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Convinced that their prosperity would be commensurate with their freedom from idolatry, and their faithful obedience to their divine law, and knowing that their apostacy or infidelity would be their ruin, he collected their tribes at Shechem, he called for their elders, their officers, and their judges, and briefly recapitulated their past history, and their obligations to the God of their fathers. He earnestly and pathetically besought them to continue faithful to the service of God. In answer to his solemn appeal, the whole congregation as with one voice exclaimed, "The Lord our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey:"a resolution which, with flagrant impiety and ingratitude, they forgot as soon as the elders who had been contemporary with Joshua were no more. This great man after a long, active, and eventful life, A. C, 1443. died at the age of one hundred and ten

years. He was one of the most distinguished personages the Hebrew nation ever produced. His firmness in the cause of God, his undaunted valour, his military abilities, his fervent and uniform piety, his ardent patriotism, his splendid achievements, and the commanding influence he appears to have exerted, over a people inflated by victory and naturally prone to sedition, all combine to render his, one of those very few characters upon which the historian delights to dwell, and which every generation of posterity must admire.

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What facts are traditionally recorded of Joshua ?

Procopius mentions a curious fact relative to Joshua. He says, that "two pillars were standing in his time in Mauritania, opposite to the modern Gibraltar, upon which were Phoenician inscriptions, We are Canaanites flying from the face of Joshua the son of Nun the robber.' As might be expected, the Jews have a most exalted opinion of their hero. They assert that he was the author of a prayer, which they repeat either partially, or entirely, as often as they enter or depart from their synagogues'; and they ascribe to him several laws for the regulation and security of property. The Samaritans had a book which they ascribed to Joshua, which they highly venerated, but which was filled with preposterous and incredible tales.

SECTION III.

THE JUDGES.

DID the Israelites long retain their fidelity to God after the death of Joshua?

DURING the administration of Joshua, the children of Israel presented the pleasing scene of a people, united, victorious, obedient to their leader, and faithful to their God. But the whole was reversed soon after his departure. For although the united tribes of Judah and Simeon triumphed over Adonibezek, a powerful king of the country, and retaliated upon him his barbarous custom of mutilating the persons of his prisoners; although they subdued the Canaanites of Hebron, and of other petty states; although the celebrated Caleb, by the offer of his daughter in marriage, stimulated Othniel to heroic exertions against the common enemy; although the formidable sons of Anak were vanquished; and although signal success, in other quarters of the country, attended the arms of the Israelites, yet the evil of permitting great numbers of the native population to remain in the land upon the payment of tribute, and the consequent continual association with these profligate idolaters, soon produced the most deplorable effects. When the generation of Joshua had passed away, the Israelites began to intermarry with the Canaanites; by these new connexions they were seduced into apostacy; Baal and Ashtaroth became the objects of their adoration-Baal representing the sun, and Ashtaroth the moon. The horrible mode in which these deities were worshipped, aggravated the sin of the Israelites. The most loathsome lasciviousness and obscenity distinguished the festivals of both; but detestable cruelty is to be added to the worship of Baal. To this god human victims were offered; and in subsequent times we find Jeremiah reproaching the Jews, with “building the high places of Baal, and burning their sons with burnt-offerings to Baal.'

What was the punishment, and who were the deliverers, of the Israelites?

Their apostacy was appropriately punished. The Canaanites who were spared became the instruments of the misery of their conquerors; the incursions of foreign hostility were sometimes added to the wretchedness of intestine commotion; and during a long term of years, occasional anarchy, oppression, and war, convinced the Israelites of their follies and their crimes. Nevertheless they were not forsaken by God. Eminent persons called JUDGES, were occasionally raised up, by whom they were delivered from their enemies and reclaimed from their wickedness.

Who was the first of the Judges ?

The first of these Judges was OTHNIEL,

the son-in-law of Caleb, who delivered the A. C. 1405. people from the yoke of a Mesopotamian despot, who oppressed them eight years.

Who was the next of the Judges?

