our Lord and his disciples ate the Passover in this posture of repose; and the Hebrew commentators on the law universally ascribe the change of ceremonial to the change of their condition as the covenant people of God. It was not their ordinary mode of sitting, but one peculiar to the Passover. The table at which it was eaten was surrounded with couches; and they leaned on the table with their left arm supporting their head, drawing up their feet behind them as far as possible, to denote that they were at rest from walking, and leaving their right arm at liberty to feed upon the lamb. The master thus reclined at the head of the table, and the person he most honoured was placed at his right hand, with his back so turned towards him, that if he addressed any words to the master, he must of necessity throw his head backward towards the master's breast. It was thus that the beloved disciple addressed Jesus at the request of St. Peter,65 and thus did our Lord represent the poor Lazarus as reclining in familiar converse on the bosom of Abraham.66 It is probable, for the reasons now assigned, that the change took place at the first Passover after the Israelites had taken possession of their land; and as the solemnity of that possession was at the feast of Tabernacles, the change of ceremonial was introduced in the following spring, the evening of Sunday, April the eighteenth, B. V. Æ. 1457. VIII. Two more events only are recorded in the lifetime of Joshua; and these were two general assemblies of the nation. The first was "a long time after the Lord had given rest unto Israel."'67 Josephus says that it was "after the twentieth year of Joshua's government."63 Consequently, it must have been in the second sabbatical year, "in the solemnity of the 65 John xiii. 25. 66 Luke xvi. 22. See Lightfoot on the manner of eating the Passover, in his Temple Service as it stood in the days of our Saviour, ch. xiii., with the authorities there cited. Works, vol i. p. 67 Josh. xxiii. 1. A. J. P. 3269. 1445 year of release, and at the feast of Tabernacles." There was then an express command to gather the people together, men and women and children, and even the "stranger within their gates," to hear the law read.69 As it was also expressly commanded to " appear before the Lord in the place which he should choose," there can be no doubt that it was in Shiloh. In that year the feast of Tabernacles extended from Friday, September thirtieth, to Friday the seventh of October. The sons of Kohath, whose duty it was to read the law to the people from the manuscript of Moses deposited in the Holy of Holies, had no sooner ended, than their aged ruler began to address them, recounting the mercies of God, and exhorting them to continue their present obedience as the only condition of their future prosperity. He ended by adverting to his own death, which could not be far distant, and warned them of the miseries which would follow if they slighted his exhortations.70 We have no means of ascertaining, from the Bible, the length of Joshua's government. We know not his age when he succeeded Moses, though at the time of his death he was a hundred and ten years old." Perceiving that his end was approaching, he "gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem." Eusebius, computing probably six years for the war, and three periods of seven years, makes the duration of his government twenty-seven years. But this arose from his following the Greek version, which substitutes Shiloh for Shechem. Hence he supposed that the last recorded assembly of the nation was at the commencement of a sabbatical year. The Hebrew text, the Targum, the Syriac, and the Vulgate, read invariably Shechem. This shows that it was not a sabbatical year; and, therefore, there seems no reason to depart from the authority of Josephus, who says that he commanded. the nation five and twenty years. He was born, therefore, 69 Deut. xxxi. 9-13. 70 Josh. xxiii. 2-16. 72 71 Josh. xxiv. 29. 72 Joseph. Antiq. lib. v. c. i. 29. in Egypt, B. V. Æ. 1549, was forty-five years old at the Exodus, succeeded Moses when he was eighty-five, and died early in the year B. V. Æ. 1439. Shechem was about forty miles to the north of Jerusalem, and ten from Shiloh, in the plain between Gerizim and Ebal, the mountains of blessing and cursing, and near TimnathSerah, the abode of Joshua.73 It was that portion which Jacob gave to Joseph as a peculiar inheritance," and there the children of Israel buried his body, which, by a solemn oath, he had required them to carry out of Egypt.75 There the Ark was placed when, after the entrance into Canaan, the covenant was renewed; and thither it was easy to convey the aged Joshua, even if he was so infirm as to be carried on his bed. By all these associations the place was hallowed; and when he gave his dying charge, the Ark was probably conveyed from Shiloh, and the several tribes lined the slope of Gerizim and Ebal, in the same order and with the same solemnities as had been observed more than twenty years before, when the blessings and curses enjoined by Moses had been proclaimed. "If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord," said the dying chief, "choose you this day whom ye will serve; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." The very language shows distrust and apprehension; yet we are assured that "Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua." Yet the leaven of idolatry was secretly at work; and when all of that generation who were old enough to remember the wonderful guidance from Egypt to Canaan had passed away, it spread itself among their children with frightful rapidity.78 73 Reland. Palæst. 