!/>*<TA
By the late Prof. A. B. DAVIDSON, P.P., LL.D.
Whatever subject Professor Davidson touched there are always two
epithets which may be applied to his treatment of it : it is masterly and it is
judicial. No one had a better power of penetrating to the heart of a subject,
no one was more skilful in the discovery of the characteristics of an age, the
drift of an argument, the aim of a writer. . . . His mastery of a subject was
always complete. Canon DKIVKK.
1. AN INTRODUCTORY HEBREW GRAMMAR, with Progres
sive Exercises in Reading and Writing. Seventeenth
Edition. 8vo, 7s. 6d.
The best Hebrew Grammar is that of Professor A. 13. Davidson.
British Weekly.
2. HEBREW SYNTAX. Third Edition. 8vo, 7s. 6d.
A book like this, which comes from the hands of our first Hebraist, is
its own best recommendation. It will be eagerly welcomed by all students
and teachers of Hebrew. Critical Review,
3. THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. (Handbook Series,)
Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
For its size and price one of the very best theological handbooks with
which I am acquainted .... A close grappling with the thought of the
Kpistle by a singularly strong and candid mind. Professor SANDAY in
The A cademy.
4. THE EXILE AND THE RESTORATION. With Map and
Plan. (Primer Series,} Paper cover, 6d. ; cloth, 8d.
A remarkable instance of Professor Davidson s gift of compressed lucid
statement. Expository Times.
5. In DR. HASTINGS BIBLE DICTIONARY Prof. Davidson
(in addition to revising all the proofs of the Dictionary)
contributed the articles Angel, Covenant, Eschatology,
God, Prophecy, Hosea, and Jeremiah.
Dr. A. B. Davidson is a tower of strength. His contributions are the
chief ornaments and treasure-stores of the Dictionary. Dr. W. ROBERTSON
NICOLL.
It is almost a liberal education in theology to read carefully the articles
on "God" by Dr. A. B. Davidson, and on "Jesus Christ "by Professor
Sanday. London Quarterly.
6. THE CALLED OF GOD. With Biographical Introduction
by A. TAYLOR INNES, M.A., and Portrait. Post 8vo, 6s.
CONTENTS : The Call of Abraham Jacob at Bethel Jacob at Peniel
Moses on Mount Sinai Saul Elijah The Call of Isaiah The Call of
Jeremiah John the Baptist Nicodemus Zacchaeus The Rich Young
Ruler Thomas.
7. WAITING UPON GOD. (A further, and final, Selection
of Sermons. ) Post 8vo, 6s.
CONTENTS : Waiting upon God The Servant of the Lord David
Repentant I know that my Redeemer Liveth The Temptation The
Transfiguration A Father s Faith and its Reward Christ s Authority
The Growth of God s Kingdom- Bid me come unto Thee It is Finished
The Power of His Resurrection A Great Cloud of Witnesses An
Open Door The Book of Revelation.
8. OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECY. Edited by Prof. J. A.
PATERSON, D.D. 8vo, IDS. 6d. net.
To keep company with an absolutely sane and penetrating mind while
it conducts prolonged and difficult investigations is eminently educat
ive, and in the volume before us these investigations always arrive at
principles which can be held with conviction, and which throw wide their
beam of light. This must long remain the standard work on Old Testament
prophecy. Prof. MARCUS DODS.
EDINBURGH : T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET.
Ube Jnternatfonal Ubeologfcal OLibrars,
EDITED BY
STEWART D. F. SALMOND, D.D.,
Principal, and Professor of Systematic Theology ,
United Free Church College, Aberdeen;
AND
CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D.,
Edward Robinson Professor of Biblical Theology, Union Theological
Seminary, New York.
THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
BY THE LATE A. B. DAVIDSON, D.D., LL.D., Lrrr.D.
INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY
THE THEOLOGY
OF THE
OLD TESTAMENT
BY THE LATE
A. B. DAVIDSON, D.D., LL.D., LiTT.D.
PROFESSOU OF HEBREW AND OLD TESTAMENT EXEGESIS
NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH
EDITED FROM THE AUTHOR S MANUSCRIPTS
BY
S. D. F. SALMON!), D.D., F.E.I.S.
OF THE UK1TED FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, ABERDEEN
EDINBUEGH
T. & T. CLAHK, 38 GEOEGE STEEET
1904
MAR 2 3 195?
Printed by
MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED
FOE
T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH
LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED
NEW YORK I CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS
The lliylils of Translation and of Reproduction arc Reserved
PREFACE.
THE master hand, it will easily be seen, has not put this
work in order for the press. The subject was long in
Professor Davidson s mind. He gave it a large place in
his College Lectures. He was constantly engaged in writ
ing upon it and in recasting what he had written, modify
ing his statements and revising his conclusions. He
prepared a large mass of matter, but he did not survive
to throw it finally into shape for publication.
It has been a difficult and anxious task to deal for the
best with the abundant material. Dr. Davidson s manu
scripts bear on every page impressive evidence of the
immense pains he took with things, and the lofty standard
he set before him in all his professional duty. Much of
the matter came to me in a variety of editions, four, five,
or six in not a few cases, the long results of unceasing
study and searching probation of opinion. It has been
far from easy to decide between one form and another, all
being left undated, and to bring the different parts into
proper relation.
I have not thought it right to take liberties with my
departed friend s work. I have given it substantially as he
left it, adding only an occasional note where that seemed
specially appropriate or needful. Nor have I judged it
within my province to depart from his ways in the use of
Scripture or in anything else. When expounding any
VI PREFACE
Biblical truth he was in the habit of making copious
quotations from the sacred text, referring to the same
passages again and again as they offered themselves in
different aspects and connexions. He did this, too, with
much freedom, using sometimes the Authorised Version
and sometimes the Eevised, furnishing sometimes a trans
lation of his own, and sometimes giving the sense rather
than the terms. His methods in such things are followed
as they are found in his manuscripts.
Had Dr. Davidson been spared to complete his work
and carry it through the press, it would have been different,
no doubt, in some respects from what it is. It would have
been thrown into the best literary form. Its statements at
some points would have been more condensed. It would
have had less of that element of iteration of which he
made such effective use in his class-room. But even
without the last touches of the skilled hand, it will be
seen to be a distinct and weighty contribution to a great
subject. Fine thinking, penetrating exegesis, spiritual
vision, a rare insight into the nature and operation of
Revelation, make the book one which the student of Old
Testament Scripture -will greatly value.
One thing that gave Dr. Davidson much concern was
the question of the plan on which a work of this kind
should be constructed. His object was to bring the history
and the ideas into living relation, to trace the progress of
Old Testament faith from stage to stage, and to exhibit
the course along which it advanced from its beginnings to
the comparative fulness which it obtained at the end of the
prophetic period. But he never carried out the scheme.
He had an increasing distrust of ambitious attempts to fix
the date of every separate piece of the Hebrew literature,
and link the ideas in their several measures of immaturity
and maturity with the writings as thus arranged. He
PREFACE vii
became more and more convinced that there was no solid
basis for such confident chronological dispositions of the
writings and juxtapositions of the beliefs. In his judg
ment the only result of endeavours of this kind was to give
an entirely fictitious view of the ideas, in their relative
degrees of definiteness, the times at which they emerged or
came to certainty, and the causes that worked to their
origin and development. The most that we had scientific
warrant to do, in view of the materials available for the
purpose, was, in his opinion, to take the history in large
tracts and the literature in a few broad divisions, and study
the beliefs and the deliverances in connexion with these.
My work is at an end. During its course the mist
has been often in my eyes. The sense of loss has been
revived. A voice has spoken to me out of the past. A
face that was darkened has seemed to be turned upon me
again with its old light. I have felt how long art is and
how short is life.
S. D. F. SALMOND.
ABERDEEN, April 2, 1904
CONTENTS.
I. THE SCIENCE OF OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.
PAGE
1. The Idea of Old Testament Theology . . 1
2. Studies preliminary to Old Testament Theology . . 4
3. Definitions and Characteristics of Old Testament Theology 6
4. The Relation of Old Testament Ideas to the Old Testament
History . . . . . . .11
5. Divisions of the Subject . . . . .12
6. The great Historical Periods . . . . .15
7. General Course and Drift of the History . . 22
8. Literary and Historical Criticism in relation to Old
Testament Theology ..... 28
II. THE DOCTRINE OF GOD.
1. General Character of the Old Testament Conception of God 30
2. The Idea of the Divine Name . . . .36
3. Particular Names of God ..... 38
4. The Name Jehovah ...... 45
5. Jehovah the God of Israel ... .58
6. The historical Occasion of the Application of the Name
Jehovah . . . . . . ,67
III. THE DOCTRINE OF GOD THE DIVINE NATURE.
1. The Knowledge of God . ^ 3
2. The Essence and Attributes of God .
3. The Unity of God . 96
4. The Doctrine of the sole Godhead of Jehovah in later
Prophecy .
5. The Personality and Spirituality of God . 106
K CONTENTS
IV. THE DOCTRINE OF GOD THE SPIRIT.
PAGE
1. The Spirit of God . . . . . .115
2. The Spirit of God within God Himself . . .117
3. The Activities of the Spirit . . . . .120
4. What the Spirit is . . . . .126
V. THE DOCTRINE OF GOD THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.
1. The Righteousness of God . . . . .120
2. The Holiness of God ...... 144
3. The Natural Attributes . . . . .160
4. The Redemptive Attributes . . . . .169
5. God s Relations to Nature and to Men . . .174
VI. THE DOCTRINE OF MAN.
1. Human Nature and its Constitution . . . .182
2. The terms Body and Flesh . . . .188
3. The term Spirit . . . . . .192
4. The term Soul . . . . . .199
VII. THE DOCTRINE OF MAN SIN.
1. Sin its Nature and Extent ..... 203
2. The Consciousness of Sin ..... 227
VIII. THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION.
1 . The Covenant ....... 235
2. Why the Covenant with Israel and not another { , . 249
3. The Terms descriptive of the Covenant Relation . . 252
4. The Second Side of the Covenant The People a righteous
Pe P le . . . .259
5. Righteousness in the People ..... 271
6. Righteousness, Grace, and Faith . . . 278
7. Suffering and Imputation . . . 282
IX. DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION SUPRAHUMAN
GOOD AND EVIL.
] - Angels 289
2. The Angel of the Lord . . . . .296
3. Satan ....... 399
CONTENTS xi
X. DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION PRIESTHOOD AND
ATONEMENT.
PAGE
1. The Priest ....... 306
2. Sacrifice . . . . . . .311
3. Atonement and Forgiveness ..... 315
4. Atonement by Priest and High Priest . . . 324
5. The term Atone . . . . . .327
6. Ritual Use of the Term . . . . .338
7. The Principle of Atonement ..... 352
XI. THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAST THINGS THE
MESSIANIC IDEA.
1. Distinctive Contributions to the Doctrine . . .356
2. The Consummation of the Kingdom . . . 365
3. The Day of the Lord . . . . . .374
4. The Day of the Lord in Deutero-Isaiah . . . 384
5. Redemptive Righteousness in Deutero-Isaiah . . 395
XII. DOCTRINE OF THE LAST THINGS IMMORTALITY.
1. Differences in Modes of Thought .... 402
2. Fellowship with God the Fundamental Idea . . 415
3. Preliminary Questions as to Man s Nature . . . 417
4. Conception of Sheol ...... 425
5. Conception of Death ...... 432
6. Life and its Issues ...... 437
7. Problems of Righteousness and their Solution . . 453
8. Ideas of an After-Life in Psalms xvii., xxxvii., xlix., Ixxiii. 459
9. The Idea of an After-Life in Job . . . . 466
10. The Hope of an After-Life in relation to the Ideas of Life
and Death ....... 495
11. The Moral Meaning of Death . . . .511
12. Further on the Reconciliation between the Idea of Death
and the Idea of Life 522
NOTES OF LITERATURE ..... 533
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES . . . 541
INDEX OF MATTERS . 548
THE THEOLOGY
OF THE
OLD TESTAMENT
THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD
TESTAMENT.
/. THE SCIENCE OF OLD TESTAMENT
THEOLOGY.
1. The Idea of Old Testament Theology.
OLD Testament Theology is the earlier division of Biblical
Theology. We speak of a Natural Theology, a Biblical, a
Systematic Theology. These adjectives attached to the term
Theology indicate the source of our theological knowledge,
or the orderly form into which the knowledge is thrown.
In Natural Theology nature is the source of our know
ledge. In Systematic Theology, while Scripture supplies
the knowledge, some mental scheme, logical or philo
sophical, is made the mould into which the knowledge is
run, so that it comes out bearing the form of this mould.
In Biblical Theology the Bible is the source of the know
ledge, and also supplies the form in which the knowledge
is presented. Biblical Theology is the knowledge of God s
great operation in introducing His kingdom among men,
presented to our view exactly as it lies presented in the
Bible. Now the Bible is a book composed of many parts,
the composition of which extended over considerably more
than a thousand years. And the operation of God in
bringing in His kingdom extends even over a larger space.
But in the Bible we have writings contemporary with
this operation, and reflecting it for more than a thousand
years, aod writings which sketch that operation in brief
THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
and in its principal turning-points during the ages pre
ceding. This at once suggests to us, therefore, when
we consider that God s operation extended over this long
period, and yet that it took end at last in the coming
of His Son, that two characteristics belong to it. It is
historical, and it is progressive ; it covers a long period,
and it advances from less to more, and finally culminates.
And the Bible keeps pace, so to speak, with this operation,
reflects it, and gives us the knowledge of it in this form.
In its fullest sense the kingdom of God was only intro
duced in the Coming of the Son of God into the world ; and
in this sense all that went before might seem only capable of
being regarded as preparation for this kingdom, or at most
shadows of it. And this is the view which has often been
taken of what is called the Old Testament dispensation,
namely, that it is a designed shadow or adumbration of the
new. But this is not the view which it takes of itself ;
the consciousness of Israel as reflected in the minds of its
prophets and highest men was that it was the kingdom of
God already. The apparent discrepancy disappears on a
little consideration of what the kingdom of God is. It is
the fellowship of men with God and with one another in
love. In a perfect sense this could not be till the Coming
of the Son in whom this fellowship is fully realised.. And
in a sense all that went before was preparation for the
kingdom rather than the kingdom itself. But how was
the perfect kingdom prepared for ? Not by mere pre
dictions of it and references to it as a thing to come, nor
by setting up a thing which was a shadow of it ; but by
setting itself up in as perfect a form as was possible to
begin with, awakening within men both a sense of dis
satisfaction with its imperfections then, and lofty ideals of
what its true condition would be, and thus kindling in
them an enthusiasm which made them not only long for
the perfect kingdom, but struggle for its attainment. For
as the kingdom of God in its perfect form does not lie in
mere knowledge, but rather in the life which the know
ledge awakens, so it could not be prepared for by the
THE IDEA OF OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY 3
mere knowledge that it was approaching, nor even by the
knowledge outwardly communicated of what it was. It
could be prepared for only by bringing in, and that in
ever fuller tides, the life of which it consists. That life no
doubt depended on the knowledge of what the kingdom
truly was ; but this knowledge could be learned by men
only by living within the kingdom itself.
Thus the perfect kingdom was gradually prepared for by
setting up such a kingdom in an imperfect state and under
temporary forms, and by administering it in such a way as
progressively to suggest to men s minds the true ideal of the
kingdom, and communicate to them in broader streams the
true life in such a kingdom. And each step of this com
munication was a more perfect bringing in of the kingdom
itself, an advance towards its perfect form. Thus a life and
a thought were awakened within this kingdom of God set up
in Israel, which grew and expanded till they finally burst
and threw off from them the imperfect outward form of
the kingdom in which they were enclosed. Now the Old
Testament Scriptures exhibit to us the growth of this life
and this thought. We can observe the stream of life and
ideas flowing from the Exodus at least, or even from a
source higher up, ever broadening as it proceeds, and finally
pouring itself into the sea of life and thought in the New
Testament age. We can fathom this stream here and there
along its course, mark the velocity and breadth of its cur
rent, observe the changing colour of its waters as it pursues
its way through region after region of the people s history,
and perceive what subsidiary streams poured their contents
into it and helped to swell it. To do this and present the
results to ourselves is to be Old Testament theologians.
What we shall have to look for is a point of view ;
and that point of view will be this, that in the Old
Testament we have presented to us an actual historical
religious life, men filled with the profoundest thoughts of
God, and living to God a most close personal life, and,
having such thoughts of God and such experiences of life
to Him, importunate in their desires and attempts to
4 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
awaken in those around them the same thoughts and the
same life. This is the strange scene, full of the intensest
reality, which the Old Testament exhibits to us, a scene
continued down through a long historical period, changing
in some ways, but always presenting the same main feature
namely, that of a body of profoundly religious men
speaking the truth to their countrymen, and seeking to
turn them to God. Thus we do not go to the Old Testa
ment with any general conception that it is the word of
God spoken to us. We do not go to it with this concep
tion, but we rise from ifc with this conception. This is the
thing which will be made plain to us, the personal religion
of all the writers of Scripture, their life to God and with
God. This becomes plainer the lower down we come, in
the Psalter, for example, and in such books as Job. In
the period after the Exile we shall find problems raised by
the conditions of life, problems touching God s rule of the
world, His relation to Israel, the people who knew Him, and
were the representatives of His cause in the world ; problems,
too, of His relations to the godly in an ungodly generation.
To the intellect these questions might be insoluble. But
we shall see something that enabled men to live without a
solution. This was their religion, their conscious fellowship
with God. We shall find that more and more religious
certainty was based on this consciousness. It was the
only thing the pious mind possessed, but it was at last
always found enough. " Nevertheless," said the Psalmist,
tried by misfortune and intellectually paralysed before the
riddles of providence, " nevertheless, I am continually
with thee" (Ps. Ixxiii. 23). The consciousness of God
becomes the other side of self-consciousness, and this in
ward assurance will be seen to be strong enough to face
all the difficulties raised by what is external.
2. Studies preliminary to Old Testament Theology.
This conception of what Old Testament Theology is at
once suggests that certain studies must precede it. If it
I
PRELIMINARY ^STUDIES 5
be the presentation to ourselves of the gradual advance of
the kingdom of God as exhibited to us in the successive
books of Scripture, it is necessary that we should see how
these books follow one another, and know the age to
which they belong, and of which they reflect the life and
the thought. Criticism or Introduction must precede any
attempt at a scientific Old Testament Theology. And
this fact is what legitimates Criticism and gives it a place
as a handmaid to Theology. As a mere literary science
whose object was to settle the ages of the various literary
components of the Bible, and describe their characteristics,
and indicate their connections with the history of the People
of Israel regarded as any other ancient people, Criticism
would have no proper place among our theological disci
plines. But when it is not pursued simply for its own
sake, so to speak, but is used as an instrument for disposing
the books of the Old Testament in their proper place so
that we may correctly perceive how ideas arose and followed
one another in Old Testament times, and may observe how
history reacted upon the thought and life of the people,
then Criticism has a very important place to fill.
Obviously, too, Old Testament Theology must be pre
ceded by scientific exegesis of the literature in its length
and breadth. We cannot create a trustworthy theology
of the Old Testament by merely picking out a text here
and there in an Old Testament book. We must know
the whole scope of the book. Individual passages always
derive their meaning from the context. Torn from their
surroundings their mere language might suggest to us
much more or sometimes perhaps much less than they
really mean. Such passages have usually some bearing
on the circumstances of the author s time. This bearing
often greatly modifies their meaning, and it is seldom that
we can really discover the true sense of any single passage
in a book unless we have made a study of the whole book
and learned to estimate the author s general modes of
thinking, the broad drift of his ideas, and discovered to
what matters in the history of his people and what
6 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
condition of their minds it is that he is directing his whole
work. Such studies of whole books are useful and almost
necessary preliminaries to Old Testament Theology. Such
studies, exhibiting what the Germans call the Lehrbegriff,
the general drift of the teaching of a book, have not been
uncommon in connection with the New Testament. They
have been less attended to with regard to the Old
Testament.
3. Definitions and Characteristics of Old Testament Theology.
Old Testament Theology has been defined to be the
historical and genetic presentation of the religion of the
Old Testament ; or as others express it, it is that branch
of theological science which has for its function to present
the religion of Eevelation in the ages of its progressive
movement. These definitions do not differ from the one
already suggested, namely, that it is the presentation of
the great operation of God in bringing in the kingdom of
God, so far as that operation was carried on in the Old
Testament period. The one definition speaks of the
religion of the Old Testament, and the other of God s
operation in bringing in His kingdom. But these two
things are in the main the same. The kingdom of God
is within us. To bring in the kingdom was to awaken a
certain religious life in His people, and to project great
thoughts and hopes before their minds. This life and
these thoughts are reflected to us in the Old Testament
Scriptures. These various definitions all imply the same
distinct characteristics.
They all imply, e.g., that Old Testament Theology is a
historical science. It is historical in the same sense as that
in which the Old Testament is historical, i.e. in the sense that
its parts follow one another down through a long period of
time. We can readily perceive reasons sufficient to explain
the gradual and historical inbringing of the kingdom of God.
For instance, one of the first necessities to one who will
take his place in the kingdom of God is that God should
DEFINITIONS OF OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY 7
be known to him, at least on the moral side of His being.
But God could not make His moral nature known by
mere statements concerning Himself delivered at once.
His power He could reveal in one terrible act, but the
principles lying behind His power, and governing the
exercise of it, His justice, His goodness, His grace, in a
word His moral nature, could not be shown except by a
prolonged exhibition of Himself in relation to the life of
men. When we look at the Divine names we observe
that the attribute which the Sheinitic mind earliest laid
hold of was the Divine power. The Shemitic people were
slower to learn His other attributes, especially to learn
the constancy and unchangeableness of these attributes, in
other words, to rise to the conception of God as a tran
scendent moral Person. They could be taught this only
by observing how God acted in their history with a terrible
consistency, punishing evil with an inflexible uniformity,
and making righteousness on their part the condition of
His being their God and protecting them. When we read
the Prophets we perceive that they considered that this
was the chief lesson which the people s history was fitted
to teach them. In opposition to their superficial hopes,
founded on Jehovah s being their national God, and their
expectation that they could at any time secure His favour
by making their burnt sacrifices fatter and more abundant,
these prophets insist upon the ethical uniformity of the
Divine Mind, which cannot be bribed by gifts, but demands
rectitude : " I hate, I despise your feasts ... let judgment
roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream "
(Amos v. 2124, E.V.). This lesson in regard to the nature
of God is the chief lesson which the prophets draw from
the history of the people. But one can conceive many
other uses served by the long preliminary history of Israel.
Its many vicissitudes threw individuals into very various
circumstances, often trying, sometimes joyous, and thus we
have those beautiful pictures of the life of the individual
with God which are contained in the Book of Psalms,
almost the most precious heritage which the Church has
8 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
derived from Israel, and to which there is almost nothing
similar in the New Testament period.
These definitions also all imply that the presentation
of the Old Testament religion in Old Testament Theology is
genetic. This means not only that Old Testament Theology
shows us the religion of the Old Testament in genesi, that
is, in the condition of actually arising or originating, but
that its progress was, so to speak, organic. It grew, and
that not by mere accretion or the external addition of
truth to truth. The succeeding truth rose out of the
former truth. This was due to the fact that the kingdom
of God was planted into the life of a people, and thus
its progress was inseparably connected with the progress
and destiny of the nation of Israel. We cannot get a
religious progress without a religious subject in whose mind
we observe the progress. Now, the religious subject in the
Old Testament was the people of Israel and the progress
can be studied in the mind of this subject as influenced by
its history. Kevelation of truth was not, so to speak,
communicated from without ; but the organs of revelation
rose within the people in the persons of its highest re
presentatives, men in whom its life beat fullest and its
aspirations were most perfectly embodied. Thus the truths
concerning the kingdom of God which they were enabled,
stage after stage, to reach, had a connection with one
another parallel to the connection between the stages of
the life of the people. The truths regarding the kingdom
of God appearing in the Old Testament are all given in
terms, so to speak, of the history, institutions, and life of the
people of Israel. It is customary to regard the institutions of
Israel, its offices and ordinances, as all prearranged parallels
to the things of the Christian Church, shadows and adum
brations or types, as they are called, of the realities of the
New Testament kingdom. Now, of course, it must be
maintained that the perfect form of the kingdom of God,
the form which it was to have in the New Testament, was
contemplated from the beginning. There was a deter
minism impressed on the Old Testament kingdom toward
CHARACTERISTICS OF OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY 9
its perfect form ; it was a growth, an organism of which
we see the complete stature only in the New Testament
kingdom. But we must not regard those institutions in
Israel as only having this use of foreshadowing the future.
They were real institutions and offices there, and their re
ference to the future was probably, in many instances, not
understood or even surmised. The way they bore reference
to the future in the minds of the people was rather this.
The highest thinkers among the people, such as the pro
phets, perceived the idea lying in the offices and institu
tions, and expressed their longing and certainty that the
idea would be yet realised.
Thus it was, for instance, with the kingship. Its
idea was a king of God s kingdom, a representative of
God sitting on the throne in Jerusalem. Such an idea
of the kingship led to the most brilliant idealising of the
king and his office. Being king for God and in God s king
dom, he had attribute after attribute assigned to him, all
reflections of the Divine attributes, till at length he was even
styled the mighty God, he in whom God Himself would
be wholly present. And not only the kingship, but other
offices and other characters appearing among the people
were idealised ; and as it by and by came to be felt that
such ideals could not be realised in the present, the realisa
tion of them was thrown into the future. One of the
most remarkable of these ideals is the Suffering Servant of
the Lord, which is rather a personification of the suffering
people idealised. But, in general, everything significant in
the people s history and life was, as it were, abstracted
from its relations in the present ; it was held up and
magnified by a process of moral idealisation and the
realisation of it thrown into the future. Thus the people s
minds were directed to the future, not, as is often thought,
because they understood beforehand or ever were taught
that their institutions were all predetermined shadows of
a reality to come, but because they perceived that the
ideals which their institutions suggested to them, and which
their history and experience had called up before their
10 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
mind, were ideals that could not be realised in the present,
in the conditions of the people and the world that then
existed, nor even under those institutions which had been
the very means of suggesting the ideals to their minds.
But, again, these definitions all imply that Old Testa
ment Theology is a development. It is not a thing com
plete, it is but the earlier part of Biblical Theology, and is
completed in New Testament Theology. Still, Biblical
Eevelation being an organism, Old Testament Theology
is not a torso. It is a growth which, though it has not
attained perfection, has attained a certain proper develop
ment. All its parts are there, though none of it is yet
in full stature. There is perhaps no truth in the New
Testament which does not lie in germ in the Old ; and
conversely, there is perhaps no truth in the Old Testament,
which has not been expanded and had new meaning put into
it in the New. The Old Testament contains the same truths
as the New Testament, but in a less developed form, and
we must avoid two errors which are not uncommon. The
one is the mistake of separating the Old Testament from
the New in such a way as leaves us with no authoritative
truth in the Old. The other is to confuse the New and
the Old so that we shall find the Old equally advanced
with the New. The difference between the New and the
Old is not that the same truths are not found in both, but
that in the one the truths are found in a less degree of
development than in the other. The Old Testament is
as good authority for a truth as the New ; only we must
not go beyond the degree which the truth has yet reached
in the Old Testament.
This fact, however, that the progress of the kingdom
was organic and at last culminated, suggests that the
Old Testament should be read by us always in the light
of the end, and that in framing an Old Testament Theology
we should have the New Testament completion of it in
our view. What we shall be engaged in is mainly dis
covering the thoughts and estimating the life of the Old
Testament people in its various stages. But it is obvious
THE IDEAS AND THE HISTORY 11
that at no time was the consciousness of the Old Testament
Church able to take in the whole meaning of the develop
ment in the midst of which it stood. It must be our
first object to discover what views the prophets and other
Old Testament writers had, to present them to ourselves,
and to take care not to impose New Testament conceptions
upon them. Still, it will be of interest to ourselves to
compare the two together, and to see how far the Old
Testament Church had been able to realise to itself the
point towards which the development was moving ; and,
knowing this goal, we shall be in a better position to
estimate the meaning of the Old Testament from the light
in which it is thus set for us.
4. The Relation of Old Testament Ideas to the Old
Testament History.
If the view which we have taken of our subject,
then, is correct, it will appear that, though we speak of
Old Testament Theology, all that we can attempt is to
present the religion or religious ideas of the Old Testament.
As held in the minds of the Hebrew people, and as exhibited
in their Scriptures, these ideas form as yet no Theology.
There is no system in them of any kind. They are all
practical religious beliefs, and are considered of importance
only as they influence conduct. We do not find a theology
in the Old Testament ; we find a religion religious con
ceptions and religious hopes and aspirations. It is we
ourselves that create the theology when we give to these
religious ideas and convictions a systematic or orderly
form. Hence our subject really is the History of the
Eeligion of Israel as represented in the Old Testament.
We have seen, too, that the presentation or exhibition
of the religious ideas is to be historical. This is the
systematic form under which the religious ideas are pre
sented, and which the Old Testament itself supplies. The
historical character of the Old Testament religion is one
of its chief characteristics, that is, its continuance and
12 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
growth during a long period of history. And, further, we
have seen that the presentation is organic. This, indeed,
is contained in the fact that it is historical. The history
of any individual consciousness must be organic, whether
the mind be that of a nation or that of a person. Our
successive experiences and the phases of mind which we
go through during a lifetime are not isolated occurrences.
They rise each out of the other. They are connected with
our external history ; many times they are due to it. But
even our external history has a unity and an organic char
acter in it. And this is no doubt truer of a nation, or at
least its truth may be more distinctly perceived in national
life. When, therefore, it is said that the Old Testament
religion is to be presented organically, it is meant that each
step of progress was intimately connected with the people s
history with their experiences. Eevelations of this truth
or that were not made sporadically, but were given in con
tinuous connection with the national life and experience,
and so the truths are interlinked with one another in the
same way as the successive stages of evolution in the
national history are. 1
5. Divisions of the Subject.
Now, the question arises, What divisions of the subject
shall we adopt ? If we employed the ordinary threefold
division, Theology, Anthropology, and Soteriology, we
"From an evolutionist point of view, men speak of the development of
the religion of Israel. From a different point of view, the history of Israel s
religion is called a progressive revelation. We must remember that a pro
gressive revelation from the Divine side must exhibit itself among men as a
persistent struggle to realise new truths. Every new thought of God is first
understood in a soul which has been made receptive for it ; and, once
grasped, it maintains itself in him who is illumined by it, as well as in
those around him, only by conflict. This conflict appears to one man as a
progressive development ; to another, who, by experience, has learned to
know the gulf between God and the human heart as a terrible reality, it
appears as a progressive revelation. But, however it be regarded, all are
agreed that from the Tora and Nebiim [Law and Prophets] we can understand
how the precious treasure of Israel s religion came more and more fully to
light, and maintained itself ever more firmly" (Wildeboer, Canon, p. 162).
DIVISIONS OF OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY 13
should have to take each of these subjects and trace it
clown, step by step, through the whole length of the nation s
history, marking the points at which the current of thought
on the subject received new additions or a new momentum.
Perhaps, however, the easier way would be to divide the
history into periods, to cut it into zones, as it were, and
examine in each of these zones the whole religious thought
of the people during the period, as it is reflected in the
literature of that period. This method preserves better
the historical character of the study, and this is the
method usually adopted by writers on the subject of
Old Testament Theology. In point of fact, the three
fold theological division Theology, or doctrine of God ;
Anthropology, or doctrine of man ; and Soteriology, or doc
trine of salvation is somewhat too abstract for a subject
like ours. What we meet with in the Old Testament are
two concrete subjects and their relation. The two are :
Jehovah, God of Israel, on the one hand, and Israel, the
people of Jehovah, on the other; and the third point,
which is given in the other two, is their relation to one
another. And it is obvious that the dominating or creative
factor in the relation is Jehovah. The Old Testament
contains almost exclusively a theology (\6yos irepl eov) or
doctrine of Jehovah the God of Israel. It is to be observed,
too, that what we have to do with is not a doctrine of God,
but a doctrine of Jehovah, Israel s God. We have reached
now such a stage of thinking on the Divine that, while some
may doubt whether there be a God at all, nobody supposes
that there is more than one. But this point is just one
that has to be inquired into regarding Jehovah how far
Israel s God was believed to be God alone. At all events,
as I have said, He was the normative factor in the relation.
He moulded the people, and the mould into which He cast
them was that of His own nature. The conceptions of the
people regarding Jehovah immediately reacted on the people
and created corresponding conceptions regarding themselves.
The people must be what their God, Jehovah, was.
Now, thoughts of Jehovah or revelations regarding
14 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Him, for the two things are the same, seeing that a
revelation is no revelation until it takes the shape of
human thought, might run on two chief lines. One
would be ethical or spiritual conceptions of Jehovah-
conceptions which immediately reacted on the people and
made them feel that the same ethical character was de
manded from them, if they were to be His people. And
a second would be thoughts of how Jehovah was to be
served in acts of worship in other words, thoughts re
garding the sacred ritual. Now, these are the two lines
on which most of the sacred writings of the people run. The
first line of conceptions, the ethical or spiritual, whether in
regard to the nature of Jehovah or the conduct of His people,
was chiefly developed by the prophets. The line of ritual
service naturally was developed mostly by the priests, or at
least by men who were more practical than the prophets.
But even the ritual legislation was influenced by the pro
phetic teaching it was often an embodiment in a practical
form of their ideas. This second line, then, is that of the
legislation, for all the legislation relates to the worship or
ritual service of Jehovah at least in the main. These
two streams of thought might be called objective, so far
as the body of the people was concerned. For, though
the prophetic thoughts were, of course, profoundly sub
jective to the prophets themselves, that is, rose up out
of their own hearts with the greatest intensity and fire
of conviction, yet the prophets were a small body compared
with the whole mass ; they were the organs of revelation to
the general body. And in like manner the legislation,
which was many times a mere practical embodiment of
prophetic teaching, was formulated by small bodies of
priests, and was imposed upon the mass by authority.
Besides these two objective streams there were two
others, which might be called subjective. One of these was
the expression of personal devotion, or the spiritual experi
ence and exercise of the individual mind, such as we have
in the Psalms. There is no reason at all to suppose that
the bulk of the Psalms are the production of one individual.
THE GREAT HISTORICAL PERIODS 15
They are the expression of the devotion, and many times of
the religious conflicts of the individual mind, throughout
the whole of the people s history, particularly during its
later stages. And, secondly, the other subjective stream
of thought was that embodied in the Wisdom. This is
the expression of the religious reflecting mind, as the other
was of the devotional mind. The pious emotions responded
to the prophetic truth, and to the demands of the law, in
words that run through the whole scale of religious feeling.
The reflecting mind delighted itself by observing how the
great ethical truths of Jehovah s nature were everywhere
verifying themselves in His providence in the world and
in men s lives. Or it was startled at a later time, when
even the godly lay under grievous calamities, to find that
the prophetical teaching was contradicted by events of
actual providence. This gave rise to doubts and question
ings, by which men were sometimes almost driven to despair.
This Wisdom we have in the Proverbs, many of the
Psalms, Job, and Ecclesiastes ; and, of course, to all these
have to be added many expressions of religious faith and
many examples of religious conduct in the historical writings.
Keeping, then, all these general lines of thought in
view, which are in the main four, prophecy, or religious
politics ; legislation, or the ritual of worship ; devotion, and
reflection, we have the literary materials which we have
to divide into periods, so as to exhibit the historical growth
of the conceptions which the materials embody. Naturally,
any division will to some extent break in upon things
closely connected, because the growth of thought or the
stream of history cannot be cut into sections. For it is
a thing continuous and uninterrupted. But with this
admission the following division marks the great points in
the literary history of Israel.
6. The great Historical Periods.
(a) A preliminary or introductory period terminating with
the Exodus. The Old Testament religion hardly begins till
16 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
the Exodus. Therefore the religious subject in Old Testa
ment times with whom Jehovah s covenant was made was
the people Israel, not individual Israelites, and the people was
the creation of the great act of redemption at the Exodus.
This period, then, would be preliminary. We have no litera
ture from this period itself. What we have is the view of
this period taken in the ninth and eighth centuries. This
view contains many elements particularly two, national
traditions of early human history not peculiar to Israel, but
shared in by most Shemitic nations ; and, secondly, the
penetration and modification of these traditions by the
principles of the religion of Jehovah e.g. in the narratives
of the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, etc. So the patriarchal
period is the period of tradition, and of tradition possibly
religiously coloured. What is perhaps most important for
us is this religious colouring, rather than the mere details
of the history.
(b) The period from the Exodus to written prophecy,
B.C. 800. The beginning of written prophecy in the
deliverances of Amos and his successors is a point of such
importance that it is natural to make it an era. Apart
from the religious truths taught by the canonical prophets
there is one thing which characterises them all from Amos
downwards. They have completely broken with the nation,
whose conditition they condemn and pronounce to be
hopeless, and on the eve of destruction. This destruction
is inevitable, Jehovah their God being what He is. No
doubt earlier prophets express the same judgment, but less
universally. Even as early as Solomon, Ahijah of Shiloh
predicted the downfall of his kingdom (1 Kings xi. 31-39).
And Elijah s attitude was the same towards the kingdom of
the north. Perhaps during this period we can trace only two
of the four great streams of thought with much certainty.
1. Of Prophecy, we have examples in Deborah, Samuel,
Elijah, and Elisha. Except the Song of Deborah, there is
no literary prophecy. Under prophecy, however, according
to the Jewish modes of classification, fall historical writings,
e.g. Judges, the Books of Samuel.
THE GREAT HISTORICAL PERIODS 17
2. The other stream is that of Legislation. Here we
can put with certainty the so-called Book of the Covenant,
Ex. xx. xxiii. It may be the case that more should be
placed here ; but this is disputed. It is probable, how
ever, that there were both Psalms and Proverbs during
this period the latter certainly, as, e.g., in the fable of
Jotham. But it is difficult to identify those of this age.
As to this oldest legislation, however, all scholars are
agreed, and with it goes, of course, a good deal of the
history in Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and Joshua. It is
very probable that laws more strictly ritual than those in
the code Ex. xx. xxiii. existed. But it is not certain that
they were yet reduced to writing, being merely traditional
among the priests. If written, they were kept within the
priestly circles.
(c) From 800, written prophecy, to 586, the Exile of
Judah. 1. Prophecy. The stream of prophecy beginning
with Amos gradually widens out to be a broad and im
posing river. The great prophets whose names we know
belong to this period Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, and
Jeremiah. Perhaps it would be safest to close the period
with Jeremiah, who survived the Exile only a very short
time, and to carry Ezekiel into the next period. He
survived the Exile a number of years, and for other reasons
he rather belongs to the post-Exile sphere.
2. In Legislation we have belonging to this period the
Book of Deuteronomy. This may be said apart from any
theory of its origin or even its date of composition. It
ought to be placed in this period on other grounds. It was
discovered in the Temple in the year 621. Made public
in this year, it exercised immediately a powerful influence
upon the worship, and also upon the general current of
the people s thoughts. This period of its discovery was
that when its teaching really became a factor in the public
life and the religious conceptions of the nation. It became
public law, and powerfully influenced both religious practice
and religious literature from this date. It is also the
general impression among writers on the Old Testament
18 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
that Deuteronomy follows the great prophets Amos, Hosea,
and Isaiah, and reflects in its spirit their teaching. So far
as its legislative contents apart from its spirit are con
cerned, they are an expansion of Ex. xx.-xxiii.
(d) From the Exile, 586, to 400, the close of the pro
phetical Canon. This might be called the period of the
Restoration and Reconstruction of the State. It deserves
to be considered a distinct period, because undoubtedly ne v w
conceptions and a new way of reading the past history of
the nation arose, and also a new ideal for the future. The
prophet Ezekiel belongs to this period, at least as a powerful
influence, though in point of fact he lived mainly during
the preceding period.
It includes : 1. Prophecy Ezekiel, II Isaiah, Zechariah,
Haggai, Malachi. 2. Legislation the Levitical legislation
of Ezra and Nehemiah. 3. The Psalter. 4. The Wisdom.
(1) As to Prophecy. The second half of Isaiah is
usually placed in this era. Its contents refer it to this
period. If Isaiah was its author, he was enabled to project
himself in spirit into the Exile, and see and estimate that
period, with its personages and forces, precisely as if he had
lived during it in the body.
(2) The Legislation of this period is the so-called priestly
or Levitical legislation, contained now in Ex. xxv. xl.,
Leviticus, and good part of Numbers. It is disputed,
indeed, whether this legislation as a whole belongs to this
period. And it may be allowed to be probable that there
were written ritual laws as early as other laws. There
were customary ritual actions a ritual praxis, consuetu
dinary and practised embracing the various kinds of
sacrifice, though the numbers of victims, etc., might not be
fixed. This ritual praxis gradually expanded, and became
more splendid, more refined, more expressive in details of
the underlying ideas. We see it in great grandeur in the
time of Amos and Isaiah ; it was about complete in
the time of Ezekiel. It is not at all probable that these
ritual laws were for the first time written at this late
period, but at this period they appear to have been
THE PSALTER 19
brought together and codified, arid no doubt additions
were made to them to give them theoretical completeness.
They are probably the result of the ritual practice throughout
the history as it was modified and improved. It appears
to me that the Book of Ezekiel shows that before his day
the ritual was almost the same as it became after the
Restoration. But how far the ritual customs had been
reduced to writing before this period is difficult to ascertain.
Being largely for the guidance of the priests, they had less
public importance.
Apart, however, from other considerations, there are, at
any rate, these two reasons for placing the priestly legislation
here first, it was certainly not completed or codified in
the form in which we have it till this period ; and, secondly,
what is more important, it did not become an element in
the national life till this era. Whether it existed before or
not, it was not obeyed, the nation did not subject themselves
to it. From the year 444, when Ezra and Nehemiah read
the Law before the people, it is certain that this Levitical
law, as a ritual, and the hierarchical system as a govern
ment, became the ritual and government of the community.
The theocracy, which was, so to speak, ideal before (i.e.
Jehovah was king), now became hierarchical : the theo
cracy was a government by priests ; the high priest was
the head of the community.
(3) The Psalter. The Psalter must be placed here for
various reasons. It was only now that the Psalms were
collected together, and as a whole made the medium of the
devotional service in the temple. Not before this time did
the Psalter enter into the people s life as the expression of
their devotions, and as a powerful influence upon their life.
In estimating the progress of religious thought and de
votional life, we must recognise the public acceptance of the
Psalter as the expression of this thought and life to be one
of the most important events with which we have to deal.
Many of the Psalms, of course, may be ancient. It would
be as untrue to say that the Psalmody of Israel took its rise
with the Second Temple, as to say that the Thames rises
20 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
at London Bridge. But though the Thames rises higher
up, it begins at London Bridge to bear on its bosom the
commerce and the industrial life of the nations ; and the
Psalter, too, begins with the Second Temple to express the
religious life, not of individuals, but of Israel. And the
national use of the Psalter shows how completely all the
conflicts which the prophets had to wage against idolatry
and the like, had been fought out and the battle won.
The providence of God had set its seal on the prophetic
teaching, and it was accepted by the restored nation.
(4) The Wisdom. The Proverbial literature probably
would fall largely into the preceding period. But some of
the most splendid fruits of the reflective mind of Israel,
such as the Book of Job, probably belong to this epoch.
The Wisdom belongs to the literature of the individual s
religious life ; Prophecy and Legislation to the sphere of
the national life. Consequently the Wisdom literature is
mainly late.
(e) From 400 to the Christian era. This embraces:
1. Prophecy Daniel; 2. Wisdom Ecclesiastes ; 3. His
tory Chronicles. This is the period of the Law.
The division which we have followed gives five periods, a
preliminary one, and four others From Moses to prophecy,
800 ; from 800 to 5 8 6, the fall of Jerusalem; from 586 to
400; and from 4 to our era. But perhaps the whole period
from the Exodus might be divided into three characteristic
stages 1. Pre-prophetic period, down to 800 ; 2. Pro
phetic period, down to 586 ; and 3. Levitism, down to our
era. Of course, these names are general. Prophetism is
but the development of Mosaism on one side ; but it is a
distinct development and a literary development. Similarly,
Levitism is a development of Mosaism on another side, but
it is no doubt an expansion ; and historically the Levitical
system during this period actually made itself master of
the people, and brought them into subjection to it, which
historically had not been true at an earlier period.
The prophets, being statesmen in the kingdom of
God, stand in closest relation to the history, and in their
THE PROPHETIC LITERATURE 21
pages the significance of the various momenta and turning
points in the national career can best be estimated. And
it is their teaching that we should chiefly have before us.
From 850 or 800 to 400 B.C. they are the main figures in
the history of Israel ; and unquestionably the prophetic
literature is the most characteristic, and has most affinities
with the New Testament. We are able to receive a better
general idea of the religion of the Old Testament by study
ing the Prophets than by reading any other part of the
Hebrew Scriptures. The literature of the period ending
with 800 or 750 B.C. is scanty, being chiefly contained in
the part of the Pentateuch called J, or the united elements
JE. It is different with the prophetical period, 800586,
which is the most important for an Old Testament theo
logian, i.e. for one who wishes to understand the develop
ment of Eevelation or the religion of Israel historically in
other words, to understand the faith and hopes of Israel as
they existed actually in the minds of the prophets and the
people. All the great religious conceptions of the Old
Testament come to view in this period. An exception
might be made in regard to the doctrine of immortality.
But there are two doctrines of immortality in the Old
Testament that of the people, the kingdom of God ;
and that of the individual person. The former is fully
developed in the prophetic age ; that of the individual,
perhaps not until the period of Judaism. For the prophetic
teaching is, so to speak, national ; it was only on the down
fall of the State that the meaning and worth of the
individual life began to be adequately felt, and consequently
that the destinies of the individual began to be earnestly
pursued and reflected upon. But very much of the
Christian doctrine of immortality e.g. the concomitants
of it. the judgment ; the result of it, eternal peace and
fellowship with God, and the like is caught in the Old
Testament in connection with the eschatology of the king
dom or people of God.
But if the prophetic period be the most important
period for the Old Testament theologian, the period of
22 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Judaism, from the [Restoration in 537 to our era, is of
supreme importance for the Christian theologian or exegete.
Because, although this period is not so rich in original
productions, it is the period of reflection and generalisation
on the prophetic teaching, and of appropriation and as
similation of it into the individual life. This process in
great measure stripped off the nationalism from the pro
phetic truths, and brought them under individualism. But
individualism is universalism. The individual is of no
nation.
But this way of looking at the ancient literature
generalised the contents. The circumstances in which a
truth was uttered ceased to be of importance, while the
person who uttered it or to whom it was uttered was
equally unimportant. All those things ceased to have
meaning. The things that had meaning and had universal
applicability were the ethical and religious principles.
These were the Word of God. So that in a sense it is
true that the better historical Old Testament theologians
we are, the worse fitted are we to comprehend the New
Testament writers. It is admitted that the sense put by
New Testament writers on much of the Old Testament
which they quote is not the true historical sense, i.e. not
the sense which the original writers, prophets, or wise men
had in t their mind. The sense which the New Testament
writers express is the sense which arose during the period
of Judaism which experience and reflection and personal
piety put upon the Old Testament. Hence is it that to
the Christian theologian or exegete the period of Judaism
is of the utmost importance.
7. General Course and Drift of the History.
The literature of Israel, then, being so closely connected
with its history, it is of importance to understand the general
course and drift of the latter. As in all ancient States,
the religion was national. The religious unit or subject
was not the individual in the State, but the ideal unity
GENERAL DRIFT OF THE HISTORY 23
formed by the State as a whole. Now, this unity came
into existence at the Exodus from Egypt. From that
hour Israel was conscious of being a people, and Jehovah,
who had delivered them, was their God alone : " I am
Jehovah thy God, who brought thee out of the land of
Egypt " (Ex. xx. 2 ; cf. Hos. xiii. 4). The sense of being a
people, and the sense of being the people of Jehovah, if not
identical feelings, reacted very powerfully on one another ;
and hence the religious literature of the people reflects
from age to age all the changing hues of its history. That
history ran very much such a course as we should have
expected.
(1) The migration of the ancestors of the people from
the East, the descent into Egypt, the oppression and
bondage there, and the delivery under Moses, are events
testified to not only in the formal history of the Penta
teuch, but by frequent incidental allusions in other writing.
These allusions express the fundamental historical feeling
of the people, the very basis of their national and
religious consciousness (Amos ii. 9 seq. ; Hos. xii. 1 3 ;
Mic. vi. 4).
(2) Disintegration under the Judges. It was natural
that the unity into which the tribes l had been welded at
the Exodus by the necessity of facing a common danger, or
sharing a common enterprise, should become relaxed when
the danger was over and the enterprise had in great
measure succeeded ; and, accordingly, after the settlement
in Canaan, we find the unity in some degree disintegrated,
and the various tribes fighting each for its own hand, and
only entering into combinations when some danger more
serious than usual threatened. Such is the history as
reflected in the Book of Judges. No doubt a religious
disintegration in some measure ran parallel to the political
one. Even in this troubled period, however, although
1 The tribes entered Canaan, or at least conquered a place in it, not in
common, but independently, or in smaller combinations. There were two
Canaanite belts between Judah and the northern tribes, and between the
northern tribes themselves, i.e. the plain of Jezreel.
24 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
practically the tribes are often seen acting independently,
and settling with a strong hand their own local differences
with the native population, the sense of the ideal unity of
all the tribes as one Israel inspired the higher minds in
the nation, as, e.g., the prophetess Deborah (Judg. v. 2, 3,
5, 7, 9, etc.) ; and the need of some single head, such as a
king, to represent this unity is often felt and expressed by
the people (Judg. viii. 22).
(3) The Monarchy. When a danger, so pressing that
it threatened the national existence of Israel, arose in the
Philistine l power, the need of a visible head to bind the
tribes together, and animate them with a common impulse,
and lead them against the common enemy, was universally
recognised, and the people demanded that Samuel should
give them a king to "go out before us and fight our
battles" (1 Sam. viii. 20). The aged seer, though
reluctant to see the ideal sovereignty of Jehovah, the
feeling of which should have been enough to secure the
national unity, brought down and materialised in the form
of an earthly representative king, was sagacious and
patriotic enough to perceive the necessities of the time,
and to take them under his direction. And thus arose
the Monarchy, a partial attempt in the same direction
having already been made by Abimelech (Judg. ix.). The
history of this period is recorded in the Books of
Samuel.
This period is of extreme importance in the literary
and religious history of Israel. Three powerful streams of
influence take their rise in it, and run through the whole
succeeding history, fertilising and enriching it. These were,
first, the prophetic order ; a class of men who probably
1 The origin of tlie Philistines is yet far from certain. They came from
Caphtor (Amos ix. 7 ; Dent. ii. 23 ; Jer. xlvii. 4, 5), supposed by some to be
Cappadocia, by others to be Crete, or Cyprus, or the northern Egyptian
Delta. They either were Semites, or they speedily adopted the language
and religion of the country. Their chief god appears to be allied to the
Aramaic Marnas and the Babylonian Dagan. The time of their settlement
on the coast of Palestine must have been during the time Israel was in
Egypt.
THE DAVIDIC KINGDOM 25
existed from the earliest times along with the Nazirites
(Amos ii. 11), but who acquired an influence in the State
at this period, first as counsellors and seers of the early
kings (Nathan, Gad, 2 Sam. xii. 1, xxiv. 11), and ulti
mately as an independent order who took the religious
destinies of the nation into their own hands, and in whose
writings, the Prophetical Scriptures, we have the fullest
exposition of that lofty spiritual religion in Israel to which
the New Testament directly attaches itself. Secondly, the
elevation of the Davidic dynasty to the throne. The
brilliant reign of David, whose arms extended the limits of
the Jewish State till for those days it might justly be
named an empire, became the ideal of after ages ; and
when, amidst disaster and religious decline, men looked
back to it and transfigured it in the light of the religious
hopes which filled their minds, it became the type both of
a future king and a future universal kingdom of God that
would arise upon the earth in the latter days. These
special predictions of the perfection of the kingdom of the
Lord, named Messianic prophecies, all borrow their form and
colours from this powerful reign. And, thirdly, the choice
of Jerusalem as the centre both of the national and the
religious life of the people. The influence of the Temple of
Solomon, both in purifying and in elevating the ritual wor
ship, as well as in leading ultimately to its concentration at
one shrine, cannot be overestimated. But the step taken by
David gave a colour to all succeeding literature. Patriot
ism and religion were once more wedded together. Jeru
salem was not only the perfection of beauty, the joy of the
whole earth (Ps. xlviii. 2), it was also the hearth of
Jehovah, who dwelt in Zion at Jerusalem (Isa. xxix. 1).
National sentiment mingled with religious emotion in one
powerful stream, and the union has given to the religious
poetry of Israel, which celebrates Zion, or longs to revisit
it, or tells that its dust is dear, not only a religious value,
but a never-dying human pathos.
(4) Disruption of the Kingdom. There had existed
from of old a jealousy between the North and the South,
26 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
between the powerful tribe of Ephraim, which always
aspired to the leadership of the tribes, and the great tribe
of Judah. We see already in the Song of Deborah the
smaller tribes clustering around Ephraim, and learn from
the fact that Judah receives no mention that this great
family had already begun to pursue its own course and go
its own way. Naturally, therefore, when the unity of
the tribes under the Monarchy was subjected to a great
strain under Rehoboam, it broke asunder, and two king
doms arose, existing side by side, sometimes hostile to one
another, but in the main friendly. 1 Though neither of the
two kingdoms might prove itself sufficiently strong to hold
in subjection the petty States of Edom and Moab, and even
to maintain its own against the more powerful kingdom
of Syria, when the time came that they were confronted
with the imposing empires of Assyria and Babylon, they
naturally lost their independence, first Israel at the hands
of Assyria (721 B.C.), and then Judah at the hands of
Babylon (586 B.C.), and became merged in these empires as
provinces. The internal history of the two kingdoms is
told in the Books of Kings ; and the internal condition
of the people, the relaxation of morals, the struggles of
contending parties, and the cruel idolatries to which despair
had recourse, are reflected in the pages of the prophets
in the writings of Amos and Hosea during the last years
of Samaria ; in Isaiah and Micah during the conflict of
Judah with Assyria ; and in Jeremiah during the death
struggle of Judah with Babylon.
(5) The Exile and Restoration ; Israel a religious com
munity. As one colossal empire followed another and
succeeded to the inheritance of its predecessor, Babylon,
1 Though the nation now formed two kingdoms, not always friendly, the
conception of the higher unity of all parts of Israel still filled the religious
minds of the country. Hosea, a prophet of the North, has the tenderest
regard for Judah. Amos, a native of Judah, felt called to preach to
Samaria. And all Isaiah s earlier prophecies have regard both to Judah and
to Israel, which to his mind are one people of Jehovah ; and he addresses
his oracles to both the houses of Israel Israel and Judah (viii. 14). Even
Jeremiah and Ezekiel still continue to speak of one Israel North and South.
THE EXILE AND RETURN 27
Persia, Greece, and Borne, the people of Israel, no longer
independent, existed as a community governed internally
in the main in accordance with its own conceptions, but
forming externally part of the heathen empire for the
time. Only after a successful revolt against the Graeco-
Syrian rule of the Seleucids did the people again attain to
independence, and become ruled by native princes for about
a century (16763 B.C.). It then fell under the influence
of Rome, which finally destroyed the city and temple,
70 A.D.
No internal history of the Babylonian Exile has been
written ; but the picture of the desolation of the land, the
sad silence in the streets and gates of Jerusalem, which
used to ring with the joy of the feasts, and the sense of
abasement and contempt into which the people had fallen
as a nation among the nations, together with the flickerings
of a faith in the sure mercies of the Lord that refused to
be quenched (Lam. iii. 22), all this may be seen in the
exquisite collection of elegies known as the Lamentations,
written not many years after the fall of the city ; while
the delirium of hope raised somewhat later by the victories
of Cyrus, and the approaching downfall of Babylon, and
the brilliant religious anticipations of the destruction of
idolatry and the conversion of the nations to the true
religion of Jehovah through the ministration of Israel
restored, " the servant of the Lord," fill the pages of the
second half of Isaiah (chs. xl. IxvL).
The fortunes of the returning exiles are described in
Ezra and Nehemiah, and their hopes and despondencies
in the three prophets of the Eeturn (Zechariah, Haggai,
Malachi) ; while the aims and faith and hopes of the godly
Israel during the Maccabean struggles are reflected in the
Book of Daniel. Thus, amidst all the vicissitudes of its
eventful history, the literary activity of Israel knew no
intermission. The great Literary period extends from 800
to 400 B.C. ; but much of the finest historical writing is
anterior to this period, while several important books, as
Chronicles, Ecclesiastes, and Daniel, fall later.
28 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
8. Literary and Historical Criticism in relation to Old
Testament Theology.
It is admitted that the order in which the Old
Testament literature now exists is not the historical
order, and that traditional ideas regarding its date and
authorship require sifting. For example, it is acknow
ledged that the Pentateuch is not a homogeneous work,
the composition of a single person at a very early
date, but consists of a number of distinct writings,
originating at different periods, all down the people s
history, and brought together at various times, so that
it gradually assumed its present shape not earlier than
about 500 B.C.; and that there are elements in it later
than this period. Similarly, in regard to the prophetical
writings, though the dates of the main parts of the
prophetical literature are less liable to discussion, still
it is a fact that the prophets themselves were less careful
to collect their own prophecies than one might have
expected. Jeremiah, for example, dictated to Baruch an
outline of his prophecies for the first time more than
twenty years after he became a prophet. The prophecies,
as we have them, are the work of collectors or editors,
and they are often grouped together according to subjects,
though the individual prophecies may be of very different
dates, or even different ages ; and, further, the collectors,
occasionally at least, made insertions in order to make the
prophecies applicable to the thought and religious needs
of their own time. Edification, not strict literary exact
ness and discrimination of dates, was the object they
pursued.
The newest criticism is partly textual criticism and
partly literary. It moves mainly in three lines.
1. It is acknowledged that the early history of the
world (Gen. x., xi.), and the patriarchal history, and even
partly the history of the Exodus, were not written down till
very long after the events happened which are recorded.
It is traditional or legendary. The question arises, How
LITERARY CRITICISM 29
much real history is it possible to extract from this ? The
narrative has affinities with early Babylonian traditions,
and it is largely coloured by the religious sentiments of
the age when the traditions were written down. How
far, e.g., are the Patriarchs real persons, or ideal types of
nationalities (Esau = Edom ; Laban = Arameans, etc.), or
how far are they ideal types of the true Israel or the
true Israelite ?
2. Textual criticism. To take one example. Besides
the formally poetical books, Psalms, Job, and Proverbs,
it is certain that much of the early prophecy is poetical.
Now, in criticising and attempting to restore the text
of a classical poet, the metre would be a powerful in
strument for use in the hand of the critic. Any current
text where the metre was defective, making the line too
long or too short, would certainly be false. The line, if
too long, must he restored by some omission ; or, if too
short, by some insertion or change of words. Must the
same process be applied to Hebrew poetry ? Many scholars
reply that it must. Hence enormous changes are intro
duced by Duhm, for example into the early prophetic
texts, and into such books as Job and the Psalms.
3. As to literary criticism, two principles are assumed
as undeniable. (1) The language, like all languages, has a
history. The vocabulary changes in process of time, and
to some extent also the syntax. After Jeremiah the
Aramaic language begins to influence the Hebrew, both
in vocabulary and in style. (2) It is not only the language
that has a history, but also the thought of the nation.
New thoughts arise. Modes of contemplating things are
seen in later ages which were unknown in earlier times ;
and, in particular, ideas which might be called eschato-
logical hopes and outlooks into the future destiny of the
nation and of the other nationalities of the world become
very prevalent.
Now, these principles being admitted, and it being
further admitted that the literature, as it stands, has
been collected by scripturalists I use that word rather
30 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
than scribes in a way not chronological, and without
discrimination with regard to what is ancient and what
is modern, the newest criticism feels that it has the
task before it of applying these principles, particularly
those relating to the progressive changes in the language
and the progressive changes in the religious ideas, and
by their application separating the elements out of which
the present texts of the prophecies have been composed,
and showing which is ancient and which is recent. Now,
these processes are, in principle, quite legitimate. No
other method is open. But, at the same time, a door
is opened to subjective and individual judgment, and the
operation is necessarily a precarious one. The literature
is very limited. An idea that is found now only in a
late writing might really belong to an earlier time, if we
only had a more extensive literature covering that time.
But the effect of the criticism referred to is to cut up
the writings, particularly the prophecies, into a multitude
of fragments, and to introduce the greatest uncertainty
into the exegesis. I cannot help thinking that this kind
of criticism has gone to extremes in recent times, and
has had the effect of discrediting the criticism which is
legitimate.
//. THE DOCTRINE OF GOD.
I. General Character of the Old Testament Conception
of God.
On the subject of God the ideas of the ancient world
are in many respects different from our own. And the
ideas of the Old Testament have, in these points of difference,
naturally greater affinity with those of the ancient world
in general than with ours. One such point of difference
is this, that it never occurred to any prophet or writer
of the Old Testament to prove the existence of God. To
do so might well have seemed an absurdity. For all
PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF GOD 31
Old Testament prophets and writers move among ideas
that presuppose God s existence. Prophecy itself is the
direct product of His influence. The people of Israel in
their character and relation are His creation. It is not
according to the spirit of the ancient world in general
either to deny the existence of God or to use arguments
to prove it. The belief was one natural to the human
mind and common to all men. Scripture does indeed
speak of men who say in their heart there is no God, but
these are the fools, that is, the practically ungodly ; and
their denial is not a theoretical or speculative one, but
merely what may be held to be the expression of their
manner of life. Even the phrase " there is no God " hardly
means that God is not, but rather that He is not present,
does not interfere in life ; and counting on this absence of
God from the affairs of the world, and consequently on
impunity, men become corrupt and do abominable deeds
(Ps. xiv.). And for their wickedness they shall be cast
into hell, the region of separation from God, along with all
the nations that forget God (Ps. ix. 17). Yet even this
forgetfulness of God by the nations is regarded as something
temporary. It is a forgetting only ; it is no obliteration of
the knowledge of God from the human mind. That is
impossible, and these nations shall yet remember and turn
unto the Lord. Scripture regards men as carrying with
them, as part of their very thought, the conception of God.
This being the case, the Old Testament naturally
has no occasion to speculate on how this knowledge that
God is arises in the mind. Its position is far in front of
this. It teaches how God who is, is known, and is known
to be what He is. But it seems nowhere to contemplate
men as ignorant of the existence of God, and therefore it
nowhere depicts the rise or dawn of the idea of God s
existence on men s minds. 1 In the historical period the
1 The origin of the idea of God, the origin of religion, is a question of
great interest. As the origin lies so far beyond the horizon of history, little
but conjectures regarding it need be looked for. We perhaps perceive two
stages, the one the full historical stage, such as it meets us in all the Old
32 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
idea of God s existence is one of the primary thoughts
of man. He comes possessed of this thought to face and
observe the world. His conception of God already possessed
explains the world to him ; the world does not suggest to
him an idea hitherto strange, that of the existence of God.
And, of course, the bare idea of the existence of God is not
the primary thought which Scripture supposes all men to
possess. This abstract idea gathers body about it, namely,
a certain circle of ideas as to what God is.
And with these ideas the Hebrew took up his position
over against the world. To him God and the world were
always distinct. God was not involved in the processes
of nature. These processes were caused by God, but were
quite distinct from God.
The Hebrew thinker, however, came down from his
thought of God upon the world ; he did not rise from the
world up to his thought of God. His primary thought of
Testament writings ; the other, one lying behind this, some dim traces of
which we may perceive in practices occasionally appearing in Israel, or
referred to in the history of the Patriarchs (such as Jacob s anointing with
oil the stone which he called Beth-el, the place of God) ; and in some things
treated and announced as superstitions in the historical period, such as
seeking for the living unto the dead, necromancy, witchcraft, and the like
(Isa. viii. 19). It has been thought that several sources of the religious idea
might be discovered, as, e.g., animism, reverence for deceased ancestors, or
for heroes of the tribe, etc. The forces of nature, and man s subjection to
them, suggested powers, or more particularly spirits, as they were unseen.
These were located in various natural objects. In stones generally natural,
but afterwards artificial, places were prepared for the spirit. These artificial
stones were the Macgebas or pillars. They either became altars or were
placed beside altars. We find them standing beside the altars of Jehovah,
and denounced by the prophet Hosea. Other objects to which the spirit
attached itself were trees and fountains. Hence some explain the part
played by trees in the patriarchal history, as the oak of Mamre near Hebron,
and the place given to the well Beersheba, long a sanctuary, as Amos
shows (v. 7). The sacred tree was, no doubt, common in Canaan, and was a
seat of the god, and a place where oracles were given ; hence the name the
Oak of the Soothsayers (Judg. ix. 37). A later substitute for this sacred
tree was the Ashera or wooden stock. This was also always naturally
beside an altar. Possibly many practices observed in mourning, such as
cutting off the hair, may have reference to dedication of the hair as a sacrifice
to the dead. Setting food before the dead is forbidden in Deuteronomy
(xxvi. 14). These practices in historic times are all treated as heathen
superstitions in Israel, and forbidden.
RELATION TO NATURAL THEOLOGY 33
God explained to him the world, both its existence and the
course of events upon it ; these did not suggest to him
either the existence or the character of God, these being
unknown to him. The thought of the Hebrew, and his
contemplation of providence and life, were never of the
nature of a search after God whom he did not know, but
always of the nature of a recognition and observation of
the operation of God whom he already knew. There seems
no passage in the Old Testament which represents men as
reaching the knowledge of the existence of God through
nature or the events of providence, although there are
some passages which imply that false ideas of what God is
may be corrected by the observation of nature and life.
When the singer in the xixth Psalm says that " the heavens
declare the glory of God," all that he means is that the
glory of God, who is, and is known, and is Creator, may
be seen reflected on the heavens. But the Psalmist only
recognised on the heavens what he already carried in his
heart. When, however, in Isa. xl. 25, 26, Jehovah, asks
" To whom then will ye liken Me ? . . . Lift up your eyes
on high, and see who hath created these things, that
bringeth out their host by number," it is implied that
false views of what God is may be corrected, or at least
that they may be brought home to men s consciousness.
There is an approximation to the arguments of Natural
Theology in some of these passages. And even more in a
passage in one of the Psalms (xciv. 511), when, speaking
probably of the excuses of the heathen rulers of Israel, the
writer says : " They break in pieces Thy people, Lord, and
afflict Thine heritage. They slay the widow and the
stranger, and murder the fatherless. And they say, The
Lord doth not see, neither doth the God of Jacob observe.
Consider, ye brutish among the people : and ye fools, when
will ye be wise ? He that planted the ear, shall He not
hear ? He that formed the eye, shall He not see ? He
that instructeth the nations, shall not He correct ? Even
He that teacheth men knowledge ? The Lord knoweth the
thoughts of men."
3
34 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
The Old Testament as little thinks of arguing or
proving that God may be known as it thinks of arguing
that He exists. Its position here again is far in front
of such an argument. How should men think of arguing
that God could be known, when they were persuaded
they knew Him, when they knew they were in fellowship
with Him, when their consciousness and whole mind were
filled and aglow with the thought of Him, and when
through His Spirit He moved them and enlightened them,
and guided their whole history ? There is nothing strictly
peculiar, however, here.
The peculiarity of the Old Testament conception rather
comes out when the question is raised, how God is known.
Here we touch a fundamental idea of the Old Testament
the idea of Revelation. If men know God, it is because
He has made Himself known to them. This knowledge is
due to what He does, not to what men themselves achieve.
As God is the source of all life, and as the knowledge of
Him is the highest life, this knowledge cannot be reached
by any mere effort of man. If man has anything of God,
he has received it from God, who communicates Himself in
love and grace. The idea of man reaching to a knowlege
or fellowship of God through his own efforts is wholly
foreign to the Old Testament. God speaks, He appears ;
man listens and beholds. God brings Himself nigh to men ;
He enters into a covenant or personal relation with them ;
He lays commands on them. They receive Him when He
approaches ; they accept His will and obey His behests. 1
Moses and the prophets are nowhere represented as
thoughtful minds reflecting on the Unseen, and forming
conclusions regarding it, or ascending to elevated concep
tions of Godhead. The Unseen manifests itself before
them, and they know it.
Such a revelation of God is everywhere supposed in the
Old Testament. God is not a God that hides Himself in
the sense that He is self -engrossed or self-absorbed. His
Spirit streams through the world, producing all life and
1 Cf. Sclmltz, Alttest. Thcol, fiinfte Aufl. pp. 397, 398.
IDEA OF REVELATION 35
maintaining it, and begetting in men a fellowship with the
life of God. His word goes forth to the world that it shall
be, and shall be upholden, and to men that they may know
Him and live in Him. He appears and manifests Himself
to the patriarchs in angelic forms, to the prophets in the
inspiration of their minds, in visions and dreams or spiritual
intuitions, and to Moses speaking face to face. The form
of His manifestation of Himself may change, but the reality
of it remains the same. The conviction in the mind of the
prophet that God revealed Himself and His word to him
when the truth broke upon his mind, was not less vivid
than that of the patriarch who was visited by angelic
forms when sitting in the door of his tent. The prophet
speaks the word of God, has his ear awakened by God, is
the messenger and interpreter of God, as much as Moses
who saw the God of Israel on the mount. And this is not
because the prophet rose to the conception of God, or
attained to know His will by reflection. It was because
God called him and put His words in his mouth.
But, however much the Old Testament reposes on
the ground that all knowledge of God comes from His
revealing Himself, and that there is such a true and
real revelation, it is far from implying that this revelation
of God is a full display of Him as He really is. An
exhaustive communication of God cannot be made, because
the creature cannot take it in. Neither, perhaps, can
God communicate Himself as He is. Hence Moses saw
only a form, saw only His back parts. His face could
not be beheld. Thus to the patriarchs He appeared in
the human form. So in the tabernacle His presence
was manifested in the smoke that hung over the Ark.
So, too, in Eden He was known to be present in the
cherubim, who were the divine chariot on which He rode.
All these things signified His presence, while at the same
time intimating that in Himself He could not be seen.
Yet this may refer only to a bodily vision of Him. There
is no trace of the idea in the Old Testament that God, as
revealed to men, is not really God as He is in Himself.
36 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
There is no such idea as that His revelation of Himself is
meant merely to be regulative of human life, while what
He is in truth remains far away in a transcendental back
ground, out of which it is impossible for it to advance, or
unto which it is impossible for men to approach. The
revelation God gives of Himself is a revelation of Himself
as He is in truth. Yet it may be impossible to reveal
Himself fully to men, and it is impossible for any form
appreciable to the senses either to contain Him or do much
more than indicate His presence. The Hebrew idea of
God, however, is not physical; it nowhere speculates on
His essence ; its idea of Him is ethical.
This conception of revelation is just the characteristic
conception of the Old Testament. It reposes on such ideas
as that Jehovah is a living God, and that He rules by His
activity all the life of men. And it reposes on the idea
that the religious life of men is mainly their practical
conduct. And revelation is His ruling practically the
whole life of the people by making known His will. This
must be done to individual persons, not to the whole
people directly. Hence all revelation is oral, because it is
continuous the constant impression by Himself of the
living God. Even the priests decisions on questions of
right between man and man their torah were oral, and
always caused by occasions. Now, on man s side this
revelation was an operation of Jehovah in the mind.
Eevelation was the arising in the mind of man of thoughts
or impulses accompanied by the conviction that the
thoughts and impulses were from God. In such thoughts
the mind of man and God coalesced, and the man was
conscious of meeting God.
2. The Idea of the Divine Name.
In so far as God reveals Himself He acquires a name.
Men call that which they know by a name. God, in reveal
ing Himself, proclaimed His own name Jehovah, Jehovah
merciful and gracious. Among the Hebrews the name was
THE NAME OF GOD 37
never a mere sign whereby one person could be distinguished
from another. It always remained descriptive ; it expressed
the meaning of the person or thing designated. The
name bore the same relation to the significance of the
thing or person as a word does to a thought. It was always
the expression of it. Hence when a person acquired a
new significance, when he began to play a new role, or
entered into new relations, or was in some sense a new
man, he received a new name. Therefore Abram became
Abraham ; Jacob, Israel ; Solomon, Jedidjah beloved of
God (2 Sam. xii. 25). So even to God men have a
name. Thus He calls Moses and Cyrus by their name.
That is, He conceives to Himself what their significance
is, what meaning they have in His redemptive providence ;
and He recognises this, and enters into relations with
them as men having this meaning. And the same is
true of God s own names. Such a name expresses that
which is known to men of the nature of God. When
a new or higher side of the Being of God is revealed
to men there arises a new name of God. Any name of
God expresses some revelation of His Being or character.
When the word name is used absolutely as God s name, it
describes His nature as revealed, as finding outward expres
sion. So when the Psalmist in Ps. viii. exclaims, " How
excellent is Thy name in all the earth ! " he means how
glorious is God s revelation of Himself, or God as revealed
on the earth, that is, among the family of men, whom He
has so dignified as to put them over the work of His hands,
with all things under their feet. His grace to men is His
name here, His revelation of Himself. So when Israel is
warned to give heed to the Angel of the Lord that leads
them, for His name is in him (Ex. xxiii. 21), the sense is
that the significance of God is present there ; what God is,
His majesty and authority, is there embodied. So His
name is holy and reverend ; He, as being what He is
known to be, is reverendus.
Occasionally, perhaps, as the name is properly a full
description of the nature, the expression name of God
38 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
may refer rather to what God is in Himself than to that
which He has revealed Himself to be. But ordinarily,
at least, the latter idea is predominant ; and even when
he swears by His name, or when, for His name s sake,
He blots out transgression, or will not cast off Israel, the
idea is that on account of what He has given men to know
that He is, because He has manifested Himself to Israel,
and in relation with Israel to the world, therefore He will
not cast away Israel (Ezek. xxiii. xxxviii.). This use of
for His name s sake is comparatively late in Isaiah
only in the prose ; in Second Isaiah, and often in Ezekiel,
and later Psalms. The ideas connected with this expres
sion appear to be these: (1) In the mind of the writer
Jehovah is God alone. But (2) He is known to the world,
the nations of mankind, as Jehovah, God of Israel. All
the knowledge they have of Him is of Him as God of
Israel who had led Israel out of bondage, and done great
things for them in the wilderness and in their history.
(3) Jehovah s purpose is to reveal Himself to all mankind.
This revelation has already begun in Israel and through
Israel. It is only as God of Israel that the nations know
Him the one God. It is only, therefore, through Israel
that He can reveal Himself to them. The name, therefore,
for whose sake He is besought to save Israel, is the name
Jehovah, known to the nations, and revealed in His
redemption of Israel of old, and in Israel s history. Hence,
when He finally redeems Israel, His glory appears to all
flesh.
3. Particular Names of God.
Though the Name of God has this significance, it is
rather descriptions of Him as Jehovah merciful and gracious,
and such like, that carry with them this meaning and
express this insight into what He is, than what is known
as strictly the Divine names. Not much can be drawn
from these. They are chiefly two, Elohim and Jehovah ,
the one a general name for God, that is, an appellative
PARTICULAR NAMES OF GOD 39
expressing the conception God, and therefore having no
special significance ; the other Jehovah, the personal name
of the God of Israel.
But these are not the only names. There is the term
El (;N), which, like Elohim, expresses the general idea of God.
There are also the terms El-Shaddai, El-Elyon, which are
descriptive titles applied to God; and there is the singular
Eloach. The names El, Elohim, El-Shaddai, and the
term Jehovah itself, appear all to be prehistoric. The most
widely distributed of all these names is EL It appears in
Babylonian, Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic,
especially South Arabic. It belongs, therefore, to the whole
Shemitic world. Gesenius and many more have taken it
to be a part of a verb ^itf = to ~be strong. But other ex
planations have been advanced. Noldeke, e.g., would con
nect it with the Arabic root ul to be in front, whence
awwal = first ; according to which the idea would be that of
governor or leader. Dillmann would refer it to a supposed
root ni>K, with the sense of power or might ; while Lagarde
would seek its explanation in a root supposed to be related
to the preposition vK, so that it would designate God as the
goal to which man is drawn, or toward which he is to strive.
This last explanation is entirely impossible. The idea of
Deity implied in it is too abstract and metaphysical for the
most ancient times. No satisfactory derivation has as yet
been suggested.
Equally obscure is the name **$, which we translate
Almighty. In poetry the word is used alone; in prose
it is usually coupled with W, = God Almighty. The
derivation and meaning are uncertain. It is an archaic
term. According to P, it was the name of God that
was used by the patriarchs (Gen. xvii. 1 ; Ex. vi. 3). It
marked in that case an advance upon El and Elohim. The
tradition that it is an archaic name is supported by the
Book of Job, where the patriarchal and pre-Mosaic speakers
use it. It is also supported by such names among the
people of the Exodus as Zurishaddai = * Shaddai is my rock
(Num. i. 6). Some have suggested an Aramean root,
40 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
to pour out, and have taken the name to designate the min
or storm-god. Others would derive it from "H^, giving it
the sense of the destroyer, or more particularly the storm-
god or the scorching sun-god. But there is little probability
in such derivations. The oldest Babylonian names for God
are all equally unresolvable. The meaning of Ishtar or
Astarte, Marduk (Merodach), and the like, cannot be ascer
tained. The Jewish scholars resolve *[& into **[ W ("1B>K) =
he who is sufficient ; but whether self-sufficiency is meant,
or sufficiency for others, is left uncertain. It is probable
that the Sept. translators, or some of them, already knew
this etymology, as they occasionally render the term by
itcavos. Some Assyrian scholars would now refer it to the
Assyrian Shadu = mountain, taking it to be a designation
of God either as the Most High or as the Mountain,
on the analogy of the Hebrew term for God, the Rock.
The most that can be said of it is that Shaddai may
be an epithet with the idea of Almighty, as Ely on is an
epithet of El with the idea of Most High. The phrase
El Shaddai may be simply an intensification of El itself,
and it is possible that this intensification might express
the clarification of the idea of the Divine which took
place in Abraham s mind at the time of his call. It may
have been this idea that his faith took hold of, and which
sustained him when committing himself to an unknown
way God the Omnipotent able in all places to protect
him.
As to the term Eloach, HvK (Aram, elah, Arab, ilah),
it may be an augmentation of El, and express, as is
commonly understood, the idea of power, might. But even
this is uncertain. Some suppose it to be a literary for
mation taken from the plural Eloliim. But the Aramaic
and Arabic forms are against this ; for these are similar
singular forms, and there is no reason to suppose them to
be late forms. The term Eloach occurs in poetry, and now
and then in late prose.
The word Eloliim is a plural, and probably a plural
of that sort called the plural of majesty oi^cminenc^moTQ
THE NAME ELOHIM 41
accurately the plural of fulness or greatness. It is common
in the East to use the plural to express the idea of the
singular in an intensified form. Thus the Egyptian fellah
says not rob for master, but arbab ; so in Hebrew the name
Baal = Lord, owner, ruler, is used in the plural though
the sense be singular ; cf. Isa. i. 3, " the ox knoweth
his owner, and the ass his master s crib " T?? D*3N).
The singular of Elohim means probably strength, power, or
might, and the plural merely intensifies this idea the
might par excellence, or the plenitude of might, is God.
The name is common to Israel with most of the Shemitic
peoples. The plural form is unquestionably prehistoric,
i.e. it was in use before Israel became a people. In use
it is, though a plural, regularly construed with a singular
verb or adjective, except that occasionally, in E, it has
the plural verb and adjective. 1
Some have regarded the plural form Elohim as a
remnant of Polytheism. But to speak of the gods is
not natural in a primitive age, and this can scarcely be
the origin of the plural. No doubt it is the case that
the angels or superhuman beings are also called Elohim,
just as they are called Elim\ and there might lie in
that the idea that the superhuman world, the ruler of
man s destiny, was composed of a plurality of powers.
This would not point to Polytheism, however, but rather
to the earlier stage of religion called Animism or Spiritism,
when men thought their lives and destiny were under
1 The name SN is the oldest name for God ; Babylonian ilu, where u is
nominative case ; Arabic, ildk ; Aram. eldh. Some think that D H^N is
plural of *?><, through insertion of an h, as nox, nines, maids. I have not
seen any examples of this insertion except in feminine nouns, and the h in
Arabic ilah seems to indicate that it is not peculiar to the plural. The
Syriac Shemohin is probably artificial, as Skein has the fern. pi. in Hebrew
and Aramaic. The attempt to connect El Elohim with elah, elon, names of
trees (Marti-Kayser), scarcely deserves notice. The general idea has been
that *?x is connected with l ??N = to be strong ; if this were the case the vowel e
would be long, but it does not seem to be. The suggestion that the plural
was first used of the deities of some particular locality (W. R. Smith) has
its difficulties, as usually each locality had only one deity. The idea that
Elohim meant the fulness of powers contained in God (Dillmann), is too
abstract.
42 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
the influence of a multitude of forces or powers, which,
being unseen, were conceived of as spirits, inhabiting
stones, trees, and waters, or the like. If this were the
origin of the plural, it would point to a far back pre
historic time. It would express in a sense an advance
upon Animism, inasmuch as the various spirits were no
longer considered independent and multifarious, but were
combined into a unity, and thought of as acting in concert.
The next step to this would be the individualising of this
unity, and the rise of Monotheism ; or, at any rate, there
would perhaps arise the idea that among these Elohim one
was monarch and the rest subsidiary and his servants.
This is not unlike the representation in many parts of the
Old Testament, where Jehovah in heaven is surrounded by
a court, a multitude of other beings who are His messengers.
This idea is frequent in Scripture ; but whether it arose in
the manner just suggested may be doubtful. If we compare
the names employed by the Shemitic nations surrounding
Israel, we discover that they all express very much the same
idea, namely, that of power or rule. They express a high level
of thought regarding God. None of them is a name for
the heavens, or any of the forces of nature in its more
material aspect. They are all abstractions going beyond
phenomena ; they express the idea of a Being who is over
phenomena, who has a metaphysical existence. They are
altogether unlike such names as Zw (Dyaus), the bright
sky, or Phcebus Apollo, or Lucina. Such names as El,
Elohim, when we remember that the Shemite attributed all
force or power to spirit, immediately lead to the conception
of a spiritual being.
Such names as El-Elyon, El-Shaddcti, do not of them
selves imply Monotheism, inasmuch as one God Most High,
or Almighty, might exist though there were minor gods ; yet
when a people worshipped only one God, and conceived Him
as Most High, or Almighty, the step was very short to
Monotheism.
Again, such names as Eternal God/ Living God/
at once suggest spirituality ; for to the Shemitic mind, at
FIRST CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 43
least to the Hebrews, life lay in the spirit which they
called the spirit of life. Without, therefore, committing
ourselves to the opinion that the abstract conceptions
of Monotheism or spirituality were in the mind of the
worshippers in the patriarchal age, we can perceive that
their conceptions of God at least did not differ greatly
from those which we now have.
The stage of religion which these Divine names suggest
was probably not the first stage of Shemitic religion, nor
was it the last. It is always difficult to arrive at the first
conceptions of God among any people. Possibly in the
main they originate in impressions produced on man by the
heavens in their various aspects. These aspects awaken
feelings in man of a power above him, or it may be of many
powers. This is probably the primary conception of God.
This primary conception may be monotheistic, if the phe
nomena observed be considered due to some power above
them, and this is the stage to which the Shemitic names
for God belong ; or polytheistic, if the phenomena them
selves be considered powers, or the manifestation of separate
powers. But the Shemitic religions did not remain on this
level. So far as we know them, they either advanced, like
the religion of Israel, or declined. One can readily per
ceive how Polytheism would arise at a later stage by the
mere fact of different names existing. It was forgotten or
not observed that these names originally expressed very
much the same idea, although one tribe used one name and
another a different one. The names used by different tribes
were naturally considered different gods. By length of
time their worship had taken different forms of development
among the different tribes ; and this variety of cultus, coupled
with the different name, suggested a different deity.
The most various and contradictory conclusions have
been reached on the question, What was the primary form
of the Shemitic religion ? and on the question, What was it
that suggested the conception of God which we observe
existing ? There is no doubt that among the Canaanites
and Phoenicians, Baal was connected with the sun ; the sun
44 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
was Baal, or Baal resided in the sun. And attempts have
been made to connect the God of Israel either with the
Sun, the god of fire, or with Saturn. These attempts have
little foundation, and cannot be said to have had much
success. It is, no doubt, true that the God of Israel
is often compared to a fire, His feet touch the land,
and it melts (Amos ix. 5). But that is in metaphor.
Others, again, have pursued a different line. It is certain
that some of the Shemitic tribes, such as the Arabs,
worshipped stones; and it has been supposed that the
primary religion of Israel was this stone-worship. Jacob
set up a stone. Jehovah is often named Kock, and even
called the Stone of Israel. Professor Dozy, of Leyden,
thought that the passage in Isaiah, " Look unto the rock
whence ye were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence
ye were digged" (li. 1), the reference being to Abraham
and Sarah, showed that Abraham and Sarah were two
stone deities of early Israel. Von Hartmann, again, took
a different line, supposing that Abram means High Father,
and Sarah princess, queen ; and that the two are still deities,
names for the supreme god and his consort the sun and
moon. And Kuenen considered Saturn to have been the
original object of Israel s worship, according to the passage
in Amos : " Ye have borne . . . the star of your god."
(v. 26). But Kuenen was probably mistaken in his
opinion that the prophet describes the events in the wilder
ness in that passage.
These instances are sufficient to show the worth of
attempts of this kind. There is absolutely no material, and
the imagination has unlimited scope.
Our position must be this : We have no knowledge of
the early Shemitic worship. How the ideas of God arose it
is impossible to say ; their origin lies beyond the horizon of
history. So far as Israel is concerned, the comparison of
God to a rock, or a stone, or fire, or anything material,
is now entirely figurative, and meant to express ethical
properties.
The names I have referred to are scarcely elements of
THE NAME JEHOVAH 45
revelation. They are names preceding revelation, at least
to the family of Israel, which have been adopted by
Scripture. Neither Eloliim nor El is a revealed name.
They are, however, names that truly express the attributes
or being of God, and could be adopted by Scripture. It is
possible, however, in view of what is said in Ex. vi. 2, that the
name Shaddai may be an element of revelation. The state
ment given there as to God appearing to the fathers of the
Hebrew race as El-Shaddai, is made by the writer who is
usually known as the Elohist. There is every reason to
regard the statement as historical. And if we look into
the 1st chapter of the Book of Numbers, which refers to
the time of the Exodus, we find certain names compounded
with Shaddai. The author of the Book of Job also shares
the idea of the Elohist, and puts Shaddai into the mouth of
his patriarchal speakers.
4. The Name Jehovah.
Much has been written on the subject of the name
Jehovah, but little light has been cast upon it. A few
things may be mentioned in regard to it. (1) It seems
a name peculiar to the people of Israel, to this branch
of the Shemitic family. This is no more remarkable
than that Chemosh should be peculiar to Ammon, another
branch, or Moloch to Moab, still another. The word does
appear in proper names of other tribes, but when used
by them it seems borrowed. (2) From prehistoric times
it is probable that God was worshipped by this family
under this name, or at least that the name was known
in Israel ; the mother of Moses has a name compounded
with it, and it is certain that the name became at
the Exodus the name of God in covenant with Israel.
But the fact that Moses could come before Israel with
this name as known to Israel, implies that it was not
new in his day. (3) The real derivation and meaning of
the name are wholly unknown. Its true pronunciation
has also been lost, from the rise of a superstition that
46 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
it was unlawful to pronounce it. This superstition prob
ably is earlier than the Septuagint translation, which
renders it by /cvpios, just as the Massoretes substitute
Adhonai for it. (4) In the Pentateuch the word is brought
into connection with the verb to "be. This, however, is
not an account of the actual origin of the name, but only
a play at most referring to its significance, or perhaps
more probably connecting a significance with it. But the
significance thus connected with it is of extreme import
ance, because it expresses, if not the original meaning of
the name, which probably had been lost, the meaning
which it suggested to the mind of Israel during their
historic period.
And this, not its primary sense, is, of course, what
is important for us. As connected with the verb to
be, it is the third singular imperfect. When spoken by
Jehovah Himself this is the first person rvriK, or in a
longer form, which merely makes more absolute the simple
form, iTn "\VX njn. The verb to be in Hebrew hardly
expresses the idea of absolute or self - existence ; it
rather expresses what is or will be historically, and the
imperfect tense must mean not / am, but / will be.
In Ex. iii. 11-14 the revelation of the name mrf is de
scribed " And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I
should go unto Pharaoh ? " And God said, " I will be
with thee, ^ iTPiN S 3 " . . . And Moses said unto God,
Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall
say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me
unto you ; and they shall say unto me, What is His name ?
what shall I say unto them ? And God said unto Moses,
JTPIK -rate n;nx : and he said, " Thus shalt thou say unto the
children of Israel, Ehyeh hath sent me unto you." That
is, God when speaking of Himself is jrnK, and when spoken
of mrr. In the time of Hosea the etymological significa
tion of Jehovah was still present to men s minds. Hence
He says : " I will not be to you, D3^ njnK *6 " (chap. i. 9) :
" ye are not My people, and I am not, n.V?j*, to you."
It seems certain that in Isa. xl. seq. the name Jehovah
PRONUNCIATION OF THE NAME 47
is not used as having any special significance etymologically,
but is the name for God absolutely. Ere these chapters
were written the idea of God had passed through various
stages. The unity of God had become a formal conception.
It had been discussed, and the opposite idea of there being
more Gods had been set against it. Jehovah in the
prophet s mouth expresses the idea of the one true God.
And is not mrr (simply) in this prophet (Isa. xl. seq.) = to
niKS? n i n< ! or urn?*? *?$n, "iNn B* ^ inp in the earlier prophets ?
It is not an ontological name, but a redemptive one.
It does not describe God on the side of His nature, but
on that of His saving operations, His living activity
among His people, and His influence upon them. Yet it
is probable that it is a description of Jehovah in Himself,
and not merely as He will manifest Himself to Israel.
" I will be that I will be," expresses the sameness of
Jehovah, His constancy His being ever like Himself.
It does not express what other attributes He had, these
were largely suggested by the fact of His being God ;
it rather expresses what all His attributes make Him,
the same yesterday and to-day and for ever, the true in
covenant relation, the unchanging ; hence it is said, " I
am Jehovah, I change not " (Mai. iii. 6).
The pronunciation Jehovah has no pretence to be right.
It was not introduced into currency till the time of the
Keformation, about 1520. 1 It is a mongrel word, which
has arisen from uniting the vowels of one word with
the consonants of another the vowels of the word ^K
with the consonants of this sacred name. This name
began, for whatever reasons, early to fall into disuse.
Already it is avoided in some of the latest books of the
Old Testament, as Ecclesiastes. In the second Book of the
1 When vowel signs were invented and written in MSS. (600-900 A.D.) the
practice, when one word was substituted for another in reading, was to
attach the vowels of the word to be substituted to the consonants of the
original word. Thus the vowels of ddondy were attached to the consonants
yhvh. In 1518 A. t>., Petrus Galatinus, confessor of Leo x., proposed to read
the vowels and consonants as one word, and thus arose Yehovah Jehovah
y requiring to be spelled with e instead of a.
48 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Psalms it is little used, and it is evident that here in
many cases it has been removed from places where it
stood, and the name Elohim substituted in its room
(compare Ps. xiv. with Ps. liii.). It is probable, as we
have said, that a superstitious dread was the cause of
the disuse. We found in Amos the sentiment that the
name of Jehovah must not be mentioned, lest He should
be provoked to inflict new calamities. In Lev. xxiv. 11
we read that the son of an Israelitish woman whose
father was an Egyptian blasphemed the name, D$n aps^ as
we translate it. But in ver. 16 the Septuagint already
translates it as if = he named the name (ovofjid^wv TO ovo^a) ;
and the exegesis of the Jewish commentators on the
passage is " he who names the name rw shall be killed."
This superstitious reverence of later Judaism appears in
many ways ; for example, in the Targums instead of " the
Lord said," it is always " the word of the Lord said."
Gradually the name became altogether avoided, and the
word Adhonai, Lord, substituted in its place. According
to the tradition, the pronunciation of the name lingered
for a time on the priests lips, in sacred places and things,
after it was banished from the mouths of common men ;
and it is said to have been still uttered in the first times
of the Second Temple in the sanctuary at the pronunciation
of the blessing, and by the high priest on the Day of
Atonement. But from the time of the death of Simon the
Just, that is, from the first half of the third century B.C.,
it was exchanged here also for Adhonai, as had long been
the practice outside the Temple. The Jews maintain that
the knowledge of the true pronunciation has been quite
lost since the destruction of the temple. As the name
Adhonai was substituted for it by the Jewish readers, this
passed into the Septuagint as icvpios, and into modern
versions as LOUD. It is not quite certain what induced the
Jews to substitute the word Lord for this name ; but it is
almost certain that no inference can be drawn from this sub
stitution with regard to the meaning of the word Jehovah.
The name ultimately became = the true God, God absolutely,
ORIGIN OF NAME JEHOVAH 49
as even in Isa. xl. ff. Hence Lord was a good substitute
for it. Various reasons conspire together in favour of the
pronunciation now current njrp, Ya wt (variously spelled
Jahvt, JahveTi, Yahve, Yakveh, Yahweli, etc.) First, the
name became early contracted. The common contraction
*nj at the end of names points to ]?! (as ^n^ = ^n^ ) } which
is the ordinary form of contraction such words undergo.
Again, the ancient transcription into Greek is either lafZe
or law, which express respectively the long or the con
tracted form. Theodoret transliterates the pronunciation
of the Samaritans (who continued to speak the word) lafie ;
and similar transliterations are given by other writers,
e.g. Clement of Alexandria. The traditional etymology
points in the same direction. 1 According to this deriva
tion the word is third singular imperfect of the verb mn
in its archaic form the old imperfect of which would be
spelled njrp equally in Kal and Hiphil. We may assume
that this is the true pronunciation of the word.
As to its origin and meaning, it may be assumed on
various grounds that the name, although it somehow
received new currency and significance in connection with
Israel from Moses, is far older than his time. One ground
is the form of the word. It seems to be an archaic form
in which v fills the place of the more modern y. But
certainly in Moses time the change into y in the verb rvn
had already long taken place. In the cognate languages
the v remains, and the name must belong to a time when
Hebrew had not dissociated itself so far from its sister
tongues as it had done by the time when Israel had be
come a nation. The second ground is the general repre-
1 Various etymologies have been suggested. Some have referred the name
to the Arab havah, to breathe or blow, Yahveh being the god who is heard in
the storm, whose breath is the wind, and the thunder his voice. Others
think of havah in the sense of to fall, causative to fell, and take Yahveh to
be he who/a^/s (the meteorite or Baitylion), or he who fells, i.e. prostrates
Avith his thunderbolt, again the Storm-god. Others, again, refer the word
to havah (archaic form of hayali) = to be, in the causative = to make to be ;
thus Yahveh would be he who brings into existence, either nature or events
the Creator or the providential Ruler. These and other conjectures,
however, have little value.
4
50 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
sentation of the history, according to which the name is
ancient. Not only is Jahweh the same God as the
fathers worshipped, for He says to Moses, "I am Jahweh "
and again, " I am the God of thy fathers " ; but the
history declares expressly of the time of Enos, " then began
men to call on the name of Jahweh" (Gen. iv. 26); and
the writers of the history put the name into the mouths
of the forefathers of Israel. Added to this is the fact
that the name appears already in a contracted form nj in
the Song at the Eed Sea, which implies some considerable
term of existence ; and that it enters into composition in
the name Jbchebed, the mother of Moses. No doubt these
inferences as to the antiquity of the name may seem
difficult to reconcile with that other statement made in
Exodus, that the name was not known to the patriarchs :
" I appeared unto the fathers as El Shaddai, but by My
name Jahweh was I not known to them." But this can
hardly mean that the name was unknown, but only that
its real significance had never yet been experienced by
them, and that now God would manifest Himself fully
in the character expressed by this name, which from
henceforth became His name as God of Israel.
Some scholars have endeavoured to make it probable
that the name was learned by Moses from the Midianite or
Kenite tribes, into a priestly family of which he had
married. They argue that the name was used by these
tribes for the god whom they worshipped, and whose seat
they supposed to be on one of the high mountains in the
desert, where they roamed and pastured their flocks. It
was when Moses had led the flocks of his father-in-law to
the back of Horeb that Jahweh appeared to him in a
burning bush. It was to the same locality that Moses led
the people to worship this God, and to receive from Him
His law. It is not at all certain where Sinai or Horeb
lay ; the traditional modern site is not beyond question.
In the ancient hymn, the Blessing of Moses, in Deut.
xxxiii., it is said : " Jehovah came from Sinai, and rose from
Seir unto them ; He shined forth from Mount Paran."
THEORY OF MIDIANITE DERIVATION 51
Seir is Edom, and Mount Paran is very considerably north
of the present Sinai. The same representation occurs in
the very ancient Song of Deborah : " Jahweh, when Thou
wentest forth out of Seir, when Thou marchedst out of the
field of Edom . . . the mountains flowed down at the
presence of Jahweh, even yon Sinai at the presence of
Jahweh, the God of Israel " (Judg. v. 4, 5). And there
are other similar passages. The question of the situation
of Sinai, however, is of little consequence. More interest
ing is the question whether Sinai was thought to be the
local seat of Jehovah, and whether He and His name
were known to the tribe to which Moses was related by
marriage. Elijah, the great upholder of Jehovah s sole
worship in Israel, fled from Jezebel, and went to the
mount of God. But the prophet, who said : " If Jehovah
be God, follow Him ; but if Baal, then follow him "
(1 Kings xviii. 21), would scarcely fancy that Jehovah
had any particular seat. His seeking the mount of God
is sufficiently explained by the historical manifestation
at the giving of the Law. Might we suppose that the
fact that Moses led the people to Sinai was sufficiently
explained by Jehovah s manifestation to himself in the
bush ? Or is it not possible that at that time Jehovah
was thought to have a connection specially with this
region. If He had, then it would be natural that the
tribes about the mountain worshipped Him. When the
people sought leave of Pharaoh to go and sacrifice to their
God, Moses said : " The God of the Hebrews hath met with
us ; let us go, we pray thee, three days journey into the
wilderness, and sacrifice to Jehovah our God, lest He fall
upon us with pestilence " (Ex. v. 3). This might seem to
imply that Jehovah was specially to be found in the
wilderness. As the Israelites sojourned in the south of
Palestine, on the borders of the desert, before going down
to Egypt, and as their abode when in Egypt was in the
east of the country bordering still on the desert, it might
be that some of the tribes were allied with them in
religion. It is, of course, known that the Kenites attached
52 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
themselves to Israel ; and in Judg. iv. 1 1 the Kenites
appear identified with the Midianites, the relatives of
Moses ; for it is said : " Now Heber the Kenite had
severed himself from the Kenites, even from the children
of Hobab, the father-in-law of Moses, and had pitched his
tent near by Kadesh." Hebrew tradition, however, nowhere
shows any trace of the idea that Jehovah was worshipped
by any tribe except Israel itself. When Hobab came to
visit Moses and the camp of Israel, and Moses narrated to
him the wonders done by Jehovah in Egypt, and His
redemption of Israel, he exclaimed : " Now know I that
Jehovah is greater than all gods" (Ex. xviii. 11). In
the description, too, of the manifestation of Jehovah on
Mount Sinai at the giving of the Law, it is said that He
had come down upon the mountain ; a method of speaking
which does not imply that He had His permanent seat
there. 1
1 It is held by some that the word Jahweh, or a similar term, occurs in
Assyrian. Hommel claims to have found a Divine name I, Ai t or Ya, in
Western Shemitic, the original, he thinks, of which the Hebrew m.T was a
later expansion. The Rev. G. Margoliouth regards the Babylonian IA, EA,
HE A, and the Hebrew Yah as forming an equation (Contemporary Review,
Oct. 1898). President Warren, of Boston, takes substantially the same view,
only refusing to identify, as Mr. Margoliouth does, the Babylonian EA with
Sin, the Moon-god. He looks upon the shorter form JH, Yah, as the West
Shemitic form of the East Shemitic EA, or Proto- Shemitic EA, and applies
this account of Jah, Jahweh, to the explanation of the call of Moses (the
serpent being Ea s familiar symbol), the changing of water into blood, the
unlevitical libation of water to Jehovah mentioned in 1 Sam. vii. 6, the signs
asked by Gideon (Judg. vi. 36-40), the healing of the waters of Marali, the
production of water from the smitten rock, etc. (Methodist Review, January
1902 ; also a paper by Dr. Hans Spoer in the American Journal of Semitic
Languages and Literatures, xviii. 1). Carrying out to its utmost length
the disposition, represented by Winckler, Radau, and others, to regard Israel
as dependent for most things on Babylonian civilisation and religion, Professor
Friedrich Delitzsch now claims that even the idea of God is Babylonian,
and revives the theory that El originally expressed the conception of goal.
He thinks that this goal was held to be one, and asserts that he finds
even the Divine name Yahweh, and the phrase " Yahweh is God," in early
Babylonian texts (see his Babel und Bibd]. He reads the words in question
as la-ah-ve-ilu, la-hu-um-ilu, and takes the rendering to be "Jahweh is
God." But the translations are of the most doubtful kind. See Gunkel s
Israel und Babylonien, Koberle s Babylonische Cultur und biblische Religion,
Konig s Bilel und Babel, Kittel s Der Balel-Bibel-Streit und die Offen-
ETYMOLOGY OF THE NAME 53
In an interesting essay on the name, Baudissin proves,
I think, conclusively these two points : first, that the
many forms and examples of the name to be found in
Greek, on amulets and in other inscriptions, are all deriv
able from the word as pronounced Yahweh, i.e. as used
among the Jewish people ; and second, that there is no
trace of the term as a name for God among other Shemitic
speaking nations. 1 It is often found used by such nations,
but always seems derived from Israel. This would seem to
imply that the name is a peculiar heritage of Israel ; though
this would not in any way interfere with the antiquity
of the name, nor with its derivation from a root common
to all the Shemitic languages. The word amlak used for
God in Ethiopia is peculiar to this division of the Shemitic
races ; but it may probably be very ancient, and is certainly
formed from a root common to them all. But since the
name is peculiar to Israel, we are thrown entirely upon
what information we can glean from statements made in
the Old Testament regarding its meaning, and upon our
own conjectures from the sense of the root and the form
of the word.