A. C. 1323.

The next of the Judges was EHUD. When the Moabites had extended devastation and misery over the country, this brave man killed Eglon, their king, in his own residence, aroused the Israelites to arms, and destroyed ten thousand of the flying enemy in their attempt to pass the fords of Jordan.

A. C. 1305.

Who followed Ehud as the Judge of the Israelites? SHAMGAR followed. He seems to have entered the lists with the Philistines unaided and alone, urged on by desperate valour; his prowess obtained the victory; and by an ox-goad, the weapon he wielded, six hundred of the Philistines were slain.

Did the repeated deliverances of the Israelites produce any permanent effect upon their national character?

These repeated deliverances produced no permanent impression upon the children of Israel. In the eighty years of tranquil prosperity which followed the achievement of Shamgar, they relapsed into idolatry and sin.

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Nehemiah describes their wickedness in the following melancholy language, They dealt proudly, and hearkened not unto thy commandments, but sinned against thy judgments, (which if a man do, he shall live in them;) and withdrew the shoulder, and hardened their neck, and would not hear." At length Jabin, a Canaanitish monarch, whose exactions were supported by a powerful army, "mightily" oppressed them; their hope of deliverance from his iron despotism was blasted by the number of his troops, and the great abilities of Sisera his general; and such appears to have been the prevalence of the general despair, that not one man, in the revolution of twenty years, had courage to assert the cause, or to avenge the wrongs, of his countrymen.

Who was the next Judge and deliverer of the Hebrews?

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The voice of DEBORAH the prophetess A. C. 1285. awoke the Israelites from the lethargy of despair. Ten thousand men of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali followed the standard of Barak, who had been selected by Deborah for the high_office_of general, and whose reluctance to engage in the arduous contest was removed by the promise of the heroic Deborah to share his dangers and his toils. Sisera, with the whole military power of his master, came to the base of mount Tabor, upon which the troops of Barak were stationed, to crush their insurrection, and to chastise their insolence. But the Israelites rushed like a mountain torrent upon the enemy; the battle was soon decided; the victory was complete; the army of the Canaanites was put to the sword; Sisera, seized with panic-terror, and finding that his "horses were not so swift as his fears," forsook his chariot and fled away on foot; and not one of his numerous host was left to tell the story of his disgrace. His death was as ignominious as it was melancholy. He took refuge in the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, with whom he was at peace; when he had partaken of refreshment, overcome with anxiety and fatigue, he slumbered upon the ground; Jael availed herself of his defenceless situation; she took one of

nails used in stretching out the tent, and transfixed the temples of the unsuspecting general-a deed which, though applauded by Deborah in her victorious exultation and patriotic ardour, must ever be regarded as infamous for its murderous treachery and cruelty.

For what is the song of Deborah and Barak principally valuable?

The triumphal song of Deborah and Barak is valuable, both as a sublime poetical composition, and an authentic historic document, demonstrating the actual condition of the Jewish tribes. In this description* Judah, formerly so distinguished by its valour and patriotic spirit is not so much as even mentioned, so that the preeminence of that tribe appears to have languished and decayed. Zebulun, Naphtali, and Ephraim, were the tribes who furnished the little army of Barak. The two tribes and a half beyond Jordan, are represented as absorbed in selfish attention to the prosperity and increase of their pastoral riches. Dan and Asher, possessing a maritime country, were rendered insensible to the calls of patriotism and the feelings of humanity, by the avaricious cupidity which was engendered by their trade. So that from the whole description it appears, that the close union of the tribes had been destroyed, that their divisions exposed them to every fierce and formidable invader, and that they were not more distinguished by their idolatrous tendencies, than by their factiousness and selfishness.

Who were the next oppressors of the rebellious Israelites?

In the space of forty years from this signal deliverance, the unhappy Israelites again abandoned them. selves to the wickedness of the original inhabitants of the land. A tremendous punishment was inflicted. The rapacious tribes of the desert, under the name of Midianites, overran the country; the Israelites were driven to caverns, inaccessible mountains, and precipitous rocks; fertility disappeared; the flocks and the

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