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BS  1174  .S3  1892  v.l  c.l 
Schultz,  Hermann,  1836-1903 
Old  testament  theology 


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OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 


PRINTED   BV   MORRISON    AND   GIBB, 
FOB 

T,     &    T.     CLARK,     EDINBURGH. 

LONDON:    SIMPKIN,  MARSHALL,   HAMILTON,  KENT,  AND  CO.   LIMITED. 
NEW  YORK  :   CHARLES  SCRIBNER's  SONS. 
TORONTO  :    THE  PRESBYTERIAN  NEWS  CO. 


(J^ltj  CfStament  ^ijtoUs^. 


THE   RELIGION   OF  REVELATION 


PRE-CHRISTIAN  STAGE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 


Dr.  HERMANN   SCHULTZ, 

PROFESSOR    OF    THEOLOGY    IN    THE    UNIVBESITY    OF    GOTTINGEN. 


QTranslatcU    from    tljc    JFourtlj    (Serman    CtJittctt 

BY   THE 

Rev.  J.   A.   PATERSON,  M.A.  Oxon., 

PROFESSOR  OF   HEBREW  AND  OLD  TESTAMENT  LITERATURE  IN  THE 
UNITED   PRESBYTERIAN  COLLEGE,    EDINBURGH. 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES. 
Vol.  I. 


EDINBURGH: 

T.    &    T.    CLARK,    38     GEORGE     STREET. 

1892. 


[The  Translation  is  Copyrujht  hy  arrangement  icith  the  Author. '\ 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 


The  work  of  Dr.  Hermann  Scliultz  on  Old  Testament  Theology 
has  long  been  a  standard  authority  on  the  important  subject 
of  which  it  treats.  The  author  is  one  of  the  most  accomplished 
exponents  of  that  school  of  theological  thought  which  is  at 
present  dominant  in  Germany.  He  stands  high  in  the  esteem 
of  all  parties  ;  and  it  is  thought  by  many  that  he  has  succeeded 
in  discovering  the  via  media  between  the  positions  of  Biblical 
scholars  like  Delitzsch  on  the  one  hand  and  Stade  on  the 
other. 

Biblical  theology  is  a  subject  certain  to  receive  in  the 
immediate  future  from  the  Christian  public,  both  of  Great 
Britain  and  America,  a  steadily  increasing  share  of  attention. 
One  of  the  characteristics  of  the  age  is  the  emphasis  with 
which  the  Christian  Churches  are  declaring  that  it  is  their 
duty  as  well  as  their  privilege  to  interpret  Scripture  in 
the  full  light  of  present-day  research.  Hence  the  growing 
anxiety  to  know  what  the  books  of  the  Bible  actually  teach. 
It  is  this  question  which  Dr.  Schultz  has  undertaken  to 
answer,  from  the  historical  point  of  view,  in  so  far  as  the  Old 
Testament  is  concerned.  He  has  discharged  his  task  in  an 
eminently  fair  and  judicial  spirit ;  and  he  has  written  in  so 
felicitous  and  lucid  a  style,  and  with  such  freedom  from 
technical  phraseology,  that  his  work  should  be  intelligible 
and  instructive,  not  merely  to  clergymen,  but  to  that  rapidly 
growing  class  of  educated  laymen  who,  without  being  specialists 


vi  TRANSLATOR  S  PREFACE. 

in  theology,  are  nevertheless  profoundly  interested  in  the 
greatest  problems  with  which  tlie  human  mind  has  to  deal. 
In  churches  where  the  voice  of  the  lay  representatives  has  as 
much  influence  in  determining  the  doctrinal  standards  as  that 
of  the  clergy,  it  is  pre-eminently  desirable  that  laymen  should 
have  access  to  a  work  like  this,  which,  while  thoroughly 
scientific  and  scholarly,  is  also  distinguished  by  a  singularly 
popular  method  of  exposition.  For  these  reasons  it  seemed 
to  me  that  English  readers,  unfamiliar  with  German,  ought  to 
have  the  opportunity  of  ascertaining  for  themselves  the  exact 
views  of  such  a  master  in  this  department  of  theological 
study  as  Dr,  Schultz  is  admitted  to  be. 

As  the  Hebrew  in  the  notes  has,  as  a  rule,  not  been 
pointed,  I  have  thought  it  well  to  add  to  the  usual  indexes  of 
subjects  and  of  passages  quoted,  an  index  of  Hebrew  words 
with  the  Massoretic  points  inserted.  I  may  also  state  that 
no  attempt  has  been  made  to  transliterate  Hebrew  names, 
except  where  the  subject  under  discussion  rendered  trans- 
literation necessary. 

For  their  kind  assistance  in  correcting  the  proof-sheets,  and 
for  many  valuable  suggestions,  I  desire  to  tender  to  Dr.  Schultz 
himself,  and  to  the  Eev.  Wm.  M'Gilchrist,  B.D.,  Ardrpssan, 
my  most  cordial  thanks, 

J.  A.  PATERSON. 


Edinburgh,  November  1892. 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE  TO  THE  ENGLISH  TRANSLATION. 


I  TRUST  that  this  book  of  mine,  in  its  new  form,  may,  in 
some  measure  however  small,  contribute  to  the  increase  among 
English  readers  of  a  really  historical  knowledge  of  that  religion 
from  which  our  own  faith  has  sprang.  I  cannot,  indeed, 
refrain  from  expressing  the  hope  that  in  a  land  which 
possesses  so  many  distinguished  Old  Testament  scholars,  the 
faults  and  shortcomings  of  this  work  may  be  leniently  dealt 
with.  I  console  myself  at  any  rate  with  the  thought  that, 
in  a  field  of  study  so  extensive  and  so  obscure  as  that  of  Old 
Testament  theology,  it  will  be  long  before  it  becomes  possible 
for  investigators  to  avoid  making  mistakes. 

As  the  proof-sheets  of  the  translation  were  passing  through 
the  press,  I  compared  them  with  the  original  as  carefully  as 
my  knowledge  of  English  permitted.  In  a  very  few  passages, 
where  an  exact  translation  seemed  to  me  somewhat  obscure, 
I  have  suggested  a  wider  departure  from  the  German  than  a 
translator  would  have  felt  himself  entitled  to  make.  I  have 
also  thought  it  right,  in  a  few  instances,  to  insert  one  or  two 
new  sentences — as  for  example,  my  references  to  the  important 
work  on   the   religion  of  the  Semites,  which   Dr.  Robertson 


Vlll         AUTHOR  S  PREFACE  TO  THE  ENGLISH  TRANSLATION. 

Smith  has  published  since  the  last  edition  of  my  own  book 

appeared. 

Professor  Paterson   has  executed  the  translation  with  as 

much    skill    as   care ;   and   while   he   has   not   followed   the 

German,  at  the  expense  of  the    English  idiom,  readers  may 

rely  on  his  having  given  the  meaning  of  the  original  with 

the  utmost  accuracy. 

HEEMANN  SCHULTZ. 

GoTTiNGEN,  October  1892. 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTION. 

CHArXER  PAGE' 

I.  Meaning  and  Method  of  Biblical  Theology  :  Name, 
Scope,  Relation  to  other  branches  of  Theology, 
Methods,  Sources,  .  .  .  .  .  1-13 

II.  Forms  of  Literature  in  the  Old  Testament  Scrip- 
tures :  Didactic  Pieces,  Poetic  Form,  Books  of  Narra- 
tive, Legend  and  Myth,  ....         14-31 

III.  The  Religion  of  the  Old  Testament  in  connection 

WITH  the  History  of  Religion  :  Theological  and 
Philosophical  Estimates,  Relation  to  Nature-Religions, 
Place  among  Prophetic  Religions,  .  .  .         31-51 

IV.  Old     and    New    Testament  :      Nature    of    Connection, 

Development  and  Completion,  Limits,  .  .         51-60 

V.  Periods  and  Sources  of  Old  Testament  Theology,        .        60-79 

YI.  Literature  of  Old  Testament  Theology,  .  .        79-85 

FIRST  MAIN  DIVISION. 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION  AND  MORALS  IN  ISRAEL  DOWN  TO  THE 
FOUNDING  OF  THE  ASMONALAN  STATE. 

VII.  Israel's  Pre-Mosaic  Age  :  Picture  in  Genesis,  Abraham, 
Hebrew    and    Semitic    Religion,     Truces    of    Semitic 
Heathenism,        ...... 

Vlll.  Moses:  Personality  of  Moses,  the  Principle  of  Mosaism, 
IX.  The    Religious    Development    of    Israel    hown    to 
Samuel,  ...... 

X.  From  Samuel  down  to  the  Eighth  Century, 
XI.  Religious  Figures  Characteristic  of  the  Age  prior  to 
the  Eighth  Century  :  Nazirite,  Theocratic  King, 


86- 

-125 

125- 

-139 

139- 

-151 

151- 

-160 

IGl 

-174 

X  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS, 

CHAPTER  PACE 

XII.  Religious  Knowledge  and  Modes  of  Purlic  "WoRsniP 

DOWN    TO    THE    EIGHTH    CeNTURY,     AND     MOKE     PAR- 

ticularly  till  the  Building  of  the  Temple  : 
Knowledge  of  God,  Monotheism,  Revelation,  Worship 
and  Sacrifice,  Human  Sacrifices,  Vows,  Circumcision, 
Passover,  Priesthood,  Feasts,  Sabbath,  Holy  Places,  Ark 
of  the  Covenant,  Tabernacle,  Moral  Ideal,  Decalogue,  .     174-220 

XIII.  The  Assyrian  Age  :  Historical  I\elations,  Development  of 

Religion,  Reform  and  Reaction,  .  .  .     220-235 

XIV.  Personages  of   Influence  in  the  Assyrian  Age — the 

Prophet  :  History  of  Prophecy,  Heathen  and  False 
Prophets,  Prophetic  Names  and  Calling,  Speech  and 
AVritiiigs,  Prophecy  and  Soothsaying,  Miracles  and 
Signs,       .......     235-300 

XV.  The  Babylonian  Age — Judah's  Trial  and  Execution  : 

Historical  Relations,  Development  of  Religion,  .     300-310 

XVI.  The  Suffering  Servant  of  Jehovah,        .  .  .     310-320 

XVII.  The  Persian  Age — Israel's  Resurrection  :  the  Servant 
of  Jehovah,  the  New  Jerusalem,  the  Age  of  the  Epigoni, 
the  Temple,  Holy  Scripture,  ....  320-336 
XVIII.  The  Sacred  Institutions  of  Israel  according  to  "The 
Law"  :  Sacred  Persons,  the  Holy  Place,  Sacred  Seasons, 
Sacred  Ceremonies,  .....     337-406 

XIX.  The  Closing  Era  in  the  History  of  Old  Testament 
Religion  :  the  Greek  Age,  the  Maccabees,  the  Forming 
of  Sects,  the  High  Priest,  Pro[ihet  and  Scribe,  Holy 
Scripture,  Apocalj'pse  and  Prophecy,      .  .  .     406-423 

XX.  Special  Phenomena  of  the  Latest  Old  Testaaient  Age 
which  point  forward  :   the  Community  of  the  Dis- 
persion, Proselytes,  Temple  and  Synagogue,  Feast-Days, 
Parties,  Scepticism,  Foreign  Elements,  ,  ,  .     423-438 


INTRODUCTIOK 


CHAPTER  I. 


MEANING  AND  METHOD  OF  BIBLICAL  THEOLOGY. 


1.  The  name  "  Biblical  Theology "  has  been  applied  at 
different  times  to  very  different  sides  of  theological  science. 
It  has  been  used  to  denote  a  popular,  as  opposed  to  an  eccle- 
siastical, scholastic  presentation  of  Christianity.  Storr  takes 
the  terra  in  this  sense,  and  so,  too,  does  Bahrdt,  although 
his  general  point  of  view  is  wholly  different.  In  Pietist 
circles  this  is  still  its  usual  meaning.  Again,  it  has  been  i  'I'^'V^"'  ' 
used  to  denote  more  particularly  the  creed  of  the  early 
Christians  as  distinguished  from  the  later  development  of 
doctrine  in  the  Church.^  Again,  it  has  been  employed  for  -^vt"^' 
the  purpose  of  emphasising  the  character  of  Christianity  as  a  J 

revelation  in  contrast  to  a  rational  theology,  much  in  the 
same  way  as  the  expression  "  Bible-believer "  has  nowadays 
come  to  indicate  one  holding  a  particular  view  of  revelation.  "^ — ^  "',. 
Lastly,  by  Biblical  theology  has  been  understood  a  collection"^  ■^  'r-v~>  \P 
of  proof-passages  from  the  Bible  for  the  more  important 
divisions  of  ecclesiastical  dogma.  This  is  its  meaning  in  the 
works  of  writers  like  Weissmann  and  Schmid.^  In  opposi- 
tion to  these  uses  of  the  word,  we  understand  by  Biblical 

^  So  Biiscliing,  Crusins,  Grnner,  Bolime,  etc. 

2  In  connection  with  the  above,  of.    Baumgarten-Crusius,   Griindziige  der 
hihl.  Theol.  etc.,  §  8. 

VOL.  I.  A 


2  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

theology  that  branch  of  theological  science  which  gives  a 
liistorical  presentation  of  revealed  religion  during  the  period 
of  its  growth.  We  mean  to  describe  how,  during  the  forma- 
tion of  our  Biblical  records,  the  religion  which  we  ourselves 
profess,  advanced  towards  its  full  development  among  the 
people  of  Israel.  The  subjects  with  which  Biblical  theology 
undertakes  to  deal  are  the  moral  and  religious  views  which 
the  sacred  books  contain,  considered  in  their  historical  develop- 
ment and  ill  their  inner  living  connection. 

The  task  of  Biblical  theology  is  tlius  purely  historical,  and 
the  sources  it  uses  are  the  books  of  the  Bible.  The  question 
is  not  in  what  form  does  Christianity,  as  developed  by  the 
Church,  present  itself  to  the  evangelical  Christian  as  his 
religion,  but  simply  what  form  did  religion  take  during  the 
various  stages  of  religious  life  in  Israel  up  to  the  close  of  the 
apostolic  age.  Hence  we  cannot,  like  the  early  Church, 
assume,  without  further  inquiry,  that  the  religious  and  moral 
material  which  we  find  there  must  be  everywhere  uniform 
in  character,  or  even  equally  excellent.  Whether  that  is 
the  case,  or  how  far  it  is  so,  cannot  be  determined  till  the 
close  of  our  investigation,  when,  after  a  purely  historical 
examination  of  the  various  stages  of  development,  we  have 
reached  definite  results  regarding  the  moral  and  religious 
standpoint  of  each  particular  period. 

.  But  by  speaking  of  a  presentation  of  "  revealed  religion," 
we  imply  that  the  subject-matter  to  be  dealt  with  has  a 
homogeneous  character  of  its  own.  We  mean  to  describe, 
not  various  forms  of  religion  which  have  merely  an  ex- 
ternal connection  of  place  or  time,  but  a  single  religion  in 
the  various  stages  of  its  development,  which  stages  con- 
sequently have  an  organic  inner  connection.  Hence  in  such 
a  presentation  each  member  must  be  properly  linked  to  its 
fellow.  A  common  ligament  of  living  growth  must  bind  all 
the  parts  togetlier.  The  presentation  must  be,  not  merely 
historical,  but  "  genetic." 


EELATION  TO  EXEGESIS.  3 

To  the  term  "  Biblical  theology "  we  do  not  attach  any- 
special  importance.  It  has  become  current  through  the 
works  of  Gabler,  Schmid,  and  Oehler,  and  it  seems  to  us 
decidedly  preferable  to  the  other  term,  "  Biljlical  dogmatic," 
which  de  "VVette  and  Hagenbach  defend.  We  do  not,  how- 
ever, prefer  it  because  the  name  "  Dogmatic  "  would  denote,  as 
Laumgarten-Crusius  thinks,  "  the  variable  and  changing,  in  a 
word,  the  human  element,"  in  the  subject-matter  of  this  science, 
for  this  objection  is  obviated  by  the  more  recent' application 
of  the  word.  We  prefer  it,  in  the  iirst  place,  because  dogmas, 
that  is  to  say,  hard  and  fast  statements  of  doctrine,  do  not 
often  occur  in  Scripture ;  in  the  next  place,  because  we  mean 
to  describe  the  religious  and  the  moral  life  as  a  connected 
whole ;  and  lastly,  because  the  notion  of  "  dogmatic "  would 
require  us  to  combine  all  the  religious  views  of  the  Bible 
into  one  harmonious  scheme.  Consequently,  if  this  latter 
name  were  to  find  general  acceptance,  it  would  have  to  be 
restricted  to  such  works  as  aim,  like  that  of  Lutz,  at  a 
"  systematic  presentation  "  of  the  religious  ideas  of  the  Bible. 
Lutz  is  therefore  right  in  distinguishing  (p.  6)  between  his 
own  subject  and  Biblical  theology  "  which  has  a  thoroughly 
historical  character."     (Cf.  v.  Colin,  i.  6.) 

2.  Biblical  theology  is  directly  connected,  first  of  all,  with 
the  exegesis  of  Scripture.  The  latter,  being  grammatical  and 
historical,  makes  the  student  of  the  former  acquainted  with  what 
each  individual  writer  in  the  Bible  wished  to  say  to  his  own 
age  regarding  religious  and  moral  subjects,  and  at  what  period 
in  the  history  of  Israel  each  delivered  his  message.  Only  in 
this  way  is  a  historical  presentation  possible.  Hence,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  the  criticism  of  the  Biblical  books,  both 
positive  and  negative,  is,  in  a  special  sense,  the  foundation  of 
our  subject.  This  makes  it  impossible  to  solve  the  problems 
of  Biblical  theology  in  a  way  likely  to  win  universal  assent. 
As  long  as  the  results  of  the  science  of  Introduction  are  still 
being   called   in   question,  even  as   regards   their  foundation 


4  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

principles,  opinions  must  differ  as  to  the  development  of  the 
Biblical  religion.  Why,  even  where  there  is  essential  agree- 
ment as  to  the  principles  of  criticism,  there  are  still  many 
details,  especially  in  reference  to  the  Pentateuch  and  the 
Psalms,  that  are  extremely  debatable.  In  fact,  the  very 
latest  investigations,  particularly  as  regards  the  prophetical 
books,  are  still  extending  the  boundaries  of  this  debatable 
ground.  On  the  one  hand,  however,  it  is  only  a  bird's-eye 
view  of  the  religious  and  moral  ideas  of  long  stretches  of 
time  that  is  aimed  at,  so  that  many  points,  in  themselves 
debatable,  cease  to  be  important.  On  the  other  hand,  a  careful 
unfolding  of  the  history  of  religion  may,  in  many  individual 
instances,  prove  helpful  in  settling  questions  of  Introduction. 

As  a  necessary  preliminary  to  Biblical  theology,  one  must 
study  the  expository  works  which  deal  with  the  doctrinal 
ideas  of  specially  important  single  books  or  groups  of  books. 
Taken  along  with  the  works  which  trace  single  doctrines 
through  all  the  different  Biblical  books,  such  writings  would, 
if  complete,  provide  us  with  almost  all  the  material  we 
require.  We  should  then  have  the  warp  and  the  woof,  out 
of  which  we  could  without  much  trouble  weave  the  web  of 
Biblical  theology.  ISTevertheless,  in  this  department,  despite 
the  many  valuable  contributions  by  painstaking  investigators 
of  proved  ability  which  recent  years  have  brought  us/  Science 
has  still  plenty  of  work  before  her. 

3.  While  unfolding  the  original  elements  of  revealed  re- 
ligion, and  thereby  exhibiting  the  permanent  basis  of  every- 
thing Christian,  as  well  as  the  standard  by  which  to  judge 
every  development  of  doctrine  and  morals  in  the  Church, 
Biblical  theology  has  of  necessity  a  close  connection  with 
systematic  theology.  It  provides  what  Schleiermacher  already 
felt  to  be  a  desideratum  in  the  teaching  of  doctrine,  "  a 
form  of  Scripture  proof  on  a  larger  scale   than  can  be  got 

'  Especially  Baiidissin,  Riehm,  Kantzscli,  Dubm,  and  the  contributors  to  the 
Theolofjisch  Tijdschrift  and  the  Zeitschrift  fur  altlestamentliche  Wissenscha/t. 


DELATION  TO  SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY.  5 

from  single  texts."  Hence  the  distinction  between  Biblical 
and  Systematic  theology  must  be  all  the  more  strongly  insisted 
on ;  and  it  is  just  in  the  evangelical  Church  that  it  is  most 
necessary  to  emphasise  this  distinction,  because  here  the  risk  of 
confusing  the  two  is  greatest.  Undoubtedly  it  is  one  of  the 
most  important  and  difficult  tasks  of  modern  theology  to  put 
an  end  to  this  vague  confusion  between  Biblical  theology  and 
systematised  evangelical  doctrine, — a  natural  confusion  in 
earlier  ages,  and  one  of  which  theologians  were  then  quite 
unconscious,  but  which  in  the  present  day  shows  itself  in 
conscious  opposition  to  a  sound  historical  conception  of  Holy 
Scripture,  and,  with  a  haughty  disregard  of  the  intellectual 
work  of  the  Church,  reappears  in  the  form  of  a  science  of 
Christian  doctrine  based  on  the  Bible  documents.  In  this 
relation  the  rise  of  an  independent  science  of  Biblical  theology 
is  certainly  of  fundamental  importance.  It  involves  an  ac- 
knowledgment that  the  subject-matter  of  the  Bible  cannot  be 
the  immediate  foundation  of  Christian  belief,  that  scientific 
theology  has  become  conscious  that  the  old  evangelical  pre- 
supposition that  the  doctrine  of  the  Bible  and  the  Christianity 
of  the  Church  are  in  perfect  harmony,  is  no  longer  tenable. 

The  distinction  between  these  two  branches  of  study  is,  in 
the  first  place,  one  of  form.  Systematic  theology  has  to 
present  in  one  harmonious  whole  the  moral  and  religious 
consciousness  of  an  evangelical  Christian  of  the  present  day, 
as  based  on  the  completed  development  of  the  Bible  and  on 
the  ecclesiastical  history  of  Christendom  resulting  therefrom. 
Biblical  theology  has  to  show,  from  a  purely  historical  stand- 
point, what  were  the  doctrinal  views  and  moral  ideas  which 
animated  the  leading  spirits  of  our  religion  during  the  Biblical 
period  of  its  growth.  In  the  next  place,  the  distinction  is  one 
of  contents.  What  Biblical  theology  shows  to  have  been  the 
religious  and  moral  contents  of  any  particular  period  of  Biblical 
development,  is  by  no  means  proved  thereby  to  be  a  doctrine 
of  Christian  faith  or  morals.     It  is  but  a  single  step  in  the 


6  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

process  of  that  religious  development  wliicli  was  leading  on- 
wards to  the  perfecting  of  religion  in  Christianity.  Now,  the 
law  of  organic  development  is,  that  in  every  stage  of  healthy 
development  all  future  developments  are  already  lying  hid, 
but  hid  only, — as  germs  are.  Hence,  in  the  product  of  each 
stage  in  the  Biblical  religion,  the  germ  of  the  last  and  highest 
stage  was  present,  but  still  only  the  germ.  It  is  only  the 
man  of  science,  to  whom  the  life-history  of  a  plant  is  familiar, 
that  can  recognise  in  the  germ  its  relation  to  the  coming  bloom 
and  fruit,  never  the  superficial  observer. 

In  like  manner,  no  result  of  Old  Testament  theology  can 
become  a  constituent  part  of  systematic  theology  till  its  further 
development  in  Christianity  has  been  recognised,  in  other 
words,  except  through  the  medium  of  New  Testament 
theology.  True,  there  is  not  a  single  Christian  conception 
but  has  its  roots  in  the  Old  Testament.  In  so  far,  however, 
as  it  is  still  Old  Testament,  in  other  words,  as  it  is  presented 
in  Old  Testament  theology,  it  has  not  yet  developed  into 
Christianity,  and  is  therefore  not  yet  Christian.  There  is  not 
a  single  Old  Testament  conception  which  Christianity  does  not 
set  in  a  new  light,  and  not  till  then  is  it  rendered  perfect.  It 
is  sad  to  see  how,  for  example,  the  representation  of  Old 
Testament  morality  in  Genesis  or  in  the  war-psalms  is  falsified 
in  order  to  juggle  it  into  conformity  with  the  morality  of  Him 
who  did  not  bestow  upon  His  disciples  "  the  spirit  of  Elias,"  or 
how  the  highest  phase  of  Christian  morality  is  actually 
darkened  in  order  not  to  contrast  too  strongly  with  the 
morality  of  an  earlier  age.^ 

Not  of  Biblical  theology  as  such,  therefore,  but  at  most 
of  New  Testament  theology,  can  it  be  said  that  it  is  co- 
extensive with  systematic  theology.  But  even  the  results 
of  New  Testament  theology  do  not,  without  further  explana- 

^  The  greatest  feat  of  this  sort  which  recent  Protestant  theology  has  achieved 
is,  perhaps,  the  excursus  on  the  deeds  of  Ehud  and  Jael  in  Bachmann's  Com- 
inentar  zum  Buche  der  Kichttr,  1868. 


RELATION  TO  SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY.  7 

tion,  coincide  with  those  of  evangelical  doctrine  and  ethics. 
For  even  in  the  New  Testament,  revealed  religion  finds  ex- 
pression through  a  mnltiplicity  of  persons  whose  individual 
peculiarities  cannot  claim  to  be  the  standard  for  all  time. 
Notwithstanding  all  the  unity  of  faith  in  the  New  Testament, 
none  but  the  wilfully  blind  can  help  seeing  the  great  variety 
of  religious  thought  which  it  contains.  The  religious  and 
moral  consciousness  of  the  New  Testament  writers  is  always 
pervaded  by  the  ideas  of  their  time,  and  influenced  by  their 
education  and  by  their  own  special  cast  of  thought.  Hence 
the  work  of  the  Cliristian  spirit,  that  has  translated  the  religious 
and  moral  ideas  of  the  men  of  the  Bible  into  the  speech  and 
thought  of  other  times,  must  not  be  declared  useless  on  the 
one-sided  dictum  of  a  "  Bible-believer." 

Biblical  theology  is  thus  distinct  in  form  and  contents 
from  systematic  theology.  But  the  former  remains  the  neces- 
sary preliminary  and  the  indispensable  standard  of  the  latter. 
It  alone  can  give  a  pledge  that  the  conscious  faith  of  the 
Church,  as  of  the  individual,  is  not  overstepping  the  bounds 
of  historical  Christianity. 

4.  Thus  Biblical  theology  lies  wholly  Avithin  the  circle  of 
historical  theology.  Inside  this  circle,  however,  it  keeps 
itself  quite  distinct  from  the  department  of  this  science,  which, 
on  the  basis  of  the  already  completed  religion  of  revelation, 
has  to  show  how  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  Christianity 
gradually  became  ecclesiastical  dogmas,  and  how  the  com- 
munities and  nations  influenced  by  Christianity  fared  as 
Christians  in  the  general  history  of  mankind.  In  other 
words.  Biblical  theology  is  distinct  both  from  the  history  of 
dogma  and  from  Church  history. 

For  us,  to  be  sure.  Biblical  theology  would  form  only  a 
single  section  in  the  history  of  dogma,  did  we  not  recognise 
Jesus  as  the  Christ,  and  therefore  see  in  His  personal  mani- 
festation, and  in  those  developments  of  the  religious  life 
which  are   directly   due   to    Him,  the    perfect  manifestation 


8  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

of  moral  and  religious  life.  Could  we  see  in  the  further 
development  of  the  Christian  Church  a  regular,  uniformly 
growing  continuation  of  what  the  Bible  began,  then  Biblical 
theology  would  be  merely  the  first  section  of  the  history  of 
dogma,  and  the  Bible  merely  the  beginning  of  Christian  litera- 
ture. Such  a  result  might  be  reached  by  carrying  to  its 
logical  conclusion  the  Catliolic  view,  that  the  infallible 
spirit  of  the  Church  can  actually  impart  new  religious  know- 
ledge as  well  as  by  believing  in  the  immanence  of  the 
Divine  Spirit  in  the  human.  But  even  one  who,  though  not 
a  Christian,  takes  an  unprejudiced  view  of  history,  will  hardly 
deny  that,  when  contrasted  with  its  ecclesiastical  development, 
the  Biblical  stage  of  Christianity  is  "  the  classical."  And  for 
the  evangelical  Christian,  as  such,  it  is  beyond  question  that 
all  healthy  ecclesiastical  development  in  later  times  can  only 
be  the  shaping  and  unfolding  of  what  was  revealed  once  for 
all  in  the  Bible  as  something  immediately  living,  as  some- 
thing manifest.  Tor  such  an  one  the  Bible  is  not  merely  the 
beginning,  but  also  the  classical  standard  of  all  Christian 
literature,  and  Biblical  theology  the  description  of  that 
perfect  typical  development  by  which  all  later  ecclesiastical 
work  must  be  measured. 

Consequently,  Biblical  theology  comes  into  closer  connection 
with  the  branches  of  historical  theology  that  deal  with  the 
development  of  the  people,  among  whom  the  true  religion 
flourished  till  it  reached  its  perfect  form  in  Christianity.  This 
province  Biblical  theology  shares,  in  the  first  place,  with  "  the 
history  of  the  people  of  Israel."  To  this  it  stands  in  the 
same  relation  as  the  history  of  doctrine  and  morals  does  to 
the  history  of  the  Christian  peoples.  Into  a  general  history 
of  Israel,  planned  on  a  large  scale,  there  can  be  woven,  it  is 
true,  a  history  of  its  religion.  Indeed,  so  far  as  its  main 
features  are  concerned,  it  can  scarcely  be  left  out.^     But  just 

^  The  great  historical  work  of  H.  Ewald,  a  monument  of  astonishing  industry 
and  insight,  is  on  a  large  scale,  embracing  not  only  the  religion,  but  all  the 


RELATION  TO  BIBLICAL  ARCHEOLOGY.  9 

as  in  a  history  of  Greece  and  Eome  a  special  place  is 
due  to  the  history  of  Greek  art  and  of  Eoman  law,  because 
in  these  provinces  of  intellectual  life  those  two  nations 
have  shown  themselves  ideal  pioneers,  so  in  the  history 
of  Israel  the  history  of  its  religion  demands  special  atten- 
tion, because  for  us  Israel  is  the  religious  people.  Between 
the  two  provinces  it  is  easy  to  draw  a  clear  line  of  de- 
marcation. Biblical  theology  has  to  set  aside  everything 
that  bears  merely  on  the  history  of  Israel  as  a  civil  com- 
munity having  political  relations  with  other  nations,  and, 
further,  everything  in  which  its  civil  development  does  not 
differ  from  that  of  other  peoples,  and  is  not  determined  by  the 
peculiarity  of  its  religion.  Wherever  there  is  a  question  as  to 
the  links  connecting  religious  and  civil  life.  Biblical  theology 
simply  takes  its  statements  from  the  history  of  Israel  as 
accepted  facts. 

This  specified  province  Biblical  theology  likewise  shares 
with  Biblical  archaeology.  The  latter  science  undertakes  to 
give  a  view  of  everything  affecting  Hebrew  life,  the  con- 
formation of  the  land  under  the  influence  of  which  this 
people  developed,  its  domestic  and  social  conditions,  its 
occupations  in  private  and  public  life,  its  enjoyments  and  its 
needs,  its  legal  institutions,  the  average  standard  of  morals  in 
each  age,  and  the  forms  of  private  and  public  worship. 
What  it  specially  shares  with  Biblical  theology,  is  the  field 
of  morals  and  of  public  worship.  But  even  here  the  line 
of  demarcation  between  the  two  sciences  is  clear  and 
distinct.  The  subject-matter  of  Biblical  theology  is  simply 
the    current   ideal   of    morality    and    the   religious   thoughts 

surroundings  of  ancient  Israel,  and  is  therefore  of  much  service  for  our  purpose. 
Still,  in  consequence  of  the  general  object  he  has  in  view,  even  Ewald  has  no 
room  for  the  more  minute  details  of  the  history  of  religion.  In  the  histories  of 
Hitzig,  Seineke,  etc.,  all  discussion  of  the  finer  questions  of  this  sort  is  pur- 
posely avoided.  In  the  work  of  Stade  there  is  an  attempt  to  unfold  the 
fundamental  thoughts  of  the  religion  of  the  people  of  Israel,  but,  to  my  mind,  in 
a  one-sided  way.  The  chief  problems  of  our  science  are  dealt  with  in  the  woika 
of  Wellhausen,  always  in  a  most  attractive  and  suggestive  manner. 


10  OLD  TESTAMEI^T  THEOLOGY. 

embodied  in  the  public  worship  of  God.  On  the  other  band, 
the  delineation  of  actually  existing  conditions  and  of  ex- 
ternal acts  of  worship,  as  well  as  of  the  finer  distinctions  in 
regard  to  customs  and  institutions,  rights  and  duties,  is  the 
business  of  archaeology.  On  such  matters  as  these  Biblical 
theology  has  simply  to  take  from  archoeology  its  results  as 
accepted  facts. 

With  these  three  sciences,  the  history  of  Israel,  Hebrew 
archaeology,  and  Biblical  theology,  our  historical  knowledge 
of  the  development-period  of  revealed  religion  in  Israel  is 
complete.  No  other  department  of  intellectual  life  ever 
reached  among  this  people  such  a  special  or  important  develop- 
ment as  to  require  separate  scientific  treatment.  In  the  case 
of  Israel,  all  questions  of  law,  constitutional  history,  and  art 
may  be  discussed  without  loss  in  connection  with  history 
and  archaeology. 

5.  Biblical  theology  has  thus  a  well-defined  province  of 
its  own  among  the  separate  departments  of  theology.  Indeed, 
it  is  one  of  the  most  indispensable  branches  of  theological 
science.  In  it  alone  the  labours  of  the  expositor  and  the 
critic  arrive  at  definite  results,  by  which  may  be  tested  at 
once  their  soundness  and  their  thoroughness.  It  clears  the 
way  for  systematic  theology,  inasmuch  as  by  defining  the 
true  character  of  primitive  Christianity,  it  fixes  the  limits  and 
guarantees  the  Cliristian  standpoint  of  every  system  of  faith 
and  morals  which  aims  at  beingj  Christian.  As  a  historical 
presentation  of  the  original  and  complete  development  of  the 
true  religion,  it  serves  as  an  introduction  to  the  history  of 
the  progress  of  Christianity,  and  gives  us  the  true  standard 
by  which  to  estimate  the  value  of  every  later  ecclesiastical 
form.  Biblical  theology  is  thus,  as  it  were,  the  heart  of 
theological  science,  wliich,  by  working  upon  the  original 
sources,  gathers  the  life-blood  into  one  great  centre  in  order 
to  pour  it  back  again  into  the  veins,  so  that  the  theological 
life  of  the  existing  Church  may  be  kept  strong  and  healthy. 


METHOD  OF  BIBLICAL  THEOLOGY,  11 

But  it  is  only  as  a  whole  that  Biblical  theology  has  this 
commanding  position,  and  it  is  only  from  belonging  to  such 
a  whole  that  a  single  section  of  it,  like  Old  Testament 
theology,  obtains  its  importance.  Apart  from  its  complete 
development,  apart,  that  is,  from  its  final  stage,  Old  Testament 
theology  would  be  but  a  poor  standard  for  Christian  faith 
and  Christian  morals. 

6.  Accordingly    we    must,    after    a    careful    chronological    . 
sifting  of  the  extant  documents,  determine  by  purely  historical 
tests  what  were  the  moral  and  religious  principles  which  at    j 
each  separate  period  of  Israel's  history  were  either  expressly 
asserted  or  else  implied  in  its  forms  and  ceremonies,  taking    { 
into    account    only   those    circles    which    eventually    proved 
themselves  the  successful  exponents  of  a  healthy  development.    [ 
And  this  historical  result  must  not  in   any  way  be   either 
judged  or   settled   from    the    standpoint    of    Christianity  as    ' 
developed  by  the  Church,  or  from  that  of  any  philosophical 
school  or  of  one's  own  mode  of  thought. 

It  is  self-evident  that  Biblical  theology  can  be  a  profitable 
study  only  to  one  who  is  able  to  bring  himself  into  living 
sympathy  with  the  spirit  of  that  religion.  No  spiritual 
movement  can  or  will  reveal  itself  in  all  its  truth  except  to 
one  who,  having  come  under  its  charm,  keenly  appreciates 
its  real  meaning,  and  takes  an  interest  in  all  its  peculiar 
characteristics.  Still  it  does  not  follow  from  this  that  one 
has  a  right  to  speak  of  a  special  theological  method  any 
more  than  an  art-historian  should  speak  of  an  esthetic,  or 
a  historian  of  literature  of  a  poetic,  method. 

7.  The  only  writings  which  can  be  regarded  as  the  special 
and  direct  sources  of  Biblical  theology  are  those  which  form 
the  canon  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament.  For,  even  if  we 
lay  no  special  stress  on  the  name  "  Biblical,"  but  look  simply 
to  the  object  we  have  in  view,  our  task  is  to  give  a  history 
of  the  development  of  revealed  religion  as  consummated  in 
Christianity,   not  a  history  of  all   the   religious   and   moral 


12  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

products  of  the  Jewish  national  spirit.  Hence  we  can  employ- 
as  direct  sources  only  those  writings  which  are  the  outcome 
of  that  religious  movement  which  culminated  in  Christianity  ; 
in  other  words,  as  compared  with  the  canonical  Scriptures, 
the  kindred  writings  of  later  Judaism  and  of  early  Christianity 
cannot  be  regarded  as  real  sources,  but  only  as  explanatory 
and  preparative. 

8.  But  even  the  books  of  both  Testaments  would  not  be 
satisfactory  authorities  for  an  investigation  into  the  historical 
development  of  revealed  religion,  were  it  true,  as  some  scholars 
have  surmised,  that  these  give  us  in  great  part  merely  the 
outer  shell  of  the  popular  religion,  and  that,  since  the  time  of 
the  patriarchs,  there  existed  among  the  higher  classes  an 
esoteric  religion  that  was  marked  by  a  deeper  grasp  of 
religious  thought.^  Whether  this  theory  points  to  particular 
doctrines,  such  as  the  belief  in  immortality,  which  de  Wette 
had  in  view,  or  regards  Moses  as  having  been  initiated  into 
the  esoteric  religion  of  the  Egyptian  priesthood,  of  which 
religion  he  promulgated  only  the  outer  form,  or  finally 
holds,  with  Autenrieth,  that  a  primitive  Canaanitish  school 
of  philosophy  taught  the  doctrines  of  monotheism,  love  to 
one's  neighbour,  and  immortality,  and  that  through  its 
oldest  pre -Mosaic  production,  the  book  of  Job,  this 
philosophy  was  introduced  into  Israel  by  David,  but  not 
wholly  incorporated  into  the  Hebrew  national  religion 
till  the  time  of  the  Babylonian  captivity,  any  such  theory 
would  make  a  real  history  of  revealed  religion  for  ever 
impossible.  For  us  the  Biblical  religion  which  would  then 
remain  would  no  longer  have  any  interest.  But  if  we  succeed 
in  pointing  out  in  the  Biblical  books  a  healthy  inner  de- 
velopment of    religion,  and  find  that    men  like  Isaiah,  the 


'  Literature. — 'Reinhold,  Dieebraeischen  Mysferien,l7SS.  Autenrieth,  Ueber 
das  Buck  Hiob,  1823.  De  "Wette  on  Psalm  xvii.  15  ;  cf.  Biblische  Dogmatik, 
§  113,  114. — Zachcariae,  "Von  der  Herablassung  Gottes  zu  den  Mensclien" 
{Philosoi)hisch-theologische  Abhandlungen,  ed.  Pcrschke,  1776,  p.  541). 


ACCOMMODATION.  1 3 

Deuteronomist,  and  others,  who  would  surely  have  been  among 
the  initiated,  preach  the  same  religion  as  the  rest,  in  all 
simplicity  too,  and  in  the  unmistakable  language  of  perfect 
sincerity  and  transparent  candour,  this  idea  of  an  esoteric 
religion  becomes  the  veriest  phantom  of  the  imagination. 

It  is  somewhat  different,  however,  with  the  question 
whether  the  Biblical  writers  may  not  have  accommodated 
themselves  to  popular  views.  Wherever  there  is  no  philoso- 
phical teaching,  there  must  be  some  such  "  accommodation." 
Everywhere  outside  the  language  of  science  the  inner  is 
represented  by  the  outer  in  symbol  and  parable  (Matt.  xiii. 
13),  the  spiritual  is  expressed  by  that  which  can  be  seen  and 
handled.  In  the  Sacred  Scriptures  this  is  such  an  outstanding 
characteristic  of  the  language  that,  as  Kayser  remarks,  not 
without  reason,  "  the  old  sensuous  language  even  in  the  Old 
and  New  Testament  is  without  any  deep  metaphysical  ideas, 
and  its  meaning  must  be  grasped,  that  is,  conceived  of,  through 
the  senses  ;  what  is  high  and  holy  comes  into  touch  with  what 
is  sensuous  and  low."  In  regard  to  words  spoken  and  written 
for  the  people,  we  are  entitled,  nay,  bound  in  duty,  to  make 
this  supposition,  and  not  to  seek  in  the  outer  garment  of  the 
form  for  the  true  meaning  of  the  speakers. 

But  we  could  be  led  astray  only  by  accommodation  as  to 
contents,  that  is,  if  the  Biblical  writers  had  allowed  their  own 
religious  thoughts  to  appear  other  than  they  were.  But  the 
spirit  by  which  these  religious  teachers  were  animated,  and 
their  holy  zeal  regarding  the  religious  attitude  of  the  people, 
make  us  certain  that  they  meant  to  express  their  own  religious 
and  moral  convictions,  that  they  did  not  keep  the  kernel  for 
themselves  and  give  their  people  the  shell.  Hence  we  may 
rest  assured  that  even  when  they  are  dealing  with  un- 
developed ideas,  we  can  ascertain  from  their  own  words 
clearly  and  beyond  a  doubt  what  the  true  conviction  is 
towards  which  they  are  striving  to  guide  the  nation. 


14  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 


CHAPTER  11. 

FORMS  OF  LITERATURE  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  SCRIPTURES. 

For  the  meaning  of  myth  and  legend  in  general,  cf.  F.  G. 
Welcker,  Griechische  Gottcrklire,  1857,  Bd.  i.  46-107.  F.  Ch. 
Baur,  Symbolik  und  Mythologie  odcr  die  Naturrcligion  dcs 
Alterthums,  1824,  Bd.  i.  1-103.  Otfried  Mtiller,  Prolegomena 
ziL  ciner  wissenscliaftliclien  Mytliologie,  1825.  Schelling,  Philo- 
sophie  der  Mythologie,  1856,  Bd.  i.  193  ff.,  and  Ueber  Mytlien 
historisclie  Sagen  und  PMlosoplic7iie  der  ciltesten  Welt,  1793  (Ges. 
W.,  Abth.  i.  Bd.  i.  43-83).  W.  Wackernagel,  "  Die  epische 
Poesie"  {Schweizer  Museum  filr  liistor.  WissenscJiaft,  i.  341  ff.). 
On  the  application  of  this  to  the  books  of  the  Bible,  cf.  Ewald, 
Gcschichte  dcs  Volkes  Israel, Bd.  i.  Aufl.  3,  pp.  20-69,  esp.  pp.  49, 
418  ff.  Tuch,  Einleituvg  zum  Commentar  zur  Genesis,  1838, 
pp.  i— xix.  F.  L.  George,  Mythus  und  Sage,  Versuck  einer 
ivissensehaftlichen  Entivicklung  dieser  Bcgriffe  U7id  Hires  Ver- 
hdltnisses  zum  christlichen  Glauhcn,  Berlin  1837.  Lutz, 
BiUische  Dogmatik,  pp.  511,  112  f.  Bruno  Bauer,  Religion 
des  Alten  Testamentes,  Bd.  i.  p.  17  ff. — For  particular  points 
in  connection  with  the  question  before  us,  cf.  Fr.  W.  Schultz, 
Die  Schopficngsgeschichte  nach  Naturioissenscliaft  und  Bibel, 
1865,  a  book,  the  weakness  and  illogical  character  of  which 
has  been  well  pointed  out  by  Ed.  Riehm  {Studicn  icnd 
Kritiken,  1866,  iii.  p.  547  ff.,  cf.  esp.  p.  572).  Herm. 
Hupfeld,  Die  heutige  theosopJdsche  oder  mythologische  Theologie 
und  Schrifterkldrung,  1861.  Historical,  cf.  Diestel,  "Bibel 
und  Naturkunde  in  den  Zeiten  der  Orthodoxie"  {Theol. 
Studien  und  Kritiken,  1866,  ii.  223  ff.,  iii.  483  ff. ;  and 
his  Geschichte  dcs  Altai  Testccmcntes  in  der  christlichen 
Kirche,  1869,  p.  723  ff.  On  Genesis  vi.,  cf.  Schrader, 
Studien  zur  Kritik  und  Erkldrung  der  hihlischen  Urgeschichte. 
■ — The  principal  treatises  against  the  view  we  are  about  to 


LITERATURE.  1 5 

advocate :  Holemann,  Einhcit  der  hciden  Schopfungsbericlde ; 
Apologetische  Bibchtudic  mit  einem  Sendschrcibcn  an  Hcrrn 
Domherrn  Dr.  Kahnis,  1862.  Engelhardt,  Zeitsclirift  fur 
hUhcrischc  Thcologic  und  Kirche,  1856,  401  ff.  Hofraann, 
Weissagung  und  Erfilllung,  i.  86  ff. ;  Scliriftheweis,  i.  265  ff., 
408  ff.  Kurtz,  Die  Ehcn  der  Sbhne  Gottcs  mit  den  Tochtem 
der  Mensche7i,  1857.  Keil,  "  Die  Elieu  der  Kinder  Gottes  mit 
den  Tochtern  der  Menschen  "  {Zcitschrift  fur  lutliev.  Theologie 
und  Kirche,  1855,  220  ff.;   1856,  22  ff.,  der  Fall  der  Engel). 

1.  The  writings  from  which  we  have  to  ascertain  the 
essence  and  trace  the  development  of  revealed  religion,  include 
every  form  of  literary  production  found  among  the  Hebrews. 
Purely  dogmatic  or  philosophical  teaching  is,  however,  almost 
entirely  wanting.  The  range  of  teaching  is  restricted  in  a 
most  practical  way  to  the  needs,  the  question.?,  and  the 
circumstances  of  the  particular  age.  Even  the  moral  sections 
of  the  law,  and  the  sayings  of  the  prophets  and  sages  are 
couched  in  thoroughly  popular  language  without  any  of  the 
art  of  the  schools.  It  is  only  towards  the  close  of  this  whole 
epoch,  e.g.  in  Ecclesiastes,  that  we  find  anything  akin  to  a 
philosophical  mode  of  treatment.  Of  course,  the  writings  that 
give  the  simplest  and  fullest  explanation  of  their  religious 
standpoint,  are  such  as  were  directly  intended  for  religious 
and  moral  instruction.  From  these,  with  a  knowledge  of  the 
circumstances  in  which  they  arose,  one  has  no  difficulty  in 
finding  the  desired  information. 

The  task  is  more  difficult  when  the  pieces  to  be  dealt  with 
are  strictly  poetical.  For  even  when  these  are  of  a  religious 
character,  one  has  always  to  bear  in  mind  the  peculiarities  of 
poetry,  its  instinctive  appeal  to  the  senses,  and  its  love  for 
hyperbole.  Still  more  is  tliis  the  case  when  the  pieces 
are  secular,  and  do  not  betray  their  religious  background, 
unless  involuntarily.  This  is  true  of  the  secular  folk-song 
and  of  the  earliest  form  of  epic  poetry,  with  its  instinctive 
tendency  to  a  naively  sensuous  presentation  of  the  spiritual,  as 


16  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

is  the  case  in  all  the  oldest  traditions  of  the  primitive  age  of 
Israel.  It  is  equally  true  of  the  secular  drama,  as  in 
Canticles,  where  the  spirit  of  the  Old  Testament  religion  can 
be  detected  only  by  a  spiritual  insight  more  than  usually  keen. 
On  the  same  level  we  have  the  "  vision,"  so  frequent  in  the 
prophetical  books,  in  which  the  spiritual  manifests  itself  to  the 
senses,  not  as  an  object  of  thought,  but  of  inner  contempla- 
tion, framed  in  a  setting  of  constantly  recurring  forms  ; — 
next,  the  "  symbol,"  which  depicts  a  religious  thought  by  an 
outward  act ;  and  then  the  "  parable,"  in  which  eternal  truths 
are  dressed  in  the  garb  of  simple  stories  from  nature  and 
from  the  life  of  the  people.  Lastly,  we  must  also,  in  a  certain 
sense,  include  in  this  category  prophecy  proper,  inasmuch  as 
it,  too,  describes  in  a  variety  of  ways  the  eternal  truths  of 
religion  in  relation  to  the  development  of  the  kingdom  of  God, 
clothing  them  in  the  language  of  poetry,  and  applying  them  in 
a  concrete  form  to  individual  cases.  In  this  whole  province 
the  problem  is  to  distinguish  between  the  real  meaning 
and  the  mere  form  in  which  it  is  presented,  to  recognise  as 
the  essential  feature  of  the  highly  -  coloured  picture,  the 
religious,  the  moral,  the  eternal.  In  such  cases,  any  one 
without  an  instinct  for  poetic  expression  will  be  sure  to 
fall  into  innumerable  misunderstandings. 

2.  To  Biblical  theology,  the  historical  books  present  a 
problem  of  much  greater  difficulty.  This  is  not  due  to  their 
being  of  very  varied  literary  value.  That  would  not  matter, 
since  we  only  want  to  learn  from  them  in  what  condition 
religion  and  morals  were  at  the  particular  time.  It  is  be- 
cause we  really  cannot  be  sure  that  they  are  of  equal  historical 
credibility.  For  even  in  the  case  of  an  author  animated  by 
the  deepest  religious  spirit  and  by  the  most  disinterested 
love  of  truth,  historical  credibility  depends  on  the  nature  of 
the  documents  at  his  command,  and  on  his  own  nearness 
in  time  and  place  to  the  events  which  he  describes.  No 
book    can    be   a  trustworthy   authority    as    to    events   from 


BOOKS  OF  NARRATIVE.  17 

which,  wiLliout  any  intervening  records,  it  stands  hundreds 
ot"  years  apart.  In  the  most  favourable  circumstances, 
it  may,  indeed,  give  an  essentially  accurate  description 
of  the  general  condition  of  such  times.  But  what  is  for  our 
object  precisely  the  most  important  thing,  it  cannot  do.  It 
cannot  give  a  trustworthy  and  detailed  account  of  the  reli- 
gious colouring  of  these  distant  ages.  Consequently,  the 
historical  credibility  of  the  Biblical  writings  must  vary. 
From  this  standpoint  we  have  two  classes  of  writings 
between  which  to  distinguish.  Those  books  of  narrative,  the 
authors  of  which  were  qualified,  by  personal  position,  or  from 
possessing  original  documents,  to  form  a  historically  trust- 
worthy judgment  regarding  the  things  narrated  by  them,  are 
for  us  authorities  as  to  the  religious  development  of  the  age 
which  they  describe.  Such  is  the  oldest  form  of  Kings  and 
Judges,  and  such,  too,  is  the  main  document  in  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah.  But  those  books,  in  regard  to  which  we  have 
sufficient  reason  to  doubt  such  qualification,  are  for  us 
authorities  as  to  the  religious  development  of  the  age  in 
which  they  arose,  and  the  views  of  which  they  express. 
Thus  the  stories  about  pre-]Mosaic  times  are  authorities  as 
to  religion  as  it  was  in  the  age  of  their  authors ;  and  the 
book  of  Chronicles,  though  without  value  for  an  inquiry 
into  the  religion  of  Hezekiah's  time,  not  to  speak  of  David's, 
is  one  of  the  most  important  original  authorities  for  under- 
standing the  state  of  religion  at  the  close  of  the  Persian 
period. 

3.  Consequently  we  shall  not  be  surprised  to  find,  in  the 
Old  Testament,  Ijooks  of  narrative  that  are  little  to  be  trusted 
as  historical  authorities.  But  that  will  not  make  them  less 
important  in  our  eyes,  for  they  still  remain  original  autliorities 
as  much  as  before,  although  only  for  the  age  in  which  they 
were  written.  But  here  a  more  difficult  question  meets  us, 
viz.  whether,  in  view  of  the  character  which  Christian  faith, 
on  the  ground  of  its  direct  religious  experience,   assigns  to 

VOL.  I.  B 


18  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

these  books,  there  can  be  included  in  the  Old  Testament  even 
books  of  narrative,  the  contents  of  which  are  not  history  at  all, 
but  wholly  or  partly  legend  and  myth. 

We  here  make  the  preliminary  remark  that,  of  course,  the 
expressions  myth  and  legend  have  not,  in  themselves,  a  fixed 
and  rigid  meaning.  We  certainly  do  not  intend  to  homologate 
every  meaning  which  has  at  one  time  or  another  been  assigned 
to  these  words,  or  may  on  linguistic  grounds  be  assigned  to 
them.  We  shall  therefore  state,  first,  what  we  understand 
by  legend,  and  then,  what  we  understand  by  myth. 

4.  Wherever  we  see  a  nation  stepping  forth  out  of  the 
darkness  of  the  prehistoric  age  into  the  light  of  historical  life, 
it  invariably  brings  with  it,  as  one  of  its  most  precious  spiritual 
treasures,  the  national  legend.  How  a  nation  originated  ; 
what  its  ancestors  were  like ;  how  it  first  awoke  and  be- 
thought itself  of  national  glory, — all  this  is  not  handed  down 
by  history  pure  and  simple,  for  which  such  ages  have  neither 
opportunity  nor  motive,  but  is  preserved  in  song,  in  proverb, 
and  in  story ;  and  being  in  this  form  handed  on  and  enriched, 
this  material  is  at  last  combined  into  a  single  whole  by 
virtue  of  the  poetic  spirit  in  the  nation, — that  spirit  in  which 
resides  the  mysterious  motive  power  that  impels  each  people 
to  undertake  its  own  special  task  among  the  family  of 
nations. 

AVherever  the  memory  of  a  period  as  yet  without  a  litera- 
ture is  transmitted  orally,  we  always  find  legend.  A  nation 
wreathes  around  the  figures  of  its  ancestors  and  the  places 
famous  in  its  earliest  days  a  many-coloured  garland  of  spon- 
taneous poetry — not  a  garland  of  fiction  or  of  falsehood.  To 
the  popular  mind,  the  figures  of  primeval  days  become  instinct 
with  life,  dowered  with  the  vigour  of  imperishable  youth. 
Hence  in  legend  there  is  invariably  a  historical  kernel.  But 
while  it  is  the  task  of  criticism  to  extract  the  historical 
kernel  from  history  which  ignorance  or  falsehood  has  garbled 
or  destroyed,  legend   confronts   the   investigator   as   a  unity 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND  IN  THE  SACEED  BOOKS.  19 

which  does  not  admit  of  his  separating  the  kernel  from 
its  adornment — that  is  to  say,  as  itself  a  historical  fact, 
and  that,  too,  one  of  the  weightiest.  Still  it  readily  reveals 
itself  as  legend.  It  longs  to  be  loved  and  prized  as  such ; 
it  does  not  wish  to  borrow  the  false  adornment  of  historicity. 
In  legend,  persons  and  times  assume  a  superhuman  character. 
Heaven  and  earth  do  not  keep  apart  as  in  a  historical  age. 
The  laws  of  probability,  chronology,  and  development  retire 
into  the  background.  But,  above  all,  the  chief  figures  become 
typical,  the  accepted  models  of  the  nation's  character,  and 
of  its  task  in  history.  Consequently,  legend  lets  us  look 
into  the  innermost  heart  of  a  nation  and  watch  the  flow  of 
those  living  springs  from  which  its  historical  life  wells  up.^ 
Hence  the  perennial  freshness  of  legend ;  hence  the  feeling  of 
having  to  do  with  figures  of  flesh  and  blood,  more  real  than 
those  of  history.  Indeed,  one  never  feels  so  much  at  home 
in  history  as  in  legend.  One  sits  by  the  hearth  in  a  people's 
home  and  listens  there  to  the  very  breathing  of  its  inner  life. 
That  the  people  of  Israel  did  preserve  the  memory  of 
its  earliest  days,  not  in  history,  but  in  legend,  must  be 
regarded  as  self-evident,  unless  we  are  willing  to  think 
of  that  people  as  crippled  in  one  of  the  noblest  attributes 
of  nationality.  Whoever,  for  dogmatic  reasons,  questions 
the  existence  of  such  "  legends "  in  the  Old  Testament, 
must  assume  that  Israel's  legendary  history  has  been  lost 
to  us,  and  that,  in  the  sacred  writers,  its  place  has  been 
taken  by  a  knowledge  of  history  miraculously  acquired. 
Certainly  an  idea  as  fanciful  as  it  is  devoid  of  religious 
support !  For  how  could  the  filling  of  the  sacred  writers 
with  the  spirit  of  true  religion  help  them  to  a  special  know- 
ledge of  historical  facts  ?  Nowhere  within  the  range  of  our 
experience   does   a  growing  fulness   of  this  spirit  tend  to  a 

^  In  the  same  way,  the  characteristic  features  of  a  Greek  are  much  more 
distinctly  seen  in  Odysseus  and  Achilles,  and  those  of  a  German  in  Siegfried 
and  Hageu,  than  in  any  historical  personages  belonging  to  these  nations. 


20  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

growing  certainty  in  the  domain  of  experimental  know- 
ledge. On  such  a  theory,  what  would  become  of  the  value 
attached  to  original  documents,  and  to  the  testimony  of 
eye-witnesses  ? 

This  fanciful  idea  depends  entirely  upon  the  groundless 
prejudice  that  legend  is  not  a  suitable  medium  for  the  spirit 
of  revelation  to  employ.  But  a  narrative  does  not  become  a 
specially  suitable  medium  for  revelation  because  it  is  in 
exact  correspondence  with  fact.  In  this  respect  even  tlie 
historical  books  in  our  Canon  vary  according  to  the  talents 
and  the  position  of  the  writer,  and  the  authorities  at  his 
command.  Indeed,  they  are  all  far  inferior,  so  far  as  facts 
are  concerned,  to  the  histories  which  modern  science  com- 
piles from  official  documents.  Neither  does  this  fitness 
depend  upon  giving  trustworthy  information  about  the  people 
of  revelation.  Josephus  does  not  belong  to  the  Canon, 
because  he  writes  Jewish  history ;  and  a  history  of  Israel 
from  the  standpoint  of  Tacitus,  in  spite  of  its  historical 
excellence,  would  not  be  in  its  proper  place  among  the 
sacred  books.  History  itself  becomes  sacred  history,  that  is 
to  say,  a  medium  of  revelation,  simply  and  solely  because 
it  either  places  us,  by  means  of  original  documents,  in 
direct  contact  with  the  development  of  revealed  religion,  or, 
being  handled  in  the  spirit  of  that  religion,  shows  us  thereby 
a  stage  of  it.  And  the  Holy  Spirit,  of  course,  excludes 
deceit  and  lying.  Still  He  does  not  render  impossible  forms 
of  presentation  which  may  not  appear  to  us  quite  permis- 
sible, but  which  were,  nevertheless,  in  perfect  harmony  with 
the  view  of  the  period  in  question,  as,  for  example,  history 
written  with  a  purpose  (Tendcnzgcschichtc)  and  pseudonymity, 
For  it  is  only  the  moral  standard  actually  in  force  at  the  time 
that  can  be  taken  into  consideration.  Our  method  of  writing 
history  the  ancient  world  did  not  know,  and  did  not  aim  at. 
It  was  far  less  concerned  about  ascertaining  the  details  of 
what    had.  actually    happened    than    about    expounding    or 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND  IN  THE  SACKED  BOOKS.  21 

defending  the  great  principles  and  truths  exemplified  in 
history.  Still  less  does  the  Holy  Spirit  exclude  error  or 
ignorance  regarding  matters  of  fact.  This  same  Spirit — and 
there  is  not  a  second — did  not  make  Luther  the  equal  of 
Humboldt  or  Laplace  in  scientific  knowledge,  or  Augustine 
comparable  as  a  linguist  and  historian  to  Sallust,  Thucy- 
dides,  or  Grimm.  All  scientific  knowledge  depends  upon  the 
gift  of  keen  observation  and  the  power  of  skilfully  combining 
and  ingeniously  testing  the  various  facts  obtained  by  means 
of  such  observation.  The  spirit  of  revelation,  on  the  contrary, 
illumines  the  moral  and  religious  life.  It  gives  a  conscious- 
ness of  the  divine  wiU.  Hence  it  places  even  the  phenomena 
of  nature  in  a  new  light,  and  specially  fits  a  man  to  judge  of 
nature  and  history  from  the  standpoint  of  religion.  The 
keenness  of  his  historical  instinct  did  not  teach  Tacitus  the 
ways  of  God,  or  make  him  see  in  the  divine  kingdom  founded 
by  the  Jesus  whom  he  so  despised,  the  centre  of  the  world's 
history.  The  matchless  breadth  of  his  views  regarding  nature 
did  not  lead  Aristotle  to  statements  like  "  Let  there  be  light," 
and  "  The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God."  But  on  such 
matters  the  spirit  of  holiness  can  neither  increase  nor  correct 
the  inductions  of  science.  Hence  it  cannot  prevent  a  historian 
imagining  that  he  is  giving  us  history  when  there  is  only 
legend. 

Now  the  characteristic  spirit,  to  which  the  special  achieve- 
ments of  a  people  are  due,  finds  expression  in  the  legends  of 
that  people  ;  and  these  legends  are  themselves  due  to  the 
influence  and  the  critical  powers  of  those  men  who  have  the 
creative  instinct  of  that  people  most  strongly  developed  within 
them.  Hence  the  legends  of  Israel  must  have  been  shaped 
and  fashioned  by  that  Spirit  which  determined  the  special 
task  assigned  by  God  to  that  people,  in  other  words,  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  of  divine  revelation  as  manifested  in  the  true 
relicrion.  These  legends  must  therefore  have  been  due  to  the 
men  who  were  the  religious  leaders  of  Israel,  and  who  guided 


22  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

the  development  of  that  nation's  religion.  lu  fact,  legend 
must  be  regarded  as  fitted  in  a  higher  degree  than  history  to 
be  the  medium  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  For  in  history  every 
figure  expresses  only  in  an  approximate  and  imperfect  fashion 
what  the  Spirit  at  work  in  that  particular  people  desires.  In 
tlie  legend,  however,  it  is  this  very  Spirit  wliich  moulds  these 
figures  and  gives  them  flesh  and  blood.  They  become  model- 
figures,  ideal  characters.  They  show  in  unfading  clearness 
and  beauty  the  natural  Israel  on  which  the  spirit  of  revelation 
is  at  work.  Hence  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  Israel  as 
the  religious  nation  par  excellence  never  find  such  accurate  and 
vigorous  expression  in  any  historical  personages  as  in  those 
met  with  in  the  patriarchal  legends.  Abraham  is  for  Old 
Testament  revelation  a  more  instructive  figure  than  all  the 
kings  of  Israel  from  Saul  to  Zedekiah.  In  Jacob-Israel  the 
Israelite  is  more  truly  delineated  than  in  any  personage 
mentioned  in  Kings  or  Chronicles.  Hence  the  matchless 
value  of  patriarchal  legend  for  purposes  of  edification.  Where 
we  meet  with  legend,  it  cannot  warrant  any  conclusion  on  our 
part  as  to  the  religious  development  of  the  age  of  which  it 
treats;  but  for  giving  us  a  knowledge  of  the  religion  of  the 
age  out  of  which  it  springs,  it  is  the  most  valuable  material 
we  possess. 

5.  As  history  springs  from  legend,  doctrine  springs  from 
myth ;  that  is  to  say,  from  thoughts,  embodied  in  narrative 
form,  concerning  the  essence  of  the  phenomenal  world.  In 
myth,  transcendental  knowledge  previously  acquired  is  not, 
as  in  a  parable,  purposely  veiled  in  a  symbolic  garb,  but  form 
and  contents  are  born  together,  and  that  spontaneously.  The 
whole  presents  itself  ready-made  as  an  actual  fact.  Myths 
are  "  discovered  rather  than  invented."  Being  invariably 
simple  and  perfectly  apposite,  they  have  all  the  appearance 
of  intrinsic  necessity.  Hence  the  inclination  to  regard  them 
as  sacred.  In  such  symbols  and  myths,  the  sense  appeals 
directly  to  tlie  spectator  or  hearer  through  the  external  object 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND  IN  THE  SACRED  BOOKS.  23 

or  history,  just  as  it  was  first  directly  apprehended  in  them 
(Welcker,  i.  Sti,  75). 

Beyond  human  history  and  legend  begins  the  region 
accessible  only  to  faith.  Thus  myth,  as  the  quasi-historical 
delineation  of  what  faith  has  grasped,  introduces  legend,  giving 
us  as  a  kind  of  legendary  prelude  an  account  of  creation, 
of  the'^  ideal  development  of  man,  and  the  meaning  of  his 
material  and  spiritual  nature.  It  next  works  its  way  deep 
into  the  structure  of  legend,  mostly,  it  is  true,  toned  down  in 
a  Euhemeristic  fashion,  so  that  the  gods  of  antiquity  and  the 
phenomena  of  nature,  taken  in  the  sense  of  nature-religion, 
are  reduced  to  the  level  of  human  heroes,  with  human  joys, 
griefs,  and  struggles. 

Finally,  as  the  myth  of  human  destiny,  it  carries  up 
history  to  the  eternal  again,  and  completes  the  circle  of 
vision.  The  formation  of  myth  ceases  with  the  times 
in  which  the  nature-religions  are  shaped  and  modified  by 
the  peoples  in  naive  freshness  and  vivacity.  Where  a 
religion,  regarded  as  fully  matured,  has  become  an  occult 
doctrine  in  the  hands  of  priests  and  scribes,  there  may 
very  well  be  a  further  artificial  development  of  myth,  but 
there  is  no  longer  any  genuine  creation  of  it.  The  proper 
time  for  forming  myths  is,  as  Max  Miiller  has  correctly 
maintained,  the  time  when  languages  are  growing.  Myth 
and  language  arise  together.  Such  myths,  closely  and  in- 
separably connected  in  most  cases  with  national  legends, 
every  people  brings  with  it  from  remote  antiquity.  To 
some  extent  they  are  the  common  possession  of  entire 
stocks,  that  afterwards  become  divided.  But  they  get  a 
different  stamp  according  to  the  national  genius  and  religious 
development  of  each  individual  branch.  For  "  a  myth  can 
be  enlarged  and  adorned,  and  even  united  with  another  as  if 
by  a  process  of  inoculation  or  amalgamation"  (Welcker,  75). 
Such  myths  are  among  the  noblest  possessions  of  early 
peoples.     While  bearing  the  imprint  of  the  freshness  of  the 


24  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

human  spirit  in  its  infancy,  they  also  witness  to  the  maturity 
of  a  time  when  but  few  great  things  were  observed  with 
unsophisticated  eyes. 

That  in  this  respect  also,  Israel  did  not  come  poor  and 
with  empty  hands  out  of  the  bosom  of  the  larger  family  of 
nations  to  which  it  belonged,  is  as  self-evident  as  that  it 
did  not,  on  beginning  its  separate  existence,  create  a  new 
language  or  new  national  habits  and  customs,  but  only 
developed  in  its  own  way  those  which  it  already  possessed. 
It  is  equally  clear  that  the  later  spiritual  religion  of  Israel 
cannot  of  itself  have  produced  such  myths,  but  that  they 
date  from  times  in  which  the  religion  of  the  Hebrew  race 
was  still  a  nature-religion.  Nor  can  there  be  any  valid 
reason  why  such  myths  should  not  have  found  their  way  into 
the  Bible.  The  mythical  ideas  about  the  origin  of  the  world 
and  of  man,  held  in  common  by  the  primitive  Semites, 
naturally  took  in  each  tribe  a  particular  form,  according 
to  the  cast  of  its  spirit  and  religion.  Thus  in  Israel,  too,  the 
spirit  which  sustained  and  developed  Israel's  religion  could 
appropriate  such  myths  as  raw  material,  and  saturate  them 
with  its  true  and  enduring  beliefs  concerning  God,  the  world, 
and  man.  As  long  as  Israel's  religion  was  in  full  vigour,  it 
would  be  in  a  position  to  appropriate  and  incorporate  such 
material  as  came  to  it  from  without.  It  was  only  when  it 
had  ceased  to  grow,  and,  having  lost  its  vitality,  had  become 
conscious  of  its  weakness,  that  it  would  hold  shyly  aloof  from 
such  influences. 

When  myths  were  thus  adopted,  their  original  form  would 
necessarily  remain  and  indicate  their  kinship  with  the  stories 
of  a  wider  circle  of  nations.  But  in  this  common  form  the 
religious  peculiarity  of  Israel  must  have  stood  out  in  all  the 
greater  contrast  to  whatever  was  foreign.  The  spirit  that  was 
creating  Israel's  religion  would  have  to  remould  the  dis- 
tinctive contents  of  these  stories,  and,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
despite  the  atfinity  of  form,  reproduce  them  from  within  and 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND  IN  THE  SACEED  BOOKS,  25 

purify  tliein.  Thus  myth  grows  into  revelation-myth.  And, 
in  fact,  it  is  undeniable  that  the  earlier  myths  of  the  Persians, 
Hindoos,  Phoenicians,  and,  above  all,  of  the  Chaldeans,  are 
closely  akin  in  form  to  the  Bible  stories.  But  as  regards 
their  religious  character,  the  difference  is  as  great  as  the 
difference  between  the  religions  of  these  nations  and  the 
religion  of  revelation.  In  the  Old  Testament  the  myth  "  is 
born  again  by  the  creative  power  of  the  living  self-revealing 
God  "  (Pdelmi). 

This  revelatiou-mytli  is  the  most  appropriate  of  all  dresses 
in  which  to  present  the  true  religion.  In  this  form  its 
content  can  be  unfolded  in  the  freest  manner,  because  the 
form  adapts  itself  readily  and  naturally  to  it.  Hence  it 
surpasses  every  other  kind  of  narrative.  With  its  marvel- 
lous childlike  beauty,  in  which  there  lie  the  deepest  truth 
and  wisdom,  it  speaks  straight  to  the  heart.  For  the  deepest 
intellect  it  is  deep  ;  for  the  child  it  is  winning  and  simple. 
It  is  the  brightest  gem  in  the  Old  Testament.  The  case  is 
different,  of  course,  where  there  lie  scattered,  here  and  there 
in  the  national  legend,  fragments  of  the  mythical  treasures  of 
a  nature-religion  which  the  true  religion  has  not  properly 
assimilated.  Having  been  toned  down  in  Euhemeristic 
fashion,  and  having  thus  lost  their  vitality,  such  fragments 
have  no  religious  value  for  Israel.  But  out  of  the  myths 
appropriated  by  the  religion  of  Israel,  and  independently 
worked  up,  we  have  to  gather  the  religious  purport,  though, 
of  course,  only  as  proof  of  the  religious  development  of  the 
age  which  appropriated  them. 

6.  Of  the  legendary  character  of  the  pre -Mosaic  narra- 
tives-, the  time  of  which  they  treat  is  a  sufficient  proof.  It 
was  a  time  prior  to  all  knowledge  of  writing,  a  time  separated 
by  an  interval  of  more  than  four  hundred  years,  of  which 
there  is  absolutely  no  history,  from  the  nearest  period  of 
which  Israel  had  some  dim  historical  recollection,  a  time 
when  in  civilised  countries  writing  was  only  beginning  to  be 


26  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

used  for  the  most  important  matters  of  State.  Now  wander- 
ing herdsmen  have  invariably  an  instinctive  dislike  to  writing. 
In  fact,  at  the  present  day,  it  is  considered  a  disgrace  among 
many  Bedouin  tribes  in  the  peninsula  of  Sinai  to  be  able  to 
write.  It  is  therefore  impossible  that  such  men  could  hand 
down  their  family  histories,  in  themselves  quite  unimportant, 
in  any  other  way  than  orall}^  to  wit,  in  legends.  And  even 
when  writing  had  come  into  use,  in  the  time,  that  is,  between 
Moses  and  David,  it  would  be  but  sparingly  used,  and  much 
that  happened  to  the  people  must  still  have  been  handed 
down  simply  as  legend.  Besides,  the  legendary  character  of 
these  stories  is  proved  by  the  superhuman  proportions 
assigned  to  time  and  power,  while  at  the  same  time  no 
emphasis  is  placed  on  the  miraculous.  Thus  the  patriarchs  are 
described  exactly  after  the  fashion  of  ancient  heroes.^  The 
length  of  their  lives  before  and  immediately  after  the  Flood 
are  whole  epochs,^  and  the  periods  of  time  are  given  in  round 
numbers  that  are  typical.^  In  fact,  this  mode  of  representa- 
tion did  not  lose  its  influence  during  Israel's  Palestinian 
history.'*  That  we  are  dealing  with  legend  is  indicated  by  the 
disregard  of  historical  probability,  and  by  the  easy  tolerance 
of  contradictions  in  many  passages  of  Genesis  which,  never- 
theless, retain  to  the  full  their  evidential  value  in  spite  of 
the  ridicule  which  infidelity  has  frequently  cast  upon  them. 
When  a  Cain  builds  cities,  and  is  afraid  of  the  blood- 
avenger  ;  when  all  kinds  of  animals  enter  a  vessel  like  the 
ark ;  when  the  waters  rise  fifteen  feet  above  all  the  mountain 
tops,  at  a  period  when  there  were  already  civilised  States  in 
Egypt  and  in  the  Euphrates  valley ;  when  Abraham,  whose 
begetting  of  Isaac  was  a  miracle,  becomes  afterwards  the 
father  of  many  sons ;  when  Sarah,  who  mocks  at  the  promise 


1  Gen.  xiv.,  xxix.  9  flF.,  xxxi.  45  fF.  (Gilead,  ]\Iizpali),  xxxii.  23  ff.,  xxxiv.  25  ff. 

^  Gen.  v.,  ix.  29,  xxv.  7,  xxxv.  28  (on  the  other  hand,  vi.  3). 

3  Gen.  V.  23,  vii.  4,  viiL  6,  10,  12. 

*  Judg.  iii.  11,  30,  v.  31,  viii.  28,  xv.  16  ;  Josh.  v.  6  ;  Deut.  xxix.  5,  etc. 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND  IN  THE  SACRED  BOOKS.  27 

of  a  son,  becomes  the  object  of  Abimelecli's  intrigues,  and  so 
forth, — all  this  is  perfectly  natural  and  unobjectionable  in  a 
legend  that  has  been  composed  out  of  a  number  of  varying 
traditions.  Were  it  history,  this  would  be  in  the  Iiighest 
degree  perplexing  and  inconceivable.^ 

In  post  -  Mosaic  times  this  manner  of  presentation  is 
certainly  no  longer  the  predominant  one;  but  many  traces 
of  it  can  still  be  detected  both  in  the  history  of  the  conquest 
and  in  the  narrative  of  pre-Davidic  times.^  The  presence  of 
legend  is  further  shown  in  the  naive  way  in  which  heaven 
and  earth  commingle  and  the  s^^iritual  becomes  material, — a 
method  of  presentation  wholly  different  from  poetic  descrip- 
tion by  vision  and  dream.  Whoever  sees  history  in  this 
must  come  to  such  conclusions  as  that  God  was  actually 
nearer  to  a  Jacob-Israel  than  to  an  Isaiah  or  a  Jeremiah.^ 
Tliis  mode  of  narration  is  found  all  through  Genesis,  and 
less  frequently  till  the  time  of  David.*  Finally,  Genesis 
betrays  its  legendary  character  in  the  following  ways.  It 
often  gives  ns  the  same  story  in  several  forms ;  ^  it  delights 
to  connect  significant  proper  names  or  veiy  ancient  localities 
with  stories  which  owe  their  origin  solely  to  the  sound  of  the 
name ;  ^  and,  as  if  the  history  of  a  people  were  like  that  of  a 
family,'^  it  habitually  makes  the  links  of  connection  genea- 
logical tables.  The  name  Benjamin  seems  to  me  a  specially 
clear  instance  of  tliis.  In  all  the  narratives  of  the  older 
popular  cast,  the  members  of  this  tribe  are  called  Ijne(ha)- 
jemini,  the  very  way  the  Bedouin  tribes  of  the  present  day 

^  Gen.  iv.  14,  17,  vi.  19,  vii.  2,  20,  xvii.  17,  xviii.  12,  xx.  2,  xxv. 

^  Ex.  xii.  37  ;  Josh,  vi.,  viii.,  xvi. ;  cf.  Judg.  i.  7—36,  xv.  etc. 

^Gen.  iii.  21  f.,  vii.  16,  xi.  5,  xviii.  8,  21,  xxvi.  2,  xxviii.  13,  xxxii.  24  ff. 

•»  Ex.  xix.  19  f.,  xxiv.  10,  12,  xxxi.  18;  Josh.  v.  13  tf.;  Judg.  vi.  11  fi".,  xiii. 
3-25  ;  2  Kings  ii.  11,  etc. 

^  Gen.  xii.,  xx.,  xxvi.,  xxi.  22,  xxvi.  26.     The  two  accounts  of  the  Flood. 

6  Gen.  ii.  23,  iii.  20,  iv.  1,  16,  17,  25,  v.  29,  xi.  9,  xvi.  11,  13,  xviii.  12,  13, 
15,  xix.  22,  xxi.  9,  xxii.  14,  xxviii.  19,  etc.  Bethel,  Beersheba,  Isaac,  Jacob, 
Esau,  etc. 

^  Gen.  X.,  xxv.  13  0'.,  xxxvi. ;  cf.  also  Gen.  iv.  Iff.  with  Num.  xxiv.  21,  22. 


28  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

usually  describe  themselves.^  It  does  not  matter  whether 
the  word  Jemini  be  taken  in  a  purely  geographical  sense, 
when  it  would  mean  "Southern,"-  a  Hebrew  thinking  of 
himself  as  facing  the  east,  or  whether  it  have  some  other 
meaning.  As  the  tribe,  moreover,  is  reckoned  among  the 
sons  of  Joseph,^  it  is  quite  clear  that  Benjamin  is  simply  the 
Hero  Eponymus  of  a  part  of  the  tribe  of  Joseph,  probably 
the  southern  part  of  it,  and  so  he  is  represented  as  Joseph's 
younger  brother. 

If,  for  the  reasons  stated,  the  contents  of  the  first  eleven 
chapters  of  Genesis  would  at  any  rate  be  regarded  as 
legendary,  a  more  careful  examination  leads  us  to  see  that 
these  stories  are  strictly  mythical.  Certainly  it  is  only  the 
first  three  chapters  that  have  become  revelation-myths,  in  this 
sense,  that  they  present  to  us  in  the  garb  of  a  narrative  the 
ideas  of  the  true  religion  about  conditions  antecedent  to 
experience.  All  the  rest  has  been  toned  down  to  the 
character  of  legend  after  the  Euhemeristic  method  which  the 
Jewish  Sibyl  and  the  Church  fathers*  applied  to  the  Greek 
legends  about  the  gods.  In  these  chapters,  however,  there 
are  still  dimly  visible  some  very  old  recollections  of  four 
world-epochs,  and  of  Titanic  convulsions  on  the  earth. 

The  stories  about  creation,  the  primeval  condition  of  man, 
and  the  Fall,  are  myths.  For  whatever  is  external  in  the 
narrative  eludes  the  grasp  of  the  expositor;  the  religious 
ideas  alone  remain.  This  is  best  shown,  in  spite  of  them- 
selves, by  those  expositors  who  on  principle  accept  these 
narratives  as  history,  and  yet  do  not  succeed  in  getting  out 
of  them  any  other  meaning  than  the  advocates  of  the 
mythical  view.  And  certain  as  it  is  that  the  religious 
import  of  these  stories  is  characteristic  of  revealed  religion, 

^  Judg.  iii.  15,  xix.  16  ;  1  Sam.  ix.  1-4,  21,  xxii.  7  ;  2  Sam.  xvi.  11,  xix.  17, 
XX.  1  ;  Ps.  vii,  1  ;  1  Kings  ii.  8. 
-  I's.  Ixxxix.  13.  2  2  Sam.  xix.  21. 

*  E.(j.  Oiigen,  De  Principlis,  cJ.  Lommatzsch,  p.  43S. 


MYTH  AND  LEGEND  IN  THE  SACRED  BOOKS.        29 

it  is  equally  certain  that  their  form  is  not  unconnected 
with  a  wide  circle  of  myths  found  among  other  peoples. 
This  might  be  doubted  formerly  when  it  was  possible 
to  see  in  the  accounts  of  Sanchuniathon,  Berosus,  and 
Bundehesch,  later  compilations  formed  under  Old  Testa- 
ment influences.  But  it  has  now  been  proved  to  the 
satisfaction  even  of  one  who  is  certainly  not  a  credulous 
judge  of  the  monumental  writings  discovered  in  Nineveh, 
that  Berosus  has,  in  his  legends  of  the  Creation  and 
the  Flood,  faithfully  used  the  original  documents  of  his 
ancestral  religion,  a  fact  which  tends  to  give  credibility  to 
those  narratives  of  his  that  have  not  yet  been  confirmed. 
Besides,  in  these  stories,  speaking  animals,  miraculous  trees, 
and  such  like  are  not  introduced  as  anything  astonishing, — 
like  Balaam's  speaking  ass  in  the  legend, — but  as  matters  of 
course.  This,  however,  can  only  happen  where  the  writer 
has  no  intention  of  relating  what  has  actually  occurred,  but 
knows  that  he  is  dealing  with  a  higher  sphere.  In  Genesis 
itself,  indeed,  the  creation  of  the  world  is  related  twice,  and 
in  such  a  way  that,  while  the  religious  ideas  remain  the 
same,  the  outward  circumstances  are  widely  different,  which, 
of  course,  is  possible  only  in  religious  myths,  not  in  histories 
miraculously  revealed.  Nor  is  it  a  question  of  the  same 
narrator  having  a  different  intention,  but  of  two  narrators 
taking  different  views  of  outward  events.  Thus  the 
whole  animal  world  is  in  i.  24  created  before  man,  but  in 
ii.  19  if.  after  man  OT^).  In  i.  9  herbs  and  trees  are 
created  long  before  man ;  in  ii.  5  there  is  no  green  thing 
before  man,  the  reason,  in  fact,  being  that  man  has  not  yet 
appeared  ("3),  and  it  is  for  man  that  the  trees  are  planted. 
In  like  manner  the  earth  is  in  i.  9  created  out  of  the  watery 
element ;  in  ii.  5  K  it  requires  first  to  be  watered.  Accord- 
ing to  i.  27,  V.  2,  man  and  woman  are  created  together; 
according  to  ii.  21,  woman  is  not  created  till  after  man. 
According  to  i.  29,  trees  and  herbs  are  at  once  given  to  man 


30  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

for  food;  according  to  iii.  18,  the  eating  of  herbs  is  a  punisli- 
ment,  only  the  fruit  of  trees  being  man's  original  food. 
Besides,  the  whole  arrangement  of  the  days  of  work  in  A  is 
rendered  impossible  by  the  phrase  in  the  second  narrative, 
"  in  the  day  that  the  Lord  God  made  the  heavens  and  the 
earth."  On  more  minute  discrepancies,  like  the  view  as  to 
the  classification  of  "  creeping  things,"  no  stress  need  be  laid 
(i.  24-30,  cf.  ii.  19  f.,  iii.  1,  14). 

The  short  story  in  Gen.  vi.  1-3  is  worthy  of  special  note. 
Hupfeld  has  already  pointed  out  how  unjust  to  the  honour  of 
Holy  Scripture  those  are  who  take  it  as  history,  whether  they 
give  the  wrong  explanation  that  "  the  sons  of  God  "  are  pious 
men  or  Sethites,  or  whether  they  really  think  of  angels 
marrying.  The  whole  of  this  much  disputed  story  is,  in 
reality,  a  parallel  to  Gen.  iii.  22,  giving  a  solution  of  the 
question  as  to  how  death  came  into  the  world.  It  gives  as 
the  explanation  of  this  event,  that  at  the  instigation  of  beings 
superior  to  themselves,  men  gave  up  the  natural  position 
which  God  had  intended  for  them.  This  whole  story  keeps 
more  on  the  level  of  nature  than  Gen.  iii.  does.  In  other 
respects  it  might  well  be  compared  with  the  temptation  by 
the  serpent  and  the  "being  as  God."  The  preface  to  this 
piece  shows  that  it  belongs,  not  to  the  passage  in  which  it 
now  occurs,  but  to  the  beginning  of  the  history  of  man, 
and  should,  therefore,  precede  chaps,  iv.  and  v.^  In  this 
piece,  as  in  an  instructive  torso,  we  see  how  the  mythical 
world  of  the  Hebrew  nation  appeared  when  not  fully  con- 
trolled by  the  purer  ideas  of  the  religion  of  Israel, — though 
at  least  traces  of  the  latter  are  shown  in  the  condemnatory 
judgment  passed  on  what  is  monstrous. 

^  According  to  Budde,  the  determining  vcr.  3  would  have  its  original  posi- 
tion just  in  chap,  iii.,  and  was  pushed  out  of  its  proper  place  when  the  idea 
about  the  tree  of  life  forced  its  way  in.  His  conjecture  is  certainly  clever  and 
attractive,  but  it  seems  to  me  to  rest  on  too  insecure  a  basis  (Die  hihUache 
Urrjeschichie  [Gen.  i.-xii.  5],  untersucht  vou  Lie.  Karl  Budde,  Giessen  1883, 
i.  and  ii.). 


LITERATURE.  3 1 

The  result  may  be  given  in  outline  as  follows: — Geuesis  is 
the  book  of  sacred  legend,  with  a  mythical  introduction.  The 
first  three  chapters  of  it,  in  particular,  present  us  with  revela- 
tion-myths of  the  most  important  kind,  and  the  following  eight 
with  mythical  elements  that  have  been  recast  more  in  the  form 
of  legend.  From  Abraham  to  INIoses  we  have  national  legend 
l^ure  and  simple,  mixed  with  a  variety  of  mythical  elements 
which  have  become  almost  unrecognisable.  From  INIoses  to 
David  we  have  history  still  mixed  with  a  great  deal  of  the 
legendary,  and  even  partly  with  mythical  elements  that  are 
no  longer  distinguishable.  From  David  onwards  we  have 
history,  with  no  more  legendary  elements  in  it  than  are  every- 
where present  in  history  as  written  by  the  ancients. 


CHAPTEE  III. 

THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  IN  CONNECTION  WITH 
THE  HISTORY  OF  RELIGION. 

Literature.  —  For  the  theological  treatment,  Diestel, 
Geschichte  des  Altcn  Tcstamcntcs  in  dcr  christliclicn  Kirclie, 
Jena  1869.  Spencer,  Dc  Icgibiis  Ilcbracorum  ritucdihus  ct 
eao'um  notionibus  lihri  trcs,  ed.  3,  Leipzig  l705  (dissert,  i. 
lib.  iii.,  De  o^itibus  c  ijentium  morihus  in  legem  iranslatis,  759- 
937).  For  the  pliilosophical  treatment,  Hegel,  Rclifjions- 
philosojyJiic,  ed.  Marheineke,  Bd.  ii.  46-184  (Aull.  2);  Philo- 
sophie  dcr  GcscliicMc,  Aufl.  2,  p.  238  ff.  Ilosenkranz,  Die 
Naturreligion  ein  philosopliisch-liistorisehcr  Versuch,  1831,  and 
Zeitschrift  fur  die  speculcdive  Theologie  (ed.  Bruno  Bauer), 
1837,  Bd.  ii.  1,  p.  11  ff.  [Against  Hegel,  Nitzsch  (Thcol. 
Slud.  u.  Krit.  1836,  iv.  1096-1107).  Against  Hegel  and 
Bust,  Steudel  {Tilhinger  Zeitschrift  filr  Thcologie,  1835,  i, 
112  ff.,  ii.  138  ff.).] — Vatke,  Religion  des  Altcn   Tcstamcntcs, 


32  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

1835,  Bd.  i.  99-120.  Bruno  Bauer,  ReUgion  des  AlUn 
Tcstamcntcs  in  dcr  geschicJitlichen  Entwicklung  Hirer  Principien 
dargestcllt,  Bd.  i.  1838;  cf.  Zcitschrift  filr  speculative  Thco- 
logie,  Bd.  i.  2,  247  ff.  (1836),  Das  Antithcologische  am 
Hegelscheii  Begriff  der  hehraischen  Religion,  and  I.e.  1837, 
p.  329  f. — Eust,  PhilosojjJiie  und  Cltrisienthum  oder  Wissen 
U7id  Glauben  (I  have  seen  only  the  first  edition,  1825), 
p.  53  ff.  F.  Baur,  Christliche  Gnosis,  1835,  p.  721  ff.  (esp. 
p.  727  against  Eust  and  Hegel). — Billroth,  Vorlcsungen  uher 
Religionsphilosophie,  ed.  Erdmann,  Aufl.  2,  1844,  §  105-110. 
Braniss,  Uehersicht  des  RniivicJdungsganges  der  Philosopliic  in 
der  alien  und  mittleren  Zeit,  1842,  p.  24  ff.  Stuhr,  Allgemeine 
Geschichte  der  Religionsformen  der  heidnischen  Volker,  Bd.  i. ; 
Die  Rcligionssysteme  der  heidnischen  Volker  des  Orients,  Ein- 
leitung,  pp.  xviii,  xx.  F.  Koppen,  Philosophic  des  Christenthicms, 
1813,  Th.  i.  p.  57ff.  Lotze,  Microcosmos,  Bd.  iii.  147. 
Schelling,  Sdmmtlichc  Werhe,  Abth.  ii.  Bd.  i.  118  ff.,  Bd.  iv. 
119  ff.  Immanuel  Kant,  Religion  inncrhalh  der  Grenzen  der 
Uossen  Vernunft,  1794,  esp.  pp.  47,  84,  109,  146  ff.,  188, 
224  ff  Feuerbach,  Das  Wcsen  des  Christcnthums,  Aufl.  3, 
1849,  c.  12.  Strauss,  Dcr  altc  und  der  neuc  Glauhe,  Aufl.  3, 
1872,  p.  103  ff. 

1.  The  Old  Testament  religion,  as  merely  one  stage  of 
religion,  and  that  not  the  highest,  naturally  falls  to  be  com- 
jiared  with  the  other  pre-Christian  religions.  Hence  Old 
Testament  theology  must  take  account  of  the  attempts  that 
have  been  made  to  bring  this  religion  into  connection  with 
the  general  religious  development  of  mankind.  For  historical 
purposes,  it  must  be  admitted,  every  phenomenon  is  but  a 
single  link  in  the  continuous  chain  of  human  affairs  until  it 
has  shown  itself  to  be  something  creative,  something  new,  in 
other  words,  a  starting-point  for  special  developments,  Xow 
such  a  starting-point  will  certainly  not  lose  its  connection 
with  the  parent  soil  of  human  history.  Still  it  receives  its 
only  adequate  explanation  when  referred  to  the  mystery  of 


FROM  THE  STANDPOINT  OF  THEOLOGY.  33 

tliose  creative  and  determining  divine  forces  by  which  the 
world,  both  of  sense  and  of  spirit,  is  npheld.  For  our  task  of 
describing  the  Old  Testament  religion,  we  cannot  be  properly 
equipped  till  we  have  got  a  firm  grasp  of  it  in  its  natural 
limits  and  connections. 

As  long  as  the  sacred  documents  were  looked  at  from  the 
standpoint  of  uncritical  reverence,  theology  was  naturally 
unable  to  attempt  a  judicial  estimate  of  the  Old  Testament 
religion.  Least  of  all  could  it  compare  or  connect  the  Old 
Testament  with  heathen  religions.  Spencer  was  the  first  to 
venture  something  of  the  kind,  but  as  yet  from  a  thoroughly 
orthodox  standpoint,  for  it  was  only  in  a  number  of  external 
matters  that  he  asserted  there  was  a  connection  between 
the  religion  of  Israel  and  that  of  Egypt.  If  one  wished  to 
make  a  theological  comparison,  all  that  one  was  really  allowed 
to  do  was  to  com]Dare  the  two  Testaments.  Thus,  against  the 
Judseo-Christian  amalgamation  of  both  Testaments,  as  well  as 
against  the  old  Catholic  assumption  of  their  essential  similarity, 
protests  had  been  already  raised  by  certain  Gnostics,  who,  fol- 
lowing a  one-sided  interpretation  of  supposed  Pauline  hints, 
ascribed  to  the  Old  Testament  a  God  different  from  the  God 
of  Christianity,  that  is,  a  different  religious  principle.  Accord- 
ing to  some,  for  example  Basilides  and  Valentinus,  this  was  a 
more  secular,  less  truly  spiritual  principle  ;  according  to  others, 
for  instance  Marcion,  it  was  a  principle  excluding  love,  and 
rooted  entirely  in  law,  that  is,  in  righteousness ;  in  other  cases, 
as  among  the  Ophites,  it  was  an  absolutely  immoral  principle, 
a  principle  of  persistent  envy  and  selfishness,  of  antagonism  to 
the  better  spirit  in  man.  Comparisons  of  this  kind  could 
not  but  be  made  in  later  times  also,  as  soon  as  a  freer  atti- 
tude towards  the  Biblical  records  was  taken  up.  Two  distinct 
tendencies  then  became  apparent.  Those  who,  like  Semler  and 
Schleierniacher,  insist  strongly  on  the  perfect  character  of 
historical  Christianity  (cf.  Glcmhcnslehrc,  §  12,  129),  separate 
the  Old  Testament  from  the  New  with  conscious  or  unconscious 

VOL.  L  c 


34  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

disparagement  of  the  former,  and  recognise  only  an  external 
historical  connection  between  the  two.  But  others,  who,  like 
Kaiser  in  his  first  period  of  development,  seek  to  reach  some- 
thing higher  than  the  Biblical  religion  as  it  is,  have  a  direct 
interest  in  placing  both  Testaments  as  nearly  as  possible  on 
the  same  level. 

As  soon  as  a  judicial  estimate  of  the  Old  Testament  religion 
was  ventured  on,  the  question  had  to  be  faced  as  to  what 
constituted  its  distinctive  peculiarity,  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciple which  it  embodied  in  contrast  with  other  religions. 
Now,  the  feature  that  first  attracts  attention  is  its  monotheism, 
the  exclusion  of  all  gods  save  one  from  being  acknowledged 
and  worshipped  by  the  people  of  Israel.  It  is  unquestion- 
ably the  fact  that  in  later  times  the  faith  of  Israel  centred 
with  the  utmost  constancy  on  this  point — on  the  Echad  of 
Deuteronomy,  which  became  the  watchword  of  the  martyrs.^ 
Accordingly  the  popular  conception  of  the  Old  Testament 
has  generally  taken  this  to  be  its  main  characteristic.^  But 
the  monotheism  of  the  Old  Testament  is  essentially  practical. 
It  does  not  at  first  lay  stress  on  there  leing  only  one  God,  but 
on  the  duty  of  Israel  to  have  only  one  God.  Indeed,  the 
more  recent  estimate  of  Israel's  religion  sees,  not  without  good 
reason,  in  the  conscious  monotheism  which  distinguishes 
Israel  from  the  kindred  peoples,  a  tolerably  late  development 
of  Old  Testament  relidon.  Besides,  a  monotheism  is  imagin- 
able,  and  in  fact  exists,  which,  as  a  nature-worship,  is  at  least 
as  far  removed  from  the  Old  Testament  idea  of  God,  as  for 
instance,  the  moral  polytheism  of  the  religion  of  Olympus. 

^  From  tlie  Schema  of  Deut.  vi.  4,  cf.  Griitz,  Die  GescJckJite  des  Judenthums 
nach  den  Quellen,  1S56,  Th.  iv.  193  f.  oa  the  death  of  Rabbi  Aquiba. 

^  This  does  not  apply  to  de  Wette's  definition,  "The  practical  idea  of 
one  God  as  a  holy  will,  when  cleared  of  myth  and  symbolised  in  the  theocracy, 
is  the  foundation-principle  of  the  Hebrew  nation,"  or  with  the  assertion  of 
Baumgarten-Crusius,  "that  the  Mosaic  religion  was  practical,  and  limited 
to  the  single  idea  of  the  true  God  as  the  faithful  patron  of  the  Israelitish 
people."  For  in  both  the  emphasis  is  laid  on  the  relation  of  this  God  to  His 
XKopk. 


FROM  THE  STANDPOINT  OF  PHILOSOPHY.  35 

Consequently  monotheism  as  such  is  not  a  suitable  term  by 
which  to  define  the  religion  of  the  Old  Testament. 

But  even  when  the  religion  of  Israel  was  in  its  prime,  and 
though  one  were  to  speak  only  of  its  moral  and  spiritual 
monotheism,  the  unity  of  God  was  not  the  real  foundation- 
principle  of  this  religion.  As  theoretical  knowledge  in  the 
technical  sense,  this  would  be  a  principle  sufficient  only  for  a 
reformation.  Consequently  it  is,  in  fact,  the  foundation- 
principle  of  Islam  which,  without  any  creative  force  of  its 
own,  puts  itself  forward  in  a  merely  human  and  negative  way 
as  a  purification  of  existing  religions.  But  the  Old  Testament 
religion  is,  as  a  religion,  of  a  thoroughly  creative  character. 
Hence  that  by  which  it  is  admittedly  marked  off  from 
surrounding  heathenism  cannot  be  its  fundamental  idea. 
It  became  so  only  when  Judaism,  robbed  of  its  creative  spirit, 
degenerated  into  a  sect. 

Just  as  little  is  the  emphasising  of  the  doctrine  of  a  per- 
sonal God  independent  of  the  world  to  be  regarded  as  the 
special  characteristic  of  Israel's  religion.  For  in  this  respect 
Israel  scarcely  felt  that  it  had  diverged  from  the  religions  of 
the  other  Semities. 

2.  Among  the  philosophical  critics  of  religions  we  meet, 
first  of  all,  with  a  number  of  men  who,  having  a  decided  dis- 
like to  the  Old  Testament  religion,  have  seen  in  it  a  low  type 
of  religion,  and  one  even  that  is  hostile  to  the  higher  develop- 
ment of  man's  spiritual  life.  At  the  first  glance  one  is 
astonished  to  find  Immanuel  Kant  pronouncing  a  judgment 
of  this  kind.  For  the  emphasis  laid  upon  the  Moral  Law  as 
absolutely  binding,  and  the  practical  nature  of  Old  Testament 
religion,  free  from  all  metaphysics,  seem  to  agree  admirably 
with  his  own  system.  Nevertheless,  he  is  of  opinion  that 
Judaism  is  really  not  a  religion  at  all,  but  a  body  of  purely 
statutory  laws  upon  which  a  civil  constitution  was  based. 
His  idea  is  that,  since  no  religion  can  be  conceived  of  without 
belief   in  a  future  life,  Judaism,  as  such,  had  no  religious 


36  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

faith ;  tliat,  in  fact,  this  fundamental  religions  conception 
was  intentionally  eliminated,  because  it  was  only  something 
political  that  was  aimed  at,  not  something  ethical.  Indeed, 
he  asserts  (148)  that  polytheism  would,  if  the  gods  were  only 
thought  of  as  requiring  moral  conduct,  be  even  more  suitable 
for  a  religion  than  the  worship  of  a  god  who  merely  issues 
commands  that  do  not  call  for  an  improvement  in  the  moral 
disposition. 

What  first  prejudiced  Kant  against  the  Old  Testament  was 
that  its  morality  is  thoroughly  "  heteronomous,"  and  that  it 
seems  to  favour  Eudtemonism  (147),  and  therefore  to  mar  the 
purity  of  moral  endeavour.  But  he  overlooks  the  fact  that  this 
apparent  Eudsemonism  is  connected  solely  with  the  transitional 
stage  of  history,  to  which,  undoubtedly,  a  part  of  the  Old 
Testament  belongs,  but  which  was  already  surmounted  in  the 
Old.  Testament  itself,  and  that  the  most  important  parts  of 
the  Old.  Testament  lay  emphasis  in  the  grandest  way  on  the 
relation  of  the  heart  to  God,  and  to  what  is  morally  good. 
He  separates,  in  a  manner  that  is  quite  unjustifiable,  what  he 
calls  Judaism  in  its  purity  from  the  prophetic  elements  iu 
the  Old  Testament.  Judaism  cannot  but  appear  to  him  poor, 
after  he  has  withdrawn  from  it  its  choicest  treasures,  as  being 
"  non- Jewish."  It  is  only  the  Levitical  corruption  of  Israel's 
religion  that  is,  according  to  him,  the  real  Old  Testament 
religion.  Besides,  he  is  wrong  as  to  the  importance  that 
attaches,  in  religion,  to  a  belief  in  a  personal  existence  after 
death,  and  he  forgets  that  a  religion  cannot  possibly  present 
the  postulates  of  morality  save  in  the  form  of  the  revealed 
will  of  God.  Finally,  he  cannot  bring  himself  to  understand 
that  in  the  Old  Testament,  as  is  unquestionably  the  case,  the 
moral  and  religious  life  of  man  is  conceived  of,  in  the  first 
instance,  as  national  life,  and  he  judges  of  this  fact  as  if  the 
civil,  as  such,  were,  for  the  Old  Testament,  the  ultimate  aim. 
But  in  Israel  the  civil  is  of  importance  only  in  so  far  as  it  is 
religious. 


FEUERBACII.  37 

English  Deism,  as  well  as  the  German  antichristian  move- 
ment, e.g.  in  Feuerbach,  showed  itself  directly  hostile  to  the 
Old  Testament.  The  Old  Testament  is  represented  as  the 
stage  of  egoism.  But  whoever  calls  a  yearning  after  per- 
sonal communion  with  God  egoism,  must  give  the  same  name 
to  every  development  of  healthy  and  vigorous  religious  life, 
as  well  as  to  all  true  love  and  friendship.  On  that  sup- 
position he  would  have  to  see  in  Christianity  the  religion 
of  egoism.  This  is  even  to  outdo  the  Ophites.  For  it  is 
really  only  in  the  Old  Testament  that  the  latter  would 
make  out  that  God  is  the  principle  of  egoism,  the  principle  of 
stolid  resistance  to  change,  without  inner  justification,  in  con- 
trast to  the  spirit  of  life  and  freedom.  But  on  Feuerbach's 
view  the  self-same  principle  would  be  found  in  every  religion 
which  concedes  personality  to  God.  Besides,  this  estimate  of 
the  Old  Testament  is  as  superficial  as  it  is  unjust.  The  restric- 
tion of  religion  to  national  ends,  and  the  bestowal  of  rewards 
upon  virtue,  are  the  necessary  consequences  of  the  historical 
conditions  in  which  this  religion  arose.  But,  of  itself,  it 
carries  one  far  beyond  such  thoughts.  How  can  egoism  be 
more  utterly  annihilated  than  when  the  law  demands  the 
absolute  surrender  of  the  ego  to  the  idea  of  the  people  of 
God  ?  How  can  opposition  to  egoism  be  more  strikingly 
manifested  than  when  the  prophet  foretells  the  self-sacrificing 
love  of  the  servant  of  Jehovah  ?  This  modern  Gnosis,  with  its 
estimate  of  the  Old  Testament,  will  make  no  impression  on 
any  one  who  has  read  that  book  with  pious  care,  and  given  it 
a  thorough  and  unprejudiced  examination.  And  just  as  little 
will  any  one  who  really  understands  Old  Testament  piety,  be 
impressed  when  Kenan  and  Strauss,  misled  by  the  spirit  of 
Indo-Germanic  pride  of  race,  find  in  the  religion  of  Semitic 
Israel  the  religion  of  a  migratory  horde,  and  the  expression  of 
a  national  spirit  undeveloped  and  poor  in  thought,  when  con- 
trasted with  the  brilliant  world  of  Indo-Germanic  myth  and 
philosophy.    Were  that  the  right  view  of  the  matter,  Judaism, 


38  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Mohammedanism,  and  Christianity  could  never  have  laid 
hold  of  the  civilised  nations  of  the  Aryan  race,  or  per- 
meated their  spiritual  life. 

3.  A  really  complete  and  harmonious  estimate  of  Old 
Testament  religion,  in  relation  to  the  general  religious  history 
of  mankind,  was  first  formed  by  Hegel,  and  discussed  in  the 
circle  of  philosoj)hers  and  theologians  who  acknowledged  him 
as  leader.  To  this  estimate  no  one  will  presume  to  deny 
originality,  brilliancy,  and  depth.  But  in  the  present  con- 
dition of  the  science  of  comparative  religion  it  is  practically 
useless,  being  based  on  a  far  too  meagre  and  one  -  sided 
acquaintance  with  human  religions.  A  view  which  regards 
the  Greek  and  Eoman  religions  as  the  only  higher  forms  of 
piety  among  "  heathen "  religions,  and  which  has  nothing 
special  to  say  of  the  religion  of  the  Hindoo,  or  the  Persian, 
or  the  Buddhist,  can  no  longer  be  considered  satisfactory.  It 
is  solely  because  of  its  historical  interest  that  it  deserves  a 
brief  notice. 

According  to  Hegel's  own  view,^  the  whole  of  heathenism 
proper,  as  "  nature-religion,"  is  at  the  lowest  stage  of  religious 
development.  The  divine,  not  being  yet  distinguished  from 
the  natural,  is  conceived  of  as  the  fortuitous.  Hence  these 
religions  are  also  the  religions  of  magic.  Christianity  is  the 
highest  stage,  the  religion  of  spirit,  where  the  absolute  spirit 
is  conceived  of  as  indwelling  in  the  finite  as  the  One — that 
is  to  say,  where  the  finite  consciousness  knows  God  only  in  so 
far  as  God  knows  Himself  in  it ;  hence  the  religion  of  incar- 
nation and  reconciliaiion.  The  necessary  bridge  between  the 
religion  of  nature  and  the  religion  of  spirit  is  formed  by 
those  three  religions,  in  which  the  absolute  is  indeed  dis- 
tinguished from  the  natural,  though  the  higher  unity  of  both 
is  not  yet  attained,  viz.  the  religions  of  spiritual  individuality 
— the   Greek,  the   Roman,  and  the  Old  Testament   religion. 

^  BeUgionsphilosophie,  i.  263  ff.,  ii.  48,   49,   92,  95,   187,    183,    191,    222. 
Philosophie  der  Geschichte,  239,  240. 


HEGEL  AND  HIS  SCHOOL.  39 

Of  these,  that  of  the  Old  Testament  is,  in  itself,  the  least 
complete.  For,  while  the  Greek  religion,  as  the  religion  of 
heauty,  freedom,  and  humanity,  strives  after  the  higher  unity, 
and  the  Eoman  State-religion,  as  the  religion  oi  purpose,  deals 
with  the  thought  of  the  absolute  in  the  conception  of  the 
State,  and  seeks  to  give  it  human  expression, — in  the  Old 
Testament  religion,  as  the  religion  of  sublimity,  the  separation 
between  God  and  man  is  made  in  the  sharpest  possible  way, 
without  the  higher  unity  of  the  two  being  really  attained.  But 
it  is  just  for  this  very  reason  that  this  religion,  as  being  the 
most  consistent  carrying  out  of  the  separation  of  the  human 
and  natural  from  the  divine,  is  the  only  satisfactory  starting- 
point  from  which  to  reach  the  highest  stage.  "  It  is  the 
Jewish  people  which  God  has  kept  for  Himself  as  the  old  pain 
of  the  world,"  since  "  the  infinity  of  pain  could  only  exist 
where  God  is  known  as  one  God,  as  a  purely  spiritual 
God." 

It  is  certainly  somewhat  fairer  to  the  Old  Testament  to 
acknowledge,  as  Vatke  does  (113,  114),  that  within  the 
sphere  of  religion,  the  Greek  conception  of  beauty  affords  only 
a  superficial  reconciliation,  and  that  for  our  purpose  the  Eoman 
State  does  not  admit  of  any  real  comparison  with  the  idea  of 
"  the  kingdom  of  God."  The  same  may  be  said  of  Bruno 
Bauer's  position.  He  holds,  with  Hegel,  that  the  Greek 
religion  is  superior  to  that  of  the  Old  Testament  in  the 
beauty  and  freedom  of  its  morality ;  while  the  Eoman  is 
superior  in  its  practical  zeal  for  the  general  good,  and  its 
insistence  on  the  rights  of  the  individual.  At  the  same  time 
he  maintains  with  the  utmost  emphasis  that  both  these 
religions  are  quite  inferior  to  that  of  the  Old  Testament.  In 
the  case  of  the  Greeks  this  is  due  to  their  want  of  a  real 
consciousness  of  sin,  and  to  the  consequent  view  of  morality 
as  a  purely  natural  growth  ;  and  in  the  case  of  the  Eomans,  to 
their  subordination  of  the  divine  to  a  merely  relative  end, 
the  power  of  the  State.     But  neither  of  these  scholars  has 


40  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

emancipated  himself  from  the  formula3  of  Hegel  and  his  arbi- 
trariness in  comparing  only  the  Greek  and  Roman  religions 
with  that  of  the  Old  Testament.  Indeed,  both  of  them  fail 
to  see  that  the  deepest  characteristic  of  Old  Testament  piety 
lies,  not  in  the  opposition  of  God  and  man,  but  rather  in  their 
growing  unity  in  the  kingdom  of  God  already  beginning  on 
earth. 

And  this  last  mistake  occurs  even  where  the  Hegelian  school 
avoids  the  first,  where  it  represents  the  Old  Testament  alone 
as  the  intermediate  stage  between  heathenism  and  Christi- 
anity. Tor  both  Eust  (71,  72,  166)  and  Baur  (166,  173, 
722)  regard  Judaism,  the  stage  of  understanding,  opinion, 
reflection,  authority,  and  law,  as  standing  contrasted,  not  only 
with  heathenism,  the  stage  of  immediate  feeling  or  intuition, 
but  also  with  Christianity,  the  stage  of  reason.  Thus  a  differ- 
ence of  degree  between  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New,  viz. 
that  full  spiritual  communion  between  God  and  man  is  in 
the  Old  still  a  growing  process,  is  changed  into  a  difference 
of  kind,  as  if  the  essence  of  the  old  covenant  consisted  in 
its  not  being  the  new  covenant,  whereas  what  had  to  be 
emphasised  above  all  else  was  that  the  old,  like  the  new, 
was  a  covenant  between  God  and  man. 

4.  Much  more  correct  is  the  judgment  which  Schelling 
pronounces  on  the  position  of  the  Old  Testament  in  the  classi- 
fication of  religions.  According  to  him,  heathenism,  the 
sphere  of  the  general  working  of  the  Son  of  God,  is  to  be 
distinguished  from  revelation  proper,  the  sphere  of  His 
personal  working,  as  Mstoria  'profana  from  Mstoria  sacra. 
But  within  sacred  history  itself  the  Old  Testament  is  dis- 
tinguished from  the  New  by  the  fact  that  in  the  Old  the 
worship  of  the  true  God  is  still  influenced  and  determined  by 
antagonism  to  the  false  god  of  heathenism. 

According  to  Schelling's  conception  of  the  development 
of  religions,  people  originally  worshipped  Elohim,  that  is, 
the  Godhead,  there  being  as  yet  no  distinction  between  the 


SCIIELLING.  41 

true  God  and  the  false.  In  other  words,  the  idea  of  mono- 
theism as  distinguished  from  polytheism  had  not  yet  arisen. 
On  the  intrusion  of  the  second  false  god  (the  female),  poly- 
theism arose,  but  at  the  same  time  also  monotheism  as  its 
opposite.  For  those  who  did  not  accept  the  new  God,  their 
"  Godhead "  now  became  the  one  true  God  (Jehovah)  in 
contrast  to  the  various  false  gods.  In  this  way  the  true 
God  reveals  Himself  to  Abraham.  But  His  revelation  works 
through  mythology,  that  is,  can  only  be  understood  from  the 
fact  that  in  heathenism  the  consciousness  of  the  true  God  is 
strained  and  obscured.  The  Old  Testament  exists  just  to 
contrast  the  true  God  with  the  false.  It  presupposes  the 
existence  of  God  (Elohim),  who,  however,  has  also  become  the 
starting-point  of  polytheism.  Hence  the  monotheism  of 
Abraham  is  not  yet  a  non-mythological  monotheism.  A  great 
many  of  the  puzzling  institutions  in  the  Old  Testament  are 
only  to  be  expkined  by  the  fact  that  revelation  still  clings 
to  this  heathen  principle  as  its  own  presupposition,  even  when 
what  is  heathen  in  it  has  become  mere  material  on  which  to 
work.  Hence  Christianity  had  to  do  away  with  the  Old 
Testament  as  such  in  the  same  way  as  with  heathenism. 
It  frees  revelation  from  whatever  elements  still  cling  to  it 
through  its  having  issued  forth  out  of  heathenism.'^  If  we 
overlook  the  peculiarity  of  Schelling's  general  system  of 
constructing  the  history  of  religion,  we  must  heartily  approve 
of  his  estimate  of  the  Old  Testament.  Its  religion  is,  like 
Christianity,  the  revealed  religion  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 
God,  but  still  fettered  and  hampered  by  the  nature  of  those 
national  religions  out  of  which  it  sprang  and  in  opposition  to 
which  it  grew  up. 

5.  The  opinions  expressed  by  most  modern  philosophical 
writers  on  religion  are  based  on  a  similar  view.     According  to 
Billroth,  the  Old  Testament  is  the  preliminary  stage  of  Chris- 
tianity.     It  is  not  yet  the  highest  and  final  revelation,  because 
1  I.  145,  148,  160,  170,  iv.  123,  124,  132  ff. 


42  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

the  immanence  of  God  is  not  yet  recognised,  because  tlie 
severance  of  the  finite  from  the  infinite  is  not  yet  abolished 
from  within,  because  the  goodness,  grace,  and  mercy  of  God 
are  still  revealed  through  the  medium  of  outward  history, 
bound  up  with  the  history  of  a  particular  nation.  Neverthe- 
less it  is  revelation.  The  immediate  oneness  of  God  and  the 
world  is  abolished,  and  in  the  nation  man  has  an  actual  and 
real  union  with  God.  Stuhr  takes  a  similar  view  of  the  Old 
Testament,  and  so  in  all  essential  points  does  Koppen, 
notwithstanding  his  otherwise  very  one-sided  estimate  of  it. 
And  Braniss  teaches  (24)  that  "  until  the  reconciliation  of 
the  natural  and  the  divine  is  reached,  all  peoples  must  fall 
into  two  great  categories,  the  one  of  which  declares  nature 
to  be  the  ruling  power,  and  the  other  God.  In  the  former 
case,  it  is  true,  the  divine  is  also  acknowledged  but  as  a 
something  determined  by  nature ;  in  the  latter,  the  natural 
is  present,  but  only  as  a  something  determined  by  God.  The 
concrete  historical  expression  of  these  two  categories  is 
heathenism  and  Judaism.  Their  original  contrast  is  the  key 
that  explains  the  whole  life  of  the  pre-Christian  world." 
And  if  this  emphasises  too  strongly  the  contrast  between  the 
Old  Testament  and  heathenism,  we  must  at  any  rate  fully 
assent  to  the  beautiful  saying  of  Lotze :  "  Among  the  theo- 
cratic nations  of  the  East  the  Hebrews  appear  to  us  like 
sober  men  among  drunkards.  To  the  ancient  world  they 
doubtless  seemed  like  dreamers  among  waking  men " 
(iii.  147). 

6.  If  we  examine  the  religion  of  the  Old  Testament 
from  a  purely  historical  point  of  view  as  one  of  the  religions 
of  mankind,  and  for  the  time  overlook  its  relation  to  Chris- 
tianity, then  at  the  first  glance  it  takes  its  place  in  its  perfect 
form  among  the  prophetic  or  the  ethico-historical  religions  in 
the  stricter  sense  of  the  word,  and  is  thus  distinguished  from 
the  physical  or  the  national  religions.  But  at  the  same  time 
this  final  form  of  it  is  seen  to  be  the  result  of  a  still  explic- 


AS  A  HISTOPJCAL  EELIGION.  43 

able   historical   development   wliich    has   a   connection   with 
physical  and  national  religions. 

In  the  earliest  period  of  the  history  of  nations,  religion 
meets  us  as  elemental  Nature-worship.  Man  in  his  weakness 
and  need  feels  himself  subject  to  the  mighty  forces  of 
nature  as  if  these  were  personal  powers  confronting  him. 
With  these  powers  he  strives  to  enter  into  personal  rela- 
tions so  as  to  make  them  serviceable  to  him,  or  at  least 
favourably  disposed.  Like  every  active  force,  they  present 
themselves  to  him  as  somehow  akin  to  his  own  spiritual 
life.  But  primarily  it  is  not  the  moral  life  of  his  spirit 
which  he  recognises  in  these  absolute  powers,  but  mere 
power,  mere  will.  At  this  stage  the  question  as  to  one  God 
or  many  gods  is  still  essentially  a  matter  of  indifference.  It 
is  in  the  last  analysis  the  same  power  which  man  encounters 
everywhere,  although  it  meets  him  in  a  thousand  different  and 
even  conflicting  forms  and  manifestations.  Contrasted  with 
the  systematic  development  of  polytheism  in  the  religions  of 
civilisation,  this  original  heathenism  may  appear  akin  to 
monotheism  because  the  individuality  of  the  separate  pheno- 
mena of  nature  is  in  itself  a  matter  of  religious  indifference, 
and  only  their  power  and  influence  are  of  interest,  because 
they  can  for  that  reason  be  combined,  interchanged,  or  con- 
verted into  one  another.  But  in  reality  there  is  here  not  the 
slightest  trace  of  the  idea  which  actual  monotheism  postulates, 
viz.  that  God  is  one.  For  we  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  be 
misled  by  the  fact  that  prayers  and  hymns  often  purposely 
extol  the  God  who  is  praised  in  them,  as  the  only  God  and 
Lord.  These  religions  are  invariably  national  religions, 
moulded  by  the  national  peculiarities,  by  the  character  of  the 
country  and  the  climate,  by  the  occupations,  the  fears,  and 
the  aspirations  that  make  up  the  national  life.  They  are  all, 
to  a  certain  extent,  the  spontaneous  expression  of  the  popular 
heart.  The  mode  of  worship  employed  in  them  is  interwoven 
with  the  everyday  life  of  the  people.     They  know  nothing 


44  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

of  a  theoretical  interest  in  the  gods  ;  and  the  relations  between 
religion  and  the  morality  that  grows  up  out  of  the  mutual 
relationships  of  men  are  still  altogether  obscure  and  unstable. 

The  lowest  of  these  religions  with  which  we  have  to  deal 
is  Animism.  In  it  the  separate  phenomena  of  nature  are 
regarded  as  living,  acting  forces,  though  without  any  higher 
unity  or  moral  character.  Men  do  not  enter  into  rela- 
tions with  this  world  of  spirits  from  love  or  admiration, 
but  from  fear  and  selfishness.  The  strongest  motive  for 
worshipping  them  is  anxiety  to  secure  their  services  by 
means  of  magic.  They  are  not  classified,  for  the  purposes 
of  religion,  into  good  and  bad  ;  rather  are  they  all  of  them 
incalculable,  unearthly,  spectral.  Closely  akin  to  these 
are  the  ghostly  shades  of  the  departed,  primarily  objects  of 
terror,  but  yet  furnishing  the  basis  of  a  higher  stage,  viz. 
ancestor- worship.  As  the  lowest  form  of  this  stage  of  religion, 
though  probably  a  degenerate  one,  we  have  fetish-worship, 
where  the  nature-power  is  conceived  of  as  connected  with 
some  arbitrarily  chosen  symbol.  Such  pure  animism  was  the 
prevailing  religion  of  the  Turanian  races  of  Asia.  But  among 
the  peoples  of  Africa,  Polynesia,  and  America,  almost  without 
an  exception,  religion  rested  on  a  similar  basis.  In  Finland 
it  became  a  civilised  religion  with  mythical  and  ethical 
elements  in  it ;  in  the  moral  State-religion  of  China,  it  con- 
stitutes the  popular  background.  If  Lenormant's  theories 
are  well  founded,  fetish  -  worship  made  no  inconsiderable 
contribution  to  the  civilised  religion  of  Babylon  as  well  as  to 
the  religion  of  India  and  of  Egypt.  Since  the  ritual  of  this 
religion  consists  of  magic,  it  has  a  natural  tendency  to 
create  priestly  families  and  castes,  that  become  the  repositories 
of  the  songs  and  the  various  other  means  which  magicians 
habitually  employ. 

Among  the  Semitic  pastoral  tribes  elemental  nature- 
worship  seems  to  have  been  cast  in  a  higher  mould.  Even 
among  them,  indeed,  there  was  no  monotheism  in  the  strict 


AS  A  HISTORICAL  RELIGION.  45 

sense  of  the  term.  We  find  that  plurality  of  gods  and 
goddesses  is  everywhere  taken"  for  granted.  But  it  is  not  the 
personality  or  individuality  of  these  that  excites  interest. 
The  real  devotion  of  the  people,  as  is  proved  by  the  names 
for  God,  is  called  forth  by  the  kind  of  power  and  authority 
ascribed  to  the  gods  as  such.  It  is  from  such  attributes  that 
the  Deity  is  named,  not  from  the  parts  of  nature  in  which  His 
activity  is  presupposed.  The  root-feeling  is  fear  of  God,  and 
that  probably  not  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word,  since  the 
Deity  is  not  primarily  ethical,  but  only  holy  and  terrible.  Still 
it  is  the  fundamental  feeling  that  affords  the  religious  spirit  a 
starting-point  from  which  to  take  its  highest  flights.  It  is  the 
natural  basis  of  prophetic  inspiration.  The  Deity  is  felt  to 
be  the  sovereign  Lord  of  the  particular  tribe  and  people,  and 
is  thus  brought  into  relation  with  the  national  life.  He  is,  of 
course,  also  brought  into  relation  with  the  ancestors  of  the 
nation  and  "  the  shades  "  of  the  departed,  but  in  a  way  that 
tends  to  the  moral  interests  of  the  national  life.  Here,  then, 
were  the  roots  of  monotheistic  religion  and  of  theocracy. 
And  since  the  attribute  of  absolute  power  constitutes  what  is 
essential  in  the  idea  of  God,  we  here  come  very  near  taking 
the  step  that  places  God  the  Creator  altogether  outside  of 
nature.  This,  then,  is  the  native  soil  of  the  higher  forms 
of  prophetic  religion,  but  at  the  same  time  also  of  those 
wild  orgies,  of  that  religious  fanaticism,  of  that  terrible  fear  of 
God,  which  finds  expression  in  hecatombs  of  human  sacrifices. 
To  this  form  of  religion,  originally  peculiar  to  the  pastoral 
tribes  of  Arabian  origin,  are  due  in  the  main  the  composite 
religions  of  Assyria  and  Babylon,  as  well  as  of  Canaan,  and  it 
is  the  parent  soil  of  the  prophetic  religions  of  the  Hebrews 
and  the  Arabs. 

It  is  beyond  doubt  that  the  highest  and  most  attractive 
form  of  elemental  nature-worship  is  that  which  lies  at  the 
foundation  of  the  civilised  religions  of  the  Aryan  races.  The 
character  of  it  can  be  inferred  from  these  religions,  as  well 


46  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

as  from  the  Yedic  hymns  and  the  nature  -  myths  common 
to  the  Aryan  nations.  No  doubt,  here  also,  the  gods  are 
primarily  elemental  spirits,  akin  to  and  intermingling  with 
the  souls  of  men.  They  are  not  primarily  possessed  of  moral 
attributes,  just  as  nature  itself  is  indifferent  to  the  distinction 
between  good  and  bad.  But  the  heaven  of  light  is  conceived 
of  as  the  common  source  of  the  powers  of  nature,  and  this 
involuntarily  carries  with  it  the  idea  of  the  true  and  the  good. 
And  the  religious  feeling  entertained  towards  such  a  god  is 
not  fear,  but  ecstatic  love.  It  is  a  joyous,  heroic  religion. 
Through  the  genius  of  language,  the  unfolding  life  of  nature 
becomes  a  rich  spring  of  poetic  myths  full  of  meaning.  And, 
since  the  phenomena  of  nature,  even  when  they  are  grasped 
as  a  unity,  are  nevertheless  only  something  relative,  mere 
transient  expressions,  as  it  were,  of  an  unknown  higher  power, 
the  religious  view  of  the  world  becomes,  to  a  certain  extent,  a 
philosophical  one.  Behind  the  gods  we  have  the  order  and 
power  of  nature  itself.  There  is  here  a  spring  of  the  richest 
poetry,  of  heroic  gladness  and  of  culture ;  and  here  also  the 
strongest  impulse  to  ethics  and  philosophy.  But  assuredly 
not  a  foundation  for  genuine  prophecy  and  for  true  revelation. 
For  where  the  divine  is  itself  essentially  relative,  and  man 
feels  himself  equal  to  the  gods,  his  highest  elevation  is  not 
that  of  the  prophet,  but  of  the  philosopher  and  the  poet,  and 
religion  loses  itself  in  metaphysics  and  ethics.  Should  a 
prophetic  genius  spring  up  on  such  a  religious  soil,  he  will 
reach  out  beyond  the  relative  gods  to  the  one  absolute  Being 
whom  he  feels  within  himself  in  greater  purity  than  in  the 
life  of  nature.  He  will  become  a  Pantheist,  or  like  Buddha, 
an  Atheist. 

Each  of  these  primitive  religions  developed  into  civilised 
religions,  sometimes  in  a  pure  form  and  sometimes  in  combina- 
tion with  others.  Sometimes  a  pantheistic  polytheism  grew 
up  under  the  influence  of  a  philosophical  priesthood,  as  among 
the  Babylonians  and  the  Phoenicians,  the  Hindoos  and  the 


AS  A  IIISTOrJCAL  RELIGION.  47 

Egyptians.  Sometimes  an  ethical  polytheism  was  developed 
by  the  poets  on  the  basis  of  a  free  and  joyous  national  growth, 
as  among  the  Greeks  or  in  the  Edda.  Sometimes,  under  the 
influence  of  civil  morality,  a  political  religion  was  formed 
in  which  the  old  powers  of  nature  gave  place  to  the  powers 
of  civil  and  social  life,  as  in  the  religion  of  the  Eoman  Empire 
and  among  the  Chinese.  But  in  none  of  these  cases  was 
there  a  real  advance  beyond  the  stage  of  the  physical  or 
national  religions.  We  nowhere  find  that  a  special  genius 
for  religion  was  the  origin  of  any  of  these  religions,  how- 
ever often  we  have  to  admire  their  philosophical  depth  or 
poetical  vigour,  or  the  moral  earnestness  of  their  political 
and  social  sentiment.  The  gods  remain  within  the  limits  of 
the  empirical.  That  deity  means  that  which  is  absolutely 
exalted  above  nature,  viz.  spirit,  and  that  its  contents  must, 
at  the  same  time,  be  the  purest  expression  of  that  which,  as 
the  basis  of  ethics,  seeks  to  obtain  human  form, — that  the 
communion  of  man  with  God  must  be  inward,  and  its 
expression  the  whole  social  life  of  mankind, — that  religion 
has  to  do,  not  with  the  separate  life  of  individual  nations 
and  their  work  as  States,  but  with  the  life  of  man  as  man, — 
all  this  is  nowhere  fully  acknowledged  in  any  one  of  these 
religions.  Whether  as  regards  origin  or  final  aim,  none  of 
the  religions  of  this  class  admits  of  any  comparison  with 
the  Biblical. 

Besides  Christianity,  there  are  only  three  religions  at  all 
worthy  of  being  compared  with  the  religion  of  the  Old 
Testament,  because  they  have  been  produced  on  the  basis  of 
nature-religions  by  the  creative  strength  of  religious  genius. 
These  are  on  the  one  side  the  Persian  and  the  Buddhist,  on 
the  other  the  Mohammedan. 

In  many  respects  the  Old  Testament  reminds  one  of  the 
religion  of  the  Persians  as  it  was  before  it  gradually  lost  its 
purity  and  strength  by  adopting  elements  out  of  the  religion  of 
the  Chaldeans,  and  above  all,  out  of  the  Anahita- worship  under 


48  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Artaxerxes  Mnemon.^  Both  religions  are  connected  with  a 
comparatively  simple  and  undeveloped  form  of  nature-worship 
that  had  not  yet  grown  into  a  really  systematic  polytheism, 
this  nature-worship  being  in  the  one  case  Semitic  and  in  the 
other  Aryan.  Then,  through  the  religious  genius  of  their 
prophets  they  detach  themselves  on  the  one  hand  from  their 
natural  soil  in  their  struggle  after  a  spiritual  conception  of 
God,  and  on  the  other  hand  they  carry  on  a  long  fight  for 
existence  with  the  higher  forms  of  that  nature-worship  out  of 
which  they  sprang.  In  both  the  swaddling-clothes  of  nature- 
worship  are  still  visible  in  the  commingling  of  the  physically 
holy  with  the  morally  holy,  in  the  high  value  attached  to 
definite  forms  of  outward  life,  and  in  the  close  relation  of 
the  religions  to  the  distinctive  life  of  the  nation.  Both 
religions  still  retain  in  legend  and  myth  various  elements  of 
nature-worship  though  blurred  or  transformed,  while  it  is 
chiefly  through  antagonism  to  this  their  parent-soil  that  the 
course  of  their  development  is  determined.  Hence,  it  is 
easily  understood  how  these  two  religions  were  quite  in 
sympathy  with  each  other  when  they  first  came  into  contact 
(Deutero- Isaiah  xliv.,  xlv.). 

The  difference  between  them  comes  out  mainly  in  two 
points.  Of  these,  the  first  is  that  in  the  period  after 
Darius  the  Persians  were  not  favoured  with  any  men  of 
prophetic  spirit  capable  of  developing  their  religion,  and 
that  the  ceremonial  precipitate  of  that  religion  had  to  take 
the  place  of  a  living  spiritual  development.  The  strength 
of  the  nation  was  exhausted  in  military  and  political 
achievements.  They  did  not  hold  aloof  from  the  nations 
attached  to  nature-worship,  but  as  the  ruling  race,  gathered 

^  Herod,  i.  131,  cf.  Xenophon,  Cyrop.  vii.  5.  53  ;  Gee.  iv.  24,  cf.  the  inscrip- 
tions of  Belustun  and  the  epitaph  of  Darius  at  Naksh-i-Rustam.  On  this 
■whole  question,  still  obscure  on  many  points,  cf.  James  Darmesteter  in  Max 
Miiller's  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  iv.,  Introduction.  From  the  Babylonian 
documents  it  seems  that  Cyrus  himself  was  a  devotee  of  the  Semitic  worship 
of  nature  (A.  H.  Sayce,  Fresh  Light  from  the  Ancient  Monuments). 


AS  A  HISTORICAL  RELIGION.  40 

these  around  themselves.  Accordingly,  when  the  force  of 
the  first  purely  religious  revival  was  spent,  the  Persian 
nation  was  not  strong  enough  to  withstand  the  overwhelming 
pressure  of  the  religion  of  civilised  Asia.^  Israel,  on  the 
contrary,  though  only  after  a  severe  struggle,  was  preserved 
from  the  same  fate  by  its  prophets,  till  its  religion  had 
become  sufficiently  mature  not  to  fear  any  longer  the  influ- 
ence of  such  elements. 

The  second  main  distinction  lies  in  the  difference  of  the  soil 
on  which  the  two  religions  grew.  "When  one  bears  in  mind 
how  closely  the  Indo-Germanic  gods  were  allied  with  nature, 
it  was  certainly  a  great  religious  achievement  to  elevate  the 
God  of  Light  in  the  old  religion  into  the  one  true  God, — the 
fountain  of  all  good,  the  one  proper  object  of  religious  love 
and  reverence.  Nevertheless,  he  was  still  surrounded  by  a 
retinue  of  kindred  spirits,  to  whom  divine  honours  were 
paid,  and  thus  the  bridge  to  polytheism  was  built.  The 
Elohim  of  the  Old  Testament,  on  the  contrary,  were  not 
regarded  as  objects  of  national  worship.  One  part  of  nature, 
moreover,  was  regarded  by  the  Persians  as  beyond  the  juris- 
diction of  this  god,  viz.  the  domain  of  what  was  thought 
essentially  evil  and  bad.  No  doubt  Angro-Mainyus,  the 
spirit  of  destruction  and  negation,  is  not  God  in  the  religious 
sense ;  that  position  is  reserved  for  Ahura-mazdao  alone. 
But  he  represents  a  side  of  existence  that  does  not  fit  in  with 
the  conception  of  God.  He  is  the  sign  of  the  unassimilated 
Aryan  nature-religion,  of  the  merely  relative  conception  of 
God.  But  through  the  conception  of  God  already  described, 
their  Semitic  nature-religion  in  its  original  simplicity  enabled 

^  The  restoration  of  religion  for  political  purposes  by  the  Sassanidre,  and  the 
growth  of  our  present  collection  of  the  Avesta,  remind  us  of  the  collecting  of 
the  sacred  books,  and  of  the  Levitical  restoration  of  religion  by  the  scribes 
of  the  second  temple.  The  fate  of  the  Persian  religion,  from  Artaxerxes 
onwards,  shows  what  lines  the  religion  of  Israel  might  have  followed,  had 
the  influence  which  Solomon  was  the  first  to  give  them  as  a  world-power  of  the 
first  rank  continued  to  grow, 

VOL.  L  D 


50  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

the  Hebrew  prophets  in  a  religious  way,  by  means  of  the 
fear  of  God,  to  raise  God  absolutely  above  the  world  without 
leaving  any  such  residuum.  Besides,  in  the  emphasising  of 
the  national  God  lay  the  possibility  of  reaching  pure  mono- 
theism in  a  really  practical  way.  Hence  the  soil  for  the  true 
kingdom  of  God  was  not  in  Persia,  but  in  Israel. 

With  Buddhism,  the  second  Indo- Germanic  religion  of 
prophecy,  the  Old  Testament  religion  has  no  sort  of  affinity, 
any  more  than  with  the  developments  which  philosophy 
underwent  on  the  soil  of  Greek  relitrion.  Buddhism  is  the 
prophetic  reformation  of  the  already  highly -developed  Pan- 
theism of  the  priestly  religion  of  India,  and  in  its  relation  to 
the  latter  has  many  analogies  with  Christianity  in  its  opposi- 
tion to  Pharisaism  and  to  priestly  aristocracy.  It  is  the  most 
logical  development  of  nature-religion  become  Pantheistic. 
For  if  the  gods  are  powers  actively  at  work  only  within  the 
sphere  of  the  world's  development,  then  higher  than  all  of 
them  is  the  spirit  of  man,  inasmuch  as  it  raises  itself  above 
nature  in  recognising  its  own  supra-mundane  character.  To  the 
human  spirit  that  has  emancipated  itself,  the  host  of  gods  does 
homage.  Idealistic  atheism,  not  naturalism,  is  the  last  word  of 
nature-relif/ion.  And  if  the  world  of  phenomena  has  not  a 
divine  origin,  then  the  only  proper  verdict  of  the  spirit  regard- 
ing it  is  the  verdict  of  pessimism.  For,  considered  as  a  mere 
"  world,"  it  is  not  good,  and  to  belong  to  it  is  not  a  blessing. 
Where  the  question  is  between  the  optimism  of  "  the  new 
faith  "  and  the  pessimism  of  Schopenhauer,  the  answer  of  the 
deeper  spirits  cannot  but  be  in  favour  of  the  latter.  Only 
the  man  who  believes  in  the  providence  of  a  God,  who  is  spirit 
and  who  is  love,  has  the  right  to  look  at  the  world  with  the 
eye  of  an  optimist  without  being  guilty  of  superficiality. 

Thus  for  comparison  with  Christianity  and  the  Old  Testa- 
ment religion  there  now  remains  only  the  third  Semitic  religion 
of  prophecy,  viz.  Mohammedanism.  But  this  does  not  really 
admit  of  comparison,  since  the  whole  kernel  of  this  religious 


OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT.  51 

system  was  taken  from  that  of  the  Old  Testament.  No 
doubt,  in  opposition  to  a  Semitic  nature- religion  that  had 
remained  at  a  comparatively  rudimentary  stage,  Mohammed 
preached,  like  the  founders  of  the  religion  of  Israel,  with 
true  religious  ardour,  faith  in  one  Almighty  Euler  of  the 
world;  and  his  religion  was  strongly  influenced  by  the  con- 
ditions of  life  then  existing  among  the  Arabian  people.  But 
he  knew  the  Old  Testament  religion,  although  in  an  impure 
and  corrupted  form,  and,  in  fact,  he  had  also  seen  one-sided 
forms  of  Christianity.  What  Mohammed  himself  added  or 
omitted  shows  his  ability  as  a  national  leader,  and  his  healthy 
aversion  to  the  petty  Pharisaic  view  of  life ;  but,  at  the  same 
time,  it  indicates  a  great  lack  of  moral  earnestness,  and  of  a 
high  ideal  as  to  the  chief  end  of  human  existence.  However 
powerful  Mohammedanism  has  been  as  a  factor  in  the  history 
of  the  world,  in  the  history  of  religion  it  can  be  regarded 
merely  as  a  degenerate  form  of  the  Old  Testament  religion, 
as  a  heresy,  the  vitality  of  which  was  due  simply  to  its 
having  to  contend  against  the  spiritual  caricature  of  Talmudic 
scholasticism,  and  against  the  idolatry  and  heathenism  of  the 
Oriental  Church. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT, 

1.  Christ  and  His  apostles  do  not  regard  the  Old 
Testament  religion  as  a  mere  outward  historical  preparation 
for  Christianity,  but  as  a  form  of  piety  which  could  and 
would  continue  to  be  the  foundation  even  of  Christian  piety.^ 

^  One  must  not  be  led  astray  as  to  this  by  the  polemic  of  the  Apostle  Paul. 
Even  he  does  not  wish  to  renounce  the  Old  Testament  as  such.  He  merely 
denies  to  the  law,  which  he  recognises  even  in  heathenism  as  a  pre-Christian 
form  of  religion,  the  power  to  save  and  to  generate  true  life.  How  far  he  i5 
from  treating  the  law  and  the  Old  Testament  as  synonymous  is,  in  fact,  most 


52  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

This  is  of  itself  enough  to  show  a  Christian  that  the  Old 
Testament  religion  can  be  understood  only  in  connection 
with,  and  as  an  essential  part  of,  Christianity.  An  Old 
Testament  saint  did  not  require  to  change  his  religion  in 
order  to  become  a  Christian,  All  that  was  needed  was  the 
decisive  act  of  faith  which  the  Old  Testament  itself,  by  its 
prophecy,  as  well  as  by  the  innermost  kernel  of  its  essence, 
made  possible,  and  even  easy.  Nothing  more  was  necessary 
than  the  moral  earnestness  of  the  true  penitent,  just  what 
ought  to  have  been  the  natural  result  of  the  moral  preaching 
characteristic  of  the  Old  Testament  religion.  In  order  to 
become  a  Christian,  every  heathen  must  be,  in  the  strict  sense 
of  the  word,  converted — that  is,  his  attitude  towards  religion, 
and  his  whole  way  of  looking  at  it,  must  undergo  a  radical 
change.  A  Jew  could  become  a  pious  Christian,  and  still 
continue  a  pious  Jew.  Hence  such  men  as  James  the  Just, 
and,  indeed,  the  twelve  apostles  themselves,  are  quite  as  much 
model  representatives  of  Old  Testament  piety  as  of  Chris- 
tianity in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word.  No  Christian, 
however,  could  by  any  possibility  continue  a  pious  worshipper 
at  a  Greek  or  lioman  temple. 

But  this  closeness  of  connection  is  also  clearly  established 
by  a  thorough  comparison  of  the  two  Testaments.  There  is 
positively  not  one  New  Testament  idea  that  cannot  be  con- 
clusively shown  to  be  a  healthy  and  natural  product  of  some 
Old  Testament  germ,  nor  any  truly  Old  Testament  idea  which 
did  not  instinctively  press  towards  its  New  Testament  fulfil- 
ment. Of  course,  it  is  only  New  Testament  theology  that  can 
adduce  satisfactory  proof  of  this. 


(•learly  shown  by  the  proofs  which  he  himself  takes  from  the  Old  Testament, 
that  the  law  is  not  the  highest  and  iicrmanent  form  of  the  true  religion,  but 
nmst  pass  over  into  faith  (Gen.  xv.  6  ;  Hab.  ii.  4).  While,  from  the  stand- 
point of  history,  one  may  say  that  Levitism  came  in  between  the  religion  of  the 
])rophets  and  Christianity,  Paul,  from  his  point  of  view  regarding  the  date  of 
the  Pentateuch,  maintains  that  the  law  came  in  between  the  religion  of  Abraham 
and  Christianity  (Rom.  v.  20). 


REVELATIOX.  53 

Hence,  in  the  spirit  of  the  Old  Testament  religion,  the 
Christian  will  recognise  the  same  spirit  wliich  he  receives  as 
the  perfect  sphit  of  the  God  who  reveals  Himself  in  Jesus 
Christ,  the  spirit  presented  to  us  in  His  personal  life  as  man. 
The  Old  Testament  will  be  to  him  a  religion  of  revelation, 
and  that,  too,  a  revelation  of  the  Divine  Spirit  which,  purify- 
infj,  enliizhtening,  redeeming,  reconciling,  leads  up  to  the 
divinely-human  life  as  that  found  permanent  expression  in 
Jesus. 

The  Old  Testament  religion,  like  the  Christian,  did  not 
come  forth  out  of  humanity,  according  to  the  mere  law 
of  natural  spiritual  development,  but  as  a  result  of  the 
working,  upon  Israel's  spiritual  life,  of  that  divine,  self- 
communicating  spirit  which  aims  at  establishing  the  kingdom 
of  God  among  men.  This  religion  rightly  regards  itself 
as  called  into  existence  by  God,  as  called  into  existence 
by  the  clear  separation  of  this  one  people  from  the  life  of 
the  other  peoples  of  the  world.  Hence  the  whole  story  of 
Genesis  consists  of  a  series  of  separations.  Hence  the  law 
cuts  Israel  off  from  the  nature-worship  that  was  developing 
all  around.  Hence  even  a  Moses  and  an  Isaiah  draw  a  clear 
distinction  between  their  own  thoughts  and  the  voice  of  God 
involuntarily  revealed  to  their  inner  ear.  Hence  the  people 
are  not  to  believe  even  signs  and  wonders  if  displayed,  not 
in  the  interests  of  divine  truth  already  attested,  but  in  the 
service  of  mere  human  wisdom.  Indeed,  the  natural  life  of 
Israel,  where  it  follows  its  own  promptings,  comes  constantly 
into  conflict  with  the  religion  of  the  Old  Testament.  And 
this  peculiar  value  of  the  Old  Testament  is  everywhere 
unreservedly  recognised  in  the  New. 

The  starting-point  of  Old  Testament  religion  is  neither  the 
natural  nor  the  human  as  the  object  of  experience.  It  does 
not  reach  the  divine  by  idealising  the  empirical,  either  on  the 
aesthetic  principle,  or  the  teleological,  or  on  any  other.  The 
divine   life,  as   absolutely  transcending  the  whole  region  of 


54  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

experience,  as  free,  independent,  spiritual,  is,  in  this  religion, 
grasped  with  the  certainty  of  direct  inward  experience  that 
cannot  be  shaken.  In  it,  religious  truth  shines  out  from  the 
very  first,  not  as  a  fact  of  philosophy  or  of  science,  but  as  tlie 
absolutely  certain,  that  whicli  demonstrates  itself  even  to  the 
inner  life. 

Hence  in  Israel  the  knowledge  of  God  was  attained 
exclusively  in  a  religious  way  under  the  influence  of  the 
divine,  and  is  therefore  purely  practical.  In  no  sense  was  it 
reached  along  the  line  of  philosophy  or  of  poetry.  But  an 
original  religious  conviction  of  this  kind  is  never  to  be  under^ 
stood  as  a  result  merely  of  previously  existing  conceptions  or 
circumstances.  As  an  experience  of  forces  which  lie  outside 
the  world  of  sense,  it  has  its  roots  in  the  communication  of 
the  spirit,  through  the  love  and  mercy  of  God,  to  such  members 
of  the  human  family  as  are  privileged  to  become  interpreteis 
to  their  brethren  of  the  heavenly  life,  that  is  to  say,  in  a 
divine  revelation.  Israel's  religious  teachers  are  prophets, 
not  philosophers,  priests,  or  poets.  Hence  the  Old  Testament 
religion  can  be  explained  only  by  revelation,  that  is,  by 
the  fact  that  God  raised  up  for  this  people  men  whose 
natural  susceptibility  to  moral  and  religious  truth,  developed 
by  the  course  of  their  inner  and  outer  lives,  enabled  them  to 
understand  intuitively  the  will  of  the  self-communicating, 
redeeming  God  regarding  men,  that  is,  to  possess  the  religious 
truth  which  maketh  free,  not  as  a  result  of  human  wisdom 
and  intellectual  labour,  but  as  a  power  pressing  in  upon 
the  soul  with  irresistible  might.  Only  those  who  frankly 
acknowledge  this  can  be  historically  just  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  this  religion,  too,  like  everything 
that  the  world  produces,  stands  in  close  relation  to  the  laws 
of  development.  It  is  not  to  be  explained,  it  is  true,  by 
historical  relations  alone,  but  it  presupposes  historical  con- 
ditions,  and  is   itself  conformable  to  historical    laws.      The 


IIISTOPJCAL  DEVELOPMENT.  55 

Old  Testament  itself  represents  such  historical  conditions  as 
given  to  Abraham  in  the  religion  of  the  Semites,  and  to 
Moses  in  the  worship  of  the  God  of  his  fathers.  And 
although,  from  the  character  of  the  sources,  it  is  only  an 
imperfect  picture  of  these  conditions  that  we  can  now  obtain, 
that  does  not  make  the  fact  of  their  existence  a  whit  less 
certain. 

The  religion  of  Israel  itself  shows  its  historical  development 
quite  plainly.  It  did  not  reject  the  spiritual  inheritance 
of  the  Hebrew  people ;  it  appropriated  it,  but  not  without 
leaving  traces  discernible  to  the  trained  eye,  of  what  that 
inheritance  would  have  been  without  it.^  In  the  course  of 
its  development,  it  adopted  as  raw  material,  popular  customs, 
festivals,  legends,  and  even  mythical  presentations ;  and,  in 
fact,  it  may  in  this  way  have  incorporated  even  what  was 
non-Israelitish.  It  did  not,  as  with  the  touch  of  a  magician's 
wand,  change  into  a  perfect  morality  the  moral  views  then 
characteristic  of  Eastern,  and  specially  of  Bedouin  life,  but 
it  influenced  and  purified  them  from  within.  This  it  could 
not  do  without  having  to  put  up  for  a  long  time,  "  because 
of  the  people's  hardness  of  heart,"  with  many  things  which 
did  not  agree  with  its  real  character  and  principles,  as,  for 
example,  the  avenging  of  blood,  slavery,  polygamy,  and  the 
imperfect  morality  which  consequently  characterised  married 
life.  It  gave  further  organic  development  to  national 
figures ;  for  example,  it  did  not  directly  transform  the 
soothsayer  into  a  purely  spiritual  prophet  of  God,  but 
it  gradually  set  prophecy  free  from  its  natural  environ- 
ment of  dream-interpretation  and  soothsaying,  and  led  it 
onwards  to  its  highest  height.  But  while  it  thus  advanced 
step  by  step  according  to  historical  laws,  it  was  only  in 
Christ  that  it  rose  to  a  perfect  consciousness  of  its  true 
essence. 

2.  In  Biblical  religion  there  is  but  one  fundamental  principle. 
1  E.g.  Gen.  vi.  1-3,  xxxii.  25  ff. 


56  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

It  is  in  every  respect  the  same  in  the  Old  Testament  as  in 
the  New.  Nor  can  any  rinprejudiced  observer  have  diffi- 
culty in  finding  it  out,  however  certain  it  is  that  it  took  the 
people  of  Israel  centuries  to  make  up  their  minds  about  it. 
All  the  stories  of  this  religion  have  reference  to  the  fact  that 
the  perfect  spiritual  God  wishes  in  love  to  realise  His  holy 
will  in  communion  with  man.  These  narratives,  therefore, 
refer  to  a  loving  communion  of  the  people  with  a  God  who  is 
self-communicative,  and  whose  object  it  is,  through,  and  in 
spite  of  human  sin,  in  other  words,  by  redemption  and  recon- 
ciliation, to  produce  a  divine  life,  to  set  up  a  kingdom  of  God. 
Hence  the  history  of  this  religion  is  the  history  of  the  king- 
dom of  God,  of  redemption  and  reconciliation.  Even  sacred 
legend  has  no  other  centre.  In  this  religion,  wisdom  is  know- 
ledge of  the  way  of  life,  in  which  the  divine  life  is  found, 
in  other  words,  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  the  kingdom  of 
God.  The  institutions,  statutes,  and  laws  of  this  religion 
are  intended  to  give  expression  to  the  divine  life  which  in 
spite  of  sin  has  been  restored  to  man.  The  poetry  of  the 
Old  Testament  is  joy  over  a  life  of  communion  with  God 
the  Eedeemer,  or  sorrow  for  its  loss,  or  a  longing  after  it. 
Prophecy  is  the  outlook  for  a  perfect  kingdom  of  God. 
Even  doubts  and  struggles  revolve  around  this  centre.  In 
short,  the  fundamental  thought  of  Biblical  religion  is  the 
kingdom  of  God,  the  realisation  of  the  perfect  divine  life 
as  a  redeeming  and  reconciling  factor  in  human  life.  And, 
in  truth,  this  is  no  empty  fantastic  enthusiasm  for  an 
imaginary  ideal  of  salvation,  but  the  joyful  certainty  of  a 
historical  salvation  actually  present  and  accessible  to  experi- 
ence, in  the  definite  and  actual  features  of  which  the  full 
contents  of  the  ideal  are  at  once  directly  and  indirectly 
included. 

3.  It  still  remains  for  us  to  answer  the  question.  What 
relation  on  this  theory  of  their  inner  unity  do  the  two  Testa- 
ments bear  to  each  other  ?     It  would  be  a  simple  matter 


OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT.  57 

to  put  their  two  religions,  according  to  the  view  of  the 
early  Church,  on  absolutely  the  same  level,  or,  at  least,  to 
see  in  Christianity  nothing  more  than  an  essentially  natural 
completion  of  the  Old  Testament  religion.  But  such  pro- 
cedure would  be  contrary  to  fact.  Since  the  essence  of  this 
religion  is  not  a  theoretical  knowledge  of  God  and  of  divine 
thinofs,  but  a  salvation  that  moulds  human  life,  and  finds 
expression  in  it,  then,  as  soon  as  this  salvation  is  realised  in 
a  human  personality,  as  soon  as  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
established  in  its  true  form,  an  entirely  new  stage  of  religious 
development  must  begin.  In  comparison  with  this  stage  of 
full  and  complete  salvation,  the  previous  stage  must  seem  like 
a  type  or  a  passing  shadow.  Whoever  really  sees  in  Jesus 
the  complete  revelation  of  tlie  Divine  Spirit  in  human  life, 
and  in  His  followers  the  citizens  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  for 
him  Jesus  is  also  He  who  alone  has  seen  God,  and  Christi- 
anity something  absolutely  new.  Only  where  special  import- 
ance was  attached  to  a  theoretical  knowledge  of  supernatural 
things  was  it  possible  to  imagine  that  the  "  secret "  of 
Christianity,  viz.  that  incarnation  of  the  living  God  which  is 
characteristic  of  the  Christian  stage  of  religion,  would  be 
found  already  revealed  in  the  Old  Testament.^  In  a  really 
historical  development,  knowledge  and  life  never  stand 
unrelated.  The  absolutely  unique  character  of  the  religiuus 
position  of  Jesus  is  not  sufficiently  recognised  by  those  who 
regard  Christianity  as  having  simply  developed  out  of  the 
Old  Testament  in  much  the  same  sense  as  the  prophetic 
view  of  religion  grew  up  within  the  Old  Testament  itself  out 
of  the  old  Mosaic  view. 

^  That  is  the  defect  of  thoroughgoing  supernatural  ism,  which  sees  the  doctrines 
of  revelation  everywhere,  and  of  Sociuianisni  as  well,  regarding  which,  in  this 
relation,  cf.  Diestel,  Jahrbilcher  filr  deiitsche  Theologk,  vol.  vii.  4,  p.  709  ff. 
In  modern  times  Hengstenberg  is  its  most  prominent  advocate.  As  against 
hira,  the  arguments  of  v.  Hofmann  are  generally  marked  by  a  sound  regard  for 
the  essence  of  religion.  The  followers  of  Cocceius  weie  prevented  by  their 
arbitrary  exegesis  and  their  unscientific  typology  from  reaping  the  full  advant- 
age of  the  true  views  of  history  which  are  implied  in  the  federal  theolog}\ 


58  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

The  Old  Testament  religion  is  the  religion  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  in  the  process  of  growth,  this  kingdom  being  still 
confined  within  the  bounds  of  a  political  community,  that  is, 
restricted  to  a  single  nation.  In  this  religion  the  divine  life 
is  primarily  expressed  in  form  and  type,  in  other  words,  in  an 
external  and  therefore  transitory  fasliion,  and  the  divine  will  is 
still  primarily  presented  to  the  human  heart  as  a  mere  ideal,  in 
other  words,  essentially  as  duty,  as  law.  In  this  religion  the 
true  realisation  among  men  of  the  divine  will  is  only  hoped 
for,  and  is  therefore  represented  as  essentially  an  object  of 
prophecy,  and  the  separation  between  the  divine  and  the 
human,  present  in  heathenism,  but  not  felt,  is  consciously 
experienced,  but  still  continues  as  something  to  be  done  away 
with.  It  is  the  religion  of  the  holy  people,  of  holy  forms,  of 
law,  of  prophecy,  and  of  the  fear  of  God.  Christianity  is  the 
religion  of  the  perfected  kingdom  of  God  in  which  the  divine 
life  has  been  personally  and  spiritually,  and  therefore  as 
regards  all  human  development,  permanently  expressed  in 
human  life.  Consequently  it  has  become  the  moving  spirit 
of  a  human  development,  and  therefore  works  in  the  individual 
as  an  inward  impulse,  as  a  new  vital  force.  Its  perfect 
growth  is  no  longer  something  merely  hoped  for,  but  is  apj)re- 
hended  as  belonging  as  much  to  the  present  as  to  the  future, 
and  is  therefore  an  object  of  faith,  and  heathenism  and  the 
Old  Testament,  with  their  separation  of  the  divine  and  the 
human,  are  simultaneously  done  away  with.  It  is  the 
religion  of  incarnation,  therefore  of  everlasting  reconciliation 
and  of  humanity — the  religion  of  the  spirit  and  of  love, 
and  tlierefore  of  true  redemption — of  faith  and  sonship. 
The  kingdom  of  God,  which  was  first  embodied  in  the 
Old  Testament  under  the  imperfect  outward  form  of  a 
State  life,  and  was  next,  through  deeper  insight  into  its 
essence,  transformed  into  an  ideal  hope,  is  in  Christianity 
realised  in  the  person  of  Jesus  and  the  influences  that  radiate 
from    Him,  although    as    a  spiritual    force    in  the  w^orld  of 


OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT.  59 

phenomena  it  is  still  continually  engaged  in  seeking  after 
its  pure  expression,  and  thus  reaches  out  towards  the  eternal 
world. 

Hence  the  old  saying,  "  The  Old  Testament  is  patent  in  the 
New,  the  New  is  latent  in  the  Old,"  ^  is  false  if  taken  to 
mean  that  the  New  Testament  religion  is  already  present  in 
the  Old  Testament  as  esoteric  teaching.  But  it  is  correct  if 
it  be  understood  as  meaning  that  the  germinal  principles  of 
the  Christian  salvation  are  present  in  the  Old  Testament  in 
various  forms  as  yet  incomplete  and  undefined,  and  that  only 
in  the  New  Testament  does  the  Old  Testament  salvation  attain 
its  eternal  and  truly  saving  significance.  In  both  religions 
there  is  an  inner  unity  of  life,  an  unfolding  of  the  same 
power.  No  New  Testament  form  of  salvation  is  intelligible 
without  the  Old  Testament  form.  But  no  Old  Testament 
form  of  salvation,  as  such,  is  already  Christian,  but  every  one 
of  them  becomes  so  when  in  the  light  of  the  new  spirit  it  has 
a  new  illumination  thrown  upon  it.  It  is  therefore  perfectly 
clear  that  no  one  can  expound  New  Testament  theology 
without  a  thorough  knowledge  of  Old  Testament  theology. 
But  it  is  no  less  true  that  one  who  does  not  thoroughly 
understand  New  Testament  theology  cannot  have  anything 
but  a  one-sided  view  of  Old  Testament  theology.  He  who 
does  not  know  the  destination  will  fail  to  understand  many 
a  bend  in  the  road.  For  him  who  has  not  seen  the  fruit, 
much,  both  in  bud  and  blossom,  will  always  remain  a 
riddle. 

4.  The  line  of  demarcation  between  Old  Testament  and 
New  Testament  theology  is  easily  drawn.  The  sphere  of  the 
former  is  wherever  there  is  manifested  in  the  pre-Christian 
religion  a  creative  spirit  conscious  of  itself  and  showing  a 
spirit  of  uniform  advance.      Its  task  is  done  as  soon  as  this 

^  Cf.  Auf^ustine,  De  cafechiz.  rudibus  iv.  8  in  vetere  iestamento  est  occultatio 
novi,  ill  novo  festajntnto  est  maniftslatio  ceteris.  Cf.  Contr.  Faust,  xv.  2. 
Enarr.  in  Ps.  Ixxxiv.  4. 


60  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Spirit  ceases,  as  soon  as  foreign  influences  begin  to  predominate, 
or  the  scribes'  method  of  treating  the  Old  Testament  religion 
as  already  complete  gets  the  upper  hand.  Whatever  from 
this  point  onwards  is  either  new  or  peculiar  belongs  to 
the  Introduction  to  New  Testament  theology,  which  has  to 
describe  the  religious  conditions  in  the  midst  of  which 
Christianity  appeared.  Hence  we  may  briefly  describe  as 
the  boundary  line  of  Old  Testament  theology  the  founding 
of  the  hierarchical  State  after  the  Maccabean  struggles. 
Up  to  that  time  the  spirit  of  the  old  religion  was  always 
giving  signs  of  life,  at  least  in  individuals.  Unity  was,  it  is 
true,  gradually  crumbling  away,  but  outwardly,  at  any  rate, 
it  was  still  preserved.  But  under  the  Asmonrean  dynasty, 
Pharisee,  Sadducee,  and  Essene  stand  side  by  side,  exposed 
to  Palestinian,  Grecian,  and  Oriental  influences.  The  scribes, 
now  at  the  zenith  of  their  power,  are  supreme.  The  Old 
Testament  religion  has  become  a  sacred  literature  absolutely 
complete  and  inviolable.  Any  further  development  is  merely 
a  stage  of  Judaism  based  on  the  completed  Old  Testament 
religion.  It  is  of  use  only  in  a  very  few  points  where  some 
suggestive  additions  have  been  made;  but  even  these  are  to 
be  regarded  solely  as  appendices,  and  not  as  strictly  belonging 
to  our  present  task. 


CHAPTER  V. 

PEEIODS  AND  SOUECES  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

1.  As  periods  in  the  pre-Christian  development  of  the 
religion  of  Israel,  the  following  would  naturally  commend 
themselves  : — 

I.  From  Adam  to  Moses,  Patriarchal  period. 
II.  From  Moses  to  Samuel-David,  time  of  the  first  un- 
altered form  of  the  Theocratic  State,  Mosaic  period. 


PERIODS  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY.  61 

III.  From    Samuel-David    to  the   decline   of    the   divided 

kingdoms,    that    is    to    say,    till    about   B.C.    800, 

Time  of  the  religion  of  the  monarchy,  Theocratic 

period. 

