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The priestly regulations set forth in great detail the ceremonies, the washings and sacrifices, by which defilements were to be removed. The unclean person must avoid the sanctuary, and even society and contact with others, till the time of his purification, which in serious defilements can only begin after the lapse of a certain time. In the more grievous cases ordinary water did not suffice for the cleansing, but from the ashes of a red cow without blemish, which was slain as a sin offering and entirely burnt, the priest prepared a special water of purification with cedar wood and bunches of hyssop. The reception of healed lepers required the most careful preparations and most scrupulous manipulations.
Among the regulations of purity is reckoned the custom of circumcision, which was practised among the Israelites, and retained by the law. Yet the reason for this peculiar custom, which according to the regulations of the priests was performed on the eighth day after birth, the first day of the second week of life,399 seems to lie in other motives rather than in the desire to remove a certain part of the male body which was regarded as unclean. We saw above that according to the old conception of the Israelites the firstborn must be ransomed from Jehovah, that the life of all boys, if it was to be secured, must be purchased from Jehovah (I. 414, 448). Hence, if we may follow the hint of an obscure narrative, it is not improbable that circumcision of the reproductive member was a vicarious blood-sacrifice for the life of the boy. When Moses returned from the land of Midian to Egypt – so we learn from the Ephraimitic text – "Jehovah met him in the inn, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and he departed from him."400 To the Israelites circumcision was a symbol of their connection with the nation, of their covenant with Jehovah and selection by him.
The most important part of the purity of the people of Jehovah was their maintenance of his worship, the strict severance of Israel from the religion of their neighbours and community with them. It was now seen what influence living and mingling with the Canaanites had exercised in the national worship, and it was perceived what an attraction the Syrian rites had presented for centuries to the nation, and what a power they still had upon them. Hence even Moses was said to have given the command to destroy the altars and images of the Canaanites, to drive out all the Canaanites, and make neither covenant nor marriage with them.401 The law forbade sacrifices to Moloch under penalty of death; any one who did so was to be stoned. Those who made offerings to other gods than Jehovah were to be "accursed" (I. 499). Wizards were also to be stoned.402 "Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any mark upon you. Do not prostitute thy daughter to cause her to play the harlot."403 All these are commands directed against the manners, funeral customs, and religious worship of the Canaanites. Strangers were not to be received into the community and people of Israel; nor could Israelites contract marriage with women who were not Israelites; it is only the later law which allows women captured in war to be taken into the marriage bed.404 These are the "misanthropical" laws of the Jews of which Tacitus speaks with such deep aversion.
The law assigned a far-reaching religious influence to the priests. They alone could turn the favour of Jehovah towards his people by correct and effective sacrifices, and appease his wrath; they announced the will of Jehovah by his oracle; in regard to diseases and leprosy, they exercised police functions over the whole nation by means of the regulations for cleanliness and food; they could exclude any one at their discretion from the sacrifices and, consequently, from the community; and, in fine, they were in possession of the skill and knowledge with which the people were unacquainted. The priesthood arranged the chronology and the festivals, they supervised weights and measures,405 they knew the history of the people in past ages, and their ancient covenant with the God of the ancestors. From their knowledge of the ordinances of Jehovah followed the claim which the priests made to watch over the application of these ordinances in life, the administration of law and justice. But at first this claim was put forward modestly. The old regulations about the right of blood in the time-honoured observances of justice were added to the law of ritual when this was written down (I. 385, 484); they were modified here and there by the views of the priesthood, and in some points essentially extended; and now, like the ordinances for the places of sacrifice, mode of worship, and purification, they stood opposed in many regulations to real life as ideal but hardly practicable standards.
According to the view of the priests Jehovah was the true possessor of the land of Israel. He had given it to his people for tenure and use. From this conception the law derived very peculiar conclusions, which might be of essential advantage for retaining the property of the families in their hands, for keeping up the family and their possessions, on which the Hebrews laid weight, and for proprietors when in debt. To aid the debtor against the creditor, the poor against the rich, the labourer against him who gave the work, the slave against his master, is in other ways also the obvious object of the law.
