THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS
OF THE
OLD TESTAMENT
STUDIES IN THEOLOGY
Christianity and Ethics.
BY ARCHIBALD B. D. ALEXANDER, M.A., D.D.
The Environment of Early Christianity.
By S. ANGUS, M.A., Ph.D.
History of the Study of Theology. Vol. I.
" " " Vol.H.
By Dr. C. A. BRIOGS.
The Christian Hope.
By W. ADAMS BROWN, Ph.D., D.D.
Christianity and Social Questions.
By WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM, F.B.A., D.D., D.Sc.
The Justification of God.
By Rev. P. T. FORSYTH.
Christian Apologetics.
By Rev. A. E. GARVIE.
A Critical Introduction to the Old Testament.
By GEORGE BUCHANAN GRAY, D.D., D.Litt.
Gospel Origins.
By WILLIAM WEST HOLDSWORTH, M.A.
Faith and Its Psychology.
By WILLIAM R. INGE, D.D.
Christianity and Sin.
By ROBERT MACKINTOSH, D.D.
Protestant Thought Before Kant.
By A. C. McGiFFERT, Ph.D., D.D.
The Theology of the Gospels.
By JAMES MOFFATT, D.D., D.Litt.
History of Christian Thought Since Kant.
By EDWARD CALDWELL MOORE, D.I. .
The Doctrine of the Atonement.
By J. K. MOZLEY, M.A.
Revelation and Inspiration.
By JAMES ORR, D.D.
A Critical Introduction to the New Testament
By ARTHUR SAMUEL PEAKE, D.D.
Philosophy and Religion.
By HASTINGS RASHDALL, D.Litt. (Oxon.), D.C.L.
(Durham), F.B.A.
The Holy Spirit.
ByT. REES, M.A. (Lend.), B.A. (Oxon.).
The Religious Ideas of the Old Testament.
By H. WHEELER ROBINSON, M.A.
The Text and Canon of the New Testament
By ALEXANDER SOUTER, D.Litt.
Christian Thought to the Reformation.
By HERBERT B. WORKMAN, D.Litt.
The Theology of the Epistles.
By H. A. A. KENNEDY, D.Sc., D.D.
The Pharisees and Jesus.
By A. T. ROBERTSON, A.M., D.D., LL.D.
The Originality of the Christian Message.
By H. R. MACKINTOSH, D.D., D.Phil.
THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS
OF THE
OLD TESTAMENT
H. WHEELER ROBINSON, M.A.
TUTOR IN RAWDON COLLEGE
SOMETIME SENIOR KENNICOTT SCHOLAR IN THE UNIVERSITY OK OXFCK.
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS
1921
BS
n7/
PREFACE
BEHIND the shifting scenes and crowded stage of Old
Testament history, and expressed in the varied literature
of a thousand years, there are a few simple, yet profound,
ideas which are fundamental to the religion of Israel. It
is the aim of this book, 1 within the limits of the series to
which it belongs, to present these leading ideas in their
historical setting, with some indication of their theological
and philosophical value, and of their significance for
Christianity. The method of treatment is therefore dis
tinct from that which would naturally be adopted for a
history of the religion as a whole through successive
periods, though the historical development is more or less
followed in the discussion of each topic, and in the order
of treatment. Archaeological detail is given only to the
extent necessary for the illustration of the forms assumed
by the ideas. The general point of view is that of one
who believes critical study of the Old Testament to be no
obstacle but a great help to the progress of the Gospel of
the New Testament. The interest felt during recent years
in the literature of the period between the two parts of
Scripture, and in the Judaism of the time of Christ, has
perhaps tended to obscure the elementary truth that the
Gospel of the New Testament after all springs from the
dominant ideas of the Old Testament. The unity of
1 A summary of the argument is given in the closing paragiajih of the first
chapter.
vi RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Scripture is shown by its fundamental conception of
religion as the personal fellowship of God and man. Prior
to the New Testament, and judged simply from the stand
point of comparative religion, the Old Testament offers
the purest and noblest example of that conception. The
proof of the reality of that fellowship is the moral emphasis
which characterises the religion of Israel.
The author of this book is much indebted to Dr. G.
Buchanan Gray and the Rev. David Stewart, M.A., who
have read it in manuscript, and rendered valuable help by
their numerous criticisms and suggestions. He has also to
thank the Rev. H. C. Rowse, M.A., for assistance in the
correction of the proofs.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Mflp
THE HISTORY AS THE SOURCE OF THE IDEAS, . . . 1
1. The History in the Literature, . . . . 7
2. The Salient Features of the History, . . .16
CHAPTER II
THE IDEA OF RELIGION, . . . .28
1. The Unity within the Development, . * .32
l>2. The Moral Emphasis, . . . . .38
3. The Contribution of Semitic Animism, , . 46
CHAPTER III
THE IDEA OF QOD, . . . . < , . 51
1. The Scope of Yahweh s Sovereignty, , . .64
2. The Personality of Yahweh, . .60
Jx"3. The Moral Character of Yahweh, . . .65
4. The Divine Purpose in Creation and Providence, . 70
CHAPTER IV
IX" THE IDEA OF MAN, . . . . . .77
1 The Psychology of the Hebrews, . . .79
2. Man s Dependence on God, . . . . 83
3. The Relation of the Individual to the Society, . . 87
4. The Future Life, . . . . .91
CHAPTER V
THE APPROACH OF GOD TO MAN, .... 102
1. Early Manifestations of Yahweh, . . 104
2. The Prophetic Consciousness, . , .113
3. The Written Word, . . 123
ril
viii RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
CHAPTER VI
lunB
THE APPROACH OF MAN TO GOD, . . . . / ^0
1. Holy Places and Seasons, . . . . 133
2. The Priesthood and the Sacrifices, .. . .141
3. Worship in the Psalter, . . . .148
-^4. Moral Holiness, . . . . .154
CHAPTER VII
THE PROBLEMS OF SIX AND BUFFERING, . , .159
1. Sin and Retributive Suffering, . . . .160
2. Forgiveness and Righteousness , . . .164
3. The Suffering of the Innocent, . . . .169
The Cosmic Problem of Evil, . . * .178
CHAPTER VIII
THE HOPE OF THE NATION, ..... 184
1. The Covenant, . . . . . .186
2. The Day of Yah wen, . . . . .190
3. The Kingdom of God, . . . . .193
4. The Messiah, . . . , . . .198
5. The Servant of Yahweh, . . . .202
6. Nationalism and Universalism, . . . 206
CHAPTER IX
THE PERMANENT VALUE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, . .212
^1. Israel s History as a Divine Revelation, . . 216
2. The Ideas and their Intrinsic Worth, . . . 222
3. The Practical Value of the Literature, . . .230
BIBLIOGRAPHY, ....... 236
INDEX, . . 241
OS!
THE RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE
OLD TESTAMENT
CHAPTER I
THE HISTORY AS THE SOURCE OF THE IDEAS
THE difference between conventional impressions of the
Old Testament and the attitude of the serious student
towards it, may be compared with that between two views
of the same landscape, as seen by the casual spectator
and by the geologist respectively. Both are gazing on
the same fertile valley, set in its framework of lofty hills,
through the verdure of which can be seen here and there
the course of the streams that feed the river below. The one
gratefully accepts the whole scene as it lies before him, in
its abiding majesty and grace. The other, not necessarily
less responsive to its beauty, looks beneath the thin cover
ing of soil on the hills to the limestone that makes them,
thinks of the buried fossils that tell the story of successive
ages, traces the slow creation of that far-stretching plain
through the soil washed down from the crumbling rock,
to be carried onwards and deposited afresh by the cease
less ministry of the river. His mind s eye rests, not on
the result alone, but on the interaction of forces, the
successive processes, the evolving work of uncounted
centuries that have made this result. He understands
better what he sees, because he knows how it came to be
what it is.
It is not otherwise with the Old Testament. We know
2 KELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
and love its sunlit peaks and shadowed valleys, its green
pastures and still waters, the familiar unity of the whole
as it lies outstretched from Genesis to Malachi. Sinai
frowns upon it from the background, and its river runs
onward to that city of God which hath no need of the sun.
Patriarchs and prophets, whose names are household
words, have made this scene their familiar habitation ;
here kings have gone to battle, and saints of God have
won better victories, lifting their eyes to these hills. When
we think what all this has meant to unnumbered lives,
which have drawn so much spiritual strength from its
influence, we need not wonder at the passion of resent
ment that the critical study of the Old Testament has
often aroused in those without sufficient faith to realise
that beauty is only enriched by a deeper truth. But the
critical study of the Old Testament has simply done for
it what geology has done for natural landscape. Under
neath the conventional form of the Old Testament litera
ture, critical scholarship has taught us to recognise the
successive strata that have built up the mountain peaks
of faith and vision, each with its own fossil survivals
from the past. The classic utterances of prophetic
morality, the penetrating disclosures of the soul s deep
secrets, which have borne so goodly a harvest, were only
possible because of more primitive elements and cruder
material transformed from forbidding rock into fruitful
plain. To learn all this, we must first unlearn many things
we ha\e taken for granted. We must be patient enough
to let the evidence overcome our prejudices. Critical
study can be a moral as well as an intellectual test, and
it is perilously easy to deny what we have never laboured
to understand. But of one thing we can be certain from
the outset. Critical study of the Old Testament can no
more rob us of its spiritual and religious value than geo
logical study can make any landscape less beautiful, or
its soil less fruitful. The Old Testament is the permanent
I.] THE HISTORY AS THE SOURCE OF THE IDEAS 3
possession of the human race, and the more we know of
the nature and history of its great ideas, the more powerful
ought to be their influence upon us.
The book we have to study has been conventionalised
both by the Christian and by the Jew, and we must in
both cases penetrate beyond commonly accepted theories
in order to reach historic truth. The task is easier in
the former case, because we possess the Jewish Scriptures
practically in the form in which they existed when they were
appropriated by the Christian Church, 1 and are not com
pelled first to eliminate Christian alterations. Christian
traditionalism in regard to the Old Testament belongs wholly
to the realm of interpretation. 2 In the earlier centuries
this was allegorical, and admitted of the wildest fancies.
At a later date, as the dogmatic system of the Church
developed, the whole Bible became a uniform text-book
of dogma, which could be cited with little or no recognition
of the development between its first page and its last. As
such, it passed from the Catholic to the Protestant Church,
and acquired a new significance, because the traditions
of the Church as a parallel authority were explicitly
rejected. Protestant dogma confidently interpreted the
Old Testament according to its plan of salvation , and,
until the comparatively recent historical study of Scrip
ture, the Bible was read with the conviction that it would
give throughout a consistent and uniform statement of
Protestant doctrine, if its various utterances were systemati
cally collected and combined. From such an assumption
we are not yet free, and it affects men often unconsciously
in their exegesis of the Old Testament.
l But the earlier Christian Scriptures were in the Greek version (the
Septuagint), which contained, in addition to the Hebrew Canon, a number
of other books circulating amongst Greek-speaking Jews. These books,
broadly speaking, are now known as the Apocrypha, and form part of the
Roman Catholic Canon (the Vulgate). The Protestant Canon is identical
in contents, though not in order, with the Hebrew.
* Of course, including translation, as in the retention of rirgin in E.V,
of Isaiah vii. 14, against the meaning of the Hebrew.
4 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
Jewish traditionalism is more difficult to deal with,
because it is inwrought into the texture of the Old Testa
ment itself. The literature was divided into three groups,
in the general order of their supposed antiquity and value,
viz. the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings .* On
these three terraces, one below another, lay revealed the
supposed history of Israel, with the golden age of the
patriarchs on the crest of the hill. God wai worshipped
from the beginning, but His full revelation was not given
until Moses. From that divine Law Israel fell away, to
be rebuked and vainly recalled to obedience through the
prophets. For this disobedience the Exile was the punish
ment ; to the penitent faithful the restoration was the
reward, though they still waited through the centuries
for the hope of Israel, its full re-establishment as the
people of God. This dogmatic framework shaped not
only the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament,
but even the literary form in which it was allowed to
reach the Christian Church. The actual history, it was
naively felt, must have corresponded with this theory. 2
So earlier records were pressed into the service of the
later ideas of the religion. The literary documents of
the history of Israel are not, in our present Old Testament,
arranged in the historical order of their composition,
nor preserved in their original integrity. The narrator s
aim was not the scientific accuracy which we desiderate
in the historian of to-day ; the ancient writer felt free
to mould the traditions of the past into an illustration
of the convictions of his own time. Yet we must be
grateful to these writers for one thing ; they have often
incorporated older documents into their own writings,
with comparatively little change. It is the presence of
* The Prophets al*o included Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2
Kings, but not Daniel, which is assigned to the Writings .
The way in which the history was re- written in accordance with the
ideas of a later age may be seen by comparing 1 Chronicles XT. with
2 Samuel ri. (the ark brought to Jerusalem).
I.] THE HISTORY AS THE SOURCE OF THE IDEAS 5
these older strata that has enabled Old Testament scholar
ship, within the last century, to reach a view of the history
which is doubtless incomplete and sometimes faulty,
but which brings us much nearer to the truth than did
the conventional view.
The evidence for these statements belongs to that
department of Old Testament study which is technically
known as * Introduction V It is partly philological,
consisting in the examination of Hebrew words, phrases,
and styles of composition ; these reveal, as in all languages,
a development of usage in successive generations. 2 In
part, also, the evidence is derived from the subject-matter ;
ideas and customs appear in professedly the same docu
ment, which cannot be reconciled on the assumption
that they are really contemporaneous, though they admit
of natural explanation on the assumption that they,
1 See the companion volume in this series, A Critical Introduction to the
Old Testament, by G. Buchanan Gray, or Driver s well-known larger work,
Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament. Almost all Old
Testament scholars would agree on the following gumniary of conclu
sions. The earliest Hebrew literature we possess consists of songs or
other poetry, of which the oldest is probably the Song of Deborah ; this
goes back to the twelfth century B.C. Stories of the heroes who are now
classed as judges , and of the first two kings, were composed a century or
two later, as was also the earliest code of Hebrew law, known as the Book
of the Covenant* (Ex. xx. 22-xxiii. 19). This has been incorporated into
one of the two oldest strata of the HexaUuch (Genesis- Joshna), which are
usually assigned to the ninth (J) and to the eighth (E) centuries respectively.
The prophets of the eighth century (Ainos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah)
profoundly influenced the second code of Hebrew law, which underlies our
present Deuteronomy. This code was promulgated in the last quarter of
the seventh century ; the history of the later kings came to be written
under the influence of a Deuteronomic interpretation. Another code dating
from the Exile is found in Leviticus xvii.-xxvi. ; it is closely dependent on
the work of the prophet Ezekiel. The fourth code was that accepted by the
post-exilic community at the initiative of Ezra (444) ; it is known as the
* Priestly Code , and we owe to writers of this school the present form of the
Hexateuch. The Psalms, at least in their present form, and other works of
developed religious thought, such as Job, belong to the post-exilic period ;
Chronicles belongs to the third, Daniel to the second, Ecclesiastes possibly
to the first century B.C.
2 Thus the syntax and vocabulary of Eccleiiastes the latest book of the
Old Testament show many points of contact with post-Biblical Hebrew,
and many differences from the Hebrew of the early monarchy.
6 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
and the original documents in which they appear, belong
to different periods. 1
This rearrangement of the documents is not, as is
often supposed by those who are unacquainted with the
evidence, an arbitrary reconstruction ; it is simply a
result of the science of historical criticism working on
the actual documents. The facts which characterise
them have to be explained, and this is the explanation
of the facts which has gradually approved itself to the
overwhelming majority of competent scholars. If any one
still wishes to employ the documents for historical pur
poses in the conventional way, he ought first to be ready
with a better explanation of the facts, such as the different
conceptions of priest and sacrifice in what is alleged to
be the same document, or the complete ignorance of the
Deuteronomic law of a single sanctuary, which prevails
before the seventh century B.C. On the other hand,
the critical rearrangement of the documents which their
own characteristics compel us to make, yields a view of
the history of Israel which is natural without being natural
istic. The final evidence for the conclusions of this critical
study is the resultant organic view of Israel s history,
revealing the same principles of development throughout
its course as we find in all other human history.
According to Rabbinic legend, Moses saw from Pisgah
not only Israel s future land, but also Israel s future
history, unrolled in swift panorama before his eyes. Some
such outline of events is necessary for us, in order that the
characteristic features of the history may appear. The
most remarkable of them all is the issue from that history
of the religious ideas which will claim our attention.
1 E.g., all Levitesare priests according to Deuteronomy iviii. 1, but the
(later) law of Leviticus i. 6 confines the priesthood to Aaron s sons.
L] THE HISTORY AS THE SOURCE OF THE IDEAS 7
1. The History in the Literature
The history of Israel began with the migration of certain
nomadic tribes, of Semitic origin, from the Egyptian
borders and control, and with their invasion of Palestine.
The date at which this invasion occurred is approximately
settled by evidence independent of the Old Testament.
The glimpse of Palestine afforded in the Tell-el-Amarna
Letters of about 1400 B.C. shows that the Hebrews of
the Bible were not yet settled there ; but an Egyptian
inscription in the latter half of the thirteenth century
refers to Israel in such a way as to suggest that it was
then one element in the mixed population of Palestine.
At some time, therefore, not long prior to 1250 B.C.,
we may suppose the Israelites to have gained an entrance
into Palestine, as a group of tribes more or less united
for purposes of warfare under the name of their God,
Yahweh. Nothing is known of the previous history of
these tribes and of their religion, though something may
be conjectured from the traditions of their ancestors
which were written down centuries after the settlement
in Palestine. 1 We have no documents contemporary
with Israel s nomadic period ; the story of the Exodus
from Egypt is first told by writers separated by many
generations from the days of the desert. 2 Much of that
story clearly throws back the conditions of settled life
in Palestine into the very different life of wandering tribes.
But with every allowance for these later accretions, in
evitable in the case of oral tradition, there must have been
a nucleus of historic fact in the tradition that so power
fully influenced the later course of the history the tradi-
1 For a fair statement of the present degree of our knowledge, see
Skinner s Genesis, pp. xiii. f. His conclusion is that as yet archaeology has
furnished no sure basis for the reconstruction of the patriarchal history*
(p. xxii.).
8 The Egyptian monuments give no information as to the sojourn of the
Israelites in Egypt, and as to the Exodus ( Jeremias. Das Alte Testament im
LichUdes Alien Orients, p. 400).
8 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [en.
tion that these tribes had a most remarkable escape from
the pursuit of their Egyptian over-lords, that their leader,
Moses, taught them to see in this escape the hand of
Yahweh, and that from that time onward these tribes
believed that Yahweh was their God, and that they were
Yahweh s people. The later history requires such a
deliverance, such a prophet- leader, and such a faith to
explain its course, and there is no sufficient reason for
rejecting the later belief that this relation between Yahweh
and the tribes gathered at Sinai was formally expressed
by some kind of * covenant V On the other hand, we
have no reliable knowledge of the explicit conditions or
requirements of that covenant ; all that the history
of the following centuries warrants us in saying is that
Yahweh became primarily the war-god of His people.
But it would be perfectly natural for tribal customs,
especially tribal justice, to pass under the protection of
the war-god, even from the earliest days. 2 The one
unquestionable fact, in a realm of conjecture and infer
ence, is that the Hebrew tribes which advanced from the
desert to the conquest of Palestine brought with them
a faith in their God, Yahweh, which became the dominant
factor in their history.
The traditional account of the conquest of Palestine
describes its completion in a single generation.* But the
earliest sources, imbedded in the Books of Joshua and
Judges, show that the conquest was gradual and piece
meal. Some tribes seem to have effected an entrance
from the south, and to have secured a settlement there,
whilst others crossed the Jordan from the east, so that
the division of Israel into a southern and a northern portion
belongs to its earliest days. At first the Israelites secured
1 On the history of this important term, see chap. viii. 1.
* Cf. Exodus xviii.
* E.g., Joshua xi. 23 ; contrast xiii. 13, xv. 14-] 9, XT. 63, xri. 10, xrii. 11-
13, 14-18, xiz. 47 ; Judges i. 1-ii. 5 ; these all belong to a much earlier
document.
i.] THE HISTORY AS THE SOURCE OF THE IDEAS 9
little more than settlement in the hill country, whilst the
richer plain lands remained in the occupation of the
Canaanites. The consequent isolation of these scattered
groups of Israelites encouraged the Canaanites to a com
bined attack, which has left its record in the earliest piece
of literature which the Old Testament contains, the Song
of Deborah. It was not until the time of Solomon that
the gradual absorption of the weaker Canaanites by the
hardier Israelites was completed. But, just as Greece,
a thousand years later, conquered her conqueror Rome,
so Canaanite culture proved more perilous to Israel than
Canaanite chariots. Palestine was a fertile and civilised
country long before the Israelite invasion. The transi
tion from the pastoral lif e of the desert to the more developed
agricultural life of Palestine had important consequences
for the religion of Israel. Just as Israel s tribal life was
under the protection of Yahweh, so the civilisation of
Palestine was linked to the local Baalim. To adopt a
new mode of life was, in those days, to be committed to
a new religious development. The issue before Israel was,
therefore, the choice between the worship of these Baalim,
in addition to their war-god, Yahweh, and the transfer
ence to Him of the attributes of the gods of the land. The
latter alternative prevailed, and from this transference
arise the chief problems and crises in the earlier period
of Israel s religion. The political unity of the nation
was not achieved until about 1000 B.C., under David.
For the first two and a half centuries of Israel s life in
Canaan we have little more than the records of local
heroes the so-called { Judges who became prominent
in this or that section of the people. It was the hostile
pressure of the Philistines 1 which finally welded the
people together, as that of the Canaanites might have
1 This people is probably to be identified with the non-Semitic Purusoti,
wio invaded Syria in the time of Rameses in. (c. 1200 B.C.). Their original
home, Caphtor (Am. ix. 7), is usually taken to be Crete.
10 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CM.
done had it been more effective. The kingship emerges
in Israel as a military function, and Saul is primarily
Israel s leader against the Philistines. (It is significant
that here again, as in the desert, we find a prophetic per
sonality, that of Samuel, prominent in this new departure.)
Saul failed to accomplish the purpose of his kingship, and
was defeated and slain by the Philistines. But David,
who followed him, was successful, and his success brought
other consequences for national development, in the
extension of the territorial borders, and in the union of
the northern and southern elements under a single ruler.
This union did not continue further than the reign of
Solomon a reign chiefly noticeable for the inner develop
ment and organisation of the nation ; under his son
Rehoboam the super-imposed bond uniting north and
south was broken, and the original grouping that went
back to the first invasion of Canaan asserted itself. But
the memory of this brief period of the undivided kingdom,
and of its real political independence, became one of the
most potent of religious influences. Its brevity found
compensation in the intensity with which, through many
centuries, the nation was inspired with the hope of a
return of the Davidic kingship, and of the glory of that
idealised past. 1 One important result of the kingship
was the establishment at Jerusalem of the royal temple,
destined to become, after many generations, the concrete
centre and embodiment of Israel s religion.
The history of the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah
is really the history of the northern kingdom, Israel. The
centre of power and interest lies in the north, and Judah is
of negligible political significance so long as the northern
kingdom lasts. The relation of Judah to Israel was prac
tically that of a vassal kingdom, as is shown by the service
of Judaean troops in the campaigns of the northern kings.
In the course of the two centuries (933 722), during which
See chap. viii.
L] THE HISTORY AS THE SOURCE OF THE IDEAS 11
the northern kingdom existed, there were two dynasties
of importance, that of Omri (887-843), and that of Jehu
(843-745). Under Ahab, the son of Omri, came the in
evitable conflict between the religion of Canaan, as expressed
in the cult and culture of Phoanicia, and the religion of
Israel as the worship of Yahweh alone. The immediate
causes which made the northern kingdom the arena of
ultimate and fundamental issues were Ahab s political
marriage with a princess of Tyre, and Elijah s passionate
devotion to the God of Sinai. The full strength of the
nationalistic movement was revealed in the reign of Ahab s
son and second successor, Jehoram. A conspiracy in
which Jehu was the hand and Elisha the heart, over
threw the dynasty of Omri in the interests of the religion
of Yahweh. The dynasty of Jehu, thus introduced, lasted
until the shadow of Assyria fell across throne and
people in the eighth century B.C. Prior to this, Israel s
foreign relations had been chiefly with the neighbouring
state of Damascus, which was the one foe to be feared. 1
But, in fact, Damascus was really the protector of Israel
from Assyrian attack. The combined forces of Damascus
and Israel were defeated by Assyria in 855, but it was not
until a century later that the absorption of Israel by the
great world-power became imminent. This new element
in the history of Israel explains the most characteristic
feature in the religious development of this period. Just
as the pressure of Philistia had created the military king
ship of Saul and David to replace the clan-leadership of
the Judges , so that of Assyria created a new type of
what may be called international prophecy, in place
of the older nationalistic type represented by Elijah.
Amos and Hosea, discerning a spiritual law in the natural
world, interpret the foreign peril as a divine judg
ment. The breadth of their application of this principle
corresponds with their enlarged conception of Yahweh
* Cf. the story of Naaman and the captive Hebrew maid (2 Kingi v.)
12 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
Himself as the ruler of the nations. This moral inter
pretation of history by the prophets of the eighth century,
together with the idea of God which it implies, is the
most important religious event of this period. It was
the more influential because history itself confirmed the
principles they laid down. When Samaria finally fell
to the Assyrians (722), the new prophecy was vindicated,
for it had continuously threatened national disaster as
a divine judgment on social unrighteousness. A most
impressive object-lesson was given to the sister-kingdom
of the south, which, though still politically insignificant,
now became the centre of religious interest.
Already, before the fall of Samaria, Judah had accepted
the position of a tributary state to Assyria ; Ahaz had been
led to take this step in 732, as a means of protection
against the united forces of Damascus and Israel, though
against the advice of Isaiah. The influence of this prophet
was exerted more successfully upon Hezekiah, the son
and successor of Ahaz, to the extent, apparently, of some
reformation in the existent worship of Yahweh. But
Isaiah was not able to prevent Hezekiah from alliance
with Egypt against Assyria, a policy which finally brought
Sennacherib s army against Jerusalem (701). It was
either in this, or in a later campaign, that a pestilence
broke out in Sennacherib s army, and saved the city,
so offering confirmation of Isaiah s faith in Yahweh, and
a new ground for the growing confidence of the people
in the inviolability of Jerusalem. Under Manasseh
(692-638) political dependence on Assyria brought with
it a great influx of Assyrian religion, which prevailed until
the time of the Deuteronomic Reformation (621) under
Josiah. The fall of the Assyrian capital, Nineveh, to the
united Medes and Babylonians (606) merely changed the
hand by which the last blows were to be struck. In 597
Nebuchadrezzar captured Jerusalem, and deported some
of its principal inhabitants ; ten years later, provoked
I.] THE HISTORY AS THE SOURCE OF THE IDEAS 13
by a new revolt, he destroyed the city. Throughout
this closing generation in the history of the southern
kingdom the prominent figure for the history of religion
is Jeremiah. His apparently unpatriotic counsel of sub
mission to Babylon was but the husk for the kernel of a
deeper patriotism. That patriotism was united with a
new recognition of the place and value of the individual
in religion, which is expressed both in his own vividly
described personal experience, and in the prophecy of
the * new covenant * which Yahweh will make with each
Israelite. 1 Such spiritual ideas, however, were too far
in advance of the times for their full influence yet to be
felt. It was rather the idea of the old covenant, as
elaborated in the Book of Deuteronomy, which was the
immediate legacy of this period. In this book, for the
first time, the religion of Israel was linked to a written
code of law, publicly accepted. 2 Here was a book, in
spired by the teaching of the eighth-century prophets,
yet destined to become the nucleus of a priestly and
legalistic literature that of the Pentateuch. Here was
the prophetic philosophy of history enforcing the moral
demands of Yahweh so powerfully as to influence all
subsequent historians in their judgment of the past. The
Deuteronomic Law was therefore of the first importance,
though its immediate (pre-exilic) operation was so tran
sient, and its measure of immediate success so limited.
The primary demand which it made for a single
sanctuary was enforced by the Exile ; the local sanc
tuaries, with all their Canaanite associations, were never
revived.
The influence of the Exile on the future life of the nation
was profound and far-reaching. What it destroyed of
1 Jeremiah xxxi. 31 f.
* 2 Kings xxiii. 1-3. The discovered book, which king and people
covenanted to obey, is shown by the details of the actual reformation
(verses 4 f.) to have been identical with the central part of Deuteronomy.
14 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
political ambition, it more than repaid in religious intensity.
On the one hand, it nurtured the priestly conception of
a community wholly devoted to the service of God,
with the ritual of the temple as the living centre of that
service. On the other, contact with a larger world widened
the horizon of Yahweh s activity, and the conception
of Yahweh s purposes. These two influences are best
seen in the two great prophets of the Exile, viz. Ezekiel
and Deutero Isaiah (Is. xl.-lv.). Both are agreed in
throwing themselves on God for the needs of the future ;
the new worship and the new life will spring from Him.
But Ezekiel sees the climax of divine intervention in the
restoration of religion as the priest naturally conceives
it, religion as it takes visible form in a reorganised cult,
and in the customs of a people ceremonially holy .
Ezekiel, in fact, promotes the codification of priestly law
by his vision of a priestly Utopia. In him begins the
spirit of the post-exilic Judaism ; he marks the beginning
of the second hah* of Israel s history, as did Moses that of
the first. The vision of Deutero-Isaiah is of an altogether
different kind, though, like that of Ezekiel, it awaits the
activity of God for the introduction of the new era. This
prophet, like Amos and Hosea, is kindled by the sight of
new political movements, yet not to condemnation, but
to consolation. He does not, like Ezekiel, draw his
strength from memories of the temple that was, but from
the hope of the people that shall be, when Cyrus shall
have accomplished the work of liberation, to which
Yahweh has anointed him. As a matter of history,
Cyrus conquered Babylon in 539, and is said to have
permitted the return of Jews under Sheshbazzar in the
following year.
It is clear that the circumstances of this so-called
* Return were in sharp and painful contrast with the
glowing prophetic anticipations of it. The Temple was not
rebuilt until eighteen years afterwards, when the prophets
I.] THE HISTORY AS THE SOURCE OF THE IDEAS 16
Haggai and Zechariah, stimulated by political events
in the Persian kingdom, aroused the depressed and dis
illusioned settlers to their task. This was accomplished
by 515. But its completion brought no such revival
of the glories of the past as these prophets had promised.
Perhaps the peculiar mission of Israel was never in greater
peril of abandonment than during the interval between
the rebuilding of the second Temple and the arrival of
Nehemiah in 444 B.C. 1 Through his energies, the ruined
walls of the city were rebuilt, notwithstanding the jealous
opposition of those who surrounded the Jewish com
munity. Through the effective help of Nehemiah, the
religious reform of Ezra became possible. Their com
bined activity led to the solemn acceptance of the
Priestly Law, which now forms the chief element in
the Pentateuch. This was the second great step in
the transference of the idea of revelation from oral
prophecy to the written word. The first had been
made with the acceptance of the Deuteronomic Code two
centuries earlier. Thus was introduced that legalism
which characterises Judaism, the post-exilic religion of
Israel. 2 The nation had lost its political independence,
and had become an ecclesiastical community, gathered
within a small district around its one Temple.
When we seek to trace the inner history of the Jewish
community through the following centuries, it is almost
as though we were writing the history of a local Church,
with no direct outline of events available, but simply
its successive hymn-books, the magazines that circulated
amongst its members, and the report of an occasional
sermon. The literature of the period is not scanty, but
1 Ezra s earlier arrival in 458 (Ezra vii. 7) seems to have produced no
result until he was reiuforced by Nehemiah (see E. i. t col. 784).
2 The term Judaism will be used strictly in this sense throughout the
book. Hebrew is generally used to denote the pre-exilic religion, in
contrast with Judaism, though it may also be used of features common to
the whole religion of Israel, btfore and after the Exile, when there is no
ambiguity.
16 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
it is difficult to discover the course of events in which it
originated. The Jewish community remained politically
dependent on the Persian kingdom until the conquest
of that kingdom by Alexander the Great in 332. In the
division of his kingdom, Palestine fell to the control of
Egypt ; after more than a century of Egyptian control
it passed into the hands of the (Syrian) Seleucidse. In
the second century began that fierce conflict between
Judaism and Hellenism, of which the Book of Daniel is
one literary product, and the First Book of the Maccabees
is another. The suppression of the Temple worship by
Antiochus Epiphanes in 168, and his attempts to Hellenise
the Jewish community, provoked a successful revolt,
which for a time lifted Judaism once more into the political
arena. The freedom secured by the Maccabees lasted until
the capture of Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 B.C. So the
Jewish nation became part of the Roman Empire, until
the outbreak of the fiercer nationalism led to the destruc
tion of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. The religious development
of this post-exilic period is far too complex to be summed
up in a sentence or two. To it belong not only the devo
tional religion of the Psalter and the problem of the Book
of Job, but also a most remarkable growth in eschatological
speculation, the literature of which lies, for the most part,
outside the Canon of the Old Testament, and beyond the
scope of this book. We measure the religious significance
of these centuries best when we remember that, whilst
the casuistry of the Mishnah is one of their results, the
unfettered life of the New Testament is another.
2. The Salient Features of the History
The history which has been outlined is remarkable
both in itself and in its product, the religious ideas of
the Old Testament. How far, it may be asked, does the
history enable us to explain that product ? In other
i.] THE HISTORY AS THE SOURCE OF THE IDEAS 17
words, what are the most characteristic features of the
history, and what have they contributed to the resultant
literature ? In the first place, the nation was exposed to a
^remarkable series of foreign influences. This was due partly
to the geographical position of Palestine, lying as it did on
the high-road from East to West and West to East, and
between Egypt and Assyria, the great world-powers of
antiquity, partly to the comparatively rapid succession
of political changes in these world-powers, and in the
surrounding nations, which marked the thousand years
of Old Testament history. The alleged influence of
Assyrio-Babylonian * monotheism on the nomadic religion
of Israel may be left out of account, as a speculation
without definite proof or probability. But when x the .
Israelites entered Canaan, and passed from nomadic to
agricultural life, they were brought into a new world
just because of the relatively high civilisation of Palestine.
Even the mere change of occupation would have affected
their religious conceptions, for ancient life and ancient
religion were very closely interwoven. In course of
time Yahweh came to be conceived as the giver of the
produce of the land conquered through His aid. It was
natural, therefore, for them to suppose that He ought to
be worshipped somewhat as the former inhabitants had
worshipped their dispossessed Baalim. The institutions
of Israelite worship, its religious festivals, and sacrificial
customs, appear to have been drawn largely from the
practices of Canaan. The holy places of the land, each
with its sacred stone and wooden post, passed over to
the victorious invaders, and became the sanctuaries of
Yahweh. The same relation holds of the three great
festivals of the Jewish year. The Feast of Unleavened
Bread, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Booths are all
shown by the details of their observance to be agricul
tural in character i.e. they could not have belonged to
a period prior to settlement in Canaan, and were most
B
18 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CB.
probably adopted from the Canaanites. Even the prophets
themselves, who afterwards become so distinctive a feature
of Hebrew history and religion, are genetically related
to an older non-moral type of Nebi im, who are, perhaps,
like the holy places, the festivals, and the general details
/ of sacrifice, 1 a contribution of Canaan to Israel s develop
ment. All this was the more natural because the inhabi
tants of Canaan belonged to the same division of the
Semitic races as did the Israelites ; the language of the
Canaanites was practically the same as that of their
Hebrew invaders. 2 But, besides this positive influence
of religious custom, there was a negative influence of con
trasted principle, which had a profound effect on the
religious leaders of Israel. Baalism, as a form of sensual
nature- worship, stood in direct opposition to the sterner
Yahwism of mountain and camp. In Canaan these
antithetical types of religion were brought face to face,
and there is often no profounder influence on any religion
than that in which it recognises its own antithesis. In
addition, however, to this contact with the local worship
of the Canaanites, Israel was now increasingly brought
into relation with the far-reaching Assyrio-Babylonian
world of thought. For the Tell-el-Amarna Letters,
written about 1400 B.C. in cuneiform writing, prove that
the Assyrio-Babylonian influence had been dominant in
* Palestine at an earlier period. When Hebrew thought
did, at length, advance to speculation on the origin and
early history of the world, as in the first eleven chapters
of Genesis, it was as much influenced by Babylonian myth
and legend as we are to-day by evolutionary science.
1 Cf. the Phoenician sacrifices named in the Marseilles inscription. There
are evidences even of human sacrifice amongst the Hebrews (cf. that of
Jephthah s daughter) as well as amongst the surrounding peoples (Mesha s
son to the god Kemosh). On the significance of the story of the sacrifice
of Isaac (Gen. xxii.), see chap. vi. 2 (esp. p. 147).
2 This is seen from Canaanite words occurring in the Tell-el-Amarn
Letters, and from the names of places mentioned there, and in Egyptian
inscriptions.
i.] THE HISTORY AS THE SOURCE OF THE IDEAS 19
How far the idea of Yahweh as supreme God of the world
was the result of Babylonian influence in Palestine, must
remain matter of conjecture ; the evidence here points
rather to independent development than to direct bor
rowing. 1 The Code of Hammurabi, dating from about
2150 B.C., provides many parallels to the * Laws of Moses ,
and the resemblance in the form of the laws is specially
remarkable. We may also trace the influence of Babylon
in a number of other directions, such as the architecture
and furniture of the Temple, and the Jewish calendar.
Renewed contact with the Assyrio-Babylonian Empire
from the ninth to the sixth centuries B.C., resulted in the
absorption of the northern kingdom, and in the intro
duction of foreign cults into the southern. But the still
closer contact of the Exile, under prophetic guidance,
enlarged the outlook of that remnant of the nation which
maintained its distinctive religious life a life effectively
distinguished by the practice of circumcision and the
observance of the Sabbath. Foreign influence is less
apparent in the customs of the post-exilic community,
because the institutions of Judaism were now more or less
fixed, and this isolated society, gathered around the Holy
City and conscious of its peculiar mission, was less plastic
to the moulding hand. But in the realm of thought
the Persian period was hardly less influential than the
Babylonian. The new problems of human destiny and
of the possibilities of life beyond death, the rise of the
conception of Satan as the enemy of God, the doctrine
of many angels, through whom the transcendent God
mediated His rule of the world these developments must
certainly have been influenced, if not occasioned, by Persian
1 The kernel and true meaning of the monotheistic conception of the
universe, as unfolded by the prophets, is lost by any endeavour to place the
conception on a level with the monotheistic strain that is vaguely but
unquestionably present in the speculations of the Babylonian -Assyrian
priests (Jastrow, Atpeets of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and
Assyria, p. 417).
20 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
religion. The influences of Greek religious thought were
sharply arrested in Palestinian Judaism by the success
of the Maccabsean revolt, and the Old Testament shows
less of their direct effect than we might have expected.
But those influences produced a copious literature amongst
the Jewish Dispersion, and culminated in the philosophic
work of Philo. Truly, though in a sense other than the
prophet s, it might be said that the desirable things of all
nations were brought to fill the Jewish Temple with glory.
A second striking feature of the history of Israel is
the scope it afforded to individual initiative. Side by side
with the remarkable series of foreign influences acting
on Israel from without, there is an equally remarkable
series of prominent personalities guiding Israel s life and
thought from within. When we look down the line of
Israel s leaders from Moses to Ezra, and consider how each
contributes to the shaping of Old Testament religion ;
when we notice how each fresh crisis, in what we should
call the secular history, finds a spiritual interpreter ; when
we remember how such men as Moses, Samuel, Elijah,
Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Nehemiah become protagonists
in the arena of national life, and others like Amos, Hosea,
Ezekiel, Deutero-Isaiah, Ezra, stamp their personal convic
tions on the religion of the generations that follow them, we
may justly say that, to a unique degree, this is a history
of dominating personalities. Every nation, of course,
has had its outstanding men, and some nations might
offer, at select periods of their history, a fair parallel to
Israel in this respect. But the age of Pericles at Athens,
or the last century of the Roman Republic, is not typical
of Greek or Roman history as a whole. The life of Greek
cities doubtless offered abundant scope to the free play
of individuality, but the divided life of those cities limited
its influence, and the absence of an exalted national
religion meant the loss of the highest source of inspira
tion. Roman life, under both Republic and Empire, was
i.] THE HISTORY AS THE SOUKCE OF THE IDEAS 21
a unity in a sense in which Greek never was ; but Repub
lican patriotism, and the majesty of the Empire, alike
demanded the repression of the individual. Israel, how-
ever, at least during the greatest periods of its religion,
combined liberty of personal action with the unity of an
intense national faith. Owing to its relatively narrow
compass and concentrated position, the whole nation
could be reached, and its life shaped, by the influence of
one man, to a degree impossible in Greek and Roman
civilisation. Through the continuity of the idea of God,
the influence of the successive individuals was concen
trated on a single end, and devoted to the guidance or
interpretation of a singularly varied history, in the light
of moral principle. The combination of such events
and of such personalities, and their product in the pro
phetic consciousness, is doubly remarkable. We are
justified in saying that Israel was in a peculiarly favourable
position to assimilate the most varied elements from the
culture of the ancient world, and also to give them, through
its leaders and teachers, the highest moral and spiritual
interpretation.
A third important aspect of Israel s history is the self -con-
sciousness of the nation as being the bearer of a unique religion.
Perhaps the most significant fact in regard to any nation
is the idea it cherishes of its own destiny. National ideals,
subtle in their composition, profound in their effect, are
influences shaping successive generations. In the case
of Israel, the national ideal became predominantly reli
gious. The nation as a unit was pledged to Yahweh,
and Yahweh to the nation. The prophets through whom
the national self-consciousness became articulate, recog
nised that Israel s religious experience was a solemn trust
and a great responsibility. Israel, as a nation, became
conscious through its prophetic leaders that it possessed
a religion intrinsically unique. That consciousness was
neither so early nor so universal within Israel as has often
22 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
been supposed. But the narrow intensity of devotion
to Judaism which has made the Jew conspicuous through
out all the centuries is already visible in the post-exilic
community of the Old Testament. Behind it lies a proud
consciousness of spiritual superiority. The Roman could
not understand the exclusive attitude of the Jew, who
rejected the working compromises of religious syncretism,
and would not show tolerance for any other creed. But
Christianity understood it, and in her victorious contest
with Gnosticism by this sign conquered. The tenacity
of the Jewish self-consciousness is seen in the continuity
of the nation through many disasters and misfortunes.
It is seen especially in the elasticity of hope, by which
Israel s sorrows were transformed and taken up into the
vision of a higher purpose. The self-consciousness of
Israel shows its strength in the constant renewal of the
Messianic hope, and in the picture of Israel as the suffer
ing Servant of Yahweh, humbled for a season the more
gloriously to atone for the sins of the world. In fact,
without this peculiar self-consciousness of Israel, we
could not explain its resistless vitality, and its striking
power to appropriate and transform the most alien
elements. But how can the self-consciousness itself be
explained ? In the form of the relationship between
Yahweh and Israel there is nothing peculiar. To find a
parallel belief, there is no need to go further than Israel s
kinsfolk and next-door neighbours, the Moabites, who
(on the Moabite Stone) write of their god Kemosh, as
the Israelite at first writes of Yahweh. 1 But there is no
parallel to the inner nature of that relationship. Its
claim to be unique has been acknowledged by history.
The religion of Israel, in fact, made fuller demands on
human nature (morality), and gave fuller opportunity
1 When Moab has been conquered by Omri of Israel, it is heranse
Kemosh was angry with his land . It is Kemosh who says to Mesha, the
Moabite king, Go, take Nebo against Israel .
i.] THE HISTORY AS THE SOURCE OF THE IDEAS 23
to divine revelation (ethical monotheism) than any other.
Both features are seen most clearly in the prophetic con
sciousness of Israel, which is the nation s self -conscious
ness at its highest. Beyond Israel s * men of the Spirit ,
as has well been said, we cannot press for further explana
tion of Israel s unique religion unless we believe, with
Israel, that they were indeed men of God. 1 If divine
truth were uniquely given to any nation, then we might
expect just such a pride in its possession, based on the
reality of an experiential knowledge of God, as charac
terised the self -consciousness of Israel.
The three features of the history already indicated
belong to its intrinsic nature, and are independent of
any judgment we may form of the value of its results,
the religious ideas of the Old Testament. There is, how
ever, a Jourth deserving to be noticed, which becomes
apparent in the light of those results and of their incor
poration in Christianity. From this standpoint, perfectly
legitimate to the general historian, we may say that there is
a remarkable teleological or providential * aspect of the history
of Israel? From stage to stage of that history there is a
continuous narrowing of the arena, a condensation of issues,
a bringing to focus, as it were, of the national experience.*
The loose relationship of nomads passes into the more
settled life of tribal groups, and common perils bring these
groups into the unity of a state. Israel in the north becomes
an object-lesson in the ways and thoughts of Yahweh,
from which Judah profits. The * righteous remnant
of Judah returns from the Exile with definitely religious
ideals, and practically becomes the single city of Jerusalem,
1 Wellhaueen, in Die Kultwr der Gegenwart* (i.) iv. 1, p. 15.
2 This statement is not meant to imply that the history of, Bay, Greece or
Rome does not also possess a teleological aspect, but simply to show the
extent and nature of this feature in the case of Israel. If God controls
history to rational ends, we may trace the working of His purpose in the
means by which those ends are reached.
8 The gradual concentration of the patriarchal stories on Jacob is a
reflection of this historic truth.
24 EELTGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [ca
with its one Temple spiritualised by passionate devotion
into the vestibule of the unseen world. This political
poverty finds compensation in ever-increasing spiritual
wealth. The stereotyped ritual becomes the backbone
of a living and vigorous faith, strong enough to defy the
bitterest persecution. The ideas create a literature
destined to become fundamental to the religion of many
peoples in many lands. Those who in any real sense
respond to the message of that literature to-day are bound
to feel that a uniting purpose runs through the history
which created it, and that the spirits of Israel s prophets
were not finely touched but to fine issues. Each stage
in the process lasted long enough to contribute some
thing vital to those issues. National freedom, before it
was lost, created a nation s self -consciousness. Prophetic
teaching, before its voices fell to silence, created the Old
Testament. The Temple-cult nourished the piety of
far-off synagogues till they had prepared the world for
a new and progressive faith. The earthly Jerusalem
did not suffer destruction until it had created the ideal
of the heavenly. If that final result be indeed thought
worthy of a divine purpose, then the purpose is surely
traceable in the history that leads up to it in so reinark-
able a manner. For it is a history progressively creative
of the great ideas which are the foundation of the Christian
faith.
The final chapter of this book will discuss the claim
that these ideas constitute part of a divine revelation.
But this at least may be said at the outset, in view of
the salient features of Israel s history that no other
history known to us is more fitted to be the channel of
such a revelation. A modern philosophy of revelation
will certainly demand that there be the genuine inter
play of divine and human personality, loth active. 1 It
will seek to relate the chosen nation so vitally to its
i See chap, ix. 1.
L] THE HISTORY AS THE SOURCE OF THE IDEAS 25
historical environment that the contribution of other
nations is real, and the measure of truth they possessed
is fully recognised. Its ultimate proof will rest on the
experiential and intrinsic worth of the religion, the same
evidence that created the faith of Israel. It will
ask for the inter-relation of the ideas with the past
and with the future, in such a way that the unity
of all human history is established. All these require
ments are to be found in the history of Israel when it
is critically studied. The issue is not as to the presence
here or there of a supernatural element amid natural
conditions. That distinction, so used, is a legacy from
the categories of the eighteenth century. We gain a
much richer idea of revelation, a much deeper insight
into the divine activity, when we conceive the evolu
tion of the nation s life as both natural and super
natural throughout, and not as a mosaic of both.
Instead of a series of interruptive invasions and interjected
commands, in a more or less alien environment, we see
that both environment and personality are themselves
in the hands of God, however fully He grants the exercise
of personal freedom. He manifests Himself in the contour
lines of Palestine and the influences of racial kinship,
in the pressure of surrounding nations and the course
of national politics, not less truly than in the prophetic
consciousness which is guided to the interpretation of
these phenomena. No purely naturalistic formula will
ever explain Israel s history. It is true that in the national
life, as in the individual, personality often seems to shade
off into the physical organism and material environment
below, as well as to touch the divine being above. But
the environment simply draws the limits within which
the personality of the nation or the individual ultimately
exercises its freedom. The essence of religion, and there- *
fore of revelation, lies in the real spiritual intercourse
of God and man, which human freedom and divine grace
26 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
make possible. God is concerned with all human life,
not with that of Israel alone. Yet Israel s history becomes
fully intelligible only when we construe it as the articula
tion of divine ideas to a unique end through the fellowship
v of God and man.
