prince in civil or criminal inquiries, and, finally, commanded under him in the field of battle. These heads of tribes and heads of families constituted the national senate, whose deliberations guided the administration of affairs in all cases of difficulty or hazard, and thus formed the bond of a federative state. See Judg. xx. 2, &c. During this period of the Hebrew history, the supreme power was occasionally exercised by judges, who appear to have been raised up by God, as occasion required, to deliver the people from the hand of an oppressor, and upon whom they conferred, in consequence, the highest functions of the government.

command you," Deut. iv. 1, 2, xii. 32. Indeed, | particular districts, supported the decisions of the without the sanction of Jehovah, as revealed by Urim and Thummim, no measure of importance could be undertaken. It is only by taking this view of the Hebrew government that we can understand the reason of various prescribed laws and institutions, under that dispensation. Thus, we must regard the tabernacle and temple as the palace of the great King; the priests and Levites as his attendants; the sacrifices, the libations of wine, and the shew-bread, as the daily provision for his household; and the mercy-seat as his royal throne. Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten, that God was the king of Israel in a spiritual as well as in a temporal sense. The one tended to strengthen the other; and they jointly opposed a strong barrier against the introduction of idolatry, by restricting the intercourse of the Israelites with foreign nations, and making polytheism a crime against the state.

to

4. The first events that occurred after the demise of Joshua appear to establish the fact, that every tribe was committed the management of its own affairs, even to the extent of being entitled to wage war and make peace, without the advice or sanction of the rest. It seems evident, that as soon as the people found rest for the sole of their foot, in the land of which they had, under the direction and by the aid of the Lord, taken possession, they were eager to return to their ancient and patriarchal form of society; which they were permitted to do, under such modifications as rendered it compatible with that theocratic character to which we have referred. In every tribe there was a chief, called the prince of the tribe, or the head of thousands; and under him were the princes of families, or commanders of hundreds. It is probable that the first-born of the senior family of each tribe was usually received as the prince of that tribe, and that the eldest son of every subordinate family succeeded his father in the honours and duties which belonged to the rank of a patriarch. The heads of the respective tribes presided over their affairs, administered justice in all ordinary cases, and led the troops in time of war. In the discharge of these duties they were assisted by the subordinate officers, the chiefs of families, who formed the council in such matters of policy as affected their

*The land having been divided by lot among the twelve tribes, each tribe was put in possession of a separate district or province, in such manner that, to use the words of Lowman, each tribe may be said to have lived together in one and the same county, and each family in one and the same hundred; so that every neighbourhood were relations to each other, and of the same families, as well as inhabitants of the same place.

5. The period during which the theocracy continued has been a subject of dispute. Some writers are of opinion that it terminated when the Israelites unadvisedly asked for and obtained a king; while others, with more reason, maintain that it continued until the coming of the Messiah. The Jewish monarchs appear only to have been viceroys, bound to govern by certain laws, and accountable for their conduct to Jehovah, the supreme magistrate in the state. They were raised up and displaced under the immediate direction of God; whilst a succession of prophets was established, to perpetuate the intercourse between Jehovah as sovereign, and the Jews as his peculiar people. Hence, the changes which the Hebrew government underwent at various times only interrupted, and did not destroy, the theocratic relation subsisting between God and the seed of Abraham.†

6. After the division of the twelve tribes, the two kingdoms were governed by their respective sovereigns, till the times of the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. On the return of the two tribes from Babylon, they were ruled by Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, for a period of one hundred and twenty-eight years, B. C. 408. From the death of Nehemiah till the year B. C. 166, they subsisted as a commonwealth, governed by the high-priest and the council of seventy-two; and were successively tributary to the Persians, Greeks, Macedonians, Egyptians, and Syrians. Under the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Jews were miserably persecuted, and compelled to take up arms in their own defence. Judas and his valiant brothers maintained a religious war for twenty-six years, with five of the Syrian kings; and after destroying 200,000 of their enemies,

On this subject the reader may consult Michaëlis on the Laws of Moses, vol. i., p. 188, &c.; Jennings's Jewish Antiq., p. 94; Warburton's Divine Legation, b. v., s. 8; and Jahn, Archæol. Bib. § 213–222.

