Physiology
In working for this chosen people, God cured physical infirmities with the same case that he healed a sin-sick soul; and with the laws for spiritual growth were given directions for the preservation of health. Every priest was likewise a physician, and the laws concerning the use of simple, healthful foods, proper breathing, ventilation, the use of disinfectants, the bath, etc., were familiar to all who read the statutes of Jehovah.
Additional studies
Painter says, concerning other subjects taught: “Among the potent educational agencies of the Jews, that of the annual national festivals merits consideration.... Commemorating important national events, they kept the people acquainted with their past history.... These frequent reunions not only contributed to national and religious unity, but they exerted a strong educating influence upon the people.”[25]
“The Levites, more than other Hebrews, were to study the book of the law; to preserve and disseminate it in exact copies; to perform the duties of judges and genealogists, and consequently to be theologians, jurists, and historians.... As the priests and Levites were to test the accuracy of weights and measures, ... it was necessary that they should understand something of mathematics; and as they were to determine and announce the movable feasts, new moons, years, and intercalary years, they had occasion for the study of astronomy,” says Jahn.
Since the schools of the prophets flourished in the days of Saul and David, it would not be surprising if David gained some of his musical skill there as well as on the hillside tending sheep, for poetry and music formed part of the course of instruction in these schools. One author pays high tribute to these subjects by saying: “Greek poetry is beautiful; Hebrew poetry is sublime.”
Effects of Jewish education
When children were fortified by such an education from infancy to manhood, it is little wonder that the influence which the nation “has exerted upon the world is incalculable. It has supplied the basis of all true theology; it has given a system of faultless morality; and, in Christianity, it has provided the most perfect form of religion. The civilization of Europe and America can be directly traced to the Jews.”[26]
What might have been the result had the nation lived up to its privileges in educational lines is not difficult to determine. Earth’s history would have been shortened by at least two thousand years; for the nation would never have gone into bondage, and Christ would never have been betrayed. As these principles of Christian education are again taking hold of people, with what interest must the progress of the work be watched by the inhabitants of other worlds, who have seen past failures through lack of faith! That Hebrew education tended mainly to a development of the inner man instead of giving merely a conglomeration of facts, is well expressed by Wines. He says: “The Hebrew law required an early, constant, vigorous, and efficient training of the disposition, judgment, manners, and habits, both of thought and feeling. The sentiments held to be proper to man in society were imbibed with the milk of infancy. The manners considered becoming in adults were sedulously imparted in childhood.”