(1) In days when Jerusalem was not yet Jerusalem, City of David, but only Jebus, a stronghold of the Canaanites, there had been built in the limestone uplands of Judæa an Israelitish village, Gibeah, situated (as the name implies), on a hill-top, doubtless for such security as the rising ground afforded.
At the time we are concerned with, Israel stood in sore need of every protection her settlements could find. Baffled by the great Canaanite fortresses, the invading Hebrews had never become absolute masters of the land, and of recent years their fortunes had altogether failed under the counter-pressure of new invaders, the Philistines, who had seized the coast of Canaan and whose restless armies came sweeping up the valleys that lead to the highlands from the plain along the sea. The raiders harried the Judæan villages, slaying the men and carrying the women, children and cattle captive to the lowlands. The villages were an easy prey, and the spirit of the Israelites was broken by the miseries of these repeated ravages. Wandering bands of religious devotees, preaching remembrance of the power of Jehovah, kept the embers of corporate feeling from flickering out; but, at the best, their wordy warfare must have seemed a feeble answer to the mail-clad giants of the Philistine hosts.
Imagine that we are standing on the hill of Gibeah, looking down the steep pathway which leads up to the village. A few days ago a young man, accompanied by a servant, went out to search the countryside for some strayed animals. All in Gibeah know him well, Saul, the son of Kish, a proper man, tall and powerful, one who in happier days might have been a leader in Israel. Saul and his servant are returning and have almost reached the foot of the ascent to the village. Last night they were with Samuel at Ramah, and at day-break secretly the seer had anointed the youth to be king over Israel; but of these events we are ignorant as yet; we do not know that the Saul who went out will return no more. Idly watching from the hill-top, we observe a company of devotees, who have spent the night in Gibeah, descending the slope towards Saul. As they approach, Saul stops and, to our faint surprise, is seen to be in speech with them. Question and answer pass. Suddenly our listless attention changes to astonishment. Below, excitement is rising, and on none has it fallen more than on Saul! He begins to talk and gesticulate like a man inspired. We raise a shout and the folk come running, and, as they see beneath them Saul now in an ecstasy, the incredulous cry breaks forth Is Saul also among the prophets?
What is the interest of this famous scene? That a proverb was born that day in Israel? That it marked the commencement of a new stage in the national life of Israel? More than that. The real interest is in the transformation effected by the recognition of a personal duty. Young men like the Saul who went out to seek the lost animals are useful members of a State, but, had Saul remained unaltered, what waste of his latent, unsuspected power! Saul had met devotees many times before, but their words had roused no energies in him. One touch of the faith of Samuel, one illuminating moment of consciousness that to him God had spoken, and—Saul was a king, and Israel again a people; despair became hope, and hope achievement. It has always been so, whenever men have listened to the summons of personal religion. We go upon our ordinary path a hundred times and return as we went, uncomprehending; but if once God meets us on the way, whether He speak by the mouth of a prophet, or, as now, by the shock of war, the miracle is effected: we are changed into another man.
(2) The scene of the second of these early proverbs is the steep and rugged country that mounts from the floor of the Dead Sea valley near Engedi. But the setting of the incident matters little; its point is all in the play of character between two great personalities—Saul, now nearing the dark finish of his reign and haunted by the thought that at his death the throne will pass from his house; and David, with youth and a good conscience to support him but fleeing for his life from the jealous king and hard pressed by the royal soldiery. Saul has entered a cave, unaware that David is hiding in its recesses. David suffers him to go out unharmed and still ignorant of his peril; but quietly he follows Saul to the sunlight at the cave’s mouth, and standing there, as the King moves off, he calls, “O my lord the King!” At the clear, musical, voice of the man he half-loves, half-hates, and cannot kill, Saul in astonishment turns to hear these words: “Wherefore hearkenest thou to men’s words saying ‘Behold David seeketh thy hurt’? Behold this day the Lord had delivered thee into mine hand in the cave: and some bade me kill thee; but mine eye spared thee and I said ‘I will not put forth mine hand against my lord, for he is the Lord’s anointed.’ Moreover, my father, see, yea, see the skirt of thy robe in my hand: for in that I cut the skirt of thy robe and killed thee not, know thou and see that there is neither evil nor transgression in my hand, and I have not sinned against thee, though thou huntest after my soul to take it. The Lord judge between me and thee, and avenge me of thee: but mine hand shall not be upon thee. As saith the proverb of the ancients, Out of the wicked cometh forth wickedness: but mine hand shall not be upon thee.” We can see how David meant it, that proverb of the ancients. It leapt to his lips in eager protestation. How could Saul deem him capable of a deed of foulest treachery? Why could he not see that only out of the basest of men could such dire wickedness proceed? But into the mind of Saul the saying sank with double edge. What had he done towards the making of this scene—that red mist of passion when he flung the javelin; those cold and cunning plots to lure David into adventure that would be his death; the unrelaxing hunt to catch and kill? Saul for an instant saw his soul laid bare by the ancient proverb: he at least was a man from whom great wickedness had come, and “A good tree cannot bring forth corrupt fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” And Saul lifted up his voice and wept. And he said to David, “Thou art more righteous than I, for thou hast rendered unto me good, whereas I have rendered unto thee evil.” A few years later the King lay dead and vanquished on Mount Gilboa. From that day to this men have not ceased to find in him a text for moralising, with some justice but with strangely little sympathy, seeing that he sinned in one thing and paid a heavy penalty. Which was the real Saul? The King crazy with murderous hatred, or the man who answered David’s generosity in those noble words, who once “was among the prophets,” who had made Israel again a people and so long time had held the Philistines at bay? It does not greatly matter if men reply “the mad Saul, who died believing himself forsaken of God”; and so push their moralisings home. But on which Saul does the Divine judgment pass? One man, more than all others, had reason to condemn, and he did more than pardon. He sang of Saul slain on Gilboa, How are the mighty fallen?... Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided.
(3) In the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel two popular sayings are mentioned, which may be considered together, for their burden is one.
(a) Behold, everyone that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against thee saying, As is the mother, so is the daughter (Ezekiel 1644).
(b) But it shall come to pass that like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to overthrow and to destroy and to afflict; so will I watch over them to build and to plant, saith the Lord. In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grapes his teeth shall be set on edge (Jeremiah 3128-30); and to the same effect, this from Ezekiel, The word of the Lord came unto me saying, What mean ye that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have cause any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are Mine: as the soul of the father so also the soul of the son is Mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die. But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right ... hath spoiled none by violence, hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment ... he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God (Ezekiel 181ff).
Heredity, the question at issue in these passages, presents a more complex and stringent problem to the modern mind than to the ancient. But it would be a great error to suppose that the Jewish thinkers were less concerned about it, or that its consequences seemed to them less bitter. Indeed for the Hebrews the problem had a sinister back-ground which for us has sunk far out of sight. The solidarity of the tribe or family was a fearsome reality in days when for the sin of one member vengeance would fall upon the whole community or household. Recollect the story of Achan, who stole from the sacred spoil a Babylonish mantle, silver, and a wedge of gold: Wherefore Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan AND his sons and his daughters and his oxen and his asses and his sheep and his tent and all that he had, and burned them with fire and stoned them with stones.[30] There was a grim wisdom in the ancient procedure. Man has had a stern fight for existence. How far can he tolerate “handicaps” in the contest? What can be expected from children of corrupt and vicious parents? Good citizens? “Men do not gather grapes of thorns.” Yet who could fail to see that the children were so far innocent; and therefore, whilst Achan died unpitied and forgotten, perhaps their young voices and terror-stricken looks remained an uneasy memory in the minds of those who stood consenting unto their death? Was it necessary that the child should be irretrievably ruined through his father’s guilt?
By the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, as the quotations show, the problem had deepened and become general. In the perils, hardships, and disasters which marked the decline and fall of the Judæan kingdom men felt that the whole nation was suffering the consequences of their fathers’ iniquities, and bitterly they quoted the saying The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. That way lay despair: Let us too eat of the grapes and drink of their wine and be merry, since to-morrow we die! Even the prophets experienced the temptation to hopelessness; as when Ezekiel, wrestling with Judah sunk in the old sins, thinks that in future days men will still have to cast at her the charge of idolatries handed down from the ancient Canaanites: as is the mother so is the daughter. But Jeremiah and Ezekiel both fought their way through to a new conception of life, and this it is which is proclaimed in the two chief passages quoted above. Deliverance from the entail of evil is, they declare, possible; man is not immovably fastened in chains which his ancestors have forged.