Bible Romances Part 5

How did the huge mult.i.tude of people march? If they travelled fifty men abreast, as is supposed to have been the practice in the Hebrew armies, the able-bodied warriors alone would have filled up the road for about _seven miles_, and the whole mult.i.tude would have formed a dense column _twenty-two miles long_. The front rank would have been two days'

journey in advance of the rear.

How did the sheep and cattle march? How was it possible for them to keep pace with their human fellow-travellers? They would naturally not march in a compact array, and the vast drove must therefore have spread widely and lengthened out for miles.

What did the drove live upon during the journey from Barneses to Succoth, and from Succoth to Etham, and from Etham to the Red Sea? Such gra.s.s as there was, even if the sheep and cattle went before the men, women, and children, could not have been of much avail; for what was not eaten by the front ranks must have been trodden under foot at once, and rendered useless to those that followed. After they "encamped by the Red Sea," on the third day, there was no vegetation at all. The journey was over a desert, the surface of which was composed of hard gravel intermixed with pebbles. After crossing the Red Sea, their road lay over a desert region, covered with sand, gravel, and stone, for about nine miles; after which they entered a boundless desert plain, called _El Ati_ white and painfully glaring to the eye; and beyond this the ground was broken by sand-hills. How were the two million sheep and two hundred thousand oxen provisioned during this journey?

What did the Jews themselves live on? The desert afforded them no sustenance until G.o.d miraculously sent manna. They must, therefore, have taken a month's provisions for every man, woman, and child. How could they possibly have provided themselves with so much food on so short a notice? And how could they have carried it, seeing that they were already burdened with kneading-troughs and other necessaries for domestic use, besides the treasures they "borrowed" of the Egyptians.

How did they provide themselves with tents? Allowing ten persons for each tent, they must have required two hundred thousand. Were these carefully got ready in expectation? In the land of Goshen they lived in houses with "lintels" and "side-posts." And how were the tents carried?

The Jews themselves were already well loaded. Of course the oxen remain, but, as Colenso observes, they were not trained to carry t goods on their backs, and were sure to prove refractory under such a burden.

Whence did the Jews obtain their arms? According to Exodus (xiii, 18) "the children of Israel went up _harnessed_ out of the land of Egypt."

The Hebrew word which is rendered "harnessed" appears to mean "armed" or "in battle array" in all the other pa.s.sages where it occurs, and is so translated. Some commentators, scenting a difficulty in this rendering, urge that the true meaning is "by five in a rank." But if 600,000 men marched out of Egypt "five in a rank," they must have formed a column sixty-eight miles long, and it would have taken several days to start them all off, whereas they went out altogether "that self-same day."

Besides, the Jews had arms in the desert, and how could they have possessed them there unless they obtained them in Egypt? If they went out of Egypt "armed," why did they cry out "sore afraid" when Pharaoh pursued them?

According to Herodotus, the Egyptian army, which formed a distinct caste, never exceeded 160,000 men. Why were the Jews so appalled by less than a third of their own number? Must we suppose, with Kalisch, that their bondage in Egypt had crushed all valor and manhood out of their b.r.e.a.s.t.s? Josephus gives a different explanation. He says that the day after Pharaoh's host was drowned in the Red Sea, "Moses gathered together the weapons of the Egyptians, which were brought to the camp of the Hebrews by the current of the sea and the force of the wind a.s.sisting it. And he conjectured that this also happened by Divine Providence, that so they might not be dest.i.tute of weapons." But, as Colenso observes, though body-armor _might_ have been obtained in this way, swords, spears and s.h.i.+elds _could not_ in any number. The Bible, too, says nothing about such an occurrence. We must therefore a.s.sume that 600,000 well-armed Jews were such utter cowards that they could not strike a blow for their wives and children and their own liberty against the smaller army of Pharaoh, but could only whimper and sigh after their old bondage. Yet a month later they fought bravely with the Amalekites, and ever afterwards they were as eager for battle as any Irishman at Donnybrook: fair. How can this difference be accounted for? Could a nation of hereditary cowards become stubborn warriors in the short s.p.a.ce of a month?

