Hebrew Life and Times

Harold B. (Harold Bruce) Hunting

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• Publié par: otte
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 16
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hebrew Life and Times, by Harold B. Hunting
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Title: Hebrew Life and Times
Author: Harold B. Hunting
Release Date: April 17, 2006 [EBook #18187]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEBREW LIFE AND TIMES ***
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Jeannie Howse and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
A number of obvious typographical errors have been
corrected in this text.
For a complete list, please see the bottom of this
document.
HEBREW LIFE AND
TIMESHAROLD B. HUNTING
ABINGDON-COKESBURY PRESS
NEW YORK NASHVILLE
Copyright, MCMXXI, by
HAROLD B. HUNTING
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
[3]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
FOREWORD 7
I. SHEPHERDS ON THE BORDER OF THE DESERT 9II. HOME LIFE IN THE TENTS 15
DESERT PILGRIMSIII. 22
A STRUGGLE AGAINST TYRANNYIV. 28
A GREAT DELIVERANCEV. 34
FROM THE DESERT INTO CANAANVI. 39
LEARNING TO BE FARMERSVII. 44
VILLAGE LIFE IN CANAANVIII. 49
KEEPING HOUSE INSTEAD OF CAMPING OUTIX. 55
MORAL VICTORIES IN CANAANX. 60
XI. LESSONS IN COOPERATION 66
XII. EXPERIMENTS IN GOVERNMENT 70
THE NATION UNDER DAVID AND SOLOMONXIII. 76
THE WARS OF KINGS AND THE PEOPLE'S
XIV. 82
SORROWS
XV. A NEW KIND OF RELIGION 88
A NEW KIND OF WORSHIPXVI. 94
JEHOVAH NOT A GOD OF ANGERXVII. 99
ONE JUST GOD OVER ALL PEOPLESXVIII. 103
A REVISED LAW OF MOSESXIX. 108
A PROPHET WHO WOULD NOT COMPROMISEXX. 114
[4]KEEPING THE FAITH IN A STRANGE LANDXXI. 120
UNDYING HOPES OF THE JEWSXXII. 127
XXIII. THE GOOD DAYS OF NEHEMIAH 134
HYMN AND PRAYER BOOKS FOR THE NEWXXIV. 140
WORSHIP
A NARROW KIND OF PATRIOTISMXXV. 146
XXVI. A BROAD-MINDED AND NOBLE PATRIOTISM 151
XXVII. OUTDOOR TEACHERS AMONG THE JEWS 155
BOOK LEARNING AMONG THE JEWSXXVIII. 161
NEW OPPRESSORS AND NEW WARS FOR
XXIX. 167
FREEDOM
THE DISCONTENT OF THE JEWS UNDER ROMANXXX. 172
RULE
XXXI. JEWISH HOPES MADE GREATER BY JESUS 176
XXXII. A THOUSAND YEARS OF A NATION'S QUEST 182
REVIEW AND TEST QUESTIONS 185
[5]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGEA DARIC, OR PIECE OF MONEY COINED BY DARIUS,
One of the Earliest Specimens of Coined Money 10
ANCIENT HEBREW WEIGHTS FOR BALANCES 10
HEBREW DRY AND LIQUID MEASURES 10
BRONZE NEEDLES AND PINS FROM RUINS OF ANCIENT
16
CANAANITE CITY
CANAANITE NURSERY BOTTLES (Clay) 16
CANAANITE SILVER LADLE 16
CANAANITE FORKS 16
EGYPTIAN PLOWING 44
EGYPTIANS THRESHING AND WINNOWING 44
EGYPTIAN OR HEBREW THRESHING FLOOR 44
AN EGYPTIAN REAPING 48
CANAANITE HOES 48
CANAANITE SICKLE 48
CANAANITE OR HEBREW PLOWSHARES 48
MODERN ARAB WOMAN SPINNING 52
ANCIENT HEBREW DOOR KEY 52
HEBREW NEEDLES OF BONE 52
SMALLER KEY 52
CANAANITE CHISEL (Bronze) 76
CANAANITE FILE 76
VERY ANCIENT CANAANITE FLINT, FOR MAKING STONE
76
KNIVES
BRONZE HAMMERHEAD 76
[6]BONE AWL HANDLE 76
A FISH-HOOK 76
CANAANITE WHETSTONES 76
CANAANITE OR HEBREW NAILS 76
REMAINS OF WALLS OF THE CANAANITE CITY, MEGIDDO 134
PART OF CITY WALL AND GATE, SAMARIA 134
CANAANITE PIPE OR FIFE 144
AN EGYPTIAN HARP 144
AN ASSYRIAN UPRIGHT HARP 144
AN ASSYRIAN HORIZONTAL HARP 144
A BABYLONIAN HARP 144
JEWISH HARPS ON COINS OF BAR COCHBA, 132-135 A.D. 144
ASSYRIAN DULCIMER 144
[7]
ToCFOREWORDMost histories have been histories of kings and emperors. The daily life of the
common people—their joys and sorrows, their hopes, achievements, and
ideals—has been buried in oblivion. The historical narratives of the Bible are,
indeed, to a great extent an exception to this rule. They tell us much about the
everyday life of peasants and slaves. The Bible's chief heroes were not kings
nor nobles. Its supreme Hero was a peasant workingman. But we have not
always studied the Bible from this point of view. In this course we shall try to
reconstruct for ourselves the story of the Hebrew people as an account of
Hebrew shepherds, farmers, and such like: what oppressions they endured;
how they were delivered; and above all what ideals of righteousness and truth
and mercy they cherished, and how they came to think and feel about God. It
makes little difference to us what particular idler at any particular time sat in the
palace at Jerusalem sending forth tax-collectors to raise funds for his luxuries. It
is of very great interest and concern to us if there were daughters like Ruth in
the barley fields of Bethlehem, if shepherds tended their flocks in that same
country who were so fine in heart and simple in faith that to them or their
children visions of angels might appear telling of a Saviour of the world. On
such as these, in this study, let us as far as possible fix our attention.
