The Wandering Jews
“YOU are” spells “Ur.” It is one of the shortest names I know. It is the name of a little place in that part of Babylonia called Chaldea. In this place—about nineteen hundred years B.C.—there lived a man named Abraham. Abraham had a very large family and though he had no money he was rich. He had large herds of sheep and goats, and these were the chief riches in those days. Now, Abraham believed in one God, as we do, while his neighbors, the Babylonians, worshiped idols and the heavenly bodies, such as the sun, moon, and stars, as I have just said. Abraham did not like his neighbors for this reason; and his neighbors didn’t like him, either, for they thought his ideas were peculiar or even crazy. So, about nineteen hundred years before Christ, Abraham took his large family, his flocks, and his herds and moved to a land called Canaan, far away on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea.
Abraham lived to be a very old man, and he had a large family. One of his grandsons named Jacob, who was also known by the name of Israel, had a son Joseph. You probably remember the Bible story of Jacob’s favorite son Joseph with the coat of many colors. Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him, as boys and even dogs are apt to be jealous of any one who is liked better than they are. So they put Joseph into a well and then sold him as a slave to some Egyptians who were passing by. Then they told their father Jacob that Joseph had been killed by wild animals. The Egyptians took Joseph to far-off Egypt—far away from Canaan.
Abraham leaving Ur. 1900 B.C.
But although Joseph was a slave in Egypt, and although, as I told you, it was very difficult for any one to work his way up out of his class to a higher class, he was so bright that at last he became one of the rulers in Egypt.
Now, at that time when he was ruler there came a famine in Canaan and there was no food. In Egypt, however, there was plenty of food stored up. So Joseph’s wicked brothers went down to Egypt to beg the rulers for bread. They probably thought by that time their brother was dead. They did not know that he had become such a great man and that he was now the ruler of whom they were begging food. You can imagine how surprised they were and how ashamed they must have felt when they found out that the great ruler was their own brother, whom they had planned to kill and then had sold as a slave.
Rameses’ mummy.
Joseph might have let his brothers starve to death or put them in prison, or sent them back to Canaan without anything, if he had wanted to revenge himself on them. But instead of doing any of these things, he gave them not only all the food they wanted and more to take back home, but made them rich presents besides. Then he told them to go back and get the rest of his family and return with them to Egypt, and he promised to give them a piece of land called Goshen where there would be no famines and they might live happily. So they did as they were told, and Israel and his sons and all their families came down and settled in Goshen about 1700 B.C. They were called Israelites, which means of course the children of Israel, and they believed they were God’s chosen people. These are the people we now call the Jews.
After Joseph, who was of course an Israelite himself, died, the kings or Pharaohs of Egypt did not like these foreign people who belonged to the Semite family, and treated them very badly, as other peoples have always treated the Jews badly ever since. Though the Jews and their sons and sons’ sons lived in Egypt for about four hundred years, they were always hated by the Egyptians.
Now about four hundred years from the time the Jews first came into Egypt—400 from 1700 is 1300 B.C.—there was a ruler of Egypt called Rameses the Great.
Rameses the Great.
Rameses so hated the Jews that finally he gave orders to have every Jewish boy baby killed. In this way he thought to get rid of these people. One little Jewish boy named Moses, however, was saved, and when he grew up he became the greatest leader of his people. Moses wanted to get the Jews out of this unfriendly country where the people worshiped false gods. And so at last he led all his people out of Egypt across the Red Sea. This was called the Exodus, and it took place about 1300 B.C.
After the Jews had left Egypt they first stopped at the foot of a mountain called Mount Sinai, while Moses went up to the top where he could be by himself and learn what God wanted him and the Jews to do. Moses spent forty days praying on top of the mountain. When he came down from the mountain-top, he brought with him the Ten Commandments, the same Ten Commandments you may have learned in Sunday-school. But Moses had been gone so long that when he came back again to his people he found them worshiping a golden calf as the Egyptians had done. They had lived in Egypt until they had come to think it was all right to worship idols.
Moses was very angry. It was high time, he thought, that they should get rid of the bad influence of their old Egyptian neighbors. And at last he succeeded in making them worship God again and gave them the Ten Commandments for their rule of life. So Moses is called a lawgiver and the founder of the Jewish religion. Then Moses died, and the Jews wandered from place to place for a great many years before they finally settled in Canaan.
The Jews had no kings. They were ruled by men called judges, but the judges lived very simply, just like every one else and not like kings in palaces with servants and fine robes and rich jewels. But the Jews wanted a real king as their enemies had and other nations who were their neighbors. Strange they wanted a king which so many countries have tried to get rid of—we should think they would have preferred a President as we have.
So at last a judge who was named Samuel said they should have a king, and Saul was chosen. Then Samuel poured olive-oil over Saul’s head. This may seem a queer thing to do, but it took the place of putting a crown on his head and was a sign that he was to be king. Samuel, therefore, was the last one of their judges, and Saul was their first king.
All other nations at that time believed as the Egyptians and Chaldeans did, in fairy-tale gods or idols. But the Jews alone believed in one God. They had a Holy Book which had been written by their prophets. This book is the Old Testament part of the Christian Bible.
So this is the story of the Wandering Jews who gave us the Old Testament and the Ten Commandments, and here is the way they wandered:
From Ur to Canaan—1900 B.C.
From Canaan to Egypt—1700 B.C.
From Egypt back to Canaan—1300 B.C.