The general condition of the Jewish people under the Judges was that of a noble and not uncivilized nomadic race. We must not confound this description, however, with the so-called natural state of a wild and barbarous people, but rather think of it as resembling that of the Arabians generally before the time of Mohammed, or of a few tribes still subsisting in the most retired parts of Arabia, where, under their most distinguished leaders, as shepherd princes they lead a roving life of hereditary freedom. Similar, or at least not very different, was the mode of life and state of society that prevailed among the Hebrews in the interregnums which occur in this long period of the Judges. Toward the close of this period, judges first arise who are invested with the priestly as well as the judicial dignity. These form, accordingly, the transition to the regal government and the epoch of the kings. For when the people at last demanded a king to rule over them, like the neighboring Gentiles, every sanction that could exalt, and every sacerdotal inauguration that could be thought of, was conferred upon the appointed tribe and the kingly house. But at the same time the priestly dignity was guarded strictly and jealously from encroachment, and the temporal power was rigorously kept free from all union and confusion with the sacerdotal authority. But that wild and tumultuous demand of the people, or, I should say, of _public opinion_, which at that time was in favor of a monarch with the same pomp and splendor as the Gentile sovereigns displayed, as in more modern times it directs itself to the no less heathenish attraction of liberty, was imputed to them and depicted as a grievous fall and religious infidelity. For in the previous times of the direct theocracy, Jehovah Himself had been their true but invisible king, while, as is expressly asserted, the judges and leaders were only His embassadors or plenipotentiaries. Under the first kings we may discern, in the historical description of the sacred books, many traces of that higher power, and its immediate exercise and effects. Subsequently, however, it totally disappears; and after the division of the two kingdoms, the contrast in the personal powers and character of the later sovereigns, and the consequent fortunes of the people, so accordant with the political history of other Asiatic countries, becomes most decided.