Bible Studies Part 8

Mr. J. G. Frazer, in his splendid work _The Golden Bough_ gives many instances of savages making sunshine and staying the sun. Thus "the Melanesians make sunshine by means of a mock sun. A round stone is wound about with red braid and stuck with owl's feathers to represent rays; it is then hung on a high tree." "In a pa.s.s of the Peruvian Andes stand two ruined towers on opposite hills. Iron hooks are clamped into their walls for the purpose of stretching a net from one tower to another. The net is intended to catch the sun." Numerous other methods are resorted to by different tribes. Jerome, of Prague, travelling among the Lithuanians, who early in the fifteenth century were still Pagans, found a tribe who worshipped the sun and venerated a large iron hammer. "The priests told him at once the sun had been invisible for several months because a powerful king had shut it up in a strong tower; but the signs of the zodiac had broken open the tower with this very hammer and released the sun. Therefore they adored the hammer."* Mr. Frazer gives reasons for thinking that the fire festivals solemnised at Midsummer in ancient times were really sun-charms.

The phenomena of nature were supposed to be at the service of the pious.

The thunderbolts of Zeus fell upon the heads of perjurers. Some people still wonder the earth does not open when a man announces himself an Atheist. Jahveh just before stopping the sun, pelted the enemies of Israel with hailstones (Joshua x. 11). So Diodorus Siculus (xi. 1) relates how the Persians when on their way to spoil the temple at Delphi, were deterred by "a sudden and incredible tempest of wind and hail, with dreadful thunder and lightning, by which great rocks were rent to pieces and cast upon the heads of the Persians, destroying them in heaps." Herodotus too (ii. 142) tells how "The Egyptians a.s.serted that the sun had four times deviated from his ordinary course."

Clergymen cite this as a corroboration of the fact that all ancient peoples have similar absurd legends displaying their ignorance of nature and consequent superst.i.tion. The power of arresting the stars in their courses, and lengthening the days and nights was imputed to witches.

Thus Tibullus says of a sorceress (i. eleg. 2)--

I've seen her tear the planets from the sky, Seen lightning backward at her bidding fly.

And Lucan in his Pharsalia (vi. 462)--

Whene'er the proud enchantress gives command, Eternal motion stops her active hand; No more Heav'n's rapid circles joarney on, But universal nature stands foredone; The lazy G.o.d of day forgets to rise, And everlasting night pollutes the skies.

* The Golden Bough, vol. i., pp. 24, 25.

No modern poet would think of saying like Statius that the sun stood still at the unnatural murder of Atreus. Such an idea found its way into poetry because it had previously been conceived as a fact.

Hence we find numerous similar stories to that of Joshua. Thus it is related of Bacchus in the Orphic hymns that he arrested the course of the sun and the moon. Mr. Spence Hardy in his _Legends and Theories of Buddhists_, shows that arresting the course of the sun was a common thing among the disciples of Buddha. We need not be surprised to find that men were once believed to be able to control the sun when we reflect that to this day the majority of people fancy there is some magnified non-natural man, they call G.o.d, who is able to do the same.

Seeing the legend of Joshua in its true form as one of numerous similar instances ill.u.s.trating the barbarity and ignorance of the past, we see also that the whole merit and instruction of the story is taken away by those modern Christians, who speak of it as poetry, or who endeavor to reconcile it with the conclusions of science. These explanations were never sought for while miracles were generally credible. Josephus speaks of the miracle as a literal one, and the author of Ecclesiasticus xlvi.

5 says the Lord "stopped the sun in his anger and made one day as two."

"Rationalistic" explanations of miracles are often the most irrational, because they fail to take into account the vast difference between the state of mind which gave rise to the stories, and that which seeks to rationalise them.

THE HEBREW PROPHETS.

Anyone who has read an account of the mystery men among savages, will have the clue to the original nature and functions of the inspired prophets of Jahveh. These persons occupied a role somewhat similar to that of Brian the hermit, the highland seer described by Sir Walter Scott in his "Lady of the Lake." They were a sort of cross between the bard and the fortuneteller. Divination, though forbidden by the law of Moses, was continually resorted to by the superst.i.tious Jews.

