of husbandry, mechanical arts, and literature. Beside Amos and Hosea, who were active also in Judah, Jonah and Joel were among the prophets of that period. Of the last we still possess a beautiful poetical description of a dreadful devastation by locusts, perhaps allegorically of barbarians, when "the land was as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness." Another destructive event was a long remembered earthquake. Jotham, the son of Uzziah, who during the last years of his reign acted as regent, continued after his father's death (759) his beneficent rule; but his son Ahaz again introduced idolatry, and his reign was disgraceful and disastrous. Rezin and Pekah, allied against him, advanced as far as Jerusalem, which was saved only by the dearly purchased aid of Tiglath Pileser, king of Assyria, who conquered Damascus, carried its inhabitants into captivity, and slew Rezin. Ahaz declared himself the subject of his Assyrian deliverer, and also suffered attacks by the revolted Philistines, while the state of the interior of the country provoked the immortal denunciations of Isaiah and Micah. "How is the faithful city become a harlot!" exclaims the former of Jerusalem. "It was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water; thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves; every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards; they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them." The latter thus addresses the rulers: "Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity. They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money.' But these prophets express in no less glowing words their hopes of a better future, which seemed to be realized in the succeeding reign of Hezekiah the son of Ahaz. This pious king followed almost entirely the injunctions of Isaiah, who was bold enough to advise an uncompromising abolition of ancient abuses and restoration of the Mosaic law, war against the Philistines, independence of Assyria, and at the same time the rejection of any alliance with Egypt; and was powerful enough to brave the general corruption, to baffle the plots of the court, and to maintain the courage of the people as well as of the sick king during the great invasion of Sennacherib, when the state was on the brink of ruin. Thus Judah escaped the fate of her sister state, which had a few years before been conquered and devastated by the Assyrians, and which now began to be repeopled principally by Cuthæans, an idolatrous people subject to their rule, who, mingling their rites with those of their new territory about Samaria, became afterward known under the name of Samaritans (Cuthim), while scattered portions of the ancient Hebrew inhabitants

augmented the number of the subjects of Hezekiah. But the reign of his son Manasseh, longer than that of Uzziah, was more disgraceful than that of Ahaz. Idolatry was not only publicly introduced, but had its altars even on Mount Moriah. The most abominable practices prevailed, including the bloody worship of Moloch, and Jerusalem was filled with the blood of the innocent victims of tyranny, while the limits of the country were narrowed by hostile neighbors. Amon, the son of Manasseh, followed in his father's footsteps, but was murdered after two years. Josiah, his successor, however, was a zealous imitator of Hezekiah, and was assisted in his radical reforms by the reviving influence of the prophets, among whom were Nahum, Zephaniah, the young Jeremiah, and their female colleague Huldah. Nahum celebrated the final fall of Assyria, and the destruction of Nineveh its capital, "the bloody city full of lies and robbery, (whence) the prey departeth not," which was then completed by the allied Babylonians and Medes. But the power of Babylonia, lately founded by Nabopolassar, was now growing to a threatening extent, and the position of the weak kingdom of Judah between this and the rival power of Egypt doomed it to a sudden catastrophe. Pharaoh Necho having commenced a campaign against Babylonia through Philistia, Josiah opposed his march, and fell in the battle of Megiddo. His son Jehoahaz was sent prisoner to Egypt, and the younger Jehoiakim (or Eljakim) appointed king in his stead. The great victory of the Babylonians, however, over Necho on the Euphrates, soon made Jehoiakim a vassal of their empire. He afterward revolted, against the advice of Jeremiah, who saw the impossibility of resisting the sway of Nebuchadnezzar, the successor of Nabopolassar. The king was as little inclined to listen to his counsel in his foreign as he was in his domestic policy. Jeremiah's prophecies were burned. Another prophet, Uriah, was punished for the boldness of his rebukes with death. The Chaldeans soon invaded the country, and were joined by its neighboring enemies. After the death of his father and a short siege of Jerusalem, Jehoiachin or Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, terminated the war by a voluntary surrender