Let us now follow the Wandering Jews through the Desert, which they should have crossed in a week or two, but which they travelled up and down for forty years. People who want to make an expeditious journey had better do without a divine guide.

Coming to Marah, they found only bitter water to drink, at which they began to murmur. But the Lord showed Moses a certain tree, which when cast into the water made it sweet. It must have been a wonderful tree to sweeten water for two millions of people. Bitter water, also, quenches thirst more readily than sweet, and it stimulates the appet.i.te, which would be highly desirable under a fierce relaxing sun.

A month after they left Egypt they came to the wilderness of Sin.

There they began to murmur again. Finding themselves without food, they remembered "the flesh pots" of Egypt, and reproached Moses with having brought them into the desert to die of hunger. Both Moses and the Lord seem to have thought it unreasonable on their part to ask for something to eat. Oliver Twist was stared at when he asked for more, but the Jews surprised G.o.d by asking for something to begin with. Yet reflecting, perhaps, that they were after all unable to live without food, the Lord rained down manna from heaven. After the dew evaporated in the morning, they found this heavenly diet lying on the ground. It was "like a coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey." No doubt the angels subsist on it in paradise. Moses preserved a pot of it for the instruction of future generations. The pot has, however, not been discovered up to the present day. Some future explorers may light upon it "in the fulness of time," and so-help to prove the historical character of the Pentateuch.

The manna, as might be expected, had some peculiarities. No matter how much or how little he gathered, every man found on measuring that he had exactly an omer of it. Although it fell regularly every week day, none fell on Sunday. A double quant.i.ty had, therefore, to be gathered on Sat.u.r.day. It melted in the sun, but could nevertheless be baked and seethed. Any of it left overnight stank in the morning and bred worms.

For forty years "the children of Israel did eat manna." But more than once their gorge rose against it. Manna for breakfast, manna for lunch, manna for dinner, manna for tea, and manna for supper, was a little more than they could stand, The monotony of their diet became intolerable.

Accordingly, we read in the twenty-first chapter of _Numbers_, that they complained of it and asked for a slight change in the bill of fare.

"There is no bread," said they, "neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light food." This small request so incensed the Lord that he sent a lot of fiery serpents among them, which bit them so that "much people of Israel died." Like Oliver Twist, the Jews quickly repented their presumption. They humbled themselves before Moses, and he interceded with G.o.d for them. The prophet then made a bra.s.s serpent and set it on a pole, and on looking at it all who had been bitten recovered.

On another occasion, as we read in the eleventh of _Numbers_, they were guilty of a similar offence. This time it was the more surprising, as G.o.d had just burnt a lot of them up with raging fire for 'complaining.'

They remembered "the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cuc.u.mbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick." "Now," said they, "there is nothing at all, besides this manna, before our eyes-Who shall give us flesh to eat?" The Egyptian bill of fare was certainly enough to make their mouths water, and it proves that if Pharaoh made them work hard he did not starve them, as Jehovah very nearly succeeded in doing. They were so affected by their recollection of the luscious victuals they enjoyed in Egypt, that they actually cried with sorrow at their loss. Moses heard them weeping, "every man in the door of his tent." This put the Lord in a very bad temper; and Moses, who seems to have been much less irascible than Jehovah, "also was displeased." G.o.d determined to give them a surfeit.

"Ye shall," said he, "not eat flesh one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days nor twenty days; but even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and be loathsome unto you." Thereupon the Lord sent a wind which brought quails from the sea. They were so plentiful that they fell in heaps two cubits high for about twenty miles around the camp. That worthy commentator, the Rev. Alexander Cruden, says that the miracle of this occurrence consisted, not in the great number of quails, but in their being "brought so seasonably" to the Jewish camp. The quant.i.ty did not trouble his credulous mind. "Some authors," says he, "affirm that in those eastern and southern countries, quails are innumerable, so that in one part of Italy within the compa.s.s of five miles, there were taken about an hundred thousand of them every day for a month together; and that sometimes they fly so thick over the sea, that being weary they fall into s.h.i.+ps, sometimes in such numbers, that they sink them with their weight." The good man's easy reliance on 'some authors.' and his ready acceptance of such fables, show what credulity is engendered by belief in the Bible.

