By Daryl Taylor-Hazel

Adapted from

First Lessons on the Bible, E.H. Hall, 1882

Palestine is located on the East Coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It is west of Jordan and south of Lebanon. Its territory is about 10,435 square miles, which is just about the size of our state of Vermont. It is more mountainous than Massachusetts with some towns situated high up. The hills just north of Palestine are covered with snow.

In the north lies the Sea of Galilee or Tiberias. Toward the south is the Dead Sea. The water of the Dead Sea is very salt and bitter to the taste, and no fish or other animal can live in it. It used to be supposed, in old times, that birds, which tried to fly over it, fell into the water dead. It is denser and more buoyant than any water you have ever seen, so that if you were to bathe in it, you could not sink if you tried. And if you sailed on it, your boat would be an inch or two higher out of water than on other lakes. The Dead Sea does not seem to have any outlet, so that all the water that the Jordan pours into it must evaporate instead of running off.

The Jordan is the only long river. It rises north of the Sea of Galilee, 1,700 feet above the sea, and when it reaches the Dead Sea it is 1,300 feet below the sea, so that it seems to be rushing most of the way down a very steep hill. Some travelers describe it as a "continuous waterfall." In some places it is very deep, in others, at some seasons of the year, you can walk across it.

The latitude of Palestine is about 31 degrees to 33 degrees, very nearly the same as the south part of Georgia. From October to March it is rainy, from April to September it is very hot. Crops are harvested in April and May. The hot summer sun withers the flowers and grass quickly, and leaves the country bare. Barley and wheat are the chief grains; and beside these are grapes in very large clusters, pomegranates, figs, cedar and olive trees, and bright-colored oleanders, anemones, tulips, and poppies. The northern parts are much more fertile than the southern. Jerusalem, which stands on high land in the south, is the most important city. Bethlehem is five miles away from Jerusalem. Nazareth is located in a pretty valley among the hills, not far from the Sea of Galilee.

1. In what part of the world is Palestine?
2. How large is it compared with Vermont?
3. Are there mountains in it?
4. What lakes are there?
5. Why is one called the Dead Sea?
6. What is the largest river?
7. Is Palestine further north or further south than this place?
8. What kind of climate has it, and what seasons?
9. What grows there?
10. Name two or three of its cities or villages.

Deuteronomy viii. 7, 8

Numbers xiii. 23

Jeremiah xlvi. 18

Matthew vi. 28, 29, 30

The people of Palestine were generally called Jews, from the name of one of their ancestors, Judah. But other people often called them Hebrews, because they came from the East across the Euphrates.

Their language is called Hebrew, and is similar to that which is spoken in Arab nations today. The letters are quite different from ours, and the words on a page must be read from right to left.

For many years the Jews were an independent nation, and had kings of their own; but about 2,000 years ago the Romans, who were great conquerors, took Palestine and made it a Roman province. Under the Romans, their rulers were sometimes called kings, sometimes tetrarchs sometimes governors.

You will find Rome on the river Tiber. It was nearly 800 years old at that time, and had been a little kingdom once, then a kind of republic, then an empire. It was a warlike city and had conquered almost all the other nations of the world, bringing many Eastern kings to Rome in triumph.

Another important nation was Greece, not so powerful as Rome, but much superior to it and to the rest of the world in literature and art. When the Romans wanted fine buildings or beautiful statues, they had to send for Greeks to make them. Before the Romans conquered Palestine, the Greeks, under Alexander the Great, had invaded the East, and left their customs and language behind them; so that in Palestine the Greek language was spoken almost as much as the Hebrew.

Joshua xxiv. 2

Luke ii. 1

Roamns x. 12

John xii. 20

All through Palestine were little villages upon the hilltops and in the valleys, occupied by farmers and shepherds. Many of the same crops which grow here were raised there, but their ploughs and other farming implements would look very odd to us. Horses or cattle often treaded out the grain. There were no fences between their fields, and during the harvest the poor people were allowed to follow the reapers and pick up whatever was left behind. Their houses were low, plain buildings of brick or rough stones and mud, with hardly any windows, and only two rooms, one for the family and one for the cattle. When they had a fire it was built in the middle of the room, and the smoke found its way out as it could through a hole in the roof.

In the cities were carpenters, shoemakers, tailors, smiths, potters and other working people; and even those who were not obliged to work were generally taught some trade. Traffic between different places in the East was carried on by means of caravans, long processions of camels, mules and donkeys laden with all sorts of goods. As one of the main roads from Damascus to the Mediterranean passed near the Sea of Galilee, this brought much trade to those regions.

Generally, people had to travel on foot or on donkeys and depended on the people of the country to entertain them. Eastern people were very hospitable and made it a rule to welcome all strangers. They had many pleasant customs in their treatment of guests. On some of the roads were inns or caravansaries where travelers could sleep, but any one entered who chose and slept there without paying.

The cities had walls about them, with high watchtowers and strong gateways. The gates were closed at night but stood open through the day and the citizens met there to talk and lounge and trade. The streets were narrow with few sidewalks and the houses often jutted out overhead so as almost to touch. The houses were low with flat rooks and stairs leading up to the roof from the outside. Sometimes a foot-passage led from one roof to another. The large houses were built around a courtyard, in which were fountains and trees. The people lived chiefly in the open air so that the roof was as important a part of the house as our parlors are. Families sat there, received their friends there, ate and slept there. What we should miss most in their houses would be chairs as they all sat cross-legged on the floor or on couches. When it was cold, the room was warmed by a little charcoal burning in a pan or on a low stand. Rich people had candles to burn, but the poor must have gone to bed as soon as it was dark.

Both men and women wore long flowing robes gathered around the waist by straps or sashes. There was an under-tunic of cotton or camel’s hair and an outer cloak or robe of striped cotton or silk. The men wore bright turbans. The women wore caps covered with a handkerchief and veil. Instead of shoes they wore sandals. The women were fond of jewelry and besides necklaces and earrings, often wore nose-rings and also ankle-rings, which tinkled as they walked.

Leviticus xix. 9, 10

Isaiah iii. 18

Matthew iii. 4; v. 15,40; vii. 13,14; x. 27; xxiv. 17

Mark ii. 4

Luke ii. 8

Hebrews xiii. 2

Like all Eastern people of the period, the Jews lived out-of-doors much of the time and carried on all sorts of business in the city streets. The older citizens sat in the great gateways and talked. Shopkeepers sat outside their booths shouting to passers to come and buy. Country people brought their fruit and eggs to sell in the City Square. Religious teachers called rabbis walked about the streets gathering little groups of listeners. It was often a very exciting and noisy scene.

Their family life was full of pretty customs though it would seem to you very strict and religious. Long prayers were said every morning and evening; hands were washed and prayers repeated before and after every meal. On Friday night the house was always decorated for the Sabbath and when the father came home, he repeated to each child an old Hebrew blessing. I am afraid that children are not quite so respectful or obedient to their parents today, as they were then and that old people are not treated with so much thoughtfulness or reverence.

Names were quite different from those given today. There were no family names at all, like Jones or Smith, but people were generally distinguished from each other by adding the place where they lived as if one of you, instead of being called Henry Rice, were called Henry of Orlando or Main Street Henry. New names were often made for children when they were born. Girls were sometimes called after flowers or birds or trees.

The Jews had a morning and an evening meal. The tables were small and low and the family sat around them on the floor and got along very well without knives or forks. A dish of water and a towel were passed around after dinner. When there were guests at dinner, they were fond of telling stories and giving out riddles and proverbs to be guessed.

Guests were always received very cordially with a great many bows and embraces. They were put into the best room on the roof and treated as though they gave great pleasure by their coming. The master of the house often met them at the gate, held their stirrup while they dismounted, washed their feet when they came into the house, waited on them at table and went part way on the road with them when they left.

They had musical instruments for their dances and songs and also for their religious services. Some were like our guitars and violins. Some were like our drums and tambourines.

School children did not have as many subjects to study as most of you. They were not allowed to learn about other people or foreign languages and there was not much to learn about their own. Their only book was the Jewish Law or Scripture. The schoolrooms were all connected with the churches. The teacher was a sort of minister called a hazzan who sat on a cushion at one end of the room while the children, after taking off their shoes, squatted around on the floor. Each child held a roll of parchment in its hand and they either recited together passages from the Scripture or studied their lesson aloud, each trying to make more noise than the rest. Children began to learn the alphabet between the ages of 3 and 5 and went to school at 6 to read and write. As it was a hot country, there were no lessons between 10 o’clock and 3 o’clock. July and August were considered vacation months because school was kept then only four hours each school day.

1. Tell something about the outdoor life in Palestine.
2. Tell something about the home life in Palestine.
3. Which do you think you would like best, their way of life or ours?
4. How did they treat their guests?
5. What musical instruments did they have?
6. What kind of schools and studies did children have?

Leviticus xix. 32

2 Samuel xix. 8

Job xxix. 7,8

Proverbs xxiv. 7

Exodus xx.12

Colossians iii. 20

In early times the Jews, like the other nations around them, worshipped several gods, but in later days they worshipped one God as we do, and called him Jehovah (or Yahweh). But their ideas about God were very different from ours. Like other Eastern peoples, they thought God would not be kind to them or forgive them when they did wrong unless they gave him something that would please him. So when they came to worship him they brought with them the first fruits from their fields and their best oxen or sheep or doves as offerings. At first they even sacrificed their children to him, thinking he would like that gift better than any other; but as they grew more civilized, this cruel custom was given up.

Their chief place of worship was the Temple at Jerusalem, a building not much larger than an average church, but built of marble, gold and other rich materials. It was surrounded by large terraces and splendid porticos with tall columns and placed upon one of the highest hills in the city. The building itself was looked upon as a house for Jehovah to live in and was too sacred for any but priests to enter, so the people gathered around it and worshipped in the open air.

As the people could not offer sacrifices or take much part in the service themselves, there were great numbers of priests to act for them. The priests were divided into twenty-four classes, one of which was always on duty at the Temple. They wore robes of pure white linen, with a bonnet and long linen girdle.

At their head was the High Priest, the only one who ever went into the inner room of the Temple. He wore very splendid robes of blue and gold, with a breastplate covered with jewels, a mitre, and a golden frontlet.

There were services in the Temple every day, morning and evening. At this daily service, a lamb was killed and offered on the altar. Trumpets were blown calling the people together. Incense was burned and prayers repeated and then a large choir of priests chanted a hymn or psalm, accompanied by cymbals or other instrumental music. Sometimes a Psalm was sung verse by verse by the priest, the people responding Hallelu-Jah (Praise Jehovah) after each verse. Many of these hymns, written at different times, were collected together with other Hebrew poems and called the Book of Psalms.

