Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/418

402 have been exterminated, slowly became amalgamated with the new. In this way the Israelites received a very import ant accession to their numbers. In Deborah s time the fighting men of Israel numbered 40,000 ; the tribe of Dan, when it migrated to Laish, counted 600 warriors ; Gideon pursued the Midianites with 300. But in the reigns of Saul and David we find a population of from two to three millions. The rapid increase is to be accounted for by the incorporation of the Canaanites. Appropri- At the same time the Hebrews learned to participate in ation of the culture of the Canaanites, and quietly entered into the te enjoyment of the labours of their predecessors. From the pastoral they advanced to the agricultural stage ; corn and wine, the olive and the fig, with them are habitually spoken of as the necessaries of life. It was not strange that this change in the manner of their everyday life should be attended with certain consequences in the sphere of religion also. It is inconceivable that the Israelites should have brought with them out of the desert the cultus they observed in the time of the kings (Ex. xxii., xxiii., xxxiv.), which throughout presupposed the fields and gardens of Palestine ; they borrowed it from the Canaanites. 1 This is confirmed by the fact that they took over from these the " Bamoth " or " high places " also, notwithstanding the prohibition in Deut. xii. Baal. It was natural enough that the Hebrews should also ap propriate the divinity worshipped by the Canaanite peasants as the giver of their corn, wine, and oil, the Baal whom the Greeks identified with Dionysus. The apostasy to B.ial, on the part of the first generation which had quitted the wilderness and adopted a settled agricultural life, is attested alike by historical and prophetical tradition. Doubtless Baal, as the god of the land of Canaan, and Jehovah, as God of the nation of Israel, were in the first instance coordinated. 2 But it was not to be expected that the divinity of the land should permanently be different from the God of the dominant people. In proportion as Israel identified itself with the conquered territory, the divinities also were identified. Hence arose a certain syncretism between Baal and Jehovah, which had not been got over even in the time of the prophet Hosea. At the sams time the functions of Baal were more frequently transferred to Jehovah than conversely. Canaan and Baal represented the female, Israel and Jehovah the male, prin ciple in this union. Dangers Had the Israelites remained in the wilderness and in of civili- barbarism, the historical development they subsequently zationfor reac j ie( j wou ] ( j nar dly have been possible; their career would have been like that of Amalek, or, at best, like those of Edom, Moab, and Ammon. Their acceptance of civilization was undoubtedly a step in the forward direc tion ; but as certainly did it also involve a peril. It involved an overloading, as it were, of the system with materials which it was incapable of assimilating at once. The material tasks imposed threatened to destroy the religious basis of the old national life. The offensive and defensive alliance among the tribes gradually dissolved under the continuance of peace ; the subsequent occupa tion of the country dispersed those whom the camp had united. The enthusiastic elan with which the conquest had been achieved gave way to the petty drudgery by which the individual families, each in its own circle, had to accommodate themselves to their new surroundings. Yet under the ashes the embers were still aglow ; and the 1 In the earliest case where the feast of the ingathering, afterwards the chief feast of the Israelites, is mentioned, it is celebrated by Canaanites of Shechem in honour of Baal (Judg. ix. 27). 2 In Judg. v. Jehovah retains his original abode in the wilderness, on Sinai, and only on occasions of necessity quits it to come to Palestine. course of history ever fanned them anew into flame, bring ing home to Israel the truths that man does not live by bread alone, and that there are other things of worth than those which Baal can bestow ; it brought ever again into the foreground the divineness of heroical self-sacrifice of flie individual for the good of the nation. 3. The Philistines were the means of arousing from their Thel slumber Israel and Jehovah. From their settlements by tines the sea, on the low-lying plain which skirts the mountains of Judah on the west, they pressed northwards into the plain of Sharon, and thence into the plain of Jezreel beyond, which is connected with that of Sharon by the upland valley of Dothan. Here, having driven out the Danites, they came into direct contact with the tribe of Joseph, the chief bulwark of Israel, and a great battle took place at Aphek, where the plain of Sharon merges into the valley of Dothan. The Philistines were victorious and carried off as a trophy the Israelite standard, the ark of Jehovah. Their further conquests included, not only the plain of Jezreel and the hill country bordering it on the south, but also the proper citadel of the country, " Mount Ephraim." The old sanctuary a-t Shiloh was destroyed by them ; its temple of Jehovah thenceforward lay in ruins. Their supremacy extended as far as to Benjamin ; the Philistines had a ne^ib in Gibeah. 3 But the assertion that they had confiscated all weapons and removed all smiths must be regarded as an unhistorical exaggeration : under their regime at all events it was possible for the messengers of a beleaguered city on the east of Jordan to summon their countrymen in the west to their relief. The shame of the Israelites under the reproach of Philis tine oppression led in the first instance to a widespread exaltation of religious feeling. Troops of ecstatic enthusi asts showed themselves here and there, and went about with musical accompaniments in processions which often took the shape of wild dances ; even men of the most sedate temperament were sometimes smitten with the contagion, and drawn into the charmed circle. In such a phenomenon, occurring in the East, there was nothing intrin sically strange ; among the Canaanites, such " Nebiim " The for so they were styled had long been familiar, and they Nebi continued to exist in the country after the old fashion, long after their original character, so far as Israel was concerned, had been wholly lost. The new thing at this juncture was that this spirit passed over upon Israel, and that the best members of the community were seized by it. It afforded an outlet for the suppressed excitement of the nation. The new-kindled zeal had for its object, not the abolition of Baal worship, but resistance to the enemies of Israel. Religion and patriotism were then identical. This spirit of the times was understood by an old man, Samuel ben Sam Elkanah, who lived at Ramah in south-western Ephraim. He was not himself one of the Nebiim ; on the contrary, he was a seer of that old type which had for a long time ex isted amongst the Hebrews much as we find it amongst the Greeks or Arabs. Piaised by his foreseeing talent to a position of great prominence, he found opportunity to occupy himself with other questions besides those which he was professionally called on to answer. The national distress weighed upon his heart ; the neighbouring peoples hid taught him to recognize the advantages which are secured by the consolidation of families and tribes into a kingdom. But Samuel s peculiar merit lay, not in dis- 3 Ne$ib is an Aramaic word of uncertain meaning. In the. name of the town Ne9ibin (Nisibis) it certainly seems to mean "pillars"; according to 1 Kings iv. 5 and xxii. 48 (where it is pointed nitfab), " governor" seems the best translation, and this is the only rendering consistent with the expression in 1 Sam. xiii. 3 ("Jonathan slew the nepib," &c.).