CHAPTER VI.

THE REMAINING DAYS OF UNLEAVENED BREAD.

It was the morning of the second day after the Passover. Helon was lying by Elisama on the divan. Glad to be delivered from his dream, he started up, performed his morning devotions in the Alijah, saluted Moriah and Zion from the roof, and endeavoured to shake off the disagreeable impressions of the night, which returned upon him with something of an ominous import. When he came down into the court, he found Iddo sitting under the palm-trees. He endeavoured to think only of his present happiness, and he felt, that as man is never more purely and vividly happy than in the morning of childhood, so the morning of each day is the time, when he has the most lively consciousness of every thing that is agreeable in his condition.

They all went together to the temple to pray. After the usual morning sacrifice of a lamb, followed, as the day before, an offering appropriate to the festival, of two young bullocks, a ram, and seven yearling lambs, as a burnt-offering; and a goat, as a sin-offering. The high-priest ministered as before at the altar, and the priests around him. The crowd was scarcely less than yesterday, and nearly the same ceremonies were repeated.

Next followed the offering of the first-fruits, the omer of barley-meal which had been prepared from the sheaves, cut the preceding evening. A priest fetched the meal, in a golden dish, from an apartment in one of the buildings, mixed it in the presence of all the people with a _log_ (six eggshells) of the finest oil, and scattered upon it a handful of incense. He brought it to the high-priest, who stood beside the altar, and he waved it towards all the four winds, from east to west and from south to north, and then ascended the altar. On the southern side lay salt, with which he salted the meal and threw a handful of it, with another of incense, upon the flame. Immediately after, a special sacrifice, a lamb with the meat and drink offering that belonged to it, was offered; and the high-priest concluded by giving his benediction. The harvest was now solemnly begun, and Israel might pursue its joyful labours. The spectators dispersed themselves in different directions; and many of the pilgrims, who had neither time nor means to spend the whole week of the festival in Jerusalem, returned home on this day.

Only those remained behind, who purposed to offer the burnt-offerings of the appearance before Jehovah, and these were the wealthier part of the worshippers. Elisama, Helon, and Sallu went down into the neighbourhood of the porch of Solomon, to purchase a victim for this purpose. A dealer in cattle, from Capernaum in Galilee, furnished them with a calf of extraordinary beauty, which they drove to the gate on the northern side, at which the sacrifices were admitted. Here they were compelled to wait a considerable time, as a large number had been admitted just before their arrival. At length they entered: the animal was examined and killed on the north side of the altar, the offerers having first washed their hands, and laid them upon it. The priests received the blood and sprinkled it on the altar. The sacrificers then took off the skin, took out the fat and the entrails, and divided the flesh. The whole was given to the priest, along with the meat and drink offering; he salted it and threw it into the fire. A burnt-offering was to be wholly consumed, except the skin, which belonged to the priest. While the priest was sacrificing at the altar, Elisama, Helon, and Sallu were praying that Jehovah would graciously accept their offering; and when it was ended, they and the rest of those who had been admitted with them, went out at the southern gate. Helon, while he had witnessed the solemn ceremonial and the deep and reverent silence of the spectators, had felt the dignity of the priestly office, and as he prayed, had said with David,

One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; To dwell in the house of the Lord, as long as I live, To behold the glorious worship of the Lord, And to wait in his temple!—Ps. xxvii. 4.

In the afternoon Iddo conducted him to one of the places of public instruction, called by the Greek name of Synagogue. Such buildings had come into use only since the captivity, but there were already a considerable number of them in Jerusalem. In the days of David and Solomon we find no trace of them. It is true, we find very early mention of the schools of the prophets, from which they may be considered to have taken their rise. In the days of Elisha it was customary to visit the prophets on the day of the new moon and on the sabbath.[121] In the captivity the people must have felt the necessity much more of assembling on solemn days, to obtain consolation and hope from the discourses of some man learned in the scriptures. On the fifth day of the sixth month, it happened, we are told in the book of the Prophet, that Ezekiel “was sitting in his house and the elders of Judah were sitting before him.”[122] After the return from the captivity this custom was kept up, from the experience of its utility; and these assemblages were held at first in the porticoes of the temple, afterwards in buildings appropriated to the purpose. Sacrifices could be offered only in one place, the temple, but prayer might be offered, and instruction communicated, any where.

Footnote 121:

2 Kings iv. 23.

Footnote 122:

Ezek. viii. 1.

