CHAPTER ELEVENTH.

A SUMMARY VIEW OF THE MORAL, RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE, FROM THEIR RETURN TO JUDEA AFTER THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY UNTIL THE SUBVERSION OF THEIR POLITY BY THE ROMANS.

THOUGH I apprehend the covenant that God had made with the Jewish people virtually terminated in a state of abeyance from the time of the destruction of the temple and captivity of the people by Nebuchadnezzar; yet as the Jews preserved a national existence for six hundred years after, it is essential towards comprehending the condition of things at the time of Christ's advent that we should give a condensed view of their civil and ecclesiastical history after their return from Babylon, and their continual progress towards that grievous state of will-worship and irreligion that ultimately led to that dissolution of the national existence which has now lasted for eighteen hundred years.

That there was no renewal of the Sinaitic covenant on the return from the Babylonian captivity seems clear from the Scripture. Their deliverance was effected simply by a decree of Cyrus" granting them permission to return and to rebuild the temple, and was not attended by any external manifestation of Jehovah's superintending providence. The Jews furthermore were without the ark of the covenant and its mercy seat, before which the annual propitiation for national sin could only be made, neither had they any other than common fire by which the sacrifices were consumed, which as being expressly forbidden by the law of Moses, (Levit. vi. 12, 13; ix. 24; x. 1, 2,) seemingly implies that the Sinaitic covenant was now at least temporarily abrogated.

But nevertheless God did not wholly withdraw himself from the Jewish people. Haggai and Zechariah exercised a prophetic ministry among them, exhorting them to return to an implicit obedience to the law of Moses, or as censuring their misconduct whenever they disregarded or transgressed the requirements of the law. I apprehend, therefore, that the position of Jehovah towards the Jewish nation after their return from Babylon, may be estimated

by the following considerations. If the Jews would of themselves return to an observance of the laws of Moses in the simplicity and holiness of the original covenant, that then God on his part would again take them under his supernatural providence as formerly. But the initiative in the matter was required from the Jews, and which as they never did undertake in any general or national sense, so God gradually abandoned them altogether and they finally lapsed into the common condition of all other nations, whether as regarded the prosperous or calamitous events of their after history.

Whatever may have been the convictions of the religious portion of the Jews during the Babylonian captivity as to the judgments of God upon the nation for their various transgressions, yet as concerned the great mass of the people, so far as we can infer from the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, they seem to have been but little affected by the circumstance of their captivity. For when Cyrus gave them permission to return to Judea, (B. C. 536,) only about 43,000 availed themselves of the opportunity. The great majority of the nation preferred to remain among the heathen Babylonians. Even of the priesthood, only certain individuals of four out of the twenty-four priestly courses returned to Judea. Hence some of the rabbins have made the scoffing remark, that it was only "the bran" that returned, (to Judea,) "the fine flour remained behind."

Of those who did return, we find considerable indications of much religious indifference towards the institutions of Jehovah. It was not until twenty years afterwards that they completed the building of the Lord's house, and even then only under the direct expressions of God's displeasure for their irreligious disregard on the subject, as is stated by Haggai, chap. i. 1-11.

Fifty-eight years after the re-building of the Lord's house, (B. C. 458) Ezra came to Judea with very arbitrary powers from the Persian king, (Ezra vii. 12–26) to enforce a reformation of the Jewish people. After a rule of thirteen years he was succeeded by Nehemiah, who governed them for about thirty years; including some five years or so between his first and second administrations.

The reformations accomplished by these two rulers were only in external matters, and with the exception of the institution of the Synagogue, of which we shall presently speak, as soon as they were withdrawn from their superintendence over Judea, the people fell back again to their former practices. This is strikingly

illustrated by the fact, that Nehemiah, after an absence from Judea for a period of about five years, found on his return that all the reforms which had been previously enforced, were then entirely disregarded. Even the priesthood and chief men, as well as the people at large, were open violators of some of the most important institutions of the law of Moses. See Nehemiah, chap

ter xiii.

This irreligious state of the Jewish nation is confirmed by the prophet Malachi, ii. 17; iii. 14, 15, where he quotes sayings among the people, that could only be uttered by men who were unbelievers, either in God or providence.

Malachi's prophecies also give us some intimations of much corruption and perverseness prevailing at these times among those who professed to observe the institutions of the law of God. As these intimations involve some important consequences in the after developments of the Jewish people, I will cousider them under two heads, first, as regarded the priesthood, and secondly, as concerned the more religious laity and their teachers.

As to the priesthood, Malachi in his 1st and 2d chapters introduces God as inveighing in the strongest language against them for the grossest profanation in their services; that they offered him "polluted bread," (i. e. in the shew-bread) that they offered in sacrifice animals that were "blind, lame and sick;" and that they had departed so much out of the way, as to have caused many" (of the laity) "to stumble at the law;" in other words, to become irreligious, if not infidels.

