Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub
[merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small]

SAMSON was the last of the military heroes stirred up to deliver Israel from its oppressors. The two that followed, Eli and Samuel, were men of peace-the one a priest and the other a Levite.

In the absence of a person specially called and appointed to deliver and judge the people, the civil government, by the principles of the theocracy, devolved on the high-priest, as the vizier of the Great King, having access to his presence and being the interpreter of his will. It is not easy to see that Samson exercised the civil government over any of the tribes. And although, therefore, in order to carry on the succession of times, it is convenient to say that at his death the government devolved on the high-priest, yet, in fact, there is little reason to question that the high-priest exercised as much authority before as after. But in such times as these that authority was but small; and chiefly, as it would appear, judicial, particularly in adjusting disputes between persons of different tribes. The heads of the several tribes seem to have considered themselves fully competent to manage their internal affairs; and their divided allegiance to Jehovah involved the political evil, that the authority of the general government was proportionably weakened, and the cohesion of the tribes in the same degree relaxed. Subject to this preliminary observation, the high-priest may, for historical convenience, be considered the successor of Samson.

It is remarkable that functionaries so important, in the theory of the Hebrew constitution, as the high-priests, are scarcely noticed in the history of the Judges. From Phineas, the grandson of Aaron, to Eli, a high-priest is not mentioned on any occasion, nor would even their names be known but for the list in Chronicles* where the order is thus given:— Abishua, Bukki, Uzzi, Zerahiah, Meraioth.

In the person of Eli, a change in the line of succession to this high office took place; as he was the first of the race of Ithamar, the second son of Aaron. But as the line of his elder son Eleazer was not extinct, and as the cause of the change is not assigned, some difficulty has been experienced in accounting for it. The Jews, as we have seen, suppose that it was because the existing pontiff had not taken measures sufficiently active to prevent Jephthah from sacrificing his daughter. But if, in the absence of all positive information, a conjecture might be hazarded, we would suggest the probability that the last pontiff of Eleazar's line died leaving no son old enough to take the office, and that it then (as afterwards in the succession to the kingdom) devolved on his adult uncle or cousin of the line of Ithamar. Such a course resorted to in temporal successions to avoid the evils of a minority and regency, must have been much more necessary in the case of the high-priesthood. That the change took place in some such natural and quiet way, seems to afford the most satisfactory explanation of the silence of the record of a matter of such importance.

Eli was a good and pious man, estimable in private life for his many virtues and the mildness of his character; but he was greatly wanting in those sterner virtues which became his public station, and which were indeed necessary for the repression of wickedness and the punishment of the wrong doer. As he grew old, he devolved much of his public duty upon his sons Hophni and Phineas, two evil-disposed men, who possessed the energy their father lacked, without any of his virtues. Even in their sacred ministrations at the tabernacle, their conduct was so shamefully signalised by rapacity and licentiousness, that the people, through their misconduct, were led to abhor the offering of Jehovah. All this became known to Eli; but, instead of taking the immediate and decisive measures which became his station, he contented himself with a mild and ineffective remonstrance. This weakness of Eli was justly counted a sin in that venerable person; and a prophet was commissioned to warn him of the evil consequences, which were no less than the exclusion of his race from the pontificate to which he had been advanced. But even this could not rouse the old man to the exertion which became his station; but he seems rather to have acquiesced in this judgment as a thing not to be averted.

The next reproof which this remiss judge received was through an unexpected channel.

At the tabernacle, in personal attendance upon the high-priest, was a boy, a Levite, who having been the child signally granted in answer to the many prayers of Hannah, his previously barren mother, was by her consecrated from the womb, as a Nazarite, to Jehovah. In consequence of this, combined with his Levitical character, he had been left at the tabernacle as early as he could be separated from his mother's care, to render such services there as his tender years allowed. His name was Samuel: and as his pious mother came to Shiloh yearly with her husband to celebrate the passover (bringing with her a dress for her son), she had the delight of perceiving that he, growing up under the shadow of the altar, conducted himself with such propriety and discretion, that he stood very high in the favour of God and man. That he was thus, from his very infancy, constantly before the eyes of the people when they attended at the tabernacle, doubtless went far to prepare the way for that influence and station which he ultimately attained.

