The supreme dignity in Israel was held by the family of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, until the death of the high priest Ozi. We are not in possession of the circumstances which led to the transference of the office to Eli, the descendant of Ithamar, the younger son of Aaron; probably the surviving son of the high priest Ozi, of the house of Eleazar, was an infant, or at all events very young, when his father died, and Eli-his kinsman, no doubt - had probably distinguished himself in some of the ceaseless wars in which the people during the stormy period of the judges were continually involved, and was in consequence chosen by the popular voice to the vacant dignity. After the death of Eli and his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, the high priestly dignity never seems to have recovered its ancient power and dignity. The eyes of Israel were turned first to Samuel, and then to Saul and his royal successors, David and Solomon.

During the lifetime of Samuel, Saul, and David, though shorn of its old proportions and exposed to many vicissitudes, the high priesthood continued in the family of Eli, who was succeeded by his grandson, Ahitub, the son of Phinehas. In the days of Saul, Ahijah, or Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub, gave David

the shewbread to eat at Nob, and was for this act murdered by King Saul, together with all the priests then doing duty at the national sanctuary. His son, Abiathar, escaped the massacre, and was allowed to assume his father's office. During the reign of David this Abiathar continued to be high priest, but was arbitrarily deposed by Solomon, who restored Zadok, of the old high priestly line of Eleazar. The descendants of Zadok continued to hold the office as long as the monarchy lasted.

The annexed table shows the double line of high priests to the reign of Solomon :—

EXCURSUS D: ON THE ESTABLISHMENT It is an error to see in the foundation of the Hebrew monarchy by Samuel in the person of King Saul merely a vain-glorious popular demand, merely a desire to emulate other nations in their pomp in circumstance of war, merely a wish to be free from the grave moral restraints of an austere Republican government, with an Invisible and Almighty Chief presiding over it.

Samuel, with all the passions of a father and prejudices of a Republican chieftain, at first resisted the popular request, but subsequently, influenced by nobler, more far-sighted considerations, yielded to it, and even furthered it with all his great power and the influence of his lofty character. The popular request-although many earthly feelings and passions influenced the people's prayer to their prophet-judge for an earthly king-was really suggested by the Spirit of the Eternal who had chosen Israel. Such an undivided and firmly established human authority within the chosen people was now indispensable to their progress. Roughly speaking, Israel, since it left Egypt and the degrading slavery to the Pharaohs, had gone through four phases: the first, the severe education under Moses in the Desert; the second, the period of the conquest and the age immediately succeeding it, when the people worshipped the Eternal, who had done such great things for them, with a fervour of enthusiastic gratitude; the third, the so-called age of the Judges, a period when the memory of the God-Friend was growing fainter and fainter, when the wish to live the life He loved was gradually dying out of Israel. They were becoming like the peoples who lived around them, and were gradually falling into subjection to the more warlike and stronger of their idol-worshipping neighbours. From this impending decay and rain they were rescued by the splendid patriotism and the fervent religious zeal of Samuel, under whose wise rule Israel as a nation once more returned to the pure holy worship of the

OF THE MONARCHY IN ISRAEL (chap. viii.). Eternal; this was the fourth phase of the national life. But in order to weld the once more faithful yet divided and ill-organised tribes into one great nation, the establishment of an earthly monarchy was indispensable. It was, indeed, no new thought; the great Hebrew lawgiver, who drew his wisdom direct from communing with the Most High, had spoken of it as of something which would in the coming ages be absolutely necessary for the progress and development of the nation. And now the time was ripe for it, and the same Being who watched over Israel with a Father's intense love put into the hearts of the elders of the people the desire for a king, and into their mouths the words with which they approached with their request His prophet and servant, Samuel the judge and seer.

We have seen how quickly that true patriot stamped down his first repugnance to a change which would alter the whole constitution of the people for whom he had done and suffered such great things, which would virtually set him aside as ruler and judge, and for ever destroy the natural hopes he had entertained of transmitting his nobly earned honours and power to his own house.

The seer laid the matter in prayer before his Master, and from Him received direct instructions how he should proceed. What entire trust must the Eternal have placed in this great prophet-judge to confide to him the momentous task of establishing a permanent monarchy in Israel, knowing that the first step in the establishment of such a monarchy must be Samuel's own voluntary abdication of rank and power! But the Master knew His servant.