IV.  From  B.C.  800   to  the  rebuilding  of   Jerusalem  by 

Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  Prophetic  period. 
V.  From  Ezra  to  the  Asmonnean  princes,  Hierarchical 
period  of  Priestly  Legislation. 
These  periods,  however,  cannot  hold  their  ground  against 
a  real  attempt  at  historical  presentation.  To  begin  with,  the 
first  of  them  proves  utterly  useless  for  our  purpose.  Not 
that  we  doubt  that  the  people  of  Israel  had  a  real  national 
life  even  before  Moses,  perhaps  one  not  without  recollections 
of  national  glory,  or  that  when  Moses  appeared,  the  better 
among  the  people  already  had  a  religion  which  could  serve 
as  the  basis  of  the  Mosaic,  and  the  main  features  of  which 
were  retained  in  Mosaism.  Indeed  we  may  confidently 
{issume  that  this  was  the  case.  Otherwise  Moses  could 
never  have  gathered  a  whole  down-trodden  people  around 
the  standard  of  his  newly  -  revealed  religion,  or  have  suc- 
ceeded, in  spite  of  the  Egyptians,  in  evoking  such  popular 
enthusiasm  for  it.  How  different  it  was  with  Mohammed, 
who  had  to  fight  a  life-long  battle  with  his  own  people  and 
his  own  tribe  before  the  Arabian  nation  was  roused  to 
enthusiasm  for  Mohammedanism.  And  yet  his  work  also 
was  rendered  possible  only  by  the  fact  that  among  wide 
circles  of  his  own  kindred  similar  aspirations  after  a  purer 
religion  had  made  their  influence  felt.  In  fact,  within  his 
own  nation,  besides  himself  and  partly  also  in  opposition 
to  him,  there  arose  quite  a  number  of  prophet-preachers.^ 
Pastoral  peoples,  with  their  strong  attachment  to  what  is 
inherited,  never  adopt  a  religion  unanimously  without  demur, 
unless  it  is  in  all  essential  points  in  strict  accordance  with 

^  Let  the  reader  tliink  of  Waraka,  Umaj'a  from  Taif,  Abu  Amir  from  Medina, 
and  the  Prophets  Tulaiha,  Musailima,  Al-AswuJ. 


62  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

ancestral  tradition,  or  at  least  in  sympathy  with  long  acknow- 
ledged aspirations. 

But  for  giving  any  information  about  the  religious  character 
of  that  age  beyond  tlie  merest  generalities,  our  original 
sources  are  absolutely  insufficient.  It  is  only  througli 
popular  legend  that  we  can  get  an  idea  of  the  pre-Mosaic 
age ;  and  this,  of  course,  so  far  as  its  religious  contents  are 
concerned,  bears  the  stamp  of  the  times  in  which  it  grew  up. 
Stories,  which  were  committed  to  writing  at  the  earliest  about 
the  time  of  Samuel,  can  give  us  no  real  information  about 
the  religious  circumstances  of  the  times  of  Abraham  and 
Jacob.  They  can  only  show  us  what  ideas  of  these  times 
were  prevalent  among  the  people  of  Moses'  day.  It  cannot 
therefore  be  right  to  speak  of  a  period  of  pre-Mosaic  religion. 
We  can  only  say  in  what  light  Israel  was  wont  to  look  at 
the  religious  circumstances  of  its  earliest  age.  No  original 
authorities  for  the  period  before  Moses  have  come  down  to  us. 
We  can  do  nothing  more  than  draw  inferences  from  the 
national  legends  we  have,  and  from  any  fragments  of  myth 
and  of  ancient  customs  that  remain. 

2.  Nor  can  it  be  said  that  there  is  a  literature  of  Israel 
dating  from  the  age  of  Moses  and  Joshua.  The  oldest 
pieces  of  literature  in  our  possession  are,  no  doubt,  songs  and 
popular  stories  which  have  been  carefully  woven  into  our 
present  large  histories.  Whether  many  of  these  were  already 
consecutive  writings  cannot  be  determined  with  certainty. 
Only  the  mention  of  the  "  book  of  the  Wars  of  Jehovah  " 
(Num.  xxi.  14)  and  of  the  "book  of  the  Upright"  (Josh. 
X.  13  ;  2  Sam.  i.  18),  proves  that  there  had  once  existed  old 
collections  of  songs  in  which  were  celebrated  the  memorable 
epochs  and  the  principal  heroes  of  the  nation's  religious  wars. 
But  the  last-named  book  could  not  have  been  compiled  till 
after  the  time  of  David.  On  the  other  hand,  the  song  of 
Deborah  and  the  main  document  in  Judg.  vi.-xvi.  point 
to  the  existence  of  trustworthy  tradition  among  the  people 


AUTHOPJTIES  FOR  MOSAIC  PERIOD.  63 

from  the  time  of  the  Judges  onwards.  Ex.  xv,  and  Gen. 
xlix.  also  date  from  the  beginning  of  the  kingly  period. 
The  original  sources  of  the  Pentateuch  as  they  have  come 
down  to  ns,  especially  B,  suggest  a  tolerably  long  peiiod 
of  previous  literary  activity.  But  of  really  consecutive 
writings,  we  undoubtedly  possess  nothing  that  can  be  older 
than  the  time  of  David. 

None  of  the  more  detailed  works  of  history  are  earlier 
than  the  time  of  the  Kings.  And  though  they  were  certainly 
intended  to  reproduce  the  character  of  the  olden  time  as 
faithfully  as  the  ancient  method  of  writing  history  admits 
of  our  supposing,  they  do  not  enable  us  to  distinguish  clearly 
in  matters  of  details  between  the  circumstances  of  that  olden 
time  and  those  of  the  historian's  own  day.  Accordingly,  if 
we  take  only  what  goes  back  with  absolute  certainty  to  the 
time  of  Moses,  nothing  remains  but  a  very  small  fragment. 
On  the  other  hand,  were  we  without  more  ado  to  treat 
everything  that  might  possibly  belong  to  the  Mosaic  period 
as  really  belonging  to  it,  our  picture  would  lose  all  historical 
value.  Hence  our  only  task  at  this  point  is  to  determine 
what  results  of  historical  development  down  to  the  eighth 
century  can  be  clearly  established,  without  attempting  a 
complete  presentation  of  Old  Testament  religion  for  the 
"  period  before  Samuel."  It  would  be  vain  to  attempt  a 
continuous  sketch  of  the  development  of  religion  between 
the  time  of  Moses  and  the  building  of  the  temple.  Speaking 
generally,  therefore,  we  describe  as  the  first  period  the  whole 
time  down  to  the  decline  of  the  divided  kingdoms,  that  is,  to 
about  800  B.C.  This  we  call  the  Mosaic  period  or  Mosaism, 
because  we  are  convinced  that  its  moral  and  religious 
foundations  rest  on  the  work  accomplished  by  Moses  in 
founding  the  nation.  But  in  this  we  purposely  include 
whatever  was  built  upon  these  foundations  during  the  time 
of  the  Judges,  and  specially  since  the  time  of  David. 

As   authorities    for    the    time    of    David,    the   "  Davidic " 


64  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Psalms  would  naturally  take  the  first  rank.  But  tlie  more 
closely  they  are  examined,  the  stronger  becomes  the  feeling 
that  by  far  the  largest  number  of  the  sacred  songs  which 
tradition  has  assigned  to  the  great  king  date  from  a  very 
much  later  age,  and  that  perhaps  only  Ps.  xviii.  can  be 
ascribed  to  him  with  anything  like  absolute  certainty.  Next 
to  it  come  such  songs  as  2  Sam.  i.  19-27,  iii.  33,  xxiii.  1-8 
(xii.  1-5).  In  the  period  from  Solomon  to  the  eighth 
century,  original  sources  have  reached  us  in  greater 
numbers.  Certainly  it  will  continue  a  moot  point  whether  the 
main  section  of  Proverbs  (x.-xxii.  16)  goes  back  as  far  as 
Solomon's  time,  but  it  must  have  been  in  existence  before 
the  eighth  century.  Canticles  was  undoubtedly  composed 
in  the  northern  kingdom  not  very  long  after  Solomon's  day. 
The  book  of  the  twelve  Judges  in  its  old  form,  and  several 
songs,  point  to  this  era,  e.g.  Ps.  viii.,  xixa.,  xxix.,  and  1  Sam. 
ii.  1-10,  which  is,  we  may  be  sure,  an  old  royalist  song. 

But  the  most  important  sources  are  the  older  books,  which 
are  worked  up  into  our  present  Pentateuch.  Not  only  must 
the  collection  of  Laws  in  Ex.  xxi.-xxiii.  be  older  than  the 
year  800  B.C.,  but  a  much  larger  part  of  the  Pentateuch. 
Side  by  side  with  the  priestly  document  A,^  of  which  we 
shall  speak  later  on,  there  runs  right  through  Genesis  a 
narrative  which  uses  the  Divine  name  "  Jehovah "  even 
for  patriarchal  times,  and  which  was  therefore  called 
the  book  of  the  Jehovist ;  by  Ewald,  the  Fourth  Narrator 
of  the  Primitive  History.  We  denote  this  writer  by  B. 
Like  the  prophets,  he  is  fond  of  connecting  even  the 
beginnings  of  the  human  race  with  the  mission  of  Israel. 
His  style  is  richer  than  that  of  A,  his  aim  much  more 
definitely  religious.  He  represents  the  patriarchal  view 
of  God  as  more  akin  to  the  later  religion  of  Israel,  because 

'  The  symbols  A,  B,  C  refer  simply  to  the  sequence  in  which  the  sources 
meet  us  in  our  present  book,  and  do  not  imply  any  judgment  as  to  the  time 
at  which  they  severally  came  into  existence. 


AUTHORITIES  FOR  MOSAIC  PERIOD.  65 

he  does  not  of  set  purpose  keep  his  eye  on  the  gradual 
growth  of  Israel's  legal  and  moral  peculiarities.  His  work  is 
pervaded  by  a  much  stronger  and  more  direct  religious  spirit, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  it  takes  advantage  much  more  freely  of 
the  highly-coloured  and  wonderfully-varied  store  of  legends 
current  among  the  people. 

Most  critics  nowadays  would  bring  this  book  down  to 
the  eighth  century,  as  well  on  account  of  its  diction  and  its 
mode  of  looking  at  things,  as  because  Assyria  is  mentioned  in 
it  in  a  way  that  is  only  to  be  explained  by  the  circumstances 
of  this  era.  I  cannot  adopt  this  opinion,  and  must  acknow- 
ledG;e  that  I  still  a^ree  with  Tuch  in  his  view  of  the  book. 
For  the  religious  horizon  is  not  so  wide,  nor  the  religious 
diction  by  any  means  so  full,  as  is  the  case  even  in  Hosea, 
nor  is  the  glance  into  the  nearer  future  anything  like  so 
penetrating.  Above  all,  there  is  nowhere  to  be  found  in 
the  book  any  definite  reference  to  the  hopes  of  the  Davidic 
dynasty,  nor  is  any  attention  paid  to  Zion  as  the  central 
sanctuary.  The  holy  places  of  Israel,  against  the  worship  at 
which  Amos  and  Hosea  are  already  fighting  with  passionate 
zeal,  are,  to  this  historian,  objects  of  perfectly  unembarrassed 
joy  and  admiration.  Neither  is  it  quite  certain  that  the 
mention  of  Assyria,  in  the  very  passage  where  it  is  most 
striking  (Num.  xxiv.  24  f.),  belongs  to  B.  It  is  more  likely  to 
have  been  inserted  by  the  last  editor.  But  even  if  it  were 
B's,  and  Gen.  ii.  14  as  well,  nevertheless  the  two  together 
would  not  be  conclusive  proof  against  a  very  early  origin  of 
the  book.  Tor  the  idea  that  Assyria  first  became  known  in 
Western  Asia  through  Tiglath-Pileser,  is  a  false  assumption. 
According  to  the  inscriptions  of  the  Assyrian  kings,  it  is  much 
more  probable  that  Israel  was  already  tributary  to  Assyria  in 
Jehu's  reign.  At  any  rate,  it  would  require  no  very  intimate 
acquaintance  with  foreign  lands  to  know  the  most  warlike 
j)eople  in  Asia,  whose  power  dates  back  to  the  fourteenth 
century  B.C.,  even  though  it  had  not  yet  invaded  Palestine. 

VOL.  I.  E 


66  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

There  is  no  allusion  in  B  to  the  division  of  the  kingdom  after 
Solomon,  or  to  the  feud  between  Judali  and  Ephraim ;  and 
even  the  reference  in  xxii.  2  to  the  temple  hill,  Moriah,  is 
certainly  foreign  to  the  original  narrative,  and  belongs  to  a 
later  form  of  text.  Indeed,  it  appears  to  me  so  certain  that 
Micah  vi.  2,  3,  4,  5,  8,  vii.  17;  Amos  ii.  10,  iii.  1,  iv.  11, 
V.  25  ;  Hos.  xi.  8,  xii.  4,  5  f.  ;^  Isa.  vii.  14,  xxxii.  9  (of.  Gen. 
iv.  23),  refer  not  merely  to  the  subject-matter  of  B's  legends, 
but  to  his  very  words,  that  the  book  must,  on  this  account 
alone,  be  considered  earlier  than  the  eighth  century.  Prov. 
iii.  18,  xi.  30,  xiii.  12,  xv.  7,  show  acquaintance  with  the 
story  of  Gen.  iii. ;  and  1  Kings  xix.  with  Ex.  xxxiv.  Hence 
I  believe  the  book  should  be  assigned  to  the  time  of  Solomon, 
a  period  admirably  in  keeping  with  the  brilliant  colouring  of 
its  early  legends,  its  wide  knowledge  both  of  history  and 
geography,  and  its  strong  national  feeling.  That  there  existed 
from  of  old  a  definite  "law  of  God,"  and  a  regular  ritual  in 
connection  with  the  worship  of  Jehovah,  is  clearly  proved 
from  the  way  in  which  the  oldest  prophets  of  the  pre-Assyrian 
time  take  these  for  granted  as  regards  both  Judah  and  Israel 
(Amos  ii.  4;  Hos.  viii.  1,  12). 

Side  by  side  with  A  and  B  there  is  found,  in  the  second 
part  of  Genesis  and  in  the  following  books,  a  considerable 
number  of  stories  which  were  formerly  attributed  to  A,  because 
they  generally  employ  the  divine  name  "  Elohim,"  or  else  were 
regarded  as  extracts  from  A  revised  by  B.  On  closer  examina- 
tion it  was  seen  that  the  linguistic  character  of  these  passages 
has  no  affinity  at  all  with  A,  but  a  very  close  affinity  indeed 
with  B ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  it  has  peculiarities  enough  of 
its  own,  apart  from  the  use  of  the  divine  name,  to  warrant  our 
inferring  the  existence  of  a  separate  document.  Its  author  is 
particularly  fond  of  describing  the  place  of  Israel  among  the 

^  Although  Hosea  still  read  these  stories  in  a  more  sensuous  and  naive  form, 
in  other  words,  was  probably  acquainted  with  an  earlier  form  of  the  book  than 
ours  (the  angel  of  God  "  weeps  "). 


AUTHORITIES  FOE  MOSAIC  PERIOD.  67 

nations  of  the  world,  its  treaties  and  commercial  relations ; 
and  in  Genesis  the  dream  is  a  specially  prominent  feature  of 
his  narrative.  Those  who  acknowledge  the  peculiarities  of  this 
writer  generally  consider  him  somewhat  earlier  than  B  and 
independent  of  him.  I  myself,  on  the  contrary,  am  convinced 
that  this  writer,  whom  I  call  C,  is  later  than  B.  He  specially 
enriched  the  records  of  Israel  with  additions  from  original 
sources  belonging  to  the  northern  tribes.  Even  if  one  assumes, 
with  Wellhausen,  that  this  writer  is  to  he  considered  as  origin- 
ally independent  of  B,  his  book  and  B's  were,  at  any  rate, 
very  closely  connected  long  before  A's  was  added  to  their 
combined  work.  It  is  C  whom  we  have  to  thank  for  pre- 
serving the  old  material  which  now  lies  before  us  in  a  revised 
form  as  "The  Book  of  the  Covenant"  (Ex.  xix.  ff ).  The 
document  of  C,  I  am  inclined  to  assign  to  the  end  of  the 
Mosaic  period.  It  is  certain  that  Ex.  ii.  21,  22  is  already 
imitated  in  Judg.  xvii.  7,  8,  11.  In  consequence  of  the 
peculiar  interweaving  with  B,  C's  handiwork  can  seldom  be 
found  unaltered  in  Genesis,  but  is  so  oftener  in  Exodus. 
Still  where  the  two  are  combined,  especially  in  the  stories 
about  Israel  and  Joseph,  that  is,  where  the  legends  of  the 
northern  kingdom,  to  which  he  undoubtedly  belonged,  are 
being  dealt  with,  C  is  the  leading  authority  all  through. 

3.  Against  the  fourth  period  mentioned  above,  no  valid 
objection  can  be  brought.  Prophets  of  conspicuous  ability 
were  certainly  at  work  in  Israel  long  before  the  eighth 
century.  But  the  collapse  of  the  first  glorious  realisation 
of  the  theocratic  State,  and  the  visible  proof  of  the  world's 
superior  strength,  afforded  by  the  ever-increasing  pressure  of 
the  Asiatic  empire  on  divided  Israel,  necessarily  caused  a 
great  change  in  the  religious  situation.  There  could  not  but 
arise  quite  new  fears,  hopes,  and  aims.  And  the  prophets, 
in  their  new  role  as  teachers  of  religion  and  as  writers, 
were,  at  this  stage,  unquestionably  the  guiding  spirits  that 
determined   the   new   direction   which   religion   took.       Con- 


68  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

sequently  we  have  a  new  era  to  deal  with  ;  and  a  long  and 
trustworthy  series  of  authorities  of  the  first  rank  gives  us  tlie 
certainty  of  being  able  to  obtain  an  accurate  picture  of  it. 
In  fact,  this  period  is,  if  we  may  so  speak,  the  centre  of 
gravity  of  our  whole  structure. 

On  one  point  only  could  there  be  any  doubt,  viz.  as  to 
whether,  when  determining  the  limits  between  this  period  and 
a  later,  one  should  not  consider  the  Babylonian  exile  as  its 
natural  end.  So  thought  de  Wette,  v.  Colin,  and  Baumgarten- 
Crusius,  the  last  cleverly  applying  the  names,  Hebrews, 
Israelites,  and  Jews,  to  those  who  lived  respectively  during  the 
period  of  Mosaism,  the  era  of  the  prophets,  and  the  post- 
exilic  age.  It  had  long  been  so  much  the  custom  to  speak 
of  the  influences  of  the  Exile  upon  the  religion  of  Israel, 
that  everything  post-exilic  was  looked  on  as  a  whole, — a 
view  of  the  history  of  Israel  certainly  in  many  respects 
correct,  for  Ivuenen,  Wellhausen,  and  others  have  rightly  laid 
stress  on  the  fact  that  after  Ezekiel  and  the  priestly  legisla- 
tion a  change  begins  to  come  over  the  whole  view  of  the 
community  regarding  religion  and  morals.  But  it  is  just 
during  the  exile  that  not  only  the  legislative  activit}'" 
directed  to  the  sacred  ritual,  but  also  the  development 
brought  about  by  the  great  prophets,  attains  its  most  inward 
and  characteristic  form.  Besides,  the  spiritualising  of  the 
ancestral  religion  was  nowhere  so  thoroughly  carried  out  in 
the  prophetic  spirit  as  in  the  literature  at  the  close  of  the 
Exile.  In  like  manner,  although  prophecy  by  this  time  was 
beginning  to  lose  its  true  freedom  and  vigour,  the  community 
which  commenced  to  rebuild  the  city  was  still  strongly  per- 
meated with  the  prophetic  spirit  (Zech.  vii.  8  ft),  while  visible 
proofs  of  foreign  influence  were  as  yet  quite  inconsiderable. 
But  the  situation  became  wholly  changed  when  at  the  second 
immigration  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  succeeded,  though  not  with- 
out violent  opposition,  in  setting  up  a  legally  constituted 
hierarchical    State.       A    very    strong    bent    was   then    given 


AUTHORITIES  FOR  PROPHETIC  PERIOD.  69 

to  the  reHgious  spirit  in  Israel,  which  dominated  its  whole 
future.  Accordingly,  we  reckon  the  second  period  as  lasting 
to  the  re-establishment  of  the  State  under  Ezra-Nehemiah. 
This  we  call  the  prophetic  period.  It  is  the  most  brilliant 
era  in  the  religion  of  Israel. 

The  period  from  800-459  B.C.  falls  according  to  its 
'religious  development  into  the  following  smaller  divisions. 
First  we  have  the  time  during  which  Assyria,  showing  itself 
at  the  outset  in  the  far  distance,  comes  always  nearer  and 
nearer,  and  at  last  forms  the  determining  factor  in  Israel's 
destiny,  till  it  is  hurled  from  the  summit  of  its  power  by  the 
invading  Medes  and  Chaldeans,  and  is  in  a  short  time  utterly 
blotted  out  from  the  roll  of  nations.  This  division  from  800 
B.C.  to  about  630  B.C.,  when  the  decisive  attack  on  Nineveh 
began,  we  call  the  Assyrian  period.  Then  the  Chaldean 
empire  in  Babylon  steps  into  the  foreground  of  history. 
Leagued  with  the  Medes,  it  overthrows  Nineveh,  destroys 
the  last  remnants  of  independence  in  Israel,  and  carries  the 
people  off  into  captivity.  The  short  time  during  which  this 
empire  flourished  before  harbingers  of  its  speedy  fall  began 
to  appear,  that  is,  from  630  till  about  5  60,  forms  the 
Chaldean  period. 

Finally,  with  the  first  dawning  hope  of  rescue  through  the 
rise  of  the  Medo-Persian  empire  a  new  life  began  in  Israel. 
Ere  long  the  tyrant's  citadel  is  stormed ;  permission  to  return 
is  granted ;  a  colony  of  godly  men,  with  Zerubbabel  a  son 
of  David,  and  Joshua  the  high  priest,  at  their  head,  return 
home,  rebuild  the  holy  city,  and  commence,  under  Persian 
suzerainty,  a  new,  distinctive  social  life,  although  with  little 
prospect  of  real  success,  till  with  the  arrival  of  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah  new  forces  come  into  play.  This  period,  from  the 
decline  of  the  Babylonian  power  till  Ezra  (560—460  B.C.), 
forms  the  Persian  period  of  the  epoch  under  consideration. 
We  have  now  to  point  out  the  various  original  authorities  for 
each  of  these  three  periods. 


70  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

(a)  800-630  B.C.  The  great  prophets  of  the  eighth 
century  refer  to  an  older  literature,  which,  like  Isa.  xv.  and 
xvi.,  probably  belongs  to  the  ninth  century.  But  for  the 
history  of  religion  these  sources  are  of  little  importance. 
The  book  of  Joel  would  be  of  greater  weight  did  it  date, 
as  I  myself,  like  most  theologians,  formerly  supposed,  from 
the  ninth  century.  But  although  I  do  not  consider  that  the 
reasons  in  favour  of  this  opinion  have  been  conclusively 
refuted,  I  must,  in  deference  to  Hilgenfeld,  Merx,  Duhm, 
Stade,  and  Oort,  confess  that  it  would  not  be  right  to  use  this 
book  for  the  earliest  period,  so  long  as  there  are  such  strong 
and  unrefuted  reasons  for  regarding  it  as  a  prophetic  work 
of  art  dating  from  the  post-exilic  age.  Hence  the  earliest 
important  source  that  we  have  is  Amos,  who  dates  from  the 
reign  of  Jeroboam  II. ;  then  Hosea,  and  the  author  of 
Zech.  ix.,  X.,  xi.,  xiii.  7  ff.,  who,  it  is  plain,  lived  during  the 
terrible  time  of  anarchy  after  Jeroboam's  death.^  During  the 
middle  part  of  this  period  Isaiah  ^  was  active  as  a  prophet 
certainly  from  740  B.C.  to  about  700  B.C.  Next  to  him 
comes  Micah,^  and  towards  the   close    of   the    same    period 

^  Certainly  this  is  vigorously  combated  by  more  recent  scholars  (cf.  especially 
Stade,  Zeitschriftf.  alttest.  Wissemchaft,  1881,  i.  96;  1882,  ii.  151,  275).  Zech. 
ix.-xiv.  is  held  to  be  the  work  of  an  author  who  must  be  regarded  as  an  imitative 
prophet  belonging  to  the  period  subsequent  to  the  death  of  Alexander.  I  frankly 
confess  that  the  mention  of  Javan  throws  a  very  heavy  weight  into  the  scale 
in  favour  of  this  view.  But  till  it  can  be  explained  how  a  Jew  in  the  days  of 
Alexander's  successors,  instead  of  jDrophesying  the  return  of  Ephraim  could  ex- 
press a  hope  that  all  the  men  of  war  in  Ephraim  might  utterly  perish, — and 
further,  how  he  could  picture  his  Messiah  on  an  ass,  like  one  of  the  ancient 
Judges  and  Kings, — and  so  long  as  recourse  must  be  had  to  arbitrary  exegesis, 
such  as  taking  the  three  shepherds  of  chap.  xi.  to  mean  imperial  powers 
(Assyria,  Babylon,  Persia),  or  explaining  the  house  of  David  by  communal 
officials  after  the  Exile  (Isa.  vii.),  or  representing  the  Canaanites  as  shepherds 
who  sell  the  people, — I  for  one  shall  hold  by  the  old  view.  To  arrange  the 
chronology  of  the  prophetical  books  according  to  a  preconceived  idea  as  to  the 
ilevelopment  of  the  Messianic  hope,  reminds  one  of  dubious  examples  of  New 
Testament  criticism. 

^  i.-xii.,  xiv.  24  to  end,  xvi.  13  to  xx.,  xxi.  11  to  xxiii.,  xxviii.  to  xxxiii. 

^  The  reasons  which  have  induced  Stade  to  deny  to  the  prophet  everything 
except  chaps,  i.-iii.,  Ewald  and  others  everything  except  i.-v.,  and  to  set  aside 
ii.  12,  13  as  a  gloss,  appear  to  me  altogether  insufficient. 


AUTHOKITIES  FOR  PKOPHETIC  PEPJOD.  71 

we  must  think  of  Nahum,  who  may  have  prophesied  some- 
where about  640  B.C.,  and  of  Zephaniah,  who  already 
hints  at  the  threatening  danger  of  Chaldean  tyranny — about 
630  B.C. 

Of  historical  pieces,  we  assign  to  this  period  the  work 
which  deals  in  a  somewhat  free  style  with  the  history  of 
David,  as  well  as  the  oldest  account  of  the  history  of  Elijah 
and  Elisha,  and,  according  to  xviii.  30,  also  the  story  in 
Judg.  xvii.  and  xviii.  As  these  books  were  re-edited  at 
a  later  date,  one  can  often  come  only  to  an  approximate 
judgment  as  to  how  they  should  be  used  in  regard  to  matters 
of  detail.  Deuteronomy  we  assign  to  the  following  period, 
because  though  it  may  have  been  written  earlier,  it  certainly 
had  no  influence  on  the  history  of  religion  till  after  its  pro- 
mulgation. It  was  during  this  period,  and  in  northern  Israel, 
that  the  song  Deut.  xxxii.  was  composed. 

Whether  the  successive  collections  of  the  book  of  Proverbs, 
and  songs  such  as  Ps.  xlvi.  and  xlviii.,  belong  to  this  age, 
cannot  be  definitely  settled.  In  like  manner  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  the  book  of  Job,  notwithstanding  much  that 
tells  in  favour  of  ascribing  it  to  this  age,  may  perhaps,  in 
view  of  its  relations  to  Jeremiah,  and  the  whole  position 
of  the  problem,  belong  to  the  later  times  of  Israel's  suffering. 

(h)  6  3  0—5  6  0  B.C.  To  the  early  part  of  this  period  we  assign 
with  confidence  the  introduction  of  Deuteronomy,  that  is,  its 
taking  effect  as  law,  and  its  combination  with  the  blessing  of 
Moses,  chap,  xxxiii.  Immediately  thereafter  Jeremiah  com- 
mences his  active  career  as  prophet.  His  writings,  from  the 
thirteenth  year  of  Josiah  onwards,  are  the  chief  original 
sources  for  all  the  first  part  of  this  period.^     As  his  younger 

■^  Jer.  XXV.  2  f.  From  the  relation  of  Jer.  xlix.  7  ff.  to  Obacliah,  the  latter 
■would  be  an  older  contemporary  of  Jeremiah.  Still,  on  the  other  hand, 
Obadiah,  if  he  belongs  at  all  to  this  age,  must  have  written  after  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem.  In  that  case  Obadiah,  like  Jeremiah,  quoted  an  older 
prophet.  Of  Jeremiah's  ■writings  the  only  parts  of  \vhicli  the  authorship  can 
be  reasonably  called  in  question  are  xxxiii.  14-26,  x.  1-16,  and  l.-lii. 


72  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

contemporaries,  we  have  the  author  of  Zech.  xii.,  xiii.  1-7, 
xiv.,  and  Habakkuk,  who  both  prophesy  immediately  before 
the  threatened  capture  of  the  city  (600  B.C.).  For  the  second 
half  of  this  period  the  chief  representative  of  prophecy  is 
Ezekiel,  who  laboured  from  about  593  B.C.  among  the  colony 
of  captives  on  the  Chebar.  As  to  the  historical  books,  the 
gradual  formation  of  the  books  of  Kings  probably  belongs  to 
this  period,  although  the  last  section  of  it  will  fall  within  the 
post-exilic  period.  Its  moralising  tone  in  dealing  with 
ancient  history,  shown,  for  example,  in  1  Kings  viii.  and  in 
many  other  passages,  points  to  the  same  conclusion  ;  the  older 
records  were  more  after  the  style  of  a  chronicle.  Pieces 
like  Isa.  xxxvi.-xxxix.  and  Jer.  lii.  cannot  have  received 
their  present  form  till  at  least  the  second  half  of  this 
period. 

But  of  still  greater  importance  are  the  parts  of  the  Penta- 
teuch literature  which  point  to  this  age.  Certainly  the  fine 
code  of  laws  (Lev.  xvii.  £f.)  dates  from  the  time  of  the  Exile, 
and  probably  also,  as  a  whole,  the  great  work  of  A,  into 
which  that  code  has  been  incorporated.  This  book  has  been 
subjected  to  such  careful  investigation,  and,  notwithstanding 
the  dispute  as  to  its  date,  there  is  such  general  agreement  as 
regards  both  its  contents  and  its  range,  among  commentators 
like  Kayser,  Noldeke,  Dillmann,  Graf,  Schrader,  Wellhausen, 
etc.,  that  I  shall  content  myself  with  a  mere  sketch  of  it, 
drawn  chiefly  from  the  work  of  the  last-named  scholar  (Jahrh. 
f.  d.  Th.  1876,  3.  4).  It  is  a  thoroughly  homogeneous  work, 
constructed  on  a  well-arranged  plan,  and  for  the  most  part 
preserved  with  such  care  by  the  editors  of  the  Pentateuch, 
that,  in  combining  it  with  the  other  books,  it  is  only  occa- 
sionally that  even  single  words  and  sentences  have  had  to 
be  sacrificed.  Its  object  was  to  bring  vividly  before  the 
reader's  mind  the  origin  of  the  sacred  customs  and  the 
religious  possessions  of  the  people.  It  therefore  begins  with 
the  God  Elohim,  who  becomes  to  the  patriarchs,  El  Schaddai, 


AUTHORITIES  FOR  PROPHETIC  PERIOD.  73 

and  to  Moses,  Jehovah,  In  the  first  place,  it  represents  the 
Sabbath  and  the  command  to  abstain  from  blood  as  sacred 
customs  originally  binding  upon  all  mankind,  and  circum- 
cision as  a  custom  common  to  the  descendants  of  Abraham. 
It  next  shows  us  in  broad  outline  how  the  sacred  institutions 
of  Israel  took  their  rise  under  Moses,  especially  the  law  of 
sacrifice  ^  in  its  most  artistic  development,  and  alyo  the  origin 
of  the  festal  year  as  based  on  the  Sabbath,  and  of  the  holy 
place,  which  is  represented  in  most  ideal  completeness  by  the 
tabernacle.  It  next  carries  us  past  the  death  of  Moses  to  the 
settlement  of  Israel  in  Canaan,  which  is  in  like  manner  repre- 
sented as  ideally  complete,  the  tribes  portioning  out  the  whole 
land  among  themselves  in  an  equitable  and  peaceful  manner. 
It  comes  to  a  close  in  the  time  of  the  Judges,  although  it 
may  originally  have  gone  farther,  or  at  least  have  been  intended 
to  go  farther.  Written  in  a  simple  lucid  style,  without  any 
special  force  or  grandeur  of  diction,  it  invariably  becomes 
diffuse  when  dealing  with  anything  that  is  important  from 
the  standpoint  of  ritual  or  of  law.  It  may  therefore  be  con- 
sidered the  work  of  a  priest. 

While  it  is  certain  that  laws  of  ritual  were  in  existence  in 
Israel  even  earlier  than  this,^  it  is  equally  certain  that  the 
arrangements  here  presupposed  were  not  known  in  the  time 
of  the  older  prophets.  Deuteronomy  has  as  little  knowledge 
of  this  book  as  B  and  C.  The  section.  Lev.  xvii.  ff.,  which  is 
incorporated  with  it,  has  an  unmistakable  similarity  to 
Ezekiel's  phraseology  and  mode  of  thought.  The  book  is 
the  work  of  a  priest  who,  undeterred  by  the  existence 
of  sanctuaries  in  Israel,^  has  presented  us  with  his  ideal  of 

^  Unless  the  special  codes  of  laws  in  Lev.  i.  ff.  were  not  incorporated  with  it 
till  a  later  date.  (Wurster,  in  Stade,  iv.  112  ff.,  maintains  that  Lev.  i.-vii., 
xi.-xv.,  were  already  codified  in  the  ninth  or  eighth  century.) 

2  Hos.  iv.  7  ff.,  vii.  12 ;  Amos  iv.  5,  v.  22 ;  1  Sam.  ii.  12,  15,  16. 

^  That  the  book  cannot  have  been  written  after  the  Exile  in  Jerusalem  is 
acknowledged  even  by  Kuenen  and  his  followers.  But  even  in  Babylon,  in 
view  of  the  fact  of  a  newly-restored  ritual  and  temple,  this  document  would  be 
ecarcely  intelligible. 


74  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

sacred  customs  in  the  form  of  a  history  of  the  development  of 
religious  ritual  in  Israel. 

Of  poetical  pieces,  Prov.  i.-ix.  points  rather  to  the  second 
half  of  this  period  than  to  the  time  after  the  Exile.  The 
speeches  of  Elihu  in  Job  cannot  well  have  been  composed 
later  than  about  600  B.C.  The  book  of  Lamentations 
certainly  points  to  the  first  half  of  the  Babylonian  exile.  Of 
the  Psalms,  a  large  number  refer  to  the  times  of  Jeremiah, 
perhaps  to  himself,  and  testify  to  the  impression  produced 
by  the  destruction  of  the  holy  city  —  among  these,  such 
beautiful  ones  as  the  22nd,  the  51st,  etc.  Having  at 
our  command  so  considerable  a  number  of  prophetical 
authorities  of  known  date,  it  is  possible  for  us  to  reach 
absolute  certainty  as  to  the  position  of  Old  Testament 
religion.  Even  what  is  doubtful,  particularly  in  the  domain 
of  the  Psalms,  attains  to  something  like  certainty  when 
fitted  into  the  frame  of  ascertained  facts  regarding  the  pro- 
phetical writings. 

(c)  560-4G0  B.C.  Towards  the  end  of  the  Babylonian  exile 
there  arose  a  series  of  prophets  whose  common  object  was  to 
proclaim  the  restoration  of  Israel  and  the  destruction  of  the 
Chaldeans,  and  to  call  upon  the  people  to  rally  with  eager 
joy  round  the  standard  of  God.  Their  names  are  forgotten — 
were  probably  never  known.  For,  under  the  suspicious  eye 
of  Babylonian  tyrants,  and  in  view  of  their  harsh  treatment 
of  prophets  who  incited  the  captives  to  rebel,^  it  was  certainly 
impossible  for  a  prophet  to  show  himself  openly.  Only  by 
writings  circulated  in  secret,  and  perhaps  by  purposely  hiding 
their  identity  under  the  mask  of  old  and  famous  names, 
could  these  men,  in  many  respects  the  greatest  prophets  whom 
Israel  ever  produced,  attempt  to  fulfil  the  commission  given 
them  by  God.  And  these  we  have  probably  to  seek  among 
the  men  whom  the  Chaldean  power  crushed  even  in  its  death- 
throes.     Eoom  was  found  for  them,  especially  in  the  book  of 

*■  As  Jer.  xxix.  22  takes  for  granted. 


AUTHORITIES  FOR  PROPHETIC  PERIOD.  75 

Isaiah.  It  was  not  till  after  the  Exile  that  its  three  collections 
of  speeches  were  combined  and  enlarged  into  the  book  we  now 
have.  They  are  to  be  found  in  Isa.  xiii.  1— xiv.  23,  xxi.  1—10, 
:xxxiv.,  XXXV.,  xl.— Ixvi.  We  indicate  these  pieces  in  our 
quotations  as  the  book  of  Isaiah  (B.  J.).  To  these  also 
belong  chaps.  1.,  li,  of  Jeremiah,  which  unquestionably  point, 
in  spite  of  Graf's  doubts,  to  the  time  of  Babylon's  destruc- 
tion.^  Among  those  who  returned  to  Jerusalem  were  the 
prophets  Haggai  and  Zechariah,  the  author  of  Zech.  i.— viii. 
inclusive.  Perhaps  the  difficult  section,  Isa.  xxiv.— xxvii. 
inclusive,  also  belongs  to  the  period  after  the  return.  There 
is  no  doubt,  at  any  rate,  that  it  cannot  belong  to  the  prophet 
Isaiah,  though  there  is  very  great  doubt  indeed  as  to  when  and 
in  what  circumstances  it  actually  originated.^ 

The  historical  books,  so  far  as  in  our  Canon  these  are  still 
included  in  the  law  and  the  prophets,  were  then  complete  as 
regards  their  own  special  contents.  Their  final  editing  and 
arrangement,  on  the  contrary,  was,  like  the  final  arrangement 
of  the  Psalms  and  the  fragments  of  the  prophetical  writings, 
the  work  of  Ezra  and  his  successors.  The  book  of  Euth, 
although  it  knows  so  well  how  to  present  in  a  form  true  to 
antiquity  the  circumstances  of  the  age  which  it  depicts,  cannot 
in  its  present  form  be  older  than  the  year  500  B.C.  And  to 
the  same  period  belongs  the  book  of  Jonah,  as  an  answer  to 
the  sceptical  question  why  the  divine  threats  were  not  all 
carried  out  at  once  and  in  their  full  severity.     To  decide  which 

^  Not  because  the  view  of  Babylon's  destruction  by  the  Medes  and  their  allies 
lay  beyond  Jeremiah's  horizon,  but  because  the  temple  is  represented  as  actually 
in  ruins,  1.  28,  li.  11,  51,  because  Babylon's  position  and  future  are  spoken  of 
quite  differently  from  the  way  in  which  Jeremiah  speaks  elsewhere  (xxv.  9, 
xxvii.  6,  xxviii.,  xxix.,  xxxvii.,  xxxviii.,  xliii.  10 ;  of.  1.  11,  24,  31,  li.  7,  34,  53), 
and  because  the  language,  although  intentionally  akin  to  his,  and  taken  from 
him,  nevertheless  differs  from  the  genuine  writings  of  Jeremiah  the  prophet  in 
a  very  marked  way  in  its  diffuseness  and  want  of  independence.  The  piece  may 
be  from  the  pen  of  one  of  Jeremiah's  disciples. 

■•^  According  to  Smend,  the  hostile  capital,  xxv.  10,  would  be  a  city  of  Moab, 
and  the  date  would  fall  between  Nehemiah  and  Hyrcanus.  Kuenen,  ii.  2, 
thinks  of  a  contemporary  of  Obadiah  in  Palestine  under  Nebuchadnezzar. 


76  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Psalms  belong  to  this  period,  rather  than  to  the  following,  is 
extremely  difficult,  and  in  many  cases  absolutely  impossible. 

4.  The  period  from  Ezra  to  the  Asmonaean  dynasty  we  term 
the  Levitical  period,  in  which  religion,  although  it  had  not  yet 
come  to  a  complete  standstill,  had  no  longer,  as  a  whole,  any 
real  vitality,  but  was  gradually  petrifying  into  a  system  of 
statutory  ritual.  None  of  the  writings  of  this  age  have  any 
special  religious  value.  Not  one  of  them  can  bear  comparison 
with  the  nobler  monuments  of  the  prophetic  age.  It  is  impos- 
sible not  to  notice  a  decline  of  healthful  creative  energy,  an 
exaltation  of  the  letter  of  Scripture  above  the  prophetic  spirit, 
and  a  further  development  of  the  tendency  already  begun  in 
Ezekiel,  A,  and  Zechariah.  The  Psalms  alone  indicate  an 
advance  in  the  inward  and  personal  character  of  religious  life. 

(a)  460-330  B.C.  With  the  exception  of  the  little  book  of 
Malachi,  tradition  ascribes  none  of  the  prophetical  books  to 
this  period.  But  we  must,  at  any  rate,  acknowledge  the 
possibility  that  during  this  time  a  not  inconsiderable  number 
of  writers,  skilled  in  reproducing  prophecy,  were  busily  at 
work.  Such  perhaps  was  Joel,  such  possibly  writers  whose 
productions  are  screened  behind  the  names  of  Isaiah  and 
Jeremiah.  Perhaps  also  in  this  period  of  Persian  suzer- 
ainty, the  great  historical  work  arose  which,  founded  on  older 
sources,  e.g.  Ezra's  and  Nehemiah's  own  journals,  now  includes 
the  books  of  Chronicles,  Ezra,  and  ISTehemiah,  thus  giving  a 
history  of  the  Jewish  hierarchy  from  the  beginning  of  the 
world  to  the  restoration  of  Jerusalem.  It  is  clear  that  this 
work  was  composed  at  least  five  generations  after  the  return.^ 
Still  it  is  quite  probable  that  it  belongs  to  a  considerably  later 
period.^  Scarcely  in  any  other  book  does  the  Levitical  spirit 
come  out  so  strongly  as  in  this.  Even  the  older  historical 
writings  in  the  Old  Testament  do  not  seek  to  reach  what  we 

1  Neh.  sii.  13,  cf.  10,  22  (26,  47). 

^  Kucnen  puts  it  about  250  B.C.     Wellhausen  sees  in  Darius  the  Persian, 
Nell.  siL  22,  CodomaDnus. 


AUTHOPJTIES  FOR  LEVITICAL  PERIOD.  77 

regard  as  the  true  goal  of  historical  science.  Their  real  aim  is 
not  the  discovery  and  the  accurate  statement  of  facts.  These 
are  only  the  materials  by  means  of  which  they  bring  into  visi- 
bility the  grand  thoughts  and  principles  of  religion.  But  in  the 
older  historical  writings  of  Israel  this  results  from  the  author 
being  directly  filled  with  the  spirit  of  religion.  The  intense 
interest  which  these  writers  have  in  religion  causes  them  to 
put  light  and  shade,  as  it  were,  spontaneously  into  their  grand 
pictures  of  history,  so  that  the  national  history  of  Israel 
becomes  in  itself  an  instructive  proof  of  the  fundamental 
truths  of  revealed  religion.  It  is  different  in  Chronicles. 
Here  we  find,  not  an  involuntary  working  of  the  spirit,  but 
a  conscious  intention  to  instruct.  Happiness  and  Levitical 
piety,  misery  and  irreligion,  are  made  to  correspond  down  to 
the  most  minute  details.  The  purpose  of  the  historian  is 
everywhere  manifest.  And  it  is  not  a  man's  moral  and  religi- 
ous principle  which  determines  his  lot,  but  external  con- 
formity to  sacred  forms.  "Where  the  chronicler  differs  from 
the  earlier  accounts,  it  is  certainly  possible  that  he  may  have 
had  before  him  special  documents.  But  the  greatest  caution 
must  be  used  before  accepting  new  facts  solely  on  the 
authority  of  this  book ;  and  even  where  the  facts  are  undis- 
puted, one  must  often  question  their  setting  and  explanation. 
A  particularly  well-known  instance  of  this  is  the  story  of 
King  Manasseh's  captivity  and  conversion.^  From  the  whole 
history  of  that  period,  it  is  in  itself  very  likely  that,  on  the 
occasion  of  the  destruction  of  Samuges,  an  Assyrian  force 
under  Assurbanipal  in  647,  punished  the  faithless  vassal  on 
the  throne  of  Judah,  and  that  he  was  kept  for  a  time  as  a 
hostage  in  the  hands  of  the  Assyrian  king,  who  was  then 
himself  residing  in    Babylon.      Tor,  from  the   new   arrange- 

^  Cf.  K.  H.  Graf,  "The  Captivity  and  Conversion  of  Manasseh,  2  Chron. 
xxiii."  {Theol.  Studien  und  Kritiken,  18f)9,  iii.  467  ff.).  Against  him,  Gerlach, 
I.e.  1861,  iii.  503  fF.  Cf.  esp.  2  Chron.  viii.  2,  xiii.,  xiv.,  xx.  20  ff.,  xxi.  11  ff., 
xxT.  7  ff.,  xxviii.  9  ff.,  xxx.  etc. 


78  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

merits  made  by  Esarhaddon  with  Samaria,  and  from  the 
inscriptions  bearing  on  tbe  expedition  of  this  king  and  bis 
successor,  we  know  that  tbe  successors  of  Sennacberib  bad 
once  more  advanced  in  strong  force  into  Western  Asia.  But 
tbe  course  of  events,  at  any  rate,  cannot  have  been  as  is  related 
in  Chronicles.  For,  bad  Manasseh  really  died  penitent,  and 
in  the  full  enjoyment  of  God's  favour,  later  generations  could 
not  have  considered  bis  guilt  to  be  tbe  reason  why  tbe 
punishment  of  bis  people  could  not  be  any  longer  delayed, 
as  they  actually  did.^ 

Tbe  little  puzzling  book  Qobeletb,  which  bears  tbe  name  of 
Solomon,  may  also  belong  to  this  age.  At  least,  bad  it  been 
written  later,  it  is  not  easy  to  understand  bow  a  book, 
characterised  by  such  scepticism,  could  have  found  its  way 
into  tbe  Canon.^  Tbe  number  of  Psalms  which  date  from 
this  period  and  the  one  immediately  following,  is  very  large. 
For,  at  all  events,  by  the  time  Chronicles  was  composed,  tbe 
Psalter  as  a  whole  must  have  been  in  existence.  Hence  the 
majority  of  tbe  later  Psalms  must,  at  the  latest,  date  from 
this  period,^  although  certainly  tbe  use  of  the  doxology  in  tbe 
Psalm-mosaic  of  Chronicles  does  not  prove  that  tbe  whole  of 
our  Psalter  was  then  in  existence,  and  still  less  that  it  was 
kept  strictly  closed. 

(b)  330-160  B.C.  Esther,  a  book  religiously  of  little  im- 
portance, and  also  a  series  of  Psalms  in  tbe  latest  books  of  tbe 
Psalter,  appear  to  date  from  tbe  time  of  tbe  Ptolemaic  suzer- 
ainty. The  original  of  Jesus  the  son  of  Sirach,  too,  cannot  be 
assigned  to  a  later  date  than  this. 

Out  of  the  Syrian  period  we  have  the  book  of  Daniel 
(167    B.C.),  and    also  Ps.    xliv.  and  Ixxiv.      Next  to  these 

^  2  Kings  xxiii.  26,  xxiv.  3  ;  Jer.  xv.  4. 

^  Yet  cf.  Kleinert,  "  Sind  im  Buche  Qoh.  ausserhebraische  Einfliisse  anzuer- 
kennen?"  {Stud.  u.  Krit.  1883,  iv.  7C0  ff.),  and  on  Ecclesiastes,  the  writings  of 
Ch.  H.  H.  Wright,  1883  ;  Th.  Tyler,  1874;  E.  H.  Plumptre,  1882. 

^  1  Chron.  xvi.  36,  with  the  doxology  of  Ps.  cv.,  cvi.  ;  cf.  also  the  way  in 
which  the  grandson  of  Sirach  speaks  of  the  translation  of  the  Ilagiographa. 


LITERATURE.  U  9 

comes  the  oldest  part  of  the  book  of  Enoch,  then  the  third 
book  of  the  Sibyl  and  the  first  book  of  the  Maccabees, 
perhaps  also  Tobias,  Baruch,  and  the  original  text  of  Judith. 
All  other  apocryphal  writings  point  at  the  earliest  to  the 
last  century  before  Christ. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

LITERATUEE  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

A  full  description  of  the  development  of  Biblical  theology  as 
a  distinct  branch  of  study  we  do  not  consider  it  necessary  to 
give.  That  has  already  been  done  a  good  while  ago  with 
tolerable  thoroughness  by  v.  Colin,  §  4  ;  Baumgarten-Crusius, 
iii.  la  ;  and  by  Havernick,  2nd  edition,  pp.  5-12.  Since  then, 
Diestel,  in  his  exhaustive  work,  entitled,  Gcschichie  des  Alien 
Testaments  in  clcr  cliristlichcn  Kirclie,  1869,  has  given  us 
everything  relating  to  this  subject,  in  full  detail  and  from  the 
right  standpoint.  Weiss,  too,  in  his  handbook  on  the  Biblical 
theology  of  the  New  Testament,  discusses  with  sufficient  ful- 
ness everything  relating  to  tlie  progress  of  Biblical  theology. 
In  a  description  of  this  progress,  the  one  really  instructive 
fact  is  this,  that  it  was  only  through  the  gradual  giving  up  of 
the  conviction  as  to  the  perfect  harmony  between  the  teaching 
of  the  Bible  and  the  Church  that  this  science  of  ours  could 
obtain  a  start  and  acquire  a  position  of  growing  import- 
ance,— that  ere  long  it  began  to  take  up  a  hostile  attitude  to 
the  doctrine  of  the  Church,  founding  itself  on  the  Bible,  and 
at  last  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Bible  itself  as  being  limited  by  the 
circumstances  of  its  own  age,  until  it  gradually  resumed  the 
friendly  attitude  which  it  had  formerly  held  towards  dogmatics 
as  its  handmaid  for  discovering  proof-passages,  now,  however, 
in  the  more  honourable  and  scientific  form  of  serving  as  the 
historical  foundation  of  Christian  dogmatics  and  ethics.     That 


80  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Lotli  have  in  more  recent  days  been  subjected  once  more 
to  an  unnatural  amalgamation,  implying  that  dogmatics,  by 
surrendering  the  form  given  to  it  by  the  Church,  must  again 
become  identical  with  the  doctrine  of  the  Bible,  is  only  one  more 
sign  of  the  retrograde  tendency  of  the  theological  science  of 
the  present  day,  and  will  pass  away  along  with  that  tendency. 
Consequently,  we  give  only  the  literature  itself  arranged  in 
groups,  so  as  to  bring  out  clearly  the  significance  of  the  indi- 
vidual books  for  the  general  development  of  our  subject. 

1,  Treatises  hy  which  the  conception  of  Biblical  theology  has 
been  more  clearly  developed. 

Of  fundamental  importance  for  our  branch  of  study  was 
the  attempt  to  make  exposition  entirely  independent  of  dog- 
matics. Such  were  Semler's  works,  Vorlereitung  zur  ihcolo- 
gischcn  Hcrmcncutih,  1760,  Bd.  i.  2,  2>a,  oh;  Apparatus  ad 
libcraliorem  Novi  Tcstamenti  interpretationem,  1767,  Veteris 
Testamenti,  1773;  Neuer  Versuch  die  gemeinniitzige  Auslegung 
und  Amvendung  dcs  N.  T.  zii  Tjcfdrdern,  1786.  On  Semler, 
cf.  Diestel  {Jahrt.  f.  dcntsche  Theol.  1867). — Keil  {Dc  historica 
lihrorum  Sacrorum  interpretatione  cjiisque  necessitate,  in  den 
opusc.  theol.,  ed.  Goldhorn,  Lips.  1821,  i.  84  ff.). 

The  inaugural  lecture  of  J.  Ph.  Gabler  (Dejusto  discrimine 
thcologicB  liUicce  et  dogmaticce  rcgimdisque  rede  utriusque 
finihus,  Alt.  1787;  republished  by  his  sons  in  his  minor 
theological  writings,  Ulm,  1831,  ii.  p.  179  ff.)  applies  these 
views  to  Biblical  theology.  He  is  the  first  to  classifiy  Biblical 
theology  definitely  as  a  historical  science,  but  he  nevertheless 
demands  that  the  ideas  should  be  stripped  of  their  historical 
shell.  Alongside  of  him  we  may  place  **J.  G.  Hoffmann, 
07'atio  de  theologicc  hiUicce  prmstantia,  Alt.  1770;  and  °Eber- 
hard  Schniid,  Dissert.  II.  de  theologia  biblica,  Jena  1788  (?). 

In  contrast  with  the  philosophical  explanation  of  Biblical 
theology,  Herder  (18,  Brief  iihcr  das  Studium  clcr  Thcologie) 


LITEKATURE.  81 

lays  special  stress  on  its  historical  character ;  and  K.  W. 
Stein  ("Ueber  den  Begriff  und  dieBehandlungsart  der  biblischen 
Theologie,"  in  Keil  and  Tzschirner's  Analecta,  Bd.  iii.  H.  1, 
151-204)  maintains  that  the  truth  of  reason  ought  to  have 
no  influence  on  the  presentation  of  the  Biblical  system,  which 
should  be  based  solely  on  a  historical  principle.  Similarly  (?), 
°A.  G.  r.  Schirmer,  Die  biblische  Dogmatik  in  Hirer  Darstcllung 
und  in  ihrem  Verhalten  zu  dem  Ganzen  der  Theologie,  Breslau 
1820. 

A  satisfactory  glimpse  into  the  essence  of  Biblical  theology 
is  given  by  Schmidt  ("  Ueber  Interesse  und  Stand  der  biblischen 
Theologie  des  Neuen  Testamentes  in  unsrer  Zeit,"  Tubinger 
theologische  ZeitscJirift,  1838,  4).  The  true  principles  are 
given  for  the  Old  Testament  in  a  more  important  and  com- 
plete form  by  G.  F.  Oehler  {Prolegomena  zur  Theologie  des 
Alien  Testamentes,  Stuttg.  1845).  Besides  these,  we  may 
mention  F.  Fleck  ("  Ueber  biblische  Theologie  als  Wissenschaf  t 
unsrer  Zeit,"  Euhr's  Predlgerhihl  Th.  86,  1834),  C.J.  Nitzsch 
(Herzog's  BealcncycloiMdie,  ii.  219  ff.,  Aufl.  2,  M.  Kahler), 
Schenkel  ("  Die  Aufgabe  der  biblischen  Theologie  in  dem 
gegenwartigen  Entwicklungsstadium  der  theologischen  Wiss- 
enschaft,"  Theol.  Stud,  und  Kritikcn,  1852,  i.  40  ff.),  Weiss 
("Das  Verhiiltniss  der  Exegese  zur  biblischen  Theologie,"  in 
the  Deutsehen  Zeitsehr.  fur  christl.  Wissenschaf t  und  Leben, 
1852,  38,  39  ;  cf.  also  his  Biblische  Tlieologie  des  Neuen  Testa- 
mentes, §  5). 

2,  Expositions  of  Old  Testament  Theology. 

We  may  pass  over  altogether  such  books  as  are  practically 
mere  collections  of  proof  passages  for  dogmatics,  like  those  of 
Sebastian  Schmid,  1671,  3rd  ed.  1689  ;  Joh.  Guil.  Baier, 
1716;  Hulsemann,  1679;  Kbnig,  1651;  Zickler,  1753-6; 
Haymann,  1768  ;  C.  E.  Weissmann,  1739  ;  and  also  Semler's 
own  attempt    in    1764.     The   subject-matter  proper  is  ap- 

VOL.  I.  F 


82  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

proaclied  from  the  standpoint  of  a  free-thinking  supranatural- 
isra  in  the  following  works,  in  themselves  of  little  importance, 
Biisching  (Bissertatio,  1756  ;  Epitovie  thcologioe  e  solis  lihris 
sacris  concinnatce  Lemgo,  1757),  and  Storr  {JDodr.  christ.  pars 
theor.  e  solis  lihris  sacris  rcpetita,  1793  ;  German  by  Flatt, 
1803),  Buddeus  {Historia  Eccl.  Vet.  Test.,  2  vols.  172G,  29, 
3rd  ed.),  as  well  as  in  the  far  more  important  work  of  Gotthilf 
Traugott  Zacharia  (Bihlische  Theologie  oder  ITntersuchung 
lies  hiUischen,  Gruncles  der  vornclimsten  tkcologischcn  Lchrcn, 
1772-86,  G  vols.,  the  last  by  Vollborth).  The  book  of  C.  A. 
Crusius  {Vorstclhmg  von  dem  eigentlicJien  und  schriftgemdssen 
Plane  des  Beiehes  Gottes,  1768),  written  also  from  a  mildly 
supranaturalistic  standpoint,  is  rather  a  brief  compendium  of 
Christian  doctrine.  For  a  criticism  of  him,  cf.  Delitzsch,  Die 
hiUisch-prophetische  Theologie,  ihre  Forthildung  durch  C.  A. 
Crusius  und  Hire  neueste  EntwicMung,  1845. 

J.  H,  Majus  takes  up  an  intermediate  position  in  his 
Theologia  prophetica,  1710,  and  Synopsis  theologim  christiance 
e  solis  Verbis  Christi,  1708,  4.  Abr.  Teller  is  hostile  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Church  {Lelirhuch  des  christlichen  Glauhens, 
1764;  Topice  sacrm  scripturm,  1761),  and  C.  E.  Bahrdt 
to  the  doctrine  both  of  the  Church  and  the  Bible  (Versuch 
eines  hihlisehen  Sgstc?ns  der  Dogmatih,  1769—70,  1784). 

With  the  intention  of  giving  a  really  historical  presenta- 
tion, but  certainly  without  actually  attaining  his  object. 
Amnion  wrote  his  BiUiselie  Theologie,  in  3  vols.,  2nd  ed. 
1801-2,  etc.;  with  still  less  success,  W.  Fr.  Hufnagel,  Die 
Sehrift  des  Alien  Testamentes  naeh  ihrem  Inhalt  und  Zweck 
hearleitct,  of  which  vols.  i.  and  ii.ct  appeared  Erl.  1785-6. 
Bretschneider,  too  {Die  Grundlagen  des  evangelischen  Pietismus, 
Leipz.  1833),  gives  nothing  else  but  observations  on  the  chief 
dogmas  taken  separately.  G.  Lorenz  Bauer  wrote  from  a 
thoroughly  historical  standpoint,  except  that  in  so  doing  he 
was  too  little  conscious  of  the  uniqueness  and  the  unity  of 
the   Biblical   literature    (in    addition  to   minor    writings,   for 


LITERATURE.  83 

which  cf.  V.  Culhi,  24  N.  24,  Thcologie  dcs  Alien  Tcsfamcntes, 
Leipz.  1796  ;  Mythologie  des  Altai  und  Ncuen  Tcstamcntcs, 
2  vols.  1802).  G.  Ph.  Chr.  Kaiser  is  a  brilliant  though  far 
from  accurate  writer,  and  with  a  tendency  to  confuse  even 
the  most  widely  different  things  {Die  hihlische  Theologic 
odcr  Judaismus  und  Christianisimis  nacli  der  grammafisclt- 
Mstorischen  l7itcrprctations7nctJwde  und  nacli  einer  freimilthir/cn 
Stdlung  in  die  hritisch  vergleichende  Univcrscdgescliiclite  der 
Beligionen  und  die  universale  Eeligion,  vol.  i.  1813,  ii. 
1814,  ii.5  1821).  The  book  is  commended  to  readers 
"  who  are  observant  students  of  mankind,  and  who,  refusing 
to  believe  that  any  one  Church  is  in  sole  possession  of  salva- 
tion, are  learning  to  find  out  and  appreciate  the  honest 
worshipper  of  the  Divine  in  every  age  and  clime,  whose 
religion  is  neither  Judaism,  Christianity,  Mohammedanism, 
nor  Paganism,  but  religious  Universalism,  Catholicism,  in 
the  true  sense  of  the  word,  what  our  theologians  call  jier- 
fectible  Christianity."  Vol.  ii.5,  however,  which  treats  of 
the  Biblical  doctrine  of  morals,  is  written  in  an  entirely 
different  spirit. 

Among  somewhat  modern  works  that  are  still  of  value,  we 
may  mention,  of  those  wiitten  from  the  Hegelian  standpoint, 
Yatke  {Die  hihlische  Theologie  ivisscnschaftlich  dargcstellt ; 
A'ol.  i..  Die  Religion  des  Alien  Testamcnics  nacli  den  canon- 
ischeii  Bilcliern  entivicliclt,  Berlin  1835,  not  continued),  Bruno 
Bauer  {Die  Eeligion  dcs  Alien  Testamenies,  vol.  i.  1838, 
ii,  1839).  °L.  Noack  goes  still  further  {Die  hihlische  Theologie 
des  Alien  und  Ncuen  Testamenies,  1853). 

Prom  the  side  of  scientifically  critical  theology  we  have 
de  Wette  {Bihlische  Dogniatik  Alien  und  Ncuen  Testamenies, 
oder  kritische  Darsiellung  der  Ecligionslchre  des  Hebraismtis, 
des  Judcnthums  und  des  UrchrisicntMims,  3rd  ed.  1831), 
Daniel  von  Colin  {Bihlische  Theologie,  vol.  i.,  ed.  Dav.  Schultz, 
Breslau  1836),  Gramberg  {Geschichte  der  Eeligionsideen  des 
Alien    Tesiamcnics,    2    vols.    1829-30),    Ciisar    v.    Lengerke 


84  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

(VoUcs-  imd  ReligionsgcscMcMc  Israels,  Kenaan,  Th.  i.  1844). 
Important  contributions  are  found  in  Ewald  {GescliicMe  dcs 
Volkes  Israel,  vol.  i.  3rd  ed.  1864,  ii.  1853,  iii.  2nd  ed. 
1853,  iv.  3rd  ed.  1864;  Altcrthumcr,  3rd  ed.  1866).  From 
the  school  which  is  more  inclined  to  defend  the  doctrine  of 
tlie  Church,  we  have  L.  F.  0.  Baumgarten-Crusius  (Grundzuge 
der  hiblischen  Theologie,  Jena  1828),  S.  Lutz  (JBiU.  Dogmatik, 
ed.  Euetschi  Pforzh.  1847).  From  an  apologetic  standpoint 
we  have  Steudel  {Vorlcsungen  iibcr  die  Theologie  des  Alien 
Testamcntes,  ed.  Oehler,  Berlin  1840)  and  Havernick  (Vorle- 
sungen  iiher  die  Theologie  des  Alien  Testamentes,  ed.  Hahn 
1848  ;  2nd  ed.,  Hermann  Schultz,  with  notes  and  Appendices, 
1863). 

Many  points  of  contact  with  our  work  may  be  found  in 
v.  Hofmann  (Schriftheweis,  2nd  ed.  vol.  i.,  ii.a,  ii.h,  1857-60) 
and  J.  T.  Beck  (Die  christliche  Lehrwissenschaft  nach  den 
hiblischen  Urhundcn,  vol.  i.  1841). 

Since  the  first  edition  of  this  work  appeared,  Dr.  A. 
Kuenen  (in  his  book,  De  Godsdienst  van  Israel  tot  den  onder- 
gang  van  den  Joodschen  Staat,  Haarlem  1869,  and  later  in 
De  Profeten  en  de  Profctie  onder  Israel,  HisioriscJi-dogmatische 
Studie,  Leiden  1875)  has  discussed  the  contents  of  the  Old 
Testament  with  great  acuteness,  though  he  often  goes  too 
far.  Among  German  scholars,  Prof.  Lie.  Bernh.  Duhm 
comes  nearest  to  him  in  his  Theologie  der  Propheten 
als  Grundlage  fur  die  innre  Entwicklungsgeschichte  der 
israelitischen  Religion,  Bonn  1875.^  H.  Ewald  devoted  a 
great  part  of  his  work  (Lehre  der  Bibel  von  Gott,  1871-75) 
to  the  doctrinal  contents  of  the  Old  Testament.     Still  the 

^  The  assertions  of  Dulim  are  partly  attacked  or  modified  in  the  essay  of 
E.  Sniend,  "Ueber  die  von  den  Propheten  des  achten  Jahrhunderts  voraus- 
gesetzte  Entwickhingsstufe  der  israelitischen  Religion"  {Studien  und  Kritiken, 
1876,  4) ;  cf.  the  dissertation  by  the  same  author,  Moses  apud  prophetas.  As 
combating  the  views  of  Kuenen  and  his  German  disciples,  it  is  worth  while 
mentioning  Fr.  Ed.  Konig's  book,  Die  Hauptprohhme  der  altisraelitischen 
lieligionsgeschkhte  gegenuher  den  Entwkklungstheoretikern  heleuchtet,  Leipzig 
188d. 


LITEKATUKE.  85 

peculiar  combination  of  ethical  dogmatics  with  Biblical 
theology,  and  the  interweaving  of  the  dogmatic  materials  in 
the  Old  and  in  the  New  Testaments,  make  this  woi'k  of  little 
service  for  our  purpose.  The  lectures  of  Dr.  Gust,  Fried r. 
Oehler,  whose  contributions  to  this  science  were  specially- 
great,  published  in  two  volumes  in  1873-74,  under  the  title. 
Die  Thcologie  des  Allen  Testaments,  do  not  contain  very  much 
beyond  what  tbe  author  himself  had  previously  given  to  the 
world  in  separate  essays  on  the  questions  dealt  with  in  this 
branch  of  study.  A  still  smaller  contribution  to  the  real 
advance  of  this  science  was  made  by  the  publication  of 
Hitzig's  lectures  (ed.  Kneuker,  1880,  Karlruhe),  and  of 
Kayser's  (ed.  Eeuss,  1886),  after  the  death  of  these  scholars. 
A  very  similar  verdict  must  be  passed  on  the  Alttestamcnt' 
liche  Thcologie  of  the  late  Dr.  Ed.  Eiehm  (ed.  Pahnke,  1889). 


FIRST  MAIN  DIVISION. 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION  AND  MORALS  IN  ISRAEL 
TILL  THE  FOUNDING  OF  THE  ASMONiEAN  STATE. 


CHAPTEE  VII. 

tsi:ael's  pee-mosaic  age. 

Literature. — E.  Eenan,  "Nouvelles  considerations  sur  le  car- 
actere  general  des  peuples  semitiques"  (Journ.Asiat.  1859);  cf. 
Ilistoire  et  sysUme  compard  des  langucs  sdmitiqucs,  Paris,  2nd  ed. 
1858,  1,  2.  Grau,  Scmiten  unci  Indogcrmancn  in  ihrcn  Bezie- 
liungcn  zu  Religion  und  Wissenschaft,  1864,  ^Q.  Steinthal, 
"  Characteristik  der  semitischen  Volker  "  {Zeitschrift  fiir  Volkcr- 
jmjcJiologie  und  Spracliwissenschaft,  ed.  Lazarus  and  Steinthal, 
1850,  vol.  i.  328-345.  Oeliler,  "  Volk  Gottes  "  (art.  in  Her- 
zog's  Becdencyclopadie,  1st  ed.).  Max  Miiller's  Essays  on  Semitic 
Monotheism.  Joh.  Eontsch,  Uehcr  Indogermanen  und  Semiten- 
thum.  Bine  volJcerpsycJioIogische Studie,  1872.  Ludwig  Krehl, 
Ueler  die  BcUgion  der  vorislamischen  Ardber,  Leipzig  1863. 
Palgrave,  A  Year's  Journey  in  Arabia,  1862-3,  Osiander, 
Zeitschrift  der  dcutsch-morgcnldndischen  Gesellschaft,  vii.  1853. 
]\Ierx,  "  Abgotterei  in  Israel "  (art.  in  Schenkel's  Bilellexicon). 
Ben-David,  Ueler  die  Beligion  der  Ilchrdcr  vor  Moses.  Land, 
"  Over  den  Godsnamen  nin'',"  etc.  {Theologisch  Tijdschrift,  1868, 
156  ff.).     L.  Seineke,  Gcschichte des  Volkes  Israel,  Gott.  1876, 


LITER  ATUEE.  87 

vol.  i.  Stade,  GcschicJitc  dcs  Volhcs  Israel,  p,  403  ff.  Selden, 
"  De  Dis  Syris  "  (in  Ugolin,  Thesaur.  Ant.  Sacr.  xxiii.).  Chwol- 
sohn,  Die  Ssahicr  und  dcr  Ssahismus,  1856  (vol.  i.  301  ff., 
esp.  395  ff. ;  vol.  ii.  153,  2  73  ff.,  367,  380  ff.).  Tuch,  "  Ueber 
die  Eic^ennanien  der  alteu  Araber  in  ihrer  Zusammensetzunfr 
mit  Gottesnamen  "  (Zcitschr.  der  deutscli-morgcidand  Gesellscli. 
iii.  153).  Miinter,  Die  Religion  der  Carthagcr.  Diestel,  "Der 
Monotheismus  des  iilteren  Heidentlnims  vorziiglich  bei  den 
Semiten"  {Jahrh.  filr  deutsche  Thcologie,  1860,  4,  p.  669  ff., 
2  art.).  Dillmann, "  Ueber  den  Ursprung  der  alttestamentlichen 
lieligion,"  an  inaugural  lecture  delivered  on  May  3rd,  1865, 
at  Giessen.  IMovers,  Ecligion  der  Phoniken,  i.  168  ff.  (cf.  the 
essays  on  the  Meslia  stone  by  Clermont,  Ganneau,  Schlott- 
niann,  and  Noldeke,  and  the  article  by  Schlottmann  on  the 
inscription  of  Eschmunazar,  1868).  Ewald,  "  Neue  Unter- 
suchungen  liber  den  Gott  der  Erzvater  "  {Jahr.  f.  hill.  Wisscn- 
schaft,  1859-61,  vol.  x.  1  ff.,  cf.  vol.  vi.  Iff.  oKlose,  De 
polytheismi  vestigiis  apud  Hehraeos  ante  Mosem,  4,  Gott.  1830. 
^vxmo  J^dMQY  {Zcitschrift filr  spceid.  Theol.  i.  1,  140  ff.).  "Der 
mosaische  Ursprung  der  Gesetzgebung  des  Pentateuch." 
F.  W.  Ghillany,  Die  Mensclienopfer  der  alten  Hcbrcier,  Niirnb. 
1842,  and  Fr.  Daumer,  Dcr  Fcucr-  und  Afolochsdienst  der  alien 
Hehxler,  1842.  Bernstein,  Ursprung  der  Sagen  von  Abraham, 
Isaah  und  Jaeoh,  1871.  Juh  Grill,  Die  Erzvater  der  Mensch- 
hcit,  ein  Beitrag  ziir  Gr'undlcgung  einer  hehrdischen  Alterthums- 
luissenschaft,  erste  Abtheilung,  1875.  Smith,  Chaldean 
Aecount  of  Genesis,  1876.  Lenormant,  Lcs  pretni&res  civilisa- 
tions, 1874;  Essai  de  commentaire  dcs  fragments  cosmo- 
goniques  de  Eerose  d'apris  les  tcxtcs  cund'iformcs,  1871  ;  Les 
sciences  occtdtcs  en  Asic,  1874,  Schrader,  "  Semitismus  und 
Babylonismus  "  (Jahrh.  f  prot.  Thcol.  1875,  i.  117  ff.);  cf. 
Zeitschrift  der  dadsch-morgcnl.  Gesellsch.  xxvii.  397  ff. ;  Thcol. 
Stud.  u.  Krit.  1874,  2.  Die  Hollcnfahrt  der  Istctr,  ein 
althahjl.  Epos  1874. 

1.  In  Genesis,  as  we  now  have  it,  we  get  a  picture,  as  rich 


88  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

as  it  is  attractive,  of  the  religious  and  moral  condition  of  the 
primeval  Hebrew  world.  The  latest  narrative  by  A  certainly 
means  to  draw  a  clear  distinction  between  that  condition  and 
the  one  created  by  Moses.  But  even  it  takes  for  granted, 
from  the  time  of  our  first  parents  onwards,  a  special  relation 
between  God  and  man.  That  relation  is  renewed  with  Noah, 
and  develops  in  the  case  of  Abraham  into  a  special  covenant 
of  friendship.^  Thus  the  external  life  of  all  mankind,  as  well 
as  the  special  relation  of  Israel  to  redemption,  rests  upon  a 
covenant  of  God  with  man.^  And  in  Noah's  case,  as  after- 
wards pre-emininently  in  Abraham's,  pious  faith  in  the  divine 
commands  and  promises,  combined  with  a  walking  with  God 
and  obedience  to  His  ordinances,  is  represented  as  the  simple 
foundation  of  religion.^  To  these  times  is  traced  back  the 
origin  of  the  sacred  customs  characteristic  of  Israel,  especially 
circumcision  and  abstinence  from  blood,* — while  the  principle 
on  which  the  sacred  times  are  arranged  is  loftily  explained  as 
based  on  the  creative  work  of  God  Himself.^  Here,  of  course, 
there  is  no  question  of  historical  reminiscences. 

The  earlier  narrative  of  B  and  C,  which  is  based  on 
actual  popular  tradition,  shows  still  less  hesitation  in  describ- 
ing the  patriarchal  age  as  essentially  similar,  so  far  as  religion 
is  concerned,  to  the  later  age  of  Mosaism.  From  the  Fall 
onwards  it  takes  the  Mosaic  form  of  sacrifice  for  granted.^ 
From  the  time  of  Enosh  men  call  on  the  holy  name  of 
Jehovah  (Jahveh).'^  It  knows  even  in  patriarchal  times  of  the 
distinction  between  clean  and  unclean  beasts,^  and  of  Jehovah 
being  inquired  of  by  oracle.^  Even  then  it  speaks  of  God's 
covenant  relations  with  Israel,  and  refers  quite  definitely  and 
clearly  to  the  coming  salvation.^**     In  those  ages  the  theo- 

1  Gen.  i.  28-30,  ix.  1  ff.,  xvii.  2  Cen.  ix.  11,  12,  xvii.  7flf. 

s  Gen.  vi.  22,  9,  xvii.  1,  3  (cf.  ver.  22).         *  Gen.  ix.  4,  xvii.  10  ff. 
»  Gen.  ii.  3.  6  Gen.  iv.  3,  viii.  20  ff. 

'  Gen.  iv.  26.  8  Qen.  vii.  2,  8,  viii.  20. 

^  Gen.  XXV.  22. 
10  Gen.  xii.  2ff.,  xv.  5,  13  ff.,  xviii.  17  ff.,  xxii.  18,  xxvi.  4,  xxviii.  14. 


PICTURE  OF  PATEIAKCHAL  AGE  IN  GENESIS.  89 

plianies  and  the  appearances  of  the  angel  of  God  occur  in  a 
tangible,  almost  mythological  way.'^ 

This  narrative  is  particularly  fond  of  describing  the 
patriarchs  as  splendid  examples  of  humble  faith  and  devoted 
piety ,2  as  men  who  acted  towards  their  kinsfolk  and  in  all 
matters  of  right  ^  according  to  the  highest  principles  of 
morality,  who  were  strictly  upright  and  honest  to  those  within 
a  clearly  defined  circle,^  and  who  were  hospitable  and  open- 
handed,^ — all  this,  however,  being  consistent  with  a  natural 
right  to  deceive  those  outside  that  circle,^  as  well  as  with 
considerable  moral  laxity  and  even  licence.'^  This  picture  is 
essentially  the  same  as  that  which  the  inhabitants  of  the 
North-Arabian  desert  still  consider  the  beau-ideal  of  a  pious 
and  upright  man.  That  such  sketches  cannot  possess  the 
value  of  historical  accounts,  is  evident  from  the  whole  style 
of  the  narrative.  It  is  a  general  picture  of  religion  and 
morals  in  the  light  of  a  later  period.  Even  in  its  freshest 
and  most  original  form  sacred  legend  is  still  only  legend. 
But  for  giving  a  knowledge  of  these  primitive  days  it  is  not 
by  any  means,  on  that  account,  wholly  valueless. 

2.  It  certainly  appears  to  us  a  well-grounded  conviction, 
that  Moses  must  have  found  the  Hebrew  nation  already  in 
possession  of  views  of  religion  and  morals  fitted  to  serve 
as  the  basis  of  his  work.  He  must  have  found  already  pre- 
valent the  belief  in  a  God  who  was  bound  to  this  people 
by  a  special  covenant.  However  dim  this  belief  may  have 
been,  it  must  at  least  have  implied  a  personal  God  who  had 
absolute  power  over  nature.  The  grand  simple  principles  of 
morality  and  justice  must  have  been  already  thought  of  as 


1  Gen.  xvi.  7ff.,  xviii.  19,  xxviii.  10  ff.,  xxxii.  25  if. 

^  Gen.  xii.  4,  xv.  6f.,  xxii.  2ff.  ;  cf.  also  xviii.  23  ff.  etc. 

3  Gen.  xiii.  8ff,  xiv.  24,  xxi.  22  ff.,  xxvi.  16  tf.,  xxxix.  8£f.  etc. 

4  Gen.  xvi.  6f.,  xxxi.  36  ff.,  etc. 

5  Gen.  xviii.  2ff.,  xix.  1  ff.,  xxiv.  31  ff.,  xiv.  22 ff. 

6  Gen.  xii.  13  if.,  xxvi.  7  f.,  xxvii.  11  ff. 

'  Gen.  .xxxviii.  16  ff.,  xxxiv.  25  ff.,  ix.  21  ff.,  xliii.  34. 


90  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

involved  in  relationship  to  this  God,  and  there  must  have 
already  existed  among  the  people  a  number  of  outward  rites 
and  ceremonies.  Only  on  such  assumptions  could  Moses, 
as  the  messenger  of  the  God  of  their  fathers,  claim  and 
secure  obedience  to  his  commands  as  a  political  prophet, 
muster  a  down-trodden  people  in  the  name  of  its  God,  and 
lead  it  onwards  to  an  uncertain  future.^  But  a  higher 
s[)iritual  stage  can  develop  without  resistance,  repentance, 
and  conversion  only  out  of  a  less  developed  stage,  never 
out  of  one  quite  antagonistic.  The  mass  of  the  people  in 
Egypt  may,  it  is  true,  have  been  sunk  deep  enough  in 
ignorance,  immorality,  and  idolatry.^  Even  in  our  own  day 
the  roving  children  of  the  desert  look  down  with  justifiable 
contempt  on  the  kindred  tribes  settled  in  the  Nile  valley, 
for  the  latter  generally  combine  Egyptian  luxury  with 
nomadic  roughness  as  soon  as  they  begin  to  till  the  ground 
and  cultivate  the  gentler  arts  of  civilised  life.  But  those 
who  kept  alive  the  better  traditions  of  the  people,  we  must 
think  of  as  worshipping  a  national  God  quite  distinct  from 
nature,  although,  of  course,  the  question  as  to  theoretical 
monotheism  had  not  yet  been  raised.  We  cannot  doubt 
that  this  God  was  conceived  of  as  a  personal  and,  in  a  certain 


1  Ex.  iii.  6,  iv.  5,  v.  9. 

^  In  addition  to  stories  like  Ex.  xxxii.,  etc.,  such  passages  as  Ezek.  xx.  16 
justify  us  in  inferring  tliat  the  common  people  whom  Moses  led  were  deeply 
degraded.  Amos  v.  26  cannot,  in  my  o[iinion,  be  so  used,  since  the  verse  must 
he  taken  as  a  threat  to  send  into  exile  the  idolatrous  Israelites  of  Amos'  own 
age.  Schrader  {Theol.  Stud.  u.  Krit.  1874,  ii.  324 fl".)  translates,  by  trans- 
posing the  word  D3''?37V>  "So  ye  will  take  Saccuth  (Assyr.  ni3C^),  your  king, 
and  Chiun,  your  star-god,  your  images  which  ye  have  made  for  yourselves,  and 
I  will  lead  you  into  cajjtivity. "  Another  interpretation  is  attempted  by  Yio^- 
Taanu  {Stade  Zeltschrift,  iii.  112),  "Did  ye  then  offer  sacrifices  to  me  in  the 
wilderness  while  ye  at  the  same  time  carried  about  (Jer.  x.  5)  Saccuth,  your 
king,  and  Chiun,  your  idol,  as  your  own  god,  made  by  yourselves  ? "  We  should 
say,  "  When  ye  sacrificed  to  me,  did  ye  carry  about  idols  ?"  In  other  words  : 
"  In  the  wilderness  ye  sacrificed  to  me  alone,  now  ye  give  me  companions. 
That  is  the  way  of  foreigners.  Therefore,  off  with  you  to  a  foreign  land  ! " 
Even  this  explanation — which,  besides,  appears  to  me  forced  —would  not  alter 
the  judgment  given  above. 


PICTURE  OF  PATRIARCHAL  AGE.  91 

sense,  a  spiritual  God,  and  that  Israel  was  regarded  as  His 
chosen  people.  According  to  the  sacred  legend,  He  must 
have  given  a  special  revelation  of  Himself  to  the  patriarchs. 
The  people  determine  unanimously  and  at  once  to  hold  a  feast 
in  His  honour  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  idolatrous  land  of 
the  foreign  oppressor ;  ^  and  even  when  tliey  fall  away  from 
the  liigher  revelation  of  God,  it  is  still  His  image  that  they 
wish  to  honour  and  worship.^  Further,  the  religious  memory 
of  this  people  must  have  regarded  Canaan  as  the  land  of 
their  fathers,  the  land  of  promise,  the  laud  destined  to 
be  their  inheritance.  It  could  not  have  been  in  the  post- 
Mosaic  age  that  ancient  sanctuaries  like  Shechem,  Hebron, 
Beersheba,  and  Bethel  became  places  hallowed  by  patriarchal 
legend. 

Besides,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  legend  has  given  us  a 
faithful  account,  at  least,  of  the  chief  moral  characteristics 
of  the  pre-Mosaic  period.  The  unchanging  form  of  Bedouin 
life  enables  us  to-day  to  recognise  these  figures  as  true  to  life, 
nearly  three  thousand  years  after  the  earliest  parts  of  Genesis 
were  written  down.  How,  then,  could  the  picture  of  them,  a 
few  centuries  after  their  own  day,  be  anything  but  true. 
Indeed,  Israel  was  always  in  a  position  where  it  could  refresh 
its  recollections  of  the  life  which  the  patriarchs  had  led,  by 
taking  a  glance  at  similar  modes  of  life.  The  tribes  to  the 
east  of  Jordan  always  continued  to  be  mainly  pastoral  peoples.^ 
In  the  time  of  the  Judges,  friendly  tribes,  like  the  Kenites, 
lived  in  tents,  as  they  still  do,  in  the  fertile  plain  of  the 
Kishon ;  ^  and  in  the  Kechabites  we  see,  at  a  much  later 
date,  the  picture  of  people  clinging  to  a  pastoral  life  with  all 
the  fervour  of  a  religious  passion.^  Hence  we  may,  without 
hesitation,  believe  in  the  chief  moral  features  of  the  legend, 

1  Ex.  V.  1  ff.  2  Ex.  xxxii.  4  flf, 

3  Num.  xxxii.  *  Judg.  iv.  11,  17  ff, 

^  Jer.  XXXV.  This  was  not  exactly  a  species  of  Nazirite  vow,  though  it  was 
certainly  akin  to  it.  It  was  simple  antagonism  to  city-civilisation  and  its 
habits  as  being  destructive  of  ancient  simplicity.     Such  antagonism  is  nothing 


92  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

not  as  if  it  gave  us  a  historical  account,  but  because  its 
colours  could  scarcely  but  be  true  to  nature.  There  must 
have  been  simple  forms  of  worship  and  of  sacrifice,  feasts 
expressive  of  popular  joy.  In  Mosaism  sacrifice  is  every- 
where presupposed  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  the  Mosaic 
feasts  are  derived  from  older  ones.^  If  an  inference  from 
later  times  is  allowable,  joy  in  nature  and  holidaying  of  a 
somewhat  sensuous  character  were  probably  the  main  features 
of  these  festivals.^  On  the  other  hand,  the  redemption  of  the 
first-born  and  many  of  the  Passover  rites  point  to  a  passionate 
energy  of  repentance,  and  to  atonement  for  sin  by  shedding 
of  blood,  these  being  the  very  traits  wliich  specially  mark  all 
Semitic  religions.  The  chief  sacred  customs  must  have 
already  existed  in  a  simple  form.  These  would  probably 
embrace  circumcision,  abstinence  from  blood,  and  a  horror  of 
using  certain  animals  as  food.  For  many  of  the  later 
regulations  of  this  kind  cannot  be  explained  except  by 
primitive  popular  customs.  Faithful  observance  of  acknow- 
ledged obligations  and  respect  for  property  ranked  as  moral 
duties,  especially  in  the  marriage  relation,  which  was 
looked  at  from  the  standpoint  of  property.  With  these 
exceptions,  the  natural  right  to  have  recourse  to  cunning, 
deceit,  and  violence  was  admitted,  and  also  the  right  of  the 
male  to  free  sexual  enjoyment.  The  rights  of  parents  and  of 
the  head  of  the  clan  were  absolute.  These  were  the  only 
recognised  authorities.  Shed  blood  demanded  bloodshed. 
Later  legislation  found  this  avenging  of  blood  an  established 
and  sacred  national  custom,  and  had  to  remain  content  with 

uncommon  among  pastoral  peoples.  The  disinclination  to  use  any  other  tent 
but  the  black  tent  of  the  desert,  and  the  contempt  with  which  the  Arabs  of  the 
peninsula  of  Sinai  regard  the  art  of  writing,  are  examples  of  the  same  thing. 
In  fact,  Mohammed's  prohibition  of  wine  is  to  no  small  extent  an  expression  of 
the  views  held  by  these  children  of  the  desert. 

^  Ex.  V.  1,  xxxii. 

^  Judg.  xxi.  20  f. ;  Ex.  xxxii,  6,  15  ff.  Unless  this  side  of  the  national  life  had 
a  closer  connection  with  what  Israel  found  already  prevalent  in  Canaan  than 
with  its  own  tribal  reminiscences. 


PICTUKE  OF  PATRIARCHAL  AGE.  93 

legalising  it  in  the  least  objectionable  forms.  Hospitality, 
cunning,  courage,  and  careful  provision  for  the  family,  were 
held  in  the  highest  esteem.  There  was  neither  priestly 
mediator  nor  fixed  forms  of  worship.  The  head  of  the  family 
and  the  national  leader  represented  the  people  even  before 
God.  The  simple  and  certainly  somewhat  arbitrary  forms 
of  worship  were  the  expression  of  a  wish  to  gratify  the 
Deity  with  a  gift,  whether  by  way  of  thanks,  or  in  the  hope 
of  furthering  a  petition,  or  with  a  view  to  appease  the  divine 
wrath ;  but  above  and  beyond  all  this,  these  sacrifices  were 
due  to  the  habit  of  celebrating  in  a  religious  way  every  joyous 
occasion  in  life.  Various  objects  of  superstition,  such  as 
the  Teraphim,  must  have  been  in  use,  and  there  must 
have  been  a  desire  to  possess  some  symbolical  representa- 
tion of  the  national  God.  The  former  were  still  found 
in  the  time  of  David, ^  and  actually  in  the  possession  of 
l)ious  servants  of  Jehovah.  The  ox-image  of  the  national 
God  in  the  wilderness,  as  well  as  Gideon's,  Micah's,  and 
Jeroboam's,  warrants  the  inference  that  there  was  an  ancient 
liking  for  such  a  representation.^  Probably,  too,  the  serpent- 
form  of  Nehushtan  is  a  remnant  of  ancient  custom.^  The 
normal  picture  of  that  age  must  have  been  something 
like  the  above.  The  actual  moral  and  religious  condition 
of  the  mass  of  the  people  in  Egypt  must  also,  of  course, 
have  been  comparatively  low.  Sacred  tradition  was  not 
wrong  in  cherishing  only  the  memory  of  the  free  pastoral 
life  of  the  patriarchs,  and  in  working  up  the  incidents  of 
these  days  into  pictures  of  surpassing  beauty.  Immorality 
and  degradation  must  have  been  the  chief  characteristics  of 


^  1  Sam.  xix.  13, 

2  Judg.  viii.  27,  xvii.  3ff.,  xviii.  31  ;  1  Kings  xii.  28  ff.  Certainly,  in  the 
cases  of  Micah  and  Gideon,  the  precise  nature  of  tlie  image  is  not  mentioned  ; 
but  the  connection  of  the  worship  kept  up  at  Dan  till  the  overthrow  of  the 
kingdom  with  the  worship  in  Micah's  house,  leads  to  a  more  than  probable 
conclusion  regarding  Judg.  viii.  and  xvii. 

^  2  Kings  xviii.  4. 


94  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

those  half-settled  nomads,  just  as  they  are  at  the  present 
day  characteristic  of  those  tribes  on  the  borders  of  the  Nile 
valley  which  are  in  the  process  of  becoming  Fellahin.  Hence 
the  time  when  Israel  lived  in  tents  as  a  purely  pastoral  race 
might  well  appear  ideal. 

3.  It  is  with  the  name  of  Abraham  that  all  the  early 
memories  of  Israel  associate  the  origin  of  the  characteristic 
features  of  pre-Mosaic  religion  and  morals,  that  is,  the 
peculiarities  that  distinguish  the  Hebrew  race  from  its 
Semitic  brethren.  In  the  old  national  tradition,  as  we  have  it 
in  B  and  C,  this  man  is  a  most  imposing  figure.  He  has 
become  the  beau-ideal  of  a  saint.  He  separates  himself  from 
his  family  by  an  act  of  faith.^  His  whole  family  relations  are 
based  on  faith,  in  contradistinction  to  nature.'^  He  appears 
as  the  priestly  servant  of  the  God  Jehovah.^  From  the  first, 
gracious  promises  are  made  to  him,  and  these  always  become 
more  and  more  splendid.  As  the  favours  increase,  so  does 
his  faith.*  Even  his  son  he  would  be  ready  to  give  to  God.^ 
God  appears  to  him  as  to  a  friend,  and  takes  counsel  with 
him  as  with  a  confederate.  He  intercedes  for  sinners.*^ 
On  his  account  his  son  is  blessed.''  In  a  word,  he  appears  as 
the  great  "  friend  of  God  "  to  a  degree  not  attained  even  by 
Moses  himself.  He  is  the  august  model,  on  the  one  hand, 
of  piety,  faith,  self-sacrifice,  honesty,  hospitality,  fidelity  ;  and, 
on  the  other,  of  high  position,  wealth,  power,  honour,  and 
wonderful  prosperity. 

Tradition  of  the  Deuteronomic  cast  represents  him  as 
Heeing  from  his  native  place,  in  order  to  escape  from  its 
idolatry.      He  is  thus  made  the  type  of  the  people  of  the  true 


1  Gen.  xii.  1  ff. 

-  According  to  B,  Gen.  xi.  30,  xviii.  11  f.     B,  C,  xv.  2,  3.     In  B  the  laud  of 
promise  is  not  named  as  in  A  ;  it  is  "  the  unknown." 
^  Gen.  xii.  8,  xiii.  18. 

4  Gen.  xii.  2  il".,  xiii.  16  ff.,  xviii.  10  ff.,  xv.  1 11'. 
^  Gen.  xxii. 
^  Gen.  xviii.,  esp.  17  iL,  22  ff.,  xix.  "  Gen.  xxvi.  5. 


ABRAHAM.  9  5 

God  as  it  escapes  from  the  idolatrous  land  of  Egypt.^  For 
his  sake  God  loves  Israel,  the  nation  of  his  descendants.- 
And  the  honour  thus  given  to  Abraham  grows  steadily  greater. 
In  the  priestly  narrative  of  A,  the  patriarch's  figure  is,  it  is 
true,  rather  indistinct.  Indeed  the  whole  patriarchal  tradi- 
tion has  for  A  quite  a  subordinate  significance  as  compared 
with  "the  Law."  Abraham's  history  is  represented  as  con- 
nected rather  with  the  political  aims  of  his  tribe.^  But  even 
in  A  there  remains  quite  enough  to  show  the  splendour  of 
this  picture.  Abraham  is  the  covenant  friend  of  God.  He 
is  the  first  on  whom  circumcision  was  enjoined.  To  him 
the  promise  regarding  the  glory  of  his  nation  is  communicated. 
For  his  sake  his  kindred  are  rescued.^  And  the  theology 
of  later  times  is  specially  fond  of  Abraham's  personality,  so 
that  he  is  not  merely  the  chief  subject  of  profound  allegoris- 
ing on  the  part  of  Philo,  but  even  in  the  New  Testament 
he  far  surpasses  in  religious  importance  the  great  prophet 
Moses.^  Finally,  through  the  Koran,  he  has  attained,  even 
in  the  opinion  of  the  Arabs,  the  position  of  being  the  most 
honourable  among  the  men  of  God,  the  oldest  and  greatest  of 
Moslems, 

4.  These  ideas  regarding  Abraham,  developed  as  they  were 
stage  by  stage,  do  not  possess  the  value  of  historical  data. 
Indeed,  we  must  even  leave  it  undetermined,  in  the  present 
state  of  tradition,  how  far  the  name  of  Abraham,  and  the 
general  sketch  of  his  life,  are  to  be  regarded  as  historical. 
If  Gen  xiv.  were  a  really  primitive  account,  the  political 
importance  of  Abraham  would  be  very  clearly  established. 
Still,  I  cannot  convince  myself  of  the  certainty  of  this  assump- 

^  Josh.  xxiv.  2,  3,  and  carried  further  by  Josephus,  Avfig.  Jud,  i.  8. 
Compare  also  the  further  development  of  the  legend,  1  Mace.  xii.  21. 

'^  Deut.  iv.  37,  vii.  8,  ix.  5. 

•■  Gen.  xi.  31  f. 

■*  Gen.  xvii.,  xix.  29. 

^  Rom.  iv.  ;  Gal.  iii.  ;  Jas.  ii.  21  ;  Heb.  xi.  8 ;  Luke  iii.  8 ;  John 
viii.  33. 


96  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

tion.^  The  fact  that  Assyrian  documents  of  the  age  to  which 
Abraham  must  have  belonged  give  us  political  circumstances 
and  names  which  agree  well  enough  with  this  narrative, 
cannot  justify  us  in  considering  it  an  ancient  non-Israelitish 
source.  For  the  author  of  Gen.  xiv.  is,  at  all  events,  a 
believing  Israelite,  who  surrounds  the  figure  of  Abraham  with 
such  a  halo  of  glory  as  would  be  inconceivable  in  a  non- 
Israelitish  source.  This  figure,  which  is  for  him  the  main 
object  of  the  story,  he  might  quite  easily  have  set  in  a  frame 
of  stories  thoroughly  in  keeping  with  the  general  historical 
character  of  those  times.^  The  inferences  which  Josephus^ 
draws  from  a  narrative  of  Berosus,  and  his  statement  taken 
from  Nicolaus  of  Damascus,  that  Abraham  was  king  of 
Damascus,*  are  absolutely  without  historical  value.  But  it 
may  be  regarded  as  certain  that  the  foundation  of  Israel's 
moral  and  religious  character  was  not  laid  in  Egypt,  where 
the  nation  came  into  contact  with  an  utterly  alien  worship, 
half-naturalistic,  half-philosophical.  It  was  brought  with 
them  from  their  free  nomad  life  in  Canaan  and  the  neighbour- 
ing countries,  having  been  gradually  formed  there  in  the 
small  pastoral  clan  which  had  migrated  from  Mesopotamia,  and 
which,  at  one  time  mixing  with  kindred  clans,  and  at  another 
keeping  itself  distinct,  had  sojourned  for  several  genera- 
tions in  that  country,  which  was  then,  probably,  less  thickly 
peopled. 

How   then   had   this    moral  and   religious   distinctiveness 
orisinated  ? 


^  What  can  be  said  on  that  side  may  be  best  seen  in  Ewald,  i.  431  ff.  ;  cf.  also 
Baur,  i.  140  f.,  and  Sayce,  Fresh  Light  from  Ancient  Monuments.  Cf.  on  tlie 
other  side,  Noldeke,  Abh.  iii. 

^  On  the  other  hand,  a  mere  glance  at  tliis  section  is  sufficient  to  show  any 
unprejudiced  reader  that  vers.  18-20  are  a  late  insertion,  made  for  the  purpose 
of  giving  the  holy  city  Jerusalem  =  Salem,  from  the  earliest  days,  a  sacred 
character  which  it  has  sorely  missed.  The  verses  were  inserted  here  because 
tlie  "king's  valley  "  gave  an  opportunity  for  doing  so. 

'  Antiq.  i.  7.  2. 

*  Cf.  also  Justiiius,  Tr.  Pomp.  H.  Ph.  Ep.  xxxvi.  2. 


ABRAHAM.  97 

According  to  the  late  representation  in  Josh.  xxiv.  3,  it 
took  its  rise  in  distinct  and  conscious  antagonism  to  the 
superstition  of  his  kinsfolk  on  the  part  of  Abraham,  the 
founder  of  the  nation.  According  to  the  legend  in  Josephus, 
the  lifework  of  this  man  sprang  out  of  a  definite  intention 
on  his  part  to  reform  religion.  The  writers  in  Genesis 
know  nothing  of  any  such  direct  antagonism  on  Abraham's 
part  to  his  religious  surroundings.  It  is  true  that  among 
Abraham's  kindred  it  is  not  only  superstition,  such  as  was 
common  even  in  Israel,  that  is  taken  as  a  matter  of  course, 
but  the  actual  worship  of  "  other  gods."  ^  But  in  all 
other  respects  A,  B,  and  C  agree  in  considering  that  a 
monotheistic  and  ethical  religion,  not  essentially  different 
from  the  religion  of  Abraham,  was  an  ancient  inheritance  of 
the  descendants  of  Seth  and  Shem,  and  flourished  in  Western 
Asia.2  The  one  thing  represented  as  new  in  the  case  of 
Abraham  is  the  covenant  relationsliip  loith  God,  together  with 
the  promises  founded  upon  it.  And  long  after  this,  nothing 
is  known  in  Israel  of  any  direct  religious  antagonism  to  the 
petty  tribes  of  kindred  stock. 

To  get  an  answer  to  our  question,  we  must  study  the 
history  of  religions  by  the  aid  of  the  historical  method,  and 
thus  seek  to  obtain  an  estimate  of  the  religion  of  the  Semitic 
races,  and  of  its  relation  to  the  religion  of  the  Hebrews  before 
the  time  of  Moses. 

5.  Ever  since  Ernest  Eenan,  in  his  own  clever  and  brilliant 
style,  asserted  that  monotheism  was  a  natural  instinct  of  the 
Semitic  peoples,  not  a  superior  instinct  either  which  set  these 
peoples  above  the  rest,  but  one  "  sui  generis "  having  both 
excellences  and  defects  of  its  own, — an  assertion  which  he 
explains  by  the  further  statement  that  mouotlieism  is  really 
due  to  a  lack  of  imaginative  power  and  richness  of  diction,  of 
breadth  of    conception    and  freedom  of  spirit,  in   fact,  to  a 

1  B,  Gen.  xxxv. ;  C,  xxxi.  19,  30,  34  (53  ?). 
^  Gen.  v.,  vi.  9ff.,  xiv.  19,  xx.  6,  xxiv.  31,  50,  xxxi.  49. 
VOL.  I.  G 


98  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

lack  of  religious  needs,  and  is  therefore,  so  to  speak,  "the 
minimum  of  religion, — a  lively  discussion  has  been  going 
on  as  to  how  far  the  nationality  of  Israel  can  account  for  the 
origin  of  Old  Testament  religion. 

Lassen  agrees  with  Eenan's  proposition.  Grau,  with  the 
approval  of  Leo,  has  taken  his  assertions  as  being  in  the 
main  well  founded,  and  has  used  them  not  unskilfully  to  prove 
the  unique  function  of  the  Semites  as  repositories  of  revelation  ; 
Steinthal,  Ewald,  Diestel,  and  Max  Miiller  have,  on  the 
other  hand,  called  attention  to  what  is  unfounded,  or,  at  any 
rate,  exaggerated,  in  these  views  of  Kenan.^  "  Could  the 
monotheistic  instinct  of  the  Semitic  race,  if  it  really  is  an 
instinct,  have  been  so  frequently  and  so  entirely  obscured 
by  the  polytheistic  instinct  of  the  Aryan  race,  if  it,  too,  is  an 
instinct,  that  the  Jews  could  worship  at  the  high  places  round 
about  Jerusalem,  and  the  Greeks  and  Eomans  become  zealous 
Christians  ?  "  (Max  Miiller).  The  mistake  in  Eenan's  general 
verdict  regarding  the  limited  capabilities  of  the  Semitic 
peoples,  is  due  to  the  very  common  error  of  generalising 
judgments  that  apply  only  to  particular  cases  that  have 
come  under  consideration.  The  capacity  of  the  so-called 
Semitic  peoples  for  religion  and  culture,  especially  if,  contrary 
to  the  statement  in  Gen.  x.,  the  Phoenicians  are  reckoned 
among  them,  and  if  the  civilisation  of  the  Euphrates  valley  is 
placed  to  their  credit,  can  no  more  be  estimated  by  one  standard 
than  that  of  the  Aryan  races  of  the  same  period.  The  children 
of  the  desert,  who,  since  primeval  days,  have  lived  in  tents 
from  Haran  to  Hedjaz,  bear  in  this  respect  no  more  resem- 
blance to  the  haughty  cultured  peoples  of  Babylon  and  Tyre, 
than  the  ancient  Slavs  and  Germans  in  their  woods  and  marshes 
to  the  Greeks  of  the  age  of  Pericles  or  to  the  Eomans  under 
Augustus.  To  pronouuce  a  general  judgment  on  questions  of 
such  extent,  is  what  every  prudent  man  would  decline  to  do. 

'  The  book  of  Ei'mtsch  goes  too  far  in  denying  that  any  national  influence 
contributed  to  the  rise  of  the  Biblical  religion. 


HEBREW  AND  SEMITIC  RELIGION.  99 

Only  on  one  supposition  is  it  possible  to  concede  to  Eenan's 
assertions  a  somewhat  greater  measure  of  justification.  The 
name  "Semitic"  would  have  to  be  strictly  confined  to  the  small 
group  of  nations  which,  according  to  Hebrew  recollection 
(Gen.  X.),  belonged  to  Israel's  kinsfolk  in  the  narrower  sense 
— to  the  group  of  warlike  shepherd  tribes  which,  issuing,  as  is 
clear,  from  the  bosom  of  the  great  Arabian  peninsula,^  over- 
ran Mesopotamia,  Syria,  and  Canaan,  and  possessed  themselves 
of  part  of  Egypt.  Some  of  these  remained  in  their  original 
condition  as  regards  culture ;  others  founded  military  empires 
on  the  soil  of  an  older  civilisation,  and  then  conformed  to 
the  culture  of  their  vassals,  in  much  the  same  way  as  the 
modern  world  has  seen  the  rise  of  the  Ottoman  and 
Seljuk  empire  on  the  soil  of  Arabic  and  Persian  civilisation. 
It  is  thus  that  we  should  picture  to  ourselves  the  rise  of 
Semitic  suzerainty  in  Chaldea  and  Nineveh,  of  Aramaic  over- 
lordship  in  Syria,  and  the  rule  of  the  Hyksos  in  Egypt. 
Such,  too,  was  Israel's  supremacy  in  Canaan ;  and  such  the 
supremacy  of  the  kindred  peoples,  Edom,  Moab,  and  Amnion 
in  the  lands  east  of  Jordan.  The  founders  of  the  special 
civilisation  of  Canaan,  Babylon,  and  Egypt  would  then  be 
peoples  of  another  stamp,  called  in  the  Bible  Hamites,  who, 
though  akin  in  language  and  race  to  the  Semites,  had  gone 
through  quite  a  different  course  of  life  and  development,  and 
had  got  even  their  national  instincts  modified  by  intermixture 
with  peoples  of  a  different  race. 

Only  within  such  limits  is  it  possible  to  speak  of  that 
peculiarity  of  the  Semitic  spirit  on  which  Eenan  lays  so  much 
stress.  Better  acquaintance  with  the  civilised  peoples  of 
Nineveh  and  Babylon,  as  well  as  a  proper  estimate  of  the  roU 

^  According  to  Hommel,  in  a  lecture,  "Ueber  die  urspriingliclien  Wolmsitze 
der  Semiteu,"  Florence,  13th  Sept.  1878  {Augsh.  Allg.  Z.  Beil.  No.  263,  264, 
1878),  we  should  think  of  their  original  home  as  in  Mesopotamia,  about  mid- 
way down  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris  (A.  v.  Kremer,  Semitische  Cultur- 
entlehnungen  aus  dem  Thier-  und  PJlanzenreich,  Ausland,  Bd.  xlviii.,  Jan.  1,  2  ; 
as  a  separate  pamphlet,  by  Cotta,  Stuttg.  1875), 


100  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY, 

wliicli  tlie  Plicenicians  played  in  the  history  of  the  world,  would 
directly  contradict  his  assertions.  We  know  now  that  a  great 
many  of  the  Hellenic  myths  rest  on  the  mythology  of  these 
civilised  States,  especially  the  whole  series  of  myths  connected 
with  Hercules,  the  victorious  Sun-God,  with  his  arrows,  his 
lion's  hide,  and  his  gleaming  locks, — with  the  beneficent  yet 
destructive  Hero -God,  who  afterwards  acts  the  part  of  a 
woman  and  a  servant,  and  at  last,  in  order  to  renew  his 
youth,  j)erishes  in  the  flames.  We  know  that  almost  all 
the  goddesses  of  Greece  owe  their  origin  to  the  Asiatic 
Nature-mother,  and  that  the  peculiar  religious  excitement 
known  as  orgiastic  frenzy,  which  has  so  often  smitten 
European  nations  also,  has  its  home  in  those  lands  where 
the  great  mother  of  the  gods  and  the  dying  Sun-God  were 
worshipped.  We  are  acquainted  with  mythical  and  epic 
Chaldee  songs,  like  the  Flood  and  the  journey  of  Istar  to 
Hades.  We  are  aware  that  we  have  to  seek  for  the  cradle 
of  Greek  art  by  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates,  just  as  even  in 
Homer  "  the  men*of  Sidon,"  as  artists  and  as  dealers  in  works 
of  art  from  the  cities  on  the  Euphrates,  are  looked  upon  by 
the  Greeks  as  models  whom  they  cannot  hope  to  rival.  And 
when  I  point  out  that  the  constitution  of  Carthage  was  the 
most  satisfactory  embodiment  of  political  genius  which 
Aristotle  in  his  day  could  discover,  and  that  a  people 
which  produced  a  family  like  the  family  of  Barcas  can 
hardly  have  been  lacking  in  political  and  military  talent, 
enough  has  been  said  to  prove  that  the  view  of  Eenan,  in 
the  general  form  in  which  he  states  it,  is  absolutely  unten- 
able. 

6.  But  if  we  leave  these  civilised  peoples  out  of  account, 
and  regard  the  gifts  of  genius  which  led  them  as  nations  to  a 
richer  mythology  and  art,  and  to  higher  political  organisation, 
as  due  to  national  elements  of  a  different  kind  by  the  combina- 
tion of  which  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  the  "  Hamitic " 
nations  might  be  explained,  then  there  certainly  remains  an 


HEBREW  AND  SEMITIC  RELIGION.  101 

element  of  truth  to  wliicb  Ilenan  has  called  attention. 
And  this  we  ought  not  to  overlook.  For  while  the 
religion  of  Israel  is,  on  the  one  hand,  according  to 
Hitzig's  beautiful  simile,  like  the  pearl  which  grows  by 
the  pain  and  death  of  the  oyster,  that  is,  has  been  brought 
into  being  through  a  history  of  suffering  and  chastisement ; 
on  the  other  hand,  it  cannot  but  have  had  an  intimate 
connection  with  the  peculiar  gifts  of  this  people,  and  with 
the  religious  background  of  the  family  of  nations  to  which 
it  belonged. 

What,  then,  was  the  character  of  this  religious  background  ? 
To  this  question  we  may  first  of  all  give  with  confidence  this 
negative  reply.  It  was  not  monotheism,  and  least  of  all  a 
spiritual  monotheism.  In  proof  of  this  we  do  not  appeal  to 
the  religion  of  Mneveh  and  Chaldea,  the  sources  of  which  have 
now  been  laid  open  to  our  inspection,  nor  to  the  essentially 
similar  religion  of  the  Phoenicians  and  the  Canaanites. 
That  these  religions  were  full  of  nature-myths,  that  they 
were  in  possession  of  an  artistically  constructed  system  of 
gods  and  goddesses,  whose  forms  are  closely  bound  up  with 
the  great  events  of  life  in  nature,  especially  with  the  mysteries 
of  birth  and  death,  as  well  as  with  the  wonderful  and  yet 
regular  course  of  the  planets — of  all  this  there  cannot  be 
a  doubt.  But  even  the  elemental  nature-religion  of  the 
Semitic  pastoral  peoples  cannot  have  been  monotheistic.  The 
Semitic  conquerors  of  Chaldea  and  Nineveh  found  themselves 
quite  at  home  among  the  "  Accadian  "  myths  and  the  deities 
of  the  Chaldean  priests ;  and  their  own  religious  language 
supplied  them  with  names  for  the  many  gods  of  that  different 
civilisation. 

However  much  the  idolatry  of  the  ancient  Arabs  varied 
with  the  separate  districts  and  tribes,  so  that  there  was 
perhaps  only  in  Hedjaz  and  Yemen  a  regular  system  of 
gods,  nevertheless  they  always  presupposed  a  plurality 
of  gods   and  goddesses  in  which  the   Greeks  believed   that 


102  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

they  could  at  once  recognise  their  own  divinities.*  In 
Edom,  Moab,  and  Ammon  we  do  not,  it  is  true,  know  of  a 
plurahty  of  gods, — at  least  there  is  some  doubt  about  it, — but 
we  are  all  the  more  certain  that  these  peoples  were  not  them- 
selves conscious  of  being  different  from  the  nature-worshipping 
peoples  round  about  them,  nor  were  they  regarded  by  the 
Israelites  as  different. 

7.  It  is  much  more  difficult  to  give  a  positive  answer  to 
the  question  as  to  the  essence  of  Semitic  elemental  worship. 
Practically  it  can  be  worked  out  only  from  the  language  of 
these  peoples,  and  from  the  effects  of  their  common  religion  upon 
the  development  of  the  religious  life  in  the  different  tribes. 

The  names  for  God  among  the  Semites  show  us  that  for 
them  the  original  object  was  not  how  to  obtain  a  religious 
conception  of  the  various  developments  of  life  in  nature,  but 
how  to  express  their  own  subjection  to  the  irresistible  force 
revealed  in  nature.  The  oldest  name  of  God,  El  (Bab-ilu), 
and  then  Baal,  Bel,  Adonai,  Moloch,  Milcom,  Annammelecli, 
Melk-Qarth,  Adrammelech,  and  certainly  also  Assur,  Kemosch, 
Allah,  Kijun,  Aziz,  all  express  this  one  aim.  Now,  as  the 
peculiar  genius  of  the  Semitic  languages  generally  makes  it 
difficult  to  separate  the  noun  from  its  verbal  root,  we  certainly 
have  here  a  strong  barrier  against  the  development  of  n)yth 
proper,  against  the  individualising  of  the  gods,  that  is,  against 
polytheism  properly  so  called,  while  at  the  same  time  the 
strongly  personal  conception  of  the  idea  of  God  rendered  the 
transition  to  pantheism  difficult.  The  unity  of  God  was  not  an 
article  of  faith.  But  the  plurality  of  divine  forces,  being 
thought  of  as  a  matter  of  course,  excited  little  interest.  The 
God  to  whom  prayer  was  addressed,  or  who  was  regarded  as 
specially  interested  in  the  particular  people,  exercised  quite 

*  Herod,  i.  131,  iii.  8  ;  Arrian,  Exped.  Alex.  y'n.  20 ;  and  alio  Origen, 
Contra  Cthum,  v.  §  37  ;  Pliilostorg.  HiM.  Ecd.  iii.  4.  Cf.  in  general  the 
•writings  of  Osiander  and  Krchl,  mentioned  above,  and  the  more  recent  works  of 
Wellhauscn  (  Wesen  des  arabischen  Heidenthums)  and  Robertson  Snaith  {Lecturta 
on  the  Edigion  of  the  Semites). 


HEBREW  AND  SEMITIC  RELIGIOX.  103 

an  exceptional  influence  over  the  religious  life.  Hence  it  can 
be  said,  at  all  events,  in  a  certain  sense  that  here  the  stage 
of  polytheism  had  not  yet  been  reached. 

With  this  is  connected  what  is  generally  called  the 
"  particularist "  idea  of  God,  viz.  the  paying  of  almost 
exclusive  attention  to  the  god  whom  the  particular  tribe 
claims  as  its  own,  either  along  with  or  in  opposition  to  the 
other  gods.  That  is  not,  it  is  true,  an  exclusively  Semitic 
trait,  but  it  is  found  wherever  there  is  strong  tribal  feeling. 
All  really  polytheistic  systems  have  arisen  mainly  through 
several  tribes,  with  their  respective  gods,  having  been  com- 
bined into  a  single  nation.  But  here  this  characteristic  is 
decidedly  stronger  than  among  the  Aryans,  probably  because 
the  Semites  paid  less  attention  to  the  various  phenomena  of 
nature  than  to  the  sovereign  power  of  the  god  to  whom  the 
service  of  the  favoured  people  was  due.  The  Baal  of  the 
Canaanites  and  the  Phoenicians,  the  Assur  of  Assyria,  the  Bel 
of  Babylon,  the  Chemosch  of  Moab,  as  the  inscription  on  the 
Mesha  stone  proves,  the  Milcom  of  Ammon,  and  the  Aziz 
of  the  Syrians,  had  a  very  different  influence  over  their 
respective  peoples  than  the  Zeus  of  Olympia  or  the  Mars  of 
Eome. 

This  "  uniformity  "  of  religious  life  was  favoured,  not  only 
by  the  language,  but  also  by  nature  and  by  the  national 
development  of  these  peoples.  The  pastoral  tribes  of  the 
desert  did  not  find  in  nature  a  bright  and  varied  life,  but 
only  the  august  and  uniform  omnipotence  that  kills  as  well  as 
vivifies,  the  light  which  is  at  the  same  time  a  consuming  heat. 
Hence,  with  all  their  power  of  imagination,  there  was  really 
a  want  of  variety  in  their  conceptions.  And  they  lacked  a 
rich  and  harmoniously  developed  social  and  political  life. 
They  devoted  their  mental  energies  with  resolute  persistency 
t;o  a  few  subjects.  Human  life,  when  spent  amid  quiet 
monotonous  surroundings,  affords  but  little  scope  for  the 
exhilaration   of  joy,   and   for   the   consciousness  of  freedom ; 


104  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

it  rather  tends  to  foster  a  spirit  of  submission  and  resignation. 
Not  as  if  the  children  of  the  desert  were  pious  in  the  proper 
sense.  Indifference  is  often  the  result  of  resignation.  But  if 
the  religious  sense  be  awakened,  then  in  such  circumstances 
it  delights  to  manifest  itself  in  entire  self-surrender.  From 
the  very  poverty  of  the  life  it  gains  in  fervour  and  passion, 
and  may  thus  turn  out  to  be  the  one  element  which,  not 
being  weakened  by  distracting  feelings,  holds  sovereign  sway 
over  the  soul. 

Of  such  a  soul  the  natural  product  is,  on  the  one  hand, 
prophecy,  and  on  the  other,  wild  religious  enthusiasm,  with 
its  fanatical  devotion  to  God,  its  sacrifices  of  children,  its 
self-mutilations,  and  its  tribute  of  maidens.  Moreover, 
since  every  higher  development  of  political  and  social  life 
is  absent,  the  ethical  element  in  religion  must  likewise 
be  lacking.  The  impression  of  mere  might,  or  the  patri- 
archal frame  of  mind,  is  the  last  and  highest.  The 
fundamental  element  in  piety  is  fear  of  God,  from  the  very 
lowest  meaning  of  the  term  up  to  the  timid  reverence, 
mingled  with  love,  which  a  child  feels  for  its  Father  and 
Lord.  But  the  nation's  weal,  its  victories,  and  honours  are 
thought  of  as  inseparably  bound  up  with  its  God.  And  in 
this  union  of  God  with  the  nation,  as  well  as  in  the 
emphasising  of  His  might,  lies  the  impulse  to  set  Him  apart 
from  nature  as  her  Lord  and  Creator.  The  myths  of  creation 
were  born  on  Semitic  soil. 

Owing  to  its  peculiar  characteristics,  this  religion  had 
no  strong  tendency  to  image-worship  or  to  priestly  mediation. 
In  Canaan,  as  in  Arabia,  the  symbols  of  the  divine  presence 
were  sacred  stones  and  trees.  There  were  no  statues  of  the 
'gods.  There  were,  at  the  most,  symbolical  figures  in  which  the 
strength  and  the  wisdom  of  the  godhead  were  worshipped. 
There  were  no  priesthoods  ;  the  father  of  the  household,  or  the 
head  of  the  clan,  was  also  the  priest,  and  performed  the  simple 
sacrifices  with  their  sacred  rites.     And  while  the  statue  of  a 


HEBREW  AND  SEMITIC  RELIGION,  105 

god  in  human  form  is  a  great  help  to  the  making  of  myths, 
and  to  the  more  artistic  forms  of  polytheism,  no  impulse  in 
this  direction  is  given  hy  the  symbol  of  deity,  whether  it  be 
taken  directly  from  nature,  or  produced  by  fancy,  or  be  the 
expression  of  an  allegorical  thought — as  was,  for  example, 
the  figure  of  an  ox.  The  reason  is  the  lack  of  individuality. 
And  while  in  every  nature  -  religion  the  priesthood  is 
driven  onwards  to  a  pantheistic  spiritualising  of  their  re- 
ligion, which  is  then  revealed  exoterically  as  an  artistically- 
constructed  polytheism,  wherever  the  worship  is  retained 
in  the  hands  of  the  father  or  the  head  of  the  clan, 
people  fight  shy  of  every  attempt  at  a  theological,  or  even 
theoretical,  development  of  their  religion.  But  in  any  such 
religion  popular  customs,  if  once  they  get  connected  with  the 
worship  of  the  gods,  are  kept  up  with  all  the  greater  per- 
sistency;  and  it  is  just  the  pastoral  life  which,  under  all 
circumstances,  causes  such  customs  to  strike  their  roots 
particularly  deep. 

8.  This  must  have  been  the  character  of  Semitic  religion 
among  the  tribes  which  did  not,  like  the  kindred  tribes  that 
first  emigrated  from  the  country  in  which  the  race  was 
cradled,  coalesce  with  the  nationality  and  the  civilisation  of 
alien  peoples,  but  which,  as  pastoral  peoples,  preserved  the 
simplicity  and  the  memories  of  their  ancient  home.  Into  this 
category  we  must  put  the  religion  of  the  Terachitic  branch, 
which  still  included  Aramaeans,  Hebrews,  Edomites,  Moabites, 
Ammonites,  and  a  number  of  Arabian  tribes.  This  would 
certainly  not  be  directly  decisive  as  to  the  origin  of  the 
religion  of  Israel,  were  one  to  assume,  according  to  a  view 
recently  in  favour  with  Assyriologists,  that  these  tribes, 
during  their  stay  in  Chaldea,  were  deeply  influenced  by  the 
culture  and  religion  of  the  Babylonian  empire.  In  that  case 
it  would  have  to  be  admitted  that  a  fully-formed  polytheism 
of  a  sensuous  character,  already  knit  together  by  astronomy 
and  resting  on  a  naturalistic  pantheism,  that  a  rich  web  of 


106  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

myths  full  of  deep  meaning,  a  worship,  the  real  centre  of 
which  was  the  homage  paid  to  the  female  side  of  nature,  had 
been  appropriated  by  the  Hebrews  even  prior  to  the  rise  of 
their  own  religion,  or  had  at  least  exerted  an  influence  upon 
them.  This  view  is  supported,  not  merely  by  the  numerous 
elements  which  the  Old  Testament  has  in  common  with 
the  Assyrio  -  Babylonian  mythology,  but  also  by  the  theory 
brought  into  favour  by  recent  excavations  that  Ur  of  the 
Chaldees  is  the  Uru  (Mugheir)  south  of  Babylon,  This 
I  cannot  but  consider  a  misleading  plausibility.  In  Genesis, 
Ur  of  the  Chaldees  has  manifestly  so  close  a  connection  with 
Paddan-Aram  and  with  Haran,^  that  it  is  impossible  to  think 
of  a  country  at  such  a  vast  distance  from  these  districts  as 
Southern  Babylonia.  And  nowhere  else  in  the  early  memories 
of  Israel  is  there  anything  that  points  to  a  home  so  far  south. 
The  Aramaean  country,  that  is,  the  course  of  the  upper 
Euphrates,  is  represented  as  the  fatherland  of  Israel.  And 
certainly  the  later  culture  of  Israel,  like  that  of  all  the  nations 
in  Western  Asia,  depends  to  a  large  extent  upon  Babylon,  e.g. 
its  chronology,  coinage,  and  measures.  The  myths  with  which 
our  Old  Testament  begins  are,  as  every  unprejudiced  reader 
sees,  closely  akin  to  the  stories  of  the  Izdubar  epic,  which  the 
library  of  Assurbanipal  has  preserved  as  an  old  Chaldee 
treasure. 

Above  all,  the  Biblical  tradition  of  the  Flood  is  beyond  a 
doubt  closely  connected  with  the  Chaldee  tradition.  And  the 
Liter  history  of  Israel  shows  us  that  the  worship  of  the  Queen 
of  Heaven  was  a  worship  taken  up  by  the  people  with  special 
zest.^  Still  that  does  not  prove  that  Israel  sprang  from 
Southern  Babylon.  Babylon's  contribution  to  their  civilisa- 
tion mny  quite  well  have  been  made  through  the  medium 
of  the  Phoenicians  and  the  other  Canaanites,  and  been  assimi- 

■   Gen.   xi.  28,  31,    xxii.    20  ff.,  xxiv.  10;   xxviii.    2,  xii.    1  ;  Trhp  p>!' 
cf.  xxiv.  4. 

*  E.g.  Jer.  xliv.  17ff. 


HEBREW  AND  SEMITIC  EELIGION.  107 

lated  by  Israel  in  much  later  times,  when  the  whole  national 
life  was  growing  more  refined.  At  that  time,  during  the 
days  of  the  kings,  both  philosophical  and  theological  materials 
akin  to  the  Babylonian  may  have  found  their  way  into 
Israel.  Besides,  we  do  not  know  how  much  of  this  belonged 
to  the  old  Semitic  stock  of  ideas  which  the  Semites  brought 
with  them  to  Babylon  and  Nineveh.  Nor  do  any  of  the 
Terachitic  tribes,  whether  Arabian  or  Edomite,  whether 
Moabite,  Ammonite,  or  Israelite,  show  us  exactly  the  charac- 
teristic features  of  the  religious  life  of  the  Chaldeans.  If  the 
worship  of  the  great  Nature-goddess  and  all  its  orgiastic  rites,  or 
the  Sakcean  feast  had  actually  belonged  to  the  national  religion 
of  Israel,  we  should  be  deprived  of  all  means  of  understand- 
ing how,  in  such  a  soil,  a  pure  religion  could  ever  have 
developed  without  violent  convulsions.  The  true  explanation 
will  rather  be  this,  that  while  some  Semitic  tribes  adopted  the 
civilisation  of  the  Euphrates  valley,  those  which  kept  true  to 
the  simplicity  of  their  ancestors  in  morals  and  religion,  viz. 
the  Aramaean  and  the  Hebrew,  withdrew  from  Mesopotamia, 
where  they  must  have  formed  part  of  one  huge  empire,  to 
the  vast  deserts  and  steppes  on  the  north  and  west,  whence 
they  afterwards  sallied  out  in  various  directions  in  quest  of 
their  destined  homes.  Such  must  have  been  the  migration 
of  Terach-Abraham  from  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  and  from  Haran 
to  Canaan,  to  a  certain  extent  an  actual  flight  from  his 
idolatrous  kinsfolk ;  more  strictly,  however,  it  was  for  the 
pure-born  Semites  a  tearing  of  themselves  away  from  an 
alien  civilisation  and  religion  eager  to  absorb  them  as  it  had 
absorbed  their  brethren.  That  a  pastoral  people  like  the 
Hebrews  could,  while  living  in  Egyptian  bondage  and  in 
circumstances  of  primitive  simplicity,  as  regards  culture,  have 
retained  in  their  memories  for  centuries  the  wisdom  of  the 
Chaldeans,  is  an  idea  that  bids  defiance  to  all  historical  pro- 
bability. 

9.  Hence  the  religion  out  of  which  tie  pre-Mosaic  religion 


108  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

of  Israel  sprang,  and  with  which  it  was  essentially  one,  must 
have  been  that  simple  religion  of  the  Semites  which  has  been 
already  described.  For  since  the  Old  Testament  represents 
Abraham  as  the  tribal  father  of  Ishmael  and  Edom,  as  well  as 
of  other  Arabian  tribes,  and  regards  Ammon  and  Moab  as 
descended  from  a  man  of  the  same  culture  and  religion,  the 
common  religion  of  these  tribes  must  have  been  not  only 
one  and  the  same,  but  also  such  as  would  explain  the 
religion  of  the  Hebrews,  as  well  as  that  of  those  other  tribes. 
Consequently,  the  name  Abraham  does  not  solve  this  historical 
question.  For,  if  he  be  thought  of  personally  as  the  founder 
of  a  pure  revealed  religion,  it  must  have  belonged  quite  as 
much  to  all  those  tribes  as  to  Israel.  In  the  name  Abraham 
there  is  quite  a  number  of  peoples  included  which,  however, 
liave  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  the  true  religion. 

The  way  in  which  this  Hebrew  religion  could  grow  into 
that  which  is  presupposed  in  the  Old  Testament,  can  be  pointed 
out  without  difficulty.  As  soon  as  there  arose  a  fuller  and 
deeper  reverence  for  the  tribal  God,  that  God  must  practically 
have  become  the  one  God,  that  is,  the  God  to  whom  alone 
trust,  reverence,  and  adoration  were  due,  and  before  whom  the 
other  gods,  without  having  their  existence  explicitly  denied, 
shrivelled  up  into  mere  subordinates,  or  into  powers  hostile, 
but  helpless.  When  the  people  found  themselves  face  to  face 
with  kindred  tribes  among  which  the  old  common  religion  was 
conjoined  in  Hamite  fashion  with  sensual  licence  and  with 
wild  excitement,  and  connected  with  a  female  divinity,  the 
self-consciousness  of  Israel  must  have  perceived  the  great 
superiority  which  the  simplicity  of  their  own  religion  and 
morals  had  over  such  developments  as  these.  Naturally, 
therefore,  they  would  endeavour  to  make  that  distinction 
greater  and  greater.  And  when  a  still  higher  moral  develop- 
ment of  the  people  took  place,  then,  on  the  basis  of  His 
terrible  power  and  His  consuming  holiness  and  glory,  this 
God  must  have  been  at  once  apprehended  as  the  personifica- 


HEBEEW  AND  SEMITIC  EELIGION.  109 

tion  of  Justice,  Goodness,  and  Truth.  The  people  must, 
as  His  people,  at  once  acknowledge  themselves  to  be  a 
people  pledged  to  moral  order  and  moral  aims.  The  sacred 
symbols  of  nature -worship  could  either  be  appropriated 
by  the  higher  religion,  or  dissolved  and  volatilised  into 
heroic  legends.  A  multitude  of  superstitious  customs,  which 
originally  belonged  to  nature-worship,  could  be  quite  frankly 
retained  by  the  higher  religion,  just  as  they  have  quietly 
accompanied  Christianity  also  through  all  its  stages  of  develop- 
ment up  to  the  present  day.  If  the  thing  happened  in  this 
way,  then  it  is  a  quite  superfluous  and  misleading  question  to 
ask  if  the  God  of  Israel  sprang  from  Moloch  or  Saturn.  He 
is  simply  the  great  God  of  the  Semites,  the  Lord  who  from 
being  a  Divinity  at  first  scarcely  apprehended  as  ethical.  His 
nature  not  excluding  polytheism,  became  a  moral  and  spiritual 
God,  who  stands  above  nature,  and  excludes — at  least  sucli  is 
the  trend  of  the  religion — every  other  god. 

In  this  way  the  thing  might  have  come  about.  But,  of 
course,  that  it  did  so  come  about  is  not  made  certain  by 
possibilities  such  as  these.  It  could,  indeed,  so  happen  only  if 
this  people  had  the  inward  force  of  character  not  to  lose 
its  own  characteristics,  but,  when  fighting  for  existence,  to 
steel  itself  and  make  these  characteristics  stand  out  more 
sharply  than  ever,  and  if  there  were  given  to  it  men  of  a  true 
prophetic  type,  quick  to  apprehend  any  self-revealing  act  of 
the  God  who  guides  the  world  towards  His  own  ends.  Else 
why  did  not  a  higher  religion  arise  in  Edom  or  in  Arabia  out 
of  similar  national  elements  there,  and  based  on  similar 
religious  foundations  ?  Nay,  why  did  the  religion  of  all  these 
tribes  disappear,  without  leaving  a  trace  behind,  in  the  waves 
of  the  great  religion  of  civilised  Asia,  and  later  of  Greece  ? 
The  possibility  of  a  historically  intelligible  transition  from  the 
religion  of  the  Semites  to  that  of  Israel  is  only  one  side  of 
the  answer  to  the  question  as  to  how  the  Hebrew  religion 
arose.     The  other  side  of  the  answer  must  always  be  given 


110  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

by  faith.  This  people  had  prophets,  and  experienced  a  revela- 
tion of  God  to  itself,  of  that  God  who  willed  that  His  greatest 
gift  to  man,  the  religion  of  redemption  and  reconciliation, 
should  be  revealed  upon  this  soil.  The  power  of  religious 
instinct,  the  prophetic  susceptibility  to  impressions  of  the  true 
life  of  God,  must  have  been  awakened  here  in  a  way  that  can 
only  be  explained,  like  all  the  other  mysteries  of  endowment, 
by  the  inscrutable  omnipotence  of  the  living  spirit  of  God  at 
work  in  nature.  Through  the  mysterious  power  and  goodness 
of  God,  who  bestows  the  Spirit  on  whom  He  will,  and  assigns 
alike  to  men  and  nations  the  part  they  have  to  play  on  this 
earthly  stage,  there  arose  in  the  leading  men  of  Israel  a 
higher  consciousness  of  God. 

While  the  world  was  always  getting  more  deeply  entangled 
in  polytheism,  and  the  majority  even  of  the  Semitic  peoples 
were  unable  to  resist  the  influence  of  a  mysterious  priestly 
religion  which  charmed  the  senses  and  the  imagination, 
but  was  morally  impotent,  here  the  God  of  the  patriarchs 
became  a  holy  personal  God,  who  set  before  this  tribe  an 
eternal  goal,  and  gave  to  it  moral  ordinances  which  it 
dared  not  break.  Certainly  this  higher  conception  had  not 
yet  become  a  living  power  in  the  masses  of  the  people  Moses 
had  to  deal  with.  But  in  its  leaders  and  in  its  ruling 
families,  the  instinct  for  such  a  higher  religion  must  have 
been  alive  like  a  spark  which  the  breath  of  God  could, 
through  Moses,  fan  into  a  flame. 

Hence  we  cannot,  in  point  of  fact,  picture  to  ourselves 
the  rise  of  the  Hebrew  religion  in  any  other  way  than 
Hebrew  legend  does,  when  it  represents  Abraham  as  entering 
into  a  covenant  with  the  great  God  of  his  fathers  who  appears 
unto  him, — a  covenant  the  seal  of  which  is  circumcision,  and 
the  attendant  blessing,  the  promise  of  the  land  of  Canaan ;  or 
when,  in  its  richer  form,  it  represents  Abraham  as  being  called 
out  of  the  country  of  his  birth  into  an  unnamed  land,  and 
tells   how  trial   upon   trial,   revelation    upon   revelation,  and 


HEBEEW  AND  SEMITIC  RELIGION.  Ill 

promise  upon  promise  fell  to  his  lot  till  he  passed  away, 
honoured  of  God  and  man.  The  religion  of  Israel  undoubtedly 
grew  up  on  the  natural  soil  of  the  religion  of  the  Semites. 
But  its  full  growth  is  only  to  be  understood  as  due  to  the 
equipment,  through  God's  creative  power,  of  human  spirits, 
and  to  the  revelation  of  the  divine  life  in  the  hearts  of  indi- 
vidual prophets. 

10.  Still  we  must  beware  of  thinking  that  the  distance 
between  the  Hebrew  religion  and  the  religion  common  to  the 
Semites,  and  especially  to  Abraham's  descendants  in  the  wider 
sense,  was  very  great,  and  quite  discernible  by  external  signs. 
It  is  certain  that  the  one  great  God  was  not  yet  worshipped 
in  the  sense  that  the  existence  of  other  gods  was  altogether 
denied,  or  even  the  worship  of  them  totally  forbidden 
everywhere.  That  cannot  be  thought  of  as  being  brought 
about  otherwise  than  gradually.  Still  less  was  this  God 
conceived  of  as  spiritual  in  the  sense  that  all  natural 
symbols  or  images  were  forbidden.  That  was  not  the  case 
even  long  after  Moses'  day.  The  yearning  desire  to  have 
the  Deity  near  to  one  in  sacred  memorial  stones,  underneath 
trees,  on  mountains,  or  in  the  form  of  household  gods 
(Terafim),  or  as  strength  in  the  image  of  an  ox,  was  assuredly 
expressed  quite  freely  and  frankly,  as  was  also  the  case  in 
Israel  at  a  much  later  stage  in  its  history.  The  main  element 
in  the  conception  of  God  must  have  been  His  consuming 
holiness  and  His  absolute  power.  We  have  to  think  of  the 
worship  practised  by  the  fathers  of  families  and  the  heads 
of  the  people  as  without  a  fixed  form  or  ritual.  The  ancient 
customs  of  the  people,  especially  in  reference  to  food  and 
family  life,  as  well  as  the  main  principles  of  social  morality, 
must  have  been  closely  connected  with  religion,  and,  in 
particular,  with  the  holiness  of  God,  Circumcision,  as  the 
consecration  to  God  of  the  organ  of  generation,  was  already  i\ 
common  in  the  pre-Mosaic  age  as  a  custom  in  which  a  natural 
and  a  higher  consecration   met.     The   Semitic  nature-feasts 


112  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

were  also  celebrated  by  this  people.  The  old  mythical  "world, 
with  its  myth-coloured  legends,  never  had  its  life  disturbed 
with  any  theoretical  interest  in  religion,  much  less  with  any 
theological  difficulties.  Hence  we  must  picture  to  ourselves 
a  religion  pretty  closely  resembling  in  its  manifestations 
the  other  old  Semitic  religions  of  the  kindred  tribes,  and 
in  no  way  consciously  recognised  or  apprehended  as  in 
antagonism  to  these,  but,  nevertheless,  in  its  deepest  essence, 
and  when  looked  at  in  connection  with  the  tendencies  that 
conditioned  its  development,  and  determined  the  history  of 
this  people,  very  different  from  those  simple  nature-religions. 
Thus  we  find  in  the  Hebrew  nation  the  soil  in  which  a 
creative  act  of  God  in  history  could  lay  a  firm  foundation 
for  a  history  of  the  true  religion,  the  complete  form  of 
which  appeared  in  the  divine  life  revealed  to  man  in 
Christ. 

11.  By  this  view  of  the  origin  of  the  Hebrew  religion, 
and  by  it  alone,  can  all  the  Old  Testament  phenomena  be 
explained  which  some  ^  have  regarded  as  proving  the  purely 
naturalistic  and  polytheistic  character  of  this  religion,  and 
which  others  have  attempted  to  ignore  in  the  supposed 
interests  of  revealed  religion.  In  saying  this,  I  am  not 
thinking  merely  of  the  fact  that  in  the  Old  Testament, 
though  only  in  very  late  parts  of  it,  mention  is  made  of  the 
idolatry  of  the  Israelites  in  Egypt,  and  of  Abraham's  kinsfolk 
in  Chaldea.  In  both  cases  this  is  certainly  in  accordance  with 
historical  truth.^  But  the  latter  circumstance  would  be  of  im- 
portance only  for  the  religion  of  the  ancient  Semites,  not 
for  the  religion  of  the  Hebrews  in  particular.  The  former 
we  should  have  to  assume  even  without  definite  information, 
if  we  take  into  consideration  the  moral  surroundings  of  a  horde 
of  nomads  settled  in  Egypt,  and  bear  in  mind  how  difficult 
it  was  for  the  people  even  in  much  later  times,  when  in  the 

^  Daumer,  Ghillany. 

2  Josh.  xxiv.  2,  14,  23  ;  Ezek.  xx.  8,  16,  xxiii.  3  (cf.  xvi.). 


TRACES  OF  SEMITIC  HEATHENISM  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.     113 

midst  of  nations  that  had  lapsed  into  regular  nature-worship, 
to  remain  content  with  the  unattractive  simplicity  of  a 
spiritual  religion. 

But  I  attach  much  greater  importance  to  the  fact  that 
not  a  few  genuine  fragments  of  myth  can  be  pointed  out  in 
the  Old  Testament.  No  doubt  the  kind  of  exposition  which 
simply  denies  this,  and  turns  such  mythical  narratives  into 
actual  human  history,  can  easily  get  over  this  difficulty  even 
without  this  hypothesis  of  ours.  But  any  one  who  takes  up 
Genesis  as  an  honest-minded  historian  accustomed  to  investi- 
gate the  early  history  of  other  peoples,  will  disdain  such  an 
expedient,  and  will  readily  acknowledge  that  here  he  has  to 
deal  with  reminiscences  of  primitive  Semitic  mythology.  In 
fact,  he  will  admit  that  much  later  still,  in  the  course  of 
the  Mosaic  period,  mythical  elements  from  other  groups  of 
nations,  especially  from  Chaldea  and  Phoenicia,  got  mixed 
up  with  popular  Hebrew  legend.  In  not  a  few  passages  it 
is,  of  course,  hard  to  say  which  of  the  two  cases  we  should 
suppose  it  to  have  been. 

The  primeval  family-registers  of  the  antediluvian  period  are 
neither  history  nor  legend,  but  have  a  mythical  character. 
In  the  present  state  of  comparative  philology,  it  is  true, 
superficial  comparison  of  words  like  Tubal- Qain- Vulcan, 
Jubal- Apollo,  Noah-Jacchus,  is  already  out  of  date.  But  the 
origin  of  such  names,  connected  with  the  great  inventions  to 
which  civilisation  owes  its  rise,  and  clearly  taken  by  their 
symbolical  attributes  out  of  the  circle  of  purely  historical 
personages,  can  be  explained  by  no  one  acquainted  with  the 
history  of  the  most  ancient  national  legends  otherwise  than 
by  assuming  that  figures  originally  mythical  have  become 
human.i  Euhemerism  is  very  old,  and  comes  into  existence 
of  itself  wherever  mythical  ideas  lose  their  hold  of  the 
national  consciousness,  and  cease  to  be  significant.  It  is 
certainly  too  rash  to  attach  to  these  names,  without  further 
1  Of.  Welcker,  p.  46  fif. 

VOL.  I.  H 


114  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

iuquiry,  a  system  of  divine  dynasties.^  Bat  Enoch  with  his 
three  hundred  and  sixty-five  years,  and  Lamech  with  his  two 
wives,  are  certainly  mythical  figures  easily  recognisable.  The 
relationship  between  Gen.  iv.  and  v.  is  enough  to  show  that 
these  two  genealogies  are  based  on  the  same  non-historical 
tradition.  Cain  and  Tubal-Cain  suggest  by  their  very  names 
the  attributes  assigned  them.  Far  later  still,  e.g.,  the  name 
Gad,  if  the  proof-passage,  Gen.  xxx.  11,  be  compared  with 
other  Old  Testament  passages,^  is  seen  to  be  a  reminiscence 
unmistakably  mythical.  The  mention  of  Obed-Edom,  2  Sam. 
vi.  10,  12,  proves  that  the  name  Edom  also  belongs  to 
mythology.  And  the  daughter  of  Jephthah,  whose  virgin 
death  the  women  of  Gilead  celebrate  every  year  by  a  four 
days'  funeral  festival,  is  assuredly  no  ordinary  maid,  however 
touchingly  her  history  is  interwoven  with  the  tradition  about 
that  wild  knight-errant  her  father  (Judg.  xi.  39,  40).  In  like 
manner,  the  lion-slaying  hero  who  arms  himself  with  rocks 
and  overturns  temples,  and  whose  strength  vanishes  with  his 
hair,  is  originally,  you  may  be  sure,  no  Hebrew  ISTazirite,  but 
the  Sun-god  (iTK'bB''),  whose  locks  are  the  rays  of  light  in 
which  lies  the  secret  of  his  strength  (Judg.  xiii.  ff.). 

Further,  the  short  story  in  Gen.  vi.  1-3  has  a  thoroughly 
mythical  background.  Here  we  have  beyond  all  question  a 
story  of  superhuman  beings  marrying  earth  -  born  wives. 
Ilepeated  attempts  have  been  made,  it  is  true,  to  restrict 
the  meaning  of  this  passage  to  marriages  between  men 
belonging  to  the  pious  race  of  the  Sethites  and  women 
belonging  to  the  race  of  Cain,  in  other  words,  to  purely 
human  transgression  which  overstepped  the  utmost  limits 
of   impiety  permissible    on  earth,  in  consequence   of  which 

^  So  Ewald,  Gesch.  i.  373  flf.  Henoch — the  god  of  the  new  year ;  Lamech 
— demi  -  god,  waiiike  vengeance  ;  Methnselah — Mars  ;  Mahalal-el — sun  -  god  ; 
Jered — water  -  god  ; — the  first  dynasty.  Noah — the  idea  of  a  better  world  ; 
Dionysus  ;  Jubal — music,  Brahmana  ;  Tubal — warrior  ;  Naamah,  Aphrodite, 
etc. 

"  B.  J.  Ixv.  11 ;  Josh.  xi.  17,  xii.  7  (Baal-gad). 


TRACES  OF  SEMITIC  HEATHENISM  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.     115 

the  Flood  became  a  necessity.  We  take  no  account  liere 
of  what  every  scientific  critic  of  Genesis  must  acknowledge 
to  be  a  fact,  viz.  that  this  little  story  knows  nothing  what- 
ever of  Cain  and  Seth  or  of  their  descendants,  and  stands 
where  it  now  does,  simply  because  there  was  no  room  for  it 
between  Gen.  ii.  41)  and  the  end  of  chap.  iv.  But  even  in 
its  present  position  the  passage  cannot  possibly  have  any 
such  meaning.  The  collective  word  ^1^\},  whenever  it  is 
not  more  precisely  defined,  can  be  understood  only  of  the 
human  race  as  such.^  Accordingly,  when  it  is  said  that 
"men  began  to  multiply,  and  daughters  were  born  unto 
them,"  such  words,  in  a  passage  where  neither  moral  nor 
genealogical  distinctions  are  mentioned,  can  only  mean  that 
daughters  of  the,  human  race  were  born.  The  "  daughters  of 
men "  are  therefore  daughters  neither  of  Cain,  nor  of  Seth, 
nor  of  the  poor  among  the  people,  but  simply  maidens  in 
general.  Besides,  if  any  one  class  were  to  be  described  by 
the  word  ^7^0'  i^  would  certainly  be  the  poor,  the  common 
people  as  contrasted  with  the  nobles,  "  the  lords," ^  and  therefore 
not  the  race  of  Cain,  among  whom  was  to  be  found,  according 
to  Gen.  iv.  17  ff.,  every  kind  of  power,  art,  and  violence. 

But  it  is  equally  impossible  for  the  "sons  of  God"  C.^a 
^"''?''?:?0)  ^0  ^^  men.  Where  men  are  called  "  sons  of  God," 
they  get  the  name  only  as  being  "adopted"  children  of 
grace,  in  other  words,  in  consequence  of  their  being  in  a  state 
of  salvation.      Such  is  Israel  as  a  nation,  and  such  the  king 

^  The  reference  of  Oehler  to  Jer.  xxxii.  20,  B.  J.  xliii.  4,  Ps.  Ixxiii.  5,  is  quite 
irrelevant.  No  doubt  Israel,  although  itself  a  nation  and  a  member  of  the 
human  race,  may  be  contrasted  as  God's  people  with  nations  and  men  in  the 
ordinary  sense,  and  so  expressions  like  "Adam,"  "Enosh,"  can  be  used  where 
"  ordinary  men  "  are  meant  (Judg.  xvi.  7,  17).  But,  in  that  case,  there  must 
be  some  contrast  clearly  indicated  inside  the  circle  of  humanity.  On  the  other 
hand,  where  the  contrast  is  between  "Adam"  and  "Elohim,"  "Adam"  always 
means  the  human  race  as  such. 

^  Cf.  Ps.  xlix.  3  contrasted  with  ti'"'X.  Consequently  the  trivial  explanation 
of  the  early  Jews,  which  refers  to  lawless  unions  of  the  nobles  with  women 
of  humble  birth,  is,  at  least  from  the  standpoint  of  strict  exegesis,  less  in- 
dtifensible. 


116  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

in  Israel.  But  if  that  were  intended  here,  then  in  the 
Jehovistic  context  the  name  of  the  God  of  salvation  (nin"") 
must  certainly  have  been  used,  and  the  expression  "  sons  of 
God"  miglit  well  he,  in  that  sense,  an  honourable  epithet, 
but  not  a  name  for  a  class  of  men  as  such.  On  the  other 
hand,  "  sons  of  God  "  is  a  well-known  expression  in  the  Old 
Testament  for  mighty  celestial  beings  that  partake  of  the 
dignity  of  the  divine  nature,  and  are  superior  to  the  flesh 
and  its  weaknesses.^ 

And  even  if  the  expression  as  it  stands  could  mean  "  men 
of  God,"  how  is  it  known  that  the  Sethites  were  godly  and 
the  Cainites  wicked  ?  Of  Enoch,  a  descendant  of  Seth,  we 
are  told  that  he  was  righteous,  but  his  case  is  as  exceptional 
as  Noah's.  Who  says  that  Enoch  the  son  of  Cain  was  not 
pious  also,  or  that  Lamech  the  Sethite  was  not  quite  as 
impious  as  Lamech  the  Cainite  ?  The  fact  is,  we  have 
simply  two  fragments  of  one  original  tradition,  of  which 
different  authors  have  given  different  versions.  Besides, 
it  is  stated  that  these  "  sons  of  God "  took  them  wives  of 
whom  they  chose,  that  is,  without  any  one  being  able  to. 
hinder  them.  They  must  therefore  have  been  the  stronger. 
But  how  does  that  agree  with  the  sword-song  of  Lamech  the 
Cainite,  and  with  the  general  idea  as  to  the  warlike  supremacy 
of  Cain's  race  ?  Finally,  the  author,  at  least  the  one  we  now 
have,  certainly  intended  to  connect  these  marriages  with  the 
primitive  tradition  about  races  of  giants.  Hence  we  are  forced 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  oldest  interpretation  of  this  passage 
is  also  the  best.^      This  story  has  an  undeniable  resemblance 

^  Job  i.  6,  ii.  1,  xxxviii.  7  ;  Ps.  xxix.  1,  Ixxxix.  7. 

^  Little  noticed  as  long  as  a  sound  religious  life  sought  in  revelation,  not  for 
sometliing  to  satisfy  mere  religious  curiosity,  but  for  inward  life,  this  passage 
is  one  of  those  most  frequently  used  in  post-canonical  times  ;  it  is  interpreted 
spiritually  by  the  Alexandrines,  and  is  in  Enoch  the  locus  classicus  for  demon- 
ology  ;  cf.  Book  of  Enoch,  translated  by  Dillmann,  chap.  vi.  ff.  ;  Jude  vers.  5, 
6  ;  2  Pet.  ii.  4). — Eiisebius,  Praepar.  Evanrj.,  ed.  Dindorf,  i.  218  ;  cf.  also  The 
Book  of  Jubilees  (Ewald,  Jahrb.fiirhihl.  Wiss.  1849,  ii.  242)  and  The  Testament 
of  the  Twelve  Patriarchs  (Fabric.  Cod.  ps.  Epuj.  p.  529). 


TRACES  OF  SEMITIC  HEATHENISM  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.     117 

to  the  heathen  idea  of  demi-gods,  sons  of  the  gods  by  hnman 
wives.  And  if  any  one  is  determined  to  see  in  this  story  "  a 
fact,"  then  for  such  an  one  the  oldest  history  of  the  religion 
of  mankind  must  remain  a  sealed  book.  It  must  be  taken  as 
a  real  myth  of  remote  antiquity. 

Gen.  xxxii.  24-32  appears  to  me  to  be  a  similar  fragment. 
"With  Jacob  there  wrestles  a  man  who  has  to  vanish  at  day- 
break. Being  superhuman,  he  does  not  give  his  name,  but  he 
inflicts  on  Jacob  bodily  injury.  If  the  records  of  Sanchu- 
niathon  are  not  utterly  untrustworthy,^  we  have  here  also  a 
myth  common  to  several  Semitic  peoples,  woven  into  Hebrew 
legend.  On  similar  instances  I  shall  not  touch  further.^  I 
have  already  spoken  of  the  Chaldean  myths  of  the  Creation 
and  the  Flood  being  woven  into  the  early  chapters  of  Genesis, 
and  I  may  just  mention  Ex.  iv.  2-4  ff.,  where  a  second  account 
is  given  of  the  origin  of  circumcision,  very  remarkable  for  its 
sensuous  colouring.^ 

These  mythical  constituents  in  Hebrew  religious  legend 
would  be  absolutely  unintelligible,  had  not  the  religion  of 
Israel  grown  up  on  the  soil  of  a  popular  nature-religion,  and 
been  for  long  ages  freely  exposed  to  its  influences.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  if  this  religion  had  not  cut  itself  loose  from 
the  Semitic  before  the  latter  really  became  a  religion  of 
civilised  life,  like  the  Chaldean  or  the  Phoenician,  it  would  be 
impossible  to  understand  how  this  mythical  inheritance  should 
have  been  so  completely  mastered  by  the  fundamental 
thoughts  of  the  higher  religion,  and  been  kept  within  such 
narrow  limits.  If  the  real  trend  of  the  Hebrew  religion 
had    not    been    from    the   first    towards   what   was   actually 

^  Euseb.  Praepar.  Evang.  i.  37  ff.,  cf.  Ewald's  essay,  Ueher  die  phoniklschen 
Anskhten  von  der  Weltschopfmi(]  und  den  geschichUichen  Werth  Sanchunia- 
thons,  1851. 

^  Esau,  o'JffaiDs,  the  sacrifice  of  Jehud  by  his  father  Kronos,  etc. ,  in  Sanchu- 
niathon.     From  the  nature  of  the  authority,  however,  this  is  quite  uncertain. 

'  With  all  the  rest  of  the  narrative  according  to  which  Moses  is  acting  even 
here  simply  on  the  command  of  God,  this  story  is  absolutely  irreconcilable, 
and  in  its  present  form  it  is  obviously  mutilated  and  weakened. 


118  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

attained  in  the  Old  Testament  religion,  sucli  a  mastery  over 
tlie  elements  of  nature-worship  would  have  been  inconceiv- 
able, or  rather,  according  to  all  historical  analogies,  the  exact 
opposite  would  have  happened.  For  even  where  the  mythical 
elements  in  the  Old  Testament  have  not  become  the  medium 
of  purely  religious  thoughts,  they  are  completely  stripped  of 
their  original  character  and  brought  into  harmony  with  an 
increasingly  spiritual  monotheism.  That  could  hardly  have 
happened,  had  they  existed  in  connection  with  a  cultured 
polytheistic  religion  theoretically  worked  out.  In  the  names 
contained  in  the  old  genealogical  tables,  none  but  a  skilled 
antiquarian  could  discover  the  remains  of  myth ;  for  the 
people,  they  had  nothing  of  a  mythological  character.  The 
sons  of  God  in  Gen.  vi.  are  not  gods  on  a  level  with  the 
One  God,  but  mighty  beings  subordinate  to  Him,  on  account 
of  whose  unnatural  doings  the  sentence  of  death  is  pronounced 
upon  mankind.  Heathen  legend,  on  the  contrary,  sees  in 
such  ideas  the  zenith  of  human  glory.  He  who  wrestles 
with  Jacob  is  changed  from  a  being  possessed  of  divine 
power  into  a  manifestation  of  God  Himself,^  and  the 
narrative  makes  no  greater  a  demand  on  faith  than  any 
of  the  innumerable  legends  that  have  continued  current 
in  Christendom.  And  in  the  virgins  and  the  heroes  of  the 
book  of  Judges,  no  Hebrew  could  recognise  the  fading 
figures  of  Semitic  gods. 

Just  as  the  fragments  of  myths  in  the  Old  Testament,  by 
their  existence  and  the  manner  in  which  they  have  been 
preserved,  confirm  our  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  Hebrew 
religion,  so  also  do  the  remains  of  those  religious  customs  in 
Israel,  which  are  incompatible  with  the  higher  stage  sub- 
sequently reached  by  the  religion  of  the  Old  Testament.     The 

^  Hos.  xii.  4,  5  makes  "the  angel"  exactly  parallel  with  Eloliim.  One 
must  therefore  think  of  a  manifested  form  of  God.  Here  the  nan-ative  is  still 
more  drastic.  The  weeping  and  the  supplication  refer  to  the  vanquished  Elohim, 
not  to  Jacob.  That  the  story  is  obscure  and  ambiguous,  is  quite  in  keeping 
with  its  originally  mythical  character. 


TRACES  OF  SEMITIC  HEATHENISM  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT,    119 

mention  of  teraphim,  and  of  rings  and  amulets  used  for  purposes 
of  superstition  by  the  reinforcements  that  came  to  the  Hebrew 
people  out  of  Mesopotamia,^  would  not,  it  is  true  according 
to  our  narratives,  prove  any  such  thing,  for  they  teach  that 
these  impure  elements  were  rejected.  But  that  this  was 
only  the  later  view,  is  shown  by  the  open  use  of  such 
idols  up  to  the  time  of  David.^  Before  Moses,  they  were 
doubtless  in  .universal  use  among  the  people.  The  word 
"  teraphim,"  in  the  plural,  does  not  always  indicate  a  real 
plural,  but  is  used  like  other  similar  words  for  might.  Godhead, 
lordship,  even  where  there  was  only  one  image.^  Still,  the 
original  use  of  the  word  probably  points  to  plurality.*  The 
teraphim  were  certainly  used  for  obtaining  oracles,  and  that, 
too,  among  non-Hebrew  peoples  as  well.  They  were  also  em- 
ployed by  Chaldean  soothsayers.^  Later  times  rejected  them 
as  distinctly  idolatrous.*'  Whether  the  name  itself  is  meant 
to  denote  the  god  who  gives  the  oracle  is  hard  to  determine, 
but  it  is  not  unlikely.  The  teraphim  were  clearly  household 
gods,  of  human  form,  so  that  Miclial  could,  by  putting  the 
teraphim  in  David's  bed,  deceive  the  spies.^  The  fact  that 
Rachel  was  able  to  hide  them  under  a  camel-basket  does  not 
militate  against  their  having  been  of  considerable  size,  for 
such  baskets  can  hold  a  full-grown  man.^  But  when  a  person 
like  David  had  teraphim  in  his  house,  it  is  quite  obvious  that 
they  did  not  preclude  monotheism,  or  even  spiritual  personal 
monotheism.  They  had  simply  been  taken  over  by  a  higher 
stage  of  religion  from  an  earlier,  when  the  people  were  nature- 

1  Gen.  xxxi.  19  ff.,  xxxv.  2,  4.  2  j^jjg,  xviii.  5,  14  ;  1  Sam.  xix.  13. 

»  1  Sam.  xix.  13.  *  Gen.  xxxi.  34. 

5  Perliaps  already  in  Gen.  xxx.  27  (tJ'nj) ;  Judg.  xviii.  5,  14  ;  Ezek.  xxi.  26; 
Hos.  iii.  4.  In  fact,  according  to  Gen.  xxxi.,  xxxv.,  the  caravans  from  Meso- 
potamia must  have  brought  the  teraphim  witli  them. 

6  1  Sam.  XV.  23  ;  Zeeh.  x.  2. 

^  1  Sam.  xix.  13.  Perhaps,  however,  the  mask  thro^vn  over  their  faces  wan 
part  of  the  apparatus. 

^  Gen.  xxxi.  34 ;  cf.  Burkhardt,  Siften  der  Bedaivin,  pp.  28,  30.  For  a 
curious  view  that  the  teraphim  were  nodding  puppets,  cf.  Chwolson,  ii.  153. 


120  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

worshippers.  Accordingly,  in  this  later  stage  the  one  Supreme 
God  was  thought  of  as  acting  through  these  images  by  special 
manifestations  and  for  special  purposes.  They  were  household 
"  Palladia."  ^  Symbolical  representation  of  the  acting,  self- 
revealing  God  of  providence,  especially  Avhen  connected  with 
primitive  national  customs,  may  remain  for  centuries  along- 
side of  a  higher  religion.  But  it  could  originate  only  in 
a  non  -  monotheistic  religion.  Consequently,  it  is  beyond 
doubt  a  relic  of  an  old  Semitic  custom  that  had  got  deeply 
rooted  in  the  national  customs  of  the  Hebrews. 

The  same  holds  good  of  the  sacred  trees  and  stones  which 
were  held  to  indicate  in  a  special  manner  the  presence  of 
the  Deity.  According  to  the  sacred  legend,  the  Israelitish 
patriarchs  set  up  stones,  anointed  them  with  oil,  and  conse- 
crated them  as  "  Beth-El."  ^  Sacred  stones  of  a  special  form 
are  found  in  Arabia  as  well  as  among  the  Phoenicians  ;2  and 
even  the  Greek  name  for  such  stones,  ^airvXia,  shows  the 
affinity  of  the  ideas.  In  like  manner,  the  terebinths  of 
Hebron  and  Bethel,  and  the  palm-tree  of  Deborah,  play  a 
part  in  ancient  legend  which  reminds  one  of  the  "  groves  "  of 
the  Canaanites  and  the  sacred  trees  of  Arabia.  Here,  too,  we 
find  the  very  same  relationship.  This  custom  had  its  roots 
in  Semitic  nature-worship,  the  characteristic  of  which  was  to 
connect  the  presence  of  God  with  prominent  objects  in  nature, 
especially  with  trees,  which  are,  in  a  sunny  land,  her  fairest 
decoration.  The  custom  held  its  ground  in  Israel  even  when 
there  was  no  longer  any  real  foundation  for  it.     Among  the 

1  Gen.  xxxi.  19,  30. 

^  Gen.  XXXV.  14,  15  ;  cf.  xxviii.  18,  xxxi.  13.  Chap.  xxxi.  45  f.  has  reference 
only  to  the  memorial  of  a  covenant.  In  general  the  votive  character  comes  out 
quite  plainly.  The  sacred  circle  of  stones  set  up  as  the  first  sanctuary  of  Israel 
west  of  the  Jordan  in  Gilgal,  was  meant  to  be  of  a  similar  character,  Josh.  iv.  20. 
The  sacred  stone  at  Bethel  is  still,  for  the  narrator  B,  a  highly  venerated 
sanctuary,  around  which  popular  tradition  clings. 

^  Among  the  Arabians  the  Kaaba  stone  is  the  best  known  ;  for  the  worship 
of  stones  and  trees  among  the  Arabians,  cf.  Wellhansen  ;  the  Carthaginians,  cf. 
Mimter,  p.  72  ff. ;  the  Greeks,  cf.  Schomann,  ii.  171  ff.  On  the  general  question, 
cf.  Ewald,  Alterthumcr,  153  f.,  158  f.,  and  Gesch.  i.  492. 


TEACES  OF  SEMITIC  HEATHENISM  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.     121 

Other  kindred  peoples,  owing  to  their  stronger  devotion  to 
nature-worship,  it  attained  a  fuller  and  more  varied  develop- 
ment. We  explain  in  a  similar  way  the  sacred  character 
ascribed  by  the  Israelites  to  Mount  Sinai  and  Bashan,  as  well 
as  the  custom  of  erecting,  on  artificial  mounds  (^^^7)  originally 
consecrated  to  the  reproductive  power  of  nature,  the  simple 
altars  used  in  the  most  ancient  worship,  unless,  indeed,  this 
custom  was  altogether  foreign  to  Israel,  and  only  borrowed, 
after  the  settlement  in  Canaan,  from  its  Hamite  inhabitants. 
All  this  shows  that  the  religion  of  Israel  presupposes  a 
Semitic  nature-religion,  but,  at  the  same  time,  that  it  was 
not  long  in  beginning  to  move  away  from  the  latter  in 
the  direction  of  spiritual  monotheism. 

