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32   HISTORIC GROWTH OF MAN.

The most marked advances of science were in noting the primitive facts of astronomy.

In both Chaldea and Assyria selfishness ruled the national character far more than in China or India.

EBER, THE GRANDSON OF

SHEM, settled in Padan-Aram,

or Upper Ur, of the Chaldees Three centuries after the flood, the families of the Hebrews or Eberites were established there for a short time. From there Abraham set forth in obedience to a divine call. He journeyed south to Canaan, and from there his grandson Jacob took his family to Egypt.

Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt. They were now a nation of twelve tribes and a numerous people. At the time of the Exodus, three divisions of the Egyptian army were stationed in Canaan. To avoid these, Moses led his people by an indirect route through the wilderness and waited forty_ years until the enemy had left the Promised Land.

Moses sought to deliver his people from the aristocratic oppression they had suffered in Egypt, and from the confused multiplicity of gods in Chaldea and Canaan. The Mosaic polity undertook to establish the unity and fatherhood of God, and the rule of his laws; the unity of national and domestic life; civil liberty and political equality; an elective magistracy, with all officers responsible to their constituents; a primitive education, so that all could read the law;

ANCIENT ISRAELITES.   33

the sacredness of the family relation, and the inviola

bility of private and public property. The land was.

divided among all the tribes so that each family should have a home, and this was to remain in perpetuity. The land could never be owned and controlled by a few selfish men.

During seven centuries, in the reigns of the judges and Kings, the ideals of Moses were not carried out with any degree of fidelity. It was indirect violation of his laws that Solomon and Rehoboam had multiplied riches and horses and wives to themselves, in imitation of other Eastern potentates. The burden of heavy taxes thus thrown on the people led to a revolt of ten tribes and the establishment of the separate kingdoms of Israel and Judah. This division invited foreign conquests, and in 721 B. C. the Assyrians came and took the capital of Israel, Samaria, deporting a large mass of the people as captives. The ten tribes on their separation from Judah had given up the worship of Jehovah and adopted that of Baal and Ashtoreth, gods of the Canaanites. And now, in their captivity, they gave up their language as well. A few centuries later they are referred to as the " Lost Tribes, " " The Lost Sheep of the House of Israel. "

The Kingdom of Judah lasted a little longer. It fell a prey to the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar in 604-5 B. C. After seventy years, these people were returned under the proclamation of Cyrus, the Persian, who had now taken the throne of Babylon. From that time onward this division of the Israelites has been known as Jews. They formed less than ,one-fourth of the ancient nation of Israel,

After two centuries,

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