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FOREWORDToC
FOREWORDToC
Most histories have been histories of kings and emperors. The daily life of the common people—their joys and sorrows, their hopes, achievements, and ideals—has been buried in oblivion. The historical narratives of the Bible are, indeed, to a great extent an exception to this rule. They tell us much about the everyday life of peasants and slaves. The Bible's chief heroes were not kings nor nobles. Its supreme Hero was a peasant workingman. But we have not always studied the Bible from this point
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CHAPTER IToC
CHAPTER IToC
Ancient Arabia is the home of that branch of the white race known as the Semitic. Here on the fertile fringes of well-watered land surrounding the great central desert lived the Phœnicians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Canaanites who, before the Hebrews, inhabited Palestine. So little intermixing of races has there been that the Arabs of to-day, like those of the time of Abraham, are Semites. The Hebrew people are an offshoot of this same Semitic group. They began their career as a tr
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CHAPTER IIToC
CHAPTER IIToC
Most persons, no matter what their race or country, spend a large proportion of their time at home. The home is the center of many interests and activities, and it reflects quite accurately the state of civilization of a people. In this chapter let us take a look into the homes of the shepherd Hebrews. We shall visit one of their encampments; perhaps we shall be reminded of a camp of the gypsies. Here on a gentle hillside sloping up from a tiny brook, is a cluster of ten or a dozen black tents.
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CHAPTER IIIToC
CHAPTER IIIToC
According to one of the Hebrew traditions recorded in the book of Genesis, the earliest home of their ancestors was Ur of the Chaldees. This was one of the leading cities of ancient Babylonia. It was situated southwest of the Euphrates River, near the plains which were the nation's chief grazing grounds. And it is possible that of the shepherds who brought their sheep to market in Ur some were, indeed, among the ancestors of the Hebrews. Babylonia is one of the two lands (Egypt being the other)
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CHAPTER IVToC
CHAPTER IVToC
Although they had escaped for a time from Babylonian tyranny, the descendants of Abraham in Canaan found themselves somewhat within the range of the influence of the other great civilized power of that day, that is, Egypt. Egyptian officers collected tribute from rich Canaanite cities. The roads that led to Egypt were thronged with caravans going to and fro. By and by, a series of dry seasons drove several of the Hebrew tribes down these highways to Egypt in the search of food. The story of Jose
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CHAPTER VToC
CHAPTER VToC
Egypt has never been a health resort. The intensely hot summers breed germs of disease, and also the insects which often carry them. Throughout its history the country has been ravaged periodically by fearful epidemics. A series of these pestilences predicted by Moses and declared to be Jehovah's punishment for the enslavement of the Israelites, made it possible for him to lead his people out of slavery. So severe were the plagues that the government was for a time disorganized. Taking advantage
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CHAPTER VIToC
CHAPTER VIToC
Once safely out of Egypt, the next problem for Moses and his people was to find a way into Canaan. Through all the centuries the wandering shepherds on the edge of the desert have looked with longing eyes on the fertile valleys and plains of Palestine. To have a settled, comfortable home, with cisterns of water as well as springs and wells; to have fields of wheat, vineyards of grapes, and gardens of melons and all luscious fruits—this is the picture that haunts the wandering Arab, amid the hard
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CHAPTER VIIToC
CHAPTER VIIToC
The wandering Hebrew shepherds were not savages nor barbarians. In many ways Abraham and his friends were cultured, civilized people; but their civilization was of a different kind from that of the settled farmers and villagers of Canaan. So when the Hebrews crossed the Jordan and gradually fought their way to the highland fields and villages where they were able to settle down and live as farmers and vineyard keepers instead of shepherds, they soon found that they had much to learn. The only te
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CHAPTER VIIIToC
CHAPTER VIIIToC
The farmers of ancient Canaan all lived in villages. No farmer would have dreamed of building an isolated house for his family on his own field out of sight of his nearest neighbor as our American farmers do. The danger from robbers would have been too great. Instead of that, the Hebrew farmer lived in the nearest village or town. Early in the morning he went out to his field, and in the evening returned to his home inside the protecting village walls. These ancient villages would have seemed to
