Hebrew Life and Times

Hebrew Music and Musical Instruments

These hymns were frequently sung to the accompaniment of instrumental music. There are many allusions in the book of Psalms and elsewhere in the Old Testament to the harp (kinnor), the psaltery (nebel), the cornet (shophar) and other instruments.

We know just how they looked, for pictures of them, or at least of similar instruments, are found on Egyptian and Babylonian monuments. The harp was probably like a large guitar, only it was played like a mandolin, with a plectrum. The psaltery or lute was a larger-sized harp. The cornet or trumpet was simply a curved ram's horn blown with the lips like our cornets; there was also another form made out of brass, long and straight. The Hebrews also used a wind instrument like our flute, a pipe with holes on the side for making the different notes. They seem also to have been very fond of percussion instruments—the timbal, a small drum, and the cymbals, metal plates clashed together.

It is impossible to know how far the Hebrews had developed the art of music. It seems most likely that the best they ever learned to do with these various instruments would have sounded to us more like a loud banging, twanging noise than like our own melodies and harmonies.

Influence of this worship of prayer and song.—Nevertheless the prayer-hymns of which we have told could not fail to wield an influence on the lives of those who sung them. Boys and girls heard them week by week until they could not forget them. When they were tempted to wrongdoing these melodies rang in their ears. For in all these collections there were great hymns, written by men who had caught the spirit of God as had Amos and Hosea and their successors—men whose souls were white, whose love was tender, and whose courage was unshakable. Only such men could write such lines as these:

Or these:

These words and scores of other passages just as great set to music long since forgotten but in those days sweet to the ear, helped untold multitudes to do justice and to love mercy, to confess their sins, and to find strength and hope in God.

CHAPTER XXVToC

A NARROW KIND OF PATRIOTISM

All nations like to think of themselves as superior to the rest of mankind. The Greeks used to despise all foreigners as "barbarians." We in America ridicule immigrants from other countries and call them unpleasant names. The Jews also made the same mistake of despising people of other races and nations. We find laws even in so just a law-book as Deuteronomy which are unfair to foreigners. Jews were forbidden to exact interest from fellow Jews, but they were permitted to exact it from foreigners. The flesh of animals which died of themselves could not be eaten by Jews, but they might sell it to foreigners.

The Increasing Hatred Towards Foreigners After the Exile

We have seen how the exiles in Babylonia kept the Sabbath and went to the synagogue in order that they might continue to be Jews and might not lose their Jewish religion, the worship of Jehovah. As time went on they found it necessary to be more and more strict. As their girls and boys grew up they fell in love with Babylonian young men and young women. But if these young Jews had married Babylonians, the children would have grown up as Babylonians in customs and religion. So all intermarriages were forbidden.

The fight against intermarriages in Judæa.—When these exiles returned from Babylonia to Jerusalem they were shocked to find that the Jews there had not been strict in this matter. They had taken wives and husbands from the Moabites, and Edomites, and other nations around Judæa.

It is hard for us to see that this was wrong, for these people probably became worshipers of Jehovah, like Ruth the Moabitess in the beautiful story in the Bible, who said to her Jewish mother-in-law, "Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." The exiles from Babylon, however, including so good and wise a man as Nehemiah, fought with all their might against all intermarriages. Without doubt the motive, which was to protect the Hebrews from idolatry, was good, but the matter is certainly open to criticism, especially in the light of our truer knowledge of God. We read that at one time, even under the leadership of Ezra, one of the returned exiles, a large number of the wives from other nations were cruelly divorced and sent away weeping to their own people. All this helped to give the Jews a wrong and unreasonable pride in their own race and a silly and unkind contempt for other races.

The hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans.—About the time of Nehemiah there was also started a bitter feud between the Jews and the Samaritans. There had always been a good deal of jealousy between the people of Judah in the South, and the Hebrews of the central and northern parts of Canaan. Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom, which had split off from the kingdom of David and Solomon. This old jealousy flamed up again after Nehemiah. The Samaritans had intermarried with their heathen neighbors, perhaps more than the Jews in Judæa. So the Jews claimed that the Samaritans had no right to call themselves true Hebrews.

