Foreigners and colonists were not ill-treated in Israel. The Law guaranteed protection to Hebrew and colonist alike. But the good will shown towards the Canaanite and the sons of Ammon and Moab was not very great. They were forever excluded from using the title of citizen. Neither they nor the bastard nor the eunuch could take a place in the assembly of Yahveh. But at the third generation the sons of Edom and Mizraim were admitted as Israelites on condition they submitted to the ceremony of circumcision, by which the Hebrew was always distinguished from the Gentile.
Marriage was considered an absolute obligation, from which nobody could be exempt. This idea was certainly one of the causes of the morality and power of Israel. Woman was not according to the Law an inferior being, she was part of man, she bore the same name as man; he was called isch, and she ischa, with the feminine termination. No more in Israel than in Egypt were the young girls and young women shut up from all eyes. Nobody could have enjoyed more liberty than Miriam and Deborah. Woman looked up to and free, as she was imagined in a country where law was respected, has been marvellously described at the end of Proverbs. The more they thought of woman, the more she was punished when she forgot her duties.
The power of fathers over their sons and daughters before marriage was very great. The latter could be sold as slaves, but only for a time. However, the Law forbids the father the right of killing his children. It was necessary for the father, in order to have his son put to death, to appeal to the assembly of the elders assembled at the gates of the town. Brought up with the knowledge of the Law, the son remained for a long time under the authority of his father, for whom he had to work even after marriage, which emancipated the daughters.
How were the inheritances divided, and did the right of the eldest son ever exist in Israel? The eldest son, so long as a daughter had not come before him, had a right to two parts of the paternal succession. The remainder was distributed equally amongst the other children. As for the father, he could not lawfully change his will in favour of a favourite son. What Jacob did for Joseph, the Hebrew legislators wished to spare to future generations. Israel with the proud Josephides suffered too severely from favouritism not to repudiate it energetically. Far inferior to the right of priority of birth, the law of favouritism only feeds hypocrites and stirs up hatred and jealousy in the bosoms of families. When a man died leaving only daughters, they shared the inheritance with the obligation of only marrying members of their tribe. If there were no daughters, the nearest relations inherited. Later, by putting aside the Law, the heads of families commenced leaving a part of their property either to their daughters or sometimes to their slaves.
This short account of the Jewish Law would be incomplete if it were silent on an interesting feature of the society of Israel, the slave. Like all nations of antiquity, Israel had slaves. But the Law softened their lot. Amongst the slaves were Hebrews and foreigners. A man who was much in need could sell his young daughter as a slave. Sometimes the son of her master was obliged to marry her. The Hebrew incapable of paying the fine after a theft was obliged to deliver himself up to the man he had stolen from. When reduced to the last extremity, he could sell himself. These were the principal circumstances of slavery in Israel, but at the end of six years the slave became free, and left his master with a reward in the shape of lambs, kids, and goats. They also received presents of ground and of household linen. But if the slave at the eighth year said to his master, “I will not leave you,” the master would take a bodkin or puncheon, and pierce the ear of the slave leaning against the door of his house: this was a sign of perpetual slavery.
Foreigners became slaves in Israel by selling themselves, or when they were prisoners of war. The Law was lenient towards them. They had the right to take part in the panegyrics and joys of Yahveh, to share the repast of the climes and the natural fruit of the Sabbatic years, and to rest on the Sabbath day. If their masters mutilated them, they were obliged to liberate them; freedom might be the result of a broken tooth. If the slave died from his master’s ill-treatment, the master was terribly punished; how, is not clearly stated. A slave seems once to have enjoyed the office of steward; the management of the whole house was in his hands.
Except in regard to Yahveh, the Hebraic Law appears to have received beneficial influence from Egypt and Assyria; at every moment that beautiful chapter cxxv of The Book of the Dead seemed to be remembered, where the soul justifying itself before Osiris, after stating that the precepts of charity had been fulfilled, dares to add “I have not made tears flow.”[c]
HEBREW ART, ARCHITECTURE: THE TEMPLE, TOMBS, ETC.
During the last three centuries, many scholars have devoted themselves especially to the art of this nation that has played such an extraordinary rôle in the history of the world. These researches have been directed almost entirely upon the temple at Jerusalem and its furniture; for here, where the national life was concentrated, was in fact all the art that the country produced. Moreover, while the remains are no longer in our hands or under our eyes, there is not a single edifice in all oriental or classical antiquity concerning which we possess such numerous and circumstantial records.