Exodus xxii. 29

1 Kings v. 5

Psalms xxiv. 1

Isaiah i. 11

Micah vi. 8

Jeremiah xi. 13

For a great many years the Jews had no place of worship except the Temple, but afterwards other houses called synagogues were built in all the larger towns and cities. The synagogue was a kind of church, but was used on Saturday instead of Sunday, and generally on Monday and Thursday also. It was a plain looking building, standing on high ground where all could see it, and always so placed that everyone going in would face toward the Temple at Jerusalem, where Jehovah was supposed to dwell. Inside there were no seats, but only a platform with a high desk near the middle of the room, and behind it a niche holding a box or ark filled with rolls of parchment. The niche was the holiest part of the room and had a curtain hanging before it and a lamp always burning above it. The men were in one part of the room and the women in another. All either stood or sat upon the floor.

There was no special minister for a synagogue, as in our churches, but the rulers of the synagogue chose anyone they pleased each day to conduct the services. He began by repeating prayers and verses in regular order, the people answering "Amen". Then rolls from the ark were handed to him and he went up into the desk or pulpit and read passages from what the Jews call the "Law and the Prophets". Afterwards, by way of a sermon, he sat down and explained what he had read or made a short address. During the prayers, the people stood with their hands folded or knelt or else threw themselves flat upon their faces.

In early times, there were no prayers at all in the Jewish service, and there never were any like those we hear in our churches. But, in later times, fixed forms of prayer were used in the synagogues and also at home and on the streets. Some thought that the more prayers they said the better they were especially if men saw them doing it. So they were often seen standing at the synagogue door and repeating several prayers before going in.

There were no priests in the synagogue and no altar, so that no one went there to offer sacrifices, but only to listen to the Scriptures and prayers. There was no music or singing as in the Temple. Of course, those who lived away from Jerusalem had no place of worship except the synagogue. But all the Jews were expected to go to the Temple three times a year.

There was no difference between Sunday Schools and day schools for all schools were held in the synagogue. Children studied the Scriptures every day. Whether they sang hymns or had libraries, I do not know; but hey were all in one class and the teacher was always a man.

1 Chronicles xvi. 36

Matthew vi. 5, 7

Acts xiii. 15

Sabbath means day of rest and was the Jewish name for Saturday. It was their holiest day and was kept much more strictly, both at home and at the Temple than Sunday is with us. It began on Friday evening, as the Jews considered sunset the beginning of the day instead of the end. When three loud blasts of a trumpet were heard from the Temple, Friday afternoon, everyone knew that the Sabbath had begun. All work of every kind was stopped immediately, a lamp was lighted in each house, the rooms were decorated, and the table spread. In the Temple and in the synagogues, the most important services of the week were held. At home the best clothes were worn. Meals were better than on any other day. No hard lessons were learned, and the poor and strangers were sure to be remembered. It was considered very wicked for either man or beast to do any work on the Sabbath, and there were many strange laws telling them what to do and what not to do. Travelers were forbidden to go more than a mile on that day. Some even thought that is was wrong for flax to be drying itself on the Sabbath or for wool to be dyeing.

Several times in the year there were special services at the Temple with great feasting and rejoicing and immense crowds gathered from all parts of Palestine. These were called Feasts and were in celebration of some important events in Jewish history. Some lasted seven or eight days and more than a million strangers sometimes attended them and crowded Jerusalem to overflowing. At such times, every house took in as many guests as it could and a curtain hanging before a door meant that there was still room for more. The pilgrims came to Jerusalem in long processions, singing hymns and bringing offerings as they marched. At one feast, held in October, they lived for seven days in huts of green boughs or in tents (Tabernacles), in memory of the time when the whole nation were wandering about with tents. These huts were set up all around Jerusalem and even in the streets and on the roofs. At another feast (Dedication) the Temple and all the houses in Jerusalem were illuminated for eight nights. In each house, one candle was lighted for each member of the family the first night, two for each member the second night, and so on through the week. Some of these processions of pilgrims were very picturesque, as when the "first fruits" were brought to the Temple. First came a man playing a pipe, then a bull with gilded horns and garlands, then pilgrims singing as they came and carrying gold and silver baskets filled with fruit. The psalms called "Songs of Degrees" or "Steps" were sung by these processions.

Some of the Jews wore little cases tied to their arms or bound upon their foreheads, called Phylacteries. In these cases were little strips of parchment covered with texts which were thought to give the wearer great sanctity, protecting him from danger by their magic power and driving away evil spirits. It was supposed that touching them could heal wounds, or children made to sleep. There was another charm quite similar to this, called a Mezuzah. This was hung in a metal case on door posts, either inside the house or outside, for each one who went in or out to touch as he passed and then kiss his fingers very reverently receiving a blessing from it. These are still used to this day by many Jewish people. Another belief among the Jews was that the fringe of a dress was sacred, as it was to remind the wearer of God’s commandments. Many made their fringes wide, therefore, to be though very religious; and sick people thought that by touching the edge of a great man’s robe they would be healed.

Learned men among the Jews were treated with great reverence and call Masters or Rabbis. Some had young men studying the law with them; others taught in the synagogues or gathered whom they could find in the streets and preached to them.

Exodus xx. 8

Numbers xv. 38, 39

Deuteronomy vi. 8, 9; xvi 13

Matthew xxiii. 5, 7, 8; xxiv. 20

Mark ii. 23, 24

One of the oldest ancestors whom the Jews could remember was Abraham. He lived in very old times, many hundred years before there were any books and before anyone could read or write, so that we can know nothing about him except what happened to be remembered through all those years before writing began. Of course such accounts must be very imperfect, for people do not always repeat things just as they heard them. And they often like to make a good story out of a very little incident; but his is all that we have and it may be that when so many things had to be committed to memory, memories were better than they are now. At any rate, each generation had a great amount of anecdotes to tell of those who had lived before them and fathers were fond of repeating these to their children, sometimes in prose, sometimes in poetry. All early history was made up of stories like these. One of the oldest collections of such tales and poems is the Book of Genesis. It begins with a poetic account of the creation of the world and then tells of a great flood, which the Jews thought had covered the whole earth and then how the only family that escaped the flood was scattered over many countries and began to speak many different languages. After this, it tells about Abraham and his descendants.

Abraham came from a mountain region far north of Palestine, near where the great river Euphrates rises. The people of that country wandered about in little bands or tribes, settling down wherever they found good pasturage and water for their sheep and cattle. From the description of them in Genesis, they must have looked quite like the Bedouin Arabs, who later rove through the same regions, living in black tents, carrying their property on camels and donkeys, with long troops of sheep and cattle driven by slaves. And with a picturesque chief or Sheik dressed in a long red cloak, with a bright handkerchief bound around his head and gloating over his shoulders. Abraham seems to have been one of the most powerful of these shepherd-princes, "very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold," and having many slaves and followers. With these, he once crossed the Euphrates and began a long journey southward, partly in search of fresh pastures and partly, as the story says, because he had outgrown the religious customs of his people and believed that God was calling him away from their idolatries. After going as far south as Egypt and being driven back, he settled down at last just west of the Dead Sea among some tribes called Canaanites, where he stayed the rest of his life.

In those rude and barbarous days, men had several wives instead of only one and the more wealthy and powerful the chief, the more wives he had. One of Abraham’s wives was Sarah, a woman of his own race; another was Hagar, an Egyptian; another was Keturah. His oldest child, Ishmael, the son of Hagar, was very dear to Abraham and would have been Chief after him had not the mother and child been driven out by Sarah’s hatred, into the Arabian wilderness among the serpents and wild beast. The account of this in Genesis is very touching and tells how Hagar and Ishmael were saved and how the descendants of Ishmael became wild Arab tribes wandering through the deserts. Meantime, Isaac, Sarah’s son, remained with his father and became Chief after his death.

One of the most interesting stories in Genesis tells how Abraham, who had always seen children sacrificed to the gods, dreamed once that God commanded him to offer his boy Isaac. So he took Isaac to a mountain, built an altar and put wood upon it. But, just as he was about to kill the child, his love for him made him feel that God could not require such an act and he determined to offer a ram instead. The Jews always remembered this incident and believed that God put the ram there on purpose to convince Abraham that he did not really wish him to do so cruel a thing. It was a long time before they wholly gave up this inhuman practice, but this was probably the first step towards doing so. The last step was not taken, of course, until they learned that God did not wish any life sacrificed to him, whether of children or of animals. But this they could not understand until after many centuries of progress.

Isaac afterwards had two sons called Esau and Jacob and the rest of Genesis tells of them and their descendants. Esau was the older, but Jacob was the mother’s favorite and succeeded, by some very ingenious tricks, in getting away from his brother the rights that belonged to him and making himself a rich and powerful chieftain. Another name for Jacob was Israel and after him the Jews were often called Israelites. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were called Patriarchs.

Genesis i. 1,2; viii. 22; ix. 13; xi. 4; xiii. 2; xxi. 14; xxii. 2; xxv. 27; xxviii. 12

Matthew iii. 9.

One of the oldest and prettiest stories in Genesis tells how Joseph, one of Jacob’s twelve sons, was sold by his brothers to some travelling merchants who carried him to Egypt where he became a powerful prince. Afterwards he sent for his father and brothers, told them who he was, and gave them a home in Egypt where they lived always afterwards. After many years, when they had grown from a single family into a large tribe, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, began to treat them very cruelly, and finally made slaves of them, to work in his fields and help build his splendid palaces and cities and pyramids. As they were much more barbarous than the Egyptians, they submitted to this for a long time. But, at last, a remarkable man appeared among them who determined to free them from their slavery. His name was Moses, and many wonderful stories were told in Jewish and other books about his birth and early life. He was said to have grown up in the royal court, and as Egypt was then the most civilized and learned country in the world, and had a purer religion than other nations about it, Moses became a wiser man with much higher religious ideas than his Hebrew brethren. Fortunately, he did not despise them on that account, or lose his love for them but only longed to set them free. One of the earliest stories about him is of his killing an Egyptian whom he saw beating a Hebrew slave, so that he had to flee from Egypt and live in another country. After some years, he returned, but found it a much harder task than he thought to free a people who had become so degraded by slavery that they had no desire for freedom. As they had always lived in Egypt, they did not wish to live anywhere else, or to make a nation by themselves. Beside this, the king was very unwilling to lose his slaves and only made them work the harder when Moses urged him to let them go. But by and by, as the story tells us, the land was overrun by frogs and locusts and flies and other plagues, which the king thought Moses had brought upon him, and so he was frightened into allowing the Hebrews to leave the country. As soon as they had started, he repented, and pursued them with his army; but they had already crossed the Red Sea, and the waters rose as he attempted to follow and many of his soldiers and horses were drowned.

