treated with exemplary rigour for having obtained a favourable treaty by fraud and stratagem. But were indeed all other strangers regarded with a brotherly eye? Did they possess well-defined rights, or were they merely recommended to the uncertain impulses of charity? The notices and incidents preserved to us, however fragmentary, allow us to draw general conclusions with some. confidence.

In the first place, a very decided difference is made between a Hebrew and a Gentile slave: the former only was entitled, after six years of service, legally to claim his liberty, while the latter remained in lasting vassalage, both he and his children born in the master's house, all alike being transferred as a perpetual inheritance. Again, we find indeed that strangers were not always excluded from the public service. Very notable instances are Caleb the Kenizzite, the son of Jephunneh, and his nephew Othniel. For Caleb-thus tradition affirmed even at a very late period-was not only sent by Moses from Kadesh Barnea to the Promised Land, among the twelve scouts, as the favoured and courageous representative of the tribe of Judah, but he was also appointed as one of the twelve 'chiefs' or 'princes' (N) to carry out the distribution of the land, and he seems to have been unconditionally received as a member of the tribe of Judah, although the recollection of his distinct origin was never obliterated.d And Othniel, whom the Hebrews likewise counted with pride among their bravest heroes, was their first Judge, and the historian who describes his times, speaks of him as he speaks of all privileged and inspired messengers and instruments of God, relating that when the Israelites were oppressed by the king of Aram-Naharaim, God, hearing their supplications, sent

a

b

Comp. Exod. xxi. 2-4; see Comm. on Levit. ii. 417.

b Num. xiii. 6, 30; xiv. 6, 24,

30, 38; xxvi. 65; xxxii. 12; Deut. i. 36; Josh. xiv. 7. c Num. xxiv. 19. d Comp. 1 Sam. xxx. 14.

them a deliverer, 'Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother,' and that on him, as once on the Mesopotamian Balaam, came 'the spirit of Jahveh' ( ),

by virtue of which he rescued and then judged the elected people. Doeg the Edomite, in Saul's time, filled the not unimportant post of 'chief of the King's herdsmen.'b In David's army served Uriah the Hittite and Zelek the Ammonite. Without encountering any opposition, that monarch entrusted the supreme command over the third part of his forces to Ithai of Gath.d Among his higher officials is mentioned 'Ithmah the Moabite;'e and for the holiest works of the Temple a Tyrian artist was employed, whose mother, however, was a Hebrew woman.f

But by the side of these isolated instances we meet with clear and comprehensive statements revealing a much darker background. The Chronicler, who is anxious to represent the facts in the most favourable colours, records that David. when designing to build a Temple, ordered all the strangers (7) in the land to be assembled for the execution of the labour;s and again that, a census of the strangers in the time of Solomon having yielded the aggregate of 153,600, the king employed 70,000 of them as 'bearers of burdens' (p), 80,000 as 'hewers in the mountain' (y), and the remaining 3,600 as overseers over the tasks.h To this we must join another statement from the more unbiassed Books of Kings, which, on account of its high significance and its

special importance for our subject, we shall quote entire: 'All the people that were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who were not of the children of Israel; their children that were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel were not able to destroy, upon these Solomon levied a bondservice to this day; but of the children of Israel Solomon made no bondmen, for they were men of war, and his officers, and his captains, and the chiefs of his chariotwarriors and of his horsemen'.a

From the three passages referred to we may draw the following inferences:-1. The number of strangers in Palestine at the time of the first kings must have been very large, since those 153,600 comprised only the men, and probably only the men capable of hard manual labour, or between the ages of 20 and 50. 2. This vast multitude were not foreigners (D), but the residue of the Canaanitish tribes and their descendants, 'whom the children of Israel had not been able to destroy', but had deprived of their land and property. And 3. Between these Canaanitish 'strangers' (7) and the Hebrews a line of demarcation was drawn not only sharp and decided, but most degrading to the Canaanites; since these, excluded from all higher posts and functions, which were reserved to the Hebrews, were only employed for the meanest 'bondservice' (y op), which was deemed derogatory to the conquerors. And that obnoxious distinction was permanently maintained. It is reported to have been in force as early as in the time of Joshua and the Judges, and the historian writing at a very late age reports it as still existing in his own day.d

a 1 Ki. ix. 20-22.

b See Comm. on Lev. i. 571, 572.

ויתנו את הכנעני,13 .Josh. xvii

D; Judg. i. 28, 35, and in ver. 28 is the significant addition, 'it

was when Israel grew strong,' which may possibly refer to the time of David and Solomon.

dy; comp. 2 Chr. viii. 8; this passage cannot point merely to the Nethinim who served

We are almost tempted to ask, whether the strangers among the Israelites enjoyed a better lot than that to which the Israelites themselves were doomed among the Egyptians, and how we are to understand that affecting appeal, 'You know the feelings of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt?' It may be admitted that, in the performance of their heavy bondservice, the strangers were not treated with merciless rigour. Yet even this is not beyond all doubt. So burdensome and inconsiderate were Solomon's exactions, that they forced the greatest part of the Hebrew tribes to revolt and defection; and the very exhortations so frequently and so impressively uttered by the public teachers in favour of the strangers prove the great perils and trials to which these were exposed.b

There is perhaps no people, whether ancient or modern, which exhibits so strong a contradiction between doctrine. and life as the Hebrews. Nearly all the beautiful and exalted lessons of their great men remained ideal demands or suggestions, which never became realities. More powerful than the spiritual weapons they employed were the material obstacles they encountered.

During the whole of the period we have considered, the Canaanites who lived among the people of Israel were generally regarded with suspicion, contempt, and antipathy, because they were not Hebrews (Day), because they were uncircumcised (y), and because their national god was not Jahveh (717).

at the second Temple also (Ezra ii. 43, 58; Neh. iii. 26; x. 29); and it invalidates the assertion that the bondage of the strangers in Solomon's reign was not their normal condition, but the consequence

of this king's despotism, which he indeed extended to the Hebrews also (comp. 1 Ki. v. 27, 28; xii. 4). Comp. Exod. i. 11, D'D. Comp. Ezek. xxii, 7, 29; Zech. vii. 10, 11, etc.; see infra iii init.

a

b

D

II. FROM SOLOMON TO THE EXILE.

CENTURIES passed on in varied struggles and conflicts. Prophets disseminated their grand and noble thoughts; priests strove to support religion by more rigorous forms; and statesmen laboured to amend the imperfect organisation of the commonwealth. It was but rarely that the three chief factors of the state worked in harmony; more frequently they came into violent collision. All these internal movements and fierce agitations left their mark on the mutual relation between Hebrews and strangers; they helped to enlarge the chasm, to which we have. alluded, between precept and practice, and to display the anomaly in a still more glaring light; for we shall see, side by side, the most tender humanity and the most cruel barbarism, highminded generosity and narrow exclusiveness.

a

The simple division of the people in 'natives' and 'strangers' continued in this period also; no other term for the latter was used than ger (a), and the rights and duties were the same for all Gentiles. But the influence of prophetic teaching was apparent in the wider sympathies and greater privileges bestowed upon the heathen population. The stranger was again promised participation in the rest of the Sabbath. The principle was pronounced that God, who watches over the welfare of the orphan and the widow, 'loves the stranger and gives him food and raiment.' The Israelites were bidden, in imitation of this Divine example, to love the stranger,' and again and again the Deuteronomist pointed to the recollection of Hebrew servitude in Egypt to strengthen that humane sentiment. More than eight hundred years had elapsed after the release from Egypt, yet the yoke under which the early ancestors had sighed, was still remembered with a vividness proving the tenacity with which the