Hebrew Life and Times

Most persons, no matter what their race or country, spend a large proportion of their time at home. The home is the center of many interests and activities, and it reflects quit...

As the Jewish exiles were led away to Babylon they asked themselves over and over again, "Is this the end of our nation?" It seemed like the end. Their capital city lay in ruins...

Twice within twelve years, first in B.C. 597, and again in B.C. 586, the Babylonians took great companies of Hebrews as exiles from Jerusalem to Babylon. Each time there must ha...

Amos and the great prophets who followed him met with the same fate as many other pioneers--only a few of their hearers heeded their words, or even understood them. But four gre...

Ancient Arabia is the home of that branch of the white race known as the Semitic. Here on the fertile fringes of well-watered land surrounding the great central desert lived the...

In this course of study we have been tracing the progress of a great enterprise. A race of people set out in the days of Abraham to seek the best in life. Did they win or lose,...

Among all ancient peoples, including the Hebrews, a large part of religion was the burning of animal sacrifices on altars. Whenever a sheep or lamb or kid was slaughtered for fo...

The farmers of ancient Canaan all lived in villages. No farmer would have dreamed of building an isolated house for his family on his own field out of sight of his nearest neigh...

This history of the common people of Israel began with certain vague hopes of a happier and nobler way of living for the descendants of Abraham. As the centuries passed these ho...

All children among all races receive as they grow up some kind of an education. Isaac learned from his father Abraham and from the other older people about him how to set up a t...

We have seen that a new kind of public worship of God had been growing up among the Hebrews, beginning with the time when the prophets began to condemn the misuse of the old ani...

After Sisera was conquered, the Hebrew tribes which had combined against him immediately fell apart, relapsing into the same state of disunion and disorganization as before. And...

According to one of the Hebrew traditions recorded in the book of Genesis, the earliest home of their ancestors was Ur of the Chaldees. This was one of the leading cities of anc...

Although they had escaped for a time from Babylonian tyranny, the descendants of Abraham in Canaan found themselves somewhat within the range of the influence of the other great...

On the whole, Canaan was a good school for the Hebrew shepherds. New arts to learn, new crops to raise, new kinds of cloth to spin and weave, new kinds of food to cook--all this...

The wandering Hebrew shepherds were not savages nor barbarians. In many ways Abraham and his friends were cultured, civilized people; but their civilization was of a different k...

After Saul's death his son Ishbaal fled across the Jordan where the Philistines were not yet in control, and was accepted as king by the East Jordan tribes. More and more, howev...

About seventy years after the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem a committee of Jews went to Persia to seek aid for their distressed country from their more prosperous kinsfo...

The new law-book seemed a great victory. Yet sometimes victories are more dangerous than defeats. They lead to self-satisfaction. This was certainly the case with this victory o...

Once safely out of Egypt, the next problem for Moses and his people was to find a way into Canaan. Through all the centuries the wandering shepherds on the edge of the desert ha...

The Hebrews did not greatly better themselves by the division of the kingdom and by the revolt of the northern tribes from Solomon's son. There were still kings both in the nort...

Let us suppose that we have been invited to spend a day or two as guests in the home of one of these Hebrew families who have just settled in Canaan and begun to learn the new a...

If we could have visited the home of some sincerely religious Jew about the time when the law of Deuteronomy was adopted by King Josiah and the people we might have seen the beg...

All nations like to think of themselves as superior to the rest of mankind. The Greeks used to despise all foreigners as "barbarians." We in America ridicule immigrants from oth...

The destruction of the northern kingdom by the Assyrian armies struck fear into the hearts of the Hebrews of the sister kingdom in the south. No one had dreamed that such a thin...

Amos seemed to think of sacrifices and burnt-offerings as mere formalities which distracted men's attention from the thing of real importance, namely, just and righteous dealing...

Egypt has never been a health resort. The intensely hot summers breed germs of disease, and also the insects which often carry them. Throughout its history the country has been...

After the death of Alexander the Great his empire was broken into fragments ruled by those of his generals who were able to snatch these smaller kingdoms for themselves. One of...

In spite of all their prejudice, thinking Jews could not help but see that the Greeks, in spite of their heathen religion, had brought with them many of the blessings of civiliz...

There are other mischievous delusions in regard to the character of God which we find among all races in the early childhood of their history. They think of their gods not only...

In spite of the fact that the Jews still had some power of self-government through the Sanhedrin, the great mass of the people hated the Romans with an almost inconceivable fury...

After the Hebrews began to be settled in Canaan, not only were they tempted to neglect the poor and unfortunate; they also failed to stand together against their enemies. Each t...