The mysterious Urim and Thummim clearly represented some method of divination. In 1 Kings vi. 16 and Psalms xxviii. 2, the adytum of the temple is called the "oracle." Numerous references are to be found in the Bible to the practice of casting lots, the disposing of which is said to be "of the Lord" (see Num. xxvi. 55, Joshua xiii. 6, 1 Sam. xiv.

41, Prov. xiv. 33, xviii. 18, and Esther iii. 7), and also to "inquiring of G.o.d," which was equivalent to divination. Thus in Judges xviii. 5 five Danites ask the Levite, who became Micah's priest, to "ask counsel of G.o.d" whether they shall prosper on their way.

The ninth chapter of the first book of Samuel gives an instructive glimpse into the nature of the prophets. Saul, sent to recover his father's a.s.ses, and, unable to find them, is told by his servant that there is in the city a man of G.o.d, and all what he saith cometh surely to pa.s.s. Saul, perhaps guessing the lucre-loving propensities of men of G.o.d, complains that he has no present to offer. The servant, however, had the fourth part of a shekel of silver (about 8d.) wherewith to cross the seer's palms; and Saul, seeking for a.s.ses, is made king over Israel by the prophet Samuel. The custom of making a present to the prophet is also alluded to in 1 Kings xiv. 3. Jereboam, when his son falls sick, sends his wife to Ahijah the prophet with ten loaves and cracknels and a cruse of honey, to inquire his fate. Later on, Micah (iii. 11) complains that "the prophets divine for money." See also Nehe-miah vi. 12. As with the oracles of ancient Greece and Rome (the inspiration of which was believed by the early Christian fathers, with the proviso that they were inspired not by deities, but by devils), the prophets were especially consulted in times of war. Thus, in 1 Kings xxii., Ahab consults 400 prophets about going to battle against Ramoth-Gilead. He is told to go and prosper, for the Lord shall deliver it into the king's hand. Micaiah the prophet, however, explains that he had seen the Lord in counsel with all the host of heaven, and the Lord sent a lying spirit to the prophets in order to persuade Ahab to go to his destruction. This is quite in accordance with the declaration in Ezekiel xiv. 9, that "if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord hath deceived that prophet." David on one occasion (1 Sam. xxiii. 9) "took counsel of G.o.d,"

as this divination was called, by means of the ephod, probably connected with the Urim and Thummim. He sought to know if he would be safe from his enemy, Saul, if he stayed at Keilah. On receiving an unfavorable response David decamped. Inquiring of the Lord on another occasion, David got more particular instructions than were usually imparted by oracles. He was told not to go up against the Philistines, but to fetch a compa.s.s behind them and come on them over against the mulberry trees (2 Sam. v. 23).

We read, 1 Sam. xxviii. 6, that "when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets."

This, presumably, was because (verse 3) "Saul had put away those that had familiar spirits, and the wizards out of the land." He therefore had to seek out the witch of Endor to raise the spirit of Samuel.

The Lord is said to have declared through Moses, "If there be a prophet among you I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream" (Num. xii. 6). This method of divine revelation is alluded to in Job x.x.xiii. 14-16, "For G.o.d speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; then he openeth the ears of men and sealeth his instruction." G.o.d came to Abimelech in a dream by night and threatened him for taking Abraham's wife (Gen. xx. 3). So he revealed himself and his angels to his favorite Jacob (Gen. xxviii. 12). "G.o.d came to Laban, the Syrian, in a dream by night" (Gen. x.x.xi. 24) to warn him against touching juggling Jacob.

Joseph dreams of his own future advancement and of the famine in Egypt, and interprets the dreams of others. Gideon was visited by the Lord in the night, and encouraged by some other person's dream (Judges vii.) Jahveh appeared also to his servant, Sultan Solomon, "in a dream by night" (1 Kings iii. 5). Daniel, too, was a dreamer and dream interpreter (Dan. ii. 19, vii. 1). G.o.d promises through Joel that he will pour his spirit upon all flesh, "and your sons and your daughters shall prophecy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions" (chap. ii. 28).

