final form, appear only in later ages. In this early story, the simple comment upon David's conduct in the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah is "The thing that David had done displeased Jehovah." Then Nathan is introduced, rousing, with homely parable, the king's native sense of justice, and adding to this an appeal to his strong religious sense, "Wherefore hast thou despised the word of Jehovah to do that which is evil in his sight?" "By this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of Jehovah to blaspheme." The terrible tragedy of lust unbridled, leading on inevitably to wretched woe, unfolds without any obtrusive pointing of the moral in such a way that the facts speak their own high lesson.

How far the writer may have entered into philosophizing upon the cause and effect of it all we cannot be sure. We do feel, however, that the events are recorded by one to whom religion has begun to be ethical. Occasionally his childlike faith in the direct control of God is definitely expressed, as in the statement “Jehovah had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that Jehovah might bring evil upon Absalom." Even such expressions as this are rare in this grandly simple and impressive narrative of men and events.

CHAPTER V

THE GREAT JUDEAN HISTORY

(Before 800 B.C.)

EVEN while David lived, jealousies between the northern and southern tribes threatened dissolution of the union. A policy of centralization with the establishment of fortresses at strategic points made secession impossible during the reign of Solomon. Yet, before Solomon's death, an able young officer whom he had put in charge of the task-work of the great tribe of Ephraim "lifted up his hand against the king" and then fled to Egypt, where he was harbored by Shishak. This Pharaoh represented a new dynasty with ambitions for foreign conquest, and his reception of Jeroboam was ominous. Within Israel itself, prophets of the type that had loyally served and dared to rebuke David turned away from Solomon in despair; one of them enkindled, we are told, the thought of future rule in the heart of Jeroboam.1

Looking back over the centuries it is easy to see that the division of the kingdom was inevitable, unless Solomon should leave a son of consummate tact or iron hand. When the separation came, by far the greater portion of the land, the people, and the natural wealth of all sorts fell to Jeroboam. A large portion also of the patriotic and religious memories and traditions were the especial heritage of the northern kingdom. Even the sanctuaries at Dan and Bethel had been places of worship for Israel far longer than the Temple mount. The separation of Northern Israel from Judah probably had behind it the forces of religious conservatism, as well as the political conservatism that protested against a despotism new to the tribes of Israel. Shishak of Egypt soon plundered the accumulated wealth of Jerusalem; yet Judah has her advantages, which in the ultimate issue will prove the more 11 Kings 11 29-39.

vital. Her land is relatively compact, sheltered, and defensible, and her reigning house firmly established on the throne. In the generations to come, Northern Israel will have to bear the first attacks of Syria and Assyria from without, and within will pass through revolution after revolution. In Judah the Temple will become more and more a unifying and inspiring force; while already, at the time of the division, there is in the south a literary culture which will give the people a means of preserving and developing ideals only tardily won in the north.

There was much material for literature in the north, but we cannot ascribe any prose writing of Northern Israel to the first century of her independent existence. In the first half century, times were often troublous. Jeroboam ruled seventeen years, but his son, after only two years' reign, was assassinated by the commander of the army, who made himself king. This monarch, Baasha, made alliance with Damascus against Judah, Solomon's great-grandson, then reigning in Judah, bought off the ally, who proceeded to attack Israel. Baasha's son ruled only two years when he was killed. The able general of the army, Omri, soon overcame the assassin and established a dynasty that lasted nearly fifty years and won considerable power for Northern Israel. The rule of this new line coincided substantially with the second half of the first century. This period was one of much foreign warfare, sometimes successful, but often very disastrous to Israel. On the whole, the conditions were unfavorable for literary development, though there may have been some writings now lost. References in Kings indicate that at least state annals were kept.

In Judah, in spite of some warfare, prose literature grew from generation to generation. Royal annals which had been begun under the United Kingdom were carried forward, while true prose literature developed through the gathering of oral traditions and written fragments from the past into a great narrative work that sought to trace history back to the beginning of man's life on earth.

In the previous chapter, the analogy between the growth of the early historical narratives of England and Israel was not completed. In addition to successive compilations, revisions, and continuations forward, paralleled in Israel's writing, the

1

progress of historical composition in England showed successive extensions backward to Cæsar's conquest, to the creation. In the great Judean history of the ninth century B.C., writers of Judah attempted for their nation that which Florence of Worcester undertook in the England of the twelfth century A.D. For the early millenniums the English narrative was the Hebrew, borrowed by Christian England. Here the analogy of spontaneous growth is interrupted, since the English history is only an imitation and reproduction of the Hebrew. There seems to be no adequate parallel, in any early literature, to the great effort made in Judah, in the century after Solomon's death, to tell the story of the past. With all our admiration for the intellect of the Greeks, we must admit that it never set itself this noble task on any such comprehensive plan as that of the early Judean writers.1

Probably the Judean writers at first reached back from the rise of the monarchy only to the era of the conquest and settlement and gathered into a written document the heroic tales of the deliverers whom we call Judges. Their narrative was free from that rigid interpretation of the events given in our present book of Judges. Like the early Saul and David stories, these stories were told in free, spontaneous form, with little of reflective interpretation. One example will indicate the general literary character of all.

2

Because of Midian the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and the caves, and the strongholds. And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east; they came up against them; and they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance in Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. For they came up with their cattle and their tents; they came in as locusts for multitude; both they and their camels were without number: and they came into the land to destroy it. And Israel was brought very low because of Midian:

And the angel of Jehovah came, and sat under the oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abiezrite: and his son Gideon

1 As Eduard Meyer states, true historical literature had a wholly independent origin only among the Israelites and Greeks (Geschichte des Altertums, II (1910), § 131).

2 See Chapter XVIII.

.

was beating out wheat in the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of Jehovah appeared unto him, and said unto him, Jehovah is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. And Gideon said unto him, Oh, my lord, if Jehovah is with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where are all his wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not Jehovah bring us up from Egypt? but now Jehovah hath cast us off, and delivered us into the hand of Midian. And Jehovah looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and save Israel from the hand of Midian: have not I sent thee? And he said unto him, Oh, Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. And Jehovah said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man. And he said unto him, If now I have found favor in thy sight, then show me a sign that it is thou that talkest with me. Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and lay it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until thou come again.

And Gideon went in, and made ready a kid, and unleavened cakes of an ephah of meal: the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out unto him under the oak, and presented it. And

the angel of God said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth. And he did so. Then the angel of Jehovah put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there went up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and the angel of Jehovah departed out of his sight. And Gideon saw that he was the angel of Jehovah; and Gideon said, Alas, O Lord Jehovah ! forasmuch as I have seen the angel of Jehovah face to face. And Jehovah said unto him, Peace be unto thee; fear not: thou shalt not die. Then Gideon built an altar there unto Jehovah, and called it Jehovah-shalom: unto this day it is yet in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

But the Spirit of Jehovah came upon Gideon; and he blew a trumpet; and Abiezer was gathered together after him.

And Gideon came to the Jordan, and passed over, he, and the three hundred men that were with him, faint, yet pursuing. And he said unto the men of Succoth, Give, I pray you, loaves of bread unto the people that follow me; for they are faint, and I am pursuing after Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian. And the princes of Succoth said, Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now in thy hand, that we should give bread unto thine army? And Gideon said, Therefore when Jehovah hath delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, then I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers. And he went up