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CHAPTER IXToC
CHAPTER IXToC
Let us suppose that we have been invited to spend a day or two as guests in the home of one of these Hebrew families who have just settled in Canaan and begun to learn the new arts and customs of the land. It is one of the poorer homes. We have slept through the night on our mat spread on the dirt floor of the house, with our cloak over us to keep us warm. Before daylight we are awakened by the older people moving about in the dim light of the burning wick in the saucer of oil. Soon everyone is
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CHAPTER XToC
CHAPTER XToC
On the whole, Canaan was a good school for the Hebrew shepherds. New arts to learn, new crops to raise, new kinds of cloth to spin and weave, new kinds of food to cook—all this helped to make life more interesting and worth while. But there were other lessons which newcomers might learn which were not so wholesome. Wine drinking, for example, was a habit which the wisest of the Hebrews always feared. The wine which they made in those foaming wine-presses was, of course, mild and harmless as comp
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CHAPTER XIToC
CHAPTER XIToC
After the Hebrews began to be settled in Canaan, not only were they tempted to neglect the poor and unfortunate; they also failed to stand together against their enemies. Each tribe and clan seemed to care only for its own safety. The men of Judah in the south, the Ephraimites in central Canaan, and the Naphtalites in the northern hills, and Gilead and Reuben across the Jordan—each group tried to fight its own battles. Often they fought with each other. There was a bloody war between the men of
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CHAPTER XIIToC
CHAPTER XIIToC
After Sisera was conquered, the Hebrew tribes which had combined against him immediately fell apart, relapsing into the same state of disunion and disorganization as before. And very soon other enemies took advantage of it to plunder and kill. The Midianites. —Among the most harassing of these enemies for a time were the Midianites, who lived as nomads, roaming over the deserts just as the Hebrews themselves had done except that they made their living chiefly by robbery. Every spring just after
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CHAPTER XIIIToC
CHAPTER XIIIToC
After Saul's death his son Ishbaal fled across the Jordan where the Philistines were not yet in control, and was accepted as king by the East Jordan tribes. More and more, however, the hearts of all the Hebrews turned toward the young David, who, under the Philistines, to whom he paid tribute, now became king over the tribe of Judah in the south. David was a born leader. Physically he was an athlete. With his sling he could throw stones straight, as Goliath, the Philistine giant, discovered to h
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CHAPTER XIVToC
CHAPTER XIVToC
The Hebrews did not greatly better themselves by the division of the kingdom and by the revolt of the northern tribes from Solomon's son. There were still kings both in the north and in the south. And all they cared about was glory and luxury for themselves. In order to get glory and wealth these kings made war on neighboring countries. For a long time there was war between the northern and southern Hebrews. There were long and very bloody wars between the Hebrews and the Arameans, whose kings r
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CHAPTER XVToC
CHAPTER XVToC
Among all ancient peoples, including the Hebrews, a large part of religion was the burning of animal sacrifices on altars. Whenever a sheep or lamb or kid was slaughtered for food the blood was poured out on the sacred rock, or altar, in which the god was supposed to dwell. Afterward the fat was burned on the same rock. It was believed that the god in the rock drank the blood and smelled the fragrant odor of the burning fat. Whole burnt offerings. —On special occasions, such as a wedding, the bi
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CHAPTER XVIToC
CHAPTER XVIToC
Amos seemed to think of sacrifices and burnt-offerings as mere formalities which distracted men's attention from the thing of real importance, namely, just and righteous dealing between man and his neighbor. There was another prophet who lived a little later than Amos. Perhaps as a youth he heard Amos speak. This was Hosea, who probably came from Gilead east of the Jordan. This man saw even deeper into the truth of religion than Amos, and his messages wonderfully completed and rounded out the gr
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CHAPTER XVIIToC
CHAPTER XVIIToC
There are other mischievous delusions in regard to the character of God which we find among all races in the early childhood of their history. They think of their gods not only as greedy but as having arbitrary whims and as often falling into fits of unreasonable and cruel anger. The Hebrews were not entirely free from these wrong notions in their conception of Jehovah. Even in the story of Moses, for example, there is a strange narrative which declares Jehovah "met Moses and sought to kill him"