The religious ideas of the Old Testament are studied
most naturally when they are regarded as organic elements
in the one comprehensive idea of religion. They were
slowly developed in closest relation to the history, and
in response to the successive demands of Israel s experi
ence. The religion of Israel underwent many change?,
but faith in the fellowship of God and man gave unity
to its eventful history, and supplied that inner continuity
which is the mark of a true development. The most
characteristic feature of the religion was its moral emphasis.
Under the influence of that emphasis, the ideas of God
and of man gained in meaning and majesty, until they
demanded a wider arena than the political history of a
single nation. The God of Israel was recognised as the
one God of all the world on whom human nature and
destiny everywhere depended. Religion brought the
divine personality into such effective relation with the
human, and the human with the divine, that the fellow
ship of God and man became a living fact of experience.
God made Himself known to man, particularly through
the spoken word of the prophet and the written law of
the priest. Man could venture to approach God through
particular places, times, persons, and offerings. But
two disturbing elements were felt within this fellowship
of God arid man. There were human acts which were
believed to alienate God ; there was human suffering,
regarded as the evidence of His alienation. Here lay
the peculiar problems of Israel s religion. But the hope
of Israel rose beyond sin and suffering into confidence
in the covenanted help of God, into the vision of His
effective intervention in the affairs of Israel and the world,
I.] THE HISTORY AS THE SOURCE OF THE IDEAS 27
into the consciousness of a divine purpose to be realised
even through human sorrows. These are the ideas which
are embodied in the religion of Israel. If their intrinsic
worth, their permanent value, their universal application,
can be maintained against all possible objections, then
the history of Israel which created these ideas constitutes
a revelation of divine truth.
28 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
CHAPTER II
THE IDEA OF RELIGION
THERE have been many attempts at framing a definition
of religion, and probably no single formula will ever
command universal assent. To the theist this difficulty
is rather a confirmation of his faith than a hindrance
to it. If there be a real fellowship between God and man,
a superhuman Personality in active relationship of help
fulness towards the dependent human personality, religion
is a reality so full of life that it is as hard to define as life
itself. A man s religion is constantly growing with his
life, and a nation s religion comprehends the experience
of many generations. In God s sight, the thousand years
of Israel s history reflected in the successive contemporary
records of the Old Testament are but as a single day ;
but in a man s, they are centuries crowded with the rich
development of human experience. The Israelite of post-
exilic times, worshipping in the Temple at Jerusalem,
might confess his kinship with that far-off wandering
Aramaean who had been his ancestor, 1 but the nomadic
religion had been absorbed into the worship of an agricul
tural community, and quickened with the life-blood of
prophetic morality, long before the religion of the Old
Testament assumed its final, legalistic stage. 2 The im
pression of that religion frequently gathered from the
Old Testament in its present form is inadequate to the
1 Deut. xrvi. 5.
2 These four stages are clearly characterised in Marti s excellent sketch,
Die Religion dex Alten Tettaments, translated by Bienemann, in the Crown
Theological Library .
ii.] THE IDEA OF RELIGION 29
historic truth. The covenantal relation between Yahweh
and Israel is often represented as a sort of commercial
bargain so much for so much made explicit from the
very beginning. The most characteristic feature of the
religion seems to be its elaborate ritual, a ritual remote,
in many of its ideas, from modern thought. On the other
hand, the prophets seem to be continually insisting on
familiar moral truths, often so obvious as to seem unneces
sary when we have translated poetic metaphor into homely
prose. But this general impression does the Old Testa
ment great injustice. The real expression of its religion
is not a written Law that, however important, is but
one of its later phases ; the permanent record of the
religion is a history, brought before our eyes in a very
varied literature. Religion is always related to history,
even when it claims a horizon as wide as humanity, and
builds on data of universal significance. The ethical
discipline of the Buddha cannot be explained except
through the Hindu religion it reformed, and the Hindu
doctrine of transmigration which it incorporated. The
theology of the Kur an reflects the personal fortunes of
Muhammed, and the social and religious conditions of
Arabia in the seventh century after Christ. Thus, the
religions of history become intelligible to the student
only as he follows their footsteps to ruined shrines, and
their thoughts to abandoned philosophies. But a religion
may be related to history more closely than through the
circumstances of its birth. History may itself be made
the divine revelation. The foundation of the temple of
religion will then be found, not in the psychological analysis
of human nature, as is the case with Buddhism, nor in
a theological conviction of the divine, as is the case with
Muhammedanism, but in ttjfr-fortunes of a whole people,
interpreted as the work of God. It is this which is char
acteristic of the religion of the Old Testament. The
emphasis on moral discipline which it finally achieves
30 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
is certainly not less than that of Buddhism. The place
it gives to prophetic personality is as prominent as that
^ claimed by Muhammed. But the constant and under
lying strength of the Old Testament religion is its con
viction that God is revealing Himself in the history of a
family, a people, a community. To a peculiar degree,
therefore, we have here to do with a historical religion. 1
Even the ideals of the Old Testament take a quasi-historical
form. In the full noon-tide of the actual history Israel
threw back its developed consciousness into the twilight
that went before the dawn. The patriarchal stories, from
this standpoint, are the picture of that gradual providence
* of Yahweh which prepared a people for His possession.
Their value does not depend upon their historicity, but
rather on the simple beauty of the narratives themselves,
and on the religious idea they convey, the idea that
Yahweh was with His chosen people from the beginning. 2
But Israel was not content with finding support for this
great and profound idea in the pre-Mosaic past, by an
intuition that penetrated beyond the vision of the historian.
It projected the same faith into the future, and created
the Messianic Hope, the light of Israel s dark days, the
inspiration of its later history, its immediate point of
contact with its greater successor. The Messianic con
sciousness of Israel, the confidence in the re-establishment
of a Davidic king and kingdom, the faith in the super
natural restoration of the future, the increasing emphasis
on the eschatological side of religion, already begun within
the Old Testament these are due to the same instinct
which created the story of Israel s pre-Mosaic past. The
1 From the beginning onwards, the Old Testament religion and its
development are distinguished from the other ancient religions by their
conspicuously historical character (Stade, Bibliache Theologie des A.T. y
p. 12).
2 Yahweh is said to have elected Abraham from a heathen environment.
Your fathers dwelt of old time beyond the River . . . and they served other
gods. And I took your father Abraham from beyond the River, and led
him throughout all the land of Canaan (Josh. xxiv. 2, 3).
ii.] THE IDEA OF RELIGION 31
truth behind both is not the truth of petty detail, the
existence at some remote period of a sheikh called Abraham,
or the success at some future day of the Zionistio move
ment of Judaism. It is rather the same truth which
is sufficiently confirmed from that period of Israel s story
which does lie in the partial light of history the truth
that Israel was not only the people of Yahweh, but that
Yahweh was the living and ever-active God of Israel,
visible in history as its Saviour and Redeemer as well
as its Judge.
In the religious interpretation of this history the emphasis
should fall on the grace of God in helping Israel, the
redemptive attitude which spontaneously prompts Him
to come to Israel s need. As is elsewhere said, the idea
of a covenant * is apt to be misleading. Whatever
may have been the Pharisaic conception of the relation
between man and God, there can be no doubt that the
Old Testament religion as a whole rests on faith in the
divine grace. Yahweh is constantly revealing Himself in
historic acts which show Him as Israel s God. * A manifest
work of God, a prophet of God to interpret it, a community
of men who had experienced it and understood it such
were the conditions under which the new religion arose . l
The religion of Israel begins with a divine deliverance *
from Egypt, and it aonstantly expects deliverance from
all other foes. It rises to the great idea that the service
of God needs the gift of His Spirit for its fulfilment. It
conceives Him as keeping in constant touch with His
people through the prophets. All this is quite distinct
from such a commercial relation between God and man
as characterises the religion of Rome, at least on its public
side. 2 It is no exaggeration to say that the religion of
i Guthe, E. Bi., col. 2221.
a This must not be regarded as an adeqtiate characterisation of Roman
religion as a whole. Warde Fowler (The Religious Experience of the Roman
People, pp. 200 f.) has pointed out the significance of the private vows.
32 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CBL
the Old Testament is, in its own way, as truly a religion
of redemption as that of the New, though the redemption
is differently conceived and nationaiistically applied.
The Decalogue is prefaced by the words I am Yahweh
thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage .* The Book of Deuteronomy
calls for a grateful and responsive love to God as the
ultimate spring and source of obedience to His command
ments. 2
It is this conception of moral obedience to God as the
supreme sacrifice, and not the elaborate ritual of the later
days, which is really the characteristic feature of the
worship of the people of Yahweh. Thus their beliefs
aboiit the origin and early history of the world, their
social usages, their code of civil and criminal law, their
religious institutions, can no longer be viewed, as was
once possible, as differing in kind from those of other
nations, and determined in every detail by a direct revela
tion from heaven : all, it is now known, have substantial
analogies among other peoples the distinctive character
which they exhibit among the Hebrews consisting in the
spirit with which they are infused, and the deep religious
truths of which they are made the exponents *. 8
1. The Unity within the Development
The period of religious development which can be traced
most clearly in the Old Testament, extends from the
foundation of the national faith under Moses to the estab
lishment of the religion of the law under Ezra. There
are literary products of a later, and traditions of an earlier
But he admits that in the vota publica ... we undcmbtedly find something
in the nature of a bargain covenant would be a more graceful word with
a deity in the name of the State (op. cit., p. 202).
i Ex. ix. 2, Deut. v. 6. a Deut. vi. 5.
* Driver, Modern Research as Illustrating the Bible, p. 16.
ii.] THE IDEA OF RELIGION 33
period, but none of them afford the materials for confident
historical reconstruction. Within the central period
indicated, we may most easily realise the fact and the
nature of the development by taking cross-sections, as it
were, at convenient points. These are given by three such
representative documents as the Song of Deborah ( Jud. v.) ,
the Book of Amos, and the narrative of Nehemiah viii.-x.
They are short enough to be read in rapid succession ;
their approximate dates are beyond question ; they are
characteristic illustrations of the spirit and nature of
the religion of Israel at the beginning, middle, and end
of its most plastic period.
The Song of Deborah shows the position of affairs in
the north of Palestine, within a generation or two of its
invasion by Israel. A number of Hebrew tribes settled
around the Great Plain are aroused to united action against
the pressure of the unconquered Canaanites who occupy it.
Yahweh is the common war-God of these tribes ; they are
brought together through their loyalty to Him, and their
confidence in His aid on the field of battle. He dwells
afar in the southern desert of their former nomadic life ;
but He comes at their need, and manifests Himself especi
ally in the storm and the swollen river which contribute
to the defeat of the foe. Because Israel is the people of
Yahweh , the battle is His, and those who fight come to
the help of Yahweh. The battle is consequently both a
moral and a religious act ; tribes are praised or blamed
as they do or do not meet their obligation to share in it,
and the highest praise is given to the Kenite woman, Jael,
who slew (as we should say, treacherously) the fugitive
general of the enemy, Sisera. Here, then, is a concrete
example of the earliest religion of Israel as a united people.
The vivid poem shows the intensity of the national religion ;
it also suggests the moral potentialities of a faith capable
of becoming the centre of common action and social
obligation. Neither the religion nor the morality is
c
34 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
Christian. But without the energy and intensity of their
effective union on the battlefield of the Plain, it would
be much harder to understand the subsequent develop
ments.
The Book of Amos, four centuries later, records the
convictions of an individual thinker which are not yet
the faith of a nation. His denunciations also reveal the
general character of the contemporary religion of Israel.
The people no longer think of Yahweh as coming from
Sinai to help Israel in battle ; He has become the God
of Canaan, worshipped at Canaan s holy places, and with
Canaan s often licentious rites. Yahweh is the sufficient
guarantee of the nation s safety from foreign attack ;
: the day of Yahweh will deliver Israel from all her foes.
But He is not concerned with the social and moral con
ditions within the nation ; the luxury of the wealthy
and their oppression of the poor can go on side by side
with zealous worship at Bethel and Gilgal. Against these
popular ideas the prophet s message stands out in clearest
contrast. Yahweh is not simply the God of Canaan,
nor is He linked to Israel in so purely mechanical a fashion
that His intervention must necessarily be in Israel s favour.
On the contrary, He who stands above all nations, and
judges them all, will assuredly judge most rigorously
the people to whom He has given exceptional privileges.
The standard of His judgment is not ritual devotion but
moral conduct : * I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will
take no delight in your solemn assemblies. . . . But
let judgment roll down as waters, and righteousness as
an ever-flowing stream . In such words, contemporary
religion is directly challenged by Amos; the sanctions
to which he appeals are the warnings already given by
Yahweh through agricultural and other disasters, and
above all, through the appearance of Assyria on the
political horizon. The downfall of the northern kingdom
in the course of the next generation confirmed his words,
ii.] THE IDEA OF RELIGION 36
and largely helped to make his convictions an essential
part of the national religion.
The narrative of Nehemiah viii.-x. describes events little
more than three centuries later than Amos, but it pictures
quite another world of religious life that of the post-
exilic community. The kingdoms of North and South
have shrunk into a small religious community, clustered
around the rebuilt Temple of Jerusalem, as its one and
only religious centre. The emphasis naturally falls on
the sacred past, and the story significantly begins with
the request of the people for Ezra the scribe to bring
the book of the law of Moses, which Yahweh had com
manded to Israel . Reverence for the sacred roll is ex
pressed by the account of its solemn reception ; the
people rise, Ezra utters a blessing, the people say * Amen,
Amen , and bow to the ground, when he opens the roll.
This voice from the past makes a deep impression on
them ; * all the people wept when they heard the words
of the law . Their leaders begin on the very next day
to carry out its details. Within the same month, after
an address reviewing the providence of God in Israel s
history, a covenant is made and sealed by the leaders,
and adopted by * all them that had separated themselves
from the peoples of the lands unto the law of God . This
separation is secured by abstinence from all inter-marriage
with them, by the observance ot the Sabbath, and by
other distinctively Jewish ordinances. The closing words
of the narrative may stand as the fitting motto for post-
exilic Judaism : we will not forsake the house of our
God .
None reading these portions of scripture attentively
can fail to see how profoundly and materially the religion
of Israel has developed from the twelfth to the fifth cen
turies B.C. The contrasts in the succession of warrior,
prophet, and scribe, of sword, living voice, and written
word, are significant of far deeper changes in the concep-
36 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
tion of what religion itself is. Yet there must be some
unifying principle that links these stages together, and
comprehends them all, and, with them, all the intervening
minor changes. The unity is that of a continuous faith
that Yahweh is Israel s God, that His personality is as
real and living as man s, that the relation between the
corporate personality of Israel and the divine Person is
moral, and that no other deity counts at all.
This conclusion will be confirmed and illuminated if
we gather up the prominent religious features in the three
cross- sections that have been taken. In the life revealed
by the Song of Deborah there is a national relation to
Yahweh ; we might indeed say that these scattered tribes
are constituted a nation by their common relation to Him.
Religion is not something individualistic, the private
intercourse of a man with his God ; the individual is
related to God through the nation, and his worth appraised
by reference to the national life and interests. It is apparent
that there is no question of any other God for Israel.
Whatever may be true of other nations, Israel stands in
a peculiar and exclusive relation to Yahweh, one which
may rightly be called moral, though the Song is concerned
with the battlefield. For the battlefield is the centre of
the national life and interests, and the God who controls
it will not fail to prove adequate in other spheres. The
warrior s loyalty to his fellow-Israelites and to Yahweh
implies a relationship no less moral than that which is
demanded in the social and civic intercourse of daily life.
This moral relationship, however, becomes much more
prominent in Amos, where it gains a wider application
and a new estimate of its worth. It is applied to the whole
range of the social life of Israel, as well as to the battle
field. It is explicitly contrasted with the ritual worship,
and is declared to be the one essential offering. The moral
experience of man is here made the interpretative prin
ciple in the conception of God, a step of the most profound
IL] THE IDEA OF RELIGION 37
significance for religion. Human personality, as represented
in the prophetic consciousness, becomes the channel of re
velation of the divine morality. The great sanction of this
morality is the whole course of the history of Israel and
its neighbours. Morality is no private attitude, no merely
social or tribal custom ; it becomes the law of the world,
as God governs it. Events have a meaning, and that
meaning is moral. The moral consciousness of man is
thus made the sufficient clue to the fortunes of the peoples.
In the religion of the Law, as introduced by Nehemiah
and Ezra, we have lost the freshness and informality of
this appeal, but the principles it represents are made
accessible to those who are not prophets. The written
Law is Yahweh s sufficient revelation of His will. It
becomes the explicit statement of the covenant between
Him and His people. Loyalty to it is loyalty to Him,
and such loyalty means separation from the uncleanness
of those who do not know Him, as Israel knows Him, with
that intimacy of knowledge which His grace has made
possible.
It is clear that the emphasis falls on Yahweh in this
continuous relation of fellowship between man and God.
He is active both in history and in human consciousness.
He is to be interpreted by the highest attribute of human
personality, its moral consciousness. Such a faith in
the moral and exclusive relation between Israel and
Yahweh is the nucleus around which many elements
from without gather and crystallise in the course of the
generations. Such a faith is also the condition for the
development of the ideas of God and man. For these
ideas become what they are in the Old Testament through
their inter-relation the idea of God as actively gracious
and self-revealing, and the idea of man as ultimately
dependent on God.
38 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
2. The Moral Empliasu
The most important feature of the Old Testament
fellowship of God and man, i.e. its moral emphasis, is
obviously related to the clear conception of personality,
human and divine, in Israel s religion. Personality
always implies moral obligation, and finds its highest
expression through morality. Where personality is ade
quately recognised, there will necessarily be the recog
nition of morality. The parent who wisely respects the
personality of his child provides the only environment
in which the moral consciousness of the child will pro
perly develop. 1 When Israel was a child, Yahweh loved
him, and called His son out of Egypt into those condi
tions of freedom which made moral development possible,
From the earliest days, therefore, at which the national
history can be said to have begun, i.e. from Sinai, it is
justifiable to claim that a moral relation existed between
Yahweh and Israel. However limited in its original scope,
and crude in its applications, that moral relation was
certain to develop with the advance in the knowledge
of Yahweh s personality, and with Israel s experience of
relationship, as a corporate personality, to Him. The
legislation of Moses in the nomadic period 2 must have
been very different from the elaborate structure of the
Pentateuch. But the recognition of an obligation to
Him who had delivered Israel from Pharaoh would itself
be a moral nucleus for all subsequent development ;
sooner or later, the customs of the tribe, the things that
were done in Israel , would gain a new significance as
laws of Yahweh . The exact extent and nature of the
earlier morality is of quite secondary importance as com
pared with the fact that the religion of Yahweh was
essentially moral in principle. This has been traced with
1 Cf. Herrmann, Ethik,* p. 169.
* Ex. xviii. ; cf. Doughty a description of the administration of justice ia
the degert at the present time (Arabia Deserta, i. p. 249).
it] THE IDEA OF RELIGION 39
some reason to the circumstances of its origin : Israel s
religion became ethical because it was a religion of choice
and not of nature, because it rested on a voluntary decision
which established an ethical relation between the people
and its God for all time .*
The Old Testament is undoubtedly the most profoundly
moral book which antiquity can offer. Its moral emphasis
cannot be adequately represented by the quotation of
a number of striking verses, such as Micah s What doth
Yahweh require of thee, but to do justly, and to love
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? Similar
utterances selected from the literatures of other religions
would not prove that they possessed Israel s emphasis
on morality. This is shown rather by the part which
moral ideas have taken in the development of the religion,
notably in the prophetic teaching of the eighth century,
which has already been illustrated in the case of Amos.
But before this moral development culminates in the
great prophets, its course can be traced in such words as
those of Nathan to David concerning Bathsheba, and
those of Elijah to Ahab concerning Naboth s vineyard.
The ideas which underlie the earlier narratives of the
Pentateuch also, show that the prophets of the eighth
century were not without like-minded predecessors. Nor
could we explain the success of the prophets as shown in
the pervasive influence of their principles in almost every
branch of the literature of the Old Testament, unless some
general sympathy with those ideas already existed. We
see that influence alike in the codes of law 2 and in the
philosophy of history, 3 in the confessions of personal
religion 4 and in the practical precepts of every-day life. 5
* Budde, The Religion of Israel to the Exile, p. 38.
Cf. Deut. r. 14, 15 with Ex. xx. 10, 11 ; in the Deuteronomic code the
Sabbath law acquires a philanthropic instead of a purely religious motive.
* The historical books hare been edited by writers under the influence of
Deuteronomic, i.e. prophetic, principles.
4 E.g., Ps. XT., xxiv. Aa in the Book of Proterbg.
40 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [OH.
One of the most striking examples of this moral emphasis
is afforded by the chapter in which Job challenges the
justice of God by the review of his past life. It is signi
ficant of the degree to which, at all events, the later religion
is moralised , that all except one 1 of the numerous mis
deeds Job repudiates would be condemned from the
standpoint of universal morality. Nothing could more
forcibly express the fact that morality is the heart of Old
Testament religion. Even the Priestly Code, with all its
elaborate precautions for ceremonial holiness , is still
\i large measure a moral document, the outcome of a
passion for perfection that shall be worthy of Yahweh. 2
This vital union of morality and religion had important
consequences for both, as it always must have. Morality
gained new and powerful sources of inspiration and support.
The consciousness of personal fellowship with God, and
of the presence of His Spirit, reinforced the moral aspira
tions, and created a new confidence that they might.be
realised. The moral interpretation of history brought
support from without to the moral loyalty within ; for
He who spoke in the demands of private conscience was
the God who humbled or exalted nations. Not less was
religion exalted and enlarged by the projection of moral
experience into the unseen world. When Hosea argued
from the moral relations between his adulterous wife and
himself to those between Israel and Yahweh, the principle
involved was more important than that which Newton
discovered when he linked a falling apple to a moving
star. It made a spiritual pathway along which thought
could and did move with confidence. It is not an accident
that the first explicit demand for faith in God 3 should
1 xxxi. 26 f. ; see, further, the discussion of Moral Holiness (chap. vi.
4).
2 Lev. xi. 44.
3 Isaiah to Ahaz : If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established
(Is. vii. 9) ; but the great example of Abraham s faith (Gen. XT.), if not the
remark that Yahweh counted it for righteousness (verse 6), appears a
century earlier.
IL] THE IDEA OF RELIGION 41
come to us from the eighth century, when religion was
seen to deal with a realm in which moral experience held
true. Morality and religion strengthened each other, and
their union m~the Old Testament prepared for their more
majestic union in the New Testament, where the con
centration of a powerful religious dynamic on the homeliest
duties and relationships of men has for its background
a moral judgment that is chronicled in history. The
greater detail and more limited area of the New Testa
ment make these characteristics more immediately im
pressive. Yet they are really the continuation, refined
through the personality of Jesus, of the moral emphasis
of the Old Testament.
The Old Testament has also taught the world one of
the two great ways of conceiving what morality essen
tially is. As we owe ideals to Greece, so we owe laws
of God to Israel. The enlightenment of the conscience
of the prophets as to the social and moral life of their
age was for them a divine revelation, as it may still remain
for us, whatever be the psychological analysis of the con
viction. Ultimately, the living conscience was replaced
by the written Law, which owed its moral energy and
religious outlook, though not its contents, largely to the
work of the prophets themselves. But whether the
immediate authority was primary or secondary, whether
men listened to the prophet as he spoke, or to the Law
which the scribe had written, they were taught to regard
morality as the ordinance of God for man, and duty as
essentially the obedience of the human will to the expressed
and revealed will of God. To the ordinary reader of
the Bible this way of conceiving morality has become
so familiar that it seems obvious ; he is hardly conscious
that any other is possible. But even the most cursory
study of ethical systems will show that this is but one
way amongst many, and that the dominance of this idea
in our ordinary religious thinking is part of our debt to
42 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
Israel. In Greece, for example, the trend of thought
was very different. Morality was conceived in relation
to the human rather than to the divine personality. Jts
characteristic note was not obedience, but harmony ; the
realisation of an ideal of due proportion, a conformity
to nature as against convention. 1 In fact, some of the
most striking differences between Greek and Hebrew-
Jewish religious ideas can be traced to the distinction
between morality and religion in the former case, and
their union in the latter.
Two qualifications must be made to any favourable
estimate of the moral emphasis in the religion of the Old
Testament, apart from the obvious fact that the morality
is itself progressive, and is always to be judged in relation
to its own age. The first of these relates to the presence
of so large a non-moral element in the Law which Judaism
canonised. From the time of Nehemiah and Ezra the
Priestly Code was accepted as a divine revelation. Not
long after their time, apparently, this was combined with
Deuteronomy and the narratives known as J and E to
form our present Pentateuch, which became the primary
basis of the Jewish religion, as it remains until the present
time. There is much in the Pentateuch of permanent
moral worth, capable of continuing the ministry of the
prophets whom it overshadowed in the popular estimation.
But there is also much that is simply a survival from pre-
prophetic days, such as the laws of purification, and the
distinction between clean and unclean. As mere sur
vivals in a literary record, they would not detract from
the intrinsic value of the moral teaching. But, by the
canonisation of the Law, these survivals are all placed on
the same level of authority as the moral elements. In
general, that ceremonial expression of religion which
the great prophets condemned as in itself valueless is
given a place of honour equal to that of morality in the
Cf. Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, p. 111.
n.] THE IDEA OF RELIGION 43
divine revelation. It is clear , admits a sympathetic
Jewish exponent of the Law, 1 that the drawback or
misfortune of such a code was its equal accentuation of
the ceremonial and the moral . But, whilst this qualifi
cation is a serious one for the Judaism which is based on
that Law, it is of much less account when we can afford
to regard the Law itself as one phase of a long develop
ment, admitting of retrogression as well as of progress.
Besides, in any estimate of the Jewish religion, we must
not forget the passionate loyalty and the fine devotional
spirit which the religion of the Law could evoke. Their
memorials are written for all to read in the First Book of
the Maccabees, and in the canonical Book of Psalms.
The second qualification relates to the utilitarianism
of Jewish morality, especially noticeable in the Wisdom
literature (e.g. the Book of Proverbs). * If the fear of
Jehovah is the first part of the instruction which it gives,
the art of getting on in the world is the second . 2 No
Wisdom book finds a source of happiness in man s love
to God and communion with Him . 3 In regard to the
obvious limitations of the Wisdom literature, it must
not be forgotten that its principal aim is the application
of morality to the practical circumstances of life, and that
it does not claim to be a complete or typical statement
of the whole religious outlook of the wise men .* If
these books are silent, as they are, in regard to the con
temporaneous ritual of the Temple, they may equally
be silent as to the more spiritual motives and religious
experiences which clustered around it. Still, it remains
true that the doctrine of strict retribution, which the
prophets and Deuteronomy enunciate, has its own perils.
There is a difference of tone in the Book of Proverbs,
i Montefiore, ffibbert Lectures, p. 478.
* Cheyne, Jewish Religious Life after the Exile, p. 137.
Toy, E. Bi., col. 5335.
* A similar reminder is necessary in regard to the Christianity of the
^cond-eentury Apologists.
44 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [en.
as compared with the moral teaching of Deuteronomy,
which suggests that whole-hearted love for Yahweh is
no longer the primary motive to obedience, and that it
is now overshadowed by the secondary motive, the
* appeal to material rewards and penalties. The highest
moral emphasis of the Old Testament is that which
makes morality not so much a means to the end of
obtaining reward, as an offering to Yahweh, prompted by
the sense of His gracious help and favour.
Some would add a further criticism of the moral emphasis
of the Old Testament, viz. that ethical values, after all,
are not the only values, and that the Old Testament
religion is impoverished, both by its comparative dis
regard of artistic beauty, 1 and by its comparative lack
of interest in speculative truth. Does not Greece claim
a place in the revelation of the divine, and does not this
almost exclusive moral emphasis in the religion of Israel
constitute an ultimate weakness rather than a strength ?
In answer to this objection, it may be said that there is
no intention in this volume to suggest a philosophy of
revelation which would not make room for all the contri
butions of all the peoples, as well as of Israel. But morality
is uniquely related to religion, and the peculiar strength
of Israel s religion, at times of crisis and grave peril, lay
in just the intensity and concentration which sprang from
its blending wi+h morality. We may speak mth truth
of a Puritanic eisment in the religion of Israel, conspicu
ous long before devotion to the written word became its
centre, in the earliest days, it is seen in the protest of
the nomadic conscience against the culture of Canaan,
one of Israel s legacies from the desert. When Israel
settled down to the life of agriculture in Canaan, and
almost necessarily to its forms of religion, there were some
whose loyalty to Yahweh urged them to condemn the
1 The charm of Old Testament narrative, and of its lyric poetry, must not,
however, be forgotten.
ii.] THE IDEA OF RELIGION 45
culture which had such an accompaniment. Accordingly,
we find them, under the name of Rechabites, refusing,
even down to the days of Jeremiah, to abandon the old
nomadic ways of life. They would have nothing to do
with vineyard or field or seed ; they drank no wine, they
lived in tents. The religious significance of their protest
is seen in the close relation of their father , Jonadab the
son of Rechab, to Jehu, the destroyer of Omri s dynasty
and of the Baal- worshippers. 1 They were opponents of
the foreign culture (necessarily bringing with it, in ancient
civilisation, a foreign religion) which Omri and Ahab had
introduced ; their protest was at once moral and religious ;
its intensity led them to denounce the new life which
seemed to them entangled with the new religion. The
great prophets did not join them in such a protest, though
Jeremiah clearly honoured them for their convictions.
But even the prophets look back to the days of the desert
as characterised by a simplicity of worship and a loyalty
of devotion in painful contrast with their own time. 2
The same consciousness of what is often the moral and
religious cost of culture appears in Jeremiah s contrast
of the plain life of Josiah with the greater luxury of his
son. 3 The whole relation of the Old Testament religion
to art is but a wider application of the same principle.
Such limitation was the price paid for moral intensity,
a price often, though not always, paid by the spirit of
Puritanism.
It is this moral intensity, then, which, more than any-
thing else, lifted the religion of Israel above that of all
its contemporaries, and gave it the power to assimilate
foreign contributions without loss of its native strength
i 2 Kings x. 15-28. With the Rechabite attitude towards the vineyard of
the Canaanites, cf. the story of Noah s drunkenness (Gen ix. 20 f.) and the
vow of the Nazirites (Num. vi. 3 ; cf. Jud. xiii. 7, Amos ii. 11).
8 E.g., Hos. ii. 14, 15. The nomadic seems to be preferred to the
agricultural life in the story of Cain and Abel, and in the pictures of
patriarchal times.
Jer. xxii. 14, 15.
46 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [OH.
and continuity. As was indicated in the opening chapter,
Israel s history is remarkable for the number of influ
ences operating upon it from without. Had it not been
for this moral intensity, the nature-worship of Canaan
might easily have permanently degraded the religion of
Israel to its own low level of sensuality. But the moral
instinct of the nation was guided by its religious leaders
to * take the precious from the vile ; the necessary forms
of worship were borrowed, whilst the immoral features
of the Baal-cult, such as religious prostitution, were, at
least ultimately, rejected. The same selective moral
sense worked on both the legislation and mythology
derived from Babylon, and gave them a new value and
meaning. No better proof of the inherent vitality and
moral strength of the faith of Israel could be given, than
this power it possessed to assimilate and transform the
various elements due to its historical environment.
3. The Contribution of Semitic Animism
The great ideas of God and of man which we owe to
the Old Testament, emerge from a religious experience
in which the eternal God gradually revealed Himself to
Israel under the name of Yahweh. Through this divine
fellowship, in which the thoughts and feelings of the inner
man were confirmed by the moral lessons of history, there
was awakened in the hearts of the receptive a deep sense
of obligation, and a deeper trust. But the chief forms
in which this fellowship came to be conceived, the ways
in which the more personal side of the religion found
expression, are the direct continuation of primitive beliefs
common to the Semitic peoples. These may be classed
together under the general name of Semitic animism.
Obviously, they stand in a much closer relation to the
subsequent religious development of Israel than those
external influences Canaanite, Babylonian, Persian, and
IL] THE IDEA OF JRELIGION 47
Greek which have already been noticed. The condi
tion of their survival was that they could be assimilated
or reconciled to the religion of Yahweh. Of this order
are the general ideas of human life and death, and of
existence beyond death. We can easily parallel from
other peoples, non-Semitic as well as Semitic, the idea of
the breath or the blood as identical with the soul, and the
attribution of psychical characteristics to the heart, liver,
eye, bones ; the funeral customs, such as the mourners
meal and the mutilation for the dead, are by no means
peculiar to the Hebrews ; their conception of Sheol, the
abode of the dead, has many points of resemblance to
the Greek Hades. 1 The demonology of the Old Testa
ment is peculiarly scanty, 2 as compared with the luxuriant
growth of Babylonian beliefs, and the universal idea of
the jinn among the Arabs ; but this is explained by the
character of Yahwism, which would tolerate no rivals.
Many ideas and practices have undergone considerable
change in the process of adoption, but their relationship
to general animism is unmistakable. Such are those of
the ban, or taboo, the devotion of a city, a person, or a
thing ; the importance attached to the spoken word, as
seen in the significance of blessings and curses and oaths ;
the use of ephod and teraphim, especially for oracular
purposes ; even the practice of circumcision, which became
so distinctive a mark of Judaism, is shown by comparative
anthropology to be originally a form of mutilation, pre
paratory to marriage, practised by many peoples.
These survivals of primitive belief and practice do not,
as has been said, materially affect the cardinal ideas of
the Old Testament. Interesting as they are to the anthro
pologist, they are still but petrified growths in comparison
with the living faith of the prophets. But the Hebrew
1 See chap. iv. 4.
2 As it is, we have references to se lrim, lililh (Ts. xxxiv. 14, xiii. 21),
shedim (Deut. xxxii. 17, Ps. cvi. 37), Alukah (Prov. xxx. 15) ; perhaps
Aza zel (Lev. xvi. 8) belongs here.
48 KELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
psychology which was directly developed from Semitic
animism provides the cardinal conception of God s means
of contact with man the idea of the Spirit of God, together
with the idea of human personality as a unity of soul and
body, entirely dependent upon God. Both ideas will
receive fuller discussion in their proper places ; they are
briefly noticed here because, without them, the general
idea of the Old Testament religion would be very incom
plete.
As for the first, the animistic conception of invasive
spirits (which flourishes so abundantly, without marked
difference, in the atmosphere of Babylonian polytheism
and demonology) is transformed amongst the Hebrews
into the idea that peculiar and abnormal phenomena in
human life and character must all be traced to one source,
Yahweh (e.g. Samson s strength and Saul s madness). An
important consequence of this unification is that the idea
of the Spirit of Yahweh develops step by step with the
idea of Yahweh s character, and ultimately becomes
ethical and spiritual in the full sense. The highest ranges
of spiritual experience are thus conceived to depend on
the co-operation of Yahweh ; the suppliant s supreme
appeal is that Yahweh take not His holy Spirit from him.
That remarkable and unique feature of Hebrew religion
which we call the prophetic consciousness is thus pro
foundly conditioned by Hebrew psychology. 1
In contrast with the dualistic idea of body and soul
which is characteristic of Greek thought as a whole, the
Hebrew emphasis falls on the unity of personality. The
soul does not continue an immortal life after the death
of the body ; it goes out or dies with the body, and all
that is left is the shadowy semblance of the former
self, body and soul, which is gathered into Sheol. The
result of this limitation for Hebrew thought is a remark
able concentration of attention on the present life. The
i Set note 5 on p. 117.
ii.] THE IDEA OF RELIGION 49
problems of Hebrew religion call for present solution. The
escape from their pressure by a doctrine of prior existence
or future adjustment is not open. Consequently, the
Hebrew thinker is driven in on himself, and on his present
relation to Yahweh. It is Yahweh, and Yahweh alone,
who besets him behind and before. He is compelled
to fling himself on Yahweh, because he is wholly dependent
on Him. This explains why the Hebrew religion can rise
to such heights of spiritual splendour as characterise the
Book of Job and some of the Psalms ; it also explains,
or helps to explain, the rich spiritual content of the doctrine
of a future life, when at length (beyond the range of the
Old Testament, except for some tentative beginnings) that
doctrine is evolved.
Such is the general idea of religion which the Old Testa
ment presents. Through the successive phases of a long
development it displays the unity of an ever resurgent
faith that Yahweh will not abandon His people, and that
none other god can claim a place beside Him. In the
experience of that faith, the conviction is begotten that
nothing can be good in Him which is evil in man, and that
mercy is more than sacrifice. This moral emphasis fills
with new meaning the Hebrew ideas of divine activity
and human dependence. * In the case of no other people
of the ancient East , it has been said, do we find the con
ception that the whole sacrificial ritual lies on the circum
ference of religion, and is not religion itself, but has within
it merely the significance of a symbol 9 . 1 We must not
make the mistake of thinking that every Israelite who
participated in the Temple ritual rose to this height of
spiritual outlook. But none who reads attentively the
Psalter of that Temple can doubt its presence in the
case of some. Its significance is the more profound
because it escapes the perils of Deism on the one hand,
Sellin, Die alttest. Religion, p. 17.
50 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [en.
and of some doctrines of divine immanence on the other.
This is a feature of Old Testament religion which is often
missed. The elaborate cult, taken by itself, left man and
God over against each other, negotiating through trans
actions on a plane below their own spiritual nature. But
just as mediaeval mysticism learnt to transcend the worst
features of mediaeval sacerdotalism, so this Hebrew
mysticism , as we may call it, rose above the perils of
its own forms into the personal society of God. On the
other hand, the clear-cut ideas of human and divine
personality made impossible such an inclusion of the
human within the divine as would have robbed man s
life of its freedom and reality. The mutual fellowship
of God and man was so real, so intimate, so dramatically
conceived, that it boldly expressed itself in terms and
figures drawn from the common life of the home. The
prophetic ideas of God as Father and Husband are derived
from the simplest, deepest, and most universal forms of
human fellowship. With such thoughts of God, Israel
set forth on its spiritual pilgrimage into the world of
things unseen, and through them it became the pioneer
of religion. So, at least, it may seem to us. But to
Israel the truth was rather that Yahweh had entered the
world of things seen, and that His presence was mani
fested in the activities of providence without, and the
energies of the Spirit within, the life of His people.
HI.] THE IDEA OF GOD 61
CHAPTER III
THE IDEA OF GOD
THE nearest approach of the Hebrew mind to the defini
tion of God is given in the words, I am Yahweh thy God,
who brought thee out of the land of Egypt . 1 Jn other
words, the God of Israel is identified as the agent in a
historical event intimately affecting the fortunes of Israel.
This conception holds good for the whole development
of the idea of God. He is conceived not as abstracted
from human life but as revealed within it. He is not
Brahman, comprehensive of the universe, which issued
from him and returns to him, when the cosmic illusion has
run its course ; He is not the Prime Mover of Aristotle,
attracting the evolving life of the world; He is not a deity
of Olympus, occasionally interfering with human lives
when the line of his pleasures crosses them, or one of the
gods of Epicurus, dwelling afar in supreme indifference
to human affairs, where
* Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans,
Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar
Their sacred everlasting calm .
He is Yahweh, the God of Israel, known for what He is
by what He does. He is the unseen partner in Israel s
fortunes, afflicted in all their afflictions. Their interests
are His, and His ought to be theirs.
The most obvious result of this relation is seen in the
i Ex. xx. 2.
52 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
experiential character 1 of the conceptions it affords.
They keep close to experience, are warm with the blood
of human life, definite with the outline of the visible event,
capable of moving men to emotional response, because
* never divorced from their original human setting. The
Old Testament idea of God has the freshness of personal
experience, in contrast with the generalisations of abstract
thought. The religions of the surrounding nations are
more or less conventionalised nature-religions. The
religion of the Old Testament kept the unconvention-
ality of life, because its roots struck ever deeper in the
soil of history. The speculative monotheism ascribed to
Babylon and Egypt is dead, because it was never much
more than an esoteric theory. The religion of Israel,
in its most essential features, still lives within the larger
arena of Christian civilisation, because it came into being
i to meet the actual needs of men, and can still meet them.
d In comparison with the history of this experience, the
various Hebrew names of God would tell little about
Him, even if their etymologies were less uncertain than
they are. As a matter of fact, almost the only statement
about the Hebrew names of God which would command
general acceptance from modern scholars is that their
original meaning is unknown. The general terms, El
and Elohim may possibly be connected with the idea
of strength ; of the epithets, Shaddai and Elyon,
the latter means lofty ; the personal name, Yahweh,
is explained in the well-known passage in the Book of
Exodus either as He is (i.e. becomes ) or * He will
be the suggestion apparently being that the God of
Israel actively manifests Himself as, or will show Himself
to be, what He is. 2 Even if this meaning were original,
1 The appeal to experience is, of course, found in every religion, but its
ralue lies in the idea which is thus elucidated. In the Babylonian religion,
for example, resort to experience issues in an elaborate system of divination
and astrology, instead of a moral monotheism.
Ex. iii. 13 f. If this difficult passage means rather that God will
in.] THE IDEA OF GOD 53
it would obviously throw us back on actual history for
the unfolding of Yahweh s character ; but in all prob
ability the original meaning had been forgotten when
the passage came to be written, and this interpretation
was suggested, as is frequently the case with Hebrew
proper names in the Old Testament, because it seemed
appropriate to the context. It would be of more service
to us to know the early history of the name Yahweh
than its original etymology. It is characteristic of one
of the early documents of Genesis (J) to employ this
name from the Creation onwards ; l but no certain
evidence for the pre-Mosaic use of the form Yahweh (as
distinct from Ya(h)u, which is well attested) seems yet
to have been brought forward from extra-Biblical sources. 2
It may be assumed that the new religion of Israel was
not linked to an entirely new divine name. Some have
conjectured that the name was traditional in the tribal
group with which Moses was connected. Perhaps th^
most likely hypothesis is that which regards Yahweh
as the God of the Kenites, with which tribe Moses became
connected by marriage. This does not indeed tell us
anything more about the pre-Mosaic conception of Yahweh.
But it helps to explain why Moses should have become
His prophet, as it does other incidents in the Exodus
narrative. In any case, however, all these questions
are of secondary importance compared with the develop
ment of the idea of God, under the name of Yahweh, as
historically manifested in intimate relation to Israel.
continue to be in the future what He has been in the past (cf. Procksch,
Da* Nordhebr&ische Sagenbuch, p. 199), the reference will still be to the
experience of history, not to metaphysical existence.
1 Cf. Gen. iv. 26. The other early jcument (E), which begins with the
*tory of Abraham (Gen. xv., xx. f.), uses the general term Elohiin , which
is also employed by the Priestly Code until the revelation of the name
Yahweh to Moses (Ex. yi. 3).
2 The alleged Yahwe-ilu of the Hammurabi period is doubtful, but Yau-
bani (Yau has created) implies the worship of a god Yau about 1500 B.C.
A useful summary of the facts is given by Paton, in E.R.E. t iii. p. 183;
see also Rogers s Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 90 f.
54 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
This relation began at a time when the existence of
supernatural beings was unquestioned. They were as
real a part of the environment within which they operated
as the earth men trod, or the sky that roofed them in.
Consequently, the Hebrew religion does not offer any
elaborate reasonings to demonstrate the being of Yahweh ;
it accepts Him, just as the Moabites accepted Kemosh. 1
A modern mind would instinctively gather the facts of
experience, natural or spiritual, and then proceed to
argue that God must exist as their explanation. But
this is the reverse of the procedure which characterises
Hebrew and Jewish thought in the Old Testament. Yahweh
is taken for granted ; Job, in his keenest mental anguish,
denies not the existence of God but simply His goodness.
It is only in the silent thoughts of the heart that the
profane or churlish man dares to say to himself, There is
no God , 2 and even then his thought relates to God s
. activity, not to His existence. Thus the Israelite comes
to the interpretation of history, and, eventually, of nature,
with an axiomatic faith in Yahweh. When he found,
as he so often did, that his idea of the character and atti
tude of Yahweh did not adequately explain what happened,
he had to revise the contents of the idea itself, thus taking
a step forward in religious development. *
1. The Scope, of Yahweh s Sovereignty
This enlargement in the idea of God may be first con
sidered in regard to the area over which the power of
Yahweh 3 is conceived to extend. The development pro
ceeds from the idea of the nomadic war-god of the Mosaic
1 Ultimately, of course, belief in the supernatural involved some sort of
inference from special experience. See the first paragraph of chap. v.
2 Pss. x. 4, xiv. 1. Cf. also the scepticism of the author of Ecdesiastes.
His faith in a personal God is never shaken ; atheism or materialism is not
conceivable in an ancient Oriental rnind (Davidson, E. Bi., col. 1160).
8 The true content of the idea of God among the Semites in genera), la
lordship (Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidcntums, 2 p. 145).
in.] THE IDEA OF GOD 55
period, through that of the agricultural land-god of Canaan,
into that of the world-god, and up to the absolute mono
theism reached by the time of the Exile. The expansion
takes place always in response to new needs and problems.
As Robertson Smith has said of Semitic religion in general,
the help of the gods was sought in all matters, without
distinction, that were objects of desire and could not
certainly be attained by the worshipper s unaided efforts
. . . the really vital question is not what a god has power
to do, but whether I can get him to do it for me, and this
depends on the relation in which he stands to me ^ The
glory of Israel s religion was that this relation was capable
of standing every strain that was put upon it, though this
capacity was disclosed to Israel only as the successive
strains were actually felt. We have already seen e.g. in the
Song of .Deborah that the power of Yahweh is primarily
realised on the battlefield. It must be remembered
that war is usually part of religion in early times and
among primitive peoples. Warriors are consecrated by
special rites and taboos for the battle ; the invisible forces
of the spiritual world form a very real part of their alliee.
This is illustrated by the early narrative of Joshua s
vision before the attack on Jericho. 2 He sees a super
natural being with a drawn sword, who announces him
self as captain of Yahweh s host in this case, probably
the angels, who will assist Israel in the coming battle.
From time to time, in such ways as this, Yahweh brings
or sends help to His people in their warfare. Examples
are the victory over Egypt under the leadership of Moses,
over Canaan under that of Barak, the repulse of the
Midianites through the local judges , and the final over
throw of the Philistines through David. Careful study
of the narratives will show how closely Yahweh is identified
with the victory in each case. The human leaders are
His agents, controlled by His Spirit. The kingship in
* Religion of the Semites, pp. 82, 83. * Josh. v. 13 f.
^6 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [OH,
Israel was called into existence in the first place for military
purposes, and to this end the prophet Samuel anointed
Saul as the first king. By this time the idea of Yahweh
was much more than that of a mere war-god ; but so long
as Israel was struggling towards political establishment
and consolidation, the idea of Him as the helper in battle
is primary. It is no accident that amongst the earliest
literature of Israel reference is made in the Old Testament
to The Book of the Wars of Yahweh ; l such a title
would cover His most important aspect for Israel. Equally
characteristic of the earlier ideas of Yahweh are the
fortunes of the Ark in the war with the Philistines. 2 It
is at one and the same time the primitive sanctuary and
the battle standard. Whatever were the associations
that first gathered round the name of Yahweh, it is as
the giver of victory over other peoples that He first appears
in the literature of Israel.
It was natural, indeed almost inevitable, that the
national God whose presence and power were revealed
in such victories should eventually have ascribed to Him
a larger sovereignty than that of the battlefield. This
extension into other realms of national interest would
be the tendency from the very beginning, even though
clan and family cults may have maintained themselves
for a long time. 3 But they would be tolerated just because
they were not felt to challenge the exclusive claims of
Yahweh to the worship and devotion of Israel. In this
sense the commandment which occupies the first place in
both the earlier (Ex. xxxiv. 14 f.) and the later (Ex. xx.
3 f .) Decalogue states a principal characteristic of Yahwism
from the first. The jealousy of Yahweh against all
rivals 4 was an important feature of the idea of God, and
1 Num. xxi. 14. z 1 Sam. iv. vii. ; cf. Num. x. 35, 36.
3 The use of the terayhim perhaps illustrates this ; cf. Budde. The Religion
of Israel to the. Exile, pp. 59 f.
4 Cf. e g. Ex. xxxiv. 14, Num. xxv. 11, and Kiiehler s article in Zeitschrtft
fiir die alUestamentliche Witsenschaft, 1908, pp. 42 f.
HI.] THE IDEA OF GOD 57
an effective safeguard against the perils of syncretism.
