With those nations, however, of which they were not sworn enemies the Jews used to have international relations. And when they went to war with those nations, their practice was in no way exceptionally cruel, if looked upon from the standpoint of their time and surroundings. Thus we find in Deuteronomy xx. 10-14 the following rules:--
(10) "When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.
(11) "And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace and open unto thee, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.
(12) "And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it.
(13) "And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword.
(14) "But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee."
Comparatively mild, like these rules for warfare, were the Jewish rules regarding their foreign slaves. Such slaves were not without legal protection. The master who killed a slave was punished (Exodus ii. 20); if the master struck his slave so severely that he lost an eye or a tooth, the slave became a free man (Exodus ii. 26 and 27). The Jews, further, allowed foreigners to live among them under the full protection of their laws. "Love ... the stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt," says Deuteronomy x. 19, and in Leviticus xxiv. 22 there is the command: "You shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger as for one of your own country."
Of the greatest importance, however, for the International Law of the future, are the Messianic ideals and hopes of the Jews, as these Messianic ideals and hopes are not national only, but fully _inter_national. The following are the beautiful words in which the prophet Isaiah (ii. 2-4) foretells the state of mankind when the Messiah shall have appeared:
(2) "And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.