The Jews gathered quails for two days and a night, and joyfully carried them home. But "while the flesh was yet between their teeth," the Lord smote them with a very great plague, so that mult.i.tudes of them died.

Poor devils! They were always in hot water.

How the sheep and cattle were provisioned the Bible does not inform us.

There was scarcely a nibble of gra.s.s to be had in the desert, and as they could not very well have lived on sand and pebbles, they must have been supported miraculously. Perhaps the authors of the Pentateuch forgot all about this.

Not only were the Jews, like their flocks and herds, miraculously supported; they were also miraculously found in clothes. For forty years their garments and shoes did not wear out. How was this miracle wrought?

When matter rubs against matter, particles are lost by abrasion. Did the Lord stop this process, or did he collect all the particles that were worn off during the day and replace them by night, on the soles of shoes, on the elbows of coats, and on the knees of pantaloons? If the clothes never wore out, it is fair to suppose that they remained absolutely unchanged. Imagine a toddling urchin, two years old at the exodus from Egypt, wearing the same rig when he grew up to manhood!

Justin, however, says that the clothes grew with their growth. Some Jewish rabbis hold that angels acted as tailors in the wilderness, and so the garments were all kept straight. But Augustine, Chrysostom, and other Fathers abide by the literal interpretation that, through the blessing of G.o.d, the clothes and shoes never wore out, so that those who grew to manhood were able to hand them over, as good as new, to the rising generation. According to this theory, _everybody_ must have had a poor fit, unless there was a transference of garments every twelve months or so.

The history of the Wandering Jews is full of miracles and wonders. It says that all the congregation of Israel, numbering over two millions, a.s.sembled at the door of the Tabernacle. As the whole width of the Tabernacle was eighteen feet, only nine men could have stood in front of it; and therefore the warriors of Israel alone, to say nothing of the rest of the population, if we allow eighteen inches between each rank of nine men, would have formed a column nearly _twenty miles_ long! We find also that Moses, and Joshua after him, addressed not only the whole congregation of Israel, including men, women, and children, but the "mixed mult.i.tude" of strangers as well. Their voices were distinctly heard by a crowded ma.s.s of people as large as the entire population of London. They must have had stentorian lungs, or the people must have had a wonderful sense of hearing.

When the Jews were encamped, according to Scott's estimate, they lived in a sort of "moveable city, _twelve miles square_," nearly as large as London. The people had to go outside this vast camp every day to bring in a supply of water and fuel, after cutting the latter down where they could find it! All their rubbish had to be carried out in like manner, for Jehovah used sometimes to take a walk among them, and he was highly displeased at seeing dirt. Every man, woman, and child, including the old, the sick, and the infirm, had to go outside the camp to attend to the necessities of nature! All the refuse of their mult.i.tudinous.

sacrifices had to be lugged out of the camp by the three priests, Aaron, Eleazer, and Itharnar. Colenso reckons that the sacrifices alone, allowing less than three minutes for each, would have occupied them incessantly during the whole twenty-four hours of every day. The pigeons brought to them daily as sin offer-ings must have numbered about 264, and as these had to be consumed by the three priests, each of them had to eat 88 pigeons a day, besides heaps of roast beef and other victuals!

Soon after the first fall of manna, the Jews murmured again because they had no water. Whereupon Moses smote a rock with his magical rod, and water gushed from it. The precious fluid came just in time to refresh them for their fight with the Amalekites. These people were very obstinate foes, and it required a miracle to defeat them. Moses ascended a hill and held up his hand. While he did so the Israelites prevailed, but when he let down his hand the Amalekites prevailed. To ensure victory, Aaron and Hur stood on either side of him, and held up his hands until the sun set. By this means Joshua discomfited the Amalekites with great slaughter. Moses built an altar to celebrate the event, and G.o.d swore that he would "have war with Amelek from generation to generation." As Jehovah's vengeance was so lasting, it is no wonder that his wors.h.i.+pers carried on their wars ever afterwards on the most h.e.l.lish principles.