As to the fact that the Old Testament connects the
name with the verb n s n to ~be, it is extremely difficult to
say in such cases of apparent etymologising whether there
be a real derivation or only a reference by way of play to
a root of similar sound. Thus Eve called her son ]]p_, for
she said, " I have gotten 00^5) a m an from the Lord "
(Gen. iv. 1). The word pp has a similar sound, but
probably a different sense from njp. The daughter of
Pharaoh called the child whom she rescued Moshe
" because I have drawn him out of the water, W p "
(Ex. ii. 10); but the name Moses is probably purely
Egyptian, and the reference to the Hebrew verb a mere
play. The same may certainly be the case with the word
barungsfrage, Leimdorier s Der Jhwh-Fund von Babel in der Bibel, etc. etc.
On the Tetragrammaton, see Driver in Studia Biblica, 1885 ; T. Tyler in the
Jewish Quarterly Review, July 1901, etc. ED.
1 See his Studien zur Semitischen lieligionsgeschichte. ED.
54 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Jahweh ; its connection with the verb n\i in its ordinary
sense may be merely a play. Still, even if this were so,
we have in this play, if not certainty as to the origin of
the name, an indication of what it meant. At the time
when this etymology arose arid was current, the meaning of
the name Jahweh to Israel could be expressed by the im
perfect of the verb ;rn, to be the modern rrriN, or at least
the fuller formula ** "IB>N was felt to give the significa
tion of the ancient Jahweh. We cannot be certain, of
course, when the passage in Exodus was written. But
even if in its written form it is the product of a much
later age, it most probably expresses an old historical
tradition. Much of the Pentateuch may be in its present
form of comparatively late date, and not unnaturally a
writer living in a late age may mix up some of his own
conceptions with those of a former time, and colour his
delineations of the past with ideas that belong to his own
time. But wholesale fabrications of a past history from
the point of view of a more modern age are very improb
able. And this improbability is indefinitely heightened in
the domain of ancient Shemitic literature.
To Moses the name Jahweh, which he elevated into
such prominence, must have had a meaning of its own,
and he is just as likely to have connected that ancient
name with the verb rrn as the prophet Hosea, who certainly
does so. It is to be noticed that the Old Testament con
nects the name with the verb nTi in its modern sense.
The imperfect Qal of the verb ppn, as used in the times
of Moses and Hosea, expresses the meaning of Jahweh.
It is certainly possible that the ancient name Jahweh is
derived from this verb in its more ancient and primary
sense. This sense is probably to fall ; and some, as we
have said, have supposed the name mrp to be a Hiphil
from this, and to mean the feller, the prostrator a name
which would be allied to D^K and ^V (if the last were
derived from *n^, which is not likely) ; just as others have
supposed it to be a Hiphil, in the sense of to cause to be,
and meaning the Creator. But such inquiries lie without
MEANING NOT METAPHYSICAL 55
the Old Testament horizon. To the Israelites of history
the covenant name Jahweh has a meaning which may be
expressed by the first singular imperfect Qal of nM, to be.
Now, two things must be premised about this verb. First,
the imperfect of such a stative verb as ifn must be taken
in the sense of a future. I do not think there is in the
Hebrew Bible a case of the imperfect of this verb having
the sense of the English present. This is expressed by the
perfect. The word means to fall, fall out, become ; hence
its perfect is equivalent to to be. The imperfect must be
rendered, / will be. Second, rvn does not mean to be
essentially, but to be phenomenally ; it is not elvat,, but
<yiveaQai. It cannot be used ordinarily to express being
in the sense of existence. Now these two facts regarding
rpn exclude a large number of conjectures as to the mean
ing of Jahweh. In the first place, the translation I am is
doubly false : the tense is wrong, being present ; and the
idea is wrong, because am is used in the sense of essential
existence. All those interpretations which proceed upon
the supposition that the word is a name of God as the
self-existent, the absolute, of which the Septuagint s o &v
is the most conspicuous illustration, must be set aside.
Apart from the fact that such abstract conceptions are
quite out of keeping with the simplicity and concreteness
of Oriental thought, especially in the most early times,
the nature of the verb and the tense peremptorily forbid
them.
Second, the translation / will be, or I will be what
I will be, while right as to tense, must be guarded also
against having a metaphysical sense imported into the
words will be. Some have supposed that the expression
denoted the eternity of God, or the self - consistence of
God, or His absolute freedom and His inviolability from
all sides of the creature universe ; but these constructions
also put a sense upon rvn which it cannot bear. The
expression / will be is a historical formula ; it refers, not
to what God will be in Himself ; it is no predication
regarding His nature, but one regarding what He will
56 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
approve Himself to others, regarding what He will show
Himself to be to those iu covenant with Him. The name is
not a name like Elohim, which expresses God on the side of
His being, as essential, manifold power ; it is a word that
expresses rather relation Elohim in relation to Israel is
Jahweh. In this respect the word has almost the same
signification as the term B^f holy ; the "to* i? and Jahweh
are one. It is in this sense that Hosea says to Israel :
D37 tf K7 / will not be to you ; but I " will save them by
the Lord their God" (njrPa) i.e. as Jahweh their God
(i. 7, 9).
In Exodus the formula appears in two shapes the
simple rrriK, / will be, and the larger N ntr N , / will be
that I will be. But it is evident that the lesser formula is
a full expression of the name "say unto the children of
Israel that hath sent me unto you." The name is, / -will
be. Thus it is equivalent almost to o ep^o/^ez/o? he who is
to come ; it premises God, a God known ; it promises His
fuller manifestation, His ever closer nearness, His clearer
revelation of His glory. And the burden of all the Old
Testament prophets is : The Lord shall come : " Say
unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God ! Behold, the
Lord God will come with strong hand ; " " the glory of the
Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together "
(Isa. xl. 9, 5). / will be, or, / will be it; but what He
will be has to be filled up by a consciousness of God
already existing, and always receiving from every new
manifestation of Him new contents. But it- is clear that
if rrnK be really the name, then the second part of the
longer formula K -I^ K, what I will be, is unimportant, and
cannot sustain the emphasis of the proposition. It can
do nothing more than give body to the first / will be.
It may mean / will be, I wlio will be. Or if it mean " I
will be what I will be," it resembles the expression in
Ex. xxxiii. 9, " I will have mercy on whom I will have
mercy," the meaning of which would appear better if it
were read, " On whom I will have mercy, I will have
mercy " ; I will have mercy fully, absolutely. The idea of
THE FORMULA IN EXODUS 57
selection scarcely lies in the formula ; it is rather the
strong emphatic affirmation, / will have mercy.
It may occur to one that such a sense of Jahweh can
hardly be its primary one. But we must recall results
already reached, e.g. that the name is purely Israelitish ;
that Israel had a name for God in general, namely, Elohim,
common to it and the other Shemitic peoples ; and that
what it now needed was not a new name for God in His
nature or being, but a name expressive of His new relation
to itself. Israel did not need to be instructed that there
was a God, or that He was all-powerful. It needed to
know that He had entered into positive covenant relations
with itself ; that He was present always in Israel ; that the
whole wealth of His being of what He was, He had pro
mised to reveal, and to give to His chosen people. Elohim
says to Israel D^b n\iK ; and in this relation He is mrv.
He who will be is already known ; what He will be is not
expressed ; it is a great inexpressible silence contents im
measurable, blessing unspeakable in a word, DTii>K.
It is certainly possible that another construction may
be put upon the words, which, though somewhat different,
leaves the truth expressed very much the same. 1 will le
may express something like uniformity in God, the constant
sameness of God in His relation to Israel. This gives a
sense not unlike the translation / am, namely, that of the
unchanging nature of God. But in the one case, in the
translation / am, the reference is more to God s essential
being, in the other more to His unvarying relation to
Israel. This latter is far more likely, in view of the
ancient manner of speaking, especially among Eastern
nations, and it is far more pertinent in the circumstances.
The words express not that Israel had God among them,
one who was unchangeable, self-existent in His nature,
but rather what kind of God they had one constant,
faithful, ever the same, in whom they could trust, to
whom they could flee, who was their dwelling-place in all
generations. And hence a prophet says, " I am Jehovah ;
I change not" (Mai. iii. 6\ At all events this is to be
58 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
held fast, that the name expresses not God s essential nature,
but His relation to Israel as the God of the covenant.
But speculations on the meaning of this name are less
fruitful than observation of what Scripture says in regard
to Him. It is from this we can gather the ideas enter
tained by the people.
5. Jehovah the God of Israel.
A question of great interest now arises, What is in
volved in saying that Jehovah was the God of Israel ?
How much meaning in relation, say, to the general idea
of the absolute unity of God, or to Monotheism, may we
suppose to lie in the phrase ?
We have said that Jahweh and Elohim are not names
parallel ; Jahweh is Elohim in relation to Israel, Jahweh
is Elohim saying rrriK. And Elohim saying rvns is Elohim
of Israel. But thus Jahweh became the name of the
Elohim of Israel or rather of Elohim in Israel. This is
certainly the way of thinking among the great prophets
of the eighth and ninth centuries before Christ. Jahweh
is not to them a God among other gods, neither is Jahweh
God simply. He is God in Israel God saying / will be,
God in the act of unveiling His face more and more, in
the act of communicating the riches of Himself more
and more, in the act of pouring out all His contents into
the life of Israel ; or God as the constant One, the
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
It is not easy to state with certainty what is included
in the expression "Jahweh, God of Israel," and excluded
by it. In order to estimate it fairly, we have to take into
account not merely the form of expression, but the facts of
history bearing on its meaning, and the conduct of those
who professed this belief. But in taking into account
history, a multitude of considerations have to be attended
to. Israel was a numerous people; its past history had
made it not a homogeneous, but a composite nation.
Narratives, the veracity of which we have no reason to
JEHOVAH GOD OF ISRAEL 59
doubt, represent the people in the wilderness as a mixed
multitude. Egyptian elements no doubt entered to some
extent into the nation. Then it must have gathered foreign
though kindred elements from the Shemitic tribes whom it
encountered in the wilderness. The Kenites, who play an
important part in Israel s history, attached themselves to it
there. Moreover, it is plain that Israel on entering Canaan
neither put to the sword nor dispossessed in any great
measure the native races, but merely subjected them to
tribute, and ultimately absorbed them into itself. It is
evident that into the Israelitish nation which history deals
with, elements of the most diverse kinds entered, and that
classes existed differing very widely from one another in
culture and morals. When it is asked, therefore, what is
meant by saying " Jaliweh was God of Israel," the answer
may be that it meant very different things among different
classes. And history may bring too often to light this
unfortunate divergence. But manifestly we ought to ask,
What did it mean in the minds of those who were the
religious leaders of the people, such as Moses, and Samuel,
and David, and the like ?
Now it is plain, first of all, that it meant that Israel
was to worship no other God. The first commandment
is, " I am Jahweh ; thou shalt have no other gods in My
presence." Israel s worship was confined to one God-
to God under one name, Jahweh. Not only the first
commandment, but every element in the constitution bore
this meaning. The expression and idea of a covenant had
this in view it made the people Jahweh s. And so was
it with all the separate provisions of the covenant. The
Sabbath, which was but an intensification of the idea that
Israel s whole life was dedicated ; the offering of the first
born, which meant the nation in its strength (implying all
its increase) ; the first-fruits of the harvest, and much else,
particularly the appearing of all the males before Jahweh
three times a year, all these things were but expressions
of the fundamental idea that Israel was Jahweh s His
or peculiar 1 possession, His alone.
60 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
But it becomes a question, Did this particularism
amount to Monotheism ? Was Jahweh, whom alone Israel
worshipped, God alone ? Such a question can be answered
only by an induction of the attributes of Jahweh and of
the facts of history. And this is not easy to make.
On the one hand, it is known that each separate people
of antiquity had its national god, and that one god
worshipped did not necessarily imply one god believed in.
The separate peoples, while each worshipping its own
god, did not deny the existence of the gods of their
neighbours. And in all likelihood among Israel very
many stood on no higher platform than this Jahweh
was God of Israel; but Chemosh was god of Ammon.
It is scarcely possible to explain Israel s history and the
persistent falls into idolatry of a large part of the nation,
unless we start with some such supposition as this that
to a great number in the nation Jahweh was merely the
national God. If any higher idea was laid before them,
they had not been able with any depth or endurance to
take it in. But the question is, Was it laid before them
by Moses and the founders of the Theocracy ? The first
commandment contents itself with prohibiting Israel from
serving a plurality of gods ; it does not in words rise to
the affirmation of Monotheism. But in like manner the
seventh prohibits merely Israel from committing adultery,
and the sixth from murder ; they contain no hint that
these injunctions have a universal bearing, and are funda
mental laws of human well-being. The laws are all cast
into the form of particular prohibitions. But who can
doubt that the comprehensive mind which ministered to
Israel those profound abstractions concerning purity and
regard for life and truth and respect for property, per
ceived that they expressed the fundamental principles of
human society ? And is it supposable that with such
insight into morality he stood on so low a platform in
religion as to rise no higher than national particularism ?
Of course, we must take such evidence as we have,
and must not judge antiquity and the East by our modern
PREPARATIONS FOR MONOTHEISM 61
ideas in the West. A Shemitic mind would rise to the
idea of unity probably very gradually, and through attach
ing attributes to his national god which excluded all rivals.
If we look down the Decalogue a little further, we come
in the fourth commandment to a remarkable statement re
garding Jahweh : " In six days Jahweh made the heavens
and the earth." Jahweh, God of Israel, is Creator of the
universe. He who wrote this sentence was certainly a
virtual raonotheist. Perhaps the thought did not rise in
his mind as it does in ours, that the existence of such a
Being excluded all other beings who might be called
Elohiin. But one with such a practical faith stood to
Jahweh much as believers in the unity of God stand to
Him now. And it cannot be doubted that all the leading
minds in Israel, and many of the people, had from the
beginning reached this high platform.
Perhaps we may observe even in the patriarchal age
a tendency in an upward direction and an advance upon
the stage indicated by the names which were common to
Israel and the kindred races at the beginning. While the
family of Abraham maintained the common name Eloliim
for God, as expressing the general idea, and El, used also
as a personal name, we notice what might be called a
potentiation of the latter name, a tendency to unite it with
epithets which both elevate the conception expressed by it,
and distinguish the Being whom the patriarchs called El
from others who might be so named. Such names are,
El Elyon, " God most High " ; El Hai, " the living God " ;
El Shaddai, " God Almighty," or " God of overpowering
might." Even in such names as Adon, Baal, El, there is
already a step made towards Monotheism, the Being named
God has been abstracted from nature. He is no more the
mere phenomenon, nor even the power in the phenomenon.
He is the power above the phenomenon. And the parti
cularism, as it is called, of the Shemitic peoples, or their
monolatry, which is so peculiar to them as distinguished
from the Western nations, that is, the fact that they had
each a national or tribal god, whom they worshipped alone
62 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
as their god, without, it may be, calling in question the
existence of other tribal gods whom their neighbours
worshipped, or inquiring whether other gods than their
own existed or not, this peculiarity, if it cannot be called
Monotheism, forms at last a high vantage ground from
which a march towards Monotheism may commence. And
it is probable that we see in the patriarchal names just
referred to, particularly in El Shaddai, the advance in the
family of Abraham towards both the unity and the spiritu
ality of God. He who called God El Shaddai, and
worshipped Him as the Almighty, might not have the
abstract or general conception in his mind that He was
the only powerful Being existing. But, at least to him
He was the supreme power in heaven and in earth, and He
had given him His fellowship, and was condescending to
guide his life. And when one named the Being whom he
served the eternal God, or the living God, though he might
not have present before his mind the general conception of
what we call the spirituality of God, yet practically the
effect must have been much the same. For He who existed
from eternity and had life in Himself could not be part
of that material world everywhere subject to change, nor
could He exist in flesh which decayed.
The manner of thinking among these ancient saints of
God was very different from ours. We are the heirs of
all the ages. There lie behind us centuries of speculation
regarding God; and we have reached an abstract and
general conception of God to which, if there be any actual
God, He must correspond. But these men were pursuing
the opposite course. They started from the assurance of
the existence of a Being whom they named God, whom
they considered a person in close relation with their life ;
and their general thoughts of Him were few, and only rose
to their mind gradually, one after another, as their life and
history suggested them. And the history of the people of
God enables us to observe how these great thoughts of
what God was rose like stars, one in succession to another,
upon their horizon ; thoughts which we, who have inherited
A PRACTICAL MONOTHEISM 63
the mental riches of these great men, now are able to unite
together into one great constellation and call it God.
The religion of Israel was practical, not speculative ;
and while a practical Monotheism prevailed, and gave rise
to all that profound religious life which we see in such
men as Moses and Samuel and David and the prophets, it
perhaps needed that internal conflict which arose through
the slowness of the popular mind, and the degradation
of the popular morals arising from absorbing the native
Canaanite, to bring into speculative clearness the doctrines
of Monotheism and Spirituality. The whole history of
Israel is filled with this internal conflict between the
strict worshippers of Jahweh and those who showed a
leaning to other gods. And while all the leading minds
held, and when they were writers expressed, conceptions of
Jahweh which to our minds would have excluded the
existence of all else named God, it is not perhaps till
the age of Jeremiah that the speculative truth is clearly
announced that there is no God but Jahweh. I exclude
from consideration here the Book of Deuteronomy, the age
of which is contested.
In estimating evidence on this question, however, we
must always take the state of thought in those ages into
account, and the condition of religion among the neighbour
ing peoples. Much is said in Scripture which reflects not
the point of view of Israel, but that of the heathen peoples
about, and the facts of religious practice in the world at
the time. For example, in the hymn sung at the Bed Sea
it is said : " Who is like unto Thee, Jahweh, among
the gods ? who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful
in praises, doing wonders ? " (Ex. xv. 11). There it is
certainly said, as elsewhere, of Israel s God, that He is
incomparable. But it seems admitted that though supreme,
He is just one God among others. Yet this last inference
might be very mistaken. The language reposes upon the
fact that the heathen nations had gods whom they wor
shipped, and is based merely upon the general religious
conditions of the time. In a late Psalm (Ps. xcvii.),
64 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
certainly written after the expression of a theoretical
Monotheism by such prophets as Jeremiah and the Second
Isaiah, we read : " Great is Jahweh ; He is to be feared
above all gods." And had we no more we might suppose
the author to admit the existence of other objects of
worship along with Jahweh, although he might put them on
a meaner level. But he immediately adds : " For all the
gods of the nations are vanities," D v^, non-existences ;
" but Jahweh made the heavens." And David, who was
certainly a monotheist, uses similar phraseology when he
identifies being banished from the land of Israel with
serving other gods (1 Sam. xxvi. 19). Such language
arises from the religious conditions of the age, and we
cannot draw any conclusions from it as to the actual
views of the persons in Israel using it. We ourselves
still speak of the gods of the heathen, and our classical
education makes us many times refer to them as actual
entities. But this arises from identifying ourselves in
thought with the ancients ; we do not, when the matter
is seriously before our minds, give any weight to the
language we ourselves employ. A great deal too much
weight has been attached by writers like Kuenen and
others, whose object is to demonstrate a progressive ad
vance from a mere national particularism to a true
Monotheism, to such expressions as those which we have
been considering. Such formulas may mean much or
little, according to the position of the persons in whose
mouths they occur ; and certainly much more discrimination
needs to be practised in estimating their value than is done
by Kuenen.
This class of writers admit that from the age of
Jeremiah a theoretical Monotheism prevailed in Israel.
And this may be held as conceded on all hands. Two
questions, however, arise in regard to this theoretical Mono
theism. First, was it a view held by the older prophets,
by the prophets from the beginning, or may we observe
the rise of the view among the prophets whose writings we
possess ? And second, suppose we find that it was virtually
THE HEATHEN GODS 65
the view of the prophets from the beginning, though they
may not have occasion to express the view in a very
general way, being only interested on insisting on a
practical Monotheism in Israel, was it the view current
in Israel from the foundation of the commonwealth, i.e.
from the Exodus ?
In the age of Jeremiah such things are said of the
heathen gods as leave us in no doubt that the prophets
had reached the idea of a theoretical Monotheism ; for,
e.g., these gods are named nothing, \]$v, Isa. xli. 24 ;
chaos, inh, Isa. xli. 29; falsehood/ "^ , Jer. x. 14;
vanity, K1^, Jer. xviii. 15; wind or vapour, i>2n,
Jer. ii. 5 ; nonentities, B W>, Ezek. xxx. 13; no gods,
i>N &6, Jer. ii. 11: abomination, nnjrtn, Jer. xvi. 18; to
be loathed, HPP, Jer. iv. 1 ; shame, nvz, Jer. iii. 24.
But long before Jeremiah, terms of a similar kind are
employed. In Hos. xiii. 4 we read : " Thou knowest no
God but Me ; there is no saviour beside Me." And again
he says of the idols, " They are no god," ^ t& (viii. 6) :
and he even calls them & absolutely or ^, i.e. not.
Jehovah is the universal Governor. He brought the
Syrians from Kir as well as Israel from Egypt (Amos
ix. 7). In Mic. iv. 13 He is called "the Lord of the
whole earth." In Amos His rule and judgment apply to
all nations, whom He chastises for their infringements of
the common laws of humanity. In Isaiah Jehovah moves
on a swift cloud and flies to Egypt, and all the idols of
Egypt are moved at His presence ; and speedily Egypt shall
be part of His Kingdom, and Israel shall be a third with
Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of
the earth, whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying:
" Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My
hands, and Israel Mine inheritance" (xix. 25). The only
difference between the earlier and the later in regard to
this subject seems to be that while the same doctrine of the
unity of God is professed and taught by all, in the earlier
prophets it is presupposed and expressed more in concrete
form ; while in the later, on account of conflicts that had
5
66 THE THEOLOGY OF TITE OLD TESTAMENT
arisen within the nation, and from the political relations
into which the people had entered with idolatrous nations
abroad, the subject had become more one of abstract
thought, and the prophets had occasion to formulate the
faith of the nation more sharply in opposition to tendencies
of thought that came in upon Israel from without, and
currents originated by these tendencies from within.
But even during all the prophetic period, no less after
than before Jeremiah, that mode of speaking still pre
vailed which referred to the idols of the nations as having a
real existence and as being real gods. This way of speak
ing was one natural to the ancient world. It less readily
occurred to an ancient thinker, who observed nations
around him devoutly attached to their gods, to imagine
that these had no existence, or to present to his own mind
the idea that such deities were mere impersonations of the
religious notions of the human mind. But when the
prophets have the question before their own mind they are
at one in denying any reality to the gods of the nations
there is one God, Jehovah, God of Israel. We observe,
indeed, the same twofold method of speaking in the New
Testament. At one time St. Paul says: "An idol is
nothing in the world" (1 Cor. viii. 4), and hence meat
sacrificed to idols is neither better nor worse than other
meat, if a man have understanding and faith to perceive
that this is the case. But as this is not the case with all
men, the idol becomes to the apostle that which those who
believed in it held it to be, something that had a real
existence ; " But I say, the things which the Gentiles
sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God : and
I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.
... Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord s table, and of
the table of devils" (1 Cor. x. 20, 21).
What is said of the prophets before Jeremiah is true
of the writers who preceded these prophets. They profess
not only faith in Jehovah as alone God of Israel, but faith
in Him as the only God. Thus in the xviiith Psalm, the
undoubted composition of David, we find it said : " Who is
HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS OF THE NAME G7
God save Jehovah ? and who is a rock save our God ? "
(ver. 31). Of. also Ps. vii. 8 and Ex. xix. 5. In the
former passage, part of an ancient Psalm, Jehovah judges
the nations ; in the latter a passage belonging to the
oldest literature Jehovah has all the earth as His own.
God in giving His revelation to Israel was, first of all,
intent that this people should worship Him alone, that
they should be practically monotheists. It was religion
that was first necessary, a practical faith, in order to a
pure life. Hence expression of the doctrines of this faith
in a theoretical form was little attended to. With the
practice, the life, there gradually rose to the surface of the
mind the theoretical form of the truth. This explains the
form in which the commandments are given ; how for
long the doctrines regarding God are expressed in the
practical concrete form ; and how only late in the history
of Israel and as occasion occurred did these doctrines
acquire a theoretical expression. But the doctrines were
the same from the beginning.
6. The historical occasion of the application of the
Name Jehovah.
If we could realise to ourselves the circumstances in
which the name Jehovah came into prominence in connec
tion with Israel, it would undoubtedly help us. We have
two narratives of these circumstances, one in Ex. vi. and
another in Ex. iii. Modern scholars recognise different
writers in these two passages, and it is not quite easy to
reconcile the two statements made by them with one
another. The account in Ex. vi. is brief, that in Ex. iii.
circumstantial ; and it is in the latter that we have what
appears to be an explanation of the name. The former (Ex.
vi. 24) is as follows : " And God spake unto Moses, and
said unto him, I am Jahweh ; and I appeared unto Abraham,
unto Isaac, and unto Jacob as El Shaddai ( > ^3), but (as
to) My name Jahweh I was not known to them " (or, " I did
not let Myself be known by them "). The writer who uses
68 THE THEOLOGY OF THK OLD TESTAMENT
these words is supposed to be the same who in Gen. i. says,
" In the beginning God created, &rbx aoa, the heavens and
the earth " ; and who in Gen. xvii. 1 represents God in His
appearance to Abraham as saying, " I am El Shaddai " ;
and now he introduces God saying, " I am Jahweh" In
other words, he is supposed to have a general view of the
progress of revelation and of the Divine names : first, in
the times before Abraham the name of God was Elohim,
or El ; second, in the Patriarchal age it was El Shaddai,
from Abraham onwards ; and in the Mosaic age and hence
forward it was Jakweh. And in conformity with this view
it is supposed that the writer avoided the name Jaliweli
in his historical sketch of ancient times, till he reached in
his narrative this revelation to Moses, when God called
Himself Jahweh.
If this be an accurate account of the facts, we may be
obliged to assume a certain difference of tradition, for in
other parts of Genesis the name Jahweh is assumed to exist
in pre-Mosaic times. Thus it is not only freely put into
the mouth of the Patriarchs, which might be due merely to
usage ; but it is expressly said of men in the times of Enos,
the son of Seth : " Then began men to call upon the name
of Jahweh" (Gen. iv. 26). Looking at these facts, it is
certainly more probable that the author of Ex. vi. does not
mean to deny that the name Jahweh was older than Moses,
or unknown before his day. He denies rather that it had
Divine sanction before his day, and regards it as appropriated
by God now and authorised as part of His manifestation of
Himself, as that which He revealed of Himself at this
new turning-point in the history of redemption. This is
probably the meaning, because the words are not " My name
Jahweh was not known to them " (SH^), but " in or, as to,
My name Jahweh, I was not known by them," or, " I did
not become known Oiunfo) to them." This interpretation
admits the view, which is certainly likely, that the name
was old ; it introduces no discrepancy into the various
narratives in Genesis ; and it is in harmony with the other
passage in Exodus. On all hands it is admitted that in His
THE PASSAGES IN EXODUS 69
revelation to Moses, God appropriated the name Jahweh to
Himself, and stamped it as the name expressive of His
relation to Israel now about to be entered into and mani
fested in deeds of redemption, and in memory of these
deeds to be henceforth His peculiar name as God in Israel.
It is in the other passage, however, Ex. iii., that more
details are supplied, and where there is given what some
have supposed to be an etymology of the name. There
it is narrated how, as Moses kept the flocks of Jethro
on Horeb, the angel of Jahweh appeared to him in a bush
that burned, but did not consume. The angel of Jahweh
here, according to the usage, is not any created angel ;
it is Jehovah Himself in manifestation, for He immediately
says : " I am the God of Abraham." Moses turned aside
to see the great sight, and the Lord addressed him from
the bush, and said : " I am the God of thy father, the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."
This is the first point, God who now appeared to him
was the same God who had appeared to the fathers, and
led them. The Being is the same, but as yet there is no
reference to His peculiar name. But the cause of His mani
festation of Himself now lies in His relation to the seed
of Abraham, His friend : " I have seen the affliction of My
people, . . . and am come down to deliver them out of the
hand of the Egyptians " ; in which great operation Moses
must serve him : " Come now, therefore, and I will send
thee unto Pharaoh." Moses shrank from the great task,
and pleaded his unfitness : " Who am I, that I should go
unto Pharaoh ? " The reply of the Lord to him is significant,
and the phraseology of it of great importance : " Surely I
will be with thee" yJ njn 3__ nvi, / will be. And in
token of this great promise of His presence with him the
Lord proposes to Moses a sign. Now, as I have said, it
is of consequence to notice the phraseology used, ppntf, /
will be, because it recurs immediately. Moses is still
reluctant to undertake what seemed to him so hazardous
an enterprise ; he pictures to himself not only the dangers
he might encounter from the Egyptians, but the incredulity
70 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
with which he is likely to be met on the part of the
Hebrews "Behold, when I corne unto the children of
Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers
hath sent me unto you ; and they shall say unto me, What
is his name ? what shall I say unto them ? " And God said
unto him rPHK tf njriN ; " and he said thus shalt thou say
unto the children of Israel, nvitf hath sent me unto you."
And God added finally : " Thus shalt thou say unto the
children of Israel, Jahweh, the God of your fathers, the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath
sent me unto you : this (i.e. Jahweh) is My name for ever,
and this is My memorial unto all generations." Then
follows an amplified form of the promise to deliver the
people, and work great signs and wonders in Egypt, and
do great judgments upon that people.
Now, here the name appears in three forms : tf rvnx
rrnN, the simple rrnK, and Jahweh. Jahweh is merely the
third person, of which Ehyeh is the first ; He who says
Ehyeh when speaking of Himself is Jahweh when spoken
about. But does it not seem manifest, as has already
been indicated, that the name Ehyeh or Ehyeh asher Ehyeh
cannot be translated differently from that former expression:
" Certainly I will be with thee," ^ n^PiK ; that it is nothing
else but that promise raised into a title, and that we must
render / will be, and / will be that I will be, and, in the
third person, He will be ? It is evident that the whole
meaning of the larger phrase, " I will be that I will be,"
nx ntf, may be expressed by the shorter phrase / will be
riN, or, in the third person, n\ The addition, " that which
I will be," or as it might be rendered : " I who will be/
only adds emphasis to the preceding / will be. The
expression resembles the other declaration : " I will have
mercy on whom I will have mercy," the meaning of which
would be clearer if put in this order : " On whom I will
have mercy I will have mercy." That is to say, when He
has mercy, then, indeed, He has mercy ; and so, " that which
I will be, I will indeed be." But the point of the phrase
lies in the circumstances of misery and bondage on the part
MEANING OF THE NAME 71
of the people in which it was spoken, in the very vagueness
of the promise of interference and presence, and in the
continuousness of that presence which is suggested. The
name is a circumference the contents of which cannot
be expressed. He who relies on the same has the
assurance of One, the God of his fathers, who will be
with him. What He shall be to him when with him the
memory of what He has been to those that have gone
before him may suggest; or his own needs and circum
stances in every stage and peril of his life will tell him.
Or his conception of God as reposing on the past and on
his own experience, and looking into the future, may project
that before his mind.
The name Jehovah does not reveal a God who was not
known. Jehovah is ?x saying : " I will be " I will approve
Myself.
The name is not one expressing special attributes of
Jehovah ; it is rather a name expressive of that which all
His attributes make Him the same at all times, the true
in covenant, His being ever like Himself, the unchanging.
The name supplies two things absolutely necessary in
this age. (1) A personal name for God. Without this it
may be said that the people could not have been educated
into Monotheism. It brought strongly into relief His
personality His particular personality; and (2) a strong
expression of His union with this people. The name did
not express any attribute of God, or describe God as to His
essence; but it described Him in this relation to Israel
" I will be with thee."
The same general principles apply to the discussion
of another question, namely, the spirituality of Jahweh.
There also the commandment merely prohibits the repre
sentation of Israel s God under any material form. It
does not state directly that He has no such form. This
could not have been expected from a practical religion, the
object of which was to initiate men into the truth in
practical life, that gradually they might ascend to its
principles in speculation. Except the evidence of the
72 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
second commandment, there is naturally not much to rely
upon as evidence in favour of the spirituality of Jahweh.
Some evidence of an indirect kind may be found in such
statements as those in the fourth commandment. The
Creator of heaven and earth can hardly be one capable of
being presented under the species or roisn of anything
which He has created. But this, though an inference that
we should make, may not have occurred to peoples whose
mode of thought was less exact. More trustworthy
evidence, though only of a confirmatory kind, may be
found in the history of the Ark and the Tabernacle. It
is certain that no form was permitted in the Tabernacle.
Jahweh was worshipped as a formless being. The injunc
tions of the law were there carried out in practice. In
Judah almost always, we might say, the worship of Jehovah
without any image prevailed, and in Jerusalem this worship
was never interrupted.
But we may readily conceive how a coarse-minded
people had difficulty in accommodating themselves to
this abstract religion. The idea under which they con
ceived God was the powerful ; the symbol of might,
strength, was the ox. Even in the prophets the mighty
One of Israel, "^K, is called by the same name by which
the ox is called. A sensuous race could ill be restrained
from giving Jahweh a sensible form in order to realise Him
to themselves. We know how early this occurred, and how
even the weaker leaders of the people were drawn into the
error. All down the history of the people this tendency
manifested itself, and it is to be presumed that the private
sanctuaries so common in the north, particularly in the
time of the Judges, contained images of Jahweh in the
form of an ox. This was the type of power. And
the familiarity of the people with this form explains the
readiness with which Jeroboam s religious innovations were
accepted. But all this does not imply that the spirituality
of Jahweh was not a doctrine of all the higher minds in
the nation and of Mosaism itself. It merely implies that
the crass imagination of the masses had not been penetrated
THE DIVINE NATURE 73
by the idea, and that their sensuous minds, like the bulk of
the lower orders in Catholic Christendom, demanded and
welcomed some external object in order to bring before
them the real existence of their God. The case of the
great prophets Elijah and Elisha has been adduced in
order to prove that the spirituality of Jahweh was not
a doctrine of Mosaism originally, but only a development
of it belonging to the eighth century, or the age of the
literary prophets. But, in the first place, we have very
imperfect accounts of these prophets, and the accounts
we have are taken up with their conflict against a much
more serious evil, namely, the profoundly immoral worship
of Baal which the State authorities had introduced. That
they contented themselves with contending against this, or
that their contentions against minor evils should be over
looked in their great warfare against fundamental per
versions of the theocratic idea, was not unnatural. We
have no writings from these prophets, Elijah and Elisha ;
but the first writings that we possess contain strenuous
protests against all images of Jehovah, the setting up of
which is identified with idolatry, and the images themselves
are called by the odious names of Baals.
III. THE DOCTRINE OF GOD THE DIVINE
NATURE.
1 . The Knowledge of God.
The existence of God is not a doctrine of Scripture in
the sense that Scripture directly teaches it. It is assumed
there as a fact, and as an element in the thought of all
men ; as connate with man. If there be men who deny
it, or do not know it, it is because by a long course of
wilful wickedness they have banished the knowledge of it
from their minds, and their state is not so much miserable
as criminal. Even in their case, extreme as it is, the
knowledge that God is is not finally darkened, but only
74 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
temporarily eclipsed ; it is rather forgetfulness than final
loss they shall remember and turn unto the Lord.
It may seem hardly to be another thing, but rather
something involved in the above, when we say that Scrip
ture does not teach, but assumes, that God may be known.
We do not mean known to le, but known, seeing that He is.
Scripture does not teach that God may be known, but it
teaches these things in what ways He is known, and that
He is known so far as He gives Himself to be known.
But it always assumes as a thing undeniable that He may
be known. The doctrine of Scripture on the knowability
of God is much more extensive than its doctrine regarding
His existence. Two things have to be considered here,
namely, first, what Scripture teaches about the possibility of
knowing God ; and, second, what Scripture teaches about
God thus known. In dealing with these questions it is
not necessary to distinguish between what Scripture asserts
and what it assumes, inasmuch as its assumptions may be
considered its teaching even more than its direct affirma
tions. Now, regarding this doctrine of our knowledge of
God, we find these four positions: (1) Scripture assumes
that God may be and is known by men. (2) This know
ledge of God on the part of men is man s fellowship with
God. (3) The avenues through which this knowledge
reaches man s soul, or the regions within which man
moving meets and knows God, are many such as nature,
the spiritual life of the soul, the redemptive history,
prophecy, miracle, and so on. And (4) Scripture denies
that God can be known by man. Perhaps Scripture is
even more particular than what is here laid down. It may
also be thought to state what element or organ of man it
is that knows God immediately whether the soul or the
spirit. But if it do, that question need not be raised by us
here, because, by whatever organ or side of his nature man
knows God, it is not accurate to say that it is that organ
or side that knows. It is man that knows through or by
that organ or side ; and we are concerned meantime with
the possibility and reality of man s knowing God, not with
KNOWABILITY OF GOD ASSUMED 75
any question of what element of man it is by which he
knows, which is a question concerning anthropology.
Now, first, it is hardly needful to prove that Scripture
teaches or assumes that God may be known i.e. not that
God may be known to be, but that God who is may be
known ; not that He may be known as being or to be what
He is, but that being what He is He may be known. If I
say I know the king, I do not mean I know that the king
is, or I know what the king is ; but that the king being,
and being all that he is in office and person, I know
him I, a person, know him personally. To know in
Scripture is to be acquainted with, to have familiarity and
acquaintance with whoever is known. The Bible certainly
recognises all these four degrees of knowledge : (a) to know
that God is ; (6) to know what God is ; (c) to know
that a certain Being, or a Being who manifests Himself
in a certain way, is God ; and (d) to know God, who
so manifests Himself. Thus Scripture says : " He that
cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a
re warder of them that diligently seek Him " (Heb. xi. 6) ;
though I am not sure whether that text means to
describe the attributes of a person who does come unto
God, or the requisites of a person who shall come ; whether
it means to say : " He who cometh unto God shows himself,
by coming, to be possessed of a belief in God s existence
and in His moral government ; or to say : " If any one will
come to God, he must, in order to come, believe in God s
existence and in His moral government." But, in any case,
the distinction between the idea that God is and what God
is, is clearly recognised.
As to what God is, all that God is, this is
generally embraced in Scripture under the expression
the name of God. That term embodies all His charac
teristics is the summary of what He is. Hence it is
said, " they that know Thy name what Thou art will
put their trust in Thee" (Ps. ix. 10); and "the name of
the Lord is a strong tower : the righteous runneth into it,
and is safe" (Prov. xviii. 10). And nothing is more
76 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
common in Scripture than the idea that certain acts, or
words, or manifestations, show the Actor or Speaker to be
God "Be still, and know that I am God" (Ps. xlvi. 10);
"Believe Me for the very works sake" (John xiv. 11);
" Unto thee it was showed, that thou mightest know that
Jehovah is God. Out of heaven He made thee to hear
His voice ; and upon earth He showed thee His great
fire " (Deut. iv. 35). And it is said that God s wonders
in Egypt brought both the Israelites and the Egyptians
to know that the worker of them was God : Israel shall
know the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord
the heathen shall know that I am the Lord. And that
this Being, who is known by His works to be God, may
Himself also be known, is manifest in every line of the
Bible. Indeed, it is the object of the Bible to make Him
known the object of the Incarnation to declare Him
" that they might know Thee the only true God, and
Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent" (John xvii. 3). And
while Scripture shows how all along history God made
Himself known to men, it predicts that the time is at
hand when all shall know Him "they shall all know
Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them "
(Jer. xxxi. 34).
Further, as to the second thing the Scripture was said
to teach regarding this knowledge, namely, that it was
fellowship with God, it may perhaps be questioned if that
statement be strictly accurate. At least, if it be not
accurate to say that Scripture identifies knowledge of
God with fellowship with Him, it considers the two in
separable, and so allied that the one may be put for the
other. Christ Himself says : to know Thee is eternal life
(John xvii. 3), and calls this knowledge and life the object
of His mission. And His apostle calls the object of his
mission fellowship " that ye may have fellowship with us :
and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His
Son Jesus Christ" (1 John i. 3). But what I am con
cerned to say is that Scripture does not present God as
an object of abstract contemplation, or anticipate His
THE UNSEEN BACKGROUND 77
being made such. He is always a historical Being, with
a history, with a particular sphere of manifestations in
specific relations, and exhibiting a certain character in
these relations. No doubt there is a background, an
unseen, but that is rarely before the eye of the saint
or prophet. Occasionally, however, it is , and when it is,
he can only speak of it in negatives like ourselves. God
in that case cannot be made the subject of positive speech
or thought : " Canst thou by searching find out God ? "
(Job xi. 7). " Who hath measured the Spirit of Jehovah ? "
(Isa. xl. 13). Scripture does recognise this distinction,
which the Germans have made so much of, between im
manent and economic ; that is, God as in Himself He is,
and God as in revelation He has shown Himself to us.
But while many theologians and philosophers, in main
taining that distinction, have asserted either that God
immanent is different from God economic (a singular
position to assume, seeing the term economic must em
brace the whole circuit of our knowledge of God), or have
contented themselves with the position that we are unable
to say whether He be the same or different, Scripture
never contemplates the idea that He is different. He
is the same as we know Him to be ; only He is all that we
know Him to be, heightened so as to exceed our reach of
thinking.
It is rare, however, that Scripture deserts the region
of revelation, the very idea of which implies that God
can be known ; or the region of spiritual experience, which
is but another name for fellowship. The occasions when
it does desert this empirical realm are chiefly two : first,
when showing the absurdity of idolatry it holds up the
Incomprehensible before the idol-maker, and asks if his
idol be a proper presentation of Him ; and second, in
cases of religious desertion, or other awful and unwonted
experience in the soul, when the spirit moving amidst
mysteries is brought often to question the truth of its
ideas of God, and always to recognise that, whether true or
not, they go but a little way to express Him ; " Verily,
78 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Thou art a God that liidest Thyself, God of Israel"
(Isa. xlv. 15). Thus, what Scripture means by knowledge
of God is an ethical relation to Him ; and, on the other
side, when it says that God knows man, it means He has
sympathy and fellowship with him. All Israel s history
is filled with this reciprocal knowledge, rising up from
strength to strength, till One came who knew the Father,
and whom the Father knew in fulness : " No man knoweth
the Son but the Father ; neither knoweth any man the
Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will
reveal Him" (Matt. xi. 27).
Now, thirdly, as to the channels through which this
knowledge reaches man, or the regions moving in which
man knows or comes to the knowledge of God. Those
that Scripture recognises are very much what we insist
upon to this day, viz. nature, history, the human soul. But
I think Scripture does not make quite the same use of
these things as we do in our Natural Theology. For ex
ample, I doubt whether it regards these as primary sources
of our knowledge of the existence or of the character of God.
The position it assumes is not this : Contemplate nature
and you will learn from it, both that God is and what He
is ; but rather this : You know that God is, and what He is ;
and if you contemplate nature, you will see Him there
the heavens declare the glory of God. This, at least, is
the position of the Old Testament revelation, though in the
New I am not sure but some further use is made of nature.
And, in any case, if God s character be manifest in nature,
then that memory of God and that knowledge of Him
which we have otherwise may be refreshed, and if needful
corrected by the contemplation of nature. I need not say
that Scripture neither contemplates any one destitute of
the knowledge of God, nor describes the process whereby
any one destitute of this knowledge comes to reach it. It
merely mentions certain regions in which, or media by
which, God is in fact and actually known ; without assert
ing that any of them occupies the first place, much less
the only place; without saying of any of them that it
GOD AND NATURE 79
is the medium through which we first know or begin to
know God, or is the only medium through which God can
be known.
Now in regard to nature, Scripture has been thought
to teach or assume not only that God may be recognised
in nature, but that He may be known from nature, i.e. not
only that we may see God there whom we already know,
but that we may discover God there though formerly
unknown. The Old Testament, as it spoke chiefly to a
people having a knowledge of God from revelation, insists
mainly on recognising that God of revelation in nature ;
but it also appeals to nature to correct the ideas of God
given by revelation when the people had perverted them.
It is merely exhibition of an already known God which
we find (Ps. viii. and xix.) ; but it is a heightening of
the conceptions already had of God when Isaiah points
to the starry heavens, saying, " To whom then will ye
liken Me, or shall I be equal ? saith the Holy One. Lift
up your eyes on high, and behold ! Who hath created
these things?" (xl. 25). And in a remarkable passage
in Ps. xciv. an inference is drawn from the nature of man
to the nature of God who made him, and an argument
somewhat similar to what we call our argument from
design 1 is conducted. The writer in that Psalm denounces,
first, the wickedness of certain men ; and, second, their
foolishness in thinking that God cannot or does not see
their wickedness : " They say the Lord shall not see,
neither shall the God of Jacob regard it. ... Ye fools,
when will ye be wise ? He that planted the ear, shall
He not hear ? He that formed the eye, shall He not
see ? " While, of course, it is always assumed that God
created the capacities, it is argued that the existence of
certain capacities in man implies their existence much
1 What is called the ontological argument is probably not touched in
Scripture. The cosmological may be supposed to be touched in Paul s state
ment, "In whom we live, and move, and have our being," although, as
usual, the fact is assumed. It is not put so as to be proof. The physico-
theological or teleological argument is often alluded to.
80 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
more in the Creator of man ; and the Apostle Paul conducts
a similar argument before the Athenians when, from the
fact that we are the offspring of God, he infers the absurdity
of representing God by images of gold or silver : " Foras
much, then, as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to
think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone,
graven by art and man s device" (Acts xvii. 29). All
these passages speak of discovering, or recognising, the
character of a Being supposed to be already known ; so
that while it is mainly recognition, it in no case goes
further than correction of false ideas of Him, or inference
as to His true character from His works.
There is one passage, however, which many have
thought to go further, and to teach that it may be dis
covered from nature that God is, as well as what He is
the well-known passage in Bom. i. 19. Now that passage
certainly teaches or assumes that in nature certain things,
or so much, of God, may be or is known, " that which
may be known of God (TO ^vwa-rov) is manifest in them,
for God showed it unto them." Apart from revelation, so
much is known of God, it is known in men s hearts, for
God has made it known to them. And it is known thus :
the invisible things of God, the invisible attributes which
form His character, are seen from His works, voov^eva
being = things perceived by the reason, even His power and
Godhead, #6^67779. But it is doubtful if OCLOT^ include
existence it is all the attributes that make up Godhead.
It is questionable whether the passage contemplates proof
of the Being of God. The Scripture does not seem to
contemplate men without a knowledge of the existence
of God, or without certain ideas regarding His nature.
It does contemplate them as possessed of perverted ideas
regarding Him ; and it affirms, both in the Old Testament
and in the New, that so far right notions of God may be
derived from nature apart altogether from supernatural
revelation.
But Scripture regards Revelation, particularly as his
torical, as the main source of our knowledge of God, or the
GOD INCOMPREHENSIBLE 81
main region wherein God is known. I have already quoted
passages to this effect, and I need not repeat them. But
there are two elements in the history of revelation which
Scripture singles out as spheres wherein God is specially
known miracle and prophecy. The miracle is not only a
proof that God is there; the complexion of the miracle
is an exhibition of some aspect of the character of God.
"According to Josh. iii. 10, it is shown by the wonderful
subjugation of the Canaanites that Jehovah is the living
God ; according to Ex. vii. 5, the Egyptians shall know by
the plagues He sends upon them that Jehovah is God ;
according to Deut. vi. 21, the miracles are meant to draw
the eyes of all nations to Jehovah, just as in Ex. ix. 29
they are intended to produce the conviction that the earth
is the Lord s" (Steudel, Vorlesungen uber die Theologie des
AT., p. 170). And very frequently Scripture sets forth
prophecy as a sphere in which God may be known. This
mark of God s presence is very much insisted upon in the
second half of Isaiah, and in chap. xli. it is coupled with
the extraordinary, if not miraculous, history of Cyrus, as
manifesting the activity of God " Who raised up the
righteous man from the East gave the nations before
him, and made him rule over kings ? I the Lord, the
first and with the last, I am He." And idols are chal
lenged to demonstrate their Godhead by predicting some
event near or distant : " Let them show us what will
happen let them show the former things, or the things
that are to come hereafter." Such is the tenor of the
passage.
But now, fourthly, in opposition to all this, Scripture
denies that God can be known. It moves here among
natural contradictories or antinomies, which only need to be
cited to be understood. Thus it says of the angels that
they see God " their angels do always behold the face of
My Father who is in heaven" (Matt, xviii. 10). But of
men in their present bodily life it says, " no man shall
see God and live" (Ex. xxxiii. 20; cf. John i. 18, etc.);
while again, on the other hand, David comforts himself
6
82 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
with the hope that he shall see God : " As for me, I will
hehold Thy face in righteousness : I shall he satisfied, when
I awake, with Thy likeness" (Ps. xvii. 15); and Jesus
promises the same thing to those who are pure in heart
(Matt. v. 8) ; and John says : " We shall be like Him ; for
we shall see Him as He is" (1 John iii. 2). Again, it is
said (Ex. xxiv. 9, 10): "Then went up Moses and Aaron,
Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel : and
they saw the God of Israel." There is the statement:
"No man hath seen God at any time" (John i. 18) ; while
again it is said : " In the year that king Uzziah died I
saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and lifted up "
(Isa. vi. 1). Paul speaks to the Athenians of feeling after
God and finding Him, though He is not far from any one
of us (Acts xvii. 27); while Job says: "Who can by
searching find out God?" (xi. 7). Scripture speaks of
possessing the Spirit of God in the soul, and then it says :
"Who can measure the spirit of the Lord?" (Isa. xl. 13).
These contradictories explain themselves. Scripture does
not say in what sense God may be seen and may not be
seen, how He may be known and may not be known. It
assumes that men themselves understand this, and merely
alludes to the two facts as things undoubted in men s
thought and experience.
2. The Essence and the Attributes of God.
With respect to what Scripture teaches of this God
who may and may not be known, two things are in view
here first, what may be known of the essence of God ;
and second, what may be known of His attributes, or of
God Himself. As to the essence of God, Scripture teaches
directly in the New Testament and assumes in the Old
that God is Spirit. Christ says, " God is Spirit, and they
that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in
truth" (John iv. 24). But the same truth is presupposed
in the Old Testament in many ways ; for example, in the
prohibition to represent God by any material likeness ; and
GOD ABSOLUTE AND PERSONAL 83
also, not obscurely in the history of man s creation, in which
God is said to have formed man s material part out of the
dust of the ground, but to have drawn his spiritual part out
of Himself ; and again, perhaps in the name given to the
angels as spirits, sons of God, i.e. altogether in His likeness,
both as to essence and as to moral nature. Yet more
perspicuously the spirituality of God is seen to be an idea
underlying all Old Testament thought from a significant
passage in Isa. xxxi. 3 : " Now the Egyptians are men, and
not God ; and their horses flesh, and not spirit." There
the parallelism shows that man is to God as flesh to spirit ;
that as man is a corporeal being, so God is spiritual. It
has indeed been maintained that the Old Testament, or the
Israelites, at first at least contemplated God as possessed
of a corporeal form, and that gradually the conception of
Him clarified till He was recognised as formless spirit.
It is difficult to see how such a theory can be fairly
maintained in the face of the above passages. Some of
the early Fathers, such as Tertullian, fancied that God
possessed a form; yet they denied it to be material.
As to what is taught about this Being Himself, that
may be found in Scripture in various forms chiefly two,
namely, statements or assumptions regarding God, and
names applied to God. It will be found, I think, that all
other designations of God, and all other assertions respect
ing Him, and all other attributes assigned to Him, may be
embraced under one or other of the two names given to
God in the opening chapters of Genesis. What is taught
of God in these chapters is, first, that God is the absolute
Cause and the absolute Lord of all things heavens and
earth ; which terms embrace not only the upper and lower
matter, but the superior and inferior spirits. And, second,
that God is the absolute personality over against finite
personalities, not absorbing personalities in Himself, nor by
His personality excluding personalities besides Himself.
This personality is self-conscious it is not undeter
mined till it becomes what it is in the finite personality,
but it is free before the finite comes into being, and
84 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
conscious of itself as over against the finite when it has
called the latter into existence. Before the existence of
the finite it deliberately purposes to make it : " Let there
be light " ; " let us make man " ; " let him have dominion."
And when created, it conceives of itself in opposition to
the finite : " Hast tJwu eaten of the tree of which /
commanded thee not to eat ? / will put enmity between
thee and the woman."
This person is perfectly ethical, and is in an ethical
relation of undisturbed love-communion with the innocent
spiritual beings whom He has made.
To speak shortly, the truths contained in these names,
the names by which God is known in the account of
Creation, are these two first, that God is the power to
whom the world belongs ; and, second, that He is at the
same time the Eternal, the Person who stands in a fellow
ship of love with the spiritual beings in the world. 1 The
first truth is contained in the name EloJiim and the cognate
names ; the second, in the name Jehovah and others allied
to it ; and all other assertions regarding God in Scripture
may be reduced to one or other of these two. But of this
more hereafter.
There is no reason to deny that some elements of
truth, or many elements, may have been found in the
primeval Shemitic religion held by the ancestors of
Abraham, or by himself before his call fragments of a
primitive knowledge of God more or less pure, generalisa
tions more or less profound regarding God and morality,
hopes and aspirations more or less exalted, like those of
Job. We cannot form a very complete idea of the condi
tion. But these stages in the development of the know
ledge of God in Israel may be detected : first, the primeval
Shemitic religion, in which each family had its particular
god, whom it worshipped, if not in images, at least in con
nection with sensuous forms, as groves, trees, pillars.
Second, a very important development from this primitive
Shemitic religion which took place at a far back period
1 See Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, p. 75 ff.
DEVELOPMENT OF IDEA OF GOD 85
towards a high morality and faith in a spiritual omni
potent God. This development we know as the call of
Abraham and the foundation of the Patriarchal religion.
Third, even a higher development which took place at
the end of the Patriarchal time and the beginning of the
national life. This we know as the legislation of Moses,
in which the spirituality and unity of God are set forth
in the fundamental laws of the constitution. Jacob is
represented as having found God in a certain place, and
as rearing a pillar, on which he poured oil, as a visible
representation, if not of God, yet of the place of God.
The idea of God as One everywhere present seems far from
this. But all similitudes were forbidden by Moses. The
second and third of these stages are not to be regarded
as natural developments of the primary religion, for the
surrounding tribes did not share in the development, but
sank deeper into idolatries of the most degrading kind.
The Scriptures represent God as revealing Himself to
Abraham and Moses, and there seems no way of account
ing for their knowledge except by considering this state
ment of Scripture to mean that God revealed Himself to
these men in another manner than to the Gentiles.
The distinctive title of God as known and worshipped
by the patriarchs El Shaddai, God Almighty ; El Elyon,
Most High God shows that the omnipotence of God was
the attribute to which most prominence was given. This
was very natural, seeing that the primary idea of God in
the Shemitic mind was power. But if the idea of the unity
of God was not already in the worshipper s mind, these
names were very well fitted to suggest it. And in like
manner, if the first commandment of the Decalogue
which beyond doubt is Mosaic did not directly inculcate
the unity, it immediately suggested it " thou shalt have
no other gods with Me."
Again, if the second commandment " thou shalt not
make unto thee any na^ri of anything in heaven above,
or in the earth beneath, to fall down to them and worship
them," did not directly inculcate the spirituality of God, it
86 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
immediately suggested it. And there can be no hesitation
in saying that all the men of insight in Israel read these
commandments as meaning that there was but one God,
and that He was a spiritual being who could not be repre
sented under any form.
But it is very evident that two lines were thus opened
up, on which there might be divergence and conflict in
Israel the unity of God and the spirituality of God.
The denial of the one, or the failure to recognise it, led to
the introduction of other gods along with Jehovah, par
ticularly of Baal ; and the denial of the other led to the
worship of Jehovah through sensuous forms, particularly
the calf. This was made the distinctive form of the
worship of the Northern Kingdom. This officially sanctioned
mode of worshipping Jehovah must not be confounded
with pure idolatry, such as the Baal worship. The one
not unnaturally led to the other ; but the prophets of
Jehovah drew a clear distinction between the two, and,
though they denounced the calf worship, they did not leave
the kingdom, or hold that those who practised it cut them
selves quite off from being the people of God. But with
the Baal worship they would hold no terms. Against the
prophets of Baal they waged a war of extermination.
There is perhaps no more singular phenomenon in the
history of Israel than the repeated outbreaks into idolatry.
There was even the attempt, under the dynasty of Omri,
to suppress the worship of Jehovah and extirpate His
followers out of the country. These repeated falls into
idol worship, exhibited throughout the whole history of
Israel, especially in the Northern Kingdom, but even also
in the Southern, and there in an aggravated form toward
the close of the monarchy under Manasseh, require some
explanation.
And, as might be expected, the explanation that many
have given has been, that we have in the history of
Israel as established in Caanan the spectacle of a people
slowly emerging by natural means out of the darkness of
idolatry into the clear light and freedom of a spiritual
CONFLICT WITH IDOLATRY 87
monotheism. The leaders of the people in this splendid
march, in which Israel were the pioneers of mankind, were
the prophets. There in Canaan, and in this people Israel,
humanity achieved its most glorious triumph ; it trod down
under its feet those debasing embodiments of its own
passions and vices called gods ; and prostrated itself before
that loftiest conception of one spiritual being, Lord of the
universe, who is God. But the victory was not reached
without many temporary defeats ; and the progress of the
conflict may be watched in that history which records the
changes from Jehovah worship to idolatry, and from
idolatry to Jehovah worship, till, finally, the refining pro
cess of the Exile purified the people s conceptions of God, so
that idolatry utterly disappeared from among them.
Now these things are true in this representation,
namely, that there was a conflict between the worship of
Jehovah and idolatry ; that the prophets were the leaders
on the side of Jehovah ; that the conflict lasted during the
whole history of Israel ; and that the victory was won
only under the purifying sorrows of the Exile. This, too,
is true, that in this splendid march Israel became the
pioneer of humanity, or, as it may be put, humanity was
in Israel making this triumphal march. For humanity is
no doubt a unity, and no theory of revelation requires us
to break up this unity or deny that what God was showing
to one people and enabling it to perform, He was achieving
once for all in the race. So far is this theory from being
contrary to revelation, that it is itself part of revelation,
which teaches that God founded His Church once for all in
Abraham ; that He took the Jewish people into His
covenant of salvation, not for themselves merely, but for
the salvation of the world. All this is certainly true, and
there may even be more truth still in the representation.
For unquestionably such a conflict could never have been
fought unless there had been many born idolaters among
the mass of the people, unless large masses of the general
surface of the nation had been continuously sunk in
idolatrous doctrines, and the light of the true faith in its
88 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
purity had shone only on those elements that rose up
high above the common level. The history throughout
its whole length shows a polluted stream of idolatrous
worship. They were idolatrous in Canaan ; even David s
wife had teraphim ; they were idolatrous in the wilderness ;
they were idolatrous in Egypt ; they had been idolatrous
in Ur of the Chaldees. But this is what is false in the
representation above given, that the struggle was carried
on in the field of natural religion. What natural religion
contributed was the idolatry. The worship of the spiritual
God came from revelation.
The case can be accounted for best by supposing the
Jehovah worship something impressed from without, and
the mass of the people only imperfectly penetrated by it.
The conflict itself came to a head in the kingdom of Israel,
under the rule of the monarchs of the house of Omri. That
vigorous ruler, more intent on strengthening his kingdom by
alliances without than by purity of national faith at home,
had entered into treaties with the kingdoms about, especially
the Syrian, and married his son to Jezebel, a daughter of
Ethbaal the king of Sidon. Ahab was not so much vicious
as weak ; one who, like a wilful child when refused his wishes,
fell sick, and would not eat. And thus he fell completely
under the guidance of his self-willed and unscrupulous wife.
At her instigation he introduced the worship of Baal.
Baal worship became thus a State religion. For a time,
probably, it subsisted peaceably side by side with the
worship of Jehovah. But collisions naturally ensued
between the partisans of the two, and the royal power
seems to have been used to put down the worship of
Jehovah. An order was issued for the murder of Jehovah s
prophets, and the throwing down of His altars. This is
nowhere expressly recorded. But Elijah, who alone of
the Lord s prophets escaped, says : " The children of Israel
have forsaken Thy covenant, and thrown down Thine altars,
and slain Thy prophets with the sword ; and I, even I
only, am left ; and they seek my life, to take it away "
(1 Kings xix. 10). The history here is very defective,
JEHOVAH AS GOD OF ISRAEL 89
but the representation of the prophet is corroborated by
a statement given as made by Obadiah, who represents
himself as hiding one hundred of Jehovah s prophets by
fifty in caves.
The commanding genius of this era was Elijah. In
the long period from the Judges to the times of Elijah
and the downfall of the house of Omri, proceedings were
going on of which no record has been preserved.
David was a fervent Jehovist. Solomon perhaps was
not fervent in any direction. He can hardly have been a
theoretical monotheist when he erected temples to the
deities of his wives. Nor can Ahab, when he raised a
house to the Sidonian Baal served by his wife. Still Ahab
called all his sons by the name of Jehovah. There was
evidently great want of clearness of thought in men s
minds.
It is very useful for us if we can here and there find
an epoch in the course of events signalising a new turn
and a new victory in the higher conception of God. We
have such an epoch in the reign of Ahab and the downfall
of the house of Omri before Jehu.
What is included in the expression Jehovah, God of
Israel, has been much disputed by modern writers, as we
have said, and we have already remarked that we must
take into account the existence of various elements in
Israel since its settlement in Canaan. In Israel, as history
deals with it, there were sections differing very widely
from one another in culture and morals ; and when it is
asked what is meant by saying Jehovah is God of Israel,
the answer may be that it meant different things among
different classes, or to different minds. History or
prophecy may bring to light this divergence. But it
seems clear, as we have said, that the phrase meant
at least that Israel was to worship no other God but
Jehovah. Unquestionably the people entered upon national
existence with the consciousness of having been delivered
or redeemed from Egypt by Jehovah. He was not
unknown to the people before this deliverance, but now
90 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
He had made them free, and created them a people. They
owed their existence to Him, and He was their God. This
was the positive fact ; but no deductions are drawn from
the fact in reference to other gods, nor are any general
conceptions as to Godhead connected with it. Each
separate people about Israel had its national god, and
one god worshipped did not necessarily imply the belief
in the existence of no other gods : " For all the nations
walk every one in the name of his god," says the prophet
Micah, " and we will walk in the name of the Lord our
God for ever and ever" (iv. 5). The separate peoples,
while worshipping each its own god, did not deny the
existence of the gods of their neighbours though they may
have considered their own the most powerful. And it is
probable, as we said, that many in Israel stood on no higher
platform than this, that Jehovah was God of Israel, while
Chemosh was god of Ammon. But it is certain, at least,
that the national consciousness was at one with the
prophets on this point, that Jehovah was God of Israel.
This was a common faith, though it was, of course, a faith
that might be held in very different senses, that is, with
very different conceptions of the Being called Jehovah, as
we perceive from the prophets Amos and Hosea. The first
commandment might seem to leave the question whether
there were gods besides Jehovah undecided, for it merely
prohibits the worship of other gods in Israel. 1 By mention-
1 The question is one of great interest, What deduction are we entitled to
draw from the words, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me " ?
If we looked at the Commandments as simple objective revelation and
as ordinances given to Moses, without, so to speak, any exercise of his own
mind, then perhaps questions need not be raised about the enigmatical form,
" Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." But if we suppose that the
mind of Moses concurred in this revelation and was not inactive, but that the
commands came through his mind, just as the revelation to Amos or any of
the prophets was reached not without all that activity of mind which we
cannot help perceiving, then the question, how the command took this shape,
and what is implied in it, at once rises. The command is unique in antiquity.
What induced Moses, the founder of the new religion, to give it this shape ?
It must have been his conception of what Jehovah was. It has been
suggested that it arose from the idea that Jehovah was a jealous God. But
if Moses conceived Jehovah as a jealous God, which He is often named, this
QUESTION OF THE SOLE GODHEAD 91
ing other gods it might even appear to admit their existence,
at least it might be thought not to rise to the affirmation
of Monotheism. But in like manner, as we have already
noticed, the seventh commandment prohibits merely Israel
from committing adultery, and the sixth from doing murder ;
they contain no hint that these injunctions have any uni
versal validity, and are fundamental laws of human well-
being. A Shemitic mind, we repeat, would rise to general
conceptions such as we cherish very slowly ; and while
practically Jehovah was the only God to the Hebrew, he
might not have risen to the theoretical notion that He was
God alone. But one with such a practical faith in Jehovah
conception only throws the difficulty a step further back. How did he
conceive Him as jealous? Jealousy is the reaction of the consciousness of
one s self of being what he is, when this consciousness is hurt or touched.
How did Moses fancy that the presence of other gods would wound Jehovah s
consciousness of Himself? What conception had Moses of Jehovah s nature
which would make him attribute jealousy to Him ? The deities of the
nations were not jealous. They were sometimes contemptuous, sharing the
spirit of the nations themselves ; but from all we observe they were perfectly
tolerant of the existence of other deities beside them. With Jehovah it was
otherwise. This intolerance of His requires some explanation, that is, some
explanation of Moses way of conceiving Him which made him impose upon
the people such a law.
The explanation must lie in his conception of Jehovah s nature His
ethical nature. Certainly Moses regarded Jehovah as the God of righteous
ness. When he sat and judged the people, he did so in Jehovah s name
he only interpreted and expressed His mind. He was the guardian of right
and moral order. Hence the curious phrase, that the people were to bring
their causes before Elohim, when they came to the priests or judges for
decisions. But mere ethical quality in Jehovah will not explain the ex-
clusiveness, unless on the supposition that this differentiated Him from
other gods, who were not ethical, or else that He was ethical in such degree
that He was the one Being that men should worship. When the form of
the other commandments is considered, the natural conclusion is that Moses
was a monotheist, and not merely what is called a monolatrist. The
peculiar thing about Israel is not that it had one God, but that it had an
evil conscience when it served other gods. This is unique. The mere
existence of a law will hardly account for this. No doubt the law had been
reinforced by the history, by the redemption which their God had wrought
for the people. At all events we must attribute to the Exodus the planting
in the popular mind of the truth that Jehovah was God of Israel. So far as
we see, Israel never had any native God but Jehovah. If it fell into the
worship of the Baals as local deities, it found these. No proper name is
compounded with such a name as Astarte.
92 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
stood to Him much as believers in the unity of God stand
to God now. The religion of Israel was practical, not
speculative ; and while a practical Monotheism prevailed, and
gave rise to all that profound religious life which we see
reflected in such men as Moses, and Samuel, and David,
and the prophets, it perhaps needed that internal conflict
which arose through the slowness of the popular mind,
and that outward collision with idolatrous nations which
occurred in the days of the great prophets from Isaiah
downwards, to bring into speculative or theoretical clearness
the doctrines of the oneness and the spirituality of God.
My impression is that this conflict, whether within the
State or with foreign nations without, did not suggest to
the prophets the doctrines of God which they express, but
only furnished the occasion which demanded the expression
of them.
Perhaps we lay too much stress upon the meaning
in religion of a mere theoretical Monotheism, i.e. upon this,
that the worshipper had in his mind the idea that the
Deity he stood before was God alone. Probably even now
this feeling is little present to the mind of worshippers. It
is what God is to the worshipper, and what are His attri
butes in Himself, that is important, not whether there be
other beings to be worshipped. Of course, at other times
we have in our minds the fact that the Being we worship
is God alone ; and this no doubt influences the mind when
it comes to the act of worship, though the idea be not present
in the act. And perhaps this consideration may lead us to
judge more favourably of the worship even of heathen and
polytheistic nations. As a rule, the individual worshipper
did not adore more gods than one. He selected some one
of the deities worshipped in his country. Practically this
god was the only one to him. He gave this god his adora
tion, and sought from him alone the help he needed.
Pteligiously, his mind towards this deity was just as if no
other deity existed. Even when he admitted the existence
of other deities, they took, in regard to the deity he
worshipped, a lower place. His god was the supreme god,
TERMS USED OF HEATHEN GODS 93
and the others were merely his agents, or, it might be,
intercessors with him. for the worshipper. Cyrus, when he
conquered Babylon, restored to their ancient seats the gods
which had been collected there by the previous king, and
he begs that these minor gods would intercede with the
supreme God Bel for him and his son Cambyses. Both in
Egypt and in Babylon there is visible a tendency to elevate
one deity into a supreme place, not always the same deity
by name, and to concentrate on one all the attributes of
all the others, so that the one embodies the exhaustive
conception of Deity.
There are various classes of passages in which the
gods of the nations fire mentioned : one class consists of
passages put into the mouth of persons whose history or
conduct is being described by Old Testament writers. Thus
in Judg. xi. 23, 24, Jephthah is represented as saying to
the king of the Ammonites : " So now Jehovah the God
of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before His
people Israel, and shouldest thou possess them ? Wilt not
thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee
to possess ? " Another class of passages consists of ex
pressions used by Old Testament writers themselves in
which the gods of the nations are referred to, and Jehovah
is contrasted with them, or said to be superior to them,
and the like. Now in estimating all these passages we
must take the state of thought in those ages into account,
and the condition of religion actually existing in the world
at the time. Even the passage in Judges can hardly show
that Jephthah conceded any existence to Chemosh. He
could hardly speak otherwise than he did to one whose
national god Chemosh was. Jeremiah himself, as we have
seen, uses phraseology analogous : " Woe to thee, Moab :
the people of Chemosh perisheth " (xlviii. 46); and again:
" Hath Israel no sons, hath he no heir ? Why then doth
Milcom inherit Gad, and his (i.e. Moloch s) people dwell in
his cities?" (xlix. 1). Evidently such language means
nothing in Jeremiah s mouth. It is argued, however, that
though in the mouth of such men as Jeremiah such ex-
94 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
pressions have no meaning, reposing merely on the belief
and the condition of things in Moab itself, and on the
notorious fact that Chemosh was worshipped there, it may
have had meaning in the popular mind ; and that, though
in later times such phraseology had merely become a
current mode of speech, with little significance, at the
time when it first arose it must have expressed the belief
in the existence of Chemosh. It is no doubt difficult
to estimate the value of this kind of language. But it
may be said, I think, that the use of it is far from con
clusive as to the belief in the reality of the gods spoken
of. Take a passage from the Chronicles, a very late book,
probably of the age of Alexander the Great, the end of the
fourth century before our era (2 Chr. xxviii. 23). Speak
ing of Ahaz, the writer says that he sacrificed to the gods
of Damascus, who had smitten him, saying : " Because the
gods of the kings of Syria helped them, therefore will
I sacrifice to them, that they may help me." But the
writer adds : " But they were the ruin of him and of all
Israel."
It is certain that at that time of day neither the
Chronicler nor any educated man in Israel ascribed reality
to any object called god except the God of Israel. In
ancient times a stranger must attach himself to some tribe
or family in order to be protected. But attachment to a
tribe or family meant partaking in its sacra its religious
rites ; for this was what constituted a tribe s distinction,
or that of a family. Hence the stranger who went to
a foreign country must perforce take part in the religion
of the country and serve its gods. A great deal has been
made of an expression used by David (1 Sam. xxvi. 19).
Appealing to Saul not to pursue him out of the country,
he says : " They have driven me out this day from abiding
in the inheritance of the Lord (i.e. the land of Israel),
saying, Go serve other gods." According to these words,
abiding in a foreign land is equivalent to serving other
gods. But, again, we are supplied with analogous phrase
ology in Jeremiah the man who counselled the exiles in
THEORETICAL MONOTHEISM 95
Babylon to build houses and plant vineyards, to seek the
peace of the city whither they had been carried captive,
and to "pray unto the Lord for it, for in the peace thereof
shall ye have peace " (xxix. 5). While men may pray
unto the Lord in foreign lands, He threatens Israel :
" Therefore will I cast you forth out of this land into the
land that ye know not . . . and there shall ye serve other
gods" (Jer. xvi. 13). And similarly in Deut. iv. 28:
"The Lord shall scatter you among the nations . . . and
there ye shall serve gods, the work of men s hands, wood
and stone." The phraseology rests merely on the fact
that in foreign lands other gods were worshipped ; it
contains no proof that these gods had any reality. At
most it might be supposed to imply that Jehovah was
God only of Israel, and could not be found in a foreign
land. It is possible that the phrase might have had this
meaning ; but it had no such sense in Jeremiah s days, for
he counsels the exiles to pray unto the Lord for the peace
of the land of their exile.
It is admitted on all hands that from Jeremiah down
wards there are abundant expressions of a theoretical
Monotheism. The circumstances of the prophets from
Isaiah onwards differed from those of the earlier prophets.
The great prophets, such as Isaiah and Jeremiah, were con
fronted by the world powers, and the question of the relation
of Jehovah to them was forced upon them. These powers
were embodiments of idolatry, and they were the oppressors
of Israel. The antithesis between their gods and the God
of Israel pressed itself upon men ; the relation of Jehovah
to the world, and His relation to the idols, the gods of
the world, could not be evaded. The prophets solved the
question of the conquest of Israel by the world power, by
the great conception that the world power was Jehovah s
instrument to chastise His people the Assyrian was the
rod of His anger, Nebuchadnezzar was His servant. And
this was already also a solution of the relation of the idols
to Jehovah. It was not the idols, but Jehovah that gave
Assyria and Babylon its victories. Much more, it was not
96 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
the idols that had raised up Cyrus to destroy the idolatrous
Babylon. And when these powers forgot that they were
but instruments in the Lord s hand, they were acting as if
the saw should magnify itself against him who shook it,
or as if the rod should say it was not wood (Isa. x. 15).
But even in this age the same way of speaking still pre
vailed, of speaking of the gods of the nations as if they
had reality ; as St. Paul also speaks of idols at one time
as nothing in the world, and at another time as devils.
Perhaps the citation of these passages may suggest that
some caution is necessary in founding inferences upon
expressions which at first sight might seem to imply belief
in other gods besides Jehovah, on the part of those who
used them.
3. The Unity of God.
The simplest notion of God among the Semitic peoples
was, as we have said, the idea of power, force. If we con
sider ourselves at liberty to inquire how this idea was
reached, we should presume that it was through the pro
cesses and phenomena of nature. The power that worked in
Nature, that changed her face, that conducted the gigantic
movements of the heavens above and the waters beneath,
was God. There cannot be a doubt that among the peoples
about Israel there appeared the tendency to confound Nature
herself with God, to regard individual forces in Nature as
gods. We do not find such a thing among the Jews, except
occasionally and by imitation. But how shall we regard
this tendency ? As a degeneration of a Monotheism
retained by Israel? Or as a Polytheism out of which
Israel rose to Monotheism ? Was the first step to regard
the forces of nature as gods, and the next to abstract and
unite the forces into one, and spiritualising this force name
it God ? Or was the tendency downward, to break up this
grand simple power into a multitude of forces, and out of
the one God to frame many gods ? The question probably
cannot be answered with certainty, either on Shemitic or
GOD ALWAYS PERSONAL 97
on Indo-Germanic data. But in point of fact we find Israel
agreeing with the related peoples in the Name it gave to
God and the idea it had of Him, and occasionally falling
into their way of idolatry, which identified some natural
force with God, as the force resident in the sun, or the
generative power of nature, etc.
If the idea of a Supreme Being was first impressed
on men, or impressed anew after being lost, by the opera
tions of some single great force in nature, they would
be very apt to identify this force with the Being, or to
regard the two as inseparable. Such an identification would
operate in two ways on the conception of God. It might
prevent the mind rising easily to the unity of God. And
it might make it slow to reach the idea of the spirituality
of God. This was but a single force, there were many ; the
Being who so showed His power might not be the only
powerful being. And the Being who showed Himself
through this material symbol might not readily be con
ceived abstractly and unclothed in the physical energy.
Yet He might have to the worshipper a very distinct
personality. A pantheistic conception of nature is quite
foreign to the Shemitic mind. Hence even where we
cannot be sure that the conception of God in any par
ticular case implied His unity or spirituality, we may
assume that His personality was always part of the con
ception. It is true that in Homer, while some of the
gods are undoubtedly and always persons, others of them
appear sometimes as forces or phenomena and sometimes
as persons, such as Iris, Dream, etc., and sometimes even
Apollo far darting/ as if the statue were partly formed
out of the block, or the living bird half out of the shell.
But among the Shemitic races this condition does not
appear to present itself. God is always personal.
Now, if we suppose that the condition of the idea
of God among the Shemitic peoples prior to the call
of Abraham, or even after his call, was this, that He
was a personal power, there are materials in it for that
profound religious experience which we know to have
7
98 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
been his. The power may easily rise to omnipotence;
the personality may easily pass into spirituality, and the
union of these two easily into unity. But we must not
judge the ancients by ourselves. With this Personal
Power, Lord of men, ruler of nature without raising
questions, as we should, whether He was Lord of all
men or ruler of all nature there might be a fellowship,
and towards Him a reverence, and on Him a dependence,
and in His intercourse a training and an elevation, that
together made up the elements of a fresh and deep
religious life. The personal bond to a governing personal
p 0wer or, as it was called, the covenant was the essence
of religious life. How God by His training of Abraham
purified his faith and strengthened it, we see from the
history.
It is probable that among the family out of which
Abraham sprang there had come a great degeneration, or
at least there prevailed a low condition of religion prior to
his time. This is the universal supposition of the Scrip
tures. Joshua in his last speech exhorts the people thus :
" Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve Him in sincerity
and in truth : and put away the gods which your fathers
served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt ; and
serve ye the Lord " (Josh. xxiv. 1 4). And the same
appears from the story of Jacob s flight from Padan-Aram,
in which his wife Kachel is represented as stealing the
gods of her father, and carrying them with her in her
flight.
And thus it is certain that through God s revealing of
Himself to Abraham a great purification and elevation took
place in his conception of God. The fundamental thought
of God did not alter, but it was more firmly grasped and
sharply conceived, and probably carried to such a degree of
clearness as to involve, if not the spirituality, at least the
unity of God. That fundamental thought common to all
the Shemitic peoples was, as we have seen, power, expressed
in the words El, Elohim; but we are expressly informed
that the prevailing conception of God in the Patriarchal
PLURAL FORM OF NAME FOR GOD 99
age was that of almightiness : " I appeared to your fathers
as El Shaddai God Almighty." This is a potentiation of
the simple idea of mighty, which seems to carry with it
the exclusion of other powers, and to lead directly to the
conception of the Unity of God. We should probably be
right in considering the Patriarchal idea of God as em
bracing these two ideas within it.
The plural form of the word Elohim might be supposed
to have some bearing on the question of unity. And,
indeed, by many it has been supposed to bear testimony
to the plurality of gods originally worshipped among the
Shemitic peoples ; and by others, who seem to consider
the name Elohim part of God s revelation of Himself,
to the plurality of persons in the Godhead. The real
force of the plural termination, as we have already said,
is not easy, indeed, to discover. But a few facts may
lead us near it. In Ethiopic the name of God is Amlak,
a plural form also of a root allied to meleJc a king.
All Shemitic languages use the plural as a means of
heightening the idea of the singular ; the precise kind
of heightening has to be inferred from the word. Thus
water & is plural, from the fluidity and multiplicity of
its parts ; the heavens B?^ from their extension. Of
a different kind is the plural of adon lord, in Hebrew,
which takes plural suffixes except in the first person
singular. Of this kind, too, is the plural of Baal, even
in the sense of owner, as when Isaiah uses the phrase
l^ya DttK (i. 3). Of the same kind also is the plural
teraphim, penates, consisting of a simple image. And of
this kind probably is the plural Elohim a plural not
numerical, but simply enhancive of the idea of might. Thus
among the Israelites the might who was God was not an
ordinary might, but one peculiar, lofty, unique. Though
the word be plural, in the earliest written Hebrew its
predicate is almost universally singular. Only when used
of the gods of the nations is it construed with a plural
verb ; or, sometimes, when the reference is to the general
idea of the Godhead. This use with a singular predicate
100 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
or epithet seems to show that the plural form is not a
reminiscence of a former Polytheism. The plural ex
pressed a plenitude of might And as there seems no
trace of a Polytheism in the name, neither can it with any
probability be supposed to express a plurality of persons
in the Godhead. For it cannot be shown that the word is
itself part of God s revelation ; it is a word of natural
growth adopted into revelation, like other words of the
Hebrew language. And the usage in the words baal, adon,
rob, and such like, similar to it in meaning, leads us to
suppose that the plural is not numerical, as if mights, but
merely intensifying the idea of might. Nor can it be
shown to be probable that the doctrine of a plurality of
persons should have been taught early in the history of
revelation. What the proneness of mankind to idolatry
rendered imperative above all and first of all, was strenuous
teaching of the Divine Unity. 1
4. The Doctrine of the sole Godhead of Jehovah in later
Prophecy.
We have noticed certain forms of speech used with
reference to Jehovah, the God of Israel, which seemed to
suggest that, though God of Israel, and greater than all
gods, He was not considered God alone. The phraseo
logy in which other gods are spoken of may not be
quite easy to estimate justly. But if writers on the
religion of Israel are not unanimous on the question as to
how such phraseology is to be interpreted in the earlier
books of Scripture, they are entirely at one in the view
that from Jeremiah downwards the prophets give un
doubted and clear expression to a theoretical Monotheism.
The circumstances of the prophets from Isaiah onwards
1 It is probably a return to the literal sense of the word when the term
Elohim is used of men or angels, or of what we call the supernatural : " I
said, Ye are gods " (Ps. Ixxxii. 6) ; "Thou hast made him a little lower than
the Elohim" (Ps. viii. 5); "I saw Elohim coming up out of the earth,"
said by the witch of Endor of the ghost of Samuel (1 Sam. xxviii. 13).
THE SOLE GODHEAD IN LATER PROPHECY 101
differed from those of the earlier prophets. In the
time of the earlier prophets, Israel came into connection
with nothing but the petty States lying immediately
around. These States were many, and their gods many.
And over each of them Jehovah was the Saviour of
Israel. In point of fact Amos, the oldest of the prophets,
except in one obscure passage, makes not the faintest
allusion to the gods of the nations ; he represents Jehovah
as ruling immediately over all the peoples neighbouring
on Israel, and chastising them, not only for their offences
against Israel, but for their cruelties to one another.
Still this prophet s world was composed of a multitude
of small peoples the world did not yet form a unity in
opposition to Israel. But when Israel was confronted by
the great empires of Assyria and Babylon, empires which
virtually embraced the world and presented it as a unity,
then the question of the relation of Jehovah their God
to this unity was forced upon them. These empires,
too, were embodiments of idolatry ; for, of course, as in
all ancient States, the culture, and the law, and the
social fabric of the empire reposed on the religion. And
thus, when Israel was confronted with the world as a
unity in these empires, Jehovah was felt to be confronted
also with idolatry as a general faith and conception. And
thus the prophets were led to form, or at all events to
express, abstract and theoretical judgments regarding these
matters.
Now the judgments which they do express regard
ing Jehovah and the idols are remarkable. So soon as
Northern Israel came into collision with Assyria, it fell
before the great Eastern empire ; and in like manner
Southern Israel, Judah, succumbed before Babylon. Now,
if the prophets had learned their conceptions of Jehovah
from history, the natural inference would have been that
the gods of Assyria and Babylon were more powerful than
Jehovah, the God of Israel. This was the inference of the
foolish king Ahaz when defeated by the Syrians : " Be
cause the gods of the kings of Syria help them, therefore
102 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me " (2 Chron.
xxviii. 23). And this was the inference no doubt of
Manasseh also, and of many in Judah during its later
years, when the worship of the host of heaven and many
other idolatries were introduced from Assyria and Babylon.
Men worshipped the gods of their conquerors. But the
inference of the prophets was a wholly different one.
They solved the problem of Israel s humiliation by the
idolatrous nations on these two principles : first, these
nations were Jehovah s instruments they were not more
powerful than the God of Israel, on the contrary, the
Assyrian was the rod in His hand to chastise His people,
and Nebuchadnezzar was His servant ; and, secondly, it
was because Jehovah was holy and His people sinful that
He gave them up to the destroyer. The great events of
Israel s history did not suggest to the prophets their con
ceptions of Jehovah. On the contrary, their conceptions of
Jehovah already held, solved to them the enigma of the
events that happened. But no doubt these events also led
them to express their thoughts of Jehovah and the idols in
a more general and abstract one might say almost
dogmatic way.
Here an important place belongs to the Second Isaiah,
the finest, but also the most difficult, part of Old Testament
prophecy. Here the name of Jehovah has no special mean
ing ; it is the highest name of God. Though the prophet
is a monotheist in the strictest sense, his Monotheism is no
mere dead article of belief or inoperative conviction. It
is the most living and powerful of truths that Jehovah,
God of Israel, is God alone. Being God alone, He must
make Himself known to be God alone : " My glory will I
not give to another, neither My praise to graven images "
(Isa. xlii. 8). In the words Jehovah, G-od alone, is heard
the death knell of all idolatry : " I have sworn by Myself
. . . that every knee shall bow" (Isa. xlv. 23). But on
another side the sole Godhead of Jehovah opens up wide
prospects of thought to the prophet. He who is God
alone is God over all He is the God of the nations as
DOCTRINE OF DEUTERO-ISAIAH 103
well as of Israel. And that which He is to Israel as God
of Israel, He must be to the nations also as their God.
His purposes, which are in the main purposes of grace,
must extend to the peoples also as well as to Israel. Yet
Jehovah is primarily God of Israel, and He remains so
always. His relation to the nations is manifested only
through Israel. Israel is His servant to make Him
known to the nations, to mediate His grace to all man
kind.
The doctrine of Jehovah is stated in the broadest and
most developed manner in this section of prophecy. Still
this is done with such religious fervour, and in a way so
brilliant with all the hues of a poetical imagination, that
to state the several points in that doctrine in cold and
naked propositions of the mere intellect, seems to desecrate
them. We need only mention a few things, and refer to
one or two passages.
Jehovah, God of Israel, is God alone. This is fre
quently stated explicitly and in so many words ; usually,
however, it is based on certain kinds of evidence, or it takes
the form of contrasting Jehovah with the idols. In chap,
xli. Jehovah challenges the idol worshipping nations to
meet Him before a tribunal, that a question whether He or
the idols be God may be decided : " Let the nations renew
their strength ; let us come near together to judgment ! "
Opening the plea on His own side, He asks them two
questions : " Who raised up Cyrus ? " and, " Who pre
dicted it from of old ? " The idol gods of Babylon have
hardly brought Cyrus on the stage of history, who will
lead Bel and Nebo away captive (chap. xlvi.). And if
they are gods, let them show what will happen. Let
them point to former things, prophecies already uttered,
that they may be compared with events, and be seen to
be true predictions ; or let them now in the present
declare things that are to come; yea, let them do good
or do evil, that they may be seen to have life in them.
They are silent, and judgment is passed on them that they
are of nothing and their work of nought (Isa. xli. 21).
104 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
In a word, Jehovah appeals to history and to prophecy
in proof of His sole Godhead.
This appeal to prophecy fully justified Apologetics
in making the same appeal, however arguments of another
kind may be used now in addition to this order of
evidence. And no doubt the argument from prophecy
has considerably changed its form ; it is now less an
argument based on the literal fulfilment of predictions
of contingent individual events. It has become more an
argument from prophecy than one from prediction, an
argument based on a broad, general movement of the
religious mind taught of God in Israel, a movement that
revealed itself in religious presentiments, in aspirations
of the pious heart, in momentary nights of faith too
lofty to be sustained, in a certain groaning and travailing
under the sense of inadequate life and a cry for fuller
life, in a sense of imperfection that was often far from
seeing clearly how it was to be satisfied, how the im
perfection was to be removed. It is all these things and
many more put together now that form the argument for
prophecy ; for with the widening of the conception of pro
phecy as not mere prediction, the argument from prophecy
has widened in proportion.
And in this prophet the reference to prophecy is more
for the purpose of showing that Jehovah is, unlike the
idols, a living, intelligent Being, who is working a work
the end of which He foresees and declares from the
beginning. Being living and conscious, He has before
Him the whole scope of His great operation ; and He
might carry it on, leaving men in darkness as to what
it is. But from the nature of His operation men must
be enabled to enter into it also with intelligence. Israel
is His Servant in carrying it out, and it is Jehovah s
relation to Israel that makes them prophesy. Men cannot
live unless they have some knowledge of what the end of
life shall be. They cannot strive unless a goal be set
before them, nor run for the prize unless there be a mark.
Prophecy was an absolute necessity in a redemptive history ;
THE SOLE GODHEAD IN DEUTERO-ISAIAH 105
though, of course, it might be enough to give great general
conceptions of the future, and less necessary to supply
knowledge of contingent occurrences. This prophet evi
dently refers to special events in history, such as the
destruction of the Babylonian empire. But what makes
his general conception of interest is that he connects
prophecy and history together as but the inner and outer
sides of one thing. History is Jehovah in operation ;
prophecy is His mind, conscious of its purpose, breaking
out in light around Him, and enabling men to see Him
operating.
The prophet s references to prophecy in proof of
Jehovah s sole Godhead are confined to chaps, xl. xlviii.
After these chapters this argument, being sufficiently
well developed, is no more pursued. I need not do more
than mention a few of the passages where the sole Godhead
of Jehovah is explicitly stated : xliv. 6 ff. : "I ani the
first, and I am the last ; and besides Me there is no
God " ; " Is there a God besides Me ? yea, there is no
rock ; I know not any." Being God Himself, He thinks
He would know the other gods ; but He has no acquaint
ance with them. Similarly xlv. 6, 21, xlvi. 9; cf. also
Ixiv. 4. In xliii. 10 it is said : " Before Me there was
no God formed, neither shall there be after Me ...
beside Me there is no saviour." Besides prediction and
history, the Creation in its unity is proof of the sole
Godhead of Him that formed it: "Thus saith the Lord
that created the heavens: He is God" (xlv. 18).
Such passages as these indicate why it is that the
prophet so much insists on the Godhead of Jehovah
alone. It is no mere formal intellectual Monotheism that
He preaches. To Him the knowledge of the true God is
the source of all truth and all life to men, that alone which
allows the nations of the earth to have any destiny before
them. Having no true God in the midst of them, the
nations have no goal before them, no elements of true pro
gress; they are without the conditions of attaining the
destiny set by God before men, Yet they are included
106 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
in His purpose of grace, and they shall be brought into the
stream of it by His servant Israel : " Behold my Servant,
... he shall bring forth right to the nations. . . . He
shall not faint . . . till he have set right in the earth, and
the countries shall wait on his instruction" (xlii. 1). It is
here that to the prophet lies the significance of the sole
Godhead of Jehovah ; the knowledge of it is the condition
of salvation for mankind. Hence Jehovah says: "Look
unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth : for I
am God, and there is none else" (xlv. 22). This forty-
fifth chapter is one of the most important in the prophecy
in this point of view.
5. The Personality and Spirituality of God.
The question which naturally follows that of the Unity
of God, is that of the Personality and Spirituality of God.
Unquestionably the most distinct and strongly marked
conception in regard to God in the Old Testament is that
of His personality. This appears on every page. A God
identical with nature, or involved in nature, and only
manifesting Himself through the blind forces of nature,
nowhere appears in the Old Testament. He is always
distinct from nature, and personal. In the first chapter of
Genesis He stands over against nature, and perceives that
it is good. He stands also over against man, and lays His
commands upon him : " Of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil thou shalt not eat." He puts Himself as a
moral person over against men as moral persons, and enters
into covenant of moral conduct with them. Not only is
He conscious of men, but He is conscious of Himself : " By
Myself have I sworn" (Gen. xxii. 16; Isa. xlv. 23). He
is not only conscious of Himself as existing, but of what
character He Himself is. He resolves with Himself to
make man, and to make him in His own image.
In Amos He swears not by Himself, but by His holiness
(iv. 2). The idea of some modern writers, that the con
ception of God among the people of Israel was first that of
PERSONALITY OF GOD 107
some power external to themselves which they perceived in
the world, a power making for a moral order or identical
with it, and which they afterwards endowed with personality
and named God, inverts the Old Testament representation,
according to which the personality of God was the primary
idea, and the secondary idea the moral character of this
person ; for this latter idea, no doubt, became clearer and
more elevated. This representation of modern writers to
which I have referred is not a historical account of the
origin of the conception of God s personality among the
people of Israel, at all events in the historical period
which the Old Testament embraces. It is rather a descrip
tion of movements of thought in regard to God, peculiar to
modern times, when men, having lost the idea of God s
personality which once prevailed, are making a new effort
to regain it.
From the first historical reference to God in Scripture
the idea of His being a person is firmly reached, and little
advance takes place along this line.
This is so much the case that, on the other hand,
the question arises whether this very vividness with which
the personality of God was realised in Israel did not
infringe upon other conceptions necessary to a true idea
of God, such as His transcendence and ubiquity and
spirituality. Did not Israel so strongly conceive God as
a person, that He became to them a mere magnified human
person, subject to the limitations of personality among men,
so that true attributes of Deity were obscured ? Now, in
going to the Old Testament and seeking to estimate its
statements about God, we have to remember that it is not
a piece of philosophical writing, that its statements about
God are all given in the region of practical religious life,
and that they are the expressions of this vivid religious
life among a people strongly realistic and emotional. A
theology of the schools, where the laws of exact thought
prevail, was unknown in the Old Testament period.
We observe, indeed, the beginnings of such a theology
in the Alexandrian translation of the Scriptures, and in the
108 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Chaldee translation, and in Jewish writings of later times.
These express themselves, in regard to God, in a form that
seeks to be more severe and exact, using circumlocutions for
the anthropomorphisms of the Old Testament, a fact which
indicates that these caused some offence to the minds of
this age. Even in the so-called Priests Code, while there
are some anthropomorphisms, anthropopathisms are avoided.
In the Old Testament generally, however, such anthropo
morphisms are freely used, as we use them still, when not
meaning to be scientific, and when expressing our religious
life and feelings. It may be made a question, no doubt,
whether, in the popular religion, among ourselves they may
not be carried to excess, and whether the strong realising
of the personality of God there may not obscure some other
conceptions of God which also have their rights. This
may well be. Still the use of anthropomorphisms is inevit
able if men will think of God ; and it has usually been
argued that they are legitimate, seeing men were made in
the image of God. We are in some measure at least
entitled to throw back upon God the attributes of man
when speaking of His action and thought.
Yet just as in the popular religion among ourselves the
true religion of men animated with a true religious life it
is possible that the powerful feeling of the personality of God
may obscure some of God s essential attributes and lead to a
narrow conception of Him, so it is quite possible that among
the people of Israel the same narrowing effect may have
arisen from the same cause. So far, however, as the Old
Testament is concerned it cannot be said that its expressions
go this length. When it speaks of the hand, arm, mouth,
lips, eyes of God, of His speaking, writing, laughing, mock
ing, and the like ; when, as in Second Isaiah, He makes bare
His holy arm in the sight of all the nations (Hi. 10) ; when
in His eagerness to deliver the people He pants like a
woman in travail (xlii. 14) ; when, as in the 2nd Psalm s He
that sits in the heavens laughs ; when He lifts up a signal
to the nations (Isa. xlix. 22) ; when He is seen at the head
of the Medians mustering His hosts, all this is but vivid
ANTHROPOMORPHISMS 109
conception of His being, His intelligence, His apprehension,
His activity, and His universal power over the movements
of the nations which He directs. The human is transferred
to His personality, as it could not but be ; it is transferred
graphically, as could not but happen when done by the
vivacious, poetical, powerful phantasy of the people of
Israel. But under all this what we observe is the vivid
realisation of the true, free, intelligent, active personality
of God. Such language only certifies to the warmth and
intensity of the religious feeling of the writer.
Another class of passages may perhaps require more
consideration : those in which manifestations of God are
described which seem to imply that He was confined within
the limitations of space, or that the human form really was
proper to Him. He is said to have walked in the garden
in the cool of the day; to have come down to see the
tower which men did build ; to have been one of three men
that appeared to Abraham, and to have eaten that which
was set before Him. Jacob thought Bethel a house, i.e. a
place or abode of God; and in Israel His presence was
inseparably connected with the Ark of the Covenant.
Under all these things there lies at least not only a vivid
conception of His personality, but a vivid conception of a
profound and more strictly redemptive truth, namely, that
He reveals Himself and enters into the closest friendship
with men. 1 It may be the case that ideas of God s
spirituality were less clear in the Patriarchal age, and that
some of these narratives preserve this fact. It was but a
short step from the Unity to the other essential element in
the conception of God, His Spirituality. Yet this step has
always been found very hard to take. The whole history
of Israel shows how hard the struggle was in the popular
mind between this idea and the sensuous conception of God.
1 Of course, different minds may estimate these narratives differently.
So far as we consider the experiences, say, of Jacob at Jabbok real, we may
suppose that a spiritual impression always reflected itself in an accompanying
extraordinary physical condition ; just as among the early prophets the
ecstasy was usual, while, although still occasional among the later prophets
(Isa. vi. 8\ it became rare.
110 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
And when the sense of God s spirituality was lost, there
followed speedily the loss of the sense of His unity.
Throughout the whole Patriarchal time the prevailing
sense of God was that of a lord, an owner, an almighty
ruler whose commandments must be obeyed, who tells his
servant to leave his country and he leaves it, who gives the
barren children, who subdues kingdoms, and rebukes kings
for his servant s sake. If Abraham had a clear thought
of His spirituality, this clearness became obscured in the
minds of his descendants. Even in Abraham s history God
is attached to places. Jacob found Him at Bethel and
said, " Surely God is in this place this is a house of God
a gate of heaven." And this patriarch reared his stone,
which, if it did not represent God, was called by him
Bethel, and conceived by him as something to which God
would attach Himself. These localisations of God show an
imperfect conception of His spirituality. Hence such high
places were rigidly forbidden in the Mosaic constitution.
And it is certain that even the conceptions of the Patri
archal time became greatly obscured among the people in
Egypt. Idolatry was practised largely there. Ezekiel in
several places chastises the people for their idolatrous
practices in this land. " Then said I unto them, Cast away
every man the abominations of his eyes, and defile not
yourselves with the idols of Egypt" (xx. 7).
We may consider these two things ascertained from a
study of the history of Moses. First, that he gave great
prominence to the idea of the spirituality of God ; and,
second, that he connected the idea of the spiritual God with
the name Jehovah. The new elevation given by Moses to
the idea of God cannot be regarded as anything but the
result of a special revelation. God appeared to him. He did
not reach a purer conception of God by study or thought.
God showed Himself to him. But the conceptions of the
Patriarchal time which were then loosely held, and which
had been almost lost entirely in Egypt, were brought back
by him in full luminousness, and laid as fundamental con
ceptions at the basis of his constitution. One might raise
SPIRITUALITY OF GOD 111
doubts, though hardly with good reason, as we have
already seen, in regard to the first command, as to whether
it in so many words prescribed the absolute unity of God,
or only the relative unity of God to Israel : " I am Jahweh
thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of
Egypt . . . thou shalt have no other gods before Me."
Israel shall have no God but Jahweh ; but whether there
be other gods is not certainly declared ; and in a hymn
contemporary with this law, the hymn after the passage
of the Eed Sea, we read: " Who is like unto Thee,
Jahweh, among the gods ? " But there can be no doubt
that the second commandment teaches the spirituality of
God in the sharpest manner : " Thou shalt not make unto
thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is
in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that
is in the waters under the earth " (Ex. xx. 4) ; and in
the repetition of the law in Deuteronomy : " Take ye
therefore good heed unto yourselves ; for ye saw no
manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake
unto you in Horeb . . . Lest ye corrupt yourselves and
make you a graven image" (Deut. iv. 15, 16). And
very singularly that very act which Jacob did is expressly
prohibited in Lev. xxvi. 1 "neither shall ye set up any
image of stone in your land." What is forbidden in the
commandment is not worshipping other gods than Jahweh,
but worshipping Jahweh under any similitude. That does
not expressly declare that Jahweh has no similitude, but
the inference is immediate.
Jehovah is represented as having a dwelling-place.
But He is no local God. That dwelling-place is usually
conceived to be heaven. But though His abode is there,
He visits the children of men, and appears wherever His
people are. He appeared to the patriarchs often and in
many places in Canaan. But though Canaan be the land
of Jehovah, and His house, He is not confined to it. He
says to Jacob : " Fear not to go down into Egypt ; for I
will there make of thee a great nation : I will go down
with thee into Egypt " (Gen. xlvi. 3, 4). To Moses in the
112 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
wilderness He gave the promise : " Mine angel shall go
before thee" (Ex. xxiii. 23); and Moses said: "If Thy
presence go not with me, carry us not up hence " (Ex.
xxxiii. 15). In one place He appeared to Joshua as the
leader of the Lord s host ; in another, to David.
So far as His dwelling among the people was concerned,
He abode in the Ark. The Ark of the Covenant is not to
be conceived as an idol, or as an image of God. No deity
could be represented in the form of a small chest. But
neither is it enough to say that the Ark was a symbol of
Jehovah, whatever that might mean, or a symbol of His
presence. It was more than that. Jehovah s presence
was attached to it. It was in some sense His dwelling-
place. But although it was so, and the people had thus
an assurance that He was present among them there in
some special sense, His presence was not confined to the
Ark. He appeared in the form of the Angel of the Lord
in many places ; and when the Ark was captured by the
Philistines, the priests offered sacrifices to Jehovah at Nob,
and set the shewbread before Him as had been done in
Shiloh. Everywhere in the old histories as well as in the
prophetic writings, the supersensuous abode of Jehovah, and
His condescension, nevertheless, and entrance into the life
of men, were both well understood.
We cannot say that from the time of Israel s becoming
a nation any belief in a local limitation of God can be
traced. The sanctuaries scattered up and down the country
were hardly places to which God was confined ; they were
rather places where, having manifested Himself, He was
held to have authorised His worship. Such facts as that
men, e.g. Gideon, Saul, etc., reared an altar anywhere, and
that Absalom when an exile in Geshur outside of Palestine
made a vow to Jehovah, show that they conceived of
Jehovah as without local limitations. Finally, the multi
plicity and variety of the combinations of the manifestation
of God with nature show that the idea lying at the root
of them was not that God was locally confined, but that
He was present in all the phenomena of the world. This is
ANTHROPOPATHIC EXPRESSIONS 113
the religious idea lying under such descriptions. The rest
is but clothing thrown around this idea by the religious
phantasy. And when, as in Ps. xxix., the thunderstorm is
specially regarded as a theophany, this, of course, arose from
the fact that majestic phenomena, like the thunderstorm
and earthquake, brought more impressively before the mind
the conception of the great Person who was the cause of
the phenomenon, and who revealed Himself through it.