These were afterwards considered great events in the nation’s history, and the plagues which visited Pharaoh, and the rising of the Red Sea to destroy his hosts, were always spoken of as special acts of God to set his people free. The story is told in the book of Exodus, which is so named because it describes the escape of the Israelites from Egypt; but many poems were written about these events, which are found in different parts of the Bible. Probably the oldest accounts were all in poetry. All this happened probably about 1300 BC, but the accounts were written long afterwards when the events were no longer very distinctly remembered and so became much exaggerated, no doubt.

After escaping from Egypt, the Jews wandered about in Arabia forty or fifty years, not being civilized or united enough to establish themselves anywhere as a nation. Many stories were told afterwards about their sufferings on these marches. Once they were almost perishing from thirst in a desert, and were murmuring against Moses, and asking him, "Why have you brought up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?" Moses brought them to a spring gushing out of a solid rock. This was a sight which astonished them so much that they thought Moses had brought the water by striking the rock. Once when they were nearly starved, great flocks of quails flew by and lighted on the ground about them, as if on purpose to be caught. Another time, they found scattered over the ground a very sweet white gum, which flows from the bark of trees, but which seemed to them to have dropped from the sky. They called it manna. All these things were looked upon afterwards as proofs of God’s special care of them; for the Jews had a fine way of believing that every good thing which happened to them came directly from God and showed his love.

Genesis xxxvii, 3

Exodus ii. 3; iii.5; xv. 21;

Psalms lxxvii, 16; lxxviii. 13;

Acts vii. 22

When the Jews came from Egypt they had no government or laws, and no regular worship. One of the first things that Moses seems to have done was to divide them into great families or tribes, each with leaders of its own. These were named after some of their ancestors, and were afterwards called the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The laws that Moses made were so excellent, and taught the people to lead such good lives, that the Jews supposed he had received them directly from Jehovah on Mt. Sinai, a mountain which all the people in that region considered a holy place. It would seem to us very strange to think of God as coming down to the earth and talking with a man; but in those days people imagined that such things happened often. At any rate, there is a fine poetic passage in Exodus that describes the Lord coming down in lightning and thunder and smoke to meet Moses on the top of Mt. Sinai, while the whole people stood around. A few of these laws that Moses gave have been preserved very nearly as he spoke them. They are called the Ten Commandments, and are still very good lessons for children to learn, and for grownup people to remember.

Moses taught them many new religious customs also. It seems that in Egypt, the Jews had many different gods, and even worshipped animals, as they had seen the Egyptians do. Very likely each family or tribe had idols of its own. But Moses taught them about Jehovah, a much greater and more powerful God than any whom they worshipped, and one who would help them if they obeyed him, to conquer all their enemies and become a strong and united nation. They had never heard the name before, but from that time, as Moses proved so wise and good a leader, and they were saved from so many dangers, their faith in Jehovah grew stronger and stronger, until in time he became the only God whom they worshipped. In the end they learned to believe in him as the only God of all nations.

It was about this time that the Jews began to observe the Sabbath, and Moses was perhaps the first one to teach them to do so. At any rate he gave this as one of his Ten Commandments. In later times, when these events came to be written down, there were different accounts of the origin of the Sabbath. Some supposing that it was established to celebrate the escape from Egypt, others having the idea that God, after creating the world in six days, had rested from his fatigue on the seventh day, and so made it holy.

Moses also introduced what was called the ark; a sort of sacred chest, similar to one which was used in Egyptian worship, and serving the Jews through all their wanderings as an object of religious worship. In those days God was not thought of as present everywhere, but was supposed to come wherever temples or altars were built for him. Before the Jews built their temple, they believed Jehovah somehow dwelt in the ark, and so carried it with them wherever they went. In their marches, and sometimes when they went into battle, it was borne at their head; whenever they stopped it was placed under a tent or tabernacle, and kept very holy. It was not for many years that they learned that God is in all places alike.

So the Jews wandered about, year after year. At first Moses led them southward towards Mt. Sinai, where he had lived while in exile. Then, as this was a rocky sterile region, they went northward toward the more fertile lands of Canaan, but were driven back as they tried to settle there. Finally they crossed the mountains to the east, and then marched north as far as the Dead Sea and the river Jordan. Here they conquered the country and took possession of it, killing the inhabitants, old and young, and burning their cities, after the cruel customs of that day. Two of the tribes remained here. The others Moses was very anxious to lead across the Jordan into Canaan; remembering, no doubt, some of the old traditions that told of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in Canaan. But Moses died just as they reached the Jordan, and had to leave that part of his work to be done by others.

The five Hebrew books that tell of the Patriarchs and of Moses are sometimes called the Books of Moses, sometimes by the Greek name Pentateuch.

Exodus xx. 1-17; xiii. 14, 15

Deuteronomy iii.27; xxxiv. 10

After Moses died, other leaders appeared. Many of them were brave soldiers, but none were able like Moses to make laws for the people or give them religious teaching. First came Joshua. There is a book called the Book of Joshua, not because Joshua wrote it, but because it tells us all that we know about him. He was a good fighter and led a large army of the Israelites across one of the fords of the Jordan, captured two of the first cities they came to and put all the men, women, and children to death. This seems to us very barbarous, but there were strange religious ideas in those days, as you have seen. Among them one of the strangest was that whenever a city was taken in war by the help of any god, all the people and animals in the city must be killed as a sacrifice to that god. It is hard to believe that people could ever have been sincere in such ideas of God; but they really were. Joshua lived long enough to take part in many such victories as this over the Canaanites. Towns were burned, inhabitants were massacred or made slaves, kings were dreadfully tortured, cattle were maimed or killed, and the newcomers made themselves terribly feared in the south part of Canaan. Afterwards, when they had lived there many centuries and these conquests came to be written about, they all seemed very wonderful and were described in the most poetic language. Some of these stories are still found in the Book of Joshua; other collections of them were lost. A poem from one of these lost books, called the Book of Jasher, is quoted in Joshua, and tells how "the sun stood still, and the moon stayed," while Jehovah helped the Israelites to conquer their enemies. Very likely all these tales about the sun and moon, about Jericho, and about the crossing of the Jordan were at first songs sung to Hebrew children.

After Joshua’s death, the tribes wandered through Canaan. Some went in one direction, some in another, conquering the inhabitants and seizing their land where they could. Often, they were conquered themselves and made slaves again, as they had been in Egypt. At one time the Midianites from the eastern deserts, at another the Philistines from the Mediterranean coast, defeated them in battle, and for many years treated them as cruelly as they treated the Canaanites. In some places they made friends with the inhabitants, settled down among them as one people, married their daughters, and worshipped their gods.

So two or three hundred years went by. All that we know of this long period is through the tales told about some of their leaders who had been brave enough to make their names remembered, or had done some remarkable things, of which songs were sung. I later times these leaders, though many were mere soldiers, were all called "judges;" probably because those who led the army in war continued to rule the people in peace, and did whatever governing or judging there was. One of these was a woman named Deborah; a sort of Joan of Arc, who lived when the people were held in slavery by a strong Canaanite king, and aroused them by her courage and eloquence, so that they gained a great victory over their conqueror. The song that she sang after this battle is very curious and is one of the oldest passages in the Bible. It describes the battle in a very spirited way, praises the tribes that took part in it and heaps bitter reproaches on those who were afraid and held back. The last verse, which you will often hear spoken of, sing the praises of a woman called Jael, who enticed the Canaanite captain, Sisera, into her tent and killed him by driving nail through his temples. It is hard for us to understand that a treacherous deed like this could ever have been thought honorable or right. But, it was thought of that way and a great many pictures have been painted of Jael Killing Sisera as if the subject were a very fine one.

Another judge, whose name you will often hear, was Jephthah, of whom a touching story is told. Once, as he was going into battle, he promised, if Jehovah gave him the victory, to sacrifice whatever came out of his house to meet him when he came home. He won the victory, but as he returned to his house, as the story tells us, "behold his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances; and she was his only child." It was a terrible trial, but a promise to Jehovah was too sacred to be broken, and the daughter herself begged him to keep it, so that she was sacrificed. It was only in these rude and violent days that human sacrifices were permitted among the Israelites; afterwards they were given up entirely.

Still another judge was Samson; a man of whom nothing great or good is told, and who was celebrated only for his enormous strength. Strange feats were attributed to him in the stories of those days, with many exaggerations no doubt; such as carrying off the gates of a city on his shoulders, tearing a lion to pieces with his hands, tying foxes together by their tails with a firebrand between them, pulling a great stone temple down on the heads of his foes and killing himself and them together. He was a sort of Hercules, and made the Philistines, who were then the worst enemies of the Israelites, very much afraid of him.

All this time there was no union among the Israelites, as each tribe or family looked after itself, some joining forces with others now and then. The Judges were chiefta8ns of single tribes, and there was no one ruler over the whole people, and no one form of religion. Some worshipped Jehovah, others the gods of Canaan, and all, as we have seen, practiced very barbarous religious rites. At this time, two hundred years after leaving Egypt, it looked very much as if they all would be scattered among the Canaanites, with no government or religion of their own, never to be heard of as a separate nation at all.

Joshua x. 12; xxiv. 15

Judges v. 4, 20; xiv. 14; xv. 16

At last another great leader appeared and brought many of the scattered tribes together under one government. His name was Samuel. When quite a young child, his mother had placed him at Shiloh to help the priests or "lent him to the Lord," as she expressed it. Shiloh was a little place in the center of Canaan where the ark had been first brought on entering Canaan and where all the Israelites who worshipped Jehovah got into the way of coming together once a year. A sort of national worship began with regular priests who appeared now for the first time. Samuel grew up at Shiloh under the priest Eli where he saw many evil practices that grieved him very much. He, at last, had a dream in which he heard Jehovah calling him by name and saying that the priests should be punished for their wickedness. Soon after this, a great calamity happened which everyone thought was a fulfillment of this dream. The Philistines defeated the Israelites in a great battle and not only killed the priests, but also captured the sacred ark which had been carried into battle to make sure of victory.

