As the Jews are reputedly "the chosen people of God,"—chosen by him out of all the nations of the earth to be the special recipients of his favors,—the chosen instruments through which to communicate his will and his laws to the whole human race, and chosen to be a moral example for all mankind, for that age, and for all future generations,—it becomes a matter of great importance to know their real character for morality, for intelligence, for honesty, and for reliability. And that we may, in the effort to present a brief sketch of their character, furnish no ground for suspecting any misrepresentation, we will present it in the language of Jewish and Christian writers of established reputation. It may reasonably be presumed that their own writers would be more likely to overrate than underrate their virtues. Hear, then, what one of their leading prophets says of them. Isaiah thus describes them (Isa. lix.): "Their hands are defiled with blood, and their fingers with iniquity; and their lips speak lies; their tongues mutter perverseness. None of them call for justice; none of them plead for truth. They trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hand. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths." Such is a description of God's holy people by one of their number. And David completes the picture by declaring, "There is none righteous; no, not one."
And Christ calls them "a generation of vipers." Rather a shocking picture of God's peculiar people! "Peculiar" they were, if Isaiah's description of them was true,—peculiar for defective character. It is rather strange that Jehovah should have selected such moral outlaws as lawgivers and moral examples for the whole human race. There were, at the time, several nations superior to the Jews in morals and intelligence, and much farther advanced in civilization. The Greeks, Egyptians, Chaldeans, and a portion of the Hindoos were in advance of the Jews.
The Rev. Mr. Hilliard, in a sermon preached in New York in 1861, says of the Jews, "They were by nature, perhaps, the most cruel and blood-thirsty, as well as idolatrous, people in the world." And yet he says in the same sermon, "that the Lord chose the Israelites because of their adaptedness of character to the carrying out of his divine ends of mercy to the race." What cogent reasoning! Why not select the Devil at once, if beings the most cruel and blood-thirsty were best calculated for "carrying out his divine ends of mercy to the race"? Here is more proof of the evil effects of preaching, or adhering to, a religion which is so full of errors, absurdities, and immoral elements, that it blinds the moral vision, and weakens the reasoning faculties to give it a place in the mind, and leads to a system of false reasoning, and often corrupts the natural judgment. We have more orthodox testimony to show the defective morals of the Lord's chosen people. Dr. Burnet (a Christian writer), in his "Archæologia Philosophie," says, "They were of a gross and sluggish nature, not qualified for the contemplation of natural things, nor the perception of divine ones. And consequently," he tells us, "Moses provided nothing for them of an intellectual nature, and promised them nothing beyond this life,—did not teach a future state of existence." Lactantius says, "They were never visited by the learned men of other countries, because they were never famous for literature." St. Cyril says,
"Moses never attempted to philosophize with the Jews, because they were 'grossly ignorant,' and addicted to idolatry." Dr. Burnet further says, "They were depraved in their manners and discipline, and almost bereaved of humanity. If I may speak the truth,... they were a vile company of men,—an assembly of slaves brought out of Egyptian prisons, who understood no art but that of making bricks." Josephus, being a Jew, was their friend and defender; and yet he says, "They were so illiterate, that they never wrote any thing, or held intercourse with the learned." St. Cyril says, "Some of them adored the sun as a deity; others, the moon and stars; and others, beasts, and birds." One writer says, "They hated all nations, and were hated by all nations," and they seemed determined to exterminate all nations but their own. They might also have used the language of an ancient Christian sect, who declared, "We are the friends of God, and the enemies of all mankind." Lot it be borne in mind that the testimonies here cited are not from infidel writers, but all from Jews and Christians, who, we should presume, could have no motive for exaggerating their moral defects, but rather inducements for concealing them. Other similar testimony might be presented. Some of the laws which Moses adopted for the government of the Jews corroborates still further the statement that they occupied a very low position in the scale of morals as well as intellect; for the laws of a nation are a true standard of their character. Hence the law of Moses prohibiting uncleanness (Lev. xv.), the law against Incest (Lev. xviii.). Laws against bestiality, to prohibit both sexes from carnal familiarity with beasts, and various other laws of a similar character, furnish a clear implication that they were addicted to all these vile habits; and a law to compel them to wash their hands leads to the conclusion that they were inclined to be filthy in their habits. And the following law shows that they were not very particular about their food: "Ye may eat the locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind" (Lev. xi. 22). Here were three kinds of rather repulsive insects which the Jews were expected to eat, at least licensed to use as food. Can such a nation be considered to be civilized? If so, where is a nation now existing that can not, with equal propriety, be said to be civilized? This portraiture of the Jewish character is not here presented in any caviling spirit, or to show that they are justly objects of either censure or ridicule. Far from it. They most probably acted up to the highest light they were in possession of. The primary motive of this exhibition of their character is to show that they possessed no qualifications and no traits of character calculated to fit them for moral lawgivers and moral exemplars for us, and for the whole human race; and we can not assume, without really dishonoring ourselves, that such a morally and intellectually inferior nation of people were the chosen instruments in the hands of God to communicate the revelation of his will to the human family. We are under no moral obligation to believe it. A revelation from a pure, perfect, and holy God must (if we assume a revelation necessary) come through a pure and holy channel: otherwise it would be contaminated and corrupted before it reached us. If God could consent to communicate a revelation to the human race through such a channel as the Jewish nation furnished, we see not how he could escape a stigma upon his character for stooping to such ignoble means. And would not the act of familiarizing himself with such a people show that he kept bad company, and furnish a bad ex-ample to us who are enjoined to be "perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect"?