The original meaning of the Hebrew word _cohen_ or priest is said to be "diviner." It is, I believe, still so in Arabic. Prophets and dreamers are frequently cla.s.sed together in the Bible, as in Deut. xiii. 1: "If there arise among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams." Jer. xxvii. 9: "Therefore hearken ye not to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers." Zech. x. 2: "The diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams." When religion is organised the dreamers and interpreters of dreams, who are an irresponsible cla.s.s, fall into the background before the priests.

No one can read the account of Balaam's falling, and lying prostrate with his eyes open while prophesying (Numbers xxiv.); and of Saul when, after an evil spirit from G.o.d had come upon him (1 Sam. xviii. 10), "he stripped off his clothes also and prophesied in like manner, and lay down naked all that day and all that night; wherefore they say, Is Saul also among the prophets" (1 Sam. xix. 24), without calling to mind the exhibitions of ecstatic mania among semi-savages. The Shamans of Siberia, for instance, work themselves up into fury, supposing or pretending that in this condition they are inspired by the spirit in whose name they speak, and through whose inspiration they are enabled to answer questions as well as to foretell the future. The root of the Hebrew word for prophet--_Nabi_, said to mean a bubbling up--confirms this view. The vehement gestures and gushing current of speech which accompanied their improvisations suggested a fountain bubbling up.

Insanity and inspiration are closely allied. Various methods were resorted to among the ancients to attain the state of ecstacy, when the excited nerves found significance in all around. The Brahmans used the intoxicating Soma. At Delphi the Pythia inhaled an incense until she fell into a state of delirious intoxication; and the sounds she uttered in this state were believed to contain the revelations of Apollo. In David dancing with all his might and scantily clad before the ark of Jahveh, we are forcibly reminded of the dervishes and other religious dancers. From the mention of music in connection with prophesying (1 Sam. x. 5, xvi. 23, 2 Kings iii. 5), it has been conjectured the Jewish prophets antic.i.p.ated the Salvationists in this means of producing or relieving excitement. In the Mysteries of Isis, in Orphic Cory-bantian revels, music was employed to work the worshippers into a state of orgiastic frenzy.

The pa.s.sage about Saul suggests the nudity or scanty costume of the prophets. Isaiah the elder--for the poet who wrote from chap. xl. to lxvi. must be distinguished from his predecessor--alleges a commandment from Jahveh to walk naked and barefoot for three years (Isaiah xx. 3).

Apollos, or whoever wrote the epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 37), speaks of them wandering about in sheepskins and goatskins. A girdle of leather seems to have been the sole costume of Elijah (2 Kings i. 8). Micah (i.

8) says "I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked." Zechariah speaks of the prophets who "wear a rough garment to deceive," and "say I am no prophet I am an husbandman" (Zech. xiii. 45), which is like what Amos (vii. 14) says: "I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit."

Isaiah (xxviii. 7) says, "the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink; they are swallowed up of wine." Jahveh tells Jeremiah "The prophets prophesy lies in my name, I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them; they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart" (xiv. 14). Further on he says, "O Lord thou hast deceived me and I was deceived" (xx. 7). The prophets of Jerusalem, Jeremiah declares, "commit adultery and walk in lies" (xxiii. 14). Ezekiel too, prophesies against the prophets and their lying divination (xiii. 2-7). Hosea (ix.

7) says, "the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad."*

* See too Isaiah lvi. 11-12; Jer. xxvii. 10-15, xxix. 8-9; Micah iii 5-7.

Some of the prophets can only be described as silly. Such are the two in 1 Kings xiii. 5 the prophet who asks to be smitten (1 Kings xii.); Zedekiah, who makes himself horns of iron; and Micaiah, who opposes him when a lying sprit comes from the Lord (1 Kings xxii.) To these may be added the man of G.o.d (2 Chron. xxv. 7), who made Amaziah dismiss his "hundred thousand mighty men of valor," who in consequence fell upon the cities of Judah and took much spoil.