Then all eyes turned to Samuel whom the people had already begun to revere for his wisdom and goodness as well as for his strange dreams, which, in those superstitious days, were considered very sacred. Men who had these visions were supposed to be special favorites of God and were called seers, and afterwards, prophets. So Samuel became a ruler of the people and went to three little towns in turn each year to judge those who came to him. He was anxious too, as Moses had been before, to unite all the tribes more closely together, and he knew the only way to do this was to persuade them to give up the religious customs into which they had fallen and all worship one God.

But no sooner had he succeeded in bringing a few of the tribes together in this way than they began to beg him, as he was growing old himself, to give them a king so that they might be like the other nations about them. Once before thy had made the same request but had been put off with a little fable about the trees which wanted a king and could get nothing but the dry and prickly bramble bush to consent to rule them. This time, though, they were more serious about it and Samuel grew very angry with them. The people of Israel had never had a king and Samuel thought that a nation that had Jehovah for its God needed no other ruler than Jehovah himself. Still the people shouted, "Nay, but we will have a king over us," and Samuel was forced to five them one much against his will. According to one account, this first king was chosen by lot; but according to another, the Lord brought him to Samuel to inquire for some donkeys which were lost, and Samuel anointed him at once. At any rate, the man chosen was Saul, one of the tribe of Benjamin, "a choice young man and a goodly; from his shoulders and upward higher than any of the people." Perhaps he had already distinguished himself by his courage or strength in war. "And Samuel said to all the people, See ye him whom the Lord hath chosen? And all the people shouted, God save the king."

But in whatever way Saul was chosen, Samuel never became reconciled and often opposed him bitterly. Once, when Saul had taken a city and killed all the men, women and children in it but spared the king, Agag. Through kindness of heart, Samuel rebuked him severely, not for slaughtering the people, but for saving the king. He even went so far as to kill the king himself and cut him in pieces as a sacrifice to Jehovah on the ground that the Lord required all the lives in a captured city to be offered to him. In this Saul seems to us much nobler than Samuel. But, according to the religious ideas of that time, Samuel was right. Saul never proved a great ruler or a great man, but he won many victories for his people and finally killed himself in battle when defeated by the Philistines. The books that tell of these events are called the Books of Samuel. In them we see how the wandering Israelite tribes at last became a nation.

1 Samuel ii, 2, 7, 18; iv. 22; x. 24; xvi. 7

Judges ix. 8;

2 Samuel I. 19

After Saul’s death, his son Ishbosheth became king. But there was no real union yet between the tribes, so that Judah, a strong southern tribe, refused to accept him and set up another king of its own, named David. Many romantic stories are told about David’s early life, not agreeing very well with each other, but all showing that he attracted great attention while still a boy. One story tells that David killed a big Philistine giant named Goliath with a sling. The whole army had been afraid of Goliath. Afterwards, the king made David a captain over his troops. Another story tells of David being called in once when the king was sick to play the harp to him. It tells that David played so beautifully that the "evil spirit (or sickness) departed from him and he was well." In any case Saul became very fond of him, and a strong attachment sprang up between David and the king’s son Jonathan, which has become one of the most celebrated friendships in history. There is nothing in the Old Testament more beautiful than the chapters that describe this and the song sung by David after the death of Saul and Jonathan.

Afterwards, David became so much believed by the people for his beauty and his courage that Saul grew very jealous and drove him out into the mountains. David took refuge in the cave of Adullam, where "every one in distress, and every one in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became a captain over them." Saul once tried to seize him and fell into David’s hands, but David spared his life and remained an outlaw, part of the time in the service of the Philistines, until Saul’s death.

As soon as Saul died and his son succeeded him the people of Judah remembered David, and called him home to be their king. So there were two kings, one in the north, and one in the south, and there were wars between them for seven years, when all the tribes came to David at Hebron, and made him king over the whole land. This was about 1050 BC.

David’s first act was to seize a strong Canaanite city on a steep hill-top, and make it the capital of his new kingdom, changing its name from Jebus to Jerusalem. Then, having a capital, he determined to bring the ark there, that Jehovah might dwell in Jerusalem, and all the tribes come there to worship together. The ark had been lying for some years in a little village, where neither the Philistines, who had taken it in battle, nor the Jews, had dared to touch it, through superstitious fear of it. But David formed a long procession, with singers and trumpeters, and brought the ark into Jerusalem with great pomp, leaping and dancing before it as it came into the city.

David was a great warrior, and conquered nearly all the nations from the Mediterranean almost to the Euphrates, making some of them pay him tribute, and destroying others with horrible tortures. For a time the kingdom of Israel became one of the mightiest in the East, and David’s palace was thronged by powerful nobles with princely retinues, and was the scene, in times of peace, of much splendor and luxury. But all this luxury caused great corruption also, and the heavy taxes which the people had to pay made them very restless and discontented.

Two of his own sons rebelled against him, and one of them, Absalom, who had gone to war against his father, was killed in a singular way just as he had made himself king. This was the greatest grief of David’s life, and he mourned over Absalom very long and bitterly.

So the last part of David’s life was much more unhappy and disgraceful than the first, and David himself lost the nobleness and courage of his earlier days, and became timid and revengeful. One of his last acts was to direct that two of his subjects whom he had feared during his life, and had not ventured to resist, should be executed after his death. Another great crime, which he committed much earlier in life, was in taking Bathsheba to be his wife, and directing that her husband, who was one of his officers, should be put in the most dangerous place in battle, where he was sure to be killed. Fortunately there was one man at court, a prophet named Nathan, who was bold enough to tell the king to his face how wicked a thing he had done, so that David confessed his fault, and showed great penitence and grief. The story that Nathan told the king to convince him of his guilt is very interesting, and shows how the prophets, who were the only preachers in those days, talked and taught.

The most interesting trait in David’s character was his love of music. He is always spoken of in history as a "psalmist," and is said to have sung and played upon the harp, besides inventing new musical instruments. Some of the hymns that were afterwards sung in the temple were thought to have been written by him, and afterwards, when all the Temple-hymns were collected, they were called, after him, the Psalms of David. Thought he did not write them all, yet he set the example, no doubt, which so many others followed.

On the whole, though David did so many things that do not seem to us either wise or good, for those days he was really a very great king. He not only raised his nation from feebleness to power and fame, but also gave the people some higher tastes than love of luxury or of war.

1 Samuel xvi. 23; xvii. 40; xviii. 7; xxiv. 17

2 Samuel i. 23, 25, 26; xxii. 2, 12

Psalms xxiv. 7-10; li. 10

Before David’s death, Solomon, son of Bathsheba, was anointed king to prevent any of David’s other sons from seizing the throne. Solomon was no warrior like his father, and even lost some of the territory which David had conquered, but he understood the arts of peace very well and the nation grew in wealth and prosperity under him as it had never done before. In later times it was always said, "Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and fig tree, all the days of Solomon."

Before that time the Jews had had very little to do with other nations except in war, but Solomon established trade with several of his neighbors and made alliances with the King of Egypt and other kings by marrying their daughters. He built ships on the Red Sea, manning them with Phoenician sailors, as his own people were not seamen; he bought cedar and fir timber in Tyre, spices in Arabia, horses in Egypt, gold and precious stones, peacocks and apes in India. In this way he gave his people new occupations and greater knowledge of the world, and brought into the country a great deal of wealth. "All King Solomon’s drinking vessels, and all the vessels of the house," we are told, "were of pure gold;" "and the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones." The accounts of the rich presents he received, of the food that was eaten in his palace every day, and of the number of wives and horses and servants that he had, read like a fairy tale.

A great deal of this money was spent in adorning his capital. The tent or tabernacle in which the ark had always stood seemed much too simple for so magnificent a monarch, and a splendid temple was built, small in size, but of the costliest materials, which it took seven years and a half to finish. The king is said to have sacrificed 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep in dedicating this temple. Much larger and more magnificent than the temple was the king’s palace, beside which was another palace for his Egyptian queen, and another still for state purposes. All this splendor made Solomon celebrated throughout the East; and a story is told of an Arabian queen who came from Sheba to Jerusalem, purposely so see Solomon’s riches, and to ask him some hard questions.

For Solomon was quite as famous for his wisdom as for his wealth. Kings were not apt to be very learned men, but we must remember that "wisdom" did not mean book-learning in days when there were no books, but only wise ways of doing things, and such knowledge as comes by observation. Some of Solomon’s judgments, when his people brought their disputes to him to be settled have been very noted ever since. Besides this, Solomon excelled in expressing his thoughts in short and pithy sentences called proverbs, and this art was very much admired in the East. Some of these sayings were collected many years afterwards, with others of the same kind written much later, and called The Proverbs. He seems to have been fond of plants and animals too, and, if he had lived many centuries later might have been called a botanist or zoologist.

It was a long time before the Jews ceased talking or writing of the splendor and luxury of Solomon’s reign. One of their oldest poems, called the "Song of Solomon," shows something of the feeling towards him. It is a sort of antique drama, and represents a country maiden taken away from her peasant lover and brought into Solomon’s harem, from which she afterwards escapes and returns to her home, remaining true to her love. The writer’s idea seems to be to contrast the voluptuousness of Solomon’s way of life with simple and true affection.

Beside the Temple of Jehovah, Solomon built temples to three other gods, Chemosh, Molech, and Ashtoreth, as well as to many whose names are not given. Although he worshipped Jehovah as his nation’s god, yet he evidently believed there were other gods too, whom it was better not to neglect; and his people were only too willing always to sacrifice to the idols of their neighbors. We must remember that there were very few in those days, if any, who had thought enough on such matters to understand that there can be only one God, and Solomon was not one of those few. Most of the kings who came after him followed his example in this, and the temples that he built to all these strange gods stood for hundreds of years.

Solomon was the last king over the whole Jewish people. The northern and southern tribes never became one at heart, and were on the point of falling apart more than once while David was king. When Solomon died, and his son Rehoboam threatened to be even more despotic that his father, the breach grew wider and the little nation was broken in two. Ten northern tribes chose a king of their own, Jeroboam, built temples containing idols of Jehovah, and formed the kingdom of Israel. This kingdom lasted two hundred and fifty years, had nineteen kings, and then was conquered, and the people carried into slavery by the Assyrians. Two tribes only, those of Judah and Benjamin, accepted Rehoboam as their king, and took the name of the kingdom of Judah. They were much smaller than the other kingdom, but were proven stronger and lasted much longer. It is from them that modern Jews are descended. Solomon died B.C 978, so that the Jewish people first existed as one nation less than a hundred years.

1. Who was Solomon?
2. What was the character of his reign?
3. What trade or commerce did he introduce?
4. What buildings did he erect?
5. What can you tell about his religious faith?
6. What does speaking of Solomon’s wisdom mean?
7. How do you think he compares with his father David?
8. What two kingdoms were formed after his death?
9. About what year did he die?
10. How long did the union of the twelve tribes last?

