the country as tax-gatherers-the publicans of the New Testament. ... Of course, the joint-stock company of Publicani at Rome expected its handsome dividends; so did the tax-gatherers in the provinces, and those to whom they on occasions sublet the imposts. All wanted to make money of the poor people; and the cost of the collection had of course to be added to the taxation."

CHAPTER IX.

THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

1. By Hebrew usage, as recorded in the Bible, it was made a part of a ruler's duty to pronounce judicial decisions in all matters brought before him. The titles ruler and judge are, in fact, often used synonymously. The supreme Ruler and Judge was Jehovah. All others were his vicegerents. "Ye shall not respect persons in judgment," was the command of Moses; "ye shall hear the small and the great alike; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God's."1 Taking a case before a judge is spoken of as inquiring of God, or going before God. To stand before the one was regarded as equivalent to standing before the other. "If an unrighteous witness rise up against any man to testify against him of wrong doing; then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges which shall be in those days."

2. EARLIER LEGAL PROCESSES.-The simplicity of legal processes in the earlier times has been already referred to. As family relations became more and more involved and the unity of the people was more emphasized, heads of families ceased to exercise, to the same extent, the ancient right of sitting in judgment in civil matters. To Moses, as God's vicegerent and the recognized medium of communication with him, this right was transferred. But already loaded down as he was with a multitude of other cares and duties, Moses found his strength inadequate for such a task. On the advice of Jethro, therefore, a body of men, seventy in number, was constituted a court for the consideration of all the less important matters. Putting together the several accounts of the subject found in the Pentateuch, we learn that the body was composed of seventy elders," that is, of men who already represented the nation in an official capacity. They were named by the people and inducted into office by Moses.

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3. This organization, while having for its first object the consideration of matters requiring judicial decisions, was clearly intended to

1 Deut. 1: 17. 2 Ex. 18:15; 21:6; 22:8. 11:16, 17; Deut. 1: 13-18.

8 Deut. 19:16, 17.

4 Ex. 18: 13-27;

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serve the further purpose of being a kind of official military board. This alone can account for the fact that it was made up of men who are spoken of as heads over tens, fifties, hundreds and thousands, respectively. There can have been no such graded series of courts. Each judge or officer was independent in his own sphere. The only appeal possible was to Moses himself; and in every such appeal it was not the people, but the judge, who carried the case to the higher court. If, for any reason, he felt himself incompetent, as for instance from lack of information concerning facts, or because the case involved matters of supreme importance, or because it was something new concerning which the law did not definitely speak, he applied directly to the lawgiver. Some cases regarded as of more immediate public concern continued to be tried by the old method, that is, by a full assembly of the elders of the people."

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4. SUBSEQUENT CHANGES.-This primitive arrangement for the administration of justice came to an end along with the peculiar circumstances that called it forth. It was adapted only to the earlier periods of the national history. As early as the book of Deuteronomy, provision is made for the time when the people shall become settled in the land of Canaan: "Judges and officers [assistants] shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, according to thy tribes: and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. . . . If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates: then shalt thou arise [i. e., the judge] and get thee up unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose; and thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days: and thou shalt inquire; and they shall show thee the sentence of judgment: and thou shalt do according to the tenor of the sentence. And the man that doeth presumptuously, in not hearkening unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die; and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel."

5. It is clear that in this provision we have simply an adaptation to altered circumstances of those previously made.* Like the council of seventy, these judges are to be selected from the elders of the people "according to their tribes." They are assigned to positions of different importance "in all thy gates," that is, in cities small

1 Ex. 18:25.

Num. 11:16, 24-29.

2 Num. 35: 24; Josh. 20:6. 3 Deut. 16:18-20; 17: 8-13. 4 Ex. 18: 13-26;

and great. They have the privilege of appeal in difficult cases to the priest or judge, or to both together, who might at any time be at the head of affairs. This corresponds exactly to the earlier ordinance, where appeal could be taken to Moses and Aaron as the civil and ecclesiastical heads of the nation. As matter of history, moreover, we find a tribunal similar to this in existence not long after the time of Moses. In the ceremony of rehearsing the law on Mount Ebal there are present elders, officers and judges in distinction from the rest of the people. It is to this body, apparently, that Boaz makes application in his efforts to befriend Naomi and Ruth."

