As the twelve tribes, though independent and sovereign for local purposes, yet formed but one political body for the care and promotion of the common weal, they would naturally have general legislative assemblies, who would, as occasion required, meet together and consult for the good to the nation at large. This we find to have been actually the case.1 The law can neither enact, interpret, nor execute itself. For the discharge of these functions there is required a certain number of citizens, organized into one or more bodies, and forming a legislative, judicial, and executive corps. Conringius, bishop Sherlock, and Lowman totally misconceive and misrepresent the Hebrew constitution, when they deny that it lodged any proper legislative power in the national diet, or states-general, of Israel. Their error arises from a misinterpretation of Deuteronomy 4:1-2. "Now, therefore, hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live and go on, and possess the land, which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you. Ye shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you." The same thing is repeated in Deuteronomy 12:32. "What thing soever I command you, observe to do it; thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it." From these precepts, the learned authors, cited above, erroneously conclude that no proper legislative authority or power was confided by the constitution to the general assemblies of Israel. There is, undoubtedly, a sense in which the law was perpetual and unchangeable, viz. in its principles. The principles of a pure and absolute justice remain always the same, and new developments of those principles, made necessary by new circumstances, do no change, even in modifying them, the truth of former developments. It would be absurd in a legislator, in giving a code of laws to a people, to take away from them the power of enacting new laws, as new manners and new conditions of the body politic required them. The command of Moses in this case must be understood as addressed to individuals, and as announcing to them that they must observe the whole law, without adding to it, or taking from it, on their private authority. When he speaks to the national assemblies, to all Israel, his language is altogether different. Then, on the contrary, he commands to seek justice, to provide for the public welfare, to pursue (go on in) the way of equity, other wise called "the way of the Lord," without turning to the right hand or to the left, that is, without departing from the fundamental principles laid down in the constitution. Thence the Hebrew doctors derive the maxim, assented to by the great Selden, "From the senate [the national diet] proceeds the law to all Israel."
The great principle of legislation which pervades the Hebrew constitution is that the general will, the common consent of the citizens, freely and clearly expressed in regularly constituted assemblies, is necessary to give birth to law. This principle Moses seems to have regarded, if not as an essential, at least as an important bond of social order, and a great source of strength to the body politic. Hence at Sinai he obtained the assent of the people, through their elders, to the proposition of Jehovah to be their king and to the laws which he should dictate.2 Again, after numerous laws had been given, and while the Hebrews still remained encamped at the foot of mount Sinai, he called the diet together anew, rehearsed "all the words of the Lord and all the judgments," and proposed a fresh vote upon them, whereupon the people, by their representatives, signified their unanimous approval, and formally enacted them into laws. Not content with even this expression of the popular will, he caused them all to be written out, engrossed as it were, and the next day, after offering a solemn sacrifice accompanied by various imposing and impressive ceremonies, he read them in the audience of the assembly, and required another formal assent. This last act was strictly of the nature of a compact between Jehovah as sovereign and the Hebrews as subjects, and it is expressly called so by Moses.3 In like manner, a short time before his death, when the code had been completed, he assembled the national legislature and submitted the whole body of laws to their approval, and caused them to renew the compact with their king.4 Surely, never did the legislator attach a higher importance to the general will, or take more pains to obtain a full, free, and fair expression of it.
This great principle of popular consent, as the basis and nerve of legislation, received fresh confirmation on various memorable occasions, in the subsequent history of the commonwealth. After the passage of the Jordan, Joshua assembled the states-general of Israel, agreeably to an express injunction of Moses, and caused the nation to renew its vote in favor of the code, which had been framed for it.5 Near the end of his life, this same Joshua, a worthy successor of Moses, as having no small share of his ability, and as being deeply penetrated with his spirit, convened the representatives of the nation at Shechem, recounted the leading events of their history, and made them re-elect Jehovah for their king, renew the compact with him, and give their assent once more to the laws which he had ordained.6 On the return of the Jews from Babylon and the reestablishment of their republic, the law was publicly proclaimed for many successive days, and a solemn formula was drawn up, in which the assent and sanction of the nation might be expressed. To this document, twenty-three priests, seventeen Levites, and forty-four chiefs of the people--eighty-four leading men in all--signed their names and affixed their seals. The rest of the people gave their assent to the covenant and the statutes, in a manner somewhat less formal, but no less binding.7
These facts are a demonstration that the principle in question entered essentially into the constitution of Moses and into the practice of the nation. They put the seal of authenticity upon it. Bossuet himself, a man of vast genius, but whose social relations made him too much the friend of absolute power, and from whom nothing but the force of truth could have drawn such an expression of opinion, recognizes this fact in the following terms: "God, through the agency of Moses, assembles his people, proposes to them the law, which establishes the rights of the nation, both sacred and civil, public and private, and causes them to give their assent there in his presence. The entire people expressly consent to the compact. Moses receives this compact in the name of the people, who had given it their assent." Again: "All who have spoken accurately concerning the [Hebrew] law, have regarded it, in its origin, as a solemn pact and treaty, by which individual men agree together in reference to what is necessary to form themselves into a civil society."