to Nebuchadnezzar, who sent him with his family, his army, and thousands of the most important citizens, to Babylonia as captives. The treasures of the temple and royal house were plundered. Mattaniah, an uncle of the dethroned king, was appointed his successor, as vassal of the conqueror, under the name of Zedekiah (598). It was the last reign of the house of David. Zedekiah, a weak prince, was induced by a misguided patriotism to revolt against Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah in vain exerted all his zeal and eloquence to dissuade the king and the people from this pernicious step. He was persecuted by both; the seductive influence of false prophets prevailed. The 2d siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar now ensued (588). It fell after a desperate defence,

The king, who attempted to escape with the remnants of his troops, was made prisoner in the neighborhood of Jericho, was deprived of his eyes after having seen the slaughter of his children, and was sent in chains to Babylon. The temple was burned, its vessels were plundered, the walls and palaces of Jerusalem destroyed, and all important or wealthy citizens carried into the Babylonish captivity. Jeremiah was spared and allowed to remain with Gedaliah, whom Nebuchadnezzar appointed his viceroy at Mizpah, and around whom a number of the remaining people soon gathered. But this last centre, too, was soon destroyed by the assassination of Gedaliah. A number of the surviving officers emigrated with their followers and Jeremiah, who tried in vain to dissuade them, to Egypt, whither the sword of the Chaldeans still followed them. The annihilation of the state of Judah was complete. Jerusalem "sits solitary, the city that was full of people is become as a widow; the princess among the provinces is become tributary. She weepeth sore in the night; among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her. Judah is gone into captivity; she finds no rest. The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts; all her gates are desolate; her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted." These elegiac sounds of the "Lamentations" are not the most touching of the numerous effusions that treat that tragic end. Speaking in the name of the Lord, Ezekiel exclaims: "My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill; yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them." Habakkuk, speaking of the Chaldees, "that bitter and hasty nation," asks God: "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity; wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, when the wicked devoureth him that is more righteous than he?" Jeremiah curses the day of his birth, and accuses God. Providence is also arraigned in the book of Job, a sublime lyrical drama, which numerous critics regard as a production of that time. A number of psalms, too, belong to the last period of the kingdom of Judah. But Babylonia, the prison of the Jewish nation (for this name had now become the most familiar), was destined also to become the cradle of its regeneration. The Babylonish captivity was the "furnace of affliction" which purified it, and, as is said in Zechariah (xiii. 8, 9), two parts perished, but the third part was left therein, brought "into fire as silver is refined, and as gold is tried." The most eminent of the people had been transplanted there with Jeconiah, and afterward, among others, Ezekiel, Daniel, and his pious companions at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah; and their activity in reviving the spirit of religion and nationality is evident from the numerous contributions to the Hebrew literature of that period, all glowing with enthusiasm and unconquered hope.

The court, that source of corruption, was no more; the priests of Baal and Moloch, so long fattened on lies, had disappeared with the altars of their idols; the voluptuous groves of Ashtoreth could not be transplanted into the land of dreary captivity; Zion was regretfully remembered on the brooks of Babylon, and the true admonishers of the people, who had predicted all this, now found more willing ears. Their consolations, too, and the deliverance which they promised, were soon to be confirmed; and the captives, who were full of revengeful hatred toward their oppressor, the profligate and treacherous mistress of the world, heard with secret delight of the warlike preparations of the Medo-Persian empire against her. There are no more vigorous passages in the Hebrew Scriptures than those which describe Cyrus, the "servant of the Lord," called to "execute his vengeance," his army, his victorious approach, and the fall of Babylon (538). The last ruler of that city, Belshazzar, was drinking wine with his lords, his wives, and his concubines, from the golden and silver vessels of the temple of Jerusalem, when "one messenger was running to meet another" to tell him "that his city was taken at one end." The Persian conqueror did not disappoint