But it does not need to be said again that the phenomenon
did not suggest the idea of God, and cause the mind to rise
to the idea of a person ; the idea of a person was there
already, and explained the phenomenon. 1
We pass into another and somewhat higher region
when we take into account another class of passages those
in which human emotions and modes of conduct are thrown
back upon God. The first class of passages referred to
mainly suggested the personality of God. The next class
added the deep religious idea of His manifesting Himself
to men. This new class brings in the idea of the moral in
God s personality. Thus He repents that He made man,
and also of the evil He intended to do ; He is grieved ; He
is angry, jealous, gracious ; He loves, hates, and much more ;
He breaks out into a passion of anger (Isa. liv. 7, 8), and
again He feels as if His chastisements had been excessive
(xl. 2). All the phenomena of the human soul of which
as men we are conscious, and all the human conduct corre-
1 Two beliefs characterise the Hebrew mind from the beginning ; first,
the strong belief in causation, every change on the face of nature, or in the
life of men or nations, must be due to a cause ; and, secondly, that the only
conceivable cause is a personal agent. The unseen power under all things,
which threw up all changes upon the face of the world, which gave anima
tion to the creature or withdrew it, which moved the generations of men
upon the earth from the beginning (Isa. xli. 4), bringing Israel out of Egypt,
the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir (Amos ix. 7), was the
living God. Some phenomena or events, such as the thunderstorm or the
dividing of the sea, might be more striking instances of His operation than
others. They were miracles, i.e. wonders, but they did not differ in kind
from the ordinary phenomena of nature, from His making the sun to rise,
and His sealing up the stars ; His clothing the heavens with blackness, and
making them bright with His breath. Everything is supernatural, i.e.
direct Divine operation. There is no idea of Law to be broken.
8
114 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
spending to these emotions, are thrown back upon God
It may be that here there is a certain imperfection, that
when we conceive Him from another point of view we
must hold Him free of all passion, and not subject to such
changes as are implied in one emotion succeeding another.
This may be true ; but it is equally true that this other
mode of conception, however much it may have its rights,
reduces God to a Being absolutely unmoral, and even im
personal, if it be carried to its fair issue. Scripture takes
the other line. Starting with the idea of personality, it
adds that of moral personality, and this can he expressed
in no other way than by attributing to God such emotions.
Scripture is conscious that this mode of conception may be
abused : " God is not a man, that He should lie ; nor the
son of man, that He should repent" (Num. xxiii. 19)
" I am Jehovah, I change not " (Mai. iii. 6).
But, again, what is to be observed is that it is the
general truth lying under all these expressions that really
makes up their meaning ; that the real force of these
expressions does not lie in the form or in the detailed
variety of the emotions, but in the general conception
which they combine to suggest, namely, the moral Being
of God; that men are in relation with a Being between
whom and them there is a moral reciprocity, a Being
to whom men s conduct and thought have a meaning, such
a meaning that they seem to reflect themselves upon His
nature, and determine it according to their quality. In
one sense such language used of God gives more a piece
of anthropology than of theology ; it testifies to the meaning
of human life, to its moral character, to the essential
distinction between one act of man and another. These
distinctions are so real and of such influence, that they
repeat themselves upon the nature of God. Man is not
related to an impassive nature force which his actions leave
unaffected. The moral voices of his conduct do not fall
on the dead walls of a prison in which he is immured.
They reverberate in heaven. But while the language
elevates the meaning of man s life and conduct, it also
THE SPIRIT OF GOD 115
states something about God. It describes Him as the
sensitive moral Spirit in the universe, sensitive because
He is perfect moral personality, and His sensitiveness
visible because He is the Being to whom all stand related.
But we should be doing the same wrong to the writers of
Scripture that we should do to ourselves or to another, if
we charged them, when expressing the moral Being of God
through such language, with infringing by it the passionless
nature of God.
IV. THE DOCTRINE OF GOD THE SPIRIT.
I. The Spirit of God.
It is under the aspect, then, of perfect ethical per
sonality that the Old Testament conceives of God. It
has little to say of His essence. He is a free, active,
moral person. And to this attaches what the Old Testa
ment says of the Spirit of God. The question whether
the Old Testament teaches the personality of the Spirit
of God is not one that should be raised apart from the
other What is its conception of the Spirit of God ? We
are very apt to raise these formal questions when we
ought first at least to raise the material ones. The
sphere of the Old Testament is the practical religious
sphere, out of which it never wanders into the sphere of
ontology. The whole question is the question of the
relation of a living, active, moral, personal God to the
world and men. It asks as little what the essence of
God is as it asks what the essence of man is.
The question regarding the Old Testament idea of the
Spirit of God presents itself in another way. As we have
seen, there are uncertainties attaching to the terms El,
Elohim, Jehovah, which prevent us from getting all that
we might expect from these ancient designations of God.
More instructive are the general statements which occur
of what were the prevailing thoughts regarding God.
116 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
These statements bear that He was conceived to be the
source of all things to Israel of things spiritual specially,
but also of other advantages ; and that He ruled Israel.
He was King in Jeshurun, and He was Judge. Men
brought their causes to Elohini, as it was said ; that is, they
brought them to the priests, to whom through an oracle
Jehovah gives a decision. A later writer sums up all
when he says : " The Lord is our judge, the Lord is our
lawgiver, the Lord is our king; He will save us" (Isa.
xxxiii. 22). It becomes, then, an interesting question how
Jehovah exercises His rule in Israel, and His guidance of
it in all the spheres of its life.
There are two ways in which the Old Testament con
ceives this to be done. First, by external manifestation
of Himself to men, and the giving of commands. This
external manifestation of Himself is called the Angel of the
Lord (njrr !J^D). This Angel is not a created angel He
is Jehovah Himself in the form of manifestation. Hence
He is identical with Jehovah, although also in a certain
sense different. We have such expressions as these : " The
angel of God spake unto me (Jacob) . . . and said, I am
the God of Bethel" (Gen. xxxi. 11, 12); "Behold, I send
an Angel before thee . . . My name is in Him," i.e. My
revelation of Myself is in Him" (Ex. xxiii. 20, 21).
The " Angel of the Lord " redeemed Jacob, led Israel into
Canaan, and directed Israel s armies in the conflict with
Sisera. Second, by God s Spirit. As Jehovah s operations
in ruling His people were chiefly through men, they are
regarded as the operations of His Spirit. The " Spirit of
Jehovah " is Jehovah Himself within men, as the " Angel
of Jehovah " is Jehovah Himself without men. This Spirit
raised up judges, i.e., inspired men. He fell on Saul, and
Saul was changed into another man. He raised up Nazarites
and other special persons. In particular, He animated the
prophets. The whole public life of Israel was thus inspired
by Jehovah. Jehovah ruled, and He ruled through His
Spirit.
Further, the idea of the Spirit of God, like other ideas
THE SPIRIT AS WITHIN GOD 117
of God, is probably formed upon the idea of the spirit of
man. The spirit of man is not something distinct from
man, but is man. The thinking, willing life within man,
manifesting itself in influences on what is without, is his
spirit. So the fulness of life in God, active, effectual on
that which is without, is His Spirit. The Spirit of God,
however, may be spoken of as outside His being or as within
it. It is His nature, not conceived, however, as substance or
cause, but as moral, personal life. It may feel within Him,
or be efficient without Him. It corresponds to the spirit
of man. Hence it may be physically conceived just as
man s is. As man s spirit manifests itself in his breath, so
God s Spirit is the breath of His nostrils, His fire-breath.
Hence it is represented as poured out, as breathed, as coming
from the four winds, etc.
Now there are two questions which have to be put here.
First, What is said of the Spirit of God in the Old Testa
ment ? and, secondly, What is that Spirit of God of which
such things are said ? On this second question it may not
be possible to say very much. The answer to it is in the
conclusion suggested by the answer to the other. The
first question itself has two branches, namely, first, What
is said of the Spirit of God in God, within God Himself ?
and secondly, What is said of the Spirit of God not in God
Himself, but in connection with the world or human life ?
2. The Spirit of God within God Himself.
As what is said of God is for the most part of necessity
secondary, that is, a reflection upon His being and application
to Him of what is said and thought in regard to men, it may
be useful to look at the general idea connected with spirit in
the Old Testament, and at what is said of the spirit of man
in man. The passage in Isaiah (xxxi. 3) perhaps comes
nearer expressing the idea of spirit in a general way than
any other : " Now the Egyptians are men, and not God, and
their horses flesh, and not spirit." The general scope of the
passage is to show the impotence of the Egyptians : they
118 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
are men, and not God ; their horses are flesh, and not spirit.
Flesh is weak and liable to decay, it has no inherent
power in it; spirit is power, or has power. This seems
everywhere in the Old Testament the idea attached to
spirit. It is quite probable that the idea is not primary,
but derived. The physical meaning of spirit (nil) is breath.
Where breath is present there is life and power ; where it
is absent there is only flesh and weakness and decay. And
thus the idea of life and power may have become connected
with n from observation. But if we should suppose this to
be the case, the connection of the idea of life and power
with spirit is of such ancient date that it precedes that use
of language which we have in the Old Testament.
Now, in harmony with this general idea of spirit is all
that is said of the spirit of man in man in the Old Testa
ment. The original meaning of spirit is breath. This was
the sign of life, or was the principle of life. But by a step
which all languages seem to have taken, this merely pheno
menal life or visible sign or principle was, so to speak,
intensified into an immaterial element in man, the spirit
of man. Now, avoiding as far as possible anthropological
questions which do not concern us here, when the im
material element in man is called spirit it is in the main
either when it is put in opposition to flesh, or when its
strength or weakness in respect of power and vitality is
spoken of. Hence we have such expressions as these:
God of the spirits of all flesh " (Num. xvi. 22) ; " In whose
hand is the spirit of all flesh of man " (Job xii. 10) ; " The
spirit of Jacob their father revived" (Gen. xlv. 27); "To
revive the spirit of the humble" (Isa. Ivii. 15); "My spirit
is quenched, my days are over, graves are mine" (Job
xvii. 1). So it is said that there was "no more spirit"
(1 Kings x. 5) in the Queen of Sheba when she observed
the wisdom of Solomon ; i.e. she was overcome, and felt
weak. Hence, too, the spirit is "overwhelmed" and
"faileth" (Ps. cxliii.) ; "by sorrow of heart the spirit
is broken" (Ps. xv. 13); "I will not, saith the Lord,
contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for
SPIRIT AS MOOD AND CHARACTER 119
the spirit would fail before Me, and the breaths that I
have made" (Isa, Iviii. 16).
The spirit, then, being that in which resides vitality,
power, energy in general, the usage became extended some
what further. First, any predominating determination or
prevailing direction of the mind was called a spirit of such
and such a kind ; what we call a mood or temper or frame
of a temporary kind. Thus Hosea speaks of " a spirit of
whoredoms" being in Israel (iv. 12); and Isaiah, of a
" spirit of deep sleep " being poured out on them (xxix. 10) ;
and of " a spirit of perverseness " being in the Egyptians
(xix. 1 4) ; and another prophet speaks of " a spirit of grace
and supplications" (Zech. xii. 10). So one is "short in
spirit/ that is, impatient ; grieved in spirit, bitter in spirit,
and the like.
This powerful determination of mind, however, might
be not of a temporary, but of a permanent kind. This is
also called spirit, and corresponds to character or disposition,
whether it be natural or ethical. Hence one is of a
haughty spirit, of a humble spirit, of a steadfast spirit ; and
the Psalmist prays to be upheld with a free spirit (li. 12).
Thus the spirit in man expresses all the activities and
energies of life and mind : the strong current of emotion ;
the prevailing determination of mind, whether temporary or
permanent, and whether natural or ethical.
And the usage is entirely the same in regard to the
Spirit of God in God. The term expresses the fulness
of vital power, and all the activities of vital energy,
whether, as we might say, emotional, or intellectual, or
moral, whether temporary or permanent. In regard to
His emotional nature Micah asks : " Is the spirit of the
Lord short, impatient ? " (ii. 7). Another prophet asks :
" Who directed the spirit of the Lord ? " that is, His
intelligence, which presided over His power in giving
weight and measure to the infinite masses of the material
universe. " Who weighed the mountains in scales, and the
hills in a balance ? Who directed the spirit (or rnind) of
the Lord (when He did so), or being His counsellor taught
120 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Him ? Who . . . instructed Him in the path of judgment,
and . . . showed to Him the way of understanding ? " (Isa.
xL 13, 14). One Psalmist (Ps. cxxxix.) expresses by the
term Spirit His whole omniscient and omnipresent mind :
" Whither from Thy spirit can I fly ? " And one of the
Psalmists, by the same term, expresses His unchanging
ethical disposition : " Thy spirit is good, lead me into the
land of uprightness" (Ps. cxliii. 10). Thus the Old Testa
ment language as to the Spirit of God in God Himself
corresponds to its language in regard to the spirit of man
in man.
3. The Activities of the Spirit.
The other branch of the general question was, What
is said of the Spirit of God not in God, but in rela
tion to the world and men ? Now, as in the first half
of the question it was of consequence to ascertain what
general idea attached to spirit, so here it is of importance
to remember the general ideas entertained of God. The
conception of secondary causes is almost entirely absent
from the Old Testament ; what God does He does directly
and immediately. And He is over all and in all. All
phenomena are due to Him, all changes on the face of the
material world, all movements in history, all vicissitudes
in the life of men. The Old Testament doctrine of God
is not more strongly monotheistic than it is theistic and
not deistic. That universal power within all things which
throws up all configurations on the face of the world, of
history, and of man s life is God. When general language
is used these phenomena are said to be due to God ; when
more precise language is used they are said to be due to
the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God ab intra is God
exerting power, God efficient, that is, actually exerting
efficiency in any sphere. And His efficiency pervades all
spheres, the physical and moral alike.
Some instances may be given by way of illustration.
First, in the cosmical sphere. The Spirit of God moved
THE SPIRIT IX NATURE AXD LIFE 121
upon the face of the waters the watery chaos (Gen. i. 2).
This is a realistic image which expresses the idea that God s
creative power was engaged in educing life and order out of
the primal chaos. It is of some consequence to distinguish
between this Spirit of God and the successive creative
feats " let there be light," etc. These latter express
God s conscious will and determination. These are move
ments of the Spirit of God according to the passage in
Isa. xl. 13, already referred to, db intra. The pervading
Spirit expresses God s efficient presence and operation ab
intra, carrying out His voluntary determinations.
In Job (xxvi. 13) it is said that "by the Spirit of God the
heavens are made bright," a bold, though not unnatural
figure identifying the wind that carries off the clouds
through God s efficiency with the Spirit of God. In like
manner Isaiah (xl. 7) says " the grass withereth when the
Spirit of the Lord breatheth or bloweth upon it," identifiying
the hot withering wind of the desert with the Spirit of God ;
and Ezekiel (xxxvii. 9) uses the figure of breath or wind
from the four quarters of the heaven for the vitalising Spirit
of God, in animating the dead. This operation of the Spirit
of God upon the material world, however, is rarely spoken
of, and it appears to be but an extension of the idea which
is referred to next.
Second, there is the Divine operation in the sphere of life
or vitality. God in His power and efficiency, or the Spirit
of God, is much dwelt on in the sphere of life, whether in
giving vitality or in reinforcing it. In the Creation narrat
ive it is said of man that he was formed " of the dust
of the ground," and that man being thus formed, God
breathed into his nostrils " the breath of life, and he became
a living being" (Gen. ii. 7). This again appears to be
exceedingly realistic imagery. Breath in man s nostrils is
the sign of life ; it may be said to be life in man. Hence
also God has a breath of life in Him like man as indeed
the breath of His nostrils in anger is frequently spoken of.
When this breath or spirit of life was breathed into man,
man also lived. Obviously we must throw away the imagery
122 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
and seek the idea which is, that God is the source of life ;
and in any particular case of producing life, it is God s Spirit
that produces it. Man s life is the presence in man of
God s Spirit. Hence Job says : " The spirit of God is in my
nostrils " (xxvii. 3) ; and Elihu says, " The spirit of God
made me, and the breath of the Almighty giveth me life "
(xxxiii. 4). Hence as the source from whence life comes,
this Spirit is called the Spirit of God ; but, as it is in man,
it is also said to be man s spirit : " Thou hidest Thy face, they
are troubled ; Thou takest away their spirit, they die, and
return to their dust ; Thou sendest forth Thy spirit, they
are created" (Ps. civ. 29, 30). And Elihu says in another
passage : " If God should set His mind on Himself (i.e.
cease to think of the creature) and withdraw His spirit,
all flesh would perish " (Job xxxiv. 15).
Of course, we must beware of imagining that the Spirit
of God is divided or divisible. The spirit of life in man is
not a particle of God s Spirit enclosed in man, which, when
released, returns to the great original source ; it is not a
spark separated from the primary fire. And it is equally
inept to ask where this spirit of life goes when withdrawn.
It goes nowhere. As the ocean fills the caves on the
shore, and again when it recedes leaves them empty, so the
indivisible Spirit of God gives creatures life, and when
withdrawn leaves them dead. Stripped of all these scarcely
to be avoided figures, and of that tendency so ineradicable
in the Eastern mind to turn general conceptions into things,
all this seems to mean that vitality in all creatures is due
to God, to God s operation. God is the source of life, and
as God He is continually communicating His life. But God
in operation or efficiency is the Spirit of God, and God s
operation in giving the creature life is the entrance of His
Spirit into the creature. His continuous efficiency in
upholding life is the continuous presence of His Spirit ;
His cessation to uphold life is the withdrawal of His
Spirit. 1
1 The above exegesis of the passage in Gen. ii. may seem doubtful. There
is room for dissent ; for the word on means both the lite-breath, mere vitality,
THE SPIRIT IN THE PROPHETS 123
Third, there is also the Divine operation in a region
perhaps somewhat higher, being one in human experience
and history. This embraces those cases in which extra
ordinary feats of strength and daring are referred to
the Spirit of God. Thus the Spirit of the Lord came
upon Othniel, and he judged Israel and went out to war
(Judg. iii. 10); upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, and
Abiezer was gathered unto him (vi. 34) ; upon Jephthah,
and he passed over Gilead against the children of Ammon
(xi. 29) ; on Samson, and he rent the lion in pieces as
one rends a kid (xiv. G) ; on Saul, when the Ammonites
besieged Jabesh-Gilead, and his anger was kindled exceed
ingly (1 Sam. ii. 6). Some of these cases may be referred
to again. What struck the beholder in these cases was
the presence of a power and efficiency superhuman. These
heroes were acted upon, and showed a power not their
own. The power of acting on them was God the Spirit
of God.
And perhaps to this division belongs the ascription of
prophecy at first to the Spirit of God. The early prophets,
as we see from what is related in connection with Saul,
were the subjects of a lofty enthusiasm, which sometimes
became an uncontrollable excitation or ecstasy. This
visible external affection of the prophet was probably what
attracted attention and was ascribed to the Spirit of God,
i.e. the inspiration of which the excitation was the symptom
was due to the Spirit of God. I do not allude here to any
question whether or how God was present with these pro
phets. I merely say that it was probably the phenomenon
of excitation which was observed, and which suggested
and the immaterial element in man. And it may seem that it was this latter
that God breathed. I have never been able to see my way through these
two uses of n in the Old Testament. The point of union between them is,
I think, here, that nn is spoken of the immaterial part when special reference
is made to vitality. I think when the phraseology I have referred to that of
the spirit being taken, was used the question was not pursued where it went.
Later the question was asked, as in Ecclesiastes : " Who knows whether the
spirit of man goeth up, and the spirit of beast goeth down ?" (iii. 21). On
the exegesis adopted above the connection between the Spirit of God and life
or vitality in the creature is evident.
124 THE THKOLOOY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
to the observer the presence of God the Spirit of God.
It is probable that it was the external excitation and
elevation of the prophet that was described as the effect
of the Spirit of God, and not as yet anything ethical
or spiritual in the contents of what the prophets uttered.
We may infer this from the remarkable passage in 1 Sam.
xviii. 10, where it is said that an "evil spirit of God fell
upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house."
In later times, when prophecy threw off this excita
tion and became an ethical intercourse of the mind of
man with God, a thing almost normal, as in the case
of Jeremiah, who repudiates all such things as prophetic
dreams, and claims for the prophet simple entrance into
the counsel of God, the phraseology formed in earlier
days still remained, but with another sense. The prophet
is still called in Hosea the man of the Spirit ; and Micah
says in significant language : " Truly I am full of power
by the Spirit of the Lord ... to declare to Jacob his
transgressions, and to Israel his sin (iii. 8). The power
which seemed formerly physical had now become moral.
Fourth, there is the same in the sphere of intellectual
gifts. " There is a spirit in man," says Elihu, and "the breath
of the Almighty giveth him understanding." Intellectual
powers are regarded as the product of God s Spirit, i.e. of
God. Artistic skill, as in the case of Bezaleel, is ascribed
to the Spirit of the Lord.
Fifth, so, too, in the sphere particularly of moral life.
All the religious emotions and vitality of man, the endow
ments which we call spiritual, are said to be due to the
Spirit of God. Hence the Psalmist prays : " Take not Thy
holy Spirit from me" (li. 11), which is almost equal to
a prayer that his mind may not cease to be religious, to
have thoughts of God, and aspirations towards God. Of
course, connected with this, the Spirit of God is the source
of all theocratic forces or capacities in the mind of man.
Here God is personally most active ; here He communi
cates Himself in most fulness. Hence the prophet is full
of might by the Spirit of Jehovah to declare to Israel his
THE SPIRIT OF JEHOVAH 125
sins (Mic. iii. 8). And the Messiah has poured out on
him the Spirit of Jehovah, not only as a spirit of the fear
of the Lord, but as a spirit of wisdom and government
(Isa. xi. 2).
This is by far the largest of the various spheres. But
it is familiar, and it is not necessary to enlarge upon it.
Now, perhaps this slight induction might justify the
general remark that the Spirit of God is, so to speak, the
constant accompaniment of God, the reflection of God.
The Spirit of Jehovah is Jehovah Himself the source of
life of all kinds, of the quickening of the mind in thought,
in morals, in religion, particularly the last. God is all,
and all comes from Him. The ideas, God and Spirit of
God, are parallel, and cover one another. This calling
what is really God by the term the Spirit of God, is the
strongest proof that the idea of the spirituality of God
underlay the idea of God ; just as the spirit of man
indicated that in man spirit is the main element. Hence,
whatever development we may trace in the Old Testament
in the doctrine of God, there will be a corresponding
development in that of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of
God being God in operation, an advance on the conception
of God, a tendency to give the thought of God a prevailing
direction, as, e.g., the ethical or redemptive, will be followed,
or rather accompanied, by the same advance and tendency
in regard to the Spirit of God.
And here perhaps a distinction should be alluded to
which no doubt is connected with such a tendency the
distinction between the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the
Lord, or Jehovah. The distinction has no bearing on
general principles, inasmuch as Jehovah is God under a
certain aspect. But the aspect is important. Jehovah is
God as God of Israel, God as King of the redemptive
kingdom of God in Israel. And the Spirit of the Lord is
the Lord operating as redemptive God in Israel. This very
idea in itself gave a particular direction to the thought of
God, and therefore to that of the Spirit of God. The
ethical and spiritual naturally came to the front. The
126 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Spirit given to men such as Gideon, Jephthah, and others
was this theocratic redemptive Spirit; it was Jehovah
operating in men for redemptive purposes saving and
ruling His people. And the Spirit of prophecy became
almost exclusively ethical. And, of course, the further
down we come the more this conception of God, and
consequently of the Spirit of God, became the prevailing
one, until it became almost the exclusive one. The Spirit
of God under the name of the Holy Spirit occurs very
rarely, only three times in the Old Testament, in Ps. li.
and twice in Isa. Ixiii. Both these compositions may
be late. Judging from usage, e.g. holy hill, holy city,
holy place, holy arm, etc., which mean hill of God, city
of God, etc., the phrase Holy Spirit probably at first
merely meant Divine Spirit, Spirit of God, emphasising
the fact that He was the Spirit of God. But, of course,
as the ethical being of God more and more became pro
minent, the same advance in the ethical quality of the
Spirit also took place, and the expression Holy Spirit was
specially employed to express this idea.
The general conclusion which seems to follow from
these things is: that the Spirit of God db intra is God
active, showing life and power, of the kinds similar to those
exhibited by the spirit of man in man ; that the Spirit
of God db extra is God in efficient operation, whether in
the cosmos or as giving life, reinforcing life, exerting
efficiency in any sphere, according to the nature of the
sphere, whether physical, intellectual, or spiritual ; and
that the tendency towards limiting the Spirit of God to
the ethical and spiritual spheres is due to the tendency to
regard God mainly on those sides of His being.
4. What the Spirit is.
But now, on the second question, What is the Spirit of
God of which the above things are said ? If the Spirit of
God be God exercising power or efficiency, does He work it
per se or per alium ? Is the Spirit of God numerically
QUESTION OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE SPIRIT 127
another, distinct from God in the Old Testament ? This
question is exceedingly difficult to answer. Of course, the
language used, whether of the Spirit of God db intra or ab
extra, might be used, and no doubt is used now, to express
the conception of the Spirit as a distinct person. But it is
doubtful if any Old Testament passage can be found which
requires this sense ; and it is doubtful if any passage of
the Old Testament has this sense, if by the sense of the
Old Testament we mean the sense intended by the writers
of the Old Testament.
It should be said further, that the idea of the personality
of the Spirit is not one that we should expect to be pro
minent in the Old Testament. For we have to start from
the idea that the Spirit of the Lord is the Lord not an
influence from Him, but the Lord Himself. This is the
first step to any just doctrine of the personality of the
Spirit.
The Old Testament, however, seems to teach these
things : (a) The Spirit of God is always something, as we
say, supernatural, and it is always God. The Spirit of God
is not an influence exerted by God at a point from which
He is Himself distant. God is always present in the
Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is God actually present
and in operation. And this lays the foundation for the
New Testament doctrine, (b) The Spirit of God is not a
substance communicated to man. The Old Testament
knows nothing of a spiritual substance. God is not any
where called a Spirit in the Old Testament : He has a
Spirit ; but Spirit is not a substance. It is an energy.
The various figures used of the communication of the Spirit,
as to fall on, to pass on, to rest on, and the like, express
either the supernaturalness of the gift, or its suddenness
and power, or its abiding influence. One peculiar expres
sion is used, the Spirit of God clothed him, implying the
complete enveloping of all the human faculties in the
Divine. This phrase is still used by the Mohammedans.
When they whirl or jerk their heads back and forward till
they fall down in a faint, then they are clothed. The
128 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
figure is quite intelligible. Job says : "I put on justice,
and it clothed me" (xlix. 14) he was himself hidden
and lost behind justice, (c) And with this second point,
that the Spirit of God is not a substance, is connected
the other conclusion, that, as all the passages and examples
show, the influence exerted on man in His communication
is, as we say, dynamical. It does not give thoughts, e.g.,
but it invigorates and elevates the faculty of thought. It is
not a material, but a formal gift, sending power into all the
capacities of the mind, and thus it is in a sense re-creative.
There are, indeed, a very considerable number of
passages in the Old Testament which might very well
express the idea that the Spirit is a distinct hypostasis or
person. We might refer specially to such passages as
Hag. ii. 5 : " My Spirit is in the midst of you " ; Zech. iv. 6 :
" Not by might . . . but by My Spirit " ; Isa. Ixiii. 1 :
" They rebelled, and vexed His holy Spirit " ; Isa. Ixiii. 1 1 :
" Where is He who put His holy Spirit within it (Israel) ? ,"
etc. But, on the other hand, it must be said that little
can be made of most of those passages in which a dis
tinction appears to be made between God and His Spirit.
For men also distinguish between themselves and their
spirit, and speak of their souls, their spirits, etc. This way
of speaking, it must, however, be added, is much developed
in the Old Testament, so that we may say the beginnings
at least of the distinction between the Lord and His Spirit,
are to be seen. But, at the same time, it is doubtful
whether there are any passages which must be so inter
preted. That moral attributes, such as goodness and holi
ness, are ascribed to the Spirit, hardly goes any way to
prove distinction. Of more force, perhaps, is such a passage
as the one in Isa. Ixiii. 10. But then another passage
(Isa. liv. 6) speaks of a woman forsaken and grieved in
spirit. Of some significance, however, is Isa. xlviii. 1 6 :
" Jehovah hath sent me and His Spirit " He and His
Spirit have sent me, or perhaps, He hath sent me with
His Spirit. The question here is whether the Spirit is
subject or object. But even if the latter is the case, it may
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD 129
still be said that the Spirit becomes an agent parallel to
man whoever the speaker be, whether prophet or
Servant.
There is one more point on which a word will suffice.
We hear it said sometimes in regard to such passages as
that in Gen. i. 26: "Let us make man"; or Isa. vi. 8:
"Who will go for us?" that there is there a vague or
obscure intimation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Now
this is unfortunate language. It is unhappily the case
that there are many passages of the Old Testament which
we must call obscure ; that is, we are unable to say whether
this, or that, or some other thing be the meaning. But we
never have any doubt that they have some one perfectly
clear sense, if we had the means of reaching it. They are
not vague in themselves. There is no vagueness or
obscurity in either of the passages referred to. If God,
who speaks in these passages, uses the word us of Himself,
there is a perfectly clear statement to the effect that the
Godhead is a plurality whether that plurality be a
duality, or a trinity, or some other number is spoken of.
But so far the sense has no vagueness or obscurity. The
point, however, is whether the Divine speaker uses the
word us of Himself, i.e. of the Godhead alone, or whether
He does not rather include others, e.g. His heavenly council
along with Him. The opinion of most expositors is to the
latter effect.
V. THE DOCTRINE OF GOD THE DIVINE
ATTRIBUTES.
1. The Righteousness of God.
The etymological meaning of the root piv may not be
now ascertainable. Like anp, holy, the word, no doubt,
once expressed a physical action; but in usage it seems
now to occur only in a moral sense, or when used of
things in the sense of our word right. It has been
9
130 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
suggested that the Hebrew idea of right was what was
conformable to a standard ; but there seems to be little
in this. It was not conformity to a standard that made
things right, but conformity to a right standard. The idea,
of a standard is secondary the idea of right precedes it.
A standard is only a concrete embodiment or expression
of right in a particular sphere. An ephah is a standard in
measurement, but only a right ephah. The prophet Micah
speaks of the cursed scanty ephah, to measure according to
which was not right (vi. 10).
All that it is of consequence to keep in mind is that
long before we find judgments on conduct passed, the per
son or mind passing them had already the ideas of right
and wrong, and the further ideas what things were right and
what things were wrong in the particular spheres to which
his judgment applied. And long before judgments are
passed and predications of righteousness or unrighteousness
made, whether in regard to God or to man, the persons
making them were already so far morally educated. The
question how persons found passing judgment became
morally educated is not of much consequence, because it
refers to something anterior to the point at which we must
begin. The judgments which we find passed in regard to
righteousness or unrighteousness are made from the mind
of the person judging, and as a rule bear no reference to
any source from which he may have learned to judge as he
does.
That is righteous/ whether in God or in man, which is
right in the circumstances, i.e., judged by the person who
pronounced the judgment to be right. Eighteousness is
one, whether in God or in man. It would be wrong in a
human judge or ruler to condemn the righteous with the
wicked, or destroy them indiscriminately; and Abraham
asks in reference to such a thing : " Shall not the judge of
all the earth do right?" (Gen. xviii. 25). Of course,
there is great difference between God and man, seeing
man s righteousness may largely consist in a right relation
to God, while God may not be conditioned in this way.
SOVEREIGNTY AND RIGHTEOUSNESS 131
But the fact that God is God does not withdraw Him and
His actions from the sphere of moral judgment. Nothing
would be right in God because He is God, which would
not be right in Him were He man. Again, naturally this
statement is general, and has to be limited in many ways.
He is right, for instance, in demanding obedience from
man, and man is right in obeying Him ; still it is always
understood in the particular instances that the act re
quired and rendered is an act right in itself, though it
may be that in details some actions might at an early
time be considered right, or not wrong, which would not
be considered right now. But while men may be found
in plenty who are described as doing those things not now
considered right, it may be doubtful if there are cases
where they are commanded by God to do them.
It is sometimes argued that because God is sovereign
He has a right to do with His creatures as He pleases, and
He is right or righteous in so doing. The abstract question
does not concern us here ; I do not think it is touched
upon in the Old Testament. The Old Testament certainly
teaches that God does " according to His pleasure in the
armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth "
(Dan. xi. 16); but I think it is always assumed that His
pleasure is a benevolent and moral one, at least in the first
instance, and that when it is otherwise this is due to the
evil of men. The figure of the clay and the potter is fre
quently used. Now this figure means that it is God that
does shape the history and destinies of mankind, par
ticularly of His people ; but it says nothing of the
principles according to which He shapes them. In Isa.
xlv. 912 the people of Israel are represented as criticising
the methods of God s dealing with them, the instruments
He is using for their deliverance. They disliked the idea
that a heathen conqueror like Cyrus should be God s agent
in giving them freedom, or they were incredulous as to the
results. And God replies to them : " Woe to that which
strives with Him who makes it ! ... Shall the clay say
to the potter, What makest thou ? or shall thy work say
132 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
in regard to thee, He has no hands ? . . . Thus saith
Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, Ask Me concerning My
children, and commit to Me the work of My hands. I
have made earth, and man upon it : My hands stretched
out the heavens." What God claims here is not the right
to do as He pleases ; what He claims is superior power
and understanding, and as having this He claims that He,
the Creator of earth and man upon it, and of the host of
heaven, may be trusted to deal with the people s destiniea
in wisdom and with success. It is the same idea as
is expressed in another place : " Your ways are not My
ways, nor My thoughts your thoughts. As the heavens
are higher than the earth, so are My thoughts (or plans)
higher than your thoughts " (Isa. Iv. 8, 9).
The paragraph in Jer. xviii. about the potter supplies
a further element. The prophet went down to the potter s
house, and behold he wrought his work on the wheels.
And when the vessel that he was making of the clay was
marred in the hands of the potter, he made it again another
vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. Then the
word of the Lord came to the prophet : " Behold, as the
clay in the potter s hand, so are ye in Mine hand, house
of Israel." The potter s design was to make a vessel, but
the clay was marred in his hand. The cause, no doubt, lay
in the clay ; it was due to some flaw or intractability in it.
It was not suitable for the potter s first intention, and he
made of it that which could be made of it. This is the
whole scope of the chapter. It is meant to show that God
deals with men and nations on moral principles, one way
or another, according to their character ; that, if His first
intention fails with them, He has recourse to another :
" At what time I speak concerning a nation to build and to
plant it, if it do evil in My sight, then I will repent of the
good, wherewith I said I would benefit them." But the
opposite is equally true : " At what time I speak concerning
a nation, to pluck up, and to destroy it ; if that nation turn
from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to
do unto them." Jeremiah s figure teaches these two things :
RIGHTEOUSNESS NOT ABSTRACT 133
first, that He can deal with nations as the potter deals
with the clay ; but, second, also the principles on which He
deals with them. 1
God is righteous when He does what is right in any
particular case, or in any of the characters in which He
acts as Judge, Kuler, God of His people. Eighteousness is
not an abstract thing; it is right conduct in particular
relations. God is not very often said to be righteous in
regard to His whole character, so to speak, though there
are examples. The term is more often said of men. But
a righteous man is one who has done or always does right
actions. And God s righteousness is judged in the same
way. Now it is evident what is right in a judge or ruler ;
it is to clear the innocent and condemn the guilty, to find
out and give effect to the truth in any particular cause.
It is particularly right in the judge or ruler to see that
right be done to those who are weak or without human
helpers, to stand by them and plead their cause, such as
the widow or the orphan. Justice is to be done to all, and
the judge is warned against favouring the poor unjustly
because they are poor ; but it is a sacred duty to see that
right is done to those whose means of doing themselves
justice are limited. Job claims this kind of righteousness
for himself : " I was a father to the needy : and the cause of
him that I knew not I searched out" (xxix. 16). And
God is the father of the fatherless and the judge of the
widow.
The function of the judge was wider than with us ;
he was both judge and advocate ; not judging as judges
do now, on evidence set before him by others, but discover
ing the evidence for himself. So the Messiali in His
function as judge does not judge after the sight of His
eyes, nor decide after the hearing of His ears, but judges
the poor with righteousness with an insight given to Him
by the Spirit of God which fills Him (Isa. xi. 3). But the
actions of God are judged in His various relations to men,
1 On tliis see further in the author s The Book of Ezckicl the Prophet,
p. 36 (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges). ED.
134 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
just as the actions of a man would be judged. The dog
matic principle that men being sinners nothing is due to
them, is not the foundation on which judgments in regard
to God are based. No doubt this idea is often recognised,
and in the earliest times : " I am unworthy of the least of
all the mercies . . . which Thou hast showed unto Thy
servant" (Gen. xxxii. 10). The principle of His grace is
frequently emphasised. But in passing judgment on His
actions in relation to men this principle lies further back,
and His actual relations to men are made the basis of the
judgment, the fact that He is God of His people, father
of His children, and the like.
And the principle of judgment applied is very much
what would be applied to men. It is right/ for example,
among men to forgive on confession of wrong, and God
is righteous in forgiving the penitent : " Deliver me from
bloodguiltiness, God, Thou God of my salvation : and my
tongue shall sing aloud of Thy righteousness " (Ps. li. 1 4).
This language is also used in the New Testament : " If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive
us our sins " (1 John i. 9) ; and again : " God is not
unrighteous to forget your work, and the love which
ye shewed toward His name" (Heb. vi. 10). There is
therefore no antithesis between righteousness and grace.
The exercise of grace, goodness, forgiveness may be called
righteousness in God. Thus : " Answer me in Thy faithful
ness and in Thy righteousness, and enter not into judgment
with Thy servant : for in Thy sight shall no man living
be found righteous " (Ps. cxliii. 1). Here righteousness is
opposed to entering into judgment, i.e. to the very thing
which technically and dogmatically is called righteousness.
When the relations of God to His people Israel are
considered, the question of His righteousness becomes more
complicated. There are two or three points to be noticed.
First, His relation to His people internally, when the other
nations of the world are not considered. Here He acts as
a righteous ruler. He punishes their sin. As Isaiah
Cxxviii. 17) expresses it, He "makes judgment (justice) the
CHASTISEMENT AND JUDGMENT 135
line and righteousness the plummet" with which He
measures and estimates the people. His afflicting them
may be only chastisement up to a certain point, but it may
go further and become judgment, and all His judgments
are done in righteousness. His being God of Israel does
not invalidate the general principle of His righteous dealing
with men. So far from invalidating it, it rather confirms
it : " You only have I known of all the families of the
earth, therefore will I visit your transgressions upon you "
(Amos iii. 2). The relations of God and people are
altogether moral. When, however, His chastisements pro
duce repentance, He is again righteous in returning to His
people and saving them. These two principles apply to
the people as a whole ; they apply also to the individuals
of the people, as is seen in the case of David, when he
greatly sinned and greatly repented of his sin. But, of
course, the solidarity of the individuals and nation often
involved those who were innocent in the national judg
ments, and this became the cause of extreme perplexity to
the minds of many in later times.
Second, there is the case when the other nations are
drawn into His operations with His people. So far from
Israel being insured against the nations because it was in
name His people, the nations are represented as being
used as instruments in chastising the people. And these
chastisements are an illustration of God s righteousness.
" The Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God
the Holy One sanctified in righteousness" (Isa. v. 16);
" For though thy people Israel be as the sands of the sea,
only a remnant of them shall return : a consummation is
determined, a stream flooded with righteousness" (x. 22).
The moral character of the nations who are used to chastise
Israel does not come into account. They are mere instru
ments in God s hand : " Assyrian, the rod used by Mine
anger" (x. 5). And when the purpose they served was
effected they were flung aside ; or when they overstepped
their commission, and cherished purposes of conquest of
their own, they fell themselves under God s anger, particu-
136 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
larly when they dealt harshly with Israel, and oppressed
where they were only used to chastise. So it is said to
Babylon : " I was wroth with My people . . . and gave
them into thine hand : thou didst show them no mercy ;
upon the aged hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke.
Thou didst not lay such things to heart, neither didst
consider the issue thereof " (Isa. xlvii. 6) ; and in Zech.
God says : " I am very sore displeased with the nations
that are at ease: for I was but a little displeased [with
My people], and they helped forward the affliction" (i. 15).
In all the earlier prophets the calamities that befall
Israel are illustrations of God s righteousness. They are
all absorbed in the idea of Israel s sin, and the character of
the heathen nations used to chastise the people little
occupies their attention. No doubt they all, especially
from Isaiah downwards, have an outlook ; and the time of
the nations will come, and Assyria shall be broken upon
the mountains of Israel, when the Lord shall have per
formed His short work, i.e. His work of chastisement upon
Jerusalem. But naturally when Israel had been long in
exile the hardships they suffered at the hand of the nations
were regarded as oppressive. They were so. As against
the nations, Israel felt itself to be righteous : the nations
were injurious and unjust. Jehovah s interposition there
fore for His people was claimed as right : it was righteous.
Hence in the second part of Isaiah, Israel complains that
her God has forgotten her right : " Why sayest thou,
Jacob, and speakest, Israel, My way (i.e. what I suffer)
is hid from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my
God ? " (Isa. xl. 27). And in another place, " They ask of
Me judgments of righteousness " (Iviii. 2): and again, "There
fore is judgment far from us, neither does righteousness
accrue to us " (lix. 9), i.e. they do not enjoy God s inter
position, which would be on His part righteousness. Hence,
in general, God s interpositions to save His people are
called His righteousness, a way of speaking, however,
which is very old, occurring in the Song of Deborah, the
righteous acts of His rule in Israel. The assumption
ISRAEL S APPEALS TO RIGHTEOUSNESS 137
underlying this usage is that the people as against the
nations that oppressed them were in the right, and
Jehovah s vindication of them was a righteous act.
But this leads on to what is perhaps the most interest
ing usage of the term righteousness, whether it be of God or
man ; for God s righteousness and man s come into contact
or run into one another. For Israel to claim God s inter
position on their behalf because they were righteous, even
as against the nations, might be thought to imply on their
part a superficial conscience. Even if they were superior to
the nations in morals, as no doubt they were, their sense of
their own sin before God, it might be supposed, would restrain
them from pleading their righteousness, which at the best
was but comparative. But this was by no means their
plea, as it is expressed in such a prophet as the Second
Isaiah. In the last years of Judah and in the Exile
Israel s religion had attained its maturity. Virtually no
more growth can be observed in it. What we observe is
not enlargement or addition in the religion, but its arrival
at self -consciousness. From being before naive, and in
structive and unconscious in its utterances and life, it now
attains to reflection on itself and the consciousness of its
own meaning. The conflict of the nation with other
nations, and their mixture among the peoples of the world,
gave the people knowledge of the world religions, and com
pelled comparison with their own. And their own was
true, the others false. They had in them the true know
ledge of the true God. It is quite possible that this
conviction was an ancient one ; indeed, it is certain that
it was, if, at any rate, Isa. ii. belong to that prophet.
Because there the nations are represented as all exhorting
one another to go up to Jerusalem to the house of the God
of Jacob, that He may teach them of His ways, and that they
may walk in His paths. The author of this was already
conscious that his religion was the true one, and that it
would become universal.
But, in the age of the Exile and later, the conditions
of the world and of the people caused this consciousness
138 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
to be much more widely spread and vivid. When, there
fore, Israel pleads before God that it is in the right as
against the nations, the meaning is not that the people
are as persons or as a nation morally just or righteous.
The meaning is that their cause is right. In the conflict
of religions their cause is righteous. As a factor in the
world, in the destinies of mankind, they have the right
to which victory is due. The cause of Jehovah is con
tained within them. They possess the true knowledge
of the true God, and the revolutions of the nations, the
conflicts of opposing forces, going on then and at all times,
are but the great drama, the denouement of which is the
victory of Jehovah s cause, which Israel has within it.
This is what is meant when Israel is called the Servant of
the Lord His public servant on the stage of the world to
bring His purpose to fulfilment. The consciousness and
the faith of this Servant are expressed in the exquisite
passage, Isa. 1. 49, where the Servant says : " The Lord
God hath given me the tongue of disciples, that I should
know how to uphold him that is weary. . . . The Lord
God opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither
turned away backward. I gave my back to the smiters,
and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. . . .
For the Lord God helpeth me ; therefore I have not been
confounded : therefore do I set my face like a flint, and I
know that I shall not be put to shame. He is near that
will justify me ; who will contend with me ? Behold, the
Lord God helpeth me ; who is he that shall put me in
the wrong ? Behold, they shall all wax old as a garment ;
the moth shall consume them." This is the cause, the
cause as wide as the world ; indeed, the world-cause, the
cause of Israel against the world in truth, Jehovah s cause.
The Servant is conscious of its meaning, and his faith
assures him of victory He is near that will justify me.
To give this cause victory is an act of God s righteousness.
" He is near," the Servant says, " who will justify me " ;
that is, the justification is imminent, close at hand. To
justify is to show to be in the right, Now the idea
IDEA OF JUSTIFICATION 139
prevailing in those days was that the relation of God to
a man or to a people was always reflected in the outward
circumstances of the man or nation. Prosperity was the
token of God s favour, and adversity of His displeasure.
Hence Job, speaking of a man who had been sick unto
death, but was restored, says : " He prayeth unto God and
He is favourable unto him : so that he seeth His face with
joy ; and He restore th unto man his righteousness " (xxxiii.
26), i.e. his restoration to health is a giving back to him
his righteousness, it is the token that he is now right
before God. Similarly, when the great calamities of
drought and locusts to which the people had been
subjected are removed, and rain bringing fertility and
plenty is again sent from heaven, it is said : " Be
glad, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your
God : for He shall give you the former rain for righteous
ness " (Joel ii. 23) n ^ T >7, i.e. in token of righteousness,
right standing with God. In no other way could God s
justification of the Servant be approved to the eyes of the
nations or verified to the heart of the people except by the
people s restoration to prosperity and felicity in their own
land. Then Israel would be the righteous nation among
the nations. Then would begin to operate all the redempt
ive forces within Israel, and to flow out among the peoples.
Then she would be as the dew among the nations, not
breaking the bruised reed nor quenching the glimmering
light, till she brought forth right also to the nations
" Arise, shine ; for thy light is come. . . . And the nations
shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy
shining " (Isa. Ix. 1-3).
Hence in the Old Testament justification has always
this outer side of prosperity and restoration, at least
when spoken of the people. It does not consist in this,
but this is an essential element in it ; this is that which
verifies it to the heart of the people. And this was
usually the case also with the individual man. Even
ordinarily the individual probably was slow to realise his
sinfulness or God s displeasure except he fell into sickness
140 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
or misfortune, and on the other hand he craved that God s
favour should approve itself to him in his external life ;
when his circumstances reflected it, then his heart felt it.
No doubt in some instances the individual saint rose to be
at least for moments independent of all that was outward.
His faith and right standing before God was a self-verify
ing thing, it reflected itself in his consciousness ; and this
evidence of his conscience might be so strong as to
overbear any contrary evidence which men or adverse
circumstances brought against him. So it is represented
in Job, and so the surprising words of a psalmist over
whelmed with calamities : " Nevertheless I am continually
with Thee" (Ps. Ixxiii. 23).
There are two further points which may be briefly
referred to in regard to the righteousness of God. The
mere righteousness of God as an attribute of His nature
does not require much investigation. It is to be under
stood. But His righteousness is said of His redemptive
operations. It is a strange thing that from the fall of
Jerusalem onwards Israel never attained again to a con
dition of prosperity. It was not only never again an
independent people, but its condition was in general greatly
depressed and miserable. No doubt for about a century it
was ruled by the Maccabean princes, but the period was
perhaps the most barren of any age of its history. Many
scholars, indeed, have found Maccabean Psalms, but it must
be acknowledged that there is little certainty here. At
any rate, there is absolutely no evidence that the highest
hopes of the people in regard to the incoming of the perfect
kingdom of God among them were ever connected with
any of the Maccabean princes. It was not when prosperous,
but when under the deepest afflictions, that they reached
the highest thoughts of God and themselves. Their long-con
tinued calamities, the delay in the realising of their hopes
concerning their redemption and God s coming in His king
dom, turned their thoughts back upon themselves to find
the cause of such protracted disappointment. And all the
deepest problems of religion rose before them wrath and
REDEMPTIVE RIC4HTEOUSNESS 141
grace, sin and forgiveness, justification and righteousness.
Israel, of course, never doubted that it had within it the
truth of the true God, but the brilliant hopes which this
consciousness created at the period of the return from exile
became greatly dimmed and faded. Even to the great
prophet of the Exile, in spite of his faith, the outlook
seemed often very clouded. Between Israel, the ideal
servant of the Lord with a mission to the world, and the
Israel of reality the contrast was almost absolute " Who
is blind, but my servant ? or deaf, as my messenger whom I
send? " (Isa. xlii. 19). Israel was unrighteous. Its salvation
could not come from itself, but from an interposition of
God on its behalf. All the prophets of this age Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, and Second Isaiah are at one in this. The first
prophet asks in reference to his people, " Can the Ethiopian
change his skin ? " (xiii. 23). Can they who are habituated
to do evil do well ? And he can solve the problem only
by the faith that Jehovah will yet write His law on the
people s hearts. But it is only the Second Isaiah that
calls this interposition of God, and His deliverance of His
people, God s righteousness. In this use of it righteousness
is frequently parallel to salvation : " I bring near My
righteousness, and My salvation shall not tarry" (xlvi. 13).
Only in the Lord, shall they say, is righteousness and
strength : " In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be
justified, or be righteous, and shall glory" (xlv. 24, 25).
When this is called righteousness and also salvation,
the two words are not quite equivalent. Salvation is rather
the negative side deliverance ; righteousness, the positive.
And this includes, as was said before, the external felicity
which is the guarantee to the nation s heart that it was
justified or righteous. This is the outside of righteousness,
indispensable, but only the outside. The inside is true
righteousness of heart and life " My people shall be all
righteous" (Ix. 21); "In righteousness shalt thou be
established ; thy children shall be all taught of the Lord "
(liv. 13) ; " He hath clothed me with the garments of salva
tion, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness "
142 TTTE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
(Ixi. 10). This righteousness is thus sometimes called the
people s and sometimes God s. It is the people s because
they possess it, though it has been freely given to them.
There is considerable approach to New Testament phrase
ology and thought here, though this righteousness of God
which He bestows upon the people is not mere forensic
justification. Besides the forgiveness of sin, it includes
inward righteousness of heart, and the outward felicity
which reflects God s favour, and is the seal of it to the
people.
But why is this called God s righteousness ? Scarcely
merely because He gives it. Neither can this interposition
and deliverance of Israel be called righteousness because it
was right to interpose in behalf of Israel, the righteous
nation. This cannot well be, first, inasmuch as Jehovah
brings this righteousness of His to manifestation just because
Israel is utterly unrighteous. In Isa. lix. 1 2 ff. the people
confess this : " Our transgressions are multiplied before
Thee, and our sins testify against us ... in transgressing
and denying the Lord, and turning away from following
our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and
uttering from the heart words of falsehood. Yea, truth
is lacking ; he that departeth from evil maketh himself a
prey." This is the condition of the people. And the
Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no
judgment : " He saw that there was no man, and wondered
that there was none to interpose : therefore His own arm
brought salvation to Him ; and His righteousness, it upheld
Him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an
helmet of salvation upon his head." . . . And, secondly,
because this righteousness of His is given by Him not only
to Israel but to the nations : " Attend, My people, unto
Me : for torah, teaching, shall go forth from Me, and I will
make My judgment, i.e. justice or right judgment, to rest
for a light of the peoples. My righteousness is near ; My
salvation is gone forth, and Mine arms shall judge, i.e.
justly rule, the nations ; the isles shall wait for Me, and on
Mine arm shall they trust " (Isa. li. 4, 5).
JEHOVAH S RIGHTEOUSNESS 143
These passages seem to give the key to this use of the
word righteousness. It is not a Divine attribute. It is a
Divine effect it is something produced in the world by
God, a condition of the world produced by God, a condition
of righteousness, called His not only because He produces
it, but also because when it is produced men and the world
will be in attributes that which He is. This righteousness
of God appears to the prophet to be something in itself,
something independent and eternal : " Lift up your eyes
to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath : for the
heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall
wax old like a garment : but My salvation shall be for ever,
and My righteousness shall not be abolished " (Isa. li. 6).
To this prophet what characterised the world was
unrighteousness, violence, bloodshed, devastating wars, cruel
idolatries. This, in his view, was due to the false gods
which they worshipped. Only knowledge of the true God
would remedy it. For this was not the will of Him who
in truth created the world : " Thus saith the Lord that
created the heavens He is God ; who formed the earth
and made it ; He created it not to be a wilderness, He
formed it to be inhabited" (Isa. xlv. 18). And in like
manner the mission of the Servant of the Lord was to
" bring forth judgment to the nations " (Isa. xlii. 1), i.e. not
the true religion, but civil right, equity, humanity among
the nations. This could only be, no doubt, by making them
know the true God ; but judgment was not this knowledge,
but the secondary effect of it it was righteousness as con
duct and life. This is the thing called by the prophet
Jehovah s righteousness ; it is a condition of the earth, of
mankind. It is Jehovah that brings it in ; to bring it in
is the goal of all His operations, and it is the final effect of
them. It is not His own righteousness as an attribute ;
though, of course, it corresponds to His own being, for
" the righteous Lord loveth righteousness " (Ps. xi. 7).
Only by the knowledge of Him can it be attained. When
attained it is salvation : " Look unto Me, and be saved, all
the ends of the earth : for I am God, and there is none else
144 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
a righteous God and a Saviour" (Isa. xli. 22). The
antithesis which in dogmatics we are familiar with is a
righteous or just God and yet a Saviour. The Old Testa
ment puts it differently, a righteous God, and therefore a
Saviour. It is His own righteousness that causes Him to
bring in righteousness. All His redemptive operations are
performed in the sphere of this righteousness. Israel s first
call : " I have called thee in righteousness " (Isa. xlii. 6) ;
His raising up Cyrus : " I have raised him up in righteous
ness " (Isa. xlv. 13), and all His operations, have for their
goal this condition of men and the world, and all are per
formed with a view to it. And when the great movement
has reached its final goal, righteousness on earth is the
issue : " Behold, I create new heavens, and a new earth
wherein dwelleth righteousness " (Isa. Ixv. 1 7).
2. The Holiness of God.
The " Holiness " of Jehovah is a very obscure subject,
and the most diverse views regarding it have prevailed
among Old Testament students. It is not possible to
discuss these different views. I will rather set down first,
in a few propositions, the results which comparison of the
Old Testament passages seems to give ; and then refer to
these propositions briefly by way of illustration. The
terminology is as follows :
KTIiJ, to be holy ; Pi., Hiph. to sanctify, hallow, con
secrate, dedicate ; B^IP, holy, also as noun, c Holy One
(of Jehovah), saint of men, or * holy ones of angels ;
B "Jp, holy thing, holiness, thing hallowed, sanctuary, and
frequently in combination, as holy hill/ hill of holiness,
holy arm, people, cities, etc. ; B"Ji?o, sanctuary, holy place.
Now, with regard to this term, these things may be said
(1) The word to be holy and the adjective holy
had originally, like all such words, a physical sense, now
completely lost, not only in Hebrew but in all the other
Shemitic languages.
(2) Whatever this meaning was it became applied very
ORIGINAL USE OF THE TERM HOLY 145
early to Jehovah in Hebrew, and to the gods in Shemitic
heathenism. It is* so much peculiar to the gods, e.g. in
Phoenician, that the gods are spoken of as the holy gods ;
the term, holy being a mere epitheton ornans, having no
force. The same phrase occurs also in the Book of
Daniel.
(3) The word is applied, however, also to men and
things, not as describing any quality in them, but to
indicate their relation to deity. Holy said of men and
things originally means merely belonging to deity, sacred.
It is probable that this use of the word, though naturally
also very ancient, is secondary and applied. That this
sense should be ancient as well as the other is natural ; for
wherever gods were believed in and worshipped there were
persons and things employed in their worship, and dedicated
to them, and therefore also holy.
(4) In its original use the term holy/ when applied
either to God or to men, does not express a moral quality.
Of course, when applied to things it could not express a
moral quality, though it might express a ceremonial quality ;
but in the oldest use of the word, even when applied to
men, it expresses rather a relation, simply belonging to
Jehovah or the gods ; and when applied to Jehovah it rather
expresses His transcendental attributes or that which we
call Godhead, as opposed to the human.
(5) In use as applied to Jehovah it is a general term
expressing Godhead. But, of course, Godhead was never
a mere abstract conception. Some attribute or characteristic
was always in the person s view which betokened Godhead.
Hence the term * holy is applied to Jehovah when mani
festing any attributes which are the token of Godhead, or
which men consider to be contained in Godhead; e.g.
transcendent majesty, glory, greatness, power, righteousness,
or in later prophets as Ezekiel sole-Godhead/ when
Jehovah is spoken of. None of these attributes are
synonyms of holiness strictly; they are rather elements
in holiness. But Jehovah reveals Himself as holy when
He manifests any one of these attributes ; and He is
10
146 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
sanctified among men when they attribute to Him any
of these Divine qualities ; just as, on the other hand, He is
profaned or desecrated when men fail to ascribe these
attributes to Him, or act in forgetfulness of them. Thus
holy acquired contents, and one prophet puts in one
kind of contents into it and another another. But it is
important first to seize the general idea ; the development
of details which the idea may contain was, no doubt, a
historical process.
(6) Similarly holy in regard to men or things,
originally expressing a relation merely, namely, the "belonging
to Jehovah, naturally became filled out with contents
precisely parallel to the contents put into holy when
applied to Jehovah. Men who belonged to Jehovah must
have the same character, so far as was possible to men, as
Jehovah ; the same ethical character, at least, and the same
purity. Things that belonged to Him must have at least
that purity which things are capable of having.
(7) In order to get a background for the idea of holiness
and throw it into relief, the opposite ideas need to be looked
at. These are *?h, profane, and ??n, to profane, both also old
words. Profane is the opposite of holy when applied
to things ; and to profane is to desecrate, to take away,
or at least detract from the holiness which belongs to
Jehovah, or anything that being His is holy, such as His
sanctuary, His name, His Sabbath, His people, and His
land. Of course, words like sanctify and profane
always acquire in language an extended use, less exact than
their primary use. Hence writers speak of sanctifying a
fast or a war, i.e. a fast to Jehovah, and a war for Jehovah,
in a somewhat general sense (Joel i. 14, ii. 15, iii. 9). The
heathen profane Jehovah s sanctuary when they enter it,
and His land when they overrun it or take possession of it.
Jehovah profanes His people by casting them out of His
land, and making them to appearance no more His ; He
profanes or desecrates the prince of Tyre, a being who
arrogated deity to himself, saying, " I am God, I dwell in
the seat of God," when He cast him down out of his fancied
ETHICAL AND CEREMONIAL USES 147
Divine seat, and gave him into the hands of Nebuchad
nezzar, the terrible one of the nations (Ezek. xxviii.).
(8) The consequences of these last propositions are
easily seen. On the one hand, Jehovah s presence sanctifies,
because it makes to be His all around it primarily, the
house in which He dwells, which becomes a sanctuary :
then in a wider circle Zion, which becomes His holy hill,
and Jerusalem the holy city ; and then in the widest
circle the land of Israel, which is the holy land and His
people Israel, the holy people. On the other hand, an
opposite effect may be produced by the presence of that
which is opposed to Jehovah, sin and impurity. The sins
of Israel in their worshipping other gods than Jehovah, and
worshipping Jehovah in a false manner, profaned the
land, that it spued them out (Lev. xviii. 28). Much more
did their sins, adhering to them, and their practices even in
the Temple precincts, desecrate Jehovah s sanctuary, so that
He could no more abide in it, but forsook it and gave it
over to destruction; cf. Ezek. xxxvii. 28: "The heathen
shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when My
sanctuary shall be in the midst of them." Even Jehovah
Himself may be profaned or desecrated, but particularly His
holy name. Especially is it so when that reverend name
Jehovah, the God of Israel, is compromised in the eyes
of the heathen through the calamities which befall Israel.
Israel by their unfaithfulness compelled Jehovah to send
severe judgments on them, and cast them out of their land.
The heathen, observing this, concluded that Jehovah the
God of Israel was a feeble Deity, unable to protect His
people. They naturally were unable to rise to the idea
that Jehovah s rule of His people might be a moral one,
they inferred at once His want of power, saying, " These
are the people of Jehovah, and lo, they are gone forth out
of His land." Thus Israel profaned Jehovah s holy name,
caused it to be detracted from in the eyes of the nations.
(9) Finally, the development of the idea of holiness may
be regarded as moving on two lines, the ethical, and the
aesthetic or ceremonial. The word holy while expressing
148 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Godhead did not express this idea altogether abstractly,
but always seized, on each occasion when used, upon some
attribute, or connoted some attribute which betokened deity,
such as majesty, or purity, or glory, and the like. In the
older prophets and in the older literature outside the Law,
these attributes are usually the ethical attributes ; e.g. in
Amos ii. 7 a man and his father go in to the same maid
to " profane My holy name." This immorality on the part
of those who were His people desecrated the name of their
God ; it brought the name of Him who is of purer eyes
than to behold iniquity, down into the region of mere
nature gods like Baal, who were served by a mere following
of the unrestrained natural instincts and appetites of men.
Similarly, Isaiah when he beholds Jehovah, whom the
seraphim unceasingly praise as holy, instinctively thinks
of his own uncleanness. But he uses the word uncleanness
of his lips, as that through which the heart expresses itself,
and in an ethical sense ; and hence when the uncleanness
showing itself in his lips is consumed by a Divine fire, it is
said that his iniquity is removed and his sin is forgiven
(vi. 5-7). So in chap. i. 16, 17: "Wash you, make you
clean ; put away the evil of your doings from before Mine
eyes ; cease to do evil ; learn to do well ; seek justice,
relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead the cause
of the widow," where uncleanness is again exclusively
moral.
This development on ethical lines can, no doubt, be
traced through all the following literature. It is perhaps
to be specially observed in the phrase holy Spirit.
Strangely this phrase, so common afterwards, occurs, as
we have seen, only three times in the Old Testament, once
in Ps. li., and twice in Isa. Ixiii. (10, 11). Primarily, the
phrase holy merely emphasised the relation of the Spirit
to Jehovah, just like * His holy arm and meant very much
1 His Divine Spirit ; but more lately it specially denoted
the ethical side of Jehovah s being, or that which we now
call His holiness.
But alongside of this ethical development there ran
THE DIVINE JEALOUSY 149
unquestionably a development on another line, which is to
be called aesthetic or ceremonial. There were taken up
under the idea of holy, or the reverse, a number of things
and actions which to us now have no moral significance,
but some of which have still aesthetic meaning, i.e. have a
reference to feeling, taste, and natural instinctive liking or
disliking. In this use holy becomes nearly equivalent to
clean, and unholy to unclean. The words, however,
are by no means synonymous. The clean is not holy in
itself, although only that which is clean can be made holy.
But as the unclean cannot be made holy, unclean comes
to be pretty nearly synonymous with unholy. This, how
ever, is a very obscure region.
(10) There are two points which come in as appendix
to these preceding points : first, the meaning of the ex
pression Holy One of Israel, so often used by Isaiah ;
and, secondly, the meaning of what is called the jealousy
(nwj?) of Jehovah.
Now, in the phrase Holy One of Israel the element
of Israel* forms no part of the idea of holy. The
phrase Holy One of Israel is exactly equivalent in con
struction to the phrase God of Israel ; so in Isa. xxix. 23,
"Sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and fear the God of
Israel." The phrase Holy One of Israel means that He
who is Kadosh has revealed Himself in Israel has become
the God of Israel. It is this strange twofold fact that to
Ezekiel gives the clue to human history. Jehovah is the
true and only God ; but He is also God of Israel ; and the
nations know Him only as God of Israel. Hence in reveal
ing Himself to the nations He can only do so through
Israel ; for the nations know Him only in that relation,
not in His absoluteness as the true and only God, which,
however, He is at the same time. For Holy One of
Israel Ezekiel says Holy One in Israel (xxxix. 7).
More rarely we have His Holy One (Isa. x. 17), or my
Holy One = my God (Hab. i. 12).
The jealousy, njop, lit. heat, of Jehovah may be
any heightened emotion on His part, e.g. military ardour
150 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
(Isa. xlii. 13). But when used in the sense of jealousy
proper it is almost equivalent to injured self-consciousness ;
it is the heightened emotion accompanying the sense of
having suffered injury either in Himself or in that which
belongs to Him, as His land, His people. Hence His
jealousy is chielly awakened by the worship of other gods,
by want of reverence for His holy name, i.e. His recog
nition as God alone, or by injury done to that which is His.
A few further notes may be added illustrative of the
various points referred to. First, as to the meaning of
the word holy and its appropriation to designate deity,
or that which pertains to deity. The form ttflij is an
adjective or a participle of a neuter verb, just like P^}, great ;
3irn, broad ; spK, long, and numberless others. Though no
more applied in a physical sense, it had originally, no
doubt, such a sense. Possibly its primitive meaning was
to be separated, or to be elevated, or to be lofty, or some
thing of the kind. 1 Whatever exact idea it expressed, the
idea was one which could be held pre-eminently to charac
terise deity or the gods as distinguished from men. It
was so suitable for this that it was almost appropriated to
this use. It is certain that this was not a moral idea first,
but rather some physical one ; at least we may say this is
probable, because the Phoenician gods are not moral beings,
and yet in Phoenician (Eshmunazar s inscription) the gods
are called the holy gods. The same expression is used several
times in Daniel, e.g. iv. 8, 9, " in whom is the spirit of the
holy gods " ; so v. 11, and quite parallel to this v. 1 4, " the
spirit of the gods is in thee." Possibly the passage ii. 1 1
might interpret the term holy - none other can show
it except the gods, whose dwelling is not witli flesh. At
all events the word contained a meaning which was felt
appropriate to express the characteristic of the gods, or of
Jehovah as distinguished from men. The word in its use
bears a certain analogy to the ordinary word D^r6tf for God.
1 On this see more at length in the article on Holiness in Hastings Did.
of the Bible ; also Baud issin s Studien z. Sem. IteUgionsyeschichtti ; Robertson
Smith s Religion of the Semites, pp. 91, 140 fl . ED.
IDEA OF THE TERM c HOLY 151
The holy one/ cnpn, is God ; a usage which went further.
And the simple word enp, without the article, was used like
a proper name " To whom then will ye liken nie, saith
Kadosh ? " (Isa. xl. 25). And just as the plural Elohim is
used, so the plural KedosMm is used for God : " Surely I
am more brutish than any man. ... I have not learned
wisdom, nor have I the knowledge of Kedoshim " (Prov. xxx.
2); and perhaps so early as Hos. x. 12. And to this
has to be added the fact that the angels are frequently
called Kedoshim, just as they are named Elohim, or Bene-
Elohim, sons, i.e. members, of the Elohim, both epithets
designating them as a class of beings in opposition to what
man is.
Holy/ therefore, was not primarily an epithet for
god or the gods ; it expressed the idea of god or the gods
in itself. No other epithet given to Jehovah is ever used
in the same way. For example, Jehovah is righteous ;
but the righteous one/ in the absolute or abstract sense,
is a term never applied to Him nor the gracious/ and
the like. It seems clear, therefore, that Kadosh is not a
word that expresses any attribute of deity, but deity itself ;
though it remains obscure what the primary idea of the
word was which long before the period of literature made
it fit in the estimation of the Shemitic people to be so
used. The same obscurity hangs over the commonest of
all words for God. But two things, I think, are clear : first,
that it was a term describing the nature of Jehovah rather
than His thoughts, what He was in His being or person.
And, second, it was therefore a word that was mainly used
in connection with worship. Jehovah s holiness was felt
when men approached Him. When they were in His pre
sence His being or nature, His personality, displayed itself ;
it showed sensibility to what came near it, or it reacted
against what was incongruous, or disturbing to it. Hence,
perhaps, there was originally a feeling that to approach
Jehovah, or to touch that which was holy, was dangerous.
So Isaiah exclaims, " I am undone ; for mine eyes have
seen the King" (vi. 5); and Uzzah, who put out his hand
152 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
to touch the holy ark, was smitten with death. This may
have been the older view. In the oldest view of all, the
reaction of Jehovah may, so to speak, have been physical
the creature could not come into His presence ; but in
Isaiah s mind the reaction or influence of Jehovah s nature
was of a moral kind. It is not quite certain whether
in the Law it was thought that there was danger to the
unclean person who approached Jehovah, or merely that
such approach was intolerable to Jehovah.
Passing over some other points that do not need
further illustration, it may be remarked that the prob
ability is that the application of the term holy to
things is secondary. Things are called holy as belonging
to deity. It might be that the name holy was applied to
things, just as it was applied to deity, to express something
that characterised them. If holy meant separated,
the things might be so called as separated and lying apart.
But the term is never used in the general sense of separate
or lying apart ; it always signifies separated for deity,
belonging to the sphere of deity. In Phoenician, just as in
Hebrew, the Hiphil of the verb is used in the sense of to
dedicate or consecrate to deity. All this being sufficiently
plain, I may refer to the usage of the term holy as applied
on the one hand to things and men, and on the other hand
again to God.
(a) With regard to things and men. Of course,
holy or holiness said of things cannot denote a moral
attribute. It can only express a relation ; and the relation
is, belonging to Jehovah, dedicated to Godhead. No thing
is holy of itself or by nature ; and not everything can be
made holy ; only some things are suitable. But suitability
to be made holy and holiness are things quite distinct.
.For example, only the clean among beasts could be devoted
to Jehovah, and a beast so devoted is holy ; but all clean
beasts were not so devoted. The ideas of holy and clean
must not therefore be confused; cleanness is only a con
dition of holiness, not holiness itself. As the unclean was,
however, incapable of being made holy, the case is some-
THE HOLY AND THE CLEAN 153
what different here, and the term unclean became, as we
have said, almost synonymous with unholy, or all that was
incompatible with and repugnant to the Holy One of
Israel. According to the nomenclature in use, everything
belonging to Jehovah, whether as His by nature or as
dedicated to Him, is called holy. Thus writers speak of
His holy arm, His holy Spirit, His holy word. In a wider
way, the tabernacle, the place of His abode, was holy ;
Zion was the holy hill ; Jerusalem, the holy city ; Israel,
His holy people ; the cities of Palestine, His holy cities.
All sacrifices and gifts to Him were holy things, the tithes,
the first-fruits, the shewbread, the sacrifices, particularly
the sin-offering and the trespass-offering.
In that which was holy there might be gradations ;
the outer part of the temple was holy, the inner most
holy. All flesh-offerings w r ere holy, but the sin-offering
was most holy. The meaning does not seem to be this,
that these things being dedicated to God, this fact raised
in the mind a certain feeling of reverence or awe for
them, and then this secondary quality in them of inspiring
awe was called holiness. The word holy describes the
primary relation of belonging to Jehovah ; and things
were most holy which belonged exclusively or in some
special way to Him. The sin-offering, for example, was
partaken of exclusively by the priests, His immediate
servants. It was wholly given over to Jehovah ; while
the peace-offerings were in large part given back to the
laity, to be used by the people in their sacrificial feasts.
The idea of holiness appears in the terms in which those
are described who are to be priests ; as indeed it appears
quite evidently in the passage where Israel is called an
* holy nation (Ex. xix. 6), which is parallel on the one
hand to a kingdom of priests, and on the other to the
word private possession, rfep. Korah and his company
objected to the exclusive priesthood of Aaron, saying, " Ye
take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are
holy, every one of them, and Jehovah is among them " ;
His presence makes all alike holy, i.e. His. To which
ir>4 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Moses answered : " To-morrow will Jehovah show who are
His, and who are holy " (Num. xvi. 5). Hence the priests
are said to be holy unto Jehovah ; His special possession.
The term holy applied to things, therefore, signifies
that they are the possession of Jehovah. Naturally out of
this idea others arose of an allied kind. That which is
His, e.g., is withdrawn from the region of common things.
Thus in the legislation of Ezekiel, a part of the holy land,
25,000 cubits square, the portion of the priests, is called a
holy thing, and distinguished from all around, which is ^h,
profane, or common that which lies open, is accessible.
Hence holy/ that which is peculiar to Jehovah and not
common, is looked at as elevated above the ordinary. And,
in like manner, belonging to Jehovah it is inviolable, and
those who lay their hands upon it desecrate it, and
Jehovah s jealousy reacts against them and destroys them.
So it is said of Israel in her early time, in the beautiful
passage Jer. ii. 2, 3 : "I remember of thee the kindness
of thy youth . . . Israel was a holy thing of the Lord,
and the first - fruits of His increase," i.e. His nearest
property ; all that devoured her incurred guilt.
In a similar way, when holy was said of men,
the term gathered a certain amount of contents into it.
Though expressing originally merely the idea of dedication
to Jehovah, or possession by Him, all the conceptions of
that which Jehovah was naturally flowed into the term,
because men dedicated to Jehovah must be fit for such
a consecration, and fitness implied that they must be
like Jehovah Himself partakers of the Divine nature.
Hence Isaiah (iv. 3, 4) speaks of the holy seed being
the stock of a new Israel of the future ; and what ideas
he expresses by holy seed appears from chap. iv. 3, in
which he describes the regenerated nation of the time to
come, in those last days when all nations shall pour in
pilgrimage to the house of the God of Jacob : " And it
shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that
remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, every one
whose name is inscribed among the living in Jerusalem :
HOLY AS APPLIED TO JEHOVAH 155
when Jehovah shall have washed away the filth of the
daughters of Zioii, and shall cleanse away the bloodshed of
Jerusalem from the midst thereof."
(&) A few passages may be cited in illustration of the
application of the term holy to Jehovah. Holy as
applied to Jehovah is an expression that in some way
describes Him as God, either generally, or on any particular
side of His nature the manifestation or thought of which
impresses men with the sense of His Godhead. Generally
the term describes Jehovah as God. For example, in one
place (Amos vi. 8), " Jehovah God hath sworn by Himself " ;
in another (Amos iv. 2), " Jehovah God hath sworn by His
holiness," the two phrases having virtually the same sense.
Again (Hos. xi. 9), " I am God, and not man, Kadosh in the
midst of thee," where Kadosh is equivalent to God and
opposed to man. So in Isa. vi. 3, the cry of the seraphim,
" Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts," the term holy
expresses the same conception as Adondi, the sovereign,
or melek, the king ; it expresses the conception of Deity
in the highest sense. But usually more than the mere idea
of Godhead is carried in the term. That it also connotes
the attributes always associated with Godhead, appears even
in this passage, where the vision of Jehovah immediately
suggests to the prophet the uncleanness of hie, lips and
those of his people. Still it was not any particular side of
Jehovah s Godhead, or any one special attribute, that Kadosh
expressed ; Jehovah was seen to be Kadosh when He mani
fested Himself on the side of any of those attributes which
constituted Godhead.
Thus there may be among the prophets considerable
difference in regard to the application of the term holy ;
one prophet, sucli as Isaiah, may call Jehovah Kadosh,
when His moral attributes are manifested, as His right
eousness ; another, such as Ezekiel, may consider His
Godhead revealed more in the display of other attributes
which are not distinctively moral, such as His power.
In Isa. v. 16 we have this : " Jehovah of hosts shall
be exalted in judgment," and " God, the Holy One (liak-
156 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
kadosh), shall be sanctified m righteousness." The Niphal,
rendered to ~bc sanctified, means either to show one s self
Kadosh, or to get recognition as Kadosh. Here then
Jehovah shows Himself as Kadosh, or is recognised as
Kadosh by a display of His righteous judgment upon the
.sinners of Israel. An exhibition of righteousness shows
Him to be Kadosh. In other two passages of Isaiah
Jehovah is sanctified recognised or reverenced as
Kadosh by religious fear or awe: "Fear ye not that
which this people fear, nor be in dread thereof. Jehovah
of hosts, Him shall ye sanctify ; and let Him be your fear,
and let Him be your dread" (viii. 13); and, "They shall
sanctify the Kadosh of Jacob, and shall stand in awe of the
God of Israel" (xxix. 23). In Num. xx. 12 a remark
able instance of the general use of the term sanctify occurs.
Jehovah says to Moses and Aaron : " Because ye believed
not in Me to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of
Israel," i.e. because Moses apparently doubted the Divine
power to bring water out of the rock. In Lev. x. 3, re
ferring to the profane act of Nadab and Abihu, Jehovah
says : " I will be sanctified (recognised and reverenced as
Kadosh) in them that come nigh Me, and before all the
people I will be glorified " ; being glorified is not syn
onymous with being sanctified, but it is a part of it. So
Ezek. xxviii. 22: "I am against thee, O Zidon ; and I will be
glorified in the midst of thee : and they shall know that I
am Jehovah (i.e. God alone), when I have executed judg
ments in the midst of her, and I shall be sanctified in her " ;
where to be sanctified or recognised as Kadosh is parallel
to " they shall know that I am Jehovah," which in Ezekiel
means the only true God, and all that He is.
Passages might be multiplied, especially from Ezekiel,
but it is not necessary. The words holy, sanctify, and their
opposites, profane and the like, are the terms usually em
ployed. It is a remarkable thing that never in Ezekiel,
any more than in the Levitical law, is the term righteous
applied to Jehovah. Men are righteous, but Jehovah is
Kadosh, This is particularly remarkable when the usage
JEREMIAH AND EZEKIEL 157
of Jeremiah is observed. Except in chaps. 1. and li.,
which are usually considered in their present form later
than Jeremiah, that prophet does not use the word holy
in any of its forms in reference to Jehovah (except xxiii.
9, where he applies it to the words of Jehovah). There
are two prophets contemporary with one another differing
totally in their phraseology in regard to God Jeremiah
following the example of the earlier prophets, and avoiding
the phraseology of the ritual law, Ezekiel following it.
The fact shows that we must be very cautious in inferring
from a writer s usage of language and from his conceptions
the date at which he lived. Ezekiel knows and uses all the
terminology of the ritual law ; his contemporary Jeremiah
avoids it as much as prophets two centuries before him,
such as Amos or Isaiah. The peculiarity is due to personal
idiosyncrasy and associations, and is not a criterion of date.
And it is precarious, as a rule, to rely much on the argument
from silence. The fact that Jeremiah has no interest in
the ritual with its terminology, and ignores it, while the
mind of his contemporary Ezekiel is full of it, leads us to
ask whether there may not have been contemporary with
the older prophets, Amos, Isaiah, etc., who ignore it, a body
of persons like-minded with Ezekiel, godly men as well as
he, who cherished the same class of thoughts in a word,
a priestly class among whom the term holy was used
where among another class righteous was employed,
among whom sin and all evil were conceived of under
the idea of uncleanness and impurity and such-like
men, I say, as godly, and pursuing ends as holy and as
truly theocratic as the prophets, but dominated by a
different class of conceptions and by different ideals.
To what shall we ascribe the domination of this class
of ideas, and, particularly, how shall we account for the
drawing of the sesthetic or ceremonial into the idea of
holiness, and the strange conception strange to us, at least
that certain creatures were obnoxious to the Deity, that
certain acts perfectly innocent morally incapacitated a
person for worshipping Him acceptably ?
158 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Now, this is a large question. But, in the first place,
the place of aesthetic in religion is undoubtedly ancient.
It pervades antiquity, and is seen very early in Israel.
The priest who gave the holy bread to David and his fol
lowers insisted on knowing whether the young men were
clean. Among all ancient peoples the sexual relations,
the offices of nature, the giving birth to children, inferred
uncleanness, and in Israel, at least, contact with death.
There was something in all these things which to decency or
refinement or taste was repulsive. Further, human feeling
recoils in many instances from some of the lower creatures,
such as the reptiles, and those designated in the wider
sense vermin, such as the smaller quadrupeds. Men shrink
from contact with all these creatures, and they have a feel
ing of defilement in regard to the actions just referred to.
Undoubtedly this feeling, which men shared, was attributed
by them also to God.
Again, this aesthetic or ceremonial side of holiness was
greatly promoted by the other conception that Jehovah
was located in a certain place His Temple. This created
the possibility and the danger that some of these things
should be brought near Him, or that men being in that
state which the above mentioned acts brought them into,
should come into His presence. This aesthetic or cere
monial element in holiness was thus undoubtedly an
ancient element, as ancient as the notion of the existence
of a place where Jehovah abode. It was essentially con
nected with the idea of worship rendered to Jehovah in a
place of His abode.
Once more, undoubtedly, this idea of Jehovah s being
connected with a particular place was strengthened by the
destruction of all the local shrines, and the confining of
ritual to Jerusalem. There He was present in person. The
destruction also of the local shrines destroyed all private
sacrifice, and made ritual officially religious ; and the idea
pervaded the minds of men more and more of being a
congregation, a body of worshippers, and the question was
raised as to their condition and fitness to appear before the
CEREMONIAL CLEANNESS 159
presence of Jehovah. By all these things probably the
aesthetic or ceremonial was drawn more and more into the
idea of holiness. The conception of ceremonial cleanness
was old, as old as that of the existence of a place of worship ;
and the class of conceptions would be cherished among the
priestly order, and developed by them ; and as the idea of
Israel s being a State was lost, and it appeared merely a
worshipping community, the conceptions would gain greater
ground. Thus probably the multiplication of ceremonies,
defilements on the one hand and purifications on the
other, may have gradually increased, until it reached
the dimensions which it has attained in the ritual
law. 1
But one may perceive from all this that there was no
distinction in the Law between moral and what we have
been accustomed to call ceremonial. The idea of cere
monial, i.e. rites, such as washings, etc., which have no
meaning in themselves, but are performed in order to ex
press or suggest moral ideas, has strictly no existence in
the Old Testament. The offences which we call ceremonial
were not symbolical, they were real offences to Jehovah,
against which His nature reacted ; and the purifications
from them were real purifications, and not merely sym
bolical. That is, what might be called aesthetic or physical
unholiness was held offensive to the nature of God in the
real sense, in a sense as real as moral offences were offen
sive to Him ; and the purifications were true removals of
these real causes of offence. This resthetic or physical
holiness is an ancient idea. But the prophets made little
of it, insisting on moral holiness. On the other hand, the
idea receives a great extension in the Law. And hence at
the return from Captivity, when the people were no more
a nation but a worshipping community, serving God who
abode in a house in the midst of them, this idea of holi
ness was the fundamental idea, both of God who was
worshipped and of men who worshipped Him, and the con-
1 Did not purifications take place before sacrifice, even at the high places ?
No doubt.
160 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
ception lies at the basis of the new constitution after the
Restoration.
In this connection we may advert also to the point of
view from which the people are regarded. In the extra-
ritual books atonement is very much equivalent to forgive
ness of sin, after Jehovah s exhibition of His righteousness
by the chastisements inflicted on the people who sin, and
on their acknowledging their sin and repenting. The con
ception of God is that of a moral Mind who regards sin as
morally wrong, deserving of punishment, and who as a
moral Ruler inflicts punishment ; though His long-suffering
and mercy are ever ready to forgive.
The same conception of Jehovah appears in Isa. liii. ;
but there the chastisement of sin falls upon another than
those whose sin is forgiven. He bears the chastisement of
the sins of the people, and they are forgiven and restored.
But though this be the case, God continues to be con
sidered the author of salvation. This laying of the sins of
the people upon another was His act : " It pleased the
Lord to bruise Him," with the view that if He made an
offering for sin, the work of the Lord should prosper by
Him. This is the view in the Law and Ezekiel. It re
appears in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Perhaps this view
of God and of atonement is that expressed in St. Paul s
Epistles.
There is, however, another view of God in the Old
Testament. He is not regarded so much in the character
of a righteous ruler as in that of a sensitive being or nature
which reacts against sin. Sin, however, is conceived as
uncleanness. In this view Jehovah is called holy, and
atonement is removal from men of all uncleanness disturb
ing to Jehovah s nature.
3. The Natural Attributes.
When the prophets speak of Jehovah as God alone,
they also state in many ways what His attributes are.
Xot that they ever speak of the attributes of Jehovah
THE ATTRIBUTES IN LATER PROPHECY 161
abstractly or as separated from Himself. They speak of
a great, living person who shows all the attributes of
moral Being. Jehovah, who is God alone, is a transcendent
moral person. He is such a person as we are ourselves ;
His characteristics do not differ from ours, except that
they exceed ours. To say that Jehovah is a transcendent
moral person, is to express the whole doctrine of God ; for
that which is moral includes mercy and love and com
passion and goodness, with all that these lead to, not less
than rectitude and justice.
What needs to be said on this subject may be best said
by looking specially at the representations given in Second
Isaiah. In the first nine chapters of the prophecy, in
which the prophet, in order to sustain the faith of Israel
and the hope of deliverance, enlarges upon the antithesis
between Jehovah and the idols, it is mainly what have
been called the natural attributes of Jehovah that he
dwells upon, such as His power, His foresight and omni
science, the unsearchableness of His understanding or mind,
and the like. But in the succeeding chapters, where not the
opposition between Jehovah and the idols and idol-worship
ping nations is dwelt upon, but the relations of Jehovah
to His people Israel, it is naturally chiefly the redemptive
attributes of Jehovah that become prominent, His love, as
in calling the people and redeeming them of old ; His
memories of Abraham His friend ; His compassion when He
beholds the miseries of the people, and remembers former
times before they were cast off, as a wife of youth, who
had been rejected, is remembered ; or His mercy in
restraining His anger in pity of their frailty: "He will
not be always wroth; for the spirits would fail before
Him, and the souls which He has made " ; or the freedom
of His grace in blotting out their sins for His name s
sake: "I am He that blotteth out thy transgressions
for Mine own sake, and I will not remember thy sins "
(xliii. 25).
In these chapters, especially from the forty-ninth on
wards, the prophet descends to a depth of feeling, in two
ii
162 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
directions, to which no other prophet reaches first, in his
feeling of the love of Jehovah for His people. He becomes,
as we might say, immersed in this love, placing himself in
the very Divine mind itself, and expressing all its emotions,
its tender memories of former union, its regrets over the too
great severity of the chastisement to which the people had
been subjected. She has " received of the Lord s hand
double for all her sin " (xl. 2) ; " In an overflow of anger I
hid My face from thee " (liv. 8). He tells of returning love,
and the importunity with which it desires to retrieve the
past : " Comfort ye, comfort ye My people : speak to the
heart of Jerusalem" (xl. 1,2); and makes the announcement
of the unchangeableness of His love for the time to come :
" This is the waters of Noah unto Me : as I have sworn
that the waters of Noah shall no more overwhelm the
earth, so have I sworn that I will no more be angry with
thee " (liv. 9).
And in another direction the depth of the prophet s
feeling is without parallel his sense of the people s sin.
It is no doubt the unexampled sufferings of the people,
especially the godly among them, that mainly suggested to
him the depth of their sin. It is usually held that it was
the Law that gave Israel its deep sense of sin. The Law
was, no doubt, fitted to suggest to men the exceeding breadth
of God s commandments, and the inability of man to fulfil
them, and thus to lead them to feel that they must cast
themselves upon the grace of God. Yet, historically, it
is probable that this educational influence of the Law began
later than the prophetic age. At whatever time the Law,
as we understand it, was actually given, it certainly did
not draw the people s life as a whole under its control till
after the restoration from the Exile. So that as a matter
of history the sense of sin was impressed upon the people
by their experiences. Their sufferings were Jehovah s chas
tisement of them, they were due to His anger. And they
measured His anger by the terribleness of their calamities ;
and their sin they estimated according to the terribleness
of His anger. It is in the sections where the sufferings of
THE NATURAL ATTRIBUTES 163
the Servant are touched upon that the prophet s sense of
the people s sin most clearly appears.
But it is proper to refer to some of those attributes of
Jehovah usually called natural. These may be dealt with
very briefly. First, His power. In Isa. xl. the prophet,
in order to comfort the people and assure them of Jehovah s
ability to redeem them out of the hand of their enemies,
presents before them His might as Creator His immeasur
able power. He measured in the hollow of His hand the
oceans. The nations to Him are as a drop of a bucket,
and as the small dust upon the balance inappreciable.
So great is He that to make a sacrifice to Him that would
be appreciable Lebanon would not suffice for the wood,
nor all the beasts there for an offering. All nations are
from His point of view nothing ; in a word, His greatness
is such that no comparison can be instituted between Him
and aught else ; He and the universe are incommensurable.
As an instance of His power in nature good for all, the
prophet points to the motions of the starry heavens :
" Who created these, bringing out their host by number ?
He calls every one by name, for the greatness of His power
not one faileth." He is the Lord of hosts, calling out His
armies on their nightly parade, and not one fails to answer
His call. This is physical power. But His mental power
is equally immeasurable : " Who regulated or directed His
mind in creating ? " the prophet asks, " who was His
counsellor ? " The infinite masses of the universe are
there by His wisdom in their just proportions : " He
weighed the mountains in His scales." He is an everlast
ing God ; the sources of His life and power well up
eternally fresh ; He fainteth not, neither is weary ; there
is no searching into His understanding.
And it is not only that He possesses this power ; He
may be observed continually wielding it in history. He
sits upon the circle of the heavens overarching the earth,
and the " inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers " ; and He
" bringeth princes to nought," withering up, as the hot wind
of the desert does the vegetation, the most powerful com-
104 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
binations of men in armies and in empires, and scattering
them as dust abroad ; dissolving kingdoms and States, and
causing their elements to enter into new combinations
(xl. 22). And not only in the past does He so act, but in
the present He raises up Cyrus from the East, making him
come upon rulers as upon mortar, and as the potter treadeth
clay (xli 25); subduing nations before Him, breaking in
pieces the doors of brass, and cutting asunder the bars of
iron (xlv. 1,2). And this is no mere sporadic exhibition of
power, no inbreak merely into history ; for He dominates all
history and the life of mankind upon the earth ; He calleth
the generations from the beginning, each to come upon the
stage of life, and when its part is played to depart (xli. 4).
His sovereignty over nature and men and the nations is
absolute and universal, and He makes all serve His ends.
Over nature His sovereignty is beautifully expressed in the
passage where, making all things to help the restoration of
His people, He says : " I will make all My mountains a
way, and all My highways shall be paved" (xlix. 11); "I
will say to the north, Give up ; and to the south, Keep not
back : bring My sons from far, and My daughters from the
ends of the earth " (xliii. 6). His sovereignty over men,
over His people, in like manner is expressed in the passage :
" Woe to him that strive th with his Maker ! Shall the clay
say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou ? or thy
work, He hath no hands ? " (xlv. 9). And in chap. Iv. 8 :
" My thoughts are not as your thoughts." And not only
over men or His people, but over the nations : " I will
give Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Sheba instead
of thee " (xliii. 3).
But the further multiplication of passages is unneces
sary. There are three names used by the prophet under
which these various conceptions of Jehovah might all be
summed up. These are : (a) Kadosh, v*n\> y the Holy One,
as we might say, the transcendent, (b) rii&oy f \ Jehovah of
Hosts, the omnipotent. And (c) |i"in&0 l^ &p, the first and
the last.
The expression Holy One of Israel is common to these
THE FIRST AND THE LAST 165
chapters with the first part of Isaiah ; in these chapters,
however, the simple ^np is used even without the article
as a proper name : " To whom then will ye liken Me ?
saith Kadosli" (xl. 25). The word is derived from a root
*\\> meaning to cut, or cut off\ hence the meaning of t^nf?,
as we have seen, is possibly separate, removed. As applied
to Jehovah it comes nearest our term transcendent. It
signifies Jehovah as removed from the sphere of the human
or earthly. Naturally, though this removal might first of
all apply, so to speak, to Jehovah in His physical nature,
so far as usage goes, it is employed mainly of His moral
nature.
But of the first of these three names enough has been
said already. The second, the phrase Jehovah of hosts,
or Jehovah, God of hosts/ was probably first used in
connection with the armies of Israel. But later, the hosts
were understood of the stars ; and the commanding of
these, and causing them to perform their regular movements,
was held the highest conceivable exercise of power. Hence
Jehovah of hosts is nearly our Almighty or omnipotent,
as the Septuagint in some parts renders it TravTOKpaTwp.
The third expression, the first and the last (Isa. xliv. 6),
is a surprising generalisation for a comparatively early time.
It is not a mere statement that Jehovah was from the
beginning and will be at the end. It is a name indicating
His relation to history and the life of men. He initiates
it, and He winds it up. And He is present in all its
movements : " Since it was, there am I " (xlviii. 16). Even
the last book of the New Testament has nothing loftier to
say of Jehovah than that He is the first and the last :
" I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last,
saith the Lord, the Almighty " (Eev. i. 8).
The prophet s doctrine of Jehovah on this side of His
Being is very lofty and developed, more so than is seen in
any other book except Job ; and most writers are inclined
to conclude from this highly advanced doctrine of God that
the prophecies cannot be earlier than the time of the Exile.
The unity of God and the universality of His power and
166 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
rule are inferred from His being Creator : " Thus saith the
Lord, who created the heavens, He is God" (xlv. 18). It
is to be remarked, however, that the prophet s interests
were never abstract or merely theoretical. All his ex
hibitions of the unity or power or foresight of Jehovah
have a practical end in view, namely, to comfort the
people of God amidst their afflictions, to sustain their
faith and their hopes, and to awaken them to those
efforts on their own part, that forsaking of their sin and
their own thoughts, which are needful to secure their
salvation. " Why, when I am come, is there no man ?
when I call, is there none that answereth ? Is My arm
shortened, that it cannot save ? Behold, by My rebuke
I dry up the sea, I cover the heavens with blackness"
(1. 2). Thus all the teaching of the prophet regarding
Jehovah and regarding the people is strictly religious.
When he insists on the unity of Jehovah, it is not the
unity as a mere abstract truth about God, but as the very
basis and condition of salvation for Israel and all men.
And the same is true in regard to all the attributes of
Jehovah which he touches upon, and all the operations
which he represents Him as performing. His whole
interest is summed up in such words as these which the
Lord speaks through him : " There is no God besides Me,
no Saviour." To mention one or two particulars :
(1) Even creation is a moral work, or has a moral
purpose. In it Jehovah contemplated the peace and well-
being of men. " Thus saith the Lord who created the
heavens ; He is God, who formed the earth : He created it
not a chaos, He formed it to be inhabited " (xlv. 18). The
world is a moral constitution. The devastations introduced
by wars, the miseries of men due to idolatry, with its pride
and cruelty and inhumanity, are perversions of His primary
conception in creation. This idea of the universality of
Jehovah s sovereignty which the prophet expresses so
often by calling Him Creator compels him to take into
account not only Israel, but all mankind in his view.
Jehovah, God alone, is God of all men, Hence Ho is the
JEHOVAH S UNIVERSAL SOVEREIGNTY 167
Saviour not of Israel only, but of all men. Earlier prophets,
such as Isaiah in his second chapter, in the prophecy of the
mountain of the Lord/ to which all nations shall go up that
Jehovah may teach them of His ways, and that they may
walk in His paths, already teach that the Gentiles shall be
partakers with Israel of the knowledge of the true God.
But the present prophet has a much securer hold of the
truth, or at least expresses it much more formally : " The
Servant of the Lord shall bring forth right to the nations ;
they shall wait on his instruction " (xlii. 14) ; " He shall
be the light of the Gentiles" (xlii. 9, xlix. 9); "The
nations shall come to Israel s light, and kings to the
brightness of her rising" (Ix. 1); "Jehovah s arms shall
rule the nations " (li. 5).
(2) As in creation Jehovah contemplated men s good
and salvation, so all His operations, all the exhibitions of
His power and foresight, have the same end in view. All
His operations on nature, for instance, when He trans
figures it and makes the desert pools of water, are for the
sake of His people: "The poor and needy are seeking
water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst ;
I will open rivers on the bare heights, I will make the
wilderness a pool of water" (xli. 17, 18) ; "Behold, I will
do a new thing, I will give waters in the wilderness, and
rivers in the desert, to give drink to My people, Mine
elect" (xliii. 20). And that all things form a unity, and
that it is in salvation that their unity and their good are
realised, appears from the jubilations which the prophet
puts into the mouth of universal creation, men and nature,
when he refers to the salvation of God. Thus, when
Jehovah announces that Pie will not give His glory to
another, nor His praise to graven images, but that His
Servant shall be the light of the Gentiles, the prophet makes
all mankind break into song over the announcement : " Sing
unto the Lord a new song, and His praise from the ends
of the earth, ye that go down into the sea ; the isles, and
the inhabitants thereof. Let the wilderness and the cities
thereof lift up their voice ... let them shout from the
168 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
top of the mountains" (xlii. 10). And so all nature
is to burst into singing over the redemption of Israel,
because that is the first step towards the evangelising of
the world : " Sing, ye heavens, for the Lord hath done
it ; shout, ye lower parts of the earth . . . for the Lord
hath redeemed Jacob, and will glorify Himself in Israel "
(xliv. 23 ; cf. xlv. 8, xlix. 13).
(3) And it is not only Jehovah s operations on nature
which have salvation in view, but also all His operations
on the stage of history ; such, for example, as His raising
up of Cyrus. This great act of providential history con
templates the widest scope. It has, no doubt, narrower
objects in view, but even these narrower purposes look
towards a universal one. Jehovah raises up Cyrus, first,
that Cyrus may know Him: " That thou mayest know that
I am the Lord " ; secondly, that His servant Jacob may be
set free : " For My servant Jacob s sake, and Israel My
chosen, I have called thee by thy name " ; but, thirdly,
these two are but steps in the direction of the universal
object in view : " That men may know from the rising of
the sun, and from its going down, that there is none besides
Me. I am the Lord, and there is none else " (xlv. 17).
And the same idea is expressed in the name First and
Last given to Jehovah. He has a purpose from the
beginning, which He brings to completion ; and this is none
other than that they may " look unto Him and be saved,
all the ends of the earth " (xlv. 22). And the same is the
meaning when it is said so often that Jehovah is perform
ing some great act in righteousness, as when He says of
Cyrus : " I have raised him up in righteousness " (xlv. 13).
(4) And corresponding to this exclusively religious con
ception of Jehovah, all whose attributes and operations are
conceived as working to one end, is the prophet s conception
of the people Israel. Though he still holds fast to the
idea of the people or nation, as all the prophets operate
with nations, the religious unit being to them the people,
not the individual ; though he still retains this conception,
his idea of Israel and its meaning is a purely religious one.
REDEMPTIVE ATTRIBUTES 169
This he expresses by calling Israel the Servant of the Lord.
All other conceptions of the people have been dropped, and
its sole significance is as a religious unity, serving the Lord
as His people, and in a public mission to the world on His
behalf. Though Israel remains a people, the prophet s
conception of it is that of a Church. And that which
makes Israel the Servant of the Lord is that He has put
His word into its mouth ; Israel is the prophet of the
world. In earlier writings the antithesis was between the
individual prophet and the people of Israel. The individual
prophet was the servant of the Lord sent to the people of
Israel. Now the antithesis is a wider one. The universal -
ism of the prophet s conception of Jehovah compels him to
formulate Jehovah s relations to all nations, and he expresses
his conception of this by saying that Israel is the Servant
of the Lord, His messenger and prophet to mankind. Israel
is the Lord s Servant, because Israel is the word of the Lord
incarnate ; and the greatness of the scope which Jehovah
had in view in putting His word into Israel s mouth is
expressed in the words : " I have put My words in thy
mouth, that I may plant the heavens and lay the founda
tions of the earth (i.e. the new heavens and the new earth),
and say unto Zion, Thou art My people" (li. 16). The
prophet s redemptive or religious conception of Israel,
exhausts Israel. This appears in the remarkable passage
in chap. Ixi., where Israel s relation to the nations in the
new world is described : " Strangers shall stand and feed
your Hocks, and aliens shall be your plowmen and vine
dressers. But ye shall be named the priests of the Lord ;
men shall call you the ministers of our God" (Ixi. 5).
4. The Redemptive Attributes.
These general remarks lead us to refer more parti
cularly to those of Jehovah s attributes that are usually
called redemptive. It is unnecessary to dwell on .these :
the mention of one or two things will suffice. There is one
preliminary point, however, on which a remark may be made.
170 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
The prophet s statements are concrete and not general.
He speaks of Jehovah as Eedeemer mainly in relation to
Israel. Israel was then His people, and no other was. His
redemptive attributes therefore are manifested in His
relation to Israel. To interpret the prophet rightly this
must always be kept in mind. Yet now when the Church
or people of God has a wider sense, and belongs to all
mankind, we are, no doubt, entitled to apply to this
universal Church that which this prophet says of Israel,
the Church in his day. Though he regards Jehovah s
purpose of salvation as universal, embracing the nations,
he does not represent Jehovah as loving the nations, or
choosing them, or redeeming them. The Lord does not
use those terms regarding them which He uses regarding
Israel. Jehovah has compassion on their miseries ; He
sees that the flame of life burns low in them, and His
Servant in bringing forth right to them will deal gently
with them, and quicken and heal their decaying strength :
" The bruised reed He will not break, and the dimly
burning flame He will not quench " (xlii. 3).
(ft) First, then, Jehovah lo-red Israel. This is not a
common expression ; it occurs, however, several times, as in
xliii. 4 : " Since thou hast been precious in My sight . . .
and I have loved thee." And Abraham is called the friend
or lover of God (xli. 8). The word snx is not much used by
the prophets of Jehovah s mind towards His people. But
there is another word, namely, ion, which we render by
1 loving-kindness. This is oftener employed, as, e.g., in the
beautiful passage : " I will make mention of the loving-
kindness of the Lord, and the great goodness which He
bestowed on the house of Israel, according to His mercies
and according to the multitude of His loving-kindnesses "
(Ixiii. 7). And this word really expresses the idea of love.
Again : " In an overflow of wrath I hid My face from thee
for a moment, but with everlasting love will I have mercy
upon thee" (liv. 8). This love of Jehovah to Israel is
entirely inexplicable. It was certainly not due to any
loveliness on Israel s part, for Israel has been a " trans-
LOVE AND ELECTION 171
gressor from the womb " (xlviii. 8), and her " first father
sinned against the Lord" (xliii. 27). The prophet might
seem to give an explanation when Jehovah addresses Israel
as " the seed of Abraham my friend " (xli. 8). Israel is
" beloved for the father s sake." But this only thrusts the
difficulty a step back, for His love of Abraham .himself
cannot be explained : " Look unto Abraham your father
. . . for when he was but one I called him, and blessed
him, and made him many " (li. 2). Jehovah s love is
free, and we cannot explain it. We can see, indeed, why
He should love some one people, and enter into relations
of redemption with them, and deposit His grace and truth
among them ; but we cannot see why one and not another.
It helps us, however, somewhat if we perceive that His
choice of one was only temporary, and for the purpose of
extending His grace unto all. And we are assured that
His love is not arbitrary, nor a mere uncalculating passion ;
but, seeing it is said that God is love, His love is the
highest expression of His ethical being, the synthesis and
focus of all His moral attributes.
(b) He chose or elected Israel. It is difficult to say
whether this choice follows God s love, or is contempor
aneous with it, or is but another way of expressing it.
