world, the end of so 
 much that is all-important to mankind, the beginning and 
 point of departure to so much that is more important still. 
 We may almost say with St. John that if all that has been 
 written since of commentary upon that event were collected 
 together, " the whole world," certainly all its known libraries 
 and storehouses, would not be able to contain them. It has 
 been the one subject of which the mind of Christendom has 
 never tired. It has penetrated the deepest darkness, and 
 inspired the simplest and the strongest souls. It is well for 
 cultured persons at their ea.se to speak of the criticisms that 
 have abolished Christianity, or the civilisations that have 
 outgrown it, or the supposed Service of Man that has 
 superseded it. The.se little .systems have their day, rising 
 perhaps into a little factitious enthusiasm from time to time 
 during the long centuries, dying away with every trifling 
 generation that has given them birth : but nothing can ever 
 obliterate the traces of that agony and passion, the great 
 Sufferer upon the Cross, the .shining figure of the Resurrection 
 
468 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 morning. What a mean and impoverished world would that 
 be from which these recollections were driven ! But such a 
 condition is one which, happily, the mind cannot conceive, 
 even the very assailants of these heavenly mysteries having 
 their own minds and the atmosphere they breathe so per- 
 meated by them, that it is in the very strength of that breath 
 of life that they sound their little trumpets against the 
 influence which permits them to be. 
 
 But here no controversy can stand, no criticism 
 find place. Many martyrs have died, but none have 
 done more than approach the crucified feet of Him 
 who died on Calvary; many great images have stood 
 forth to men, heroes and prophets and kings, the crea- 
 tions of an inspiration little less than divine : but no 
 poet has ever imagined and no history has ever produced 
 any being so great, so noble, so pure, as to reach the level of 
 the supreme and awful, the tender and familiar image of Love 
 Incarnate. They group themselves around, behind him, at 
 his feet, though they may not have known him, enveloped 
 in a great humbleness, saying every one. We are unprofitable 
 servants ; while on his lips alone we feel it no blasphemy, 
 we acknowledge it as of right that they should say, " I lay 
 down my life, that I may take it again." What are miracles, 
 the little rays of light that penetrate through the chinks of 
 the cloud ? He is the great Miracle whom no theory has 
 ever explained. When there can be found in all the extended 
 worlds which have been discovered since that day, in all 
 the planets and systems which were but lights to rule the 
 night in the simple apprehension of his contemporaries, 
 another like him — there may then be found a spot of ground 
 on which to place the lever which will move the world : but 
 not until then. 
 
 He would seem to have returned to Jerusalem for the 
 Passover, which in its full meaning was to be the last, quietly 
 and without observation before the time of the ordinary 
 pilgrims. When those who were more devout " coming up 
 to purify themselves " some time before the feast, arrived in 
 these sacred courts, they again asked each other in whispers 
 
CHAP. Ill THE END OF THE JEWISH DISPENSATION 469 
 
 and groups apart : " What think ye, that he will come up to 
 the feast ? " Nobody could doubt what would happen if he 
 did so, unless he worked some supreme miracle such as all 
 had hoped for, and called from heaven ten legions of angels, 
 all glorious in heavenly armour, who, with the very dazzling 
 sight of them, should drive the cohorts of Imperial Rome out 
 of the rejoicing country, and make Jerusalem not only free 
 but triumphant over all the countries and kindreds of the 
 world. That was the alternative to all : to the trembling 
 souls who believed on him, to those whose position was that 
 of defying him to prove his claim : and to the very priests 
 and Pharisees, among whom perhaps there would be some 
 who, in their semi-patriotic terror lest the Romans should 
 take away their name and nation, and in their more real alarm 
 for their own power and system of internal government, would 
 yet have endured personal downfall not unwillingly had they 
 been able thereby to obtain such a miraculous manifestation 
 of the Messiah. Great agitation, it is evident, there was 
 everywhere, the Jewish rulers having ordered that if any one 
 knew where he was they should give information that he 
 might be taken. 
 
 It was under these circumstances that he appeared sud- 
 denly " six days before the Passover " at liethany — where a 
 feast was made for him. The place was no doubt ringing 
 still with the local glory of that miracle which is its distinction 
 through all ages : and nothing can be more natural than that 
 many should come to this entertainment not only to see 
 Jesus, but Lazarus, the subject of that wonderful intervention. 
 All the personages, indeed, of the great drama were there, 
 along with the humble good man who says no word and makes 
 no sign of personal identity, he who had Iain four days in his 
 grave in what wonderful suspense, or revelation of the 
 mystery of death, there is not a word to tell us : 
 
 Where wert thou, brother, those four days ? 
 There lives no record of reply, 
 Which, showing what it was to die. 
 
 Had surely added praise to praise. 
 
 It was not the purpose of the Redeemer that such a 
 
470 
 
 THE FINAL TRAGEDY 
 
 revelation should be — enough that in all mysteries we know 
 Him who is the solution of them all. And from Lazarus 
 
 FROM BETHANy, LOOKING TOWARDS JERICHO 
 
 there comes no word, nor any indication what manner of 
 man he was : " Lazarus was one of those that sat at the 
 table with him " — a man known to the whole villafjc and all 
 
CHAi'. in THE END OF THEJEWISH DISPENSATION 471 
 
 the neighbours who crowded about, pointing out to the 
 Sabbath-day visitors from Jerusalem, the man who had died 
 and was aUvc. And there was Martha, the kindly soul, 
 serving : enough for her to follow her natural uses, to bring 
 the bread and wine, to see that all the needs of the guests 
 were supplied. 
 
 Mary had another thought in her adoring soul, — to 
 do her Lord honour, to pay him such service of gratitude 
 as her means permitted. Was he, perhaps, footsore with 
 his long travelling, the lengthened walks by rough and 
 stony roads, which such a pilgrim had to take ? She 
 came behind him as he lay upon the couch, and poured 
 her costly ointment on his feet, refreshing and cooling. 
 " And the house was filled with the odour of the ointment." 
 A sudden pouring forth of fragrance is a recollection that 
 outlasts many a more important matter : and John remem- 
 bered this vividly and, perhaps, the start with which he himself, 
 so near his Master's bosom, would look round to ascertain 
 what caused it, and see the woman kneeling at those beloved, 
 weary feet, wiping them lightly with her long locks, not to 
 take the refreshing unguent from them, as a cloth would have 
 done : noticing, too, in the momentary quick flash of observa- 
 tion, the alabaster box, a beautiful thing in itself above her 
 means, in which it had been enclosed, and the astonishment 
 of the poor Galileans to whom three hundred pence was no 
 small expenditure. Their little chest or bag would con- 
 tain no such sum, and the first thought probably of all 
 was that this was a waste and extravagance, or at least an 
 example of the costly ways of these well-to-do people who 
 so honoured the Master. 
 
 Judas, only coming into special revelation now, who 
 had been about with them all this time apparently unsus- 
 pected, managing their simple affairs, one of those who 
 were sent on in advance to provide lodging and food in 
 the villages, was the one to break out in indignation. 
 Perhaps he knew that the little treasury was running 
 low, and could not think how to get new supplies for it : 
 perhaps the rage of a peculator who felt, had he but been 
 
472 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 given that alabaster box, that he might have made up 
 his own deficiencies and prevented the discovery which was 
 imminent — was in his heart. In the latter case as he brooded 
 over his troubles, and felt shame and exposure to be before 
 him — which is the most likely explanation of the statement 
 that he was a thief, his defalcations, no doubt, being found 
 out afterwards — he may have missed those many intimations 
 of an approaching end which the Redeemer had made as he 
 walked and talked with the anxious band, who, eagerly as 
 they listened, understood so little : or if he comprehended 
 them by the light of his own trouble, the menace of an end 
 about to come might have made the defaulter more and 
 more conscious of the winding-up and the exposure before 
 him. Something of this desperation, so familiar to the most 
 common modern fashions of evil, must have stung him at the 
 sight of that three hundred pence which was thrown away, 
 and driven him out in exasperation to make his fatal bargain 
 with the high priests ; thus covering his own crime with a 
 universal explosion, out of which he may have hoped the 
 Master would yet escape in some supernatural way. 
 
 Great agitation was in Jerusalem when it was known 
 what was happening in Bethany. It would have been 
 difficult to have seized Lazarus for no better reason than 
 that he had been raised from the dead : yet, no doubt, his 
 very existence was in itself so strong a protest against their 
 opposition, so perfect an answer to their seeming -honest 
 demand for proof of the high mission of his Deliverer, that 
 he was to the priests and Pharisees almost as dangerous as 
 his Master. And now there surged up again agitated con- 
 sultations in the Temple how to destroy both, the disciple 
 with the Lord. It must have been felt by all in the city 
 that the approaching feast was a crisis, every indication of 
 which pointed to serious national difficulty. That the claims 
 of the Messias might awaken such a popular tumult that the 
 Romans would take away both name and nation, was perhaps 
 to some a real alarm. The rulers might feel that the present 
 regime in which they themselves were supreme was to be 
 maintained at all hazards, even at the risk of that great 
 
CHAP. Ill THE END OF THE JEWISH DISPENSATION 473 
 
 much-prophesied triumph of their people, which had been for 
 centuries the very reason of their existence : just as Herod 
 believed in the coming of a sacred and heaven-appointed 
 king, yet with an outburst of his native ferocity made sure, 
 at all events, as he hoped, that the expected prince should 
 not come in his day. The circle of thought in which these 
 anxious rulers moved, the obstinate determination of the 
 Sanhedrim to maintain its own power at all costs, the extra- 
 ordinary unintentional prophecy of the high priest, to his 
 understanding a simple statement of fact, that it was better 
 one man should die, even if he were without blame, than that 
 the whole nation should perish : all these show the state of 
 mind in the reigning class in Jerusalem. Some of them, no 
 doubt, were willing that prophecy and promise should . 
 perish rather than that their own state should be disturbed. 
 The priests, according to the description of St. Luke, 
 were of the sect of the Sadducees, whose doctrines were 
 essentially those of self-preservation ; and the other sect 
 of the Pharisees believed in the rigid law alone, and 
 nothing else as the means of salvation — a law which Jesus 
 of Nazareth had at certain points determinedly set aside. It 
 is difficult to imagine how it could be that a race which had 
 been held together by this very hope should now prove itself 
 ready to sacrifice it entirely, in order to secure the continu- 
 ance of its own existing circumstances — circumstances of 
 bondage, national subjection and humiliation : yet so it was. 
 The extraordinary shortsightedness of humanity, the pre- 
 vailing terror of the unknown and inclination to maintain 
 what is existing, thus acted to bring about the tragedy for 
 which all the world was waiting — notwithstanding the force 
 of expectation, of conviction, of proof almost universally 
 accepted, which should have bound the rulers of this strange 
 people to instant reception of the often-promised and much- 
 looked-for Messiah. 
 
