Thus

successor was not compelled to reap the whirlwind. society was reconstituted twice in a century; there was a re-division of the land which reduced large estates to their original dimensions, and asserted the rights of all to an equality of maintenance and position.

It is obvious that there was no room in the Jewish land system for a great territorial nobility, for the existence of large estates, or for the absolute exclusion of any part of the population from access to the land. There was not a man that had not an immediate or a prospective right to some portion of the Land of Promise of which it was impossible to deprive him; and there was not a scrap of land which had not a claim on the personal attention of some possessor. Even if some sudden disaster on others were to swell the estate of some wealthy landowner, he could never count as his own any such accession of territory, since all must pass out of his control at the year of Jubilee.

Not only were the lands jealously kept for the individual Israelites, but also for the tribes, so much so that the chief fathers of the families of the children of Gilead came near, and spake before Moses, and complained that there was a danger of a considerable portion of their territory passing out of their hands in consequence of the daughters of Zelophehad marrying into other tribes, "when the Jubilee of the children of Israel shall be, then shall their inheritance be put unto the inheritance of the tribe whereunto they were received." Then Moses decided that when land was vested in girls, as the sole survivors of their father, they were to marry only in the family of the tribe of their father, and thus their inheritance remained included in the original limits of their tribal boundaries. In this manner it was as impossible for any tribal territories to become

enlarged beyond their original limits, as for a personal

estate.

It would be of course out of the question to attempt to reproduce these ancient customs on the statute books of our time, but they at least suggest some necessary principles, that the land is God's, given by Him to every man, and that there should be a possibility of men regaining that, from which temporary misfortune or the faults of their fathers may have deprived them. And probably there was more genuine enjoyment and blessedness throughout Israel in those simple days of agricultural toil and comparative equality, than in our own, when on the one hand, there is abundance of bread and of idleness, and on the other there is grinding toil and scarcity, and jealous hatred. Rapacity, avarice, monopoly, pride of power, found far less room to grow in those old days than in these, when there is practically no limit to the fortunes which men may amass and to the vast lands which they may acquire. Would that religion might do what perhaps legislation will never dare to put its hand to, in the lessening of human selfishness and the recognition of those duties which are imposed on all men by the possession of position, and wealth, and success. Property has duties as well as rights, to be performed as in the sight of God.

F. B. MEYER.

CHAPTER XCIII.

THE PRIMEVAL COMMAND, AND THE

PROPHETIC PROMISE.

BY G. H. PEMBER, M.A.,

Author of "Earth's Earliest Ages," etc.

THE Bible leaves us in no doubt as to the object which God had in view when He prepared our earth for habitation. "The heavens," says the Psalmist, "are the heavens of the Lord; but the earth hath He given to the children of men."*

Yet, when Adam was created, God did not bewilder him by bidding him go and take possession of all the broad lands on the face of the globe. No: He planted a delightful garden, of fitting dimensions, and placed the man there, not to live in idleness, but to "work" it, and to "watch over" or "guard" it. Now, the first of these words has the general meaning of "to bestow labour upon," and is used of tilling the ground, or of tending a vineyard or garden; the second manifestly hints at foes who would seek to deprive him of his enclosed estate,† and against whom he must be upon his guard.

Thus in the Garden of Eden we seem to have the first instance of private property, the tenure of which,

* Psa. cxv., 16.

The precise meaning of the Hebrew word is "an enclosed space." Similarly, our English word "garden is derived from the Anglo-Saxon gyrdan, to gird or enclose.

granted by God Himself, was subject to certain conditions. The man must work it and guard it; moreover, he must acknowledge the rights of the Lord paramount by abstaining from the fruits of a single tree which was pointed out to him. Here, then, is the whole duty of a landowner according to the Old Testament—for the Mosaic law is but a development of it; he must see that his acres are duly tilled, that, so far as he can compass it, they are bringing forth bread for the eater; and he must not forget to render his tithes to the God Whose steward he is.

Even in man's sinless condition the duty of working the land was set before him; nevertheless, no toilsome labour was proposed; for the earth itself and all Nature would, with one accord, assist him. But after his fall the duty became hard; he could no longer live upon the easily cultivated fruit of trees, but must till the ground for the bread-corn, and force it by the sweat of his brow from the unwilling earth. Yet, even this curse, if he bowed to it, would become a blessing, and that the greatest which he was capable of receiving in his fallen circumstances. For there is naught but honest labour that can make the present life wholesome and tolerable; there is no other secondary means which is so powerful to deliver men from the dangerous horrors of ennui, and to preserve them from temptation and vice.

As a side light upon the blessings which the gift of land in settled tenure conferred, we may note that Cain, in punishment for his crime, was condemned to be a fugitive and a wanderer upon the face of the earth, to know the joy neither of homestead nor holding. It is true that he refused to obey the command of God, and did settle himself and build a city. But the sequel shows that the best things of this earth are blessings only when

we hold them by the will of God. Cain's city became a fountain of lawlessness, which covered the earth with its corrupting waters, and presently caused the destruction of all flesh.

After the deluge, when the world had again apostatized to such a degree that God would no longer deal with it as a whole, He determined to call out Abraham from among the idolators, and to make an elect people of his seed. And with the call to the patriarch came also the promise of a land—a very indefinite promise at first, merely of "a land that I shall show thee; so that Abraham "went out, not knowing whither he went."+ But when his faith had been proved, God spoke definitely, and said :—“ Unto thy seed have I given this land from the Brook of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates."§

Such is the promise to the people who are presently to dwell upon the earth in righteousness: it was given without conditions, and therefore, ultimately, nothing can hinder its literal and complete fulfilment. Not yet, however, has God found this fulfilment possible. The Israelites sinned from the beginning, and the first consequence of their conduct was that they had to wander forty years in the wilderness before they could enter the

Gen. xii., 1.

+ Heb. xi., 8.

That is, the present Wady-el-Arish, which flows into the Mediterranean by the site of Rhinocolura, and which once formed the boundary of Israel and Egypt. The Hebrew word does, indeed, usually mean a river rather than a small stream or brook; but by the "river of Egypt" we could only understand the Nile, which could not be intended here for two reasons. For (1) the Euphrates could scarcely be called "the great river" in contrast with the Nile, which exceeds it considerably, both in the length of its course and in the breadth of its stream. Moreover (2), if the Israelitish Kingdom were to extend to the Nile, it would encroach upon Egypt, which it is not likely to do, since Egypt also is to be revived as well as Israel. See Isa. xix., 23-25. § Gen. xv., 18.