The Samaritans, on the other hand, claimed that they were true children of Abraham, and they built a temple of their own on Mount Gerizim as a rival to the temple of Jerusalem. This jealousy and hate grew more and more bitter until, in the time of Jesus, the Jews looked upon Samaritans with even more contempt than any Gentiles.

The growing prejudice against the Jews among other peoples.—Those who call names generally hear themselves taunted and ridiculed in turn. The very fact that the Jews would not work on the Sabbath marked them as peculiar and helped to make them unpopular. Their laws about foods, clean and unclean, were also different from those of other nations. For example, they would not eat pork. Moreover, as time went on many of the Jews in Babylon and in other foreign lands grew prosperous. They were industrious and they had brains and a special gift for trade. Before long they had money to lend, and they often demanded unjust rates of interest. This too made them unpopular. So the more proudly and contemptuously they held aloof from Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, and all other foreigners the more frequently they heard themselves called "Jewish dogs" and other hard names.

The Coming of the Greeks

This racial pride on the part of the Jews was still more increased by the coming of another unusually proud people, the Greeks. In the year B.C. 333, Alexander the Great defeated the army of the king of Persia and soon extended his rule over all western Asia, including Judæa. Very soon Greeks were everywhere to be seen, in all the cities of Palestine. In order to protect the country from the desert robbers who, as we have seen, had been making their raids through all the centuries, a chain of Greek cities was built to the east of the Jordan and thousands of Greek settlers were brought there to live. The ruins of many beautiful Greek temples and theaters may still be seen in that country. Samaria was also rebuilt as a Greek city, the capital of the province. So there were Greeks on all sides of Jerusalem and throngs of Greek merchants and travelers were to be seen on the streets of every Jewish city and village.

The Greeks in some ways had as much to be proud of as a people as the Jews. Their sculptors had carved the most beautiful marbles in the world. Their poets had composed the most beautiful poems. Their philosophers were wiser than those of any other nation. Moreover, many of these Greeks who came into Palestine and other countries of Asia were filled with a truly missionary spirit. It is said that Alexander the Great was inspired by the thought that he was helping to spread the art and wisdom and culture of the Greeks throughout the world.

The struggle between Judaism and Hellenism.—This meant that the old religion of Jehovah was in danger of being forgotten not only in Babylonia and other lands but even in Judæa and Jerusalem. Many Jews quite fell in love with the new art and learning of the Greeks. They learned the Greek language, gave their children Greek names, such as "Jason," for example, instead of "Joshua." A gymnasium was built in Jerusalem where Jewish lads learned to exercise and play games after the Greek style. Many of them tried to hide the fact that they were Jews, and too often they ceased to worship Jehovah, the God of their fathers, and offered sacrifices to Zeus and other Greek divinities.

The beginnings of the Pharisees.—Other Jews fought against all these new ideas and fashions. They became more strict than ever in their observance of the peculiar customs and regulations of the Jewish law. It was at this time that the beginnings of the party of the Pharisees came into existence, of which we read in the New Testament. The word "Pharisee" means "one who is kept apart, or separate"; that is, one who holds aloof from the heathen and from heathen customs. They were the men who "when they come from the market place, eat not, except they bathe themselves." They might have touched some heathen person in the street which they thought made them ceremonially unclean. In the earlier days the Pharisees were called "Hasideans," or "the pious."

It was right, of course, that these men should struggle to keep their religion alive. The great religious truths of the prophets were worth more to the world than all the art and wisdom of the Greeks. But the result of the struggle was an even greater scorn on the part of the Hebrews for all men who were not Jews.