 No pilgrim, I think, will ever forget the sensation, 
 especially if it is unexpected, which bursts upon him at the 
 turning of the slope of that road from licthany to Jeru.salcm. 
 Skirting cjuietly along the side of the hill without more 
 
474 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 thought probably than is always present in the mind of a 
 traveller who enters at all into these sacred associations, 
 we suddenly come round the corner of the winding path 
 upon a sight which takes away the breath — Jerusalem lying 
 before us fully spread out in the sun with all her white 
 domes and shining edifices, from the height of Zion to the 
 steep slope of Moriah under the Temple wall, vaguely dis- 
 appearing into dimness and a confusion of walls and roofs 
 towards the north, but fully distinguishable on the south 
 side, with its walls following the inequalities of height and 
 hollow, and the broad enclosure immediately facing the eye, 
 where once the Temple stood, and where now stands the 
 Dome of the Rock, isolated and beautiful, with minaret and 
 . dome clustering in varied groups around and behind. The 
 pause of startled realisation, the long-drawn breath of an 
 emotion too great for words, the wonderful sense of standing 
 there in one's own humble person where he had certainly 
 stood, and where the same all-affecting sight had met his 
 divine eyes, combine to give to such a moment the intense 
 consciousness as of a crisis in life — not diminished by the 
 words of the respectful and serious guide, himself always 
 grave, so that his demeanour takes nothing from the sensa- 
 tion, though what he says is to him an everyday expression 
 of an undoubted fact. " This is sometimes called the 
 Hosanna road." The Hosanna road ! Here were the palm 
 branches scattered, the garments laid down — long glistening 
 leaves and humble cloaks, poor, yet blazing with the many 
 colours of the East, with here and there a metallic thread 
 of gold : and the children always lovely with their dark 
 gleaming eyes, the little ones whom he loved, their pretty 
 heads enveloped in kerchief and veil against the sun, their 
 round limbs bare ; and behind and around the pilgrim folk 
 coming up to keep the feast, some from the Judean borders 
 where he had lately been, some from Galilee, proud to 
 think that he was of their kindred, all given over to that 
 burst of emotion and enthusiasm, blessing him who came 
 in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel ! The Temple 
 stands no longer on Moriah, the work of the ages has 
 
CHAP. Ill THE END OF THE JEWISH DISPENSATION 
 
 475 
 
 crumbled into dust upon those slopes, fire and flame and 
 convulsion have ravaged that city, there may not be a stone 
 there that ever felt his shadow or met his eye. But here 
 he stood, whatever may be the changes that have come on 
 all around. He saw the Temple with its splendid cloisters 
 crowning the plateau of that hill where we see only the 
 
 SVKIAN ClIILDKEN WITH lALM IIKANCIIES 
 
 exquisite little Moslem dome in its blue and white. But, 
 nevertheless, as we do now our Lord paused and looked at 
 Jerusalem. He saw what John, no doubt, saw through the 
 glories of his after-vision, the white, shining, blessed place, 
 like a bride arrayed for her husband. " O Jerusalem, 
 Jerusalem, that stonest the prophets." O city doomed, 
 yet deathless ! The glory of the white town expands and 
 grows blurred and broken in the sight of the late-coming 
 
476 THE FINAL TRAGEDY tart iv 
 
 pilgrim, child of the modern ages, through eyes full of 
 irrestrainable tears. 
 
 The entry into Jerusalem would thus be made in the 
 happy tumult of the arriving crowd, with much joyful com- 
 motion such as accompanied the arrival of the pilgrims, 
 thankful to reach the end of their journey, welcomed by 
 many friends, and adding to the general tide of festivity 
 and national solemnity which they had come to share. 
 Perhaps it was the shield of this rural company pouring 
 in to pay its vows, which gave that immunity which is so 
 strange considering all that had gone before, to our Lord 
 in his first reappearance, after the hot discussions that had 
 arisen about him, and the orders to take him wherever he 
 might be found which had already been given to the police 
 of the Temple. According to the Gospel of St. Mark he 
 confined himself on that first afternoon to visiting once more 
 and " looking round " upon the courts and holy places, 
 retiring to Bethany in the evening ; and it was on the next 
 day that, having furnished himself with " a scourge of small 
 cords," he drove out the money-changers from their booths, 
 and overturned the stalls of the dove-sellers, which occupied 
 the court of the Gentiles, making, no doubt, a lively market 
 and exchange, a place of gossip and levity in the very 
 entrance to the Father's house. There is no need for 
 sacrifices now, but the crowd of petty merchants in the court 
 of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre — and even, not to go 
 so far, about the precincts of every great Catholic cathedral — 
 keeps still a likeness before us of that prevailing impulse 
 to make profit of the worshippers, which probably never 
 reached such a height as in the ample court of the 
 Temple, buzzing with talk and barter, which the pilgrims 
 had to traverse before they could reach the place of 
 sacrifice and instruction and prayer. It is said that 
 there were permanent booths established here belonging 
 to the family of the high priest, from which they derived 
 great profit — thus, with a cynical absence of precaution, 
 sanctioning an abuse for which there was no excuse to 
 be made. 
 
CHAP. Ill THE END OF THE JEWISH DISPENSATION 
 
 477 
 
 Evidently the feeling of all that was most serious in the 
 multitude was entirely in sympathy with this bold and 
 sudden movement of reformation, and no one dared to say 
 a word for the traffickers as they were sent flying headlong 
 through the crowd to carry their complaint, no doubt, to 
 the authorities among whom neither does there seem to 
 have been any who dared openly to defend them. Even 
 
 >N Till'; nil. I. (M- KVIl. COUS'SKl. 
 
 the priests and scribes them.selves, always looking for an 
 occasion of offence, who, roused by the tumult, came crowd- 
 ing about the Reformer angry and questioning, had no 
 open objection to make to what he had done. " By what 
 authority docst thou these things ? " they cried, coming hotly 
 about him as he took his .seat, the brief commotion over, 
 in the usual place of the teacher, to in.struct all who came 
 to him. Perhaps there had been already a concerted action 
 among the superior people to try their wits and their 
 philosophy against the unlearned prophet before he was 
 
47S THE FINAL TRAGEDY tart iv 
 
 seized and silenced, which swelled the angry impulse by 
 which they hurried to where he sat, to inquire by what 
 right he took upon himself to do what they were aware 
 they ought to have done — an action which in itself they 
 did not dare to criticise. By what authority? It may be 
 replied that almost everything he had said in Jerusalem 
 had been an exposition of that authority. He had not 
 spoken in those Temple courts as among the flowery ways 
 of Galilee, but always, as it were, in the power of his office, 
 with the highest claim, the most distinct announcement of 
 the ground on which he stood and the mission with which 
 he came. To ask him whose last words among tlfem had 
 been the marvellous statement : " I and- my Father are one " : 
 blasphemy beyond conception and beyond precedent, if not 
 that it was true, what was his authority, was but going 
 over a bygone question. And whether these might be new 
 inquirers who had not heard that statement, whether they 
 desired to elicit another declaration which they could use 
 against him, it is equally evident that they neither 
 ventured to object to what he had done, nor to fulfil the 
 duty which would seem to have been almost demanded of 
 them, and lay hold upon the man against whom the rulers 
 had already issued their warrant. What instinctive terror 
 or awe it was which caused their hesitation, whether it was 
 concealed under the pretence of a design to collect further 
 and further evidence against him, it is impossible to tell : 
 but that after this incident as before it no hand was lifted 
 to arrest him is one of the most wonderful of details. Our 
 Lord himself referred to this when he said at the time of 
 his betrayal — " I was daily with you in the temple, and ye 
 took me not." He was entirely in their power, taking no 
 precautions, exposing himself indeed both to individual and 
 public retaliation in this public and vehement action : yet, 
 it needed the aid of the midnight darkness, the traitor 
 disciple, the lonely place, to put courage into the hearts of 
 the Jewish authorities for this act. 
 
 When these first questioners had retired confounded by 
 the opposing question with which he met their inquiry. 
 
CHAP. Ill THE END OF THE JEWISH DISPENSATION 479 
 
 and which they dared not answer, it would seem that others 
 came forward, whether by a scheme concocted beforehand, 
 or spontaneously, it is impossible to say. They meant to 
 leave him no ground to stand on, these clever reasoners of 
 the sects, each persuaded, in his turn, of his power to non- 
 plus this unlearned Galilean. Was it, perhaps, a piece of 
 money dropped upon the pavement by a terrified money- 
 changer as he fled with his heavy boxes, which was picked 
 up and handed from one to another to show that effigy of 
 Caesar which furnished an infallible answer to the next 
 cleverly - constructed question ? Should one pay tribute 
 to Caesar or not ? the most subtle inquiry, calculated so 
 certainly to embroil him with one side or another and 
 bring him within the sway of the secular heathen tribunal, 
 that secular arm to which exasperated Churchmen have 
 always been so ready to appeal. We know what confusion 
 awaited the askcrs of this question. Then came the gay 
 and cultured scribes, with a problem at once scornful and 
 profane. Whose wife should that woman be at the resur- 
 rection who had been married to one brother after another 
 according to a painful provision of the Jewish law ? The 
 mystical refinements of religion with which we have to deal 
 in the present day are in nothing more obstinate than in 
 their absorption in this question of sex, which by some of 
 them is forced on the unwilling listener with a pertinacity 
 which does its best to make even religion indecent. The 
 Master quenched this flaming firebrand with celestial calm 
 and that authority which was " not as the scribes." He 
 went farther even than the immediate matter, looking upon 
 these sceptics, pretended teachers who soiled the spring from 
 which they drew, with eyes more severe than his wont : and 
 set forth that true doctrine of the resurrection, that everlast- 
 ing germ of spiritual life, which the Jews had never expressed 
 in their doctrine,^ and which critics assert had never been 
 
 ' It may, however, lie remarked that the Jews had no doctrine properly so 
 called — no declaration of " I liclicvc " : but only commands to Ix; olicycd, the 
 law — and prophecies to be hoped in ; no creed expressed in any formula, but only 
 great inferences and things implied. 
 
48o THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 revealed to them. What silence fell upon the breathless 
 assembly when these few majestic words were said ! " The 
 God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob," well-known title 
 of daily use, the very claim of the race to special privileges 
 and their only standing ground in the world. " He is not 
 the God of the dead, but of the living." What words were 
 these, silencing every vain speaker, filling with awe the great 
 Temple raised to the honour of that name, penetrating to 
 the farthest verge of the national history — and unanswer- 
 able, beyond the reach of argument, leaving every listener 
 dumb ! 
 
 Such a reply did more than silence the Sadducecs ; it 
 gained the reluctant approval of the other party, who had 
 never found in all its arsenals such a weapon to confound 
 the adversary, and who now approached him behind their 
 spokesman, still with their snare and trap which they had 
 prepared, but with hearts one cannot but think a little 
 touched, with a certain faltering in the voice of the man 
 who put the question, " Which is the first command- 
 ment ? " Nothing in all the systems of the world has ap- 
 proached the broad and magnificent basis of all religion 
 which our Lord now laid down, the essence of that Judaism 
 which is supposed to be the most narrow, formal, and harsh 
 of all creed.s, and of that Christianity which we are told our 
 time has outgrown. When there has been anything else 
 propounded fit to take the place of this everlasting founda- 
 tion, then we may allow that our faith has been outgrown. 
 It was no strange thing but familiar words which sounded 
 in that holy place every day, words great and splendid 
 enough to consecrate of themselves any temple, — " Thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all 
 thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength : 
 this is the first commandment. And the second is like unto 
 it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. In this," 
 it is added, " is all the law and the prophets :" in this, we may 
 add, is heaven and earth at once, all the privileges and all 
 the duties of man. 
 
 Is it, one wonders, sheer ignorance of this Divine state- 
 
CHAP. Ill THE END OE THE JEWISH D'lSPENSATION 481 
 
 ment of faith that makes the not ill-intentioned philosophy 
 of our days imagine the Service of Man to be a new revela- 
 tion, superseding the service of God ? 
 
 Even in those Temple courts, with all their factions, a 
 better inspiration existed. " Well, Master, thou hast said 
 the truth," cries the speaker who had put the question, 
 caught in his own trap, if trap there was- — ^a candid and 
 honest man among those fierce disputers. But for this 
 voice of surprised approval the bands of objectors, the 
 critics and opposing doctors, seem to have been silenced, 
 not knowing what to say. And then Jesus in his turn 
 became the questioner. They were dumb when he asked 
 why David should call the Christ his Lord when he was his 
 son — as when he asked them by what authority John had 
 baptized. They could not and dared not reply. Thus the 
 first scene in which He appeared in the Temple in the days 
 of his childhood was repeated at the end of his earthly 
 career : " both hearing and asking questions " — leaving his 
 adversaries confounded from their own mouths, silenced, 
 unable to say a word in reply. 
 