As all work must cease on the seventh day, the day of Jehovah, so must there be a similar cessation in the seventh year, which is therefore called the Sabbath year. In every seventh year the Israelites were to allow the land which Jehovah had let to them to lie fallow, in honour of the real owner. In this year the land was not sowed, nor the vine-trees cut, nor the wild beast driven from the field, every one must seek on the fallow what had grown there without culture. If this Sabbath of the seventh year was kept Jehovah would send such increase on the preceding sixth year that there should be no want.406 When this period of seven fallow years had occurred seven times the circle appeared to be complete, and from this point of view the law ordained that at such a time everything should return to the original position. Hence, when the seventh Sabbath year was seven times repeated (in the year of Jubilee) not only was agriculture stopped, but all alienated property, with the buildings and belongings, went back to the original owner or his heirs.407 The consequence was that properties were never really sold, but the use of them was assigned to others, and hence, even before the year of Jubilee, the owner could redeem his land by paying the value of the produce which would be yielded before the year of Jubilee.
But the priests were far from being able to carry out these extended requirements which proceeded from the sanctity of the Sabbath, and from the conception that the land of Israel belonged to Jehovah, and every family held their property from Jehovah himself, and which were intended to make plain the true nature of the property of the Israelites. It was an ideal picture which they set up, and hardly so much as an attempt was made to carry it out. They could reckon with more certainty on obedience to a law which ordained that no interest was to be taken from the poor, and no poor man's mantle was to be taken in pledge.408 Nevertheless, the law of debt was severe. If the debtor could not pay his debt before a fixed time the creditor was allowed to pay himself with the moveable and fixed property of the debtor; he could sell his wife and children, and even the debtor himself, as slaves, or use him as a slave in his own service.
For the legal process we find in the law no more than the regulation "that one witness shall not bear evidence against a man for his death," i. e. that one witness was not sufficient to establish a serious charge, that "injustice shall not be done in judgment, that the person of the small shall not be disregarded, nor the person of the great honoured;" "according to law thou shalt judge thy neighbour."409 For every injury done to the person or property of another, the guilty shall make reparation. We know already the old ordinances which require life for life, eye for eye, and tooth for tooth (I. 485). Injury to property and possession was to be fully compensated; even the injury done by his beast was to be compensated by the master. Theft was merely punished by restoring four or five times the value of the stolen goods. If the thief could not pay this compensation he was handed over to the injured man as a slave. But any one who steals a man in order to keep him as a slave, or to sell him, was to be punished with death.410 If a murder was committed, the avenger of blood, i. e. the nearest relative and heir of the murdered man, was to pursue the murderer and slay him, wherever he met him, as soon as it was established by two persons that he was really guilty. The law even forbade the avenger of blood to accept a ransom instead of taking the life of the guilty, because the land was desecrated by the blood of the murdered man, "and the land is not cleansed from the blood spilt, save by the blood of the murderer." An exception was allowed only when one man slew another by accident, and without any fault of his own, and not out of hostility or hatred. In this case the slayer was to fly into one of the six cities which were marked out as cities of refuge.411 From the elders of the city the pursuing avenger of blood was to demand the delivery of the slayer, and they were to decide whether the act was done from hatred and hostility, or was merely an accident. If the elders decided in favour of the first alternative, they were to give up the guilty into the hands of the avenger of blood, that he might die. In the other case, the slayer must remain in the city of refuge till the death of the high priest, and the avenger was free from the guilt of bloodshed if before that time he met him beyond the confines of the city of refuge and slew him.412 The regulations of the priests even went so far as to lay down a rule that if a savage bull slew a man the bull was not only to be stoned, and not eaten as an unclean animal, but his master also must die, or at any rate pay a ransom, if he knew that the animal was savage, and yet did not control him.413