re-established the independence of their country. | degree of perfection, viewed in relation to the For a period of one hundred and twenty-nine character of the people and the purposes of their years the Jews maintained their liberty under a social organization. Jehovah was himself the succession of the Asmonean princes, when they Lawgiver, as also the Judge, in all cases of appeal were rendered tributary to the Roman empire. and of difficulty: the statutes and the judgments During this period the Herodian family was in- were his; and there was no authority in Israel, vested with the government of Judea, the last of either to amend the one or alter the other. To whom was Agrippa, whose death is recorded Acts administer the laws thus promulgated, and execute xii. 21-23. On the death of Herod the Great, the judgments thus pronounced, constituted the however, the Jewish kingdom may be said to business of those subordinate judges who, under have expired; for it was shortly afterwards re- God, the supreme magistrate in the state, were duced to the form of a Roman province, and was appointed and clothed with judicial functions. governed by procurators sent from Rome. We proceed to notice, in detail, the various branches of this subject.

7. We may not close this section without noticing the funds appropriated to the maintenance of the Jewish kings; but our information here is meagre and unsatisfactory. Michaëlis conceives them to have been derived from the following sources (1) Voluntary offerings, or presents, 1 Sam. x. 27, xvi. 20. (2) A tithe of all the produce of the fields and vineyards* (1 Sam. viii. 15), and probably a tax in money, 1 Kings x. 14. (3) The royal demesne, consisting of unappropriated lands, or the property of state criminals, 1 Kings xxi. 15; 1 Chron. xxvii. 28. (4) The produce of the royal flocks, of which there seem to have been very large ones under the care of Arabian herdsmen, 1 Chron. xxvii. 29-31. (5) The mowing of the best grass of the public pastures. (6) The plunder and tribute of the conquered nations, 2 Sam. viii. 1-14; 1 Kings iv. 21; 1 Chron. viii. 1-11; Ps. lxxii. 10. (7) The customs paid by foreign merchants, who passed through the dominions of Solomon (1 Kings x. 15), and also the produce of the extensive merchandise which he carried on, 1 Kings ix. 28, x. 10, 14, 15, 28, 29.+

§ 1.-Courts of judicature and legal proceedings.

I.-1. OUR information respecting the judicial tribunals amongst the Hebrews is not very satisfactory; the notices of them in the writings of Moses are very imperfect; and the Jewish rabbins and the generally acute historian, Josephus, are strangely at variance. It appears, however, that every city had its elders, who formed a court of judicature, with the power to determine lesser matters in their respective districts (see Deut. xvi. 18, xvii. 8, 9, xxi. 1-9). According to the rabbins, every city which contained a hundred inhabitants, possessed a court of judicature, consisting of three judges; but all cities with a larger population had, according to Maimonides and others, twenty-three of these officers. Josephus, on the other hand, states that in every city Moses ordained seven judges of known integrity and virtue, to whom two ministers were added, out of the tribe of Levi so that each city had nine judicial functionaries, seven laymen, and two Levites. Leaving these discrepancies, which are, after all, of no very great consequence, we may speak with confidence as to the duties and obligations of these administrators and executors of the law. The Hebrew legislator, as the prime minister of Jehovah, enjoined upon them the strictest impartiality, in the discharge of their judicial functions, and prohibited the taking of gifts by them, under any circumstances that they might be offered (Exod. xxiii. 8); reminding them, that as a judge sits in the seat of God, no man should have any pre-eminence in his estimation, and neither ought he to be afraid of any man in administering the law (Exod. xxiii. 6, 7; Lev. xix. 15; Deut. i. 17, xxi. 18-20).