those who had predicted, and perhaps secretly promoted his triumphs. He allowed the Jews to return to their country, where they could be useful by forming a kind of outpost against Egypt, and to rebuild their capital and temple. The first and largest body of returning patriots consisted of more than 42,000 persons, under the lead of Zerubbabel, a prince of the house of David, and the high priest Jeshua. But the idolatrous Samaritans, whom the Jews would not admit to have a share in the new temple, exerted themselves to prevent their rebuilding and fortifying Jerusalem, calumniating them at the court of Persia, particularly under Cambyses (529-'22) and Pseudo-Smerdis (522). Darius, however, fully confirmed the permission of Cyrus (521). The prophets Haggai and Zechariah (assisted, perhaps, by Obadiah, who seems to have been their contemporary) inspired Zerubbabel, the priests, and the people with fresh zeal, and after 5 years the new temple was completed (516). The events which are described in the book of Esther-the elevation of the Jewess of that name (or Hadassah) to the dignity of Persian queen, the high official career of her relative Mordecai, the schemes of Haman, a courtier and personal enemy of the latter, to destroy all the Jews of the Persian empire, his fall, and the almost miraculous escape of the people through Mordecai and Esther-probably refer to the reign of Xerxes (485-'65), the son of Darius, though the name Ahasuerus is used in the Scriptures to designate various monarchs of the Persian empire. Under the following reign of Artaxerxes, Ezra, the pious scribe (or critic, sofer), led a new colony of Jews from beyond the Euphrates to Jerusalem, where he carried through a series of important reforms, completing the restoration

of the Mosaic law, for which he was afterward revered as the second lawgiver of his people. The condition of the Jews in Palestine, however, or rather in Jerusalem and its vicinity, was not cheering. The city had no walls or gates, and poverty prevailed. To remedy these evils Nehemiah, the Jewish cup-bearer of Artaxerxes, started from Susa with the permission of the monarch and the dignity of governor (444). The work of restoring and fortifying Jerusalem was now carried on and executed with the utmost zeal, though the laborers were often obliged to work under arms, the Samaritans and their friends threatening an attack. Notwithstanding his dignity, Nehemiah voluntarily shared the toils and privations of his brethren. He restored order, assisted the poor, abolished the abuses of the rich, and strengthened the observance of the law. After a long absence at the royal court, during which fresh disorder had arisen, he resumed his pious and patriotic work, in which he was assisted by Malachi, the last of the known prophets. The enmity of the Samaritans, though baffled in its first assaults, remained active down to a much later period, their separation having been sanctioned by a rival temple on Mount Gerizim. The Jewish temple on Mount Moriah had a successive line of hereditary high priests in the direct descendants of Jeshua, of whom Jaddua held that most influential office at the time of the conquest of the Persian empire by Alexander, whose wrath he is said to have diverted from Jerusalem (332). The names of the Persian governors during the last century of that empire are unknown, this being altogether the most obscure period in the history of the Jews. It seems to have been a time of comparative tranquillity and prosperity; at least it included no particular national disaster, as it added no day of fasting to those recently established in commemoration of the fall of Jerusalem, the death of Gedaliah, &c. But the same century, together with the time of Ezra, may certainly be regarded as the period of the most important religious developments, of a permanent consolidation of Judaism. The first impulse had probably been given in Babylonia, during the active literary period of the captivity. But Ezra the sofer, his contemporaries Haggai, Zechariah, Nehemiah, and others, "the men of the great assembly" (anshey keneseth haggedolah), and the successive soferim, are the real authors of the restoration and the new develop ments connected with it. The sacred Scriptures were collected, authenticated, and arranged into a canon, including the most precious remnants of a vast literature, among the lost parts of which were the often mentioned and quoted "book Hayashar," probably a collection of historical songs, the book of the "Wars of the Lord," the special "Chronicles" of the kings of Judah and Israel, the prophecies of Nathan, Ahijah, Iddo, and others, the "History of Solomon," various works of this king, and an endless multitude of others; their great number was complained of in the philosophical book

