In Sodomites who were destroyed with brimstone and fire. Judges (19:22-30) we read of a man offering his maiden daughter and his concubine to a mob to prevent an unnatural crime being committed against his guest: "Seeing that this man is come into my house, do not this folly." This case is of extreme sociological importance as showing that notwithstanding the strict laws of Moses (Levit. 20:10; Deut. 22: 13-30) on sexual crimes, the law of hospitality seems to have been held more sacred than a father's regard for his daughter's honor. The story of Abraham shows, too, that he did not hold his wife's honor in the same esteem as a modern Christian does: "And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon; and it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife; and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray thee, Thou art my sister; that it may be well with me for thy sake, and that my soul may live because of thee." And it happened as he had arranged. She was taken into Pharaoh's house and he was treated well for her sake; and he had sheep, and oxen, and other presents. When he went to sojourn in Gerar (Gen. 20: 1–15) Abraham tried to repeat the same stratagem, taking refuge, when found out, in the double excuse that he was afraid he would be slain for his wife's sake, and that she really was his sister, the daughter of his father, but not the daughter of his mother. Isaac followed his father's example in Gerar: "The man of the place asked him of his wife; and he said, She is my sister for he feared to say, My wife; lest (said he) the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah; because she was fair to look upon." Yet we were told that Isaac loved Rebekah. Such is not Christian love. The actions of Abraham and Isaac remind one of the Blackfoot Indian tale told on page 631 of this volume. An American army officer would not only lay down his own life, but shoot his wife with his own pistol before he would allow her to fall into the enemy's hands, because to him her honor is, of all things human, the most sacred. UNCHIVALROUS SLAUGHTER OF WOMEN Emotions are the product of actions or of ideas about actions. Inasmuch as Hebrew actions toward women and ideas about them were so radically different from ours it logically follows that they cannot have known the emotions of love as we know them. The only symptom of love referred to in the Hebrew Scriptures is Amnon's getting lean from day to day and feigning sickness (II. Sam. 13: 1-22); and the story shows what kind of love that was. It would be contrary to all reason and psychological consistency to suppose that modern tenderness of romantic feeling toward women could have existed among a people whose greatest and wisest man could, for any reason whatever, chide a returning victorious army, as Moses did (Numbers 31: 9-19), for saving all the women alive, and could issue this command: "Now, therefore, kill every male among the living ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." The Arabs were the first Asiatics who spared. women in war; the Hebrews had not risen to that chivalrous stage of civilization. Joshua (8:26) destroyed Ai and slew 12,000, both of men and women:" and in Judges (21 : 10-12) we read how the congregation sent an army of 12,000 men and commanded them, saying, "Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the little ones. And this is the thing ye shall do ; ye shall utterly destroy every male and every woman that hath lain by man." And they did so, sparing only the four hundred virgins. These were given to the tribe of Benjamin, "that a tribe be not blotted out from Israel;" and when it was found that more were needed they lay in wait in the vineyards, and when the daughters of Shiloh came out to dance, they caught them and carried them off as their wives; whence we see that these Hebrews had not advanced beyond the low stage of evolution, when wives are secured by capture or killed after battle. Among such seek not for romantic love. ·66 66 FOUR MORE BIBLE STORIES Dr. Trumbull's opinion has already been cited that there are certainly gleams of romantic love from out of the clouds of degraded human passions in the ancient East," in the stories of Shechem and Dinah, Samson and the damsel of Timnah, David and Abigail, Adonijah and Abishag. But I fail to find even "gleams" of romantic love in these stories. Shechem said he loved Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah, but he humbled her and dealt with her "as with an harlot," as her brothers said after they had slain him for his conduct toward her. Concerning Samson and the Timnah girl we are simply told that he saw her and told his father, "Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well" (literally, "she is right in my eyes "). And this is evidence of romantic. love! As for Abigail, after her husband has refused to feed David's shepherds, and David has made up his mind therefore to slay him and his offspring, she takes provisions and meets David and induces him not to commit that crime; she does this not from love for her husband, for when David has received her presents he says to her, "See, I have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted thy person." Ten days later, Abigail's husband died, and when David heard of it he "sent and spake concerning Abigail, to take her to him to wife... And she rose and bowed herself with her face to the earth, and said, Behold, thine handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord. And Abigail, hasted, and arose, and rode upon an ass, with five damsels of hers that followed her; and she went after the messengers of David, and became his wife." And as if to emphasize how utterly unsentimental and un-Christian a transaction this was, the next sentence tells us that " David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel; and they became both of them his wives." ABISHAG THE SHUNAMMITE The last of the stories referred to by Dr. Trumbull, though as far from proving his point as the others, is of peculiar interest because it introduces us to the maiden who is believed by some commentators to be the same as the Shulamite, the heroine of the Song of Songs. After Solomon had become king his elder brother, Adonijah, went to the mother of Solomon, Bath-sheba, and said: "Thou knowest thy kingdom was mine, and that all Israel set their faces on me, that I should reign: howbeit the kingdom is turned about, and is become my brother's: for it was his from the Lord. And now I ask one petition of thee, deny me not. Speak, I pray thee, unto Solomon the king (for he will not say thee nay) that he give me Abishag the Shunammite to wife." But when Solomon heard this request he declared that Adonijah had spoken that word against his own life; and he sent a man who fell on him and killed him. Who was this Abishag, the Shunammite? The opening lines of the First Book of Kings tell us how she came to the court: "Now King David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat. Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king, a young virgin, and let her stand before the king and cherish him; and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat. So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king. And the damsel was very fair, and she cherished the king, and ministered to him; but the king knew her not." THE SONG OF SONGS Now it is plausibly conjectured that this Abishag of Shunam or Shulam (a town north of Jerusalem) was the same as the Shulamite of the Song of Songs, and that in the lines 6:11-12 she tells how she was kidnapped and brought to .court. I went down into the garden of nuts, Or ever I was aware, my soul [desire] set me She also explains why her face is tanned like the dark tents of Kedar: "My mother's sons were incensed against me, They made me keeper of the vineyards." The added words "mine own vineyard have I not kept" are interpreted by some as an apology for her neglected personal appearance, but Renan (10) more plausibly refers them to her consciousness of some indiscretion, which led to her capture. We may suppose that, attracted by the glitter and the splendor of the royal cavalcade, she for a moment longed to enjoy it, and her desire was gratified. Brought to court to comfort the old king, she remained after his death at the palace, and Solomon, who wished to add her to his harem, killed his own brother when he found him coveting her. The maiden soon regrets her indiscretion in having exposed herself to capture. She is "a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valley," and she feels like a wildflower transplanted to a palace hall. While Solomon in all his glory urges his suit, she, tormented by homesickness, thinks only of her vineyard, her orchards, and the young shepherd whose love she enjoyed in them. Absentminded, as one in a revery, or dreaming aloud, she answers the addresses of the king and his women in words that ever refer to her shepherd lover:1 "Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest thy flock." "My beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna flowers in the vineyards of En-gedi." "Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea pleasant: Also our couch is green." 66 As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste." "The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills." My beloved is mine, and I am his Ie feedeth his flock among the lilies." "Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field, let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards. There will I give thee my love." The home-sick country girl, in a word, has found out that the splendors of the palace are not to her taste, and the 1 For whom the Hebrew poet has a special word (dodi) different from that used when Solomon is referred to. |