2. The numerous references to the "gate of the

Antiquities, b. iv., chap. 14; Wars, b. ii., chap. 20.

city" that occur in the Old Testament, show, as respective heinousness of their crimes. "But I Fleury remarks, that here the seat of justice say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his was originally set up. As the Israelites were all brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the husbandmen, who went out in the morning to judgment; whosoever shall say to his brother, their work, and did not return till the evening, the Raca, shall be in danger of the council; but whogate of the city was the place where they most soever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of frequently met; and we must not be astonished hell fire," Matt. v. 22. That is, Whosoever shall to find that the people laboured in the fields and indulge causeless and unprovoked resentment dwelt in the towns. These were not cities like against his Christian brother, shall be punished our provincial capitals, which can hardly subsist with a severity similar to what is inflicted by a on what is supplied to them by twenty or thirty court of judgment; he who shall suffer his passions leagues of the surrounding soil. They were the to transport him to greater extravagances, so as to habitations for as many labourers as were necessary make his Christian brother the object of derision to cultivate the nearest fields; hence, as the coun- and contempt, shall be exposed to a punishment try was very populous, the towns were very thickly still severer, corresponding to what the council imscattered. For a similar reason, among the Greeks poseth; but he who shall load his fellow-Christian and Romans, the scene of meeting for all matters with odious names and abusive language, shall of business, was the market-place, or forum, be- incur the secerest degree of all punishments, adecause they were all merchants.* The judges took quate to that of being burnt alive in the valley their seats immediately after morning prayers, and of Hinnom.|| continued till the end of the sixth hour, or twelve o'clock. See Gen. xxiii. 10, 18, xxxiv. 24; Deut. xvi. 18; Ruth iv. 1-10, &c.

3. It appears, by Deut. xvii. 8-11, that appeals lay from these local courts to a supreme tribunal. But the earliest mention of any such tribunal is under the reign of Jehoshaphat, and which, it is expressly stated, was erected for the decision of such cases, 2 Chron. xix. 8-11. The Jewish writers insist that this was the Sanhedrin, to which there are so many allusions in the New Testament, and which they also assert to have existed from the time of Moses, and to have possessed the supreme authority in all civil matters. Of this, however, there is not a vestige of proof: indeed, this assembly seems not to have been instituted till the time of the Maccabees. After this period, it is frequently spoken of as the supreme judicial tribunal. It consisted of seventy, seventy-one, or seventy-two members, chosen from among the chief priests, Levites, and elders of the people (of whom the high-priest was the president), and took cognizance of the general affairs of the nation. It gave judgment, however, only in the most important causes, reserving inferior matters for the lower courts; appeals from which, as we have before stated, lay here.‡

4. By images taken from these Jewish courts, our Lord, in a very striking manner, represents the different degrees of future punishment to which wicked men will be doomed, according to the

II. Of judicial procedure, or form of process, as we call it, our information is still more scanty than with regard to the courts of judicature.

1. In the early period of the Hebrew commonwealth, judicial procedure was no doubt very summary, as it still continues to be in many parts of Asia; and therefore very few rules are prescribed for conducting it. Of advocates such as ours, there is no appearance in any part of the Old Testament. Every man managed his own cause; of which an instance is furnished in 1 Kings iii. 15-28. From a passage in Job xxix. 15-17, Michaëlis infers that men of wisdom and influence might be asked for their opinions in difficult cases, and that they might also interfere to assist those who were not capable of defending themselves against malicious accusers. The exhortation in Isai. i. 17 he also thinks to have a reference to such a practice.

2. In criminal cases, the judge's first business was to exhort the accused person to confess the crime with which he stood charged, "that he might have a portion in the next life." Thus Joshua exhorted Achan to "make confession, and give glory to the Lord God of Israel," Josh. vii. 19. The oath was then administered to the witnesses (Lev. v. 1),§ who offered their evidence against him; after which the accused was heard in defence," John vii. 51. In matters where life

Bourne's Sermons, vol. i., p. 393. See also Lamy, b. i., c. 12; Macknight and others on the place; and Harwood's Introduction, vol. ii., pp. 188, 189.