The choice or election of Israel is one of the most common
thoughts of the prophet : " But thou, Israel, My servant,
Jacob whom I have chosen " (xli. 8), and a multitude of
other places. The familiarity of the idea to this prophet
is remarkable when the other fact is taken into account
that the idea finds expression in no ancient prophet. It
occurs in a single passage of Jeremiah (xxxiii. 24), and
also once in Ezekiel (xx. 5), and in some passages in
Deuteronomy. Otherwise, it occurs only in late psalms,
such as Ps. cv. and cvi. The reason why this prophet
insists upon Israel s election so much is easily perceived.
It is part of the f comfort which he is charged to address
to the people. Israel seemed dissolving away under the
wearing forces of the time. It was dispersed among all
peoples, itself no more a people. In its despondency it
172 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
could only complain : " Jehovah hath forsaken me, and the
Lord hath forgotten me." To which Jehovah answers:
" Can a woman forget her sucking child ? . . . I have
graven thee upon the palms of My hands ; I have chosen
thee, and not cast thee off" (xlix. 15, 16).
(c) This choice realises itself in calling, or, as it is
otherwise expressed, in creation or redemption. " I called
thee from the ends of the earth," which probably refers
to Egypt, as the prophet, in all probability, wrote in
Babylon (xli. 8, 9). And to this same event, namely, the
Exodus, the terms create and redeem usually refer. Jehovah
is called the Creator of Israel, because He brought Israel
into existence as a people of the Exodus ; and for the same
reason He is called the Redeemer of Israel. No doubt the
term * Eedeemer is more general. It expresses a constant
relation which Jehovah bears to His people a relation
illustrated in the Exodus, and to be again illustrated in
the deliverance from Babylon : " Say ye, The Lord hath
redeemed His servant Jacob" (xlviii. 20).
(d) A characteristic of this love of Jehovah to His
people is its unchangealleness : " Can a woman forget . . .
the son of her womb ? Yea, they may forget, yet I will not
forget thee" (xlix. 15); and many similar passages. The
flow of this love may be interrupted for a small moment by
an access of anger ; yet it but returns again to its channel
to run in an everlasting current : " For a small moment
have I hid My face from thee ; but with everlasting love
will I have mercy upon thee " (liv. 8). Indeed, the inter
ruption was but apparent. There was no real separation
between the Lord and His people : " Where is your mother s
bill of divorcement, with which I sent her away ? " (1. 1).
(e) There is another affection of Jehovah towards His
people which is but a complexion or aspect of His love
His compassion. This is love modified by some other
element, chiefly the wretchedness of those loved. Thus
in the beautiful passage, " In all their affliction He was
afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them : in
His love and in His pity He redeemed them ; and He bare
GOD S GRACE 17.>
them, and carried them all the days of old " (Ixiii. 9) ; and
in the similar passage chap. xlvi. 3 : " Hearken unto me,
house of Jacob . . . which have been carried from the
womb : and even to old age I am He ; and even to hoar
hairs will I carry you." And His anger is kindled
against Babylon for its severe treatment of His people :
" I was wroth with My people, and gave them into thine
hand . . . thou didst show them no mercy ; upon the
aged hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke . . . therefore,
these two things shall come upon thee in one day : the loss
of children and widowhood " (xlvii. 6,9). Most frequently
the compassion of Jehovah arises when He chastises His
people, or it awakens in His breast to arrest His chastening
hand : " I will not be always wroth : for the spirits would
fail before me, and the souls which I have made " (Ivii. 16).
(/) There is one thing else to notice. That the
salvation of Israel is of the free grace of God is consistently
taught, e.g., in the declaration, " Thou hast wearied Me with
thy sins. I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy trans
gressions for Mine own sake ; and I will not remember thy
sins" (xliii. 24, 25); and in many other passages. In one
passage, however, there is an idea introduced which deserves
attention. It is there said, " For My name s sake do I defer
Mine anger, and for My praise do I refrain from thee, that
1 cut thee not off : for how should My name be profaned ?
and My glory will I not give to another" (xlviii. 9, 11).
Here the idea seems expressed that Jehovah s motive for
saving Israel is lest His name should be profaned that
is, lest His power to save and His glory as God should be
little esteemed, probably among the nations. This shade
of idea seems to occur first in Ezekiel, in whom it is very
common. There the motive of salvation is not found in the
condition of those saved, nor in the love, or mercy, or good
ness of God, but in the respect which He has to His own
glory or name as we might almost say, His reputation.
Now, no doubt, God must be conceived as Himself the end
of all His operations; as all things are by Him, so all
things are unto Him. The idea, however, is one which
174 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
requires to be very carefully expressed. Otherwise, we
may be in danger of introducing a certain egoism into our
conception of God which would be fatal to it. When
Moses asked to see Jehovah s glory, He replied that He
would " make all His goodness to pass before him " ; and
He proclaimed His name, " The Lord merciful and gracious "
(Ex. xxxiv. 6). The glory of God is His goodness, and His
goodness is His blessedness. He is glorified, therefore, not
when His goodness is revealed to men, and they admire or
praise it ; for that would still involve a certain egoism.
He is glorified when by revealing His goodness He attracts
men unto Himself, and His own goodness is reproduced in
them, and they are created anew in His image ; for to be
this is blessedness.
Finally, when it is said that salvation is of God s free
grace, this does not exclude atonement for sin, such as that
rendered by the Servant of the Lord. For this comes in
as the instrument of God s grace : " It pleased the Lord to
bruise him; He put him to grief" (Isa. liii. 10).
These points are all mere commonplaces of Christian
doctrine. But it is of interest to see that they are here
already in the Old Testament at all events six hundred
years before the Christian age. Christianity brought some
thing absolutely new into the world, but much that it
embraces was already prepared for it.
When we consider the very lofty and highly-developed
doctrine of God found in this prophet, it is somewhat sur
prising to find him inorea ddicted to the use of anthropo
morphisms than any other prophet. This is, no doubt,
due to his highly imaginative mind, and the strength of
his religious fervour.
5. God s Relations to Nature and to Men.
Much more might be said in this connection of God s
relations to nature and to men. With respect to the
former, He is always represented as the Maker of all things,
heavens and earth, and all creatures ; and on the highest
RELATION TO NATURE 175
scale He commands nature, sending a flood upon the sinful
world, opening the windows of heaven above, and breaking
up the fountains of the great deep beneath ; overthrowing
the cities of the plain by a convulsion of nature ; making
the stars in their courses to fight against Sisera. All
earthly forces are obedient to Him. He caused the east
wind to blow and roll back the sea that His people might
pass through ; and at His word the sea returned and over
whelmed the Egyptians. The plagues were brought by
Him on the land of Egypt and on the royal house. For the
idolatry of Israel under Ahab and Jezebel, He scourged the
land with drought three and a half years ; and when
Elijah prayed earnestly with his head between his knees,
He gave rain. Perhaps the two greatest wonders of Deity
to the ancient mind were that He set bounds to the sea,
and that He gave rain. So Jeremiah says : " Let us now
fear the Lord our God, that giveth rain, both the former
and the latter, in his season" (v. 24); and again: "Are
there any among the vanities of the heathen that can
cause rain ? ... Is it not Thou, Lord God ? " (xiv. 22).
In punishment of Saul s attempt to exterminate the
Gibeonites, in defiance of the solemn oath by which
Israel, under Joshua, had bound itself to spare their lives
(Josh, ix.), He sent a drought and a famine, which were
only alleviated when expiation was made for the blood
which Saul had shed. And to chastise the pride of David
in numbering the people, He devastated the people with
a pestilence (2 Sam. xxiv.). In all these cases His rule of
nature, although absolute, appears to be for moral ends, as
in the instances of the Flood and Sodom.
With respect to God s relation to men nations and
individuals in the early period of the Old Testament
history, Israel had not yet entered greatly into connection
with the nations. The definite teaching of Scripture in
regard to Jehovah s rule of the nations, therefore, first
appears in the Prophets, when the great Assyrian and
Babylonian empires came upon the scene of the world s
history. But the conception of Jehovah s relation to the
176 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
nations is the same in the early history as in the Prophets,
although it is not so broadly expressed. He showed His
power over Egypt when He brought Israel out with a high
hand and an outstretched arm ; when He laid on Egypt
the terrible stroke of the death of the firstborn, and over-
whelmed its army in the sea. He declared war for ever
against Amalek, and gave Israel the victory over that power.
And that the victory was of Him, was shown by the
symbol, that when the hands of Moses, uplifted in prayer,
became relaxed and hung down, Amalek prevailed, and
when they were held up Israel prevailed. The view is
everywhere expressed that Israel s victories over the
Canaanites were due to Jehovah.
There is a point of great interest here, however, in
regard to the conception of the Lord in the early histories,
namely, the representation of Jehovah as predetermining
and revealing all these dispositions of His in regard to the
nations long before they actually occurred. To Abraham
and to his seed He promised by covenant the land of
Canaan. The territories of Moab and Ammon He assigned
to them ; and Israel s conflicts with Edom and victory over
it were foreshadowed in the struggles of the two children,
Jacob and Esau, before their birth. Now, most modern
writers regard all this as just the actual situation which
history brought about reflected back upon a much earlier
time. Jacob and Esau were never children ; they are
brothers, because kindred peoples. Their struggles before
birth, and the prediction that the elder should serve the
younger, reflect the history of David s time. Edom or
Esau was the elder, because he found a settled abode
earlier than Israel. Jacob robbed his brother of the birth
right meaning, in other words, that Israel inherited the
good land of Canaan, while Edom had his portion in the
stony desert. And the promise to Abraham of the land of
Canaan is a reflection of the actual possession of Canaan by
Israel, Abraham being their greatest, and, above all, their
spiritual, ancestor. How much truth there may be in
these representations I do not stop here to discuss. There
PURPOSE AND REVELATION 177
may be some in regard to Jacob and Esau. This, how
ever, is a question by itself. The point deserving of notice
is that in the age when these histories were written these
conceptions of Jehovah prevailed. He was a God who saw
the end from the beginning, who purposed and, though
He long delayed, eventually executed His purposes. In
Gen. xv. Jehovah is represented as making a covenant with
Abraham, promising that the land of Canaan should be his,
and that in him all the families of the earth should be
blessed. The two essential things in a covenant are, first,
the disposition or engagement on the part of God to do
some act of goodness or grace to men ; and, second, His
making this purpose known to men. This revelation of
His purpose of goodness is necessary, because it can only be
carried out through the intelligent and spiritual co-opera
tion of men. The covenants are momenta in the religious
history of man ; and as this history is a redemptive history,
they are momenta in man s redemptive history. This being
so, they are more than successive steps in the revelation of
a purpose ; they are momenta in the history of God s
redemptive indwelling among men, and His entrance into
their life. Now, undoubtedly, when the narrative in
Gen. xv. was written this idea was current in Israel of an
engagement on the part of Jehovah to give Canaan to
Israel as his abode, and to bless all nations through him.
Is it anything incredible that this should have been
revealed to Abraham ? Amos says : " Surely the Lord
God will do nothing, but He reveals His secret unto His
servants the prophets " (iii. 7). The characteristic of the
Israelitish mind was an outlook into the future. In
Isa. xli. prophecy, even prediction, is regarded as an
essential in redemptive history. Jehovah is the first and
the last. He is conscious of His own purposes. But it is
His indwelling in Israel that causes Him to declare them.
Because they concern Israel, and because Israel, His
servant, must co-operate towards their fulfilment, they
must be made known to him. Was the case different with
Abraham ? If he was anything like that character which
12
178 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
these early histories describe him to have been, nothing
would seem more natural than that he should be made to
know what the goal was to be to which his history looked.
One can scarcely explain how Israel came to direct its
atttention to Canaan when it escaped from Egypt, unless
it had some tradition of its destiny alive in it.
More interesting than Israel s views of the way in
which Jehovah judged and ruled the nation, and approved
Himself its God, whether in giving it victory over its
enemies, or in visiting its sins upon it, are those indica
tions that are given of how Jehovah s relations to
individuals were thought of. The truth that God s
covenant at Sinai was made with Israel as a people, and
that the prophets deal mainly with the State and its
destinies, rarely with individuals, and of these mainly with
the ruling classes, obscures, for the time being, the question
of Jehovah s relation to individual persons. Indeed, it has
been asserted that down to the time of the prophet Amos,
no individual mind in Israel was conscious of a personal
relation to Jehovah. This is serious exaggeration. From
the nature of the case less is said of such relations than
we might wish. But enough is said to enable us to see
that the thought of Jehovah entered into every circum
stance of the people s life. That Jehovah is conscious of
the meaning of the individual is sufficiently plain. He
calls Moses by name, i.e. He conceives his meaning as a
person and a servant. He chooses David, calling him
from the sheep-cotes, and finds him a man after His own
heart. He loves Solomon. It is, however, in certain
relations of life that the feeling reveals itself how
intimately Jehovah is connected with the life of men,
and enters into it. Such relations are those, e.g., of
family life. It is when children are born into the world
that the pious feelings of parents are most strongly evoked
and expressed. So the names of most children are com
pounded of the Divine name. Thankfulness is expressed,
and the child is accepted as a Divine gift, and is called,
c.y. Jonathan " Jehovah has given," etc. ; or some hope
GUARDIAN OF THE COVENANT 179
is expressed which God will grant ; or some happy omen
is seized indicative of God s purpose with regard to the
child. The story of the naming of Jacob s children in
Padan-Aram is full of indications how closely men and
women felt Jehovah to be bound up with their history.
And there is perhaps nothing more striking in Israel s
history than this that it is chiefly a history of great
individuals Abraham, Moses, Elijah, David, etc.
One other point, illustrating how Jehovah entered into
the life of men, may be mentioned. That is, the making
of contracts or covenants. Into these Jehovah is repre
sented as entering as a third party the Guardian of the
contract. Men mutually swore by Him. Or they offered
a sacrifice, of which part was given to Him, while the rest was
eaten together by the contracting parties ; and so all three
were drawn into the bond, and bound by it. When Laban
left his daughters to Jacob in Gilead, they made a covenant,
raising a cairn in witness of it ; and Laban on parting said :
" The Lord watch between me and thee when we are
absent from one another" (Gen. xxxi. 49). "God is
witness betwixt me and thee." So Sarah, when enraged
by Hagar, her maid, said to her husband : " The Lord
judge between me and thee" (Gen. xvi. 5). The Lord
everywhere upholds right. Sometimes it seems that the
conception held of Jehovah was very severe, and sometimes
His action seemed to show great jealousy of any familiarity
with anything specially His or holy, as when He struck
down Uzzah for putting his hand to the ark to uphold it
when it tottered (2 Sam. vi. 6, 7), and slew seventy men
of Bethshemesh for looking into the ark (1 Sam. vi. 19)
Yet His pious servants show the profoundest humility
before Jehovah and submission to His will. When Eli
heard from Samuel that his house was doomed to forfeit
the priesthood and perish, he said : " It is Jehovah, let
Him do what seemeth good " (1 Sam. iii. 18). When David
fled before Absalom, and was cursed by Shimei, whom his
servants wished to be allowed to slay, he said : " Let him
curse : for the Lord hath said unto him. Curse David "
180 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
(2 Sam. xvi. 10). And it is in these histories that the
Lord proclaims His name : " The Lord God, merciful and
gracious, forgiving iniquity and sin," pardoning the sin
of David in the matter of Uriah (2 Sam. xii. 17), and
graciously granting the prayer of the afflicted Hannah
at Shiloh (1 Sam. i. 10, 17). My impression is that even
in the most ancient passages of the Old Testament
essentially the same thought of Jehovah is to be found
as appears in the Prophets and the later literature.
The doctrine of Jehovah receives few developments
during the course of the Old Testament period. It is stated
more broadly in the later books, but in the oldest writings
the germs of it are contained. Instead of quoting separate
passages, it will be enough, in bringing this statement to an
end, to refer to one passage which gives a very vivid picture
of what may be called the consciousness of God in the mind
of Old Testament saints. That is the cxxxixth Psalm. Here
we see, first, how the Psalmist begins with the expression of
God s general knowledge of man, even of his heart : " Thou
hast searched me, and known me." The writer feels him
self standing before One who knows. The knowledge and
the whole relations expressed are properly ethical, but the
ethical at times so strong is the feeling of the presence
of the Person who knows, and of His scrutiny pervading
the whole nature seems to pass into the physical, and
the image of one substance or element surrounding and
compressing another is used to body out the almost physical
feeling of God s presence. But that this is only a powerful
way of expressing the ethical, is seen from the concluding
prayer : " Search me, . . . and lead me in the way ever
lasting."
Second, this one general feeling of being known is broken
up into particulars : " Thou knowest my sitting down and my
rising up, . . . Thou hast sifted my going and lying down."
The outward is known, sifted, every mode in which existence
expresses itself is seen through. But it is not so much the
things themselves as that out of which they come : " Thou
knowest my thought afar off," long ere it be formed ; ere
THE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINTH PSALM 181
the word be on my tongue, Thou knowest it all. This
feeling of being known by One present is so strong that it
expresses itself in the figure of physical pressure ; this
piercing eye, this seeing Person is so near that He thrusts
Himself against the Psalmist " Thou pressest me before
and behind " ; the faculties of his soul, not to speak of his
body, have not room to play, to move, for this impinging
element about them, bearing in upon them, and hampering
them in their action. And this figure is varied by another,
that of the grasp of a hand laid upon the man, by which
he is carried about, and from beneath which he cannot
move : " Such knowledge is too deep for me " ; he is unable
to grasp it.
Third, this surrounding, compressing element bears in
upon him with such terrors and causes such awe, that the
thought rises in his mind whether he might not flee from it.
But that cannot be : " Whither from Thy spirit can I go ?
If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there : if I descend into
Sheol, Thou art also there : if I take the wings of the
morning, and dwell in the uttermost part of the earth,
there will Thy hand hold me." The physical figure, by
which the Divine omniscience was expressed, leads through
the thought of the escape from it, if that were possible, to
the expression of the Divine omnipresence. The two are
hardly distinct things; He who knows, God as knowing,
is an all-pervading presence. This surrounding element,
how shall he escape it ? this inbearing, oppressing spirit,
that thrusts itself close unto him, how shall he elude it ?
" Whither from Thy spirit can I go ? " In heaven, in hell,
in east or west though he should pass from the highest
heaven to the deepest Sheol, or through space as swift as
the light from east to west, the hand that lies on him will
still lie " Thy right hand holds me." Even in the dark
ness he is conscious of a face beholding him to God the
darkness is as light.
Fourth, the Psalmist adds words which seem partly
meant to be an explanation of this knowledge of God
" for Thou hast possessed my reins," or " hast made my reins."
182 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
If the former, as the reins denoted what we mean by the
conscience or consciousness, the meaning is, that God had
settled down in his consciousness. If this were the mean
ing, the figure would be deserted, and the literal meaning
expressed. It is perhaps more likely that the meaning is,
" Thou hast made my reins." This both explains God s
knowledge, and deepens the expression of it. God knows
him ; for He was present at the beginning of his being,
and foresaw and designed all that it should be all his
members before they were " written in His Book."
God formed him, and prescribed and looked forward to all
that he should be ; His knowledge of him is not new. And
to the mind of the Psalmist there is a certain awfulness in
this thought : " Such thoughts are too heavy for me " ; he
is fascinated by this sense of God, and cannot dispel it
from his mind. When he awakes in the morning, it still
haunts him and fills his mind " when I awake I am still
with Thee"; still occupied with Thee. His consciousness of
God has become the other half of his consciousness of himself.
Yet, that all this conception of God, however much
expressed in physical figures, is mainly ethical, appears,
as we have said, from the prayer with which the Psalmist
concludes : " Search me, and know my heart : try me, and
know my thoughts : and see if there be any wicked way
in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Though he
fears the searching, yet he invites it. The Divine, although
awful, yet attracts. He is fascinated by the Divine light,
almost as the insect by the lamp ; and he must move
towards it, even though there be danger that it should
consume him.
VI. THE DOCTRINE OF MAN.
1. Human Nature and its Constitution.
On the subject of Old Testament Anthropology the first
question that presents itself is the question of human nature
QUESTION OF A BIBLICAL PSYCHOLOGY 180
itself and its elements, as they are spoken of in Scripture.
Much has been written on the subject of the Psychology of
the Old Testament. Many systems of Biblical Psychology
have been constructed, and the points signalised in which
this Psychology differs from ordinary Psychology. Two
points have generally been much insisted on. One is that
the Bible teaches a trichotomy, or threefold division of
human nature, body, soul, and spirit ; and the other is that
the spirit is the highest element in man, the element allied
to God, the element endowed with the power of receiving
God and Divine influences. It is not easy to bring into
system or order the statements of Scripture regarding the
nature of man, and its several elements or sides. But the
following remarks may be made :
(1) What we may expect in the Old Testament is not
scientific, but popular phraseology. Any such thing as a
science of the mind, whether just or false, is not to be
looked for among the people of Israel in Old Testament
times. A Biblical Psychology of the same class as other
psychologies of a philosophical or natural kind, but distinct
and different from them, is not to be expected. It is the
purpose of the Old Testament to impress practical religious
truth on men s minds, and with this view it speaks their
ordinary language, not the language of the schools, if, indeed,
we could suppose such a language to have existed at the
time.
(2) If the Old Testament speaks the popular language,
its usage will reflect all the varieties of that language.
We cannot expect a more constant use of terms in par
ticular senses than actually prevailed among the people.
If the popular language contained distinctions, these will
appear in the Old Testament ; and if words were used with
out discrimination and indifferently in the mouths of the
people, this indiscriminate usage will appear in the Scrip
tures. It is not probable that in the Old Testament there
is any advance over popular usage in the direction of a
fixed or scientific phraseology.
(3) In this connection it is proper to refer to the New
184 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Testament and its ideas. The New Testament phraseology
is not purely Jewish, but has been influenced by Greek
thought. And in the New Testament there may be ob
served an approach towards a more fixed or definite use
of terms. But even in the New Testament there is no
Biblical Psychology in a scientific sense. The New Testa
ment Psychology is not meant to be a psychology of the mind
as regards its substance or elements, or even its operations,
except on a certain side of these operations. All that we
have is an ethical and religious phraseology. The Psy
chology of the New Testament is part of its ethics, and
cannot be pursued further back so as to be made strictly
a psychology or physiology of the mind. It remains a
description of the mind or its attitudes ethically and
religiously. It might, no doubt, be legitimate and useful
to inquire whether the New Testament phraseology, applied
there exclusively in an ethical way, might not have partly
arisen from previous speculations of a more purely psycho
logical kind. It is not unlikely that such speculations in
some degree influenced the language of the New Testament
writers. But a distinction should be drawn between the
New Testament usage, which is exclusively ethical, and
previous usage of a more strictly philosophical kind which
such inquiries might reveal. The latter should not be
mixed up with what is called Biblical Psychology. And
perhaps such a phrase should not be used at all ; for it
suggests the idea, for which there is no foundation, that
the Scriptures contain a peculiar psychological nomen
clature distinct from that of popular usage, which is not
true in any sense, and that this nomenclature might be
compared or contrasted with that of secular systems of
philosophy of the mind, which is only true in this sense,
that terms which in secular systems are used in a strictly
psychological way, are in the Scriptures used ethically or
religiously.
There are certain passages in the New Testament that
might seem, and by many have been held, to establish a
distinction between soul and spirit of a kind to be named
QUESTION OF A TRICHOTOMY 185
substantial, and consequently to teach a trichotomy of
human nature, a division into three distinct elements. In
1 Thess. v. 2 3 occur the words : " And the very God of
peace sanctify you wholly : and may your spirit and soul
and body be preserved entire, without blame, at the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ." The commentary of a writer,
not undeserving of attention, on this passage is as follows :
" The position of the epithet shows that the prayer is not
. . . that the whole, spirit, soul, and body, the three asso
ciated together, may be preserved, but, that eacli part
may be preserved in Us completeness. Not mere associated
preservation, but preservation in an individually complete
state, is the burden of the apostle s prayer. The prayer is,
in fact, threefold : first, that they may be sanctified by
God, the God of peace, for sanctification is the condition
of outward and inward peace, wholly (oXoreXa?) in their
collective powers and constituents ; next, that each con
stituent may be preserved to our Lord s coming; and
lastly, that each so preserved may be entire and com
plete in itself, not mutilated or disintegrated by sin ; that
the body may retain its yet uneffaced image of God, and
its unimpaired aptitude to be a living sacrifice to its Maker ;
the appetitive soul, its purer hopes and nobler aspirations ;
the spirit, its ever blessed associate, the holy and eternal
Spirit of God." l
This New Testament passage certainly names three
constituent elements of human nature, names them all co-
ordinately, and speaks of each as needing sanctification, and
as capable of preservation. And it might be plausibly
argued that, as the three are specially named, there is as
good reason for considering the spirit distinct from the soul,
as there is for considering the lody distinct from either.
But this reasoning would be seen to go further than it
ought ; for the distinction between soul and spirit, even
admitting it, can hardly be one of essence. And on the
other side it may not unfairly be represented that the
apostle s language does not require, in order to justify it,
Ellicott, Destiny of the Creature, p. 107.
186 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
a distinction of organs or substances, but may be accounted
for by a somewhat vivid conception of one substance in
different relations or under different aspects. In ordinary
language we certainly speak of soul as well as of spirit ; and
in his fervid desire for the complete and perfect sanctifica-
tion of his disciples, the apostle accumulates these terms
together, so as to give an exhaustive expression to the
whole being and nature of man.
In Heb. iv. 1 2 there occurs a similar passage : " For
the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than
any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to
discern the thoughts and intents of the heart." The word
of God has four attributes assigned to it : it is quick, that
is, living, as we speak of the quick and the dead ; it is
powerful, that is, active ; it is sharp ; and being so, it pierces
even to the dividing of soul and spirit. The word divid
ing means here the act of dividing rather than the place
of division. The meaning does not seem to be that the
word of God, like a two-edged sword, enters so deep as to
reach the place of division, the seam, or boundary line be
tween soul and spirit, but that it goes so deep as to effect
a division of them. Some doubt may remain whether the
sharp word of God effects a division between the soul and
spirit, or a division within them whether it separates
between the two, or cuts asunder each, as we might say
dissects both the soul and spirit.
In comparison with the question, indeed, whether the
soul and the spirit be distinct things, this other question is
of less consequence. The passage recognises two things, one
called soul, and another called spirit. Are these conceived
to be separated by something introduced between them, an
operation delicate enough, but one which an instrument so
sharp as the word of God is qualified to accomplish ? Or
is it that each of them is divided and cut open into its own
elements ? Probably the view that the division is made
not between the soul and the spirit, but within each of
them, is the true one. If the other view were correct,
DIVIDING OF SOUL AXD SPIRIT 187
that according to which a division is effected by the word
of God between soul and spirit, a relation between soul
and spirit would be suggested which is injurious to the
latter, a sensuous sinking of the spirit into the soul, where
its higher energies become drowsy, and expire in the soft,
voluptuous lap of the lower psychical nature ; and the
word of God comes to dissever and divorce this depressing
union, and elevate the spirit again to a position of freedom
and command. This interpretation, however, is less prob
able. The meaning is rather that the word of God is so
sharp that it pierces and dissects both the soul and spirit,
separates each into its parts, subtle though they be, analyses
and discerns their thoughts and intents.
But in any case the question forces itself upon us
Are we here on the ground of literal speech or of
metaphor ? A writer whose imaginative and rhetorical
manner endows the word of God with life and activity
may very readily conceive one thing in its various states
and connections as various things. We need to remember
that the writers of Scripture were Oriental, or we shall
be in danger of taking figures of speech for statements of
doctrine. Perhaps, too, the vivid grandeur of the concep
tions of Scripture is not altogether due to their authors
being children of the East. The time when these concep
tions were formed was one of profound excitement. Old
systems of thought and life were breaking up under the
fresh influence of Christian thought like an ice-bound
river, and the strong currents newly released were dashing
the fragments against one another. A new moral world
had suddenly been created, more real, and to the earnest
imagination of the time almost more substantial, than
the world of matter. It was not mere conceptions amidst
which men stood ; it was things, almost beings.
Even to a man of the character of St. Paul the words
sin, death, law, and the like represented personalities rather
than abstract ideas. He wrestled with them, as they
wrestled with one another. And it was not outside of him
alone, or for him, that the conflict was carried on, but
188 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
within him. He found himself divided. One less con
scious than he was, that the influence which gave men
power to be at any time victorious over the evil within
them came from without, might have described his moral
sensations by saying that he felt himself sometimes on the
side of good and sometimes on the side of evil. But the
apostle was not sometimes one kind of man and sometimes
another ; he was two men, or there were two men within
him. There was an old man and a new man, an inner man
and another. And where the fervour of the religious
imagination produced creations like these, it may easily be
conceived to have spoken of two aspects of the one thing,
the mind, as if they were two things. Elsewhere, both with
St. Paul and with the author of Hebrews, we find human
nature spoken of as consisting of two elements only. The
one speaks of " cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of the
flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God"
(2 Cor. vii. 1) ; and the other, of our drawing near unto
God, " having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience,
and our bodies washed with pure water" (x. 22). It is
most likely, therefore, that the trichotomy which appears
in some other passages is rhetorical, and not to be taken
literally.
2. The terms Body and Flesh:
If we return now to the Old Testament and inquire
how the three terms, lody, soul, and spirit, are employed
there, the following may be taken as an outline of what
the usage is :
As to the lody. The Hebrew word for body is njia,
which is sometimes used for the living body (Ezek. ill,
"bodies of the Cherubim"; Gen. xlvii. 18; Neh. ix. 37),
but usually for the dead body or carcase. This term hardly
corresponds to the Greek croyia. Properly speaking,
Hebrew has no term for body/ The Hebrew term
around which questions relating to the body must gather
is flesh, "iB>3. Now, the only question really of interest in
THE TERM FLESH 189
regard to this term is the question whether in the Old
Testament an ethical idea had already begun to attach to
it ? Such an ethical use of the word flesh, crdpt; , is
very characteristic of the New Testament, at least of the
Pauline Epistles; and it is of interest to inquire whether
it be found also in the Old Testament.
The word flesh is found in the Old Testament used of
the muscular part of the body in distinction from other
parts, such as skin, bones, blood, and the like, especially
such parts of animals slain for food or for sacrifice. Hence
it is used for food along with bread (Ex. xvi. 3), or wine,
eating flesh and drinking wine (Isa. xxii. 13), -and
forms the main element of the sacrifice. The fact that it
is used for sacrifice, and offered to the Lord as His fire-food,
shows that no uncleanness belongs to the flesh as such.
The distinctness of clean and unclean among animals is not
one due to the flesh, for they are all alike flesh. The flesh
in itself has no impurity attaching to it ; it is of no moral
quality.
In living creatures the same distinctions are drawn
between the flesh of the body and other parts of it " this
is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh." But the flesh
being the most outstanding part of the living creature,
covering the bones and containing the blood, it naturally
came to be used, the part being taken for the whole, of
the living creature in general. In this sense it represents
the creature as an organised being, flexible, smooth, and
possessing members. In Arabic the corresponding word is
used of the surface of the body as smooth and fresh ; and it
is curious that in Hebrew flesh in this sense does not seem
to be employed of animals covered with feathers or hair,
and probably the soft, fresh muscle and the smooth surface
of the animal body is the prominent notion. Hence a
usage which is as far as possible from casting any aspersion
of an ethical kind upon the flesh, in the prophet Ezekiel,
who says : " A new heart will I give unto you ... I will
take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will
give you an heart of flesh " (xxxvi. 26).
190 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
This usage forms the transition to a wider one, accord
ing to which sensuous creatures, particularly mankind, are
called all flesh. This remarkable expression for mankind,
or for sensuous creatures in general, is usually, however,
employed in a way that may suggest its origin. It is gener
ally, or at least very often, used when there is an antithesivS
of some kind suggested between mankind and God. And
it is possible that this antithesis gave rise to this way of
naming mankind. The suggestive passage Isa. xxxi. 3,
" The Egyptians are men, and not God : and their horses
are flesh, and not spirit," perhaps gives a key to the kind
of idea underlying the usage. The idea must be carefully
observed. The passage begins : " Woe to them that go down
to Egypt for help ; that stay (trust) on horses, and look
not unto the Holy One of Israel/ The question with the
prophet is a question of help, or where real strength lies.
Therefore when he says, " their horses are flesh, and not
spirit," his point is not what the horses are composed of,
but what they are able to accomplish.
When Jehovah is called Spirit, it is not a question of
His essence, but of His power. And when men are spoken
of as all flesh, the emphasis does not fall on that which they
are made of, but it rather expresses a secondary idea, no
doubt suggested by this, the idea of their weakness. Flesh
as one sees it is perishable, and subject to decay ; when
the spirit is withdrawn it turns into its dust. As thus
feeble and subject to decay, in contrast with God who is
eternal, mankind and all creatures are spoken of as all
flesh. The primary sense may perhaps be seen in Deut.
v. 26: " For what is all flesh, that it might hear the
voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the
fire, as we, and live?" And, similarly, Isa. xl. G, 7 : "All
flesh is grass . . . the grass withereth . . . but the word
of our God shall stand for ever." Naturally, supposing
this to be the origin of the expression, it came also to
be used when no such antithesis between mankind and
God was designed to be expressed. The phrase might
have arisen from the fact that the flesh or body of
THE FLESH AND MORAL FRAILTY 191
animated creatures is the prominent thing about them to
the eye ; but in any case the expression denotes usually
the weakness and perishableness of those creatures called
flesh. Mankind is also called E S3 {o ; but this phrase
denotes every individual of mankind, whereas all flesh is
rather the whole race ; the characteristic of which is that
it is flesh, and therefore weak and perishable.
Now this leads to the last point, namely, whether the
term flesh is used in an ethical sense, to imply moral defect,
or to be the source of moral weakness. The Hebrews are
rather apt to confuse the physical and the moral. There
was, of course, no tendency among them, as with us, to
resolve the moral into the physical, and obliterate the moral
idea altogether. The tendency was the contrary one, to
give moral significance to the physical or material ; to
consider the physical but a form or expression of the moral.
So specific forms of disease acquired a moral meaning, and
were religious uncleannesses. To touch the dead created
a religious disability. This arose from their mixing up the
two spheres, and their thinking of them in connection with
one another ; or it led to it. And this being the case, it
might be very natural for them to give to the physical
weakness of mankind as flesh a moral complexion.
Whether they did so is difficult to decide. They often
couple the two together man s moral and his physical
weakness. The Psalmist, in Ps. ciii., blesses God, who
healeth all our diseases and forgiveth all our sins. Yet
here the things, though combined, are still distinct. And
so in another beautiful passage, Ps. Ixxviii. 38, 39 : "But
He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity . . ,
yea, many a time turned He His anger away. . . . For
He remembered that they were but flesh ; a wind that
passeth away, and cometh not again." Here flesh and
iniquity are by no means confounded ; on the contrary,
He forgave their iniquity because He remembered that
they were flesh that is, transitory beings, a wind that
passeth away and cometh not again.
It is possible that in such passages, where sin and flesh
192 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
go together, the feeling appears that it is to be expected
that beings so weak physically should be weak morally, and
liable to sin. This seems to be the view in Job xiv. 14 :
" Man, born of woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.
He cometh forth as a flower, and withereth : he fleeth as a
shadow, and continueth not. And dost thou open thine eyes
upon such an one, and bringest me into judgment with thee ?
that a clean could be out of an unclean ! there is not
one." Here the two things, physical frailness and moral
uncleanness, again go together ; but they do not seem con
fused. Neither are they confused in the words of Eliphaz,
chap. iv. 1 71 9 : " Shall man be righteous with God ?
. . . Behold, He charges His angels with error ; how much
more man, that dwelleth in houses of clay, which are
crushed before the moth." And there is a similar passage
in chap. xv. 14. In all such passages the universal sin-
fulness of mankind is strongly expressed, and his physical
weakness and liability to decay serve to strengthen the
impression or assurance of his moral frailty. It is this
moral fallibility that is insisted on. There is also reference
to his physical frailty and brief life ; he is called flesh t and
said to dwell in houses of clay and the like. It is con
sidered natural that one physically so frail should also be
morally frail and sinful. Physical frailty is pleaded as a
ground of compassion for moral frailty. But the two do
not seem to be confounded ; neither is it taught that the
cause of man s moral frailty is to be found in his physical
nature, or that the flesh is in itself sinful, or the seat
of sin.
3. The term Spirit
The words spirit, nvi, and soul, PM, are often put in
antithesis to the flesh, and express the invisible element in
man s nature the separation of which from the body is
death. In the Old Testament the word nvi, spirit, is the
more important term. In the New Testament, spirit,
, is little used of any natural element in man ; it
THE SPIRIT OF GOD 193
chiefly refers to the Divine Spirit communicated to men in
fellowship with Christ.
In the Old Testament the word nn i s used of the wind ;
the characteristics of this are impalpableness and force ;
it is invisible, but a real energy.
Then the word is used of the breath. The breath is
the sign of life in the living creature. When he no more
breathes he is dead his breath departs, and he falls into
dust. Man is a being in whose nostrils is a breath
the sign of the feeblest existence. When this breath is sent
out in a violent way it implies passion ; hence the word is
used for anger, fury. So even God s breath is spoken of,
and His wrath, which is seen in His nostrils like a fiery
smoke.
Now, here we meet an extension of the use of the term
spirit, common in all languages, the various steps of which
need to be distinctly noticed, though it is difficult to keep
them separate. There are three steps: (1) the nn is the
breath the sign of life ; (2) it becomes not merely the
sign of life, but, so to speak, the principle of vitality itself ;
and (3) this principle of vitality being considered the
unseen spiritual element in man, it comes to mean man s
spirit. Eeference to certain passages may show this ascent
of three steps. 1
(1) All life, whether in man, or in the lower creatures,
or in the world, is an effect of the nvi, the Spirit of God.
God s Spirit is merely God in His efficiency, especially as
giving life. The Spirit of God is hardly considered another
distinct from Him ; it is God exercising power, communi
cating Himself, or operating. This power may be simply
vital power, physical life ; or it may be intellectual, moral,
or religious life. These are all communicated by the Spirit
or nri of God. This Spirit of God communicated to man
gives him life. Now, though this nvi or Spirit of God
be properly no substance, but a mere power, it is very
1 Compare what has been said above on the subject of "The Spirit ot
God." Some of the points developed in the following statements are referred
to there. ED.
194 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
hard, perhaps impossible, to avoid conceiving it in some
substantial way, or to escape the use of language which
seems to express this. But we must guard against being
misled by such phraseology. In the beginning of Genesis
(ii. 7) the creation of man is set forth graphically, and in
a very realistic way : " The Lord God made man out of
the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life ; and he became a living creature nephesh"
The passage is of interest in various ways : first, it
distinguishes between man and the lower creatures. The
earth and waters at the command of God brought forth
the other creatures, but man s formation was the work
manship of God s own hand. Secondly, man s body being
formed, God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
The source of life does not belong to the body, life is not
a manifestation of organised matter. It is a product of
God s Spirit. Thirdly, man thus became a living nephesh
the soul or neplwsli lives. Now, here we are on the ground
of a representation which is very realistically put. Into
the still, lifeless, unbreathing form of man God breathed a
breath, and straightway the lifeless form exhibited the
symptoms of life breath in the nostrils, and was a living
creature. God s nn, which is the source of life, is here
considered God s own breath ; the passage of the spirit
into man is represented as God s breathing it ; and, that
being in man, man lived. Now all that seems in question
here is just the giving of vitality to man. There seems
no allusion to man s immaterial being, to his spiritual
element. It is a picture of his endowment with vitality.
Vitality is communicated by God, and He is here pictorially
represented as communicating it by breathing into man s
nostrils that breath which is the sign of life. The anthropo
morphism of the author is very strong. He represents
God Himself as having a breath which is the sign or prin
ciple of life in Himself ; and this He breathed into man,
and it became the same in him.
Now, this vital spirit, coming from God, but now
belonging to man, not, it is to be observed, considered as a
WITHDRAWAL OF THE SPIRIT 195
spiritual substance in man, but simply as a vital principle
or as vitality, is called in Scripture the " Spirit of God/ 1
because it is a power of God or a constant efficiency of
His ; and the " spirit of man," because belonging to man.
Hence Job says : " The spirit (or breath) of God is in my
nostrils " (xxvii. 3), parallel to the other clause : " My
breath is yet whole in me." And Elihu says : " The spirit
of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty
hath given me life " (xxxiii. 4). And again, arguing that
the creation and upholding of life in creatures demonstrates
the unselfish benevolence of God, he says : " If God should
set His mind upon Himself make Himself the sole object
of His consideration and regard, and withdraw unto Him
self His spirit and His breath, all flesh should perish
together, and return again into dust" (xxxiv. 14). Again,
Ps. civ. 29: "Thou takest away their nn, they die, and
return to their dust. Thou sendest forth Thy nn, and they
are created." All these passages are realistic ways of
describing life and death ; the one is caused by an efflux
of God s spirit, which is represented by or identified with
the breath in the nostrils, the sign or the principle of life ;
and the other, death, is caused by God s taking away His
spirit, the previous continual sending forth of which was
the cause of life. One can readily perceive how two
things are mixed up in these representations : first, the
belief that all life is communicated by God s Spirit, or by
God who acts and is everywhere present as spirit, and as
such is the giver and upholder of vitality in all that has
life ; and, secondly, a tendency to represent this sensuously
by dwelling upon the breath in man, the sign, and pre
sumably the principle, of their life.
When the spirit is spoken of as being withdrawn by
God and going forth from man, in other words, when, as
we say, he expires and dies, there is no question raised as to
where the spirit of life which he had goes to. The spirit
of life is not a substance, it is the mere principle of vitality,
as we say. The question did not occur, when the spirit of
life was spoken of in this sense, where it was when it went
196 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
out or was withdrawn. It really had no existence as any
thing in itself. It is not considered as gathered into a world
of spirits. Neither does it seem regarded as a part of the
Divine Spirit, which is reabsorbed into the Spirit of God.
This conception would be nearer the truth. If one wished
a figure, he might imagine it thus : As the ocean runs up
upon the shore and fills every cave and hollow in the
rocks, and thus, though each of these cavities has its own
fulness, yet this fulness is not separated from the rest of
the ocean, but is only the universal ocean, communicating
itself ; so God s spirit of life becomes the spirit of life in
all flesh, yet His spirit is not divided. And just as when
the ocean retreats the caves and hollows are left empty
and dry, so when God withdraws His spirit of life the
living creatures fall into dust. A better illustration,
because a scriptural one, is given in Ezek. xxxvii., in the
vision of the dry bones : "As I prophesied, there was a
voice, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.
And I beheld, and, lo, there were sinews upon them, and
flesh came up, and skin covered them ; but there w T as no
breath in them. Then said He unto me, Prophesy, and
say unto the wind (nn), Come from the four winds, breath
(nn), and breathe into these slain, that they may live. So
I prophesied, and the breath (nn) came into them, and
they stood up upon their feet an exceeding great army. . . .
Behold, I will open your graves, My people, and I will
put My nn in you, and ye shall live, and I will place you
in your own land."
(2) All the preceding illustrations have been given on
the plane of mere life or vitality. But an advance is
made on this in a use of the word nn which is common to
all languages. The spirit means the intellectual or mental
element in man. It could not but occur to men that the
breath was not the life or living principle in man ; there
was something unseen which was the source or seat of
life and also of thought. Still it was probably the breath
that suggested this, or the same word would hardly have
been used for both. There are still some passages where
THE MENTAL ELEMENT IN MAN 197
the distinction between the breath and the immaterial
principle or mind is scarcely maintained. Thus Elihu
says : " There is a spirit in man, and the breath of the
Almighty giveth them understanding " (xxxii. 8). And
while in earlier books the question is not raised as to what
becomes of the life-spirit in man when he dies, in later
books this spirit is spoken of more as if it had an independent
being of its own. That is, the immaterial element in man
is identified with the spirit of life or principle of vitality in
him : " Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was,
and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it " (Eccles.
xii. 7). And in another passage in the same book : "Who
knoweth the spirit of man, whether it goeth upwards, and
the spirit of the beast whether it goeth downward to the
earth ? " (iii. 21). In general, however, the difference
between spirit as vitality and spirit as immaterial
clement in man is pretty well preserved, though an affinity
between the two usages must be acknowledged.
The term spirit (nil) is used for the mental element in
the nature of man, especially in three aspects : first, when
put in opposition to flesh ; secondly, when considered as
drawing its origin from God, when He is thought of as its
source ; and, thirdly, when the strength or weakness in
respect of vitality of man s immaterial nature is spoken of.
The first two are illustrated by such passages as these :
" God of the spirits of all flesh " (Num. xvi. 22, xxvii. 16) ;
" In whose hand is the soul of all that liveth, and the spirit
of all flesh of man" (Job xii. 10). Examples of the third
are numerous : " The spirit of Jacob their father revived "
(Gen. xlv. 27); "To revive the spirit of the humble" (Isa.
Ivii. 15); "My days are over, my spirit is extinguished"
(Job xvii. 1); hence the spirit "is overwhelmed and
faileth " (Ps. cxliii. 4) ; "by sorrow of heart the spirit is
broken" (Prov. xv. 13); "the sacrifices of God are a
broken spirit " (Ps. li, 17); and this other passage, " For I
will not, saith the Lord, contend for ever, neither will I
be always wroth : for the spirit would fail before me, and
the breaths which I have made" (Isa, Ivii. 16),
198 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
This connection of nn with the idea of life, and con
sequently of strength, power, is very remarkable, and needs
further investigation. It seems, however, to be the
foundation for two very interesting extensions of the use
of the term nn, to which some allusion may be made.
First, as vitality, power, energy resided in the spirit,
the term nn came to be used of a predominating state or
direction of the mind, that which when it is temporary we
designate a mood or humour or frame or temper, and when
natural or habitual, a disposition or character. In the
former sense Hosea speaks of "a spirit of whoredoms"
being in Israel (iv. 12, v. 4), and Isaiah of "a spirit of
deep sleep being poured out on them" (xxix. 10), i.e. of
insensibility, and of " a spirit of perverseness " being in the
Egyptians (xix. 1 4) ; and in the same sense, perhaps, another
prophet speaks of "a spirit of grace and supplications"
(Zech. xii. 10). In the latter sense, that of a prevailing
disposition or character, the Old Testament speaks of those
who are " proud in spirit " (Eccles. vii. 8), " haughty in
spirit " (Prov. xvi. 18), " hasty in spirit " (Eccles. vii. 9) ; and,
on the other hand, of a "humble spirit" (Prov. xvi. 19),
of a "patient spirit" (Eccles. vii. 8), a "faithful spirit,"
and the like (Prov. xi. 13). The word K ; S3 or soul could
hardly have been used in any of these examples.
Secondly, it is this same conception of power or energy
or fuller life which is expressed when it is said that the
Spirit of God is given to men, or when He comes upon them
and moves them. It is said, for example, in reference to
Samson, that the Spirit of God began to move him at times
in the camp at Dan (Judg. xiii. 25); that the Spirit of
God came upon him, and he rent the lion as he would a
kid (xiv. 6) the reference being to the great display of
strength which he put forth. Similarly, it is said of Caleb
that the " Spirit of God came upon him, and he judged
Israel, and went out to war " (iii. 10). It is probable that
the nomenclature regarding the Spirit coming on the prophets
originated in this way. All exhibitions of power or energy,
whether bodily or mental, are ascribed to the Spirit ; and
THE TERM SOUL 199
the excitation which characterised prophecy in its earlier
stages was spoken of as the result of the Spirit as Ezekiel
still speaks of the " hand of the Lord " being on him
(iii. 14, 22, viii. 1, etc.). As prophecy became more purely
ethical, and threw off excitement of an external kind, the
internal revelation and moral elevation continued to be
ascribed to the Spirit. But this revelation is not usually
considered to be mere thought communicated, but rather
an elevation and greater power of mind, which may, as in
Isa. xi. 2, ramify into many directions as wisdom, judicial
discernment, counsel, executive, and fear of the Lord.
4. The term Soul.
Less needs to be said in regard to the soul or PM.
The soid as well as the spirit is used to designate the whole
immaterial part of man though with certain shades of
difference in the conception. That the two are identical
upon the whole appears from Job vii. 11: "I will speak
in the anguish of my PjM ; I will complain in the bitterness
of my nv\" Compare also iii. 20 : "Why giveth He life
to the bitter of fc j ??. ? " When God " breathed into man the
breath of life," man became a " living Efc?.." A creature
that has life is $B3, an individual, a creature, or person.
Even a dead person is PBJ. Hence PSj> being the actual
living creature that we see, with its many varieties, its
form, its sensibilities, and the like, in a word, the living
concrete individual, when the word was applied to the
immaterial substratum of this life, the soul, the same
concrete individual character, marked by sensibilities,
desires, affections, still adhered to it. Therefore to the
K B3 belongs the personality of the individual. The soul
longs, pants, desires, melteth for heaviness, fainteth for
God s salvation, abhorreth dainty meat, loathes, is satisfied,
is bound down, cleaveth to the dust, quiets itself like a
weaned child. The same epithets might be used of the nn
and of the t?M ; but they would scarcely have the same
force. Applied to the D^" 1 they would describe the condition
200 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
more objectively as a condition of mental power, e.g. a
broken spirit ; applied to the fc BJ they would describe the
condition more reflexively as one felt by the PBJ O r
individual.
Any distinction of a substantial or elemental kind
between nn and $B3 is not to be understood. Neither is
the nn higher than the P S}, or more allied to God. But
the idea of nn is vitality, strength, power, which is also the
idea attached to the nn of God ; and such influences
coming from God are influences of the nn, and are
nn in man, or a strengthening of nn in man, because
nn is man s nature on the side of its vitality, power,
prevailing force, and the like.
The BPB3 is the bearer of the individual personality ;
but it is not modified nn, as if nn concretised were
B B?.. There seems no such idea in the Old Testament.
As it has or is the personality, most importance
attaches to the &&gt;B3 in questions of immortality : " Thou
wilt not leave my itoj to Sheol" (Ps. xvi. 10); "He hath
brought up my l?B3 from Sheol " (Ps. xxx. 3). But with
this we shall have to deal later.
To put it more exactly, the case is this :
(1) All influences exerted by God upon man are
influences of the Spirit of God. God exerting influence
is the Spirit of God. The kind of influence which God
exerts is dynamical ; as we might say, it is a communica
tion of life, or a potentiation of life ; or of strength, power,
in some region particularly in the ethical and religious
spheres.
(2) As God communicates power as nn, so the soul of
man, in its nature as nn, receives the communication, i.e.
it is affected with new power, energy, elevation ; and as
exhibiting power, energy, elevation, the soul of man is nn.
(3) This does not imply that the nn in man is different
from the B% much less that the nn is higher than the
K BJ The nn is the $B3 as possessing or showing power,
elevation, etc. For we have seen that when man s mind
moved in any direction with a strong current, whether the
SPIRIT AND SOUL 201
current was temporary or permanent, it was described as
a nn of such and such a kind ; being a mood or temper or
mental tendency when temporary, and being a character or
disposition when permanent.
(4) Neither, finally, is the PjM the nn individualised, or
the nn modified and made concrete in the individual. No
doubt the individuality or personality is attributed to the
PM ; hence ^?: often means a person. And also the
nn is spoken of more abstractly. But the nn is not first
general and impersonal, and then impersonated in the $B?. ;
rather the Btej is spoken of as nn when exhibiting deter
mination, indicating power, strength, and elevation ; while
as $BJ it is more simply the individual. Hence $B3 can be
used even of a dead person. Hence, also, two concurrent
ways of speaking of death : the nn returns to God who
gave it (Eccles. xii. 7) ; or as in Job : " If God should gather
to Himself His spirit and His breath, all flesh would perish
together, and man turn into his dust " (xxxiv. 1 4). But, on
the other hand, the PBJ descends into SheoL If K SJ were
nn individualised, it is evident that man would not possess
a nn at all, only a t^B3. But the fact that his nn as well
as his PBJ is spoken of, implies that nn and ^3 are the
same things under different aspects. If man s B>B3 were
nn individualised, then the taking away the nn would really
leave nothing at death ; while, in fact, the PB3 is left, and
descends into Saeol. In our modes of thought we operate
with substances, but the Hebrew mind operates rather with
abstract conceptions which it treats and speaks of as things.
Thus it is saying very little to say that the nn returns
to God who gave it. For that may mean nothing more than
that the vitality which flowed from God is withdrawn by
God, and the living person falls into weakness and death.
It is altogether another thing when Psalmists go the
length of saying that the 3 is taken by God, or that He
redeems the 3 from SheoL Because the 3 is the person,
while the i was but some vital energy, the withdrawal of
which by God was death.
The main points reached, therefore, are these :
202 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
(a) That the flesh is not a moral term, the flesh is not
regarded as the source of sin, and is not a term for sinful
nature.
(6) The spirit of man and the soul of man are not
different things, but the same thing under different aspects.
Spirit connotes energy, power, especially vital power ; and
man s inner nature in such aspects, as exhibiting power,
energy, life of whatever kind, is spoken of as spirit. The
same way of speaking prevails in regard to the Spirit of
God. The Spirit of God is God operating powerfully,
imparting life, communicating influence. Hence such
influences of God when communicated to man affect the
spirit of man, i.e. man s inner nature, in those aspects in
which it is thought of as spirit.
(c) The soul, on the other hand, is the seat of the
sensibilities. The idea of spirit is more that of some
thing objective and impersonal ; that of soul suggests
what is reflexive and individual.
(d) Upon the whole, taking into account both what is
stated in the beginning of Genesis and what appears else
where, the impression left on us is that Scripture adds
nothing on this subject of Biblical Psychology to what is
taught us by common sense. Besides the general doctrine
that human nature is the work of God s hand, it gives
special prominence to the fundamental dualism of man s
nature. He is a compound of matter and spirit. The
term matter does not indeed occur in Scripture, but the
particular matter of which man s body is composed is named
dust. And man s spirit is drawn from a quite different
quarter. Spirit or mind is so far from being the result of
material organisation, that the organisation is represented
as existing without spirit. And equally independent of
the spirit is the material organisation in its origin. How
ever popular the representation may be considered to be,
and however much we may be inclined to regard the
account written, so to speak, post-eventum, a description of
man s creation conceived from the point of view of what
man appears in life and in death, it is impossible to
VARIOUS ASPECTS OF SIN 203
eliminate from the account the belief in the dualism of
human nature and the essential independence of matter
and spirit, the two elements of his nature.
(e) There is nothing very difficult in the phraseology
employed in the Old Testament for the parts of human
nature. The material part, spoken of in itself, is ~>SV, dust
from the ground ; the spiritual part, spoken of by itself, is
n>: or nn, breath or spirit. When united to the spirit,
dust becomes flesh, "^3, which may be defined living, or
ensouled matter ; and spirit when united to the dust, now
flesh, becomes soul, ^B3, which may be called incarnate
spirit. There is no more ground for Delitzsch s opinion
that soul is a tertium quid, a substance distinct from spirit,
although of the same essence, 1 than there is for an opinion
that 1^3 is something different from ">SV, dust. The "body
is hardly spoken of in the Old Testament, but the idea of
the body is organised flesh flesh under a special form.
Hence the form being inalienable, the body will rise from
the dead : flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of
God, but the body shall.
VII. THE DOCTRINE OF MAN SIN.
1. Sin its Nature and Extent.
In all the prophets the conception or doctrine of God,
of Jehovah the God of Israel, is the primary subject, while
the idea of sin is secondary, and the obverse, so to speak,
of the other idea. In Amos, whose conception of Jehovah
is that of a supreme righteous ruler of the world and
men, the idea of sin is generally unrighteousness, injustice.
In Hosea, whose idea of God is that He is unchanging
love, sin is the alienation of the heart of the community
from Him : while in Isaiah, who conceives Jehovah as
the sovereign Lord, the transcendent Holy One of Israel,
the sin of man is pride and insensibility to the majesty
1 See his Uiblical Psychology, Clark s tr. p. 113 H , ED.
204 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
of Jehovah, who is a holy fire, consuming all that is
unclean. In general, in all the prophets who speak of
the sin of Israel, that sin is some form of ungodliness, some
course of conduct, whether in worship or in life, having its
source in false conceptions of Jehovah. Hosea traces all
Israel s evil to this : there is no knowledge of God in the
land. The prophetic statements regarding sin are mostly, if
not always, particular, having reference to the conditions of
society around them, and to Israel the people of God ; they
rarely rise to the expression of general principles, and do
not make abstract statements in regard to sin or its prin
ciple. It is not of mankind, but of Israel that they speak,
though they say of Israel what other parts of Scripture say
of mankind. Israel had a period of innocency, succeeded
by its fall, which ended in death : when Israel transgressed
through Baal he died.
In the prophetic period, when, of course, already sin in
these various forms had arisen and all the various con
ceptions of it had been formed, and nothing new appeared
in regard to it except perhaps a deeper sense of it, and
to some extent, as society became more complex, a more
alarming spread and self-manifestation of it, all statements
that we find regarding it will be altogether particular.
There need be looked for no generalising of it or its
principle. But this holds good also of the Mosaic and
even of the pre-Mosaic period ; and indeed in all the Old
Testament, except in the single element of Christology,
the development is not a development of objective truth
so much as of subjective realising of the truth. It matters
little, therefore, whether we carry on our inquiry in the
region of the prophetic literature or in that of the earlier
Scriptures.
On the question of sin, just as on other questions, we
are not entitled to expect in the Old Testament anything
more than popular language not that of science. It may
be made a question, indeed, whether what we call the
language of common-sense, especially in regard to moral
subjects, has not been largely formed on Scripture ; whether
GOOD AND EVIL 205
our habitual ways of thinking may not be largely clue to its
influence on the human mind for so many ages ; and whether
thus the agreement of Scripture statements with what we
call common-sense and men s ordinary ways of thinking
be not a coincidence but an identity. It becomes a
problem, indeed, seeing things are so, how far, if philosophy
should succeed in resolving the ordinary ideas of life into
other forms, simpler or higher, Scripture may be capable
of this transformation, or will necessarily undergo it. No
doubt there is very inconsiderable cause for disquietude.
The philosophers have not yet made much way in this pro
cess of resolving our ideas into other forms; each generation
being fully occupied in bringing into sight the failures of
its predecessor. In any case, when we speak of the in
fallibility of Scripture, we must remember it is not a
scientific or philosophic infallibility, but the infallibility, if
I may say so again, of common-sense. And, however it
may be with questions of that kind, what we do find in
Scripture corresponds, particularly in all that concerns
morals and life, to what the unscientific mind thinks
and feels.
(1) Thus, to begin with, Scripture lays down at its
beginning the categories of good and evil : " God saw
everything which He had made, and behold it was very
f/ood" (Gen. i. 31); "It is not good that the man should
be alone" (Gen. ii. 18). There is good and there is
not good. Probably in such passages good means little
more than, in the one, answering to its design, and in the
other, conducive to his well-being. l Good in both cases
may be capable of being further resolved. But here at
least is a general idea embracing particulars under it.
Opposite to good, Scripture places the category of c evil.
The two are so irreconcilable that they are named as the
two poles of human thought and experience : " Ye shall
be as God, knowing good and evil " (Gen. ii. 5). The
existence of Elohim Himself is bounded by these two
walls. And so radical is the distinction, that the prophet
Isaiah (v. 20) denounces as sunk to the last stage of
206 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
perversity those who in his age confounded the two:
" Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil ; that
put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put
bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter ! " although even
those did not question the distinction, but only inverted
the things, saying as another said, " Evil, be thou my
good!"
(2) This distinction then existing, we may inquire
whether in the terms employed to express it there be any
thing that suggests what the principle or essence of good or
evil is. This is perhaps hardly to be expected. We shall
find abundance of statements to the effect that particular
things are good and particular things evil ; but probably
nothing more than popular or figurative expressions for
good and evil in themselves. Naturally, we need not look
for any support for theories regarding evil which have
sometimes been broached, as that evil is defect of being, as
if omne esse were bonum, and non-esse were equivalent to
malum] or that evil is the imperfection inherent in the
finite existence, and eliminated only by the passage of the
finite into the infinite ; or that it is, if not identical with
that imperfection which is synonymous with the finite, a
necessary antithesis in thought and life looking to the
development of the creature, an obstacle to be overcome, a
drag to call out the energy of vitality, a resistance to develop
strength of will, an impulse to move it, and thus a factitious
but designed element in the universe. Thus, though called
an evil, and necessarily so thought of (otherwise it would
be inoperative), it becomes in reality a good, or at least
the means to good, and in itself nothing. Such reflections
naturally do not occur in Scripture. But Scripture uses
terms of a different kind, which do add something to our
knowledge.
The Old Testament has a variety of terms for moral
evil which, though they are figurative, tell us something of
how its nature was conceived. There is no language- that
in ethical things has a richer vocabulary than the Hebrew.
Its terms are all heaped together in certain passages, such
DIFFERENT TERMS FOR SIN 207
as Ps. xxxii. and li. God spake to Cain, when he was angry
because of the rejection of his sacrifice, saying : " If thou
doest well, hast thou not the pre-eminence ? and if thou
doest not well, sin (nxisn) croucheth at the door " (Gen.
iv. 7). Here sin is named for the first time, and per
sonified as a wild beast crouching at the door, and ready
to spring upon the man who gave any inlet to it. The
word Ktjn, like the corresponding Greek word apaprdvu,
means to miss, as the mark by a slinger, the way by a
traveller, and even to find wanting in enumerating. There
is the idea of a goal not reached, a mark not struck.
Again, Cain, when in despair he surveys his fate under
the curse of his hasty murder, cries out : " My sin (^J|) is
greater than can be borne " (iv. 13). The root of Avon is
njy, to pervert or make crooked. Evil is that which is not
straight, or, as we say, right. There are several related
ideas borrowed from the properties of matter and used
for good, such as P}V, right, in the sense of linear straight-
ness ; ^V\ uprightness, as I think, in the sense of superficial
smoothness ; with their antitheses as expressions of evil.
And, of course, there are many similar ideas and antitheses ;
but they are all popular, and such as are the common
property of mankind, as sweet and bitter, clean and unclean,
light and darkness, etc. The commonest of all words for
evil, JH, perhaps expresses properly the violence of breaking,
or the noise of it.
It may be admitted that something is gained by these
terms. Sin is of the nature of failing to reach a mark ;
it is of the nature of what is crooked compared with
what is straight ; of the nature of what is uneven con
trasted with what is smooth ; of the nature of what is
unclean compared with what is clean, and so on. The
physical ideas are transferred to the moral sphere. There
underlies all such transferences, of course, also the idea
that that which hits the mark and does not fail is
straight and not crooked, is clean and not unclean, is in
that outer physical sphere good and its opposite bad/
Good in this physical sphere might perhaps be resolv-
208 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
able into convenient, pleasant, and suchlike ; but it
would not follow that good in the moral sphere, though
it might be resolvable also into other forms, was resolvable
into these same forms convenient, pleasant, and the
like. It is, of course, an old question whether we can ob
serve in these physical expressions the genesis of the ideas
of good and evil, or whether what we see is the expression
in various forms of an antithesis inherent in the mind, and
merely clothing itself in these material forms. But such
questions as these belong to the general theory of morals.
They are hardly raised by anything in the Old Testament.
What Scripture exhibits to us is this : a national con
sciousness, or at least a consciousness in the highest minds
in the nation, filled with moral conceptions and sentiments
of the strongest and most pronounced description. These
conceptions and feelings are in lively operation. They
exist, and conduct is estimated by the public teachers
according to them. These moral conceptions and senti
ments are neither in the process of formation the national
mind had long advanced beyond such a moral stage ; nor
are they yet in process of analysis or decomposition, as
among ourselves at present the national mind had not
proceeded to any such state of reflection.
Two results follow from the use of the terms referred
to : first, the strong, accountable antitheses before re
marked ; and, second, something in the two sets of things
representing good and evil that shows not only that the
things are different, but that they differ with a difference
that is essential and universal, and that there is some effort
made by the mind to conceive good and evil as such.
The question, however, remains, whether in these
modes of speech we have the genesis of the ideas of good
and evil, or only the expressions in various forms of an
antithesis inherent in the mind, and merely clothing itself
in these material forms. In the physical sphere lad might
be resolved into unfit for the purpose desired, but "bad in
the moral might not be so resolvable. In the physical
sphere the thing is bad because it is crooked. In the
ETHICAL VOCABULARY 209
moral sphere is it not named crooked because it is bad ?
Probably there is a circle out of which there is no escaping.
But at least there is in such classes of words, as we have
said, the evidence of a strong distinction and a strong
effort to render it into external expression. And in any
case the origin or genesis of such moral distinctions lies far
behind Scripture. The ideas are formed and in full opera
tion long ere any part of it was written.
From the fact that Scripture is always dealing with
actual life and presenting rules for conduct or passing judg
ment upon it, no such thing as a definition of the nature of
evil is to be expected. What we find is concrete designa
tions of actual evil in various spheres. To this evil there
is always something opposite in the particular sphere which
is good or right, although this is often not expressed, but
assumed as lying in the common mind. Scripture simply
exhibits a consciousness in the nation filled with moral
conceptions and sentiments, as we have said, which are
in operation, but are nob themselves ever subjected to
analysis.
But the Old Testament is uncommonly rich in its
ethical vocabulary. For example, in the sphere of the
Wisdom, and opposed to it, there is a rich gradation of
stages of evil. There is the ^Q, the simple, the natural
man, undeveloped almost in either direction ; still without
fixed principles of any kind, but with a natural inclination
to evil, which may be easily worked upon so as to seduce
him.
Next to that is the ^D3, the man who is sensuous
rather than sensual, fleshly in the milder sense one still
capable of good, though more naturally, from his disposi
tions, drawn to evil.
Then there is the fool who is rather negatively than
positively evil, A ion, destitute of mind, who, from want
of understanding rather than a sensuous propensity, be
comes the victim of sin. In Job (ix. 12) this man is called
a hollow man (Mj ). This person is rather defective in
intellect, and is thus led to pass unwise and precipitate
14
210 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
judgments on providence, and in general on things above
him. So he runs into impiety.
Then, further advanced is the fool actual and outright
3J), or the ungodly man i.e. the person who moves in a
region altogether outside of the Wisdom, which embraces
not only intellectual truth, but religious reverence.
And, last of all, there is the scorner (n?) 5 the speculat-
ively wicked, who makes his ungodliness and folly matter
of reflection, and consciously accepts it and adheres to it.
Again, in another region, that of truth, evil is falsehood,
2J3, or vanity, N^, what has no reality in it ; or it is a lie
in the concrete, ">i?f.
In the region of social morals and brotherly kindness
evil is generally expressed by the word D)pn violence, i.e.
injurious conduct ; and a higher stage is nb>.
Again, in the region of theocratic holiness evil is what
is unclean, NED, profane, t>in, etc.
There are certain other words which express a some
what different conception ; for example, the word JJPB,
usually translated transgress. This is a mistranslation.
The word rather means to secede from, dcficere, to rebel
against, and suggests a conception of sin which is of im
portance. It describes sin as a personal, voluntary act.
It also implies something rebelled against, something which
is of the nature of a superior or an authority. And, further,
it implies the withdrawal of one s self by an act of self-
assertion from under this superior or authority. The
particular authority is not stated, for all these terms are
general ; but the emphasis is laid upon the self-determina
tion of the person, and his consequent withdrawal from
the authority. The word could not be used of the with
drawal of an equal from co-operation with another equal.
It is said that Israel rebelled against the house of David
(1 Kings xii. 19). Again Jehovah says : " I have nourished
and brought up children, and they have rebelled against
Me " (Isa. i. 2) ; and frequently in this sense.
Now these words suggest two lines on which men
thought of what we call sin. In the one case it was
SIN AS UNRIGHTEOUSNESS 211
failure to hit, or to correspond to an objective standard ; in
the other it was an attitude taken by a person in reference
to another person who was his superior. In the former
case sin was the opposite of righteousness. Bighteous-
ness (P"35?) is conformity to a standard. The man is
righteous in any sphere of conduct or place, when his
action or mind corresponds to the acknowledged standard
in that sphere. The standards may, of course, be very
various, differing in different spheres. In common life the
standard 1 may be what is called custom, whether moral, or
social, or consuetudinary law, which, as almost the only law
in the East, is very strong. Or in a higher region, that of
the Covenant, the standard may be the general and under
stood requirements of this covenant relation. Or in the
widest sphere, that of general morals, the standard is the
moral law, which all men carry in a more or less perfect
form written on their minds. Usually the standard is
perfectly well understood, and righteousness is conduct or
thought corresponding to it, and sin is failure to conform
to it. So in this sense God is called righteous when He
acts in a way corresponding to the covenant relation. This
relation would lead Him to forgive and save His people ;
hence He is a righteous God and a Saviour, the two
meaning very much the same thing.
No doubt the breach of the covenant by the people
released God, so to speak, from obligations of a covenant
kind ; and this caused the prophets to move a step further,
going behind the historical covenant, and falling back on
the nature of God which prompted Him to form the
covenant. And His own nature becomes the standard of
His action. What might be called the tone or disposition
1 While the idea of righteous or rigid seems to imply a standard, it is
doubtful whether, when moral judgments are passed, there is in general any
reference in the mind to a standard. The mind passes judgment now from
its own standard ; it has attained a condition, a way of thinking and feeling
now habitual, from which, without any reference to an external standard, it
passes judgment and calls a thing right or wrong. That this condition of
mind may have resulted from external teaching may be true ; but this lies
further back now when in Scripture we find men passing moral verdicts
212 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
of His being is a redemptive disposition towards men ;
for in creation He contemplated an orderly moral world,
purposing the earth to be inhabited, and not subject to the
devastations caused by evil in men or due to the cruelties
and perversities of idolatry. And He becomes righteous in
the highest sense when He acts according to this inherent
saving disposition. Righteousness becomes the action corre
sponding to the nature of the one true God.
This conception of sin as a want of correspondence with
an external objective standard has been adopted in the
doctrinal books of the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland.
There, sin is defined as " any want of conformity unto, or
transgression of, the law of God." In this definition the
words of God must be very strongly emphasised in order
to keep up the sense of relation to a living person ; other
wise if sin be thought of as mere breach of an external
law, we should fall into mere dead Phariseeism. It may
be a question, indeed, whether the words the will of God
would not have been more in correspondence with the idea
of Christianity than the law of God. It may be certain
that we shall never be able to dispense with the idea of
law, but it is scarcely in the form of law that God com
mends His will to us in Christ. His will comes to us now
not under the one complexion of legality, but coloured with
the hues of all the motives that move men to obedience.
The very idea of Christianity is the removal of the con
ception of legality, the mere bare uncoloured, absolute
command, and to bring the whole nature of God, with all
that is in it fitted to move us, into connection with all in
our natures that is likely to be moved. And the operation
of the Spirit on the mind is to make obedience or righteous
ness instinctive, and the spontaneous action of the mind
itself. Perhaps it would be impossible rightly to define
sin. Practically the will of God is a sufficient standard ;
that is, if you start with the idea of a standard outside of
the mind. Although in point of fact there can never be
any disagreement between the will or action of God and
that which is right, the Old Testament touches occasionally
SIN AS DISOBEDIENCE 213
upon a more general conception, implying that right has a
self-existence, and is not a mere creation of the will of
God: - Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
(Gen. xviii. 25). We should distinguish probably between
wrong and sin, making sin the action in its reference to
God.
And this is the Old Testament view in general: sin
has reference to God the Person, not to His will or His
law as formulated externally. And in this view the term
JJ^ s is a more accurate definition of it than #n, although
the latter term is also used quite commonly of sinning
against a person.
The prophets, being public teachers, occupy themselves
with the life of the people. And the standard which they
apply is just, as a rule, the covenant relation, i.e. the
Decalogue. Hence Israel s sin is usually of two kinds :
either forsaking of Jehovah, God of Israel, or social wrong
doing of the members of the covenant people to one
another. But what gives its meaning to all they say is
their vivid religious conception of Jehovah as a person in
immediate relation to the people. Sin is not a want of
conformity to the law of Jehovah, so much as a defection
from Himself, the living authority, in the closest relation
to them, and appealing to them both directly by His
prophets and in all the gracious turning-points of their
history. The prophets speak directly from Jehovah ; they
appeal little to external law. Even external law was
always living; it was Jehovah speaking. And this con
sciousness of Jehovah s presence made all sins to be actions
directly done against Him. So it is, e.g., in Joseph s
exclamation, " How then can I do this great wickedness,
and sin against God ? " (Gen. xxxix. 9). And the Psalmist,
although confessing wrong against his fellow-men, says :
"Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned" (Ps. li. 4).
This idea of sin, as something done directly against a
person, naturally led to a deepening of the conception of
it. For a person cannot be obeyed apart from some
relation to him of the affections And as the party obey-
214 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
ing was the people, this proper relation of the affections
was difficult to secure. And this difficulty led, no doubt,
to that singular habit of personifying the community which
we observe in Hosea and the last chapters of Isaiah. The
prophets thus created out of the community an ideal
individual, from whom, they demand the obedience of
affection ; and they so manipulate this idea as to reach the
profoundest conceptions. Yet, perhaps, so long as the
prophets began with the community and descended from
it to the individual, thinking of the individual only as
sharing in the general feelings of the whole, the deepest
idea, whether of sin or of righteousness, could not be
reached. They had difficulty in reaching a true ethical
foundation for want of a true ethical unit to start with.
It was naturally the progress of events in God s pro
vidence that opened the way to further conceptions. The
actual destruction of the State put an end, for the time
at least, to the relation of Jehovah to the community ;
the community no more existed. Yet Jehovah and His
purposes of grace remained. The prophets and people
were thus thrown upon the future. That had happened
to them which happened to the disciples afterwards, and
which our Lord said was good for them : " It is expedient
for you that I go away " (John xvi. 7). The life of
prophets and people became one of faith absolutely. And
hence the clarification of their religious ideas, and the
religious purity and spiritual splendour of the ideal con
structions of the future kingdom of Jehovah which are
due to the period of the Exile. The destruction of the
State as a kingdom of God made religion necessarily, so
far as it was real, a thing of the individual mind. It
had, of course, been this really at all times. Yet the
kingdom of the Lord had a visible form before, which
now was lost. And, so far as religion lived, it lived only
in the individual mind, and as a spiritual thing ; for in
a foreign land external service of Jehovah was impossible.
The Sabbath, as the token of His covenant, could be kept,
and was the niore tenaciously clung to. The Lord could
SIN AND THE INDIVIDUAL 215
be served in mind ; and Jeremiah exhorts the people in
Babylon to lead quiet and peaceable lives, and to pray
to the Lord in behalf of the country that sheltered them.
The transition to a spiritual religion was in point of fact
effected.
With all this, however, the inextinguishable hope
remained of a Return and a reconstruction of Jehovah s
kingdom on more enduring foundations. The history of
the past revealed the cause of former failures. It was due
partly just to the nature of the Old Covenant, which was
a covenant with the people in a mass with them as a
people. Its virtue descended down to the individual from
the whole. But now this splendid fabric was shattered
in pieces, and its only enduring elements, the individuals,
lay scattered about. It was an imposing idea, that of the
Old Covenant, the idea of a religious State, a State all the
functions of which should be arteries and channels for con
veying religious truth and expressing service of God. It
is an ideal which has attracted men in all ages, and an
ideal which the Old Testament never gives up least of all
such prophets as Jeremiah and the Second Isaiah. If
these prophets differ from earlier prophets, it is not in their
ideal, bat in the way necessary to reach it. The true
kingdom of God cannot be established by a lump operation
like that of the Exodus. It cannot be called into existence
by a stroke of the magician s wand even if the wand be
in the hand of God. For it consists in making godly
human minds, and gathering them together till mankind is
gathered ; and human minds can be made godly only by
operations that correspond to the nature and laws of the
human mind.
Hence the prophets of this age set themselves to re
construct on opposite principles from those formerly used.
They begin with the individuals. The broken fragments
of the old house of God were lying all about, as individual
stones. And they gather these up, putting them together
one by one : " I will take you one of a city, and two of
a tribe, and I will bring you to Zion " uTer. iii. 1 4). The
21 G THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
need, not of a reformation, but of a fundamental regenera
tion, is clear to the prophet : " Break up the fallow
ground, and sow not among thorns. Circumcise your
selves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your
heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem"
(iv. 3, 4). And conformable to this fundamental necessity
is Jeremiah s conception of Jehovah s work, for he is well
aware that appeals to men to regenerate themselves are
vain, he asks : " Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the
leopard his spots ? " (xiii. 23). Therefore the Lord Himself
will make a new covenant. He " will put His law in
men s inward parts, and write it in their hearts ; and they
shall all know Him, and He will remember their sins no
more" (xxxi. 33). The ethical unit becomes the individual
mind, and sin and righteousness become matters of the
relation of the personal mind to God.
The Exile might appear to us the greatest disaster
that could befall the kingdom of God. Yet it no doubt
helped to clarify the minds of the people in regard to the
religion of Jehovah, enabling them to see that it did not
perish though its external form came to nought. And
though not interfering with the great hope of a community
to arise in the future as the kingdom of the Lord, yet it
permitted and caused the individual to feel his independence,
and to understand that religion was a thing between him
and God immediately. The clear recognition and expres
sion of this Christian truth was greatly helped by the
destruction of the State, and many of the most profound
expressions of personal religion in the Psalter very probably
are not anterior to this period.
It is not necessary, however, to say very much of the
Old Testament doctrine of sin. The anthropology of the
Old Testament is a reflection of its theology : the sense
or thought of sin corresponds to the conception and fear
of Jehovah. And as the thought of the spirituality and
purity of Jehovah rose, so did the sense of what was
required of man to correspond to Him and be in fellow
ship with Him ; and therefore the sense of sin deepened.
SIN AND THE RACE 217
Consequent!} 7 , the development is not so much intellectual
or in ideas, as in a tendency to inwardness, to look less at
the mere external actions than at the mind of the actor.
But the Old Testament teaching regarding sin does not
differ from that of the New Testament. It teaches, first,
that all individual men are sinners. Second, the sinful-
ness of each individual is not an isolated thing, but is an
instance of the general fact that mankind is sinful. And,
thirdly, the sin of man can be taken away only by the
forgiveness of Jehovah : " Who is a God like unto Thee,
pardoning iniquity?" (Mic. vii. 18). This forgiveness is
of His mercy, and in the latter age a New Covenant will
be extended to all His people : their sins He will re
member no more. He will be their God, and they shall
be His people. As to the first point, testimonies need not
be multiplied : " If Thou shouldst mark iniquity, who could
stand ? " (Ps. cxxx. 3). " Before Thee no flesh living is
righteous " (Ps. cxliii. 2). " There is no man that sinneth
not" (1 Kings viii. 46).
It might be worth while, however, to look for a moment
at the second point, with the view of inquiring how far the
Old Testament goes in regard to the sinfulness of mankind,
and the connection of the individual with the race. That
large numbers of mankind may be taken together and form
a unity in many ways, whether for action on their own
part or for treatment on the part of God, is manifest. The
human race is not a number of atoms having no connection ;
neither to our eye, at least, does it seem a fluid pressing
equally in all directions, and conveying impressions received
over its whole mass. It is very probable that it is this,
although the influence communicated cannot be traced by
us beyond a certain circle. But just as Achan s sin
affected, in God s estimate, the whole camp of Israel, the
sin of any individual may seem to Him to affect the whole
race of mankind.
The view of the Scripture writers is sometimes not
so broad. The penitent in Ps. li. exclaims : " Behold, I
was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
218 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
me." His evil was so far at least hereditary. The prophet
Isaiah exclaimed : " Woe is me ! for I ani undone ; for I
am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people
of unclean lips " (chap. vi. 5). He shared in the sinfulness
of his people. And not to stop short of the most general,
Job asks in reference to mankind : " Can a clean come out
of an unclean ? There is not one " (xiv. 4). And his
opponent Eliphaz asks : " Shall man be righteous with
God? shall man be pure with his Maker?" (chap. iv. 17).
So the Apostle Paul regards all sins among mankind as
but the development, the details, of the original TrapaTnajfjia
of Adam. All sin is one sin of the race. The unity of
the race is a consistent doctrine of the Old Testament.
It was DIKii, man, when created as a single individual. It
spread over the earth and was still Dixn, man. It was
"ittO ia, all flesh, that had corrupted its way before the Flood.
Mankind is, as a whole, corrupt ; and, corresponding to this,
each individual is unclean. Smaller sections of it, as
families, nations, are also sinful, and he that is born in
the one, or belongs to the other, shares the sinfulness.
As we have seen, the Old Testament does not ascribe
any sinfulness to the flesh. It often ascribes weakness
and feebleness to the flesh, i.e. to man as a creature of
flesh, and deprecates God s rigid judgment of man for this
reason : " Man that is born of woman is of few days, and
full of trouble : . . . and dost Thou open Thine eyes upon
such a one, and bringest me into judgment with Thee ? "
(Job xiv. 13). But the feebleness is not directly moral.
Though teaching that evil is inherited, it does not appear
to speculate upon a condition of the nature of the in
dividual prior to his own voluntary acts ; though it seems
occasionally to recognise what is technically called habit,
as when Jeremiah says : " The heart is deceitful above all
things, and desperately wicked " (xvii. 9). It has not yet
a general doctrine of human nature distinct from the
personal will, or from the concrete instance of the nature
as it appears in the individual.
Probably the Old Testament does not go the length
QUESTION OF IMPUTATION 219
of offering any rationale of the fact that each individual is
sinful, beyond connecting him with a sinful whole. The
doctrine of imputation is a moral rationale of the sinful
condition of the individual when he conies into existence,
and prior to his own acts. And certain things in the Old
Testament have been fixed upon as sustaining that doctrine.
It is doubtful, however, if the Old Testament offers any
thing beyond just the historical facts that Adam fell from
righteousness, and that we observe his descendants univer
sally sinful, as it is said: "The wickedness of mankind
became great upon the earth" (Gen. vi. 5). And God
repented that He had made mankind ; and He resolved
to destroy mankind ; and then He determined no more
to destroy mankind, though the imagination of the heart
of mankind was only evil from its youth. Passages like
that in the law : " visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children unto the third and fourth generation of them
that hate Him" (Ex. xx. 5), and occurrences like the
destruction of the whole dependents and family of Korah
along with him (Num. xvi.), are usually cited as analogies.
They seem, however, to fail just at the point where the
analogy is wanted. They afford instances of persons,
themselves innocent of a particular sin, suffering from
their connection with the person guilty of the sin. But,
of course, the whole life of mankind is full of instances
of this. The point of the doctrine of imputation, so far
as it is a moral or judicial explanation of the sinfulness
of all individuals of mankind, lies in the idea that Adam
was the legal representative of all the individuals of the
race, each of whom, therefore, is held guilty of Adam s
sin, and his corrupt nature is due to his own offence of
which he was guilty in his representative. This is the
moral side. The individual s physical connection with
Adam is only the channel through which this moral law
takes effect. It is probable, however, that the Old Testa
ment presents merely the physical unity, without yet
exhibiting any principle.
The question is of interest as to what was the idea in
220 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
the Old Testament when it was said that the iniquities of
the fathers were visited upon the children, or that the
fathers ate sour grapes, and the children s teeth are set on
edge (Jer. xxxi. 29); or in such a case as that of Korah
and his children and dependents. The Old Testament
idea does not appear to have been the idea of repre
sentation. The idea of representation implies that the
descendants are held guilty of the representative s act.
There is no sign of this idea. The conception was rather
this. The father or head was alone had in view. The
children or dependents were embraced in him ; they were
his, were part of him. When the chastisement embraced
them it was only in order completely to comprehend him ;
when it pursued his descendants, it was really still pursuing
him in his descendants. That is, as yet the father or head
alone was thought of, the place or right of the children or
dependents as independent individuals was not adverted to.
In short, the conception was really the same kind of con
ception as that according to which the covenant of Jehovah
was with the nation as a whole. That this was the idea
appears from a passage in Job xxi. 1720. Disputing
with his friends, who maintained that a man was always
chastised for his sins, and that great sufferings were proofs
of great sins, Job drew attention to the fact that often
times the sinner escaped all punishment. How often is
the candle of the wicked put out ? There is no such
universal law. To which his friends replied : " God layeth
up his iniquity for his children." If he escapes himself, his
children suffer. To which Job replies : " Let his own
3yes see his destruction : for what concern has he in his
house after him ? " The argument of both parties implies
that the visitation of the father s sins upon the children
was regarded as a punishment of the father. And the
argument of Job is that as such it fails ; the father
escapes, for he has no concern in his house after him, and
no knowledge of it.
The argument of Job does not lead him to find fault
with the supposed providential law on the score of its
TEACHING OF EZEKIEL 221
injustice ; he argues that it is no case of punishing the
actual sinner. It is at once perceived that Job s argument
implies that to his mind the father and the children are
distinct, the children are independent persons, and what
touches them does not touch the father.
Of course, the proverb referred to above is a way of
expressing the idea that the calamities of the end of the
State and the Exile were due to the sins of former
generations the fathers, perhaps the generation under
Manasseh. In the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, how
ever, the supposed providential law is repudiated on
account of its injustice. Jeremiah touches the question
lightly, saying merely that the law, the fathers ate sour
grapes, and the children s teeth are set on edge, shall no
more prevail in the new dispensation: he that eats sour
grapes, his own teeth shall be set on edge. But Ezekiel
enters into the question fully. He sets it forth in every
possible form, especially in chaps, xiv. and xviii., of which
the sum is this : If a righteous man have an impenitent
son, the son will not be saved by his father s righteousness :
he shall surely die. And if a sinful father beget an obedient
son, the son shall not die for his father s iniquity ; he shall
as surely live as his father shall die. If a once righteous
man turn away from his righteousness ... his righteousness
shall not be remembered ; in his sin that he has sinned, he
shall die. And again, if a wicked man turn away from his
sins and do that which is right, he shall live. . . . All souls
are mine, saith the Lord ; as the soul of the father, so also
the soul of the son is mine : the soul that sinneth it shall
die. . . . The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father,
neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. . . .
Therefore I will judge you, house of Israel, every man
according to his ways.
The teaching of the prophet is intended, first of all, to
comfort his brethren of the Exile. They thought they
were under the pressure of an iron law, suffering for the
sins of their fathers, enduring a penalty which must be
exhausted, whatever their own state of mind and conduct
222 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
might be. Aud they stood in despair before this spectre
of an irreversible destiny : " Our transgressions and our
sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how then
should we live ? Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord,
I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth " (Ezek.
xxxiii. 10, 11). But the prophet takes occasion to go very
much further, and to teach the freedom and the respon
sibility immediately to God of the individual not only his
freedom from all consequences of the actions of others, but
also his freedom within the limits of his own life. No
man, as regards his relation to God, is the victim of a
destiny outside of him ; and no man is the victim of a
destiny created by his own past life. Before God, and in
relation to Him, each man is a free moral agent, at liberty
to determine ; and, as he is at liberty to determine, so the
duty of determining lies upon him and cannot be shifted.
This is all the doctrine the prophet is interested in
teaching. Modern writers have ridiculed this teaching of
Ezekiel, as if he imagined that human life was not a con
tinuous thing, but could be cut up into sections having no
moral dependence on one another ; and that God treated a
man just according to the particular frame in which He
found him at the moment, with no regard to his past.
But this hardly does the prophet justice. To understand
him we must look at his circumstances, the ban under
which the people were lying, due to the past, and the
former conceptions prevailing among the people. His
teaching is part of the new sense of the freedom of the
individual, and the worth and place of the single person,
which was due to this age. This truth is a general one.
We know, indeed, how near external circumstances come
towards creating a destiny for many men ; and we also
know how each is in danger of forging a destiny for him
self in the future by his life in the past. Yet in spite of
all this the truth which the prophet was interested in
teaching remains true men have a personal relation to
God which is not conditioned by the acts of others ; and
there is a personality in each which can be distinguished
FORGIVENESS AND SINS EFFECTS 223
in some measure from his own nature ; and however much
his past may influence his nature, and even his personality,
yet the personality can take up a new position towards
God, and thus gradually overcome even the evil of its own
nature.
This is what the prophet was interested in teaching.
It is too true that no man can sin without the sin reacting
upon his nature, leaving an imprint upon it, and in some
way enfeebling it. And thus as by a law every man bears
his own sin. Yet can this be said to be the only sense in
which sin might have to be borne ? Are there not a
multitude of other ways in which we might have to bear
sin, besides this reflex influence of sin on the nature ? And
are we not, when forgiven sin by God, freed from having
to bear it in these other ways ?
It is true that His forgiveness does not in itself free
us from having to bear it in this reflex way. But it would
perhaps be a mistake to suppose the laws of mind to have
the same kind of rigidity as physical laws. For the moral
nature is of such a sort that it can draw in evil itself into
the category of remedial influences, and thus our very
moral enfeeblement becomes a means of causing us to
have more constant recourse to the strength administered
by God. St. Paul gloried in his infirmity, because God s
strength was made perfect in his weakness (2 Cor. xii. 9).
And so even with another inevitable evil consequence of sin,
to wit, remorse and its pain the moral nature is capable
of drawing that, too, in among things that are remedial, just
as was the case with St. Paul s remorse that he persecuted
the Church of God. This sense of remorse magnified to
him the mercy of God " that in me primarily, above all
others, He might show His long-suffering" (1 Tim. i. 16).
And in other ways. So that even the effects of our past
evil may be drawn in among the remedial measures that
minister to our general godliness.
Of course, there are two questions: (1) the relation of
the individual personality to God what might be called
the spiritual relation ; (2) the external history or life of
224 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
the individual person. Ezekiel is mainly interested in the
first. But he may not yet have disentangled the two
questions from one another. The point was never clearly
understood in Israel. It was felt that the second question
must always be resolved in terms of the first felicity or
adversity. So far as the prophet Ezekiel is concerned, he
is concerned mainly with the spiritual relation of the
individual to God. The outer relation he teaches will
correspond to this. His feeling is that he is standing
before a new age, when the spiritual relation will realise
itself also visibly; the righteous shall live/ life being
that which we call life in the final state.
From the Old Testament, then, so much can be estab
lished, namely :
First, that the human race is in God s -estimation a
unity as much so now as it was when it was summed up
in Adam, whose acts, of course, were the acts of humanity.
Second, that sin is as much a unity as humanity, and
that as the one man developed into millions, the one sin
multiplied into millions of sinful acts ; but the TrapaTTTWfjLa
of Adam was what all the while abounded. Humanity is
one, its sin is one.
Third, that thus when any one sins, it is humanity that
sins ; it, which is one, propagates its one sin. But, of course,
that does not take away from the other truth that the
individual sinner is guilty of his individual act. The
individual Adam was guilty of his sin.
Fourth, the sin of Adam being the sin of the race,
the displeasure of God against the race followed, and the
penalty. So when any one in the race sins, it is a mani
festation of the sin of the race, and will be chastised upon
the race. The chastisement may not extend over all the
race, but only perhaps over some part, i.e. not over all the
individuals. But it will extend, in general, over many
more than are personally guilty. It is a chastisement of
the race. The persons chastised are not as individuals
held guilty of the sinful acts. But the unity which we
know as humanity is held guilty of them. The act was
INHERITED DEPRAVITY 225
an expression of the sin of the world, and it calls down a
judgment on the world.
Fifth, of course, the person who committed the sin is
as an individual guilty of the sin, and the judgment which
falls on him falls on him as an individual sinner. But is
there not a twofold treatment of the human race, a treat
ment of it as a unity, each individual being part of it and
acting as part, and therefore for the whole, and the con
sequences of his acts falling upon the whole ; and a treat
ment of it as individuals, when the individual is dealt with
for himself ?
The further conclusion to which the passages of the
Old Testament lead us are these : first, that what is speci
fically called original sin is taught there very distinctly,
i.e. " that corruption of man s whole nature which is com
monly called original sin," and that it is also taught that
this sin is inherited ; second, that no explanation is given
in the Old Testament of the rationale of this inherited
corruption beyond the assumption that the race is a unity,
and each member of the race is sinful because the race
is sinful. In other words, in conformity with the Old
Testament point of view the individual man is less referred
to than the race.
The question, What is the explanation of an individual
corrupt before any voluntary act of his own ? does not seem
raised in the Old Testament. When raised, as it has very
much been, various answers have been propounded to it.
Some, e.g., Julius Mliller in his work on The Christian
Doctrine of Sin, have had recourse to a pre-existent state
to explain it. MuJler feels that such a thing needs ex
planation ; punishment implies antecedent guilt. This
guilt must have been contracted antecedently to this life,
for the punishment is seen in the earliest stages of the
present state of existence. It must have been con
tracted, therefore, he thinks, in a previous condition of
existence.
The same difficulty has been felt by all thinkers. And
an explanation somewhat similar is the generally accepted
15
226 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
one among orthodox theologians. Miiller teaches an actual
pre-existence. They teach a legal pre-existence of the
individual a pre-existence in the person of one who
represented them, and for whose acts they are responsible,
and the consequences of whose acts they each bear. I
think this way of explaining the difficulty does not occur
in the Old Testament, for the difficulty does not seem to
occur there. There is, indeed, very much in the way of
dealing with men which this way of explanation fastens
upon as favourable to itself. Yet it is doubtful if there
be anything really favourable. For every case seems to
differ just in the point where it ought to agree. The Old
Testament shows innumerable cases of men who suffer
for the sins of others, without, however, these sins being
imputed to them in any other sense than this, that they
do suffer for them. But this theory explains their suffer
ing by the previous imputation of the guilt of the sin.
In the Old Testament the imputation of sin and the
suffering of its consequences are the same thing it is
nowhere more than a being involved in the consequences
of the sin ; in this theory imputation of the sin is distinct
from the suffering of its consequences, antecedent to it, and
the cause of it. In the Old Testament the explanation
of the suffering is the unity of man, or the unity of a
family, or the unity of a nation, or, at least, some piece
of humanity which is an organism ; in this theory the
explanation is the legal representation by one of all those
individuals who suffer on account of him. The two
theories proceed on different conceptions of humanity.
I do not know that the Old Testament raises the
question which is discussed under the terms Creationism
and Traducianism, i.e. the question whether the soul of
each individual be a work directly of the Divine hand 01
be propagated like the body. But the answer on Old
Testament ground would, I think, certainly be in favour of
Traducianism, although the Old Testament way of re
presenting all results as immediate effects of the Divine
activity might cause a phraseology distinctly creational.
QUESTION OF TRADUCIANISM 227
But such a phraseology would apply to the body as well
as the soul. It may perhaps be true that God is repre
sented as the Father of spirits oftener than the Creator
directly of the body ; but that arises from the greater
similarity of the spirit to God, and the natural referring
of it, therefore, immediately to Him. But unquestionably
Scripture represents God as forming the body directly, e.g.
in Ps. cxxxix., as well as the soul.
And if the general inference from the Old Testament
would be in favour of Traducianism there are some special
facts that go in the same direction. We notice three,
namely :
1. This very doctrine of inherited sin, so distinctly an
Old Testament doctrine.
2. The kind of representation employed when the
creation of woman is described. She is taken out of man ;
there was no breathing into her nostrils of the breath
of life : in body and soul she is of the man. 1
3. The way of looking at things which appears in the
history of creation in general. It had an absolute end
in man. God rested from all His works which He had
made in creation. Henceforth creative activity ceased.
In the one man was created all the race it is but a
development of him.
2. The Consciousness of Sin.
We have noticed the terms expressing the idea of sin
in Israel. Of these the term $&& perhaps was the one
1 It is certainly to be expected that Scripture will not stop short of
supplying some rationale of the fact that men are born with a propensity to
depravity, which must be regarded as a disability and evil with which each
is afflicted, and of which there must be some explanation. It may be the
case that the Old Testament does not give any explanation further than
insisting upon the unity of the race, and indicating that men receive from
their parents the corrupt nature they possess, and that this process of
reception mounts up to Adam. The expectation is raised that Scripture
subsequent to the Old Testament will analyse this unity of the race, and
that the analysis will make it appear not to be a physical unity, but a
moral one.
228 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
that went most to the root of the conception, that sin was
defection from God.
The prophets, being practical teachers, naturally refer
to sin as it shows itself in the life of the people. They
have no occasion to speculate on its origin, or on its funda
mental idea. They regard it as universal. Even Isaiah
says of himself, " I am a man of unclean lips." And if we
observe a progress in their ideas of it, it is in the direction
of a more inward view of it. They direct attention more
to the state of mind which the external sinful act implies. 1
It was less easy for them, dealing with the community,
to reach the profoundest thoughts of it. In Amos, the sins
mentioned are chiefly those of men against men. But
Hosea, through his profound personification of the com
munity as the spouse of Jehovah, is enabled to exhibit the
state of the heart of the people, its alienation from the
Lord. No prophet has anything higher to say than what he
says, either on the side of Jehovah or on that of the people.
For, as Jehovah s mind toward the community is that of
love, the mind of the community has turned away from
Him in alienation of affection and consequent outward sin.
Here it is no more external acts on either side that are
thought of by the prophet. It is the relation of two minds,
mind and mind ; love on Jehovah s part, and alienation of
affection on the part of the community. These ideas which
Hosea struck run more or less through all the prophets.
In Isaiah we look for, and, of course, find, an inde
pendent view. His thought of God is not that of Hosea,
neither, therefore, is his idea of sin the same. To him
Jehovah is the Sovereign, Kadosli, the transcendent God,
who, however, contradiction as it may seem, is the Kedosli
1 It is probable that sins of ignorance were properly such offences as
were inevitable, owing to the limitations and frailties of the human mind.
The idea is expressed accurately in Ezek. xlv. 20, where the sin-offering is
made "for every one that erreth, and for him that is simple" that is, for
inadvertent breaches of law due to the limitations of the human mind in
general, or to the natural slowness of individuals. But it was necessary in
practice to extend the idea over some offences scarcely coming under it
originally.
IDEA OF SIN IN DEUTERO-ISAIAH 229
Yisrael, the holy One of Israel, who, as the Second Isaiah
expresses it, inhabits eternity and dwells " in the high and
holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble
spirit" (Ivii. 15). Corresponding to his idea of God is
his idea of sin in man. This idea is equally inward with
that of Hosea, but it has another complexion. Sin is
pride. Hence Jehovah has a day against every one that
is proud and lofty " the lofty looks of man shall be
humbled, and the haughtiness of man shall be bowed down,
and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day" (ii. 11).
He has nourished and brought up children, and they have
rebelled against Him (chap. i.). It is but another aspect
of this idea when he calls their sin want of faith : " If ye
will not believe, ye shall not be established " (vii. 9). And
but another aspect of it still, when he charges the people
with insensibility to the Divine ; people whose hearts were
fat, and their ears heavy, and their eyes shut (vi. 10).
Throughout the prophets, sin is estimated in its relation
to Jehovah, and each prophet s conception of it varies with
his conception of Jehovah. Yet though it was difficult
to reach so inward a conception of sin, when the com
munity was the moral subject or unit, it is evident from
these expressions of Isaiah and Hosea how profoundly
inward their ideas were, and how far from true it is to
say that they refer only to external acts, and take no note
of the condition of the mind or affections. " They draw
near unto Me with their lips, but their heart is far from
Me" (Isa. xxix. 13).
God in His providence broke up the outward form of
the community. It ceased to be the kingdom of God.
It was no more a question of its relation as a community
to Jehovah, and of external conduct as a community. The
factors now became different. They were Jehovah and the
individuals. The national existence was interrupted, the
national service in a foreign land was impracticable. There
was nothing now between the single personal heart and the
Lord. It may even seem a strong thing to say, but this event,
the breaking up of the national existence, was the greatest
230 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
step, next to the calling of Israel, towards Christianity.
It revolutionised men s conception of religion. It made
it, as no doubt it had to some extent been always, a thing
exclusively personal. No doubt the idea of the community
remained an idea. It is this idea that plays so splendid a
role in the second half of Isaiah, under the name of the
Servant of the Lord the idea, which was not merely an
idea, but had a nucleus of godly individuals, especially in
Babylon, to which it attached itself ; over which, if I can
say so, it hung like a bright canopy, a heavenly mirage
reflected from the kernel of the people on earth. This
ideal Israel could not die ; so far from dying, it possessed,
in Jehovah s calling of it and holding it fast by the right
hand of His righteousness, a vitality which should yet im
part life to all the scattered fragments of the people, and
reconstitute them as out of the grave into a new nation.
But ere that time nothing held them together except their
individual faith.
It is at this point that Jeremiah stands, who despairs
of the community as it now is, as all the prophets do,
but who looks forward to a new Church of God made
up of members, gathered together one to one by an
operation of Jehovah with each. Hence Jeremiah s idea
of sin is not only national, but profoundly personal :
" The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked" (xvii. 9); "this people hath a revolting and a
rebellious heart" (v. 23); the house of Israel are "ttn-
circumcised in heart" (ix. 26); "I will give them a heart
to know Me " (xxiv. 7) ; " Blessed is the man that trusteth
in the Lord ... I, the Lord, search the heart, I try the
reins " (xvii. 7, 10) ; "I will write . . . My law upon their
heart" (xxxi. 33). And the reconstruction which such a
prophet looks forward to, or which is looked forward to in
the second half of Isaiah, is, so far as its moral and religious
character goes, nothing short of, and nothing else than,
Christianity. These prophets expect it soon. They couple
it with the restoration from exile ; they bring it down upon
a condition of the world externally resembling that in
CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN 231
their own day. We have to distinguish between their
religions thoughts themselves and their ideal reconstructions
of the external world. These were constructions which,
living in that ancient world, they had to make ; for no
other materials were at their hand. But the ideas which
they expressed through their great fabrics of imagination
abide, the inheritance of all the ages. They built on the
true foundation gold, silver, precious stones. Time wastes
even these costly but earthly fabrics, and we, as we live age
after age, have to replace them with materials to serve our
use, which shall probably decay too, and future generations
will have to body out the eternal ideas in other materials.
But the ideas are eternal.
Here we see that, in the sphere of religion, sin is
idolatry, or service of Jehovah of a kind that profaned His
holy name ; that, in the sphere of speech, truth is right
eousness, and sin falsehood ; that, in the sphere of civil life,
justice is righteousness, and sin is injustice, want of con
sideration, also evil speaking, and much else ; and that, in
the sphere of the mind of man, sin is want of sincerity,
either towards God or towards men, guile; purity, the
opposite to this, being purity of heart, simplicity, openness,
genuineness. The Old Testament teaching regarding sin
does not differ from the teaching in the New Testament,
though probably there is less approach towards generalis
ing and to statement in the form of categories. The Old
Testament is so entirely of a practically religious nature,
that deductions of a general kind are not quite easy to
make.