Finally,  we  are  confirmed  in  this  view  by  the  form  of  the 
Hebrew  name  for  God,  Elohim.  That  our  present  historians 
cannot  put  this  name  into  the  mouths  of  the  patriarchs,  under 
the  idea  that  they  were  worshippers  of  several  gods,  is  self- 
evident.  When,  therefore,  the  plural  of  the  verb  is  found  with 
Elohim  in  B  and  C,  not  to  speak  of  A,  the  supposition  is  quite 
justifiable  that  in  such  passages  there  is  either  no  reference 
at  all  to  the  God  of  Israel,  or  that  special  circumstances  are 
being  taken  into  account.  Thus  in  Gen.  i.  26,  xi.  7,  it  is  the 
plural  of  self-address.  Others  less  happily  think  it  an  address 
to  the  assembled  Elohim.  In  Gen.  iii.  22,  God  contrasts 
Himself  and  the  whole  order  of  Elohim,  i.e.  of  incorporeal, 
spiritual  powers,  with  man  as  formed  of  flesh.  In  Gen. 
xxviii.  12,  by  the  Elohim,  to  whose  appearance  reference  is 
made  in  Gen.  xxxv.  7,  we  are  to  understand  the  whole  array 
of  heaven's  inhabitants,  not  the  personal  God  alone.  Only  in 
XX.  13  does  the  narrator  C  make  Abraham  in  conversation 
with  a  heathen  speak  of  "  the  Gods,"  as  it  was  the  popular 
custom  to  do  afterwards,^  and  much  in  the  same  way  as  the 
Latin  Dii  was  used. 

^  So  Judg.  ix.  13.     Ewald,  Geschichte,  i.  458 f.,  cleverly  points  out  that  the 
plural  form  of  Elohhu  joined  with  the  singular  of  the  verl)  proves  that  there 


122  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

In  our  present  documents  the  word  Elohim  itself  is 
certainly  used  as  a  singular ;  it  is  applied  even  to  a  single 
heathen  god.^  In  fact,  in  its  later  stages,  the  language  was 
fond  of  giving  words  signifying  might  a  "  plural  of  majesty," 
or  "  plural  of  power  and  fulness,"  which  certainly  does  not 
militate  against  the  unity  of  the  subject.^  Still  this  whole  mode 
of  speaking  could  scarcely  have  arisen  had  not  the  religious 
vocabulary  of  Israel  rested  on  popular  ideas,  which,  beyond  a 
doubt,  frankly  presupposed  a  plurality  of  Divine  beings,  and 
had  not  the  idea  of  the  unity  of  God  been  first  limited 
to  the  unity  of  the  national  God,  before  whom  the  other 
Elohim  shrivelled  up  into  a  body  of  subordinate  beings,  who, 
though  standing  high  above  mortal  men  as  Elohim  and  Bne- 
Elohim,  were  in  no  sense  comparable  to  the  One  God.  Thus 
all  the  traces  of  the  old  Semitic  religion  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment go  to  confirm  our  theory  as  to  the  origin  of  the  religion 
of  Israel. 

The  view  just  explained  is  not  essentially  different  from 
that  advocated  by  Land,  although  I  cannot  but  regard  many 
of  this  scholar's  assertions  as  wrong,  or,  at  any  rate,  as 
incapable  of  proof.  According  to  him,  the  old  Israelitish 
religion  regarded  Sinai  as  an  ancient  sanctuary,  and  this 
sanctuary  the  kindred  peoples — Ishmael,  Midian,  and  Edom, 
likewise  divided  into  twelve  tribes  each — shared  with  Israel. 
Antoninus  Martyr  of  Placentia  is  still  acquainted  with  an 
old  Semitic  worship  on  the  peninsula  of  Sinai,  in  which  a 
linen  ephod  and  an  image  are  used ;  and  Diodorus  Siculus 

arose  very  early  in  Israel  a  use  of  language  that  implied  monotheism.  One  sees 
quite  plainly  from  Ex.  xxxii.  4,  of.  19,  that  even  where  the  ]ilural  of  the  verb 
stands  with  Elohim,  one  can  think  quite  well  of  one  God.  The  idol,  indeed,  is 
only  an  ox,  and  is  intended  to  represent  Jehovah. 

^  So  2  Kings  i.  2  ;  Judg.  xi.  24  ;  cf.  in  general  the  phrase  "1\"17X  nin*. 

2  Ts.  xlv.  12  ;  1  Kings  i.  33  ;  Gen.  xl.  1,  xlii.  30,  xxiv.  9 ;  Isa.  xix.  4,  xxii.  18  ; 
Job  iii.  19  ;  □"'jnx,  Prov.  xxx.  3  ;  Josh.  xxiv.  1,  W^ip  ;  W^]!!,  Isa.  1.  3  ; 
D^CID,  Isa.  X.  15.  In  a  somewhat  different  way  the  ""b'y  and  Vb'^,  Job 
XXXV.  10  ;  Ps.  cxlix.  Specially  instructive  is  Josh.  xxiv.  19,  where  Jahveh  is 
described  as  Elohim  Qedoschim. 


TRACES  OF  SEMITIC  HEATHENISM  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.    123 

says  there  was  a  sacred  oasis  there.  In  this  religion  they 
kept  the  feast  of  the  new  moon,  practised  circumcision,  and 
worshipped  the  God  of  Heaven  (El,  Baal),  without  a  female 
deity,  and  with  no  trace  of  a  service  coloured  by  sex,  as  the 
God  of  Tire  and  War,  to  whom  even  human  sacrifices  were 
offered.  In  the  chastity  and  simplicity  of  this  religion  lay 
its  capability  of  development.  The  kindred  tribes  around 
Lebanon  were  in  possession  of  a  religion  which  had  sprung 
from  similar  sources,  but  which  had  already  undergone  a 
fatal  degeneration.  They  adored  the  God  of  Heaven,  but  it 
was  along  with  the  Queen  of  Heaven  in  a  sexually  orgiastic 
worship.  In  struggling  against  this  North-Semitic  worship, 
Israel  developed  the  South-Semitic  religion  into  monotheism. 
Were  I  to  substitute  for  North-Semitic  in  this  sentence  the 
word  Hamitic,  and  for  South-Semitic  the  simple  term  Semitic, 
I  could  then  acknowledge  this  view  as  historically  probable. 

Against  Stade's  sketch  of  the  origin  of  the  religion  of 
Israel,  I  must  express  myself  in  stronger  terms,  even  when 
leaving  entirely  out  of  account  the  dispute  as  to  the  time  at 
which  a  real  religion  began  in  Israel.  He,  too,  is  unquestion- 
ably ready  to  find  the  roots  of  Israel's  higher  religion  in  the 
worship  of  Jehovah  that  originated  at  Sinai.  This  Jehovah, 
who  became  through  Moses  the  One  God  of  Israel,  Stade 
pictures  to  himself  as  the  God  of  Heaven,  in  all  essential 
points  exactly  as  Land  does.  But  instead  of  regarding  this 
God  and  His  religion  as  in  conflict  with  the  Canaanite  wor- 
ship, which,  though  akin  to  it,  had  developed  in  a  different 
direction,  Stade  supposes  animism  to  have  been  the  religion 
of  Israel  in  earlier  times,  and  the  predominating  element  in 
the  pre-prophetic  parts  of  the  Old  Testament  as  well  as  in 
Israel's  whole  mode  of  worship,  or,  more  specifically,  a 
fetishistic  variety  of  spirit- worship  which  mainly  consisted  in 
the  worship  of  departed  ancestors,  and,  in  particular,  of  tlie 
heads  of  families  and  clans.  Thus,  according  to  Stade,  the 
various  "  Gentes"  had  their  own  particular  cult,  which  showed 


124  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

itself  in  taking  care  of  the  graves  of  their  tribal  heroes.  The 
heads  of  clans  performed  this  worship.  A  member  of  one 
tribe  could  not  make  a  member  of  another  tribe  his  heir. 
Each  tribe  had  its  own  court  of  justice,  and  was  fond  of 
naming  itself  after  the  god  whom  it  worshipped  (Gad,  etc.), 
or  after  heavenly  bodies  from  which  it  claimed  to  be 
descended,  or  after  animals  (Leah,  Levi,  Eachel,  Caleb,  etc.). 
Ancestors  were  regarded  as  intercessors  with  God.^  The  stage 
of  actual  polytheism  was  not  yet  reached.  The  shrines  of 
animism  were  the  high-places  (worship  at  ancestral  graves), 
sacred  trees,  mountains,  stones,  wells.  The  god  of  this 
religion  dwelt  in  Canaan.  The  graves  of  the  patriarchs  at 
Hebron,  Shechem,  etc.,  were  his  holy  places.  Magic  was  an 
essential  part  of  this  worship. 

With  this  old  religion  of  Israel  the  religion  of  Jehovah 
is  in  conflict,  not,  however,  without  appropriating  several  of 
its  elements.  So  far  as  the  departed  alone  are  concerned, 
it  takes  up  an  attitude  of  indifference  towards  the  idea  of 
ancestral  spirits,  but  so  far  as  the  relations  of  the  living  to 
tlie  dead  are  concerned,  an  attitude  of  hostility  and  pro- 
hibition. Whoever  touches  a  dead  body  becomes  unclean,  i.e. 
incapable  of  engaging  in  the  worship  of  Jehovah.  Sacrifices 
for  the  dead,  dirges,  etc.,  make  a  person  unclean,  or  are 
forbidden.  Nevertheless  they  are  still  practised.^  The  God 
of  Sinai  cannot  dwell  in  the  shrines  of  animism.  Moses 
has  no  grave.  The  religion  of  Jehovah  protests  in  this  way 
against  ancestor -worship.  But  the  later  development  of 
Israel,  after  it  had  put  down  animism,  retained  in  worship, 
customs,  and  language  many  of  its  elements. 

This  theory,  while  not  without  elements  of  truth,  appears 
to  me,  as  a  whole,  to  lack  historical  probability.  The  idea 
that  the  people  of  Israel  in  its  collective  religious  life  can 
ever  have  practised  a  religion  at  variance  with  the  religion  of 
Jehovah  is  in  itself  irreconcilable  with  history,  at  least  so 
^  Jer.  XV.,  xxxi.  35.  *  1  Sara,  xxviii.  ;  Isa.  viii.  19  ;  Jer.  xxxv.  4. 


PEESONALITY  OF  MOSES.  125 

far  as  that  has  left  written  records  behind  it.  Tlie  religion 
with  which,  in  Canaan  at  any  rate,  the  religion  of  Jehovah 
had  to  struggle  for  victory,  was  a  highly  developed  polytheistic 
nature-religion,  in  which  worship  of  the  dead,  whether  ancestors 
or  not,  played  but  a  very  secondary  role.  On  such  practices 
no  special  attack  is  ever  made  in  the  Old  Testament,  There 
is  nowhere  in  our  traditions  any  proof  that  the  tribes  of 
Israel  ever  had  a  religion  belonging  to  the  stage  of  animism, 
which  was  perfectly  distinct  alike  from  the  religion  of  Hamitic 
civilisation  and  from  the  Mosaic  religion  of  Jehovah,  nor  is 
such  a  hypothesis  necessary  in  order  to  explain  any  of  the 
phenomena  of  Old  Testament  tradition. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

MOSES. 

1.  The  life  of  oppression  and  temptation  in  Egypt  neces- 
sarily led  to  spiritual  declension.  But  the  succeeding  period 
proves  that  there  must  have  been  in  the  people  a  rich  store 
of  unimpaired  vigour.  God  was  educating  Israel  to  be  the 
people  through  which  He  would  reveal  Himself ;  and  in  order 
that  Israel  might  not  prove  untrue  to  its  calling,  but  advance 
to  a  higher  stage,  He  raised  up  a  deliverer,^  the  man  who 
became  the  real  founder  of  the  true  religion,  and  whose  work 
determined  the  wdiole  development  of  that  religion  down  to  the 
time  of  Jesus.  As  purified  in  Jesus,  that  work  forms  even  now 
the  foundation  of  the  religion  and  civilisation  of  Christendom, 
just  as  it  is,  on  the  other  hand,  the  best  part  of  Moliam- 
medanism,  and  still  works  on  directly  in  non-Christian  Israel. 
With  the  exception  of  Jesus,  Moses  ^  is  the  most  important 

1  Ex.  ii.  23-25. 

*  nC'IlD,  tlioTigh  derived,  according  to  the  etymological  fancy  of  the  narrator  C 
(Ex.  ii.  10),  from  nC'Dj  "he  who  is  drawn  out  of  the  water,"  cannot  possibly 


126  OLD  TESTAMENT  TIIEOLOGV. 

religious  personality  of  whom  we  have  really  trustworthy 
historical  information. 

It  is  true  that  we  now  have  the  picture  of  Moses  only  as 
it  appeared  in  the  light  of  a  much  later  age,  and  we  meet 
with  a  not  inconsiderable  variety  of  tradition  regarding  him. 
Still  we  may  feel  absolutely  sure  that  we  are  in  a  position  to 
ascertain  everything  in  his  life  which  is  of  any  religious 
signiiicance.  For  he  is  not  separated  from  his  biographers  by 
an  interval  of  time  that  is  absolutely  unhistorical ;  and  even 
although  legend  has  surrounded  his  figure  with  a  sacred  halo,^ 
the  true  picture  of  the  man  who  made  Israel  a  nation  can 
scarcely  have  got  its  main  features  obscured. 

Like  every  creative  act  of  God  that  stands  out  prominently 
in  history,  the  founding  of  this  religion  by  Moses  was 
undoubtedly  connected  with  historical  circumstances  that 
exercised  a  moulding  influence  over  it.  We  cannot,  it  is 
true,  infer,  from  the  mere  mention  of  Aaron  meeting  Moses, 
that  "  there  were  kindred  spiritual  movements  in  Israel,"  or 
assert  that  the  action  of  Moses  "  was  but  the  most  powerful 
swing  of  the  pendulum  in  a  long  series  of  most  important 
movements  which  had  come  to  a  head  among  the  people,  and 
had  then  exhausted  themselves  again"  (Ewald,  ii.  46).  The 
conditions  that  lead  up  to  great  spiritual  deeds  are  often  quite 
unnoticed,  and  keep  on  developing  while  the  outer  surface 
of  a  people's  life  appears  to  indicate  only  the  quietude  of 

have  such  a  meaning,  for  it  is  an  active  participle.  The  derivation  of  Josephus 
{Antiq.  ii.  9.  6,  ed.  Col.  1691,  p.  56)  from  //.m,  water,  and  iV»,-,  rescued,  is 
clearly  a  mere  guess,  founded  on  the  Septuagint.  The  name  is  perhaps  the 
Egyptian  Mos,  Mesu  (Ebert).  In  Hebrew  the  word  meant,  though  certainly  in 
defiance  of  the  idiom  of  the  language,  "he  who  draws  out,"  "  the  deliverer," 
which  would  in  reality  sound  something  like  yK'IO  (J"dg.  iii.  9,  15  ;  2  Kings 
xiii.  5  ;  Isa.  xix.  20).  Still  we  may  call  attention  to  the  Levitical  family  ""EJ'ltD 
(Mushi)  (Num.  iii.  20).  Land  regards  the  word  as  pure  Semitic,  and  takes  the 
form  "iti>10  from  a  root  akin  to  i^i'^  (Jesse). 

^  It  may  at  least  be  mentioned  here,  that  if  Lenormant's  deciphering  is 
correct,  King  Sargon  I.  (about  2000  B.C.)  relates  an  incident  of  his  eventful  life 
which  reminds  us  in  a  very  remarkable  way  of  Moses  being  put  into  the  river  in 
an  ark,  and  of  his  ultimate  rescue. 


PERSONALITY  OF  MOSES.  127 

exhaustion.  But  the  first  and  most  important  condition  of 
Moses'  work  was  certainly  the  religious  peculiarity  of  the 
Hebrew  people  itself,  the  tradition  of  its  ancestral  religion, 
the  simple  forms  of  which  were  probably  preserved  in  special 
purity  within  the  circle  of  his  own  kindred.  Like  all  the 
religious  heroes  of  mankind,  he  was  certainly  not  without 
forerunners,  but  these  the  splendour  of  his  name  has  relegated 
to  obscurity. 

The  development  of  his  religion  is  in  its  main  principles 
thoroughly  national.  It  is  founded  on  the  religion  of  the  God 
of  his  fathers,^  the  simple  principles  of  which,  appealing  but 
little  to  the  senses,  necessarily  appeared  to  one  of  high 
religious  and  moral  gifts  far  superior  to  the  sensuous  idolatry 
of  the  Egyptian  populace  or  the  mysterious  natural  philo- 
sophy of  the  priests.  And  Moses,  when  away  from  the 
Nile  valley,  among  the  kindred  nomad  tribes  of  the  Sinaitic 
peninsula,  was  probably  more  than  ever  under  the  influence 
of  the  purer  traditions  of  the  Hebrew  race.  The  later 
narrative,  at  any  rate,  represents  the  home  which  he  found 
there  as  the  house  of  a  priest.^ 

Hence  we  should  require,  on  the  one  hand,  to  reject  all  the 
writings  that  have  come  down  to  us,  and  thereby  give  up  all 
hope  of  getting  any  idea  of  the  work  of  Moses ;  and,  on  the 
other,  to  close  our  eyes  to  the  manifest  peculiarity  of  this 
religion,  were  we  to  accept  the  very  prevalent  but  superficial 
view  which  we  owe  to  Manetho's  polemical  treatment  of  the 
history  of  Israel,  and  to  the  advocacy  of  which,  in  company 
with  Kaiser  and  others,  even  Schiller  lent  his  pen,  the  view, 
viz.  that  the  philosophy  of  the  Egyptian  priesthood  was  the 


^  According  to  C,  Ex.  ii.  12,  13,  15,  iii.  6,  iv.  5,  vii.  16  ;  according  to  A, 
Ex.  vi.  2,  3. 

2  In  C  (B),  Ex.  ii.  16,  iii.  1,  xviii.  1  ;  if  pS  here  signifies  priest,  and  has  not 
a  wider  meaning,  which  in  such  a  context  is  highly  improbable.-  From  very 
different  standpoints,  Kuenen,  Stade,  Land,  etc.,  all  point  to  the  peninsula  of 
Sinai  as  the  "mother-soil"  of  the  religious  development  carried  out  by  Moses. 
We  meet  with  a  view  not  exactly  the  same  in  Num.  x.  29  f.  (probably  A). 


128  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

chief  source  of  the  Mosaic  religion.  The  popular  reminiscence, 
which,  even  though  late,  is  quite  above  suspicion,  makes 
Moses  hear  the  voice  of  God,  not  in  the  temple  at  On,  but  in 
the  solitude  of  the  desert  of  Sinai,  among  Hebrew  tribes. 
When  he  leaves  Egypt,  he  is  not  yet  a  prophet,  but  a  national 
hero,  pure  and  simple.^  And,  according  to  all  the  accounts, 
he  appeared  before  Pharaoh  as  the  messenger  of  the  God  of 
the  Hebrews,  whose  worship  was  an  abomination  to  the 
Egyptians.^  His  relation  to  the  priests  of  Egypt  is  not  that 
of  betraying  their  secrets,  but  of  opposing  them.  His  rod 
swallows  up  their  rods.  His  plagues  show  that  his  God  is 
mightier  than  their  idols.  Ewald  is  right  in  seeing  in  the 
exodus  of  the  Hebrews  from  Egypt  a  religious  war.^ 

Nevertheless  we  cannot  regard  it  as  a  matter  of  indiffer- 
ence that,  according  to  Hebrew  as  well  as  Egyptian  tradition, 
Moses  was  exceptionally  familiar  with  the  wisdom  and  culture 
of  Egypt.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  owing  to  the 
knowledge  and  skill  which  he  had  acquired  in  Egypt,  Moses 
found  his  work  very  much  easier.  The  Old  Testament 
accounts  themselves  indicate  quite  frankly  a  similarity, 
even  though  it  be  only  in  form,  between  his  mighty  deeds 
and  the  acts  of  the  Egyptians.*  And  assuredly  for  the  heavy 
task  of  leading  an  untrained  and  unruly  multitude,  he  must 
have  acquired  in  that  country,  then  the  centre  of  civilisation, 
much  valuable  knowledge.  It  might  very  well  be  that  he 
incorporated  into  his  own  religious  system  forms  and  institu- 
tions which  had  been  tested  in  Egypt.  "We  might  point,  for 
example,  to  the  Urim  and  Thummim  and  the  sacred  ark — 
though  the  latter  at  any  rate  is  so  natural,  and  occurs  in  so 
many  old  Asiatic  cults,  that  we  need  scarcely  seek  for  any 

1  Ex.  ii.  11-16,  iii.  (C,  B). 

*  According  to  C,  Ex.  iii.  18,  v.  3,  vii.  16,  viii.  21  ff.,  ix.  1,  13,  x.  3  (A, 
Ex.  vi.  10). 

^  Cf.  the  composite  narrative  in  Ex.  vii.  8-xi.     Ewald,  Geschichte,  vol.  ii. 
pp.  73-123. 

*  Ex.  vii.  8,  cf.  11,  12 ;  19,  cf.  22 ;  viii.  1  f.,  cf.  3,  7. 


PERSONALITY  OF  MOSES.  129 

particular  prototype.  Indeed,  to  fiud  in  the  work  of  Moses 
names  and  ideas  borrowed  from  the  learning  of  Egyptian 
priests,  would  in  itself  be  nothing  strange,  even  were  they 
names  of  God,  such  as  nin\  That  it  is  not  actually  so,  is  to 
be  ascertained  only  by  an  unprejudiced  examination  of  the 
facts,  not  by  assuming  the  impossibility  of  such  borrowing. 
But  if  anything  Egyptian  was  adopted  by  Moses,  it  can  only 
have  been  such  elements  as  appeared  to  him  suitable  for 
giving  outward  expression  to  the  thoughts  of  his  own  per- 
fectly distinct  religion.  The  main  effect  which  Egyptian 
life  must  have  produced  on  Moses  was  certainly  tliis,  that 
to  him,  through  contrast  with  even  the  most  dazzling  forms 
of  natural  wisdom,  the  infinite  value  of  the  religion  of  the 
one  living  God,  who  governs  the  world  and  is  not  hampered 
by  the  phenomena  of  nature,  became  doubly  clear,  and  that 
he  consequently  guided  the  religion  of  his  own  people  all 
the  more  resolutely  in  this  direction.  But  from  this  higher 
standpoint  of  culture,  and  with  the  ability  to  form  a  more 
independent  judgment,  he  could  better  understand  his  own 
work,  and  keep  more  clearly  in  view  the  goal  which  the 
revelation  of  the  true  God  had  set  before  hin>. 

Thus  Moses  is  represented  as  doubly  -prepared  for  his 
work.  As  regards  the  contents  of  that  work,  the  reli^rion  of 
his  nation  furnished  him  with  the  necessary  historical  basis ; 
while,  as  regards  its  form,  he  was  fully  equipped  by  his  contact 
witli  the  highest  culture  of  the  then  existing  world.  Still, 
both  these  facts  do  not  explain  how  Moses  came  to  be  what 
he  was.  Here  also  the  really  determining  factor  is  the 
revelation  of  God.  Having  cliosen  him  as  His  instrument, 
God  endowed  him  with  religious  and  moral  gifts  of  singular 
power.  By  special  dealings  with  him,  God  subjected  him 
to  a  special  preparation  both  inward  and  outward.  The 
spirit  which  He  had  thus  carefully  trained,  God  illumined  at 
the  proper  time  with  the  certainty  of  the  divine  will  and  of 
tlie  divine  thoughts  and  ways  regarding  hira.     Just  as  the 

VOL.  I.  I 


130  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

national  spirit  of  Israel  is  far  from  being  identical  with  the 
lioly  spirit  of  revelation,  so  the  spirit  of  Moses  himself  is 
far  from  bein<T;  the  author  of  the  Old  Testament  religion. 
It  was  neither  as  philosopher  nor  as  poet,  but  as  prophet, 
that  Moses  became  the  founder  of  his  people's  religion.  He 
received  it,  he  adopted  it  in  a  religious  spirit,  he  did  not  by 
his  own  thought  create  it. 

Hence  the  early  tradition  of  Israel  relates  how,  in  the 
solitude  of  the  sacred  mountain  Horeb-Sinai,  Moses,  who  had 
fled  from  Egypt  as  a  merely  human  hero,  grows  conscious  of 
the  divine  presence  and  becomes  a  prophet.^  It  presupposes 
throughout  that  this  mountain  was  already  a  very  ancient 
shrine,-  at  which  it  was  quite  in  keeping  with  the  ideas  of 
the  Hebrew  people  to  hold  a  festival  in  honour  of  God.^  This 
majestic  mountain,  standing  alone  in  the  midst  of  a  pathless 
desert,  became  again  in  later  days,  as  inscriptions  prove,  a 
sacred  place  of  pilgrimage  for  the  Arab-Arameean  tribes  of 
the  peninsula.  According  to  our  narrative,  it  was  when 
Moses  was  at  this  holy  spot  that  the  eventful  moment 
arrived  when  he  became  a  man  of  God,  Not  by  study  or 
learning,  but  by  the  direct  illumination  of  divine  certainty 
he  became  what  he  became. 

Moses  trembled  at  the  voice  of  God.  His  humility  as 
well  as  his  fear  prompted  him  to  decline  the  task.^  He  had 
first  to  be  made  conscious  of  the  omnipotence  of  the  God 
who  was  sending  him.  God  had  to  fill  him  with  the  strength 
of  a  new  inspiration,  to  convince  him  that  the  Creator  has 
an  absolute  right  to  the  energies  and  gifts  of  the  creature,^ 
and  to  remind  him  that  his  weakness  could  be  made  up 
for  by  the  strength  of    others,  and   afforded   no  excuse  for 

^  Ex.  ii.  13,  14,  iii.  1  ff.  (C). 

^  Ex.  iii.  1,  5,  12,    iv.  27,  xviii.  5,    xxiv.  13  (P.,  C)  (mount  of  God,  holy 
ground). 

3  Ex.  iii.  12,  18,  v.  3,  8,  17,  vii.  IG,  viii.  22  f.,  x.  7  (C). 
••  C,  Ex.  iii.  10  ff.,  iv.  1,  10. 
*C,  Ex.  iii.  12,  iv.  3f.,  11. 


PERSONALITY  OF  MOSES.  131 

disobeying  tlie  divine  call.^  God  must,  in  His  own  new  and 
holy  name,  give  Moses  credentials  to  show  that  he  had  really 
seen  deeper  into  the  divine  essence  than  his  predecessors,  and 
that  he  had  been  chosen  as  His  messenger.^ 

According  to  the  view  of  the  Old  Testament,  therefore,  the 
whole  way  in  which  Moses  does  his  work  is  a  result  of  this 
divine  voice,  a  result  of  the  consciousness  that  he  is  acting 
by  God's  commission,  and  is  therefore  doing  each  particular 
act  which  furthers  his  work  in  obedience  to  the  will  and 
voice  of  God.  The  narrative  in  its  earliest  as  in  its  latest 
form  represents  all  his  acts  as  due  to  definite  divine  com- 
mands, and  his  whole  life  as  strengthened,  supported,  and 
sustained  by  the  divine  approval.^  His  face  shone  with 
the  reflected  glory  of  the  divine  presence,^  so  that  he  had 
to  cover  it  with  a  veil.^  And  from  his  own  standpoint, 
which  had  certainly  become  a  very  peculiar  one,  the 
narrator  A  says  that  Moses  heard  the  voice  of  God,  not  like 
other  prophets  only  in  moments  of  great  spiritual  excitement, 
but  in  every  phase  of  his  life-work,  in  quiet  action  and 
in  impassioned  speech.  There  arose  no  prophet  since  in 
Israel  like  unto  Moses,  whom  the  Lord  knew  face  to  face.*^ 
The  narrator  does  not  indeed  mean  to  assert,  when  he  says 
that  Moses  "  was  faithful  over  the  whole  house  of  God,"  '^ 
that  the  complete  idea  of  the  institutions  about  to  be  founded 
was  brought  before  the  soul  of  the  prophet.      But  all  through 

1  C,  Ex.  iv.  14.  2  e_  Ex.  iii.  14. 

3  B,  Ex.  xi.  1,  xiii.  1  ;  C,  Ex.  vii.  14,  26,  viii.  16,  ix.  1,  13,  22,  x.  1,  12, 
21  (xix.  3,  XX.  1) ;  A,  Ex.  vi.  2,  10,  vii.  1,  xii.  1,  xiv.  1. 

*  C,  Ex.  xxxiii.  IS.  ^  Ex.  xxxiv.  29-35. 

^  Num.  xii.  6  li'.  ;  Dent,  xxxiv.  10  (A). 

''As  Steudel,  269,  would  infer  from  Num.  xii.  6-8.  With  greater  reason 
Wellliausen  infers  {Jahrb. /ilr  deutsche  llieol.  1876,  iv.  558),  from  the  narra- 
tive in  Ex.  xix.  ff.,  that  the  legal  commandments  of  God  properly  so  called 
must  end  with  the  ten  commandments,  and  that  the  rest  was  originally  re- 
garded as  oral  instruction  given  to  Moses,  which  enabled  him  as  often  as  was 
necessary  to  speak  to  the  people  in  place  of  God  (xx.  19),  and  which  put  the 
Thorah  within  him  as  a  living  power.  The  forty  days  are  here  in  a  sense  the 
school-time  of  a  scholar  with  his  master. 


132  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

our  present  Looks  of  Moses  the  assumption  plainly  is  that 
everything  which  necessarily  follows  from  the  divine  work 
which  he  had  undertaken,  and  which  presses  in  upon  the 
spirit  of  the  man  of  God,  is  regarded  as  a  direct  message 
from  God.  Hence  we  may  certainly  give  the  sense  of  our 
narratives  as  follows :  "  From  the  day  Moses  was  consecrated 
and  strengthened  by  God  for  the  work  to  which  he  was 
called,  in  all  his  actions  he  loyally  executed  the  divine 
will,  and  carried  out  God's  thoughts  of  love  towards  Israel." 
For  the  latest  writers  of  the  Pentateuch  it  was  an  accepted 
fact  that  all  the  religious  knowledge  and  all  the  sacred 
institutions  of  Israel  that  were  in  actual  existence  down  to 
the  time  of  Ezra,  had  been  received  from  God  by  Moses 
and  communicated  to  the  people  as  a  complete  and  har- 
monious system  for  their  guidance  through  life.  This 
view  is  not  that  of  Israel's  early  reminiscences,  and 
no  historical  inquirer  of  the  present  day  will  advocate 
it.  But  what  must  we  then  regard  as  actually  the  work 
of  Moses  ? 

2.  ]\roses  undoubtedly  placed  the  true  religion  on  a  firm 
and  indestructible  basis.  In  the  later  account  which  the 
law  gives  of  itself,  it  is  rightly  said,^  "  The  Lord  made  this 
covenant,  not  with  our  fathers,  but  with  us."  In  this  sense, 
but  in  this  sense  only,  can  I  agree  with  Stade's  declaration, — 
"  That  Jehovah  is  the  sole  God  of  Israel,  who  absolutely 
forbids  all  other  worship,  is  not  a  Semitic  idea,  but  one 
traceable  to  Moses,  the  founder  of  the  religion  of  Israel" 
This  whole  fundamental  reformation  may  be  summed  up  in 
a  single  great  principle,  viz.  that  in  a  world  of  perishing 
peoples,  there  should  he  set  up  one  people  through  whom  salva- 
tion should  come.  The  fellowship  of  Israel  with  its  God  as  the 
God  of  salvation,  which  had  hitherto  found  expression  only  in 
the   ordinary  half -unconscious  and  inconsequent  life  of  the 

^  In  Dent.  v.   1-5,  Hos.  xii.   10,  xiii.   4,  Jehovah  is  named  as  the  God  of 
Israel  from  the  land  of  Egypt  onwards. 


PERSONALITY  OF  MOSKS.  133 

tribes,    now    beoomes    the    conscious    motiv^e  -  power    of    an 
organised  national  life. 

The  character  of  this  God  has  to  be  stamped_upon  the  life 
of  the  whole  nation,  upon  its  civil  constitution,  its  laws,  its 
political  and  social  habits,  its  aims  and  aspirations — in  a 
word,  upon  its  whole  mode  of  existence.  The  people  must 
bea  holy  people,  God's  own  possession.  Everything  must 
have  on  it  the  stamp  of  this  God,  as  a  personal,  holy,  spiritual 
God,  so  that  in  this  people  there  is  thus  implanted  an 
infinite  capability  of  moral  development.  But  this  God  is 
likewise  understood  to  be  a  gracious  God,  whose  mercy 
reaches  beyond  the  limits  of  the  finite  and  the  sinful,  so  that 
everything  in  His  people  has  on  it  the  seal  of  reconciliation. 
Between  the  holy  God,  who  keeps  a  loving  hold  of  His 
people,  and  the  holy  people  that  has  been  redeemed  and 
reconciled,  there  must  be  an  everlasting  covenant,  a  relation- 
ship of  mutual  obligation. 

When  the  religious  centre  of  gravity  is  thus  being  shifted 
from  the  individual  and  from  traditional  usage  to  an  organised 
community,  there  arises  in  one  way  a. risk  of  retrogression. 
For  the  moral  and  religious  life  of  a  people  cannot  find  ex- 
pression except  in  sacred  forms ;  it  cannot  take  shape  in  the 
inner  life  of  the  individual.  In  the  forms  of  national  life  to 
which  the  individual  has  to  adapt  himself,  it  meets  him  from 
without  as  law,  "  Thou  shalt."  Hence,  the  Christian  gospel- 
sermon,  which,  looking  away  from  the  outer  form,  aims  at 
the  inner  life  of  the  heart,  is  in  many  respects  more 
closely  akin  to  the  picture  which  national  legend  has  given 
us  of  the  patriarchal  age ;  and  it  is  not  without  reason  that 
the  apostles,  in  their  speeches,  pass  so  often  over  Moses  to 
Abraham.  Nevertheless,  the  work  of  Moses  was,  in  truth, 
an  immeasurable  advance.  He  was  the  first  to  implant  in 
history  an  indestructible  life,  in  which  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  permanently  realising  itself  as,  at  least,  in  process  of 
growth,  and  in  which  reconciliation  of  a  spiritual  God  with 


? 


134  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

sinful  man  is  a  present  fact,  though  not  to  the  exclusion  of 
the  strongest  conviction  of  man's  impurity  and  God's  perfec- 
tion. The  powers  of  the  divine  life  can  now  be  tested  on 
lunnan  soil ;  the  thought  of  a  holy  God  should  no  longer  kill, 
but  make  alive. 

It  "was  a  grand  idea  to  create  a  people  of  God  whose  task 
in  the  world  was  to  be  the  bearers  of  salvation,  to  be  God's 
peculiar  people,  even  though  this  relationship  should,  in  ti)e 
first  instance,  be  expressed  but  in  outward  forms  and  customs. 
Indeed,  only  in  some  such  outward  unchanging  form,  only 
as  a  living  constituent  part  of  the  national  consciousness, 
could  this  salvation  be  kept  safe  through  all  the  storms  of  an 
age  inwardly  unripe  for  it,  until  it  should  reach  maturity. 
This  strong,  though  hard  and  repellent  shell  preserved  for 
mankind  the  noble  kernel  of  divine  truth  within  it,  until  it 
was  no  longer  needed,  because  that  truth  had  struck  its  living 
fibres  firmly  enough  into  sanctified  human  hearts.  Had  it,  at 
the  very  beginning,  been  planted  only  in  the  inner  life,  it 
would  long  ago  have  perished  from  the  ignorance  and  evil 
passions  of  an  unripe  humanity.  Now,  we  must  not  imagine 
either  that  the  sacred  forms,  as  such,  were  mainly  new,  and 
invented  by  Moses,  or  that  he  left  behind  him,  in  writing, 
detailed  directions  as  to  the  national  life.  Perhaps,  with  the 
exception ^oL-the  Sabbath,  the  name  Jehovah,  as  describing 
the  one  God,  whom  the  people  were  to  worship,  and  a  few 
religious  rites,  he  did  not  create  much  that  was  absolutely 
new.  His  work  was  rather  the  organisation  of  the  people 
into  a  confederacy  of  twelve  tribes.  But  he  gave  to  all  such 
traditions  of  Israel  a  significance,  through  which  they  acquired, 
for  the  first  time,  religious  value,  "  by  making  the  people 
of  God  a  holy  nation  with  a  definite  moral  stamp,  in 
which  the  life  of  their  God  might  unfold  itself."  By  in- 
dissolubly  linking  Israel's  consciousness  of  nationality  to 
the  religious  conception  of  these  moral  rules,  he  inscribed 
them   upon   the  life  of  his  people  more   indelibly  than  by 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  MOSAISM.  135 

writing  a  complete  code  of  laws.  Whatever  is  great  in 
history,  especially  in  religious  history,  is  accomplished, 
not  by  "teaching,  theory,  or  system,"  but  by  deeds,  demon- 
strations of  the  spirit  and  of  power.  Else  how  poor  Jesus  p^ 
would  appear  beside  the  least  of  the  post-Socratic  school- 
men ! 

From  this  conception  of  Moses'  life-work  it  follows,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  that  a  twofold  judgment  of  his  personality 
and  of  his  work  is  possible.  He  was  the  creator  of  Israel  as 
a  nation,  and  only  in  that  connection,  of  Israel  as  the  bearer 
of  a  new  religion.  Thus  one  may  look  at  him,  on  the  one 
hand,  as  a  mere  statesman  and  social  reformer,  who,  not  as 
teacher,  but  as  hero,  created  a  State,  not  a  sect,  by  gathering  the 
masses  of  Israel  into  a  confederacy  of  twelve  tribes  under  the 
protection  of  the  national  God.  Hence  not  till  the  struggle 
Avith  the  Canaanite  mode  of  life  began,  were  the  peculiar 
energies  of  Israel's  religion  properly  aroused.  When  Philistine 
oppression  had  welded  Israel  more  firmly  together  into  one 
nation,  their  simple  religion,  preserved  in  the  tribal  sanctuary, 
was  brought  more  fully  home  to  the  hearts  of  the  people  by 
Samuel  and  David,  who  resumed  the  work  of  Moses  (Land). 
On  the  other  hand,  one  may  regard  the  religious  side  of 
Moses'  task  as  that  which  stood  in  the  foreground  from  the 
very  first,  and  ascribe  to  Moses  himself  the  intention  of 
founding  a  In'gher  and  morally  purer  religion  than  any  of 
those  around  (Kuenen  and  Stade).  The  nature  of  our  existing 
documents  does  not  furnish  conclusive  proof  of  either  of  these 
views.  But  the  general  impression  which  the  personality 
of  Moses  left  on  the  memory  of  his  people,  and  the  fact  that, 
under  the  most  unfavourable  circumstances,  and  in  spite  of 
much  intermixture  of  religions  and  the  apostasy  of  largo 
sections,  it  was  nevertheless  able  to  strive  after  the  loftiest 
ideal  of  religion  and  morals,  is,  in  my  opinion,  a  decisive  proof 
in  favour  of  the  second  view,  which  sees  in  IMoses,  not  a  mere 
national  hero    and   founder   of   a    State,   but    a    prophet    of 


136  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

God.  The  religion  of  Moses  centres  in  the  conception  of 
God's  relation  to  His  people.  Jehovah  is  the  God  of 
Israel.  In  this  way  the  true  thought  of  the  unity  of 
God  is  combined  in  the  happiest  and  most  effective  way 
with  the  feeling  of  the  closest  dependence  on  that  God 
whom  the  people  specially  worships,  without  the  theoretical 
question  of  monotheism  being  raised  at  all.  To  advance 
His  work  among  men,  and  to  communicate  His  salvation, 
God  sets  apart  as  on  a  special  stage  the  people  among 
whom  He  is  known.  By  the  mighty  act  of  redemption.  He 
obtains  this  people  as  His  own  inheritance.  The  deliverance 
out  of  Egypt  is  thus  the  fundamental  fact  to  which  the 
special  relation  of  the  Israelite  to  salvation  can  be  as  clearly 
traced  as  a  stream  to  its  source.^  Consequently  God  is 
the  real  King  of  this  people,  its  constitution  being  sovereignty 
by  God,  or  theocracy,  as  Josephus,  apparently  using  a 
word  coined  by  himself,  rightly  designates  this  relationship.^ 
A  human  authority  is  simply  God's  deputy.  Hence  Moses 
is,  according  to  all  the  accounts,^  only  a  prophet,  a  man  of 
God,  who  lays  the  affairs  of  the  people  before  God,*  and  then 
brings  back  to  them  the  divine  commands.  Consequently 
Gideon  at  a  later  stage  declines  the  proffered  kingship  with 
the  words,  "  Jehovah  shall  rule  over  you."  ^  Hence  the 
wish  for  an  earthly  king  is  in  the  eyes  of  the  pious  of  a 
later  age  a  "  rejection  of  God."  ^  And  when  there  was  in 
Israel   a   kingdom    sanctioned   by  God,  we  are   nevertheless 

^  To  tliis  corresponds  the  New  Testament  XvTpuxri;,  redemption  through  the 
death  of  Jesus  from  the  captivity  of  the  prince  of  death  ;  tlie  expressions  T\'l^ 
ma  in  their  New  Testament  translation  correspond  exactly  with  the  Old 
Testament  figure. 

^  Contra  Apionem,  ii.  16,  ed.  Col.  p.  1071  :  ^s  «»  t;;  jIVo;  (^icctrafuvo;  tov  xiyon, 
clearly  therefore  a  word  not  yet  in  ordinary  use. 

*  The  passage,  Deut.  xxxiii.  5,  were  it  to  be  taken  in  the  opposite  sense, 
would  only  give  the  view  existing  in  the  prophetic  period.  But  even  it  calls 
God,  not  Moses,  the  King  of  His  people. 

4  Ex.  xviii.  19. 
6  Judg.  viii.  22  ff. 

*  1  Sam.  viii.  7. 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  MOSAISM.  137 

told  that  God  went  before  the  king  of  Israel ;  that  the  latter 
is  His  son,  and  sits  at  His  right  hand.^ 

Everything  that  concerns  this  people  is  God's  affair.- 
Through  the  oracle  of  the  priests  as  well  as  through  tlie 
prophets  whom  God  sends,  the  people  receives  communica- 
tions regarding  the  divine  will,  guidance  as  to  its  resolutions, 
and  warning  as  to  the  dangers  that  threaten  it.  And  as 
long  as  Israel  remains  faithful,  it  may  be  perfectly  sure  of 
God's  protection.  Now  this  fundamental  conception  of  God's 
relationship  to  Israel  becomes,  in  the  latest  view  of  the  work 
of  Moses,  an  artistically-constructed  theocratic  system  that 
is  to  be  traced  back  to  Moses.  For  the  latest  writers  in  the 
Pentateuch  all  the  legal  and  moral  ordinances  in  Israel  are  a 
direct  expression  of  God's  will,  a  revelation  to  Moses  of  His 
holiness.  The  Thorah,  as  "  the  word  of  God,"  is  the  law- 
book of  this  people,  in  which  the  idea  of  a  holy  national  life 
conformable  to  the  majesty  of  God  unfolds  itself  in  moral, 
civil,  and  ceremonial  forms.  Even  in  the  discovery  and 
punishment  of  criminals  God  gives  direct  help.^  In  this 
way  God  Himself  makes  this  people  a  nation.  Israel  is, 
as  a  nation,  the  first-born  son  of  God  among  the  nations 
of  the  world.* 

On  the  other  hand,  the  people  being  the  special  possession 
of  this  God,  must  always  look  on  itself  as  a  holy  people,  and 
gather  all  its  national  feeling  round  this  one  spiritual 
centre.  Whether  there  are  other  gods  elsewhere  in  the 
world  is  not  the  immediate  question.  Eather  this  people  has 
to  surrender  itself  wholly  and  unreservedly  to  this  God  as 

1  2  Sam.  V.  24  ;  Ps.  ii.  4  ff.,  ex.  2  f. 

2  A  jiarticularly  instructive  instance  of  this  mode  of  expression  is  Ex.  xiii. 
17  (B),  where  an  act  of  generalship  is  directly  attributed  to  God.  Besides, 
the  whole  idiom  of  the  law  is  based  on  this  idea.  Thus,  in  the  song 
of  Deborah  (Judg.  v.  23),  the  tribes  are  censured  "because  they  came  not  to 
the  help  of  the  Lord,  to  the  help  of  the  Lord  against  the  mighty." 

3  Lev.  xviii.  28,  29,  xx.  20  f.  ;  Num.  v.  12  ff.  ;  Josh.  vii.  16  tf.,  etc. 

*  The  religious  side  of  these  relations  can  be  discussed  in  detail  only  when 
we  come  to  describe  Israel's  message  of  salvation. 


138  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

His  possession.  It  must  become  a  people  in  whose  public 
appearances  the  characteristics  of  a  holy  Godlike  life  may 
find  expression, — a  people  which  reveals  to  the  world  the  true 
character  of  its  covenant  God,  and  thus  "  glorifies  His  name 
upon  the  earth."  ^  But  certainly  it  was  only  a  later  age  that 
created  in  detail  the  several  institutions  in  which  Israel's 
unreserved  surrender  to  God  of  time,  possessions,  and  even  of 
personality,  finds  logical  expression. 

Hence  this  people  does  not  stand  to  its  legal  constitution 
in  the  same  relation  as  do  modern  peoples,  whilst  it  shows 
in  this  point  the  greatest  similarity  to  the  conception  of 
religion  prevalent  among  many  other  peoples  of  antiquity. 
Everything  is  of  a  piece,  from  the  most  trifling  command- 
ment regarding  outward  cleanliness  up  to  the  fundamental 
thoughts  of  the  moral  law.  Civic  virtue  is  indissolubly 
linked  to  piety.  Whoever  violates  the  great  fundamental 
principles  of  law  and  order,  dishonours  the  national  God 
as  grievously  as  he  who  directly  attacks  His  rights  and 
sanctuaries.  Whoever  is  pious  in  the  Israelitish  way  has  the 
welfare  of  God's  people  nearest  his  heart.  On  the  other 
hand,  whoever  shirks  the  orders  of  his  people's  king,  or 
breaks  the  ceremonial  or  the  moral  law,  cannot  be  a  good 
citizen.  The  whole  is  woven  into  a  splendid  unity,  into 
the  thouglit  that  this  people  should  represent  the  kingdom 
of  God  on  earth,  and  realise  in  its  national  life  the  main 
features  of  the  divine  order  of  things. 

Kuenen  has  shown  in  a  very  satisfactory  manner  (i. 
268)  that  the  tradition  about  Moses  as  a  lawgiver  would 
prove,  even  though  there  were  not  a  single  one  of  his  laws 
extant,  that  he  must  have  stood  prominently  forward  as 
a  revealer  of  God's  will,-  just  as  it  would  be  inconceiv- 
able, had  David  not  been  a  poet,  and  Solomon  a  patron  of 

1  So  the  old  expression,  Ex.  xix.  5,  6,  cf.  Lev.  xi.  45,  xix.  2  ;  Num.  xv. 
40  in  A. 

*  Micah  vi.  4  ;  Hos.  xii.  14. 


RELIGIOUS  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ISRAEL.  139 

philosophy,  that  the  tradition  about  their  doings   couLl  ever 
have  arisen. 

The  worl^  of  Mosesjwas  at  all  events  not__of  a_  Uieological 
kind.  He  did  not  concern  himself  with  the  question  -whether 
Jehovah  was  the  one  only  God,  and  what  was  His  relation 
to  the  other  Elohim.  But  the  result  of  his  life-work  was  to 
make  this  God  he  recognised  as  the  God  of  this  people,  and, 
indeed,  as  bound  up  with  the  main  principles  of  its  moral 
and  social  life, — a  result  which  was  never  again  entirely 
lost,  and  which  formed  the  starting-point  of  all  further  moral 
and  religious  development  in  Israel. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  RELIGIOUS  DEVELOrMEXT  OF  ISRAEL  DOWN  TO  SAMUEL. 

Baudissin,  Sludien  zur  scmitiscUcn  licliffionsfjcschicJite,  i., 
1876. 

1.  The  Mosaic  idea  of  the  theocratic  State  demanded  so 
much  devotion  on  the  part  of  the  several  tribes  oTlsrael  to 
the  thought  of  a  national  religion,  and  such  constant  resist- 
ance to  the  natural  desire  for  independence,  that  we  cannot 
wonder  that  nothing  but  the  first  grand  uprising  of  the 
national  and  religious  spirit,  such  as  a  war  of  emancipation 
arouses,  under  the  overmastering  influence  of  one  so  powerful 
and  consecrated  as  Moses,  could  for  a  short  time  give  it 
reality.  For  such  a  realisation  must  certainly  be  admitted. 
True,  one  hears  ringing  quite  distinctly  through  all  the 
reminiscences  of  Israel,  and  even  through  the  conceptions 
of  the  latest  age,  which  encircle  with  a  halo  of  glory  every- 
thing ancient,  the  thought  that  the  Mosaic  age  itself  fell 
very  far  short  of  the  ideal ;  that  even  those  who  stood  nearest 
to  Moses  behaved  in  a  way  utterly  at  variance  with  the 
true  religion,  and  arrogantly  opposed  the  great  leader  of  the 


140  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

people  ;^  and  that  Moses  was  the  most  toil-worn  of  men,  and 
not  even  able  to  maintain  himself,  on  every  occasion,  upon  that 
pinnacle  of  faith  which  his  mission  required.^  Still,  it  is  certain 
that  at  that  time  a  nobler  spirit  was  aroused  in  the  nation,  and 
that  Israel  really  felt,  and  desired  to  feel,  that,  in  contrast  with 
the  peoples  of  Canaan,  it  was  the  people  of  God,^  Nothing  but 
such  an  uprising  of  the  national  spirit  could  have  overthrown 
the  superior  civilisation  of  Canaan.  Without  this  assumption, 
on  which  Ewald  also  rightly  insists,  it  would,  in  fact,  be 
impossible  to  understand  how  the  people  could  have  developed 
the  religious  powers  which  it  displays  in  the  time  of  Samuel 
and  David.  It  is  only  by  denying  all  value  to  the  reminis- 
cences of  Israel,  and  by  assuming  that  the  oldest  ancestral 
seats  in  Canaan  were  not  conquered  by  a  united  people  that 
came  out  of  Egypt,  but  that  there  was  a  gradual  peaceful 
settlement  of  the  mountain  districts  by  Israelites  who  did  not 
at  first  show  themselves  in  any  way  directly  hostile  to  the 
native  inhabitants,  to  say  nothing  of  their  being  animated  by 
the  pride  of  higher  religious  worth  (Stade),  that  one  can  think, 
not  of  a  sudden  upheaval  and  subsequent  exhaustion,  but  of 
a  slow  continuous  rise  from  very  low  beginnings. 

At  all  events,  one  must  not  think  of  the  situation  as 
uniformly  favourable.  Certainly  it  is  not  to  be  imagined 
that  the  people  had  at  that  time  any  really  inward  apprecia- 
tion of  the  great  thoughts  which  the  prophets  afterwards 
developed  out  of  Mosaism.  Otherwise  we  should  not  under- 
stand how,  for  such  a  long  time  afterwards,  even  their  leaders 
had  never  the  slightest  scruples  in  displaying  a  sad  mixture  of 
faith  and  superstition,  of  morality  and  immorality,  and  how 
they  succumbed  so  frequently  to  the  civilisation  and  influence 

^  Num.  xi.  12  ff.,  xii.  3,  xvi.  1  ff.  (Levites  and  the  "first-born"  Reuben);  cf. 
Ezek.  XX.  8,  xxiii.  3  ;  Ex.  xv.  24,  xvi.  3,  xvii.  1.  That  in  such  narratives  the 
practical  needs  and  antagonisms  of  the  later  time  also  find  expression,  does  not 
rob  them  of  their  indirect  significance  for  the  question  under  consideration. 

2  Num.  XX.  10,  12,  24,  cf.  xxvii.  14  (A  ?). 

^  The  old  narrative  according  to  C,  Ex.  xix.  8,  cf.  xxiv.  3. 


JOSHUA.  141 

of  the  surrounding  nations.  For  the  Later  development  of 
the  national  religion  is  a  conclusive  proof  that  these  pheno- 
mena were  not  due  to  actual  decay  of  inner  force.  Con- 
sequently, it  is  more  than  probable  that  in  Mosaism,  after 
its  first  realisation,  there  still  remained  unextruded  many 
remnants  of  a  somewhat  impure  character,  that  in  the 
religious  ideas  of  the  people  themselves  there  was  still  much 
darkness  and  much  externality,  and  that  a  clear  theoretical 
perception  of  the  scope  of  this  religion  was  wholly  lacking. 
In  fact,  it  cannot  be  denied,  as  Vatke  points  out  (251-254), 
that,  in  comparison  with  the  age  of  Moses,  the  age  of  the 
Judges  shows  in  many  respects  progress,  not  retrogression. 
This  must  certainly  have  been  the  case,  in  so  far  as  the 
fundamental  ideas  of  Israel  were  more  deeply  felt  and  more 
consistently  grasped  in  the  spiritual  centres  of  the  national 
life,  by  the  prophets  and  the  priests  at  Shiloh,  and  were 
specially  recognised  as  antagonistic  to  the  Hamitic  religion, 
and  indeed  developed  and  spiritualised  by  this  antagonism. 
Ikit  if  the  one  age  be  pitted  against  the  other,  then  that  of 
Moses  and  Josliua  was,  in  comparison  with  the  succeeding 
centuries,  an   age  of  national   and  religious   elevatioji.     The 


one  fact,  that  in  tliis  age  Israel  felt  and  acted  as  a  united 
"people  of  Jehovah,"  is  for  the  essence  of  this  religion  of  tlie 
utmost  significance.  Even  though  we  admit  that  there  was 
an  advance,  between  the  time  of  Moses  and  Samuel,  in  the 
theoretical  conception  of  the  character  of  Jehovah  and  in  the 
knowledfje  of  the  moral  ideal,  still  we  must  regard  the  aG;e  of 
the  conquest  as  superior  to  the  succeeding  in  religious  self- 
consciousness  and  in  the  fidelity  and  strength  of  faith  exhibited 
by  Israel.  Although,  in  the  succeeding  age,  progress  was 
being  quietly  and  imperceptibly  made  in  many  directions, 
yet,  in  contrast  with  the  preceding,  it  must  appear  one  of 
retrogression.  In  fact,  such  periods  of  apparent  retrogression 
are  often  the  birth-hours  of  a  new  and  higher  life. 

By  welding  together  the  civil  and  the  religious,  the  age  of 


l4^  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

successful  conquest  must  have  made  the  people  rejoice  in  its 
spiritual  and  national  characteristics,  and  must  have  aroused 
a  feeling  of  proud  enthusiasm  for  the  God  of  the  ]iosts  of 
Israel.  Certainly  the  sketches  in  the  book  of  Joshua, 
especially  those  by  the  latest  hand  that  touched  the  book, 
which  would  presuppose  a  condition  of  the  highest  political 
and  religious  perfection,^  were  composed  in  the  magnifying 
light  of  later  times,  in  which  even  external  successes  are 
represented  in  such  a  way  as  makes  it  impossible  to  under- 
stand the  subsequent  existence  in  Canaan  of  powerful  hostile 
States.^  If  the  religious  and  moral  institution,  as  it  stands 
in  its  finished  state  before  the  mental  vision  of  A,  or  even 
before  the  eye  of  the  Deuteronomist,  had  been  then  in  actual 
existence,  scarcely  a  page  of  pre-Davidic  history  would  be 
intelligible.  But  there  must  have  been  at  that  time  an  outburst 
of  moral  and  religious  zeal  such  as  may  coexist  even  with 
impure  forms  of  worship  and  very  undeveloped  conceptions 
of  dogma,  especially  whole-hearted  enthusiasm  for  the  God 
and  the  sanctuaries  of  the  people, — an  outburst  of  much  the 
same  kind  as  occurred  among  the  kindred  Arabians  when  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  earliest  days  of  Islam  put  into  their  hands 
the  conqueror's  sword.  It  is  a  firmly-rooted  conviction  and, 
in  spite  of  its  lateness,  undoubtedly  a  true  one,  that  Israel 
"  served  Jehovah  "  as  long  as  Joshua,  and  those  associated  with 
him  durinfT  that  eventful  time,  survived.^ 

2.  A  period  of  great  strain  and  excitement  in  national  life 

^  The  originally  Deuteronomic  passage,  Josh.  i.  8  ff.,  xxiv.  15-29. 

■^  Cr.  e.g.  JuJg.  i.  21  li".,  according  to  A.  The  true  view  will  be  that  rapid 
and  successful  forays  determined  Israel's  supremacy  in  Canaan,  although  the 
whole  land  was  not  conquered,  or  actual  possession  taken  of  the  strongest 
fortified  towns ;  and  then  from  the  centres  thus  left  a  reaction  soon  made  itself 
felt.  According  to  Judg.  i.,  e.g.,  Judah  had  to  conquer  his  own  territory  all  by 
himself.  Israel's  really  independent  possessions  on  the  west  of  Jordan,  down 
to  the  time  of  the  Kings,  were  probably  confined  to  the  northern  hill-country 
of  Judah  and  the  territories  of  Benjamin  and  Ephraim.  Everywhere  else  they 
were  intermixed  with  Canaanites,  or  had  beside  them  petty  independent 
Canaanite  kingdoms. 

^  Josh.  xxiv.  31  ;  Judg.  ii.  7. 


THE  JUDGES.  143 

is  generally  followed  by  a  period  of  reaction,  in  wliich, 
however,  the  forces  that  lead  to  a  new  revival  are  being 
imperceptibly  prepared.  But  owing  to  the  peculiarly  close 
connection  between  the  religious  and  tlie  national  conscious- 
ness of  Israel,  such  reaction  was  necessarily  accompanied  by 
religious  declension,  by  an  inclination  to  amalgamate  with 
other  religions,  and  succumb  to  the  civilisation,  in  some 
respects  superior,  of  the  surrounding  peoples.  They  had,  in 
f;xct,  to  reckon  on  living  among,  and  associating  with,  the 
Canaanites  for  a  considerable  length  of  time,  during  which 
there  could  not  fail  to  be  a  general  interchange  of  habits  and 
views.  And  owing  to  the  close  connection  among  all  ancient 
peoples  between  men's  mode  of  life  and  their  morals  and 
religion,  this  new  style  of  living,  in  a  civilised  agricultural 
land,  involved  also  the  risk  of  adopting  foreign  views  of 
religion. 

The  political  position  of  the  nation  down  to  the  time  of 
the  kings  presented  the  gravest  difficulties  and  dangers 
to  the  development  of  its  religion.  True,  Israel  ran  no 
risk  of  meeting  the  fate  of  the  Persians,  whose  religion 
soon  lost  its  purity  in  consequence  of  their  imperial 
position  and  their  free  intercourse  with  subject  peoples. 
For,  in  the  centres  of  national  life  in  Israel  where  the 
heathen  population  had  been  rooted  out,  there  flourished  in 
all  its  purity  the  worship  of  the  God  of  Sinai,  whom  the 
national  priests  served  ;  and  the  devotees  of  the  national  God 
— Nazirites,  judges,  and  prophets — fostered  the  enthusiasm 
for  the  national  religion.  But  most  of  the  tribes  of  Israel 
were  living  with  Canaanite  cities  among  them  that  had  been 
left  undestroyed.  ^Solomon  was  the  first  who  succeeded  in 
iinposing  tribute  ai  I  forced  jabour  ^  upon  the  remnants  of 
the  native  population  which  it  had  proved  impossible  to 
exterminate.      Even  the  later  parts  of  the  book  of  Joshua,^ 

^  1  Kings  ix.  20 ;  2  Cliron.  ii.  17  fT.,  viii.  7  ;  Josh.  xv.  G3. 
2  Josh.  xiii.  13,  xv.  63,  xvii.  12,  13. 


144  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

and  still  more  plainly  the  stories  in  the  book  of  Judges, 
indicate  that  the  remnants  of  the  Canaauites  were  tolerably 
numerous. 

Gibeon,  which  Saul  in  his  zeal  for  God  and  Israel  wished 
utterly  to  destroy/  Jerusalem,  and  Shechem^  were  inhabited 
by  a  Canaanite  population.  And  the  policy  adopted  towards 
them,  as  well  as  towards  the  surrounding  peoples,  was  by 
no  means  one  of  isolation,  as  the  laws  of  the  later  age 
represent.  Notably,  the  tribe  of  Judah  had  such  intimate 
relations  with  foreign  elements  that,  for  example,  the  power- 
ful family  of  Caleb  may,  with  equal  propriety,  be  reckoned 
either  to  Judah  or  to  the  Kenizzites.^  Even  among  David's 
heroes  there  are  Ammonites  and  Hittites.  In  his  own  family 
there  is  an  Ishmaelite.  One  of  his  female  ancestors  is  a 
Moabitess.  He  takes  his  parents  to  the  Moabites,  and  lives 
himself  among  the  Philistines.*  Inter  -  marriages  with 
Philistine  women  are  not  represented  as  very  desirable, 
but  they  are  not  forbidden.^  David  and  Solomon  enter 
without  hesitation  into  alliance  with  the  Phoenicians.^ 
Now,  as  the  Qanaanites.  jvere  unquies_tioimbly-J'ar  sivperior 
to  the  Israelites  in  matters  of  seciilar  culture,  such  inter- 
course could  not  but  result  in  a  toning  down  of_the_simplicity 
^and__stern__seyerk^^  relj^on   aiid^morals.     "  The 

conquered  gave  laws  to  the  conquerors."^  To  Israel,  as  to 
every  ancient  people  without  a  clearly  defined  monotheism, 
it  must  have  seemed  very  natural  to  pay  to  the  gods  of  their 

^  2  Sam.  xxi. 

2  .Tudg.  ix.  28  ;  Josli.  xv.  63  (cf.,  on  the  oUier  liaud,  Jiulg.  i.  8,  17  ! ). 

^  Gen.  XV.  19  ;  Num.  xiii.  31  ;  Josh.  xv.  17  ;  Judg.  i.  12  ff.  (Gen.  xxxviii.  ; 
Josh.  vi.  25). 

"  2  Sam.  xvii.  27,  xxiii.  37,  39  ;  1  Cliron.  ii.  17  ;  Ruth  i.  4  (cf.  1  Sam. 
xxi.  11,  xxii.  3,  xxvii.  tf.). 

5  Judg.  xiv.  3.  «  1  Kings  v.  6  If.  (vii.  13  IT.). 

"  The  later  historians  see  in  the  sparing  of  the  Canaanites  sometimes  a 
national  sin  (Judg.  ii.  1),  sometimes  temptation  by  God,  and  an  intention  to 
strengthen  Israel's  national  spirit  by  a  struggle  for  national  existence  (Judg. 
ii.  3,  22,  iii.  1,  2,  4),  and  sometimes  a  wise  rule,  that  the  land  might  not 
become  a  waste  (Deut.  vii.  22). 


THE  JUDGES.  "  145 

new  and  beautiful  land,  at  the  ancient  shrines,  the  worship 
which  these  had  been  accustomed  to  receive,  and  to  whicli 
the  former  inhabitants  thought  they  owed  the  corn  and  the 
wine  which  the  land  produced. 

Now,  idolatry  proper,  actual  apostasy  from  Jehovah  for  the 
sake  of  other  gods,  cannot  have  occurred  in  tlie  way  reprg- 
sented  in  the  later  "accounTs,  which  view  it  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  doctrine  of  retribution.  The  people  as  a  whole 
were,  beyond  a  doubt,  proud  of  their  nationality,  and  therefore 
also  of  their  religion.  They  were  a  nation  of  conquerors. 
Only  in  very  evil  times,  such  as  they  experienced  during  the 
Philistine  oppression,  could  the  thought  ever  have  occurred 
to  them  that  their  God  was  less  powerful  than  the  gods  of 
Gath  and  Askelon.  And  during  that  period  the  unity  of 
Israel,  that  is,  its  national  and  religious  feeling,  was  actually 
strengthened  and  steeled  by  adversity.  But  the  natural 
impulse  to  do  honour  to  the  god  of  the  country  would  induce 
many  an  Israelite  to  frequent  the  sanctuaries  and  imitate  the 
worship  of  Canaan  without  ceasing,  on  that  account,  to  con- 
sider Jehovah  as  his  own  God. 

Naturally  the  tribes  most  exposed  to  the  danger  of  be- 
coming lost  to  Israel's  calling  were  those  which,  like  the 
EjDhraimites,  were  in  close  proximity  to  a  central  shrine  of 
the  native  inhabitants.  Thus,  at  Shechem,  a  process  of  amal- 
gamation went  on  between  the  two  peoples,  just  because 
of  the  sanctuary  of  Baal-Berith.  A  royal  city,  it  ruled  over 
considerable  portions  of  Ephraim  as  well  as  its  own  Canaanite 
population.  A  nature-festival,  much  like  "  the  feast  of  Taber- 
nacles," united  both.^  On  the  other  hand,  old  Israelitish 
tribes  were  weakened  by  coming  into  conflict,  like  Eeuben, 
Simeon,    and    Levi,    with    the    native    population,    or,    like 

^  Judg.  ix.  We  are  certainly  tempted  to  see  in  this  "  Baal  of  the  covenant " 
Jehovah  Himself  under  an  ancient  title,  n''"l3  pH  (ix.  46).  But  in  v.  28  the 
Canaanitish  character  of  the  population  of  Shechem  comes  out  quite  unam- 
biguously. 

VOL.  I.  K 


146  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Benjamin,  with  their  own  brethren.^  But  in  spite  of  such 
complications,  we  must  recognise  that  a  common  feeling 
animated  Israel  during  those  "  times  of  the  Judges,"  which 
it  is  probable  were  considerably  shorter  than  the  traditional 
chronology  of  later  ages  represents.  And  though  there  are 
no  grounds  for  exchanging  the  Old  Testament  picture  of 
a  time  of  conquest,  followed  by  a  troublesome  period,  during 
which  Israel  has  difficulty  in  keeping  possession  of  the 
country,  for  a  picture  of  gradual  encroachment  and  settle- 
ment, extending  over  several  generations,  and  resulting  in 
actual  supremacy  only  in  the  time  of  the  Kings,  we  may  still 
believe  that  in  the  midst  of  peril  and  apparent  declension 
these  times,  nevertheless,  witnessed  an  inward  strengthening 
and  development  of  Israel  as  a  nation. 

p.  A  strict  political  or  religious  unity,  such  as  we  may 
assume  to  have  existed  at  the  time  of  the  exodus  and  the 
conquest,  is  not  tq_be  thoughLjpf  during  this  period.  The 
several  tribes  and  cities  were  independentguardians  of  the 
religion  and  customs  of  the  fathers.  Hence  it  was  once  a 
common  saying  in  Israel,  "  If  ye  ask  counsel  in  Abel,  then 
ye  do  well."  ^  Each  tribe  had  in  the  last  resort  to  act  on  its 
own  responsibility.  It  is  particularly  striking  that  Judajj  is 
represented  as  standing  quite  aloof  from  the  national  life. 
Neither  in  Deborah's  song  nor  during  the  wars  for  freedom 
is  this  tribe  ever  mentioned.  Far  down  into  the  time  of 
the  Kings  the  conflicting  interests  of  Judah  and  Joseph, 
and  even  of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  determine  their  respective 
rdles.'^ 

Still  there  undoubtedly  existed,  despite  this  independence 

•^  Not  merely  Judg.  xix.  20,  in  a  narrative  obviously  very  late,  but  also  Hos. 
ix.  9,  X.  9.  The  doings  of  Simeon  and  Levi  at  Shechem  tjq^ify  the  reckless  and 
treacherous  refusal  of  all  intercourse  with  the  inhabitants  of  the  country,  Gen, 
xxxiv.,  xlix. 

*  2  Sam.  XX.  18.  Each  tribe  had  its  o^\■n  sanctuary,  Judg.  vi.,  viii.,  xi., 
xviii.  ;  1  Sam.  xx.  6. 

^E.g.l  Sam.  xxii.  7. 


THE  JUDGES.  147 

claimed  by  the  several  sections,  a  higher  national  bond, 
by  which  all  Israel  was  united  together  as  "  the  people  of 
Jehovah."  A  certain  unity  was  implied  in  the  fact  that 
Ephraim,  in  whose  territory  the  national  sanctuary  was 
situated,  openly  claimed  and  exercised  a  sort  of  hegemony 
over  the  tribes  that  lay  within  its  sphere  of  influence.^  Still 
more  powerful  was  the  prestige  of  the  national  sanctuary  at 
Shiloh,  with  its  LeviticaljDriesthood.  This  sanctuary  exercised 
over  the  history  of  Israel  a  paramount  influence  similar  to 
that  exercised  by  the  sanctuary  at  Delphi  over  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Hellenic  people.^  The  prophets  of  Jehovah  and 
the  Nazirites,  who  specially  represented  the  antagonism  of  the 
Hebrews  to  the  Canaanites,  were  looked  up  to  by  all  classes. 
Finally,  it  was  the  bounden  duty  of  the 'whole  people  to  fight 
"  the  wars  of  Jehovah,"  and  to  execute  the  ban  M'hich  God 
imposed.  "Whoever  shirked  this  duty  fell  under  the  ban 
himself.^  By  such  means  there  was  kept  up  a  community 
of  national  and  religious  feeling,  which  made  itself  felt  even 
in  the  bitterness  engendered  b}^  civil  war.* 

4.  During  this  period  the  morals  of  the  penph^  as  a  whole 
must  have  been  tolerably  .^urej  and  their  sense  of  morality 
and  justice  very  active.  The  horrible  crime^at_  Gibeah  is 
represented  as  something  absolutely  unheard  of  in  Israel ;  it 
remains  a  byword  for  centuries,  and  causes,  at  any  rate 
according  to  the  later  account,  the  annihilation  of  Benjamin's 
power  as  a  tribe.  The  old  proverbs,  "  No  such  thing  ought 
to  be  done  in  Israel,"  and  "  Folly  in  Israel,"  imply  a  high 
morality.^  The  appreciation  of  national  religion  was  also 
lively.  Notwithstanding  all  their  laxity  in  worship,  they 
thought    a    Levite    and    his    oracle    a    desirable   possession.^ 

^  Judg.  viii.  1,  xii.  1.  2  Josh,  xviii.  1  ;  Judg.  xviii.  31,  xxi.  19  f. 

3  Judg.  V.  13  ff.,  23,  viii.  4fif.,  xix.  29  ff.,  xx.  1,  xxi.  10  ff.  ;  cf.  1  Sam.  x.  17, 
xi.  7  ff. 

4  Judg.  xxi.  3  ;  2  Sam.  ii.  26,  xx.  19  f. 

^  Gen.  xxxiv.  7,  31  ;  Josh.  vii.  15;  Judg.  xix.  23,  xx.  10  ;  2  Sam.  xiii.  12  f. 
"  Judg.  xvii.  7  ff. ,  xviii.  18. 


148  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Times,  whose  watchword  was,  "  For  the  Lord  and  for 
Gideon,"  and  which  sang  the  song  of  Deborah,  and  perhaps 
also  the  Passover-hymn,  must  have  been  aglow  with  en- 
thusiasm for  the  God  of  the  people.  The  song  of  Deborah 
praises  God  because  rulers  arose  in  Israel  and  the  people 
offered  themselves  willingly.  It  speaks  of  the  saving  deeds 
of  God,  who  drew  near  in  the  glory  of  the  tempest  to  defend 
His  people  against  the  mighty.  The  enemies j)f  Israel  are  the 
enemies  oi_Jehovah,  and  they  who  fight  for  the  national  cause 
fight  for  God.  And  so  overmastering  is  this  religious  feeling, 
that  Jael's  breach  of  hospitality,  because  committed  in  the 
interests  of  Jehovah,  is  extolled  as  an  act  of  heroism.  With 
all  this,  one  must  allow  that  the  iron  age  produced  a  rough- 
ness of  manners,  and,  in  the  parts  of  the  country  most 
exposed  to  the  attacks  of  rival  peoples,  a  ferocity  such  as  we 
see  in  Jephthah,  who  was  both  prince  and  bandit,^ 

It  is  certain  that  in  the  time  of  the  Judges  it  was  con- 
sidered unobjectionable,  and  quite  in  harmony  with  the 
religion  of  Israel,  to  worship  the  national  God  by  means  of 
images,  and  to  believe  in  the  divinity  of  oracle-giving  house- 
hold gods.  Gideon  is  not  merely  the  political  deliverer  of 
Israel.  He  is  also  zealous  for  the  religion  of  his  people. 
His  struggle  against  the  worship  of  Baal-Berith,  and  against 
Canaanitish  practices  in  general,  and  the  reaction  produced  by 
this  struggle  can  be  clearly  enough  traced  in  the  story.^     He 

^  Judg.  xi.  1  ff.,  34  fF.  It  is  much  the  same  with  David,  1  Sam.  xxii, 
^  Judg,  viii.  23.  Still  it  was  probably  the  purpose  of  a  later  age  that  first 
gave  his  name  Jerubbaal  (Judg.  vii.  1)  the  meaning  of  Baal's  antagonist  (Judg. 
vi.  32).  At  that  time  Baal  was  like  El,  a  name  of  God  in  Israel,  which  fell  into 
disuse  only  at  a  later  stage  through  antagonism  to  the  other  Baalim.  Jerubbaal 
probably  means  "  Baal  supports."  Proper  names  in  which  Baal  is  the  name  of 
God  are  not  at  all  rare  in  Israel,  cf.  Jeruhbaal,  Ishbaal,  Mephibaal  (2  Sam.  iii.  8, 
iv.  4,  8,  xvi.  1,  xxi.  7,  cf.  xi.  21 ;  1  Chron.  viii.  33,  ix.  39).  In  later  times  these 
were  either  altered  in  a  good  sense  into  compounds  with  Jahveh,  e.g.  Ishjo  for 
Ishbaal  in  1  Sam.  xiv.  49  (cf.  Wellhausen  on  the  passage),  or  by  way  of  ridi- 
cule into  compounds  with  Bosheth  =  shame,  e.g.  Jerubbosheth,  Ischbosheth, 
Mephibosheth,  cf.  above.  The  opinion  I  formerly  held,  that  nCJ'3,  "i^c^;,  was  also 
an  old  name  of  God,  is  improbable  in  view  of  that  other  change  of  the  name. 


THE  JUDGES.  149 

declines  to  be  king,  saying, "  God  shall  rule  over  you."  Never- 
theless, he  has  no  scruple  in  making  into  an  image  of  God 
the  gold  taken  as  spoil  in  the  sacred  war, — conduct  to  which 
it  is  clear  the  term  "  to  go  a-whoring,"  or  apostatising  from 
God,  is  only  applied  in  accordance  with  a  much  later  mode  of 
thinking.^  On  Mount  Ephraim,  Micah  worships  the  God  of 
Israel,  and  rejoices  to  get  a  Levite  as  priest.  But  up  to  that 
time  his  own  son  performed  the  duties  of  priest,  and  a  molten 
image  and  teraphim  constituted  the  paraphernalia  of  his 
domestic  worsliip.  These  are  so  coveted  that  a  whole 
Israelitish  tribe  takes  them  from  him  by  force,  and  uses 
them  down  to  a  late  period  in  the  public  worship  of  its 
chief  city.  And  the  Levite  who  is  willing,  for  food  and 
clothing  and  ten  pieces  of  silver  a  year,  to  conduct  this 
worship,  the  principal  part  of  which  consists  in  giving 
oracles,  is  represented  as  a  grandson  of  Moses !  ^  Even  in 
David's  house  teraphim  are  regarded  as  quite  unobjectionable 
objects   of  worship.^      Whether    the    brazen   serpent   which 

It  is,  besides,  worthy  of  notice  that  in  Saul's  family  names  with  Baal  were 
specially  common,  and  in  David's  those  with  Jahveh.  Still,  according  to 
Judg.  vi.  25  ff.,  viii.  33,  ix.  1  ff.,  Gideon's  zeal  is  obviously  for  the  God  of  his 
people. 

^  Judg.  viii.  27  is  clearly  a  reflection  due  to  the  later  writer.  The  ephod  in 
Ophra  need  not  exactly  mean  an  image,  but  may,  as  elsewhere,  be  the  shoulder- 
cape  of  the  priest,  which  acts  as  an  oracle.  In  that  case  the  molten  image  made 
of  the  gold  is  not  expressly  named,  and  is,  according  to  the  analogy  of  other 
passages,  to  be  thought  of  as  the  image  of  an  ox  (Judg.  xviii.  30  ;  1  Kings  xii. 
28  ff.;  Ex.  xxxii.  4).  Besides,  it  is  in  no  way  improbable  that  the  name 
ephod,  as  well  as  ephuddah,  denoted  originally  the  coating  of  precious  metal 
with  which  the  wooden  or  clay  images  of  the  god  were  generally  overlaid 
(Isa.  xxx.  22).  It  is  exactly  the  same  as  with  Jehu,  who  was  also  zealous  for 
Jehovah,  and  yet  had  no  scruples  in  allowing  the  ox-image  of  Jehovah  to  con- 
tinue an  object  of  worship  (2  Kings  ix.  22  f.,  x.  16-29). 

^  The  image  is  intended  to  represent  Jehovah  (Judg.  xvii.  3).  Micah  has  a 
private  chapel,  cf.  xvii.,  xviii.  At  any  rate  the  story  is  obviously  meant  to 
cast  ridicule  on  this  whole  service,  the  image  being  made  out  of  stolen  gold  and 
attended  to  by  a  strolling  priest.  But  that  such  was  not  the  idea  at  the  time, 
is  proved  by  the  plunder  of  this  sanctuary  by  the  tribe  of  Dan,  and  by  the  long 
continuance  of  the  worship. 

*  1  Sam.  xix.  13  fF.,  xv.  23;  2  Kings  xxiii.  24;  Zech.  x.  2.  A  later  age 
naturally  sees  in  these  images  gods  subordinate  to  Jehovah. 


150  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Hezekiah  ordered  to  be  destroyed,  and  which  purported  to 
be  the  one  made  by  Moses  in  the  wilderness,  was  already  in 
existence,  and  regarded  as  a  symbol  of  God,  hardly  admits  of 
being  determined.^ 

The  whole  period  before  Samuel  we  must  picture  to  our- 
selves as  an  age_ofcontradictions.  We  find  in  it  deeds  of 
violence,  blood-feuds  even  for  acts  done  in  war  (as  among 
the  Bedouin  of  the  present  day),  great  licence  for  men  in 
sexual  intercourse,  and  polygamy  without  limit.^  But  along 
with  these  we  find  strong  indignation  against  acts  of  cruelty, 
an  admirable  gentleness  towards  compatriots,  keen  dislike  of 
a  "  foreign  city,"  with  a  corresponding  love  for  the  customs 
and  peculiarities  of  Israel ;  ^  hospitality  which  will  risk  every- 
thing in  defence  of  a  guest,^  and  in  contrast  with  which  the 
inhospitality  of  the  inhabitants  of  Gibeah  is  represented  as 
something  unheard  of;  fairmindedness,  so  that  even  the  run- 
away wife  of  a  Levite  is  taken  back  again ^  unpunished;  in  a 
word,  the  normal  characteristics  of  a  simple  and  joyous  exist- 
ence. If  the  book  of  Euth,  despite  its  late  date,  gives  a 
lifelike  picture  of  these  times,  as  the  impression  made  by  the 
story  inclines  us  to  believe,  as  well  as  the  popularly  simple 
explanation  of  the  primitive  custom  of  "  taking  off  the  shoe,"® 
we  find  in  everything  which  is  told  us  of  Boaz  and  Euth 
proofs  that  the  people  were  kindly,  honest,  and  naively  chaste.'^ 
The  wild  times  of  oppression  undoubtedly  steeled  the  nerves 
of  the  people.  And  the  hearth  at  which  the  sacred  fire  of  the 
religion  of  Jehovah  was  kept  purest  was  at  the  sanctuary  of 
Shiloh,  the  home  of  the  "  ephod-bearing  "  priests.^ 

In  David's  time  we  still  find  the  people  exceedingly  brave 

^  2  Kings  xviii,  4,  }^C^'^^  In  itself  it  would  be  in  no  way  improbable  that 
the  serpent-form,  which  among  most  ancient  nations  represents  something 
divine  or  dremonic,  should  be  used  iu  the  worship  of  Jehovah. 

2  Jiidg.  xi.  Iff.,  xvi.  1,  4,  cf.  viii.  18,  30,  ix.  42 ff.;  2  Sam.  iii.  27. 

'  Judg.  xix.,  XX.  ^  Judg.  xix.  20  tf.,  cf.  Gen.  xix.  1-8. 

^  Judg.  xix.  1  ff.  «  Ruth  iv.  7. 

7  Ruth  ii.  2-20,  iii.  3,  iv.  2.  «  1  Sam.  xiv.  3. 


SAMUEL.  151 

and  simple.^  Marriage  was  held  in  high  esteem.^  An  en- 
thusiastic piety,  certainly  without  any  theological  bent,  formed 
the  distinctive  characteristic  of  the  better  Israelites.^  The 
highest  moral  traits  were  considered  to  be  honesty,  submission 
to  the  will  of  God,  abhorrence  of  usury  and  oppression,* 
charitableness,^  generosity  and  magnanimity,*'  sincerity  and 
fidelity  in  friendship.'^  But  at  the  same  time  even  the  best 
are  represented  as  having  no  scruples  in  behaving  arbitrarily 
as  husbands,^  and  in  telling  lies  to  an  enemy  in  order  to 
deceive  him.^  Cruelty  in  war  is  not  merely  permitted,  but 
enjoined,^^  Side  by  side  with  individual  instances  of  sincere 
repentance  we  meet  with  a  naive  self-complacency.^^  Along 
with  the  highest  magnanimity  we  find  malicious  joy  at  the 
misfortunes  of  a  foe.-^^ 


CHAPTER  X. 

FROM  SAMUEL  DOWN  TO  THE  EIGHTH  CENTUEY. 

1.  The  grand  task  of  re-inspiring  a  thoroughly  disorgan- 
ised and  to  all  appearance  decaying  nation  with  the  spirit  of 
its  heroic  past  and  its  divine  calling  fell,  by  all  accounts,  to 
Samuel,  the  son  of  Elkanah  of  Ephraim.^^     Like  a  second 

^  Cf.  2  Sam.  viii.  4,  xi.  11,  sxiii.  15  ff. 

2  2  Sam.  xii.,  xiii.  2.  ^  Judg.  v.;  Ps.  xviii.  3,  4,  7,  11. 

*  2  Sam.  XV.  25,  xvi.  11,  xxiv.  14  (cf.  Ps.  vii.,  xi.,  xv.  1,  xxiv.  3-6  ; 
Prov.  xi.  1,  26,  xviii.  5,  xx.  10,  22,  23,  etc.). 

^  Prov.  xi.  25,  xix.  17,  xxi.  13,  xxii.  9.  ^1  Sam.  xxiv. 

7  1  Sam.  xviii.  3,  xx.  8,  16-42,  xxiii.  16ff.  ;  2  Sam.  i.  26. 

^  1  Sam.  XXV. ;  2  Sam.  v.  13  (excess  in  drinking,  2  Sam.  xi.  13). 

9  1  Sam.  xxvii.  8-12. 

^°  1  Sam.  xxvii.  9  ;  2  Sam.  xii.  31.  According  to  1  Sam.  xv.  32,  Saul  is  Llamed 
for  not  having  killed  Agag.  Vengeance  even  for  acts  done  in  war,  2  Sam.  ii.  23, 
iii.  27,  xiv.  7,  11. 

"  Ps.  xviii.  22  flF. ;  cf.  2  Sam.  vii.  18,  xii.  13,  ^-  1  Sam.  xxv.  39, 

"  The  statement  in  1  Chron.  vi.  28  ff.,  that  his  family  was  Levitical,  cannot 
have  any  weight  as  against  1  Sam.  i.  1,  because  the  aim  of  that  book  is  to 
exalt  the  Levitical  priesthood.     It  gets  more  importance  from  the  consideration 


152  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Moses,  this  leader  and  prophet  not  only  gave  his  people  unity 
and  safety  under  monarchical  rule,  but  also  raised  them  to  a 
higher  religious  unitj.  To  the  later  age  he  appears  the 
zeak)us  advocate  of  priestly  forms,  and  the  opponent  of  a 
monarchy  which  was  anxious  to  make  itself  independent  of 
*'  spiritual  "  supremacy.  According  to  the  original  tradition, 
he'  is  a  seer^  and  his  interests  are  those  of  one  zealous  for 
Jehovah  and  His  people.  Above  all,  it  was  due  to  him  that 
the  consciousness  of  Jehovah's  sovereignty  over  Israel  got 
firm  hold  of  the  nation  as  a  whole.  As  he  himself  was 
inspired  with  the  prophetic  spirit  of  revealed  religion,^  he 
is  represented  as  the  head,  perhaps  as  the  founder,  of  the 
prophetic  guilds,  in  which  devotion  to  Israel's  God  and  to  His 
salvation  was  cherished  as  at  a  sacred  hearth.  At  first  by 
his  personal  influence,  and  then  by  instituting  a  monarchy 
based  on  the  idea  of  the  divine  headship,  he  secured  the 
unity  of  Israel,  and  thereby  the  unity  of  its  religion.  Hence 
it  was  mainly  owing  to  him  that  the  theocracy  attained  tlie 
solidity  and  strength  which  found  outward  expression  in  the 
sovereignty  of  David  and  in  the  building  of  Solomon's 
temple.  He  impressed  the  people  with  a  keener  and  more 
vivid  consciousness  of  its  position  and  calling  as  the  people 
of  God,  an  impression  it  long  retained. 

But  nothing  he  could  have  done  personally  was  so  effective 

that  a  non-Levite  would  scarcely  have  been  allowed  to  serve  in  the  sanctuary 
and  share  in  its  jsevenues  and  honour.  But  Samuel  is  consecrated  by  his 
mother's  vow  to  service  in  the  sanctuary,  which  would  have  been  superfluous  in 
the  case  of  a  born  Levite.  That  his  parents  should  have  gone  up  every  year  to 
offer  sacrifice  at  the  sanctuary,  would  scarcely  be  an  intelligible  proceeding  on 
the  part  of  Levites  (1  Sam.  i.  11,  21,  according  to  the  Sept.  tithes).  Although 
as  a  servant  in  the  sanctuary  he  is  represented  as  wearing  a  priest's  linen 
garment,  which  is,  however,  also  related  of  David  (1  Sam.  ii.  18,  cf.  2  Sam. 
vi.  14),  he  always  appears  afterwards  simply  as  a  prophet  and  national  leader, 
never  as  a  priest.  For  although  he  pronounces  the  blessing  at  tlie  national 
sacrifices,  and  indeed  performs  them,  that  is  a  natural  result  of  his  position  as 
prophetic  leader.  Elijah  does  the  very  same.  For  the  honour  paid  to  Samuel 
later,  cf.  Jer.  xv-  1 ;  Ps.  xcix.  6  ;  Jes.  Sir.  xlvi.  16  if. 

^  Early  accounts  in  1  Sam.  iii.   3ff.,  19,  viii.   7,   ix.    5,   15,  19,  cf.  vii.   9, 
xiii.  SJT.,  and  later,  xv.  10. 


DAVID.  153 

as  his  securing  for  the  people,  by  means  of  the  national  mon- 
archy, a  hundred  years  of  full  and  complete  unity,  years  during 
which  everything  that  was  of  greatest  importance  for  the 
religious  development  of  the  people  was  settled  once  and  for 
all.  It  is  in  this  respect  that  the  first  king,  Saul,  has  a 
special  claim  on  our  attention.  He  protected  his  people  both 
in  the  south  and  in  the  east,^  exterminated  wizards  and 
sorcerers,  and  was,  in  the  national  sense,  zealous  against  the 
remnants  of  the  Canaanites.^  He  held  fast  by  the  noble 
simplicity  of  Israel's  ancient  customs.^  But  though  heartily 
devoted  to  Israel  and  Israel's  God,  he  manifested  but  little 
desire  for  a  Levitical  priesthood  and  a  central  temple,*  and 
he  had  in  general  no  anxiety  for  the  development  of  that 
deep  spiritual  religion  for  which  Samuel  was  so  eager.  The 
closing  years  of  this  high-spirited  king  were  full  of  gloom, 
misery,  and  violence. 

All  the  greater  was  the  effect  produced  by  the  personal 
character  and  deeds  of  his  successor  David.  Probably 
Bethlehem,  his  family  seat,  had  some  early  connection  with 
the  tribe  of  Levi.^  At  all  events,  David  was  not  only 
heartily  attached  to  the  religion  of  Jehovah,  but  also  to  its 
Levitical  and  prophetical  supporters,  in  other  words,  to  what- 
ever elements  in  it  had  an  elevating  tendency ;  and  he 
was  himself  in  turn  favoured  by  both  prophets  and  priests.^ 
While  still  a  freebooter,  he  kept  in  his  train  a  prophet, 
and  a  priest's  son  who  wore  an  ephod.  And  when  he 
became  king  over  the  whole  nation,  he  made  his  new 
citadel,  the  QJty  of  David,  also  the  religious  centre  which 
from  that  time  onward  ruled  and  regulated  the  whole 
religious  history  of  Israel.  The  national  unity  being 
now  assured,  and  the  sanctuary  being  in  the  very  centre 
of   the  kingdom,  the    religious  consciousness   of  the   people 

^  1  Sam.  xi.,  xxxi.  11  ff.  ^  1  Sam.  xxviii.  3 ;  2  Sam.  xxi.  2. 

^  E.g.  1  Sam.  xi.  4  ff.,  13,  xiv.  2  ;  2  Sam.  ix.  7. 

*  1  Sam.  xxii.  10  ff,  ^  Judg.  xvii.  10,  xix.  1.  ^1  Sam.  xxii. 


154:  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

was  at  any  rate  set  free  from  its  earlier  uncertainties  and 
fluctuations. 

The  copestone  was  put  on  this  structure  by.Solornon  when 
he  built  for  the  God  of  Israel  a  splendid  temple  which,  as 
was  natural,  aimed  at  becoming  the  one  centre  of  national 
worship.  This  is  Jhe  zenith  of  the  national  development, 
although  in  no  sense  the  pure  expression  of  the  idea  of  this 
religion.  Solomon  was  an  Asiatic  monarch  of  the  type  seen 
in  heathen  countries,  and  only  too  much  inclined  to  show 
that  such  was  his  position  by  massing  together  in  his  capital 
the  religious  services  of  many  different  peoples.  But  all  the 
same,  his  reign,  looked  at  externally,  was  the  final  stage  of 
the  development  in  Israel  of  the  theocratic  State. 

2.  It  is  a  common  tendency  among  Old  Testament  theo- 
logians of  the  present  day  to  overestimate  the  influence  of 
the  monarchy  on  the  nationality  and  religion  of  Israel.  I 
do  not  believe  that  the  state  of  things  under  Saul  and  David 
was  so  very  different  from  the  state  of  things  under  Gideon 
as  many  expositors  represent.  But  it  does  not  remain  a 
whit  less  certain  that  the  monarchy  after  it  had  been 
firmly  established  by  the  triumph  of  David,  was  of  the  very 
highest  importance  to  the  nation,  and  consequently  also 
to  its  religion.  For  a  long  while  it  was  quite  clear  that 
Jehovah  had  proved  Himself  the  God  who  rules  the  world, 
His  religion,  with  all  its  ordinances,  having  been  triumphantly 
established  and  successfully  maintained  in  Canaan.  Every- 
thing connected  with  the  subject  population  of  Canaan  and 
its  civilisation  now  appeared  increasingly  impure  and  objec- 
tionable. The  God  enthroned  on  Zion  appeared  more  glorious 
than  the  God  worshipped  at  Shiloh.  As  the  joyful  conscious- 
ness of  national  unity  and  national  glory  grew  stronger,  faith 
in  the  power  of  Jehovah  grew  stronger  also. 

3.  Although  the  sudden  prosperity  which  Israel  enjoyed 
under  David  and  Solomon  had  thus  a  tendency  to  promote 
religion,  still  such   prosperity  was  not   only  very  far  from 


SOLOMON.  155 

producing  that  elevation  of  tlionght  which  the  great  prophets 
show  us,  but  it  brought  in  its  train  dangers  of  every  sort. 
This  warlike  people  ran  the  risk  of  having  its  simple  con- 
stitution remodelled  on  the  lines  of  a  centralised  military 
State,  and  of  being  thus  assimilated  also  in  religion  and  morals 
to  those  conquering  peoples  whose  organisation  was  purely 
secular.  Increasing  riches  must  have  done  away  with  the 
strict  simplicity  of  the  Israelitish  mode  of  life.  There  was, 
especially  in  the  chief  towns,  a  growing  eagerness  both  to 
make  money  and  to  enjoy  life,  while  honesty  and  fair  dealing 
in  business  were  becoming  less  common. 

The  more  prominent  position  now  occupied  by  Israel 
among  the  nations  of  the  world  could  not  have  been  attained 
without  giving  way  in  many  respects  to  heathenism  and^ 
to  heathen  ideas.  Only  from  this  standpoint  can  we 
understand  the  complaints  of  the  oldest  prophets  as  to  the 
religious  and  moral  conditions  of  the  ruling  classes.  But 
we  must  not  think  of  this  declension  as  rapid,  or  as  extending 
to  all  classes  of  the  people.  It  is  still  the  age  in  which 
patriarchal  legend  was  handled  in  the  spirit  of  B,  C,  the 
age  to  which  was  due  the  beautiful  eulogy  of  the  housewife 
in  Proverbs,^  and  in  which  the  phrase,  "  I  dwell  among  mine 
own  people,"  expresses  a  woman's  perfect  confidence  that 
she  would  get  justice  and  protection.^  In  fact,  at  the  very 
time  when  the  northern  kingdom  was  tottering  to  its  fall, 
the  view  taken  of  Naboth's  treatment  shows  how  powerful 
patriotism  was,  how  keen  the  indignation  at  legal  trickery 
and  corruption,  how  strong  the  attachment,  based  on  religious 
motives,  to  the  family  inheritance,  and  thus  to  the  simplicity 
of  agricultural  life,^  and  how  lively  a  force  was  the  "  un- 
written "  law  of  national  custom. 

4.  In  Solomon's  brilliant  reign,  seeds  of  decay  were  sown, 
and,  indeed,  in  a  certain  sense,  by  the  very  building  of  the  temple. 

^  Prov.  xi.  16,  xii.  4,  xviii.  22,  xix.  14.  ^  2  Kings  iv.  13. 

3  1  Kings  xxi.  3,  17  ff, ;  2  Kiugs  ix.  36. 


156  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

It  was  not  merely  that  the  old  premier  tribe  of  Ephraim, 
which  included  the  best  blood  in  Israel,  held  proudly  aloof 
from  the  capital  of  Judah  and  its  magnificent  temple,  and 
was  always  ready  to  raise  the  old  war-cry,  "  What  portion 
have  we  in  David,  or  what  inheritance  in  the  son  of  Jesse  ? 
To  your  tents,  0  Israel ! "  ^  It  was  not  merely  that  the 
military  organisation  and  the  civil  burdens  were  felt  oppressive 
by  a  people  accustomed  to  freedom.^  Even  from  a  religious 
point  of  view,  the  temple,  with  its  heathenish  splendour,  was 
not  to  the  taste  of  ancient  Israel,  which  had  still  a  vivid  recol- 
lection of  how  Jehovah  had,  since  the  exodus  from  Egypt,  dwelt 
"  in  a  tabernacle,"  and  how  His  sacred  ark  was  suited,  not  for 
a  splendid  Phoenician  edifice,  but  for  a  shepherd's  tent.^  And 
a  royal  family  which,  to  increase  its  own  renown,  offered  sites 
in  Jerusalem  on  which  to  worship  the  gods  of  the  neighbouring 
nations,  was  not  to  the  mind  of  the  zealous  in  Israel.^ 

In  Solomon's  time  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  did  not  claim 
to  rival  the  ancient  holy  places  in  the  land,  such  as  Bethel, 
Hebron,  Shechem,  or  Beersheba,  or  even  to  question  their 
importance  for  the  religious  life  of  the  people.  It  merely 
took  the  place  of  such  spots  as  Shiloh  or  Nob,  which  were,  in 
fact,  not  regarded  as  in  themselves  "  holy  places  "  strictly  so 
called.  It  is  the  sanctuary  of  the  king,  and  therefore  of  the 
kingdom.  It  is  only  those  ancient  places  of  worship  which 
sacred  legend  celebrates  with  the  most  unreserved  and  joyous 
enthusiasm.^  Jerusalem,  it  is  probable,  was  not  generally 
popular  till  after  its  destruction.  It  is  only  in  the  final  edition 
of  the  Pentateuch  that  the  need  was  felt  of  ascribing  to  it 
a  sacred  character  in  the  patriarchal  times.  Hence  such 
a  "legitimation  of  Zion"  is  inserted  where  there  was  a 
geographical  possibility  of  doing  so,  in  the  interpolated 
passage  Gen.  xiv.  18-20,  and  by  the  alteration  of  the  text 

1  2  Sam.  XX.  1  ;  1  Kings  xii,  10.  »  j  Kings  ix.  11,  xii.  4  (x.  26). 

3  2  Sam.  vii.     Cf.  Duhm,  p.  49  ff.  *  1  Kings  xi.  4  «. 

^Gen.  xii.  2,  6,  xiii.  18,  xvi.  14 ff.,  xxvL  23,  xxviii.  16 ff.  etc. 


DISRUPTION  OF  THE  KINGDOM.  157 

in  Gen.  xxii.  2  (n*'ib'!l  P.^).  But  the  favour  thus  shown  it, 
and  its  own  magnificence,  made  it  all  the  more  distasteful 
to  the  people. 

Consequently  it  is  Jehovah's  prophets  who  initiate  and 
promote  the  rebellion  of  Israel  against  the  house  of  David, 
although  afterwards  they  must  have  been  anything  but 
satisfied  with  the  result.^  In  northern  Israel  the  worship 
of  the  national  God  by  means  of  images  was  again  con- 
fined to  the  ancient  holy  places,  which  still  had  strong 
attractions  even  for  the  inhabitants  of  the  kingdom  of 
Judah.2  And  as  late  as  the  Assyrian  period  we  see  that  even 
great  men  of  God  like  Elijah,  never  refer  either  to  the  temple 
at  Jerusalem  or  to  the  house  of  David,  but  devote  them- 
selves solely  to  the  worship  of  the  national  God  of  Israel.^ 

Nevertheless,  the  disruption  of  the  kingdom  proved  that  it 
was  impossible  for  Israel  to  realise  the  kingdom  of  God  in 
the  form  of  a  national  State.  Despite  its  larger  population,* 
the  kingdom  of  the  ten  tribes  was  utterly  incapable  of 
becoming  the  exponent  of  the  true  religion,^  then  in  process 
of  development.  Indeed,  it  scarcely  managed,  after  a  hot 
struggle,  to  retain  what,  at  an  earlier  stage,  had  been  proved 
sound  and  authoritative.  In  Judah,  afflicted  with  internal 
weakness,  there  was  a  growing  inclination  to  admit  foreign 
elements,  and  thus  fall  away  more  and  more  from  the 
national  religion.  Still  the  future  was  with  this  small  and 
feeble  kingdom,  for  here  that  mighty  upward  movement 
was  quietly  gathering  strength,  that  spiritualising  of  religion, 

1  1  Kings  xi.  29  ff. 

"  1  Kings  xii.  29,  32  ;  Amos  iv.  4,  v.  5,  vii.  13  ;  Hos.  iv.  15. 

^  Specially  noteworthy  is  1  Kings  xix.  3  ff.,  10.  Elijah  acknowledges  the 
altar  on  Carmel  as  the  altar  of  God,  and  his  sole  aim  is  to  root  out  the  worship 
of  Baal  (xviii.  30).  Besides,  when  Ahab's  family  is  destroyed,  Elisha  does  not 
advise  the  people  to  resume  their  allegiance  to  the  house  of  David,  but  orders 
Jehu  to  be  anointed  (2  Kings  ix.).  The  mountain  of  Zebulon  is  also,  according 
to  Deut.  xxxiii.  19,  a  legitimate  place  at  which  to  sacrifice. 

■*  The  blessing  of  Moses  says  of  Judah  :  ' '  Hear,  Loi-d,  the  voice  of  Judah,  and 
bring  him  back  to  his  people."  In  other  words,  Israel,  not  Judah,  is  regarded 
as  the  representative  of  the  people. 


158  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

of  which  the  great  prophets  of  the  following  age  were  to 
become  the  advocates.  If  the  age  of  Samuel  proves  that  the 
period  of  the  Judges,  with  all  its  roughness  and  wildness,  had 
not  only  preserved,  but  even  ripened  the  seeds  of  its  better 
elements,  then  the  prophets  of  the  eighth  century  prove  that 
in  like  manner  the  age  after  Eehoboam  had  not  only  not  lost 
the  seeds  of  the  Davidic  age,  but  had,  among  the  circles  of 
godly  prophets,  under  circumstances  apparently  unfavourable, 
spiritualised  and  transfigured  them.  This  quiet  work  of  the 
Divine  Spirit  had  as  its  instruments  the  prophets  and  the 
priests,^  and  as  its  visible  station  the  temple  of  Jehovah, 
where,  since  Solomon's  time,  worship  without  images  could 
never  be  quite  put  down,  however  frequently  and  openly  the 
gods  of  other  nations  had  also  been  worshipped  there. 

5.  The  religious  development  in  the  northern  kingdom 
kept  closely  to  the  old  national  lines,  especially  in  retaining 
the  free  and  somewhat  sensuous  mode  of  worshipping  the 
national  God  which  had  been  in  vogue  from  the  days  of  old. 
The  month  of  the  feast  of  Tabernacles  was  altered.  Priests 
were  consecrated  who  did  not  belong  to  the  ruling  families, 
for  the  interests  of  the  Levitical  priests  were  too  closely 
connected  with  the  temple-worship  at  Jerusalem.  The  king 
himself  appears  to  have  performed  various  acts  of  worship,  as 
the  leaders  of  the  people  used  to  do.  The  shrines  at  Dan 
and  Bethel  became  the  centres  at  which  the  national  God  was 
adored  under  the  form  of  an  ox.^  The  time  when  the  house 
of  David  reigned  was  to  be  wholly  obliterated  from  the 
memory  of  the  people.  And  this  stage  of  religion  retained 
its  ascendency. 

^  That  in  priestly  circles  a  side  of  this  religion  was  cultivated  different  from 
that  in  favour  with  prophetic  circles,  that  the  former  paid  special  attention  to 
worship  and  sacred  ritual,  the  latter  to  religion  and  morality,  comes  clearly 
out  in  the  following  age.  But  at  first  they  were  probably  at  one  in  their 
endeavours  to  obtain  a  unified  and  spiritual  form  of  religion ;  and,  indeed,  it 
is  not  till  after  the  Deuteronomist  that  the  difference  between  their  respective 
aims  comes  quite  clearly  out. 

2  Cf.  Judg.  xviii.  31  ;  1  Kings  xii.  28-32,  xiii.  1,  33. 


DISRUPTION  OF  THE  KINGDOM.  159 

For  a  time  it  certainly  seemed  as  if,  through  the  influence 
of  Jezebel,^  a  Tyrian  princess,  a  purely  Canaanitish  worship 
would  be  established  in  the  northern  kingxlom,  as  the  worship 
of  Baal-Berith  was  formerly  established  in  Shechem.  The 
religion  of  the  God  of  Israel  seemed  about  to  succumb.  But 
soon  a  new  and  popular  dynasty  overthrew  both  the  reigning 
house  and  the  new  religion,  and  re-introduced  the  old  national 
worship.^ 

Jehu,  like  Gideon  and  Saul,  is  thoroughly  zealous  for  the 

ilFtomiiiiniir" 

religion  of  the  God  of  Israel.  Jezebel,  with  her  intrigues 
and  sorceries,  is  the  object  of  his  special  hatred.  With 
reckless  cruelty  he  sweeps  away  every  trace  of  the  worship  of 
Baal,  and  regards  himself  as  executing  "  the  word  of  God  by 
His  prophets."  But  in  so  doing  it  never  occurs  to  him  to 
put  down  idolatrous  worship  of  Jehovah.^  At  a  still  later 
date  such  worship  was  not  given  up.  Indeed,  there  is  no 
evidence  that  even  men  like  Elijah  or  Elisha  ever  tried  in 
earnest  to  put  it  down.  But  that  did  not  prevent  the  pretty 
frequent  appearance  of  prophets  of  Jehovah,*  nor  did  it  make 
Jehoshaphat,  king  of  Judah,  regard  the  religion  of  the  northern 
kingdom  as  essentially  different  from  his  own.^  Here,  there- 
fore, religion  could  make  no  real  advance.  It  remained  at  a 
stage  of  development  with  which  no  great  fault  could  be 
found  had  the  conditions  been  obscure  ;  but  which,  when 
contrasted  with  the  purer  expression  given  to  the  Mosaic 
thoughts  by  God's  prophets  in  Judah,  could  quite  justly 
be  compared  to  a  rebellion  against  God,  or  to  adultery,  as 

^  1  Kings  xvi.  31-xviii.  19. 

^  Kuenen's  idea  (i.  360  f. ),  that  the  persecution  of  Jehovah's  worshippers  under 
Ahab,  and  the  successful  resistance  to  it,  resulted  in  a  higher  and  more  mono- 
theistic conception  of  God,  receives  no  support  at  all  from  the  original  docu- 
ments. 

^  2  Kings  ix.,  x.  It  is  peculiarly  striking  that,  in  this  undertaking  of  his, 
he  leans  for  support  on  the  son  of  Rechab,  evidently  a  man  well  known  among 
the  people  as  a  zealous  adherent  of  the  ancient  national  God  (x.  16).  The  harsh 
judgment  of  Jehu's  rebellion  in  Hos.  i.  4  is  remarkable. 

4  1  Kings  xi.  30  ff.,  xiii.  2,  4,  14,  18,  xiv.,  xvi.  1,  xx.  13,  22,  35,  xxii. 

^  1  Kings  xxii.  5. 


160  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

the  later  age  from  its  own  standpoint  terms  it.^  Joseph- 
Ephraim  lost  his  birthright.^  The  prophets  of  the  next 
generation,  such  as  Hosea  or  Amos,  who  laboured  quite  in 
the  spirit  of  the  purer  religion,  were  too  late  in  calling  the 
people  back  to  the  way  by  which  alone  they  could  be  saved.^ 
Naturally  such  a  religion,  being  unprogressive  and  without 
clear  self-consciousness,  could  not  hold  its  ground  when  new 
civilised  religions,  backed  by  the  power  of  victorious  empires, 
came  into  contact  with  Israel.  It  then  gave  way  without 
resistance  before  the  worship  of  the  great  god  and  of  the 
nature-mother.* 

In  the  southern  kingdom  we  hear  almost  more  about  real 
idolatry  than  in  the  northern,  where  there  obviously  was  a 
stronger  feeling  of  nationality  and  a  greater  abhorrence  of 
what  was  foreign.  The  worship  of  Baal,  indeed,  forced  its 
way  into  Judah  only  through  the  family  of  Jezebel,  and  by 
force  it  was  again  driven  out  through  a  revolution  which 
centred  in  the  temple  and  in  the  family  of  the  high  priest. 
But,  with  few  exceptions,  the  kings  of  Judah  permitted  the 
worship  of  strange  gods  to  exist  side  by  side  with  that  of 
Jehovah.^  Nevertheless,  in  Jerusalem,  and  no  doubt  just  in 
consequence  of  the  spiritual  worship  in  the  temple  which, 
thanks  to  the  influence  of  the  prophets,  had  never  been 
entirely  given  up,  the  essential  features  of  the  true  religion 
came  out  in  a  far  stronger,  purer,  and  more  spiritual  form  than 
in  Ephraim.  We  have,  it  is  true,  comparatively  few  trust- 
worthy documents  belonging  to  this  age  from  which  to  obtain 
a  knowledge  of  its  inner  working.  But  the  prophecy  of  the 
eighth  century  is  itself  a  fact  sufficient  to  prove  our  assertion. 


^  1  Kings  xiii.  2,  34,  xiv.  4,  9. 

2  Gen.  xlviii.  3  flf.,  17  ff.,  xlix.  22  ff.  3  Hos.  i.  7,  ii.  2. 

*  That  the  gods  of  foreign  nations  were  worshipped  in  Israel  at  a  later  date  is 
proved  by  Hos.  i.-iii. ;  Amos  iv.  3,  v.  26. 

0  1  Kings  xiv.  21  ff.,  xv,  3  ;  2  Kings  viii.  13,  28,  xi.  4-24,  xvi.  3. 


THE  NAZIPJTE.  161 

CHAPTER  XI. 

KELIGIOUS  FIGUEES  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  THE  AGE  PRIOR  TO  THE 
EIGHTH  CENTURY. 

Nazirite  and  King. 

Literature. — EeaUncydopadie,  art.  "Nasiraeat"  (1st  ed. 
Oehler,  2nd  ed.  v.  Orelli).  Ed.  Vilmar,  "  Die  symbolisclie 
Bedeutiing  des  Naziraeergeliibdes "  {Stud,  u,  Krit.  1864,  iii. 
4o8  ff.).  Dr.  Julius  Grill,  "  Ueber  Bedeutung  und  Ursprung 
des  Nasiraeergeliibdes  (Jahrhh.  f.  2'>'^'otest  Thcol.  1880,  p. 
645  ff.).  Reakncydopddic,  art.  "  Kfiuige.  Konigtiium  in 
Israel "  (1st  ed.  Oehler,  2nd  ed.  v,  Orelli).  L.  Diestel, 
"  Die  Idee  des  theokratischeu  Konigs "  (Jahrhh.  f.  deittsche 
Thcol.  viii.  p.  536  ff.). 

1.  In  the  earliest  days  of  Israel's  national  growth,  we  find 
both  the  prophet  and  the  Levitical  priest  exerting  a  powerful 
influence  on  the  side  of  religious  progress.  But  these  we  had 
better  leave  for  consideration  till  they  have  reached  their  full 
logical  development,  and  then  we  shall  trace  them  back  to 
their  origin.  The  figure  on  which  the  peculiarly  Israelitish 
spirit  stamped  itself  most  clearly  and  definitely  in  those  early 
times,  was  unquestionably  that  of  the  Nazirite.  In  its  later 
form,  as  sketched  in  the  law,^  this  figure  has  already  become 
so  dim  as  to  be  scarcely  intelligible.  Had  the  Nazirite 
vow  meant  nothing  more  to  an  Israelite  than  this  legisla- 
tive prescription  indicates,  the  role  which  national  legend 
assigns  it  in  the  lives  of  Samson  and  Samuel  would  be  as 
imintelligible  as  the  emphasis  which  Amos  lays  upon  this 
form  of  consecrated  life.  Samson  as  well  as  Samuel  is 
consecrated  -  as  a  Nazirite  to  the  God  of  Israel  before  his 
birth,  and  for  his  whole  lifetime  too,  even  his  mother  being 

^  Num.  yi.  1  ff.  2  j^„ig   xiii.  3,  14  ;  1  Sam.  i.  10. 

VOL.  I.  L 


162  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

required  to  abstain  from  wine  and  from  everything  unclean ; 
whereas  the  law  speaks  only  of  a  voluntary  Nazirite  vow 
lasting  but  a  few  months.  It  was  as  a  Nazirite  that 
Samson  expected  superior  divine  strength  and  a  personal 
"  holiness,"  and  that  Samuel  was  dedicated  to  the  service  of 
Jehovah,  and  yet  neither  case  can  possibly  be  understood 
from  the  regulations  of  the  law  concerning  a  Nazirite.  But, 
according  to  Amos,  it  is  regarded  as  one  of  the  grossest 
insults  to  Jehovah  that  any  one  should  induce  a  Nazirite 
to  break  his  vow ;  ^  and  they  are  represented  as  being 
"  awakened "  by  Him,  just  as  the  prophets  were.^  Hence 
we  must  think  of  the  Nazirite  as  occupying  in  the  early 
times  a  far  more  important  position  than  is  accorded  to 
him  by  A. 

The  name  plainly  denotes  "  the  vowed  one,"  ^  thereby 
indicating  the  real  character  of  this  relationship.  The 
Nazirite  is  in  a  special  sense  holy,  consecrated  to  the  God 
Oi  Israel.  He  must  therefore,  even  in  his  outer  life,  avoid 
everything  which  would  obscure  the  special  character  of  this 
national  God,  and  His  antagonism  to  the  gods  of  Canaan. 
The  Nazirite  is  originally  regarded  as  one  inspired  with  a 
consecrated  zeal  for  Jehovah,  the  stern  and  jealous  God  of 
the  fathers,  the  foe  of  the  voluptuous  and  orgiastic  nature- 
worship  of  Canaan. 

Hence,  according  to  the  law,  the  Nazirite  must  not 
touch  anything  which  would  unfit  him  for  the  worship  of 
Jehovah.  So  long  as  "  the  crown  of  God  "  is  upon  him,  he 
must  not  touch  any  dead  body — probably  in  direct  antagon- 
ism to  certain  religious  customs  of  Canaan.  Every  such  touch 
makes    his  vow  null  and  void.*       Of  course,   this   did    not 

^  Amos  ii.  12.  -  D''pn. 

^  Philo,  De  Hehr.  i.  :  h  //.lyaXn  ilx^-  ~IT3  113.  Tlie  root-meauing,  probabl)', 
is  separation.  la  Zech.  vii.  ;J,  T'^n  is  applied  to  abstinence  from  food  and 
drink  ;  in  Gen.  xlix.  25,  Joseph  is  called  the  Nasir  anong  his  brethren,  i.e. 
the  distinguished  one. 

*  Num.  vi.  7,  x.\xi.  19. 


THE  NAZIRITE.  163 

debar  him,  especially  in  the  warlike  days  of  old,  from  taking 
part  in  "the  sacred  wars  of  Jehovah."  Furthermore,  no 
artifice  of  civilised  life  must  check  the  free  natural  growth  of 
his  body.  The  hair,  untouched  by  a  razor,  forms,  as  the 
crown  of  his  head,  the  special  sign  of  his  holy  dedication.^ 
Above  all,  however,  he  is  forbidden  to  taste  the  fruit  of 
the  vine,  not  merely  wine  as  an  intoxicating  drink,  but 
the  whole  produce  of  the  vine.  The  use  of  this  plant  was,  in 
Canaan,  the  regular  symbol  of  civilised  life,  and  even  Israel 
used  it  with  thankfulness  and  joy.  Originally,  however,  the 
children  of  the  desert  saw  in  the  vine  a  plant  cultivated  by 
foreigners,  and  worshipped  by  them.  The  Eechabites,  whose 
ancestor  is  represented  as  a  highly-honoured  worshipper  of 
Jehovah,^  belong  to  a  tribe  closely  akin  to  Israel,  which  did 
not  adopt  the  civilisation  of  Canaan  ;  and  this  they  showed 
by  abstaining  from  wine.  Besides,  the  use  of  wine  was  closely 
connected  with  the  orgiastic  worship  of  the  Hamites,  and,  as 
the  legends  of  Pentheus  and  Orpheus  prove,  was  regarded  at 
first,  even  by  the  Greeks,  as  an  objectionable  foreign  element. 
Consequently,  the  Nazirites  were,  along  with  the  prophets  of 
the  olden  time,  the  true  upholders  of  the  national  religion.^ 

2.  But  the  determining  factor  in  the  religious  develop- 
ment of  the  second  half  of  this  period  is  the  figure  of  the 
theocratic  king.  Not,  indeed,  as  if  this  religion  had  been 
originally  a  work  of  the  monarchy.  The  king  is  the  last  of 
the  figures  which  had  an  important  influence  on  the  religion 
of  Israel.  And  his  importance  in  this  respect  depends  less 
on  his  personal  influence  on  the  development  of  this  religion, 
than  on  the  effect  which  the  whole  bearing  of  the  for- 
tunes and  position  of  the  monarchy  had  on  the  religious 
horizon  of  the  people.      It  does  not  admit  of  doubt  that  the 

1  Num.  vi.  3  ff.  yna.  The  word  ""iTJ  for  head  •  ornament,  diadem,  Ex. 
xxix.  6,  xxxix.  30  ;  Lev.  viii.  9,  xxi.  12  ;  2  vSam.  i.  10  ;  2  Kings  xi.  12. 

^  2  Kings  x.  16  ;  Jer.  xxxv.  2  tf.  Ishim's  rejection  of  wine  is  also  due  to 
similar  views. 

*  Kueuen,  i.  313  ff. 


164  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

• 

thought  of  a  "holy  people"  originally  arose  without  any 
reference  to  an  earthly  king.  The  picture  of  "  the  congrega- 
tion of  God  "  with  its  elders,  as  given  to  us  by  A,  was  cer- 
tainly due  to  the  circumstances  of  the  exiles,  whose  ideal 
was  an  aristocratic  theocracy.^  But,  historically,  Israel  had 
been  for  centuries  an  aristocratic  republic  uniformly  directed 
in  the  last  resort  by  the  "  oracle  of  God."  The  individual 
tribes,  with  their  princes,  were  in  a  position  of  great  inde- 
pendence, which  it  is  clear  they  still  retained  till  far  on  into 
the  monarchical  period.^  Moses  himself  was  not  a  king,  as 
all  our  information  about  him  conclusively  proves.  However 
high  his  position  was  acknowledged  to  be,  and  however 
resolutely  he  claimed,  by  virtue  of  his  spirit  and  his  mission, 
the  obedience  which  is  due  to  the  leader  of  a  nation,  and 
faced  the  insubordination  even  of  his  nearest  relatives  with 
unflinching  confidence  in  the  rights  conferred  upon  him  by 
the  divine  call,  he  was  nevertheless  very  far  from  occupying 
the  position  of  an  Eastern  hereditary  king.  Even  in  Deut. 
xxxiii.  5  it  is  probably  better  to  refer  the  kingly  name  to 
God.  "  So  He  (God)  became  king  in  Jeshurun."  ^  Still  less 
is  Joshua  represented  as  king,  although  he  was  appointed 
commander-in-chief  in  obedience  to  the  oracle  of  the  higli 
priest.  Nor  have  the  Judges  any  definite  official  authority, 
but  only  personal  influence.  The  whole  character  of  their 
work  indicates  a  certain  want  of  order,  a  mixture  of  heroism 
and  sensuality,  of  faith  and  superstition.  And  though 
tlie   title  of    king  is  given  to  a   half-heathen  city  magnate 


^  D''Nb'3  in  A.,  elsewlieie  D"'"lb'  (Ex.  xxxv.  27,  xxxiv.  31  ;  Num.  xiii.  2, 
ii.  5,  10,  18,  i.  16,  44  ;  Josh.  ix.  15,  18,  xxii.  14;  cf.  Judg.  viii.  14  x.  18  ; 
])eut.  XX.  9;  1  Kings  iv.  2).  D^JpT,  Ex.  xxiv.  1;  Num.  xi.  16;  Deut.  xxix.  9; 
Josh.  viii.  33,  xx,  4,  xxiii.  2  ;  Judg.  viii.  14. 

'■'  Judg.  viii.  14  ;  Deut.  xxix.  9  ;  cf.  2  Sam.  xiv.  7,  xx.  1  ff. 

^  Ewald,  Jahrb.  iii.  234  f.  ;  Graf.  According  to  Wellhausen,  this  passage  is 
meant  to  exalt  the  law  and  the  kingdom  exactly  in  the  sense  of  the  later  time, 
as  the  two  highest  blessings  which  Israel  had.  "  Instruction  Moses  left  to  us 
.  .  .  and  a  king  arose  over  Jeshurun  when  the  heads  of  the  peoi'lc  were  gathered 
together"  (p.  266). 


THE  THEOCRATIC  KING,  165 

like  Abimelecli,  or  to  a  chieftain  like  Jeplithali,  these  are,  of 
course,  instances  which  lie  altogether  outside  the  domain 
with  wliich  we  are  here  dealing. 

Certainly  in  the  narrative  of  A  there  shines  out,  even  in 
the  patriarchal  period,  the  hope  of  a  brilliant  monarchy  in 
Israel  ;^  and  Deuteronomy  gives  us  a  definite  constitution  for  a 
kingdom,  as  if  Moses  had  so  ordained  from  the  very  outset.'^  It 
might  therefore  appear  as  if  the  monarchy,  so  far  at  least  as 
expectation  and  purpose  were  concerned,  had  started  into  life 
simultaneously  with  the  other  religious  institutions  of  Israel. 
Bat  a  comparison  with  history  shows  that  we  have  here  only 
a  transference  to  primitive  times  of  the  views  held  by  a  later 
age.  For  how  else,  according  to  the  view  of  history  given  in 
the  Old  Testament,  could  Gideon  have  declined  with  pious 
reverence  the  title  of  king,  saying,  "  Jehovah  shall  be  king 
over  you  "  ?  ^  How  could  Samuel  have  dared  to  resist  the 
desire  for  a  monarchy,  and  how  could  even  the  oracle  of 
Jehovah  have  seen  in  such  a  desire  "  the  rejection  of 
God "  ?  ^  How  could  the  people,  when  expressing  the 
wish  to  have  a  king  like  other  nations,  have  failed  to 
refer  to  the  hopes  of  the  patriarchs,  and  to  the  kingdom 
already  provided  for  in  the  law  of  Moses  ?  ^  Finally,  how 
could  Samuel  have  drawn  up  a  constitution  for  the  kingdom 
without  ever  referring  to  that  earlier  one  in  Deuteronomy 
which  was,  in  fact,  incomparably  more  in  accordance  with 
the  spirit  of  Israel's  religion  than  his  own  ?  ^  And  even 
if   we   were    to    regard    such   statements,  which  are  partly, 

1  Gen.  xvii.  6,  16,  xxxv.  11  ;  cf.  Num.  xxiv-.  17. 

2  Dent.  xvii.  14-20.  ^  Judg.  viii.  22,  23. 

*  1  Sam.  viii.  6  tf. ;  still  more  bitterly,  xii.  12  f.  Such  opposition  to  tho 
monarchy  is  certainly  met  with  to  a  far  less  extent  in  the  older  narrative, 
1  Sam.  ix.  15fF. 

5  1  Sam.  viii.  4ir. 

«  1  Sam.  viii.  10-18  makes  the  king  a  perfectly  arbitrary  despot,  and  this  is 
in  X.  25  raised  to  the  dignity  of  a  written  law.  Still,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in 
earlier  times  the  crown  appears  to  have  been  conferred  by  election  on  definite 
conditions  and  pledges,     Cf.  e.g.  1  Kings  xii.  ;  2  Sam.  v.  2  S. 


166  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

at  an}'-  rate,  of  late  origin,  as  being  all  due  to  tlie  gloomy- 
views  of  later  days,  still  the  monarchy  when  it  came  upon 
the  scene  was  plainly  something  so  new,  so  epoch-making 
in  the  history  of  the  people,  that  it  is  impossible  to  think  of 
it  as  expected  in  the  time  of  the  patriarchs. 

It  was  the  wish  of  the  people,  who  were  eager  for  external 
security,  and  probably  also  for  the  splendour  of  a  fully  equipped 
court,  that  induced  Samuel  to  introduce  the  monarchy.  The 
first  king  can  have  had  no  really  permanent  influence  on 
the  religion  of  Israel.  The  accounts  we  have  of  him  are, 
it  is  true,  from  very  different  sources,  and  express  divergent 
judgments.  But  in  their  opinion  of  his  religious  insignifi- 
cance they  are  at  one.  It  was  under  happy  auspices,  and 
with  the  full  sanction  of  religion,  that  Saul  was  raised  to  his 
new  dignity.  Sacrifice  having  been  solemnly  offered,  he  was 
consecrated  and  blessed  by  the  prophet  anointing  and  kissing 
him.'-  He  is  represented  as  a  thoroughly  able  soldier,  and 
full  of  national  zeal  for  the  religion  of  Israel,  but  without  the 
capacity  to  enter  into  the  spirit  by  which  that  religion  was  to 
be  furthered.  His  great  services  in  promoting  the  safety  and 
independence  of  the  people  cannot  be  questioned.  Though 
he  was  suspicious,  moody,  and  violent,  faults  like  these,  judged 
by  the  standard  of  Oriental  rulers,  should  not  cast  too  dark  a 
shadow  over  his  memory.  But  he  certainly  was  not  fitted  to 
give  this  people  the  true  idea  of  what  their  king  should  be. 

His  successor  David  was  a  man  of  a  very  different  stamp. 
His  is  a  figure  the  influence  of  which  on  the  religion  of 
Israel  it  would  be  difficult  to  overestimate.  Even  before  he 
was  actually  king,  the  voice  of  the  prophets  had  begun  to 
direct  the  hopes  of  Israel  towards  the  young  hero.  Pro- 
phets and  priests  were  already  flocking  to  his  standard  in  the 
days  of  his  adventurous  youth.-  After  his  accession,  the 
kingly  office  was  looked  at  in  a  religious  light ;  and  wherever 
grievous   misuse   of    the    kingly  power   did    not    tarnish  its 

»  1  Sara.  ix.  22  ff.,  x.  1.  =  2  Sam.  iii.  9,  18,  v.  2. 


THE  THEOCRATIC  KING.  167 

repute,  it  was  invariably  represented  as  a  great  blessing 
given  by  God  to  His  people.  This  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that  the  book  of  Judges  considers  the  pre-monarchical  age  a 
time  of  lawless  disorder.^  The  same  thing  is  shown  by  the 
high  opinion  which  the  oldest  parts  of  the  book  of  Pro- 
verbs entertain  of  the  king's  power,  infallibility,  wisdom,  and 
goodness.^  And  how  beautifully  the  later  narrators  depict 
David's  reverence  for  "  the  Lord's  anointed  "  ■  ^  How  glori- 
ously the  earlier  songs  express  the  confidence  which  Israel 
places  in  her  kings  !  * 

In  view  of  the  picture  expressly  given  us  in  the  Old 
Testament,  we  must  beware  of  regarding  David  as  absolutely 
perfect,  or  as  one  who  lived  habitually  in  the  world  of 
religious  thought  and  feeling.  The  traits  of  an  ancient 
Eastern  hero,  and,  indeed,  in  his  later  days,  of  an  irre- 
sponsible despot,  are  to  be  seen  even  in  him  in  all  their 
naturalness.^  But  his  great  achievement  was,  to  found 
among  a  people  whose  king  was  God,  an  earthly  kingdom 
which  did  not  clash  with  the  divine,  but  was  its  proper 
expression,  its  willing  instrument,  and  which  brought  into 
effective  operation  the  blessing  of  divine  protection  which 
as  the  people  of  God  they  ought  to  enjoy,  thereby  giving 
them  a  permanent  impression  of  the  power  of  their  divine 
King.  Hence  it  was  only  as  the  kingdom  of  David  that  the 
kingdom  in  Israel  assumed  a  religious  form.  David's  house 
is  the  one  chosen  by  God,  on  which  to  base  the  thought 
of  the  true  kingdom  which  He  desires.  A  feeling  of  this 
unique  significance  of  his  life  and  position  runs  through 
David's  own   songs,^  and  it  is   this,  and    not   any  religious 

^  Judg.  xvii.  6,  xviii.  1,  xix.  1,  xxi.  25. 

2  Prov.  xiv.  28,  xvi.  10,  12,  14,  xix,  12,  xx.  2,  8,  xxii.  11. 

3  1  Sam.  xxiv.  11,  xxvi.  11  ;  2  Sam.  i.  14,  16. 
^  1  Sam.  ii.  10 ;  Ps.  ii.,  xx.,  xxi.,  xlv.,  Ixxii. 

M  Sam,  xxi.  3  if.,  14  f.,  xxv.  21  ff.,  39,  xxvii.  8  ff.  ;  2  Sam.  xi.,  xii.  31; 
1  Kings  ii.  5  S. 

6  Ps.  xviii.  44,  51  ;  2  Sam,  vii.  26,  xxiii.  5.  For  Lis  sake  God  protects 
Jerusalem,  2  Kings  xix.  34,  xx,  6. 


168  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

knowledge  he  himself  gained  and  taught,  which  is  for  the 
Old  Testament  religion  the  important  side  of  David's 
■work.  The  hrilliant  reign  of  his  son  has  indeed  added 
many  new  beauties  to  the  picture  of  the  true  kingdom ; 
but  the  figure  of  David,  with  its  unique  importance  for  the 
religious  view  of  the  people,  it  could  not  cast  into  the 
shade. 

The  special  significance  of  this  kingdom  in  Israel  is  as 
follows.  Upon  that  throne,  which  is  properly  God's  own, 
"  the  throne  of  Jehovah,"  ^  there  sits  a  mortal  who  is  therefore 
God's  deputy,  "  the  visible  representative  of  the  invisible 
divine  King  "  (Eiehm).  Hence,  according  to  another  metaphor, 
he  sits  on  "  the  right  hand  of  God,"  ^  that  is,  in  the  place 
of  honour.^  And  on  that  account  blessings  of  every  kind  are 
spoken  of  as  being  poured  out  upon  his  head, — long  life,  fulness 
of  joy,  victory,  renown,  an  enduring  race, — blessings  which 
may  therefore  be  wished  for  and  foretold  to  every  individual 
king  as  a  member  of  this  royal  house.*  Consequently,  he 
stands  in  a  still  more  special  manner  in  the  favoured  position 
into  which  Israel  was  taken  in  preference  to  all  other  nations. 
He  is  the  son  of  God,  begotten  thereunto  of  God's  grace,  on 
the  day  when  God  raised  him  to  the  place  of  honour  as  king 
in  Israel.^  He  is  the  Anointed  One,  the  Messiah  in  a  special 
sense.*^  For  even  if  the  anointing  of  the  high  priest  were  not, 
as  is  to  be  assumed,  merely  an  ideal  of  the  later  age,  at  any 
rate  the  king  alone  is  always  represented  as  "  the  Messiah  of 
God."  And  actual  custom  had  no  hesitation  in  ascribing 
even  priestly  rights  to  the  head  of  the  nation.  Thus,  at  the 
solemn  consecration  of  the  sanctuary,  David  himself  is 
represented  as  officiating  in  priestly  apparel.'^  And  the 
oracle    of   Jehovah    thus    addresses    the    king :    "  The    Lord 

^  The  expression  is  found  only  in  1  Chron.  xxix.  23  ;  cf.  xxviii.  5. 

2  Ps.  ex.  1-3.  s  cf^  1  Kijjgs  ii,  19. 

*  Ps.  ii.  8ff.,  xxi.  5,  xlv.  8,  9,  17,  Ixxii.  9,  17. 

s  Ps.  ii.  6,  7  ;  2  Sam.  vii.  14 ;  Ps.  Isxxix.  27. 

6  Ps.  xviii.  44,  51,  ii.  2.  ''2  Sam.  vi.  14  ff. 


THE  THEOCRATIC  KING.  169 

hath  sworn,  and  will  not  repent,  Thou  art  a  priest  for  ever 
after  the  order  of  Melchizedek."  ^  It  is  only  the  later 
priestly  religion  which  rigorously  restricted  all  sacred  acts 
to  a  priest. 

In  Israel  the  king  does  not  dispossess  God  of  His  kingship. 
On  the  contrary,  his  power  depends  on  the  power  of  the  true 
King.  And  because  he  derives  his  authority  solely  from  God, 
God  can  also  take  it  from  him.  The  prophet,  as  the  direct 
messenger  of  God,  has  the  right  to  deprive  even  a  king  of  his 
kinirdom."  But  inasmuch  as  the  true  kingdom  was  once  for 
all  permanently  realised  in  David,  to  his  family  belongs  the 
promise  that  it  shall  never  be  quite  driven  from  its  place 
as  the  reigning  house.  In  spite  of  all  shortcomings,  in 
spite  of  all  possible  punishments,  the  idea  of  the  theo- 
cratic kingdom  must  remain  for  ever  identified  with  this 
family.^ 

For  the  people,  the  theocratic  king  is  the  reflection  of  the 
divine  majesty.  This  is  indeed  the  predominant  idea  in  the 
kingdoms  of  the  ancient  East.  Even  in  Egypt,  Assyria,  and 
Chaldea,  the  king  is  the  visible  embodiment  of  divine  majesty. 
But  here,  where  the  concej)tion  of  God  is  meant  to  include 
not  merely  power,  but  above  all  a  moral  attribute,  it 
naturally  has  quite  a  different  significance  when  the  earthly 
king  is  His  image.  Hence  the  king  may  be  addressed  as 
"  Elohim."  This  word  is  used  in  general  as  the  official 
designation  of  the  highest  dignitaries  to  whom  is  entrusted 
the  responsibility  of  final  decision.  But  this  word  is  once 
used  directly  of  the  king  as  an  individual.  I,  at  least,  am 
always  becoming  less  able  to  escape  the  conclusion  that   in 


^  Ps.  ex.  4.  I  cannot  think  it  probable  that  in  this  torso  of  a  Psalm  kingly 
dignity  is  ascribed  to  a  priest,  not  priestly  dignity  to  a  king.  Consequently,  I 
do  not  consider  an  Asmontean  to  be  the  hero  of  the  Psalm,  but  one  of  the 
ancient  kings. 

-1  Sam.  XV.  26,  xvi.  1  ff.  ;  1  Kings  xi.  29  ff.,  xiv.  10  f.,  xvi.  Iff.,  xxi.  21, 
etc. 

-2  Sam.  vii.  14-16. 


170  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY, 

Ps.  xlv.  7  the  king  is  saluted  as  "  Elohim."  All  other 
explanations  of  this  address,  e.g.  "  Thy  divine  throne,"  "  Thy 
throne  is  God,"  "Thy  throne  is  God's  (throne),"  are  clumsy; 
and  to  alter  the  text,  e.g.  by  leaving  out  the  word  D""'?^.?? 
altogether,  or  by  understanding  some  such  verb  as  "  estab- 
lishes," is  arbitrary.  The  author  who  wrote  mn''  for  God 
(not  ^''^?^,  as  the  editor  has  now  mangled  his  poem  by 
writing),  by  using  the  word  '^''<y^^.  in  contrast  with  the 
divine  name  m^^  meant  to  salute  the  king  in  an  oratorical 
fashion  as  the  bearer  of  the  highest  divine  dignity  on 
earth.^  The  people  wish  him  the  blessing  of  an  ever- 
lasting kingdom.^  His  enemies  are  God's  enemies.^  His 
kingdom  is  to  be  founded  on  ricfhteousness,  and  under  his 
sway  the  land  is  to  bloom  and  prosper.*  All  the  hopes  and 
desires  of  the  people  gather  round  the  figure  of  the  king, 
which  is  in  all  essentials  David's,  tliougli  embellislied  by 
certain  features  of  the  upright,  wise,  and  powerful  Solomon. 

But,  above  all,  in  the  idea  of  this  theocratic  kingdom  tliere 
lies  the  assurance  of  overcoming  the  world.  The  God  of 
Israel  is  not  merely  the  God  of  this  people,  but  also  the 
Creator  and  King  of  the  world.  Hence  His  anointed  is  sure 
that  he  will  triumphantly  extend  his  sway  wherever  a  right- 
eous war  summons  him,  until  he  shall  have  completely 
conquered  Canaan,  and  until  the  other  nations  of  the  world, 
from  the  great  river  even  to  the  river  of  Egypt,  do  homage 
to  him  and  serve  him.^ 

Addendum. — From  the  death  of  Solomon  to  the  downfall 
of  Samaria  there  was  a  double  kingdom  in  Israel.  For  a 
long  time  this  fact  was  not  felt  to  be  a  contradiction  of  the 
idea  of  a  theocratic  king.     The   kingdom  of   Ephraim   was 

^  The  objection,  that  one  would  in  that  case  expect  DtJiy?,  appears  to  me, 
in  view  of  Ps.  x.  16,  xlviii.  15,  to  be  at  least  not  of  sufficient  weight  to  counter- 
balance  the  other  difficulties. 

2  Ps.  Ixxii.  8fr.  (Ixi.  7  ff.)  ^  Ps.  ii.  1  fT.,  xxi.  10. 

*  Ps.  Ixxii.  16  ff.  5  Ps.  ii.  8^  9   xj^.  5^  q^  j^xii.  10. 


THE  THEOCRATIC  KING.  l7l 

founded  by  the  help  of  prophets ;  and  even  when  the 
several  dynasties  were  overthrown,  great  prophets  like 
Elijah  and  Elisha  never  thought  of  bringing  the  people 
of  Israel  back  to  the  house  of  David.^  And  in  external 
pomp  and  military  capacity  there  was  scarcely  a  single  king 
of  Judah  after  Solomon  to  compare  with  Jeroboam  the 
Second,  or  even  with  Ahab.  Bat  this  changed  as  the 
northern  kingdom  drew  nearer  and  nearer  its  end.  In 
comparison  with  the  religion  at  Jerusalem,  which  was  always 
growing  purer  and  more  spiritual,  the  sensuous  worship  of 
the  northern  kingdom  was  looked  upon  by  the  men  of  God 
as  more  and  more  akin  to  heathenism,  and  the  eyes  of  every 
pious  Israelite  were  again  turned  to  the  house  of  David. 
How  hallowed  it  was  through  the  memory  of  the  former 
unity  and  greatness  of  the  people,  through  the  prophecies 
and  the  divine  thoughts  bound  up  with  it,  through  its  con- 
nection with  Jerusalem  and  tlie  true  worship  of  the  spiritual 
God !  Hence  it  was  in  the  eyes  of  the  pious  the  only 
legitimate  dynasty.  The  reigning  families  of  Ephraim  arc 
represented  more  or  less  as  usurpers.^  That  these  should 
rule  over  the  land,  that  the  people  should  be  divided,  is 
God's  way  of  punishing  the  sin  of  David's  house.  But  this 
punishment  will  come  to  an  end,  and  only  with  the  return 
of  David's  house  can  God  restore  prosperity  to  the  people. 
Accordingly,  though  a  citizen  of  the  northern  kingdom  who 
had  himself  seen  the  glorious  days  of  Jeroboam,  Hosea  looks 
to  the  house  of  David  to  save  the  whole  people.^  In  fact, 
Hosea  did  not  merely  look  forward  to  this,  but  hoped  that 
the  disorder  caused  in  Israel  by  dynastic  changes  would 
actually  give  him  an  opportunity  of  helping  to  bring  it  about 
himself.*  In  the  same  way,  when  the  glory  of  the  northern 
kingdom  was  at  its  highest,  Amos  looked  forward  to  the  time 

1  1  Kings  xi.  29  f.,  xiv.  10  f.,  xvi.  1  f.,  xxi.  21  ff. 

-  Hos.  viii.  4,  xiii.  11  ff.  3  jjQg   j_  7^  ji_  o,  iii.  5. 

*  Cf.  Hitzig  on  Hos.  v.  10  ff. 


172  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

when   the   fallen   tabernacle   of  David   should   be    again    set 

This  Davidic  kingdom,  as  it  then  was,  certainly  did  not 
give  much  occasion  for  joyous  hope  and  great  expectations. 
Conquered  by  Egypt,  by  the  neighbouring  robber-clans,  by 
Assyria,  by  Babylonia,  for  a  time  tributary  to  the  northern 
kingdom,  and  long  a  vassal  to  Assyria,  it  was  possessed  of  no 
glory  that  could  have  given  ground  for  hope  to  a  people  in- 
heriting such  memories.  It  was,  in  truth,  a  fallen  tabernacle. 
It  was  guilty  of  childish  levity  and  unmanly  cowardice, 
of  idolatry,  and  wanton  cruelty  to  the  saints.  In  the  whole 
list  of  kings  there  were  only  a  few  who  "  did  that  which 
was  right  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord,  like  their  father  David."  - 
Most  of  the  kings  of  Judah  were  despots  like  the  princes  of 
the  surrounding  heathen,  warlike  and  cruel,  or  ostentatious 
and  effeminate.  Seldom  did  they  pay  even  outward  respect 
to  the  religion  of  Jehovah,  not  to  speak  of  sincere  obedience 
to  His  will  It  is  easy  to  see  the  impression  which  this 
declension  produced.  The  Deuteronomic  law  regarding  the 
king  is  an  earnest  attempt  to  stem  the  tide  of  royal  de- 
generacy.^ Samuel's  words,  as  moulded  by  a  later  age,  reveal 
a  deep  sense  of  the  hurtful  character  of  the  monarchy,  as 
compared  with  the  former  kingship  of  God.*  In  the  later 
parts  of  Proverbs  there  is  not  a  trace  of  the  old  joy  that  was 
felt  in  the  monarchy.  The  one  thing  emphasised  is  its  power. 
Nevertheless,  all  this  could  not  efface  the  impression  which 
the  reign  of  David  had  produced.  Even  in  Jeremiah  the 
Davidic  king  is  still  spoken  of  as  a  signet-ring  on  the  hand 
of  God.^  The  book  of  Lamentations  still  emphasises  in  a 
touching    way    the    significance    of    God's    anointed.*^      And 

'  Amos  ix.  11  (Zech.  xi.  8,  xiii.  7). 

^  For  these  references,  of.  1  Kings  xiv.  25;  2  Kings  xiv.  12  ff.,  xvi.  3ff.,  7, 
xviii.  14fF.,  xxi.  Iff.,  20  ff.,  xxiiL  29  ff.,  xxiv.  ff.  ;  2  Chron.  xxi.  16  ff.,  xxxiii. 
11  ff.  ;  Amos  i.  6f.,  9f.  ;  Isa.  iii.  12,  vii.  2ff.  etc. 

3  Deut.  xvii.  14-20.  ^  1  Sam.  xii.  12 ff. 

^  Jer.  xxii.  24.  ®  Lam.  iv.  20  ;  cf.  ii.  9. 


THE  THEOCRATIC  KING.  173 

where  songs  of  later  days  take  the  monarchy  as  their  subject/ 
they  celebrate  its  loving  and  gracious  relations  with  God  as 
well  as  its  splendid  victories,  and  they  see  in  it  the  embodi- 
ment of  Israel's  happiness  and  glory. 

It  was  not  the  present  that  awakened  thoughts  like  these. 
It  was  the  glorious  past,  with  its  promises  of  a  better  future. 
David  remained  the  ideal  of  this  decaying  age,  David  who  had 
tended  Israel  with  clean  hands  and  according  to  the  integrity 
of  his  heart.'^  In  the  darkest  days  faith  clung  to  the  oath,^ 
sworn  by  God  ages  before  to  David  and  to  his  house,  that 
the  kingdom  would  not  depart  from  him,  that  David's  son 
would  be  God's  son,  and  God  his  father.  Thus  it  was  a  faith 
in  things  not  seen,  a  faith  in  the  everlasting  significance  of 
this  house.  It  is  a  phenomenon  without  parallel  in  history, 
that  even  under  such  circumstances  the  confident  hope  of 
seeing  the  Saviour  of  the  future  born  of  this  dishonoured 
family  is  never  lost. 

Still,  even  in  the  centuries  after  Solomon  the  family  of 
David  was  not  without  exceptional  members  of  a  better  type, 
who  were,  so  to  speak,  a  pledge  that  in  this  ancient  family 
the  better  faculties  were  only  dormant,  not  extinct.  Such 
exceptions  gave  faith  the  wished-for  strength  ;  thus  a  Hezekiah 
standing  out  in  striking  contrast  to  his  father  Ahaz,  and 
showing,  despite  all  his  weaknesses,  a  close  resemblance  to 
his  great  ancestor,  must  have  confirmed  in  Isaiah  and  Micah 
the  joyful  hope  of  a  Messiah.  Josiah,  too,  with  the  double 
crown  of  a  reformer  and  a  martyr,  might  well  recall^  the 
promises  made  to  the  house  of  David.  And  Zerubbabel, 
the  descendant  of  David,  who  led  to  Zion  the  first  little 
band  of  returning  exiles  to  rebuild  the  ruined  city,  was,  in 

^  Ps.  Ixxii.  ;  cf.  xxviii.  8,  cxxxii.  10,  17,  cxliv.  10. 

*  Ps.  Ixxviii.  69  ff.  ;  cf.  the  way  in  which  the  book  of  Ruth  glorifies  the 
family  legend  of  David's  house. 

3  Ps.  Ixxxix.  20-39  (27,  28)  ;  cf.  Ps.  cxxii.  5. 

■•  "The  holy  princes,"  whom  God  gave  over  to  desecration,  are  Jehoiachin  and 
Zcdekiah,  B.  J.  xliii.  28. 


174  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

spite  of  all  his  lack  of  outward  pomp,  a  figure  round  which 
Haggai's  hopes  of  a  Messiah  might  well  entwine  themselves, 
and  one  which  Zechariah  could  regard  as  at  least  the  type 
and  pledge  of  the  coming  "  branch  "  of  David/ 


CHAPTEK  XII. 

IIELIGIOUS  KNOWLEDGE  AND  MODES  OF  PUBLIC  WORSHIP  TILL 
THE  EIGHTH  CENTURY,  AND  MORE  PARTICULARLY  TILL  THE 
BUILDING  OF  THE  TEMPLE. 

1.  Till  the  building  of  the  temple,  and,  indeed,  during 
the  immediately  succeeding  centuries,  we  must  assume  that 
religious  knowledge  and  the  mode  of  public  worship  remained 
practically  unchanged.  Unquestionably  the  unification  of  the 
people  under  the  monarchy,  and  the  worship  at  Jerusalem, 
exercised  a  really  great  influence  over  religious  life.  But  of 
the  effects  of  these  changes  the  people  themselves  were 
scarcely  conscious,  till  they  were  explained  by  the  creative 
spirits  of  the  prophetic  period.  At  any  rate,  the  documents 
at  our  command  are  not  sufficient  to  enable  us  to  form  a 
judgment  as  to  this  development.  Before  the  monarchy  was 
at  its  best,  there  were  no  organs  for  a  visible  furthering  of 
religion.  The  prophets  had  to  do  with  the  definite  tasks  of 
practical  life,  not  with  religious  reforms.  The  j)riests  were 
occupied  with  giving  oracles  and  with  the  national  worship, 
and  had  to  preserve  intact  at  the  national  sanctuary  the 
peculiar  characteristics  of  the  Hebrew  religion,  and  to  make 
the  sacrificial  ritual  more  definite.  And  the  leaders  of  the 
people  had  enough  to  do  in  maintaining  the  political  inde- 
pendence of  the  tribes  of  Israel,  settled  as  they  were  among 
foreign  peoples  possessed  of  a  higher  civilisation  than  theirs, 
and  in  guarding  against  a  religious  and  moral  fusion  with  the 

i  Hag.  ii.  23  ;  Zech.  iv.  6  ff. 


EELIGIOUS  KNOWLEDGE.  175 

Canaanites,  though  in  many  particular  instances  they  were 
neither  willing  nor  able  to  prevent  the  adoption  of  foreign 
views  and  customs. 

If  we  wish  to  throw  ourselves  back  into  the  religious  life 
of  those  days,  we  must  first  lay  aside  all  the  ideas  current  in 
our  own.  Israel  never  thought,  any  more  than  did  the  other 
ancient  nations,  of  a  national  religious  education  being  a  con- 
dition of  national  piety.  That  was  successfully  effected  only 
by  the  religious  conmiunity  that  returned  from  the  Exile ; 
and  by  so  doing,  it  assuredly  took  a  step  fraught  with  con- 
sequences of  immeasurable  importance  to  the  whole  religious 
life  of  mankind.  All  that  the  people  knew  of  God  in  the 
olden  days,  was  derived  from  the  sacred  legends  that  told 
what  He  had  done  for  His  people  and  what  He  had  revealed 
to  Israel,  as  these  lived  on  orally  in  the  popular  memory,  and 
as  we  have  them  still  in  B,  C,  although,  of  course,  in  a  diluted 
and  purified  form.  The  prophets  were  not  at  all  anxious 
to  teach  what  God  Himself  was,  but  wished  in  particular 
cases  to  declare  His  will.  The  priests  sought  to  serve  God  in 
the  appointed  way,  to  secure  for  the  people  His  favour,  and 
to  avert  His  wrath. 

Only  when  this  is  realised  with  the  utmost  definiteness,  is 
one  able  to  answer  aright  the  first  and  most  important 
question  about  our  subject,  viz.  "Were  the  Israelites  during 
tliese  centuries  monotheists  ?  In  the  sense  in  which  Judaism 
after  Ezra's  time,  Mohammedanism,  and  Christianity  pre- 
suppose monotheism  on  the  part  of  their  adherents,  i.e.  as  a 
distinct  theological  conviction,  the  people  of  Israel  prior  to 
the  eighth  century  were  certainly  not  monotheists.  But  in 
that  sense  monotheism  was  not  predicable  of  the  people  at 
all  till  the  Exile.  Eor  when  a  people  is  really  convinced 
of  the  theory  that,  with  the  exception  of  the  one  spiritual 
God  whom  it  worships,  divine  beings  in  general  are  merely 
the  non  -  existent  offspring  of  superstition  and  sin,  there 
is    no    danger   at    all    of   its    turning    away    to   false    gods. 


176  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Hence  the  fact  of  the  ever-recurring  worship  of  strange  gods 
in  Israel  proves  that  in  the  above  sense  the  people  was  not 
monotheistic.  Of  his  own  free  will,  man  worships  only  what 
he  considers  an  actual  being,  one  possessed  of  divine  power. 
This  conclusion  is  as  unassailable  as  the  other,  that  as  long  as 
the  Israelites  had  no  scruples  in  worshipping  their  own  God 
on  the  high  places  and  at  the  shrines  of  Canaan,  they  cannot 
have  been  aware  of  any  law  of  that  God  commanding  them 
to  worship  only  at  one  particular  place  and  in  one  particular 
way.  For  if  a  people  is  ready  to  serve  its  God  by  surrender- 
ing to  Him  whatever  it  has,  even  what  it  reckons  dearest,  it 
seeks  to  please  Him,  not  to  enrage  Him  by  intentionally 
transgressing  His  ordinances.  On  the  contrary,  it  will  seek 
with  scrupulous  eagerness  to  ascertain  where  and  how  its 
offering  will  be  most  acceptable  to  God,  and  will  not  from 
some  mysterious  impulse  of  self-will  do  anything  by  which 
all  the  trouble  and  pains  it  has  taken  must  be  rendered 
fruitless  and  even  hurtful.  That  Israel  honoured  the  gods  of 
the  beautiful  land  of  Canaan  as  the  dispensers  of  its  gifts, 
that  it  afterwards  thought  the  gods  of  Assyria  and  of  Babylon 
mightier  than  its  own  God,  and  honoured  them  more,  is 
psychologically  quite  intelligible  ;  but  still  only  because  it  was 
not  yet,  in  our  sense  of  the  term,  monotheistic.  And  that  it 
paid  also  to  its  own  God  the  worship  usual  in  the  country,  is 
readily  understood.  But  to  ascribe  to  Israel  the  folly  of 
worshipping  gods  of  whose  non-existence  it  was  convinced,  or 
of  paying  to  its  own  God,  out  of  sheer  love  of  contradiction, 
a  worship  which  it  knew  He  had  forbidden,  one  would  require 
to  have  the  passionate  zeal  of  Jewish  scribes  or  the  ignorance 
of  criticism  characteristic  of  many  Christian  theologians. 

Accordingly,  there  can  be  no  question  of  monotheism, 
unless,  in  the  first  place,  we  inquire  only  as  to  the  convictions 
of  the  spiritual  leaders  of  Israel,  without  expecting  from  the 
people  any  clear  theological  view  on  the  matter ;  and,  in  the 
second  place,  unless  we  forget  that  religious  monotheism  is 


PARTICULARISM.  177 

something  altogether  different  from  a  metaphysical  conviction 
of  the  unity  of  God.  The  true  representatives  of  Israel 
certainly  acknowledged  even  in  these  ages  only  one  God  of 
Israel,  only  one  God  whom  the  people,  as  united  to  Him  by 
religious  bonds,  ought  to  worship.  However  many  mythical 
elements  and  legendary  ingredients  may  be  traceable  even 
in  the  earliest  recollections  of  the  people,  the  pious  among 
them,  so  long  as  they  had  a  distinct  religious  conscious- 
ness, clung  closely  to  the  one  national  God,  between  whom 
and  the  gods  of  Canaan  a  sharp  distinction  was  drawn. 

If  "  Elohim  "  are  mentioned  along  with  Him,  they  have 
long  ceased  to  be  gods  to  whom  worship  is  due,  as  it  is  to 
Him ;  they  are  merely  powerful  beings  who  attend  on  Him 
and  serve  Him.  The  first  commandment  in  the  law  of  the 
covenant  forbids  Israel  to  have  any  other  gods  beside  the  God 
that  brought  them  up  out  of  Egypt,  or  to  worship  them.^ 
The  oldest  songs,  such  as  the  Song  of  Deborah  or  the  "  Pass- 
over "  song,-  glow  with  a  sublime  enthusiasm  for  the  one  God 
of  the  people.  The  piety  of  men  like  Gideon,  Samuel,  Saul, 
and  David  is  perfectly  alike  in  this  respect,  that  it  is  per- 
vaded by  patriotic  feeling,  and  by  enthusiasm  for  the  one  God 
of  Israel.^  Tlie  view  of  patriarchal  times  given  in  B  and  C 
represents  Jehovah  as  being  from  the  very  beginning  the  sole 
God  of  the  patriarchs.*  In  the  oldest  Psalms  we  undoubtedly 
meet  with  the  most  unswerving  faith  in  this  God,  without 
a  thought  of  there  being  any  other  gods.^  Apostasy  from 
this  covenant-God  is,  it  is  true,  of  frequent  occurrence  during 
this  whole  period.  But  this  we  cannot  regard  as  strange. 
Hamitic  nature-worship,  with  its  charmingly  sensuous  back- 
ground, had  necessarily  a  greater  attraction  for  peoples  at  a 
low  stage  of  development  than  the  strict,  stern  simplicity  of 


1  Ex.  XX.  2  ff.  2  jujg_  v_  3_5^  11^  23,  31  ;  Ex.  xv.  2  f. 

3  E.g.  Judg.  vii.  18 ;  1  Sam.  xi.  6,  13,  x.  18,  xiv.  41. 
*  Gen.  iv.  26,  vii.  1,  xv.  1  ff.,  xviii.  1  ff.  etc. 
^  Esp.  Ps.  xviii.,  xix.a,  xxix.  (iii.,  iv.,  vii.,  xi.). 

VOL.  L  M 


178  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

the  religion  of  Jehovah.  And  the  people  found  this  worship 
prevalent  all  over  the  land,  associated  with  all  the  local 
memories  and  with  a  relatively  high  civilisation. 

But  the  worship  of  a  national  God  is  not  monotheism,  hut, 
at  the  most,  only  "  monolatry."  It  does  not  exclude  other 
nations  from  the  right  to  have  their  special  gods  as  Israel  has 
his,  less  powerful  perhaps,  but  still  real  gods  all  the  same.^ 
Indeed,  it  is  implied  in  the  view  which  the  nations  of 
antiquity  had  of  religion,  that,  while  not  denying  the  actual 
existence  of  strange  gods,  they  confined  their  own  worship  to 
certain  national  deities.  For  example,  the  language  of  the 
Mesha-stone  is  such  that  if  the  name  Chemosh  were  changed 
into  Jehovah,  one  would  in  many  passages  fancy  oneself  in 
the  midst  of  Old  Testament  phraseology.  Not  only  is  it 
iindeniable  that  such  a  view  had  impressed  itself  deeply  upon 
the  thought  of  the  Hebrew  people,  but  it  is  by  no  means 
wanting  even  among  their  spiritual  leaders.  It  is  very  naively 
expressed  when  Jephthah  asks,  "  Dost  thou  (Moab)  not  possess 
what  Chemosh  thy  god  giveth  thee  to  possess  ? "  ^  or  when 
David  complains,  saying,  "  They  drive  me  out  of  the  inherit- 
ance of  Jehovah,  and  make  me  serve  strange  gods."  ^  All  this 
is  quite  in  harmony  with  the  idea  of  the  ancient  world,  as  we 
may  see  from  such  instances  as  those  of  Naaman,  who  takes 
with  him  some  of  the  soil  of  Canaan  that  he  may  be  able  to 
pray  to  Jehovah  on  holy  soil,*  even  within  a  heathen  temple ; 
of  the  Queen  of  Sheba,  who  praises  Solomon's  God  although 
He  is  not  her  god ;  ^  or  of  the  heathen  who  exclaim,  "  Their 
gods  are  mountain  gods.      In  the  plain  we  shall  conquer."  ^ 

Even  where  this  view  is  not  quite  so  prominent,  it  still 

■^  This  has  lately  been  insisted  on  with  the  utmost  emphasis  by  Kuenen, 
"Yah veil  and  the  other  gods"  {The  Theological  Review,  Manchester,  No.  54, 
July  1876) ;  cf.  also  Baudissin,  Studien  zur  semitischen  Eeligionsgeschichte, 
Heft  1,  Leipzig  1876,  pp.  47-177,  and  Stade,  p.  428  (God  of  the  Hebrews, 
Ex.  iii.  18,  V.  3,  vii.  16,  x.  3). 

■^  Judg.  xi.  24  (cf.  Num.  xxi.  29  ;  2  Sam.  vi.  21,  xiv.  16). 

3  1  Sam.  xxvi.  19,  20  ;  cf.  Judg.  x,  4-17.  *  2  Kings  v.  15  ff. 

'  1  Kings  X.  9.  6  1  Kings  xx.  28,  28. 


PAETICULARISM.  179 

determines  the  expression.  It  is  not  merely  the  heathen  (?) 
Jethro  who  says,  "Now  I  know  that  Jehovah  is  greater  than 
all  gods."  ^  Even  where  the  unity  of  Jehovah  is  heing 
emphasised,  the  expression,  "Who  is  like  unto  Thee  among 
the  gods  ? "  -  is  quite  readily  used.  It  is  as  messenger  of 
"  the  God  of  the  Hebrews "  ^  that  Moses  comes  first  on 
the  scene.  In  fact,  the  whole  covenant  theory  is  really 
based  on  the  thought  that  the  people  chooses  as  its  God 
the  God  who  has  shown  Himself  the  God  of  their  sal- 
vation.* Jehovah  is  just  the  God  of  Israel.^  And  in  quite 
the  same  way,  at  a  much  later  date,  in  1  Kings  xviii.  21  f., 
the  choice  between  Baal  and  Jehovah  is  regarded  as  an  act 
of  moral  freedom,®  however  biting  may  be  the  scorn  with 
which  this  author  speaks  of  the  "  dumb  idols."  Hence,  when 
they  want  to  consult  the  oracle  of  Baal-zebub,  the  man  of  God 
merely  puts  the  reproachful  question, "  Is  there  then  no  God 
in  Israel  ?  "  The  God  of  Israel  formally  proclaims  war  against 
the  other  peoples  and  against  their  gods,  that  it  may  be  seen  that 
"  there  is  a  God  in  Israel."  '^  Only  in  this  way  is  it  possible 
to  explain  how  Solomon,  while  maintaining  the  worship  of 

1  Ex.  xviii.  11  (Gen.  xliii.  23),  C. 

2  1  Sam.  ii.  2  ;  2  Sam.  vii.  22  ;  Ex.  xv.  11 ;  cf.  Num.  xiv.  9  (the  Lord  is 
^vith  us,  their  defence  is  departed  from  them). 

3  Ex.  iii.  6-16,  vii.  16  (C). 

*  Ex.  XX.  2,  xxiv.  3  (cf.  the  Deuteronomic  repetition.  Josh.  xxiv.  16ff. ); 
Lev.  xxii.  33. 

5  Gen.  ix.  26,  xvii.  7  f.,  xxiv.  12,  xxxi.  29,  42,  53,  xxxii.  9,  xxxiii.  20,  etc. 
Particularly  instructive  is  Gen.  xxviii.  20  f.,  if  one  may  here  translate,  "  If  God 
will  be  with  me,  and  keep  me  in  this  way  that  I  go,  and  give  me  bread  to  eat 
and  raiment  to  put  on,  so  that  I  come  again  to  my  father's  house  in  peace,  then 
shall  Jehovah  be  my  God,  and  this  stone  which  I  have  set  up  for  a  pillar  shall 
be  God's  house."  The  order  of  words  is  in  favour  of  this  translation,  and  also 
the  fact  that  in  the  other  rendering  there  would  be  a  repetition  of  the  condition 
"if  God  will  be  with  me  "  in  the  sentence  "  and  if  Jehovah  will  be  my  God  " 
(Baudissin).  Judg.  xi.  30  f.,  where  the  perf.  consec.  introduces  the  substance  of 
the  vow,  appears  to  me  greatly  in  favour  of  this  rendering.  Accordingly,  I  no 
longer  think  it  right  to  translate  "if  this  happens,  and  Jehovah  be  my  God, 
i.e.  show  Himself  my  protector  as  He  blessed  my  fathers,  then  shall  this  stone 
become  the  house  of  God."     Yet  cf.  xvii.  8. 