 In these points, so briefly told, filling one chapter only 
 in the record, the fundamental question as to who he was 
 and what was his work, — which was that on which the 
 Jews professed themselves most anxious : — ^is settled with 
 a fulness which they did not ask, and in a sense which, 
 perhaps — dazzled and confused as they were, by a revelation 
 which was too much for them — their minds were incapable 
 of taking in. A kingdom which was spiritual, which had 
 nothing to do with Caesar's kingdom, founded not upon 
 conquest but upon a vast all-embracing love, the love of 
 God, and of man : which held eternal allegiance, not to 
 Hades and the memories of the dead, but to that supreme 
 God who was the God of the living ; and which was the 
 kingdom not of David only or David's son, but of the Lord 
 and Master of David — such were the great final statements 
 by which he explained himself, and placed the evidence of 
 things not seen before their eyes. That they did not under- 
 stand them we may well allow ; that such knowledge was 
 
 2 I 
 
THE FINAL TRAGEDY 
 
 too wonderful to touch their rigid minds and the firmly 
 fixed one-idea of the nation ; that in this sense their eyes 
 were holden that they could not see, and their ears that 
 they could not hear. Yet they ought to have known and 
 recognised what must have flashed upon a thousand simple 
 minds like the sun in its shining, the higher meaning, the 
 true sense of all their own economy. That last startling 
 confusing gleam of light, pointing out that David's son was 
 also David's Lord, ought to have cleared up to them the 
 whole situation — seeing that the professed study and occu- 
 pation of their lives had been in that very Law and Prophets 
 which were threaded through from end to end with lights 
 upon that subject, lights which should have burst forth to 
 meet the revelation of his presence, showing the consistent 
 line of indication and of promise. But it did not do so. That 
 they were dazzled and confused in their intense discomfiture 
 we may well believe, and that accompanying the eager and 
 hostile curiosity which possessed them there was an under- 
 lying determination to hold their own place, not to be con- 
 vinced of anything which should put them aside from that 
 authoritative position, or risk the destruction of that superi- 
 ority, which was their life and being. Once more we are 
 reminded of the case of Herod, who did not, so far as is 
 apparent, entertain the least doubt of the coming of the 
 Child of Bethlehem, of what the Chaldeans told him, 
 strengthened by what the scribes told him ; and yet 
 deliberately set himself to destroy the hope of Israel. 
 So, though the Pharisees were confounded in all their 
 arguments, though the great constitution of the new 
 spiritual world which their own had foreshadowed was 
 placed before them, so that had they been faithful to their 
 own inspiration they must have recognised it, they refused 
 to do so. They must have turned away from that last 
 question which cut the ground from under their feet, silenced, 
 confounded, even paralysed ; for not a finger was lifted 
 against the bold speaker, he who had warned them that 
 the kingdom was to be taken from them, and the stone 
 which they had rejected to fall upon them and crush them 
 
CHAi'. Ill THE END OF THE JEWISH DISPENSATION 483 
 
 to powder : and who now denounced them without disguise, 
 " Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! " as they 
 stole away like a defeated army, leaving the eager multitude, 
 and the disciples always circling him about : now triumphant, 
 no doubt, though they too were little less dazzled and con- 
 fused than the Pharisees, in their Master's victory over his 
 enemies. 
 
 Nothing can exceed the strength and force of the 
 denunciation that follows, poured forth in the very strong- 
 hold of their sway, and in the ears of many who no doubt 
 would make haste to repeat to the ecclesiastical rulers of 
 Judea every word of that stern anathema. " Ye devour 
 widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers. Ye 
 compass sea and land to make one proselyte ; and when he is 
 made, ye make him tenfold more the child of hell than 
 yourselves. Ye fools and blind ! Ye generation of vipers ! " 
 Never before nor after were those lips opened to utter the 
 language of condemnation (not damnation even here, as in 
 our translation, which was made when men did not mince 
 matters and considered the eternal fire the most simple thing 
 in the world — but judgment, an answer before a tribunal). 
 He sat there in the midst of their very kingdom and poured 
 forth divine indignation against the master vice, that hypocrisy 
 and pretended holiness which brought virtue itself into 
 disrepute : yet not one of all the officials of the Temple 
 interposed. It was well known that sentence had gone forth 
 against him in the Sanhedrim, that orders had been given to 
 arrest him whenever he appeared. Yet there he sat and 
 discoursed, and set forth the dreadful indictment against these 
 men who had virtually the power of life and death in their 
 hands. Awe seems to have seized upon both masters and 
 servants — the one shrank away confounded, baffled at every 
 turn ; the others must have hung about helpless, not knowing 
 to whom to turn for their last orders, afraid of the impassioned 
 crowd that hung upon his lips — daunted most of all by his 
 own aspect, calm even in his indignation, — and more than ever 
 aware that never man spake like this man. 
 
 That he should have been allowed to depart peacefully 
 
484 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 out of Jerusalem, and take that grateful evening walk across 
 the gentle hill and through the pleasant fields to Bethany, 
 where no doubt the house of Martha was full of anxiety as 
 to what had passed during his absence, is as wonderful as 
 anything in the tale. It is needless to say that the varying 
 accounts of this last week make little division between the 
 days, so that it is almost impossible to separate them and 
 decide upon which day certain events took place. Upon one of 
 the evenings after these discourses in the Temple — probably, 
 we may imagine, on that day which has been above recorded, 
 with still the fire of these last words dazzling in the air, 
 and no man daring to interfere with his leisurely with- 
 drawal, he seems again to have surveyed the great buildings 
 of the house of God — perhaps in his divine courtesy at the 
 suggestion of some new disciple who was eager to point out 
 an addition or restoration executed since his last visit. That 
 his immediate followers did not remonstrate against this 
 lingering is probably another indication of that excitement 
 and confusion that was in the air, a bewilderment of all 
 faculties, which prevented even those who loved him most 
 from perceiving the risk of hanging about in the midst of 
 danger. But he himself was not hurried, or anxious to 
 escape. He must have paused and looked and noted what 
 was pointed out to him, in the great sadness of what he 
 knew to be his final effort. The day was over of possibility 
 and hope — and now he could scarcely see those beautiful walls 
 and domes standing strong under the level rays of the wester- 
 ing sun, for pity of the terrible scene when they should be 
 beaten down, so that not one stone should stand on another. 
 When he left Jerusalem, and sat down to rest upon the way, 
 which rounds the slope of the Mount of Olives, opposite the 
 Temple, with his eyes upon the white and shining city, so 
 peaceful outside, so full of every unchained demon of rage 
 and blasphemy within, his countenance was still sorrowful 
 with these thoughts. The disciples gathered round him 
 eagerly yet full of awe, asking the explanation which he so 
 often gave them. " When shall these things be ? And what 
 shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world ? " 
 
CHAP. Ill THE END OF THE JEWISH DISPENSATION 487 
 
 That some dim perception of the approaching crisis of which 
 they had been so often warned, and of his separation from 
 them, they knew not how, had penetrated their minds is 
 evident from this question, as it is also evident that they 
 associated the destruction of Jerusalem with the end of the 
 world. 
 
 There is an extraordinary pathos in the thought that our 
 Lord himself in his renunciation of his divine greatness 
 and acceptance of the lot of mankind, had consented to the 
 limitations of the mortal state so far as to be himself unaware 
 of any distinction between these two tremendous events. On 
 this great subject it is too daring to speak : yet the mingling 
 of the two, the promise that "this generation shall not pass away 
 till all these things be fulfilled," tempered with the statement 
 which is very clear that "of that day and hour knoweth no 
 man, no, not the angels of heaven, neitJier the Son, but my 
 Father only," seems to contain such an indication ; as after- 
 wards in Gcthsemanc we have a like but yet more wonderful 
 indication of this fact : when at the great crisis of his human 
 agony it seems for a moment to have appeared possible to him 
 that " this hour " (of which in another moment he said " But 
 for this cause came I to this hour ") might by possibility pass 
 away. As he sat in his exhaustion after all the contentions 
 of that day which had kept his human faculties at fullest 
 strain — and looked over the valley at the doomed city shin- 
 ing all unconscious of its approaching fate : the thought of the 
 coming of the heavenly kingdom in the hearts and spirits of 
 men, and of the final settlement of all things, perhaps afforded 
 to his soul, already overshadowed by the great cloud of 
 mortal suffering, a welcome escape from the intolerable 
 anguish of that siege and destruction which every sight of 
 Jerusalem brought more clearly before his eyes. But to 
 speculate upon a mystery so profound is not appropriate here. 
 To imagine that our Lord in his intense humanity had 
 accepted the veil of imperfect foresight, as he did those other 
 limitations which compelled him to sleep for weariness, to be 
 faint for food, even in some sort to pray for an impossible 
 deliverance — is only to myself a more pathetic and overwhelm- 
 
THE FINAL TRAGEDY 
 
 ing proof of the wonderful sacrifice which was not accompHshed 
 at Calvary alone, but by the sea-shore in Galilee, and the 
 streets of Jerusalem, the sacrifice of living, far longer and 
 more continuous than that of death. 
 
 Everything in the records of that day in the Temple 
 points it out as the last. What more was there to be said ? 
 He had left no stone unturned to convince, no further 
 exposition possible to make his mission clear. Patiently he 
 had heard and replied to every problem his enemies had set 
 before him, so that none could be in a:ny further doubt as to 
 what he meant. He had cried once more in the Temple 
 in the midst of all, " I am come a light into ]the world. He 
 that believeth on me, believeth not on me but on him that 
 sent me." Neither among the Pharisees nor among the 
 multitude could any delusion be left concerning him, or 
 at least concerning the office he claimed. No longer a 
 prophet out of Nazareth, no longer the Son of David alone, 
 but the Lord of David, the Light of the world. It cannot be 
 maintained for a moment that he had left Jerusalem in any 
 doubt. He was the Son of God, the promised Deliverer — or 
 else his blasphemy was proved before all men. One thing 
 or the other ; God or an impostor ; there is no midway. 
 
 And then it would seem there was a pause : making 
 their way .softly along the side of the hill, stopping to rest, 
 watching the sun go down and all the meltings of the 
 evening light sink over Jerusalem, continuing, as strength 
 permitted, their way among the gnarled olives and the 
 waving corn, the little band would reach the village where 
 the lamps were being lighted and the table spread for the 
 evening meal. Some commentators imagine that on this 
 evening was the great supper at which Mary anointed her 
 Lord for his burial, and Judas, exasperated, set out to 
 contrive with his Master's enemies how to surprise him 
 when apart from the crowd. But that does not seem to 
 be justified by the narrative of St. John. And for a day 
 or two after silence falls upon the wonderful scene. St. 
 Matthew records some of the most . impressive of the 
 parable.^, that of the ten virgins, that of the final judgment. 
 
CHAP. Ill 7'HE END OF THE JEWISH DISPENSATION 489 
 
 which may well have been told to the village folk of 
 Eethany, or the stragglers from Jerusalem who came out, 
 as after a wonder, to hear what he would say : and to 
 whom the description of those who said " Lord, Lord," but 
 left all deeds of goodness unaccomplished, might well apply. 
 But the courts of the Temple knew him no more. 
 