To the principle it represents Hosea especially appeals ;
* thou shalt know no god but me, and beside me there ia
no saviour .* Its most dramatic illustration in the history
of Israel is found in the story of Elijah. The introduc
tion of the foreign cult of Melkart of Tyre under Ahab
was a direct challenge of Yahweh s claims, to be clearly
distinguished from the slower and more insidious influ
ences of the local cults of Canaan. The revolution accom
plished by Jehu in the Northern Kingdom, 2 and the
related movement under Jehoiada some years later in
the Southern Kingdom, 3 were inspired by religious zeal
for the exclusive claims of Yahweh. Even the heathen
reaction under Manasseh may have been plausibly recon
ciled with the supremacy of Yahweh within Israel, by
the subordination of other deities to Him.
The conquest of Canaan by the Israelites did not merely
change their manner of life from the nomadic to the
agricultural ; it also exercised a profound influence on
their religion, and opened a realm, quite distinct from the
battlefield, into which the sovereignty of Yahweh might
be extended. Agriculture had its religion, not less than
warfare, in the ancient world. Isaiah says of the farmer s
skill, His God doth instruct him aright, and doth teach
him .* The Canaanites worshipped the various local
deities (Baalim) as the givers of their agricultural produce.
When the Israelites came to settle down beside them in
the portions successfully occupied, it may have been the
case that the loyalty of Israel to the war-god, Yahweh,
did hot seem infringed by worship rendered at the same
time to the local gods of the harvest and the vineyard. 5
But the completer occupation of the land, and the absorp
tion of the Canaanites, meant the absorption of their
1 xiii. 4. 2 Kings ir. f.
2 Kings xi. Is. rxviii. 20.
Cf. E. Bi. t g.v. Baal , col. 403.
58 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
deities. The attributes of the local Baalim, the super
natural lords of each district, passed to Yahweh, who was
worshipped at the various local sanctuaries, and probably
without much change of ceremony. There was here a
great peril for the religion of Yahweh, a peril which was
recognised by what has been already called the Puritanic
element in Yahwism. Subtly yet unmistakably, the idea
of Yahweh as a Person standing in moral relation to Israel
was in danger of being transfprmed into that of a nature-
god, with none of the sterner virtues of the battlefield,
and with many sensuous and degrading associations.
Hence the attack of Amos and Hosea on the religious
ritual of their time. Hosea refuses to recognise as the true
God of Israel the Yahweh locally worshipped, and would
discard the name Baal , which has been transferred to
Him (ii. 16). It is the Yahweh who brought His son
Israel out of Egypt, the God of history, who is really the
giver of all the good things of Canaan, its corn and wine
and oil, its wool and its flax (ii. 8, 9). Yahweh has become
the land-god, equally for Hosea and for those he is criti-
cising. But, for Hosea, Yahweh is much more than the
land-god, the giver of every good and perfect gift the land
affords ; He is the God of the desert and the battlefield,
who has revealed to the mind and heart of the nation
His moral attributes of righteousness and love. In other
words, the eighth-century prophets are contending for a
moral against a physical idea of God. We see in their
protest the real supremacy of the religion of Yahweh over
the alternative nature-cults. That protest was continued
in the Book of Deuteronomy, which aimed at meeting
the peril by transferring the whole worship of Yahweh
from the old local sanctuaries, with all their powerful
associations, to the Temple at Jerusalem. The reforma
tion of Josiah on these lines in 621 was perhaps too drastic
to have been permanently successful, had it not been for
the Exile which followed shortly after it. It was the Exile
IIL] THE IDEA OF GOD 59
which made possible a new beginning, with the Deutero-
nomic principle of the single sanctuary for its accepted
basis ; it was the fact that the returned Israel was a small
community settled within a single long day s walk from
Jerusalem which made the principle practicable.
The third and final stage in the expansion of Yahweh s
sovereignty marks the extension of that sovereignty to
include the whole world. The original claims of Yahweh
were for Israel s service. Even down to the Exile, Israel
continued to admit the existence of other gods for other
nations. Jephthah believes that Kemosh gives his people
a territory through victory, in just the same way as Yahweh
gave Amorite territory to Israel. 1 David complains that
banishment from the inheritance of Yahweh will mean
the necessary worship of other gods in other lands. 2
Naaman is represented as asking for * two mules burden
of earth from Yahweh s land, that he may continue to
worship Him, by a sort of legal fiction, when back in Syria. 8
There is thus no formal or a priori denial of the existence
of other gods in their proper realms. That which actually
happened was the gradual appropriation of those realms
by Yahweh, and the victorious extension of His sove
reignty over other countries, until their gods become as
colourless as shades in Sheol, and Isaiah can call them by
a mocking term that denotes their worthlessness. 4 At
first, the victory of Yahweh over the gods of other nations
depended on the victory of Israel over the nations them
selves. But, ultimately, theology outran politics, and
Yahweh was recognised as the one and only God of all the
world, to whom belonged that unique and supreme place,
even from the very beginning of all. It is in the anony-
mous prophet of the Exile that we first meet with the
clear assertion that other gods do not exist at all : * la
i Jud. xi. 23, 24 ; cf. Num. xxi. 29. * 1 Sam. xxvi. 19.
* 2 Kings r. 17 ; cf. xvii. 33 (the foreign colonists in Samaria).
* Is. ii. 8, etc. (eltiim).
60 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [OH.
there a god beside me? ... I know not any . 1 But,
centuries before this, the practical henotheism which
underlies this explicit monotheism was already operative.
It appears in the earlier story of the creation of man (J),
in which all human life and history are made to begin from
Yahweh, although as yet He moves within nature, rather
than stands transcendently above it. We see the same
position more explicitly asserted when Amos represents
Yahweh as ruling the surrounding nations, and saying
to this nation Go , and to another * Come ; 2 or when
Isaiah treats the might of Assyria as a mere instrument
in the hand of Yahweh. 3 But even the classic formula
tion of Israel s * monotheism in Deuteronomy, Yahweh
is our God, Yahweh alone ,* carries with it in the same
chapter the theoretical recognition of other gods. Jeremiah
might consistently have denied the existence of other
gods ; Deutero-Isaiah, as a matter of fact, does this, and
drops the keystone of the monotheistic arch into its place,
for all the future of Israel. 5
2. The Personality of Yahweh
The personal name, Yahweh, denotes a personality and
character which are, in many respects, as distinct and
clear-cut as those of any human figure in the Old Testa
ment. The attributes of a storm-god are frequently
ascribed to Yahweh, but, within the historic period, these
are no more than favourite forms of His manifestation.
Behind the thunder which is His voice, the cloud which
is His chariot, the hail and lightning which are His weapons,
i la. xliv. 8. Amos i., ii. ; cf. ix. 7. Is. x. 5.
* Cf. Dent. vi. 4 and 14. For the above rendering, see the present writer s
note in the Century Bible.
The Jews at Elephantine seem to have associated two female deities
with the worship of Yahweh (Meyer, Der Papyrusfund von El phantine,
p. 59), a fact which must be explained as a survival of the (subordinative)
polytheism of Manasieh s time.
in.] THE IDEA OF GOD 61
there stands a personal being whose thought, feelings and
will are as real as those of men. The divine personality f
has, of course, a range of activity, with modes of percep
tion and operation, which far surpass those of human
personality. But, at the centre of this activity, accord
ing to the faith of the earlier centuries at least, there is a
personal nature so much like man s that it can be expected
to manifest itself like his. That is why the Old Testa-
ment affords so vivid a portrait of Yahweh. He sets
about making the first man as a human potter would,
though the life-giving breath He imparts differentiates
the result from any work of man. He walks in the garden
He has planted, just as a man would, to enjoy the cool
of the evening, and His suspicions are aroused by the con
cealment of the man and woman, and confirmed by ques
tioning, in human fashion ; but He has a far-reaching
power to punish the guilty. He comes down to see the
tower which men, in their presumption, are building, and
He scatters them from the same motives that would actuate
some human king, whose sovereignty was imperilled by
the doings of his subjects ; but the action He takes has
results that extend beyond the power of men. Yahweh
even repents of having made man, and takes measures to
destroy him, but the smell of Noah s sacrifice is so sweet
in His nostrils that He never repeats the Flood. These
statements l and others like them in the earliest litera
ture are not figures of speech. ^They show just that
imaginative mingling of human and superhuman charac
teristics which is ever found on the palette of the man
who is trying to paint a picture of God. The warmth and
vitality of this crude and naive anthropomorphism survive
1 They are taken from the document known as J, which uses the personal
name, Yahweh, and makes Him visible to the human eye, as in the visit paid to
the tent of Abraham (Gen. xviii. 1 f.). The somewhat later narrative known
as E, which characteristically employs the general term, Elohirn , instead
of the personal name, Yahweh, does not allow Him to be visible to the
waking eye. But even so late as the second century B.C., when God is seen
in vision He it an aged, white-haired man (Dan. ?ii. 9).
62 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [ca.
from these earlier days into the more exalted idea of God
found in a later age. In the post-exilic period, Yahweh
the intimate and familiar friend of the patriarchs becomes
the transcendent God with the unspeakable name, who
has created the world simply by a series of majestic com
mands (Gen. i.). But this later idea of God is still far
from being a mere metaphysical abstraction. The more
physical elements in the earlier anthropomorphism are,
indeed, either abandoned, or resolved into conscious
imagery. We cannot suppose, for example, that the
dramatic figure of Yahweh as a blood-stained warrior
coming from Edom (Is. Ixiii.) is meant by the prophet
to be taken literally. Yet the psychical side of the anthro
pomorphism the ascription of human thoughts, feelings
and desires to Yahweh is still largely unconscious and
uncriticised. Thus, whilst that laughter of Yahweh at
the plans of earthly kings which the Psalmist describes
may be in part metaphor, the wrath with which He gives
His representative on earth the power to destroy them is
to be taken literally. The prophetic and devotional
literature of Israel owes much of its unique power to the
intensity of this personalisation (not personification) of
Yahweh, which expresses so vividly, and yet so naturally,
the corresponding intensity of religious experience.
This growth in spirituality of the idea of God, through
which the emphasis falls on the inner side of personality,
and the physical or quasi-physical reference is minimised,
would have been seriously retarded, if not wholly pre
vented, by the use of images in the worship of Yahweh.
But, from the prophets of the eighth century onwards,
there is emphatic rejection of such material representa
tions. This first appears in Hosea, in criticism of what
he calls the calf of Samaria .* He is clearly referring
to the bull-images erected by Jeroboam i. at Bethel and
1 viii. 6 ; cf. xiii. 2. Amos viii. 14 is uncertain. In Deut. iv. 12, idolatry
is condemned on the ground that He who was heard on Horeb was not seen.
HI.] THE IDEA OF GOD 63
Dan, when the kingdom was divided. 1 The narrative
describing this incident shows that the worship associated
with these images was offered to Yahweh, not to some
rival god, and further, that Jeroboam is probably return
ing to some well-established precedent, and is not intro
ducing a dangerous innovation that would have defeated
the very object he had in view. The story of the golden
calf made by Aaron (Ex. xxxii.) throws back this pre
cedent as far as the nomadic period. It is, however,
much more probable that the use of this particular emblem
is due to the Canaanites : the bull is the natural incarna
tion of strength amongst an agricultural and pastoral
people, 2 and many pottery models of cows have been found
in recent excavations at Gezer. We have no evidence as
to the existence or non-existence of images of Yahweh,
prior to the settlement in Canaan ; the prohibition in
the Second Commandment 3 is probably due to the influ
ence of the prophetic teaching. Elijah, Elisha, and Jehu
show no disapproval of the image-worship practised in
the Northern Kingdom. The presence of the Ark in the
Temple may doubtless have helped to keep the Southern
Kingdom more free from image-worship. Many scholars
regard the ephod, frequently used for oracular purposes,
as a form of image of Yahweh. The teraphim were appar
ently of human form, since David escaped through the
substitution of one of these for himself ; 4 but they seem
rather to belong to the class of household gods than to be
images of the God of the national cult. Nor are we
justified in asserting that the brazen serpent ascribed
to Moses, and retained until the reformation of Hezekiah, 8
1 1 Kings xii. 28-83.
* Of. the terra-cotta bull-heads from the neighbourhood of Ascalon, repro
duced by Vincent, Canaan d apres I exploration r$cente, p. 169.
3 Ex. xx. 4. In the older Decalogue contained m Ex. xxxir., the
prohibition seems to be of the peculiar variety of images called molten*
(verse 17) ; the older form of graven images may have been allowed,
* 1 Sam. xix. 13 f.
* Num. xxi. 9 ; 2 Kings xviii. 4.
64 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
was more than the centre of some demon-cult. But
whatever be the facts for the earlier centuries, the attitude
of the full-grown religion of Israel towards images is un
mistakable. The imageless shrine of the Holy of Holies,
on which Pompey and his officers came to gaze, 1 is no
accident of the worship of Yahweh. It marks the growing
spirituality of the idea of God, by the elimination of the
material symbol as inadequate. The principle of the
imageless shrine was carried to its full development when
the worship of God who is Spirit was lifted into a realm
of personal relationship independent of the mountains of
Jerusalem or Samaria.
It is to the instinctive and unchallenged idea of divine
personality that we owe the vivid and dramatic concep
tion of God which characterises the Old Testament. No
religious literature gives so graphic and ample a portrait
of divine personality, and the anthropomorphism is
inseparable from it. As already stated, the earlier anthro
pomorphism was felt to be unworthy of God. There is a
growing consciousness of the inadequacy and incongruity
of what may be called physical anthropomorphism, which
culminates in the post- exilic doctrine of the divine trans
cendence, with its complementary idea of angelic mediation
between God and man. But to the modern mind there
is a deeper difficulty, a difficulty often felt in regard to
psychical, as keenly as in regard to physical, anthropo
morphism. Personality has been held to mean limita
tion, and limitation to involve such a doctrine of God as
makes Him only a greater man, and really puts Him
outside human life. Obviously, this is no place to discuss
the purely philosophic question whether personality
in God implies limitation inconsistent with His deity.
But several truths should be remembered, lest the term
* anthropomorphism raise a quite unwarranted pre
judice against the Old Testament idea of God. In the
Ttcitu^ Hitt., T. 9 ; Jo., Antiquities, xiv. 4. 4.
in.] THE IDEA OF GOD 65
first place the question is really one of degree ; we cannot
think or speak of God at all, unless in the language
of our human experience. To dismiss all anthropo
morphism is to dismiss all possibility of the knowledge of
God. In the second place, however difficult it may be
to frame a doctrine of divine personality that shall be
wholly consistent, we are using, in * personality , the
highest category of our experience to interpret our highest
faith. The philosophical problem was not present to the
minds of Biblical writers, but there is a solution implicit
in the Old Testament, and more clearly articulated in
the New the idea of the Fatherhood of God, which links
Him in spiritual kinship to men, and makes it possible
for them to be * partakers of the divine nature . Finally,
if anthropomorphism be not ruled out of court altogether,
it may be claimed that the form of it which the Old
Testament offers is on the whole noble and exalted. Its
phraseology still dominates our devotional vocabulary.
The highest idea of God is still, like Yahweh Himself,
enthroned on the praises of Israel. Philosophical theism
has not always recognised its debt to the Hebrew religion
for the deepest realisation of divine personality.
3. The Moral Character of Tahweh
The central place of the eighth-century prophets in the
interpretation of the character of God must not be allowed to
obscure the truth that they are themselves the result of a
long development. The relation between Israel and Yahweh
did not begin to be moral in the eighth century ; it began to
be moral when it began to exist. The great fact for the
future was not the precise scope of the original idea of
Yahweh, but the recognition that Israel had to do with
a powerful person, who was morally interested in its welfare.
The relation between Yahweh and Israel was like a friend-
66 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
J ship between two men, beginning in some act of generous
help rendered by the stronger to the weaker, behind which
act the larger heart and mind are gradually discerned.
Such a relationship could not fail to grow in moral signi-
s ficance with the moral growth of the nation itself. The
literature and history of what is called the pre-prophetic
period sufficiently reveal the manner of this. The prophet
Nathan, speaking in the name of Yahweh, boldly rebukes
David for a moral fault. 1 The prophet Elijah, also speak
ing in the name of Yahweh, is not less severe concerning
the appropriation of Naboth s vineyard than concerning
the favour shown to a rival religion. 2 The impression
we gain of Yahweh s moral character as conceived by
these two prophets is confirmed by the contemporary
legal and narrative literature. It is true that the * older
Decalogue , as it is called, the series of ten brief rules for
religion which may be extracted from Exodus xxxiv.,
is concerned with ritual, not with morality, and that the
younger Decalogue , our familiar c ten commandments ,
is to be regarded rather as a compendium of eighth-century
prophetical teaching than as an anticipation of it. But
the Book of the Covenant (Ex. xx. 22-xxiii. 19), which
may fairly be placed under the early monarchy, is far
from being simply a ritualistic code of laws. It is indeed
surprising to find how many of the moral demands of the
great prophets are here, in principle, already required by
Yahweh from Israel : the generous treatment of the slave,
the stranger , the widow and orphan, the debtor and the
poor ; impartial and incorruptible equity in the adminis
tration of justice ; proper regard for parents ; even the
duty of driving back an enemy s stray cattle. Clearly
the God who requires such conduct from His people is
already possessed hi their eyes of a pronounced moral
character. The social life of a settled and agricultural
people (for whom alone the Book of the Covenant ia
i 2 Sam. xii. If. 1 Kings xxi. 17 f.
HI.] THE IDEA OF GOB 67
suitable) has produced a remarkable growth in the idea
of Yahweh within little more than a couple of centuries of
the invasion of Palestine. Nathan s condemnation of
David may well accompany the Book of the Covenant
as a more or less contemporary footnote to it, showing
morality and theology together in the making. The
two prophetic narratives of the pre-Mosaic period,
known as J and E, to which most of the light and colour
of the earlier pages of the Bible are due, similarly show a
moral conception of Yahweh that effectually Links the
period of David with the eighth century. The patriarchal
stories do not only reveal man and God as so intimately
related that they almost walk the earth together ; they
just as strikingly declare the moral conditions of that
fellowship, and none the less because the morality is not
always Christian. 1
The advancing moralisation of the idea of God is, how
ever, chiefly brought home to us in the writing prophets
of the eighth century, especially Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah.
These three prophets are all concerned with the moral
relation existing between Yahweh and Israel, but each
of them emphasises a different aspect of that relation,
and consequently presents a characteristic idea of God.
The thought of Amos centres in the absjolute justice of
the divine sovereignty. Yahweh, the God of Israel, is a
great ruler, governing beyond as well as within Israel on
moral principles (i., ii.). The divine election of Israel
was a purposive moral act, always subject to moral criti
cism and control : c You only have I known of all the
families of the earth, therefore I will visit upon you all
your iniquities \ 2 These iniquities are chiefly social
injustice, e.</. the oppression of the poor through exaction
and bribery, 3 together with commercial dishonesty 4 with
1 E.g., the support given by Yahweh to Abraham in his deception ol
Pharaoh.
2 iii. 2. ii. 6, 7 ; v. 11, 12. viii. 4-6.
68 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [ca
a view to luxurious and idle self-indulgence. 1 Whilst
these go on, elaborate acts of worship at the sanctuaries
are a mockery to Yahweh ; 2 the only true offering to
a moral ruler is morality. 8 Just as Yahweh punishes the
iniquities of other nations on moral grounds, so will He
punish those of Israel ; the special relation that exists
betoten the nation aad Himself carries with it a higher
moral demand, and severer penalties. The idea of God
that dominates the ^prophet s mind is clear and unmistak
able. Yahweh is righteous, and has both will and power
to administer the government of the world by the standard
of His own character. The moral revulsion of Amos from
the immoral religion and the religious immorality of the
Northern Kingdom became his divine call to prophesy.
His contribution to the idea of God is essentially the faith
that the divine personality is not less moral than the
human heart of the prophet.
The emphasis of Amos necessarily neglects the other
side of the relation between Yahweh and Israel, the bond
of * loving-kindness which unites God to His chosen
people. This was brought out by Hosea, writing some
fifteen years later than Amos. Hosea stands within the
Northern Kingdom, not without it, like Amos ; personal
experience of the faithlessness of a still loved wife has
opened his eyes to the deeper meaning of the bond between
Yahweh and Israel. Accordingly, he came to conceive
Yahweh not simply or chiefly as a moral ruler, but as a
Father and a Husband, 4 and his emphasis falls on the
rebg/ft, a* 2mach as on the social, faults of Israel. In
other words, his idea of God is interpreted through the
deepest relationships of human life, those of the family,
and it is the wounded, yet surviving, love of God for Israel
which is central in his thought, as the offended righteous
ness of God was central in the thought of Amos. The
i Hi. 10, 12, 15 ; iv. 1 ; y. 11 ; vi. 4 f. iv. 4, 5.
3 v. 21-25. * xi. 1 f. ; ii. 18.
HI.] THE IDEA OF GOD 69
deepest moral conceptions of God which the Old Testa
ment contains are implied in the two figures of marriage
and parentage which Hosea employs. On the one hand,
the passionate love of Yahweh for His bride seeks for her
the truest life : I will betroth thee unto me in righteous
ness, and in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in
mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness,
arid thou shalt know Yahweh ; on the other, the tender
patience of the father is seen in Yahweh s readiness to take
into His arms the stumbling child, learning to walk, and
to carry it when it is weary. 1 Israel is perishing because
it does not know Yahweh, 2 its Husband and its Father.
These two great ideas of God, as righteous, and as loving,
spring from -he fundamental thought of the personal
relation which unites Him to His people, and are both
needed to reveal its content. But when these two are
recognised, all other moral attributes are implicitly
given. Consequently, we do not find that the third great
prophet of this century is able to add any further attribute
which we can place beside the fundamental qualities of
love and righteousness. What Isaiah does is, however, *
to lift the idea of the righteous and loving God of Israel
to a new majesty of conception by his repeated emphasis
on the divine holiness. The familiar details of the vision
in the Temple which constituted the prophet s call suffi
ciently illustrate this, as does his favourite title for Yahweh
the * Holy One of Israel . We must not make holy
here a mere synonym of moral righteousness, or we lose
the force of Isaiah s conception of God. The earlier
idea of holiness 8 which, etymologically, may mean
separation is that of inaccessibility, perilous and
unknown power, involving mysterious taboos, and super
stitious fears. The idea is common to many peoples in>
their primitive stage, and has no essential connection
with the moral development of the idea of God. But
i ii. 19, 20 ; xi. 1-4. iv. 6, See chap vi., pp. 130 f.
72 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT fca
But, although there is appeal to the wonder and majesty
of Nature as God s work, in order to humble man, and
although the glory of God in the natural world and His
joy in it owe nothing to man, it is no exaggeration to say
that the Old Testament regards Nature, in the last resort,
simply as the arena for the moral issues of human life.
This is apparent in the stories of creation, both the
earlier and the later. In the earlier (Gen. ii. 4 f.), the
interest is focused on the fateful exercise of freedom on
man s part, through which are changed even the natural
phenomena of human life and work 1 (e.g. child-bearing
and the tilling of the ground). In the later (Gen. i.),
though the transcendent God now stands outside of and
above Nature, as its absolute disposer, His work still cul
minates in the creation of man, made in His image, i.e. set
in a similar relation of authority in regard to all other
creatures. This proud place of man is explicitly stated
in the well-known words of the eighth Psalm, which marvel
at the glory and honour with which God has crowned man.
Amid the glories of the earth by day, 2 or beneath the
wonder of the stars by night, 8 man plays his part, and that
no small one, in the purposes of Yahweh. The omnipo
tence of Yahweh, displayed in the desert or the dungeon,
on the bed of sickness or the storm-tossed ship,* is con
centrated on man s religious development. The omni
science of Yahweh penetrates to the very secrets of the
heart of the being so marvellously fashioned in the womb
by His hand. 6 The unchanging purpose of Yahweh is
accomplished in and through man, as surely as the purpose
of the potter on the revolving clay. 6 This complete
control of human life is the more easily accepted by
Hebrew thought, because of the Hebrew conception -)f
Nature. In the conservation or maintenance of Nature,
1 Contrast the change of nature for the better, in sympathy with human
fortunes, as in la. xxxv., and in Ezek. ilvii.
Ps. civ. 23. 3 Ps. viii. 3 f. p g . C yii
Ps. czzxix. Jer. xnii. 6.
in.] THE IDEA OF GOD 73
as in its transformation in the Messianic age, Yahweh s
relation to it is conceived to be direct and immediate.
The chain of what we should call natural causation is
indeed recognised. For example, in the promise of agri
cultural prosperity to Israel, the corn and wine and oil
are traced to the fertility of the earth, and this, again, to
the rain from heaven. But these links are not second
causes in our sense of the term ; at the end of the series,
as always in Hebrew thought, stands Yahweh, setting
it in motion. 1 Palestine is indeed naively contrasted with
Egypt, as being superior because it drinketh water of
the rain of heaven , and not from the artificial irrigation
of the land of the Nile ; 2 i.e. in the former land the per
sonal attention of Yahweh is more manifest. Thus, in
the realm of Nature, * everything is supernatural, that is,
direct divine operation . 3 The supreme purpose of
Yahweh, which has controlled His activity in the creation
and conservation of Nature, and in the direction of human
history, is made articulate again and again in the rebukes
and appeals of the prophets. The ox knoweth his owner,
and the ass his master s crib : but Israel doth not know,
my people doth not consider .* Yahweh s purpose is
that man should learn to say I delight to do Thy will,
O my God . 5 This will of God, springing as it does from
His moral character, is itself moral. He seeks a social
end, the fellowship of man with Him through moral
obedience. This is salvation in the deeper and more
spiritual sense of the Old Testament. True, it is crossed
by the consciousness of Israel s central place in the grace
Hos. it 21, 22.
2 Deut. xi. 10-12. A rain theology was as important for Israel as the
Homousia for Christian councils (imhm, Jcremia, p. 131).
Davidson, D. B., ii. p. 198. 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, the only conceivable causality is a personal agent* (I.e.). A
good example is the annual cycle of the seasons (Gen. riii. 22).
* Is. i. 3. Ps. xl. 8.
72 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH
But, although there is appeal to the wonder and majesty
of Nature as God s work, in order to humble man, and
although the glory of God in the natural world and His
joy in it owe nothing to man, it is no exaggeration to say
that the Old Testament regards Nature, in the last resort,
simply as the arena for the moral issues of human life.
This is apparent in the stories of creation, both the
earlier and the later. In the earlier (Gen. ii. 4 f.), the
interest is focused on the fateful exercise of freedom on
man s part, through which are changed even the natural
phenomena of human life and work 1 (e.g. child-bearing
and the tilling of the ground). In the later (Gen. i.),
though the transcendent God now stands outside of and
above Nature, as its absolute disposer, His work still cul
minates in the creation of man, made in His image, i.e. set
in a similar relation of authority in regard to all other
creatures. This proud place of man is explicitly stated
in the well-known words of the eighth Psalm, which marvel
at the glory and honour with which God has crowned man.
Amid the glories of the earth by day, 2 or beneath the
wonder of the stars by night, 8 man plays his part, and that
no small one, in the purposes of Yahweh. The omnipo
tence of Yahweh, displayed in the desert or the dungeon,
on the bed of sickness or the storm-tossed ship, 4 is con
centrated on man s religious development. The omni
science of Yahweh penetrates to the very secrets of the
heart of the being so marvellously fashioned in the womb
by His hand. 6 The unchanging purpose of Yahweh is
accomplished in and through man, as surely as the purpose
of the potter on the revolving clay. 6 This complete
control of human life is the more easily accepted by
Hebrew thought, because of the Hebrew conception -)f
Nature. In the conservation or maintenance of Nature,
1 Contrast the change of nature for the better, in sympathy with human
fortunes, as in Is. xxzv., and in Ezek. zlvii.
Ps. civ. 23. Ps. viii. 3 f. * P. evil
Ps. cxxxix. Jer. x?iii. 6.
in.] THE IDEA OF GOD 73
as in its transformation in the Messianic age, Yahweh s
relation to it is conceived to be direct and immediate.
The chain of what we should call natural causation is
indeed recognised. For example, in the promise of agri-
cult ural prosperity to Israel, the corn and wine and oil
are traced to the fertility of the earth, and this, again, to
the rain from heaven. But these links are not second
causes in our sense of the term ; at the end of the series,
as always in Hebrew thought, stands Yahweh, setting
it in motion. 1 Palestine is indeed naively contrasted with
Egypt, as being superior because it drinketh water of
the rain of heaven , and not from the artificial irrigation
of the land of the Nile ; 2 i.e. in the former land the per
sonal attention of Yahweh is more manifest. Thus, in
the realm of Nature, everything is supernatural, that is,
direct divine operation J . 8 The supreme purpose of
Yahweh, which has controlled His activity in the creation
and conservation of Nature, and in the direction of human
history, is made articulate again and again in the rebukes
and appeals of the prophets. * The ox knoweth his owner,
and the ass his master s crib : but Israel doth not know,
my people doth not consider . 4 Yahweh s purpose is
that man should learn to say I delight to do Thy will,
O my God . 6 This will of God, springing as it does from
His moral character, is itself moral. He seeks a social
end, the fellowship of man with Him through moral
obedience. This is salvation in the deeper and more
spiritual sense of the Old Testament. True, it is crossed
by the consciousness of Israel s central place in the grace
1 Hos. ii. 21, 22.
2 Deut. xi. 10-12. A rain theology was as important for Israel as the
Homousia for Christian councils (Duhrn, Jerernia, p. 131).
* Davidson, D. B.-, ii. p. 198. 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, the only conceivable causality is a personal agent (I.e.). A.
good example is the annual cycle of the seasons (Gen. viii. 22).
* Is. i. 3 Ps. xl. 8.
74 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [OIL
and purpose of God, with the result that the universalism
implicit in the moral purpose is variously limited by the
nationalism. But even in the religion of the Law, when
the nationalism has assumed its most stringent aspect,
obedience to the revealed will of Yahweh is recognised
as the supreme end of man, and the supreme glory of
God. The attitude of Jesus to the will of God, and His
emphasis on the absolute worth of obedience as the supreme
value of human life, are the best illustration of what the
Old Testament indicates as the purpose of Yahweh in
creation and Providence. Thus, as an Old Testament
prophet might have said, is the glory of Yahweh s self-
manifestation in human history * to find its complement
in the voluntary surrender of human life to His holy will.
A* the difficult problems of human character and destiny
were realised by Israel s finest minds, the emphasis was
thrown more and more on the divine resources, the super
natural power of the Spirit of God to bring life out of a
dead nation, 2 the willingness of Yahweh to make a new
covenant, and so write it on the hearts of men that they
can no more forget or refuse its claims. 8 Here, as so
often in the history of the idea we have reviewed, the
new demand arouses the new faith that maketh not
ashamed. The resources of Yahweh are called into action
like the hidden reserves of a battlefield, but they are
never exhausted.
The Old Testament idea of God satisfies the deepest
demands of religion by bringing God and man face to face
n a moral relation. Calvin begins the Institutes with
the characteristic remark that * Almost the whole sum
of our wisdom, which ought to be judged really true and
solid wisdom, consists of two elements, the knowledge
of God and of ourselves . Newman s conversion, under
Calvinistic influences, in his fifteenth year, reproduced
Num. zir. 21, 22 ; cf. Is. ri. 3.
> Ezek. zzzvii. Jer. zzzi. 31 f.
in.] THE IDEA OF GOD 75
the same conviction, * making me , he says rest in the
thought of two and two only absolute and luminously
self-evident beings, myself and my Creator - 1 In these
two widely differing men, there is the same ultimate debt
to the religion of the Old Testament, which brings God
so near to human life, and makes Him more real than
one s neighbour. The contrast of this idea of God with
all forms of pantheism is obvious. Yahweh, as we have
seen, is not derived from Nature, or linked to Nature.
His affinities are with human personality. He stands
above the chaos (apparently conceived already to exist 2 )
from which He fashions His world. Problems enough
for philosophical theism remain in such an idea of God,
but at least it makes impossible that lower pantheism,
or rather materialism, which would explain the highest
things from the lowest. The higher pantheism of the
Jew, Spinoza, was impossible to his ancient kinsmen,
through their strong hold on the reality of human
freedom and moral experience, even had such a doctrine
of divine immanence been historically conceivable in
Israel. The Old Testament idea of God, moreover,
though it so clearly separates Yahweh from the world
He created and rules, gives no real support to quasi-dual-
istic ideas of a power working against difficulties, to some
what doubtful ends, ideas which have a certain popularity
at the present time, as they had when Gnosticism flourished.
Whatever may be true of the earlier idea of Yahweh, the-
monotheistic doctrine of the prophets places all things
in His hands. His final triumph is secure. The faith
of Israel in its own future shows absolute confidence
that the ultimate victory is in the hands of its God.
Some of the limitations in the Old Testament idea of God
are apparent enough, but they are limitations of form,
not of ultimate principle. They may be compared with v
1 Apologia, p. 4 ; cf. Parochial and Plain Sermons, i. p. iJO
Cf. Skiuner, Genesis, p. 15.
76 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
those which attach to the Carpenter of Nazareth. As
the Christian may see the manifestation of the Eternal
Son of God within those limitations, so may be seen the
manifestation of the Eternal God Himself through the
limitations of Yahweh of Israel V
1 Of. the fine passage in Buskin s Frondes Agrtste* (p. 58), which draws a
parallel between the revelation of the Son, through the veil of our human
Jluk \ with that of the Father, through the veil of our human thought*
iv.] THE IDEA OF MAN 77
CHAPTER IV
THE IDEA OF MAN
DISCOVERIES that deserve to be called great are usually
made in the realm of common things, for their greatness
lies in the wide range of their application. The inven
tion of printing from movable types, the use of the expan
sive force of steam, the principle of gravitation, owe their
epoch-making importance to the uncounted multitude of
their possible applications. It is not otherwise with the
most far-reaching discovery ever made in the realm of
religion the discovery we owe to the prophets of Israel
that the supreme worth of life is its morality. 1 They
pointed to something that claimed its place in every life,
something that found embodiment in the common round
and daily task and instinctive personal relationships of
men, and said in effect, This is man s life at its highest,
and God demands the highest from man . That simple
truth was enough eventually to transform a Semitic cult
into a universal religion. They brought their new sense
of values into relation with the highest interpretative
idea they knew the idea of Yahweh as the God of Israel,
and that idea was slowly expanded from the war-cry of
militant tribes to a faith that does not dishonour the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have now to
see how this emphasis on moral experience could give to
man himself a new place and dignity, transforming the
1 This culminates in the eighth century, but, aa already stated, the moral
emphasis of the prophetic spirit may be traced back to a much earlier timt,
ii not to Moses himself (see chap. ii. 2).
78 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
crude material of Semitic animism until it expressed an
idea of human personality second only in its lofty claims
to that of the Christian faith for which it prepared.
The course of the development of the idea of man is
less obvious and explicit than that of the idea of God,
just because the literature of Israel is almost wholly
religious. In the realm of religion, most of all in that of
Israel s religion, the stress falls on God, not on man.
Morality is central, but not morality for its own sake ;
morality is what Yahweh wants from man, who exists
to obey Him. Consequently the influence of the moral
emphasis on the idea of man is indirect, rather than direct.
The majesty and glory of morality are, as it were, first
seen in the face of God, before they are flung back in light
on the nature of man. Israel had no Socrates to turn
men s thoughts from the outer world to the inner, and to
compel them to know themselves. But Israel had an
Isaiah to see the holy God in His temple, and seeing Him,
to cry, I am a man of unclean lips . In technical terms,
the religion of Israel is theocentric, not anthropocentric.
One result of this is that there is relatively a much larger
survival of primitive ideas about man than about God in
the Old Testament. In the case of the doctrine of God
we are made aware of a distinct cleavage between the new
and the old, a conscious antithesis between the Baalism
of Canaan and the Yahwism of Israel s prophets. The
writers of the Old Testament hardly permit us to hear of
the defeated foe, save as an object of abhorrence and a
stone of stumbling. 1 But there was no such explicit opposi
tion between the old and new ideas of human nature.
The new idea of man which sprang from the religious
realisation of the worth of his morality was a-s the leaven
hid in the * three measures of meal , till it was all leavened.
1 E.g., the very name Baal is altered into Bosheth , meaning shame ,
as in Jar. iii. 24, and in certain proper names (Ishbosheth, Jerubosheth)in
which Baal originally stood (1 Chron. yiii. 33 ; Jud. vi. 32).
iv.] THE IDEA OF MAN 79
There were, in fact, three features of Semitic animism l
to be so leavened. They are more or less common to all
primitive culture the ideas of the breath-soul (and blood-
soul), of the psychical function of physical organs, of the
ascription of all that is abnormal n^ conduct and character
to the action of invasive spirits. These were the chief
origins of the psychology involved in the common speech
and thought of the Hebrews. This the prophet of*
Yahweh transformed, even whilst he shared in it. Yahweh,
he taught, framed those organs, and animated them with
living breath ; Yahweh claimed the blood of the sacri
fices ; Yahweh sent His Spirit into man. It was the
exception, rather than the rule, for the prophetic religion
to challenge such popular conceptions ; it was done only
when, as by some of the death customs, the sole supremacy
of Yahweh seemed to be imperilled. For the most part,
the primitive ideas about human nature survived, though
the primitive high places of the gods perished. They sur
vived to make their own contribution to religious experi
ence. Crude as some of them were, they were capable
of being shaped into vivid and forcible expressions of
fundamental truths, and we owe to them much in the
Scriptural vocabulary of religion. There is no more
impressive illustration of this transformation than the
doctrine of the Spirit of God, which is ultimately rooted
in Semitic demonology. We shall trace this assimila
tion and transformation in regard to (1) the psychology
of the Hebrews ; (2) the dependence of man on God ;
(3) the relation of the individual to the society ; (4) the
future life.
1. The Psychology of the Hebrews
There is a logic in primitive thought which is often
obscured to modern eyes because it works from premises
so different from our own. We are apt to dismiss an
fanciful metaphor much that was simple realism ; in
80 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
fact, the science of the ancient world has often become
the poetry of the modern. This is evident in regard to
those speculations about human nature which the Hebrews,
or their ancestors, shared with primitive peoples in general.
The obvious explanation of the difference between a dead
and a living man was the respective absence or presence
of breath, and in consequence there is no more common
theory of the soul than that which identifies it with the
breath. To the Hebrew, the soul is not an esoteric and
mystical abstraction ; it is the breath, and the breath
which is the principle of life naturally comes to be regarded
as the centre of the consciousness of life, and of all its
physical or psychical phenomena. The Hebrew word for
this breath-soul is nephesh, and the best translation of
it is often simply life . When the prophet Elijah has
prayed for the restoration to life of the child of the widow
of Zarephath, * the child s nephesh returned upon his
inward parts, and he lived . 1 The idea is clearly that
of the breath as animating the physical organs of the body,
almost as materialistically conceived as when we think
of steam setting an engine in motion. Equally obvious
and natural is the extension of the term nephesh to cover
the inner consciousness of life. The early * Book of the
Covenant says, a sojourner thou shalt not oppress, for
ye know the nephesh of the sojourner, since ye were
sojourners in the land of Egypt . 2 The usage of nephesh
could extend to
All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame ,
but, in practice, for reasons to be given, it was chiefly
used of the emotional life, and, in particular, of physical
appetite, or psychical desire. 3 All this is perfectly straight
forward, and raises no problems. The complications that
have arisen for the study of Hebrew psychology are due
i 1 Kings zvii. 22. * Ex. xxiii. 9. * I Sam. ii. 16 ; xx. 1
iv.] THE IDEA OP MAN 81
to a feature common to much primitive thought. That
thought does not start from one centre only in its explana
tion of phenomena, but from several independent ideas.
These distinct explanations eventually converge on the
fact to be explained, and are reconciled by some form of
syncretism, which continues to puzzle the modern investi
gator until he ceases to expect a systematic arrangement,
and looks simply for the different lines of approach. The
second line of approach to the problem of life adopted by
Hebrew thought is also shared with primitive peoples
in general. It sets out from the different organs of the
body, both central and peripheral. These are credited
with different contributions to the conscious life, because
ancient and primitive thought has not learnt to distin
guish between the physical and the psychical. Thus the
Hebrews spoke of the (physical) heart as the actual
centre of the conscious life in general, and of both its
emotional and intellectual aspects. The term is as general
in its original scope as was nephesh. But, as a result of
the syncretism of these two parallel ideas, * heart and
nephesh come to denote predominantly the intellectual
and the emotional aspects of consciousness respectively,
without complete surrender of their more comprehensive
usage. This is the explanation of such words as those
of the Deuteronomic appeal : ( Thou shalt love Yahweh
thy God with all thy heart and with all thy nephesh, and
with all thy might (vi. 5). This sentence covers the con
scious life of the whole personality, in both its thought
and its feeling.
^ There is also, however, in the Old Testament, a third
line of approach to the mystery of human personality
viz. that afforded by the term ruach, or spirit . This
forms one of the most fascinating and important subjects
of Biblical theology, and the ideas which cluster around
it are the most characteristic of Old Testament ideas in
regard to human nature. It is often said, by those who
F
82 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [en.
have not studied the history of the usage in its chrono
logical development, that ruach is simply another term
for the breath-soul, a synonym of nephesh, though with a
higher range of meaning. To say this is to neglect the
important fact that ruach is not used of the breath-soul
in man, or with psychical predicates, in any pre-exilic
passage. The original meaning of the term, a meaning
it retains throughout all periods of Hebrew literature, is
wind . From that usage it passed over to denote the
mysterious wind-like influences, the demonic forces,
which were supposed to account for what is abnormal
and strange in human conduct. We have to remember
that primitive thought, to a degree we find it hard to
imagine, supposes man to be constantly accessible to such
influences. The quarrel that arose between Abimelech
and the men of Shechem is ascribed to an evil ruach sent
by God ; the madness of Saul and the remarkable strength
of Samson are similarly explained. 1 But that which was
more or less abnormal before the Exile comes to be more
or less normal after it ; by the time of Ezekiel, ruach is
used of the breath-soul in man, as was nephesh. Yet it
always retains and this is a most important point to
notice the * higher associations of its origin. It stands
for those more exceptional and unusual endowments of
human nature which suggest God as their immediate
source, the more normal nephesh being taken for granted.
It links man to God, as though it were a door continually
open to His approach. The function which Professor
James 2 ascribed to the * sub-consciousness was fulfilled
by the idea of ruach to the spiritually-minded Israelite.
Through his own ruach, that is, through his conscious life
viewed in its highest possibilities, he was in touch with
the ruach of God, the source of man s greatest achieve
ments. The nature of man, regarded as in contrast with
i Jud. ix. 23; 1 Sam. xviii. 10; Jud. xv. 14.
The Varieties of Religious- Experience, pp. 512 f.
iv.j THE IDEA OF MAN 83
the nature of God, might be called flesh , as the divine
nature was called spirit ; yet man could pray, with
my ruach within me, I seek longingly for Thee . l
If we bring together these three chief terms nephesh,
heart , and ruach in the working syncretism of their
ultimate usage, we shall see that there is before us a
striking theory of human nature, which may be taken as
characteristic of the Old Testament. The idea of human
nature implies a unity, not a dualism. There is no con
trast between the body and the soul, such as the terms
instinctively suggest to us. The shades of the dead in
Sheol, as we shall see, are not called souls or spirits
in the Old Testament ; nor does the Old Testament contain
any distinct word for body , as it surely would have done,
had this idea been sharply differentiated from that of
soul. / Man s nature is a product of the two factors
the breath-soul which is his principle of life, and
the complex of physical organs, which this animates.
Separate them, and the man ceases to be, in any real sense
of personality ; nothing but a shade remains, which
is neither body nor soul. If this seems but a poor idea
of human nature, we must set over against it the great
redeeming feature, that there is an aspect of this nature
which relates man to God, and makes man accessible to
God. Man had only to. find along this line the fulfilment
of the deepest moral and religious demands of his life,
to be lifted into a realm where personality is victorious
over death.
2. Man 9 s Dependence on God
The foundation for the conception of human nature just
outlined was already in existence when the prophetic theo
logy first began to transform the religion of Israel. The
prophets shared in the psychology of their time; their
l It. xxvi. 9; cf. xxxi. 3.
84 HELIGlOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
own message, as will be seen further on, in large measure
owes its form to that psychology. But the old anthro
pology, tacitly accepted, could not escape gradual trans
formation by the new doctrine of God. Human nature
gained a new significance as the creation of Yahweh,
whose hands had shaped its prototype, and whose breath
had given the body its vitality. The moral consciousness
of man, which was in process of evolution through his
social relationships in the family, the local group, and
the nation, attained a new value and a characteristic
interpretation as the moral law of Yahweh. The very
effort to obey this law, and to promote obedience to it
on the part of others, threw men back on the thought
of the ruach of Yahweh, the potent influence from without
which could create new conditions within human nature.
The common feature in these diverse applications of the
new doctrine of God is insistence on man s dependence
on Him.
It is matter of general knowledge that the Book of
Genesis offers us two distinct narratives of the creation
of man. That of the first chapter (P) is the later, being
post-exilic ; that of the second chapter (J) was written
approximately in the ninth century B.C. In the naive
and frankly anthropomorphic narrative of J the interest
centres in man and his life, just as in the more restrained
description of a later age the theme is rather God and His
glory. Yahweh Elohim , runs the earlier story, * shaped
man, earth from the ground , as a potter would shape his
clay on the wheel, 1 and blew into his nostrils life-breath ;
so man became a living being (nephesh) . Here we have
the two elements which make the unity of human nature
the physical organism, and the breath-soul which
animates it ; both are due to God, and there is no hint,
i ii. 7. Cf. th picture of the Egyptian god Chnum shaping men on th
potter s wheel, reproduced by Jeremias (Das Alte Testament im Lichte dts
alien Orients* p. 146).
IT.] THE IDEA OF MAN 85
in this pre-exilic narrative, of any third element in the
nature of man, viz. ruach, nor any suggestion of dualism.
There is nothing here to distinguish the life-principle in
man from that of the animal world in general, the same
phrases being used of them, 1 though the way in which it
is imparted to man naturally singles him out from other
creatures. This distinction is emphasised in the later
narrative, in which all details of the creative process dis
appear. * Elohim created man in His image, in the image
of Elohim created He him ; male and female created He
them (i. 27). Here man is no longer the central figure in
a garden, where Yahweh walks to enjoy the evening breeze ;
man falls into his proper place in an ordered world,
though he has dominion over all other creatures. What
ever the doubtful phrase, * the image of God , may mean,
it is certainly intended to recognise man s unique relation
to God, and his supremacy over the animal world (cf . p. 72) .
This is the thought which fills the writer of the eighth
Psalm with wonder and gratitude ; a glory has been given
to man little lower than that of the Elohim, the whole
class of supernatural beings in the over-world. 2 In the
104th Psalm the stress falls on the continuous dependence
of all living creatures, including man, on divine support :
{ All of them wait upon Thee
For Thy giving their food in its season ;
Thou givest unto them, they gather (it),
Thou openest Thine hand, they are satisfied with good.
Thou hidest Thy face, they an, dismayed,
Thou withdrawest their ruach, they expire,
And unto their dust they return.
Thou sendest Thy ruach, they are created 8
1 vii. 22 (J), i. 20 (P).
2 On the other hand, the contrast between nature and man is used in the
Book of Job to teach humility (cf. Bertholet, Bib. Theologie de$ A.T.,
ii. p. 133).
Ps. cir. 27-30. Cf. the phrase used by P, the God of the spirits of all
flesh (Num. zvi. 22, zzrii. 16 ; in both cases expressive of man s dependence
on God).
86 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
Again, in the 139th Psalm, this dependence of man on
God is carried to its fullest extent. God knows that
inner life, the organs of which He has fashioned ; He is
present from end to end of the earth, in the heights above,
and in the depths below :
* Behind and before hast Thou enclosed me,
And hast put upon me Thine hand (verse 5).
That Psalm fitly ends with the prayer that God may
search the heart, because the true outcome of man s de
pendence, and of God s purpose, is the obedient life, of
righteousness.