But since Jehovah is the creator of men, and can lay upon them whatever obligations he pleases, since he needs not human assent to strengthen his authority, why should he propose laws, instead of imposing them? Why should he exact the free concurrence of individuals? If his word is truth, expressing both that which is, and that which ought to be, to what end should serve the approval of a multitude? To this I reply as follows: First, God did not give laws to the Hebrews as their creator, but as their deliverer and the founder of their state. Secondly, an important purpose of the Hebrew polity was to teach mankind the real nature of civil government, and the true source of political power, whence it necessarily follows, that the authority of Jehovah, as civil head of the Hebrew state, must be drawn from the same fountain, rest upon the same basis, and be regulated by the same principles, as the authority of a human ruler, standing in the same relation to a civil community. Thirdly, several valuable political advantages, even with Jehovah himself for king, resulted from the assent of the people to the code. As 1. The law then became not simply a rule, but a rule clothed with the consent of all. It was the expression, not of an absolute power, but of the general will, or rather, to speak more philosophically, it was the expression of political truth, sanctioned by the general will. A rule arbitrarily imposed, however good it may be, tends to despotism; and a thing, wrong in itself and contrary to the eternal principles of justice, though sanctioned by the voice of the whole world, can never be a law to bind the conscience. 2. The consent of the people to the public compact had the effect of obliging each individual towards all the rest. And 3. It had the further effect of binding the moral person called the state, which was formed by this union, to the infinite and unchangeable being, the Hebrews, on their part, promising to shun whatever was hurtful, and to submit to whatever was useful, to the body politic, and Jehovah, on his engaging to recompense their fidelity with prosperity and happiness.
It has been well remarked by Salvador that no other nation offers the example of a compact so wise and so sublime. He adds the opinion, which is worthy of being pondered, that it is the essential cause of the strong power of cohesion, developed by the political association of the Hebrews, inspiring prophets, full of genius, with he thought, that, as long as the laws of nature shall endure, Israel and his law shall never pass away. Such, then, is the principle of the Hebrew legislation, viz. that law must rest upon the foundation of the general will, the consent of the nation freely and clearly expressed.
The legislative assemblies, created by the constitution of Moses, were of two kinds, an upper and a lower house. The former was an elect assembly, called commonly the princes, elders, or senators of Israel, and was convened by the sound of a single trumpet. The latter was a larger and more popular assembly, called the congregation of Israel, and the signal for calling it together was the blowing of two trumpets.8 These were the signals while Israel was an army and abode in the wilderness, but after the nation was settled in Canaan, either they met at stated times, or heralds must have been employed to convey the summons for assembling to the persons having a seat in the diet. "These general assemblies were convened by the chief magistrate of the commonwealth, by the commander of the army, or by the regent; and, when the nation had no such supreme head, by the high priest, in his capacity of prime minister to the invisible king. The great assembly mentioned in the twentieth chapter of Judges, was undoubtedly convoked by the high priest Phineas, who was so zealous for the honor of Jehovah.9 It was to these assemblies that Moses immediately addressed himself, and to them he delivered the precepts, which he received from Jehovah. The magistrates, particularly the genealogist, then communicated to the people the precepts and orders of Moses, each one to the families under his immediate direction. In like manner, the commands of the generals and the resolves of the assemblies were made known to the people, who were sometimes assembled ready to receive these communications; or if not, were called together by the proper officers. The legislative assemblies exercised all the rights of sovereignty. They declared war, made peace, formed alliances, chose generals, chief judges or regents, and kings. They prescribed to the rulers whom they elected the principles by which they were to govern. They tendered to them the oath of office, and rendered them homage."10
I forbear for the present all investigation of the vexed question as to who were entitled to seats in the national legislature, reserving such inquiries, till I come to treat, in detail, of the different branches which composed it.
