Chapter 1: Before
Abraham
Genesis, Chapters 1 to 11
That part of the globe
which comes within the view of the Old Testament is mostly the region, about
fifteen hundred miles square, lying in the southwestern part of Asia, the
southeastern part of Europe, and the northeastern part of Africa. This is where
the three continents of the Eastern Hemisphere come together. Roughly speaking
it includes Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt, with
a fringe of other lands and islands stretching beyond them.
The heart of all this
territory is that little strip of land, lying between the desert on the east
and the Mediterranean Sea on the west, known as Syria and Palestine. It is some
four hundred miles in length varies from fifty to one hundred miles in width.
It has been well called “the bridge of the world,” for like a bridge it joins
the largest continent, Asia, to the next largest, Africa. And as Palestine
binds the lands together, so the famous Suez Canal at its southern end now
binds the seas together. Today, therefore, as in all the past, this spot is the
crossroads of the nations.
Palestine has long been
called the “Holy Land,” because it is the scene of most of the Bible story. Yet
it would be a mistake to suppose that that Bible story is limited to Palestine.
The book of Genesis does not introduce the reader to Canaan (as it calls
Palestine) until it has reached its twelfth chapter. There is a sense in which
the history of God’s people begins with Abraham, and it was Abraham who went at
God’s bidding into the land of Canaan. The story of Abraham will be taken up in
the second lesson; but the Bible puts before the life of Abraham all the
familiar story that lies in the first eleven chapters of Genesis and that forms
the background for the figures of Abraham and his descendants.
The location of this
background is the basin of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. These two streams
are mentioned in Gen. 2:14 (the Tigris under the form “Hiddekel”) as the third
and fourth “heads” of the “river that went out of Eden to water the garden” in
which our first parents dwelt. The region is at the southern end of what is now
called Mesopotamia. At the northern end of this river basin towers the superb
mountain known as Mount Ararat. But the “mountains of Ararat,” mentioned in
Gen. 8:4 as the place where Noah’s ark rested when the waters of the Flood had
subsided, are no particular peak, but are the highlands of Kurdistan, which in
ancient times were called Urartu (Ararat). Between Kurdistan on the north and
the Persian Gulf on the south, the highlands of Persia on the east and the
great Syrian Desert on the west, occurred the earliest drama of human history.
That drama was a tragedy.
It became a tragedy because of man’s sin. The wonderful poem of creation in
Gen., ch. 1, has for the refrain of its six stanzas, “God saw that it was
good.” Best of all was man, the last and highest of God’s works — man, made in
“his own image,” after his likeness. On the sixth “day,” when God made man, God
said of his work, “Behold, it was very good.” More than that: through the
kindness of God man is put in a “garden,” and is ordered to “dress it and to
keep it.” Ch. 2: 15. Adam sees his superiority to the rest of the animal
kingdom, over which he is given “dominion.” He is thus prepared to appreciate
the woman as a helpmeet for him, so that the unit of society may ever mean for
him one man and one woman with their children. Adam is also warned against sin
as having disobedience for its root and death as its result.
All this prepares us to
understand the temptation, the miserable fall of the woman and the man, their
terror, shame, and punishment. Ch. 3. And we are not surprised to see the
unfolding of sin in the life of their descendants, beginning with Cain’s murder
of Abel, and growing until God sweeps all away in a universal deluge. Chs. 4,
6.
God’s tender love for his
foolish, rebellious creatures “will not let them go.” At the gates of the
garden from which their sin has forever banished them, God already declares his
purpose to “bruise” the head of that serpent, Rom. 16:20, who had brought “sin
into the world and death by sin,” Gen. 3:15. Through the “seed of the woman” —
a “Son of man” of some future day — sinful man can escape the death he has
brought upon himself. And from Seth, the child “appointed instead of” murdered
Abel, a line of men descends, who believe this promise of God. Ch. 5. In Enoch
we find them “walking with God,” v. 24, in a fellowship that seemed lost when
paradise was lost. In Lamech we find them hoping with each new generation that
God’s curse will at length be removed. V. 29. And in Noah we find them obedient
to the positive command of God, ch. 6:22, as Adam had been disobedient.
In the Flood, Noah and
his family of eight were the only persons to survive. When they had come from
the ark after the Flood, God gave them a promise that he would not again wipe
out “all flesh.” Ch.9:11. But after it appeared that God’s judgments had not
made them fear him, God was just as angry with Noah’s descendants as he had
been with the men before the Flood. Pride led them to build a tower to be a
rallying point for their worship of self. But God showed them that men cannot
long work together with a sinful purpose as their common object; he broke up
their unity in sin by confusing their speech, ch. 11, and scattering them over
the earth, ch. 10. This second disappointment had its brighter side in the line
of men descended from Noah through Shem, ch. 11:10, who also cherished God’s
promises. And the last stroke of the writer’s pen in these earliest chapters of
the Bible introduces the reader to the family of Terah in that line of Shem,
and thus prepares the way for a closer acquaintance with Terah’s son, Abraham,
“the friend of God.”
Questions
on Chapter 1
1.
About how large is the world of the Old Testament, and where does it lie?
2. What special importance has Palestine because of its position?
3. How much of the story in Genesis is told before we are carried to Palestine?
4. Locate on a map the scene of those earliest events in human history.
5. Show how the first two chapters of Genesis prepare for the tragedy of sin
and death that follows.
6. How does the brighter side of hope and faith appear from Adam to Noah?
7. What effect did the Flood have on men’s sin and their faith in God?
8. Trace the descent of the man God chose to become
“the father of the faithful”.
Chapter 2: The
Patriarchs
Genesis, Chapters 12 to 50
God’s purpose to save and
bless all mankind was to be carried out in a wonderful way. He selected and
“called” one man to become the head and ancestor of a single nation. And in
this man and the nation descended from him, God purposed to bless the whole
world.
Abraham was that man, and
Israel was that nation. God made known his purpose in what the Bible calls the
Promise, Gal. 3:17, the Blessing, v.14, of the Covenant, v.17. Its terms are
given many times over in the book of Genesis, but the essence of it lies
already in the first word of God to Abraham, Gen. 12:3, “In thee shall all the
families of the earth be blessed.”
To believe this promise
was a work of faith. It was against all appearances and all probability. Yet
this was just where the religious value of that promise lay for Abraham and for
his children after him — in faith. They had to believe something on the basis
solely of their confidence in the One who had promised it. Or rather, they had
to believe in that Person, the personal Jehovah, their God. They must
absolutely trust him. To do so, they must “know him.” And that they might know
him, he must reveal himself to them. That is why we read all through Genesis of
God’s “appearing” or “speaking” to this or the other patriarch. However he
accomplished it, God was always trying thus to make them better acquainted with
himself; for such knowledge was to be the basis of their faith. Upon faith in
him depended their faith in his word, and upon faith in his word depended their
power to keep alive in the world that true religion which was destined for all
men and which we today share. Abraham’s God is our God.
Not Abraham’s great
wealth in servants, Gen. 14:14, and in flocks and herds, ch. 13:2, 6, but the
promise of God to bless, constituted the true “birthright” in Abraham’s family.
Ishmael, the child of doubt, missed it; and Isaac, the child of faith, obtained
it. Gal. 4:23. Esau “despised” it, because he was “a profane [irreligious]
person,” Heb. 12:16, and Jacob schemed to obtain it by purchase, Gen. 25:31,
and by fraud, ch. 27:19. Jacob bequeathed it to his sons, ch. 49, and Moses delivered
it in memorable poetic form to the nation to retain and rehearse forever.
Deut., ch. 32.
When Abraham, the son of
Terah, entered Canaan with Sarah his wife and Lot his nephew and their great
company of servants and followers, he was obeying the command of his God. He no
sooner enters it than God gives him a promise that binds up this land with him
and his descendants. Gen. 13:14-17. Yet we must not suppose that Abraham
settled down in this Promised Land in the way that the Pilgrim Fathers settled
in the Old Colony. Although Canaan is promised to the “seed” of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob as a possession, they did not themselves obtain a foothold in it.
Apart from the field of the cave Machpelah, at Hebron in the south, Gen., ch.
23, and a “shoulder” (shechem) or fragment of land near Shechem (“Jacob’s
Well”), in the center of Canaan, the patriarchs did not acquire a foot of the
soil of what was to become “the Holy Land.” Abraham wandered about, even going
down to Egypt and back. Isaac was sometimes at Hebron and sometimes at
Beer-sheba on the extreme southern verge of the land. Jacob spent much of his
manhood in Mesopotamia, and of his old age in Egypt. For after divine
Providence in a remarkable manner had transplanted one of Jacob’s sons, Joseph,
into new soil, Gen., ch. 37, his father and his brothers were drawn after him,
with the way for their long Egyptian residence providentially prepared for
them, Gen. 50:20.
Side by side with the
growth of a nation out of an individual we find God’s choice of the direction
which that growth should take. Not all, even of Abraham’s family, were to
become part of the future people of God. So Lot, Abraham’s nephew, separates
from him, and thereafter he and his descendants, the Ammonites and the
Moabites, go their own way. As between Abraham’s sons, Ishmael is cast out, and
Isaac, Sarah’s son, is selected. And between Isaac’s two sons, Esau and Jacob,
the choice falls on Jacob. All twelve of Jacob’s sons are included in the
purpose of God, and for this reason the nation is called after Jacob, though
usually under his name “Israel,” which God gave him after his experience of
wrestling with “the angel of the Lord” at the river Jabbok. Gen. 32:22. Those
sons of his are to become the heads of the future nation of the “twelve tribes”,
Acts 26:7. Even while Lot, Ishmael, and Esau are thus being cut off, the
greatest care is taken to keep the descent of the future nation pure to the
blood of Terah’s house. Those three men all married alien wives: Lot probably a
woman of Sodom, Ishmael an Egyptian, and Esau two Hittite women. The mother of
Isaac was Sarah, the mother of Jacob was Rebekah, and the mothers of eight of
the twelve sons of Jacob were Leah and Rachel; and all these women belonged to
that same house of Terah to which their husbands belonged. Indeed, much of
Genesis is taken up with the explanation of how Isaac and Jacob were kept from
intermarrying with the peoples among whom they lived. The last quarter of the
book, which is occupied with the story of Joseph and his brethren, is designed
to link these “fathers” and their God with the God and people of Moses. The
same Jehovah who had once shown his power over Pharaoh for the protection of
Abraham and Sarah, and who was later to show his power over another Pharaoh
“who knew not Joseph,” showed his power also over the Pharaoh of Joseph’s day,
in exalting Joseph from the dungeon to the post of highest honor and authority
in Egypt, and in delivering Jacob and his whole family from death through
Joseph’s interposition. What their long residence in Egypt meant for God’s
people will be seen in another lesson.
Questions
on Chapter 2.
1. In what promise does God reveal to Abraham his plan to bless the world?
2. How was Abraham brought to believe in God’s promise? What difference did it
make whether he and his descendants believed it or not?
3. Did the patriarchs see that part of the promise fulfilled which gave them
possession of “the Holy Land”? Read carefully Gen. 15:13-16 and Heb. 11:9, 10,
14-16.
4. Make a “family tree” in the usual way, showing those descendants of Terah
who play any large part in the book of Genesis. Underscore in it the names of
those men who were in the direct line of “the Promise.”
