P SCENES FROM HEBREW LIFE ART of the Bible's service to us is rendered through its faithful portrayal, not only of the events of Hebrew history and the exploits of heroes and heroines, kings and prophets and men of God, but also of the ideas and customs of Bible times. Many of these ideas we have seen illustrated in such stories as those of Balaam, Ruth, and Esther. In Judith and the story of the Maccabees, we note the intense devotion to the law which filled the hearts of the faithful Jews in the centuries just preceding the Christian era. Some of these contemporary religious ideas seem to us now strange, and unlike the lofty religion of Jehovah taught by the great prophets, to say nothing of the gospel of love and service as taught in the New Testament. But this very fact helps us to see how much the Hebrews learned during the long centuries of their providential training. We cannot expect the settlers on the hills of Canaan in the days of the judges to show the high conception of Jehovah as Lord of all the earth that Israel learned through her experiences with the nations. The Bible faithfully portrays the Israelites, sometimes by its descriptions and narrations, and sometimes by letting the writers show us, as they write, the peculiarities of their religious thinking. Some of the stories that follow were very interesting to the Jews, as is shown by the fact that they have been preserved in the Greek additions to the Bible known as the Apocrypha. They are also of interest to us, both in themselves and as contributing to our understanding of the religious ideas that prevailed in the days when they were written. THE PILLAR OF CLOUD AND OF FIRE "The cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night." They trod in peace the Arab sand, In martial pomp and show, With banners spread and sword in hand, None dared to be a foe. Though wandering o'er the world's wide face, None dared molest the sacred race. For o'er the ark still hovered nigh A cloud when day o'erspread the sky, -Henry Rogers 342 ADVENTURES OF THE ARK The sacred Ark of Jehovah symbolized to the Hebrews the favoring presence of their own covenant God. According to the Bible narrative, it was originally a simple wooden chest, containing the stone tablets on which God had written "the ten words" of his covenant with Israel. We also learn that it was overlaid with gold, and that in it were put other sacred relics of the wilderness journeys and the displays of God's power. As the repository of the commandments, it was a constant reminder of the terms on which Jehovah would bless and save his people. THE ARK MADE MOSES IS COMMANDED TO MAKE THE ARK T that time the Lord said to me: "Hew thee two tables A of stone like to the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brokest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.” And I made an ark of acacia wood, and hewed two tables of stone like the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in my hand. And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the Lord spoke to you in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, in the day of the assembly: and the Lord gave them to me. And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they are, as the Lord commanded me. In the Bible account of the wilderness wanderings, we find the Ark, borne always by the priests, carried in advance of the host to locate their camp, going with them into battle, and by its presence assuring them of victory. When the host crossed the Jordan, the priests bore the Ark into the bed of the river; and the people, since the Lord was there to protect them, did not hesitate to follow. Before Jericho, we find the Ark carried by the priests at the head of the daily procession around the city walls. |