Another and different kind of temptation which the Hebrews met in Canaan was the tendency to forget their own tribal brothers as they scattered here and there and settled down, each family with its own little farm.  There were some, naturally, who were more successful as farmers than others.  And those who were unfortunate were not always the lazy or thriftless.  Sickness or accident or some pest which attacked the grain or the cattle would sometimes wipe out the entire property of one of those little peasant farmers and leave him and his children face to face with starvation and death.  Now, in the old days in the desert, as long as the tribe had a crust of bread or a drop of water, the weakest and poorest could count on a share.  But here in Canaan the poor, the widow, the orphan, did not always feel so surely the sheltering arms of kindness and brotherhood.

=Humane laws enacted.=—­Yet the spirit of Moses still lived and made its power felt.  Certain laws gradually came to be accepted during this period when the Hebrews were learning to be farmers which were a special protection to the poor and helpless, just as the great leader would have chosen.  We can imagine how these laws were first proclaimed by the chiefs of the clans and the elders of the villages wherever there were men who remembered how, years before, the whole nation had been poor and oppressed and enslaved.  Here are some examples: 

    ="Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child.  If
    thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I
    will surely hear their cry."=

="If thou lend money to any of my people with thee that is poor, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor; neither shall ye lay upon him usury.  If thou at all take thy neighbor’s garment to pledge, thou shalt restore it unto him before the sun goeth down; for that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin:  wherein shall he sleep?  And it shall come to pass when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I am gracious."=

    ="Thou shalt not oppress thy neighbor, nor rob him; the wages
    of a hired servant shall not abide with thee all night until
    the morning."=

There is one law which illustrates especially well how the best men among the Hebrews tried to meet the new temptations of Canaan in the spirit of kindness and justice which they had learned from Moses.

="When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleaning of the harvest.  And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather the fallen fruit of thy vineyard.  Thou shalt leave them for the poor and the stranger."=

It was already the custom among the Canaanites to leave the grain in the corners of the fields uncut, and not to pick up the scattered gleanings, which fell from the arms of the harvesters, and to leave