Because there were no graves
in Egypt, hast thou brought us forth to die in the wilderness?'
'Whose highest wish on earth was to sit by the fleshpots of Egypt,
where they did eat bread to the full.' What had transformed that
race into a lion, whom none dare rouse up?
Plainly, those forty years of freedom. But of freedom under a stern
military education: of freedom chastened by discipline, and
organized by law.
I say, of freedom. No nation of those days, we have reason to
believe, enjoyed a freedom comparable to that of the old Jews. They
were, to use our modern phrase, the only constitutional people of the
East. The burdensomeness of Moses' law, ere it was overlaid, in
later days, by Rabbinical scrupulosity, has been much exaggerated.
In its simpler form, in those early times, it left every man free to
do, as we are expressly told, that which was right in his own eyes,
in many most important matters. Little seems to have been demanded
of the Jews, save those simple ten commandments, which we still hold
to be necessary for all civilized society.
And their obedience was, after all, a moral obedience; the obedience
of free hearts and wills. The law could threaten to slay them for
wronging each other; but they themselves had to enforce the law
against themselves.
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