The old man quietly accepted what must have been to him a painful, saddening mission. Acting under the Divine direction, he set out before the chiefs of the tribes a picture of the new burdens and duties which the sovereignty, if established, would require them to take upon themselves. As soon as he had received

their solemn acceptance of these new and altered conditions-in other words, as soon as he had received from the elders of the people an expression of their general willingness to exchange their old republican freedom for the comparative servitude which subjects of a powerful sovereign, especially in the East, must endure-he proceeded with all solemnity to the choice of a king for Israel. It has been well pointed out by Dean Payne Smith that the last three chapters of the Book of Judges, immediately preceding in the Hebrew the Books of Samuel (the insertion of the Book of Ruth in this place being a modern attempt at chronological arrangement), seems intended to point out the grave necessity of a king for the well-being of the Hebrew commonwealth. They relate the history of a fearful crime, punished with equally fearful cruelty, and, as the Dean observes, what makes it more remarkable is that it took place in the days of Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron. (See the chronological statement, Judges xx. 28, which shows that these awful scenes of national sin and vengeance probably took place within twenty years of the death of Joshua, that is, at a time when the public morality still stood high, and the religion of the Eternal still had a mighty influence over the people.) In the period of the later judges disorders were far more common in Israel than even in the days of Phinehas.

The lofty ideal which the teaching of Moses proposed to Israel and which, during its long chequered story, raised it high above all the other nations of the world, was that Israel should consider itself the peculiar kingdom of the Eternal King. And at first, under men like Moses and Joshua, no earthly representative of the heavenly Sovereign was necessary. The people lived and worked as ever in the presence of the Most High; but in the very next generation, as we have seen, the invisible Sovereign began to be forgotten, and to each succeeding age the glorious Presence was still less of a reality. The people in the days of Samuel, led by the Spirit of God, demanded that to the theocracy the monarchy should be added, not in any way to subvert it, but, as Ewald happily phrases it, to share its task, and to supply the want which it could not satisfy. The earthly king was to be the chosen of the Eternal, the anointed of the invisible Friend. He was to be the visible image on earth, the vice-gerent of the invisible King of Israel, reigning in heaven. He was to be no absolute sovereign, reigning for his own pleasure and

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according to the dictates of his own will, like other monarchs of the world, but was to enter into the mind and spirit of the Eternal King, of whom he was the visible representative on earth. "We know with sufficient certainty that every king of Israel, immediately upon his accession, was pledged to the existing fundamental laws of the kingdom; in token of which he was required, when the crown was placed on his head, to lay above it a written copy of the Law, and with these sacred emblems to show himself to the people before he could be anointed."

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many

Nor were these noble hopes and lofty aspirations entirely disappointed. It is true that none of the anointed kings of Israel fulfilled the grand ideal of the people, yet there sat on that strange throne, hallowed by such awful memories of Divine glory, men"-to quote the great historian Ewald's words-"in whom forms of royal and manly excellence were exemplified, and whose like would be vainly sought among other nations in those early times. Here only in all antiquity was the true ideal of monarchy persistently aimed at." Indeed, all history might be searched in vain for sovereigns uniting so many splendid qualities as did David and Solomon, Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah.

Nor, again, was the change to human kings reigning as vice-gerents of the Eternal King, politically speaking, a disappointment. From the hour when the patriot-statesman Samuel poured the anointing oil on the head of the young king Saul, the nation gradually rose in importance.

In, comparatively speaking, a very few years from the time when it had to fight with doubtful success for very existence with those warlike Phoenician peoples who dwelt, "a long thin line," along the sea-washed coasts of Syria and Canaan, Israel, under the iron sceptre of David, and the golden sceptre of Solomon, rose to the position of one of the foremost nations of the East. It shared with Assyria and Egypt the chief place among Oriental nations; indeed, for a time, under the wise and splendid rule of David and his son Solomon, it even overshadowed those two historic powers. Though Israel declined from its great power and influence with strange, sad rapidity, it lasted sufficiently long to stamp its influence for ever on well-nigh all future religious worship, true and false, on the art and literature of the future leading peoples in the far Western, as well as in Eastern lands.

meetings appear at first certainly to have been held. (Comp. Joshua v. 10, ix. 6, x. 6, 7, 9, 15, 43, xiv. 6; Judges ii. 1.)

Ewald considers that, from the notices preserved in the Books of Samuel, in the days of that famous judge-seer it was one of the most sacred places in Israel, and the town centre of the whole people, and that its importance dates from the days of the conquest under Joshua. Although after the establishment of the monarchy, and the permanent fixing the seat of government and the residence of the sovereign at Jerusalem, where was also erected the Temple, Gilgal declined in importance, still, centuries later, in the times of Amos and Hosea, it appears to have been a sacred place, held in high regard by the people. (See Amos v. 5; Hos. iv. 15, ix. 15.)