1004-1010. 74 Gen. xlviii. 22. Calmet's Dict. v. Shechem. 75 Gen. 1. 25, 26. Exod. xiii. 19. Josh. xxiv. 32. 76 Josh. xxiv. 15. 78 Judges ii. 7—13. THE ANARCHY 1. Third sabbatical year. CHAPTER III. THE JUDGES THE FIRST KING, SAUL. - National assembly at Shiloh.-Visible manifestation of the Angel-Jehovah. - A theocracy.. - Christ present with his Church. — Anarchy connected with idolatry as the crime, and servitude as the punishment. II. Cushan, Kishathaim and Othniel. Eglon and Ehud. - Jabin and Deborah. III. The Israelites again forget God, and are again punished. — Midianites. — Another visible interposition of the Angel-Jehovah. — Gideon. — Another lapse into idolatry brings on a double servitude of the eastern and western tribes. — Jephthah delivers the east. - His important manifesto. IV. Jephthah's daughter. V. War of Jephthah with Ephraim. — Organic varieties of pronunciation. The south-western tribes suffering from the Philistines.— The Almighty Word now made visible to them. Manoah and his wife. Samson. VI. The story of Boaz and Ruth, remote ancestors of the Blessed Virgin and her Son. VII. The high-priesthood in the house of Ithamar. - Eli combines, for the first time, the civil with the sacerdotal government. Hannah, the mother of Samuel. Her prophetic song. Ministration of Samuel. The sons of Eli and their profligacy. - Death of Sam- The ark taken by the Philistines. - Death of Eli. - Shiloh forsaken. VIII. Samuel judge. National humiliation and fast.- Battle of Ebenezer and freedom from the Philistine yoke. The elders ask for a king. — Saul of Benjamin chosen by God. Afterwards chosen by lot among the people, and anointed. — National attestation to Samuel's integrity. IX. Government of Saul. - First act of disobedience. War with Amalek and second sin, for which he is rejected. — The spirit of God deserts him. X. Samuel ordered to anoint David. Its effect on David. - Victory over Goliath.- Love of Jonathan. - Jealousy of Saul and trials of David. XI. Visitation of God on the family of Eli.- Death of Samuel. — Pythoness of Endor. Samuel's ghost.- Death of Sauĺ. son. GOD I. About eighteen A. J. P. 3276. appointed no successor to Joshua. About or twenty months after his death began the third sabbatical year; and at the feast of Tabernacles the whole of the tribes were congregated at Shiloh, the original books of the law were brought forth from the Holy of Holies, and the whole were read in the hearing of the people. At this time probably the captain of the Lord's host who appeared so mysteriously at Gilgal to Joshua, appeared again at Shiloh, reproached the people severely for their disobedience in sparing the accursed race of Canaan, and denounced the evils and the punishment which would inevitably ensue. The terrified hearers wept, and offered sacrifices to appease his wrath; but their repentance was like the summer cloud and the morning dew.' They were now sufficiently warned, and placed upon their good behaviour. Each tribe was governed by its prince or captain, and probably its proportion of the seventy elders;2 and the common bond, by which the whole were united, was the visible presence at Shiloh resting on the ark, as the prefigurative emblem of God incarnate. The high priest was the appointed minister by whom the divine counsels were communicated; and they were given only when sought for by the people. Eleazar had died about the same time with Joshua,3 and Phinehas his son, having succeeded to the office of high priest, was the person by whom God made known his will. It was strictly and exclusively a theocracy; Christ being present with his Church in the promised land, as truly and really as he was in the wilderness. To have other gods in his presence, and to bow down to stocks and stones in his sight, were acts of spiritual adultery, and the greatest insult which could be offered to his divine majesty. As he had redeemed them from bondage, so did he sell them again, though not finally or irrevocably, when their sins exceeded the measure of his mercy. The history of the children of Israel is henceforth only a succession of crimes and punishments, of repentance and relentings. In utter defiance of their Lord's warnings and threatenings, they contracted marriages with the Canaanites, and thus learned to serve the various male and female deities designated under the generic appellations of Baalim and Ashtaroth. 5 'Judges ii. 1-5. On this occasion Shiloh received the name of Bochim. 2 Numb. ii.; vii. 10; xi. 16. 3 Josh. xxiv. 33. 4 Acts vii. 38. 1 Cor. x. 4-11. * Judges iii. 8. |