The history of Moses is so intimately and thoroughly inter-blended with that of the Jews, that, to present the character of one, is to present the character of the other. We shall therefore devote but a brief chapter to a special exposition of his character, as it will be found fully set forth in the history of the Jews, and the practical illustration of their moral character.
No religious chieftain ever claimed to be on more intimate terms with God, and no writer ever presented a more dishonorable exhibition of his character. He made God the author of nearly every thing he said and did, no matter how wicked, how cruel, how demoralizing, or how shocking to decency or refined moral sensibilities. If some of his characteristics of God are not blasphemous, we can have but little use for the word. Some of his laws serve as an illustration of this statement. He says, "The Lord spake unto Moses," and told him that no person with a flat nose or crooked back or broken hand, a crooked eye, or who was lame or possessing any kind of a physical blemish, should be admitted into the congregation of the Lord (Lev. xxi.) This was punishing the unfortunate for defects they could not help, thus aggravating the misfortunes of a class who, above all others, had special claims upon his kindness on account of the very defects for which they were excluded. These laws, and many others no better, sufficiently illustrate the character of the man. His penal code, which inflicted death for two hundred acts, many of them no crime at all (such as picking up sticks on the sabbath to make a fire to cook their food with), furnishes conclusive evidence that he was a cruel and unmerciful lawgiver. And the fact that he was almost constantly engaged in a bloody warfare with neighboring nations, with the avowed determination to exterminate them, and "leave nothing alive that breathes," simply because they preferred to worship some other God than the cruel Jehovah, leads to the conclusion that he was a bloody-minded warrior. Had Christ lived under the Hebrew monarchy, Moses' laws would have put him to death; and yet they both claimed to derive their moral code from the same God, the Jewish Jehovah. A circumstance is related of Moses killing an Egyptian, and hiding him in the sand. And it is stated, "He looked this way and that way" before committing the deed, and then concealed the dead body. This implies that he felt guilty, and that it was an act of murder in the first degree. Although every chapter of Moses' history proves him to have been a cruel and bloody-minded barbarian, with a moral code possessing but a slight exhibition of the elements of mercy, humanity, and justice, yet Dr. Gaussel, in his "Theopneustia," calls him "a holy and divine man," and says, "He was such a prophet, that his holy books were placed above all the rest of the Old Testament." The doctor furnishes us one of the many cases of the blinding and biasing effect of a perverted religious education, and an argument in favor of laboring to supersede Bible religion with something better. Here we will notice it as a curious circumstance, that, after Jehovah had occupied but six days in creating eighty-five millions of worlds, and made most of them in a few hours, it should have taken him and Moses both forty days to write a law, and a very imperfect one at that. And then it would seem it took Jehovah three thousand years to make a devil, as his Satanic Majesty does not figure in the Jewish hierarchy till after the lapse of that period.
