The World's Progress Part 51

He sendeth forth springs into the valleys; They run among the mountains: They give drink to every beast of the field; The wild a.s.ses quench their thirst.

By them the fowl of the heaven have their habitation, They sing around the branches.

He watereth the mountains from his chambers: The earth is satisfied with the fruits of thy work.

He causeth the gra.s.s to grow for the cattle, And herb for the service of man: That he may bring forth food out of the earth, And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, And oil to make his face to shine, And bread that strengtheneth man's heart.

The trees of Jehovah are satisfied; The cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted; Where the birds make their nests: As for the stork, the fir trees are her house; The high mountains are for the wild goats; The rocks are a refuge for the conies.

O Jehovah, how manifold are thy works!

In wisdom hast thou made them all: The earth is full of thy riches.

Yonder is the sea, great and wide, Wherein are things creeping innumerable, Both small and great beasts.

There go the ships; There is leviathan, whom thou hast formed to take his pastime therein.

These wait all upon thee, That thou mayest give them their meat in due season.

This poem reflects general characteristics of the land. The next is a pastoral poem which could have been written only in Judaea. Its figures are pastoral throughout, and lack of acquaintance with the land wherein it was produced often causes one to miss the successive pictures it portrays. Reference is made to the Twenty-third Psalm, wherein the comparison of the shepherd with his sheep is maintained.

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."

Only a good faithful shepherd could lead his sheep in Judaea so that at no time would they want for care or food.

"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:"

Pasturage was often scanty, and to lie always in _green_ pastures was the greatest boon that could befall the sheep.

"He leadeth me beside the still waters."

Not lakes, but cisterns or pools, constructed to hold the rains of winter for use in the dry months of summer. Unless these were carefully sought out in each new pasture, the sheep would suffer from thirst.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For thou art with me: Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

When one pasture was exhausted, it was necessary to journey to another.

Danger lurked on every side. Did the sheep wander away, they were sure to be attacked by fierce animals, or stolen by other herders. The shepherd led the way amid all dangers, and his rod and staff gave a.s.surance to the sheep some distance from him.

"Thou preparest a table before me In the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over."

The figure is not changed here, as some have supposed, and a banquet introduced. Quite on the contrary. In that land grew many poisonous herbs, likely to be unnoticed by the sheep. The shepherd watched to see that his flock found food free from these enemies. Then at last, when the night fell, and the flock was gathered into the fold, the shepherd stood by the door with a cup of oil in his hand ready to pour on the heads of weary, exhausted lambs, thus to refresh and revive them. Only a little could be spared for each one. To have a cup filled to overflowing was a wonderful blessing. So is the figure carried on to the end of the beautiful song, and only goodness and mercy could possibly attend one so protected.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Smith: Historical Geography of Holy Land, 73.

[2] Deuteronomy 11, 10.

[3] Smith: Historical Geography, 94.

CHAPTER VII.

SOURCES OF HEBREW HISTORY.

We may divide the sources of early Hebrew history into (1) Hebrew sources, and (2) sources supplied by contemporaneous nations and by archaeology. The Hebrew sources are princ.i.p.ally three: the historical books of the Old Testament, the Talmud, the writings of Josephus. The sources derived elsewhere are records and inscriptions throwing light upon the events of this ancient nation as chronicled by the Egyptians, Babylonians, and a.s.syrians, and statements of Greek travellers and writers bearing upon their later development. Moreover, in late years the spade of the excavator has unearthed ruins and remains which have added materially to previous knowledge of the subject and have established beyond any doubt facts previously unsettled.

Before taking up a discussion of the historical books of the Old Testament--the first of the Hebrew sources,--it is necessary that we consider the compilation of the Bible, and understand how the many books which compose it were made up, and gathered into the one volume with which we are now familiar.

Only in late years have people generally been ready to approach the study of the Bible in the spirit of modern investigation long applied to other fields of learning. While the reasons for this reluctance may not be at once apparent, they are not difficult to discover.

During the Middle Ages religious teaching was guarded and kept alive by monks in the monasteries of Europe. Only with them was learning of any sort fostered and saved from extinction during the period known as the Dark Ages. The books which these monks studied, and the records and productions they committed to paper or parchment, were invariably written in Latin--a tongue unknown to the people at large. Since the Bible existed only in Latin, Hebrew or Greek, it was a sealed book to the ma.s.ses, who knew it only through brief portions read and explained to them by the priests.

After a time, translations were made, first of portions only, then the entire work was rendered in modern languages. Still it was not considered fitting to allow its contents to be generally known. Copies were chained to pulpits in the cathedrals and were opened by the priest alone. Those who might have been able to procure the costly copies were not permitted to do so. In the story of England we shall find that only a few centuries ago, to possess a Bible and read it aloud in the family was made an offense and was punishable if discovered. Thus a mystery attached to the Scriptures, instilled into the ma.s.ses by those who guarded the ancient volume. The awe and reverence so aroused, clung to the Bible generations after its contents had become familiar to the Christian world. One scholar calls the Bible "literature smothered in reverence."