"  1  Kings  xviii.  21-39  ;  Josh.  xxiv.  15  if. 

''  2  Kings  i.  2  ff.,  16  ;  cf.  1  Sam.  vi.,  xvii.  46  ;  Ex.  xvii.  16. 


180  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Jehovah,  could  erect  altars  to  other  gods,^ — conduct  which 
Ewald  is  wrong  in  comparing  with  modern  toleration,  as  it  is 
rather  "  ancient "  toleration,  due  to  the  polytheistic  stand- 
point. The  habit,  never  entirely  given  up  till  the  Exile,  of 
worshipping  other  gods,  without  at  the  same  time  ceasing  to 
give  the  national  God  the  highest  place  of  honour,  is  only 
conceivable  on  the  theory  that  the  unity  of  the  God  of 
Israel  did  not  in  any  way  exclude  the  existence  of  other 
national  gods,  and  their  power  to  hurt  or  help.  The  whole 
stress  is  laid,  not  on  there  being  no  gods  except  Jehovah, 
but  on  Israel  having  no  right  to  have  any  other  god. 
Doubt  as  to  this  fact  is  not  possible.  We  must,  however, 
be  careful  as  to  how  we  use  this  argument,  for  during  the 
whole  period  down  to  the  Exile,  however  certain  it  be  that  at 
that  time  there  was  a  clear  recognition  of  monotheism,  similar 
expressions  were  never  wanting.  But  though  one  does  not 
forget  that  Christian  monotheism  itself  has  not  prevented  the 
worship  of  saints  and  the  adoration  of  the  Virgin,  the  fact 
still  remains  certain,  that  during  these  times,  and  even  much 
later,  the  idea  that  there  were  absolutely  no  beings  at  all  of  a 
divine  nature  except  the  God  of  Israel,  so  far  from  being 
carried  out  to  its  logical  conclusion,  was  not  even  seriously 
entertained.  It  was  never  doubted  that  there  were  "gods 
many  and  lords  many."  ^ 

This  view  does  not  come  into  conflict  with  the  religious 
conception  of  the  unity  of  God  so  long  as  all  these  powers  are 
regarded  as  merely  relative,  as  incapable  of  resisting  the  one 
Supreme  Being.  Where  they  are  so  regarded,  there  is  in  this 
particularism,  however  imperfect  it  is  in  itself,  something  really 
helpful  to  a  religious  relation  with  the  Deity.  Where  it  is  a 
matter  of  religion,  not  of  philosophy,  the  first  and  necessary 
thing  always  is  the  conviction  of  having  God  as  one's  own, 
and  of  being  also  God's,  not  the  consideration  of  how  this  God 
stands  related  to  the  abstract  possibility  of  there  being  other 
^  1  Kings  xi.  7  ff.  *  1  Cor.  viii.  5. 


PRACTICAL  MONOTHEISM.  181 

gods.  As  soon  as  one  God  only,  and  that  a  personal  and  spirit- 
ual God,  is  the  object  of  worship,  and  has  a  hold  on  the  piety  of 
the  people,  it  is  a  matter  of  comparatively  little  importance 
•whether  reason  has  already  discovered  the  only  proper  expression 
for  this  relationsliip — in  other  words,  whether  it  has  already 
denied  the  possibility  of  there  being  any  other  gods.  For  no 
other  god  can  any  longer  be  regarded  as  equal  to  this  God  of 
theirs,  that  is,  be  regarded  as  really  and  truly  a  god.^  The 
missionary  who,  after  the  fashion  of  the  ancient  Church,  sees 
in  the  heathen  gods  actually  existing  hostile  powers,  does  not 
therefore  consider  himself  less  a  monotheist  than  the  man  who 
sees  in  them  the  products  of  the  human  spirit. 

The  idea  of  Israel's  leaders  was  something  similar.  Out- 
side the  people  over  whom  the  God  of  salvation  rules,  is  the 
heathen  world  in  which  there  are  other  gods.  That  these  are 
mere  creations  of  tlie  religious  imagination  is  never  thought  of 
at  first,  because  of  the  vigorous  realism  of  these  olden  times. 
They  are  rather  thought  of,  in  comparison  with  Jehovah  Him- 
self, as  hostile  powers  antagonistic  to  the  God  of  Israel.  For 
where  a  god  is  not  worshipped,  he  is  not  the  god  of  that  people, 
and 'he  has,  religiously  considered,  no  existence.  Hence  it  is 
quite  a  natural  conception  that  the  gods  of  the  heathen  world 
should  have  their  place  alongside  of  the  God  of  Israel.  Only 
they  are  hostile  and  invariably  subordinate  pow*ers  which  must 
disappear  before  God.  Who  is  like  unto  Him  ?  He  is  the 
one  God  of  salvation,  the  wonderful,  the  mighty,  the  incom- 
parable, whose  glory  is  to  fill  the  whole  earth.^  That  was  all 
with  which  this  ancient  people  in  its  struggle  for  existence  had 
to  do.  It  had  not  to  concern  itself  primarily  about  a  know- 
ledge of  the  things  of  the  heavenly  world,  but  only  about  its 
connection  with  that  personal  God  who  overcomes  the  world 
and  its  opposition,  who  can  and  will  help.  Hence  what  Israel 
needed  was  the  conviction  that  only  in  this  God  were  victory 

^  So  far  Lessing  is  not  wrong,  "Erziehung  des  Menscliengeschlechts,"  §  13. 
2  Ex.  ix.  16,  xiv.  2]  ff.,  xv.  11  ;  Num.  xiv^.  21. 


182  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

and  help  to  be  found,  and  that  upon  them  alone  had  He 
conferred  His  salvation.  The  first  article  in  Israel's  creed 
was  not  that  there  could  be  no  divine  beings  at  all  except 
the  God  of  Israel,  but  that  strange  gods  signified  nothing  to 
Israel,  and  could  not  harm  him.^  The  idea  of  the  unity  of 
God  was  reached  by  an  act  of  faith,  not  by  an  inference  of 
reason ;  it  came  practically  into  being  through  faith  and 
love.  Here,  therefore,  and  not  on  the  soil  of  a  philosophy 
seeking  after  monotheism,  there  sprang  up  a  strong  living 
conviction  as  to  the  unity  of  God.  True  religious  monotheism 
consists  in  this,  in  trusting  the  true  spiritual  God  and  Him 
alone.  Eeligion  never  grows  out  of  theories,  but  out  of  acts 
and  convictions  of  the  heart.  Hence  from  being  the  holy 
King  of  His  people,  who  permits  His  worshippers  to  have 
no  other  god  but  Himself,  the  God  of  Israel,  by  whose  side, 
even  in  the  earliest  days  of  the  nation,  no  female  deity  ever 
appeared,  became  by  necessary  evolution  the  "  One  "  God  of 
the  Jews. 

From  the  character  of  the  documents  relating  to  this  whole 
period,  particularly  the  pre-Solomonic,  it  is  not  possible  to 
show  with  certainty  how  far  this  religious  monotheism  as 
held  by  the  best  of  the  people  already  included  a  theoretical 
acknowledgment  that  the  Elohim  were,  in  comparison  with 
Jehovah,  absolutely  powerless  and  subordinate,  without  in- 
fluence on  the  government  of  the  world,  and  incapable  of 
contending  with  Him  ;  in  other  words,  not  "  gods  "  at  all, 
but  merely  superhuman  beings  of  no  importance  so  far  as 
human  interests  went.  But  I  have  myself  no  doubt  that  the 
certainty  of  Jehovah's  power,  and  the  conviction  that  He  ruled 
even  outside  the  boundaries  of  Israel,  were  already  sufficiently 
strong  to  furnish  a  basis  for  such  a  knowledge,  though  not 
of  a  systematic  kind.  In  the  old  songs  there  stands  along- 
side of  the  expression,  "  Who  is  like  unto  Jehovah  ? "  this 
other  distinct  declaration,  "  There  is  no  God  but  Jehovah,  no 

1  Ex.  XX.  2ff.,  xxii.  20,  xxiii.  13,  24  ff. ;  cf.  Gen.  xxxv,  2ff. ;  1  Sam.  vii.  2ff. 


THEORETICAL  MONOTHEISM,  183 

rock  but  our  God."^  According  to  the  book  of  the  covenant, 
Jehovah  chose  Israel  just  because  the  whole  world  was  His ;  ^ 
that  is  to  say,  not  because  He  was  in  any  way  attached,  as  a 
special  God,  to  this  land  and  people.  Psalms  like  the  eighth, 
nineteenth,  and  twenty-ninth  praise  Him  who  created  the 
heavens  and  the  earth,  in  whose  holy  temple  the  sons  of  the 
gods  stand  and  serve.  According  to  B,  C,  the  same  Jehovah 
who  is  Israel's  covenant  God  is  likewise  the  creator  of  the  world, 
the  God  of  the  fathers,  whom,  as  a  matter  of  course,  non- 
Israelites  also  acknowledge  as  God,  the  God  of  the  spirits  of 
all  flesh.2  jjq  proves  Himself  in  His  wonders  and  in  His  glory 
the  judge  and  the  destroyer,  the  supreme  ruler  of  Egypt,  Sodom, 
and  Canaan.  In  point  of  fact,  therefore,  the  other  Elohini 
withdraw  as  being  no-gods,  unable  to  determine  the  course 
of  the  world.  He  alone  is  a  God  who  can  inspire  faith,  love, 
trust.  And  He  will  manifest  His  glory  also  to  the  heathen 
world,  and  will  not  rest  till  it  fill  the  whole  earth.*  He  will 
bestow  upon  His  people  such  happiness  as  will  compel  all  the 
peoples  of  earth  to  acknowledge  Him  as  the  God  of  salvation.^ 
It  is  indeed  true  that  even  polytheistic  peoples  not  un- 
frequently  regard  one  God  as  the  creator  of  the  world, 
and  ascribe  to  Him  the  direction  and  development  of  its 
history,  without,  on  that  account,  doubting  the  existence  of 
other  gods.  But  they  do  so  while  themselves  surrounding 
that  God  with  a  crowd  of  other  gods,  whom  they  worship 
without  derogating  from  the  supremacy  of  their  chief 
God.  But  a  people  which  itself  worships  only  one  God, 
and  regards  this  God  as  the  creator  of  the  world  and  the 
guide  of  its  whole  history,  is  for  that  very  reason  monotheistic. 

^  Ps.  xviii.  32  ;  1  Sam.  ii.  2.  In  2  Sam.  vii.  22  'both  expressions  occur 
together.  Judg.  vi.  28  ff.  already  contains  a  bitter  taunt  as  to  the  nothingness 
of  tlie  idols  ;  but  both  passages  betray  a  later  hand. 

2  Ex.  xix.  5  ff. 

»  Gen.  ii.  4ff.,  iv.  3,  26,  xii.  17,  xxiv.  31,  50,  xxvi.  29  ;  Num.  xvi.  22, 
xxvii.  16. 

■*  Ex.  XV.  2  (Num.  xiv.  21). 

^  Gen.  xii.,  xv.,  xviii.,  xxii.,  xxvi.,  xxviii. 


184  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

For  gods  whom  nature  and  history  do  not  obey,  and  who  are 
at  the  same  time  exduded  from  worship,  cannot  be  called 
eods  at  all.  And  a  God  whose  rule  is  not  restricted  to  the 
land  and  the  nation  where  he  is  worshipped,  is  no  longer  a 
mere  national  God. 

Accordingly,  the  particularism  of  Israel's  idea  of  God  had 
already,  in  these  olden  times,  become  merely  the  protecting 
shell  within  which  the  pure  monotheism  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment religion  could  grow  and  mature.  But  the  unity  of  God 
was  not  by  any  means  conceived  of  as  absolute  singleness. 
What  the  school  of  Hegel  affirms  of  the  Old  Testament 
conception  of  God,  and  what  is  certainly  a  tenet  of  later 
Judaism  and  Mohammedanism, — the  abstract  sublime  single- 
ness of  God, — of  that  there  is  in  the  religion  of  Israel  at  this 
period  absolutely  no  trace.  God  is  represented  as  sur- 
rounded by  a  crowd  of  superhuman  beings  who  are  akin  to 
Him  in  "  nature,"  and  may,  to  a  certain  degree,  be  compared 
to  Him ;  and  with  these  He  holds  intercourse.  The  con- 
ception of  God  is  not  limited,  but  open  to  this  fulness  of 
spiritual  life.  The  pious  in  ancient  Israel  believed  in  "  sons 
of  God,"  in  beings  springing  out  of  the  circle  of  existence  to 
which  the  divine  life  belongs/  beings  that  can  only  be  con- 
ceived of  when  the  Godhead  is  considered  open  to  a  fulness 
of  kindred  life  and  action.  In  B  and  C,  God  is,  beyond  a 
doubt,  represented  as  surrounded  by  beings  that  are  like 
Him,  so  far  as  the  form  of  life  is  concerned.  "  The  man 
is  become,"  he  says,  "  as  one  of  us."  ^  And  where  He  appears 
to  Abraham,  He  comes  accompanied  by  attendant  beings, 
who  are,  however,  so  connected  with  Him  that,  at  any  rate, 
an  abstract  separation  of  God  from  every  other  supersensible 
existence  is  impossible.^     Hence  the  religious  imagination  of 

^  Gen.  vi,  1-3  ;  Ps.  xxix. 

2  Gen.  iii.  22  (whether  in  ver.  5  also  the  ""yTi  belongs  to  D'TIpi^  is  doubtful. 

^  Gen.  xviii.  2-17.     Here,  at  any  rate,  there  is  a  clear  distinction  drawn 

between  God  and  His  attendants,  "the  two  men."     But  their  appearance  is, 


REVELATIONS  OF  GOD.  185 

Israel  pictured  the  national  God  as  the  central  figure  of  a 
group  of  kindred  supersensible  figures.  /^ 

3.  The  pious  of  this  age  conceived  of  this  God  of  Israel 
with  a  vividness,  a  freedom,  and  a  power  of  sensuous 
imagination  which  would  unquestionably  have  appeared 
objectionable  to  a  later  generation.  In  this  they  would 
hardly  have  been  conscious  of  any  essential  difference  be- 
tween themselves  and  the  kindred  peoples.  On  His  throne 
of  authority,  which  is  represented  at  least  in  the  Song  of 
Deborah  as  still  connected  with  Siuai,^  God  sits  surrounded 
by  the  Elohim.  He  sits  enthroned  upon  the  Cherubim.^ 
The  grandeurs  of  the  thunderstorm  at  once  enwrap  and  reveal 
Him.^  In  fact,  He  is  obviously  thought  of  in  connection 
with  every  kind  of  heavenly  phenomenon  with  which  myth 
deals.  For,  though  it  is  not  impossible  that  such  thoughts  as 
those  now  in  question  may  have  been  derived  by  the  later 
writers  from  the  fancies  of  the  civilised  peoples  of  Asia,  the 
probability  is  that  the  seraphs  of  Isaiah,*  the  constellation 
of  "  the  fool,"  ^  and  the  leviathan,^  the  fleeing  serpent  which 
God  pierced  through,  are  all  the  offspring  of  Israel's  own 
religious  fancy. 

Now  sacred  legend  told  how  God  came  down  from  heaven 
to  watch  mankind,'^  and  how  He  walked  in  the  garden  of 
Eden  in  the  cool  of  the  evening.^  Fear  lest  men  may  become 
too  strong  determines  the  decisions  of  God.^  With  His 
own  hand  He  shuts  the  ark.^*^  He  partakes  of  human  food.^^ 
"With  His    own   fingers  He   writes    the   tables  of  the  law.^^ 

nevertheless,  tlie  same  (xviii.  5,  9;  of.  l.'i,  17,  xix.  1);  cf.  Gen.  xxviii.  12, 
XXXV.  7. 

^  Judg.  V.  4  (Isa.  xix.  1  ;  Ps.  civ.  3). 

^  1  Sam.  iv.  4  ;  2  Sam.  vi.  2  ;  2  Kings  xix.  15  (Ps.  Ixxx.  2,  xcix.  1  ; 
1  Cliron.  xiii.  6). 

3  Ps.  xviii.  llff.  4  Isa,.  yi. 

*  Job  xxxviii.  31  (ix.  9) ;  Amos  v.  8. 

•^  Job  iii.  8  ;  Isa.  xxvii.  1  (Job  xxvi.  13). 

'  Gen.  xi.  5,  7,  xviii.  21 ;  Ex.  iii.  8. 

8  Gen.  iii.  8.  s  Gen.  iii.  22,  xi.  6.  ^»  Gen.  vii.  16. 

"  Gen.  xviii.  8  (xix.  3).  ^-  Ex.  xxxii.  16. 


18G  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Jacob  is  surprised  that  the  God  of  his  fathers  is  also  to  be 
found  at  a  distance  from  his  father's  house ;  in  other  words, 
he  takes  for  granted  a  close  connection  between  God  and  the 
places  at  which  He  revealed  Himself  and  was  worshipped.^ 
In  general,  His  presence  is  thought  of  in  a  vividly  sensuous 
way,  in  His  intercourse  with  the  patriarchs  as  in  the  ark  of  the 
covenant.^  In  the  rustling  of  the  trees  David  detects  the 
near  approach  of  God,  as  Elijah  does  in  the  sacred  stillness.^ 
Here,  it  is  true,  one  must  not  forget  the  peculiar  character  of 
legend.  Still  all  such  features  could  only  spring  out  of 
naively  sensuous  conceptions  of  God. 

Eevelations  from  this  God  the  people  expected  by  the 
mouth  either  of  the  priest,  whose  duty  it  was  to  consult  the 
oracle  in  the  sanctuary,*  or  of  the  prophet,  in  whom  the  spirit 
of  God  spoke.^  It  was  taken  for  granted  that  He  would 
make  known  His  will  in  visions,*^  and  by  omens  voluntarily 
chosen  or  due  to  accident.'''  But  no  one  doubted  as  to 
real  personal  manifestations  of  this  God.  He  was  seen,  in 
the  terrible  grandeur  of  the  tempest,^  nearing  the  earth  on 
the  wings  of  the  storm.^  The  story  went  that  He  had 
walked  and  talked  in  bodily  form  with  the  patriarchs  in  the 
holy  places,^*^  and  that  His  messenger  had  assured  them  that 
He  would  be  present  to  console  and  help.^^  He  was  thought 
of  as  the  miraculous  light  that  glowed  and  burned  in  the  holy 
bush  on  Sinai, ^'^  as  the  pillar  of  fire  and  cloud  that  led 
Israel  through    the    desert.^^      Heaven   and  earth  were  not 

^  Gen.  xxviii.  16. 

^  Gen.  xii.  8,  xviii.  1,  xxvi.  2  ;  Ex.  iii.  16,  xiii.  21,  xxiv.   1,   10,  xxxiv,   o  ; 
1  Sam.  iv.  3ff.,  v.  3-vi.  19,  etc. 

3  2  Sam.  V.  24,  vi.  7-11  ;  1  Kings  xix.  12  (nOttl  b)p)- 

■*  Judg.  XX.  28  ;  1  Sara.  xiv.  34,  37,  xxii.  10.     (The  Urim  and  Thummim  we 
shall  treat  of  later  on.) 

5  1  Sam.  iii.  20,  ix.  7,  19,  20,  x.  2  ff. 

^  1  Sam.  iii.  3 ;  1  Kings  xiv.  1  ;  2  Kings  viii.  1  ;  Gen.  xl.  8,  xli. 

^  1  Sam.  X.  3  ;  Gen.  xxiv.  13  ;  of.  Judg.  vii.  13. 

8  Judg.  V.  4ff.  ;  Ps.  xviii.  8  tf.  ^  Ps.  xviii.  11. 

^^  E.g.  Gen.  xii.,  xv.,  xviii.,  xix.  "  E.g.  Gen.  xvi.  ;  Judg.  vi.  13. 

^2  Ex.  iii.  "  Ex.  xxxii.  34,  xxxiii.  2,  14,  24,  xxxiv.  9,  15. 


REVELATIOKS  OF  GOD.  187 

sternly  kept  apart.  At  Jabbok  an  Eloliim,  a  Malach,  had 
wrestled  with  the  patriarch,  and  been  forced  to  grant  him 
a  blessing.^  In  the  wilderness  God  had  met  Moses,  intending 
to  slay  him,  and  had  been  appeased  only  by  the  bloody  sign 
of  circumcision.^  God  was  represented  as  a  terrible  destroyer, 
before  whose  wrath  His  people  trembled,  even  when  not 
conscious  of  any  real  moral  guilt  ;^  as  a  God  who  avenged 
His  offended  honour*  by  pestilence  and  other  kinds  of 
destruction ;  who  exterminated  the  enemy  and  the  scorner, 
and  visited  the  iniquity  of  the  fathers  upon  the  children ;  ^ 
who,  it  is  true,  consented  to  be  reconciled  when  once  the  curse 
on  His  enemies,  or  on  the  family  of  the  sinner,  had  been 
fulfilled ;  but  who,  before  He  was  appeased,  exacted  a  terrible 
vengeance  from  the  whole  people  for  every  violation  of  His 
holiness.*' 

A  terrible  God  this  who  kills  with  a  look/  but  who  loves 
His  holy  people,  and  wishes  to  be  their  shield  and  help  ;^ 
who  chose  them  for  their  fathers'  sake,  and  promised  them 
the  land  of  Canaan ;  ^  a  God  who  loves  righteousness  and 
truth,  who  has  prescribed  to  His  people  as  His  holy  will  tbe 
fundamental  principles  of  justice  and  morality,  and  who  is 
thus  the  source  of  all  that  is  good  and  orderly  in  Israel.^*' 
Even  in  those  days  Israel  knew  that  they  could  serve  this 
God  only  by  respecting  the  great  fundamental  principles  of 
moral  life.  But  it  is  equally  certain  that  in  all  sorts  of 
"  religious  "  observances,  in  sacrifices,  feasts,  and  lustrations,^^ 

^  Gen.  xxxii.  25  ff.  ;  Hos.  xii.  5  (still  more  sensuously  coloured). 

2  Ex.  iv.  24  ff.  3  Ex.  xii.  13,  xxx.  12  ;  cf.  Ps.  vii.  12,  xviii.  9. 

*  2  Sam.  v.,  xxiv.  (xxi.  1  ff.). 

*  1  Sam.  XXV.  18  ;  cf.  Ex.  xx.  5  ;  2  Sam.  xii.  14. 

"  2  Sam.  xxi.  8  ff.  ;  cf.  xxi.,  xxiv.  ;  1  Sam.  xxvi.  19;  1  Kings  xii.  15, 
xxii.  20. 

7  Gen.  xxxii.  30  ;  Ex.  iii.  6,  xix.  12,  21,  xx.  19,  xxiii.  20,  xxiv.  11  ;  Judg. 
vi.  23,  xiii.  22. 

^  Ex.  XX.  6,  etc.  ^  Ex.  xix.  5  ff.  ;  cf.  Gen.  xii.,  xv.,  xviii.,  xxviii. 

^*  Ex.  XX. -xxiii. 

^1  The  proof  is  found  in  passages  like  Isa.  i.  11  ff.  ;  Micah  vi.  6  ff. ;  Hos.  v.  6, 
vi.  16;  Amos  v.  25. 


188  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

as  well  as  in  the  keeping  up  of  the  ancient  forms  of  purifica- 
tion, even  though  these  were  neither  moral  nor  even  purely 
Israelitish,^  they  saw  an  equally  important,  and  perhaps  even 
a  more  important,  means  of  obtaining  the  favour  of  their 
God ;  and  that  if  they  overlooked  any  of  these  things,  they 
were  afraid  of  His  anger.^ 

4.  That  there  existed  during  any  part  of  this  period  a 
definite  order  of  service,  or  a  single  place  of  worship  as  pre- 
scribed in  Deuteronomy,  or  as  is  presented  to  us  in  A's  ideal 
sketch  of  Israel's  early  age,  we  cannot  for  a  moment  believe. 
Every  trait  in  the  old  stories  recorded  of  the  days  of  the 
Judges,  proves  that  nobody  can  ever  have  dreamt  of  the  exist- 
ence, at  that  time,  of  laws  for  worship  such  as  we  have  in  our 
present  Pentateuch.  Even  the  late  narrative  in  Judg.  xvii.  6 
sees  in  the  unity  of  worship,  not  an  effect  of  the  Mosaic  law, 
but  a  blessing  due  to  the  national  unity  brought  about  by 
the  kings.  But  even  the  founding  of  the  royal  sanctuary 
at  Jerusalem  could  not  at  first  cause  any  essential  change, 
since  it  was  certainly  never  intended  to  absorb  the  worship  _ 
of  the  whole  people.  Only  after  the  time  of  Hezekiah  does 
it  begin,  under  the  influence  of  new  views  and  circumstances, 
to  have  any  such  effect. 

In  ancient  Israel,  as  among  all  ancient  peoples,  ritual 
and  sacrifice  naturally  received  great  attention.  Even  the 
earliest  prophets  had  to  declaim  against  attaching  a  super- 
stitious value  to  such  observances.  And  it  is  self-evident 
that  in  their  sacrifices  the  Israelites  had  in  view  all  the 
ends  which  are  afterwards  referred  to  in  the  sacrificial 
"  Thorah."  In  those  days  men  sought  to  honour  God,  to 
thank  Him,  adore  Him,  pay  vows  to  Him,  and,  above 
all,  to  appease  His  wrath,  not  indeed  by  inward  action  or 
moral  conduct,  as  the  prophets  and  the  psalmists  of  late? 
days   teach,  but   by  fasting  and  prayer,  by  weeping  before 

^  Ex.  iv.  24  ff.  ;  1  Sam.  xiv.  33. 
'  Micah  vi.  6,  7  ;  2  Sam.  xxiv. 


WORSHIP  AND  SACRIFICE.  189 

Him,^  by  acts  symbolical  of  self-lnimiliation,"  and,  above  all,  by 
letting  Him  "  smell  a  sweet  savour."  ^  Any  one  who  dreads 
that  the  holy  presence  of  God  may  destroy  him,  presents  a  burnt- 
offering,  and,  as  soon  as  God  has  accepted  it,  feels  himself  safe> 
Every  one  on  beginning  an  important  task  seeks  to  gain  the 
favour  of  God  by  an  offering  of  some  sort.^  But  sacrifice  is 
most  frequently  represented  as  a  gift  of  joyful  gratitude  for 
divine  favours,  and  is  therefore  connected  with  a  gladsome  feast 
at  the  ancient  shrines  of  the  country.  In  fact,  in  Deuteronomy 
the  intimate  connection  between  sacrifice  and  feasting  is  simply 
taken  for  granted.^  At  the  harvest  feasts  the  first-fruits 
were  brought  into  the  house  of  God ;  ^  the  "  Olah  "  (burnt- 
offering)  was  perhaps  a  part  only  of  the  more  important 
sacrificial  meals.  Sheep-shearing  was  an  occasion  for  sacri- 
ficial feasting.^  The  firstlings  of  the  herd  were  presented  at 
the  sanctuary.^  Those  who  lived  near  a  popular  shrine 
assembled  there  for  the  annual  feast ;  ^*^  members  of  leading 
families  went  also  to  the  original  seat  of  their  clan.^^  People 
were  naive  enough  to  think  that  the  splendour  and  value  of 
the  sacrifices  helped  to  please  God:  This  is  proved,  not 
merely  by  the  expressions  that  found  their  way  even  into  the 
language  of  the  law,  e.g.  "  sweet-smelling  savour,"  "  pleasure/'  ^'^ 
but  still  more  by  expressions  like  "  May  God  let  thy  sacrifice 
be  fat,"  ^^  which  has  quite  a  Homeric  ring.  It  was  thought 
that  a  gift  pleasing  to  men  would  be  also  pleasing  to  God. 
Sacrifices  are,  in  fact,  nothing  more  than  "  the  embodied 
prayers  of  men  who  think  like  children,"  and  are  in  very  truth 
as  old  as  men  themselves  and  their  religion,  as  B  and  C  take 

1  Judg.  XX.  23,  26;  1  Sam.  vii.  6,  xxxi.  13  ;  2  Sam.  i.  11,  12,  xii.  16,  etc. 

2  1  Sam.  vii.  6.     The  pouring  out  of  water  is  a  symbol  of  self-humiliation 
(Ps.  xxii.  15  ;  Lam.  ii.  19);  cf.  2  Sam.  xii.  16  ff. 

3  1  Sam.  xxvi.  19.  •*  Judg.  xiii.  23.. 

«  1  Sam.  xiii.  12.  ^  xii.  5,  12,  xxvi,  11  (Ex.  xxxii.  6  ff.). 

7  Ex.  xxxiv.  26.  8  I  Sam.  xxv.  2  ff.  ;  2  Sam.  xiii.  23  ff. 

9  Ex.  xxxiv.  19.  "  1  Sam.  i.  3  ff.  (ix.  12). 

"  1  Sam.  xvi.  2,  xx.  29  ;  2  Sam.  xv.  7,  12  (1  Kings  i.  9). 
^  nn^rnn,    n:;-|.  ^'■^  Ps.  xx.  4  ;  Odys.  i.  61  f. 


190  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

for  granted ;  and  these  Israel  adopted  as  matters  of  course, 
and  practised  without  reflection,  just  as  the  kindred  peoples 
did. 

Now,  it  is  an  admitted  fact  that  in  Israel  sacrifices  were 
always  offered  under  certain  fixed  regulations,  which  it  was 
a  grievous  sin  for  a  priest  ^  to  violate  in  a  selfish  or 
arbitrary  way.  But  the  people  as  such  do  not  appear  to 
have  taken  a  religious  interest  in  the  manner  of  their  per- 
formance. That  was  left  to  the  priests,  or  else  ancestral 
custom  was  followed,  not  a  book  of  ritual.  It  was  not  the 
ritual  that  made  the  sacrifice  lawful.^  That  depended  simply 
on  its  being  offered  to  the  proper  God,  in  a  spirit  free  from 
greed  and  deceit.  The  sacrifices  which  are  incidentally 
described  to  us  in  the  course  of  this  period  are  very  various. 
Side  by  side  with  the  magnificent  offerings  of  kings,  there  are 
others  of  a  very  simple  and  primitive  character,^  but  they 
differ  one  and  all  from  those  subsequently  prescribed  by  the 
law.  Thus,  in  Judg.  vi.  18  ff.,  boiled  meat^  is  burned 
with  fire,  for  the  general  habit  of  boiling  flesh  gave  way  only 
gradually  to  the  habit  of  roasting  it.^  The  accompaniments 
are  quite  homely,  and  are  left  to  the  pleasure  of  the  offerer.^ 
There  is  no  mention  of  the  costly  incense  of  the  priestly  law,'^ 
or  of  any  distinctive  ritual  for  sin-offerings  and  trespass- 
offerings,  which  seem  to  have  been  presented  rather  as  pay- 
ment of  a  fine,  or  in  the  form  of  a  burnt-offering.^  Besides, 
the  polemical  speeches  of  the  prophets  of  the  eighth  and 
the  seventh  centuries  show  quite  plainly  that  they  knew 
nothing  of  a  divine  "  Thorah  "  about  ritual,^  and  that,  on  the 

1  1  Sam.  ii.  12  ff.  ^2  Kings  v,  17. 

^  1  Sam.  xiv.  34  ;  cf.  1  Kings  xix.  21. 

*  We  must  take  this  as  a  description  of  a  real  burnt-offering,  even  though 
xiii.  16  ff.  be  regarded  as  a  mere  act  of  hospitality. 

^  1  Sam.  ii.  12  ff.  (Ex.  xxix.  31,  the  boiling  of  the  milluim-flesh). 

6  1  Sam.  xiv.  34.  ?  cf.  Wellhausen,  i.  67  ff. 

8  1  Sam.  vi.  3  ;  Hos.  iv.  8  ;  2  Kings  xii.  16. 

^  Amos  iv.  14,  v.  21  ;  Hos.  iv.  6,  viii.  8,  11  ;  Isa.  i.  20,  ii.  3,  v.  24,  viii. 
16,  20,  XXX.  29  ;  Micah  vi.  6  ;  Jer.  vi.  19,  vii.  21  ff. 


HUMAN  SACRIFICE.  191 

contrary,   "  tlie   teaching "   of    God   appears  to   them    to    be 
diametrically  opposed  to  sacrificial  ceremonies. 

That  God  might  claim  for  Himself  even  a  human  life  as  the 
greatest  gift  which  man  can  offer,  probably  appeared  to  Israel 
in  those  old  times  not  a  whit  more  doubtful  than  to  the 
kindred  peoples ;  and  here  one  has  to  think,  not  merely  of 
sacrifices  to  appease  the  wrath  of  God,  but  also  of  sacrifices 
in  token  of  worship  and  in  fulfilment  of  vows.  Without  this 
assumption,  the  constant  relapse  in  the  time  of  the  later  kings 
into  the  habit  of  human  sacrifice  would  be  quite  unintelligible. 
But  even  the  story  of  Gen.  xxii.  could  only  be  told  among  a 
j)eople  according  to  whose  reminiscences  and  point  of  view 
human  sacrifice,  although  something  extraordinary,  was  in 
no  way  inconceivable  or  revolting.  The  same  inference  is  to 
be  drawn  from  what  we  are  told  about  the  daughter  of 
Jephthah.^  He  vowed  a  human  sacrifice.  For  what  else 
but  a  human  being  could  he  have  expected  to  come  first  out 
of  his  own  house  to  meet  him  ?  And  in  spite  of  his  bitter 
grief  as  a  father,  he  does  according  to  his  vow.  The  rational- 
istic watering  down  of  the  story  by  Hengstenberg,  Cassel,  and 
others  does  not  deserve  refutation.  For  whoever  turns  the 
sacrifice  of  the  virgin  into  mere  consecration  to  temple  service, 
must  simply  do  violence  to  expressions  like  "  burnt-offering," 
or  "do  according  to  his  vow,"  and  the  annual  four  days' 
lamentation  he  reduces  to  a  sentimental  absurdity. 

In  like  manner,  the  life  of  Jonathan  was  all  but  sacrificed 
through  a  similar  vow  of  Saul's,- — a  proof  of  the  terrible 
earnestness  with  which  Hebrew  antiquity  understood  "  the 
fear  of  Jehovah"  and  the  vow.  And  to  atone  for  Saul's 
breach  of  faith,  seven  descendants  of  his  were  hanged  on  a 
tree  before  Jehovah.^     Lastly,  even  in  the  time  of  Elisha, 

^  Jiidg.  xi.  35  fF.  Whether  a  myth  originally  lay  hidden  in  this  story  does 
not,  of  course,  in  any  way  change  the  bearing  of  this  passage  upon  the  question 
before  us.    Cf.  Oort,  "Het  menschenopfer  in  Israel"  {TheoL  Tijdschr.  1878,  xii.). 

-  1  Sam.  xiv.  24,  26,  45. 

3  2  Sam.  xxi.  6  (1  Sam.  xv.  53). 


192  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

according  to  the  conviction  of  the  writer,  the  king  of  Moab, 
by  sacrificing  his  son,  gave  the  war  a  turn  favourable  to 
himself.^  Hence  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  that,  although  the 
human  sacrifice  of  the  ancient  Semitic  religion  had  utterly- 
disappeared  from  the  regular  sacrificial  customs  of  Israel,  it 
was  not  in  extraordinary  cases  considered  either  wicked  or 
inconceivable.  It  was  only  to  men  who  had  reached  a  higher 
religious  standard  that  this  seemed  a  relapse  into  the  heathen 
atrocities  of  the  neighbouring  peoples. 

We  also  meet  with  vows  that  do  not  refer  to  sacrifices  ^ — 
not  to  speak  again  of  Naziriteship.  With  regard  to  meat 
and  drink,  we  must  assume  primitive  customs  of  cleanliness. 
Nothing  else  will  explain  the  later  laws  about  food.  Eules 
of  cleanliness  likewise  regulated  sexual  intercourse,  and  were 
conscientiously  observed,  even  when  the  moral  considerations 
that  should  govern  such  matters  were  disregarded.^  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  probable  that  in  early  times  marriages  which 
later  Israel  held  to  be  incestuous — especially  marriage  with  a 
half-sister* — were  not  yet  objectionable  to  the  people. 

5.  In  this  period  two  sacred  ceremonies  are  already 
regarded  as  conditions  and  tokens  of  membership  in  Israel, 
and  therefore  as  sacraments,  viz.  Circumcision  and  the 
Passover  meal.^ 

Circumcision  is  not  exclusively  confined  to  Israel,  nor  even 
to  nations  of  Terachitic  descent.  The  facts  cited  by  Herodotus, 
Strabo,  Josephus,  Philo,  Clement,  and  others  place  it  beyond 

1  2  Kings  iii.  26.  ^  Qg^.  xxviii.  20  fF. ;  2  Sam.  xv.  7. 

3  1  Sam.  XX.  26,  xxi.  5  ;  2  Sam.  xi.  4.        *  Gen.  xx.  12  ;  2  Sam.  xiii.  13. 

^  Ugolin,  Tliesaur.  ant.  sacr.  voL  xii.  Spencer  and  Deiling  on  Circumcision. 
Saalschiit;5, 1,  c.  i.  245  ff.  J.  H.  Autenrieth,  Ueber  den  Ursprung  der  Besclmeidung 
bei  wilden  und  halbwilden  Volkern  mit  Beziehung  auf  die  Beschneidung  der 
Israeliten,  Tiib.  1829,  ed.  Flatt.  F.  Baur,  Ueber  die  vrrspriingliclie  Bedeiitung  des 
Passahfestes  und  des  Beschneidungsritus  {Tiib.  Zeitschr.  f.  Theol.  1832,  94  ff. ). 
Bruno  Bauer,  i.  88.  Winer  on  the  word.  Schelling,  iv.  134.  Herod,  ii.  104. 
Joseph,  c.  Apionem,  1047,  A,  C ;  1069,  B.  Diodorus  Sicuhis,  ed.  Becker,  i.  75, 
241.  Clemens  Alex.,  ed.  Potter,  354.  Origencs,  ed.  de  la  Rue,  ii.  237  ff.,  iv. 
494  ff.  Epiphanius,  c.  Hceret.  30,  76.  Strabo,  Geogr.  xvi.  Euseb.  Prcepar. 
Evang.  432d, 


THE  SACRAMENTS  OT  THE  MOSAIC  COVENANT.  193 

doubt  that  this  rite,  which  has  been  found  even  among  South 
Sea  Islanders  and  many  negro  tribes,^  was  practised  from  time 
immemorial  by  the  Egyptians,  Ethiopians,  Kolchians,  and 
many  other  African  peoples.  Certainly  in  later  times  among 
the  Egyptians  it  was  only  the  priestly  caste  that  made  a 
regular  practice  of  it.  But  the  frequency  with  which  this  rite 
is  represented  on  ancient  monuments,  the  Phallus  symbol 
in  the  Hieroglyphs,  and  the  condition  in  which  most  of  the 
mummies  liave  been  found,  prove  that  this  custom  was 
originally  very  widespread.  And  no  one  will  now  agree 
with  Eusebius  in  thinking  that  such  peoples  derived  this 
custom  from  the  Israelites.  Perhaps  the  Old  Testament 
itself  lets  us  see  that  it  claims  for  Israel  neither  the  solo 
possession  nor  even  the  origination  of  this  custom.^  At 
all  events,  the  practice  of  circumcision  in  Israel  reaches  back 
beyond  Moses  into  patriarchal  times,-"^  and  it  would  in  itself 

^  Cf.  e.g.  on  the  Dualla  of  the  Cameroons  and  tlie  natives  of  Mahin, 
the  articles  by  Hugo  ZiJller  {Die  deutschen  Bemtzuiujen  an  der  icestafrikunimlien 
Kiiste,  ii.,  Th.  1,  p.  80). 

^  According  to  Herodotus,  it  was  from  the  Egyptians  that  the  Phcnnieians 
and  the  Syrians  adopted  circumcision.  According  to  Origen,  tlie  Egyptians, 
Arabians,  Ethiopians,  and  Plicenicians  were  acquainted  with  this  custom. 
According  to  Papist.  Barnab.  ix.  6,  it  was  practised  by  all  Syrians,  Arabians, 
idolatrous  priests,  and  Egyptians.  Ezekiel,  too,  xxxii.  19  f.,  represents  it  as  a 
disgrace  for  the  Egyptians,  and  also,  according  to  ver.  29,  for  the  Edomites, 
to  be  classed  with  the  uncircumcised.  The  expression  in  Josh.  v.  9,  "the 
leproach  of  Egypt  is  taken  away  from  you,"  is  probably  meant  to  imply  that  in 
Egypt  non-circumcision  was  regarded  as  a  disgrace.  Hence,  too,  the  passage 
.ler.  ix.  25  must,  contrary  to  Graf's  interpretation,  be  explained  as  speaking  of 
tlie  Egy[itians,  Edomites,  Moabites,  and  Ammonites  as  "circumcised  in  flesh." 
15csides,  it  would  otherwise  be  hardly  possible  to  explain  how  in  the  patriarchal 
legend  circumcision  is  referred  back  to  Abraham,  and  therefore  extended  to 
Ishmael  and  Edom,  and  that  only  the  Hivitcs  and  the  Philistines  are  described  as 
"uncircumcised."  That  the  Iduma?ans,  having  intermixed  with  the  Nabath- 
Kuns,  had  given  up  this  custom  in  the  time  of  tlie  Asmonseans,  and  that  force  had 
to  be  used  to  make  them  resume  it,  is  quite  intelligible.  For  between  Jeremiah 
and  those  days  lie  the  religious  influences  of  the  Chaldeans,  the  Persians,  and 
the  Greeks.  In  the  time  of  Josephus,  at  any  rate,  circumcision  can  have  been 
practised  by  none  of  the  nations  in  Syria  except  the  Jews  (ed.  Ciiln.  1691, 
p.  1047). 

^  Gen.  xvii.  11.  Al.so  the  omission  of  all  reference  to  it  in  the  Sinaitic  law 
of  the  covenant. 

VOL.  I.  N 


194  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

be  quite  conceivable  that  the  influence  of  Egypt,  a  country 
\vith  which  the  Hebrew  people  were  very  early  brought  into 
contact/  gave  the  external  impulse  to  it,  although  when  once 
this  practice  became  the  sacred  mark  of  the  covenant  people, 
succeeding  generations  were  perfectly  right  in  regarding  it 
as  the  expression  of  God's  will  and  God's  command  to  the 
fathers  of  the  people.  Still,  several  passages,  and  especially 
the  puzzling  old  story  in  Ex.  iv.  24  ff.,^  permit  us  to  infer 
that  it  was  only  during  the  Mosaic  age  that  a  strict  observ- 
ance of  the  custom  was  insisted  on,  and  that,  too,  in  the 
face  of  strong  opposition  ;  and  Josh.  v.  7  ff.  shows  us  that 
even  after  Moses  we  must  still  suppose  irregularity  in 
the  practice  of  this  rite.  But,  by  the  time  of  the  Judges, 
at  any  rate,  it  was  not  merely  a  custom  observed  as  a 
matter  of  course,  but  one  so  deeply  rooted  in  the  national 
religion,  as  to  be  a  source  of  pride  to  the  Israelite,  and  a 
reason  for  despising  "  the  uncircumcised,"  and  especially  the 
Philistines.^ 

What,  then,  is  the  meaning  of  circumcision  ?  Long  ago,  in 
reference  to  the  other  peoples,  Herodotus  and  Philo  attributed 
the  practice  to  considerations  of  health  and  cleanliness ;  and 
modern  scholars  like  Saalschlitz  follow  them.  But  since  it 
\vas  invariably  the  religious  element  that  determined  the 
sacred  customs,  this  explanation  is  quite  contrary  to  the  spirit 
of  heathen,  and  especially  Egyptian  antiquity,  to  which  such 
considerations  were  utterly  foreign.  Modern  scholars  like 
Auteurieth   have   thought   that   this   practice  was    connected 


^  Gen.  xii. 

2  Moses'  own  son  is  not  circumcised ;  of.  the  words  of  Zipporah,  which, 
though  based  on  a  proverb,  have  certainly  a  harsh  and  passionate  ring:  "A 
bloody  bridegroom  art  thou  to  me."  Probably  the  whole  narrative,  like  that  of 
Jacob  wrestling  with  the  Elohim,  had  originally  a  more  sensuous  colouring,  and 
has  been  intentionally  made  more  indistinct. 

=*  Judg.  xiv.  3,  XV.  18  ;  1  Sam.  xiv.  6,  xvii.  26,  36,  xxxi.  4  ;  2  Sam.  i.  20 
(Ezek.  xxviii.  10)  ;  Gen.  xxxiv.  14.  I  agree  with  Staile,  that  the  practice  did 
not  originally  spring  out  of  Jehovah-worship,  although  I  cannot  think  it  probable 
that  it  has  any  specially  close  connection  with  ancestor-worship. 


THE  SACKAMENTS  OF  THE  MOSAIC  COVENANT.      195 

with  the  habit  of  exhibiting  the  male  organs  of  slain  enemies 
as  trophies  of  victory ;  clearly  far  too  superficial  and  one-sided 
an  explanation  of  a  sacred  custom  like  this.  By  an  over- 
whelming majority,  modern  scholars  suggest  a  religious  motive; 
and  they  are  right.  Among  many  peoples  the  organ  of  genera- 
tion was  an  object  of  religious  awe  and  reverence.  It  was  so 
even  among  the  ancient  Hebrews,  as  incidental  references  to 
the  national  customs  prove.^  Hence  some  -  have  thought  cir- 
cumcision should  be  considered  a  mild  substitute  for  castration. 
The  latter  was,  in  fact,  regarded  by  many  peoples  as  "  a 
sharing  with  nature  in  the  decay  of  vital  power,"  and  on  that 
view  circumcision  would  be  a  remnant  of  Hamitic  nature- 
worship,  become  an  organ  of  the  higher  religion.  But  if  that 
were  the  case,  why  is  it  not  found  among  the  very  peoples 
that  insisted  on  their  priests  submitting  to  complete  castra- 
tion in  the  above  mentioned  sense  ?  It  is  more  correctly 
a  "  bloody  sacrifice "  (Ewald),  or,  still  more  accurately,  a 
consecration  of  the  life  to  God  by  a  painful  bloody  purifying 
of  the  source  of  life  which  is  regarded  as  holy. 

Among  peoples  given  to  nature-worship,  this  custom  may 
be  connected  with  the  consecration  of  the  natural  powers 
of  generation  and  conception.  But  in  Israel  its  meaning  was 
conceived  to  be  religious  and  moral.  There  was  indeed  no 
intention  to  express  the  thought  of  a  universal  priesthood, 
by  applying  to  the  whole  mass  of  the  people  a  sign  which 
in  Egypt  was  characteristic  of  the  priests  alone.  Even  if 
we  were  willing  to  admit  the  presupposed  fact,  this 
implies,  for  those  times,  far  too  much  self-consciousness,  and 
is  too  little  in  accord  with  their  naive  and  creative  character. 
Circumcision  is  in  Israel  the  consecration  of  a  man  on 
being  admitted  as  one  of  Jehovah's  holy  people.  On  the 
organ  upon  which  depends  the  perpetuation  of  life,  and  to 
which  religious  reverence  was  paid,  this  bloody  purification 
was  performed  as  a  sign  that  the  perpetuation  of  the  whole 

^  Gen.  xxiv.  9,  xlvii.  29.  -  Spencer,  Bruno  Bauer,  Sclielliug. 


196  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

people  is  sacred  to  God.  The  blood  of  circumcision  is  in 
very  truth  what  the  Eabbis  call  it,  "  covenant-blood,"  by  the 
shedding  of  which  communion  with  the  holy  God  is  rendered 
possible.  This  was  how  the  act  was  afterwards  understood 
in  Israel,  as  the  religious  idiom  proves.  The  word  "  circum- 
cised," "  uncircumcised,"  was  used  as  equivalent  to  "  conse- 
crated," "  unconsecrated,"  beiug  applied  in  the  most  varied 
relations  to  natural  objects — to  the  heart,  tlie  ears,  the  lips, 
etc.^  Without  this  sacred  sign,  no  one  dared  to  take  part  in 
tlie  religious  privileges  of  Israel. 

The  second  sacrament  which  attested  the  right  of  those  who 
belonged  to  the  holy  nation  to  have  fellowship  with  God  and 
with  one  another,  was  the  sacred  covenant-supper,  the  Passover. 
In  the  oldest  times  it  may,  perhaps,  have  been  an  expiatory 
sacrifice.  But  even  the  earliest  of  our  present  documents  know 
of  it  only  as  a  feast  in  commemoration  of  the  last  evening  before 
the  deliverance.  The  sacred  act  of  covenant-consecration,  as 
it  is  described  in  the  oldest  narrative,  the  sprinkling  of  the 
people  with  "  the  blood  of  the  covenant,"  the  acceptance  of 
"  the  words  of  the  covenant,"  could  never,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  be  repeated.^  But,  in  memory  of  God's  mighty  act  of 
deliverance,  of  the  blood  with  which,  on  that  occasion,  the 
holy  community  was  marked  and  protected  from  the  wrath  of 
the  angel  of  death,  in  memory  of  the  hasty  exodus  and  the 
afflictions  of  those  days,  this  supper  was  to  be  observed  as  a 
symbolical  act  of  worship.  The  supper  was  holy.  The  animal 
had  to  be  served  up  whole.^  Every  portion  of  the  flesh  had  to 
be  carefully  kept  from  becoming  putrid,  and  from  any  profane 
use.*  Those  who  ate  it,  the  members  of  the  family  as  well 
as  of  the  nation,  could  regard  themselves  as  a  holy  com- 
munity created  by  God's  acts  of  deliverance,  and  sharing  in 

1  Lev.  xix.  23,  xxvi.  14  ;  Ex.  vi.  12,  30  ;  Deut.  x.  16,   xxx.  6  ;  Jer.  vi.  10, 
ix.  25,  etc. 

2  Ex.  xix.  5,  8,  xxiv.  1-8  (Gen.  xv.  Off.,  xvii.  1  ff.),  |n3T,  li5<e  the  twelve 
stones  in  the  Jordan,  Josh.  iv.  4  ff. 

»  Ex.  xii.  8f.,  46.  *  Ex,  xii.  10. 


THE  PKIESTHOOD.  197 

the  highest  "  consecration."  None  but  the  circumcised  couki 
partake  of  the  sacred  meal ;  hut  all  circumcised  persons  could 
do  so,  even  tkough  they  were  not  descendants  of  Israel 
according  to  the  flesh. ^  Here,  then,  we  get  a  glimpse  of  a 
religious  community  wider  than  the  nation. 

We  cannot,  of  course,  assert  that  ancient,  and  especially 
pre-Soloraonic,  Israel  observed  this  sacred  rite  in  the  way 
which  the  law  prescribes,  and  did  so  regularly.  In  later 
times  people  remembered  quite  well  that  the  earlier  Passovers 
had  not  been  kept  in  a  legal  way.^  The  enforcement  of  the 
law  as  to  a  single  sanctuary  necessarily  altered  many  of  the 
details  connected  with  its  observance.  But  this  custom  was 
unquestionably,  even  in  olden  days,  an  important  and  integral 
part  of  national  piety. 

6.  It  may  be  safely  assumed  that  throughout  this  whole 
period  the  public  worship  of  the  community  had  been  in  the 
hands  of  an  ofiicially  authoritative  priesthood.  In  later  times 
this  priesthood  is  represented  as  identical  with  the  "  tribe  "  of 
Levi,  as  well  as  with  the  hierarchically  organised  personnel  of 
the  temple,  as  we  find  it  in  the  law.  Even  in  the  histories 
of  the  Judges,  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  no  sanctuary  of 
Jehovah  is  properly  equipped  till  it  has  a  Levite  to  act  as 
priest,  and  especially  to  insure  a  proper  use  of  the  oracle.^  In 
the  popular  sanctuary  at  Shiloh,  we  find  a  family  of  official 
priests  possessed  of  great  influence,  and  enjoying  large  revenues. 
They  trace  their  lineage  back  to  Levi,  from  which  we  may 
safely  infer  that  the  sacred  character  of  this  tribe  was  early 
acknowledged.*  They  have  as  their  inheritance  the  burnt- 
offerings  presented  to  Jehovah.  They  are  the  priests  in  Israel. 
"  God  Himself  is  their  heritage."  They  are  severely  blamed  for 
increasing  at  pleasure  the  income  assigned  them  by  custom  out 
of  the  sacrifices.^     At  private  sanctuaries,  the  owners  paid  them 

^  Ex.  xii.  43  fT.  ^  2  Chron.  xxx.,  xxxv.         ^  JuJg.  xvii.  10,  xviii.  4, 

*  1  Sam.  i.  3  If.  (Judg.  xix.  18,  xx.  18,  27,  xxi.  5,  19). 

s  1  Sam.  ii.  28  (12  ff.) ;  Josh.  xiii.  14,  33,  xviii.  7  ;  Deut.  xxxiii.  8ff, 


198  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

a  salary,  "  filled  their  hands,"  on  appointing  them  priests.^ 
Outside  the  national  sanctuary,  these  Levites  are  mentioned  as 
both  at  Dan  and  Bethlehem.  They  play  the  somewhat  un- 
dignified role  of  homeless  "  priests,"  wandering  up  and  down 
the  country."  The  removal  of  the  ark  to  the  royal  seat  of  their 
patron  David,  placed  them,  of  course,  in  quite  a  different 
position.  They  now  had  a  definite  connection  with  a  powerful 
royal  house ;  and  the  magnificent  temple  which  Solomon 
built,  gave  them  a  natural  centre  and  favourable  conditions  of 
existence.  It  is  true  that  the  "  Levitical  priests  "  did  not  on 
this  account  cease  to  exercise  the  functions  of  their  office  at 
other  national  shrines.  We  have  this  fact  expressly  vouched 
for  down  to  the  time  of  Josiah.^  But  the  priests  at  Jerusalem, 
especially  the  new  family  which  Solomon  placed  at  their 
head,  naturally  held  quite  a  different  position  from  that  of  the 
priests  at  the  high  places.  And  when  unity  of  worship  was 
actually  carried  out  and  became  an  acknowledged  principle, 
their  relations  necessarily  altered  still  more.  It  is  true,  the 
first  intention  was  to  give  the  priests  outside  Jerusalem  the 
full  right  to  sacrifice  at  the  national  sanctuary.^  But  from 
the  very  nature  of  the  case  this  could  not  be  actually  accom- 
plished. The  Levites,  who  lost  their  occupation,  became 
priests  of  an  inferior  grade.  In  fact,  their  very  existence  was 
threatened  ;  and  in  Deuteronomy  they  are  already  mentioned, 
along  with  the  poor,  as  fit  objects  of  charity.  As  "  Levites  " 
they  were  soon  quite  subordinate  to  the  priests.  Ezekiel 
already  directs  that  the  Levites  should,  as  a  punishment  for 
offering  sacrifice  at  the  high  places,  perform  the  menial  duties 
originally  assigned  to  heathen  slaves,  and  that  none  but  the 
sons  of  Zadok  should  exercise  priestly  functions.^  In  A  the 
"  Levitical  priests  "  of  the  Deuterouomist  have  been  replaced 

^  Judg.  xvii.  12.  Later,  as  the  priests  had  fixed  incomes,  the  woi'd  becomes 
the  ordinary  expression  for  "  consecrate,"  Ezek.  xliii.  26.  In  A  the  priests 
fill  their  cwTi  hand,  Ex.  xxix.  24  ff.,  35  ;  Lev.  viii.  26  ff. 

-  Judg.  xvii.  8.  ^2  Kings  xxiii.  9. 

*  Deut.  xviii.  1-7  ;  2  Kings  xxiii.  9.  *  Ezek.  xliv.  6-16. 


THE  PRIESTHOOD.  199 

by  the  hierarcliical  organisation   of    high  priest,  priest,  and 
Levitical  temple-drudge. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  draw  a  historical  picture  of  the 
Levitical  priests  in  the  olden  days.  The  Levites,  whom  A 
represents  as  living  since  the  days  of  Moses  in  tens  of 
thousands  on  fixed  incomes  in  their  own  Levitical  cities, 
certainly  do  not  belong  to  history.  One  can  scarcely  con- 
ceive a  more  startling  contrast  to  this  idea  than  the  priestly 
family  at  Shiloh,  with  its  "  servants,"  ^  or  the  Levites  of  the 
book  of  Judges,  as  they  wander  up  and  down  the  country 
alone.^  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  an  incontrovertible  fact  that 
there  was  "  a  tribe  of  Levi "  in  the  very  earliest  times,^  as  is 
proved,  not  merely  by  the  unfavourable  judgment  pronounced 
upon  it  in  the  national  legend,  which  would  not  have  been 
possible  had  "  the  Levites  "  been  nothing  but  priestly  families, 
but  also  by  the  circumstance  that  the  unanimous  voice  of 
tradition  makes  Moses  belong  to  this  tribe,  and  never  to 
one  of  the  historically  important  tribes.^  It  is  quite  possible 
that  in  the  tribe  of  Levi,  as  probably  in  all  the  tribes  of 
Israel,  there  were  families  included  which  had  merely  joined 
it.  The  way  in  which  Deut.  xxxiii.  8  ff.  speaks  of  Levi 
probably  points  to  this,  and  the  position  of  Samuel  ^  indicates 
something  similar.^  Nevertheless,  it  is  hard  to  persuade 
oneself  that  it  was  solely  through  a  mistake  due  to  the 
accidental  similarity  of  the  name  that  the  priestly  Levites,  as 
"  persons  attached  to  the  sanctuary," ''   "  professional  priests 

1  1  Sam.  i.  2,  ii.  12,  18.  2  j^^jg^  ^vii.  8,  ?:ix.  1  fF. 

2  Perhaps  the  name  is  connected  witli  Leah,  and  is  an  instance  of  the  gens 
being  denoted  by  the  name  of  an  animal,  as  is  so  frequently  the  case  among  the 
kindred  peoples  (Stade,  Zeitschr.  i.  116;  W.  Robertson  Smith,  "Animal 
Worship  and  Animal  Tribes  among  the  Arabs  and  in  the  Old  Testament," 
Journal  of  Philology,  ix.  75,  esj).  89  ff.). 

^  Gen.  xxxiv.  25,  29,  xlix.  5.  ^  1  Sam.  i.  ff. 

^  Deut.  xxxiii.  8  ff.  shows,  oa  the  other  hand,  how  much  importance  even  the 
Korthern  Israelites  attached  to  this  official  priesthood  ;  and  this  importance 
even  after  the  exile  of  Israel  is  vouched  for  by  Hos.  iv.  1-10,  vi.  9,  and 
2  Kings  xvii.  27. 

7  m^. 


200  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

in  no  way  connected  with  each  other  by  actual  ties  of  blood," 
were  identified  with  the  traditional  "lost"  tribe  of  Levi, 
because,  owing  to  their  vocation,  they  had  grown  into  a  sort 
of  "  artificial  tribe." 

The  following  theory  seems  much  more  probable  :  Levi,  the 
tribe  of  Moses,  one  of  the  oldest  leading  tribes  in  Israel,  being 
through  him,  as  it  were,  a  "holy"  tribe,  was  granted  the 
privileges  of  the  public  priesthood.  This  position  it  retained 
even  when  it  fell  into  civil  disrepute.  According  to  ancient 
ideas,  moral  and  social  virtues  had  nothing  at  all  to  do  with 
"  priestly  holiness."  As  a  tribe  reckoned  among  the  "  first- 
born "  of  Israel,  that  is,  as  a  leading  tribe  politically,  Levi 
was  so  much  weakened  by  fighting  against  the  Canaanites 
that  it  became  insignificant,  and  even  lost  its  independent 
existence, — as  Eeuben  did  by  struggling  against  Moab,  and 
Simeon  probably  against  the  peoples  of  the  desert.  Levi 
succumbed,  and  Israel  regarded  his  fate  as  a  well-deserved 
punishment  for  having  despised  justice  and  equity,  and 
having  acted  cruelly  towards  the  native  inhabitants  of  the 
land.^  The  remnants  of  the  tribe,  which,  of  course,  like  all 
the  tribes  of  Israel,  had  never  counted  its  fighting  men  by 
tens  of  thousands,  as  A  delights  to  do,  but  whose  numbers  we 
must  set  down  at  a  very  modest  figure,^  had  nothing  for  it 

^  Gen.  xlix.  5.     Israel  declines  all  responsibility  for  their  conduct. 

2  We  ought  at  last  to  accustom  ourselves  frankly  to  recognise  the  numbers 
given  by  the  liistorical  writers  of  Israel,  in  so  far  as  they  are  not  describing 
statistical  matters  of  their  own  day,  as  what  they  invariably  are, — in  A  as  well 
as  in  Chronicles,  in  the  editors  of  the  older  historical  works  as  well  as  in 
Josephus, — products  of  an  irresistible  tendency  to  revel  in  large  numbers.  As 
soon  as  we  get  a  view  of  actual  circumstances,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Danites 
(Judg.  xviii.  11),  or  when  David  began  his  career  (1  Sara,  xxiii.  16),  we  have 
never  to  do  with  tens  of  thousands  of  fighting  men,  but  with  hundreds.  The 
country  west  of  the  Jordan,  so  far  as  it  was  actually  in  the  possession  of  the 
Israelites  before  David's  time,  cannot  at  the  most  be  reckoned  at  more  than 
from  11-12,000  square  kilometres,  and  this  modest  territory  they  shared  in  the 
south  with  kindred  peoples,  in  the  north  and  west  with  the  Canaanites. 
Besides,  the  mountainous  district  of  Judah  was  still  in  David's  time  a  purely 
pastoral  country,  a  safe  refuge  for  bands  of  freebooters  (1  Sam.  xxii.,  xxv.),  ami 
all  the  stories  about  the  olden  days  leave  the  impression  that  the  country  was 


THE  PRIESTHOOD.  201 

but  to  make  good  their  claim  to  serve  Jehovah.  This  the 
tribe  succeeded  in  doing  notwithstanding  the  mean  and  dis- 
reputable life  many  of  its  members  must  have  led.  Thus  it 
eventually  became  in  spiritual  matters  the  ruling  tribe  in 
Israel.  The  twofold  character  of  its  position  is  reflected 
with  special  distinctness  in  Deuteronomy,  which  commends 
the  Levite  as  well  as  the  stranger  and  tlie  poor  to  the 
charity  of  the  people,^  and  in  the  Deuteronomic  song  which 
extols  the  lot  of  Levi,  and  bestows  on  him  the  highest 
blessing.- 

But  in  whatever  way  this  question  may  be  answered,  it  is 
certain  that  in  early  times  the  priestly  office  of  the  Levites 
did  not  give  them  an  exclusive  right  to  offer  sacrifice,  and 
to  perform  the  various  other  sacred  rites,  but  ouly  certain 
privileges  in  connection  with  the  oracles  at  the  shrines,  and 
with  the  public  sacrifices  which  required  a  definite  ritual.  Just 
as  sacred  legend  represents  the  patriarchs  as  priestly  figures, 
who  build  altars  and  offer  sacrifices  wherever  God  has  made 
His  presence  manifest,^  so  during  the  whole  period  down  to  the 

not  thickly  populated  (Judg.  xviii.  2ff.,  xix.  10  if.).  Nomad  shepherds  could 
still  pitch  their  tents  in  the  valley  of  the  Kishon  (Judg.  iv.  17),  and  outside  the 
towns  there  was  no  population  capable  of  oflering  any  opposition  to  the  robber 
bands  from  the  east  of  Jordan  (Judg.  vi.  1  ff. ).  What  the  state  of  civilisation  was 
is  shown  by  stories  such  as  we  have  in  2  Sam.  xxiii.  11  (cf.  Judg.  iii.  31),  where 
a  man,  by  defending  a  held  of  lentils,  wins  for  himself  lasting  renown  and  the 
gratitude  of  his  people  ;  or  in  Judg.  vi.  11,  where  a  rich  man  threshes  wheat  in  a 
wine-press  ;  or  iu  1  Sam.  xiii.  19,  where  the  Israelite  shave  to  get  along  for  a  time 
without  smiths.  There  were  no  large  towns  in  Israel.  There  was  absolutely 
no  trade  or  manufacturing  industry.  Now,  if  fully  settled  and  populated  in  the 
same  proportion  as  the  German  empire  is  at  present,  the  above-mentioued 
territory  would  have  scarcely  contained  a  million  of  inhabitants.  Hence  it 
would  certainly  be  the  highest  possible  estimate  to  reckon  the  Israelites  west  of 
the  Jordan  at  the  close  of  the  period  of  the  Judges  at  from  two  to  three  hundred 
thousand.  This  would  give  at  the  most  fifty  thousand  fighting  men.  At  the 
invasion  of  Palestine,  therefore,  we  might  perhaps  put  them  at  the  half,  thus 
getting  for  each  of  the  smaller  tribes  somewhere  between  one  thousand  and 
fifteen  hundred  able-bodied  men  of  war. 

1  E.g.  Deut.  xiv.  29,  xvi.  11,  14,  xxvi.  12. 

^  Deut.  xxxiii.  8  ff".  (Judg.  xvii.  8). 

3  Gen.  iv.  4,  26,  viii.  20,  xii.  7,  8,  xiii.  4,  18,  xv.  9,  xxi.  33,  xxvi.  25, 
XXXV.  3,  7.     It  is  noteworthy  that,  according  to  A,  the  patriarchs  do  not 


202  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

building  of  the  temple,  it  was  undoubtedly  upon  the  father 
of  a  household,  the  head  of  a  tribe,  the  prophetical  leader, 
and  the  king,  that  custom  conferred  priestly  functions  at  the 
sacrificial  feasts  which  accompanied  every  solemn  assembly. 
These  were  the  persons,  too,  who  were  permitted,  as  amongst 
most  nations  of  antiquity,  to  offer  sacrifice  at  the  tribal 
sanctuaries  and  at  the  private  chapels  of  the  nobility. 
Before  Micah  obtained  a  Levitical  priest  he  made  his  own  son 
act  as  chaplain.^  Gideon,  Samuel,  and  Elijah  had  no  scruples 
in  performing  acts  of  ritual  worship.^  David  offered  family 
sacrifice  at  Bethlehem,  and,  at  the  bringing  home  of  the  ark, 
showed  himself  to  the  people  clothed  in  priestly  attire ;  ^ 
nay  more,  according  to  the  most  natural  interpretation  of 
2  Sam.  viii.  12  (1  Kings  iv.  2—5),  he  even  invested  his  own 
sons  and  other  men  of  high  position  with  priestly  functions 
at  the  sanctuary,*  alongside  of  the  Levitical  priests.  And 
although  a  great  change  may  have  taken  place  after  the  build- 
ing of  the  temple,  still  Nathan's  sons  are  priests,  and  Zadok's 
sons  hold  secular  offices ;  ^  while  in  the  northern  kingdom 
the  chief  sanctuaries  are  simply  described  as  "  royal."  ^ 

7,  The  feasts  which,  till  Solomon's  time,  Israel  celebrated 
without  any  legal  guidance  at  all,  and  afterwards  in  accord- 
ance with  very  simple  laws,'^  are  perhaps  of  old-Hebrew 
origin  only  in  so  far  as  they  are  connected  with  the  chief 
events  in  pastoral  life,  such  as  sheep-shearing,  firstlings,  and 

sacrifice.  According  to  him  sacrifice  is  olTered  to  Jeliovali  only  after  Moses 
introduced  the  sacred  form  of  sacrifice.  In  Job  i.  5,  Gen.  xiv.  18  ff.,  Ex. 
ii.  16,  iii.  1,  rightful  priests  are  seen  outside  Israel. 

^  Judg.  xvii.  5. 

^  Judg.  vi.  20,  26,  viii.  27  ;  1  Sam.  ix.  12,  xiv.  15,  xvi.  5  ;  1  Kings  xviii. 
30 ff.  (viii.  22,  54 ff.). 

^  1  Sam.  XX.  6  (that  it  is  a  mere  pretext  does  not,  of  course,  alter  the  matter 
at  all);  2  Sam.  vi.  14  (Ps.  ex.). 

*  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  chronicler  cannot  allow  this,  and  changes  the 
priests  into  court  officials  (1  Chron.  xviii.  17).  But  pD  in  early  documents 
never  denotes  anything  else  but  "priests,  "and  just  in  2  Sam.  xx.  25  Zadok  and 
Abiatbar  are  described  by  the  very  same  word. 

^  1  Kings  iv.  2,  5.  ^  Amos  vii.  10  if.  ?  Ex,  sxiii.  14,  xxxiv.  18. 


THE  ISRAELITISH  FEASTS.  203 

the  Passover.^  For  the  real  harvest  -  feasts  the  people  had 
possibly  to  thank  tlie  customs  of  the  land  into  which  they 
immigrated.  But  this  cannot  now  be  determined  with 
certainty.  What  is  certain  is  that  Israel  kept  two  great 
nature-feasts,  of  which  the  one,  the  feast  of  Tabernacles,  had 
at  this  period  no  historical  by-meaning;  while  the  other,  the 
Paschal  Feast  of  unleavened  bread,  though  perhaps  already 
brought  into  connection  with  the  exodus,  was,  as  yet  at  any 
]ate,  mainly  connected  with  natural  occurrences,  such  as  the 
offering  of  the  firstlings  of  the  flock  and  the  dedicating  of  the 
first-fruits  of  the  barley  harvest.  The  feast  of  Wheat-harvest 
(C)  seems  to  have  been  the  least  popular.  It  plays  quite  a 
subordinate  part  in  the  old  festival-laws,  and,  in  fact,  can  have 
originated  only  in  a  purely  agricultural  country. 

The  oldest  festival-laws  prescribe  that  Israel  should  on  the 
appointed  days  come  to  the  sanctuaries  bringing  the  firstlings 
of  the  herd,  the  first  eatable  fresh  bread  (the  heave-offering  ot 
seed),^  and  the  first  rijoe  fruits  of  the  fruit-trees  and  of  the 
vine.  Such  procedure  even  the  oldest  prophets  regard  as  a 
matter  of  course.^  "  The  maintenance  of  public  worship  was  a 
tribute  due  to  Jehovah,  the  generous  owner  of  the  land.  To 
Him  from  threshing-floor  and  wine-press  gifts  of  corn  and  wine 
were  dedicated  with  ringing  shouts  of  joy.  And  wherever  this 
was  done,  the  joyous  consciousness  of  a  grateful  people  found 
festive  expression  within  the  house  of  God."  *  In  Canaan 
the  most  joyous  of  the  festivals,  at  any  rate,  was  the  harvest- 
feast,  the  rites  of  which  were  connected  with  the  usages  of  the 
original  inhabitants  of  a  country  producing  corn  and  wine.^ 
On  the  other  hand,  echoing  through  the  usages  of  the  Pass- 

^  Slieep-slieaiing,  Gen.  xxxviii.  13  ;  1  Sam.  xxv.  3.     Tithe  of  wool,  Hos.  ii. 
7,  11  ;  Deut.  xviii.  4  (Wellliausen,  i.  96). 
2  Ex.  xxxiv.  23  (Dent.  xvi.  9). 
^  Isa.  i.  13,  14,  xxix.  1,  xxx.  29  ;  Hos.  ii.  11,  v.  7,  ix.  5,  xii.  10  ("jpiO,  jri). 

*  Ex.  X.  9  ;  Deut.  xvi.  7  ;  Isa.  xxx.  29  ;  Hos.  ii.  9. 

*  Jndg.  ix.  27  ;  cf.  xxi.  20.  This  feast  is  probably  meant  also  in  1  Sam.  i.  3. 
(Choral  songs  of  maidens,  songs  of  praise,  festive  sacrificial  meals.)  (Movers, 
riidnikier,  480.) 


204  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

over,  if  we  separate  it  from  the  feast  of  Unleavened  Bread, 
we  hear  the  notes  of  a  pastoral  age,  and  of  life  in  the 
desert.  The  whole  ceremonial  seems  a  faint  reflection  of 
older  habits,  and  the  historical  ideas  with  which  the  festival 
has  been  draped  have  donbtless  replaced  older  ones,  for 
which,  as  the  religion  became  purer,  there  was  no  longer 
room. 

It  was  precisely  to  those  feast  days,  as  something  due  to 
Jehovah,  that  the  religious  consciousness  of  the  people,  as  we 
see  from  the  polemic  of  the  prophets,  attached  an  extra- 
ordinarily great  importance.  Everywhere  in  our  present 
documents  we  find,  as  their  main  foundation,  the  old-fashioned 
feasts  of  the  ISTew  Moon  and  the  Sabbath,  which  are  closely 
connected,  and  are  generally  mentioned  together.^  When, 
under  the  influence  of  the  Chaldee  method  of  dividing  time, 
the  course  of  the  moon  with  its  four  phases  was  adopted  as 
the  unit  of  time  measurement,^  the  new  moon  and  the 
seventh  day  were  naturally  regarded  as  the  chief  divisions  of 
time,  and  therefore  as  holy  days.  Thus  in  Israel,  as  in  other 
ancient  nations,  the  new  moon  became  a  religious  festival, 
celebrated  by  a  meal  of  which  only  "  the  pure "  could 
partake.^  And  the  Sabbath  is  very  early  represented  as  holy, 
as  a  day  to  be  kept  free  from  business,  on  which  one  turns  to 
the  prophets  for  the  word  of  God,  and  prefers,  as  a  rule,  to 
transact  religious  business.*  In  all  this,  the  thought  of  a 
service  to  God,  in  the  sense  of  an  irksome  duty  binding  upon 
all,  was  still  something  quite  foreign  to  the  national  con- 
sciousness. It  was  a  day  of  recreation  and  joy,  irksome  only 
to  the  selfish  rich,  and  the  greedy.^  "  One  had  time  on  the 
Sabbath  for  other  than  one's  daily  occupations.     Servant  and 

>  Amos  viii.  5  ;  2  Kings  iv.  22  ;  Isa.  i.  13  ;  Hos.  ii.  13  (1  Sam.  xx.  5). 
2  Smith,    Tht  Eponym  Canon  (Lomlon  1875,   p.    19  f.).      Also  amoug  the 
Assyrians  and  the  Babylonians  the  seventh  day  was  a  day  of  rest, 
=*  1  Sam.  XX.  5,  18,  24,  26. 
*  Amos  V.  21,  viii.  5  ;  2  Kings  iv.  23  (xi.  5). 
^  Hos.  ii.  13,  ix.  1  tf . ;  2  Kings  iv.  22  ;  Amos  viii.  5. 


THE  SABBATH.  205 

ass  could  be  spared  for  a  journey  whicli  was  longer  than  a 
Sabbath  day's.  The  masters  were  always  on  holiday.  On  the 
seventh  day  they  had  to  let  their  servants  and  their  beasts  of 
burden  rest  also  "  ( Wellhausen).  In  B,  and  even  in  Deutero- 
nomy, tlie  object  is  not  so  much  that  a  man  should  strictly 
abstain  from  all  work  himself,  as  that  he  should  not  selfishly 
deprive  his  dependants  of  their  rest.^ 

The  Sabbath  rest  is  certainly  not  a  pre-Mosaic  custom, 
otherwise  it  would  scarcely  have  been  specified  in  the 
fundamental  law,  which,  for  example,  makes  no  mention  of 
the  primitive  practice  of  circumcision.  Besides,  its  possibility 
depends  upon  the  change  from  pastoral  to  agricultural  life 
being  already  complete.  ~Now,  although  the  idea  of  the 
Sabbath,  as  has  been  said,  can  be  traced  back  to  Babylonian 
civilisation,  it  is  a  mistake  to  derive  the  name  Sabbath  from 
the  planet  Saturn,  which  the  Babbis  call  "  Shabbti,"  and 
thus  to  bring  the  Sabbath  holiday  into  connection  with  tlie 
Chaldee  worship  of  the  planets.  The  naming  of  the  days 
after  certain  planet-gods  can  hardly  be  so  old  as  the  Sabbath 
holiday.  Besides,  Shabbti  is  neither  the  Babylonian  name 
for  Saturn,  nor  even  an  old  word.  According  to  the  four 
phases  of  the  moon,  the  seventh  day  was  the  natural  resting- 
point  in  computing  time,  and  one  well  known  among  other 
nations  also.^  Thus  tlie  day  was  pointed  out  of  itself,  and 
was  given  the  name  "  day  of  rest."  ^  Its  planet  is  therefore 
called  by  the  Babbis  the  Sabbath  planet,  "  Shabbti,"  as  the 
one  to  which  this  particular  day  was  dedicated  by  astrology. 

8.  In  the  age  before  Solomon,  and,  in  fact,  down  to  the  reign 
of  Josiah,  nothing  was  further  from  men's  minds  than  the  idea 
that  Jehovah  was  to  be  worshipped  only  at  a  single  sanctuary 
chosen  by  Himself ;  although  Deuteronomy  orders  this,  and  A 

1  Ex.  XX.  10,  xxxiv.  21  ;  Dent.  v.  12  ff. 

^  I  may  remind  the  reader  of  the  primitive  Delphic  custom  of  giving  oracles 
on  the  seventh  day,  as  the  day  dedicated  to  Apollo  (Plutarch,  Qucest.  Gr.  9. 
Herod,  vi.  5.  7) ;  cf.  Dio  Cassius,  xxvii.  18  fl".     Jlacrob.,  Saturn,  i.  16. 


206  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

maintains  that  from  the  days  of  Moses  there  was  an  express 
law  in  Israel  to  that  effect.  The  holy  places  in  Canaan, 
whether  hallowed  by  sacred  memories  of  the  patriarchs  or 
used  by  the  original  inhabitants  as  places  of  worship,  the 
Israelites,  on  gaining  possession  of  the  country,  unquestion- 
ably retained  as  sanctuaries  for  themselves,  without  having 
the  least  doubt  that  such  an  arrangement  was  pleasing  to 
God.^  And  provided  Jehovah  alone  was  worshipped  at  such 
places,  and  not  the  gods  of  the  land,  no  one  would  have  any 
conscientious  objections  to  the  forms  of  worship  formerly 
in  use  there.^  Owing  to  their  sympathy  with  nature,  all 
ancient  peoples  gave  these  holy  places  a  significance  no 
longer  intelligible  to  nations  of  a  later  civilisation.  The  God 
of  heaven  was  worshipped  on  high  mountains,  which,  tower- 
ing aloft  in  solitary  grandeur,  seemed  most  befitting  thrones 
for  the  Heavenly  One.  In  the  sacred  gloom  of  the  grove 
one  felt  the  very  breath  of  the  Deity.  Eegions  where; 
remarkable  natural  phenomena  seemed  to  indicate  a  special 
j'evelation  of  God's  presence, — fountains  and  wells  which  had 
served  since  the  days  of  old  as  tribal  rendezvous, — the  shrine 
of  the  domestic  hearth  or  the  public  centre  of  city-life, — 
spots  which  sacred  legend  had  hallowed  by  memories  of 
ancient  acts  of  worship  or  of  divine  manifestations, — these 
were  one  and  all  recognised  as  places  at  which  the  Deity 
delighted  to  assemble  His  worshippers,  and  accept  their 
gifts. 

On   such   places  ^   the  native  inhabitants  of  Canaan   had 

^  Beal-Encydopcidie,  art.  "  Holien,  Hohendienst  der  Hebriier "  (1st  ed. 
J.  G.  Miiller  ;  2ud  ed.  Wolf  Baudissin).  For  the  Greek  andEoman  customs,  cf. 
Schomann,  Gr.  Allerthiimer  (2iid  ed.  1863,  vol.  ii.  181  tF.).  Hermann,  Lehrh. 
der  (jottesdienstlichen  Alterthi'uiwr  der  Grlechen  (2ud  ed.  by  Stark,  1858,  p.  68). 
L.  Friedlander,  Darstdlang  av,s  der  Sittenrjescldchte  Boms  (Leipzig  1864, 
voL  ii.  105  tr.). 

^  Smeml  (Stade's  Zeitschr'ift,  ii.  95,  105). 

*  Some  such  custom  is  clearly  indicated  by  expressions  like  "  the  oak  of  the 
sorcerers,  teachers "  (Judg.  iv.  4,  ix.  6,  37  ;  Josh.  xxiv.  26  ;  1  Sam.  xiv.  2, 
xxii.  6  ;  1  Kings  xii.),  or  "the  Dragon-well"  (Neli.  ii.  13  ;  the  spirit  as  the 
water-serpent,  Stade). 


THE  HOLY  PLACES.  207 

built  their  ancient  shrines.  Altars  on  artificial  mounds, 
frequently  connected  with  real  temples  (houses  on  mounds),^ 
were  the  ordinary  places  of  worship  in  the  Hamitic  nature- 
religion,  which,  in  fact,  paid  special  reverence  to  the  generative 
power  of  nature.-  Idols  in  really  human  form  do  not  appear 
to  have  been  used  in  the  olden  time.  But  faith  in  the  effec- 
tive power  and  presence  of  the  Deity  was  readily  connected 
with  sacred  stones  which  were  anointed  with  oil,^  or  with 
specially  prominent  and  evergreen  trees  in  which  the  vital  forces 
of  nature  were  revealed,  and  eventually  with  artificial  wooden 
pillars  and  posts  (Asheras),  which  were  meant  to  symbolise 
the  organ  of  generation. 

How  many  of  these  customs  the  Israelites  practised  before 
they  got  possession  of  Canaan,  cannot  now  be  definitely 
ascertained.  It  is  probable  that  the  God  of  Israel  was 
originally  worshipped  in  a  simpler  way,  perhaps  merely 
with  an  altar  erected  on  a  consecrated  site,"^  and  that  his 
actual  visible  presence  was  conceived  of  as  confined  to  Sinai. 
But  as  far  back  as  we  can  trace  the  early  ideas  of  Israel, 
we  already  find  in  Canaan  a  great  variety  of  shrines  and 
images ;  and  it  is  only  in  the  eyes  of  a  much  later  age  that 
this  appears  to  be  a  culpable  falling  away  from  purity  of 
worship.^  The  older  forms  of  sacred  legend  represent  the 
shrines  of  Bethel,  Shecbem,  Hebron,  Lachai-roi,  and  Beersheba 
as  places  consecrated  to  national  worship  by  appearances  and 

^  nD3  (/S'i'^s;  ?).  The  worship  at  the  high  places  was  certainly  Canaanitish 
(Ex.  xxxiv.  10  ;  Num.  xxxiii.  52  ;  Deiit.  xii.  2,  30  ;  Ezek.  xvi.  20),  aud  the 
worship  of  Jehovah  displaced  at  these  the  worship  of  the  gods  of  the  country. 
At  Shechem  aud  Gibeon  this  transition  is  effected  almost  in  the  full  light  of 
history  (Wellh.  i.  18). 

-  In  the  Chaldean  worship  of  the  mother  of  the  gods  these  artificial  mounds 
constantly  form  the  substructure  for  the  funeral- pile  of  Hercules-Sandan,  aud 
refer  originally  to  Priai^us-worship. 

^  Gen.  xxviii.  etc.  ^a-iruXia. 

*  Ex.  XX.  24  ff.  (the  circle  of  stones  at  Gilgal,  Josh.  iv.  7). 

^  Already  in  Deut.  xii.  8  ff.,  and  in  the  later  revision  of  the  book  of  Kings, 
1  Kings  xii.  31,  xiv.  23,  xv.  14,  xxii.  11,  44  ;  2  Kings  xii.  3.  xiv.  4,  xv.  4,  35. 
Especially  natural  in  A,  Josh.  xxii.  10  ff.,  29. 


208  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

revelations  of  Jehovah,  and  by  the  prayers  and  sacrifices  of 
the  patriarchs.^  Bethel,  in  particular,  with  its  sacred  pillar 
of  stone,  is  represented  as  the  chief  sanctuary  of  Israel 
in  patriarchal  times.^  Sinai  and  Hermon  are  extolled  as 
holy  mountains.^  Under  the  oaks  and  terebinths  of  Canaan, 
beside  the  springs  of  Beersheba  and  Lacliai-roi,  the  patriarchs 
dwelt  and  worshipped  Jehovah^  The  judges,  as  well  as 
Samuel,  David,  and  Solomon,  take  their  sacrificial  meals  ^ 
on  "  the  high  places,"  where,  as  at  Hebron  and  Shechem, 
the  fathers  lie  entombed ;  or  where,  as  at  Gilgal  and 
Shiloh,  memories  of  the  nation's  great  heroic  age  still  sur- 
vive ;  or  where  the  natural  situation  of  the  place  points 
upwards,  as  at  Mizpah  the  Wartburg,  or  Eamah  the  height, 
or  Gibeah  the  hill.^ 

Leading  families  meet  together  at  the  original  family  seat, 
as  at  Ophra,  Hebron,  and  Bethlehem,  to  offer  family  sacrifice.'' 
On  Ebal  Joshua  builds  an  altar,  and  in  Shechem  he  has 
a  sanctuary.^  In  Mizpah  and  Bochim  the  congregation 
assembles  for  prayer  and  sacrifice.^  Gideon  and  Jephthah, 
Samuel  and  Saul,  sacrifice  at  the  places  which  are  the  centres 
of  their  power  and  activity,  in  the  land  east  of  Jordan,  as 
well  as  on  the  mountains  of  Judah  and  Ephraim.^°  Xo  one 
ibrbids  Micah  to  set  up  a  chapel  in  his  own  house ;  and  when 
the  tribe  of  Dan  secures  by  conquest  a  strong  tribal  city, 
its  first  care  is  to  get  a  sanctuary,  with  a  priest  and  an 
oracle.^^  David  has  a  place  of  prayer  on  the  Mount  of  Olives  ; 
and  in  honour  of  the  angel   he   builds  an  altar  beside  the 

1  Gen.  xii.  7,  8,  xvi.  14,  xxi.  28,  xxviii.  10  ff.  ;  Amos  vii.  14  ;  IIos.  iv.  15. 

-  Gen.  xxviii.  (tlie  tithe). 

3  Jutlg.  V.  4;  of.  Ps.  xxxvi.  7,  Ixviii.  16  (civ.  16). 

■*  Gen.  xii.  6,  xiii.  18,  xviii.  4,  xxi.  33,  xxiv.  62. 

» 1  Sam.  ix.  12  if.  ;  1  Kings  iii.  3  ff. 

6  Gen.  XXXV.  8  ;  Jiidg.  xvi.  1  ;  1  Sam.  vii.  5,  16,  ix.  12  ff.,  x.  3,  8,  xi.  15, 
xiv,  35,  XV.  21. 

7  Judg.  viii.  23  ff.  ;  1  Sam.  xx.  6  ;  2  Sam.  xv.  7.  ^  Josh.  xxiv.  25. 
9  Judg.  ii.  5,  XX.  1,  18,  27,  xxi.  2,  4. 

'-0  Judg.  vi.  24  f.,  xi.  11  f.  ;  1  Sam.  ix.  12  f.  etc. 
'^  Judg.  xvii.  18,  xviii.  19  If, 


THE  HOLY  PLACES.  209 

threshing-floor  of  Araunah  with  as  little  hesitation  as  the 
patriarchs  ever  showed.^  Adonijah  gives  his  sacrificial  feast 
at  the  spring  of  Eogel,  Absalom  his  at  Hebron.  Solomon 
sacrifices  at  the  great  high  place  at  Gibeon,  and  there  .Jehovah 
appears  to  him.^  In  short,  just  as  the  whole  land,  being 
Israel's  possession,  is  Jehovah's  hoiise,^  people  are  convinced 
that  they  may  worship  Him  at  any  place  within  it  at  which 
He  makes  Himself  known.  Accordingly,  the  oldest  code  of 
laws  prescribes  nothing  more  than  the  building  of  a  simple 
altar  to  God  "  wherever  He  should  record  His  name."*  Even 
the  later  historian,  who  decidedly  disapproves  of  such  freedom 
of  sacrifice,  and  the  Deuteronomist  whose  main  object  is  to 
establish  a  single  sanctuary,  frankly  admit  that,  prior  to  the 
building  of  the  temple,  the  exercise  of  discretion  in  this 
matter  was  nothing  unusual.^  Isaiah  also  prophesies  of  an 
altar  to  Jehovah  in  Egypt,  obviously  quite  unconscious  that 
it  would  be  against  the  law  to  worship  at  such  an  altar.^ 

In  these  holy  places  the  presence  of  God  was  symbolised 
in  a  variety  of  ways.  In  essentials,  no  doubt,  ancestral 
customs  were  followed,  but  there  was  also  a  tendency 
towards  Canaanitish  rites,  which  were  foreign  to  the  religion 
of  Israel.  The  worship  of  a  real  individual  image  of  God 
always  remained  foreign  to  Israel  and  its  kindred  nations. 
But  in  the  worship  at  Bethel,  when  B  and  C  were  written, 
the  sacred  "  stone  of  Jacob,"  as  a  memorial  of  God's  presence, 
must  have  been  the  chief  sacred  object,''  just  as  the  sacred 

1  2  Sam.  XV.  32,  xxiv.  25. 

^  2  Sam.  XV.  7,  12  ;    1  Kings  i.  9,  iii.  3  ff.     Chronicles  excuses  this  on  the 
ground  that  the  tabernacle  was  there  (2  Chron.  i.  3  fi'. ;  1  Chrou.  xxi.  29). 
^  Hos.  viii.  1,  ix.  3  ff. ;  2  Kings  v.  17. 

*  Ex.  XX.  24  ff.  Compare  with  this  the  narrative  of/Josh,  xxii.,  which  shows 
the  utmost  anxiety  to  shield  the  "altar  "  of  the  tribes  to  the  east  of  the  Jordan 
from  the  suspicion  of  being  a  "  sacrificial  altar  !  " 

*  1  Kings  iii.  2,  3  (viii.  16) ;  Deut.  x.  (1  Sam.  ix.,  x.). 

•>  Isa.  xix.  19.  Even  Deut.  xxvii.  5  ff.  still  admits  the  possibility  of  erecting 
altars  in  exceptional  cases  outside  the  sanctuary  (B.  J.  Ixvi.  1  tf.  points  perhaps 
to  the  last  struggle  in  this  connection). 

"^  Gen.  xxxi.  45,  51,  xxviii.  (xlix.  24  ?)  ;  1  Sam.  vi.  14,  xiv.  33. 
VOL.  L  0 


210  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

circle  of  stones  at  Gilgal  also  points  to  a  national  symbol- 
ism.^ Mazzebahs  and  Asheras,  artificial  constructions  of 
stone  and  tree,  were  never  in  Israel  necessary  adjuncts  of 
the  national  worship.^  But,  obviously,  their  nse  was  not 
considered,  even  at  a  later  period,  at  all  reprehensible  or 
incompatible  .with  the  worship  of  Jehovah.  Eut  it  is 
absolutely  beyond  a  doubt  that  in  many  sanctuaries, 
although  not  in  the,  national  one,  Jehovah  Himself  was 
unhesitatingly  worshipped  under  the  form  of  an  ox,  i.e.  as 
the  life-giving  power.  It  is  true  that  in  some  passages 
the  particular  kind  of  image  is  not  actually  stated.^  But 
from  the  narrative  of  the  journey  through  the  wilderness,* 
and  from  the  practice  in  the  great  national  sanctuaries 
of  the  northern  kingdom,^  of  which  there  is  frequent 
proof  down  to  the  time  of  the  Exile,  it  is  certain  enough 
that  one  can  think  only  of  the  above-mentioned  symbol  of 
God. 

The  oldest  and  most  highly  -  prized  national  symbol  of 
Jehovah's  presence  was  in  those  days  undoubtedly  the  ark 
of  Jehovah,  which  excluded  from  the  national  sanctuary 
every  other  symbol  of  God.  It  can  scarcely  have  contained 
from  the  days  of  Moses,  as  "  the  law "  declares,  the  ten 
commandments  as  the  covenant-contract  of  Israel  with  his 
God.  For  apart  from  the  fact  that  our  ten  commandments, 
with  their  stern  prohibition  of  every  visible  representation  of 
Jehovah,  can  hardly  have  been  regarded  at  that  time  as 
indispensable  conditions  without  which  no  one  could  belong 
to  God,  this  whole  conception  is  much  more  akin  to  the  spirit 
of  the  times  in  which  "  the  law  "  was  considered  the  holiest 
thing  that  Israel  possessed  than  to  that  of  the  primitive  age 
which  strove  to  assure  itself  of  the  protecting  presence  of  its 
God  in  a  way  as  convincing  to  the  senses  as  possible,     What- 

^  Josh.  iv.  9  ;  cf.  Ex.  xxiv.  4  (Cromlechs). 

^  Hos.  iii.  4,  X.  2  ;  Isa.  xix.  19.        *  Judg.  viii.  2G,  xvii.,  xviii. 

*  Ex.  xxxii.  8.  6  Especially  1  Kings  xii.  2«  ;  Hos.  xiii.  2. 


THE  AEK  OF  THE  COVENANT.  211 

ever  the  ark  may  have  contained,  people  certainly  believed 
that,  wherever  it  was,  there  they  had  God  Himself  present. 
Wherever  it  halted  they  sacrificed  as  at  a  holy  place.  When 
it  went  forth  with  their  armies  it  was  believed  that  victory 
was  certain.^  And  it  was  thought  that,  being  identified  with 
the  presence  of  the  holy  God,  it  must  bring  death  and 
judgment  upon  the  foe  and  upon  all  unconsecrated  persons.^ 
Hence  it  was  called  the  ark  of  Jehovah,  and  also,  perhaps, 
from  the  priestly  oracle  attached  to  it,  the  ark  of  revelation. 
It  is  only  the  later  writers  who  soften  the  expression  into 
"  the  ark  of  the  covenant."  ^ 

ISTow  this  ark  of  the  covenant  gave  any  spot  on 
which  it  stood  *  the  distinction  of  being  the  true  national 
sanctuary.  It  was  not,  it  is  true,  enclosed  in  a  tabernacle 
such  as  A  describes.  No  matter  what  apologists  may  say, 
a  comparison  of  the  exertions  required  for  building  Solomon's 
temple^  shows  that  a  magnificent  structure,  such  as  we 
find  depicted  by  A,  cannot  have  been  erected  by  a  band 
of  roving  shepherds,  even  though  laden  with  the  spoils  of 
Egypt.  But,  above  all,  it  would  have  been  as  impossible  for 
Israel  to  take  the  ark  of  the  covenant  out  of  a  Holy  of  holies, 
such  as  A  imagines,  as  out  of  Solomon's  temple,  and  carry  it  off 
to  the  wars,  to  remain  away  perhaps  for  years.  Besides,  in  the 
narrative  of  the  building  of  the  temple,  there  is  no  allusion  to 
a  sanctuary  having  been  previously  constructed  at  God's  com- 
mand and  according  to  a  divine  pattern,  which  the  pious  builder 
of  the  temple  must  have  felt  constrained  to    copy  closely.^ 

1  1  Sam.  iv.  5  £F.;  2  Sam.  xi.  11,  2  j  gam.  yi.  14,  19. 

^  WellhaiTsen,  404. 

*  1  Sam.  i.-iii.,  vi.,  vii.  1  (Sliiloh,  Beth-shemesh,  Kirjatli-jearim),  2  Sam,  vi. 
(Zion). 

®  Even  though  we  set  aside  the  representation  in  Chronicles,  still  we  are  face 
to  face  with  a  strain  which  exhausts  the  nation  at  the  time  of  its  greatest 
prosperity.  What  sums  were  required  for  a  plain  chapel  is  shown  by  Judg. 
viii.  24  fl'.,  xvii.  2. 

^  Compare  the  original  simple  narrative,  1  Kings  vi.  (The  mention  of  "the 
tabernacle,"  viii.  4,  is  inserted  for  an  obvious  purpose) ;  2  Chron.  i.  3  ff, 
naturally  knows  of  the  tabernacle. 


212  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Moreover,  2  Sam.  vii.  2  knows  only  of  the  ark  dwelling 
within  curtains,  and  regards  the  tabernacle  made  by  David 
as  quite  in  keeping  with  the  ancient  custom.  And  the 
older  narrative  in  the  Pentateuch  knows  only  of  a  simple 
tent,  without  any  special  sanctity,  in  which  the  ark  was 
kept.i  The  tabernacle  in  A  is  an  ideal  expression  for  the 
holy  place  in  Israel.  The  description  of  it  is  not  a  delinea- 
tion of  an  actual  thing,  but  a  depicting  of  religious  thoughts 
borrowed  from  Solomon's  temple. 

But  the  tabernacle,  the  plain  structure  like  a  nomad's 
tent  in  which  the  sacred  ark  was  kept,^  became,  in  the  time 
of  the  Judges,  a  more  strongly  constructed  sanctuary  in  the 
territory  of  the  ruling  tribe  at  Shiloh.  And  this  sanctuar}'- 
was  the  place  of  the  national  worship  and  of  the  national 
priesthood.  It  is  expressly  called  a  house  of  God,  a  palace ;  ^ 
and  the  worship  was  carried  on  by  priests,  servants,  and 
attendant  women,*  and  had  a  definite  ritual,  important  privi- 
leges, and  large  revenues.^  As  yet  no  particular  respect 
was  paid  to  this  building.  At  least  neither  the  sitting-rooms 
nor  the  bed-rooms  of  the  high  priest  and  his  servants  appear 
to  have  been  at  any  distance  from  the  ark  of  God.^  Still  it 
was  the  spiritual  centre  of  Israel.  It  is  quite  clear  that  its 
main  importance  for  the  people  lay  in  its  having  the  oracle 
of  God,  which  they  believed  only  a  priest  with  an  ephod 
could  use.  It  was  such  an  oracle  as  Micah  and  the  Danites 
were  in  search  of,  when  they  also  furnished  their  sanctuaries 
with    an    ephod.      After    the     destruction     of     Nob,    David 

1  Ex.  xxxiii.  7.  "We  must  think  of  a  tent  such  as  Burkhardt  saw  among 
the  Turcomans  (Reisen,  voL  ii.  p.  1000),  or  still  better,  of  the  Sheik's  tent  on 
the  Square  at  Tantah  as  described  by  Bovet  {Reise  in  das  gelobte  Land  iibers. 
von  Jdnisch,  1866),— standing  in  the  middle  of  the  camp,  with  two  apartments 
and  an  uncovered  court  for  people  to  assemble  in,  and  so  "  a  tent  of  meeting." 

2  Ex.  xxxiii.  7,  of.  xxxv.  ff. 

»  Judg.  xviii.  31,  xix.  18  ^D'^H  ;  1  Sam.  i.  9.     According  to  2  Sam.  vii.  6, 
indeed,  God  must  have  dwelt  constantly  within  "curtains." 
*  Samuel  as  mtTD,  1  Sam.  iii. ;  the  women,  1  Sam.  ii.  22. 
»  1  Sam.  ii.  13  ff.  "^  1  Sam.  iii.  1  S. 


THE  TABERNACLE.  213 

welcomed  the  priest  with  the  ephod  to  his  camp.^  After 
Eli's  unsuccessful  war  with  the  Philistines,  the  sanctuary  at 
Shiloh  is  obviously  no  longer  in  existence.  Some  centuries 
later,  it  is  true,  the  place  Shiloh  is  again  mentioned,  and 
indeed  it  still  exists  in  ruins  under  the  name  Seiliin.  But 
it  does  not  follow  that  it  was  not  destroyed  at  that  time  and 
robbed  of  its  temple.  If  that  were  not  so,  why  was  the  ark 
of  God  not  taken  back  to  it  ?  ^  Why  throughout  the  whole 
history  of  Samuel  is  this,  the  place  of  his  youth,  never  once 
mentioned  again  ?  Why  did  Jeroboam  connect  his  new 
places  of  worship  with  the  sanctuaries  at  Bethel  and  Dan, 
but  not  with  Shiloh  ?  ^ 

The  remains  of  this  priesthood  we  next  find  at  Nob,  where 
Saul  dealt  it  a  fatal  blow.  There,  too,  there  was  a  well-built 
house  in  which,  for  instance,  the  sword  of  Goliath  was  pre- 
served, and  in  which  there  was  room  for  fugitives  and  for  such 
as  were  under  vows.  We  also  incidentally  see,  from  the 
narrative,  that  there  was  in  the  sanctuary  a  table  with  shew- 
bread,  which  was  renewed  daily,  and  then  became  the  priests', 
but  which  could,  in  exceptional  cases,  be  given  to  one 
not  a  priest,  provided  he  were  "  clean."  *  But  since  this 
shrine  had  not  the  ark  of  the  covenant,  it  certainly  never 
became  very  important.  AVhen  David  brought  the  ark  into 
his  own  city,  at  first  only  to  a  tent,  the  sacred  character  of 
Jerusalem  was  definitely  settled.  This  was  confirmed  by  the 
building  of  the  temple  on  the  site  already  consecrated  by  the 
sacrifices  which  David  had  offered.  At  first,  however,  this 
had  no  more  effect  in  causing  the  other  holy  places  to  fall 
into  disuse  than  the  sanctuary  at  Shiloh  had  previously  had. 

9.  If  any  one  wishes  to  get  a  true  idea  of  the  conduct 
expected  in  ancient  Israel  of  a  just,  straightforward,  pious, 
and  sensible  man,  he  must  not  turn  his  attention  first 
to   the   commandments   in   the    Pentateuch,  least   of   all   to 

'  1  Sam.  xiv.  37,  xxi.  1  ;  2  Sam.  ii.  1  ;  1  Kings  iv.  4.  ^1  Sam.  vii.  2. 

3  1  Kings  xi.  29,  xiv.  2  (Jer.  vii.  12,  xxvi.  61i'.).  *  1  Sam.  xxi.  5  ff. 


214  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

their  final  form  as  given  in  A.  Written  commandments  can 
scarcely  have  had  much  influence  in  early  times ;  and  where 
they  had,  they  can  only  have  been  very  simple  directions  as  to 
national  customs.  We  must  first  of  all  study  the  ideal  figures 
of  the  patriarchs,  and  the  traits  particularly  prominent  in  the 
greatest  religious  characters  of  the  earlier  ages,  and  then  care- 
fully note  which  sides  of  the  moral  nature  are  most  frequently 
and  distinctly  dealt  with  in  the  oldest  songs  and  proverbs. 

The  root  of  all  morality  is  the  fear  of  God.^  All  true 
moral  action  is  briefly  summed  up  in  these  simple  words :  to 
walk  faithfully,  justly,  and  honestly  "  before  God "  and 
"  with  God."  ^  From  this  spring  the  virtues  characteristic 
of  genuine  morality,  viz.  humility,^  gentleness,^  pity  ^  even 
for  animals,*^  long-suffering  and  patience,'^  filial  affection.^ 
To  do  intentional  injury  to  one  who  might  become  an 
enemy  would  not  be  right.^  To  do  anything  unjust  ^^  or 
deceitful  ^^  would  be  wrong.  Drunkenness  is  condemned,  for 
"  wine  is  a  mocker,"  ^-  also  unchastity,^^  and  pride.^^  A  corner 
in  grain,  and  usury  in  general,  is  specially  abhorred.^^  To 
rejoice  at  another's  misfortune  is  censurable.  In  fact,  It  is 
considered  wrong  to  return  evil  for  evil.^*^  It  becomes  an 
Israelite  ^"^  to  be  truthful,  and  to  abstain  from  slandering  his 
neighbour,  in  a  word  to  show  "  mercy  and  truth."  ^^     Such 

^  Ex.  i.  17,  21,  ix.  20,  xviii.  21  ;  Gen.  xxii.  15  ff.,  xlii.  18;  cf.  Prov.  xiv. 
2,  26,  XV,  16,  xix.  23  ;  cf.  Prov.  xvi.  3,  xx.  22. 
-  Gen.  V.  22,  vi.  9,  xvii.  1 ;  1  Kings  iii.  6, 
"  Prov.  xviii.  12,  xxii.  4. 

*  Prov.  xi.  25,  xix.  17,  xiv.  31,  xvii.  5,  xxi.  13,  xxii.  9. 
^  Prov.  xiv.  21.  ^  Prov.  xii.  10. 

7  Prov.  xiv.  29  f.,  xix.  11.  *  Prov.  xix.  26,  xx.  20  (Ps.  xv.  4). 

9  Ps.  vii.  5.  ^*  Prov.  xviii.  5. 

"  Prov.  xi.  1,  XX.  10,  23.  ^^  pj-oy,  xx.  1. 

1^  Prov.  xxii.  14.  "  Prov.  xi.  2,  xiii.  10,  xvi.  5,  18,  xxi.  4. 

15  Prov.  xi.  26  (Ps.  xv.  5).  "  Prov.  xx.  22. 

17  Prov.  X.  18,  xii.  17,  19  ;  Ps.  xv.  4. 

■"*  nJDSI  "IDn,  Prov.  xiv.  22,  xvi.  6  {lon  contrasted  with  cruelty,  Prov. 
xiv.  7)  ;  cf.  Gen.  xxiv.  49,  xlvii.  29  ;  Josh.  ii.  12,  14  (1  Sam.  xxvi.  23)  ; 
2  Sam.  XV.  20  (of  God,  2  Sam.  ii.  6)  (iu  Ps.  xii.  2  l''cn  and  D^'JV.rS  are 
parallel). 


THE  MORAL  IDEAL.  215 

conduct  is  better  than  sacrifice.^  Honest  dealing  brings 
happiness  ;  for  poverty  with  love  is  better  than  riches  with 
hatred.2  Marriage  is  represented  in  Gen.  ii.  as  a  divinely- 
appointed  union  of  equals  for  life-long  help,  although  the 
right  of  the  husband  to  rule  is  distinctly  asserted.  The 
servile  position  of  woman  is  due  to  sin. 

The  description  we  get  of  the  ideal  figures  also  corresponds 
in  the  main  with  these  fundamental  characteristics.  Abraham 
is  represented  as  being  as  pious  as  he  is  magnanimous ; 
unselfish,  brave,  faithful  to  the  duties  of  kinship,  as  well  as 
to  every  covenant  he  enters  into.^  To  avoid  a  quarrel  with 
his  kinsman,  he  generously  gives  up  his  own  right.*  Being 
fair  and  upright,  he  does  not  allow  the  rights  of  his  spouse  to 
be  infringed,  even  when  his  heart  yearns  for  the  handmaid 
who  has  borne  him  an  heir.^  He  shows  himself  hospitable 
and  polite  to  the  angels,^  just  as  his  nephew  Lot  also  displays 
a  hospitality  which  is  ready  to  sacrifice  life  and  honour  hi 
defence  of  a  guest.''  His  gentle  and  merciful  disposition 
makes  him  pray  earnestly  even  for  Sodom  on  the  eve  of  its 
destruction.^  In  a  word,  as  we  are  told  in  the  style  of  a 
later  age,  he  kept  the  commandments  and  statutes  of  God, 
and  taught  his  descendants  to  keep  them.^  He  is  the  beau 
ideal  of  true  morality.  Elsewhere,  in  the  patriarchal  legend, 
filial  reverence  is  specially  emphasised,^**  and  woman  is  praised 
for  her  readiness  to  serve  and  for  her  chastity.^^  And  in  the 
history  we  meet  with  the  fiercest  indignation  against  insolent 
violation  of  female  honour  and  of  the  law  of  hospitality.^^ 
The  relations  with  servants  appear  to  have  been  mild  and 
humane.^^     That  woman  had  a  somewhat   free   position,  in 


^  Prov.  xxi.  3,  cf.  xv.  8,  xxi.  27.  ^  Prov.  xv.  16  f.,  xvii.  1. 
3  Gen.  xiv.  14  ff. ,  20  ff.  ^  Gen.  xiii.  8. 

5  Gen.  xvi.  6  (xxi.  12).  «  Gen.  xviii.  2  ff. 
7  Gen.  xix.  1  ff.  (cf.  Judg.  xix.  23).  «  Gen.  xviii.  23  ff. 

9  Gen.  xviii.  19  (xxvi.  5,  24),  "  Gen.  ix.  23. 

"  Gen.  xxiv.  17 ff.,  65  f.  ^-  Judg.  xix.  30. 
^^  Gen.  xxiv.,  cf.  xiv.  14,  xv.  2. 


216  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

comparison  with  the  slavish  condition  of  Oriental  wives  in 
later  times,  is  proved  by  figures  like  Miriam,  Deborah, 
Abigail,  and  the  virgin  in  Canticles.^  We  must  likewise 
bear  in  mind  David's  wonderful  submission  to  the  divine 
will,^  his  heroic  readiness  to  take  God's  wrath  upon  himself, 
that  it  might  not  fall  upon  his  people,^  his  humble  submission 
to  the  word  of  God,*  his  sorrow  at  the  death  even  of  his 
rebellious  son,^  his  magnanimity  and  his  respect  for  God's 
anointed,^  and  his  touching  friendship  unto  death  for 
Jonathan.'^  His  strong  sense  of  equity  shows  itself  in  the 
way  he  divides  the  spoil.^  Breaches  of  the  law  and  of  usage, 
even  though  by  a  royal  offender,  constantly  excite  fierce 
indignation  in  Israel.^  The  true  king  of  Israel  takes  the 
field  in  defence  of  "  truth,  and  meekness,  and  righteousness."  ^^ 
This  moral  ideal,  so  far  as  we  are  able  to  judge,  became 
more  and  more  spiritual  down  to  the  Assyrian  period,  but 
it  did  not  change.  In  later  times  also  the  greatest  stress  is 
laid  upon  filial  affection.^^  In  the  Book  of  Ruth  we  get  a 
view  of  the  marriage  relationship  as  naive  and  free  as  it  is 
morally  strict.^^  The  model  housewife  is  shown  us  in  Prov. 
xxxi.  10—31,  and  such  a  faithful  performance  of  duty  is 
regarded  as  the  fear  of  God  (ver.  30).  The  rights  of  the 
poor,  of  widows,  orphans,  and  strangers  are  everywhere  looked 
upon  as  sacred.^^  "  Wisdom "  warns  against  unchastity, 
deceit,  causeless  strife,  falsehood,  and  mischief-making,^*  and 
persuades  to  "  mercy  and  truth,"  ^^  And  Job  describes  his 
own  character  in  a  particularly  instructive  manner.     Without 

^  Ex.  XV.  20 ;  Judg.  iv.  4,  xi.  34  ;  1  Sam.  xxv. 

2  2  Sam.  XV.  25,  xvi.  11  ff.,  xxiv.  14. 

3  2  Sam.  xxiv.  17.  ■*  2  Sam.  vii.  18,  xii.  13,  xv.  23. 
^  2  Sam.  xix.  1.                                         ®  1  Sam.  xxiv. 

7  1  Sam.  xviii.  3,  xx.  8,  16,  42,  xxiii.  16  IF.  ;  2  Sam.  i.  26 ;  Prov.  xviii.  24. 

8  1  Sam.  XXX.  23  ff.  »  2  Sam.  xii.  ;  1  Kings  xxi.  19. 

10  Ps.  xiv.  5,  8.  "  Kuth  i.  16  (Deut.  xxi.  18  ff. ;  Ezek.  xxii.  7  ff.). 

1"  Ruth  ii.  20,  iii.  1  ff.,  9,  12,  iv.  3  ff.,  10,  14  (Ps.  cxxvii.  3  ;  Ezek.  xviii.  5  ff.). 

"  Ps.  xxxvii.  12,  21,  26,  xii.  2ff.  ;  Amos  ii.  6,  v.  12  ;  Dent.  xxii.  28  ff. 

"  Prov.  iii.  29,  iv.  24  ff.,  v.  3  ff.,  vi.  12,  14,  20,  24  ff.,  vii.  5  ff.,  viii.  13. 

J»  Prov.  iii.  3,  27,  viii.  7. 


THE  MORAL  IDEAL.  217 

hypocrisy  and  fearing  no  man,  strictly  pure  even  in  thought ; 
a  terror  to  the  scorner,  devoted  to  the  cause  of  the  oppressed 
and  the  poor ;  strictly  just  towards  inferiors,  from  a  full  con- 
sciousness that,  as  men,  they  have  the  same  rights  as  himself ; 
even  towards  an  enemy  neither  malicious  nor  malevolent, 
charitable  even  to  forgetfulness  of  self;  such  is  his  sketch  of 
the  ideal  just  man.^  And  in  a  long  array  of  psalms  we  meet 
with  the  self-same  pictvire  of  the  unselfish  upright  man,  who 
never  oppresses,  and  is  the  sworn  foe  of  usury  and  deceit.^ 

While  the  moral  ideal  of  Mosaism  is  in  many  respects 
similar  to  that  of  prophetism,  it  nevertheless  shows  important 
dissimilarities,  even  in  reference  to  the  features  just  mentioned, 
not  to  speak  of  its  divergences  from  a  perfect  morality. 
Many  characteristics  are  mentioned  without  censure  as  being 
quite  common  among  men  in  the  highest  position,  which 
show  how  hard  it  is  for  a  real  morality  to  force  its  way  even 
in  theory  through  the  customs  of  a  national  life,  that  has  just 
grown  up  naturally  and  is  anything  but  highly  developed.  I 
shall  briefly  refer  to  what  has  been  already  mentioned.  It 
is  not  considered  anything  extraordinary  for  a  man  to  be  a 
coward,  deceitful  to  strangers,^  or  unfaithful  as  a  husband.^ 
Excessive  indulgence  in  wine  is  mentioned  as  a  thing  to  be 
expected  at  a  feast.^  An  act  of  violence  excites  no  surprise.^ 
Sexual  licence  is  regarded  as  so  natural  that  not  only  is  it 
mentioned  in  the  case  of  Samson  the  ISTazirite  without 
censure,'^  but  it  lies  at  the  foundation  of  the  whole  story  of 

^  Job  xxix.  12-17,  xxxi. 

^  Ps.  XV.,  xxiv.,  xxxiv.  14  fF.,  xxxvii.  21,  26,  xli.  2,  cxii.  4,  9,  cxxxiii. ; 
Prov.  xi.  26,  xvii.  14,  xx.  10  ;  Isa.  xxxiii.  15  ff.  In  Ezek.  xviii.  5  ff.,  xxii. 
5ff.,  xxxiii.  25,  more  emphasis  is  already  laid  on  Levitical  purity, 

^  Gen.  xii.  13  ff.,  xxvi.  7  ff.,  xxvii.  6  ff .  (It  is  only  the  fear  of  being 
discovered  that  makes  Jacob  hesitate,  not  moral  considerations.) 

*  Gen.  xvi.,  xxx.  18  (the  giving  of  the  handmaid  to  be  concubine  is  con- 
sidered a  meritorious  act.  Marriage  itself,  i.e.  the  husband's  right  of  possession, 
is  considered  all  the  more  sacred).  Gen.  xx.  3,  6,  xxxix.  10,  12;  the  disagree- 
able story  in  1  Kings  i.  1  ff. 

5  Gen.  ix.  21,  24,  xliii.  34  ;  2  Sam.  xi.  18.  ^  j^^g  ^viii.  7ff.,  24fl'. 

^  Judg.  xvi.  1,  etc. 


218  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Judali  and  Tamar,  as  the  natural  assumption  on  wliich  Tamar's 
scheme  is  based.^  So  inveterate  is  violence  on  the  part  of 
a  blood-avenger  that  it  can  only  be  hallowed  and  regulated, 
not  abolished.2  Cruelty  in  war  is  regarded  as  a  matter  of 
course.^  Men  exult  quite  openly  in  revenge  and  treachery.* 
The  magnanimity  of  David  who  does  not  forget,  even  as 
regards  his  arch  -  enemy,  the  respect  due  to  "  God's 
anointed "  is  regarded  as  something  quite  extraordinary,^ 
That  he  loves  those  who  hate  him  is  actually  reckoned 
a  proof  that  he  is  not  to  be  trusted.^  Even  he  rejoices  over 
Nabal's  death,'^  and  on  his  very  death-bed  he  seeks  vengeance 
on  his  enemies.^  Suicide,  without  being  exactly  described  as 
morally  justifiable,  is  nevertheless  mentioned  with  all  the 
frankness  characteristic  of  the  ancient  point  of  view.^  David's 
dreadful  robber-raids  from  Ziklag,  and  his  alliance  with  the 
national  foe,  are  thought  quite  natural,  as  well  as  his  deter- 
mination to  destroy  the  whole  family  of  Nabal,  simply  because 
he  had  refused  to  pay  black-mail  to  the  outlawed  freebooter.^'* 
In  short,  in  the  ideal  actually  regarded  by  the  people  as  repre- 
senting a  high  morality,  many  traits  of  a  strong,  uncorrupted, 
but  rough  nationality  of  a  thoroughly  Oriental  type  were 
combined  with  the  fundamental  thoughts  of  a  higher  religion. 
This  is  particularly  well  seen  from  the  way  in  which  the 
very  word  which  denotes  the  highest  religious  and  moral 
wisdom  can  also  be  employed  to  denote  mere  worldly  shrewd- 
ness and,  in  fact,  artful  cunning.^^ 

The  early  narratives    know  nothing    of  a   comprehensive 

i  Gen.  xxxviii.  15fiF.,  20,  21. 

2  Gen.  ix. ;  Num.  xxxv.  6ff. ;  Josh.  xx.  (2  Sam.  iii.  27,  xiv.  7,  11). 

3  1  Kings  xi.  16  ;  Judg.  i.  6  ;  2  Sam.  xii.  31,  viii.  2. 
*  Judg.  iii.  20  f.,  iv,  12,  17,  v.  25  If.  (Ps.  xli.  11). 

'  1  Sam.  xxiv.  20. 

*"  2  Sam.  xix.  6.     Still  there  is  in  this  case  also  the  justifiable  censure  that 
David  sets  his  private  grief  above  the  public  weal. 

7  1  Sam.  XXV.  39.  8  i  Kings  ii.  .5  ff.,  8  (Ps.  iii.  8). 

9  Judg.  ix.  54,  xvi.  29  ff. ;  1  Sam.  xxxi.  4  If . ;  2  Sam.  xvii.  23. 
10  1  Sam.  xxvii.  9,  xxv.  13  ff. 
"  2  Sam.  xiii.  3,  xiv.  2,  xx.  16  ;  cf.  Prov.  xi.  15,  xiii.  3  f.,  xvii.  18,  xx.  2,  16. 


THE  DECALOGUE.  219 

moral  law  of  God  for  the  ancestors  of  Israel.  It  is  in  A  that 
we  first  find  the  significant  formulas :  ^  to  be  blameless,  and 
to  walk  before  God  and  with  God,  i.e.  so  that  the  presence 
of  God  may  always  give  the  life  the  right  direction.  But  the 
oldest  form  of  the  account  we  have  received  of  the  making  of 
the  covenant  on  Sinai  already  sums  up  in  the  classical  form 
of  the  ten  commandments  the  religious  and  moral  demands 
which  result  from  the  holiness  of  the  people,  from  its  dedica- 
tion to  the  holy  God.  This  series  of  commands  runs  like 
a  text  in  various  forms  all  through  the  middle  books  of  the 
Pentateuch,  and  in  the  prophetic  law  it  is  made  the  sacred 
foundation  of  Israelitish  morality.^  The  "  decalogue  "  form 
was  undoubtedly  intended  from  the  first,^  and  on  fuller 
examination  similar  "  decalogues  "  are  found  elsewhere  also 
in  the  law-books.  Hence  Goethe  already  noticed  that  Ex. 
xxxiv.  10  ff.  contains  a  decalogue.  So  does  Deut.  xxvii.  15  ff., 
as  soon  as  one  combines  the  prohibitions  in  vers.  22  and  23 
of  marriage  with  a  sister  and  with  a  mother-in-law. 

Now  the  idea  that  our  decalogue  actually  goes  right  back 
to  Moses,  and  was  from  the  beginning  the  fundamental  law 
of  Israel,  is  one  so  closely  connected  with  the  traditional 
view  of  the  Old  Testament  that  it  goes  sorely  against  the 
grain  to  give  it  up.  But  it  will  always  remain  impossible  to 
explain  how  the  worship  of  God,  by  means  of  images,  as 
was  the  unopposed  custom  in  all  Israel  before  the  time  of 
Solomon,  and  in  the  northern  kingdom  till  its  fall,  can  be 
reconciled  with  the  hypothesis  of  such  a  fundamental  law 
being  in  existence.  And  that  wnll,  at  any  rate,  raise  the 
question  whether  the  combination  in  this  form  of  the 
fundamental  thoughts  of  Old  Testament  morality  was  not 
originally  the  product  of  an  age  in  which  the  worship  of 
God  without  images  in  the  national  sanctuary  had  to  struggle 
against  the  customs  natural  to  earlier  times.     That  will  be 

1  Gen.  V.  22,  vi.  9,  xvii.  1.  -  Deut.  v.  6  ff. 

3  Ex.  xxxiv.  23  (Deut.  iv.  13,  x.  4).     For  the  Greek  title,  cf.  Geffken,  p.  9. 


220  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

the  more  readily  acknowledged  as  possible,  if  it  is  borne  in 
mind  that  the  commandment  about  the  Sabbath  in  Ex.  xx. 
certainly  lies  before  us  in  a  form  that  has  been  influenced 
by  A.  One  might  then  assume  that  the  oldest  compilations 
of  the  national  laws,  somewhat  after  the  manner  of  Ex.  xxxiv. 
(which,  it  is  true,  also  forbids  molten  images),  must  have 
been  directed  more  to  the  details  of  sacred  usage,^  and  that 
an  age  of  more  self-conscious  and  concentrated  religious 
feeling  first  substituted  this  enduring  model  for  the  more 
imperfect  forms.  But,  at  all  events,  these  ten  command- 
ments give  the  moral  ideas  of  the  Mosaic  religion  an 
expression  as  brief  as  it  is  exhaustive,  and  the  leading  ideas 
in  them  certainly  agree  with  what  Israel  was  accustomed, 
even  in  those  days,  to  regard  as  Jehovah's  will :  to  serve  no 
other  God  but  Jehovah ;  to  abstain  from  the  worship  of 
idols ;  not  to  take  God's  name  in  vain ;  to  keep  His  Sabbath ; 
to  show  honour  to  parents,  and  respect  to  life,  marriage, 
and  the  property  of  one's  neighbour,  and  to  abstain  from  all 
intrigues  against  him  even  when  seemingly  legitimate. 


CHAPTEE  XIII. 

THE  ASSYRIAN  PERIOD,  800-630  B.C. 

1.  Towards  the  end  of  the  ninth  century  the  prosperous 
state  of  things  which  seemed  in  the  time  of  David  and  Solomon 
to  contain  within  it  all  the  conditions  necessary  for  the  ideal 
development  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  was  broken  up  bit  by 

^  There  the  extermination  of  the  Canaanites,  the  redemption  of  the  first-born, 
the  feast  of  unleavened  bread,  the  prohibition  of  molten  images,  the  three 
annual  feasts,  the  Sabbath,  the  prohibition  of  leaven  in  the  sacrifices,  and 
against  leaving  anything  over  from  the  Passover  meal,  the  off'ering  of  firstlings, 
and  the  command  not  to  seethe  a  kid  in  its  mother's  milk,  are  all  mentioned  at 
the  making  of  the  covenant  as  fundamental  laws.  (Cf.  Wellhausen,  Jahrb.  f. 
deutsche  Theol.  1876,  4,  p.  551  ff.) 


THE  DOWNFALL  OF  ISRAEL.  221 

bit.  When  the  unity  of  the  kingdom  ceased,  and  with  it 
unity  of  worship,  the  idea  of  Israel  as  "  the  people  of  God  " 
either  disappeared  altogether,  or  was  reduced  to  such  small 
proportions  that  it  seemed  but  the  shadow  of  its  former  glory. 
In  the  northern  kingdom  there  prevailed  a  sensuous  adoration 
of  Jehovah,^  along  with  actual  worship  of  Baal  and  Ashera,  a 
worship  which  rapidly  developed  under  the  influence  of  the 
victorious  neighbour  peoples.^  The  powerful  guilds  of  prophets 
that  had  flourished  under  the  leadership  of  Elijah  and  Elisha 
had  perished.  The  kings  of  Israel,  who  looked  at  things  from 
a  purely  political  standpoint,  could  no  longer  tolerate  such 
fanatical  advocates  of  Jehovah.  We  now  meet  with  prophets 
of  a  different  stamp.  These  perceive  that  it  is  impossible 
for  the  people  to  remain  longer  in  the  religious  vagueness 
which  had  hitherto  satisfied  them,  and  that  deliverance  can 
be  achieved  only  by  the  restoration  of  national  unity,  and  by 
adherence  to  the  spiritual,  non-idolatrous  worship  of  Jehovah 
at  Jerusalem. 

To  these  men  Baal,  as  a  name  of  God,  becomes  unendur- 
able, and  every  comparison  of  the  religion  of  Jehovah  with 
the  Semitic  nature-religion  a  sin.^  For  that  very  reason, 
however,  their  work  in  the  northern  kingdom  is  no  longer 
encouraged  but  hindered.  Henceforth  they  labour  at  great 
personal  risk,  and  encounter  many  obstacles.*  Most  of  them 
come,  though  only  for  a  time,  from  Judah,  in  order  to  make 
a  last  effort  to  save  the  degraded  sister-kingdom.^  In  the 
southern  kingdom  we  see  civil  mishaps  of  every  sort,  perhaps 

^  In  Gilgal,  Bethel,  Dan,  and  Beershebain  Judah,  Hos.  viii.  4,  5,  x.  5  ;  Amos 
iv.  5,  T.  5,  viii.  14.  Amos  and  Hosea  do  not  reckon  it  a  worshipping  of  Jehovah 
at  all.  For  them  Beth-El  has  become  Beth-Aven.  But  the  high  priest  at  Bethel 
is  called  Amaziah,  that  is  to  say,  he  is  a  priest  of  Jehovah.  On  the  religious 
Syncretism  which  Hosea  takes  for  granted,  cf.  Duhm,  p.  128  f. 

-  Hos.  i.-iii.,  iv.  11  ff.,  ix.,  xi.  2,  xiii.  1. 

^  Hos.  iv.  11,  viii.  5,  xiii.  1,  2,  xiv.  4. 

*  E.g.  Hos.  iv.  4  ;  Amos  vii.  10  ff. ;  Zech.  xi.  4  fF. 

*  So  Amos  vii.  14,  cf,  i.  1  ;  Zech.  xi.  4,  17.  On  the  other  hand,  Hosea  appears 
to  belong  by  birth  to  northern  Israel  (i.  3-11,  v.  1,  xi.  1,  xii.  1,  etc.). 


222  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

even  temporary  subjection  to  Israel,^  but  nevertheless  a 
continued  attachment,  not  only  to  the  old  ideal  of  religion 
in  David's  family,  which  once  more  possessed,  in  rulers  like 
Uzziah  and  Jotham,  good  vigorous  members,  but  also  to  the 
non-idolatrous  worship  of  God  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem.^ 
This  city  now  begins  to  prove  itself  more  and  more 
the  all-powerful  centre  of  the  little  kiugdora,  although, 
it  is  true,  idolatry  raises  its  shameless  head  close  beside 
the  temple  in  which  the  name  of  Jehovah  is  named,  and 
moral  aberrations  of  every  sort  make  their  appearance  in 
the  prosperous  capital  as  it  grows  into  a  great  commercial 
centre. 

It  was  a  time  of  sad  declension,  when  it  was  very  natural 
that  men  should  either  look  back  with  longing  eyes  to 
the  glories  of  the  past  or  turn  an  eager  gaze  towards  the 
ideal  of  a  better  future.  The  ancient  glory  of  the  nation 
was  now  described  with  special  delight.  The  history  of 
the  patriarchs  and  of  the  Mosaic  age  was  by  this  time 
completed,  at  least  as  regards  its  older  constituent  parts.  By 
the  union  of  B  and  C  these  were  now  put,  at  any  rate 
for  the  time  being,  into  a  finished  literary  form.  The 
prophets  of  this  age,  too,  such  as  Hosea,  show  a  particularly 
lively  interest  in  the  happy  time  of  Israel's  youth.^ 
The  figure  of  David,  the  great  hero-king,  was  now  painted 
in  brighter  colours  than  ever,  his  youth  especially  being 
surrounded  with  a  halo  of  poetry.  The  great  men  of 
God  in  the  northern  kingdom,  Elijah  and  Elisha,  were  now 
set  before  the  eyes  of  the  people  in  splendid  pictures  of 
marvellous  sublimity.  And  at  the  same  time  men  began, 
with  a  glow  of  ardour  never  felt  before,  to  hope  that  still 
more  glorious  days  were  in  store  for  Israel  in  an  age  of  ideal 
perfection ;  and  it  was  with  the  house  of  David,  despite  its 

^E.g.2  Kings  viii.  20  ff.,  xii.  17f.,  xiv.  11  fiF.,  etc. 

^  On  the  merits  of  the  priesthood  at  Jerusalem,  cf.  Kuenen,  i.  337  ff. 

^  Hos.  X.  9,  xi.  1,  xii.  3f.  (Isa.  i.  9  f.). 


ASSYRIA.  223 

present  low  estate,  that  this  hope  became  ever  more  and 
more  closely  associated.^ 

It  was  certainly  a  time  when  it  was  still  possible  to  hope 
that  the  salvation  of  the  future  might  develop,  without  violent 
revolution,  out  of  existing  circumstances,  and  that  after  a  long 
succession  of  divine  punishments,  and  especially  after  the 
break-up  of  the  despotic  monarchy  in  the  north,  a  new  Davidic 
age  might  again  arrive.  In  the  northern  kingdom  men 
looked  with  hopeful  eyes  to  the  southern,  which  was  at  times 
at  least  in  a  relatively  healthier  condition ;  -  while  in  the 
southern  they  hojDcd  to  see,  as  soon  as  ever  the  repentance 
and  faith  of  the  people  rendered  the  mercy  of  God  possible, 
the  sun  of  the  new  era  shining  out  from  behind  the  passing 
clouds  of  divine  chastisement.  As  long  as  the  enemies  of  the 
two  Israelitish  kingdoms  were  only  petty  States,  really  not  a 
whit  more  powerful  than  either  of  the  two  taken  separately ; 
as  long  as  Egypt  was  reduced  to  impotence  by  internal 
dissension,  and  the  petty  neighbouring  kingdoms  mentioned 
by  Amos  were  the  only  foes,^  the  terribly  serious,  nay  the 
inexorable,  character  of  the  divine  judgment  was  never  fully 
realised.  It  was  very  dififerent  when,  in  the  plenitude  of 
imperial  power,  Assyria  confronted  Israel  on  the  stage  of 
history.  It  then  became  evident  to  all  who  were  taught  of 
God  that  God's  ways  with  this  people  v/ere  rapidly  nearing 
the  final  catastrophe,  that  the  Israel  of  the  present  had  been 
weicjhed  in  the  balances  and  found  wanting. 

2.  The  first  time  Assyria  played  an  important  part  in 
Israel's  history  was  when  king  Pul  (Tiglath-Pileser)  turned 
his  victorous  arms  against  Menahem,  king  of  Israel,  about 
768  B.C.*  This  first  blow  did  the  northern  kingdom  irrepar- 
able damage.  It  never  recovered  its  former  strength. 
Compelled  to   take   sides  with   one   or  other   of   the   world 

^  Hos.  iii.  5,  vi.  1  fF.,  xiii.  14,  xiv.  1  ff.  ;  Amos  ix.  11  ff. 

^  Hos.  iii.  5,  iv.  15  ;  Amos  ix.  11  ;  Zech.  ix.  7ff. 

3  Amos  i.  3  ff.,  vi.  2  ff.  *  2  Kings  xv.  19  ;  1  Chron.  xv.  6-17. 


224  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

empires,  it  oscillated  with  pitiable  indecision  between  Assyria 
and  Egypt,  and  thus  brought  down  on  itself  all  the  more 
heavily  the  suspicion  and  vengeance  of  the  great  king. 
Internal  dissensions  shattered  the  national  strength.  The 
wildest  disorder,  terrible  degeneracy,  and  utter  dissolution  of 
social  bonds,  were  the  results  of  this  party  strife,  and  of  the 
State's  short-sighted  and  vacillating  policy.^  To  protect  them- 
selves from  Assyria,  the  people  entered  into  alliance  with 
their  former  foes  the  Syrians,  and  breaking  the  peace  with 
Judah,  which  it  had  taken  so  much  trouble  to  make,  they 
began  a  civil  war.^  The  vengeance  of  Tiglath-Pileser  was 
sudden  and  fell.^  The  northern  kingdom  was  given  up  by 
Jehovah.'*  Ephraim  had  to  die  because  of  his  apostasy  from 
the  true  God.^  Henceforth  the  holy  people  was  in  Judah  alone. 
By  the  victorious  campaign  of  Shalmaneser,  an  end  was  put  to 
the  convulsive  struggles  of  the  dying  state.^  Samaria  fell  into 
the  hands  of  his  successor,  Sargon,  at  the  very  commencement 
of  his  reign.  Death  set  in,  that  is,  the  dissolution  of  the 
State,  and  then  mortification, — the  scattering  by  exile  of  the 
individual  atoms.  That  the  mass  of  the  lower  classes  remained 
behind,  and  subsequently  formed  the  material  for  "  Judaising" 
Galilee,  and  that  under  Assyrian  suzerainty  the  country  had  still 
a  certain  autonomy,  has  no  bearing  on  the  religion  of  Israel. 

Ephraim,  however,  although  actually  dead,  still  lived  on  in 
the  hopes  of  the  best.  At  a  later  stage,  when  the  time  of 
Judah's  suffering  began,  men  like  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel  turned 
their  eyes  with  special  expectation  and  love  towards  that 
noble  branch  of  Joseph  which  had  been  sold  to  the  Gentiles, 
but  must  be  again  won  back.  Even  Hosea  could  not  bring 
himself  to  believe  that  the  God  who  loved  Ephraim  would 
pronounce  upon  His  people  a  final  judgment  of  rejection.'' 

1  E.g.  Hos.  iv.  8  ff.,  vii.  ff.  ;  Zech.  xi.  8  ff.  "  Isa.  vii.-xi. 

3  2  Kings  XV.  29.                  *  Zech.  xi.  9  flf.  ^  Hos.  xiii.  1  ff. 
"  2  Kings  xvii.  3  ff. 

7  Jer.  iii.  10  ff ,  xx.xi.  9,  15  ;  Ezek.  xxxvii. ;  cf.  Hos.  xi.  8,  xiv.  2ff. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  RELICxION.  225 

Meantime  the  southern  kingdom  is  in  a  plight  almost 
equally  sad.  The  remains  of  ancient  power  which  had  been 
wisely  strengthened  and  husbanded  by  Uzziah  and  Jotham  ^ 
are  quickly  lost  under  the  childish  and  profligate  rule  of  Ahaz.^ 
While  Jehovali  is  outwardly  worshipped,  idolatry  and  super- 
stition of  every  sort  grow  rampant.  Childish  levity  goes 
liand  in  hand  with  faint-heartedness  and  unbelief.^  Even 
the  appearance  of  independence  is  purchased  only  by  shame- 
i'ul  submission  to  the  demands  of  the  Assyrian  empire. 
The  son  of  David  becomes  an  Assyrian  vassal.*  Hence 
IVIicah  prophesies  that  even  here  no  deliverance  is  possible 
save  through  death,  while  Isaiah  foretells  at  least  a  sifting  of 
the  most  terrible  kind,  when  the  land  would  be  made  waste 
and  desolate.^     Here  also  the  end  seems  near. 

Nevertheless  in  this  case  the  end  neither  would  nor  coidd 
come  as  yet.  In  this  small,  h^^miliated,  degraded  people  there 
were  still  at  work  forces  of  so  powerful  and  divine  a  character 
that  the  old  trunk  could  once  more  show  signs  of  life.  Hence 
Amos  and  Hosea  already  looked  to  Judah,  full  of  hope  and 
sympathy.  But  it  is  pre-eminently  men  like  Isaiah  wdio  now 
become  the  saviours  of  the  people.  For  the  development  of 
religion,  this  time  of  danger  and  distress,  a  time  that  stripped 
the  splendid  covering  off  many  tilings  hitherto  greatly  prized, 
proved  to  be  of  the  very  greatest  and  most  far-reaching  im- 
portance. Turning  away  from  merely  outward  worship, 
which  was  seen  to  be  but  a  worthless,  hypocritical,  and  even 
blasphemous  caricature,  when  combined,  as  it  had  been, 
with  unblushing  disloyalty  to  Jehovah,  people  began  to  have 
tlieir  attention  directed  to  that  which  alone  gives  value  to 
worship — to  the  worshipper's  disposition,  honesty,  and  faith. 
The  mere  outward  performance  of  sacred  rites  had  proved 
empty  and  hollow,  where  it  could  continue  its  hypocritical 

1  2  Kings  xiv.  21  ff.,  xv.  33  ff.  '^  2  Kings  xvi.  (Isa.  vii.  ff.). 

2  Isa.  i.  Iff".;  2  Kings  xvi.  2  f .  ^2  Kings  xvi.  7  H'. 
'  Micah  iii.  12  ;  cf.  Isa.  vii.  17,  20  ;  xxviii.-xxxii. 

VOL.  I.  P 


•226  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

existence  alongside  of  a  degraded  type  of  character.  Hence 
the  prophets  insisted  on  singleness  of  moral  purpose,  on 
mercy  and  truth,  and  taught  that  the  value  of  every  indi* 
vidual  act  depends  on  what  is  the  centre  of  the  inner  life. 
Old  popular  customs  were  transformed  into  prophetic  law, 
which  found  incomparable  expression  in  the  moral  teaching 
of  the  great  prophets,  and  afterwards  in  Deuteronomy.  For 
certain  as  it  is  that  the  earlier  times  were  not  under  law  in 
the  Levitical  sense,  it  is  equally  clear  from  the  opposition  of 
the  oldest  prophets  that  in  its  sacred  customs,  Israel  had 
attached  paramount  value  to  feasts,  sacrifices,  vows,  national 
assemblies,  and  forms  of  purification — not  to  precision  of 
ritual  observance  in  the  sense  of  the  Levitical  law,  but  to  the 
richness  and  splendour  of  the  gifts,  and  to  the  magnificence  of 
the  feasts.^  Hosea  made  it  a  matter  of  serious  reproach 
that  the  priests  gave  the  first  place,  not  to  the  "  Thorah," 
i.e.  instruction  regarding  God's  will,  but  to  sacrifices.^ 

Resistance  to  the  idolatry  that  was  gradually  gaining  the 
upper  hand,  to  the  idols  that  were,  through  the  external 
splendour  of  their  worshippers,  triumphing  as  it  were  over 
Jehovah,  forced  the  better  minds  in  Israel  to  a  clearer 
consciousness  that  their  own  God  was  so  different  from  the 
other  gods  as  to  be  the  only  God.  What  had  hitherto  been 
rather  an  intuitive  perception  now  became  a  doctrine  clearly 
and  consciously  held.  This  age  also  witnessed  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  last  trace  of  the  theory  that  the  God  of  Israel 
was  merely  higher  in  rank  than  the  heathen  gods,  and  that 
in  other  respects  these  were  in  the  same  category  as  He.  It 
is  in  the  sayings  and  writings  of  the  great  prophets  that  a 
full  and  clear  exposition  of  monotheism  is  really  found. 
Those   who    now   saw   in    Jehovah    nothing   more   than    the 

^  Cf.  e.g.  Amos  iv.  5  (thank-offerings  of  that  which  is  leavened),  v.  21,  viii. 
10  ;  Hos.  ii.  13,  iii.  4,  v.  6  ff.,  vi.  6,  viii.  13,  ix.  3,  4,  5,  xii.  10 ;  Isa.  i.  11  iL, 
xxix.  1,  XXX.  29  f.  ;  Zech.  ix.  7  ;  Micab  vi.  6  ;  Nah.  ii.  1  ;  Jer.  vii.  21  ;  Joel 
i.  9tf.,  ii.  14. 

-  Hos.  iv.  6  ff.,  viii.  1. 


MONOTHEISM.  227 

national  God  coulJ  no  longer  consider  Him  mightier  than  the 
gods  of  Assyria.  A  choice  had  therefore  to  be  made  between 
real  conscious  monotheism  and  open  worship  of  the  victorious 
heathen  gods.  This  monotheistic  piety  did  not  as  yet,  it  is 
true,  prevent  the  use  of  expressions  due  to  theoretical 
particularism.  In  tliis  respect  the  phraseology  of  the  prophets 
is  very  free,  just  as  they  never  hesitate  to  adorn  their  story 
with  old  mythological  memories  and  metaphors.^  Indeed,  the 
use  of  such  language  continued  as  long  as  Israel  retained  a 
frank  religious  diction,  instinct  with  life.  Hence  the  God  of 
Israel  is  extolled  in  clioral  song  as  the  God  who  sits  enthroned 
upon  the  cherubim,  who  inhabits  the  praises  of  Israel,  who 
brought  the  people  up  out  of  Egypt,  and  who  dwells  on  Mount 
Zion.^  Faithfulness  to  Him  is  the  first  and  great  command- 
ment.     Every  lapse  of  the  people  into  idolatry  is  adultery.^ 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  how,  althoutrh  Jeremiah  considers 
the  gods  of  tlie  heathen  to  be  no  gods,  he  nevertheless  praises 
them  because  tliey  at  least  remain  faitliful  to  their  own 
deities.  In  other  words,  the  giving-up  of  the  worship  practised 
by  one's  fathers  is  in  itself  represented  as  impiety.*  In  like 
manner,  even  in  the  prophetic  period,  the  existence  of  other 
Elohim,  worshipped  by  other  nations,  is  not  expressly  denied, 
Moab  is  called  the  people  of  Chemosh,  Amnion  the  people 
of  Milcom.^  The  host  of  heaven,  as  is  said  in  Deuteronomy, 
God  apportioned  to  all  the  peoples,  but  Israel  He  chose  for 
Himself.*"  And  according  to  the  brilliant  correction  by  de 
Goeje,  it  is  said  in  Deut,  xxxii.  8,  9,  that  the  Most  High 
divided  and  allotted  the  nations  according  to  the  number  of 
the  sons  of  God.''  Even  in  the  post-exilic  Book  of  Euth,  to 
return  to  the  people  of  Moab   is  the  same  as  to  return  to 

^  So  e.g.  Job  xxvi.  12  f.  (Rahab,  the  fleeing  serpent). 

-  Hos.  xii.  10,  xiii.  4  ;  Micah  iv,  5  ;  Joel  iv.  17  ;  Ps.  xxii.  4  (translated  on 
the  analogy  of  1  Sam.  iv.  4  ;  Ps.  Ixxx.  2  ;  Isa.  x.Kxvii.  16). 

'^  E.g.  Hos.  i.-iii.;  Ezelc.  xvi.;  Dent.  v.  6ff.;  Isa.  i.  21  IF.,  ii.  6. 

^  Jer.  ii.  10,  11  (Dan.  xi.  37  ff.)       «  Jer.  xlviii.  46  ;  xlix.  1.        «  Dent.  iv.  19. 

''  Instead  of  Ssii:"  read  ^X.     In  the  Clementine  Homilies  xviii.  4,  indeed  the 


228  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

the  god  of  Moab,  while  to  join  Israel  is  to  acknowledge 
Jehovah.^ 

But  the  God  of  Israel  is  not  only,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
addressed  as  the  greatest  and  miglitiest  of  tlie  Elohim  :  "  Who 
is  like  unto  Jehovah  whose  inheritance  Israel  is  ?  Who  is 
like  unto  Thee  amoncc  the  crods  ?  Where  is  there  a  nation 
whose  god  has  redeemed  it  to  himself,  who  has  revealed  him- 
self to  it  without  destroying  it  ?  He  is  the  great  King  above 
all  gods,  the  God  of  gods,  the  Lord  of  lords. '^  The  gods  of 
Egypt  quake  when,  riding  lightly  on  a  cloud,  He  draws  near 
their  land  as  judge."  ^  But  side  by  side  with  this  naive 
language  which  continued  in  ordinary  use  long  after  this  date, 
we  also  meet,  from  Amos  onwards,  with  numerous  undeniable 
proofs  that  the  spiritual  guides  of  this  age  were  beginning, 
with  philosophical  perspicuity,  to  acknowledge  Jehovah  as  a 
being,  in  comparison  with  whom  the  other  Elohim  are  not 
gods  at  all,  but  mere  phantom  figures  of  the  human  spirit 
and  the  human  hand.  Thus  we  find,  in  Hos.  viii.  6,  an 
idol  described  as  no-god,  and  considered  as  much  tlie  work  of 
]nan  as  its  image.  Baal  is  called  "  sliame,"  while  Jehovah  is 
spoken  of  as  the  living  God.*  In  Amos  the  idols  are  called 
"  lies,"  that  is,  beings  which  do  not  really  bring  help.^  In 
Isaiah  the  idols  are  described  as  "  Elilim,"  and  indeed  this 
was  so  common  a  phrase  that  the  prophet  even  puts  it  into 
the  mouth  of  an  Assyrian.^  Micah  ridicules  idols  as  the 
work  of  men's  hands,  and  puts  both  gods  and  images  in  tlie 
same  category.'^     But  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  one 

number  seventy,  as  the  number  of  the  Israelites  who  immigrated  into  Egypt,  is 
represented  at  the  same  time  as  the  number  of  the  nations. 

1  Ruth  i.  15  If.,  ii.  12. 

'^  Amos  ix.  1  ff.  ;  Micah  vii.  18  ;  Zeph.  iii.  15  ;  Deut.  xxxiii.  26  ;  Jer.  x.  6  ; 
cf.  Ex.  XV.  11,  xviii.  11  ;  Deut.  iii.  21,  24,  iv.  32  ff.,  x.  17  ;  2  Sam.  vii.  23 ;  1 
Kings  viii.  23  ;  Ps.  xxxv.  10,  Ixxvii.  14,  Ixxxvi.  8  (still  cf.  ver.  10),  cxxxv.  5 
(still  cf.  vers.  15  ff.),  xcv.  3,  xcvi.  4,  xcvii.  9,  cxxxvi.  3  ;  Joel  ii.  17. 

^  Isa.  xix.  1-3  (i.  29,  ii.  18)  ;  Jer.  xlvi.  25  (Ex.  xii.  12  ;  2  Sam.  vii.  22). 

*  Hos.  ix.  10,  ii.  1.       6  Amosii.  1;  ix.  6.       «  Isa.  ii.  18,  20,  x.  10,  xix.  1,  3. 

^  Micah  V.  12;  cf.  Isa.  ii.  18. 


MONOTHEISM.  229 

holding  the  old  view  of  polytheism  to  ridicule  in  this  fashion 
even  gods  that  he  himself  refused  to  worship. 

Accordingly,  in  the  prophets  of  the  Assyrian  period,  Jehovah 
is  already  represented  as  One,  beside  whom  there  is  no  other, 
and,  save  whom,  there  is  no  Rock,  no  God.^  In  Amos  it  is 
Jehovah  who  brought  Aram  out  of  Kir  as  well  as  Israel  out 
of  Egypt,  to  whom  the  children  of  Israel  are  as  the  Ethiopians, 
and  who  will  punish  Moab  for  acting  cruelly  to  the  king  of 
Edom.-  How  can  any  one  be  anxious  to  weaken  such 
passages  by  pointing  to  "  the  more  fully  developed  conception 
Amos  has  of  God,"  as  if  we  had  to  investigate  anything  else 
than  the  faith  of  the  spiritual  leaders  of  Israel,  and  as  if 
Amos  regarded  his  teaching  as  something  novel !  And  how 
can  any  one  imagine  that  in  such  sayings  the  government  of 
the  world  is  looked  at  solely  in  connection  with  Israel,  when 
it  is  clear  that  the  matter  in  question  is  the  mutual  relation- 
ship of  two  foreign  peoples  and  the  national  destinies  of  the 
Syrians  and  the  Philistines!  Similarly  in  Zecli.  ix.  1,  Jehovah 
is  spoken  of  as  He  who  has  His  eyes  on  all  mankind.  Isaiah 
represents  Jehovah  as  using  even  Assyria  at  His  pleasure, 
just  as  a  workman  uses  his  tools.^  The  question  is  put  into 
the  Assyrian's  own  mouth,  "  Have  I  come  up  against  this  land 
without  the  permission  of  Jehovah  ?  "^  In  Micah,  Jehovah  is 
called  the  Lord  of  the  whole  earth,^  as  He  is  also  in  fact  the 
Creator  of  the  universe,  at  whose  work  all  the  sons  of  God 
shouted  for  joy.^  And  that  the  hope  of  Jehovah  revealing 
Himself  as  Lord  of  the  world,  as  God  over  all  nations,  as  it  is 
put  in  Isa.  xix.— xxiii.,  was  also  quite  common  in  the  preceding 
age,  we  may  well  conclude  after  comparing  Isa.  ii.  with  Micah  iv. 
Indeed,  both  of  these  passages  point  to  an  older  source. 

In  those  dark  days,  when  it  seemed  as  if  the  hard  realities 
of  the  present  would  annihilate  the  old  joyous  confidence  that 

1  Hos.  xiii.  4  ;  Isa.  xxxvii.  20  ;  2  Kings  xix.  15. 

-  Amos  ii.  1,  ix.  7.  '  Isa.  x.  5,  1').  *  Isa.  xxxvi.  10. 

°  Micah  iv.  13.  °  Gen.  ii. ;  Ps.  xxxiii.  6  ;  Job  xxxviii.  7. 


230  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

victory  and  happiness  would  be  the  lot  of  those  who  remained 
true  to  God,  the  inexhaustible  vigour  of  this  religion  reasserted 
itself.  Believers  triumphantly  maintained  that  all  the  happi- 
ness of  the  wicked  is  but  a  phantom  show,  compared  with 
the  true  prosperity  of  the  godly ;  and  that  even  where  one 
cannot  see,  one  may  still,  despite  the  sore  conflict  and 
temptations  too  great  for  human  strength,^  hold  fast  to  the 
love  and  righteousness  of  God.  When  they  looked  back, 
these  men  saw  that  Israel's  golden  age  had  also  been  the  age 
of  fidelity  to  Jehovah.  All  suffering  was  seen  to  be  punish- 
ment for  idolatry.  When  they  looked  forward,  the  dark  back- 
ground of  the  present  only  made  the  hope  shine  out  all  the 
more  brightly  that  Israel  and  the  family  of  David  would 
obtain  a  complete  salvation. 

3.  In  the  kingdom  of  Judah  there  were  thus  powerful 
divine  forces  constantly  at  work.  Indeed,  religion  was 
developed  and  deepened  without  innovation  and  without 
excitement  by  the  spirit  of  Mosaism  itself,  which  was  a 
living  force  in  the  hearts  of  the  men  of  God.  These  forces 
were  so  strong  that  they  were  not  merely  capable  of  surviving 
the  death  of  Judah,  to  be  the  seeds  of  a  better  time,  but  they 
were  actually  able,  before  that  death  occurred,  once  more  to 
beget  a  new  life ;  and  they  made  a  period  of  deliverance 
possible,  wliich  in  many  respects  reminds  us  of  the  fair 
prospects  with  which  the  nation  started.  And  to  this  possi- 
bility the  history  of  the  world  contributed. 

Once  more  this  ancient  nation  got  a  new  lense  of  life. 
Upheld  and  guided  by  the  spirit  of  the  great  prophets  by 
^vhom  he  was  surrounded,  Hezekiah,  a  worthy  descendant  of 
David,  undertook  to  reform  the  nation  in  the  spirit  in  whicli 
it  was  founded  by  God.  Not  yet  with  definite  reference  to 
any  codified  law  of  Moses,  like  Josiali  afterwards,  but  still,  in 
faithful  obedience  to  the  traditional  statutes  and  ordinances 
ascribed  to   Moses,  he  purified  his  people  from  the  rankest 

'  Job,  if  tlie  book  belongs  to  this  age. 


HEZEKIAH.  231 

growtliis  of  a  corrupt  worship  and  of  impure  customs.  He 
probably  did  away  with  the  pillars  and  the  Asheras.  At  any 
rate  he  broke  in  pieces  the  brazen  serpent,  which  was  kept  in 
the  temple  probably  as  symbolical  of  the  god  of  healing.^ 
True,  even  tliis  king  was  at  first  sadly  lacking  in  trustful 
devotion  and  in  decision  of  character.  However  earnestly 
Isaiah  might  warn  him  against  making  treaties  with  Egypt, 
and  rebelling  against  Assyria,  thus  endangering  the  breathing- 
time  granted  to  the  people  for  rest  and  recovery, — however 
distinctly  he  might  promise  that  God  would,  in  His 
providence,  without  any  such  means,  point  out  the  way 
of  deliverance,^  the  king  followed  the  advice  of  his  nobles 
and  the  lying  utterances  of  false  prophets,  and  broke  his 
oath.  But  when  Sennacherib,  king  of  Assyria,  invaded  the 
country,  Hezekiah's  courage  failed  him.  In  the  most  abject 
way  he  sued  for  peace.  Then  the  tide  of  fortune  turned. 
AVhen  the  Assyrian  proved  treacherous,  and  souglit  to  take 
possession  of  the  country,  even  after  the  tribute  which  he 
had  imposed  had  been  paid,  Isaiah  became  convinced  that 
God  would  not  now  refuse  to  rescue  His  people  from  so 
insolent  a  tyrant,  and  counselled  a  resolute  resistance.  Once 
more  miracles  were  seen  like  those  of  early  days.  Within 
sight  of  the  Holy  Land  the  army  of  the  haughty  Sennacherib 
was  annihilated.  God's  scourge,  which  had  raised  itself 
against  its  own  Master,  was  broken.^  Judah  was  once  more 
free.  God,  whose  presence  appears  to  the  prophet  Isaiah 
so  closely  bound  up  with  Mount  Zion,  had,  in  very  truth, 
defended  His  holy  city. 

The  people  could  now  live  in  their  own  fashion,  under 
their  own  laws  and  their  own  God.  Indeed,  even  as  regards 
tlie  remnants  of  Ephraim,  memories  of  the  time  of  national 

^  2  Kings  xviii.  3  ff.  In  this  reform  the  Assyrians  see  a  dethronement  of  the 
god  of  the  country  Avhich  must  arouse  his  anger.     2  Kings  xviii.  22. 

-  Cf.  especially  Isa.  xxviii.-xxxii. 

3  Isa.  X.  51T. ,  xxxvi.  if.  Cf.  Judah  unci  die  as-'^yrUche  Wdlmadit,  tine. 
Quellenuntersuchiing  von  Asmus  Socrensen,  1S85. 


232  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

unity  seem  to  have  revived.  However  luucli  of  what  is 
stated  about  this  relationship  may  be  due  to  the  popuLar 
tendency  to  embellish  such  facts,  it  appears  certain  that 
Hezekiah,  like  Josiah  afterwards,  having  succeeded  in  adding 
a  part  of  ancient  Ephraim  to  his  own  kingdom,  governed  it 
from  Jerusalem.  Above  all,  however,  every  feeling  of  enmity 
to  the  sister-people,  with  which  there  had  been  such  frequent 
feuds,  vanished.  Henceforward  hope  and  love  embraced  the 
whole  nation.  Ephraim  and  Judah  were  no  longer  rivals,  but 
one  people — God's  people  Israel. 

Eor  religion,  too,  the  experiences  of  such  a  time  must  have 
been  of  more  than  ordinary  importance.  Israel's  salvation, 
Israel's  covenant  was,  as  it  were,  coufirmed  anew.  It  had 
been  shown  that  "  this  city  God  had  founded  to  be  Jlis  own 
abode."  ^  It  had  been  proved  that  before  God's  holy  arm  all 
the  hostile  efforts  of  the  world-power  were  as  nothing — that 
Jehovah  alone  was  God.  It  had  been  proved  that  God,  in  His 
mercy,  was  ready  to  remit  His  chastisements  whenever  their 
cause  had  been  removed  by  contrition  and  penitence.  It  had 
been  shown  that  little  Judah  possessed  in  its  law,  its  faith,  its 
worship,  a  bulwark  which  could  resist  and  drive  back  the 
stream  of  the  world-power;  and  that,  on  the  other  hand, 
human  calculation  and  trust  in  the  help  of  man  invariably 
proved  a  tottering  staff,  a  fatal  refuge.  All  these  experiences, 
through  which  that  age  had  to  pass,  shine  out  upon  us  from 
the  glorious  words  of  its  great  prophets  with  ever  new  force. 
The  true  supramundane  power  of  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
indeed  not  yet  recognised.  It  is  not  the  victory,  through 
suffering  and  death,  of  the  servant  of  God  that  is  the  content 
of  this  faith,  but  the  vanquishing  of  the  world-power  through 
God's  working  of  miracles.  But  we  may  well  say  that, 
humanly  speaking,  the  respite  of  a  century  and  a  half  granted 
to  Judah  made  the  further  development  and  final  completion 
of  Israel's  religion  possible. 

^  Ps.  xlvi.  xlviii. ;  Isa.  xxxvii.  22  f. 


MANASSEIL  233 

4.  And  yet  the  men  of  God  must  have  seen  clearly  enough 
that  this  time  of  prosperity  was  a  mere  temporary  respite, 
not  the  actual  beginning  of  the  new  and  perfect  era.  This 
was  not  a  beginning  out  of  which  a  permanent  and  perfect 
life  could  be  developed.  Hezekiah  himself,  with  all  his 
excellent  qualities,  seems  to  have  been  weak,  selfish,  and 
full  of  worldly  vanity.^  And  behind  him  stood  the  figure  of 
Manasseh — a  man  as  cowardly  as  he  was  tyrannical,  as 
hostile  to  the  true  worship  and  to  those  that  observed  it 
as  he  was  despicably  weak  in  his  dealings  with  the  world. 
The  reformation  of  Hezekiah,  which  did  away  with  the 
Asheras,  the  pillars,  etc.,  was  followed  by  a  violent  reaction. 
The  state  of  religion  which  the  prophets  of  Jehovah  abhorred 
(Moloch,  the  host  of  heaven,  unchaste  worship)  continued  to 
be  legal  all  through  the  reign  of  Manasseh  and  of  his  son. 
The  prophets  who  did  not  keep  silent  on  this  matter  had  to 
endure  a  bloody  persecution.  And  the  picture,  too,  which 
they  give  us  of  the  people  is  hopeless  and  gloomy.  Of  the 
hish  tone  which  characterised  the  men  of  God  there  is 
little  trace  in  the  people.  But  there  is  all  the  more  deceit, 
oppression,  selfishness,  violence,  immorality ;  it  is  a  people 
"  of  unclean  lips."  Ere  long  the  worship  of  the  queen  of 
heaven  became  so  widely  prevalent  as  to  be  actually  like 
a  new  national  religion.  Idolatry  was  practised  in  the  very 
temple,  and  children  were  ruthlessly  sacrificed  to  ]\Ioloch,  as 
if  that  were  the  religion  of  Israel.'^      Hence  the  keynote  of 

^  2  Kings  xviii.  14  ff. ;  Isa.  xxxix.  Iff.,  8. 

2  Jer.  vii.  30,  31,  xi.  10  ff.,  xxxii.  35,  xliv.  15  ff.  ;  Ezek.  viii.  We  must, 
with  Kuenen,  distinguish  tlie  Moloch  here  referred  to  from  the  Ammonite 
Milcom,  and  regard  him  as  a  Canaanitish  deity  (1  Kings  xi.  5,  33  ;  of.  7  ; 
2  Kings  xxiii.  13).  Infant  sacrifice  may  have  been  early  introduced  even  into 
the  national  customs  of  Israel,  from  an  ancient  Semitic  practice,  in  which  case 
the  act  of  Ahaz  was  nothing  new  but  merely  gave  fresh  eclat  to  the  old  habit 
(2  Kings  xvii.  11).  Hence  those  who  worshipped  Moloch  might  consider  that 
they  were  entitled  to  worship  Jehovah  also  (Ezek.  xxiii.  38  ;  Lev.  xviii.  21, 
XX.  3).  Indeed,  in  the  oldest  sources  of  the  Semitic  religion,  the  god  who  be- 
came Jehovah  for  the  Israelites  may  not  have  been  different  from  the  one  who 
became   Moloch   for    the    Canaanites.      But  since  the  time  when  Israel  and 


234  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

prophecy  towards  the  close  of  the  Assyrian  period  could  not 
be  one  of  joyous  hope  for  the  present  or  for  the  immediate 
future.  Tlie  great  deliverance  had  indeed  shown  that,  for 
His  covenant's  sake,  God  would  still  espouse,  with  all  His 
old  power  of  working  miracles,  the  cause  of  His  already 
condemned  people ;  that  if  it  would  only  return  to  Him, 
in  faith  and  penitence,  He  would  graciously  forgive  and 
repent  Him  of  the  evil.  But  a  glance  at  the  present,  with 
those  divinely-guided  eyes  of  theirs,  showed  the  prophets 
clearly  enough  that  this  could  not  yet  be  their  rest ;  that 
divine  judgment  was  only  postponed,  not  averted,  and  that 
the  ways  of  God  with  this  people  could  not  reach  their  goal 
save  by  leading  them  through  the  valley  of  death. 