Among the people of the East the wealthier men did not content themselves with one wife. This custom prevailed in Israel also. The law of the priests did not oppose a custom which had an example and justification in the narratives of the patriarchs. The Israelites also followed the general custom of the East, in purchasing the wife from her father, and recompensing the father for the loss of a useful piece of property – for the two working hands which he lost when he gave away his daughter from his house. Thus Jacob obtained the daughters of Laban by a service of 14 years. The price of a wife purchased for marriage from the father seems to have been from 15 to 50 shekels of silver (36s. to 125s.).414 The conclusion of the marriage was marked by a special festivity, after which the bride was carried by her parents into the nuptial chamber. The prostitution of maidens in honour of the goddess of birth, so common among the neighbouring nations, was strictly forbidden by the book of the law. The daughter of a priest who began to prostitute herself was to be burnt with fire, because she thus "defiled not herself only, but also her father."415 The man who seduced a virgin was compelled to purchase her for his wife, and even if her father would not give her to wife he was to pay him the usual purchase-money. Adultery was punished by the law with even greater severity than violations of chastity before marriage. The adulteress, together with the man who had seduced her into a violation of the marriage bond, were to be put to death.416 If a man suspected his wife of unfaithfulness without being able to prove it against her a divine judgment was to decide the matter. The priest was to lead man and wife before Jehovah. Then he was to draw holy water in an earthen pitcher, and throw dust swept from the floor of the dwelling of Jehovah into this, and say to the woman, "If thou hast not offended in secret against thy husband, remain unpunished by this water of sorrow, that bringeth the curse; but if thou hast sinned, may this water go into thy body and cause thy thighs to rot, and may Jehovah make thee a curse and an oath among thy people." The woman answered, "So be it;" and when the priest had dipped in the water a sheet written with the words of this curse, she was compelled to drink it.417 Thus the woman was brought to confession, or was freed from the suspicion of her husband.
Marriages were forbidden not only with strange women, but also within certain degrees of relationship; in which were included not only those close degrees, to which there is a natural abhorrence, but also such as did not exclude marriage in other nations. In this matter the law of the priests proceeded from the sound view that marriage did not belong to a natural connection already in existence, but was intended to found a new relationship. Not only was marriage forbidden with a mother, with any wife or concubine of the father, with a sister, a daughter, or granddaughter, a widowed daughter-in-law; but also with an aunt on the father's or mother's side, with a stepsister, or sister by marriage, with a sister-in-law, or wife's sister so long as the wife lived.418
The husband purchased his wife as a chattel; hence in marriage she continued to live in entire dependence beside her husband. The husband could not commit adultery as against his wife; it was the right of another husband which was injured by the seduction of the wife. It rested with the husband to take as many wives as he chose beside his first wife, and as many concubines from his handmaids and female slaves as seemed good to him. The husband could put away his wife if she "found no favour in his eyes," while the wife, on her part, could not dissolve the marriage, or demand a separation; she possessed no legal will. Like the wife, the children stood to the father in a relation of the most complete dependence. Nor only did he sell his daughters for marriage, he could give them as pledges, or even sell them as slaves, but not out of the land;419 and though the father was not allowed to sell the son as a slave, he could turn him out of his house. Obedience and reverence towards parents were impressed strongly on children, even in the earliest regulations derived from the time of Moses. The son who curses his father or mother, or strikes them, must be put to death.420 The first-born son is the heir of the house; after the death of the father he is the head of the family, and succeeds to his rights over the younger sons and the females. It is not clear whether the law allows any claims to the moveable inheritance to any of the sons besides the eldest, to whom the immoveable property passed absolutely; the sons of concubines and slaves had no right of inheritance if there were sons in existence by legitimate marriage. Daughters could only inherit if there were no sons. The heiress could not marry beyond the tribe, in order that the inheritance might at least fall to the lot of a tribesman. If there were neither sons nor daughters, the brother of the father was the heir, and then the uncles of the father.421
The law attempts to fix and ameliorate the position of day-labourers and slaves. "The hire of the labourer shall not remain with thee till the morrow."422 The number of slaves appears to have been considerable. They were partly captives taken in war, and partly strangers purchased in the way of trade; partly Hebrews who, when detected in thieving, could not pay the compensation, or who could not pay their debts, or Hebrew daughters sold by their parents. The marriages of slaves increased their number. The law required that slaves should rest on the Sabbath day;423 and even the oldest regulations restrict the right of the master over the life of his slave by laying down the rule that the slave shall be free if his master has inflicted a severe wound upon him, and that the master must be punished if he has slain his slave.424 The slave who was a born Israelite might be ransomed by his kindred, if they could pay the sum required.425 The Hebrew slave was treated by his master as a hired labourer, and hind.426 When the Hebrew slave had served six years his master was compelled to set him free without ransom in the seventh year. A Hebrew could only remain in slavery for ever when, after six years of service, he voluntarily declared that he wished to remain with his master; then, as a sign that he permanently belonged to the house of his master, his ear was pierced on the door-post with an awl.