Again, no other event can be cited throughout history which has had so great an effect upon the world as had the ministry of Christ, recorded at length in the New Testament. The doctrines he taught have been held sacred by his followers in all subsequent ages.

The prophetic literature of the Old Testament had foretold the coming of some one who should restore Israel, and the ancient Hebrew nation looked with expectancy to the birth of one who should raise their kingdom to the rank of powerful nations of the earth. By some, Christ was identified with the one whose coming the prophets had proclaimed, and thus a continuity was found throughout the Bible--from the epic of creation in the beginning, to the birth and teaching of Christ, and the added records of his apostles. For many years the entire work was spoken of as the "Word of G.o.d," and equal reverence given the sixty-four books which compose it. A verse would be quoted from one chapter with no regard to its context quite as freely as from another. Sentences would be extracted from primitive Hebrew law and put side by side with portions of Christ's Sermon on the Mount, or Paul's letters to mission churches. Finally scholars began to exclaim against such crude and literal interpretation of the Scriptures. "Here," they exclaimed, "is a book embodying legends current among a Semitic people twenty-five hundred years before the birth of Christ; there are prayers and hymns of praise composed at varying periods and finally brought together into one collection; and once again, here is a series of letters written by early preachers of the gospel to their outlying churches, and you are culling a stanza here, a verse there, and a sentence in a third place, as though they were of equal value and had been written under similar circ.u.mstances!" Far from welcoming new light upon the subject of deep importance, a cry of indignation arose, from the clergy as well as laymen. It was argued that a scientific study of the Bible would be sure to detract from the force and influence of its teachings, and was in itself irreverent. But the spark of Promethean fire was not destined to go out--the spirit of investigation was abroad. The more scholars searched and studied, the more they were persuaded that a scientific exposition of the Bible would enhance rather than lessen its value. They saw that changing ideas in the book itself existed and had been pa.s.sed over by those who did not understand them and who thought it their duty to blindly accept what they did not comprehend; while a broader conception was destined to lead to the establishment of profound religious truths, far more satisfying than the earlier blind belief.

At last the facts these scholars derived, the methods they applied, the conclusions they reached, largely overcame prejudices of long standing, and it may safely be said that today only those people oppose a scientific study of the Bible who are themselves unfamiliar with scientific study in other fields of knowledge.

With this explanation, the results of careful investigation of the Old Testament will henceforth be cited and used freely with no further comment, since by such study alone can we come into a true understanding of a wonderful literature and a remarkable people.

The word _Bible_ means _books_, or a _library_. A considerable portion of Hebrew literature has herein been preserved to us. Originally these productions were written in the ancient Hebrew tongue, and had no connection with one another save that they treated of the same people at different stages of their development, and further, treated in some form--most of them, at least--of their faith. When these writings were first collected and bound together, more books were included than at present. Since then the collection has been edited and re-edited.

Compilers have introduced notes in the text and a.s.signed authorship of certain writings to those who were themselves mere compilers. Later still, it became customary to write books in verses; into this form the contents of the Scriptures were thrown. Instead of a narrative being given at length it was divided into verses, as in our Bibles at present used. Instead of a poem being reproduced in its original form, or a drama being divided by the speeches of its partic.i.p.ants, both were cast into verses and numbered. Thus prose and poetry came to have the same appearance.

"More than fifty books, the production of a large number of different authors representing periods of time extending over many centuries, are all comprehended between the covers of a single volume. There is no greater monument of the power of printing to diffuse thought than this fact, that the whole cla.s.sic literature of one of the world's greatest peoples can be carried about in the hand or pocket.

"But there is another side to the matter. A high price has been paid for this feat of manufacturing a portable literature: no less a price than the effacement from the books of the Bible of their whole literary structure. Where the literature is dramatic there are no names of speakers nor divisions of speeches; there are no t.i.tles to essays or poems, nor anything to mark where one poem or discourse ends and another begins. It is as if the whole were printed 'solid,' like a newspaper without newspaper headings. The most familiar English literature treated in this fashion would lose a great part of its literary interest; the writings of the Hebrews suffer still more through our unfamiliarity with many of the literary forms in which they were cast. Even this statement does not fully represent the injury done to this literature of the Bible by the traditional shape in which it is presented to us. Between the Biblical writers and our own times have intervened ages in which all interest in literary beauty was lost, and philosophic activity took the form of protracted discussions of brief sayings or 'texts.' Accordingly this solidified matter of Hebrew literature has been divided up into single sentences or 'verses,' numbered mechanically one, two, three, etc., and thus the original literary form has been further obscured. It is not surprising that to most readers the Bible has become, not a literature, but simply a store-house of pious 'texts.'"[1]

We call certain books of the Old Testament _historical_, but this does not mean, in this case, that they were written with the sole object of chronicling the events of Hebrew progress. They were at the same time books of devotion, showing G.o.d's dealing with them, His chosen people.

