Chapter 10

MORAL VICTORIES IN CANAAN

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 helped to make life more interesting and worth while. But there were other lessons which newcomers might learn which were not so wholesome.

Wine drinking, for example, was a habit which the wisest of the Hebrews always feared. The wine which they made in those foaming wine-presses was, of course, mild and harmless as compared with the distilled liquors of modern times. But even Canaanitish wine could deaden men's consciences and make them more like beasts than men. "Wine is a mocker," said one of the sages who wrote the book of Proverbs, "strong drink is raging, and he that is deceived thereby is not wise."

IDOLATRY IN CANAAN

Canaanite religion was to a large extent an unwholesome influence. The Canaanites worshiped many gods. Each village had its Baal, or lord, who had to be bribed with burnt offerings of fat beasts, or (as they thought) the soil would lose its fertility and the crops would fail.

=Dangerous examples.=--These sacrificial rites were carried on in the shrines or "high places," one of which stood outside almost every village and town. They often were accompanied by dances and other performances which were licentious and degrading. The Hebrews, of course, were pledged to worship only Jehovah. Moreover, during these first centuries in Canaan they were very poor, and had little time for the carousals which went on at the "high places" in the name of religion. Corruption usually comes with wealth and luxury. Poverty and hardship are often useful safeguards. But from the beginning these heathen rites were a temptation and a snare in the lives of the Hebrews.

CANAANITE BELIEFS ABOUT THE WORLD

There are certain questions which awaken the curiosity of everyone. How did this wonderful world come into existence? How is it that you and I happen to be here? How did things in general come to be as they are? Some of these difficult questions are to-day being partly answered by careful students of science. In ancient times there was little or no science, yet in every country there were certain answers to these questions handed down from generation to generation and generally accepted as true.

=Idolatrous stories of creation.=--When the Hebrews entered Canaan they naturally were inclined to accept the ideas of the earlier inhabitants of that country, whose knowledge in regard to many matters was far beyond theirs. The Canaanites in turn had got most of their ideas from the leading civilized nations of that day, the Egyptians, and especially the Babylonians. From these sources had come certain stories about the beginning of things.

Babylonian traders in the inns of Canaan used to tell a story of the creation of the world, and also about a great flood which the gods once sent upon the earth.

=How the Hebrews retold these stories.=--The best men among the Hebrews knew that these stories were imperfect. Their forty years training in the wilderness had made them wise in the ways of God. This wisdom enabled them to sift the wheat from the chaff. They retold these stories, omitting the error, and retaining the truth. Thus we come to have the wonderful stories of the creation and the flood as we find them in the Bible.

=How these stories were handed down.=--In the earliest days of the settlement in Canaan very few Hebrews, if any, could read or write. Possibly Moses understood the Egyptian picture-writing, or the wedge-shaped letters of the Babylonian clay tablets. The Hebrew letters, however, in which the books of the Old Testament afterward were written, were invented by the Phoenicians, and the Phoenicians passed on their invention to the old Canaanites.

After the Hebrews came it was not long before ambitious Hebrew boys and girls were staring at the queer marks in the inscriptions which they found here and there, over the gates of Canaanite cities or on the tombs of Canaanite kings. Gradually they learned to spell out syllables, words, and sentences, and then they learned to copy these same letters, so that in time the Hebrews were making inscriptions and books of their own. Among the earliest of these books was one containing the stories of the creation and the flood. They had been handed down by word of mouth from one generation to another, until finally they were gathered into a book. This became a part of the book of Genesis in our Bible.

NEW TENDENCIES TO SELFISHNESS IN CANAAN

Another and different kind of temptation which the Hebrews met in Canaan was the tendency to forget their own tribal brothers as they scattered here and there and settled down, each family with its own little farm. There were some, naturally, who were more successful as farmers than others. And those who were unfortunate were not always the lazy or thriftless. Sickness or accident or some pest which attacked the grain or the cattle would sometimes wipe out the entire property of one of those little peasant farmers and leave him and his children face to face with starvation and death. Now, in the old days in the desert, as long as the tribe had a crust of bread or a drop of water, the weakest and poorest could count on a share. But here in Canaan the poor, the widow, the orphan, did not always feel so surely the sheltering arms of kindness and brotherhood.

=Humane laws enacted.=--Yet the spirit of Moses still lived and made its power felt. Certain laws gradually came to be accepted during this period when the Hebrews were learning to be farmers which were a special protection to the poor and helpless, just as the great leader would have chosen. We can imagine how these laws were first proclaimed by the chiefs of the clans and the elders of the villages wherever there were men who remembered how, years before, the whole nation had been poor and oppressed and enslaved. Here are some examples:

="Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry."=

="If thou lend money to any of my people with thee that is poor, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor; neither shall ye lay upon him usury. If thou at all take thy neighbor's garment to pledge, thou shalt restore it unto him before the sun goeth down; for that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep? And it shall come to pass when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I am gracious."=

="Thou shalt not oppress thy neighbor, nor rob him; the wages of a hired servant shall not abide with thee all night until the morning."=

There is one law which illustrates especially well how the best men among the Hebrews tried to meet the new temptations of Canaan in the spirit of kindness and justice which they had learned from Moses.

="When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleaning of the harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather the fallen fruit of thy vineyard. Thou shalt leave them for the poor and the stranger."=

It was already the custom among the Canaanites to leave the grain in the corners of the fields uncut, and not to pick up the scattered gleanings, which fell from the arms of the harvesters, and to leave on the ground the fruit that fell of itself from the vines and fruit trees. With the Canaanites this was on account of a superstition; the gleanings and the grain in the corners of the fields were for the Baal, or god of the field. If they were taken he would be angry. The Hebrews kept the old custom, but with a different aim--not to keep the Baal in good humor, but to make life a bit easier for the poor and unfortunate among their own neighbors. It was in accordance with this law that Ruth, although a foreigner, was allowed to glean after the reapers in the barley field of Boaz of Bethlehem, and thus obtained food to keep herself and her mother alive. So among these lowly people were being laid the foundations of that greater and better civilization for which Moses had prepared the way, and of which Abraham had dimly dreamed.

STUDY TOPICS

1. What parts of this chapter illustrate the special talent of the Hebrews for discovering good in things partly evil?

2. How could this talent be used in our American life? For example, in the matter of moving picture shows?

3. Read Leviticus 19. This chapter contains laws which were made during the period of the settlement in Canaan. Which of them seem to you to be in the spirit of Moses?