Perhaps we acquire a better idea of the consciousness
of sin in the mind of Old Testament saints from some
continuous passages than by any induction based on
individual terms. And there is no more remarkable
picture of the consciousness of sin in Israel than that
shown in Ps. li. The tradition preserved in the heading
of the Psalm is that it is by David. Modern writers are
inclined to bring it lower down. For our present purpose
this question is not of importance. We learn more from
232 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
such a picture of the feelings of an individual mind
in regard to the thoughts of sin in Israel than we could
from any investigation into the meaning of the mere terms
by which sin is described. My impression of the Psalm
is that it contains only a single prayer, namely, that for
forgiveness. The cry, " Create in me a clean heart," is
not a prayer for what we call renewal. The heart is the
conscience ; and the prayer is that God would by one act of
forgiving grace create, bring into being, for this penitent a
clean conscience, on which lay no blot either to his feeling
or to God s eye.
The main points are these. The petitioner begins his
prayer with what we might call an outburst of feeling:
" Pity me, God" The cry has been long repressed ; his
feelings have chafed behind his closed lips, demanding an
outlet ; but he has stubbornly kept silence. At last they
break through like confined waters "Pity me, God,
according to thy loving -kindness " ; then comes a laying
bare of his consciousness to support his cry for pity.
First, he utters such expressions as these, " cleanse me,"
"wash me," "sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be
clean." Perhaps the Psalmist has here before his mind
what we call the pollution of sin, its evilness in itself. It
is of the nature of a stain on the nature of man, apart from
its consequences, and without bringing in subsidiary ideas
of its relation to God and of its liability to punishment.
And when he speaks of washing him thoroughly, he perhaps
has in his mind the idea of a cloth into which stains have
entered and have dyed its very tissues ; just as in the words
cleanse me he refers to the disease of leprosy, a disease
that more than any other almost is constitutional, and,
though appearing externally, pervades the whole body.
And very beautiful is the contrast which he would present
when forgiven and purified : " I shall be whiter than the
snow." Still I should not lay much stress on this, because
such terms as c wash/ etc., are all used of forgiveness.
Second, he says : " Behold, I was shapen in iniquity ;
and in sin did my mother conceive me." This sin is in-
THE FIFTY-FIRST PSALM 233
herited ; not he alone, but all about him are sinful. The
Psalmist does not plead this as an extenuation of his act,
but rather as an aggravation of his condition. It deepens
the darkness of his state which he presents before the eye
of God, and is an intensification of his plea for pity/ In
opposition to this condition of his he places what he knows
to be the moral desire of God : " Thou desirest truth in the
inward parts : in the hidden part make me to know wisdom."
He supports his prayer, both by the desperate condition of
nature and conduct in which he is himself, and by what he
knows to be the gracious desire of God, that no creature of
His hand should remain, or be, in such a condition.
Third, he uses these expressions : " Against Thee, Thee
only, have I sinned. Hide Thy face from my sin." This is
an additional idea sin is against God. The words against
Thee only mean against Thee, even Thee ; as : "I will make
mention of Thy righteousness, of Thine only," that is, even of
Thine (Ps. Ixxi. 16). The words express the judgment of
the conscience regarding sin ; it is against God. No doubt
you might confirm this judgment by reflection. All sins
are against God, for God is present in all the laws that
regulate society ; when we offend against men, it is against
Him in truth that we are impinging. He is behind all
phenomena ; He is in every brother man whom we meet.
Yet this is scarcely before the Psalmist. The words are
the expression of conscience, which, when it opens its eye,
always beholds God, often beholds nothing but God. The
world is empty, containing but the sinner and God. The
Psalmist feels all else disappear, and there is only the full,
luminous face of God bearing down upon him.
Fourth, he uses such phrases as : " Cast me not from
Thy presence "; " Take not thy holy Spirit from me," and the
like. The two expressions mean much the same. God in
the world is the Spirit of God. The holy Spirit is the
name for all godly aspirations, as well as for the cause of
them; it is that quickened human spirit which strives
after God, and it is that Divine moving which causes it to
strive, and it is that God even after whom there is the
234 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
strife. Its taking away would leave the soul without any
thing of all this. And the Psalmist by his prayer seems to
imply that he had felt himself as if on the brink of this
abyss his sin seemed to him to carry in it the possibility
of this consequence, when he should be without God in the
world.
These are some of the thoughts of sin in the mind of
this penitent, causing him to cry, Pity me. Not less pro
found is his concluding petition : " Eestore to me the joy
of Thy salvation " ; " then will I teach transgressors Thy
ways " ; " Open Thou my lips ; and my mouth shall show
forth Thy praise." This is still a prayer for forgiveness ;
but it contains an outlook into the Psalmist s future. The
words express the Psalmist s idea of that which should lie
at the basis of all life, of any life the sense of forgiveness.
Of course, he does not mean by opening his lips, giving him
boldness after his great sin to come before men with ex
hortations, who might reply to him : Physician, heal thy
self. It is not courage to speak, but a theme of which to
speak to men that he desires. There is a singular sincerity
in his mood. He cannot, in speaking to men, go beyond
what he has himself experienced. His words are : " Blot
out my transgressions ; then will I teach transgressors Thy
ways " Thy way in forgiving. " Open Thou my lips ; then
shall my mouth show forth Thy praise." "Who is a
God like unto Thee, pardoning iniquity ? " By " open
my lips " he means " enable me to speak," i.e. through
imparting to him the sense of forgiveness.
These are some of the thoughts of sin its pollution ;
its being inherited ; its being in truth, whatever form it may
have outwardly, against God ; its tendency to encroach upon
and swallow up the moral lights of the soul, till all that can
be called the Holy Spirit is withdrawn ; and the true idea
of a life in the world and an activity among men which is
founded on forgiveness. And, of course, there is to be
observed, what runs through all the Psalm, faith in God s
forgiving mercy: "Have pity on me, according to Thy
goodness: according to the multitude of Thy tender
THE COVENANT RELATION 235
mercies, blot out my transgressions." Similar thoughts
are contained in many other passages, such as Ps. xxxii. ;
but multiplication of examples would not add anything
to the points just referred to.
VIII. THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION.
1. The Covenant.
The only aspect under which Scripture regards the
constitution of Israel, is its religious aspect. The Israelit-
ish State is everywhere regarded as a religious community ;
in other words, as that which we call the kingdom of God
or of Jehovah. To the Scripture writers it has no other
aspect of interest. But under this aspect they embrace
all its fortunes and vicissitudes. These have all a religious
meaning. Its deliverance out of Egypt, its settlement in
Canaan, its peaceful abode there, and its ejectment out of
that land, have all a religious significance. They express
some side or some aspect of its relation to Jehovah, God
of Israel. In other words, Israel is the people of God,
and all that happens to it illustrates in some way its
relations to God. This is the fundamental position to be
taken in reading the Scriptures, or in any attempt to
understand them.
Further, though Israel be the people of God, and
though it is as the people of God only that it is spoken of
in Scripture, this, of course, does not make its external form
of no estimation. Its external form is of the highest
consequence, because it is only through this form that its
existence as the people of God is revealed ; it is through
this form that its consciousness of what it was manifests
itself; and it is through this form that God s dealings
with it reach its heart and act upon it, quite as much
as God acts upon a man through the vicissitudes of
his bodily life and his social history. This external
form, which it had as a State or people among peoples,
236 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
was not a form essential to a Church of God, but
it was the form in which the community of God then
existed. The reasons why God gave it this form to begin
with may, some of them, lie deeper than we can fathom,
but we can see many of them. In a world which was
idolatrous all round, it was well to enlist on the side of
truth, patriotism and popular sympathy, and national self-
consciousness and honour, in order to conserve the truth,
lest it should be dissipated and evaporate from the world,
if merely consigned to the keeping of individuals. And,
no doubt, there were wider designs in contemplation, such
as to give to the world the ideal of a religious State, as
a model for the nations of the world to strive after, and
to be attained when the kingdoms shall be the Lord s.
For the social and civil life of the nations must yet, no doubt,
ultimately be embraced under their religious life, although
the one need never be identified with the other.
But perhaps, in reflecting on this question, this fact
should always be kept in mind, that God s treatment of
men in some measure accommodates itself to the varying
state of the world at the time. At this early time each
nation had its own national god. The national idea and
the religious idea were closely united. Thus Micah, iv. 5,
says : " Every people walketh in the name of his god, and
we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever
and ever." Eeligion, especially among the Shemitic nations,
was national. It was not monotheism, but monolatry, or
particularism ; the nations worshipped each their own
god. So, perhaps, this peculiarity was accepted as the
basis of God s revelation of Himself to Israel. Through
this idea the people were gradually educated in true
thoughts of God. Their history, interpreted by their pro
phets, taught the people how much greater Jehovah was
than the national God of Israel. To have, and to worship,
one God was, in itself, a great step towards realising that
there was no God but one.
The characteristic, however, of the Old Testament
Church was found first to lie here, that all the truth
RELIGION SYMBOLISED 237
revealed to it, and all the life manifested in it, had this
concrete and external form partly national and partly
ritual. The truth and the life were embodied. That is,
every truth had a hull or shell protecting it a cosmical
form or form of this world. The truth and the life were
not strictly spiritual, but manifested always through a
body. In other words, the religion was in almost all
cases symbolised. And this was partly that wherein the
inferiority of the Old Dispensation lay. This condition of
inferiority endured till Christ came, when there passed over
the Old Testament a transformation, and it became new.
The spiritual truths broke through the husks that had
been needful for their protection till the time of their
maturity came, and they stood out in their own power as
universal.
Another point of inferiority lay in this, that the
truths had been made known piecemeal, and were not
understood in their unity. But with Christ, the scattered
fragments came together, bone to his bone, and stood upon
their feet, organic bodies, articulated and living. It was
the same truths of religion which Old Testament writers
were revealing, and Old Testament saints believing and
living by ; it could not be any other, if they were truths
of religion ; but the truths were scattered and disjointed,
and were not apprehended in their organic oneness, and
they were also clothed in material forms. This is all that
is needful to be held of what is known as Typology. 1 It
is not implied that the pious Israelites knew the particular
future reference of the things they believed. All Israel
knew that they had a future reference in general. But
they were present religious truths, clear enough to live by,
although many might desire more light. And the sym
bolism of them aided in bodying out to men s minds the
1 On this see more at length in the author s Old Testament Prophecy,
pp. 210-241 ; also Dr. Patrick Fairbairn s Typology of Scripture ; J. Chr. K.
von Hofmann s Weissagung und Erfullung ; Franz Delitzsch s Die Ublisch-
prophetische Theologie ; Diestel s Geschichte des Alien Testaments in der
Christlichen Kirche, etc. ED.
238 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
meaning of the practices enjoined upon them, and the life
demanded from them. And everything in the Old Testa
ment pointed towards the future. The very symbolism
was prophetic ; for a symbolism from its nature always
embodies ideas in their perfection. Thus the priests robes,
clean and white, taught men s minds that only perfect
purity can come before God the man whose hands are
clean and whose heart is pure ; but as no man then came
up to that ideal, the thought and the hope were awakened
of One who should attain to it, or of a time when all
should reach it. We should distinguish between symbolism
and typology that is, between a ritual and national em
bodiment of religious truth so as that it had a concrete,
material form, and any merely future reference of the
truth or the symbol. The future reference, so far as
appears, was nowhere expressly taught contemporaneously
with the institution of the symbol. The symbol expressed
truth as a present possession of the Church which then
was. The bent of the national mind, its sense of imper
fection, its lofty idealism, gradually brought to its con
sciousness that the time for realising lay in the future.
The perfection of the idea and the imperfection of the
attainment, with the longing that the one should be equal
to the other, made the symbolism, whether ritual or
national, to be prophetic that is, converted it into what
has been known in the Church as a typology. But in
this technical sense typology does not concern us much
in our efforts to understand how prophets and righteous
men thought and lived in those Old Testament times.
(1) Now we never have in the Old Testament formal
statements of an abstract kind. What we have is the
expression of a consciousness already long formed. The
Old Testament people were in the condition of the people
of salvation. This relation had been long formed. And
any utterances relating to it are not general statements of
what it should be, or even of what it is ; but rather
expressions of the feeling of realising it religious, not
theological utterances. The fundamental redemptive idea
VARIETIES OF COVENANTS 239
in Israel, then, the most general conception in what might
be termed Israel s consciousness of salvation, was the idea
of its being in covenant with Jehovah. This embraced all.
Other redemptive ideas were but deductions from this, or
arose from an analysis of it. The idea of the covenant is,
so to speak, the frame within which the development goes
on ; this development being in great measure a truer under
standing of what ideas lie in the two related elements,
Jehovah on the one side and the people on the other, and
in the nature of the relation. This idea of a covenant
was not a conception struck out by the religious mind
and applied only to things of religion ; it was a conception
transferred from ordinary life into the religious sphere.
The word n^a, connected perhaps with K"J?> n l? == t
cut, means any agreement entered into under solemn cere
monies of sacrifice. Hence, to make a covenant is usually
a rns to cut a covenant, i.e. slay victims in forming the
agreement, giving it thus either a religious sanction in
general, or specifically imploring on one s self the fate of the
slain victims if its conditions were disregarded. Anything
agreed upon between two peoples or two men, under such
sanction, was a covenant. Two tribes that agree to live
at amity, to intermarry or trade together, make a covenant.
When a king is elected, there is a covenant between him
and the people. The marriage relation is a covenant.
The brotherly relation of affection between Jonathan and
David was a covenant. So one makes a covenant with
his eyes not to look sinfully upon a woman (Job xxxi. 1);
with the beasts of the field, to live at peace with them
(Job v. 23). The victor makes a covenant with the van
quished to give him quarter and spare him. A covenant
may be made between equals, as between Abraham and
Abimelech (Gen. xxi. 32); or between parties unequal,
as between Joshua and the Gibeonites (Josh. ix. 15);
or when one invokes the superior power of another, as
when Asa bribed Benhadad with all the silver and gold
of the Lord s house (1 Kings xv. 19); and in other
ways. Generally there accompanied the forming of such
240 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
agreements, sacrifice, and eating of it in common, as is
described in Jer. xxxiv. and in other parts of Scripture.
The covenant contemplated certain ends, and it reposed
on certain conditions, mutually undertaken. Although it
might be altogether for the advantage of one of the parties,
as in the case of Joshua and the Gibeonites, both parties
came under obligations. There arose a right or jus under
it, although none existed before, and although the forma
tion of it was of pure grace on one side. The parties
contracting entered into understood relations with one
another, which both laid themselves under obligation to
observe. Jehovah imposed His covenant on Israel. He
did this in virtue of His having redeemed Israel out of
Egypt. The covenant was just the bringing to the con
sciousness of the people the meaning of Jehovah s act in
redeeming them ; and, translated into other words, reads :
I will be your God, and ye shall be My people. The
covenant bore that Israel should be His. This was the
obligation lying on Israel, and the obligation He laid on
Himself was, that He should be their God, with all that
this implied. Henceforth, Israel was not in a condition
towards Jehovah which was absolutely destitute of rights
and claims. Jehovah had contracted Himself into a
relation. He was God of Israel, under promise to be
Israel s defence and light and guide ; to be, in short, all
that God was. Even when Israel sinned, He was re
strained by His covenant from destroying Israel, even from
chastising Israel beyond measure. No doubt, when Israel
failed to fulfil the conditions of the covenant, it might
be said to cease. That would have held of a covenant
between equals, or if both had sought mutual advantage
from it. But Jehovah had laid it upon Israel. And the
same love and sovereignty which chose Israel at first were
involved in retaining Israel in covenant ; and when the old
covenant failed, Jehovah, as true to Himself, promised to
make a new covenant with Israel which could not fail of
securing its objects.
We touch a very peculiar question, and one of pro-
COVENANT AND PEOPLE 241
founder character, here. When the prophets and writers
of Israel speak of the justice or righteousness of Jehovah,
and consider that it implies that He will save His people,
they move, so to speak, within the covenant. Salvation
is due to them as a people of Jehovah. He is righteous
in delivering them. But when they themselves have
broken the covenant, then they must fall back on the
nature of Jehovah, on that in Him which led Him to take
them to Himself as a people. The fact of His entering into
relation with Israel suggests what His nature is ; and on
that larger basis they build their hopes. But it may perhaps
be said that prophets and psalmists do not appeal much to
the covenant, and to Jehovah s obligations under it. When
they say, " Eemember the covenant," it is = " Eemember
the past, the old relation that with Abraham," etc.
(2) It is important to remember that the covenant was
made with the people as a whole, not with individuals.
This is the Old Testament point of view. The people are
regarded as a whole, and individuals share the benefit of
the covenant as members of the nation. The religious
subject or unit in the Old Testament is the people of
Israel. This subject came into existence at the Exodus,
when Jehovah delivered the tribes from Egypt. Hence
forth the people feels itself a unity a subject, and Jehovah
is its God. There subsisted between Jehovah and this
people a relation of mutual right in each other. Jehovah
as God of Israel bound Himself to protect the nation by
His almighty arm in all its necessities arising from its
relations without; to instruct it with laws and prophecy,
and with the teaching of His wisdom in all its national
organisations within ; to be to it the Head in every de
partment of its national life. He was its King King
in Jeshurun King of Jacob. He inspired its teachers.
Amos sketches the two lines along which Jehovah s grace
ran. (1) The temporal: "I destroyed the Amorite before
you " ; "I led you forty years in the wilderness to give you
the land of the Amorite" (ii. 9, 10). (2) The spiritual
to the prophet the greater : " I raised up your young men
16
242 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
to be prophets and Nazirites" (Amos ii. 11). He led its
armies ; its watchword on the field was : " The sword of
Jehovah and of Gideon " (Judg. vii. 18). And the Psalmist
laments that He no longer, in the time of its downfall,
went forth with its armies (Ps. xliv. 9).
And the people was His, devoting all its energies to
His service. Hence there was in Israel no priestly class,
as in other nations, privileged in their own right to draw
near to Jehovah to the exclusion of others. The priests but
represented the nation. The high priest bore the names
of the tribes on his breast. In him all drew near. They
were a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation (Ex. xix. 6).
This possession of each other, so to speak, was not only
positive, but also negative. It was negative ; for though the
earth and all people were Jehovah s, He was God of no
people as He was of Israel. As Amos says : " You only
have I known of all the families of the earth" (iii. 2).
And though Israel was among the nations, it was not one
of the nations. It was debarred from imitating them ; from
relying on horses and fenced cities for its preservation, as
they did (Hos. i. 7, viii. 14, etc.) ; from following their
manners, or practising their rites. This attitude of the
prophets towards an army and fenced cities might seem
to us mere fanaticism ; it was certainly faith in Jehovah
as the Saviour of the people of a very lofty kind. The
nation was cut off, and separated ; and Isaiah recognises
that it was near its downfall when he could say that it
was filled from the east, and full of silver and gold, and
filled with sorcerers like the Philistines (ii. 6 ; cf. Mic.
v. 10-15).
It was also positive. For Jehovah poured out in
Israel all His fulness. Thus He bestowed on them the
land of Canaan (Jer. ii. 7), to perform the oath which
He sware unto their fathers to give them a land flow
ing with milk and honey. And Israel dedicated all to
Him ; itself and its property. That the manhood of the
nation was His, was symbolised by the dedication to Him
of all the firstborn. That the increase of the land was
RELIGIOUS IDEA OF THE SABBATH 243
His, was shown in the devotion to Him of the first-fruits.
That its life and time were His, appeared from the setting
apart of the Sabbath, and the stated times of feast. The
seventh week, the seventh year, the seventh seventh or
fiftieth year, the year of Jubilee. These are all laws as
ancient as the nation. We sometimes hear the opinion
expressed that the idea of the Sabbath was only rest,
cessation from toil, and that thus it was a merely humani
tarian institution. But this is to entirely mistake ancient
institutions. All institutions were an expression of religion.
The Sabbath expressed a religious idea the acknowledg
ment that time was Jehovah s as well as all things. The
day was sanctified, that is, dedicated to Jehovah. The
householder allowed his servants to rest, not, of course,
with the modern idea that they might have time to serve
God, but with the ancient idea that the rest of his servants
and cattle was part of his own rest, part of his own full
dedication of the day to God. Hence in the Deuteronomic
law the duty of keeping the Sabbath is based on the Lord s
redemption of the people from Egypt.
On the position of the individual, Eiehm expresses
himself thus :
" The moral and religious significance of the individual
personality is not yet fully recognised. God stands in
relation to the whole people, but the individual does not
[yet] call him Father [though the people do, Isa. Ixiv. 7].
Only the people as such is chosen [or elect], and merely as
a member of the same has the individual a portion in this
choice. Every disturbance of the relation of fellowship
between God and Israel is not only felt by him to be
painful, but it is also felt as a disturbance of his own
personal relations to the Most High. But along with the
people [as a whole], the greater and smaller circles within it
exercise also an influence upon the relation of the individual
to God. So the sin of the fathers is visited upon the
children ; the punishment inflicted upon the head of the
family embraces also all that belong to him [e.g. Korah].
It is only later that the meaning of the individual
244 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
personality, its personal responsibility, and the determina
tion of its relations to God by its own free moral decision
receive full recognition. For example, the belief that the
children bear the sins of the fathers is limited both in
Jeremiah and Ezekiel, in the clearest way, by insisting on
the essential dependence of punishment upon personal
guilt" (Alttest. Theol, p. 28). This tendency in the Old
Testament to push the individual into the background
helps to explain many things, e.g. the little prominence
given to the idea of personal immortality until a com
paratively late period. The immortality that the prophets
speak of is that of the State or kingdom. The doctrine of
personal immortality followed the doctrine of personal
responsibility.
We must beware, however, of pressing the national
idea to an extreme, so as to go the length of saying that
Jehovah had no relation to individuals, or that individuals
had no consciousness of personal relation to Him. This is
extravagance. One cannot read the history of Abraham
in the Pentateuch part of it anterior to the prophets
without being convinced that this is an exaggeration. This
idea throws the whole Psalter and the Proverbs into the
post-exile period. It is true that in Jeremiah and Ezekiel
the individual rises into a prominence not seen in earlier
prophets ; but these retain the idea of the national relation
to Jehovah as much as earlier prophets.
That the dedication expressed in the covenant was not
a dedication on the mere ground of nature, but one the
meaning of which was the lifting up of the people out of
the sphere of nature life into the pure region of morals
and religion, was shown by the rite of circumcision, which
symbolised the putting off of the natural life of the flesh ;
and by the Paschal sacrifice, which implied the redemption
of the nation with blood. All was Jehovah s to such an
extent that no Israelite could become the owner of another
Israelite; slavery was forbidden, and the year of release
(seventh year) set the bond-servant free. And even the
land could not be permanently alienated. It was not
THE COVENANT AT SINAI 245
theirs, but, like themselves, Jehovah s. This idea, that the
nation was the Lord s, appears particularly in the prophets,
who deal exclusively with the nation. Thus we have such
expressions as these in Jeremiah : that Israel is Jehovah s
firstborn (xxxi. 9); that he is ike first-fruits of His increase
(ii. 3) ; and the fuller expression of the same idea : " As
the girdle cleave th to the loins of a man, so have I caused
to cleave unto Me the whole house of Israel and the whole
house of Judah, saith Jehovah ; that they might be unto
Me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for
a glory" (xiii. 11). Hence such figures as are common, to
express the covenant connection ; for example, the married
relation, the figure of a flock, etc. Hence such names
as Lo Ituhamah, unloved ; Lo-ammi, not My people. Hence
also such terms as : " Hear the word of the Lord against
the whole family which I brought up out of the land of
Egypt" (Amos iii. 1). It is a frequent formula of the
prophet s, indeed, " I am the Lord thy God from the land of
Egypt " (Hos. xiii. 4).
(3) The agreement which the prophets refer to under
the name of covenant was that made at Sinai. This was
the era of Israel s birth as a nation. Then Jehovah
created them, as the word is used in Isa. xl. ff. Then
He became their father. As Malachi says : " Have we not
all one father? hath not one God created us?" (ii. 10)
language used of Israel in opposition to the nations. No
doubt this was not the only or the first covenant which God
had formed with men. For the Old Testament is far from
regarding the rational spiritual creature man as a being
at any time without rights in his relations to God ; and
the God of the Hebrews is far from being an arbitrary
despot, subject to no law except His own cruel caprice.
He limited Himself even in relation to new created man,
and made a covenant with him. His very creation of a
reasonable and moral creature brought Him into covenant.
God, when He came down from His Godhead and con
descended to create, thereby entered into close relations
with man and all things made. This was a covenant with
246 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
all His works. When He looked upon His creation which
He had made, He found it good, and He ceased to create.
It was an arena suitable for the display of all that He
was ; and He reposed in satisfaction. And this repose and
satisfaction expresses His relation to the creation. And
of this condition of God s mind toward creation, the
Sabbath was a symbol. It was the sign of His covenant
with creation. It is the earthly correspondent to what is
the condition of Jehovah s mind towards creation this is
creation s response to His satisfied and beneficent mind
towards it ; hence the Old Testament also speaks of the
land enjoying her Sabbaths (Lev. xxvi. 34, 43). It is
creation s entering into covenant with Jehovah the
expression of this on its side.
Again, when He had asserted Himself as the moral
governor of men, He made another covenant with the new
race that survived the Flood. This was also, so to speak,
a covenant on the basis of nature, though directed to the
human family chiefly. Its conditions were abstaining from
blood, and the sacredness of human life. The sign was the
light in the heavens appearing on the face of the cloud ;
the symbol of the new light of God s face and of life
shining on the dark background of the watery firmament.
Again, He made a covenant with Abraham. But here
the covenant passes from the region of nature to that
of grace; from the wide area of creation and of natural
human life, to the moral region and to the redeemed life.
The conditions of this covenant were the Promises. The
sign of it was circumcision, the symbol of a putting off the
natural and entering upon a new spiritual life. Thus these
three express a gradual progression : (1) The Sabbath ; a
covenant with creation. (2) The Noachian covenant; a
covenant with man, expressing the sacredness of natural
human life consciousness of man as belonging to Jehovah.
(3) The covenant with Abraham ; a covenant of grace, of
spiritual life. But the covenant of the prophets is the
covenant of Sinai, in which Jehovah became God of the
nation.
MORAL MEANING OF THE COVENANT 247
(4) The motive to the formation of this covenant on
Jehovah s part was His love. It is important to notice that
the idea of a covenant is a moral one ; the formation of it
implies free action on the part of Jehovah, and the motive
is a moral one love. The relation of Jehovah to Israel is
not a natural one. In Shemitic heathenism the god was
the natural father of the people ; Jehovah is the redemptive
Creator and Father. In Shemitic heathenism the female
worshipper was spouse of the god ; but this was because
she surrendered herself to prostitution in honour of the
god through those who represented him. In such prophets
as Hosea the idea of the people being sons of the living
God, and of the people being the spouse of Jehovah, has no
element of this naturalism in it ; the prophet s conceptions,
even when he uses phraseology of this kind, which seems
to have some resemblance to that employed in Shemitic
heathenism, are all spiritual and moral.
It is singular, again, that in the older prophets very
little is said of the covenant. The ideas which it expresses
are present, but the word is not found. It does not
occur in Joel, Amos, or Micah, although Amos expresses
the idea of it when he says for God to Israel : " You only
have I known of all the families of the earth " (iii. 2 ; and
cf. i. 9). Neither does it appear in Obadiah, Zephaniah,
or Habakkuk. But it appears in Hosea more than once,
as, " They have transgressed My covenant, and revolted
from My law " (viii. 1 ) ; and again : " But they, like
Adam, have transgressed the covenant" (vi. 7). And in
a form very interesting in Zechariah, in a section which
is generally recognised to belong to an ancient prophet
of that name : " As for Thee also, by the blood of
Thy covenant I have sent forth Thy prisoners" (ix. 11).
It is in Jeremiah that the term first comes into very
prominent use to designate the relation of Jehovah to
Israel. There was a reason for this. This prophet lived
at a critical juncture in Israel s history. The constitution
was breaking up. The old order was changing, giving
place to new. And the prophet s attention was sharply
248 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
directed to it. Its meaning was vividly brought before
him ; its purposes, its provisions, its defects now becoming
apparent, and its failure. And as the circumstances of his
time brought his mind to bear upon, the nature of that
covenant which had proved vain, so he was enabled to rise
to the conception of the new covenant which Jehovah
should make with His people, the nature and provisions of
which would ensure its success. He is the first to prophesy
of this, saying, " Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that
I will make a new covenant with Israel . . . not accord
ing to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the
day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of
the land of Egypt ; which My covenant they brake . . . but
this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house
of Israel ; After those days, saith Jehovah, I will put My law
in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts ; and I will
be their God, and they shall be My people " (xxxi. 31-33).
And the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, with
the singular insight which he has, not into the meaning
of texts of Scripture in themselves, but into the meaning
which the context gives them, thus speaks : " In that He
saith, A new covenant, He hath made the first old. Now
that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish
away" (viii. 13); an exact description of the condition of
things in Jeremiah s days. What took place in the mind
of Jeremiah in regard to the covenant was directly paral
leled by what took place in the mind of another prophet
in regard to the idea of Israel, the people of God, of whom
was salvation. The meaning of Israel, God s purposes
with regard to it, its position in the world, its endowments,
the determinations of a spiritual kind, impressed upon it
as the prophetic people, destined to be the light of the
Gentiles, and to bring forth righteousness among them, as
the Servant of the Lord, and the like this conception of
Israel on all its sides in God s plan of redemption was
raised in the mind of that prophet to whom we owe Isa.
xl. ff., by the sense or the fear of Israel s annihilation
as a people by the Babylonian power.
THE SHEMITIC MIND 249
2. Why the Covenant with Israel and not another ?
The question naturally occurs, Why did the Lord love
this people to the exclusion of others ; this people, and not
some other ? This question resolves itself, of course, into
the other, Why one, and not all ? For if He had chosen
any other, the same question would have arisen, Why this
and not that ? The prophets see the love and grace of
God in the choice. They do not speculate on the ques
tion, Why they, and not others ? in the earlier time.
But later they give at least a practical answer to the
question, to wit, that the Lord chose them to be the
medium of His choice of others and of His grace to others.
So especially in Second Isaiah. The answer is hardly
sufficient ; but the same objection or difficulty would apply
everywhere. There were, no doubt, positive reasons.
These must have lain partly in the peculiarities of the
Shemitic mind to which Israel belonged ; partly, perhaps,
in the degree of religious advancement among the Shemitic
peoples. For, (1) The Shemitic peoples are no doubt dis
tinguished by what is called a genius for religion. " If in
antiquity [in general]," says Eiehm, " the religious feeling
and the consciousness of dependence upon the Deity was
particularly lively and powerful, so that the whole national
life was governed by it, it was among the Shemitic nations,
even in antiquity, that the religious spirit unfolded its
highest energy. . . . We perceive how exclusively the
religious spirit drew into its service the whole national
life, even among the Arabs. It was the same among the
Assyrians, the Moabites, and other nations, where kings
show the liveliest consciousness of standing in all their
undertakings in the service of the national god, for whom
it is that they carry on war and make conquests " (Alttest,
Theol. p. 48).
(2) There is the stage of religious advancement which
the Shemitic people had attained in the age of revelation.
Even if the religion of the Canaanite and trans-Jordanic
nations was not monotheism, it was what might be called
250 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
henotheism or monolatry. Each nation had its own one
god, as Chemosh, Milcom, Baal, etc. It is possible that
these are but different names for the same god, expressing
the people s idea of the god under slightly different modi
fications. But this was a condition very unlike that of
Greece or Eome, which, even if they had one highest god,
had a multitude also of minor deities whom they worshipped.
This henotheism was a stage of religious attainment very
advantageous to start from. Probably the difference be
tween the religion of Israel and that of their neighbours
lies chiefly in the ethical character ascribed to Jehovah.
(3) We might also say that the characteristics of the
Shemitic mind very well fitted one of this nationality to
be the depositary of a revelation. The Shemitic mind
is simple and emotional, without capacity for speculative
or metaphysical thought. Hence the revelation committed
to Israel retains its practical simplicity, and remains a
religion without ever becoming a theology. We know the
influence of the Greek mind on Christianity, and the effort
of this age is rather to get back behind the Greek influence,
and teach Christianity as the Shemitic mind presented it
and left it.
(4) Be this as it may, this glorious conception of Israel s
meaning in God s purpose was the rainbow created by that
dark cloud of desolation which the Babylonian captivity
threw upon the prophet s horizon. All these things show
how it was Israel s national history that was of significance,
and how out of its vicissitudes God s great purposes became
revealed. And it was these vicissitudes that recalled to
the prophets the meaning of the covenant, although it had
been long expressed before, and made them dwell upon the
unchanging basis and motive of it, the love of God. Hence
Jeremiah says : " With an eternal love or a love of old
have I loved thee" (xxxi. 3). This love manifests itself in
choice. It is in the second half of Isaiah and in Jeremiah
that this idea appears most frequently. But it is also in
the Pentateuch. Thus, "Jehovah hath not set His love
upon you, and chosen you, because ye are more than all
THE TEN WORDS 251
nations ; for ye are the least of all nations : but because
Jehovah hath loved you" (Deut. vii. 7). And this choice
was irrevocable, for the gifts and calling of God are without
repentance, as it is expressed in Isa. xli. 8, 9 : " But thou,
Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of
Abraham my friend. Thou whom I took from the ends of
the earth . . . and said unto thee, Thou art My servant ;
I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away "- words which
St. Paul echoes when, standing, like this prophet, before
the desolation and disbelief of Israel, he exclaims : " Hath
God cast away His people? God forbid" (Eom. xi. 1).
(5) The conditions of the covenant are, of course, the
ten words given at Sinai. It is not necessary to dwell on
this. But the remarkable thing is, which all our reading
in the prophets reveals, how entirely the prophets regard
the constitution of Israel as a moral constitution, and how
little place ritual and ceremony have in their conception of
it. In answer to the anxious demand of the people, where
with they should come before Jehovah : " Will the Lord be
pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of
rivers of oil ? " the prophet responds : " He hath showed thee,
man, what is good ; and what doth the Lord require of
thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with thy God ? " (Mic. vi. 68). And a remarkable
passage in Jeremiah seems to exclude the ritual from the
basis of the covenant, as it was no doubt only a means to
its preservation : " Thus saith Jehovah of hosts ; Put your
burnt-offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I
spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the
day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, con
cerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices. But this thing com
manded I them, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your
God, and ye shall be My people" (vii. 21, 22). Such
passages as these do not contain any condemnation of
sacrifice in itself; but only a condemnation of the ex
aggerated weight laid on it by the people. As Hosea says :
" I desire goodness, and not sacrifice ; the knowledge of
God more than burnt-offerings " (vi. 6). The moral side
252 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
of the covenant is to the prophets its real meaning ;
and what is very peculiar in the earlier prophets it is
this moral side of it which even the priests are charged
to teach. It is their failure to teach this that is blamed
in their conduct, as in Hosea.
The covenant contained as its conditions the ethical
ordinances of the law. But of course an ancient religion
could not exist without public worship. This worship was
by means of sacrifice and offering. The fundamental prin
ciples of the covenant might thus be developed along two
lines, ethical and spiritual religion, as by the prophets ;
and, secondly, ritual of worship probably among the
priests. But the two did not develop co-ordinately and
without contact and mutual influence. In particular, the
ethical ideas of the prophets reacted largely upon the form
of the ritual. It is probable that the ritual was valued in
the main for the ideas which it expressed. The particular
details, e.g. what animals were to be sacrificed, and how
many, and such matters, would be left in the main in
definite.
But the two things to be maintained are : first, that
from the beginning the religion of Jehovah contained both
an ethical or spiritual side, and a ritual of service or
worship. And, secondly, that both, tracing their origin to
Moses, gradually expanded in the course of ages, received
additions, and underwent changes as circumstances re
quired. The law, i.e. the ritual, grew in contents just as
much as the ethical elements of the religion did. The two
streams went on increasing side by side, but the Law
tended always to take up into itself and embody the loftier
elements of the prophetic teaching.
3. The Terms descriptive of the Covenant Relation.
Something must be said, however, of the words which
express this covenant relation of Israel and Jehovah.
These are the words holy, holiness, sanctify, and the like
the root enp and its derivatives. These words, with their
TERMS FOR HOLINESS 253
English equivalents, are : BHjJ, to be holy ; Pi., Hiph., to
sanctify, hallow, consecrate, dedicate ; KH P, holy thing, holi
ness, sanctuary, thing hallowed ; and equal to holy in
connection with a noun ; E^pp, sanctuary, holy place ;
adjective ^i^ij, holy ; also as noun, saint, holy one. Now
these words are applied in the Old Testament : (a) to
things ; (&) persons ; (c) and to Jehovah ; and it is not
an uninteresting inquiry, what is their meaning when so
applied ?
Now, in pursuing this inquiry, it will be best to
disregard opinions stated by others, and follow out merely
a brief induction of passages. But perhaps I may state, to
begin with, the result to which I think comparison of the
passages will lead. These results are: (1) The word
holy does not originally express a moral attribute, nor
even a moral condition as the blending of many attributes,
when applied either to God or men. (2) When applied to
Jehovah, it may express any attribute in Him whereby He
manifests Himself to be God, or anything about Him which
is what we should name Divine ; and hence the name Holy,
or Holy One/ became the loftiest expression for Jehovah
as God, or it expressed God especially on the side of His
majesty. It was the name for God as transcendental.
(3) When applied to things or men, it expresses the idea
that they belong to Jehovah, are used in His service
or dedicated to Him, or are in some special way His
property.
(1) With regard to things and men. Of course, holy
or holiness said of things cannot denote a moral attribute.
It can only express a relation. And the relation it ex
presses is, belonging to Jehovah, dedicated to Godhead.
Nothing is holy of itself or by nature. And not every
thing can be made holy. Only some things are suitable.
But suitability to be made holy and holiness are things
quite distinct. For example, only clean beasts could be
devoted to Jehovah. A beast so devoted is holy. But
all clean beasts were not so devoted. The ideas of holy
and clean must not therefore be confounded. Clean-
254 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
ness is only a condition of holiness, not that itself. For
example, it was forbidden to defile the camp in the wilder
ness, because this made it unfit for the presence of
Jehovah ; as it is said, " That they defile not their camps,
in the midst whereof I dwell " (Num. v. 3). Every
thing dedicated to Jehovah, and belonging to Him, was
holy. For example, the tabernacle where He dwelt was
called Knpp or Bn P, a holy place. Mount Zion, the hill
where His presence in the tabernacle was manifested, was
a holy hill. Jerusalem was the holy city. The sacrifices,
as belonging to Him, were a holy thing, Bnp. So were
the shewbread, the tithes, the oil, the first-fruits, everything,
in short, dedicated to Jehovah. In that which was holy
there might be gradations. Thus the outer part of the
tabernacle was the holy place, but the inner part was
D ^1P T P, most holy place ; it was especially dedicated to
God, and none dared enter it. So all flesh offerings were
holy ; but some were most holy things, such as the sin-
offering.
The meaning does not seem to be this, that these
things being dedicated to God, this fact raised in the mind
a certain feeling of reverence or awe for them, and then
this secondary quality in them of inspiring awe was called
holiness. No doubt things as dedicated to God had this
quality. But what the word holy describes is the primary
relation of belonging to Jehovah. This appears from a
passage in which those are described who are to be priests,
as indeed it appears quite evidently in the passage where
Israel is called an holy nation, which is parallel to the other
designation, a kingdom of priests (Ex. xix. 6). Korah and
his company objected to the exclusive priesthood of Aaron,
saying : " Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the
congregation are holy, every one of them, and Jehovah
is among them. And Moses answered, To-morrow will
Jehovah show who are His and who are holy " (Num. xvi. 3).
Hence the priests are said to be holy unto Jehovah, i.e. they
are His property and possession. The term holy, therefore,
whether applied to things or men in Israel, or to all Israel,
IDEA OF HOLINESS 255
signifies that they are the possession of Jehovah ; hence the
term expresses what is elsewhere expressed by the word
rfelp, a peculium, or peculiar people.
But naturally with this idea of belonging to Jehovah
other ideas are allied. That which is His is separated out
of the region of common things. Thus in Ezek. xlv. 4 a
certain part of the land, the portion of the priests, is called
P.??"!*? ^T> a hly thing taken out of the land. Hence holy
is opposed to profane, bh. The latter word means that which
lies open, is accessible, common, not peculiar. Hence in holy
there lies the idea of being taken out of the common mass
of things, or men, or nations ; and with that naturally the
notion of being elevated above the common. Again, there
quite naturally belongs to it the idea of being inviolable, and
those who lay their hands upon it the Divine nature reacts
against and destroys. Hence Uzzah, who put out his hand
to stay the ark, perished; and likewise those of Beth-
shemesh who looked into it. Hence the offerings could not
be eaten by any but the priests, God s peculiar servants.
So it is said of Israel in his youth, that he was "a holy
thing unto the Lord ( ^T)> all that devoured him
incurred guilt, i.e. as putting forth their hand against what
was Jehovah s " (Jer. ii. 3). Further, it is quite possible that
this formal idea of relation to Jehovah might gather unto
it, if I might say so, a certain amount of contents. Only
clean things could be dedicated to Jehovah. Only men of
a character like His own could be His property. And it
is possible, therefore, that the word holy may occasionally
be used to cover this secondary idea. But this is not its
primary use, and in any case is rare.
(2) A more difficult question presents itself when we
inquire what is meant when it is said, "Jehovah is holy."
First, it is out of the question to say that, as Israel is holy,
being dedicated to Jehovah, so Jehovah is holy, as belong
ing to Israel ; and that the language, le ye holy : for I am
holy, means nothing more than " be mine : for I am yours."
That sentence means, at all events, "be My people : for I am
your God. Holy, on the side of Israel, meant devoted to
256 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
God not devoted in general. The conception of God was
an essential part of the idea. But this suggests at once
that holy, as applied to Jehovah, is an expression in some
way describing Deity ; i.e. not describing Deity on any
particular side of His nature, for which it is a fixed term,
but applicable to Him on any side, the manifestation of
which impresses men with the sense of His Divinity. For
instance, Ezekiel (xxxvi. 20) says of the heathen among
whom Israel were dispersed, that they profaned Jehovah s
holy name when they said to Israel, " These are the people
of Jehovah, and are gone forth out of their land." What
is implied in this language of the heathen is a slur upon
the power of Jehovah. He was unable to protect His
people. Hence, they had gone into exile. This thought
on the part of the heathen was profanation of the holy
name of Jehovah, i.e. it reduced His majesty and might
to contempt.
Thus the Divine greatness and power are elements of
His holiness. Hence He will sanctify His great name,
i.e. His revealed greatness, by restoring Israel. Again, in a
similar way, He sanctifies Himself in Gog by giving him
over to destruction ; . i.e. He shows Himself by His power
to be God (Ezek. xxxviii. 16). And thus the words, "I
will sanctify Myself," and " I will glorify Myself," are almost
synonymous. Compare Lev. x. 3, where it is said : " I will
be sanctified in them that come nigh Me, and before all
the people will I be glorified." So it is said in Ps. xcix. 3 :
" Let the nations praise Thy great and terrible name, for it
is holy." So Moses is chastised because he failed to sanctify
Jehovah s name at the waters of Meribah (Num. xx. 12, 13)
i.e. failed to impress upon the people His power and God
head. The cry of the seraphim in Isaiah is, " Holy, holy,
holy, the whole earth is full of His glory " (vi. 3), i.e. His
Divine majesty ; and the word holy must here be very much
the same as God, i.e. God in His majesty. Thus the name
comes to express Jehovah on some side of His Godhead,
or perhaps on that side which, to men, is specifically Divine,
His majesty. Hence the name becomes, in Isaiah and the
GOD THE HOLY ONE 257
prophets after him, a name of Jehovah as God ; He is the
Holy One of Israel, i.e. God in Israel, the name implying
an effort on the part of men s minds to express Divinity
in its highest sense. " Holy is the name," says Baudissin,
" for the whole Being of Jehovah, God revealed in Israel."
Hence it may be used without the article. " To what will
ye liken Me, saith ^"P "the incomparable the God of
majesty. Wisdom is the knowledge of Providence as the
ways of God. Hence it is said in Proverbs, " I have not
learned Wisdom, so that I should have knowledge of
J ; njj. The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of p is understanding." 1
Two points yet deserve some notice : first, the etymology ;
and, second, the extended usage of the name to express
special attributes. The latter will depend upon the special
character under which God is presented with a view to
influence men.
Etymology is rarely a safe guide to the real meaning
of words. Language, as we have it in any literature, has
already drifted away far from the primary sense of its
words. Usage is the only safe guide. When usage is
ascertained, then we may inquire into derivation and radical
signification. Hence the Concordance is always a safer
companion than the Lexicon. The word tnp is perhaps
related to other words beginning with the same letters, e.g.
kad., cut, cedo, and the like. If so, its meaning would
be to cut off, to separate, to elevate out of the sphere of what
is ordinary and set apart. If this be its meaning, we can
readily perceive how it came to be applied to God. He
is the lofty, the heavenly, separated in space from men
dwelling on high. More, He is the majestic, the morally
lofty, separated from the human, not only as the finite
material creature, but particularly as the sinful, impure
creature. The Hebrews hardly distinguish, to begin with,
the physical from the moral attributes of God. Majesty
and moral purity are hardly separated. In both respects
God is separated from man and elevated above him, and
1 See his Studien zur semitisclien ReligionsgeschicUte, ii. p. 79 if. ED.
17
258 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
in either way He is holy ; and when men s eyes suddenly
behold Him, His nature repels the profanity, and men die.
If this was the line of thought along which the name p
was applied to Jehovah, it perhaps follows that the name
was imposed upon men and things in a secondary way as
belonging to Him.
Thus (1) we see Holy as a designation of Jehovah ;
having reference to His Godhead, or to anything which
was a manifestation of His Godhead.
(2) We have it as used of men and things. These
it describes as belonging to Jehovah, dedicated to Him,
devoted or set apart to Him. Primarily, therefore, it
expressed merely the relation.
(3) But naturally the conception of dedication to
Jehovah brought into view Jehovah s character, which
reacted on the things or persons devoted to Him. Hence
a twofold filling up of the circumference of the word
holy took place.
(a) As to men devoted to Him, they must share His
character, and thus the term holy took on a moral com
plexion.
(6) As to things, they must be fit to be Jehovah s.
Even when clean is used here by the prophets, it denotes
moral purity (Isa. vi. 5). Hence the word took on what
may be called a ceremonial or aesthetic complexion ; differ
ing little from clean, ceremonially pure.
But the name as applied to Jehovah expresses the
efforts made by the Hebrew mind to rise to the conception
of God as transcendent. It was the name for God abso
lutely. Hence the highest expression of the national life
was : " Be ye holy : for I am holy " ; that is at first, be ye
Mine : for I am God. But what God was is not expressed.
And always as the conception of God enlarged and clarified,
more was felt to lie in the expression p ; and the calling of
a people who was His, was felt to be more elevated.
But it will be easily seen how various the shades of
significance may be that lie in p. When we use the name
God, it is not a mere empty name we have always a
A RIGHTEOUS PEOPLE 259
feeling in the background of what God is morally, or in
power or wisdom. Hence p, being used in the same way,
may, in certain cases, emphasise special attributes of God,
according as circumstances brought these into prominence ;
in opposition, for example, to the sins of those who were
His people, or their disbelief, or their forgetfulness of their
covenant relation to Him, or the like.
4. The Second Side of the Covenant the People a
righteous People.
The two parties to the covenant are God and Israel,
His people. The covenant was made with the people, not
with individuals. The people was the unit. The relation
of Jehovah to the people made Him King. He was King
of Jacob, the Creator of Israel, their King (Isa. xliii. 15).
And their relation to Him was that of subjects owing
allegiance and obedience. Again, they were a people,
united by ties to one another, and owing duties to one
another. Thus conduct, whether of the nation as a whole
or of individuals, was estimated rather under the aspect
of civil actions. A people necessarily forms a common
wealth, and its conduct was right when it fulfilled its
obligations to its king, and the conduct of the individuals
was right when they fulfilled their duties to one another.
Yet, on the other hand, this King was Jehovah, God of
Israel, and this people was the people of Jehovah. Thus
what might seem at first merely civil became religious.
This second conception allowed room for a very great
deepening of the idea of the people s relations to one
another, and of their relation to their King. It might be
made a question, indeed, which of the two conceptions, the
civil or the religious, was the prior conception. To answer
this question is of little importance. Probably the very
asking such a question betrays a modern point of view, and
one from which the Hebrew mind never regarded things.
The Hebrews regarded all things from the religious point
of view. Civil government and the- conduct of men to one
260 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
another alike belonged to the religious sphere, with the
more direct acts of Divine service. If we observe a
progress in the thinking of the people as represented by
their writers, it is not a progress in the direction of divid
ing men s actions into two spheres, one civil and the other
religious, but in the direction of a deeper conception of the
nature of actions. All things continued with them to
be religious. They were all done to God, but the con
ception deepened of what the meaning of doing anything
to God was.
To begin with, an external obedience to the laws
of their king was thought religion ; but later it was felt
that a true state of the heart towards God must go
along with the outward act to make it right. At first,
perhaps a citizen considered he had fulfilled his obligations
to his fellow-citizen when he gave him his external civil
right, when he was just to him ; but later it was felt that
humanity and mercy and love must be shown by one to
another. There is always some danger of generalising too
hastily, and finding the steps of progress from one idea to
another, or from one stage to another, clearly shown by
different writers. We may go so far safely enough. We
may say certain authors represent this idea, and certain
others another idea. An examination of the writings of
one prophet may enable us to say with fairness, this and
not another is the prevailing conception in him ; and in
another prophet who came after him a different and a
deeper conception prevails. Yet it may be hardly safe to
say that the deeper conception had not yet been reached
in the time of the former prophet. Much may depend on
his idiosyncrasy. And we require to move with very
careful steps in making inductions in regard to the progress
of ideas in Israel. In the prophet Amos the prevailing
conception is that of righteousness. Jehovah is the right
eous ruler of men, who vindicates on all, Israel and the
heathen alike, the law of morality. And what the prophet
demands from the people is righteousness that is, just
dealing with one another. " Let righteousness run down
THE REQUIREMENT OF GOODNESS 261
your streets like water" (Amos v. 24). A succeeding
prophet, Hosea, has another, and what is to us a pro-
founder, conception. He abandons the region of law and
right, and enters the region of affection. Jehovah is not
to him the righteous King, but the loving father of Israel.
" When Israel was a child, I loved him, and called My
son out of Egypt" (Hos. xi. 1). He is the husband of
Israel, who is His spouse. And He complains not of the
want of righteousness among the people- to one another,
but of the want of mercy, ^pn that is, humanity in the
highest sense, goodness, love. Where Amos says : " I will
not regard your burnt-offerings ; but let justice run down
as waters, and righteousness as a never-drying stream "
(v. 24), Hosea says: "I desire goodness, and not sacrifice;
and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings "
(vi. 6).
Now, undoubtedly there is a profound advance from
the one of these conceptions to the other. The former
conception is not abandoned ; at least all that it covered
is retained, but reduced under a more religious idea. And
a succeeding prophet, Micah, combines the ideas together :
" What doth the Lord desire of thee, but to do justly, and
to love mercy "- ipn goodness ? (vi. 8). Yet we might
go too far in saying that the idea of Hosea was wholly
new ; for even Samuel had said : " To obey is better than
sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams" (1 Sam.
xv. 22). And had we fuller records, we might find among
earlier prophets much that seems to us now the con
ceptions of later ones. We cannot be wrong, however, in
signalising certain prophets as the great expounders of
certain conceptions, though we may find in their idiosyn
crasies and their circumstances some explanation of their
giving such ideas so great prominence.
We found that what brought perfection to the people
of God, so far as that depended on God and the Divine
side of the covenant, was the presence of God in His
fulness among the people. Sometimes this presence is
His presence in the Messianic king, and sometimes it is
262 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
His presence, so to speak, in Himself. These two lines
cannot, of course, remain separate ; and the New Testament
unites them in one by making those passages which speak
of the Lord s presence in His own Person, also to be Messi
anic passages. In doing so the New Testament writers
stand on history. They have the history of Jesus behind
them, and this history has interpreted much of the Old
Testament to them. That splendid passage, Isa. xl. 1-11,
which speaks of Jehovah coming in strength, i.e. in His
fulness, and feeding His flock like a shepherd, is interpreted
in the Gospels of the Son. It was in the Son, or as the
Son, that Jehovah so manifested Himself. By the Old
Testament prophet a distinction in the Godhead was not
thought of; but subsequent revelation casts light on the
preceding. The Lord, the Eedeemer and Judge, is God in
the Son.
Now the perfection of the covenant relation was
reached when Jehovah thus came in His fulness among His
people. It is difficult to realise what idea the Old Testa
ment prophets had of this how they conceived Jehovah
present. They are obliged to adopt figures. His glory is
seen, and physical images are employed to body out the
spiritual ideas. The most brilliant pictures are in the
second half of Isaiah. But there are some passages in
this book where the prophet seems to show us what in
his less exalted, or at all events more realistic, moments
he probably really conceived Jehovah s presence to be. In
xliv. 2 3 he says : " The Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and
glorified Himself in Israel." In xlix. 3 : " Thou art My
servant, Israel, in whom I will glorify Myself." In
lx. 1,3: " Arise, shine . . . for the glory of the Lord is
risen upon thee . . . And the Gentiles shall come to thy
light." These passages would seem to imply that Jehovah
is presented in His presence through Israel itself, not as
an independent glory ; the glory of Israel is His glory.
He and Israel are not two, but glorified Israel reflects
His glory. And there is a singular passage (xlv. 14, 15)
which perl iaps confirms this view : " Thus saith the Lord,
THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 263
The labour of Egypt, merchandise of Ethiopia and of the
Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee . . .
they shall fall down unto thee . . . saying, Surely God is
in thee. . . . Verily thou art a God that hidest Thyself,
God of Israel, the Saviour."
It is worth observing here that the Servant of the
Lord, whomsoever that remarkable conception represents
in the mind of the prophet, does not appear as a distinct
personage among Israel redeemed. He either is Israel
redeemed, or he is not considered separately from them
in their condition of glorified redemption. In chap. liii.
Israel redeemed looks back upon the time when he was
among them in his humility, and they confess how sadly
they misapprehended him. "Who believed what we
heard ? and to whom did the arm of the Lord manifest
itself ? . . . We thought him smitten, and afflicted of
God ; but it was our sins that he bore : by his wounds we
have been healed." But after chap. liii. the servant does
not appear, except perhaps in chap. Ixi. 1, 2, a passage
the point of view of which is anterior to the redemption :
" The Spirit of the Lord is upon me ; because he hath
anointed me to proclaim liberty to the captive ; . . .
to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, the day of
vengeance of our God." The prophet, after chap, liii.,
speaks no more of the Servant of the Lord, but of the
servants of the Lord the people are all righteous, and
taught of God; while before he spoke of "my righteous
servant, whose ear was opened as that of one taught "
(1. 4). Perhaps this point is in favour of those who
think that the Servant of the Lord is not an individual.
If an individual, it is strange that he wholly disappears
when Israel is ransomed through his great sufferings. We
should expect him to be at the head of the people. But
the people have no head but Jehovah Himself. There is
a very remarkable passage in chap. Iv. 3 f., where the people
are addressed : " Incline your ear, and come unto me . . .
and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the
sure mercies of David. Behold, I niiide him a witness to
264 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
the peoples, a leader and commander of the peoples. Behold,
thou shalt call nations that thou knowest not, and nations
that know not thee shall run after thee for the sake of
Jehovah thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel ; for He
hath glorified thee." Here the people, redeemed and
glorified, are served heirs to the great promises made to
David.
There is one other point here which I need only touch
upon. The place of Israel glorified and of God present is,
of course, in all the Old Testament writers the earth. God
descends ; His tabernacle is among men ; men are not
translated into heaven. The earth is transfigured, but
it remains the earth, and abode of men. There is a new
heavens and a new earth, but the two are still distinct ; and
the new earth is the inheritance of the saints. Of course,
the conceptions of prophets are very various on this final
condition of things. It was not given to them to see
clearly here.
Now the word that describes the proper condition of
the people on their side of the covenant relation is
righteous. The difference between holy and righteous
must be observed. Holy, BTiP, is a term that expresses
the being in covenant. It is equal to belonging to God, i.e.
being His people ; but righteous expresses the condition
morally of those who are His people. This latter is the
word that describes how the people should be at all times,
and how it shall be at the end. And Isaiah mourn
fully exclaims : " How is the city that was faithful become
an harlot ! she in which righteousness dwelt ; but now
murderers" (i. 21). And in the later chapters of the
book it is said of the restored and perfected Israel : " Thy
people shall be all righteous" (Ix. 21); "They shall be
called trees of righteousness, the planting of our God, that
He might be glorified " (Ixi. 3) ; and again : " Ye shall be
named the priests of the Lord ; men shall call you the
ministers of our God " (Ixi. 6) ; and again : " I will greatly
rejoice in the Lord . . . He hath covered nie with the
robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself
TERMS FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS 265
with ornaments" (Ixi. 10). It is obvious that the term
righteousness is one that admits of considerable variety
of use, and may cover wider or narrower meanings. We
may refer a little to the usage of the word ; and, second,
to the general idea conveyed in the expression "the
people shall be righteous." We shall inquire what this
means when said of the people on their side of the
covenant.
(1) As to the usage of the words p^, P* 1 ^, P^V, and
n[5*iv verb, adj., and noun.
In general, we may remark that the radical idea of
these words is extremely difficult to detect. Most Hebrew
words now applied to express ethical conceptions expressed,
no doubt, originally physical ideas. In some cases we can
reach these original conceptions. For example, the word
"^, translated upright, means plain or level, in a
physical sense. Perhaps the radical idea in ^Hf is " cut
off, separated, removed to a distance." But the radical
notion of \rw seems not to have survived. There is prob
ably no passage in the Old Testament where it can be
detected. Some, indeed, have thought they found it in
Ps. xxiii. 3, P7.-T/?- 1 V ?, "paths of righteousness," i.e. even or
straight paths; but it is probable that there the meaning
is the same as in other passages " right paths " or
" righteous paths," i.e. such paths as are conformable,
appropriate to the requirements of sheep, or paths which
are righteous, the figure being deserted. In Arabic the
root means " to be true," i.e. to correspond to the idea and
reality. The lexicographers, with some subtlety, say that
a man to speak sidq must not only say what conforms to
the reality, but at the same time what conforms to the
idea in his own mind. Thus, if a man said : " Muhammed
is the prophet of God," that, to be sidq or truth, must not
only correspond to the fact, which of course it does, but
also to his own idea, i.e. he must also believe it. Lexico
graphical subtleties of this kind are rarely very helpful ;
it is safer, first of all, to look to usage. Then it is possible
that etymology may give an idea that binds the usages into
266 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
one, or give a stem conception out of which all the other
conceptions may be seen to have branched off.
If we consider now, first of all, the verb P"iy, imperf.
PW\ which is often translated shall be justified in English,
as in Gr. BifcaicoO-tja-erai,, we find that the proper sense of it
is, to be right, to be in the right, to have right on one s
side. The idea is juridical, or, as it is called, forensic
belonging to the forum, or court of law. The Hebrews
were fond of this conception, when a question arose
between two persons, or when one blamed another, or
the like ; the parties were very readily conceived as parties
to a suit before a judge. And when one defended another
in any way, he was said to plead his cause. Thus Jehovah
summons the nations and their gods to an imaginary
tribunal : " Let them draw near ; let us enter into judg
ment together (Isa. xli. 1). And so when the people are
conceived as having a plea which they can bring forward
of being true to the covenant obligations, the Lord says :
" Let us plead together ; declare thou that thou mayest be
justified" (xliii. 26). Now the verb p^ was said of the
person who in such a real or imaginary plea was found by
the real or supposed judge to be in the right, to have right
on his side. Examples of this do not need to be multiplied.
The one just cited from Isaiah is a good instance : declare
PIVfi IV?? ; here there is no question of ethical righteous
ness, but of simple juridical right having right on one s
side. And, similarly, the passage in xliii. 9 : " Let them
bring forward their witnesses " (i.e. witnesses of their pre
dictions), " that they be justified," found to have right, in
this contested matter, on their side.
This is the idea of the simple stem. The causative
or Hiphil agrees in meaning ; it is to find in the right,
to find, in one s action as a judge, a person to have right
on his side ; or, with other modifications, such as to regard
one as in the right, or to treat one as in the right ; as,
e.g., " I will not justify the wicked " (Ex. xxiii. 7) treat
the Vfn as P^V Of course, as a judge finds this by
declaring it, the sense may be to declare one to have
THE SENSE OF JUSTIFYING 267
right on his side ; but, properly, it is to find that one
is in the right. It does not mean to make a man
ethically pure. There seems no passage in the Old Testa
ment where such a sense is possible, except, perhaps,
Dan. viii. 14. To find right, or in the right, is the mean
ing of the Hiph., or to justify; or, with slightly different
shades of meaning, to declare to be in the right, or show
to have right on one s side. Thus the Servant of the
Lord (1. 8) exclaims : " He is near that justifieth me," 3Vijj
"^nvn ; who will enter a plea against me ? " (*i 3^ *&).
And in words almost identical, Job whom God calls
" My servant " says : " I know that I shall be found in
the right (P^V 5 *) ; who is he that will enter a plea with
me?" (xiii. IB, 19).
Now this is a general mode of conception, applicable
in a hundred ways. Any question, or charge, or claim
may be brought under this juridical idea. The point
on which a man may be arraigned, or suppose himself
arraigned, may be a trifle a point of etiquette, or the
question of his life before God. To be in the right, or
to have right on his side, may be equally various : it
may be in a matter of speech, as speaking truth or no ;
a matter of custom or consuetudinary law ; a matter of
common morals ; or a matter of his relation to God. The
standard may be simply a fact, or any understood norm
or rule, whether human or Divine, according to which
conduct is measured. When Judah said in regard to
Tamar the harlot ^3?3O njj*TC " she is in her rights as against
me" (Gen. xxxviii. 26), and when the Psalmist cries: "In
Thy sight shall no man living be justified " (PTf!)> i- e - ^ e
right, or found in the right (Ps. cxliii. 3), they both use
the word in the same sense, although the spheres referred
to are widely apart. There is always a standard, always a
cause ; a man s conduct in a particular matter, or his life
as a whole, is in question ; and there is always a judge, real
or imaginary. The standard may be very various, so may
be the point or cause ; the person is P1 when, before the
judge, his act or life is in correspondence with the standard.
268 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Of course, in many cases the standard itself may be con
ceived as the judge, as when a man is condemned by his
conscience, or by the popular customs, or by the principles
of the covenant. Two passages in Job illustrate the
flexibility of the usage in the higher sphere. Eliphaz,
arguing against Job s complaints, says : " Shall mortal man
be just (PW) with God?" (iv. 17), i.e. be found in the
right as to his life. 1 To which Job replies : " Of course
I know that it is so, How should man be just with God ? "
(ix. 2). Eliphaz means that, brought to God s bar, no man
will be found righteous ; Job means, no man can make his
righteousness, though he have it, valid against God, or at
God s bar, He being unwilling that he should ; because
His omnipotent power will hinder man from sustaining
his cause. " I know that I have to be guilty," he else
where exclaims (ix. 15, 20). Thus it may be said in
regard to this verb : (1) that it is not much in use in the
older language ; (2) that it is always used of persons ;
(3) that it means to be in the right, according to some
standard, chiefly in a juridical sense ; and (4) that this
standard being sometimes the general law of conduct, the
moral law, the word shows a tendency to be used of this
conformity, or as we use righteous in an ethical sense, the
juridical idea falling away. This tendency shows itself
more and more in the language, i.e. the standard becomes
more and more the great general principles of morals and
religion.
Now the same things can be said in general of the
adjective P^V righteous, in regard to which we need only
remark : (1) that it is never used in the feminine ; a curious
fact, explained, perhaps, by the primary use being juridical,
where the interests of men alone came into discussion
and it is only used of persons, with perhaps one exception
1 On the interpretation of Job iv. 17 see the author s The Book of Job,
with Notes, etc. ("Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges"), p. 33, where
he briefly discusses the competing renderings, and decides on the whole for
Can man be righteous before God ? This, he thinks, is most in harmony with
the time at which the charge conies in, the scope of the following verses, and
the general aphorism in v. 6, 7. ED,
STANDARD OF RIGHT 269
(Deut. iv. 8) ; and (2) the ethical notion begins to prevail
over the juridical.
The use of the nouns pro and n iJ1V, which hardly differ
in their general meaning, is of great interest, especially in
Isaiah. The same general idea belongs to this word that
which has the quality of P^, which is conformable to a norm
or standard. This appears most plainly, first of all, when
the word is predicated of things like measures and weights,
e.g. v na^S a righteous ephah, * \33K righteous weights,
"OTNb a right balance. Our word right perhaps comes
nearest to the meaning, i.e. conformable to the idea of an
ephah, weights and balances. So Ps. iv. 5, V H2T, right sacri
fices, such sacrifices as are agreeable to the idea of sacrifice.
Perhaps even BBSPO, right judgment, judgment such as it
should be. Here again the norm or standard may vary
indefinitely. That has the characteristic of v in any sphere
which corresponds to the admitted norm in that sphere
whatever is right according to an understood standard.
The transition from this to conduct or actions is easy.
The standard may be propriety, popular custom, what is
due socially, or what is required in morals or religion.
Naturally, in judging of actions, the last named standards
will be those that are chiefly thought of. But as the
standard deepens in its idea, righteousness will also acquire
more inwardness and condensation. When said of men,
the use of the word is readily understood, and hardly needs
illustration.
But there can be little doubt that the same general
idea appears when v is predicated of God. The point of
difficulty here is naturally to discover the standard by
which the action of God is estimated. There appears in
the mind of the prophets, when they speak even of God,
the generel feeling that there is a moral standard which is
not merely God s will. Probably a difference between this
standard and God s will rarely occurred to them the two
coincided. But there appears the feeling of the existence
of such a standard. Even Abraham says : " Shall not the
Judge of all the earth do right?" (BS^D, Gen. xviii. 25).
270 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
And in the Book of Job, the most modern of Hebrew
books in its ways of thinking, Job openly charges God
with injustice ; and in one remarkable passage the patri
arch proclaims his resolution to adhere to righteousness,
though God and man alike should show themselves un
just (xxvii. 5, 6). But usually such a distinction probably
was not drawn. God s will and action coincided with
righteousness, and God s will was the norm of righteous
ness on that account practically, without its being the
source of it absolutely, or to be identified with it. When
God s actions, therefore, were estimated, they were naturally
judged by the same standard as was applied when men s
were judged. God acted righteously when He acted as
a just man would have acted in the circumstances. This
makes His righteousness often to be what is called retri
butive righteousness. And this is a common usage.
But in such passages as those in the second half of
Isaiah manifestly this sense will not suit. God s righteous
ness there is a course of action conformable to a rule ; but
the rule is not that of the general law of morals. The
word belongs to another sphere, namely, the redemptive
sphere. The standard is not the moral law in God s mind
as sovereign ruler ; but some other standard in His mind as
God of salvation. When He acts according to this standard,
the attribute of v belongs to Him or to His actions. Now
this standard, of course, might be a general purpose in His
mind in regard to Israel, in which case the standard would
be the covenant relation. He acts 3 when He acts as it
becomes God in covenant with Israel. As the covenant
was a redemptive one, this comes to much the same thing
as to say that He acts as the God of salvation. The
interesting point, however, is whether the idea of the
prophet has not gone so far as to rise to this as the true
conception of God. The purpose of salvation is not a
purpose which He has formed, but is the expression of His
very Being. It is His characteristic as God. When the
prophet says of Cyrus : " I have raised him up in ," that
might very well be simply " in the region of a redemptive
RIGHTEOUSNESS IN THE PEOPLE 271
purpose" (Isa. xlv. 13). And so when calls one to
follow it, or when God calls him in v to follow Him, as
He elsewhere speaks of going before him. So when He
says to Israel, " I have chosen thee ; I strengthen thee ; I
uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness "
(Isa. xli. 10), this might mean that He acts to Israel on
the lines of His relation to Israel and of His purpose.
And with this agree the many passages where v is
parallel to salvation : " My salvation is near to come, and
My righteousness to be manifested" (Ivi. 1).
But there are other passages which seem to go further,
and to show that Jehovah s actions, which are va, were
some of them anterior to His relation to Israel, and
that His forming this relation illustrated His in other
words, they rise to the elevation of making the salvation
of Israel, and through Israel that of the world, to be the
thing which is conformable to the Being of Jehovah, and
expresses it. For instance, Jehovah says to Israel : " I have
called thee in righteousness" the entering into covenant
with Israel was in v (xlii. 6). And in a remarkable
passage, xlv. 18:" Thus saith the Lord that created the
heavens ; He is God, that formed the earth ; He made it
to be inhabited. I have sworn by Myself that to Me every
knee shall bow ; look unto Me, and be saved, all the ends
of the earth." Here the salvation of the world and the
original creation are brought together, and the first seems
anterior in idea to the second.
5. Righteousness in the People.
The Old Testament runs out its idea of the final
state and perfection of the kingdom of God and its
universality, more on the external side, in events and in
the relations of the nationalities of the world to one
another and to the Church. The various prophets differ
according to their circumstances in their idea how the
relations of Israel and the nations were to be adjusted.
In all, however, the heathen are brought into a relation
272 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
of submission and subordination to Israel ; the Church at
last overcomes and absorbs the heathen world.
In the same way the relations of the various classes
within Israel are finally adjusted, as at the day of the
Lord. All evil is judged and destroyed the people are
all righteous. And with the perfection of the Church
comes in also the perfect state of creation. The earth
yields her increase ; there is abundance of corn even on
the tops of the mountains ; it shakes like Lebanon the
desert blossoms like the rose, and God s blessing is upon
the people (Ps. Ixxii. 16 ; Isa. xxxv. 1).
Of course, all Old Testament prophecies are written
from the point of view of things as they then were, when
Israel alone was the Church, and the nations were outside
the covenant. And one of the most interesting and also
most difficult tasks of the interpreter of prophecy is to
decide how much of the prophetic form may have to be
stripped off when applying the prophecies to our own
dispensation. In the days of the Apostle Paul a state of
things had entered that seemed almost the reverse of the
state of things which formed the point of view from
which the Old Testament was written. Israel seemed no
more the Church, but outside of it. And this state of
things raised the question to him in one way as it does to
us in general, how the prophecies in regard to Israel were
to be fulfilled. He fell back on the covenant ; the gifts
and calling of God are without repentance. The covenant
formed with Israel secured their presence in the Church.
The Church was indeed founded in Israel, which was the
stock into which Gentiles were only grafted in. The
natural branches broken off should be grafted in again, and
all Israel should be saved (Rom. xi.). On the spiritual
side alone is it that the apostle s reasoning is carried on.
This leaves us without any guide so far as restoration to
the land is concerned. We are thrown upon general
considerations suggested by the ways of God upon the
whole.
But how does the Old Testament run out its idea of
RIGHTEOUSNESS AS CONDUCT 273
the consummation of the kingdom of God on the inner
side through such media as redemption from sin, right
eousness, and immortality ? Only very general statements
can be made on this, at least on the two points of right
eousness and sin. And in the Old Testament itself we
need not look for more than general statements here. We
need not look for such dogmatic passages as are found in
the Epistles of St. Paul. The truth will be everywhere
expressed in connection with concrete instances. The
points of interest will be whether the truth, so far as it
is expressed, agrees with the teaching of the New Testa
ment, and how far it is expressed.
(1) Righteousness. If we look at the point of righteous
ness in the Old Testament, we find this quite generally
conceived at first. It is looked at always as manifesting
itself in concrete cases, and as consisting in conduct. No
doubt there are always two presuppositions ; these are, first,
the idea of God, to whom men are related ; and, second, the
idea of a moral order, binding on men in their relations to
one another. These two ideas always go together. For
a moral order of which God is not the Guardian and
Upholder does not occur to Old Testament thinkers. No
doubt, in the Book of Job the most modern, perhaps, if
again I may use the expression, of Old Testament creations
such an idea as that of a moral order in which God is
not the Guardian is found. The sufferer there gives
expression to it momentary expression, however, only.
Conscious of his rectitude, and yet receiving no recognition
of it from God, but, on the contrary, being plagued every
clay, he is forced to the conviction that God is an arbitrary
and unrighteous tyrant. Eectitude does not find her home
and support in God. And Job rises to the highest
grandeur to which he attains, when he declares "that,
though God be unrighteous, he at least will not let go
his righteousness, but hold by it all the more firmly:
" The righteous shall hold on his way, and he that hath
clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger " (xvii. 9).
But ordinarily the ideas of God and the moral order
18
274 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
of life coincide. And to be righteous is to be found in
practical harmony in one s conduct with this moral order.
Hence on the widest scale Israel is the righteous nation in
opposition to the heathen nations. And God s deeds in
behalf of Israel are righteous acts ; as in the New Testa
ment the great saviours of the people are said, when their
deeds in behalf of Israel are referred to, to have wrought
righteousness. On a smaller scale, those who live in
harmony with the public law and customs of Israel are
called righteous/ in opposition to those whose life is not
governed by such principles who are wicked (fW l). Hence
an offence is what ought not to be done, or, more exactly,
offences are things not done in Israel ; and the doing of
them is to work folly in Israel. They contradict the
public conscience and law ; in many instances an un
written law, which was regulative of the people s life, and
the standard of righteousness.
Eighteousness consisted in a right attitude towards the
existing constitution, and in conduct in harmony with its
traditions. This general idea of righteousness as practical
conduct in harmony with the laws of the constitution,
explains several things. For one thing, it enables us to
understand how saints are found making such strong
assertions of their own righteousness, claiming from God
the recognition of it, and appealing to His righteousness
as that in Him which should make Him interfere on their
behalf : " Hear me when I call, God of my righteousness "
(Ps. iv. 1) ; " Judge me, God, according to my right
eousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me "
(Ps. vii. 8); "Hear the right, Lord" (Ps. xvii. 1); "The
Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness,
according to the cleanness of my hands hath He recom
pensed me" (Ps. xviii. 20). And even in Isaiah the
Church complains, " my right is passed over by my God "
(xl. 27) It is probably quite true that here we discover
a state of mind which we should find no more in our dis
pensation ; and that where an Old Testament saint appeals
to God s righteousness, we should rather make our appeal
RIGHTEOUSNESS AND GRACE 275
to His grace. Yet the point of view of these Old Testa
ment saints must be understood. Otherwise we should
judge them unfairly, and put them on a lower level than
that on which they stand. They stand within a constitu
tion, the principles of which are acknowledged. What
they are conscious of is no more than rectitude, an
upright and true attitude towards that constitution, in
opposition to those against whom they complain. Their
claim of righteousness is not a claim of sinlessness. It
has little to do with this. The saint who confesses his
sins in Ps. xxxii. proclaims his righteousness in Ps. vii.,
and appeals to God to acknowledge it in Pss. iv. and xvii.,
and declares that God has rewarded him according to the
cleanness of his hands in Ps. xviii. The same Job who
boldly declares, at what he knows to be the risk of his
life, " I am righteous " (xxxiv. 5), and of whom God Him
self speaks as " My servant Job, a perfect and upright
man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil" (i. 8),
elsewhere acknowledges his sins, and speaks of God as
making him to possess the sins of his youth (xiii. 26).
The righteousness of Old Testament saints is no more
than what the New Testament calls a true heart, even
when estimated at its highest. It is an upright attitude
towards the covenant, and an honest endeavour to walk
according to its principles.
And this covenant had for its fundamental principle
that for sins of infirmity, sins not done wilfully against the
covenant itself, there was forgiveness. It is this which they
call the righteousness of God. Pdgliteousness and grace really
did not differ within the covenant relation. The righteous
ness of God in the Old Testament is, no doubt, rather an
obscure point, but righteousness within the covenant was,
in truth, grace. God s covenant meant that He would be
gracious to men s infirmities ; and He was righteous when
He verified in men s experience the ideas and principles
of the covenant which was founded on His grace. So far
as what we might call the frame of the conception of
Old Testament saints goes, there is nothing amiss in it.
276 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Perhaps it is wanting in innerness, laying more stress on
right external conduct than on the right condition of the
heart. Still, with the right external conduct there is
always combined a reference to the attitude of the mind
towards God. The prophets lay real stress on justice and
humanity ; and on the social duties to perform these is
to be true to the idea of the covenant. But the great
embracing idea in their minds is that of the covenant
itself, which God has imposed and upholds ; and this
causes conduct to have a reference always to God. Hence
those epitomes of righteousness which we find often made
in the Old Testament, as in Pss. xv., xxiv., while they
contain mainly reference to conduct, always include a
reference to God. He who shall ascend into the hill of
the Lord is the man with clean hands, but also with a
pure, i.e. upright, heart ; who has not lifted up his soul
or desire to vanity, i.e. to aught that is untrue, any order
of life or thought in regard to the conception of Deity
not embraced in the constitution of Israel. And Micah
defines righteousness to be to do justly, to love, mercy, i.e.
humanity, and to walk humbly with God (vi. 8). In short,
righteousness, as it conies before us in the Old Testament, is,
as a rule, a practical thing. It is right conduct according
to the idea of the constitution of Israel ; and this conduct
is, of course, regulated by, and reflects a right state of mind
towards, the constitution.
Now, when we go a step further, and seek to get at
the essence of what such a state of mind is, we come
nearer to what we have in our minds when we inquire
what righteousness is, e.g. when we put the question, How
is a man righteous before God ? Practically, righteous
ness is spoken of as exhibited iii conduct and in an
attitude of mind. And the Old Testament hardly goes
beyond this practical way of speaking. Nevertheless,
we may reach what is considered the essence of righteous
ness. It need not be said that it is not to be sought in
sinlessness, for such an idea nowhere appears. If a man
calls himself, or is called by others, or is regarded by God
RIGHTEOUSNESS BEFORE GOD 277
as righteous, this is not because he is sinless, but because in
some particular matter he has acted rightly according to
the principles of piety or humanity embodied in the con
stitution of Israel, or generally that his life as a whole
is in harmony with these principles. But such phrase
ology as is often met in Scripture " If Thou shouldst mark
iniquities, Lord, who shall stand ? " (Ps. cxxx. 2) ; " in
Thy sight shall no flesh living be righteous " (cxliii. 2) ?
"for there is no man that sinneth not" (1 Kings viii. 46)
shows that sinlessness did not constitute righteousness
before God. And the constitution, providing in its sacri
ficial system an institution for forgiveness, indicated that
the people, though the idea of Israel was that of a right
eous people, was not considered as a whole or in its
members sinless.
Now the constitution was a covenant of God with the
people. The covenant was made by God with Israel; He
took the initiative. The idea of such a covenant is that
God draws near to men. The idea of such a drawing near
is that of favour or grace. This is the most general con
ception ; it is in goodness, in self-communication, in giving
to the people of His own fulness, that God draws near
to men. Again, on the other side, i.e. on men s side, to
correspond to this there must be the attitude of acknow
ledgment of this, of understanding this attitude of God
towards them, and acceptance of it in thankfulness and
humility. These are the great conceptions that constitute
the framework of the covenant relation. Within this
general frame there may be room for much variety, both
in God s way of drawing near, i.e. in the operations He
performs, in the ways in which He manifests Himself, and
in the gifts He communicates, as those of knowledge and
life, and also in man s conduct and way of thinking, which
will vary according to the knowledge he receives, the life
that is awake within him, and the circumstances in which
he is placed. But variety of this kind, however great, is
within the limits of the great general relation of the two
parties to one another. The external frame is, so to speak,
278 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
very elastic, permitting growth and expansion to any degree
within it.
6. Righteousness, Grace, and Faith.
Now, that this great general conception was the main
thing the idea of this general relation of God and the
people is shown by the constitution itself. What was
required of the people was an attitude of mind and
heart corresponding to this relation of God to them a
receptivity and acceptance on their part of God as He
drew near to them. Within this general attitude which
was required, the life of the individual might be a very
chequered one, marked by great imperfections, and even by
sins which might be voluntary. Such sins were great evils,
which it was the object of the covenant relation more and
more to overcome ; but they did not involve suspension of
the relation itself. Only sins like that of unbelief, as
Israel s in the wilderness, or idolatry, which was a denial of
the idea of the covenant with Jehovah, involved the suspen
sion of the covenant, and were followed by cutting off from
the people. Such sins infringed that general attitude of
mind toward God which was demanded as a response to
His approach to the people. Now, if we ask what terms
express the idea of God s drawing near to men on the one
side, and the idea of their reception of this and right
bearing of mind towards it, there are no terms that do so
but grace and faith. It is quite true that at one time
God s grace might be much fuller than at another. He
might unveil His face more fully, impart knowledge in
greater abundance, communicate His Spirit in greater power.
All this, however, does not alter the general and the essen
tial in His attitude towards the people, or its loving grace.
It is equally true that men s feeling of His love might be
deeper, their thankfulness profounder, their dependence
more absolute, their trust more perfect and implicit, as time
advanced. But all this does not touch the essence of the
attitude at all times, which was faith.
In the general Old Testament way of speaking, a man
THE RESPONSE OF FAITH 279
may be found righteous in regard to his individual acts,
or in regard to his general life. But it is to be observed
that this is the case of a man within the covenant, not
of one outside of it. And his being within the covenant
presupposes and implies his general attitude towards God
of faith. Unless by his conduct he shows the reverse,
and is cut off, this is assumed. And here lies the essence
of his being right with God, his response by faith to
His grace, in accepting the covenant and the continued
exhibition of this condition of mind in the man s life
and conduct. The righteous acts for which he is found
righteous are only the exhibition of his attitude towards
God and His covenant of grace. The covenant was made
with the people as a whole, and its blessings became the
possession of individuals as members of the general body.
This is the Old Testament conception, and for a long time
this conception remains intact.
But, of course, though this be the general conception,
in point of fact the individual must exhibit for himself the
condition of mind demanded of the whole ; and as the
people as a whole were endowed with God s Spirit, this
was also the possession of the individual as a member of
the whole. It is only in the later prophets, like Jeremiah,
that the individual rises into the prominence which he
receives in the Pauline conception of righteousness, or
something like prominence. But what I wish to indicate
at present is, that the same general conceptions in regard
to grace and righteousness are characteristic of the first
covenant as of the new. To be righteous is to be right,
i.e. to be found taking towards God s covenant, which is
a thing having as its principle grace, the right attitude ;
and this attitude is faith.
Of course, this faith is not conceived as an abstract
thing ; it is faith in the particular circumstances of the
people s condition. It is always practical. It is the faith
of James : " I will show thee my faith by my works "
(ii. 18). And it naturally always desired to see the
response of God to it in deeds of salvation on behalf
280 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
of the people. Circumstances, however, tended to clarify
this faith, and give it a profounder and more strictly
spiritual character. The time came when any interference
of Jehovah on behalf of the State was hopeless. Its
destruction was inevitable. The people s minds were drawn
away from the present, and fixed upon the future. Faith
was cut away from its connection with any form of national
life or external condition, and it became a spiritual re
lation to God. And by the same process it became less
a national thing than a condition of the individual mind.
Israel s national ruin cut the people into two classes, and
faith found refuge with one with those that looked for
the consolation of Israel. Again, it is quite probable that
even in this faith there may have been elements that
required sifting and clearing away ; but faith rose to be a
spiritual trust in the unseen, " the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. xi. 1).
One thing else may be referred to as indicating that
the essence of man s relation to the covenant was faith
in Jehovah. That is the fact that idolatry, denial that
Jehovah alone was God of Israel, was followed by cutting
off from the people. This struck at a point behind the
covenant, and threw the sinner outside the sphere where
Jehovah was gracious : it was general retribution over
against His grace. The same idea rules the institution
of sacrifice. Only for sins of ignorance or infirmity were
sacrifices available. Sins wilful, or done with a high hand,
again struck at the fundamental conception of the rela
tion ; they were direct attacks upon the principle of the
covenant, and they could not be atoned for.
Now, exactly corresponding to this negative point was
the positive point of the law. The law was given to the
people in covenant. It was a rule of life, not of justifica
tion ; it was guide to the man who was already right in
God s esteem in virtue of his general attitude towards the
covenant. The law is not to Israel a law of morals on
the bare ground of human duty, apart from God s exhibition
of His grace. It is a line marked out along which the
RIGHTEOUSNESS IMPUTED 281
life of the people or the person in covenant with God, and
already right with God on that ground, is to unfold itself.
No assumption of sinlessness is made, nor, indeed, is such a
thing demanded. The institutions of atonement provided
for the taking away of sins done through infirmity, and the
law was a direction to the believer how to bear himself
practically within the covenant relation. A man s conduct
shows him to be righteous ; he is justified by works. But
this is not the technical use of the term justification now
in use. It is another use quite legitimate, not to be
opposed to the technical use, but possible alongside of it.
Faith precedes this justification ; it is a right attitude
within the covenant. If we may say so, it is not the
man himself that is justified by works, but his faith.
This is one way of thinking, and it may have some affinity
with the line of thought in the Epistle of James.
But another line of expression and feeling may also be
observed. That touches the idea of a righteousness imputed.
First, we observe it most clearly in the life of individuals.
It is connected with the consciousness of sin. Generally,
perhaps, some more flagrant sin had awakened the con
science, and given a deeper sense of the sinfulness of nature
in the sinner, and led him to seek refuge immediately in
God s forgiveness, as in Psalms xxxii. and li. But, no doubt,
without the commission of flagrant sins the sense of man s
sinfulness became deeper as the national life progressed.
The great sorrows to which individuals were subjected in
the time of the dissolution of the State caused deeper
thought on the causes of their misfortunes, imparted a
profounder sense of the alienation of the mind from God,
and sharpened the conviction that righteousness could be
obtained only in God s forgiving mercy. Secondly, we
observe the same line of reflection in the prophets. The
nation was, in their view, incurably sinful ; it had broken
the covenant ; righteousness under the first covenant was
no more to be hoped for. Only in a new covenant, the
very foundation of which was a complete Divine forgive
ness, could the people be found righteous.
282 THE THEOLOC4Y OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
We see the steps of this thought, as always, most
clearly in Jeremiah. He begins with preaching repentance
to the people ; only by repentance can the calamity of de
struction be averted. Suddenly, in the midst of his calls to
the people to repent, the question seems to occur to him,
Can they repent ? Is there any ability in them to do what
is demanded of them ? Can the Ethiopian change his skin,
or the leopard his spots ? All hope from the side of the
people or of man is over. Only in God can righteousness
for them be found. He is " the Lord our righteousness "
(xxiii. 6), Hence he finds refuge in the conception of a
new covenant in which God bestows righteousness : " I
will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no
more " (xxxi. 34). We perceive in the Old Testament the
same general conceptions as in the New, although they are
presented more practically and in a less precise form.
7. Suffering and Imputation.
There was a corresponding development of thought on
the subject of suffering, the imputation of sin, and the
relation of the individual to the family and the nation.
In the earlier Scriptures these questions did not come
into prominence. There the doctrine is taught that God
visits the iniquity of the fathers upon their children unto
the third and fourth generation. The idea seems to be that
the fathers are still punished, their punishment falling on
them in their children. The standing of the children as
individuals is not thought of, nor the question what re
lation the calamity has to them. The idea of unity is the
uppermost ; and the idea that the descendants belong to
the original offender, and that he is still suffering God s
anger in his children. It was naturally to be expected
that in the age of Jeremiah, when the relation of men to
God as individuals, and in their own right, so to speak, came
to be more prominently treated, this question of the punish
ment of one s descendants for his sin should come up
also. And so we find it in the prophets and writers of
GOD AND THE INDIVIDUAL 283
that age. The people perhaps felt that they were suffering
for the sins of their ancestors. They said : " The fathers
have eaten a sour grape, and the children s teeth are set
on edge" (Jer. xxxi. 29). In some way they abused this
doctrine, either in the way of self-exculpation, or in the
way of charging God with unrighteousness. The prophet
Jeremiah takes up the proverb. Its use raised the question
in his mind. He seems to perceive in the method of God s
dealing with men, which this proverb suggests, what is
the essence of the old covenant method the method of
dealing with men in the mass, or with Israel as a com
munity; a method which obliterated the rights of the
individual, or under which, at least, the individual did not
come into the prominence that belonged to him. And he
foresees the time when this method shall no more prevail.
But if this method no more prevail, its cessation will be
because God and the individual heart will become the two
factors in the covenant relation. The external organism
will come to an end. All that made Israel distinctive as
a community, its external organisation, its old palladiums
of redemption and salvation, its orders of teachers, like
priests and prophets all this will come to an end. Men
shall no more call to mind the ark of the covenant ; they
shall no more teach every man his neighbour; the law
and ordinances shall no more be external. Hence this
proverb comes to an end simultaneously with the coming
in of the new order of things called the New Covenant :
" Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, . . . that as I
have watched over them to pluck up and to break down,
so will I watch over them to build and to plant, saith the
Lord. In those days they shall say no more, The fathers
have eaten a sour grape, and the children s teeth are set
on edge. But every man shall die for his own iniquity.
Every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be
set on edge. Behold, the days come that I will make a
new covenant with the house of Israel ... I will put My
law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts
. . . they shall all know Me" (xxxi. 29-34).
284 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
That the principle of punishing the children for the
sins of the fathers was much speculated on in this age,
appears also from the fact that the same proverb is referred
to by Ezekiel (xviii. 2), and its further prevalence denied.
And in the Book of Job, where all such questions concern
ing evil are focused, Job repudiates the doctrine, and holds
the procedure unjust. He points to the fact that a man
is often not punished for his sins in this life. His friends
reply that the punishment falls on his children. To which
he answers, Let God chastise the man himself ; what
concern hath he in his house after him when the days
of his own life are completed ? Job s reply is to the effect
that the method of Providence referred to is unjust, and
in point of fact fails as a punishment on the man himself,
seeing he is all unconscious of the incidence of God s
anger on his descendants (xxi. 1634).
What made the question of such profound interest
was this. God s external treatment of men was held
to reflect His true relation to them. Chastisements were
indications of His anger. A distinction was not yet drawn
between God s external providence and God s true mind
towards men. In the Book of Job we perceive this dis
tinction in the very course of being arrived at. Yet Job,
though he knows the two things, calls them both God,
and appeals to the one against the other : " Mine eye
poureth out tears to God that He would procure justice
for a man with God" 1 (xvi. 20). Thus God s external
dealing with men being the reflection of His true relation
to them, the injustice of inflicting anger on the children
for the sins of the father was manifest so soon as the idea
of individual rights occurred to one. Hence Jeremiah has
no help but to demand a complete reversal of this pro-
1 In his commentary on The Boole of Job ("Cambridge Bible for Schools
and Colleges"), Dr. Davidson puts it so "Job now names his Witness, and
states what he hopes for from Him.
" 20 My friends scorn me :
Mine eye poureth out tears unto God,
21 That He would maintain the right of a man with God,
And of a son of man against his neighbour." ED.
THE ELEVATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL 285
ceeding ; and he seems to require that evil shall not fall
on a man s descendants because of a man s sins. We
know that this involvement of others in a man s sin con
tinues to be the case, and must be. But we draw the
distinction between evils of this kind and God s true
relation to the individual. Salvation is to be distin
guished from this more external sphere. No doubt the
two will influence one another, as a man s condition or
circumstances may influence his knowledge of God, or his
will to receive the truth. The Apostle Paul has carried
back this principle into the history of Israel from the
beginning, distinguishing between God s treatment of the
nation and His relation to individuals.
The elevation of the individual into religious promi
nence, and the constituting him, so to speak, the religious
unit instead of the people, had wide consequences. No
doubt the community was made up of individuals, and the
teaching of the prophets, though directed to the nation,
must at all times have been taken home by individuals to
themselves. And in order fully to realise the life of
Israel, we have to take into account the Psalms and the
Wisdom books as well as the Prophets. It is in these
more subjective writings that the life of the individual
and his thoughts find expression. It is extremely difficult
to place these writings with any certainty in their true
historical place. It is also at all times difficult, no doubt,
to detect in history the causes that brought into promi
nence certain questions. But at all events the dissolution
of the State as a religious unit naturally brought into
prominence the standing of the individual towards God.
The extreme hardships also borne by many pious men at
this period forced upon men s thoughts the relation of evil
in God s providence to sin and to righteousness. Even
the destruction of Israel as a nation, and its subjection to
heathen conquerors, might have raised this question.
No doubt, in many minds the deep consciousness of the
sin of the nation was sufficient to allay and remove doubt.
These heathen conquerors were but instruments of chastise-
286 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
ment in Jehovah s hand ; the Assyrian was " the rod of
His anger " (Isa. x. 5). Yet, on the other hand, Israel was,
in comparison with these idolatrous, cruel nations, the
righteous people, the servant of God. The truth was in
Israel ; there was a holy stock in it. Such thoughts
would arise, perhaps, only later, when the oppressions of
the Exile had been long continued, and there seemed no
hope of release from it. Then the problem of evil became
oppressive to the mind of godly men. And it was the
subject of much reflection, and received, perhaps, various
solutions.
One remarkable book in the Old Testament is devoted
to the discussion of it, the Book of Job. This book may
discuss the evils of Israel or those of Judah, but probably
its theme is suggested by the calamities that befell either
the Northern or the Southern State. It may be going
too far to say that Job is a type of the people ; that
is, that the people are spoken of personified under his
name. That is scarcely probable, and the supposition is
not necessary. It is the sufferings of individuals, godly
individuals, that are exhibited. Job is but a specimen, an
idealised specimen. But the solution proposed by the
author of the book is that these sufferings are not for
sin, for Job is perfect and upright, fearing God and
eschewing evil (i. 1 ) ; they are a trial of righteousness,
and if borne in patience and devoutness, lead to a restora
tion and a higher blessedness. This view makes Job s
sufferings only have meaning if they are but examples of
the sufferings of many who suffered like himself. Job s
sufferings have no relation to any but himself. Job is
not in his sufferings a Messianic type. His history is
consoling to sufferers, whose sufferings may be severe or
mysterious to religious men ; it has not a higher value.
The solution of the meaning of sufferings which is given
by the prophet Isaiah in the second half of his book,
is much more profound. There the Servant of the Lord
suffers innocently, too, like Job ; but his sufferings are for
the sins of the guilty.
THE INNER ISRAEL 287
There is, again, this case of the descendants of sinners,
who suffer the evils of their forefathers sins. The circum
stances of the time brought this question into prominence.
The godly exiles were bearing the iniquities of their fathers.
And men s thoughts were turned to the old doctrine of
retribution enunciated early, that God visits the sins of the
fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth gene
ration. The question is of interest, because we see the
minds of the wise of that age working their way towards
a truth, or at least towards setting forth prominently a
truth, which, though always a truth, does not receive much
prominence before this time the truth, namely, set forth
by St. Paul, that they are not all Israel who are of Israel
(Eorn. ix. 6); that within the outer frame of Israel, the
nominal people of Jehovah, there is an inner circle to
whom, in truth, God is communicating the blessings of
the covenant. We perceive this great truth receiving
prominence at this epoch in two forms, both leading, how
ever, to the same result, one in the Book of Job, and
another in such prophets as Jeremiah. The truth is set
forth in the form that God s external treatment of the
individual, or the people, is not the index of God s true
relation to either. In other words, religion is divorced
from any connection with what is external, and is driven
into the heart, and made to be a relation of the spirit
to the Lord, which no proofs in the shape of external
blessings may attend. The calamities of Job were no
proof that God s heart was not towards him ; the disper
sion of the nation, or at least the breaking up of the
external forms of the religious state, did not invalidate
religion.
This may seem a commonplace to us, but perhaps it
was little short of a revolution in the thinking of many
in Israel. For the fundamental idea, so to speak, of
the Old Covenant was that the people s relation to the
Lord was reflected in their external circumstances. The
external blessings were the seal to them of God s favour ;
calamity was the token to them of His anger. It was the
288 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
same in the case of the individual. Perhaps for long they
could hardly realise God s favour out of connection with
the external tokens of it. The fundamental conception
of the Wisdom was, that it was well with the righteous
and ill with the wicked. This general principle, no doubt
true as a general principle, was taken up as without ex
ception. And, in like manner, it needed God s severe
dealing with them to bring home to them their sense of
sin ; or at least they saw His anger reflected in calamity.
The conflict between Job and his friends on the meaning
of calamity, and their pertinacious maintenance of the
theory that suffering is always due to sin, indicate to us
the kind of questioning that was going on in men s minds
in this age. And when the author of the book allows
Job to drive his opponents from the field on this point, we
perceive that it was his purpose to discredit the doctrine,
in the shape in which they advanced it, as one that could
not be maintained. While, when he brings forward his
own doctrine, that calamity may not be for sin, but as a
trial of righteousness, we see at least one other solution of
the question, one applicable not only to individuals, but to
the suffering nation.
But what is more interesting is the conflict in Job s
own mind, and his successful effort to realise to him
self that, in. spite of God s severe chastisement of him,
God and he are still in true fellowship. The way in
which he expresses this is singular enough, but also in
telligible enough. To his mind God was the immediate
author of every event. His sufferings came direct from
God s hand. And he, unlike the author of the book, still
held that sufferings indicated the anger of God, or at least
that God was holding him guilty of sins. Yet he rises
to the assurance that God knows his innocence ; one God
holds him guilty, another knows his innocence, and he
appeals to the one against the other. This is but his
Hebraistic way of affirming that God s heart as He is in
Himself is toward him, though His outer providence be
against him. But this half solution, as we may call it,
EVIL OUTSIDE HUMANITY 289
which is forced to make two out of the one God, indicates
to us the struggles which it cost men at this time to rise,
even under the teaching of God s providential dealings, to
the idea that religion was a thing altogether of the relation
of the spirit to God, and that it might exist with no
external tokens of God s favour.
IX. DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION SUPEAHUMAN
GOOD AND EVIL.
1. Angels.
Something has been said of the ideas of evil entertained
in Israel and expressed in Scripture, and of the conscious
ness of sin and guilt among the people of God. But
another question presents itself, which is of great interest,
and also of some importance. That is the question of the
existence of evil outside the sphere of the human mind and
human society. Are there traces of a belief in the exist
ence of a superhuman evil to be found in the Old Testa
ment as in the New ? And if so, to what extent of
development had this belief attained among the covenant
people in the prophetic age in particular ? This is a large
question ; and to speak in a judicious manner upon it re
quires an extensive observation of individual passages
scattered largely about in many writings, and a careful
weighing of the amount of meaning to be fairly attached
to them in the circumstances and connections in which
they are found. The question has two sides : one, the
existence of evil in regions lying outside human life, and
among the creatures of God not belonging to the human
race ; the other, the influence of beings of this kind upon
the destiny of man in general, and upon the self-determina
tion of individual minds among men in particular. Both
these questions receive large illumination in the New
Testament. All that can be looked for in the Old Testa
ment will be traces of beliefs going in the same direction
19
290 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
as the more fully developed New Testament doctrines.
And the most interesting question will be whether such
traces be actually discoverable, and to what distance in
this direction they may be followed.
Now, first, the raising of such a question brings us face
to face with another question, namely, the question of the
existence of beings not creatures of God such as men are,
but standing in moral relations to Him as men do, and as
all beings in the universe must do. For the God of Israel,
who is also the God of the whole universe, is no mere
immoral force in the universe, nor the unmoral sum of all
the forces in the universe ; He is, above all things, an ethical
Being. His physical nature is hardly ever alluded to in
the Old Testament. It does not even go the length, which
the New Testament does, of calling Him Spirit, though it
gives numerous predications regarding Him, and assigns
numerous attributes to Him, which show that the concep
tion of His spiritual essence underlay all current ideas and
modes of expression regarding Him. There is, I think,
only one passage in the Old Testament which approaches
to saying in words that He is Spirit. It is the passage
already alluded to in Isaiah : " The Egyptians are men, and
not God ; their horses are flesh, and not spirit " (xxxi. 3).
The Old Testament has no place for speculations upon the
physical essence of God. It does not say that He is
Spirit ; it says that He has a Spirit, which is the source
of all life and organic existence in the world. But its
main interest lies in denning God as an ethical Being,
and placing all other beings in the universe in ethical
relations to Him.
And these ethical relations cover the whole forms of
existence and every manifestation of the life of these other
beings. We are fond, in our scientific analytic manner, of
dividing man into two elements, soul and body; and so
does Scripture in a general way. But Scripture never goes
the length that we are apt to go of calling the body a
material organism, and regarding it as subject to the laws
of organisms ; that is, laws different from moral laws, and
EXISTENCE OP ANGELS ASSUMED 291
applying to the body of man as a thing outside the region
of moral law. In the Old Testament, man, body and soul,
is a unity ; and that unity is a moral unity, standing in
relations to the great moral Being in the universe ; and
man, in his body as well as in his soul, i.e. man as a whole,
belongs to the region of the moral world. All that he does
is estimated on moral principles ; all that happens to him
illustrates moral principles ; and if any part of him, as his
body, falls into another region, where other laws prevail,
e.g. the region of material organism, this is because some
thing has occurred in his history which has disrupted the
unity of his being, and thrown the elements of his nature,
for a time at least, into another region, and subjected it to
the laws that prevail in that sphere, namely, to the laws of
material dissolution and decomposition. But this is the
effect of evil, and is only temporary. The scheme of resti
tution retrieves it. And the Scripture doctrine is that
when he is restored, man again becomes a unity, and all
the parts of this unity enter together again into the moral
sphere, and the unity takes up the right moral relation to
God and retains it for ever ; a doctrine which is expressed
in words not unfamiliar to us : " Their bodies being united
to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection "
(Shorter Catechism), i.e. the new man is united to Christ,
both in his soul and in his body, as an indivisible unity.
But this being the conception of the Old Testament, it
being just its characteristic that it passes this moral judg
ment on all beings, it is to be looked for that if it assumes
the existence of other beings besides man, it will not leave
undetermined the moral sphere to which they belong. If
there be angels, they will be either good or bad angels.
Now, first, that there are beings called angels, Scripture
does not prove, but everywhere it assumes. No person
denies that the people of Israel and the writers of Scrip
ture believed in the existence of beings so named, or that
Scripture makes the belief its own. The question which
some persons have raised, or have been supposed to raise,
is not whether Scripture makes this belief its own, but
292 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
whether, after all, it may not be just an opinion current in
those days and among that Eastern people, which, though
made its own by Scripture, yet, not being of the essence of
religion, may be in our day legitimate subject for discussion,
with the view of arriving at scientific conclusions on the
subject. With the question in that form we do not deal
here. It is part of the general question of Scripture itself.
But the question may appear in another form. It
may be put thus : Does not Scripture sometimes so speak
of angels as to show that in the minds of the writers their
personality was not always very clearly conceived ; that
though on many occasions this personality seems clearly
grasped, on other occasions it is dim, and the angelic being
melts away into a mere manifestation of the providence
of God in some form, as when it is said: "He makes
winds His angels, and a flame of fire His messengers " ?