of Ecclesiastes, a work commonly attributed to Solomon, but by numerous critics to a very late period. The Pentateuch was publicly read, taught in schools, explained, hermeneutically expounded (midrash), and translated into the Chaldee language, which the common people had adopted in Babylonia, together with various eastern notions concerning angels, spirits, and other supernatural things. The legal or religious traditions, explanatory or complementary to the law of Moses, were traced back through the prophets and elders to that lawgiver, and systematically established as the oral law (torah or debarim shebbaal peh). New obligations were added to form a kind of "fence" (seyag) around the law, preventing its infraction, and founded on the authority of the scholars and wise men of the age (dibrey soferim, mitzvath zekenim). The following century and a half, when Judæa was a province of the successors of Alexander in Egypt and Syria, the Ptolemies and Seleucidæ, is marked by new features. Greek refinement, science, and philosophy spread among the Jews, particularly among the flourishing colonies in Alexandria and other cities of the Ptolemies. A part of the people, especially the wealthier, adopted the Epicurean notions of the demoralized Greeks of that time, and were finally organized as a sect, denying the immortality of the soul, rejecting the authority of tradition, and adhering to the literal sense of the Mosaic law; while the teachings of the stoics agreed well with the more austere life of the followers of the "great assembly," who maintained their preponderance with the people. As a sect the former were called Sadducees, the more ascetic of the latter Pharisees. The derivation of both these names is as little settled as is that of the name of the Essenes, who appear about the close of this period, forming secluded, industrious, and socialistic communities, and engaged in medical, mystical, and ascetic practices. The Samaritans, who, adopting in part the Mosaic rites, had succeeded in attaching to their temple a part of the neighboring Jews, now followed the example of the Hellenizing cities of Syria, and made little opposition to the spreading worship of the Greek gods. The Greek language became common in Judæa, and the Greek translation of the Pentateuch prepared under Ptolemy Philadelphus in Egypt (the Septuagint) was used in the synagogues of that country. A Syrian dialect of the Aramaic was used for the same purpose by the Samaritans, and the pure Chaldee prevailed among the Jews beyond the Euphrates. Politically no less than in matters of religion, Judæa seems to have been ruled by the high priests, who had to be confirmed by the Egyptian or Syrian kings, and the sanhedrim of Jerusalem, a college of 70, with a president (beth din haggadol, high court). After the death of Alexander (323), the little province frequently changed masters, until it was definitively attached to the empire of Ptolemy I. Soter, under whom the celebrated Simon the Just (or Rightteous) officiated as high priest, and Antigonus of

Socho as president of the sanhedrim. The uncertainty of possession made the foreign rulers more lenient. The country was growing in wealth and population, in spite of large colonies drawn to Alexandria by Alexander the Great, Soter, and others. These were particularly well treated, and enjoyed privileges which made them an object of envy. They, like their brethren of Babylonia and other countries of Asia, enriched Jerusalem and the temple by their gifts and visits during festivals. Ptolemy II. Philadelphus (285-'46) was especially favorable to the Jews. Under his successors, however, Judæa grew impatient of the Egyptian rule, and when Antiochus the Great attacked the young Ptolemy V., the Jews willingly aided him in driving the Egyptians from their land (198). They soon had reason to regret this change of dynasty. The Seleucida were bent on Hellenizing their empire, and were offended by the determination of the Jews to preserve their own national and religious peculiarities. The treasures, too, which had been slowly accumulated in the temple of Jerusalem, tempted their avarice, while they also augmented the number of priestly office seekers. Tyranny and corruption growing together, the dignity of high priest was finally converted into an office for sale. One Onias was robbed of it for the benefit of his younger brother Jason, who offered 360 talents to the court of Syria; a third brother, Menelaus, wrested it from him, giving 300 more, and strove to maintain himself in his usurpation by scandalously promoting the arbitrary schemes of Antiochus Epiphanes. Being driven from the city by Jason and his followers, and besieged in the citadel, he was rescued by Antiochus, who destroyed a part of the city, sold many of his opponents into slavery, and robbed the temple (170). But worse was to follow. During the second expedition of the Syrian king against Egypt, a false report of his death spread in Judæa, and Jerusalem immediately rose against his officers. But the Hellenizing Jews opened its gates to the returning king, and an unparalleled slaughter of the religious inhabitants ensued (169). Not