One of the most conspicuous traits in Moses' mental composition was an unbounded self-esteem. Although he claimed to be in constant consultation with Jehovah, he seldom yielded to his advice when it conflicted with his own judgment. On the contrary, he several times detected his God in error, and admonished him, and entered into an argument to convince him that he was wrong; and, of course, he always came out first best in the logical contest. Take, for example, the case of Aaron making the golden calf. It occurred while he and Jehovah were engaged in writing "the holy law" on Mount Sinai. When the case became known to Jehovah, it so disturbed and aggravated him, that he at once declared he would not only punish the guilty sinner,—the apostate Aaron,—but would exterminate the whole race. But the better tempered and more considerate Moses began to reason and remonstrate against such a rash act. He appealed to his honor and love of approbation, and told him the Egyptians would report that he was not able to get his "holy people" to the promised land, and hence killed them to conceal the failure. "Oh, yes, Moses, you are right! I never thought of that," was the seeming reply of Jehovah. And thus Moses proved to be smarter than his God, and enlightened his ignorance.
Here we will call the attention of the reader to the resemblance between Moses and the still more ancient Egyptian Mises, or Bacchus. It is so striking, that we can not resist the conviction that they were originally closely connected with each other. 1. Bacchus, like Moses, was born in Egypt. 2. Bacchus, or Mises, was also exposed to danger on the River Nile, like Moses. 3. Bacchus lived on a mountain in Arabia called Nisas; Moses sojourned on Mount Sinai in Arabia. 4. Bacchus passed through the Red Sea dry-shod with a multitude of men, women,, and children, as Moses is represented as doing. 5. Bacchus likewise parted the waters of the River Orontes, as Moses did those of Jordan. 6. Bacchus commanded the sun to stand still, as Moses' friend Joshua did. 7. Bacchus, with his wand, caused a spring of wine to spring from the earth, as Moses did a spring of water to flow from a rock with the "rod of God," or "the rod of divination." 8. Mises, like Moses, also engraved his laws on tables of stone. 9. Both have been represented in pictures with rays coming out of their heads, indicative of the light of the sun. Thus, it will be observed, the resemblance runs through nearly the whole line of their history. That Bacchus figured in history anterior to the time of Moses, no person versed in Oriental history can doubt,—a fact which impels us to the conclusion that the two stories got mixed before the history of Moses was written! There is one important chapter in the practical life of Moses we can not omit to notice before we close his history, as it furnishes a still fuller illustration of his character. We allude to his deliverance of "the Lord's holy people" from Egyptian bondage. Several of the incidents in this narrative are incredibly absurd; and some of them of such demoralizing tendency, that it becomes the duty of the moralist to expose them to view. The conduct of his God Jehovah toward the King of Egypt in this case is so repulsive and unjust, that it must call forth the condemnation of every honest-minded reader possessing a true sense of justice.
1. We are told that Jehovah, through Moses, frequently ordered Pharaoh to let his people go, and then as often hardened his heart that he should not let them go; and finally punished him with death because he was unwilling to let them go.
It would certainly be difficult to discover any sense or any justice or any consistency in such conduct.
2. It looks like not only a strange kind of justice, but monstrous injustice, for Jehovah or any God to kill a man for doing what he had purposely compelled him to do. Live frogs, lice, flies, blood, vengeance, and death were poured out upon the king and his subjects, ostensibly for the purpose of compelling him to liberate the Jewish nation; and yet it was morally impossible for him to do so, because the same Jehovah had planted in his mind the determination not to let them go.
3. When Moses spake to Pharaoh in the name of Jehovah to release the Israelites, the king asked, "Who is the Lord [thy Lord] that I should obey his voice?" Here let it be borne in mind that different nations had their own Gods. And Moses' God is here the same itinerant being who had been rambling about among the bushes, hunting his lost child (Adam), eating griddle-cakes with Abraham, wrestling all night with Jacob, getting whipped in a fight with the Canaanites, &c. Pharaoh was therefore justified in calling for his credentials.
4. In nearly all the contests between Jehovah and other Gods, their power is fully admitted; and their success was only secondary to that of the God of Israel. The question was not, Shall Jehovah succeed, and other Gods fail? but, Shall Jehovah be awarded the first prize in the contest, and his name stand at the top of the list?
5. There are many texts in the Bible which go to show that Jehovah was jealous of other Gods, and perpetually in fear of being outgeneraled by them. "Ye shall know that I am the Lord," was the constant burden of his song. In the case before us he is represented as saying to Pharaoh, "In this thou shalt know that I am the Lord" (Exod. vii. 17). "It is true you have a God, and he is very smart and powerful; but he can't come up to me."