1 Kings ii.2; iii.12, 13; iv. 25, 30, 33; ix. 28, 28; x. 1. 27; xii. 11

Song of Solomon, ii. 11, 12;

Matthew vi. 28, 29

About the year BC 640, a boy named Josiah, only eight years old, was king of Judah, the kingdom of Israel having already perished. When Josiah became of age he found the Temple in great need of repair and set carpenters and masons to work upon it. While this work was going on, Hilkiah the high priest sent word to the king that a new book, which he called the Book of the Law, and which had strange religious precepts in it, had been found in the Temple. When the king read the book he was greatly excited and alarmed, for in it were laws from Jehovah forbidding all the idolatries and other religious customs, which he and the kings before him had practiced. Until then the Jews had always been fond of idolatrous rites, and, although reforms had once or twice been attempted, the people and kings had always fallen back at once into their old ways. In Josiah’s time the three temples, which Solomon had built to heathen gods, were still standing. The sun, moon, and stars were all worshipped in Jerusalem as gods. The horses and chariot of the Sun-god stood in the Temple of Jehovah, together with many other heathen idols and altars and strange vessels used for wicked rites, while just outside the city was a valley where little children were regularly sacrificed to the dreadful god Molech. But the Book of the Law forbade any god to be worshipped but Jehovah, or any idols or images to be used, and directed that sacrifices should be offered only at Jerusalem, and that the priests should all be chosen from one family, the family of Levi.

It was a great change, from all the horrible practices of the past to the worship of one God, but Josiah set about it bravely, and found many ready to support him. The heathen temples and altars in and around Jerusalem were soon destroyed, and the unholy images and vessels in Jehovah’s temple brought out and burned. This was one of the most important events in Jewish history; for from this time idolatry almost ceased among the Jews, and the worship of one God, or what is called Monotheism, began in earnest. To be sure, it was seven centuries since Moses had first taught them about Jehovah, and this seems a long time for a nation to be learning to give up its idols and its many gods; but this only shows how full of idolatry the whole world then was.

What this Book of the Law was, or how it came to be in the Temple, we cannot be sure. Perhaps it was not really found in the Temple, but was written by the high priest himself or by some other person, to bring about a religious reform, and the priest either did not know this or said nothing about it. Probably it was part of what is now called Deuteronomy, which in that case is one of the oldest books in the Old Testament. Before this time several of the prophecies and some of the psalms were written, and no doubt many stories about the Patriarchs and Moses; but there were no books containing laws, else the king would not have been so much surprised when the Book of the Law was read. Before this the Jews had nothing which could be called a Bible.

But the nation did not last long after this to practice its new religion; for in the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign he was defeated in battle by Pharaoh, and the nation became subject to Egypt once more. This was really the end of the Jewish monarchy; for although there were four more kings, they were all vassals of foreign nations, and the kingdom grew weaker all the time. After the Egyptians came the Chaldaeans, a strong eastern nation, who conquered both Egypt and Judea. The Chaldaean king, Nebuchadnezzar, took Jerusalem a few years after Josiah’s death, and about twenty years later the city and Temple were entirely destroyed, and most of the inhabitants carried captive to Babylon on the river Euphrates. This was in the year BC 586.

1 Kings xix. 12;xx. 11

Psalms xiii. 1, 2, 3, 11

Lamentations i. 1, 4

One of the leading men at Jerusalem in these trying times was Jeremiah the prophet. It is not easy for us to understand exactly what a Hebrew prophet was. But we must remember that in those early days anyone who seemed wiser of more eloquent than others was sure to be looked upon with great respect, as if he had a special gift from God. At first they were called "men of God," or "seers," and were looked upon as magicians, who consulted charms and conversed with spirits. Afterwards they were called prophets, and for a long time were the great orators and poets of the nation, and had as much influence as kings or priests. They were the only preachers the Jews then had, and were the first ones to write books or collect accounts of early Jewish history. A few of them wrote their own prophecies in prose or poetry, and these writings are almost the oldest parts of the Old Testament, and certainly the most eloquent and beautiful. They were not all good or wise men, for some made great mistakes or deceived the people on purpose. But many were among the bravest and noblest of the Jews both in peace and in war. Among the early prophets were Samuel, Deborah, Nathan, and Elijah. Among the later were Joel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and several others. Perhaps the greatest of them all was Isaiah, who saved the nation, in a time of great peril, by his courage and his influence with the people and the king.

Jeremiah lived in the last days of the nation and tried, when it was quite too late, to save it from destruction. After Josiah’s reform, when all the heathen idols had been removed, it was supposed that the country was safe, but Jeremiah saw how corrupt it still was, and kept on predicting calamity unless the people themselves reformed. He felt so deeply the nation’s wickedness and peril that he could talk of nothing else, so that his writings were full of lamentation. He was as little beloved by the people as men usually are who are constantly talking to us of our faults. Sometimes he stood at the temple gate and told those who entered that their sacrifices and worship did no good unless they gave up stealing and cheating and were kind and just to strangers and widows. Some of his ways of attracting the people’s attention and forcing his meaning upon them were very singular. In these days, writers often use what are called figures of speech. But, in those days, when people read but little, the same figures or illustrations were acted out. Once, for instance, when Jeremiah wished to convince the Jews that Jerusalem must be destroyed, he took a bowl in his hands and threw it violently on the ground to show that the Lord would shatter the city as he had shattered the bowl. Another time, he walked through the streets with a yoke on his neck to show the people that they themselves were to bear the yoke of slavery. At another time, he placed two baskets of figs in front of the Temple. One was full of ripe figs, the other full of rotten ones, explaining that the good figs represented the obedient Jews, the bad ones represented those who refused to go into exile with their brethren.

Some of his threats or predictions proved quite wrong. For instance: he said King Jehoiakim would have no successor, while he really had two. He also said that all the Jews of that time would finally return to Jerusalem, although but a small portion returned. And he said that their exile would last seventy years, when it was really hardly more than fifty. But his preaching was none the less eloquent or useful because he could not always tell beforehand exactly what was to happen, for prophecy in those days meant much more than predicting future events.

Jeremiah had made the king and people so angry by his constant threats and wailing that he was finally thrown into a dungeon as a traitor. When Jerusalem was captured and destroyed, the conqueror showed him great kindness for having urged the people to submit, and offered to care for him in Babylon. But he preferred to stay behind and share the misfortunes of those who remained in Jerusalem. Afterwards he fled to Egypt with a party of Jewish exiles, and there he is supposed to have died.

Beside the book of Jeremiah, are five very mournful poems called "Lamentations," which he is thought to have written, four of which are something like our acrostics, the verses beginning with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in regular succession.

Jeremiah vi. 14; viii. 20, 22; xiii. 23; xxxi. 15

Lamentations i. 1, 6

Psalms xliii. 1, 5; cxxi. 1

So Jerusalem was destroyed, and most of the inhabitants were scattered. Some fled to Egypt, but a larger number were carried to Babylon as captives. Babylon was a very beautiful city, celebrated throughout the world for its immense walls, broad enough for two chariots to drive upon them side by side, its magnificent temple of Bel, its artificial lakes, and its hanging gardens. The Israelites at first hated their conquerors, and would have nothing to do with them. But as they were well treated and allowed to follow their own customs and their own faith, many of them soon grew very fond of their splendid home, and prepared to live there all their lives. They even fell into their conquerors' ways of life and worship, and received many new ideas from them which afterwards appeared in the Jewish religion. Besides the tales of the early times already spoken of, there are many stories in the Bible, which the Israelites must have learned when in Babylon.

After they had been about fifty years in exile, a new people called the Persians came into power, and, under their great king Cyrus, subdued all the Eastern nations. The inhabitants of Babylon felt very safe with their strong walls around them. But one night, when their king Belshazzar, with many of his lords, was sitting at a luxurious feast, not thinking of danger, Cyrus turned the water of the river Euphrates into a new bed which he had dug for it, and entered the city through the dry channel, capturing them all without resistance. The Israelites were very much excited by this, and looked upon it as a punishment to the Chaldaeans for destroying Jerusalem. Immediately their prophets began to predict a return from captivity, and promised the people all kinds of splendor and prosperity in Jerusalem again. They thought Jehovah had sent Cyrus expressly to set them free, and called him the Lord’s anointed or Messiah. This was a title that they gave to all their kings. They had been looking long for a new king or Messiah, and were ready to believe that the Persian Cyrus was appointed to deliver them, and that all their sorrows were over.

These bright hopes were not quite fulfilled, for Cyrus did not become their Messiah. He was really kind to them, though, and allowed as many as chose to return to Jerusalem, under a governor whom he appointed, and taking with them whatever was still left of the spoils of Solomon’s Temple. Most of the Israelites by that time had become so much attached to Babylon that they did not wish to return, but some longed to see Jerusalem again, and have a temple of their own, and so set out at once. They formed a large caravan of about 40,000 people, and traveled through the desert for four months, before reaching their old home. Many of their most beautiful songs and hymns were written to celebrate this return, and express their great joy on seeing Jerusalem once more. As most of those who returned belonged to the tribe of Judah, they were all called Jews (Judeans), and this has continued to be their name ever since.

In Jerusalem, of course, they found everything in ruins, and their first task was to rebuild the Temple. It seemed a great undertaking for poor exiles, with enemies about them; but their prophets (Haggai, Zachariah, and others) urged them on, and in four years the Temple was finished, though in a far less costly and splendid style than before. The descendants of the Jews who had remained in Palestine (afterwards called Samaritans) offered to help them, but were not allowed to do so, and so built a temple of their own on Mt. Gerizim, which the Jews afterwards destroyed. This was the beginning of much hatred between the two races, for the Jews grew more and more jealous of their neighbors as time went on, and would never acknowledge that the Samaritans were the same people with themselves.

But the returned exiles found their life at Jerusalem very hard. They became so neglectful of their new temple and its priests, that after seventy or eighty years a second party set out from Babylon, under a learned priest named Ezra, who was resolved to make his countrymen obey the laws of Jehovah. With the help of Nehemiah, a cupbearer of the king who followed a few years later, the ruined walls and gates of the city were rebuilt. All opposition from their enemies was overcome, "for the builders every one had his sword girded by his side, and so builded," and the people were able to live at last in peace and safety.

Then Ezra began his religious reform. In the first temple the worship had been very much like that in other eastern temples; but Ezra brought new laws and regulations with him, some of which had been written in Babylon, and read these from a wooden pulpit when the people were gathered at a feast.