The student of comparative religion in reading of the Hebrew prophets, is forcibly reminded of the Hindu sunnyasis and Mussulman fakirs. In the east insanity is confounded with inspiration, and Dr. Maudsley, in his _Responsibility in Mental Disease_, has given his opinion that several of the Hebrew prophets were insane. The dread and respect in which they were held is evinced in the legend of the forty-two children who were slain by bears for calling Elisha bald-head. Their arrogance and ferocity were exhibited by Samuel, who made Saul king till he found a more serviceable tool in David, and "hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord" (1 Sam. xv. 30); and by Elijah, who destroyed 102 men for obeying the order of their king (2 Kings ii. 9-13), and at another time slew 850 for a difference of opinion (1 Kings xviii. 19--40). Elisha was unscrupulous enough to send Hazael to his master saying he should certainly recover; though at the time he knew he would certainly die (2 Kings viii. 10). Judging by such examples we may congratulate ourselves that the race of prophets is almost extinct.

It must in fairness be said that some of the prophets used their influence in protecting the people against their priests and rulers, and that the greater prophets like Isaiah did much to elevate the religion of Israel, which in its modern form is largely their creation.

OLD TESTAMENT MARRIAGE.

"Marriage," says Goethe, "is the beginning and end of all culture."

Too often the end of all culture, the cynic may say. It may safely be affirmed that marriage is the chief cause and product of civilisation.

Like other inst.i.tutions, it has pa.s.sed through various stages of growth among all nations, the Jews included. It has been said "Motherhood is a matter of observation, fatherhood a matter of opinion." Certain it is that in early society kinship was reckoned through mothers only. Of this we have some evidence in the Bible. Abraham, the father of the faithful, married Sarah, "the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother" (Gen. xx. 12). His brother Nahor took the daughter of his other brother, Haran, to wife (Gen. ix. 27-29). Such marriages could not have occurred except when relationship through males was not sufficiently acknowledged for a bar to marriage to have been raised upon it. Jacob had two sisters to wife at once. Amram, the father of Moses, married his own aunt (Exodus ii. 1 and 1 Chron. vii. 3). Even in the time of pious King David marriage with half-sisters was not considered improper, for when Ammon wished to force his sister Tamar, she said unto him, "Speak unto the king; for he will not withhold me from thee" (2 Samuel xiii.

13). Brothers by the same mother are specially distinguished (Deut.

xiii. 6, Judges viii. 19). The child, moreover, in early times, was thought rather to belong to the mother than the father. Thus we find that Ishmael was turned adrift with Hagar, and Hannah, one of the wives of Elkanah the Levite, had the right of presenting or devoting her son Samuel to Jahveh.

A survival of consanguine marriage is found in Deut. xxv., where it is expressly ordered that when a brother's widow is left childless "her husband's brother shall go in unto her and take her to him to wife"; and in the event of his refusing to do so he has to have his shoe loosed and his face spat upon. Of the antiquity of this usage we have evidence in Genesis x.x.xviii. When Er, Judah's firstborn, died, the father commanded his second son, "Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother." The second son refusing, the thing which he did displeased the Lord, wherefore he slew him. Judah now putting Tamar off from taking his next son, she disguised herself and made her father-in-law do his son's duty, he acknowledging "she hath been more righteous than I." The custom is also referred to in the story of Ruth.

Ewald amends Ruth iv. 5: "Thou must buy also Ruth the Moabitess." The Bible reader will remember that the disgusting story of the patriarch Lot and his daughters is related without the slightest token of disapproval. The daughters justified themselves by the plea that they would "preserve seed of our father." To understand these narratives, the reader must remember that in the early history of the family it was desirable, in the struggle for existence, that its numbers should not be diminished. Many instances are found in the Bible of the blessing of a large family. "Happy is the man who has his quiver full." The blessing on the typical servant of Jahveh is that "he shall see his seed," It was the duty of the next of kin to see that the family stock did not diminish. We find at the beginning of Genesis that, when Abel was slain, G.o.d gave Seth "instead." In patriarchal life, as exhibited by the Bedouins, the "next of kin," the _goel_, is a most important personage.

To him the tribe looks to avenge or redeem a kinsman's death or misfortune. On him the widow and fatherless depend for support. He is, above all, the blood-balancer, who sees that the house is kept in its normal strength, and who seeks to recruit it as far as possible from the same blood--a state of things implying feud with surrounding tribes.