In the thirty-first chapter of Numbers we read that 12,000 Israelites warred against Midian. The brag of the chronicler is evident in this number or in those which follow. This little army polished off all the kings of Midian, burnt all their cities and castles, slew 48,000 men, and carried off 100,000 captives, besides, 675,000 sheep, 72,000 oxen, and 61,000 a.s.ses. What prodigious spoil there was in those days! Of the captives Moses ordered 48,000 women and 20,000 boys to be ma.s.sacred in cold blood; while the remaining 32,000 "women that had not known man by lying with him" were reserved for another fate. The Lord's share of these was thirty-two! They were of course handed over to the priests as his representatives. Parsons, who rail against the immorality of scepticism, say that this is all true.

These Midianites were a tough lot; for although they were _all killed_ on this occasion, and their cities and castles burnt, we find them a powerful nation again in the sixth of _Judges_, and able to prevail against the Jews for seven years.

Another people badly punished by the Jews were the inhabitants of Bashan.

All their cities were destroyed to the number of sixty. Their king, Og, was a gigantic fellow, and slept on an iron bed twelve feet long. The cities of Heshbon were destroyed in the same way. All the men, women, and children, were slaughtered. Not one was spared.

We shall hereafter follow the Jews under Joshua. For the present we must content ourselves with a last reference to their wanderings under Moses.

While they were encamped round Mount Sinai, their leader received an invitation to go up and visit G.o.d who had been staying there for six days. They had much to talk about, and the interview lasted forty days and forty nights. At the end of it Moses descended, carrying with him the Ten Commandments, written by the finger of G.o.d on two tables of stone. In his absence the Wandering Jews had given him up as lost, and had induced Aaron to make them a G.o.d, in the shape of a golden calf, to go before them. This image they were wors.h.i.+pping as Moses approached the camp, and his anger waxed so not that he threw down the tables and broke all the Ten Commandments at once. He then burnt the calf in fire and ground it to powder, mixed it with water and made them drink it. He also sent the Levites among them, who put three thousand men to the edge of the sword. G.o.d wanted to destroy them altogether, but Moses held him back. "Let me alone," said the Lord. "No, no," said Moses, "just think what the Egyptians will say; they'll laugh at you after all as a poor sort of a G.o.d; and remember, too, that you are bound by an oath to multiply your people and to let them inherit the land of promise." So the Lord cooled down, and wrote out the Decalogue again on two fresh tables of stone. This Decalogue is supposed to be the foundation of morality. But long before the time of Moses moral laws were known and observed in Egypt, in India, and among all the peoples that ever lived.

Moral laws are the permanent conditions of social health, and the fundamental ones must be observed wherever any form of society exists.

Their ground and guarantee are to be found in human nature, and do not depend on a fabulous episode in the history of the Wandering Jews.

THE TOWER OF BABEL.

BIBLE ROMANCES.--VIII.

By G. W. FOOTE.

The Bible, it is frequently a.s.serted, was never meant to teach us science, but to instruct us in religion and morality; and therefore we must not look to it for a faithful account of what happened in the external world, but only for a record of the inner experiences of mankind. Astronomy will inform us how the heavenly bodies came into existence, and by what laws their motions are governed; Geology will acquaint us with the way in which the earth's crust was formed, and with the length of time occupied by the various stages of the process; and Biology will tell us all about the origin and development of living things. G.o.d has given us reason, by exercising which we may gather knowledge and establish sciences, so as to explain the past, ill.u.s.trate the present, and predict the future; and as reason is sufficient for all this, there is no need of a divine revelation in such matters. But as reason is insufficient to teach the will of G.o.d and the laws of morality, a divine revelation of these is necessary, and the Bible contains it.

This plausible contention cannot, however, be maintained. The Bible is not silent with respect to astronomy, geology, or biology. It makes frequent and precise statements concerning them, and in nearly every instance it contradicts scientific truth as we have amply proved in previous numbers of this series.