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6. The times of the judges being to a considerable extent abnormal, we find the people, not only in other respects but especially in the administration of justice, reverting to primitive usages. The ruler, or temporary military leader, by virtue of his office is recognized as judge; and since in times of peace this was his principal function, the title of judge is accorded to him. Jephthah, for example, is said to have "judged Israel six years;" and after him Ibzan of Bethlehem "judged Israel. "3 In Eli the office of judge is once more joined to that of high priest; while after Samuel the Mosaic ordinance comes to its full right. In harmony with it David appointed a large number of judges and officers, the same terms being used for them as in the Deuteronomic law.*

7. IN THE TIME OF JEHOSHAPHAT.-The next change which, as far as we are informed, took place in the judiciary, occurred during the reign of Jehoshaphat. It is said of him that he "set judges in the land throughout all the fenced cities of Judah, city by city, and said to the judges, Consider what ye do: for ye judge not for man, but for the Lord. . . . Moreover in Jerusalem did Jehoshaphat set of the Levites and the priests, and of the heads of the fathers' houses of Israel, for the judgment of the Lord and for controversies."" If this were our only information concerning the matter we might suppose that, with one exception, the king meant to act in precise conformity with the Deuteronomic law. But in the context we observe a further departure from the original form in the tribunal constituted by Jehoshaphat. "And, behold," he says, "Amariah the chief priest is over you in all matters of the Lord; and Zebadiah the son of Ishmael, the ruler of the house of Judah, in all the king's matters also the Levites shall be officers before you.' This court of Jehoshaphat, then, differed from that provided for in Deuter

1 Josh. 8:33; cf. 24:1. 2 Ruth 4:1-9. 8 Judg. 12: 7, 8. 41 Chron. 23:4; cf. 26:29. 5 2 Chron. 19:5-8. 62 Chron. 19:11.

onomy in three respects. It was composed of priests and Levites instead of Levitical priests alone. It had a civil and ecclesiastical head acting at one and the same time, instead of independently. The civil head is represented by a family chief of Judah, an officer unknown to the earlier legislation, and is supported by the chief of the fathers of Israel.1

8. It is the more important to note the essential distinction between these two forms of judicial procedure, since an effort has been made to confound them. Critics who give a later date to many of the laws hitherto ascribed to Moses hold that in the present case the law of Jehoshaphat's time antedates that of Deuteronomy. But if the facts be as we have stated them, this cannot be successfully maintained. The tribunal of Jehoshaphat did not, any more than previous ones, exclude the authority of the eldership in matters properly belonging to its jurisdiction. When Ahab sought unjustly to possess himself of the vineyard of Naboth, it is said that "the men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who dwelt in his city, did as Jezebel had sent unto them."" From this passage and others, it may be inferred that in alleged capital offences the judgment of the eldership was particularly sought. The prophet Jeremiah, complained of by the priests and false prophets of his day as worthy of death, is cited to answer for his life before the representatives of the whole people, and before them he pleads his case."

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9. DURING AND AFTER THE EXILE.-In the apocryphal book of Susanna it is assumed that during the Babylonian exile the people of Israel executed justice among themselves according to their own usages. It is certain that this privilege was accorded to them by their Persian rulers, and to some degree by their successors the Ptolemies. Josephus, who quotes Strabo, informs us that to such Jews as had found a home in Egypt special places were assigned besides those allotted them in Alexandria. "There is also an ethnarch allowed them," he says, "who governs the nation; and distributes justice to them, and takes care of their contracts and of the laws to them belonging, as if he were the ruler of a free republic.' In Palestine itself local courts continued to exist down to the time of the Romans; and the right of attending to all ordinary civil processes was freely granted to the Jews. Several allusions are made to these courts in the New Testament." Exactly how they were con

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1 Deut. 17:12. 2 Deut. 19:12; 21: 19; 25:7; 1 Kings 21: 11. 3 Jer. 26: 11, 12. 4 Susan. vs. 5, 41. 5 Ezra 7:25; 10:14. 6 Josephus, Antiq. 14, 7:2; 14, 10: 17. 7 Matt. 5:22; 10: 17; Mark 13:9; Luke 12: 14, 58.