(Ps. civ. 4). And the question is put, Is it not this
class of passages that we should regard as giving the
key to the true Biblical conception of the angels ? Are
they not mere manifestations of God s providential and
redemptive activity, first idealised into living agencies, and
then further adorned with personal attributes, those of
strength, holiness, and the like, which are characteristic of
God s action in providence and in grace ? Now, that is a
question which is not like the other one lying behind
Scripture ; it is one raised on the stage of Scripture itself,
and no one need be afraid to discuss it.
I shall only say in regard to it, that the view appears
to me to invert the Scripture method of conception. The
angels are in Scripture the agents and ministers of God
in His providence and grace. They are, according to the
later generalisation regarding them, "all ministering spirits,
sent forth to minister for the sake of them who shall be
heirs of salvation" (Heb. i. 14). They carry out God s
will, and communicate to His saints strength or light. But
as doing so they are personal beings ; and the phraseology
which uses the name of angels for the mere providence of
God and His care of men, is a later phraseology, which
NAMES OF ANGELS 293
reposes upon the more strict and usual conception of what
the angels are, and applies it in a looser way. Passages
of this sort may be found, perhaps, in Ps. xxxiv. 7 : " The
angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear
Him " ; and Ps. xci. 11:" He shall give His angels charge
over Thee, to keep Thee in all Thy ways. They shall
bear Thee up in their hands, lest Thou dash Thy foot
against a stone." It may be difficult in particular cases
to decide between the strict use of the name to indicate
personal agents, and its more colourless use for God s
providential care. The colourless use, however, is not the
primary, but the secondary application, and reposes on
what is more strict ; it is a figurative mode of speech,
which is based, however, on what many times is actual fact.
Now, second, Scripture uses certain names for these
superhuman beings. And these names are of two kinds :
first, those which define their nature, or the class or grade
of being to which they belong, in contrast with the race of
men; and, second, those which describe their office, in
regard to God or men. Names of the first kind are O^N
or N % D^>N or N \33. They are called Elohim, or sons of
EloJiim ; Elim, or sons of Elim. This expression is no doubt
wrongly translated in our Version sons of God. The
name Elohim is used both for God and for angels. The
angels are Elohim ; and as a family or class they are sons
of Elohim/ just as prophets are Nebiim, or sons of Nebi im.
The idea that they are called sons of God because they
stand in close relation to God, or because they share in the
purely spiritual nature of God, is not contained in the ex
pression ; neither is the idea present that they are the
adopted sons of God, having stood the period of probation
with success, and now received into His family. This
cannot be meant ; for in Job the Satan appears among the
sons of Elohim/ and is one of them. We found the name
Elohim to mean mights/ powers/ and it is with this
meaning that the name is given to the angels. In contrast
with man, angels belong to the class of Elohim. In Ps.
xxix. 1 our Version reads quite rightly if the name is to be
294 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
interpreted, " Give unto the Lord, ye mighty, give unto
the Lord glory and strength " literally : " Give unto the
Lord, ye sons of Elim." The sons of Elim form the
attendants and ministers around Jehovah ; and in the end
of the Psalm it is said : " In His palace doth every one say,
Glorious ! " In Ps. Ixxxix. 6 the same expression is trans
lated " sons of the mighty " : " Who in heaven can be
compared with Jehovah, who among the sons of the mighty
Bene Elim can be likened unto the Lord ? "
The angels, therefore, in contrast with the human race,
belong to the class of Elohim. They are sons of Elohim.
The exegetical tradition firmly reposes on this fact. And
perhaps in some cases it may apply the name Elohim to
angels where it properly means God, as in Ps. viii. 6 : " Thou
hast made him a little lower than Elohim " ; in the Septua-
gint angels/ though modern interpreters prefer God.
I am not sure whether the exegetical tradition here be not
more in accordance with the modes of thinking in the Old
Testament.
It might be an interesting question how the same
name Elohim canie to designate God and this class of
beings. Perhaps we should be satisfied with the general
explanation, that the name, meaning powers, is applied
from the standpoint of men to all that is above man, to
the region lying above him. Though the same name is
given, the two are never confounded in Scripture. But if
this answer does not seem satisfactory, our inquiries will
throw us back into a prehistorical period, a period where
the genesis of the general name Elohim and its general
applications must be investigated. From the beginning of
Scripture we find God and these Elohim called by the
same name ; He is surrounded by them ; they are His
servants, and they minister to His purposes of grace and
providence. We can quite well perceive, however, how
this broke open a line of thought in another direction.
The false gods of heathenism were also Elohim ; and in this
way certain classes of angels and these gods were brought
into connection or identification, and the gods of the nations
SUPRAHUMAN MESSENGERS AND MINISTERS 295
became demons or evil angels. There is a curious fluctua
tion in the exegetical tradition, due, perhaps, to this mode
of conception. In Ps. xcvii. 7 it is said : " Confounded be
all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of
idols : worship Him, all ye gods " ; but the Septuagint
renders : " worship Him, all ye angels."
These Elohim, or sons of Elohim, form the council of
Jehovah. They surround Him, and minister to Him. He
and they are Elohim. And it is from this point of view
that some explain the use of the plural in such passages
as "Let us make man" (Gen. i. 26); "Let us go down
and there confound their language" (Gen. xi. 7). In
character these angels are said to excel in strength, and to
be mighty (Ps. ciii. 20); they are styled EWp (Job v. 1,
xv. 15; Ps. Ixxxix. 6, 8; Zech. xiv. 5; Dan. viii. 13).
And from their ministering office the representation appears
in Job that they interpret to men God s afflictive pro
vidences with them ; and, on the other side, might be
supposed to receive men s complaints of this too severe
chastisement : " Cry then ; is there any that will answer
thee ? and to which of the p wilt thou turn?" (v. 1).
The passage is poetical, and merely touches upon a supposed
turn that Job s mind might take. It does not go the
length of teaching that it is part of the office of angels
to intercede, or even to represent. Although these excel
in purity far above men, the profound consciousness of
the Creator s holiness in Israel represents Him as finding
something to blame in them : " He charges His angels with
error" (Job iv. 18). Names are also given to these
angels as having certain characteristics, or filling certain
offices, as seraphim, cherubim.
There is another class of names given to these beings,
however, which is of great interest. They are called angels,
D^KTB, i.e. messengers, and D7nK ; B, i.e. ministers. These
names describe their office, and the place they have in the
providence of God. All the Old Testament is filled with
illustrations of their operations in this sphere, and examples
need not be cited. " The angels represent in a personal
296 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
manner," says Hermann Schultz, " God s care of His
people; they are the medium of His government of His
kingdom, and of His interference in the affairs of the world.
They reveal the will of God in reference to the present and
the future, call men of God to the undertaking of great
deeds which God will accomplish by their hand (as Moses,
Jerubbaal), deliver the pious out of danger, and execute the
judgments of God against the sinful world, or the dis
obedient in Israel, as in the case of David. When they
manifest themselves among men, it is always as armed
with some commission from God, which they come to
execute." l
2. The Angel of the Lord,
As God s manifestations of His will and His inter
ferences in the world are predominantly in the way of
carrying out His purpose of redemption, the angels usually
appear on missions of mercy or in furtherance of the salva
tion, either of individuals, or of the people as a whole.
Prominent among those who labour in this direction stands
one angelic figure, who has always attracted largely the
attention of interpreters, and regarding whom very diverse
judgments have been passed, the Angel of the Lord/ It
has not been uncommon to find in him a manifestation of
the Logos or Son of God, and in his appearance among
men a pre-intimation of the incarnation. With regard to
the name Angel of the Lord, of course any angel may
bear this name. And in many places where such a name
is applied, there is no reason to consider that the angelic
being to whom it is given is in any way distinguished from
others. Thus in 1 Kings xix. 5, it is said that as Elijah
lay under a jumper tree an angel touched him ; and then
further on in the narrative : " And the Angel of the Lord
said unto him." The definiteness here arises from the fact
of the angel having been already mentioned. So in the
history of David it is said that the angel stretched out his
hand upon Jerusalem ; and then it is added that the angel
1 Alt. ThcoL, i. p. 560.
THE ANGEL OF THE LORD 297
of the Lord was standing by the floor of Araunah the
Jebusite (2 Sam. xxiv. 16). Passages of a similar kind
are numerous.
But there are many passages of a different kind, where
the definiteness of the expression the Angel of the Lord
cannot be explained in this way, and where things are said
of this angel that are scarcely applicable to ordinary angelic
messengers. Thus at the period of the Exodus, the Angel
of the Lord led Israel ; and it is said regarding him : " Be
hold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way,
and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not ; for
he will not pardon your transgressions : for My name is in
him. But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all
that I speak," etc. (Ex. xxiii. 20-23). And in Ex. xxxii. 34
it is said : " Mine Angel shall go before thee " ; which in
Ex. xxxiii. 14 is varied : " My presence (^B, My face) shall go,
and I will give thee rest " ; and in Isa. Ixiii. 9 the two are
combined : " In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the
Angel of His presence (V3B, i.e. the Angel of His face, the
Angel who was His face) saved them ; in his love and in
his pity he redeemed them." Here regarding this Angel
two things are said : that Jehovah s name, i.e. His revealed
character, is in him ; and that he is Jehovah s face, i.e. the
face of Jehovah may be seen in him. They who look upon
him look upon Jehovah, and in him all that Jehovah is is
present. Hence he saves, and will not pardon transgres
sion, though he has the power. With these passages are to
be combined others which describe the emotions of those to
whom the Angel appeared, e.g. Jacob said : " I have seen God
face to face, and my life is preserved" (Gen. xxxii. 30);
and when he recurs to this event in his dying prophecy, he
says : " The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless
the lads" (xlviii. 16).
These passages indicate that in the minds of those to
whom this angel appeared, it was an appearance of Jehovah
in person. Jehovah s face was seen. His name was re
vealed. The Angel of the Lord is Jehovah present in
298 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
definite time and particular place. What is emphatic is
that Jehovah here is fully present. In particular provi
dences one may trace the presence of Jehovah in influence
and operation. In ordinary angelic appearances one may
discover Jehovah present on some side of His being, in
some attribute of His character ; in the Angel of the Lord
He is fully present, as the covenant God of His people, to
redeem them. It is the fulness of the manifestation that
is emphasised in the name. Now, it may be difficult to
say whether the pious in Israel conceived this full mani
festation as effected through the medium of an angel like
other partial revelations of God s will and of His power, or
considered it a thing quite distinct. On the one hand,
while freely considering that Jehovah used instruments to
effect His purposes by, they were jealous of ever seeming
to confound Jehovah with His agents. On the other, the
manifestation is called the Angel of the Lord, like other
manifestations. Undoubtedly also Jehovah is not conceived
as present in this Angel in such a manner that there is not
still preserved the distinction between him and Jehovah.
The Lord speaks of him as My Angel/ and the Angel
of My face. But of course there would be a distinction
between Jehovah manifest for purposes of redemption and
Jehovah in Himself.
This particular point, therefore, is not easily settled.
But one can readily perceive what Messianic elements
lay in the idea of the Angel of the Lord, who was at
least a full manifestation of Jehovah in His redeeming
power, and how far the ancient Church was on right
lines when it believed it could trace here the appear
ance of the Son of God. The question whether we are,
from our more enlightened point of view, to consider this
Angel of the Lord a manifestation of the Son or a mani
festation of God, is not of much moment. On the one
hand, further revelation has revealed that God manifested
is God in the Son, and it is not unnatural with the ancient
Church to suppose that these preliminary theophanies of
God in human form were manifestations of the Son, who
ANGELS AND PROVIDENCE 299
at last was manifest in the flesh. To Old Testament
saints, of course, this view would not occur. The truth
which such theophanies would suggest to them was that
God truly manifested Himself among them, at least on
great occasions, for their redemption ; in His full personality,
in the form of man, He came and was seen by them. He
did not yet abide among them ; but both the possibility of
this, and the hope of it, and the longing for it, must
have been awakened in their minds.
We have thought it not improper to run out one side
of angelic manifestation and operation to its culminating
point. But we must now return and take up the other.
God s providence is not exclusively benevolent or redemp
tive. Or if you assume that upon the whole it is so, and
that a large goodness characterises all that He does, and
that His redemptive purpose is strictly His whole purpose,
embracing all within it, there are at least particular provi
dences that in themselves, whatever they may be as parts
of a great whole, are not benevolent. God often interferes
in the world to judge or to destroy. In a way less severe
He interferes to punish and chasten. And even in a way
less severe still, though full of pain, He interferes to prove
and try. Now, on these three lines of providence not dis
tinctively benevolent, the angels also appear as mediating
the interference of God in the affairs of men. The angel
of death, or destroying angel, smote the Egyptians, and slew
their firstborn. The angel of the pestilence stretched his
sword over Jerusalem, and chastised Israel for their own
sin and the pride of their king. And in connection with
the tempting or proving of the saints, the most remarkable
instances of angelic activity that Scripture presents to us
are to be found.
It is to be observed that, as a rule, the angels who
execute God s commissions in providence are mere ministers.
Any personal share or sympathy with the operations that
they perform is not brought out. They are so far neutral,
or morally indifferent. The destroying angel is not called
a bad or cruel angel. And the angels that hurry Lot out
300 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
of Sodom are not represented as acting out of pity to the
old man. They merely perform with skill and promptitude
the commission entrusted to them. The angels are gener
ally, when enacting the providence of God, mere servants,
whose sympathy with the operations they perform is not
dwelt upon. In other connections the angels are called
holy ones, are regarded as greatly more pure than man,
and are described as continually praising Jehovah. But as
His servants among men their moral character generally
retreats. It is necessary to remember this, otherwise we
might draw conclusions that would be too hasty, or at least
too broad, in regard to those angels whom we observe sub
serving God s purpose in His providences that are afflictive.
3. Satan.
In the prologue to the Book of Job, and in the 3rd
chapter of Zechariah, we observe an angel who perhaps
represents in his operation the culmination of angelic service
in the line of providences not strictly benevolent. The
representations in these two passages are highly dramatic
and in some respects ideal, and they must be handled with
circumspection. In Job the scene presented is something
like a cabinet council of heaven. The King, Jehovah, is
on His throne, and His ministers appear to stand before
Him. These ministers are the sons of Elohim. Among
them one presents himself, also one of the sons of Elohim,
who is named the Satan, or adversary. The presence of
the article with the name shows that it had not yet become
a proper name. The adversary describes this angel s
function. The word Satan means one who opposes another
in his purpose (Num. xxii. 22, 23), or pretensions and
claims (1 Kings xi. 14, 23, 25 ; Zech. iii. 1); or generally.
* The Satan is that one of God s ministers whose part it
is to oppose men in their pretensions to a right standing
before God (Zech. iii. 1 and in Job i.) ; that is, the minister
who represents and executes God s trying, sifting provi
dence. He is one of God s messengers, who appears with
SATAN IN ZECHARIAH 301
other sons of Elohim, before Jehovah s throne, to report
his service, and to receive commissions, parts of God s will,
which he is to execute. It is in the exercise of this office
that he comes into contact with Job, and gives expression
to the sentiments to which we shall immediately refer.
The scene in Zechariah, chap, iii., is not materially
different from that in Job. The people had just been
restored from exile. Their restoration was the token of
God s favour, and of their right standing with Him. His
anger was turned away, and He comforted them. Yet
the restoration was a miserable restitution of the ancient
glory of Israel. Old men who remembered the former
Temple wept at the sight of the meanness of the new one ;
and the people had few of the manly virtues and little of
the deep godliness of their fathers in the best times of
Israel. And the thought could not but rise in men s
hearts of the unworthiness of the present people, and
doubts of the truth of their repentance ; and whether, in
fact, God had returned and been reconciled to them, and
was founding anew His kingdom among them. These
feelings and doubts are dramatically expressed in the
scene where Joshua, the high priest, the representative of
the people, is exhibited as standing, clothed in filthy gar
ments, before the Lord, and the Satan standing at his right
hand to oppose him. Both in this passage and in Job the
Satan comes in between God and men ; he opposes men in
their pretensions to a right standing before God; in other
words, he represents the severe, trying, searching side of
God s nature and providence, in opposition to the side of
His love and grace and complaisance in men.
So far all is plain. And the representation might go
no further, and we should be obliged to concede that, as is
frequently the case, the Satan is left a mere minister, and,
so far as appears, morally indifferent. But obviously, in Job
at least, the representation goes further. Even in Zechariah
there seems a reflection on his uncompassionate and inhuman
performance of his office : " The Lord rebuke thee, Satan :
is not this a brand plucked from the burning?" (iii. 3).
302 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
This insistence on human weakness and guilt, and the
general raggedness of human nature and the Church before
God, as seen in the . filthy garments of Joshua, was over
done. There was satisfaction to him in this condition of
men ; he desired to hinder the reconciliation of Jehovah and
His people. In the case of Job he has nothing outwardly
to found upon, but he insinuates selfishness in Job as at the
root of his religion. He is no believer in human virtue.
He envies and hates the man who is the subject of God s
love and trust, and misleads God to destroy him. He
hopes to break the bond of faith that unites Job to God,
by means of the severe and inexplicable calamities which
he brings upon him. The heart of the Satan is already in
his work. He begins to carry it on on his own account.
It would not perhaps be fair to draw more from these
passages ; subsequent revelation will supply additional
details. We naturally put the question, Is the Satan here
a fallen spirit ? Of course, there is no allusion to anything
in his history. All that is touched upon is that one of the
Bene Elohim is called the Satan, and that his function is to
oppose and accuse men in their relations to God, to make
it apparent that these relations are not right, or to produce
a displacement of these relations. This is all that mean
time is stated. But we must recall to remembrance here a
peculiarity in early revelation, and indeed in all revelation,
but one particularly conspicuous in the Old Testament
its tendency to refer all things back to God. As Isaiah
says : " I form the light, and create darkness : I make
peace, and create evil : I the Lord do all these things "
(xlv. 7). Hence the evil spirit that troubled Saul, for
example, is called "an evil spirit from the Lord"
(1 Sam. xvi. 14). In the remarkable passage in 1 Kings
xxii. 20-22, where the false prophets persuade Ahab to
go up to Eamoth-gilead, it is said : " And the Lord said,
Who will persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at
Eamoth-gilead ? . . . And there came forth a spirit, and
stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And
the Lord said unto him, Wherewith ? And he said, I will
GODET S VIEW OF SATAN 303
go forth, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his
prophets. Now therefore, said Micah, the Lord hath put a
lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets." And
what is emphasised in the passage in Job is not whether
the Satan be an evil spirit or no, or a fallen spirit, but
this, that he is in the hand of God, and that whatever he
performs is only under permission of God and in further
ance of His designs.
This element in our idea of a fallen spirit, namely,
that he is filled with hatred of God Himself, and an eager
desire to counteract His designs, is nowhere visible in
the Old Testament. Perhaps in our popular theology
we exaggerate this idea, and give to the kingdom of evil
an independence of the Divine will, and assign to it an
antagonism to God who is over all, which goes beyond
what Scripture warrants. Godet goes the length of saying
that Job s trials were inflicted just to show the Satan that
his insinuations against Job were false. But this elevates
the adversary into a prominence and an importance which
is not at all in keeping with Old Testament conceptions of
the relation of God to evil, and its subordination to Him.
The Satan in Job does not come into such prominence as to
be a party at all. He is simply God s minister to try Job,
and when his work is done he is no more heard of.
Godet in his interesting essay on Job introduces this
idea into the words of Satan " Does Job serve God for
nought ? " which he considers a covert attack on God
Himself. " If it be so, God is nothing more than a poten
tate flattered by cowards ; He has no friends, no children,
nothing but mercenaries and slaves. . . . Satan has then
discovered the vulnerable point in God Himself. The in
stinct of hatred has served him well . . . while shooting
that fiery dart, which reduces to ashes the piety of Job, it
is really at the heart of God that he has aimed," etc. 1
However the words of Satan may serve to suggest this
idea, the idea appears to me one quite foreign to the Old
1 Sea Godet s Biblical Studies on the Old Testament, edited by the Hou.
and Rev. W. H. Lyttleton, p. 199 ff. ED.
304 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Testament. The Satan is the servant of Jehovah, and the
idea is rather that he is zealous for God s honour, than
that he is the covert and sneering foe even of Jehovah
Himself.
It may also be remarked that, as it is the office of the
Satan to try God s saints in the present economy where sin
has entered, and as all trial may have the effect of seducing
them and tempting them to evil, there is nothing a priori
against the idea that he may have been employed in God s
hand to try those innocent, but whose innocence was not
yet confirmed by voluntary determination to maintain it.
And thus there is nothing against the idea that the tempta
tion in the form of a Serpent, recorded in Gen. iii., proceeded
from the Satan. It is true, Old Testament Scripture does
not say directly anywhere that the Satan and the Serpent
were identical, or that the one used the other. The first
direct statement that Satan was the tempter in the Garden
occurs in an Apocryphal book. In the Wisdom of Solomon
ii. 23 it is said : " For God created man to be immortal ;
. . . nevertheless through envy of the Devil came death
into the world." There are, however, passages in the Old
Testament which form a transition to this, where the
Serpent is spoken of as the foe of God and of His people,
and the like.
There is one other prophetic passage which has to be
noticed. The gods of the heathen nations were, of course,
called Elohim. So were the angelic beings. It was not
unnatural, as we have said, that they should be brought
into connection and identified, and that the gods in this
way should become demons, i.e. evil angelic spirits. And
already in the Book of Daniel each nation is represented as
having a guardian spirit, who in the heavenly or super
human world is its prince ; and in this superhuman world
conflicts are waged, which decide the relations of nations
to one another on earth. This idea is but a transference
into heavenly places of the conflict between the God of
Israel and the gods of the nations, which is usually waged
on earth.
THE HOSTS OF HEAVEN 305
But the identification of the gods with the angelic
Elohim was helped on another line. The heathen nations
worshipped the hosts of heaven the visible powers of
which, sun, moon, and stars, were to them but embodi
ments of spiritual powers behind. In this way it was
natural again to bring these gods of the heathen into con
nection with the Bene Elohim, or to identify them with
them. The expression the hosts of heaven/ though
properly meaning the mere visible starry hosts, acquired
then the deeper sense of the heavenly powers. Even when
Jehovah is called Jehovah of hosts, the idea is that He
can lead hosts of angels, as Christ speaks of receiving to
aid Him more than twelve legions of angels if He should
desire it (Matt. xxvi. 53). And it is certainly in this sense
that the passage in Isa. xxiv. 21, 22 is to be interpreted:
" It shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall
punish the host of the high that are on high, and the kings
of the earth upon the earth. And they shall be gathered
together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit; and they
shall be shut up in prison, and after many days shall they
be visited." This judgment is that of the day of the
Lord. It falls on kings of the earth upon the earth, and
on the host of heaven that are in heaven. Both shall
be shut up in the pit, and after many days they shall be
visited, i.e. released.
But one perceives ideas that afterwards became more
clear of spirits reserved in chains and darkness, of a bind
ing of Satan, and a loosing of him again to deceive the
nations. The Old Testament ideas originate in a variety
of ways, and only gradually unite to form the general con
ceptions which we find in the New Testament.
The increasing light of revelation threw the figure of
the Satan into deeper shadow, and with the full manifesta
tion of redemption came a clearer knowledge and exhibition
of his power and malignity. Our Lord is said to have
been "manifested that He might destroy the works of
the Devil " (1 John iii. 8). And at that time the anti
thesis between the redemptive power and the destructive
20
306 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
came very strongly out in a hundred points. And the
Apocalypse, which may be called the drama of Christ, throws
the action into the form of a conflict between Satan him
self and those whom he inspires and in whom he is
incarnate, such as the Beast on the one hand, and the
Saviour with His Saints on the other. But there is no
dualism, no power of evil co-ordinate with God : " Greater
is He that is in us than he that is in the world" (1 John
iv. 4). And this view prevails very strongly in the Old
Testament, and it is not amiss for us to recur to it when
weary or like to faint in our minds.
X. DOGTEINE OF REDEMPTION PRIESTHOOD
AND ATONEMENT.
I. The Priest.
The four great ideal, or as they are sometimes called
typical, figures in the Old Testament, namely, the Prophet,
the King, the Priest, and the Servant of the Lord, have
each their special significance. They have this both in
themselves and in the ideal character in which they point
to that which shall be when the perfect and final condition
of the theocracy is realised. The last-mentioned, sometimes
the saint or the holy one, sometimes the people, is, as the
name indicates, one who serves the Lord, that is, in bringing
His truth to the nations. The service rendered by this
Servant of the Lord is a public redemptive service ; and
what makes the figure of this personality so remarkable
is the suffering which he undergoes in his great vocation of
serving Jehovah. At present, however, we look at certain
points relating to the Priest.
It is remarkable that in the Old Testament the priest
himself is not to so large an extent a redemptive figure as
we should anticipate. And the features which are attri
buted to him in the New Testament are partly borrowed
from the more sublime figure of the Servant of the Lord in
THE IDEA OF PRIESTHOOD 307
Isaiah. The sacrificial system is left in the Old Testament
without explanation as regards redemptive relations, except
in a general way. Throughout the Scriptures, till we reach
the final chapters of Isaiah, the animal sacrifices receive no
explanation, and are not lifted up into any higher region.
In the final chapters of Isaiah a step is taken which is of
the profoundest significance. Sacrifice is translated out of
the animal sphere into that of the human. The Servant
makes himself an offering for sin. To us who are familiar
with this idea the immense advance made in this conception
is apt to be overlooked.
The word priest means, perhaps, minister, that is, one
who serves Jehovah in worship. The covenant is a state
of relation between God and men, in which He is their
God and they are His people, which means His worshipping
people. The term which expresses their translation into
the state of fitness to serve Jehovah in all the exercises of
worship is * sanctify/ Sanctification or consecration is
effected through a sacrifice of purification, by which the
people is cleansed from sins to serve God. The term
expressing this condition of the people in covenant with
God as His worshipping people is holy. Now the
covenant was made with the people, Hence they were a
* holy nation, that is, a nation dedicated to Jehovah for His
service. The idea of service is an essential element of the
idea of sanctity or holiness in the people ; because this is
the only sense in which moral beings can belong to
Jehovah, namely, as His worshippers, doing Him service.
Now, to serve Jehovah thus in His worship is to be a
priest. Hence Israel is called a kingdom of priests. The
nation was priest or minister of the Lord, and every
member of it was privileged to draw near to Him in service.
Now, it is very necessary to maintain this point of view ;
for otherwise some things in the history of Israel will re
main unexplained. Israel is a priestly people, and ideally
no Israelite has any privileges over another in drawing
near and presenting offerings before Jehovah. Throughout
the history of Israel we find this privilege largely taken
308 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
advantage of. Any Israelite felt himself entitled to offer
sacrifice before the Lord. Gideon, Manoah the father of
Samson, King Saul, David, Solomon, every person, where
duty prompted, offered sacrifice to the Lord. It was the
privilege of Israelites.
This privilege of individuals, however, did not interfere
with a public and national worship, any more than this
later superseded it. The covenant was made with the
people, which was a unity. And the worship of this
unity was carried on in a central sanctuary. Further, it
is evident that it had to be carried on by a representative
body called priests, for the whole nation could not at all
times assemble within the central sanctuary. It had to be
carried on by a smaller body for other reasons also, chiefly in
order to indicate what the conditions of such service were,
and in what state of sanctity those must be who approached
to worship Jehovah. The parallel may be drawn between
the condition of things in Israel and that in the Christian
Church. Worship and mutual edification are the objects
had in view by the Christian people, and for these ends
they meet in public worship. But it is manifest that the
general body must, so to speak, resolve or condense itself
into a smaller body of persons who become in a manner its
representatives, if these great ends are to be well carried
out. It was the same in Israel. The priestly body were
the representatives of the people. But the existence of
the priestly class as representatives of the people did not
supersede or absorb the priestly privileges of the individual,
any more than the ministry of the Church supersedes the
ministry in prayer and exhortation of the father and the
individual.
The selection of a priestly class to minister before the
Lord was necessary from the nature of the circumstances in
which the people were placed ; but, besides being necessary,
it was very suitable for the purpose of impressing upon
men s minds what the true requirements of serving the
Lord were. Those who draw near in service to Him must
be like Him in character and mind. This necessity, if it
QUALITIES OF PRIESTHOOD 309
could not be actually realised, could at least be symbolised
in so graphic a way as to teach it. The imperfect holiness
of the holy nation made the priesthood necessary. As
Ewald says : " In the sacred community of Jahveh the
original purity which, strictly speaking, ought always to
be maintained there, is constantly receiving various stains,
noticed or unnoticed, expiated or unatoned for ... and
the whole community, while it felt the necessity for
strictest purity, felt also that Jahveh s sanctuary dwelt in
the midst of the countless impurities of the people, and
was never free from their defilement. Between the sanctity
of Jahveh and the perpetually sin-stained condition of the
people there is therefore a chasm which seems infinite.
All the offerings and gifts which the members of the
community bring are only like a partial expiation and
payment of a debt which is never entirely wiped out. To
wipe out all these stains, to bear the guilt of the nation,
and constantly to restore the Divine grace, is the final
office of the priest. How hard a one duly to fulfil ! "
(Antiq., Solly s trans., p. 271).
If a sacerdotal caste is to maintain for Israel the
relations with Jehovah which Israel ought as a whole to
maintain, this caste must possess in a greater degree than
Israel the qualities of sanctity and purity essential to
fellowship with Jehovah. In order to secure this, an
elaborate system of selection and purification was carried
on. First, the basis of the priestly caste was made very
wide. The sanctuary and presence of Jehovah was sur
rounded by a deep mass of specially consecrated persons,
the outer circle of which stood far away from it, although
nearer it than the ordinary Israelite. There took place
within the class of priestly servants a process of exclusion
and narrowing, reducing the number and elevating the
sanctity, as the approach was made to the presence of the
Lord. First a special tribe was set apart, that of Levi,
which alone was privileged to perform any act of service
connected with the tabernacle. Then, second, within this
wider circle was the narrower one of the priests, or sons of
310 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Aaron, who alone could minister directly before God,
although they were only admitted to the mediate nearness
represented by the holy place. And, finally, gathering up
all the virtue and sanctity of the class into himself, there
was the high priest, who alone could enter the holiest of
all, although even he could enter only once a year.
The other line of sanctification consisted not in
diminishing the number of the caste, but in the symbolical
acts of purification. Had it been possible to secure really
greater godliness in the priest, it would have been de
manded. But what could not be secured in reality was
expressed in symbol. The priest must be bodily free from
all deformity. Then he went through numerous lustrations
and purifications by many kinds of sacrifices. Then to
exhibit the purity needful for his office he was clothed in
linen clean and white.
Notwithstanding these distinctions between the priest
hood and the people, the strictly representative character
of the priests, particularly of the high priest, is the
important point in the institution. In the services of the
priesthood Israel was itself serving the Lord. The priest
hood was an idealised and purified Israel performing the
service before Jehovah. In the priesthood Israel offered
its sacrifices to the Lord, and in the priesthood it carried
away the blessing, righteousness from the God of salvation.
The meaning of the sacrificial system is of importance
here. The great primary fact to start from is that of the
state of covenant relation between God and the worshipping
people. Though in covenant, the people were not thought
of as sinless. They might fall into errors, and they were
compassed with infirmities. For these sins of infirmity, or
ignorance as they were called, an atonement was provided
in the sacrificial system. This is the meaning of the
system. It is an institution provided of God for sins
committed within the covenant. For some sins there was
no atonement ; sins done with a high hand cut a man oft
from the covenant people. But for all sins of error, which
included not only sins done ignorantly, but sins of infirmity
THE ORIGIN OF SACRIFICE 311
though committed consciously, the sacrificial system pro
vided an expiation. The effect of them was to restore
those who offered them to their place in the covenant
which they had forfeited.
There are two passages regarding the priest in Zecha-
riah. In one (vi. 11) the priest is crowned. He does not
seem, however, to be identified with the Messiah, the man
the Branch. Eather the future is modelled upon the con
dition of things then existing. There were two heads to
the State, symbolised by the two olive trees, the civil
head and the hierarchical. These two are not conceived as
united in one person ; but the counsel of peace is between
them both. Both sit on a throne, and they act in concord.
In the other passage (iii. 15) the high priest Joshua
represents the people. His filthy garments are removed,
and he is clothed with rich apparel ; in token that the
sins of the people whom he represents are taken away,
and they are clothed with holiness before the Lord.
2. Sacrifice.
We have to notice here, however, two questions which
have been raised regarding sacrifice. These are, first, the
question as to how it originated ; and, second, the question
as to the primitive idea connected with it, or expressed
by it. There is much difference of opinion in regard to
both these questions. On the first question there are
two views which may be noticed here. There is, first,
the view that sacrifice was ordained and suggested to men
directly by God. This is the idea that it is part of a
primitive revelation. To this theory there are two objec
tions: (1) The Old Testament gives no countenance to it.
The reference to sacrifice in the story of Cain and Abel
seems to regard their offerings rather as spontaneous, the
instinctive expression of their feeling of dependence on
God and thankfulness to Him. The Priests Code, it is
true, regards sacrifice in Israel as due directly to God s
commands to Moses, Hence this writing recognises no
312 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
offering of sacrifice prior to Moses, maintaining perfect
silence regarding such sacrifices as that of Noah after the
Flood, those of Abraham and the patriarchs, and all pre
ceding the Exodus. But the author s silence can hardly
be treated as any evidence of his view of the origin of
sacrifice in general, but only of the sacrifices operating
in Israel. This work is a history of Israel s sacred institu
tions ^institutions which, at the time when the book was
written, had attained their full development, and were in
that sense God s final revelation to His people as to how
He desired to be served. And (2) the universal prevalence
of sacrifice among the heathen nations seems to imply
that sacrifice was in some way a natural expression of
man s sense of his relation to God. The hypothesis of a
primitive revelation, the remains of which lingered among
all the peoples of the world, and which expressed itself
through sacrifice, is precarious. It certainly cannot be
proved ; and to explain sacrifice by it must leave the
origin of that institution involved in the same precarious
and hypothetical condition.
But this leads to the other question, What was the
primitive idea underlying sacrifice ? The answers have
mainly run on two lines, the ethical, and what might be
called the physical. It has been supposed that man s
sense of evil, of his own inadequate service to God, and of
God s holiness, made him feel that reparation was due to
God, and that he deserved death. Hence, to express this
feeling, he brought living creatures to God as his own sub
stitutes, inflicting on them the penalty of death deserved
by himself. Sacrifice was thus from the first piacular and
propitiatory. The objection to this idea is, that it seems to
assume ideas present in the mind of primitive man as the
subject of his own sin, and of death as the deserved
penalty of it, which rather belong to an advanced period
of ethical reflection. And the same objection applies,
though in less degree, to a variety of the above view,
which regards sacrifice as the expression of homage
and dependence ; in other words, a sort of acted prayer.
THE ESSENTIAL IDEA OF SACRIFICE 313
Action rather than words, it is argued, is what is to be
expected of primitive life ; and this act was sacrifice. So,
e.g., F. D. Maurice. See his Theological Essays and his
Doctrine of Sacrifice deduced from the Scriptures.
TUs view differs not very greatly from another one, that
sacrifice or offering was of the nature of a gift to please
the deity, and so obtain from him what was desired, whether
it was the pacification of his anger and the cessation of
calamities, or success in the struggle with enemies, or, in a
higher stage of thought, the joy of fellowship with him,
and the sense of being pleasing in his sight.
These views all move more or less on ethical lines.
Quite a different view has been advocated by Professors
Eobertson Smith and Wellhausen. 1 In the view of these
scholars the essential idea of sacrifice is to be observed in
the sacrificial meal the communion of the deity and
man in a common sacramental food. The god and the tribe
were one ; or, if the god was estranged, it was only a tem
porary estrangement. The idea that a common partaking
of food united in a bond of friendship or covenant those
who so partook, was a usual one. The idea was trans
ferred to the sphere of Divine and human relations. The
common sacrificial meal, as it cemented the union of men
with men, cemented also the union of the deity and men ;
or if the union had been partially or temporarily strained,
it could never be more, for the god was one with the
tribe, it restored it. The participants on the human side,
by eating food in common, confirmed their union one with
another ; and by giving the god part of the sacrifice, e.g.
smearing the blood on stones which he inhabited, and
which more lately developed into an altar, they allowed
him also to participate, and so cemented his union with
them. He was thus one with them, their help and stay
in all the vicissitudes of their life. As thought advanced,
this action carried moral meaning with it ; although
originally the idea was more that of a physical union,
1 See the Skizzen und Vorarleiten of the latter, and The Religion of the
Semites of the former. ED.
314 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
the common material food binding all who partook of
it into one physical body.
A fragment of this primitive theory is supposed still to
be seen in the Hebrew sacrificial meal after offering to the
God. It is doubtful if this construction of the meaning of
the sacrificial meal anywhere appears in the Old Testament ;
but it is common for a usage to maintain itself long after
the original idea which it expressed has ceased to be con
nected with it.
Those who maintain this theory have considerable diffi
culty in explaining how this primitive idea gradually
ramified into the conceptions connected with sacrifice which
we find prevailing from the beginning of the historical
period among the Hebrews. If sacrifice was a common
sacramental meal between men and the god, how did such a
sacrifice as the Ws) or <"6ty arise, the whole burnt-offering,
which was wholly given to the deity, and of which men
did not partake at all ?
The explanation is connected with the advance in social
conditions, which suggested new ideas. In the earliest
times, it was the tribe that had existence and owned
property, it and the god in common. All sacrifices were
tribal, cementing the union of the tribe and the god. The
individual had no property, no separate being or place.
This was the condition in a nomad state. But when the
people passed into an agricultural life he had something
really his own, his land, his cattle. If he owed them to
the god, still they were his in the sense that they did not
belong to the tribe or the people. He was, so to speak,
in personal relation to the deity. If the old idea of a
sacramental meal still prevailed, he could present his offer
ing for himself. But naturally the idea would arise in his
mind that he could now present a gift to his god, it might
be out of thankfulness and in return for much that he had
received, or it might be to placate the god s anger if he
seemed estranged, or it might be for other reason. Sacrifice
began to express the idea of a gift to God with the view
of pleasing Him.
DISTINCTIONS OF SINS 315
Whatever the historical evolution of the idea of sacrifice,
or whatever its primary idea, it seems certain that this idea
of a gift or offering to God is the prevailing idea in the
Hebrew religion from the earliest. The sacrifices of Cain
and Abel are called a ni ??9> a present.
If there is dissidence and diversity of opinion between
prophets and people, it is not on the general idea that an
offering or service is pleasing to the Deity, but on what
is the offering that is pleasing, these material offerings
of flesh, or the service of the mind in obedience and
righteousness.
3. Atonement and Forgiveness
We may notice here a few points, particularly some
distinctions, which it is useful to keep in mind, and which
are helpful to the understanding of the Old Testament view
on these subjects. (1) A distinction is drawn in the Old
Testament, as we have seen, between sins of ignorance or
inadvertence and sins done with a high hand or of purpose.
The former are called chiefly nw, the latter are said to be
done nip 1 ! T2. The former class embraced more than mere
involuntary or inadvertent sins. The class comprehended
all sins done not in a spirit of rebellion against the law
or ordinance of Jehovah sins committed through human
imperfection, or human ignorance, or human passion ; sins
done when the mind was directed to some end connected
with human weakness or selfishness, but not formally
opposed to the authority of the Lawgiver. The distinction
was thus primarily a distinction in regard to the state of
mind of the transgressor. In point of fact, however, it
was convenient to specify in general the offences that
belonged to the class of sins done with a high hand, and
upon the whole they were the sins forbidden by the moral
law. No doubt, in certain circumstances even these sins,
if committed involuntarily, were treated as sins of error,
and the penalty due to them was averted by certain extra
ordinary arrangements ; as for example, when a murder was
316 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
committed by misadventure, the manslayer was allowed
to flee to a city of refuge. Otherwise the consequence of
his deed would overtake him in the ordinary penalty
attached to such an offence, which was death.
(2) Corresponding to this distinction among offences
was another. Only sins of ignorance, as we have said,
were capable of being atoned for by sacrifice. The class
of offences said to be done with a high hand were capital,
and followed by excision from the community. The sins
of error or ignorance could be removed by sacrifice and
offering. In other words, the Old Testament sacrificial
system was a system of atonement only for the so-called
sins of inadvertency.
(3) This distinction may be put in other terms in
terms of the covenant. The sins done with a high hand
threw those committing them outside the covenant re
lation. They were an infraction of the fundamental con
ditions of the covenant union. Such a sin as idolatry,
homage to another deity than Jehovah, infringed the first
principle of the covenant relation, the basis of which was
that Jehovah was God of Israel. The sinner who had
committed such an offence had withdrawn himself from
the sphere within which Jehovah was gracious ; there
stood nothing between him and the anger of Jehovah for
his sins, and especially for this the greatest possible sin.
The sins of ignorance, on the other hand, were sins of
human frailty, offences not amounting to an infraction of
the very conditions of the covenant ; but though disturbing
to the relations between a God of holiness and His people,
offences that were not immediately destructive of these
relations, and permitting the relations to continue, pro
vided they were removed by the means appointed by
Jehovah for that purpose, and not voluntarily persevered
in or neglected. And the sacrificial or Levitical ritual
system was the means appointed for obviating the con
sequences of these inevitable offences.
The sacrifices were thus offered to a God already in
relations of grace with His people. They were not offered
UNCLEANNESS AND ITS REMOVAL 317
in order to attain His grace, but to retain it or to prevent
the communion existing between Him and His people being
disturbed or broken by the still inevitable imperfections of
His people, whether as individuals or as a whole. It is
argued by some that such a conception as this of a people
in communion with their God, a communion only liable to
be disturbed now by such mere offences of frailty, points to
a period in the people s history posterior to the prophetic
age, when idolatry and the gross offences assailed by the
prophets no longer existed. It must be admitted at once
that at no period of the people s history prior to the
return from exile did the condition of the people and this
idea embodied in the sacrificial system correspond in fact.
But that would not at once entitle us to infer that the
ideal itself was not of much greater antiquity. At all
events the Old Testament sacrificial system belonged to
the worship of the people of God, conceived as truly His
people, believing in Him and in fellowship with Him.
And it was a means of maintaining this fellowship, of
equating and removing the disturbances which human
frailties occasioned to this communion. Hence the pre
vailing conception of Jehovah in all the ordinances of the
system is that of holiness a purity as of light which
human imperfections disturb, and which when disturbed
reacts and becomes a fire that consumes.
It cannot be denied that this idea of the Divine
holiness in the law draws up into it not merely moral
holiness, that is, freedom from and reaction against all
moral evil, but also a considerable aesthetic element. The
Divine holiness re-acts against much that is on man s
side merely an uncleanness, and requires its removal
by washings, before the fellowship can be maintained or
renewed. A deeper study of these points, such as the
uncleanness arising from touching the dead, the woman s
uncleanness from childbirth, and much more, might reveal
to us some moral conception underlying the ordinance.
If the ritual system be late, this supposition would become
even more probable ; if it were very early, we might
318 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
perhaps more readily acquiesce in the idea that the moral
and the physical were not yet strictly distinguished.
There were thus in Israel two streams of conception re
garding God, running side by side. In the one as seen
in the historical and prophetic literature Jehovah is a
King, a righteous Ruler and Judge, who punishes sin judi
cially, or forgives it freely of His mercy, requiring only
repentance. In the other, Jehovah is a holy person,
dwelling in a house among His people, who approach to
worship Him ; a being, or a nature, sensitive in His holiness
to all uncleanness in that which is near Him, and requir
ing its removal by lustrations and atonement.
On the other hand, the other class of sins referred to
threw the offender outside the sphere within which God
was continuously gracious. There was no sacrifice for
such sins. The offender was left face to face with the
anger of God. Here the offender has to reckon not so
much with the Divine holiness, as with the Divine right
eousness, and wrath against sin. At all events he has no
refuge to flee to except God Himself. And these cases
are of extreme interest because they polarise, so to speak,
the Divine nature itself the two poles being His wrath
against sin and His mercy. And the latter appears the
more powerful of the two, and ultimately prevails, although
not usually at once, nor without some terrible illustration
of God s wrath against evil. It is, of course, with this
class of sins that the prophets deal almost exclusively
sins throwing the nation outside the covenant limits. And
they express the consciousness of the true nature of these
sins and their inevitable consequences. And some may
think that just here lies the explanation of their assaults
upon the sacrificial system. The people thought that
redoubled assiduity in ritual and increase in the splendour
of their gifts would atone for their offences, however great.
But their idea was a misconception of the very principle
of the ritual system, which had respect only to those true
to the fundamental conditions of the covenant relations
which they had transgressed. Of course, many other false
ATONEMENT AND ITS MEANS 319
conceptions were mingled together in their minds, due
partly to the fact that the sacrifices were of the nature of
a gift to Jehovah.
(4) But now this distinction between the two classes
of sins being had in mind, and the distinction between
sins and persons for whom sacrifice is available and those
for whom it is not being remembered, the next point is
that of atonement, and the means by which it may be
effected. The word which has been translated atone is,
in Hebrew, 1B3. Now, in point of fact, this term is used
both of sins done within the covenant and sins which
threw the offender outside the covenant. The former sins
were atoned by the sacrifices, more specifically by the blood
of the sacrifices ; the latter could not be atoned by this
means at least, in general. Now, it is evident that in
order to obtain a general view of the Old Testament
teaching on atonement, both classes of sins and their
treatment must be kept before us.
The sacrifices atoned for the sins of those who were
truly Jehovah s people ; they were ordinances of God
already in fellowship with men, to whom He was gracious,
in fact. They had not respect at all to Jehovah s actual
wrath they had respect only to His holy nature, and the
danger that it might react against uncleanness or sin in
those who approached Him as His people. Atonement of
offences in this relation could hardly furnish us with a
general conception of what atonement is. No doubt, the
principle may be the same in all cases. But at all events
the other class of cases will be more instructive in this at
least, that they will show us the Divine mind in a greater
variety of conditions. Even any inferences we might
draw, however, from atonement of sins that in theory and
principle were outside the covenant, may scarcely be held
available to form a general and abstract idea of atonement
applicable universally ; because even when Jehovah was
dealing with the sinners who had broken His covenant
they were the sinners of His people, He remembered in
them the kindness of their youth (Jer. ii. 2) they were
320 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
the seed of Abraham His friend, whom He had chosen and
not cast away (Isa. xli. 8). And how far the principles
observed even in His treatment of the covenant-breakers
of Israel might be applied to the sinners of mankind
generally, might need consideration.
There are two classes of passages which have to be
considered. They express different shades of conception
regarding the Divine Being. The one class bears upon
His holiness, the other on His righteousness.
In the class having reference to worship, the Divine
nature is considered more as something which instinctively
reacts against human unholiness. The worshippers coming
into His courts are in His personal presence, His nature
and theirs come into direct union, and hence the danger
to a nature impure. In the other class of cases the sinner
is not in Jehovah s presence. Jehovah is rather the ruler,
and His action is strictly moral. His will and moral right
eousness, rather than His physical nature, come into pro
minence. It may be best to take this class of passages
first.
The word "132, rendered atone t means properly to cover.
Hence its synonym HD3 is not unfrequently employed
instead of it, as in Ps. xxxii. : " Blessed is he whose trans
gression is covered" Naturally a covering may be pro
tective, or it may have the effect of making the thing
covered inoperative ; it may invalidate its natural effect,
or annul it. Hence Isaiah says (xxviii. 18): " Your
covenant with death shall be disannulled, "1S31." Now it is
with some such general sense that the word is used of
sin; it is covered so that its operation is hindered, its
effects are invalidated. In what sense this is done will
best appear if one or two points be stated in order.
(a) In these cases of extra-ritual atonement the object
of atonement is the sin, or offence, of whatever kind it be,
e.g. Ps. Ixv. 3 : " Iniquities prevail against us : as for our
transgressions, Thou shalt atone them, D^Mfi," E.V. " purge
them away." Ps. Ixxviii. 38: "But He, being full of com
passion, atoned iniquity," "IS?* 1 ., E.V. "forgave." Isa. vi. 7:
THE COVERING OF SIX 321
" Thine iniquities shall depart, and thy sin shall be atoned,
"ispsri." Jer. xviii. 23:" Thou, Lord, knowest all their counsel
against me to slay me : atone not Thou their iniquity,
"isorrpK." Instead of "122, the verb of similar sense, HDII to
cover, is sometimes used ; Ps. Ixxxv. 3 : " Thou hast taken
away the iniquity of Thy people : Thou hast covered all
their sin/ rPB3. The immediate effect of the covering is
upon the sin: It is of importance to notice that it is never
primarily an effect produced upon Jehovah Himself, nor
upon His face, nor upon His wrath. The atonement may
take place before the Lord, or in His presence (Lev. vi. 7),
but the Lord Himself is never the object. His face or
eyes are not covered so that He does not see the sin or
offence or unholiness of the sinner ; the sin is covered and
withdrawn from His sight. Similar ideas are expressed by
the phrase, " I am He that blotteth out thy transgression like
a cloud" (Isa. xliv. 22) ; and by such figures as casting the
people s sins into the depth of the sea (Mic. vii. 19), cast
ing them behind His back (Isa. xxxviii. 17). It might
seem that the difference is not great between covering a
sin so that God s eyes do not see it, and inducing Him to
turn away His eyes from it ; and the Psalmist (Ps. li. 9)
actually prays : " Hide Thy face from my sin." Still there
must be something in the usage, and it no doubt suggests
these general ideas: (1) that the sin itself must in some
way be done away, and made invalid ; (2) that without
this no gifts can operate on the Divine anger He is not
induced by influences from without, but moved from within
Himself.
(b) A second point in this class of offences is that the
subject who atones is usually God Himself He covers the
sin. Ps. Ixv. 3 : "As for our transgressions, Thou dost
atone (or, cover) them." In general this is the representa
tion, though occasionally another subject intervenes, as
Moses the mediator of the covenant, and others who re
present the people. The meaning of atoning sin, then,
may, in general, be said to be this, it is covering it so that
the eyes of Jehovah do not behold it, and His anger
21
322 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
against it is quenched ; and none but Himself can effect
this.
(c) The means whereby sin is covered in these extra-
ritual cases are various. The fact that He Himself is
represented as the subject who performs the covering or
atonement, shows how profoundly the feeling had taken
possession of the people s mind that in whatever way sin
was to be invalidated, and its effects neutralised, ultimately
its removal must be due to God ; that He was not moved
by something or anything outside of Him, but that the
movement came from within Himself, whatever the im
mediate means were of which He made use. Hence in the
widest sense, His own sense of Himself, considerations taken
from His whole being, and His relations to men, may inter
vene between men s sin and His anger ; Ps. Ixxix. 9 : " Help
us, God of our salvation, for the glory of Thy name . . .
cover our sins, for Thy name s sake." " Who is a God like
unto Thee, pardoning iniquity ? " (Mic. vii. 18); or less widely,
some one prevailing attribute, such as His compassion ; Ps.
Ixxviii. 38:" But He, being full of compassion, covered
their iniquity." As has been said, the effect of sin was,
so to speak, to polarise the Divine nature, and to draw
out powerfully the consuming anger ; yet the prevail
ing tone of His nature might come between and cover
the iniquity, so that His anger was turned away. There is,
perhaps, no passage that illustrates the general idea that
atoning or covering of sin must proceed from the Lord
Himself, whatever means He employs, better than the
passage in Tsa. vi. The ideas of the passage have un
doubtedly a certain resemblance to the Pentateuchal
passages, though the means of atonement are very general.
The prophet s uncleanness was removed by a messenger
sent from the presence of the Lord ; and, second, by a coal
taken from His altar, where He is Himself most present.
And the coal had in it a Divine power; both the agent
and the means came directly from the Lord.
I am afraid these remarks leave the question somewhat
indefinite ; but probably it is left somewhat indefinite in
THE DIVINE WRATH AND ITS REMOVAL 323
the Old Testament, the definite points being only these :
that it is the sin that is covered ; that covering it means
withdrawing its power to provoke the anger of God ; that
usually it is God Himself who covers it ; that the motives
are drawn from His own nature, and the initiative is His ;
and that the means, where mentioned at all, are appointed by
Him, though the motives and the means are usually identical.
There are two or three historical passages of considerable
interest ; for example, the instance of the golden calf made
by Aaron (Ex. xxxii.), and the instance of the whoredom
of the people in the plains of Moab in connection with
Baal Peor (Num. xxv.). In these instances there are
several things: (1) a breach of the covenant; (2) an out
break of Divine wrath in the form of a plague ; and (3)
the intervention of a human agent : in the one case Moses,
who interceded with Jehovah ; and in the other Phinehas,
who executed vengeance upon the chief transgressors. In
both cases the covering of the sin of the people followed.
Now the two points of interest are: (1) that the Divine
anger to a certain extent took effect in the plague and
slaughter. It was manifested and illustrated so far as in
some degree to satisfy it. And (2) a human agent inter
vened to effect the covering of the sin. On what ground
was the action of Moses or Phinehas a covering of the
people s sin ? It was, perhaps, on the principle of solidarity.
The anger of Jehovah was kindled against the whole people,
and threatened to consume them utterly. But these men
were of the people. Moses was a mediator and representa
tive of the people, and not in any way involved in their
sin ; and he was a prince and leader, and showed his zeal
for the Lord. In point of fact, though many had broken
the covenant, it had not been broken by the people as a
whole. And God had respect to His covenant, and covered
the offence of the sinners. It is this principle of solidarity,
perhaps, that explains the intercession of the prophets.
Amos twice interceded and was heard. But both Jeremiah
and Ezekiel are warned that their intercessions will not be
listened to.
324 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
But the other point is of chief interest in regard to the
prophet Isaiah. Of course, to punish for sin and to cover
sin are ideas opposed to one another. If the people bear
their sin in Divine chastisement, there is no covering of it.
But it is to be noted that the penalty of breach of the
covenant is not mere chastisement, but destruction. Now
the question suggests itself, whether chastisement to a less
degree than destruction might not be held a covering of
sin in God s mercy. Strictly, it was not a covering, but
might it not be considered so ? In this case there would
be a union of means acting as * covering : first, the satis
faction so far of the punitive wrath, and, second, the mercy
of God intervening to regard it as enough as it is said in
Isa. xl. 2 : " She has received of the Lord s hand double
for all her sins."
4. Atonement by Priest and Hic/li Priest.
Anticipating in some measure what has to bs noticed
further on, we may say here that the points in connection
with atonement in the sacrifices that entered into worship
are not numerous, although they are of importance. They
are two.
(1) The subject who atones in this case is no more God
Himself, but the priest, or, when the atonement is made
for the whole people, the high priest. This is not, perhaps,
a great change, as the priest is appointed of God. But the
procedure of atoning is now something ordinary, and not
left to the mercy of God. In particular instances He has
appointed standing ordinances and persons for accomplish
ing it. It is still an ordinance, proceeding in all its parts
from Him ; but it is now a standing ordinance.
(2) The object of atonement is still the sins of the
offender, whether individual or people. In this case, how
ever, the language differs considerably from that previously
used. It is more commonly not the sins of the offenders,
but the persons or souls or lives of the offenders that are
covered. The change is due to the circumstances. The
THE EFFICACY OF ATONEMENT 325
persons in question now are not strictly sinners afar from
God. They are His worshippers entering into His courts ;
and the danger is of His nature reacting against them and
consuming them, as in Isa. vi. Of course the danger in
the other class of cases was to the person of the sinner
ultimately ; but in these cases the sinner was not a
worshipper in Jehovah s presence, and it was rather God s
judicial sentence that he had to fear. If anything were
needed to show that the danger feared is, so to speak, from
the nature of God and His presence, it is the fact that not
only the persons drawing near to Him needed to be atoned
or covered by blood, but the same necessity existed for the
tabernacle, or house itself, and all its furniture. These
contracted uncleanness, perhaps, from the presence in them
of sinful men, and they had to be covered by sacrificial
blood. This is a very profound idea of the Divine holi
ness ; and when we extend it from the mere idea of
worship to His universal presence, it becomes very
suggestive.
(3) The means of atonement in this case are always the
blood of the sacrifice. Sometimes the efficacy appears to
be ascribed to the whole sacrificial arrangement, but never
unless the arrangement contained a bleeding sacrifice.
The chief atoning sacrifices are the sin-offering, the guilt-
offering, and the whole burnt-offering.
The passage in Lev. xvii. 1 1 gives the fullest account of
the principle of atonement. " The life 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 the blood atoneth in
virtue of the life." This law prohibits the eating of blood,
and states the reason. The life is in the blood, and the
blood is given to make atonement ; and this atonement the
blood effects in virtue of the life which it contains. Atone
ment is here represented as made not for sins, but for souls
or persons. The blood makes this atonement, covers the
persons : it does so because it contains the life. But no
explanation is given of the principle how the blood witli
the life in it covers the persons, i.e. atones. The passage
326 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
is silent on the principle ; but the ordinance is an ordinance
of God : " I have given it to you upon the altar."
Thus the Old Testament doctrine of atonement runs on
two lines, which perhaps, in the Old Testament, do not
meet or coincide.
The Christian doctrine, as expressed by St. Paul, has
united the two, taking from the first that which creates
the necessity of atonement, the moral righteousness of God ;
and from the second the means of atonement, the blood of
sacrifice, and making the one answer the other. The
apostle, of course, lays down universal principles applicable
to all men, Jews and Gentiles. He regards all sins as
inferring the wrath of God. All sins, in his view, belong
to the category of sins done with a high hand ; at least all
men are guilty of such sins. Knowing that such things
are worthy of death, they not only do them, but have
pleasure in those that do them. All men are guilty of
sinning wittingly. Thus the relation of God to all men is
to St. Paul the same as His relation was to sinners in Israel
with a high hand. He is Euler and Judge ; His righteous
ness and the sin come into connection. Of course, the
apostle refers forgiveness to the same source as the Old
Testament, the mercy or grace of God.
Then, as has been said, he unites the means used in the
second class of offences with this primary class, making the
sacrifice the means of atonement. The Old Testament has
not gone so far as this. It recognises the moral righteous
ness of Jehovah, which manifests itself in wrath against
sin. But for such sin there is not sacrificial atonement ;
the sinner s refuge is only in God Himself, in the prevailing
direction of the Divine mind, which is towards mercy and
compassion. And, secondly, it recognises infirmities and
impurities adhering to men even when truly in fellowship
with God as His people. And these infirmities of His
worshipping people disturb the Divine holiness, which is in
danger of manifesting itself destructively in opposition to
these imperfections of men, and the infirmities must be
atoned or covered, And the means of this covering is the
USE OF TERMS FOR ATONEMENT 327
blood of sacrifice in virtue of the life which it carries. It
is not easy to remove from this second conception the
elements of a relative kind which it contains, and the shade
of physical conception of the Divine nature peculiar to it,
so as to reach a pure general idea universally applicable.
5. The term Atone.
The references in the Old Testament are scattered
through it, and have regard to particular cases. There is
no single passage that states a formal or full doctrine upon
the subject. It is probable that a full doctrine of Atone
ment can hardly be obtained from the Old Testament even
by combining the passages. But traces of general ideas
may be discoverable, which lead in the direction of the
more complete New Testament doctrine.
(1) The word atone 123 is not now used in the Kal.
In Gen. vi. 14 : "Thou shalt pitch it with pitch," the word
is a denominative from the noun 1B3, pitch. The word
is now used only in Piel and its derivatives. Further, the
word is no more used in Scripture in its literal and
physical sense, but always in a transferred metaphorical
sense. The original meaning of the word, however, was
certainly to cover, and so put out of sight, or do away
with.
In the cognate languages it is used in the sense of to
deny, i.e. conceal a fact.
That the word means to cover originally appears
from the synonyms, e.g. HD3, to cover, put out of sight, and
so out of activity or influence, to annul or invalidate,
parall. to nno, Hot out. See Jer. xviii. 23 : wty ^ isari ta
Neh. iii. 37 (iv. 5) quotes this thus :
. o:ty *?y osn ^x. So Ps. Ixxxv. 3 :
" Thou hast taken away the guilt of Thy people, Thou hast
covered (JVB?) all their sin " ; Ps. xxxii. 1 : " Blessed is the
man whose sin is covered." In this extra-ritual use of
1S3 that which is atoned or covered is sin or guilt ; and
from the passage in Jeremiah it appears that it is covered
328 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
from Jehovah s sight TJ?^?. 1 With this idea may be
compared Ps. xc. 8 : " Thou hast set our iniquities before
Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance."
Similar figures, as we have said, are to remove or take
away sin, Isa. vi. 7 ; Ps. xxxii. 1 ; to blot it out, Jer.
xviii. 23; Isa. xliii. 25, xliv. 22; to cast into the depth
of the sea, Mic. vii. 19; to cast behind the back, Isa.
xxxviii. 17; cf . Ps. cix. 14: " Let the iniquity of his
fathers be remembered with the Lord ; and let not the
sin of his mother be blotted out." And so in the New
Covenant, Jehovah remembers sins no more. All these
figures express the idea that the sin is covered so as to
have all effects from it removed ; it is put out of sight,
invalidated, undone. In particular, Jehovah no more sees
it, and it exerts no influence upon Him. Hence the
Psalmist prays : " Hide Thy face from my sins," Ps. li. 9.
This sense of undoing or annulling or invalidating appears
in several passages, e.g. Isa. xxviii. 18, already referred
to : " Your covenant with death shall be disannulled "
("ispn); and Isa. xlvii. 11 speaks of a calamity which
" thou shalt not be able to neutralise." And there is
the interesting passage in Prov. xvi. 6 : " By goodness and
truth guilt or sin is atoned C" 1 ? 3 /.) for," which means
done away with, the results of it obviated ; it does not
mean that reparation is made by goodness and truth. In
all these passages the use of the word is metaphorical ; the
sense of literal covering no more obtains (cf. Gen. xxxii.
20 ; Prov. xvi. 14). It may, no doubt, be made a question,
seeing the word "is 3 is used in parallelism both with the
word nD3 cover, and also with nnij blot out, which of these
1 If n33 mean to cover, and "3 be a covering, the question, as we have
said, may be raised, and has indeed been raised, whether it be the sin that
is covered or God. Are God s eyes covered so that He does not see the
offence, or is the offence covered so that it is not seen by Him ? The
phrases used may suggest both sides, e.g. the second in the language, "Hide
Thy face from my sin ! " and the opposite, to "set our sins in the light of
His countenance." The effect is the same, whether God does not see the
offence, or it be not seen by Him, being invisible to Him. The questions
remain : (a) What produces this effect ? (b) How does this produce the
effect?
ATONEMENT AND FORGIVENESS 329
two ideas is the primary one in "is?. Some even think
that "IBS is a denominative from isb, a ransom. But
"iD3 5 ransom, is so named because it covers, "tB3 is properly
ransom money from a death penalty : " Save him from
going down to the pit ; I have found a ransom " (Job
xxxiii. 24), i.e. the ransom money covers the offence.
(2) In these extra-ritual passages the subject or agent
who atones (iD3) is, as we have said, usually God Him
self. He covers the sin ; and in this usage cover or
atone is almost equivalent to forgive, although the figure
is present to the mind of the writer. See the passages
already cited Jer. xviii. 23: "Cover not their sin";
Ps. Ixv. 3 : " Iniquities prevail against us : as for our trans
gressions, Thou wilt atone them cover them " (DnBsri) ;
Ps. Ixxviii. 38: "But he, being full of compassion,
atoned covered their iniquity." To these add Ps.
Ixxix. 9 : " Help us, God of our salvation ! atone, cover
our sins for Thy name s sake"; Ezek. xvi. 63: "Thou
shalt open thy mouth no more because of thy shame,
when I have forgiven atoned or covered to thee all
that thou hast done." It is to be observed that in these
passages Jehovah does not first atone or cover the sin, and
then follow this by forgiveness ; the atoning or covering is
merely a figure for forgiveness. It might be that naa in the
sense of forgive was a secondary usage, derived from the
primary sense of to cover or atone, either by a life ransom
or by a sacrifice ; and that the sense " forgive " was properly
to declare atoned for. It is a question of the genesis of
the sense forgive. If this were its genesis, forgive would
express properly the result of the covering or atoning the
sin ; and as this result always followed, the word cover or
atone would come to have the sense forgive when the subject
is God. However the usage arose, the sense forgive is the
usual one. Considering that "IBS is used in the ritual and
non-ritual sense, it is probable that even in the ritual
cover has not a literal, but a metaphorical sense ; and
that it is not said in regard of the blood being literally
laid on the object covered ; for in most cases it is not ; it is
330 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
brought before God, and even in the ritual it might be He
(or His eyes) that is covered.
(3) There is the question of the means that lead to
Jehovah s atoning or covering of sin, or the motives that
induce Him. This point opens out rather a wide inquiry.
It may be said, however, negatively, that sacrifice or offer
ing is never the means. None of the prophets, not even
Ezekiel, refers to sacrifice as the means of atonement
for the sins of the people ; God forgives of His grace
and mercy alone. It is possible that in Isa. liii. the
sacrificial idea may be present. There is, indeed, one
passage (1 Sam. iii. 14) where reference seems to be
made to a possible use of sacrifice wider than that which
it ordinarily has : " I have sworn that the iniquity of
Eli s house shall not be atoned, covered, with sacrifice
nor offering for ever." There is another passage also of
interest (1 Sam. xxvi. 19), where David says to Saul,
when remonstrating with him for his persecution of him :
" If it be the Lord that hath stirred thee up against me,
let Him smell an offering." The ideas here are : David
regards Saul s persecution of him as an aberration of mind,
possibly caused by God. If caused by God, it must be in
punishment of some inadvertent or unremembered sin of
which Saul had been guilty. Therefore for this sin let
him offer a sacrifice, that Jehovah may remove the
punishment the aberration of mind under which the
king suffers. This is, however, just the proper use of
sacrifice, namely, for sins of inadvertency.
There are several cases which at first sight look like
instances of sacrifice which are not so. One is the case in
Deut. xxi. 8. This was the case where a murdered body
was found, without its being possible to trace the murderer.
The elders of the city nearest to which the body was found
were to take an unblemished heifer, never subjected to
the yoke, bring her to a valley with running water, and
there slay her by breaking her neck. The elders were
to wash their hands over the heifer, and protest their
innocence, " Our hands have not shed this blood . . .
JUDICIAL ACTS 331
And they shall answer and say, Atone, Lord, for Thy
people Israel . . . suffer not innocent blood to remain
in the midst of Thy people. And the blood shall be
atoned (or, covered) to them." This is no sacrifice, but
a symbolical judicial action. That the animal was not
a sacrifice, is certain from the fact that her neck was
broken ; a thing absolutely forbidden in sacrifice, where
the blood must always be separated from the flesh. By
the murder, guilt was brought on the land, which of
right could be removed only by the death of the murderer.
In this case he could not be found, and a symbolical
execution was performed ; which, illustrating the principles
of justice, was held sufficient. A similar though more
painful and tragic instance occurs in 2 Sam. xxi. A
famine of three years afflicted the land in David s days, and
on inquiring the cause of the Lord, David was answered :
" It is for Saul and his bloody house, because he put to
death the Gibeonites." The narrator then explains to us
that the Gibeonites were not Israelites, but of the remnant
of the Amorites ; but the children of Israel had sworn to
them to spare them (Josh, ix.), and Saul sought to slay
them in his zeal for Judah. Eeceiving this answer, David
turned to the Gibeonites, asking : " By what means shall I
make atonement p^N n J?), that ye may bless the heritage
of the Lord ? " They answered : " The man that devised
evil against us ... let seven men of his sons be delivered
unto us, and we will hang them up unto the Lord." Now
this is not a sacrifice, but again of the nature of a judicial
transaction. Guilt lay on the land because of Saul s sin ;
this guilt was punished by God with famine : the guilty
person could no longer be made amenable himself, and he
was made amenable in his descendants. The case is
entirely analogous to that in Deuteronomy. They both
illustrate the principles of justice and of God s government.
The case of the Gibeonites is entirely similar to the
case of the manslayer, Num. xxxv. 32, 33: "Ye shall
take no ransom for the life of a manslayer who is guilty
of death. ... So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye
332 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
are : for blood polluteth the land : and no expiation can be
made for the land for the blood (D^ -B *6 fji) shed
therein, but by the blood of him that shed it." These
words are from the Pentateuch, and the idea is expressed
in terms of holiness and pollution.
As it is Jehovah who covers or atones sin, naturally
the motive is usually found in Himself. And here a pre
liminary point requires to be remembered. The effect of
sin upon Jehovah, whatever the sin was, whether idolatry,
wrong-doing, or disobedience, was to arouse His anger or
wrath. The Divine wrath, of course, is not an attribute
like His righteousness. Wrath in God is what it is in men,
an affection, a pathos, and is transient. The Divine
nature is capable of wrath, although God is slow to anger.
Then the natural result of wrath is punishment of the
wrong-doer. But as wrath is but an affection, and not
the fundamental character of the Divine mind, which rather
is long-suffering and compassion, this prevailing disposition
may so restrain the anger that no chastisement follows,
but there is forgiveness; Ps. Ixxviii. 38, 39: "They (the
people) were not faithful in His covenant. But He,
being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and de
stroyed them not : yea, many a time turned He His
anger away, and stirred not up all His wrath. For He
remembered that they were flesh." Very often God is
represented as restraining His anger " for His name s sake."
The phrase is peculiar to the later books, and embraces
a variety of ideas. In Isa. xl. and in Ezekiel this is
the idea expressed by the phrase : " Jehovah is God alone,
but He has become God of Israel." The nations know
Him only as Jehovah, the God of Israel. Therefore He
can reveal Himself to the nations only in connection
with Israel, for they know Him only as God of Israel.
His purpose is to reveal Himself to all flesh. But this
purpose can be effected only through Israel. Hence His
name, His honour as God alone, is involved in Israel s
history, whose God He is. He has begun a redemptive
work in the world with Israel, a work which is to embrace
JEHOVAH S REGARD FOR HIS NAME 333
the nations, and He cannot undo this work however Israel
may sin. This consideration restrains His anger against
Israel. So it is in the poem, Deut. xxxii. 26, 27 : "I
would make the remembrance of them (Israel) cease from
among men, were it not that I feared the provocation of
the enemy, lest their adversaries should misdeem, lest they
should say, Our hand is exalted."
In Ezek. xx. the whole course of Israel s history is
explained on this principle. That which has prolonged
the existence of Israel as a people, and given them a
history, is Jehovah s regard for His own name. He is
conscious of being God alone, and He has become God
of Israel ; in this light alone the nations know Him,
only thus does knowledge of Him reach the nations.
Therefore His name would be compromised in Israel s
destruction ; His work of redemption and revelation of
Himself to the nations begun upon the earth would be
obliterated and made of none effect. His preservation and
final redemption of His people Israel is that which reveals
His name, His sole Godhead, to the nations. Hence, even
when the trials of the Exile had failed to turn the hard
hearts of the people, Jehovah exclaims : " For My name s
sake do I defer Mine anger . . . that I cut thee not off.
I have refined thee, but not as silver " (i.e. not with the
result with which one refines silver). " For Mine own
sake, for Mine own sake do I do it : for how should My
name be profaned, and My glory will I not give to
another" (Isa. xlviii. 911). Naturally the expression,
His * name s sake, expresses many other things besides
this, such as the fact that Israel is His people whom
He hath redeemed, and His affection for their forefathers.
Thus in Deut. ix. 26-29, Moses prays: "0 Lord God,
destroy not Thy people and Thine inheritance, which Thou
hast redeemed. . . . Eemember Thy servants Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob ; look unto the stubbornness of this people
. . lest Egypt say, Because the Lord was not able to
bring them into the land which He promised them, and
because He hated them, therefore He slew them in the
334 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
wilderness. Yet they are Thy people and Thine in
heritance." We have the same circle of ideas in Ex.
xxxii. 10-14 and Num. xiv. 1520. In the latter
passage, Moses prays : " If Thou shalt kill this people
as one man, the nations which have heard the fame of
Thee will speak, saying, Because Jehovah was not able
to bring them into the land which He swore to give them,
therefore He slew them in the wilderness. And now . . .
let the power of my Lord be great, according as Thou
hast spoken, The Lord is slow to anger, and plenteous in
mercy . . . Pardon, I pray Thee, the iniquity of this
people according to the greatness of Thy mercy. And the
Lord said, I pardon according to thy word."
(4) There is another aspect of the case which is illus
trated in the history of the people in the wilderness, and in
all the prophets. In the history of the Exodus the anger
of God against the people s rebellion expressed itself in
plagues ; and in the prophets, in the people s subjugation
by the nations and ejection from their land, with all the
terrible sufferings connected with the Exile. Yet a full
end was not made of the people. The eyes of the Lord
are upon the sinful kingdom to destroy it, saving that He
will not altogether destroy the house of Jacob (Amos ix. 8).
The point here is that the righteous anger of Jehovah dis
played and enforced itself. It received, so far, a certain
illustration. Jehovah did not stir up all His wrath, nor
make a full end of the nation, which would have been the
natural penalty of their disobedience ; but His righteous
anger was displayed, and His rule vindicated so far. In
His returning mercy He might even feel that He had
chastised too harshly. " Speak comfortably to Jerusalem,
and say unto her, She hath received double for all her
sins" (Isa. xl. 2).
(5) And one other point may be referred to. A few
cases occur where human intercession is had respect to,
and God averts His anger and forgives. We have the
instance of Abraham in Gen. xviii. 2333. There is the
case in Amos (vii. 4-6). Preparations for destroying
ACTS OF INTERCESSION 335
Israel were shown him, and he prayed : " Lord, forgive,
I beseech Thee : how shall Jacob stand ? for he is small."
And the Lord said : " It shall not be." Jeremiah, again,
frequently intercedes for Israel, though both to him and
to Ezekiel the intimation is given that the time for inter
cession is past : " Though Moses and Samuel stood before
Me, My mind could not be toward this people : cast them
out of My sight" (Jer. xv. 1). In the wilderness, when
the people made the golden calf, Moses interceded with
effect : " The Lord said : ... it is a stiff-necked people.
Now therefore let Me alone, that My wrath may wax hot
against them, that I may consume them : and I will make
of thee a great nation" (Ex. xxxii. 9, 10). Moses prayed,
making the representations already quoted in the passage
in Num. xiv. And the Lord repented of the evil which
He thought to do to Israel. In a subsequent part of the
chapter there is recorded a slaughter of three thousand
men which the Levites made among the people. And
Moses said on the morrow to the people : " Ye have sinned
a great sin : and now I will go up unto the Lord ; per-
adventure I may, make an atonement (""nsaK fy$), for your
sin." Moses prayed : " Oh, this people have sinned a great
sin. Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin ; and if
not, blot me out of Thy book which Thou hast written."
Moses acknowledges the sin, and will not outlive the de
struction of the people. It is not certain what is meant
when he says : " Perhaps I may atone (or, cover) for your
sin " ; whether it is that he himself will be able to remove
it from God s sight, or that he will be able so to intercede
that God may cover it. The latter is probably the mean
ing, for Moses prays Jehovah to take away the people s sin.
So that his intercession does not atone in the technical
sense. Moses identifies himself with the people, devotedly
refusing life to himself if the people are to perish ; then
he profoundly feels and acknowledges the people s sin,
which from the relation he assumes to them may be con
sidered their confession.
There is an important passage in Num. xxv. 10-13.
.336 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
The case is that of the sin of Israel with the Midianitish
women. Phinehas, seeing an Israelite bring in a Midianitish
woman for purposes of fornication, smote them both through
with a dart. And the Lord said : " Phinehas hath turned
My wrath away from the children of Israel, in that he
was jealous with My jealousy among them, so that I con
sumed them not in My jealousy. Therefore I give unto
him my covenant of peace, because he was jealous for his
God, and made atonement for the children of Israel" (N??2).
This fornication appears to have been part of the religious
worship of the Baal of Peor. Here it is the zeal of
Phinehas that atones, his zeal expressing itself in the act
of vengeance upon the sinners. It does so because this
zeal is the zeal of Jehovah. Phinehas enters into Jehovah s
mind, acts in His mind, and thereby magnifies and sanctifies
Him. This atones.
In one instance, Num. xvi. 46 (Heb. xvii. 11), when
the plague had broken out among the people because of
the rebellion of Korah, incense atones : " Moses said unto
Aaron : Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the
altar, and put on incense, and go quickly into the con
gregation, and make atonement for them . . And he put
on incense, and made atonement for the people. And he
stood between the living and the dead, and the plague
was stayed." This is the only case where incense alone
has atoning power. The passage, however, ought rather to
be classed among the ritual passages.
The result of this examination of passages in regard to
forgiveness and atonement, though not very large, is of
interest. The chief points are these :
1. God alone forgives sin and covers it. To cover or
atone for it, when said of God, is a mere figure for forgive
ness, and means obliterating it, as the other word l blot
out implies.
2. Though sin excites the anger of God, anger is with
Him but a passing emotion, as the Psalmist (Ps. xxx. 5)
says : " His anger is but for a moment ; His favour for a
lifetime." The prevailing tone of His nature is mercy, and
WAYS OF SATISFACTION 337
on penitence and confession He is ready to forgive, apart
from all sacrifice or what is called atonement : " I said, I
will confess my trangressions unto the Lord ; and Thou
forgavest the iniquity of my sin " (Ps. xxxii. 5).
3. Motives to forgiveness, which He finds in Himself,
are many, e.g. His compassion, His memory of His former
servants the patriarchs "for My servant David s sake,"
respect to His covenant, and for His own name s sake ;
which last embraces a multitude of considerations, par
ticularly His universal redemptive purpose, which has been
begun in Israel and can be accomplished only through
Israel, whose God He is known to be, though he be God
alone.
4. The wrath called forth by the sin of individuals or of
His people often expresses itself in plagues on the people ;
and in all the prophets, in their humiliation under the
nations and exile from their land. Thus His righteous
anger receives a certain satisfaction it is displayed ; as
Isa. v. 16 expresses it, He is magnified in judgment and
sanctified in righteousness. His nature is revealed. His
righteousness is declared or shown (Eom. iii. 25). Yet a
full end is not made. He does not stir up His wrath, but
restrains it.
5. In another way satisfaction is rendered to Him, and
His anger is appeased namely, when men enter into His
just resentment, and, feeling it, act in the mind of God; as
when the Levites intervened to chastise the people for
their idolatry in worshipping the calf, or when Phinehas
was jealous with the jealousy of the Lord, and did judgment
upon the Israelitish prince and his Midianitish paramour.
More simply, God s anger is turned away, and sin covered
(atoned), by the intercession of His nearest servants, as
Abraham, Moses, Samuel. There is a solidarity between
these men and the people. Their confession of the people s
sin is the people s confession. And yet they are different ;
they are near to God. He has respect unto them. Their
intercession usually sets before God those great motives in
Himself from which He acts His compassion, His covenant,
22
338 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
His redemptive purpose already begun, His name s sake,
i.e. His sole Godhead, and yet His being known alone in
Israel. With the intercession there is always confession
of Israel s sin.
These are the main points in early literature. What
elements of the Christian doctrine they show is easily
seen.
Taking all these points together, three main principles
appear :
1. God s nature is gracious; from His nature Ke will
take away the sin of the world.
2. There may be in His operation in doing this, first,
a display of His righteous anger against sin ; and, second,
also on the part of sinful men or their representative, an
entering into this righteous indignation.
And, 3. On the part of those forgiven there must be
repentance, and trust in God s mercy.
6. Ritual use of the Term.
From Atonement, as it appears in the extra-ritual books
of the Old Testament, we pass now to the ritual atone
ment. The law or ritual legislation is very extensive, and
not altogether homogeneous, and does not formally give
any account of atonement. It regulates the offerings,
but it introduces us to the ritual system as already in
operation, without giving any account how it began, or
what are the principles embodied in it. Its two funda
mental positions are that all sacrifices must be offered at
one place ; and that only the priests, the sons of Aaron, can
offer or make atonement. There is one writer, however,
who stands half-way between the extra-ritual or prophetic
Scriptures and the ritual law, the prophet Ezekiel ; and we
gain a clearer view of the nature and purposes of the ritual
law from him than we acquire from the law itself. The
last nine chapters of his book furnish a key that opens the
ritual law more easily than anything which we find in the
law itself.
EZEKIEL AND HIS BOOK 339
The Book of Ezekiel, although probably not much read,
is perhaps, apart from occasional difficulties, the easiest
understood of all the prophetic books. The book was
probably written late in life, and the writer has so disposed
it as to make its mere order accurately express his general
conceptions.
(1) In chaps, i.-iii. there is the great vision of God
borne by the cherubim, and the initiation by the God who
thus manifests Himself, of the prophet into his office of
a watchman among his people. The vision in chap. i. is a
vision of God as the prophet conceived Him. Then God,
thus present symbolically, makes the prophet conscious of
his inspiration and of the fact that Jehovah is with him
in all he speaks, by presenting to him the roll of a book,
containing all Jehovah s words, which he eats, and which
he feels sweet to his taste. The sweetness was not due to
this, that though the book, being full of lamentation and
woe, contained bitter things at first, at the end it was filled
with promises which were sweet. The sweetness was rather
due to this, that the things written were from God, whose
bitter word is sweet ; as we have it in Jer. xv. 16: " Thy
words were found, and I did eat them ; and Thy word was
unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart : for I am
called by Thy name, Jehovah God of hosts." The prophet s
idea of what we call his inspiration is perhaps more pre
cise and stringent than that of Isaiah. In the inaugural
vision of Isaiah, " there flew one of the seraphim having a
live coal in his hand, . . . and he laid it on my mouth,
and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity
is taken away" (vi. 6, 7). And immediately on this an
impulse seized the prophet to enter on Jehovah s service.
" Here am I, send me." All that Isaiah felt needful to
make him a prophet was the forgiveness of his sin. There
was in him a strength and power of character which
needed only the removal of the moral hindrance to set
them free. But both Jeremiah and Ezekiel were weaker
men. Ezekiel, as is usual with him, makes Jeremiah his
model, who says, " The Lord said unto me, Whatsoever I
340 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
command thee, that shalt tbou speak. . . . Then the Lord
put forth His hand, and touched my mouth, saying, Behold,
I have put My words in thy mouth " (i. 79). Both the
later prophets represent themselves as speaking not merely
the word, but the words of Jehovah.
Now, from this point onwards Ezekiel s book has a
clear order.
(2) Chaps, iv. xxiv. contain prophecies announcing the
destruction of Jerusalem, and symbolical actions prefiguring
it. These actions, or at least many of them, were not
actually performed. They passed as symbolical representa
tions before the prophet s mind, for he thought in figures,
and he narrated them to the people. With great wealth
and variety of representation the prophet exhibits in these
chapters the certainty and manner of the destruction of the
city, and the ruin of the kingdom of Judah ; and the neces
sity of it from the persistent sin of the people, and the nature
of Jehovah, who must display His holiness in judgment.
There is much in these chapters that is very powerful as
well as beautiful some things which show that if Ezekiel
had lived in our day he would have risen to the highest
rank in moral imaginative writing. His xvith chapter is
an allegory of Jerusalem under the figure of a foundling
child who became a faithless wife. Though marked by a
breadth with which modern taste is unfamiliar, the allegory
is powerful ; and when the details are forgotten, and only
the general conception remains in the mind, the prophet s
creation is felt to be artistically beautiful as well as true.
Jerusalem and Jehovah are represented. An outcast
infant exposed on the open field, and weltering in its blood,
was seen by the pitying eye of a passer-by. Eescued and
nourished, she grew up to the fairest womanhood, and be
came the wife of her benefactor, who lavished on her all
that could delight and elevate. But the ways into which
he led her were too lofty to be understood, and the atmo
sphere around her too pure for her to breathe; the old
inborn nature (her father was an Amorite and her mother
a Hittite) was still there beneath all the refinements
EZEKIEL AND THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS 341
for which it had no taste, and at last the native taint in
her blood asserted itself in shameless depravity and in
satiable lewdness.
(3) Chaps, xxv. xlviii. As in the first half of his book
Ezekiel s thoughts are occupied with the coming destruction
of Jerusalem and Judah, so in the last half he is occupied
with the restoration and final felicity of Israel. There are
three steps in his delineation (a) judgments on the his
torical nations around Israel, in order to prepare for the
restoration of Israel (chaps, xxv. xxxii.) ; (I) the process of
Israel s restoration itself (chaps, xxxiii. xxxix.) ; and (c)
finally, a picture of Israel s restored and perfect condition
(chaps, xl. xlviii. 5).
We may look at each of these. First, chaps, xxv.
xxxii. The judgments on the nations. Israel occupies a
place of universal significance in the history of the world ;
for it is the people of Jehovah, who is God alone. He who
is God alone, we are again taught, has become God of Israel,
and it is through Israel that He is known to the nations,
and through Israel and her history that He will fully reveal
Himself to the peoples of the world. The perfect mani
festation of Himself will be seen in Israel s restoration,
when His glory shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it
together. But this restoration of Israel cannot be without
great judgments on the nations who have hitherto harassed
her or seduced her. These judgments will awaken the
nations to the knowledge of who the God of Israel is : they
shall give them to know that He is Jehovah, God alone ;
and they will ensure that in the future His people shall
not be troubled or led astray. Chastisement overtakes the
nations for two sins, first, because of their demeanour to
wards Israel, the people of the Lord ; for they had taken
part in Jerusalem s destruction, as Edom, or had rejoiced
over it, as Ammon and Moab ; or they had been a snare to
Israel, inspiring false trust and seducing her from the true
God, as Egypt. And, secondly, judgment falls on them be
cause of their ungodly pride and self-deification, as in the
case of Tyre and Egypt, and their failure to acknowledge
342 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Him as God who is God alone. And the issue of His
judgments in all cases is, that the nations know that He is
Jehovah, God alone ; and thus in the future all the peoples
around Israel will no more injure her. When restored, she
shall dwell in perfect peace.
Second, chaps, xxxiii. xxxix. The process of the restora
tion of Israel itself. It is in these chapters that the main
part of the prophet s contributions to Old Testament
theology lie, such as his teaching on the place of the
individual soul before God (chap, xxxiii.). In general, he
reviews all that was evil or calamitous in the past, and inti
mates how it shall be reversed and remedied. For example,
the shepherds of the people, the royal house, had destroyed
alike themselves and the flock. But the Lord Himself will
take in hand the gathering of His scattered sheep together,
and the feeding of them henceforth ; He will appoint His
servant David over them to lead them (chap, xxxiv.). Here
belongs the splendid vision of the valley of dry bones.
The nation is dead, and its bones bleached ; but there shall
be a resurrection of the dead people, and a restoration of
them to their own land. Two kingdoms shall no more
exist there ; but the Lord s people shall be one, and His
servant David shall be prince over them for ever (chap,
xxxvii.). There is one passage in these chapters, where
the redemptive principles illustrated in these future blessings
and in all Israel s history are stated, which is very remark
able. That is chap, xxxvi. 1738 : " Son of man, when the
house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by
their doings . . . wherefore I poured out My fury upon
them . . . and scattered them among the nations. And
when they came among the nations they profaned My holy
name, in that men said of them, These are the people of
Jehovah, and they are gone forth out of His land.
Therefore say unto the house of Israel, I do not this for
your sake, house of Israel, but for Mine holy name, which
ye have profaned. . . . And I will sanctify My great name,
and the nations shall know that I am Jehovah. . . . For
I will take you from the nations, and will bring you into
EZEKIEL AND ST. PAUL 343
your own land. And I will sprinkle clean water upon you,
and ye shall be clean. A new heart also will I give you,
and a new spirit will I put within you. . . . And I will put
My spirit within you . . . and ye shall keep My judgments,
and do them. Then shall ye remember your evil ways,
and ye shall loathe yourselves because of your iniquities."
Probably no passage in the Old Testament offers so
complete a parallel to New Testament doctrine, particularly
to that of St. Paul. Commentators complain that nobody
reads Ezekiel now. It is not certain that St. Paul read
him, for he nowhere quotes him. But the redemptive
conceptions of the two writers are the same, and appear in
the same order: 1. Forgiveness "I will sprinkle clean
water upon you " ; 2. Eegeneration " A new heart and
spirit " ; 3. The Spirit of God as the ruling power in the
new life " I will put My Spirit within you " ; 4. The
issue of this new principle of life, the keeping of the
requirements of God s law " That the righteousness of
the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the
flesh, but after the Spirit (Eom. viii. 4) " ; 5. The effect of
living under grace in softening the human heart and
leading to obedience " Ye shall remember your evil ways
and loathe yourselves " " Shall we sin because not under
law but under grace ? " (Eom. vi. vii.). And, finally, the
organic connection of Israel s history with Jehovah s reve
lation of Himself to the nations (Eom. xi.).
Third, the last section of the prophet s book (chaps, xl.,
xlviii.). This contains his vision of the new temple, with
all its measurements, including those of the outer and
inner courts (chaps, xl. xlii.). Then there is a vision of
the return of Jehovah, who had left Jerusalem, and His
glorious entry into the new house prepared for Him, by
the east gate, by which He had gone out ; which gate
therefore shall remain for ever shut (chap, xliii.). There
follow certain regulations as to who shall serve Him in
sacrifice and offering, namely, the priests the sons of
Zadok ; and who shall be subordinate ministers to guard
the portals of the house, slaughter the victims and the
344 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
like, namely, the Levites, the former priests at the high
places, now degraded to inferior functions for their idolatry.
Then follow regulations for two half-yearly atonements for
the people and the house. And finally comes a description
of how the restored tribes shall be settled in the land.
Now, in order to understand this vision, all the preceding
parts of the prophet s book must be kept in mind. This
passage contains no teaching. All that the prophet wished
to impress upon his people regarding Jehovah and the
principles of His rule, His holiness and wrath against evil,
lias been exhausted (chap, iv.-xxiv.). All that he desired
to say about the revelation of Jehovah s glory to the nations,
that they may know that He is Jehovah, and may no more
exalt themselves against Him in self-deification, and no
more disturb or seduce His people, has been said (chaps.
xxv. xxxii.). And the great operations of Jehovah s grace
in regenerating His people and in restoring them have been
fully described (chaps, xxxiii. xxxix.). All this forms the
background of the present section. The last words of
chaps. i.-xxxix. are : " And I will hide My face from them
no more : for I have poured out My spirit upon the house
of Israel, saith the Lord God." The people have been
washed with pure water, a new spirit has been given them.
The Spirit of Jehovah rules their life, and they know that
Jehovah is their God.
Therefore this section gives a picture of the people
in their final condition of redemption and felicity. It
does not describe how salvation is to be attained, for the
salvation is realised and enjoyed ; it describes the people,
and their condition and life now that redemption has come.
This accounts for the strange mixture of elements in the
picture, for the fact that there is " so much of earth, so
much of heaven," in it. To us who have clearer light, the
natural and supernatural seem strangely commingled. But
this confusion is common to all the prophetic pictures of
the final condition of Israel, e.g., Isa. lx., and must not
be allowed to lead us astray. We should go far astray if,
on the one hand, fastening our attention on the natural
THE RESTORATION IN EZEKIEL 345
elements in the picture, such as that men still exist in
natural bodies, that they live by the fruits of the earth,
that death is not abolished, and that the prince has
descendants and the like, we should conclude that the
supernatural elements in the picture, such as Jehovah s
abode in glory in the new House, and the issue of the
stream from the temple, spreading fertility around it and
sweetening the waters of the Dead Sea, were mere figures or
symbols meaning nothing but a higher spiritual condition
after the Eestoration, and that the Eestoration foreseen
by Ezekiel was nothing more than that natural one which
took place under Zerubbabel. Ezekiel s Eestoration is
one that is complete and final, embracing all the scattered
tribes ; it is a resurrection of the nation, and it is the
entrance of Israel upon its final perfection. On the other
hand, we should go equally far astray if, fastening our
attention only on the supernatural parts of the picture,
such as Jehovah s presence and the river of life issuing
from the temple, we should conclude that the whole is
nothing but a gigantic allegory, that the temple with its
measurements, the courts with their chambers and kitchens
for cooking the sacrificial meals, the priests and their
ministrations, that all this in the prophet s view is
nothing but a lofty symbolism representing a perfection to
be eventually reached in the Church of Christ. To put
such a meaning on the temple and its measurements, the
courts and chambers and kitchens, is really to bid defiance
to language. The whole is real and literal. And it is of
interest to us because it reveals more simply and clearly
than anything else the meaning of the Levitical system
and ritual.
1. The salvation and blessedness of the people con
sists in the presence of Jehovah in His temple among
them. His people, though all righteous, are not free from
the infirmities and inadvertencies incidental to human
nature. But as, on the one hand, the presence of Jehovah
sanctifies the temple in which He dwells, the land which
is His, the people whose God He is ; so, on the other hand,
346 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
any defilement in the people, the land, or the temple
disturbs His holy being, and must be sedulously guarded
against or removed. Hence the elaborate care taken to
prevent all profaning of Jehovah, and to keep far from
Him all that is common or unclean. First, the sacred
oblation, the domain of the priests and Levites, is placed
in the centre of the tribes. In the midst of the oblation
is the portion of the priests, and in the middle of the
priests portion stands the temple. This is a great complex
of buildings, first surrounded with a free space, then by a
great wall, then by an outer court, then by an inner court ;
then the house has also gradations first a porch, then an
outer house, and, finally, the Most Holy place, in which
Jehovah is present. All these circumvallations are for the
purpose of protecting the absolute holiness of His Being ;
they are not symbols, but realities. His people, however,
though forgiven and sanctified, are not removed from the
possibility of erring, and all error on their part is reflected
on the holy nature of their God ; and the uncleanness must
be put away by the blood of the sacrifices, sin-offering and
burnt-offering, which He has appointed to atone. Here
we have the key to the strange fact that it is only for
unwitting faults that the sacrifices are provided. These
are the only faults of which the redeemed and restored
people will be guilty. Yet even these inadvertencies are
uncleannesses which disturb the perfect holiness of God
in the midst of them, and must be atoned or invalidated,
that Jehovah may continue present among them.
The idea in Ezekiel and that in the law are identical.
Only in Ezekiel the situation is real ; in the law it is
somewhat ideal. In the prophet the restored people are
holy, led by the Spirit of God ; and the sins they commit
are only inadvertencies, for which the ritual sin-offerings
are provided as atonement. In the law this ideal condition
is assumed, so to speak, imposed upon the people, and
set before them as something to be striven after. The
people are regarded as holy ; the same inadvertent sins only
are supposed to be committed, and the same atonements
THE AESTHETIC NATURE OF JEHOVAH 347
are provided for them, and the same care is manifested to
preserve the holiness of Jehovah from all invasion or
disturbance. On this subject the following points suggest
themselves :
1. The law knows nothing of ceremonies. Both the
law and Ezekiel embrace all that Jehovah is under the
conception of holiness. The extra-ritual Scriptures speak
mainly of Jehovah s righteousness. He is a Kuler, a King,
and Judge. When He deals with the sin of men, it is
judicially. The law and Ezekiel do not name Jehovah s
righteousness. They speak of His holiness. But holi
ness in these books embraces all that Jehovah is. His
attributes of righteousness and power, His majesty and the
like, are all embraced under His holiness. These are two
distinct modes of conception in regard to God.
But this is worth notice. Besides those attributes of
Jehovah called moral which are embraced under holiness,
certain other things are also brought under that idea
certain other things in Jehovah. Holiness has a certain
respect to the nature of Jehovah, to what might be called
His esthetic nature to feelings and sensibilities in regard
to that which in our view is not moral.
To men s minds, besides the things that are considered
wrong, there are many things, objects or conditions or
actions that are disagreeable, which are either repulsive,
or from which they shrink, or which cause a revulsion in
the feeling. There are many natural actions in regard to
which civilized men have a feeling which prevents them
doing them in public. There are diseases, and even condi
tions of the body, from which the feeling shrinks ; and
there are objects, such as some of the lower creatures, and
especially, perhaps, the body in death, which cause a recoil
of feeling. These things affect our nature, not at all our
moral judgment.
Now, the peculiarity of the law is that it has attributed
this class of feelings to the Divine nature. The objects
or conditions or actions referred to affect the Divine nature
as they do human nature they are obnoxious to it, they
348 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
disturb and offend the Divine holiness. Therefore, when
any of these things occur in His people, or are done by
them, they act upon the holy nature of Him who is their
God, and with whom as His people they are in fellowship,
and who dwells among them. As it is said, Lev. xx. 24, 26 :
" I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from
the peoples. Ye shall therefore separate between the clean
beast and the unclean. ... Ye shall not make yourselves
abominable by beast or fowl . . . which I have separated
from you as unclean. But ye shall be holy unto Me : for I
the Lord am holy." An extreme instance of the Divine
sensitiveness or holiness is the regulation regarding the
priests clothing when ministering in the inner court.
They were prohibited from wearing anything woollen, on
the ground that it caused sweat (Ezek. xliv. 18).
It is manifest that the conception that Jehovah was
locally present among the people, in a house or tabernacle
in the midst of them, would facilitate this tendency to
draw in under His holiness those aesthetic feelings which
refined men share. It was His presence that sanctified
or made holy that which was locally near Him ; for
example, the tabernacle or temple, making it a holy place,
making Zion also a holy hill, Israel a holy nation, and
Canaan a holy land. And so, on the other hand, when
anything unclean came into His house or land, it defiled
it, and when it came near Himself it profaned Him it
touched on His nature, which reacted against it.
Entirely parallel to the conception of the Divine holi
ness, embracing in it what we call the aesthetic, was the
conception of all sin as uncleanness. All sins, moral as we
name them, and others which we call ceremonial, are
named uncleanness in the law and in Ezekiel. For
example, those several enormities enumerated in Lev. xviii.
In regard to them, it is said, Lev. xviii. 26-28 : " Ye shall
keep My statutes, and shall not do any of these abomina
tions : that the land vomit you not out also, when ye
defile it." And so the idolatries are uncleannesses. And
so with other things similar : " Turn not unto them that
SIN AS DEFILEMENT 349
have familiar spirits, nor unto wizards : seek them not out,
to be denied by them : I am Jehovah your God " (Lev.
xix. 31). And, of course, all those other conditions or
actions to which reference has been made are called
uncleannesses. But our modern distinction of ceremonial
and moral is not one known to the law. Equally un
known to it is the idea that the Levitical purifications
and ritual offerings were symbolical operations performed
merely to suggest the ideas of moral purity in God and
the necessity for it for men. On the contrary, the Levitical
defilements were real ; they were offences to the absolute
purity of the Divine nature. And the Levitical purifi
cations were equally real the washings removed the un-
cleanness if of a lesser kind, and the blood of the sacrifice
atoned for it if it was of a more serious nature. It is just
those defilements, such as that arising from touching the
dead, that are called sins, and the offering to atone for
them is called the sin-offering. An instructive instance
is that of the Nazirite, Num. vi. 2-12: "When either
man or woman shall make a special vow, the vow of a
Nazirite, to separate himself unto the Lord ... all the
days of his separation he is holy unto the Lord ... he
shall not come near to a dead body. And if any man
die very suddenly beside him ... he shall bring two
turtle-doves to the priest, and the priest shall offer one
for a sin-offering . . . and make atonement for him, for
that he sinned by reason of the dead."
Now, with regard to this ritual atonement, it is dis
tinguished in several ways from the atonement previously
referred to.
1 . In the first place, there are stated and regular means
appointed for it. It is not left to the compassion of God,
or the intercession of men, or Jehovah s consideration for
His name s sake. The stated means are the sacrifice, and
specially the blood of the sacrifice.
2. The person who atones in this case, as has been
already stated, is no more God Himself, but the priest ; or,
when the atonement is made for the whole people, the
350 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
high priest. The priest, of course, is appointed of God.
But the procedure in the atonement is now something
ordinary ; both the means to it and the persons accom
plishing it are fixed ordinances.
3. A certain difference of phraseology also appears.
In the extra-ritual atonements, that which was atoned or
covered was the sin. In the ritual atonements, that which
is atoned or covered is the persons or souls of the offenders ;
or it may be, for even things are atoned for in the ritual,
the altar or the sanctuary in which Jehovah is present.
The difference of construction is perhaps not of great im
portance, being due to the different conception entertained
of sin in the ritual law. In the extra-ritual Scriptures
sin is conceived as an offence which the sinner is guilty of.
The offence is seen by the eye of the righteous God, the
Judge and Euler. It incurs His anger, and draws forth
penalty. But the sin is not considered as adhering to the
sinner ; hence, when it is atoned it is covered and done
away. But in the ritual atonements sin is regarded as an
uncleanness, and this necessarily adheres either to a person
or a thing. Hence, when atonement is made, the person is
covered, or, as the case may be, the thing the altar or
the dwelling-place which contracts defilement from the
presence of the people.
Here two questions arise first, what is the idea of
atonement in the ritual ? and, secondly, what is the prin
ciple ? As to the idea, it seems still, as in the extra-
ritual, that of covering, putting out of sight, or doing away
with the uncleanness. The use of the word atone p??) is
still figurative. There are other terms, however, which
have less of figure in them. These are :
to un-sin
rip to cleanse V = 1B3 atone.
to sanctify
The fact is, that the sacrifice or blood removes the sin,
or cleanses, or sanctifies ; the figure is, that it covers the sin
or uncleanness, and so removes it from the sight of God,
RITSCHL AND RIEHM ON ATONEMENT 351
or obviates all effects of it. There is an element of the
ideal still in the operation. When the altar or sanctuary
is atoned for, the blood is literally applied to them, so that
the uncleanness adhering to them is literally covered. But
when persons are atoned for, the blood is not usually
applied to them, it is merely brought before the sight of
God, being applied to His altar. Sometimes, however, as
in the consecration of the high priest, it is applied to the
person ; and when applied to the sanctuary, there is the
idea that the uncleanness of the people cleaves to the
sanctuary. Hence, on the day of atonement, the sacri
fices for the people are regarded as cleansing the sanctuary
as well as the people ; the things are identical.
Eitschl has argued that the ritual atonement moves
entirely in the region of nature, in the sphere of that which
man and God are, so to speak, physically ; that man needs
to be covered by the blood of sacrifice when approaching
God, because of what he is as a finite creature in the pre
sence of the natural majesty of God. But the terminology
appears to be against this, which speaks of specific acts of
uncleanness, and calls them sins. Eiehm, in his valuable
book on Old Testament Theology, and in his Essay on Atone
ment, argues against this transference of the operation of
atonement into the mere physical or natural region ; but
agrees with Eitschl to this extent, that the necessity for
atonement, for the covering of the sinner s uncleanness by
blood, lies in the danger to the sinner from the holiness
of God, which would react against the sinner s unclean-
ness if he approached uncovered by blood, and destroy the
sinner. 1 That is, the covering of the sinner is regarded as
a protection of him against the reaction of the Divine holi
ness, which would destroy him. But this idea, that the
necessity for covering by blood lies in the danger to the
sinner from the reaction of the Divine holiness against him
1 See the discussion in Ritschl s Die christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung
und der Versohnung, vol. ii. ; Hofmann s Schriftbeweis, ii. 191 ff. ; Weiss s
Biblical Theology of the New Testament, Clark s tr., i. 419 ff., and ii. 220 ff.;
etc. ED.