 It is strange to think what was going on there. " Many 
 of the chief rulers believed on him," and these courts must 
 again have echoed with questions — Where was he ? Was he 
 coming again ? The Pharisees began again to encourage 
 and stimulate each other to action, " Perceive ye not how 
 ye prevail nothing ? behold, the world is gone after him." 
 They had not dared for fear of the multitude to lay a hand 
 upon him during that great day : but now in his absence 
 it was more possible to bestir themselves. How did they 
 work in the meantime upon the spirit of the mob to change 
 that so strangely ? or was it the mere sight of him insulted 
 and dishonoured that did this, calling forth one of those 
 extraordinary revolutions of popular sentiment which so 
 often occur in human experience ? No doubt every scribe, 
 every teacher who held by the priests and Pharisees, was 
 bu.sy for these two silent days in the endeavour to turn that 
 popular tide. The chief argument with those who were 
 capable of argument would probably be the danger to all 
 their characteristic institutions, the risk that the Romans 
 would take away their place and nation, the peril of the 
 Temple which had been threatened with destruction. 
 Jerusalem was their pride and glory, and this Nazarene 
 had spoken of its ruin : their Sabbaths and feasts were 
 their distinction among the nations, and he had broken 
 one, and in the spirit of his teaching threatened to 
 supersede the others. Could such things be ? Would they 
 allow them.selves to be scattered among the common world 
 of men, deprived of their sacred character as the people 
 of God, they, the children of Abraham ? The rumour of 
 such arguments might probably reach him in the quiet of 
 the country in which he was, bringing ever nearer the 
 inevitable catastrophe. 
 
490 THE FINAL TRAGEDY fart iv 
 
 But that period of holy calm and intercourse, or else 
 the immunity which he had enjoyed from all persecution 
 in the recent days spent in the Temple, had so strengthened 
 the disciples that none of the desperate devotion which 
 made Thomas say, on an earlier occasion, " Let us go, 
 that we may die with him," is apparent in their de- 
 meanour now. The two who were, no doubt, the usual 
 providers went into the city by his command to pre- 
 pare for their Master, the night before the Passover, 
 probably that all might be on the spot and ready to fulfil 
 all righteousness on the next day — one of them, we must 
 believe, being the guilty Judas with his terrible secret in his 
 heart, attentive to note all arrangements, that he might 
 betray the most favourable spot for his Master's arrest to 
 those who had purchased his services. Our Lord directs 
 them to the place as if it were one already selected by 
 himself Tradition, which, however, I fear is of little 
 authority, fixes " the large upper room " as having been 
 situated in the little group of buildings which surround 
 what is called the tomb of David, and which lie on the 
 southern side of Jerusalem, a little way outside the town. 
 This may or may not have been ; one point, however, in 
 its favour is that the little band would be able to go there 
 descending from the hillside road straight down into the 
 valley of Hinnom, and by the heights and hollows outside 
 the wall without attracting observation.^ 
 
 Into the narrative of that holy feast it would be a 
 presumption to enter. It can scarcely have been but with 
 hearts heavy with apprehension, though they knew not what 
 they feared, that the disciples followed their Lord, skirting 
 the walls, within which Jerusalem was, full of sound and 
 
 1 The pilgrim of the present day will find at the same period of the year 
 the lower part of this building full of picturesque wild parties of Moslem visitors 
 each in their corner, come up like tlie Jews of old "to keep the feast," and 
 affording, no doubt, a very sufficient picture and reflection of the Jewish families 
 in the course of their annual pilgrimage. The Moslem feast is a very artificial 
 one, a pilgrimage to the tomb of Moses, intended, it is believed, to serve the 
 useful purpose of bringing a large number of Arabs into the holy city to counter- 
 balance and hold in check at once the Christians and the Jews, but chiefly the 
 former, who throng at Easter to the sacred place. 
 
CHAP. Ill THE END OF THE JEWISH DISPENSATION 49 1 
 
 movement and the murmur of the multitude. There is 
 no record of any instructive conversation, of those discourses 
 which had beguiled the way on many a previous occasion, 
 as they took this last long walk together. It would seem 
 that the twelve alone accompanied their Master, the women 
 and other disciples who generally followed him having 
 perhaps joined their own families for the feast, perhaps 
 remained anxious at Bethany, or gone up among the crowd 
 to the Temple courts to hear what was being said, and if 
 any steps were to be taken against him. We all know the 
 story of that wonderful evening meal, which the Lord had 
 so strongly desired to cat with his disciples before he 
 suffered, and the sigh with which he said, having for the 
 last time shared the supper, the common human meal, with 
 all its associations of fellowship and mutual trustfulness 
 with the chosen twelve, that '' one of you shall betray me." 
 Twelve at table, and, no doubt, a murmur of talk among 
 themselves, it is not to be believed that Judas heard those 
 words. It would be too great a wonder to believe that he 
 could have heard them, and understood that his object was 
 known, and yet gone out calmly, and been allowed by the 
 rest to go out to accomplish it. John, leaning upon our 
 Lord's breast, nearest to him at table, asked at the eager 
 request of Peter who it was ; and there seems to have arisen a 
 pained inquiry among the rest, each one echoing his neighbour, 
 scarcely understanding perhaps what the question meant, " Is 
 it I ? " Perhaps it was generally supposed among the party 
 to be .some commission to be executed, or at least some- 
 thing vague in the future like Peter's after-burst of a.ssurance, 
 that in no circumstances could he deny his Lord ; and the 
 piece of bread which was given to the traitor would be 
 but a sign of the Master's usual tender courtesy to the 
 one among them who had to leave the table on his 
 administrative business before the others. That they 
 could have divined what he was to do quickly is impo.ssible, 
 else hasty Peter would certainly have stopped his goings 
 for ever, before even the Lord could interfere. 
 
 There is a haze over them all as of the very dazzle and 
 
492 THE FINAL TRAGEDY fart iv 
 
 confusion of a great crisis uncomprehcndcd, during the whole 
 of that extraordinary scene. Its wonderful preface and 
 accessories : — the washing of the feet — strange and touching 
 lesson in the midst of those contentions who should be 
 greatest that seem to have continued up to this very 
 climax — and the discourses that follow : are all full of this 
 strained and troubled tension of human faculty, labouring at 
 its utmost after the Divine, and breaking into an almost 
 childishness of remark and question in its inability to catch 
 the thread of meaning. While he speaks, more certainly now 
 than ever before, " as never man spake " — they follow him 
 like blind men at a distance, murmuring strange questions 
 confusedly in the midst of his divine words: " Lord, we know 
 not whither thou goest ; and how can we know the way ? " 
 " Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us." " Lord, how 
 is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the 
 world ? " " What is this that he saith unto us, A little while ? 
 We cannot tell what he saith." These all seem like the 
 expressions of listeners, addressed as it were in an unknown 
 tongue, straining every power to follow, feeling themselves 
 swept into a great current which they can neither stem nor 
 understand, and in the flood of which they catch at anything 
 that may arrest the tide for a moment, or help them to 
 standing ground. Nor is the utterance of their dazed satis- 
 faction at the end less remarkable, " Lo, now speakest thou 
 plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that 
 thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man 
 should ask thee : by this we believe that thou camest forth 
 from God." Strange words of weakness, utterly overpowered 
 by the weight of a glory which was too much for them ! 
 There was nothing they had not heard before in the words 
 which preceded this confession — and the confession is like 
 the questions, almost inane in the pressure and strain of 
 feeling. 
 
 But as they left the room where they had supped, 
 where so much that was altogether strange and incompre- 
 hensible on any theory or wit of theirs had taken place — 
 and went on with him again over the dark road outside the 
 
CHAP. Ill THE END OF THE JEWISH DISPENSATION 493 
 
 walls, Jerusalem on one hand flaring to the sky with all her 
 lights and torches, her watchmen making their round upon 
 the ramparts, the deep valley lying still below : and every 
 man in the little throng crowding upon his neighbour to hear 
 the continuation of those words that had been begun as they 
 sat about the table — their troubled questions came to a close, 
 and they listened in silence. Perhaps they paused to rest 
 when the valley of Kedron was reached, and there heard the 
 last part of what He had to say to them, silent still in their 
 strange rapture and wonder, and sense of something approach- 
 ing which no one could divine. Was it there in the stillness 
 of the silent valley, by the side of the little rivulet of water 
 to which Kedron had fallen after the rains were over, with 
 the Paschal moon clouded in the sky, and everything hushed 
 and sanctified in the coolness of the night, that they listened 
 with heads bowed and hearts full of awe and wonder, to the 
 ineffable majestic words of that prayer, wonderful communing 
 of God with God, which the silenced atmosphere of earth and 
 the limited mortal horizon could scarce contain ? — " Father, I 
 will " — words never spoken in earthly hearing before, and so 
 strangely contrasting with those which were soon to be forced 
 to his human lips by the extremity of an anguish such as 
 no man had ever borne. 
 
 The Temple wall rises sheer from that grassy slope, the 
 brook tinkles deep below, the old olive-trees wave their 
 silvery leaves in the shining of the moon. At that time the 
 light would fall over the high cloister, and its arches, under 
 which he had walked and talked surrounded by a wondering 
 crowd, and the heaped-up stages of the Temple buildings, tier 
 upon tier. The pilgrim now feels often a thrill of pain at 
 the common uses of that garden of Gethsemane, fenced and 
 divided with its homely growth of fruits and flowers : but, 
 perhaps, unduly — for then too it must have had its simple 
 enclosure ensuring privacy, and a quiet place of rest under 
 the olives to these wanderers and .strangers. He left the 
 band all overwhelmed with what they had heard, perhaps to 
 seek for themselves resting places for the night, perhaps to 
 continue their way to where they were sure of lodging and 
 
494 
 
 THE FINAL TRAGEDY 
 
 welcome at Bethany: and went himself with the three of 
 his closest attendants who never left him, across the brook, 
 to the favourite garden, which, no doubt, belonged to some 
 disciple and was always open to him. They had probably 
 often slept there on the dry grass beneath the trees, covered 
 with a cloak, as is still so common in the East : and Peter 
 and the two brethren prepared to lie down, weary with much 
 
 ANCIENT OLlVE-lKtii IN THE GAKDEN OK GETllSEMANE 
 
 emotion, and though not knowing what to-morrow might 
 bring forth, thinking of nothing but quiet for the night. 
 How it was that after the divine calm of that evening our 
 Lord's humanity asserted itself in one last hour of weakness, 
 who can venture to say ? Flesh and blood were worn out, 
 and he who had just spoken with the voice of God, was still 
 only, in the pathos of mortal conditions, a man. He also 
 had to pay the penalty of the flesh (" for this cause came I 
 to this hour "), and bore it unsupported, as none of his 
 martyrs have done. He withdrew a little from these troubled 
 
CHAP. Ill THE END OF THE JEWISH DISPENSATION 495 
 
 but exhausted friends, who could only sleep " for sorrow," 
 limited human beings all confused and worn out : and fell 
 for a moment into that anguish unspeakable which sympathy 
 could not share, nor love help ; " Father, if it be possible : all 
 things are possible unto thee." He had bidden the disciples 
 when he left them to pray that they should not enter into 
 temptation : but he himself had all the brunt of the most 
 terrible of temptations to bear. It was not enough that he 
 should soar above the human as when he said, " Father, I 
 will " : the strain, the stress, the conflict, must be his as it 
 was theirs of whom he was the representative. " Sore 
 amazed and very heavy " — restless, going and coming to 
 see, perhaps, if any cared, if there was one to stand by him : 
 and there was none : not even of those who loved him most, 
 not for one hour. " Simon, sleepest thou ? " Peter was the 
 strongest, the most eager to go with him through every- 
 thing — and yet he could not watch one hour. There was 
 never a picture so terrible, so wonderful, so natural — the 
 going back again and again, the same words almost as if in 
 the depths of his anguish the human weakness of re- 
 petition was all that he was capable of: very man, bearing 
 upon him the burden of the conditions of that race from 
 which he would not liberate himself till the last. 
 