They went into a synagogue in the Lower City, where an eloquent expounder of the law was accustomed to teach. The arrangement of the building had a good deal of resemblance to that of the temple. A large quadrangular space was surrounded on all sides with covered walks or porticoes, resting upon a double row of columns. In the middle, a circular roof rested upon four pillars, and beneath it, on a raised place, lay the rolls of the law. The people stood upon the open space, which was covered with an awning, and in rainy weather took shelter in the porticoes, one of which was set apart exclusively for the women. Before the rolls of the law stood the reader and expounder, who was also called the apostle or ambassador of the assembly. He read the law and the letters of other congregations; he delivered the prayer, and thus, as it were, was the messenger of the people to God, and the interpreter of their desires. Besides him there was also a ruler of the synagogue, or superintendent of the school, who maintained order, several elders of the congregation who assisted him in his functions, a gatherer of alms, and a servant. Any one who chose, not excepting strangers, might stand up and teach.

The synagogue was already full when Helon and his friends entered it, and after the usual salutation, the service began by praising God. The reader then going up to the rolls, which lay under the circular roof, read a passage from the law, which he at the same time interpreted to the people. After a second ascription of praise, he read the following passage from the prophet Jeremiah: “Ah Lord God; behold thou hast made the heavens and the earth, by thy great power and thy stretched-out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee: thou showest loving-kindness unto thousands, and recompensest the iniquities of the fathers into the bosom of the children after them. The great the mighty God, the Lord of Hosts, is thy name: great in counsel and mighty in work art thou, whose eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men, to give to every one according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings; who hast shown signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, even to this day, and in Israel, and among other men, and hast made thee a name, as it is at this day, and hast brought forth thy people Israel out of the land of Egypt, with signs and with wonders, and with a strong hand and with a stretched-out arm, and with great terror; and hast given to them this land, which thou didst swear to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey.”[123] When he had read this passage, and translated it into the common dialect of the country, the celebrated teacher of the law, whom we have mentioned, rose up, and proposed to deliver a discourse.

Footnote 123:

Jer. xxxii. 17-22.

Myron had objected to his friend Helon, that the people of Israel were destitute of skill in all the fine arts; and in respect to eloquence, resembled their lawgiver, who was “slow of speech and of a slow tongue.”[124] To the former part of the imputation Helon had already replied; to the latter he might have answered, that although his nation never possessed an Isocrates or a Demosthenes, no people ever had orators, whose eloquence was more vigorous, animated, or spirit-stirring than the prophets in Israel. What artificial rhetorician, of the schools or the Agora, ever graved his words so deep in the hearts of his hearers as they did? They spoke the word of Jehovah, by the command and inspiration of Jehovah; the Greeks, the words of human wisdom, at the suggestion of vanity, or to promote the purposes of ambition. How different is the effect of a discourse, in which a divine power dwells, from those which have been composed with the strictest adherence to the rules of art!

Footnote 124:

Exod. iv. 10.

Such might have been Helon’s answer to his friend; for such was his own experience, in listening to the orator in the synagogue. His language was simple and unartificial, but for this very reason the energy of the prophet’s words, which he expounded, was the more strongly felt. First of all he went through the passage which had been read, and explained the contents of the prayer, which, sublime in itself, was still more so from the circumstances in which it was spoken. He painted the forlorn condition of the people when the land fell into the hands of the Chaldeans, and the prophecy which was involved in the purchase of the field of Anathoth. When he came to speak of the signs and wonders which Jehovah had shown in Egypt, and of his having brought out his people with an out-stretched arm, he pointed out to the audience, that this great deliverance was to be regarded as an everlasting pledge of his redeeming mercy. For a thousand years past it had served this purpose, and every Passover revived and strengthened the impression. He painted to them the condition of Israel in Goshen, their inhuman oppressions, the evening of the first Passover, their wanderings in the wilderness, their rebellions against God, and the firmness of their lawgiver. Thence he past rapidly to the glorious days of the first temple, and described the magnificence of Solomon and the prosperity of Israel, while the eyes of all his audience glistened with sympathetic delight. Next he spoke of the captivity in Babylon, of the silent tears of the people as they sat by the streams of the Tigris and Euphrates, and of the evening of the Passover, when the fourteenth day of Nisan came and no paschal lamb could be eaten, but only the unleavened bread. No one drew his breath while he delineated the picture of this misery. “Unhappy, forsaken people!” he exclaimed; “ye had sinned and Jehovah visiteth the iniquities of the fathers upon their children. O thou almighty and jealous God, thine eyes are open on all the ways of the children of men!” He paused for a moment, as if overpowered by the contemplation of the might and justice of Jehovah. Every bosom was agitated. “Woe, woe to me and to my children!” exclaimed at once a woman, so carried away by the words of the speaker, that she forgot herself and the presence of the multitude. “Woe to us all,” resumed he, “if we forsake Jehovah, the living fountain, and hew out to ourselves broken fountains which hold no water.” In conclusion he praised the restoration of the worship of God, and the happy times in which they lived; and earnestly exhorted them to celebrate the feast of unleavened bread and of the appearance before Jehovah, with becoming gratitude, and faithfully to observe the law, in the land flowing with milk and honey into which he had brought them.

