It is evident that the Jews offered human sacrifices to God; witness that of Jephthah’s daughter,[44] and of King Agag hewed in pieces by the prophet Samuel.[45] And we find the prophet Ezekiel promising them, by way of encouragement, that they should feast upon human flesh: “Ye shall eat of the flesh of the horse, and of his rider, and ye shall drink the blood of the princes of the earth.”[46] But although the history of this people does not furnish us with one single act of generosity, magnanimity, or humanity, yet amidst so long and dismal a night of barbarism, there is continually breaking forth a cheering ray of universal toleration.
Jephthah, who was inspired of God, and who sacrificed to him his daughter, says to the chief of the Amorites, “Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? so whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive from before us, them will we possess.”[47] This declaration is express, and might be carried to a great length; however, it is at least an evident proof that God permitted the worship of Chemosh. For the words of the Holy Scripture are not “_Thou thinkest_ thou hast a right to possess that which thy god Chemosh giveth thee to possess,” but expressly, “_Thou hast_ a right to possess,” etc., for that is the true interpretation of the Hebrew words _Otho thirasch_.
The story of Micah and the Levite, related in the seventeenth and eighteenth chapters of the Book of Judges, is a still more incontestable proof of this extensive toleration and liberty of conscience allowed among the Jews. The mother of Micah having lost eleven hundred shekels of silver, and her son having restored them to her, she dedicated or vowed them unto the Lord, and made images with them, and she built a small chapel and hired a Levite to officiate therein for ten shekels of silver by the year, and a suit of apparel and his victuals. Then said Micah: “Now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing that I have a Levite to be my priest.”[48]
In a short time after, six hundred men of the tribe of Dan, who were in search of some town which they might seize upon as an inheritance to dwell in, came to the house of Micah, where they found the Levite officiating; and having no priest of their own with them, and thinking that on that account God would not prosper their undertaking, they seized upon the carved image, the ephod, and the teraphim belonging to Micah, and also the Levite, whom they took with them in spite of all the remonstrances of the latter, and the outcries of Micah and his mother. After this, full of assurance of success, they went and fell upon the city of Laish, and smote all the inhabitants with the edge of the sword, and burnt the city to the ground, as was their usual custom; they then built them another city, and called its name Dan,[49] in remembrance of their victory; and they set up Micah’s graven image; and what is more remarkable, Jonathan, the grandson of Moses, was a priest of the temple, wherein the God of Israel and the idol of Micah were both worshipped at the same time.[50]