 The coming of the darkling procession among the trees, 
 in the depths of the valley : the sudden flare of a torch or 
 two : the momentary tumult when Peter, dazed, starting from 
 his sleep, snatched at the sword which in piteous uncom- 
 prehension he had brought with him from the chamber of 
 the supper, and struck a hasty blow with it in the darkness 
 and dazzle of confusing light : the one calm presence 
 dominating all, stopping that clamour with a word, healing 
 with a touch the wound which was so needless : the 
 circle of the dark multitude round, confu.sed in the 
 moonlight ; the Temple police half exultant, half afraid, 
 surrounding their prisoner with their staves : we all know 
 these incidents too well to require that they should be re- 
 called to us. The few terrified disciples, tho.sc three whom 
 he had taken with him, and who do not seem to have 
 
496 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 been molested, followed in the distance, still with their 
 dazed faculties unable to understand, as the procession 
 made its way with as little sound no doubt as possible, 
 perhaps by the sheep -gate at the northern end of the 
 Temple enclosure, the gate by which the sacrifices were 
 taken in, to the house of the high priest. Nor do we 
 venture to tell again the story of that awful night, when 
 with those rude companions in the guardroom, perhaps 
 suffered to lie down in a corner upon the pavement, perhaps 
 standing patient, like the lamb to the slaughter. He waited 
 the pleasure of his captors, and endured the questioning, 
 first of the informal gathering of the priests and elders who 
 were assembled to hear what had happened, and next — when 
 the slow hours wore round, and the pale dawn stole upon 
 the tumult of that chamber, dispersing the shadows of 
 the sleepless night — the more formal examination before the 
 Sanhedrim, hastily gathered in defiance of all law and 
 justice to sentence him before he could be delivered from 
 their hands. It would seem that even then in the midnight 
 watch before any formal condemnation was pronounced, he 
 was exposed to the rude jests and insults of the tipstaffs 
 and officers, whose terror perhaps of what themselves had 
 done, after the previous awe of his presence which had kept 
 them back, found expression in a sort of desperate ferocity 
 and mockery, a thing not unknown in the annals of super- 
 stitious panic. He had a harder burden still to bear, as he 
 saw the furtive and terrified look of his beloved John 
 appearing and disappearing at the open door, and Peter, 
 ever bold yet not bold enough, penetrating, chill with 
 misery, to the brazier, holding out shaking hands to the 
 fire, shrinking back into himself when a suspicious doorkeeper 
 pushed him aside with a hasty accusation " Thou also wert 
 with him " — " I know not the man ! " 
 
 How can we explain this defection, this astonishing 
 failure of the heart? Even when he heard the cock crow, 
 and conviction came upon Peter : when the^ Lord from the 
 other side of the hall turned his head and looked at him, — 
 was it with a smile at the speedy realisation of his own 
 
FOUNTAIN NEAR THE GATE OF THK CHAIN 
 
 2 K 
 
CHAP. Ill THE END OF THE JEWISH DISPENSATION 499 
 
 warning? with nothing but the reproach of love we may 
 be sure : — the rough Galilean good for nothing but to die 
 at his feet, we might suppose, not surely to revolutionise a 
 world — did not break through the circle of staves and spears 
 and fling himself on the ground before his Master, to share 
 whatever might befall him, as many a lesser man has done : 
 — but went out into that terrible dawn, in the chill opening 
 of that awful day, weeping, struggling with himself, rather 
 in the collapse of despair than with any burst of devotion. 
 To turn his back upon it, to try to ignore it, to cry aloud 
 to God, negligent and unheeding, for those ten legions of 
 angels who could change everything in a moment, but 
 whom the Master would not ask for : was this all there 
 remained to do ? Did the city sleep unthinking, when 
 Peter burst forth into its streets, or was it waking early to 
 the preparation for the Passover, and beginning to hear by 
 flying rumours, always awake like care before the race of 
 mankind — that Jesus of Nazareth had been seized, that he 
 was before the judges, and that no one could tell what 
 wonderful thing might happen that day ? 
 
 The town was full of strangers and pilgrims, lying down to 
 snatch their night's rest in every corner, in every khan and 
 guest-chamber, and stirring early because of the discomfort 
 and crowding of their accommodation as well as because of 
 the solemnity of the day. And this new excitement thrown 
 into it must have thrilled the restless city from end to end. 
 The prisoner before the Sanhedrim, the charge of blasphemy, 
 the eager search of the inquisitors for evidence : every 
 incident would soon be known and followed with an excite- 
 ment impossible to describe. Many in those streets into 
 which the multitude would surge, eager for another and 
 another scrap of news, would no doubt look for those ten 
 legions of angels, for some tremendous sign to proclaim Him 
 and his office, so that no man should be able to gainsay : 
 they would stand breathless in suspense, hoping or fearing 
 every moment to sec the heavens open and the Son of 
 man vindicated. In all likelihood the mob that rushed to 
 Pilate's palace when it was known that the prisoner was 
 
SOO THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 taken there would ■ represent but a small portion of the 
 inhabitants of the thronged and astonished city. The 
 roughs, the wretched fellows who are ever ripe for mischief, 
 comrades and friends of Barabbas, offscourings of the 
 population, would be those who pressed closest and shouted 
 loudest in that ferocious throng. The better classes, people 
 of a milder kind, the pious and the humble, those who knew 
 the law and studied the prophets without being prejudiced 
 Pharisees, and the vast crowd of strangers who were over- 
 awed by the legal rulers of their people and dared not 
 interfere — must have been paralysed by the suddenness of 
 the catastrophe, and perhaps could not believe in the 
 possibility of such a lawless and instant conclusion. I do 
 not venture to follow the Lord as He stood before judge 
 after judge, calm, neither resenting nor replying to the 
 insults addressed to him, explaining nothing. All his 
 explanations had been made before, and the high priests 
 knew it well ; they had but to produce any of the thousands 
 who had listened to him in the Temple to prove their 
 charge of blasphemy. Undoubtedly every word he said 
 was blasphemy — unless it was true. 
 
 But Jerusalem all surging about that terrible scene is 
 more within the range of the modern writer. I have little 
 doubt that the many-coloured crowd which throngs every 
 street at the present day — when the little population of the 
 city is swamped in the multitude of pilgrims, Christians to 
 keep the Easter feast, Jews to keep the Passover, jealous 
 Moslems to keep the peace, and make their own ficti- 
 tious celebration at the grave of Moses — resembles much 
 more, perhaps, than any other modern crowd resembles one 
 of two thousand years ago, the influx into Jerusalem at that 
 great and memorable Passover. Going along the line 
 of street which is known now as the Via Dolorosa, on the 
 Good Friday of 1890, it was impossible not to feel that just 
 so must the surging masses have closed upon that fatal 
 procession, the soldiers clearing the way, the wondering 
 spectators gazing over each others' shoulders, pressing upon 
 the sufferer, as he made his way up the toilsome steep, 
 
THB VIA UOLOKO.SA 
 
CHAP. Ill THE END OF THE JEWISH DISPENSATION 503 
 
 his bodily frame worn with the night's vigil, the exhaustion 
 of the garden and all the farewell scenes, neutralised by no 
 hour of rest, no moment of quiet : while every new street 
 and lane poured forth its spectators to gaze at him, and 
 the hoarse shouts of the multitude rang in his ears, and the 
 gibes of the mocking Romans and their scornful laughter at 
 the Jew criminal and his Jew persecutors alike, rose through 
 the tumult. Not that tears were wanting even then. "A great 
 company of people and of women which also bewailed and 
 lamented him." Not all were joined in that hoarse shout 
 of " Crucify him ! " The mocking and the laughter and 
 the cruel cries were broken by that wail of which alone he 
 took any notice. And so the dreadful procession toiled by. 
 Steep and rough as those streets are now, they must have 
 been still more steep with their pavement of great stones, 
 and rough steps and frequent breaks, nineteen hundred years 
 ago. In the heat of the midday, amid the pressure of the 
 crowd, carrying that heavy weight under which a weary 
 frame exhausted by sleepless nights and laborious days 
 wavered and fell : with all that tumult sweeping round and 
 the anguish at the end which was more than martyrdom : 
 our Lord made his final passage through those streets of 
 Jerusalem, in which he had done no violence neither had 
 deceit been found in his mouth : in which he had put 
 forth his hand so often to heal and to comfort and to bless. 
 
 It is no easy task in the dark splendour of the Church 
 of the Holy Sepulchre : in those dim places — now high in a 
 lofty chapel, now low down in a mysterious crypt — to realise 
 the mount that was called Golgotha, the new grave which 
 was in the garden close by, in which Joseph of Arimathea 
 laid the body of the Lord. And there are many doubts 
 and questions among the learned whether this spot, though 
 hallowed by the faith of centuries, is really the place of the 
 crucifixion and entombment. There is a little mound to 
 the north outside the Damascus gate upon which one of the 
 late explorers, Major Conder, has fixed the attention of 
 many, and which, no doubt, affords an aid to the imagina- 
 tion in realising that dread and wonderful scene which no 
 
504 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 combination of stately building can afford. It is the place 
 where Stephen was stoned, where Jewish executions, when the 
 Jews had the power of life and death, certainly took place; and 
 it is evidently to the sight of all, a place of a skull, the hillock- 
 being marked with cavities and lines which recall in an extra- 
 ordinary manner that formation. There the cross might 
 have stood out against the sky, against the sweep of undulat- 
 ing country and low hills towards the north, so that all the 
 world might see ; there the crowds might have streamed, 
 covering every slope, standing "afar off" yet seeing every 
 particular of the terrible tragedy, the pierced side, the offered 
 sponge : there the great darkness that quenched both sun 
 and day would come over a vast horizon as if the whole 
 world was filled by it : and there would be room for all 
 the passers-by to pause and gaze, and for priests and fierce 
 Pharisees to stand around and utter that wonderful confes- 
 sion, more profound than Peter's, more all-expressive in its 
 enmity than the warmest utterance of enthusiasm or faith, 
 the very warrant and seal of earth put to the act of salva- 
 tion : " He saved others ; himself he cannot save " : un- 
 conscious testimony never to be gainsaid ! the witness, 
 through all the ages, of hate to love. 
 
 And low in the side of the hill is a tomb,^ cut in the 
 rock like all the tombs of Judca : not now a new grave — 
 centuries old, dark with age and the filling up of the soil, yet 
 still distinct, with its shelf, its couch of stone, the place made 
 for the last relics of mortality yet never finished, one rocky 
 bed and one alone, having been occupied : — " in a garden " 
 wild with uncultivated herbage, yet not altogether without trace 
 of its ancient use. Was this Joseph's tomb, the place where 
 the w^atch was set, to which the women came in the morning, 
 where the angels sat, and the sun of the resurrection shone ? 
 This will probably never be certainly known until we meet in 
 another state the witnesses of that event, and trace with them 
 every hallowed spot, if such an indulgence of human feeling 
 
 1 The description and model of this tomb, so extraordinarily carrying out all 
 that the tomb of our Lord must have been, and realising with wonderful minute- 
 ness the narrative of St. John, has been published from special explorations by 
 the Rev. Haskett Smith in a recent publication. 
 
CHAP. Ill THE END OF THE JEWISH DISPENSATION 505 
 
 may be dreamed of. But the thought that it may have been 
 so is one to make the heart swell, and the tears rise, as the 
 pilgrim stands alone in the silence outside the city, disturbed 
 by no clamour of contending creeds, with only heaven over 
 him, no scent of incense or glare of lights, but the fragrance 
 of growing grass, and the sight of the sun. There is no 
 room for human memories in that spot where the greatest 
 of earthly events took place : yet the strained human soul 
 moved to its depths may be permitted to turn aside with a 
 pang of gladness, to think that this grave was discovered in 
 the bowels of the earth with all its solemn possibilities, by 
 General Gordon, a tender reward and grace from heaven, 
 almost a sign of intimate sacred friendship and favour, to 
 that true servant, and brother and follower of the Lord. 
 