The moral demands of Yahweh were too great to be
satisfied without help from Yahweh Himself. The prophets
who attempted great things for God in the eighth century
were followed by prophets who expected great things
from Him. Accordingly, Ezekiel lays a characteristic
emphasis on the supernatural help that is to create a new
Israel, able to accomplish that in which the old Israel
had failed. * I will put a new spirit within you : and I
will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give
them a heart of flesh : that they may walk in my statutes,
and keep mine ordinances and do them : and they shall
be my people, and I will be their God. ... I have poured
out my spirit upon the house of Israel .* It will be seen
that the prophet is working with a conception drawn from
the old anthropology, the conception of invasive influ
ences, affecting human lives, and imparting new powers
to them. These influences were once thought to come
from many quarters, for man s life was encircled with
demons and spirits. But now Yahweh is supreme, and
it is His ruach alone that will change human character,
and make the impossible to be possible. It is in this
faith that the Psalmist prays, Take not Thy holy ruach
1 xi. 19 f. ; cf. xxxvi. 26, xxxix. 29. Cf. the new covenant of Jer. xxxi
33 f.
iv.] THE IDEA OF MAN 87
from me , and that the bearer of the Old Testament evangel
cries, * The ruach of the Lord Yahweh is upon me V
The universal outpouring of the Spirit of God upon man,
awaited by Old Testament prophets and experienced by
New Testament believers, 2 is thus linked to primitive
ideas of man, and Paul is a debtor to the barbarians for
his spiritual Gospel in a sense other than he recognised.
3. The Relation of the Individual to the Society
Many people are apt to think that the increasing * social
consciousness of the present time is something entirely
new in the history of civilisation. The impression is true
only so far as the immediate economic and civic applica
tions are concerned. At other periods of human develop
ment a similar sense of social solidarity has been pro
minent, and has led to results which, from the modern
standpoint, are often startling, and even immoral. Much-
that is strange to us in ancient thought is due to what we
may best call the sense of corporate personality . The
unit for morality and religion is not so much the individual
as the group to which he belongs, whether this be, for
particular purposes, the family, the local community, or
the nation. There are many evidences that this was the
case in pre-exilic Israel. Yahweh was the God of Israel,
and only secondarily the God of the individual Israelite.
Individual religion of course existed, but it was construed
through the society to which the individual belonged.
In other words, the relation of man to God, like the rela
tion of God to man, was mediated through the corporate
personality of the nation.
The general principle of corporate personality may be
illustrated, in the case of Israel, by the practice of blood-
revenge, which receives religious sanction in the earlier
part of the Old Testament. David consulted the oracle
i Ps. li. 11 ; Is. Ixi. 1. Jol ii. 28 f. ; Act* ii. 16 f.
88 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [ca
of Yahweh as to the cause of a protracted famine, and
was informed that it was due to the slaughter of the
Gibeonites by Saul. 1 The survivors of the Gibeonites
were asked to name their terms of compensation, and
they demanded seven lives from the descendants of Saul,
according to the ordinary principle of blood-revenge,
which treated the whole family of the slayer as the guilty
unit. David therefore handed over to them two of Saul s
sons by Rizpah, and five of his grandsons. These men
were killed by the Gibeonites, and their bodies exposed
before Yahweh , the wrath of whom, as the guardian
of social morality, was thereby removed. There was
no thought of any injustice to the individual men who
were killed. They perished as an act of social justice,
which was demanded by the contemporary religion of
Israel. Another instructive example is supplied by the
story of Achan. 2 Achan offended Yahweh by secreting
some of the spoil of Jericho, which had been devoted
to Him. This act of one man put the whole nation
in the wrong with Yahweh, and He visited His wrath
upon them as a nation by allowing them to be defeated.
Inquisition revealed Achan as the offender, and he was
accordingly executed. But that same sense of corporate
personality which recognised that the whole nation was put
in the wrong by the act of one man is further shown in
the fact that not Achan only, but his whole family, were
stoned to death and burnt. This was no isolated instance
of vindictive spite, but the deliberate application of a
principle which nobody at that time thought of challeng
ing, a principle represented as having the full approval
of Yahweh. It is seen again in the familiar words of the
Decalogue, which represent Yahweh as visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third
1 2 Sam. xxi. 1 f.
2 Josh. vii. 24-26. Cf. Dan. vi. 24 : Daniel s accusers, with tfair wive*
and children, are cast into the lions den.
rv.J THE IDEA OF MAN 89
and upon the fourth generation of them that hate me .*
We must not soften such words into a statement of the
consequences of heredity and social law, which, indeed,
do often make the innocent child suffer for the parent s
fault. They simply mean that the principle of corporate
personality is involved, which regards not the mere
individual, but his whole family-group, as the unit of
condemnation.
A fuller recognition of the claims of individuality
was implied in the moral appeals of the eighth- century
prophets, but it does not become explicit until the publi
cation of the Deuteronomic Law, a century later. The
general principle is there asserted that * the fathers shall
not be put to death for the children, neither shall the
children be put to death for the fathers : every man shall
be put to death for his own sin . 2 It is, however, the
contemporary prophet Jeremiah who makes the most
notable contribution to the principle of individuality.
He does this, in the first place, by the intensity of his
own individual relation to Yahweh, at a time when the
national relation seems in imminent peril of dissolution.
But his personal attitude becomes explicit in the prophecy
of the New Covenant , which Yahweh will make with
individual Israelites. 3 This prophecy seems to be set in
intentional antithesis to the Deuteronomic Covenant with
the nation as a whole, which had failed of its purpose, 4
though perhaps supported by Jeremiah himself in the
first instance. 5 A little later, the principle of individual
responsibility was argued in detail by Ezekiel. He rejects,
as Jeremiah had done, 6 the current proverb by which
people were explaining the troubles of their age : * The
fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children s teeth
1 Ex. xx. 5. Cf. 2 Kings v. 27, where Elisha says to Gehazi : The
leprosy of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed, for err .
2 Deut. xxir. 16. * Jer. xxxi. 33, 34.
* Jer. vi. 16-21, xxxiv. 8 f . * Jer. xi. 1-14.
Ezek. xviii. 2 ; Jer. xxxi. 29, 30.
90 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [en.
are set on edge*. All souls , he declares in Yahweh s
name, 1 are mine ; as the soul of the father, so also the
soul of the son is mine : the soul that sinneth, it shall die .
But the older principle of the solidarity of the family
still flourished, as is plain from the protest against it in
the Book of Job :
God layeth up his iniquity for his children 1
Let Him recompense it unto himself, that he may
know it . 2
The recognition of the rights of the individual life was
certain to be reached by any real progress in morality
and religion, and when it was reached it had important
consequences. It raised the whole problem of suffering,
for the experience of life did not confirm Ezekiel s declara
tion of an exact individual retribution and reward. The
problem of suffering, as will be shown, raised the related
problem of the future life. The corporate future of the
family or the nation on earth could no longer satisfy those
who had come to feel their individual relation to God,
and to consider what death meant. The effects of the
new demands are visible in the literature of the period
between the Old Testament and the New, with its marked
accentuation of individualism, and its complex eschato-
* logical developments. It is, however, only in the New
Testament that we find * a synthesis of the eschatologies
of the race and the individual . 8 The individualism of
the New Testament owes its peculiar qualities to that
social emphasis from which, in the Old Testament period,
it had been developed. For, just as the older emphasis
in morality and religion on the sense of corporate person
ality did not exclude the growth of individual experience,
so the newer emphasis on the individual did not imply the
* rejection of a very real and vital social solidarity. What
we regard as the old error contributed, and contributed
i Ezek. zviii. 4. Job xxi. 19. Charles, X. Bi., col. 1372,
iv.J THE IDEA OF MAN 91
richly, to the new truth. Whether we think of the remark
able patriotic solidarity of the Jewish people, maintained
at such cost, and for so long, or of the finest and highest
religious conception of the Old Testament, that of the
mission and work of the corporate Israel as the Servant
of Yahweh, or of the foundation laid by the Old Testa
ment religion for the social individualism of the New
we may see, once more, that without the shadowed valleys
of the religion of Israel we should not have had its moun
tain peaks.
"^ ** x "
4. The Future Life
Just because the sense of corporate personality was so ,
strongly developed in early Israel, the idea of a future life
for the individual was hardly reached within the Old
Testament. The Israelite felt that he went on living in
liis children to a degree that really made their life his
own. We have seen, as in the case of Saul s descend
ants, that he could be punished through his children,
according to contemporary thought. When the prophet
pictures Rachel at her grave in Ramah weeping for her
children, 1 it is much more than metaphor. The woman
of Tekoa appeals to David to spare the life of her surviv
ing son, who has slain his brother, because, as she says,
thus shall they quench my coal which is left, and shall
leave to my husband neither name nor remainder upon*
the face of the earth . 2 Hence the importance attached
by the Hebrew to a numerous posterity ; it is not said
to the good man that he shall be rewarded in some future
life, but
* Thou shalt know also that thy seed shall be great,
And thine offspring as the grass of the earth . 3
\Vhen men die they are gathered unto their fathers, and
i Jer. mi. 15. * 2 Sam. xiv. 7. Job Y. 2$.
92 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
desire to be buried in the family grave. 1 Israelite customs
in regard to the burial of the dead seem to point to some
form of ancestor-worship as surviving from previous
times into the earlier centuries of Yahwism. 2 This would
explain the opposition of the prophets to some of these
customs, as well as to the practice of consulting the dead
for information unattainable by natural means. * Ye
^hall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between
your eyes, for the dead , says the Book of Deuteronomy
(xiv. 1), whilst Isaiah speaks contemptuously of those
who resort unto them that have familiar spirits and unto
the wizards, that chirp and that mutter (viii. 19). An
instructive example of such necromancy is afforded by
the well-known, visit of Saul to the witch of Endor, when
Yahweh answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by
Urim, nor by prophets . 3 The shade of Samuel, attired
as of old, is represented as asking, Why hast thou dis
quieted me, to bring me up ?
The dead are thus supposed to go on existing in some
sense or other, even by the early thought of Israel. But it
is an existence that has no attraction for the Israelite, and
falls outside the sphere of his proper religion. It is not
his soul that survives at all ; the dead are called shades
(rephaim), not * souls , in the Old Testament. The (sub
terranean) place of their abiding is called Sheol, and in
many particulars it is like the Greek Hades. Sheol seems
be an outgrowth of the family grave, probably under
the influence of Babylonian ideas. It is * the house of
meeting for all living , the land of darkness, and of the
shadow of death , 4 where the distinctions of earth, even
its moral distinctions, cease to operate :
There the wicked cease from raging,
And there the weary be at rest.
1 Jud. ii. 10 ; 2 Sam. xix. 37.
2 In support of this view, see Charles, E. i., col. 1835 f. ; against it,
Kautzsch, D. E., v. pp. 614 f. Samuel s shade is called Elohim .
1 Sara. xxTiii. . . Job x. 23, x. 21.
iv.j THE IDEA OF MAN 03
There the prisoners are at ease together ;
They hear not the voice of the taskmaster.
The small and the great are there ;
And the servant is free from his master .*
The most vivid description of Sheol, however, is that
which is found in the Book of Isaiah, describing the fall
of a tyrant :
Sheol beneath is thrilled at thee,
Meeting thine advent ;
Arousing for thee the shades,
All the bell-wethers of Earth,
Making rise up from their thrones
All the kings of the nations.
They shall all of them answer
And say to thee,
" Thou, too, art made weak as we,
Unto us art made like".
Brought down unto Sheol is thy pomp,
The music of thy lutes ;
Beneath thee maggots are spread,
And (of) worms is thy coverlet .*
This gives the characteristic feature of Sheol for Hebrew
thought made weak as we . The same note echoes
through the literature of the Old Testament, as in the
Song of Hezekiah, 3 and in many of the Psalms. To pass
into Sheol is to pass from life into death, for in Sbeol
who shall give Thee thanks ? * Sheol is a survival of
the pre-Yahwistic beliefs of Israel, and is not usually
conceived as lying within the jurisdiction of Yahweh.
It will be apparent that so cheerless an outlook as this
could provide no doctrine of a future life worthy of the
name. Israel remained content with it so long because,
as we have seen, the hope of Israel lay with the future of
i Job iii. 17-19.
* xiv. 9-11. Trans, by G. B. Gray, in the International Critical
Commentary, p. 248. For another account of Sheol. see Ezek. xixii. 18 f.
Is. xxxriii. 10 f. Ps. vi. 6.
94 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
the family or of the nation, a future to be realised on
earth. But, with the failure of the national hope, involved
*in the destruction of the Judaean kingdom, and with the
rise of the new individualism, the outlook on the individual
future beyond death was necessarily affected. The same
monotheistic influences which extended the sway of
Yahweh beyond the land of Israel over the whole earth
tended, sooner or later, to carry it into the dark land of
Sheol. Already we find Amos saying in Yahweh s name,
Though they dig into Sheol, thence shall my hand take
them , whilst a Psalmist confesses the omnipresence of
God in the words, If I make my bed in Sheol, behold,
Thou art there - 1 Sooner or later, men found that the
hard and fast doctrine of individual retribution enunciated
by Ezekiel broke down, so far as the visible lives of indi
vidual men were concerned. It lay in the nature of
things, therefore, that the book which especially handles
the problem of suffering, the Book of Job, should make
the first tentative demand for a life beyond death. 2 The
problem would not have existed in the form it did for
Job, if he had been able to maintain, with the support of
established belief, that in some future life the injustice of
his sufferings would be rectified. He does, in fact, for a
moment imagine that there might be some such future in
his own case, but the transient imagination cannot bear
the weight of his cares :
Oh, that Thou wouldest hide me in Sheol,
That Thou wouldest keep me in secret, until Thy wrath be
past,
That Thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember
me !
i Amos ir. 2 ; Ps. cxxxix. 8. The character of Sheol remains unaltered by
this inclusion in Yahweh s dominion.
8 The suggestion that the tree of life in Eden might have conferred
immortality on Adam (Gen. iii. 22), and the translations of Enoch (v. 24),
and Elijah (2 Kings ii. 11), are exceptional cases, and simply prove the rule
for the common man, that no real life beyond death awaited him.
iv.] THE IDEA OF MAN 96
If a man die, shall he live again ? *
All the days of my warfare would I wait
Till my release should come.
Thou shouldest call, and I would answer Thee :
Thou wouldest have a desire to the work of Thy hands .
(xiv. 13-1M
This desire for some exceptional vindication of the speaker s
innocence finds yet stronger expression in famous and
frequently misunderstood words ;
But I I know that my Vindicator liveth,
And in after time shall take His stand upon the dust }
And after my skin, which has been thus struck ofi^
Even without my flesh shall I see God.
Whom I shall see for myself,
And my eyes shall behold, and not a stranger ;
My reins are consumed within me 1 l
Here, again, the hope is not so much of a future life, as
of a future vindication, for the sake of which life shall
be exceptionally restored. Even from this hope Job
falls back in the following chapters, showing clearly
that it is a personal venture of faith which is in question,
and not an established doctrine.
We may find similar ventures of faith in certain of the
Psalms, prompted by the same problem of human fortunes,
and characterised by the indefiniteness which we should
expect to find in such gropings after a dimly conceived
truth. The most important of these is the great passage
in the 73rd Psalm :
Nevertheless, I am continually with Thee ;
Thou holdest my right hand.
Thou wilt guide me with Thy counsel,
And afterward receive me with glory
1 Job xix. 25-27. The translation is Burney s, in Israel s Hope of Immoi*
tality (p. 52). which gives a fulle. (popular) discussion of the whole topic.
96 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
Whom have I in heaven but Thee ?
And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.
My flesh and my heart faileth,
God is the rock of my heart, and my portion for ever - 1
The important point to notice in this, and in other pos-
^sible references, is the particular quality of the hope
- resulting from the way in which it was reached. The
hope of a future is made to depend on the relation of the
~ soul to God. That relation is felt to have a mystical value,
transcending the fact of death. We have here, as has
been truly said, a strength of conviction of the reality
of personal union with God, under which the thought of
death as it were fades into the background and is ignored.
. . . This conviction of a personal relation to God inde-
I pendent of time and change, and not any particular theory
as to the character of the life after death, is the lasting
contribution of the Old Testament to the doctrine of a
Future Life . 2 The fact that this belief appeared so late
gave it the opportunity, when it did come, to absorb
the noblest moral and spiritual elements in Israel s religion,
and to transcend all the ideas of the future held by
Contemporary nations. 8
But such a faith in the future as this perhaps demanded
too high a degree of spiritual development for it ever to
become the faith of the average man. To translate it into
his vernacular, moreover, would have required the philo
sophical outlook of the Greek world, with its character
istic doctrine of the immortality of the soul. This Greek
i doctrine is, in fact, borrowed by the author of the Apocry-
1 phal book known as the Wisdom of Solomon. 4 But
1 The reference to a future life found by some in Pss. xvi. 10, 11 and
XTJi. 15 is improbable ; that alleged in Ps. xlix. 15 is mre likely. The sub
ject is discussed in detail by Cheyne, Origin of the Psalter, pp. 381-425.
a Burney, op. cit, pp. 46, 104.
Cf. Sellin, Die alttest. Relit
ligion, p. 55. On the other hand, a natural
immortality (on Greek lines) would have made man too independent of God
for Hebrew-Jewish thought
iii. 1-9.
iv.] THE IDEA OF MAN 97
Hebrew psychology pointed along another line, that leading y
to the idea of the resurrection of the body. We have seen
that human nature was conceived by the Hebrew as a
unity requiring both elements, body and soul, to con
stitute it. Existence in Sheol lacked vitality, because it *
lacked both body and soul. If the Hebrew was to acquire
any idea of life after death which possessed a real vitality,
according to his native conceptions of life, there would
have to be a resurrection of the dead body for the re
covered soul to animate it. This is the line along which
the thought of Palestinian Judaism, as distinct from the
Alexandrian or Graecised Judaism, actually developed in
the period between the two Testaments. The beginning
of this idea of a resurrection of the body is already found *
in two passages of the Old Testament, both of them con
nected with the Messianic hope of Judaism. 1 The earlier
of these, belonging possibly to the fourth century B.C.,
is obscure in detail, but clear as to the point in question,
the faith that Yahweh will raise to life the bodies of His %
martyrs : * Thy dead shall live ; my dead bodies shall
arise. Awake and ring out your joy, ye that dwell in the
dust ; for a dew of lights is thy dew, and the earth shall
give birth to shades . 2 It should be carefully noticed
that this resurrection -life is to be realised in Palestine, j
with the earthly Jerusalem as its centre; there is no I
reference to a future life in some other world, nor is it
believed that any but faithful Israelites will be raised. 8
The later passage, found in the Book of Daniel, belongs
definitely to the second century B.C., that book having
been written in the period of persecution suffered by the
Jews from 168 to 165 B.C. We there read, * Many of
them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some
to everlasting life, and some to reproaches and everlasting
i Ezekiel s rision of the Valley of Dry Bones (xxxvii ) is a metaphor,
describing the restoration of the Jewish people, and not a promise of actual
individual resurrection.
* Is. xxTi. 19. Contrast Terse 14.
98 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH,
abhorrence* (xii. 2). Here there is a notable advance on
the previous conception of the resurrection. It is not
yet universal, for apparently it is confined to those only
who have been prominent for good or for evil in contem-
I porary events. But there is a resurrection of the wicked,
j as well as of the good, and punishment and reward are
respectively assigned to them. Here, also, it is in the
future life of the Messianic kingdom to be established on
earll that the saints of God will share. The faith of the
writer of the Book of Daniel was continued in the Pharisees
of the New Testament, just as the Sadducees continued the
| entire scepticism as to any future life displayed in Ecclesi-
astes. 1 The elaborate development of eschatology in the
Apocalyptic literature, e.g. the Book of Enoch (part of
which belongs to the same age as the Book of Daniel),
necessarily falls beyond our subject. All that we have
-4* to note is that the Old Testament lays the foundation for
the doctrine of future life given in the New, both on the
cruder side of a Messianic resurrection, and on the finer,
more spiritual side, which is represented in the ultimate
outlook of the Apostle Paul. 1
!As we look back on the Old Testament idea of human
nature and destiny, we see that man stands out in clear
distinction from both Nature and God. 8 Man is no mere
item in the natural world, but is separately created by
God, who controls Nature in the interests of His purposes
for man. Man is linked to God by the moral law which
God has made known to him ; in the companionship for
which this law is the condition, man and God stand together
far above Nature s level. In fact, there is no * Nature ,
written with a capital letter, as a unity apart from Gcd,
but simply a world of natural phenomena entirely in God s
hand, and made the arena for human history. But, in
i iii. 19-22; ix. 3-6; cf.p. 174.
8 Of. H. W. Robinson, The Christian Doctrine of Man, pp. 129-31.
Of. the excellent presentation of this in Koeberle s Natur und Gfeist,
chap. xxii. ( Die Stellung des Menichen in der Natur ).
iv.] THE IDEA OF MAN 99
contrast with God, man is characterised by his utter t
dependence on Him, both for his existence and for his
destiny. If that destiny is to be achieved, it will be only
by the help of God. Whilst it is seen that that destiny
is the realisation of righteousness, the plane on which it
is to be realised is held to be the present world. The
intensity with which the Israelite clings to the present
life corresponds to his belief that personality is a unity,
demanding both soul and body, and that there is no life,
worthy of the name, beyond death. When his faith does
begin to assail the iron gate of death, it is with a demand
for future life all the richer and fuller because of his long
concentration on the life that now is. The immortality .
he craves is essentially the society of God, already opened
to him in moral and spiritual experience. The resur
rection of the body for which he ultimately asks, as neces
sary to the restoration of personality, is the prelude to
the establishment of a society of the servants of God.
For, however much the Old Testament comes to realise
the individuality of salvation, that individuality always
carries with it the wealth of social relationship which is
the legacy of centuries of olosely-knit corporate life.
We have but to contrast this idea of man with others
widely current in the ancient or modern world to recognise
that the conception held by Israel most of all deserves |
the title religious , i.e. human nature is interpreted
through its relation to a personal God. The thought of
India is ultimately metaphysical ; the human soul in its
successive transmigrations is always dominated by its back
ground of Pantheistic absorption. The thought of Greece
banishes its gods, and enters the scientific realms of biology
and psychology, though numerous cults and mysteries testify
to the irrepressible religious needs of the soul. It is less
easy to analyse the subtle combinations of modern thought,
which borrows from so much of the past professedly left
behind. But a clear contrast with the Hebrew idea of
100 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
man is supplied by those who philosophise from the stand
point of natural science. Man is Nature s Insurgent
Son , 1 a part of Nature, a product of the definite and
orderly evolution which is universal ; a being resulting
from and driven by the one great nexus of mechanism
which we call Nature ; * Man forms a new departure in
the gradual unfolding of Nature s predestined scheme ;
Man is Nature s rebel ; * the knowledge and control
of Nature is Man s destiny and his greatest need . 2 Here
Nature as creator takes the place of Israel s God, and man
is left to work out his own salvation without religious fear
or trembling. By the side of this current idea of man
we may set the Pantheistic optimism to which Emerson
has given striking and memorable expression. Take, for
example, his essay on * The Over-Soul , any page of which
would supply illustrative examples. Within man is the,
soul of the whole ; the wise silence ; the universal beauty,
to which every part and particle is equally related ; the
eternal ONE. . . . The simplest person, who in his integrity
worships God, becomes God. ... I am somehow recep
tive of the great soul, and thereby I do overlook the sun
and the stars, and feel them to be the fair accidents and
effects which change and pass . Here Nature, in the
narrower scientific sense, has become as subservient to
Spirit as it is for Hebrew thought, but the mystical relation
of man to the Over-soul is entirely different from that
Hebrew * mysticism which brought the human and the
divine spiritually face to face, without losing their
distinction.
The Psalmist whom the night-sky stirred to ask the
great question, What is man ? found a double echo
to his words. 8 One was a bitter parody of them, wrung
from a sufferer s lips ; the other an Ecce Homo, applying
1 The title of Ray Lankester s Romanes Lecture in 1905 ; given in his
hook, The Kingdom of Man, pp. 1-61, and forming a good statement of the
evolutionary point of view.
Op. cit., pp. 7, 25, 26, 60. See Job vii, 17, 18 ; Heb. ii. 6-9.
iv.] THE IDEA OF MAN 101
them to Him who hath been made a little lower than the
angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death
crowned with glory and honour . Around the explana
tion of these three passages, so closely linked, might be
gathered no small part of the Biblical doctrine of man.
They respectively teach that the fundamental fact of
human life is man s dependence on God, that much in
the course of man s life appears to be tragic defeat, that
through the discipline and sacrifice of suffering man can
achieve a victory worthy of his God-given nature and
place in the universe.
102 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [ca
CHAPTER V
THE APPROACH OF GOD TO MAN
ANCIENT religion does not, in the first instance, spring
from pious meditation on the universe, or from the aspira
tions of moral and spiritual life after fellowship with the
gods. It usually begins in some definite occurrence,
some surprise on the path of familiar custom, some unex
plained experience. In religion, as in science, the excep
tion does not so much * prove the rule as form the point
of departure for the discovery of new rules. Just as the
slight deviation of one planet from its path in the skies
has, before now, served to discover the presence of another,
so any interruption of a man s normal life may open his
eyes to a supernatural * world. * Looking upon the
religious tradition of Beny Israel, from the soil of the
desert , says Doughty, speaking with his unrivalled know
ledge of the modern Beduin, we might muse of its rising
in Jacob s family, out of the nomad Semites vision of
the mdilk\ i.e. the * angels of the air , perhaps originally
suggested by mirage. 1 Jacob s ladder may be but the
stairway of a dream ; yet, given certain conditions of
thought, it may be transformed into the greatest of
spiritual realities, * the great world s altar-stairs that
slope through darkness up to God .
The attitude of ancient religion towards both psychical
and external events is different from our own. Primitive
thought is wanting in any sharp distinction between sub
jective and objective experiences ; a dream, for example,
i Arabia fleserta, ii. p. 379 ; cf. i. pp. 449, 548.
v.] THE APPROACH OF GOD TO MAN 103
is regarded as a vision of something externally existent.
Similarly, there is nothing like that clear-cut line which
is often drawn to-day between the natural and the super
natural ; there is no conception of Nature as an entity,
with laws of its own in contrast with * supernatural
interferences with those laws ; the whole environment
consists partly of the visible and partly of the invisible,
and the practical distinction is that between the usual
and the unusual. The result of these conditions is that
something we might explain as a purely natural pheno
menon may be taken as the revelation or manifestation
of some power of the mysterious world, and may become
the starting-point of religious belief or practice.
The beliefs of Semitic nomads, in ancient and in modern
times, suggest four principal ways in which the spiritual
powers of their environment were conceived to approach
men, and to influence their lives. (1) A man s attention
might be drawn to something peculiar or unusual in his
immediate surroundings, e.g. a desert mirage, or a rustling
tree. 1 (2) Good or bad fortune, especially as concen
trated in some particular event, might be ascribed to spirit
interference. 2 (3) An ancient worshipper was generally
very definite in his petitions ; he wanted practical guid
ance and help, and expected some sign or token as the
response of the spirit-world to his questions. 3 (4) Any
1 Thus an Arab of the Moabite country was frightened at sight of a group
of horsemen ; when he saw the mirage effect vanish, he ascribed the vision
to a demon (Jausen, Coutumes des Arab s, p. 322). A holy man at Nebk
claimed to have seen a sacred walnut-tree in flames near a shrine (Curtias,
Primitive Semitic Religion, p. 93) probably like the burning bush of Moses,
an appearance due to some electrical phenomenon (Robertson Smith, Rel.
Sem., p. 194). Doughty slept once in a ruin supposed to be haunted by
jinns, or spirits, and traced the belief to the waving branches of a palm in
the orchard near (Ar. Des., ii. p. 3).
2 An absent-minded rider passed a sacred tomb near Ter*in without
saluting it, and within half an hour was thrown from his horse and broke
his leg ; he rapidly recovered, however, when a she-goat was sacrificed at
the tomb (Jausscn, op. cit. t p. 299).
3 A favourite form amongst the ancient Arabs was the casting of lots by
blunt arrows; these signified yes and no , in connection with sacrifice
before an idol (Wellhausen, Reste, p. 133). Holy wells gave oracles, ai at
104 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH
peculiar physical or psychical state of personal life could
be ascribed to an invasive spirit or demon. In ancient
Arabia the * jinns were made responsible for everything
abnormal, but especially for madness, pa&eion, the inspira
tion of seer, poet, or musician. 1
The general influence of Semitic animism upon the
religion of Israel has already been noticed. 2 These four
ways of conceiving the contact of the spirit-world with
human life are all represented in the Old Testament, but
they are appropriated for Yahweh alone, who draws
near to man by dream, by oracle, or seer *, and by His
control of the fortunes of a nation or an individual. The
entrance of Yahweh into human life, as conceived by the
earlier religion of Israel, is made through (a) theophanies,
i.e. appearances of Yahweh ; (6) miracles ; (c) various
forms of oracle ; (d) the abnormal physical and psychical
states explained by reference to the Spirit of Yahweh.
These, it will be seen, correspond to the four ways indicated
for the Semites in general. In connection with the last
of them, when transformed by a growing sense of morality,
there appears that peculiar and distinctive feature of
Israel s religion, the prophetic consciousness. Finally, the
message of Yahweh through the living voice is replaced
by that through the written word, which is itself, in large
measure, a secondary product of the prophetic conscious
ness and of the priestly oracle.
1. Early Manifestations of Yahweh
(a) The theophanies recorded in the Old Testament are
of two principal types, according as the media of mani-
Aphaca, by the sinking or casting forth of the gift ( Rel. Sent., p. 178). After
sacrifice at a sacred tree, a modern Arab who is sick will sleep beneath it,
in faith that the spirit will come to him and, in a dream, tell him how to get
well(^4r. Des., i. p. 449).
1 Wellhausen, op. cit., p. 156. Doughty was often expected to show his
kill as a physician by binding tnd casting out the jinns causing sicknest
(Ar.De S .,i.p.5
* Chap. ii. 3.
v.] THE APPROACH OF GOD TO MAN 105
festation are supplied by natural phenomena or by the
human form. In the former class, the dominating idea
is that which brings Yahweh into special relation with
storm-phenomena. This has led to the belief that Yahweh
was originally, in pre-Mosaic times, a storm-god. There is
no question that Hebrew thought interpreted the thunder
storm as an avenue of approach peculiarly appropriate
to Yahweh. The Law was given on Sinai to the accom
paniment of * thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud
upon the mount , and it was in the calm after a thunder
storm that Elijah heard God there. 1 When Yahweh
came from the south to help His people on the Great Plain,
the earth trembled, the heavens also dropped, yea, the
clouds dropped water . 2 The thunder is the voice of
Yahweh; the lightnings are His arrows and glittering
spear ; the original suggestion of the rainbow was that
Yahweh had laid aside His battle-bow. 3 Samuel offers and
obtains thunder and rain in harvest-time as a token from
Yahweh. 4 Prophets describe the judgment of Yahweh
against His enemies as accomplished through the storm :
* Yahweh shall cause His glorious voice to be heard, and
shall show the lighting down of His arm, with the indigna
tion of His anger, and the flame of a devouring fire, with
a blast, and tempest, and hailstones . 6 The cherubim
and seraphim are mythological figures apparently derived
from the thunder-cloud chariot of Yahweh, and from His
serpent-like lightning/ Yahweh is also manifested by
the phenomena of fire in general, as by the stove vomiting
smoke and flame that passed between the pieces of Abram s
sacrifice, the burning bush seen by Moses, the pillar of
cloud-shrouded fire that led the Israelites, the cloud that
filled the temple of Solomon. 6 Similarly, in the later
i Ex. xix. 16 ; 1 Kings xix. 11, 12.
* Jud. v. 4 ; cf. the storm -theophany of Ps. xviii.
8 Ps. xxix. ; Hab. iii. 11 ; G*n. ix. 13 (P).
4 1 Sam. xii. 17, 18 ; cf. 1 Kings xviii. 44. Ts. ixx. 30,
Gen. XT. 17 ; Ex. iii. 2, xiii. 21, 22 ; 1 King* riii. 10.
106 KELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
literature, the glory of Yahweh is often a fiery appear
ance ; 1 beyond the limits of the Old Testament it becomes
the Shechinah , the Light of God s presence. 2
The second type of Old Testament theophany is afforded
by the angel of Yahweh . This remarkable figure, who
appears in the earlier narratives, is not to be confused
with any of the later * angels . They are clearly dis
tinguished from Yahweh, and subordinated to Him, but
this theophanic figure is frequently identified with Yahweh,
as when the angel of God says to Jacob, * I am the
God of Bethel . 8 At other times, probably representing
a somewhat later stage of thought, there is a measure of
distinction from Yahweh, as in the case of the angel
sent from Sinai to be Israel s guide to Canaan, and Yahweh s
representative. Yet, even in this case, Yahweh is present
in His messenger , for it is said, My name is in him . 4
Thus, the angel of Yahweh may be described as an
occasional manifestation of Yahwe* in human form,
possessing no distinct and permanent personality but
speaking and spoken of, at times as Yahw& Himself . . .
at times as distinct from Him . 5 The figure of this angel *
marks the growing recognition of the truth that the vision
of God Himself is too terrible for human eyes : * man shall
not see me and live . 6 But we must not fall into the
error of tracing this to any metaphysical ground. It
is not actually impossible to see God in realistic fashion,
for, as an exceptional case, it is recorded that Moses and
others saw the God of Israel, without His hand being
laid upon them. 7 Such a story as that of Jacob s struggle
i Ezek. i. 4, x. 4, etc. ; Ex. xxiv. 17 (P).
* Cf. (for this later usage) Dante s symbolism in Par. xxxiii. 115 f.
* Gen. xxxi. 11, 13. In all the old accounts of such appearances the mal ak
is, first or last, identified with the deity (Moore, Judges, p. 183).
4 Ex. xxiii. 21 ; cf. Is. xxx. 27. The conception of the name as a partial
manifestation of the personality is frequent in primitive thought ; the goddess
Astarte is called the Name of Baal . With Ex. xxxiii. 14 ( My face shall go
with thee ) cf. the title of the goddess Tanith, Face of Baal .
6 Gray, E. Bi. t col. 5035. 8 Ex. xxxiii. 20.
Ex. xxiv. 9 f.
v.] THE APPROACH OF GOD TO MAN 107
with God at Peniel is full of the deepest moral and spiritual
suggestiveness for the modern mind. But we can hardly
exaggerate the crude realism of its original meaning, and
of the words, * I have seen God face to face, and my life
is preserved .*
(b) A miracle for the Hebrew mind is what its etymology
ought to imply to us ; it is simply * something wonderful
from the standpoint of the observer, not by comparison
with any established natural order existing in quasi-
independence of God. Every event in Nature is looked
at merely as a single act of God s free will, rain and sun
shine as well as earthquake and prodigy J . 2 Accordingly,
what the Hebrew mind regards as a miracle s a wonder
ful manifestation of the divine presence may or may not
be a miracle according to the popular meaning of the
word to-day. The Hebrew could regard the drowning
of the Egyptians in the Red Sea and the speaking of
Balaam s ass as both miracles; whereas the first would
ordinarily be explained to-day as a natural event due
to meteorological causes, and the second as a piece of un
natural folk-lore. The fact is, that we apply to all events
a standard which did not exist for the Hebrew the
standard of an established natural order, which by no
means excludes what is ordinarily .called the miraculous,
when this is understood to be the manifestation of a not
less established spiritual order. It should be noted that
* miracles , in the Old Testament, are not confined to
Yahweh and Yahweh s servants,* and that the mere
ability to work a miracle is not held to prove prophetic
i Gen. xxxii. 30.
Schultz, Old Testament Theology, E.T., ii. p. 192.
The word miracle is not used in the R.V., but in the A. V. it trans
lates three Hebrew terms, viz. niphl&oth (wonderful acts, Jud. vi. 13),
mdpheth (a portent or extraordinary event, Ex. vii. 9), and 6th, a sign, i.e.
something, ordinary (Ex. xii. 13, xxxi. 13 ; Is. xx. 3, etc.) or extraordinary,
as the case may be, regarded as significant oi a trutli beyond itself, or
impressed with a Divine purpose (Driver, Deuteronomy, on iv. 34).
* Cf. those of the Egyptian magicians (Ex. vii. 11, 12) ; note, also, those of
the opponents of Jesus (Luke xi. 19).
108 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT jcn,
inspiration and veracity. 1 On the other hand, even so
spiritual a prophet as Isaiah is so confident of the imme
diate support of Yahweh as to offer to Ahaz any sign the
> king may choose in confirmation of the prophet s word. 2
yTo the prophets, indeed, the whole history of Israel is a
continuous miracle, though particular events stand out
from the rest because of their striking nature, or peculiar
significance.
(c) The simplest form of oracular guidance is illustrated
by the sign asked by Eliezer as an indication of the divinely
appointed wife for Isaac ; she is to be the maiden who offers
drink for his camels as well as for himself. 3 Or the sign
may be something abnormal, such as the condition of
Gideon s fleece. 4 Peculiar means of divination were
employed in early times, such as the divining-cup of
Joseph, 5 the resort of Saul to the spirit of Samuel, 8 the
sound of the wind in trees, 7 etc. In the Deuteronomic
reformation, however, the official use by the priests of
the sacred lot, known as the Urim and Thummim, sur
vived to the exclusion of all other methods of obtaining
guidance from the spiritual world. 8 The nature of this
practice is best illustrated by the Greek version of 1 Samuel
xiv. 41, which here preserves the original of the now
mutilated Hebrew text : And Saul said, Yahweh, God
of Israel, why hast Thou not answered Thy servant to-day ?
is the wrong in me or in Jonathan my son ? Yahweh,
God of Israel, give Uriin ; and if thus Thou say, give to
Thy people Israel, give Thummim . This shows that the
oracle simply settled the alternatives which were put
before it. The Urim and Thummin are employed in
connection with the ephod, which is usually understood
Deut. xiii. 1 f. IB. vii. 11.
Gen. xxiv. 12 f. ; cf. 1 Sam. xiv. 10 f. Even a chance word might yield
n omen (1 Kings xx. 33, R.V. mar.).
Jud. vi. 36-40. * Gen. xlir. 5, 16.
1 Sam. xxviii. 7 f . 7 2 Sum. T. 24.
Deut. xviii. 10, 11.
v.] THE APPROACH OF GOD TO MAN 109
to be some form of image of Yahweh ; 1 appeal to this
kind of oracle is frequent in the early period, but was not
available at the Return, 2 and cannot be proved for the
post-exilic period. To this or some similar method of
casting lots, either at a sanctuary or in some solemn ritual,
are to be referred various other instances of resort to an
oracle of Yahweh in connection with the guidance of
military movements, the selection of a king, discovery of
the cause of a famine. 3 Parallel with this official use of
the sacred lot, we have also to remember the frequent
cases in which dreams are made the channel of some
divine communication, especially in connection with a
sanctuary. 4 It was a widespread ancient practice to sleep
in some holy place or temple, and to regard any dream
that came as a divine revelation. On many occasions
Yahweh is said to have revealed Himself or His purposes
in dreams, as when He warns Laban and Abimelech, or
foretells the future to Pharaoh and to Joseph, or calls
Samuel, or encourages Gideon through the dream of the
Midianite. 6 The psychological conditions of dreaming
the passivity of the sleeper, the disregard of temporal
and spatial limitations, the unconscious reproduction of
the dreamer s own thoughts as though spoken by another,
and in some cases the actual intensification of psychical
activity in dream-states have made dreams a favourite
channel of revelation amongst many peoples. The most
vivid account of the dream-state as revelation is that
given by Eliphaz in the Book of Job (iv. 13 f.) :
In thoughts from the visions of the night,
When deep sleep falleth on men,
1 This is doubtful ; it seems more probable that the ephod was a special
development of the primitive loin-cloth , with phallic associations (see Foote
in Journal of Biblical Literature, xxi. (1902), pp. 1-47).
a Ezra ii. 63.
Jud. i. 1 f., cf. xviii. 5, 6 ; 1 Sam. x. 22 ; 2 Sam. xxi. 1 f.
1 Kings iii. 5, ix. 2 ; cf. Gen. xxviii. 12.
Gen. xxxi. 24, xx. 8 f., xli. 1 f., xxxvii. 5-10; 1 Sam. Hi. 3 f. ; Jud. vii
110 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
Fear came upon me and trembling,
Which made all my bones to shake.
Then a breath passed over my face ;
The hair of my flesh stood up.
It stood still, but I could not discern the appearance thereof ;
A form was before mine eyes :
There was silence, and I heard a voice .
(d) In regard to the early ideas of the Spirit of God,
the Christian suggestions of moral and spiritual meaning
must not be read into a phenomenon which was more or
less physically conceived. The ancient Hebrew, like the
nomadic Arab of ancient and modern times, ascribed to
an invasive spirit those phenomena of human personality
which he could not otherwise explain. But, in the Old
Testament, all these influences from without which act
on man are more or less subordinated to Yahweh, the
ultimately supreme power in Hebrew experience. Just
as the mysterious wind* is one of His instruments, so
the * spirit* is another. Both are denoted by the same
word in Hebrew, for both are energies much akin in their
effects, especially to those who have not learnt to dis
tinguish clearly between the physical and the psychical
worlds. A man who is influenced by angry excitement,
by mad impulses, by ecstatic tendencies, usually shows
his psychical condition by his physical state, as by pant
ing, gasping, etc. The Hebrew seems in this way to have
connected the blowing of the wind without, and the
blowing of the wind-like spirit within. Consequently, the
Hebrew referred to the direct action of the Spirit of God
the passionate indignation through which Saul roused
Israel against the Ammonites, the superhuman strength
by which Samson tore a young lion to pieces with his
hands, the trumpet-note of Gideon against the Midianites
and Amalekites. 1 The transitory madness of Saul is
ascribed to an evil spirit from Yahweh . 2 Similarly,
1 1 Sun. zi. 6 ; Jud. ilv. 6, vi. 34. * 1 Sam. x vi. 14.
v.] THE APPROACH OF GOD TO MAN 111
the ecstatic conditions of early * prophecy , the abnormal
state in which the early prophet chanted his message, is
traced to the Spirit of Yahweh, as we see in the narrative
of Saul s meeting with the wandering band of these
prophets ; l he caught the contagion of their influence,
and displayed the same physical and psychical excite
ment. In process of time, anything remarkable in a
man s conduct or ability, quite apart from the exhibi
tion of passionate excitement, comes to be traced to the
Spirit of God. Joseph is described as a man in whom
the Spirit of God is , apparently with reference to his
skill in the interpretation of dreams ; the spirit of wisdom
in Joshua is mediated through the laying on of the hands
of Moses ; whilst, in post-exilic writings, even the remark
able skill of an artificer is thought to be the result of
inspiration. 2 Thus, by the time of Ezekiel, we find the
idea of the Spirit of God applied to ethical and spiritual
characteristics, in accordance with the new idea of the
divine character. Not only does Ezekiel think of the
nation as brought to life again from its valley of dry bones,
but he looks for supernatural aid in the creation of a new
character within those who shall live as Yahweh requires ;
this character he ascribes to the Spirit of God. 8 But
such ideas were not attained in the earlier period, during
which the Spirit of God is a quasi-material energy produc
ing results in human lives that have nothing essentially
ethical or religious in their content. How material
istic this conception is may be seen from the narrative
which describes the transference to the seventy elders of
a portion of the Spirit given to Moses, or from the prayer
of Elisha for an eldest son s portion of Elijah s spirit. 4
In this review of the four principal ways in which Yahweh
is conceived to approach man in the pre-prophetic religion
i 1 Sam. x. 5 f. ; cf. xix. 20 f.
Gen. xli. 38 ; Deut. xxxiv. 9 ; Ex. xxviii. 3.
XL 19, xxxvi. 26, xxxix. 29. * Num. xi. 25 ; 2 Kings ii. 9, 15.
112 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
of Israel, their distinct limitations, as media of revela
tion, have been made apparent. Theophanies in the
human form belong to the more naive anthropomorphism
which was eventually left behind ; in the form of natural
phenomena they were inadequate to the advancing needs
of the religion. A miracle would reveal much or little
according to its interpretation ; however wonderful its
circumstances, a prophet was needed to point its moral.
Oracles might give practical guidance, but their scope
was obviously limited, and they easily became, in their
chief forms, mere weapons of the hierarchy. The idea
of the Spirit of Yahweh does not, in its earlier history,
rise essentially above the level of Semitic animism. So
far, there is nothing commensurate with the unique power
of Israel s religion, and with the wealth of the content
of its revelation of God. On the other hand, there were
possibilities even in these ways of conceiving His approach
which were destined to become actualities when employed
in the service of higher ideas, and especially when supple
mented by a new and incomparably greater channel of
communication. That new channel is the prophetic
consciousness, in the higher meaning of the term rising
above the ecstatic frenzy and ravings of abnormal psychical
states, into the sane, steady, moral consciousness of God,
and the confidence that through moral fellowship with
Him He gives His divine message. The material medium
is largely replaced by a spiritual ; the indirect relation
ship by one that is direct, and independent of artificial
stimulus. 1 A vast new range of possibility was thrown
open, and the older means fell into a subordinate place.
Theophany and occasional miracle were replaced by a
vision of history as the revelation of God ; oracles and
ecstasies became inadequate to hold the message God
might send by the whole mental, moral, religious con
sciousness of a prophet. The greatness of the change is
Contrast Elisha a dependence on the minstrel in 2 Kings iii. 15.
v.] THE APPROACH OF GOD TO MAN 113
shown by the passage in Deuteronomy 1 which contrasts
the augury and divination of other nations (to which the
earlier ideas of Israel are so closely related) with revela
tion through a line of prophets, following in the footsteps
of Moses, and giving reality to the ideals ascribed to his
traditional personality.
2. The Prophetic Consciousness
The cardinal fact of the prophetic consciousness, as it
is displayed in Amos and his great successors, is the
absolute conviction of a divine call, mission, and message.
This conviction is expressed in the reiterated formula of
introduction to what is said, i.e. Thus saith Yahweh ,
or the equivalent * Utterance of Yahweh . The prophet
is convinced that he stands in the council of Yahweh, and
that Yahweh will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret
unto His servants the prophets. 2 By fidelity to the highest
truths, the prophet becomes the mouth of Yahweh, 8 and
this conception is well illustrated in the account of the
relation in which Aaron stands to Moses : he shall be
thy spokesman unto the people ; and it shall come to
pass, that he shall be to thee a mouth, and thou shalt be
to him as God. ... I have made thee a god to Pharaoh :
and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet . 4 Such
language gives no warrant for a mechanical theory of
inspiration. Just as, for Hebrew psychology, independent
qualities, psychical and moral, belonged to the different
physical organs, such as the mouth, so there was a real
contribution to the divine message made by the prophet
himself as the * mouth of God. This, indeed, needs no
demonstration to any one who approaches the prophetic
writings without a preconceived theory. The message of
i xviii. 14, 15. 2 Jer. xxiii. 18 ; Ainos iii. 7.
* Jer. xv. 19 : * if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou ahalt b
fti my mouth .
Ex. iv. 16, rii. 1.
H
114 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
each is as distinct and as characteristic as are the circum
stances of his call. Both in the language and in the thought
the human agent is visible. In what way, then, are we
t conceive that approach of God to the prophet which
constituted him what he claimed to be, the spokesman
of God ?
Three contributory elements may be traced in the
working of the prophetic consciousness. (1) Fellowship
with God and sympathy with man, such as belong to the
prophets of Israel, imply a remarkable development of
moral and spiritual character. (2) The origin and literary
records of Hebrew prophecy point to more or less abnormal
psychical experience as its frequent, if not universal,
accompaniment. (3) The prophet s own explanation of
his experience was necessarily drawn from a psychology
differing from our own in certain important features. Of
these three factors, the first would be admitted by all.