Although, on the whole, we prefer the usual interpretation of this scene, which the English Version clearly suggests-viz., that Agag, finding that the warrior-king had spared him, ceased to have any apprehensions any longer for his life, and that when summoned into the presence of the old prophet, came in a comparatively happy and joyous state of mind, imagining that he was only to be presented in a formal manner to the chief religious official in Israel-still, there is another and most interesting interpretation of this singular scene, which has the support of the distinguished scholar and expositor, Ewald. This interpretation of the original understands that the conquered Amalekite monarch was fully aware that the summons into the presence of the dread seer meant a summons to death, and that, conscious of his impending doom, he braced himself up as a warrior-king to meet his end heroically with a smile. Agag then met his fate with delight" (this is the word rendered in English delicately), and cries out,

moved by a lofty, fearless impulse, "Surely the bitterness of death is past." This willingness to die on the part of the royal captive was regarded by the people as a happy omen; and possibly, if we adopt this interpretation of the episode, this was one of the reasons which had preserved the circumstances of the incident with such exact detail, for there was a deeply rooted persuasion among the ancients that if the victims resisted when led to the altar, the incident was one of evil omen.

Compare the words which Eschylus, in the Agamemnon, puts into Cassandra's mouth before her death. If we understand the words of Agag in the sense suggested in this Excursus, the captive Trojan princess met her death in a similar spirit.

Cassandra. I will dare to die... I pray that I may receive a mortal blow-and without a struggle ... that I close my eyes.

Chorus.

If thou really art acquainted with thy doom, how comes it that, like a divinely-guided heifer, thou advancest so courageously to the altar?-Agamemnon, 1261-1269

"Long before Plato had gathered his disciples round him in the Olive Grove, or Zeno in the Portico, these institutions (schools of the prophets) had sprung up under Samuel in Judæa." (Stanley.)

Before the days of Samuel the name of "prophet" very rarely occurs; incidentally the title is once given to Abraham (Gen. xx. 7), and Moses is on many occasions so styled. (See especially the great passage in Deut. xviii. 15-18, where he is made the type of the old order.) Aaron, too (but in relation to Moses), was also called a prophet. At rare intervals we meet with the name: for instance, in the days of Gideon (Judges vi. 8); and most probably in the reign of the high priest Eli (1 Sam. ii. 27), in the person of the man of God" who brought the stern message to Shiloh, we have another rare example. There is one solitary instance in those early days of a woman bearing the honoured name-Deborah, the judge and prophetess (Judges iv. 4).

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Samuel, however, was the true founder of the prophetic order. Samuel, the Prophet and the Seer, was the title by which this great and loved man was known not only in his own, but in all succeeding generations.

There is no doubt but that one of the great works of Samuel's life was to call into existence "unions," or, as they have been subsequently termed, "schools of the prophets.' We must not, however, conclude that all, or that even a large proportion of the people trained in these schools of Samuel were prophets in the sense of being able to make predictions, or even to write or speak as inspired men. This Divine gift, we must remember, was a gift of God, which He bestowed on whom He would. He, in His omniscience, knew who among men were fitted for this grave and important office.

But the trained in Samuel's "Naioth," in that school of his by Ramah-those known in later days as "Sons of the Prophets"-were taught the study of the Law and the story of the Divine guidance of Israel; they were most carefully trained in music and singing; and in these quiet homes of learning and religious

exercises, the records of the past, we may be certain, were examined and copied with extreme care, and the materials out of which the Divine records were in after days compiled were, no doubt, there arranged and classified.

In Samuel's schools by Ramah, we may assume, were trained, under their renowned master, David, Gad, Nathan, Heman, and others whose names as writers, prophets, and teachers subsequently became famous after the days of Samuel, during the reigns of David and Solomon, and of the earlier kings of Israel and Judah. After the separation, prophets are frequently mentioned-sometimes by name, as in the case of Gad and Nathan-sometimes we hear of a nameless prophet. We have to wait, however, until the days of Elijah and Elisha before we meet with a further allusion to these

prophetic schools. Under the general name of Sons of the Prophets," these seminaries, or schools, appear in the times of these great prophets in several localities. Their numbers evidently were considerable. It is an indisputable fact that during the later years of the independent existence of the people, and also in the Captivity, and for a time after the return, the prophets exercised an enormous influence over the tribes.

We may, then, fairly assume that the new impulse given to religious education by Samuel was never suffered to die out, and that from his days onward the schools of the prophets flourished among the chosen people. The company of prophets gathered round Samuel in the Naioth by Ramah-the "Sons of the Prophets "-who acknowledged men like Elijah and Elisha as their revered masters, were the direct ancestors of the scribes and rabbis of later days.

