not allowing of any sudden summary
extirpation, even for the idolatrous tribes; whilst, upon a second
principle, it was never meant that this extirpation should be complete.
Snares and temptations were not to be too thickly sown--in that case the
restless Jew would be too severely tried; but neither were they to be
utterly withdrawn--in that case his faith would undergo no probation.
Even upon this small domestic scale, therefore, it appears that
aggressive warfare was limited both for interest and for time. First, it
was not to be too complete; second, even for this incompleteness it was
not to be concentrated within a short time. It was both to be narrow and
to be gradual. By very necessity, therefore, of its original appointment
this part of the national economy, this small system of aggressive
warfare, could not provide a reason for a military profession. But all
other wars of aggression, wars operating upon foreign objects, had no
allowance, no motive, no colourable plea; for the attacks upon Edom,
Midian, Moab, were mere acts of retaliation, and, strictly speaking, not
aggressive at all, but parts of defensive warfare. Consequently there
remained no permanent case of war under Divine allowance that could ever
justify the establishment of a military caste; for the civil wars of the
Jews either grew out of some one intolerable crime taken up, adopted,
and wickedly defended by a whole tribe (as in the case of that horrible
atrocity committed by a few Benjamites, and then adopted by the whole
tribe), in which case a bloody exterminating war under God's sanction
succeeded and rapidly drew to a close, or else grew out of the ruinous
schism between the ten tribes and the two seated in or about Jerusalem.
And as this schism had no countenance from God, still less could the
wars which followed it. So that what belligerent state remains that
could have been contemplated or provided for in the original Mosaic
theory of their constitution? Clearly none at all, except the one sole
case of a foreign invasion. But as this, if in any national strength,
struck at the very existence of the people, and at their holy citadel in
Shiloh or in Jerusalem, it called out the whole military strength to the
last man of the Hebrew people. Consequently in any case, when the armies
could tend at all to great numerical amount, they must tend to an
excessive amount. And, so far from being a difficult problem to solve in
the 120,000 men, the true di