II. Peculiar Traits and Functions of the "Judges''' in the Period designated hy their Rule. — The station and office of these shophetim are involved in great obscurity, partly from the want of clear intimations in the history in which their exploits and government are recorded, and partly from the absence of parallels in the history of other nations by which our notions might be assist- eil. The offices filled by Mdses and Joshua, whose pres- ence was so essential for the time and the occasion, were not at all involved in the general machinery of the He- brew government. Thej' were specially appointed for particular services, for the performance of which they were invested with extraordinary powers; but when their mission was accomplished, society reverted to its permanent institutions and its estabUshed forms of gov- ernment. As above seen, every tribe had its own he- reditary chief or "prince," who presided over its affairs, administered justice in all ordinary cases, and led the troops in time of war. His station resembled that of tlie Arabian emirs, or rather, perhaps, of the khans of the Tartar tribes inhabiting Persia and the countries further east. He was assisted in these important duties by tlie subordinate officers, the chiefs of families, who formed his council in such matters of policy as affected their iiarli;'nlur district, supported his decisions in civil or criminal incpiiries, and commanded under him in the field of battle (Numb, xxvi, xxvii; Josh, vii, 16-18). This was, in fact, the old patriarchal government, to which the Hebrews were greatly attached. It was an institution suited to the wants of men who live dispersed in loosely coimected tribes, and not to the wants and exigencies of a nation. It was in principle segregative, not aggregative, and although there are traces of uni- ted agreement through a congress of delegates, or rather of national cliiefs and eklers of the tribes, this was an inefficient instrument of general government, seeing that It was only applicable or applied to great occasions, and coidd have no bearing on the numerous questions of an administrative nature winch arise from day to day in every state, and which there should somewhere exist the power to arrange and determine. This defect of the general government it was one of the objects of the the- ocratical institutions to remedy. Jehovah had taken upon himself the function of king of the chosen people, and he dwelt among them ni his palace - tabernacle. Here he was always ready, through his priest, to coun- sel them in matters of general hiterest, as weU as in
those having reference only to particular tribes ; and to his court they were all required by the law to repair three times every year. Here, then, was the principle of a general administration, calculated and designed to unite the tribes into a nation by giving them a common government in all the higher and more general branches of administration, and a common centre of interest for all the poUtical and ecclesiastical relations of the com- munity. It was on this footing that the law destined the government of the Hebrews to proceed, after the pe- culiar functions of the legislator and the conqueror had been fulfilled. See Theocracy.
The fact is, however, that, through the perversity of the people, this settlement of the general government on theocratical principles was not carried out in its proper form and extent, and it is in this neglect we are to seek the necessity for those officers called judges who were from time to time raised up to correct some of the evils which resulted from it. It is very evident from the whole history of the judges that, after the death of Joshua, the Israelites threw themselves back upon the segregative principles of their government by tribes, and all but utterly neglected, and for a long period did utterly neglect, the 'rules and usages on which the gen- eral government was established. There was, in fact, no human power adequate to enforce them. They were good in themselves, they were gracious, they conferred high privileges, but they were enforced by no sufficient authority. No one was amenable to any tribunal for neglecting the annual feasts, or for not referring the di- rection of public affairs to the divine King. Omissions on these points' involved the absence of the divine pro- tection and blessing, and were left to be punished by their consequences. The man who obeyed in this and other things was blessed ; the man who did not was not blessed; and general obedience was rewarded with na- tional blessing, and general disobedience with national punishment. The enormities and transgressions into which the people fell in consequence of such neglect, which left them an easy prey to idolatrous influences, are fuUy recorded in the Book of Judges. The people coidd not grasp the idea of a divine and invisible king ; they could not bring themselves to recur to him in all those cases in which the judgment of a human king would have determined the course of action, or in which his arm would have worked for their deliverance. There- fore it was that God allowed them judges in the persons of faithful men, who acted for the most part as agents of the divine will — regents of the invisible King, antl who, holding their commission directly from him or with his sanction, woidd be more inclined to act as dependent vassals of Jehovah than kings, who, as members of royal dynasties, would come to reign with notions of indepen- dent rights and royal privileges, which woidd draw away their attention from their true place in the theoc- racy. In this greater dependence of the judges upon the divine King w-e see the secret of their institution. The Israelites were disposed to rest upon their sepa- rate interests ag tribes, and, having thus allowed the standing general government to remain inoperative through disuse, they would, in case of emergency, have been disposed " to make themselves a king Uke the na- tions" had their attention not been directed to the ap- pointment of officers who'se authority could rest on no tangible 7-iffht apart from character and services, which, with the temporary nature of their power, rendered their functions more accordant with the principles of the the- ocracy than those of ^ny other public officers could be. It is probably in this adaptation to the peculiar circum- stances of the Hebrew theocracy that we shall discover the reason of our inability to find any similar office among other nations. In being thus peculiar it resem- bled the dictatorship among the Romans, to which of- fice, indeed, that of the judges has been compared, and perha]3s this parallel is the nearest that can be found. But there is this great difference, that the dictator laid down his power as soon as the crisis which had called