As respects the teachers or instructors of the laity, the prophet's language is somewhat obscure, through its oriental phraseology in comparing the law of God to a wife, which Judah had forsaken; and then married the daughter of a strange god. (Malachi ii. 11.) That this allusion has no reference to marriage with heathen women is clear, from the ensuing verse. Neither do I see any allusion to idolatrous practices in the verse. But as Jehovah says he will cut off the man that doeth this, "the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and even him that offereth an offer ing unto the Lord of Hosts;" the reference is apparently to some false system of expounding the law by persons of authority among the Jews as teachers; and who, as such, had scholars who adopted their interpretations.

Hence, according to my views of these prophecies of Malachi, there were at the close of the Old Testament canon, (B. C. 420) certain marked circumstances that then characterized the moral

and religious conditions of the Jews: 1st, an openly irreligious and even infidel body: 2d, a great corruption among the priesthood and the general mass of the ordinary worshipers at the temple: 3d, a system of false interpretations of the law among the more religious portion of the people through the influence or authority of certain teachers among them: and 4th, that there was also a greater or less number of sincerely devout persons who religiously conformed to the requirements of God, as is noticed by Malachi iii. 16-18; iv. 2-4. The after history of the Jews afford us very clear intimations as to the development of these different classes.

After the time of Nehemiah, Judea as a province of the Persian empire was under the control of the Satrap of Syria, who committed the government to the high priests. These were essentially only responsible for the tribute due from the country to the kings of Persia. In all other particulars the authority of the high priest over Judea was virtually regal, and as we have reason to believe was held by him only during the pleasure of the Satrap of Syria. Neither can there be any doubt that the high priests had to pay him a large price for the dignity. This political aggrandisement of the high priest had a most injurious effect. It not only excited. the covetousness and ambition of the various members of the family of the high priest to supplant each other by greater bribes offered to the appointing power with all the evil consequences of mutual hatred and revenge, but it also enabled individuals utterly irreligious and profligate, to obtain and exercise the functions of the high priest to the great scandal of all moral or religious perThis grievous abuse of giving the high priest political power as a sovereign, lasted throughout the whole after history of the Jews, with the exception of the reign of Herod the great, and his immediate successors, and was the cause of innumerable calamities to the nation.

sons.

Though we have very imperfect accounts of Jewish history during the times of their subjection to the kings of Persia, yet we cannot doubt but that it was during these unrecorded times that those two sects arose among the Jews afterwards known by the names of Pharisees and Sadducees. And as some information concerning them is essential to the comprehension of Jewish history previous to the advent of our Lord, and the destruction of Judea by the Romans, we will endeavor to communicate such information in the briefest manner.

We have shewn in a former page, from the absolute necessity of circumstances that the laws of God, like human laws, cannot be

interpreted absolutely, and that cases continually occur which require to be determined on constructions given by human reasoning. We also inferred from authorities quoted from Scripture, that these decisions even in the days of the prophet Isaiah, had become so numerous and so perverse in their application as to have virtually set aside the law of God and substituted in its place a system of human invention. As the Jews do not appear to have ever regarded this prophecy of Isaiah in its true application, we presume that the more religious Jews who returned from Babylon continued to reverence these ancient decisions as being as sacred as the law itself, and as furnishing modes of reasoning by which new cases should be determined for the future. These conclusions, as they were not committed to writing, were communicated by oral instructions and were known as the traditions of the elders.

But while the large majority of the Jews adhered to this ancient system of things under the name of Pharisees, there existed either simultaneously or rose gradually afterwards another class of men who rejected the traditionary expositions of the law, and confined' themselves to the interpretation of the Scripture, according to its mere text. These ultimately became distinguished by the name of Sadducees.

The fundamental difference between the Pharisees and Sadducees, however, was in their entirely opposite views concerning the scheme of God's government or providence over human affairs. The Pharisees (Josephus' Jewish War, lib. II. chap. viii. sec. 14,) ascribed all the events of human life to fate, (i. e. to God's decrees) yet allowed that men can do right or wrong from themselves, though fate does co-operate in every action. They also taught that the souls of men would be rewarded or punished for their actions after death. The Pharisees, under the belief of God's immediate interference in all human affairs, in times of political or religious excitement, acted with great enthusiasm or fanaticism.

The Sadducees on the other hand denied that God was concerned in this universal ordering of things. They advocated the doctrine of free will, and that to do good or evil was altogether in the power of human choice. They also maintained that soul and body perished at time of death, and consequently that any reward or punishment of man from God took place in the present life.

Though one might suppose the Sadducees would absorb the irreligious portion of the Jews into their sect, yet this does not

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