Study Topics

1. Read Esther 9. 5, 11-16. What kind of patriotism does this passage express?

2. Compare the following laws in Deuteronomy: 10. 18-19 and 14. 21. Can you explain the inconsistency?

3. What national characteristics do hatred and contempt of other nations lead to?

4. What is the danger from continually hurling bad names at foreigners, such as "Greasers," "Chinks," and so on?

CHAPTER XXVIToC

A BROAD-MINDED AND NOBLE PATRIOTISM

In spite of all their prejudice, thinking Jews could not help but see that the Greeks, in spite of their heathen religion, had brought with them many of the blessings of civilization. Many articles of everyday comfort were introduced into Canaan for the first time by the Greeks, for example, new varieties of food, such as pumpkins, vinegar, asparagus, and various kinds of cheese. From the Greeks also the Jews learned to preserve fish by salting them. This made possible the splendid fishing business by the Sea of Galilee. In the time of Jesus we find this lake surrounded by flourishing towns. Most of the men in these towns supported themselves and their families by fishing. The fish were salted and the salt fish sold in the inland towns. They were even exported to foreign countries. The Greeks probably also introduced poultry and hens' eggs to the farmers and housewives of Canaan.

New articles of dress and furniture.—These same newcomers brought with them a greater variety of fabrics and garments, such as Cilician goat's-hair cloth, out of which coarse cloaks and curtains, as well as tents, were made; also felt for hats and sandals. The Greeks also introduced the custom of carrying handkerchiefs. Many new kinds of household utensils came into Jewish homes as a result of the example of their Greek associates, for example, arm chairs, mirrors, table cloths, plates, and cups. Hemp and hempen cords and ropes came from the Greeks. From this same source came the custom of placing food at meals on dining tables, like ours, while the diners, unlike ourselves, lay on couches with their heads toward the table. It may also have been the Greeks—although possibly it was the Persians—who first brought coined money into Canaan, so that in making each purchase it was not necessary to weigh the silver or the gold.

All these useful and beautiful things helped to win over sensible people among the Jews to look with favor on their new neighbors. And when Jewish travelers found themselves stopping at new and more comfortable inns managed by Greek innkeepers, and went to bathe in the public baths which were erected in the larger cities by the Greek authorities, they were sure to spread the idea that even Jews might learn something from the Greeks.

Broad-Minded Patriots Among the Jews

Fortunately there were some among the Jews who could appreciate the good and beautiful things in Greek civilization without being disloyal to their own race and their own religion; and, on the other hand, could be proud of the great teachings of the prophets without hating and despising men of other races. They had learned well the lesson of that great prophet whom we call the Second Isaiah, that Jehovah chose Israel, not as his special "pet" or favorite, but as his servant to teach all nations about the true God and his righteous rule. Such men realized that the Greeks and Egyptians and other foreigners were Jehovah's children like themselves, and that instead of despising them they ought to make friends with them and try to teach them the religion of Jehovah.

Jewish religious books written for Greeks.—It was by men of this broad spirit that a number of books were written for the sake of winning Greeks to the Jewish religion. These books were written in the Greek language and explained to Greek readers the law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets. Among the most important of these books was the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. This translation was made, indeed, chiefly for the benefit of Jews living in Greek countries who had forgotten the old Hebrew tongue. But the translators also had in mind the great non-Jewish Greek world.

And the new translation, sometimes called the Septuagint (that is, the book of the seventy translators who are said to have worked on it), found its way into the hands of many a Greek reader who learned from it for the first time something about the religion of Jehovah.

The author of the story of Jonah, in the Bible, was another Jew of this broad spirit. He had traveled in Egypt. He had seen the vices and sins of the heathen. And he had tried to tell them of the just and merciful laws of the one God of all the world, Jehovah. Many of his fellow Jews criticised him for this. "Why do you have anything to do with these Gentile dogs?" they asked. It was in answer to this question that he wrote about Jonah, the prophet whom Jehovah had sent to preach to the wicked heathen city of Nineveh. He had tried to avoid obeying the command, but at last had gone; and when the Ninevites listened to his preaching and repented and turned to Jehovah he was angry. And Jehovah said unto him, "Should not I have regard for Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand?" (That is, six score thousand little children.)