 We will not attempt to dwell upon a conclusion so 
 sacred. Almost we think that the final scene of that 
 wonderful life, in the simplicity and awe of its natural 
 records, should hold a place a little apart, to be read 
 not every day but with special preparation, at special 
 times : as indeed the instinct of Christian reverence has 
 tacitly ruled it should be. The history of earth holds no 
 other record that approaches it. It has been discoursed 
 upon by thousands of voices, few of them competent to the 
 subject, yet never lost its overwhelming interest, its awe and 
 wonder. Far be it from me to attempt to retrace that 
 amazing and unparalleled passage in the great story of the 
 universe. After nineteen hundred years, during which the 
 eyes of the race, whether in reverence or in blasphemy, have 
 been fixed upon it, no one has fathomed its full significance 
 or learned all its mysteries. " Which things the angels 
 desire to look into." There will be time to understand it, 
 to know something of the breadth of its meaning, the divine- 
 ness of the sacrifice, the full consecration of its human part, of 
 death captive and life triumphant, in those ages when we, too. 
 shall have passed through the portals of the common grave. 
 
 When that great act was accomplished, the story of 
 Jerusalem, the chosen city, came to an end. Through all 
 
So6 THE FINAL TRAGEDY I'Ain iv 
 
 the vicissitudes of mortal life it had survived, with tenacity 
 and obstinate persistence, when cities much greater mouldered 
 into dust. Besieged, conquered, burned, emptied of its popu- 
 lation, trodden into dust, it had risen again time after time, 
 its walls and its shrines ever renewed, its unchangeable tradi- 
 tions carried on. Internal dissensions had raged in it, its 
 sanctuary had been desecrated again and again, its little 
 kingdom torn to pieces, its free-born children carried into 
 captivity. Through tragedy within and conquest without, 
 and fire and convulsion, it had still continued, renewing its 
 youth like the eagle. But now its hour had come, and the 
 use for which it had been preserved was accomplished. The 
 brief and awful Passion of the city followed the Passion of 
 Him whom she had rejected in about thirty-two years. And 
 if the fiercest stand of resistance that, perhaps, ever was made, 
 the most desperate and tragic valour, could in any way atone 
 for the cruelty and falsehood of previous history, then the 
 Jews in that last act of their national history might be par- 
 tially forgiven — were it not that treachery and cruelty still 
 accompanied them in the heroism of that terrible struggle. 
 Finally the fears of the high priests were realised ; the 
 Romans took away both their place and people ; and for 
 some centuries it appeared that at last the race, the sacred 
 places, the memories and traditions of the city of David, and 
 the Mount of Zion, had been stamped out for ever. So had 
 thought the Assyrians five hundred years before ; but their 
 captives had become again a nation, and long outlived the 
 race that carried them off in chains and weeping. The 
 destruction made by the Romans was still more com- 
 plete. Again one stone was not left upon another in that 
 sacred enclosure so jealously guarded and defended ; again 
 its people, so many as remained, were driven like chaff before 
 the wind : but all that had happened before, and only marked 
 an era in the history. Now, however, the blow was final, the 
 annals of the city were closed, and all its emblems and its 
 types fulfilled. Everything in the strange and impressive 
 silence which now fell over it, marked the accomplishment 
 of this unalterable sentence. An awe of something more 
 
CHAP. Ill THE END OF THE JEWISH DISPENSATION 507 
 
 terrible than ruin enveloped the plateau upon the little 
 hill, so that even Rome herself withdrew trembling from any 
 attempt to disturb its ashes. The old order had changed, 
 giving place to new. History and hope all accomplished, 
 all misunderstood, ceased in the spot which had been pre- 
 served by their means, " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou 
 that killedst the prophets, and stonedst them which were sent 
 unto thee ! If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this 
 thy day, the things which belong to thy peace ! " But that 
 which had never been, and so seldom is, in the perverse 
 history of man, was now for ever impossible. " Ye would 
 not." And the long era was accomplished and all ended for 
 which Jerusalem had been called into being — which she had 
 conceived as for her own advantage solely, and which at last 
 by her own fierce and bloody hands, unwitting what they 
 did, had been carried out, to the accomplishment of her own 
 doom and terrible fate. 
 
 That this wonderful city should have risen from her 
 ashes again in the name of Him whom she crucified, that 
 Christian blood should have been shed in floods as Hebrew 
 blood had been shed before, for her deliverance ; that every 
 fathom of her soil and every stone should be hallowed by 
 the name which she scorned and rejected — yet that the city 
 should remain in the possession of the wild Ishmaelite, the 
 enthusiast of the desert, are all facts so strange and so 
 unparalleled that we can but feel the mystery of the future 
 which is involved in them to be dimly shadowing underneath, 
 as the mysteries of the past are all involved in the wonderful 
 tale. When the traveller comes round the slope of Olivet 
 and sees suddenly before his eyes lying white in the sun- 
 shine the holy city over which our Lord wept : — the sacred 
 hill covered with shrines in which His name is not named 
 save in the potent inference of that denial, inscribed around 
 the Dome of the Mahommedan, which in its very assertion 
 that there is no Son of God suggests to all ignorant yet 
 intelligent souls that He must exist who is thus so defiantly 
 and solemnly denied : — with the closed and built-up gate 
 
So8 THE FINAL TRAGEDY part iv 
 
 below through which those who thus deny Him believe that 
 He is one day to ride triumphant into the ancient home of 
 His name : the mystery and wonder and hope of that future 
 comes upon the gazing pilgrim in a silent rapture of inde- 
 scribable emotion. For a thousand years and more the hearts 
 of Hebrew poets and prophets so swelled and rose at thought 
 of Him who was to come, the Son of David, the King of 
 Israel, the Prince of Peace — an event which they understood 
 as little as we understand any Second Coming. And my 
 heart, I own, acknowledges a fond superstition before the 
 closed arches of that Golden Gate. The old, old trees of 
 Gethsemane lie beyond in the valley, the little brook He 
 crossed so often still gathers a little rivulet from the rains. 
 Shall He one day come again and enter from the valley of 
 His deep humiliation to the lofty courts of His Father's 
 house ? Who can tell ? It is the superstition of those who 
 have written upon their most sacred shrine that there is no 
 Son of God, it is not ours : — yet the heart fills and the eyes 
 run over to think — If that might be ! The prophet upon 
 this very hill may have stood and gazed and pondered what 
 manner of man that should be whom he himself had de- 
 scribed so minutely. He who was to come as a lamb to the 
 slaughter, the rejected and despised of men. 
 
INDEX 
 
 AniATHAR, 34, 35, 123 
 
 Abigail, 38 
 
 Abishai, 33, 41, 109 
 
 Abner, 22, 42, 61, 62, 63 
 
 Abraham, 432, 434, 435, 482 
 
 Absalom, son of David, 88 ; personal 
 beauty, 89 ; his sheep -shearing, 
 90 ; death of Amnon, 91 ; flight, 
 92 ; takes refuge in Geshur, ibid. ; 
 recalled to Jerusalem, 94 ; restored 
 to favour, 95 ; courts populace, 96 ; 
 raises reliellion, ibid. ; outrage in 
 Jerusalem, 102 ; deserted by 
 Ahithophel, 103; is killed, 105 
 
 Achish, David's first visit to, 29, 30, 
 48 ; indulgent friendship, 51 ; war 
 with Snul, 52 ; calls David to 
 follow him, ibid. ; compelled to 
 send David away, ibid. 
 
 Adonijah, 120, 121 
 
 Ahaz, King of Judah, 205, 221 
 
 Ahimelech, priest of Nob, 28, 34 
 
 Ahithophel, loi, 103, 117 
 
 Amasa, 184, 109 
 
 Amnon, son of David, 88 ; story of 
 Tamar, 89 ; elder brother of 
 Absalom, 90 ; death of Amnon, 
 
 91 
 
 Amon, King of Judah, 197 
 
 Amos, prophet, 206 ; prophesies cap- 
 tivity, 207 ; banished from Bethel, 
 208 ; addresses the people as a 
 community, 210 ; state of Hebrew 
 society, 215 ; clothes laid to 
 pledge, ibid. ; countrymen sold 
 into bondage, 216 ; his prophecies 
 delivered in time of national pros- 
 perity, 221 ; a herdsman and un- 
 trained, 224 
 
 Anathoth, 232, 250, 251, 262, 276, 
 
 326 
 Andrew, 4 1 1 
 
 Apocryphal books, 368, 382 
 Ark: at Kirjath-Jearim, 28, 74; brought 
 
 to Jerusalem, 77 ; carried with 
 
 David in his flight, 99 ; sent back 
 
 by him, ibid. 
 Artaxerxes, usurper, 330 
 
 Longimanus, 338, 349, 360 
 Asahel, 61, 62 
 Assyria, sudden rise, 173 ; threatens 
 
 lerusalem, 191 ; destruction of 
 
 army, 194, 244, 253 
 
 Bahyi.on, prophecies concerning, 233, 
 236, 293, 296, 299, 306 ; de- 
 scriptive images of Chaldeans, 
 299. 301 ; conquest by Cyrus, 
 
 319. 332 
 
 Banias, 381, 383, 445 
 
 Bartimceus, 461, 462 
 
 Baruch, 266, 267, 342 
 
 Barzillai, chief of Gilead, 109 
 
 Bathsheba, 86, 123 
 
 Bethany, 450, 465, 471, 473.486 
 
 Bethesda, 415 
 
 Bethlehem, town of Boaz and Ruth, 6 ; 
 Samuel's visit to, 7 ; David's kin- 
 dred leaves, 35 ; water from well, 
 79, 80 ; Mary and Joseph go up 
 'o» 393 ; cave of the Nativity, 
 394 
 
 Boaz, 6, II, 12 
 
 C^-SAR, 383, 481 
 
 Captivity, proclaimed in time of pros- 
 perity, 209; restored, 318, 320, 
 I 322 
 
Sio 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Chaldeans, 299, 301 
 
 Chebar, 295 
 
 Conder, Major, 504 
 
 Cyrus, prophecies concerning, 103, 206; 
 supposed contemporary prophet, 
 24 1 ; shows favour to Jews, 319, 
 320, 329, 330, 331 
 
 Damascus, 48, 81, 206, 221, 222, 227, 
 229, 445 
 
 Daniel, 266, 318, 320 
 
 Darius, 332, 336, 338, 369 
 
 David — his family, 6 ; visit of Samuel 
 to house of Jesse, 7 ; a shepherd 
 and poet, 8 ; anointed by Samuel, 
 ibid. ; his shepherd's song, 9 ; he 
 considers the heavens, 10 ; his 
 lineage, 11-12 ; plays to Saul, 12 ; 
 . goes to visit the army, 13 ; sees 
 Goliath, ibid. ; and kills him, 15 ; 
 songs of triumph, 16 ; incurs anger 
 of Saul, ibid. ; beloved by Michal 
 and Jonathan, 17 ; his charm of 
 manner, 18; Michal lets him 
 down from window, 1 9 ; he flies to 
 Ramah, 20 ; is pursued by Saul's 
 messengers, ibid. ; by Saul himself, 
 ibid. ; returns to Gil^eah, 21 ; com- 
 pact with Jonathan, 22 ; story of 
 the feast, defended by Jonathan, 
 23 ; song of sorrow, 26 ; flight to 
 Nob, 27 ; priest gives him shew- 
 bread, 28 ; the sword of Goliath, 
 ibid. ; flies to Gath, 29 ; is ill re- 
 ceived, 30; feigns madness, and es- 
 capes, ibid. ; in the wilderness, ibid. ; 
 his followers, 33; three "mighties," 
 ibid.; "broken men," z3/r/. ; caves 
 of AduUam, 34 ; delivers Keilah 
 from Philistines, 35 ; finds them 
 false, 36 ; Saul in the cave, 40 ; 
 cuts off his skirt, ibid. ; appeals to 
 him, ibid. ; breaks into camp, 41 ; 
 parley with Saul and Abner, 42 ; 
 despair of David, 43 ; psalms of 
 adversity, 45 ; primitive music, 
 ibid. ; David's denunciation of his 
 enemies, 47 ; not violent, ibid. ; 
 never shows bitterness to Saul, 
 ibid. ; second flight to Achish, 48 ; 
 like Scots knights flying to England, 
 43 ; well received by Achish, 50 ; 
 Ziklag given to him, ibid. ; his 
 raids on Achish's allies, ibid. ; war 
 
