SAUL AND DAVID WERE KINGS OF AN INSIGNIFICANT TRIBE OF SHEPHERDS BUT WHEN SOLOMON CAME TO THE THRONE THE JEWS HAD GAINED GREAT IMPORTANCE AS TRADERS AND MERCHANTS AND IN LESS THAN A SINGLE CENTURY THE COUNTRY HAD BEEN CHANGED FROM A LOOSE FEDERATION OF TRIBES INTO A STRONG STATE RULED BY AN ORIENTAL DESPOT
The Jews had now been living for several centuries in the mountains and in the valleys on both sides of the river Jordan.
After the interminable wars with the original inhabitants of the land of Canaan and with the neighbours of east and west and south and north,the country had at last settled down to a period of comparative peace.
New roads were being opened and caravans,carrying merchandise from Memphis to Babylonia and from Asia Minor to Arabia,began to make use of the highways which ran so conveniently through this western corner of the Asiatic mainland.
This meant a slow but gradual and distinct change in the lives of the people.
The Jewish people had always been fond of city life.Even in the days of Moses,they had preferred the bondage of the Egyptians slums to the liberty of the isolated farms of the Promised Land.With the utmost difficulty had Moses been able to drag his unwilling relatives away from the pleasures and the safety of the high-walled towns.
Now,however,the tribes were their own master.Moses was dead and Joshua,his great successor,was dead and the days of hardship and triumph were beginning to be forgotten.
The life of the farmer and of the shepherd was not an easy one.The hours of work were long and there was little opportunity for pleasure.On the other hand,great profits could be made quite easily in one of the trading-posts along the busy caravan routes.
It was difficult to withstand the temptation.Many people left their villages and returned to the cities.Soon riches increased.But so did poverty.While the cause of national independence and personal liberty began to suffer until it was irretrievably lost.
It is true that the famous Judges who had been in command of the tribal armies during the wars of conquest had often ruled the country with the power of absolute sovereigns.
None,however,had dared to call themselves King.
Their subjects would not have tolerated such a step.
They would have killed the man who tampered with their liberties.
They were willing to obey him as long as the country was in danger.But when peace returned,the Judge was merely the president of a small union of half-independent tribes.People respected him (just as we respect the Chief Justice of the United States),but it was a far cry from kingship and homage.
As soon as the country ceased to be an agricultural community and became a business office,all this began to change.The majority of the Jews no longer cared to be bothered with affairs of state.They wanted to be left alone that they might devote themselves to their own affairs and might tend to their farms or their businesses.Meanwhile they were quite willing that a few professional military men and a few professional priests should look after the physical and spiritual well-being of the nation.
Of course,they hated to pay taxes.We all do.But provided that those taxes were kept within certain reasonable bounds,the people asked no questions and did not complain.As a result,the country drifted inevitably towards a more and more centralised form of government.Finally it became an absolute kingdom and in less than a century,it grew into a full-fledged,oriental despotism,as we shall tell you in this Chapter.
All of this did not come without warning.
In history,as in nature,nothing ever happens suddenly.
It often looks that way.
But the underlying secret causes for an abrupt change have been at work for hundreds of years.The final collapse of a mountain or the downfall of an old institution may take a few minutes or seconds.The work of preparation,however,and of slow demolition has been the labour of many generations.
And the Jewish nation just then was passing through such a period of transition,although not one citizen in a hundred thousand seemed to understand what was actually happening.
Perhaps this is a slight exaggeration.Not all the people were entirely blind to the dangers which threatened the national soul.A few men who could see things more sharply than their neighbours uttered ominous words of warning.
They were called Prophets.
As we shall meet them upon every page of the rest of our story,we ought to tell you something about them.
What was a Prophet?
It is hard to define the word.
Perhaps we shall do best by calling the Prophets the spiritual leaders of the Jewish people.
Many of them were great poets.But they were more than that.
Several of them had the gift of speech.But they were something beyond mere orators.
One thing they all had in common.They dared to stand up for the truth as they saw it.
A good many of them were very narrow-minded and utterly intolerant of any opinion which differed from their own view.But they had the courage of their convictions and sacrificed everything (including their own lives)when it came to a question of principles.
Whenever a King of Israel or a King of Judah committed a wrong,there was a Prophet to tell him so.
Whenever the people left the narrow path of divine righteousness,a Prophet stepped forth to remind them of the error of their ways.
Whenever the nation was guilty of a crime,a Prophet foretold the coming wrath of almighty Jehovah.
Until the voice of the Prophets became the concrete expression of the national conscience.
Centuries afterwards,when the Jewish state lay buried beneath the ruins of its own follies,this national conscience,the work of half a hundred men,remained as the triumphant heritage which the people of Israel and the people of Judah bestowed upon all mankind.
In the coming Chapters,we shall have to give an account of an exceedingly complicated period of history.
First of all,a union of semi-independent little wandering tribes becomes a kingdom under David.