Jonah in this story is a type of the Jewish people. As Jehovah sent Jonah to preach to the Ninevites, so he would send the Jews to teach the nations of his love. What a pity to be so narrow-minded, so blinded by pride of race, as to have no sympathy or good will for any other race of men! This is the lesson the author of the book meant to teach.

Probably very few of the Jews who heard this man, or read his book, understood or appreciated him. But there were enough of them who cared for him to preserve his book, so that it became a part of their sacred writings; and perhaps more than any other book in the Old Testament it prepared the way for a broadening of the dreams and plans of Abraham and Moses and the prophets to include not only Jews but all mankind—that broadening which we call Christianity.

Study Topics

1. Read Isaiah 19. 19-24.

2. What do you think this writer would have thought of our American habit of calling names at foreigners?

3. What advice would these writers have given us, in regard to our "Japanese" problem?

4. If you have time, look into the book of Jonah.

CHAPTER XXVIIToC

OUTDOOR TEACHERS AMONG THE JEWS[5]

All children among all races receive as they grow up some kind of an education. Isaac learned from his father Abraham and from the other older people about him how to set up a tent, how to milk a goat, how to recognize the tracks of bears and other wild beasts, and all the other bits of knowledge so necessary to wandering shepherds. Not till many centuries after Abraham in Hebrew history were there any special schools apart from the everyday experiences of life, or any man whose special work was that of teaching. But in the centuries following the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and its gradual restoration, the people came more and more to see the importance of education. And in the course of these three or four centuries before the coming of Christ there grew up two kinds of schools and two kinds of teachers, first, an open air school where life itself was studied, and then later, in the second place, an indoor school, where the chief study was that of books.

Schools in the Open Air

These open-air schools were most often to be seen in the "city gate." The Jews meant by the "gate" of the city the broad open space in front of the actual opening in the city wall. It was like the public square in our modern towns.

Scenes in the "Gate."—Suppose we visit one of the "gates." It is early morning. Everything is noise and confusion. Here are merchants peddling their wheat, or dates, or honey, their wool or their flax. Customers are haggling over prices. Each one is shouting with a shrill voice and with many gestures that the price asked is an outrage. Besides the merchants there are judges. Here sits one of the city elders with a long white beard. Before him are two farmers disputing over a boundary line—also witnesses and spectators.

Out in the middle of the area children are playing. Every now and then a mangy yellow dog noses his way through the crowd looking for scraps of food. And everywhere are the folks who came out just to see their neighbors and to hear the news.

In one corner of the open space by the "gate" we notice a dignified figure, an old man with a circle of friends and listeners. He is watching the varied scenes around him and occasionally talking with those about him.

"Who is that old man?" we ask.

"That is one of the wise men," we are told.

These "wise men" among the Hebrews studied human nature, and gave to young men and to any less-experienced people who cared to listen, the benefit of their practical good sense. They loved to teach through "proverbs," that is, short and witty sentences. A large number of the "proverbs" of these teachers are preserved in the Book of Proverbs in our Old Testament.

The Teaching of the Wise Men

One of the most important keys to success in life is a knowledge of people. This the wise men helped their students to obtain. Let us sit for a while beside one of them and look through his eyes at the people who pass by. Here comes young Mr. Know-it-all. He wears a very fine garment, and walks with a swagger. His father and mother and all his aunts and uncles have always told him that he is the most clever person in the world. And, of course, he agrees with them. He will listen to advice from nobody. The wise man watches him pass, then says to his hearers:

The wise man has a sense of humor. He loves to smile at the little inconsistencies of life. He has been listening to the talk between a merchant and his customer. And this is his comment on it.

