Hebrew Life and Times Part 8

CHAPTER XIV

THE WARS OF KINGS AND THE PEOPLE'S SORROWS

The Hebrews did not greatly better themselves by the division of the kingdom and by the revolt of the northern tribes from Solomon's son.

There were still kings both in the north and in the south. And all they cared about was glory and luxury for themselves.

AN ERA OF PERPETUAL WAR

In order to get glory and wealth these kings made war on neighboring countries. For a long time there was war between the northern and southern Hebrews. There were long and very b.l.o.o.d.y wars between the Hebrews and the Arameans, whose kings ruled in Damascus. There were many wars between rival candidates for the throne among the Hebrews themselves. Especially was this true in the northern kingdom where, during the two hundred years of its separate existence, there was a revolution on an average every thirty or forty years. In such cases all the members of the existing royal family would be a.s.sa.s.sinated and all persons who defended them or were suspected of sympathizing with them were put to death. After the murder of hundreds and sometimes thousands the new upstart conqueror would proclaim himself king.

=Famine and pestilence.=--These constant wars not only brought wounds and death and sorrow to many homes, they also kept all the people poor and increased the deadliness of the other great historic curses of humanity, such as famine. The money and labor spent on war might have been used in terracing hillsides and fertilizing fields, so that in times of drought the crops would not wholly fail and starvation and death might thus have been pushed back a little further from the cottages of the poor.

Wars also bring disease. In those days, epidemics of disease were frightfully common at best. They knew nothing about sanitation. Even in the most important cities, sewage and garbage were dumped in the streets. Leprosy was an everyday sight. Rats and other vermin swarmed everywhere except in the palaces of the rich; and when the soldiers came home from war, bringing with them typhus fever or cholera or the plague, the people died like flies.

=The dynasty of Omri.=--Among the best of the successors of David and Solomon were Omri and his son Ahab, in the north. They made peace with the southern Hebrews in Judah and renewed the old alliance with Tyre.

They built as their capital the beautiful city of Samaria. Ahab especially was greatly admired as a brave warrior and as a king who on the whole tried to serve his country well. Yet even Ahab was a despot.

His own glory and wealth were to him of chief importance, and his people's needs and sufferings secondary.

BACK TO THE DESERT

Under these conditions it was natural that many people should look back with longing to the olden times, especially to the time of Moses, before the people had left the desert and settled in Canaan. All these newfangled ways, they said, are evil. They have brought us only trouble. Especially bad is the wors.h.i.+p of these Baals instead of Jehovah, the G.o.d of our fathers. No doubt Jehovah is jealous and angry and has brought war and famine and pestilence upon us for just this reason. Many, indeed, who did not altogether object to the civilized customs of Canaan were uneasy in their minds because of the wors.h.i.+p of the Baals. When Ahab made his alliance with the king of Tyre he had built, in Samaria, shrines to the Baal of Tyre. This was in accordance with the religious ideas of those days. When two countries made an alliance there was supposed to be an alliance between their G.o.ds. But the Hebrews had made a special covenant to wors.h.i.+p no other G.o.ds but only Jehovah. So there were many who were opposed to the wors.h.i.+p of the Baals.

=The Rechabites.=--One Hebrew clan known as the Rechabites, actually became nomads again and did all they could to persuade others to do the same. They gave up their houses and lived in tents. They pledged themselves to drink no wine or strong drink, and they were enthusiastically devoted to the wors.h.i.+p of Jehovah only. Naturally they hated Ahab for bringing in the wors.h.i.+p of the foreign G.o.ds of Tyre. They did much to cause the overthrow of the dynasty of Ahab in favor of a general named Jehu, who was pledged to drive out the Phoenicians and their G.o.ds.

THE PROPHETS

There were also certain specially religious people, called prophets, some of whom saw the evils which were ruining the happiness of the people and fought against them. In the earliest days, these men who were called prophets were much like the soothsayers of other nations.

They were supposed to have a special power of speaking revelations from G.o.d. Sometimes they went into trances. Sometimes they caused exciting music to be played in their hearing. Most of them spoke what seemed likely to be popular with their hearers. For example, once when Ahab wanted to start a new war against Damascus, he sent for prophets and some four hundred were brought to him. "Shall we go to war or not?" he asked. All but one, knowing that Ahab's heart was set on the matter, answered, "Jehovah says, go to war, and he will give you victory."

=Micaiah.=--The true prophets, however, were men of truth who wors.h.i.+ped Jehovah and waited for his teaching. Such a man was Micaiah.

When Ahab asked him, "What do you say?" his answer was like the others. But his manner was so sarcastic that the king kept asking him.

He finally declared that Jehovah had revealed to him that the proposed expedition would end in disaster. For this Micaiah was thrown into a dungeon. But his prophecy came true. The Hebrews were defeated, and Ahab himself was killed.

=Elijah.=--The greatest leader in this movement back to the desert and to Moses, was a prophet named Elijah. He was like the Rechabites in his aims. He was dressed like a desert nomad and his whole life was given to the cause of the old desert religion. He had a very clear understanding as to what was best in that religion. It was not merely because Jehovah might be jealous of other G.o.ds that Elijah fought against Baal wors.h.i.+p, but also because Jehovah really stood for justice and righteousness as against the unrighteousness of the Baals.

Elijah was not only a champion of Jehovah; he was a champion of the poor against their oppressors, a champion of the common people against the despotism of kings, as is so vividly and thrillingly ill.u.s.trated in the story of Naboth's vineyard.

=Elisha.=--Elijah's work was carried on after his death by another prophet named Elisha. He also seems to have been a friend of the common people. Many traditions of his helpfulness to them are recorded in the second book of Kings. But his chief aim was to overthrow the dynasty of Ahab. It was Elisha who, with the help of the Rechabites, launched the revolution of Jehu.