5. How were Isaac and Jacob kept from marrying outside their own family?
6. Explain Joseph’s words, “Ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for
good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much
people alive.” Gen. 50:20.
Chapter 3: Egyptian
Bondage and Deliverance
Exodus, Chapter 1
God says through his
prophet Hosea, Hos. 11:1, “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and
called my son out of Egypt.” See also Matt. 2:15. There was a loving, divine
purpose in the Egyptian residence of God’s people. What was it? What did this
period mean in the career of Israel? Most obviously, it meant growth. From the
“seventy souls,” Ex. 1:5, that went down into Egypt with Jacob, there sprang up
there a populous folk, large enough to take its place alongside the other
nations of the world of that day. Observe the nature of the land where this
growth took place. Egypt was a settled country, where the twelve developing
tribes could be united geographically and socially in a way impossible in a
country like Palestine. However oppressed they were, they nevertheless were
secluded from the dangers of raids from without and of civil strife within —
just such dangers as later almost wrecked the substantial edifice slowly
erected by this period of growth in Egypt. Egypt meant also for Israel a time
of waiting. All this growth was not accomplished in a short time. It lasted
four hundred and thirty years. Ex. 12:40, 41. Through this long period, which
seems like a dark tunnel between the brightness of the patriarchs’ times and
that of Moses’ day, there was nothing for God’s people to do but to wait. They
were the heirs of God’s promise, but they must wait for the fulfillment of that
promise in God’s own time, wait for a leader raised up by God, wait for the
hour of national destiny to strike. As Hosea, ch 11:1 expresses it, this
“child” must wait for his Father’s “call.” The Egyptian period left an
indelible impression on the mind of Israel. It formed the gray background on
which God could lay the colors of his great deliverance. It is because God knew
and planned this that he so often introduces himself to his people, when he
speaks to them, as “Jehovah thy God. who brought thee out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage.” In the third place, this Egyptian period meant
for Israel a time of chastisement. The oppression to which the descendants of
Jacob were exposed, when “there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not
Joseph,” Ex. 1:8, was so severe, prolonged, and hopeless, v. 14, that it has
become proverbial and typical. Since every male child was to be put to death,
v. 22, it is clear that the purpose of the Egyptians was nothing less than
complete extermination. “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his
youth”: if that be true, then the children of Israel derived good from the
school of discipline in which they grew up. True, as we read their later story,
we feel that no people could be more fickle. Yet there is no other nation with
which to compare Israel. And it is very probable that no other nation would
have been serious-minded enough even to receive and grasp the divine revelation
and leading of Moses’ and Joshua’s time. God, who had “seen the affliction of
his people,” who had “heard their cry” and sent Moses to them to organize their
deliverance, wrote forever on this nation’s soul the message of salvation in a
historical record. At the start of their national life there stood the story,
which they could never deny or forget, and which told them of God’s power and
grace. Exodus, Chapters 5 to 15 All this lay in Israel’s experience in Egypt.
The next lesson will tell
of the character and work of the man whom God chose to be leader. The means by
which Moses succeeded in the seemingly impossible task of marching a great
horde of slaves out from their masters’ country, was the impression of God’s
power on the minds of Pharaoh and his people. It was a continued, combined, and
cumulative impression. Of course it could not be made without the use of
supernatural means. We must not, therefore, be surprised to find the story in
Exodus bristling with miracles. To be sure, the “plagues” can be shown to be
largely natural to that land where they occurred. And the supreme event of the
deliverance, the passage of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground, was due,
according to the narrative itself, to a persistent wind, Ex. 14:21, such as
often lays bare the shallows of a bay, only to release the waters again when
its force is spent. Nevertheless, it is not possible to remove the “hand of
God” from the account by thus pointing out some of the means God used to
accomplish his special purposes. It was at the time, in the way, and in the
order, in which Moses announced to Pharaoh the arrival of the plagues, that
they actually appeared. This was what had its ultimate effect on the king’s
stubborn will. And when Israel was told to “go forward,” with the waters right
before them, and when the Egyptians were saying, “They are entangled in the
land, the wilderness hath shut them in,” Ex. 14:3 — it was just at that
juncture that the east wind did its work at God’s command; when Israel was over
safely, it went down. Such things do not “happen.”
It made a profound
impression on Israel, on Egypt, and on all the nations of that day; all united
in accepting it as the work of Israel’s God. Ex. 15:11, 14-16; Josh. 2:10. The
important point for the nation was to know, when Moses and Aaron came to them
in the name of God, that it was their fathers’ God who had sent them. On
account of this need, which both the people and their leaders felt, God
proclaimed his divine name, Jehovah (more precisely, Yahweh, probably meaning
“He is,” Ex. 3:14,15), to Moses, and bade him pronounce the same to Israel, to
assure them that he was “the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob,” and thus
what Moses came now to do for them was just what had been promised to those
fathers long before. The passover night was the fulfillment of God’s good word
to Abraham. Ex. 13:10, 11. How that word went on and on toward more and more
complete fulfillment will be the subject of the succeeding lessons.
Questions
on Chapter 3
1. What advantages
had Egypt over Palestine as the place for Israel to grow from a family into a
nation?
2. What value was there for Israel in a negative time of waiting at the
beginning of its history?
3. Compare the effect on Israel with the effect on a man, of passing through a
time of difficulty while developing.
4. Name the ten “plagues of Egypt” in their order. How far can they be called
“natural”?
5. If the east wind drove back the Red Sea, what did God have to do with
Israel’s escape from the Egyptian army?
6. Why should we not be surprised to find many miracles grouped at this stage
of Bible history?
7. How did God identify himself in the minds of the people with the God of
their fathers? What was his personal name?
Chapter 4: Moses as
Leader and Lawgiver
Exodus, Chapters 2 to 4
One of the things Israel
had to wait for through those centuries in Egypt was a leader. When the time
came God raised up such a leader for his people in Moses. The story of how
Moses’ life was preserved in infancy, and of how he came to be brought up at
the court of Pharaoh with all its advantages for culture, is one of the most
fascinating tales of childhood. Ex. 2:1-10. But not many who know this familiar
tale could go on with the biography of the man of forty who fled from Pharaoh’s
vengeance. Moses found by personal contact with his “brethren,” the children of
Israel, that they were not yet ready for common action, and would not easily
acknowledge his right to lead them. After killing an Egyptian slave driver
there was nothing for Moses to do but to flee. Vs. 11-15. He spent the second
forty years of his life, Acts 7:23,30; Ex. 7:7, in the deserts about the
eastern arm of the Red Sea — the region known to the Hebrews as Midian. There
he married the daughter of the Midianite priest Reuel. (Jethro was probably
Reuel’s title, meaning “his excellency.”)
While herding his sheep
in the mountains called Horeb (Sinai), Moses received at the burning bush that
personal revelation of the God of his fathers, which lay at the base of all his
future labors for God and his people. Ex. 3:1 to 4:17. It was a commission to
lead Israel out of their bondage in Egypt into the land promised to their
fathers. Though very humble as to his fitness for such leadership, Moses was
assured of Jehovah’s presence and help. He was equipped with extraordinary
powers for convincing the proud Pharaoh that his demands were God’s demands;
and he was given the aid of his brother Aaron, who had a readiness of speech
which Moses at this time seems to have lacked. Exodus, Chapters 16 to 24 How
the two brothers achieved the seemingly impossible task of winning out of
Egypt, and of uniting a spiritless and unorganized mass of slaves upon a
desperate enterprise, is the narrative that fills the early chapters of Exodus.
But with Israel safe
across the Red Sea Moses’ leadership had only begun. He instituted an
organization of the people for ‘relieving himself of his heavy duties as judge.
He determined the line of march, and sustained the spirits of the fighting men
in their struggle against the tribes of the desert who challenged Israel’s
passage. But, above all, Moses became the “mediator” of the “covenant,” Heb
9:19-21, between the Hebrews and Jehovah their God at Mount Sinai. On the basis
of the Ten Commandments, Ex. 20:2-17; Deut 5:6-21, that guide to God’s nature
and will which formed the Hebrew constitution, the people agreed to worship and
obey Jehovah alone, and Jehovah promised to be their God, fulfilling to them
his promises made to their fathers. By solemn sacrifices, according to the
custom of the time, when the symbolism of altar and priesthood was well
understood, this covenant was sealed. Exodus, Chapter 25 to Numbers, Chapter 36
After long seclusion on
the mount alone with God, Moses ordered the erection of a house of worship. It
had to be portable, so as to accompany them in their wanderings and express
visibly, wherever set up, the religious unity of the twelve tribes. Aaron and
his sons were consecrated to be the official priesthood of this new shrine and
were clothed and instructed accordingly. Minute details regulated all
sacrifices, and similar minute instructions enabled the priests to decide
questions of ceremonial cleanness and uncleanness in matters of food and
health. All these laws and regulations, mainly recorded in Leviticus, were
given through Moses, either alone or in association with his brother. It is not
surprising to learn that there were those who challenged this exclusive
leadership in every department of the national life. We read of a willful
disregard of divine orders even in the family of Aaron, with immediate fatal
results. Lev. 10:1-7. Like punishment overtook those members of the tribe of
Levi who showed jealousy of the house of Aaron and those elements in other
tribes that claimed rights equal or superior to those of Moses. Num, chs. 16,
17. It would be strange indeed, if God who had vindicated his servant Moses
against Pharaoh, should let his own authority as represented by Moses be
challenged within the camp of Israel. He punished to save.
Just as God took up the
Sabbath and circumcision, old customs of the preceding era, into the law of
Israel, so also he spoke to this people through an elaborate system of feasts
and pilgrimages, which bound up their whole year with the worship of God.
Indeed, the principle of the seventh part of time as sacred was extended to the
seventh year, and even to the fiftieth year (the year following the seventh
seven), for beneficent social and economic uses. Lev., ch. 25. When at length
the nation, thus organized and equipped, set forth from Sinai, Num. 10:11, they
required a leadership of a different kind — military leadership and practical
statesmanship. They found both in Moses. He it was who led them through all the
long wanderings in the peninsula of Sinai, bearing their murmurings and meeting
their recurrent difficulties with a patience that seems almost divine, save for
that one lapse which was to cost him and Aaron their entrance into the Promised
Land. Num. 20:10-12.
At the border of the
land, from the top of Pisgah in the long mountain wall of Moab, Moses at last
looked down into that deep gorge of the Jordan Valley at his feet, which
separated him from the hills of Canaan. Beyond this river and the Dead Sea,
into which it empties, lay the land long ago promised to the seed of Abraham.
Moses had been permitted to lead the people to its very gateway; but it
remained for another, his younger helper, Joshua, to lead them through the gate
into the house of rest. The Book of Deuteronomy But before he surrendered his
power to another and his life to his Maker, the aged Moses rehearsed in the
ears of Israel the great principles of God’s law. He pleaded earnestly with
them to accept it from the heart, to adapt it to the changed conditions of
their new settled life with its new temptations, and to hand it down as their
most precious heritage to their children after them. This is the purpose and
substance of the book of Deuteronomy, which gets its name from the fact that it
is a “second lawgiving.” It is the Law of Sinai repeated, but in oratorical
form, charged with the feeling and spirit of that “man of God,” whose name is
forever linked with the Law and with the God who gave it to mankind.