But though he is so quick to laugh at human follies the wise man has a tender heart. He helps his hearers to sympathize with those who are anxious and discouraged. And he knows the value of friendly encouragement.

A practical advice of the wise men.—With this knowledge of human nature these teachers were able to give much good counsel in matters of business. For example, there were tricksters in those days just as now. One of their favorite tricks was to persuade some "greenhorn" to act as surety for a loan. "Just shake hands with me before witnesses," the smooth tongued one would say, "and the banker will lend me money; there is a caravan of silks coming from Damascus which I can buy for a song. We will both be rich." So the poor fool would shake hands before witnesses, which was like our modern custom of signing one's name on a note. The man would then take the money and disappear, leaving his victim to repay the loan or be sold into slavery. "Be on your guard against these sharpers," the wise men were constantly saying.

Helping People to Live Lovingly Together

The best part of the teaching of the wise men had to do with even more important matters than how to keep from being cheated. They helped people live together. They had many sensible things to say about good manners. For example, Joshua the son of Sirach, a wise man whose sayings are found in the book of Ecclesiasticus in the Apocrypha, gives much wise counsel about table manners:

Surely courtesy at the table is one of the things which make life happy and noble. Truly civilized people do not eat like pigs in a trough.

As they looked out upon the lives of men what made the wise men most sorry was the hatred and bitterness which they so often saw between those who should have been friends. One of their most frequent teachings was the need for the control of one's anger and for charity and forgiveness.

Their condemnation of tale-bearing.—Since the wise men felt so strongly on this point, it is not surprising that they kept their most scathing denunciations for tale-bearers and troublemakers. Too often they saw men who were formerly dear friends passing by each other with dark looks. Some liar had been sowing his evil seed. If you have anything to say against a man, the wise men urged, say it to his face. Don't talk against him behind his back.

The Religious Teaching of the Wise Men

There came a time, perhaps a century or two after Nehemiah, when the wise men were the chief moral and religious leaders of the Jewish nation. The people had lost faith in the prophets, for there were no more prophets like Amos or Isaiah. And these practical teachers with their warm sympathy and kind hearts had many true words to speak about the God of wisdom and of love. The book of Job in the Bible, one of the greatest books of history, was written by one of these wise men. It is a story of a man who found God although both his own misfortunes and also the false ideas of his friends had made him think that God was his enemy. He found God at last because he was brave enough to think for himself.

So these teachers gave their pupils the best kind of education. They too, like the prophets and all the leaders about whom we have studied, helped to prepare their pupils for the life of loving brotherhood with God as their common Father, which was the goal toward which all this history we have studied was slowly but surely moving.

Study Topics

1. Browse through the book of Proverbs, especially chapters 10 and following, looking for teachings on the following subjects; enter the references opposite (a), (b), etc., below.

(a) Diligence in work.
(b) Temperance in use of wine.
(c) Honesty in business.
(d) Compassion toward the poor.
(e) Self-control in anger.

2. Read Ecclesiastes 11, for a taste of another "wisdom" book.

3. Find if you can a Bible with the Apocrypha between the Old and New Testaments, and read a chapter or two in Ecclesiasticus, or the wisdom of the Son of Sira.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XXVIIIToC

BOOK LEARNING AMONG THE JEWS

If we could have visited the home of some sincerely religious Jew about the time when the law of Deuteronomy was adopted by King Josiah and the people we might have seen the beginning of a new kind of education—the regular study of books, and especially of the Bible. They had for their Bible at that time the law of Deuteronomy, which they had accepted as God's will for all Jews. And if this was God's will for them, it was plain that it must be taught to everybody, beginning with the children.