=A disappointing outcome.=--Jehu was really no better than Ahab. He was willing to drive out the priests of the Phoenician Baal, and he offered many sacrifices to Jehovah. But his chief ambition was for himself. Instead of bringing peace and justice to the poor, suffering, war-scourged people, his reign was horrible for its b.l.o.o.d.y killings.

No one was safe from his murderous jealousy.

There was needed something more than a mere revival of the "old time religion" of Moses. There had to be purer and n.o.bler ideas of Jehovah, a better knowledge of the real nature of Jehovah and of what Jehovah demanded of men, and of the kind of wors.h.i.+p which would please him.

Till then there was little hope of happiness for men and women and little children.

STUDY TOPICS

1. Read 2 Kings 6. 24-30 for a vivid picture of the sufferings of the common people of Israel, as a result of constant wars.

2. Read 1 Kings 20. 1-34 for some light on Ahab as an able king. What qualities are displayed by him, in the narrative of this chapter?

3. Look up Rechabites in the Bible dictionary for a more complete narrative about them.

4. Is war more of a curse to the common people to-day than in ancient times, or less? Why? What cla.s.ses still suffer most from war, the rich and powerful or the common people?

CHAPTER XV

A NEW KIND OF RELIGION

Among all ancient peoples, including the Hebrews, a large part of religion was the burning of animal sacrifices on altars. Whenever a sheep or lamb or kid was slaughtered for food the blood was poured out on the sacred rock, or altar, in which the G.o.d was supposed to dwell.

Afterward the fat was burned on the same rock. It was believed that the G.o.d in the rock drank the blood and smelled the fragrant odor of the burning fat.

=Whole burnt offerings.=--On special occasions, such as a wedding, the birth of a child, the beginning of a war, or the celebration of a victory, the entire animal was burned on the altar. The first-born calves, or lambs, or kids of any animal mother were also regarded by the Hebrews as sacred and were burned as whole burnt-offerings to Jehovah.

SACRIFICES IN CANAAN

After the Hebrews settled in Canaan they adopted other kinds of sacrifices. Grains and fruits were offered as well as animals. Wine and oil were poured on the altars. Baked cakes were burned. One sheaf from every harvest field of wheat or barley was supposed to be waved back and forth before an altar of Jehovah. This was a sort of religious drama by which Jehovah was thought to receive a share of the grain.

=Religious feasts.=--In Canaan also the Hebrews observed certain religious festivals, which corresponded to the early, middle, and late harvest seasons; they were called respectively, the "Feast of Unleavened Bread," the "Feast of Weeks" (or Pentecost), and the "Feast of Tabernacles." All of these were joyous occasions somewhat like our Thanksgiving Day, and at all of them each family offered to Jehovah some part of the products of their fields.

PRIESTS AND THEIR DUTIES

The altars where these sacrifices were offered were in charge of a special cla.s.s of men, the priests. In the early days, in Canaan, there was a little temple, or shrine, outside each town and village with one or more priests in charge of it. Sometimes wealthy men had private shrines and hired their own special priests. It was the business of these men to know just how a sacrifice must be offered in order that it might be pleasing to Jehovah. There were certain rules and regulations handed down from generation to generation. There were certain kinds of animals which could not be offered. It was important to know just what parts of each victim were to be burned. The various meal offerings had to be prepared in a certain way. Yeast could not be used, nor honey.

=The increasing number of priestly rules.=--As the centuries pa.s.sed more and more rules were worked out by the priests. This was their whole business in life, and, of course, they made much of it. More and more different kinds of offerings were invented; for example, incense, which was the burning of herbs which made a sweet-smelling smoke. The books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, especially Leviticus, are largely composed of these rules for sacrifices. The animals had to be washed, killed, and skinned, according to certain directions. The blood had to be disposed of according to strict rule--some placed in the horns of the altar, some on the priests, some on the wors.h.i.+per bringing the offering, and so on. And the more there were of these rules, the more priests there had to be to remember and enforce them.

Thus it came about that all too frequently sacrifices came to be the chief thing in religion. Religion meant sacrifices and not much else.

THE REIGN OF JEROBOAM II

Jeroboam II, who reigned over the northern kingdom of Israel for some forty years, beginning about B.C. 790, was in some ways like Ahab, who lived a century earlier. He was victorious in war and brought peace and prosperity to his nation. These years of peace brought little happiness, however, to the common people of Israel. They had already become so poverty-stricken during the long years of petty but cruel wars, under the earlier kings since Solomon, that they were practically at the mercy of a small cla.s.s of n.o.bles and wealthy merchants who grew richer all the time while the people grew poorer.

=Evil days.=--These rich men used false weights and measures. In buying wheat from the farmer they would use heavy weights, and get more than was right; in selling to the poor of the cities they used light weights, and so gave out little for much. They corrupted courts and judges, so that no poor man could get his rights. They charged enormous rates of interest for the money which the poor were obliged to borrow. All over the land the ma.s.s of the people were living in hovels and selling their sons and their daughters into slavery to keep from starving, while the rich men and their families lived in luxury and in wasteful, extravagant display.

None of this shameful injustice seemed to weigh heavily on any man's conscience, for they were careful to keep up all the sacrifices to Jehovah. And was not Jehovah showing his pleasure by granting them these long years of peace and prosperity? They forgot the old lessons of Jehovah's justice which the nation had learned from Moses. Even Moses, according to their traditions, had given laws about sacrifices and offerings. These seemed to be the essential thing. So they kept on offering up costly sacrifices at their great temples and shrines, with stately and gorgeous ceremonials, and thought to themselves, "How pleased Jehovah must be!"

AMOS