6. Jehovah seems to have been actuated by an aspiration for fame and power, as well as by a sympathy for his people in this contest with Pharaoh; for he is represented as saying, "I will get me honor upon Pharaoh and his host" (Exod. xiv. 17). Here seems to be displayed a spirit of vanity, and a thirst for glory,—the aspiration of vain rulers and petty tyrants.
7. The magicians kept up with Moses' God in the performance of miracles till it came to making lice: here they failed. We might conjecture it was because all the dust had been already converted into lice by Jehovah, were it not that they had previously converted the water into blood just after Jehovah had performed that miracle, and left not a pint to drink.
8. In the achievement of all the ten prodigies, there is no intimation but that the heathen magicians performed the miracles in the same manner that Moses did, and with equal success in most cases and in all the most difficult ones; thus leaving Jehovah no laurels worth boasting of.
9. There must have been a great many thousand honest men and women in Egypt; and yet Jehovah is represented as killing the first-born of all Egyptian parents without any distinction of character, or any regard to their innocence; and even the first-born of beasts also. In the name of justice and mercy, what sin had the beasts committed that they had to be punished?
10. We are somewhat puzzled to see how the magicians could turn all the waters of Egypt into blood, when it was already blood, having been converted into blood a short time before by Moses and Jehovah.
11. And it seems strange that Pharaoh should have horses enough for six hundred "chosen chariots" (Exod. xiv. 7) after they had all been killed, three or four times by some of the plagues of Egypt.
12. It is not strange that Aaron's rod should swallow up the others as represented; for he had such a start in the business, and had made such a large serpent, he had probably used up most of the materials, and left nothing but scraps for making others.
13. The Christian who can lay down his Bible after reading such stories as this, and not feel his natural and instinctive love of honesty, justice, and morality weakened, must be wrongly fortified by nature against moral corruption.
A brief history of the father of the Jewish tribe will tend to illustrate and indicate the character of the whole nation, as children usually inherit the qualities of their parents.
1. We will first notice the great promise which Jehovah made to Abraham with respect to the boundless extent of his future dominion. His seed were to be as the dust of the earth or the sands of the sea for multitude (Gen. xiii. 16). And how has this promise been fulfilled? Why, after a faithful compliance with the command to "multiply and replenish the earth" for more than three thousand years, his whole tribe only numbers about six million souls, which is less than one in two hundred of the entire population of the globe. It would take but a few handfuls of dust to furnish the particles to represent the number, instead of all the dust of the earth as promised or predicted.
2. Jehovah promised Abraham, in the second place, all the country "from the river of Egypt to the great river,—the River Euphrates" (Gen. xv. 18). And yet, after the lapse of three thousand years, we do not find many occupying a foot of it. Another failure to execute his promise.
3. "To thee will I give it [the promised land], and to thy seed for ever" (Gen. xiii. 15). It will be observed here, that the title and possession was to be perpetual,—to the end of the world, "for ever." And yet it has been in the possession of other nations five or six times; and now not many of the Lord's holy people can be found there. Another signal failure.
4. Jehovah promised Abraham all the land "from the river of Egypt to the River Euphrates;" but they have never had possession of the country within two hundred miles of the river of Egypt (Nile). A writer quaintly suggests that Jehovah could never have previously seen the country he selected for his holy people, or he would not have chosen it; for all modern travelers agree in describing it as being a poor, mountainous, rocky, barren, and desolate country. One writer says, "It is a country of rocks and mountains, stones, cliffs, bounded by vast, dreary, and uninhabitable deserts." St. Jerome describes it as being "the refuse and rubbish of nature." And this is the country, let it be remembered, that Jehovah promised his people as the chosen spot of the earth. How little he knew of geography!
5. Jehovah and Abraham appear to have been very intimate friends, as they ate and slept together; and the "Judge of all the earth" was often a guest in the little, narrow, mud-built hut of the patriarch to eat veal, parched corn, and griddle-cakes with him, and have his feet washed also by the old man (Gen. xviii. 18). From such circumstances it would appear that Jehovah traveled over the country in the character of a foot-pad or "tramp," and got into the mud occasionally. It is strange that Christians can read their Bible without noticing this disparaging caricature of their God.
6. Abraham's conduct towards his servant-girl Hagar is both I disgraceful and inhuman, as he first destroyed her character and virtue by criminal intimacy, and then turned her and her child into the wilderness to starve (Gen. xxi.). Such conduct is certainly very reprehensible.