Questions
on Chapter 4.
1. How did Moses’
forty years in Egypt and his forty years in Midian help to prepare him for
leadership?
2. What was the constitution of the new Hebrew State established at Sinai? How
was it ratified?
3. How was the tabernacle suited to the religious needs of Israel during Moses’
lifetime?
4. Show how the Law of Moses takes up the old principle of the Sabbath and
applies it to the life of Israel.
5. Where did Moses’ leadership end, and what was his
last service to the nation?
Chapter 5: The
Conquest and Settlement of Canaan
The Book of Joshua
On the death of Aaron his
son, Eleazar, succeeded him as high priest. But when Moses died, it was not a
son who succeeded him in the political and moral leadership of Israel, for that
position was not hereditary. Joshua, a man of Ephraim, was divinely designated
for this work. He was fitted for the difficult undertaking by military
experience, Ex. 17:9-14, by personal acquaintance with Canaan, Num. 13:8, 16;
14:6, 30, 38, and by long ‘and intimate association with Moses, Ex 33:11; Num.
11:28; Deut. 34:9; Josh. 1:1.
The book of Joshua, which
records his career, divides naturally into two parts, first, the conquest, chs.
l to 12, and second, the settlement, chs. 13 to 22. Two further chapters, chs.
23,24, contain Joshua’s valedictory address. Before Moses’ death two and a half
tribes had already received their assignment of territory on the east of the
Jordan, out of lands conquered from the Amorite kings, Sihon and Og. But the
fighting men of these tribes agreed to accompany the other tribes and share
their struggle till all had obtained an inheritance. So when the great host
passed over the Jordan, not far from where it empties into the Dead Sea, the
men of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh crossed with the rest. Jehovah, who at the Red
Sea a generation earlier had struck terror into the hearts of all nations by
his wonderful interposition to save Israel and destroy its enemies, repeated
here his saving help, by stemming the swift current of the Jordan River, till
all had passed over dry shod to the western side.
Once over, they found
themselves face to face with Jericho, a city which commanded the passes into
the mountain country beyond. Spies previously dispatched to learn the weakness
of Jericho had reported the panic of its inhabitants and so prepared the Hebrews
to believe God’s word, when through Joshua he announced a bloodless victory
here at the beginning of their conquest. Without a blow struck Jericho fell,
and all its inhabitants were “devoted,” at Jehovah’s strict command. Even their
wealth was to be “devoted,” that is, the cattle slain and the goods added to
the treasury of the sanctuary. Only Rahab, who had saved the spies, and her
family were excepted. One man, Achan, disobeyed the ban on private spoils. His
covetousness and deception, revealed by Israel’s defeat in the expedition
against Ai which followed the fall of Jericho, and detected by the use of the
sacred lot, was punished by the execution of all who were privy to the crime.
Better success attended the second attempt to take Ai. With these two cities
reduced, Jericho at the bottom and Ai at the top of the valley leading up from
the Jordan floor to the central highland, Joshua was in a position to attack
anywhere without fear of being outflanked. Middle, south, and north was the
order commended by military considerations.
Accordingly those cities
which, because in the middle of the land, felt themselves the most immediately
threatened,, took the first steps to avert the menace. A group of five towns
lying just north of Jerusalem, with Gibeon at their head, succeeded by a ruse
in getting a treaty of peace from Joshua. The Gibeonites deceived Joshua by
representing themselves as having come from a great distance to seek an
alliance. Joshua’s pride was flattered and he fell a victim to the trick. The consequences
were serious, for these Canaanites, though reduced to vassalage, remained as
aliens in the heart of the land, and cut off the southern from the northern
tribes of Israel. A confederacy of the chief cities in the region south of
Gibeon, headed by the king of Jerusalem, determined to strike the first blow.
But their campaign against the Gibeonites, now the allies of Israel, ended in a
quick advance by Joshua and his complete subjugation of all these cities, the
humiliation and death of their kings, and the “devotion” of the inhabitants who
fell into his hands. A similar campaign followed in the north, with the city of
Hazor at the head of the Canaanite forces. At the “waters of Merom,” a small
lake a few miles north of the Sea of Galilee, a surprise attack by Joshua
deprived his enemies of their advantage in horsemen and chariots on the level
ground they had selected for battle, and resulted in the utter rout of the
Canaanites and the general slaughter of every soul that did not escape by
flight from the “devoted” towns. Thus from Mount Hermon on the north to the
wilderness of the wandering on the south, the whole land had been swept over
and reduced to impotence by the Hebrew invader.
It was time to apportion
it now to the several tribes. This was accomplished under the direction of
Joshua and Eleazar. Judah and Joseph, the two strongest tribes, were assigned,
the one to the south and the other to the north of the main mountain mass.
Levi’s inheritance was to be “the Lord,” that is, the religious tithes, and his
dwelling was to be “among his brethren,” that is, in designated towns
throughout all the land. A commission of three representatives from each of the
seven other western tribes divided the rest of the conquered territory into
seven fairly equal parts. These then were assigned to the seven tribes by lot
at the tabernacle at Shiloh. As for the eastern tribes, when they returned
across the Jordan, they built an altar at the ford, as a permanent “witness” to
the unity of all the sons of Jacob, however the deep gorge of the Jordan might
cut them off from one another. At Shechem, where Abraham built his first altar
in Canaan, Joshua had renewed the covenant between the people and their God as
soon as he had secured control of Mount Ephraim, the middle highlands. He had
not only read the Law of Moses to all the people here, he also inscribed it on
stones for the sake of permanence and publicity. And now, when the conquest was
complete and Joshua was nearing his end, he reassembled the people at the same
spot, to remind them of that solemn covenant, and to leave with them his final
charge of fidelity to their God and his one central sanctuary.
Questions
on Chapter 5.
1.
How was Joshua specially fitted to succeed Moses as leader of Israel?
2. Which tribes received their inheritance east of the Jordan? How did these
show their sense of the unity of all Israel (a) at the beginning, and (b) at
the close of the conquest?
3. What justification can be urged for the stern measures which Israel took
with the Canaanites and their possessions?
4. What was the plan of Joshua’s campaign, and what relation did the capture of
Jericho and Ai bear to it?
5. How did the men of Gibeon deceive Joshua, and why? What lasting damage was
caused by his treaty with them?
6. Locate on a map the inheritance of each of the
tribes.
Chapter 6: The Period
of the Judges
The Books of Judges and Ruth
.
In Egypt, Israel had
grown from a family into a folk. In the wilderness the folk had become a
nation. In the conquest the nation had gotten its borne. But in the period of
the Judges which followed the conquest this steady advance seemed interrupted.
What do we find at this time? We find a loose confederacy of tribes, aware of
their common origin, yet too jealous of local names and rights to combine for a
common end, too selfish to help one another until the danger of one has become
a tragedy for all. The nature of the land the Hebrews had occupied helped this
divisive tendency. The great gash of the Jordan Valley, its bed two or three
thousand feet below the mountain country on either side, cut off the eastern
minority from the western majority. In the west a plain separated the foothills
of the central range from the seashore. This plain not only contained enemies
like the Philistines whom only a united Israel could have conquered, but also
quickly altered the type of its Hebrew settlers. Right across the mountain belt
from the sea to the Jordan stretched an almost unbroken plain (Esdraelon),
varying from sea level to the lower level of the Jordan. This cut off the
mountaineers to the north (Galilee) from those to the south (Ephraim). And a
glance at any physical map will show how even in the mountain country deep,
lateral valleys reach up from either side so far toward the center that communication
from north to south is only by a series of violent grades, save along that
narrow ridge in the middle where runs the highroad between Hebron, Jerusalem,
Shechem, and Jezreel.
Under these conditions
only some strong positive force could prevent the disintegration of the Hebrew
nation. Such a force the religion of Jehovah was intended to be, and would have
been, if the people had remained faithful to it. It had one high priest,
descendant of Aaron, and associated therefore with all the memories of Moses
and Sinai. It had a single sanctuary, the seat of Ark and oracle, the center of
pilgrimage three times a year. It had one law for all Hebrews, a law far
superior to the codes of all other nations, and revealing the nature and will
of a single moral and spiritual deity. All this provided the focus for a mighty
nation, with a pure “theocracy,” that is, a government by God himself. But the
people did not remain faithful. They fell away in this time of the Judges.
The Book of Judges, which
tells the story of this period, records a long list of names, each one
connected with some particular enemy of Israel, some tribe or group of tribes
delivered, and some definite of years during which the deliverer “judged” the
people. On this list the most conspicuous names are those of Deborah and of
Gideon in the north, of Jephthah east of the Jordan (Gilead), and of Samson in
the south. Most of the other judges are little more than names to us. Deborah
stands out, not only because she was a woman, but also for her wonderful “song”
preserved in the fifth chapter, celebrating Barak’s victory over the Canaanites
near Mount Carmel. Gideon is memorable for his strategems and his persistence,
and for his near approach to a real kingship, which was offered to him and his house
after his victory, but which he declined, saying, “Jehovah shall rule over you.
Ch. 8:23. His son Abimelech was actually termed king in and around the city of
Shechem for a few years, but perished his sins. Ch. 9:6, 56. Jephthah’s career
was mainly concerned with the region east of the Jordan, but his admirable
“apology” for Israel showed his sense of Hebrew solidarity. Samson’s
picturesque story, with its petty loves and hates, its riddles and its
practical jokes, ended in the sacrificial death which in part redeems its
meanness. But neither Samson nor any of his predecessors accomplished anything
permanent.
Two words of caution
belong to the study of this book and of these times. First, we must not suppose
that one judge necessarily follows another in point of time because his story
follows the other’s story in the book. Judges 10:7 shows that oppressions of
different sections of the land by different enemies might be taking place at
the same time, and suggest that the figures assigned to each judge at the close
of his story cannot safely be added together to find the total length of this
period. And second, those figures themselves (nearly always forty or eighty)
are to be taken as “round numbers,” rather than as precise data such as we look
for today to make out a table of chronology.
In the same way the four
hundred and eighty years of I Kings 6:1 is evidently intended as twelve times
forty years, to represent the whole time from the Exodus to Solomon. For when
we have subtracted from the beginning of it one forty-year term for the
wanderings, and from the end of it three forty-year terms for Eli, I Sam. 4:18,
Saul, Acts 13:21, and David, I Kings 2:11, then we have left eight forty-year
terms for the Judges. Eight times forty is three hundred and twenty. Those
three hundred and twenty years would then correspond with the three hundred
years mentioned by Jephthah in Judges 11:26 as dividing Moses’ days from his
own. Under these circumstances we are wise to wait for further light from
archaeology before fixing the precise date of any one of these interesting
persons.
There are three additions
or appendices to the Book of Judges. The first of them, including chs. 17, 18,
tells how the Danites came to live in the extreme north, and the origin of the
idolatrous sanctuary at that city of Dan which was reckoned as the northern
limit of Canaan— “from Dan to Beer-sheba.” The second occupies the three
remaining chapters of Judges, and records the civil war between Benjamin and
the other tribes on account of “the sin of Gibeah,” Hos. 10:9. And the third
appendix is the story of Ruth the Moabitess which now makes a separate book in
the Bible. Besides its inherent charm the story claims special notice because
of the light it throws on that Bethlehem family which was soon to furnish the
nation its great king, David.