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CHAPTER XVIIIToC
CHAPTER XVIIIToC
The destruction of the northern kingdom by the Assyrian armies struck fear into the hearts of the Hebrews of the sister kingdom in the south. No one had dreamed that such a thing could happen. It is true that from the beginning of the terrible onrush the Assyrians had been almost irresistible. All the little nations which had stood in their way had been swallowed up. Moreover, the prophets Amos and Hosea had plainly foretold that some such calamity would be sent upon Israelites by Jehovah on acc
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CHAPTER XIXToC
CHAPTER XIXToC
Amos and the great prophets who followed him met with the same fate as many other pioneers—only a few of their hearers heeded their words, or even understood them. But four great leaders in one century—Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah—could hardly fail to make some real impression on the minds and lives of their nation. Isaiah was perhaps the most influential, partly because the others before them had prepared the way and partly because he himself lived and preached to the people during a long per
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CHAPTER XXToC
CHAPTER XXToC
The new law-book seemed a great victory. Yet sometimes victories are more dangerous than defeats. They lead to self-satisfaction. This was certainly the case with this victory of the authors of Deuteronomy. The people were careful to offer up their sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem, and very few offerings were brought to the old village shrines. But the real kernel of the truth which the prophets had proclaimed was in danger of being forgotten. This was the truth that no forms of sacrifice,
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CHAPTER XXIToC
CHAPTER XXIToC
Twice within twelve years, first in B.C. 597, and again in B.C. 586, the Babylonians took great companies of Hebrews as exiles from Jerusalem to Babylon. Each time there must have been in the line of march some twenty-five thousand men, women, and children—an army which, marching eight abreast, would stretch at least five or six miles. These must have been sorrowful processions, especially the last of the two. For months they had suffered the horrors of a besieged city. Then had come the break i
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CHAPTER XXIIToC
CHAPTER XXIIToC
As the Jewish exiles were led away to Babylon they asked themselves over and over again, "Is this the end of our nation?" It seemed like the end. Their capital city lay in ruins. Their king was blinded and in chains. All the most intelligent people in the country were being led to a distant land, from which most of them would probably never return. The iron rule of the Babylonians was everywhere supreme. There are other nations and races whose people might not have cared so much even if this had
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CHAPTER XXIIIToC
CHAPTER XXIIIToC
About seventy years after the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem a committee of Jews went to Persia to seek aid for their distressed country from their more prosperous kinsfolk. In the Persian capital, Susa, they found a man named Nehemiah, who was cup-bearer and personal adviser to the king of Persia. He was a man of good sense, of kindly sympathy, and of great ability—just the man to help them. They told him how the walls of the city of their fathers had never been rebuilt in all these year
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CHAPTER XXIVToC
CHAPTER XXIVToC
We have seen that a new kind of public worship of God had been growing up among the Hebrews, beginning with the time when the prophets began to condemn the misuse of the old animal sacrifices. The new worship consisted chiefly of prayer. We have seen how the exiles in Babylon began to come together on the Sabbath days to study the law and other sacred writings, and also for prayer. Those exiles who returned to Judæa brought this custom with them. Special buildings, called synagogues, were erecte
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CHAPTER XXVToC
CHAPTER XXVToC
All nations like to think of themselves as superior to the rest of mankind. The Greeks used to despise all foreigners as "barbarians." We in America ridicule immigrants from other countries and call them unpleasant names. The Jews also made the same mistake of despising people of other races and nations. We find laws even in so just a law-book as Deuteronomy which are unfair to foreigners. Jews were forbidden to exact interest from fellow Jews, but they were permitted to exact it from foreigners
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CHAPTER XXVIToC
CHAPTER XXVIToC
