Part 3 (1/2)

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The teacher also made sure that they knew about that part of the Scriptures called the Law. The Ten Commandments were in the Law, and many other sayings which told people what they must do and what they must not do in order to please G.o.d. The boys learned how G.o.d gave the Commandments to Moses, while lightning flashed and thunder crashed, at the far-off mountain of Sinai.

The teacher told them stories of all that had happened to the Jewish people in the years gone by. But the most important was the story of the Pa.s.sover. This story explained why their parents went to Jerusalem each spring.

Now this was what every Jewish boy had to learn about the Pa.s.sover, and remember always:

Once there was a time, hundreds of years before, when the Jews did not live in Palestine. They lived in Egypt, where they were slaves. They wanted to escape, so that they might have a country of their own where they could be free.

One spring night G.o.d sent a disease into Egypt, and thousands died of it. There was not an Egyptian home where the oldest child in the family did not die. But none of the Jews died. Therefore, they said that G.o.d _pa.s.sed over_ their doors that night.

Then there was a great uproar and clamor in Egypt, with the Egyptians weeping, and nursing their sick, and burying their dead. The time had come for the Jews to get away. Under their leader, Moses, they began their long journey toward Palestine.

The Jewish people never forgot what G.o.d did for them in Egypt. So in the spring of each year was held the Feast of the Pa.s.sover, to give thanks to G.o.d for the help he had given them long ago. They gathered together and sang:

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”O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: For his mercy endureth for ever.”

To the Pa.s.sover feast every family brought a lamb to be killed as a sacrifice to G.o.d. Only the best could be given to G.o.d. They chose a lamb that was white, and pure, and fine, and precious. Then they roasted the lamb, and ate it. What a feast they had, so solemn and so joyful, as they remembered all that G.o.d had done!

Everyone knew the best place to hold the Pa.s.sover feast was at Jerusalem. Therefore, every year, when spring came round, the people said to one another, ”It is Pa.s.sover time,” and as many as could leave their homes went up to the great city.

When the boys heard the story, they understood why their parents went there in the spring.

When Jewish boys were twelve years old, and could read the Hebrew language, and knew the psalms, and understood the prophets, and were learning to obey the Law--then they were practically grown up. At this age a boy could be called ”a son of the Law.” He could go along with his parents to Jerusalem when it was Pa.s.sover time.

Each year Joseph and Mary liked to be in Jerusalem for the Pa.s.sover.

When Jesus was twelve years old, he was ”a son of the Law,” like other boys his age, and for the first time he went with them. Many friends and relatives kept them company as they started on the road.

Now from Nazareth it was more than eighty miles to Jerusalem, and eighty miles is a long way to walk.

It would have been easier to ride in a cart; but n.o.body traveled that way in Palestine. The roads were too rough and narrow for anything but walking. Donkeys and horses might carry the heavy luggage, but the people went on foot. There were no bridges, and so the only way to get from one side of a river to the other was to find a shallow place and wade across.

It would take two or three days to go from Nazareth to Jerusalem. When the travelers were tired at night, there was not likely to be any place to sleep along the road, except under the open sky and the stars.

There were three stages to their journey. The first was the pleasant part, through Galilee. When the travelers left Nazareth that day, the sky was clear and the air was fresh. The fields lay lovely in the sunlight. The roads were full of people from many countries. There were always merchants on the road traveling from the East to Greece and Egypt, and back to the East again. Galilee was beautiful, and Galilee was busy.

Sooner or later the time must come to leave pleasant Galilee behind.

But which way would they go from there? Should they go straight south through Samaria? That would have been the shortest and the easiest way. The only thing against it was that the people of Samaria were not friendly to Jews. Long years before, Samaria had been the home of many of the Jewish people. But foreigners came and settled among them. Then their ways became so different that the people of Jerusalem said they were not Jewish any more. They were bitter rivals of the Jews, and it was hardly safe to go among them.

So the travelers chose, for the second stage of their journey, the long road down the valley of the river Jordan. But they did not find this very pleasant, either. High above the river stood the banks, and it seemed as though the river itself were at the bottom of a great, deep ditch. And down there was the road they had to take. In some places they came to slime and mud, and dead trees and twisted roots.

But sometimes there were farms and villages. It was hot at the north end of the Jordan, when first they came to it; and the farther south the travelers went, the hotter grew the weather.

Very hot, very tired, and very thirsty, they finally reached the last stretch of the journey--across country from the Jordan to Jerusalem.

They were nearly there. But the last part of the trip was the hardest of all. Around them stretched a dreary desert. There were bleak hills, and ugly rocks, and hardly a drop of water anywhere to drink. No wonder n.o.body went to Jerusalem, except Jews and Roman soldiers! There were no gay caravans of Eastern merchants here. Galilee seemed very far away.

Up one side of a hill, and down another, and then another higher hill to climb! Up and up, over stones and bare earth and bushes and thorns, until they were high above the Jordan--that was the road to Jerusalem.

Would they ever get there? What they would have given just to sit down and wash the sand off their hot, tired feet!