When the discourse was ended, praise was again ascribed to God, and the prayer called Kri-schma repeated. This was a feast-day; but independently of this, it was the duty of every adult Jew, on the second and the fifth day of the week, as well as on the sabbath, to pray, with the Tallith on his head, and the Tephillim on his brow and on his hand. The benediction was given, to which the assembly replied Amen! and at the close of all, alms were collected for the poor.

As they left the assembly, Helon remarked to Elisama, how much superior, in regard both to sacrifice and instruction, was the condition of Israel to that of the heathens. They offer sacrifice to their gods—but they are ignorant of the law; they have temples and altars, but no houses of religious instructions; they have priests, but none to explain their duty to them. On the following day, the third after the Passover, the same offerings were made as before; but the evening increased the solemnity, by the approach of the sabbath. It was announced as usual by six blasts of the trumpet, blown by a priest out of the chamber which was situated on the southern side of the temple, at the extremity of the court of Israel, and which served at the same time for the watch-room of the priests and Levites. In the country towns the annunciation was made by blasts of the horn. At the ninth hour (three in the afternoon) the first blast was sounded, as a signal for the cessation of all labour in the field. Troops of reapers and other labourers were immediately after seen coming from all the adjacent country into Jerusalem. At the tenth hour, the second blast was sounded, to announce the time of closing the shops and manufactories, completing the domestic preparations for the sabbath, and putting on their best attire. In every house, two loaves were placed upon the table, as a memorial of the double measure of manna, gathered in the wilderness on the day before the sabbath. At the third blast, the mother of the family lighted the two lamps, which were to burn through the whole of the sabbath. Light, being the symbol of joy and of knowledge, was appropriate to such a solemnity; hence the altar blazed, and the household lamp was kindled. The mother, assuming the priestly office, spread out her hands towards the lamp when she had lighted it, and said “Blessed be thou, O Lord our God, King of the world, who hast sanctified us by thy precepts, and commanded us to light the sabbath-lamp.” The fourth, fifth, and sixth blasts followed each other rapidly, as soon as the sun was set; and the sabbath was now begun.

To take a family meal was the first thing done. The master of the house filled the cup, when all were assembled around the table, and blessed it, and said, “On the sixth day were the earth and the heavens and all their glory completed. For God finished by the seventh day all the work which he had done, and rested on the seventh day from all his labour, and hallowed it, because on it he rested from all the work which he had created and made.”

After a short pause, he proceeded, “Blessed be thou, O Lord our God, who hast created the fruit of the vine, King of the world, who hast sanctified us by thy precepts, and commanded us to keep thy sabbaths, and hast appointed them to us of thy good pleasure, as a memorial of the work of creation. It is also the beginning of the assembling of thy saints, and of the going out of Egypt: for thou hast chosen us out from among all nations, and hast sanctified us and hast appointed to us the holy sabbath. We praise thee, O Lord, that thou hast made the sabbath-day holy.” The cup was emptied, the master of the house blessed the bread also in the usual form of words, and the meal began.

In the mean time the course of priests had been changed in the temple, that which had been on duty in the preceding week, giving place to that whose turn of service it was for the week following. The shew-bread was changed, twelve of the priests bringing each one of the new loaves in a golden dish, and two others censers with incense. Then all the children of Israel laid themselves down to rest, in their own houses or in the temple, in joyful expectation of the sabbath-dawn.