In spite of all their prejudice, thinking Jews could not help but see that the Greeks, in spite of their heathen religion, had brought with them many of the blessings of civilization. Many articles of everyday comfort were introduced into Canaan for the first time by the Greeks, for example, new varieties of food, such as pumpkins, vinegar, asparagus, and various kinds of cheese. From the Greeks also the Jews learned to preserve fish by salting them. This made possible the splendid fishing busin
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CHAPTER XXVIIToC
CHAPTER XXVIIToC
All children among all races receive as they grow up some kind of an education. Isaac learned from his father Abraham and from the other older people about him how to set up a tent, how to milk a goat, how to recognize the tracks of bears and other wild beasts, and all the other bits of knowledge so necessary to wandering shepherds. Not till many centuries after Abraham in Hebrew history were there any special schools apart from the everyday experiences of life, or any man whose special work was
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CHAPTER XXVIIIToC
CHAPTER XXVIIIToC
If we could have visited the home of some sincerely religious Jew about the time when the law of Deuteronomy was adopted by King Josiah and the people we might have seen the beginning of a new kind of education—the regular study of books, and especially of the Bible. They had for their Bible at that time the law of Deuteronomy, which they had accepted as God's will for all Jews. And if this was God's will for them, it was plain that it must be taught to everybody, beginning with the children. Le
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CHAPTER XXIXToC
CHAPTER XXIXToC
After the death of Alexander the Great his empire was broken into fragments ruled by those of his generals who were able to snatch these smaller kingdoms for themselves. One of them named Ptolemy seized Egypt. His descendants, known as the Ptolemies, reigned there for centuries. Another, named Seleucus, gained control of the greater part of the old Persian empire. He built the city of Antioch, in northern Syria, naming it after his father Antiochus. His descendants, on the throne of the new king
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CHAPTER XXXToC
CHAPTER XXXToC
In spite of the fact that the Jews still had some power of self-government through the Sanhedrin, the great mass of the people hated the Romans with an almost inconceivable fury. The world had never before seen such cruel rulers. The Assyrians had been bad, but the Romans were worse. Think of that form of punishment which they inflicted carelessly every day even for minor crimes—crucifixion! The poor victim was nailed by the hands and feet to a pole and left to hang in agony till death mercifull
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CHAPTER XXXIToC
CHAPTER XXXIToC
This history of the common people of Israel began with certain vague hopes of a happier and nobler way of living for the descendants of Abraham. As the centuries passed these hopes were only very partially realized. But what was more important the Jews came more and more clearly to understand the meaning of their own hopes. Their great teachers helped them to know what they really wanted or ought to want if they would be happy. Moses taught them the first lessons of justice as the foundation of
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CHAPTER XXXIIToC
CHAPTER XXXIIToC
In this course of study we have been tracing the progress of a great enterprise. A race of people set out in the days of Abraham to seek the best in life. Did they win or lose, succeed or fail? What did they achieve, during a thousand years of striving? Looking back over the whole period which we have studied, there are four short epochs which stand out in bright contrast to long stretches of darkness as times when the common people had a chance to enjoy some of the good things of life, or at le
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REVIEW AND TEST QUESTIONSToC
REVIEW AND TEST QUESTIONSToC
1. Describe the daily life of the earliest ancestors of the Hebrews. 2. What valuable characteristic of these people is reflected in the story of Joseph? 3. What were some of the evils of Babylonian life? 4. What kind of life did Abraham admire judging from the story of Lot? 5. What was the name of the Pharaoh who oppressed the Hebrews? 6. Describe the slavery which the Hebrews were compelled to endure. What did they have to do? 7. How did Moses succeed in delivering his countrymen? 8. What was
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A SHORT LIST OF BOOKS THROWING LIGHT ON HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES
A SHORT LIST OF BOOKS THROWING LIGHT ON HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES
Kent and Bailey: History of the Hebrew Commonwealth . George A. Barton: Archæology and the Bible . Charles Reynolds Brown: The Story Books of the Early Hebrews . Harold B. Hunting: The Story of Our Bible . Crosby: Geography of Bible Lands . Hastings' One Volume Bible Dictionary . Typographical errors corrected in text:...
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