Questions
on Chapter 6.
1.
What influences made for the loss of Hebrew unity as soon as Joshua’s
generation was dead?
2. What forces remained to bind the tribes together? Why did not these forces
suffice?
3 How were the persons selected who ruled Israel in this period? Were they
“judges” in the same sense as our judges today? What besides?
4. What three groups of tribes tended to draw together under common leaders?
Tell the exploits of one distinguished judge belonging to each of these groups.
5. With what reserve should we use the figures in this book to construct a
chronology of the period? 6. Point out the relation of the book of Ruth to the
closing portion of the Book of Judges. What lends Ruth peculiar historical
interest?
Chapter 7: Samuel and
Saul: Prophecy and Monarchy
The First Book of Samuel
.
Sometimes Eli and
sometimes Samuel are called the last of the Judges. But neither of these was a
judge in the same exclusive sense as Gideon or Samson. Eli was the high priest,
but exercised the office of judge for his time. Samuel was a prophet, who also
“judged Israel” in the interval between Eli’s death and Saul’s accession. Both
men mark the time of transition between the period of the Judges and the
monarchy. And the two names are most closely linked, for it was under Eli’s
instruction, at the sanctuary in Shiloh, that Samuel grew up.
The story of Hannah and
her dedication of her little son to God as a “Nazirite,” I Sam. 1:11; compare
Num. 6:1-8, to dwell all his life at the house of God, I Sam. 1:28, has a
peculiar charm for young and old. It gives a picture of personal piety in a
rude age, and thus serves to correct our idea of the times. Beginning at a very
early age, I Sam. 3:1 to 4:1, Samuel became the chosen and recognized
mouthpiece of Israel’s God.
That is the essential
meaning of a prophet — one who speaks for God. Exodus 4:16 is instructive, for
it shows that as Aaron was to be “a mouth” to Moses, while Moses was “as God”
to Aaron, so the prophet was God’s mouthpiece or spokesman. Of course a prophet
was often a person who also spoke before — one, that is, who predicted what
should come to pass. And the fact that his words were actually fulfilled became
a proof of his divine commission, both in theory, Deut. 18:22, and in practice,
Isa. 44:26. But the bulk of the prophets’ messages were, like those of Samuel,
addressed to their own time. They were preachers of righteousness, warners
against sin, the nation’s conscience, and the Lord’s remembrancers.
It is the chief glory of
Samuel that he was not only first in the long line of the Hebrew prophets — the
most remarkable succession of men the world has ever seen — but also the
founder of the prophetic order. By the prophetic order we mean the prophets as
a group conscious of their solidarity, the identity of their principles and
aim. Samuel gathered about his dominating personality those persons who were
sympathetic with him in spirit, and who shared with him some of that power of
testimony which “the word of Jehovah” conferred. They seem to have lived
together, I Sam. 19:20, in communities similar to those two centuries later
under Elijah and Elisha. They used musical instruments in their devotions,
which were public as well as private. Ch. 10:5. They were the center of
patriotic zeal as well as of religious effort. In fact, the belief in Israel’s
God was so evidently the bond that bound Israel together, that for the common
man patriotism and religion were in danger of being regarded as one and the
same. thing.
It is not surprising,
therefore, that out of Samuel’s time and from the forces which Samuel set in
motion, there came two movements which changed the course of the nation’s
history: an outward movement for independence, and an inward movement for
monarchy. A revival of religion could not fail to rouse the subjected Hebrews
against their oppressors, the Philistines. The reverses they suffered in battle
against their better armed and better led enemies put it into their minds to
set up a king, “like all the nations.”
Samuel, as the national
leader, was God’s agent in selecting, consecrating, and establishing the first
king. He chose Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin, a man of heroic proportions
though of modest demeanor. Ch. 9:2, 21. His choice met the popular approval, at
first with general and outward acquiescence, though with much inward reserve
and individual revolt; but after his first successful campaign with universal
loyalty. Ch. 10: 27; 11: 12-15.
That first military
effort of the new monarch was against the Ammonites. But a greater test
remained in the menace of the Philistines, whose garrisons at strategic points
in the mountains of Israel served to keep the tribes in check. Under those
circumstances Saul was cautious, for he had but a small force, inadequately
armed, at his disposal. But the initiative, for which all Israel waited, was
taken by Saul’s son, Jonathan. Unknown to his father, Jonathan, accompanied
only by his armor-bearer, but encouraged by an indication of God’s will and by
the enemy’s slackness, ch. 14:12, attacked boldly a Philistine garrison that
relied too much on the natural strength of its position. He began in this way a
panic in the enemy’s ranks, and soon drew after him in pursuit of them not only
Saul’s small army but multitudes of Hebrews who in their hiding places only
waited such a signal to fall upon the hated oppressor. The victory of Michmash
was overwhelming, the mountain country was cleared of the Philistines, and an
independent people began to enjoy the reign of their first king. Unhappily Saul
did not prove himself so well equipped for the in character and disposition as
in personal prowess. Jealousy, natural in a king whose claim to authority was
so new and weak, was heightened in Saul by a malady that induced fits of
sullenness and rage. His humility and modesty of other days gave place to envy,
vanity, cruelty. Even God’s express commands through the same prophet whose
divine commission Saul’s claim to the throne rested were not heeded, for Samuel
had to rebuke him for disobedience and only refrained from publicly rejecting
him at Saul’s abject entreaty. Ch. 15:30. Room was found in Saul’s heart for
jealousy of the popularity and success of David, ch. 18:8, the young man of
Bethlehem in Judah whom at first he had loved and attached to his person, ch.
16:21. Jonathan, though heir to his father’s throne and aware that David had
been designated as Jehovah’s choice for king, ch. 20:15, 31, had nothing but
affection for David his friend. But Saul pursued David openly, after failing in
repeated secret attempts to make away with him. And the close of Saul’s life is
marred by his vindictive pursuit of his rival, till death in battle with the
Philistines at Mount Gilboa brought the first king of Israel to a miserable end
and left the way open for David to become his successor.
Questions
on Chapter 7.
1.
Who shares with Samuel the leadership of Israel in the time of transition from
the judges to the kings, and what relation did he bear to Samuel?
2. What was a prophet, what is meant by the prophetic order, and what is
Samuel’s particular service and distinction among the prophets?
3. What motive led to the popular demand for a king, and how did Samuel as
God’s representative regard this demand?
4. Sketch the character of Saul. What was his achievement for Israel? Wherein
did he fail?
5. Compare Saul and Jonathan in ability and character.
Chapter 8: David and
Solomon: Psalms and Wisdom;
The Second Book of Samuel; I Kings, Chapters 1 to 11; I
Chronicles, Chapter 10 to II Chronicles, Chapter 9
One of Saul’s sons,
Ish-bosheth, for a short time after the death of his father and brothers in
battle, attempted to maintain his right to succeed Saul on the throne. But when
Abner, his kinsman and the head of the army, turned to David, son of Jesse, who
was already reigning at Hebron as king over Judah, all the tribes followed him.
Both Ish-bosheth and Abner soon perished. With his new dignity David promptly
acquired a new capital, better suited than Hebron in location and strength to
be the nation’s center. He captured the fortress of Jebus, five miles north of
Bethlehem, his old home, from its Canaanitish defenders, and enlarged,
strengthened, and beautified it. Under its ancient name of Jerusalem he made it
both the political and the religious capital of Israel. The Ark of the
Covenant, which in Eli’s time had been captured by the Philistines, had been
returned by them, and for many years had rested in a private house, was
regarded as the very heart and symbol of the national religion. David therefore
brought it first to Jerusalem, and instead of uniting with it its former
housing, the old Mosaic tabernacle, he gave it a temporary home in a tent,
intending to build a splendid temple when he should have peace. But war continued
through the days of David, and at God’s direction the erection of a temple,
save for certain preparations, was left to Solomon, David’s successor.
David was victorious in
war. His success showed itself in the enlargement of Israel’s boundaries, the
complete subjection — for the time — of all alien elements in the land, and the
alliance with Hiram, king of Tyre, with the great building operations which
this alliance made possible. A royal palace formed the center of a court such
as other sovereigns maintained, and David’s court and even his family were
exposed to the same corrupting influences as power, wealth, jealousy, and
faction have everywhere introduced. Absalom, his favorite son, ill requited his
father’s love and trust by organizing a revolt against him. It failed, but not
until it had driven the king, now an old man, into temporary exile and had let
loose civil war upon the land. Solomon, designated by David to succeed him, did
not gain the throne without dispute, but the attempt of Adonijah, another son,
to seize the throne failed in spite of powerful support. The forty-year reign
of Solomon was the golden age of Hebrew history — the age to which all
subsequent times looked back. Rapid growth of commerce, construction, art, and
literature reflected the inward condition of peace and the outward ties with
other lands of culture. But with art came idolatry; with construction came
ostentation and oppression; with commerce came luxury. The splendor of
Jerusalem, wherein Solomon “made silver . . . to be as stones, and cedars . . .
as sycamore trees,” I Kings 10:27, contained in itself the seeds of
dissolution.
However, there are two
great types of literature which found their characteristic expression in the
days of David and Solomon and are always associated with their names — the
psalm with David, and the proverb (or, more broadly, “wisdom”) with Solomon.
Kingdom, temple and palace have long since passed away, but the Psalter and the
books of Wisdom are imperishable monuments of the united monarchy. The Psalms
The Psalter is a collection of one hundred and fifty poems, of various length,
meter, and style. As now arranged it is divided into five books, but there is
evidence that earlier collections and arrangements preceded the present. Among
the earliest productions, judged both by form and by matter, are those psalms
which bear the superscription “of David,” though it would not be safe to assert
that every such psalm came from David’s own pen or that none not so labeled-is
not of Davidic origin. Judged alike from the narrative in the book of Samuel,
and from the traditions scattered in other books as early as Amos, ch. (1:5, as
late as Chronicles, I Chron. 15:16 to 16:43; ch. 25, David was both a skilled
musician himself and an organizer of music for public worship. It is not
surprising, therefore, to find a body of religious poems ascribed to him, which
not only evidence his piety and good taste, but also, though individual in
tone, are well-adapted to common at the sanctuary.
The psalms are poems.
Their poetry is not simply one of substance, but also a poetry of form. Rime,
our familiar device, is of course absent, but there is rhythm, although it is
not measured in the same strict way as in most of our poetry. The most striking
and characteristic mark of Hebrew poetic form is the parallel structure: two
companion lines serve together to complete a single thought, as the second
either repeats, supplements, emphasizes, illustrates, or contrasts with the
first.
Proverbs; Job;
Ecclesiastes
Poetry is also a term to
which the book of Proverbs and most of the other productions of “Wisdom” are
entitled. While they are chiefly didactic (that is, intended for instruction)
instead of lyric (emotional self-expression), nevertheless the Wisdom books are
almost entirely written in rhythmic parallelism and contain much matter
unsuited to ordinary prose expression. In the Revised Version the manner of
printing shows to the English reader at a glance what parts are prose and what
are poetry (compare, for example, Job, ch. 2 with Job, ch. 3), though it must
be admitted that a hard and fast line cannot be drawn between them. Compare
Eccl., ch. 7 with Proverbs.