These laws were chiefly about the duties and dresses of the priest, sacrifices and feasts, clean and unclean beasts, keeping the Sabbath, and worshipping Jehovah at certain times and places. All these things the people promised strictly to obey, and from this time the Jewish religion became very different from what it had ever been before. The Sabbath began to be strictly observed, the feast of Tabernacles and perhaps the other feasts to be celebrated, and many different kinds of sacrifices to be offered, while the priesthood became a very large and important body. Soon after this the books of the Bible were collected and regularly read to the people, synagogues were built, and the hymnbook called the Book of Psalms began to be used in the Temple. So you see that it was after the return from the captivity in Babylon that the Jewish church was fully established, and no one had more to do in founding it than Ezra. Ezra lived about BC 450. The books that give the account of these events are called the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.

Psalms cxxvi. 1; cxxxvii, 1, 2, 3, 4

Isaiah xl. 1, 2, 3; lxi. 1

Haggai, ii. 3

Daniel v. 25

After Ezra’s time there is nothing to interest us much in the history of the Jews, for nearly 300 years. They continued subject to Persia until Alexander the Great, King of Macedon, invaded Asia, conquering the whole country as far as India and Egypt, and carrying the Greek language and civilization wherever he went. After his early death, the countries he had conquered were divided among his generals, and the Jews became subjects of Egypt again for about a century, and then of Syria.

Their Egyptian rulers allowed them to keep their own religion, but the Syrian kings tried to force Greek worship and customs upon them. They built gymnasiums in Jerusalem, and introduced Greek games, at which the Jews were greatly shocked. They stole the treasures from the Temple, burnt the sacred books, bribed the priests, and persecuted cruelly all who refused to give up the worship of Jehovah. The worst of all the Syrian kings was Antiochus Epiphanes, whom the Jews always afterwards mentioned with hatred and horror. He entered the sacred city of Jerusalem with his army, plundered the Temple, and finished by placing on the altar another heathen altar, and commanding the Jews to offer sacrifices upon it. Some of them consented, others resolved to die rather than submit, and resisted their conquerors with the utmost bravery. One story is told of a mother who saw seven sons killed with cruel tortures before her eyes, and dies herself, urging them not to yield. Another is told of an old man of ninety who was beaten to death for refusing to eat swine’s flesh, which his religion forbade. At last the whole people rose against their conquerors. Their leader was an aged priest living in a little town among the hills, who was ordered to offer a heathen sacrifice. Instead of doing so, he broke the altar to pieces, killed one of his countrymen who was offering sacrifices on it, and fled to the mountains, where he collected a band of brave Jews and defied the tyrant Antiochus. After the death of this priest, his five sons led the revolt, one of whom proved a great general, conquered all the Syrian armies, and at last seized Jerusalem again and restored the Temple and Jewish worship. His name was Judas; but the people nicknamed him Makkabi, or "the hammer," so that his family was always called the "Makkabees" or "Maccabees." Judas was one of the noblest heroes in Jewish history; and the Jews afterwards regarded the whole family as their deliverers from Syrian tyranny. This war happened about BC 150, and the Maccabees were kings and high-priests of the nation for about a hundred years. Their history is given in the "Books of the Maccabees," which are among the most interesting of the Jewish scriptures, although they were written so late that they are not usually given with the rest. The Book of Daniel and several of the Psalms were written at the same time.

Unfortunately the descendants of this family of Maccabees were not so heroic as their fathers, and by and by began quarrelling among themselves, and were driven from power by rivals who called in the Romans to help them. The first of these was Herod, afterwards called the Great, not really a Jew but an Edomite, and not a very good man, but an able king, who made Jerusalem prosperous, and rebuilt the Temple on a much grander scale than ever before. He had a brilliant reign, and left the kingdom to be divided among his sons.

All this time, however, Judea was really subject to the Romans, who had made all the other eastern countries provinces of Tome, and only allowed Herod to keep the name of king until it was time to make his kingdom a province also. At last the time came; and Titus, son of one of the emperors, was sent out to capture Jerusalem. The Jews fought as bravely as they had done under the Maccabees, but the city was besieged and taken, the Temple was burned; and the inhabitants were scattered over the earth. Titus marched into Rome in triumph, bringing the spoils of the city and Temple with him, and the Jewish nation ceased to exist. This was in the year 70 of a new era of the world’s history.

Daniel xii. 3

Psalms xliv. 1; cxviii. 1, 14, 24; lxxiv. 1, 16, 17

During so many centuries the Jews must of course have written many books. Every nation has what is called a "literature," and the Jews were very rich in this way. Many of their writings were lost, but others are among the oldest and most interesting that are known.

For a long time they had no writings at all, because no one could either read or write. Even after their escape from Egypt, though by that time there were rude forms of writing on wood or stone, yet so long as the people were wandering about and fighting constantly, no records could very well be made or saved. Many stories were handed down from father to son, and many songs were sung about their strange experiences, and some laws were certainly put in force before the settlement in Canaan, but very little got written down, or could have been read if it had been.

At last, about eight hundred years before Christ, after the nation had become somewhat civilized, and there had been kings for two or three centuries, the first Jewish writers appeared, and something like real books began to be written. These books were different enough from ours, as your teachers will explain to you, and were all destroyed long, long ago; but many copies were made from them, and other copies from them, so that we know pretty well what was in them. These first writers were the prophets, whom you have already heard of as preachers, rebuking kings and people when they did wrong, but who were writers as well. Many of them were the best scholars of the time, and not only knew more than others, but were able when they had anything to say to say it in a very eloquent and poetic form. The oldest books that have been saved are probably those containing the writings of Joel, Hosea, Amos, and one or two other prophets.

But the prophets did more than write books of their own. They were the earliest Jewish historians, so far as we know. The Jews had always many traditions about their ancestors, beginning as far back as Moses or even Abraham. Some of these stories had to do with certain places, like Bethel or Sichem or Jericho. Some had to do with certain tribes, such as Judah or Benjamin. Some were mere scraps of poetry or song, to be sung in the tents or on the march; some were older even than the Jews themselves, and gave curious accounts of the creation of the world, the first people that lived in it, and the floods that destroyed them. These had been floating about among the various tribes for many, many years, before anyone had thought them important enough to be put into writing or saved. At last the prophets, or the scholars who studied with them, discovered the value of these ancient tales (just as we found out the value of the early accounts of the American colonies), and determined to collect and preserve them, before they were quite lost. Two or three different collections were made in this way, which remained separate for a long time. But, after the return from the captivity, they were put together into one history.

It was also about the eighth century that the proverbs of Solomon and of other distinguished men were first collected together, and the earliest hymns and songs arranged. You remember that King David, who lived long before this, had been very fond of music and poetry, and probably wrote some hymns himself. None of the later kings, except perhaps Solomon, had the same tastes; but David’s influence was not lost, and when in later years the Jewish psalms were collected, his name was given to the book, and many psalms were attributed to him. Some very old poems too, which were not at all sacred, were preserved with the rest, as you will remember from the account of the Song of Solomon, and these are quite as interesting in their way as the others. Beside these, some other writings were found by the prophets and preserved, which show that people were asking the same religious questions then as now, and answering them in very much the same way. Such was the Book of Job, in which some unknown writer shows very beautifully that God brings suffering on good and bad alike, and that the wisest and most powerful can do no better than submit to God’s higher will. Today such subjects would be treated in prose; but then almost everything was in poetry, the Book of Job among the rest.

But all this time there was no Bible, so far as we know; that is, no book containing religious precepts or rules for worship. The Jews, as we have seen, served all kinds of gods, in all sorts of idolatrous ways, and although many attempts were made to put an end to this, the evils still continued. The first writing that could be called a Bible was Josiah’s Book of the Law, about BC 600, which the priest, as you remember, said he had found in the Temple. Whether he really found it or not, or whether it was first written at that time or not, it certainly had not been known before, and was the only sacred book which the Jews had before the Captivity. This was probably what is now called Deuteronomy.

How all these writings which I have mentioned were preserved during the exile in Babylon, we cannot tell; but fortunately they were not wholly lost or destroyed, and soon after the return to Jerusalem many others were added to them. Some had been written no doubt in Babylon, others appeared as soon as the Temple was rebuilt, and new orders of priests were established, who needed laws for sacrifices and feasts and Sabbath worship. Ezra did so much in the way of collecting all the old writings and adding fresh ones that a story began that he had rewritten the entire Old Testament from memory. No doubt he brought together all that then existed, and perhaps combined the scattered records into such single books as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and the books of Samuel and Kings, all of which appeared about this time. As soon as synagogues were built, these writings were read regularly to the people from Sabbath to Sabbath. Very soon, as singing or chanting became an important part of the Temple service, all the old hymns were collected for temple use, and many new ones added, until the Book of Psalms was finally made, as we find it now. Sometimes we find the same song or hymn, slightly changed in form, in two or three different places. Still later, an account of the return from captivity under Ezra and Nehemiah was written. Also a curious repetition of the history of the Jewish Monarchy; as though some one had felt that the books of Samuel and Kings did not do enough honor to the kings and priests. If you wish to see how differently different writers can describe the same events, you must compare those older books with the two Books of Chronicles, written about BC 250. Not far from this time the book called Ecclesiastes was written; in which the writer represents Solomon as speaking, and declaring that neither riches nor wisdom brought any real happiness, but that life was only vanity and vexation, whether men tried to do well or not. It is not a very religious book, but it shows what people were thinking of in those days, and so quite as interesting as many which are far better and more instructive. Last of all, about BC 160, came the Book of Daniel, a strange writing full of wild predictions, in imitation of the old prophets, which readers today find very difficult to understand.

All these books we always see bound together in one volume; but we must remember that it took many centuries to write them all, and that they could not have been brought together until the last was written. In reality several steps were taken before the Old Testament became one book. First, the five books that stand first in the Bible were made up from many different sources, about the time of Ezra, and called the "Law of Moses," or "the Law." For a long time this was the only thing read in the synagogues. Then, many years later, the writings of the prophets, including the books of Joshua, the Judges, Samuel, and Kings, which the prophets were supposed to have composed, were collected together and called "the Prophets." Finally, the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and whatever else remained, were put into a third division by themselves, and, as there was no particular name to give them, were always called the "Other Writings."

Beside all these were a number of books, written in the later years of Jewish history, about which there has always been a great dispute. Some Jews thought them as holy and useful as any part of the Old Testament, as many of them are. Others thought them too modern to be included among the sacred books of the nation, so they are usually placed by themselves. They are called the Apocryphal Books, and you will find them in many of your Bibles between the Old Testament and the New.