7. And this is the man who is represented as being chosen by a God of infinite wisdom, infinite purity, and infinite holiness, to stand at the head of the moral regeneration and salvation of the whole human race. Such a conception is derogatory to the divine character, and demoralizing to those who read and believe it.
8. Among other immoral and disgraceful acts of "God's chosen servant," "the righteous patriarch," "the Holy man of God," was that of uttering the most shameful and unblushing falsehood. He is charged with intentional lying on two different occasions, in representing his wife as being his sister,—once to Pharaoh, and once to King Abimelech; and his wife indorsed \ his falsehood. (See Gen. chap. xii. and xx.)
9. And yet, in the face of all these immoral deeds, God is represented as saying, "Abraham kept all my commands, all my statutes, and all my laws." (See Gen. xxvi. 5.) Hence the inevitable conclusion that Abraham was living up to the commands, statutes, and laws of God, while committing these crimes and outrages upon humanity. What a moral, or rather immoral lesson, is this to place before the heathen of foreign countries, and the children of our own, who read the Bible! It must have a tendency to demoralize them, and encourage them in the commission of similar crimes, as certainly as they are beings endowed with human frailties. Note these facts.
10. And we find other disgraceful, as well as incredible, deeds charged to the father of "the faithful." The account of the surrender of his manhood, and the obliteration of every impulse parental feeling required to obtain his consent to butcher his son Isaac upon the altar, imparts a humiliating moral lesson (Gent. xxii.). It matters not that he did not commit the deed. He consented to do it, and was ready to do it; which proves a state of mind calculated to make humanity shudder. The New-Zealanders have been known to point the missionaries to this example as a justification of their cruel practices of slaughtering human beings. If a father in this age of civilization should do such a thing, or even attempt it as Abraham did, he would be looked upon as a monster in human shape, or perfectly insane, even if he should claim that God called upon him to perform the act. It would have been infinitely better to disobey such a God than to disobey and outrage every parental and kindly im-pulse of his nature. But the case furnishes prima-facie evidence that Abraham was under a religious delusion in supposing God required the performance of such an inhuman deed. To assume that he did would make him more of a demon than a God. Any man or woman is to be pitied whose education has misled him or her, and blinded them so that they can not see that the reading of a book teaching such lessons must prove morally injurious to the mind.
11. The injunction on Abraham to slay his son is said to have been imposed upon him to try his faith. His faith in what? I would ask. Faith in his own humanity? faith in his love and affection for his son? Nothing of the kind! but faith in his susceptibility of rendering himself an inhuman monster. Let us suppose a father says to his son, "Richard, I want you to draw a knife, and cut your brother Robert's throat;" and afterwards explains the matter by telling him he issued this order to try whether he would obey him. But his son would evince more manhood, and a better moral character, by refusing to obey him. It is much better to obey the dictates of conscience, humanity, and mercy, than to obey a father or a God in a case like this.
12. And Jehovah is represented as saying, through an angel, "Now I know that thou fearest God" (Gen. xxii. 12); equivalent to saying, "If I had not tried this experiment, I should not have known any thing about it." What blind mortals human beings can become, to suppose that a God of infinite wisdom, who "searcheth the hearts of all men," must resort to cruel and shocking experiments to find out the the state of their minds!
13. But the history of the case discloses the fact that it did not effect the end desired,—that of proving Abraham's faith,—not in the least, unless we assume that Abraham lied in the case. For he said to the young men while on the road to the altar, "Abide here until we [myself and son] go yonder and worship, and come again to you." Here is evidence that Abraham knew he would bring his son back alive; that is, that Isaac would return with him, or that he told a falsehood in order to deceive. The reader can seize which horn of the dilemma he prefers. If he knew what the issue of the case would be, it would, of course, be no trial of his faith whatever. And yet Paul and other New-Testament writers laud the act as being one of great merit and a proof of his faith.
14. We must hasten on. We can only give a passing notice of a few other acts of this illustrious patriarch, in whom "all the nations of the earth were to be blessed." Jehovah is represented as saying to Abraham, on a certain occasion, "I will go down now, and see whether they [the Sodomites] have done according" to my desire. "If not, I will know" (Gen. xviii. 21). This is one of several cases in which "the Judge of' all the earth" is represented as abandoning the throne of heaven, and coming down to learn what was going on below. What a contracted and ignorant being was the Jewish Jehovah!