satisfied with this, Antiochus destroyed the walls of the city, garrisoned a new citadel with his soldiers, and decreed the general and exclusive introduction of Greek idolatry. The image of the king was placed in the temple, swine were sacrificed on the altar, new altars were everywhere erected for the obligatory worship of the Olympian Jupiter, the Hebrew Scriptures were burned, circumcision was prohibited, and every act of opposition made a capital crime and punished with extreme cruelty. Thousands after thousands were dragged into captivity, sold as slaves, or butchered. Finally the king departed on an expedition against the Parthians, leaving the completion of his work to his general Apollonius (167). The latter continued it in the spirit of his master, but soon met with a sudden check. Mattathias, an old priest of the village of Modin, and of the distinguished

house of the Asmoneans, and his 5 sons John (Johanan), Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan, commanded to sacrifice to Jupiter, drew their swords in defence of their religious liberty, and soon after were able to defend that of others. The people flocked after them into the desert, whence they sallied forth to destroy the altars of their oppressors. Contempt of death gave victory, and victory created new warriors. The work of liberation was successfully commenced when the old patriot died (166), leaving the command in the hands of Judas, who well deserved by his overwhelming victories the surname of the Hammer (Maccab), though the name of Maccabees, which is applied to the whole house, and the title of the apocryphal books of their history, may have been derived from the initials of a supposed scriptural sign, or from those of the name of the father, M(i) K(amokha) B(aelim) J(ehovah) ("Who is like thee among the gods, O Everlasting?"), and M(attithyahu) K(ohen) B(en) J(ohanan) (Mattahias the priest, son of Johanan). Terror reigned among the Syrians in Judæa. Their greatly superior forces suffered defeat_after defeat under Apollonius, Seron, Lysias, Timotheus, Nicanor, and other generals. Jerusalem was reconquered, the temple purified, a treaty of alliance concluded with the Romans, the traitor Menelaus was executed by order of Antiochus, and the latter soon after died (164). But the bold struggle of the heroic brothers again became desperate. Eleazar (or perhaps another warrior of the same name), rushing through the thickest of the enemy to transpierce an elephant, on which he supposed the young king Eupator himself to be seated, was crushed under the belly of the falling animal. Judas, seeing himself deserted by most of his followers at the approach of an immense host under Bacchides, and having no alternative but flight or death, chose the latter, attacked the Syrians with 800 men, broke through one of their wings, but was surrounded by the other, and perished with all his companions (160). The surviving brothers again fled to the desert of the south, carrying on a desultory warfare, in which John soon after fell. But the protracted struggles for succession to the throne of Syria between the various kings and usurpers who followed Eupator, Demetrius Soter the son of Epiphanes, his pretended brother, Alexander Balas, Demetrius Nicator the son of Soter, Antiochus the son of Balas, Antiochus Sidetes the son of Nicator, and Tryphon, gave Jonathan, who now commanded, and after him Simon, ample opportunity to restore the fortune of the war. Jonathan's friendship was soon sought by the rival pretenders; he made peace with the one or the other, was acknowledged as high priest, strategus, and ethnarch of Judæa, and was successful in his long wars, but was finally enticed to an interview with Tryphon, and assassinated with his sons. Simon conquered the citadel of Jerusalem, renewed the alliance with Rome, and was proclaimed an independent prince. The inde

pendence of Judæa was successfully defended against Antiochus Sidetes under the command of John and Judas his sons, but the old man was soon after assassinated with his sons Judas and Mattathias by his own son-in-law Ptolemy (135). His surviving son, John Hyrcanus, who succeeded him, resisted the invasion of Antiochus Sidetes, concluded a peace, and further developed the independence of the country, extending its limits by the conquest of Idumæa, and of Samaria, which he destroyed, as well as the temple on Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans were thus crushed, but the Sadducees attained great influence under his reign, and the religious dissensions, assuming also a civil aspect, gradually undermined the foundations of the newly restored state. John Hyrcanus, and his sons Aristobulus (106-'5) and Alexander Jannæus (105-79), belong to the small number of Maccabees who died a natural death; for the race of priestly warriors, who conquered their dignity by the sword, were doomed to perish by the sword, and only the earlier members of the house who fought for the liberty