Among the Arabs, even at the present day, the pastoral life is accounted more noble than that which leads to a residence in towns, or even in villages. They think it, as Arvieux remarks, more congenial to liberty; because the man who with his herds ranges the desert at large will be far less likely to submit to oppression than people with houses and lands. This mode of thinking is of great antiquity in the eastern parts of the world. Diodorus Siculus, when speaking of the Nabathaeans, relates, that they were by their laws prohibited from sowing, planting, drinking wine, and building houses; every violation of the precept being punishable with death. The reason assigned for this very singular rule is, their belief that those who possess such things will be easily brought into subjection by a tyrant; on which account they continue, says the historian, to traverse the desert, feeding their flocks, which consist partly of camels and partly of sheep. The fact now stated receives a remarkable confirmation from the notice contained in the book of Jeremiah respecting the Rechabites, who, though they had for several ages been removed from Arabia into Palestine, persevered in a sacred obedience to the command of their ancestor, refusing to build houses, sow land, plant vineyards, or drink wine, but resolving to dwell in tents throughout all their generations. In regard to these points, the Hebrews, in the early age at which we are now considering them, appear to have entertained sentiments not very different from those of the Arabs, from whose sandy plains they had just emerged. The life of a migratory shepherd, too, has a very close alliance with the habits of a freebooter; and the attentive reader of the ancient history of the Israelites will recollect many instances wherein the descendants of Isaac gave ample proof of their relationship to the posterity of Ishmael. The character of Abimelech, the son of Gideon, for example, cannot be viewed in any other light than that of a captain of marauders. The men of Shechem, whom he had hired to follow him, refused not to obey his commands, even when he added murder to robbery. Jephthah, in like manner, when he was thrust out by his brethren, became the chief of a band of freebooters in the land of Tob. "And there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him." But the elders of Gilead did not on that account regard their brave countryman as less worthy to assume the direction of their affairs, and to be head over all the inhabitants of their land,--an honour which he even hesitated to accept when compared with the rank and emolument of the less orderly situation which they requested him to relinquish.