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gence of the people at large, until, as happened towards the close of Samuel's administration, the public voice made itself be heard, recommending an entire departure from obsolete notions. Thus we find, in the progress of the human race, that the simple authority of the family-chief passes through a species of oligarchy into a practical democracy, and ends at no very distant period in the nomination of an hereditary sovereign.

The epoch at which we now contemplate the Hebrew community is that very interesting one when the wandering shepherd settles down into the stationary husbandman. The progeny of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who themselves were pastoral chiefs, appear to have retained a decided predilection for that ancient mode of life. Moses, even after he had brought the twelve tribes within sight of the promised land, found it necessary to indulge the families of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh so far as to give them the choice of a settlement beyond the Jordan, where they might devote themselves to the keeping of cattle. From the conduct also of the other tribes, who showed no small reluctance to divide the land and enter upon their several inheritances, it has been concluded, with considerable probability, that they too would have preferred the erratic habits of their ancestors to the more restricted pursuits which their great lawgiver had prepared for them amid cornfields, vineyards, and plantations of olives. "And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go to possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers hath given you?"*

Among the Arabs, even at the present day, the pastoral life is accounted more noble than that which leads to a residence in towns, or even in villages. They think it, as Arvieux remarks, more congenial to liberty; because the man who with his herds ranges the desert at large will be far less likely to submit to oppression than people with houses and lands. This mode of thinking is of great antiquity in the eastern parts of the world. Diodorus Siculus, when speaking of the Nabathæans, relates, that they were by their laws prohibited from sowing, planting, drinking wine, and building houses; every violation of the precept being pun

*Michaelis's Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, art. 44; and Joshua xviii. 3.

ishable with death. The reason assigned for this very singular rule is, their belief that those who possess such things will be easily brought into subjection by a tyrant; on which account they continue, says the historian, to traverse the desert, feeding their flocks, which consist partly of camels and partly of sheep.

The fact now stated receives a remarkable confirmation from the notice contained in the book of Jeremiah respecting the Rechabites, who, though they had for several ages been removed from Arabia into Palestine, persevered in a sacred obedience to the command of their ancestor, refusing to build houses, sow land, plant vineyards, or drink wine, but resolving to dwell in tents throughout all their generations.

In regard to these points, the Hebrews, in the early age at which we are now considering them, appear to have entertained sentiments not very different from those of the Arabs, from whose sandy plains they had just emerged. The life of a migratory shepherd, too, has a very close alliance with the habits of a freebooter; and the attentive reader of the ancient history of the Israelites will recollect many instances wherein the descendants of Isaac gave ample proof of their relationship to the posterity of Ishmael. The character of Abimelech, the son of Gideon, for example, cannot be viewed in any other light than that of a captain of marauders. The men of Shechem, whom he had hired to follow him, refused not to obey his commands, even when he added murder to robbery. Jephthah, in like manner, when he was thrust out by his brethren, became the chief of a band of freebooters in the land of Tob. "And there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him." But the elders of Gilead did not on that account regard their brave countryman as less worthy to assume the direction of their affairs, and to be head over all the inhabitants of their land,-an honour which he even hesitated to accept when compared with the rank and emolument of the less orderly situation which they requested him to relinquish.

Nor did David himself think it unsuitable to his high prospects to have recourse for a time to a predatory life. When compelled to flee from the presence of Saul, he took refuge in the cave of Adullam; "and every one that was

in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented gathered themselves unto him, and he became a captain over them." It has been suggested, indeed, that the son of the Bethlehemite employed his arms against such persons only as were enemies to the Hebrews. But there is no good ground for this distinction. His conduct to Nabal, whose possessions were in Carmel, proves, that when his camp was destitute of provisions he deemed it no violation of honour to force a supply for the wants of his men, even from the stores of a friendly house. We may judge, moreover, of the character of his followers, as well from the remonstrance that was made by the parsimonious rustic to whom he sent them, as from the effect which a refusal produced upon their ardent tempers. "Who is Da

vid? and who is the son of Jesse? There be many servants now-a-days that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men whom I know not whence they be?-So David's young men turned their way, and went again, and told him all those sayings. And David said unto his men, Gird ye on every man his sword. And they girded on every man his sword, and David also girded on his sword: and there went up after David about four hundred men, and two hundred abode by the stuff."*

It is manifest, that in the simple condition of society to which our attention is now directed, the profession of a freebooter was not in any sense accounted dishonourable. The courage and dexterity which such a life requires stand high in the estimation of tribes who are almost constantly in a state of war; and hence, in reading the history of the ancient Israelites, we must form an opinion of their manners and principles, not according to the maxims of an enlightened age, but agreeably to the habits, pursuits, and mental cultivation which belonged to their own times.

