=Famine and pestilence.=—­These constant wars not only brought wounds and death and sorrow to many homes, they also kept all the people poor and increased the deadliness of the other great historic curses of humanity, such as famine.  The money and labor spent on war might have been used in terracing hillsides and fertilizing fields, so that in times of drought the crops would not wholly fail and starvation and death might thus have been pushed back a little further from the cottages of the poor.

Wars also bring disease.  In those days, epidemics of disease were frightfully common at best.  They knew nothing about sanitation.  Even in the most important cities, sewage and garbage were dumped in the streets.  Leprosy was an everyday sight.  Rats and other vermin swarmed everywhere except in the palaces of the rich; and when the soldiers came home from war, bringing with them typhus fever or cholera or the plague, the people died like flies.

=The dynasty of Omri.=—­Among the best of the successors of David and Solomon were Omri and his son Ahab, in the north.  They made peace with the southern Hebrews in Judah and renewed the old alliance with Tyre.  They built as their capital the beautiful city of Samaria.  Ahab especially was greatly admired as a brave warrior and as a king who on the whole tried to serve his country well.  Yet even Ahab was a despot.  His own glory and wealth were to him of chief importance, and his people’s needs and sufferings secondary.

BACK TO THE DESERT

Under these conditions it was natural that many people should look back with longing to the olden times, especially to the time of Moses, before the people had left the desert and settled in Canaan.  All these newfangled ways, they said, are evil.  They have brought us only trouble.  Especially bad is the worship of these Baals instead of Jehovah, the God of our fathers.  No doubt Jehovah is jealous and angry and has brought war and famine and pestilence upon us for just this reason.  Many, indeed, who did not altogether object to the civilized customs of Canaan were uneasy in their minds because of the worship of the Baals.  When Ahab made his alliance with the king of Tyre he had built, in Samaria, shrines to the Baal of Tyre.  This was in accordance with the religious ideas of those days.  When two countries made an alliance there was supposed to be an alliance between their gods.  But the Hebrews had made a special covenant to worship no other gods but only Jehovah.  So there were many who were opposed to the worship of the Baals.

=The Rechabites.=—­One Hebrew clan known as the Rechabites, actually became nomads again and did all they could to persuade others to do the same.  They gave up their houses and lived in tents.  They pledged themselves to drink no wine or strong drink, and they were enthusiastically devoted to the worship of Jehovah only.  Naturally they hated Ahab for bringing in the worship of the foreign gods of Tyre.  They did much to cause the overthrow of the dynasty of Ahab in favor of a general named Jehu, who was pledged to drive out the Phoenicians and their gods.