“The wise,” as a class of
public teachers in the nation (see Jer. 18:18), associated their beginnings
with King Solomon (Prov. 24:23; 25:1), whose wisdom is testified to in the book
of Kings, as well as his speaking of “proverbs,” that is, pithy sayings easy to
remember and teach, mostly of moral import. I Kings 4:29-34. But the
profoundest theme of wisdom was the moral government of God as seen in his
works and ways. The mysteries with which all men, today as well as in ancient
times, must grapple when they seek to harmonize their faith in a just and good
God with such undeniable facts as prosperous sinners and suffering saints, led
to the writing of such books as Job (the meaning of a good man’s adversities)
and Ecclesiastes (the vanity of all that mere experience and observation of
life afford). In the case of these Wisdom books, as in that of the Psalms, the
oldest name— that of the royal founder — is not to be taken as the exclusive
author. Solomon, like David, made the beginnings; others collected, edited,
developed, and completed.
Questions
on Chapter 8.
1.
In what tribe and town did David first reign as king? How did he secure a new
capital when he became king of all Israel? How and why did he make this the
religious capital also?
2.
What advantages and disadvantages did David’s continual wars, and his imitation
of other kings’ courts, bring to him, his family, and his people?
3.
What was David’s part in the development of religious poetry? How does Hebrew
poetry differ generally from English poetry in form? Name the books of the Old
Testament written chiefly or wholly in poetry.
4.
Who built the first Temple? Who were “the wise” in Israel, whom did they
venerate as their royal patron, and what did they aim to accomplish
by their writings?
Chapter 9: The Kingdom
of Israel
I Kings, Chapter 12 to II Kings, Chapter 17
With the death of Solomon
came the lasting division of the tribes into two kingdoms, a northern and a
southern, known as the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. Rehoboam on
his accession announced a policy of repression and even oppression that
alienated completely the loyalty of Ephraim and the other northern tribes,
which never attached to the house of David in the same way as the tribe of
Judah was. Under a man of Ephraim, therefore, Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who in
earlier years had challenged even Solomon’s title, the ten tribes revolted from
Rehoboam and established a separate state.
Rehoboam found himself
too weak to prevent this secession, and he and his descendants of David’s
dynasty had to content themselves with the narrow boundaries of Judah. To be
sure, in Jerusalem they possessed the authorized center of public worship for
the whole nation. It was to offset this advantage that Jeroboam made Bethel,
that spot associated in the minds of the people with the patriarchs themselves,
his religious capital. And, influenced perhaps by the Egyptian example of steer
worship (for he had long lived as a fugitive in Egypt in Solomon’s reign), he
made golden steers and placed them in the sanctuary at Bethel and in that at
Dan in the extreme north. (See close of Chapter 6). To these places and under
these visible symbols of brute force, Jeroboam summoned his people to worship
Jehovah. It was the old national religion but in the degraded form of an image
worship forbidden by the Mosaic Commandments.
A throne thus built on
mere expediency could not endure. Jeroboam’s son was murdered after a two
years’ reign. Nor did this usurper succeed in holding the throne for his house
any longer than Jeroboam’s house had lasted. At length Omri, commander of the
army, succeeded in founding a. dynasty that furnished four kings. Ahab, son of
Omri, who held the throne the longest of these four, is the king with whom we
become best acquainted of all the northern monarchs. This is partly because of
the relations between Ahab and Elijah the prophet. Ahab’s name is also linked
with that of his queen, the notorious Jezebel, a princess of Tyre, who
introduced the worship of the Tyrian Baal into Israel and even persecuted all
who adhered to the national religion. This affiance with Tyre, and the marriage
of Ahab’s daughter to a prince of Judah, secured Israel on the north and the
south, and left Ahab free to pursue his father’s strong policy toward the
peoples to the east, Moab and Syria. Upon Ahab’s death in battle against Syria,
Moab revolted, and the two sons of Ahab, in spite of help from the house of
David in Jerusalem, were unable to stave off the ruin that threatened the house
of Omri. Jehu, supported by the army in which he was a popular leader, seized
the throne, with the usual assassination of all akin to the royal family. His
inspiration to revolt had been due to Jehovah’s prophets, and his program was
the overthrow of Baal worship in favor of the old national religion. Though
Jehu thoroughly destroyed the followers of Jezebel’s foreign gods, he and his sons
after him continued to foster the idolatrous shrines at Bethel and Dan, so that
the verdict of the sacred writer upon them is unfavorable: they “departed not
from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, where-with he made Israel to
sin. Mesha, king of Moab, II Kings 3:4, lived long enough to see his
oppressors, the kings of Omri’s house, overthrown and the land of Israel
reduced to great weakness. (See article “Moabite Stone” in any Bible
dictionary.) Jehu’s son, Jehoahaz, witnessed the deepest humiliation of Israel
at the hands of Syria. But it was not many years after Mesha’s boasting that
affairs took a complete turn. Jehu’s grandson, Jehoash, spurred by Elisha the
prophet even on his deathbed, began the recovery which attained its zenith in
the reign of Jeroboam II, fourth king of Jehu’s line. Though little is told of
this reign in the Book of Kings, it is clear that at no time since Solomon’s
reign had a king of Israel ruled over so large a territory. It was the last
burst of glory before total extinction.
There is a history lying
between the reigns of Jeroboam I, founder of the Northern Kingdom, and of
Jeroboam II, its last prosperous monarch, which has scarcely been referred to
in this brief sketch of its kings. It is the history of Jehovah’s prophets.
Hosea; Amos; Jonah
Reference has already
been made to the rise of the prophetic order as such, in the time of Samuel.
(Chapter 7.) With each crisis in the affairs of the nation God raised up some
notable messenger with a word from him to the people or to the ruler. But all
along the fire of devotion to God and country was kept alive by humbler,
unnamed men, who supplied a sound nucleus of believers even to this Northern
Kingdom with its idolatrous shrines and its usurping princes. I Kings 18:4; 19:18.
The greatest names are those of Elijah and Elisha. The earlier struggle to keep
Israel true to Jehovah focuses in these two men, one the worthy successor of
the other. Their time marked perhaps the lowest ebb of true religion in all the
history of God’s Kingdom on earth. It is no wonder, therefore, that such stern,
strong men were not only raised up to fight for the God of Moses and Samuel and
David, but also endowed with exceptional powers, to work wonders and signs for
the encouragement of the faithful and the confounding of idolators and sinners.
Such was the purpose of their notable miracles. Elijah and Elisha wrote
nothing. But in their spirit rose up Hosea and Amos a century later — men who
have left a record of their prophecies in the books that bear their names.
Denunciation of sin, especially in the higher classes, announcement of
impending punishment for that sin, and promise of a glorious, if distant,
future of pardon, peace, and prosperity through God’s grace and man’s sincere
repentance — these things form the substance of their eloquent messages. Hosea
is noteworthy for his striking parable of a patient husband and a faithless
wife to illustrate God’s love and Israel’s infidelity. Amos, himself a herdsman
from Judah sent north to denounce a king and people not his own, is startling
in the suddenness with which he turns the popular religious ideas against those
who harbor them. See, for example, oh. 3:2, where Amos makes the unique
relation between Jehovah and Israel the reason, not for Israel’s safety from
Jehovah’s wrath, as the people thought, but for the absolute certainty of
Israel’s punishment for all its sins. These two prophets, the last of the
Northern Kingdom, had the melancholy duty of predicting the utter overthrow of
what the first Jeroboam had set up in rebellion and sin two centuries before.
Questions
on Chapter 9.
1.
When, why, and under whose lead did the ten tribes break away from the house of
David?
2. Outline the fortunes of the kings of Israel from .Jeroboam I to Jeroboam II.
3. Who were the outstanding prophets in the Northern Kingdom, and what was the
substance of their messages?
Chapter 10: The
Kingdom of Judah, to Hezekiah
I Kings, Chapter 12 to II Kings, Chapter 17;
II Chronicles, Chapters 10 to 28;
Obadiah; Joel; Micah; Isaiah (in part)
The revolt of Jeroboam
and the ten northern tribes reduced the dominion ruled by Rehoboam, grandson of
David, to narrow bounds. Before his disastrous reign was over, Judah was still
further humiliated by an invasion under Shishak, a Pharaoh of the twenty-second
dynasty of Egypt, who despoiled Jerusalem of the treasures which Solomon had
amassed. After the death of Rehoboam and the short reign of his son, Abijam,
Judah was ruled successively by Asa and Jehoshaphat, each succeeding his father
peacefully and each reigning long and, on the whole, prosperously. Another
invasion from the south which threatened to be as disastrous as that of
Shishak, under “Zerah the Ethiopian” was repelled by Asa. Internal reforms,
both religious and civil, were carried out by these vigorous rulers. The
natural rivalry and intermittent warfare between north and south, which had
arisen through the division under Rehoboam, ceased for a time after Jehoshaphat
entered into alliance with King Ahab and took Athaliah, Ahab’s daughter, as
wife for his son Joram. The kings of Samaria and Jerusalem made common cause
against Syria and Moab, and a temporary success seemed to crown the new policy.
But prophets of Jehovah repeatedly warned the king who sat on David’s throne of
the danger to the true religion from such an alliance with Baal worshipers. It
was not long before their warnings were justified by the facts. Athaliah,
Joram’s queen, was the daughter not only of Ahab but also of Jezebel and
brought with her to Jerusalem the fierce spirit and heathen habits of her
Tyrian mother. King Ahaziah her son lost his life through his close association
with King Jehoram of Israel, his uncle, for Jehu made away with both kings at
the same time, and with all the princes of Judah, kinsmen of Ahaziah, on whom
he could lay his hands. The old tigress at Jerusalem, Athaliah, now turned upon
her own flesh and blood, the children of Ahaziah, and murdered them all so as
to secure the power for herself. One grandson alone, the infant Joash, escaped,
saved by an aunt who hid him and his nurse from the cruel queen mother. Six
years later this child was proclaimed king in the Temple courts by Jehoiada,
the high priest. Athaliah was slain, and a new era began in Judah with the
destruction of Baal worship and the repair of Jehovah’s Temple.