15. The mission of Jehovah at one time, when he called upon Abraham, was to inform him that his gray-headed wife, approaching a hundred years, was to be blessed with a son in her old age. Has it never occurred to Bible admirers that this and other similar cases represented the Almighty, whom "the heaven of heavens can not contain," as traveling over the country in the character of a fortune-teller, notifying old women that the laws of nature would be suspended long enough to allow them to be blessed or cursed with the care and perplexity of children in their old age?
16. It should be noticed that Abraham's God never reproved him for any of his misdeeds; while, on the other hand, the heathen King Abimelech called the man of God to account for his moral defects (Gen. xx.).
17. One of the most dishonorable acts recorded in the history of Abraham's God was that of bringing a plague upon Pharaoh and his household for receiving, Abaham's wife, when it was brought about wholly through his treachery and misrepresentation, and when it appears that Pharaoh treated her in the most respectful manner.
18. But, with all these moral stains upon the character of Abraham, it becomes a pleasant task to record one good act in his life. He seems to have presented the practical proof that he was a better man than his God; for, when Jehovah threatened the destruction of Sodom for her wickedness, Abraham remonstrated, and suggested that it would be an act of injustice to destroy the righteous with the wicked. It appears that this moral consideration had escaped the mind of Jehovah. What an inconsiderate, reckless being Bible writers represent the Almighty as being!
19. Abraham, according to his history, was a man of valor, and achieved some great exploits. For instance, with the assistance of his regiment of one hundred and eighteen servants, he chased at one time four great kings, with their mighty hosts,—the King of Babylon, the King of Persia, the King of Pontus, and the King of Nations (Gen. xiv.). He drove them, we are told, more than a hundred miles, and recovered his brother Lot from their grasp. A few such daring heroes could have put down the American Rebellion without a battle.
20. We will only observe further, that this "true servant of the Lord" was both a polygamist and an idolater; at least we have the authority of the Jewish writer, Philo, for saying that his father was a maker of images, and that Abraham worshiped them? Such is a brief outline of the character of the man who is held up as an example for us to imitate, and through whom "all the nations of the earth are to be blessed," and the man who stands at the head of that nation through which, we are told, a revelation has been given to the world which is to effect the moral regeneration and salvation of the whole human race. Whether the means are adapted to the ends, the reader is left to judge.
1. In accordance with the adage, "Like father, like son," we find Isaac carrying out the same spirit of fraud and deception practiced by his father. When "the men of the plain asked him about his wife, he said, she is my sister" (Gen. xxvi.); "and this man Isaac was another of the faithful servants of the Lord."
2. If the statement is true that the Lord struck Ananias and Sapphira with sudden death for telling a falsehood, as related in Acts v., the question naturally arises, Why did Abraham and Isaac escape the same fate, as they were guilty of the same sin? Why this partiality? Manifestly, this is a bad lesson in morals.
1. "Like father, like son," is again verified in the practical life of Jacob. We find this patriarch excels, in moral defects, both his father and his grandfather.
2. His conduct toward his brother Esau, in robbing him of his just and inherited rights, is an act which stamps an eternal stigma upon his character. When Jacob's father, old and blind, asked him, "Art thou my son Esau?" he replied, "I am" (Gen. xxvii. 24), thus telling a base falsehood, and deceiving his old father; and this deceptive and underhanded act caused his brother "to cry an exceedingly bitter cry" (Gen. xxvii. 34 ). What an unfeeling brother was this "true servant of the Lord"!
It appears that Isaac and Jehovah both intended that Esau should inherit the blessing; but Jacob outwitted them by the aid and connivance of his mother. This is but a sample of the character and conduct of the family throughout their whole history.
3. Jacob seems to have entertained very singular and selfish ideas in regard to his religious obligation to serve and worship his God. He made it entirely a question of bread and butter, or, rather, of bread and raiment. He proposed to strike up a trade with Jehovah relative to his future allegiance to his government, and to fix the terms of the contract himself (Gen. xxviii.). He kindly and condescendingly told Jehovah, that if he would provide him with food and raiment, and be his constant companion in the future, "then shall the Lord be my God, and this stone shall be God's house; and I will give one-tenth to the Lord of what he giveth me" (Gen. xxviii. 20). Here is the attempt to drive a bargain with Jehovah on the quid-pro-quo principle. We are not informed how Jehovah appreciated this kindly offer. This is an unfortunate omission, as every reader must feel interested in knowing whether he accepted the proposition; and henceforth he whom "the heaven of heavens can not contain" took up his abode in the patriarch's little stone hut. We are led to infer, that, if Jehovah refused to accept his terms, Jacob would henceforth refuse to be a subject of God's kingdom, and thus bring him to grief. This is a sample of the childish conception entertained by the whole Jewish nation of "the God of the universe," if we may presume their God was any thing more than a family or national deity.