In general the person to be sworn did not pronounce the formula of the oath; he only heard it pronounced, subjecting himself to the curse it contained, by pronouncing Amen. See Matt. xxvi. 63.

governor (John xviii. 31), though they had the power of inflicting inferior punishments, and in most other respects lived according to their own laws. Hence the allusions to the Roman law, mode of trial, &c., in the New Testament, are numerous, and demand consideration. The following sketch is chiefly compiled from Dr. Harwood, who has availed himself of the best autho rities in the consideration of the subject.

was concerned, one witness was not sufficient | put no man to death without the consent of the (Numb. xxxv. 30; Deut. xvii. 6, 7, xix. 15); but in those of lesser moment, particularly those merely relating to money and value, it seems that a single witness, if unexceptionable, and upon oath, was enough to decide between the plaintiff and defendant. From the account of our Saviour's trial before the supreme council, we see that witnesses were examined separately, and without hearing each other's declaration, and that it was necessarily in the presence of the accused. This is evident from the contradiction in the evidence of the two witnesses brought against the Redeemer (Mark xiv. 15), which would doubtless have been avoided, had they been admitted into court together.

3. Sentence having been pronounced on a person found guilty of a capital crime, he was hurried away to the place of execution; and in cases where the punishment of stoning was inflicted, the witnesses were compelled to take the lead, Deut. xvii. 7, Acts vii. 58, 59. It was also customary for the judge and the witnesses to lay their hands on the criminal's head, saying, "Thy blood be upon thine own head." To this usage, which was a declaration of the justice of the sentence, the Jews alluded, when they said with reference to our Lord, "His blood be upon us and our children," Matt. xxvii. 25. In Matt. xxvi. 39, 42, where our Lord says, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me," there is an allusion to the practice which obtained among the Jews, of giving the malefactor a cup of wine, in which there was infused a grain of incense, for the purpose of intoxicating and stupifying him, that he might be the less sensible of pain.*

III. For the purpose of deciding in disputed cases of property, where no other means of decision remained, recourse was had to the sacred lot, which was regarded as the determination of God, Prov. xvi. 33, xviii. 18. It was for this purpose that the Urim and Thummim was employed; which was also used in criminal cases, for the purpose of discovering the guilty, but never for convicting them.t

IV. We have already noticed the subjugation of Judea by the victorious arms of the Romans, and the administration of the law by procurators or governors sent thither from Rome. During the time of the New Testament history, the Roman tribunal was of necessity the last resort, in cases of a criminal nature: the Jews could

1. The Roman law, in conformity to the first principle of nature and reason, ordained that no one should be condemned and punished without a previous public trial. This obtained not only in Italy, but also in the provinces; and hence there are several allusions to it in the New Testa ment. Paul, who, with the rest of the apostles, availed himself of every legal method which the usages and maxims of the times had established, to avoid persecution, and extricate himself from calamity and suffering, on several occasions pleaded this privilege with success. When Lysias, the Roman tribune, ordered him to be conducted into the castle, and to be examined by scourging, he said to the centurion, as the soldiers were fastening him with thongs to the pillar for this purpose, "Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?" Acts xxii. 25. The centurion, upon hearing this, reported it to the tribune, who, upon hearing the fact from the apostle himself, immediately set him at liberty, much alarmed for having thus bound a Roman citizen. In like manner, when Paul and Silas were treated with such indignity at Philippi, by the multitude, countenanced by the magistrateswere beaten with rods-thrown into the public jail, and their feet made fast in the stocks-Paul said to the lictors whom the magistrates had sent to set them at liberty, "We are Roman citizens; your magistrates have ordered us to be publicly scourged without a legal trial-they have thrown us into a dungeon-and would they now have us steal away in a silent and clandestine manner? No! let them come in person, and conduct us out themselves." The lictors returned, and reported this answer to the magistrates, who were greatly alarmed when they understood that Paul and his companion were Roman citizens. They therefore went in person to the jail, addressed them with great civility, and begged them in the most respectful terms that they would quietly leave the town, Acts xvi. 37-39.