The contents of the great prophetic books have passed
into current com in the realm of morality and religion ; it
is obvious that the men through whom these classical
conceptions were created must have been men under the
influence of the ideals they present, and of the demands
they make. It is not less clear, especially in the case of
those prophets in whom the emotional life finds fullest
expression, such as Hosea and Jeremiah, that they felt
the profoundest sympathy with the nation to which they
belonged, even in the midst of their denunciation of its
conduct. Thus the prophet became an effective link
between God and Israel ; the current of divine revelation
flowed because there was contact at both ends, and that
contact was provided by a personal character conspicuous
for obedience to God and for sympathy with man. The
first and most important feature, therefore, in the prophetic
consciousness consisted in the possession to an eminent
degree of the same qualities and characteristics as, in all
ages, underlie communion with God and service to men.
v.j THE APPROACH OF GOD TO MAN 115
The presence of the second element, abnormal psychical *
characteristics, is much more open to controversy, and
can easily be misrepresented. The prophets who so pro
foundly transformed the religion of Israel and of the
world were assuredly not men of unbalanced mind. But
certain features of the prophetic writings do seem to point
to an intensity of psychical experience, and therefore of
temperament, which distinguishes the prophets generally
from other men. There is the remarkable sense of an
external compulsion, felt from the call onwards, often
urging the prophet to that from which he naturally shrinks
a compulsion psychologically due, no doubt, to the
vivid imagination by which ideas in the prophet s mind
acquired objective reality, independent of the prophet s
own personal! ty. The Lord Yahweh hath spoken , says
Amos, * who can but prophesy ? l Isaiah writes, Yahweh
spake thus to me with strength of hand . 2 Jeremiah
describes the divine message as a burning fire within
him, which is irresistible. 3 On the other hand, the
message sought is sometimes withheld. 4 Further, in the .
case of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, 5 their call to ministry
takes the form of a vision, their account of which seems
to be more than a device of exposition. Some of the
prophets, e.g. Amos and Zechariah, 6 give part of their
message in the form of sights actually presented to the
eye : Thus the Lord Yahweh showed me , or I saw in the
night . It is less easy to show that the prophets believed
they heard external voices. But when we remember
such experiences as are described by Augustine and
Bunyan, 7 experiences even occurring to-day, in moments
of intense feeling, we can well believe that the prophets
mean much more by such a phrase as The voice of one
saying, Cry J , 8 than a dramatic figure of speech, and that
iii. 8. 8 viii. 11. xx. 9.
* Hab. ii. 1 ; Jer. xlii. 7. Is. yi. ; Jer. i. ; Ez. i.-iii.
Amosvii.-ix.; Zech. i. 7 f .
T Confessions, viii. 12; Grace Abounding, 22, 174, eta 8 Is. xl. 3.
116 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [en.
the passionate dialogues between Jeremiah and Yahweh
are not simply a literary fiction. The act of Isaiah in
walking naked and barefoot three years for a sign and
a portent 1 suggests a close parallel in the case of George
Fox, who put off his shoes outside Lichfield at the
Lord s command, and saw channels of blood in the
streets through which he went to cry Woe to the bloody
city of Lichfield ! 2 The abnormal psychosis is surely
present in both cases. Further, in the case of Ezekiel,
physical phenomena are described that bear some
resemblance, at least, to catalepsy : he remains dumb for
seven days after his call ; he is to lie in one position
for a lengthy period ; he is conscious of being transported
from Babylon to Jerusalem, that he might describe to the
elders what he has seen in the temple, apparently during
a trance-state. 8 Such phenomena as these, of course,
no more discredit the inner worth of the prophetic ideas
than the eccentricities of genius in other realms discredit
its own high achievements. But they do suggest that the
prophet was usually distinguished from other men by a
peculiar psychical development. These abnormal features
must not be exaggerated. In the historical result, they
are, of course, a quite negligible feature. But they help
to explain the status of the prophet for the common people,
and the prophet s own conviction that he was set apart
from other men. This conclusion finds some measure of
confirmation in the links that connect the prophecy of
the eighth century with that earlier ecstatic prophesying
ascribed to the Spirit of Yahweh. Psychopathic features
in the earlier prophets are unmistakable, as when the
madness of Saul is described by the same word as that
i Is. xx. 2, 3. * Journal* i. p. 78.
* Ez. iii. 14, 15 ; iy. 4 ; viii.-xi. Cf. Is. xxi. 1-10 (Gray s translation, Comm. ,
pp. 848 f.) for an example of dual personality (ver^e 6) in the prophetic
consciousness. The Arnbic kahin, or seer , was believed to have an in
dwelling demon, who addressed the seer as them (Wellhausen, Rente,
p. 135).
v.] THE APPROACH OF GOD TO MAN 117
used for prophesying, 1 or as when he is said to have been
infected by the contagious influence of the prophets at
Ramah : And he also stripped off his clothes, and he
also prophesied before Samuel, and lay down naked all
that day and all that night . 2 The difference between
the earlier and later phases of prophecy in Israel is that
the abnormal was driven from the centre to the circum
ference, 8 and subordinated to that moral and spiritual
message which became the prophet s dominating interest.
The third contribution to the prophetic consciousness
results from the characteristics of Hebrew psychology,
in particular from its idea of the Spirit of God. It is
clear that a prophet s conception of his own personality,
and of its relation to God, must have profoundly affected
his interpretation of religious experience. A modern v
believer in telepathy is ready to explain a given fact of
consciousness, especially if it is of a striking nature, as
due to the action of mind other than his own. But this
accessibility to influences other than those acting through
the ordinary sense-organs was universally recognised by
the Hebrews. 4 The Hebrew doctrine of the Spirit of God,
in fact, springs from the attribution of all such external
influences to Yahweh as their source. Anything abnormal -
in the psychical life would instinctively be referred to
Him, and dissociated from the prophet s own personality.
Indeed, one natural consequence of the prophet s call
would be that even quite normal elements of his subse
quent consciousness could be regarded as messages of
Yahweh. 5 Some of the details of Hebrew psychology
must have contributed to this conviction. We have
already seen that the Hebrew did not think of himself
i 1 Sam. xviii. 10. 1 Sara, xix. 24.
Cf. Hellin, Die alttest. Religion, p. 75. * See chap. iv. 1.
5 It may be the earlier ecstatic prophesying of men of the Spirit which
prevents the eighth -century prophets from directly ascribing their inspiration
to the Spirit of God. But the idea is really implicit in their claim t
prophesy, and it reappears explicitly in later prophets, e.g. Ezekiel.
118 KELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
as a soul within a body, still less as a personality with
different levels of consciousness. The unity of his per
sonality lay for him in the harmonious working of a number
of organs, each with its own powers ; his life ended when
the co-operation ceased, as it did at death. But not less
did his own psychical life seem temporarily to end, when
ever one of his organs functioned in quasi-independence
of his volition ; for the time being, some external power
had taken possession of it, some external influence was
acting upon it. Thus, experiences which a modern mind
would ascribe to illusions of the senses, or dual person
ality, or some other subjective phenomenon, would
naturally be interpreted as direct and unmistakable
communications from Yahweh. 1 Given, then, the two
features of the prophetic consciousness already indicated
the moral and spiritual character, and the sign and seal
of some abnormal psychical experience the general
psychological atmosphere of the age enables us to under
stand the prophet s * Thus saith Yahweh ? , so far as it
can be understood on a purely scientific and historical
level of inquiry. But such an analysis of the prophetic
consciousness relates only to the subjective origin, not
to the objective value, of revelation. It professes to do no
more than to show how the prophet of Israel could believe
in all sincerity that the convictions of his own heart were
really a message of God to His people. The fact that a
modern mind would explain the origin of such convictions,
and their psychical accompaniments, in a different way,
by no means serves to invalidate the truth of this belief.
Psychological analysis of the prophetic consciousness,
however successful, simply brings us to the threshold of
the great philosophical problem the relation of human
personality to the divine. Religious experience rests
1 A good example of it is seen in the supernatural character assigned to
dreams (Deut. xiii. 1 f. ; 1 Sam. xxviii. 6, 15 ; Joel ii. 28 ; Num. xii. 6 f.). The
general tendency is common to ancient psychology in general.
v.j THE APPKOACH OF GOD TO MAN 119
on the assurance that the relation is of such a kind that
man can enjoy the fellowship of God, and that God draws
near to man, in order to make that fellowship possible.
The prophetic consciousness is ultimately a peculiar
variety of religious experience, dedicated to great ends,
and having great historic results. But the crowning
mystery of personality, human and divine, always remains
at the centre of this experience, and evades our analysis.
The immediate work of the great prophets was the
interpretation of Israel s history. Under the guidance of
Israel s God, the prophet found himself brought to a
vision of Israel s history, past, present, or future, which
dominated his thought and shaped his message. The
course of events visible to all was the handwriting of
Yahweh, which it was the prophet s task to explain to
his fellow-countrymen. The ultimate test of prophecy
was its conformity with actual history. To this con
firmation one of the later prophets appeals, when he
says, My words and my statutes, which I commanded
my servants the prophets, did they not overtake your
fathers ? l The confident assertions of the prophets in
regard to current events would be inexplicable, had they
not felt that they possessed the divine secret of history,
the knowledge of the principles on which Yahweh admin
istered the government of the world. They would all
of them have been prepared to stand or fall by the ultimate
agreement of their utterances with Yahweh s judgments.
But mere agreement between a prophetic utterance and
external happenings was not accepted as proof in itself
that the speaker of the prophecy was a genuine man of
God. Already in the Book of Deuteronomy there is
reference to a further test, which springs from the in
trinsic character of true prophecy, as being always con
sistent with the revelation given in the past. * If there
ise in the midst of thee a prophet, or a dreamer
Zech, i. &
120 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
of dreams, and he give thee a sign or a wonder, and the
sign or wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee,
saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not
known, and let us serve them ; thou shalt not hearken
unto the words of that prophet, or unto that dreamer of
dreams : for Yahweh your God proveth you .* This is a
logical deduction from faith in God, for the revelation
He gives will necessarily be self- consistent. The differ
ence between the recognised prophets of the Old Testa
ment and those who are called false is due to something
more than a mere survival of the fittest , judged by the
successful anticipation of events. There exists in the
minds of those prophets we call true the conviction of
an intrinsic difference between their own testimony and
that which they condemn, a difference which events will
confirm, not create. When the false prophets foretell
a prosperous campaign for Ahab and Jehoshaphat, Micaiah
at first mockingly echoes them. But, adjured to speak
in the name of Yahweh, he declares his vision of a king-
less army, and explains the prophecies of success as due
to the inspiration of a lying spirit commissioned by
Yahweh to entice Ahab. 2 Micaiah is ready to stand or
fall by the result of the campaign : If thou return at
all in peace, Yahweh hath not spoken by me . But it
is not less clear that his declared conviction, Yahweh
hath spoken evil concerning thee , springs from his per
sonal judgment of Ahab s character and policy, not, as
does theirs, from the mere desire to please the king.
The presence of more than a merely external criterion
of prophetic truth is equally apparent in the story
of Jeremiah s encounter with the prophet Hananiah.
Jeremiah meets with suspicion this man s prophecy of
the breaking of the Babylonian yoke within two years.
1 Deut. xiii. 1-3. But disagreement with the event is held to disprove the
alleged prophecy (Deut. xviii. 21, 22).
a 1 Kings xxii. 1-28. The objectivity of their inspiration, it should b
noted, is allowed by Micaiah.
v.] THE APPROACH OF GOD TO MAN 121
His suspicion is based on the continuity of warning in
the prophets who have preceded him. Time must show,
he says, whether a prophecy of peace will be confirmed.
But, after this interview, Jeremiah receives a divine
revelation which enables him to encounter Hananiah
with a definite denial of the truth of his words. * Yahweh
hath not sent thee ; but thou makest this people to trust
in a lie .* This narrative not only illustrates the idea
indicated in the Book of Deuteronomy, that there is a
certain self- consistency in genuine revelation, but also
the presence of a common moral judgment in the prophets
as a whole, prior to Jeremiah, by which they condemned
the spirit of their times, and declared its penalty. In
this sense the pre-exilic prophets were pessimists, but
moral pessimism is preferable to immoral optimism.
The time was not yet ripe for a true prophet to say that
Israel had received of Yahweh s hand double for all her
sins. When that time did come, Deutero-Isaiah was not
less convinced, whilst saying it, that * he stood in organic
relationship with earlier prediction . 2 The claim is
justified, if the predictive element in Hebrew prophecy
is a product of the moral and spiritual insight of the
prophets, which draws different consequences for different
generations. They could foretell the future with general,
if not with detailed accuracy, because they were admitted
to the council of Yahweh; their ears were trained to
catch, in the music of the universe, the moral harmonies,
the discords, and the resolutions into triumphant chords.
They had surrendered their hearts to the moral principles
according to which God governs the world. To their
passionate confidence in the victory of right and the
overthrow of wrong, the Day of Yahweh seemed always
at the gates, and the final consummation already begin-
1 Jer. xxviii. 15. Cf. Gressmann, Der Ursprung der isr.-jild. Eschatologie,
p. 154.
2 Duhm, Jeremia, p. 225. Cf., e.g., Is. xliv. 7, 8 : who, as I, shall call,
and shall declare it ? ... hare I not declared unto thee of old, and showed it ?
122 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
ning. The problems of clivine government were sometimes
more complex than their simple principle of retribution
allowed, as the spiritual agony of Job was to demon
strate. But, like him, they built their faith on inner con
viction, rather than on outward event. The true prophet
looks for confirmation and final justification on the arena
of history, as the true artist may look for the world s
ultimate approval of his work. But both prophet and
artist have learnt to look beyond the changing processes
of time into the unchanging realms of truth and beauty,
which time exists to serve.
The religion of the prophetic consciousness must always
have been the exception rather than the rule. The pro
phetic literature is itself evidence of the prophets failure
to raise their nation to their own high level. The change
from oral to written prophecy, which practically begins
in the eighth century, seems to have been due to the
failure of the prophets to shape national thought and
conscience to their high ideals. This is indicated clearly
enough by the prophets themselves. Isaiah is bidden
take a great tablet and write upon it with the pen of a
man the symbolical name of his son as a testimony to
the future ; one of his prophecies he is ordered to inscribe
in a book, that it may be a perpetual witness to a later
age. 1 Only after twenty-two years of oral prophecy is
Jeremiah bidden to write on a roll the messages he has
delivered throughout the whole time to his fellow-country
men, that they may return every man from his evil way . 2
It is in harmony with Israel s spiritual mission, and with
the Cross which was its supreme achievement, that its
greatest literary product was the offspring of defeat.
Nations, like individuals, have great creative epochs.
Thought and feeling are usually sublimated to their
1 Is. viii. 1, xxx. 8 (R.V. mar.); cf. also viii. 16, though the terms in this
case may be figurative.
2 Jer. xxxvi. 1 f.
T.] THE APPROACH OF GOD TO MAN 123
highest possibilities through national victories, expand
ing horizons, the exalted vision of great destinies. The
golden age of a literature is thus the age of Pericles,
Augustus, Elizabeth. But the golden age of Israel s
literature, the period to which we owe the great pro
phetic records, did not fall during the national ascendancy
under David and Solomon. It was thrown into relief
by the dark background of Assyrian and Babylonian
empire, and the prophets who occupy its foreground were
men who carried the cross of lonely obedience to a Calvary
of apparent failure.
3. The Written Word
The Scriptures of the Old Testament have gained a
unique authority over both Jew and Christian as being
the Word of God, the disclosure of the divine nature and
will through self-revealing grace. This canonical authority,
whether recognised or rejected, must be clearly distin
guished from the intrinsic character of the literature.
The history of Old Testament literature begins in the
twelfth century, but that of the Canon in the seventh. 1
It was in the year 621 B.C. that, for the first time, a portion
of the literature of the Old Testament acquired a recog
nised public place as a divine revelation. This was the
central part of the present Book of Deuteronomy. The
second step in the formation of the Canon was taken in
444 B.C., when the Law-book brought by the scribe Ezra
from Babylon was solemnly accepted by the new com
munity as its divinely ordained basis. This seems to
have been what is known as the Priestly Code, of which
the Book of Leviticus may be taken as representative.
Within the latter half of the fifth century, i.e. by about
1 For an account of the literature prior to the beginnings of the Canon
(songs, laws, histories, prophecies), see B7le, The Canon of the Old Testa.
irent, chap. i.
124 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [ca
400 B.C., 1 this Law-book was combined with the already
canonised Book of Deuteronomy, and with other not yet
canonised literature of still earlier date, dealing with
Israel s origins, to form the Pentateuch, or, to use the
Jewish name, the Law. 2 This is the basis of Judaism.
No other part of the Old Testament ever equalled the Law
in authority, though prophetic writings (with certain
histories) were collected by about 200 B.C., to form a
second part of the Canon, and the remainder of the present
Old Testament shortly before the rise of the New, to form
a third part, known as the Writings .
From this outline of the history of the Canon, it is
apparent that the priest, rather than the prophet, was
the actual centre around which the authoritative, Scrip
tures gathered. This is partly explained b} r the fact that
the priestly oracle was a source of divine revelation from
the earliest days, and that the established ceremonial
of religion aroused continuous reverence cumulatively
greater than that inspired by any single prophet. Yet
the prophet contributed very materially to the creation
of the Law. In the Book of Deuteronomy, the old
priestly law and the new prophetic teaching have mingled
their strongly contrasted influences to work together for
the reformation of Israel s religion. This seventh-century
work could not have been so shaped but for the prophetic
teaching of the century before it ; but neither would there
have been material to shape, nor the motive to ascribe
it to Moses, but for the immemorial law and ritual which
1 The Samaritan and Hebrew Pentateuchs practically agree, and the final
separation of the two peoples is usually supposed to have taken place towards
the close of the fifth ceutury. But Josephus places it about 330, and the
Elephantine Papyri suggest that in 408 there was no Samaritan high priest
(see Steuernagel, Theologische Studitn und Kritiken, 1909, p. 5 ; Bertholet,
Bib. Thwlogie, p. 28).
2 The successive Codes which constitute it were originally meant to replace
each other, so that the inconsistencies apparent to us were hardly felt,
especially as few could have access to the written documents. When the
combination of the Cole* was ultimately made, each possessed authority, and
editorial revision sufficiently disguised the differences.
T.] THE APPROACH OF GOD TO MAN 125
centred round Solomon s Temple. Priest and prophet
met again in the person of Ezekiel. We have only to
compare the sacerdotal ideals he records in the last section
of his book with the Levitical Law of Holiness (Lev.
xvii.-xxvi.) to see how much a prophet could contribute
to the making of the Law. Even the interminable descrip
tion of the sanctuary in the Book of Exodus is but the
application in detail of Isaiah s words : * Great is the Holy
One of Israel in the midst of thee .*
The constituents of the Law are very varied. It con
tains song and story as well as sermon, myth and legend
as well as law, and this variety of its contents must be
remembered in order to account for the wonderful fascina
tion and influence which the Law has been able to exert
over so many generations. But the priestly editors to
whom its final form is due have given it a certain syste
matic unity, springing from their theory of divine revela
tion. They conceive that revelation to be made and
confirmed by a series of covenants, the last and greatest
being that of Sinai, when God gave to Israel through
Moses, in the ordinances of the sanctuary, knowledge
of His requirements. It is in these ordinances that the
priestly interest lies. Such connective history as they
supply, whilst incorporating the more naive and human
stories of the past, dwells lovingly on the institutions of
Israel and their supposed origin. They think of God
as brought near to man through the institutions of the
sanctuary of the desert, which is idealised into the pattern
of the existent temple. * There I will meet with the
children of Israel ; and it shall be sanctified by my Glory. 2
And I will sanctify the tent of meeting and the altar :
1 Is. xii. 6. Ezra s Law did not materialise the worship except in relation
to us, >o to speak, and not in comparison with what had existed preVi U*iy
. . . there never was any prophetical religion, but only a criticism by the
prophets of a worship thoroughly engrained with idolatry and superstition
(Loisy, Tht Religion, of Israel, E.T., p. 211).
* I.e. the luminous Presence of God, as noticed in 1 (a) of this ch&ptec.
126 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
Aaron also and his sons will I sanctify, to minister to me
in the priest s office. And 1 will dwell among the children
of Israel, and will be their God .*
The sanctuary alone would simply have continued and
developed those ideas of holy places, seasons, and persons
which will be considered (from the standpoint of man s
approach to God) in the following chapter. The new
feature due to the Written Word was that the worship
of the temple was now conceived to rest on a closely-knit
series of divine commands, a full and explicit statement
given by God to His servant Moses of the conditions to
be satisfied, in order that Israel might become a holy
people. Revelation was no longer the spoken word of the
prophet ; it was the written word of the LawJ With the
introduction of that Law, prophecy disappears except in
the form of anonymous literature. 2 That immediate
fellowship with God through moral and spiritual char
acter, which is the glory of the great prophets, is replaced
by a prescribed knowledge of His will, a formulated
statement of His requirements for all time. Revelation
is a great fact still, but it is thrown out of the living present
into the dead past. In that past God speaks with Moses
mouth to mouth, plainly and not in riddles, and the form
of Yahweh he beholds . 3 But now He speaks through the
words He gave to Moses, and His will must be ascertained
by diligent study of the Law. The inevitable adjustment
of that revelation of the past to the ever-changing needs
of the present ultimately brought in the artificial and
casuistical labours of the scribes. The very conception
that God had spoken once for all in the Law removed
Him further off from the ordinary worshipper, and in
combination with other influences, yielded the post-
* Ex. xxix. 43 f. ; described by Driver (Literature of the Old Testament,
p. 129) as the culminating promise of the Priestly Narrative.
* Cf. Neh. vi. 14, Zech. xiii. 1-6, for significant side- lights on the decline and
fall of prophecy.
Num. xii. 8.
v.] THE APPROACH OF GOD TO MAN 127
exilic idea of the transcendent God, who deals with His
world only through the agency of innumerable inter
mediate beings.
The angelology which arose to satisfy this new
need largely belongs to post-canonical Judaism, which
believes that God deals with men and nations through
a vast hierarchy of angels. But the Old Testament
sufficiently illustrates the general character of this con
ception. Angels already begin to appear in the later
prophets, viz. Ezekiel and Zechariah ; l in fact, Zechariah s
visions are controlled by angels. In the Book of Daniel,
the heathen gods have been transformed into angelic
chiefs or princes who superintend their respective nations.
Israel falls to the share of Michael. 2 The office of revealer
to Daniel is discharged by Gabriel. 8 The Law itself is
ultimately believed to have been given through the agency
of angels, as is shown by various passages in the New
Testament and in Apocryphal literature.* In contrast
with such elaborate mediation, the New Testament pro
claims a direct communion with God through Christ.
This contrast must be remembered if we are to realise
the impression made on the Judaism of New Testament
times by such words as * Our fellowship is with the
Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ . 5
On the other hand, it must be recognised that the earlier
Judaism, at least, was not conscious that any barrier
between man and God had been created by the Kevelation
of the Law. Some of the Psalms describe the Law in terms
of the warmest devotion and the most sincere enthusiasm.
The Law is a life-giving stream to those who meditate on
it day and night. It is more desirable than gold, sweeter
i Ezek. ix. ; Zech. i. 9, etc.
a Dan. xii. 1 ; cf. x. 13, and the Greek version of Dent, xxxii. 8, ft.
riii. 16, ix. 21.
* Acts vii. 63 ; Gal. iii. 19 ; Heb. ii. 2 ; see also Charles s note on Jubilees,
i. 27.
1 John i. 3 ; cf. Heb. iv. 14 f., x. 19 f., for the corresponding directneta
of man s approach to God.
128- RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
than honey. It is a lamp to men s feet, a song for their
pilgrimage. 1 In the Maccabaean Revolt, Judas and his
followers lay before God a copy of His holy Law which
the heathen have desecrated, that they may move Him to
action; to possess a copy meant death at the hands of
the persecutors. 2 The Law was the charter of Judaism, the
real source of its strength through the many centuries.
The institutions which it enjoined were, in large measure,
brought to an end in A.D. 70 ; but the Law showed its
power by the creation of a new Judaism, able to endure
without land, city, or temple. Through the reading of
the Law, supplemented by that of the prophets, in the
scattered synagogues of the Dispersion, the knowledge of
the one holy God and of His covenant with Israel was kept
fresh in the hearts of all. In spite of all that may be said, ^
with perfect justice, of the limitations on God s approach
which revelation by the written word imposes, and especi
ally of the equalisation of ceremonial with moral law,
history has shown that the Law contained a latent life
awaiting its opportunity for new and yet more vigorous
growth. The Priestly Code became the shell in which
the kernel of Deuteronomic, that is prophetic, teaching
was safely kept, until such time as it could grow into the ..
Gospel.
As we glance at the whole course of Israel s idea of the
approach of God to man, from the primitive beliefs of
Semitic nomads, through the characteristic and unique
prophetic consciousness, to the final fixity of the Written
Word, two important features are noticeable. In the first
place, Israel has grasped the essential truth for all religion,
that in the fellowship of God and man God must be active
as well as man. Yahweh of Israel, in definite and unmis
takable ways, conies out to meet man, and does not simply
wait for man s approach. In the second place, Israel has
1 Ps. i. 2, 8, xlx. 10, cxix. 64, 105.
1 Mace. iii. 48 (see note in Cambridge Bible edition), i. 67.
v.] THE APPROACH OF GOD TO MAN 129
reached the far-reaching principle that the highest revela
tion of God must be made through human personality.
This is the philosophic statement, at least, of that for
which the prophetic consciousness stands. But the
demand on personal religion, which is made by the direct
relation to God of the prophetic consciousness, was too
high for the people generally. The Law was a compromise
between the personal and sacramental sides of religion
that compromise which, in some form or other, is inevit
able, when individual piety is given corporate and social
expression.
130 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
CHAPTER VI
THE APPROACH OF MAN TO GOD
IT is characteristic of Christian faith, whenever it seeks
conformity with its New Testament type, to claim for
every believer the right of direct approach to God through
Christ. The one condition Christ laid down is moral ;
those who do the will of God are already spiritually related
to Him, and through Christ Himself they find the Father
He revealed. This profound conception is so simple in
its statement as to seem obvious. Yet it is really the
goal of a long development. This direct moral access
to God, available wherever there is harmony of purpose
between the human will and the divine, begins with the
prophetic consciousness of Israel. Two permanent con
tributions to it were made by the prophets, as a result
of their experience of the approach of God to their own
hearts. They showed the possibility of direct spiritual
communion between human and divine personality, apart
from all sacramental religion, and they taught that the
holiness of God is primarily constituted by His moral
v character. But, as already indicated, this was not the
idea of the divine * holiness with which the religion of
the Old Testament began. The holiness of the gods, in
the Semitic religions, is a negative rather than a positive
conception. Its original meaning seems to be unapproach-
ableness, an element which * is never absent from the
notion .* In Robertson Smith s words, * it is not so much
* thing that characterises the gods and divine things in
* Skinner in D. B., ii. p. 397.
vi.] THE APPROACH OF MAN TO GOD 131
themselves, as the most general notion that governs
their relations with humanity . 1 The mysterious and
perilous powers which the gods possess check every rash
and ill-advised attempt to approach them. The same
halo of holiness attaches to all that is connected with
their worship. This is precisely the same kind of idea
as comparative religion designates by the term taboo .
Sacred objects can be touched only under the strictest
precautions ; they are as dangerous to the uninitiated as
the switchboard of an electrical power-house might be
to a child. The various abstinences, ablutions, wearing
of ornaments or special dress, found amongst the Hebrews
as amongst other peoples in their approach to the deity,
spring from the assumption that the divine holiness
makes approach unsafe, without the insulation they afford.
The whole conduct of war in early times is regulated by
taboos, because of the presence of Yahweh of Hosts in
the camp ; the warrior must observe certain forms of
abstinence, and the spoil is frequently devoted to
Yahweh, i.e. put under a taboo so deadly that the smallest
portion withheld for private advantage can infect the
whole camp, as we see in the well-known story of Achan. 2
All this is capable of throwing much light on early con
ceptions of worship. Whether the holy Yahweh be
approached in the consecrated battle-array, or on the
sacred mountain, similar rules must be observed. 8
This non-moral conception of the holiness of Yahweh
finds frequent illustration in the early literature. One
of the clearest examples is afforded by the Ark. Later
on, the Ark came to be represented as simply a convenient
receptacle for the tables of stone on which the Decalogue
was inscribed. 4 But, at an earlier period, the Ark is a
i Religion of the Semites, p. 142.
* Deut. xxiii. 13, 14 ; 1 Sam. xxi. 5 ; 2 Sam. xi. 11 ; Josh, vii
Is. xiii. 3 ; Jer. vi. 4, R.V. mar. , Ex. xix. 14, 15.
Deut. x. 1-5. The Ark seems originally to have been a box for carrying
certain sacred stones. Keeently it has been argued that the Ark was a port-
132 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
nomadic shrine, identified with the presence of Yahweh
v in the midst of Israel. Its movements are accompanied
by solemn adjurations ; when the Ark goes forward,
Moses says :
1 Arise, Yahweh, and let Thine enemies be scattered,
And let those that hate Thee flee from Thy presence !
When the Ark halts, he says :
Return, Yahweh, to the ten thousands of the families of
Israel ! l
The fall of Jericho is secured by carrying the Ark round
and round the city like any fetish. 2 In the war with the
Philistines, the Ark is taken into battle from its resting-
place at Shiloh, that its presence may secure victory ;
when it is captured, the glory is departed from Israel . 3
The rest of the narrative shows how perilous it is for man
to approach Yahweh. The Philistines learn this, through
the fall of their idols, and through the pestilence that
breaks out among them, until they are glad to get rid of
their prize. The men of Beth-shemesh learn it, through
the slaughter of a multitude of them, because they had
looked into the Ark of Yahweh . They are glad to pass
on their perilous visitor to the men of another city, saying
significantly, Who is able to stand before Yahweh, this
holy God ? 4 Even when, after twenty years, David is
bringing it up with all reverence to his city, Uzzah dies,
because he tries to save it from a fall when the oxen
stumble ; there is a physical contagion that operates
i through contact, and has nothing moral in it. 5
Even when, through the prophetic teaching, the holi-
contributed to the spirituality
102 f. ). Against this view,
pp. 489-507. A review of
recent theories is given by Westphal, JahioesWohnst&tttn, pp. 90 f.
l Num. x. 35, 36. 2 Josh. vi. 4 f.
1 Sam. IT. 1 Sam. . 1-vii 1.
2 Sam. ?i. 6, 7.
vi.] THE APPROACH OF MAN TO GOD 133
ness of God was filled with moral content, the ritual of
worship, with its holy places, seasons, persons, and sacrifices,
retained many practices and some ideas from the earlier
non-moral stage. There is much in the Priestly Code
which is explicable only as a survival from the past. 1
But the institutions of the temple worship, the external
conditions by which Israel s holiness was to be realised,
were now charged with new meaning. The God who said
to His people, Be ye holy, for I am holy , was the God
who had revealed Himself in the prophets, even though
approach to Him was li mi ted by a network of conditions
woven from an entirely different set of ideas. The task
of this chapter is, therefore, both to survey the external
means of approach to God, in their development to the
final form they assumed in the Law of Judaism, and to
recognise the contrasted prophetic idea of moral holiness
which is their accompaniment in the later worship of
Israel, especially as illustrated by the Book of Psalms.
In the moral holiness of clean hands and a pure heart,
regarded as essential in the sight of Yahweh, we have the
characteristic idea of worship in the Old Testament.
The essential fact to be remembered in the study of man s
approach to God is this gradual transformation of the
idea of holiness.
1. Holy Places and Seasons
The holy places of Israel s religion are the natural
starting-point for the study of Israel s approach to God.
Because Yahweh is conceived to be in some sense there,
1 E.g., the holiness of the Nazirite (Num. vi. 5). The rules of ceremonial
cleanness and uncleanness which figure so largely iu the Priestly Code belong
to the same circle of ideas as those of holiness . Both are a development of
the taboo. But the holy thing, place, or person is now fenced off because of
its relation to Yahweh, whilst the unclean is separately classed becaus-e the
associated ideas have not been incorporated in the religion of Israel ; e.g. the
corpse, because of the heathen death customs (Num. T. 2; cf. 1 Sam. xx. 26).
134 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
they become points of possible contact between God and
man. They are constituted holy by the divine initiative.
Here Yahweh has chosen to reveal Himself ; here, there
fore, His presence may still be sought, and is likely to be
again found. In the earliest conception, and even to
the latest phase in the case of Zion, they are His dwelling-
places. Horeb is in this sense the mountain of God .
Here He reveals Himself in the flaming bush to Moses,
saying, * Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place
whereon thou standest is holy ground 9 . 1 Even as late
as the time of Elijah, Horeb continues to be the dwelling-
place of Yahweh, to which the disconsolate prophet resorts
to find Him. 2 But Israel s gradual appropriation of the
Canaanite sanctuaries, combined with the distance of
Horeb, led to the belief that Yahweh might be found at
these holy places also. This appears in the patriarchal
stories. Jacob is represented as discovering the sanctity
of Bethel by the vision of angels. To the writer of the
story Bethel is actually and topographically the gate of
heaven, the way of access into the heavenly dwelling of
Yahweh. 3 He comes this way to the earth, as He came
down (from heaven) on Sinai. 4 The heaven J of such an
age must not be confused with our own ideas ; it is very
locally conceived, and not far off. The need of early
religion is to find some spot of earth where He whose
heavenly abode is inaccessible may be approached and
1 Ex. iii. 5. Of. the similar command to Joshua at Gilgal (Josh. v. 13-15),
another sanctuary, from which the angel of Yahweh comes to Israel (Jud. ii. 1).
The command is illustrated by the practice of modern Samaritans and
Muhammedans, when entering the sanctuary : the shoes would be rendered
unsuitable for common wear when infected with holiness (Robertson Sufth,
Religion of the Semites, p. 453).
2 1 Kings xix. 8. Of., also, the representation in the Song of Deborah.
Throughout antiquity, the sanctuary represents, first and foremost, the
dwelling of a god (rather than, as in our modern idea, a place of worship]
(Jastrow, Religious ^Belief in Babylonia and Assyria, p. 265).
Gen. xxviii. 10 f.
4 Ex. xix. 11, etc. On the whole subject, see Westphal, Jahwes Wohn*
stdtten The idea of heaven as Yahweh s dwelling-place is thus an early one,
not unrelated to that of Yahweh as a storm god.
vi.] THE APPROACH OF MAN TO GOD 136
found. This need was met by the different holy places
of Canaan.
It must be remembered that, prior to the Deuteronomic
Reformation, the worship of Yahweh at these * high
places was perfectly legitimate. In the early Book of
the Covenant, Yahweh is represented as saying : * In
every place where I cause my name to be remembered,
I will come unto thee V i.e. wherever a theophany has
marked out a sanctuary, Yahweh may be worshipped,
and will approach those who approach Him. Before the
seventh century there is no indication whatsoever that
any law exists against worshipping Yahweh elsewhere
than at Jerusalem. Samuel grows up at the local sanctuary
of Shiloh, and there receives the revelation of Yahweh ;
later on, according to a most instructive narrative, he is
found officiating at the sacrifice at a local high place. 2 There
is a vivid picture of the thirty guests waiting for Samuel
to bless the sacrifice, before they eat the holy meal in the
special guest-chamber attached to the sanctuary. Besides
the altar on which the sacrificed animal was slain, the
constant accompaniments of these high places were the
Asherah, a sacred wooden post which was apparently a
survival from Earlier tree- worship, and the Mazzebah,
the sacred stone pillar, like that erected by Jacob at
Bethel, or by Joshua at Shechem.
The Deuteronomic Reformation of the seventh century
centralised all worship in Jerusalem. The high places,
with their sacred stones and posts, their altars and their
images, were to be destroyed. 3 Henceforth, there was
to be but one sanctuary of Yahweh, where His worship
could be kept free from those alien associations which
were corrupting it at the local sanctuaries. The prophets
of the eighth century had attacked such practices, but
their failure had been shown by the long reign of Manasseh,
in which various cults flourished. How real the danger of
i Ex. xx. 24. 1 Sam. ix. Deut. xii. 2, 3.
136 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
corruption was may be seen from the term which denotes
those who abandoned themselves professionally to sexual
immorality at local sanctuaries. They are called * holy
ones V The law of the single sanctuary, supported by
the influence of the Exile (which began a generation
afterwards), succeeded where the prophets had failed,
and was practicable, because of the small extent of the
territory to which the sanctuary ministered. 2
The temple at Jerusalem was already singled out from
the local sanctuaries for various reasons. It was prob
ably erected on a site indicated by a peculiar theophany. 8
It was the official temple of the chief city, and stood in
special relation to the royal house. It alone possessed
the sacred Ark, after the recovery of this from the
Philistines, and its brief sojourn in the house of Obed-
edom. Consequently, the temple at Jerusalem occupied
a unique position even prior to Deuteronomy. But the
importance of the Deuteronomic centralisation of worship
can hardly be over-estimated. Henceforth this temple
alone expressed the idea of the approach of man to God.
The symbolism of the second temple , it has been said,
. . . with its graduated series of sacred spaces culminat
ing in the inmost shrine or most holy place, its different
classes of ministers, and its minutely regulated cere
monial, was so designed as to form an impressive exhibi
tion to the Israelites of the ruling idea of holiness *.* Here
dwelt Yahweh, 5 and here the approach of man to Him
found its great opportunity and its unique privileges.
We must realise the intensity of this conception of His
local presence at Jerusalem, even when (in post-exilic
1 Hos. iv. 14 ; Deut. xxiii. 17 ; 2 Kings xxiii. 7 ; cf. Amos ii. 7. Another
practice condemned (Deut. xviii. 10) was the sacrifice of children, which re
cent excavations show to have been so frequent (Vincent, op. cit. t pp. 189 f.).
2 The whole land of Israel is small : Jerusalem is distant from the sea
only thirty-three miles, from Jordan about eighteen, from Hebron nineteen,
and from Samaria thirty-four or thirty-five (G. A. Smith, . Bi. t col. 2417).
2 Sam. xxiv. 16, 17. 4 Skinner, D. ., ii. p. 396.
Pi. cxxxii. 14.
vi.] THE APPROACH OF MAN TO GOD 187
religion) the ideas of worship had been spiritualised, if
we are to do justice to the passion with which the Jew
regarded the temple, the passion which throbs through
the Psalter. 1
The necessary and genuine service rendered to man s
approach to God by holy places has for its parallel that
rendered by holy seasons. Just as there are local centres
at which men feel themselves nearer than anywhere else
to the mysterious powers that influence human life the
oasis in the desert, the awe-inspiring mountain, the scene
of a divine theophany so there are particular times at
which they feel drawn to approach the deity with peculiar
earnestness of supplication or thanksgiving. The three
annual festivals of Israel, the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Ingathering, all
spring from the manifestations of divine power in the
operations of the agricultural y^ar. In consequence of
the historical character of the religion, they eventually
became anniversaries of the great events of history in
which Yahweh s power had been manifested.
The three annual festivals are already enjoined in the
Book of the Covenant, 2 at a time when they were naturally
celebrated at the local sanctuaries. They are occasions
1 The temple founded by Onias iv. at Leontopolis in Egypt about 160 B.C.
(which existed until A.D. 73) was intentionally a rival to that at Jerusalem,
which had been desecrated by Antiochus Epiphanes, and was in the
hands of usurpers. Recently discovered Aramaic papyri have shown that a
Jewish community, with a temple for *ne worship of Yahweh, existed at
Elephantine (near the First Cataract of Egypt) at least as early as 525 B.C.,
and quite possibly at a considerably earli-T date. The ritual included the
meal-ottering (minchah), the incense-offeriiig (Ieb5nah), and the burnt-offering
( olah}, but not the post-exilic sin-offering and guilt-offering. Possibly the
Deuteronomic Law of the single sanctuary, though known to the original
founders of this temple, was considered not to apply to the Jews of th
Dispersion. But it seeius probable that this was a pre-Deuteronomic founda
tion in the interests of Jewish troops sent into the service of Egypt in th
seventh century (cf. Dent. xvii. 16). The Aramaic texts are given by Ungnad,
Aramaische Papyrus aus Elephantine (1911); a German translation by
Staerk, Altc und New Aramaische Papyri (1912) ; a fnll discussion of theii
significance by Meyer, Der Papyrvtfund von Elephantine (1912).
2 Ex. xxiii. 14-17.
138 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CIL
of agricultural rejoicing, and it is natural to suppose that
they were adopted from the Canaanites after the transi
tion of Israel from nomadic to agricultural life. 1 The
first was a spring festival, celebrated when the barley-
harvest ripened. Cakes of unleavened bread were hurriedly
made from it, and formed the food for seven days. The
second fell seven weeks later, when the corn-harvest was
completed, and the first-fruits of the wheat were offered.
The third fell in the autumn, and marked the ingathering
of the grapes and other fruit. The common note in these
festivals is the joyous recognition of Yahweh s gifts in
the produce of the land, and the dedication of the first-
fruits to Him. But from a very early period the first
of these agricultural feasts was connected with sacrifices
of another kind (familiar to us under the name of the
Passover), which probably go back to Israel s nomadic
period. 2 Here the associations are with the nomad e
cattle ; the firstlings are sacrificed in the spring season. 3
The earliest reference to the Passover which we possess, 4
already gives it historical meaning by connecting it with
the Exodus from Egypt. This connection becomes a
primary reason for the celebration of the Passover in the
month Abib, according to the Beuteronomic Code : In
the month of Abib Yahweh thy God brought thee forth
out of Egypt by night . 6 A striking liturgy of thanks
giving for some one of the three feasts is also given, in
which the Israelite looks back across his basket of offered
fruit to the far-off days of Jacob s wanderings. 8 In the
1 The Canaanites at Shechem, for example, celebrated a vintage festival in
connection with their Baal, when the grape-harvest had been gathered in
(Jud. ix. 27 ; cf. xxi. 19). The Hebrew festivals mark three such periods in
the agricultural year.
2 Ex. xii. 21 f.
8 Ex. xxxiv. 19, 20. Combined with this, there are other rites, e.g. the
sprinkling of the door-posts with blood, which connects with forms of a
threshold covenant found amongst many peoples. The fact that the celebration
is held at night has suggested to some scholars a connection with the phaset
of the moon.
* Ex. xii. 21 f. Deut. xvi. 1. Deut. xxvi. 5 f.
vi.] THE APPROACH OF MAN TO GOD 139
later Law of Holiness V the custom of living in booths
at the time of the autumn ingathering is interpreted as a
commemoration of Israel s life in the desert. At a later
date still (beyond the limits of the Old Testament), the
Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, was made an anniversary
of the giving of the Law on Sinai. This enlargement of
the meaning of the great festivals is very significant. It
shows that Israel recognised in Yahweh no mere nature-
god, the giver of the kindly fruits of the earth- like the
Baalim of the Canaanites, but One who manifested Him
self by His acts in the history of the nation. The memory
of those acts, handed on by father to son, 2 guaranteed
the redemptive relation in which Yahweh stood to Israel.
We may compare the influence of these festivals, thus
interpreted, with that exercised by the festivals of the
Christian year, similarly transformed from their earlier
meanings into anniversaries of redemptive history.
A similar process of religious or moral interpretation
may be observed in regard to the weekly Sabbath. The
custom of observing the seventh day of the week as holy
is very ancient in Israel. 3 It is coupled with the obser
vance of * new moons ,* and seems to be derived originally
from ideas concerning the seven planets, though Baby
lonian origin is not yet clearly shown. But, in the Old
Testament, it is explained along two different lines, one
moral and the other religious. The Book of Deuteronomy
characteristically urges the weekly rest on grounds of
humanity to dependents. 5 The version of the Decalogue
which is found in the Book of Exodus makes the seventh
day a memorial of Yahweh s rest upon the completion
of the (actual) week of creation, in agreement with the
Lev. xxiii. 43.
Deut. vi. 20 f.
2 Kings iv. 23 ; cf. Amos viii. 5 ; Hos. ii. 11.
Cf. 1 Sara. xx. 5.
Deut. v. H (cf. Ex. xxiii. 12). In Deut. v 15 the Sabbath become*
memorial of the deliverance from Egypt.
140 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CBL
opening chapter of Genesis. 1 The important religious
influence of this recurrent day, especially in those later
centuries when synagogues formed the local centres of
Judaism, needs no comment. Together with circumcision,
the Sabbath became a distinctive mark of Judaism. 2
The centralisation of worship at Jerusalem naturally
involved considerable changes in the celebration of the
annual festivals ; for example, it was now possible to
fix the time for the nation as a whole, whereas, previously,
the different parts of the country followed their respective
local harvest-times. But, in the various developments,
nothing is more remarkable or characteristic than the
rise of the Day of Atonement, observed on the tenth day
of the seventh month. 3 The solemn ceremonies of that
great Day are well known, if only through the use made
of them by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
The high priest laid aside his usual dress for simpler attire
that he might enter in all humility, on this day alone, into
the incense-filled Holy of Holies. There he made sacri
ficial atonement for the sins of the people, having first
made an offering for his own sins. The fact that this
became, for the later Judaism, the most important of all
holy seasons, marks the change of spirit which came over
the religion of Israel in post-exilic times. In the shadow of
the national tragedy, the early spirit of rejoicing which
accompanied the three annual festivals gave place to
a deepening sense of sin and a self -abasing penitence.
1 Ex. xx. 11 probably a later expansion in the spirit of P ; see the Oxford
Hexateuch, ii. p. 112.
2 The observance of the seventh year as a Sabbath (Lev. xxv. 1-7 ; cf. Ex.
xxiii. 10 f.) is historically attested (e.g. 1 Mace. vi. 49), but not that of the
fiftieth year as a Jubilee (Lev. xxv. 8 f.), which is an impracticable
priestly ideal, further expressing the principle that the land is Yahweh s.
3 Lev. xvi. 29. This date for the national fast of humiliation was probably
chosen as being New Year s Day (Lev. xxv. 9 ; I). B., i. p. 199). Earlier
instances of fasting will be found in 2 Sam. xii. 22 ; 1 Kings xxi. 27 ;
Jer. xxxvi. 6 ; Zech. vii. 3, 5, viii. 19. Ezekiel desiderated ceremonies of
atonement on certain days (xlv. 18-20), but even in Nehemiah s time, though
there is a fast-day on the 24th of the seventh month (ix. 1), there is no
Leritical Day of Atonement on the 10th.
vi.] THE APPROACH OF MAN TO GOD 141
The ordinary ceremonies, also developed in the same
direction, were felt to be inadequate to express this.
The Day of Atonement is an attempt to regain the holiness
lost in the year that has gone. Its ritual enables the
people, through their representative, to approach the holy
God. Thus, as has often been said, the religion of Judaism
finds in the Day of Atonement its culminating point.
The leading idea of the entire Priestly Law found here
its best expression. ... It is the key-stone of the whole
system, the last consequence of the principle, " Ye shall
be (ceremonially) holy, for I am holy " - 1
The salient facts in Israel s approach to God through
holy places and seasons are, therefore, these two the
centralisation of worship at a single temple, where its
purity could be successfully guarded, and the deepened
moral meaning which special days of approach acquire,
in the light of historical experience, whether redemptive
or punitive. This will be illustrated more fully by the
ritual of the temple.
2. The Priesthood and the Sacrifices
The Jewish priest may be defined as the (ceremonially)
holy person through whom God is approached in the
divinely prescribed way. As such, he forms the direct
contrast to the prophet who is the (morally) holy person
through whom God approaches man. In the regula-
tions of the Priestly Code, the appointment of Aaron and
his sons to be priests follows naturally upon the account
of the altar ; the ministry of that altar can be discharged
only through priests so appointed, so arrayed, so con
secrated. 2 This holy priesthood is set apart as represent-
i Benzinger, E. Bi., col. 385; but the moral element in this holiness must
not be forgotten.
s Ex. xxviii., xxix. Of. P s storr of the revolt of the laity under Korah
against Moses ami Aaron (here representing the Levites). The (unholy) rebels
presume to approach Yah web. with an offering of incense. They are destroyed
U2 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [en.
ing the people. The representation finds fullest expression
in the person of the high priest. He bears the names of
the twelve tribes on his shoulders and breast, * when he
goeth in to the holy place, for a memorial before Yahweh
continually - 1 If he sins, he brings guilt on the people. 2
This representation of man before God should be clearly
distinguished from that very different type of priesthood,
in which God is represented to man through the priest. 3 In
the case of Israel, this latter representation belongs not
to the priest but to the prophet, through whose moral
consciousness God speaks. 4 Subordinated to the priestly
Aaronites in the post-exilic religion are the Levites. They
are selected, according to the Priestly Code, by a further
divine command, that they may perform the humbler,
non-priestly ministry. 5 They, also, have a representa
tive character, since they are supposed to replace the
first-born of all Israel, who, according to primitive ideas,
belong to Yahweh. The fact that they belong to the same
tribe * as the priestly Aaronites, must not be allowed to
hide the fact that they are a distinct institution for a
special purpose, sharply distinguished from the priesthood
proper. This distinction belongs, however, wholly to the
Priestly Code. Ezekiel prepares for it by his separation
of the Zadokites, or priests of Jerusalem, from the country
priests who had ministered at the local sanctuaries, and
were therefore to be excluded from the priestly office
proper. 6 But in pre-exilic times there is no distinction
between priests and Levites ; in the Book of Deuteronomy
the terms are applied to the same persons. 7 At a still
earlier date, the term Levite was used of a professional
by fire, from which their censers are rescued, for these are holy (Num. xvi.,
where the story is combined with that of a civil revolt under Dathan and
Abiram).
i Ex. xxviii. 12, 29. * Lev. iv. 3 ; cf. Zech. iii.