4. The proneness of the Lord's holy people to falsify, and deceive is well illustrated in the case of Laban, who, after Jacob had by a fair contract, labored seven years for him for his daughter Rachel, would not let him have her, but forced his older daughter Leah upon him; and, when Jacob complained he told him he must serve seven years more if he got Rachel; and his love for her prompted him to accept the terms. But he seems not to have been well compensated for his fourteen long years of toil for these two sisters. Their subsequent conduct indicates that he "paid dear for the whistle;" and one month's labor ought to have paid for both, even at ten cents a day, for they both turned out to be failures. They were, however, a fair specimen of the race. Rachel stole her father's images; and, when pursued and overtaken by him, she hid them, and told him a falsehood to conceal the act. The circumstance of her father having images, and of her stealing them, is an evidence that both were idolaters (Gen. xxxi.).
5. It is easy to see, from the foregoing facts, from what source the Jewish proclivity to idolatry and also to falsehood was derived. The latter was practically manifested by four hundred prophets at one time. It is true the Lord was charged with putting the lie in their mouths (1 Kings xxii. 22).
6. We are told, that, on a certain occasion, "the sons of Jacob answered Shechem, and Hamor his father, deceitfully" (Gen. xxxiv. 13); by which it appears the spirit or propensity to fraud and deception was still transmitted to their posterity.
Here is one of the illustrious Bible characters who has been held up to the world for several thousand years as the "sweet singer of Israel," and "the man after God's own heart;" whose life is stained by the commission of a long list of crimes of the blackest character, some of which would send him to the State prison for life if committed in this morally enlightened age.
1. One of his first acts of moral delinquency was that of turning traitor to Achish, King of Gath. After the king had kindly given him a rulership over the city of Ziklag, he manifested his ingratitude by waging an unprovoked war for plunder upon the king's friends and relatives, to rob them of their cattle (1 Sam. xxvii.).
2. David, with an army, committed a similar act of aggression and spoliation upon the rights and property of Nabal, to attain his cattle by robbery (1 Sam. xxv.).
3. David at one time turned traitor to his own nation by joining the army of Achish to fight them (1 Sam. xxix.).
4. David obtained possession of the kingdom of Ishboshett by bribery and intrigue, after acknowledging him to be a righteous man (2 Sam. iii.).
5. David robbed Mephibosheth, the son of his bosom-friend Jonathan, and a poor cripple, of one-half of his estate, upon the plea that might makes right (2 Sam. xvi.).
6. David connived at some of the most abominable and atrocious crimes of his sons (2 Sam.).
7. The manner in which David obtained his first wife Michal is shocking to all who possess kind and philanthropic feelings. Saul had proposed a hundred foreskins of the Philistines as the price of his daughter; but David, in wanton cruelty, killed two hundred for this purpose.
8. The manner in which David obtained his beautiful wife Bathsheba, to add to his list of wives, might be tolerated in that era of barbarism; but it must be looked upon at the present time as an act of cruelty and wickedness. He said to Joab, "Set Uriah in the front of the battle... that he may be smitten and die" (2 Sam. xi. 15); which was equivalent to slaying him with his own hands, and for no crime, but solely to get his widow for a wife.
9. Thus, we see, David was not only a polygamist, but he obtained his wives by fraud, murder, and intrigue.
10. David's dancing naked in public was an indecent act, although several cases are reported of "the holy" men of that age appearing in public in a state of nudity. His wife Michal upbraided him for "uncovering himself to the eyes of the handmaids, his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself" (2 Sam. vi.). It is said that "David danced before the Lord with all his might." Can we suppose the Lord would fancy such sights?
11. David's treatment of the Moabites in killing two-thirds of them without any just provocation is an act that would hang any man of the present day (2 Sam. viii.).
12. The fiendish act of David in placing the Moabites under saws and harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and making them walk through brick-kilns (2 Sam. xii.), bespeaks a heart callous with cruelty, unmerciful as a tiger. The very thought of it is calculated to chill the blood of a person with the feelings of common humanity.
