Civil Antiquities

III. Civil Antiquities:

The earliest show of authority is seen in the constitution of the family, with the father as head and chief. Several heads made up the body of elders, by whose decision affairs affecting several families were administered. Gradually these elders became a regularly established order, by or through whom the entire civil business of the community was conducted. In the time of the Egyptian bondage a class of men is found termed "officers," who though apparently scribes, were likewise underlings of their Egyptian taskmasters. The appointment of seventy elders in the wilderness was an extension of the earlier and possibly of the bondage scheme on a more elaborate scale. The method of government in vogue during the period of the judges was a modification of the same general plan under which Israel lived in the wilderness. The details of these systems are brought out with due faithfulness in the records of these periods. See Elder.

The system of government current among the great and small nations of Israel's day was that of monarchy. Every foreign influence that touched this people emanated from the environment of regal administration. These powerful tendencies finally crystallized into a demand by Israel for a king. A king, with all the paraphernalia of a monarchy, was finally established. The prerogatives of the ruler, the law of succession, and the whole administration of government henceforth accorded substantially with those of other nations. Sufficient events and items of the king's conduct are narrated to give a good picture of Israel's monarch. See King.

Judaic, Archeology and Biblical

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