above his birth and breeding. Thus the people wondered at the change in Saul, whom they deemed more fit to feed his father's asses than to take part in the holy exercises of the prophets. But they knew not yet that this very man was to be their king.

It may be well to consider a little more minutely the character of Saul, in connection with that remarkable divine inspiration communicated to him after he was anointed. Up to that period he was a modest, retiring youth, attentive to his ordinary business, taking little if any interest in public affairs, and shrinking from, rather than courting, that notoriety to which his distinguished appearance might have justly entitled him. He seems, too, to have been as indifferent about religious as about political matters. The words of Samuel, which would have roused the ambition of most men, only produced in Saul a vague feeling of wonder. His sluggish spirit was in a great measure dead to feelings of religious enthusiasm and exalted patriotism. But Samuel, in anointing him, predicted a most remarkable change,—a change, however, to be effected, not by the rousing of any dormant energy, but by the infusion of a supernatural power: 'The Spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man. This work of the Spirit must be carefully distinguished from his ordinary work in regeneration. was to be made another, not a new man. The change effected was on the feelings and aspirations, not on the nature or heart; it was fitful and temporary, not permanent. The gift of the Spirit, in fact, was intended to inspire him (as it had inspired Samson before him), whenever necessity should require, with ambition to aim at, and courage to perform, the work of a king (chap. xi. 6); and, therefore, when he transgressed so heinously against God that David was anointed in his stead to rule over Israel, we are told that the Spirit of the Lord 'departed from Saul,' and came upon

David' (xvi. 13, 14).

Saul

Another phase of the character of this unfortunate man ought not to be overlooked. Naturally weak and passionate, his sudden elevation to supreme power completely overthrew his mental balance. There was promptness of action and dashing courage while the Spirit was upon him; but there was no stedfastness of purpose, there was no faith, and there was no truth. There was at the same time a rashness and a recklessness, which went far to

alienate his best friends; and there was an impatience of delay, and a rebellion against all restraint, human or divine, which in the end deprived him of the presence of Samuel and of the favour of God. Under these painful circumstances, we are told that 'an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.' Disappointed hopes and bitter hatred of a rival preyed upon his shattered intellect. His passions obtained at times so complete a mastery over reason, that he became mad. During long and lucid intervals, his better nature even then manifested itself; but the least excitement seems to have roused the demon within, and led him recklessly on to the wildest acts of revenge.

Thirty-first Weck-Second Day.

THE LAW OF THE KINGDOM.

If we turn to Deut. xvii. 14-20, we shall find certain principles stated, which were destined to form the standing law of the Hebrew monarchy.

It is first of all clearly laid down, that the nomination of the man who should be king was to be left to Jehovah himself. The regular mode of ascertaining the Lord's will would have been by Urim and Thummim through the high priest; but the intimation could also be given through prophets, or by the sacred lot. Saul, David, and Jeroboam all received the promise of the throne from prophets. Saul was further designated by the sacred lot, and David was elected by the elders of Israel to the throne, on the express ground that God had promised the kingdom to him. The same may be said of Jeroboam, whose elevation to the throne of the ten tribes must at least have been materially influenced by the fact of his previous nomination to the throne by the prophet Ahijah. These divine interpositions were well calculated to remind the kings of Him on whom they were dependent, and to whose appointment they were indebted for the throne. As monarchs, called kings of kings, were accustomed to appoint sub-kings, or viceroys, in the several provinces of their dominions, so was the king of the

Hebrews to be called to the throne by Jehovah, to receive the kingdom from Him, and in all respects to consider himself as his representative, viceroy, and vassal.'1 In fact, it seems to us that his position with respect to the Lord as Supreme King, bore much external resemblance to that which the Herodian kings of Judea bore to the Roman emperor. There can be no doubt that this point in the Hebrew constitution was fully and plainly expressed by Samuel, when he showed to the people 'the manner of the kingdom;' and in the sequel we shall find that the Lord himself failed not to enforce on all occasions, by rewards and by punishments, the responsibility of the sovereigns to Him. The best and most prosperous kings were such as had the truest conception of this essential condition of their power.