I have already spoken of the inferior courts among the Hebrews, by which the local administration of justice was conducted. But the judiciary system could not be complete without a supreme judicature, which, accordingly, we find to have been established by the constitution. The provision for this court is in the following words: "If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates [i.e., in the inferior local courts]; then thou shalt arise, and get thee unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose; and thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and inquire; and they shall show thee the sentence of judgment."11 The priests the Levites and the judge here evidently mean a national council or court. The phrase cannot be understood of the whole tribe of Levi, but must be interpreted of such priests and Levites only as had some commission to give judgment in the place which Jehovah should choose. They were not priests and Levites in general, but chosen members of a national tribunal. It was not, indeed, made necessary by any provision of the constitution, or any direction of law, that the priests or Levites should be in this tribunal at all; yet, on account of their learning and knowledge of the laws, they would naturally be esteemed best qualified to be chosen to interpret them. This supreme judicature, composed of persons of the greatest ability, experience, and learning in the laws, is not only highly important and useful, as a court of appeal in adjudicating difficult cases and those in which great interests were stake between individuals, but it was absolutely indispensable for the decision of controversies which might arise between different tribes. As no tribe had any authority or jurisdiction over any other, such controversies could be decided only by some common judge. the tribes, as sovereign states, were subject to no lower court than the supreme judicial council of the whole nation. What concerned one tribe was by no means to be determined by the judges of another. It is hardly necessary to add that the judgment of this court was final. Hence it was enacted: "Thou shalt do according to the sentence, which they of that place which the Lord shall choose [the supreme court] shall show thee; and thou shalt observe to do I according to all that they inform thee; according to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do; thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall show thee, to the right hand nor to the left."12
From this general view of the Hebrew constitution, a brief reference to the tribe of Levi can by no means be omitted. This was the learned class, a kind of literary aristocracy. the members of this tribe were devoted to the tabernacle and the altar, that is, politically speaking, to be the ministers and courtiers of the King Jehovah. They performed, not only the rites of religion, but also the duties of all those offices of state for which learning was necessary. They were by birth devoted to the cultivation of the sciences, especially the science of government and jurisprudence. They were to study the book of the law; to make, preserve, and disseminate correct copies of it; to instruct the people both in human and divine learning; to test accuracy of weights and measures; to exhort the soldiers, and aspire them with courage, when about to engage in battle; to perform the duty of police physicians; to determine and announce the moveable feasts, new moons, and intercalary years; to discharge the functions of judges and genealogists; with a variety of other duties.13 Consequently they were to be theologians, jurists, lawyers, historiographers, mathematicians, astronomers, surveyors, teachers, orators, and medical practitioners. "What fruits might not such a plant have borne, if the priests and Levites had faithfully accomplished the purposes of their appointment."
The prophetical, not less than the Levitical order, among the Hebrews, had very important relations to the civil state. The prophets were the popular orators of the Israelitish commonwealth. They were not, as has been, with different views and for different ends, alleged by the church of Rome and the school of Voltaire, an appendage of the priesthood. On the contrary, they were quite independent of the sacerdotal order, and of the royal power as well. In the public assemblies on the Sabbath, the new moon, and in the solemn convocations, the prophets, observe Calmet, harangued the people, and freely reproved the disorders and abuses which showed themselves in the nation. They were true patriots, who spoke the truth, without disguise and without fear, to people, priests, senators, princes, and kings. We have an instance of this in the indignant rebuke of Isaiah, chapter 1:21-24: "How has she become an harlot [faithless to her compact with Jehovah], the faithful city, full of justice; righteousness lodged in it, and now murderers. Thy silver is become dross, thy wine weakened with water. Thy rulers are rebels, and fellows of thieves, every one of them loving a bribe and pursuing rewards. The fatherless they judge not, and the cause of the widow cometh not unto them. Therefore, saith the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, the mighty one of Israel, I will comfort myself of my adversaries [literally, from them, i.e., by ridding myself of them] and I will avenge myself of my enemies."