Teaching the Law at Home

Let us imagine ourselves, then, visiting the house of some good Jewish friend in Jerusalem under Josiah. As we enter the door we notice letters roughly carved or painted on the wooden door. "You ask what are those words," replies our host to our question. "They are from our law. They are for the children to see, as they go in and out the door. This is the way the inscription reads:

"The priest wrote them for us and both I myself and the children have been learning to read them," says our friend. "And every Sabbath we study them, and I teach the children to repeat after me as much of the rest of Jehovah's law as I can remember. Sometimes the children ask me questions. They say, 'What mean these laws and these statutes which you say Jehovah our God commanded?' Then I answer, 'We were Pharaoh's slaves in the land of Egypt. And Jehovah brought us up out of Egypt ... to give us this land. And Jehovah commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Jehovah our God for our good.'"

Religion through education.—It is easy to understand that with this training in childhood it became more and more easy from this time on to persuade the Jewish people not to worship idols and to see why they gradually changed more and more rapidly into the most devout and earnest people in the world. The children were taught in their homes.

The New Kind of Teachers, the Scribes

After Josiah's time many additions were made to this law of Jehovah. At first it consisted of only a part of our book of Deuteronomy. But the learned priests and prophets, especially after the destruction of Jerusalem, made a careful study of all the writings of preceding generations, and they found many collections of laws and histories of Jehovah's dealings with his people which seemed to them inspired of Jehovah and worthy to be reverenced and obeyed. They tried the experiment of combining some of these with the law of Deuteronomy. So it came to pass that two or three centuries later the Jews had as their sacred book the whole of what is now the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible.

The need of other teachers besides the father in the home.—If this larger Bible was to be carefully studied by every Jew from his childhood up, there must be certain men who should give their lives to teaching it. So in time there came to be a class of teachers known as "scribes." These men spent all their working hours reading this law of God, making copies of it and teaching it to others. Some of these men were truly great and good. For example, there was the gentle Hillel, who lived about a century before Christ and who taught the spirit of the Golden Rule, although in a form not so perfect as that of Jesus.

It was a scribe like this who talked with Jesus about the "greatest commandment," and to whom Jesus said, "Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God."

The Schools of the Scribes

These teachers conducted regular daily schools in the synagogues. More and more children were sent to them until in the time of Jesus all boys were supposed to go for at least a year or two. Girls were taught only at home. People had not yet come to realize that the minds of girls are as well worth educating as those of boys.

The methods of teaching.—The boys sat on the floor in a circle before the teacher. They repeated after him the Jewish alphabet and learned to recognize each letter. Their only textbooks were papyrus rolls on which were written parts of the law. They began with Leviticus and learned by heart as much of it as possible. We can imagine that the boys were glad when they finished with Leviticus and went back to Genesis to the stories of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph.

They also learned to write. Their copybooks were at first rough scraps of broken pottery on which with sharp nails they learned to scratch letters. Probably mischievous boys sometimes drew pictures instead of practicing the words assigned to them. After they could write fairly well they were given wax tablets, or even a bit of papyrus, a quill pen, and an ink horn. Papyrus was expensive and had to be used with care.

Good and Bad Results of the Teaching of the Scribes

So much study of these books of law and history was bound to wield a mighty influence. Those thousands of boys studying laws which for their time were the most just and humane in the world, could not but learn something about the meaning of justice and mercy. Better still, the wonderful stories in Genesis and Exodus left their sure impress on the hearts of those who studied. The boys for the most part reverenced their teachers, and many of them came to love their Book, the law. It was a boy, so taught, who when he was older, wrote that Psalm:

The danger of formality.—The danger in this kind of education is that of blindness to the voice of God to be heard in everyday experience or in our own hearts as well as in the written Scripture. The result of this blindness is that goodness and religion are thought of as merely the keeping of the written law. It was such blind scribes whom Jesus denounced for giving tithes, or a tenth part of the mint and anise and cummin, that is, of even the most insignificant of their garden herbs and forgetting mercy and justice and faith; in other words, keeping the letter of the written law but not living out the spirit of it. It is not enough, Jesus taught, just to obey what is written. To do only that is to be an unprofitable servant. This bad kind of religion grew up in those schools where only books were studied, not the real everyday experience of living people.