Joash was too weak to do
more than buy off the king of Syria when his army threatened Jerusalem, and he
himself met his death in a conspiracy. The same fate befell his son Amaziah,
after a reign that promised well but was wrecked on the king’s ambition to
subdue the Northern Kingdom under him. Uzziah (or Azariah) succeeded to the
throne, though for half of his long reign he and his kingdom seem to have been
in a state of vassalage to Jeroboam II, the powerful ruler of Israel. The
latter part of Uzziah’s reign was more prosperous, in spite of the king’s
pitiable state-for he was stricken with leprosy and had to live apart. It was
on this account that he associated his son Jotham with himself, and during the
sixteen years of Jotham’s reign — most of which was included within the long
nominal reign of Uzziah — the Philistines, Ammonites, and Arabians were
defeated in warfare, while considerable building both in and out of the capital
helped to prepare the little kingdom for the troublous days just ahead. The
mighty kingdom of Assyria, with its capital at Nineveh on the Tigris River, was
the force which God used to punish his faithless people. Lying beyond the
kingdoms of Syria, Israel’s nearest neighbors on the north, Assyria was not at
first felt to be the menace which in the end it proved to be. Whenever Assyria
was strong, Syria. was weak, and the king in Samaria could breathe freely. But
there came a day when a king of unusual power ascended the throne at Nineveh,
Tiglath-pileser (or Pul, as he was also called, see II Kings 15:19, 29), and
the fate of both Syria and Israel was sealed. Ahaz, the son of Jotham who had
just died, saw in this Assyrian the means of delivering Judah out of the hands
of Pekah, king of Israel, and Rezin, king of Syria, who had joined forces to
capture Jerusalem and put a king of their own on the throne of David. By a
great present Ahaz bought the support of Tiglath-pileser, who sent an army to
attack Judah’s foes. Syria was devastated, the inhabitants were carried away
captive from all the eastern and northern parts of Israel (Gilead and Galilee),
Phoenicia and Philistia were overrun, and Ahaz, among other kings, went to
Damascus in person to do homage to this irresistible conqueror.
In the Northern Kingdom,
reduced now to little more than the central highlands of Ephraim and Manasseh,
Hoshea, a protégé of the Assyrian king, reigned for a few years. But he and his
foolish advisers, unable to read the signs of the times, looked to Egypt for
help and revolted. This time the end had come. Shalmaneser, now on the Assyrian
throne, came against Samaria, and after a siege lasting almost three years,
took and destroyed it. The whole population was carried away, after the drastic
policy of deportation practiced by Assyria, and an alien population was
introduced to take their places. Thus ended the Northern Kingdom after lasting
a little over two centuries. And thus began that strange mixed people, known as
the Samaritans, who settled in the central part of the Holy Land.
The effect of Israel’s
doom upon the minds of the king and people of Judah may be imagined. From the
pages of Micah and Isaiah, contemporary prophets in Judah, can be seen how God
was speaking to Judah through the ruin of Israel. Ahaz’s policy of relying on
human help from Assyria instead of divine help from Jehovah was refuted by its
outcome. With Syria and Samaria ruined, there lay nothing between Jerusalem and
the Assyrian. And it is in Hezekiah’s reign— the next after that of Ahaz — that
the ruthless conqueror from Nineveh is found overrunning Judah itself; How
king, prophet, and people met that crisis will begin the next lesson, for it
belongs to the period when the Southern Kingdom is all that remained of the
organized Hebrew nation in Palestine.
Questions
for Chapter 10.
1.
What were the relations between the kingdoms of Judah and Israel in general?
2.
Who altered these relations for a time? How? With what consequences for Judah’s
politics and religion?
3.
Who was Joash, and how did he come to the throne?
4.
What was the occasion of Judah’s first intimate contact with Assyria? Discuss
Ahaz’s policy in the light of Isa. 7:1-9.
5.
What were the stages in the downfall of the Northern Kingdom? What became of
the conquered people, and who replaced them? See II
Kings, ch. 17.
Chapter 11: Judah,
from Hezekiah to the Exile
II Kings, Chapters 18 to 25 ; II Chronicles, Chapters 29
to 36;
Isaiah (in part); Nahum; Habakkuk; Zephaniah; Jeremiah;
Lamentations; Ezekiel, Chapters 1 to 32
Although outwardly Judah
appeared to be the same after the fall of the Northern Kingdom as before, it
was not so. A very different situation confronted Hezekiah from that which had
confronted his father Ahaz when he called on Assyria for help against Syria and
Israel. Now there were no “buffer states” between Assyria’s empire and little
Judah. And it was only a score of years after Samaria fell when Jerusalem felt
the full force of Assyria. Sennacherib, fourth in that remarkable list of the
six kings1 who made Nineveh mistress of Asia, sent an army to besiege
Jerusalem, with a summons to Hezekiah to surrender his capital.
A different spirit ruled
this king. Isaiah, the same great prophet who had counseled Ahaz to resist
Pekah and Rezin but had failed to move him to faith in Jehovah, found now in
Ahaz’s son a vital faith in the God of Israel in this far sorer crisis. In
response to that faith Isaiah by God to assure king and people of a great
deliverance. The case, to all human seeming, was hopeless. But the resources at
God’s disposal are boundless, and at one blow “the angel of Jehovah” reduced
the proud Assyrian host to impotency and drove away in retreat. II Kings 19:35.
Scribes who record the achievements of ancient monarchs are not accustomed to
betray any of the failures of their royal heroes. But between the lines of
Sennacherib’s records we can read confirmation of the Bible’s report of some
great catastrophe to Assyrian arms. Jehovah rewarded the faith of his people in
him.
The seventh century before
Christ; which began just after this event, witnessed both the rise of Assyria
to its greatest height, and its sudden fall before the Chaldeans, a people from
the Persian Gulf, who succeeded in mastering ancient Babylon and in winning for
it a greater glory than it had ever known in former times. Even in Hezekiah’s
reign these Chaldeans, under their leader Merodach-baladan, were already
challenging the supremacy of Nineveh, and in doing so were seeking allies in
the west. When the king of Judah yielded to the dictates of pride and showed to
these Chaldean ambassadors his treasures, Isaiah announced to him that the
final ruin of Judah was to come in future days from this source, and not from
Nineveh as might then have been anticipated.
Manasseh, Hezekiah’s
successor, was indeed taken as a captive to Babylon for a time, but the captor
was a king of Assyria. II Chron. 33:11. Manasseh was thus punished for his
great personal wickedness, for he is pictured as the worst of all the
descendants of David, an idolator and a cruel persecutor. Yet his reign was
long, and at its close he is said to have repented and turned to Jehovah. But
this did not prevent his son Amon from following in his evil ways. A revolt of
the people within two years removed Amon, however, and set his young son,
Josiah, upon the throne. Josiah’s reign is important for the history of Judah.
By putting together all
that can be gleaned from Kings, Chronicles, and the prophets, it can be seen
that Josiah gradually came more and more under the influence of the party in
Judah that sought to purge the nation of its idolatry and bring it back, not
merely to the comparatively pure worship and life of Hezekiah’s and David’s
days, but to an ideal observance of the ancient Law of Moses. The climax in the
progressive reformation in Judah was reached in Josiah’s eighteenth year, 622
B.C., when the king and all the people entered into a “solemn league and
covenant” to obey the Law of Moses both as a religious obligation and as a
social program.
The Law book which was
found while workmen were restoring the Temple passed through the hands of
Hilkiah, the high priest, who therefore committed himself, together with the
priests, to this reform. And what the true prophets of Jehovah thought of it
may be seen, for example, from Jer., ch. 11, which tells that this prophetic
leader preached in the streets of Jerusalem and through the cities of Judah,
saying, “Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them.”
Josiah attempted to
attach to Jerusalem all those elements in the territory of the former kingdom
of Israel which were in sympathy with Jehovah’s Law, and at Bethel itself he
defiled the old idolatrous altar and slew its priests. In fact, it was on
northern ground, at Megiddo, that Josiah met his tragic end and the new wave of
patriotic enthusiasm was shattered, when, in battle against Pharaoh-necho and a
great Egyptian army, the king of Judah was killed. Josiah’s four successors
were weak and unworthy of David’s line. After Jehoahaz, the son whom the people
put on the throne to succeed Josiah, had been removed by Necho, Jehoiakim,
another son, reigned for eleven years. He owed his throne to the Pharaoh and
was at first tributary to him. But early in his reign came the first of many
campaigns of the Chaldeans into Palestine, as Nebuchadnezzar, master of Asia,
extended his power farther and farther south after crushing the Egyptians at
Carchemish in 605 B.C. Jehoiakim had to bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s yoke and seems
to have lost his life in a fruitless attempt to shake it off. A great number of
the leaders of Judah, nobles, priests, soldiers, and craftsmen, were deported,
together with Jehoiachin, the young son of Jehoiakim, who had worn the crown
but three months, 598 mc. For eleven years more, however, the remnant of Judah
maintained a feeble state under Zedekiah, a third son of Josiah and the last of
David’s line to mount the throne. In spite of his solemn oath to the king of
Babylon and in the face of the express warnings from Jehovah through his
prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, this weak and faithless king revolted from
Babylon, put his trust in the Egyptian army, and prepared to stand a siege. But
Jerusalem’s end had now come, as Samaria’s had come before, and through a
breach in the northern wall the Chaldean army entered; the king fled and was
captured, blinded, and deported, and the whole city, including houses, walls,
gates, and even the Temple — that famous Temple of Solomon which had stood
nearly four centuries — was totally destroyed, 587 B.C. All that remained of
the higher classes, together with the population of Jerusalem and the chief
towns, were carried away to Babylonia, to begin that exile which had been
threatened even in the Law, and predicted by many of the prophets, as the
extreme penalty for disobedience and idolatry. 1 Tiglash-peleser, 745 -727 BC;
Shalmaneser, 727 -722; Sargon, 722 -705; Sennacherib, 705 -681; Esar-haddon,
680 668;Ashurbanipal, 668 -626.
Questions
on Chapter 11
1. How did the fall of Samaria affect the Kingdom of
Judah?
g2. How did Hezekiah
meet the threats of Sennacherib? What was the outcome?
3. Which king carried through a reformation of religion? What was the basis of
the covenant he imposed on Judah? How did he meet his end?
4. Describe the relations of the Chaldeans to Judah in the time of Hezekiah, of
Jehoiakim, of Zedekiah? 5. When did Jerusalem fall? Did
it fall unexpectedly and without warning?
Chapter 12: The Exile
and the Restoration
Ezekiel, Chapters 33 to 48; Daniel; Ezra, Chapters 1, 2
When the northern tribes
were carried away by Assyria they lost their identity in the mass of the
nations. Only individuals from among them attached themselves to the organized
nucleus of Judah. From that time the one tribe of Judah stood out so
prominently as representative of the whole nation, that “Jew” (that is, man of
Judah) has been equivalent to Hebrew. Paul says that he was of the tribe of
Benjamin; the aged prophetess Anna is said to have been of the tribe of Asher,
Luke 2 36, and all the priests were of course of the tribe of Levi; yet long
before New Testament times all such Israelites were commonly referred to as
“Jews.”
Judah did not lose its
identity among the nations when Jerusalem fell. The Jews who were not deported,
among them the prophet Jeremiah, were put under the government of a certain
Jewish noble, Gedaliah, who ruled the land from Mizpah as representative of the
great king. Many fugitives returned to live under his sway when they found that
it was beneficent. But Gedaliah was soon murdered by a prince of David’s house,
whom the king of Ammon had set on to do this mischief and then received and
protected. The other Jewish leaders feared to remain within reach of the king
of Babylon after this insult to him, and against the warnings of Jeremiah they
all went down to Egypt. That removal ended all organized Jewish life in
Palestine for nearly half a century.
In Babylon, however, an
event occurred long before that time had elapsed, which marked the political
recognition of Judah’s separate identity as a nation. That event was the
release of Jehoiachin from prison by the new king of Babylon, Evil-merodach,
successor of Nebuchadnezzar. Jehoiachin, it will be remembered, was the
unfortunate prince of David’s line who held the throne only three months after
his father Jehoiakim’s death and was then deported to Babylon in 598. From that
time on, through all the remainder of Nebuchadnezzar’s long reign, he had been
imprisoned in Babylon. But now he was not only released, but given a pension
from the royal treasury for the rest of his life and a standing superior to all
the other captive princes in Babylon.