Consequently,  even  in  Hezekiah's  days,  a  new  period  of 
suffering  is  already  in  prospect.  Peace  and  prosperity  are  to 
continue  only  so  long  as  Hezekiah  lives  ;  and  in  the  figure 
of  the  new  world-power  just  rising  above  the  horizon  he  is 
shown  the  bearer  of  God's  chastening  rod.^  Even  the 
Innniliation  by  Assyria  was  not  yet  the  final  one.  True, 
Sennacherib  did  not  again  attack  Hither-Asia,  but  he  was  still 
a  powerful  warrior-prince  and  conqueror.  And  Esarhaddon 
unquestionably  made  these  districts  once  more  the  goal  of 
a  victorious  canqjaign.^  According  to  Chronicles  a  king  of 
Assyria  carried  Manasseh  himself  away  into  a  captivity,  from 
which  he  returned  a  changed  man.  And  the  fact  would  suit 
the  circumstances  of  the  time  very  well,  although  one  must 
unhesitatingly  assert,  with  Graf,  that  the  thing  cannot 
possibly  have  happened  exactly  as  is  related  in  Chronicles.^ 

the  Hamites  separated  there  was  at  any  rate  no  kinship  between  Jehovah  and 
Jloloch,  not  to  speak  of  identity.  Moloch  is  always  represented  as  a  hostile 
deity  and  his  worsliip  as  Canaanitish  immorality  (Ezek.  xvi.  20,  xx.  30,  xxiii.  32  ; 
Lev.  xviii.  21,  xx.  2-5  ;  B.  J.  Ivi.  9,  Ivii.  5  ;  cf.  Kuenen,  "  Jahve  eu  Moloch" 
{Theol.  Tijdachr.  1S68,  539  ff.,  against  Gort). 

^  Isa.  xxxix.  6  ir.  ^2  Kings  xvii.  24  ff.  (Inscriptions). 

^  2  Chron.  xxxiii.  11  f.  The  picture  drawn  by  the  Chronicler  does  not  agree 
witli  Jer.  XV.  4  ff. ;  2  Kings  xxiii.  26,  xxiv.  3.  The  defeat  of  Manasseh  by 
Assurbanipal,  or  his  voluntary  submission,  is  perhaps  historical.     Here,  too. 


THE  PROPHET.  235 

The  reign  of  Manasseh,  at  all  events,  irrevocably  decided 
that  the  reformation  of  Judah  under  Hezekiali  was  only- 
transient,  a  mere  respite.  The  wounds  which  ]\Ianasseli 
inflicted  upon  the  kingdom  of  God  were  so  deep  that  even 
the  better  will  of  a  Josiah  could  no  longer  heal  them. 
Assyria,  it  is  true,  was  not  to  execute  the  death-warrant  of  "^ 
Judah.  That  empire  was  itself  going  gradually  down  to 
destruction.  New  peoples  continued  to  fight  for  the 
supremacy  till,  after  a  long  struggle,  the  haughty  capital 
of  Nineveh  finally  succumbed.  Nevertheless  the  new  world- 
ruler,  God's  servant  Nebuchadnezzar,  was  all  the  more  certain 
to  execute  His  counsel. 

Hence  in  this  period  there  lies  a  wealth  of  most  fruitful  ideas 
by  which  the  old  religion  of  Israel  was  regenerated,  spiritualised, 
and  strengthened.  Men,  such  as  God  gave  to  that  age,  Israel 
had  not  seen  since  Moses  and  Samuel.  When  the  old  vener- 
ated house  of  God  fell,  the  pillars  of  the  new  spiritual  temple 
which  was  to  outlast  that  fall  w^ere  already  a-building. 


CHAPTEE  XIV. 

PERSONAGES  OF  INFLUENCE  IN  THE  ASSYPvIAN  PERIOD. 

The  Prophet. 

Literature.  —  Ileinricli  Ewald,  Lie  Proplicien  dcs  Alt  en 
Bundes,  1840,  vol.  i.  pp.  1-64.  Knobel,  Prophetismns  dcr 
Ilcbrder,  1851,  2  vols.  Tholuck,  Die  Prophctcn  U7id  ihre 
Weissagungen,  Abdr.  2,  Gotha  1861.  Kuenen,  De  Profetcn 
en  de  Profetie  ondcr  Israel,  1  and  2,  1875.  W.  Eobertson 
Smith,    The  Prophets  of  Israel   and    their   Place   in   History, 

the  Chronicler  has  edited  old  sources  in  his  own  edifying  way.  Manasseh's  sub- 
mission probably  coincided  with  the  quelling  of  the  rebellion  that  had  arisen  in 
I3abylon,  after  which  King  Assurbanipal  himself  resided  for  a  time  in  that  city. 


236  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

1882.  Oeliler,  Ueher  das  Vcrhclltniss  der  alttestamentlichcn 
JProphetie  ziir  heidnischcn  Ilantik,  18G1  {Gluchiaunschschreiben) 
— also  ill  Herzog's  RcalcncijclojMdic  in  the  articles  "  Propheten- 
tlium  des  Alien  Testanientes,"  and  "Weissagung"  (2nd  ed. 
V.  Orelli).  Iviiper,  Prophetcnthum  des  Altai  Testamentes, 
1869.  Karl  Koliler,  Dcr  Prophctismus  der  Hehrder  und 
die  Mantik  dcr  Grieclien  in  ihreiii  (jejcnseiiigen  Verhdltnissc, 
1860.  Dillmann,  Ueher  die  Proplictcn  des  alten  Bandes  nach 
Hirer  poliiischcn  Wirlcsamhcit,  1869  (Festrede).  Eduard  Graf, 
"  Ueber  die  besonderen  Offenbarungen  Gottcs,"  etc.  (Thcol. 
Stiul  %L  KriL,  1859,  2,  p.  227  ff.,  3,  p.  411  ff.).  Diister- 
dieck,  De  rci  p)rop)hetieae  in  Vttcre  I'cstamcnto  quum  univcrsa". 
turn  Mcssianae  natura  etliiea,  1852.  Steudel,  "  Ueber  Ausle- 
gung  der  Propheten,  vvie  sie  unter  treuer  Wiirdigung  der  ihren 
Ausspriichen  zii  Grinide  liegenden  Idee  sich  gestalten  wiirde  " 
{Tuhinger  Zeitschr.  f.  Tkeologie,  1834,  1).  Hengstenberg, 
"  Abhandlung  liber  die  Auslcgung  der  Propheten "  (Evan- 
gclische  Kirclicnzeitung,  1833,  23).  Cf.  by  the  same  author 
Christ ologie  des  Alten  Testaments,  2nd  ed.  iii.  b.  p.  158  if. 
V.  Hofmann,  Weissagung  und  Erfidlung,  2  vols.,  1841,  44. 
Orelli,  Die  alttcst.  Weissagung  und  die  Vollendung  des  Gottes- 
reiches,  1882  [transl.  (T.  &  T.  Clark)  0.  T.  Proi^hcey  of  the 
Consummation  of  the  Kingdom  of  God\  Bredeiikamp,  Gesetz 
und  Propheten,  1881.  Ad.  Koster,  "  Wie  verhiilt  sicli  in  der  li. 
Schrift  die  Offenbarung  zur  freien  Geistesthatiskeit  der  heili^en 
Schriftsteller?"  {Theol.  Stud.u.  KriL,  1854,  4,  esp.  p.  892  ff). 
Georg  Hoffmann,  "  Versuclie  zu  Amos  "  {Zeitschr.  f  altt.  Wiss. 
iii.  87  ff.).  Priedr.  Koster,  Die  Propheten  des  Alten  und  Nencn 
Testamentes  nach  ilireni  Wesen  und  Wirken  dargestellt,  Leipz. 
1838.  E.  V.  Lassaulx,  Die  prophetische  Kraft  dcr  menschlichcn 
Scele  in  Dichtcrn  und  Denkcrn,  1838.  Eedslob,  Dcr  Bcgriff  des 
Nabi  oder  des  sogenannten Propheten  hci  den  Hehrdern,  1839.  J.  P. 
N.  Land,  "  Over  den  Godsnamen  mn''  en  den  Titel  J*''3J  {Thcjl. 
Tijdschr.,  1868,  156  ff.)  Cf.  Kuenen,  Hihhert  Lectures,  96. 
Umbreit,  Dc  Veteris  Testamenti  prophetis  clarissimis  antiquis- 


HISTORY  OF  PKOPHECY.  237 

simi  tcmporis  oratoribus  (cf,  by  the  same  author,  Elnlcitung 
zum  Commentar  zinn  Jcsaj'a).  lliehm,  Siudicn  mid  Kritiken, 
1865,  i.  iii.  18G0,  ii.  Iniur,  Gcschiclite  der  alitcstamentlichen 
Wcissarjung,  vol.  i.  18G0,  Giessen.  Bertheau,  "Die  alttest. 
Weissagung  von  Israels  Eeichsherrlichkeit"  (JahrhUcJur  filr 
dtutsche  Thcolor/ie,  1859,  ii.  p.  314  ff.  p.  595  ff.  1860,  p. 
486  If.  For  Greek  Parallels,  cf.  C.  Fr.  Hennann  Lchrhucli  dc7' 
ijoltcsdic7istliclicn  AUcrihilmcr  der  Gricchen  (2nd  ed.  by  Stark, 
1858),  Schoinann,  Gricchische  Altcrthilmcr,  vol.  ii. 

1.  It  was  only  in  the  Assyrian  period  that  the  primitive 
figure  of  the  "prophet"  in  Israel  reached  that  stage  of  develop- 
ment at  which  it  became  clearly  distinguishable  from  kindred 
figures,  and  an  important  factor  in  religion.  Hence  this  is 
the  place  to  give  a  consecutive  account  of  it.  Of  religious 
figures  the  earliest  and  most  characteristic  is  that  of  the 
])rophet.  In  his  spirit  the  Spirit  of  God  awakens  an  im- 
mediate certainty,  an  inward  perception  of  things  which 
elude  the  testimony  of  the  senses,  and  which  can 
never  be  known  by  the  meditative  or  speculative  reason, 
except  as  approximate  probabilities;  hence  the  essence  of 
a  revealed  religion  is  absolutely  dependent  on  prophecy, 
Without  it  we  have  only  natural  religion  or  philosophy. 
Hence  later  ages  could  not  but  regard  the  patriarchs  of 
Israel,  when  transfigured  in  sacred  legend,  as  prophetic  figures. 
The  ancient  song  in  Gen.  xlix.  1-28  already  makes  Jacob- Israel 
speak  as  a  prophet ;  and,  in  the  account  of  B  and  C,  Abraham 
himself  receives  the  word  of  God^  "in  a  deep  sleep,"  and  with 
"  holy  dread,"  and  is  actually  called  a  prophet.^  Like  the  word 
of  the  prophet,  an  ancestor's  dying  blessing  has  imperishable 
value  as  "  a  divine  saying."  ^  Indeed,  in  the  language  of  late 
poetry,  the  nation  itself  is  called  God's  prophet.*     But  Moses 


1  Gen.  XV.  1,  4,  12,  13  ;  cf.  xha.  2  ff.  in  A.  ^  Gen.  xx.  7. 

'  Gen.  xxvii.  27  ff.,  xlviii.  14  ff. 

*  Ps.  cv.  15  ;  yet  compare  the  very  similar  idea  in  B.  J.  xliv.   1  ff. ,  xli.  8, 
xliii.  1  ff.,  and  in  general  the  figure  of  "the  servant  of  Jehovah." 


238  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

is  represented  as  pre-eminently  a  prophet,  or  to  put  it  more 
correctly,  the  prophet  of  Israel,  like  unto  whom  none  other 
ever  arose,  the  prophet  in  whose  ear,  during  the  whole  course 
of  his  life-work,^  the  voice  of  God  was  continually  sounding. 
And  in  like  manner  a  continuance  of  prophecy  after  Moses 
is  taken  for  granted.  Hence,  in  the  history  of  Samuel,  it 
is  looked  upon  as  a  misfortune,  a  sign  of  evil  times  for 
Israel,  that  "  the  word  of  the  Lord  was  rare  in  those  days ; 
there  was  no  open  vision."  ^  Consequently  the  prophetic 
law  in  Deut.  xviii.  15  already  represents  Moses,  the  great 
man  of  God,  as  himself  foretelling  an  uninterrupted  series 
of  prophets  whose  words  Israel  is  to  obey. 

And  although  this  view  may  throw  back  the  circumstances 
of  later  times  to  the  very  beginning,  it  has  undoubtedly  a 
real  historical  justification.  Despite  all  the  unfavourable 
tendencies  of  the  times,  the  Levitical  priesthood  certainly 
succeeded  in  making  their  position  as  revealers  of  the  divine 
will,  though  originally  insecure,  more  and  more  stable.  By 
maintaining  religious  ordinances,  and  deepening  their  spiritu- 
ality, as  well  as  by  rousing  enthusiasm  in  Israel  for  the 
national  religion,  they  unquestionably  did  very  great  service. 
But  a  regular  priesthood,  based  on  heredity  and  tradition,  is 
invariably  inclined  to  attach  undue  value  to  the  outward 
observances  and  ritual  of  religion.  In  addition  to  a  priest- 
hood, the  people  required  a  direct  connection  with  divine  things 
such  as  prophecy  alone  can  guarantee.  Prophecy  protected 
Israel  from  the  dangers  of  priestcraft ;  and  in  the  ages  when 
this  religion  was  most  highly  developed,  the  paths  of  the 
priestly  sciibe  with  his  Thorah,  and  of  the  prophet  with 
his  message  from  God,  went  further  and  further  apart. 
Yet,  in  Israel  as  among  other  nations,  the  offices  of  priest 
and    prophet    might    be    combined    in    one    individual ;    and 

-  Ex.  xxxiii.  11  ;  Hos.  xii.  15  ;  cf.  Num.  xii.  6  (A) ;  -Deut.  xxxiv.  10.  In  A 
this  idea  is  already  held  without  any  real  living  appreciation  of  projjhccy  (Xuin. 
xii.  6).  -  1  Sam.  iii.  1. 


HISTORY  OF  PROPHECY.  239 

probably  there  were,  as  among  the  Greeks,  certain  families  in 
which  the  prophetic  faculty  was  particularly  strong. 

Later  writers  represent  Moses  and  his  contemporaries  as 
being  of  quite  the  same  type  as  the  prophets  of  later  clays. 
By  the  side  of  Moses  his  sister  Miriam,  too,  appears  as  a 
prophetess.^  Indeed,  in  an  outburst  of  prophetic  self- 
sufficiency  she  dares  to  say  to  Moses,  Doth  not  God  speak 
through  us  also?"'  In  like  manner  the  spirit  of  prophecy, 
proceeding  from  Moses  takes  possession  of  the  seventy  elders 
of  Israel.  On  hearing  of  it  Moses  gives  utterance  to  the 
joyful  wish,  "  Would  God  that  all  the  Lord's  people  were 
prophets  ! "  ^  We  also  see  prophets  in  the  interval  between 
Moses  and  Samuel, — God  sent  them  daily  to  His  people.*  In 
reality,  however,  Moses  was  hardly  a  prophet,  in  the  sense 
in  which  Isaiah  or  Jeremiah  was.  He  was  liker  an  Elijah. 
And  the  prophets,  of  whom  there  was  certainly  no  scarcity  in 
those  days,  we  must  think  of  as  more  nearly  akin  to  the  seers 
and  soothsayers  of  the  neighbouring  peoples  than  to  the  men 
of  God  of  the  Assyrian  period.  This  is  shown  us  by  the 
figure  of  Deborah,  at  once  a  wife  and  a  heroine,  to  whom,  as 
she  sat  under  her  palm-tree  between  Eamah  and  Bethel,  the 
children  of  Israel  came  "for  judgment."^  Such,  too,  is  the 
figure  of  Samuel  at  his  first  meeting  with  Saul,°  and  such  the 
companies  of  ecstatic  prophets  in  Saul's  time.  At  any  rate 
their  activity  was  due  to  purely  personal  impulse ;  it  varied 
with  the  religious  condition  of  the  people,  and  was  indeed  an 
index  of  it.  Prior  to  Samuel's  day,  at  all  events,  prophecy  was 
not  a  regularly  organised  religious  force,  with  a  definite  form 
of  its  own.  There  were  prophets,  but  not  as  yet,  in  the  sense 
of  the  later  period,  a  prophetic  class.  This  class  goes  back, 
as  most  scholars  suppose,  to  Samuel,     In  the  early  recollec- 


1  Ex.  XV,  20,  A.  2  ]vj-„^,  xii.  2  (A  ?).  ^  ^^^^^  ^i.  25  flF. 

■*  Jer.  vii.  25.  ^  Judg.  iv.  4,  5. 

^  The  stories  of  the  prophets  in  Judg.  vi.  S,  1  Sam.  ii.  27,  have  plainly  the 
character  of  later  unhistorical  accounts. 


240  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

tiuns  of  Israel  this  man  was  known  as  an  infallible  prophet,^ 
whom  posterity  considered  a  second  Moses.^  He  is  in  all 
probability  to  be  credited  with  founding  the  schools  of  the 
prophets,  and  establishing  a  prophetic  class,  which  obtained 
a  definite  and  important  position  among  the  various  parties 
in  the  State.  In  order  to  check  and  defeat  opposition 
to  the  religion  of  Moses  these  prophets  were  ready  to  avail 
themselves  of  every  means,  often  even  of  violence.  It  has 
been  recently  maintained  that  the  proplietic  guilds  in  Samuel's 
time  were  in  nowise  closely  akin  to  those  existing  at  a  later 
date  in  the  northern  kingdom,  the  leaders  of  which  were 
Elijah  and  Elisha,  and  that  Samuel  himself  was  not  closely 
connected  with  the  companies  of  ecstatic  Nebiim  which 
owed  their  origin  to  the  Hamite  religion,^  and  which  are 
mentioned  in  his  days.  But  neither  assertion  is  supported 
by  any  actual  proof,  however  certain  it  is  that  a  man  like 
Samuel  must  have  been  different  from  the  ordinary  members 
of  prophetic  guilds,  and  that  a  few  centuries  must  have 
wrought  great  changes  in  these  institutions. 

A  reason  for  attributing  the  schools  of  the  prophets  to 
Sanmel  is  afforded  by  the  fact  that  they  are  first  mentioned 
in  his  time,  and  that  they  are  found  in  those  country  districts 
and  towns  where  Samuel's  own  influence  was  strongest. 
They  took  their  rise  among  the  tribes  of  Ephraim  and  Ben- 
jamin, at  the  shrines  of  Ramah,  Bethel,  Gibeah,  Gilgal,  and 
Mizpah,  as  well  as  in  the  district  round  about  Jericho.* 
Besides,  Samuel  could  discover  no  better  means  of  further- 

1  1  Sam.  iii.  20,  iv.  1. 

2  1  Sam.  viii.  7,  ix.  6,  19-27  ;  later  xv.  16-30.  Then  1  Clirou.  ix.  22,  xxvi. 
28,  xxix.  29 ;  Acts  iii.  21  {tccvtis  11  ol  TpoipyiTai  avo  y.afiov/iX). 

'  From  the  remark  in  1  Sam.  ix.  9  that  the  later  Nebiim  (D^N''23)  were 
formerly  called  Roi'm  (Q'Xl)  Dutch  scholars  have  inferred  that  the  Nebiim 
were  a  guild  of  fanatics  directly  under  Hamite  iiitluences,  formerly  nnknown  in 
Israel.  How  little  that  suits  the  context  and  the  general  use,  in  Israel,  of  the 
word  "Nabi";  of,  among  others,  Konig,  Offenharuvqsbegriff  des  A.T.,  i.  63  fl'. 

*  1  Sam.  vii.  16,  17,  viii.  1,  2,  4,  x.  5,  13,  xix.  18  tf.  ;  cf.  2  Kings  ii.  1-5, 
iv.  38. 


HISTORY  OF  PROPHECY.  241 

ing  that  union  of  Jehovah's  people  at  which  he  aimed  than 
the  organisation  of  prophetic  enthusiasm. 

To  have  been  a  member  of  such  a  guild  was,  of  course, 
not  an  indispensable  condition  for  doing  the  work  of  a 
prophet  in  later  life.  Elisha  himself,  for  instance,  had  never 
been,  so  far  as  appears,  a  member  of  such  a  guild  when  he 
was  suddenly  called  away  from  the  position  of  a  well-to-do 
farmer.^  Still  it  was  the  rule  for  "  the  sons  of  the 
prophets,"  or  "  the  prophets  "  ^  as  tliey  are  also  termed,  to 
live  together  under  the  superintendence  of  distinguished 
prophetic  personages  called  their  fathers,^  —  a  title  which 
is  also  used  in  Proverbs  to  describe  the  similar  relationship 
between  teacher  and  scholar.  Their  numbers  appear  to  have 
been  considerable.  Ahab  assembles  four  hundred,  Obadiah 
hides  a  hundred,  and  fifty  are  sent  out  from  Jericho  to  search 
for  Elijah.*  In  the  towns  they  lived  in  enclosed  cloister- 
like buildings.^  Sometimes  their  establishments  were  set 
up  in  quite  out-of-the-way  places.^  It  is  clear  they  did 
not    refuse     to     engage     in     ordinary     secular     occupations. 


^  1  Kings  xix.  10. 

^  D"'N''3:n  ''ja,  l  Kings  xx.  35;  2  Kings  ii.  3,  5,  7,  15,  vi.  1,  ix.  1 ;  n"'-|j;3, 
2  Kings  V.  22. 

^  So  Samuel,  Elijah,  Elisha,  "  he  fore  whom  they  sat,"  i.e.  nndcr  whose  care 
and  superintendence  they  were,  1  Sam.  xix.  20  ;  2  Kings  ii.  7,  12,  15,  iv.  1,  38, 
vi.  1-5.  For  the  expression,  cf.  2  Kings  ii.  12;  Ps.  xlv.  11  ;  Prov.  i.  8,  10,  15, 
ii.  1,  iv.  1,  10.  The  passage,  1  Sam.  x.  12,  I  cannot  possibly  understand,  with 
Oehler,  as  if  the  man  meant  to  say,  "  Have  they  then,  as  contrasted  with  Saul,  a 
hereditary  right  ? "  The  question  means,  Who  then  is  the  head  of  this  com[iauy 
of  prophets  who  is  going  to  turn  even  Saul  into  a  jjrophet  ?  Besides,  the  ex- 
jn-ession,  "  And  who  is  their  father  ?"  and  the  other,  "  Is  Saul  also  among  the 
prophets  ? "  are  both  used  here  simply  as  being  old  proverbial  sayings.  One 
might  rather  think,  with  a  slight  alteration  of  the  text,  that  the  questioners 
meant  to  ex[iress  their  amazenient  as  to  how  and  under  whose  teaching  Saul 
could  have  become  a  prophet.     Sept.  IIT'nS  ^D- 

*  1  Kings  xviii.  4 if.,  xxii.  6  ;  2  Kings  ii.  7. 

^  The  word  n''13  (1  Sam.  xix.  19-24,  xx.  1)  describes,  like  AjJ  the  building, 
the  school,  the  xoivifiiov  itself  (Ew.,  Oehler) ;  cf.  besides,  Isa.  xxii.  1,  5,  the  N*J 
JVTn  in  contrast  with  Mount  Zion. 

^  2  Kings  vi.  1  tf . 
VOL.  1.  Q 


242  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

especially  agriculture.^  Still  that  did  not  prevent  their 
being  supported  by  the  friends  of  the  national  religion, 
who  saw  in  them  the  best  and  bravest  champions  in  the 
struggle  against  idolatry.^  Celibacy  cannot  have  been  a  rule,^ 
although,  probably,  in  most  cases  it  was  submitted  to  during 
the  period  of  education.  The  outward  needs  and  the  business 
affairs  of  these  guilds  were  attended  to  by  the  superintend- 
ents, and  tliey,  in  turn,  employed  the  members  in  executing 
any  commissions  or  business  connected  with  their  prophetic 
calling.'* 

Clearly  the  object  of  their  living  together  was  to  arouse, 
in  a  wider  circle  of  gifted  and  sensitive  youths,  the  enthusiasm 
that  would  make  them  prophets,  living  fountains  of  religious 
enthusiasm.  In  this  enthusiasm  for  the  religion  and  the 
statutes  of  Jehovah  they  must  all  have  shared.  According  to 
the  idea  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  spirit  is  communicated  by 
personal  living  contact.^  It  is  by  the  laying  on  of  Moses' 
hands  that  the  spirit  of  wisdom  comes  upon  Joshua.^  A 
double  jDortion  of  the  spirit  of  Elijah,  that  is  to  say,  tlie 
portion  of  the  first-born,  was  given  to  Eli.sha,  because  he 
did  not  leave  his  master  till  the  last,  till  he  had  witnessed 
his  translation  and  received  his  mantle.''  Even  a  Saul  could 
not  resist  the  enthusiasm  with  M'hich  he  was  seized  on 
meeting  a  band  of  inspired  prophets.^  Hence  the  Old 
Testament  certainly  means  us  to  believe  that  people  joined 
these  guilds  under  the  conviction  that  they  would  them- 
selves be  brought  under  the  influence  of  the  prophetic 
spirit  and  become  messengers  of  God. 

It  is  this  personal  intercourse  with  men  enthusiastically  reli- 

^  2  Kings  iv.  39. 

'^  2  Kings  iv.  42.  First-fruits  for  "the  man  of  God,"  that  is,  almost  like 
n  gift  to  the  sauctuary. 

^  2  Kings  iv.  1.  *  2  Kings  iv.  1  ff.,  38,  42,  vi.  1  ff.,  ix.  1,  etc. 

^  Num.  xi.  25.  ^  Deut.  xxxiv.  9. 

'■  2  Kings  ii,  9,  15.  (According  to  Ewald,  two  parts,  Deut.  xxi.  17,  certainly 
ijot  the  double  spirit.) 

6  1  Sam.  x.  6-11,  xix.  20-24. 


HISTORY  OF  PROPHECY.  243 

gious — liardly  real  teaching  in  our  sense  of  the  term — that  we 
must  regard  as  the  chief  means  of  attaining  the  object  in  view. 
We  know,  however,  that  religious  music,  probably  combined 
with  choral  dancing,  was  practised  as  an  effective  means  of 
arousing  enthusiasm.^  We  must  bear  in  mind  what  an  im- 
portant part  music  played  in  education,  e.g.  among  the  Greeks, 
and  how  much  attention  was  still  paid  to  it  by  the  philo- 
sophical schools  as  a  branch  of  popular  education.  Even 
according  to  the  later  narrative,  music  was  the  means  of 
banishing  "  the  evil  spirit  from  God."  ^  Such  music  and 
dancing  overpowered  even  the  most  obstinate  natures.  And 
it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  refer  here  to  the  modern  East, 
where  the  pious  ecstasy  of  fakirs  and  dervishes  is,  in  fact, 
kept  up  by  dance  and  song.  It  is  also  quite  natural  to  suppose 
tliat  the  arts  of  speaking  and  writing  would  be  tauglit.  This 
would  explain  the  peculiar  cast  of  prophetic  speech,  with  its 
half-poetic,  half-oratorical  style.^ 

The  period  during  which  schools  of  the  prophets  are 
mentioned  embraces  somewhere  about  two  centuries,  from 
the  time  of  Samuel  onwards.  Under  the  dynasties  of  Ahab 
and  Jehu  they  are  seen  to  be  the  very  heart  and  pith  of  tlie 
national  theocratic  party  in  the  northern  kingdom.  When 
this  kingdom  perished,  they  disappeared,  or,  at  any  rate, 
lost  their  importance.  In  the  southern  kingdom  Amos 
certainly  points  to  the  later  existence  of  such  prophetic 
guilds ;  *  but  they  do  not  appear  to  have  had  any  great 
standing.  Tlie  splendid  service  in  the  capital,  which 
attracted  to  itself  all  the  national  interest,  told  heavily 
against  them. 

During  this  period  we  must  picture  to  ourselves  a  great 
variety  of  prophetic  phenomena.  Men  like  Samuel,  Gad, 
Nathan,  and  Elisha  are  very  different  from  excited  com- 
panies of  inspired  fanatics.      But  this  difference  is  not  more 

^  1  Sam.  X.  5  ff.,  xix.  20  :  2  Kings  iii.  15.  -  1  Sam.  xvi.  16,  23,  xix.  0. 

2  1  Chrou.  xxix.  29  ;  2  Cliron.  ix.  29.  *  Amos  vii.  14. 


244  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

surprising  tliaa  the  fact  that  the  same  person,  Samuel,  should 
be  a  soothsayer  of  the  ordinary  type,  and  also  a  great  maa 
of  God.^  We  have  to  do  with  a  period  of  contrasts  and  of 
naive  developments.  During  this  whole  period  the  struggle 
for  the  supremacy  of  Jehovah  in  Israel  was  carried  on  by 
external  means,  by  rousing  into  enthusiasm  tolerably  numer- 
ous bodies  of  men.  Prophecy  is  a  fighting  power  in  the 
State.  This  is  its  heroic  age,  the  time  when  Nathan  decides 
which  dynasty  is  to  rule  in  Judah  ;  when  Elijah,  like  a  second 
Moses,^  fights  with  fire  and  sword  against  foreign  worship ; 
and  when  Elisha  gives  the  kingdoms  of  Syria  and  Ephraim 
new  reigning  families. 

In  this  prophetic  period  the  classical  personality  is 
Samuel  himself.  Then  come  his  contemporaries  and  suc- 
cessors, the  royal  counsellors,  Gad  and  Nathan,  who  direct 
the  great  career  of  David.  The  later  prophets,  are  as 
frequently  the  opponents  as  the  friends  of  their  respective 
kings.  The  originals  of  this  militant  prophecy  are  Elijah 
and  Elisha,  whose  history  is  given  us  in  a  special  document, 
so  wreathed  in  a  garland  of  legend,  that  it  is  now  scarcely 
possible  to  determine  with  anything  like  certainty  what  is 
strictly  historical.  In  it  Elijah  is  the  hcau-icleal  of  prophetic 
power,  passion,  and  enthusiasm  ;  Elisha,  the  type  of  quiet 
dignity  and  wise  discretion.^  The  prophets  seem,  by  this  time, 
to  have  been  in  the  habit  of  gathering  the  people  regularly 
round  them,  and,  perhaps,  of  granting  inquirers  and  suppliants 
an  audience  at  new  moons  and  on  Sabbaths.* 

But  it  is  not  till  the  beginning  of  the  eighth  century 
that  the  prophet  becomes  so  very  prominent  a  figure  in  the 
religious  development  of  Israel,  that  we  may  describe  this 
period  as    the    projihetic   period   proper, — the   period  during 

1  1  Sam.  ix.  7ff.  M  Kings  xix.  8-11. 

^  1  Kings  xvii.  1,  4,  14,  xviii.  37  f.,  41  f.,  xix.  6ii'.  ;  2  Kings  ii.  1  ff.,  viii.  14, 
19  tr.,  1.  10,  12,  iii.  13,  iv.  5,  29  ti'.,  41,  43,  v.  8  ff.,  25  ff.,  vi.  7,  15  ff.,  18  tf., 
viii.  10 ff.,  ix.  Iff. 

*  It  appears  so  from  2  Kings  iv.  23. 


HISTORY  OF  PKOPHECY.  245 

wliicli  a  new  and  higher  phase  of  the  Old  Testament  religion 
is  unfolded  by  men  of  prophetic  spirit.  In  this  period  the 
figure  of  the  Israelitish  prophet  first  separates  itself  in  all 
its  characteristic  beauty  from  the  kindred  figures  among 
other  nations. 

With  the  downfall  of  the  schools  of  the  prophets  in  the 
northern  kingdom,  prophecy  ceases  to  represent  an  organised 
theocratic  power, — "  an  autocracy  "  (Ewald), — and  by  acting 
and  ruling  as  such,  to  assert  the  kingly  rights  of  Jehovali 
over  Israel.  After  this,  when  the  prophets  interfere  in 
the  history  of  the  nation,  tliey  do  so  only  by  uttering 
v/ords  of  warning,  prophecy,  and  instruction.  They  wish, 
by  their  revelation,  to  write  upon  the  conscience  of 
the  people  the  will  of  God,  and  thereby  the  way  of  salva- 
tion. 

Such  are  the  phases  through  which  prophecy  passed. 
However  long  the  older  and  more  violent  form  of  prophecy 
might  continue  side  by  side  with  the  new  and  more  spiritual, 
still,  in  presence  of  the  higher,  it  could  not  but  degenerate 
gradually  into  a  caricature  of  what  it  once  was.  The  true 
prophets  become  teachers  of  the  people.  Their  aim  is  to 
gather  out  of  all  Israel,  by  means  of  the  word,  a  spiritual 
IsraeL  But  all  teaching,  especially  if  its  object  be  to  point 
to  the  future,  to  give  directions  regarding  it,  and  to  work  for 
it,  must  create  for  itself  a  permanent  form,  in  order  that  it 
may  not  pass  by  unheard,  and  be  forgotten.  Consequently 
the  prophets  become  writers.  As  teachers,  they  develop 
the  prophetic  phase  of  the  Old  Testament  religion,  which, 
while  thoroughly  loyal  to  the  religion  of  the  fathers, 
nevertheless  spiritualises  and  transforms  it  into  something 
higher.  As  writers,  they  produce  the  most  lasting,  lucid,  and 
important  religious  literature  which  appeared  in  Israel  prior 
to  the  Epistles  of  Paul. 

During  this  period  also  it  was  still  usual  for  prophets 
to   come   out  of  circles  in  which   reliirious    enthusiasm   was 


246  OLD  TESTAMENT  TIIEOLOCxV. 

fostered.  Consequently,  tliere  was  in  propliecy  an  element  of 
tradition ;  otherwise  Amos  could  not  mention  as  somethiiiL^ 
unusual  that  he  was  neitlier  a  prophet  by  profession  nor  the 
pupil  of  a  prophet.  For  he  can  hardly  mean  merely  to  deny 
being  connected  with  a  proscribed  class  of  foreign  prophets.^ 
We  also  know  that  influential  prophets  like  Jeremiah  and 
Ezekiel  belonged  to  the  priestly  class,^  and  that  the  more 
prominent  men  among  the  prophets  had  in  turn  their  scholars 
and  disciples,^  by  whom  the  influence  of  the  master  was 
continued  more  or  less  fully.  Still  it  was  always  maintained 
that  this  was  not  a  necessary  condition  of  prophetic  activity. 
Even  from  among  cattle  and  sycamore  trees  the  Spirit  of 
God  called  His  servants.*  Only  every  true  prophet  had  to 
know  of  a  time  when  the  authoritative  voice  of  the  Lord 
sounded  in  his  ears,  and  put  into  his  heart  the  conviction 
that  he  had  been  called  of  God.^  A  feeling  of  divine  com- 
pulsion must  sustain  the  true  propliet.  "  If  the  lion  growls, 
who  does  not  fear  ?  If  the  Lord  speaks,  who  does  not 
prophesy  ? "  ^ 

That  the  literary  activity  of  the  prophets  began  exactly 
with  the  oldest  fragments  of  prophetic  writing  which  have 
come  down  to  us,  we  cannot,  of  course,  prove;  in  fact, 
we  cannot  consider  it  even  probable.  Nothing  could  be 
more  natural  than  that  men  like  Nathan  and  Gad  should  also 
have  written  down  along  with  their  historical  records  the 
divine  messages  they  had  to  communicate.  But  that  con- 
nected literary  productions  like  the  prophetical  books  which 
have  come  down  to  us  cannot  have  existed  at  a  much  earlier 
date  is,  at  any  rate,  made  highly  probable  by  the  simple  con- 
sideration that,  had  it  been  otherwise,  there  must  surely  have 

^  Amos  vii.  14. 

^  Jer.  i.  1  ;  cf.  ii.  8,  26,  vi.  13,  viii.  10,  xx.  6,  xxiii.  11,  33  f.,  xxvi.  7,  11,  IG, 
xxix.  1  ;  Ezek.  i.  3. 

*  Isa.  viii.  16  ;  Jer.  xxxii.  13,  xxxvi.  4,  32;  B.  J.  1.  4,  liv.  13. 

*  Amos  i.  1,  vii.  14  f.  ^  j^j_  igg,,  ^i.  1  ti". ;  Jer.  i.  2  f.  ;  Ezek.  i.  1  ff. 
^  Amos  iii.  8. 


HISTORY  OF  PROPHECY.  247 

remained,  side  by  side  with  the  comparatively  numerous  aud 
\inbroken  series  of  writings  from  the  time  of  Amos  onwards, 
some  unmistakable  traces  of  the  earlier  ones. 

In  the  northern  kingdom  also  prophets  continued  to 
appear  till  the  very  end.  Still,  in  contrast  with  the  position 
which  Elisha,  for  instance,  had  gained  there,  prophets  were 
apparently  during  this  period  looked  at  askance.  They  were 
charged  "  not  to  prophesy."  ^  They  were,  indeed,  no  longer  in 
a  position  to  identify  themselves  with  the  national  interests 
of  northern  Israel  and  its  reigning  dynasties,  as  against 
Judah  and  the  house  of  David.  They  could  no  longer  allow 
the  worship  of  Jehovah  under  the  image  of  an  ox  to  go  unre- 
proved,  on  the  ground  that  it  was,  at  any  rate,  Jehovah  and 
not  Baal  that  was  being  worshipped.  Tliey  preached  the 
unity  of  Israel  under  Davidic  kings,  and  pointed  to  the 
spiritual  worship  of  God  as  it  was  practised  in  the  temple 
at  Jerusalem.  "  Go,  flee  thee  away  into  the  land  of  Judah, 
and  eat  bread  there,  and  prophesy  there  ;  but  at  Bethel  thou 
must  not  prophesy  any  more,  for  it  is  a  royal  chapel,  and  the 
seat  of  the  royal  court,"  -  are  words  too  expressive  of  a 
courtier-j)riest's  abhorrence  of  prophetic  freedom  of  speech  to 
have  been  spoken  only  to  Amos.  Hosea  complains  of 
suffering  the  bitterest  taunts,  and  of  having  traps  of  every 
kind  set  for  him.^  The  fact  that  Amos  comes  from  Judah 
into  the  northern  kingdom,^  and  that  the  author  of  Zech.  ix.  ff. 
probably  also  belongs  by  birth  to  Judah,  and  had  only  a 
temporary  influence  in  the  northern  kingdom,^  shows  that 
there  was  no  longer  any  room  there  for  the  proper  develop- 
ment of  prophetic  energy. 

Still,  apart  from  transient  apparitions  like  Jonah,*^  even  in 
the  wildest  time  of  revolution  in  northern  Israel,  it  was 
possible  for  a  man  like  Hosea  to  arise.  And  the  important 
influence  which   the  prophetic   word    could   always   exercise 

^  Amos  ii.  12,  -  Amos  vii.  13.  ^  Hos.  ix.  7,  8. 

^Amosi.  1.  '^Zecli.  ix.  9ff.,  xi.  13,  <=  2  Kings  xiv.  25. 


248  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

there  is  shown  by  the  noteworthy  document,  Zech.  ix.  fT. 
True,  God  speaks  there  in  person,  telling  how  He  guided  His 
people,  acting  the  shepherd  over  them  with  the  two  staves, — 
Union  (with  Judah)  and  Grace  (peace  with  the  Gentiles), — 
and  how  in  one  month  He  destroyed  three  shepherds.^  But 
all  this  points  to  the  personal  fate  of  the  prophet  as  one  who 
acts  in  the  name  of  God ;  and  what  is  told  us  about  tlie 
end  of  the  shepherd's  career, — the  scornful  dismissal  of  God, 
with  a  hireling's  wages  for  His  trouble,  —  can  scarcely  be 
taken  as  purely  symbolical. 

The  real  stage  for  the  prophets  of  this  period  is  Judah, 
one  may,  indeed,  say  Jerusalem  ;  for  even  men  out  of  the 
landward  part  of  Judah,  like  Micah  from  Moresheth,^  or  the 
author  of  Zech.  xii.  ff.  (who  betrays  his  special  interest  in  the 
country  towns  of  Judah  by  the  way  in  which  he  inveighs 
against  the  pride  of  Jerusalem  and  the  family  of  David, 
and  insists  that  the  great  deliverance  is  to  be  begun  by 
the  peasantry  of  Judah  ^),  lived  and  taught  in  Jerusalem. 
Naturally  their  position  varied  with  the  varying  circumstances 
of  the  times.  Under  a  Hezekiah  or  a  Josiah,  they  were  the 
friends  of  royalty,*  and  were  respectfully  consulted  by  depu- 
tations consisting  of  the  highest  nobles  of  the  court.^  Under 
a  Manasseh,  or  by  the  factions  which  managed  Zedekiah,'' 
they  were  threatened  and  persecuted.  By  an  Ahaz,  who 
pretended  all  the  while  to  be  good  and  pious,  they  were 
derided.'^  Nor  were  hostilities  by  any  means  confined  to 
mere  words,  or  to  increasing  the  difficulty  of  their  task.  In 
the  opening  years  of  Hezekiah's  reign  we  find  distinct 
reminiscences  of  actual  persecutions,  which  the  prophets  of 
Jehovah  had  to  endure  because  of  their  freedom  of  speech.^ 
The    blinded   multitude   were    very  often  anxious    that    the 


'  Zech.  xi.  7  ff.  ■  Micali  i.  1.  •"'  Zech.  xii.  6f. 

*  Isa.  xxxvii.,  xxxviii. ;  2  Kings  xxii.  14  ff.  ^  Isa.  xxxvii.  2. 
®  2  Kings  xxi.  16  ;  Jer.  xxvi.  "  Isa.  vii.  12. 

*  Iba.  xxix.  21,  xxx.  10. 


HISTORY  OF  PKOPHECY.  249 

prophets,  with  their  far  from  joyous  prophecies,  should  not  be 
allowed  to  open  their  lips.^  Even  under  Joash,  Zechariah 
fell  a  victim  to  the  rage  of  the  offended  populace.^  But  no 
one  had  more  to  suffer  from  this  unpopularity  than  Jeremiah. 
Fellow  -  countrymen  and  kinsfolk  wislied  to  kill  the  hated 
messenger  of  evil.  He  was  treated  as  a  traitor  to  his 
country,  openly  accused,  thrown  into  a  loathsome  dungeon, 
and  threatened  with  death,  while  other  prophets  were 
actually  executed.^  Of  course  the  prophets  who  lived 
during  the  Exile  were  exposed  to  still  greater  risks ;  for 
the  State  officials  would  naturally  regard  them  as  dangerous 
agitators,  who  were  inciting  the  mass  of  the  caj)tives  against 
their  masters. 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  all  these  drawbacks,  the  prophets 
in  Judah  had  a  very  great  influence  as  preachers.  They 
could  say  to  the  authorities  with  impunity  what  no  one  else 
could  have  said  save  at  the  risk  of  his  life.^  It  happened 
again  and  again  that  the  elders,  as  representing  the  com- 
munity, successfully  defended,  against  their  rulers,^  the  right 
of  the  prophets  to  freedom  of  speech.  And  when  the  worship 
of  Jehovah  was  not  being  openly  put  down,  as  under 
]\Ianasseh,  it  was  always  regarded  as  a  matter  of  course,  even 
in  times  of  grievous  apostasy,  that  special  importance  should 
attach  to  the  utterances  of  such  men  as  were  considered 
true  prophets  of  God.  Even  Zedekiah  sends  to  Jeremiah 
in  order  to  get  the  prophet  to  speak  for  him ;  and  after- 
wards when  he  dare  not  any  longer  consult  him  openly, 
he   still   does   so  secretly.^     Not   to    consult    God   regarding 

^  Micah  ii.  6  (Amos  vii.  16).  Prophesy  ye  not,  tliey  are  ever  prophesying. 
(Isa.  xxviii.  9  fF.  imitates  the  style  in  wliich  unbelievers  scornfully  parodied  the 
intolerable  pedantry  of  hortatory  preaching. ) 

2  2  Chron.  xxiv.  20  f. 

3Jer.  ii.  30,  xi.  19,  21,  xii.  4ff.,  xv.  10,  xviii.  IS,  22  f.,  xx.  Iff.,  10,  xxvi. 
7ff.,  20 ff.,  xxix.  26 fT.,  xxxii.  2f.,  xxxiii.  Ifl'.,  xxxvi.  19,  xxxvii.  1511,  xxxviii. 
6ff.  (Hos.  ix.  7f.). 

*  Isa.  vii.  12  ff.,  xxii.  ISfif.  ;  Jer.  xx.  3,  xxii.  13  (T.  etc. 

5  Jer.  xxvi.  16  fif.  «  Jer.  xxi.  If.,  xxxvii.  17,  21,  xxxviii.  14  fT. 


250  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

impoitant  State  affairs  is  considered  a  sign  of  recl^less 
impiety.^  Indeed,  even  when  people  would  not  obey,  they 
were  nevertheless  ready  to  listen  beforehand  to  the  utterances 
of  the  prophets  as  to  "  a  very  pleasant  song."  ^ 

2.  Prophecy  is  by  no  means  an  exclusive  possession  of 
Israel.  Among  every  people  there  have  been  persons  who 
were  believed  to  have  a  special  connection  with  the  Deity, 
and  consequently  to  be  gifted  with  supernatural  knowledge 
and  power.  Such  persons,  mainly  because  information  was 
asked  and  expected  from  them  regarding  the  dark  riddle  of 
the  future,  attained  to  great  influence,  and  often  to  a  leading 
position  in  their  own  nation.  Among  most  ancient  peoples, 
such  prophesying  was  confined  to  a  particular  class.  Thus 
the  Old  Testament  mentions  the  soothsayers  of  the  Philis- 
tines, who  were  likewise  priests.^  In  later  times  the  priests 
of  Baal  are  also  his  prophets.'*  The  whole  story  of  Balaam 
takes  for  granted  that  among  the  peoples  that  bordered  on 
Israel,  such  persons  had  a  definite  and  honourable  position  ; 
just  as  the  Mesha-stone  tells  us  of  a  word  from  Chemosh,  in 
consequence  of  which  the  king  felt  himself  constrained  to 
make  war  against  Israel.^  The  oracles  of  the  priests  in  the 
sanctuaries  are  found  alongside  of  the  words  of  the  prophets. 
Often,  too,  hoth  are  combined.  Legend  mentions  the  wise 
men  of  Egypt.*^  A  multitude  of  old  laws  '^  and  old  names  ^ 
point  to  guilds  of  men  and  women  in  Canaan  who  practised 
the  art  of  soothsaying. 

Among  the  Greeks  we  have  full  information  about  a 
state  of  matters  undoubtedly  similar.  In  many  of  their 
families    in    the     very     earliest    days    prophecy    was    here- 

^  Isa.  XXX.  2.  ^  Ezek.  xxxiii.  SOflf.  (cf.  1  Kings  xxii.). 

3  1  Sam.  vi.  Iff.  M  Kings  xviii.  19  ;  2  Kings  x.  19. 

^  Num.  xxii.  6,  xxiii.  5,  xxiv.  3  ff.  ;  Micah  vi.  5  ;  Neh.  xiii.  2. 
8  Gen.  xli.   8,    24;  Ex.   vii.    11,  22,  viii.   7,  IS,  ix.    11  (D'D^L^bD,   CDUIH, 
CODH) ;  ef.  also  rm  in  Gen.  xliv.  5,  15. 

''  Ex.  xxii.  17  ;  Lev.  xix.  27,  xx.  6,  27  (piy,   3"1X,   '•jyT'") ;  elsewhere  DOp- 
8  E.g.  Judg.  IX.  37,   W::V^  \hi<  ;  vii.  1,   miCH  nj,'ZJ. 


ISRAELITISH  AND  HEATHEN  PROPHETS.         251 

ditary/  as  among  the  Jamidae,  the  Clytiadre,  the  Telliadre, 
etc.  In  later  times  it  was  usual  to  divide  the  wliole  sooth- 
saying profession^  into  two  dasses,  although  both  often 
appear  combined.  In  the  one  class  the  enlightenment  is  not 
acquired  by  art  or  got  by  study .^  The  soul  is  enlightened 
when  awake  or  in  a  trance,  or  else  it  is  thrown  into  an 
ecstasy.  In  the  other,  the  enlightenment  is  got  by  study,  as 
an  art  is,  in  innumerable  different  ways.*  Omens  obtained 
in  answer  to  prayer,  or  voluntarily  sent  by  the  gods,  were 
carefully  examined ;  for  example,  the  flight  of  birds,  lightning, 
falling  stars,  eclipses  of  the  sun  and  the  moon,  comets,  pro- 
digies, and  later,  too,  the  conjunctions  of  the  stars.  People 
noticed  whether  the  victim  came  to  the  altar  willingly  or 
reluctantly,  how  the  different  pieces  of  the  sacrifice  burned, 
and  what  omens  the  entrails  gave.  Tliey  were  on  the  watch 
for  ornens  in  the  house  and  by  the  way,  and  for  accidental 
cries  of  special  foreboding.  With  lots,  sieves,  barley,  eggs, 
rings,  and  innumerable  otlier  objects,  tlie  future  could  be 
foretold  according  to  a  fixed  tradition  and  art.  Both  kinds 
of  soothsaying  are  lost  in  hoary  antiquity,  and  are  already 
glorified  in  ancient  legend.  But  while  more  and  more 
honour  was  paid  to  persons  really  inspired  of  God,  and 
particularly  to  the  Pythia,  down  even  to  a  somewhat  late 
period,  so  that  it  was  only  the  scornful  unbelief  of  times  of 
declension  which  scoffed  at  inspired  jDcrsons  as  fools  and  mad- 
men,'^ professional  "  interpi'eters  of  dreams,"  ventriloquists, 
and  pythonists,*"  were  looked  upon  with  contempt,  and 
were    miserably   paid.''      But   in    every    case  of  soothsaying 

1  0.  Miiller,  Hist.  Gr.  Lit.  i.  172  ;  Seliomann,  p.  295,  etc. 

-  Cf.  for  the  whole  subject,  Scliouiann,  ii.  266  tt'.  etc.  ;  Hermann,  I.e.  226  ff. 

ciTi^vov  xai  u.diiax.rot  yivog. 

•*  TO  Ttx^'nov  yivo;.  Compare  the  passages  from  Plato,  Plutarch,  and  Pausanias, 
in  the  archisological  works  cited  above  ;  also  Cicero,  De  Dirin.  i.  18.  41. 

^  Schol.  Aristoph.  Av.  988,  in  Schumann,  p.  271 ;  cf.  Pausanias,  iii.  11.  9, 
X.  9.  7  ;  Herod,  ix.  33  ff.,  294,  etc. 

"  31K.  Pytlio,  Plutarch,  De  Dcf.  Orac.  9 ;  Schol.  Aiistoph.   Vesj).  1055  (1-1). 

^  Aristoph.  Vesp.  52. 


252  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

proper,  the  form  in  which  the  Deity  revealed  Himself  to 
men  was  the  trance.  Hence  Plato  draws  a  clear  distinction 
between  the  fidvTL<;  proper  and  the  7rpo(f)7]Trj<;  who  merely 
expounds  or  interprets;^  just  as  the  prophet  stood  beside 
the  Pythia  to  receive  and  communicate  the  oracle.-  More- 
over, among  the  Greeks  also  the  complaint  about  lying 
prophets  is  an  old  onc.^ 

Prophecy  in  Israel  had  undoubtedly  to  be  developed  out 
of  such  circumstances  as  the  generally  prevalent  conception 
of  the  soothsayer  implies.  Popular  figures  are  the  historical 
parent-soil  of  all  the  sacred  figures  of  Israel.  From  the 
first  even  the  prophet  must  certainly  have  had  in  the  earnest 
and  moral  religion  of  Israel  a  different  character  from  what 
he  had  in  the  voluptuous  orgiastic  nature-worship  of  Canaan. 
But,  with  the  documents  at  our  command,  it  is  impossible 
to  determine  precisely  the  nature  of  that  distinction.  The 
oldest  narratives  in  no  wise  indicate  so  marked  a  cleavage 
between  the  divine  oracles  in  Israel  and  those  of  other 
nations  as  there  M'as  in  later  times.  Quite  in  accordance 
with  the  ancient  idea,  Ehud  comes  as  the  bearer  of  a  message 
from  God  to  the  heathen  Eglon,  who  receives  him  with  due 
respect.  In  later  times,  too,  the  king  of  Edom  goes  with  the 
kings  of  Judah  and  Israel  in  order  to  hear  from  Elisha  a 
word  from  God.*  The  way  in  which,  in  Judg.  vii.  13,  the 
dream  of  the  Midianite  soldier  is  taken  and  applied  as  an 
omen,  is  quite  in  harmony  with  ancient  ideas.  Interpretation 
of  dreams  plays  an  extremely  important  role  in  sacred  legend 
as  given  by  C,  and  by  no  means  so  as  to  draw  a  distinction 
between  the  dreams  of  heathens  and  the  dreams  of  Israel's 
forefathers.^     In  early  times  the  people  have  no  scruples  in 

^   Plato,    TimaeUS,  71  f. ,   oL'Sli;  yaji  'ivvoui  i(pa.-rTirai  /LcavTiaij;  IvS'iov  Kcc)  aXn^ou;. 

'  Herod,  viii.  36. 

3  Sophocles,  Antif).  1036  (55) ;  .T.scliyl.  Ajam.  1168  ;  Herod,  ix.  95, 
*  Judg.  iii.  20  ;  2  Kings  iii.  12  f. 

6  Gen.  xxxi.  10,  24,  xxxvii.  5,  9,  19,  xl.  5,  8,  12,  18,  xli.  1,  11,  15,  25, 
xlvi.  2  (mO^nn  bV2,  IDD,   D''J"inD  D\1^N^)  ;  cf.  Gen.  XX.  3,  6,  and  often. 


ISRAELITISH  AND  HEATHEN  PROPHETS.  253 

making  precisely  the  same  demands  on  the  prophets  of  Israel 
as  the  heathen  made  on  their  soothsayers.  A  particularly 
striking  proof  of  this  is  the  way  Saul  consults  Samuel,  and 
tlie  way  he  is  directed  to  hirn.^  The  greatest  men  of  God 
could  not  take  it  amiss  if  they  were  asked  to  answer,  for  a 
soothsayer's  usual  fee,  questions  about  the  most  ordinary 
affairs  of  daily  life. 

Still,  it  can  only  have  been  the  simple  and  artless  kind  of 
soothsaying  in  v.diich  such  men  engaged.  The  really  pro- 
fessional kinds,  especially  the  Canaanitish  necromancy,  which 
kept  its  place  in  the  people's  favour  with  great  persistency, 
were  regarded  by  the  law  in  Israel  as  foreign  abominations, 
against  which  kings  like  Saul,  in  their  zeal  for  Jehovah,  acted 
with  the  greatest  severity.  Necromancy  was,  it  is  true,  not 
considered,  even  in  Israel,  as  deception  pure  and  simple,  but 
as  a  wicked  recourse  to  powers  and  arts  inconsistent  with 
i'aith  in  the  covenant  God  of  Israel.  Most  worthy  of 
attention,  and  perfectly  in  keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the  older 
times,  is  the  story  which  makes  King  Saul  ask  tlie  Witch  of 
Eiidor,  the  day  before  liis  last  fatal  battle,  for  information  about 
the  future.^  It  shows  us  that  the  practice  of  necromancy 
had  been  forbidden  as  non-Jewish,  and  that  the  king,  in  his 
zeal  for  the  religion  of  Jehovah,  had  visited  it  with  heavy 
punishment.  But  it  shows  at  the  same  time  tliat  not  only 
did  popular  superstition,  in  spite  of  all  official  edicts,  make 
such  a  practice  possible  and  lucrative,  but  that  even  the 
followers  of  Jehovah  saw  in  it  no  mere  empty  superstition, 
but  a  mysterious  and  wicked  use  of  strange  powers,  by 
means  of  which  a  glimpse,  at  any  rate,  could  be  got  into  the 
dark  realm  of  the   I'uture.^     But  in  other  respects  we  cannot 

1  1  Sam.  ix.  6  fF.  ;  cf.  xxiii.  2. 

"^  1  Sam.  xxviii.  3  IF.  As  a  narrative  the  passage  indeed  belongs  to  a 
pretty  late  period.  But  the  impression  it  gives  of  being  perfectly  natural  and 
true  to  life  will  escape  nobody. 

^  The  occurrence  itself  was  certainly  dne,  as  in  similar  Greek  stories,  to  the 
art  of  ventriloquism  (tJ^iSV  and  njnn,  Isa.  viii.  19),   by  which  the  voice  of  the 


254  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

maiutain  that  soothsaying  in  Israel  was  so  very  different  from 
that  of  the  heathen.  The  spirit  of  the  higher  religion  did 
not  simply  negative  popular  forms  and  views,  it  did  not  make 
tlie  living  spirit  of  the  people  a  mere  blank  page ;  but  it 
appropriated  what  was  there,  and  then  gradually  cut  out 
what  was  inconsistent  with  itself. 

Even  in  early  times,  as  in  the  case  of  Moses,  Samuel, 
Nathan,  and  Elijah,  soothsaying  was  not  the  most  important 
function  of  the  prophets  of  Israel,  still  less  that  which 
constituted  their  life-work.^  Certainly  in  those  vigorous 
days,  and  in  those  countries  where  every  sort  of  feeling  gets 
free  outward  expression,  inspiration  was  generally  rapture  of 
a  most  violent  kind.  Under  the  influence  of  sacred  music, 
the  prophets  worked  themselves  into  a  state  of  passionate 
excitement.  Even  Elisha  did  not  disdain  this  use  of  music. '-^ 
The  people  actually  called  tliem  "  madmen  "  ; "  and,  indeed, 
this  name  was  not  a  mere  term  of  derision,  but  one  in  quite 
general  usC^  It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  that  in  the  East  at 
the  present  day  insanity  is  regarded  as  a  kind  of  rapture ; 
that  lunatics  are  still,  as  in  David's  time,  looked  on  with  much 
respect,  as  persons  who  are  on   no  account  to  be  injured,  as 


dead  was  imitated  as  if  coining  either  from  the  sky  or  tlie  ground  ;  while,  of 
course,  only  the  sorcerer,  not  the  inquirer,  saw  the  figure.  The  dead  person 
appears  as  D^npXj  like  the  Manes,  ver.  13.  The  soothsaying  spirit  was  termed 
31X  ;  the  word  "jyT*  properly  denotes  the  soothsayer  himself ;  then,  also,  the 
spirit  as  "knowing,"  Lev.  xix.  31  (according  to  Stade,  merely  "  clever  spirits"; 
Deat.  xviii.  11  ;  2  Kings  xxi.  6).  The  account  of  necromancy  in  modern  Egypt, 
with  the  final  exposure  of  the  trick,  is  very  interestingly  told  hy  Lane,  Planners 
and  Customs  of  the  Modern  Egyptians.  Besides,  our  enlightened  age  needs 
only  to  notice  how  every  "medium"  acts,  in  order  to  understand  the  trickery 
required  and  the  credulity  even  of  educated  persons. 

^  It  is  much  more  likely  that  forms  of  professional  soothsaying  were  practised 
with  the  Urim  and  Thummim,  in  connection  with  the  oracles  of  ephod-wearing 
priests. 

'  2  Kings  iii.  15  ;  cf.  1  Sam.  x.  5,  9  ff.,  xix.  20  ff. 

^  yJC'O,  cf.  also  the  work  pDJ  (Num.  xxiv.  4)  in  the  antiquely  -  coloured 
narrative  about  Balaam. 

*  A  term  of  scorn,  Hos.  ix.  7,  but  dilferently  in  2  Kings  ix.  11  ;  Dent, 
xxviii.  34  ;  Jer.  xxix.  2C  ;  cf.  Odys.  xx.  360. 


ISEAELITISH  AND  HEATHEN  PEOPHETS.         255 

men  on  whom  God  has  set  a  special  mark,  whose  spirit  is  away 
in  heaven,^  whose  touch  brings  good  luck,  and  who  must  not 
be  denied  even  the  most  unheard-of  request.  But  Israelitish 
prophecy  can  be  properly  compared  only  witli  the  nobler  and 
more  spiritual  forms  of  lieathen  soothsaying.  In  order  to 
distinguish  it  from  these,  the  view  of  the  Old  Testament  does 
not  require  us  to  regard  tlie  inspiration  of  non-Israelites  as 
imaginary  or  fictitious,  and  only  that  of  the  prophets  of  Israel 
as  actually  the  work  of  a  higher  power.  The  Old  Testament 
goes  upon  the  supposition  that  even  a  Balaam  is  inspired  by 
the  true  God,  and  that  his  curse  or  blessing  takes  effect ;  ^  that 
Moses  has  a  certain  resemblance  to  the  wis,e  men  and  the 
sorcerers  of  Egypt ;  ^  that  even  heathen  kings  have  dreams  of 
a  truly  divine  significance  ;  *  that  the  prophets  of  the  Philistines 
prophesy  truly  ;^  in  a  word,  that  "God"  speaks  even  beyond 
the  bounds  of  Israel.  As  regards  the  relations  of  Israel  to 
the  heathen  w^orld,  the  older  parts  of  the  Old  Testament 
are  on  the  whole  very  impartial  and  mild.  It  is  only  with 
the  later  struggles,  and  especially  after  the  law  gets  a  more 
definite  written  form,  that  the  stern  severance  begins. 

Hence  we  cannot,  so  far  as  the  form  of  their  gift  is 
concerned,  separate  the  Israelitish  prophets  from  similar 
personages  among  other  peoples.  In  both  cases  it  is  taken 
for  granted  that  tlie  influence  of  the  Divine  Spirit  raises  them 
spiritually  above  ordinary  men,  and  gives  them  a  miraculous 
knowledge  of  future  events  and  of  the  supernatural  world. 
What  differentiates  the  prophets  of  Israel  is  the  character  of 

1  Cf.  the  early  narrative  in  1  Sam.  xxi.  14-16,  where  the  high  respect  paid  to 
tlie  yjCD  or  yjnti'O  as  such  is  manifest  all  through.  For  the  modern  East,  cf. 
Lane,  vol.  ii.  Schulz,  "Leitungen  des  Hochsten,"  etc.  (In  Paulus,  Sammlung 
der  merkwilnUgsien  Reiaen  in  den  Orient,  Bd.  vi.  149,  156,  vii.  34). 

^  No  doubt  only  in  a  somewhat  late  representation,  which,  however,  is,  of 
itself,  proof  of  what  has  been  stated,  Num.  xxii.  6,  xxiii.  5,  xxiv.  3  ff. ;  Micnli 
vi.  5  ;  Neh.  xiii.  2  ;  Josh.  xxiv.  9,  10.  (A's  conception  of  history  no  longer 
tolerates  such  equality  of  position.  Num.  xxxi.  8,  16  ;  Josh.  xiii.  22.) 

3  Ex.  vii.  11,  22,  viii.  7,  18,  ix.  11. 

«  Gen.  XX.  6,  xl.  5  f.,  xli.  1  if.,  25,  28  (C),  ^  1  Sam.  vi.  2  f. 


256  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGV. 

tlieir  knowledge  of  God.  Called  to  be  spiritual  leaders  of 
the  people  acknowledging  the  religion  of  Jehovah,  they  are 
full  of  enthusiasm  for  Jehovah,  the  holy  God  of  their  fathers, 
the  moral  Euler  of  the  world.  Hence  the  prophetic  powers 
which  they  possess  are  devoted  to  the  accomplishment  of  a 
great  and  holy  task  of  world-wide  moment.  It  is  only  in 
the  performance  of  this  religious  task  that  Israelitish  prophecy 
separates  itself  more  and  more  from  the  kindred  forms.  The 
prophets  of  Israel  are  the  servants  of  a  God  who  is  building 
up  a  moral  and  spiritual  kingdom  on  this  earth.  Hence  the 
prophets  of  Israel,  in  so  far  as  they  come  under  consideration 
in  connection  with  the  development  of  the  true  religion,  are 
distinguished  from  the  prophets  outside  Israel  in  exactly  the 
same  way  as  the  revealed  religion  of  the  Old  Testament  is 
distinguished  from  nature-religion.  Even  in  the  latter  there 
is  the  religious  feeling,  the  common  revelation  of  God  in  the 
spirit  of  nature  and  of  man.  In  like  manner,  in  the  prophets 
outside  Israel  there  is  prophetic  inspiration,  the  working  of 
an  enhanced  religious  power.  But  the  Old  Testament 
prophets  experience  the  working  of  the  Spirit  who  leads 
mankind  to  salvation.  They  are  placed  in  a  great  historical 
connection  which  conducts  to  the  highest  goal,  and  have  made 
this  people  the  religious  people.  Accordingly,  the  later  age  ^ 
was  right  in  considering  the  one  infallible  mark  of  a  genuine 
Old  Testament  prophet  to  be,  that  he  should  make  known 
the  God  of  Israel,  that  is  to  say,  should  be  in  accord  with 
the  spirit  that  was  revealed  through  Moses.  Of  this,  no 
other  endowment,  not  even  the  power  of  working  miracles, 
gives  absolutely  certain  proof. 

As  possessors  of  this  holy  spirit  the  prophets  are  in  a 
special  sense  what  Israel  itself  is  as  distinguished  from  the 
other  peoples.  The  prophets  are  in  a  special  sense  "  holy," 
dedicated  to  God.  They  have  "the  law"  of  God  written  on 
their  hearts,  as  it  was  at  first  written  on  the  heart  of  a  prophet. 
1  Deut.  xiii.  2  ff. 


TRUE  AND  FALSE  PROPHETS.  257 

They  are  proofs  to  the  people  of  the  high  position  it  holds  as 
the  people  of  God.  Prophecy  is  just  like  the  rainbow  in 
nature,  a  constant  token  of  God's  covenant  with  Israel,  a 
constant  pledge  of  the  divine  love  whose  everlasting  light 
irradiates  the  darkness  of  time. 

3.  Of  really  conscious  deceit  for  the  purposes  of  gain,  the 
earlier  age,  in  its  judgment  of  the  prophets  of  Jehovah,  knows 
nothing.  Such  an  idea  is  altogether  out  of  keeping  with  the 
thoughts  of  the  people  in  those  early  days.  It  was  only 
in  later  times,  when  men  were  more  given  to  thought  and 
reflection,  that  things  began  to  be  looked  at  in  this  light. 
When  a  prophet  lies,  without  being  inspired  by  a  false  or 
impotent  god,  it  is  because  God  in  His  anger  against  Israel's 
sin  means  to  destroy  him,  and  therefore  puts  into  the  prophets 
"  a  lying  spirit,"  "  an  evil  spirit  from  the  Lord."  Here  we 
must  specially  notice  the  interesting  and  picturesque  narra- 
tive in  1  Kings  xxii.  5  ff.,  the  date  of  which  is  early.  The 
prophets  who  cry  "  Peace,  peace,"  while  all  the  time  God 
has,  in  His  anger,  determined  on  a  terrible  judgment,  are 
not  considered  professional  tricksters,  as  in  later  ages  the 
opponents  of  Micah,  Zechariah,  and  Jeremiah  were.  God  led 
them  astray  in  His  anger;^  and  even  the  true  prophet  of  God 
had  at  first,  in  accordance  with  the  divine  will,  to  say  what  was 
untrue,  because  he  was  aware  that  God  intended  to  beguile 
the  king  (ver.  15).  The  statement  in  2  Kings  viii.  10  can 
scarcely  be  interpreted  in  this  sense.  For  here,  in  the  words 
of  Elisha,  there  is  either  a  ring  of  lofty  contempt  for  the 
ambitious  servant,  of  whose  murderous  thoughts  against  his 
master  the  prophet  is  aware,  while  he  is  able  at  the  same 
time  to  say  that  the  illness  of  that  master  will  not  prove  fatal. 
Or  we  have  to  follow  the  form  of  the  text  according  to  which 
Elisha  foretells   the  death  of  the  Syrian  king.     2  Sam.  vii. 

^  Naturally  these  men  feel  their  reputation  as  prophets  most  giievously  tar- 
nished by  the  disclosure  of  Micah,  and  exclaim,  "Has  the  spirit  of  God  left  us 
to  speak  to  thee  ?  "  (ver.  24). 

VOL.  L  R 


258  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

3,  4  does  not  require  to  be  taken  into  consideration  here ; 
for  what  Nathan  first  says  to  David  is  merely  the  impression 
which  the  proposal  to  build  a  temple  makes  on  his  own 
heart.  It  is  only  the  second  answer,  refusing  permission, 
which  is  represented  as  "  a  word  from  God." 

The  position  is  different  in  the  "  prophetic  period  "  proper. 
No  doubt,  even  during  this  period  the  Israelites  come  more  and 
more  into  contact  with  the  neighbouring  peoples  and  their 
superstitious  methods  of  soothsaying ;  and  the  prophets  have 
constantly  to  censure  the  people  for  their  frequent  use  of 
such  methods.  It  is  not  in  Egypt  only  that  sorcerers, 
diviners,  and  wizards  are  found.^  It  is  not  in  Chaldea  only 
that  soothsayers,  whisperers,  conjurors,  and  astrologers 
appear;^  while  Nineveh  itself  is  called  the  mistress  of 
witchcrafts.^  But  in  connection  with  Israel  also  there  is 
mention  made  of  "  inquiring  at  the  teraphim,  and  asking 
counsel  at  wood  and  stone."  ^  Ezekiel,  the  author  of  Job, 
and  other  poets,  speak  of  consulting  the  entrails  and  the  liver  ; 
they  refer  to  the  use  of  arrows  as  lots,  and  to  those  who 
curse  the  day,  being  skilful  at  rousing  up  leviathan,  that  is, 
to  astrological  conjurors;  and  they  are  familiar  with  the 
charming  of  snakes.-^  Deuteronomy  and  the  historical  books 
presuppose  that  many  varieties  of  this  professional  sooth- 
saying were  well  known  to  the  people.  Hence  we  cannot 
doubt  that  this  wicked  heathen  habit  was  widely  prevalent 
in  Israel.*^  Jeremiah  is  aware  of  prophets  prophesying  by 
Baal,  and  of  still  more  grievous  errors.'^  Isaiah  knows 
that   the  land  is  full   of  foreign   superstitions,  of  the   con- 


'  isa.  xix.  3,  D'-oynN  cux,  nnii«. 

2  Ezek.  xxi.  26 ;  B.  J.  xliv.  25,  xlvii.  10,  12  ;  cf.  Jer.  xxvii.   9,  1.  36  (0^2, 

cstTD,  nnan,  D^cop). 

»  Nahum  iii.  4.  ^  jjos.  iii.  4,  iv.  2  ;  Zecli.  x.  2 ;  Ezek.  xxi.  26. 

^  Ezek.  xxi.  26  ;  Job  iii,  8 ;  Ps.  Iviii.  6. 

"  Dcut.  xviii.  9  ff. ;  2  Kings  xvii.  17,  xxi.  6,  xxiii.  24   (in  addition  to  iLo 
words  already  quoted,  piyo,  OT:?;},  31N  bii^\  UTil^Jl-bii  ^i'll). 
^  Jer.  ii.  8,  xxiii.  13  f. 


TRUE  AND  FALSE  PKOPHETS.  259 

juring  arts  of  tlie  Philistines  and  men  from  the  East.^ 
Down  to  the  time  of  the  Exile  the  bad  old  heathen 
custom  of  calling  up  the  ghosts  of  departed  chiefs  as  manes 
or  Elohim,  was  evidently  quite  common ;  ventriloquists 
imitated  the  chirping  voices  of  the  spirits  dwelling  in  the 
tracts  of  air,  and  the  hollow  moaning  of  those  in  the  under- 
world ;  ^  and  there  also  ilourished  many  other  kinds  of 
professional  soothsaying.^  Such  arts  God  brings  to  nought* 
In  notable  contrast  with  this  is  the  picture  which  the  later 
age  gives  us  of  Balaam.  Here  the  poet  obviously  intends  to 
sketch  the  figure  of  a  foreign  prophet  of  the  olden  time,  but 
at  the  same  time  one  who  is  inspired  by  the  true  God,  and 
over  whose  strange  character  and  unpurified  will  the  spirit  of 
divine  prophecy  gains  a  complete  triumph.^ 

Accordingly,  after  the  ninth  century  the  heathen  form  of 
prophecy  was  vigorously  and  consistently  attacked  as  unworthy 
of  the  holy  people.^  In  one  of  its  most  beautiful  passages,'^ 
the  prophetic  law  expressly  declares  that  it  is  not  the  will  of 
God  that  the  people  should  seek  to  discover  His  present  and 
future  purposes  by  any  of  the  superstitious  arts  of  foreign 
soothsayers.  God  is  willing  to  raise  up  prophets  out  of 
Israel  itself,  who  shall,  like  Moses,  declare  unto  the  people, 
without  any  superstitious  mystery,  the  divine  will.^  The 
people  might  themselves  have  heard  this  divine  voice  directly ; 
but  they  had  been  unwilling  to  do  so,  and  in  their  terror  at 
Horeb  they  had  desired  not  to  hold  any  further  direct  inter- 

1  isa.  ii.  6,  mpo,  nnamb'- 

2  Isa.  viii.  19 ;  cf.  xix.  3,  xxix.  4,  S]V3i*0 ;  cf.  x.  14,  C'jnD.  The  word 
D\-|?X  in  Isa.  viii.  19  just  means  DTlOn,  exactly  as  iu  1  Sam.  xxviii.  13 
(should  not  a  people  consult  its  Elohim,  the  dead  regarding  the  living?). 

*  Cf.  e.g.  Isa.  viii.  19,  xix.  3,  12  ;  Jer.  xxvii.  9  ;  Micah  v.  11  (also  the  word 
D''»3n). 

*  B.  J.  xliv.  25.  E  jfum.  xxiii.,  xxiv.  ;  cf.  Micah  vi.  5. 
«  Isa.  viii.  19  fiF.  7  peut.  xviii.  9  ff .  (Num.  xxiii.  23). 

8  "Whether  the  word  N^aJ  {Nabi),  in  addition  to  its  acknowledged  collective 
meaning  of  ' '  the  prophetic  class, "  has  also  a  special  prophetic  reference  to  a 
particular  person,  is  a  question  to  be  put  at  a  later  stage. 


260  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

course  with  God  ;  and  so  they  now  have  to  listen  to  these  true 
prophets.  In  other  words,  since  the  moral  weakness  of  the 
people  makes  it  impossible  for  each  individual  to  learn  God's 
will  directly,  the  task  is  entrusted  to  men  in  whom  the  con- 
sciousness of  this  will  is  clear  and  powerful.  The  sign  of  this 
divine  gift  of  genuine  prophecy  is  not  the  power  of  working 
miracles.  True,  this  is  at  the  command  of  God's  prophet, 
but  not  at  his  only.^  Even  fulfilled  prophecy  is  not  an 
infallible  sign.  It  is  a  condition,  but  not  a  proof  of  genuine 
prophecy .2  It  may  even  happen  that  God  lets  such  a  prophecy 
be  fulfilled  merely  as  a  test,  in  order  to  see  if  His  people  really 
love  Him  so  much  that  no  alluring  Will-o'-the-wisp  can 
entice  them  from  the  right  path.^  The  one  real  proof  is  the 
prophet's  agreement  with  the  law,  his  fidelity  to  the  covenant.^ 
Consequently,  the  opposition  to  foreign  forms  of  prophecy 
is,  in  this  period,  unmistakable  and  direct.  All  the  more 
dangerous,  therefore,  is  the  appearance  in  Israel  of  a  false  pro- 
phecy, with  essentially  the  same  external  form  as  the  true. 
When  a  prophet  prophesies  in  Israel  in  the  name  of  other  gods 
than  Jehovah,  it  is  easy  to  unmask  him.^  But  it  is  more 
difficult  when  he  prophesies  in  the  name  of  Jehovah  something 
which  He  never  commanded,^  Even  during  this  period  there 
are  still  traces  of  the  idea  that  such  false  prophecy  is  due  to 
the  anger  of  God,  who  sends  a  lying  spirit  abroad  in  order 
to  punish  the  people  by  means  of  false  prophecies.'^  In  a 
noteworthy  passage  in  Micah,  we  find  the  belief  that  the  false 
prophets  were  conscious  of  their  lies,  actually  combined  with 
the  idea  of  a  divine  influence  working  upon  them ;  and  the 
complete   cessation   of   divine  communication   is   represented 

1  Deut.  xiii.  2,  3,  6. 

2  Deut.  xiii.  3  ;  cf.  xviii.  22  {niS  with  K3). 
^  Deut.  xiii.  6. 

*  Deut.  xiii.  3-6. 

^  Deut.  xviii.  20  ;   cf.  Jer.  ii.  8,  xxiii.  13  f. 

«  Jer.  xiv.  14  f.,  xxiii.  9,  11,  25  f.,  30  f.  ;  Ezek,  xiii.  9,  23. 

^  Hos.  ix.  7  (iv.  5);  Isa.  xxix.  10  j  Ezek.  xiv.  9  (Deut.  xiii.  6). 


TRUE  AND  FALSE  PROPHETS.  261 

as  really  a  punishment  for  their  misuse  of  the  prophetic  gift.^ 
And  from  a  purely  historical  standpoint,  we  cannot  doubt  that 
men  who  were  proved,  by  the  course  of  events,  to  be  "  false 
jDrophets,"  were  often  personally  quite  convinced  that  they 
were  proclaiming  the  will  of  God,  especially  when  they  were 
under  the  spell  of  truths  of  which  they  had  grasped  but  one 
side,  or  continued  to  be  influenced  by  ideas  which  in  the 
altered  circumstances  were  no  longer  in  harmony  with  the  real 
purposes  of  God.^ 

On  the  whole,  however,  false  prophecy  appeared  to  the 
men  of  God  as  a  wicked  profession  consciously  practised. 
The  liars  spoke  out  of  their  own  hearts  what  God  had  not 
said,^  The  means  for  such  deceit  were  not  far  to  seek.  In 
the  nature  of  things  the  prophets  had  a  particular  outward 
appearance  and  manner  of  speech.  They  were  known  by  their 
coats  of  skin  and  their  garments  of  hair.*  The  expressions 
"  Word  of  the  Lord,"  "  Oracle  of  God,"  "  Thus  saith  Jehovah," 
"  God  hath  sworn,"  were  standing  formula,  which  the 
narrative  of  B  and  C  allows  to  appear  even  in  patriarchal 
times.^  Their  calling,  however  thorny  for  the  conscientious, 
cannot  but  have  afforded  the  unscrupulous  an  easy  means 
of  living  and  a  comparatively  honourable  position.  Hence 
some  took  to  prophesying  just  for  the  sake  of  a  livelihood.^ 
There  were  also  not  a  few  women  who,  for  a  pitiable  wage, 

1  Micali  iii.  6  ff.;  Jer.  iv.  10  ;  Ezek.  xiv.  9. 

2  This  has  been  specially  well  emphasised  by  Duhm  in  his  judgment  of  Jere- 
miah's opponents,  p.  229. 

'^  Jer.   xxiii.  16  ;  Ezek.  \ii.  26,  27,  xiii.  2,  3,   10,  17  ;  Micah  ii.   11  ;  Zeeh. 

xiii.  2  (nxciDn  n-n,  nnb  iirn,  nn  i?r\)  -,  of.  isa.  ix.  14  (gloss)  ip'^  miD  n^:, 

an.  XIC'  prn,  Jer.  v.  31,  vl.  13,  vlli.  10  ;  Ezek.  xii.  24,  xiii.  6  f.,  xxii. 
28  ;  Zeph.  iii.  4. 

■*  Zeeh.  xiii.  4 ;  cf.  1  Kings  xix.  19  ;  2  Kings  i.  8,  ii.  13. 

^  On  these  expressions  in  detail  see  later  on.  Cf.  Gen.  xxii.  16  ;  1  Kings 
xvii.  2,  8,  xviii.  1,  xxi.  17,  xx.  28  ;  2  Kings  vii.  1  ;  especially  strong,  Jer.  xxiii. 
2.5,  33  f.,  36,  38  ;  Ezek.  xiii.  6f.,  xxii.  28  (the  interesting  phrase,  Ps.  xxxvi.  2, 

yc'D  Dx:). 

^  Amos  vii.  12  (the  connection  of  "prophesying"  and  "eating  bread"); 
Micah  iii.  5,  11  ;  Zeeh.  xiii.  3,  5  ;  cf.  B.  J.  Ivi.  10  f. 


262  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

deceived  people  with  a  stereotyped  form  of  soothsaying,  who, 
as  Ezekiel  puts  it,  hunted  for  souls  and  killed  them.^  Ikying 
prophets  appear  at  all  periods  in  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  and 
even  among  the  exiles ;  and  Jeremiah  evidently  draws  no  real 
distinction  between  such  prophets  and  the  soothsayers  of  Edom, 
Moab,  Ammon,  Tyre,  and  Sidon.^  They  have,  as  it  were, 
conspired  together  to  deceive  the  people  as  to  its  true  salva- 
tion.^ Their  object  is  an  easy  and  luxurious  life,*  They 
never  think  of  standing  in  the  breach  and  fighting  for  the 
people  in  the  day  of  the  Lord.  They  are  for  the  flock 
of  Israel  ^  dumb  but  greedy  dogs.  Their  anxiety  is  to  stand 
well  with  the  people,  who  do  not  want  to  have  the  truth 
prophesied  to  them,  but  desire  to  hear  "flattering  words." 
Hence  they  delight  to  prophesy  good  fortune,  to  cry  "  Peace, 
peace,"  where  there  is  no  peace.*'  And  at  the  same  time 
they  make  themselves  feared :  "  Whosoever  putteth  not  into 
their  mouth,  against  him  they  proclaim  a  holy  war."  ^  The 
thought  of  effecting  a  reformation,  a  conversion  of  the  people, 
never  once  occurs  to  them.^  They  grieve  the  righteous,  they 
harden  the  wicked.  Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  they  steal  the 
words  of  the  true  prophets,  to  wit,  their  prophecies  of  good, 
in  order  to  employ  them  on  the  wrong  occasion,  without 
the  condition  of  penitence  and  conversion  on  the  part  of  the 
people,^  On  the  other  hand,  they  scoff  at  the  true  prophets 
as  dull  pedagogues  who  do  not  know  how  to  live,  whilst  they 

^  Ezek.  xiii.  17  ff.  ;  Lam.  ii.  14. 

2  Jer.  xxix.  8f.,  15,  21,  xxvii.  3,  9,  10. 

^  Ezek.  xxii.  25. 

*  Isa.  xxviii.  7  ;  Jer.  xxix.  23,  31  ;  B.  J.  Ivi.  10  f, 

»  Ezek.  xiii.  4  ;  B.  J.  Ivi.  10. 

6  Micah  ii.  11,  iii.  11  ;  Isa.  xxx.  10  ff.  ;  B.  J.  Ivi.  10,  11  ;  Jer.  v.  31,  vi.  14, 
viii.  11,  xiv.  13,  xx.  6,  xxiii.  9ff.,  16ff.,  xxvii.  14ff.  ;  Ezek.  xi.  2ff.,  xiiL  10, 
16  (to  chatter  of  wine  and  strong  drink). 

''  Micah  iii.  5  ;  Lam.  ii.  14.  ^  Ezek.  xiii.  22. 

^  Jer.  xxiii.  30.  An  example  is  afforded  by  the  oracle  which  Micah  quotes 
(ii.  12  f.).  Such  men  might  often  imagine  they  were  speaking  quite  in  the  spirit 
of  the  true  men  of  God  of  former  days,  and  would  then,  in  turn,  regard  their 
opponents  as  lying  prophets. 


TRUE  AND  FALSE  PEOPHETS.  263 

themselves   imagine    they  have   in   their   prophecies   a    sure 
refuge  against  death,  Hades,  and  every  kind  of  destruction.^ 

Necessarily  such  prophets  were  everywhere  hostile  to  the 
true  prophets.  They  fought  each  other  with  divine  oracles 
and  signs."^  And  where  this  false  prophecy  got  the  upper 
hand  and  was  handed  down  in  particular  schools  and 
families,  the  true  prophet  had  good  cause  to  declare,  with 
deprecating  gesture,  "  I  am  neither  a  prophet,  nor  the  son 
of  a  prophet."^  Then  the  expectation  could  he  expressed 
that  in  the  future  there  would  be  no  more  soothsayers,*  It 
is  to  such  prophets  that  the  ruin  of  the  people  is  really 
due.  They  are  worse  than  the  prophets  of  Baal.^  But  God 
will  confound  the  lying  work  of  such  men.^  Although 
their  outward  appearance,  perhaps  indeed  their  own  con- 
sciousness, did  not  always  distinguish  them  from  God's 
true  prophets,  still  there  were  unmistakable  differences.  The 
judgment  of  God  in  the  history  of  the  world  brings  to 
nought  the  lies  of  the  false  prophets.'^  The  true  prophet  is 
distinguished  from  them  by  the  power  of  the  spirit  of  God, 
which  in  good  and  in  evil  days  is  like  a  fire,  or  a  hammer 
that  breaks  the  rock  in  pieces.^  But  the  main  distinction 
between  the  two  is,  as  Jeremiah  insists,  the  thoroughly 
moral  character  of  the  preaching  of  the  true  man  of  God. 
He  never  proclaims  unconditional  happiness  and  salvation. 
His  word  never  fails  to  punish  sinners  and  call  them  to 
repentance.  Prophets  who  know  how  to  speak  of  nothing 
but  happiness  and  blessing  are  always  false  prophets,  who 
speak  according  to  the  desires  of  their  own  and  the  people's 
heart,9 


^  Isa.  xxviii.  7-18. 

2  So,  e.g.,  Jer.  xxviii.  1  ff.,  10  fT.  ;  Ezek.  xiii.  1  fF, 

3  Amos  vii.  14.  *  Zecli.  xiii,  2ff.  ^  Jer.  xxiii. 

"  Isa.  xxviii.  19.     There  will  come  a  time  when  it  will  cause  nothing  but 
terror  to  hear  a  prophecy  (Ezek.  xiii.  11  flf.,  xxii.  30). 

''  Dent,  xviii.  22  ;  Jer.  xxviii.  9,  xxxvii.  19  ;  Ezek.  xxxiii.  33. 

8  Micah  iii.  8  ;  Jer.  xxiii.  29.  »  Jer.  xxiii,  22,  xxviii,  8,  9. 


2G4  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

4.  Most  of  the  names  for  "  prophet "  used  in  the  earlier 
days  point  to  the  character  of  the  prophetic  office.  They 
indicate  special  inspiration,  and  a  knowledge  of  hidden 
things,  gifts  not  supposed  to  be  exclusively  confined  to  Israel. 
The  oldest  designation  is  "  seers,"  "  gazers ; "  that  is,  men  to 
whom,  apart  from  the  experience  of  their  bodily  senses,  God 
gives  power  to  see  things  hidden  from  ordinary  people, 
whether  in  reference  to  the  future  or  to  the  dark  regions  of 
the  present.^ 

From  the  inspiration  that  streamed  upon  them,  and 
seemed  to  snatch  them  away  beyond  the  limits  of  self- 
conscious  thinking  life,  they  were  called  "  nebiim,"  ^  a  name 
that  was  given  even  to  Moses  and  Abraham.^  The  ordinary 
meaning  of  this  word  cannot  well  be  doubted.  Where 
the  one  writer  says  that  Aaron  has  to  serve  as  "  a  mouth " 
to  Moses,  the  other  says  that  Moses  must  be  to  Aaron 
as  God,  and  Aaron  to  Moses  as  "  nabi."  *  The  Hithpael  of 
the  verb,  which,  it  is  evident,  was  originally  a  denominative, 
means  "  to  go  about  raving  under  the  constraining  influence 
of  a  higher  power  and  an  irresistible  excitement."  ^  The 
connection  of  the  Niphal  with  a  name  of  God  by  the  pre- 
position 3  6  clearly  shows  that  what  is  meant  is  "  speaking 
under  the  influence  of  a  deity,  be  it  the  God  of  Israel  or 
be  it  Baal."''  It  is  quite  plain,  therefore,  that  the  nabi  is 
one  who   speaks    under    the    influence    of    the  deity  as  his 

^  nX"i>  HTn,  1  Sam.  ix.  9.  Formerly  in  Israel  when  a  man  went  "to 
inquire  "  of  God,  he  spake  thus,  "  Come  and  let  us  go  to  the  roeh  (seer),"  for 
he  that  is  now-a-days  called  a  nabi  (prophet)  was  formerly  called  roeh  (seer). 
The  purposely  archaic  style  of  the  later  age  is  fond  of  these  terms  as  well  as  of 
the  old  phrases  for  prophetic  action  (2  Chron.  xxix.  25,  30 ;  Hagg.  i.  2,  13, 
ii.  1,  20  ;  Zech.  i.  1-16,  ii.  9-14,  iii.  7-10). 

3  E.g.  Deut.  xxxiv.  10  (A). 

*  Ex.  vii.  1  (A)  ;  cf.  iv.  16  (C). 

*  Num.  xi.  26,  27  ;  1  Sam.  xviii.  10 ;  1  Kings  xviii.  29,  N33nn  (it  can  hardly 
imply,  as  Redslob  maintains,  the  idea  of  affectation). 

•*  Jer.  ii.  8. 

I  So  1  Kings  xviii,  19  ;  2  Kings  x.  19  ;  Jer.  ii.  8,  xxiii.  13f. 


NAMES  FOR  A  PROPHET.  265 

instrument,  and  without  any  independence  of  his  own. 
Certainly  a  nabi  is  never  a  speaker  in  the  usual  sense  of 
the  word,  but  a  person  who,  overpowered  by  the  Divine 
Spirit,  utters  involuntarily  what  the  Spirit  whispers  to 
him.  "  God  seizes  his  inspired  prophet  roughly,  and  the 
latter  shouts  out  his  words  in  loud  and  boisterous  tones" 
(Hoffmann).^ 

On  its  etymological  side  the  question  is  more  difficult. 
The  verb  obviously  expresses  the  idea  of  a  dull  sound.'-^  The 
noun  may  be  taken  either  as  a  passive  form,  corresponding  to 
the  passive  participle,  or  as  an  active  intransitive  form.^  In 
the  first  case  the  nabi  would  be  the  recipient  of  revelation, 
"  the  inspired  one  "  ;  in  the  second  case  "  the  speaker,"  but  in 
the  sense  of  speaking  God's  mysterious  words.  The  latter 
hypothesis  seems  to  me  the  more  probable,*  because  a  passive 
form  for  "  speaking,"  "  murmuring,"  is  in  itself  improbable. 
But  the  idea  of  "  extraordinary,"  "  ecstatic  "  speaking  certainly 
belongs  to  the  root,  as  is  quite  evident  from  a  host  of  passages.^ 
The  term  "  madman  "  also  occurs  with  a  certain  affinity  to  this 
word,  whether  used  as  a  term  of  reproach  or  in  a  more  neutral 
sense.^  The  prophet  is  called  "  a  man  of  the  Spirit,"  '^  one  upon 
whom  God's  Spirit  rests,  consecrating  and  anointing  him  to 
his  office ;  ^  one  who  is,  to  use  another  metaphor,  clothed  with 

^  1  Kings  xix.   11-15  ;   Job  iv.  16.     (The  most  noteworthy  phrase  is    pip 

noon.) 

-  y33,  Hiph.,  Ps.  xix.  3  ;  cf.  ]})2,   DS3,   DHJ.  ^  Ewald's  Gram.  §  149e. 

■*  Among  the  Arabs  the  nabi  is  the  speaker,  among  the  Chaldeans  the  nabo  is 
the  messenger,  of  the  gods.  According  to  Kuenen,  it  denotes  the  divinely-inspired 
fanatics  of  Canaan.  Land's  hypothesis  is  quite  improbable,  that  the  word  is 
(like  the  form  "i^fj,  etc.)  a  Niphal  form,  from  ^"i3  =  £v^£05,  " one  into  whom  a 
higher  has  entered." 

5  1  Sam.  X.  5,  10,  xix.  20  ;  1  Chron.  xxv.  2,  3  ;  Jer.  xxix.  26. 

^  1  Sam.  xviii,  20  ;  2  Kings  iii.  15,  ix.  11  ;  Jer.  xxix.  26  ;  Hos.  ix.  8. 
(Here,  apparently,  the  reference  is  to  true  prophets  of  God  who  are  scoffed  at,  and 
for  whom  snares  are  laid  in  the  temple,  ]}ir\Z'D,  yJC'D)- 

''  nnn  ^a,  Hos.  ix.  7. 

*  B.  J.  xlviii.  16,  Ixi.  1.  "The  sense  of  a  universally  binding  conviction 
is,  to  the  prophets,  a  pledge  that  it  is  due  to  something  outside  of  themselves" 
(Holfmann). 


2G6  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY, 

the  Spirit  as  with  a  garment.^  The  hand  of  God,  called 
also  simply  "  The  hand,"  takes  a  grip  of  him ;  ^  he  is 
the  instrument  of  a  higher  power.^  He  receives  words 
out  of  God's  mouth,*  so  that  he  speaks  God's  word,^ 
announces  His  oracle,^  and  proclaims  the  declaration  of 
the  Lord,'^  the  oath  of  God.^  In  an  archaic  expression,  pur- 
posely retained,  the  prophet  is  called  the  man  who  heareth 
the  words  of  God  "with  eyes  closed,  but  with  the  inner 
eye  open,"  who  falls  prostrate  under  the  influence  of  a  higher 
power.^ 

Other  names  are  intended  to  denote  the  special  character- 
istics of  the  Old  Testament  prophet.  Whether  these  were 
already  employed  in  the  earliest  periods  of  prophecy  can 
hardly  be  determined.  The  name  of  the  town,  Eamathaim- 
Zophim,  can  scarcely  refer  to  the  prophets  as  watchmen.^*' 
And  we  are  as  little  able  to  ascertain  whether  the  title  of 
honour,  "  servant  of  Jehovah,"  ^^  which  is  applied  in  later 
days  to  Moses,  was  an  epithet  in  use  in  the  olden  times. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  certain  that  the  prophets  were  early 
described  as  "  men  of  God."  ^^     And  in  the  prophetic  period 

^  ::}2b,  2  Chron.  xxiv.  20.  bv  n^:*',  1  Sam.  x.  6,  xvi.  13.  h]!  i^SJ,  Ezek. 
xi.  5. 

2  Isa.  viii.  11  ;  Ezek.  iii.  14,  22,  viii.  3,  xxxiii.  22,  xxxvii.  1,  xl.  1. 

®  Isa.  XX.  2. 

*  Num.  xxiii.  5,  12,  16  ;  Deut.  xviii.  18  ;  Ezek.  xxxiii.  7.  (Deut.  i.  26,  43, 
ix.  23.) 

®  mn^  "in  in  countless  passages. 

®  mn''  DSJ,  really=  "  that  whicli  is  murmured,"  oracle ;  e.g.  Amos  ii.  11,  16 ; 
Micah  iv.  6,  v.  9. 

^  nin''  13T  Nb'D,  from  bip  Nbj,  "an  elevated  utterance;"  e.g.  Isa.  xxi.  1,  2, 
11,  13,  xxii.  1  ;  Nahum  i,  1  ;  in  later  times  distorted  into  "burden,"  Jer.  xxiii. 
31  ff. 

"  nin"'  yaC'J,  e.g.  Zeph.  ii.  9;  B.J.  xiv.  24,  xlv.  23;  of.  nin"'  "lOX  n3, 
Ezek.  iii.  11,  27  ;  already  in  1  Sam.  ii.  27,  x,  18. 

9  Num.  xxiv.  3  ff.  ;  B.  J.  1.  4,  5. 
"  1  Sam.  i.  1. 

"  nin"-  nay,  of  Moses,  e.g.  Josh.  xiv.  7,  xviii.  7  (A). 

^'  D^n?Nn  ly^a  of  Moses,  Josh.  xiv.  6  (A).  But  of  others  already  in  Judg. 
xiii.  6  ff.  ;  1  Sam.  ii.  27,  ix.  6,  7,  10.  The  expression  is  a  standing  one  as 
applied  to  Elijah  and  Elisha. 


THE  PKOPHETIC  CALLING.  267 

such  expressions  "become  more  and  more  prevalent,  the  more 
it  is  acknowledged  that  the  real  characteristic  of  a  prophet's 
task  is  to  work  in  hehalf  of  Israel's  God  among  His  people, 
and  to  counteract  ungodliness  and.  forgetfulness  of  duty. 
Their  life  is  not  their  own.  Even  where  flesh  and  blood 
would  rebel  against  the  suffering,  and  the  mouth  would  refuse 
to  utter  the  name  of  God,^  they  must  speak.  It  is  in  their 
heart  as  a  burning  fire,  and  they  cannot  endure  it.^  They 
are  given  no  rest,  no  joy,  no  security.  None  of  the  ordinary 
pleasures  of  men  are  theirs.  They  endure  reproach  for  God's 
sake.  They  who  accept  the  word  of  God  with  eagerness 
must  go  about  mournful  and  sad  in  the  midst  of  general 
levity.^  They  must  often  curse  the  day  of  their  birth.'* 
When  they  would  desert  their  calling,  God  is  too  strong  for 
them.  He  talks  them  over,^  or  His  almighty  power  compels 
them  to  return  to  the  vocation  they  would  gladly  quit.*' 
Like  new  wine  in  new  bottles,  God's  spirit  ferments  within 
them,  compelling  them  to  speak  without  respect  of  persons." 
They  are  not  their  own,  but  God's  ^;  servants  of  God,'' 
who  stand  ^'^  before  Him  as  attendants. 

This  difficult  position  of  theirs  is  at  the  same  time  a 
position  of  the  highest  dignity.  As  God's  servants  they  are 
consecrated,  having  their  lips  purified ;  ^^  called  when  in  their 
mother's  womb,  ay,  even  acknowledged  and  sanctified  before 
God  formed  them  in  the  womb ;  men  sent  from  God  with  His 
spirit.^2     Fired  and  strengthened  by  the  Divine  Spirit,  they  go 

1  Jer.  XX.  7. 

2  Jer.  XX.  9  ;  cf.  vi.  11,  xii.  5  ff.  ;  Amos  iii.  8  ;  Jonali  i.  13. 

3  Jer.  XV.  15  ff.,  xx.  7  f . ;  B.  J.  1.  4  ff. 

*  Jer.  XV.  10,  XX.  14  ff.  ;  1  Kings  xix.  10.  ^  Jer.  xx.  7. 

6  Jon.  i.  3ff.,  ii.  1,  11  ;  cf.  Num.  xxii.  8ff.,  12ff.,  ISff.,  xxiii.  8,  xxiv.  13. 
^  The  expression  in  Elihu's  speech,  Job  xxxii.  18  ff. 
®  Jer.  XXXV.  1  ;  1  Kings  xii.  22,  xiii.  1,  4,  7,  13  ff.,  xvii.  18,  24. 
^  Isa.  XX.  3  ;  Jer.  vii.  25,  xxv.  4,  xxvi.  5,  xxix.  19,  xxxv.  15  ;  Zecli.  i.  6  ; 
2  Kings  xvii.  13,  xxi.  10,  xxiv.  2, 

1''  Jer.  xviii.  20  ;  1  Kings  x.  8,  xvii.  1  ;  2  Kings  iii.  14,  v.  16. 
"  Isa.  vi.  4  ff.  ;  cf.  Micah  iii.  8  ;  Jer.  i.  9. 
12  Jer.  i.  5  ;  B.  J.  xlviii.  16,  xlix.  1  ff. 


268  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

forth  to  preach  the  word  of  God.^  Ezekiel  must  eat  the 
whole  book  of  the  divine  prophecies.  It  has  to  be  sweet 
unto  him ;  that  is  to  say,  conscious  of  being  God's  ambassador, 
he  gladly  discharges  the  duties  of  his  office,  hard  though 
they  are  from  a  human  standpoint.^  Hence  the  words  of  the 
prophets  are  "instruction  and  testimony,"  of  which  the 
people  must  keep  a  firm  hold ;  and  they  themselves  are  signs 
and  wonders  from  Jehovah  unto  Israel,^  Hence  their 
intercession  is  effectual.  They  can  appear  in  behalf  of  the 
sinful  people  with  good  hope  of  being  heard,^  and  their 
prayers  are  in  great  request.^  These  are  regarded  as  so 
efficacious  that  when  God  can  no  longer  show  mercy.  He 
actually  forbids  the  prophets  to  pray  for  the  lost  and  ruined 
people.*'  In  fact,  whatever  is  done  to  them  is  done  to  God 
Himself^ 

As  God's  servants,  the  prophets  are  watchmen  set  over 
Israel, — an  expression  first  employed  in  a  purely  poetical  way 
in  popular  proverbs,  but  afterwards  used  as  an  actual  designa- 
tion. In  the  night,  which  hides  from  the  unconsecrated  eye 
the  purposes  of  God,  they  stand  on  their  watch-tower,  their 
glances  piercing  the  darkness  of  that  night,  and  discerning 
coming  events  before  the  people  can  understand  them.  They 
are  thus  able  to  raise  the  alarm  in  time,  so  that  none  need 
perish  unwarned,  or  the  courage  and  faith  of  the  people  be 
lost  in  doubt.8     They  are  sentinels, — a  term  used  indeed  very 

1  Jer.  i.  7,  xxiii.  29  ;  Ezek.  iii.  10,  14 ;  Zech.  vii.  12. 
2Ezek.  ii.  9f.,  iii.  3. 
3  Isa.  viii.  16,  20. 

4Deut.  ix.  14,  19  f.,  26  f.,  x.  10  ;  1  Sam.  xii.  19,  23;  2  Kings  xix.  4; 
Amos  vii.  2,  5. 

5  Isa.  xxxvii.  4  ;  Jer.  xv.  11,  xxxvii.  3ff.,  xlii.  2  ;  cf.  Num.  xxii.  6. 

6  Jer.  vii.  16,  xi.  14,  xiv.  11,  xxvii.  18  ;  cf.  Gen.  xx.  7  (C) ;  1  Kings  xvii.  1  ; 
2  Kings  vi.  17,  18  ;  cf.  1  John  v.  16. 

7  Zech.  xi.  12  ff.,  xii.  10  ff. 

^  not;',  Isa.  xxi.  11,  still  used  quite  in  the  popular  song  style.  B.  J.  Ixii.  6  ; 
Ezek.  iii!  17,  xxxiii.  7.  So,  too,  the  W'i'bD  of  B.  J.  xliii.  27  are  prohably  the 
prophets  of  Israel  who  act  as  interpreters  between  God  and  His  people,  like  the 
angels  in  Job  xxxiii.  23. 


PEOPHETIC  DUTIES.  2G9 

loosely  and  with  many  shades  of  meaning/  but  still  with 
special  reference  to  the  foreseeing  by  the  prophets  of  mis- 
fortunes still  in  the  future.^  God  holds  them  responsible  if 
the  members  of  the  nation  perish  unwarned.^  They  are 
compared  to  the  smelter,  who  has  to  separate  the  dross  from 
the  precious  metal  of  God's  people.^  They  are  shepherds 
entrusted  with  the  duty  of  safely  guiding  the  national  flock, 
and  guarding  it  from  mishaps.^ 

In  post-exilic  times,  when  the  old  simple  notions  about 
heavenly  messengers  began  to  be  replaced  by  a  more  elaborate 
angelology,  the  prophets,  like  the  priests,^  were  spoken  of  as 
God's  commissioners  by  the  old  name  of  messengers  from 
heaven,  "angels,"  "  messengers."^ 

5.  The  conduct  of  the  prophets  of  the  earlier  days  we  have 
to  picture  to  ourselves  as  violent  and  extraordinary.  But  even 
then,  in  contrast  with  the  prophets  of  the  orgiastic  worship  of 
Canaan,  the  chief  means  which  they  employed  was  the  word, 
the  proclaiming  of  God's  will  regarding  the  pressing  questions 
of  the  day.  It  was  so  in  the  case  of  men  like  Moses,^ 
Nathan  and  Gad,  Elijah  and  Elisha.  In  later  times  this  is 
perfectly  self-evident.  In  fact,  the  ancient  forms  of  ecstasy 
pass  over  into  the  ordinary  forms  of  speech.  Without 
noticing  the  contradiction  in  terms,  people  speak  of  "  seeing 
the  word  of  God  "  ;  and  a  "  vision  "  means  nothing  more  than 
"  revelation."  ^  The  prophets  speak  by  God's  commission. 
The  truth  of  their  utterance  is  self-evidencing,  and  requires 

^  CS^i)  D''DVD,  Hos.  ix.  8.  Ephraim  is  on  the  outlook  against  God.  B.  J. 
Ivi.  10  f.,  of  prophets  untrue  to  their  calling. 

-  Hab.  ii.  1 ;  Jer,  vi.  17  ;  Ezek.  xxxiii.  2,  7.     In  Micah  vii.  4,  the  day  of  the 
sentinels  means  "the  day  foretold  by  the  prophets."     2  Sam.  xviii.  24  shows 
•   that  sentinel  and  watchman  are  virtually  synonymous. 

3  Ezek.  iii.  17  ff.,  xxxiii.  Iff.  *  Jer.  vi.  27. 

5  Zech.  xi.  4  ff.  ^  Mai.  iii.  1  ;  Eccles.  v.  5. 

7  B.  J.  xliv.  26  ;  Hag.  i.  13. 

8  A,  Ex.  vi.  12,  30,  vii.  1  ;  C,  Ex.  iv.  10,  16. 

^  Isa.  i.  1,  ii.  1,  xxi.  2  ;  Jer.  ii.  31  ;  Amos  i.  1  ;  Micah  i.  1  ;  Hab.  i.  1  ;  Num. 
xxiii.  3.  The  peculiar  expression  in  Isa.  xxviii.  15,  18  is  probably  due  to  the 
corruption  of  the  text. 


270  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

no  corroboration.  "What  they  communicate  they  feel  to  be 
due  to  an  imperative  inward  call. 

The  earlier  prophets  were  very  far  from  having  a  connected 
and  harmonious  religious  system  to  develop  and  proclaim  to 
the  people.  The  revelations  made  to  them  were  watchwords 
for  the  complications  of  their  own  time,  exhortations  to  be 
faithful  to  Jehovah  and  to  tlie  customs  of  the  fathers,  words 
of  warning  and  of  consolation.  They  communicated  to  the 
people  short  authoritative  sayings  and  divine  commands. 
They  grasped  .with  firm  hand  the  wheels  of  the  State  chariot, 
even  when  the  drivers  gave  them  but  little  thanks. 

The  confidence  displayed  by  the  prophets  in  their  vocation 
was  due  to  the  consciousness  that  they  were  speaking,  not  of 
themselves  "  out  of  their  own  heart,"  ^  but  as  commissioners 
sent  by  God.  Hence  they  felt  themselves  endowed  with  an 
authority  which  no  one  could  possibly  call  in  question. 
Whatever  they  spoke  and  did  was  for  them  the  word  and 
deed  of  God.  Hence  they  can,  as  God's  favoured  servants, 
intercede  effectually  for  others.  The  hosts  of  heaven  are 
seen  encamped  around  them.^  When  the  spirit  of  God  lays 
hold  of  them  and  compels  them  to  speak,  they  claim 
obedience  for  their  unsupported  word.  And  as,  according 
to  popular  recollection,  the  congregation  of  Israel,  in  spite 
of  all  its  murmuring,  followed  Moses  in  all  essential  matters ; 
so  the  bitter  hatred  of  the  idolatrous  party  in  Samaria,  and 
the  vacillation  of  the  fickle  king,  never  succeeded  in  crippling 
the  influence  of  Elijah  or  Elisha.^  Saul,  though  at  the 
head  of  his  victorious  army,  does  not  venture  to  resist  the 
word  of  Samuel.*  Eli  bows  at  once  to  the  divine  message ;  ^ 
and  David,  amid  all  his  glory,  submits  humbly  to  Nathan's 

^  Num.  xvi.  28.  Particularly  worthy  of  note  is  2  Sam.  vii.  1-3,  cf.  4,  where 
Nathan  at  first  speaks  according  to  the  view  that  suggested  itself  to  his  own  mind, 
but  afterwards  the  divine  voice  makes  him  come  to  an  opposite  conclusion. 

^  2  Kings  vi.  17. 

^  1  Kings  xxi.  20  ff.,  27  ff.  ;  2  Kings  iii.  13  ff. 

*  1  Sam.  XV.  21  (certainly  later).  ^  1  Sam.  ii.  27  if. 


PROPHETIC  DUTIES.  271 

reproof.^  Without  arms,  without  the  prestige  of  priestly 
consecration,  without  learning  and  human  wisdom,  the 
prophets  claim  obedience,  and  are  conscious  of  their  influence 
over  the  magnates  of  the  nation.^  And  although  an  Elijah 
suffers  persecution  as  an  enemy  to  the  king,  and  the  sons 
of  the  prophets  are  put  to  death ;  ^  although  a  Micah, 
"  who  always  prophesies  evil  against  the  king,"  is  put  into 
prison  till  the  truth  of  his  words  is  proved,'^  nevertheless 
their  influence  is  constantly  reasserted,  and  is  always  a  factor 
of  the  utmost  importance.  A  true  prophet  of  God,  by  his 
jDrayers  and  his  knowledge  of  the  divine  will,  by  his  warnings 
against  the  danger  of  wrong  enterprises,  is  "  the  chariot  of 
Israel  and  the  horseman  thereof."^  He  is  to  the  people 
like  a  defending  army.  The  prophets  warn  kings,  change 
dynasties  by  a  word,  counsel  princes,  prevent  wicked  wars.^ 
Even  over  foreign  kings  they  exercise  a  guiding  influence, 
because  "  God "  speaks  in  them.'^  The  history  of  Nathan, 
it  is  true,  shows  clearly  that  they  themselves  did  not  always 
draw  the  line  very  strictly  between  activity  in  purely  party 
politics  and  their  work  as  prophets.^  And,  on  the  other 
hand,  they  are  personages  so  dedicated  to  God  that  it  may 
easily  be  dangerous  for  "  sinful  mortals  "  to  come  into  close 
contact  with  such  men  of  God,  who  may  bring  their  sins  to 
their  remembrance.^ 

The  characteristics  that  distinguish  Hebrew  prophets,  not 
only  from  mere  enthusiasts,  but  also  from  priests,  come  out 
with  much  greater  clearness  after  the  eighth  century.  Out- 
wardly, they  are  just  ordinary  private  people.  Isaiah  was, 
we   know,  a    married    man    of    good  position  living  in   the 


1  2  Sam.  xii.  13  ff. ;  cf.  xxiv.  11  ff.  ^2  Kings  iv.  13. 

3  1  Kings  xviii.  4,  9  ff.,  17  f.,  xix.  2  ff.,  9  ff.  *  1  Kings  xxii.  8,  18. 

^  2  Kings  ii.  12,  xiii.  14. 

6  2  Kings  vi.  9  ;  1  Kings  xi.  29,  xii.  22,  xvi.  1,  12,  xx.  13,  21. 

7  1  Kings  xix.  15  f. ;  2  Kings  iii.  12,  viii.  7f.,  12  f.,  ix.  2;  Jer.  xxvii.  1  ff. 

8  1  Kings  i.  llf.,  22. 

9  1  Kings  xvii.  18,  24  ;  2  Kings  iv.  9  (C'lip) ;  Luke  v.  8. 


272  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

metropolis.  Even  a  prophetess  like  Huldah  was  married.^ 
If  the  prophets  acted  as  medical  practitioners,^  it  was 
simply  because  the  wise  men  of  antiquity  and  the  priests 
were  everywhere  in  the  habit  of  practising  the  healing  art. 
With  the  affairs  of  the  kingdom  and  with  public  worship  the 
prophets  no  longer  interfered  actively.  They  simply  gave 
advice,  and  that  they  did  by  applying  to  the  present  and  its 
cares  the  standard  of  God's  eternal  thoughts.  When  Ezekiel, 
who,  in  fact,  can  be  called  a  prophet  only  in  a  limited  sense, 
sketches  not  merely  an  ideal  picture  of  the  future  theocratic 
State  and  its  sanctuary,  but  actually  writes  down  "  a  law  "  for 
the  temple  and  the  altar,  which  the  children  of  Israel  are  to 
keep  as  a  model  for  the  final  era,^  that  is  merely  a  form  of 
legislative  activity  due  to  prophetic  revelation  ;  a  form,  too,  in 
which  the  influence  of  Ezekiel's  priestly  descent  makes  itself 
distinctly  felt.  It  is  practically  the  same  as  when  the 
Deuteronomist  codifies  the  customs  of  Mosaism  according 
to  new  principles,  and  when  A  sets  up  a  complete  system 
of  sacred  ritual  for  the  final  era  as  "  the  Law  of  Moses." 

A  prophetic  speech  no  longer  consists  mainly  of  short, 
dark,  oracular  sayings,  but  of  consecutive,  logical,  artistically- 
constructed  lectures.  For  a  prophet  of  this  period,  the  plea 
"  I  cannot  speak  "  would  be  a  much  greater  disqualification 
for  office  than  it  formerly  was  for  Moses.*  The  weapon  of 
the  prophets  is  the  lecture.  Hence,  when  God  calls  them, 
He  makes  their  mouth  a  sword ;  gives  them,  even  though 
they  are  not  sons  of  a  prophet,  "  the  tongue  of  the  learned  " 
— that  is  to  say,  of  those  who  have  learned  to  speak  as 
prophets  should.^  And  whatever  they  say  or  do  symbolically 
as  prophets,  they  feel  to  be  the  direct  expression  and  outflow 
of  knowledge  received  from  God.^     They   distinguish  clearly 

^  2  Kings  xxii.  14  ;  cf.  Isa.  vii.  3,  viii.  3  ff .  ^  Isa.  xxxviii.  21. 

3  E.g.  Ezek.  xliii.  10,  12,  18,  xliv.  5. 

*  Jer.  i.  6  ;  cf.  Ex.  vi.  12,  30,  vii.  1,  iv.  10,  14,  16. 

"  Jer.  i.  9,  V.  14  ;  cf.  B.  J.  xlix.  2,  \.  4. 

^  E.g.  Isa.  vi,  9,  vii.  3,  viii.  1,  Gff.,  xx.  2. 


PROPHETIC  DUTIES.  273 

between  what  their  own  heart  tells  them  and  what  makes 
itself  felt  by  them  as  a  constraining  divine  influence.  If  they 
are  in  doubt,  they  first  wrestle  in  prayer  for  the  assurance 
by  which  they  may  know  that  they  are  speaking  God's  word 
regarding  the  people.^  Occasionally,  indeed,  it  is  only  by  the 
fulfilment  of  a  prophecy  that  they  learn  that  a  thought  which 
had  arisen  in  their  hearts  was  a  word  that  came  from  God. 
But,  as  a  rule,  they  know  quite  clearly  that  in  pursuing  their 
vocation  they  are  speaking  God's  word.^  Thus  they  can 
fearlessly  say  the  most  disagreeable  things  to  their  rulers  and 
princes,  under  the  conviction  that  they  are  speaking  with  a 
higher  than  earthly  authority.^  God  is  with  them,  and 
neither  prince  nor  people  can  overawe  them.*  Whether, 
therefore,  in  the  discharge  of  their  duty,  they  speak  or  keep 
silence,^  punish  and  threaten,  or  praise  and  promise ;  whether 
they  perform  symbolical,  or  even  miraculous  acts,*"  or  simply 
take  the  usual  steps  required  by  their  profession,  as,  for 
example,  the  writing  down  of  their  own  words,'^ — whatever 
they  do  in  their  vocation  with  the  consciousness  of  a  higher 
necessity,  that  God  does  through  them. 

Accordingly,  backed  as  they  are  by  the  omnipotence  of 
God,  they  never  doubt  as  to  their  word  being  efficient.  The 
words  of  the  prophets  determine  the  course  of  events.  Their 
prophecies  have  a  mighty  influence  on  the  destiny  of  the 
world.  Their  blessing,  like  their  curse,  is  of  decisive  im- 
portance, though,  of  course,  only  when  it  proceeds  from  God ; 
for  no  groundless  curse  ever  takes  effect.^     They  build  up 

1  Jer.  xlii.  2,  7  (6,  9,  20).  ~  Jer.  xxxii.  8. 

3  Amos  vii.  16  ff.  ;  Isa.  xxii.  15  f.  ;  Jer.  xx.  3  (xxxvi.  30,  xxxvii.  7). 

*  Jer.  i.  8,  17,  19,  xv.  19  ff.,  xx.  11  ff.  ;  Ezek.  ii.  6  ff.,  iii.  9. 

6  Ezek.  iii.  24  ff.,  xxix.  21,  xxxiii.  22  (xxiv.  17,  27). 

^  Isa.  vii.  11  ff.,  XX.  2f.  ;  Jer.  xiii.  1,  xviii.  2,  xix.  Iff.,  10,  xxvii.  1,  xxviii. 
12ff.,  xliii.  8. 

''  E.fj.  Deut.  i.  19,  ii.  4,  9,  13,  17;  Isa.  vii.  3ff.,  viii.  Iff.,  xxii.  1.5;  Jer. 
xiii.  3,  6,  xvii.  19,  xxii.  1,  xxvi.  2  (Isa.  xxx.  8  ;  Hab,  ii.  2 ;  Jer.  xxx.  2, 
xxxvi.  2,  27). 

8  Prov.  xxvi.  2  (Micah  vi.  5  ;  Num.  xxii. -xxiv.). 
VOL.  L  S  - 


274  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

and  pull  clown :  they  harden  and  convert.^  For  what  they 
say  and  do  is  the  expression  of  the  will  of  Him  whose  hand 
guides  and  controls  the  universe. 

Since  the  words  they  speak  professionally  are  of  such 
moment,  a  clear  line  of  demarcation  must  be  drawn  between 
such  words  and  the  wishes  with  which  the  human  heart  of  a 
prophet  is  filled.  True,  both  often  coincide.  Hosea  prays 
for  the  divine  retribution  which  he  foretells.^  But,  as  Eiehm 
rightly  insists,  Jeremiah  distinguishes  very  emphatically 
between  the  prophecy  of  disaster  wliich,  as  God's  com- 
missioner^ he  has  to  deliver,  and  the  patriotic  wish  of  his 
own  heart,  which  would  have  preferred  the  false  prophecy  of 
Hananiah.^  Even  when  the  human  hearts  of  the  prophets 
shudder  with  fear,*  or  are  touched  with  sympathetic  sorrow 
because  of  the  unhappy  fate  of  Israel  and  other  peoples  ;  ^  even 
when  they  do  not  wish  for  the  disastrous  day,^  they  must 
follow  the  higher  voice  of  truth  which  announces  itself  to 
them  as  the  voice  of  God.  They  must  bear  testimony  to  this 
divine  will,  even  where  there  is  no  prospect  of  producing  an 
effect  on  man.  Whether  Israel  gives  ear  or  not,  the  prophet 
must  speak ;  the  people  must  know  that  there  is  a  prophet 
among  them.'^ 

6.  The  way  in  which  the  prophets  themselves  became 
conscious  of  the  revelations  made  to  them  naturally  varied 
in  the  course  of  this  history,  and,  even  within  the  same 
period,  it  oscillated  between  certain  extremes.  As  the  Greeks 
distinguished  between  ecstatic  soothsaying  and  conscious  pro- 
phecy, and  as  Paul  distinguishes  between  speaking  in  unknown 

^  Isa.  vi.  9;  Jer.  i.  10,  17,  v.  14  ;  Ezek.  xxxii.  18.  I  also  understand  Hos. 
vi.  5  to  mean,  "  God  smites  by  means  of  the  inojihets ;  He  slays  by  the  words 
of  His  month,"  not,  "  He  smites  at  the  prophets." 

2  Hos.  ix.  14  ;  cf.  Jer.  xi.  20. 

3  Jer.  xxviii.  6  {Stud.  u.  Krit.  1865,  16  N.  6). 

■  ^  B.  J.  xxi.  3ff.,  xxiv.  16. 

■  ^  Isa.  XV.  5,  xvi.  9,  xxii.  4  ;  Micah  i.  8  ;  Jer.  iv.  19,  viii.  18,  21,  22,  ix.  1  f., 
X.  19,  xxiii.  9,  xlviii.  31  f.  ;  Ezek.  xi.  13. 

«  Jer.  xvii.  16.  ^  Ezek.  ii.  3-G,  iii.  11,  27  (2  Kings  v.  8). 


FORM  OF  PROPHETIC  SPEECH.  275 

tongues  and  prophesying.^  and  recognises  the  latter  as  the 
higher,  because  implying  full  self-consciousness  ;  so  in  Hebrew 
antiquity,  also,  we  have  both  forms. 

But  we  cannot  doubt  that,  in  the  earlier  times,  the  usual 
form  of  prophecy  was  ecstasy,  the  form  most  akin  to  speaking 
with  tongues.  It  was  when  in  a  state  of  rapture,  transported 
out  of  the  calm  of  their  ordinary  thought  and  judgment,  that 
the  prophets  lived  through  moments  of  direct  communion 
with  God,  and  found  in  visions  the  solution  of  the  ques- 
tions which  perplexed  their  hearts.  Such  is  still  the  view 
taken  in  the  late  narrative,  which  makes  a  part  of  the  spirit 
of  Moses  be  put  upon  the  elders  in  quite  a  concrete  material 
fashion,  so  that  they  "  prophesy "  in  holy  excitement,  and 
even  those  not  personally  touched  are  affected.^  In  like 
manner,  the  sacred  music  and  dancing  have  such  an  effect  on 
Saul  that  he  joins  in,  and  flings  himself  on  the  ground  naked, 
in  a  state  of  rapture,  as  the  fakirs  do  in  the  East^  at  the 
present  day.  By  the  playing  of  a  minstrel,  Elisha  has  his 
spirit  excited  until  the  hand  of  God  comes  upon  him.*  In 
the  ear  of  Samuel,  asleep  in  the  sanctuary,  a  voice  sounds, 
calling  him  again  and  again,  until  Eli  explains  its  meaning 
to  hira.^  God  lays  His  hand  on  Elijah,  so  that  he  runs  in 
front  of  the  king's  chariot  when  going  at  full  speed.*^  After 
being  fed  by  angels,  he  travels  for  forty  days  and  forty  nights 
to  Horeb.'^  According  to  the  legend  in  B,  it  is  by  a  festive 
meal  that  Isaac  works  himself  into  the  mood  for  uttering  a 
prophetic  blessing.^     Balaam  is  represented  as  forcibly  con- 

1  1  Cor.  xiv.  2,  3.  2  ]^^^ji,_  ^i.  17-26. 

3  1  Sam.  X.  6  ft'.  ;  cf.  xix.  20-24;  2  Kings  ii.  8,  13;  Isa.  xx.  2.  Illustra- 
tions from  the  domain  of  Islam  are  given  in  Dozy  [Islamisme,  399) ;  Lane,  ii. 
39;  All  the  Year  Bound,  1860,  Feb.  4  (Melbush,  i.e.  "clothed"  with  the 
spirit  of  God).  One  is  reminded  of  the  naked  dervishes  and  their  eccentric 
conduct. 

*  2  Kings  iii.  15. 

^  1  Sam.  iii.  3 ft".  How  closely  ahin  this  is  to  incubation  is  self-evident; 
cf.  Job  iv.  13  fF.  ;  Odyss.  iv.  839. 

•^  1  Kings  xviii.  46.  ''  1  Kings  xix.  8.  ^  Gen.  xxvii.  4,  25,  31. 


276  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

strained  to  deliver  the  oracle  which  is  opposed  to  his  own 
desire.  It  is  only  from  this  standpoint  that  the  people  could 
call  the  seers  "  madmen,"  ^  and  that  it  could  seem  strange  to  a 
later  age  that  the  word  of  God  was  communicated  without 
dream  or  rapture  to  Moses  when  in  full  possession  of  his 
senses.2  As  prose  grew  out  of  poetry,  so  the  quiet  lecture 
grew  out  of  the  impassioned  harangue,  and  out  of  ecstatic 
rapture  came  the  distinct  consciousness  of  divine  inspiration. 

Naturally  this  rapture  was  not  of  long  duration,  but  it 
recurred  in  moments  of  excitement,  when  God  "  opened  the 
ear  of  the  seer  to  understand  His  word."  ^  In  these  days 
the  object  of  the  prophecy,  as  the  very  word  "  seer  "  indicates, 
must  have  generally  been  presented  to  the  eye  as  something 
seen,  "  a  vision  "  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word.*  What  the 
prophets  were  to  communicate  to  the  people  in  answer  to 
their  questions  was  received  by  them  when  in  a  state  of 
spiritual  excitement,  in  most  cases  probably,  in  dreams  by 
night.^  Direct  certainty  as  to  the  questions  and  difficulties 
with  which  they  were  burdened  was  not  obtained  consciously 
by  meditation  and  study,  but  grasped  by  an  excited  fancy, 
and  therefore  in  a  sensuous  garb.  And  even  when  the  men 
of  God  were  describing  such  visions  to  the  people,  the  repre- 
sentation threw  them  into  a  state  of  passionate  excitement. 
They  lived  over  again,  as  it  were,  the  moments  of  rapture. 

Symbolical  action,  too,  was  in  the  earlier  times,  as  several 
examples  prove,^  a  particularly  favourite  form  of  prophetic 


^  Especial] y  Num.  xxii.  8ff.,  lyxo'ifunffi;. 

2  Num.  xii.  6  ;  Deut.  xxxiv.  10  (A).  True,  A  has  already  lost  the  proper 
conception  of  prophecy. 

^  1  Sam.  ix.  15 ;  cf.  xx.  2. 

*  ntn  is  used  in  the  older  prophets  of  gazing  at  actual  visions  (Hos.  xii.  8). 
The  niTTIZl  in  Num.  xii.  8  supposes  a  state  of  still  higher  excitement  of  the 
imagination  than  does  the  word  of  Jehovah,  which  goes  straight  to  the  question 
at  issue  (Hoffmann). 

^  When  a  man  has  been  racking  his  brains  over  a  problem  till  far  on  in  the 
night,  he  continues  to  do  so  even  when  half-asleep. 

6  1  Kings  xi.  30  ff.,  xx.  35,  xxii.  11  ff. 


FORM  OF  PROPHETIC  SPEECH.  277 

expression.  A  person  not  accustomed  to  abstract  reasoning 
gets  a  more  vivid  impression  from  wliat  his  eye  sees,  than  from 
what  is  merely  described  to  him  in  words.  And  a  symbolical 
act,  owing  to  its  greater  directness,  has  more  force,  and  is 
therefore  more  in  keeping  with  the  distinctive  character  of  the 
prophets  of  that  age,  than  the  ordinary  lecture.  In  such  an 
action,  a  threat,  promise,  or  advice  is  so  presented  to  the  senses 
that  the  action  becomes  a  sign  (nix).  In  the  sphere  of  language 
what  comes  nearest  to  this  is  the  parable  or  allegory,  a  fine 
example  of  which  is  given  us  in  Nathan's  rebuke  of  David.^ 

Of  course,  even  among  the  prophets  of  the  eighth  century 
and  later,  the  state  of  rapture  in  which  a  man  loses  his 
mental  consciousness  is  by  no  means  rare.  In  these  times, 
also,  we  are  told  that  God's  hand  lays  hold  of  the  prophet ;  God 
whispers  in  his  ear ;  in  the  twilight  thoughts  come  upon  him 
from  God;'  he  falls  down,  that  is  to  say,  is  thrown  down,  in  a 
rapture.^  But  such  forms  of  prophecy  were  no  longer  the 
rule,  and  they  became  always  less  and  less  frequent.  For 
example,  although  dreams  are  occasionally  regarded  as 
ordinary  occurrences  in  the  life  of  a  prophet,^  many  men  of 
the  Chaldean  age  actually  attached  an  evil  meaning  to  them 
as  compared  with  the  express  word  of  God.^  The  words 
"  see,"  "  gaze,"  "  vision "  are  often  used  so  indefinitely  that 
they  can  mean  nothing  more  than  a  divine  communication, 
and  do  not  in  any  sense  imply  the  notion  of  ecstasy.*'     By  far 


1  2  Sam.  xii.  1  ff.  ;  Judg.  ix.  8  IT. 

2  E.g.  Isa.  viii.  11,  xxii.  1,  5,  14  ;  B.  J.  xxi.  4.  ^  Num.  xxiv.  6. 

*  Deut.  xiii.  2,  4,  6.  A  beautiful  description  of  sucli  dream-visions  is  given 
in  Job  iv.  13 fF.,  "Then  a  breath  passed  over  my  face,  the  hair  of  my  flesh 
stood  up.  There  it  stood,  I  could  not  discern  the  form  thereof ;  an  image  was 
before  mine  eyes  ;  I  heard  a  low  whispering  voice  "  (of.  1  Kings  xix.  12).  The 
dream  is  also  alluded  to  in  many  other  passages  of  Job  (vii.  14,  xxxiii.  15f., 
XX.  8). 

s  Jcr.  xxiii.  25,  28,  32  ;  Zecli.  x.  2.  It  includes  the  trickery  of  professional 
prophecy. 

^  Prov.  xxix.  18  ;  Nahum  i.  1  ;  Obad.  1  ;  Hos.  xii.  11  ;  Joel  iii.  1  ;  Lam. 
ii.  9,  14  ;  Ezek.  vii.  26  ;  of.  the  previously  mentioned  combinatiou  of  ntn  with 
TWTV  "131j  and  such  like. 


278  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

the  more  common  way  is  to  receive  a  revelation  consciously, 
without  any  other  enthusiasm  than  the  lofty  tone  which  a 
warm  and  healthy  spiritual  life  implies.  This  was,  it  is  certain, 
of  a  more  impassioned  character  than  the  circumstances  of 
modern  European  life  produce,  but  nothing  unusual  in  that 
age  and  among  that  people.  Such  is  the  impression  which 
we  inevitably  get  from  the  writings  of  the  greatest  prophets, 
Hosea,  Amos,  Micah,  Isaiah,  and  Jeremiah.  The  form  of 
their  address  was  essentially  the  same  as  that  of  an  evan- 
gelical sermon  of  the  present  day,  or  an  animated  and 
eloquent  popular  speech.  It  showed  the  absolute  sincerity 
of  the  speaker's  faith,  it  judged  the  present  by  the  great 
principles  of  true  religion  ;  and  in  these  it  found  certainty  for 
the  future.  It  was  intelligible  to  the  people,  and  was  raised 
above  ordinary  speech,  not  by  any  artistic  form  exclusively  its 
own,  but  by  the  directness  of  its  inspiration.  Its  character- 
istics are  all  essentially  moral.  The  object  of  the  prophet's 
word  is  to  proclaim  to  the  people  their  sin,  to  bid  them  repent 
and  believe.^ 

In  this  age  theophanies  occur  only  in  the  form  of  visions  ;  ^ 
and  the  post-exilic  prophets  are  again  fonder  of  this  form 
than  the  earlier  prophets  are.^  But  when  we  examine  the 
visions  which  are  related  to  us  since  the  time  of  Amos,  we 
cannot  doubt  that  they  are  in  most  cases  only  a  poetic  dress 
consciously  adopted,  that  is  to  say,  poetry  is  purposely  em- 
ployed in  order  to  present  a  spiritual  truth  clearly  to  the 
people  in  the  form  which  they  understand  and  lilvc.  Some- 
times this  intention  is  made  quite  plain  by  a  play  upon  words; 
the  dress  is  put  on  so  very  loosely  that  every  one  can  see 
the  real  object.^  In  such  cases,  therefore,  the  revelations  are 
not  conceived  in  the  imagination  as  pictures,  but  are  recom- 

1  B.  J.  Iviii.  1.  ^  E.g.  Ezek.  1  ff.,  10  ff. 

3  Amos  vii.  1  fF.,  4  ff.,  7  ff.,  viii.  1,  ix.  1  ;  Jer.  xxiv.  1  ff.  ;  especially  Ezek.  i.  1, 
4-28,  iii.  Iff.,  12 ff.,  22 ff.,  viii.  3,  xi.  24,  ix.  1  ff.,  xl.  2  ;  Zech.  i.-vi. 

4  Isa.  vi.  1  ff. ;  Jer.  i.  11  f.,  xvi.  1  ff.,  5  ff.,  xxv.  15  ;  Ezek.  xxi.  25  ff.  (on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  possible  to  interpret  Ezek.  viii.  3,  xi.  24,  of  actual  visions). 


rOEM  OF  PROPHETIC  SPEECH.  279 

binecl  by  it  into  pictures.^  They  are  then  akin  to  the  parable, 
which,  though  rare,  is  presented  in  a  most  masterly  style  ;  ^ 
or  to  the  proverb,  which  is  very  frequent,  especially  in  Ezekiel.^ 

It  is  much  the  same  with  a  symbolical  act.  The  prophets 
still  perform  such  acts  in  order  to  produce  a  lasting  impres- 
sion upon  the  people  through  their  senses,  to  give  them,  as  it 
were,  a  visible  pledge  of  the  invisible  truth.*  But  very  often 
even  these  are  but  an  oratorical,  poetical  form,  mere  drapery. 
Instead  of  expressing  a  threat  or  a  promise  in  naked  words, 
the  prophets  clothe  them  in  a  story.^  They  tell  of  something 
they  were  ordered  to  do,  or  of  something  they  did,  although  the 
thing  need  not  on  that  account  have  actually  happened  or  been 
even  possible.  And  here  the  parable  so  closely  resembles  a 
symbolic  act  which  is  merely  related,  not  performed,  that  in 
both  even  the  form  of  presentation  is  often  quite  similar.*^ 

The  effect  which  the  prophets  produced  by  their  preaching 
and  by  everything  connected  therewith,  was,  from  the  eighth 
century  onwards,  increased  and  perpetuated  by  their  writings. 

1  Already  in  Ezekiel  and  Zecliariali  we  find  masks  instead  of  persons,  and 
in  Num.  xii.  6-8  there  is  no  longer  a  trace  of  the  spirit  of  genuine  ancient 
prophecy  (Hoffmann). 

2  Isa.  V.  1-7  (Hos,  xii.  11  reckons  the  T]D1  among  the  characteristics  of  a 
prophet). 

3  Num.  xxiii.  7,  18,  xxiv.  3  ;  Hab.  ii.  6  ;  Ezek.  xvii.  2,  xix.  1,  14,  xxvi.  17, 
xxvii.  1  ff.,  32,  xxxii.  2fF.  (xxi.  5,  Engl.  xx.  49,  this  is  made  a  subject  of  direct 
reproach  against  Ezekiel) ;  Amos  v.  1  ;  Micah  ii.  4  {?\yT2,  m\"I,  MJ,  n3''p)- 

4  Isa.  XX.  2;  Jer.  xix.  Iff.,  10 ff.,  xxvii.  Iff.,  xxviii.  12 ff.,  xviii.  2f.,  xxxii. 
6ff.,  xliii.  8ff'.  ;  Ezek.  xii.  3ff.,  18  ff.,  xxi.  11  if.,  xxiv.  15  ff.,  xxxvii.  16. 

5  Ezek.  iv.  1,  4ff.,  9ff.,  v.  Iff.,  vi.  11.  Zech.  xi.  4-14  is  a  remarkable 
weaving  together  of  actual  events  with  a  parable  as  to  God's  office  as 
Shepherd.  If  in  Jer.  xiii.  Iff.  the  "Phrat"  is  taken  to  mean  the  Euphrates, 
as  it  does  everywhere  else,  then,  of  course,  we  have  mere  drapery.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  means  the  well  "  Farah"  beside  Anathoth,  as  Schick  (Ausland 
1S67,  24)  thinks,  an  actual  performance  of  the  act  would  be  possible.  As  for 
Hos.  i.-iii.,  I  am  still  of  opinion,  in  opposition  to  the  majority  of  modern 
interpreters,  that  we  have  here  not  actual  events  in  the  prophet's  family  life, 
but  an  allegory.  Not  to  speak  of  the  fact  that  the  prophet  cannot  pos&ibly 
have  taken  such  stories  to  be  a  revelation  of  God  to  himself,  it  is  not  conceiv- 
able that  two  so  very  similar  events  should  have  happened  to  him  within  so 
short  a  period. 

e  Ezek.  xxiv.  3. 


280  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Tliey  not  only  placed  single  important  sentences  out  of  their 
prophecies  before  the  people's  eyes  in  the  form  of  monumental 
inscriptions,^  in  order  to  imprint  them  on  the  popular  memory, 
and  wrote  letters  to  those  at  a  distance  in  order  to  increase 
their  influence  over  them  also ;  ^  but  they  were  in  the  habit 
of  gathering  the  whole  results  of  their  prophetic  activity 
into  one  or  more  collections,  generally  by  the  help  of 
their  most  intimate  followers  and  scholars,  and  then  leaving 
them  to  posterity  in  the  form  of  a  book.^  Naturally  they 
did  not  repeat  everything  which  they  had  spoken  to  the 
people  on  special  occasions :  they  were  not  simply  their  own 
transcribers.  The  speeches  of  several  years  they  arranged 
together  in  short  extracts,  as,  e.g.,  in  Isa.  vii.— xi.  all  the 
prophet's  work  during  the  period  from  the  invasion  of  Eezin 
and  Pekah  till  the  break  down  of  the  coalition  is  condensed 
into  a  few  chapters.  By  giving  prominence  to  what  was 
most  important,  and  by  adding  supplements,  they  made,  as  it 
were,  a  new  work.  Thus  we  read  of  Jeremiah  that  he 
collected,  by  divine  command,  the  revelations  he  had  received 
from  God,  and  that  when  this  book  was  destroyed,  he  on 
replacing  it  added  "  many  like  words."  *  In  later  times,  and 
especially  when  free  public  speech  was  no  longer  possible,  as 
in  Babylon,  or  when  the  subject  was  not  suitable  for  a  popular 
address,  as  in  the  last  section  of  Ezekiel,  the  prophets  put 
before  the  people  in  writing  even  speeches  that  had  never 
been  publicly  delivered. 

These  prophetical  writings  had,  in  turn,  the  greatest 
influence  on  the  whole  development  of  religion ;  only  now 
could  a  consecutive  series  of  efforts  be  begun  by  the  pro- 
phets. Each  prophet  could  choose  as  models  those  of  his 
predecessors  who  were  specially  akin  to  him  in  spirit.     This 


»  Isa.  viii.  1  ff.,  xxx.  8ff.  ;  Hab.  ii.  2.  2  jer,  xxix.  1, 

^  Jer.  xxxvi.  4,  32  ;  Isa.  viii.  16.     Isa.  i.-xi.,  xiv.  28-xxiii.  ;  Hosea,  Micah, 
Amos,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  and  others  were  put  together  in  this  way. 
*  Jer.  xxx.  2,  xxxvi.  2 ;  cf.  xxvii.  32. 


PROPHECY  AND  SOOTHSAYING.  281 

use,  for  proof  of  which  I  must  refer  my  readers  to  books  on 
Old  Testament  Introduction,  begins  very  early.  Less  highly 
gifted  ages  had  thus  access  to  the  divine  springs  which  had 
flowed  freely  in  happier  days.  It  was  only  the  age  after  Ezra 
that  saw  the  ancient  Scriptures  appealed  to  as  an  acknowledged 
and  infallible  authority,  and  the  prophets  turned  into  scribes. 

7.  The  predicting  of  future  events  is  not  the  chief  function 
of  prophecy.  The  great  prophets  that  follow  Amos  lay  far 
more  stress  on  the  doctrinal  teaching,  which  makes  the  eternal 
truths  of  God  the  standard  by  which  to  judge  the  present 
and  its  moral  transgressions.  But  as  "  oracles  "  were  in  the 
earlier  ages  what  was  most  sought  for,  both  from  prophet  and 
from  priest,  so  in  later  times  hardly  anything  important  was 
undertaken  without  a  word  from  God,^  whether  the  prophet 
obtained  it  simply  from  his  own  inner  consciousness,  or 
sought  information  in  some  special  way  about  the  matter  in 
question.  The  prophets  undoubtedly  engaged  both  in  pro- 
phesying and  in  soothsaying,  two,  in  themselves,  perfectly 
distinct  modes  of  foretelling  the  future  ;  and  they  practised 
both  arts  without  drawing  any  conscious  distinction. 

Prophesying  is  inseparably  connected  with  the  prophetic 
calling,  and  stands  in  the  closest  possible  connection  with  the 
duty  of  warning  and  guiding  the  people.  Whoever  has  with 
the  eye  of  the  Divine  Spirit  been  watching  the  present,  and 
the  conditions  of  the  past  that  led  up  to  it,  is  thereby  made 
certain  of  the  future  also.  For,  on  the  human  side,  this 
depends  on  the  real  contents  of  the  past  and  the  present ;  on 
the  divine  side,  on  the  everlastingly  just  and  impartial  love  of 
the  Divine  Being  and  His  willingness  to  save.  Hence  the 
ways  of  God  in  regard  to  the  salvation  of  His  people,  in  so 
far  as  they  are  within  the  sphere  of  salvation,  must  lie  within 
the  range  of  a  prophet's  vision ;  and  this  is  just  the  gift  of  pro- 

^  Jer.  xxii.  12,  19,  30,  xxviii.  16,  xxix.  22,  xxxvi.  30,  xxxvii.  7  ff.,  17, 
xxxviii.  14,  xxi.  1  f .  ;  Ezek.  xiv.  1,  8,  xx.  1,  31,  xxiv.  1  (xii.  12  f.),  (2  Kings 
XX.  1-5,  xxii.  13). 


282  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

pliesying.  It  is  not  a  mere  forecasting  of  the  future  from  the 
circumstances  of  the  present,  any  more  than  the  assurance  of 
faith  due  to  a  revelation  of  the  divine  life  is  the  same  as  a 
philosophical  view.  No  doubt  Loth  will  coincide  in  many 
points  whenever  the  forecast  and  the  philosophical  speculation 
are  at  once  acute  and  sagacious.  But  their  source  and  the 
kind  of  conviction  they  produce  are  fundamentally  different. 
In  prophecy,  as  in  faith,  there  is  a  personal  certainty,  which 
is  in  no  way  disturbed  by  errors  in  calculation.  Consequently 
this  is  communicated  to  others  also,  without  argument,  simply 
through  the  influence  of  personal  contact,  because  in  their 
case,  too,  the  power  of  truth  produces  its  effect  on  the  human 
heart.  It  is  only  with  this  explanation  that  one  can  assent 
to  Schleiermacher's  definition :  "  When  one  half  of  a  religious 
event  has  been  given,  every  religious  anticipation  of  the  other 
half  is  prophecy." 

Prophecy  is  thus  the  prophet's  application  to  the  future,  of 
his  certainty  as  to  the  eternal  laws  of  the  Divine  Being  and 
AVill  and  as  to  the  final  goal  of  salvation,  in  so  far  as  tliat 
future  is  of  importance  for  the  present,  and  is  connected  with 
the  sphere  of  religion  and  morals.  This  certainty  can  of  itself 
arise  quite  as  well  in  a  condition  of  special  spiritual  excite- 
ment and  enthusiasm,  as  in  the  tranquil  course  of  conscious 
spiritual  meditation.  In  earlier  times  the  former  must  have 
been  the  usual  method ;  in  later  times  the  latter,  but  still 
always  in  combination  with  the  former.  Now  in  its  essence 
prophecy  is  neither  magical  nor  unnatural,  but  a  conviction 
of  a  really  moral  and  religious  nature.  Its  proper  object  is 
exclusively  the  history  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  Where 
prophecies  against  or  concerning  heathen  nations  occur,  these 
are  considered  solely  in  relation  to  the  people  of  God.  They 
are  never  the  real  object  of  prophecy,  which  takes  notice  of 
them  only  as  having  a  bearing  on  the  objects  of  the  kingdom 
of  God.  But  the  real  object  of  prophecy  is  Israel.  A¥hen 
he  takes  to  evil  courses,  his  destruction  is  foretold,  and  every 


PROPHECY  AND  SOOTHSAYING.  2-83 

foreign  power  becomes  God's  rod  of  correction  with  which  to 
threaten  him.  But  behind  all  threats  there  stands  the  ever- 
lasting covenant  with  the  people  which  cannot  be  broken 
God's  covenant  love  which  never  grows  cold.  Such  genuine 
prophesying  is,  of  course,  oaly  the  fruit  of  a  long  history  of 
prophecy.  Israel  can  scarcely  have  known  it  previous  to  B, 
C,  Amos,  and  Hosea. 

Soothsaying  is  something  quite  different  from  this.  It 
is  knowledge,  professed  or  actual,  of  a  coming  event,  in  all  its 
details  and  contingencies,  no  matter  to  what  category  that 
event  belongs.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  inner  course  of 
history,  with  the  Divine  Spirit  moving  therein.  It  prefers 
to  search  out  details,  things  which  stand  in  no  inner  con- 
nection with  the  fundamental  moral  principles  of  history  and 
its  eternal  laws.  While  prophecy  only  touches  an  individual 
where  great  moral  principles  come  to  fulfilment  in  him,  or 
where  the  history  of  salvation  is  interwoven  with  his,  sooth- 
saying deals,  by  preference,  with  the  destiny  of  individuals. 
While  in  prophecy  details  belong  purely  to  the  poetic  form, 
soothsaying  takes  special  delight  in  choosing  as  its  subject, 
times,  names,  and  numbers.  Where  soothsaying  is  not  due  to 
trickery  or  self-deception,  it  must  be  connected  with  that  dark 
and  mysterious  realm  of  spiritual  life  in  which  a  special 
unnatural  excitement  and  one-sided  enlargement  of  particular 
faculties  of  the  soul  awaken  presentiments  which  are  taken  for 
certainties.  Undoubtedly  the  old  Hebrews,  like  every  other 
ancient  nation,  saw  in  such  phenomena  divine  communications. 
In  ancient  Israel,  indeed,  they  probably  constituted  a  by  no 
means  inconsiderable  part  of  its  religious  life.  Soothsaying, 
it  is  true,  was  not  an  exclusive  possession  of  the  prophets. 
A  person  who  wished  to  "  consult  God "  ^  betook  himself  as 


^  Gen.  XXV.  22  (xxiv.  57) ;  Ex.  xvii.  1,  xviii.  15,  19,  xxxiii.  7  ;  Lev.  xxiv.  12  ; 
Num.  iii.  16,  39,  iv.  37,  41,  45,  49,  ix.  8,  9,  18,  20,  23,  x.  11,  13,  29,  xiii.  2, 
XV.  35,  xxxiii.  2,  38  (cf.  by  the  hand  of  Moses)  ;  Josh.  ix.  14 ;  Judg.  i.  1 ; 
2  Sam.  xxi.  1  (cf.  2  Kings  vi.  9,  vii.  1,  2,  viii.  1). 


284  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

readily,  probably  more  readily,  to  the  priests  with  their  ephod 
and  their  Urim  and  Thummim,^  and  to  the  decision  of  God 


^  This  difficult  point,  though  one  that  properly  belongs  to  archaeology  pure 
and  simple,  may  be  briefly  explained  here  on  account  of  its  connection  with  Old 
Testament  ideas  of  soothsaying.  For  the  literature  of  the  question,  cf.  Ugolin, 
Thesaur.  ant.  sacr,  vol.  xii.,  where  the  works  of  H.  Buxtorf,  Polemann, 
Spencer,  and  Riboudeald  are  to  be  found,  also  Saalschiitz,  Prii/ang  der 
vorzuglichsten  Ansichten  von  den  Urim  vnd  Tummim  (Ilgen,  Ztitschr,  fur 
Idstor.  Theologie,  viii.  2).  The  head  of  the  priesthood  had,  according  to  A,  as 
a  means  of  ascertaining  the  will  of  God,  which  the  civil  power  was  bound  to 
respect,  his  high  priest's  cape.  On  the  front  of  it  was  sewed  a  gold-embroidered 
cloth  like  a  pocket,  on  which  were  fastened  the  names  of  the  tribes  of  Israel, 
engraved  on  four  rows  of  precious  stones  (Ex.  xxviii.  15ff.,  xxxix.  8ff.).  As 
"  the  wearer  of  the  ephod,"  he  was  in  possession  of  the  priest's  oracle  (1  Sam. 
xiv.  3  ;  cf.  xxi.  10,  xxiii.  6,  9-11,  xxx.  7f.).  As  regards  the  more  exact  form 
of  this  oiacle,  we  are  told  that  "  the  priest  shall  put  into  the  pocket  the  Urim 
and  Thummim "  (Ex.  xxviii.  30).  In  my  opinion  the  whole  narrative  shows, 
and  especially  the  parallel  passages  Lev.  viii.  8  and  Ex.  xxv.  21,  that  these 
Urim  and  Thummim  cannot  be  the  twelve  precious  stones  on  the  pocket  already 
mentioned,  but  must  be  some  object  which  could  be  put  into  the  pocket  upon 
the  breast  of  the  priest's  cape.  These  Urim  and  Thummim,  then,  by  whose 
"judgment,"  e.g.,  Joshua  was  to  be  bound  (Num.  xxvii.  21),  must  have  formed 
a  sacred  object  of  no  great  size,  and  familiar  to  the  people  from  of  old,  as 
there  is  nowhere  any  mention  of  its  being  made  (H).  Spencer  supposed  the 
Thummim  might  correspond  to  the  ornament  which  had  to  be  worn  by  the 
Egyptian  high  priest  as  a  mark  of  the  highest  judicial  dignity,  and  which,  con- 
sisting of  precious  stones,  was  worn  round  the  neck  on  a  gold  chain,  and  called 
"Truth"  (Aelian,  Vai-iae  histor.  xiv.  34;  Diodor.  Sic,  ed.  Becker,  i.  p.  101). 
With  this  he  connects  the  further  theory  that  the  Urim  were  not  different  from 
the  Teraphim,  the  miniature  statues  of  these  as  oracle-giving  gods  being  in  this 
way  withdrawn  from  the  service  of  superstition  and  adapted  to  the  ritual  of  the 
true  religion.  The  latter  view,  the  only  support  for  which  is  a  dubious  inter- 
pretation of  Hos.  iii.  3,  is  quite  arbitrary.  The  Rabbis  generally  suppose  that  the 
sparkling  of  one  or  even  all  of  the  twelve  precious  stones  on  the  pocket  was  what 
constituted  the  sign,  Joseph,  Antiq.  iii.  8.  9,  Waujaro  o  aaoiu^vi,  roZ  Xa.f/.-!riiv, 
or  that  the  letters  engraved  on  them  formed  some  sort  of  word.  In  the  same 
way  Sohar  thinks  of  the  divine  name  nin''  being  read  in  a  variety  of  Cabbalistic 
waj's.  All  these  theories,  however,  are  refuted  by  the  fact  that  the  Urim  and 
Thummim  were  ' '  put  into  "  the  pocket.  As  to  the  real  nature  of  this  ' '  oracle  " 
no  conclusion  can  be  drawn  from  the  statements  in  A.  For  he  had  certainly 
never  seen  it  in  use,  and  merely  drew  a  picture  of  it  for  himself  according  to 
his  wont.  In  my  opinion  1  Sam.  xiv.  36-42  (cf.  xxiii.  2-11,  xxx.  7,  8),  if  we 
restore  the  first  passage,  as  Thenius  does,  gives  us  the  needed  explanation. 
There  were  probably  two  stones,  the  one  called  DHIX  from  its  transparency, 
and  the  other  D"'Dn  from  its  opaqueness,  or,  as  is  more  probable,  from  their 
object  being  to  give  "light"  and  "judgment."  Wlien  Urim  fell,  the  answer 
was  "yes"  ;  when  Thummim,  "no."  When  neither  of  the  stones  sprang  out, 
or  an  evil  omen  prevented  the  casting  of  the  lot,  it  was  a  sign  that  God  was 


PROPHECY  AND  SOOTHSAYING.  285 

by  the  lot.^  The  prophet  Gad,  with  his  prophetic  counsel,  is 
put  into  the  background  when  Abiathar  comes  into  David's' 
camp  2  with  the  priestly  oracle.  As  Eglon  listens  reverently 
to  the  word  of  "  the  God  of  Israel,"  so  the  Israelites  also 
went  to  foreign  oracles,  for  example,  to  Baal-Zebub,  the  god 
of  Ekron ;  and  the  prophet,  by  way  of  rebuke,  merely  asks, 
"  Is  it  because  there  is  not  a  God  in  Israel  ?  "  ^  When  God 
will  not  give  an  oracle,  either  by  dreams  or  by  the  Urim  or 
by  prophets,  Saul  betakes  himself  to  the  witch  of  Endor.* 
In  the  worship  of  Micah  and  the  Danites,  the  ephod  and  the 
oracles  obviously  play  the  chief  role.^  The  highest  com- 
pliment that  could  be  paid  to  human  shrewdness  was  to  say 
that  the  answers  of  Achitophel  were  always  "  as  if  a  man  had 
inquired  at  the  oracle  of  God."^  But  just  as  people  paid 
attention  to  dreams,''  so  they  also  asked  the  prophets  to 
become  soothsayers  for  hire.^  And  even  after  the  eighth 
century  there  are  found,  scattered  here  and  there  among  the 
prophecies,  elements  of  soothsaying  that  are,  it  is  true, 
not  very  clearly  distinguished  from  the  poetic  dress  of 
prophecy.^  Naturally  Israel  never  doubted  that  the  word 
of  a  true  prophet  must   issue  in  fulfilment.     Such   an   one 

angry.  Consequently  this  contrivance  would  fall  quite  within  the  more  general 
category  of  "oracle  by  lot"  (cf.  Judg.  xx.  18  ;  1  Sam.  x.  20  ;  Josh.  vii.  16). 
That  it  was  merely  a  symbol  of  priestly  illumination  cannot  be  inferred  from  the 
poetic  allusion  to  it  in  Deut.  xxxiii.  8  ;  cf.  Ps.  xliii.  3  ;  nor  does  it  suit  the 
stories  about  the  way  in  which  the  Uiim  and  Thummim  were  used.  An  answer 
"yes"  or  "no  "  is  plainly  required  by  Judg.  i.  1,  xx.  18tf.;  1  Sam.  xxiii.  lllf.; 
2  Sam.  ii.  1.     2  Sam.  v.  19,  23  is  somewhat  less  simple. 

i  Josh.  vii.  16  ff. ;  1  Sam.  x.  20fiF. 

2  1  Sam.  xxii.  5  ;  cf.  10,  11,  13,  15,  xxiii.  2-12,  xxx.  7,  8. 

2  2  Kings  i.  2  f. ;  Judg.  iii.  20. 

*  1  Sam.  xxviii.  6,  15. 

5  Cf.  the  expressions  in  2  Sam.  xvi.  23  ;  Num.  ix.  8,  9,  xv.  35  ;  Ex.  xviii.  19  f. ; 
Josh.  ix.  14  ;  Judg.  xviii.  4  ff.,  xx.  18  ;  1  Sam.  xii.  14  (niDn);  2  Sam.  xxi.  1  f. 
etc. 

8  2  Sam.  xvi.  23. 

5"  Gen.  xl.  8,  xli.  ;  cf.  1  Kings  xiv.  1  ff.  ;  2  Kings  viii.  1  ff. 

8  1  Sam.  ix.  7,  x.  2  ff.  ;  cf.  iii.  20. 

^  Isa.  vii.  8,  14,  16,  xvi.  14,  xxi.  16,  xxxvii.  7,  33,  xxxviii.  5,  xxxix.  5; 
Jer.  xxii.  12,  19,  30,  xxviii.  16,  xxix.  22,  xxxvi.  30,  xxxvii.  7. 


286  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

does  not  speak  on  his  own  initiative.^  If  his  word  does  not 
come  to  pass,  he  is  a  lying  prophet,  or  else,  in  order  to 
piunish  His  people,  God  has  in  His  anger  purposely  put  a  false 
answer  into  the  mouth  of  His  servant.^ 

The  kind  of  prophecy,  with  which  alone  we  are  here  con- 
cerned, is  not  met  with  in  its  purity  and  distinctiveness  till 
after  the  eighth  century.  The  judgments  of  the  future  are  held 
up  before  the  people  as  the  due  reward  of  their  present  sins. 
Every  foreign  power,  as  it  comes  to  the  front,  is  represented 
as  God's  rod  of  correction ;  Assyria  as  well  as  Babylon,  the 
Scythians  as  well  as  the  Egyptians.^  Against  the  individual 
enemies  of  divine  truth  among  the  people,  against  a  Shebna, 
a  Pashhur,  etc.,  the  vengeance  of  God  is  proclaimed.*  The 
heathen  nations,  that  stand  as  obstacles  in  the  paths  of  sacred 
history,  are  menaced  with  destruction  in  the  storm  of  God's 
rapidly  approaching  judgments.^  But  behind  all  the  suffering 
there  stands  Hope's  bright  picture  of  redemption  and  a  time  of 
bliss.  The  prophets  always  speak  as  men  familiar  with  the 
purposes  of  God.  They  are  in  God's  confidence.  What  the 
Lord  is  about  to  do  He  tells  unto  them.®  Although  the  un- 
believing multitude  hope  that  "  the  prophets  shall  become 
wind,"  and  say,  "  the  days  are  prolonged,  and  every  vision 
faileth,"  nevertheless,  God  will  bring  to  pass  that  which  He 
has  announced  by  the  mouth  of  His  messengers.'^  And  the 
prophecies  are  invariably  spoken  with  the  practical  and  moral 
purpose  of  making  the  exhortations,  warnings,  and  consola- 
tions more  vivid  and  effective.  ^ 

Prophecy  never  takes  the  form  of  abstract  statement.     It  is 

^  God  has  uncovered  their  ear,  i.e.  has  had  communication  with  them,  1  Sam. 
ix.  15  ;  cf.  XX.  12  ;  2  Sam.  vii.  27  (Gen.  xxvii.  1-33). 

-  Deut.  xviii.  22  ;  Jer.  xxviii.  9  ;  cf.  1  Kings  xxii.  f)  ff. 

^  Compare  the  different  standpoints  of  Hosea,  Isaiah,  Micah,  contrasted  with 
Zephaniah,  Habakkuk,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  and  again  Joel  and  Zechariah. 

•*  Isa.  xxii.  15tr. ;  Jer.  xx.  3  (Amos  vii.  17). 

*  So  Isa.  xiv.  24-xxiii.  ;  Amos  i.  ;  Obadiah,  Nahum,  etc. 

®  Jer.  xxiii.  18,  21  (the  gloss,  xxxiii.  2). 

''  Amos  ii.  12  ;  Jer.  v.  13  ;  Ezek.  xii.  22  f. 


rRoniECY  AND  SOOTHSAYIXG.  2S7 

always  presented  as  a  view  or  a  picture,  drawn  with  the  special 
features  suggested  by  history  and  by  everyday  experience. 
We  never  get  the  bald  statement :  Nineveh  and  Babylon  will 
perish.  We  see  them  taken  by  storm,  and,  amid  every  kind 
of  horror  and  outrage,  razed  to  the  ground  by  ruthless  foes.^ 
It  is  not  said  :  Assyria  will  come  and  devastate  the  land,  but 
not  utterly  subdue  it.  We  see  the  invader  devastating 
Lebanon  and  striding  across  the  pastures  of  Bashan  ;  we  watch 
him  hurrying  along  the  highway  towards  the  south,  through 
the  pass  of  Michmash,  capturing  city  after  city  till,  before  the 
gates  of  the  holy  city,  he  receives  his  death-blow  from  God.'^ 
In  like  manner,  the  day  of  judgment  is  depicted  with  all  the 
terrors  of  darkness,  earthquake,  tempest,  and  flood.  The  final 
deliverance  borrows  its  chief  traits  from  the  exodus  out  of 
Egypt ;  and  the  glorious  memories  of  David  and  Solomon  give 
to  the  picture  of  the  Messiah  its  brightest  colours. 

It  is  also  quite  natural  that  numbers  and  names  should  occur 
iu  prophecy.  But  were  these  to  be  regarded  as  actually  fore- 
telling definite  names  still  unknown  to  the  existing  generation, 
or  particular  numbers  that  belong  to  the  domain  of  chance, 
prophecy  would  sink  to  the  level  of  soothsaying.  In  reality, 
however,  the  dates  are  either  quite  indefinite, — like  "  shortly," 
"  at  hand,"  "  yet  a  little  while,"  "  though  it  tarry  long,"  and  so 
on,^ — or  they  are  round  numbers,  like  one,  three,  seven,  forty, 
seventy,  which  are  mere  general  expressions  for  a  longer  or 
shorter  period  of  time.*     Even  Jeremiah's  famous  number  is 

1  Nalium  ii.  1  ff.  ;  Jer.  xlvi.  3  fF.,  14  ff.,  xlvii.  3  ff . 

'  Zech.  xi.  1-3  ;  Isa,  x.  28  ff. 

^  Isa.  vii.  14,  viii.  4,  xiii.  6,  22,  xvii.  14,  xxix.  17,  xxxii.  10  ;  Jer,  li.  33  ; 
Ezek.  vii.  8  ;  Micah  v.  2  ;  Hab.  ii.  3  ;  Joel  i.  15,  ii.  1. 