When Samuel first founded the new order, there was, it must be remembered, an utter want of lofty spiritual teaching. The sanctuary of Shiloh had been destroyed, the Ark removed, the priesthood dishonoured and disgraced. Later, it is noticeable that it was in the northern kingdom of the ten tribes, in the provinces of which there was no temple, no priests, no sacrifice, where we find those great schools of the Sons of the

Prophets, under the presidency of men like Elijah and Elisha. The prophetic order then, in the first place, owed its creation to a want of all spiritual guidance and influence, when Eli was dead and Shiloh dese

EXCURSUS I: ON THE SO-CALLED From the scattered notices we possess in this book, in 2 Sam., and in 1 Chron., it is clear that the career of David during the period of his life when he was declared by the reigning sovereign, Saul, to be a public enemy, was not the career of a vulgar freebooter, to whom he has been often wrongly likened. To his standard, as we shall see, quickly gathered a number of illustrious men, among whom were found many of high lineage, as well as men famous for their military achievements; distinguished representatives, too, of the priestly and prophetic orders were also to be found at this wandering Court of the future illustrious king. Among the principal reasons which induced so many and such distinguished persons to associate themselves with David may be enumerated growing discontent with Saul's rule; his frequent inability, owing to the recurring paroxysms of his distressing mental malady, to conduct the affairs of the kingdom; his growing distrust of his friends, especially of his gallant son; the unfortunate favouritism he displayed towards the tribe of Benjamin-his own tribe; his relentless and, at the same time, groundless animosity against his bravest and most successful captain, David. There were not wanting evidently in the border warfare-a warfare which greatly contributed to his popularity among the people, which David almost ceaselessly carried on with Philistia during this period-romantic incidents which show us the character of David's soldiers, and which well illustrate the spirit of devotion to his person with which this great man was able to inspire his followers. On one occasion, for instance, in the course of a border foray, the son of Jesse, exhausted and wearied, was heard to express a longing for a drink of water from his own home spring at Bethlehem, then occupied by a Philistine garrison. Three of his generous and devoted followers, determined to gratify the longing of their loved chief, with a reckless bravery broke through the enemy's line, and fetched the coveted water. But l'avid, we read, touched to the heart by such reckless gallantry and love, refused to drink it, but poured it out-that water, won at such risk-as an offering to the Lord. (See 1 Chron. xi. 16-19.)

In this little army of heroes eleven men of great renown are in one passage positively mentioned by name, so distinguished were they-men of great military experience, from the distant tribe of Gad-in the graphic

OUTLAW LIFE OF DAVID (chap. xxii.).

words of the writer of the Chronicles, "warriors equipped with shield and spear, like lions in aspect, and yet speeding over the mountains with the swift foot of the gazelle.' Four hundred men-at-arms-of course this does not include the younger armour-bearers and the like accompanying these veteran soldiers-are mentioned as joining the armed camp of David. These four hundred seem soon to have increased to six hundred. Extraordinary weight and dignity were added to his counsels by the presence of men like Gad, the prophet of the Lord, trained in the school of Samuel, and endowed with the rare gifts of a seer of the living God; and Abiathar, the son and successor by direct descent of the murdered high priest Ahimelech, who brought with him to the exile's camp the precious Urim and Thummim, the greatest treasures of the sacred Tabernacle, by means of which the "outlaw" David was placed in direct communication with Jehovah, the covenant God of Israel.

In this school of fighting men were trained those generals and wise strategists who in the golden days of David's rule commanded his armies, and raised Israel from the obscurity of an" Arab" tribe, who with difficulty held their own among the ancient Canaanites, to the position of one of the great nations of the old Eastern world.

I cannot forbear transcribing from the Talmud a curious note on "the four hundred warriors of David." This ancient tradition evidently bestows on these "fighting men-at-arms "who rallied round David in his days of exile and poverty, the splendour which perhaps subsequently surrounded the great king's body-guard when he reigned as a mighty prince in Jerusalem over Canaan and the surrounding nations. "David had four hundred young men, handsome in appearance, and with their hair cut close upon their foreheads, but with long flowing curls behind, who used to ride in chariots of gold at the head of the army. These were men of power, the mighty men of the house of David, who went about to strike terror into the world.” -Babylonian Talmud, Treatise Kiddushin, fol. 76, col. 2.

It is most probable that a corps of elite, in memory of the original "four hundred" of the days of the king's wanderings, was established when David possessed a powerful standing army.

In a singularly vivid way, however, they picture the future king's life during those days of temptation and anxiety, and show how well he used his position to win the affections of the people as chieftain of a powerful and somewhat reckless band. He seems to have acted as the protector and generous helper of all scattered dwellers in the southern part of Canaan. In a former chapter-in his rescue of the men of Keilah— it was the corn growers; in this section it is a great sheep-master whose herds and flocks he is represented