CHAPTER X
JUDAH AND ISRAEL
The monarchy in Israel was established by the people to check the destruction and ruin with which the land and population were threatened by the incursions of the neighbours on the east, by the dangerous arms of the Philistines. The first attempt to set up a monarchy in connection with the cities of the land was soon wrecked and swept away, without leaving a trace behind. In spite of his support in the wishes of the great majority of the Israelites, the monarchy of Saul had not succeeded in establishing itself securely by its simple and popular conduct. It was not till the monarchy had fortified the royal city and palace, established a body-guard and standing troops, magistrates and tax-gatherers, and had entered into close relation with the priests, that it obtained security and permanence. It had indeed fulfilled its mission and saved Israel; it had won power, glory, and respect for the nation, and imparted to it lofty impulses of the most important kind. It had at the same time gone far beyond the intention of its foundation. It was now a Sultanate, which, by filling the land with Syrian trade and customs, and allowing the growth of Syrian modes of worship, threatened in one direction the nationality with the same dangers which it had removed in another.
The transformation which the manner of life in Israel underwent during the reigns of David and Solomon was so thorough that even under David a reaction set in. If in the time before David and Solomon the Israelites had led an unrestrained life, they were now ruled by a severe monarchy. In the place of the patriarchal authority of the elders and heads of tribes, whose decisions they had formerly sought, came the rule of royal officers, who could exercise their power capriciously enough. If hitherto they had lived unmolested, every man on his own plot, beneath his vine and fig tree, they were now compelled to pay taxes and do task-work. After the burdens Solomon had laid upon the people, this reaction must have been stronger than at the time when Absalom's rebellion shattered the throne of his father. Moreover, Solomon's reign, though it lasted full 40 years, did not give the same impression of vigorous power as David's strong arm had done before him, and the monarchy was not so old, nor so firmly established as an institution, that the Israelites could not remember the times which preceded it.
No doubt the tribe of Judah could bear the new burdens, because it enjoyed the advantages of the new polity. The king belonged to this tribe; the temple and metropolis were in its territory. But the interests of the other tribes were the more deeply injured. Above all, the tribe of Ephraim must have felt itself degraded. In this tribe the memory of Joshua still lived, the remembrance of the conquest of the land; once it had held the foremost place, and on its soil the ark of Jehovah had stood. Now the pre-eminence was with Judah, the tribe which had long been subject to the Philistines; the sacred ark stood at Jerusalem, and the ancient places of sacrifice were neglected. Of the feeling of the tribe of Ephraim we have indubitable evidence in an attempt at rebellion at the beginning of the last decade of the reign of Solomon; an attempt, it is true, which was quickly suppressed.427
When Solomon died, in the year 953 B.C., it was not the contests between his sons or the intrigues of the harem which now threatened the succession. Rehoboam, Solomon's eldest son, who was born to him by Naamah the Ammonite, was now in his forty-second year, and thus in the vigour of age. This vigour he needed. At the news of Solomon's death the people gathered to their old place of assembly at Shechem. This self-collected assembly showed that the majority of Israel were mindful of their right to elect the king. The greatest circumspection and tact were needed to avert the approaching storm. Rehoboam saw that he must not look idly on. He must either attempt to disperse the assembled multitude by force and maintain the crown by arms, or he must treat with it. Hence he set forth to Shechem, accompanied by the counsellors of his father. A deputation of the people met him, and said, "Thy father made our yoke grievous; now therefore make thou the grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee." Rehoboam promised to make an answer on the third day. He assembled his counsellors. The old men among them – so all the older text of the Books of Kings tells us – advised compliance, and recommended him to speak kindly to the people; the younger, who had grown up with the new king, and were accustomed to flatter him, and desired unrestricted power over the people, urged him to reject strongly such claims and such rebellion. Rehoboam was foolish enough to follow advice which could not but be ruinous. Although he can hardly have said to the people the words which the Books of Kings put in his mouth – "My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions," – he rejected the demand of the Israelites. Then a cry arose in the assembly of the people, "We have no part in David, nor any inheritance in the son of Jesse; to your tents, O Israel!" When it was too late Rehoboam attempted to soothe the enraged multitude. He sent his task-master, Adoniram, to them, but the people slew the ill-chosen messenger by stoning him to death. Nothing remained for Rehoboam but to mount his chariot in haste and fly to Jerusalem.