twelve years of age, He supposed that it This was repeated

It was the thirty-first year of Eli's administration, when Samuel, then lay on his bed at night, that he heard a voice calling him by his name. was Eli who had called, he hastened to him, but found that it was not so. three times; and at the third time Eli concluding that it was the Lord who had called the lad, instructed him to answer, Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth." Samuel obeyed,

66

* 1 Chron. vi. 4-16, 50-52.

and the Voice then delivered to him, as an irrevocable doom, the former denunciations against Eli's house," because his sons have made themselves vile, and he restrained them not ;" declaring that he would "do a thing in Israel at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle." In the morning, the lad, being pressed by Eli, delivered to him the message he had received. But even this only gave occasion for the further manifestation of the passive virtues of his character,-" It is Jehovah," he said; "let him do what seemeth to him good."

After this, matters went on for some time, much as they had done. Eli's sons pursued their old courses, making themselves still more vile; and their father, though now well aware of the doom which hung over himself and them, took no measures in the hope to avert it. But as Samuel grew, the word of the Lord again came to him from time to time, and all Israel knew that he was established to be a prophet of Jehovah.

Thus passed ten years, at the end of which the threatened judgments began to be inflicted upon the house of Eli. At that time the Israelites rashly, and without consulting their Divine King, embarked in a war with the Philistines. In the forty years since the death of Samson, this people had recruited their strength, and recovered the courage of which they appear to have been for a season deprived by the astounding calamity which swept away so many of their chiefs and nobles. In the first engagement the Israelites were defeated, with the loss of 4000 men. On this they sent to Shiloh for the ark of the covenant, not doubting of victory under its protection. The two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas, attended it to the camp. On its arrival there," all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again." On hearing this, and being apprised of its cause, the Philistines were filled with consternation; and the manner in which their alarm was expressed affords a very clear indication of the effect which had been produced on their minds, by the wonders which Jehovah had wrought for the deliverance and protection of Israel. "Woe unto us!" they cried; "who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods? These are the Gods that smote the Egyptians, with all the plagues of the wilderness." The procedure itself did not strike them as strange, for it was not unusual among ancient nations to take their gods to their wars,— and the ark with its cherubim the Philistines supposed to be the god of the Hebrews. They did not question the existence of that God or his special care for his people; neither did they deny his power, of which indeed they were afraid. They allowed Jehovah to be the god of the Hebrews, in the same sense in which they regarded Dagon to be their own god. It was his universal and exclusive power that they denied, or rather did not recognise.

Notwithstanding their alarm, the Philistines did not give way to despair; but like a brave people, which they were always, the imminence of the danger only stimulated them to the more strenuous exertions for victory. They cried to one another, "Be strong, and quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines, that ye become not servants unto the Hebrews, as they have been to you! Quit yourselves like men, and fight!"

They fought and the victory was given to them, to punish the Hebrews for their misdoings, and for having engaged in this war without consulting their King, as well as to teach them that undue confidence in the ark itself was a superstition, if not an idolatry, apart from a due reliance on God himself, whose footstool only the ark was. Thirty thousand men of Israel fell in the battle and pursuit; the guilty sons of Eli were among the slain, and the ark itself was taken.

Eli, blind and old, remained at Shiloh, anxiously expecting news from the camp; "for his heart trembled for the ark of God;" and that he might be in the way of receiving the earliest rumours from the war, he sat watching by the way-side. One day he heard an outcry in the town, which had been occasioned by the news brought by one of the fugitives from the battle. This man, with his clothes rent and dust upon his head, soon came before the high-priest and gave to him the tidings,-that Israel fled before the Philistines-that there had been a great slaughter-that his two sons, Hophni and Phineas, were slain-and that the ark of God was taken! No sooner had the last words passed the lips of the messenger, than the high-priest fell backward from off his seat ;(') and being old and heavy, his neck was broken in the fall.

Soon after the news of all these calamities was carried to the wife of Phineas; on hearing which she was taken with the pains of labour, and died, after she had looked upon the son to whom she gave birth, and given him the sad name of Ichabod [Inglorious]; for she said, "The glory is departed from Israel; for the ark of JEHOVAH, the God of Israel, is taken.” These incidents serve to evince the depth of that astonishment and grief with which the loss of the ark was regarded.

