The tradition of the Hebrews of the early history and fortunes of their people previous to the settlement in Canaan is contained in the books of the Pentateuch. After they had settled in that land and had passed beyond the loose combination of their tribes to the unity of civic life, after a monarchy had been established, and under it a metropolis and a centre for the national religion had been founded, the priesthood engaged in this worship began to collect together ritualistic observances and customs of law, and to write them down in combination with anything still living about their early history in the traditions of their families. The Hebrews had found existing in Canaan that ancient and many-sided civilisation the nature and extent of which we have already attempted to describe. Of their own history they could have preserved nothing but prominent facts and decisive crises. Songs of praise and victory which celebrated the great events of the Hebrew past, such as the exodus from Egypt and the victories won over the Canaanites, of which some were already written down,[568] forms of blessing, genealogies,[569] isolated fragments of the moral law, or time-honoured sacrificial custom, or ancient rules of justice,[570] and finally narration of the wars,[571] constituted fixed points of connection in this tradition. At the new centre of religious worship the whole stock of existing ritual and custom had to be brought under review, and from hence provision made for the use of the true and acceptable kind of sacrifice, and sentence of law. The consideration of the marvellous lot which had fallen to the Hebrews, the rise of a feeble shepherd tribe under the powerful protection of Egypt, the liberation from the dominion of this great kingdom, the conquest of Canaan, the capture of ancient and strongly-fortified cities, "of fields which they had not tilled, of vineyards and olive-gardens which they had not planted, of wells which they had not dug, of cities which they had not builded," caused the Hebrews to recognise in the favour which had attended them the direct guidance of their deity. This grace would remain with them if they continued to worship the god of their fathers according to his will, in the way acceptable to him. Thus to the priests, who undertook the task of writing down the tradition, the nation appeared as a chosen people from the beginning, to whom their god had early given his blessing. In return for such grace and beneficence the Hebrews had to obey his law. This is the "covenant" which Jehovah has made with them.[572] This law, therefore, must be carefully recorded, in order that it may be obeyed exactly in every particular by the priests themselves, as by the judges and all the nation.