2

It was further ordained that the king should be one of themselves—a native Israelite-not a foreigner, not one born such, even though a proselyte. The reasons for this restriction are obvious in a state so peculiarly constituted as that of the Hebrews, not only from the high estimation in which the descent from Abraham was held, but because all other nations were wholly given to idolatry. This, however, had respect only to free elections, and was by no means to be understood, as interpreted by Judas of Galilee, and by the zealots, during the great war with the Romans, that the Hebrews were not to submit to those foreign powers to which, in the providence of God, they were from time to time subjected. On the contrary, Moses himself had predicted such events, and Jeremiah and Ezekiel had earnestly exhorted their countrymen to submit themselves quietly to the rule of the Chaldeans. As to proselytes, the lapse of generations, and a Hebrew mother, did not render even them capable of reigning in Israel: they were not of the chosen people, nor 'brethren' of the descendants of Abraham. To indicate this purity of descent, the name of the mother of a new king is often mentioned. But this occurs 2 Acts v. 37.

1 JAHN'S Biblische Archæologie, B. i. sec. 25,

3

3 I Kings xv. 2, 10, xxii. 42; 2 Kings viii. 26, xii. 1, xiv. 2, xv. 2, 33, xviii. 2.

.1

only in the kingdom of Judah, where the law of Moses was held in higher respect than in the other kingdom. To be born of a foreign mother was not indeed an obstacle to the attainment of the throne, if the descent had been unbroken on the side of the father from one of the families of Israel. Rehoboam succeeded Solomon, although his mother was an Ammonitess ;1 but it may in this case be remembered that, so far as we know, he was the only son of the possessor of a thousand wives. The Idumeans counted among their ancestors Abraham and Isaac ; but seeing that they came from Esau, not from Jacob, they were included within this proscription of the law; and although Herod the elder, who was an Idumean, was king of Judea, he never possessed the cordial sympathies of his subjects, and certainly never would have attained his monarchy, but by the irresistible will of the mightiest of conquerors.

Females are not expressly excluded from the throne; but their disqualification seems to be assumed. It appears never to have entered the mind of the Jewish lawgiver that they might be called to reign. The exclusion is, indeed, traced in the text by Jewish writers, from the constant use of the masculine noun in referring to the contingencies of sovereign power. It is true that Deborah was judge in Israel, but she did not wear a diadem. Athaliah did; but that was by usurpation, in the teeth of the law, and from her the crown passed to the head of the rightful heir. The same character, in a form somewhat mitigated, applies to the nine years' reign of Alexandra, wife of king Alexander Janneus, who, after his death, assumed the throne. There can be no reason to question that the Hebrew theory of government, like that of other oriental nations, was unfavourable to the rule of females, although women did occasionally reign. This may be traced even in the prophets: As for my people,' says Isaiah, 'chil

1 1 Kings xiv. 31; 2 Chron. xii. 13.

3

2 Melek, masc., not Malkah, fem.—' Regem, dit le Deut. xvii. 15, et non pas Reginam.'-PASTORET.

dren are their oppressors, and women rule over them." Those ancient times and distant nations wanted the experience furnished under our milder manners and more matured institutions that a female reign may be as vigorous as that of any man, and not less prosperous and happy.

2

The Talmudists held the opinion that these were not the only disqualifications, but that various professions or trades precluded a man from becoming king in Israel. At the head of this list are physicians, who, say these sages, live too proudly, without fear of disease, and with hearts unhumbled before God, and are often guilty of the blood of their poor brethren, by refusing to them the succour of their skill. We might be astonished to see the noblest of secular professions thus unfavourably estimated, and mixed up with some of the coarsest of the arts, did we not read, in the history of antiquity, that the profession of medicine was for the most part abandoned to slaves. Other disqualifying employments are those of butchers, barbers, bathmen, weavers, tanners, grooms, and camel-drivers. They apprehended, it seems, that an Israelite could not have exercised such employments without contracting low and ignoble sentiments; and it was believed that the remembrance of his former condition would cause him to be held in contempt by his subjects. The same professions equally debarred an Israelite from the high-priesthood. Other employments which, to our notions, are scarcely of higher consideration than these, did not disqualify a man from being king. Saul had the care of asses, and David of sheep; but the asses and the sheep were those of their fathers, in a country where pastoral employments were long held in high respect. The son of a slave, or even of a captive, was also by usage excluded from the throne. Most readers will remember that the priest-king Alexander Janneus was once pelted with citrons when he stood at the altar about to offer sacrifice, and reviled as the descendant of a captive, and therefore unfit to sacrifice. This charge, founded

1 Isa. iii. 12.

2 This exclusion of the physicians is not stated in MAIMONIDES' Treatise upon the Kings. But Maimonides was himself a physician.