Job, in his anguish, can find no stronger consolation this--"I know that my _goel_ liveth." According to the morality of that time, not only Tamar, but the family was grossly wronged by Onan. By refusing to allow Shelah to take the duties of _goel_, on the ground of his youth, Judah himself incurred the responsibilities of that office. It was his duty to see that seed was raised. Tamar resorted to cunning, the weapon of the weak, and Judah's confession is the real moral of what, to a modern, must be considered the very disgusting story in Genesis x.x.xviii.

All the Old Testament heroes, from Lamech downwards, were polygamists.

Indeed, both polygamy and concubinage were practised by those Hebrew saints who were most distinguished by their piety, faith, and communion with Jahveh. Abraham not only took Hagar as a secondary wife, but turned her adrift in the wilderness when it suited his own goodwill and pleasure. Jacob, who lived under the special guidance of G.o.d, married two sisters at the same time, and each of them presented him with concubines. David, the man after G.o.d's own heart, had many wives and concubines (2 Samuel iii. 2-5, v. 13), while Solomon, who was wiser than all men, boasted of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (1 Kings xi. 5). Jahveh, while denouncing intermarriage with women of foreign races, never says a word against either polygamy or concubinage.

On the contrary, both are sanctioned and regulated by the Mosaic law (Deut. xxi. 10-15). More than this, G.o.d himself is said to have married two sisters, Aholah and Aholibah (Ezekiel xxiii.), and although this is figurative, the figure would never have been used had the fact been considered sinful.

A Hebrew father might sell his daughter to be a wife, concubine, or maid-servant to an Israelite, and her master might put her away if she pleased him not (Exodus xxi. 7-11). Women taken captives in war might be used as wives and dismissed at pleasure (Deut. xxi. 10-14). In the case of the Midianites only virgins were preserved. Moses indignantly asked, Have ye saved all the women alive? "Now therefore kill every male among the little ones and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that hath not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." And the Lord took shares in this maiden tribute (Numb, x.x.xi.)

Woman in the Bible is treated as merchandise. In Jacob's time she was bought by seven years' service, but in the time of the prophet Hosea she was valued only at fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley. In the Decalogue it is prohibited to covet a man's wife on the same ground as his man slave, his maid slave, his ox, or his a.s.s, or anything that is his. Her lord and master could say with Petruchio:

She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, My household stuff, my field, my barn, My horse, my ox, my a.s.s, my anything.

By G.o.d's law a man was permitted to dismiss a wife when she found "no favor in his eyes," by simply writing out a bill of divorcement. There is no mention of the woman having any similar power of getting quit of her lord and master. If he suspected her fidelity he could compel her to go through an ordeal in which the priest administered to her the water of jealousy, which if guilty would cause her to rot, but which was harmless if she was innocent. No doubt this was a potent means in securing wifely devotion and a ready remedy for any hated spouse. In the hands of a friendly priest the concoction would be little likely to fail, and even should it prove innocuous there was the expedient of writing a bill of divorcement.

It is usually said that G.o.d "winked at" (Acts xvii. 30) these proceedings, because of the hardness of the old Jews' hearts, and that from the beginning it was not so. In proof of this is cited the pa.s.sage in Genesis which says, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."

The proper interpretation of this pa.s.sage ill.u.s.trates a very early form of marriage still found in some tribes, and known in Ceylon as beenah marriage. Mr. McLennan, one of the highest authorities on primitive marriage, says:

"In beenah marriage the young husband leaves the family of his birth and pa.s.ses into the family of his wife, and to that he belongs as long as the marriage subsists. The children born to him belong, not to him, but to the family of their mother. Living with, he works for, the family of his wife; and he commonly gains his footing in it by service. His marriage involves usually a change of village; nearly always (where the tribal system is in force) a change of tribe, but always a change of family. So that, as used to happen in New Zealand, he may be bound even to take part in war against those of his father's house. The man leaves father and mother as completely as with the Patriarchal Family prevailing, a bride would do; and he leaves them to live with his wife and her family. That this accords with the pa.s.sage in Genesis will not be disputed.*

"Marriage by purchase of the bride and her issue can hardly be thought to have been primeval practice. When we find beenah marriage and marriage by purchase as alternatives, therefore it is not difficult to believe that the former is the older of the two, and it was once in sole possession of the field."**

* The Patriarchal Theory, p. 43; 1885.