Hebrew Life and Times | Page 2

forth
tax-collectors to raise funds for his luxuries. It is of very great interest
and concern to us if there were daughters like Ruth in the barley fields
of Bethlehem, if shepherds tended their flocks in that same country
who were so fine in heart and simple in faith that to them or their
children visions of angels might appear telling of a Saviour of the
world. On such as these, in this study, let us as far as possible fix our
attention.

CHAPTER I
SHEPHERDS ON THE BORDER OF THE DESERT
Ancient Arabia is the home of that branch of the white race known as
the Semitic. Here on the fertile fringes of well-watered land
surrounding the great central desert lived the Phoenicians, the
Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Canaanites who, before the
Hebrews, inhabited Palestine. So little intermixing of races has there
been that the Arabs of to-day, like those of the time of Abraham, are
Semites.
The Hebrew people are an offshoot of this same Semitic group. They
began their career as a tribe of shepherds on the border of the north
Arabian desert. The Arab shepherds of to-day, still living in tents and
wandering to and fro on the fringes of the settled territory of Palestine,
or to the south and west of Bagdad, represent almost perfectly what the
wandering Hebrew shepherds used to be.
The Arabs of to-day are armed with rifles, whereas Abraham's warriors
cut down their enemies with bronze swords. Otherwise, in customs,
superstitions, and even to some extent in language, the modern desert
Arabs may stand for the ancient Hebrews in their earliest period. They
were nomads with no settled homes. Every rainy season they led out
their flocks into the valleys where the fresh green of the new grass was
crowding back the desert brown. All through the spring and early
summer they went from spring to spring, and from pasture to pasture
seeking the greenest and tenderest grass. Then as the dry season came
on and the barren waste came creeping back they also worked their way
back toward the more settled farm lands, until autumn found them
selling their wool to the nearby farmers and townspeople in exchange
for wheat and barley and some of the other necessaries of life.
THE SHEPHERD'S DAILY LIFE
Sheep-raising might seem at times a peaceful and even a somewhat
monotonous business. The flocks found their own food, grazing in the
pastures. Morning and night they had to be watered, the water being

drawn from the well and poured into watering troughs. Once or twice a
day also the ewes and shegoats had to be milked. When these chores
were done it was only necessary to stand guard over the flock and
protect them from robbers or wild animals. This, however, had to be
done by night as well as by day. On these wide pastures there were no
sheepfolds into which the animals could be securely herded as on the
settled farms. They slept on the ground, under the open sky, and the
shepherds, like those in Bethlehem, in the story of Jesus' birth, had to
keep "watch over their flocks by night." So long as no enemies
appeared there was in such an occupation plenty of time in which to
think and dream of God and man and love and duty. Very often,
however, the dreamer's reveries were interrupted, and at such times
there was no lack of excitement.
=Wild beasts.=--There were more beasts of prey in Arabia in those
days than there are to-day. In addition to wolves and bears, there were
many lions, which are not now found anywhere in the world except in
Africa. So the sheepmen had to go well armed, with clubs, swords, and
spears. We would want a high-powered rifle if we were in danger of
facing a lion. The Hebrews defended their flocks against these powerful
and vicious beasts with only the simplest weapons. Such fights were
anything but monotonous.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+ |
[Illustration: A DARIC, OR PIECE OF MONEY COINED BY
DARIUS, ONE | | OF THE EARLIEST SPECIMENS OF COINED
MONEY] | | | | [Illustration: ANCIENT HEBREW WEIGHTS FOR
BALANCES] | | | | [Illustration: HEBREW DRY AND LIQUID
MEASURES] | | | | Cuts on this page used by permission of the
Palestine Exploration | | Fund. |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
TRIPS TO TOWN
Among the most interesting events in the lives of the shepherds were
their trips to town, when they sold some of their wool and bought grain,
and linen cloth, and trinkets for the babies, and the things they could
not find nor make on the grassy plains. The raw wool was packed in

bags and slung over the backs of donkeys. On other donkeys rode two
or more of the men of the