13. David's murder of five step-sons and two brothers-in-law, to gratify a malignant grudge toward the house of Saul, is another act showing the fiendish character of the man.
14. When David was so old and stricken in years that no amount of bed-clothing could keep him warm, he made this a plea for marrying another wife—and a young maid at that—to lie in his bosom him warm (1 Kings i. 1). Lust knows no failure in expedients.
15. David's advice to his son Solomon on his death-bed, to assassinate Joab and his other enemies, shows that his ruling passions—animosity and revenge—were strong in death.
16. And finally David's wicked prayer, as found in the hun-dred and ninth Psalm, in which he invokes a string of the most horrid curses upon his enemies, culminates his immoral history. It completes the demoralizing picture of the "man after God's own heart." Now, we ask in solemn earnest, is it not evident that a book indorsing such characters as David, placed in the hands of the heathen of other countries or the children of our own, must have a demoralizing tendency? Most certainly, if
Franklin was right in saying, "The reading of bad examples will make bad morals." Remember, the perpetrator of all these crimes is said to be "a man after God's own heart." If so, then God must have approved of all his crimes. But such a God will not do for this age; and to teach children and heathen such a lesson is calculated to effect their moral ruin.
Solomon's writings and history both show that he was a libertine, a tyrant, and a polygamist. His tyrannical monopoly-of seven hundred wives and three hundred prostitutes, making him a practica "Free-lover" on a large scale, is an indelible stigma upon his character. It was a usurpation of the rights, and a trespass upon the liberties, of nearly two thousand men and women. It prevented them from filling the mission or sphere in life that God designed them to enjoy. The organization of the sexes shows they were designed to be husbands and wives and parents. And the nearly equal number of the sexes is an evidence that nearly a thousand men were deprived of wives by Solomon's monopoly of women; while, on the other hand, those women were prevented from sustaining the true relation of wives. When he could not see those women more than once in three years by calling on one of them each day, it is a farce, and an insult to reason, to call them wives. Could a woman sustain the practical relation of wife to a man she only saw as husband once in three years? The very idea is ridiculous, and a mockery of the true marriage relation. And yet this is the man who is represented as being such a special favorite of God as to receive a portion of his divine wisdom. It is a slander, if any thing can be, upon Infinite Wisdom. By reading his amorous song, we can learn his motives for enslaving such a large number of women.
If this "wise man" is to be accepted as authority (and he should be if he got his wisdom directly from God), then we must relinquish all hope of an immortal existence. Hear him: "For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth the beasts:... as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath, so that a man hath no pre-eminence over a beast" (Eccles. iii. 19). Here is a plain and unequivocal denial of man's conscious existence beyond the grave. Nor does the Old-Testament writer teach the doctrine. Job denies it in still more explicit terms, if possible. (See Job xiv. 10.)
The act of Abram's brother Lot delivering up his two daughters to the Sodomites, "to do to them as is good in your eyes" (Gen. xix. 8), must excite reflections in the highest degree revolting to the mind of every father who has daughters. The act of a father voluntarily offering up his virtuous daughters to gratify the depraved passions of a mob is too shocking to contemplate.
And to accept such a character as a "righteous man" must certainly weaken the faith of the Bible believer in a true system of morality, and plant in his mind a very low standard of the moral perfections of God.
We are told (Gen. xix. 26) that Lot's wife was converted into a pillar of salt as a penalty for the simple act of looking back. Several absurdities are observable in this story:—
1. It is difficult to conceive how any sin or crime could be attached to the natural act of turning the head to look in any direction, especially when no injunction had been laid upon the act.
2. If there were any thing so inherently wrong in the act of looking back as to be visited with such direful penalties, pillars of salt would soon become more numerous than frogs were in Egypt.
3. Reason would suggest that, to put the thing in shape to be believed by future generations, the woman should have been converted into some imperishable substance, such as granite, gold, silver, or pig-iron. A woman made of salt, or salt of a woman, would soon dissolve and disappear.
4. The Hindoos relate that a woman in India was once converted into a pillar of stone for an act of unchastity; and "the stone is there unto this day." Here is a story with a better foundation: the Egyptians have the tradition of a woman being converted into a tree for the act of plucking some fruit after it had been interdicted. How many of these stories should we credit?