You see then that Jewish literature was very full and rich, as I have said. It had in it prose and poetry, history and philosophy, law and prophecy, story and drama and song. And the Jews were very proud of all this, as well they might be, and thought one part quite as sacred as another. When books came to be printed instead of written, all these were put in a single volume. But in old times they were quite separate from each other, and were always spoken of either as distinct books, or as belonging to the "Law," the "Prophets," or the "Other Writings."

The name Old Testament was not given, of course, until there was another book called the New Testament.

Not long after Judea fell under the power of Rome, while Herod the Great was king, a child was born in Palestine, who, when he grew up, became a great religious teacher and leader. His name was Jesus. In those days, you will remember, there were no family names among the Jews, and people were distinguished from each other in various ways, such as adding the father’s name, or the place where they lived. The parents of Jesus were Joseph and Mary, and as there were many other children of the same name as him, he was called Jesus the carpenter’s son, or Jesus of Nazareth.

Nazareth is a beautiful village among the hills of Galilee. It has narrow streets and small bare houses, like those described in an earlier lesson; but vines and fig trees growing everywhere make it look very attractive, and there is a charming view from the hilltops of the whole country around. Whether Jesus was born there or only came there afterwards, we cannot tell certainly, for the accounts of his life were written so long after his death that people had very different stories to tell about him. One writer says that his parents lived in Bethlehem, a little village of Judea until after his birth, and then went to Nazareth. Another says that they lived in Nazareth, but were on a journey to Bethlehem when the child was born. But as Nazareth is almost always called his "own country" or native place, we feel pretty sure that he lived there at any rate from very early days.

It is just as hard to find out exactly when he was born as where. No one could recall the year or the day of his birth, when the accounts were written, and the writers could only tell his age by guessing about how old he was when he began to preach. Perhaps if they had known at first what he was to become in the world’s history, they would have remembered these dates more carefully, but we can never know beforehand what lives are to be useful or great. About three hundred years after Jesus died, December 25^th was fixed upon as his birthday, and two hundred years later still the year of his birth was guessed at, so that dates could be reckoned from it, as they have been in certain countries ever since. AD 2004, as you know means two thousand and four years since Jesus was born; but it is now thought that he was really born a few years longer ago than that.

When it was found, after Jesus’ death, how good and holy a life he had led, many wonderful stories began to be told about his birth and infancy. In those days wonderful things were much more easily believed than now, and some unusual events were always supposed to happen when a great man was born. One such story tells us that, on the night of the young child’s birth, angels were heard in the heavens singing "peace on earth, good will to men," and that the shepherds in the fields listened to the song, and hastened to the manger where the child was born. Another says that a star led Magi or magicians from the East to the same manger, and brought rich offerings of gold and fragrant gums, and took back with them as a gift from the mother the cloth in which the infant was wrapped.

All this shows how much the world learned to honor Jesus after his death; but at the time people little thought what the young child was to become. His father and mother were both village people, and lived a quiet life like all their neighbors. Joseph was a carpenter, and no doubt brought up all his sons to the same trade; and in later years, when Jesus began to preach, he was sometimes taunted for being nothing but a carpenter. He had several brothers and sisters, some of whom are mentioned by name, so that although so little is known of his early life, we can think of him as growing up in a pleasant and loving home.

Rome had just become an empire when Jesus was born, and had conquered the entire civilized world. Augustus was the first emperor, and had a very splendid reign, bringing about him all the noted writers and the great men of the time. Tiberius was emperor when Jesus died. The language spoken at the Court and in Italy was Latin, but in Asia Greek had been much used since the conquests of Alexander the Great, and was spoken in Judea, at this time, by educated people, government officers, and travelers. The country people of Judea, after the captivity, spoke a Syrian dialect, which was about as much like Hebrew as French or Italian is like Latin. This was the language that Jesus always spoke.

All the accounts of Jesus that we have are written, not in Hebrew, but in Greek, so that the language cannot be exactly his own words, but only a translation of them. Four of these accounts, called the Four Gospels, have been collected in the New Testament. They are quite short, and were written so long after his death that many things which he said and did had been forgotten, but we are very fortunate in having even so much as this. Three of these, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, were begun about forty or fifty years after Jesus died, and contain all that the different writers could gather at that late day from those who had seen Jesus, or had heard his sayings and doings repeated. The fourth, called the Gospel of John, was written much later, and makes Jesus’ ministry considerably longer than either of the others. A great deal of what was best worth remembering must have been preserved in this way, and certainly it gives us a very beautiful and noble idea of Jesus’ life.

Matthew ii. 6, 18

Luke ii. 1, 10, 14, 32

Childhood of Jesus

There were a great many accounts of Jesus’ life beside the four Gospels, but many were lost, and others were considered so improbable, that they were not put into the New Testament, but are always published by themselves and called "apocryphal," or doubtful. Still there are many interesting things in them. One of them called the "Infancy of Jesus Christ," has a great deal more to say about the early life of Jesus than the four Gospels, and tries to show that he was much more wonderful, as a little child, than other children. These are some of the stories it tells:

Once, when Jesus was seven years old, and was playing with other boys, they all tried to make little birds and animals out of clay. They were quite proud of their success, but to the surprise or the other children, the oxen and asses that Jesus made began to walk, and his sparrows to fly. Often Jesus went with Joseph his father to make gates or pails or boxes. Joseph was not a very good carpenter, according to this account, and often got his boards of the wrong size, his little son would make them longer or shorter as was needed, by simply touching or pulling them. When he was first taken to school, instead of learning his alphabet, he began to question the master about the form and order of the letters. He then astonished him by explaining why Aleph (A) came before Beth (B), and what was the meaning of all the lines and points of the Hebrew characters. The "apocryphal" Gospels are full of such stories as these, which the writers themselves no doubt thought were true, and which were once believed by all, but which hardly any one believes now, because they seem so improbable and childish. As talks of this kind were told about almost every great or good man in old times after his death, it is not strange that these were told about Jesus. But this should make us all the more careful in distinguishing between the real incidents of his life and the imaginary ones. Fortunately his real life was so beautiful throughout that I does not need any make-believe wonders to improve it.

We cannot help feeling sorry that the early companions or the parents of Jesus could not have known how interesting to us all the little deeds of his childhood would be, and so have kept some record of them. As it is, only one Gospel has anything to say about his childhood, and that tells us almost nothing. The only things we know are, that he lived in Nazareth, that he learned to work at his father’s trade, and that he probably went to school with other children, and studied whatever was then taught to Jewish boys. Schools for young children were just beginning about that time. There were no schoolhouses, and no regular schoolmasters, but the children went every day to the synagogue, where one of the attendants taught them how to read and write, and to repeat passages from the Scriptures. This was probably all the instruction which Jesus ever received, except what his father may have given him at home about his own people and their history. And as there were no printed books in those days, and only rich people or scholars owned the written ones, he cannot have had many opportunities to read. But his was the education which all young persons received except the few who went to the higher schools at Jerusalem; and when there were so few books, no doubt children learned a great deal more from what they saw and heard than they do now.

Like all other Jewish children, Jesus, after he was five years old, went with his parents every Sabbath to the Synagogue, and there heard the Jewish Scriptures and the discourses of the rabbis. If he had lived in Jerusalem he would have gone often to the Temple, and seen the sacrifices and the incense, and heard the prayers and chanting of the priests; but in Galilee the children knew very little of these things except what their parents told them. Three times a year, however, there used to be grand processions to Jerusalem to attend the feasts, and these every man was expected to join, and often whole families joined also. The parents of Jesus went in this way every year to the Passover, and once, when Jesus was twelve years old, they took him with them. It a was probably his first journey, and must have been a very important event in his life to join the long procession of pilgrims, and see for the first time the great city of Jerusalem and its beautiful Temple. He was so much interested and excited by it that when his father and mother started for home he lingered behind, and they had to return after a day’s journey and look for him. They found him in the Temple grounds, listening to some of the learned men who were conversing there, and putting questions of his own to them. Some of the accounts say that he explained the Scriptures to them, and surprised them by telling the number and movements of the stars, the bones, veins, and arteries of the body, and how the soul came to the body and left it. This is no doubt a very exaggerated account. The real truth being probably that he astonished those who stood around by his intelligent questions and answers. But at any rate the incident was never forgotten, and is almost the only event of his childhood that is given in the four Gospels. More than one great artist has made it the subject of a picture.

Luke ii. 40, 49, 52.

As Jesus grew up in Nazareth the country was in a very troubled state. The Roman governors who ruled the land took less and less pains to please the people, and at one time created a great tumult in Jerusalem by bringing into the city military standards or shields with figures of the emperor upon them. The Jews thought such figures idolatrous, and were ready to die rather than allow them in their holy city. Beside this, the Jewish religion had grown quite formal and heartless, as every religion is apt to do in which there are many ceremonies to observe. Many thought that if they went through the long and splendid service at the Temple, and observed the hundred little precepts that the Scribes laid down for them, it made little difference what lives they led.

While the country was in this unhappy condition, a very singular reformer named John appeared and tried to arouse the people by his preaching. He lived in the wilderness of Judea, dressed like a wild man in coarse camel’s hair garments, and ate nothing but the honey and locusts that he found in the desert. As the people flocked out to see so strange a hermit, he used the severest language with them. He told them of their hypocrisy and wickedness and called on them to repent and prepare for the coming of the "kingdom of heaven," which he said was close "at hand." By this he did not mean at all what we should mean by the kingdom of heaven. He meant the Jewish kingdom itself, which the Jews in those days believed Jehovah would re-establish at Jerusalem, driving out the Romans, punishing all the wicked, and making the Jews masters of the whole world. This they called the "kingdom of God," or "heaven," because they considered Jehovah as its king; and John declared that this kingdom was to begin at once, and the people must repent of their sins and so be ready for it. We know now what a mistaken expectation this was, but at that time it was very strong and real. As John baptized all his followers, by making them dip themselves in the river Jordan as if to be cleansed from their sins, he was called John the Baptist. He must have been a very bold and eloquent man, for he stirred the people as no one had done since the days of the old prophets.

