AMBASSADOR. The relations of the Hebrews with foreign nations were too limited to afford much occasion for the services of ambassadors. Still, the long course of their history affords some examples of the employment of such functionaries, which enable us to discover the position which they were considered to occupy. Of ambassadors resi dent at a foreign court they had, of course, no notion ; all the embassies of which we read being `extraordinary,' or for special services and occa sions, such as to congratulate a king on his accession or victories, or to condole with him in his troubles (2 Sam. viii. ; x. 2; 1 Kings v. 1), to remon strate in the case of wrong (Judg. xi. 12), to solicit favours (Num. xx. 14), or to contract alliances (Josh. ix. 3, sqq.; I Macc. viii. 7).
The notion that the ambassador represented the person of the sovereign who sent him, or the dig nity of the state from which he came, did not exist in ancient times in the same sense as now. He was a highly distinguished and privileged messenger, and the inviolability of his person (2 Sam. x. 1-5) was rather that of our heralds than of our ambas sadors. It may have been owing, in some degree, to the proximity of all the nations with which the Israelites had intercourse, that their ambassadors were intrusted with few if any discretionary powers, and could not go beyond the letter of their instruc tions. In general their duty was limited to the
delivering of a message and the receiving of an answer ; and if this answer was such as required a rejoinder, they returned for fresh instructions, un less they had been authorized how to act or speak in case such an answer should be given.
The largest act performed by ambassadors ap pears to have been the treaty of alliance contracted with the Gibeonites (Josh. ix.), who were supposed to have come from 'a far country;' and the treaty which they contracted was in agreement with the instructions with which they professed to be fur nished. In allowing for the effect of proximity, it must be remembered that the ancient ambassadors of other nations, even to countries distant from their own, generally adhered to the letter of their instructions, and were reluctant to act on their own discretion. Generals of armies must not, however, be confounded with ambassadors in this respect. J. K.