This was in 562, and many
Jewish hearts must already have begun to beat with fresh hope, as the old
loyalty to David’s house flamed up, and the promises of a restoration recorded
in the old Law and the Prophets were echoed by the prophet of the Exile,
Ezekiel. This man, himself a priest by birth, had been carried to Babylon at
the same time as Jehoiachin, and through all those years of doom had there
preached to his countrymen, first to the portion exiled with him while
Jerusalem still stood, but after 587 to the whole people united in a common
catastrophe. His voice had even reached to Jerusalem, as he joined Jeremiah in
reminding King Zedekiah of his oath to Nebuchadnezzar. With the elevation of
Jehoiachin and the stirring of the national hopes, Ezekiel became the prophet
of hope. He pictures the breath of Jehovah stirring to life the dry bones in
the valley of death. Ezek., ch. 37. And he warns the optimistic people that only
as God takes away from them their old stony heart and gives them a heart of
flesh, and sprinkles clean water upon them to cleanse them from their pollution
through idolatry, can they be fit to form the new community wherein God shall
indeed reign. Ch. 36:25, 26. What such a community might outwardly and visibly
resemble, Ezekiel pictures in a long, detailed, descriptive vision wherewith
his book closes. Chs. 40 to 48.
Another outstanding Jew
of the Exile was a man of an entirely different type. Daniel, a noble youth
carried away from Judah to Babylon at the first clash of Nebuchadnezzar’s
armies with the Jews, 605 B.C., and brought up at the court, succeeded through
interpreting a dream of the king in attracting his notice and winning his
favor, much as Joseph had done in ancient Egypt. Dan., ch. 2. From his position
of political power, Daniel was able, doubtless, to minister to the interests of
his brethren, the Jewish exiles. Possibly it is to him that Jehoiachin owed his
astonishing reversal of fortune. At any rate Belshazzar, the last ruler of the
Chaldean state, still maintained Daniel in power, in spite of the very solemn
warning of ruin to that state which Daniel fearlessly pronounced. Ch. 5. When
the Persians succeeded the Chaldeans as masters of Babylon, this Jewish
statesman still held his high post, and retained it in spite of the bitter
enmity of officials who used his Jewish faith as a handle against him. Ch. 6.
In fact, there is no better way to understand the favor accorded the Jews by
Cyrus, the Persian conqueror, and the edicts preserved in Ezra 1:2 -4; 6:3-5,
than by supposing that Daniel, who had the king’s ear, brought to his attention
the earlier prophecies of Jeremiah and of other spokesmen for Jehovah, God of
the Jews.
Certainly, however the
affair was managed, it turned out entirely to the Jews’ liking. All who were
willing to return to Palestine were permitted and encouraged to go. They were
assisted by the gifts of their brethren who could not, or would not, leave
Babylon. They bore back with them the old vessels for the service of the
sanctuary which Nebuchadnezzar had carried off. And, best of all, they took
with them royal authority to erect the Temple of Jehovah on its ancient site,
at the expense of the king of Persia, that is, out of taxes and tribute he
remitted. At their head went a prince of the old royal house, and a high priest
who was grandson of that high priest whom Nebuchadnezzar had executed half a
century before. Their number totaled forty-two thousand three hundred and
sixty, with enough slaves in addition to make the entire company number nearly
fifty thousand. Their purpose was threefold: to reoccupy the Holy Land, to
rebuild Jerusalem, and to erect a temple where Solomon’s Temple had stood. We
should be likely to rate the importance of these three objects in the same
order as that in which they have just been named. But not so the believing Jew.
It was above all else the sacred house of his God that he wanted to see
restored,, so that the prescribed sacrifices of the Law might be resumed, the
nation’s sin might thus be atoned for, and God might once more visibly dwell
among his people. All else was in order to this one great end. The origin of
Judaism, which lies in the movements of this time, cannot be understood unless
this supreme motive is clearly grasped. How Judaism developed under the new
conditions will be the subject of the next lesson.
Questions
on Chapter 12
1. What is meant by “a Jew”?
g2. How did government
of Hebrews by a Hebrew come to an end in Palestine for the first time since
Saul’s day? 3. What was the first political event to arouse the exiled Jews
from their depression?
4. Compare Ezekiel and Daniel in their personality, position, and audience.
5. When Cyrus captured Babylon in 539, what did he do for the Jews, and how
came he to do it?
6. How many Jews returned to Palestine under Cyrus,
and what was their uppermost motive?
Chapter 13: The Jewish
State Under Persia
Ezra, Chapters 3 to 10; Esther; Nehemiah; Haggai;
Zechariah; Malachi
For two centuries Judea,
like the rest of western Asia, was under the domination of the Persians, whose
great royal names, Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, are familiar to every
student of history. The Old Testament spans one of those two centuries of
Persian rule, 539—430, while for the other century, 430—332, we are dependent
for the little we know about the Jews upon some documents recently discovered
in Egypt, an occasional notice in classical historians, and the brief narrative
of Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first Christian century.
Even in the century
covered by the books of the Bible there are long stretches of silence
separating periods that are fairly reported. First comes the time of Zerubbabel
and Jeshua, the leaders, civil and religious, under whom the Jews returned and
erected the Temple. This story carries us, though with a seventeen-year gap in
its midst, from 538, the year after Cyrus took Babylon, to 515, the sixth year
of Darius the Great, and is recorded in the first six chapters of the book of
Ezra. To help us in understanding this time we have also the prophecies of
Haggai and Zechariah, though the last six chapters of Zechariah belong to
another age.
After the completion of
the new Temple the curtain falls on Judea and, save for a single verse, Ezra
4:6, we hear no more of it for fifty-seven years. However, the interesting
story of Esther belongs in these years, for the Ahasuerus of the Bible is the
Xerxes of Greek history — that vain, fickle, and voluptuous monarch who was
beaten at Salamis and Plataea. The Jews must have been a part of the vast host
with which he crossed from Asia to Europe. But the drama unfolded in the book
of Esther was played far from Palestine, at Susa, the Persian capital.
With the seventh year of
the next reign — that of Artaxerxes I — the curtain rises again on Judea, as we
accompany thither the little band of Jews whom Ezra, the priestly “scribe,”
brought back with him from Babylonia to Jerusalem. This account is found in the
last four chapters of the book of Ezra, most of it in the form of personal
reminiscences covering less than one year.
The curtain falls again
abruptly at the end of Ezra’s memoirs, and rises as abruptly on Nehemiah’s
memoirs at the beginning of the book which bears his name. But there is every
reason to believe that the letters exchanged between the Samaritans and the
Persian court, preserved in the fourth chapter of Ezra, belong to this interval
of thirteen years between the two books of Ezra and Nehemiah. For this alone
can explain two riddles: first, who are “the men that came up from thee unto
Jerusalem,” Ezra 4:12, if they are not Ezra and his company, ch. 7? And second,
what else could explain the desolate condition of Jerusalem and Nehemiah’s
emotion on learning of it, Neh. 1:3, if not the mischief wrought by the Jews’
enemies when “they went in haste to Jerusalem,” armed with a royal injunction,
and “made them to cease by force and power”? Ezra 4:23.
Some persons are inclined
to date the prophet Malachi at just this time also, shortly before Nehemiah’s
arrival. But it is probably better to place the ministry of this last of the
Old Testament prophets at the end of Nehemiah’s administration. Nehemiah’s
points of contact with Malachi are most numerous in his last chapter, ch. 13, in
which he writes of his later visit to Jerusalem. Compare Neh. 13:6 with ch.
1:1.
In Cyrus’ reign the great
Return was followed immediately by the erection of an altar and the resumption
of sacrifice. Preparations for rebuilding the Temple, however, and even the
laying of the corner stone, proved a vain beginning, as the Samaritans, jealous
of the newcomers and angered by their own rebuff as fellow worshipers with the
Jews, succeeded in hindering the prosecution of the work for many years. Ezra
3:l to 4:5. It was not until the second year of Darius’ reign, 520, nearly two
decades later, that the little community, spurred out of their selfishness and
lethargy by Haggai and Zechariah, arose and completed the new Temple, in the
face of local opposition but with royal support. Ch. 4:24 to 6:15.
Fifty-seven years later,
in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, 458, came Ezra with some fifteen hundred
men, large treasures, and sweeping privileges confirmed by a royal edict, the
text of which he has preserved in the seventh chapter of his book. He was given
the king’s support in introducing the Law of God as the law of the land,
binding upon all its inhabitants, whom he was to teach its contents and punish
for infractions of it. How Ezra used his exceptional powers in carrying out the
reform he judged most needed — the dissolution of mixed marriages between Jew
and Gentile forbidden by the Law — is told in detail in his own vivid language
in chs. 9, 10. It helps us to understand Malachi’s zeal in this same matter.
Mal. 2:11. And the difficulty of this reform appears also from Nehemiah’s
memoirs, since the same abuse persisted twenty-five years after Ezra fought it.
Neh. 13:23-27. After the failure to fortify Jerusalem recorded in Ezra 4:8-23,
Nehemiah, a Jew in high station and favor at Artaxerxes’ court, obtained from
his king a personal letter, appointing him governor of Judea for a limited
time, with the special commission to rebuild the walls and gates of Jerusalem.
The same bitter hostility which the Samaritans and other neighbors in Palestine
throughout had shown toward the returned Jews, reached its climax in the
efforts of Sanballat and others in public and private station to hinder
Nehemiah’s purpose. But with great energy and bravery, and with a personal
appeal and example that swept all into the common stream of patriotic service,
Nehemiah built the ruined walls and gates in fifty-two days, instituted social
reforms, ch. 5, and imposed a covenant on all the people to obey the Law which
Ezra read and expounded. Chs. 8 to 10. Elements in the little nation that
joined with his enemies to discredit and even to assassinate him were banished
or curbed. The origin of the peculiar sect of the Samaritan is connected with
Nehemiah through his rigor in banishing a grandson of the high priest who had
married Sanballat’s daughter. This disloyalty of the priesthood is also one of
Malachi’s chief indictments against his nation, and the basis of his promise
that a great reformer, an “Elijah,” should arise to prepare the sinful people
for the coming of their God.
Questions
on Chapter 13.
1. How long after the Return was the Temple
finished? Who hindered? Who helped?
2. What are the scene and the date of the book of Esther?
g3. Compare the return
of the Jews to Jerusalem under Ezra with that under Zerubbabel (a) in date, (b)
in numbers, (c) in purpose and result.
4. Tell the story of Nehemiah: the occasion of his return, his enemies, his
achievements. In what did Ezra help him?
5. Associate the ministry of the three prophets of this period after the Exile
with the leaders and movements they respectively helped.