The Philistines soon found that they had small cause to rejoice in the glorious trophy they had won: and most convincingly was it made known to them that the Israelites had been defeated for the punishment of their sins, which rendered them unworthy of their God's protection, and not through His want of power to save. The Philistines certainly considered that they had taken captive the God of the Hebrews, and could, on the principles of pagan idolatry, hardly fail to attribute it to the superior power of Dagon, their own god. Yet they still must have had a very salutary dread of the God of Israel; and while they could not but regard the ark as the proudest of their trophies, it was probably more with the view of propitiating him, by associating him with their own god, than by way of insult, that they deposited the conquered ark in the temple of their Dagon at Azotus. But God disdained this dishonouring alliance; and twice the Philistines found their idol overthrown, and the second time broken to pieces, before the ark of God. And further to demonstrate His power in such a way as might include a punishment for their idolatry and for the abominations connected with it, the Lord smote the people of the place with hemorrhoids, or the piles, with a mortal destruction. The land also swarmed with jerboas, whereby the products of the fields were consumed. Attributing these calamities to the presence of the ark, they sent it to Gath, where it remained until the pressure of the same inflictions compelled them to send it from them. It was taken to Ekron, another of the five metropolitan cities of Philistia. The Ekronites received it with terror, crying, "They have brought round to us the ark of the God of Israel to slay us and our people." They therefore in an assembly of "the lords of the Philistines " proposed that the ark should be sent back to its own place in the land of Israel. This was determined; nor was the determination too soon, for already the hand of God was so heavy upon Ekron, that "the cry of the city went up to the heavens " And that it might be sent away with all honour, the diviners, who were consulted as to the best means of giving effect to the intention which had been formed, counselled that five golden hemorrhoids, and five golden mice, one from each of the Philistine states, should be deposited in a coffer beside the ark, as a trespass-offering: for even thus early the custom had come into use of making votive offerings representing the instruments of affliction, or of the parts afflicted, to the god to whom the infliction or the cure was attributed. That they might give the glory to the God of Israel, and not harden their hearts as did the Egyptians, and thereby bring upon themselves the punishments of that people, were the reasons by which this course of conduct was enforced. And they are remarkable as showing the effect, even at this remote date, upon the neighbouring nations, of the wonders of judgment and deliverance which had been wrought in the land of Egypt.

To testify all possible respect, the ark was placed in a new car, (*) to which were yoked two kine, whose necks had never before been subjected to the yoke. Their calves were tied up at home; and, by the advice of the priests, it was concluded to leave the cows free to take their own course; if the animals went away from their calves to the land of Israel, it was to be inferred that a right judgment had been formed of the cause from which their calamities proceeded; but if not, they might conclude that it had been the result of natural causes. From such incidents the heathen were even thus early accustomed to conjecture the will of their gods. In this case, no sooner were the kine set free than they turned their backs upon their young, and took the road towards the town of Bethshemesh in Judah, being the nearest city of the Levites towards the Philistine frontier. It was the time of the wheat-harvest, when the people of the town were abroad in the valley reaping the fruits of their fields. They beheld the ark advancing with great gladness; and when the kine stopped of their own accord, near a great stone, in a field belonging to one Joshua, the Levites who were present detached them from the car, and offered them up in sacrifice upon that stone before the ark. And the

[merged small][graphic][ocr errors][merged small]

stone being thus consecrated by sacrifice, the ark was removed from the car and deposited thereon. The five lords of the Philistines, who had followed the car to the borders of Bethshemesh (which was twelve miles distant from Ekron), and had stood witnessing these proceedings, now returned home, well convinced that it was the hand of the God of Israel by which they had been smitten. The ark had been in their hands seven months.

The adventures of the ark, and its constant exposure to their sight, begat in the Bethshemites a familiarity towards it, inconsistent with the respect due to Jehovah, and which it was highly necessary to repress. When therefore their familiarity went so far that they ventured to raise the cover of the ark, to gratify their curiosity with a view of its contents, sixty of their number-principal persons of the place-were smitten with death. On this the people cried, with great consternation, "Who is able to stand before this holy God, Jehovah? and to whom shall he go from us?" They decided to invite the people of Kirjath-jearim to take

VOL. I.

3 H

« PoprzedniaDalej »