It is farther worthy of remark, that during the period of the Hebrew judges there is not the slightest trace of those distinctions of rank which spring from mere wealth, office, or profession. From the princes of Judah down to the meanest family in Benjamin, all were agriculturists or shep

* 1 Samuel xxv. 4-14.

herds, driving their own oxen, or attending in person to their sheep and their goats. The hospitable Ephraimite, who received into his house at Gibeah the Levite and his unfortunate companion, is described as "an old man coming from his work out of the field at even." Gideon, again, was thrashing his corn with his own hands when the angel announced to him that he was selected by Divine Providence to be the deliverer of his people. Boaz was attending his reapers in the field when his benevolence was awakened in favour of Ruth, the widow of his kinsman. When Saul received the news of the danger which threatened the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead, he was in the act of "coming after the herd out of the field." Sovereign as he was, he thought it not inconsistent with his rank to drive a yoke of oxen. Every one knows that David was employed in keeping the sheep when he was summoned into the presence of Samuel to be anointed king over Israel; and even when he was upon the throne, and had by his talents and bravery extended at once the power and the reputation of his countrymen among the neighbouring nations, the annual occupation of sheep-shearing called his sons and his daughters into the hill country to take their share in its toils and amusements. In point of blood and ancestry, too, every descendant of Jacob was held on the same footing; and the only ground of pre-eminence which one man could claim over another was connected with old age, wisdom, strength, or courage, the qualities most respected in the original forms of civilized life.*

That the

We have been the more careful to collect these fragments of personal history, because it is chiefly from them that the few rays of light are reflected which illustrate the state of society at the era of the Hebrew commonwealth. times in which the judges ruled were barbarous and unsettled is rendered manifest, not less by the general tenor of events, than by the qualities which predominated in the public mind during the long period that elapsed between the death of Joshua and the reign of Solomon. These notices also convey to us some degree of information, in regard to the political relations which subsisted among the Syrian tribes prior to the commencement of the regal government

* Judges vi. 12. 2 Samuel xiii. 23, 24.

át Jerusalem. The wars which were carried on at that remote epoch seem not to have been waged with any view to permanent conquest, or even to territorial aggrandizement, but merely to revenge an insult, to exact a ransom, or to abstract slaves and cattle. The history of the judges supplies no facts which would lead us to infer that during any of the servitudes, which for their repeated transgressions were inflicted on the Hebrews, their lands were taken from them, or their cities destroyed by their conquerors. It was not till a later age that a more systematic plan of conquest was formed by the powerful princes who governed beyond the Euphrates and on the banks of the Nile, and who, not content with the uncertain submission of tributaries, resolved to reduce the Israelites for ever to the condition of subjects or of bondmen.

The account which has been given of the political constitution of the ancient Jews would not be complete were we to omit all notice of the tribe of Levi, the duties and revenues of which were fixed by peculiar laws. It may, perhaps, be thought by some readers, that this institution rested on a basis altogether spiritual; but, upon suitable inquiry, it will be found that the Levitical offices comprehended a great variety of avocations, much more closely connected with secular life than with the ministry of the tabernacle, or with the services which were due to the priesthood. This sacred tribe, indeed, supplied to the whole nation of the Israelites their judges, lawyers, scribes, teachers, and physicians; for Moses, in imitation of the Egyptians, in whose wisdom he was early and deeply instructed, had thought proper to make the learned professions hereditary in the several families of Levi's descendants.

We find, in the first chapter of the book of Numbers, a command issued by the authority of Heaven to separate the tribe now mentioned from the rest of their brethren, and not to enrol them among those who were to engage in war. It was determined, on similar grounds, that the Levites were to have no inheritance in the land like the other tribes, but were to receive from their kinsmen, in name of maintenance, a tenth part of the gross produce of their fields and vineyards. The occupations for which they were set apart were altogether incompatible with the pursuits of agriculture or the feeding of cattle. It was deemed

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