*  Isa.  xvi.  14,  xxi.  16  (according  to  the  years  of  an  hireling,  i.e.  short  mea- 
sure, at  the  utmost  so  long),  xxiii.  15,  17  (seventy  years,  according  to  the  days 
of  one  king,  i.e.  of  a  dynasty) ;  Jer.  xxv.  12,  xxix.  10  ;  Ezek.  xxix.  12  ;  cf. 
Welcker,  i.  52  f.  (Jonah  iii.  4);  cf.  Jer.  xxviii.  1  ff.  (the  false  prophet).  Also  in 
Isa.  XX.  3,  the  three  years  would  most  naturally  be  taken  as  the  time  that  would 
elapse  before  the  sign  was  accomplished.  But,  according  to  the  present  context, 
the  meaning  must  be  that  the  sign  was  repeated  during  the  course  of  the  three 
years,  the  time  probably  during  which  Ashdod  was  besieged. 


288  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

certainly  used  in  this  sense.  Possibly  the  prophet  himself 
means  to  indicate  this  very  thing  when  he  uses  the  same  number 
in  two  passages  of  quite  different  date,  compare  chap.  xxv.  1 1 
with  chap.  xxix.  10  ;  for  there  is  nothing  to  justify  Hitzig's  idea 
that  the  first  passage  should  be  considered  an  interpolation. 
But,  in  any  case,  the  perfectly  indefinite  character  of  the  number 
remains.  The  scribes  were  the  first  to  work  up  the  sacred 
numbers  into  a  system  actually  meant  to  be  taken  seriously.^ 
Wherever  there  occurs  in  the  earlier  prophecies  a  really  exact 
number  apparently  accidental,  there  is  certainly  good  reason 
for  examining  carefully  into  the  date  or  the  authenticity  of 
the  passage.^ 

In  the  same  way,  names  of  persons  still  in  the  future  have 
always  a  metaphorical  signification,  and  are  not  meant  to  be 
names  in  the  literal  sense.  Names  like  Immanuel,  Jehovah- 
Tsidkenu,  Pele-Joez,  Abi-Ad,  Sar-Shalom,  El-Gibbor,  Lo- 
Ammi,  Lo-Euhamah,^  are  words  which  are  self-interpreting. 
Names  otherwise  meant,  like  the  name  Koresh  (Cyrus)  in 
Deutero-Isaiah,^  or  details  of  any  kind  which  belong  to  the 
same  category,^  are  always  proofs  that  the  paragraphs  in 
question  belong  to  times  when  these  names  and  details  were 
already  within  the  sphere  of  experience. 

Prophecies  have  an  indissoluble  connection  with  history. 
Nevertheless  they  are  not  mere  calculations  about  the  future 

1  Ezek.  iv.  5ff.  adds  together  from  Ex.  xii.  40  and  Num.  xiv.  34,  390+40  =  430. 
Daniel  next  made  the  years  of  Jeremiah  into  year-weeks,  and  so  on. 

2  Isa.  vii.  8,  "  And  within  threescore  and  five  years  shall  Ephraim  be  broken, 
that  it  be  not  a  people,"  is  shown,  even  by  the  laws  of  parallelism,  and  still 
more  by  a  comparison  with  vers.  16,  17,  and  22,  to  be  a  gloss  that  probably 
arose  out  of  the  number  70  (which  also  occurs  in  Isa.  xxiii.  15,  17  ;  Jer.  xxv. 
11,  xxix.  10),  or  else  was  ingeniously  calculated  by  a  later  editor,  after  the  rise 
of  the  "no-people,"  the  Samaritans  (2  Kings  xvii.  24 if.). 

2  Hos.  i.  4,  6  ;  Isa.  vii.  14,  viii.  4,  10,  ix.  5  (Jer.  xxiii.  6). 

*  B.  J.  xliv.  28,  xlv.  1. 

*  There  are  cogent  reasons  for  assigning  the  whole  narrative,  1  Kings  xiii.  1  ff. , 
to  the  period  after  Josiah  (ver.  32,  cities  of  Samaria  !).  (On  the  other  hand,  as 
the  whole  position  of  affairs  in  the  world  at  large  in  the  daj's  of  Jeremiah 
naturally  pointed  to  Media  as  the  only  rival  of  Babylon,  the  mention  of  the  Medes 
in  Jer.  1.  2  ff.  is  not  one  of  the  proofs  of  the  non-authenticity  of  the  section.) 


TROPHECY  AND  SOOTHSAYING.  289 

based  on  the  present.  Their  eternal  ground -thoughts  are 
independent  of  the  vicissitudes  of  time,  resting,  as  they  do, 
on  deep  religious  certainty.  But  their  form,  colouring,  and 
figure  depend  on  the  actual  present,  with  its  needs,  views, 
and  general  environment.  The  prophecy  of  Amos  is  inti- 
mately connected  with  the  political  relations  of  his  age, 
especially  with  the  attitude  of  the  petty  neighbour-peoples ; 
those  of  Micah  and  Isaiah  with  the  world-empire  of  Assyria, 
and  with  the  enterprises  of  northern  Israel  and  Syria.  It  is 
always  so.  Prophecy  under  a  Hezekiah  has  one  note,  under 
an  Ahaz  and  a  Zedekiah  another.  It  has  likewise  one  note 
as  long  as  Assyria  and  Babylon  are  God's  rods  of  correction, 
but  another  when  they  have  been  used  and  their  arrogance 
lias  to  be  broken.  God  gives  the  eye  of  the  prophet  power 
to  see  the  threads  which  run  from  the  web  of  the  present 
out  into  the  future.  Let  his  prophecies  be  cut  loose  from 
this  web,  let  them  be  explained  in  an  unhistorical  fashion 
without  reference  to  their  environment,  and  they  will  not 
only  be  mutilated,  but  get  so  entangled  with  each  other  as  to 
become  untrue. 

The  speeches  of  the  propliets,  in  fact,  never  present  truths, 
even  the  most  general,  in  any  other  way  than  in  living  con- 
nection with  time  and  history.  Hence  they  can  never  be 
really  understood  apart  from  their  own  time  and  occasion. 
Ilie  prophets  read  the  will  of  God  in  the  flaming  letters  of 
the  world's  history.  The  circumstances  of  their  time  were  to 
them  more  than  a  mere  outer  garment  which,  in  itself  indif- 
i'erent,  covered  prophetic  announcements  that  were  always  of 
similar  import.  They  were  in  the  most  real  sense  factors  that 
contributed  to  the  making  of  the  prophetic  teaching,  stages, 
as  it  were,  by  which  the  prophetic  spirit  penetrated  more 
deeply  and  thoroughly  into  the  purposes  of  God  with  Israel. 
Without  Israel's  decline,  without  the  childish  notions  of 
the  people  regarding  the  external  character  of  worship,  with- 
out the  actual  circumstnnces   in  which  the  world  then  was, 

VOL.  I.  T 


290  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

and  the  rise  of  its  different  States,  without  historical  figures 
like  David  and  Hezekiah,  the  rich  variety  of  revealed  truth 
which  we  possess  in  the  writings  of  the  prophets  would  never 
have  found  expression.  It  is  not  enough  to  have  divine  seed 
and  the  soil  to  receive  it.  Both  sun  and  rain,  storm  anil 
cold,  affect  the  growth  of  the  plant.  And  all  this  is,  of 
course,  very  specially  applicable  to  prophecy.  For  as  soon 
as  the  creative  power  of  imagination  produces  pictures  of 
things  which  lie  beyond  the  experience  of  the  present,  the 
impressions  of  that  present  necessarily  provide  tlie  imagina- 
tion with  colours  and  forms  for  these  pictures. 

8.  If  such  is  the  case,  genuine  prophecy  can  never  demand 
either  complete  or  unconditional  fulfilment.  As  regards 
its  poetical  details,  this  proposition  is  self-evident ;  but  it 
holds  true  even  of  the  main  import  of  a  prophecy,  thougli 
certainly  not  in  the  way  Hengstenberg  ^  meant,  viz.  that 
we  might  consider  the  predictions  of  the  prophets  as  practic- 
ally fulfilled  if  their  "idea"  was  realised,  although  in  quite 
a  different  way  from  what  they  had  stated.  The  prophets 
wished  to  predict,  not  ideas,  but  facts  in  the  liistory  of  the 
world.  It  may,  for  example,  be  said :  Isaiah's  prophecies 
regarding  the  punishment  of  Assyria  are  fulfilled,  as  to  their 
idea,  wherever  a  haughty  self-willed  empire,  forgetful  of  God 
and  His  eternal  purposes,  is  overthrown.  But,  on  that  account, 
what  the  prophet  meant  and  what  he  wished  to  foretell  is 
not  in  any  way  fulfilled,  say,  by  the  destruction  of  Eome  or 
some  such  event.  On  the  contrary,  Isaiah  meant  the  destruc- 
tion of  this  historical  Assyria  in  the  period  inmiediately  follow- 
ing his  prediction,  and  under  circumstances  which  never  arose. 
Hengstenberg's  view  gives  full  play  to  every  sort  of  arbitrary 
interpretation,  and  abandons  the  firm  ground  of  history-  as 

^  "  Abliandluiig  iiber  die  Anslegung  der  Trojihetcn  "  {Evangelische  Kirchcn- 
zeitung,  1833,  23,  24),  an  essay  wliich,  in  spite  of  its  errors,  contains  golden 
words. 

^  Of  course,  it  is  something  altogether  different  when  liiehni  points  out  that 
in  proijliecies  there  are  often  found  features  which,  being  borrowed  from  the 


PJtOPHECY  AND  FULFILMENT.  291 

completely  as  do  the  dreoms  of  tliose  who  expect  in  the  last 
times  a  literal  fulfilment  of  Old  Testament  prophecy,  and 
who  pare  down  the  grand  spiritual  hopes  of  Christianity,  in 
truly  Jewish  fashion,  to  a  "  glorious  kingdom  of  Israel."  The 
fact  is,  the  relation  of  prophecy  to  fulfilment  simply  depends 
on  the  nature  of  the  subject.^ 

Prophecy  uttered  by  a  true  prophet  of  God  must,  of 
course,  be  true  ;  it  must  express  the  real  judgment  of  Gud 
regarding  the  present  and  what  is  to  develop  out  of  it. 
What  distinguishes  the  true  prophet  from  the  false  is,  that 
God  stands  to  the  word  of  the  former  as  to  a  word  that  has 
gone  out  from  Himself.^  Still,  this  is  meant  in  a  much 
narrower  sense  than  is  generally  supposed.  The  people  are 
to  recognise  a  false  prophet  by  the  fact  that  his  words  do  not 
show  themselves  in  harmony  with  the  actual  will  of  God  as 
proved  by  the  result.  If  a  prophet  praises  his  contemporaries 
and  announces  their  salvation,  whilst  their  sin  is  provoking 
God  to  vengeance,  God  lias  not  sent  him.^  But  this  cannot 
mean  that  prophecies  are  to  be  looked  on  as  irreversible 
decrees  of  fate  regarding  a  future  that  lies  beyond  the  range 
of  experience  ;  otherwise  the  people  could  form  no  judgment 
at  all  regarding  them.     "When  a  threat  or  a  promise  is  uttered 


view  of  the  existing  tlieocracy,  cannot  possibly  have  been  intended  by  the 
prophets  to  be  taken  literally  ;  and  in  these  cases  more  importance  is  evidently 
attached  to  the  idea  than  to  the  form  of  presentation,  so  that  the  latter 
apparently  just  jiasses  directly  over  into  the  domain  of  conscious  symbolism, 
as  in  Zcch.  xiv.  16  ff.  ;  P..  J.  Ixvi.  23. 

1  Cf.  Bertheau,  Jahrh.  f.  deutuche  Theologie,  1859,  ii.  314  if.,  iv.  559  ff.; 
1860,  iii.  486  11'.  ("Die  alitestanientlichen  "VVeissagungen  von  Israels  Reichs- 
herrlichkeit ").     Diestel,  Geschichte  des  Allen  Teslamenles,  p.  722,  etc. 

^  Deut.  xviii.  22  ;  Jer.  xxviii.  9  ;  cf.  Hab.  ii.  3  (Zech.  i.  6). 

^  This  idea  is  insisted  on  by  the  exilic  Isaiah  with  special  vigour  and 
emphasis.  The  prophet  shows  himself  the  servant  of  the  living  God,  by  the 
fact  that  from  the  first  he  recognises  God's  will  in  the  dark  problem  of  the 
world's  history  and  development,  and  that,  after  the  first  scene  has  been 
witnessed  by  all  (the  successes  of  the  Persian  king),  he  also  perceives  what  is 
new  and  incompreliensible,  that  this  victorious  hero  will  redeem  Israel,  and 
that  Israel  will  once  more  live  to  see  a  time  like  that  of  the  exodus  from  Egypt 
(xli.  17  11'.,  27,  xlii.  9,  xlviii.  511'.). 


292  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

regarding  the  actual  circumstances  of  a  people,  it  must  be  ful- 
lilled  if  these  circumstances  remain  unaltered.  If  a  prophet 
promised  his  own  generation  God's  favour  and  prosperity,  and 
judgments  overtake  it  without  circumstances  having  so  com- 
pletely altered  as  to  reverse  the  conditions  of  that  promise, 
then  the  prophet  lied,  and  did  not  make  known  the  real 
intention  of  God.  If  he  threatened  the  people  with  God's 
wrath  and  judgment,  and  they  experience  only  happiness 
and  salvation,  without  having,  by  repentance,  removed  the 
cause  of  God's  anger,  then  he  spoke  of  himself,  and  was 
]iot  a  divine  messenger.  On  the  other  hand,  it  by  no  means 
follows  that  the  picture  in  which  the  final  ideal  age  and  its 
accompaniments  presented  themselves  to  a  prophet's  eye  must 
be  realised  in  all  its  details.  As  every  such  idea  has  its 
roots  in  the  present  and  its  environment,  then  if  the  circum- 
stances of  that  present  be  utterly  changed,  the  idea  cannot 
come  to  full  realisation. 

The  present  out  of  which  tlie  words  of  the  prophets  are 
spoken  is  not  regarded  by  the  Old  Testament  religion  as  one 
that  has  by  a  necessity  of  nature  to  go  on  developing.  It 
includes  the  moral  freedom  of  the  creature.  Every  people  to 
which  divine  promises  or  threats  are  uttered  may  change, 
may  repent,  just  in  consequence  of  a  threatening  word  from 
God,  and  thus  remove  what  justified  the  threat;  on  the  other 
hand,  it  may  with  sinful  levity  forsake  the  right  path  to  which 
the  words  of  promise  applied.  In  the  one  case,  God  graciously 
recalls  His  threat ;  in  the  other.  He  angrily  revokes  His  promise. 
Por  if  prophecies  once  uttered  obtained  fulfilment  simply  as 
being  irreversible,  they  would  just  on  that  account  be  no  longer 
true  in  tlie  higher  sense  of  the  word.  If  sin  has  given  place 
to  penitence  and  piety  to  apostasy,  threats  and  promises  are 
no  longer  the  true  expression  of  tlie  divine  will.  And  this 
is  just  how  the  unchangeableness  of  God's  will  is  manifested.^ 
Because  the  prophecy  of  this  God  has  a  moral   character,  it 

1  Ezek.  xviii.  25,  29,  xxxiii.  20. 


PllOniECY  AND  FULFILMENT.  293 

can  claim  only  a  conditional  fulfilment.  Hence  Amos  liimself 
is  convinced  that  he  can,  by  his  own  intercession,  avert  for  a 
time  the  very  strokes  of  misfortune  which  he  beholds  in 
vision.^ 

Naturally  the  conditional  and  variable  character  of  prophetic 
prediction  lias  very  definite  limits.  The  purposes  of  Almighty 
God  cannot  be  baffled  by  the  fickleness  of  man.  Successive 
generations  may  forfeit  their  own  salvation,  but  salvation 
comes  none  the  less, — not  salvation  in  the  form  in  which  any 
one  prophet  beheld  it  in  accordance  witli  the  conditions  of 
his  age  and  personality,  but  still  the  same  salvation,  the  same 
fulfilling  of  the  divine  thoughts  which  constituted  the  very 
essence  of  that  prophecy.  The  how  and  the  when  of  prophecy 
are  conditional.  Both  are  woven  together  out  of  human 
freedom,  the  turnings  of  wliich  lie  hid  from  the  prophet's 
eye.  But  the  salvation  itself  is  sure,  since  it  depends,  not  on 
man,  but  on  Clod. 

There  is  still  another  way  in  which  prophecy  may  cease  to 
be  conditional.  A  people  may  sink  to  such  a  depth  of 
depravity  as  excludes  the  possibility  of  true  repentance  and 
real  conversion ;  may  reach  a  stage  of  sin  where,  according  to 
the  laws  of  the  moial  world,  the  means  of  grace  only  harden 
the  sinner  and  sink  him  deeper;  where  the  object  with 
which  a  prophet  speaks  is  no  longer  to  call  to  repentance, 
l)ut  to  bring  iniquity  to  a  head.'^  There  are  times  when  the 
thunderclouds  of  divine  judgment  are  so  piled  together  that 
the  fatal  bolt  cannot  be  turned  aside.  At  such  times,  when 
repentance  and  conversion  are  no  longer  possible,  prophecies 
are  naturally  no  longer  conditional. 

With  these  qualifications,  however,  one   must   firmly  main- 

1  Amos  vii.  1  if.,  nsri'V  niH"  DHJ. 

2  Amos  vii.  8  ;  Isa.  vi.  9  If.  ;  Jer.  xv.  1  If.,  6.  Moses  Mainionides  occupied 
himself  with  this  question  ( Vorrede  zur  Mischna,  by  Surenhuis,  vol.  i.  pref. 
p.  4).  His  view  is  that  evil  does  not  need  to  happen  because  God  can  repent ; 
but  that  a  blessing  unconditionally  foretold  must  occur,  otherwise  the  prophet 
lied. 


294  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

tain  that  propliecy  requii'es  only  a  conditional  fulfilment. 
A  glance  at  history  should  convince  every  unprejudiced 
l)erson  of  this.  Tyre  did  not,  as  Isaiah  prophesied,  succumb 
to  the  Assyrians,  that  it  might  after  seventy  years  regain 
its  ancient  glory,  and  dedicate  to  Zion  the  profits  of  its 
commerce.^  Babylon  did  not  fall  into  utter  ruin  before  the 
assault  of  Cyrus,  as  the  prophets  of  the  E.\ile  promise.^  Even 
yet  Damascus  has  not  been  blotted  from  the  muster-roll  of 
cities.  The  Egyptians  were  not  carried  captive  either  to 
Assyria  or  to  Babylonia.  Egypt  and  Assyria  ^  have  not  united 
with  Judah  to  form  a  threefold  kingdom  of  God.*  When 
the  exiles  returned,  Jerusalem  was  not  rebuilt  in  the  way 
the  propliets  expected.^  Judah  gained  no  such  victory  over  tiie 
I'hcenicians  as  Joel  describes ;  ^  and,  in  like  manner,  almost 
every  prophecy  sliows,  on  close  inspection,  views  of  the  future 
which  have  not  been  realised.  Xor  can  anything  be  more 
contrary  to  the  true  meaning  of  the  prophetical  books  than  to 
maintain  that  whatever  is  not  yet  fulfilled  will  still  be  fulfilled 
in  some  distant  future.  As  if  those  propliecies  did  not  form 
an  absolutely  perfect  organism,  from  which  one  cannot  break  off 
a  single  member  without  mutilating  the  whole !  Or  as  if  the 
hopes  of  those  men  of  God  were  not  so  thoroughly  bound  up 
with  times  already  past,  never  to  return,  that  they  cannot  by 
any  possibility  be  fulfilled  in  the  days  to  come.  What  the 
Isaiah  of  the  Exile  prophesied  can  never  to  all  eternity  be 
fulfilled  in  the  way  he  expected.  For  all  the  circumstances 
in  which  he  thinks  of  the  new  nation  as  developing  have 
passed  for  ever  away.  And  it  is  the  same  with  all  the 
prophetic  descriptions  of  the  millennium.  Without  a  Philistia 
and  an  Edom  to  conquer  and  hold  down  by  force  of  arms  ; 
without  an  Assyria,  whose  yoke  can  be  thrown  off  in  triumph  ; 


^  Isa.  xxiii.  1  fT.,  15  ff.  (Ezek.  xxvi.  1-xxviii.  9). 

^  B.  J.  xiii.,  xiv.,  xxi.,  xL-lxvi. 

^  Isa.  xvii.  1,  xix.  ;  Jer.  xlvi.  ;  Ezpk.  xxix.  ■*  Isa.  xix.  23  S. 

^  B.  J.  XXXV.,  xlii.,  xliv.,  xlviii.,  liv.,  Ix.,  Ixii.  *  Jool  iv.  4  ff.  etc. 


PROPHECY  AND  FULFILMENT.  295 

without  a  Tyre,  whose  splendid  merchandise  might  embellish 
the  temple  at  Jerusalem ;  without  the  nations  that  are  to 
muster  in  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat  for  the  final  war  against 
Jerusalem, — the  Jerusalem,  too,  of  the  Jews,  ruled  over  by  a 
descendant  of  David, — and  a  thousand  similar  details,  there 
can  be  no  fulfilment  of  the  prophetic  predictions.  When  all 
these  features  are  left  out  or  explained  away,  people  should  at 
least  have  the  honesty  not  to  talk  any  more  of  the  strict 
fulfilment  of  the  prophets'  utterances. 

Certainly  there  is  some  truth  in  the  idea  of  "  perspective  " 
in  prophecy.  Naturally  every  prophet  sees  the  great  goal  of 
God's  ways  in  immediate  connection  with  those  acts  of  divine 
providence  whicli  influence  his  own  time.  In  every  storm- 
cloud  he  sees  the  awful  menace  of  the  last  judgment,  and 
behind  every  night  of  sorrow  the  dawn  of  the  perfect  day.  But 
tliat  is  no  justification  for  tearing  the  prophecies  into  shreds, 
page  by  page.  It  is  untrue  to  say :  "  Although  Tyre  was 
conquered  by  Alexander  instead  of  by  Assyria,  that  is  a  fulfil- 
ment of  Isaiah's  prophecy  ;  "  or,  "  Although  Babylon  fell  slowly 
into  decay,  like  most  of  the  great  cities  of  the  ancient  East, 
still  the  prophecy  of  the  exilic  prophets  is  thereby  fulfilled." 
It  is  untrue  to  say :  "  Although  Jesus  did  not  appear  in  all  the 
glory  of  a  victorious  king  like  David,  as  the  prophets  depict  the 
Messiah,  yet  Israel  will  still  in  the  coming  future  appear  in  all 
the  glory  of  a  nation,  with  Jesus  as  its  king ; "  for  Jesus  has 
already  given  another  and  a  higher  fulfilment  to  these  Messianic 
prophecies,  a  fulfilment  in  which  Israel  as  a  ruling  nation  has 
no  place.  Thus  the  prophecy,  though  revoked  as  regards  its 
temporal  form,  has  been  most  really  and  truly  fulfilled. 

But  this  conviction,  that  prophecies  might  possibly  not  be 
fulfilled,  was  one  clearly  and  consciously  entertained  even  by  the 
prophets  themselves  regarding  their  own  prophecies.  In  fact, 
while  threatening  punishment,  they  always  hold  out  the  offer 
of  mercy  in  the  event  of  repentance.  They  threaten  only  for 
the  purpose  of  producing  an  impression,  that  is,  for  the  purpose 


296  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

of  rendering  unnecessary  the  punishment  which  they  prophesy, 
From  Amos  onwards  to  the  Isaiah  of  the  Exile  the  refrain 
always  is,  "Eepent,  that  God  may  have  mercy  upon  you;  return 
unto  God,  that  He  may  return  unto  you."  ^  As  long  as  con- 
version is  not  impossible,  that  is,  as  long  as  intercession  is  not 
absolutely  unavailing,^  the  prophets  continue  to  point  out  the 
way  of  salvation.  Even  for  Zedekiah  himself  up  to  the  very 
last  an  opening  was  left,  by  which,  through  obedience  to  the 
word  of  God,  he  might  have  escaped  from  the  prophecies  of 
evil,  definitely  expressed  though  they  were.^  And  when  many 
of  the  prophets  repeat,  with  additions  of  their  own,^  famous 
declarations  of  God  by  earlier  prophets,  they  do  not  mean  to 
point  to  these  as  utterances  of  doom  still  unfulfilled,  but  to 
strengthen  their  own  denunciations  by  the  authority  of 
accredited  men  of  God. 

Indeed,  in  particular  cases  it  is  directly  taught  that  a 
fulfilment  of  the  prophecy  in  the  strict  sense  need  not 
necessarily  follow.  I  do  not  here  attach  any  particular  value 
to  a  comparison  of  Ezek.  xxvi.  1— xxviii.  9  with  xxix,  17  K, 
although  such  a  comparison  certainly  appears  to  me  to  prove 
the  open  and  conscious  alteration  of  a  prophecy  previously 
given ;  for  in  this  instance  a  different  interpretation  is  at  any 
rate  possible.  But  in  Jer.  xxvi.  17  ff.  it  is  distinctly 
stated  that  Micah's  prophecy  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem 
was  averted  by  Hezekiah's  repentance ;  and  it  is  in  this 
connection  that  the  exhortation  is  expressly  given,  to  avert 
even  yet  by  repentance  the  catastrophe  which  Jeremiah  has 
threatened  rather  than  punish  that  prophet  for  announcing 
disaster.  In  fact,  if  the  conditions  alter,  it  is  considered  to 
be  God's  prerogative  to  alter  at  will  the  word  spoken  by 
His  prophets.     And  Ezekiel  impresses  on  his  contemporaries 


^  Amos  V.  15,  vii.  1-7  ;  Isa.  i.  18  ;  Jer.  vii.  3,  xviii,  7ff.,  11,  13,  19,  xxvi.  3, 
13  ;  Ezek.  xviii.  21  ff.,  xxxiii,  14  ff.;  B.  J.  xlviii.  18  ;  Joel  ii.  13. 
2  ,Tcr.  vii.  16,  xi.  14  (xv.  1). 
'  Jer.  xxxiv.  4f.,  xxxvi.  3,  7,  xxxviii.  17.  *  Kj.  Isa.  xv,,  xvi.  etc. 


MIRACLES  AND  SIGNS.  297 

with  the  utmost  earnestness  that  a  prophecy  necessarily 
alters  with  every  alteration  of  the  moral  circumstances  to 
which  it  refers.^  Finally,  among  the  objects  served  by  the 
little  didactic  poem  which  stands  among  our  prophetical 
books  as  the  hook  of  Jonah,  one  of  the  most  prominent  is 
to  show  that  even  the  most  definite  prophecy  may  be 
revoked,  and  continue  unfulfilled,  if  the  circumstances  on 
account  of  which  it  was  uttered  are  altered  by  repentance, 
and  that  God,  who  willeth  that  all  should  live,  is  invariably 
ready  to  pardon  as  soon  as  penitence  is  shown."^  And  in 
support  of  such  teaching  the  prophetic  historians  furnish 
numerous  proofs.^ 

9.  The  prophets,  as  ambassadors  of  God,  have  also  a  share 
in  the  divine  power  which  directs  the  world  and  works  '' 
miracles.  What  they  demand,  God  grants.  Whenever  in 
the  exercise  of  their  calling  anything  extraordinary  or  mira- 
culous is  necessary,  God  never  fails  them.  This  conviction, 
being  a  matter  of  course  in  Israel,  has  crowned  the  earliest 
prophets  with  a  garland  of  miracles.  According  to  all  the 
narratives,  Moses  is  a  notable  worker  of  signs  and  wonders.'* 
His  sin  was  that  on  one  occasion  he  lost  heart  and  became 
doubtful  as  to  the  miracle-working  power  of  the  God  by  whom 
he  was  sustained.^  In  this  respect  as  in  every  other,  Elijaii 
and  Elisha,  the  leading  spirits  of  the  true  religion  during  the 
stormiest  epoch  in  the  northern  kingdom,  are  heroic  figures. 
They  perform  miracles  in  a  way  that  savours  very  much  of 
magic ;  and  the  stories,  too,  are  told  in  a  highly  plastic  and 
sensuous  fashion.  For  instance,  Elijah's  official  dress  as  a 
prophet  is  evidently  represented  as  working  miracles,  just 
like  the  hair  of  Samson  the  Nazirite.^  People  expect  the 
prophets    to    heal    diseases    by    prayer    and    laying     on     of 

^  Jer.  xviii.  7-10  ;  Ezek.  xxxiii.  13  ff.  ^  Jonah  iii.  4,  10,  iv.  10  f. 

3  2  Sam.  xii.  13  ;  1  Kings  xxi.  28  ff. ;  Isa.  xxxviii.  1  If. 
*  Ex.  v.-xv.  5  Num.  XX.  10  ff.  (A). 

6  1  Kings  xvii.  1  ;  2  Kings  i.  lOff.,  ii.  4,  11-14,  20,  24,  iv.  6,  29,  31,  34  ff., 
V.  lOir.,  vi.  6,  8,  18. 


298  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

liands,  and  they  pay  them  high  fees.^  Other  prophets  also 
occasionally  perform  miracles.^ 

After  the  eighth  century  the  propliets  scarcely  ever  attach 
importance  to  this  part  of  their  equipment.  Still,  not  only 
are  incidents  related  regarding  them  which  the  narrator  con- 
sidered miraculous  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word ;  ^  but  at 
least  one  passage  puts  it  beyond  a  doubt  that  the  prophets 
themselves  were  thoroughly  convinced  of  their  own  power 
to  work  miracles  in  virtue  of  their  calling  as  servants  of 
the  God  who  guides  the  world.*  For  when  Isaiah  makes 
Ahaz  the  unconditional  offer  of  choosing  a  sign  "  be  it  deep  as 
Sheol  or  high  as  heaven,"  he  must  have  been  absolutely  con- 
vinced tliat  any  natural  event  which  Ahaz  might  ask  would 
actually  occur,  even  if  we  assume  that  the  custom  and  idiom 
of  that  age  allowed  the  prophet's  offer  to  be  understood  in  a 
narrower  sense  than  it  would  appear  to  us  to  have. 

According  to  prophetic  law,  however,  miracles  are  as  little 
decisive  of  the  worth  of  a  prophet  as  soothsaying  is.^  Both 
alike  belong  to  a  realm  which  is  morally  indifferent, — to  the 
realm  of  human  power  increased  to  a  degree  altogether  extra- 
ordinary. They  may  be  performed  by  a  false  prophet  as  well 
as  by  a  true."  The  only  sure  proof  of  being  a  true  preacher 
of  God's  will  is  the  right  spirit,  agreement  with  the  revealed 
will  of  Israel's  God.'^  Even  when  miracles  occur,  they  are 
never  an  end  in  themselves,  but  always  merely  the  means  by 
which  a  prophet  exercises  his  calling  and  fulfils  the  special 
duties  incumbent  on  him  at  the  time.  They  are  proofs  either 
of  God's  power  to  punish  his  enemies  or  of  His  love  for  the 
pious,  but  at  the  same  time  they  are  pledges  of  the  prophet's 
divine  commission.  They  are,  in  a  word,  "  signs  "  (ninix).  Of 
course,  just  as  the  miracle  is  not  always  a  sign,  so  the  sign  is 

1  2  Kings  V.  If.,  15  f.,  20  fF. 

2  E.rj.  1  Sam.  xii.  14  fl".;  1  Kings  xiii.  6. 
^  2  Kings  XX.  9  f.  ;  cf.  Isa.  xxxviii.  7  t'. 

•*  Isa.  vii.  11.  ^  Deut.  xiii.  1  ff. 

fi  Deut.  xiii.  2-6  ;  cf.  B.J.  xliv.  25.  ^  Deut.  xiii.  3. 


TROPHECY  AND  THE  LAW.  299 

not  always  a  miracle.  The  signs  which  Samuel  gives  Saul  are 
merely  particular  suppositions,  the  actual  occurrence  of  which 
are  to  be  an  inward  pledge  to  him  of  the  more  important  things 
of  which  he  has  heard.^  Before  his  daring  assault,  Jonathan 
chooses  his  own  token  or  omen  of  success.-  Tlie  sign,  as  a 
visible  pledge  of  the  invisible  promise,  may  even  be  nothing 
more  than  a  suggestive  act^  or  a  significant  name.^  Indeed, 
the  very  word  "miracle"  (^Sin)  is  applied  quite  freely  to  things 
of  this  kind,  simply  because  they  have  a  special  import.^  But 
Old  Testament  history  naturally  looks  on  the  actual  miracle 
as  a  specially  valuable  ec^uipment  of  the  prophet  who  has  to 
perform  a  great  historical  work.*" 

10.  The  whole  activity  of  the  true  prophets  is  due  to  their 
vital  connection  with  the  history  of  their  religion,  especially 
with  its  great  foundation,  the  making  of  Israel  into  a  nation 
by  Moses.  Hence  fidelity  to  the  God  of  Israel  and  to  His  will 
is  the  one  sure  test  of  every  prophet  in  Israel.'^  Nevertheless, 
during  the  whole  period  down  to  the  Exile  we  do  not  find  any 
proof  that  the  prophets  were  consciously  dependent  on  a  written 
law  as  their  highest  authority.  Until  Deuteronomy  was  written, 
no  such  law  was  in  existence.  And  even  subsequently  the 
prophets  who  felt  themselves  to  be  such,  always  held  that  the 
"  Thorah  "  within  tlieir  own  breast  was  quite  as  trustworthy 
as  the  law.  It  was  to  the  religion  of  Jehovah  which  filled 
their  own  souls,  that  they  considered  their  loyalty  was  due. 

It  is  certain  that  a  systematic  study  of  the  law  did  not 
begin  till  the  age  immediately  preceding  Ezra.  It  was  from 
the  cattle  and  the  sycamore  trees  that  God  called  prophets  like 
Amos  to  preach.     The  true  prophet  is,  like  Jesus,  one  who 


1  1  Sam.  X.  7,9.  "I  Sam.  xiv.  8  ff. 

»  E.g.  Isa.  XX.  3  ;  Jer.  li.  63  ;  Ezek.  xii.  6,  11,  xxiv.  24,  27. 

*  E.g.  Isa.  vii.  14  ff.,  viii.  18,  xxxvii.  30;  Zecli.  iii.  8;  Deut.  xxviii.  46 
(where  the  curses  against  Israel  are  called  signs  and  wonders). 

^  If  Jer.  xliv.  29  be  not  a  gloss,  we  have  there  one  prophecy  given  as  the  proof 
of  another. 

6  Ex.  vii.  8ff.  (A.)  ^  Deut.  xiii.  6. 


300  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

"has  not  learned  letters."  And  how  free  the  prophets,  in  the 
strength  of  this  spirit,  considered  themselves  to  be  in  regard  to 
what  was  formerly  held  true,  we  see  with  special  clearness  from 
the  way  in  which  they  dare  to  contradict  the  very  axioms  of 
Israel's  religion.  Thus  they  oppose  to  the  customary  sacrifices 
and  feasts,  the  true  sacrifice  of  the  heart ;  ^  and  to  the  law  of 
nature  by  which  sin  is  punished  to  the  third  and  fourth 
generation,  the  higher  moral  law,  in  accordance  with  which 
every  one  may  by  his  own  moral  development  free  himself 
from  his  hereditary  curse.- 

It  is  only  during  the  Exile  that  prophecy  begins  to  fade 
away  into  the  learning  of  the  scribes.  Ezekiel  one  may 
already  call  a  prophet  learned  in  the  law.^  One  of  the 
exilic  prophets  already  points  to  the  book  of  God  and  to  the 
fulfilment  of  its  declarations  ;  *  and  Zechariah  is  constantly 
basing  his  statements  upon  his  acquaintance  with  the  older 
Scriptures.  Nevertheless,  even  these  men  claim  a  freedom 
which  does  not  bow  before  the  letter,  and  retain  the  feeling 
that  they  themselves  are  still  speaking  God's  words.  And, 
side  by  side  w^ith  them,  what  freedom  and  living  independence 
of  spirit,  c.f).,  in  13.  J.  xl.-lxvi. !  It  is  only  in  Ezra's  day  that 
the  place  of  the  prophet  is  finally  taken  by  the  scribe. 


CHAPTEE  XV. 

THE  BABYLONIAN  PEllIOD.       JUDAH'S  Tl'JAL  x\.ND  EXECUTION. 

1.  According  to  tlie  divine  decree  as  revealed  by  the 
condition  of  the  world,  judgment  could  no  longer  be  averted 
from  Judah.  The  storm-clouds  were  gathering  from  all 
quarters,  and  becoming  always  more  and  more  threatening. 

1  Isa.  i.  14  ff. ;  Hos.  v.  6  ;  Ps.  xL  7,  1.  8  ff.  etc.  »  E.g.  Ezck.  xviii.  2  ff. 

3  Cf.  iv.  5f.,  xxviii.  13,  16,  xxxi.  8,  9,  18,  xxxvi.  35. 
*  B.  J.  xxxiv.  16. 


JOSIAH.  301 

On  tlie  one  side  was  Egypt,  a  flourisliing  empire,  pressing 
ever  onwards  in  its  victorious  career ;  on  the  other,  the 
Chaldean  empire,  ready  to  dispute  with  Egypt  the  inheritance 
of  Assyria ;  and  right  between  these  mighty  adversaries  a  tiny 
ahnost  defenceless  land,  the  natural  theatre  of  war.  And  all 
around  were  ill-disposed  and  envious  neighbours,  Edom  with 
its  newly-won  freedom  and  its  hereditary  hatred,  Philistia  in 
all  its  renewed  prosperity,  and  the  robber  tribes  of  the 
neighbouring  desert.  Israel  was  also  threatened  with  de- 
struction by  the  great  Scythian  outbreak.  And  at  tlie  same 
time  in  Judah  itself,  though  its  resources  were  few  and  its 
danger  great,  there  was  much  worldliness  and  degeneracy,  a 
want  of  loyalty  to  God,  especially  in  regard  to  the  worship  of 
the  Queen  of  heaven,^  which  had  become  almost  legal ;  and 
even  among  the  very  propliets  and  priests  a  degeneracy 
which  warranted  the  gravest  fears.^ 

At  this  time  the  people  witnessed  a  new  phenomenon 
quite  strange  to  former  times,  at  least  in  sucli  clearness  and 
grandeur.  Out  of  the  actual  Israel,  that  is,  the  people  as  a 
whole  which  had  no  longer  any  real  vital  force  in  it,  there 
grew  up,  from  within,  a  true  Israel,  a  national  nucleus,  most 
of  which  naturally  gathered  round  the  true  prophets.  This 
nucleus  devoted  itself  to  tlie  calling,  the  law,  and  the  religion 
of  the  nation,  with  an  ardour,  strength,  and  purity  hitherto 
unparalleled.  With  holy  dread  of  the  wrath  of  their  offended 
('ovenant-King,  and  yet  with  an  ardent  love  for  Him  and 
His  people,  they  stand  before  Him  ready,  as  it  were,  to 
step  into  the  breach  for  the  lost  and  ruined  nation. 

This  true  Israel  first  tries  whether  it  has  not  still 
sufficient  vitality  to  revivify  the  dead  nation,  to  breathe  into 
it   once   more   the    warm   breath   of  love   and    faith.     With 


'  Jer.  xliv.  15  proves  that  tliis  woisliiji  was  regarded  liy  the  people  as  an 
acknowledged  custom,  and  even  as  a  right;  cf.  Jer.  iii.  10  ff.,  xii.  9,  xiii.  9, 
xvii.  2ff'.,  xviii.  13  ff.  ;  Ezek.  viii.,  ix. ,  xvi.,  xxii.,  xxiii. 

"Jer.  v.  13,  xxiii.;  cf.  Ezek.  vii.  26  fF.,  xiii.  4  ff.  etc. 


302  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

lieroic  fidelity,  Josiah,  and  the  circle  of  men  who  support 
him,  attempt  to  regenerate  the  nation,  although  the  outward 
means  for  accomplishing  this  have  long  been  gone.  The  pro- 
phetic law,  Deuteronomy,  is  made  State-law.  The  people 
jjledge  themselves  in  a  solemn  covenant  to  be  faithful  to  God 
and  to  His  law.^  The  priests  of  the  high  places,  even  the 
Levitical,  are  deprived  of  their  office,  and  reduced  to  private 
life  with  a  fixed  income.-  All  that  song  and  prophetic 
oratory  can  effect  is  tried  in  order  to  breathe  a  new  spirit 
into  the  decrepit  body  of  the  nation,  and  make  it  young  again. 
For  the  first  time  in  Israel,  the  use  of  a  single  sanctuary 
is  legally  decreed  and  enforced.  This  was  certainly  in  the 
existing  circumstances  an  indispensable  condition  for  tlic 
healthy  development  of  this  religion.  In  point  of  fact,  it 
became  the  means  of  uprooting  more  and  more  the  ancient 
worship  of  God  by  sacrifice,  and  of  making  it  a  mere  symbol 
of  spiritual  worship.  For  living  worship  demands  constant 
personal  service,  and  is  therefore  in  its  ancient  form  incom- 
patible with  the  use  of  only  one  sanctuary.  At  first,  it  is  true, 
there  arises  the  new  danger  of  pride  in  possessing  the  proper 
ritual  and  of  offensive  confidence  in  the  letter,  a  danger 
against  which  Jeremiah  is  the  first  of  the  prophets  to  con- 
tend;^ while,  on  the  other  hand,  he  is  equally  emphatic  as  to 
God's  covenant  relationship  with  His  people,  and  the  heavy 
responsibility  which  any  breach  of  that  covenant  entails.* 
From  this  time  onwards  these  two  tendencies  begin  to  show 
themselves  more  and  more  strongly;  but,  of  course,  their 
germs  had  long  existed  in  this  religion.  The  one  party  culti- 
vated a  free  and  profoundly  religious  spirit,  which  was  now 
brought  to  full  maturity  by  a  large  number  of  highly  pro- 
phetic souls,  their  watchword  being  "the  word  of  God  by  the 
mouth  of  His  prophets."  The  other  party  devoted  themselves 
to  the  priestly  side  of  religion,  paying    special  attention  to 

^  2  Kings  xxiii.  -  Dent.  xii.  '2  ff. 

^  Jer.  vii.  4,  22  ;  cf.  viii.  4-9,  xviii.  8.  *  Jer.  xL 


MONOTHEISM.  303 

Israel's  outward  holiness,  aud  to  establishing  a  complete  ritual, 
their  watchword  being  "  the  Thorah  as  the  written  legal  rule 
of  life  for  the  holy  people."  In  Jeremiah^  aud  the  Deuter- 
onomist  these  two  tendencies  are  still  in  close  and  inward 
connection.     Ezekiel  and  A  proclaim  the  triumph  of  the  lattei; 

In  these  times,  beyond  all  doubt,  it  had  come  to  be  fully 
acknowledged  that  the  God  of  Israel  is  the  one  only  God ; 
that  everything  else  that  men  call  God,  or  that  claims  to 
possess  superhuman  power,  belongs  to  the  category  either  of 
non-existent  lying  figures,  or  of  subordinate  beings  that  simply 
execute  His  will,  or  of  feeble  antagonists  to  whom  ibr  a  time 
He  gives  free  scope.  The  naive  language  of  the  olden  time, 
which  had  grown  up  in  the  midst  of  polytheism,  did  not,  it  is 
true,  altogether  cease."  Neither  Jeremiah  nor  the  Deutero- 
nomist  hesitates  to  speak  of  the  heathen  gods  as  the  fatheis 
of  their  respective  peoples,^  or  of  the  army  of  heaven  as  lords 
set  up  by  God  over  the  nations  of  the  world.^  And  still 
later,^  the  army  of  heaven  is  represented  as  being  condemned 
by  God,  that  is,  as  being  in  opj)Osition  to  Him.  But  all  this 
does  not  preclude  the  existence  in  these  times  aud  writings 
of  a  distinct  theoretical  monotheism. 

The  gods  of  foreign  nations  are  spoken  of  as  dumb,  spiritless 
idols,^  weak  and  helpless,  non-existent.''  They  are  identified 
in  bitter  satire  with  their  images,  unjustly,  of  course,  so  far  as 
the  history  of  religion  is  concerned,  but  in  consequence  of  the 
belief  that  apart  from  these  man-made  images  they  did  not 
really  exist.  They  are  specially  derided  by  the  exilic  prophets 
as  ludicrous  lying  products  of  human  self-deception.^     They 

^  Jer.  vi.  19,  vii.  9,  viii.  8,  xviii.  18,  xxvi.  1  IF. 

^  This  still  occurs  even  in  Ruth.  "  Jcr.  ii.  27,  xvi.  13. 

*  Deut.  iv.  19,  20,  28,  xxviii.  36,  64  ;  cf.  xxxii.  8,  9,  12. 

=  B.  J.  xxiv.  21  (2  Chron.  xxviii.  23).  «  Hab.  ii.  18  f. 

7  Jer.  ii.  27,  x.  3-14;  Deut.  iv.  28  ;  1  Kings  xviii.  27  11'.,  xix.  18;  B.  J. 
xlvi.  1,  Ivii.  13  f. 

8  B.  J.  xl.  IS  ff.,  xli.  7,  24,  29,  xlii.  17,  xliv.  9-20,  xlv.  16,  20  f.,  xlvi.  6  ; 
cf.  Judg.  vi.  26  ;  1  Kings  xviii.  27  ;  Jer.  x.  1;  Ps.  cxv.  4,  8,  cxxxv.  15  f.  (B.  J. 
xli.  22,  "Do  something  good  or  bad  that  we  may  see  that  ye  are  gods"). 


304  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY, 

are  called  nonentities,^  shams,^  wind,^  nothings,*  spiritless,^  no- 
gods,®  abominations/  horror,^  shame,^  blocks/^  etc. 

God  is  the  absolutely  One.  Even  evil  is  not  an  act  of 
hostile  powers.  He  creates  good  and  evil.^^  He  is  the  God 
of  the  gods ;  and  they  are  His  servants.^- 

And  the  prophetic  law  does  not  merely  declare  again 
and  again  that  He  is  God,  and  there  is  none  else,^^  but  it 
expressly  lays  down  as  the  foundation  principle  of  the  whole 
religion  the  formula,  "  Hear,  0  Israel,  the  Lord  thy  God  is 
one  God,"^*  the  watchword  with  which  in  later  tiuies  Israel 
marched  to  martyrdom  and  death ;  and  which  Jesus  also 
emphasises  as  the  first  principle  of  true  joiety,  hereby  includ- 
ing within  the  limits  of  monotheism  His  own  person  and 
work.  This  age  is  unanimous  in  hoping  that  at  the  close  of 
history  God  will  establish  His  own  absolute  unity,  and  that 
one  name,  "  Jehovah,"  will  be  common  to  all  nations.  He 
lias  sworn  that  to  Him  every  knee  shall  bow,^^  just  as  He  is 
already  guiding  heathen  princes  like  Cyrus  and  Nebuchad- 
nezzar without  their  knowing  it.^*" 

^  "inn,  B.  J.  xlvi.  3  ;  1  Sam.  xii.  21,  etc. 
"  a'Wy,  Jor.  xviii.  15  ;  Jonah  ii.  9. 

'  bin,  Jer.  ii.  fi,  viii.  19,  xiv.  22,  xvi.  19  ;  Dent,  xxxii.  21  ;  2  Kings  xvii.  15  ; 
npC',  Jer.  X.  14. 

*  DvvX  (from  pX,  but  iutcntionally  formed  so  as  to  sound  as  if  from  ^X), 

Ezek.  XXX.  13  ;  Ps.  xcvii.  7  ;  Lev.  xxvi.  1,  xix.  4. 
5  Hab.  ii.  19  ;  Jer.  x.  14. 

*  DTI^X  xb'   ?ii  i^b,  already  in  Deut.  xxxii.  17,  21,  39;  Jer.  ii.  11,  v.  7. 

"  riQyin,  J^r.  xvi.  is  ;  Ezek.  vii.  20,  xi.  18,  21,  xiv.  6 ;  2  Kings  xxiii.  13 ; 
B.  J.  xliv.  19. 

^  ]^\)^,  Jer.  iv.  1,  vii.  30,  xvi.  18,  xxxii.  34  ;  Ezek.  vii.  20,  xi.  18,  21,  xx.  8, 
xxxvii.  23  ;  1  Kings  xi.  5-7  ;  2  Kings  xxiii.  13,  24  ;  Deut.  xxix.  16. 

^  nC'3,  Jer.  iii.  24,  xi.  13  (for  ^l}2). 

^^  Wb'hi,  Lev.  xxvi.  30  ;  Deut.  xxix.  16  ;  1  Kings  xv.  12,  xxi.  26  ;  2  Kings 
xvii.  12,  xxiii.  24  ;  very  irequent  in  Ezekiel. 

^^  B.  J.  xiv.  7  ;  of.  Amos  iii.  6.  '-  Dent.  x.  7. 

13  Deut.  iv.  35,  39,  xxxii.  39. 

1*  Deut.  vi.  4  (therefore  people  are  to  swear  by  Him  alone,  ver.  13). 

15  Zeph.  iii.  9  ;  Zech.  xiv.  9  ;  Hagg.  ii.  8  ;  B.  J.  xiv.  14,  23,  xlix.  26  ;  Ps. 
Ix  xxiii.  19. 

'^  Jer.  XXV.  9,  xxvii.  C,  xliii.  10  ;  Ezek.  xxix.  20  ;  B.  J.  xiv.  1. 


THE  SUFFERING  OF  THE  BEST.  305 

2.  At  this  time  an  event  occurs  that  is  at  first  siglit 
mysterious  and  unintelligible.  The  attempt  of  the  true  Israel 
to  leaven  the  inert  mass  of  all  Israel  proves  a  failure.  This 
Israel  is  trodden  under  foot,  Josiah  himself  falls  ^  in  battle 
fighting  against  the  Egyptians,  mourned  by  the  noblest  in 
Israel  After  the  death  of  this  reforming  king,  impure  forms 
of  worship  and  the  inclination  to  worship  the  gods  of  the 
heathen  revive  with  redoubled  strength.  Jehoiachin,  a  man 
not  without  energy  and  popularity,-  is  carried  away,  with  the 
best  of  the  nation,  into  captivity  in  Chaldea.  We  have  here  a 
specially  striking  example  of  what  constitutes  the  truly  tragic 
element  in  all  history.  The  judgment,  which  a  long  course 
of  sin  has  rendered  inevitable,  bursts  at  last  upon  a  generation 
which  has  itself  an  inclination  towards  what  is  good. 

These  events  produce  something  quite  new  to  the  religion 
of  Israel.  There  exists  an  Israel  that  does  not,  in  itself,  deserve 
death,  but  is  perfectly  capable  of  living  a  new  and  nobler  life. 
If  this  Israel  die,  it  dies  not  because  of  its  own,  but  others' 
guilt.  And  a  nation  for  which  such  men  die,  a  nation  which 
still  contains  within  itself  such  strength  of  devotion,  cannot, 
just  because  of  these  saints  and  their  devotedness,  remain  for 
ever  lost.  These  men  of  the  true  Israel  are  a  pledge  that  the 
people  will  rise  again  out  of  the  death  which  it  cannot  longer 
avoid.  A  people  which  has  within  it  such  a  kernel  cannot 
utterly  perish.  The  true  supramundane  strength  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  begins  to  show  itself. 

And  when  it  is  on  this  Israel  that  the  divine  judgments 
fall,  a  deeper  glimpse  is  given  into  the  ways  of  God  in 
general.  In  this  case  the  reward  of  self-improvement  and 
purification,  of  true  love  to  God,  is  special  suffering  and 
woe.      Hence,  faith    has    to    distinguish   between  prosperity 


^  He  had  evidently  tried  to  obtain  supremacy  over  northern  Israel  also, 
altliough  in  alliance  with  Assyria  ;  and  tliis — perhaps,  too,  his  confidence  in 
promises  like  Deut.  xx. — may  have  drawn  him  into  the  unequal  struggle. 

2  Jer.  xxii.  24. 

VOL.  I.  U 


306  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

that  is  outward  and  earthly,  and  glory  that  is  inward  and 
real.  Suffering  ceases  to  approach  the  individual  as  a 
messenger  of  divine  anger.  It  is  seen  to  be  in  harmony  with 
the  consciousness  of  God's  love,  and  even  with  the  special 
revelation  of  it.  There  is  a  suffering  for  others,  for  mankind, 
— a  suffering  of  voluntary  self-sacrifice  in  behalf  of  the  chosen 
people,  in  order  that  a  seed  may  remahi  in  it  for  the  better 
time  about  to  be.  From  the  thought  of  the  involuntary, 
meaningless  sacrifice  of  animals  the  mind  is  lifted  up  to  the 
thought  of  a  voluntary  self-sacrifice  due  to  love.  Thus 
greater  emphasis  is  also  laid  on  individual  personality  and 
its  relation  to  God,  which  is,  as  Duhm  justly  remarks,  a 
characteristic  feature  of  Jeremiah's  prophecies. 

Finally,  the  more  unsolved  contradictions  and  riddles 
there  are  in  man's  earthly  lot, — the  less  possible  it  becomes 
to  harmonise  his  relation  to  God  with  that  lot, — the  more 
must  the  religious  spirit  feel  constrained  to  seek,  somewhere 
beyond  this  earthly  existence,  an  eternal  transcendental 
happiness  inseparably  connected  with  life  in  God.  It  is 
true  that,  in  accordance  with  the  whole  essence  of  this 
religion,  individuals  gain  such  experience  but  slowly  and 
gradually,  and  rather  from  the  pious  welling-up  of  feeling 
than  from  knowledge  clearly  seen  and  firmly  grasped.  But 
the  people  get  it  all  the  more  fully  through  looking  for  their 
national  resurrection,  and  for  everlasting  blessedness  and 
glory  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  No  wonder  that  under  these 
circumstances  the  brilliant  figure  of  the  victorious  Davidic 
king  as  seen  by  Isaiah  and  his  contemporaries  grows  paler 
and  paler.  But,  in  its  place,  a  reinvigorated  and  glorified 
commonwealth  of  saints  becomes  more  and  more  the  central 
object  of  faith. 

During  this  period  the  capital  of  this  tiny  land,  the  seat  of 
the  sanctuary,  the  one  spot  which  so  often  remained  unharmed 
while    the    enemy  was    master    of   all   the   country  round,^ 

^  Isa.  i.  8,  xxxvi.  1  ff . ;  2  Kings  xviii.  13. 


THE  DESTRUCTION  OF  ZION.  307 

acquired  an  importance  in  the  eyes  of  the  godly  that  it  never 
could  have  acquired  in  the  larger  kingdom  of  David  and 
Solomon.  It  is  the  city  of  God,  the  holy  city/  the  centre  of 
the  world.^  Its  citizen  roll  is  the  book  of  life.^  Its  name  is 
significantly  shortened  to  Salem,  the  city  of  peace.*  It  is 
more  and  more  the  subject  of  eulogy  in  song.^  Indeed,  so 
fully  does  it  become  the  regular  expression  for  the  true 
people  of  God,  that,  even  while  it  lay  in  ashes,  the  prophet  of 
the  Exile  regards  the  "  preachers  of  Zion  "  as  the  true  nucleus 
of  the  nation,^  and  still  speaks  reverently  of  the  forsaken  city 
as  the  great  mother  of  the  nation  who  is  once  more  to  be 
surrounded  with  trocps  of  merry  children.'^  The  godly  are 
"  those  who  love  Jerusalem  ;  "  the  wicked,  those  "  who  forget 
Jerusalem."  ^  Thus  Zion  becomes  the  standing  expression 
for  the  commonwealth  of  God. 

3.  Judah  is  speedily,  even  suddenly,  overtaken  by  utter 
destruction.  Zedekiah,  the  last  king  of  Judah,  set  up  by  the 
Chaldeans  as  their  vassal,  was,  it  appears,  a  man  of  naturally 
good  disposition.^  But,  being  weak  and  easily  led,  he  fell  into 
the  hands  of  the  fanatical  national  party,  which  was  supported 
by  the  false  prophets  of  good.^°  The  religious  revival  of 
Josiah's  time  was  quickly  followed  by  a  greater  intermingling 
of  religions  than  ever,  and  by  all  kinds  of  disorder.^^  And 
the  king  was  blind  enough  not  to  perceive  that  in  the 
actual  circumstances  of  the  world,  and  in  view  of  the  woeful 
want  of  vigour  in  his  own  nation,  the  only  course  in  real 

1  Ps.  xlvi.  5,  xlviii.  2,  9  ;  B.  J.  xlviii.  2. 

^  Ezek.  xxxviii.  12. 

^  Ps.  Ixxxvii.  6. 

*  Ps.  Ixxvi.  3. 

^  Ps.  xhd.,  xlvii.,  xlviii.,  Ixxxvii.  (cxxii.,  cxxxii.,  cxxxvii.,  ci.  8). 

«  B.  J.  xl.  9. 

7  B.  J.  Hi.  1  ff. 

8  B.  J.  Ixv.  11,  Ixvi.  10  ;  cf.  Ps.  cxxxvii.  5  ff. 
^  Cf.  e.g.  Jer.  xxxviii. 

^"  Jer.  xiv.  13  ff.,  xxiii.  13,  xxvii. 

'1  Jer.  ii.  26,  vii.  31,  ix.  12,  xiii.  10,  27,  xvi.  11,  12,  xvii.  2,  xviii.  15,  xxii.  9 ; 
Ezek.  viii.,  xvi.,  xx.,  xxii.,  xxiii. 


308  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

harmony  with  the  divine  purposes  was  to  submit  to  the  ruling 
Avorld-power.  In  vain  Jeremiah  proclaimed  again  and  again 
that  nothing  but  a  policy  of  wise  and  trustful  waiting  could 
be,  for  the  present,  the  will  of  God.^  Prophets  like  Hananiah 
probably  thought  they  were  acting  quite  in  the  spirit  of  Isaiah 
when  predicting  for  the  holy  city  a  sure  deliverance.  The 
king  broke  his  oath,^  attempted  a  war  of  liberation,  and  in  the 
terrible  punishment  which  ensued  all  that  remained  of  the  once 
glorious  nation  of  Israel  ^  was  utterly  shattered.  A  little  later 
what  the  Chaldeans  had  left — a  handful  of  tributary  peasants 
under  a  governor — was  also  destroyed  in  consequence  of  a 
mad  attempt  at  rebellion  in  which  this  governor,  Gedaliah, 
met  his  death.'*  As  for  the  members  of  the  holy  people 
whom  the  miseries  of  the  time  had  not  already  cut  off,  some 
perished  in  the  flight  to  Egypt, — even  the  fate  of  Jeremiah  is 
lost  sight  of  in  this  universal  destruction, — and  others  were 
taken  captive  to  Babylon,  and  settled  there. 

In  this  sorrowfvil  time  we  see  revealed  the  full  glory  of 
that  true  Israel  which  was  brought  into  being  by  the  purify- 
ing efiects  of  this  final  judgment ;  and  nowhere  are  its 
characteristics  more  splendidly  embodied  than  in  Jeremiah, 
the  greatest  man  of  God  of  this  period.^  He  already  feels 
the  misery  and  dire  distress  of  the  people,  while  the  multitude 
is  still  going  about  light-hearted  and  hopeful.  When  false 
prophets  promise  freedom  and  fresh  renown,  he  who  would 
so  willingly  agree  if  he  only  could,  has  to  lift  the  veil  from 
the  awful  fate  which  was  really  awaiting  his  j)eo]3le.  In  all 
their  sufferings  he  discerns  the  holy  anger  of  God  against  a 
rebellious  people,  and  this  anger  he  has  time  after  time  to 

^  Jer.  xxvii.  Iff.,  xxviii.  14  ff.,  xxix.  4  ff.  Uriah,  who,  like  Jeremiah,  had 
preached  against  the  foolhardy  undertaking,  was  brought  back  from  Egypt, 
where  he  had  sought  shelter,  and  put  to  death ;  while  Jeremiah  was  rescued, 
though  with  the  utmost  difficulty  (Jer.  xxvi.  20  ff.). 

"  Ezek.  xvii.  14  ff.  ^  2  Kings  xxv.  1  ff. 

*  2  Kings  xxv.  25  ;  cf.  Jer.  xli.-xliii. 

'  The  greatness  and  the  tragic  character  of  this  man  are  admirably  sketched 
hy  Duhm,  p.  228  ff. 


THE  DESTRUCTION  OF  ZION.  309 

proclaim  afresh  to  a  people  that  will  not  listen.  And  yet 
he  is  willing,  in  infinite  devotion  to  his  people  and  to  the 
divine  thoughts  that  are  embodied  in  Israel,  to  face  along 
M'itli  them  the  death  he  himself  has  not  merited,  rather  than 
give  them  up,  and  by  breaking  off  from  them,  secure  his 
personal  safety.^  Taunted  with  being  a  herald  of  disaster,  a 
traitor  to  the  national  honour  and  liberty ,2  having  to  endure 
trials  in  double  measure, — in  addition  to  the  siege,  imprison- 
ment, scorn,  mockery,  and  danger  of  every  kind, — he  stands 
there  as  a  man  who  suffers,  not  for  himself,  but  for  Israel, 
and  who  in  his  own  pure  life  bears  the  sins  of  his  impure 
people.  Hence  the  book  of  Jeremiah  shows  us  with  startling 
vividness  and  beauty  the  figure  of  the  "  men  of  sorrow." 
Unquestionably  many  of  the  noblest  elegies  in  the  Psalter 
were  sung  by  the  pious  Israel  of  that  age.^ 

4.  Israel  was  thus  dead  even  to  its  last  remnants,  cast 
out  into  the  heathen  world  as  a  putrefying  corpse.  Every 
chance  of  present  salvation  was  utterly  gone.  The  sanctuary 
where  God  had  promised  to  be  present  had  disappeared  in 
flames.  The  thank-offering  and  the  sacrifice  of  atonement, 
which  were  the  pledges  of  Israel's  salvation,  had  been  rendered 
impossible.  The  holy  city  which  God  "  had  founded  for  ever 
and  ever  "  lay  in  ruins ;  and  the  house  of  David,  which  had 
received  the  promise  that  "  the  ends  of  the  earth  should  be 
given  unto  it,"  had  perished  in  misery  and  shame.  Even  the 
priesthood,  which  in  its  sacred  office  represented  this  people's 
union  with  God,  was  desecrated.     The  ancient  and  venerable 


^  Jer.  xxxii.,  xl.  4iT.  ;  cf.  xliii.  6.  ^  Jer.  xxviii.,  xxxvi.-xxxviii. 

2  I  cannot,  indeed,  consider  it  a  justifiable  critical  procedure  to  ascribe  songs 
which  bear  the  stamp  and  character  of  tliis  age,  simply  on  that  account,  to  a 
single  well-known  man  belonging  to  it,  such  as  Jeremiah,  least  of  all  on  the 
ground  of  a  prosaic  explanation  of  single  figures,  as,  e.g.,  the  figure  of  a  pit 
without  water,  for  that  is  just  a  poetical  antithesis  to  a  rock,  a  wide  plain,  and 
other  equally  common  figures.  But  such  songs  as  Ps.  xxii.,  etc.,  certainly  give 
us  the  best  idea  of  the  tone  and  temper  of  this  age.  In  like  manner,  Job,  if 
not  a  product  of  these  times,  is  at  any  rate  a  type  of  the  men  of  sorrow 
of  such  days. 


310  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

forms  in  which  the  kingdom  of  God  had  been  manifested  were 
remorselessly  shattered. 

If  any  element  of  redemption  still  survived  this  disaster,  it 
must  dwell  spiritually  and  personally  within  this  people,  or 
else  as  an  ideal  of  hope  it  must  in  the  midst  of  death  point 
to  a  new  life.  Thus  it  was  by  punishment  that  the  hand  of 
God  completed  the  religious  development  towards  which  this 
whole  period  had  been  striving.  Faith  kept  turning  more  and 
more  from  the  earthly  present  to  an  ideal  future,  the  concep- 
tion of  which  became  always  more  and  more  spiritual.  Men 
learned  to  think  of  a  salvation  independent  of  outward  cir- 
cumstances and  possessions.  They  realised  that  Israel  was  not 
dead  for  all  time ;  that  though  the  forms  of  redemption  had 
been  destroyed,  the  great  redemptive  thoughts  of  God,  embodied 
of  old  in  the  nation  founded  by  Moses,  had  not  perished. 

Thus,  of  a  truth,  through  the  dying  of  the  seed-corn,  a  host 
of  influences  were  set  free  which  still  continue  at  work  in 
Christianity.  The  judgments  which  the  prophets  of  God  had 
threatened  had  now  been  executed.  Hence  it  became  possible 
for  the  people  to  retain  in  the  midst  of  misfortune  their 
faith  in  Jehovah  as  Judge  and  Lord,  even  when  their  self- 
delusions  as  to  Jehovah  having  pledged  Himself  to  keep  His 
people  safe  were  rudely  shattered.  God  had  shown  Himself 
faithful  and  true  in  the  terrible  earnestness  of  His  chastise- 
ments. Must  He  not  show  Himself  faithful  also  to  the 
eternal  thoughts  of  mercy  which  formed  a  background  of 
promise  to  His  threats  ? 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  SUFFERING  SERVANT  OF  JEHOVAH. 

Literature. — Havernick,  Vorksungcn  iiber  alttestamentliche 
Tlieologie,  Aufl.   2,  Beilage  2.     Hermann  Schultz,   Ueler  den 


THE  SUFFERING  SERVANT  OF  JEHOVAH.  311 

Bcgriff  cUs  stcllvertrdcndcn  Leidens,  18G4.  Umbreit,  Ucbcr  den 
Knecht  Gottes,  1840.  Delitzscli,  Zcitscltrift  fur  hither. 
Theologie,  1850,  i.  2 Off.;  cf.  by  the  same  author,  Schliiss- 
Jjcmcrkungen  zu  Dreclislcrs  Commentar,  and  Delitzsch's  own 
commentary  on  the  passage.  D.  F.  Oehler,  "  Ueber  den  Knecht 
Jehovahs"  {TilUngcr  Zeitschrift,  1840,  ii.  134  ff.).  Victor 
Triedr.  Oehler,  Ueher  den  Knecht  Gottes,  1865,  2  vols. 
(Schenkel)  Theologische  Studien  it.  Kritilcen,  1836,  i v.  982  ftl 
Eosenmuller's  Scholia  on  the  passage,  and  also  Gesenius. 
Hengstenberg,  Christologie  des  Altcn  Testaments.  Steudel, 
Ohservcttiones  ad  Jes.  lii.  13-liii.  12,  part  i.  Christmas  1825; 
ii.  Easter  1826;  Disquisitio  de  Ehed  Jehovah,  Easter  1829. 
Bleek,  Ueber  Jes.  lii.  13-liii.  12.  Studien  und  Kritiken,  1861, 
ii.  177  ff . ;  cf.  also  Vorlesungen,  ed.  J.  Bleek.  Er.  Koster, 
Be  servo  Jehoxm  apucl  Jesajam,  1838.  Ch.  Dav.  Martini, 
Commeniatio  philol.-crit.  in  locum  Jcsaj.  lii.  13-liii.  12,  Rost. 
1791.  Eeinke,  Exegesis  critica  in  Jes.  lii.  13-liii.  12, 
Miinst.  1836.  Ivleinert,  "Ueber  das  Subject  der  Weissagung 
Jes.  lii.  13-liii.  12  "  (Theol  Stud.  u.  Krit.  1862,  iii.  p.  699  ff.). 
Thenius,  Neue  Jjclcuchtung  des  leidenden  Jhvhdieners  Jes.  lii.  1 3— 
liii.  12.  Kuenen,  ii.  36  ff.  Scholten,  "  De  lijdende  Knecht 
Gods"  {Theol.  Tijdsehr.  1878,  12).  v.  Hoffmann,  Schrift- 
haveis,  iia.  148  ff.  de  Wette,  De  morte  Christi  cxpiatoria, 
p.  23.  H.  E,  G.  Paulus,  "Erklarung  von  Jes.  liii."  {Memor- 
ahilia,  iii.  175  f.).  For  other  literature,  cf.  Hengstenberg, 
Gesenius,  V.  Fr.  Oehler. 

1.  In  this  period,  as  the  previous  chapter  has  shown,  there 
appeared  in  the  spiritual  history  of  Israel  the  highest  religious 
tigure  which  the  nation  has  produced,  the  most  peculiar  and 
complete  expression  of  the  forces  which  existed  within  this 
religion.  The  name  "  servant  of  Jehovah,"  ^  in  the  most 
general  sense,  simply  denotes  one  who  is  God's  subject,  one 
who  serves  and  honours  Him  as  Lord  and  Master.  Hence 
God   gives  this  name  to  Job.^     It  is  applied   to  individual 

^  nin^  12V-  ^  Jo^  ^-  8,  ii.  3,  xlii.  7. 


312  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Israelites,  and  even  to  converted  heathens.^  Now,  in  this  sense, 
Israel  alone  of  all  the  nations  of  the  world  is  the  servant 
of  Jehovah.  For  Israel  alone  worships  this  God,  and  acknow- 
ledges Him  as  Lord.^  And,  again,  those  who  are  specially 
distinguished  in  Israel  by  the  name  "  servants  of  Jehovah  " 
are  men  whose  service  and  devotion  took  an  exceptionally 
beautiful  and  exclusive  form.      They  are  chiefly  propliets. 

But  in  this,  the  most  general  signification  of  the  name, 
there  already  lies  directly  included  a  second,  A  servant  is 
always  at  work  in  the  service  of  his  Master.  Hence  the 
name  "  servant  of  Jehovah "  denotes  a  definite  divine  call. 
It  becomes,  so  to  speak,  an  official  name.  It  is  even  applied 
outside  Israel  to  men  through  whom  God  brings  to  pass  the 
great  events  in  the  world's  history.  Nebuchadnezzar  is 
called  God's  servant  as  he  is  also  called  His  hired  soldier.^ 
But  even  in  this  sense  Israel  as  a  people  is  pre-eminently 
God's  servant.  His  is  the  task  of  showing  how  the  salvation 
of  the  world  may  be  rendered  possible.  Israel  is  God's 
witness  against  idol-worshippers,  God's  holy  instrument  for 
realising  the  unsearchable  thoughts  of  salvation. 

Accordingly,  when  God  employs  certain  instruments 
within  Israel  itself  to  bring  back  outward  Israel,  the  Israel 
according  to  the  flesh  which  is  continually  at  war  with  its 
heavenly  calling,  these  men  are  called  "  servants  of  God " 
because  they  are  commissioned  to  purify  Israel,  to  restore  it 
to  its  true  position  as  the  people  of  God,  and  thereby,  at  the 
same  time,  render  possible  God's  purposes  of  mercy  towards 
the  heathen  world.  Thus  in  Deutero-Isaiah  the  servant  of 
Jehovah  distinguishes  between  himself  and  Israel,  and  speaks 
of  punishing  the  sins  of  the  people,  and  showing  them  the 
significance  of  their  high  vocation.     Hence  by  this  title  the 

1  B.  J.  liv.  17,  Ivi.  6. 

2  B.  J.  xli.  8f.,  xlii.  18  ff.,  xliii.  3ff.,  xliv.  1,  3,  21,  xlv.  4,  xlviii.   20  ;  Jer. 
XXX.  10,  xlvi.  27  f. 

3  Jer.  XXV.  9,  xxvii.  6,  xliii.  10  ;  cf.  Ezek.  xxix.  20. 


THE  SUFFERING  SERVANT  OF  JEHOVAH.  313 

prophet  primarily  means  himself.  But  in  such  passages  he 
never  speaks  as  a  mere  individual,  but  as  fulfilling  a  voca- 
tion which  he  shares  with  many.  He  speaks,  that  is,  in 
name  of  the  prophetic  order,  or  rather,  to  put  it  more 
accurately,  in  name  of  the  prophetic  faithl'ul  Israel,  which  is 
the  real  instrument  with  which  God  works  on  Israel,  and 
through  Israel  on  the  world.  According  to  the  idiom  of  the 
Old  Testament,  these  ideas  lie  in  the  very  name. 

2.  In  Deutero-Isaiah,  xl.-lxvi.,  the  people  of  Israel  as  such 
is  in  many  passages  clearly  and  unambiguously  spoken  of  as 
the  servant  of  Jehovah.  But,  in  my  opinion,  already  xlii.  1  ff. 
cannot  refer  any  more  to  this  people  as  a  whole.  It  is  not, 
however,  because  the  servant  of  Jehovah  is  called  DV"n''"}3. 
These  words  certainly  cannot  mean  "  covenant  people."  But 
the  expression  "the  people"  might  indicate  the  heathen  world 
(cf.  ver.  5),  and  Israel  might  quite  well  be  spoken  of  as  "  God's 
covenant  with  mankind."  But,  then,  what  is  said  in  vers. 
2-4,  6,  is  not  applicable  to  a  people.  And  the  call  of  the 
servant  of  Jehovah  to  the  prisoners  and  the  blind,  points, 
according  to  vers.  16,  18  f.  and  xliii.  8,  when  the  context  is 
looked  at  with  unprejudiced  eyes,  to  something  done  to  Israel.^ 
The  prophet  might  speak  in  such  terms  of  himself.  And 
unquestionably  he  does  speak  of  himself  in  many  passages  of 
this  book.  But  he  obviously  does  not  mean  to  speak  of 
himself  as  an  individual.  Indeed,  he  sometimes  uses  even 
the  expression  "  the  messengers  of  Jehovah,"  that  is,  he 
speaks  in  the  name  of  li'V  rinb^ao^^  ^j^g  prophetic  people. 
Hence,  in  xlii.  1  ff.,  the  designation  "  servant  of  Jehovah  " 
cannot  refer  to  an  individual  in  contradistinction  to  the 
people,  for  it  is  as  clear  as  possible  that,  both  immediately 
before  and  after,  it  is  used  of  the  people.  Here,  therefore, 
as  there  is  at  any  rate    no  mention  of  a  future  personage, 

^  np-p   is    obviously   quite    parallel   to    niN?    and    n^"l3?.      xliv.    25   ff., 
xlviii.  16  ff.,  1.  4  ff.,  Ixi.  1  ff.  (10  f.  is  put  into  the  mouth  of  Jerusalem). 
«  B.  J.  xl.  9  (xli.  27). 


314  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

the  servant  of  Jehovah  I  take  to  be  the  covenant-keepiug 
Israel,  which  has  the  prophet  as  its  representative  spokesman, 
and  is  considered  one  with  empirical  Israel  in  its  vocation, 
although  distinguished  from  it  in  its  actual  form.  In  like 
manner,  the  prophet  speaks  of  himself  also  in  xlviii.  16  ff., 
1.  4  ff.,  but  only  as  the  common  mouthpiece  of  all  in  Israel 
who  are  faithful  to  their  God.^ 

Similarly,  in  xlix.  1  ff.,  the  servant  of  Jehovah  can  only  be 
this  self-same  covenant-keeping  Israel.  It  would  in  itself  be 
somewhat  singular  to  speak  of  the  whole  people  as  armed 
with  the  word  of  the  spirit  as  with  a  sword,  and  as  being  a 
weapon  of  God  like  a  sword  or  an  arrow.  But  such 
expressions  might,  at  least  in  rhetorical  speech,  be  applied  to 
that  Israel  which  was  really  "  called  from  the  womb  to  be 
the  servant  and  instrument  of  God."  But  how  can  the 
people  of  Israel,  which  is  blind  and  deaf  and  doomed  to 
destruction  because  of  its  sins,^  lament  in  a  style  like  tliis : 
"  I  have  laboured  in  vain,  I  have  given  my  strength  for 
nought  and  in  vain "  ?  How  can  it  be  said  of  the  people, 
that  its  task  is  to  turn  Jacob  to  God,  so  that  Israel  may  be 
gathered  unto  Him  ?  For,  to  translate  "  that  God  may  turn 
Jacob,"  is  plainly  to  do  violence  to  the  whole  structure  of 
the  sentence;  and  it  is  not  a  construction  justified  by  li.  16. 
How  can  Israel,  the  people,  be  called  not  merely  "  to  raise 
up  the  tribes  of  Jacob  and  to  bring  again  the  dispersed  of 
Israel,"  but  to  be  "a  light  to  the  Gentiles,  that  the  salvation 
of  God  may  be  unto  the  end  of  the  earth,"  "  a  covenant  of 
the  people  to  raise  up  the  land,  to  make  them  inherit  the 
desolate  heritages ;  saying  to  them  that  are  bound,  '  Go 
forth '  ?  "  These  words  can  only  mean  either  the  prophet  or 
the  Israel  that  remained  faithful  to  its  God,  the  "  Zion  "  of 
the  captivity,  which,  as  contrasted  with  the  other  sections  of 
the  people,  especially  with  northern  Israel,  is  the  nucleus 
of  the  new  kingdom  of  God.  Now  the  reference  to  the 
1  Cf.  B.  J.  xliv.  26,  lii.  7.        ^  b.  J.  xlvi.  1,  2,  3,  8, 12,  xlviii.  1,  4,  8, 1.  1,  etc. 


THE  SUFFEKING  SERVANT  OF  JEHOVAH.  315 

prophet  is  made  impossible  by  the  remarkable  ver.  3,  where 
the  servant  of  God  is  addressed  as  "  Israel  in  whom  I  will  be 
clorified."  For  here  it  is  neither  allowable  to  strike  out  the 
word  "  Israel "  nor  to  translate,  "  Thou  art  my  servant,  and  in 
Israel  I  shall  be  glorified,"  nor  yet,  "  it  is  Israel  in  whom  I 
shall  be  glorified  through  thee."  And  I  cannot  think  it  possible 
that  the  prophet  himself  would  be  described  as  "  Israel  in 
whom  I  will  be  glorified,"  that  is,  as  "  the  true  Israel."  The 
expression  is  only  admissible  if  Israel  be  actually  addressed  ; 
but  in  that  case  it  must  be  the  people  in  whom  God  is 
glorified,  the  Zion  of  the  captivity,  the  Israel  faithful  to  God. 

What  elements  unite  in  the  servant  of  Jehovah  is  then 
made  quite  plain  to  us  by  such  passages  as  liv.  17,  Ixv.  8,  9, 
13,  15,  22,  Ixvi.  2,  5,  14.  Here,  in  direct  opposition  to  the 
idolatrous  part  of  the  people  in  Babylon,  "  the  servants,"  "  the 
chosen  ones,"  are  those  from  whom  the  Israel  of  the  future 
will  spring,  on  whose  account  God  does  not. utterly  reject  His 
people,  whose  future  happiness  will  be  a  brilliant  contrast  to 
the  destruction  of  the  sinful  nation.  Those  servants,  poor  and 
oppressed,  and  now  despised  and  rejected  of  men,  are  to  be 
named  by  a  new  name,  and  to  obtain  full  salvation.  Here, 
then,  beyond  all  doubt,  the  members  of  the  true  Israel,  among 
whom  the  prophet  reckons  himself,  are  regarded  as  a  complete 
organism,  as  the  seed  of  the  Israel  to  be,  in  contrast  to  the 
Israel  that  is. 

Since  in  the  actual  Israel  there  grows  up,  especially 
through  the  sifting  process  of  national  misfortune,  a  dis- 
tinction between  the  people  which  declines  its  appointed 
work  of  salvation,  and  the  faithful  nucleus  which  essays  to 
make  that  work  its  own,  the  word  denotes,  not  only  Israel 
in  general,  but  this  faithful  nucleus  in  particular.  This  band, 
the  true  Zion,  the  seven  thousand  who  have  not  bowed  the 
knee  to  Baal,  naturally  find  their  best  representatives  among 
the  prophets,  the  servants  of  God.  It  is  theirs  by  meek- 
ness, gentleness,   and  inexhaustible   strength,  in  the  fulness 


316  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

of  the  spirit  and  of  prophetic  eloquence,  to  make  atonement  for 
Israel,  to  lead  him  out  of  prison,  to  enlighten  him,  and  then 
to  become  a  light  unto  the  Gentiles,  to  give  unto  them  judg- 
ment and  instruction  in  the  truth  for  which  they  are  already 
waiting.'-  Hence  this  term  becomes  gradually  narrower,  just 
like  the  title  "  Son  of  God ; "  and,  like  it,  this  too  was  carried 
along  by  its  own  weight  to  a  prophetic  application,  in  which 
this  servant  of  God  and  his  work  are  seen  in  their  perfect  form. 

3.  The  idea  that  the  best  suffer,  is  already  met  with  in 
the  tradition  and  history  of  the  earliest  times.  But  it  does 
not  reach  its  full  clearness  and  significance  till  the  time  of 
national  misfortune.  The  people  itself,  as  the  servant  of 
God,  is  an  instance  of  such  suffering.  The  people  of  Jehovah 
has  to  endure  a  thousand  forms  of  oppression  and  woe.  Its 
treasured  possessions  and  sanctuaries  become  the  spoil  of  the 
stranger.  It  must  die  a  shameful  death.  "  The  plowers 
plowed  upon  its  back :  they  made  long  their  furrows."  ^  And 
that,  not  because  it  was  more  wicked  than  other  peoples, 
than  haughty  Assyria  or  voluptuous  Babylon,  but  because 
to  this  people  more,  had  been  given  and  of  it  more  was 
required ;  because  it  had  a  unique  vocation,  and  had  therefore 
to  incur  all  the  s-pecial  risks  and  responsibilities  involved  in 
that  vocation.  Indeed,  suffering  often  comes  upon  the  people 
just  because  of  its  closer  relation  to  God.  "  Yea,  for  Thy  sake 
are  we  killed  all  the  day  long ;  we  are  counted  as  sheep  for  the 
slaughter."  ^  Thus  Israel  itself  already  reveals  a  suffering 
which,  though  deserved,  it  is  true,  on  account  of  the  people's 
faithlessness  and  sin,  is  nevertheless,  in  the  last  instance,  due 
to  this  people's  redemptive  work,  is  therefore  caused  by  God's 
love,  and  has  to  be  endured  in  order  to  redeem  the  world. 

But  if,  among  the  people  as  a  whole,  guilt  and  suffering 
simply  balance  each  other,  the  real  peculiarity  of  the  suffering 
endured  by  the  servant  of  Jehovah   is  revealed  in  quite  a 

1  B.  J.  xlii.  1-7,  xlix.  1  if.,  Ixi.  1  ff,  «  Ps.  cxxix.  3. 

*  Ps.  xliv.  23  (a  late  Psalm). 


THE  SUFFERING  SERVANT  OF  JEHOVAH.  3  1  7 

different  fashion  in  the  Israel  which  is  His  real  servant.  This 
is  shown  by  the  whole  position  of  this  true  Israel.  It  has  to 
bear  all  the  misery  of  which  it  is  so  far  from  sharing  the 
guilt,  that  it  has  spent  its  whole  life  in  striving  to  avert  that 
guilt.  It  feels  sooner  and  more  keenly  than  the  people  in 
general  the  wrath  of  God  that  rests  on  Israel.  Whilst  the 
Israel  of  the  flesh  is  still  foolish  enough  to  dream  of  a 
brilliant  deliverance,  the  true  Israel  learns  from  the  woes  ot 
the  present  that  God  means  to  give  His  people  up  to  judg- 
ment. Still,  it  must  die  with  Israel,  must  lose  the  joy-  of 
its  heart,  so  that  "  its  eyes  become  a  fountain  of  tears  to 
weep  day  and  night  for  the  virgin  daughter  of  its  people."  ^ 
To  its  own  people  it  is  odious  by  reason  of  its  troublesome 
warnings,  and  they  ridicule  it  as  a  self-tormenting  dreamer. 
To  the  hostile  heathen  world,  which  rightly  recognises  in  it 
the  invincible  nucleus  of  God's  people,  it  is  a  special  object 
of  scorn  and  hatred.^  And.  all  this  it  has  to  suffer  just 
because  it  will  not  separate  itself  from  God  and  from  the 
divine  task  assigned  to  Israel,  or  from  the  people  as  a 
whole  f  because  out  of  love  to  the  people  and  enthusiasm  for 
God  and  His  salvation,  it  will  rather  suffer  and  die  than  save 
itself  by  separating  from  the  people  and  leaving  them  without 
a  seed  of  a  nobler  future.  Hence  this  suffering  is  endured  in 
faith,  love,  and  hope. 

Tor  such  a  picture  the  life  of  the  individual  servants  of 
God,  especially  towards  the  end  of  the  Babylonian  age, 
furnished  a  rich  choice  of  striking  examples.  In  the  Psalms 
we  hear  the  complaint  of  the  pious,  "  that  God  has  forsaken 
him,  keeping  far  from  his  cries,  from  the  words  of  his  roaring ; " 
that  all  the  billows  go  over  his  soul,  that  he  must  pine  in  the 
waterless  pit  of  captivity,  must  for  God's  sake  suffer  indignity 
because  the  zeal  of  His  house  has  eaten  him  up.*     We  see 

1  Jer.  viii.  23,  xiv.  17  ;  cf.  Lamentations, 

2  B.  J.  xlix.  7,  1.  5-7  ;  Ps.  cxxxvii.  3  jgr.  xl.  4  ff.  ;  B.  J.  1.  5. 
*  Ps.  xxii.  2 If.    (TiyiC^'),  xxxviii.,  xl.,  xli.,  xlii.  4,  8,  Ixix.  8,  10. 


318  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Josiah,  a  king  after  God's  own  heart,  trampled  under  foot  of 
the  stranger.^  Jeremiah  exhibits  to  us  a  life  of  such  misery, 
that  he  would  gladly  flee  from  his  people,  and  he  curses  the  day 
when  his  mother  bore  hini.^  He  is  thus  the  prototype  of  the 
Man  of  sorrows,  who  withheld  not  His  cheek  from  blows,  nor 
hid  His  face  from  shame  and  spitting ;  of  Him  whom  every 
one  despised,  whom  the  people  abhorred,  a  servant  of 
rulers.^ 

And  why  all  this  ?  Because  of  a  mysterious  decree  of 
God,  who  allows  the  best  of  the  age  to  endure  the  woes  from 
which  salvation  is  to  spring ;  ^  because  of  the  love  of  the  best 
for  their  people  and  its  redemptive  calling,  since  they  too,  like 
Moses  of  old,  choose  rather  to  suffer  affliction  with  the  people 
of  God  than  share  in  the  glory  of  the  Gentiles/  That  a  seed 
may  be  preserved  for  the  future,  that  an  elect  people 
may  rise  from  the  ashes  of  Israel,  the  best  suffer  and  die. 
For,  as  one  spares  the  grape  for  the  sake  of  the  new  wine  in 
it,  so  God  spares  the  sinful  people  of  Israel  for  the  sake  of 
these  servants  of  His.*^  In  the  pains  which  they  endure  they 
certainly  feel  the  effect  of  God's  wrath,  and  indeed  have  a 
far  deeper  and  clearer  consciousness  of  it  than  others.^  But 
they  feel  that  this  wrath  does  not  concern  them  personally. 
They  know  that  it  is  due  to  the  sinful  people  Israel ;  and 
that  they  have  a  share  in  bearing  it,  simply  because  their 
love  makes  them  stand  by  this  Israel.  They  know  they  are 
,  enduring  the  wrath  of  God  for  the  sake  of  others,  for  the 
sake  of  their  people,  to  make  forgiveness  possible,  and  bring 
a  better  future  within  reach ;  that  they  are  bearing  it  as 
substitutes.  Hence  Ezekiel  symbolically  takes  upon  himself 
the  guilt,  that  is,  the  punishment  of  Jerusalem,  for  every  year 
of  its  exile  a  day.^ 

1  2  Kings  xxiii.  29.  2  j^^  j^.  i^  xi.  19,  xv.  10. 

3  B.  J.  xlix.  7,  1.  5  f.  *  B.  J.  lii.  12-liii.  to  end. 

»  Jer.  xl.  4  (Heb.  xi.  26).  «  B.  J.  Lxv.  8  f. 

^  E.g.  Jer.  ix.  10,  12,  xvi.  3-16,  xvii.  3,  esp,  xv.  17. 
8  Ezek.  iv.  4  f. 


THE  SUFFERING  SERVANT  OF  JEHOVAH.  319 

4.  This  figure  was  of  supreme  importance  for  the  whole 
development  of  the  Old  Testament  religion.  It  came  into 
collision  with  everything  which  a  superficial  faith  was  wont 
to  retxard  as  most  certain.  When  Israel  was  first  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  idea  that  suffering  might  fall  upon  a 
saint  without  being  deserved  as  a  punishment,  it  was  only 
after  a  hard  struggle  and  many  a  bitter  trial  that  it  succeeded 
in  making  this  thought  its  own.  The  whole  book  of  Job 
proves  how  distressing,  how  well-nigh  unbearable,  this  idea 
was  at  first  considered.^  Still  more  powerfully  must  the 
traditional  views  of  Israel  have  been  changed  by  the  pro- 
longed experience  of  such  special  suffering  on  the  part  of  the 
very  best  among  them.  And  suffering,  due  to  God's  gracious 
will  and  mysterious  counsel,  borne  vicariously  by  the  guiltless 
as  an  atonement  for  the  people,  which  finds  deliverance  on 
account  of  its  connection  with  the  suffering  servant  of  God, 
— such  suffering  must  cast  a  new  light  on  other  problems  of 
religion  as  well.  The  priest  who  acts  as  mediator  for  Israel, 
and  is  consecrated  to  atone  for  the  shortcomings  of  Israel's 
sacred  offerings,  now  appears  in  a  far  higher  form,  because 
his  right  no  longer  depends  on  his  office,  but  on  moral  action. 
Sacrifice,  the  offering  up  of  unwilling  and  unconscious  beasts, 
had  to  pale  before  this  sacrifice,  in  which  the  upright  volun- 
tarily gave  themselves  up  from  love,  to  make  atonement  for 
the  people.^ 

The  greater  the  emphasis  laid  upon  the  office  of  the  servant 
of  Jehovah,  upon  his  call  to  do  the  work  of  God  upon  earth,  the 
more  significant  did  the  figure  of  the  suffering  righteous  man 

^  It  is  easily  understood  how  the  book  of  Job  should,  on  this  account,  be 
often  interpreted  as  referring  to  Israel's  condition  when  in  exile.  So  especially 
Seineke  {das  Evan,  des  A.  T.  1S90).  He  regards  Jeremiah  as  the  prototype 
of  Isa.  xl. ff.,  and  both  as  the  prototypes  of  Job  (cf.  Hoekstra,  "Job  de 
Knecht  van  Jehovah,"  Tlieol.  Tijdschr.  1871,  v.  1  ff.  He  translates  2VX  by 
"the  tempted  "  =  the  suffering  Israel).  But  Job  deals  only  with  the  problem  of 
the  suffering  saint,  not  with  the  problem  of  salvation  by  vicarious  suffering.  And 
the  eighth  century  already  gave  occasion  enongh  for  pondering  that  problem. 

2  D^'S>  B.  J.  liii.  10. 


320  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

necessarily  become.  For  it  was  thus  made  clear  that  the 
innermost  secret  of  successful  work  for  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  self-sacrificing  suffering,  vicarious  self-surrender.  When 
the  picture  of  the  servant  of  Jehovah  became  embodied,  to 
the  eye  of  the  prophets,  in  an  ideal  person,  it  was  in  the 
figure  of  a  prophet  labouring  faithfully,  not  only  by  word 
and  deed  to  build  up  the  kingdom  of  God,  but  by  loving 
surrender  of  his  own  person,  by  vicarious  suffering,  to  make 
atonement  for  the  people. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE  PERSIAN  AGE.       ISKAEL'S  EESUERECTION. 

1.  So  far  as  we  can  judge  from  the  literature  that  has 
come  down  to  us,  the  beginning  of  the  exilic  age  was,  on  the 
whole,  an  unfruitful  age  as  regards  religion  and  morality. 
The  unpurified  mass  of  the  people,  overwhelmed  by  the 
terrible  catastrophe,  perished  under  it.  The  sketches  Ezekiel 
gives,  not  merely  of  the  last  days  of  Jerusalem,  but  also  of 
his  own  associates,  who  were  the  very  bone  and  sinew  of 
the  exiles,  indicate  a  very  gloomy  state  of  matters.^  How 
much  lower  still  must  have  been  the  condition  of  those  exiled 
along  with  Zedekiah !  The  Israelites  who  fled  with  Jeremiah 
into  Egypt,  actually  thought  that  the  worship  of  the  Queen 
of  heaven  was  legitimate,  and  that  the  neglect  of  it  had 
brought  misfortune  on  their  country.^  Stolid  despair  or 
light-hearted  surrender  of  all  that  made  the  religion  of  Israel 
precious,  must  have  been  the  feelings  most  prevalent  among 
them ;  and  the  gods  whom  they  had  willingly  worshipped  in 
their  own  land,  now  obtained  a  still  more  general  preference 
as  conquerors  of  "  Jehovah  and  His  people."  The  beautiful 
pictures  which  the  book  of  Daniel  gives  us  are  not  historical 
^  E.g.  Ezek.  ii.,  iii.,  xiii.,  xiv.  *  Jer.  xliv.  17  i. 


THE  DEATH  OF  ISRAEL.  321 

pictures,  but  products  of  the  imagination  of  a  later  age,  which 
painted  earlier  ages  in  ideal  colours. 

The  true  men  of  God  of  that  age,  indeed,  never  doubted 
that  Israel's  death  was  but  a  passing  over  into  a  new  life. 
The  old  hopes  lived  on,^  but  without  independent  vigour ; 
and  the  pressure  of  the  Chaldean  empire  and  its  great 
monarch,  God's  servant  Nebuchadnezzar,-  checked  any  very 
joyful  hope.  Even  Jeremiah  had  assigned  a  long  lifetime, 
seventy  years,  as  the  duration  of  the  captivity,  and  had 
exhorted  the  captives  to  accommodate  themselves  from  the 
first  to  their  new  circumstances  as  permanent.^  Such  are  tlie 
circumstances  amid  which  we  must  picture  to  ourselves  this 
oppressed  and  apparently  dying  people,  among  whom  the 
forces  of  a  new  era  were  fermenting  unseen,  until,  with 
Nebuchadnezzar's  death,  the  rapid  decline  of  Babylon  began, 
and  the  threatening  figure  of  the  Medo-Persian  empire  showed 
itself  in  the  north-east. 

As  already  hinted,  it  was  in  this  time  of  exhaustion  and 
stagnation  that  the  eventful  step  was  taken  which  decided 
the  whole  later  religious  development  of  Israel.  From  the 
day  the  Deuteronomic  law  was  made  by  Josiah  the  law  of  the 
nation,  it  was  in  the  very  nature  of  things  that  there  should  be  a 
tendency  in  the  holy  people  to  regulate  the  national  life  more 
and  more  strictly  by  a  written  "Law  of  Moses,"  and  to  put  a 
more  and  more  artificial  stamp  on  life  and  worship.  Those 
circles  to  whom  the  Thorah  in  the  mouth  of  the  priest  was  of 
greater  importance  than  the  word  of  God  from  the  mouth  of 
the  prophets,  could  not  but  feel  impelled  in  this  direction, — £  11 
tlie  more  that  the  true  prophetic  spirit  in  Hosea,  Amos,  Isaiah, 
and  Jeremiah  was  being  more  and  more  lost  by  the  people.* 
And  it  was  just  the  want,  during  the  Exile,  of  the    sacred 

'  E.g.  Ezek.  xxviii.  25  ff.,  xxxiv.  11  ff.,  xxxvi.  fi".,  xl.  fl'. 

*  Ezek.  xxix.  20  ;  Jer.  xxv.  9,  xxvii.  6,  xliii.  10. 
^  Jer.  xxv.  11,  xxix. 

*  It  is  true,  the  circles  tliat  regarded  Zion  as  impregnable,  seem  not  to  liave 
given  up  their  sanguine  hopes  till  late.     Jer.  xxix. 

VOL.  I.  X 


322  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

forms  that  helped  to  surround  them  with  a  still  brighter  halo, 
and  make  the  hope  of  their  restoration  be  cherished  more 
ardently  than  ever.  The  yearning  fondness  for  the  sacred  insti- 
tutions which  had  perished,  built  them  up  anew  in  higher 
perfection  as  ideal  pictures  for  the  future.  The  typical  re- 
presentative of  this  prophetic  tendency  is  the  priest  Ezekiel, 
who,  without  ever  referring  to  a  Mosaic  law  of  worsliip,  drew 
an  ideal  sketch  of  Israel's  holy  things.  The  priestly  working 
out  of  this  line  of  thought  is  the  historical  work  of  A.  In  it 
the  whole  of  sacred  legend  and  history  is  turned  into  a  history 
of  the  development  of  the  sacred  institutions  of  Israel,  and  an 
introduction  to  the  best  thought-out  and  most  logical  system 
of  ritual  which  has  ever  guided  the  religious  life  of  a  people. 
This  is  presented  to  the  reader  as  a  series  of  original  instruc- 
tions given  by  God  to  the  community  led  by  Moses.  Tlie 
more  this  scliool  of  teaching  governed  the  life  of  the  com- 
munity, the  more  impossible  must  it  have  become  to  under- 
stand the  real  ideas  of  the  great  prophets  of  the  eiglith  and 
seventh  centuries,  although  their  main  dogmatic  and  etliical 
positions  were  not  attacked  in  detail.  Still  B.  J.  xl.— Ixvi. 
shows  that  in  its  initial  stages  this  development  was  by  no 
means  everywhere  successful  in  quenching  the  old  spirit. 

2.  At  the  time  when  the  Persian  power  first  began  to  bestir 
itself  though  still  far  from  Babylon,  the  necessary  process  of 
sifting  and  purifying  Judah  had  been  gradually  completed. 
The  great  mass  of  the  people  had  beyond  a  doubt  got  used  to 
their  new  surroundings,  and  had  begun  to  turn  them  to  good 
account.  This  is  proved  by  the  small  number  of  those  who 
could  subsequently  bring  themselves  to  exchange  the  comforts 
they  had  secured  in  Babylonia  for  the  insecurity  of  their  native 
land.  And  assuredly  a  people,  the  majority  of  whom  were 
inclined  to  idolatry,  would  willingly  and  readily  adopt  the 
religion  of  their  conquerors.  Only  on  this  supposition  can 
we  understand  the  exilic  prophet's  bitter  ridicule  of  the  fully 
of  idolatry,  and   the   complaints  he   makes  against  his  own 


THE  SEIiVANT  OF  JEHOVAH.  323 

people,  complaints  partly  borrowed  from  older  prophets,  and 
partly  uttered  by  himself.^  With  all  the  greater  vigour  and 
determination,  however,  did  those  circles  which  represented 
the  true  Israel  give  expression  to  their  enthusiastic  attach- 
ment to  the  true  religion,  and  to  their  consciousness  of  the 
everlasting  mission  of  God's  people. 

The  lowest  depths  of  misery  had  now  been  sounded.  It 
was  not  merely  that  they  were  exposed,  as  members  of  a 
nation  captive  and  spoiled,  to  all  manner  of  insult  in  the 
proud  and  wanton  cajiital — "  worm  Jacob,  servant  of  rulers, 
despised  of  men."  -  As  faithful  members  of  that  nation  they 
had  to  endure  special  suffering.  Their  haughty  conquerors 
gathered  around  them,  and,  mocking  at  their  grief,  said  to 
them  in  taunting  tones,  "  Sing  us  one  of  the  songs  of 
Zion."  ^  And  as  danger  drew  nearer  Babylon,  they  naturally 
became  objects  of  suspicion  and  hatred.  They  were  regarded 
as  the  natural  allies  of  every  enemy.  The  brave  men 
of  God  who  scattered  their  rousing  words  of  consolation 
and  hope  among  the  enslaved  community,  dared  not  do 
so  except  anonymously,  in  writings  secretly  circulated. 
Hence  the  names  of  the  greatest  men  of  God  who  lived 
amid  the  catasti-ophes  of  those  days  are  unknown  to 
us.  Yet,  despite  these  precautions,  many  doubtless  died  as 
martyrs,  meeting  the  fate  which  Jeremiah  prophesied  would 
befall  the  false  prophets  in  Babylon  who  preached  rebellion.* 
This  is  the  meaning  of  the  solemn  words  about  the  righteous 
man,  "  who  perisheth,  and  no  man  layeth  it  to  heart."  To  this 
tlie  figure  of  the  suffering  servant  of  God  already  points.-^ 
And  perhaps  the  very  authors  of  the  prophecies  that  have 
come  down  to  us,  perished  or  were  executed  as  disturbers 
of  the  people,  their  names  being  lost  in  the  overthrow  of 
r^abylon.    IMeanwhile  the  worldly-minded  among  the  Israelites 

1  15.  J.  xl.  18  ir,  xli.  GIF.,  xliv.  10.  ir.;  cf.  Ivii.,  Ixv.  3  ff.,  Ixvi.  17. 

-  15.  J.  xli.  14,  xlix.  7.  •'  Ps.  cxxxvii.  ii. 

•*  Jer.  xxix.  21  tl'.  5  B.  J.  lii.  ISO'.,  Ivii.  1. 


324  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

would  be  all  the  more  anxious  to  hold  aloof  from  these  sus- 
pects and  side  with  their  enemies,  in  order  to  enjoy  in  peace 
the  comforts  they  were  beginning  to  obtain. 

But  amid  this  misery  the  faith  and  hope  of  the  godly 
became  all  the  stronger  and  more  enthusiastic.  Their 
leaders  are  not  the  priests,  who,  as  teachers  of  wliat  is  clean 
and  unclean,  had  the  making  of  the  laws.  It  is  the 
prophet's  unfettered  faith  and  enthusiastic  piety  that  win  the 
victory.  The  idols  of  the  heathen  are  described  in  all  tlieir 
impotence  with  the  most  biting  scorn.^  The  might  of  the 
world  as  against  the  omnipotence  of  God  is  counted  as  "  the 
small  dust  of  the  balance,  and  as  a  drop  of  a  bucket."  ^ 
Cyrus,  the  youthful  hero  who  is  filling  Asia  with  his  fame, 
the  eagle  from  the  East,  the  servant  of  the  unseen  spiritual 
God,  is  the  anointed  of  Jehovah,  called  by  Him  and  sent  to 
execute  His  will  upon  Babylon  and  to  rebuild  Jerusalem.^ 
The  night  is  over,  the  warfare  ended,  and  messengers  with 
glad  tidings  of  victory  are  drawing  near  to  forsaken,  childless 
Zion,*  who  will  once  more  become  the  mother  of  countless 
throngs.  The  call  resounds,  bidding  them  return  home  boldly.^ 
The  time  of  blessing  is  nigh,  the  feast  of  Jehovah  for  all 
people  on  Mount  Zion.  Death  is  vanquished ;  Sheol  gives 
up  its  captives.^  Underneath,  in  the  realm  of  the  dead,  the 
king  of  Babylon  is  greeted  with  the  mocking  song  of  the 
kings  whom  he  had  once  trampled  in  the  dust.^  This  true 
Israel,  the  servant  of  Jehovah,  not  only  foretold  the  new  birth  of 
the  nation,  but  brought  it  about  himself  Had  not  a  believing 
community  gathered  round  the  inspired  prophets  of  the  Exile, 
ready  to  stake  its  all  on  Israel's  future,  firmly  convinced  of 
God's  redemptive  purpose  and  of  the  glorious  future,  Judali 
would  have  perished  like  Ephraim  in  the  world  of  heathenism 

^  a  J.  xl.  18ff.,  xli.  6ff.,  xliv.  10  ff.  ^  B.  J.  xl.  l.'i. 

3  B.  J.  xliv.  28,  xlv.  1,  xlvi,  11. 

*  B.  J.  xl.  1  f.,  lii.  1,  7,  liv.  1  ff.  *  B.  J.  xlviii.  20,  Hi.  11. 

*  B.  J.  XXV.  6,  8,  xxvi.  19  ff.  (if  we  may  apply  this  prophecy  here). 
^  B.  J.  xiv.  4  ff. 


THE  NEW  JERUSALEM.  325 

without  leaving  a  trace  behind.  lu  that  case,  indeed,  the 
liberating  edict  cf  Cyrus  would  never  have  been  issued.  It 
never  occurred  to  him  to  dismiss  to  their  homes  the  other 
nations  that  had  been  transplanted  by  their  Assyrian  or 
Babylonian  conquerors.  He  acted  as  he  did,  as  tradition  has 
quite  rightly  maintained,^  because  he  found  that,  in  this  case, 
restoration  had  been  foretold  and  was  eagerly  desired.^  And. 
still  less  would  there  have  been  found,  without  these  men 
of  God,  a  community  strong  enough  to  overcome  all  opposing 
elements,  and  actually  to  create  a  new  national  life  that  lasted 
for  centuries,  and  which  only  perished  wlien  its  fruit  had 
been  ripened  for  eternity  and  brought  into  the  light. 

The  prophecies  of  these  men  shine  as  with  a  higher  light ; 
they  have  with  justice  been  called  the  Gospel  of  the  Old 
Covenant.  They  are  marked  by  a  tone  of  incomparable 
grandeur  and  enthusiasm,  and,  amid  all  the  darkness  of  the 
age,  by  a  sublime  serenity.  And  there  is  something  more  in 
them  that  has  always  a  wonderful  attraction  for  a  Christian. 
This  true  Israel  had  felt  itself  in  its  glory  in  the  midst  of 
suffering,  conscious  of  having  endured  tlie  very  worst  without 
any  guilt  on  its  part,  from  enthusiastic  love  to  God  and  a 
self-denying  devotion  to  the  mission  of  Israel.  Witliout 
priest  or  king,  without  temple  or  worship,  without  earthly 
independence,  it  had  found  its  true  life  in  the  spiritual  beauty 
of  religion.  Here,  therefore,  hope  is  purer,  more  spiritual,  less 
earthly,  than  anywhere  else.  Here  there  is  a  large  heart 
ready,  with  warm  affection,  to  receive  the  whole  world  into 
the  new  Israel.^  Here  little  regard  is  paid  to  outward  forms 
except  where  these  are  necessary  to  indicate  loyalty  to  Israel, 

^  Joseplms,  Antiq.  xi.  1.  1  f.  Naturally  his  narrative  is  cast  in  the  mould  of 
his  own  time. 

-  From  the  light  the  Bahylonian  inscriptions  throw  on  Cyrus,  we  certainly 
cannot  infer  that  he  took  a  special  interest  in  the  religion  of  Israel  as 
distinguished  from  that  of  Babylon  (A.  H.  Sayce,  Fresh  Light  from  Ancient 
Moiniments).  But  any  pious-minded  man  in  ancient  times  was  inclined  to 
attend  to  oracles  about  himself,  even  though  given  by  a  foreign  God. 

»  B.  J.  xlix.  G,  hi.  3ff.,  Ixvi.  23  (xxv.  6tr.). 


326  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

and  boldness  in  confessing  the  truth, — as  the  keeping  of  the 
Sabbath,  for  instance,  does, — little  regard  to  royal  glory  and 
civil  splendour.  In  tliis  picture  of  the  future,  Israel  itself, 
proved  by  suffering,  crowned  with  victory,  one  in  spirit, 
embracing  all  the  world,  stands  as  the  central  figure.  Here 
once  more,  ere  it  gives  jAa.ce  to  priest  and  scribe,  true 
prophecy  reveals  its  full  splendour. 

3.  This  ideal  of  religion  was  not  destined  to  receive  an 
actual  permanent  form.  The  fulfilment  was  not  such  as 
to  maintain  the  community  at  the  high  level  of  its  spiritual 
birth.  True,  as  had  been  foretold,  the  command  was  given 
to  go  forth  and  build  up  the  old  sanctuaries.  And  the  true 
Israel,  a  small  company,  but  great  in  faith  and  hope,  returned 
home,  with  David's  sou  Zerubbabel  and  the  high  priest  Joshua 
at  their  head.  They  began  to  rebuild  the  city,  by  and  by  also 
to  lay  the  foundations  of  the  second  temple;^  and  even  prophets, 
a  Haggai  and  a  Zechariah,  were  again  given  to  the  people. 

But  the  reality,  poor  and  miserable  as  it  was,  was  a  sad 
contrast  to  the  splendid  picture  in  the  hearts  of  those  who 
liad  returned  home.  The  hope  of  living  in  peace  and  harmony 
watli  the  Persian  Government  was  soon  dispelled,  not  to  speak 
(if  their  thinking  that  even  in  religion  they  were  in  essential 
agreement  with  this  people,  and  of  their  seeing  in  the 
conquering  king  a  conscious  and  willing  servant  of  Jehovah. 
Israel  was  to  the  Persians  nothing  more  than  any  other  petty 
pjeople,  which  it  was  good  policy  to  restore  to  its  countrj-, 
but  which  must  on  no  account  be  made  into  a  really  strong 
and  independent  State.  The  ill-will  of  the  neighbours  found 
ready  support  in  the  suspicion  of  Persian  satraps.  All  signs 
of  budding  prosperity  were  speedily  destroyed  by  the  miseries 
of  a  war  with  Egypt.  Everything  continued  pitiable,  poverty- 
stricken,  and  petty.     The  descendant  of  David  was  a  Persian 

^  Whetlier  this  was  attempted  before  the  time  mentioned  in  the  books  of 
ILiggai  and  Zechariah  is  of  no  importance  for  the  question  before  us.  Cf. 
Schrader,  J ahrh'urher fur  dcutsche  Tlieolorjie,  1867. 


THE  NEW  JERUSALEM.  327 

deputy  without  power  or  influence.  The  kingdom  of  God  was 
very  far  from  including  the  whole  world.  Even  the  narrow 
limits  of  ancient  Judah  were  not  fully  restored.  Edom's 
grasping  hands  M'ere  not  compelled  to  let  go  their  hold. 
Instead  of  the  old  brother  kingdom  of  Ephraim  there  stood 
face  to  face  with  Judah  a  Samaritan  people  of  mixed  descent, 
which  ere  long  repaid  with  a  bitter  and  venomous  hatred  the 
narrow  exclusiveness  of  Judah.  The  new  temple  was  on 
such  an  insignificant  scale  that  sorrow  and  not  joy  filled  the 
hearts  of  all  who  had  seen  the  glory  of  the  former.^  Their 
prophets  were  Epigoui  standing  on  the  boundary  line  of  mere 
learned  imitation.  In  other  respects,  too,  the  new  colony 
was  certainly  destined  to  indigence  and  misery.  The  most 
of  the  rich,  indeed,  remained  in  their  accustomed  homes  beside 
the  Euphrates. 

Still  the  first  generation  of  those  who  lived  in  the  new 
Jerusalem  continued  to  feel  something  of  the  inspiration  of 
their  fathers.  What  the  reality  lacked,  faith  and  hope 
supplied.  The  disappointments  M'hich  the  founders  of  the 
nation  had  to  bear,  and  their  pitiable  circumstances,  were 
regarded  as  trials  of  faith.^  The  glorious  days,  the  immediate 
advent  of  which  the  previous  generation  had  hoped  for  and 
had  expected  to  see,  were  thought  of  as  merely  postponed  fur 
a  little.  The  people  of  God  were  standing,  so  ran  their  hopes, 
in  the  early  dawn  of  the  day  of  judgment.  In  short,  the 
great  world-catastrophe  was  at  hand  when  everything  would 
at  last  be  arranged  in  accordance  with  the  divine  will.^  The 
scion  of  David  and  the  high  priest  are  the  heirs  of  promise ; 
and  if,  in  reality,  they  do  not  quite  fulfil  the  divine  promises, 
still  they  are  pleasant  and  blessed  pledges  of  a  higher 
kingdom    and    priesthood.*     Yet    despite    its    poor    exterior, 

1  Ilagg.  ii.  4  ;  Zocli.  iv.  10;  cF.  Ezra  iii.  12. 

-  Hngg.  i.  4ff.,  ii.  19  ff.  »  ^agg.  ii.  6,  7,  22  ff.;  Zech.  i.  12  f. 

^  Hagg.  i.  14,  ii.  3  ff.,  22  ff. ;  Zech.  iii.  1  ff.,  iv.  6,  vi.  11  ff.  If  Zechariah  ha.l 
regarded  Zerubbabcl  himself  as  the  promised  one,  which  does  not  appear  to  uiQ 
proved,  the  above  sentence  might  tlien  be  worded  even  more  strongly. 


o28  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

the  new  temple  is  to  cast  into  the  shade  all  the  splendour 
which  the  earlier  acre  has  witnessed.^ 

Consequently,  even  this  age  was  still  rich  in  fruitful  thoughts 
and  hopes,  and  had  great  influence  on  the  moral  and  religious 
life.  It  was  just  in  these  last  days  that  Israel  attained  what 
the  most  hrilliant  epochs  of  her  history  had  never  realised. 
The  outward  commonwealth  of  Israel  and  the  ideal  of  the 
people  corresponded,  so  far  at  any  rate  as  that  is  possible  on 
earth.  In  the  new  Jerusalem  there  was  neither  idolatry,  nor 
giddy,  worldly  enjoyment.  None  but  the  God  of  Israel  was  to 
be  worshipped  in  His  holy  city.  Decorous  conduct,  religious 
gravity,  and  hearty  zeal  for  the  nation's  allotted  task 
characterised  every  member  of  the  new  community.  For 
only  persons  of  this  stamp  could,  in  the  circumstances,  feel 
impelled  to  return  home  in  hope  and  faith.  This  was  really  a 
people  of  God.  Those  who  were  Israelites  after  the  flesh  wished 
to  be  so  also  after  the  spirit,  and  that  at  least  honestly.  The 
new  temple  was  actually  a  house  through  the  gates  of  which 
righteous  men  entered  in  the  name  of  the  Lord.^  And  the 
community  among  which  the  Psalms  of  Ascent  originated, 
manifested  a  personal  piety  and  a  sincerity  of  religious  feeling 
which  would  compare  favourably  witli  the  best  ages. 

But  in  these  very  circumstances  there  lurked  the  seeds  of 
special  dangers,  and  these  actually  came  to  light  in  the  next 
generation.  There  was  among  the  returning  exiles  an  over- 
whelming proportion  of  priests,  of  men  actually  devoted  to 
a  religious  career.^  Without  the  necessary  complement  of  a 
fresh,  healthy  secular  life,  this  introduced  into  the  life  of  the 
people  an  unhealthy,  one-sided  element  akin  to  Pietism,  of 
which  the  better  ages  of  Israel  had  known  nothing.  The 
great  mass  of  writings  of  a  legal  character,  which  the  com- 
munity now  considered  sacred,  although  it  was  only  through 

1  Zech.  iv.  10,  viii.  3fiF.  "  Cf.  Ps.  cxviii.  20,  26  ;  B.  J.  xxvi.  2. 

^  The  Levites  having  been  degraded  into  mere  servants  of  the  sons  of  Zadok, 
it  is  easily  understood  why  so  very  few  of  them  took  part  in  the  return. 


THE  NEW  JEKUSALEM.  329 

Ezra  that  tliey  oLtained  a  really  decisive  influence  over  the 
people/  fostered  the  rise  of  a  learned  caste,  and  gave  exagger- 
ated importance  to  ritual.  The  new  commonwealth  was,  in 
fact,  not  a  nation,  hut  a  religious  community  gathering  round 
sacred  forms  and  ordinances.  Hence  "  the  congregation  of 
Israel"  having  been  synonymous  with  "  the  congregation  of 
the  righteous,"  one  ran  the  risk  of  regarding  these  ternjs  as 
synonymous  long  after  unavoidable  change  in  the  circumstances 
of  the  people  had  rendered  this  view  unjustifiable.  But,  as 
yet,  such  dangers  were  not  apparent.  Perhaps,  as  Kuenen 
thinks,  the  legal  spirit  of  the  real  priest  was  at  first  stronger 
in  those  that  remained  behind  in  Babylon  than  in  the  com- 
munity that  returned  home  under  the  influence  of  the  prophets. 

In  former  times  the  view  was  often  vigorously  insisted  on, 
that  in  the  time  of  the  Exile  and  immediately  thereafter  the 
Old  Testament  religion  was  largely  moulded  by  foreign  influ- 
ences,— by  the  Chaldeans,  and  the  peculiar  science  especially 
of  an  astrological  character  which  had  its  home  in  Babylon, 
or  by  the  Persians,  whose  spiritual  worship  of  light,  in  which 
images  were  unknown,  and  which  pointed  to  a  kind  of  mono- 
theism, was  certainly  by  far  the  most  likely  to  exercise  an 
influence  over  the  religious  conceptions  of  Israel, 

It  must,  first  of  all,  be  emphatically  denied  that  the 
Chaldeans  exercised  any  influence  whatsoever  on  Old  Testament 
religion.  It  is  certainly  true  that  the  mass  of  the  people  did  not 
keep  clear  of  the  sensuous  and  mysterious  worship  of  Babylon. 
But  the  upholders  of  the  true  religion  have  nothing  but 
scorn  and  ridicule  for  the  idols  and  the  secret  Iearnin<][  con- 
nected  with  idolatry,  and  it  is  only  these,  the  true  Israel, 
that  have  anything  to  do  with  the  Old  Testament  religion.'^ 
iSTo  body  of  men,  indeed,  can  ever  wholly  resist  the  influence 
of  the  civilisation  around  them.      Expressions  and  figures  due 

^  Haggai  (ii.  11)  still  points,  not  to  a  priestly  law-hook,  but  to  instruction  by 
the  priests. 

"  B.  J.  xl.  18  ff.,  xli.  6  ff.,  xliv.  10  ff. 


330  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

to  Babylonian  speech  and  thought,  as  well  as  highly  imagina- 
tive conceptions  connected  with  the  brightly-coloured  mythical 
systems  of  Inner  Asia,  found  their  way  into  the  language  even 
of  the  Israelites,  as  Ezekiel  and  the  exilic  portions  of  Deutero- 
Isaiah  frequently  show.  But  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
Old  Testament  religion.  It  belongs  merely  to  the  outer  gar- 
ment of  expression,  to  the  language  of  rhetoric. 

But  even  the  Persians,  although  in  religion  they  stood 
very  much  nearer  to  Israel,  and  were  so  far  from  being  hated 
and  despised  that  they  were  regarded  with  confidence  by  the 
best  of  the  people,  never  exerted  any  real  influence  upon  the 
religion  of  Israel.  Any  one  who  compares  Zeehariah  and 
Haggai,  or  any  of  the  Psalms  that  can  be  assigned  with 
confidence  to  the  earliest  Persian  period,  with  the  pre-exilic  and 
exilic  works,  e.g.  with  Job,  Ezekiel,  and  the  additions  to  Isaiah, 
will  easily  satisfy  himself  that  no  foreign  elements  of  import- 
ance have  been  anywhere  introduced.  At  the  most  it  may 
be  granted  that  in  a  few  unessential  points  the  religious  view 
shows  traces  of  an  acquaintance  with  the  Persian  religion. 
Thus  there  now  begins  a  tendency  to  draw  fantastic  pictures 
of  the  heavenly  hierarchy,  and  a  greater  emphasis  is  attached 
to  superhuman  evil.  Still  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  even  in 
these  works  such  characteristics  show  themselves  in  a  really 
striking  fashion  only  at  a  much  later  period,  and,  therefore, 
are  probably  to  be  attributed  less  to  the  Persian  religion 
than  to  the  general  tendency  of  the  times  —  that  the 
development  of  angelology  may  be  explained  from  purely  Old 
Testament  materials,^  and  that  the  Satan  of  Zeehariah,  for 
example,  is  not  different  from  the  Satan  of  the  book  of 
Job.  Even  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  the  dead 
grows  so  organically  out  of  the  Old  Testament  religion  itself, 
and  its  presence  in  ancient  Parseeism  is  so  doubtful,  that  it 
cannot  be  taken  into  account  here. 

^  Cf.  also  Knonen,  I.e.  ii.  251  ff.,  and  Kostcrs.   The  more  transcendental  working 
out  of  the  doctrine  of  God  must  have  had  an  influence  on  the  doctrine  of  angels. 


THE  AGE  OF  THE  EPIGONI.  dol 

4.  Thus  the  first  age  of  the  new  Jerusalem  already  had  the 
character  of  an  age  of  Epigoni.  But  that  it  wouhl  finally 
develop  into  another  spirit  than  that  of  the  great  prophets, 
was  only  decisively  settled  when,  in  Jerusalem,  under  the 
protection  of  the  "  secular  arm  "  (Nehemiah),  Ezra  succeeded  in 
realising  his  ideals  as  priest  and  scribe,  organised  the  people 
into  '•■  a  congregation  under  the  Mosaic  law,"  and  imprinted 
on  it  the  stamp  which,  in  spite  of  many  hostile  influences,  it 
ever  afterwards  retained  in  a  form  that  became  more  and 
more  definite  and  inalienable.  It  is  clear  that,  at  first,  Ezra's 
schemes  met  with  violent  opposition.  Xot  only  did  Manasseli 
go  over  to  the  Samaritans,  but  the  rest  of  the  prophets  also 
became  rebellious.^  But  at  last  Ezra  was  completely  success- 
ful. Israel,  the  people  of  God,  became  the  people  of  "the 
Jews,"  for  so  the  people  as  a  whole  were  called  from  this  time 
onwards.2  The  lofty  enthusiasm,  the  joyous  assurance  that 
relied  on  the  Divine  Spirit  without  looking  anxiously  to  a 
sacred  book,  was  replaced  by  an  inward  weakness  which  leant 
all  the  more  heavily  on  the  former  strength.  Instead  of  inward 
religious  assurance,  the  letter  of  the  law  governed  the  life  of 
the  people.  It  was  no  longer  needful  to  oppose  to  nature- 
worship  the  true  religion  in  all  its  grand  spiritual  unity  and 
depth.  The  principles  of  salvation  were  no  longer  matters  of 
dispute  in  Israel.  The  only  question  was  how  to  retain  what 
had  been  given,  and  clothe  it  with  the  proper  legal  form. 
And  this  task  was  represented  as  the  proper  vocation  of  the 
people,  which  was  forbidden  by  the  conditions  of  its  existence 
to  undertake  any  other  great  national  task. 

Everything  of  true  religious  import  that  could  be  attained 
from  an  Old  Testarajent  standpoint  the  prophetic  age  attained. 
Before  the  divine  life  was  revealed  in  human  life  through 
a    person,    and     therefore    in    a    way    purely    spiritual    and 

1  Neh.  vi.  14. 

'  DmnV  e.g.  Esth.  iii.  C,  13,  iv.  3,  7,  13,  14,  IG,  v.  13,  vi.  10,  13,  viii.  1, 
3,  7ir.,  ix.  5,  25  ff. 


332  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

accessible  to  all  men,  tliat  is,  before  Christ  appeared,  no 
higher  conception  of  salvation  could  be  formed  than  that 
proclaimed  by  the  great  prophets  and  poets  of  the  earlier 
ages.  Hence  we  meet  everywhere  with  signs  of  waning 
spiritual  power.  Smaller  men  administer  the  treasures 
bequeathed  by  greater.  Whatever  new  addition  is  made  is 
but  a  doubtful  gain,  as  will  always  be  the  case  when 
originality  and  freshness  of  thought  are  confined  within  fixed 
limits.  Still  we  must  take  care  lest  we  treat  these  ages 
unjustly  by  looking  at  them  through  the  spectacles  of  pre- 
judice. Not  only  did  the  gain  in  real  moral  and  religious 
knowledge  won  by  the  earlier  ages  remain,  on  the  whole, 
absolutely  intact  throughout  the  later;  but  the  personal 
inward  devotion  of  individuals  to  tliis  religion  and  its 
benefits,  a  devotion  utterly  unknown  in  the  earlier  ages> 
was  a  sort  of  compensation  for  the  creative  religious  genius 
of  these  earlier  generations.  Eeligious  poetry  put  forth  its 
fairest  blossoms.  The  relation  towards  religious  and  moral 
problems  was  more  self-conscious  and  individual  than  before. 
Leavening  elements  showed  themselves,  which,  if  not  purely 
progressive,  nevertheless  had  in  them  some  seeds  of  universal 
religion.  Consequently  this  age  led  on,  not  merely  to  the 
Pharisaism  that  was  hostile  alike  to  Christ  and  to  the  pro- 
phets, but  also  to  those  companies  of  upright  Israelites  who 
found  in  Jesus  the  fulfilment  of  their  eager  longings. 

5.  Only  for  a  short  time  could  it  appear  as  if  the  Persian 
empire  would  treat  the  kingdom  of  God  in  a  manner  essen- 
tially different  from  that  adopted  by  its  predecessors,  as  if  it 
were  destined  to  become  the  helper  and  servant  of  the  God 
of  Israel.  Already  Haggai  and  Zechariah  see  in  Persia  tlie 
mountain  that  must  become  a  plaiu,^  and  know  that  the 
time  of  fulfilment  cannot  arrive  until  the  earth  ceases  to  be  at 
rest,^  and  God  again  shakes  both  the  heaven  and  the  earth.^ 
This   becomes   more   and  more  the  prevailing  view.       True, 

1  Zech.  iv.  7.  -  Zecli.  i.  11  IT.  »  jia;i<,'.  ii.  7. 


THE  AGE  OF  THE  EPICONI.  333 

the  people  do  not  forget  the  great  service  which  Persia 
rendered  the  kingdom  of  God  by  authorising  Jerusalem  to  be 
rebuilt,  and  by  at  last  granting  the  often  postponed  permission 
to  fortify  the  city  and  restore  the  temple.^  Persia  is  not,  like 
Babylon  and  Assyria,  an  actual  enemy  and  troubler  of  the 
sanctuary.  But,  otherwise,  the  circumstances  soon  came  to 
resemble  those  of  former  days.  However  obscure  those  times 
are  for  us,  it  is  beyond  question  that  the  main  characteristic 
of  the  Persian  epoch  was  galling  bondage  and  heavy  burdens.^ 
Even  here  there  was  no  rest,  TJie  eye  of  the  people  had 
once  more  to  look  for  the  golden  age  in  a  new  future,  away 
behind  new  and  fateful  judgments  of  God. 

In  this  age  a  healthy  national  development  was  for  Israel 
an  impossibility.  But  it  clung  all  the  more  firmly  and  faith- 
fully to  what  was  left  it  as  its  most  peculiar  treasure,  and 
in  which  alone  it  could  still  lead  an  independent  life, — to 
the  religion  of  its  forefathers.  In  this  connection  there 
are  two  things  which  specially  call  for  attention.  The 
first  is  the  holy  city  with  its  temple  and  its  worship. 
The  public  worship  of  God  became  more  and  more  the 
pride  and  joy  of  the  whole  people.  Splendidly  performed 
according  to  the  prescribed  rules,  it  presented  more  and  more 
the  appearance  of  a  perfect  sacred  service.  The  priests, 
severed  as  they  now  were  by  an  express  law  ^  from  the 
Levites,  were  very  numerous  in  proportion  to  the  number 
of  those  who  returned,'*  and  thus  gave  the  whole  people  a 
more  distinctly  religious  character  than  ancient  Israel,  with 
its  fresh  and  often  flourishing  national  life,  had  ever  had. 
Their  joy  in  beautiful  forms  of  service  made  them  delight 
to  trace  the  origin  of  these  back  to  the  earliest  times.  A 
already  represented  Moses  as  the  author  of  a  well-organised 


'  Cf.  Ezra  i.  2,  vi.  3,  10. 

2  Cf.   Eccles.  iii.  16,  v.  7,  viii.  2fi".,  9  f.,  x.  6,  IGf.,  20  (Ewald,  Gesch.  d.  V. 
Is,:,  Bd.  iv.,  3rd  ed.  p.  168  ff.). 

3  Ezra  ii.  36 ff.,  62;  Neli.  vii.  64.  *  Ezra  ii.  36  ff.;  Neh.  xii. 


334  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

order  of  service.  The  sacred  music  and  other  arrangements 
of  public  worship  were  referred  back  to  David.^  Thus  the 
oldeu  days  were  held  in  remembrance  by  the  people  as  an 
ideal  age  in  the  Levitical  sense,  which  they  never  in  reality 
were.  The  laws  which,  founded  on  the  work  of  Moses,  had 
trrown  in  the  long  course  of  centuries  into  a  well-iounded 
written  code,  were  regularly  read  and  expounded.-  The  high 
priest,  raised  by  A  even  in  theory  above  his  colleagues,  and 
now  the  one  really  independent  representative  of  the  people, 
obtained  more  and  more  influence.  His  relation  to  the  weak 
vassal  princes  was  altogether  different  from  what  it  had 
formerly  been  towards  the  warlike  and  powerful  kings  of 
Judah.^  AVhat  an  impression  was  produced  by  the  imposing 
figure  of  such  a  high  priest  if  his  personality  was  in  keeping 
with  the  dignity  of  his  office,  we  may  readily  infer  from 
the  sketch  of  the  son  of  Onias  by  Jesus  the  son  of  Siracli, 
although  this  sketch,  of  coarse,  belongs  to  a  much  later  age.* 

And  to  the  temple  with  its  attendants,  the  community  of 
the  dispersion  attached  itself  with  ever-growing  zeal  as  to  a 
common  centre,  a  connection,  indeed,  of  which  Zechariah, 
chap,  vi.,  already  gives  proof.  Xay  more,  "  those  who  feared 
Jehovah,"  the  co-religionists  of  Israel  who  were  of  heathen 
descent,  by  agreeing  to  worship  at  the  temple,  prefigured  a 
world-wide  kingdom  of  God.  Owing  to  this  growing  import- 
ance of  the  temple  and  its  servants,  more  and  more  weight 
was,  as  a  matter  of  course,  also  attached  to  sacrifice,  and  to 
the  whole  outward   service   performed   at   the  temple.      The 

1  1  Chron.  vi.  16  f.,  24,  29,  ix.  33,  xv.  16  f.,  xvi.  4  ff.,  37.  ff.,  xxiii.  .'i,  xxv.; 
2  Chron.  v.  13,  vii.  3,  6,  viii.  15,  xxix.  25,  30  ;  Ezra  iii.  10  ;  Keh.  xii.  45  f. 

2  Neh.  viii. 

*  This  is  brought  out  most  clearly  by  comparing  the  position  of  the  Patriarchs 
with  that  of  the  Rajahs  in  the  Turkish  empire.  The  conquernrs  gave  them  a  sort 
(if  political  position  which  they  never  conceded  to  tlie  old  ruling  families. 
Tlius  the  people  saw  in  them  the  last  remnant  of  its  national  honour  and 
importance. 

*  Jcs.  Sir.  50.  In  this  connection  one  involuntarily  thinks  of  the  impression 
which  the  splendour  of  the  episcopate  made  on  the  nations  at  the  time  of  tlie 
buibarian  inroads. 


THE  TEESIAN  AGE,  335 

tendency  to  give  such  predominance  to  sacred  form  dates  from 
Ezekiel  and  A ;  but  it  was  not  till  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
reformation  by  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  that  its  victory  was 
complete.  The  perfect  freedom  with  which  the  prophets 
dealt  with  outward  forms  of  worship  made  way  for  a  legalism 
pious  and  worthy  of  respect,  but  at  the  same  time  narrow  and 
dangerous.  It  was  from  this  standpoint  that  the  chronicler 
wrote  the  history  of  the  olden  time.  The  Levitical  righteous- 
ness of  the  individual  kings  is  always  the  standaid  of  their 
favour  with  God.  The  matters  recorded  with  the  greatest  detail 
are  arrangements  for  worship  and  reforms  in  divine  service. 

The  second  and  still  more  important  point  is  Holy  Scripture. 
By  the  exertions  of  Ezra  and  his  successors,  the  people  were 
given  in  a  permanent  form  the  best  part  of  their  sacred  books 
so  far  as  these  had  reference  to  law.  Ezra  himself  was 
certainly  the  first  to  put  some  of  these  writings  into  a 
thoroughly  finished  form,  for  the  tradition  which  ascribes  to 
him  their  final  redaction  is  in  the  main  perfectly  trustworthy. 
Though  the  legends  as  to  the  miraculous  way  in  which  he 
restored  these  writings  by  inspiration  ^  are,  of  course,  later  than 
Josephus,  they  at  least  warrant  the  inference  that,  according 
to  popular  recollection,  this  work  of  Ezra  was  not  purely 
formah  He  and  his  successors,  taking  the  document  of  A  as 
a  basis,  formed  into  a  single  whole  the  book  of  early  history 
and  of  the  giving  of  the  laws.  And  since  A  thus  stamps  its 
character  on  the  whole,  tlie  statutes  relating  to  sacred  form  and 
the  exact  2)}'ovision  for  the  external  holiness  of  Israel  heeamc 
the  foundation-stone  of  national  life.  The  prophets,  on  the 
contrary,  had  regarded  faith  and  morcdity  as  the  essential 
characteristics  of  the  nation  founded  by  Moses.  Naturally,  in 
presence  of  tliis  Thorah,  Israel's  religious  history  looked  quite 
different  from  what  it  had  appeared  to  an  Amos  or  an  Isaiah. 
Except  in  the  case  of  the  Law,  there  was  no  thought  as  yet 
of  "  closing  the  Canon."     During  this  age  and  the  following, 

'  'i  Ezr.i  xiv. 


336  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

such  productions  as  books  of  narrative,  psalms,  and  even 
artificial  aftergrowths  of  prophecy  were  still  freely  added  to 
the  other  books.  But  to  the  "  Law  "  the  people  no  longer 
stood  in  the  same  relation  as  to  their  own  living  relijrious 
writings.  It  was  something  not  to  be  touched.  Its  very 
letter  had  become  sacred.  Learned  scribes  began  to  master 
its  contents.  It  was  therefore  inevitable  that,  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  community,  whatever  was  statutory  and 
external,  whatever  could  be  laid  down  in  fixed  rules  and 
forms,  should  come  to  the  forefront.^  The  law,  closed  as  it 
now  was,  came  to  be  the  real  centre  of  religion.^  Accord- 
ingly, attempts  were  made  to  construct  a  theology  of  the 
law,  that  is,  a  religious  jurisprudence.  The  transition  from 
inward  religious  assurance  to  a  dependence  on  scholarship  is, 
of  course,  always  a  gradual  process. 

We  must  accordingly  think  of  the  religious  life  of  Israel 
during  the  later  Persian  epoch  as  predominantly  conservative 
and  ritualistic.  Around  the  temple  with  its  worship,  around 
the  liigh  priest  as  representative  of  the  people's  religious 
independence,  around  the  Scriptures  which  were  growing  into 
a  Canon  as  the  divine  inheritance  of  Israel,  there  gatliered  a 
pious  and  earnest  community — on  the  whole,  in  spite  of  many 
an  exception,  more  strictly  moral  and  religious  than  any 
jjrevious  community  had  been.  Eat  it  no  longer  possessed 
the  creative  force  of  earlier  days.  And  just  as  the  greater 
technical  skill  of  ages  when  art  is  decaying  cannot  compensate 
for  the  want  of  the  genius  wliich  distinguishes  epochs  of 
progress,  so  in  the  sphere  of  religion,  the  earnestness  and  piety 
of  the  average  man  cannot  make  up  for  the  want  of  the 
creative  religious  spirit  which  glows  in  those  who  live  during 
the  periods  of  religious  growth. 

^  As  a  natural  consequence  of  this,  the  statutes  relating  to  the  life  of  the 
people  soon  appear  of  greater  importance  than  tlie  acts  of  sacrifice  performed 
iu  the  temple  without  the  co-operation  of  the  peojilc.  The  "  Book  of  Scripture  " 
is  a  stronger  power  than  the  temple. 

^  Ps.  i.,  xix.6,  cxix. 


LEVITES  AND  PKIESTS.  337 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE  SACRED  INSTITUTIONS  OF  ISRAEL  ACCORDING  TO  "  THE  LAW." 
1.  Zevifes  and  Priests. 

Literature. — Ugolino,  Thesaurus-  antiq.  sacr,  vol.  xii. 
(Saubert,  Krumbholz,  Boldich,  Braun,  Selden,  Carpzov,  "  Ueber 
den  Hohenpriester  ").  Herzog,  Bealencyclopoidic,  art.  "  Hohe- 
priester,  Leviten,  Priesterthum "  (Oehler,  2nd  ed.  Orelli). 
Saalschiitz,  Mosaisches  Recht,  i.  89  f.  Kliper,  Das  PricstcrtluLiii 
des  alien  Bundcs,  18G5.  Maybaum,  EntwicTclung  des  altisrael- 
itischcn  Fricsterthums,  1880. 

1.  Alongside  of  Nazirite  and  prophet,  the  Levitical  priest 
had  from  the  first  the  very  greatest  influence  on  the  develop- 
ment of  the  religion  of  Israel.^  As  a  distinct  order,  whose 
life-interests  were  all  bound  up  with  the  worship  of  the 
national  God  at  the  national  sanctuary,  this  priesthood'  in 
times  of  division  and  anarchy  firmly  upheld  the  national 
unity.  For  a  time  the  national  life  gathered  round  the 
sanctuary  at  Shiloh.  And  the  persecution  of  Jehovah's 
priests  at  Nob  no  doubt  contributed  largely  to  the  final 
downfall  of  Saul's  dynasty  and  to  David's  triumph.  Having 
secured  a  higher  and  more  secure  position  at  Jerusalem  owing 

1  The  D''1^n  D"'jn3  of  Deuteronomy  (x.  8,  xvii.  9,  18,  xviii.  1-8,  xxi.  5, 
xxiv.  8,  xxxi.  9)  and  of  the  older  historical  documents  (Josh.  iii.  3,  viii.  33 ; 
Jer.  xxxiii.  21  ff. ;  yet  cf.  1  Kings  viii.  4  according  to  the  Massorah)  represent, 
in  my  opinion,  the  original  relation  of  Levites  and  priests.  The  Levites  collect- 
ively have  the  right  to  the  priesthood  and  its  revenues  (Josh.  xiii.  14,  33, 
xviii.  7  ;  1  Sam.  ii.  28  ;  Deut.  xviii.  6ff.,  xxxiii.  8ff.).  Certain  families  of  them 
have  the  right  to  the  national  priesthood.  Such  is  still  Josiah's  view,  for  he 
allows  even  the  Levitical  priests  of  the  high  places  to  keep  their  incomes  (2  Kings 
xxiii.  9).  It  was  owing  to  the  number  of  the  Levites  being  out  of  all  propor- 
tion to  the  decimated  people,  to  the  concentration  of  worship  at  Jerusalem,  and 
to  the  fact  that  most  of  the  Levitical  families  had  taken  part  in  the  services  at 
high  places,  that  the  distinction  between  priests  and  Levites  grew  up,  which 
was  legalised  by  Ezekiel  (xl.  45  f.,  xliii.  19,  xliv.  Off.,  xlviii.  11),  and  taken  for 
granted  by  A,  The  exilic  prophet  still  thinks  it  possible  to  take  "Levitical 
priests"  in  the  new  Jerusalem  from  other  families  also  (B.  J.  Ixvi.  21  ff.). 
VOL.  I.  Y 


338  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

to  the  temple  being  there,  they  gave  Judah  religious  ascend- 
ency over  Israel,  however  averse  the  despotic  kings  of  the 
Davidic  family  may  have  been  to  grant  the  priests  political 
influence  and  independence.^  To  the  priesthood  is  due  the 
credit  of  having  given  the  sacred  ordinances  of  Israel  more 
and  more  the  form  of  fixed  laws.  It  was  the  high  priest 
who  introduced  Deuteronomy.  The  work  of  A  was  of  priestly 
origin.  And  the  whole  character  of  Ezekiel's  views  points 
unmistakably  to  his  close  connection  with  priestly  interests. 

Still,  unlike  the  prophets,  the  priests  were  not  always  on  the 
side  of  religious  progress.  This  was  not  because  there  were 
priests  who  gave  themselves  up  to  nature-w^orship,  and  showed 
but  little  zeal  in  opposing  the  arbitrary  doings  of  the  kings,^ 
or  because  the  prophets  bitterly  complain  of  the  selfishness, 
corruption,  and  luxury  of  the  priests  who  abuse  their  position 
as  judges  for  purposes  of  oppression,  regard  the  sins  of  the 
people  as  good  sources  of  income,  and  dishonour  the  right  of 
asylum  in  the  priestly  cities  by  wanton  acts  of  violence.^ 
Such  conduct  would  have  no  influence  on  the  development 
of  religion.  It  was  rather  because  the  very  existence  of  a 
priestly  class  tends  to  exaggerate  the  value  of  ritual,  and  to 
change  into  a  law  what  was  formerly  mere  sacred  custom, 
and  thus  make  religion  consist  mainly  of  outward  ceremonies. 
The  Thorah  of  the  priest  pointed  in  a  different  direction  from 
the  word  of  the  prophet,  although  it  was  not  till  after  Josiah 
that  this  antagonism  became  theoretically  definite.* 

Still,  whatever  faults  might  be  found  with  individual  priests, 
the  priesthood,  as  a  whole,  is  represented  as  an  important 
factor  in  Israel's  religious  life,  highly  honoured  and  influential. 

^  Solomon  changes  the  high  priesthood  (1  Kings  ii.  26  ;  cf.  1  Sam.  ii.  31,  35, 
xiv.  3  ;  2  Sam.  xv.  24). 

"  2  Kings  xvi.  16  ;  Zeph.  iii.  4. 

^  Kg.  Hos.  iv.  8,  v.  1,  vi.  9;  Micah  iii.  11  ;  Isa.  xxviii.  7  ;  Zeph.  iii,  4; 
Jer.  i.  18,  ii.  26,  iv.  9,  vi.  13  ;  Ezek.  xxii.  25  ff. 

■*  This  antagonism  naturally  showed  itself  still  more  plainly  where,  as  in  the 
northern  kingdom,  the  priesthood  wished,  in  spite  of  the  preaching  of  the  pro- 
phets, to  maintain  an  antiquated  and  impure  form  of  religion  (Amos  vii. ). 


LEVITES  AND  PRIESTS.  339 

Indeed,  the  reputation  and  influence  of  the  priestly  class  were 
hut  little  affected  by  the  contempt  with  which  many  of  its 
members  were  regarded  in  private  life.  That  is  quite  natural 
where  it  is  mainly  the  duty  of  a  priest  to  perform  mys- 
terious acts  of  ritual,  and  where  he  is  believed  to  exert 
an  influence  over  the  divine  powers,  and  to  maintain  a 
mysterious  connection  with  them  such  as  ordinary  mortals  do 
not  possess.  Thus  Eli's  sons  did  not  ruin  the  priesthood  by 
their  profligacy.^  Nor  was  the  high  position  of  the  Levitical 
priesthood  injured  either  by  the  strolling  Levites  in  the  time 
of  the  Judges,^  or  by  the  insecure  position  of  the  same  class 
which  Deuteronomy  presupposes  when,  in  consequence  of  their 
having  become  too  numerous,  it  commends  them  to  public 
charity,  along  with  the  poor  and  the  stranger.^  They  are  still  the 
judges  of  what  is  "  clean  "  and  "  holy,"  and  the  administrators 
of  the  oracles  of  God.  Hence  the  very  Hosea  who  censures 
the  priests  in  the  most  bitter  fashion,  also  describes  a  hope- 
lessly obstinate  person  as  "  one  who  strives  with  the  priest."  * 
In  direct  opposition  to  the  blessing  of  Jacob,  the  song  of  the 
Deuteronomist  distinguishes  the  tribe  of  Levi  thus — 

"Let  Thy  Thummim  and  Thy  Urim  be  with  Thy  godly  one, 
Whom  Thou  didst  prove  at  Massah, 
With  whom  Thou  didst  strive  at  the  waters  of  Meribah." 

It  is  in  these  terms  that  the  poet  addresses  God,  while  he 
praises  Levi  thus — 

"Who  said  of  his  father  and  of  his  mother,  I  have  not  seen  him; 
Neither  did  he  acknowlege  his  brethren, 
Nor  knew  he  his  own  children : 
For  they  have  observed  Thy  word. 
And  keep  Thy  covenant. 
They  shall  teach  Jacob  Thy  judgment, 
And  Israel  Thy  law  : 
They  shall  put  incense  before  Thee, 
And  whole  burnt-offering  upon  Thine  altar."' 


^  1  Sam.  ii. ,  iii.  2  Jmjg.  ^vii. 

3  Deut.  xii.  12,  18,  19,  xiv.  27,  29,  xvi.  11,  xviii.  1,  xxvi.  11  ff. 

*  Hos.  iv.  4  (Deut.  xvii.  12).  ^  Deut.  xxxiii.  8-10  (Gen.  xlix.  5). 


340  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Jeremiah  attaches  great  importance  to  the  priesthood,  and 
with  Ezekiel  priestly  interests  are  always  uppermost.^  And 
how  important  a  role  a  high  priest  could  play  among  this 
people,  is  shown  by  the  history  of  Athaliah's  dethronement 
and  the  reformation  under  Josiah,^ 

Ezekiel's  legislation  was  meant  to  separate  on  a  definite 
principle  the  Jerusalem  priesthood  from  the  other  Levitical 
circles.^  But  in  the  well-defined  figure  of  his  high  priest,  in 
the  degrading  of  the  Levites  to  mere  temple-servants,  and 
in  the  completed  laws  anent  the  rights  and  duties  of  the 
priests,  A  was  the  first  to  sketch  out  what  became  realised 
fact  after  Ezra's  time.* 

After  the  Exile  the  high  priest  was  the  one  official  in  the 
new  nation  who  really  possessed  a  measure  of  independence. 
His  was  the  office  over  which  the  Persian  suzerain  could 
exercise  least  supervision.  And  the  removal  of  the  Davidic 
king  from  beside  the  high  priest  must  have  had  to  a  certain 
extent  the  same  effect,  on  a  miniature  scale,  as  the  downfall 
of  the  Eoman  empire  on  the  development  of  the  power  of 
the  Eoman  bishop.  Compared  with  the  high  priest,  the 
Persian  officer  in  Jerusalem,  even  when  a  Zerubbabel,  was 
necessarily  quite  in  the  shade.  Thus  in  Zechariah  it  is  clear 
that  the  high  priest  Joshua  takes  the  leading  part.  If  he 
discharges  his  duties  aright,  he  is  to  have  access  to  God 
with  the  attendant  angels.^ 

The  earlier  age  of  Israel  saw  in  the  priest  chiefly  the  ephod- 
bearer^ — that  is,  the  medium  through  which  Jehovah  delivered 
His  oracles,  and  this   because  the  daily  sacrifices   of  private 

1  Jer.  xxxiii.  18-26;  Ezek.  xliii.  19  ff.,  xliv.  9fiF.,  xlviii.  11  ff. 

^  2  Kings  xi.  4,  xii.  3,  xxiii.  4. 

^  Ezek.  xliv.  18  ff.,  29if.  ;  Ex.  xxviii.,  xxix.,  xxxix.  The  sons  of  Zadok 
are,  according  to  the  historical  books,  of  later  Levitical  nobility  than  the  family 
of  Eli,  1  Sam.  ii.  27-36. 

^  Larger  incomes  and  life-tenure,  Lev.  vi.,  vii. ;  Num.  xviii.  The  claim  of 
the  other  Levites  to  equality  with  Aaron  is,  according  to  him,  rebellion  punish- 
able with  death,  Num.  xvi. 

0  Zech.  iii.  7.  «  1  Sam.  xiv.  3,  8. 


LEVITES  AND  PKIESTS.  341 

individuals  and  of  the  several  tribes  were  considered  less 
dependent  on  the  services  of  priests.^  Besides,  the  priests  were 
the  natural  teachers  of  the  people  regarding  what  was  clean  and 
unclean,  regarding  what  the  sacred  customs  of  Israel  did  or 
did  not  allow.2  In  later  times  the  oracle  fell  gradually  into 
the  background,  while  the  real  worship  at  the  national 
sanctuary  came  more  and  more  to  the  front.  The  chronicler, 
besides,  speaks  of  them  "judging"  the  people  according  to 
"  the  law  of  Jehovah,"  especially  since  Jehoshaphat's  time. 
Still  it  is  a  question  how  far  this  statement  is  to  be  trusted.^ 
When  the  law  had  obtained  official  recognition,  it  natur- 
ally fell  to  the  priesthood  to  superintend  the  whole  public 
life  of  the  people  in  so  far  as  it  was  regulated  by  the 
law* 

2.  It  was  only  in  the  second  Jerusalem  that  the  theory 
of  the  priesthood,  which  was  henceforward  the  prevailing  one 
in  Israel,  was  worked  out  in  distinct  contrast  to  that  of  earlier 
days.  While  it  was  formerly  a  fundamental  conviction  that 
the  whole  people  was  holy,^  and  capable,  therefore,  of  drawing 
near  unto  God,  A,  despite  his  high-strung  views  as  to  the 
dignity  of  the  holy  people,  resists  in  the  most  strenuous 
manner  every  attempt  to  call  in  question,  on  this  ground,  the 
sole  right  of  the  priests  to  hold  intercourse  with  God.  Plainly 
even  A  must  still  have  known  of  the  old  view  as  to  the 
priestly  rights  of  all.  This  is  sufficiently  proved  by  his 
deliberate  refutation  of  it.^  But  the  more  emphasis  was 
laid  on  the  transcendental  character  of  God  and  the  non- 
consecration  of  nature,  the  more  necessary  it  appeared  that 

^  Cf.  the  sketch  of  the  pre-Solomonic  epoch.  ^  Qf^  Ezek.  xxii.  26  f. 

*Deut.  xvii.  8,  12,  xix.  17  ft'.,  xx.  2  ;  Jer.  xviii.  18  ;  Ezek.  vii.  2C,  xxii.  26, 
xliv.  23,  24;  Hag.  ii.  12;  Lam.  iv.  16  (i.  4,  iv.  13);  2  Chroii.  xvii.  7ff., 
xix.  5  ff.  (Wellhausen  would  regard  all  this  as  a  mere  echo  of  the  Sanhedrim  at 
Jerusalem,  since  it  is  not  mentioned  in  1  Kings  xxii.). 

•»  We  already  find,  in  Jer.  xviii.  18  ;  Ezek.  vii.  26,— that  is,  after  the  publica- 
tion of  Deuteronomy, — that  the  chief  duty  of  the  priest  is  to  know  the  law,  while 
people  go  to  the  elders  for  counsel  and  to  the  jjrophets  for  wo7xl  and  vi.sio7i. 

*  Ex.  xix.  6.  6  Num.  xvi.  3. 


342  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

all  acts  implying  immediate  contact  with  the  divine  should 
be  restricted  to  persons  specially  "  consecrated." 

The  first  and  lowest  expression  of  this  need  is  exemplified 
in  the  servants  who  were  gifted  to  the  sanctuary,  and  had  to 
consecrate  to  it  the  whole  labour  of  their  life.  Accordingly 
we  find  in  A  so-called  "  gifted  ones  "  (Nethunim  or  ISTethinim), 
who  had  to  do  the  menial  work  connected  with  public 
worship ;  properly  speaking,  they  were  only  the  servants 
of  the  Levites,  though  placed  in  a  class  by  themselves.^ 
Originally,  it  is  clear,  they  were  nothing  else  than  temple- 
slaves,  foreign  captives  put  into  posts  implying,  not  privilege, 
but  privation.  But  Ezekiel  puts  in  their  place  the  Levites, 
who  had  shown  themselves  unworthy  of  the  priesthood ;  ^  and 
according  to  Josh.  ix.  2 1  ff.  they  are  at  least  heathens  who 
had  voluntarily  submitted  to  Israel.  Side  by  side  with  these 
there  were  also,  from  the  days  of  antiquity,  serving  women,^ 
probably  to  assist  in  the  less  important  parts  of  sacrificial 
work,  and  perhaps  also  to  lead  the  choral  dances  at  feasts. 
Here  the  connection  with  God  is  still  something  quite 
external,  simply  one  of  possession,  which  is,  indeed,  the  funda- 
mental conception  of  consecration  to  God. 

This  thought  receives  a  somewhat  higher  expression  in  the 
consecration  of  the  trihc  of  Levi  as  distinguished,  since  Ezekiel, 
and  especially  since  A,  from  the  2')ricsihood  proper.  A  knows 
nothing  of  them  as  priests.  They  do  not  appear  in  the 
sanctuary  till  long  after  the  priests  are  at  work  there,  and 
not  as  Aaron's  kinsmen,  but  as  the  "  first-fruits "  of  Israel. 

1  Num.  viii.  19  ;  cf.  Ezra  ii.  43,  58  ;  Neh.  vii.  46,  60,  xi.  3. 

2  Ezek.  xliv.  9  ff. 

2  Ex.  xxxviii.  8  ;  cf.  1  Chron.  xxv.  5,  the  daughters  of  Heman  (?).  It  is 
quite  wrong  to  deny  that  the  reference  here  is  to  women  in  constant  employ- 
ment. They  are  called  niX3V-  Their  mirrors  are  taken  to  ornament  the 
sacred  water-basin.  They  are  mentioned  as  early  as  1  Sam.  ii.  22.  Among 
the  Greeks,  too,  not  only  were  Hierodouloi  in  the  immoral  sense  of  the  term 
gifted  to  the  temple  of  the  nature-goddess,  but  virgins  were  also  consecrated 
to  that  divinity  (Schomann,  210.  As  to  the  sacred  mirrors  of  these  women, 
cf.  205). 


LEVITES  AND  PEIESTS.  343 

They  are  mere  servants.  They  are  forbidden  to  touch  sacred 
objects  till  the  priests  have  put  a  covering  over  them. 
Otherwise  the  holiness  of  God's  presence  would  slay  them 
also.-^  Consequently  the  determining  thought  is  that  of 
property  and  service.  They,  too,  are  "  gifted  to  God,"  ^  and 
have  to  serve  the  regular  priest.^  It  is  in  room  of  the  first- 
born of  the  people,  who  should  belong  wholly  to  God,  that  they 
and  their  possessions  are  set  apart  for  God.*  But  they  stand 
in  a  still  closer  relation  to  God ;  in  the  holy  nation  they  are  the 
holy  tribe.  They  alone  are  to  touch  the  sacred  vessels,  lest 
wrath  come  upon  Israel.^  They  are  consecrated,  presented  by 
the  laying  on,  as  it  were,  of  the  hands  of  the  community,  as 
representatives  of  that  community's  own  relation  to  God,  and 
thus  they  are  offered  to  Him  as  a  sacrifice.^  Only  while  in  the 
flower  of  their  age  are  they  to  engage  in  sacred  work.'^  They 
are  maintained  by  the  sacred  gifts  which  are  presented  to 
God.^     Hence  their  office  is  represented  also  as  a  privilege.^ 

Perfect  consecration  belongs,  according  to  the  theory  of  A, 
only  to  the  priesthood  proper,  to  "  Aaron  and  his  sons,"  ^'^ 
"the  anointed  priests." ^^  The  etymological  meaning  of  the 
word  Kohen,  which  is  the  technical  terra  for  priest,^^  fg 
matter  of  dispute.  If  it  is  connected  with  j^ia,^^  one  has  to 
choose  between  the  meaning  of  "  setting  oneself  up,"  i.e.  taking 

1  Num.  iv.  15  ff.  ^  Num.  xviii.  2. 

3  Num.  iii.  9  (□''jnj). 

•»  Num.  iii.  12  ff.,  41,  45,  viii.  11-17.  As  Tem;fali,  Num.  viii.  21 ;  Ex.  xiii. 
15. 

°  Num.  i.  47-54,  ii.  17,  viii.  19.  ^  Num.  viii.  5-21. 

7  Num.  iv.  3,  23,  30,  50,  viii.  26. 

^  Num.  xviii.  21  ff.  Of  course  the  ideal  picture  in  A,  according  to  which 
Levi,  scattered  throughout  Israel,  was  to  dwell  in  his  forty-eight  cities  without 
work  or  care,  is  in  most  significant  contrast  to  the  actual  history. 

^  Num.  xvi.  9  ;  Deut.  xxxiii.  8. 

^^  This  expression  in  A  ;  cf.  also  Num.  iii.  10,  38,  iv.  15,  19,  20,  xvii.  5, 
xviii.  1. 

"  Num.  iii.  3.  ^"  jn3. 

^^  To  derive  it  from  the  frequently-used  denominative  }n3,  to  be  brilliant,  dis- 
tinguished, reverses  the  course  which  language  takes.     jHS,  S"I3)  inD;  cf-  jIDj 


344  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

a  particular  position,  and  that  of  "  setting  up,"  i.e.  preparing. 
The  first  meaning  might  be  supported  by  those  passages  in 
which,  as  is  thought  by  many,  the  word  is  applied  to  a  mere 
court  official.^  But,  in  my  opinion,  the  form  of  the  word, 
which  points  to  an  active  signification,  is  conclusively  in  favour 
of  the  second.  But,  granted  that  the  word  itself  is  obscure, 
it  would  still  be  easy  to  determine  in  what  sense  A  used  it. 
The  idea  of  "  service  "  lies  in  the  functions  of  the  priests,  and 
in  the  word  "  servant,"  which  is  applied  to  priestly  persons.^ 
And  the  privilege  of  "  drawing  nigh  unto  God  "  is  represented 
as  the  special  right  of  the  priesthood.^  These  two  things,  the 
performing  of  service  at  the  temple  and  the  coming  near  to 
God,  are  also  met  with  in  Ezekiel's  idea  of  the  priest.* 
Accordingly,  since  the  time  of  A  the  priests  are  regarded  as 
at  once  the  servants  of  the  sanctuary,  and  the  persons  through 
whom  the  people  fulfils  its  mission  and  enjoys  its  ideal 
privilege  of  drawing  near  unto  God  and  presenting  offerings  to 
Him.  Thus  they  form  a  living  bond  of  connection  between 
God  and  Israel  which  falls  short  of  the  holiness  of  its  ideal. 
They  are  supported  by  God  as  His  servants,  but  in  accordance 
with  definite  laws,  the  wilful  transgression  of  which  is 
followed  by  punishment ;  ^  they  are  consecrated  by  a  special 
ceremony  and  presented  to  God,  and  the  general  tenor,  at 

1  2  Sam.  viii.  18,  xx.  26  ;  1  Kings  iv.  5  ;  cf.  1  Chron.  xviii.  17.  In  these 
passages  I  see  no  reason  for  giving  up  the  meaning  "priest."  And  even  if  that 
had  to  be  done,  the  wider  meaning  might  very  well  be  derived  from  the  idea  of 
priest  and  applied  to  the  duties  of  a  courtier,  just  as  in  Arabic  the  word  has 
acquired  the  additional  idea  of  soothsayer.  The  use  of  the  denominative  jriD, 
e.g.  in  B.  J.  Ixi.  10,  is  due  to  the  splendid  official  dress  of  the  priest.  The 
derivation  from  "communicating  the  ways  of  God,"  "soothsaying,"  is  highly 
improbable.     (Kuenen,  Hihbert  Lect.  p.  81.     Land.) 

-  1  Sam.  ii.  11,  18,  iii.  1.  Samuel  wears  the  dress  of  a  priest,  as  a  mtJ'IO  ; 
but  he  is  distinguished  by  it  from  the  priests  proper.  Ou  the  other  hand, 
Joel  i.  13  uses  D'^jriD  as  interchangeable  with  niTD  TllCD  ;  cf.  Ex.  xxix.  30, 
XXX.  20,  XXXV.  19,  xxxix.  1,  41. 

3  Num.  iv.  19,  20,  xvi.  5.  *  Ezek.  xl.  45  ff.,  xlii.  13,  xlvi.  19  ff. 

°  Cf.  Josh.  xiii.  14,  33,  xviii.  7.  The  regulations  referred  to  are  found  in 
Num.  xviii.  8-28  ;  Lev.  vi.  7,  vii.  8,  30 ;  Ex.  xxix.  20,  28  ;  cf.  Num.  vi.  19  f., 
xxxi,  28.      It   is   very    interesting   to    note   how   these   incomes    rise    from 


THE  HIGH  PRIEST.  845 

any  rate  of  their  outward,  if  not  of  their  moral  life,  had  to 
be  in  keeping  with  the  character  of  their  office.  We  shall, 
however,  deal  better  with  all  these  matters  in  connection  with 
the  religious  picture  of  the  high  priest.^ 

3.  The  priests  are  consecrated  with  sin-offerings  and  acts 
of  purification,  so  as  to  represent  a  state  of  j^erfect  holiness. 
They  have  to  be,  not  merely  "  purified  "  like  the  Levites,  but 
"  consecrated."  ^  They  are  then  invested  with  the  rights  of 
their  office.  Of  the  ram,  which  is  for  this  reason  called  the 
"  installation  ram,"  ^  that  part  which  belongs  to  the  priest  as 
the  servant  of  God,  is  put  into  their  hand,  in  order  that,  after 
offering  it  to  God,  they  may,  as  it  were,  receive  it  back  from 
Him.  This  is  here  called  "  filling  the  hand,"  ^  a  phrase  which 
originally  just  meant  payment  for  priestly  service.^  Then  the 
president  of  the  priesthood  has  his  head  anointed  with  holy 
oil,  the  usual  symbol  of  the  consecrating  and  healing  power 
of  the  Spirit.  Hence  he  is  specially  called  "  the  anointed 
priest ; "  ^  sometimes,  too,  the  priest  who  is  greater  than  his 
brethren,'^  or  the  high  priest.^ 

The  priests  also  receive  a  sacred  dress  as  the  outward 
mark  of  their  office.  The  ordinary  dress  of  a  priest  is 
meant  to   betoken   purity.^      But    that    of   the    high   priest 

Deut.  xii.  7-18,  xviii.  3,  to  Lev.  vii.,  Num.  xv.,  xviii.  Perhaps  by  that  time 
the  temple-gifts  had  really  become  taxes  levied  for  behoof  of  the  priests. 
Wellh.  160. 

