the Israelites have found rest (menuha). Comparing 2Samuel vii.11
and 1Kings v. 18 (A.V., v.4), we find that "menuha" first came in
with David and Solomon. The period of the judges must at that time
have been regarded as much shorter than appears in the present chronology.
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From the building of the temple of Solomon, which is also treated
as a leading epoch in chronology, a new period in the history of worship
is accordingly dated,--and to a certain extent with justice.
The monarchy in Israel owed its origin to the need which, under severe
external pressure, had come to be felt for bringing together
into the oneness of a people and a kingdom the hitherto
very loosely connected tribes and families of the Hebrews;
it had an avowedly centralising tendency, which very naturally
laid hold of the cultus as an appropriate means for the attainment
of the political end. Gideon even, the first who came near
a regal position, erected a costly sanctuary in his city, Ophrah.
David caused the ark of Jehovah to be fetched into his fortress
on Mount Sion, and attached value to the circumstance
of having for its priest the representative of the old family
which had formerly kept it at Shiloh. Solomon's temple also was
designed to increase the attractiveness of the city of his
residence. It is indubitable that in this way political
centralisation gave an impulse to a greater centralisation of
worship also, and the tendency towards the latter continued to
operate after the separation of the two kingdoms,--in Israel not
quite in the same manner as in Judah. Royal priests, great
national temples, festal gatherings of the whole people, sacrifices
on an enormous scale, these were the traits by which the cultus,
previously (as it would seem) very simple, now showed the impress