The relation between Jehovah and Israel was a peculiarly tender one;—“When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt,”[140] says Jehovah by the mouth of one of His prophets. As Israel was Jehovah’s son, he had to be taught, trained, disciplined. The history of the people, then, is simply the record of Jehovah’s dealings with them in this process of loving and patient training. Israel’s education was chiefly in the hard school of experience, in national disaster and disgrace, in national recovery and victory. But not in events alone: Jehovah spoke His will out clearly through a series of most remarkable men known as the PROPHETS. What is most noticeable in these men is the directness and the certainty of the message they brought from Jehovah to His people. Usually it was criticism and condemnation, with a definite declaration of coming punishment; but now and then it was comfort and consolation, with the promise of speedy help and relief. It would be most interesting to trace the history in detail and to watch how the people were led step by step to fuller and clearer knowledge of God, but we must not stay for that here. We need only say sufficient to enable readers to understand the circumstances in which the great prophecy which we wish to discuss came to be uttered. The people were slaves in Egypt. They were brought out under Moses; and in the peninsula of Sinai a Covenant was made between them and Jehovah, which laid the foundation of their religion and their national life. Joshua was their leader in the conquest of Palestine, an event which probably took place in the thirteenth century B. C. During the first two centuries of their residence in the land they had no settled form of government, but acknowledged as their rulers from time to time certain great personalities known as Judges. Towards the end of the eleventh century the pressure of the Philistines led to the establishment of a monarchy. Saul knit the people together; David built up a petty empire; Solomon gave his attention to commerce and internal organization.