[8]
[9]
ToCCHAPTER I
SHEPHERDS ON THE BORDER OF THE DESERT
Ancient Arabia is the home of that branch of the white race known as the
Semitic. Here on the fertile fringes of well-watered land surrounding the great
central desert lived the Phœnicians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the
Canaanites who, before the Hebrews, inhabited Palestine. So little intermixing
of races has there been that the Arabs of to-day, like those of the time of
Abraham, are Semites.
The Hebrew people are an offshoot of this same Semitic group. They began
their career as a tribe of shepherds on the border of the north Arabian desert.
The Arab shepherds of to-day, still living in tents and wandering to and fro on
the fringes of the settled territory of Palestine, or to the south and west of
Bagdad, represent almost perfectly what the wandering Hebrew shepherds
used to be.
The Arabs of to-day are armed with rifles, whereas Abraham's warriors cut
down their enemies with bronze swords. Otherwise, in customs, superstitions,
and even to some extent in language, the modern desert Arabs may stand for
the ancient Hebrews in their earliest period. They were nomads with no settled
homes. Every rainy season they led out their flocks into the valleys where the
fresh green of the new grass was crowding back the desert brown. All through
the spring and early summer they went from spring to spring, and from pasture
[10]to pasture seeking the greenest and tenderest grass. Then as the dry season
came on and the barren waste came creeping back they also worked their wayback toward the more settled farm lands, until autumn found them selling their
wool to the nearby farmers and townspeople in exchange for wheat and barley
and some of the other necessaries of life.
THE SHEPHERD'S DAILY LIFE
Sheep-raising might seem at times a peaceful and even a somewhat
monotonous business. The flocks found their own food, grazing in the pastures.
Morning and night they had to be watered, the water being drawn from the well
and poured into watering troughs. Once or twice a day also the ewes and
shegoats had to be milked. When these chores were done it was only
necessary to stand guard over the flock and protect them from robbers or wild
animals. This, however, had to be done by night as well as by day. On these
wide pastures there were no sheepfolds into which the animals could be
securely herded as on the settled farms. They slept on the ground, under the
open sky, and the shepherds, like those in Bethlehem, in the story of Jesus'
birth, had to keep "watch over their flocks by night." So long as no enemies
appeared there was in such an occupation plenty of time in which to think and
dream of God and man and love and duty. Very often, however, the dreamer's
reveries were interrupted, and at such times there was no lack of excitement.
Wild beasts.—There were more beasts of prey in Arabia in those days than
there are to-day. In addition to wolves and bears, there were many lions, which
are not now found anywhere in the world except in Africa. So the sheepmen
[11]had to go well armed, with clubs, swords, and spears. We would want a high-
powered rifle if we were in danger of facing a lion. The Hebrews defended their
flocks against these powerful and vicious beasts with only the simplest
weapons. Such fights were anything but monotonous.
ToListA DARIC, OR PIECE OF
MONEY COINED BY DARIUS,
ONE OF THE EARLIEST
SPECIMENS OF COINED
MONEY
ANCIENT HEBREW WEIGHTS FOR
BALANCESToListHEBREW DRY AND LIQUID MEASURES
Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
TRIPS TO TOWN
Among the most interesting events in the lives of the shepherds were their
trips to town, when they sold some of their wool and bought grain, and linen
cloth, and trinkets for the babies, and the things they could not find nor make on
the grassy plains. The raw wool was packed in bags and slung over the backs
of donkeys. On other donkeys rode two or more of the men of the tribe.
Sometimes, perhaps, a small boy was taken along on the donkey's back
behind his father to see the sights. And for him the sights must have been rather
wonderf