352 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
in his uncleanness, appears to have no support in the
language of the ritual. It is nowhere intimated that
there is any danger to the sinner because of his un
cleanness. If he neglects the appointed means of purifica
tion, he is threatened with being cut o/; but this is because
of his disobedience to the ordinance of God, not because
of his uncleanness. The idea appears to be rather that
the uncleanness or sin of the individual or people is in
compatible with their being the people of God. It dis
turbs the holiness of God, who is their God, and abides
among them. It makes His fellowship with them impos
sible ; if not removed, it would make His abode among
them as their God no more possible, and lead, as it did of
old, to His withdrawal. The explanation lies in the words,
" Be ye holy : for I am holy " (Lev. xx. 7). 1
7. The Principle of Atonement.
Finally, as to the principle of atonement by the sacrifice
or the blood of sacrifice, this, I fear, must remain obscure.
The law appears nowhere to give any rationale or explana
tion of the ordinance that blood atones or covers the sin or
defilement. The passage in Lev. xvii. 11 conies nearest an
explanation, though without supplying it. " The life 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 the blood
atones in virtue of the life." The law here is not occupied
immediately with the question of atonement ; it is a law
against eating of blood. Eating of blood is prohibited,
because the life is in the blood, and the blood has been
1 In the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the same idea prevails, there seems
no allusion to any obstacle to the sinner s drawing near to God on the part
of God, the obstacle lies exclusively in the conscience of sin on the sinner s
part ; and it is when his conscience is purified from dead works that he can
serve the living God. Pre-Christian sin is ignorance. And another New
Testament writer seems to touch on the same idea "the times of this
ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to
repent "(Acts xvii. 30).
And even our Lord Himself says : " If I had not come and spoken unto
them, they had not had sin " (John xv. 22).
THE OFFERING OF THE BLOOD 353
given to make atonement; and this atonement the blood
effects in virtue of its being the life. We must be on our
guard again against fancying that we have symbolism here.
There is no symbolism, but reality. The blood is not a
symbol of the life, it is the life, or contains it. The offering
of the blood to God is the actual offering of the life. The
slaying of the victim and the offering of the blood are not
two separate acts. They are one act, which consists in
offering the life or victim to God. The death is not to be
regarded as a mere means of getting the blood ; the death
and the offering are the giving to God of the life of the
victim. But while stating the fact that the life thus
given atones, the ritual law offers no explanation. The
traditional explanation has been that the death of the
victim was a pcena vicaria for the sin of the offerer. And
it is probable that this idea did become attached to sacrifice.
It is questionable, however, when other things are considered,
if it be found in the law. When we consider such things
as these : first, the fact that whatever older or more primary
ideas of sacrifice may have been, in the Old Testament at
least sacrifice is of the nature of a gift to God ; secondly,
that the kind of offences for which sacrifices made atone
ment were sins of inadvertency, in regard to which there
does not seem evidence that they awakened the wrath of
God, although, notwithstanding that they were done un
wittingly, they disturbed His holiness and endangered His
fellowship with His people and His abode among them ; and,
thirdly, that these sacrifices were offered in the main for a
people in His covenant fellowship, for those already His
worshipping people, and that the prophet Ezekiel regards
these atoning offerings as necessary, and as continuing even
in the final condition of the people, after their forgiveness
and final restoration, and when they are all led by God s
Spirit, when these and other things are considered, it
does not appear probable that the death of the victim was
regarded by the law as a penalty, death being the highest
possible penalty.
On the other hand, though the sacrifices were of the
23
354 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
nature of a gift, in this case the use of the blood in virtue
of the life for atonement is an express appointment of
God. And it is said that the blood in virtue of the life
atones for the souls or lives of men. It is possible that the
compilers of the ritual law satisfied themselves with just
enunciating this fact, refraining from stating any principle,
or assuming that the principle was known. The ritual
law is the culmination of a multitude of ritual practices
and probably ritual conceptions, and the compilers have
satisfied themselves with legalising the practices without
condescendence on the principles. The view of Eiehm,
that the blood atones simply because it is God s appointment
or ordinance ; and that if the question be put why He
appointed blood, there was no reason for His appointment
beyond this, that there is a certain congruity in life
being appointed for life, the nephesh of the creature
for the nephesh of men, is not altogether satisfactory.
It may be assumed that the grounds for the Divine
appointment are deeper than this ; but so far as the Old
Testament is concerned they are not distinctly revealed.
At all times the blood was sacrosanct. Life belonged to
God, and must in all cases be given back to Him, and not
used by men as flesh might be. It is probable that deeper
and mystical ideas gathered around the blood, and that
men, if they did not see more in the offering of the life
for atonement of sin than a mere ordinance of God, felt
there was more in it ; that there lay grounds under the
ordinance which they might not see. Meantime the law
has contented itself with stating the fact that the offering
of a life to God atones. Subsequent revelation may go
further.
But thus in the Old Testament there are two lines on
which atonement moves : that of the righteousness of God
in the extra-ritual Scriptures ; and that of the holiness of
God in the ritual law. In the former, He deals with sin
as the righteous Ruler and Judge of men. In the latter.
He deals with it as a holy person with whom men have
fellowship, who draw near to Him, and among whom He
WESTCOTTS VIEW OF SACRIFICE 355
graciously abides. But there is one other Old Testament
passage which may give additional light (Isa. liii.).
Although the form in which the sacrifice is put in the
law be that it is the giving of the life of a creature to God,
naturally the other side of such a transaction, when the
case of the creature is concerned, is that it is the death of
the creature. In earlier times, perhaps, the former side
of the idea was more prominent the idea of a gift to
placate God ; in later times the other side, that the death of
the creature was of the nature of penalty, by the exaction
of which the righteousness of Jehovah was satisfied. This
idea seems certainly expressed in Isa. liii. ; at least these
two points appear to be stated there, that the sins of the
people, i.e. the penalties for them, were laid on the Servant
and borne by him ; and, secondly, that thus the people were
relieved from the penalty, and their sins being borne, were
forgiven.
New Testament scholars seem as much perplexed in
seeking to discover the principle of atonement in the New
Testament as we are in the Old. There is one passage
in the Epistle to the Hebrews (x. 1-10) which has been
interpreted by New Testament scholars, such as Bishop
Westcott, and indeed most, in a way which is very doubtful.
The passage runs thus : " For it is not possible that the
blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Where
fore when He (i.e. Jesus) cometh into the world He saith,
Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast
Thou prepared Me. In burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin
Thou hadst no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I am come .
to do Thy will, God. Above when He said, Sacrifice and
offering . . . Thou wouldest not ... (which are offered by
the law), then said He, Lo, I am come to do Thy will,
God. He taketh away the first that He may establish
the second." Now the general interpretation of this
passage is that it substitutes for the mere material sacri
fices of the Old Testament an ethical service, obedience
to the will of God. But this, I think, though it may be
the meaning of the Psalm quoted (Ps. xl.), as it is the
356 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
doctrine of the prophets, is obviously not the meaning of
the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The author s
argument is that Christ having done what was declared in
Scripture to be God s final will in regard to sacrifice, His
sacrifice is final. " By one offering He hath perfected for
ever them that are sanctified." It is not the general will
of God that he refers to, but His particular specific will
that Christ should offer His body. What are contrasted
are not two disparate things, namely, the material sacrifices
offered according to the law and the moral sacrifice of
obedience; but two things of the same kind or class,
namely, Old Testament sacrifices, the blood of bulls and
goats, and the offering of the body of Christ once for all
the blood of Christ. For it is said, " Sacrifice and offering,
i.e. the legal offerings, thou wouldest not, but a body hast
Thou prepared Me." He willed not sacrifices, and He
willed the offering of the body of Christ; "by, or in,
which will we have been sanctified through the offering of
the body of Christ once for all." The Epistle to the
Hebrews merely throws the New Testament sacrifice into
the mould of the Old Testament, but furnishes no principle :
" If the blood of bulls and the ashes of an heifer sanctify to
the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of
Christ purify your conscience from dead works to serve the
living God ? " It is not a new principle, but a more con
clusive application of the old principle. The death of Christ
takes away sin because it is the death of Christ. 1
XL THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAST THINGS
THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
1. Distinctive Contributions to the Doctrine.
In the times of the early prophets it is the nation
as a whole that occupies the view of the prophet, its
1 On this see more at length in the author s The Epistle to the Hebrews,
with Introduction and Notes, pp. 189-194. ED.
THE MESSIANIC HOPE 357
relation to Jehovah, its approaching fall ; yet the in-
destructibleness of Jehovah s kingdom, its rise again in
the future, to be universal and all-enduring. Under this
general conception of the future, the eschatology of the
kingdom of the Lord, fall those prophecies which are
called Messianic. And the Messianic Hope is the transi
tion to the Doctrine of the Last Things.
When we pass from this early region and this
general subject, the people or kingdom of the Lord, we
have to consider the individual, his condition and destiny.
This raises many questions regarding, e.g., human nature
in the elements composing it body, soul and spirit ; sin
and its atonement ; as well as death and immortality the
eschatology of the individual. The most of these questions
came into prominence a century or two later down the
history than the period of the early prophets. In all the
earlier prophets the religious unit, so to speak, is the
people, as we see, e.g., in Hosea. The individuals occupy
a secondary place, and share the fate, disastrous or happy,
of the people. It is but exceeding slowly that in the
thoughts of the Old Testament the individual man acquires
prominence and comes to the rights and the responsibilities
assigned to him in Christianity. It can readily be seen,
however, how God s providence in the history of Israel
gradually led to this result. So long as the State, North
and South, endured, the unit, the people, was apt to be
alone thought of. But when the State fell, first the
North and then the South, this unit no more existed.
Yet the individuals existed, and their God existed ; and
the individual rose into the consciousness that all those
things which had been spoken of the people, its duties and
relations to Jehovah its God, had a reality as regarded
himself, and meantime had no other reality. Even
before the actual dissolution of the State, the many
calamities that befell the people in common could not
but awaken the individual s consciousness, and lead
him to a clearer conception of his true relations and
worth. The interpretation put by the prophets upon
358 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
the people s disastrous history led men to reflect and to
discriminate.
While the interpretation that calamity was due to the
sins of the people, might be just when the people as a unity
was considered, yet many were conscious that they did not
share in the sins and idolatries denounced by the prophets.
Still the disasters of defeat and exile fell on them even
with a more crushing weight than on the sinners of the
people. It was the tlite of the nation, the best-informed,
and purest, and most godly, that were deported from their
country. They could not but say, as one of them does :
" Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed
my hands in innocency. For all the day long have I been
plagued." " Lo, these are the ungodly who prosper in the
world " (Ps. Ixxiii. 1214). Hence arose the proverb, " The
fathers ate sour grapes, and the children s teeth are set on
edge " ; or, as it is expressed in Lam. v. 7 : " Our fathers
sinned, and we bear their iniquities." It is in the two pro
phets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who both lived partly before and
partly after the Exile, that the individual man fully comes
to his true place before God. Indeed, in the xviiith and
xxxiiird chapters of Ezekiel we may say that we see the
birth of the individual mind taking place before our eyes :
" All souls are mine, saith the Lord : as the soul of the
father, so also the soul of the son " (xviii. 4). The prophet
disentangles the individual from the people as a mass, and
even from his nearest ancestors ; he shall not be involved
in the consequences of their sins : " The soul that sinneth,
it shall die." But the prophet goes much further than
this, and asserts for the individual a moral freedom, in
virtue of which he can break with his own past and de
liver himself from its consequences. He is not under the
ban of the past. There is an ego, an / in man, possessed of
moral freedom, which can rise above even that which may
be called nature in him, and not only break with it, but
take the rule of it, and shake off its moral shackles, and, in
the favour of God, redeem himself from its consequences.
Perhaps there are hardly any more important passages in
PROBLEMS OF THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE 359
the Old Testament than these two chapters of Ezekiel.
The religious unit, so to speak, that subject between which
and God religion is the bond and in which religious experi
ences take place, is the individual mind.
The period between the earlier prophets and those of
later time, when problems of the individual life fill the
minds of Scripture writers, such as the author of Job, for
instance, and the authors of many of the Psalms, this long
period is of the greatest importance. There belong to it
some, we may almost say most, of the profoundest parts
of the Old Testament ; those parts, indeed, many of which
have come nearest Christianity. Examples are the Book of
Deuteronomy, with the revolution which its discovery and
promulgation occasioned ; the prophecies of Jeremiah, in a
moral and personal aspect perhaps because he analyses
himself and dissects his own mind and experience to us
the most Christian of the prophets ; the Book of Ezekiel, on
whom modern writers pass a very slighting, but probably
not very profound judgment ; who, at any rate, is not without
his part in leading on the people of God towards great
New Testament truths ; the exquisite little collection of
elegies, called the Lamentations, written shortly after the
fall of the city, and reflecting the condition of the people s
mind after this event. These poems exhibit to us the
mind of religious men stunned by the magnitude of the
blow, especially by the reflection that it was Jehovah their
God who had inflicted it. Then they show us the profound
sense of sin awakened in men s minds by these reflections ;
and no doubt it was just the people s history as a whole,
under the interpretation of it by the prophets, that more
than anything else deepened the sense of sin in the
nation s heart. And, finally, they show us the inextinguish
able faith in Jehovah, the Saviour of His people, a light
which the darkness, however deep, could not swallow up.
We may refer specially to the 3rd chapter of the
Lamentations, perhaps the most singular piece of reflective
meditation and weighing of considerations for and against
the hope of God s mercy, which the Old Testament contains.
360 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
And, finally, there is the prophet of the second half of
Isaiah, who touches problems of sin and forgiveness more
profoundly than any of his predecessors.
Many difficult questions are raised by Deuteronomy
which we cannot discuss here. Perhaps a careful reader
of it will feel inclined to come to the conclusion that it is
the reflection of the teaching of the three earliest prophets
of Israel, Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, particularly of the
last two ; for if a distinction can be drawn between the two
things, it is more distinctively religious than moral. It will
certainly be best understood when read after Hosea and
Isaiah. This, at any rate, is its historical position, so far as
it influenced and modified religious life among the people.
Its teaching might be somewhat generally summed up in
four points : 1 . Jehovah, Israel s God, is one Jehovah, who
cannot be represented in any form. The right disposition
men show towards Him is love, and love is His disposition
towards His people : " Hear, Israel : Jehovah our God is
one Jehovah : and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with
all thine heart " (vi. 4). " And Jehovah chose them
because He loved them" (iv. 37). 2. The humanity which
is everywhere inculcated in the book It is not necessary to
dwell on this. How often the widow, and the orphan, and
the stranger are commended to the consideration of the
people, because they were themselves once strangers in
Egypt ! How the gleanings of field and vineyard, the
sheaf forgotten in the field, and the seventh year s crop
are to be left them that they may be well and rejoice
before the Lord ! This spirit of benevolence and goodwill
extends even to the nations, as, e.g., to Egypt. One can hardly
fail to see the teaching of Hosea reflected in both these
points. 3. The holiness of Jehovah is greatly emphasised,
and the necessity that His people should be holy. And
here the doctrines of Isaiah are probably reflected. But
an effort is made to bring the prophet s ideal hopes as to
the future into the present. In the picture which he
draws of the final condition of Jerusalem, every one that is
left shall be called holy. Deuteronomy seeks to realise
THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY 361
this great ideal in the present life of the people. Under
this general idea fall all the prescriptions regarding clean
ness, and purifications, and the like. It is this conception
that gives unity to these laws, and enables us to understand
them. And to this head belong all those denunciations of
the impurities of the Canaanites, and the overwhelming
moral earnestness of the warnings against having part in
them, and the terrible threatenings against practising the
religious rites or customs of these peoples. 4. And, finally,
as the corollary of this law of holiness and the unity of
Jehovah their God, and as the necessary means of realising
this holiness, there is the law of the one altar where
sacrifice to Jehovah is to be offered, that at Jerusalem.
This is by no means, as is often represented, the chief
burden of Deuteronomy. It is the least part of it, and
only a consequence of other doctrines.
As the book is all spoken by Moses, the way in which
the law is represented is this. It is not a law that is to
come into effect on their entry into Canaan ; it is to be
observed from the time that Jehovah shall have given
them rest from all their enemies round about ; that is,
from the times of David, or, more particularly, Solomon ;
for only when the temple was built did that place
become known which Jehovah had chosen to place His
name there. The main idea of the book is the holiness
of Jehovah and the necessary holiness of His people.
To sanctify Jehovah is to recognise Him to be the
God that He is ; God alone, spiritual, and above all
ethical. To sanctify Him in thought is to recognise
this ; in act, it is to live as the people of such a God should
do to be like Him. The opposite of to sanctify is to
profane ; and the people profane His name when, being
His people, they engage in the impure worship of the
Canaanites, or serve Jehovah in a false way, as under
visible forms ; and when, being His people, they practise
the moral impurities of the nations about them. It is
probable that holy in Isaiah is mainly a moral idea, but
in Deuteronomy and the law it is extended over a multitude
362 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
of outward conditions ; and ideas such as clean and unclean,
perfect and imperfect physically, are drawn very largely
into it. This great ideal of c holiness was set before the
people ; and they were taught by a multitude of prescrip
tions to seek to realise it.
Jeremiah had already been five years a prophet when
Deuteronomy was made public law in 621. He does not
appear to have had any hand in the promulgation of the
law ; nor in Josiah s reformation, which abolished all the rural
high places of sacrifice, and confined the ritual worship of
Jehovah to the temple at Jerusalem. It is probable that
he saw this reform with satisfaction, but probably cherished
few illusions in regard to it. It was good in its way, but
it was not the good which he and men like him desired to
see and required. The prophets were men never satisfied.
When a reform was effected they accepted it, but always
went further. Jeremiah soon had reason to see the effects of
Josiah s reformation to be anything but good in all respects.
The temple of the Lord, where worship was alone carried
on, became to men s minds a kind of fetish : " the temple of
the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these " (Jer. vii. 4). The
people thought it indestructible. And they thought their
service of Jehovah at one place, as He had commanded,
condoned all other offences and sins. "Will ye steal,
murder, and commit adultery, and walk after other gods ;
and come and stand before Me in this house, and say, We
are delivered ? " (vii. 9). " Is this house that is called
by My name a cave of robbers," where, after committing
their depredations, they find refuge and think themselves
safe?
It is indeed an interesting position that is occupied
here by Jeremiah. That prophet s relation to the people
and to Jehovah made him continually tossed between
the two, and neither listened to him. He interceded
for the people before God, but was rejected. "Though
Moses and Samuel stood before Me, My heart could
not be toward this people" (xv. 1). He carried Jehovah s
word to the people, and he was persecuted because of it.
THE TEACHING OF JEREMIAH 363
God seemed to ask much from him and to give him
nothing. Yet He gave him Himself. And He gave him
His word. On this the prophet fed. " Thy words were
found, and I did eat them; they were unto me a joy,
and the rejoicing of mine heart : for I am called by Thy
name, Jehovah God of hosts" (xv. 16). To know God,
to be His servant, to have His ear to pour out his sorrows
and perplexities and hard experience into, was enough.
Success he had none only defeat on every side ; yet he
was himself victorious amidst defeat. His teaching is
little else than an expression, a transcription of his own
pious life, of his intimate fellowship with God. It is
personal religion become conscious of itself. Though not
in the same formal way as Ezekiel, Jeremiah took
great steps towards giving prominence to the individual
mind.
Several things combined to secure this result. First,
there was the isolation of the prophet. He felt himself,
especially in opposition to the false prophets, the only
true man in the State. This isolation, combined with his
singular tendency to introspection and self -analysis, enables
us to see his mind better than we see that of any other
prophet. It was perhaps his isolation that compelled him
to practise introspection ; it required him to analyse his
own mind, and to bring clearly before himself his relation
to Jehovah, and perceive wherein the essence of that
relation lay. And all this being the case of an individual,
it established the position of the individual once for all.
Secondly, another thing led to the same result, namely,
his conception of Jehovah. Jehovah is to him a purely
ethical being, and consequently His relation to the subject
in fellowship with Him is a purely inward one. It must,
therefore, be a relation to the individual mind. And,
conversely, the service rendered to Him must be a service
of the mind.
From this position follow the main things which
appear in his prophecies, e.g., 1. His condemnation of the
whole past religious history of the nation ; it has been no
364 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
service of Jehovah (chaps, ii., iii., vi.). 2. The futility of
external service and material symbols, such as sacrifice,
ark, and the like : the time is coming when these shall no
more be called to mind (vii. 21-28, vii. 9-11, iii. 16-18).
3. Hence his dissatisfaction with or indifference to the
reforms of Josiah, reforms on which the people prided
themselves. It is not reform but regeneration that is
required : " Break up the fallow ground, and sow not among
thorns ; circumcise your hearts " (iv. 3 ; cf. references to the
heart, iv. 4, 14, v. 23, xi. 20, xvii. 9, xxxi. 33). 4.
Hence the stringent demand for morality in the individual,
the subject of Jehovah s fellowship (v. 1, vii. 2628, ix.
16, xviii.). 5. Hence prophecy has lost what was extra
ordinary and intermittent in it, it becomes little else
than an exalted piety. Jeremiah has reached the condition
spoken of by the Servant of the Lord : " He wakeneth
my ear, he wakeneth morning by morning" (Isa. 1. 4).
Prophecy is a continuous standing in the counsel of God.
It is that which he himself predicts of all : " They shall
all know Me" (xxxvi. 19). His conception of prophecy
is that of a relation of mind to mind, conscious and reason
able, and his scorn is for the dreams and visions
of the false prophets (xxiii. 21-32), and their mechanical
supernaturalism. The verification of prophecy lies in the
consciousness of the true prophet, and in the moral nature
of his prophecy ; it is only prophecies of peace to sinners
and a sinful nation that require justification by the event
(xxviii. 79). 6. Hence the calmness with which Jeremiah
contemplates the ruin of the State as a State, buys a field
on the eve of the city s fall (chap, xxxii.), and counsels
submission to the king of Babylon (xxi. 9, xxix. 1-7,
xxxviii. 17). Though the State falls, the individuals of
the people remain, and Jehovah remains, and religion
and life to him remain; and 7. To the same effect is
his view of the nature of the New Covenant. The
Lord writes it on the heart of the individual, and
graves it on his inward part ; and each man knows the
Lord (xxxi. 33).
MESSIANIC CONCEPTIONS 365
2. The Consummation of the Kingdom.
The great thoughts of salvation which the prophets
give forth gather around certain conspicuous figures in the
people of Israel. One of these figures is the theocratic
or Davidic king. The idea of the king occupies a large
place especially in prophets like Isaiah and Micah. In the
various lights in which it is set, and the glorious colours
with which it is invested, it becomes the most fruitful
Messianic conception in prophecy. In the second part of
Isaiah we have another figure, less conspicuous and im
posing in grandeur, but, if possible, more singular in
the attributes with which it is invested, and suggesting
thoughts equally profound, although in an altogether differ
ent region the figure of the Suffering Servant of the Lord.
We can trace the character of the theocratic kingdom, and
see what efforts the prophets make to set forth the glories
of the theocratic king, rising in their conceptions of him
till at last they reach the unsurpassable height of naming
him : " God with us Mighty God," and teaching that in
him God shall be wholly present with His people. The
point to which that delineation of the theocratic kingdom
and king carries us, is perhaps the most favourable place for
gathering together some of the things which the prophets say
about the issue and final condition of the kingdom. This
issue of the theocracy into its final condition takes place
at a time and under circumstances which make up what
the prophets call The day of the Lord. These two
great figures, the King and the Servant, suggest almost
all the conceptions in the Old Testament which we are
accustomed to call Messianic or Christological. It is
probable that Old Testament writers themselves did not
yet identify these two figures, or come to the conclusion
that the attributes of both would yet be combined in one
person. History, however, shows that this was to be the
case. The Messianic conceptions and hopes in Israel are
mainly connected with the last days, the period of Israel s
perfection and final peace and blessing. This restoration
30 G THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
of Israel and its perfection are realised through this event,
The day of the Lord/
Now, to begin with, all Israel s spiritual blessings came
from God, and even all Israel s blessings of whatever kind.
He taught Israel s arms to fight, and made him tread on
his high places. Salvation belonged unto God. And in
whatever form or degree salvation was attained, it was
through Him. All the strength of the nation arose from
being strengthened with might by His Spirit, when all
the channels of their life were filled and flushed with the
Spirit poured into them. God Himself was Israel s highest
blessing. He was the portion of her cup. His nearness
brought salvation near. His presence in its fulness was the
end of all development in Israel and Israel s glorification :
" Arise, shine ; for thy light is come, and the glory of the
Lord is risen upon thee" (Isa. Ix. 1). This was the
meaning of the covenant relation.
With regard to the covenant, the two great factors in
it are, of course, God and the people. Under the former
head is discussed what is properly called theology, under
the latter what is named anthropology. The Messianic
teaching might be taken as a part of the first, and the
doctrine of immortality as a part of the second. These
two in some respects correspond. They form respectively
the eschatology of the two departments ; or rather the
Messianic doctrine belongs to the eschatology of the nation
or people ; immortality, to the eschatology of the indi
vidual. Even the Messianic doctrine is not strictly a
distinct thing in the Old Testament; it is an element of
the eschatology or final condition. There does not, I think,
run through the Old Testament a distinct hope, to be
called the Messianic hope. What is interpreted as Messi
anic in the New Testament, is rather everything in the
Old Testament that is ideal of its own kind, whatever
that kind may be, an idealism only to be realised in the
last times, whether, for example, it be the king, or the
people, or the priest, or the individual saint.
Being thus some form of the final and perfect condi-
VARIOUS FORMS OF THE MESSIANIC 367
tion of the kingdom or people of Jehovah upon the earth,
being a picture of this, or of this in some of its aspects,
or of some great outstanding personage who is influential
in the introduction of this perfect state, or in maintaining
and perpetuating it, that which we may call the Messianic,
using the word in that general sense, as nearly equivalent
to eschatological in reference to the kingdom, may assume
very different forms, and bring into ideal prominence
different persons or agents in the work of perfecting the
kingdom, or in its condition when perfected. We can
perceive that Jehovah s own operation and His own pre
sence will be the essential Messianic element. Then we
have the state and conduct of the people as a whole; and
then, again, the theocratic king idealised as he shall be
in the latter day, when the kingdom of God is perfect ;
or, because he was representative of Jehovah and the
destinies of the kingdom were in his hand, the individual
saint in his sufferings and deliverance.
The Messianic, as it is called, will thus differ very
greatly in different ages. The prominent agent in the
particular age will be idealised. At all times, of course,
Jehovah s work and presence may be dwelt upon. Also
at almost any time the condition of the people may be
idealised. During the monarchy the prominent personage
will be the Davidic king, and so on.
Dividing the history into periods, the prominent figures
seem these :
1. Jehovah, in His work and presence, at all times.
And this is of special importance, because it lays the
foundation both for the work and the person of the Messiah.
Whoever he is, it is Jehovah in him that is Saviour.
2. In the pre-monarchical period it is chiefly the people,
or mankind, as in the protevangelium, the promises to
Abraham and the patriarchs : " In thee and in thy seed " ;
and in the poems of Balaam.
3. During the monarchy it is the Davidic king,
the Messianic king as representative of Jehovah, though
also, of course, many times, of His people. This is parti-
3G8 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
cularly the case during the Assyrian conflicts, because
the destiny of the State was greatly in the hands of the
kings, and because the Davidic monarchy was threatened
with extinction in Isaiah s days and in Micah s. The
Davidic king is intm-Israel ; the Servant of the Lord is
much wider, intra-national. The widening ideas of the
time could not but create a larger subject, giving him a
larger scope.
4. After the destruction of the monarchy, the Messianic
or eschatological hopes again centre in the people, as in
the second half of Isaiah ; the personal Messiah, as Davidic
king, drops out of sight; the Divine in this case is the
revelation of God incarnated in Israel.
5. At the Kestoration, as was to be expected, the
priest becomes more prominent, or the union of the
priestly and the kingly becomes so, because the greater
sense of sin brings the idea of atonement into prominence.
So in the prophets of the Kestoration, Zechariah, Haggai,
and Malachi.
It is remarkable that the prophet plays little part in
the eschatological view. Except in the passage in Deutero
nomy, he has no place, though the prophetic function of the
people is the main conception of the second half of Isaiah.
But in the view of the prophets themselves, their
own function would be superseded in the perfect State.
Jehovah would write His law on men s hearts, and one
should no more teach his neighbour. The Spirit of God
takes the place of the prophet He is poured out on all
flesh, and they all prophesy; all the Lord s people are
prophets. With regard to Daniel, my impression is that,
in that book, it is the people, the saints of the Most High,
who shall receive the kingdom, and that the " son of man "
in that prophecy is a symbol of the people, and not of
an individual. This point, however, is somewhat obscure.
When the idea of the covenant relation was realised in
God s full presence in Israel, then Israel had reached the
end of her desires and attained perfection. The idea of
salvation in the Old Testament is fellowship with God.
RESTORATION IN THE LATER PROPHETS 369
That this union of God with Israel should yet be
realised, all the prophets firmly believe. No doubt ere
that time come there shall be great sorrows, and Israel
shall seem abandoned of God. All the prophets predict
the dissolution of Israel ; but they look across the dark
stream of death, and behold a new life on the other side.
They usually put the two, destruction and restoration, side
by side in abrupt opposition to one another. One prophet,
like Micah, may first describe, as in his first three chapters,
the dissolution of Israel : " Zion shall be ploughed like a
field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps " ; and then in
the following chapters paint the restoration of the pris
tine kingdom, and the revival of the House of David :
" It shall come to pass in the latter day that the mountain
of the house of the Lord . . . shall be exalted above the
hills, and all nations shall flow to it." Another prophet,
like Isaiah, may begin with this prediction, and run out the
development of calamity from his own present till this
time of perfection is reached. Usually the prophets do
not bridge over the chasm between Israel s dissolution and
her restoration. They move usually in the higher region
of Divine procedure. And as God chastises Israel by
dispersing her in His anger, so He gathers her together
again in His returning mercy. But, in the earlier pro
phets, the internal processes within Israel which explain,
or at all events accompany, this different dealing, are
usually only hinted at.
In later prophets, on the other hand, or at all events
in prophets whose point of view is that of a later time,
as in the second part of Isaiah, we have laid bare to us
the wonderful internal process going on within Israel, the
atonement of her sin and her repentance, which mediate
the Eestoration. We have it also in Zechariah : " I will
pour out on Israel the spirit of grace and of supplications,
and they shall look on Him whom they have pierced, and
mourn" (xii. 10). The prophets may not express, they
may not even represent, to themselves the means of Israel s
restoration, except that God shall accomplish it ; but they
24
370 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
all believe in it. And in the prophecies, certainly in
those of Isaiah, we have the idea of continuity, and the
holy seed indestructible blossoms out into a new people.
When they accompany to the grave, with bitter lamenta
tions, the bier on which is laid the virgin daughter of
Israel, they sorrow not as those that have no hope. She
shall rise again : " Thus saith the Lord God, Behold,
My people, I will open your graves, and cause you to
come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land
of Israel" (Ezek. xxxvii. 12).
Now the author of all this to Israel being God, the
fulness of Israel s life and the perfection of her attainment is
often described as the coming of God. What precise concep
tion the prophets formed of this coming of God may not be
easy to determine. But it was not merely a coming in
wonders, or in the word of His prophets, or in a spiritual
influence and a change in His people s minds. It was some
thing objective and personal : " Behold, the Lord cometh in
might, with His arm ruling for Him. The glory of the
Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."
When He came He came in His fulness. The age behind
was wound up and a new age commenced. The processes
that had been long going on ran out, and new lines of
movement began. This coming was not only the per
fection of Israel, it was also the restitution of all things,
the renovation of the world. And it was a thing which
not Israel alone, but the inanimate world, had longed for
and rejoiced in : " The Lord is King ; let the earth rejoice ;
let the multitude of isles be glad thereat " (Ps. xcvii. 1).
During the past, the former age, God had often seemed
apathetic. He slept ; He let the reins of government
slip from His hands. He winked at men s wickedness.
Now He awoke. He grasped the reins of power ; He
took to Him His power and reigned. The kingdom was
the Lord s.
Now this is the fundamental thing, Jehovah in per
son was present with His people. But this coming of
Jehovah is not always represented as being accomplished
CHIEF PERIODS OF THE MESSIANIC 371
in the same way. Sometimes the direct appearance of
Jehovah in person is asserted, and the question how His
appearance shall be realised is answered. Sometimes the
coming is accomplished in the line of the Messianic
hope Jehovah comes down among His people in the
Messiah, His presence is manifested and realised in him.
The Messiah is " Immanuel God with us" he is El Gibbor^
mighty God. God is fully present, for purposes of
redemption, in the Messianic king. This is the loftiest
Messianic conception. It places the Messiah in the line
of the perfect realisation of the hopes of Israel. Her
highest hope was the perfect manifestation of God and
His abode among the people ; and when this hope is
conceived as finding verification through the line of the
Messiah, the Messiah becomes in himself the personal
appearance of God.
The Messianic hope in the early prophets ran chiefly in
the line of the theocratic kingship, and this hope blossomed
into extraordinary splendour on two great occasions. The
first was the glorious reign of David and the early rnonarchs
of his house. This gave rise to hopes, and suggested con
ceptions, and disengaged, if I may say so, ideals which
constituted the loftiest Messianic revelations. These are
contained in the Messianic Psalms, such as Pss. ii., Ixxii., ex.,
and others. Such passages seem to repose on the promise
made to David by Nathan, that his house should never cease
to bear rule in the kingdom of Jehovah. This promise is
often alluded to in Scripture. It is formally stated in
2 Sam. vii. 12 ff. ; alluded to in Pss. Ixxxix., cxxxii., and in
David s last words, 2 Sam. xxiiLff., 1 Kings xi. 13, 36 ; while
Ps. ii. and others are based on it. It is also present to the
mind of all the prophets, even the oldest, as Amos and Hosea.
The other occasion was when danger threatened the Davidic
house, or when the certain dissolution of the kingdom was
before the prophet s mind. Here two chief periods may be
mentioned as giving rise to conceptions called Messianic :
(1) the age of Hezekiah ; (2) the age of the Exile. Perhaps
we should give a third later age an age of the study of
372 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
the old predictions. Then the inextinguishable faith of the
prophets in God s promises reacted against the appearances
and dangers of the present, and they recalled to mind the
sure mercies of David/ and the covenant ordered in all
things ; and Isaiah gave the prophecies of the Virgin s Son
and the Mighty God ; while Micah saw rising on the ruins
of Jerusalem a new Zion, and the former kingdom restored
to it. This was the inspired protest of faith in the face of
danger, or in view of the dissolution of the kingdom, now
perceived to be inevitable. This continued, and is repeated,
e.g., in Jeremiah.
But when the kingdom had been long destroyed, and
the Davidic house long in abasement, these ideas became
less prominent. Circumstances turned the thoughts of the
prophets in other directions, and made them move on other
lines. God s providential treatment of Israel raised new
conceptions of the future. The struggling nationality in
Babylon attracted interest especially. Its faith amidst its
exile, its constancy amidst its persecutions, its permanence
and enduring individuality amidst defections, and the wear
ing hardships and enticements from the heathenism about
it, these drew the attention of the prophets. The idea of
the people of God, the other side of the great covenant
relation, rather than that of the theocratic king, was what
filled their minds. And there floated before them glorious
idealisations of that people, of its endowments by God, of
its destinies, of what it should accomplish in the world, and
what it should be when God returned to it and restored
it to its own land. Then comes to light the meaning of
Israel s sufferings, and the holy figure of the Suffering
Servant rises before the prophet s view.
In this way a new and most fruitful Messianic concep
tion is struck profounder, if possible, than any previous.
But it is a conception wholly different from the former
one, though it comes in to supplement it. The former
Messianic conception made prominent the Divine side.
Its highest expression was God with us. In the Messiah,
Jehovah came to His people, But, as was said, the
THE MESSIANIC AND THE ESCHATOLOGICAL 373
prophet left unreconciled the antithesis between a sinful
Israel and an Israel among whom God was to be present
for ever in peace and fatherly protection and care. God
could abide in this way only among a purified people.
And now the chasm is filled up. Israel is purified by the
sufferings of the Servant of the Lord : "By His stripes we
have been healed " (Isa. liii. 5), and Jehovah dwells for ever
among -them. But this Servant rises out of the people.
He is Israel itself. He realises in himself all that Israel
should be, and therefore atones for Israelites who have not
such characteristics. But he is a figure suggested by the
sufferings of godly Israel, the holy kernel of the people in
exile. He is the Messiah, but not the King Messiah. It
is doubtful if the prophets identified in their own minds
the Servant of Jehovah and the King Messiah. Later
revelation show r ed them to be one. But, in the Old
Testament, Messianic truth runs in many streams, far
apart, all pursuing their own way, and regarding which
one far up the stream would be unable to say that they
would yet meet in the same sea.
Again, in Zech. iii. the Branch is the Messiah. And
the conception of atonement struck in Isaiah reappears,
though it is doubtful if it is in quite the same sense.
There is another very difficult passage in Zechariah where
the same conception of suffering seems to appear : " They
shall look unto Him whom they have pierced " (xii. 10).
And, finally, the Book of Daniel is, as a whole, Mes
sianic, though whether in the more general and wide sense
of eschatological, or in the narrower sense of personally
Messianic, will depend on our interpretation of the phrase,
a son of man, i.e. it is not quite clear whether this son of
man be a real person, the Messianic king, or a personification
of the people of the saints of the Most High ; represented
as human in opposition to the beasts which represented
the heathen kingdoms. Without doubt the former inter
pretation became very prevalent before the time of our
Lord, and the Book of Daniel is a very important element
in the formation of the Messianic hope of his time,
374 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
As has been remarked, however, the prophets, regarding
Jehovah s presence as Israel s salvation, dwelt much on His
coming. It is not necessary to multiply references. The
first eleven verses of Isa. xl., of which the climax is, " Say
to the cities of Judah : Behold your God " " the Lord
cometh in strength," are an example ; and among the Psalms
the ciind, " Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion. . . .
So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, and all the
kings of the earth Thy glory ; when the Lord shall build
up Zion, He shall appear in His glory " (ver. 1 3 ff.). Now
the authors of these passages, and others like them, had
not in their mind the Messiah. They spoke of the appear
ance of Jehovah Himself, without connecting it with the
Messianic hope. But Jehovah s appearance in glory could
not in reality take place on two lines, and subsequent revela
tion fitted these passages into the line of Jehovah s mani
festations in the Messiah. These manifestations of Jehovah
were either for salvation or for judgment. But for these
ends Jehovah appeared in the Messiah. All judgment is
committed into his hand. Hence, in the New Testament, these
passages are all referred to the manifestation of God in the
Messiah.
3. The Day of the Lord.
But to be more specific. This manifestation of Jeho
vah is conceived as occurring at a set time, and with
certain characteristics accompanying it ; and in this aspect
it is called the day of the Lord. It is possible that in
Hebrew as in Arabic the day means the day of battle ; the
day of Badr is the battle of Badr, and this may be the
primary sense of the phrase in Hebrew. And, in fact, in
Isa. ii., where it is used, it may refer to the Lord s battle
day through His instruments the Assyrians. But natur
ally the phrase soon acquired a wider sense in Hebrew. It
is not, however, to be regarded primarily as an assize, a day
of judgment ; judgment always took place in an external
manner, in the form of chastisement at God s hands through
His instruments often in war. It is a day that is a special
THE DAY OF THE LORD 375
time ; and it is the day of the Lord, belongs to Him, is
His time for working, for manifesting Himself, for display
ing His character, for performing His work His strange
work upon the earth. Hence Isaiah says : " For the Lord
of hosts hath a day upon every one that is proud and lofty
. . . and he shall be brought low" (ii. 12); "And the
Lord alone shall be exalted in that day" (ver. 17).
Now, as to this day, these things may be observed :
(1) As it was a day of the manifestation of Jehovah,
God of Israel, in His fulness, and therefore in a way to
realise His purposes, which, with Israel and even with the
world, were those of grace, it is fundamentally a day of joy
to Israel and also to the world. " Let the children of Zion
be joyful in their King " (Ps. cxlix. 2). " The Lord is king ;
let the earth rejoice ; let the multitude of the isles be glad
thereof" (Ps. xcvii. 1). " Say among the heathen that the
Lord is king. . . . Let the heavens rejoice, and let the
earth be glad ; let the sea roar (i.e. for gladness), and
the fulness thereof. Let the fields be joyful, and all that
is therein. . . . Before the Lord : for He cometh, for He
cometh to rule the earth : He shall rule the world with
righteousness, and the peoples with His truth " (Ps. xcvi.
1013). That Jehovah should reign, and that He should
come to the earth as King, must, in spite of all the
terrors that might attend His coming, bring to the world
a pervading gladness. For the falsehood and injustice
that had cursed the earth so long would disappear, and the
longing of men, who were ever, in words or sighs, crying,
* Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us, should be satisfied.
But it would be a day of satisfaction, above all, to Israel,
when He should plead her cause ; for the day of vengeance
was in His heart, and the year of His redeemed was come.
Naturally an accompaniment of the manifestation of Jehovah
was the disappearance of the idols. "Ashamed, turned
back . . . are all they that frame graven images ; Israel is
saved with an eternal salvation" (Isa. xlv. 17). "On that
day men shall cast their idols of silver and their idols of
gold to the moles and to the bats " (ii. 20).
376 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
But in the view of the prophets the gigantic oppres
sions which the empires of Assyria and Babylon meant
to Israel, were but projections of their idolatry, with
its cruelties and inhumanity, and licentiousness and pride.
The later prophet, Daniel, condenses this idea into a graphic
enough and expressive figure, when he represents the
heathen monarchies under the image of various savage
beasts, while the kingdom of God is represented under the
image of a man. These kingdoms were embodiments of
the qualities of the brute ; in the kingdom of Israel man
rose to his place, and the true attributes of humanity found
full play and embodiment. Hence the grand tone of all
descriptions of the day of the Lord is a certain joy, which
is willing to face the terrors of His coming for that which
shall follow upon it. Behind the tempest the sky breaks
clear. The terror, and the joy that is in spite of it, are
finely displayed in the hymn of Habakkuk (chap. iii.).
(2) To those in Israel who looked for Jehovah s coming,
apart from the natural terrors of it, it was unmixed satis
faction. And it would have been so to all Israel had fidelity
to her relation to Jehovah been universal. But this was
far from being the state of Israel. The condition of Israel
was mixed. Hence the day of the Lord/ while as a whole
a day of salvation, had another side, which made it a day
of judgment. To Israel as the people of God it was a day
of salvation, and consequently it was a day of vengeance
and judgment upon the people s foes, i.e. all the heathen
round about. Thus Obadiah (vers. 1517) says : " For the
day of the Lord is near upon all the heathen : as thou hast
done (to Israel), it shall be done unto thee : thy reward
shall return upon thine own head, . . . but upon Mount
Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness."
But there were many in Israel who belonged to Israel
only in race. They were " filled from the East, and were
soothsayers like the Philistines " (Isa. ii. 6). They shared
the idolatries and practised the sins of the nations ; and,
as Jeremiah charges it upon them, their sin was double :
" Hath a nation changed their gods, which are no gods ?
A DAY OF SIFTING 377
but My people have changed their glory for that which
doth not profit. . . . My people have committed two great
evils : they have forsaken the fountain of living waters,
and hewn out unto themselves cisterns, broken cisterns,
that can hold no water" (ii. 1113). Therefore the day
of the Lord came upon Israel also as a day of terrors
and destruction. And the true prophets find it necessary
to warn the people against a superficial national conception
of the day of the Lord, as if it was a mere interference
of Jehovah in behalf of Israel as a people, and not a
manifestation on strict moral lines, and a revelation of the
righteous judgment of God. So early even as Amos this
perversion of the idea had crept in : " Woe unto you that
desire the day of the Lord ! Wherefore will ye have the
day of the Lord ? It is darkness, and not light. As if a
man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him. Shall not
the day of the Lord be darkness ? even very dark, and no
brightness in it?" (v. 18).
Hence the day of the Lord acquires a double-sided
character. It is a day of salvation and judgment, or a day
of salvation through judgment, a day of judgment on the
heathen world and the Church s foes, but also upon the
apostate, impure Church itself, and a day of salvation
behind this. Sometimes one side is prominent and some
times another. Sometimes it is represented as a process of
sifting, or a process of refining. Thus Zephaniah, whose
book is just a detailed delineation of the day of the Lord,
says : " The day of the Lord is at hand ; the Lord hath
prepared a sacrifice, and He hath bid His guests " [Israel
is the society, and the nations who execute His wrath are
the guests]. ..." And it shall come to pass at that time,
that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the
men that are settled on their lees* (i. 7-12). And an
other prophet says : "I will turn My hand upon thee, and
purge away thy dross" (Isa. i. 25); and yet another:
" Who may abide the day of His coming ... for He is
like a refiner s fire . . . and He shall sit as a refiner and
purifier of silver" (Mai. iii. 2, 3). Sometimes both sides
378 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
of the Divine manifestation are brought forward, as in Joel :
" I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh ; . . . and I will
show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and
fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into
darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and
terrible day of the Lord come. . . . And it shall come to
pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord
shall be delivered" (chap. ii. 28-32).
It is in connection with this side of the day, which
is judgment, that all the terrible pictures of it are drawn
with which we are familiar. That day, says Amos, is
" darkness, and not light " (v. 18). According to Joel, it is
a " day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and
of thick darkness " (ii. 2) ..." the sun and moon shall
be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining " (ii. 10).
Isaiah describes it as a day of terrors : " Men shall go into
the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth for
fear of the Lord . . . they shall say to the mountains,
Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us" (ii. 19). "Behold,
the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste,
and turneth it upside down, and emptieth out the inhabit
ants thereof . . . the earth shall reel to and fro like a
drunkard, it shall shake like a booth . . . and it shall fall,
and not rise again" (Isa. xxiv. 120). "Behold, the day
of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger,
to lay the earth desolate . . . therefore I will shake the
heavens, and remove the earth out of her place, in the
wrath of the Lord of hosts" (Isa. xiii. 9, 13). For this
wrath shall be universal and indiscriminate : " I will
utterly consume all things from off the earth, saith the
Lord. I will consume man and beast ; I will consume the
fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea . . . and I
will cut off man from off the earth, saith the Lord. Hold
thy peace at the presence of the Lord God : for the day
of the Lord is at hand " (Zeph. i. 27).
(3) From this character of the day as a manifestation
of God we may understand how it is that the prophets
connect it with many different things. It is a manifesta-
THE FUTURE IN THE PRESENT 379
tion of God of God as what He is truly, and in the
whole round of His being. Hence it displays His whole
character, and sees His whole purpose effected. Hence it
has universal bearings. But all manifestations of Jehovah
are on moral lines. God wholly revealed is only in per
fection that which He is partially seen to be every day.
His perfect work is but the completion of the work which
He can be seen at any time engaged in performing. The
final state of things was but the issue of operations going
on always. The prophets are in the dark as to the time
of that day, but they are in no ignorance of the principles
of it. And the feeling that these principles, retarded by
many obstacles in their operation now, counteracted by
the opposing wills of men, and by their insensibility to
Jehovah s work among them, may at any moment over
come the obstacles and throw off the hindrances that
impeded them, and run out into perfect realisation, was
ever present with them. Thus, when they observed a
quickening of the currents of providence in any direction,
whether of judgment or salvation, the presentiment filled
their minds that it was the beginning of the day of the
Lord. Hence Joel attaches that day to the plague of
locusts and drought ; this extraordinary judgment seemed
to him the first warnings of the universal judgment.
Another prophet (Isa. xiii.) connects the day with the
violent upheavals among the nations that accompanied
the overthrow of the Babylonian monarchy by the Medes :
" The oracle of Babylon . . . the noise of a multitude . . .
a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered
together . . . they come from a far country, even the
Lord, and the weapons of His indignation, to destroy the
whole earth. Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is at
hand " (xiii. 16). And yet again, in the second chapter,
the prophet connects it with the wickedness and pride of
Israel, and with the feeling that God s vengeance must fall
upon it : " The land is full of idols . . , the lofty looks of
man shall be humbled ... for the Lord hath a day upon
every one that is proud and lofty " (ii. 1112). And other
380 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
prophets connect it with other great movements in the
world, in which Jehovah s presence was conspicuously
seen.
These prophets moved much amidst presentiments. It
was mainly moral necessities that they spoke of. They
had a finer sensibility than others to detect the currents
of things. Their hearts were full of certain issues, and
they were constantly looking for them, although the exact
time of their coming was hid from them. And as one
in the darkness thinks he hears the approach of an evil
which he dreads, these prophets, when the sound of
Jehovah s goings was more distinctly heard than usual,
deemed that what they heard was the warning of His
coming to shake terribly the earth. This was not a
mere subjective feeling. For His final appearance was
closely connected with these manifestations in great pro
vidences, as the outermost ring in the pool is but the
widening of the innermost. For there moves a current
under all things, bearing them on its bosom towards results
affecting all. Often its motion is imperceptible. But
sometimes it receives a mysterious quickening, and men
become conscious whither things are moving. Every wave
that runs up and breaks upon the shore is the precursor
of the full tide ; and every act of judgment or of salvation
is a premonition of the day of the Lord. To say that
this frame of things shall never reach a goal, is to put
God out of it as effectually as to say that it never began.
But it shall not end in a manner which cannot be guessed
at. It shall end on the lines on which it is at present
moving. And the ear that is wakened by Jehovah, and
sharpened by His touch, may detect in the sounds of any
signal providence the final issue of things, as surely as
one can hear the full tempest in the first drops that fall
sharp and measured upon the leaves in the sultry stillness
of the air.
A distinction, of course, must be drawn between the
faith of the prophets and their presentiments. Their
expectation of the day of the Lord was a belief, an assur-
NEARNESS OF THE DAY 381
ance, as much as our own ; but the feeling they had about
its nearness on any occasion was more a presentiment.
It is somewhat difficult for us to realise this peculiar
feeling which the prophets had of the nearness of the day
of the Lord. Yet, perhaps, it is not really so difficult.
The prophets wrote and spoke usually amidst very stirring
scenes. Great events were passing around them. It is
only, speaking generally, amidst convulsions that rend
society deeply that they came forward. In these great
events about them they felt the presence of Jehovah. He
was nearer than before. The noise of falling empires, the
desolations of the kingdom of God, the revolutions in men s
thoughts, revealed to their ear His footsteps ; they heard
in them the sound of His goings. God was so near that
His full presence, which He had promised, appeared im
minent. Speedily His glory would be revealed, and all
flesh would see it together, as the mouth of the Lord
had said. Thus their belief in the nearness of the Lord s
coming was more a feeling than a thought, more a pre
sentiment of their heart a religious presentiment than a
mere intellectual calculation of time. Still the feeling was
of such a kind that we cannot imagine them thinking His
coming could be long deferred.
(4) Another thing follows from the last two particulars.
Though the day of the Lord/ as the expression implies,
was at first conceived as a definite and brief period of
time, being an era of judgment and salvation, it many
times broadened out to be an extended period. From
being a day it became an epoch. This arose from the fact
that under the terms day of the Lord, that day, or that time,
was included not only the crisis itself, but that condition
of things which followed upon the crisis. Frequently, also,
there was included under it the condition of things that
preceded the crisis. Now this condition of things that
issued in the day of the Lord was frequently one of some
duration, being sometimes a calamitous period in Israel s
history, and sometimes a period of great commotion among
the nations. The day is usually considered a period when
382 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
it is brought into connection with the Messianic age or
identified with it. The Messianic age, as we observe it,
for example, in Isa. ii., the prophecy of the mountain of
the Lord, or in Isa. xi., the prophecy of the shoot out
of the stem of Jesse, is a period entirely homogeneous.
There are no occurrences within it. It is the perfect
condition of Israel, and there are no events or breaks
within it. It has characteristics, but no internal develop
ment. It is a period of light, and peace, and the knowledge
of the glory of the Lord which covers the earth. But it
has no movement. " It shall come to pass in that day,"
says Zechariah, " that the light shall not be clear and dark,
but it shall be day only . . . not day and night . . . but
it shall come to pass that at evening it shall be light "
(xiv. 6). Subsequent revelation has broken up the coming
of the Messiah into a coming and a coming again, and
intercalated between the two an age full of developments
and vast changes. But the prophets embrace all in one
period, over which there hangs a Divine light. The
characteristics they assign to the Messianic age are those
characteristics in the main which we assign to the age
which the Second Coming shall introduce. These charac
teristics are the result of the first coming and the natural
expansion of its principles, and to the prophets the prin
ciples and their realisation all seem condensed into one
point. But in this way, as was said, the day of the
Lord widens out into a period, homogeneous, no doubt,
but extensive.
(5) Again, the condition in which the day of the Lord
leaves the external world is variously represented. For,
as the prophets were not interested in giving mere pre
dictions of external events or conditions, but in setting
before the Church the moral developments and issues of
the kingdom, it sometimes happens that they bring down
these issues in their completed form upon an external
condition of the world which is just that existing in their
own day. There is a perfection and realisation of moral
principles ; but the condition of the world, in its kingdoms
TRANSFORMATION OF EARTH 383
and the like, remains unchanged. Thus to Micah the
Assyrian still exists in the Messianic age.
But, ordinarily, this is not the case. The heathen
monarchies entirely disappear. The heathen nations are
utterly destroyed, as in Joel; or they are absorbed into
Israel, as in most of the prophets. "In that day shall
Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria: when
the Lord of hosts shall say, Blessed be Egypt My people,
and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine
inheritance" (Isa. xix. 24, 25). "Egypt shall be a desola
tion, and Edom a desolate wilderness . . . but Judah
shall dwell for ever" (Joel iii. 19, 20). "The house of
Jacob shall be a fire . . . and the house of Esau for
stubble ; and they shall devour them . . . they of the
south shall possess the mount of Esau ; and they of the
plain the Philistines . . . and Benjamin shall possess
Gilead" (Obad. 18, 19). In many of the prophets this
conquest of the world by Israel is through the religion of
Israel. Many nations shall say, " Come, and let us go up
to ... the house of the God of Jacob ; . . . He will teach
us of His ways, and we will walk in His steps " (Isa. ii. 3).
The issue is the same in all, but it is realised in many dif
ferent forms.
And, finally, in many of the prophets what is declared
is not only a great change upon the condition of the earth,
but an absolute transformation. An order of things wholly
new is introduced upon the world. It is not quite certain
what that prophet quoted both by Isaiah and Micah means
when he says " that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be exalted above the hills" (Isa. ii. 2; Mic. iv. 1) ;
whether he speaks of real physical changes on the face of
the world, or uses only a figure to express religious pro
minence. But it is certain that the prophet Zechariah
contemplates physical changes when he says : " The land
shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Eimmon south
of Jerusalem : and it shall be lifted up," i.e. elevated, " and
inhabited in her place, from Benjamin s gate unto the
place of the first gate": and so on (Zech. xiv. 10). But
384 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
the transformation of the earth assumes larger proportions
in many of the prophets, and becomes a complete trans
formation of all things. There is not so much a trans
formation as a transfiguration : " Behold, I create new
heavens and a new earth, saith the Lord " (Isa. Ixv. 1 7 ;
cf. iv. 2, xi. 6-16, etc.).
As the prophets are mainly interested in the moral
destiny of Israel, there are two characteristics which are
always announced as present in that great day :
a. Israel is truly the people of God. The people
shall be all righteous. Jehovah dwells in Zion. He is
Israel s glory, and she needs no more the light of the sun
and moon. He makes a new covenant with Israel, and
writes His law upon her heart. Sorrow and sighing flee
away. The Lord rejoices over Israel as the bridegroom
over the bride. Jerusalem shall be holy ; the uncircum-
cised and the unclean shall pass through her no more.
b. Israel in that day shall be fully restored. Ephraini
shall not envy Judah, nor Judah envy Ephraim. Jehovah
will lift up a signal to the nations, and they will bring
Israel s children from afar, and plant them in their own
land. The former kingdom shall return, and all the
nations on which Jehovah s name is named shall be again
subject to Israel, in a new manner. But we shall have
occasion to speak of this again when considering the
Restoration of Israel in itself.
4. The Day of the Lord in Deutero- Isaiah.
So much importance belongs to the Second Isaiah in
this connection, however, that it is necessary to look more
particularly to the conceptions of Redemption and the Day
of the Lord which appear in that great section of prophecy.
Something has been said of the day of the Lord as the idea
is represented in most of the prophets. The prophet whom
we shall now specially consider does not, I think, use this
expression, but the idea is present to him when he says :
" The Lord God cometh in might, His arm ruling for Him.
JEHOVAH AND MESSIAH 385
Behold, His reward is with Him, and His recompense before
Him (xl. 10). "The glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together " (xl. 5). And the issue
of Jehovah s coming shall be that He will " feed His flock
for ever, like a shepherd." And in another passage (xlii.
1317): "The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man;
He shall stir up ardour as a man of war. ... I have too
long holden my peace, now will I cry out like a travailing
woman. I will make waste mountains and hills . . . and
I will lead the blind by a way that they know not . . .
they shall be turned back and ashamed that trust in graven
images." See also the splendid passage in lix. 16, etc.
We have seen, then, that it was Jehovah who was the
Saviour of His people, and that this salvation consisted
in His coming to them in His fulness ; for then was
fulfilled the idea of the covenant, that He should be
their God and they His people. It is remarked by Franz
Delitzsch that it is always Jehovah in the Old Testament,
and not the Messiah, that is the Saviour of the people. The
remark is true ; and it is a truth profoundly important
when we consider it in connection with Messianic state
ments in the Old Testament. We find that, though
Jehovah alone is Saviour of His people, and though the
salvation is often represented as realised in His coming in
person in the day of the Lord, this is not always the case.
Sometimes He comes not, so to speak, in person or
independently, but in a presence manifested in the
Messianic King; and in such cases there is no additional
presence of Himself in person. This elevates His presence
in the Messiah, and the Messiah in whom He is present, to
a very lofty significance. It may be doubtful, as we have
already observed, if the Old Testament went so far as to
identify the Messiah with Jehovah, or to represent the
Messiah as Divine. It went the length of saying, however,
that Jehovah would be present in His fulness in the
Messiah, so that the Messiah might fitly be named God
with us, and Mighty God. It is thus just the very idea
that Jehovah alone is the Saviour of His people that
25
386 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
makes this representation, viz., that He saves them in His
presence in the Messiah, so remarkable, and elevates the
Messianic conception to so high a level. It was not a
difficult step to take, to infer that the Messiah was Himself
God, and that because He was God He was Saviour ; and
then to apply even those passages which speak of Jehovah s
coming in person to His coming in the Messiah.
We have seen also that each of the prophets represents
the day of the Lord as arising out of the condition of the
people of God and of the world in his own day, and there
fore as near. Isaiah, for instance, in his first discourse
(chaps. ii.-iv.) represents the day of the Lord as a moral
necessity, to humble the pride and to chastise the sin of
men of his day. Again, in chap. xiii. it is represented as
following the convulsions of the nations which were to
issue in the downfall of Babylon. The chapters we are now
considering represent it in the same way as following on the
conflict of Cyrus with the idolatrous kingdom. Probably
it is not too much to say that all students of prophecy
now acknowledge that this peculiar mode of representation
characterises the prophets. It was not so, however, with
scholars of older date, such as Hengstenberg. That re
doubtable Berlin theologian expressed the opinion that
the prophets and psalmists would have made themselves
ridiculous by cherishing such a notion. In reply to this,
Kurtz, in an excellent paper on the " Theology of the
Psalms," remarked : " It is once for all the case that not
only the subjective hopes of the pious in Israel at all times
conceive the time of the Messianic fulfilment as near, but
the objective prophecies of the prophets of the Old Covenant
so represent it " ; and he adds, " and so it is in the New
Testament ; for the apostles represent the advent of the
Lord as near, even immediately near."
Perhaps these two remarks require still to be made on
the term Day of the Lord. One is, that of course there is
no such thing as a day of the Lord, it is always the one
day of which the prophets speak. It is a great religious
conception, in the minds of the prophets, of unknown
JEHOVAH S COMING 387
antiquity ; for even Amos refers to the conception as
having already been corrupted. The day of the Lord is
the day when the Lord Himself comes, manifesting Himself
in His fulness. It is never identified with plagues or con
vulsions ; these are but the tokens of its nearness, or, at
most, accompaniments of it. " The sun shall be turned
into darkness, and the moon into blood," says Joel, " before
the great and terrible day of the Lord come" (ii. 31).
The second remark is this, although to the prophets,
amidst the great events taking place around them, in which
they saw the presence of Jehovah, the day seemed near ; yet
this was not a judgment of the mind so much as a surmise
of the heart ; it was not an intellectual calculation, it was
rather that they threw their faith and their hope of the
coming of Jehovah in His redemptive fulness into the events,
and His coming seemed imminent. I make such suggestions
in explanation of this peculiarity on the part of the pro
phets. I am doubtful if they will quite satisfy others, for
they do not quite satisfy myself. But however we explain
the peculiarity, its existence cannot be doubted, and it is
of great importance in interpretation.
Another thing which appears with regard to the day
of the Lord is, that, being perfect redemption, a condition
of full religious fellowship with the Jehovah, it was this
religious side that was present to the prophets chiefly ; and,
having a presentiment of its nearness, they often bring the
perfect kingdom into a condition of the world such as they
saw in their own time. Of course it need not be said
that such an idea as that which we call heaven, an abode
of the saints in a transcendent sphere different from the
earth, is not yet an idea of the Old Testament revelation.
The perfect condition of the Church was not to be realised
by translating it into heaven, to be with God there, but
by Jehovah coming down to be with men here, when the
tabernacle of God was with men. Ordinarily, however,
the prophets conceive the earth as renewed so as to be a
fit abode for God s perfect people ; and sometimes a new
heaven and a new earth are prophesied of.
388 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
One other point may be referred to. The day of
the Lord, or His coming in His fulness as Kedeemer,
was to bring perfect redemption to His people. But the
question arises, what did the prophets understand by
redemption, and who were His people ? We must always
remember the condition of the world in the prophets days,
because redemption was conceived as coming to the Church
and world that then existed. Now the people of God in
the prophets days was Israel, and no other. And redemp
tion in that day, while the essence of it was the same as
redemption to us, namely, the forgiveness of sins, and
the perfect fellowship of God consequent on this, was not
yet conceived as consisting exclusively in these spiritual
blessings ; because the Church of God was a people, and
a local dwelling and land was necessary to it. And, further,
the minds of men in those days were not able to realise
to themselves that they possessed the favour of God, and
had His fellowship and were His people, unless they had
also external prosperity. It was not the external blessings
themselves that they coveted ; but these external blessings,
possession of Canaan and the like, were a kind of sacra
mental sign to them. They were seals of God s forgiveness
and His favour. Hence in this prophet the righteousness
of the people is put in parallelism with their salvation.
This righteousness was imputed to them or bestowed on
them by Jehovah, but they were able to realise it only
when it was manifested externally in their restoration and
outward well-being.
Now, keeping these few points before our minds, we
are able to place ourselves in the circumstances of the
prophet, and to understand his construction or conception
of Redemption, and how it was to be effected.
Throwing ourselves into the world of the prophet,
we perceive easily the phenomena and forces which made
up that world. These were Jehovah, God alone, and the
false gods ; the people of God, in bondage to that mighty
world-empire of Babylon, which was but an incarnation of
its own idolatry ; the irresistible career of Cyrus, raised up
JEHOVAH AND CYRUS 389
and directed by Jehovah, and the prostration of the idol-
worshipping nations before him. The prophet did not look
on these things as other men did. His eye saw in them
what he brought with him to the observation of them.
He animated them with his own religious faiths and hopes.
The external conflict became to him a conflict of principles,
and out of the conflict the eternal truth rose victorious ;
the kingdom of the Lord was ushered in, the kingdom of
Him besides whom there was no God, no Saviour.
To many an eye the world might have seemed only
confusion, and it did fill many of the prophet s contempor
aries with despair. They shared in the alarm of the other
nations at the advance of Cyrus, fearing he might but
forge heavier chains for them than those that now bound
them. But they were comforted against this fear : " But
thou, Israel, my servant, fear not : for I am with thee ; I hold
thee by the right hand of My righteousness" (xli. 810).
They were faint-hearted : " Why, when I am come, is there
no man ? " (1. 2). They were captious, and criticised the
ways of Jehovah in delivering them : " Woe to him that
strive th with his Maker ! " (xlv. 9). But though to many
minds in Israel all things might appear in confusion, they
could not appear so to a prophet of the Lord. It was a
great Divine drama that was being played, complicated and
extended, and only a prophet could foresee how it would
develop itself. He could foresee, because to his mind the
principal, or rather the only actor was Jehovah Himself ;
and he knew beforehand what He was and what His
purposes were : " Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the
ends of the earth : for I am God, and there is none else "
(xlv. 22). The thought of Jehovah, like the morning light
breaking into the darkness, turns to the prophet s view
the confusion into order. Under his eye there starts and
proceeds, step by step, the evolution which ushers in the
kingdom. This evolution has two sides, an outer and an
inner ; but the power moving and operating in both is
Jehovah.
The outward evolution is the career uiid work of
390 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Cyrus. This Cyrus, who was spreading consternation among
the heathen, treading down kings, and exciting terror even
in the breasts of the captives, was the anointed of
Jehovah, whom He had raised up, and who was come,
obedient to His bidding ; and His raising him up was not
a mere display of power, but a great operation within the
sphere of redemption : " I have raised him up in righteous
ness : he shall build my city, and let go my captives " (xlv.
13). Other prophets had spoken of heathen conquerors as
Jehovah s instruments. The Assyrian was the rod of His
anger (x. 5) to chastise His people in early times ; and
later, in Jeremiah, the Lord speaks of "My servant
Nebuchadnezzar" (xliii. 10).
But in two particulars this prophet goes beyond others :
first, in the great scope of the task which he assigns to
Cyrus, which is to crush the heathen world-power, and
thereby abolish idolatry ; and to set the Lord s captives free
and build His temple, that the law might go forth from
Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem ; and,
second, in the intimacy with Jehovah Himself into which
he brings the Persian hero. Cyrus is no mere instrument,
as the Assyrian was, to be flung away or broken in pieces
like a rod when God s purpose was served with it. Cyrus
is the anointed of the Lord, whose right hand Jehovah
holds (xlv. 1 ), whom He even loveth (xlviii. 1 4), whom
He called by name when he did not know Him, and who
shall even call on His name (xli. 25); and whom He has
raised up with the widest purpose, even that men may
know from the rising of the sun and from the west that
there is " none beside Me " (xlv. 6). These passages
suggest one of the most interesting questions that these
prophecies raise, the question, what thoughts the prophet
had of the religion of Cyrus, and whether he entertained
the hope that the king might be won over to the religion
of Jehovah. No thought was too lofty or too wide for
the prophet in the passion of enthusiasm which the vision
of a restored nation and a regenerated world raised within
him. And, obviously, if such a thought occurred to him,
THE LIGHT OF THE GENTILES 391
it would facilitate to his mind the solution of the problem
that attracted his thoughts, namely, how the nations could
be gained over to the true faith and become the kingdoms
of the Lord.
In this way what might be called the external frame
of the prophet s conception of the universal kingdom of the
Lord was set up, the idolatrous empire was laid low, the
idols demonstrated to be vanity (xli. 29), those that served
graven images were turned back and put to shame (xlii.
17) ; and, on the other side, the ransomed of the Lord were
restored to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads
(li. 11), and Israel saved with an everlasting salvation
(xlv. 17). Such language, however, is proof enough how
ill suited such a phrase as external frame is to express
the prophet s conception. The work of Cyrus was, in
truth, the work of Jehovah. Its whole meaning to the
prophet lay in its being a religious work, a great stride
taken by the kingdom of the Lord towards its full victory
over all that was evil and false. Nothing could demon
strate how entirely all the prophet s interests are religious
so much as his eagerness to bring Cyrus, the great agent
in Jehovah s work, himself into true and personal relations
with the Eedeemer of Israel, and God over all.
But there is also a process of internal evolution
needful to realise the perfect kingdom of the Lord.
The prophet s idea is complete ; he has comprehended
the problem in all its details. The work of Cyrus in the
world only overthrows the idol-serving empire, and eternally
discredits the idols and the idolaters. The nations are
not thereby enlightened in the knowledge of the true God,
and right. It is the mission of the Servant of the Lord to
bring forth right to the nations, and the countries shall
wait on his instruction. Not to raise the question of the
Servant here, whether he be Israel or another, when the
prophet says in xlii. 6 and xlix. 6 that the Servant shall
be " the light of the Gentiles," and in chap. Ix. says of
Zion glorified, " Arise, shine . . . the Gentiles shall come
to thy light," it appears manifest at least that his idea is
392 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
that the Servant shall reach the Gentiles only through
Israel restored. Any missionary enterprises of individuals,
however exalted, could scarcely occur to the prophet. Like
all prophets of the Old Testament, he operates with nations
and peoples. And if the nations are to receive light
through Israel, it will be through Israel again a people
before the world s eyes ; just as the Lord goes forth from
Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And this
clearly enough shows what the prophet means by the
Restoration. It is no return of a few or many exiles from
Babylon ; it is the reconstruction of the people in its
former integrity.
Delitzsch (with whom Cheyne agrees) maintains that
the covenant which the Servant makes or is, is made with
the true spiritual Israel. Of course, it is a truism that the
covenant cannot be made with those who will have none
of it, " There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked "
(xlviii. 22). But the language which the prophet uses
when he speaks of the Servant as a " covenant of the
people," whose mission is to set up the tribes of Jacob and
restore the preserved of Israel, and when the Lord says :
" I will say to the north, Give up : bring My sons from afar ;
even every one that is called by My name" (i.e. belongs
to the people of Jehovah) (xliii. 6), sufficiently indicates
the extent of the prophet s hopes. And, speaking expressly
of the new covenant, the Lord says : " Ho, every one that
thirsteth, come ye to the waters. Incline your ear, and I
will make an everlasting covenant with you ... let the
wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his
thoughts : and let him return unto the Lord, and He will
be gracious " (Iv. 1-7). This language shows the extent of
the covenant, and that the prophet s hopes were the same
as those of the Apostle Paul: "And so all Israel shall
be saved" (Eom. xi. 26). But this restoration of the
people could not take place apart from the true condi
tions of it : " Let the wicked forsake his way, and . . .
let him return unto the Lord, and He will be gracious."
To the prophet s mind, Israel s exile and afflictions were
THE SERVANT A COVENANT OF THE PEOPLE 393
due to its sin, and its restoration must be preceded
by its repentance and forgiveness. This forgiveness it
mediated through the sufferings of the Servant of the
Lord. But it is he also who kindles within Israel
the glow of a new faith in Jehovah, which secures their
spiritual unity, and thus leads to their restoration. But
here again, if we would observe the prophet s thoughts, we
shall find that he attributes all to Jehovah. He called the
Servant in righteousness, and took hold of his hand, and
will keep him, and make him a covenant of the people, a
light of the Gentiles (xlii. 6) : " Behold my servant, whom
I keep hold of; I will put My spirit upon him" (xlii. 1).
" For the Lord God will help me ; therefore have I set my
face like a flint, I know that I shall not be ashamed. He
is near that justifieth me ; who will contend with me ? "
(1. 7, 8).
Deferring reference to the Servant s atoning sufferings
for the present, I may notice three passages which describe
the Servant s operation and methods. The first is in
chapter xlix., which shows that the Servant also operates
in the direction of restoring Israel ; it is not, however, in an
external way, like Cyrus, but by awakening a new faith
and a new spirit in the scattered exiles. For this is even
more necessary than the external interposition in their
behalf of Cyrus. Jehovah thus speaks to the Servant : " I
will preserve thee, and make thee a covenant of the people,
to raise up the land, and make them inherit the desolate
heritages ; to say to them that are bound, Go forth ; to
them that are in darkness, Show yourselves. They shall
feed by the ways ; they shall not hunger nor thirst, neither
shall the sun smite them. I will make all my mountains
a way. Lo, these shall come from far : and these from the
north and from the west; and these from the land of
Sinim " (xlix. 8-12). Two things, surely, are made evident
by such a passage : first, that the Servant is a contem
porary of the Exile and that the land is desolate, seeing he
helps to its repopulation ; and, second, that the imperative
condition of the people s restoration is their repentance and
394 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
new faith, which the Servant produces in their minds : " I
will make thee a covenant of the people, in order to raise
up the land ; to make them inherit the desolate heritages."
The second passage, showing the general method of the
Servant s operation, is the one previously quoted in chap. 1. :
" The Lord Jehovah hath given me the tongue of disciples,
that I may know how to comfort with words him that is
weary : He wakeneth mine ear morning by morning to
hear as the disciples. He opened mine ear, and I was not
rebellious. I gave my back to the smiters : I hid not my
face from shame and spitting. For I knew that I shall
not be ashamed. ... He is near that justifieth me "
(1. 4-8). Here the Servant sets forth these three things :
(a) his consciousness of having the true word of the Lord,
and his acceptance of the mission entrusted to him as
having it ; (&) the inevitable sufferings in the work of the
Lord, he who is Servant of the Lord will suffer ; and
(c) his invincible faith, founded on Jehovah s help ; and
the assurance that through Jehovah he shall yet succeed.
To this passage should perhaps be added the beautiful one
in chap. Ixi. 1 : " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He
hath anointed me to preach glad tidings to the meek,"
etc.
The third passage I shall cite is in chapter xlii. 1 ff.,
describing the Servant s bearing and method with the
Gentiles : " Behold My Servant. I will put My spirit
upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
He shall not strive, nor cry. The bruised reed he shall
not break : he will bring forth judgment to the Gentiles ;
and the isles shall wait on his instruction." The only
instrument which the Servant employs is the word of the
Lord. This word is powerful, because it is not a mere
dead letter ; the Lord Himself is in it : " For as the rain
cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not
thither, but causeth the earth to bring forth seed to the
sower, and bread to the eater ; so shall My word be : it shall
not return to me void, but shall accomplish that which I
please. For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with
REDEMPTIVE RIGHTEOUSNESS 395
peace" (Iv. 10, 11 ; comp. li. 16). The Servant does not
so much wield the word of God, he is rather an impersona
tion of it : " He made my mouth a sharp sword . . . He
made me a polished shaft, and said unto me, Thou art My
Servant " (xlix. 2). The Servant is the word of the Lord
incarnate in the seed of Abraham.
But thus the prophet s construction is complete. Je
hovah, God of Israel, is God alone. Being so, the nations
are related to Him no less than Israel. As the one true
God, He must reveal Himself to all men, and destroy their
confidence in that which is no God, no Saviour : " My glory
will I not give to another " (xlii. 8). To Him every knee
shall bow. Yet though God over all, He stands in a
special relation to Israel. This relation is now about to
be manifested through His Servant. He will turn the
hearts of His people to Himself, and, gathering them from
all lands, will appear in His glory among them. And
through them, thus restored, His relation to all mankind
will also be manifested : His Servant will bring forth right
to the Gentiles, the nations will walk in Zion s light, and
kings come to the brightness of her rising.
Much more might be said of this prophet s conception
of the people Israel or Jacob.
5. Redemptive Righteousness in Deutero-Isaiah.
But, passing that by, it will be enough to refer to his
peculiar use of the word righteousness as a redemptive
term. There are three terms: (1) the verb P?; (2) the
adjective P^V ; and (3) the two nouns pro and njTO. The
word righteous is used in two ways : first, in a juridical
or forensic sense ; and, second, in an ethical sense. The
verb is almost exclusively used in the forensic sense, to be
in the right, with the idea of a court or judge in the back
ground ; or to be found in the right, as our Version goes,
to be justified. Naturally, to be found in the right is very
near to be pronounced in the right. Hence Hiph. to find
in the right, pronounce in the right, or justify. Of course,
oD6 THE THEOLOGY 05 s THE OLD TESTAMENT
there may be a multitude of situations, some important
and others less so, in which one may be found in the right
or justified ; but the word has the same sense everywhere,
and generally it is used in the sense of being right before
God. The adjective is chiefly used in the ethical sense.
It is the two nouns, however, which are used somewhat
peculiarly in these prophecies.
The word righteousness is used both of Jehovah and
of the people.
First, in relation to Jehovah. The word is used in
reference to all His redemptive operations. These are
done in righteousness, pnvn ; they are npIV, righteous
ness. For instance, " Who raised up him from the east,
whom v calleth to follow it ? " (xli. 2). "I have called him
(Cyrus) in righteousness : he shall rebuild My city, and let
go My captives" (xlv. 13). And of the people: "But
thou Israel, My servant, fear not ... I keep hold of thee
with the right hand of My righteousness ... all they
that are incensed against thee shall be confounded " (xli.
10, 11). And again of the Servant: "I called thee in
righteousness, and took hold of thy hand, and will keep
thee, and make thee a light of the Gentiles " (xlii. 6).
And frequently Jehovah s righteousness is put in parallelism
with His salvation : " My righteousness is near ; My salva
tion is gone forth" (li. 5). "My righteousness shall be
for ever, and My salvation to all generations " (li. 8).
And, again, the people are represented as asking of Jehovah
ordinances of righteousness, i.e. deeds of salvation on
their behalf (Iviii. 2) ; and Jehovah s righteousness sustains
him, and His arm brings salvation unto him (lix. 16).
Now, of course, we must not identify righteousness with
salvation. Salvation is something objective ; it is a con
dition in which the Lord puts the people, including restora
tion and, what precedes that, forgiveness of sins. When
righteousness is put in parallelism with salvation, that
word also has a certain objective sense, meaning deeds or
operations which are illustrations or embodiments of Je
hovah s righteousness, or a condition of the people brought
SALVATION AS RIGHTEOUSNESS 39?
about by Jehovah operating in righteousness. In other
words, salvation is, so to speak, the clothing, the manifestation
of Jehovah s righteousness. So we have it in the remark
able passage, xlv. 21, "a righteous God, and a Saviour,"
where the two expressions are identical in sense; or the
point may be that His being Saviour is the necessary con
sequence of His being righteous. Thus salvation is a result,
a manifestation of His righteousness. How then is this ?
Now, we might find the explanation of this way of
regarding salvation as righteousness manifested in the
relation of Jehovah to Israel. He is Israel s God, His
covenant is with Israel. They are His people ; it is there
fore right that He should interpose in their behalf. He
is righteous in saving them ; and of course He is also
righteous in inflicting vengeance on their oppressors. No
doubt this conception will cover a number of the passages.
And a similar idea is, that Israel s salvation is due to
Jehovah s faithfulness, i.e. not merely to His word or
promise, but to His whole relation to Israel as their God.
There are passages, however, which this idea of right
eousness merely in regard to His covenant with Israel will
hardly explain. They are these : xlii. 6, where He says
to the Servant, " I called thee in righteousness, and took
hold of thy hand " ; and xlii. 21, " the Lord was pleased for
His righteousness sake to give a law great and broad."
Both these passages refer to the very beginning of Jehovah s
relation with Israel, and imply that even the initiation of
the covenant illustrated His righteousness. And, once
more, li. 5, "My righteousness is near; My salvation is
gone forth, and Mine arm shall rule the people ; the isles
shall wait on Me, and on Mine arm shall they trust."
Here, not the salvation of Israel only, but that of all
mankind, illustrates or embodies the righteousness of
Jehovah. And this wider expression makes it question
able whether we were right in explaining even those
passages which spoke of Israel s salvation as righteousness,
merely of what was right or righteous in Jehovah in view
of His relation to His people.
398 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Various attempts have been made to explain this
usage. In an excellent paper on the root piv, Kautzsch l
defines righteousness to be conformity to a norm ; and
in his exceedingly good treatise on the theology of these
chapters, Krliger 2 defines the norm in this case to be
Jehovah s will, which is a redemptive will, upon the whole.
Hence He is righteous when He acts along the line of
this redemptive will, or in conformity to it ; or, in other
words, according to His redemptive purpose.
But does it not seem that these definitions are rather
abstract? And when it is said that righteousness is con
formity to a norm, is not that either false, or to say nothing
more than that righteousness is righteousness ? A man
would not be righteous who habitually lied, though he
would speak according to the norm of falsehood. Is there
not in the norm itself the idea of righteousness ? Does not
the existence of a norm imply a prior judgment as to
what is right, and the norm is the expression of this
judgment ? Conformity to a norm is not righteousness
unless the norm be right, or embody righteousness. Cor
respondence is only the evidence of righteousness, not
righteousness itself. A particular act or general conduct
is righteous, because it is an instance of that general of
which the norm is an embodiment. Therefore, to say that
Jehovah s redemptive acts are righteous because they
are in correspondence with His general will, which is a
redemptive will, is hardly true ; they are righteous only
because that redemptive will to which they correspond
is righteous. And thus we come back to the question,
why are a righteous God and a Saviour identical
expressions ? 3
1 Die Derivate des Stammes pi* im Altt. Spraehgebrauch.
2 Essai stir la Theologie d JEsaie 40-66, par F. Hermann Kriiger. Paris :
Fischbacher.
3 From what appears elsewhere, we gather that Dr. Davidson s answer to
this question was that, while in other books the term righteous and its
cognates convey legal ideas, in Second Isaiah at least they express the
constancy of God s purpose regarding Israel, His trustworthiness in all His
dealings with His people, even in His chastisements. ED.
PROPHETIC VIEW OF HISTORY 399
6. General Considerations on the Eschatoloqy of the
Old Testament.
On this whole subject of the Eschatology of the Old
Testament the following remarks may also be made with
regard to its rise, its development, and its contents :
(1) It is, of course, now a commonplace to say that
Amos taught that Jehovah is absolute righteousness, the
impersonation of the moral idea ; that moral evil alone is
sin ; and that the only service Jehovah desires is a right
eous life although Amos also teaches that Jehovah is good
and compassionate (ii. 9, vii. 1) ; that Hosea represents
Jehovah as unchanging love, which no ingratitude of His
people can weary or alienate ; and that to Isaiah, Jehovah
is the transcendent Sovereign and universal Lord, whose
glory fills the whole earth, the KTJp of Israel. Both Hosea
and Isaiah insist much on the inwardness of religion. It
is a state of the mind, a prevailing consciousness of
Jehovah. The want of this consciousness, insensibility to
the Lord the King, is sin ; and it is the source of all sin,
of the levity of human life, and the self-exaltation both
of men and nations. Further, the prophetic ideas form
but half of the teaching of the prophets ; the greater half
lies in their own life and personal relation to God.
(2) Taken as a whole, the prophetic teaching amounts
to the full ethicising of the conception of Jehovah. And
the moral is of no nationality ; it transcends nationality,
and is human. The righteous God is God universal, over all.
The principles of the human economy have at last clearly
reflected themselves in the consciousness of the prophets,
and human history is seen to be a moral process. It has,
at all events, a moral aim, and will have a moral result.
The universalism of the prophetic idea of God, and its
influence on the prophetic notion of riistory, is most clearly
seen in Isaiah. The movement of the prophetic thought
towards the universalistic idea of God may have been
aided by the entrance of the universal empires of Assyria
and Babylon on the stage of history. This gave them a
400 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
new conception that of the world ; and it created a new
correlation Jehovah and the world.
(3) What is called Eschatology, the doctrine of ra
(T%aTa, the last things, the final condition of the world,
could not have arisen earlier than this. The idea of a
final condition of the world could not arise apart from
a general conception of the meaning of human life and
history ; and what suggested the meaning of human history
to the prophets was their conception of the moral being
and the universal rule of Jehovah. An eschatology ; a
condition of final result ; a condition of mankind and
the world at the end of Jehovah s operations, arose very
naturally.
(4) The Old Testament, however, is what might be
called Theocentric. Jehovah operates; He accomplishes
all ; and He finds the motives of His operations in Him
self. Hence the final condition of the world is not in
the Old Testament the issue of a long ethical development
in human society, ending in a perfect moral world or king
dom of righteousness upon the earth. The final condition
is rather due to an interposition, or a series of interpositions,
of Jehovah. These interpositions, of course, are all on
moral lines ; in the interests of righteousness they are to
make an end of sin and bring in everlasting righteousness,
and the issue is a kingdom of righteousness. But the issue
is due to a sudden act, or a sudden appearance, of God, and
is not the fruit of a growth in the hearts of mankind.
(5) It is not enough, however, simply to say that an
eschatology, the conception of a final condition of mankind,
could hardly have arisen before a general conception of
the nature of the human economy, or at least of those
things that are needful to man s perfection and felicity,
had become general. There is the question, had such a
conception come to the prophets ? Now the answer to
that question is, that the meaning of human history, or the
understanding of its tendency, of its movement towards an
eschatological goal, was not revealed to Israel by study
of the life of mankind, but by reflection on the nature
THE TWO ESCHATOLOGIES 401
of God as revealed. God was the real Maker of history.
To the prophets there are no such things as mere events
or occurrences ; all events are animated, so to speak, with
a Divine energy. God is the author of the events, and
His mind, His will, or His purpose is in them. Hence,
when so broad a view as that of human life or history
as a whole is taken, it is, so to speak, secondary. It is
the reflection of the view taken of God, of His being, and
therefore as an inference from His being, of His purpose,
and of what the issue will be when He realises His pur
pose, or, as we might say, when He realises Himself in
the history of mankind. So soon as the ethical being of
Jehovah was conceived, and His oneness as God, there
could not but immediately follow the idea also that human
history, which was not so much under His providence as
His direct operation, would eventuate in a kingdom of
righteousness which would embrace all mankind.
No doubt the way in which this is conceived is that
this kingdom of righteousness is first realised in Israel, and
that through Israel it extends to all mankind; for the
nations "come to Israel s light, and kings to the brightness
of its rising," this light being the glory of Jehovah dwell
ing in Israel. But the unity of God creates the unity of
mankind.
(6) So we have an eschatology of two kinds : that of
the kingdom, and that of the individual. The former is
what is taught concerning the perfection of the nation or
people of Israel, or on a universal scale of the nations
or mankind; and the latter, so far as the individual is
considered in himself as distinct from the people, would
constitute the doctrine of immortality. But one of the
things that surprise us more and more in the Old Testa
ment is the place given to the individual. How little the
individual bulks in it, how greatly the individual loses
himself in the community, thinks of himself always as
part of it, has hopes for himself only so far as he has hopes
for his people. Pure or true individualism, i.e. the in
dividual s consciousness of himself in relation to God, and
26
402 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
as having a destiny of his own to work out or to inherit
out of all relation to the destiny of the community, and
independent of all other men this kind of individuality
appears in the Old Testament only in a few great instances.
XII. DOCTRINE OF THE LAST THINGS-
IMMORTALITY.
1. Differences in Modes of Thought.
Tn much of the teaching of the Old Testament, as we
have seen, it is the destinies of the People of God as a
people that are specially in view. But there is the
question also of the Individual, and what the Old Testa
ment has to say of him. This comes into view in connec
tion with the Old Testament conceptions of sin, death, life,
and immortality. Very much of what is taken up into the
Christian doctrine of Immortality appears in the Old Testa
ment in connection with what is said of the People or the
Kingdom of God, especially in the prophetic teaching. But
there is much more than that in the New Testament
doctrine ; and in the Old Testament itself there is an
Eschatology of the Individual as well as an Eschatology
of the Kingdom or People.
In entering now on the teaching of the Old Testament
on the subject of a Future Life, we have to notice certain
matters of general interest, and certain broad considera
tions which have an important bearing on the view we
take of the Old Testament position. These must be borne
in mind if we are to understand aright the Old Testament
conception of a future life.
We may notice, in the first place, the point which has
just been referred to, namely, the relation of the Eschatology
of the Individual to that of the Kingdom or the People.
A large portion of the contribution which the Old Testa
ment makes to Christian Eschatology is derived from the
Eschatology of the Nation. To this belong such points as
ESCHATOLOGY OF THE NATION 403
these: (1) the manifestation or advent of God; (2) the
universal judgment connected with the Day of the Lord ;
(3) behind this judgment, the incoming of the perfect
kingdom of God, when all Israel shall be saved, and the
nations shall be partakers of their salvation ; (4) the
finality and eternity of this condition, that which con
stitutes the blessedness of the saved people being the
presence of God in the midst of them ; (5) the form
which this view of the presence of God Himself (which
corresponds to the Christian view of heaven) takes in such
Messianic prophecies as Isa. ix. 11, etc., where Jehovah
is represented as present in His fulness in the Messianic
King.
Now, most that is said in these connections is said of
the people as a people. The people is immortal, and its
life eternal ; and this life is conceived as lived in this
world, although this world is also said to be destined to be
transfigured, so that there shall be a new heaven and a
new earth (Isa. Ixv. 17). But the question must arise,
Are the individuals of the people immortal, or is there
only an immortality of the people as a people ? Is the
life of the individuals, however prolonged and blessed, yet
finally closed by death ? In most passages the prophets
have in view the destiny of the people as a unity, the
ultimate fate of individuals not being present to their
mind. In some passages, however, the destiny of the in
dividual is referred to, and perhaps a progress may be
observed.
It is important to observe, therefore, how the Old
Testament ways of thinking on man s future differ in cer
tain respects from ours. The chief difference, perhaps, lies
in this, that when the Old Testament speaks of immortality,
eternal felicity, or what is equivalent to heaven, it usually
speaks of the immortality and eternal felicity of the nation.
This immortality and felicity shall be entered upon at the
manifestation of Jehovah at the day of the Lord and His
judgment. We, on the other hand, think of the individual
and immortality, and apply the latter term to the in-
404 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
dividual s destiny after death. But in the Old Testament
the immortality of the people does not raise the question
of death. There is a change, a being made perfect, an
entrance upon a new age, but only a change.
The Old Testament position appears precisely like that
which, if New Testament scholars be right, was the early
Christian position when the hope of the Second Coming
continued vivid. This Coming would change the world
and the Church, but the Church would pass living into
perfect blessedness. And of course individuals would share
in the change " We shall not all sleep, but we shall all
be changed" (1 Cor. xv. 51). Now, this was very like
the state of feeling in the Old Testament. The individual
would share in the transition of the community. The day
of the Lord would break, and the living would enter into
fulness of life without tasting death.
Thus the greater part of what is said of immortality in
the Old Testament being said of the people, death is not a
thing referred to in such connections.
But even when the individual is spoken of, or is the
speaker, his hopes may be connected with the destinies of
the people. He may share in these, entering into endur
ing blessedness, without seeing death, he being part of
the people. In passages, also, in which this is implied,
death is not contemplated. There is an immortality, a
continuance of being, which does not pass through death or
arise behind it. Now that the Second Coming has ceased
to be a vivid part of Christian faith, and death is looked
on as the inevitable fate of us all, the state of the question
becomes somewhat changed, and immortality is looked at
exclusively as something involving death.
The passages, however, in the Old Testament where
death is contemplated are not numerous, because the hope
of the nation was so vivid, and this hope was shared in by
the living individuals.
True individualistic hope, therefore, is expressed only
in those passages of the Old Testament where death is
contemplated, where it seems near or certain. Then the
w A RBU ETON S VIEW 405
individual person is cut off from sharing in the hope and
destiny of the nation, and he is thrown upon his own
individual relation to God to sustain him.
Again, it has always been felt to be strange that the
teaching in the Old Testament regarding immortality
should be so obscure, or at least so indirect and inex
plicit. This seems not only strange in itself when the
case of some other nations, such as the Egyptians, is con
sidered, in whose minds questions of death and immortality
occupied so prominent and engrossing a place ; it becomes
doubly strange when we take into account the very clear
and elevated teaching given in the Old Testament regarding
other truths of religion, and the true conditions of living
unto God. The faith in a future life is so important a
part of our religion, that we are surprised to find it appear
ing with so little explicitness in the religious thoughts of
the Old Testament saints. This has, indeed, appeared to
some writers Warburton, for example l so surprising, that
they have concluded that the revelation of the doctrine
was of purpose kept back, with the view of serving some
other ends. This idea, however, belonged to the time when
views of the nature and methods of revelation prevailed
which were rather artificial. In the present day we are
more inclined to conclude that the methods pursued by
revelation were simple, and, if we can say so, natural ; that
is, that its great object was to enable men in each age
practically to live unto God, and that at all times it gave
them light sufficient for this ; but that on other subjects it
left them very much with the ideas which they had.
In other words, it took men as it found them, setting
before them at all times, and in each successive age, what
was needful that they might walk before God in holiness
and righteousness, and, as it taught them this, penetrating
and transforming other modes of thinking on many non-
essential matters which they cherished. If, therefore, we
find explicit teaching on this question of immortality post
poned, we may infer that it was not unnatural that it
1 Iu his Divine Lec/ation of Moses.
406 THK THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
should be so ; that there was something in the ways of
thinking on the part of the people which, for a time at
least, supplied the place of it, or at all events made it not
a necessity to a true life with God and a walk before Him
in righteousness. And we may perhaps also infer that at
a later time events occurred in God s providential ruling of
the history of the people, which modified their former
modes of thinking to such an extent that more explicit
statements on this question were requisite, and so when
requisite they were supplied.
Again, our life now is very strongly individual, and so is
our religion. Some make it a charge against Christianity,
at least as practised and lived, that it is too individualistic,
that it is so even to selfishness. However this be, it cannot
be doubted that a different way of feeling prevailed in
Israel. The individual was always apt to lose himself in
some collective, such as the family, the tribe, or the people.
He was part of a greater whole, and felt himself to have
meaning only as belonging to it. This is perhaps an
Oriental way of thinking; and if so, revelation in some
respects accommodated itself to it. It did not wage war
against it, but left the positive truth which it gave to act
upon it, and gradually disintegrate and dissolve it. The
covenant was made not with individuals, but with the
people. The prophets address their oracles to the State,
to the leaders and rulers in the kingdom of God. It is
the destinies of this kingdom that they pursue out to the
perfection of it. The individual has his part in the blessings
of the kingdom, but he has it as a member of the people.
This conception of solidarity and the repression of indi
vidualism are considerations always to be kept in view in
judging the Old Testament. They explain many things,
and give a different colour to some things which are apt
to offend us. The sweeping away, for example, of the
whole family and dependents of a man along with himself
because of his sin or offence, was a practice due to this
idea of solidarity. The children and dependents were not
regarded as having an independent existence or a standing
IDEA OF SOLIDARITY 407
of their own. They were part of the father, of the head of
the family, and he was not held fully punished unless all
that were his shared his fate. Such a practice would
appear now to us an immorality, because of our strong
sense of the independence of each individual ; but from the
point of view of solidarity then prevalent it had not this
aspect. And in the same way the tendency of the
individual in early times to sink himself in the collective
unity, the tribe or the people, helps to explain what seems
to us the defective aspiration of the individual after
immortality or life. What Jehovah had founded on the
earth was a kingdom of God. This was eternal. In the
days of the King Messiah this kingdom would be universal,
and the people would be perfect. And the individual had
his immortality in that of the theocracy. His great interest
was in it. His hopes found realisation there. His labours
were perpetuated in it, even if he ceased to live. He saw
the good of Israel, and he continued to live in the fuller
life of his people. But this immortality of his hopes and
purposes was not all. In his children he continued to
live. He was there in them ; for he regarded them as
himself, furthering God s work and enjoying His favour.
So, too, his remembrance was not cut off " the righteous
shall be held in everlasting remembrance " (Ps. cxii. 6),
This kind of feeling is illustrated in Isa. Ivi., 3, where the
prophet, encouraging strangers and eunuchs to attach them
selves to the new community of the Eestoration, addresses
the latter : " Let not the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry
tree." The feeling of these persons was that, having no
children, they would have no permanent place in the com
munity, no endless share in the kingdom of God. To them
the Lord replies : " I will give them in Mine house and
within My walls a place, and memorial, an everlasting
name that shall not be cut off" (Ivi. 5). The passage is
a pathetic one ; for all that the prophet is as yet able
to promise the individual, however high the worth of the
individual is now considered to be, is an immortality in the
memory of God and of men. A true personal immortality
408 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
is not yet promised; not he, but his memory, shall be
immortal.
Yet it must be acknowledged that here lay an im
perfection which could not but be felt. This kind of
immortality in the perpetual existence of the kingdom of
God, and in the perfection of the people in which the spirit
of the individual lived, must have been felt by the man
to be too shadowy to satisfy his heart. The individual
spirit struggles against the idea of being poured out into
the general stream of the spirit of mankind or even of the
people of God, and claims a place for itself. And this
claim will be the more resolutely pressed the more the
individual becomes aware of his own worth and of the
meaning of the personal life. Now, in the providential
history of Israel, the time came when the State or people
in which the individual was apt to lose himself came to an
end. At the Exile the people ceased to exist, being
scattered into every land. But though the people and
State had disappeared, Jehovah their God remained, and
religion remained, and there remained the individuals of
the nation ; and thus all that significance and those
responsibilities and hopes, whicli belonged to the people
before, were now felt by the individual to belong to him.
We might think the downfall of the kingdom of Judah a
great calamity, yet in a religious sense it was the greatest
step towards Christianity taken since the Exodus. It made
religion independent of any locality ; it showed that the
people of God could exist though no longer in the form of
a State or nation. It changed the religious centre, so to
speak, making it no more the conscience of the people, but
the conscience of the individual. Hence in a prophet of
the Exile we find such words as these : " All souls are Mine,
saith the Lord ; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of
the son is Mine " (Ezek. xviii, 4). To each individual
spirit the Lord stands in the same relation. Naturally,
when this stage has been reached the craving for individual
immortality would immediately arise. And speedily the
idea would be extended ; even the dead of past generations
BELIEF IN RETRIBUTION 409
would be drawn in under the general conception. They,
too, would be made to share in the blessings of the perfect
kingdom, and thus faith in the resurrection also would
arise, as in Dan. xii.
There is another way of thinking, common now, which
makes us wonder how the doctrine of a future state could
for long be so obscurely stated in the Old Testament.
We wonder how morality and religion could exist without
the support of those eternal sanctions supplied to the mind
in the faith of a future retribution. Now the difference
between our way of thinking and that prevalent for long
at least in Israel, does not lie in any difference as to belief
in retribution. It lies here. We may relegate this retribu
tion to a future world ; Israel believed that it prevailed
fully now and was seen in this world. The universal faith
of the people is compressed in Prov. xi. 31: "Behold, the
righteous shall be recompensed on the earth ; much more
the ungodly and the sinner." Or as it is in the 1st Psalm.
To our minds now the anomalies of providence bulk much
more largely than they did to early Israel at least. We
may detect general principles in providence, we may see
the direction the movement pursues ; it may in a general
way plainly make for righteousness, but there are many
hindrances, and the current is often hemmed, and to
appearance even turned aside. But in the early literature
of Israel such a feeling hardly appears. Even in the Book
of Proverbs, a book occupied almost exclusively with the
doctrine of providence, with God s rule of man s life, there
seems to be hardly one complaint regarding any anomaly of
providence, any hardship or infelicity to the righteous or
any prosperity or felicity to the wicked. In later books,
such as Ecclesiastes and Job and some Psalms, complaints
are abundant. But in the earlier literature the faith in an
inflexible retribution in this life prevails. This, indeed, may
be said to be just the essence of the prophetic teaching
balanced or tempered, of course, by God s enduring mercy
and His purpose of grace, which nothing could frustrate, and
towards which even His righteousness in retribution worked.
410 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
It may be made a question how this very stringent doc
trine of retribution in this life arose. It is probably due, as
almost all other doctrines are, to the very powerful theism
of Scripture and of the people. God was all in all. Events
were all His work, and all immediately His work. All the
changes on the earth and in life were but the effects of an
unseen power operating within all things. And this God
was righteous, and His rule, therefore, in each particular
event a display of His righteousness. As there was one
God, there was one world. His rule prevailed alike every
where. The universe was a moral constitution. The
physical had no meaning in itself ; it was but the medium
for the manifestation of the moral. Thus that sphere
where retribution finds full realisation, and which we have
learned to transfer to some transcendental state, early
Israel found to exist in this present world. Sin was
punished and righteousness rewarded. There was no
anomaly here. The anomaly was the existence of evil, and
that it was permitted to continue, and not finally purged
away. Yet this condition was but temporary, and would
terminate soon ; it might terminate at any moment. The
day of the Lord might break on the generation then living.
The glory of the Lord would be revealed, and all flesh
would see it together. He would come, His arm ruling
for Him, His reward with Him, and His recompense
before Him. He would perform His short work on the
earth.
Of course, here again, in this idea of a retributive rule
of God on earth, there was an imperfection, and the feeling
of it led to further developments. In the early and happy
condition of the kingdom and society the well-being of the
righteous might seem realised, and under good government
the wicked might be cut off. The law of retribution had
effect. Yet later, when the State began to stagger under
the blows dealt it from abroad, and when morals within
became dissolute, the faith in a perfect retributive rule of
providence in this world would receive rude shocks. The
fall of the State, indeed, was its most perfect illustration
LACK OF CLEARNESS IN THE DOCTRINE 411
when the State was considered as a moral person, as the
prophets from Hosea downward consider it. But in the
disastrous time that followed it was just the righteous
individuals that suffered the most grievous hardships, and
that often just because of their righteousness " For Thy
sake are we killed all day long " (Ps. xliv. 22). And then
this ideal of a perfect retributive providence in this world
began to break up. Men felt it giving way under their
feet. And profoundly interesting is it to observe the per
plexities, we might say the agitation and alarm, which the
discovery occasioned. The unrighteousness prevailing on
the earth was immediately transferred to God as the author
of it ; for He was the author of all events. The very sun
of righteousness in the heavens seemed to suffer eclipse.
The reason of pious minds almost tottered under the sugges
tion that God Himself was unrighteous, as the author of Job
makes him say : " It is God that makes my heart soft, and
the Almighty that troubleth me" (Job xxiii. 16); "The
earth is given into the hands of the wicked : He covereth
the face of the judges thereof ; if not He, who then is it ? "
(Job ix. 24). By and by a higher teaching calmed these
feelings by suggesting considerations, such as that these
afflictions of the righteous might serve beneficent ends,
even in regard to the righteous themselves. And further,
it calmed them by opening a glimpse, if no more, of the
truth, that though pious minds might end their life on
earth amidst darkness, a light might still arise after death.
