Half Hours in Bible Lands Part 7

A little over two centuries pa.s.sed, and the Roman armies began their conquests in Asia. Less than a score of years later Herod the Great governed Judea, under the Roman emperor. This Herod, whose reign closed the ancient annals of Palestine, was an Edomite--a cruel and ambitious man.

Less than thirty years pa.s.sed, and one of the darkest, bloodiest acts of any sovereign since time began, disgraced the reign of Herod.

Jerusalem was astonished by the arrival of three sages from the distant east, inquiring for a new-born king, saying that they had seen "his star," and had come to offer him their gifts and homage. They found him in the manger at Bethlehem: and then repaired to their own country without returning to Jerusalem, as Herod had desired. The jealousy of that tyrant had been awakened by their inquiry for the "King of the Jews;" and as their neglect to return prevented him from distinguis.h.i.+ng the object of their homage, he had the inconceivable barbarity to order that all the children in Bethlehem under two years of age should be put to death, trusting that the intended victim would fall in the general slaughter; but Joseph had previously been warned in a dream to take his wife and the infant to the land of Egypt, whence they did not return till after the death of Herod.

That event was not long delayed. In the sixty-ninth year of his age.

Herod fell ill of the disease which occasioned his death. That disease was in his bowels, and not only put him to the most cruel tortures, but rendered him altogether loathsome to himself and others. The natural ferocity of his temper could not be tamed by such experience. Knowing that the nation would little regret his death, he ordered the persons of chief note to be confined in a tower, and all of them to be slain when his own death took place, that there might be cause for weeping in Jerusalem. This savage order was not executed. After a reign of thirty-seven years, Herod died In the seventieth year of his age.

Sir Walter Scott's beautiful "Hebrew Hymn" will fittingly close these sketches of Palestine:

When Israel, of the Lord beloved, Out from the land of bondage came, Her father's G.o.d before her moved, An awful guide, in smoke and flame.

By day along the astonished lands, The cloudy pillar glided slow; By night Arabia's crimsoned sands Returned the fiery columns' glow.

There rose the choral hymn of praise, And trump and timbrel answered keen; And Zion's daughters poured their lays, With priests' and warriors' voice between.

No portents now our foes amaze, Forsaken Israel wanders lone; Our fathers would not know Thy ways, And Thou has left them to their own.

But present still, though now unseen, When brightly s.h.i.+nes the prosperous day, Be thoughts of Thee, a cloudy screen, To temper the deceitful ray.

And oh! when stoops on Judah's path, In shade and storm, the frequent night, Be Thou long-suffering, slow to wrath, A burning and a s.h.i.+ning light.

Our harps we left by Babel's streams, The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn, No censer round our altar beams, And mute our timbrel, trump, and horn, But thou hast said, "The blood of goat, The flesh of rams I will not prize, A contrite heart, an humble thought, Are more accepted sacrifice."