The eleventh chapter of Genesis gives an explanation of the diversity of languages on the earth. It does this in the truest spirit of romance.

Philologists like Max Muller and Whitney must regard the story of the Tower of Babel, and the confusion of tongues, as a capital joke. A great many parsons may still believe it, but they are not expected to know much.

One fact alone is enough to put the philology of Genesis out of court.

The native languages of America are all closely related to each other, but they have no affinity with any language of the Old World. It is therefore clear that they could not have been imported into the New World by emigrants from the plains of Central Asia. The Genesaic theory is thus proved to be not of universal application, and consequently invalid.

Let us come to the Bible story. Some time after the Flood, and before the birth of Abraham, "the whole earth was of one language and one speech;" or, as Colenso translates the original, "of one lip, and of one language." This primitive tongue must have been Hebrew. G.o.d spoke it in Eden when he conversed with our first parents, and probably it is spoken in heaven to this day. For all we know it may be spoken in h.e.l.l too. It probably is, for the Devil and his angels lived in heaven before they were turned into h.e.l.l, and we may conclude that they took their native language with them. It was spoken by Adam when he named his wife in Paradise; by Eve, after the expulsion when she gave names to her sons, Cain and Seth; by Lamech, shortly before the Flood, when he explained the name of Noah; and indeed, as Colenso observes, "it is obvious that the names of the whole series of Patriarchs from Adam to Noah, and from Noah onwards, are in almost every instance pure Hebrew names." Delitzsch, however, thinks it comparatively more probable that the Syriac or Nabataan tongue, preserved after the dispersion at Babylon, was the one originally spoken. Yet he dismisses the possibility of demonstrating it.

He supposes that the names of Adam and the other patriarchs have been altered, but not so as to lose any of their original meaning; in other words, that they have been, by G.o.d's grace, translated with perfect accuracy from the primeval speech. But Colenso very justly remarks that the original doc.u.ments do not allude to a process of translation, and that we have no right to a.s.sume it. He also adds that "if the authority of Scripture is sufficient to prove the fact of a primeval language, it must also prove that this language was Hebrew."

Yet the Bible is wrong, for Hebrew could not have been the primitive speech. It is only a Semitic dialect, a branch of the Semitic stem.

Sanscrit is another stem, equally ancient; and according to Max Muller and Bunsen, both are modifications of an earlier and simpler language.

Neither has the least affinity with Chinese, which again, like them, differs radically from the native dialects of America. As Hosea Biglow sings,

"John P. Robinson, he Says they didn't know everything down in Judee."

And most certainly they did not know the true origin and development of the various languages spoken by the nations of the earth.

The people who dwelt on the earth after the Deluge, and all spoke one language, journeyed from the east, found a plain in, the land of s.h.i.+nar, and dwelt there. s.h.i.+nar is another name for Babylon. After dwelling there no one knows exactly how long, "they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter." The writer of this story was very fond of short cuts. It took men a long time to learn the art of making bricks; and the idea of their suddenly saying to each other "let us make brick," and at once proceeding to do so, is a wild absurdity.

Having made a lot of bricks, they naturally wished to do something with them. So "they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." How could making a name, for the information of n.o.body but themselves, prevent their dispersion? And how could they resolve to build a "city," when they had never seen one, and had no knowledge of what it was like? Cities are not built in this manner. "Rome wasn't built in a day" is a proverb which applies to all other places as well. London, Paris, and Rome, are the growth of centuries, and the same must have been true of ancient capitals.

The reason a.s.signed by Scripture for the work of these primitive builders is plainly inadequate. A more probable reason is that they mistrusted G.o.d's promise never again to destroy the earth with a flood, and therefore determined to build a high tower, so that, if another deluge came, they might ascend above the waters, or, if need be step clean into heaven itself. Their lack of faith is not surprising. We find the same characteristic on the part of believers in our own day. They believe in G.o.d's promises only so far as it suits their interest and convenience. Scripture says, "Whoso giveth unto the poor lendeth unto the Lord." Yet there are thousands of rich Christians who seem to mistrust the security.