The grievous distress which 100 years before had caused the nation at Gilgal to proclaim Saul king with one consent, and which after the death of Ishbosheth had united the tribes round David at Hebron, had long passed away. The danger which division had once brought upon Israel had faded into the distance, and was forgotten in the security which had prevailed in the last generations against the neighbours on every side. Nothing was thought of but the immediate evil and the coming oppression, if the monarchy went further on the lines on which it was treading. At the time of Solomon an Ephraimite named Jeroboam, the son of Nabath (Nebat) of Zereda, who is spoken of as "a brave man," was a second overseer among the task-labourers. As he was skilful in the discharge of his duties, Solomon raised him to be the overseer of the task-work of his tribe. This office, which made him known to all his tribe, Jeroboam must have discharged in such a way as to gain the favour rather than the aversion of the tribesmen. We are told in a few words that "Jeroboam raised his hand against Solomon," and that "Solomon sought to slay him." Jeroboam escaped to Egypt, and found refuge with the Pharaoh Shishak (about 960 B.C.). Immediately after Solomon's death Jeroboam received a message from his tribesmen to return. Rehoboam's refusal to carry on a milder form of government decided the choice of Jeroboam as king. That choice declared sufficiently the degree of aversion which the multitude bore to the house of David and the monarchy at Jerusalem.
The chief city, the tribe of Judah, the tribe of Simeon, so long united in close connection with Judah, and a part of the tribe of Benjamin, whose land lay immediately at the gates of Jerusalem, remained true to the son of Solomon. From the tribe of Judah the rise and dominion of David had its commencement; to them that dominion was now returned, and was again confined within its early limits. The question was whether Rehoboam could achieve what his grandfather David had succeeded in doing – could regain the dominion over the whole land from Judah. Rehoboam thought, no doubt, that he could reduce by the power of his arms the tribes which had withdrawn themselves from his dominion. He armed and assembled the warriors of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. If he soon abandoned this intention, the reason hardly lies in the warning of the prophet Semaiah, as the prophetic revision maintains in a passage interpolated into the annals, – we are told at the same time that there had been "a contention between Rehoboam and Jeroboam from the first,"428– but in the fact that a mightier enemy came upon Rehoboam.