The sabbath was so solemnly and strictly kept, that it was not allowed to be broken even by the greatest of the festivals; it may indeed be said, that as being the oldest, it was the root and parent of all the rest. It was not merely a day of cessation from labour; its celebration was a weekly acknowledgment, that the One God was worshipped as the creator of heaven and earth; and thus it stood in the closest connection with the first of the ten commandments which God had given upon mount Sinai. The command for its observance, however, is as ancient as the first revelation made by God to man, forming a part of the narrative of the creation. At the giving of the law, the precept for its observance was renewed and enforced, “Remember the sabbath-day to keep it holy;” and its high import was expressed by the words, “Verily my sabbaths shall ye keep, for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that ye may know that I am the Lord that sanctifieth you. Six days shall ye work, but the seventh is the sabbath, a holy rest unto the Lord.”[125] And in the renewal of the law it is said, “Thou shalt remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence with a mighty and an outstretched arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath-day.”[126] So the prophets call the sabbath the sign of the covenant between Jehovah and his people.[127] It was besides a day of remembrance of the deliverance from Egypt, a weekly passover. The violation of the sabbath was punished with the severest penalties. “Whosoever maketh the sabbath unholy shall surely be put to death;” and when it is added, as an explanation, “whosoever _doeth any work_ on the sabbath-day, he shall surely be put to death,” this deeper meaning is conveyed, that there is a rest, which is more holy than labour. Outward rest, consisting in the cessation of motion and exertion, was the sign of that holy and inward rest. While in the desert Moses commanded the children of Israel, saying, “Behold the Lord hath given you the sabbath; therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days. Let every man therefore remain in his own place, and let no man go out on the seventh day.”[128] What a picture do these words convey, of so many millions of human beings, by whose activity the surrounding desert was enlivened on every other day, but of whose existence every trace seemed to vanish, as the sun went down on the evening when the seventh began! In pious fear of transgressing this law, the Jews, in later times, never went further than two thousand cubits; because they reckoned that the remotest tent in the camp would be one thousand cubits distant from the tabernacle, and that their forefathers must have gone and returned this distance, in order to appear before Jehovah.[129]

Footnote 125:

Exod. xxxi. 13.

Footnote 126:

Deut. v. 15.

Footnote 127:

Ezek. xx. 12.

Footnote 128:

Exod. xvi. 29.

Footnote 129:

This is the foundation of the reckoning by a sabbath-day’s journey, which was between six and seven stadia of the Greek measure, and somewhat less than a mile of our own.

But if the sabbath was a mark of the covenant between Jehovah and his people, and also a day of rest, it could not be otherwise than a day of joy; and so it was always considered in Israel. In the burning east, rest is of itself a pleasure; and as every thing else connected with the service of Jehovah bore the character of cheerful enjoyment, so also did the sabbath. “If,” says Isaiah, “thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, and do not thy pleasure on my holy day, and callest the sabbath a delight, a solemnity of Jehovah, a day of honour; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride over the high places of the earth, and will feed thee with the inheritance of Jacob thy father—the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”[130]

Footnote 130:

Isaiah lviii. 13, 14.

If, however, the sabbath could not be suspended by the festivities of the Passover, they might receive additional solemnity from the sabbath. Helon felt its sanctity with double force, in this combination. He had risen early in the morning, and could scarcely wait till the hour arrived, for his going up with the old men to the temple, for the first time in his life, to spend a sabbath there. The morning sacrifice consisted on this day of the usual offering of a lamb; then followed the special offering of the sabbath, two lambs of a year old, with the meat and drink offering that belonged to them. Last of all, the festival-offering, which consisted of two young bullocks, a ram, seven yearling lambs as a burnt-offering, and a goat as a sin-offering. In the mean time the sabbath psalm was sung by the Levites from the fifteen steps.

It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, And to sing praises unto thy name, O most High! To show forth thy loving-kindness in the morning, And thy faithfulness every night, Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery, Upon the harp with a solemn sound. For thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work, I will triumph because of the works of thy hands. O Lord! how great are thy works; Thy thoughts are very deep! A brutish man knoweth not this, Nor doth a fool understand it. When the wicked spring as the grass, And when all the workers of iniquity flourish, It is that they may be destroyed for ever: But thou, Lord, art most high for evermore. For lo! thine enemies, O Lord, For lo! thine enemies shall perish! All the workers of iniquity shall be scattered.

But thou exaltest my horn like the unicorn’s; I am anointed with fresh oil; And mine eye shall see my desire on mine enemies, And mine ear shall hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me. The righteous flourisheth like the palm-tree, He groweth like a cedar in Lebanon. They that are planted in the house of the Lord Shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth in old age, They shall be full of sap and flourishing, To show that Jehovah is just, He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.—Ps. xcii.

Helon remained the whole day in the temple, witnessed the evening-sacrifice, and heard the sound of the trumpet which proclaimed that the sabbath was at an end. The old men retired soon after the morning-sacrifices leaving him to his own reflections, and rejoicing that one was found among the youth of Israel, so full of enthusiasm for the service of Jehovah. Helon, as he wandered about the courts of the temple, was revolving a design, which had long been forming in his bosom, and which had been rapidly matured by the feelings of the last few days.