 of Achish with Saul, 52 ; dilemma 
 of David, ibid. ; action of Philistine 
 chiefs, 53 ; David sent away, ibid. ; 
 finds Ziklag desolate, 54 ; recovers 
 captives and spoils, 55 ; end of his 
 career as outlaw, 56 ; reception of 
 news of Saul's death, 57 ; elegy on 
 Saul and Jonathan, 58 ; leaves 
 Ziklag, 60 ; settles at Hebron, 
 ibid. ; revyards rnen of Jabesh- 
 Gilead, ibid. ; battle of Joab and 
 Abner, 61 ; seven years at Hebron, 
 64 ; kingship different from Saul's, 
 ibid. ; union of all the tribes, 67 ; 
 Jerusalem the capital, 68 ; position 
 of Moriah, 7 1 ; proposes to bring 
 up the Ark, 72 ; David's strong 
 religious faith, 73 ; neglect into 
 which Ark had fallen, 74 ; brought 
 up from house of Abinadab, ibid. ; 
 accident to Uzzah, 75 ; David 
 "was displeased," ibid. % Ark 
 abandoned, ibid. ; again taken up, 
 76 ; David dances before the Lord, 
 77 ; Psalm, " Lift up your heads," 
 ibid.; Michal's anger, 77-78; 
 struggle with Philistines, 79 ; story 
 of well of Bethlehem, 79-80; suc- 
 cess and victory, 81 ; subdues all 
 enemies, ibid. ; builds palace, 82 ; 
 desires to build Temple, ibid. ; 
 offering refused, 83 ; disappoint- 
 ment of David, ibid. ; David with- 
 draws from war, 84 ; unoccupied 
 life and temptation, 88 ; Bath- 
 sheba, 85 ; Death of Uriah, 86 ; 
 Nathan's parable, 87 ; David's re- 
 pentance, 88 ; death of his child, 
 ibid. ; story of Amnon and Tamar, 
 89 ; death of Amnon, 91 ; flight of 
 Absalom, 92 ; the wise woman and 
 her parable, 93 ; Absalom's recall, 
 94; Absalom out of favour, ibid.; 
 Absalom restored to favour, 95 ; 
 rebellion breaks out, 96 ; David's 
 flight, 97 ; and incidents of flight, 
 97-102 ; cause of his panic, 100 ; 
 at Mahanaim, 103 ; David's en- 
 treaty to captains, "Deal gently 
 with the young man," 105 ; waits 
 for news, 106 ; wail for Absalom, 
 ibid.; Joab's reproof, ibid.; tri- 
 umphant return to Jerusalem, 109; 
 sons of Rizpah, 112; he who first 
 
INDEX 
 
 511 
 
 thought of Temple, ibid. ; his 
 poetry, 113; expressive of his 
 life, ibid. ; his character, 114- 115; 
 preparations for building Temple, 
 116; never recovered death of 
 Absalom, 1 1 7 ; songs of triumph, 
 118; choice of Solomon, 1 19; 
 great parliament, ibid. ; shows 
 them all his stores, 121 ; receives 
 their subscriptions, ibid. ; falls in- 
 to calm of old age, 122; Adonijah's 
 rebellion rouses David, 124; orders 
 Solomon to be anointed, ibid. ; 
 charges Solomon in respect to 
 Joab, Abiathar, Shimei, 125; utters 
 last song, «/5/r/. ; dies, 126; David's 
 Son and Lord, 484 
 Deuteronomy, book of, 199 
 
 Early Scottish history, 128 
 Ebedmelech, eunuch, 281, 282 
 Egypt, caravans from, 48 ; alliance of 
 Solomon with, 138 ; raid on Jeru- 
 salem, 170; Egyptian party in Jeru- 
 salem, 198, 243 ; hieroglyphics, 
 213 ; other occurrences, 274, 278, 
 279, 299 
 Eleazer, son of Dodo, 15 
 F^liab, son of Jesse, 14, 23, 33 
 Eliashib, high priest, 353, 354 
 Elizabeth, 391, 393 
 Esther, 347 
 
 Ezekiel, unlike his brethren, 291 ; a 
 seer, 293 ; captive in Babylon, 
 293, 295 ; draws Jerusalem on 
 tile, 296 ; vision of idolatry there, 
 297 ; lyric of the sword, 299 ; 
 images of the Chaldeans, 300 ; 
 death of his wife, 301 ; portent 
 fulfilled, 302, 303 ; prophesies re- 
 storation, 304, 305 ; vision of dry 
 bones, 307 ; plan of new Temple, 
 309 ; the gate for the Prince, 313; 
 referred to, 369 
 Ezra, special mission, 340 ; no escort on 
 journey, 341 ; prayer in Temple, 
 343 ; condemnation of heathen 
 wives, 344 ; reads lx)ok of the 
 law, 364 
 
 Galilee, a Sunday morning, 438 ; ex- 
 citement in, 441 ; crowd seeking 
 miracles, 443 ; departure of our 
 Lord, 449 
 
 General Gordon, 505 
 Geshem, an Arabian, 333 
 Geshur, 92 
 Gibeah, 16, 19, 21 
 Gibeon, 130 
 Gilead, 28 
 Goliath, 13, 15, 28 
 
 Haggai, 331, 335, 336 
 
 Hananiah, 262 
 
 Hebron, 60, 67 
 
 Ilermon, 445 
 
 Herod, 378, 379, 380, 382, 383, 485 
 
 Hezekiah, 1 78 ; restores Temple, 1 79 ; 
 addresses Levites, 181 ; Passover, 
 184 ; sends posts to call Israel, 
 185; strengthens fortifications, 188; 
 receives Assyrian envoy, 191 ; 
 dismay of his ministers, 192 ; 
 spreads out letter in the Temple, 
 193 ; destruction of Assyrian army, 
 194; the supposed Pisistratus of 
 Judah, 195; unwilling to die, 197; 
 an Augustan age, 205 ; prophets 
 constantly foretelling misfortune, 
 221 
 
 Hilkiah, high priest, 197, 244 
 
 Hushai, 10 1 
 
 Isaiah, his prophecies attributed to two 
 or more writers, 204 ; his age an era 
 of prosperity, 209 ; addresses the 
 nation in general, 210 ; state of 
 Hebrew society revealed by him, 
 21 5; usury, drunkenness, 216, 217; 
 luxury, polytheism, 218 ; his 
 vision of God, 221 ; his great ex- 
 perience, 222 ; a great poet, 
 223 ; proclaims Prince of Peace, 
 ibid. ; in later days counsellor of 
 king, ibid. ; extraordinary symbol 
 of child's birth, 227 ; prophesies 
 destruction of Israel and Syria, 
 ibid. ; song of the vineyard, 228 ; 
 rise of Assyria, 229 ; proclaimed 
 an instrument in God's hand, 231 ; 
 its overthrow : Hades welcomes its 
 king, 233; his great theme the Mes- 
 siah, 237; the Man of Sorrows, 
 239; tradition of Isaiah's death, 240 
 
 Ishboshcth, 62, 63 
 
 Jahesh-Gii.eai), 60 
 Jacob, 14, 16 
 
512 
 
 INDEX 
 
 James (and John), 448 
 Jehoiachin or Jeconiah, 272, 273, 294 
 Jehoiakim, 254, 257, 268, 270, 272. 
 Jeremiah, a priest, son of high priest, 
 244 ; called to be prophet against 
 his will, 245 ; office of prophet not 
 popular, 246 ; supposed fraudulent 
 writer of book of law, 248 ; pro- 
 phecies and warnings, 249, 251 ; 
 seized by priests, 256 ; released by 
 rulers, 257 ; the potter's vessel, 
 258 ; seized by Pashur and beaten, 
 261-262 ; put in the stocks, ibid. ; 
 cry of despair, 263 ; writes pro- 
 phecies in a roll, 267 ; roll read 
 in Temple, ibid. ; princes hear it, 
 268 ; carry it to king, ibid. ; burnt 
 by king, who orders arrest of pro- 
 phet, 270; Jeremiah escapes, 271 ; 
 by Euplirates, ibid. ; reappears, 
 274 ; appealed to by Zedekiah, 
 ibid. ; prophesies the return from 
 captivity after seventy years, 275 ; 
 writes to captives in Babylon, ibid. ; 
 in prison, 277 ; emancipation of 
 bondmen, 278 ; repeal of enfran- 
 chisement, 279 ; denunciations 
 from dungeon, ibid. ; confined 
 in court of Temple, 280 ; in the 
 horrible pit, 281 ; delivered by 
 eunuch, 282 ; doom of city, 283 ; 
 writes Lamentations, 285 ; carried 
 to Egypt, 289 ; prophesies restora- 
 tion, 290 
 Jericho, 11, 12,461, 462, 463 
 Jeroboam II., 205 
 
 Jerusalem — Jebus, 3 ; its situation, 4 ; 
 defended by blind and lame, 5 ; 
 taken by David, 6 ; choice of 
 Jebus for capital, 67 ; negotiation 
 with rulers, 68 ; command of army 
 promised as reward for capture, 
 ibid. ; won by Joab, ibid. ; won- 
 derful destiny, 69 ; the three hills, 
 70; questions about Mount Moriah, 
 72 ; David strengthens and beauti- 
 fies it, 73 ; proposes to bring up 
 the Ark, ibid. ; Ark brought up in 
 triumph, 77, 78 ; scenes in city : 
 Absalom's sheep-shearing, 89, 90 ; 
 popularity of Absalom — rebellion, 
 95 ; David's flight, 97 ; Absalom's 
 entry, 102 ; return of David, 109 ; 
 anointing of Solomon, 124; Temple 
 
 on Moriah built, 137 ; bridges over 
 valley, 140 ; beautiful city, 141 ; 
 changes in, 178, 179, 197, 199 ; 
 Isaiah's addresses to people, 246, 
 251 ; grotto of Jeremiah, 266 ; 
 siege by Nebuchadnezzar, 272 ; 
 Jehoiachin carried away with 
 10,000 of the people, ibid. ; city 
 again defended, 275; restoration 
 of slaves, 278; again enthralled, 
 279; destruction of city, 283; 
 Ezekiel's picture on tile, 296 ; 
 plan of restored city, 309; golden 
 gate, 313; again restored by Mac- 
 cabees, 374-375; city of ecclesi- 
 astics and theologians, 388 
 
 Jesse, 6, 34 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth, born in Bethlehem, 
 395 ; first visit to Temple, 398 ; 
 childhood at Nazareth, 399, 400 ; 
 beginning of work, 404 ; marriage 
 of Cana, 405 ; naturalness of 
 miracles, 407 ; goes up to Jeru- 
 salem, 409 ; followed by disciples, 
 410 ; his first comment on the 
 Temple, 412 ; lingers in Judea, 
 ibid.; the woman of Samaria, 413; 
 again in Jerusalem, 414 ; healing 
 of the impotent man, 415 ; begin- 
 ning of Sabbath controversy, 416 ; 
 fundamental difference of teaching 
 in Jerusalem and Galilee, 417; 
 immediate statement of divine 
 claims, 418 ; great excitement 
 arises in Temple, 420 ; also in 
 Galilee, 421 ; goes up to Jeru- 
 salem at the feast of Tabernacles, 
 ibid. ; the people ask. Will he 
 come ? 422, 423 ; address in the 
 Temple ; 425 ; Sanhedrim officers 
 ordered to arrest him, ibid. ; cere- 
 monial pouring out of water, 426 ; 
 proclaims the water of life, ibid. ; 
 officers unal)le to arrest him, 428 ; 
 "Never man spake like this man," 
 429 ; the light of the world, 430; 
 strongly rebukes the seed of 
 Abraham, 432; " Before Abraham 
 was, I am," 436 ; in Galilee, 441; 
 multitudes seeking miracles, 443 ; 
 goes to border of Tyre and Sidon, 
 444 ; is transfigured, 445 ; Peter's 
 confession, ibid. ; Peter reproves 
 his Master, ibid. ; parables, 448 ; 
 