2. The conduct of the tribune Lysias toward the apostle was of the most humane and honourable description. On one occasion he rescued him from an infuriated mob, who were about to inflict violence on his person, Acts xxi. 27–36. And

and principal magistrates of Jerusalem were with Felix, when in this capital, to pass sentence of death upon the apostle, merely on their impeachment, appears from what the procurator himself told king Agrippa and Berenice: "I have here," said he, "a man whom my predecessor left in custody, when he quitted this province. During a short visit I paid to Jerusalem, upon my arrival, I was solicited by the priests and principal magistrates to pass sentence of death upon him. To these urgent entreaties I replied, that it was not customary for the Romans to gratify any man with the death of another-that the laws of Rome enacted that he who is accused should have his accuser face to face; and have license to answer for himself concerning the crimes laid against him." Acts xxv. 14—16.

afterwards, when about forty Jews associated and | remain in custody at Cæsarea, but that any perbound themselves with an oath that they would sons whom they had fixed upon, might go down neither eat nor drink till they had assassinated along with him, and produce at his tribunal what him, Lysias, to secure the person of the apostle they had to allege against the prisoner, Acts xxv. from their determined fury, ordered seventy horse-1-5. How importunate and urgent the priests men and two hundred spearmen to escort the prisoner to Cæsarea, where the procurator resided; writing a letter, in which he informed the governor of the vindictive rage of the Jews, from whose violence he had snatched the prisoner, and whom he afterwards* discovered to be a Roman citizen. In consequence of this epistle, Felix gave the apostle a candid reception; when he read it, he turned to him and said, "When your accusers come hither before me, I will give your cause an impartial hearing."+ And, accordingly, when the high-priest Ananias, and the Sanhedrin, went down to Cæsarea, with the orator Tertullus, whose eloquence they had hired to aggravate the apostle's crimes before the procurator, Felix, though a man of a mercenary and profligate character, did not depart from the Roman honour in this regard, would not violate the usual processes of judgment to gratify this body of men, though the most illustrious personages of the province he governed, by condemning the apostle unheard, and yielding him, friendless as he was, to their fury, merely on their impeachment. He allowed the apostle to offer his vindication, and exculpate himself from the charges they had alleged against him; and was so far satisfied with his apology as to give orders for him to be treated as a prisoner at large, and for all his friends to have free access to him; disappointing those who thirsted for his blood, and drawing down upon himself the relentless indignation of the Jews, who, undoubtedly, from such a disappointment, would be instigated to lay all his crimes and oppressions before the emperor. The same strict honour in observing the usual forms and processes of the Roman tribunal appears in Festus, the successor of Felix. Upon his entrance into his province, when the leading men among the Jews waited upon him to congratulate him upon his accession, and took that opportunity to inveigh with great virulence and bitterness against the apostle (Acts xxv.), soliciting it as a favour that he would send him to Jerusalem-designing, as it afterwards appeared, had he complied with their request, to have hired ruffians to murder him on the road Festus told them it was his will that Paul should

3. It appears, also, from numberless passages in the classics, that a Roman citizen could not legally be scourged,-a punishment which was deemed to the last degree dishonourable, and the most daring indignity and insult upon the Roman name. To this privilege of Roman citizens, there are references in the New Testament. Paul pleads this immunity, Acts xxii. 25: "Is it lawful for you to scourge a Roman?" So, also, at Philippi he told the messengers of the magistrates: "They have beaten us openly, uncondemned, being Romans," Acts xvi. 37. Neither was it lawful for a Roman citizen to be bound, to be examined by the question, or to be the subject of any ingenious and cruel arts of tormenting to extort a confession from him. These punishments were deemed servile; torture was not exercised but upon slaves.|| This will illustrate what Luke says, concerning Lysias the Tribune. This officer, not knowing the dignity of his prisoner, had, in violation of this privilege of Roman citizens, given orders for the apostle to be bound and examined with thongs, Acts xxii. 24, 25. When he was afterwards informed by his centurion that Paul was a freeman of Rome, the sacred historian observes, that, upon receiving this intelligence, the chief captain was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him, ver. 29.

* "I have since learned that he is a Roman citizen." The participle is in the second aorist.

+ Hear it through; give the whole of it an attentive exami

nation.

Cicero in Verrem, lib. v., 162, 163; Appian. Bell. Civil., lib. ii., p. 731, Toilii, &c.

Cicero in Verrem, lib v. 170; Dion. Cassius, lib. Ix., p. 953. Reimar, &c.