E,g., Roman Catholic sacerdotalism (Kautzsch, D. B., v. p. 719).
4 Thus the high- priesthood of Christ, as the New Testament conceives it, ii
Uifl adequate representation of man within the veil .
5 Num. iii. 6 f . Ezek. xliv. 13. xviii. 1.
vi.j THE APPROACH OF MAN TO GOD 143
priest, with no tribal meaning at all. 1 In these earlier
days, as need hardly be said, the office of the priest was
very differently conceived from the form it assumes in
the Law. Not sacrifice, but the interpretation of the
sacred oracle, would be the chief priestly function. It
was, indeed, open to any Israelite to sacrifice, and the
priest is not even mentioned in the Book of the Covenant.
The advancing specialisation of a sacrificial priesthood
is naturally accompanied by that of the sacrifices them
selves, of which four chief types may be here noticed. The
most primitive example of bloody sacrifice recorded in the
Old Testament is that described after one of Saul s victories
over the Philistines. 2 His hungry soldiers were slaughtering
and eating the captured animals without, according to
custom, offering the blood to Yahweh. Saul therefore
converts a great stone into an altar, where all the animals
are to be slain, and the blood is to be poured out. After
this procedure, the soldiers are free to eat of the animals,
now drained of their blood. This is in perfect harmony
with what we know of the practice of Semitic nomads.
The altar of the pre-Muhammedan Arabs was not an
idealised hearth, like the Vestal flame that was central
in the Roman religion ; it was a stone on, or at, which
the blood of the slaughtered animal was poured out. 8
The flesh was consumed by those who offered the sacri
fice, and by their guests, just as was the case at the gather
ing to which Samuel invited Saul. 4 The most natural
interpretation of this custom is that which regards it as
a communion feast, strengthening the bond between the
deity and his worshippers. The blood is peculiarly the
1 Jud. xvii. 7. The duties of this Levite, who belongs to the clan of Judah,
re the oversight of the ephod, the teraphiin, and the idol.
* 1 Sara. xiv. 32-35. Wdlhausen, Rente, p. 116.
< Ibid. , p. 118 ; 1 Sam. ix. 22 f. We must remember that the eating of flesh
it, and was, a rare occasion for Semitic nomads, so that every such meal might
be a sacred festival (of. 1 Kin<js i. 9), as well as a time of hospitable rejoicing.
Seldom , says Doughty (Arabia Jjeserta, i. p. 452), the nomads eat other
flesh than the meat of their sacrifices .
144 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [en.
portion of the deity because of its mysterious and perilous
qualities ; amongst primitive peoples in general the use
of blood is a central feature in both religion and magic.
In the account of the covenant sacrifice at Sinai, the blood
is sprinkled partly on the altar, and partly on the people. 1
In the type of early sacrifice which has been named
(known in our version of the Old Testament as the peace-
offering), nothing more than the blood and portions of the
fat 2 were reserved for the deity. But, already in pre-exilic
times, there was another distinct, though far less frequent,
form of animal sacrifice, known as the burnt-offering,
which was wholly offered to God. 3 Here the underlying
idea would seem to be the conveyance of a gift to the
deity by the convenient means of the fire, which turns
it into rising smoke. As such a gift, wholly given to
Yahweh, the burnt-offering formed a proper accompani
ment of peace-offerings, with which it occurs more often
than alone. 4
When we turn from these simple types of pre-exilic
sacrifice (the peace-offering and the burnt-offering) to the
elaborate ritual of post-exilic worship, we find perhaps
the most striking and convincing proof of development
the Old Testament affords. To the peace-offering and
the burnt-offering of pre-exilic times two more types of
bloody sacrifice are added, viz. the sin-offering and the
trespass-offering, and the sin-offering claims the principal
place amongst the four mam types. This change points to
a new tone and emphasis in the post-exilic religion.
The rejoicing of the festal meal has been displaced by
1 Ex. xxiv. 6. 8.
2 Ti.ir was burnt ; cf. 1 Sam. ii. 15.
3 Burnt-offerings were offered daily at Jerusalem in the time of Ahaz
(2 Kings xvi. 15) ; we hear of them also on special occasions, such as the
arrival of the Ark from the Philistine country (1 Sam. vi. 14), or when
Solomon approached Yahweh at Gibeon (1 Kings iii. 4).
* So David, having bought the threshing-floor of Araunah, built there an
altar unto Yahweh, and offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings ( 2 Sam.
xxiv. 25).
vi.] THE APPROACH OF MAN TO GOD 145
penitent humiliation before Yahweh, which reflected the
later sorrows of the nation. The flesh of the sin-offering,
if offered on behalf of the high priest or the community as
a whole, was burnt away from the altar ; in other cases,
it had to be consumed by the priests, because of its special
holiness , and under special conditions. 1 The priests eat
the flesh of the sin-offering because, as Robertson Smith
says, the flesh, like the sacramental cup in the Roman
Catholic Church, was too sacred to be touched by the
laity . 2 Nor must it be thought that the sin-offering has
a purely moral reference. The sin-offering is made, in
the case of the leper, as part of his official cleansing, 3 as
well as in other purificatory rites of a wholly non-moral
character. We must remember, also, in any endeavour
to understand what sacrifice means for the Jewish religion,
that no definite provision at all is made for what we should
call sin in the full sense i.e. deliberate and voluntary
rebellion against God s law. With this the sacrificial system
does not deal. The nearest approach to it is perhaps the
trespass-offering (R. V. guilt-offering), the fourth main type of
bloody sacrifice. This seems to have arisen from cases in
which it was possible to make a restitution of misappropri
ated property, human or divine. It was to be done with
the addition of a fifth of the value ; the trespass- offering
itself was a ram. 4 But even here, the case of wrong done
to God intentionally is expressly excluded. 5 For sin in
the full sense, there is but one issue according to the
Levitical theory : The soul that doeth aught with an
high hand, whether he be home-born or a stranger, the
same blasphemeth Yahweh ; and that soul shall be cut
off from among his people . 6
In regard to the general significance of the sin-offering,
1 Lev. vi. 26 f. This is a serious objection to the common idea that the
victim penally represents the sinner.
* Religion of the Semite*, p. 360. Lev. xiv. 19.
< Lev. vi. If., v. 14-16. * Lev. v. 15. Num. rv. 30.
7;
146 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
which is the central form of sacrifice in the post-exilio
religion of Israel, there seems no sufficient evidence for
the idea of a vicarious penalty. Those who appeal to the
case of the scapegoat, sent away for Azazel into the
wilderness on the Day of Atonement (Lev. xvi.), over
look the fact that this was not a sacrifice at all ; the com
panion goat that was retained formed the sacrifice, whilst
it is the non-sacrificial goat that bears away the iniquities
of Israel into a solitary land. 1 Nor does the fact that
the offerer lays his hand upon the victim 2 prove any
transference of guilt, for the same ceremony occurs also
in the case of the burnt-offering and the peace-offering, 8
where no such transference can be supposed. Such laying
on of hands is sufficiently explained as a ritual expression
of the relation of the offerer to the animal he is offering
to Yahweh. Finally, nothing can be made out for the
idea of a substitutionary atonement from the manipula
tion of the victim s blood. In the case of the burnt-
offering, the peace-offering, and the trespass-offering, the
blood of the victim was dashed against the sides of the
altar ; in the case of the sin-offering, some of it was
smeared on the four horns of the altar, and the rest was
poured out at its foot. The object of this special treat
ment is apparently to establish an even closer relation
with the deity. The statement that it is the blood that
maketh atonement by reason of the life 4 is in perfect
agreement with the Hebrew idea of the blood-soul ; but
the atonement made consists in the restoration of a
quasi-physical relationship, rather than in the forensic
conceptions of Protestant theology. The blood-rites are,
indeed, central in sacrifice, and they may form its original
1 This is really a survival of symbolic magic ; cf. the Babylonian incanta
tion : As this onion is peeled and thrown into the fire , etc. (Jastrow,
Religious Belief in, Babylonia and Assyria, p. 315).
a Lev. iv. 29. * Lev. i. 4, iii. 8.
4 Lev. xvii. 11. A poor man s bloodless offering of flour also atones
(Lev. v. 13).
vi.] THE APPROACH OF MAN TO GOD 147
nucleus ; l but they are to be explained from the ideas
of primitive animism, not from those of modern juris
prudence.
In view of these facts, we must dismiss from the mind,
in regard to the sin-offering of the Old Testament, the
idea that the animal victim receives the penalty which is
really due to the offerer of the sacrifice. At the same
time, it must be recognised that the general idea of sub
stitution (the emphasis falling on the value of the gift
rather than the suffering of the victim) does occur amongst
the Hebrews, as amongst other peoples. It is illustrated
by the ransoming of the first-born, 2 and by the related
story of Abraham s proposed sacrifice of Isaac, 3 apparently
written to account for the substitution of animal for human
sacrifice. The most important expression of the substitu-
tionary idea is that of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah,
in which other peoples approach God through Israel,
the nation being conceived as a guilt- offering , a lamb
that is led to the slaughter. 4 But nothing is said, even
there, which makes the value of this substitutionary
offering to lie in the penal transference to Israel of the
guilt of the nations. Israel actually suffers as the nations
should have suffered ; yet the purpose of that suffering
is not to satisfy divine justice, but to move the nations
to penitence, and to provide the costliest of gifts with
which they might approach God.
As for the interpretation of sacrifice in general, it may
be said that, in the pre-exilic period, its dominating idea
was doubtless that of a gift to the deity ; as such, especially
1 Of Moore s excellent article, Sacrifice , E. Bi., cols. 4217, 4218.
2 Ex. xxii. 29, xxxiv. 20; cf. Micah vi. 7: Shall I give my first-bom for
my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ?
> Gen. xxii. The beloved son is to be a burnt-offering, not a sin-offering.
The object of the sacrifice is attained (verse 12) when Abraham shows himself
willing to make it. Thus early was the truth taught that the essence of
sacrifice is the moral disposition (Skinner, ad loc.).
4 See more fully on this subject chaps, vii. 3 and viii. 6. The term
rendered guilt-offering implies compensation, not the suffering of a penalty.
The phrases suggesting to ut the latter are clearly figurative.
148 KELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [OH.
in the form of the burnt-offering, it made atonement by
propitiating Him, whilst the peace-offering helped the
worshipper to realise his communion with his God. Prac
tically all the Old Testament offerings take the form of
food, 1 and the usual accompaniments of meals salt, wine,
oil are often combined with the sacrifices, reminding
us that once these were meals. Originally, the idea
would be that the deity profits by the food like some
superior to whom a tribute is brought ; thus the smell of
Noah s sacrifice is agreeable to Yahweh. 2 In the post-exilic
period such primitive ideas would be left behind, together
with the anthropomorphism which they imply, though the
practices which they explain continued as features of
the ritual. We shall perhaps keep nearest to the atti
tude and thought of the worshipper in this later period,
by remembering the emphasis which the Priestly Code
places upon the precise performance of the ritual. The
whole conception of sacrifice falls under the category of
revelation ; this is the way God has commanded sacrifice
to be offered, and when it is offered in this prescribed way
the worshipper effectually draws near to God. Probably
the ordinary worshipper concerned himself no more with
the precise meaning of his acts beyond this attitude of
obedience, than does the ordinary worshipper at the
present day. 8 It was sufficient that, through the due
performance of the ritual, the Israelite was confident of
a real approach, if not one made with boldness, to the
throne of holy grace.
3. Worship in the Psalter
The worship of the temple centred in the daily morning
and evening sacrifices. In the post-exilic period it was
1 Incense is first named in the times of Jeremiah (vi. 20) and Ezekiel
(viii. 11). It was used at the Elephantine Jewish teruple, according to the
letter sent to Jerusalem in 408 (Staerk, Alte und Neue Aramaische Papyri,
F- 28).
8 Gten. viii. 21. Cf. Bennett, Post-Exilic Prophets, p. 324.
vi.] THE APPROACH OF MAN TO GOD 149
the chief task of the priests to offer burnt-offerings unto
Yahweh upon the altar of burnt-offering continually
morning and evening, even according to all that is written
in the law of Yahweh V Notwithstanding the great
development of individual religion, it was primarily
through this sacrifice for the whole community that the
Israelite approached God. There were, of course, many
private offerings in addition ; but Israel s daily worship
centred in this great act, as the worship of the whole
year eventually centred in the Day of Atonement. 2 We
must remember that the temple had a unique place after
the Exile. In it, and through it, the nation s whole
worship was brought to a focus. The synagogue is
named but once in the Old Testament, 3 and we know
practically nothing of its rise and early development.
But the primary obiect of this important feature of the
later Judaism, which may date from the Exile itself, was
not worship, but instruction. For worship, the temple
claimed a unique and unchallenged place. 4
If we would understand the spiritual significance and
inner meaning of this temple- worship, we must turn to
the Book of Psalms, which is frequently called the hymn-
book of the second temple. This title expresses a real
though partial truth. Some parts of the Book of Psalms
are clearly intended for liturgical use, and the inference
is corroborated by later Jewish tradition. On the other
hand, we must not think of the Psalter as a hymn-book
in the hands of the worshipping congregation ; certain
parts of it are rather to be regarded as anthem-books in
the hands of the Levitical choirs, to the rendering of which
1 1 Chron. xvi. 40 ; cf. 2 Kings xvi. 15.
2 Notice the sense of a great calamity when a plague of locusts had made it
impossible to provide for the daily sacrifices (Joel i. 9).
* On the significance of the Jewish temple at Elephantine, and the later
tempi* at Heliopolis, see note 1 to p. 187. Ecclesiasticus 1. should be read, in
order to gain a vivid conception of the enthusiasm which the worship of th
temple inspired.
150 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
the ordinary worshipper would listen, and respond at
intervals. Many Psalms, however, do not belong to this
category ; even if they were adapted, by suitable changes,
for use in public worship, they seem to have originated
in private devotion. 1 Like our own hymn-books of to-day,
the Psalter has been enriched by contributions inspired
in very different circumstances. To this catholicity of
origin must be largely due its catholicity of devotion, for
Jewish religion covered Jewish life. It is possible, indeed
probable, that it contains pre-exilic elements. But as it
lies before us, it is primarily the witness to that spiritu
ality of worship which gathered around the temple sacri
fices after the Exile. No just view of Jewish religion
can be gained by any one who does not see the Psalter
written, so to speak, in parallel columns with the Book
of Leviticus.
In this way, the Book of Psalms raises implicitly, and,
indeed, in some cases explicitly, one of the perennial
problems of the Church the relation between the sacri
ficial or sacramental approach to God, and that approach
which makes all outward acts secondary to the personal
attitude of the worshipper. The explicit contrast of
these historic conceptions, which divide Christianity
into two great camps, is made only in three or four places
in the Psalter ; but it does not seem possible to explain
these away, so as to reconcile them with the fervent
acceptance of sacrifice and ritual in the rest of the bogk.
We hear the echo of the voices of the great prophets 2
in such words as these :
* Sacrifice and meal-offering Thou hast no delight in . .
Burnt-offering and sin-offering Thou hast not required * (xl. 6).
1 There was the less difficulty in making the transition from the I of
personal religion to the collective expression of worship, because the personi
fication of the nation as a single person is frequent in Hebrew literature, as
well as in such solemn forms as the Priestly Blessing (Num. vi. 23-26) and the
Decalogue. See, further, chap. viii.
2 Is. i. 11 ; Hos. vi. 6, etc. ; cf. 1 Sam. XT. 22.
vi.] THE APPROACH OF MAN TO GOD 151
Should I eat the flesh of bulls,
Or drink the blood of he-goats? (1. 13).
Thou delightest not in sacrifice, else would I give it,
Thou hast no pleasure in burnt-offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit :
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise
(li. 16, 17).
But these plain avowals form the exception rather than
the rule in the Psalter. In general, and in spite of the
great variety of religious mood represented, there is a
common acceptance of the temple- worship as the necessary
and sufficient means of approach to Yahweh. The passion
that has found such noble expression for all time in the
84th Psalm has surely risen through the particular to
the universal. The worshipper who could so realise the
joy of standing on the threshold of the earthly house of
his God l has surely learnt to worship God in spirit and
in truth, though he has never faced the issue which is
presented in the Catholic and Protestant conceptions of
worship. We may say of the Book of Psalms, as a whole,
that it is, like the Book of Deuteronomy, a compromise
between the priestly and the prophetic ideals of religion,
with their different ideas of what holiness is. But whereas
the practical outcome of the Deuteronomic compromise
was to confirm and establish the most elaborate ritual of
antiquity, the religion of the Psalter has smitten the
temple rock that a fountain of living water for Christian
faith might flow for ever. The presence of the Psalter
in the Bible, and its close relation to the worship of the
temple in the post-exilic period, must at least preclude any
idea that the Jewish approach to God was unspiritual. 2
The Book of Psalms may justly be regarded as a collec
tion of prayers, even more than as a liturgy of praise.
Ps. iMjdv. 10.
8 The modern reader of the Book of Psalms tends, in one direction, to
exaggerate its spirituality , since he usually does not give the full valne t
the references to sacrifice, the house of God, the music of the worship, etc.
152 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [en
The conception of prayer in the earliest period of Israel s
religion is perhaps not misrepresented by that of the
Arab who finished his prayers, whilst on a robber- raid,
by saying, my Lord ! I say unto Thee, except Thou
give me a camel to-day with a water-skin, I would as it
were beat Thee with this camel-stick ! It was natural
for the man to say in the evening, when he had gained
his wish, * Now ye may know, fellows, ye who blamed
me when I prayed at dawn, how my Lord was adread of
me tOfday ! * l However exceptional may be the out
spoken utterance of such an attitude, there is something
much akin to it in primitive conceptions of prayer. The
invocation of the supernatural power is not what it so
often becomes in modern prayers, a conventional form ;
it is the utterance of a secret name which gives a con
straining power over the person addressed. Prayer of
this kind belongs to the circle of primitive ideas to which
also belong blessings and curses and oaths. It involves
a superstitious belief in the magical power of the spoken
name, just as, when prayer is linked to vows, it may be
no more than a bargain struck with an unseen dealer. It
need hardly be said that the Book of Psalms rises far above
such primitive conceptions. Yet it must owe something
of its own peculiar intensity to the soil from which it has
sprung. These unpromising elements have been trans
formed into a deep reverence for the very name of God,
and a sense of such living intercourse with Him, that He
can be approached as a Person, close at hand, ready
to respond, faithful in His promises.
The spiritual outlook of prayer and praise in the Psalter
is ver} wide. In the first place, there is the consciousness
of an adequate self -revelation of God through His provi
dence on the one hand, and His written law on the other.
The providence of God is visible in the whole course of
Israel s history, the things * which we have heard and
1 Doughty, Arabia Dtserta, ii. p. 241,
TL] THE APPROACH OF MAN TO GOD 153
known, and our fathers have told us (Ps. Ixxviii.). It
is also visible in the natural world, where His manifold
works display His wisdom and His glory (civ.). In one
Psalm (xix.), the revelation of the natural world is placed
side by side with the companion revelation of the written
law ; the heavens declare the glory of God, and His
perfect law restores the soul. The happy man is he who
delights in that law and meditates in it day and night
(i. 2), whilst the longest of all Psalms is devoted to the
joy that written law can minister :
* Thy statutes have been my songs
In the house of my pilgrimage (cxix. 54).
Through the natural world and the written law, then,
the worshipper feels that he has access to God ; in these,
God has come forth to meet him, and to hold communion
with him. But, in the second place, the Psalter is pro
foundly conscious of the great barriers sin and death.
He who would be a guest in God s house, approach
ing Him in the worship of the sanctuary and finciing Him
there, must have clean hands and a pure heart (xxiv. 4) ;
he must be one who walks uprightly and works righteous
ness (xv. 2). Evil cannot be a guest with Him (v. 4),
for His holiness is now recognised as predominantly a
moral quality, a truth which the prophets had urged.
But sin is not the only barrier ; the gates and bars of
Sheol, the land of the departed, are only too effectual
in robbing man of any approach to God :
The dead praise not Yah,
Neither any that go down into silence (cxv. 17).
In death there is no remembrance of Thee,
In Sheol who shall give Thee thanks ? (vi. 5).
Shall the shades arise and thank Thee 1
Shall Thy kindness be told in the grave,
Thy faithfulness in Destruction? (Ixxxviii. 10, 11).
It is here that one of the greatest differences between
the religion of the Old Testament and that of the New is
154 KELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [OH.
apparent; the approach to God is temporally as well
as morally limited. The limit set by death accentuates the
great problem in the post-exilic period that of retribution,
which is the third great topic of the Psalter. How can the
moral government of the world be justified, when it is
apparent that the wicked prosper ? Does not a fatal
doubt arise as to the divine equity, and hinder man from
that perfect trust of communion with God which is the
finest product of Israel s religion ? It was in this realm
of thought that one of Israel s chief contributions to
religion was destined to be made in that interpretation
of suffering which prepared the way for the Gospel of
the Cross of Christ. The peculiar qualities of Old Testa
ment religion were here concentrated on a definite issue,
so important as to call for separate consideration. 1 This
was the arena on which the victory of faith had to be won,
not by Job alone, but by all those who were Israelites
indeed. For faith , in the Old Testament, is always
trust , confidence in the everlasting arms of God as a
sure support. Abraham is its great exemplar in Hebrew
story, 2 and * in the Psalms, " trust " is the character
istic attitude of the soul towards God . 8 This inner
most quality of the worship of the Psalter is closely related
to the conception of moral holiness in which the Old
Testament approach to God is seen to culminate.
4. Moral Holiness
It is characteristic of Hebrew morality that its prin
ciples should be presented as laws of God, not, in the manner
of Greek ethics, as ideals of man. Even that handbook
of Jewish morality which we call the Book of Proveibs,
in which conduct is more detached from religion than
i See the following chapter, especially 3.
8 Abraham s trust is made the basis of Yahweh s approval of him ((Jen.
TV. 6 ; on the sense of righteousness here, see chap. ni. 1). In Hab. li 4
faith should be rendered faithfulness .
8 Cheyne, in E. Bi., col. 1496.
vi.] THE APPROACH OF MAN TO GOD 155
anywhere else in the Old Testament, maintains that the
fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom (ix. 10) . Israel s
prophets do not say simply that the summum bonum of
human life is justice and mercy ; they add the typical
religious virtue of humility, and present them all as the
requirements of Yahweh. 1 Thus saith the high and
lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy :
I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is
of a contrite and humble spirit . 2 This humility before
God, issuing in practical obedience to Him, is man s true
life, the scope of which is not sufficiently indicated in the
* Ten Commandments . They do indeed identify morality
with religion, in the spirit of the eighth-century prophets ;
but the morality is negative, the sins are crimes, and there
is a want of that inwardness of obedience which is the
life-breath of the deepest righteousness. As a summary
of Old Testament ethics, the thirty-first chapter of the
Book of Job is greatly preferable to the Decalogue, as a
fine interpreter of Hebrew thought has pointed out.*
These * moral ideals of Job (as Greece has taught us to
say), which are for him the laws of God, begin with the
rejection of the inward motions of desire towards sexual
sin, in a way that makes us remember Christ s condemna
tion of even the look of lust. They place in the forefront
the duty of justice to dependents and the helpless, enforced
with a most striking declaration of the brotherhood of
man. They pass beyond the letter of justice into the spirit
of humanity towards the fatherless and the stranger.
They rise almost to the height of the New Testament
injunction to love our enemies, for Job invokes a curse
upon himself,
1 If I rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me,
Or lifted up myself when evil found him (verse 29).
i Micah vi. 8. Is. Ivii. 15.
Duhm, Das flucA Hiob, p. 145 ; cf. Gray, The Divine Discipline of I trad,
p. 102.
156 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
No one who reads this great chapter thoughtfully can
fail to realise the fine conception of human life which lies
behind it. But there is much more here than a moral
conception of life. The very point of the chapter is that
it describes a relation of man to God, conceived almost
throughout in purely moral terms. The remark made
by Josephus is essentially true in principle, though it
antedates the results of a gradual development : Moses
did not make religion a part of virtue, but he saw and
ordained other virtues to be parts of religion . l
Whilst, in this way, morality is conceived from the
standpoint of religion, it is not less true of their inter
relation to say that religion is conceived from the stand
point of morality. The notable contribution of the
prophets of Israel has not been considered in any detail
in this chapter, simply because it has been so prominent
elsewhere. It is enough to refer to that vision of Isaiah
in the temple which constituted his call to service. This
illustrates better, perhaps, than any other passage, except
the guest Psalms (p. 153), the cardinal transformation of
the idea of holiness through the prophetic consciousness.
Isaiah sees Yahweh of Hosts enthroned in the outer court
of the temple, amid the seraphim who proclaim His holi
ness. The first thought of the prophet is of his own
unworthiness to behold this vision. But the purging
of his sin leaves him finely responsive to Yahweh s pur
pose, thrilling in sympathy with Yahweh s voice. Thus
he receives the call to such service as is itself an ever-
advancing approach to God, and is brought to proclaim a
religion that has morality at its very core.
The clearest and noblest example of spiritual approach
to God, after this great pattern, is that of the prophet
Jeremiah. His autobiography, marked by convincing
sincerity and the finest spiritual piety, is the best thing
i Contra Apionem, chap. ii. 17 (vol. IT., p. 344 of Whiston s translation,
ed. 1822).
vi.] THE APPROACH OF MAN TO GOD 157
to which we could point when we would say, * This is
Israel s religion at its highest . We see him shrinking
in humility from the call to ministry (i. 6), overcome by
the awful majesty of the divine power (iv. 23 f.), seeking
in vain for like-minded men (v. 1 f.). We hear his pas
sionate protests against a thankless task, and that divine
encouragement that bids him take the precious from the
vile, his best from his worst, in order to become the very
mouth of God (xv. 18, 19). We feel the heat of that
burning fire of conviction which was aflame within him,
and would not let him be silent (xx. 9). We rise with
him to the knowledge of a new covenant, a divine revela
tion that shall be spiritual in the deepest sense, because
impressed on the innermost spirit of man (xxxi. 31 f.).
Doubtless, such detachment as his from the external
means of grace was very exceptional, though its existence
must not be forgotten when we consider the range and
possibilities of Old Testament faith. Few could stand
apart from the temple and distinguish, as he did, 1 the
essence of religion from that expression of it which the
temple-worship afforded. The ideals of Ezekiel, his
younger contemporary, were destined to prevail in Judaism
the priestly-prophetic vision of a city bearing the name
Yahweh is there , and of a land fertilised by living streams
that issued from under the threshold of the temple. 2
In these two prophets there is presented, as clearly as
was possible for Old Testament religion, the ever-recurrent
problem in the approach of man to God. The history
of the sacraments within the Christian Church continually
raises the antithesis between sacramental religion and
personal or * spiritual religion. Between the two extremes
of an utter denial of the worth of the sacramental, and an
absolute assertion of its objective value, there has been
room for many varieties of individual emphasis. This
must have been the case in Israel s approach to God along
* Jer. vii. 4. 2 Ezek. xlviii. 35 ; xlvii. 1.
158 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
the twofold road of the inner and the outer world. The
Epistle to the Hebrews stands in the New Testament to
remind us that Israel s religion, even in its external forms,
could become a not unworthy setting for the figure of
Christ. But a greater than its author stands by the well of
Sychar to place the emphasis where it must always eventu
ally fall in the highest religion, the religion which worships
God who is Spirit, in spirit and in truth. Incalculabl}
great as can be the service rendered by the outer forms, yet
for such a spiritual religion it is service, not sovereignty.
The master-thought, to which the transformation of the
idea of holiness in the Old Testament leads up, is the
benediction on the pure in heart.
vii.] THE PROBLEMS OF SIN AND SUFFERING 150
CHAPTER VII
THE PROBLEMS OF SIN AND SUFFERING
PAUL S words at Athens * What therefore ye worship
in ignorance, this set I forth unto you might well stand
as a motto for the proud confidence of early Christianity,
as it faced the seeker after truth. The confidence was
justified, if only because of the new light which the Christian
Gospel had thrown on the significance of morality, and
on the hidden glory of a Cross. The dawn of that light
is already to be seen in the Old Testament, but before
the sun rises on Israel there is the darkness of strife with
an unknown God. Israel s persistent purpose, in presence
of the problems of sin and suffering, won a blessing for the
world, the greatness of which is realised only when some
fragment of the past shows the paralysis of ancient religion,
through its sense of an inexplicable mystery at the heart
of things. Take, for example, one of the Babylonian
Psalms :
What, however, seems good to one, to a god may be dis
pleasing.
What is spurned by oneself may find favour with a god.
Who is there that can grasp the will of the gods in heaven ?
The plan of a god is full of mystery, who can understand it?
How can mortals learn the ways of a god ?
He who is still alive at evening is dead the next morning.
In an instant he is cast into grief, of a sudden he is crushed \ l
Such a passage indicates very clearly the way in which
the problems of sin and of suffering arose for Semitic
* The translation it Jastrow s in Religious Edit/ in Babylonia and
Assyria, p. 833.
160 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH,
religion. Sin is that which is displeasing to the gods ;
suffering is the sign of their displeasure. As long as the
divine nature, and therefore the divine will, remain
unknown to man, uncertainty attaches both to the con
duct and to the interpretation of life. What is sin ?
or, in the more concrete form of the problem for ancient
religion, what acts or states are sinful ? Here it is of
course necessary to put aside our modern assimilation of
morality and religion. The sinful act might or might
not be also an immoral act ; the essential feature of sin
was that it displeased the gods. Further, how can man
win forgiveness for his sins ? What can man do to change
the divine displeasure into approval, and to cancel the
acts, possibly done in ignorance, by which offence has
been given ? These are the elementary questions that
arise in all forms of religion which are above a certain
level of culture. But the religion of Israel advanced to
further and deeper questions, which were raised through
its emphasis on morality. How is it that the (morally)
innocent are found to suffer, as though they are still dis
pleasing to Him whose requirements are believed to be
moral ? How does moral evil begin to be, under a divine
government antagonistic to it ? These, then, are the four
chief problems of sin and suffering encountered in the Old
Testament. Its solutions will be reviewed in the four
corresponding sections of this chapter, viz. : (1) Sin and
Retributive Suffering ; (2) Forgiveness and * Righteous
ness ; (3) The Suffering of the Innocent ; (4) The Cosmic
Problem of Evil. They may all be regarded as different
applications of that clearer experiential knowledge of God
which Israel acquired in the course of its history.
1. Sin and Retributive Suffering
The characteristic idea of sin in the Old Testament
is that of rebellion against a superior, taking the specific
vn.j THE PROBLEMS OF SIN AND SUFFERING 161
form of disobedience to the moral law which Yahweh
requires of man. This, at least, is the prophetic doctrine
of sin, and two familiar passages from the prophets suffi
ciently illustrate it. Through the lips of Isaiah, Yahweh
reproaches Israel in the words : Sons I have brought
up and reared, and they have rebelled against me ? . r A
prophet of the same period declares : * He hath shown
thee, O man, what is good ; and what doth Yahweh
require of thee, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and
to walk humbly with thy God ? 2 Other terms, besides
those which imply rebellion , are used to describe sin ;
it is a deviation from the right way, it is an act which
places its doer in the position of one found guilty before
the judgment-seat of God, it is something intrinsically
evil. 3 But, broadly speaking, the idea of sin in the Old
Testament is that of the prophets disobedience to the
moral requirements of God. The Son of God employs
their figure, and familiarises us with their teaching, when
He represents sin as essentially the * lawlessness of the
disobedient son, the moral evil of the unbrotherly spirit.
Not less fundamental to the prophetic religion is the
idea of suffering as the just recompense and reward of
sin, its necessary accompaniment in the moral government
of the world by Yahweh. Almost any chapter of the pro
phetic writings illustrates the application of this principle.
Amos, for example, refers to a series of contemporary
cases of suffering famine, drought, the destruction
of the harvest, pestilence, defeat in battle, earth
quake as warning penalties preparatory to Yahweh s
final judgment on sin. 4 Yahweh declares through Hosea,
* I will punish them for their ways, and will reward them
their doings ; Israel hath cast off that which is
good : the enemy shall pursue him . 6 * Wherefore will
1 Is. i. 2. Micah vi. 8.
See H. W. Robinson, The Christian Doctrine of Man, pp. 43 f. : more
fully, Schultz, Old Testament Theology (E.T.), ii. pp. 281-91. * iv. 6-12.
IT. 9 ; viii. 3. Hosea also dwells on the disciplinary purpose of suffering.
L
162 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [ca
ye yet be smitten ? asks Isaiah, (wherefore) continue in
your defection ? l Micah says of Israel s rulers, * They
build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
. . . Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as
a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps . 2 The same
principle of retributive moral government underlies the
whole of Deuteronomy, based as this book is on the pro
phetic teaching of the previous century ; 8 it is applied
to interpret the past history by those writers called
Deuteronomistic , who gave to that history its present
form. We meet with the same direct and obvious appea\
to facts in the teaching of Haggai, who asserts that the
sufferings of the returned exiles are due to delay in re
building the temple. 4 In truth, the place and influence
of the prophets are largely due to the power of this appeal,
which conscience admitted, and the history of the nation
confirmed.
This simple and straightforward doctrine of sin and suffer
ing is clearly linked to the prophetic idea of God. But
when the Old Testament as a whole is under review, two
important qualifications of this doctrine must be made,
relating respectively to the idea of sin in itself, and to
the range of responsibility for it. There was a certain
externalism in the earlier morality which was destined
to reappear in much of the legalism of Judaism. The
morality of primitive peoples is largely tribal custom,
due to the pressure of the whole group upon the indi
vidual, and enforced by means of taboos . The point
of view of such customary morality may be seen in the
words c no such thing ought to be done in Israel , through
which Tamar protests against Amnon s outrage, or in
Nabal s churlish refusal of the usual tribute . 6 Such
customs, moral and non-moral, naturally pass under the
i i. 5 (Gray s trans. , Comm., p. 6). iii. 10, 12.
* Of. , in particular, chap, xxviii. * i. 5 f.
2 Sam. xiii. 12 ; 1 Sam. xxv. 39.
vii.] THE PROBLEMS OF SIN AND SUFFERING 163
protection of the tribal god, who may exert himself to
uphold them. But this external relation is something
very different from the prophetic identification of morality
with the true worship of Yahweh. The way is left open
for any act to pass under the jurisdiction of the deity,
by some purely artificial taboo, or for positively immoral
acts to remain outside his range of action, because tribal
or national custom has not condemned them. Both these
kinds of limitation may be illustrated from the history
of the early monarchy. Jonathan s unwitting breach of
the taboo placed by his father on all food until the even
ing of the battle of Beth-aven, resulted in the silence of
the oracle of Yahweh, and is described as sin ; in fact,
Saul would religiously have slam his son, in fulfil
ment of his oath, had not the people intervened. 1
Nathan s parable is represented as revealing David s
conduct towards Uriah in an entirely new light to the
king himself ; the private wrong to a subject, which was
a king s privilege, is shown by the prophet to be a sin ,
i.e. a wrong done to Yahweh. Such an example is the
more instructive, because it shows the wide gulf which
must usually have existed between prophetic and popular
religion. But there are limitations in regard to the idea
of sin, in the writings even of the prophets, as when
Ezekiel includes a purely physical reference in a list of
sins. 2 The same inclusion of much that is non-moral
in the idea of sin survives into not a few of the com
mands of the post-exilic Law, such as that which enjoins
a sin-offering after childbirth. 8 Such features should be
clearly distinguished from limitations of the morality
itself, when judged from the standpoint of a higher moral
culture.
The second important qualification of the general
prophetic doctrine of sin and suffering follows from the
idea of corporate personality , which has already been
i 1 Sam. xiv. * Ezek. xviii. 6. * Ley. xii 6.
164 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [en.
noticed. 1 The modern mind is instinctively repelled by
the treatment of a group of innocent persons as not only
legally responsible for, but even actually contaminated
by, the act of one of their number ; our sense of individu
alistic morality makes such a doctrine untenable. But
that idea seems to have been accepted in Israel without
question until the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, when
the moral claims of the individual asserted themselves.
The eventual consequence of this individualism was that
the doctrine of retributive suffering as the penalty of sin
broke down. It was one thing to proclaim that doctrine
and see its sufficient verification when the corporate per
sonality of the nation was primarily in view ; it was quite
another to enforce it as true for every individual member
of that nation, since experience so often contradicted
the doctrine. So arose the special problem of innocent
suffering (see 3).
2. Forgiveness and * Righteousness
The forgiveness of sins, like so many other of the Old
Testament ideas, can be understood only from the stand
point of the covenantal relation between Yahweh and
Israel. This relation virtually existed from the time of
Israel s deliverance from Egypt, 2 though its moral and
spiritual content was not fully unfolded until the time of
the great prophets. When they proclaimed the moral
demands of Yahweh, they did not conceive Him as a cold
and unimpassioned Judge, but as Israel s King, Father,
Husband, actively concerned to maintain the covenantal
relation, even when it had been broken by Israel s sin.
What He seeks, above all else, is the restoration of that
relation by Israel s penitence and renewed righteousness.
Consequently, He is always ready to forgive the penitent,
though men may put off repentance too long, and find
Chap. iy. 3. * Chap. yiii. 1.
VJL] THE PROBLEMS OF SIN AND SUFFERING 165
themselves overtaken by the day of Yahweh and His
destruction of the sinners. The prophetic idea of the for
giveness of sin would be quite misunderstood if approached
through any elaborate plan of salvation , involving condi
tions which must be satisfied before Yahweh is free to
forgive. The prophets did not think, with Augustine, of
a ransom to be paid to the devil, or, with Anselm, of a
debt to God s honour to be discharged, or, with the Pro
testant Reformers, of a penal satisfaction to be rendered,
before grace was free to prevail. The prophets of the
eighth century do not even insist on sacrifice as a condi
tion or means of forgiveness, so that their attitude is very
different from that implied in the later Levitical system
of offerings necessary to the restoration of ceremonial
holiness. They think of a direct personal relation between
Yahweh and Israel not destroyed, though challenged,
by Israel s sin. The sins of Israelites are thrown into
more striking relief by contrast with this permanent back
ground of Yahweh s gracious purpose concerning Israel.
The vision of that purpose is itself a motive to penitence
and obedience, not far removed in spirit and aim from
that of the New Testament Gospel. Yahweh has taken
the initiative by sending His prophets. Above a people
that will not listen to them, engrossed as it is in the de
spatch of embassies across the desert, and confident as
it is in its resources for the day of battle, He is waiting
His opportunity to be gracious, and rising from His throne
to show compassion. 1
The direct simplicity of this prophetic appeal for peni
tence, with the stated or implied truth that forgiveness
is ready for the asking, needs little illustration, because
it is so central and familiar in the utterances of the prophets.
Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live , says Amos,
1 Is. xxx. 18. This verse shonld probably begin the section that follows,
rather than end that ^vhich precedes, to which reference is made above ; but
the collocation of such sectious, even when they are by different writers, is
pot without meaning.
166 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [OH.
and so Yahweh, the God of hosts, shall be with you as
ye say V Hosea compares right conduct with the work
of the farmer on his land, and the divine response with
the rain that falls from heaven, 2 so naturally and simply
linked are penitence and forgiveness. Deutero-Isaiah
gathers up his evangelical promises and exhortations to
the exiles of Babylon in a concluding chapter of invita
tion (Is. lv.), which has properly become a classic for a
yet fuller Gospel. He promises welcome into a renewed
and everlasting covenant, 3 springing directly from the
gracious purpose of Yahweh. It is to the loving-kindness
of such a covenantal relation that the deepest penitence
appeals for pardon, in the confidence that the sufficient
sacrifice is a broken and a contrite heart.*
But Israel, as we have seen, 5 had other sacrifices. In
the earlier period, the worshipper brought some gift to
the deity as naively as he would have done to some earthly
superior who might be offended with him. This may
be illustrated by David s words when protesting against
Saul s treatment of him : * If Yahweh has instigated thee
against me, let Him smell an offering . 6 The deepened
consciousness of sin in the post-exilic period was reflected
in its sacrificial system. It has been shown that none
of the sacrifices implies penal substitution, or makes
any provision, at least in theory, for those who have
sinned intentionally against God. Intentional sin is
itself an act of self-exclusion from the covenant of God
with Israel, and, ideally, deserves death. The sacrifices
operate within the covenant ; they were offered to a
God already in relations of grace with His people. They
were not offered in order to attain His grace, but to retain
it .* Within this circle of free grace the priest is said
i v. 14. x. 12. * Is. lv. 3.
Ps. li. 1, 17. 8 Chap. vi. 2.
1 Sara. xxvi. 19 ; cf. Ex. iv. 24-26.
1 Davidson, The Theology of the Old Testament, pp. 316, 317.
vii.] THE PROBLEMS OF SIN AND SUFFERING 167
to atone (i.e. cover ) the sin by means of the sacrifice. 1
Yet the sacrifice is not ultimately essential to forgiveness,
for atonement can be made in other ways, as Moses pro
poses to make it through personal intercession for Israel,
or as Phinehas made it by slaying the Israelite and the
Midianite woman, or as when God is asked to cover , i.e.
forgive, sin for His name s sake. 2 We must not argue
from the elaboration of sacrificial detail in the Old Testa
ment to an equally elaborate theory of atonement. Of
the post-exilic sacrificial system it is probably true to say
that * The one really essentially point in the whole cere
mony of sacrifice is the confession of sin, whether that is
done through an act or expressly in a solemn form of
words . 3 To recognise this is to understand how such
wealth of prophetic teaching as the Book of Psalms con
tains could gather around the temple- worship. The
sacrificial system, in fact, popularly expressed much that
the prophets demanded. The difference between prophet
and priest was less one of theory, and more one of prac
tical emphasis, than is often represented. For, whilst
the emphasis of the prophets usually fell on the moral
conditions of penitence and obedience, that of the priests
marked the promise of divine grace, when Yahweh was
approached in the duly prescribed manner.
The deficiencies of the Old Testament idea of the forgive
ness of sins spring not so much from the excesses of an
unspiritual sacramentarianism, or from the lack of an
adequate sense of divine redemption, as from difficulties
in the individual appropriation of the covenant made with
the nation. How could the individual Israelite be sure that
the covenant was vital and unbroken for himself ? . What
pledge did he possess that his own sin was forgiven, even
1 For the usages of the important word rendered atone , i.e. kipper, see
Driver s Deuteronomy, pp. 425, 426 ; more fully discussed in Herrmann, DM
Idee der Siihne im Alien Testament.
Ex. xxxii. 30 ; Num. xxv. 13 ; Pa. Ixxix. 9.
Schultz, Old Testament Theology (E.T.), ii. p. 100.
168 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH,
though he had never questioned the reality of the eove-
nantal relation between Yahweh and Israel a relation
signed and sealed by redemptive acts in history, and a
</ revealed ritual of worship ? Here we realise one of the
great limitations of the Old Testament over against the
New the absence of that direct individual relation to
God, which is offered to the Christian without other
necessary mediation than that of the eternal High Priest.
It is in the person of Jeremiah that we see individual
religion in its fullest Old Testament development, and it is
in Jeremiah s writings that we read of a new covenant,
framed to meet this deficiency in the covenant with the
nation. The new covenant is to be inward and individual,
giving to every heart the direct knowledge that its iniquity
is forgiven, and its sin remembered no more. 1 In the
absence of such an inner covenant, the one ultimate
test of forgiveness was that of righteousness , i.e. the
prosperity which showed divine approval. The idea of
righteousness is not to be confused with that of morality ,
or that of holiness . Morality is properly actual right-
ness of conduct, judged by the customs of the society.
Holiness is properly the unapproachableness of God.
But the primary conception in the idea of righteousness
is not actual Tightness, nor Godlikeness ; it is forensic, a
product of the primitive court of justice. 2 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 . 3 In the
realm of religion, therefore, the righteous man is not the
man morally perfect, but he who is acquitted at the bar
of God. It shall be righteousness unto us , proclaims
the Deuteronomic exhortation, if we observe to do all
1 xxxi. 34.
2 But this must not be taken to imply that righteousness is attained or
assigned by the forensic conceptions of Protestant theology, or that sacrific*
is interpreted as penal substitution. See pp. 147, 177.
* Davidson. The Theology of the Old Testament, p. 267.
TIL] THE PROBLEMS OF SIN AND SUFFERING 169
this commandment before Yahweh our God . l The
corresponding term to righteousness is therefore guilt ,
the status of the man who is condemned before God.
If the individual Israelite were really on right terms with
Israel s God, he would know it by his well-being in material
things. 2 That Psalm which describes most fervently the
happiness of the forgiven man (xxxii.) sees the evidence
that the transgression is forgiven, the sin covered, in the
fact that the illness under which the poet groaned was
removed after his penitent confession ; this attitude is
characteristic of Old Testament religion. It is easy
to see how such an external view of the relation
between God and man might lead to the characteristic
defects of the later Judaism. * It is able to say much
about law and sin, little that is certain about God s grace.
. . . What is said of the compassion and the fatherly
love of God is as good as not said, if it does not lead to
the rejection of the juristic idea of the relation between
God and man, and the recognition that it is false in prin
ciple .* The results of this false principle in Judaism
are focused for ever in our Lord s picture of the Pharisee
praying in the temple side by side with the publican, who
had so much less in moral discipline to bring, yet with
a spiritual instinct so much truer cast himself on the
mercy of God for the forgiveness of his sin, and went
down justified , i.e. as one acquitted at the judgment-
seat of God.
f 3. The Suffering of the Innocent
It is characteristic of the Old Testament religion that
its central problem was that which sprang from unde-
i vi. 25.
* Cf. Davidson, E. Bi., col. 1158 : the old view of the Hebrew mind, whi^h
looked on prosperity and the blessings of life as in a sense sacra mental, a
the seal of God s favour .
1 Koberle, Svndc und Gnade, pp. 669, 672.
170 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH
served suffering. This is the shadow flung by the bright
light of the prophetic interpretation of life. The implicit
or explicit monotheism of the prophets traced all human
fortunes to one common centre Yahweh. At the same
time, their emphasis on morality led men to believe that
He administered human affairs on moral principles. As
a result, every experience of suffering was ascribed to the
direct will of Yahweh, and interpreted by the simple and
obvious principle of moral retribution. Shall evil befall
a city, and Yahweh hath not done it ? asks Amos (iii. 6),
in a way that implies this to be an unanswerable challenge,
v and an accepted truth. The result is, as we have already
seen, that the presence of suffering implies that of moral
evil ; Joel, for example, builds up his whole prophecy
around the visitation of a plague of locusts, clearly point
ing to the need for such heart-felt repentance as may move
Yahweh to mercy. 1 This penal view of suffering naturally
admits of extension to the idea of discipline, in the sense
of suffering intended to produce moral improvement in
the sufferer. Such was the suffering of Hosea s wife,
and the suffering of Israel with which he compares it (iii.) ;
it was morally deserved, yet its purpose was more than
retributive. In this sense, it is perfectly natural that
Eliphaz, the friend of Job, whilst maintaining the orthodox
view of suffering as retributive, should also suggest that
in his case it may be disciplinary also :
Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth :
Therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty.
For He maketh sore, and bindeth up ;
He woundeth, and His hands make whole . 2
This interpretation of suffering as penal or disciplinary
could be accepted by all serious minds without question,
i ii. 12-14 ;cf. Amos iv. 8-11.
3 Job v. 17, 18. This is the central thought in the speeches of Elihu (Job
xxzii.-xxxvii. ), afterwards added to the poem chiefly to bring out this principle
of discipline more clearly ; cf. also Prov. iii. 11, 12.
vn.] THE PROBLEMS OF SIN AND SUFFERING 171
so long as the religious unit was, primarily, the nation.
There would always be enough evil visible in the national
life, past or present, to make suffering seem just to the
more thoughtful minds ; that it was shared by the
righteous and the unrighteous was amply explained by
the principle of the solidarity of the nation, its corporate
personality before Yahweh. But, with the rise of the
new individualism, this explanation of suffering was no
longer adequate. In the case of individual men, glaring
inconsistencies arose between the apparent deserts and
the visible fortunes. Accordingly, the problem of unde
served suffering finds expression first of all in the prophet
who is most individualistic in his thought and experience
Jeremiah. * Wherefore doth the way of the wicked
prosper ? he asks, without finding any answer (xii. 1),
just as the other side of the problem, the suffering of
innocence in his own person, is left unexplained Why
is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which
refuseth to be healed ? (xv. 18). This is the problem
more acutely realised than any other, from the time that
individual life came into prominence as a religious unit,
down to the last book of the Old Testament to be written
Ecclesiastes. To carry the burden of this mystery
was the price men had to pay for the privilege of contri
buting to the ideas of the Old Testament ; to the pain
of this problem we owe the deepest conception of piety,
the demand for a life beyond death, the development of
the principle of vicarious atonement. No more striking
instance could be given of the general truth that true ideas
are not to be distilled from life by those who shrink from
the heat of its flames.
