The history contained in the Book of Judges and the early part of the First Book of Samuel ts a narrative of the successive declensions and reformations of the Israelites in the period of the Judges. It is noticeable that they do not seem during this period to have generally adopted the religions of any but the Canaanites, although in one remarkable passage they are said, between the time of Jair and that of Jephthah, to have for saken the Lord, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, Zidon, Moab, the children of Ammon, and the Philistines ( Judg. x. 6), as though there had then been an utter and profli gate apostasy. The cause no doubt was that the Canaanite worship was borrowed in a time of amity, and that but one Canaanite oppressor is spoken of, whereas the Abrahamites of the east of Palestine, and the Philistines, were almost always enemies of the Israelites. Each time of idolatry was punished by a servitude, each reformation fol lowed by a deliverance. Speedily as the nation returned to idolatry its heart was fresher than that of the ten tribes which followed Jeroboam, and never seem to have had one thorough national re pentance. There are some curious traces of the special customs of this time. Gideon, though he commenced his judgeship by casting down Joash his father's altar of Baal and grove, which seem to have been set up more for custom than from a be lief in this false god (Judg. vi. 3o-32), yet after his defeat of the confederate Arabs, and pious refusal to be made king, was a cause of idolatry to his people. He asked of the Israelites the golden earrings (?) or rings (?) they had taken, of which the weight was 17oo shekels of gold, according to our calculation 38 lbs. oz. 24o grs. troy, and made of them an ephod in his city Ophrah, to the idolatrous worship of which all Israel was attracted, which thing became a snare unto Gideon and to his house' (viii. 24-27). An ephod was a priestly and Levitical vestment. The ephod of the Law was the high-priest's garment, to which was attached the breast-plate, and, even including the breast-plate, cannot have contained anything like the amount of gold used by Gideon (Exod. xxviii. 4-35). It has, therefore, been supposed that an idol covered with an ephod was made by the judge. This idea involves a great itnprobability ; We cannot suppose Gideon to have been guilLy of more than some mis taken following of corrupt religion, not of its ex treme or of heathen worship. Perhaps he made the ephod for the priest of the altar he had built at his town, and it came to be treated with supersti tious reverence, or else he may have framed the gold into the form of an ephod as a kind of trophy, and the same may have occurred. It is needless to cite the sacred veil of Carthage, which, did we think Gideon had gone back to Baal-worship, would be an apt illustration.
In the next generation, thc Israelites, led no doubt by Abimelech, the son of Gideon and a concubine of Shechem, probably a adopted the worship of Baal-berith, or Baal of the cove nant (that is, probably, god of the head-city of a Hivite confederation rather than of an alliance be tween the Hivites and the Israelites [IlivurEs]), who had at Shechem a temple either fortified or in a fort like the Atargation at Ashteroth Karnaim in the Maccaboean period. But Abimelech seems only to have adopted this idol for his own purposes, as he, had no scruple in burning the hold when the revolted Shechemites took refuge there.
The notices of their great wars show that thc enmity between the Philistines and the Israelites was too great for any idolatry to be then borrowed of the former by the latter, though at an earlier time this was not the case. Once more under Samuel there was a reformation and Baalim and Ashtaroth were put away, probably for more than a century. Saul's
family were, however, tainted as it seems with ido latry, for the names of Ishbosheth or Eshbaal, and Mephibosheth or Merib-baal, can scarcely have been given but in honour of Baal. From the circum stances of Michal's stratagem to save David, it seems not only that Saul's family kept teraphinn, but, apparently, that they used them for purposes of divination, the LXX. having liver' for pil low,' as if the Hebr. had been 1:M instead of the present -1'17. The circumstance of having tera phim, more especially if they were used for divina tion, lends especial force to Samuel's reproof of Saul (r Sam. xv. 23). During the reign of David and the earlier part of that of Solomon, idolatry in Israel is unmentioned, and no doubt was almost unknown.
The earlier days of Solomon were the happiest of the kingdom of Istael. The temple-worship was fully established, with the highest magnifi cence, and there was no excuse for that worship of God at high places, which seems to have been be fore permitted on account of the constant distrac tions of the country. But the close of that reign was marked by an apostasy of which we read with wonder. Hitherto the people had been the sinners, their leaders, reformers ; this time the king, led astray by his many strange wives, per verted the people, and raised high places on the mount of Corruption, opposite God's temple. He worshipped Ashtoreth, goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites, for the latter two building high places, as well as for all the gods of his strange wives. Solomon no doubt was very tolerant, and would not prevent these women from following their native superstitions, even if they felt it a. duty to burn their and his children before Mo lech. Calamity speedily followed this great apos tasy : the latter years of Solomon were troubled, and ten tribes were wrenched from the weak hands of his half-Ammonite son.
Jeroboam, newly come from the court of Shishak, as soon as he bad been made king by the turbulent house of Joseph, set himself to devise some national religion that should keep his subjects from going to worship at Jerusalem, and so returning- to their allegiance to the house of David. He could hit upon nothing better than the golden calf, and after the lapse of centuries restored Aaron's idol, calling it as before a symbol of the God that brought Israel our of Egypt. He made two calves : the one lie set tin at Dan, on the northern boundary of his kingdom, where there was already an idolatrous priesthood, the other at the ancient high place of Bethel, as though to lead aside journeyers to the temple at Jerusalem. He established a spurious priesthood of the lowest of the people, and himself ministered at the altar at Bethel. He fixed an annual feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, in imitation rather of the passover than, as usually supposed, of the feast of tabernacles.* From the time of Jeroboam to that of Ahab no further progress in idolatry seems to have been made. The system set up by the Israelite king, notwithstanding the warning miracle wrought by the prophet that came out of Judah, does not appear to have been abandoned by Jeroboam or his suc cessors. There were, no doubt, many true be lievers in the Israelite kingdom, and as their going to Jerusalem even in time of peace was probably forbidden by the kings, it seems likely that wor ship at high places was not unlawful to them. In Judah the temple-worship was maintained, but an unlawful worship at high places, perhaps some times or at some places connected with idolatrous rites, seems to have generally continued.