Bible -- Commentaries; Bible -- Feminist criticism; Women in the Bible
As the Lord has put it into the hearts of the women of this Republic
to demand equal rights in everything and everywhere, and as He is said
to be immutable and unchangeable, it is fair to infer that Moses did
not fully comprehend the message, and in proclaiming it to the great
assembly he gave his own interpretation, just as our judges do in this
year of the Lord 1898.
Achsah's example is worthy the imitation of the women of this
Republic. She did not humbly accept what was given her, but bravely
asked for more. We should give to our rulers, our sires and sons no
rest until all our rights--social, civil and political--are fully
accorded. How are men to know what we want unless we tell them? They
have no idea that our wants, material and spiritual, are the same as
theirs; that we love justice, liberty and equality as well as they do;
that we believe in the principles of self-government, in individual
rights, individual conscience and judgment, the fundamental ideas of
the Protestant religion and republican government.
E. C. S.
THE BOOK OF JUDGES.
CHAPTER I.
Judges i.
19 And the Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of
the mountain: but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley,
because they had chariots of iron.
Judges ii.
6 And when Joshua had let the people go, the children of Israel went
every man unto his inheritance to possess the land.
7 And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the
days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great
works of the Lord, that he did for Israel.
8 And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being a
hundred and ten years old.
This book, supposed to have been written by Samuel the Prophet, covers
a period of 300 years. During all of this time the children of Israel
are in constant friction with the Lord and neighboring tribes, never
loyal to either. When at peace with the Lord, they are fighting with
their neighbors; when at peace with them, worshiping their gods and
giving them their daughters in marriage, then the Lord is angry, and
vents His wrath on them. Thus, they are continually between two fires;
now repenting in sackcloth and ashes, and now, with the help of the
Lord, blessed with victories.
Life with them was a brief period of success and defeat. It seems that
the Lord, according to their ideas, had His limitations, and could not
fight tribes who had iron chariots.
What could iron chariots be in the way of that Great Force which
creates cyclones, hurricanes and earthquakes, or the pyrotechnics of a
thunderstorm. How little these people knew of the Great Intelligence
behind the laws of the universe, with whom they pretended to talk in
the Hebrew language, and from whom they claimed to have received
directions as to their treatment of women?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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