If we exclude disciplinary suffering as being simply a
natural extension of penal or retributive (an extension
ultimately based on the gracious purpose of Yahweh), then
we may say that the Old Testament offers five different,
attitudes to this problem of the suffering of the iimoceiit,
172 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
(with the related fact of experience, the prosperity of the
wicked) . These five attitudes, in logical, though not chrono
logical order, are (1) Wait ! (2) There may be life beyond
death for the righteous; (3) Life is a dark mystery; (4) Life
is the bright mystery of a divine purpose higher than our
grasp ; (5) The suffering of the innocent may avail for
the guilty. The variety of these suggestions shows how
widely the problem was felt, as their fruitfulness shows
its intensity. We might almost write a history of Old
Testament religion around the simple account of its
development.
The first answer declares the problem to be temporary
only ; the apparent inconsistency between desert and
fortune will speedily be removed, whether by what we
should call the ordinary course of events, or by the sudden
manifestation of a divine judgment. It was this problem
which sent Habakkuk to his figurative watch-tower :
Thou that art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and that
canst not look on perverseness, wherefore lookest Thou
upon them that deal treacherously ? The vision he sees,
for the appointed time of which he must wait, is that of the
overthrow of arrogance, and of the maintenance of the life
of the upright through his fidelity. 1 Similarly, the author
of , the book called Malachi is faced by those who say,
Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of Yahweh,
and He delighteth in them ... it is vain to serve God . . .
yea, they that work wickedness are built up . The answer
is that God s servants have their names recorded in a book
of remembrance, against that day of judgment when men
shall discern between the righteous and the wicked,
between him that serveth God, and him that serve th Him
not. 2 Here, as elsewhere, the judgment is an event
close at hand, to take place on this earth, not in some
distant realm. So, also, in the 37th Psalm, where the
man perplexed by this problem is bidden * Fret not thyself
M. 13 ; ii. 3, 4. * ii. 17 ; iii. 14, 15, 18.
vii.] THE PROBLEMS OF SIN AND SUFFERING 173
because of evil-doers , but to rest in Yahweh, and wait
patiently until His delayed judgment shall appear, in the
passing away of that wicked man who seemed to flourish,
or in some dramatic vindication of righteousness. I
have been young , says this writer, * and now am old ;
yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed
begging bread . In other words, he denies the existence of
the problem in its acutest form, the suffering of the innocent
to the very end of life.
The admonition to wait for the vindication of Yahweh s
moral government of the world had, however, to face the
difficulty that man s time of waiting was limited by the
inexorable line drawn by death. The Hebrew outlook
on Sheol afforded no prospect of the adjustment of desert
beyond the grave. Consequently, the pressure of the
problem compelled some men to put the question, Can
there be a life beyond death which will compensate foi
the inadequate retribution of this life ? The two prin
cipal anticipations of faith in personal immortality those
of Psalm Ixxiii. and the Book of Job 1 are the direct
outcome of the problem of suffering. The two assertions
of resurrection which we find in the Old Testament 2 are
due to the same demand for adjustment ; there must be
another life, supernaturally restored, though still to be
lived on this earth. Thus, the martyred sufferers for
truth to whom an apocalyptic writer refers are to be
brought back to life ; the faithful in the Maccabaean perse
cution are similarly to be restored in order to receive their
permanent reward, whilst the traitors awake to receive the
due punishment escaped in their previous life. In the
subsequent apocalyptic literature of Israel, lying outside the
limits of the Old Testament, this solution of the problem
1 See p. 96 for the characteristics of the Hebrew approach to immor
tality. The Greek ide* of immortality rests on the philosophical belief
that reality is ultimately spiritual ; cf. the volume in the present series,
entitled The Christian Hope (pp. 36-45), by W. Adams Brown.
Is. xxvi. 19 ; Dan. xii. 2
1 74 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
of suffering occupies a central place. The sufferings of
the righteous are no longer viewed as the consequence of
their sins, but purely as a necessary link in the chain of
events. ... No attempt is made to reconcile the mis
fortunes of the pious with the righteousness of God ; the
Gordian knot is cut by the simple assertion that this
world is essentially bad, and that for the solution of all
enigmas we must look to the world to come .*
That this view did not commend itself to all may be
seen from the Book of Ecclesiastes. The author of that
book explicitly denies the doctrine of a future life. 2 He
is left face to face with a world- order which admits of no
moral explanation : All things come alike to all : there
is one event to the righteous and to the wicked ; to the
good and to the evil ; to the clean and to the unclean ;
to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not ;
as is the good, so is the sinner ; and he that sweareth
as he that feareth an oath J . 8 The author does not deny
the existence of God, or His moral character ; he simply
confesses that this wearisome world, in which all is vanity,
presents an inexplicable mystery of non-moral happen
ings, a mystery without hope of solution by man, here or
hereafter.
But it was also possible for other men, of a different
temperament and outlook, to see in life a mystery, not
of darkness, but of light. This is essentially the answer
reached in the most important discussion of the problem
of suffering which the Old Testament contains the poem
of Job. The personal fortunes of Job are intended to
exemplify that fact of experience which constitutes one
side of the problem before us the possibility of the con
currence of practical innocence with terrible suffering.
The explanation of this suffering as retributive, offered
* Fairweather, The Background of the Gotpels? p. 273.
* See p. 98.
* Ecc. ix. 2, with B.V. mar. ; ef. verse 11 : time and chance happenethl*
them all .
? ii.] THE PROBLEMS OF SIN AND SUFFERING 175
by the three friends, is dismissed as quite inadequate ;
the extension of this view, that the suffering is disci pli nary,
offered by Eliphaz, and in particular by the additional
speeches of Elihu, is also rejected by Job. The position
reached by Job himself, after the tentative longing for
the restoration of his life after imminent death, is that
of a direct challenge of the providence of God a chal
lenge that is at the same time an appeal to the heart of
God, to reveal His true self in the vindication of Job.
The speeches of the Almighty, describing the wonders of the
universe, seem at first sight away from the point of the
challenge. Yet they must have been intended by the
author of the poem to suggest that the ways of God are
necessarily a mystery to the human mind, a mystery
before which the only right attitude is trustful humility.
This Job himself acknowledges in the final chapter
of the poem (xlii. 1-6). But the contribution of the
book as a whole to the problem of suffering certainly
goes beyond this. The prose prologue (i., ii.) and epilogue
(xlii. 7 f .) may possibly have been incorporated by the
author from an independent and older source, but they
are an integral part of the work as he left it. Now,
in the epilogue, besides the naive restoration to Job of
twice as much as he had before, Yahweh repeatedly speaks
of my servant Job , and declares him right in what he
has said. If we ask what was the service which the suffer
ing Job had rendered, we are thrown back to the opening
scenes of the book, the heavenly court in which Yahweh
entrusts the cause of disinterested religion to the uncon
scious fidelity of Job. The very point of the book is the
mystery of this service ; the suffering must be borne
under the pressure of an ever-recurrent and finally un
answered * Why ? Neither at the beginning nor at the
end is Job admitted to the secret of that heavenly court,
which would be an adequate explanation of his suffering.
But the author of the book asks us to believe that there
176 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
is innocent suffering which must be explained on these
lines suffering which is the necessary condition for the
manifestation of the deepest piety. The service could
not be rendered without the trial ; its issues lie beyond
the horizon of the man who is tried. Personal religion
has intrinsic worth for God, whose treatment of men
belongs to a higher level than that of a merely juristic
v scheme of moral government.
Finally, the Old Testament reaches its deepest solution
of the problem in the conception that the suffering of the
innocent, so often inflicted through others, may also be
endured for others. This is the idea incarnated in the
figure of the suffering Servant of Yahweh, the noblest
creation of Old Testament religion. 1 The view here taken
of that great figure is that it represents Israel the nation, 2
and that the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is, for historical
exegesis, a philosophy of the sufferings of the nation, in
themselves so perplexing to national pride and religious
faith. In previous related passages, the Servant is depicted
as the prophet of Yahweh, patiently and quietly teaching
true religion to the nations, wherever the beginnings of
true desire for it are found (Is. xlii. 1-5). The Servant is
a weapon in the hand of Yahweh ; discouraged, he renews
his strength in the thought of God. His mission extends
beyond his own borders to the ends of the earth (xlix. 1-7).
The Servant is trained by regular and conscious fellow
ship with Yahweh to speak for Him. In this service he
suffers, but is not dismayed, since he knows God to be
with him (1. 4-9). At last, the sufferings of the Servant
are brought to an end, to the astonishment of other nations.
They confess that they never thought that this suffering
nation was what it is now seen to be. They thought the
Servant punished for his own sin ; they now see that these
1 For the striking parallels between Job and the Servant, aee Cbjrnt
liaiah, ii., Appendix ix., pp. 259-68 (ed. 5).
* See farther, on this point, chap. via. f 6.
vii.] THE PROBLEMS OF SIN AND SUFFERING 177
sufferings of Israel should have fallen upon themselves.
He has become an offering for their sin, and through His
apparent defeat He has attained to victory (lii. 13-liii. 12).
As has well been said, * The fact of vicarious atonement
could hardly be more clearly and definitely expressed ;
but still the passage does not provide us with any theory ;
it does not say why God should forgive sinners because an
innocent man had suffered .* The life of the Servant is
compared to a guilt-offering (asham, verse 10), i.e. a
compensation for guilt, but this does not prove that the
idea of penal substitution is present, since, as we have
seen, that idea cannot be proved for the Hebrew sacri
fices. 2 In any case, the sacrificial idea is combined with
that of the moral, i.e. the effect of these sufferings upon
the nations who witness them. The importance of this
interpretation of suffering for the future history of religion,
and especially for the Pauline doctrine of Atonement, can
hardly be overrated.
As we look back over the five attitudes or solutions to
the problem, it is clear that the second, fourth, and fifth
mark a real advance for religion. Besides the fundamental
conception of suffering as penal and disciplinary, which
continues to hold its proper, if partial, place in any moral
view of the world, there is (a) the reminder that the portion
of life we see is incomplete, and affords no sufficient data
for a final judgment, (b) the idea of suffering as the neces
sary test and manifestation of disinterested religion, and
(c) the conviction of its atoning value for others. 3
i Bennett, The Post- Exilic Prophets, p. 327. Cheyne (Isaiah* ii. p. 45)
points out that there are twelve distinct assertions in this one chapter of the
vicarious character of the suflferings of the Servant .
a Chap. vi. 2 ; cf. also chap. viii. 5.
Cf. Peake, The Problem of Suffering in the Old Testament, p. 144 : The
most valuable thing the Old Testament has to offer is not a speculative solu
tion. It is the inner certainty of God, which springs out of fellowship with
Him, and defying all the crushing proofs that the government of the world
la unrighteous, holds its faith in Him fast .
178 RELIGIOUS IDEAS 01 THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
4. The Cosmic Problem of Evil
At the outset of this chapter, it was said that the problems
of suffering and sin within the religion of Israel were of a
practical, not of a speculative, character. The arena of
the discussion was the visible world, where man stands
face to face, as it were, with Yahweh. The prophets
taught men to believe that the control of this world by
God was absolute and unlimited. The nation lay in His
hand as the clay in the hand of the potter. 1 A man s
thoughts are his own, yet their issue is God s, and even
moral evil is made to serve His purpose. 2 God even,
on occasion, moulds men s thoughts ; He hardens
Pharaoh s heart. 3 He sends a lying spirit into the mouth
of those who prophesy in His name.* Clearly, there
fore, there is nothing in the world of human thought
or act which is beyond the sovereignty and control of
God. Yet this doctrine of divine providence is accom
panied by the unbroken recognition of man s freedom and
responsibility. The moral aspect of sin springs from this
freedom ; the challenge of Elijah, 6 implying freedom to
choose and responsibility for the choice made, is typical
of the law and the prophets as a whole ; the relation
between God and man is that between distinct persons.
To ourselves, who approach this great antithesis of religion
in the light of many centuries of speculation about it,
psychological and metaphysical problems are raised
which a thinker cannot evade. But the Old Testament
shows no consciousness of these ; whilst it draws the full
circle of divine control, it superadds a segment within
which human freedom and human responsibility are very
real.
This may be seen, for example, from the story of the
first sin, which is given in the third chapter of Genesis.
i Jer. xviii. 1-12. Prov. xvi. 1, 4. Ex. iv. 21, ir. 12.
1 Kings xxii. 23. 1 Kings xviii. 21.
viz.] THE PROBLEMS OF SJN AND SUFFERING 179
It requires a considerable effort to realise that this narra
tive does not necessarily mean all that later theology has
read into it. The most natural interpretation of the
story, as first written for Hebrew readers, seems to be that
it is meant to explain the darker conditions of human
life, the painful facts of daily experience. 1 Why does a
man earn his bread and a woman bear her children in
pain and sorrow ? Above all, why do men die ? The
natural answer of a Hebrew thinker, in the light of what
has already been said, is that this suffering necessarily
points to sin ; these are the consequences of man s sin,
inherited from the time of the first man s sin. It is not
said that Adam s acquired sinfulness is inherited by his de
scendants ; later Jewish theology held that other men repeat
Adam s sin because their nature contains a tendency to sin
like his. The interest, in fact, does not lie where later
speculation has often found it, in the origin of sin. Sin is
assumed to spring from human freedom, exposed to tempta-
tion^ just as it did in the experience of the writer of the
narrative. His interest lies in the moral explanation of ex
perience. At the same time, there are features in the story,
especially the emphasis on the knowledge of good and evil,
which suggest that the ultimate form of the myth is an
explanation of the progress of civilisation, the discovery
by man of the things that make his culture . 2 This
would probably become plainer if we possessed the parallel
Babylonian story, which may fairly be assumed to have
existed. Some future fortunate discovery may perhaps
serve to show, by the contrasted tone and spirit of the
Babylonian myth, the characteristic moral emphasis of
the Hebrew narrative. That moral emphasis is pre
sented with special reference to what we should call the
psychology of adolescence The instinctive truth of the
story to life is seen in the central place it gives to the
1 Of. Wellhausen, Prolegomena* pp. 299 f. ; Skinner, Genesis, pp. 94-7.
8 Wellhausen, op. cit., p. 300.
180 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
mystery of the sexual relationship, still the effective test
of the best and worst in human life. Thus the naive
and primitive details clothe a philosophy of life in the
concrete form which was natural to the early Semitic
mind ; and that philosophy shows its kinship with pro
phetic teaching by its central moral emphasis.
The practical recognition of human freedom in the
story of Genesis iii. is not materially affected by the intro
duction of the serpent as the primary instigator of evil.
This feature of the story, which goes back to primitive
demonic beliefs, simply provides one of the conditions of
the temptation. The serpent is not to be identified with
the later Satan ; it simply shows the wider supernatural
environment of human life, which finds such abundant
illustration in demonology and magic. There is also the
implication that there are unseen spectators of the
drama, who are addressed by Yahweh when He says,
Behold, the man is become as one of us . These are
doubtless the Elohim, the sons of God , or members
of the heavenly court, whom we see gathered around
Yahweh in the prologue to the Book of Job. 1 Amongst
them is the Adversary (Hassdtdn), who challenges the
disinterested piety of Job, and is allowed to test it by
his suffering. The office of public prosecutor in such
conditions may be an unpleasant one, but the person who
discharges it is still one of the sons of God . The
Adversary discharges a somewhat similar function in
the scene portraying Joshua the high priest, clothed in
filthy garments. 2 Here, also, though in more direct
manner, his accusation is repelled. We come upon a
decided development in the idea of this personage in
the later passage, 1 Chron. xxi. 1, where Satan has
become practically a proper name (without the article).
The interest of this passage for our subject lies in the fact
1 i. 6. ii. 1 ; cf. xxxviii. 7. A parallel scene is described in 1 Kings xxii. 19 C
> Zck iii. 1 f.
vii.] THE PROBLEMS OF SIN AND SUFFERING 181
that it is a parallel to 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, which says that
Yahweh moved David to number Israel (an act bringing
speedy punishment), because His anger was kindled
against them. In the later version of this incident, given
in the Book of Chronicles, this instigation is transferred
from Yahweh to Satan. This revision of the earlier
statement is significant of the development in the ideas
of both Yahweh and Satan. The identification of Satan
with the serpent of Genesis iii. does not seem to be made
before the apocryphal Book of Wisdom, where we read :
By the envy of the devil, death entered into the world . l
The later apocalyptic literature, as is well known, is
characterised by remarkable developments in the con
stitution of this supernatural world. Multitudes of
angels, good and evil, unfallen and fallen, throng to the
leadership of God and Satan, and form two opposing
kingdoms, a conception we may safely connect with Persian
influence. 2 But, for the Old Testament at any rate,
this division is not a dualism, in the Zoroastrian form.
Other beings, demonic or angelic, may influence man s
life, but, like man, they are all creatures of Yahweh, and
subordinate to Him. They simply extend the realm in
which the scene of man s life is cast. The sons of God
are free to obey or to disobey Yahweh ; one obscure
passage in the Old Testament tells that they fell through
love of the daughters of men , 3 as Adam fell through Eve.
The demons and heathen gods of antiquity, when absorbed
by Yahwism, and made subordinate to Yahweh, vastly
extend the human outlook into cosmic possibilities, as is
illustrated by the Book of Daniel ; but they do not alter
the essential problems of sin and suffering, as Hebrew
thought encountered them.
i ii. 24. This book belongs to the first century B.C.
a The Miltonic Satan is a post-canonical development ; see Bertholet, Bib.
Theologie dea Alien Testaments t ii. pp. 374-95.
* Gen. vi. 1-4.
182 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
John Stuart Mill spoke of the impossible problem of
reconciling infinite benevolence and justice with infinite
power in the Creator of such a world as this .* There are
moods and experiences in which many men will feel that
the existence of suffering is a reflection on the goodness
of God. On the other hand, God s benevolence may be
saved, at the cost of His omnipotence, as it was by Mill
himself, and suffering may be ascribed to causes lying
outside the divine causality. This is an idea of suffering
which underlies popular thought more often than is usually
realised. Yet again, it might be argued that suffering is
the outcome of a blind universe, guided by no teleoiogical
principle, grinding out its products with no regard to
those who suffer in the process. Of these three distinct
modern attitudes the Old Testament illustrates the first,
as in Job s doubts as to the righteousness of God ; it rises
above the second by its strong theistic emphasis, making
a dualism or quasi-dualism of Nature and God impossible ;
it was without the necessary pre-suppositions for the
third, because second causes had not come in to dis
place the first cause , and Nature without God would
have been an impossible conception to the mind of Israel.
The same general tendencies of Israel s thought differen
tiate its consciousness of the problems of moral evil from
that of to-day. Modern thinkers relate moral evil to the
principle of divine immanence, through which it becomes
a transient stage of development to the ideal ; or to the
social environment, as that which is opposed to the greatest
good of the greatest number ; or to the animal past of
mankind, from which we move upward, working out
the beast . All these ways of accounting for moral evil
yield different conceptions of its nature. But Israel s
thought did not turn on this question of origin. Moral
evil in the Old Testament was sin ; it is related to Grpd
as the transgression of a law. This way of conceiving
* Essay on Theism, Part ii. (p. 80 of cd. 1904).
vii.] THE PROBLEMS OF SIN AND SUFFERING 183
sin, by preserving intact the personality of both man and
God, maintained the reality of moral evil ; the painful
problem for Israel s thinkers was whether sin might escape
its due punishment, and this fall instead upon the innocent.
Instead of the elaborate array of principalities and powers,
world-rulers of this darkness, spiritual hosts of wicked
ness in the heavenly places , which later Jewish thought
bequeathed to the early Christians, we have woven
around man a network of quite different scientific and
philosophic ideas. The result is not wholly gain, if the
later conceptions conceal what the earlier reveal the
essential truth of human freedom and responsibility.
184 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [ca
CHAPTER VIII
THE HOPE OF THE NATION
MORNING by morning, from the steps of the temple, the
ministering priests proclaimed the ancient benediction :
4 May Yahweh bless thee, and guard thee,
May Yahweh make bright His face toward thee, and be
gracious to thee,
May Yahweh lift up His face toward thee, and appoint for
thee well-being . 1
The continuity in the use of the benediction may fitly
represent the longer continuity of the national faith.
Yahweh was the God of Israel, and Israel the people of
Yahweh, from the day of the great deliverance from
Egypt. Out of that national faith sprang the hope of the
nation, its confidence in Yahweh s ultimate purpose to
bless His people. One of the wonderful things in the
religion of Israel is the vitality of this hope through chang
ing fortunes, and amid overwhelming disasters, as dis
played in its adaptability and recuperative powers, its
re-interpretation of the methods of God without for
feiture of faith in His redemptive purpose. That which
the New Testament declares of a single generation is not
less true of the thousand years of Israel s varied history
This is the victory that hath overcome the world, even
our faith . 2
1 Num. vi. 24-26 ; cf. the Mishnah, Tamid, vii. 2.
2 The Targum to the Song of Songs enumerates nine of the ten great
song* of the world, and characteristically <ids, - [ he tenth soog the exiles will
sing ou leaving their exile". The exiles oi Israel were always prisoners of
viii.] THE HOPE OF THE NATION 185
In our previous study of the religious ideas born in the
course of that history, we have frequently noticed that
it is the nation as a whole which is primarily linked to
Yahweh in this reciprocal relation of human trust and
divine help. Even when the dissolution of political
unity at the Exile introduced a new individual relation
to God, this individualism was still interpenetrated by
the old social values, and indeed never lost them, as the
individualism of the New Testament, its ultimate issue,
amply proves. The nationalistic consciousness of religion
in Israel is something very different from the individual
istic outlook of Protestantism ; we come nearer to it,
perhaps, in some aspects of Catholicism, on the one hand,
and of the Brotherhood movements of the present
time, on the other. In the priestly benediction which
has just been quoted, although the second person singular
is used, the nation as a whole, not the individual Israelite,
is primarily addressed. The many passages in which
Israel is treated as a single person consequently imply much
more than a mere poetic personification. We must read
into them those ideas of corporate personality which have
already been emphasised ; we must think of Israel as being
actually treated as a person by Yahweh, and as conscious
of itself with a sort of personal self-consciousness, which
goes far to explain such a striking conception as that
of Israel being the Servant of Yahweh \ When Israel
was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of
Egypt - Hear, O Israel; thou art to pass over
Jordan this day. . . . Three times in the year all thy
males shall appear before Yahweh. . . . Many a time
have they afflicted me from my youth up, let Israel now
say *. J This self -consciousness of Israel passed through
hope (Zech. ix. 12). Contrast the spirit of their captors: The fear of divine
anger runs, as an undercurrent, throughout the entire religious literature of
Babylonia and Assyria (Jastrow, Religious Belief in Babylonia and
Assyria, p. 326).
1 Hos. xi. 1 ; Deut. ix. 1 ; Ex. xxiii. 17 ; Ps. cxxix. 1.
186 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
various phases, to some of which the term national is
not strictly applicable. It was called into being through
the military organisation of a group of tribes under the
leadership of Moses ; it became political under David and
Solomon ; after the Exile it became ecclesiastical and
religious under Ezra and Nehemiah. Yet there is a real
unity which binds together these successive develop
ments, a projected efficiency , not less efficient because
it was of faith. Because Israel belongs to Yahweh, and
can depend on Him, it has a future. The hope in this
future, springing from the faith in Yahweh, again and
again brings renewed strength, and becomes the chief
instrument in the maintenance of the * national exist
ence. It is true that the nationalism which made faith
and hope strong sometimes narrowed love to the circle
of Israel, or even of faithful Israel. Moreover, the forms
in which the hope of the future clothed itself are often
to us strangely inadequate to a spiritual religion. Yet
it is to Israel s hope that we owe the bringing in of the
Christian hope ; for that hope is the pulse of Israel s vital
strength, the inspiration of its continued life.
1. The Covenant
The basis of Israel s hope is the peculiar relation which
exists between itself and Yahweh, already expressed in
the statement that Yahweh is Israel s God, and Israel
is Yahweh s people. This relation is said to have been
made explicit, from the earliest days, in the form of a
covenant (berith) between Yahweh and Israel. In a
certain sense, all religious ceremonial and worship is the
expression of a covenant relationship between men and
gods .* Whenever religion ceases to be a perilous quest
in the dark, an unconfirmed venture of faith, and becomea
a confident and established resort to God, a strong con-
i MacCullocb, E.R.E., iv. p. 208.
viii.] THE HOPE OF THE NATION 187
viction that He is a present help, one great aspect of a
covenantal relationship exists the assurance that God is
waiting to be gracious, and that He changes not. Israel s
land, kingship and priesthood were traced to divine
* covenants made with Abraham, David, and Levi. 1
* In the mind of one standing far down in the history of
Israel in the midst of these established institutions, and
conceiving of them as due to covenants made in the distant
past by J[ahweh], one main conception in covenant must
have appeared its immutability . 2 Complementary to
this confidence there is the consciousness of certain con
ditions on which alone God may be approached. These
were laid down in the covenant of Sinai, 3 the accom
paniment of the historic act of redemption by which
Yahweh took Israel to be His people.
In regard to the meaning of the word rendered * cove
nant , our natural instinct is to start from the idea of a
mutual agreement or alliance, such as that made between
Abraham and Abimelech at Beer-sheba, or that between
David and Jonathan.* But such an agreement, made
between those who stand on a footing more or less equal,
cannot adequately represent the meaning of covenant ,
when this denotes a relation initiated by Yahweh. When
the victorious Ahab makes a * covenant J with the defeated
Ben-hadad, 5 the term implies the conditions of peace
granted by the victor to the vanquished. Much more
when God makes a * covenant with Israel, its simplest
form will be a statement of God s requirements from
1 Gen. XT. 18 (J) ; 2 Sam. vii. 8 f. ; Jer. zzziii. 21. For the covenant with
Abraham in P, see Gen. xvii. 7-9.
2 Davidson, D. B., i. p. 511.
Ex. xxiv. 7, 8 (E). The blood of the covenant is sprinkled partly on
the altar and partly on the people, and the book of the covenant states the
divine conditions. In the Deuteronomic Code, whilst reference is made both
to a covenant with the fathers (ir. 31, rii. 12), and to a covenant at Hort-b
(i.e. Sinai) essentially linked to the Decalogue (iv. 13, v. 2 f., ix. 9 f.), a
further covenant is made with Israel in the land of Moab, beside the
covenant which Yahweh made with them in Horeb (Dent. xxix. 1),
Gen. xxi. 32; 1 Sam. xviii. 3. 1 Kings xx. 34.
188 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
Israel. This is the general nature of the covenant at
Sinai, as represented in JE, the earliest document describ
ing it. We find the term * covenant approximating to
this sense of command in a contemporary poem, where it
is used in parallelism with the * word of Yahweh. 1 The
primary meaning of the term * berith in Hebrew may have
been either agreement or * command , but, in any case,
we must beware of some of the suggestions of the English
word covenant , e.g. that Israel and Yahweh met on equal
terms. That the covenant, however, implies conditions on
both sides is explicitly brought out in the form it assumes in
Deuteronomy : Thou hast acknowledged Yahweh this daj
to be thy God, and that thou shouldest walk in His ways.
. . . And Yahweh hath acknowledged thee this day to
be a peculiar people unto Himself, as He hath promised
thee . 2 Here the idea of a compact between Yah we
and Israel involving mutual rights and obligations is
fully developed . 3 The Priestly Code, owing to its more
transcendent idea of God, regards the covenant as His
gracious promise to dwell among His people, and to
welcome their approach to Him. Hence the need of
the tabernacle, God s dwelling-place, offerings, and minis-
trants. These are all divine institutions, creations and
gifts of God, the fulfilment in detail of the covenant to
be their God .*
These are the covenantal ideas of Israel. They would
not cease to be important if they were wholly due to the
later religious consciousness of the nation, for they show
what that consciousness was. But at what point in the
history of Israel did the idea of such a covenant first arise ?
In particular, can that idea be traced back to Sinai ?
1 Dent, xxxiii. 9 ; ef. Josh. vii. 11 (JE) : they hare even transgressed my
covenant which I commanded them , and see Schmidt, JS. Bi. t col. 928 f., who
connects the Hebrew word with the Assyrio-Babylonian cognate biritu, in it*
primary meaning of fetter .
2 Deut. xxvi. 17, 18. Schmidt, op. cit., col. 933.
Davidson, D. B., i. p. 613.
vin.] THE HOPE OF THE NATION 189
The answer is fundamental for the whole subject. As
Davidson has said, * The question of the covenant runs
up into what is the main question of Old Testament
religious history, viz. To what date is the conception of
J[ahweh] as an absolutely ethical Being to be assigned ? * l
The answer to that question implied throughout the
present book is that whilst we owe the highest and fullest
ideas of the moral personality of Yahweh to the eighth-
e^ntury prophets, their work was not without preparation
in the teaching of such men as Nathan and Elijah ; in
fact, from the earliest period at which we can begin to
*race the history of Israel, viz. the Exodus, we find a
relation existing between Yahweh and Israel which is
moral. The earliest literature we possess concerning the
covenant made at Sinai is at least three centuries later
than the events it professedly describes. Nor is any
explicit reference to such a covenantal relation made by
any of the prophets before Jeremiah. 2 On the other
hand, this silence is hardly sufficient disproof that some
form of covenant existed in the earliest days. 8 The
relation between Yahweh and Israel from the days of
Sinai is at least virtually covenantal , and the subse
quent history becomes more intelligible if the national
faith was then formally ratified and ceremonially estab
lished. 4 Such a ceremony as is described in the narra
tive of the Exodus, in connection with the signal display
of Yahweh s power in the overthrow of the Egyptians,
is not essentially alien to the religion of that time, so long
as we do not read into the earlier story the later develop
ments in the idea of a covenant. But, through all the
changing conceptions of its nature, the primary truth for
i Op. cit. , p. 512.
* Cf. Stade, Bib. Tkeologie deA.T. , p. 254 ; on the interpretation of Hosca
ri. 7, viii. 1, see Harper, Amos and ffotea, ad loe.
* Cf. Harper, op. e#., pp. Ixxvi., Ixxvii.
* Cf. the well-balanced study by Giesebrecht, Die Oeschichtlichkeit de$
Binaibundea (1900).
190 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
our present purpose is unmistakable the assurance that
Yahweh was able and ready to bless and save. His
covenant with Israel was as steadfast as what we call
the laws of nature : * If ye can break my covenant of
*Jie day, and my covenant of the night, so that there
ihould not be day and night in their season ; then may
also my covenant be broken with David my servant 9 . 1
2. The Day of Yahweh
The popular religion of Israel in the eighth century
assumed that Yahweh was necessarily on the side of His
people. It was this false confidence that the prophets
of the time specially attacked. Amos did not complain
that the worship of Yahweh at Bethel and Gilgal was
neglected, but that the zeal with which the ritual was
performed at these places was a zeal not according to know
ledge, a zeal ignorant of the true character and demands
of Yahweh. Because those demands were unfulfilled, the
popular expectation that Yahweh was certain to inter
vene on behalf of Israel was doomed to grievous disap
pointment, and national confidence in presence of foreign
peril was utterly ungrounded. * Woe unto you that
desire the day of Yahweh ! wherefore would ye have the
day of Yahweh ? it is darkness, and not light . Clearly,
the phrase used by the prophet, viz. the day of Yahweh ,
was already familiar to the people addressed, 2 and, from
the time of Amos, it became a central idea in the pro
phetic utterances. It denotes the day in which Yahweh
will intervene in the course of human history, so as
supremely to reveal His power and His purpose. Then
will be made plain to all the truth of the great doctrine
Jer. xandii. 20, 21.
* Gressmann ( Der Urtprung der israditisch-judischen Eschatologie,
pp. 142 f. ) plausibly argues that the idea belongs to a common stock of popular
eschatological belief*, which were employed by the prophets as the most
impressir* vehicle of their moral aud spiritual message.
mi.] THE HOPE OF THE NATION 191
by which the prophet interprets the history of his own
times, the doctrine of a divine moral government of the
world. Since the day of Yahweh will thus be the vindi
cation of prophecy, it is almost inevitably conceived by
the prophets, one after another, as close at hand. It will
usher in the Messianic age, as the startling prelude to the
establishment of the Kingdom of Yahweh on earth. This
dramatic immediacy of the day of Yahweh offers a strong
contrast to many of the ideals of our own age. If the
vision of a golden age of ideal human life is cherished
to-day, it is as the goal of a long and toilsome journey,
progress being made step by step through social evolu
tion, humanitarian effort, or moral reformation. It may
fairly be claimed that such a vision is not necessarily less
religious than that of the Old Testament prophets ; the
gradual betterment of social life may be held to reveal
the presence and activity of God not less surely, if less
dramatically, than any sudden and startling display of
His power. But the Old Testament expectation is essenti
ally of an intervention from without, not of an evolution
from within. In this it resembles the New Testament
expectation of the Second Advent. The prophetic hope
differs from the apostolic in two characteristics. It is
wholly concerned with life on this earth, though the
conditions of this life are to be supernaturally inaugurated,
whereas the New Testament hope of the future claims
the heavens as well as the earth, and moves in a more
cosmic arena. The second difference is that the hope in
the Old Testament is nationalistic, not individualistic.
But, allowing for the limitations introduced by these
differences, we may say that the eschatological expecta
tion, at least among men of prophetic religion, is not
less intense in the Old Testament than the New, and that
the day of Yahweh is as vital to the earlier expectation
as the Second Coming of Christ is to the later.
It is characteristic of the earlier pre-exilic prophets
192 IlELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
that they employ the idea of * the day of Yahweh to
enforce their condemnation of Israel s sin. That day is
a day of judgment on Israel itself, as we may see from the
words of Amos at Bethel (vii. 10 f.), or from Isaiah s
denunciation of the pride and idolatry of the house of
Jacob , which Yahweh will abandon : Yahweh of hosts
hath a day against all that is proud and haughty, and
against all that is lifted up ... and the pride of man
shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall
be brought low, and Yahweh alone shall be exalted in
that day (ii. 12, 17). The same thought meets us, a
century later, in Zephaniah, where * the day of Yahweh
takes the form of a sacrificial feast, at which Judah
herself is the victim (i. 7). But the day of Yahweh s anger
is extended by this prophet to the whole earth ; Philistia
and Moab, Egypt and Assyria, are also to suffer from the
Scythian invaders, whom Zephaniah has doubtless in
view (ii.). In the contemporary prophecy of Nahum,
the wrath of Yahweh is directed, not against Israel, but
against Nineveh. 1 Similarly, in the sixth century, * the
day of Yahweh is proclaimed against Babylon as to be
realised through the instrumentality of the Medes. 2 In such
prophecies the limitations of patriotism are more prominent
than the morality, transcending them, which had distin
guished the greater teachers of Israel. But a new tone
enters with the Exile into even the highest prophecy.
The day of Yahweh , which earlier prophets had expected,
was the Exile itself ; but now Deutero-Isaiah awaits a day
in which Yahweh will reveal Himself in gracious deliver
ance of His people from Babylon, as He had formerly
revealed Himself in the deliverance from Egypt. 3 A
i It is uncertain what power is denounced in Hab. ii. 5 f. ; in i. 5 f. the
Chaldeans appear as an instrument of divine punishment. The difficulties of
this book are indicated in Gray s Critical Introduction to the Old Testament,
pp. 221 f., and in the article Habakkuk by the present writer in tht
Encyclopaedia Britannica, ed. 11.
Is. xiii. * I. lii. 8-6.
viii.] THE HOPE OF THE NATION 193
century after the return, * the day of Yahweh is con
ceived chiefly as the purging of Judah from evil, a day
of wrath against all wickedness ; Elijah, the great reformer
of ancient time, who escaped the touch of death, will
renew his labours on the earth in preparation for the
great and terrible day of Yahweh V The Book of Joel,
probably a little later, asserts the coming of that day in
the form of a universal judgment upon the nations, of
which the immediate signs will be a general outbreak of
prophesying among Yahweh s people, and strange wonders
in the heavens and on the earth. 2 Another late vision of
* the day of Yahweh sees the nations gathered in attack
on Jerusalem, and Yahweh making a way of escape for
His people through the cleft Mount of Olives, whilst a
plague smites the besiegers ; Jerusalem subsequently
becomes the exalted centre of the world s religion. 1 It
will be apparent, even from the few illustrations here
selected, how varied were the forms in which * the day of
Yahweh was presented. It is quite possible that much
that is strange in the phenomena ascribed to it may be
traced to earlier popular ideas of a mythical nature which
the prophets adapted to their purpose. But the per
manent and cardinal interest of the conception springs
from their use of it to express the eternal principles of
divine righteousness.
3. The Kingdom of God
* The day of Yahweh inaugurates the new conditions
of life which are included in the idea of the kingdom of
God (a phrase not actually found in the Old Testament).
The relation of the two ideas may be illustrated from the
prophecy of Obadiah, who first declares that the day of
Yahweh is near upon all the nations (verse 15), and then
I Mai. iii. 2f., iv. 5.
Joel iii. 12, ii. 28-31. Zech. TIT.
194 KELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
goes on to say, the kingship shall be Yahweh s (verse 21).
The kingdom, or rather the kingly rule, of Yahweh will not
be fully displayed in human affairs until His intervention
* the day of Yahweh has overthrown all opposition
to it. Thus the idea of the Kingdom of God, in the Old
Testament as in the New, is properly eschatological, i.e.
it denotes a consummation devoutly to be wished, rather
than a fact of present experience. 1 In one respect, how
ever, the New Testament idea of the Kingdom of God
strikingly differs from that of the Old Testament, which
is its foundation. According to the general outlook of
the New Testament, this consummation of life on earth is
itself the prelude to life within a wider * heavenly horizon,
made credible by the doctrines of resurrection and immor
tality.* But the new order of life contemplated in the
Old Testament is to be realised wholly on the earth and
in the immediate future. It is itself the final stage, and
there is no sense of contrast with some heavenly life which
will follow it.
The title * King , as applied to the divine being, was in
general use amongst Semitic peoples, though we must
not read into the title all that it suggests to us in the way
of an elaborate and fully organised state. 3 The evidence
of Hebrew proper names makes it probable that the
Hebrews at times employed the title King as a substi
tute for the proper name Yahweh, though this title was
falling into disuse before the Exile. 4 The growing differen
tiation of the religion of Yahweh from that of the heathen
* Duhm (on Ps. xxii. 29) illustrates this combination of a present right with
its future realisation from the Lord s Prayer, where the doxological addition,
1 Thine is the kingdom , follows the petition, Thy kingdom come .
2 See chap. iv. 4 ; it was along the present line of thought that the idea of
a partial resurrection first arose, though still simply with a view to the
Kingdom of God on earth.
Of, Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, p. 63 : the ideas which
underlay the conception of divine sovereignty date from an age when the
human kingship was still in a rudimentary state . He gives the evidence for
the use of this title amongst the Assyrians, Phoenicians, and Ammonites.
Cf. Gray, Hebrew Proper Names, pp. 147, 253.
VIIL] THE HOPE OF THE NATION 195
deities may have led to this disuse, especially in view of
the fact that the Ammonites called their god King ,
employing the term as a proper name. We first meet
with direct Hebrew use of the title (apart from its sur
vival in proper names) in a poem of the eighth century, 1
and in the account of Isaiah s temple- vision (vi. 5). It
was the human kingship over Israel (begun about 1030
B.C.) which eventually led to the revival of the old Semitic
title of the deity, though the conception became current
only when the human kingship had ceased. 2 The intro
duction of that human kingship was a perfectly natural
development, forced on Israel by Philistine pressure, and
the earlier of the two distinct narratives, now incorporated
in the First Book of Samuel, shows that the appointment of
a king had the full approval of the prophet Samuel. 8 But
the later narrative regards the people s demand for a
king as an implicit rejection of the kingship of Yahweh
(viii. 7). This is the point of view found in the eighth
century, and expressed by the prophet Hosea : I give
thee kings in my anger, and I take them away in my
wrath .* It is in the later books of the Old Testament,
notably in some of the Psalms, 6 that the emphasis falls
particularly on the kingdom of Yahweh, in the eschato-
iogical sense already indicated. The most notable example
is the Book of Daniel, devoted to the approaching estab
lishment of the permanent and universal kingdom of the
Most High, to be administered through the Jews.
1 Dent, xxxiii. 5 ; the grounds for dating the Blessing of Moses in this
period are indicated in th Century Bible, ad loc. , by the present writer.
2 Stade, Bib. Theologie dc* A.T., p. 63.
s 1 Sam. ix. 1-x. 16, xi. 1-11, 15 ; the later narrative is found in viii.,
x. 17-27, xii.
4 xiii. 11. To the same date probably belongs Jud. viii. 22, 23, on which
Moore says, The condemnation of the kingdom as in principle irreconcilable
with the sovereignty of Yahweh, the divine king, appears to date from the
last age of the kingdom of Israel, those terrible years of despotism, revolution,
and anarchy which intervened between the death of Jeroboam II. and the fall
of Samaria (Comm., p. 230).
6 E.g., xxii. 28, xcvi.-xeix.; cf. Gray, op. fit., p. 120. The name Malchiah
(my king is Yah) was a favourite after the Exile (id., pp. 119, 146).
196 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
This kingdom has usually been called Messianic by
Christian theologians, but the name is misleading, because
the * Messiah , or personal representative of Yahweh in
the government of His kingdom, is neither essential to
the prophetic conception of it, nor so important a figure
ill its inauguration as Christian thought has imagined.
This may be seen by taking such a typical prophecy of the
future Kingdom of God as is found in Zephaniah iii. 8-13.
There is here no reference to a personal Messiah, but we
have what may be called the three leading features of
* Messianic prophecy in the wider sense, viz. (1) the pro
clamation of a day of universal judgment against the
nations, followed by their conversion ; (2) the purging of
Israel from its proud and unworthy members ; (3) the
righteousness and well-being of the humble remnant.
There are, of course, many varieties of detail and some
times of principle in the prophetic visions of this golden
age, and the particular emphasis differs in different
prophets, and at different periods. But it would be
difficult to find any short passage more typical than this
of the general character of the nation s hope concerning
the Kingdom of God. The principles involved are simple
but far-reaching. There is, first, the conviction that Israel
is in the right, as over against the world. The divine
purpose is identified with one group of men, rather than
another, as it always will be where there is moral
earnestness. The enmity of the world against God is incor
porated in the successive enemies of Israel. 1 At its lowest
level, this conviction may be no more than a narrow and
intolerant patriotism ; at its highest, it is the condition
of all progress in morality and religion. Its basis is, on
the one hand, the intrinsic worth of the truth which Israel
is conscious of possessing, and, on the other, the confidence
1 * Almost all the nations that ever came into historical contact with Israel
are at some time or other so represented (Schultz, Old Testament Theology
(E.T.), ii. p. 373).
viii.] THE HOPE OF THE NATION 197
that Yahweh will not let that word of truth return to Him
void. If we owe to this conviction the splendid but
terrible vision of Yahweh as a blood-stained warrior,
returning from the destruction of Israel s enemies, we
are not less indebted to it for the anticipation of the time
when Yahweh s mountain shall be exalted by becoming
the centre of the world s faith and worship, and the clash
of weapons shall be heard no more. 1 Secondly, there is
the consciousness that Israel, though as compared with
other nations it may be in the right, is not justified before
Yahweh. Through the nation, as the prophets know it,
He cannot accomplish His purpose ; that will be accom
plished through the righteous remnant , the pure gold
of those loyal to Him, when the dross consisting of un
worthy Israelites has been removed. This is an important
feature, for example, in the teaching of Isaiah :
I will turn my hand against thee,
And I will smelt out thy dross in the furnace,
And remove all thine alloy.
And I will restore thy judges as at the first,
And thy counsellors as at the beginning ;
Afterwards thou shalt be called City of Justice,
Faithful City . 2
This consciousness of Israel s unworthiness, combined
with the conviction of the continuity of its mission, 8 may
be compared with the similar combination of both penitence
and assurance in the individual heart which characterises
some notable forms of the Christian consciousness. Thirdly,
in continuation of this doctrine of the righteous remnant ,
the Kingdom of God is to be characterised by moral and
physical perfection, relatively, at least, to the present
order. Many familiar passages will recur to the reader s
i Is. Ixiii. 1-6 ; ii. 2-4 = Micah iv. 1-3.
* i. 25, 26. For this tran illation ( including the alight emendation in th*
furnace ) gee Gray, Comm., ad loc.
s Of. T, vi. 13, a stock remaineth ; also Mai. iii. 16, 17 ; Is. iv. 2-6.
198 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
mind in illustration of this faith, such as the promises
that Israel shall be wholly righteous, that the earth shall
be full of the knowledge of Yahweh, as the waters cover
the sea, and that the light of the moon shall be as the light
of the sun, the light of the sun sevenfold. 1 In one place it
is said that there shall be no more death, in another that
patriarchal longevity shall return. 2 The description of the
streets of this earthly Jerusalem the golden , where the
aged sit in peace and the children play joyfully, 3 is one of
the most touching scenes in this kaleidoscopic panorama
of the future.
The ideal of this Kingdom of God is a great one, and
from Israel it has passed into the possession of the world.
When the early Christian hope of its speedy realisation
faded away, there gradually rose that vision of the city
of God to which Augustine has given classic expression,
the eternal Kingdom represented by the Church. When
the one Catholic Church lost her unique prerogative before
the tribunal of advancing civilisation, a new individualism
arose, which is even yet slowly feeb ng its way to the
Kingdom of God on earth. But in the social and humani
tarian emphasis of the present day there is an unmis
takable tendency to disregard that which was the cardinal
feature in the hope of Israel, the saving fellowship of
Yahweh. The brotherhood of man is hardly an Old
Testament idea ; but the contribution made to that idea
(within the limits of nationalism) is certainly dependent
on the Fatherhood of God for its deepest motive and
for its full realisation.
4. The Messiah
The figure of the Messiah, the kingly ruler who repre- I
sents Yahweh, constitutes one element in the future
1 Is. lx. 21, xi. 9, xxx. 26 ; cf. Ixvi. 22, 23, and p. 72, note 1.
t Is. xxv. 8, Ixv. 20. Zeeh. viii. 4, 5.
viu. J THE HOPE OF THE NATION 199
Kingdom of God, rather than the agent by whom it is to
be introduced, or the centre around which it will revolve.
That kingdom centres in Yahweh Himself, and will be
inaugurated by His intervention in human affairs. The
Messiah does not appear in all the pictures of the ideal
future ; where He does, it is as Yahweh s administrator,
vested with powers from Him, and wholly subordinate
to Him. Consequently, it may be said that the figure
of the Messiah is not of primary significance in the Old
Testament, however important it subsequently became.
The term Messiah reproduces a Hebrew word meaning
anointed , and this is the meaning of the corresponding
Greek title Christos . The original idea in the practice
of anointing was doubtless the actual communication
of supernatural qualities through contact with the
unguent used. 1 In Old Testament usage kings, priests,
and prophets were actually anointed with oil, the under
lying idea being that they were thus qualified for their
office. 2 Thus the term { anointed came to denote meta
phorically those who were set apart for some particular
work, such as Cyrus, the deliverer of Israel, the Jewish
patriarchs, and Israel as a nation. 3 The Old Testament
does not, indeed, employ the technical term, * the Messiah ,
which has become so familiar to us, to denote the princely
ruler of the future Kingdom of God.* But the figure of the
Messiah is clearly a development from the idea of the
Hebrew king as * Yahweh s anointed , and more particu
larly from the idealised kingship of David, to whom the
promise of perpetuity was thought to have been given :
I will set up thy seed after thee . . . and I will establish
the throne of his kingdom for ever . . . and thine house
1 Animal fat is widely regarded by primitive thought as having a life
within itself which is communicated with the substance ; cf. Crawley, E.R.E..
i. p. 550.
a E.g., Saul (1 Sam. x. 1) ; Aaron (Ex. xxix. 7) ; Elisha (1 Kings xix. 18).
Is. xlv. 1 ; Pg. cv. 15 ; Hab. iii. 18.