Among those who came to him from all parts of the country was Jesus, who left his home at Nazareth to listen to the new preacher. According to one writer, the mothers of John and of Jesus were related to each other, so that the children must have been always acquainted, but as the other writers do not mention this we cannot be sure of it. Jesus had grown up by this time, though his exact age is uncertain, as one book speaks of him as "about thirty," while another says he was "not yet fifty," as though he were nearly that age. However this may have been, he had no doubt often mourned over the evil state of things among his people, and longed to help them. When John, the stern prophet, appeared, Jesus went into the wilderness to join him, was baptized like all John’s followers, and remained as long as John was there, listening to his fiery words, as he preached of the kingdom of heaven that was so soon to come. At one time Jesus spent many days alone in the desert, and passed through such a struggle with himself, that it seemed as if evil spirits were tempting him to give up all thoughts of serving his fellow-men, and devote himself to his own pleasure and good alone. A very striking account of this incident, in which Satan is represented as really appearing and speaking, is given in two of the Gospels.

After a time John, who had given great offence to Herod by his bold words, was thrown into prison, and Jesus then returned to Galilee to carry on his ministry alone. Instead of going back to his home in Nazareth, however, he went to Capernaum to live. Capernaum was a much larger and more central town on Lake Gennesareth, through which ran one of the great highways from the East to the Mediterranean and Egypt.

One reason given for his going to Capernaum is that the people of Nazareth, who had always known him as a poor carpenter and son of a carpenter, could not believe that he had anything to say that was worth their hearing. If the wonderful stories of his childhood which were told in the last lesson had been really true his townspeople would of course have been the very first to believe in his teaching, but as it was they would not listen to him. An interesting story is told in one of the Gospels of his going into the synagogue at Nazareth on the Sabbath, and standing up to speak, as people were allowed to do after the Scripture reading. Quoting a beautiful passage from one of the prophets, he told the people that he was sent to them like the old prophet himself, "to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind." Instead of listening, however, the people all rose up angrily, drove him out of the city, and tried to kill him.

Whether this was his real reason or not, it is certain that he left Nazareth as soon as he began to preach, and lived from that time at Capernaum, where his winning words soon drew many followers around him.

Isaiah xl. 3; Ixi. 1

Matthew iii. 1, 2, 8, 10; iv. 10

Luke iv. 24

When we speak of Jesus as preaching we must remember what a different thing preaching was then from what it is now. There were no regular sermons, or regular preachers, but the Jewish speakers explained the Scriptures in the Synagogue on the Sabbath, or addressed the people in the open air. In explaining their Scriptures the Jews were very fond of tracing resemblances between what the prophets and other writers had said, and the events which were actually happening, to prove that their prophets had foretold future events. Sometimes they were very ingenious in this, as several passages in the New Testament show. Jesus also quoted much from the Jewish Scriptures, but often in a very different way from others. Sometimes he wished to show how imperfect the old teaching was, and to give his followers higher ideas of duty and right. Sometimes his purpose was simply to explain or illustrate what he was saying, just as speakers in these days quote striking passages of poetry or prose from other writers. One passage from the old prophets, as we saw in the last lesson, he applied to himself, filling certain predictions in the Old Testament. Whether he meant that the predictions were fulfilled in just the way that the prophet meant, or in a different and better way, we cannot tell; but in either case it drew the attention of the people to his teachings and made them remember his words.

But he had other and much more familiar ways of teaching. As he met his followers generally in the open air, he was fond of pointing to the flowers and birds and fields, to show what beautiful lessons they tell of God’s love and care. Instead of waiting for special times to speak on religious matters, he often took common events, just as they happened, and drew important truths from them. Much of his best teaching was in the form of stories, or what were then called parables. In the East, where all the ways of life are so different from ours, people have always used much more poetic and figurative forms of speech than is common with us. Many images and comparisons that we employ only in poetry they use in common conversation, addressing each other every day in what seems to us very inflated and high sounding language. All such things as proverbs, apologues, parables and fables, came first from the East. Parables are common incidents, which either have happened or might happen, so told as to teach some lesson or moral. Jesus used this way of teaching more than almost any other, sometimes taking parables which other Jewish teachers had used, sometimes making them himself. Many of them are very beautiful, and were of course understood much better and remembered longer than any moral rules or arguments would have been. When he wished to tell his hearers that they should use whatever powers God had given them, whether little or great, he told them of a rich man going on a journey, and leaving different amounts of money to different servants to trade with while he was away. He told how those who had a good deal were very industrious, and those who had little were idle, and had nothing to show when he came back. Perhaps his hearers knew of just such a case a s this; at any rate he told the story in such a way no doubt as to make them all feel that the smallest gifts or opportunities were to be used as faithfully as the greatest. Any fault that he noticed among his followers he was apt to correct in some such way as this, and many of his parables on such occasions have been preserved. Indeed some of his hearers, when they tried to recall his preaching afterwards could not remember that he had ever taught except by parables.

But he did teach in many other ways, some of them even more tender and beautiful than his parables. One series of short sayings, in which he tried to comfort his hearers in their poverty and trial, by telling them that it was not the rich or proud or prosperous who were happiest, but often those who suffer most, are called the "Beatitudes." They have brought more consolation and peace to men’s hearts than almost any words that were ever spoken. These sayings were not always understood at the time, as such truths seldom are, and some who heard him evidently thought he was promising them actual food and riches. But it is easy for us now to understand what he really meant.

There is nothing in the words of Jesus that we should call a sermon; for he generally spoke wherever he happened to be, whether there were many to hear him or few, and whether there was little say or much. One of the writers of the New Testament, however, has brought together a number of his sayings, which may have been all spoken when he was standing on a hillside with his hearers gathered below him. This is always called the " Sermon on the Mount."

Matthew v. 3-9, 17, 38, 39, 44; vi. 28, 29; xiii. 3-8, 44-46

Jesus lived all his life among the common people of the towns and villages of Galilee. The inhabitants of Judea, and especially of Jerusalem, looked down upon the Galileans as ignorant country people, and ridiculed their pronunciation and rustic ways. But they were honest and industrious enough and were none the worse for their simple manners. As Capernaum was on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, many of the early followers of Jesus were fishermen. In Chorazin and Bethsaida, too, little villages that he often visited, the people must have been chiefly fishermen. No matter how poor or ignorant they were, Jesus was quite content to be among them, and gave some of his finest precepts in answer to their questions.

Indeed, he did not avoid event those whom the rest of the nation despised as outcasts. Among these were certain persons who had been turned out of the synagogues for some fault or other and who were called "sinners." The Jews hated these sinners and treated them always as if they were unclean and unfit to enter their houses or sit at their tables. Still more hateful to them were the publicans, or those who collected taxes of their fellow-countrymen to support their Roman masters. These publicans, whatever their motives, the Jews denounced as traitors, cast them out of the synagogues, forbade them to make wills, and insulted them in every possible way.

No doubt many of these publicans and sinners were really very low or avaricious men, as they were considered; but Jesus looked upon them all as brethren, and the more others despised them, the more anxious he was to help them. Once he shocked all his friends, and enraged his enemies, by inviting one of these publicans, named Matthew or Levi, to his own house and eating with him at the table. Nothing could have lowered him more in the eyes of his countrymen, who showed their contempt by calling Jesus the "friend of publicans and sinners." Little did he mind their taunts, however; and soon the outcast and degraded of every kind found that in him they had a true friend. It was touching to see how many ways they took of showing their gratitude and reverence. Once, when he was at table in a Pharisee’s house, a woman whom he had saved from evil habits pushed her way into the house, and kissed his feet as he lay upon the couch, pouring ointment over them, and wiping them with her hair.

In this way Jesus won the confidence of the people wherever he went. He joined in all their pursuits, went to their feasts and marriages, lived in their families and was with them at their work. They learned to bring all their troubles and disputes to him, were rebuked by him for their faults and were made to feel ashamed of whatever was mean in their own conduct and to admire what was beautiful in others. He was very tender and loving, too, with little children. He drew them to him by his kindness and loved to talk about their purity and innocence.

All this is very different, as I have said, from the way in which preachers live or speak today. It made but little difference to him where he was or who were with him when he spoke. Sometimes it was in his own house or at a friend’s table, sometimes as he strolled with his companions through the fields, sometimes as he stood on the hillside or on the shore, or in a ship, sometimes from the desk in the synagogues. In this way he became known and loved in Capernaum and through many of the towns and villages of Galilee.

Isaiah xlii. 1-3

Matthew vi. 19, 20 24; xix.14

Luke vi. 41, 42, 43.

In going to Capernaum, Jesus had of course left his friends and home at Nazareth behind him. As he went so much from place to place, perhaps he had no regular abode afterwards, though once or twice the Gospels speak of his house at Capernaum. But he found new homes open to him there, and drew many friends about him, who loved to be with him and hear his words. Among these were two brothers, both fishermen, named Simon and Andrew. According to one account, Andrew had been a disciple of John the Baptist and so had perhaps known Jesus before; Simon was married, and Jesus became a frequent visitor at his house, where several interesting events took place. He also visited the family of Zebedee, a fisherman and a man of means, whose two sons, James and John, with their mother, not only received Jesus at their house, but went with him when he left Capernaum and were with him so long as he lived.

Among these friends were twelve who became more intimate with him than any others. They called themselves his disciples or scholars. Sometimes they were called the "Apostles," or "those who were sent out," but this was probably after Jesus’ death. These twelve seem to have stayed with Jesus all the time, except when he sent them to teach others, and they probably lived under the same roof with him as one family. Not doubt, it was through them that most of his sayings and doings were afterwards reported; though no record was made at the time, and Jesus gave them no directions about writing anything down. Some of these disciples were naturally more attached to him than others, but there was no difference of rank or position among them. Jesus always checked them when they tried to claim superiority over each other, or to ask him, as they sometimes did, to give them places of honor when he was raised to power among the Jews.

Among these twelve the one of whom we hear most was Simon, an impulsive ardent man, who was very devoted to Jesus and eager to take part with him in everything, although his courage was apt to fail him when the real danger came. Jesus was very fond of Simon, and saw, as he thought, such strong traits of character in him that he called him a "rock," or "Peter," and this afterwards took the place of his real name. Andrew, his brother, was also one of the twelve, but we know nothing about him. Next to Peter, the leading disciples were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, whom Jesus called "Boanerges," or sons of thunder, because of their fiery and passionate natures. Once, when they all wished to pass through a little village, and the inhabitants for some reason would not allow them to, these brothers proposed to call fire from heaven to burn the village, but Jesus rebuked their violence. At another time they begged him to promise them the two chief offices in his kingdom, as thought they expected him to be an earthly monarch, with a palace and throne. This showed that they did not wholly understand his character or teachings, but he was strongly attached to them, and is thought to have loved John more than any of his other followers. One of the Gospels speaks of the "disciple whom Jesus loved," and this is generally supposed to mean John. Another disciple was Matthew, who b