This appears the position assumed in Job xix. 25: "I
know that my Eedeemer liveth . . . and after this my
body is destroyed, I shall see God : whom I shall see for
myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." Ap
parently also in Pss. xlix., Ixxiii., and possibly xxxvii. But
of these we shall speak again.
There is yet another point of view from which, to us
now, the want of clearness in the Old Testament doctrine
of a future life appears somewhat strange. We are sur
prised that the Old Testament saint seemed satisfied with
the conditions, necessarily imperfect, of a religious life with
412 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
God upon the earth ; that he did not feel the need of a
closer fellowship with God than is possible amidst the
imperfections of earth ; and that dissatisfaction with earth
did not lead him to demand, and to believe in, a more
perfect condition of existence and a nearer vision of God.
Now, in this there may be some imperfection in the manner
of thought and feeling of the Old Testament saints. Here
at least we touch upon a point in which we have been
taught to diverge from them, and which in some respects
is just the point of difference between the Old Testament
and the New. In order to judge these Hebrew saints
fairly, however, we must look closely at their way of
thinking ; and if we do so, perhaps we shall be prepared
to admit that we may have diverged from them, not indeed
in fundamental faith, but practically further than was
necessary. We have come to feel strongly the imperfec
tions of the most perfect life upon the earth, and to believe
that only in a world that is another can full fellowship
with God be found. However true this be, it is possible
that the very axiomatic nature of the truth leads occasion
ally to the undue depreciation of this life, and to an un
necessary disparaging of the possibilities it offers in the
way of living unto God. So far as the Old Testament
saints were concerned, if we examine the utterances very
numerously scattered over the Scriptures, we do find
evidence of a very vivid consciousness of the presence of
God with them, and of the possession of His fellowship :
" Whom have I in heaven ? and on earth there is none I
desire beside Thee " (Ps. Ixxiii. 25). " When I awake I am
still with Thee" (Ps. cxxxix. 18). "I have set the Lord
before me ; He is at my right hand " (Ps. xvi. 8). " Never
theless I am continually with Thee" (Ps. Ixxiii. 23).
This consciousness of God s nearness and fellowship seems
to exceed that which men ordinarily have now. We might
speculate to what it was due.
In some respects it might be due to the extremely
emotional and the highly intuitive nature of the people s
mind, which realised God more powerfully than our minds
THE MEANING OF LIFE 413
do. There was, no doubt, something supernatural in the
visions of God which such prophets as Isaiah and Ezekiel
saw, but there must also have been a peculiar mental
characteristic which lent itself readily to such revelations.
Perhaps another thing which helped the people to realise
the presence of God so vividly with them was just this,
that He did in fact dwell in a house among them where
He had placed His name. When the worshipper came to
this house, he felt he was near unto God ; there he ap
peared before Him. We are familiar with the vividness
with which God s presence was realised, and with the
longing of saints to be near the place of His abode :
" One thing have I desired . . . that I may dwell in the
house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the
beauty of the Lord " (Ps. xxvii. 4). But to whatever this
vivid realising of God s presence was due, it certainly
existed in the minds of His people, and the religious
meaning of it is not affected. That which constitutes the
essence of the future world to men now, the presence of
God, the Israelite profoundly enjoyed on earth.
But no doubt a significant point of difference between
the modes of thought among Old Testament saints and
those now current emerges here. The difference lies in the
different views of what constitutes life. To the Israelite,
life meant what we ordinarily call life in the body.
Life was the existence of man in all his parts. When
Adam was created, God formed him of the dust, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and he became
a living person (Gen. ii. 7). He lived ; and in the fellow
ship of God his life was perfect. And so the pious
Israelite always continued to think. To him, separation of
the spirit from the body was what he called death. He
was far removed from the philosophical view that the body
was a prison-house, released from which the spirit could
spread its wings and soar into purer and loftier regions.
Neither yet had he attained to the Christian view, that
there is a perfection of the spirit even apart from the body.
His view of life was the synthetic one ; it was the existence
414 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
of man in all his parts, living in the light of God s face.
He stood before that analysis, so to speak, which ex
perience teaches us takes place in death; and his view
corresponded to that new synthesis which the New Testa
ment teaches, when the dissolved elements of human
nature shall be reunited in the resurrection life. And his
nomenclature corresponded with that of the Apostle Paul ;
he called the existence of man in the lody life, as the
apostle names existence in the resurrection lody life.
But of course, life being understood in this sense, a
physical sphere was necessary for it. Hence, as the earth
was the abode of man, it was to be his abode for ever.
A transcendental sphere of existence, such as we conceive
heaven, could not occur to the Israelite. He was far from
being insensible to the imperfections that accompanied life.
Though he enjoyed God s presence, it was not yet God s
presence in its fulness. In a sense, therefore, the Israelite
believed in a future life, and longed for it. But it was not a
life in a transcendental sphere ; it was a future life upon the
earth. In the perfection of the people of God they would
not be translated to be with God in heaven, but God would
come down and reveal Himself in His fulness among men ;
the tabernacle of God would be with men, and He would be
their God, and they His people. Then God would make a
new covenant with men, forgiving their sin, and writing
His law upon their hearts. And the kingdom would be
the Lord s. And simultaneously with this manifestation
of Jehovah among men, the earth would be transfigured,
and all hindrances to a perfect life with God removed :
" Behold I create a new heavens and a new earth, and the
former shall not be remembered" (Isa. Ixv. 17), This
manifestation of Jehovah in His fulness was felt as if it
were imminent; the salvation was ready to be revealed.
And here, perhaps, just as much as anywhere, lies the ex
planation of the want of the kind of faitli which we now
have. The eternal abode of man was the earth ; perfection
lay in the perfect presence of Jehovah ; but His perfect pre
sence was always near in hope, living men might behold it.
LIFE IN GOD S FELLOWSHIP 415
2. Fellowship with God the Fundamental Idea.
These considerations may tend somewhat to remove
our surprise at the absence of explicit teaching about
immortality in the Old Testament. The pious Israelite
had in truth, or felt he had in essence, all those things
that constitute heaven. No doubt he had them in idea
rather than in the fulness of reality. He had that sense of
perfect retribution which to us seems to belong to the future,
although the time came when painful doubts arose, and
suggested that something was wanting. He had that
presence of God which is that which gives its meaning to
heaven. It was this that made up the joy of life to him
" Thou art the portion of my cup . . . the lines have fallen to
me in pleasant places " (Ps. xvi. 57). So that the acute
remark made by the authors of the work called the Unseen
Universe is true, who say : " Not from want of religion, but
from excess of religion, was this void [specific thoughts
about future immortality] left in the Jewish mind. The
future life was overlooked, overshadowed by the conscious
ness of the presence of God Himself" (p. 9). Yet this
presence of God was not in such fulness as to satisfy, and
in this sense the pious Israelite looked for a future life,
when God would be present in His glory. But this
perfection was one the scene of which still remained the
earth ; there was no translation of man into a transcend
ental sphere of spiritual existence.
It is to this point of the enjoyment of God s fellowship
and life in His favour upon the earth that the chief
developments of the Old Testament doctrine of immortality
attach themselves. The event of death interrupted this
fellowship, and turned the joy of life with God into dark
ness. For, to the Israelite, death was truly death ; and the
dead were cut off from fellowship with the living, whether
man or God. It may seem surprising that the references
to death are so few in the Old Testament. Yet, if we count
them up, the passages are pretty numerous. Naturally,
these passages are generally of the nature of reminiscences
416 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
of feelings that were present when the prospect of death
was near. Hence they are all personal, and not of the
nature of abstract teaching ; though they often rise to the
expression of principles, particularly the principle that
fellowship with God constitutes an indissoluble bond, which
death cannot sever. The kind of immortality demanded,
or inferred or prayed for, is always a religious im
mortality, the continuance of that life with God already
lived on earth. The mere existence of the spirit after
death is never the point, for this was never doubted ; it is
the existence in the fellowship of God and in the light of
His face that is supplicated for or assumed. Hence every
contribution made to the question is of a practical religious
kind. It is a demand of the religious mind, what seems to it
of the nature of a necessity ; or it is a flight of ecstasy of
the religious experience ; or it is what seems involved in the
very relations of God and the mind of man.
To the Old Testament saints, immortality seemed the
corollary of religion, for immortality was the continuance of
fellowship with God. If religion was true, i.e. if God was,
then that experience which religion was would continue,
and men would live. The teaching of the Old Testament
is summed up by our Lord : " God is not the God of the
dead, but of the living" (Matt. xxii. 32). The prophets
and saints of the Old Testament kingdom of God were not
speculative men. They did not reason that the soul was
immortal from its nature; this was not the kind of im
mortality in which they were interested, though for all that
appears the idea that the immaterial part of man should
become extinct or be annihilated, never occurred to them.
They did not lay stress, in an objective, reflective way, on
man s instinctive hopes of immortality, though perhaps they
may be observed giving these instinctive desires expression.
They could not, with the patient eye of inductive observa
tion, gather up what we call analogies to the passage of
beings from a lower to a higher life, such as we conceive
our own death to be, as the entrance of a fuller life. They
did not reason : they felt, and they knew. They set the
VIEW OF MAN S NATURE 417
Lord before them ; and because He was at their right hand
they were not moved, and every element of their being
rejoiced. They had life with God, and they felt that im
mortality was involved in their communion with Him. He
was their God; and He was not the God of the dead, but
of the living. This communion was the object of their
hopes and the ground of their faith. Their faith in
immortality was but a form of their faith in God. It
was entirely subjective and religious, the corollary not
of reason, but of experience drawn from their actual life
with God. And even if it had remained but a record of
subjective conditions, of postulates of faith, of demands not
of reason, but of religious life, without any objective veri
fication, it would have been a distinct contribution to the
belief of men in immortality, a contribution in a region and
from a side altogether different from those in which other
nations made their contributions the contribution not of
man s reflection, but of his religious nature.
But the Old Testament age did not pass away without
these subjective aspirations receiving an external seal. In
Christ these subjective hopes and demands of faith and
man s heart became real outward facts. In His life they
passed into history.
3. Preliminary Questions as to Man s Nature.
Any question concerning death and immortality and
resurrection must be preceded by other questions relating
to the nature of man. For if death be in some sense
a dissolution, and that which is simple is incapable of
separation, the nature of man must be compound ; and
its elements will demand consideration, the dissolution of
which is death, the continued separation of which is the
state of the dead, and the reunion of which is resurrection.
But there is no question more difficult in Biblical Theology
than the question of the nature of man. Not only is there
no certain answer given to it in the Old Testament, but
the New Testament seems to leave it equally unsettled.
27
418 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
That man possesses a soul and a body is clearly taught.
That is the simplest and most general form in which the
teaching appears. That death may be denned as the separa
tion of these ; that their localities during death remain
distinct ; and that in resurrection they are united, these
are all general statements, true indeed, but concealing within
them a number of minor undetermined problems. With
regard to the body, except in the matter of its resurrection,
there is not much complication. But on the side of the soul
there is such a variety of terminology employed, and such
apparently irreconcilable predications are made concerning
it, that certain results seem hardly to be expected from
any investigation. The first and most prominent fact is
that Scripture constantly uses two words for this side of
human nature, soul and spirit, which it does not employ
indiscriminately by any means. It seems to regard the
latter as the primary, the union of which with body gives
rise to soul But whether this soul that so arises be itself
something distinct from the spirit which, uniting with the
body, gave rise to it, or whether it be not that spirit itself
conceived in this state of union and in all the relations
incidental to it, so that the naked essence unrelated would
be called spirit, and the same essence in vital union with
the body would be named soul, is a question to which
answers very diverse have been returned. Moreover, as to
this spirit itself, its relation to God s nature is very
obscurely set forth in Scripture ; for it seems sometimes
called His. He gives it, and men live ; He takes it away,
and men die. It returns to God who gave it. He is " the
God of the spirits of all flesh" (Num. xvi. 22, xxvii. 16).
And sometimes it is called man s. Thus we are at a loss
to say whether this spirit which God gives man, and which,
coming from God, may be called God s (as the apostle also
exhorts us to glorify Him in our bodies, which are God s,
Gal. vi. 20), and which, given to man and belonging to him,
may be called man s, be really a permanent part of man
at all, or merely God Himself abiding in every creature,
sustaining life, and when He withdraws, causing that from
SOUL AND SPIRIT 419
which He withdraws to fall into death. There are thus two
very obscure sides to the question concerning man s nature :
one is the relation of man s spirit to man s soul; and the
other is the relation of man s spirit to God s Spirit. Are
soul and spirit in man essentially or substantially, or only
relationally distinct ? Are man s spirit and God s Spirit
numerically distinct, or is the same spirit called man s
because possessed by man, and God s because given by God?
And being given by God, is it man s inalienabile possession,
or only a temporary gift ? These are questions on which
one cannot profess to be able to declare any very definite
results. But they deserve consideration, partly because
they are of great interest in themselves, and partly on
account of their bearing on the larger question of im
mortality. For this latter strikes its roots very deep down
into the Old Testament views of the primary and essential
relations of man with God.
With regard to the essential or substantial distinction
of soul and spirit in man, there are certain statements in the
New Testament, to which we may return here, 1 as they might
seem and have indeed been considered by many, undeniably
to establish it. There is the passage in 1 Thess. v. 23: "And
the very God of peace sanctify you wholly ; and I pray God
your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless
unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Here, to use the
words of Ellicott, the prayer " is threefold : first, that they
may be sanctified by God, the God of peace ; for sanctifica-
tion is the condition of outward and inward peace, wholly
oXoreXet? in their collective powers and constituents ; next,
that each constituent may be preserved to our Lord s
coming ; and, lastly, that each so preserved may be entire
and complete in itself, not mutilated or desintegrated by
sin ; that the body may retain its yet uneffaced image of
God, and its unimpaired aptitude to be a living sacrifice to
its maker ; the appetitive soul its purer hopes and nobler
aspirations ; the spirit, its ever blessed associate, the Holy
and Eternal Spirit of God " (Destiny of the Creature, p. 107).
1 See pp. 184-187. ED.
420 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
This New Testament passage certainly names three con
stituent elements of human nature, names them all co-
ordinately, and speaks of each as needing sanctification, and
capable of preservation. Are we to consider the distinction
between soul and spirit as real, or only, so to speak,
functional ; as a distinction of organs or substances, or
only of the different relations or conditions of a single
element ?
In Heb. iv. 12, too, there occurs, as we have seen, a
similar passage : " For the word of God is quick, and
powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of
the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart." The word of God has four
qualities assigned to it: (l)it is living, &&gt;z>; (2) it is active,
6^6/07779 ; (3) sharp ; (4) reaching even to the dividing, i.e.
even as far as to divide, aXP 1 * ^p^f^ov, of soul and spirit.
The word fjLepHrfjLos is rather the noun of action, dividing,
than the place, division ; the words do not mean entering
in so deep as to reach the place of division of soul and
spirit, the limit of boundary between them, where the two
meet, where the line of division runs between them ; but
entering so deep as to divide the soul and spirit, as to
effect a division of them. Yet it is left ambiguous whether
the sharp Word of God, which enters so deeply that it
divides, effects this division between the soul and spirit, and
between the joints and marrow, or within the soul and
spirit ; that is to say, whether it separates between the
two, or cuts asunder each into its parts, lays it open, or,
as we should say, dissects both soul and spirit, both joints
and marrow.
So far as our question goes, a decision on this point is
not important. The passage recognises two things: one
called soul, which is not merely the animal life, and another
called spirit. These are so substantial and independent,
that either they may be separated by a distinction and a
line of division drawn between them, a sharp distinction,
it is true, but one which the Word of God, sharper than
MANS SPIRIT AND GOD S SPIRIT 421
any two-edged sword, is qualified to effect, or each of
them may be severally divided and cut open into its own
elements. As was said, the view which considers the
division not to be made between the two elements, soul and
spirit, but within each of them, seems the true one ; for
one does not divide joints from marrow, but rather divides
joints themselves, and goes so deep as to cut open even
the marrow. But in any case the question is: Does
Scripture, while speaking of two such distinct and even
antagonistic things, mean really two things, or only two
aspects and relations, two sides of the one individual thing,
which, considered in itself, in its nature, is called spirit,
and as such is pure and Divine ; and considered as related
to the flesh, is called soul, and in this relation may be
degraded and covered with the sensuous ? I suspect there
is no passage which can be adduced at all so clear as those
two, and to some these have seemed decisive, but to others
quite the reverse.
These passages raise only one of the two questions over
which obscurity in this matter hangs. The other question,
namely, that of the relation of man s spirit and God s Spirit,
is raised as soon as we turn to the Old Testament. In the
account given of the creation of man (Gen. ii. 7), something
is said both about the origin and about the elements of his
nature : " God formed man of the dust of the earth, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and he became
a living soul." There are three things or stages in the
process. First, God formed man of "iBJf, dust, the most
immaterial of the material elements of earth. If you
contrast man s formation with that of the beasts, you find
that it is the result of a specific decree on God s part, and of
a particular independent act of formation. The earth and
waters at the command of God "brought forth the other
creatures. But man s formation is the issue of deliberation
and distinct workmanship on God s part. Second, his body
being formed, God breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life, D^n HDSW, i.e. the breath which is the origin and
font of life, rather than the breath which is the index of
422 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
life. This is the point around which the controversy
turns. The word breath is not used, I think, there is one
disputed passage, of the life-breath of other creatures
besides man. The act was real and symbolic. God
breathed. What He breathed was ntpBO ; this became in
man nn 3, breath of life. Third, this done to man, man
became a living soul, njn B>BJ. The difference of construc
tion of these words is to be observed : soul, j, has always an
adjective qualifying it, man is a living soul, the soul lives,
is the bearer of life, within it all life s functions go on, and
all life s phenomena are realised ; and so Paul says : " the
first man, Adam, was made a ^f%) o>cra " (1 Cor. xv. 45).
The word breath, J, however, or elsewhere spirit, ">, has no
adjective to qualify it, but a noun in construction with it.
You do not speak of a living spirit, but of a spirit of life,
one which confers or bestows life, one from which life
issues forth ; it is the spirit that giveth life, TO Trvevpd eari
TO ZCOOTTOLOVV (John vi. 63). The soul lives; but it has
not life in itself, the spirit gives it life.
If we recur for a moment to the second step in the
process, without discussing the word became, it is evident
that although the act was symbolical, and might seem to
be limited in meaning to the mere calling into operation
the inspiring and expiring processes of man s respiration,
and the putting within him that which is the sign of life,
namely, his breath ; yet the expression breath of life can
hardly mean merely breath, which is the sign of life here.
The action is not to be taken as merely symbolical of
putting breath in man. For that which God breathed
into man could not be mere atmospheric air, and besides
there is the same double use of words in Hebrew that
appears in all languages, the word for breath and spirit
being the same. And further, in point of fact, this B>M
here said to be breathed into man is, as breathed, elsewhere
said to be the cause of understanding in him : " the
breath (or inspiration) of the Almighty giveth understand
ing," B^Sfi ^ 3 (Job xxxii. 8). The narrative is simple,
and might seem merely to allude to the putting of breath
THE BREATH OF LIFE 423
into man, which is the sign of life ; but in conformity
with the usage of j elsewhere, we must hold that it is
also the spirit or breath of God which is the source of
life in man.
But now, on the other hand, what was this which God
breathed into man ? Was it His own Spirit ? On the one
hand, we might strictly adhere to the figure, and say : No
man breathes his own spirit that principle, namely, where
by his own personal existence is continued, and whereby he
breathes ; but only that whereby his existence manifests
itself, viz. breath. And thus what God breathed into man
stood related to Himself, as a man s breath is related to
him ; it was not His own Spirit, but something else, His
breath. But, on the other hand, the spiration of a spirit
is spirit ; the spiration of God gives subsistence to His
Holy Spirit. And thus many Psychologists, such as Oehler,
Hofmann, and others, hold that there was a real com
munication of God s own Spirit, which, thus communicated,
became, or gave origin to, J, or soul. Thus Oehler says :
" : nil aliud nisi inclusam in corpore, spiritus divini, ut ita
dicam, particulam." He thinks it needful to defend such
a theory from the charge of Pantheism and Emanationism,
and he considers it sufficient for that purpose to assert that
God communicated His spirit willingly. But if every
creature s spirit be God s Spirit, so far as spirit is con
cerned, Pantheism is the result, though there may not
attach to such a pantheistic theory certain characteristics
which usually attach to pantheistic theories, such as un
consciousness in that which is Pantheos. On the other
hand, this passage in Genesis does not teach that this :
which was put into man was created. It came out of God.
He breathed it into man. To our feeble thinking I
ought, perhaps, to apologise for saying feeble, for to some
the rigorous and sharp distinction of creation and emana
tion, and the denial of any other kind of origin whatever,
may seem strength, to our thinking there may be no
middle thing between bare external creation and coarse
materialistic emanation, and consequent partition of the
424 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Divine ; but our thinking may not be entitled to be con
sidered the measure of possibility on a subject so profound.
One has a repugnance to believe in the creation of spirit
as he does in the creation of matter. And there is a
difficulty attaching to the conception of it quite distinct
from the difficulty attaching to the conception of creation
as such. That any Being, even God, should be able to
produce substances and natures the same as His own, by
mere outward creation and not by some internal process
of generation, is so altogether unlike what we see or can
conceive as harmonious in the nature of things, that we
almost claim to be allowed to repose in some middle effort
of the Divine nature, which shall not be altogether gene
ration nor altogether creation. Scripture calls God " the
Father of our spirits." No doubt it does elsewhere say
that He formeth, ~f&, the spirit of man, within him,
Zech. xii. 1.
But thus you will see how the question is encumbered,
and that in matters concerning the state of the dead we
may find expressions both hard to understand in themselves
and not easily reconcilable with one another. Probably
all that can be determined meantime with certainty, though
it leaves the questions which were raised very vaguely
answered, is this : Whether the soul, j, in man be distinct
substantially from the spirit or no, the soul is the seat of
life and of personality in man, and having received sub
sistence, no more loses it. At death it parts from the
body ; if the person who died be restored to life, the soul
returns to the body. It has existence apart from the body
in Sheol, and the personality is still attached to it in that
region. The Old Testament, I think, does not call that
which is in Sheol soul, nor yet spirit ; it does not con
descend upon the quality of any of the individuals there ;
it calls them all t^KS"}, that is, either soft, tenues, shadowy,
or long -stretched. Again, as to spirit, whether that be
man s permanently, or God s actually and man s only in
temporary possession, it is said to return to God who gave
it (Eccles. xii. 7). Its presence is the source of life in
THE IDEA OF SHEOL 425
man ; its withdrawal produces death, and even its partial
withdrawal a diminishing of the powers of life.
It might be surmised from the strong expressions used
many times of death in the Old Testament, that it was
believed that in death the existence of the soul came to an
end. So, e.g., in Ps. cxlvi. 4 : " His breath goeth forth, he
returneth to his earth ; in that very day his thoughts
perish " ; and in Ps. xxxix. 13: "0 spare me, that I may
recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more."
And perhaps most strongly of all in Job, e.g., vii. 21 :
" And why dost thou not pardon my transgression ? for
now shall I sleep in the dust ; and thou shalt seek me
eagerly, but I shall not be " ; and xiv. 7 : " For a tree hath
hope : if it be cut down it will sprout again ; but man
dieth, and waste th away : man giveth up the ghost, and
where is he ? man lieth down, and riseth not : till the
heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised
out of their sleep." But these are only the strong
expressions of despondency and regret over a life mourn
fully soon ended, and that never returns to be lived
on this busy earth again. The very name and con
ception of Sheol is sufficient answer to the contention
that they mean more.
4. Conception of Sheol.
The word ^N^, rarely written defectively, is a feminine
noun, as most other nouns are which indicate space, though
in a few cases it appears as masculine. Its derivation is
uncertain. Some derived it from faw, to ask, believing
that Hades is so named from its insatiable craving. But
it is improbable that this primitive and ancient name for
the underworld should be a mere poetical epithet. Others,
with more probability, connect the name with the root
hyv, to be holloiv, in which case it would resemble our
word Hell, Germ. Holle, that is, hollow ; and the name "iis,
pit, with which it is interchanged in the Old Testament,
mid a@vcrcros, its synonym in the New, favour this deriva-
426 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
tion. 1 The Old Testament represents Sheol as the opposite
of this upper sphere of light and life. It is " deep Sheol,"
irnnn v, p s . Ixxxvi. 13: "Thou hast delivered my soul
from the lowest hell." It is deep down in the earth, Ps.
Ixiii. 9 : " Those that seek my soul, to destroy it, shall go
down into the lower parts of the earth." Corresponding
to this it is the region of darkness, as Job, mournfully
looking to it, says : " A land of darkness, as darkness itself ;
and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where
the light is as darkness " (x. 22, 23). Of course, there is no
formal topography to be sought for in Sheol. It is in great
measure the creation of the imagination, deep down under
the earth, even under the waters, and dark, and all within
it chaos. The shades tremble " underneath the waters, and
their inhabitants," Job xxvi. 5. Hence it is often decked
out with the horrors of the grave. The prophet Isaiah,
xiv. 9, represents the king of Babylon as going into Sheol :
" Sheol from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at
thy coming. Thy pomp is brought down to Sheol, and the
noise of thy viols : the worm is spread under thee, and the
worms cover thee." And so in Ezek. xxxii. 2123 : "The
strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of Sheol
. . . Asshur is there and all her company : his graves are
about him : all of them slain, fallen by the sword : whose
graves are set in the sides of the pit."
That is a representation, according to which Sheol is
a vast underground mausoleum, with cells all around like
graves. But it may be asserted with some reason that
nowhere is Sheol confounded with the grave, or the word
used for the place of the dead body. Sheol is the place
of the departed personalities the Old Testament neither
calls them souls nor spirits. It is the place appointed
for all living, the great rendezvous of dead persons ; for
a strict distinction is not drawn between the body and
its place, and the soul and its place. The generations of
one s forefathers are all there, and he who dies is gathered
1 The supposed discovery of Sheol in Assyrian Sualu (as affirmed by
Friedrich Delitzseh, Jeremias, etc.) is denied by Schrader, Jensen, etc.
STATE OF THOSE IN SHEOL 427
unto his fathers. The tribal divisions of one s race are
there, and the dead man is gathered unto his people.
Separated from them here, he is united with them there.
And if his own descendants had died before him, they
are there, and he goes down, as Jacob to his son, mourning.
None can hope to escape passing down among that vast
assemblage of thin and shadowy personalities : " What
man is he that liveth, and shall not see death ? that shall
deliver his soul from the hand of Sheol ? " (Ps. Ixxxix. 48).
But it may be of use to put under distinct heads a
few things about Sheol.
(1) The state of those in Sheol. As death consists in
the withdrawal by God of the spirit of life, and as this
spirit is the source, in general, of energy and vital force,
the personality is of necessity left feeble and flaccid. All
that belongs to life ceases except existence. Hence Sheol
is called P^N, perishing, it is called Hn, cessation (Isa.
xxxviii. 11). The personalities crowding there are power
less, and drowsy, and still and silent, like those in sleep.
Hence they are called Q^a"j (Job xxvi. 5 ; Isa. xiv. 9).
The state is called non, silence : " Unless the Lord had
been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence " (xciv.
17). It is the land of forgetfulness (Ps. Ixxxviii. 12);
" the living know that they must die : but the dead know
not any thing. Also their love, and their hatred, and their
envy, is now perished" (Eccles. ix. 5). Yet though they
are feeble, as those in Sheol confess to the Babylonian
king, " Art thou become weak as one of us ? " rp?n (Isa. xiv.
10), thinned, as one worn by sickness, they know them
selves and their state, as this representation shows, and also
others. They even seem to keep a kind of shadowy life
of their own, a dreamy pomp and ceremonial, sitting with
invisible forms upon imperceptible thrones from which they
are stirred, with a flicker of interest and emotion, to greet
any distinguished new arrival. It is the shadow of earth
and its activities ; wavering shades of the present life.
The things said are not presented to us as matters of faith,
they are the creations largely of the writers imagination.
428 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
One can see that there is no knowledge on the part of the
writers concerning this underworld. They shudder at the
thought of it, and their imagination paints it dark and
distant. The grave suggests a deep cavernous receptacle
to them. The sleep of death causes them to deem it a
land of stillness and silence. The flaccid corpse makes
them think of the person as feeble, with no energy or
power of resistance. All is taken from the circumstances
of death, and can have no reality or truth to us as an
article of belief. Only this is certain, that there was a
belief in the continued existence of the person. Death
puts an end to the existence of no person.
(2) There seems to be no distinction of good and evil in
Sheol. As all must go into Sheol, so all are represented
as being there. Sheol is no place of punishment itself, nor
one of reward. Neither does it seem divided into such
compartments. The state there is neither blessedness nor
misery. It is bare existence. " There the wicked cease from
troubling, i.e. from the disquietude which their own evil
causes them, and the weary are at rest." "The small and
great are there alike, and the servant is free from his
master" (Job iii. 17, 19). To-morrow, said Samuel to the
king whom God had rejected, " to-morrow shalt thou and
thy sons be with me. Then Saul fell straightway all along
upon the earth, and was sore afraid, because of the words of
Samuel " (1 Sam. xxviii. 19). " The dead know not any
thing," says the Preacher, " neither have they any more a
reward" (Eccles. ix. 5).
There are, perhaps, a pair of passages from which critics
have surmised that there was in the Old Testament
a belief in a deeper Sheol than the ordinary, a aS^?
crfcoTitorepos, a darker Hades. In Isa. xiv., a passage
so rich in contributions to our knowledge of Hebrew
thought concerning the things of the dead, the Babylonian
is said to be thrust down to "fa JnsT, " the sides of the
pit " ; he who had said presumptuously, " I will set my
throne on the sides of the north, in the mount of God "
But the expression is evidently used in anti-
IDEA OF GEHENNA 429
thesis to " the sides of the north," and cannot be held to
signify a deeper Hades than that where the ordinary dead
are assembled. And the same must be said of the only
other passages where traces of such an opinion have been
found by some scholars, as, e.g., Ezek. xxxii. 23, already
quoted, and Isa. xxiv. 21:" The Lord will punish the high
ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the
earth. And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners
are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison,
and after many days shall they be visited." Neither can
the fervent prayer of Balaam, " May I die the death of the
righteous, and may my last end be like his " (Num. xxiii.
10), have any reference to that which he feared after
death, or to any faith which he had in a distinction in
the positions of the righteous and the wicked in Sheol.
Bather his prayer is that he may live such a life as he
sees before Israel, rich in God s blessings, and therefore
peaceful and long ; so that he should die old and full of
days, and be carried to the grave like a shock of corn
coming in in his season.
It is doubtful, therefore, if in the Old Testament any
traces of a distinction in Sheol between the good and evil
be found. The distinction that begins to appear is that
indicated in Ps. xlix., that while the wicked are congregated
in Sheol, the righteous overleap and escape it. Towards
the close of the Hebrew commonwealth, another idea be^an
to rise that of a gloomy vale of horrid sufferings through
the torturings of fire. This was Gehenna first the valley
of Hinnom, where the cruel rites of Moloch were performed,
and children passed through the fire to the horrid king.
Then this idea seemed to be transferred to the state of
the dead, and the wicked were conceived to be subjected
to such torments of fire. Already, ere New Testament
times, this advance upon the old doctrine of Sheol had
been made, and in the parable the rich man is represented
as tormented in flames (Luke xvi. 23-28). And pro
bably some traces of the idea may be found in the
Old Testament, as in the end of Isaiah, " for their worm
430 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched "
(Ixvi. 24).
(3) But this last passage leads to some other questions,
e.g., as regards the connection of the personality in Sheol
with the body of which it had been deprived, with the
outer world, and with God.
As to connection with the outer world, that is com
pletely broken off. The dead can neither return, nor does he
know anything of the things of earth ; even the fate, happy
or miserable, of those he is most bound up with, is a
mystery to him. " His sons come to honour, and he
knoweth it not ; and they are brought low, and he perceiveth
it not of them" (Job xiv. 21). "As the cloud is consumed
and vanisheth away : so he that goeth down to the grave
shall come up no more" (vii. 9). Yet with the strong
belief in the existence of the persons in Sheol, there was
naturally a popular superstition that they could be reached,
and that they could be interested in human affairs, of the
issues of which they must have deeper knowledge than
mortal men. This belief among the Hebrews gave rise to
the necromancy so sternly proscribed in the law, and
ridiculed by Isaiah : " Should not a people seek unto their
God ? should they seek for the living to the dead ? " (viii.
19); and the belief is not extinct among ourselves. That
it was not a mere superstition, but an unlawful traffic, was
shown by the case of Samuel ; for there is no reason to
suppose this a delusion of Saul s, or a trick of the woman.
At all events the event bears testimony to the prevalent
belief in the existence of those who had died in this life.
Yet how far the practice in general was carried on by mere
working on the superstitions of the people, one cannot say.
There is no other case in the Old Testament but that of
Samuel of any dead person appearing and returning to
Sheol. The relation between the dead in Sheol and God
is not close : " Shall the dead praise Thee ? " (Ps. Ixxxviii.
10). Of this more hereafter.
The question whether any connection still exists between
the body and the dead in Sheol is interesting, but there
SIGNIFICANCE OF DEATH 431
are hardly materials to answer it. No such connection
exists between the body and the soul as to interfere with
the passage into Sheol, whatever befall the body. The
body needs not to be embalmed, as in Egypt, nor burned,
nor even buried. It may be thrown out as a dishonoured
branch, and yet the descent into Sheol be unimpeded.
The want of burial was in itself dishonouring, and it is
regarded as having a reflection on the condition of the
dead person in Sheol in the estimation of others there.
But, on the other hand, there are passages which seem to
speak of a sympathetic rapport still existing between the
body and the person in Sheol. These passages are hardly
capable of being pressed further than to the inference that
the body, though thrown off, was still part of the man, and
was not mere common unrelated dust. Some passages speak
of sensibility still remaining in the body ; e.g., Isa. Ixvi. 24 :
" Their worm dieth not," where the body is represented as
feeling the tooth of the corrupting worm. But others go
further, and seem to regard the soul as also sensitive, and
sharing in the pain of the body : " His flesh upon him
shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn"
(Job xiv. 22). But, as I have said, these statements
hardly go further than to show that the body, though cast
off, is still considered in some connection with the person.
The main point is that the relation between the
deceased person and God is cut off. This is what gave
death its significance to the religious mind, and caused
such a revulsion against it, culminating in such protests as
that in Ps. xvi. Fellowship with God ceases : " In deatli
there is no remembrance of Thee : in Sheol who shall give
Thee thanks ? " (Ps. vi. 5). " For Sheol cannot praise Thee,"
says Hezekiah ; " they that go down to the pit cannot hope
for Thy truth " (Isa. xxxviii. 18). And the plaintive singer
in Ps. xxxix. pleads for an extension of his earthly life
on this ground : " Hold not Thy peace at my tears : for I
am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner," the meaning
of these words being the opposite of what, with our
Christian knowledge, we put into them. The Old Testament
432 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
saint was a sojourner with God : this life in the body upon
the earth was a brief but happy visit paid to Jehovah ; but
death summoned the visitor away, and it came to an end.
5. Conception of Death,
The point of view from which Scripture looks at every
thing is the moral and religious. This is the point of view
from which it regards the universe as a whole. It is a
moral constitution. With all its complexity it has a moral
unity, all its parts subserving moral ends and illustrating
moral truths. Hence, when Scripture describes the origin
of things and their gradual rise into order, though it may
seem to be physical phenomena that it is describing, its
design has not respect to these physical phenomena in
themselves, but primarily to this, that they occurred through
the free act of a Supreme Moral Agent ; and that they con
templated as their final result the preparation of a suitable
sphere of activity for another free moral agent. This moral
purpose of Scripture in everything which it says makes it
of less consequence for it to describe events precisely as
they occurred. It may use liberties. It may so group
phenomena and so colour events that the moral meaning of
them may shine out to our eyes more clearly than if it had
adhered in its description to prosaic literality. It is quite
conceivable that some parts of ancient history are so
written in Scripture. Its design never being to record
facts merely for facts sake, but for the sake of the
moral teaching which they contain, it is a supposition not
to be at once rejected, that in order to exhibit to our dull
eyesight the ideas of history, it may idealise the history.
This principle, however, if admitted, must be carefully
guarded ; and no doubt the difficulty would be to guard it
when once admitted. It must be guarded for the reason that
Eedemption is historical. Our salvation consists of historical
facts : " If Christ be not risen, your faith is vain ; ye are yet
in your sins" (1 Cor. xv. 17) A redemption consisting
wholly of ideas would, of course, be only an ideal redemp-
MULLER ON DEATH 433
tion, and leave us precisely where we were. But the
historicity of salvation as a whole being conserved, nothing
stands in the way of our admitting that some of the
historical occurrences whereby it was illustrated or realised
may have been set by subsequent narrators in an intenser
light than that in which they first appeared.
If the point of view from which Scripture regards the
universe as a whole be moral, much more will it regard
man in this light. Man has, no doubt, according to
Scripture, just as God has, a nature and a self. But his
essence and meaning lie so exclusively in his self/ in
his personality, that only when the just equilibrium
between his nature and his self has been disturbed,
do the former and its elements come into prominence.
His centre of gravity as well as centre of unity lies in his
moral constitution. That remaining as it was by creation,
he will remain as he was in creation a living man, a unity
embracing all his parts ; for this is what Scripture means
by life. The author of the well written but not very
exhaustively thought out treatise on The Christian Doctrine
of Sin, says : " Death as a simple physical fact is un
affected by moral conditions." But such a statement
requires limitation in several ways. We observe moral
conditions to be of great influence in reference to disease,
in keeping off infection, for instance, and in neutralising the
effects of poison. We read in the Gospel history of some
who had faith to be healed, and on the other hand of
the infliction of mania through the operation of evil intelli
gences on the mind ; and what is true of disease is, of
course, true also of death, for the two are identical. The
forty days fast of our Lord in the wilderness shows
sufficiently the enormous power exercised over the body
by the mind in a high state of spiritual tension. Who
does not perceive that such a statement as that death
is unaffected by moral conditions, is a mere begging of the
question ?
It is true that ultimately all, moral and immoral, die ;
just as it is true that death is inherent in all organisms
28
434 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
with which we are familiar. But that implies merely that
death affects all the limited varieties of moral conditions
now appearing in the race since sin has intervened, and
that death is inherent in human organisms such as we now
know them. But that fact can support no inference as to
how death or disease would behave in the presence of a
perfect moral condition, and what would occur to the
organism of such a human being ; for the difference
between the highest morality that exists and a perfect one,
is a difference not of degree, but of kind. Experience
affords us no data here on which to go ; or if we refer to
the case of Christ, who was sinless, we read nothing
regarding Him which implies that He ever suffered any
ailment, or that the seeds of natural death were sown in
His body. We can form no judgment from direct observa
tion. We could at most infer from what we see of men at
present. But such an inference would certainly be to beg
the question against Scripture, which expressly recognises
the two conditions of a perfect and an imperfect moral
state, and teaches that the organism of human nature is
not a thing under the government of physical laws only,
but is lifted up by the spiritual nature of man into another
plane, and subject in its destiny to the operation of moral
laws.
Coupled with this view, that death is inherent in all
organisms, and that, consequently, the death threatened to
Adam could not mean mere physical death, is the view of
the writer quoted, that death as there threatened was
merely the moral consequence of transgression, namely,
what we call spiritual death, together with the terrors that
gather about dying to a sinner. This irruption into our
theological nomenclature of the term death to describe the
spiritual condition of a sinner, has been a great misfortune,
not only because it affords a foundation for the kind of
views propounded by this author, but because it diverts our
minds from the Scripture way of regarding death and life.
In the Old Testament and in St. Paul, death always
includes what we popularly call dying ; and in the Old
DEAD IN SINS 435
Testament dying includes remaining dead, i.e. all the destiny
of the dead ; and so life includes the life of the body,
in Paul the resurrection life, which, as man is a unity, alone
is life. Even the expression, dead in sins (Eph. ii. 3,5),
does not mean spiritually insensible in the practice of sin,
but subject to death as a penalty in the element or region of
sina. There are, no doubt, certain expressions, particularly
in this Epistle to the Ephesians, that may seem to go
against this view, such, e.g., as this : " You hath he quickened,
who were dead in trespasses " (ii. 1) ; " raised us up together,
and made us sit together in the heavenly places" (ii. 6).
But this difficulty disappears as soon as the apostle s true
manner of looking at Christianity is understood. He
always, in the theoretical portions of his Epistles, looks at
it as a whole. He uses terms of it which embrace and
describe its perfect results ; not the beginning, but the
end of its development. What it will yet achieve is to
him already achieved.
His statements are not empirical and bounded by the
actual experience of Christians, but ideal, and reaching out
to the future consummation of things. Nay, he even in his
ideal descriptions employs the terms suitable for the future
and perfect to describe the small beginnings of the present.
Hence to him believers are as much sanctified as they are
justified ; they are saints, complete in Christ. It is only in
the practical parts of his epistles, when he descends to deal
with the actual condition of the Churches and his converts,
among whom, alas ! this ideal of Christianity is far enough
from yet obtaining, that he analyses the effects of redemption
into those that already are and those that shall be. Then
sanctification is seen to be incomplete. Then the perfect
Church splits asunder, and what we name the Church
Visible is the subject of treatment, at least in its members.
But neither the imperfect saint nor the Church Visible
belongs to the region of the ideal of Christianity, and
consequently they find no place in the early and theoretical
parts of the Epistles. And so, speaking to the Ephesians,
he uses terms descriptive of salvation as perfectly realised,
436 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
to indicate what believers are really in possession of. His
language is in a sense proleptic. Believers do not yet sit
with Christ in the heavenly places ; but faith and grace,
when they shall have their perfect work, will issue in their
resurrection ; and this issue is involved in those beginnings
of power which God has already put forth among them.
Consequently the apostle does not employ the terms
quickened and raised to describe a mere spiritual
change which has already been produced. He uses them
literally, although by anticipation, to remind the Ephesians
of what is contained in God s gift to them, and what
shall yet accrue to them, namely, the redemption of the
body.
I quite admit that, after all, the two views may coalesce,
and that it may be the vitalising of the soul with spiritual
life which really quickens the body ; for the new body is
not in Scripture regarded as alien matter, but is the old
body vitalised and become spiritual. And the new life
instilled into the soul by God s Spirit may become so
intense, that, like a flame, it stretches itself out and
communicates its fire to the body, still its own and not yet
altogether extinct. We know so little of what life is, and
how it operates to gather a body about it. But just as we
see the somewhat languid life of our present existence
gradually add element to element and accumulate in the
slow course of twenty years a mature full body to itself, so
the intenser life that we shall yet inherit may on the
resurrection day draw a body around itself in an instant,
accomplishing in the twinkling of an eye what is the work
of many years at present. But what I am anxious to
emphasise is, that Scripture makes very little in this region
of physical cause and effect. Man is under a moral
constitution. Death is the penalty of sin, not that
spiritual feebleness which may be but another name for sin
itself. And life is the reward of righteousness, not
righteousness itself. The wages of sin is death ; but grace
reigned through righteousness unto eternal life (Eom. v. 21,
vi.
ISSUES OF LIFE 437
6. Life and its Issues.
But we must leave this New Testament region, which
is always so fascinating, and return to the Old Testament
and its statements on the subject of Sheol, the receptacle of
the departed. There, in that underworld, good and evil,
according to the Old Testament, appear alike immured ; and
the condition in which they subsist is not life, but bare
existence, dreary and infelicitous. Does the Old Testament
give any light as to the permanence of this condition?
Sheol does not appear to be a place of reward or punishment.
Is there any escape from it for the righteous, or is there any
intensification of its evils awaiting the unjust ? There is
no question that is stirring men s minds with a greater
intensity at present than this one of the destiny of the
wicked. Does the Old Testament go any way to solve it ?
Besides the view which may be said to be the ordinary
and hereditary one in the Churches, there may be said to
be at present three others current, besides minor ones
which I do not mention, regarding the destiny of those
dying impenitent. First, there is the Universalistic view,
according to which all shall be restored. Second, there
is the view, stopping short of this, which demands a place
of repentance and a sphere of development beyond the grave,
and which, assuming infinite gradations of salvation, finds
a place for at least most of the race. And, third, there is
the view, which calls itself that of Conditional Immortality,
according to which those finally evil shall ultimately be
annihilated. Has the Old Testament anything to say to
the question as stated in these views ?
Now, of course, such questions will not be decided on
Old Testament ground, but in the light of the clearer
revelation of the New. But so far as the Old goes, it
does not, I think, favour any of these views. From all
that we have seen, you will perceive that the Hebrew view
of things is a view essentially concerned with things on this
side. Salvation is to it a present good. The moral con
stitution of the world exhibits itself already here. In this
438 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
life righteousness delivers from death. This vivid manner
of conceiving the moral order of the present constitution of
things, accounts for the fact that attention is confined to
what falls on this side almost exclusively. Whatever prin
ciples are involved in the relations of God and men, these
exhibit themselves completely in the present life. It is well
with the righteous, the lines fall to him in pleasant places,
God is the portion of his soul. As to the wicked, lie
says to God : I desire not the knowledge of Thy ways. His
feet is set in slippery places. He is brought down in a
moment amidst terrors. The principles prevailing in life
come out always to perfect manifestation in death. The
manner of dying is certain to express the true relations of
the righteous and the wicked. And the manner of dying
fixes the condition of the dead ; and this condition abides.
All is yet general ; only great principles of moral govern
ment appear. But, so far as the Old Testament is con
cerned, no change seems indicated in the state of the
unjust, either in the way of release or in the way of an
intensification of the evils of Sheol. They die estranged
from God, they remain estranged ; the estrangement does
not appear aggravated into positive misery. In Ecclesi-
astes, indeed, it is said that God will bring every work
into judgment ; but it cannot be said with certainty that
this judgment differs from that passed on every one at death,
and illustrated in his manner of dying. Neither in the
Apocryphal writings that arose on the soil of Palestine
proper is there any advance upon the Old Testament
doctrine, at least till quite close to the Christian era. In
the Greek Apocrypha the case is different.
Scripture is chiefly concerned with the destinies of the
righteous. And on this side there is great advance on
the dreary doctrine of Sheol, which is the popular basis of
the doctrine of the dead. And to that I will devote a few
remarks.
The passages adduced already touching the place and
state of the dead are perhaps more poetical than dogmatic,
and little can be concluded from them beyond the con-
QUESTION OF NATURAL IMMORTALITY 439
tinned existence of the persons that once lived upon the
earth, their consciousness of themselves and of others, their
complete exclusion from the world of life, and their silent,
feeble form of subsistence. But there are also passages
which show the other side of the picture. Perhaps as
those formerly adduced could not be held to contain state
ments which we should be justified in treating as part of
a religious conviction, but were rather expressions of an
imagination very vivid and greatly stirred, exercising itself
upon what was unknown, and clothing it in robes woven out
of the things seen in connection with death ; so we might
not be justified in attributing dogmatic significance to the
statements regarding life and immortality. They may be
but jets of religious feeling, spasmodic upleapings of the
flame of love of existence or love of God, which flickers
most wildly and convulsively just when it is about
altogether to expire. What value to attribute to them is
a thing that perhaps cannot be decided without bringing
them into relation to the doctrine regarding future things
now fully revealed in the New Testament, But that these
beliefs appear in the Old as bursts of religious feeling, as
demands of the living soul for continuance in life, as long
ings of the soul in fellowship with God for closer and
eternal fellowship with Him, as expressions of an instinctive
shrinking from death, so far from impairing their validity
or depriving them of meaning, only adds to it, by showing
how deeply seated the desire of immortality is in the
nature of man as given by God ; how it rises higher the
higher the nature is purified by God s fellowship ; and
how probable, therefore, in itself it is that immortality shall
be its goal and reward.
Man, so far as we can gather from the narrative in
Genesis, was made neither mortal nor immortal. He was
not made so that he must die, for the narrative represents
him surrounded by the means of living for ever; nor was
he so made that he could not die, for the event has too
clearly shown the reverse. He was made capable of not
dyiug, with the design that by a free determination of his
440 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
activity rewarded by God s favour, he should become not
capable of dying. He sinned, and when he sinned he
died. But death is thus a foreign thing, an evil befallen
man, the child of sin. Where sin is, death is. But surely
the other thought could not but be immediately suggested,
seeing if sin had not been, death would not have been,
that when sin should be overcome, death would be van
quished also. To overcome sin is to live. This is every
where the doctrine of the Bible. Yet in the earliest
portions of Scripture the truth is not put quite in this
manner. It is not freedom from sin that gives, or that
is, life, so much as fellowship with God. Sin is regarded
as an enfeebling of the soul, a drugging of the soul by a
deadly narcotic, an impairing of its vital energy. That
which pours life into the enfeebled, paralysed spirit is
God s Spirit, and so is God. In Him, with Him, is life.
Thus the early Scriptures overleap a step. They do not
so much speak of righteousness leing life, as of God, who is
the cause of righteousness, giving life.
This is perhaps the state of the belief in the earliest
times. This seems the idea at the root of the Mosaic
economy. There is no allusion there to a future life. Yet
there are life and death set before the Israelite. Are we to
suppose it was only earthly life, worldly goods, the quiet
heritage of Canaan, freedom from peril and sword ? Life lay
in God s favour, in His presence and fellowship. The religious
life of Mosaism was as real as our own, and as true. What
the patriarchs are represented as looking forward to was not
the rest of Canaan, but abiding with God, a settled near
ness to Him and fellowship with Him. They sought a
country which the New Testament writer, from his point
of view, interprets as a heavenly one (Heb. xi. 16). They
looked for the " city that hath the foundations, whose
builder and maker is God" (Heb. xi. 10). What thoughts
they may have had, one can hardly imagine. Yet what
they sought, and what they felt called to, in all their
wanderings, was some stable place of abode, some country,
some city of God, where He dwelt, and where they should
THE OBJECT OF HOPE 441
dwell with Him ; where their life should run on for ever
parallel to God s. He was the element of satisfaction that
they sought, and that constituted their life.
And so it was with the pious Israelite when settled in
Canaan. He thought nothing good, nothing to be desired,
which was severed from the fellowship of God. The external
goods which he enjoyed, he considered but the pledge of
this. But there is little, if any, sign of that analytic
tendency, which we cannot resist, to distinguish between
this world and another. To the Israelite both worlds were
united in one. He enjoyed both. He drew a distinction
between this world without God and this world with God.
The wicked had the former and he the latter. God was
his portion, and the lines had fallen to him in pleasant
places. The future he seldom strove to unveil. Still, if
he did, we can imagine what feelings the thought would
arouse : it would either be a pitiful entreaty that God would
not interrupt that blessed fellowship by death : " I said,
my God, take me not away in the midst of my days "
(Ps. cii. 24) :
" Keturn Jehovah, deliver my soul :
save me for Thy mercy s sake.
For in death there is no remembrance of Thee :
In Sheol who shall give Thee thanks ? " (Ps. vi. 4, 5).
or it would be a violent resistance and putting down of the
thought of death. It could not, it must not be, that this
blessed fellowship should ever be broken : " I have set the
Lord always before me : because He is at my right hand,
1 shall not be moved " (Ps. xvi. 8).
So far, what we have seen was the certain faith in
God and life in Him. This was conviction and thought.
D
Rising out of that was, perhaps, more the emotional feeling
of immortality the dread of dying, the passionate longing
for life the refusal to conceive or to admit that this life
with God lived on earth could come to an end. Yet
perhaps there was no intellectual presentation to the mind
itself of the way in which it could be continued. Still
certain things narrated in the Pentateuch might suggest
442 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
to the saints of those and after times even a way. That
wonderful glory recorded to have been vouchsafed to Enoch,
of whom it was said that he " walked with God," showed
that the reward of the closest fellowship with God might
be rapture into God s presence without tasting of death
"for God took him" (Gen. v. 24). And this word took laid
deep hold of men s minds in this connection. For the sorely
troubled Asaph, when he came to clearness and peace, at
last comforted himself that God would take him also :
"Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel,
And afterward take me to glory " (Ps. Ixxiii. 24).
This glory of Enoch s was what few could hope for as
it had fallen to him ; yet the way in which Asaph conceives
it, was the way those contemporary with Enoch and sub
sequent to him could hardly help conceiving it. What had
befallen him who walked with God marvellously, in this
marvellous way, would befall them who walked with Him in
an ordinary way, in a manner equally real if less marvellous.
And, in addition to this, there was the general faith in
God s power, and that He was able to bring again the dead.
Thus Abraham, being strong in faith, staggered not at the
promise of God through unbelief, but offered up his son
when commanded, though the promise was made to him,
accounting that God was able to raise him up even from
the dead (Heb. xi. 19). Such miracles, too, as are
narrated of Elijah would also familiarise men s minds with
the possibility of the dead again living.
Thus we should anticipate that the minds of Old
Testament saints would run in two lines in this matter of
the hope of immortality, one line emotional and another
reflective, though the emotional may also have under it
reflection of various kinds, chiefly on the evils or the
inequalities of life. The emotional utterances will chiefly
rise from the feeling of fellowship with God, which is
life, and take the form of protests against the thought
of its being broken in upon ; and these reaches of feeling
into eternity will be brief and rarely sustained, and seldom
NINETIETH PSALM 443
reasoned. Indeed, they will generally ground themselves
with a certain absoluteness simply on the sense of fellow
ship, and refuse to take all other facts, even death,
into consideration. The reflective utterances, again, will
naturally accept of facts, such as the universality of death,
and seek to dispose of them. Thus, what the emotional
utterances bring forward will rather be immortality, i.e. never
dying. What the reflective utterances bring forward will
be resurrection. And, as was to be anticipated, the ex
pressions of emotion will appear in lyrics, in plaintive
elegies, the productions of deeply exercised religious men.
The expressions of reflection will rather come from prophets,
men who have a clear outlook into the things of the future,
and who are set to indicate with authority to the Church
the final developments of her history.
We cannot fully pursue these two lines. It must
suffice to project them, and to linger for a little at one
point in each. The passages where the Old Testament
saint appears striving to maintain his fellowship with the
living God in spite of all vicissitudes, are chiefly Pss. xvi.,
xvii., xlix., Ixxiii., and the Book of Job. The state of the
believer s mind in Ps. xvi. does not materially differ from
that disclosed in the great passages of Job. But there is
another psalm which forms the fitting background to this
one, at which we may look for a moment, Ps. xc., headed,
A Prayer of Moses the man of God. Whether the Psalm
be so old or no, it is very old, and little that is plausible
can be said against its traditional age. It might be called
an elegy on the brevity of human life. But such general
subjects never were treated alone by a Hebrew poet. If
he deplored an evil, he was always struggling for a remedy.
The remedy of this he finds in the eternal God. The
Psalm might be headed : The eternal God a refuge for man,
shortlived by reason of his sin. First, the poet posits the
relation of God to men : " Thou hast been a dwelling-place
for us in all generations." This relation of God to men is
the theme of the Psalm, which consists, then, of a further
statement how God is this, and how men need it, and,
444 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
finally, of a prayer that God would cause the relation to
be fully realised in the case of those now praying. The
words " in all generations " suggest the eternal sameness
of God, over-against the brevity of man s life. " From ever
lasting to everlasting, Thou art God. Thou turnest man
to destruction," i.e. Thou seest men, generation after genera
tion, perish, Thyself still eternal and living : for a thousand
years in Thy sight are but as yesterday. Men are like
the grass, which, springing in the morning, withereth ere
night. But this short-livedness of men in opposition to
the eternal, unmoved duration of Jehovah, is not without
a cause. It is not merely that He lives and they die,
each from his appropriate nature. They die because they
are consumed in His anger. He hath set their sins in the
light of His face, turned His full face with awful light
upon them.
This is the condition of men, sinful and perishing
because they are so. The Psalm expresses general and
universal relations. God eternal, men of transient exist
ence, and that because God s wrath carries them away in
their sins. Yet, also, there is another general relation to
be added : " Thou art our dwelling-place, our refuge, in all
generations." He who carries sinful men away with a flood,
the overflow of His wrath, is their refuge. In God is the
hiding-place from the anger of God. In Him, the Eternal,
man that is of few days finds his refuge. And so the
Psalmist concludes with the prayer : " Keturn, Lord ; how
long ? and pity Thy servants. Satisfy us in the morning
with Thy goodness ; that we may be glad, and rejoice all
our days." This may be the cry of a generation worn out
with wanderings, and sick with disappointed hopes, and
sated with plagues, dropping down one after another like
an enchanted caravan in the wilderness ; but it is fit to be
the cry and the confession and the prayer of a worn and
heavy-laden human race, to God, under whose anger it
perishes.
What is spoken generally in Ps. xc. is expressed par
ticularly in the words of a single person in Ps. xvi.
SIXTEENTH PSALM 445
Who the person is we cannot certainly say. But David s
favourite word heads the Psalm, "HJ T^P?, " I have fled for
refuge to Thee," as in vii. and xi. ; and the tradition puts
his name in the heading. What the dangers were which
threatened him, must remain unknown ; but we know that
it was a mortal danger. His life was at stake ; and he
presses close to Jehovah, the living God, to protect him
from the death that sought to assail him.
First when he begins to speak, he has already taken
refuge in Jehovah ; pursued by dangers, he has sought
safety in Him : and being in Him he prays that He would
not deliver him up to his pursuers : " Keep me, God : for
I have fled to Thee." Speedily in that refuge his terror
seems to pass away, and he speaks calmly, and even with
assurance, of eternal safety. Partly he addresses God and
partly he soliloquises. It is the believing consciousness
thinking aloud. And the thoughts that would fill a mind
at such a time would be something like these : first, there
would be joy in Jehovah; which might very naturally
suggest the unhappy lot of those who sought their joy in
aught else. And, as the mind passed from antithesis to
antithesis, this thought would drive it back again with
increased intensity to the feeling of its own blessedness.
And then, when from its refuge it looked abroad on its
foes, that had just pursued it to its dwelling-place, this
blessedness would throw its colour over them all, and a
bold defiance of them would be felt.
This seems just the line of thought in the Psalm.
First, the mind s joy in Jehovah : " I said to Jehovah,
Thou art my Lord, my joy ; delight is in none but Thee."
The use of the word Lord seems to indicate the complete
devotion of the speaker to Jehovah. Then comes the
natural passage of the mind to other minds, unlike itself,
finding their joy in something else, IHK ; " their sorrows
are many who seek for themselves aught else " : " I will
not pour out their drink-offerings of blood, and I will not
take their names on my lips." If the Psalm be Davidic,
these expressions must be taken figuratively. It is not
446 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
probable that in his day there was any party actually
practising idolatrous rites in the kingdom. But there
were, no doubt, many irreligious men, chiefly among the
supporters of Saul s dynasty ; and many who secretly, and
some who openly, repudiated Jehovah, the God of David.
In words of strong aversion, the Psalmist speaks of their
religious services as drink-offerings of blood.
But, with a natural swing, the mind reverts to its own
blessedness : " Jehovah is my portion," ver. 5, Jehovah
being put emphatically at the head of the clause. And
every possible figure is heaped together to express the idea
that Jehovah is the possession of the speaker, and to convey
what the joy of this possession is to him. " Jehovah is
the portion of my inheritance and my cup : Thou art my
constant lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant
things." And, unable to restrain himself, he breaks forth
into the exclamation, " I will bless the Lord."
But, finally, from being occupied with the contempla
tion of his position, and his joy there, he now looks out
upon his foes ; and he feels confident that where he is they
cannot come. In that hiding-place to which he has fled
he is secure, all secure, his whole man not secure merely,
but triumphantly confident: "My heart is glad, and my
glory rejoices; my flesh also resteth securely." For that
Sheol, which opened her mouth wide to swallow him, God
will beat back ; and that pit, which yawned for him, he
shall not see : " Thou wilt not leave my soul over to Sheol,
nor give Thine holy one to see the pit." What he shall
experience will be life, " Thou wilt make me know the
way of life," the way to life. Not death, but life, shall be
his portion.
Now, if we consider the lie of the Psalm, first the flight
of the suppliant to God to protect him from some mortal
clanger, then his soliloquising with himself over his blessed
ness in God, and then his outlook from his place of refuge,
from which he dares to face and to defy his pursuers, we
can hardly escape the conclusion that what, in his lofty
moment of inspiration, he expresses, is the assurance of
SIXTEENTH PSALM 447
immortality. He shall not die, but live. God, to whom he
has fled, will not leave him to Sheol ; it shall not be per
mitted to have its desire upon him, to swallow him up ;
neither will He allow him to see, i.e. to have experience of
the pit. He to whom he has fled will save him from those
dark enemies that would devour him. Also He will save
him wholly. He the living man, in the fellowship and
protection of the living God, shall live. He does not con
template dying and being restored again to life. Rather
these gigantic personalities, Sheol, Shachath, that open their
mouth for him, shall have no power over him. He shall be
made to know the way to life. And it was life such as
then he lived, only fuller; not spiritual life, nor bodily
life, but personal life, embracing all. These distinctions,
which we insist so much upon, vanish in the excitation of
such a moment. And it is ridiculous to imagine that the
hopes of one who speaks thus went no further than delivery
from some particular mortal danger that threatened him at
the time. Some such danger may have started the train
of thoughts and feelings which here run out to so sublime
a height, but the expressions here are absolute. He who
trusteth in God shall live ; Sheol and Shachath shall have
no power over him.
We need not stop to discuss how far such feelings are
true, and how even death is not death to the righteous.
For such is not strictly the meaning of the Psalm. We
shall only say that, although to all appearance the Psalm
expresses the idea of not dying, yet it may be applied to
any who, having died, cannot be held of death. The Psalm
teaches that those who have perfect fellowship with God
shall not die. It does not go into the grounds of this, as
other parts of Scripture do, which show God to be life and
giving life ; and that the creature in such fellowship with
Him partakes of His immortal strength, and dieth not. It
only expresses the relation, and the consequences that flow
from it. But anyone in such perfect fellowship cannot
die. If death fall upon him, it must be out of the course
of things, the result of a special economy, in which that
448 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
which is the natural order is suspended. But when this
suspension is removed, things will flow in their accustomed
order. He who died under a special economy will live
under the natural law. And hence the words of this
Psalm may be very fitly applied to such an One as in
Acts ii. 31.
A superficial criticism used to find in our Lord s proof
of the resurrection, taken from the words of God to Moses
in the Bush/ " / am the God of Abraham" an artificiality.
His commentary is, God is not the God of the dead, but of
the living ; and His conclusion, therefore, Abraham shall
again live. If I might say so, our Lord s argument is an
Old Testament commonplace. It is the argument, so far as
it can be so called, of all Old Testament saints. It is the
argument of this Psalm and of all the Psalms. What they
postulate from fellowship with God is life, escape from
Sheol, not experiencing Shachath ; and if, in fact, they have
fallen into the power of these, neither their faith nor their
words can be satisfied without release from them. And,
again, what their words and their faith require is not an
immortality of the soul ; such a thing would have sounded
strange to them. They knew of persons only, not souls ;
and their faith demanded the life of the whole person.
But, in strictness, the argument for the resurrection here
is not direct but constructive. It is an argument for
immortality, for not dying, an argument that ignores
facts like death ; and only when this fact of death comes
in its way does it become modified into an argument for
resurrection. The apostle expresses this view when he
says : " The body, indeed, is dead because of sin ; but the
Spirit is life because of righteousness" (Koin. viii. 10).
The hope of Job differed altogether from the hope
of this Psalmist ; because Job, when he spoke, was in
estrangement from God. And in this life he could not
hope for reconciliation ; for his malady, which betokened
God s anger, he saw, would be mortal. Yet what his faith,
in spite of appearances, made certain to him was, that he
would see God in reconciliation and in peace. It is a
THE OPERATION OF REFLECTION 449
reuniting that his faith demands. Whether it is of his
whole being or no is left by the words rather obscure,
though the general drift of the Old Testament would point
to the former. But this Psalmist has not words enough to
express his present blessedness in union with God, and
what he protests against is any interruption of it. His
faith demands that his whole spirit and soul and body be
preserved entire in fellowship with God for ever. The
other Psalms which have been named add little if anything
to the details of Ps. xvi.
The other point from which immortality was viewed
was reflection ; and as this, unlike emotion and faith, which
ignored facts, took facts into consideration, it produced
the doctrine of a resurrection. It was the prophets who
raised and prosecuted this thought specially ; and, as was
proper to their office, it was in connection with Israel as
a people that they chiefly proclaimed the resurrection.
Israel in fellowship with God would have lived for ever ;
but, like Adam, Israel sinned and died : " When Ephraim
offended in Baal, he died," says Hosea (xiii. 1). And all
the prophets downwards are familiar with the idea of
Israel s dissolution from which nothing can now save
him. But with the sentence of dissolution came also
the promise of restitution. Isaiah embodies this hope,
in the very image used by Job as unsuitable to man,
the image of the tree sprouting again (Ixv. 22), and
in plain words : " The remnant shall return." But his
contemporary Hosea, who employs the figure of death,
employs also that of resurrection : " Let us return unto
the Lord. After two days He will revive us : and the third
day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight "
(vi. 2). And the power of death over them shall be
altogether destroyed : " I will ransom them from the power
of the grave ; I will redeem them from death : death, I
will be thy plagues ; grave, I will be thy destruction "
(xiii. 14).
These things are certainly said of the people, for the
plural refers to the tribes rather than to individuals. But
29
450 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
the idea of resurrection is very broadly presented, and we
wonder whether it is for the first time that it arises, or
whether it be not rather an idea, already more or less
familiar, applied to a new subject. On the one hand, such
miracles as those narrated of Elijah must have powerfully
affected men s minds, even although those raised by him
ultimately succumbed to death. Such events would at
least furnish the imagery used here, and make it both
intelligible and very well fitted to inspire hope. On the
other, it is certainly first in connection with the tribes and
people that the idea of resurrection is plainly expressed,
and the individual Israelites share it because Israel shares
it. But the idea once struck by the prophet Hosea is
familiar to every succeeding prophet ; and whether Hosea
used the term raise figuratively or no, succeeding prophets
use it literally. In some cases, as in the great prophecy of
Ezekiel of the valley of dry bones, we may be in doubt
whether the prophet refers to the actual raising of in
dividuals dead, or to the restoration of dismembered tribes,
and a renewal of the national life. But even if it is to
the latter, his imagery reposes on the familiar thought of
individuals rising. The valley seemed full of bones, very
dry ; but bone came to his bone, and flesh came up upon
them, and by the breath of God they lived, and stood upon
their feet.
If, in the case of Hosea, the idea of the national resur
rection was first, and was transferred to the resurrection of
the individual, in Ezekiel the order of thought is certainly
the reverse ; the national resurrection reposes on the fully
won idea of that of the individual. Again, in the singular
prophecy in Isa. xxvi. this is quite as true : " Thy dead
men shall live ; awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust."
And in Daniel it is no more said of the people, but of
individuals directly, though, from the contested age of
Daniel, we cannot be certain how early the passage is :
" There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since
there was a nation even to that same time : and at that
time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be
THE WISDOM LITERATURE 451
found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in
the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life,
and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they
that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament ;
and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for
ever and ever" (Dan. xii. 1, 2). While in other passages
only a resurrection of Israel is spoken of, and where indi
viduals are referred to we have only a resurrection of the
just ; here there seems taught a resurrection both of the
just and of the unjust.
Now, of course, these utterances are of the nature, much
of them, of subjective hopes. They are based upon the
relation to God a relation of fellowship and love. This
relation, the soul demands, shall not be interrupted. It
protests against death. It overleaps Sheol in the vigour of
its faith. This is the position of the Old Testament saint.
Has his hope been verified ? In Christ it has been verified,
in Him as an Old Testament saint, as One who was truly
a Holy One. And in Him those united to Him by faith
shall have the verification of it also in themselves.
The history of the creation presents man living and in
true relations with God. This is the ideal condition of
man, and the idea of its permanence is implied in the
relation. The conception of man is entirely a moral one.
This relation to God is the central point. This remaining,
all other things are permanent. Such ideas as that the soul
is immortal from its nature, or, on the other hand, that the
body is necessarily subject to decay from its nature, do not
occur. The Old Testament strictly knows nothing of such
elements of the being of man ; the living man as a whole
person is the subject of its contemplation, and he lives in
the continuance of his true relations to God. This is the
point of view of the history of creation. It is also the
point of view of the Wisdom literature in its earliest stage,
the stage of what might be called principles, where only
the ideal conceptions of man and the world, and their
relations to God, appear. Such conceptions are expressed in
proverbial form in these terms : " In the way of righteous-
452 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
ness is life, and the pathway thereof is immortality " ; " The
hoary head is a crown of glory ; it is found in the way of
righteousness" (Prov. xii. 28, xvi. 31). The E.V. misreads
the latter passage, and obscures its teaching by translating
" if it be found in the way of righteousness." The meaning
is as in the other passage : " The fear of the Lord pro-
longeth days ; but the years of the wicked shall be shortened "
(Prov. x. 27). Such passages do not refer to cases only;
they state a principle. To the Hebrew mind this life in
the body was the normal life. He had no doctrine of a
transcendent place of happiness different from earth, where
the principles of God s government, impeded in their flow
here by many obstacles, should roll on smooth and straight.
He saw these principles realised here. The blessedness
of the just, arising from the fellowship of God, was enjoyed
here. And in the contemplation of this, the fact of death
was ignored. At least this is the point of view in the early
Wisdom literature, in the deep flow of the principles that
regulate the relation of God and man, death is submerged.
The theory that the doctrine of immortality was kept
hid from Israel in order that the attention of the people
might be fastened on the conditions of a moral life here,
fails to take into account this point of view from which
we must always start. A normal life here was im
mortality. The doctrine of immortality was already given
to the people in this conception : life was the existence
of the whole man in the body, this life was had in
fellowship with God, and this fellowship was indissoluble ;
for in the conception they had of the world their
condition in it, truly represented the relations of God to
men. Of course, all this was in some respects ideal, and
facts were opposed to it. But the doctrine of immortality
was given in the idea and in the consciousness of the living
saint ; and the task of after revelation was to move out of
the course the obstacles that stood in the way of the idea
being realised. To us, on the contrary, the obstacles bulk
so largely that we begin with them, and we are scarcely
able to conceive a condition of the mind that could give
PROBLEMS OF PROVIDENCE 453
death a secondary place, or sweep it away in the rush of
great principles regarding God and the universe, or sink it
in the intense ecstasy of conscious life with God.
7. Problems of Righteousness and their Solution.
In many passages of the Old Testament the idea of
immortality is connected with the problems of the Wisdom.
The hope, the necessity, of immortality appears as the
solution of problems which, it was felt, received no just
solution in this life. As the Wisdom aimed at detecting
and exhibiting the operation of fixed principles in the
world and life, it became practically a doctrine of pro
vidence in a wide sense. And in a world where moral
anomalies were so abundant, a doctrine of providence took
oftentimes the shape of a theodicy or justification of the
ways of God to man ; and as this justification was seen to be
imperfectly comprehended in this life, the necessity was
felt of projecting the final issue into a region beyond
death.
In no nation were the principles and conditions of
well-being and misfortune so clearly distinguished as among
the Hebrews. The lawgiver set out by laying before the
people blessing and cursing. Though the kingdom of God
was administered as to its principles in no way different
from God s government of other nations, there was this
great difference, that there was always present the inspired
consciousness of the prophets and teachers of the people,
in which was immediately reflected the meaning of God s
providence with them. And it is possible that, though the
principles of God s government of Israel were the same as
those by which He governs other nations, there was a more
immediate connection in their case between sin and mis
fortune, than there is among other peoples. There is in all
cases the same connection ; but it may be made a question
whether, in addition to having the connection clearly set
before the people by the prophets, the connection was not
more strict and immediate in God s rule of His people.
454 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
In addition to this general law, the individual was
also taught the same lesson. When he sinned, there was
immediately, in the ceremonial disability that ensued, a
punishment of his offence. Thus that fundamental connec
tion between sin and suffering being extremely prominent,
it took possession of men s minds with a very firm hold.
And, no doubt, this was intended. The law was a ministra
tion of death ; its purpose was to educate the people in the
knowledge of sin and retribution. In the theology of Paul,
the law stands not on the side of the remedy, but on the
side of the disease. It came in to aggravate the malady
that the offence might abound. It had other uses, and this
view of it is not meant to be exhaustive. But as an inter
mediate institution, coming in between the promise and
actual redemption, this was one of its effects and purposes.
It augmented the disease in the consciousness of the mind
struggling with its demands, and perhaps also, as Paul
argues, it increased the disease in fact by provoking the
sinful mind to oppose it. It revealed both sin and its
consequences : " By the law is the knowledge of sin " ;
" when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died "
(Rom. iii. 20, vii. 9). The covenant of Sinai and its ad
ministration brought out very conspicuously the principles
of all moral government.
It was natural in this way for a member of the Hebrew
State to apply the principle of retribution very stringently
and universally. All evil he knew to be for sin, any evil
he concluded to be for some sin. Where there was evil,
there must have been sin to bring it forth. Evil was not
an accident, nor was it a necessary outcome of the nature
of things ; it arose from the sinful conduct of men :
"Affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth
trouble spring out of the ground ; but man is born unto
trouble, i.e. born so that he acts in such a manner as to
bring trouble upon himself, as the sparks fly upward "
(Job v. 6, 7).
This stringent application of the law was more natural
in a state of society like that existing in the East than it
PROBLEM OF CALAMITY 455
would be with us. There, society is simple, and its elements
more detached from one another. The tribes live apart,
and draw their subsistence from the soil in the most direct
way. One class does not depend upon another ; indeed, there
are no classes, no such complex and intricate interweaving
of relations as in modern society. Hence the incidence of
a calamity was generally direct ; it did not pass through
several sections, or ramify on all sides, affecting most
severely those who were innocent of the evil. The move
ments of life were simultaneous, and a calamity was seen
to fall generally where it was deserved. In this way, not
in Israel only, but throughout the East, the principle of
retributive righteousness was held very firmly : with the
man who doeth well it is well ; with the sinner it is ill.
This was right under the rule of a just God ; for this rule
was particular, and embraced every occurrence.
But even in such an approach towards organised society
as was made on the settlement of the people in Canaan, this
simple faith must have received rude shocks. In the happy
times of the early monarchy, indeed, when the kingdom of
God was everywhere prosperous, and heathen States on
all sides bowed before it, and when justice was administered
with equal hand, and society still preserved its ancient
moral authority, the principle was receiving continual veri
fication. But in later times, when great heathen monarchies
rose in the East and trampled the kingdom of God under
their heel, the principle could not but come into danger of
question. At first, indeed, the principle itself afforded an
explanation of these calamities they were the first judg
ment of God upon the sin of the people. And, so far as
the nation was concerned, the explanation might satisfy the
pious mind.
But the case of individuals was different. In the
fate that overtook the different classes of the people the
failure of the principle was most signally manifested.
It was the most godly of the nation that suffered the
severest calamities. The disloyal, ethnicising party, agree
ing with their conquerors, or at least submitting to their
456 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
idolatries, escaped suffering; while the true theocratic-
hearted men, whether those left at home or those carried
into exile, were the victims of extreme hardships and in
dignity, both at the hands of their enemies and from their
false brethren. And even in regard to the nation, though
the sense of the national sinfulness might compose the
mind and humble it more deeply before God, there could
not but rise occasionally in the heart thoughts of a dis
turbing kind. Though the people had deeply sinned, and
though their sin was aggravated by the fact that they
had sinned against the knowledge of the truth, yet by com
parison the people of God, though sinful, stood above those
idolatrous powers into whose hand their God had delivered
them. Already this thought appears in the prophet
Habakkuk, when he compares Israel and the Chaldeans,
which latter acknowledge no right but force, and no God
but their own right hand. And, further, as time wore
on under the sorrows of the Exile, and a new generation
arose who had not been guilty of the sins that caused the
national dispersion, and yet continued to suffer the penalty
of them, there arose not only a sense of paralysis and help
lessness, as if they lay under a cruel ban which no conduct
of their own could break, but also questionings as to the
rectitude of God.
Now, these questionings were met in three ways. First,
in the prophet Ezekiel, himself an exile, the old concep
tion of the national unity is subjected to analysis. The
unity is resolved and decomposed into individuals, and
the relation of the individual to Jehovah is declared to be
direct and immediate ; the son does not suffer for the sins
of the father, nor the individual for the sins of the nation,
the soul that sinneth shall die. This was an emancipa
tion of the individual from the ban of national sin, and a
profound advance towards a spiritual religion. Of course,
the prophet s conception is true only in the region of
spiritual relation to God ; externally, the individual may be
involved in national calamity, but his own conduct is that
which determines God s spiritual relation to him. It may
SORROWS OF THti GODLY 457
not be quite certain that the teaching of the prophet is
presented with all the limitations necessary to it. But
great truths are everywhere presented broadly, and the
limitations come in their own time.
A second line was that of hope in the future, as we
observe it in the second half of Isaiah. The very
calamities of the Exile and the apparent dissolution
of the nation led to a profounder meditation upon what
the people of God was, what designs Jehovah had in
calling it to be His servant, and a deeper conception
of what Jehovah Himself was, and of the scope of His
purposes. Thus it became plain what it was to know the
true God, and what must yet, in spite of all appearances,
be the issue of the fact that there was a true God, and
that the true knowledge of Him had been given to Israel,
His servant. When we look at the circumstances of the
time, at that which was powerful in the world, and at the
state of Israel scattered in every land, the faith of this
prophet in the destiny of his people becomes one of the
most surprising things in the Old Testament. But this
was only part of the conception. A judgment was formed
of the meaning of the chastisement of the people, and hope
found satisfaction in the idea that these chastisements
exhausted the nation s sin and atoned for it. The precise
form of the prophet s conception, as we saw, is matter of
difficulty ; but his general idea, that the sorrows and evils
of the Exile, falling on some element in the people, removed
their guilt, is plain.
But a third line is also followed. In the second half
of Isaiah the sorrows of the people are due to their sins.
Their sorrows are the expiation of their sins, and the
national unity is still firmly retained. But in another book
the distinction is drawn between the godly and the sinful
among the people, and the question is raised, What is God s
purpose in the chastisements which He inflicts upon the
godly ? This question is put and answered in the Book of
Job. Though Job be an individual, it is scarcely possible
to avoid regarding him as a type of the godly portion of
458 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
the nation ; the character as drawn in the book is broader
and larger than that of an individual. The answer given
to the question is, that the afflictions of the righteous are a
trial of their righteousness, and when borne with steadfast
ness they issue in a higher religious condition and a closer
fellowship with God, through a more perfect knowledge of
Him. " I had heard of Thee with the hearing of the ear :
but now mine eye seeth Thee " (xlii. 5).
These were thoughts which consideration of the sin of
the nation and its sufferings suggested. Of equal, if not
greater, interest were thoughts suggested to the mind by
the sufferings and history of the individual. The general
principle, that it was well with the righteous and ill with
the sinner, was seen to be broken in upon on two sides.
The wicked were many times observed to be prosperous,
and, on the other hand, the righteous were plagued every
day. Now, relief was sought from this anomaly of God s
providence in various ways. First, the pious mind sought
to comfort itself and other minds in similar distress, with
the consideration that the triumphing of the wicked was
brief ; it was but a momentary interruption to the general
flow of God s providence, which would speedily be removed.
This is the consideration in some of the Psalms. Or, at any
rate, whether brief or prolonged, it would come to an end.
The true relation of the wicked to God would be manifested
sometime in this world ; they would be destroyed, with
terrible tokens of His displeasure. This is taught in other
Psalms. In the Book of Job this solution no longer satisfies,
it is a solution not found universally valid. The wicked
not only pass their life in prosperity, but go down to the
grave in peace : " They spend their days in wealth, and in
a moment (i.e. in peace) go down to the grave. He is
borne away to the grave, and men keep watch over his
tomb. The clods of the valley are sweet unto him, and all
men draw after him, as there were innumerable before
him" (chap. xxi. 32). When this point is reached there
is evidently only the alternative, to leave the question
unsolved, or to project the solution beyond death. Secondly,
IDEAS OF THE PSALMISTS 459
another consideration which afforded comfort to the
righteous mind was a deeper analysis which he was able
to make of that which was to be called true life and true
prosperity and blessedness. In all the passages where the
question is raised of the outward prosperity of the wicked,
the righteous comforts himself with the thought that he has
the blessedness of God s favour, except in the Book of Job.
Even in the xxxviith Psalm the pious mind exhorts others :
" Delight thyself in God, and He will give thee the desire
of thy heart." Yet in this Psalm this delight in God is not
regarded as sufficient or altogether satisfying to the mind ;
there is the demand also that the anomaly of the prosperity
of the wicked should be removed, and that the righteous
should be externally prosperous. In Ps. Ixxiii. the pious
mind dwells more upon its own blessedness in possessing
the favour of God : " Nevertheless, I am continually with
thee " ; but the problem of providence is still found a trouble,
which occasions great disquietude to the mind. And a
solution of it is anxiously sought. In two remarkable
Psalms, however, the xlixth and xviith, the problem seems
to have been entirely overcome. In the first of these two
passages the author comes forward with a philosophy of
the question, and in the other he calmly surveys the
prosperity of the wicked almost as if it were a thing of
course. This life belongs to the wicked, but there is
another which belongs to the righteous. In both these
passages the solution seems thrown into the region beyond
death. And this is also the solution in the xixth chapter
of Job, although the conclusion is there reached in a some
what different way. One is almost compelled to think
that both Ps. xlix. and Ps. xvii. are later than the Book of
Job.
8. Ideas of an After-Life in Psalms xvii., xxxvii.,
xlix., Ixxiii.
A brief reference may be made to each of these typical
passages. The simplest resolution of the problem is that
seen in Ps. xxxvii. There the condition of the perplexed
460 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
mind is not very aggravated, and the relief administered is
simple. The difficulty of the prosperous wicked and the
afflicted righteous man was felt, but the difficulty was
simply a practical one. The fact that many wicked were
rich and prosperous, and that righteous men were in
distress, led to envy and irritation on the part of the just.
And relief is administered in the form of an advice often
repeated, with a reference to the great principle of moral
government : " Fret not thyself because of evil-doers . . .
cease from anger, and be not wrathful . . . fret not thyself
in any wise to do evil." And the consideration urged is
that the prosperity of the wicked is "brief \ it is an inter
ruption to the general scope of things, but it is speedily
overcome by them, and the current flows on in its
accustomed channels : " Fret not thyself because of evil
doers : for they shall soon be cut down like the grass . . .
the wicked plotteth against the just ; but the Lord laugheth
at him, because He seeth that his day is coming," And, on
the other hand : " Trust in the Lord and do good, and thou
shalt inherit the earth." The Psalmist satisfies himself
and others by affirming the general principle, and by
saying that the exception to it is of short duration.
This is a practical solution, sufficient when the evil has
gone no further than to occasion discontent. The difficulty
that there is exception at all, does not bulk largely in
presence of the acknowledged brevity of its duration. The
other side of the question, the felicity of the righteous in God,
is touched upon, though but slightly ; it is touched upon in
the course of an exhortation to keep the faith even amidst
present confusions, because out of these the true moral
order will speedily arise : " Delight thyself in God, and Ho
shall give thee the desires of thine heart." This is one
way of reading the Psalm. It may be questioned, however,
whether it is sufficient. It makes the Psalmist s doctrine
somewhat abstract, and hardly does justice to the manifest
eschatological references in it, as that the meek shall inherit
the earth. The meek is technical language for the godly ;
and inherit the earth refers to the final condition, when the
SEVENTY-THIRD PSALM 4G1
kingdom of God has come. The Psalm, therefore, appears
to be a real eschatological national Psalm ; comforting the
righteous with the hope of the nearness of the day of the
Lord, and the triumph of the right.
In Ps. Ixxiii. an advance is made both in the problem
and in the solution. The problem is felt to be more serious.
The Psalmist s mind is in a more disquieted condition. The
question is no more a mere practical one, but has become a
real religious and speculative difficulty, what the writer
calls an amal, so great that his faith in God was in danger
of being overthrown : " As for me, my feet were almost
gone. Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the
world. . . . Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain."
Only after much anxiety had the Psalmist been enabled to
return again to peace. In the sanctuary of God a light
was shed upon the fate of the wicked which enabled him
to walk without stumbling. And just as the problem is
more seriously grasped than in Ps. xxxvii., so the solution
is also profounder. This solution consists in a contrast
between the condition of the wicked and that of the
righteous, with the necessary consequences of this con
dition. The whole is thrown into the form of an analysis
of their respective relations to Jehovah. The prosperity of
the wicked is a thing merely apparent; it has no sub
stantiality, because of the necessary attitude of Jehovah to
sin. The prosperity of the wicked is as " a dream when
one awaketh " ; so, when " Jehovah awaketh, He will despise
their image." The relation of God to them must display
itself ; and when it displays itself they will perish amidst
terrible manifestations of His anger. The righteous, on the
other hand, is ever with God : " I am continually with Thee :
Thou wilt (or, dost) direct me with thy counsel. ... It is
good for me to draw near unto God ... all they that go
far from Thee shall perish." The essential thing is the
relation of men to God. This contains in it the fate of
men. And this fate will yet reveal itself.
The Psalmist considers that this fate, so far as the
wicked is concerned will reveal itself in their visible
462 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
destruction. It is, indeed, possible that both in this Psalm
and in Ps. xxxvii. the prophetic conception of the day of
the Lord may be present to the Psalmist s mind, and the
destruction of the wicked be that which will overtake them
on that day. This is one of the main points, indeed, to
which, in studying these Psalms (xvii., xxxvii., xlix., and
Ixxiii.), attention has to be directed. Is the Psalmist
contemplating his own death ? or is he contemplating that
change which will supervene at the coming of God, on the
day of the Lord and the judgment, when the sinners of the
people perish, but the godly pass into the peace of God ?
However this be, the Psalmist sees in the relation of
men to God the certain issue of their history. The
question is of interest, however, whether he does not
pursue the destiny of the righteous beyond death. It is
possible that he might have satisfied himself with stating
the general principle, with leading back the destiny of the
righteous and the wicked alike to that which is really essen
tial, their relation to Jehovah ; and assuring himself that the
destiny of all will be determined by this. And some scholars
understand the words " thou wilt take me to glory " in this
sense ; meaning that God would take the saint to His care
and protection. But (1) the passages adduced by Ewald
and Eiehm to support this sense are hardly in point. And
(2) the same phrase occurs in Ps. xlix., where it can hardly
refer to protection and providential care in this life. It is
therefore more natural, I think, to regard the phrase as
having a reference to that which is beyond death ; at
any rate, it must have a reference to the eternal relation of
the saint to God. And the words, "my flesh and heart
faint and fail," not unnaturally refer to death. The hope
of the believing mind lies in its relation to Jehovah :
" Whom have I in heaven but thee ? and on earth I desire
nought beside Thee." And his assurance that it shall be
ill with the wicked, is based equally upon their relation
to God.
Ps. xlix. is even more remarkable. Its reference to the
condition after death, in regard both to the wicked and to
FORTY-NINTH PSALM 463
the righteous, can scarcely be mistaken. First, the Psalmist
begins with a promise to all men, high and low, rich and
poor, that he will clear up a mystery. Whatever his theme
and the lesson he is going to teach may be, it is no more a
truth which he is wringing out of circumstances ; it is no
more a thing reached only by a struggle, and attained only
as a necessity of faith. It is an objective doctrine, an
assured principle. Again, though he speaks in the first person,
what he says applies to all men. His proposition is, Why
should I fear in the evil day ? He has no reason to fear ;
and this feeling of security arises from his contemplation
of mankind. He sees that all men die ; this is the universal
fate : wise men die, the brutish and foolish perish together.
So far as this is concerned, the lot of men is the same, and
common to all. Thirdly, the question to which he presents
a solution is that of the prosperity and riches of the
wicked ; and also, on the other hand, the misery of the good,
the calamities of the evil day. The riches of the wicked
cannot deliver them from death. None can redeem his
brother, or give unto God a ransom for him so that he
should live and not see the pit. He shall see it ; for all men
die. And none can carry his riches to the grave with him.
Thus the riches and prosperity of the wicked do not avail
the wicked ; he as well as poorer men comes to the grave
at last. Still, if this were all that could be said, there
would be an advantage in riches in this life, at least. If
all die, and if this were the end, the wicked, if rich, would
be better than the righteous, if poor.
But it is just at the point when death intervenes that
the difference appears. Man, being in honour, without
understanding is like the beasts that perish. Like sheep,
the ungodly are laid in Sheol, and Death shepherds them :
their end is to be for the consumption of Sheol. It is
probable that there may be a transference to Sheol of that
which takes place in the grave. There is no likelihood that
the passage teaches that the deceased persons in Sheol are
consumed, so as to cease absolutely to subsist. But the
point, on the one hand, is that at death the wicked, however
464 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
prosperous in life, really become the prey of death they
may be compared to the lower creatures ; while, on the other
hand, the righteous live : " God shall redeem me from the
hand of Sheol : for He will take me." Sheol, the place of
the dead, is escaped ; the hand of God takes the righteous
soul across its gulf to Himself.
Now, these points in this passage are remarkable : first,
what the author teaches is put forward as an objective
principle, no more a mere demand of faith, but a dogma of
religious belief ; second, it is a doctrine which assumes and
is based upon the acknowledged fact that death is uni
versal, wise and foolish alike falling a prey to it ; third, the
doctrine itself touches the point of the prosperity of the
wicked in this life, and the evils that befall the righteous ;
and, fourth, the solution is thrown entirely into the region
beyond death. The destiny of men is looked at as a
whole, both in this life and as extending beyond death.
And this destiny depends on their relation to God. The
wicked s prosperity in this life cannot save him from
death ; and death to him remains death. The evil are
gathered like a flock into Sheol; death is their shepherd.
The Old Testament teaches no aggravations in death. Death
is itself the highest aggravation, i.e. death and continuance
in the state of death, according to the popular notions of
what this was, Death shepherds them. But God redeems
the righteous from the hand of Sheol ; for He takes him.
The phrase he will take me looks like a reminiscence
of the language used of Enoch, " He was not ; for God took
him" (Gen. v. 24). The date and the authorship of the
xlixth Psalm is doubtful. It might be supposed that this
remarkable conception would scarcely be early. The passage
belongs to the writings of the Wisdom, as the introduction
shows. And it is quite conceivable that in certain circles
of the people a more advanced faith might have prevailed
than was to be found among the bulk of the nation. At
all events, the plain sense of a passage ought not to be
made dependent on questions of date or authorship.
It is possible that Ps. xvii. may have the same mean-
SEVENTEENTH PSALM 465
ing. It draws the same kind of distinction between two
classes of men : those whom it calls men of the world,
whose portion is in this life, whom God loads with earthly
joys and blessings ; and another class, whose portion God is
Himself. This character of the two classes furnishes the
key to their destiny. The Psalmist, though he appears to
regard the prosperity of the wicked in life as a thing
natural and of course, their portion being in this life,
anticipates their destruction eventually at the hand of
God. But for himself, he will " see God s face in righteous
ness." The language in which the Psalmist expresses his
hope is remarkable, though of somewhat uncertain mean
ing : " I shall behold Thy face in righteousness : when I
awake, I shall be satisfied with Thine image." The phrase
* in righteousness might mean through righteousness,
more probably in the element of righteousness. The ex
pression thine image, IJJJ^ri, is remarkable. The word is
used to express what we call the species or genus of a thing :
" Thou shalt not make unto thee any generic likeness of any
thing in the heavens " (Ex. xx. 4). When such a thing is
seen, the beholder must be face to face with it in its
very presence, and looking on it. The language is thus in
favour of an immediate vision of God ; as in Deuteronony
it is denied that any n of God was seen in His manifesta
tions of Himself on earth (Ex. iv. 12). In the xixth chapter
of Job, too, the assurance of Job, that he shall see God, is
one having reference to a state after death.
If this sense be adopted, then the expression when I
awake would have a quite natural sense, though a very
large one. It is very improbable that the word should
mean merely when I awake out of sleep in the morning,
or every morning ; as if the meaning were that each
morning, as soon as consciousness returned, his joy in
God would return ; and he would realise God s image,
and be satisfied with it. Neither is the sense very
natural, * when I awake out of this night of darkness
and calamity now lying on me, in the. morning of prosperity
(Kiehm). On the other hand, if the word refer to the history
30
466 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TOSTAMENT
of man after death, the passage seems to go further than even
Ps. xlix., and to refer to the awakening out of death, when
God has brought in His perfect kingdom, which departed
saints would live again to share. This doctrine is certainly
found in Daniel ; and from the date of that book onward it
is the faith, at least, of the Pharisees. It is quite probable
that it may have been cherished in Israel long before the
age of Daniel, if that book be of the late date to which it
is now usually assigned. It is certainly also found in Isa.
xxvi. 19 a passage the age of which is very obscure
" Thy dead shall live, my dead ones shall arise. Awake
and cry for joy, ye dwellers in the dust : for a dew of
light is thy dew, and the earth shall bring forth the dead."
The heading of the present Psalm ascribes it to David.
Such headings are not very good evidence ; though, being
in the first book, this Psalm is probably not a very late
one. But again our duty is to accept the natural sense of
words, leaving questions of date and authorship to take
care of themselves.
9. The Idea of an After -Life in Job.
In endeavouring to ascertain what hopes of immor
tality were entertained by Old Testament saints, how
these hopes arose, and on what they were grounded,
special attention must be given to the Book of Job. Some
thing might be said even for the propriety of beginning
with it. For the opinion that once prevailed, that the
book was of Arabic origin, or, at least, not of native
Israelitish extraction, is now altogether obsolete. The
work has every mark of a genuine Jewish authorship. And
though the belief that once also held the field regarding the
extreme antiquity of the book cannot now be maintained in
face of modern criticism, yet even if we admit the actual
authorship to be pretty late, the scene and the circumstances
are those of very early times. Job himself is represented as
living in the patriarchal age ; and it is the author s aim to
exhibit events and opinions as they existed then. It is, no
THE BOOK OF JOB 467
doubt, quite possible that the beliefs and the condition of
society in his own days may sometimes form the back
ground of his picture, or even give some of its colour to
the light which he throws over it. But probably such a
thing, if it be the case, will very little interfere with the
truth of the representation of the ideas ; for we find sub
stantially the same views expressed on this subject in such
Psalms as the xvith and xviith, and in the very late prophet
Malachi. It is difficult to know how far to distinguish
between the author of Job and his hero. For, on the one
hand, as we must take very much of the speeches and
opinions put into the mouths of Job and his friends to be
due altogether to the author, and certainly to be sym
pathised with by him, while yet, on the other, he shows
very great power in giving objectivity to his personages and
maintaining very distinctly their individualities, it will
always remain somewhat doubtful how far he shared in the
views which he makes his characters express.
In order to realise fully the meaning of the passages
bearing on this subject in Job, it will be of use to refer
to the general contents and the problem of the book.
(1) As it now lies before us, the book consists of five
parts. First, the prologue, in prose, chaps, i. ii. This de
scribes in rapid and dramatic steps the history of Job, his
piety and the prosperity and greatness corresponding to it :
then how his life is drawn in under the operation of the
trying, sifting providence of God, through the suspicions
suggested by the Satan, the minister of God s providence in
this aspect of it, that his godliness is but selfish (" Does Job
serve God for nought ? "), and only the natural return for the
unexampled prosperity bestowed on him. If stripped of
his prosperity, he will renounce God to His face. These
suspicions bring down two severe calamities on Job,
one depriving him of all external blessings, children and
possessions alike ; and the other throwing the man him
self under a loathsome and painful malady. In spite of
these afflictions, Job retains his integrity, and imputes no
wrong to God. Then the advent of Job s three friends
468 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
is described, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite,
and Zophar the Naamathite, who, having heard of Job s
calamities, came to condole with him.
Second, the body of the book, in poetry, chaps, iii. xxxi.,
containing a series of speeches in which the problems of
Job s afflictions and the relation of external evil to the
righteousness of God and the conduct of men are brilliantly
discussed. This part is divided into three cycles, each con
taining six speeches, one by Job and one by each of the
friends (chaps, iii. xiv., chaps, xv. xxi., and chaps, xxii.
xxxi.), although in the last cycle the third speaker, Zophar,
fails to answer. Job, having driven his opponents from the
field, carries his reply through a series of discourses, in which
he dwells in pathetic words upon his early prosperity, con
trasting with it his present misery and humiliation. He
ends with a solemn repudiation of all the offences that had
been insinuated or might be suggested against him, and
with a challenge to the Almighty to appear and put His
hand to the charge which He had against him, and for
which He afflicted him.
Third, a youthful bystander named Elihu, the repre
sentative of a younger generation, who had been a silent
listener to the debate, now intervenes, and expresses his
dissatisfaction with the manner in which both Job and his
friends had conducted the case, and offers what is scarcely
to be called a new solution of the question, but some argu
ments which the friends had overlooked, and which ought
to have put Job to silence (chaps, xxxii. xxxvii.).
Fourth, in answer to Job s repeated demands that God
would appear and solve the riddle of his life, the Lord answers
Job out of the whirlwind. The Divine Speaker does not con
descend to refer to Job s individual problem, but in a series
of ironical interrogations asks him, as he thinks himself
capable of fathoming all things, to expound the mysteries of
the origin and subsistence of the world, the phenomena of
the atmosphere, the instincts of the creatures that inhabit
the desert ; and, as he judges God s conduct of the world
amiss, he is invited to seize the reins himself and gird him
THE IDEA OF THE BOOK 469
with the Divine thunder and quell the rebellious forces of
evil in the universe, chaps, xxxviii. xlii. 6. Job is humbled
and abashed, and lays his hand upon his mouth, and
repents his hasty words in dust and ashes. No solution
of his problem is vouchsafed ; but God Himself effects that
which neither the man s own thoughts of God nor the
representations of his friends could accomplish ; the Divine
Speaker but repeats in another form what the friends had
said and what Job had said in a sublimer way, but now
it is God who speaks. Job had heard of Him with the
hearing of the ear without effect ; now his eye sees Him,
and he abhors himself, and repents in dust and ashes.
This is the profoundest religious depth reached in the book.
Then, fifth, comes the epilogue, also in prose, chap. xlii.
717, which describes Job s restoration to a prosperity
double that of his former estate, his family felicity, and
long life.
(2) If, now, we pass from this outline of the contents
of the book to inquire what is the idea of the book or
the design of it, we must not expect to find this in
any particular part of the poem, but partly in the senti
ments uttered especially by Job, partly in the history
of mind through which he is made to pass, and partly in
the author s own contributions, the prologue and epilogue.
Job is unquestionably the hero of the work ; and in the
ideas which he expresses, and the history through which
he passes, taken together, we may assume that we find the
author speaking and teaching. The discussion of the ques
tion of the meaning of suffering, between Job and his friends,
occupies by far the largest part of the book ; and in the
direction which the author causes this discussion to take,
we may see revealed the main didactic purpose of the
book. When the three friends, the representatives of
former theories of providence and of previous views in
regard to the meaning of evil and the calamities which
befall men, are reduced to silence, and driven off the field
by Job, we may be certain that it was the author s purpose
to discredit the ideas which they represent. Job himself
470 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
offers no positive contribution to the doctrine of evil ; his
position is negative, and merely antagonistic to that of the
friends. But this negative position, victoriously maintained
by him, has the effect of clearing the ground; and the
author himself supplies in the prologue the positive truth,
where he communicates the real explanation of his hero s
calamities, and teaches that they were a trial of his
righteousness. It was, therefore, the author s purpose in
his work to widen men s views of the providence of God,
and set before them a new view of suffering. This may
be considered the first great object of the book.
This purpose, however, was in all probability no mere
theoretical one, but subordinate to some wider practical
design. No Hebrew writer is merely a poet or a thinker.
He is always a teacher. He has men before him in their
relations to God. And it is not usually men in their
individual relations, but as members of the family of Israel,
the people of God. Consequently, it is scarcely to be
doubted that the book has a national scope. The author
considered his new truth regarding the meaning of affliction
as of national interest, and to be the truth needful for the
heart of his people in their circumstances. But the teach
ing of the book is only half its contents. It contains a
history, and this history furnishes the profoundest lesson
to be learned. It exhibits deep and inexplicable affliction,
a great moral conflict, and a victory. The author meant
the history which he exhibits and his new truth to inspire
new conduct and new faith, and to lead to a new issue in
the national fortunes. In Job s sufferings, undeserved and
inexplicable to him, yet capable of an explanation most
consistent with the goodness and faithfulness of God, and
casting honour upon His steadfast servants ; in his despair,
bordering on unbelief, at last overcome ; and in the happy
issue of his afflictions, in all this Israel should see itself,
and from the sight take courage and forecast its own
history. Job, however, is scarcely to be considered Israel,
the righteous servant under a feigned name ; he is no mere
parable, though such a view is as early as the Talmud.
JOB AND PEUTERO-ISAIAH 471
Without doubt, there is a connection between the second
half of Isaiah and the Book of Job. The linguistic affinities
are manifest. And in both the problem is the same, the
sufferings of the righteous servant of the Lord. But My
servant Job is scarcely the same as My righteous servant
in Isaiah, although in Job there may be national allusion.
The solution of the problem differs in the two. In Job,
sufferings are a trial of faith which, successfully borne, will
issue in restoration. In Isaiah they are vicarious, borne
by one element in the nation in behalf of the whole, and
issuing in the national redemption. Two such solutions
can scarcely be entirely contemporaneous. That of Isaiah is
the profounder truth, and may be later. But Job is hardly
to be identified with the servant of the Lord. It is the
elements of reality that lie in the tradition of Job that
make him of significance to Israel. It is these elements of
reality common to him with Israel in affliction, common
even to him with humanity as a whole, confined within the
straitened limits set by its own ignorance, wounded to
death by the mysterious sorrows of life, tormented by the
uncertainty whether its cry finds an entrance into God s
ear, alarmed by the irreconcilable discrepancies which it
seems to discover between its necessary thoughts of Him
and its experience of Him in His providence, and faint
with longing that it might come unto His place and behold
Him, not girt with majesty, but in human form, as one
looketh upon his fellow, it is these elements of truth that
made the history of Job instructive to Israel in the times
of affliction when it was set before them, and to men in
all ages.
(3) Two threads, therefore, requiring to be followed, run
through the book. One, the discussion of the problem of
evil between Job and his friends ; the other, the varying
attitude of Job s mind towards heaven, the first being
subordinate to the second, and helping to determine it.
Both Job and his friends advance to the discussion of his
sufferings and of the problem of evil, ignorant of the true
cause of his calamities, as that is laid before us in the
472 THE THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
prologue, Job strong in his sense of innocence, and the
friends armed with their theory of the righteousness of
God, who giveth to every man according to his works.
The principle with which the three friends came to the
consideration of Job s calamities was the principle that
calamity is the r 