INDEX 
 
 513 
 
 parting with Galilean disciples, 
 449 ; wanderings in Judea, 450; 
 first visit to Bethany, 451 ; the 
 man who was born blind, ibid.; 
 . popular excitement, 452 ; Jesus in 
 the Temple, 254 ; his utterances, 
 blasphemy or truth, 455 ; no other 
 alternative, ibid. ; discourses in 
 Solomon's porch, 457 ; all blas- 
 phemies or else true, ibid. ; leaves 
 the Jews in no doubt, ibid. ; re- 
 turns to the country beyond Judea, 
 458 ; the valley of Jordan, 460 ; 
 the ten lepers, 461 ; blind Barti- 
 maeus, 462-463 ; the sickness of 
 Lazarus, 464 ; goes to a city called 
 Ephraim, 465 ; returns for the 
 Passover, 470 ; supper at Bethany, 
 471 ; Mary's anointing for his 
 burial, 473 ; Judas, 474 ; agita- 
 tion of priests and Sadducees, 
 475 ; entry into Jerusalem, 477- 
 478 ; drives out the money- 
 changers, 479; concerted endeavour 
 to entrap him: by priests and scribes, 
 480-481 ; by Sadducees, 482 ; 
 by Pharisees, 483 ; full revelation 
 of spiritual kingdom, 484 ; de- 
 nunciation of scribes and Phari- 
 sees, 485 ; conversation concern- 
 ing fall of Jerusalem, 489 ; last 
 day in the Temple, 490 ; the 
 Upper Chamber, 493 ; incidents 
 of the last supper, 494-495 ; in 
 Gethsemane, 497 ; seized in the 
 garden, 498 ; the denial of Peter, 
 499 ; the Via Dolorosa, 503 ; 
 Golgotha, 504 
 Joab joins David, 61 ; battle with 
 Abner, 62 ; vengeance on Abner, 
 63 ; no sympathy from David, 64 ; 
 takes Jerusalem, 68 ; commission 
 respecting Uriah, 85 ; message to 
 David, 86 ; pleads for Absalom, 
 93 ; leads army against Absalom, 
 104; upbraids David on death of 
 Absalom, 106; in disgrace, 109; 
 siege of Tekoah, 1 1 1 ; supports 
 Adonijah, 122 ; guilty of death of 
 Abner, Absalom, Amasa — David's 
 sentence, 125 
 John the Baptist, 458, 460 
 John, evangelist, 432, 448, 494 
 Jonathan loves David, 14; his father's 
 
 confidence in him, 18 ; warns 
 David, 19; is consulted by David, 
 22 ; with Saul at feast, 23 ; his 
 compact with David, 25; last in- 
 terview, 35 ; David never unfaith- 
 ful to, 112 
 
 Josiah, the last great king of Judah, 
 198; finds book of the law, 197; 
 fate of his sons, 199; struggle 
 against evil, 243 ; faithful to As- 
 syria, 253; killed at Megiddo, 
 ibid. 
 
 Judah, people and kingdom of, 6, 23, 
 30, 31, 36, 60, 67, 71, 73, 167, 
 169, 171, 173, 184, 187, 197.238, 
 262, 265, 297, 299, 303, 317, 329 
 
 Judas Iscariot, 473, 491, 493 
 
 Keilah, 36 
 Kirjath-Jearim, 28, 74 
 
 Lazarus, 451, 464, 465, 471 
 
 Maccabees, Matthias, 371, 372, 373 ; 
 Judas, 378 ; Simon, 377 ; Jona- 
 than, 379 ; John Hyrcanus, ibid. : 
 Hyrcanus, 379, 380 
 
 Manasseh, King of Judah, 197, 242, 
 281, 282 
 
 Martha, 450, 473, 486 
 
 Mary, a maiden of Nazareth, 388 ; 
 angel's greeting, 391 ; goes to visit 
 Elizabeth, ibid. ; birth of our Lord, 
 394; oflering of doves in the Temple, 
 395 ; goes up to feast, 398 ; re- 
 turns to seek her son, 399 ; ponders 
 these things in her heart, 400 ; 
 resident in Nazareth, 405 ; at 
 marriage feast, 406 ; goes up to 
 Jerusalem, 408 
 
 Mary of Bethany, 451, 473, 49 1 
 
 Mephibosheth, loi, iio, 1 12 
 
 Messiah, 393, 400, 434, 441 
 
 Micah, 208, 227 
 
 Michal, 14, 19, 77, 78 
 
 Miracles, 407 
 
 Moabite stone, 271 
 
 Nabai., 34, 37, 3 
 Nahum, 103 
 
 Nathan, 82, 83, 87, 97, 123 
 Nazareth, 388, 395, 405, 445 
 L 
 
514 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar, 262, 266, 267/272, 
 
 273, 274, 276, 279, 294 
 Nicodemus, 411, 425 
 Nob, 27, 28 
 Nethinims, 355 
 
 Obadiah, 103, 235 
 
 Parables, Little Child, 446 ; Good 
 Samaritan, 447 ; Prodigal Son, 
 ibid; Pharisee and Publican, 459 
 
 Pashur, son of Immur, 261, 262, 263, 
 264 
 
 Peter accompanies our Lord, 411 ; 
 confession of the Christ, 445 ; re- 
 bukes his Lord, ibid; asks who is 
 the betrayer ? 479 ; accompanies 
 our Lord to Gethsemane, 497 ; 
 denial, 499 
 
 Pharisees, discussions with our Lord, 
 433, 434. 435 ; in Galilee, 441 ; 
 concerned with miracle of blind 
 man, 453 ; in the country, 457 ; 
 parable, Pharisee and Publican, 
 458, 459; semi-patriotic, 471; 
 their faith in the law, 475 ; ques- 
 tion. Which is First Command- 
 ment? 483 ; their blindness, 485 ; 
 woe to, ibid; no delusion left to, 
 490 ; their action, 491 
 
 Queen of Sheba, 145 
 Queen iVIary of Scotland, 161 
 
 Rabshakeh, 191, 192 
 
 Rahab, 4, 12 
 
 Ramah, 7, 19, 20, 21 
 
 Rehoboam, Kingofjudah, a disappoint- 
 ment to his father, 151 ; probably 
 only son, 152 ; kingdom broken 
 up, 165; raid of Egyptians, 170 
 
 Ruth, 11, 12 
 
 Sabbath, 416, 417 
 
 Sadducees in Galilee, 441 ; their doc- 
 trines, 475, 482 
 
 Sanballat the Horonite, 353, 355 
 
 Sanhedrim, 422, 423, 425, 428, 486, 
 500 
 
 Samaritans, adversaries of Judah, 329 ; 
 Samaritan wives of Jews put away, 
 345 ; enmity, 353, 387 
 
 Samaria, woman of, 413, 414 
 
 Samuel, his visit to Jesse at Bethlehem, 
 
 7 ; selects and anoints David, 8 ; 
 receives David at Ramah, 19 
 
 Saul, his troubled mood, 12 ; his love 
 for David, ibid. ; anger at David's 
 triumph, 16; his career full of mis- 
 takes, 18 ; determines to destroy 
 'Q2iV\A,ibid.; prophesies at Ramah, 
 21 ; feast of the new moon, 23 ; 
 continual persecution of David, 35 ; 
 enters cave, 39 ; skirt of his robe 
 cut off, 40 ; interview with David, 
 ibid.; night surprise in camp, 41 ; 
 his spear, 42, 43 ; limited power, 
 44 ; battle with Philistines, 57 ; 
 death, ibid. ; elegy, 58 
 
 Sennacherib, 188, 1 91, 234 
 
 Sheba, son of Bichri, 1 10 
 
 Shimei, loi, 109, 125 
 
 Siloam, 451 
 
 Socrates, 205 
 
 Solomon chosen to build the Temple, 
 119 ; promise of peace in his day, 
 121 ; Joab and Abiathar opposed 
 to, 122, 223 ; anointed king, 124; 
 his father's charge, 125 ; tradi- 
 tionary character, 127 ; poetry, 
 128; man of peace, 129; worship 
 and vision at Gibeon, 130; his 
 wisdom, 132 ; wonderful works, 
 ibid. ; Temple founded on Moriah, 
 137 ; bridges built, 140 ; promotes 
 trade, 141, 142, 143; the Corvee, 
 forced labour, ibid. ; Lebanon, 
 working parties, 144 ; ships, 145 ; 
 receives Queen of Sheba, ibid. ; 
 widespread fame, 147 ; Song of 
 songs, 148; Ecclesiastes, 150; 
 disappointment, 15 1 ; consolation, 
 156 ; unworthy son, 152 ; errors 
 of later years, 1 60 ; vanity of 
 vanities, 162 ; the portion of man, 
 the gift of God, 163 
 
 Songs of Degrees, 382 
 
 Tabernacles (Feast of), 327, 421 
 
 Tabor (Mount), 445 
 
 Tatnai, Satrap of Syria, 332, 333 
 
 Temple, first conception by David, 82 ; 
 David forbidden to build it, 83 ; 
 preparations for building, 116; 
 House of God, 120; large contri- 
 butions made, ibid. ; Solomon's 
 Temple immortal, 147 ; failure in 
 immediate object, 165 ; repeated 
 
INDEX 
 
 S»5 
 
 desecration and destruction, 178, 
 I97> 199 ; repeated restorations, 
 '73> I79> 198; finally destroyed 
 by Assyrians, 199 ; vision of idol- 
 atry in, 297 ; rebuilding begun, 
 328; arrested, 331; inferior to 
 old Temple, 336; or superior? 
 ibid. ; again desecrated by Anti- 
 ochus, 374 ; restored by Judas 
 Maccal>eus, 376 ; fortified and 
 decorated by Herod, 379, 380 ; 
 our Lord goes up to the feast in 
 youth, 396 ; Passover, 409 ; temple 
 of His body, 411 ; discussions in 
 the Temple, 433 : feast of dedica- 
 tion, 453 ; our Lord's discourse — 
 Good Shepherd, 454 ; character of 
 discourses there, idiJ. ; drives out 
 merchants, 479 ; statement of His 
 divinity, 480 ; discussions with 
 Pharisees and Sadducees, 481, 
 482 ; our Lord's last day there, 490 
 
 Tobiah, 333, 335 
 Tophet, 259 
 Transfiguration, 445 
 Tyre, 48, 82, 132, 135, 145 
 
 Uriah, 85, 86 
 Urijah, 262 
 
 Uzziah, King of Judah, 188, 206, 208, 
 209 
 
 Zaccheus, 463 
 
 Zedekiah, last king of Judah, 273, 274, 
 277, 278, 279, 281, 282, 284, 
 299 
 
 Zerubbabel, return from captivity, 321 ; 
 Feast of Tabernacles held among 
 ruins, 327 ; Temple begun, 328 ; 
 Temple consecrated, 336 ; Pass- 
 over, idiJ. 
 
 Zeruiah, sister of David, 33 
 
 Ziba, servant of Mephibosheth, 10 1, 1 10 
 
 Ziklag, so, 54, 55, 60 
 
 THE END 
 
 PrinUdbf K. & R. Clark, Edinburgh. 
 
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