Thus it appears, from all which has gone before, that the nature of the public functions, prescribed in the Hebrew constitution, flow from the nature of things. The first want of a state, as of every organized, living being, is self-preservation. To meet this want, the constitution institutes certain functionaries, not only to strengthen the union of the tribes, but also to preserve, in its integrity, both the letter and the spirit of the fundamental law, and to teach it incessantly to the people. Such are the Hebrew priests and Levites. Next, the body politic wants a supreme legislative council, to watch over its wants, to direct its general movements, to shape its policy and to modify old laws and enact new ones, as the exigency of times and occasions demands. For this the constitution provides in the assemblies composing the states-general of Israel. The third fundamental necessity of a nation is that of having the civil relations of the citizens maintained agreeably to the rules laid down in the law. The constitution satisfies this requirement by a judiciary system, which brings the administration of justice to every man's door and makes it at once cheap and speedy, taking care, however, to prevent the evils of crude, hasty, and interested decisions, by a system of appeal through courts of various grades, up to the supreme judicature, which holds its sessions in the capital of the republic. Again, the state requires that its force be wisely and effectively directed against its public enemies. This care the constitution devolves upon the chief magistrate of Israel. Finally, it is necessary to the best welfare of a state that men of lofty genius, men endowed with sagacity to discover the connection between an existing evil and antecedent acts of folly or injustice, men inspired with great ideas, political or moral, should be able freely to utter their thoughts, and boldly to censure both magistrates and people. This necessity the Hebrew constitution meets by its institution of the prophetical order, an institution, which, in those remote ages, admirably supplied the want of a free press, and must have contributed, powerfully and effectively, to the formation of a public opinion, wise, just, pure, and dignified.
Before concluding this chapter, let us glance at the government of the individual tribes and cities.
Each tribe was a reproduction, miniature copy, as it were, of the nation. It would naturally happen that the government and functionaries of the former would correspond, in all important respects, to the latter. Nor have we any reason to doubt, that such was the case. This at least is the general opinion of the learned. As all Israel had a council of elders and a representative congregation of the people, so each tribe had its senate of princes and its popular assembly. All the tribes together formed a sort of federative republic, in which nothing could be done or resolved without the general consent of their respective representatives, and in which each individual tribe had a constitution formed upon the model of the national constitution.
As the general government was the type of the provincial governments, so these furnished the model of the city administrations. Every city had its bench of elders, distinct from its judges and genealogists.14 Thus the cities, like the nation and the tribes, had an upper and a lower house, a board of aldermen and a board of assistant aldermen. These municipal assemblies managed the public business of the cities, as the assemblies of the tribes administered the general affairs of the tribes, and the assemblies of the commonwealth those of all Israel. Numerous proofs of this constitution of the city governments occur in the sacred books. That every city, with its surrounding district, was to have a board of judges and genealogists, we have already seen.15 That a board of elders was superadded to this as a part of the municipal administration, the evidence is equally clear. The men of Succoth having offended Gideon, when pursuing the routed Midianites, on his return from the battle he caught a young man of the place, and compelled him to give to him in writing a list of the princes and elders of his city.16 In the law concerning the expiation of an uncertain murder, the two boards are mentioned in connection, and yet plainly distinguished from each other; for it is said, "Thy elders and thy judges shall come forth."17 In like manner, when, on the return of the Jews from Babylon, the matter concerning the unlawful marriages was in hand, "the elders of every city and the judges thereof" are related to have appeared, with the transgressors, before "the rulers of all the congregation."18 The author of he book of Judith speaks of a council of ancients in Bethulia, and of three mayors, or governors, to whom the executive function was committed. He also mentions one of the governors, Ozias, as having made a feast to the elders.
To these municipal assemblies it belonged to direct the public affairs of the cities by their council and authority, and to interpret he law in whatever related to the interest of their respective canons. Salvador thinks that, like the censors at Rome and the ancients of Sparta and Athens, they watched over the public manners and morals. Seated without parade at the city gate, or beneath the shade of trees, they lent the ear, he says, to the aggrieved citizens, to the weeping wife, to the oppressed slave, to the poor, the stranger, the orphan, and the widow. If their complaints admitted of legal redress, they proclaimed and enforced the law; if not, they became the counsellors and comforters of the afflicted. By their efforts, a rigorous father was softened; a wandering son was reclaimed and brought back to the paternal mansion; and families, rent by discord, were re-united in peace. On the sacred days, the presence of the rulers, reverently listening to the reading of the law and the exhortations of the orators, impressed upon the youthful citizens the importance of the subjects handled, and communicated to the assemblies a calm, thoughtful, and dignified air.
Thus flowed the current of affairs, during those long periods of repose enjoyed by Israel, despite the powerful enemies by which the nation was surrounded. Such was the simple but energetic polity, which impressed upon the soul of the Hebrews memories never to be effaced, and which, in spite of many odious actions, produced by the barbarism of the times, imparts a charm to their sacred books, unknown to other composition--a charm which neither distance of time nor diversity of manners has power to dissolve, or even to weaken.