of their people fell in glorious battles. Aristobulus, who assumed the royal title, ordered the murder of his brother Antigonus, while their mother was starved to death in a dungeon. Alexander Jannæus proved equally barbarous in a war of 6 years against the majority of his people, who abhorred him as a debauched tyrant and Sadducee, and stained his victory by the execution of 800 of the most important rebels before the eyes of his revelling court. Thousands sought refuge in flight, and he was allowed to continue his reign till his death, when he advised his wife to follow an opposite line of policy. She accordingly chose her councillors from among the distinguished men of the national party, and recalled the exiles. Of her two sons, she appointed Hyrcanus high priest, keeping the political rule herself. Dissatisfied with this arrangement, the younger Aristobulus sought for support among the Sadducees, and after the death of their mother (71) a long civil war was waged by the two brothers, which was terminated only by the interference of the Romans, to whom both applied. Scaurus, the lieutenant of Pompey the Great in Syria, decided for the younger of the brothers (63). But Pompey soon after reversed the sentence, besieged Aristobulus in Jerusalem, took the city and the temple, entering both amid streams of blood, and confirmed Hyrcanus as high priest, in which capacity he became tributary ethnarch of the Romans. Aristobulus and his sons, Alexander and Antigonus, were carried as captives to Rome. Judæa, with narrowed limits, was now a province of the Roman republic, which was just advancing to its furthest boundary in the East. In the name of Hyrcanus it was governed by Antipater, his crafty Idumæan minister, who ruled his feeble master, and was finally himself established by Cæsar, after the fall of Pompey (48), as Roman procurator of Judæa. But Aristobulus and his two sons escaped from Rome, and made

desperate efforts to recover their dignity, but all of them perished in the successive attempts. Antigonus procured aid from the Parthians, who, having vanquished Crassus (53) and other Roman generals, invaded Judæa and carried Hyrcanus into captivity. But he finally succumbed to the son of Antipater, Herod, who on his flight to Rome had gained the favor of the new triumvirs, and who now inaugurated under their auspices as a powerful, independent king, the last dynasty in Judæa, the Idumæan (39). This prince, who as if by irony has been called the Great, was the slave of his passions, as well as of the Romans, and the bloody master of his subjects. His ambition made him rival in splendid structures, among which was the rebuilded temple, in the erection of new fortresses, citadels, and cities, and in unlimited sway, the glory of King Solomon, but did not prevent him from basely creeping before Mark Antony, his mistress Cleopatra of Egypt, and his rival Octavianus, and from sacrificing the most sacred customs and usages of the people in order to flatter the vanity of his foreign supporters. Gladiatorial games, statues, and other things abhorred by the Jews, were introduced in their cities, and the Roman eagle was placed on the top of the new temple. The desire of the people for the national house of the Maccabees was to be stifled in the blood of its last descendants, though Herod was himself the husband of Mariamne, the granddaughter of Hyrcanus by her mother Alexandra, and of Aristobulus by her father Alexander. Antigonus was executed by the Romans at Damascus; the old Hyrcanus was enticed from Babylon to share the same fate in Jerusalem; the young and beautiful brother of the queen, the high priest Aristobulus, was treacherously drowned while bathing with the king. Herod's own house followed, treacherous intrigues and the dread of conspiracies demanding new victims. His uncle Joseph, his franticly beloved, beautiful, and noble Mariamne, her mother Alexandra, his two sons by Mariamne, the favorites of the people, perished successively at his order, and finally, 5 days before his own death, his son by another wife, Antipas or Antipater, next to Herod's sister Salome the chief cause of the last murders and of the king's dreadful agonies. The blood of many other innocent persons was shed, attempts at insurrection or regicide being quelled or punished with remorseless rigor. In extent of possessions, however, Herod's reign by far surpassed the power of his predecessors. Augustus divided his territory among his 3 surviving sons. Archelaus received, as ethnarch, half of them, viz.: Judæa (proper), Samaria to the N., and Idumæa to the S.; Philip and Herod Antipas, as tetrarchs, received the other halfthe former, Batanæa, Trachonitis, and Auranitis, E. of the Jordan (Perma), and the latter, Galilee W. of the Jordan and N. of Samaria, with some slight additions. Anarchy was a natural consequence of this arbitrary arrangement, and it came with all its horrors.-Such was the political condition of the Jewish state in the first