From the time when the Hebrews won their abode in Canaan, they had not been molested in any way from Egypt, where the rulers since the reign of Ramses III. rested quietly by the Nile. Solomon, as we saw (p. 180), entered into friendly relations with Egypt, and even into affinity. But in the later years of his reign a new dynasty ascended the throne of Egypt in the person of Shishak, which took up a different attitude. With him Jeroboam had found refuge from the pursuit of Solomon. It was to Jeroboam's interest, no less than Shishak's, that this connection should continue after Jeroboam became king of Israel. It is not improbable that Shishak made war upon Rehoboam in order to secure Jeroboam in his new dominion. Whether Jeroboam sought the help of Egypt or not, why should not Egypt have availed herself of the breach in the Israelitish kingdom which had reached such a height in Syria under David and Solomon, and forced her way even to the borders of Egypt? Why should she not establish the division and the weakness of Israel? At the same time, in all probability, a cheap reputation for military valour might be obtained, and the treasures of Solomon seized. In the year 949 B.C., the fifth year of Rehoboam's reign, the Pharaoh invaded Judah. He is said to "have come with 1200 chariots, and 60,000 horsemen; and the people who accompanied him from Egypt, Libya, and Ethiopia were beyond number." Rehoboam could not withstand the power of Shishak; one city after another, including Jerusalem, opened her gates to the Pharaoh. The glory of Solomon was past and gone. Shishak took away the treasures of the temple and the royal palace, and the gold shields which Solomon had caused to be made for the body-guard. There was no thought of a lasting conquest and the subjugation of Syria; the object was merely to weaken, plunder, and reduce Judah. When this object was obtained the Pharaoh turned back to Egypt. On the outer walls of the temple of Karnak we may see the gigantic form of Shishak, who brandishes the weapon of victory over a crowd of conquered enemies; 133 bearded figures are to be seen, with their hands tied behind them, whom Ammon and Mut are leading before Shishak. The lower part of these figures is covered by the name-shields. They represent the places in the kingdom of Judah, which in equal number were taken or were taxed by the Pharaoh. Of these 133 name-shields about 100 are still legible, but few names are found among these which correspond to known places in Judæa. We may perhaps recognise Jehud, Ajalon, Beth-Horon, Gibeon, Beeroth, Rimmon in the north of Judah or in Benjamin; Engedi and Adullam in the east; Lachish, Adoraim, Mareshah, Kegilah (Keilah), and some other places in the centre of Judah. As there is scarcely one among these names which can with certainty be apportioned to the kingdom of Israel, the conclusion may naturally be drawn that the campaign was made with a favourable regard to Jeroboam, and was confined to Judah.429
It was a heavy blow which had befallen the little kingdom, and, what was still worse, Jeroboam could avail himself of it, and the Pharaoh could repeat his raid. Rehoboam saw that the only way to increase the power of resistance in his kingdom and prevent its overthrow was to strengthen the fortifications of the metropolis, and change all the larger towns in the land into fortresses. He carried this plan out, we are told, so far as he could, and provided them with garrisons, arms, supplies, and governors. Fifteen of these are mentioned in the Chronicles. The dominion over the Edomites, whom Saul fought with and David overcame, and who attempted in vain to break loose under Solomon, was maintained by Rehoboam.
After the brief reign of Abiam, the son of Rehoboam (932-929 B.C.), Asa, the brother of Abiam, ascended the throne of Judah. In his time, according to the Chronicles, Serah, the Cushite, invaded Judah with a great army, and forced his way as far as Maresa; but in the fifteenth year of his reign Asa defeated the Cushites, and sacrificed 700 oxen and 7000 sheep out of the booty to Jehovah at Jerusalem. The Books of the Kings know nothing but the fact that Asa was engaged in constant warfare with Baasha, the second successor of Jeroboam, king of Israel (925-901 B.C.).430 Baasha forced his way as far as Ramah, i. e. within two leagues of Jerusalem. This place he took and fortified, and was now enabled to press heavily on the metropolis of Judah, by checking their trade and cutting off their supplies. Asa's military power does not seem to have been sufficient to relieve him from this intolerable position. He "took all the silver and gold that remained in the treasures of the house of Jehovah, and in the treasures of the king's house," and sent it to Benhadad, who was now king of Damascus in the room of Rezon the opponent of Solomon, and urged him to break his covenant with Baasha, and make war upon him that he might leave Judah at peace. Benhadad agreed to his request. He invaded Israel. As Jeroboam had summoned Egypt against Judah, Judah was now joined by Damascus against Israel. Baasha abandoned his war against Israel, and Asa caused the wood and the stones of the fortifications to be hastily carried away from Ramah, and with this material he entrenched Gebah and Mizpeh against Israel.431
