Now the Hebrew conception of the future state was the same as the Babylonian. Sheol, like the Babylonian Arallu, was a vague and shadowy region beneath the earth, a sad and dismal place which received without distinction the good and the bad. The same fate was allotted all who went down to the grave: “The small and the great are there; and the servant is free from his master.”[339] There was no return there for good, or for evil: “But the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward.”[340] Memory and hope were there dead: “For in death there is no remembrance of thee.... They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.”[341] We shall see later how this vague and feebly held idea of the future life reacted upon the evolution of the moral consciousness in Israel, how deeply it influenced the troubled ethical speculations of the more thoughtful minds of the nation, and how it inspired theories of the moral order of the world which have not yet lost their power over the thoughts and the conduct of men.[342] We need in this place merely to point out how it was the absence of a clearly defined belief in a life of rewards and punishments in another world that created, or helped to create, the Messianic ideal, one of the most fruitful conceptions, in its ethical outcomes, that ever entered into the mind of man. II. THE EVOLUTION OF THE MORAL IDEAL _1. The Development up to the Exile_ [Sidenote: The primitive moral code] The history of Hebrew morals is the record of a long and slow evolution. The primitive code with which the development began was the code of Semitic nomadism. It was essentially the same as that which to-day governs the conduct of the practically unchanged kinsmen of the Hebrews, the Bedouin of Arabia and neighboring lands. It was the morality of the kinship group.[343] The principle of communal responsibility, which affords the key to a large part of the moral history of Israel, had not yet been challenged as unethical, and blood revenge was a most sacred duty. The circle covered by the moral feelings was still narrow; there was practically no sentiment of duty or obligation toward tribes or nations outside the group of tribes constituting the people of Israel. The conception of Yahweh as a jealous national god prevented the growth of feelings which might have formed the basis of a true international morality. The wars which the Israelites waged against their enemies were wars of ruthless slaughter and rapine.