We have already alluded to the jubilee which occurred periodically after the lapse of forty-nine years, or, as the Jews were wont to express it, after a week of Sabbaths. The benevolent uses of this most generous institution are known to every reader, more especially as they respected personal freedom and the restoration of lands and houses. Great care was taken by the Jewish legislator to prevent an accumulation of property in one individual, or even in one tribe. Nor was his anxiety less to prevent the alienation of land, either by sale, mortgage, or marriage. With this view we find him enacting a rule, suggested by the case of the daughters of Zelophedad, who had been allowed to become heirs to their father, of which the object was to perpetuate the possession of landed estates within the limits of each particular tribe. The heads of the chief families of Manasseh, to which community the young women belonged, came before Moses and the Princes of Israel, when, after reminding these dignitaries of the fact just mentioned, they said, "If they be married to any of the sons of the other tribes, then shall their inheritance be taken from the inheritance of our fathers, and shall be put to the inheritance of the tribe whereunto they are received; so shall it be taken from the lot of our inheritance. And when the jubilee of the children of Israel shall be, then shall their inheritance be put unto the inheritance of the tribe whereunto they are received: so shall their inheritance be taken away from the inheritance of the tribe of our fathers."
To this judicious remonstrance Moses gave the following answer:—"This is the thing which the Lord doth command concerning the daughters of Zelophedad; let them marry to whom they think best; only to the family of the tribe of heir father shall they marry. And every daughter that possesseth an inheritance shall be wife unto one of the family, of the tribe of her father, that the children of Israel may enjoy every man the inheritance of his fathers. Neither shall the inheritance remove from one tribe to another tribe; but every one of the tribes of the children of Israel shall keep himself to his own inheritance."[65]
Besides the anniversaries enjoined by Divine authority, the Hebrews observed several which were meant to keep alive the remembrance of certain great events recorded in their history. Of these was the Feast of Dedication mentioned by St. John, referring, it has been thought, to the purification of the altar by Judas Maccabaeus, after it had been profaned by Antiochus, the king of Syria. When the ceremony was performed, "Judas and his brethren, with the whole congregation of Israel, ordained that the days of the dedication of the altar should be kept in their season, from year to year, by the space of eight days, from the five-and-twentieth day of the ninth month (November), with mirth and gladness."[66]
The restoration of the heavenly fire in the temple, after the return from Babylon, was likewise commemorated every year. This sacred flame, which had been long extinct, was revived on the altar the day that Nehemiah performed sacrifice in the new building. For this reason the Jews of Palestine wrote to those in Egypt, recommending an annual festival in remembrance of an event so important to their national worship. They thought it necessary to certify them of the fact, that their brethren also might celebrate the "feast of the fire which was given us when Neemias offered sacrifice after that he had builded the Temple and the altar."[67]
It was likewise a custom among this singular people, that the young women "went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah, the Gileadite, four days in a year." A more joyous ceremony, on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month Adar, reminded the faithful Hebrew of the triumph gained by his kindred over the cruel and perfidious Haman, who had intended to extirpate their whole race. Besides these, we find in the book of Zecharias the prophet an allusion to the "fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth;" days of humiliation which probably recalled certain national calamities, such as the destruction of their city and Temple, and the era of their long captivity.
In concluding this chapter on the literature and religion of the ancient Hebrews, we may remark, in regard to the system bequeathed to them by Moses, that it contains the only complete body of law which was ever given to a people at one time,—that it is the only entire body of law which has come down to our days,—that it is the only body of ancient law which still governs an existing people,—that, the nation which it respects being scattered over the face of the whole earth, it is the only body of law that is equally observed in the four quarters of the globe,—and, finally, that all the other codes of law of which history has preserved any recollection, were given to communities who already had written statutes, but who wished to change their form or modify their application; whereas, in this case, we behold a new society under the hands of a legislator who proceeds to lay its very foundations.[68]
It may be said of the Hebrews, that they had no profane literature, no works devoted to mere amusement or relaxation. As they admitted no image of any thing in heaven or in earth, they consequently rejected the use of all those arts called imitative, and which supply so large a portion of the more refined enjoyment characteristic of civilized nations. In like manner, they seem to have viewed in the light of sacrilege every attempt to bring down the sublime language in which they praised Jehovah and recorded his mighty works, to the more common and less hallowed purposes of fictitious narrative, or of amatory, dramatic, and lyrical composition. The Jews have no epic poem to throw a lustre on the early annals of their literature. Even the Song of Songs is allowed to have a spiritual import, pointing to much higher themes than Solomon and his Egyptian bride. A solemn gravity pervades all their writings, befitting a people who were charged with the religious history of the world and with the oracles of Divine truth. No smile appears to have ever brightened the countenance of a Jewish author,—no trifling thought to have passed through his mind,—no ludicrous association to have been formed in his fancy. In describing the flood of Deucalion, the Roman poet laughs at the grotesque misery which he himself exhibits, and purposely groups together objects with the intention of exerting to his readers the feeling of ridicule. But in no instance can we detect the faintest symptom of levity in the Hebrew penmen; their style, like their subject, is uniformly exalted, chaste, and severe; they wrote to men concerning the things of God, in a manner suitable to such a momentous communication; and they never ceased to remember that, in all their records, whether historical or prophetic, they were employed in propagating those glad tidings by which all the families of the earth were to be blessed.
There can be no stronger proof of the pure and sublime nature of Hebrew poetry than is supplied by the remarkable fact, that it has been introduced into the service of the Christian church, and found suitable for expressing those lofty sentiments with which the gospel inspires the heart of every true worshipper. No other nation of the ancient world has produced a single poem which could be used by an enlightened people in these days for the purposes of devotion.[69] Hesiod, although much esteemed for the moral tone of his compositions, presents very few ideas indeed capable of being accommodated to the theology of an improved age. In perusing the works of the greatest writers of paganism, we are struck with a monstrous incongruity in all their conceptions of the Supreme Being. The majesty with which the Hebrews surrounded Jehovah is entirely wanting; the attributes belonging to the great Sovereign of the universe are not appreciated; the providence of the Divine mind, united with benevolence, compassion, and mercy, is never found to enter into their descriptions of the eternal First Cause; while their incessant deviations into polytheism outrage our religious feelings, and carry us back to the verb rudest periods of human history.
In these respects the literature of the Jews is far exalted above that of every other nation of which history has preserved any traces. It must be acknowledged, that we remain ignorant of the learning and theological opinions cultivated among the Persians at the time when the Jews were under their dominion, and cannot therefore determine the precise extent to which the dogmas of the captive tribes were affected by their intercourse with a race of men who certainly taught the doctrine of the Divine unity, and abstained from idolatrous usages. But confining our judgment even to the oldest compositions of the Hebrews, those, for example, which may be traced to the days of Moses, of Samuel, and of David, we cannot hesitate to pronounce that they are distinguished by a remarkable peculiarity, indicating by the most unambiguous tokens, that, in all things pertaining to religious belief, the descendants of Jacob were placed under a special superintendence and direction.