^  Naturally  the  head  of  the  priesthood  at  the  national  sanctuary  always  had 
a  position  of  influence,  as  is  clear  from  the  story  of  Eli,  the  change  made  in  the 
jiriesthood  by  Solomon,  and  the  success  of  Jehoiada  ;  1  Sam.  i.  9,  12  ;  1  Kings 
ii.  35  ;  2  Kings  xi.  4,  17,  xii.  2.  But  the  high  priest,  as  described  in  "the 
Law,"  is  a  personage  not  to  be  thought  of  as  possible  before  the  Exile.  Whether 
"the  second  priest,"  nJC'Dn  jriD,  was  merely  a  vicar  or  a  temple  official  with 
special  duties,  is  a  matter  with  which  Biblical  theology  has  no  concern. 
(2  Kings  xxiii.  4,  xxv.  18  ;  Jer,  lii.  24.) 

2  Ex.  xxviii.  41,  xxix.  1  ff.  (cf.  Num.  viii.  6,  *inQ). 

«  Ex.  xxix.  22,  31  ;  Lev.  iv.  35,  viii.  22  (31,  33). 

*  Ex.  xxix.  9  ;  Lev.  ix.  17,  xvi.  32  ;  Num.  iii.  3. 

^  Judg.  xvii.  5,  12  ;  cf.  also  outside  the  law,  1  Kings  xii.  31,  xiii.  S3. 

6  Lev.  iv.  3,  5,  16  ;  Ex.  xxix.  7  ;  Lev.  viii.  22,  xxi.  10. 

''  Lev.  xxi.  10.  8  Num.  xxxv,  28,  ^njn  jnaH. 

^  Ex.  xxviii.  39,  40,  xxxix.  27  (Byssus). 


346  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

has,  as  it  were,  to  indicate  that  the  covenant-God  is  revealing 
Himself  in  royal  splendour  as  the  God  of  light,  and  that 
to  His  people,  who  appear  before  Him  by  their  representa- 
tive, the  God  of  Israel  is  graciously  vouchsafing  counsel  and 
help.  Hence  the  high  priest's  robe  glitters  with  gold,  the 
sign  of  royal  dignity,  and  with  dazzling  colours,  symboli- 
cal of  the  God  of  light.^  Hence  on  the  ephod  covering 
his  shoulders  there  are  two  memorial  onyx  stones,  with  the 
names  of  the  tribes  of  Israel  on  them,  and  these  Aaron  wears 
before  God  by  way  of  remembrance.^  Hence  on  the  breast- 
plate which  covers  the  ephod,  there  gleam,  engraved  on  four 
rows  of  different  jewels,  the  names  of  these  twelve  tribes, 
worn  also  as  a  memorial  before  God.^  Hence  his  brow  is 
encircled  with  a  golden  band,  fastened  to  the  front  of  his 
turban,  and  bearing  the  inscription,  "  Holy  to  Jehovah."  ^ 
Hence  there  lie  in  the  pocket  of  his  cape  the  Urim  and  the 
Thummim,  means  or  symbols  of  illumination,  by  the  use  of 
which  he  can  communicate  to  his  inquiring  people  the  divine 
will.^  Finally,  as  the  symbol  of  vital  force,  of  undesecrated 
nature,  there  rests  on  his  head  a  lily-shaped  head-dress,  which 
may  be  compared  with  the  unshorn  locks  of  a  Nazirite.*^ 

The  priest  must  be  without  blemish.^  No  one  whose 
"  human  form  divine "  is  either  maimed  or  marred  may 
serve  at  the  altar  of  Jehovah.  And,  while  he  is  on  official 
duty,  everything  distracting  or  exciting  is  to  be  kept  away 
from  him,^  as  well  as  everything  which  would,  even  in  the 
case  of  an  ordinary  Israelite,  interrupt  communion  with  God. 
Above  all,  he  must  not  defile  himself  by  touching  a  dead 
body.     Even  an  ordinary  priest  must  not  attend  a  funeral, 

1  Ex;  xxviii.  4-9,  31,  36,  xxxix.  2  ff.,  22  ff. 

2  Ex',  xxviii.  9-12.  3  jjx.  xxviii.  17-29. 
*  Ex.  xxviii.  36  ff. ;  Lev.  viii.  9. 

^  t2S"'j3n  |C'n>  Ex.  xxviii.  29  ;  Lev.  viii.   8.     Aaron  bears  "the  judgment" 
of  the  clnldren  of  Israel  constantly  on  his  heart  before  God. 
«  Ex.  xxxix.  30  f. 
'  Lev.  xxi.  16  ff.,  xxii.  4  fF.;  cf.  Hermann,  209.  »  Lev.  x.  9. 


THE  HIGH  PRIEST.  347 

except  in  cases  of  emergency,  when  he  is  the  only  male 
person  within  reach  who  can  help.^  In  no  case  can  the  high 
priest  attend,"  The  high  priest  may  not  approach  a  woman 
to  whom  any  dishonour  attaches.^ 

Thus,  according  to  A,  the  priesthood  represents  the  people 
as  ideal,  devoted  to  God.  It  is  the  official  representative  of  the 
people,  as  that  people  appears  to  the  eye  of  God,  and  as  it  is 
according  to  its  vocation.  On  this  official  position  depends  the 
right  of  the  priests  to  draw  nigh  unto  God,  to  appear  before 
Him,  on  every  occasion,  with  the  requests  of  the  people^  and 
to  perform  the  sacred  acts  which  God  requires  of  His  people ; 
in  other  words,  to  serve  the  individual  members  of  the  nation 
as  mediators,  bring  them  in  to  God,  like  those  at  court,  "  who 
see  the  face  of  the  king."  This  right  of  theirs  does  not 
depend  on  their  personal  sinlessness,  but  rather,  just  because 
it  rests  on  office,  on  everything  connected  with  their  official 
appearance  being  agreeable  to  God.  Hence  the  importance  of 
avoiding  every  outward  impurity ;  hence  the  symbolical  dress, 
the  freedom  from  physical  blemishes,  etc.*  This  right  they 
exercise,  not  for  themselves,  but  as  representatives  of  the 
people.  The  priest  is  not,  like  the  prophet,  efficient  in  conse- 
quence of  personal  worth,^  but  in  virtue  of  his  office,  that  is, 
only  so  long  as  he  acts  in  an  official  capacity.  Hence,  to  dis- 
honour this  sacred  office  is  to  render  the  whole  nation  guilty.*^ 
But  where  everything  is  right,  the  priesthood  can  represent 
the  people  before  God,  expiate  their  guilt  by  prayer  and 
sacrifice,  and  secure  for  them  communion  with  God,  and  the 
blessings  resulting  therefrom.  Hence  the  high  priest  blesses 
the  congregation  in  the  name  of  the  Most  High.''  Hence  he 
bears  on  his  shoulder  and  on  his  heart,  that  is,  patiently  and 
lovingly,  the  name  of  the  people  before  the  Lord,  in  order  that 


^  Lev.  xxi.  2  fF.  ^  Lev.  xxi.  11. 

3  Lev.  xxi.  7  ff.  ;  Ezek.  xliv.  22.  *  Ex.  xxviii.  43,  cf.  xxxix. 

5  So  Moses,  Ex.  xxxii.  10  f.,  32;  Num.  xiv.  13  ff. ;  Lev.  viii,  15,  19,  28. 

«  Lev.  iv.  3.  7  Num.  vi.  22-27  ;  Lev.  ix.  22. 


348  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

God,  looking  at  Israel  through  him,  the  representative  of  the 
ideal  Israel,  may  remember  them  in  love.  And  he  wears  on 
the  golden  hand  round  his  brow  the  motto,  "  Holy  to  Jehovah," 
and  thus  Aaron  bears  the  iniquity  of  the  holy  things  which  the 
children  of  Israel  have  sanctified,  as  regards  all  their  holy  gifts  ;^ 
that  is  to  say,  his  complete  surrender  to  God  is  to  be  com- 
pensation for  whatever  duties  towards  God  the  actual  Israel 
has  unwittingly  failed  to  perform.  That  the  people  may  not 
be  destroyed  as  unholy  should  it  come  near  unto  God,  the 
priests  and  the  Levites  must  bear  the  iniquity  of  what  is  con- 
secrated, the  iniquity  of  their  priesthood;^  in  other  words,  they 
are  in  their  official  holiness  to  take  on  themselves  the  danger 
which  contact  with  the  Divine  brings  on  man.  Accordingly, 
the  flesh  of  the  sin-offering  is  given  to  the  priests,  on  the 
understanding  that  they  eat  it,  in  order  "  to  bear  the  iniquity 
of  the  congregation,  to  make  atonement  for  them."  ^  By 
appropriating  the  flesh  of  the  sin-offering,  by  means  of  which 
the  most  sacred  act  of  expiation  is  performed,  the  priesthood, 
taking  upon  itself,  in  its  official  holiness,  the  danger  of  contact 
with  what  is  sacred,  has  to  bring  the  act  of  atonement  to  a 
worthy  conclusion. 

The  high  priest  thus  acts  the  part  of  a  substitute.  On  him 
is  laid  what  would  annihilate  the  people ;  in  virtue  of  his 
sacred  office  he  bears  it  unharmed.  In  him  God  sees  His 
people  holy  and  acceptable,  as  the  object  of  His  favour  and  His 
purposes  of  mercy.  The  gifts  which  he  presents  the  God  of 
Israel  can  accept,  and  allow  to  effect  what  they  are  meant 
to  effect,  because  presented  to  Him  by  the  holy  hands  of  a 
servant  who  has  always  free  access  to  Him.  Hence  Aaron, 
as  the  representative  of  reconciliation  with  God,  can  withstand 
and  mitigate  even  the  judgments  of  divine  wrath.     He  stands 

»  Ex.  xxviii.  38,  xxxix.  30.  ^  -^^^j^^  xviii.  1,  23. 

^  Lev.  X.  17.  The  emphasis  which  is  here  laid  on  the  eating  of  the  flesh 
of  the  sin-offering,  shows  how  closely  connected  the  duties  of  the  priesthood 
were  seen  to  be  with  this  appropriation  of  what  was  most  holy  and  therefore 
dangerous. 


THE  HOLY  PLACE.  349 

there  with  the  sacred  means  of  atonement  between  the  living 
and  the  dead,  and  stays  the  plague.^  And  in  all  matters 
connected  with  the  ordinances  of  public  worship,  the  chief 
personage  is  the  high  priest.  When  a  high  priest  dies,  the 
exile  of  those  who  have  jfled  to  the  cities  of  refuge  is  at  an 
end.  The  old  life  is,  as  it  were,  blotted  out;  a  new  life 
begin S.2  Thus  the  priesthood  stands  before  the  eyes  of  A  as 
a  perpetual  statute.^ 

2.   Tlie  Holy  Place. 

Literature. — Biihr,  Symlolik  des  mosaischen  Cultus,  vol.  i. 
1837,  ii.  1839.  Saalschiitz,  Mosaischcs  Beclit,  vol  i.  297  ff. 
Keil,  Archdologie,  vol.  i.  94  ff.  Georg  Lorentz  Baur,  Be- 
schreibung  dcr  gottesdienstlichen,  Verfassung  der  altcn  Hcbrder, 
vol.  ii.  1806.  Wilhelm  Neumann,  Die  Stiftshutte  in  Wort 
und  Bild gczcichnet,  1861  (cf.  Lutherische  Zeitschrift,  1851,  86). 
Leyrer,  "  Stiftshutte "  (Herzog,  Bcalencyclopcklie,  2nd  ed.,  J. 
Riggenbach).  Kamphausen,  Shulien  und  Kritiken,  1858, 
i.  97  ff. ;  1 8  5  9,  1 1 0  ff.  Fries,  I.e.,  1 8  5  9,  i.  1 0  3  ff.  Friedrich. 
SymboliJc  der  mosaischen  Stiftshutte,  1841.  Eiggenbach,  Die 
mosaische  Stiftshutte,  Basely  iv.  1862.  Ewald,  AUcrthumer  des 
VolJces  Israel,  2nd  ed.  Knobel  (Dillmann),  Commentar  zu 
Exodus  XXV.  ff.  H.  Graf,  De  temple  Silonensi,  1855. 
Wilhelm  Engelhardt,  "  Die  Idee  der  Stiftshutte  "  {Zeitschr.  fur 
luth.  Theol.  u.  K.  1868,  3).  Kurtz,  Der  alttestamentliche 
Oifcrcidtus,  1862.  Smend,  "  Ueber  die  Bedeutung  des  jeru- 
salemitischen  Tempels  flir  die  alttest.  Eeligion  "  {Theol.  Stud.  u. 
Krit.  1884,  iv.  689).  Philo,  Quis  rerum  divinarum  hceres  (ed. 
Frcft.  1691,  p.  510  Id),  De  plant.  Noe,  (216  £f.).  Josephus, 
Antiq.  iii.  7.  7.  Origen,  IIo7n.  to  Exocl.  (de  la  Eue,  ii.  162  ff.), 
Clemens  Alex.  (ed.  Potter,  666). 

1.  The  sanctuary,  which  is  described  in  A  as  the  original 

1  Num.  xvi.  46  ff.,  xvii.  13.  ^  Num.  xxxv.  25,  28  ;  Josh.  xx.  6. 

3  Ex.  xxix.  9,  xl.  15. 


350  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

place  of  worship,  constructed  in  accordance  witli  tlie  direct 
orders  of  God,  is  like  the  ideal  temple  of  Ezekiel,  a  product 
of  religious  thought.  Its  historical  basis  is  the  temple  of 
Solomon.  The  great  king  built  a  splendid  sanctuary,  not 
essentially  different  from  those  which  the  neighbouring 
peoples  dedicated  to  their  gods.  But  this  temple  was  early 
considered  a  sanctuary  of  quite  a  peculiar  character.  And 
when  A  idealised  it  into  his  picture  of  the  tabernacle,  he 
intended  thereby  to  give  perfect  expression  to  the  divine 
ideal  of  the  place  of  worship. 

From  early  times,  indeed  ever  since  the  days  of  Philo  and 
Josephus,  very  different  explanations  have  been  given  of  the 
tabernacle.^  These  old  Jewish  writers  held,  although  not 
to  the  exclusion  of  other  meanings,  that  this  building  repre- 
sented the  world,  that  is,  both  the  ideal  and  the  real  world, 
above  which  God  sits  enthroned  as  Benefactor  and  Judge. 
This  thought,  after  being  repeated  by  many  of  the  Church 
fathers,  has  been  lately  developed  by  Biihr  in  a  very  skilful 
fashion,  his  theory  being,  that  the  tabernacle  represents  the 
world  as  a  revelation  of  God.  Other  interpretations  are  also 
very  numerous.  It  is  true  that  the  direct  reference  to  Christ 
has  not  of  late  been  reasserted.  Still,  this  may  be  included 
in  the  explanation  that  the  tent  is  man  as  a  microcosm ;  an 
explanation  hinted  at  by  Philo,  openly  asserted  by  Luther,  and 
recently  expounded  with  rather  curious  learning  by  Fried- 
rich.  The  Dutcli  School  of  Typology  makes  the  tabernacle  a 
type  of  the  Commonwealth,  or  Church  of  Christ,  Neumann 
and  Keil  see  in  it  the  stages  by  which  God  and  man  draw 
near  each  other ;  Lisco,  the  picture  of  a  future  indwelling  of 
God  in  humanity  ;  Kurtz,  the  place  where  God  dwells  in 
order  to  sanctify  His  people. 

The  last-mentioned  view,  now  the  most  widely  adopted, 

^  For  the  fuller  history  of  its  interpretation,  cf.  in  Winer,  Riggenbach  (3), 
Biihr,  and  in  Dicstel's  Geschichie  des  Alien  Testaments  in  dcr  chrisilichen 
Kirche,  1869,  p.  753  f. 


THE  HOLY  PLACE.  351 

seems  to  me  the  only  tenable  one.  Xot  a  word  in  the 
description  of  the  tabernacle  ever  indicates  that  other  secrets 
are  lying  hidden  there.  And  it  was  scarcely  in  keeping  with 
Israel's  mode  of  thought  to  allegorise  the  universe  after 
the  manner  of  a  nature-religion,  far  less  the  human  body  or  a 
secret  in  the  womb  of  the  future.  -The  tabernacle  is  simply 
a  dwelling-place  of  God  formed  on  the  model  of  a  shepherd's 
tent.i  Hence  it  is  called  with  special  emphasis  "  the  dwell- 
ing." 2  And  since  the  dwelling  of  God  is  synonymous  with 
His  revealing  Himself,  it  is  therefore  called  "  the  tent  of 
witness,"  ^  where  God  makes  communications  by  oracle,  or  in 
general  reveals  Himself  to  this  people  as  the  God  of  their 
salvation.  Its  shape  is  copied  from  the  ordinary  plan  of  a 
nomad's  tent.  Surrounded  by  an  open  uncovered  court, 
where  any  one  may  stand,  a  shepherd's  tent,  lighted,  not  by 
the  sun,  but  by  a  lamp,  has  first  a  tolerably  large  apartment  in 
which  are  kept  various  household  articles,  and  into  which  the 
master's  friends  are  freely  admitted  ;  then  a  smaller  apartment, 
which  is  the  home  sanctum,  and  into  which  no  stranger  dare 
enter.  Here,  too,  the  arrangement  is  quite  similar,  and  the 
various  articles  of  furniture  correspond  exactly  with  the 
prototype. 

The  Holy  of  Holies  ^  corresponds  to  the  apartment  in  the 
tent  into  which  no  one  is  admitted.  Here  the  measure- 
ments are  perfect — the  number  ten  in  length,  breadth,  and 
height  expressing  the  most  perfect  shape  of  room.^     In  this 

^  The  historian  got  this  idea  from  the  old  tradition  regarding  tlie  tent,  "the 
curtains,"  in  which  the  ark  of  Jehovah  dwelt.     Ex.  xxxiii.  7  ;  2  Sam.  vii.  6. 

"  p*;i'?3n,  Ex.  xxxvi.  8,  13,  14,  xxxviii.  21,  xxxix.  33,  xl.  17,  34 ;  Lev. 
viii.  10,  etc.  Combined  with  other  words,  Num.  ix.  15  ;  Ex.  xxxix.  32,  40, 
xl.  2. 

^  ninyn  \y^'J2,  Ex.  xxv.  22,  xxxviii.  21  ;  Nnm.  i.  53 ;  nnj/'H  ^HS,  Num. 
ix.  15,  xvii.  22.  The  name  "lyiD  bnH  must  unquestionably  mean,  accordiDg 
to  A,  the  tent  in  which  God  meets  with  His  people,  Ex.  xxv.  22,  xxix.  42, 
XXX.  6  ;  Num.  xvii.  19. 

*  D''C'n|?n  C'lp,  Ex.  xxvi.  33.     (In  the  temple,  -fll,  1  Kings  vi.  23.) 

^  In  the  temple,  20,  20,  20,  1  Kings  v.  2,  16.  So  also  according  to  Ezek. 
xl.  47,  xli.  5.     In  the  tabernacle,  Ex.  xxvi.  2,  8,  xxvii.  9  f.,  the  proportions  are 


352  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

room  there  is  always  a  dim  religio^^s  light,  in  keeping  with 
the  mystery  of  the  divine,  and  with  the  solemn  feeling  that 
God  is  near.  Here  everything  is  overlaid  with  gold,  the 
symbol  of  regal  splendour.  The  wall  is  brightly  coloured 
and  splendidly  ornamented  with  parti  -  coloured  tapestry, 
betokening  the  effulgent  brightness  of  the  God  of  light,  whose 
rays  gleam  with  the  colours  of  the  rainbow.  This  splendour 
can  only  be  symbolical.  For  no  eye  may  see  it.  Here  are 
the  mysterious  figures  of  the  cherubim,  indicating  God's 
presence  and  proclaiming  His  inaccessible  glory.  Only  once 
a  year  may  God's  holiest  and  most  trusted  servant,  the 
high  priest,  enter  this  place  ;  and  even  he  not  without 
"  the  blood  of  sprinkling,"  enveloped  in  a  cloud  of  incense, 
heralded  by  the  tinkling  of  the  bells  on  his  robe,^  and  pro- 
tected by  his  sacred  garb  of  office,  lest  he  feel  the  consuming 
glory  of  the  Most  High.  For  here  is  God's  proper  dwelling, 
where  He  has  settled  among  His  people.^  He  dwells  in  the 
midst  of  Israel,^  Certainly  it  is  not  in  a  material  way,  as  the 
primitive  ages  may  have  thought.  Already  the  Deuteronomic 
narrator  guards  against  the  idea  of  confining  God  within  a 
house,*  and  still  less,  of  course,  is  there  any  such  idea  in  A. 
But  the  glory  of  God,  that  is,  the  revelation  of  his  holy 

the  most  ideal.  The  mystic  significance  of  numbers  is,  indeed,  in  its  full 
development,  a  favourite  amusement  of  later  times.  But  to  consider  certain 
numerical  relations  as  significant  and  sacred  is  quite  in  accordance  even  with 
the  spirit  of  antiquity.  Thus  the  number  7  is  already  found  in  the  Pentateuch 
in  B,  and  also  40  and  400.  The  number  12,  as  the  number  expressing  the 
sacred  relations  of  peoples,  is  very  ancient  (Gen.  xxv.  16,  xxxv.  23  ff.  etc.).  It 
is  probably  quite  right  to  consider  "3,"  the  first  indivisible  number,  as  the 
number  for  divinity  ;  4,  for  the  rmiverse  ;  3  -f"  4  =  7  =  the  divine  in  the 
earthly  ;  3  X  4,  the  earthly  according  to  divine  measure  ;  10,  the  complete 
number ;  5,  imperfect  development.  (On  the  symbolism  of  numbers  among 
the  Greeks,  cf.  Welcker,  1.  52  f.) 

^  Ex.  xxviii.  35. 

^  Thus  A,  Ex.  xl.  34,  35,  distinguishes  between  the  sanctuary  as  a  whole 
and  the  dwelling  which  is  filled  with  the  glory  of  God. 

3  Ex.  xxv.  8,  xxix.  43  K,  xl.  34  ff.  (1  Kings  viii.  10  ff.,  29  ff".).  Besides,  the 
primitive  holiness  of  the  no7-th  side  is  indicated  by  several  features,  Lev.  i.  11, 
vi.  25,  vii.  2  ;  cf.  Judg.  v.  4  ff.  ;  Ezek.  i.  4  ;  Isa.  xiv.  14. 

*  1  Kings  viii.  27. 


THE  HOLY  PLACE.  353 

presence,  is  thonglit  of  as  filling  the  Holy  of  Holies.^  Here 
Israel  has  to  think  of  Jehovah  as  present,  and  to  seek  Him  as 
his  covenant  God.  But  the  foundation  on  which  this  presence 
of  God  in  Israel  rests  is  the  covenant.  Hence,  the  most 
essential  article  is  the  ark,  containing  the  covenant-contract. 
This  is  the  foundation  on  which  alone  God's  presence  in 
Israel  is  justified.  No  doubt,  before  the  time  of  Solomon 
the  sacred  ark  was  often  far  away  from  the  sanctuary,  at  other 
places,^  especially  in  the  camp  of  Israel,^  and  even  captured  by 
the  enemy.*  It  was  always  regarded  as  the  real  palladium;  and 
as  superstition  gathered  around  it,  it  became  quite  synonymous 
with  the  presence  of  God.^  Wherever  it  was,  people  thought 
they  "  stood  before  Jehovah."  **  They  prayed  before  it.'^ 
liut  for  A  this  ancient  sacred  object  is  the  pledge  of 
God's  presence,  simply  because  it  has  within  it  the  covenant- 
contmct  and  other  very  old  memorials  of  a  sacred  kind.  It 
stands  immovable  in  the  Holy  of  Holies.  From  its  golden 
covering  God  speaks  from  between  the  cherubim.^  It  was 
formerly  called  the  ark  of  testimony,^  probably  because  the 
oracle  of  God  was  connected  with  it.  But  in  A  it  is  "  the 
ark  of  the  covenant "  in  which  is  preserved  "  the  covenant  of 
Jehovah."  ^'^  God's  presence  in  Israel  is  not  something  natural, 
something  connected  with  some  attribute  of  a  place,  but  a 
moral    fact,    conditioned    by    God's    covenant    grace    offered 

1  Ex.  xl.  34  ff. ;  1  Kin£,'s  viii.  10  f.;  Ezek.  x.  3  ff . 

2  Jadg.  XX.  18,  20,  xxi.  2  ;  1  Sam.  vii.  1,  2,  vi.  12  ;  2  Sam.  vi.  2,  3. 
»  1  Sara.  iv.  3  fF.  (xiv.  18) ;  2  Sam.  xi.  11  (xv.  24 If.). 

*  1  Sam.  iv.  11,  v.  1  ff.  (cf.  2  Sam.  v.  21,  where  tlie  Philistines  leave  their 
idols  on  the  field  of  battle). 

5  1  Sam.  iv.  3,  7,  13,  18,  19,  21,  22;  on  the  other  hand,  Jcr.  iii.  16  ff. 

*  Josh,  xviii.  10,  xix.  51,  xxi.  1,  xxii.  9,  12  ;  JuJg.  x.  10,  xx.  1,  xxi.  1. 
'  Josh.  vii.  6  (A). 

8  Num.  vii.  89. 

^  nnyn  inX,  Ex.  xxxlx.  35,  xl.  20  f.  ;  josh.  iv.  16. 

^^  m.T  nna  pX,  Num.  x.  33,  xiv.  44;  Josh.  iii.  3,  6,  8,  11,  13,  14,  17, 
iv.  9,  18,  vi.  6,  viii.  33  ;  1  Sara.  iv.  3,  4.  Simply  mn''  P"lX,  Josh.  iii.  13 
(2  Sam.  vi.  2,  vii.  2)  ;  cf.  1  Kings  viii.  9,  21  (the  ark  in  which  was  the  covenant 
of  Jehovah). 

VOL.  I.  Z 


354  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

to  this  people  for  its  free  appropriation.^  The  "law"  is  God's 
real  presence  in  Israel. 

But  the  real  presence  of  God  in  Israel  is  connected  with 
the  throne  ahove  the  ark.  Over  the  ark,  though  probably 
not  as  an  ordinary  lid,  but  rather  as  an  ornament  placed  upon 
it,  is  the  kapporeth,-  "  the  covering."  According  to  the  view 
taken  by  A,  the  name  is  to  be  explained  from  the  purpose 
of  atonement  as  "place  of  atonement,"  a  view  fully  justified  by 
the  verb  "i??.  For  A's  general  mode  of  thought,  the  meaning 
covering  of  the  sacred  ark,  derived  from  the  first  signi- 
fication of  the  verb  "to  cover,"  is  too  jejune.  Here  under 
the  guardianship  of  the  cherubim  ^  God  dwells ;  here  He 
speaks  and  reveals  Himself.  These  show  that  the  holy 
dwelling-place  of  God  is  here,  and  they  veil  the  divine  glory 
from  the  vulgar  eye.^  Hence  the  old  name  of  God,  "  He  who 
sits  upon  the  cherubim,"  gets  a  new  shade  of  meaning.^  It 
now  implies  that  He  dwells  in  the  thick  darkness  underneath 
their  wings.^  Here  is  the  place  where  the  penitent  may 
find  God.  Here  the  atoning  blood  is  brought  into  the  very 
presence  of  God  by  the  most  solemn  atonement  in  Israel.'^ 

Separated  from  this  Holy  of  Holies  by  a  costly  curtain,  the 
veil  of  witness,^  the  Holy  Place  ^  corresponds  to  the  larger 
apartment  of  the  tent,  in  wliich  daily  life  goes  on,  and  to 
which  also  the  intimate  friends  of  the  master  have  access. 
Here,  too,  the  idea  of  grandeur  is  still  kept  well  in  view, 
although  no  longer  to  the  same  extent  as  in  the  Holy  of 
Holies.      Here   the    proportions   are    n:iore    irregular.      It   is 

1  Ex.  XXV.  10,  16,  21,  xxvi.  33,  xxxviL  Iff.,  xxxix.  35,  xl.  3ff.,  20 ff. 
"  mssn,   Sejit.  iXatTTr.piov,  Ex.  XXV.  17,  20  ff.,  xxxvii.  6  f'.,  xxxix.  35;  Vulg. 
propiticUorium  ;  Luther,  Gnadenstnhl=meTcj-soa,t. 

*  The  simple  consideration  that  elsewhere  the  ark  never  has  cherubim,  and 
tliat  the  two  great  cherubim  of  the  temjile  would,  in  fact,  have  covered  the  two 
other  cherubim,  if  these  had  been  fastened  on  the  kapporeth,  ought  to  leave  no 
doubt  as  to  the  relation  of  the  two  sanctuaries.  "*  Lev.  xvi.  2  IL 

^  D"'ni2n  nti'V,  l  Sam.  iv.  4  ;  2  Sam.  vi.  2  (1  Kings  viii.  10). 

^  1  Kings  viii.  12.  '  Lev.  xvi. 

®  nniS,  Ex.  xxvi.  31  ;  nnyn  DDIS,  Lev.  xxiv.  3. 

*  C'lpn,  Ex.  xxvi.  33. 


THE  HOLY  TLACE.  355 

merely  a  question  of  convenient  and  sufficient  accommodation.^ 
Nevertheless  this  is  the  real  place  of  public  worship.  Here 
stands  the  table  of  Jehovah  with  its  twelve  loaves,  which, 
according  to  ancient  custom,  are  presented  to  Him  as  "  bread 
of  the  face,"  ^  i.e.  bread  placed  before  Him,  appropriated 
to  Him,  or  as  "  bread  of  fragrance,"  i.e.  sacrificial  bread.^ 
From  the  gifts  of  nature  which  God  bestows  upon  them,  the 
twelve  tiibes,  according  to  their  sacred  number,  offer  one  con- 
secrated loaf  each,  of  course  as  food,  not  for  God,  but  for  His 
servants.*  These  loaves,  with  the  drink-offering  of  wine, 
which,  though  not  mentioned,  is  certainly  presupposed,^  form,  as 
it  were,  a  continual  sacrifice.  Owing  to  the  incense  which  lies 
upon  them,  they  are,  in  fact,  "an  offering  by  fire."^  Thus 
they  stand  as  a  gift  to  God  from  His  people  of  tlie  jDroducts 
of  nature,  symbolically  representing  His  "  nourishment  by  fire," 
but  in  no  sense  "  representing  the  people  as  a  pure  dough  of 
life"  (Hiivernick).  They  are  a  part  of  the  furnishing  of  tlie 
chamber,  which  would  not  be  complete  without  a  dining-table. 
Here  is  the  sacred  golden  candlestick  for  lighting  the 
chamber,  from  which  the  sunlight  was  quite  shut  out.'''  It  is 
hard  to  say  if  this,  too,  represents  some  religious  idea,  and  if 
so,  what  ?  It  is  a  pleasing  idea  that  it  may  symbolise  the 
holy  people  as  it  stands  in  the  full  sunlight  of  God's  favour, 
drinking  in  His  Spirit.  But  it  is  simpler  and  equally  pleas- 
ing to  think  of  the  illumination  afforded  by  the  divine  revela- 
tion,— of  the  law,  as  the  everlasting  light  of  Israel.  Certainly 
the  candlestick  is  the  light  of  God's  house,  and  it  has  seven 

1  10,  10,  20,-20,  20,  40,  1  Kings  vi.  16  (so  in  Ezekiel). 

-  Q^JS  On^,  and  also  D''JSr!  DPll^,  shew-breaJ,  Ex.  xxv.  30,  xxxv.  13  ;  cf. 
1  .S;im.  xxi,  4  ff. 

■*  m3TX?  Dn?,  Lev.  xxiv.  7  (bread  of  remembraiiuc  ?). 

*  Lev.  xxiv.  9 ;  1  Sam.  xxi.  5-7. 

^  Ex.  XXV.  29,  xxxvii.  16  ;  Num.  iv.  7  (Kurtz).  «  Lev.  xxiv.  7  ff. 

'  n'On  "13,  Lev.  xxiv.  2,  to  be  kept  as  "an  everlasting  statute,"  Ex.  xxvii. 
21  (Ex.  xxv.  31-37,  3nr  mjD),  xxvi.  35,  xxxvii.  17,  xxxix.  37  ;  Num.  viii.  1  ff. 
According  to  1  Sam.  iii.  3,  we  must  think  of  lamps  which  were  kept  burning 
only  during  the  night.     In  the  temple  there  were  ten  lamps,  1  Kings  vii.  49. 


356  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY 

arms,  seven  being  the  sacred  number,  which  in  Zechariah  is 
multiplied  by  itself.^  Here  stands  the  golden  altar  of  incense, 
from  which  the  incense  is  wafted  into  the  Holy  of  Holies ; 
so  that  it,  too,  might  quite  well  be  regarded  as  a  piece  of 
furniture  in  somewhat  close  connectir.n  with  this  room.^  The 
incense,  which  certainly  could  only  be  the  sacred  kind,  the 
use  of  which  for  any  secular  purpose^  was  strictly  forbidden, 
had  to  float  inwards  to  the  presence  of  God,  as  a  symbol  of 
adoration  and  thanksgiving  offered  to  Him  by  Israel.  Similar 
fragrance,  we  know,  filled  the  palaces  of  the  nobles. 

The  outer  court,*  or  open  space  in  which  the  people  are 
wont  to  assemble,  runs  all  round  the  dwelling-house  proper. 
Its  measurements  have  been  determined  solely  by  the  object 
of  the  building,  and  have  no  symbolical  meaning.^  In  it 
are  placed  the  household  utensils,  which  would  take  up  too 
much  room  inside,  and  also  the  altar  of  acacia  wood  overlaid 
with  brass,^  on  which,  out  of  their  own  meat  and  drink,  the 
people  offer  to  God  "  sacrifices  by  fire,"  consisting  of  flesh, 
baked  bread,  oil,  and  wine.  The  altar,  with  its  horns  pointing 
heavenwards,  is,  as  it  were,  the  home-hearth  of  God  Himself, 
and  affords  a  safe  asylum  to  refugees.'^  Here,  too,  are  the  vessels 
used  for  purification  and  consecration.  In  a  word,  the  real 
worship  of  God,  as  it  concerns  the  people,  is  performed  here. 

^  Zech.  iv.  1  ff. 

^  Owing  to  Heb.  ix.  4,  this  has  become  an  interesting  point.  Here,  in  my 
opinion,  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  certainly  had  in  his  mind  only 
the  description  of  the  tabernacle  according  to  the  Sejituagint  in  Ex.  xxx.  1-6, 
xxxvii.  25,  xxxix.  38,  xL  26,  where  the  aTivavn  toZ  x.a.-a.riTa.(r[zu.To$  quite  easily 
allowed  of  such  a  meaning.     1  Kings  vi.  22. 

*  D"'£iDn  miDp,  Ex.  xxx.  7,  9,  10  (once  a  year  the  blood  of  atonement  was 
put  on  its  horns  too). 

*  pu'ISn  li'n,  Ex.  xxvii.  9,  xxxviii.  9. 

*  Ex.  xxvii.  9,  100  cubits  south  and  north,  50  cubits  west  and  cast.  In 
Ezekiel,  100  cubits  all  round. 

"  n^J?n  n^TO,  Ex.  xxvii.  1,  xxxi.  9,  xxxviii.  1,  xxxix.  39.  How  this  is  to 
be  actually  carried  out  in  practice  is  no  concern  of  the  narrator. 

'  1  Kings  i.  50,  ii.  28  ;  2  Kings  xi.  15.  (That  the  horns  of  the  altar  are  meant 
to  refer  to  the  ox-image  of  Jehovah  appears  to  nie,  in  view  of  the  similar  custom 
in  Greece  and  Rome,  improbaWe.) 


THE  HOLY  PLACE.  357 

The  taliernacle  is  thus  not  a  synagogue  or  place  of  meeting 
for  the  congregation,  but  a  house  of  God,  like  the  heathen 
shrines,  which,  strictly  speaking,  were  simply  homes  for  the 
deity  and  his  servants.  But  God  dwells  there,  not  as  an 
image,  or  in  a  form  conditioned  by  relations  to  nature,  but  in 
virtue  of  His  testimony,  of  Ilis  revealed  salvation.  Hence 
the  temple  is  already  called  "  a  house  for  the  name  of 
Jehovah  ;  "  ^  and  the  tabernacle  is  "  the  place  where  Jehovah 
meets  with  His  people,"  ^  God's  presence  in  Israel  is  a 
gracious  presence,  and  therefore  depends  on  the  continuance 
of  the  covenant.  Hence,  even  at  the  building  of  the  temple 
it  is  said  that  God  will  dwell  in  Israel  only  if  the  people  keep 
His  statutes  and  His  commandments.^  God  dwells  above  the 
ark  of  the  covenant,  the  foundation-stone  of  this  divine  presence. 

Individual  and  national  sins,  resulting  from  human  weak- 
ness, do  not  destroy  the  covenant  or  prevent  God  from 
dwelling  among  His  people.  In  this  ideal  place  the  fellow- 
ship of  God  with  His  people  finds  permanent  expression, 
although  not  a  single  member  of  the  people  may  feel  himself 
worthy  of  such  fellowship.  Hence  the  place  where  God  is 
present  is  also  the  place  of  atonement.  Here  God  is  to  be 
found  when  the  people  come,  with  the  duly  prescribed  offer- 
ings, to  entreat  His  forgiveness.  Here  is  the  holy  spot  where 
every  one  can  daily  get  away  out  of  the  state  of  separation 
from  God  caused  by  sin,  back  into  the  fellowship  whicli 
Israel  has  with  God.  It  is  therefore  the  place  of  reconcilia- 
tion. In  this  holy  abode  the  covenant  people  has  a  con- 
secrated spot  where  every  penitent  sinner,  as  well  as  the 
people  when  it  seeks  for  mercy,  may  find  God  present  and 
ready  to  forgive. 

Hence,  according  to  the  story  of  the  building  of  the  taber- 
nacle, all  the  materials  required  for  it  are  given  as  free-will 
offerings  by  the  people,  as  "  oblations,"  and  they  are  conse- 

^  1  Kings  V.  17,  18,  viii.  20. 

2  Ex.  XXX.  6,  xxix.  42  f . ;  Num.  xvii.  19.  »  1  Kiug.s  vi.  12,  13  (Deut.). 


358  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

quently  looked  upou  as  being  in  themselves  holy,  dedicated 
to  God.^  Hence  they  afterwards  get  a  special  consecration, 
are  anointed  with  the  holy  anointing  oil,  and  are  thus  made 
"  most  holy  " ;  so  that  whoever  touches  them  becomes  holy 
himself,  and  is  henceforth  the  property  of  God.^  Hence  it  is 
said  that  the  cloud  representing  the  divine  presence  covered 
this  house  and  filled  it  with  the  glory  of  Jehovah;^  that  God 
took  possession  of  His  house,  and  speaks  *  from  it  and  blesses 
His  people  from  it.  This  is  beautifully  expressed  in  regard 
to  the  temple  by  the  prophetic  narrator,  when,  thinking  of 
how  people  would  turn  in  prayer  toward  it,  he  says,  "  The 
eyes  of  God  are  open  toward  this  house  day  and  night;  God's 
name  is  in  it  to  answer  prayer ; "  and  when  he  describes  how, 
in  the  most  different  situations  in  life,  the  people  are  to  seek 
here  for  salvation  and  reconciliation.^  Naturally  A  expresses 
this  in  a  still  clearer  and  more  definite  way.  Hither,  there- 
fore, the  people  have  to  bring  all  their  offerings.  Indeed, 
according  to  the  ideal  requirement,  an  animal's  life,  being  the 
property  of  God,  is  not  to  be  taken  anywhere  else  than  here, 
where  it  may  be  given  back  in  its  blood  to  its  only  owner.^ 

Historically,  Israel  bad  attached  no  religious  value  to  the 
external  details  of  the  temple.  Solomon  got  a  Tyrian 
architect  to  build  it,  who  naturally  made  use  of  ornaments 
and  symbols  copied  from  the  ordinary  sacred  buildings 
of  Phoenicia.  Hence  the  pomegranates  and  the  lilies,  the 
two    splendid    pillars    before    the    temple,    the     brazen     sea 

^  Ex.  XXV.  1  ff.,  nrr^nn  ;  cf.  Num.  vii.  3ff. 

^  Ex.  XXX.  2611'.,  xl.  9  tr.  ;  Num.  vii.  1  ;  cf.  Ex.  xxix.  43. 

*  Ex.  xl.  34  f.  ;  cf.  1  Kiugs  viii.  10,  11.  Ezekiel  transfers  this  to  his  liope 
for  the  future,  xllii.  4  ff. 

*  Lev.  i.  1,  etc.  ^  1  Kings  viii.  24,  31  f.,  38,  44,  48,  ix.  3. 

®  Lev.  xvii.  3  f. ,  BfF.  In  Israel,  as  among  other  ancient  peoples,  an  act  of 
sacrifice  was  originally  connected  with  the  killing  of  every  animal.  But  that 
takes  for  granted  that  nothing  was  known  as  to  one  place  only  being  holy.  Of 
course,  a  nation  with  a  single  sanctuary  could  not  keep  up  any  such  custom. 
Hence  Deut.  xii.  15  logically  abolishes  it.  But  A,  for  whom  questions  about 
the  practical  carrying  out  of  a  thing  never  stand  in  the  way  of  a  principle, 
keeps  up  the  old  demand,  in  spite  of  there  being  only  one  Holy  Place. 


SACRED  SEASONS.  359 

resting  on  twelve  oxen,  and  the  bases  on  which  the  lavers 
rested.  The  two  pillars  before  the  house,  Boaz  and  Jachin, 
are  clearly  symbols  taken  from  the  Asiatic  nature-religion. 
Indeed,  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  outlandish  magniii- 
cence  of  this  temple,  compared  with  the  old  simplicity  of 
divine  worship,  was  displeasing  and  offensive  to  the  patriotic 
circles  in  ancient  Israel.  But  ere  long  every  part  of  it,  once 
it  was  there,  was  worshipped  with  growing  punctiliousness. 
The  introduction  of  an  altar  made  after  a  foreign  pattern 
was  represented  as  an  act  of  impiety.^  Just  as  A  traces  back 
every  separate  part  of  the  tabernacle  to  a  direct  divine  order, 
so  the  chronicler  also  represents  the  temple  of  Solomon  as 
built  according  to  a  plan  given  by  God.^ 

3,   Sacred  Seasons. 

Literature.  —  H.  Ewald,  "  De  feriarum  hebrffiarum 
origine  et  ratione "  {Zcitschrift  fur  Kitnde  dcs  Morgenlandes, 
iii.  410-441),  cf.  AltertUlmcr,  p.  447  ff. ;  Jahrh.  d.  lihl.  Wiss. 
iv.  131  f.,  viii.  223,  ix.  25V  f.;  Gotting.  gel.  Anz.  1835, 
2025  f.;  1836,  678  f.  Ilupfeld,  "  De  primitiva  et  vera 
festorum  apud  Hebrreos  ratione  ex  legum  mosaicarum 
varietate  eruenda,"  part  1,  Osterprogramm,  1852  ;  part  2, 
also,  "  Commentatio  de  anni  sabbatici  et  jobilei  ratione," 
Osterprogramm,  1858;  "Appendix  quo  festorum  memorise 
apud  rerum  hebraicarum  scriptores  cum  legibus  mosaicis 
collate  exarainantur,"  Osterprogoumm,  1865.  Gramberg, 
vol.  i.  chap.  iv.  Y.  Baur,  "  Ueber  die  ursprlingiiche  Bedeutung 
des  Passabfestes  und  des  Beschneidungsritus  "  (Tilhinger 
Zeifschrift,  1832,  i.  40-124);  "  Der  hebniische  Sabbath 
und  die  Nationalfeste  des  mosaischen  Cultus "  (I.e.  1832, 
iii.  123—192).  J.  F.  L.  George,  Die  dlteren  judisehen  Fcste 
mit    eincr    Kritih    der    Gesctzgchung    dcs    Pentateuch,    Berlin 

^  2  Kings  xvi.  16.     Still  the  chief  priest  himself  has  a  hand  in  it. 
2  Ex.  XXV.  9,  40  ;  cf  1  Chion.  xxviii.  19. 


3  GO  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

1835.  Hitzig,  Ostcrn  und  PJingstcn,  1838  (cf.  1837,  Ncue 
Kirchcnzeitnno).  Oehler,  "  Feste  der  alten  HebrUer,  Sabbath, 
Sabbath-  und  Jobel-jabr "  (in  the  articles  in  Herzog's  Beal- 
encyclopiidic,  2iid  ed.,  Delitzsch  u.  Orelli).  Joh.  Bachmann, 
JDie  Fcstgcsctzc  des  Pentateuch  avf's  Naic  hritisch  untcrsucld, 
Berlin  1858.  Wilhelm  Schultz,  "Die  innere  Bedeutung  der 
alttestamentlichen  Teste"  {Deutsche  Zeitschr.fur  chr.  Wiss.und 
chr.  Lehcn,  1857,  23-27,  28-30).  Eedslob,  Die  UUischen 
Angaben  illcr  Stlftung  und  Grund  der  Passahfcicr,  1856.  J. 
Meyer,  De  fcstis  Hcbrworum,  1724,  4.  Saalscliiitz,  Mosaischcs 
Pecht,  i.  385  ff.  H.  Oort,  "De  groete  Verzoendag "  (TIlcgI. 
Tijdschr.  1876,  142). 

1.  A  had  also  a  decisive  influence  on  the  festivals  of  the 
religion  of  Israel,  although  here  he  found  earlier  laws  which 
his  system  did  not  abrogate  in  every  detail.  Here  we  have, 
of  course,  to  leave  quite  out  of  view  the  older  national  festivals, 
which  were  regulated  solely  by  custom,  and  to  take  into 
account  the  "  Thorah  "  only.  Its  oldest  sections  are  found 
in  Ex.  xxiii.  14  ff.,  and  these  lie  at  the  foundation  of  the 
tradition  as  now  given  in  C.  They  quite  agree  with  those 
in  xxxiv.  18  ff.,  and  whatever  else  can  be  taken  from  the 
narratives  of  C  and  B.  In  Deut.  xvi.  1-18,  it  is  simply  on 
the  basis  of  these  laws  that  the  three  principal  feasts  are 
instituted  at  which  Israel  has  to  appear  with  gifts  before 
God.  Deuteronomy  knows  nothing  of  the  more  detailed 
ritual  of  the  Passover,  or  of  the  day  of  atonement,  or  of  any 
historical  reference  in  the  feast  of  Tabernacles.  Nevertheless, 
even  here  the  Sabbath  is  the  foundation  of  everything,  and 
the  spring  festival  has  already,  in  addition  to  its  natural 
character,  a  special  reference  to  God's  mighty  act  of  deliver- 
ance by  the  hand  of  Moses.  A  next  brought  the  feast  of 
Tabernacles  into  connection  with  Israel's  sojourn  in  the 
wilderness,^  which  does  not,  however,  agree  very  well  with  the 
"  joyous "   dwelling   in   booths    built    in    the    newly  -  cleared 

^  Lev.  xxiii.  43. 


CYCLE  OF  SACRED  SEASONS  IN  A.  3G1 

gardens.  Nowhere  in  the  Old  Testament  has  the  feast  of 
Pentecost  a  historical  significance.^ 

2.  According  to  A,  the  main  idea  of  a  sacred  season  is,  that 
the  ordinary  arrangements  of  life,  depending  as  they  do  on 
the  changing  seasons,  must  be  brought  within  the  sphere  of 
religion, — that  Israel  is  leading  a  life  which  has  a  constant 
reference  to  the  doings  of  God.  The  whole  time  of  this 
people  belongs  to  its  God,  and  has  to  be  given  back  to  Him, 
according  to  His  statutes,  by  the  dedication  to  Him  of  the 
holy  seasons.  Eesting  on  the  sacred  number  seven,  and  going 
back  in  its  original  conception  to  the  theory  of  creation,  the 
cycle  of  festivals  in  A  embraces  every  important  occasion  in  this 
people's  life,  whether  natural  or  historical,  which  indicates  its 
special  relationship  to  God.  In  these  feasts  every  state  of 
feeling,  from  pure  enjoyment  of  God's  gifts  in  the  good  land 
of  its  inheritance  to  sorrowful  repentance  and  humble  sub- 
mission to  His  holy  severity  and  pardoning  love,  finds 
full  and  clear  expression.  And  at  all  these  feasts  the  holy 
people  has  to  gather  round  its  divine  King  with  offerings 
of  reverence  and  love,  and  to  assure  Him  of  its  devotion  and 
loyalty.  The  feasts  are,  on  the  one  hand,  "  set  times,"  "^ 
fixed  points  marking  the  flight  of  time,  landmarks  of 
eternal  thoughts  in  the  stream  of  passing  phenomena.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  three  great  annual  festivals  are  "  holidays,"  •'* 
days  of  religious  joy,  when  the  multitude  of  those  who  keep 
holiday  gather  exultantly  round  the  throne  of  their  God. 

The  cycle  of  festivals  is  based  on  the  hallowing  of  the 
seventh  day,  the  Sabbath.  Israel's  original  day  of  rest,  which 
is  already  mentioned  in  the  fundamental  law,*  and  which 
Deuteronomy  bases  on  the  grateful  kindness  of  the  redeemed 
people  to  the  oppressed  and  hard-working  classes  of  society,-'' 

^  The  rabbis  connect  it  with  the  festival  in  commemoration  of  the  giving  of 
the  law. 

-  nj?10,  Gen.  i.  14.  '  JH- 

■*  Amos  viii.  5,  6  ;  2  Kin^s  iv.  23  ;  Deut.  v.  12  ;  Ex.  xx.  8  f. 

6  Deut.  V,  15. 


3G2  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

A  has  worked  out  in  the  sense  of  the  statute,  and  the  whole 
post-exilic  period  has  added  to  its  sanctity.'  A  ascribes  the 
special  dignity  of  this  day  to  the  work  of  the  Creator  Himself, 
because  after  His  work,  God  rejoiced  on  this  day  in  the  beauty 
of  His  world,  and  experienced  the  happy  rest  of  the  Master 
whose  work  is  finished.^  He  accordingly  makes  the  order  of 
nature  which  follows  the  history  of  the  divine  work  of  creation, 
with  its  sacred  alternation  of  labour  and  rest  as  exemplified  by 
God,  find  expression  in  the  Sabbath,  thus  beautifully  connect- 
ing the  natural  character  of  the  day  with  the  desire  to  base  it 
on  the  sacred  history.  The  essential  characteristic  of  this 
day,  according  to  A,  is  perfect  rest ;  while  it  originally  meant 
"recreation,"  "natural  enjoyment." ^  Such  perfect  rest, 
however,  is  not  insisted  on  at  the  regular  feasts.*  Sabbath 
labour  is  absolutely  forbidden.  This  day  belongs  to  God, 
and  to  withhold  any  part  of  it  from  Him  by  using  it  for  the 
ordinary  duties  of  daily  life,  is  impious  sacrilege.  Hence 
Sabbath-breaking  is  punished  with  death.^  The  allegorisers 
lay  emphasis  on  the  number  seven,  as  the  virgin  number,  the 
indivisible  that  divides  everything,  the  image  of  the  creative 
word  of  God.^ 

Founded  directly  on  the  idea  of  the  Sabbath,  there  is  a  still 
grander  consecration  of  time  to  God  in  the  Sabbath  year'^  and 

'  Jer.  xvii.  21  ;  Ezck.  xx.  16,  xxii.  26  ;  B.  J.  hi.  2,  Iviii.  13  ;  2  Kings 
xi.  9,  etc. 

2  Gen.  ii.  1  f. ;  Ex.  xx.  10,  11,  xxxi.  13-17,  xxxiv.  21. 

^  Hos.  ii.  13  ;  cf.  ix.  5. 

■*  According  to  Num.  xxix.  7,  only  on  the  day  of  atonement.  Elsewhere  it  is 
only  "hard  work"  that  is  forbidden.  Lev.  xxiii.  7,  8,  21,  25,  35,  36;  Num. 
xxviii.  18,  25,  26  ;  cf.  xxix.  1,  and  that,  too,  only  on  the  first  and  the  seventh 
(lays  of  the  feast.  Ex.  xii.  16  and  Deut.  xvi.  8  mean  also  to  forbid  all  labour 
on  the  seventh  day  of  the  feast  of  Unleavened  Bread. 

^  Num.  XV.  32  ft". ;  Ex.  xxxi.  lift".  ;  cf.  Ex.  xvi.  5  (where  the  manna  ceases  ou 
the  Sabbath) ;  Ex.  xxxv.  3.     No  five  to  be  lighted. 

«  Philo,  ed.  Mg.  1.  21,  497,  503,  ii.  108,  166,  281. 

''Lev.  XXV.  Iff.,  pnHK^  r\y^'.  Ex.  xxiii.  10  deals  solely  with  humane 
measures,  such  as  setting  Hebrew  slaves  free,  and  giving  a  harvest  gratis.  And 
it  need  not  be  done  simultaneously  by  every  owner  or  with  every  field.  Even, 
according  to  Deut.   xvii.  1  ff.,  12ft'.,  cf.  Jer.  xxxiv.  8ft".,  nothing  more  than  a 


CYCLE  OF  SACKED  SEASONS  IN  A.  3G3 

the  jubilee  year.^  Every  seventh  year  the  fields  are  neither 
to  be  tilled  nor  reaped,  Nature  is  to  be  set  free,  as  it  were, 
from  the  service  which  mankind  exacts  from  her,  and  to  be  left 
entirely  to  herself.  Only  what  she  voluntarily  offers  is  to  be 
taken,  and  that  not  for  any  selfish  purpose.  But  when  seven 
times  seven  years  have  passed,  then  conies  the  great  year  of 
jubilee,  when  every  change  in  the  divinely-ordered  condition 
of  the  holy  people,  brought  about  by  the  vicissitudes  of  social 
life,  will  be  as  if  it  had  never  been,  when  he  who  has  become 
a  bondman  will  again  receive  the  freedom  which  is  his  due 
as  one  of  God's  people,  when  the  inheritance  that  has  passed 
into  the  hands  of  strangers  will  be  once  more  restored  to  its 
rightful  owner.2 

This  hallowing  of  the  seventh  day,  then,  with  which  we 
may  compare  the  primitive  popular  custom  of  keeping  holy 
the  first  of  the  month,^  becomes  the  basis  on  which  to  arrange 
the  cycle  of  feast  days.  Accordingly,  in  the  principal  feasts, 
which  last  seven  days,*  the  great  days  on  which  the  interest 
of  the  festival  centres  are  the  first  and  the  seventh.  In  like 
manner,  the  first  and  the  seventh  months  represent  the  sacred 
seasons ;  and  in  these,  new  moon  and  fall  moon,  that  is,  the 
first  day  and  the  fifteenth,  form  the  important  divisions. 

Tiie  first  sacred  season  is  that  of  the  opening  year  in  the 
first  nionth.^      The  festival  laws  in   Ex.  xxiii.  and  xxxiv.,  as 

release  from  debt  is  prescrilicd,  though  there  may  also  be  a  liberation  of  Plebrcw 
slaves  ;  but  even  that  could  not  be  carried  througli. 

^  Lev.  XXV.  8fT.,  73')\  "l"l"n-  In  Ezekiel  the  term  is  probably  still  ajiplied 
only  to  the  seventh  year,  xlvi.  17. 

"  Here  also  A  pays  no  attention  to  the  practicability  of  his  measure.  It  could 
be  carried  out  only  when  Israel  was  no  longer  in  his  own  country,  dependent  on 
slave-labour  and  agriculture,  but  a  nation  of  traders  scattered  up  and  down  in 
foreign  lands. 

*  Num.  x.  10. 

*  In  the  feast  of  Tabernacles,  according  to  Deut.  xvi.  13,  15,  it  is  the  seventh, 
according  to  A  the  eighth  day,  so  that  the  festival  is  being  lengthened.  Lev. 
xxiii.  36  ;  Num.  xxix.  35  ;  cf  Neh.  viii.  18.  Similarly,  compare  1  Kings 
viii.  65  f.  with  2  Chron.  vii.  9. 

*  Abib  (fiom  the  barley  haivcst)  or  Nisan.     The  civil  new  year  begins,  at 


364  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

well  as  in  Deut.  xvi.,  know  only  of  a  single  "  feast  of  un- 
leavened bread."  In  A,  on  the  other  hand,  this  festival  is 
really  a  double  one.  The  Passover  and  the  feast  of  Unleavened 
Bread  form  a  double  festival/  just  as  the  day  of  atonement 
and  the  feast  of  Tabernacles  do.  Even  according  to  A,  it  is 
undoubtedly  as  a  direct  preparation  for  the  feast  of  Unleavened 
Bread  that  the  Passover  is  celebrated  on  the  evening  before 
the  latter  feast  begins,  as  the  ancient  unity  of  the  festival 
required.^  But  a  significant  custom^  suggests  to  the  reader 
that  it  really  should  have  been  celebrated  on  the  10th  of  Nisan, 
like  the  day  of  atonement  on  the  10th  of  the  seventh  month. 
It  is  certain  that  in  the  Passover  a  very  ancient  feast  is  kept 
up.  The  bitter  herbs  and  the  blood  of  the  lamb  were,  appar- 
ently, signs  of  a  primitive  sacrifice  of  atonement  by  which  in 
spring,  when  everything  about  the  future  is  still  uncertain, 
the  favour  of  God  had  to  be  secured  for  the  harvest.  But  in 
A  the  sacrificial  character  has  quite  disappeared.*  The  sacred 
meal  has  really  become  a  sacrament,  a  covenant  meal  at  which 
the  members  of  the  holy  congregation — recognisable  by  the 

least  after  the  Exile,  witli  the  seventh  month.  According  to  Ezek.  xlv.  ISfV., 
the  first  day  of  the  first  (seventh  ?)  month  is  to  be  celebrated  by  purifying  the 
sanctuary  by  sprinkling  the  door-posts  of  the  house  of  God  with  the  blood  of  an 
animal  slain  as  a  sin-offering. 

I  Ex.  xii.  1  ff.,  21  ff. ;  Lev.  xxiii.  5  ff. ;  Num.  ix.  3  fi".,  xxviii.  16  ;  Josh.  v.  10. 

"  The  Passover  may  originally  have  been  the  feast  of  the  firstlings  of  the  cattle, 
and  not  restricted  to  a  particular  day  (Wellhausen)  ;  while  the  feast  of  Un- 
leavened Bread  betokened  the  first  swing  of  the  sickle.  But  these  points  of  view 
have  quite  given  way  even  in  Deuteronomy,  not  to  speak  of  A,  to  historical  ones. 

*  The  choosing  of  the  lamb  on  the  tenth,  Ex.  xii.  3  f.  (Ewald).  In  my  opinion, 
A  wishes  to  make  an  exact  parallelism  between  the  feast  in  the  seventh  month 
and  the  feast  in  the  first.  Hence  the  10th  of  the  first  month,  as  the  day  ibr 
choosing  the  lamb,  is  made  parallel  to  the  10th  of  the  seventh  month  as  the  day 
of  atonement.  Hence  the  feast  of  Tabernacles  is  extended  to  eight  days,  so  as  to 
be  quite  equal  to  tlie  Passover  and  the  mazzoth  feast  together. 

*  Ex.  xii.  27,  there  is  mention  only  of  PIQT  ;  and  in  Num.  ix.  7-13  the  Passover 
is  put  in  the  general  category  of  pip,  and  2  Chron.  xxx.  16,  xxxv.  11  merely 
show  the  importance  attached  to  Levitical  and  priestly  help  in  slaying  the 
Passover  lamb.  But  in  Deuteronomy,  in  addition  to  eating  the  Passover,  in 
the  sense  of  A,  there  is  also  mention  of  festal  saa-ijices  offered  during  the  whole 
seven  days  of  the  feast,  which  are  called  "Paschal,"  and  which  could  not  be 
eaten  with  leaven,  Deut.  xvi.  2  ff. 


CYCLE  OF  SACRED  SEASONS  IN  A.  3G5 

blood  of  the  lamb  on  the  door-posts — meet  together  to  com- 
memorate the  national  deliverance,  and  to  remember  with 
thankfulness  how  the  angel  of  death  was  once  kept  away  from 
their  consecrated  homes,  and  in  what  a  suggestive  fashion  the 
last  meal  before  the  deliverance  was  eaten.  In  addition,  there- 
fore, to  its  purely  memorial  character,^  A  considers  that  the 
Passover  has,  at  the  same  time,  the  significance  of  a  sacrament 
of  which  only  members  of  the  covenant  can  partake.^  The 
first-born  are  "redeemed"  but  are  no  longer  "paschal."^  There 
is  probably  an  echo  of  the  original  significance  of  the  day  in  the 
word  itself,  which  means  "  sparing,"  *  though  not  in  the  special 
historical  sense  in  which  the  narrative  explains  it.^  Certainly 
the  explanation  that  it  is  derived  from  "  the  passing  of  the 
sun  "  into  the  sign  of  Aries,  and  that  the  eating  of  the  lamb 
has  an  astrological  meaning  of  that  kind,  may  well  be  regarded 
as  an  antiquated  notion,  despite  the  ability  with  which  it  has 
been  expounded.®  But  in  primitive  times  the  Passover  may 
very  probably  have  required  a  sterner  style  of  repentance  and 
more  painful  sacrifices  than  our  present  narratives  indicate 
to  us.'' 

After  the  observance  of  tlie  Passover  on  the  14th  of  Nisan, 
"  between    sunset    and    complete    darkness,"  ^    the     feast     of 

1  Ex.  xii.  42,  xiii.  9.  *  Ex.  xii.  43  ff.  (Num.  ix.  10  ff.). 

^  In  Deuteronomy  it  is  saiil  of  all  the  animals  killed  during  the  festival,  that 
"the  Passover  is  being  killed,"  xvi.  2. 

*  nOD,  cf.  Isa.  xxxi.  5  02]})-  For  this  word  the  passages,  2  Sam.  iv.  4, 
1  Kings  xviii.  21,  26,  are  important,  where  the  root  meaning  apjiears  to  be  "  to 
be  bent." 

5  Ex.  xii.  12  fF.,  23,  29,  nOD- 

6  Supported  by  Herod,  ii.  42  ;  Flat.  Hepub.  268  ;  Eurip.  OreMcs,  SO  ;  Electr. 
730  f.,  Baur,  Vatke,  Br.  Bauer.  Besides,  Maimonides  and  Spencer  traced  back 
the  feast  to  Egyptian  analogies  (that  the  lamb  was  sacrificed  as  a  protest 
against  its  being  worshipped  by  the  Egyptians).  Baur  thinks  the  ram  a 
symbol  of  Jupiter  Amnion,  who  opens  the  year.  He  thinks  there  was  originally 
an  actual  sacrificing  of  the  first-born,  a  ver  sacrum.  The  sprinkling  with 
blood  he  connects  with  the  Egyptian  custom  related  by  Epiphanius,  De  liar. 
xix.  3. 

^  Ex.  xiii.  15. 

^  D'aiyn    ^2,  Lev.  xxiii.  5  ;  Ex.  xii.  6  (42,  D"'"1D*J  b^b). 


366-  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Unleavened  Bread  ^  began  on  the  15  th,  and  continued  for 
seven  days,  the  first  and  last  of  which  were  specially  marked 
by  sacred  meetings  and  celebrations.^  The  nature  of  religious 
customs  makes  it  self-evident  that  the  absence  of  leaven  is 
originally  due  to  the  unholiness  of  the  process  of  fermentation, 
and  has  only  an  artificial  connection  with  the  hasty  meal  at 
the  exodus.^  In  the  presentation  of  the  first  sheaf,*  we  are 
reminded  that  this  feast  was  originally  in  honour  of  the  first 
beginning  of  harvest,  the  barley  harvest,  from  which,  too,  the 
month  Abib  gets  its  name.  The  time  of  the  full  moon,  the  1 5th, 
is  important,  as  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  in  all  the  legal 
and  illegal  shiftings  of  the  feast,  the  mouth  was  changed,  but 
never  the  day.^  But  for  A  it  is  the  feast  of  deliverance. 
Here  the  congregation  of  Israel,  assembled  with  one  heart 
before  God  with  offerings  in  their  hands,  call  to  remembrance 
the  mighty  acts  of  divine  deliverance,  whereby  they  first 
became  the  congregation  of  God.  The  dedication  of  nature's 
gifts  to  the  God  who  gave  them,  is  overshadowed  by  the 
memory  of  His  still  greater  spiritual  gifts.  And  at  this  feast 
the  ancient  dedication  of  the  first-born  is  brought  in  a  very 
beautiful  and  suggestive  way  into  connection  with  God's 
mighty  act  against  the  first-born  of  Egypt.^ 

With  this  feast,  which  indicates  the  first  beginning  of 
harvest,  the  feast  that  ends  the  harvest  is  closely  connected. 
Seven  times  seven  days  after  the  first  sheaf  of  barley  has 
been  offered,  the  harvest  is  to  be  regarded  as  over,  and  the 
produce  of  the  field  consecrated  for  use  as  food  by  "  a  new 
meal-offering."  ^  Originally  the  feast  may  have  been  simply  a 
popular  holiday  in  connection  with  the  feast  of  Unleavened 

^  nii'isn  jn,  Lev.  xxUi.  6  ;  Ex.  xxiii.  15,  xxxiv.  18 ;  Num.  xxviii.  17. 
-  Lev.  xxiii.  7  f .  ^  Ex.  xii.  11. 

*  Lev.  xxiii.  10  ff. 

'  iSTum.  ix.  10  ff. ;  cf.  1  Kings  xii.  32  for  the  feast  of  Tabernacles. 
«  Ex.  xi.  5,  xiii.  2,  12  ff.,  xxxiv.  19  (Deut.  xii.  17,  xiv.  23,  xv.  19). 
^  Lev.  xxiii.  15  f.     In  the  Jordan  valley  wheat  harvest  is  in  Maj',  in  Hehron 
in  the  beginning  of  June ;  cf.  Eobinson,  Travels,  ii.  560  ;  Kum.  xxviii.  26. 


CYCLE  OF  SACKED  SEASONS  IN  A.  3G7 

Bread.  In  Deuteronomy  it  lasts  only  a  single  clay.^  In 
Ezekiel  it  disappears  altogether.^  In  A,  however,  since  the 
Passover  feast  of  Unleavened  Bread  got  quite  a  historical 
character,  this  day  naturally  becomes  all  the  more  emphatically 
a  "harvest-feast,"^  and  attains  to  greater  importance  (Georgi'). 
It  is  the  harvest-feast  or  feast  of  Weeks,  that  is,  of  the  seven 
weeks  of  harvest,  which  are  over.*  It  closes  the  new  year 
holiday  season. 

The  seventh  month  of  the  year  is  as  holy  as  the  first, 
and  indeed  holier.  Even  the  1st  of  this  month  is  a  very 
solemn  feast-day.^  But  it  is  on  the  10th  that  "the  feast" 
begins,  the  greatest  double  festival  which  Israel  has.^  It 
continues  from  the  loth  to  the  21st,  and  thus  corresponds 
exactly  with  the  spring  festival.  The  10th  day  of  the  seventh 
month  is  the  great  day  of  repentance  and  atonement?  Israel 
looks  back  on  the  goodness  of  his  God,  experienced  in  the 
course  of  the  year's  harvest,  remembers  his  own  unworthiness 
of  these  blessings,  and  seeks  to  expiate  his  sin,  that  he  may, 
in  purity  and  without  fear,  enjoy  the  blessing  of  his  God. 
This  is  the  only  fast-day  which  the  law  prescribes.^  On 
it  the    remarkable  sacrifice  is  offered  with    which  we    shall 


1  Deut.  xvi.  10.  2  Ezek.  xlv.  21  ff. 

=*  Ex.  xxiii.  10,  "l^L'TrO  nsn  T-^'pn  in,  xxxiv.  22,  D-tsn  T'^kp  •'-133  ;  Num. 
xxviii.  26,  nniZIZin. 

"*  Ex.  xxxiv.  22,  y  ti'  jn  ;  cf.  Num.  xxviii.  26.  It  was  not  till  a  very  late 
period  tliat  this  feast  was  held  in  memory  of  the  giving  of  the  law. 

5  I;ev.  xxiii.  23,   nviin  }"n3T  |in3LV  (Nnm.  xxix.  2). 

«  Cf.  1  Sam.  i.  3,  20  ;  Isa.  xxix.  1,  xxxii,  9f. 

'  Lev.  xxiii.  26  ;  D"'"l22n  DT',  Lev.  xvi.  ;  Num,  xxix.  7. 

8  Lev.  xxiii.  27  ;  t^'M  nSJ?,  Num.  xxix.  7.  The  day  of  atonement,  Avliicli 
first  appears  in  A, — perhaps  in  earlier  days  it  was  only  a  purification  of  the  altar 
(Ex.  xxix.  36,  XXX.  10;  Ezek.  xliii.  20  If.,  Mishna  Tract.  Taan.),  and  had  a 
joyous  character, — has  its  origin  in  the  growing  attention  paid  to  such  "  unclean- 
ness,"  on  account  of  which  the  prophets  would  scarcely  have  dreaded  the  anger 
of  God  (Adler  in  Stade  Zeitschr.  iii.  178).  Ezek.  xlv.  18  institutes  another  day 
of  repentance,  and,  consequently,  he  does  not  yet  know  of  this  day.  (WelUi., 
"Before  the  Exile,  fast-days  are  proclaimed  only  on  the  occasion  of  public 
calamities,"  1  Kings  xxi.  9,  12  ;  Jer.  xiv.  3,  xxxvi.  6,  9  ;  cf.  Joel  i.  14,  ii,  12, 
15.     During  the  Exile  they  begin  to  become  customary,  B.  J.  Iviii.  SIT.) 


3G8  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

deal  more  fully  in  the  following  section.  Only  with  deep 
humility  and  holy  lougings  after  purification  can  the  holy 
people  worthily  receive  with  full  heart  the  good  gifts  of  its 
God. 

Israel,  thus  purified,  can  now  begin  with  a  glad  heart  the 
great  festival  of  thanksgiving  and  joy  which  corresponds  to  the 
feast  of  Unleavened  Bread,  "  the  harvest-home  at  the  close  of 
tlie  year,"^  which  lasts  from  the  15  th  to  the  21st  of  the  seventh 
month,  when  the  fruit  is  ripe  and  the  grapes  are  gathered. 
During  these  days  ancient  Israel  feasted  and  danced  in  the 
newly-gleaned  vineyards.^  People  came  out  from  the  villages 
and  towns  to  the  fruit-gardens  to  live  in  booths  and  enjoy  a 
happy  autumn  holiday.  Hence  the  feast  was  also  called  "  the 
feast  of  Booths."  ^  Even  when  these  "  gladsome  booths  "  had 
become  memorials  of  the  movable  tents  used  in  the  homeless 
wilderness,  the  joyous  character  of  this  harvest  festival  continued 
indelible.*  At  it  the  choicest  product  of  the  land  which  God 
had  given  to  His  people,  the  fruit  of  the  vine  and  of  all  fruit- 
bearing  trees,  was  thankfully  consecrated  to  the  Giver, — that 
gift  with  which,  when  once  the  bare  necessaries  of  existence 
have  been  secured,  the  pleasures  and  the  culture  of  life,  with 
its  hearty  social  intercourse,  are  closely  connected. 

The  great  cycle  of  the  festal  year  is  thus  complete.  In 
addition  to  the  seventh  day  of  the  week,  the  fundamental 
principle  of  which  reappears  in  the  Sabbatic  year  and  the 
year  of  jubilee,  we  have  first,  in  the  first  month,  the  feast  of 
the  Passover  together  with  the  feast  of  Unleavened  Bread,  then 
the  feast  of  Weeks,  and  lastly,  in  the  seventh  month,  the  first 
day  of  which  has  its  own  special  celebration,  the  great  day  of 
atonement,  together  with  the  feast  of  Tabernacles.  On  all  these 
days  specially  solemn  sacrifices  were  offered  about  which  there 
^  r]y^r[  nsvn  fiDsn  in,  Ex.  xxiii.  le  (n^^yn  nsipn,  Ex.  xxxiv.  22). 

-  Judg.  xxi.  19  ir.  (ix.  27).  ^  JTODn  JH,  Lev.  xxiii.  34. 

*  Lev.  xxiii.  42  f.  ;  Hos.  xii.  10  puts  the  matter  in  exactly  the  reverse  way, 
"I  will  yet  make  thee  to  dwell  in  tabernacles  as  in  the  days  of  the  soleum 
least."    Even  Deut.  xvi.  13  if.  does  not  yet  know  of  the  historical  reference. 


SACRED  CEKEMONIES.  369: 

is  in  A  a  special  law.^  On  the  principal  days  of  the  three 
great  feasts  there  was  a  festal  gathering  ^  of  the  holy  people 
before  their  Lord.  And  as  subjects  must  not  approach  the 
throne  of  their  king  without  a  present,  they,  too,  were  for- 
bidden to  appear  before  Jehovah  with  empty  hands.^  This 
cycle  of  festivals  was  meant  to  indicate  that  God  was  this 
people's  King ;  that  this  people's  life  was  wholly  His ;  that 
their  time,  with  the  blessings  which  it  brings,  was  His  pro- 
perty ;  and  that  the  cares  of  daily  life  might  be  cast  upon 
Him  as  soon  as  their  dedication  to  Him  of  what  they  had 
received,  and  their  penitent  yearning  after  reconciliation,  made 
the  people  a  worthy  object  of  His  providence  and  love. 

4.  Sacred  Ceremonies, 

Literature. — A.  On  purifications,  prayers,  and  vows: 
Pressel,  art.  "  Gebet,"  in  Herzog.  Oehler,  art.  "  Geliibde," 
in  Herzog,  2nd  ed.,  Delitzsch.  Leyrer,  art.  "  Eeinigungen 
bei  den  Hebraern,"  in  Herzog,  2nd  ed.,  Konig.  Spencer, 
"  De  lustrationibus  et  purificationibus  Hebroeorum "  (Ugolin, 
Thcsaur.  ant.  sacr.  vol.  xxii.).  Hermann,  I.e.,  124  ff.  Scho- 
mann,  I.e.,  voL  ii.  192,  21G,  249,  256.  —  B.  On  sacrifices 
in  general :  Georg  Lorenz  Bauer,  Bcschrcibumj  der  gottes- 
dienstlichen  Verfassiing  der  alien  Ilehrder,  i.,  1805.  G.  H. 
1\  Scholl,  "  Ueber  die  Opferideen  der  Alten,  insbesondere 
bei  den  Juden  {Studien  der  ivilrttemh.  Geistlichkeit,  3,  4,  5), 
(Die  alter e  Liter atiir,  vol.  iv.  p.  3  ff.).  Hegel,  Religionsphilo- 
sophie,  vol.  i.  229  f.,  ii.  90  ff.  Biihr,  I.e.  Ewald,  I.e. 
Hofmann,    Schrifthewcis,    2nd    ed.    ii.a,    p.     214  ff.       Oehler, 

^  Num.  xxviii.  9-xxix.  39. 
E'lp  N"lpD.  m^*y,  Lev.  xxiii.  8,  36  f.  ;  Num.  xxix.  1,  7,  12,  35,  xxviii. 
18,  25  f. ;  cf.  Isa.  i.  13,  where  mVJ?  is  parallel  to  tilpD.  For  the  outward  form 
of  the  ceremony,  cf.  Ex.  xix.  10.  The  three  feasts  of  Unleavened  Bread,  of 
"Weeks,  and  of  Tabernacles,  are  constantly  represented  as  the  festival  season 
jiroper,  Ex.  xxiii.,  xxxiv.  18  ;  Deut.  xvi. ;  1  Kings  ix.  25. 

^  Ex.  xxiii.  15  ;  Deut.  xvi.  16;  cf  Mauudrell,  Rdse,  p.  37. 

VOL.   I.  2  A 


3  I  0  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

"  Opfercultus  des  Alten  Testamentes "  (Herzog,  Eealcncycl , 
2nd  ed.,  Orelli)  ;  "Eiferopfer"  (supplement  to  Herzog).  J. 
Kurtz,  Dcr  alttestanicntliche  Opfercultus.  Saalschiitz,  he,  i. 
306  ff.  Hengstenberg,  Die  Opfcr  der  heiligen  Schrift,  1859. 
Tholuck,  Beilage  ii.  mm  Commentar  iller  den  Brief  an  die, 
Hebrckr,  5th  ed.  1861.  Valentin  Thalhofer,  Die  unUutigcn 
Opfer  des  mosaischen  Cidtus,  1848.  Keil,  Handhuch  der  hiUi- 
schen  Arckdologic,  1859,  i.  191-345  (cf.  Luther.  Zcitsclir. 
f  Theol.  1856).  Spencer,  Dissert,  ii.  937-992;  Dissert. 
iii.  993—1042.  Wangemann,  Das  Opfer  nach  der  heiligen 
Schrift,  1866,  two  vols.  Neumann,  "  Die  Opfer  des  Alten 
Bundes "  {Deutsche  Zeitschrift  fur  christl.  Wissensch.  und 
christl.  Lchcn,  1852,  Nos.  30-33  ;  1853,  Nos.  40-44  ;  1857, 
!N"os.  36-38 ;  cf.  Sacra  Veteris  Tcstamenti  sahUaria,  Lips. 
1853.  Ed.  rJehm,  "  Ueber  das  Scliuldopfer  "  (Theol.  Stud.  v. 
Krit.  1854).  By  the  same  author,  Bcgriff  dcr  Siihne  im  Alten 
Testament,  Gotha  1877.  Kink,  "Ueber  das  Schuldopfer " 
{Stud.  u.  Krit.  1855).  Adalbert  Merz,  "Kritische  Unter- 
suchungen  liber  die  Opfergesetze,"  Lev.  i.— vii.  (Hilgenfeld, 
Zcitschr.  f  wiss.  Th.  1863,  i.,  ii.).  Alb.  Stockl,  Liturgic  und 
dogmatische  Bcdeutung  der  alttcstamentlichen  Opfer  inshcso7idere 
in  ihrcm  Verhaltnissc  zur  neiUcstamentlichen  Opfertheorie,  Niirnb. 
1848.  G.  Karch,  "Die  mosaischen  Opfer  als  vorhildlichc 
Lirundlage  der  Bitten  im  Vatcrunser,  i.,  1856;  ii.,  1857, 
Wiirzburg.  liitschl,  Jahrhb.  /.  deutsche  Theol.  1863,  ii.,  iii. ; 
Lehre  von  der  Rcchtfertigung  und  Vcrsohnung,  vol.  ii.  185  ff. 
J.  Marbach,  "  Das  Blut,  eine  theologische  Studie  "  (Hilgenfeld, 
Zcitschr.  filr  wisscnschaftliche  Thcologie,  Halle  1866,  ii, 
137£f.).  Chwolsohn, /.c,  ii.  142.  Hermann, /.c,  126,  132, 
Not.  24,  141,  156  f.,  162.  Schomann,  I.e.,  ii.  220  f.,  226  f., 
231  ff.  (cf.  Knobel,  Commentar  zu  Ex.  u.  Lev,). — C.  On  the 
ritual  of  the  day  of  atonement:  Spencer,  I.e.,  1425-1504. 
Oehler,  "  Versohuungstag "  (Herzog,  Bealencycl.,  2nd  ed., 
Orelli).  Diestel,  "Set,  Typhon,  Azazel,  und  Satan"  (Ilgen- 
Niedner's  Zcitschr.  f.  histor.  Theol.  1860,  ii.).      Hengstenberg, 


PRAYER.  371 

Die  Bilclicr  Mosis  und  Acgypten,  p.  1G7.  Movers,  I.e.,  p.  267  f. 
Chwolsohn,  I.e.,  i.  816,  ii.  246.  Plutarch,  De  hide  et 
Osiride,  pp.  27ff.,  49  ff.  Philo,  ed.  Mg.  i.  498;  JuUcm  Oral. 
iv.  281,  288  (ed.  Cram.  Par.).  Joseplius,  Antiq.  xx.  7.  1 
(lierod.  ii.  46).  Enoch,  translated  by  Dillmann,  viii.  1, 
X.  4,  xiii.  Iff.  (Kaiser,  I.e.,  ii  123;  Graul,  Ecise  nach 
Ostindien,  iii.  296  ff.) 

1.  Of  the  sacred  acts  by  which,  among  every  people  and 
in  every  age,  piety  instinctively  shows  itself,  prayer  is  the 
simplest  and  most  natural.  In  ancient  Israel,  and  indeed 
even  in  the  Law,  it  has  no  fixed  form,  and  obviously  has 
not  the  predominance  which  it  attained  in  later  ages.  So 
far  as  is  known  to  us,  it  was,  before  Ezra's  time,  only  the 
expression  of  feelings  real  and  strong,  such  as  gratitude, 
sorrow,  or  anxiety, — not  a  sacred  form  independent  of  special 
exciting  causes.^  A  stronger  form  of  prayer  is  the  vow, 
whether  it  be  one  to  do  or  not  to  do  a  particular  thing.-  Its 
purpose  is  to  give  the  entreaty  greater  force,  to  express  tlie 
earnest  desire,  as  well  as  the  sincere  piety  of  the  suppliant. 
This  naturally  implies  that  the  person  thinks  that  such  a  gift 
or  such  an  act  of  renunciation  will  be  appreciated  by  God, 
and  be  agreeable  to  Him.  Even  here  the  Law  still  keeps 
witliin  strictly  moral  lines,  while,  at  the  same  time,  it  shows 
itself  in  solemn  earnest  about  whatever  is  promised  to  God. 
Vows,  such  as  were  undoubtedly  very  common  among  the 
people  since  the  earliest  times,  and  were  taken  in  terrible 
earnest,^  the  Law  nowhere  encourages  or  even  sanctions.*  Per- 
sons in  a  dependent  position  are  forbidden  to  take  a  vow  which 
would  render  them  incapable  of  discharging  their  duties,  or 

1  On  modes  of  olTt'iing  prayer  (by  standing,  kneeling,  lifting  up  or  stretching 
out  the  hands,  falling  on  the  ground,  putting  the  head  between  the  knees),  and 
on  turning  while  at  prayer  towards  the  temple,  cf.  Pressel  and  Ewald,  Alterth. 
18;  Ex.  viii.  24.  Iinyn,  Hos.  v.  G;  Isa.  i.  15;  Jer.  xiv.  12;  1  Kings  viii. 
27  ff. ;  Prov.  xv.  8  ;  Job  xxxiii.  26. 

'^  "nj,  IDS.  ^  Judg.  xi.  35  ;  1  Sam.  xiv.  24  IT, 

*  So  esp.  Deut.  xxiii.  23 ;  Lev.  xxvii.  2-8. 


372  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

would  injure  their  family  position.^  But  where  it  is  made,  it 
must  be  made  in  good  faith ;  a  vow  cannot  be  retracted,  nor 
can  one  less  onerous  be  substituted.^  It  must  not  include 
anything  unclean,  or,  as  a  matter  of  course,  anything  which 
already  belongs  to  God.^  The  most  usual  form  of  vow  appears 
to  have  been  that  of  the  JSTazirite.^  We  may  put  fasts  ^  next, 
instances  of  which  occur  not  unfrequently  in  the  national 
history  ^  on  occasions  of  a  sorrowful  kind.  It  is  a  voluntary 
act  of  the  community  or  of  an  individual,  due  to  some  momen- 
tary impulse.  Of  a  holy  passion  for  self-humiliation  in  order 
to  please  God,  such  as  is  common  in  other  ancient  religions, 
tlie  Law  as  yet  knows  nothing. 

The  earnestness  with  which  Old  Testament  saints  con- 
ceived of  the  holiness  and  majesty  of  Israel's  God,  and  of 
man's  natural  unworthiness,  is  indicated  by  the  various  kinds 
of  vMshings  and  j^urijications,  which  are  exceedingly  numerous, 
and  were  beyond  a  doubt  in  frequent  use  even  in  ancient 
Israel.  Sometimes  it  was  enough  to  express  purification  from 
a  stain  of  any  kind  by  a  symbolical  washing  with  water,  or 
with  water  mixed  with  ashes.''  Sometimes  those  who  took 
part  in  sacred  acts  had,  owing  to  the  solemn  nature  of  the 
event,  to  be  themselves  made  holy  by  consecration.^  Indeed, 
fire  itself  as  the  element  of  destruction  was  used  for  cleansing 

^  Num.  XXX.  2ff.  (Dependants  not  without  the  permission  of  those  on  whom 
they  are  dependent.) 

2  Num.  XXX.  3  tl".  (Deut  xxiii.  23).  ^  Lev.  xxvii.  26  ;  Deut.  xxiii.  18. 

*  Num.  vi.  *  Num.  xxx.  14. 

«  Judg.  XX.  23,  26  ;  1  Sam.  vii.  6,  xxxi.  13  ;  2  Sam.  i.  11,  12,  xii.  17,  22  ; 
1  Kings  xxi.  9,  12,  27  (Ps.  xxxv.  13  f.).  (As  a  sign  of  mourning,  Joel  i.  13, 
ii.  12,  13,  15;  Zeeh.  vii.  3,  5,  viii.  19.)  The  pouring  out  of  water  before  GoJ 
as  a  sign  of  mourning  and  prayer,  1  Sam.  vii.  C. 

^  Num.  xix.  9  (viii.  7).  Sprinkled  with  a  Lunch  of  hyssop  ;  cf.  Ovid,  Fa/it. 
iv.  733,  639,  725  ;  Virgil,  Edoi/.  viii.  101,  jEn.  vi.  230  ;  Juven.  Sat.  ii.  157 
(Olive-twig).  Cedar  wood  is  the  symbol  of  incorrui)tibility  ;  hyssop  is  regarded 
by  all  the  nations  of  antiquity  as  purifying  ;  red  is  the  symbol  of  vital  force. 

«  E.g.  Lev.  xiii.  34,  58,  xiv.  8,  9,  47,  xv.  5f.,  13,  17  f.,  20  ff.,  27 ff.,  xvi.  4, 
24,  26,  28  ;  Num.  xix.  13,  19,  20,  xxxi.  19,  20  ;  2  Sam.  xi.  4  (Ovid,  Fast.  ii.  45). 
Cf.  Zech.  xiii.  1.  Clemens  Alex.  (ed.  Potter,  361).  The  Egyptians  were  the 
fust  to  lay  down  the  law,  //.it  '.Is  ''■p^  tiiriivcct  uto  ywccnco;  akou-ovs. 


SACRIFICES.  676 

where  water  was  not  sufficient.^  But  in  every  case  the  pur- 
pose was  to  bring  into  accord  the  mnjesty  of  God  and  the 
consecration  of  those  who  are  His  people. 

2.  As  for  sacrifice, — according  to  our  use  of  the  word, 
the  offering  of  what  might  be  human  food,  as  a  gift  devoted 
once  for  all  to  God, — it  is  no  more  the  case  that  it  arose  in 
Israel,  than  that  the  first  regulations  for  it  were  the  sacrificial 
laws  of  the  Pentateuch.  But  A,  founding  on  written  and  oral 
traditions,  drew  up  on  a  systematic  plan  of  his  own  a  general 
code  of  sacrificial  laws.  A,  of  course,  no  longer  thinks,  as 
did  the  ancients  iu  their  naiveU,  that  God  experiences 
"  sensuous  pleasure  "  in  accepting  a  sacrifice,  although  even 
he  speaks  of  a  "sweet-smelling  savour."  ^  But  that  Jehovali 
attaches  great  importance  to  these  gifts  is  for  A  a  self-evident 
truth.  Of  the  indifference  of  the  prophets  to  this  whole 
department  he  knows  nothing.  The  sacrificial  laws  in  A  are 
the  result  of  the  natural  tendency  of  a  priestly  class  to  make 
its  sacred  forms  more  and  more  detailed.  For  tlie  Old  Testa- 
ment doctrine  of  atonement  they  really  possess  no  religious 
importance.  And  even  in  themselves,  from  having  been 
compiled  from  a  variety  of  traditions,  they  present,  despite 
their  systematic  arrangement,  many  great  difficulties.  Above 
all,  they  leave  us  quite  in  the  dark  as  to  the  religious 
significance  of  the  individual  acts.  The  only  interest 
they  possess  is  with  regard  to  the  exact  nature  of  the  sacred 
form. 

The  most  general  name  for  sacrifice,  which  extends  far 
beyond  the  domain  of  sacrifice  proper,  as  we  have  defined  it, 


1  Ex.  xix.  14,  xxix.  4,  xxx.  19,  xl.  12,  31  f.  ;  Lev.  viii.  6,  xxii.  6.  Even  put 
back  to  patriarchal  times,  Gen.  xxxv.  2.  Washing  before  prayer  is  first  men- 
tioned in  Juditli  xii.  7,  8.  Still,  as  among  other  peoples,  something  similar  was 
probably  the  custom  at  an  early  date.  Iliad,  vi.  266  ;  Eurip.  lone,  94.  The 
metaphor,   "to  wash  one's  hands  in  innocency,"  Ps.  xxvi.  6. 

"  nti'X  Dn^,  Lev.  iii.  11,  16,  xxi.  6;  Num.  xxviii.  2;  DTl^X  Dn^,  Lev. 
xxi.  17,  22  ;  nn'-iin  nn,  Ex,  xxix,  18,  25,  41;  Lev,  i.  9,  13,  ii.  2,  9,  12,  iii.  5, 
16,  iv.  31,  vi.  8,  viii.  28,  xvii,  6. 


374  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

is  QorLan,  oCeving.^  But  within  the  domain  of  sacrifice 
proper  there  is,  first  of  all,  an  important  distinction.  There 
is  the  sacrifice  of  a  living  creature,  Zebach,^  slaughter.  This 
word  may,  of  course,  be  used  to  denote  the  killing  of  any 
animal.  But  since  originally  such  a  thing  scarcely  ever 
happened  without  being  a  sacrifice,  it  came  to  be  the  term  for 
hilling  in  connection  with  ivorship.  Alongside  of  it  we  have  the 
sacrifice  of  vegetable  foods,  the  meal-offering,  Minchah,^  com- 
bined with  the  drinh-offering,  Nesech.*  In  the  Law  it  is  only 
in  rare  cases  that  the  Minchah  is  offered  alone  ;^  it  is  generally 
an  accompaniment  of  animal  sacrifice,  so  that  "  sacrifice  and 
offering  "  is  the  standing  formula  for  a  complete  sacrifice.  It 
may  have  a  variety  of  forms,^  but  its  chief  component  is  invari- 
ably wheaten  meal.  Oil  and  salt''^  are  always  mixed  with  it;  the 
one  as  representing  the  vigour  and  fulness  of  life,  the  other  as 
that  which  prevents  putrefaction.  Incense,  the  proper  symbol 
of  the  public  worship  of  God,  is  always  used  along  with  it,  so 
that  the  incense-offering^  though  occasionall}''  presented  alone,^ 
may  be  regarded  as  the  normal  accompaniment  of  the  Miu- 
chah.^°  There  must  be  neither  honey  nor  leaven  in  it,  as  these 
are  signs  of  putrefaction.^^  Besides,  only  plants  which  belong  to 
a  man,  having  become  his  through  his  own  labour,  are  allow- 
able.    A  part  of  it  God  consumes  with  tire  as  "  a  sweet  smell."^- 

^  p"lpi  from  n"'"ipn,  Lev.  i.  2,  ii.  11,  iii.  1,  6,  v.  11,  vii.  29,  xvii.  4  ;  Num. 
vii.  3,  12,  19 ;  cf.  'jnp  n^HD,  Ex,  xxviii.  38. 

2  ni].  ^  nnjD,  Lev.  vi.  7  ff. 

*  "]D3.  The  drink-offering  of  water  on  fast-days  in  1  Sam.  vii.  6 ;  just  as 
among  the  Greeks,  too,  water  was  offered  to  the  gods  of  the  under-world  instead 
of  wine  (Schomann,  ii.  220  ;  Hermann,  141). 

^  Lev.  ii.  1  ff.,  V.  11 ;  Num.  v.  15,  25.  Originally,  according  to  Gen.  iv.  3, 
Judg.  vi.  18,  1  Sam.  xxvi.  19,  ii.  17,  1  Kings  xviii.  29,  the  word  denoted 
"  offering,"  in  the  wider  sense.  ^  Lev.  ii.  Iff. 

7  The  salt  of  the  covenant  of  God,  Lev.  ii.  13.  ^  niDp. 

9  Ex.  XXX.  34  f.  ^»  Num.  xvi.  7,  17  ;  Isa.  i.  13  ;  B.  J.  xliii.  23. 

'^  Lev.  ii.  11  (probably  as  first-fruits,  12). 

"""  m3TX.  I  understand  the  word  as  Ewald  does  {Alterth.  62).  B.  J.  Ixvi. 
3»  njsS  1''3Tn.  According  to  A,  the  translation  could  be  something  like 
"memorial  sacrifice;"  Lev.  vi.  15,  ii.  2,  9,  16,  v.  12;  Num.  v.  26,  15,  18. 
The  incense  is  utterly  consumed,  Lev.  ii.  2,  16. 


SACRIFICES.  375 

The  remainder  belongs  to  the  priest  as  most  holy}  but,  of 
course,  only  when  the  offerer  is  not  himself  a  priest.  If  he  be, 
the  whole  must  be  given  to  God.^ 

The  offering  of  a  slain  beast  was  undoubtedly  the  normal 
form  of  sacrifice  which,  at  every  period  of  their  history,  the 
Israelites  believed  that  God  valued  and  accepted.  The  meal- 
olfering  was  a  mere  supplement,  like  vegetables  to  meat. 
Hence  even  early  legend  represents  the  better  sacrifice, 
which  Abel  offered,  as  the  slaying  of  an  animal.^  It  is 
true  that  the  more  general  name,  "  Minchah,"  gift,  was  after- 
wards applied  to  a  bloodless  sacrifice.  But  the  expression  was 
not  used  in  a  strict  sense.  Now,  as  it  is  certain  that  the 
idea  of  "  feasting  "  was  invariably  associated  by  a  pastoral 
people  then,  as  it  is  now,  with  that  of  "  eating  flesh,"  it  is 
difficult  to  imagine  that  the  bloodless  offering  was  ever 
considered  the  higher.*  Still  in  times  wlien  the  people  were 
not  very  well  off  it  may  have  been,  for  obvious  reasons, 
comparatively  more  common  than  the  other.^  From  the 
form  in  which  the  offering  is  presented  to  God,  there  also 
occur,  in  addition  to  the  names  already  mentioned,  "  in- 
cense-offering," "  sweet-smelling  sacrifice,"  "  drink-offering," 
the  expression  Isheh,^  sacrifice  by  fire,  which  can  be  used 
of  all  sacrifices  presented  to  God  by  fire,  and  the  special 
word  Olah,'^  burnt-offering,  which  is  certainly  not  connected 
with  the  idea  of  "rising   up,"^  but  with  the  root-meaning 

1  Lev.  ii.  3,  10,  vi.  9f.,  vii.  9f.,  x.  12,  "-  Lev.  vi.  14  tf.,  ^'•^3. 

3  Gen.  iv.  3  tF. 

*  Isa.  xxii.  13  ;  Gen.  xviii.  7,  xxvii.  4  ;  cf.  e.g.  Robinson's  Traveh,  i.  342  ; 
Layard,  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  218,  etc.  Even  the  name  of  the  altar,  PI^TD, 
favours  this  interpretation. 

5  Of  all  animals  sacrificed,  even  when  they  are  otherwise  used  as  food,  the  fat 
and  the  blood,  being  the  symbols  of  strength  and  life,  belong  to  God  alone^ 
Lev.  iii.  17,  vii.  25. 

"  nti'X,  of  all  kinds  of  sacrifice,  Lev<»  i.  9,  13,  17,  ii.  2,  9,  iii.  5,  16,  viii.  28; 
Num.  XV.  3,  xxviii.  8,  xxx.  13.  ^  rh'W- 

^  n^y,  although  it  is  often  connected  with  TvV^-  ^^^t  the  idea  of  "  mount- 
ing upon  the  altar"  is  un(|uestionably  too  jejune  and  general  to  indicate  a  kind 
of  sacrifice. 


37G  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

"glow."*  In  addition  to  this  word,  and  denoting  the  same 
kind  of  sacrifice,  we  have  the  term  whole  burnt-offering, 
Kalil,^  by  which  is  meant  that  the  whole  animal  is  burned, 
and  thus  presented  to  God  without  any  otlier  use  being 
made  of  the  victim's  flesh. 

3.  We  divide  sacrifices  according  to  their  meaning  and 
object  into  three  classes  : — 

A.  Sacrifices  of  worship ;  that  is,  sacrifices  offered,  not  be- 
cause of  any  special  ground  for  thankfulness  or  penitence, 
but  as  expressions  of  religious  devotion  to  God  on  the  part 
of  the  community,  and  of  an  individual  as  a  pious  member 
of  that  community.  This  class  is  represented  by  the  burnt- 
offering  or  the  whole  burnt-offering.^  In  earlier  times  it  may 
have  had  a  still  wider  meaning,  and  may,  perhaps,  have  even 
represented  the  sin-offering  and  the  guilt- offering.  There  are, 
at  any  rate,  clear  traces  of  this  sacrifice  having  a  really 
expiatory  cliaracter,  and  that,  too,  where  it  is  a  question  of 
actual  sin,  not  of  ceremonial  uncleanness  in  itself  without  guilt.* 

^  ~liy.  Perhaps  even  in  n?i?n  there  lies  a  similar  meaning  (Ewald),  Judg. 
xiii.  19 ;  cf.  2  Sam.  vi.  17  (cf.  Fiirst  on  this  word),  otherwise  there  is  here  ;i 
similar  combination  to  T\\2'\y  31C. 

2  ^"1^3,  certainly  synonymous  with  npij?,  1  Sam.  vii.  9  ;  Dent,  xxxiii.  10. 
Even  the  co-ordination  with  \  Ps.  li.  21,  can  only  be  a  poetic  expression  for 
"and  what  is  the  same"  (Ps.  Ixxiv.  11,  xliv.  4,  xc.  2),  since  the  statute  in 
Lev.  vi.  15  f.  is  too  fragmentary  and  too  late  to  explain  a  poetic  expression  of 
this  kind. 

^  Lev.  vi. 

4  Lev.  i.  4  ;  2  Sam.  xxiv.  18-25  ;  1  Sam.  xxvi.  19  (?),  iii,  14  ;  Micah  vi.  6  f. ; 
Job  i.  5,  xlii.  8.  May  it  possibly  be  that  the  distinction  between  sin-offering 
and  burnt-offering,  for  which  no  proof- passages  can  be  quoted  earlier  than 
Ezekiel  and  Ps.  xl.  7,  is  connected  with  the  fact  that  the  numerous  priesthood 
could  not  exist  among  a  small  people  without  getting  a  greater  share  of  the 
sacrifices  than  it  had  any  right  to  from  the  D'^Dpti',  which  were  being  offered 
more  and  more  rarely  ?  It  is  a  striking  fact  that  a  sin-offering  is  not  wholly 
consumed  with  fire,  and  that  the  sins  for  which  it  is  commanded  ratlier  favour  the 
idea  of  its  having  originated  at  a  late  period.  That  would  explain  the  emphasis 
with  which  the  duty  of  the  priests  to  eat  this  sacred  flesh  was  insisted  on  by  A, 
— an  emphasis  which  is  scarcely  intelligible  in  regard  to  an  ancient  custom,  Lev. 
vi.  19,  22,  vii.  6  ;  cf.  ix.  8-11,  15,  x.  16-20.  (In  2  Kings  xii.  17  there  is 
mention  only  of  QK^'x  P]DD  and  DlXtSn  fjD^,  and  it  is  to  this  that  the  taunt 
in  Hos.  iv.  8  has  reference,  "  They  feed  on  the  sin  of  my  people,  and  set  their 
htart  on  their  ini(]^uity.") 


SACRIFICES.  377 

But  in  A  it  hos  no  special  expiatory  character.  It  is  offered 
simply  in  connection  with  a  joyous  feast,^  and  where  there 
can  be  no  question  of  an  appeasing  of  divine  wratli.-  By  it 
the  community  has  to  show  its  reverence  for  God.  Hence 
the  most  valuable  males  without  blemish  are  to  be  offered.^ 
Hence,  when  they  are  dedicated  by  the  laying  on  of  hands, 
they  are  devoted  wholly  to  God  hy  fvrc,  this  constituting  the 
peculiarity  of  this  kind  of  sacrifice.*  It  would  be  an 
inconsistency  if  any  part  of  what  the  piety  of  the  community 
dedicated  to  God  as  a  present,  were  to  be  consumed  by  that 
community  itself.  Hence  the  burnt-offering  is  the  form  of 
the  daily  sacrifice  in  the  sanctuary.  Regularly  morning  and 
evening  (a  custom  which  also  regulated  the  division  of  time^) 
a  burnt-offering  was  laid  on  the  altar,  consisting  of  a  lamb, 
'  the  continual  burnt-offering,"  and  its  proper  meal-offering.^ 
Whatever  else  comes  upon  this  altar  is  consumed  with  the 
burnt-offering.'^  This  offering  of  the  community  in  connection 
with  the  public  worship  of  God^  formed  the  regular  founda- 
tion on  which  any  special  act  of  sacrifice  could  be  afterwards 
performed.  The  burnt-offerings  in  individual  cases  form,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  concluding  act  of  worship,  after  the  special 
atonement  is   completed.      The    blood    is    sprinkled    on    the 

^  Ex.  X.  25  ;  1  Kings  iii.  15,  and  Judg.  xi.  30  f. 

2  Gen.  viii.  20,  xxii.  2,  7 ;  Ex.  xxxii.  5  ff. ;  Deut.  xxvii.  6.  It  occurs  along 
with  sin-offerings  and  gnilt-offei'ings,  Ex.  xxix.  10-14,  cf.  15-19;  Lev.  ix.  2  f., 
xii.  6,  8,  xiv.  12,  xv.  14  f.,  30  ;  Ezek.  xlv.  23. 

^  Lev.  i.  3,  10,  14  (in  cases  of  necessity,  ])igeons). 

*  Lev.  i.  9.  ^  \  Chron.  xvi.  40. 

6  Lev.  vi.  2ff. ;  cf.  Ex.  xxix.  38  (1  Cliron.  xvi.  40).  The  T'DD  D^iy, 
"between  the  evenings,"  that  is,  immediately  after  sunset,  and  in  the  morning. 

^  E-f).  Lev.  vi.  5.  Besides,  even  strangers  could  show  their  reverence  for  the 
God  of  Israel  by  such  sacrifices,  as,  e.g.,  the  Roman  emperors  (Joseph,  c.  Ap.  ii.  6  ; 
Bdl.  Jud.  ii.  17.  2  ;  cf.  Lev.  xvii.  8,  xxii.  18,  25).  The  gradual  increase  of  this 
regular  Olah  from  2  Kings  xvi.  15  and  Ezek.  xlvi.  13  ff.  up  to  A,  Lev.  vi.  1-7, 
■ — the  idea  of  the  Olath  Tamidli  as  an  opus  operaizim  forming  the  centre  of  the 
religion  (Lev.  vi.  6,  vii.  2  ;  Deut,  ix.  27), — is  not  without  interest  for  the  history 
of  religion. 

8  In  early  days  paid  by  the  king,  afterwards  a  tax  on  the  community ;  cf. 
Ex.  XXX.  11  if. 


378  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

altar  in  order  to  devote  the  life  to  God,  in  the  sense, 
however,  not  of  a  definite  atonement,  but  of  a  gift,  a  token 
of  reverence.  The  feeling  of  general  unworthiness  in  presence 
of  the  holy  God,  even  in  A  already  very  strongly  developed, 
must  certainly  have  accompanied  every  act  of  worship  in 
Israel.  Every  one  who  comes  to  an  act  of  sacrifice  must 
"  sanctify  himself."  ^  But  still  that  is  not  the  essential  feature 
of  this  sacrifice. 

B.  In  the  second  class  we  put  the  thanh- offerings^  sacrifices 
offered  to  God  on  special  occasions  and  for  special  reasons  by 
individuals  to  express  their  thankfulness  for  what  God  gives. 
These  were  naturally  offered  on  every  festive  occasion,  and 
without  such  an  offering  the  piety  of  ancient  peoples  did  not 
permit  flesh  to  be  eaten.  They  were  anxious  to  present  God 
with  a  welcome  gift,  whether  on  the  occasion  of  a  vow,^  or 
from  an  instinctive  prompting  of  piety,*  or  simply  out  of 
gratitude.^  What  distinguishes  these  from  the  other  sacrifices 
is  i\\Q  festive  meal,  in  which  the  person  "rejoices  before  God."^ 
In  A,  of  course,  the  traces  of  this  have  become  very  faint 
compared  with  the  ancient  gladness  with  which  the  people 
offered  sacrifice.     Hence  even  leavened  bread  might  be  used 

^  1  Sam.  xvi.  5. 

"  W"ch'\^  n3T>  Lev.  vii.  11,  xvii.  5,  in  most  cases  also  meant  when  nZT 
stands  alone.  The  word  denotes  neither  sacrifices  of  blessedaess  nor 
sacrifices  of  salvation,  intended  to  indicate  "the  whole  fulness  of  salvation." 
It  rather  refers  to  the  unbroken  covenant  relation  which  the  sacrificial  meal 
.serves  to  express  (Wellhausen).  But  even  the  Olah  presupposes  such  a  relation. 
It  is  connected  with  the  Piel  of  the  verb,  and  is  tlierefore  a  sacrifice  of 
"requital,"  "repayment,"  that  is,  a  sacrifice  for  a  favour  received  or  about  to 
be  received. 

■*  lli,  Lev.  vii.  16,  xxvii.  Iff,  (Of  course,  in  a  vow  one  may  also  choose  other 
forms  of  sacrifice,  Lev,  xxii.  18  ;  Num.  xv.  3  ;  Judg.  xi.  30  f. ) 

■*  n^nj,  Lev.  vii.  16  (Ps.  Ivi.  13).  (All  other  acts  of  sacrifice,  e.g.  Ex.  xxxv. 
29,  xxxvi.  3,  may,  of  course,  be  also  regarded  as  Nedaboth.) 

*  min  niT,  Lev.  vii.  12,  xxii.  29  ;  cf.  Ps.  xxvii.  6,  nynn-'naT-  In  this 
case  the  strict  law  was  that  nothing  of  the  sacred  meal  should  be  left  over  till 
the  following  day — in  the  case  of  the  Neder  and  Nedabah  nothing  was  to  be  left 
till  the  third  day  (Lev.  vii.  15  f ,  xix.  6). 

«  Deut.  xii.  7,  12,  18,  xiv.  2411".  ;  1  Sara.  xx.  6,  xi.  15  ;  cf.  Ex.  xviii.  12  ; 
Gi.'n.  xxxi.  54. 


SACEIFICES.  379 

with  sacrifices  of  this  kind ;  and  where  there  was  no  vow, 
people  might  choose  even  animals  of  no  great  value  and  not 
altogether  without  blemish/  only  not  such  as  would  not  make 
a  meal.2  Among  the  ancient  people  such  votive  thank- 
offerings  not  uufrequently  degenerated  into  "  scenes  of 
debauchery  "  very  far  from  holy.^  On  the  other  hand,  they 
have  enriched  the  vocabulary  of  religion  with  a  number  of 
most  significant  metaphors  for  joy  in  God.* 

In  these  sacrifices  the  offerer  presents  the  animal  to  God, 
dedicates  it  by  laying  his  hand  on  it,  and  slays  it.  In  the 
blood,  the  priest  presents  to  God  the  life  of  the  victim.^ 
Then,  as  a  token  of  homage,  God  is  given  "  the  best  of  the 
flesh,"  i.e.  the  fat,  which  is  burned,^  and  the  right  breast  and 
shoulder — not  merely  as  being  the  choicest  piece  (as  in 
1  Sam.  ix.  24),  but  as  the  seat  of  life  and  strength,  as  is 
proved  by  the  selection  of  the  right  side.  These  are  His  by 
way  of  honour,  and  the  priests  offer  them  to  Him  by  lifting 
them  up'^  and  presenting  them,^  in  order  to  receive  them  back 
again  from  Him  as  His  servants.  Whatever  is  left  over  is 
then  eaten  at  a  festive  meal  as  an  act  of  worship.  In  such 
sacrifices  there  is  no  idea  of  anxious  penitence  for  sin.  They 
make  prayer  more  efficacious,  and  they  express  thanks  for 
its  having  been  heard.  To  this  general  class  belong  also  tlie 
covenant-sacrifices  connected  with  the  solemn  feast,  at  which 

1  Lev.  vii.  15,  xxii.  23.  2  ^gy^  jjj^  g  fj-_ 

3  Prov.  vii.  14  ;  Isa.  xxviii.  8.      1    Sam.    i.    13   also   shows  that  at  such 
sacriticial  feasts  drunkenness  was  not  considered  anything  extraordinary. 
■*  Ps.  xxii.  26  f.;  B.  J.  xxv.  6ff.,  Ixii.  8,  9;  Deut.  xxvii.  7. 
5  For  the  rite,  cf.  Lev.  iii.  1  if.,  vii.  11. 

^  3^n  T'Dpn,  1  Sam.  ii.  15.  (Not  merely  the  inside  fat ;  for,  according  to 
Lev.  iii.  3-5,  the  fat  tail  of  the  sheep  is  also  included.)  For  the  idea,  cf,  the 
expressions,  "the  fat  of  the  land,"  "the  fat  of  wheat,"  esp.  Ps.  xx.  4,  May 
God  think  thine  offerings  "fat," 

^  nonnn  piu'. 

*  nSljnn  ntn.  The  meaning  of  the  expressions,  "lifted  up  before  God," 
"presented  to  God,"  comes  out  very  clearly  in  Ex.  xxxv.  5,  21,  22,  24,  xxxvi. 
3,  6,  xxxviii.  24,  29,  xxv.  2;  Num.  viii.  11,  13,  15,  21;  cf.  Ex,  xxix.  24 if.; 
Lev.  vii.  30  f.,  ix.  21,  x.  14f, 


380  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

the  contracting  parties  assist,  and  which  are  a  very  ancient 
custom.  These,  however,  are  ratlier  a  S3'mbolical  form  of 
oath,  the  sacrificial  meal  being  meant  as  a  pledge  of 
fellowship. 

C.  The  third  class  consists  of  sin-offerings  and  guilt-offerings} 
Tliese  are  sacrifices  offered  by  an  individual  or  a  community 
in  order  to  restore  the  relationship  to  God  which  sin  or  guilt 
has  disturbed,  that  is  to  say,  in  order  to  obtain  reconciliation. 
The  common  characteristic  of  these  is  the  atoning  use  of  the 
sacrificial  offering  and  the  sacrificial  blood,  and  they  have  one 
and  the  same  Thorah.^  It  seems  to  me  not  improbable  that 
both  of  these,  as  special  kinds  of  sacrifice,  restricted,  but 
only  gradually,  the  general  use  of  the  burnt-offering ;  and 
that,  on  the  other  hand,  their  respective  differences  were  never 
quite  agreed  upon  and  clearly  formulated.  The  distinguish- 
ing of  the  two  is  essentially  a  matter  of  archajological  interest. 

It  must,  in  the  first  place,  become  clear  to  every  one  that 
it  is  an  utter  impossibility  to  separate  these  two  kinds  of 
sacrifice,  if  Lev.  v.  1—13  is  regarded  as  a  law  anent  the  guilt- 
offering.  For  in  that  case  the  guilt-offering  would  be  simply 
presented  as  a  burnt-offering  for  sin,^  and  the  cases  cited, 
viz.  keeping  silence  when  under  oath,  touching  something 
unclean,  taking  an  imprudent  vow,  correspond  so  exactly  with 
the  causes  of  a  sin-offering,  that  a  distinction  is  impossible. 
But  as  a  guilt-offering  is  undoubtedly  to  be  regarded  as  a 
different  kind  of  sacrifice  from  a  burnt-offering  for  siu,^  we 
must  either  conclude  that  there  are  two  sets  of  laws  from 
different  sources,  or  assume,  with  Eiehm,  that  the  word 
"  repentance "    has,    in    the    section    cited,    a    more    general 

^  nStsn,  Lev.  iv.  24,  viii.  2,  14,  etc.;  of.  Xisn,  Lev.  ix.  15  ;  Xisnnn,  Num. 
viii.  21  ;  Dti'X,  e.gr.  Lev.  vi.  10. 

-  Lev.  vii.  7. 

^  Lev.  V.  6-8,  12.  (Asharu  and  Cbattath  are  here  iuterclianged  as  absolutely 
synonymous.) 

•*  Lev.  vi.  10,  vii.  1,  7,  37,  xiv.  12  f.;  Num.  v.  5f.,  vi.  12,  xviii.  9;  2  Kings 
iii.  17  ;  Ezck.  xl.  39,  xlii.  13,  xliv.  29,  xlvi.  20. 


SACRIFICES.  381 

meaning,  as  indeed  the  expression  "  to  be  guilty "  occurs 
elsewliere  also  in  connection  with  sin-offerings.^  The  guilt- 
offering,  then,  is  made  where  one  has  infringed  the  rights  of  a 
s^acred  j)ersonage  or  of  a  neighbour  inadvertently,  or  in  some 
other  way  regarded  as  pardonable ;  in  other  words,  where 
satisfaction  has  to  he  given  to  a  definite  person,  whether  God  or  a 
neighhour,  on  account  of  some  encroachment  on  the  privileges 
he  enjoys,  the  word  privilege  being  used  in  its  widest  sense. 
It  is  atonement  for  infringement  of  a  right.  If  a  man 
meddles  with  something  sacred,^  or  if,  as  Nazirite,  he 
unwittingly  injures  what  he  has  vowed  to  God,  and  thus 
defiles  what  is  dedicated  to  God  in  his  own  person,^  or  if  he 
lays  faithless  or  violent  hands  on  the  property  of  a  neighbour,* 
— a  female  slave  included, — then  all  these  are  cases  where  a 
guilt-offering  is  necess:iry.  Its  distinctive  mark  is  its  fixed 
value,^  the  amount  to  be  paid  as  compensation  being  one-fifth 
more  than  the  damage  done;^  in  a  word,  the  payment  is  of 
the  nature  of  an  indemnity.  The  sin-offering,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  required  wherever,  through  inadvertence  or  any  other 
mitigating  cause,  something  has  occurred  which,  without  doing 
definite  injury  to  God  or  one's  neighbour,  violates  the  require- 

^  E.g.  Lev.  iv.  22,  27.  Qu'X,  according  to  the  older  usage  of  the  language, 
is  applied  to  presents  of  gold  and  other  sacred  gifts,  1  Sam.  vi.  3,  and  tomouev- 
fines  paid  into  the  tenijjle  treasury,  2  Kings  xii.  17.  This  original  meaning  of 
a  "money  fine"  without  a  special  sacrifice  is  still  characteristic  of  the  word, 
even  iu  A. 

2  Lev.  V.  15  f.  (Thus  even  the  sacred  gift  with  which  the  Philistines  send 
back  the  ark  of  Jehovah  is  DK'X,  a  "fine,"  1  Sam.  vi.  3ff. ) 

^  Num.  vi.  12.  It  is  certain  it  is  onlj'  in  this  respect,  and  not  in  regard  to 
the  time  devoted  to  God's  service,  that  he  has  offended.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
will  always  be  difficult  to  make  the  case  in  Lev.  xiv.  12  f.,  17,  fit  in  with  this 
whole  theory.  In  that  instance  a  guilt-off'ering  was  probably  prescribed,  because 
a  condition  of  things  had  arisen  which  destroyed  the  sacred  character  of  the 
Israelite,  and  before  the  right  relationship  could  be  re-established  an  equivalent 
nnist  first  be  paid  to  God  ;  whereas  for  the  violation  of  physical  holiness,  as  in 
the  case  of  touching  a  dead  body  (Lev.  v.  2  ff.),  a  sin-off'ering  was  presented. 

*  Lev.  V.  21  ff". ;  Num.  v.  6  ff". ;  Lev,  xix.  20  f. ;  Ezra  x.  10  (^jyo). 

*  Dna3n-i5''X,  Num.  V.  8  ;  nt'Nn-b''X,  Lev.  v.  16  ;  cf.  the  price,  Lev.  v, 
15,  18  :  two  shekels  of  the  sanctuary. 

*  Lev.  V.  16,  24  ;  Num.  v.  7.  . 


382  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

ments  of  moral  or  physical  holiness.  It  is  atonement  for 
uncleanness.  Its  peculiarity  is  the  search  after  purification, 
because  the  question  of  compensation  or  indemnity  cannot 
come  in.  Hence  its  essential  and  most  solemn  characteristic 
is  the  shedding  of  the  atoning  blood.  Accordingly  the  value 
of  the  offering  depends  on  the  position  of  the  culprit ;  for  the 
higher  that  position  is,  the  graver  does  the  impurity  become.^ 
This  sacrifice  being  really  the  chief  example  of  its  class,  we 
must  give  it  almost  exclusive  attention.^ 

It  is  only  when  a  sin  has  been  committed  "inadvertently," 
"  unwittingly,"  that  these  expiatory  sacrifices  of  the  Law  can 

1  Lev.  xvi.  3,  5,  iv.  13,  22,  27. 

2  As  stated  above,  tlie  view  adopted  by  Rielim  has  commended  itself  most  to 
me ;  altliougli,  on  account  of  Lev.  xiv.  12  ft".  and  v.  17,  I  am  by  no  means  free 
from  doubts.  The  theory  of  Ewald,  that  the  guilt-ofiering  was  made  "where 
the  individual  feels  himself  shut  out  from  the  favour  of  his  God  by  conscious 
guilt  or  a  mysterious  divine  sulTering, — the  siu-oftering  where  the  individual 
does  not  feel  himself  intentionally  guilty," — is,  in  my  opinion,  disproved  by 
Lev.  V.  1-13,  where  sin-olferings  are  required  for  cases  which  include  a  distinct 
consciousness  of  guilt  on  the  part  of  the  individual,  and  on  the  similarity  of 
Lev.  V.  17  with  Lev.  iv.  27.  The  theory  of  Gesenius,  that  the  guilt-off"erinGf 
atoned  for  lighter  transgressions,  and  the  sin-offering  for  more  flagrant  ones,  is 
disproved  by  simply  comiiaring  Lev.  iv.  1-v.  13  with  v.  14  ff.;  Num.  v.  5  If. 
Indeed,  the  compensation  to  be  paid  and  the  definite  value  of  the  victim  would 
rather  lead  to  the  opposite  conclusion.  It  would,  however,  be  very  natural  to 
consider  the  guilt-oftering  as  a  mere  subdivision  of  the  sin-off'ering,  especially 
where  there  is,  apart  from  the  sin,  "  a  condition  the  reverse  of  holy."  Only  in 
that  case  it  would  be  difficult  to  understand  why  the  guilt-off'ering  is  always 
found  along  with  the  sin-offering,  while  in  many  cases  the  two  ought  to  be  inter- 
changeable. And  besides,  if  it  were  so,  a  sin-offering  must  have  been  offered 
in  every  case,  even  where  special  justification  for  a  guilt-otfering  exists,  which 
is  obviously  not  the  case.  The  correct  view,  that  in  a  sin-offering  reparation  for 
the  sin  can  be  made  only  by  penitence,  whereas  in  a  guilt-oflering  this  can  be 
done  by  an  indemnity,  by  compensation  to  God,  His  sanctuary,  or  one's  neigh- 
bour, is  also  given  by  Saalschiitz ;  and  even  Rink  acknowledges  that  a  guilt- 
offering  is  in  place  wherever  an  act  of  atonement  or  requital  is  necessary.  But 
when  he  adds,  probably  on  account  of  Lev.  xiv.,  "also  in  order  thereby  to 
obtain  privileges,"  he  forgets  that  in  that  case  the  guilt-offering  would  fall  into 
the  category  of  a  precatory  or  votive  sacrifice — not  into  that  of  a  propitiatory 
sacrifice  (cf.  Kurtz,  Oehler,  etc.).  (Cf.  on  this  question,  Wellh.  77.)  I  have  no 
doubt  also  that  ancient  ordinances  lie  at  the  foundation  of  these  laws,  although 
the  religious  life  of  ancient  Israel  knew  of  money  fines  in  place  of  these  sacri- 
fices (2  Kings  xii.  17  ;  Hos.  iv.  8).  The  criticism  of  Lev.  xiii.  and  xiv.  by 
Fr.  Delitzsch  ("Pentateuch  Kritische  Studien,"  Zcitschr.  f,  kirchl.  Wiss.  u. 
llrchl.  Lehcn,  1880,  1)  is  very  instructive. 


SACRIFICES.  383 

be  properly  offered.^  Still  there  are  a  number  of  cases  where 
they  are  allowed,  even  although  there  is  no  such  "  inadvert- 
ence "  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word ;  as,  for  instance,  when 
the  culprit  informs  against  himself,  without  having  been  con- 
victed, and  so  on.  He  has  then  to  offer,  if  it  be  a  guilt- 
offering,  a  victim  of  the  required  value ;  if  a  sin-offering,  one 
of  more  or  less  value,  according  to  his  own  standing  in  the 
theocracy.  The  priest  and  the  holy  congregation  are  rated 
highest,  then  the  prince,  and  last  of  all  the  ordinary  citizen. 
The  value  ranges  from  a  bullock  to  a  she-goat  ^  or  a  ewe ;  ^  in 
cases  of  poverty,  to  pigeons  ;  and  in  an  extreme  case,  a  bloodless 
offering  without  oil  and  incense.*  In  every  case,  however, 
the  character  of  sadness  is  kept  up.  Female  animals,^  the 
gqat,^  the  w^ant  of  incense  and  oil,  betoken  this  peculiarity  of 
the  expiatory  sacrifice.  The  victim  is  dedicated  to  God  by 
the  offerer  laying  his  hand  upon  it,  and  is  then  killed.'^ 
If  it  is  a  sin-offering,  the  next  act  is  a  specially  solemn 
application  of  the  blood  as  an  atonement.  In  the  most 
solemn  case  the  blood  is  brought  direct  to  God  into  the  Holy 
of  Holies,  while  all  the  sacred  utensils  are  besprinkled  with  it.^ 
In  other  cases  of  a  solemn  sin-offering,  the  priest  sprinkles 
the  atoning  blood  with  his  finger  seven  times  on  the  veil  and 
on  the  horns  of  the  sacred  altar,  and  pours  out  the  rest  of  it 
before  the  altar  of  burnt-otFering.^  In  more  ordinary  cases 
the  blood  is  put  with  the  finger  only  on  the  brazen  altar 
and  its  horns.^'^  But  in  every  instance  it  is  this  sprinkling 
with  blood  that  constitutes  the  really  sacramental  part  of 
tlie  ceremony.  Then  almost  the  same  portions  of  the  victim 
are    devoted   to    God   by   fire   as   are   burnt   in   the   case  of 

1  111  reality,  therefore,  tlicy  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  qncstion  of  atone- 
ment and  forgiveness  of  sins. 

-  Lev.  iv.  28.  *  Lev.  v.  C. 

*  Lev.  V.  7,  11  ;  of.  Num.  v.  15,  25. 

B  Lev.  iv.  28,  32,  v.  6  ;  cf.  Schomann,  ii.  226,  «  Lev,  iv.  23,  xvi.  7. 

7  Ex.  xxix.  10  ;  Lev.  iv.  4,  16,  24,  28  fl". 

8  Lev.  xvi.  14,  15,  18,  »  Lev.  iv,  7,  17. 
1"  Ex.  xxix,  12  ;  Lev.  iv.  25,  29,  30,  viii.  15,  :x.  9. 


384  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

a  thauk-offering.^  But  the  remainder  of  the  victim,  too, 
wliich  has  been  offered  in  token  of  penitence,  belongs  to  God 
as  most  holy.2  It  cannot  be  nsed  for  any  ordinary  purpose ; 
it  must  not  even  be  touched  by  anything  unconsecrated. 
Every  vessel  in  which  it  is  prepared  must  be  broken,  or  if  it  be 
of  iron,  it  must  at  least  be  cleansed.^  As  a  rule,  the  offering 
must  be  eaten  by  the  priests  in  a  holy  place.*  But  a  signifi- 
cant story  reminds  us  that  this  was  something  unusual,  and 
expresses  the  horror  whicli  the  eating  of  such  a  sacrifice  pro- 
duced, the  awe  with  which  everything  "consecrated  to  God" 
was  regarded.^  When  the  priest  himself,  or  the  whole  com- 
munity, brought  the  sin-offering,  so  that,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  no  part  of  it  could  be  appropriated  by  the  priest,  it 
had  to  be  burned  in  some  clean  place,  while  the  blood  was 
brought  into  tlie  very  tabernacle,  that  is,  was  consecrated  to 
God  Himself.^  In  this  case  the  burning,  of  course,  served  as 
a  mere  means  of  destruction,  so  that  what  was  holy  might 
not  be  polluted  by  becoming  rotten  and  putrid ;  and  in  the 
sanctuary  there  was  no  place  to  burn  what  could  not  be 
offered.  That  what  was  in  this  case  really  essential,  was 
the  sacrifice  of  an  animal,  and  that  the  meal-offering  was 
merely  an  adjunct,  is  evident  from  the  whole  character  of  the 
rite. 

4.  When  we  inquire  as  to  the  religious  meaning  of  the 
various  forms  of  sacrifice,  we  find  it  easiest  to  determine  the 
significance  of  the  thank-offerings.  They  are  meant  merely 
to  express  a  specially  pious  frame  of  mind,  and  have  through- 
out no  significance  except  as  g^fts,  presents.  Whoever  asks 
anything  in  prayer,  or  has  obtained  anything,  should  not 
appear  before  God  empty-handed;'^  he  is  bound  to  show  and 

^  Ex.  xxix.  13  ;  Lev.  iv.  8,  10,  31  ;  cf.  vii.  1  ff.     The  ram  of  the  guilt-offcriiig. 

*  Lev.  vi.  10,  18,  23,  vii.  1,  6,  x.  17,  xiv.  13. 

s  Lev.  vi.  20  f.  *  Lev.  vi.  19,  22,  vii.  6. 

*  Lev.  ix.  8-11,  15,  x.  16-20. 

«  Ex.  xxix.  14  ;  Lev.  iv.  11,  12,  21,  ix.  11,  xvi.  27  f. ;  cf.  vi.  23,  x.  18. 
'  Ex.  xxiii.  15. 


THE  MEANING  OF  THE  SACRIFICES.  385 

acknowledge  that  he  receives  everything  from  the  Most  High. 
Just  as  a  man  brings  the  first-fruits  of  his  fields  and  the 
firstlings  of  his  herds  as  tribute,  so,  on  the  special  occasions 
when  he  appears  before  God,  he  ought  to  appear  with  gifts. 
Indeed,  he  should  never  partake  of  any  festive  meal  without 
remembering  his  God,  and  presenting  Him  with  a  part  of  it, 
with  the  honourable  portion  which  belongs  to  the  King. 

In  all  this  there  is  absolutely  no  thought  of  any  kind  of 
atonement.  One  cannot,  it  is  true,  give  an  animal  to  God 
without  killing  it,  and  dedicating  its  life  to  the  Lord  of  life 
by  the  shedding  of  its  blood.  But  that  has  no  more  to  do 
with  atonement  than  has  the  burning  of  incense  in  the  meal- 
offering.  On  this  point  the  one-sided  view  taken  of  a  single 
passage  has  caused  great  confusion.  In  Lev.  xvii.  10,  11., 
the  sacredness  of  the  blood  is  emphasised,  because  it  is  the 
property  of  God  alone.  His  holy  of  holies  in  nature,  within 
which  the  secret  of  life  lies  under  lock  and  key.  It  is  there 
said,  "  I  have  given  it  to  you  to  cover  your  souls."  From 
this  it  has  been  inferred  that  wherever  the  blood  is  offered 
to  God,  it  invariably  gives  the  sacrifice  an  expiatory  character. 
But  the  idea  of  expiation  has  been  put  into  the  word  "  cover  " 
without  any  justification,  and  the  fact  has  been  overlooked 
that  this  passage  simply  regards  the  most  important  object  of 
sacrifice  as  applicable  to  all  the  various  kinds  of  it.  The 
blood,  being  the  life  or  the  bearer  of  life,  is  holy,  dedicated 
to  God,  withheld  from  every  profane  use.^  This  is  already 
emphasised  in  Deut.  xii.  16,  23  f.,  and  is  certainly  a  very 
ancient  view.  When  this  blood  is  in  sacrifice  brought  again 
into  the  presence  of  God,  and  poured  out  on  His  altar,  the 
victim's  life  is  thereby  given  back  to  Him,  This  completes 
the  act  of  consecration,  by  which  a  man  is  made  fit  to  appear 

1  Gen.  ix.  4ff. ;  Lev.  xvii.  10  f.  The  special  exposition  follows  in  connection 
■with  sacrifices  of  atonement,  and  the  view  there  given  of  the  term  "cover." 
(The  C'D33  and  ItJ'Sja,  vers.  11  and  14,  is  quite  as  clear  a  gloss  as  is  "I0T  in 
Gen.  ix.  4.) 

VOL.  I.  2  B 


386  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

before  the  holy  God.     "When  this  is  done  for  the  purpose  of 
atonement,  the  blood  certainly  receives  its  most  special  and 
mysterious  sacrificial  meaning.      In  the  thank-offering,  on  the 
other  hand,   the  victim  is  killed  simply  because  it  can  be 
dedicated  to  God  in  no  other  way.     Its  blood  is  poured  out 
on  the  altar  because  its  life  belongs  to  God,  and  has  to  be 
presented  to  Hira.      Hence,  according  to  the  Deuteronomist, 
when  an  animal  is  eaten,  though  not  as  a  sacrifice,  the  blood  is 
to  be  poured  out  upon  the  ground  like  water.^     Consequently 
in  the  thank-offering   the  blood    consecrates   the  person   for 
sacred  service.     A  part  of  the  victim's  flesh  is  burned,  that  it 
may  ascend  in  flame  to  God.     The  honorary  portion  is  given 
to  Him  in  His  servants ;  the  rest  is  eaten  with  gladness  as  in 
a  covenant  feast.      The  whole  sacrifice  has  simply  the  char- 
acter of  a  gift  to  God,  the  King,  presented  out  of  gratitude,  joy, 
or  reverence.      Of  an  arrestment  of  human  life,  for  which  the 
victim's  life  is  substituted,  there  is,  of  course,  in  none  of  these 
sacrifices  any  suggestion  at   all.     Nor  do  we  meet  with  the 
ancient  idea  of  a  communion  of  life  between  God  and  His  wor- 
shippers being  effected  by  their  partaking  of  the  flesh  of  the  same 
animal  (Robertson  Smith).     It  is  simply  as  a  part  of  human 
food,  of  human  property,  that  the  animal   is  given  back,  just 
as  a  vegetable  gift  might  be,  to  God  the  Lord  and  Giver  of  all. 
The   religious   ideas  which   lie  at   the  foundation   of  the 
burnt-offering  are  less  simple.      This  is  to  be  expected  since 
all  the  varying  moods  which  influence  the  life  of  a  community 
in  its  public  worship  are  expressed  by  this  class  of  offerings, 
so  that  its  meaning  is  necessarily  richer  and  more  manifold. 
But  it  is  still  more  to  be  expected,  because  through  all  the 
narrower  details  of  the  law  regarding  this  kind  of   sacrifice 
there  shines   an    original    and    much   wider    meaning.     The 


^  In  Israel  this  idea  about  Wood  is  ancient.  Thus  David,  2  Sam.  xxiii.  14  fF., 
pours  out  the  water  brought  to  him  by  his  mighty  men  at  the  risk  of  their 
lives  "to  Jehovah,"  because  it  is  "the  blood"  of  the  men  who  risked  their 
lives  for  it. 


THE  MEANING  OF  THE  SACRIFICES.  387 

essential  feature  of  the  sacrifice  is  the  complete  surrender  of 
the  victim  to  God.  Hence  its  main  purpose  is  to  indicate 
that  it  is  the  absolute  duty  of  the  community  and  the  indi- 
vidual to  belong  with  all  their  possessions  to  God,  to  testify 
that  God  may  demand  from  His  people  what  He  will,  and 
reckon  on  a  perfectly  boundless  devotion.  Human  sacrifice, 
which  the  primitive  age  had  no  scruple  in  including  within 
this  duty,  is  no  longer  thought  of  by  the  law.  The  life  of  a 
man  has  to  be  unconditionally  redeemed  by  that  of  an 
animal.^  Here,  then,  an  animal  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  the 
substitute  of  a  man ;  ^  but  not  as  if  it  were  punished  for  him, 
or  bore  his  guilt,  but  simply  because,  instead  of  the  greater 
offering  which  He  might  claim,  God  is  willing  to  accept  the 
smaller ;  instead  of  the  highest  life  that  exists  on  earth,  the 
lower,  that  of  the  animal.  There  is  no  reason,  even  in  the  case 
of  a  burnt-offering,  why  we  should  regard  the  sprinkling  of 
blood  as  expiatory.  It  merely  expresses  the  dedication  to  God 
of  the  life  of  the  animal  sacrificed.  The  real  intention  is  to 
signify  that  unreserved  devotion  to  God  which  does  not  con- 
sider even  the  most  costly  gift  as  too  valuable  to  be  given  up 
and  dedicated  to  the  Most  High  God,  who  is  King  over  Israel.^ 
The  greatest  difficulty,  however,  is  to  ascertain  the  religious 
ideas  at  the  basis  of  the  expiatory  sacrifices,  the  sin-offering 
and  the  guilt-offering.  It  is  here  that  the  sacramental  and 
the  symbolical  touch  each  other.  It  is  here  that  the  widest 
scope  is  given  to  mysticism,  and  in  such  a  realm  it  is  always 
a  matter  of  extraordinary  difficulty  to  find  a  doctrinal  expres- 
sion for  the  import  of  such  ceremonies  that  will  at  the  same 

1  Gen.  xxii.  13  ;  Ex.  xiii.  13,  15  ;  Lev.  xx.  1  fF. ;  cf,  Jer.  xix.  5  ;  Ezek.  xx.  25  ; 
Jlicah  vi.  6  ff.  In  the  same  way  among  the  Egyptians  also,  the  oxen  that  were 
properly  marked  were  sacrificed  instead  of  human  victims,  and  by  the  Greeks 
and  Romans  a  similar  development  is  seen. 

-  nnn  ;  cf.  Gen.  xxii.  13  ;  Ex.  xiii.  13,  15. 

3  If  God  accepts  the  burnt-offering,  He  has  thereby  entered,  as  it  were,  into 
the  relationship  of  "guest,"  which  excludes  anger,  Judg.  xiii.  23.  A  person 
undertaking  something  important  generally  assured  himself  in  this  way  of  the 
favour  of  God,  1  Sam.  xiii.  12,  niH''  "'JDTlN  rhu. 


388  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

time  be  just  to  every  feeling.  At  any  rate,  we  need  nevei* 
imagine  that  we  are  here  in  possession  of  really  religious 
ideas  of  atonement,  or  that  we  shall  obtain  any  explana- 
tion of  the  siguificance  of  the  atoning  work  of  Jesus,  which  is 
acted  out  on  a  far  higher  moral  plane.  But  we  are  never- 
theless face  to  face  with  a  difficult  and  interesting  question. 

The  general  meaning  of  the  expiatory  sacrifices  can,  it  is^ 
true,  be  determined  with  perfect  certainty.  They,  too,  are 
primarily  meant  to  be  gifts,  presents.  Whenever  a  man 
becomes  conscious  of  having  failed  to  discharge  his  duties  and 
obligations,  in  other  words,  of  having  made  himself  guilty  in 
the  eyes  of  the  King  of  Israel,  he  seeks  to  get  rid  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  God's  displeasure.  In  cases  of  actual  moral 
guilt,  the  older  prophets  had  rejected  as  popular  superstition 
the  wish  to  win  back  the  favour  of  God  by  any  outward 
sacrifices  whatsoever.  Where  God  is  really  angry,  the  prayer 
of  His  servants  may  restore  the  people  to  His  favour,  by 
reminding  Him,  for  example,  of  Israel's  fathers,  of  the 
covenant,  and  of  the  divine  honour  which  is  bound  up  with 
Israel,  and  which  must  suffer  from  a  ruthless  infliction  of 
punishment.^  Thus  one  loved  by  God  may,  with  all  the  glow 
of  love,  intercede  for  this  nation,  may  connect  himself  indis- 
solubly  with  its  fate,  and  by  vicarious  suffering  work  out  its 
redemption.^  Or  deeds  done  through  zeal  for  God,  and  in 
accordance  with  the  divine  will,  may  avert  His  anger,  if  it 
can  be  averted  at  all.^  Sacrifices  like  the  legal  sacrifices  of 
atonement  are  not  intended  for  actual  sins  like  these.  But 
when  the  covenant  has  not  been  broken,  when  a  mere 
mistake,  such  as  may  be  committed  by  one  sincerely  anxious 
to  be  loyal,  has  separated  an  individual  from  his  God, 
then  God,  who   is   not   really  angry,  has  in  His  covenaut- 

1  So  Ex.  xxxii.  11  (C). 

^  So  Ex.  xxxii.  30,  nj?n  "1Q3  ;   B.    J.  liii.      Ezek.   iv.  4ff.,    on   the  other 
hand,  bears  the  guilt  of  the  people  only  symbolically. 

2  So  through  the  deed  of  Phinehas,  Num.  xxv.  11  ff.,  ~)y  "123. 


THE  MEANING  OF  THE  SACRIFICES.  389 

mercy  instituted  the  expiatory  sacrifice  as  the  legal  mode  of 
settlement.  By  it  God's  "  countenance  is  smoothed,"  as  is  the 
countenance  of  an  earthly  potentate.^  Just  as  in  a  court  of 
justice,  a  person  guilty  of  a  crime  which  does  not  absolutely 
deserve  death,  not  having  been  intentionally  committed,  may  be 
let  off  with  a  fine,^  if  the  party  injured  be  willing ;  so,  in  virtue 
of  His  covenant-mercy,  God  is  willing  to  accept  a  ransom  for 
sins  which  are  not  absolutely  unpardonable.  And  because  the 
life  of  an  animal  is  the  highest  and  holiest  thing  in  the  posses- 
sion of  man,  it  is  fixed  upon  as  the  ransom,  although,  of  course, 
its  efficacy  depends  solely  on  the  good  pleasure,  the  mercy  of 
God.  This  is  certainly  the  general  idea,  and  one  quite  sufficient 
to  explain  the  guilt-offering,  for  here  it  is  evident  the  leading 
thought  is  that  of  a  fine,  or  payment  according  to  the  amount  of 
damage  done.^  In  the  case  of  the  sin-offering,  however,  we  have 
to  do  with  a  number  of  more  delicate  questions  connected  with 
the  death  and  the  blood  of  the  victim,  and  their  atoning  efficacy. 
The  whole  procedure  would  be  most  simply  and  fully 
explained,  could  it  be  traced  back  to  the  idea  of  an  actual  or 
real  substitution ;  that  is,  to  the  idea  that  the  victim,  in  stepping 
into  the  place  of  the  guilty  person,  must  let  the  punishment 
due  to  him  be  inflicted  on  itself.  Then,  with  the  laying  on 
of  the  man's  hand,  the  guilt  would  be,  as  it  were,  transferred 
to  the  head  of  the  victim,  to  its  soul.  For  this  theory  there 
is  much  to  be  said.  Among  many  other  nations  there  is 
undoubtedly  something  of  the  same  idea  to  be  found,  especi- 
ally  in   the   view  taken   of  the   polluting  character   of  the 

^  D''JS  n?n ;  cf.  1  Sam.  xiii.  12  ;  2  Kings  xiii.  4  (also  of  other  sacrifices) ; 
Gen.  xxxii.  21  ;  Zech.  vii.  2  ;  D''JS  -|23  ;  cf.  Ps.  xlv.  13.  Even  the  rich  among 
the  people  shall  entreat  Thy  favour,  "shall  smooth  Thy  face  with  presents." 

^  "IDD,  Num.  XXXV.  31-34  ;  Ex.  xxi.  30,  etc.  The  parallel  is  complete.  For 
ii\tentional  murder  the  court  cannot  accept  a  ransom.  For  intentional  sin 
(HOT  *1*3)  there  is  no  atoning  sacrifice.  For  a  fatal,  if  unpremeditated,  blow, 
compensation  may  be  accepted,  if  the  plaintiff  be  willing.  For  unintentional  sin 
(nj3K^3),  God,  who  is  always  gracious,  does  accept  a  ransom. 

*  Thus,  in  more  ancient  times,  there  is  mention  only  of  a  ransom  or  fine,  of 
which  the  sanctuary  got  the  benefit,  2  Kings  xii.  17  ;  Hos.  iv.  8. 


390  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

objects  used  for  expiation.^  And  that  there  was  in  Israel  a 
similar  popular  belief,  may  be  inferred  from  their  deep-seated 
horror  of  the  flesh  of  the  sin-offering.^  It  is  likewise 
undoubted  that  the  people  when  under  the  wrath  of  God 
obtained  a  reconciliation  by  the  death  of  individuals  who  were 
not  personally  guilty .^  And  the  whole  theory  that  the  blood, 
as  the  source  of  life,  that  is,  as  the  soul,  "  covers  "  or  "  atones 
for  "  the  soul,  points  most  naturally  to  the  theory  of  an  inter- 
change of  roles,  in  other  words,  to  a  real  substitution.* 

Still  nothing  more  can  be  conceded  than  that  even  in  the 
law  involuntary  ecJiocs  of  such  a  view  are  found.  It  is  clear 
that  even  the  heathen  theory  of  an  atoning  sacrifice  admits 
of  only  a  symholical  substitution.^  And  the  support  appar- 
ently given  by  certain  passages  to  substitutionary  atonement 
disappears  on  a  closer  examination.  Thus  the  question  in 
Deut.  xxi.  1-9  is  not  about  a  substitutionary  atoning  death, 
but  about  a  symbolical  form  of  oath  by  which  the  community, 
while  repudiating  connection  with  the  crime,  calls  down  a 
curse  on  itself  in  case  of  perjury.  And  when,  in  2  Sam. 
xxi.  5  ff.,  cf.  Ex.  XX.  5,  the  curse  of  an  organised  body  works 
itself  out  even  on  its  innocent  members,  in  that  case  the 
innocent  are  not  punished  for  the  guilty,  but  the  whole  race 
is  judged  as  if  it  were  a  single  individual.  Besides,  in  the 
law  there  is  no  question  as  to  capital  offences.  Finally,  if  a 
human  sacrifice  is  replaced  by  an  animal  one,  that  is  merely 
a  vicarious  act,  not  a  vicarious  punishment.  And  the  flesh  of 
an  animal  slain  as  a  sin-offering  falls,  indeed,  under  the 
ban,  and  is  regarded  with  dread.  But  it  is  not  unclean;  it 
is  rather  most  Jioly,^  and  only  on  that  account  is  it  destructive 


I  Cf.  Hermann,  126,  132,  Nr.  24,  164  ;  Schomann,  ii.  230  ff.,  239. 

*  Lev.  ix.  8-11,  15,  x.  16-20 ;  cf.  Lev.  xvi.  28  ;  Num.  xix.  7,  8,  where  it  is  a 
question  as  to  a  means  of  purification.  Also  expressions  like  Prov.  xxi.  18, 
"  The  wicked  is  a  ransom  for  the  righteous,"  point  to  some  such  popular  view  ; 
cf.  also  the  metaphor  in  B.  J.  xliii.  4,  10. 

^  2  Sam.  xxi.  5ff.  *  Lev.  xvii.  11. 

"  Cf.  Hermauji,  ^.c.  «  Lj,y.  yi.  10,  18-23,  vii.  1,  6,  x.  17,  xiv.  13. 


THE  MEANING  OF  THE  SACRIFICES.  391 

and  fatal.^  The  priests  use  it  as  food.  If  there  is  nobody 
who  can  eat  it,  as,  for  example,  if  it  be  offered  by  the  priest  or 
by  the  community  itself,  then,  like  everything  wholly  devoted 
to  God,  even  the  meal-offering,-  it  must  come  under  the  "ban," 
that  is,  be  destroyed,  in  order  that  no  profane  use  may  dis- 
honour it.  In  some  clean  'place  (and  therefore  not  as  a  thing 
itself  unclean),  it  is  to  be  burned  outside  the  camp,  that  the 
people  may  not  run  the  risk  of  coming  into  contact  with 
what  is  most  holy ;  ^  and  the  same  rules  also  hold  good  of  the 
meal-offering  and  of  other  things.^  Indeed,  in  the  most 
decisive  instance,  viz.  Lev.  xvi.,  not  only  must  he  who  takes 
part  in  the  sacrifice  purify  himself,  but  so  also  must  he  who 
accompanies  the  animal  that  is  let  loose.  Here,  therefore,  it 
is  not  the  sacrifice,  but  the  whole  character  of  the  transaction, 
that  makes  purification  necessary. 

By  the  laying  on  of  the  hand  the  sin  is  not  transferred  to 
the  victim.  In  itself  this  is  merely  a  general  act  of  dedi- 
cation. By  this  act  the  person  who  dedicates  confers  his  own 
dignity  on  another.^  By  it  the  community  testifies  that  it 
hands  over  to  God  one  of  its  members  to  be  either  banned^ 
or  dedicated.^  And  by  the  laying  on  of  his  hand,  the  sacri- 
ficer  dedicates  each  victim,  as  his  own  property,  to  some 
higher  object,  that  object,  of  course,  varying  according  to  the 
intention  with  which  he  offers  the  sacrifice.      Thus    in   the 


^  Also  the  fact  that  whoever  touches  it  becomes  holy,  that  is,  has  to  be  slain ; 
and  in  this  connection  we  maj'^  mention  the  person  among  the  Romans  over 
whom  were  spoken  the  words  "  sacer  esto  "  (tJ^lp''),  Lev.  vi.  11,  20  DIPI- 

2  Lev.  vi.  10.  3  Lev.  iv.  12,  20,  vi.  16,  23. 

^  In  Lev.  vi.  10  it  is  said  that  the  Minchah  is  most  holy,  like  the  sin-offering 
and  the  guilt-offering.  The  priest  must  eat  the  sin-offering,  just  because  what  is 
most  holy  destroys  every  one  but  himself  (x.  12,  17,  xiv.  13).  Even  one  on 
Avhom  the  blood  spurts  must  wash  himself,  and  the  vessel  in  which  it  is  pre- 
pared must  be  also  cleansed  or  broken.  But  that  is  because  it  is  "  most  holy," 
Lev.  vi.  20,  22.  Were  the  blood  unclean,  it  could  not  be  brought  into  the 
presence  of  God.  And  just  where  that  is  so  in  the  very  highest  degree  must 
the  flesh  as  too  holy  be  burned  (ver.  23). 

5  So  Num.  xxvii.  IS,  20,  23,  «  So  Lev.  xxiv.  14. 

!"  So  Num.  viii.  10,  12. 


392  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

case  of  a  sin-offering  he  dedicates  it  as  a  means  of  atonement 
for  himself,  in  order  that  it  may  be  the  bearer  and  instrument 
of  his  repentance.  But  if  he  meant  to  lay  his  guilt  upon  it, 
and  if  that  were  indeed  allowable,  there  would  at  any  rate  still 
have  to  be  some  distinct  oral  confession  of  sin.  Indeed,  even 
in  that  case  the  victim  would  only  be  described  as  that  by  which 
the  sinner  wishes  to  lift  off  the  sin  he  has  confessed,  not  as  that 
which  is  now  to  be  considered  the  bearer  of  this  sin.  Besides, 
in  the  law  the  death  of  the  victim  does  not  constitute  the  atone- 
ment. It  is  merely  the  means  by  which  the  life  (blood)  of 
the  victim  is  appropriated  to  God.  It  cannot  therefore  be 
regarded  as  in  any  sense  a  vicarious  punishment.  Whatever 
is  devoted  to  God  must  die,  that  which  is  under  the  ban 
as  well  as  the  first-born,^  the  thank-offering  as  well  as  the 
burnt- offering.  And  only  after  the  killing  is  over,  is  the  blood 
brought  as  an  atonement  before  God;  and  that  not  as  a  life 
that  has  become  unclean  and  guilty,  but  as  something  fit  for  the 
presence  of  God.  Finally,  Lev.  v.  1 1  is  conclusive.  For  if  the 
bearing  of  punishment  by  the  victim  were  the  leading  idea,  then 
in  no  case,  not  even  in  a  case  of  poverty,  would  a  vegetable 
offering  be  allowable.  That  this  is  possible,  proves  that  the 
essence  of  the  act  is  not  the  death-penalty,  but  the  gift.^ 

Hence  this  "  transubstantiation-theory  "  is  in  every  case 
untenable,  however  well  it  may  appear  to  agree  with  a  few 
somewhat  obscure  expressions  ^  and  with  the  holy  horror  of 
what  has  been  employed  to  atone  for  sin.     Still  less  tenable 


»  Ex.  xiii.  13,  15. 

2  Lev.  V.  11.  The  saying  in  1  Sam.  xxvi.  19,  wliicli  has  a  genuinely  archaic 
ring  about  it,  should  also  be  compared,  "  If  it  be  Jehovah  that  hath  stirred 
thee  up  against  me,  let  Him  smell  a  Minchah  !  " 

3  Thus  the  very  expression  123  has  forced  its  way  deep  into  poetry.  Cf.  the 
beautiful  passage,  Ps.  xlix.  7,  8.  No  man  can  by  any  means  redeem  his 
brother,  nor  give  to  God  a  ransom  for  him  (Ex.  xxx.  12).  In  B.  J.  xliii.  3,  4, 
God  promises  to  give  to  Cyrus  as  ransom  for  Israel  the  distant  lands  of  the 
south,  i.e.  without  metaphor,  to  bestow  upon  him,  as  his  reward  for  setting 
Israel  free,  the  empire  of  the  M'orld.  In  both  cases  the  root-metaphor  is  the 
ransoming  of  slaves  (ms  njp)- 


THE  MEANING  OF  THE  SACRIFICES.  393 

is  the  theory  of  Keil,  that  "  the  soul  of  the  victim, 
and  tlierefore  of  the  man  who  offers  it,  is  brought  by  the 
sacrifice  into  gracious  fellowship  with  the  Lord,  and  that 
the  blotting  out  of  sin  and  the  sanctifying  of  the  person 
pardoned  is  represented  by  the  way  in  which  the  flesh  of  the 
victim  is  treated."  For  it  is  clear  that  the  victim  is  devoted 
to  God  as  a  gift  of  penitence,  and  received  by  Him  in  death 
and  fire.  Its  blood,  as  the  bearer  of  the  soul,  "  atones  "  for 
the  soul  of  the  sinner.  The  victim  in  its  death  is  the 
medium  of  the  sinner's  penitence,  not  the  symbol  of  the 
sinner  becoming  purified. 

Accordingly  we  may  consider  the  view  of  the  writer  of  the 
law  to  have  been  as  follows.  When  God  is  really  angry  with 
His  people  or  with  an  individual.  He  demands  satisfaction. 
In  many  cases  this  is  to  be  got  only  through  the  working  out 
of  His  anger.  Then  the  guilty  person  falls  under  the  ban,  is 
destroyed  out  of  the  land  of  the  living ;  ^  or  if  the  real  culprit 
is  no  longer  alive,  his  posterity  is  smitten  because  of  their 
family  connection  with  him  ;  ^  just  as  the  leaders  of  the  people 
may,  in  their  representative  capacity,  be  punished  instead  of 
the  whole  community.^  In  such  cases,  then,  the  anger  of 
God  does  not  pass  away  till  it  has  been  executed.  Only 
when  God  in  His  goodness  and  mercy  allows  Himself  to  be 
appeased  by  intercession  or  by  sincere  repentance  on  the  part 
of  man,  can  such  a  doom  be  averted.  And  assuredly  since 
the  days  of  the  great  prophets  the  Israelites  never  again 
quite  forgot  thab  the  God  of  Israel  has  no  pleasure  in  willing 
the  death  of  a  sinner.^ 

^  Din  ;  where  this  is  not  strictly  carried  out,  the  anger  of  God  falls  upon 
those  who  are  too  slow  in  executing  His  commands,  who  have  permitted  the 
land  to  continue  polluted  ;  cf.  Josh.  vii.  26,  viii.  26,  x.  1,  28,  37,  39,  40  ;  Judg. 
i.  17  ;  1  Sam.  xv.  33  ff.,  xxviii.  18  ;  cf.  1  Kings  xx.  42  (2  Kings  xxiii.  20). 

2  2  Sam.  xxi.  5  ff. ;  Ex.  xx.  5  (2  Sam.  xii.  18). 

^  Num.  XXV.  4  (the  reverse  in  2  Sara.  xxiv.  13  ff.). 

*  Cases  like  2  Sam.  xxi.  6  do  not  occur  any  more  in  later  times.  Even 
2  Sam.  xxiv.  18  ff.  testifies  to  the  idea  of  possible  sacrificial  atonement  for  sin ; 
cf.  Ezek.  xviii. 


394  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

But  when  it  is  not  a  case  of  divine  anger,  that  is,  when  a 
man  has  erred  through  weakness  without  any  contempt  of 
covenant  statutes,  it  is  quite  a  different  matter.  Then  it  is 
not  a  question  of  averting  God's  anger  or  of  its  working 
itself  out.  But  for  breaking  the  statute  the  sinner  has  to 
make  such  satisfaction  as  has  been  provided  for  in  the 
covenant  itself,  and  been  graciously  accepted  by  the  covenant 
God.  This  satisfaction  is  the  sin-offering,  which  is  a  ransom,  a 
redemption.^  Hence  the  root-idea  of  the  propitiatory  sacrifice 
is  that  the  sinner  acknowledges  his  sin,  seeks  reconciliation, 
and  gives  actual  expression  to  his  repentance  by  surrender 
of  his  property.  It  is  an  acknowledgment  that  God  is  right 
and  the  sinner  wrong.  It  gives  to  the  offended  majesty  of  the 
divine  claim  a  satisfaction  which,  it  is  true,  is  only  of  value 
because  God  accepts  it,  because  He  is  willing  to  be  reconciled. 

Accordingly,  the  law  lays  no  stress  on  the  intrinsic 
value  of  the  sacrifice.  That  human  sacrifice  is  quite  ex- 
cluded from  such  cases  as  we  are  now  considering,  is 
self-evident.  But  even  where  ancient  Israel  saw  in  it  a 
means  of  defence  against  God's  anger,^  its  application  is 
absolutely  excluded  by  the  law.  And  even  animal  sacrifice  is 
kept  within  the  limits  of  symbol.  No  hecatombs  fall  iu 
Israel  by  way  of  atonement.  Single  victims  are  enough, 
varying  according  to  the  sinner's  position  in  the  ranks  of 
the  holy  people,  according  to  the  degree  in  which  the  holi- 
ness required  by  God  has  been  violated.  If  need  be,  the 
meal-offering,  the  smallest  of  all  sacrifices,  is  sufficient. 
And  the  specially  atoning  element,  the  blood,  God  has  given 
to  man  for  this  very  purpose.  Man  does  not,  by  his  gift, 
extort  reconciliation  from   God.     Nor  does  God  satisfy  His 

^  "ID3  ;  most  plainly  in  Ex.  xxi.  30,  xxx.  12  ;  Num.  xxxi.  50.  The  last 
passage,  like  Ex.  v.  3,  is  remarkable  as  giving  utterance  to  the  ancient  feeling 
that  "  inexplicable  good  fortnne  "  mnst  be  expiated,  lest  it  bring  some  judgment 
in  its  train  ;  cf.  Num.  xxxv.  31-34  ;  2  Kings  xii.  17. 

*  Micali  vi.  7  ;  cf.  2  Kings  iii.  27.  The  constantly  recurring  worship  of 
Moloch. 


THE  MEANING  OF  THE  SACRIFICES.  395 

anger  by  punishing  in  place  of  the  guilty,  the  innocent 
who  have  had  no  evil  intention.  But  in  His  mercy  He 
accepts  the  gift  of  repentance  and  atonement,  and  even  puts 
it  into  the  hand  of  man,  so  that  the  holy  act  of  reconcilia- 
tion may  be  accomplished  in  the  right  and  proper  way. 

In  a  sacrifice  of  atonement,  as  soon  as  the  sacrificial  act  is 
fully  performed,  the  blood  becomes  the  real  centre  of  the 
ceremony.  With  it  the  priest  covers  the  sinner,  that  is,  as 
the  servant  of  God  who  holds  uninterrupted  intercourse  with 
Him,  he  leads  the  unworthy  one  back  into  fellowship  with 
God,  makes  him,  by  means  of  the  victim's  blood,  fit  for  His 
holy  presence,  and  thus  brings  it  about  that  pardon  comes  to 
the  sinner  through  God's  acceptance  of  his  sacrifice.  Hence 
the  priest  brings  the  blood  direct  into  the  presence  of  God ; 
and  the  higher  the  sinner  stands  among  the  covenant  people, 
the  more  solemn  is  the  ceremony.  According  to  the  Hebrew 
view,  as  well  as  the  Greek,^  the  blood  is  the  mystery  of 
life.  "  In  its  soul,  that  is,  in  its  blood,  ye  shall  not  eat  any 
animal,"  is  the  prohibition  already  laid  upon  Noah  in  regard 
to  eating  animal  food.^  And  the  law  forbids  the  eating  of 
blood  under  pain  of  death,  "  for  the  soul  of  the  flesh  is  in  the 
blood ;  and  I  have  given  it  to  you  upon  the  altar,  to  make  an 
atonement  for  your  souls  :  for  it  is  the  blood  that  maketh  atone- 
ment (through  the  soul) ;  for  the  soul  of  all  flesh  is  its  blood 
(in  its  soul).  "  ^  At  all  events  the  meaning  is  perfectly  clear. 
Because  the  blood  represents  the  soul-life  of  the  animal,  it 
belongs  absolutely  to  the  Lord  of  creation.  It  is  entrusted 
to  man  only  for  the  most  holy  use,  viz.  to  serve  as  a  means 
of  dedication.     Since  a  living  animal  is  the  noblest  object  in 


^  According  to  Homer,  by  drinking  blood  souls  change  from  shades  into 
beings  who  speak  and  feel.  Odys.  xi.  50,  etc.  (cf.  Verg.  Aen.  ix.  348  f. ; 
Hippocr.  Dogrti.  ii. ;  Cicero,  Tusc.  i.  9). 

^  Gen.  ix.  4  ff.  Human  blood  is  absolutely  sacred,  and  demands  vengeance 
wherever  it  is  shed. 

^  Lev.  xvii.  11,  14  ;  cf.  Deut.  xii.  23.  That  the  words  within  brackets  are 
glosses,  is  also  shown  by  the  Septuagint. 


