judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous." To the same purpose Josephus relates, in his account of the last address delivered by Moses to the Hebrew people, that this great legislator gave instructions to appoint seven judges in every city; men who had distinguished themselves by their good conduct and impartial feelings. Let those who judge, he adds, be permitted to determine according as they shall think right, unless any one can show that they have taken bribes to the perversion of justice, or can allege any other accusation against them.*

Between the " judges" and the "officers" nominated by the Jewish lawgiver, there was no doubt a marked distinction; though, from the remote antiquity of the appointment and the obscure commentaries of the Rabbinical writers, it has become extremely difficult to define the limits of their respective functions. Maimonides asserts, that in every city where the number of householders amounted to a hundred and twenty, there was a court consisting of twentythree judges, who were empowered to determine in almost all cases both civil and criminal. This is unquestionably the same institution which is mentioned by Josephus in the fourth book of his Antiquities, and described by him as being composed of seven judges and fourteen subordinate officers or assistants, selected from among the Levites; for these, with the president and his deputy, make up the sum of twenty-three specified by the Jewish writers. In smaller towns the administration of law

* Deut. xvi. 18, 19. Josephus' Antiquities, book iv. 8.

was intrusted to three judges, whose authority extended to the determination of all questions respecting debt, theft, rights of inheritance, restitution, and compensation. Though they could not inflict capital punishments, they had power to visit minor offences with scourging and fines, according to the nature of the delinquency and the amount of the injury sustained.*

Of the former of these judicial establishments, there were two fixed at Jerusalem, even during the period that the Sanhedrim of Seventy was invested with the supreme authority over the lives and fortunes of their countrymen; one of which sat in the gate of Shusan, and the other in that of Nicanor. The place where these judges held their audience was, as Cardinal Fleury remarks, the gate of the city; for, as the Israelites were all husbandmen who went out in the morning to their work, and did not return till the evening, the gate of the city was the place where they most frequently met; and we must not be astonished to find that the people laboured in the fields and dwelt in the towns. These were not cities like our provincial capitals, which can hardly subsist on what is supplied to them by twenty or thirty leagues of the surrounding soil. They were the habitations for as many labourers as were necessary to cultivate the nearest fields; hence, as the country was very populous, the towns were very thickly scattered. For a similar reason, among the Greeks and Romans, the scene of meeting for all matters of business was the market-place or forum, because they were all

* Reland. Antiq. Sac. Pars. ii. c. 7.

merchants.* Among the Jews, the judges took their seats immediately after morning prayers, and continued till the end of the sixth hour, or twelve o'clock; and their authority, though not in capital cases, continued to be respected by the Israelites long after Jerusalem was levelled with the ground.† With the aid of the particulars stated above, the reader may have been enabled to form some notion of the civil and political circumstances of the ancient Hebrews. They enjoyed the utmost degree of freedom that was consistent with the objects of regular society, acknowledging no authority but that of the laws as administered by the Elders of their Tribes, and the Heads of their Families. The equality of their property, too, and the sameness of their occupations, precluded the rise of those distinctions in social life, which, whatever may be their use in older nations, are opposed by all the habits of a people whose sole cares are yet devoted to the culture of their fields and the safety of their flocks. The form of government which suits best with such a distribution of wealth and employment, is unquestionably that which was established by Moses on the basis of the ancient patriarchal rule. But it is worthy of notice that this model, so convenient in the earliest stage of social existence, was imperceptibly changed by the increasing power and intelligence of the people at large, until, as happened towards the close of Samuel's administration, the public voice made itself be heard, recommending an entire departure from obsolete notions. Thus we find, in the progress of the human race, that the

simple authority of the family-chief passes through a species of oligarchy into a practical democracy, and ends at no very distant period in the nomination of a hereditary sovereign.

The epoch at which we now contemplate the Hebrew community is that very interesting one when the wandering shepherd settles down into the stationary husbandman. The progeny of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who themselves were pastoral chiefs, appear to have retained a decided predilection for that ancient mode of life. Moses, even after he had brought the Twelve Tribes within sight of the Promised Land, found it necessary to indulge the families of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, so far as to give them the choice of a settlement beyond the Jordan, where they might devote themselves to the keeping of cattle. From the conduct also of the other tribes, who showed no small reluctance to divide the land and enter upon their several inheritances, it has been concluded, with considerable probability, that they too would have preferred the erratic habits of their ancestors to the more restricted pursuits which their great lawgiver had prepared for them, amid corn-fields, vineyards, and plantations of olives. "And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, how long are ye slack to go to possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers hath given you?"*

Among the Arabs, even at the present day, the pastoral life is accounted more noble than that which leads to a residence in towns, or even in villages. They think it, as Arvieux remarks, more congenial

* Michaelis' Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, Art. 44; and Joshua xviii. 3.

D

to liberty; because the man, who with his herds ranges the desert at large, will be far less likely to submit to oppression than people with houses and lands. This mode of thinking is of great antiquity in the eastern parts of the world. Diodorus Siculus, when speaking of the Nabathæans, relates, that they were by their laws prohibited from sowing, planting, drinking wine, and building houses; every violation of the precept being punishable with death. The reason assigned for this very singular rule is, their belief that those who possess such things will be easily brought into subjection by a tyrant; on which account they continue, says the historian, to traverse the desert, feeding their flocks, which consist partly of camels and partly of sheep.

The fact now stated receives a remarkable confir mation from the notice contained in the book of Jeremiah respecting the Rechabites; who, though they had for several ages been removed from Arabia into Palestine, persevered in a sacred obedience to the command of their ancestor; refusing to build houses, sow land, plant vineyards, or drink wine, but resolving to dwell in tents throughout all their generations.

In regard to these points, the Hebrews, in the early age at which we are now considering them, appear to have entertained sentiments not very dif ferent from those of the Arabs, from whose sandy plains they had just emerged. The life of a migratory shepherd, too, has a very close alliance with the habits of a freebooter; and the attentive reader of the ancient history of the Israelites will recollect many instances wherein the descendants of Isaac gave ample proof of their relationship to the posterity of Ishmael. The character of Abimelech, the son