Chapter 14: Israel’s
Religious Life
It has often been said
that while civilization owes its art and letters to Greece and its law and
order to Rome, it owes its religion and ethics to Palestine. This is true,
within limits, provided we understand that what Israel contributed was not the
product of its “native genius for religion,” but was due to the persistent
grace of its God, who took this “fewest of all peoples” and made of it the
custodian of his revelation and the cradle of his redemption for the whole
world. When, however, the Hebrew claimed preeminence through these two things,
a saving God and a righteous Law, it was no idle boast. So Moses eloquent asks
in Deuteronomy: “What great nation is there, that hath a god so nigh unto them,
as Jehovah our God is whensoever we call upon him? And what great nation is
there, that hath statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law, which I
set before you this day?” Deut. 4: 7, 8.
Religion as developed in
Israel had two sides, an inward and an outward. On its inward side it consisted
of a faith in Jehovah cherished in the hearts of the people, together with the
sentiments of reverence and love, and the purposes of loyalty and consecration,
which grew out of that faith. On its outward side religion consisted of certain
objects and ceremonies, adapted to express by act and symbol the relation
between God and his people. But there is also another distinction often made in
speaking of religion, the distinction’ between individual religion and national
religion. Each member of the Hebrew nation held a personal relation to his God.
The Law of God addressed him individually as it said to him, “Thou shalt not.”
And, on a still higher level, Moses summed up that Law for him in these
memorable words, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.” Yet the
entire body of Israel, as such, held a relation to God which his spokesmen are
continually trying to illustrate and enrich by all sorts of figures. God is
Israel’s “Rock,” “Possessor” or “Purchaser,” “Redeemer,” “Father” — until
Isaiah can even say to the nation, “Thy Maker is thy husband,” and Hosea and
Ezekiel can portray God’s dealings with Israel under the allegory of a marriage.
It would be a mistake,
however, to suppose that all the inward religion was individual and all the
outward religion national. There was provision in the ceremonial law, not only
for sacrifices on a national scale, like those of the day of atonement, but
also for each man to express outwardly his own penitence or devotion or
gratitude or obligation to God by means of a personal sacrifice, publicly
offered but privately planned and provided. And, on the other hand, the psalms
and the prophets cannot be understood, unless we realize the general religious
life of the nation that lies back of these highly individual forms of
expression. That was why, when David thinking of himself could write, “The Lord
is my shepherd,” the whole people could take that sentence and the psalm it
begins for use in public worship as the collective expression of Israel’s trust
in its God. The great fact of sin is responsible for the perversion of the true
relation between these different varieties of religious life. In theory, every
symbolic object and action at tabernacle or Temple was merely the outward
expression of an inward idea or feeling or resolve. Every smoking sacrifice on
the altar was supposed to come from an offerer drawing near to God in the
sincere belief “that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after
him.” Heb. 11:6. But in fact the offerer was in constant danger of looking upon
all the gifts and victims he brought as so many bribes with which he might buy
the favor of an offended God, or, worse still, might obtain an “indulgence” to
do some evil deed he planned.
This is what Jeremiah
means when he cries, “Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear
falsely ... and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my
name, and say, We are delivered; that ye may do all these abominations?” Jer.
7:9,10. If the private worshiper was in danger of abusing the worship of God in
this way, how much more was the priest, the professional sacrificer, and
celebrant, in danger of looking upon all his duties as a kind of authorized
magic! “Do this external act, and that inward benefit will surely follow.”
“Offer this lamb, and cease to think about that black sin for which the lamb is
the official price.” Yes, even this: “Go and do it again, but don’t forget to
bring another lamb!” Is it any wonder that at length Malachi, after lashing the
priests of his late day for their laziness, cynicism, and greed, cries out in
Jehovah’s name, “Oh that there were one among you that would shut the doors [of
the Temple], that ye might not kindle fire on mine altar in vain!” Mal. 1:10.
All along the course of Hebrew history we find prophets and psalmists
protesting against this sinful perversion of ceremonial religion. See for
example I Sam. 15:22; Ps. 40:6-8; 50; Isa. 1:10-17; Micah 6:6-8. And yet it
would be a mistake to say that the prophet stood for pure and spiritual
religion, and the priest for merely external, formal religion. Some of the
greatest of the prophets, as Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, were priests. And
how far the prophets could become professional declaimers and deceivers may be
seen, for example, from Micah 3:5-8.
The Hebrew prophets,
notably Amos and Hosea, are sometime represented as the “inventors” of “ethical
monotheism,” that is, of religion as consisting in the worship of one God, who
is the moral ideal of man and demands moral living in man. But in fact, that is
precisely the basis of all genuine Old Testament religion, from the very
beginning. See Heb., ch. 11. And, particularly, that is the basis of the entire
Law, even of the ceremonial law. For that Law must not be judged by its sinful
abuse, but by the principles of righteousness, holiness, repentance, and
fellowship that underlie every article in the sanctuary, every sacrifice on the
altar, every rite prescribed and observance commanded. At their best the
priests were allies of the true prophets, and external religion as centering in
the Temple was for the time a fitting expression of Israel’s personal and
national faith. If it had not been so, then such psalms as Psalms 24, 42, 65,
84, 122 could never been written, preserved, and used.
Questions
in Chapter 14.
1. What ground had Israel for “glorying”? See Rom.
9: 4, 5.
g2. Give illustrations
to show that individual as well as national religion in Israel expressed itself
externally, and that spiritual as well as ceremonial religion belonged to both
the nation and the individual.
3. What sinful abuse of sacrifice were the prophets constantly attacking? Did
they thereby condemn Temple, altar, priesthood, and ceremonial law in
themselves?
4. Were all the prophets spiritually minded, or all the priests merely
“professional”? Give instances from history of alliances between prophets and priests.
Chapter 15: “The Coming One”
The Old Testament points
forward. The whole impression it leaves upon us is that of an unfinished thing.
Its history moves toward a goal outside of itself. Its religion is a religion
of expectation. All its institutions are typical, that is, they represent more
than themselves, because they belong to a larger order of things which appears
imperfectly in them.
In the last lesson we saw
how priest and prophet had their own place in Israel. But both priest and
prophet also typified a perfect priesthood and a perfect prophecy, to be
realized under ideal conditions which were never present in those times. When,
for example, Aaron made atonement for the sins of the nation once each year, as
provided in Lev. ch. 16, he had to present first the blood of the bullock which
was the sin offering for himself, before he presented the blood of the goat
which was the sin offering for the people. But ideally, in his position as
mediator between God and the sinful people, he was a sinless man; the blood of
the bullock and the pure, white garments he put on to indicate that he was
sinless for the moment. Nothing could be clearer than that he typified a
perfect high priest for God’s people, who should be really a sinless man — one
who needed no mechanism of altar, victim, and dress to make him pure from
personal sin. See Heb. chs. 5 to 10, especially ch. 7:26-28. Again Moses looks
forward to the realization in the future of the ideal communication between God
and his people typified in the “A prophet,” says he, “Jehovah thy God will raise
up unto thee.” “From the midst of thee, like unto me.” Deut. 18:15-19. This
ideal prophet will perfectly hear and perfectly transmit divine truth to men.
It was on the basis of this promise that many persons described our Lord as
“the prophet,” meaning thereby that perfect prophet promised by Moses. John
1:21, 25; 7:40.
But there was another
institution of Old Testament times which more than prophet or priest was
associated in the people’s minds with the ideal future. This was kingship. God
himself was theoretically King — sole King — of Israel. Isa. 33:22. But at the
entreaty of his sinful and harassed people he instructed Samuel to “make them a
king.” And while Samuel warned them of the evils which the monarchy would bring
with it because of the sinfulness of the men who should be king, he
nevertheless set up a throne that by its very nature was unique. The king of
Israel was in a peculiar sense the representative of Jehovah. He ruled for God.
He was his own “anointed,” set apart for the exercise of supreme authority over
God’s people on earth and entitled to their religious as well as patriotic
devotion. See, for example, Psalms 21, 101. After the failure of Saul to obey
God’s instructions, Samuel anointed, at God’s dictation and against his own human
judgment, David the son of Jesse. This man proved himself, not indeed sinless
nor the ideal king, but a man after God’s heart, Acts 13:22, because his
dominant purpose was to do God’s will. To David therefore was given the
remarkable promise contained in II Sam., oh. 7. In a word, this promise was an
irrevocable, eternal “covenant,” granting sovereignty to David’s “house” — that
is, his posterity considered, as a unit — over God’s Kingdom on earth. The
story of how men came to understand better and better vastness of this
covenant, which Isaiah calls “the sure mercies of David,” ch. 55:3, forms the
subject of that special Old Testament study called “Messianic Prophecy.”
In the psalms and in the
prophecies we are able to trace a growing faith, that by an ideal king of
David’s line Jehovah will finally work his long delayed will in and through
Israel. This Person is commonly called “the -Messiah,” because “Messiah” means
“Anointed.” Its Greek equivalent is “the Christ.” While other persons also were
anointed with oil when they assumed office, kings were always so anointed and
the idea belongs peculiarly to kingship. By the time our Lord appeared, no
other side of the work which this ideal, promised, longed-for Coming One was to
do, was so prominent as that of ruling for God as the King of Israel. For this
reason Jesus of Nazareth is known to all who believe in his claims as “the
Christ,” and such believers are thence called “Christians.” This title of
Christ connects Jesus with the line of David, to which he actually belongs by
descent, and it also connects him with the promise of David, of which he was
the heir and the fulfillment. We have thus seen that “the Coming One,” Luke
7:19; John 11:27, the eyes of Israel were directed, was to be prophet, priest,
and king. In all these offices and the various duties they involved he was to
be the one chosen from among the people — a man therefore, “servant of the
servants of God.” Yet this is not all. Alongside these promises there was a
promise also that Jehovah himself would come to dwell among his people.
The Holy of Holies, with
its Ark of the Presence and its Mercy seat for revelation and atonement, was
itself typical of an ideal presence of God among men. And through psalm and
prophet we can trace this promise also. Now it is terrible with its threat to
sinners, and now it is glorious with its hope for the oppressed. At length in
Malachi we read in the clearest words, “The Lord, whom seek, will suddenly come
to his temple.” Mal. 3:1, 5. Preceded by his “messenger” to “prepare the way
before him,” Israel’s divine Lord himself is to come for judgment and
salvation. See also Ps. 96:13; 98:9. It was not made so plain to the men of
ancient Israel just how these two lines of promise were to be united, as it
appears to us now in the light of later facts. But we, who worship Jesus of
Nazareth not only as “Son of David according to the flesh,” but as divine Lord
from heaven, “in two distinct natures and one person for ever,” can look back
on those old prophecies of “men who spake from God, being moved by the Holy
Spirit.” II Peter 1:21. We can see in them God’s purpose to make this great Son
of David a true “Immanuel,” Isa. 7:14 — a Person in whom God actually is “with
us.” God gave to him such names as ‘Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,” because he should really be all that
these names imply. Isa. 9:6. For the Child who was born in little Bethlehem,
the “city of David,” was not merely one who should be “ruler in Israel,”, but
also one “whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.” Micah 5:2.
Questions
on Chapter 15.
1.
How did the priests and prophets in Israel point forward to an ideal Priest and
Prophet?
2.
What was the relation of Israel’s king to Jehovah? In whose “house” was this
office made eternal? In what Person has this promise been fulfilled?
3.
How was the promise that God himself should be “the Coming One” consistent with
the promise of a human Prophet, Priest, and King? Where is it indicated in the
Old Testament that both promises might be fulfilled in one Person?