396  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

creation,  it  is  in  itself  a  suitable  gift  for  God,  especially 
because  it  comes  as  property  into  close  connection  with  man. 
Hence  the  essence  of  this  offering  is  the  life  of  the  victim,  the 
sanctuary  of  nature,  the  blood.  When  it  is  brought  to  God 
the  animal  is  wholly  surrendered  to  Him,  the  offering  is 
complete,  and  thereby  its  object  is  also  attained,  viz,  recon- 
ciliation. This  and  nothing  else  is  certainly  the  real  meaning, 
even  in  an  expiatory  sacrifice,  of  the  sprinkling  with  blood, — 
the  appropriation  to  God  of  the  animal's  life,  the  accomplish- 
ment of  the  penance  demanded  by  Him  through  the  sur- 
render of  that  sacred  thing,  the  mysterious  centre  of  life. 
This  blood,  given  to  God,  forms,  as  it  were,  the  robe  in  which 
the  priest  arrays  the  sinner  so  that  he  may  appear  before 
God.i 

^  In  the  instance  given,  the  holy  sacrificial  blood  is  also  sprinkled  along  with 
oil  upon  the  offerer  himself  in  order  to  sanctify  him.  In  the  Passover  and  in  the 
making  of  a  covenant  it  is  the  mysterious  means  of  consecration.  Ex.  xii.  23, 
xxiv.  8  ;  of.  Lev.  xiv.  5,  14,  20.  Eiehm,  who  is  in  essential  agreement  with  the 
view  here  advocated  of  the  significance  of  the  ritual  connected  with  the  sin- 
offering,  would  add  to  it  a  single  feature.  His  idea  is  that  the  same  working  of 
the  divine  anger  which  reveals  itself  along  with  His  mercy,  in  the  destruction 
of  the  wicked,  in  the  ban  that  falls  upon  guilty  families,  likewise  finds  expres- 
sion in  the  sin-offering,  when  the  body  of  the  victim,  by  the  offering  of  which  the 
sinner  is  brought  into  a  right  relation  with  God,  is  destroyed  by  this  consuming 
zeal  of  God  as  "  a  thing  under  the  ban,"  whether  by  being  eaten,  a  duty  which 
is  laid  upon  the  priests,  or  by  being  burned  outside  the  camp,  in  which  case  the 
uncleanness  of  the  victim  makes  the  person  unclean  who  has  to  perform  this  act 
of  destruction.  It  must  be  conceded  to  Riehm  that  in  the  dread  of  eating  the 
flesh  of  a  sin-offering,  and  in  the  uncleanness  of  the  priest  who  on  the  day  of 
atonement  has  to  burn  its  flesh,  a  feeling  of  abhorrence  is  manifested  for  the 
animal  that  has  been  put  to  this  mysterious  use.  But  the  inferences  which 
Riehm  draws  manifestly  go  far  beyond  the  scope  of  the  few  passages  on  which  he 
founds.  In  the  Old  Testament,  as  among  all  ancient  peoples,  the  ideas  of  being 
"most  holy"  and  of  being  "banned"  are  closely  akin.  And  to  touch  what  is 
"holy  "  is  as  dangerous  as  to  touch  what  is  "  banned,"  and  can  be  done  only  by 
those  who  have  been  specially  sanctified.  Hence  the  dread  ;  hence,  too,  the  burn- 
ing with  fire  when  the  priest  may  not  eat  the  flesh.  Hence,  too,  the  carrying  of  it 
outside  the  camp,  because  all  contact  with  what  is  most  holy  would  bring  guilt 
upon  the  people.  But  if  the  victim  were  an  object  of  God's  destroying  curse, 
then  the  priests  could  not  eat  it,  nor  would  it  be  burned  in  a  clean  place,  nor 
would  the  guilt-offering,  when  a  bloodless  one,  be  wholly  appropriated  by  the 
priests  like  every  other  meal-offering  (Lev.  ii.  9,  v.  13,  vi.  10).  And  when  so 
much  stress  is  laid  on  the  one  passage  (Lev.  xvi.  28)  in  which  a  purification  is 
enjoined  after  the  burning  of  a  victim,  it  is  forgotten  that  purification  must 


*i§3.  397 

5.  What  we  have  just  stated  makes  the  meaning  which 
the  word  is?  has  in  sacrificial  law  perfectly  clear.  In  the 
language  of  living  piety,  the  word  was  chiefly  applied  to 
an  act  of  God.  He  "  covers  "  the  sins  of  His  people,  that  is. 
He  forgives  them  in  virtue  of  His  covenant  grace  as  soon  as 
the  heart  of  the  people  that  has  been  turned  away  from  Him 
is  again  turned  towards  Him,  as  soon  as  ever  the  people  are 
in  circumstances  that  accord  with  the  covenant.^  In  that 
case  God  never  thinks  of  continuing  to  punish,  of  allowing 
His  anger  to  work  itself  out.  He  does  that  only  so  long  as 
His  people  do  not  return  to  Him,  and  have  not  put  away 
that  which  God  cannot  endure  in  them,  since  He  is  the 
holy  guardian  of  righteousness,  who  cannot  bear  with  iniquity .^ 
In  like  manner,  it  is  also  said  of  the  sinner  that  he  "  covers  " 
his  guilt  or  the  punishment  of  it  when  by  some  means  or 
other  he  obtains  forgiveness.^  And  outside  the  religious  sphere 
altogether  there  is  the  phrase  "  to  cover,  with  a  present, 
the  face  "  of  one  who  has  been  insulted,  that  is,  to  induce  him 
by  means  of  a  present  to  take  no  further  notice  of  the  insult.* 

In  all  these  cases  the  word  means  "  to  forgive  "  or  "  obtain 
forgiveness,"  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  sacrifices.  Outside  the 
law  of  sacrifice,  the  word  is  only  rarely  used  of  men  "  covering 
the  people  or  its  sin."  It  is  so  used  when  Moses  by  his 
intercession  induces  God  to  forgive  ^  the  people ;  or  when  the 
representatives  of  the  community  obtain  forgiveness  for  the 
people  by  re-establishing  law  and  order,^  or  by  proving  that 

take  place  even  after  a  besprinkling  with  sacrificial  blood  (Lev.  vi.  20),  which  is 
nevertheless  regarded  as  expiatory,  but  not  as  unclean.  Every  victim,  too,  even 
in  the  act  of  being  killed,  was  considered  "most  holy."  This  word  consequently 
cannot  include  the  meaning  of  "banned."  Everything  is  most  holy  which  is 
absolutely  and  under  pain  of  divine  wrath  withdrawn  from  ordinary  use  (the 
whole  sanctuary  is  so,  Num.  iv.  4  ;  cf.  iv.  15,  16). 

^  Isa.  vi.  7,  xxii.  14,  xxvii.  9 ;  Ps.  Ixv.  4,  Ixxix.  9  ;  Jer.  xviii.  23 ;  Ezek. 
xvi.  63  ;  Deut.  xxi.  8  ;  Dan.  ix.  24  (with  double  7  and  the  ace.  and  with  py). 

2  Num.  XXXV.  33  ;  2  Sam.  xxi.  3  ff.  So  God  covers  the  land  when  He  takes 
vengeance  on  its  enemies,  Deut.  xxxii.  43. 

3  B.  J.  xlvii.  11.  *  Gen.  xxxii.  21  ;  cf.  Prov.  xvi.  6,  14. 
"  Ex.  xxxii.  30,  nya.  •  Num.  xxxv.  33. 


398  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

the  community  repudiates  the  crime  in  question,*  or  by 
giving  expression  through  some  deed  of  zeal  to  the  judgment  of 
God;^  or  when  Aaron  in  the  holiness  of  his  office  averts  by 
prayer  the  anger  of  God ;  ^  or  when  the  congregation  of  Israel 
itself,  trembling  at  some  mysterious  outbreak  of  divine  wrath, 
offers  a  ransom,  by  way  of  humbly  redeeming  itself  from  this 
wrath,  which  may  have  been  called  forth  by  too  great  pro- 
sperity, and  as  an  acknowledgment  of  the  justice  of  God.'* 

The  language  used  in  the  sacrificial  laws  is  altogether 
different.  Here  the  question  is  not  about  a  religious  relation- 
ship at  all,  but  about  a  ceremonial.  Only  such  events  are 
dealt  with  as  occur  within  the  existing  relationship  of  grace. 
The  necessity  of  the  "  covering  "  arises,  not  from  God's  wmth, 
but  from  His  holiness,  in  presence  of  which  weak  flesh  is  not 
in  itself  suf&ciently  worthy,  and  still  less  so  when  it  has 
sinned.  Hence  it  is  always  said  that  the  priest,  as  such, 
"  covers  "  the  Israelite,  or  even  that  he  "  covers  "  the  sacred 
vessels,  which  would  be  profaned  by  the  people's  unworthi- 
ness,^  and  that  he  does,  as  a  rule,  by  means  of  sacrificial  blood. 
Not  always,  however.  For  even  a  bloodless  sin-offering  has 
the  same  effect ;  °  even  the  holy  anointing  oil  may  serve  as 
a  covering.^ 

Where  vessels  are  in  question,  the  covering  simply  means 

^  Deut.  xxi.  1  ff.  For  this  rite  is  nothing  more  than  a  solemn  oath  of 
purification  according  to  an  antique  custom,  and  in  no  sense  a  substitutionary 
slaying  of  the  victim. 

2  Num.  XXV.  13.  ^  Num.  xvii.  11,  12  ;  cf.  viii.  19. 

4  Ex.  XXX.  15  ;  Num.  xxxi.  50  (HDlin).  For  a  thoroughly  antique  view  of 
God,  cf.  Lev.  x.  6  ;  Num.  i.  53,  xviii.  5  ;  Ex.  xii.  13,  xxx.  12.  From  His 
august  touch,  which  is  therefore  fatal  to  any  ordinary  person,  the  priests  protect 
themselves  by  washing,  Ex.  xxx.  20  (Deut.  iv.  33). 

6  Ex.  xxix.  36,  xxx.  10  ;  Lev.  xvi.  16,  18,  20,  viii.  15  (xiv.  53)(-IJ?a,  bv  "133)- 
Lev.  xvi.  10  is  a  striking  passage.  There  the  text  must  either  be  corrupt  or 
this  goat  is  dedicated  to  a  holy  purpose.  (H.  Oort  would,  according  to  Lev. 
xiv.,  conjecture  that  the  goat  that  was  to  be  let  loose  was  sprinkled  with  tlie 
blood  of  the  one  sacrificed. )  The  accusative  with  "ISD  is  rare  ;  still  it  is  found  as 
in  Lev.  xvi.  20,  Ezek.  xliii.  26,  xiv.  20,  in  quite  the  same  sense  as  ^y  and  nj;^- 
The  word  stands  without  an  object  in  Lev.  vi.  23,  xvi.  27. 

6  Lev.  V.  llfif.;  Num.  v.  15.  "  Lev.  xiv.  18,  29. 


153.  399 

purification,  consecration  (5i'^I?,  "i^^),^  a  ceremony  under- 
gone by  persons  and  vessels  alike  before  being  employed 
for  any  holy  purpose.  The  eye  of  God,  which  should  rest 
with  delight  on  the  abodes  of  revelation  as  absolutely  holy, 
must  not  be  grieved  by  seeing  them  lose  their  sanctity  through 
being  touched  by  "  a  people  of  unclean  lips."  ^  By  means  of 
the  consetcrated  blood  or  the  holy  anointing  oil,  stronger  means 
of  symbolical  purification  than  mere  water,  the  priest  sym- 
bolically restores  their  purity  and  "  covers  "  these  places,  that 
is,  makes  their  uncleanness  invisible  to  the  eye  of  God. 

The  matter  is  not  quite  so  simple  when  it  is  a  question  of 
the  community  or  its  individual  members.  If  the  sin-offering 
alone  had  this  effect  of  "  covering,"  one  would  have  to  conclude, 
on  the  analogy  of  what  has  been  just  said,  that  the  sacrificial 
blood  takes  away  the  stains  of  sin.  To  speak  without  a  meta- 
phor, because  God  by  accepting  the  blood  of  the  sacrifice  declares 
the  sin  forgiven,  the  blood  which  the  priest  sprinkles  upon 
God's  sanctuary  acts  as  "  a  covering  "  for  the  guilt  of  the  sinner, 
that  is,  as  a  covering  for  his  person.  At  any  rate,  everything 
done  by  the  priest  in  connection  with  this  sin-offering,  even  Ms 
eating  the  flesh  of  it,  points  to  this  purpose  of  "  covering."  ^ 
But  the  phrase  is  used  also  of  the  burnt-offering  and  the  thank- 
offering,*  and  of  all  three  kinds  of  sacrifice  in  common.^ 
Hence  the  meaning  must  be  a  somewhat  more  general  one. 

Man  as  flesh,  that  is,  because  in  contrast  with  the  holy 
God  he  is,  as  a  creature,  weak,  and  therefore  also,  on  his  moral 
side,  impure, — for,  according  to  the  Hebrew  view,  the  two  are 
inseparable, — is  never  in  his  natural  condition  so  perfectly 
consecrated  as  to  be  fit  to  draw  near  to  Israel's  King ;  just  as, 
in  the  view  of  the  ancient  East,  no  subject  was  ever  fit  to 

^  Both  words  alternate  with  "133.  Ex.  xxix.  36;  Lev.  xvi.  18,  30;  Num. 
vi.  11,  viii.  6-21 ;  Ezek.  xliii.  26. 

2  Isa.  vi.   5;  cf.  Job  xiii,  26  ;  Ps.  xix.  13.  cxxx.  3,  cxliii.  2,  etc. 

2  Lev.  X.  17. 

*  Lev.  i.  4,  xvi.  20,  30,  xii.  7,  8,  xv,  15,  30  (Ezek.  xlv.  15 ;  1  Sam.  iii.  14). 

^  Lev.  xiv.  18,  29,  xvi.  24  ;  Num.  xv.  25. 


400  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

appear  without  ceremony  in  the  presence  of  his  sovereign 
lord.  God's  presence  would  annihilate  him.^  He  must  be 
shut  out  from  it.^  Accordingly,  when  he  wishes  to  appear 
before  God,  in  order  to  show  his  loyalty  or  his  gratitude,  or 
when,  being  polluted  or  weighed  down  by  special  trans- 
gressions, he  has  to  seek  the  forgiveness  of  this  God,  he 
requires  (1)  one  to  introduce  him,  that  is,  the  priest,  who, 
as  God's  servant,  has  the  right  of  access  to  Him  ;  (2)  a 
consecration  or  purification,  which  the  priest  performs  upon 
him  in  order  that  God  may  disregard  his  unworthiness.^ 
This  consecration,  this  "  festal  robe,"  is  lent  him  by  the 
gift  with  which  he  appears — in  the  great  majority  of  cases, 
by  the  holy  blood  of  the  sacrifice.  By  this  means,  therefore, 
the  priest  "  covers "  him,  consecrates  him,  so  that  he  can 
now  apply  the  gift  he  has  for  God  to  the  purpose  which 
he  has  in  his  mind.*  Where  there  is  sin,  this  is,  of  course, 
specially/  necessary.  For,  in  that  case,  to  the  universal  un- 
worthiness  of  man  there  is  added  the  special  stain  caused  by 
violation  of  the  law.  In  these  cases,  therefore,  it  is  specially 
necessary  that  the  blood  be  brought  into  the  presence  of  God. 
Consequently  the  need  of  "  covering "  is  due,  not  to  God's 
wrath,  but  rather  to  God's  holiness.  And  this  "  covering  "  by 
the  priest  invariably  denotes  the  bestowal  of  that  consecration 
which  gives  the  person  access  to  God,  so  that  he  may  adore 
Him,  thank  Him,  obtain  from  Him  the  forgiveness  which  He 
has,  in  His  covenant,  promised  to  him  who  sacrifices.  To 
this  correspond,  in  the  New  Testament,  the  robes  of  the 
saints,  sprinkled  and  washed  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb. 

6.  The    regular   development   of    the    sacrificial    ritual    is 
shown   us   by   the   law,   in   Numbers,   regarding   feast-days.^ 

^  Isa.  vi.  5,  7  ;  Judg.  vi.  22  ff.  and  often. 

-  In  fact,  every  member  of  the  community  who  is  called  out  for  service  in  the 
army  must  pay,  according  to  Ex.  xxx.  11-16,  a  half-shekel  as  IM,  in  order,  as 
it  were,  to  cover  his  unworthiness. 

=*  nini  "izh ;  Lev.  iv.  26,  xix.  22.  *  Cf.  Ex.  xxx.  20,  washing, 

•  Num.  xxviii.  3  fif. 


THE  CYCLE  OF  SACRIFICES.  401 

The  principal  sacrifice  is  the  daily  burnt- offering,  morning 
and  evening.  On  the  Sabbath  this  is  doubled.  On  the  new 
inoons — that  is,  on  the  first  of  each  month — there  is  a 
specially  solemn  burnt-offering,  with  a  sin-offering  in  addition. 
On  the  feast-days  there  is  a  still  more  elaborate  burnt-offering, 
which,  however,  becomes  less  elaborate  as  the  feast  goes  on, 
with  its  meal-offering  and  its  drink-offering,  and  the  sin-offer- 
ing which  remains  always  the  same.  By  adding  to  these  the 
burnt-offerings,  meal-offerings,  drink-offerings,  and  thank-offer- 
ings, whether  presented  as  free-will  offerings  or  in  fulfilment 
of  vows,  as  well  as  the  sin-offerings  and  the  guilt-offerings 
called  forth  by  special  occasions,  one  gets  a  complete  picture 
of  the  sacred  acts  of  sacrifice  prescribed  by  the  law. 

The  way  in  which  the  various  kinds  of  sacrifice  are  com- 
bined is  specially  instructive.  Thus,  in  the  joyous  festival  at 
the  dedication  of  the  altar,  a  burnt-offering  and  a  meal-offerin;? 
were  combined  with  a  thank-offering.  The  community  assure 
their  God  of  their  loyalty,  gratitude,  and  joy.  In  the  same 
way,  when  a  Nazirite  breaks  his  vow,  the  guilt-offering, 
which  he  pays  as  a  fine,  and  the  sin-offering,  by  which  he 
seeks  forgiveness,  are  both  combined  with  the  burut-offerinL: 
as  an  act  of  public  worship.  But  when  his  vow  has  been 
successfully  kept  to  the  end,  then,  in  addition  to  the  sin- 
offering,  by  which  he  asks  forgiveness  for  any  offence  he  may 
have  unwittingly  committed,  and  the  burnt- offering,  which  is 
required  as  an  act  of  worship,  the  Xazirite  presents  to  God  a 
thank-offering,  with  its  proper  meal-offering  and  drink-offering, 
for  the  period  of  abstinence  successfully  completed.  The 
whole  theory  of  sacrifice  is  shown  with  admirable  clearness  in 
the  consecration  of  the  priests,  and  in  Aaron's  installation 
into  office.  The  basis  of  it  is  the  sin-offering.  Secret  sin 
and  unworthiness  must  be  expiated  before  there  can  be  any 
question  of  filling  a  sacred  office.  Then,  as  one  already 
pardoned,  the  priest  presents  a  burnt-offering  in  token  of  his 
loyal  homage  to  the  great  God  of  Israel.  Only  then,  Vvheu 
VOL.  I.  2  c 


402  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

this  duty  has  been  discharged,  can  he  give  expression  to  his 
gratitude  for  the  high  and  honourable  office  God  has  graciously- 
bestowed  upon  him.  The  thank-offering  is  presented,  and  the 
community  of  worshippers  gathers  to  a  joyous  meal  round 
the  table  now  dedicated  to  God. 

The  day  of  atonement^  includes  the  whole  cycle  of  sacred 
acts.  Whatever  of  pardonable  sin,  not  expiated  by  particular 
acts  of  sacrifice,  still  stains  the  holy  community,  and  conse- 
quently also  its  holy  things,  has  to  be  taken  away  from  it 
on  that  day.  On  the  10  th  day  of  the  seventh  month,  and 
therefore  before  they  begin  the  joyous  feast  of  Tabernacles, 
the  whole  people  must  prepare  themselves,  by  fasting  and 
prayer,  for  the  great  atonement.  On  that  day  alone  does  the 
law  demand  "the  mortification  of  the  flesh." ^  The  high 
priest  does  not  wear  his  gorgeous  official  dress,  but  the  white 
robes  of  purity  and  consecration,^  The  blood  that  is  to 
expiate  the  people's  sin  must  be  brought  directly  into  the 
presence  of  God,  because  the  fullest  expression  must  be  given 
to  the  thought  of  atonement,  because  the  innermost  sanctuary 
must  be  cleansed  from  the  stains  with  which  it  is  defiled  by 
the  presence  of  a  sinful  people.  He  first  offers  a  sin-offering 
for  himself  and  the  people.  Enveloped  in  incense,  he  carries 
the  blood  before  the  holy  mercy-seat,  and  besprinkles  it 
therewith.  Thus  atonement  is  made  for  Israel,  and  its  sin 
is  taken  away.  Its  holy  things  are  consecrated ;  it  stands 
there  as  a  holy  community  in  which  God  can  dwell.  His 
gracious  presence  in  Israel  is  once  more  undisturbed.  The 
second  goat,  which  has  been  presented  by  the  people  for  an 
expiatory  purpose,  but  is  not  used  as  a  sacrifice,  can  now  be 
dedicated  in  order  to  carry  the  burden  of  the  people's  sins, 
laid  upon  it  by  confession,  as  being  now  forgiven  and 
forgotten,  away  into  the  wilderness,  beyond  the  consecrated 
circle  of  the  camp,  into  a  land  where  there  is  neither  salva- 

^  Lev.  xvi.  1-34. 

-  L''S:  nsy,  Lev.  xvi.  29,  31  (xxiii.  27,  32  ;  Num.  xxix.  7).  '  Ver.  4. 


THE  DAY  OF  ATONEMENT.  403 

tion  nor  mercy.  The  feeling  of  horror  at  the  impurity  of  sin 
is  so  strongly  expressed  by  this  ceremony  that  the  persons 
who  have  to  do  with  the  burning  of  the  animal  sacrificed, 
and  with  the  driving  away  of  the  living  one,  are  regarded 
as  polluted,  and  have  to  be  washed  before  they  regain  the 
holiness  necessary  for  fellowship  with  Israel.^ 

The  sin  of  Israel  being  thus  taken  away,  the  high  priest 
can  again  put  on  his  royal  robes,  in  which,  symbolical  as  they 
are  of  the  presence  of  the  God  of  light,  he  appears  among  the 
community  as  the  representative  of  their  divine  King.  Then 
the  burnt-offering  is  presented,  the  expression  of  religious 
consecration,  and  above  it  blazes  the  part  of  the  sin-offering 
which  is  consumed  by  fire.  Last  of  all,  there  comes  the  feast 
of  Tabernacles,  the  most  joyful  of  festal  seasons. 

In  order  rightly  to  understand  this  remarkable  ceremonial, 
we  must  first  clear  the  way  by  considering  one  particular 
question,  which,  in  itself,  might  be  more  suitably  discussed  at 
a  later  stage.  On  the  day  of  atonement  the  congregation 
brings  two  goats  for  the  purpose  of  atonement.-  For  these, 
lots  are  cast  at  the  door  of  the  sanctuary,  "  one  lot  for 
Jehovah,  and  the  other  lot  for  Azazeh"  ^  The  one  on  whicli 
the  lot  of  Jehovah  falls  is  then  slain  as  a  sin-offerinff. 
The  other  they  bring  before  God  "  to  make  atonement  over  it, 
to  send  it  away  for  Azazel  into  the  wilderness."  '  Then,  after 
the  sins  of  the  congregation  have  been  confessed,  this  animal 
is  made  the  bearer  of  all  the  sins  of  the  now  reconciled 
Israel,  and  is  led  away  into  the  wilderness  by  a  man  who 
is  thereby  made  unclean  himself,  and  there  it  is  let  loose 
"  in  a  solitary  land."  ^ 

"What,  then,  is  the  meaning  here  of  the  enigmatic  word 
Azazel  ?  ^  As  Philo,''  without  intending  to  give  an  exact 
explanation,  paraphrases  the  passage  :  "  The  one  goat  is  given 


1  Lev.  xvi.  26,  28. 

-  Ver.  5. 

»  Ver.  8. 

*  Ver.  10. 

8  Vers.  20-23. 

*  ^.l^JJ?: 

"  Ed.  Mg.  i.  498. 

404  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

to  '  the  fugitive  creature/  and  the  lot  which  it  received  is 
named  in  the  prophecy  '  sent  away,'  because  it  is  persecuted, 
expelled,  and  driven  far  away  by  Wisdom,"  many  of  the 
moderns,  following  the  Versions,  have  seen  in  the  word 
Azazel  the  name  of  the  animal  itself.  The  goat  would  be  so 
named  as  "  the  one  to  be  got  rid  of,"  "  to  be  sent  away."  ^ 
But  it  is  impossible  that  this  can  be  the  meaning.  When  one 
lot  falls  to  Azazel,  it  cannot  mean  that  the  animal  itself  gets 
the  lot ;  but  it  must  denote  some  power  to  which  it  is  allotted. 
Besides,  if  that  were  the  meaning,  the  lot  itself  would  deter- 
mine which  goat  was  to  become  Azazeh  Certainly  the 
expression  "  to  send  it  away  for  Azazel  into  the  wilderness  " 
cannot  mean  "  to  send  it  into  the  wilderness  so  that  it  becomes 
Azazel."^  Still  less  can  the  word  be  taken  in  an  abstract 
sense  as  meaning  "  for  sending  away,"  or  even  "  for  a 
propitiation."  Not  only  is  this  contrary  to  the  whole  forma- 
tion of  the  word,  but  it  would  be  impossible  to  understand 
how  this  goat,  which  does  not  bring  about  propitiation  by 
dying,  should  be  the  very  one  designated  as  "  bringing  pro- 
pitiation," and  liow  a  lot  "  for  Jehovah  "  could  be  the  same  as 
a  lot  "  for  propitiation."  To  translate  the  word  Azazel  by 
"  remoteness "  or  "  wilderness "  is  contrary  to  the  laws  of 
language,  and  quite  irreconcilable  with  ver.  10. 

Consequently  we  must  think  of  some  powerful  being  to 
whom  this  animal  is  assigned,  and  to  whom  it  is  sent  with 
the  now  forgiven  guilt  of  the  reconciled  people — not  as  a 
sacrifice,  but  as  a  symbolical  representation  of  the  fact  that 
there  is  no  longer  any  guilt  in  IsraeL  This  being  must  be 
conceived  of  as  strange  and  unholy.  One's  interpretation  will 
greatly  depend,  it  is  true,  on  the  view  one  takes  as  to  the 
time  at  which  this  law  originated.  If  the  law  were  a  very 
old   one,  containing   a   remnant  of  Semitic  mythology,  then 

iFroui^ry,  Jjjz. 

^  The  construction  is  different  in  Ex.  xxi.  2,  ^^J'Sn?  S<V^ 


THE  DAY  OF  ATONEMENT.  405 

we  should  unquestionably  have  to  think  of  Ti^,  ny,  and  consider 
the  word  to  be  a  form  of  the  Semitic  name  for  the  devastating 
war-god.  In  that  case  we  should  probably  have  to  assume 
that  it  is  not  a  compound  of  ?^<,  the  name  of  God,  but  a  word 
with  the  final  syllable  p—.  But  if  the  law  dates  from  the 
Exile,  there  is  no  reason  why  the  word  should  not  be  put  into 
the  series  of  forms  with  which  the  later  language  was  wont  to 
name  angels  and  demons.  In  Enoch,^  Azazel  occurs  along 
with  Semjaza,  Urakibarameel,  Akibeel,  Tamiel,  Eamuel,  Danel, 
Ezeqeel,  Saraqujal,  Asael,  etc.,  as  one  of  the  sons  of  God  who 
defiled  themselves  with  women ;  ^  and  he  is  represented  as 
bound  in  the  wilderness  with  iron  chains  of  darkness.^ 

There  has  long  been  ■*  an  inclination  to  discover  an  allusion 
here  to  the  Egyptian  custom  of  making  similar  symbolical  con- 
signments to  Set-Typhon,  who,  as  a  god  of  the  sea,  whicli 
drives  back  the  Nile,  was  hostile  to  the  Egyptians,  and,  as  tlie 
antagonist  of  Osiris,  was  the  god  of  the  victorious  foreigner. 
But  that  is  not  probable.  Set  is  not  the  god  of  the  wilder- 
ness. He  was  in  the  olden  time  a  god  highly  honoured  in 
Egypt,  and  it  never  became  a  universal  habit  to  regard  him 
as  an  enemy.  Azazel  is  rather  an  Aramaic  (Babylonian  ?) 
name  for  an  unclean  and  ungodlike  power,  which  has  its 
abode  in  the  wilderness,  in  the  accursed  land  outside  the 
sacred  bounds  of  the  camp.  This  ceremony  is  no  more 
contradictory  of  pure  monotheism  than  is  the  doctrine  of 
Satan  or  the  doctrine  of  angels.  This  ordinance  exactly 
corresponds  on  a  large  scale  with  what  is  laid  down  on  a 
small  scale  in  Lev.  xiv.  1  £f,  and  49  ff.  In  the  latter  passage, 
when  the  leprosy  in  a  house  has  been  cured,  of  two  pigeons 
presented  as  a  sin-offering,  the  one  is  actually  killed,  the 
other,  after  being  sprinkled  with  the  blood  of  the  sin-offering, 
is  let  go  alive,  as  a  sign  that  the  uncleanness  of  the  house  has 
been   taken  away.     In    like    manner    here,  after    the    great 

^  niiap.  X.  4.  -  Gen.  vi.  ^  Tlie  form  is  evidently  Aramaic. 

*  Even  Spencer,  Heiigstenbcrg  (following  Plutarcli). 


406  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

■propitiation  for  the  people  and  tlie  sanctuary,  one  of  the 
dedicated  victims  is  sent  away,  laden  with  the  sins  of  the 
people,  to  the  powerful  being  which  has  its  abode  outside  "  in 
tlie  world,"  beyond  the  holy  land  of  mercy,  not  as  a  sacrifice, 
but  as  a  proof  that  in  the  holy  land  there  is  no  longer  any 
nnexpiated  guilt.  Consequently  this  animal,  too,  is  unclean. 
He  who  has  led  it  away  must  purify  himself.^  It  is  a 
]iicture  similar  to  that  which  the  prophet  Zechariah  sees,- 
when,  after  the  acquittal  of  the  high  priest,  and  therefore  of 
Israel  itself,  before  the  angel  of  Jehovah,  the  sin  is  carried 
away  out  of  the  pardoned  land  into  Babylon,  the  land  of  sin. 


CHAPTER    XIX. 

THE  CLOSING  ERA  IN  THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT  RELIGION. 

1.  Although  the  victories  of  Alexander  the  Great  altered 
the  outward  condition  of  Israel,  they  certainly  had  no  very 
great  effect  on  the  religious  development  of  the  people. 
Instead  of  Persia,  Egypt  at  first  became  the  ruling  power ; 
but  however  much  Israel  seems  to  have  suffered  in  secular 
matters,  it  nevertheless  retained  its  religious  independence. 
But  what  had  begun  to  develop  since  the  time  of  Ezra,  was. 
now  to  show  itself  more  and  more  distinctly. 

The  consciousness  of  inward  emptiness,  and  the  feeling  that 
the  Spirit  of  Jehovah  had  departed,  kept  on  increasing.  Ko 
prophet  now  arose  in  Israel.^  The  Sacred  Scriptures  began 
to  be  closed,  because, — as  Josephus  tells  us,  certainly  in  the 
spirit  of  this  period, — where  there  was  not  a  succession  of 
prophets,  there  was  no  longer  any  security  for  the  genuinely 
divine  character  of  the  Scriptures.  The  more  the  Deity  was 
conceived  of  as  transcendental  and  inactive,  the  more  purely 
supernatural  must  its  revelations  and  the  monuments  of  them 
i  Yer.  26.  ^  cir^^i.  v.  '■'  Vs.  Ixxiv.  9, 


THE  GREEK  AGE.  407 

liave  appeared  in  comparison  with  the  religious  literature  of 
the  present.  The  third  division  of  our  Canon,  indeed,  had 
necessarily  to  remain  in  a  hind  of  intermediate  position,  and 
cannot  have  been  absolutely  closed.  Psalms  could  scarcely 
be  excluded  when  once  they  had  got  into  the  liturgy 
and  become  congregational  hymns.  The  admission  of  the 
book  of  Esther  into  the  Canon  is  readily  explained  by  the 
popular  character  of  its  subject,  and  by  its  connection  with 
a  favourite  festival  The  writer  of  Chronicles,  if  he  does 
not  belong  to  an  earlier  generation,  was  the  classical  repre- 
sentative of  the  mood  in  which  the  ruling  classes  now  looked 
at  the  past  history  of  Israel.  Finally,  from  its  mysterious 
character  and  its  enigmatic  form,  Daniel  was  particularly 
suitable  for  adoption  into  the  Canon,  as  being  a  pseudonym- 
ous book  which  threw  itself  far  back  into  antiquity.  This 
adoption  it  secured  owing  to  its  great  affinity  with  all  the 
moving  forces  of  this  epoch. 

With  Greek  supremacy,  however,  Greek  culture,  which  was 
in  many  respects  superior,  began  to  make  its  influence  felt. 
There  was  an  attempt,  first  from  Egypt  by  intellectual  means, 
and  afterwards  from  Syria  by  violence,  to  make  the  religious 
life  of  Israel  as  a  nation  amalgamate  with  Hellenic  cul- 
ture, which  seemed  at  that  time  able  to  approj)riate  every- 
thing. Now  the  main  effect  of  these  efforts  was  just  to 
make  the  Jews  cling  all  the  more  resolutely  to  what  was 
their  own.  As  warriors  and  martyrs  they  steeled  themselves 
to  a  heroic  joy  in  their  faith.  Opposition  to  every  thin  "■ 
foreign  grew  apace ;  more  and  more  emphasis  was  laid 
on  their  own  sacred  peculiarities.  So  far,  therefore,  contact 
with  Hellenic  culture  onl}^  made  Israel  more  determined  to 
become  purely  "  Jewish."  But  at  the  same  time,  at  least 
among  the  Jewish  community  in  Egypt,  where  in  the  second 
century  the  translation  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  was  be^un, 
the  way  was  prepared  for  an  approach  to  Greek  civilisation 
which  afterwards  had  the  most  important  consequences,  not 


408  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

only  for  tlie  Jews  of  the  Dispersion,  but  also  for  the  mother 
country.  Even  in  Palestine  there  was  a  considerable  party 
which,  it  is  true,  resolutely  upheld  the  princely  position  of 
the  high  priest,  the  rights  of  the  Law,  and  the  splendour  of 
the  national  sanctuary,  but  which  in  other  respects  did  not 
reject  Hellenic  culture,  with  its  joys  and  its  charm,  and 
would  have  gladly  contented  itself  with  a  hierarchy  under 
an  "enlightened"  secular  government.  The  origin  of  the 
Sadducees  closely  resembles  that  of  the  Pharisees. 

2.  The  heroic  war  of  independence,  in  which  Israel 
victoriously  defended  the  integrity  of  its  religion  and  morality, 
and  also  gained,  for  a  time  at  least,  civil  independence,  had 
certainly  very  important  effects  on  the  religious  life  of  the 
people.  The  spring  of  sacred  song  began  to  flow  afresh. 
Faith  in  the  power  of  the  kingdom  of  God  to  overcome  the 
world  fired  the  hearts  of  the  people  with  a  new  glow.  They 
turned  to  the  future  with  growing  hope.  Once  more  their 
pictures  of  the  latter  days  were  painted  in  glowing  colours, 
and  caught  in  some  mysterious  way  the  tone  of  ancient 
prophecy — as  is  shown  by  the  book  of  Daniel,  and,  not  very 
long  after,  by  the  oldest  portions  of  the  book  of  Enoch.  A 
priestly  kingdom  having  been  successfully  established  which, 
like  David  of  old,  overthrew  with  the  sword  the  hostile 
neighbour  tribes,  and  compelled  them  to  adopt  the  forms  of 
the  theocratic  State,  Messianic  thoughts  necessarily  woke 
into  newness  of  life,  and  the  newly-dedicated  sanctuary  on 
Moriali  became  more  and  more  a  centre  around  which  the 
faith  of  those  myriads  gathered  who,  in  the  east  and  the  west, 
in  the  south  and  the  north,  were  turning  to  the  God  of  Israel 
and  waiting  for  His  salvation. 

But  the  Jewish  element,  too,  had  to  revive,  with  all  its 
peculiarities  more  sharply  defined  than  ever.  Secular  cul- 
ture, even  the  most  beautiful  and  most  humane,  that  of  the 
Greeks,  was  known  to  be  at  heart  hostile  to  Jehovah.  Hence 
the  national  and  relifjious  characteristics  of  Israel  stood  out 


THE  AGE  BEFORE  CHRIST.  409 

iu  sterner  and  more  passionate  opposition  than  before  to 
everything  foreign.  And  the  feuds  in  Israel  itself,  which 
in  those  terrible  struggles  for  existence  had  grown  into 
deadly  enmity,  left  indelible  scars.  Full  and  hearty  unity 
of  faith  and  practice  was  gone  for  ever.  Lastly,  sacred 
i'orms  which  had  been  the  watchwords  of  those  grand  times, 
and  for  which  the  noblest  had  shed  their  blood, — circumcision, 
nndesecrated  sacrifices,  the  refusal  to  eat  unclean  food, — had 
thereby  attained  an  importance  among  the  people  which 
could  not  be  he'pt  up  without  the  merely  external  side  of 
religion  being  made  unduly  prominent.  The  Asmona?an 
princes  themselves  would,  we  may  presume,  have  been  well 
content  with  the  position  of  warlike  despots,  to  whom  theif 
dignity  as  high  priests  brought  a  welcome  addition  both  of 
glory  and  influence ;  and  the  priestly  aristocracy  were  less 
keenly  alive  to  Israel's  hopes  than  to  the  laws  on  which  their 
own  power  rested.  But  the  people  and  their  religious  teachers 
clung  with  all  the  fervour  of  their  souls  to  the  holy  forms 
and  hopes  of  Israel,  and  were  ever  ready  to  risk  for  these 
their  earthly  all. 

3.  In  the  interval  between  the  close  of  the  Old  Testament 
Canon  and  the  rise  of  Christianity  the  current  ran  so  strongly 
iu  favour  of  these  particular  tendencies,  that  productions 
of  this  age  cannot,  as  a  rule,  be  used  as  a  means  of  gaining 
a  direct  knowledge  of  the  revealed  religion  of  the  Old 
Testament.  Where  the  essentials  of  the  old  faith  are 
retained,  as  in  the  circles  of  Palestine  coloured  by  Pharisaism, 
it  is  due  to  sheer  conservatism.  Zealous  scribes  endeavoured 
to  dig  out  the  treasures  of  the  ancient  sacred  literature, 
certainly  not  without  great  arbitrariness  of  procedure  and 
many  a  development  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  the  old  religion, 
as  is  necessarily  the  case  with  a  piety  growing  always  more 
formal,  and  in  a  generation  tending  to  become  "  theological." 
A  zeal  for  legality,  fostered  by  priests  who  were  developing 
more  and  more  into  a  legal  caste,  helped  to  hide  the  spiritual 


410  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

elevation  of  tlie  old  religion  behind  sacred  forms,  encouraged  a 
"  righteousness  "  very  different  from  that  which  the  prophets 
taught,  and  made  the  grand  and  suggestive  acts  of  public 
worship  which  the  law  prescribed  into  a  service  still  more 
magnificent  indeed,  but  at  the  same  time  more  and  more 
one  of  mere  outward  form  and  ceremony. 

But  even  in  Palestine  piety  could  not  escape  from  influ- 
ences tending  to  make  the  old  religion  move  along  lines 
which  were  in  many  respects  alien  to  its  true  spirit.  Evi- 
dently the  Pharisees  themselves,  as  a  school,  did  not  in  their 
treatment  of  Scripture  and  in  their  eschatology  escape  the 
influence  of  Hellenistic  development.  And  the  Essenes  en- 
grafted still  more  firmly  on  the  ancient  stock  of  their 
holy  religion  an  ascetic  mysticism  utterly  foreign  to  it. 
Their  decided  spiritualism  completely  volatilises  the  essential 
I'reshness  of  the  Old  Testament  religion,  just  as  there  is  in 
the  mysticism  of  all  ages  a  tendency  to  modify  doctrine  and 
thus  remove  the  barriers  that  separate  historical  religions. 
But  least  of  all  do  the  Sadducees  agree  with  the  religion 
which  reached  its  highest  development  in  the  prophetic  fige. 
By  their  refusal  to  acknowledge  the  national  and  religious 
kernel  in  the  religion  of  Israel,  and  by  their  restricting  them- 
selves to  the  development  of  legal  morality,  they  approximated 
of  necessity  to  the  higher  forms  of  heathenism.  And  since 
the  pious  among  the  people  retained  their  connection  with 
tiie  religion  of  their  fathers  in  the  long  run  only  through  the 
medium  of  theology,  they  must  necessarily  have  adopted  many 
elements  alien  to  the  true  spirit  of  Old  Testament  religion.^ 

But  in  the  Greek  world,  and  especially  in  Egypt,  the  old 
religion  underwent  a  still  more  decided  modification,  through 
the  influence  of  a  composite  Greek  philosophy,  which,  in  turn, 
Wcis  not  without  effect  on  the  mother  country.  By  allegorical 
use  of  the  Greek  translation  of  the  Scriptures,  the  letter  of 
which  was  vouched  for  as  correct  by  a  doctrine  of  magical 
^  Cf.  Yrdlhauscn,  Phariscccr. 


THE  HIGH  PEIEST.  411 

inspiration,  the  secrets  of  a  speculative  philosophy  predomiu- 
antly  Greek  were  read  into  the  Old  Testament.  Belief  in  a 
God  unconnected  with  actual  Being,  except  through  the 
"powers"  comprised  in  "the  Word,"  took  the  place  of  the 
vigorous  and  healthy  naturalism  of  the  Old  Testament.  The 
body,  being  looked  upon  as  the  original  seat  of  sin,  was 
despised.  This  system  was  rounded  off  by  a  spiritualistic 
doctrine  of  immortality,  and  by  a  monkish  withdrawal  from 
the  world.  And  these  principles  were  sown  broadcast  over 
the  Jewish  world  by  a  body  of  scribes  both  numerous  and 
gifted. 

This  period  accordingly,  although  historically  of  the  utmost 
importance  for  understanding  the  soil  in  which  early  Christi- 
anity found  itself,  and  witli  which  it  had  to  reckon,  is  not  in 
any  sense  a  stage  in  the  development  of  the  revealed  religion 
of  the  Old  Testament.  Anything  new  which  would  be  a  real 
advance  in  the  spirit  of  the  old,  this  religion  is  no  longer  able 
to  produce.  And  yet  it  is  no  longer  sufficiently  strong  and 
vigorous  to  keep,  whole  and  pure,  what  has  been  already  won. 
Picligious  zeal  is  "not  according  to  knowledge."  The  great 
merits  of  a  religious  and  moral  kind,  which  distinguish  several 
of  the  books  of  this  age,  do  not  compensate  for  the  uncertainty 
which  everywhere  pervades  them  in  regard  to  the  real  essence 
of  the  Old  Testament  religion.  The  two  tendencies  at  work 
in  Israel  since  the  eighth  century,  and  always  becoming,  since 
the  days  of  Ezra,  more  shar^^ly  defined,  are  now  accentuated, 
and  point  clearly  to  their  respective  goals,  to  Christianity  and 
to  the  Talmud. 

4.  The  only  one  of  the  old  sacred  figures  prominent  in 
this  age  is  the  high  priest;  and  he  enj'^ys  a  dignity  and 
influence  quite  new.  In  one  respect,  it  is  true,  he  is  not 
what  the  ideal  of  the  law  pictures  him.  Hence  important 
decisions  are  postponed  till  there  shall  stand  up  a  high 
priest  with  Urim  and  Thummim,^  that  is,  till  the  high 
1  Ezra  ii.  G3  ;  Neh.  vii.  G5. 


412  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

priest's  ofTice  shall  regain  its  ancient  gift  of  prophecy.  In 
point  of  fact,  however,  the  high  priest  had  for  the  people  a  much 
greater  importance  than  ever  before.  The  people  recognised 
him  both  as  their  chief  and  as  their  representative  with  God. 
And  worthily  did  he  embody  a  present  salvation  when,  in  his 
sacred  robes  of  ofhce,  he  bestowed  upon  tlie  people  the  blessing 
of  their  reconciled  covenant-God.^  After  the  struggle  for 
independence  the  warlike  high  priests  were,  as  kings  and 
priests,  the  real  masters  in  Jerusalem  "  the  holy."  And 
ingenious  speculations  were  tacked  on  by  Hellenism  to  the 
idea  of  a  mediator,  which  the  law  had  embodied  in  the  high 
priest.  For  it  the  "  Word  "  of  God  became  the  high  priest  of 
the  universe.^ 

In  this  age  the  figure  of  the  prophet  disappears  from  view. 
In  the  Persian  age  one  could  already  discern  a  gradual  decay  of 
prophecy.  And  it  is  not  improbable  that  artificial  imitation  of 
the  prophetic  style  of  writing  did  not  cease  till  Daniel's  time. 
But,  in  the  sense  of  the  olden  time,  such  writers  were  not 
prophets  at  all.  They  are  in  reality  scribes  of  a  peculiarly 
imaginative  cast  of  mind.  And  though  the  books  of  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah  presuppose  prophets  and  prophetesses  in  the  newly- 
revived  Jerusalem, — and  these,  it  is  true,  such  as  follow  for 
pay,  in  the  interest  of  their  respective  parties,  the  old  profession 
of  false  prophecy,^ — that  is  neither  a  trustworthy  historical 
account  nor  one  of  any  importance  for  the  "  Greek  "  age.     Ere 

1  Jes.  Sir.  1.  1  ff. 

2  Philo  (ed.  Gel.,  Frankf.  1691),  466  B,  509  B  (where  the  edition  of  Maiigey 
is  not  specially  mentioned,  it  is  always  this  edition  of  Philo  which  is  meant, 
and  which,  for  external  reasons,  I  j^refer  to  use  wherever  no  importance  Ls 
attached  to  a  more  exact  development  of  Philo's  system). 

^  Cf.  the  rei)roach  in  Neh.  vi.  7  and  the  statement  in  vi.  lOff.  The  question 
whether  this  judgment  is  also,  as  Graf  thinks,  an  expression  of  pique  at  a 
resistance  offered,  not  without  justification,  to  the  reform,  conceived  in  a 
Levitical  spirit,  which  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  carried  through  by  force,  may  ho 
passed  over  here  without  discussion.  But  certainly  he  is  right  in  this,  that,  in 
a  priestly  state  with  the  Pentateuch  finally  closed,  prophecy  had  practically  no 
place  at  all.  (The  statements  in  Josephus,  Bdl.  Jud.  i.  2.  8,  ii.  8.  12,  iii.  8.  3  ; 
Antiq.  xiii.  10.  17,  are  of  a  different  character.) 


rEOniET  AND  SCIUBE,  413 

long  the  Jays  arrive  when  it  is  said,  "We  see  not  our  signs, 
there  is  no  more  any  prophet ;  neither  is  there  among  us  any 
that  knoweth  how  long."  ^  The  Maccabean  age  waits,  with 
its  institutions,  for  a  trustworthy  prophet  who  is  to  give  the 
final  decision.^  And  Daniel,  with  the  literature  to  which  his 
book  gave  rise,  however  high  he  may  stand  as  an  inspired 
guide,  in  an  age  of  wild  commotion,  above  the  ordinary  scribe, 
is  not  a  prophet  at  all,  but  an  apocalyptic  writer.  According 
to  the  book  itself,  Daniel  is  indeed  represented  as  endowed 
"with  the  spirit  of  the  holy  Gods;"^  but  in  his  case,  as  in 
Joseph's,  everything  really  happens  through  dreams  and  their 
interpretation.  Indeed,  it  is  from  God  that  the  heathen  king 
himself,  like  Pharaoh  of  Egypt,  gets  his  significant  dreams.^ 
Consequently  the  dress  is  artificial  and  transparent.  The  idea 
of  a  vision  has  already  become  so  mechanical  that  this  book 
thinks  that  it  requires  to  be  specially  mentioned  that  Daniel's 
companions  did  not  see  the  vision  along  with  him.^  Clearly,  the 
whole  book  is  an  artificial  work,  dated  back  to  an  earlier  age. 
The  sopher,*^  or  scribe,  now  steps  into  the  place  of  the 
prophet.  In  earlier  days  the  word  denotes  the  civil  officer, 
next  in  importance  to  the  maskir.'^  It  then  describes  the 
professional  dexterity  of  the  "  ready  writer,"  who  is  specially 
skilled  in  the  practice  of  his  art.^  In  Jeremiah  the  false 
prophets,  too,  are  described  by  this  word  as  writers.^  On  the 
other  hand,  Baruch,  Jeremiah's  disciple,  gets  the  same  title, 
because  he  wrote  down  the  prophecies  of  Jeremiah  to  the 
prophet's  dictation,  and  then  read  them  aloud.^**  But  gradually 
the  word  gets  the  more  definite  meaning  of  scribe,  "one 
learned  in  the  Scriptures."  In  this  sense  it  is  even  referred 
back  to  patriarchal  times,  for  Enoch  appears,  in  the  book 
which  bears  his   name,  as  "  a  writer  of  righteousness,"  who 

1  Ps.  Ixxiv.  9.  2  I  iinQQ^  iv.  46,  ix.  27,  xv.  41. 

3  Dan.  iv.  5,  6,  15,  v.  11,  14  (x.  11,  19). 

^  Dan.  i.  17,  vii.-x.  ;  cf.  ii. -iv.  *  Dan.  x.  7. 

"  nSD-  '  E.g.  1  Kings  iv.  2  f .  (with  I'STO). 

8  Ts.  xlv.  2,  -\>r\:2  "IDD-  ®  Jer.  viii.  8.  i"  Jer.  xxxvi.  26. 


414  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

announces  their  doom  to  the  fallen  angels,  and,  at  their 
request,  draws  up  their  petition  for  mercy .^  And  the  phrases 
of  the  older  Looks  are  used  in  a  new  sense.  Thus  Ezra  is 
called  "  a  ready  scribe  in  the  law  of  Moses,"  ^  i,e.  an  accom- 
plished rabbi,  a  man  specially  well  acquainted  with  the  Law. 

Since  the  time  of  Ezekiel  and  Zechariah  prophecy  had  often 
shown  a  natural  tendency  to  pass  over  into  an  acquaintance 
with  Scripture.  And  in  the  artificial  post-exilic  prophecies 
there  are  still  clearer  proofs  of  this  transition.  The  larger  the 
Holy  Scriptures  became,  the  more  writings  there  were  by  men 
of  outstanding  authority,  and  specially  inspired  of  God,  the 
more  must  the  prophets  that  succeeded  them,  even  when  true 
prophets,  have  felt  constrained  to  present  these  treasures  to 
the  people  in  a  new  form.  Of  the  vanity  that  characterises 
authors,  and  their  itching  after  "  originality,"  these  men  of 
God  knew  nothing.  The  prophets  of  Israel  desired  nothing 
more  than  to  communicate  to  the  people  the  will  of  Jehovah 
as  they  knew  it.  Wherever  they  found  that  will  well 
expressed  they  gladly  appropriated  their  predecessors'  work. 
And  since  the  prophetic  spirit  could  not  but  grow  weaker, 
the  more  the  religion  of  the  people  got  a  one-sided  Levitical 
stamp,  the  more  marked  did  this  want  of  spiritual  independence 
l)ecome.  But  as  long  as  true  prophets  continued  to  appear, 
this  weakness  was  always  kept  within  certain  bounds.  How- 
ever joyfully  men  might  draw  from  the  sacred  wells  of  the 
older  Scriptures,  they  still  knew  that  they  were  entitled  to 
speak  words  direct  from  God,  w-ords  which,  being  from  the 
same  source  as  the  older,  were  equally  authoritative.  To 
prove  the  truth  of  their  own  declarations  they  needed  no 
written  text.  And  they  were  not  afraid  to  deal  freely  with 
Scripture,  and  even  to  controvert  individual  misleading 
expressions  in  it,  and  to  correct  them. 

It  necessarily  became   quite  different  when,  in  Israel,  the 

^  In  Dillmann's  translation,  xii.  3ff.,  xeii.  1, 
^  Ezia  vii.  6,  10  ;  Ktli.  viii.  1,  9. 


rUOrilET  AND  SCRIBE.  415 

consciousness  of  a  prophetic  call  was  felt  only  at  rare  intervals 
or  not  at  all.  The  change  certainly  was  not  sudden,  but  it 
was  inevitable.  Even  on  Ezra  the  scribe  the  gracious  hand  of 
God  still  rests.  But  all  it  now  means  is  the  providence  and 
help  of  God ;  it  is  no  longer  the  power  which  of  old  threw 
the  prophets  into  fits  of  ecstasy,^  As  soon  as  men  ceased 
to  feel  the  spirit  which  they  discerned  in  the  Scriptures  as 
a  living  force  within  themselves,  they  could  no  longer  use 
these  Scriptures  with  freedom,  or  place  anything  of  their  own 
beside  them  as  of  equal  authority.  The  written  word  had  the 
seal  of  the  divine  spirit  of  revelation.  It  was  therefore 
authoritative.  Hence  the  pious  took  God's  instructions  from 
Scripture  as  from  a  spring  rising  far  above  them.  Any  word 
or  thought  of  their  own  was  only  right  in  so  far  as  it  could 
find  support  in  these  Scriptures,  either  direct  or  by  way  of 
inference.  To  contradict  Scripture  became  something  quite 
inconceivable.  At  the  utmost,  one  declaration  of  Scripture 
might  be  modified  and  explained  by  comparison  with  another. 
Thus  out  of  the  proplcct  there  grew  the  scribe,  a  man  wlio  no 
longer  asks  to  be  believed  in  virtue  of  a  personal  commission, 
but  solely  because  of  the  acknowledged  authority  of  the  Holy 
Scripture  upon  which  he  bases  his  utterance.  That  scribes 
were  needed  was  a  proof  that,  so  far  as  the  Old  Testament  was 
concerned,  religion  had  come  to  maturity.  A  religion  which 
is  still  developing  has  prophets,  one  that  is  complete  has  only 
scribes.  In  like  manner,  and  just  about  the  same  time  in  the 
domain  of  Greek  culture,  poetry  is  gradually  passing  over 
into  philology  and  philosopliy  into  scholasticism.  Christianity 
alone,  by  adjudging  the  Divine  Spirit  to  all  its  adherents, 
provided  they  are  really  such,  permits  the  scribe  to  continue 
a  prophet  also. 

In  the  memory  of  Israel,  the  great  typical  figure  of  this 
class  is  Ezra,  the   priest   and  scribe.^      The   two  offices  are 

'  Ezra  vii.  9,  28,  viii.  18,  22,  31  ;  Noh.  ii.  8,  IS. 
*  Ezra  vii.  6,  10  ;  Neb.  viii.  1,  9. 


416  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

closely  connected.  Ezra's  untiring  efforts  to  build  up,  by 
means  of  Holy  Scripture,  a  nation  that  would  continue,  in 
his  sense  of  the  words,  a  truly  holy  nation,  make  him  the 
most  outstanding  figure  in  the  later  spiritual  history  of 
Israel.  But  a  prophet  in  the  real  sense  he  is  not,  even  in 
the  view  of  that  age.  "  He  had  set  his  heart  to  seek  the  law 
of  the  Lord  and  to  do  it,  and  to  teach  in  Israel  statutes  and 
judgments."^  A  special  regard  for  the  sacred  statutes  and 
ordinances  runs  through  his  whole  work.^  The  theme  of  his 
sermons  is  the  ancient  sacred  history.^  He  uses  the  "  book 
of  Moses,"  which  was  written  by  the  servants  of  God,  the 
prophets.'*  The  new  covenant,  into  which  he  makes  the 
people  solemnly  enter,  deals  almost  exclusively  with  the 
Levitical  side  of  the  Mosaic  law.^  Bat  it  is  only  in  the  great 
schools  of  the  Greek  age  that  the  scribe  begins  really  to 
flourish  and  grow  to  full  maturity. 

Henceforth  the  figure  of  the  scribe  does  not  lend  itself  to 
any  properly  typical  religious  use.  For  it  is  not  a  figure  by 
which  a  religion  can  be  either  developed  or  completed.  On 
the  contrary,  it  readily  becomes,  from  the  nature  of  the  case, 
a  type  of  opposition  to  the  true  spirit  of  growth  in  a  religion ; 
because  the  work  of  a  scribe  is  simply  to  hold  fast  what  has 
been  received,  to  work  out  in  a  mechanical  way  and  definitely 
settle  its  religious  contents.  Nevertheless,  from  his  personal 
importance,  and  from  the  tendencies  of  the  age  being  all  so 
akin  to  his  spirit,  the  figure  of  Ezra  actually  came  to  be 
idealised  by  the  popular  imagination.      Though  at  first  rightly 


^  Ezra  vii.  10. 

'^  Ezra  ii.  36  f.,  42,  65,  69,  70,  iii.  8,  10,  12,  vii.  7,  viii.  15  ff.,  24ff.,  x.  18. 

^  Nell.  viii.  ;  cf.  ix.  *  Ezra  iii.  2,  vi.  18,  ix.  11  ;  Neh.  viii.  1. 

^  Neh.  ix.  38,  x.  29  if.  Kueiien  rightly  lays  emphasis  on  the  fact  that  the 
lines  on  which  Ezra's  reforms  proceeded  necessarily  gave  the  scribe,  from  the 
nature  of  the  case,  the  upper  hand  even  of  the  priest.  For  the  living  interests 
of  the  people  -were  less  bound  up  with  the  religious  acts  performed  in  the  temple 
than  with  the  network  of  laws  which  was  spread  over  the  whole  life  of  the 
people,  and  which,  being  contained  in  Scripture,  retiuired  the  hand  of  the  sciibe 
to  unravel  it. 


PKOPHET  AND  SCEIBE.  417 

represented  as  the  person  who  finally  succeeded  in  refounding 
the  State  on  the  basis  of  the  Levitical  law,  Ezra  with  his  com- 
rade Nehemiah  soon  appears  as  the  first  and  only  founder  of 
the  second  Jerusalem.^  Next  he  becomes  the  prophet 
Malachi,^  and  finally  the  wonderful  head  of  the  scribes,  and 
the  inspired  restorer  of  Holy  Scripture  and  of  the  seventy 
mystic  books,  the  man  who  is  taken  up  into  Paradise  like 
Enoch  and  Elijah.^ 

The  art  of  the  scribe  was,  it  is  probable,  practised  mainly 
in  Levitical  circles.'^  This  class  becomes  always  the  stronger, 
the  nearer  we  come  to  the  close  of  the  Old  Testament 
development ;  and  at  last  it  gains  the  upper  hand  even  of 
the  priesthood.  In  Daniel,  the  prophet  himself  is  already 
represented  as  also  a  scribe.^  And  Hitzig  seems  to  me  to  be 
right  in  taking  the  Qy"v''3y'0  of  this  book,*"  not  in  the  usual 
sense  of  "  the  intelligent  among  the  people,"  but  as  meaning 
"  those  who  make  the  people  intelligent."  ''  For  a  comparison 
of  the  passage  with  B.  J.  liii.  11,  and  the  expression,  "those 
who  make  the  people  righteous,"  point  decidedly  in  this  direc- 
tion. Then  the  book  already  knows  of  a  definite  class  of  such 
"  teachers  of  the  law."  Qoheleth  is  thinking  of  the  schools 
of  the  scribes  when  he  complains  that  of  making  many  books 
there  is  no  end.^  And  the  prologue  to  Jesus  the  son  of 
Sirach  relates  of  the  author  of  the  book  that  he  had  devoted 
himself  to  reading  the  law,  the  prophets,  and  the  other  books 
of  the  fathers,  and  had  had  enough  of  practice  in  it.  Finally, 
Jesus  the  son  of  Sirach  himself  shows  a  special  predilection 
for  the  scribes  as  a  class,  and  is  anxious  to  have  them  kept 

1  2  Mace.  i.  18  ff.  (also  in  Enocli ;  cf.  Ewald,  iv.  200  ff.). 

-  Targum  to  Mai.  i.  1.  ^  According  to  Ezra  iv. 

■*  Nell.  viii.  7,  13.  Tlie  Levites  expound  the  law  that  has  been  read  aloud ; 
Ezra  instructs  the  heads  of  the  people  in  it. 

5  Dan.  ix.  2.  s  Dan.  xi.  33  ff.,  xii.  3. 

''  Ps.  xxxii.  8,  ci.  2 ;  Pro  v.  xxi.  11.  In  the  book  itself  13''3b'n  occurs  mostly 
as  intransitive,  i.  4,  17,  xi.  35,  xii.  10  (ix.  13,  25) ;  but,  on  tlie  other  hand,  it 
is  transitive  in  ix.  22. 

8  Eccles.  xii.  12. 

VOL.  L  2d 


418  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

separate  from  the  other  classes.^  But  the  time  when  the 
scribes  were  at  the  zenith  of  their  power  is  really  much  later 
than  this.  It  was  only  the  labours  by  whicli  the  Canon  was 
fixed,  and  the  studies  out  of  which  the  Mishna  and  the  Gemara 
arose,  that  gave  this  most  peculiar  figure  its  characteristic 
stamp,  and  made  it,  from  the  Christian  point  of  view,  it  is 
true,  not  a  type  of  the  Redeemer,  but  a  type  of  the  enemies 
of  the  true  fulfilment  of  salvation.  The  heroic  scribes  of  the 
final  struggle  against  Eome  show  us  figures  which  in  them- 
selves might  well  have  had  the  power  to  embody,  as  did  the 
Maccabsean  saints,  ay  even  as  did  the  suffering  servants  of 
God  during  the  Babylonian  exile,  the  highest  thoughts  of  the 
religion  of  redemption.  But  these  men  neither  had  nor 
claimed  to  have  the  creative  spirit  of  the  olden  time.  They 
are  drier,  more  passionate  and  fanatical  than  the  prophets, 
whose  inward  assurance  is  based  on  the  spirit  and  not  on  a 
sacred  text.  The  spiritual  horizon  of  these  workers  is 
bounded  by  the  formukie  of  legal  casuistry.  They  have  no 
lack  of  beautiful  moral  and  religious  thoughts.^  But  they 
live  not  in  these,  but  in  the  sacred  forms  of  the  law  as  ex- 
pounded and  "  hedged  in  "  by  themselves. 

5.  Naturally,  by  the  close  of  this  period,  Israel  had  fully 
gained,  in  regard  to  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  the  object  that 
had  been  aimed  at  ever  since  the  time  of  Ezra.  The  law  of 
Moses,  made  accessible  to  the  people  by  being  read  in  public, 
regulated  all  the  arrangements  of  daily  life.^  The  book  of 
Ezra  itself  refers  to  a  word  of  the  Lord  by  the  mouth  of 
Jeremiah  which  had  to  receive  fulfilment.*  Daniel  makes 
the  writings  of  Jeremiah  the  subject  of  study ;  the  Thorah 
and  the  other  Scriptures  are  for  him  divine  authorities  of 
long  standing.^     The  statutes  of  the  law  become  the  object  of 


^  Jes.  Sir.  xxxviii.  24  ff. ,  xxxix.  ^  Pirke  Aboth. 

•■'  After  the  pattern  of  2  Kings  xxiii.  23  ff.  ;  cf.  Ezra  iii.  2ff.,  vi.  18  ;  Neli. 
viii.  IfiF. 

*  Ezrai.  1.  «  Dan.  ix   2.  11. 


HOLY  SCKIPTUIIE.  419 

the  most  earnest  study  and  of  the  greatest  love,*  Chronicles 
already  mentions  the  Psalter  as  Davidic  and  the  Thorah  as 
Mosaic,  and  thinks  of  the  latter  as  a  text-book  in  the  hands  of 
the  Levites.2  The  stories  in  the  Pentateuch,  from  that  of  the 
creation  downwards,  are  made  use  of,  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  scribe  pure  and  simple,  for  purposes  of  edification.^  In  a 
word,  one  notices  a  strong  inclination  to  regard  Israel's  literary 
inheritance  as  unique  and  inviolable,  and  therefore  as  having  no 
connection  with  any  of  the  religious  literature  of  recent  origin. 
By  the  middle  of  the  second  century  this  was  an  accom- 
plished fact.  Jesus  the  son  of  Sirach  already  attributes  the 
pre-eminent  position  of  the  great  men  of  the  Old  Testament 
to  their  being  the  writers  of  the  Canon.  The  twelve  minor 
proj)hets  he  already  mentions  as  a  unity.  The  Chokmah 
literature  he  puts  into  close  connection  with  the  law-book, 
and  the  sacred  history  he  uses  for  homiletic  purposes.* 
Several  chapters  of  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon  are  really  nothing 
more  than  a  commentary  on  the  Pentateuch ;  ^  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  builds  up  theological  dogmas  on  Scripture  texts 
after  the  fashion  of  the  rabbinical  schools.^  Baruch  already 
quotes  texts  of  Scripture  as  proof-passages.'^  In  Tobit  are 
found  the  laws  regarding  festival  journeys  and  marriage, 
applications  of  sacred  history,  and  quotations  from  Amos  and 
Jonah.^  Judith  gives  us  explanations  of  sacred  history 
already  worked  out  in  the  style  of  legends,  e.g.  the  flight  of 
Abraham  on  account  of  the  idolatry  of  his  family .^  The  first 
book  of  the  Maccabees,  which  regards  "  the  burning  of  the 


1  Ezra  vii.  10;  Ps.  cxix.  {e.g.  1,  5,  8,  12,  16,  20,  23,  26,  30,  33-35,  40,  44, 
47  f.,  54-56,  60  f.,  66,  70,  77,  80-83, 176,  etc.) ;  cf.  Ps.  Ixxviii.  5,  Ixxxi.  6,  8f.,  i. 

2  2  Chron.  v.  13,  vii.  3,  6,  xx.  21,  xxiii.  18,  xxv.  4,  xxix.  25,  30,  xvii.  9. 

3  Ps.  xcv.  8-11,  cv.  8-45,  cvi.  8  to  end,  cxiv.,  cxxxvi.  6  if. 

*  Jes.  Sir.  xvi.  7ff.,  xvii.  Iff.,  xxiv.  32 ff.,  xxv.  32,  xxxvi.  14,  xxxviii.  5, 
xl.  10,  xliv.-xlix.  incl.  (xlix.  12). 

5  Wisd.  Scl.  X.,  xi.,  xvi.,  xvii.,  xviii.  «  Wisd.  Sol.  ii.  23,  xi.  17. 

7  Bar.  ii.  2,  21fiF.,  29  ff.  \ 

8  Tobit  i.  7,  vii.  14,  viii.  6ff.;  cf.  ii.  6,  xiv.  6ff. 

9  Judith  V.  6  ff.,  viii.  19  ff. 


420  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Holy  Scriptures  "  ^  as  the  climax  of  the  persecutions,  declares 
that  the  Scriptures  in  the  hands  of  Israel  are  a  sufficient 
consolation  in  distress,^  tells  how  at  prayer  these  were 
spread  out  before  God,^  and  delights  to  put  the  sacred  stories 
to  homiletical  uses.*  The  second  book  of  the  Maccabees 
takes  the  term  "  sacred  book "  in  a  very  external  sense,^' 
and  often  comments,  as  does  the  third  book  also,  on  the 
ancient  stories.^  In  the  book  of  Enoch,  which,  on  the  other 
hand,  regards  knowledge  and  the  art  of  writing  as  among 
the  original  causes  of  sin,'^  Holy  Scripture  is  imitated  in  a 
fashion  very  far  from  independent.  The  chief  patterns  that 
keep  hovering  before  his  mind's  eye  are  Ezekiel,  Jeremiah, 
and  Isaiah.^  Time  after  time  this  book  takes  as  its  text 
the  stories  in  Gen.  i.-vi.*  The  Jewish  Sibyl  uses  the  Old 
Testament  just  as  a  scribe  would  do.^*' 

But  it  was  especially  among  the  community  in  Egypt  under 
the  influence  of  the  Platonic  doctrine  of  inspiration  that  a 
constantly  increasing  respect  was  paid  to  the  Holy  Scriptures. 
They  are  raised  more  and  more  above  the  region  of  human 
activity  and  limitation.  Their  contents  are  represented  as 
the  pure  word  of  God.  Their  authors  must  have  been  like 
liarps,  mere  instruments  for  divine  influence  to  play  upon.^^ 
The  sacred  letter  begins  to  be  reverenced  in  a  way  which 
makes  it  possible  to  transfer  even  to  its  Greek  translation  the 
most  extravagant  ideas  as  to  special  action  on  the  part  of 
God.^^     And  it  was  precisely  this  over-estimate  of  the  letter 

^  1  Mace.  i.  59  ff.  ^^  1  Mace.  xii.  9. 

3  1  Mace,  iii.  48.  ■*  1  Mace.  ii.  52  ff.,  iv.  9,  30,  vii.  16. 

^  2  Mace.  viii.  23. 

6  2  Mace.  vii.  6,  xii.  15,  xv.  9,  22  ;  3  Mace.  ii.  4  If.,  vi.  4ff. 

^  Enoch  Lxix.  10  f.  ^  Enoch  xiv.  8ff.,  xciv.,  xcv. 

^  Enoch  xxiv.,  xxv.,  xxxii.  3ff. 

^0  Cf.  Hilgenfeld,  Jild.  AjwL  p.  82. 

11  Philo,  ii.  516  A,  517  D,  518  B,  659  B,  C. 

1^  The  legend  about  the  letter  of  Aristeas  ;  cf.  Philo,  657  E  ff.  ;  Josephns, 
Antiq.  xii.  2ff.  In  the  fourth  book  of  Ezra  the  working  out  of  the  doctrine  of 
iusidration  and  of  legends  is  worthj'  of  notice,  xiv.  22  ff.  ;  cf.  iii.  4ff.,  20  ff., 
iv.  30,  vi.  6,  38  ff.,  49,  vii.  43, 


APOCALYPSE  AND  PROPHECY.  421 

which  in  turn  made  it  possible  to  discover  behind  the  letter, 
by  allegorical  forms  and  rules,  hidden  meanings  utterly  foreign 
to  the  literal  sense.^  A  similar  view  of  Scripture  is  also  dis- 
cernible in  the  well-known  maxim  of  the  Palestinian  rabbi, 
"  Be  discreet  in  judging,  train  many  scholars,  put  a  hedge 
round  the  law."  ^  In  the  time  of  Jesus  this  view  was  found 
wherever  the  word  of  Scripture  was  treated  theologically. 
The  spiritually  destitute  age  felt  the  power  of  the  Divine 
Spirit  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and,  being  distinctly  conscious 
of  its  own  weakness,  it  made,  out  of  books  from  every  page  of 
which  the  spirit  of  true  religion  breathed,  an  idol  for  its  own 
spiritual  poverty.  "  For  the  laity  the  priest  is  becoming  more 
and  more  the  only  guide,  and  for  the  priest  himself  the  sacred 
book  and  the  sacred  letter"  (Ewald). 

6.  Prophecy  through  the  medium  of  a  scribe  we  term 
Apocalyptic.3 

Prophecy  did  not  change  into  this  new  form  all  of  a  sudden. 
Already  in  the  visions  of  Ezekiel  and  Zechariah  the  pictures 
are,  without  doubt,  mainly  artistic,  produced  by  a  conscious 
effort  of  the  imagination,  and  reference  is,  of  set  purpose, 
made  to  earlier  prophecies.  But  this  tendency  is  evidently 
worked  out  in  an  altogether  different  fashion  in  Daniel,  the 
only  canonical  book  which  is  of  an  apocalyptic  character. 

An  apocalypse  is  a  thoroughly  arbitrary  form  of  art. 
It  is  the  product  of  a  time  of  sore  distress,  when  people 
are  loth  to  acknowledge  ignorance  of  the  day  and  hour  of 
deliverance.  Hence,  as  there  is  no  longer  any  direct  prophetic 
certainty  as  to  the  divine  will,  they  seek  to  get  from  Holy 
Scripture,  by  clever  exposition,  calculation,  and  combination, 
some  clue  to  those  judgments  which  they  feel  approaching. 
The  apocalyptic  seer  lets  the  history  of  God's  people,  as  it 
has  developed  up  to  his  own  day,  pass  before  his  spiritual 

1  Philo,  116  A,  359  E,  576  C,  10S7  ff.,  1190.  -  Pirke  Aboth  i.  1  ff. 

*  Smend,   "  Ueber  jiidische  Apokalyptik  "  (Stade,  Zeitschr.  f.  alttest.   Wiss. 
T.  223). 


422  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

eye  in  a  series  of  purposely  mysterious  pictures,  and  thus  gets, 
as  it  were,  a  "  philosophy  of  history  "  from  the  standpoint  of 
Old  Testament  prophecy.  But  in  order  that  this  delineation 
of  history  may  be  conceived  of  as  a  vision,  as  the  form 
requires,  pseudonymity  is  almost  indispensable.  An  ancient 
name  is  taken,  especially  one  famous  in  sacred  legend,  such 
as  Daniel,^  Enoch,  Ezra,  Moses,  the  Sibyls,  etc.  The  his- 
torical panorama,  with  all  its  details,  is  then  represented  as 
a  vision  of  the  future  unrolling  itself  before  the  eye  of  some 
such  prophet  of  the  olden  days.^  To  the  initiated,  at  the 
time  such  books  were  composed,  the  various  details  were,  of 
course,  clear  and  simple,  and  easily  indicated  the  author's  real 
meaning.  To  the  uninitiated  they  remained,  as  was  intended, 
sealed  books ;  and  to  after  generations,  able  only  to  guess  at 
those  details,  they  often  present  problems  barely  soluble. 
But  where  the  actual  future  begins  for  the  author,  the  infer- 
ences from  the  historical  development  are  of  a  very  general 
character,  but  accompanied  with  definite  dates  as  far  as  possible 
in  accordance  with  old  prophetic  sayings.  And  as  there  is 
no  direct  prophetic  certainty,  but  only  calculation  and  inference, 
the  picture  of  the  future  is  wont  to  rise  into  the  region  of  the 
mystical,  the  superhuman,  the  supernatural. 

To  the  superficial  eye,  it  is  true,  the  power  of  prophecy 
seems  stronger  in  the  Apocalypses  than  anywhere  else.  The 
intentional  obscurity  of  the  pictures,  the  mass  of  details  hinted 
at,  in  all  of  which  the  form  of  vision  or  ecstasy  is  invariably 
maintained, — the  wide  outlook  on  the  world  of  history,  as  was 
quite  natural  in  times  when  Israel's  destiny  could  be  settled 
only  in  connection  with  the  destiny  of  world-wide  empires, — 
all  this  produces  the  impression  of  a  particularly  high-pitched 
prophetic  activity.  But  in  reality  it  is  just  the  reverse. 
Those  details  belong  to  the  past,  and  are  purposely  handled  in 

^  Ezek.  xiv.  14,  xxviii.  3. 

^  Gen.  xlix. ;  Num.  xxiv. ;  Deut.  xxxii.,  xxxiii.,  etc.,  are  already  pieces  of 
this  character. 


THE  DISPERSION.  423 

such  a  way  that  the  initiated  easily  recognise  them  as  such. 
For  us,  it  is  true,  they  are  all  the  more  frequently  enigmas, 
not  merely  because  we  do  not  know  the  individual  occurrences 
of  those  days,  but  also  because  we  are  not  aware  how  the 
authors  dealt,  for  example,  with  chronology,  and  what  view 
of  the  events  in  question  was  then  taken  in  pious  Jewish 
circles.  The  form  of  the  vision,  the  mysterious  emphasising 
of  infallibility  and  inviolability,  are  mere  drapery,  and  are 
quite  in  keeping  with  the  pseudonymity.  But  the  actual 
sketches  of  the  future  are  simply  imaginative  and  magnified 
reproductions  of  sacred  prophetic  utterances,  or  else  con- 
clusions drawn  from  them  in  the  spirit  of  theological  pedantry. 
Daniel  is  the  true  pioneer  and  the  permanent  model  of  all  his 
successors. 


CHAPTEE  XX. 

SPECIAL  PHENOMENA  OF  THE  LATEST  OLD  TESTAMENT  AGE 
WHICH  POINT  FORWARD. 

1.  After  the  Exile  a  very  considerable  number  of  Israelites 
had  remained  behind  in  the  east  and  the  north,  not  possess- 
ing sufficient  faith  to  stake  their  all  on  the  doubtful  future  of 
the  new  Jerusalem,  but,  nevertheless,  by  no  means  inclined  to 
give  up  connection  with  the  people  of  God  altogether.  There 
was  also,  especially  since  the  Greek  period,  a  constantly 
gvowincT  number  of  Jews  scattered  all  over  the  then  civilised 
world  engaged  in  trade  and  commerce,  and  some  also  in 
slavery.  All  of  these  men  were  kept  in  touch  with  the  real 
centre  of  the  holy  people  by  means  of  the  temple,  the  sacrifices 
and  taxes,  the  pilgrimages,  and  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Now 
these  Jews  of  the  Dispersion  had  in  many  respects  an  im- 
portant influence  on  the  development  of  religion.  In  the  first 
place,  they  formed  a  natural  bridge  by  which  the  true  religion 


424  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

could  spread  among  the  various  nations  of  the  world.  In 
these  circumstances  many  a  rough  idiosyncracy  which  made 
the  national  exclusiveness  of  Israel  repellent  to  foreigners 
got  smoothed  down.  Under  the  influence  of  the  full  culture 
of  that  age,  monotheism  and  a  pure  morality  necessarily 
became  for  them  the  central  thoughts  of  their  religious  con- 
sciousness. And  whatever  spiritual  influence  arose  among 
the  Jews,  whether  a  new  philosophy  of  religion  or  a  new 
Messianic  message,  it  had  access  at  once  to  the  great  stage  on 
which  the  drama  of  the  world  was  being  enacted.  In  the  second 
place,  a  people  was  thus  spread  all  over  the  world  which,  amid 
the  most  diverse  political  and  social  surroundings,  acknow- 
ledged a  single,  spiritual  centime.  A  kingdom  of  God  was  thus 
prefigured  which  would  have  no  material  power,  and  which 
would  not  force  its  members  even  into  outward  union.  Thus 
amid  manifold  other  diff'erences  there  arose  a  uuity  of  faith 
and  morals.  A  world-wide  religion  of  the  true  God  was  in 
course  of  preparation.  It  was  already  possible  to  say  that 
among  every  people  in  every  clime  prayer  was  being  offered 
up  to  the  true  God.  That  may  well  be  the  meaning  of  the 
beautiful  passage :  "  For  from  the  rising  of  the  sun  even  unto 
the  going  down  of  the  same  my  name  is  great  among  the 
nations ;  and  in  every  place  incense  is  offered  unto  my  name, 
and  a  pure  offering :  for  my  name  is  great  among  the  nations, 
saith  the  Lord  of  hosts."  ^  The  interpretation  which  takes 
these  words  as  a  prophecy  is  quite  untenable.  Again,  from 
the  whole  tenor  of  Malachi's  thought,  and  because  the  name 
of  the  covenant  God  is  specially  mentioned,^  the  idea  that 
the  prophet  is  describing  all  heathen  sacrifices  as  offered,  in 

1  Mai.  i.  11. 

^  Baudissin  lias  lately  explained  it  thus  :  "Among  all  nations  there  are  true 
worshippers  of  God  whose  service,  although  they  worship  God  here  under  one 
name  and  there  under  another,  is  given  only  to  the  true  God,  i.e.  to  Jehovah" 
(p.  172).  But  such  a  conception  appears  to  me  to  be  too  far  beyond  the  horizon 
of  tliis  prophet,  and  neither  Zech,  xiv.  9  nor  B.  J.  xxvi.  13  presents,  as  Hitzig 
thinks,  any  analogy  to  it.  Both  passages  speak  of  tlie  Israelitish  belief  in 
Jehovah's  sovereign  rights  over  the  earth,  not  of  the  value  of  heathen  worsliip. 


PROSELYTES.  425 

the  last  resort,  to  the  one  true  God,  however  beautiful  and 
grand  it  is  in  itself,  cannot  be  meant  here.  The  prophet  is 
pointing  out,  in  contrast  to  the  selfishness  and  petty  avarice 
of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Holy  Land  in  regard  to  sacrifices, 
that  far  more  valuable  sacrifices  are  being  offered  all  round 
about  to  the  great  God  who  is  proving  Himself  more  and 
more  the  God  of  the  nations. 

Most  important  of  all  was  that  community  of  the  Dispersion 
which,  in  Egypt  under  the  suzerainty  of  the  Ptolemies,  gradu- 
ally rose  to  greater  and  greater  prosperity.  There  Judaism 
came  into  contact  with  Greek  culture.  Shem  and  Japheth 
intermarried.  There  the  Greek  Bible  originated.  There  a 
philosophy  of  religion  grew  up  which  transferred  to  the  Old 
Testament  religion,  by  means  of  allegorical  exposition  of  the 
Scriptures,  which  it  held  to  be  magically  inspired,  the  abstract 
philosophical  conception  of  a  spiritual  God,  and  His  manifesta- 
tion in  the  Word  and  in  the  poivers,  as  well  as  the  character- 
istics of  monkish  ascetism,  the  dualistic  view  of  the  material 
world,  and  many  other  ideas  of  the  composite  Greek  philosophy 
of  those  days.  But  this  is  not  the  place  to  deal  fully  with  such 
questions.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  this  was  a  grand  preparation 
for  the  breaking  down  of  national  barriers,  and  for  the  religion 
of  Israel  being  transformed  into  a  world-wide  religion.  It 
foreshadowed  a  Messianic  kingdom  without  political  glory. 

2.  That  foreigners  should  live  among  the  people  of  Israel 
and  enjoy  certain  specified  privileges  in  common  with  them, 
is  not  an  absolutely  new  phenomenon.^  In  ancient  times, 
indeed,  it  is  not  so  much  a  real  religious  change  that  is 
thought  of,  as  the  simple  fact  of  their  becoming  citizens  and 
adopting  the  customs  of  Israel.  The  middle  books  of  the 
Pentateuch  refer,  in  most  cases,  to  very  late  relations.  But 
even  the  legislation  of  Deuteronomy  pays  attention  to  these 

^  Older  literature  :  Leyrer  in  Herzog's  licalenryclo^mdie ,  art.  "Proselyten." 
The  treatises  of  Slevogt,  Muller,  and  Danz  in  Ugolino,  Thesaurus  antiq.  sacr. 
vol.  xxii. 


426  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

"  strangers  within  Israel's  gates."  ^  Such  persons  were  not 
subject  to  all  the  restrictions  of  an  Israelite,  neither  did  they 
enjoy  all  his  privileges.  But  if  one  may  judge  from  the  later 
development,  they  were  bound  to  obey  the  civil  laws,  the  laws 
in  regard  to  cleanness  and  un cleanness,  the  general  regula- 
tions as  to  sacrifice,  the  Sabbath  law,  and  the  laws  prohibiting 
idolatry,  blasphemy,  and  "abominable  acts."  They  had  the 
right  to  sacrifice,  were  entitled  to  every  facility  for  carrying  on 
business,  and  were,  along  with  the  poor  and  the  Levites,-  most 
warmly  commended  to  the  protection  and  the  charity  of  the 
public.  Such  strangers  could  in  time,  if  there  were  no  special 
national  or  physical  hindrances  in  the  way,  acquire  the  full 
rights  of  citizenship.  When  tliey  had  done  so  by  being  cir- 
cumcised, they  naturally  had  all  tlie  privileges  of  an  Israelite, 
e.g.  the  right  to  celebrate  the  Passover.^ 

In  the  post-exilic  period,  however,  these  relations  became  of 
greater  importance,  and  the  laws  by  which  they  were  regulated 
were  probably  much  more  exact  and  definite.  The  dis- 
persion of  Israel  necessarily  made  the  heathen  nations  better 
acquainted  with  the  true  religion ;  and  this,  combined  with 
the  waning  influence  of  the  old  national  religions,  also  made 
them  inclined  in  many  cases  to  adopt  this  religion.  In , 
supplements  to  the  Old  Testament,  as,  for  instance,  in  Bel 
and  the  Dragon,  but  especially  in  pseudonymous  productions 
which  appeared  under  old  heathen  names  like  Orpheus  and 
the  Sibyl,  Hellenistic  Judaism  began  to  attack  heathenism 
and  to  seek  proselytes.  The  exilic  Isaiah  in  his  day  takes 
notice  of  the  aliens  "  who  join  themselves  to  Israel."  ^     Those 

^  Deut.  V.  14. 

2  Deut.  xiv,  29,  xvi.  11,  xxiv.  19,  xxvi.  11  ;  cf.  Ex.  xii.  19,  xx.  10,  xxiii.  12  ; 
Lev.  xvi.  29,  xvii.  8,  xviii.  26,  xx.  2,  xxii.  18,  xxiii.  22,  xxiv.  16ft\,  xxv.  6  ; 
Num.  XV.  14,  29. 

^  Ex.  xii.  48.  Ancient  Israel  was  not  by  any  means  a  people  that  kept 
itself  very  pure  nationally.  The  history  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  especially, 
proves  how  readily,  in  earlier  days,  whole  families  belonging  to  another  tribe 
were  taken  in  ;  cf.  e.g.  Josh.  xiv.  14. 

*  ^^  rxh^,  B.  J.  Ivi.  3,  6 ;  Ezek.  xlvii.  22  flf. 


PKOSELYTES.  427 

who  fear  God  are  mentioned,  in  the  Psahns,  soon  after  the 
return.^  The  post-exilic  prophets  show  that  proselytisni  is 
growing.^  But  it  was  principally  after  the  Maccabean  wars  of 
independence  that  proselytes  began  to  increase  in  importance. 
In  addition  to  the  ever-growing  number  of  conversions 
through  the  power  of  the  truth,^  the  conversion,  by  force, 
of  the  neighbouring  peoples  now  commenced.  The  Idumeans 
were  compelled  by  John  Hyrcanus,  and  the  Itureans  by 
Aristobulus,  to  adopt  circumcision.  Pella  was  destroyed  by 
Alexander,  because  it  refused  to  accept  Judaism.* 

The  two  ways  by  which  the  Pentateuch,  as  we  have  just 
shown,  allows  strangers  to  enter  into  friendly  relations  with 
the  religion  of  Israel,  were  afterwards  more  exactly  defined  by 
the  Piabbis.  Those  who  become  real  children  of  the  covenant 
by  baptism  and  circumcision  are  called  "  proselytes  proper,"  ^ 
and  undertake  the  full  observance  of  the  law.  The  others 
are  not  circumcised,  but  have  to  pledge  themselves  to  submit 
to  the  more  general  ordinances  of  the  law,  as  these  have  been 
more  definitely  mentioned  above.  Only  on  these  terms  can 
Israel  tolerate  their  presence.*^  For  the  Piabbis,  naturally,  the 
act  of  becoming  a  proselyte  is  no  longer  a  semi-civil  trans- 
action, but  a  religious  act  of  fundamental  importance — a  new 
birth.7 

This  increase  in  the  number  of  proselytes  is  of  great 
importance  for  the  religion  of  Israel  Although  a  narrow 
barrier  of  external  forms  still  limited  the  full  right  to  citizen- 
ship in  the  kingdom  of  God,  the  idea  of  that  kingdom  was,  at 
least,  being  gradually  freed  from  purely  national  limitations. 

1  Ps.  cxv.  11,  13,  cxviii.  4.  '^  Zech.  ii.  11  ;  cf.  Ezra  vi.  21  ;  Neh.  x.  28. 

^  Joseph,  c.  A-p.  ii.  10. 

4  Joseph.  Ant.  xiii,  9.  1,  11.  3,  15.  4  ;  xv.  7.  9  ;  cf.  Bdl.  Jud,  xiv.  5.  3  ; 
De  Vita,  xxiii. 

^  \>'\'SV\  ""Ii.  (The  baptism  of  proselj'tes  is  mentioned  by  Justin  c.  Tryph., 
ed.  Otto,  ii.  48  f.) 

^  On  this  subject,  cf.  Schiirer,  Gesch.  d.  jild.  Volkes  im  Z.  J.,  2nd  ed., 
ii.  548  ff. 

^  Talmud,  Mass.  Zeuamoth  ii. 


428  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

Henceforth  it  was  not  descent  from  the  patriarchs  according  to 
the  flesh,  but  the  religion  of  Israel  and  its  forms,  which  was 
the  necessary  condition  of  being  a  child  of  God,  a  member  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven.  There  had  to  rise  before  the  eyes 
of  the  saints  a  community  of  God  all  over  the  world ;  and  that 
no  longer  a  national  Messianic  kingdom,  to  which  the  other 
peoples  are  submissively  to  do  homage,  but  a  Messianic 
kingdom  of  a  religious  character,  the  membership  of  which, 
with  full  possession  of  every  privilege,  is  open  to  all  who 
accept  the  true  religion.  All  the  healthy  impulses  of  this 
age  point  to  a  bursting  of  Old  Testament  barriers,  and  to  the 
national  religion  becoming  universal. 

3.  In  these  days  the  temple,  although  it  had  no  sacred  ark 
of  the  covenant,  was  yet  the  object  of  a  love  and  a  pride,  such 
as  the  people  as  a  whole  had  never  lavished  on  the  temple  of 
Solomon.  Its  pre-eminence  as  the  one  proper  place  of  worship 
for  the  people  was  now  absolutely  uncontested.^  In  the  time 
of  the  second  temple,  sacred  songs  and  psalms  reached  the  acme 
of  perfection,  not,  indeed,  in  respect  of  originality  and  vigour, 
but  as  regards  delicacy  of  form,  smooth  and  pleasing  diction, 
and  a  highly  edifying  tone.^  But,  meanwhile,  another  kind 
of  holy  place  was  coming  into  use  and  gradually  growing  in 
importance.  Even  during  the  Exile  dire  necessity  and  the 
want  of  a  temple  had  forced  the  Israelites  to  hold  religious 
meetings  beside  streams  of  running  water,  where  prayers 
were  offered,  acts  of  purification  performed,  and  the  common 
edification  promoted.  Whether  such  meetings  had  already 
regular  forms  of  worship  and  special  buildings,  may  well  be 
doubted,  At  least  the  passages  from  Ezekiel,  which  are  so 
explained,  may  just  as  well  be  understood  to  refer  to  an 
arrangement  purely  personal  to  the  prophet.^     But  when  the 


^  The  temple  of  Onias  never  became  so  famous  as  to  rival  the  holy  place 
on  Mount  Ziou. 

"  Cf.  e.g.  the  Psalms  with  the  inscription  "A  Song  of  Ascents." 
^  Ezek.  viii.  1,  xiv.  1,  xx.  1. 


TEMPLE  AND  SYNAGOGUE.  429 

exiles  returned  the  custom  was  kept  up  and  gradually 
extended. 

Houses  of  prayer  were  built  in  which  the  congregation  met 
on  the  Sabbath  day  for  the  purpose  of  reading  the  Scriptures 
together  and  engaging  in  prayer.  It  had  long  been  customary 
to  pray  at  stated  hours/  and  to  turn  the  face,  M'hile  in  the 
act  of  praying,  towards  Jerusalem.^  The  habit  of  reading  the 
law  had  been  introduced  by  Ezra.^  These  houses  of  prayer, 
or  synagogues,^  were  very  plain;  not  splendid  places  of  worship, 
but  merely  congregational  meeting-houses.  Nothing  more  was 
needed  than  a  book-press,  a  pulpit,  seats  for  the  congregation, 
and  lamps  ;  and  the  president,  the  elders,  the  beadle,^  in  a  word, 
the  officials,  were  freely  elected  from  the  congregation  without 
regard  to  Levitical  descent  or  class  privilege.  It  is  of  such 
synagogues  that  the  author  of  Ps.  Ixxiv.  speaks  when  he 
mourns  over  the  burning  down  of  these  holy  places  all  over 
the  land.''  Everywhere  among  the  Dispersion  these  houses 
of  prayer  were  the  centres  of  religious  life. 

The  important  bearing  of  this  arrangement  on  religion  is 
self-evident.  It  was  not  merely  that  there  had  been  dis- 
covered, quite  apart  from  the  regular  centre  of  worship,  an 
external  means  of  awakening  a  living  religious  life  in  the 
community.  It  was  the  actual  beginning  of  a  method  of 
looking  at  the  public  worship  of  God  quite  different  from  that 
of  the  ancient  people.  Public  worship  was  understood  by 
ancient  Israel,  as  by  all  ancient  nations,  to  mean  sacrifices, 
solemn  feasts,  and  acts  of  asceticism.  It  was  different  now. 
For  the  great  majority  of  the  people,  in  their  new  surround- 
ings, real  religious  work  took  quite  another  form.  For  all 
who  lived  at  a  distance  from  Jerusalem,  the  temple,  with  its 

1  Dan.  vi.  11  ;  cf.  Ps.  Iv.  18. 

^  1  Kings  viii.  48  ;  Dan.  vi.  10.  '  Neh.  viii, 

*  riD^SiTTin,  avtocyuyh,  vfoffiv^^,  in  Greek  countries. 

^  Ps.  Ixxiv.  8,  ^S'nyiC     In  Eccles.  iv.  17,  the  reference  to  sacrifice  shows 
that  there  the  temple  is  s]ioken  of. 


430  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

beautiful  service,  continued  to  be  the  mysterious  spot  where 
God  was  present  and  where  atonement  was  made,  the  outward 
expression  of  all  the  great  ideas  of  religion,  such  as  forgiveness 
of  sins,  submission  to  God,  and  intercourse  between  Him  and 
His  people.  And  this  spiritual  connection  with  the  sanctuary 
was  faithfully  maintained.  But  it  became,  all  the  same,  more 
and  more  symbolical.  On  the  other  hand,  they  had  daily 
before  their  eyes  a  worship  without  Levitical  priest,  without 
sacrifice,  without  mystery  or  symbol,  a  worship  the  central 
feature  of  which  was  the  edification  of  the  heart  by  means  of 
Holy  Scripture  and  common  prayer.  Here,  instead  of  a  house 
of  God,  there  was  a  house  of  the  congregation.  The  individual 
Israelite  had  to  consider  his  religion  as  the  subject  of  his  own 
knowledge,  and  to  exemplify  it  in  his  own  person  and  spirit. 
The  liberty  of  speaking  in  turn  prevented  any  sharp  dis- 
tinction between  priest  and  layman.  In  this  way  these 
synagogues  certainly*  helped  more  than  anything  else  to 
make  a  religion  possible  in  which  animal  sacrifice  and  sacred 
rites  are  given  up  and  become  mere  types ;  in  which  union 
with  God  is  maintained  by  means  of  His  written  word, 
edifying  discourse,  and  congregational  prayer ;  a  religion  in 
which  there  is  no  priestly  caste,  but  a  ministry  for  the 
teaching  of  the  word  open  to  men  of  every  class.^  How 
these  synagogues  served  Christianity  as  the  starting-point  of 
foreign  missions  is  well  enough  known.  But  the  synagogue 
also  turned  the  scale  decisively  in  favour  of  the  scribe  as 
against  the  priest,  and  in  favour  of  the  Pharisee  as  against 
the  Sadducee. 

4.  During    this    period    the    cycle    of    sacred    seasons    is 
increased  by  various  kinds  of  new  anniversaries.     However, 

^  It  is  scarcely  possible  to  imagine  a  direct  change  from  sacrificial  worship  as 
it  existed  before  Josiah,  that  is  to  say,  from  the  habit  of  includ'mg  in  sacrificial 
worship  everything  that  loas  done  in  honour  of  Jehovah  in  the  varioios  districts  of 
Israel,  to  the  spiritual  worship  of  Christianity.  But  even  when  one  starts  with 
a  single  place  of  worship,  it  would  be  almost  impossible  without  the  synagogue 
fts  a  link  of  connection  to  understand  the  practice  of  early  Christianity. 


FEASTS.  431 

none  of  these  additional  festivals  is  of  any  real  importance 
for  the  religion  of  Israel.  It  will  be  enough  to  mention  them 
in  a  word.  Since  the  Exile,  fasts,  which  are,  however,  looked 
upon  by  Zechariah  as  useless,  and  at  variance  with  the 
grateful  feelings  of  the  people  after  the  rebuilding  of  the  city, 
are  held  on  the  9th  day  of  the  fourth  month,  on  the  lOtli 
of  the  fifth,  on  the  3rd  (?)  of  the  seventh,  and  on  the  10th  of 
the  tenth.^  Owing  to  the  habit,  then  coming  into  vogue,  of 
beginning  the  civil  year  with  what  was  the  seventh  month  of 
the  sacred  year,  the  1st  day  of  the  seventh  month  came  to  be 
the  civil  New  Year's  Day.^  The  feast  of  Purim,  dating  from 
the  Persian  period,  and  probably  itself  of  Persian  origin,^  has 
lustre  shed  upon  it  in  the  book  of  Esther  by  a  popular  legend  ; 
and  perhaps  it  was  just  this  which  first  commended  it  to  the 
Palestinian  Jews.  It  fell  on  the  14th  and  15th  of  Adad,  a 
month  before  the  Passover.'^  It  became  customary  to 
celebrate  the  feast  of  the  Purification  of  the  temple  on 
the  loth  of  Kislev,^  Other  feasts,  like  the  feast  of  the 
Wood-carriers,^  the  feast  of  the  reading  of  the  Law,'^  the 
feast  of  Meaner,^  the  feast  of  the  Captured  Fortress,^  and 
the  feast  of  Baskets,^*^  evidently  never  attained  to  any  real 
religious  significance. 

5.  Decay  of  spiritual  power  inevitably  results  in  a  loosening 

1  Zech.  vii.  3,  5,  riii.  19. 

-  The  harvest  feast,  according  to  Ex.  xxiii.  16,  xsxiv.  22  (1  Sam,  i.  20  ;  Isa. 
xxix.  1,  xxxii.  10),  is  the  feast  at  the  end  of  the  year.  Hence  the  New  Year 
can  scarcely  have  been  celebrated  in  Israel  originally  in  the  autumn  ;  Neh.  viii. 
2,  9-12 ;  Joseph.  A7itiq.  i.  3.  3. 

^  The  feast  of  the  departed?  Cf.  de  Lagarde,  Ahhandhjn.  163 fi*.  and  else- 
■\vhere. 

^  n"''l"lEn~''?0\  Esth.  ix.  24-26,  iii.  7  ;  h  Ma.flox'^'iKii  ti/zifx,  2  Mace.  xv.  37  (on 
the  13th  Adar,  iriDX  JT^J^n). 

5  iyKCiivici,  ri''2n  n^^n,  l  Mace.  iv.  56,  59;  2  Mace.  x.  6  IT.  (cf.  Joseph. 
Antiq.  xii.  7.  7,  ipiUTa). 

*  ^uXofopiuv,  Joseph.  Bell.  Jud.  ii.  17.  6. 

7  Ezra  (Greek)  ix.  50(?).  «  1  Mace.  vii.  49  (13th  Adar). 

^  23rd  of  second  month  ;  1  Mace.  xiii.  50,  52. 

i**  Philo,  supplement  to  the  treatise  "De  Septenario,"  by  Mai  {De  Copliini 
Festo,  Milan  1818). 


432  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

of  the  inner  unity  which  binds  together  those  who  are  engaged 
in  furthering  the  development  of  religion.  Their  differences 
are  accentuated  till  they  end  in  the  formation  of  sects, — a 
clear  proof  that  the  real  life  has  ceased  to  pulsate.  No  doubt 
this  phenomenon  is  witnessed  even  during  the  period  when 
canonical  books  are  still  being  produced.  This  is  very 
easily  seen  by  comparing  Ecclesiastes  with  Daniel.  In  the 
first  book  the  author  carefully  avoids  everything  national  and 
theocratic,  prophetic  and  positive,  confines  himself  to  the  few 
main  principles  of  a  moral  religion  of  reason,  and  verges 
on  the  utmost  limits  of  doubt.  In  the  other,  the  author 
is  all  aglow  with  national  and  religious  feeling,  and  possessed 
with  an  inward  passion  for  the  realisation  of  Israel's  hopes. 
But  he  lays  undue  emphasis  on  sacred  forms,  exaggerates  the 
miraculous,  revels  in  eschatological  scenes,  and  has  a  most 
exalted  idea  of  prophecy.  A  period  in  which  two  such  books 
could  be  written  and  put  into  the  Canon  together  must  have 
been  already  plunged  in  the  gravest  uncertainty  by  the 
weakening  of  its  spiritual  power,  and  that,  too,  in  the  very 
circles  which  gave  religion  its  tone.  The  old  antagonism 
between  prophetic  and  ethical  literature  is  here  carried  in  a 
one-sided  way  the  length  of  open  rupture ;  while  the  book 
of  the  son  of  Siracli  merely  develops  the  old  religious 
philosophy  of  the  common  people  in  a  more  homely  fashion 
than  before,  the  style  being  occasionally  no  higher  than  that 
of  a  shrewd  man  of  the  world.  And  the  whole  history 
of  the  Syrian  wars  is  quite  unintelligible,  unless  it  is  taken 
for  granted  that  the  attempts  of  the  Syrian  king  in  favour 
of  the  Greeks  found  even  among  the  upholders  of  religion 
in  Israel  a  very  strong  party,  accustomed  to  interpret  the 
Old  Testament  religion  in  a  sense  favourable  to  an  amalgama- 
tion with  the  ethics  and  philosophy  of  the  Greeks. 

This  tendency  to  divisive  courses,  partly,  it  is  true,  quenched 
in  blood  during  the  frenzy  of  the  War  of  Independence,  began 
to  develop  into  more  definite  and  tangible  forms  under  the 


SECTS.  433 

Asmonfean  rule.  Not  merely  different  schools  of  thought,  in 
other  respects  in  essential  harmony,  hut  actual  "  sects,"  claimed 
the  religion  of  Israel  as  their  rightful  inheritance.  In  view  of 
the  many  difSculties  of  the  question,  a  full  description  of  these 
sects  cannot  be  expected  in  a  brief  incidental  sketch  like 
this.^  We  shall  content  ourselves  with  indicating,  in  a  word, 
the  essential  characteristics  of  each.  The  Sadducees  ^  were 
the  'prkstly  aristocracy  of  the  sons  of  Zadok,  who  laid  stress 
on  the  Law  and  its  observance,  but  not  on  the  interpretations 
of  it  current  among  the  popular  schools  of  learning.  They 
were  hostile  to  everything  like  prophetic  enthusiasm,  which 
might  endanger  the  constitution  of  the  State  and  injure  the 
authority  of  the  existing  order  of  things.  The  Pharisees,  on 
the  other  hand,  as  the  real  leaders  of  the  pious  people,  attached 
more  and  more  importance  to  the  peculiar  holiness  of  Israel 
and  to  its  national  and  religious  aspirations.^  The  com- 
munity of  the  Essenes  *  represented  a  mystic  and  ascetic 
spiritualism,  a  principle  that  acted  like  a  solvent,  and  tended 
to  amalgamate  with  the  Old  Testament  doctrines  every 
ascetic  and  mystical  view  in  any  way  akin  to  them, — no 
matter  whether  it  can  be  historically  proved  that  they  were 
imder  the  influence  of  Greek-Pythagorean  elements  or  only 
of  Alexandrian  Hellenism,  or  whether  kindred  tendencies  de- 
veloped simultaneously,  but  independently,  in  several  different 

^  Cf.  especially  Wellliausen,  Die  Pharisaer  und  Sadducaer,  Greifswald  1874. 

^  As  to  their  history  and  position,  cf.  Mishna,  Massecetli  Jadhaim  (nSDD 
CT')  iv.  6-8  ;  Massecetli  Niddah  (mj  TQ^'O)  iv.  2  ;  cf.  Pirke  Aboth  i.  3  ; 
Joseph.  Ant.  xiii.  5.  9,  10.  6,  xviii.  1.  2,  4,  xx.  9.  1 ;  i)e  Bell.  Jud.  ii.  8.  14. 

^  On  these  cf.  Joseph.  Ant.  xiii.  5.  9,  10.  6,  15.  5,  16.  2,  xvii.  2.  4, 
xviii.  1.  2f.  ;  De  Bell.  Jud.  i.  5.  2,  ii.  8.  14  (iii.  8.  5,  vi.  5.  4,  where,  according 
to  De  Vita,  xxxviii.,  ii.,  he  himself  develops  Pharisaic  principles)  ;  Matt. 
ix.  11,  14,  xii.  14,  XV.  1  ff.,  xxii.  15  fF.,  xxiii.  13  ff.  ;  Mark  vii.  3  ;  Luke  v.  17, 
30,  vi.  2,  7,  xi.  39,  43,  xviii.  11 ;  John  vii.  48,  iii.  1,  ix.  15  ff.  ;  Acts  v.  34, 
XV.  5,  xxiii.  6  ff. 

*  On  these  cf.  Photius  (ed.  Beck.),  86«,  35  ;  Philo,  876,  889  ff.  ;  Joseph.  De 
Vita,  ii.  ;  Bell.  Jud.  ii.  8.  2-13  ;  Antiq.  xiii.  5.  9,  xv.  10.  4  f.,  xviii.  1.  5,  2  ; 
Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  v.  17  (Philo,  Fragra.  in  Euseb.,  ed.  Mg.  ii.  632  ff.);  Porphyr. 
De  Ahst.,  ed.  A.  Nauck,  171,  9  ff.,  mentions  only  what  Josephus  says. 

VOL.  I.  2  E 


434  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

relisioiis  fields.^  In  addition  to  these,  there  is  the  Alexandrine 
philosophy  of  religion,  strictly  so-called,  which  was  thoroughly 
steeped  in  the  Greek  spirit,  and  the  theosophy  just  beginning 
in  the  circles  of  advanced  Pharisaism.  The  spirit  of  revela- 
tion that  carried  forward  the  development  of  the  true  religion 
had  no  longer  any  living  influence  over  the  people.  But 
when  life  leaves  a  body,  decomposition  begins,  and  the  unity 
of  that  body  is  at  an  end.  It  was  only  the  reaction  against 
Christianity,  and  the  final  victory  of  Pharisaism,  after  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus,  that  forced  these  various 
schools  to  unite  once  more  under  the  rigid  uniformity  of 
dogma  and  statute. 

6.  The  decay  of  religious  power  is  also  shown  in  the 
possibility  of  a  scepticism  such  as  we  see  in  Ecclesiastes. 
The  book  of  Job,  it  is  true,  already  indicates  how  questions 
and  doubts  of  the  gravest  kind  are  calling  for  attention,  and 
declining  to  be  simply  waived  aside  by  faith.  These  doubts 
persist  in  developing  in  all  directions,  and,  without  being 
really  solved,  are  overcome  only  by  the  immediate  influence 
of  trust  in  God.  But  in  Job  it  is  not,  after  all,  a  question 
of  real  theoretical  scepticism.  The  problem  which  is  raised 
there  forces  itself  on  the  attention  of  every  one  as  a 
practical  temptation.  And  however  fearlessly  the  whole 
truth  regarding  this  problem  is  stated  in  Job,  the  believing 
view  of  the  world,  it  is  clear,  has  still  strength  enough  of  its 
own  to  gain  the  victory  without  the  understanding  being 
really  satisfied. 

It  is  quite  otherwise  in  this  remarkable  book.  This  will, 
it  is  true,  not  be  the  verdict  of  any  one  who,  like  Vaihinger, 
sees  in  its  author,  not  a  sceptic,  but  a  profound  dialectician, 
cutting  his  way  through  doubt  to  certainty,  through  error  to 
truth,  and  to  whom  a  future  life  and   a   final  judgment  are 

1  Cf.  Zeller  (on  the  connection  between  the  Essenes  and  the  Greeks)  against 
rdtschl,  who  takes  the  universal  priesthood  as  the  starting  -  point,  Theol. 
Jahrb.,  ed.  Baur  und  ZeU.  1855,  iii.,  1856,  iii. 


SCEPTICISM.  435 

absolute  certainties.  But  such  an  one  can  hardly  have  felt 
much  of  the  terrible  melancholy  which  runs  all  through  the 
book.  The  deeper  one  gets  into  the  heart  of  this  book,  the 
more  strongly  will  one  feel  that  the  doubt  expressed  in  it 
is  no  mere  dialectic  show,  but  a  doubt  that  is  honestly  felt, 
and  that  does  give  way  before  the  certainty  of  a  moral  order 
in  the  world,  but  only  after  a  hard  struggle. 

The  problem  of  Ecclesiastes  does  not  depend  on  a  practical 
temptation  which  assails  an  individual.  It  is  a  cpiestion  of  a 
purely  theoretical  temptation,  founded  on  a  clear  and  inexor- 
ably real  contemplation  of  the  M'orld  of  experience.  Is  there 
any  lasting  eternal  good  at  all  ?  Is  not  the  moral  and 
spiritual  world,  with  its  demands  and  results,  an  illusion  ? 
Look  where  we  may,  no  effort,  no  success,  produces  in  the 
long  run  a  permanently  satisfying  result.  Pleasure,  power, 
honour,  ay,  even  wisdom,  and  the  striving  after  spotless 
integrity,  are  all  vanity .^  An  unalterable  order  of  nature  is 
constantly  ending,  and  as  constantly  beginning  from  the  old 
starting-point.^  Man,  with  his  griefs  and  joys,  his  desires 
and  passions,  stands  amid  it  all  a  child  of  his  age,  dependent 
in  his  inmost  life  on  the  course  of  nature.^  There  is  no  new 
thing  under  the  sun ;  *  and  to  everything  there  is  a  season.^ 
There  is  no  justice  on  the  earth.^  Mere  chance,  not  wisdom 
or  ability,  determines  a  man's  destiny.'^  A  little  folly  often 
outweighs  wisdom  and  honour.^  No  effort  can  secure  enjoy- 
ment even  in  this  life.  It  can  be  taken  only  as  a  gift, 
bestowed  by  God.^  And  who  guarantees  a  further  development 
after  death  ?  ^'^  To  be  dead,  and  in  the  kingdom  of  the  dead, 
is  worse  than  to  live  in  the  greatest  misery ;  there  is  no  joy 

1  Eccles.  i.  2,  ii.  11,  17,  23,  iii.  10,  19,  iv.  7,  xii.  8  ;  cf.  ii.  1  ff.,  8,  10  ;  cf. 
i.  4  f.,  iv.  4  ;  cf.  ii.  5  f.,  iv.  16 ;  cf.  vii.  15  f.,  viii.  10  ;  cf.  i.  13,  17  f.,  ii.  12,  15. 

2  Eccles.  i.  4  ff.,  9  ff.,  iii.  15.  s  Eccles.  iii.  1-9. 
*  Eccles.  i.  9.  s  Eccles.  iii.  1-9. 
^  Eccles.  iii.  16  f.,  iv.  1,  vii.  15  f.,  viii.  14,  ix.  1-4. 

'■  Eccles.  ix.  11,  X.  5  f.  8  Eccles.  x.  1. 

9  Eccles.  ii.  25  f.,  iii.  12  f.,  v.  18,  ix.  7  f.       "  Eccles.  iii.  18ff. 


436  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

there  at  all,  and  no  feeling  of  any  kind.^  Thus  the  book 
comes  to  the  most  bitter  despair  about  life  in  general.^  The 
happiest  is  he  who  is  never  born.^  It  is  better  to  go  to  the 
liouse  of  mourning  than  to  go  to  the  house  of  feasting.  The 
day  of  death  is  better  than  the  day  of  birth.* 

In  this  way  the  book  sounds  all  tlie  depths  of  scepticism. 
The  chief  pillars  of  morality  and  religion  seem  to  be  shaken, 
and  nowhere  can  any  really  triumphant  and  joyful  faith  be 
discovered.  Nevertheless  the  book  has  two  sides,  to  which, 
despite  its  peculiarities,  its  canonicity  is  probably  due,  and 
which  make  it  useful  even  to  the  Christian.  In  the  first 
place,  its  doctrine  of  the  insignificance  of  all  success  and  of 
the  pettiness  of  human  effort,  compared  with  the  mighty 
forces  of  nature,  contains  a  truth  which  can  elude  no  one  who 
has  any  depth  of  thought.  A  tone  of  sincere  resignation  and 
practical  wisdom  pervades  the  book.  In  the  next  place, 
scepticism  in  the  sphere  of  practical  morality  is  unhesitatingly 
overcome.  Though  everything  may  be  doubtful,  and  the 
riddles  of  existence  prove  insoluble,  the  moral  order  which 
God  has  ordained  is  the  portion  of  man.  Of  that  he  may  be 
sure.^  And  this  practical  wisdom  of  piety,  although  it  may 
not  shield  from  every  ill,^  is  nevertheless  an  incomparable 
good  '^  as  contrasted  with  folly.^  Even  evil  itself,  if  it  tend 
to  discipline  the  heart,  has  its  value.®  Wisdom,  which  is 
sought  for  in  vain  along  the  path  of  subtle  inquiry  and  self- 
torment,^^  lies  open  in  the  divine  ordinances,  and  is  to  be  had 
for  the  taking.  The  sum  of  it  is  :  "to  take  without  anxiety  and 
self-annoyance  the  good  with  which  God  strews  one's  path  of 
life,^^  and,  even  where  one  cannot  understand,  to  believe  firmly 


1  Eccles.  ix.  5-10.  ^  Eccles.  ii.  17,  20. 

'^  Eccles.  iv.  2  f .  *  Eccles.  vii.  1  f. 

5  Eccles.  xii.  13  ;  cf.  iii.  14,  v.  0,  vii.  18.  "  Eccles.  ii.  141?.,  vi.  8  f . 

7  Eccles.  ii.  13  ff.,  vii.  11  ff.,  viii.  Iff.,  ix.  13  ff.,  x.  2ff.,  10  ff.,  xii.  1. 

8  Eccles.  i.  17,  ii.  12,  14,  x.  2.  ^  Eccles.  iii.  14,  vii.  3-5. 
^"  Eccles.  vii.  18  f.  23  f.,  (cf.  Job  xxviii.  llff.). 

"Eccles.  iii.  12 f.,  v.  17,  vi.  2f.,  viii.  15,  ix.  7ff.,  xi.  7,  9. 


FOREIGN  ELEMENTS.  437 

that  God  ordains  with  equal  wisdom^  both  evil  and  good;  to 
be  convinced  that  He  has  made  all  things  good,  tliat  He  has 
created  man  upright  and  put  eternity  in  his  heart,  so  that 
guilt  and  evil  belong  only  to  the  creature ;  ^  and  finally,  to 
continue  mindful  of  the  divine  ordinances  of  moral  life,  and 
not  forget  that  the  God,  who  guides  the  destinies  of  all, 
judges  every  human  life  according  to  this  moral  ordinance  of 
His."  3 

One  may  well  assume  that,  although  there  may  be  in 
Ecclesiastes  an  expression  of  a  special  personal  opinion,  it  is 
still  on  the  whole  in  agreement  with  the  later  Sadducean 
view  of  the  world.  The  view  of  Ecclesiastes,  too,  that  even  a 
bad  foreign  government,  as  such,  is  a  benefit,*  is  quite  in 
accordance  with  the  opinion  of  the  Sadducees,  and  the 
warning  against  making  many  books  and  of  overmuch 
righteousness  ^  is  probably  aimed  at  the  scribes  and  that 
spirit  of  legality  by  which  later  Pharisaism  is  marked. 

7.  When  the  power  of  a  religion  is  waning,  resistance  to 
foreign  elements  hostile  to  its  innermost  essence  must  in  the 
long  run  become  weaker  and  weaker,  till  at  last  a  fusion  is 
effected.  The  books  that  are  still  being  taken  into  the  Old 
Testament  show,  it  is  true,  sufficient  power  of  resistance  to 
whatever  is  foreign.  If  we  do  find  in  Chronicles  and  in 
Daniel  a  certain  tendency  to  develop  the  doctrine  of  angels 
and  devils  in  the  direction  of  the  Persian  view, — in  Daniel  the 
resurrection,  in  Ecclesiastes  a  sort  of  approximation  to  the 
view  of  the  world  held  by  critical  philosophy, — nevertheless 
the  traces  are  all  very  faint,  and  are  rather  hints  as  to  the 

1  Eccles.  vii.  14.  ^  Eceles.  iii.  11,  vii.  29. 

^  Eccles.  xi.  9  ff.,  xii.  14.  That  there  is  no  questron  here  of  a  future  life  and  of 
reward  or  punishment  in  it,  is  also  shown  by  the  context  in  xi.  7fr.  and  xii.  Iff. 
Besides,  it  could  hardly  contribute  to  the  joy  of  a  man's  life  on  earth  to  be 
reminded  of  the  judgment.  Reference  to  a  future  life,  if  the  last  sections  of  the 
book  are  to  be  held  as  genuine,  is  absolutely  incompatible  with  the  eschatology 
of  the  rest  of  the  book.  It  is  only  the  judgment  of  God  as  that  is  carried  out 
in  a  man's  lot  in  life  and  in  his  death,  as,  e.g.,  Ps.  i.  5,  etc. 

■*  Eccles.  V.  8  ;  cf.  Rom.  xiii.  3.  *  Eccles.  vii.  16  ;  cf.  v.  1,  3,  4. 


438  OLD  TESTAMENT  THEOLOGY. 

possibility    of   a    foreign    development    than    proofs    of    its 
presence. 

This  tendency  shows  itself  with  all  the  greater  clearness  in 
the  later  books  of  Jewish  religious  literature  which  never 
became  canonical.  The  influence  of  the  Greek  schools  of 
philosophy  is  everywhere  seen  in  tlie  Jewish  books  which 
originated  in  Alexandria,  in  the  productions  of  those  circles 
out  of  which  the  Septuagint  arose,  to  which  are  due  the  book 
of  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  Baruch,  the  second  book  of  the 
Maccabees,  and  the  translation  of  Jesus  the  son  of  Sirach, — 
which  has  given  us  the  pseudonymous  literature  of  the 
Sibyls,  the  Orphic  songs,  etc., — and  which  found  in  Philo 
their  classical  representative.  The  effects  of  this  composite 
learning,  combined  with  Oriental  influences,  and  probably  also 
strengthened  by  direct  contact  with  Greece,  were  widely  felt 
in  the  schools  of  learning  in  Palestine.  The  mystic  theosophy 
which  is  already  visible  in  Enoch,  which  peeps  out  in  the 
Targums,  and  which,  being  nursed  in  the  circles  of  the 
Essenes  and  the  Pharisees,  grows  into  cabbalistic  wisdom, 
properly  so  called,  rests  on  foundations  essentially  foreign 
to  the  religion  of  the  Old  Testament.  And  the  influence 
of  Asiatic  legends  accommodated  to  the  popular  view,  is 
plainly  enough  seen  in  the  angelology  and  demonology  of 
the  book  of  Tobit.  Thus  the  most  divergent  foreign  views 
begin  to  flow  in  like  a  flood  on  the  religion  of  Israel. 


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'  rnOWARDS  the  close  of  the  year  1862,  the  "  Arnoldische  Buchhandlung " 
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volume  the  pre-eminence.' — The  Exjoository  Times. 

In  demy  8i'o,  pi'ice  7s.  6d., 

CANON    AND    TEXT 
OF     THE     OLD    TESTAMENT. 

By    Dr.    FRANTS    BUHL, 

PROFESSOR   OF  THEOLOGY  AT   LEIPZIG. 

Translated  by  Rev.  JOHN  MACPHERSON,   M.A. 

*^*  Professor  Buhl  is  sxiccessor  to  the  late  Prof.  Franz  Delitzsch,  at  Leijyzig. 

'  Students  will  find  this  an  extremely  useful  book.  There  is  not  a  subject  connected 
with  the  text  of  the  Old  Testament,  its  history  and  condition,  on  which  it  does  not 
afford  all  needful  information.  It  is  written  with  great  clearness  and  commendable 
brevity,  and  is  by  far  the  best  manual  that  exists  on  the  subject  of  which  it  treats.' — 
Prof.  A.  B.  Davidson,  D.D.,  in  The  Expositor. 

'It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more  comprehensive,  succinct,  and  lucid  digest  of  the 
results  of  recent  study  of  the  Old  Testament  canon  and  text  than  is  given  In  this 
volume.  Instead  of  bewildering  us  with  a  crowd  of  discordant  opinions,  the  author 
sifts  the  evidence  and  indicates  the  right  conclusion.  The  discussion  in  the  text  is  kept 
clear  by  the  relegation  of  further  references  and  quotations  to  supplementary  paragraphs- 
These  paragraphs  are  a  perfect  mine  of  exact,  detailed  informaiion.' — Prof.  J.  S.  Banks 
iu  The  Criiicid  Review. 


T.  and  T.  Clark's  Publications. 


In  crown  8vo,  price  Gs. , 

PRE-ORGANIC   EVOLUTION 
AND  THE   BIBLICAL   IDEA  OF  GOD. 

AN     EXPOSITION    AND    A    CRITICISM. 

By  Principal  C.   CEIAPxAIAX,   M.A.,   LL.D., 

WESTERN  COLLEGE,    PLYMOUTH. 

'  A  volume  which  will  take  an  important  position  among  Theistic,  not  to  say 
Christian  apologetics,  and  which,  in  the  present  growth  of  scepticism,  we  may  well  be 
thankful  for.' — LiUrary  Churchman. 

'  One  of  the  ablest  expositions  and  criticisms  of  the  evolutionary  theory  with  which 
we  have  yet  met.' — Westminster  Review. 

In  crown  8vo,  price  3s.  6d., 

DECLARATIONS  AND  LETTERS 
ON  THE   VATICAN   DECREES,    1869-1887. 

By    IGNAZ    von    DOLLINGER. 

AUTHORISED    TRANSLATION. 

Pr.  Alfred  Plummer  says: — 'This  intensely  interesting  collection  of  Declarations 
and  Letters  gives  us  in  a  short  compass  the  main  historical  facts  which  Dr.  Dollinger 
considered  to  be  absolutely  fatal  to  the  truth  of  the  dogma  respecting  the  infallibility  of 
the  Pope,  and  the  reasons  which  for  nineteen  years  prevented  him  from  "submitting" 
even  to  the  Pope  with  the  whole  of  the  Eomau  episcopate  at  his  back.  .  .  .  Indispens- 
able to  every  one  who  would  have  an  intelligent  grasp  of  the  infallibility  question.' 

WORKS   BY   DR.   C.   VON   ORELLI,   Basel. 

Translated  by  Eev.  J.  S.  BANKS,  Headingley  College,  Leeds. 
In  demy  Svo,  price  10s.  6c?. , 

THE   PROPHECIES   OF   ISAIAH. 

'  The  characteristics  of  this  admirable  commentary  are  brevity,  separation  of  the  more 
grammatical  from  the  moi-e  expository  notes,  and  general  orthodoxy  combined  with  first- 
rate  scholarship.' — The  Record. 

'  This  volume  will  be  specially  welcome  to  students  who  have  come  to  appreciate  the 
author's  other  valuable  works  on  proj^hecy  and  the  proj)hetical  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. .  .  .  Characterised  by  consummate  ability  throughout,  this  work  will  undoubtedly 
take  high  rank  among  the  expositions  of  the  "Evangelical  Prophet."' — The  Christian. 


In  demy  Svo,  price  10s.  6d., 

THE  PROPHECIES  OF  JEREMIAH. 

'  Will  be  found  a  most  trustworthy  aid  to  the  study  of  a  book  that  presents  many 
diiBcult  problems.' — John  Bull. 

In  demy  8vo,  price  10s.  6(1., 

THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  PROPHECY  OF  THE 
CONSUMMATION   OF   GOD'S   KINGDOM. 

Traced  in  its  Historical  Deue/opment 

'Cannot  fail  to  be  regarded  as  a  standard  work  upon  the  subject  of  Old  Testament 
prophecy.' — Sword  and  Trowel. 

'  We  have  enjoyed  this  book  very  much  ...  it  is  full  of  information,  and  is  clear  and 
lucid  in  style.'— T/ie  Rock. 

'  An  unusually  interesting  work  for  the  critical  student  ...  it  possesses  that  intrinsic 
quality  which  commands  attention  and  inquiry  such  as  scholars  delight  in.' — Clej'gi/man's 
Magazine. 


T.  and  T.  Cla7'k's  Publications. 


WORKS   BY   PROFESSOR    A.   B.   BRUCE,   D.D. 

In  post  Svo,  New  Edition,  Revised,  price  7s.  6d., 

THE    KINGDOM    OF    GOD: 

OK, 

CHRIST S  TEACHING  ACCORDING  TO  THE 
SYNOPTICAL  GOSPELS. 

By    a.    B.    BRUCE,    D.D., 

PROFESSOR  OF  NEW  TESTAMENT  EXEGESIS  IN  THE   FREE   CHURCH  COLLEGE,  GLASGOW. 

CONTENTS  :— Critical  Introduction.— Chap.  I.  Christ's  Idea  of  tlie  Kingdom.— 
II.  Christ's  Attitude  towards  the  Mosaic  Law.  —  III.  The  Conditions  of 
Entrance. — IV.  Christ's  Doctrine  of  God. — V.  Christ's  Doctrine  of  Man. — VI. 
The  Relation  of  Jesus  to  Messianic  Hopes  and  Functions. — VII.  The  Son  of 
Man  and  the  Son  of  God. — VIII.  Tlie  Righteousness  of  the  Kingdom — Negative 
Aspect. — IX.  The  Righteousness  of  the  Kingdom — Positive  Aspect. — X.  The 
Death  of  Jesus  and  its  Significance. — XL  The  Kingdom  and  the  Church. — XII. 
The  Parousia  and  the  Christian  Era. — XIII.  The  History  of  the  Kingdom  in 
Outline.— XIV.  The  End.— XV.  The  Christianity  of  Christ.— Index. 

'  To  Dr.  Bruce  belongs  the  honour  of  giving  to  English-speaking  Christians  the  first 
really  scientific  treatment  of  this  transcendent  theme  .  .  .  his  book  is  the  best  mono- 
gi-aph  on  the  subject  in  existence.  .  .  .  He  is  evidently  in  love  with  his  subject,  and 
every  page  exhibits  the  intense  enthusiasm  of  a  sti'ong  nature  for  the  Divine  Teacher.' 
— Eev.  James  Stalker,  D.D.,  in  Tlie  British  Weekly. 

'  The  astonishing  vigour  and  the  unfailing  insight  which  characterise  the  book  mark  a 
new  era  in  biblical  theology.  In  fact,  as  in  all  Dr.  Bruce's  writings,  so  liere  we  find  our- 
selves in  the  company  of  one  whose  earnest  faith  in  the  matter  of  the  Gospel  narratives 
prevents  him  from  treating  the  doctrine  of  Christ  merely  in  a  scholastic  style,  or  as  an 
interesting  subject  for  theory  and  speculation.' — Professor  Marcus  Dods,  D.D.,  in  The 
Theological  Review. 

'  A  remai-kable  book.' — Saturday  Review. 


In  demy  %vo,  Fourth  Edition,  price  10s.  Qd., 

THE    TRAINING    OF    THE    TWELVE; 

OR,  EXPOSITION  OF  PASSAGES  IN  THE  GOSPELS 

EXHIBITING  THE  TWELVE  DISCIPLES  OF  JESUS  UNDER 

DISCIPLINE  FOR  THE  APOSTLESHIP. 

'  A  volume  which  can  never  lose  its  charm  either  for  the  preacher  or  for  the  ordinary 
Christian  reader.' — London  Quarterly  Revieiv. 

'  A  great  book,  full  of  suggestion  and  savour.  It  should  be  the  companion  of  the 
minister,  for  the  theme  is  peculiarly  related  to  himself,  and  he  would  find  it  a  very 
pleasant  and  profitable  companion,  for  its  author  has  filled  it  with  good  matter.' — Mr. 
Sfurgeon  in  Sioord  and  Trowel. 


In  demy  ivo.  Third  Edition,  price  10s.  Qd., 

THE     HUMILIATION     OF     CHRIST 

IN  ITS  PHYSICAL,  ETHICAL,  AND  OFFICIAL  ASPECTS. 

'  These  lectures  are  able  and  deep-reaching  to  a  degree  not  often  found  in  the  religious 
literature  of  the  day ;  withal,  they  are  fresh  and  suggestive.  .  .  .  The  learning  and  the 
deep  and  sweet  spirituality  of  this  discussion  will  commend  it  to  many  faithful  students 
of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus.' — Congregationalist. 

'  We  have  not  for  a  long  time  met  with  a  work  so  fresh  and  suggestive  as  this  of 
Professor  Bruce.  .  .  .  We  do  not  know  where  to  look  at  our  English  Universities  for 
a  treatise  so  calm,  logical,  and  scholarly.' — English  Independent. 

'  The  title  of  the  book  gives  but  a  faint  conception  of  the  value  and  wealth  of  its 
contents.  .  .  .  Dr.  Bruce's  work  is  really  one  of  exceptional  value ;  and  no  one  can 
read  it  without  perceptible  gain  in  theological  knowledge.' — English  Churchman. 


T.  and  T.  Clark' s  Publications. 


LOTZE'S  MICROCOSMUS. 

In  Tico  Vols.,  ^vo  (I4ib0  pages),  Fourth  Edition,  price  36s., 

MICROCOSMUS: 

Concerning  Man  and  his  relation  to  the   World. 

By    HERMANN    LOTZE. 

STransIatcIr  from  t\)t  fficrtnan 
By  ELIZABETH  HAMILTON  and  E.  E.  CONSTANCE  JONES. 

'  The  English  public  have  now  before  them  the  greatest  philosophic  work  produced 
in  Germany  by  the  generation  just  past.  The  translation  comes  at  an  opportune  time, 
for  the  circumstances  of  English  thought,  just  at  the  present  moment,  are  pecnliarly 
those  with  which  Lotze  attempted  to  deal  when  he  wrote  his  "  Microcosmus,"  a  quarter 
of  a  century  ago.  .  .  .  Few  philosophic  books  of  the  century  are  so  attractive  both  in 
style  and  matter.' — Athenceum. 

'  These  are  indeed  two  masterly  volumes,  vigorous  in  intellectual  power,  and  trans- 
lated with  rare  ability.  .  .  ,  This  work  will  doubtless  find  a  place  on  the  shelves  of  all 
the  foremost  thinkers  and  students  of  modern  times.' — Evangelical  Magazine. 

In  demy  ^vo,  price  Is.  Qd. , 

ELEMENTS    OF    LOGIC 

AS   A    SCIENCE    OF    PROPOSITIONS. 

By    E.    E.    CONSTANCE    JONES, 

LECTUKER    IN    MOEAL    SCIENCES,    GIKTON    COLLEGE,    CAMBRIDGE  ; 
JOINT-TRANSLATOR  AND   EDITOR   OF   LOTZE's    ^  MicrOCOSVlUS.' 

'  We  must  congratulate  Girton  College  iipon  the  forward  movement  of  which  the 
publication  of  this  work  is  one  of  the  first  steps.  .  .  .  What  strikes  us  at  once  about 
the  work  is  the  refreshing  boldness  and  independence  of  the  writer.  In  spite  of  the 
long-drawn  previous  history  of  the  science,  and  of  its  voluminous  records.  Miss  Jones 
finds  plenty  to  say  that  is  freshly  worked  out  by  independent  thought.  Thei-e  is  a 
sirring  of  vitality  and  vigour  pervading  and  vitalising  the  aridity  of  even  these  abstract 
discussions.' —  Cambridge  Review. 

In  demy  Bivo,  price  9s., 

KANT,    LOTZE,    AND    RITSCHL. 

^  Critical  ^lamination. 
By   LEONHARD    STAHLIN,    Baykeuth. 

Translated  by  Pkincipal  SIMON,  Edinburgh. 

'In  a  few  lines  it  is  impossible  to  give  an  adequate  idea  of  this  learned  work,  which 
goes  to  the  very  root  of  the  philosopihical  and  metaphysical  sijeculations  of  recent  yeaa-s.' 
— Ecclesiastical  Gazette. 

In  post  8vo,  2^rice  9s. , 

THE    TEXT    OF    JEREMIAH; 

Or,  A  Critical  Investigation  of  the  Greek  and  Hebrew,  with  the  Variations 
in  the  LXX.  retranslated  into  the  Original  and  Explained. 

By  Pkofessor  G.  C.  WOEKMAN,  M.A.,' 

With  an  Introduction  by  Professor  F.  DELITZSCH,  D.D. 

'  A  work  of  valuable  and  lasting  service.' — Professor  Delitzsch. 

'  The  most  painstaking  and  elaborate  illustration  of  the  application  of  his  princij^les 
to  this  end  that  has  yet  been  given  to  the  world.  .  .  .  Scholars  will  hail  it  with  grati- 
tude, and  peruse  it  with  interest.' — Guardian. 


T.  and  T.  Clark's  Publications. 


Now  complete  in  Five  Vols.,  8vo,  price  10s.  6d.  each, 

HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWISH  PEOPLE  IN  THE 
TIME  OF  OUR  LORD. 

By  EMIL  SCHUEEE,  D.D.,  M.A., 

PROFESSOR  OF  THEOLOGY  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  KIEL. 

*^*  Prof.  Schlirer  has  prepared  an  exhaustive  INDEX  to  this  work,  to  which 
he  attaches  great  value.  The  Translation  is  now  ready,  and  is  issued  in  a 
separate  Volume  (100  pp.  8vo).    Price  2s.  6d.  net. 


'  Under  Professor  Schiirer's  guidance,  we  are  enabled  to  a  large  extent  to  construct  a 
social  and  political  framework  for  the  Gospel  History,  and  to  set  it  in  such  a  light  as  to 
see  new  evidences  of  the  truthfulness  of  that  history  and  of  its  contemporaneousness. 
.  .  .  The  length  of  our  notice  shows  our  estimate  of  the  value  of  his  work.' — English 
Churchman. 

'We  gladly  welcome  the  publication  of  this  most  valuable  work.' — Dublin  Review. 

'Most  heartily  do  we  commend  this  work  as  an  invaluable  aid  in  the  intelligent  study 
of  the  New  Testament.' — Nonconformist. 

'As  a  handbook  for  the  study  of  the  New  Testament,  the  work  is  invaluable  and 
unique.' — British  Quarterly  Review. 

In  demy  8i'o,  j>'>'^(^^  lO-'^-  6rf., 

THE  JEWISH 

AND 

THE    CHRISTIAN    MESSIAH: 

A  STUDY   IN  THE  EARLIEST  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 
By  Prof.  VINCENT  HENRY  STANTON,  M.A.,  D.D., 

TRINITY  COLLEGE,  CAMBRIDGE. 

'Mr.  Stanton's  book  answers  a  real  want,  and  will  be  indispensable  to  students  of  the 
origin  of  Christianity.  We  hope  that  Mr.  Stanton  will  be  able  to  continue  his  labours 
in  that  most  obscure  and  most  important  period,  of  his  competency  to  deal  with  which 
he  has  given  such  good  proof  in  this  book.' — Guardian- 

'  We  welcome  this  book  as  a  valuable  addition  to  the  literature  of  a  most  important 
subject.  .  .  .  The  book  is  remarkable  for  the  clearness  of  its  style.  Mr.  Stanton  is  never 
obscure  from  beginning  to  end,  and  we  think  that  no  reader  of  average  attainments  will 
bo  able  to  put  the  book  down  without  having  learnt  much  from  his  lucid  and  scholarly 
exposition.' — Ecclesiastical  Gazette. 

In  demy  Svo,  price  10s.  M. , 

AN     EXPLANATORY    COMMENTARY    ON 
ESTHER. 

SMttf)  Jour  Slppentiices, 

CONSISTING   OF 

THE  SECOND   TABGUM  TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  ARAMAIC 

WITH  NOTES,   MITHRA,    THE   WINGED  BULLS 

OF  PERSEPOLIS,   AND  ZOROASTER. 

By  Professor  PAULUS  CASSEL,   D.D.,  Berlin. 

'  A  specially  remarkable  exposition,  which  will  secure  for  itself  a  commanding 
position  in  biblical  literature.  It  has  great  charms  from  a  literary  and  uistorical  point 
of  view.' — Sword  and  Trowel. 

'  A  perfect  mine  of  information.' — Record. 

'  It  is  manifestly  the  ready  expression  of  a  full  and  richly  stored  mind,  dispensing  the 
treasures  accumulated  by  years  of  labour  and  research.  .  ,  .  No  one  whose  fortune  it  is 
to  secure  this  commentary  will  rise  from  its  study  without  a  new  and  lively  realisation 
of  the  life,  trials,  and  triumphs  of  Esther  and  Mordecai.' — Ecclesasticial  Gazette. 


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Now  ready,  in  crown  8uo,  price  S-s. , 

THE   LORD'S    SUPPER: 

ITS  ORIGIN,  NATURE,  AND  USE. 
By  the  Rev.  J.  P.  LILLEY,  M.A.,  Arbroath. 

Contents: — Introduction. — Chap.  I.  The  Passover. — II.  The  Lord's  Last  Passover. 
• — III.  The  Passover  merged  in  The  Lord's  Supper. — IV.  The  Eatiflcation  of  the 
First  Covenant. — V.  The  Lord's  Supper  in  the  Reception  of  the  New  Covenant. — 
VI.  The  Lord's  Supper  in  the  Apostolic  Church. — VII.  The  Real  Nature  of  the 
Suppei-. — VIII.  The  Specific  Purposes  of  the  Supper. — IX.  The  Circle  for  which 
the  Supper  was  intended ;  the  Qualifications  expected  of  those  who  apply  for 
Admission  to  it. — X.  The  Spirit  in  which  the  SujDper  is  to  be  used. — XL  The 
Spirit  to  be  maintained  after  Communion.  Appendix.  Index  of  Texts. 
'  Mr.  Lilley  supplies  us  with  an  excellent  and  much  needed  book.  .  .  .  Altogether 

the  volume  can  be  cordially  recommended  to  all  who  seek  clear  and  reasonable  views 

on  the  Sacrament.' — Prof.  Marcus  Dods,  D.D.,  in  The  Expositor. 

'  This   is  a  seasonable  piece  of  work,  well  and  thoroughly  done.  .  .  .   There  is  an 

underlying  glow  of  genuine  devotional  feeling  which  adds  to  the  attractiveness  of  the 

book.' — Critical  Review. 

Now  ready,  Second  Edition,  croivn  Svo,  price  6s., 

THE    LORD'S    PRAYER: 

^   Practical   iHEt(itat{0n. 
By    Rev.    NEAVMAN    HALL,    D.D., 

'  Its  devotional  element  is  robust  and  practical.  The  thought  is  not  thin,  and  the 
style  is  clear.  Thoroughly  readable ;  enriched  by  quotations  and  telling  illustrations.' 
— The  Churchman. 

Dr.  Theodore  Cuyler,  of  Brooklyn,  writes: — '  His  keen  and  discriminating  spiritual 
insight  insures  great  accuracy,  and  imparts  a  priceless  value  to  the  work.  ...  It  is  the 
very  book  to  assist  ministers  of  the  gosjDel  in  the  study  of  the  Model  Prayer ;  it  is  equally 
stimulating  and  quickening  to  private  Christians  in  their  quiet  hours  of  meditation  and 
devotion.' 

Mr.  C.  H.  Spurgeon  writes : — '  Evangelical  and  f)ractical  through  and  through.  .  .  . 
Many  sparkling  images  and  impressive  passages  adorn  the  pages ;  but  everywhere 
practical  usefulness  has  been  pursued.' 

In  crown  Svo,  price  5s., 

GETHSEMANE; 

Or,    LEAVES   OF  HEALING    FROM    THE    GARDEN    OF  GRIEF 

By  the  Rev.  NEWMAN  HALL,  D.D., 
author  of  'the  lord's  prater,'  etc.  etc. 

'  A  series  of  meditations,  designed  for  the  consolation  of  the  afflicted.  Written  in 
the  devout  spirit  and  direct  style  to  which  we  are  accustomed  in  their  author,  they  are 
admirably  adapted  to  the  object  they  have  ia  view.' — T/ie  Critical  Review. 

In  crown  8ro,  Second  Edition,  price  3s.  &d., 

BEYOND    THE    STARS; 

Or,    HEAVEN,    ITS    INHABITANTS,    OCCUPATIONS,    AND    LIFE. 

By    THOMAS     HAMILTON,    D.D., 

PRESIDENT   OF   QUEEN's   COLLEGE,    BELFAST  ; 
AUTHOR  OF    'history   OF   THE   IRISH   PRESBYTERIAN   CHURCH.' 

'  A  good  book  upon  a  grand  subject.  .  .  .  His  writing  is  solid,  he  dissipates  dreams, 
but  he  establishes  authorised  hoiJes.  .  .  .  This  is  a  book  which  a  believer  will  enjoy  all 
the  more  when  he  draws  nearer  to  those  blessed  fields  "beyond  the  stars."' — Mr. 
Spurgeon  in  Sword  and  Trowel. 

'  The  work  of  a  man  of  strong  sense  and  great  power,  of  lucid  thoiight  and  expression, 
one  who  has  deep  springs  of  tenderness.  He  puts  himself  well  in  touch  with  his 
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BOOKS  WHICH   INFLUENCED   OUR   LORD 
AND   HIS  APOSTLES: 

23cinrj  a  Critical  iacbfcto  of  Slpocalgpttc  Sctoisl^  SLiterature. 
By  JOHN  E.  H.  THOMSON,  B.D.,  Stirling. 

'  This  is  a  clever,  imaginative,  scholarly,  interesting  volume.  Mr.  Thomson  has  the 
gift  of  making  the  old  world  times  and  personages  live  again;  and  his  hook,  being 
written  with  untlagging  spirit,  is  likely  to  prove  of  value  by  investing  the  apocalyptic 
writings  with  an  attractiveness  they  have  not  always  seemed  to  possess.  ...  A  book 
which  is  a  credit  to  Scottish  scliolarship.  ...  It  is  a  volume  worthy  of  the  attention 
both  of  scholars  and  of  the  public' — Prof.  Marcus  Dods,  D.D.,  in  TVje  Expositor. 

In  demy  Svo,  price  12s., 

THE    EARLY   CHURCH: 

A  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY  IN  THE  FIRST  SIX  CENTURIES. 
By  the  late  Prof.  DAVID  DUFF,  M.A.,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Edinburgh. 

'  It  gives  a  lucid,  able  and  concise  view  of  the  entire  period.  Its  contents  are  the 
result  of  such  painstaking  investigation,  so  relevant  to  the  great  problems  of  Church 
History,  so  admirable  in  arrangement  and  luminous  in  expression,  that  they  will  render 
to  theological  students  the  exact  kind  of  help  they  require.' — Baptist  Magazine. 

In  post  Svo,  ]7ricc  6s. , 

IRIS:    STUDIES  IN  COLOUR  AND  TALKS  ABOUT  FLOWERS. 

By  Professor  FRANZ  DELITZSCH,  D.D. 

CONTENTS  :— The  Clue  of  the  Sky.— Black  and  White.— Purple  and  Scarlet.— 
Academic  Official  Robes  and  their  Colours. — The  Talmud  and  Colours.- — Gossip 
about  Flowers  and  their  Perfume. — A  Donbtfal  Nosegay. — The  Flower-Piiddle 
of  the  Queen  of  Sheba. — The  Bible  and  Wine. — Dancing  and  Criticism  of  the 
Pentateuch  mutually  related. — Love  and  Beauty. — Eternal  Life:  Eternal  Youth. 
'  The  subjects  of  the  following  papers  are  old  pet  children,  which  have  grown  up  with 
me  ever  since  I  began  to  feel  and  think.  ...  I  have  collected  them  here  under  the  emble- 
matical name  of  Ikis.     The  prismatic  colours  of  the  rainbow,  the  brilliant  sword-lily, 
that  wonderful  part  of  the  eye  which  gives  to  it  its  colour,  and  the  messenger  of  heaven 
who  beams  with  joy,  youth,  beauty,  and  love,  are  all  named  Iris.' — Franz  Delitzsch. 
'  A  series  of  delightful  lectures. ..The  pages  sparkle  with  a  gem-like  light.' — Scotsman. 

Second  Edition,  croicn  Svo,  price  6s.  {Revised  througliout), 

STUDIES  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  EVIDENCES. 

By  Rev.  ALEXANDER  MAIE,   D.D. 

'  This  book  ought  to  become  immensely  popular.  .  .  .  That  one  chai^ter  on  "  The 
Unique  Personality  of  Christ"  is  a  masteri^iece  of  eloquent  crating,  though  it  is  scarcely 
fair  to  mention  one  portion  where  every  part  is  excellent.  The  beauties  of  the  volume 
are  everywhere  apparent,  and  therefore  will  again  attract  the  mind  that  has  been  once 
delighted  with  the  literary  feast.' — The  Rock. 

In  2)ost  Svo,  2^^'ice  7s.  6d., 

THE    LIFE    AND    WRITINGS    OF 
ALEXANDER    VINET. 

By   LAURA   M.   LANE. 
WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  BY  THE  V^EN.  ARCHDEACON  FARRAR. 

'  I  may  say  without  hesitation  that  readers  will  here  find  a  deeply  interesting  account 
of  a  sincere  and  brilliant  thinker.  .  .  .  The  publication  of  this  book  will  be  a  pure  gain, 
if  it  calls  the  attention  of  fresh  students  to  the  ■UTitings  of  a  theologian  so  independent 
as  Vinet  was,  yet  so  supreme  in  his  allegiance  to  the  majesty  of  truth.' — Archdeacon 
Fakrar. 


T.  and  T.  Clark's  Publications. 


Just  published,  in  demy  8vo,  price  10s.  6d., 

THE    APOLOGY 
OF    THE    CHRISTIAN    RELIGION, 

Historically  regarded  with  reference  to  Supernatural 

Revelation  and  Redemption. 

By  Eev.  JAMES   MACGREGOR,  D.D., 

SOMETIME   PROFESSOR   OF  SYSTEMATIC   THEOLOGY   IX   THE   NEW   COLLEGE,    EDINBURGH. 

'Fresh  and  original,  sustained  and  powerful,  it  is  an  apology  of  the  noblest  kind, 
which  never  apologises,  but  courageously  drives  the  enemy  into  that  position.  .  .  .  Dr. 
Maegregor  is  truly  great,  both  in  the  conception  of  his  subject,  and  his  skill  in  working 
it  o>it,  and  his  book  does  indeed  reach  the  magnificent  claim  which  its  title  makes  for  it.' 
—  The  Expository  Times. 

In  Two  Vols.,  8vo,  price  21s., 

NATURE    AND    THE    BIBLE: 

LECTURES  ON  THE  MOSAIC  HISTORY  OF  CREATION  IN  ITS 
RELATION  TO  NATURAL  SCIENCE. 

By  Dr.  ER.  H.  REUSCH. 

EEVISED  AND  COEKECTED  BY  THE  AUTHOE. 
TRANSLATED  from  the  Fourth  Edition  by  KATHLEEN  LYTTELTON. 

'  Other  champions  much  more  competent  and  learned  than  myself  might  have  been 
placed  iu  the  held  ;  I  will  only  name  one  of  the  most  recent.  Dr.  Eeusch,  author  of 
"  Nature  and  the  Bible.'" — The  Right  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone. 

'  The  work,  we  need  hardly  say,  is  of  profound  and  perennial  interest,  and  it  can 
scarcely  be  too  highly  commended  as, in  many  respects,  a  very  successful  attempt  to  settle 
one  of  the  most  perplexing  questions  of  the  day.  It  is  impossible  to  read  it  without 
obtaining  larger  views  of  theology,  and  more  accurate  opinions  respecting  its  relations 
to  science,  and  no  one  will  rise  from  its  perusal  without  feeling  a  deep  sense  of  gratitude 
to  its  author.' — Scottish  Review. 

'  We  owe  to  Dr.  Eeusch,  a  Catholic  theologian,  one  of  the  most  valuable  treatises  on 
the  relation  of  Eeligion  and  Natui'al  Science  that  has  appeared  for  many  years.' — 
Literary  World. 

'  We  may  assure  our  readers  that  they  will  find  these  lectures  throughout  to  be  at 
once  fascinating,  learned,  and  instructive.  They  are  lucid  in  statement,  compact  and 
logical  in  argument,  pertinent  in  illustration,  candid,  fearless,  chivalrous  in  spirit,  the 
very  model  of  what  such  lectures  should  be.' — Baptist  Magazine. 

In  Two  Vols.,  extra  8vo  (about  1400  pp.),  price  25s., 

DOGMATIC    THEOLOGY. 

By  WILLIAM   G.  T.  SHEDD,  D.D., 

PB0FE880B  OP  SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY  IN  UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY,  NEW  YORK. 

'  A  remarkable  work,  remarkable  for  a  grace  of  style  and  power  of  literary  expression 
very  unusual  in  writers  on  dogmatic  theology,  and  for  its  breadth  of  learning  and 
research.  .  .  .  Eeaders  will  rise  from  the  perusal  of  the  volumes  with  high  admiration 
of  Dr.  Shedd  both  as  a  writer  and  as  a  theologian.' — Aberdeen  Free  Press. 

'  We  congratulate  Dr.  Shedd  on  the  completion  of  this  gi-eat  woi'k,  to  the  composition 
of  which  he  has  given  so  many  years.  Dr.  Shedd's  style  is  such  as  to  render  it 
reasonably  certain  that  his  books  will  be  read  by  more  than  one  generation  of  theological 
readers  after  his  personal  labours  have  been  closed.' — Presbyterian  Review. 

VOL.  I.  2  F 


T.  and  T.  Clark's  Publications. 


WORKS    BY    PROFESSOR    C.    A.    BRIGGS,    P.P. 

Ju^t  puhlished,  post  Svo,  price  6s.  6d. , 

THE    BIBLE,   THE    CHURCH,   AND   THE   REASON: 

Eljz  Ki)xtz  ffircat  fountains  of  I§i&ine  Sutfioritg. 

Contents: — Chap.  I.  The  Bible  and  the  Chin-ch. — II.  Tlie  Keason  as  a  great  Fountain 
of  Divine  Authority. — III.  The  Three  Fountains  of  Divine  Authority. — IV.  Is  Holy 
Scripture  Inerrant? — V.  The  Higher  Criticism. — VI.  Biblical  History. — VII.  The 
Messianic  Ideal. — Apf>endix. — Index. 

In  post  Svo,  Third  Edition,  price  Is.  6c?., 

WHITHER?  A  THEOLOGICAL  QUESTION  FOR  THE  TIMES. 

'  An  exceedingly  scholarly,  able,  suggestive,  and  timely  work.  ...  It  is  invaluable  as 
showing,  like  glacier  posts,  the  pace  and  direction  of  theological  thought.' — Nonconformist. 


In  One  Volume,  post  Svo,  price  7s.  6d., 

MESSIANIC     PROPHECY. 

Note. — This  Work  discusses  all  the  Messianic  passages  of  the  Old  Testament  in  a 
fresh  Translation,  with  critical  Notes,  and  aims  to  trace  the  development  of  the  Messianic 
idea  in  the  Old  Testament. 

The  Eight  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone  writes: — 'On  the  pervading  and  multifomi 
character  of  this  promise,  see  a  recent,  as  well  as  valuable  authority,  in  the  voliune  of 
Dr.  Briggs,  of  the  New  York  Theological  Seminary,  on  "Messianic  Prophecy."' 

'  Professor  Briggs'  ' '  Messianic  Prophecy  "  is  a  most  excellent  book,  in  which  I  greatly 
rejoice.' — Prof.  Franz  Delitzsch. 

'  All  scholars  will  join  in  recognising  its  singular  usefulness  as  a  text-book.  It  has 
been  much  wanted.' — Rev.  Canon  Cheyne. 

In  post  Svo,  Third  Edition,  price  7s.  6d. , 

BIBLICAL  STUDY:  ITS  PRINCIPLES,  METHODS,  AND  HISTORY 

'  A  book  fitted  at  once  to  meet  the  requirements  of  professional  students  of  Scripture, 
and  to  serve  as  an  available  guide  for  educated  laymen  who,  while  using  the  Bible 
chiefly  for  edification,  desire  to  have  the  advantage  of  the  light  which  scholarship  can 
throw  on  the  sacred  page,  ought  to  meet  with  wide  acceptance  and  to  be  in  many  ways 
useful.  Such  a  book  is  the  one  now  published.  Dr.  Briggs  is  exceptionally  well 
qualified  to  prepare  a  work  of  this  kind.' — Prof.  A.  B.  Bruce,  D.D. 

'  Here  is  a  theological  ■uTiter,  thoroughly  scientific  in  his  methods,  and  yet  not  ashamed 
to  call  himself  evangelical.  One  great  merit  of  this  handbook  is  the  light  which  it  throws 
on  the  genesis  of  modern  criticism  and  exegesis.  Those  who  use  it  will  escape  the 
crudities  of  many  English  advocates  of  half-undei"stood  theories.  Not  the  least  of  its 
merits  is  the  well-selected  catalogue  of  books  of  reference — English,  French,  and 
German.     We  are  sure  that  no  student  will  regret  sending  for  the  book.' — The  Academy. 

In  crown  Svo,  price  5s., 

THE   LORD'S   SUPPER   AND   THE 
PASSOVER  RITUAL: 

Being  a  Translation  of  tiie  Substance  of  Prof.  Bickell's  Work 
termed  '^MESSE  UND  PA8CHA.' 

By    WILLIAM    F.    SKENE,    D.C.L. 

With  an  Introduction  by  the  Translator  on  'The  Connection  of  the 
Early  Christian  Church  with  the  Jewish  Church.' 
'  Dr.  Skene's  introduction  is  a  valuable  guide  to  the  intelligent  and  comprehensive 
study  of  the  subject.     The  whole  volume  thi-ows  much  welcome  light  on  the  practices 
of  the  early  Church.' — Freeman. 

'A  devout  and  scholarly  book  of  very  great  interest. — Prof.  T.  M.  Lindsay  in  The 
Modern  Church. 


T.  and  T.  Clafk's  Pubucations. 


In  One  large  Vol.,  Svo,  price  14s., 

A    HISTORY     OF     GERMAN    THEOLOGY 

IN    THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 
By  F.   LICHTENBERGER,  D.D., 

DEAN   OF  THE   FACULTY   OF  PROTESTANT  THEOLOGY   OF   PARIS. 

Revised  and  brought  up  to  date,  with  important  additions  specially  prepared 
for  the  English  Edition  by  the  Author. 

Translated    by    W.    HAS  TIE,    B.D., 

EXAMINER   IN   THEOLOGY,    UNIVERSITY   OF   EDINBURGH. 

'  As  to  the  importance  of  an  accurate  and  comprehensive  history  of  German  theology, 
diversity  of  opinion  is  impossible  .  .  .  We  welcome  this  work  as  an  indispensable  aid 
to  the  theological  student,  as  a  valuable  repertory  of  historical  information,  and  a  series 
of  luminous  and  effective  criticisms.  Its  It-arniug,  its  calm  judicial  tone,  its  fine  insight, 
and  its  lucidity  and  candour  impart  to  it  quite  exceptional  worth.' — Baptist  Magazine. 

'Messrs.  Clark  have  seldom  or  never  done  a  more  seasonable,  useful,  or  welcome 
thing  than  to  publish  a  translation  of  Lichtenberger's  critical  survey  of  the  grand  move- 
ment of  German  thought  in  the  province  of  theology  during  the  last  hunch'ed  years.' — 
Christian  World. 

'  Such  a  work  speaks  for  itself.  Packed  full  of  information,  interesting  in  style  it 
will  long  remain  a  guide  to  the  complexities  of  German  theology.' — Methodist  Times. 

In  post  Svo,  price  9s., 

PHILOSOPHY    AND    THEOLOGY, 

The  First  Edinburgh  University  Gifford  Lectures. 
By  J.  HUTCHISON  STIRLING,  LL.D.  (Edin.), 

FOREIGN     MEMBEK    OF    THE     PHILOSOPHICAL     SOCIETY     OF    BERLIN, 
GIFFORD     LECTURER     TO     THE     UNIVERSITY     OF     EDINBURGH,      1888-89. 

'This  volume  will  make  for  itself  many  friends.  There  is  a  bracing,  stimulating 
masterfulness  about  the  lectures,  which,  on  a  careful  perusal  of  them,  will  be  found  to 
lead  to  many  rich  veins  of  thought.  .  .  .  His  work  may  be  summed  up  as  another 
splendid  assertion  of  Thought,  Intelligence,  as  after  all  that  which  is  essential  in  the 
universe.' — Prof.  Stewart  in  The  Critical  Review. 

'  Dr.  Stirling  has  done  splendid  service,  both  to  the  history  of  Philosophy  and  Theology, 
and  to  these  great  sciences  themselves.' — Prof.  Iverach  in  The  British  Weekly, 

'The  lectures  are  racy  in  style,  and  are  capital  reading.  .  .  .  Should  be  mastered  by 
every  student  of  the  subject.  The  volume  is  a  distinct  contribution  to  this  branch  of 
theological  science.' — Church  Bells. 

In  crown  %vo,  price  3s. , 

FRANZ   DELITZSCH:  A  memorial  tribute. 

SSlith  ;t  portrait. 
By  Professor  S.  I.  CURTISS,  D.D. 

This  work  is  based  on  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  Professor  Delitzsch,  which 
began  in  1873;  on  a  careful  examination  of  original  documents  not  previously  brought 
to  light ;  and  on  personal  interviews  with  those  who  were  acquainted  with  him. 


'  A  highly  interesting  little  monograph  on  the  personality  of  the  great  theologian, 
and  on  his  work.' — Spectator. 

'  Franz  Delitzsch  towers  above  almost  all  his  contemporaries  as  an  expositor,  and 
those  who  have  learned  from  him — and  who  has  not? — will  want  to  know  something 
of  the  man.  Professor  Curtiss  has  laid  the  theological  world  under  many  obligations, 
not  the  least  of  which  is  the  publication  of  this  "  memorial  tribute."' — Church  Bells. 


T.  and  T.  ClarJz  s  Ptiblications. 


In  demy  Svo,  price  16s., 

HISTORY  OF  THE 
CHRISTIAN   PHILOSOPHY   OF   RELIGION, 

FROM   THE  REFORMATION   TO  KANT. 
By  BEKNHAED   PUNJER 

Translated  from  the  German  by  TV.  HASTIE,  B.D. 
"With  a  Preface  by  Professor  FLINT,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

'  The  merits  of  Piinjer's  history  are  not  difiBcult  to  discover ;  on  the  contrary,  they 
are  of  the  kind  which,  as  the  French  say,  sautent  aux  yeux.  The  language  is  almost 
everywhere  as  plain  and  easy  to  apprehend  as,  considering  the  nature  of  the  matter 
conveyed,  it  could  be  made.  The  style  is  simple,  natural,  and  direct ;  the  only  sort  of 
style  appropriate  to  the  subject.  The  amount  of  information  imparted  is  most  exten- 
sive, and  strictly  relevant.  Nowhere  else  will  a  student  get  nearly  so  much  knowledge 
as  to  what  has  been  thought  and  written,  within  the  area  of  Christendom,  on  the  philo- 
sophy of  religion.  He  must  be  an  excessively  learned  man  in  that  department  who  has 
nothing  to  learn  from  this  book.' — Extract  from  the  Preface, 

'Piinjer's  "History  of  the  Philosophy  of  Religion"  is  fuller  of  information  on  its 
subject  ihan  any  other  book  of  the  kind  that  I  have  either  seen  or  heard  of.  ...  I  should 
think  the  work  would  prove  useful,  or  even  indispensable,  as  well  for  clergymen  as  for 
professors  and  students.' — Dr.  Hutchison  Stirling. 

'  A  book  of  wide  and  most  detailed  research,  showing  true  philosophic  grasp.' — 
Professor  H.  Calderwood. 

'We  consider  Dr.  Piinjer's  work  the  most  valuable  contribution  to  this  subject  which 
has  yet  appeared.' — Church  Bells. 

'  Remarkable  for  the  extent  of  ground  covered,  for  systematic  arrangement,  lucidity 
of  expression,  and  judicial  impartiality.' — London  Quarterly  Review. 

In  Tivo  Vols.,  demy  Svo,  price  21s., 

HANDBOOK    OF    BIBLICAL    ARCHAEOLOGY. 

By  CAEL  FEIEDEICH  KEIL, 

DOCTOR  AND  PROFESSOR  OF  THEOLOGY. 

Translated  from  the  Third  Improved  and  Corrected  Edition. 

Note. — This  third  edition  is  virtually  a  new  book,  for  the  learned  author  has  made 
large  additions  and  corrections,  bringing  it  up  to  the  present  state  of  knowledge. 

'  This  work  is  the  standard  scientiiic  treatise  on  Biblical  Archaeology.  It  is  a  very 
mine  of  learning.' — John  Bull. 

'  No  mere  dreary  mass  of  details,  but  a  very  luminous,  philosophical,  and  suggestive 
treatise.  Many  chapters  are  not  simply  invaluable  to  the  student,  but  have  also  veiy 
direct  homiletic  usefulness.' — Literary  World. 

'  A  mine  of  biblical  information,  out  of  which  the  diligent  student  may  dig  precious 
treasm-es.' — The  Rock. 

In  Two  Vols.,  Svo,  price  21s., 

A  SYSTEM  OF  BIBLICAL  THEOLOGY. 

BY  THE   LATE 

W.  LINDSAY  ALEXANDEE,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

PRINCIPAL  OF  THEOLOGICAL  HALL  OF  CONGREGATIONAL  CHURCHES  IN  SCOTLAND. 

'  A  work  like  this  is  of  priceless  advantage.  It  is  the  testimony  of  a  powerful  and 
accomplished  mind  to  the  supreme  authority  of  the  Scriptures,  a  lucid  and  orderly 
exhibition  of  their  contents,  and  a  vindication,  at  once  logical,  scholarly,  and  conclusive, 
of  their  absolute  suflBciency  and  abiding  truthfulness.' — Baptist  Magazine, 

'  This  is  probably  the  most  interesting  and  scholarly  system  of  theology  on  the  lines 
of  orthodoxy  which  has  seen  the  light.' — Literary  Wo7'ld. 

'  Oh,  that  Scotland  aud  Congregationalism  had  many  worthies  like  Dr.  Lindsay 
Alexander!  .  .  ,  The  ripe  man,  full  of  rich  experience  and  heavenly  knowledge,  will 
prize  each  leaf,  and  give  himself  a  glorious  di'illing  as  he  masters  chapter  by  chapter.' — 
Mr.  Spurgeon  in  The  Sicord  and  Trowel. 


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