Before the ninth or eighth century B.C., records of Israel's past existed only in s.n.a.t.c.hes of song and in traditions handed down by word of mouth from one generation to another. The Song of Deborah, preserved in the Book of Judges, belongs to a remote period; the legends of creation, common to the Semitic race, as related in Genesis were current from time immemorial. In the eighth century before Christ an effort was made in the "Schools of the Prophets" to compile the history of Israel, but the leading motive was rather to ill.u.s.trate G.o.d's favor to them in the past by citing instances familiar to them all, and to prove that divine protection had been withdrawn from them when they had gone astray--as exemplified in their past, rather than to leave for future ages records of their heroic deeds and victories and civil administration. The result was that the historical writings prepared were based on ancient traditions, to be sure, but reflected the religious beliefs and the normal ideas of the age in which they were produced.

The historical books include Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, I. and II. Samuel, I. and II. Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Other books, such as Isaiah, for example, include historical matter.

"The first portion of the history, the biblical _Genesis_, gives us what that word implies--the Gradual Formation of the Chosen Nation. The next section on the Exodus (the biblical _Exodus_, _Leviticus_, _Numbers_), the Emigration of the Chosen People to the Land of Promise; with migration goes the gradual evolution into an organized nation, and the ma.s.sing at this point of legal doc.u.ments makes the Const.i.tutional History of Israel. Under the name of The Judges (the biblical _Joshua_, _Judges_, part of _Samuel_) we next distinguish the Grand Transition: a people starting with theocracy, the government of an invisible G.o.d, comes to accept the rule of visible kings copied from nations around.

But precisely at the time these kings begin there is established a regular order of 'prophets,' or interpreters for G.o.d, representing the old idea of theocracy: the fourth period of the history may be named as The Kings and The Prophets, a regular Government of Kings tempered by an Opposition of Prophets. Then comes the Exile: the witnessing of Israel for Jehovah has to be carried on in the land of strangers. There return from exile, not the whole people, but only those who are devoted to the service of G.o.d; not the Hebrew Nation, but the Jewish Church: and the final section is thus the Ecclesiastical History of _The Chronicles_.

The spirit of the history is throughout made emphatic by story, or at times by fable or song. But in addition to the formal historic books we have to note two others:

"_Deuteronomy_ gives us the Orations and Songs of Moses, emphasizing the crisis of the leader's Farewell to Israel. And in Isaiah we find a certain dramatic work, which, in connection with the deliverance from exile, reads a meaning into events such as strikes a unity through the whole career of the chosen people: it is an Epilogue to the History of Israel."

The _Talmud_ has been mentioned as a second source of Hebrew history.

The word itself means literally "learning," or "teaching." It is the name given a collection of Hebrew writings which were written primarily to explain and exemplify Jewish law. Two Talmuds were prepared, one in Babylon--known as the Babylonian Talmud, or the Talmud of the Eastern land; the other written in Jerusalem, known as the Talmud of the Western land. They were kept in the temples and added to and continued by rabbis through the first five centuries after the Christian era. The interest in them for the historian today centers around the traditions and legends introduced, these having been current among the Hebrews generations earlier. The Talmud is rich in folklore, and so possesses relative value from a historical standpoint.

Third among Hebrew sources we have noted the Writings of Josephus.

Josephus was a Jewish priest who lived in the first century after Christ. Not only was he himself a priest but for twenty-four generations before him his forefathers had presided in the temple. During his life, Palestine was held by the Romans, and he wrote the "Antiquities of the Jews," and a history of the Jewish War, to acquaint the people of his day with the story of his people. He claims to have found his material in the sacred books of the temple and frequently explains at length events merely mentioned in the Old Testament. His writings have been valued both in early and recent times.

Among the sources elsewhere obtained, the records of contemporaneous nations are of first importance. The oppression of the Israelites under the Egyptian pharaoh, for example, is believed to find confirmation in scenes and inscriptions recently discovered in the valley of the Nile.

In our study of a.s.syrian conquest, we have noted tribute lists and memorials celebrating victories over the Hebrew kingdoms, recovered among other ruins in Mesopotamia. The king of Babylonia finally left Jerusalem, the beautiful city of Palestine, demolished and well nigh abandoned. Thousands of her n.o.blest citizens were taken captives to Babylon. This incident was naturally chronicled in Babylonian annals.

Similar instances might be cited, but these serve to show ways in which material for Hebrew history may be gleaned from the records of nations that flourished by her side.

Lastly we may note the results of archaeological research as supplying material for the reconstruction of Israel's past. In 1883 M. Naville opened a mound wherein was discovered a portion of what is supposed to have been Pithom--one of the two "store-cities," built by the Children of Israel while in bondage. The bricks still remaining verified the story as it has come down to us from the Hebrews themselves, in the Book of Exodus. The lower rows of bricks were mixed with straw; those laid in later were kneaded with stubble, and those last placed were formed simply of sun-dried mud.