* Dan. ix. 25 should be referred to Gyms or the high priest JoshwL
200 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT |ca
and thy kingdom shall be made sure for ever before thtae ;
thy throne shall be established for ever .* This points
to a succession of kings and princes sitting upon the
throne of David , so that David shall never want a man
to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel . 2 The
righteous branch , or rather shoot , to be raised unto
David is conceived as the beginning of a new line of
Davidic kings : * He shall reign as king and deal wisely, and
shall execute judgment and justice in the land . 3 It will
be seen how naturally and imperceptibly this hope of
a Davidic restoration becomes Messianic in the stricter
sense of the term ; the future Davidic ruler is simply
idealised, and becomes the prince of the Kingdom of God.
We may learn how concrete and definite, how close to
current life, these hopes were, by the fact that Zerubbabel,
the governor of Judah in 520 B.C., is acclaimed by both
Haggai and Zechariah as the Messianic prince. 4 -^
The relation to an actual historical environment is much /
less apparent when we turn to the three chief passages
in the prophets which describe the personality of the
Messianic prince. 8 In the first of these (Is. ix. 6 f.) the
Davidic ruler of the righteous kingdom which Yah wen
will establish is called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty
God, A Father for ever, Prince of Peace . We must not
i 2 Sam. vii. 12 f. ; not earlier than seventh century. Cf. Ps. Ixxxix. 19 f.
> Jer. xvii. 25, xxxiii. 17 ; cf. Amos ix. 11 ; Hos. iii. 5 ; Ez. xlv. 8.
Jer. xxiii. 5, 6 ; cf. xxxiii. 14 f.
* Haggai ii. 23 ; Zech. iii. 8, vi. 12. In the last two passages the Jeremianic
term shoot (E.V. branch ) is referred by the present text to Joshua, the
high priest, but the last clause of vi. 13 shows that there has been an editorial
omission of another name, and iv. 9 makes it sufficiently plain that this was
Zerubbabel.
Is. ix. 6 f. , xi. 1-5 ; Zech. ix. 9. The last of these belongs to the Gr*
period ; the first and second, according to the general trend of critical opinion,
are thought to belong to the Exile, or shortly after it, but the question of their
date is still open to discussion. The famous passage concerning Immanuel
(Is. vii. 14) speaks clearly of a Deliverance, but is silent as to a Deliverer
(Gray, Comm., p. 136) ; a* a token of that deliverance, mothers will soon be
naming their children, God with us . But the other interpretation is as old
as Micah v. 3, winch seems to be a remark subsequently added to the Davidic
hope of the preceding verse.
Tin.] THE HOPE OF THE NATION 201
read too much into these enigmatic titles, but it is clear
that they give to this ruler a unique position, through his
judicial decisions, his superhuman powers, his protec
tion of his people, and the unbroken stability and peace
of his rule. In tha second passage (Is. xi. 1-5), the char
acter of the Davidic king, the * shoot from the stump of
Jesse , is described with greater plainness and detail.
The Spirit of Yahweh will endow him with the full equip
ment of a righteous and efficient judge, viz. penetrating
insight, upright standards, and the power to execute the
sentence passed. In both these passages it will be noticed
that the emphasis falls upon the government of the
Kingdom of God, after it has been entrusted to the prince,
rather than upon any acts of his own which acquire the
position. Such government will be necessary, because the
perfection of the kingdom is not conceived as absolute.
* The Messianic age is not to be an age free from sin (cp.
Ixv. 20, xxxii. 5) ; the conception is thus entirely different
from the later conception of heaven. But the wicked will
not as now sin on with impunity V The third passage
(Zech. ix. 9) is that which bids Jerusalem rejoice at the
coming of its king, righteous and granted victory, lowly,
and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt the foal of an ass .
Here, also, the Messiah is described not as bringing
victory or salvation, but as the passive recipient of it . 2
He rides no war-horse, but comes in peace, and * shares
the character of the saved people . 3 The same relation
of the king to the kingdom underlies the Messianic refer -
en~es in the Psalms. Yahweh sets His king upon His
holy hill of Zion, and says, Sit thou at my right hand,
until I make thine enemies thy footstool .* Exalted to
this high place, and vested with unique powers that he
may worthily discharge his office, the Messianic king of
1 Gray (Isaiah, i. p. 218), whose exposition of these two passages has been
followed.
2 Driver, Century Bible, ad lot. Davidson, D. B. t iv. p. 128.
Pss. ii. 6. ex. 1.
202 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [ca
the Old Testament still remains a man supreme among
men, rather than the equal, in any sense, of God. His
figure results from the religious view of history in general,
and of the kingship in particular, not from a philosophic
theory such as that which gave rise to the Greek doctrine
of the Logos. In fact, the nearest parallel in the Christian
centuries to the Old Testament doctrine of the Messiah
would be found in those * heresies which thought of Jesus
as raised to His divine authority by the Spirit of God
which came upon Him at baptism.
5. The, Servant of Yahweh
The national hope finds its most elaborate and remark
able expression in part of our present Book of Isaiah ,
viz. chaps, xl.-lv., written by an unknown prophet of the
Exile somewhere about 540 B.C. This illustrates, with
exceptional vividness of style and thought, that inter
pretative idealism of the prophets which transformed the
history of Israel. Not only is it the fullest statement of
the national hope which the Old Testament contains, but
it can be assigned, on the clearest evidence, to a definite
historical setting. The immediate stimulus to this pro
phecy was the victorious career of Cyrus, the vassal of
Media, a career which began about the middle of the sixth
century B.C. He eventually became the ruler of Western
Asia. Babylon fell before him in 539 B.C., and a con
temporary inscription shows that he reversed its policy,
and restored various deported peoples to their own
countries. At some time previous to the fall of Babylon,
the unknown prophet of the Exile acclaims Cyrus as t&e
divinely appointed instrument for the restoration of
Israel. Nothing will hinder this, for Yahweh is behind
him, and Yahweh is the one and only God, the creator
and ruler of the whole world ; the heathen gods are naught
but senseless idols. In the restoration of His people Israel,
viii.] THE HOPE OF THE NATION 203
Yahweh returns to reign in Zion. Not only for Israel s
sake, but for the sake of His own name, Yahweh works
this deliverance, and through it He will be made known
to all the earth. * I am God, and there is none else . . .
unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear \ l
With this exalted faith, the prophet begins and ends on
the keynote of comfort for Israel, 2 in marked contrast to
the demand for penitence which characterises pre-exilio
prophecy.
In the course of these chapters the nation is frequently
described or addressed as * the Servant of Yahweh , a
title already borne by distinguished individual Israelites
and by the nation as a whole. 3 It is beyond dispute that
the title, in some instances, here refers to the nation, e.g.
in the words thou, Israel my servant, Jacob whom I have
chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend .* But there has
been much discussion as to the reference of the title in the
remarkable series of Songs of the Servant of Yahweh .*
The personality of the Servant appears to be distinguished
from the nation as a whole,* and is described with such
individuality of detail, that many have seen a reference
to some distinguished Israelite, either of the past (e.g.
Jeremiah) or of the unknown future.* Both these diffi
culties in the way of a collective interpretation seem to
be met when due weight is given to that conception of
corporate personality which has already been noticed, 8
a conception which goes so far beyond anything familiar
to us in the way of personification. The national thou
can include both the evil and the good, 9 and the prophet
i Is. adv. 22, 23. * x i. i f. f i v . 12, 13.
E.g., Gen. xxvi. 24 (Abrahcim) ; Jer. xxx. 10; Ez. xxviii. 25.
Is. xli. 8. xlii. 1-4, xlix. 1-6, 1. 4-9, lii. 13-liii. 12.
xlix. 6, liii. 8.
7 In connection with this interpretation, the Songs are often ascribed to a
different source from that of the rest of the prophecy. On this individualistic
interpretation \vc might compare the obscure passage, Ztch. xii. 10, -where an
unknown martyr seems to be meant.
* See chap. iv. 3.
f For an instructive example, see Zeph. iii. 11-13.
204 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
can turn his gaze now on one and now on the other part
of the nation, in rapid transition, still employing the same
title. Thus the prophet (outside the Songs) asks, * Who
is blind, but my Servant ? or deaf, as my messenger that
I send ? whilst in the Songs themselves the Servant in
described as righteous. 1 In both cases there is reference
to the actual nation, in the light of its past history ; in
the former, to Israel s unwillingness to realise its mission,
as taught by Yahweh s prophets ; in the latter, to the
realisation of that mission, at least through the truer part
of the nation. Whatever may be Israel s shortcomings
in relation to Yahweh, still, in contrast with the world,
Israel is Yahweh s righteous servant, as the kings of the
nations themselves acknowledge. 2
We have already noticed, in connection with the problem
of suffering, the way in which this mission of Israel to the
world is conceived. For if Israel has received at Yahweh s
hand double for all her sins, then the surplus of undeserved
suffering belongs to the mystery of His dealing with His
people. The veil of that mystery is partly lifted to reveal
His purpose, which is to bring the world to His feet. That
purpose is accomplished through Israel s history, not only
because the nation is made a missionary prophet to the
Gentiles, but because its sufferings form a sacrificial offer
ing 3 for the sins of the world doubtless including the
unworthy within Israel. The sight of these sufferings
moves the nations to penitence, when they are interpreted
in the light of Yahweh s redemptive purpose, and no
longer as the penalty of Israel s sin. The whole description
implies that the suffering has been nobly endured, and
that there belongs to it a positive worth and intrinsic
xlii. 19, liii. 11.
1 liii. The peculiar reference to my people in verse 8 is either textually
corrupt, or a relapse into the writer s own standpoint within the nation.
* liii. 10 (asham) ; cf. verse 12 : he bare the sin of many, and made inter
cession for the transgressors . The sacrificial idea cannot be set aside simply
because the text of verses 9-11 is corrupt, as it certainly is.
vni.] THE HOPE OF THE NATION 205
value, in virtue of which the nations find acceptance and
forgiveness. 1
It will be seen that we have here a hope of the nation
very different in character from the expectations hitherto
considered. It is true, in this case as before, that Israel
is triumphantly vindicated in the eyes of the world, and
that Jerusalem still remains the spiritual metropolis.
But the path to this vindication is through defeat, not
victory ; Israel, like Christ, rules the world from the Cross.
The very nature of this hope explains why it has left
so little trace on the subsequent religion of Israel. 2 The
Old Testament has no doctrine of a suffering Messiah ;
the conception of the suffering Servant of Yahweh belongs
to the * Messianic hope only in the widest sense of the
word. The nearest parallel to these Songs of the Servant
is supplied by the Book of Job, where Job also reaches
a triumphant vindication after sufferings 8 that minister
to Yahweh s mysterious purpose, receiving double for
all his losses (cf. Is. Ixi. 7), and making intercession for
those who have misjudged him. In the 22nd Psalm, also,
the sorrows of Israel are followed by the divine deliverance
and the conversion of the world. But, for the most part,
it was the brighter aspect of the prophecies of Deutero-
Isaiah that left its mark on the subsequent religion and
literature of Israel. The spiritual demand made by the
Songs of the Servant on those who would share in their
ideals was too great for the rank and file, especially in
the atmosphere of narrowing nationalism which followed
the Exile. The demand is still too great for the rank and
file of the newer Israel which Jesus of Nazareth created.
i Thig objective value of the sacrifice must not hastily be identified with
much later theories of penal satisfaction ; it is rather a parallel to Job s dis
interested piety. Israel has enabled the nations to make a costly gift to
Yahweh. Cf. chaps, vi. 2, vii. 3.
* Jonah is a protest of the. more Liberal Judaism in the spiritual succession
of the Servant of Yahweh (Bennett, Post-Exilic Prophets, p. 127).
It is remarkable, also, that the Servant is described as a loper, this being
the probable meaning of stricken in liii. 4.
206 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
Yet Israel s sufferings, so interpreted, have entered into
His Gospel, shaped Bis life and issued in His Cross. To
those sufferings, coupled with this interpretation of them,
are due the most characteristic ideas of the Christian
faith and morality.
6. Nationalism and Universalism
We have already seen x that the Exile gave birth to two
distinct ideals of the future of Israel to the priestly ideal
of Ezekiel, with a nationalism centred in the restored
temple and its ritual, sharply separated from the outside
world, and to the prophetic ideal of Deutero-Isaiah,
which anticipated the conversion of all other nations to
the religion of Israel, through the missionary work of the
Servant of Yahweh. These two contrasted ideals, which
we may call nationalism and universalism, run through
the whole of post-exilic Judaism, but from the time of
Ezra and Nehemiah onwards it is the former which gains
in strength, and eventually issues in the post-Biblical
Judaism, a nation, which could not live, and could not
die, a Church which did not free itself from the national
life, and therefore remained a sect \ 2 On the other hand,
the universalistic tendencies which sprang from the mono
theism and morality of Old Testament religion were
maintained through the propaganda of the Jewish Dis
persion, and finally found their triumphant outlet in
Christianity.
The peculiar intensity of Jewish nationalism springs
ultimately from the consciousness of unique religious
possessions, a consciousness fully justified by subsequent
i Chap. i. p. 14; cf. Stade, Bib. Theologie des A.T., p. 309: Whilst
according to Ezekiel s idea of God there must be the most rigorous separation
of Israel from the whole world, according to the idea of Deutero-Isaiah
heathenism will be overcome .
3 BouMet, Die Religion des Judentums,* p. 110.
viii.] THE HOPE OF THE NATION 207
history, as well as by comparison with othei religions.
This consciousness goes back, as we have seen, to the
deliverance from Egypt. It . found political expression
under David and Solomon, and in the subsequent divided
kingdoms. Already, in the seventh century, it demanded
religious separation from other nations : * Thou art a holy
people unto Yah weh thy God : Yahweh thy God hath chosen
thee to be a peculiar people unto Himself, out of all peoples
that are upon the face of the earth .* This demand for a
holy , i.e. a separated people, corresponding to the holy
God, finds fullest expression in the later Priestly Code, 2
particularly in the Law of Holiness (Lev. xvii.-xxvi.),
which is inspired by the principles of Ezekiel. These
were the principles which the combined work of Ezra and
Nehemiah enforced in the restored Jewish community.
Because they could no longer find expression in political
independence, their concentrated strength was poured
into religious moulds. Already, in the Exile, the primi
tive practice of circumcision and the ancient Sabbath
festival had acquired a new meaning and a greatly in
creased importance for Judaism. As substitutes for the
sacrificial worship, no longer possible, the sabbath and
circumcision became the cardinal commands of Judaism,
and the chief symbols of the religion of Yahwe and of
membership of the religious commonwealth . 3 Ezekiel,
in his description of Sheol, distinguishes the uncircumcised
from the circumcised. 4 One of the things that shocked
Nehemiah s stricter religious conscience was the sight of
Jewish labour on the Sabbath. 5 The most important
step taken by Ezra and Nehemiah, however, was the aboli
tion and prohibition of marriage outside Judaism. Ezra
was moved to the deepest sorrow and indignation when
he found that such relationships existed, even in the case
> Deut. vii. 6 ; note the whole chapter. * E.g., Lv. ii. 41
Benzinger, in E. Bi., col. 832. xxxii. 19-32.
Neh. xiii 15 f. ; cf. x. SI.
208 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH
of priests ; he called on the Jews to separate themselves
1 from the peoples of the land, and from the strange
women 5 . 1 He could appeal to the Deuteronomic prohibi
tion of marriage with the Canaanites. But his justifica
tion, from the nationalistic standpoint, was deeper than
any ancient law. The permanence of Judaism depended
on the religious separateness of the Jews. . . . He fenced
off the people against the subtler temptations to idolatry
and averted the imminent danger of his time, the fusion
of the Jews at Jerusalem with the semi-heathen " peoples
of the land " . 2 The result of the assertion of this
rigorous principle of separation is seen in the rise of the
rival community of Samaritans , the descendants of
those northern Israelites who had not been deported,
together with the colonists from abroad settled in these
districts by Assyrian kings.* Towards this community
the attitude of Xehemiah is unmistakable : Ye have no
portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem .*
It is significant, both for the strength and for the char
acter of Jewish nationalism, that the famous Maccabsean
Revolt, more than two and a half centuries after the time
of Nehemiah, was provoked by the Syrian attempt to
Hellenise the Jewish religion, not by the Jewish desire to
gain political liberty. It was in 168 B.C. that the general
of Antiochus Epiphanes replaced the altar of Yahweh
by an altar of Zeus, and forced the Jews throughout the
land to worship idols. In the following year the revolt
began through the priest Mattathias and his family. The
Old Testament itself provides a glimpse of the opening
years of this revolt in the Book of Daniel. Its latter half,
i Ezra x. 11 ; cf. Neh. xiii. 23 f. ; Mai. ii. 11.
* Ryle, in Cambridge Bible, Ezra and Nehemiah, pp. 143, 144.
8 Jer. xli. 5 ; Ezra iv. 2, etc. The Elephantine Jewish community appealed
for help to the Samaritans in 408 B.C. The foundation of the Samaritan
temple is usually connected with Neh. xiii. 28, but cf. Bertholet, Bib
Theologie des A.T.,p. 28.
* Neh. ii. 20. On the real advantage to Judaism of this rival communit r
M a safety-valve, cf. Bertholet, op. cit., p. 29.
vni.J THE HOPE OF THE NATION 200
though thrown into the form of a prophecy ascribed to
the sixth century, is really an allegorical description of
the external fortunes of the Jewish people in the hands
of Babylonians, Medes, Persians, and Greeks. 1 Prophecy
proper enters with the vision of * one like unto a son of
man , i.e. the Jewish nation, whose kingdom follows that
of the beasts , and shall know no end. The interest of
the writer naturally lies in the present conduct of Antiochus,
and his desecration of the temple (viii. 11). The mighty
king (xi. 3) is Alexander the Great ; the kingdoms of the
north and the south (xi. 5 f.) are those of the Syrian and
Egyptian rulers in whose hands the Jews were, throughout
the Greek period, up to the time of the Maccabaean Revolt.
The * contemptible person (xi. 21) is Antiochus Epiphanes
himself. The closing chapter moves in the realm of the
future kingdom of God, which follows the fall of Antiochus.
The Book of Daniel as a whole, it will be seen, really
belongs to the apocalyptic literature which flourished so
abundantly in the period between the Old and New Testa
ments. Its presence in the Canon forms a convenient
landmark in the development of Jewish nationalism, 2
and illustrates the continuity of that development with
both the past and the future. The nationalism which
claimed political as well as religious independence in
the Maccabaean period was again to enter the political
and military arena in the events which led to the destruc
tion of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and to the Barcochba Revolt
of A.D. 132-135. One of the keenest observers of men and
manners, writing at the close of the first Christian century,
was struck by the contrast between the inner and outer
attitude of the Jew : Among themselves they are inflexibly
honest, and ever ready to show compassion, though they
1 See the vision of the four beasts in chap. vii. The empire of the Medes is
an unhistorical insertion.
2 The (unhistorical) story of Esther shows what this nationalistic spirit
could become when divorced from that finer religious consciousness which
usually redeemed it.
O
210 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [ca
regard the rest of mankind with all the hatred of enemies .*
That apparent inconsistency sprang from Jewish nation
alism, which was so mighty a passion for good and for
evil, because it drank so deep at the fountain of national
religion.
Yet it would be quite unfair to the religious ideas of the
Old Testament if we judged them solely by such a narrow
and embittered nationalism. The broader outlook, even
of the post-exilic period, is manifest in not a few passages.
We have only to think of the two companion books,
Jonah and Ruth both expressing, though in such
different ways, a noble universalism, a fine disregard
of the lower nationalism to realise the heights possible
within that nation which could also descend to the level
of Esther . The truth which Jonah and Ruth 1
utter in story that Yahweh can look beyond all the
barriers drawn around Israel finds expression through
more than one unknown prophet. One of the most
remarkable passages is that which couples Israel with
Egypt and Assyria, as sharing alike the blessing of Yahweh. 2
In another, almost startling by its catholicity, Yahweh
is pictured as removing the veil of mourning, and wiping
the tears from the eyes, not of the Jews alone, but of all
humanity. 3 Yet another seems to have taught that
the great world s altar-stairs slope, even through the
darkness of heathenism, up to the one true God. 4 The
spirit that underlies such utterances corresponds to the
practical relation of the Jewish Dispersion to the outside
world. The protected stranger (ger) of the older nation
alism was succeeded by the proselyte of the newer. 6
1 Tacitus, Histories, v. 5 (E.T. by Church and Brodribb, p. 195).
Is. xix. 24, 25.
One of the most catholic passages in the entire Old Testament, and one
of the tenderest presentations of Yahweh (Gray, Isaiah, p. 429; on xxv. 6-8).
4 Mai. i. 11. Malachi must have recognised a spirit of monotheism in
heathen religions, and allowed that offerings rendered to a God recognised
as one were rendered to Yahweh (Driver, Century Bible, ad loe.).
Of. Ps. Ixxxvii. 5-7 ; Is. Iri 6, 7.
vni.] THE HOPE OF THE NATION 211
Around the scattered groups of Jews within the Roman
Empire we find larger circles of those that fear God ,
who were attracted to the moral monotheism of Judaism,
and welcomed through its implicit universalism. And thus
we come to the origins of Christianity, of which the ideas
are so largely the ideas of the Old Testament interpreted
through the Person and work of Jesus Christ. 1
1 On the liberation of these ideas from the narrow nationalise which
fettered them, see Montetiore, Hibbert Journal, July 1912 ( The Signifi
cance of Jesus for His own Age ),
212 KELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [OH.
CHAPTER IX
THE PERMANENT VALUE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
FAMILIARITY is said to breed contempt, but much more
frequently it is the parent of indifference. We are so
familiar with the incorporation of the Old Testament in
the Christian Bible that we seldom, if ever, reflect on the
remarkable fact of its presence at all one of the most
remarkable facts in the history of religion. Here is the
literature of an ancient people of the East, a nation of no
great political importance, surviving into the crowded
civilisation of the modern West, not simply as documents
for the scholar, but as the common book of multitudes of
common men. Here are writings in an Oriental speech,
moulded throughout by Oriental modes of thought, and
belonging to perhaps the most conservative of nations,
which have passed from their unwilling hands into the
thought and speech and very life-blood of Occidental
religion. Here is an ancient book, of imperfect morality
and anthropomorphic religion, still being offered to men as
the living Word of God to their souls. A business man,
harassed by the industrial problems of modern demo
cracy, drifts in to the service of an English cathedral.
The majesty of his surroundings carries him back to the
religion and art of the thirteenth century. The Creeds
take him on a longer journey to the early centuries of the
Catholic Church. But the First Lesson demands the
longest pilgrimage of all, for he must listen, perhaps, to
the story of Jezebel, of whose body was found no more
fchan the skull, and the feet, and the palms of the hands.
ix.] PERMANENT VALUE OF OLD TESTAMENT 213
It is worth while to try and realise the strangeness of the
history which has incorporated such flotsam and jetsam of
Semitic story into the ritual of an English cathedral in the
twentieth century after Christ. But many at the present
day are concerned less with the wonder than with the
incongruity of it. What has that Jehu who trampled
on the body of the murdered Jezebel to do with the religion
of Him who said Love your enemies ? or, changing
the question from the particular to the general, how far
is the Christian use of the Old Testament based on un
reasoning tradition, and how far on the recognition of its
permanent value to the Church ?
The question is not new, but it has been accentuated
by certain tendencies of modern thought. From the very
beginnings of the Christian Church, so soon as it ceased
to be a Jewish sect and became a universal fellowship,
the inheritance of the Old Testament carried difficulties
with it. That inheritance was indeed felt to be a
splendid one, and apostles in the first and apologists in
the second century made Old Testament prophecy the
main ground of their defence of Christ s claims. To say
Jesus is the Christ , as Paul did, was to say Jesus is
that Messiah of whom the Jewish Scriptures speak .
Justin Martyr dates his Christian life from the time when
a love of the prophets possessed him men who spoke by
the divine Spirit, and foretold events which would and
actually did take place. 1 More than this, it was plain to
any reader of the Gospels in the second century that the
life and teaching of Jesus were closely and vitally con
nected with the Jewish Scriptures. Jesus Himself appealed
to them frequently for His own justification, as when He
said that mercy was better than sacrifice, or when in the
synagogue at Nazareth He claimed the prophet s mission
as His own. Throughout the whole New Testament
there ring the words, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled .
1 Dialogue with Trypho, chap. vii.
214 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
The prophecies they contain are traced back beyond the
will of man to the influence of the Holy Spirit ; the Scrip
tures are a lamp shining in a squalid place until the day-
star arise ; they are profitable for teaching, for reproof,
for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness ;
even if their testimony be fragmentary and varied, yet it
is a true message from the same God who has now spoken
in His Son. 1 The value of the Old Testament to the
early Church was obvious and unquestioned ; it formed,
indeed, the Bible of that Church before there was a New
Testament at all.
At the same time, the difficulties attending its use were
not less plain. The Old Testament, on the face of it, was
primarily a national book, whilst Christianity soon became
conscious of itself as a universal religion. The laws of
the Old Testament gave little hint that they were intended
for a season only ; indeed, the writer of the Epistle to
the Hebrews must labour to convince Jewish Christians
that the priesthood and sacrifices of the Old Covenant
are but a provisional symbol, a passing shadow of the
realities which belong to the New Covenant. A Christian
writer in the second century* takes the more violent
method of declaring that the Jews had completely mis
understood the Old Testament, which was meant to be
throughout an allegory of spiritual realities. It was the
allegorising method prevalent amongst Christians which
enabled them to make the use of the Old Testament
profitable for edification, and, in their own judgment,
efficacious in argument. A yet more serious difficulty,
however, arose from the moral teaching of the Old Testa
ment. Jesus had Himself abrogated some of its laws as
imperfect and now superseded, such as that which demanded
an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Those who admit
this principle of criticism, and use it intelligently, are
i 2 Peter i. 19-21 ; 2 Tim. iii. 15, 16 ; Heb. i. 1, 2 ; cf. Rom. xv. 4.
a In the so-called Epistle of Barnabas .
ix.] PERMANENT VALUE OF OLD TESTAMENT 215
faced by the same question in regard to every single
precept of the Old Testament, Does this come up to the
Christian standard ? The Jewish Law, indeed, seemed
to contradict not only the Christian conscience, but even
the Christian Gospel of grace ; l if God regulated His
attitude and conduct towards men by strict justice, as
the Old Testament frequently inculcated, what room
could there be for the love which spared not His own Son ?
In view of all these difficulties, there were not wanting
Christians in the second century who boldly urged that
the Old Testament should be rejected. A cardinal con
trast was drawn by Gnostic Christianity between the God
of the Old Testament and the God of the New ; by some
the Old Testament was analysed into elements of varying
value, on moral and other grounds. Yet, in spite of this
searching criticism, the general Christian consciousness
maintained its hold on the Old Testament, though often
at the cost of forced and arbitrary exegesis. The heretics
were often right in their explanations of the Old Testa
ment ; yet the Christian religion would have been im
poverished beyond measure if their conclusion had been
accepted, and the Old Testament had been abandoned
as an encumbrance, rather than a help, to the faith of
Christians.
Modern objections to the Old Testament, so far as they
appeal simply to its unscientific view of nature, its histori
cal inconsistencies, its imperfect morality, its anthropo
morphic representations of God, need not be considered.
These are effective enough against those who still uphold
a theory of verbal inspiration, but their effectiveness dis
appears when they encounter the critical view of the
1 The contradiction is apparent rather than real, for behind the individual
requirements of the Law lay the national covenant of grace, answering to the
covenant with the new Israel, made in Christ s death. The legalistic detail of
the Old Testament largely obscured this parallelism, and the Jewish emphasis
on < th Law naturally led to the Pauline antithesis between Law and
Gospel . The grace of the Gospel is more prominent partly because of ita
individual presentation.
216 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [en.
history of Israel which regards it as a progressive develop
ment. Yet other difficulties arise as the result of the
acceptance of this principle which do deserve serious
consideration. The critical view of the Old Testament
seems to many to exclude the reality of revelation, by
surrendering the history to purely naturalistic, or, at any
rate, purely human factors. The ideas themselves are
thought to belong as a whole to a stage of thought now
left behind, and to have lost their authority. The Old
Testament, however interesting to the scholar, appears
to become unsuitable for moral and religious instruction,
when historical, moral, and religious perfection is no
longer claimed for its contents. These are the difficulties
now to be met in the light of the results of preceding
chapters. It will be urged (1) that the history of Israel
fulfils all the conditions we ought to expect in a divine
revelation; (2) that the intrinsic worth and permanent value
of the created ideas does prove them to be such a re vela
tion ; (3) and that the literary record of this history
has a service to render to morality and religion not less
valuable in the future than in the past.
1. Israel s History as a Divine Revelation
The essential fact in revelation is the real activity of
God. The highest conception of religion regards it as
the fellowship of God and man, but there can be no real
fellowship where the self-manifestation is all on man s
side. Man often seems to speak into a measureless and
unbroken silence, but if the silence of God were as real as
it often seems to be, religion would be the most pathetic
of all self-deceptions, and the highest experiences of
human personality a cruel illusion within an irrational
universe. The fact is significant that the three great
theistic religions Judaism, Christianity, and Muhamme-
danism are all religions of revelation. From the stand-
jx.] PERMANENT VALUE OF OLD TESTAMENT 217
point of philosophy, divine personality is unthinkable
without divine self-communication, resulting in human
knowledge of God. The manner and the matter of such
divine self-communication can be ascertained only by
experience. Man must adjust himself to the divine
method, and thankfully profit by the measure of know
ledge he may attain. This knowledge will be of the truth,
and truth will be self-consistent. But God will certainly
not be dependent on external human methods of communi
cating knowledge. Fellowship with God i .iplies that man
is in the presence of One greater than himself, One who
may make Himself known in subtle and unforeseen ways.
The line of demarcation between man s approach to God
and God s approach to man may be indecipherable.
Indeed, the soundest philosophical position seems to be
that revelation and discovery must be the same process
viewed from different standpoints .*
The revelation of God to Israel must be sought primarily
in the life behind the literature. That literature came
into existence largely, if not wholly, in unconsciousness
of any claim to canonical inspiration. At the most, it
was a record of revelation. Even the prophets, in whom
the experience of divine revelation culminates, were not
so much scribes as spokesmen of truth. The Jewish
theory that the Law was dictated to Moses does not agree
with the evidence of the Law itself, which clearly shows
successive and slowly developed strata. The Old Testa
ment, interpreted in the light it throws on its own origin,
testifies to the reality of a divine revelation in the life of
Israel. God was revealed not simply in words, but in
a series of acts extending over a thousand years. At first
sight, much more unity is apparent in the Kur an than
in the Old Testament, for the Kur an reflects the life of
a single generation as interpreted through the idiosyn
crasies of a single individual. But how much more
* Owatkin. The Knowledge of God i. p. 156.
218 EELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH,
majestic, on any theory, is the revelation which needed
a nation s whole history for its medium !
But to say that the divine revelation was made through
the life of Israel is necessarily to admit its progressive
character. The * discoveries made by the nation s
leaders, in the realms of morality and religion, were, so
far as true, divine revelation. In every step forward
God and man were participating, and the pace wat set
by the needs and limitations of the weaker partner in this
fellowship. In the whole of Israel s experience, and in
every idea which arose to interpret it, there were these
two factors of both human and divine activity. The
fellowship would not have been genuine without man s
co-operation as well as God s. The men through whom
the revelation came were themselves being educated, and
educational advance is necessarily from less to more. We
may speak anthropomorphically of a divine accommoda
tion on the part of the teacher to the limitations of the
pupil, but this takes into account no more than the revela
tion to Israel. There remains the revelation through
Israel to the world, the revelation through an experience
in which error and truth necessarily mingled, because
man was working as well as God. The reason for the
divine patience in revelation is, therefore, not wholly
stated, when we speak of the education of Israel as neces
sarily progressive. A deeper reason, which helps to
explain the apparent limitations of that revelation, is
that God s purposes are such that they can be achieved
only through the fellowship of man. Just as God commits
the practical regeneration of society to the Christian
citizenship of to-day, so He committed the cardinal reve
lation of His purpose to the deepening consciousness of
-moral and religious truth in the national life of Israel.
Not only, then, had the revelation to be progressive, for
the sake of those who first * discovered it, but also for
the sake of Him who gave it. In this, as in so much else.
ix.] PERMANENT VALUE OF OLD TESTAMENT 219
He waits for the co-operation of His fellow-workmen,
because the value of the result in His eyes depends on the
reality of the fellowship between Himself and men.
The point of most intimate contact in this fellowship
of revelation was the prophetic consciousness of Israel,
and the unique aspects of the result are largely to be
explained through this characteristic feature of the reli
gion. There are three possible spheres of revelation,
grouped as concentric circles around the central fact of
the fellowship of God and man. The largest is Nature,
taken in abstraction from man ; then comes History, in
its broadest sense, as the record of man s development,
individual or racial ; and finally, at the centre, Conscious
ness, the direct personal experience of the individual. The
Greeks began at the circumference of the largest circle,
and worked inwards. The Hebrews began l at the centre
and worked outwards. Within each circle they found
themselves in contact with God. The innermost convic
tion of the prophetic consciousness is that the same divine
Person who speaks to the prophet s heart is controlling
the events of history, and upholding the phenomena of
nature. From these two outer circles are drawn the
necessary materials, the contemporary data, for the
prophet to interpret. It is his task to find God there,
as he has already found Him here. But the fact that he
begins here, at the centre of personal communion with
God, gives him new and far-reaching powers of insight.
The prophet himself makes the claim that that insight
comes from God. Certainly no other explanation is
adequate to explain the results of the insight. Directly,
or indirectly, it is the prophetic consciousness which gives
to the Old Testament its peculiar quality and its historic
influence. The claim of Israel to have received a divine
1 I.e. in emphasis, not historical order, since the three circles are
separable only for such analysis as this. Moses, for example, interprets by
his prophetic consciousness a physical event, which is part of Israel s history,
aa the act of God.
220 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
revelation stands or falls with the reality of such per
sonal fellowship between God and man as may issue in
a true knowledge of God within the human heart. In
this way the philosophy of revelation passes into the
philosophy of religious experience in general ; what reality
underlies both ? This vital question ought not to be
complicated by any of the alleged difficulties of inspira
tion within and of miracle without. These are questions
of method and manner, and they are subsidiary to the
fundamental issue of all religion the reality of God s
fellowship with man. It may be said that such a view
of revelation, which traces it to the immanent presence
of the transcendent God within the prophetic conscious
ness, is open to two objections. It does not distinguish
that consciousness from the general religious experience,
except in degree, and therefore it leaves us without a unique
origin for admittedly unique results. Nor does it enable
us to distinguish the false and the true, the human error
and the divine truth, within that consciousness, by any
external criterion or standard, and therefore it leaves us
unable to decide what ia divine revelation in any particular
instance. Both statements are true, and both conclu
sions are false. There is no need to distinguish the pro
phetic consciousness from religious experience in general,
except by its greater intensity. But greater intensity,
or difference of degree, does insensibly pass into a differ
ence of kind. 1 We do not dishonour prophecy when we
lift human personality into such kinship with the divine
as to make the prophetic experience possible to all men.
* Would God that all Yahweh s people were prophets,
that Yahweh would put His spirit upon them ! We
i This may be illustrated by the fact that the earth is large enough to have
an atmosphere, and the moon is not. By simply piling atoms or stones
together into a mighty mass there comes a critical point at which an
atmosphere becomes possible ; and directly an atmosphere exists, all marine*
of phenomena may spring into existence, which without it were quite impos
sible (Lodge, Life and Ma
fatter,* p. 72).
ix.] PERMANENT VALUE OF OLD TESTAMENT 221
must conceive God as seeking entrance into all human
souls not less, but more, eagerly than the highest souls
seek entrance into His fellowship. That one man, or
one nation, should enjoy a closer and more intimate
knowledge of God than others, presents no more difficulty
than the fact that one man or nation may possess a finer
artistic consciousness, or a deeper passion for freedom.
They will all have their place in the embracing purpose
of God, and all service ranks the same with God . The
problems of divine election, which re-state the problems
of human experience, are very real, but they must not be
exaggerated by ideas of partiality and favouritism. Where
God finds men able and willing to receive Him, there He
finds an instrument for His purpose. The prophetic
consciousness is essentially human consciousness in fellow
ship with God. As for the second objection, that no
adequate criterion of divine revelation exists unless truth
be communicated to the prophets in some miraculous ,
i.e. abnormal, manner, such a view really dishonours
truth. If God really imparts truth to man through inter
course with Himself, will not that truth have an intrinsic
quality which will suffice to set it apart, sooner or later,
from all that is untrue ? What higher test of revelation
can there be than truth itself ? In one sense, indeed,
history becomes the guide to truth. The prophets them
selves appealed to it in confirmation of their words. But
we also saw that they appealed to a self-evidencing power
in divine truth, which enforced conviction prior to the
confirmation by history. The historic influence of Israel s
ideas, and particularly their incorporation in the Christian
faith, does confirm all that might be gathered from their
intrinsic worth. But such evidence is subsidiary. The
primary proof of revelation must lie in the character of
the ideas which claim to be revealed. If they are unique
in character and importance, and are able to secure a
unique response from the human heart, then they have
222 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
established their claim to be a divine revelation. The
position in regard to the Scriptures as a whole has been
tersely summed up by the words : * There is impressed
upon the writings which make up the Bible a breadth
and variety, an intensity and purity of religious life, that
are without parallel in any other literature of the world.
That is the fact which we seek to express in the doctrine
of Inspiration. We know no other explanation for it
than a special action of the Spirit of God .* * This result
and the relative history is not due to the inborn religious
genius of this people, not to a dead law of necessary
development, not to the fortunate concurrence of chance
events, but, as our firm conviction is, to the real activity
of God in the history and in personalities . 2
2. The Ideas and their Intrinsic Worth
The great object in trying to understand history,
political, religious, literary, or scientific, is to get behind
men and to grasp ideas . 3 That has been the chief aim
of the preceding chapters, which have tried to penetrate
through the literature to the history, through the history
to the lives of the men who made it, through their lives
to the dominant ideas which controlled their religion.
It is there, if anywhere, that the self-evidencing results
of divine revelation must be found. Israel s work and
distinction in the general history of mankind is to have
become the living embodiment of these ideas. If men
want them, it is to the Old Testament they must go to
find them most impressively expressed ; nowhere else will
they be found set forth so thoroughly, so dramatically,
and with such earnest conviction of their truth. But if
they are to have the further claim upon our reverence and
loyal obedience which belongs to divinely revealed truth,
i Sanday, E.R.E., t.v. Bible , ii. p. 579.
Koeberle, Siinde vnd Qnade, p. 667. * Lord Acton, Letters, p. 6.
ix.] PERMANENT VALUE OF OLD TESTAMENT 223
the proof must lie in their own nature. It will be con
venient, in the first place, to summarise the results that
have been reached.
The leading idea of Israel s religion, the characteristic
feature that alone sets it apart from all other religions
not dependent upon it, is its idea of God. He is the per
sonal Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the world, adminis
tering its government in pursuit of a holy and gracious
purpose. Complementary to this, there is the idea of
man as wholly dependent upon God, and not able to
approach Him without moral holiness, yet drawn to love
Him in that gracious fellowship through which He gives
Himself to man. Through the moral demands of this
fellowship the problem of human suffering found charac
teristic interpretation, as penalty for sin, discipline of
character, opportunity for disinterested service and sacri
ficial offering. As a further result of the moral emphasis,
there came the vision of a future Kingdom of God, in
which His sovereignty would at last be fully displayed in
social righteousness.
These four ideas (of God, of man, of suffering, and of
the kingdom) may be said to epitomise the spiritual
religion of the Old Testament. They have become so
familiar to the religious thought of Western civilisation
that it is difficult to realise their greatness until we
remember that our very familiarity with them is a spiritual
debt to Israel through Christianity, and the best proof
of their epoch-making significance. In the Old Testa
ment they are usually found with the limitations of a
nationalistic setting, but in principle they are of universal
application. In the Old Testament, also, they are more
or less closely linked to a ceremonial religion that has
ceased to have more than archaeological interest ; yet
they are essentially spiritual principles, of which no out
ward forms and ceremonies can ever be more than the
passing accompaniment. Moreover, Israel s ethical mono-
224 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [ca
theism, its religious view of human nature, its moral
philosophy of history, its divine Utopianism, are features
unique in the history of religion, in respect of their vigour,
intensity, and practical effects. Thus, the universality,
the spirituality, and the uniqueness of these ideas prove
them to be at least worthy to be made the contents of
a divine revelation. But their intrinsic worth becomes
most apparent when considered in relation to the New
Testament, to the tendencies of modern philosophy, and
to the ultimate test afforded by religious experience.
The New Testament, in the light cf all it has done for
the human race, is the clearest historical demonstration
of the worth of the religious ideas of the Old Testament.
The ideas indicated in the last two paragraphs are central
also in the New Testament, and historically necessary for
its explanation. The earliest form of Christianity may be
regarded as a reformation of contemporary Judaism along
the lines of the prophetic teaching of the Old Testament.
The idea of God which is presupposed by the faith and
teaching of the prophet of Nazareth is substantially that
of the Old Testament. The New Testament , it has
been said, had nothing further to add to the outline of
the idea of God [in the OH Testament], but, on the con
trary, is glad to employ its language V Children some
times ask the naive question whether the Jews have the
same God as the Christians. The answer of history is
surely in the affirmative, however true it be that the
Person and work of Christ add a wealth of new meaning
to the old idea. The Gospel of the New Testament, more
over, implies just that religious view of human nature
which is the distinction of Old Testament faith. Men are
assumed to be wholly dependent on God. No approach
to Him is possible if moral holiness be not sought. No
morality is adequate which is not due to the inner prompting
of love for God. The central fact of the New Testament,
i Kautzsch, Die bkibende Bedeutung dc* Alten Testaments, p. 26.
IJL] PERMANENT VALUE OF OLD TESTAMENT 225
the suffering of Christ on the Cross, gains its evangelical
passion and power by being interpreted along lines already
laid down by the Old Testament. Finally, the dominant
New Testament idea in regard to human society is that
of the kingly rule of God, realised amongst all sorts and
conditions of men by moral obedience to Him. To say
this is not, of course, to say that the New Testament
makes no substantial addition to the Old. But the advance
lies rather in the liberation of the highest Old Testament
ideas from their limitations and lower accompaniments, 1
in their historic exhibition and enrichment through the
life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and in their com
bination with the fresh and powerful dynamic created
by personal devotion to Him.
Whatever degree of authority, therefore, may attach
to the New Testament as divine revelation belongs, in its
own measure, to the Old. The cardinal ideas of both
are intrinsically and historically inseparable, and herein
consists the organic unity of the Bible. 2 Its unity is
one of the most convincing examples of divine purpose
in history. This teleological argument, it should be
noticed, is strengthened, not weakened, by the critical
study of the Old Testament. The vision of its whole
religious teaching as a divinely guided development supplies
a broad-based argument from the Old Testament to the
New, immeasurably richer and stronger than the ingenious
application of obscure sentences. We may compare this
change of general standpoint with that which has come
over the teleological argument for the existence of God, the
argument from design in the natural world to a designer.
Cf. Montefiore, Hibbert Journal, July 1912, p. 767 : the significance of
Jesus for his age lay in this, that he caused fundamental beliefs of Judaism,
and more especially fundamental religious relationships of the Jews to one
another and to God, to flow over to, and become the possession of, the world
at large .
That prophetic consciousness which is central in New Testament revela
tion (cf. the work of the Spirit) is not less central in th< creation of the Old
Testament a fact brought out more clearly than ever by critical study.
P
226 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
Paley could compare this or that detail of Nature s
working to a watch, from which one might infer a watch
maker. The acceptance of natural evolution has destroyed
the argument in its old form, because it has taught us
the slow growth of each detail from the less to the more
perfect. But it has given us a new form of the argument
in the vision of Nature as a whole, ceaselessly striving
onwards and upwards. We do not need to look for
cunning details as examples of the designer s skill ; the
heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament
showeth His handiwork. So is it with the modern argu
ment from the Old Testament to the New ; it rests not
on precarious interpretations of the text, Behold a virgin
shall conceive , but on the whole course of Israel s history,
and on the implicit prophecy of Israel s religion. There
is a vital unity, a cumulative effect, a cosmic method, in
the modern appeal to the Old Testament, for those who
will take the trouble to understand it, which the older
appeal never had.
In the second place, it may fairly be claimed that the
tendencies of modern philosophy support the religious
ideas of the Old Testament. Here we may seem to invoke
a dangerous and unnecessary ally. It needs less thought
and trouble to declare that religion is independent of
philosophy, and to point to the warring philosophic schools
as sufficient evidence of the futility of metaphysics. But
philosophy is after all as much pledged to truth as is
religion. Ultimately they must be different aspects of
the one truth, and every true philosophy should issue in
a religion, as every religion involves a philosophy. At
the present day materialism is bankrupt, so far as com
petent thinkers are concerned ; agnosticism is in little
better case, save as a healthy moderating influence against
easy dogmatism ; only a spiritualistic interpretation of the
universe has any chance of acceptance. But within this
realm of tho7ight the inadequacy of anv uncompromising
ix.] PEEMANENT VALUE OF OLD TESTAMENT 227
theory of immanence has become apparent to many. The
facts of life are too complex to be traced so easily to the
manifestation of the Absolute. Personality, in very differ
ent schools of philosophy, asserts its right to fuller recogni
tion. The future of philosophy is seen to depend on its
attitude to the great mystery of personality, whether in
man or God. More attention is being directed to the
moral and spiritual * values of personality than, perhaps,
ever before. But this increasing emphasis on person
ality is itself an approximation to the religious emphasis
of the Old Testament. Man and God are there brought
face to face, with no impenetrable barrier between them.
Man is conceived as a personality distinct from God, yet
wholly dependent upon Him. God has imparted a life
to man which, by its spiritual kinship with His, makes
religious fellowship possible between them. God controls
Nature no less directly, simply, and mysteriously than the
human will controls the movements of the human body,
and miracle can be interpreted as the operation of higher
law (wherever there is adequate evidence for its occur
rence), the higher law of higher personality. Is there
not much more common ground between the tendencies
of modern thought and the presuppositions of the ideas
of the Old Testament than is often recognised ? May
we not fairly claim that the truth, and therefore the
divine source, of those ideas is confirmed by the testi
mony drawn not only from religious experience, but also
from many centuries of philosophic inquiry ?
Thirdly, and chiefly, there is the evidence to the worth
of these ideas offered by religious experience itself. That
intimate fellowship with God, through which these ideas
were generated in the Old Testament religion, and univer-
salised in the New, is still necessary for the full proof of
their truth. Their primal source is still their ultimate
guarantee. That through which they first came is still
the highest court of appeal. Conviction in religious
228 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
truth is religiously conditioned, as inevitably as convic
tion of artistic beauty is aesthetically conditioned, or aa
conviction in the realm of natural phenomena is scientifi
cally conditioned. Without a certain equipment in each
of these realms, a man lacks the data for proof. To say
this is not to surrender the highest proof of revelation
to mere wilful subjectivity ; it is rather to raise spiritual
discernment to the level of artistic and scientific insight.
In each case truth without is recognised through the
spiritual capacity for truth within, and all else that is
said is really the explication of the recognition, by appeal
to the doctrines of religion, the principles of art, the
4 laws of nature. This may be more apparent if the four
fundamental ideas of the Old Testament be briefly con
sidered as an interpretation of universal religious experience.
The idea of God which the Old Testament presents is
rich in just that wealth of personal attribute which reli
gious experience demands. 1 All that makes the noblest
companionship between man and man is represented
here, whilst the divine attributes of perfect wisdom,
power and love are those which religious experience must
seek in order to find rest. Religion cannot be content
with anything less than this idea, when once it has reached
it, and no clearer proof of its worth can be given. 2 Simi
larly, at any rate, since Schleiermacher s time, the element
of dependence in the deepest religious experience has been
generally recognised. Man does find his highest powers
in the conscious surrender of himself to One higher than
himself. There is an implicit logic in the abandonment
of the soul to the mercy and love of God the right of
the weaker over the stronger, which is part of the moral
1 The statement is obviously not true of certain types of Eastern religion,
but the issues between East and West are too large for discussion in this
place. The assumption here made is that the future lies with the religion
that develops, not with that which denies, personality.
2 Cf. J. S. Mill s argument as to the worth of pleasures in Utilitarianism,
pp. 12 f. of llth ed.
ix.] PERMANENT VALUE OF OLD TESTAMENT 229
structure of the universe .* In regard to the great
problem of all religions and all philosophies, the exist
ence of moral and physical evil, the interpretation of the
Old Testament still leaves no inconsiderable margin of
mystery, but it can inspire adequate courage with which
to face the mystery. If this interpretation be true, it is
worth while to suffer, whether by way of penalty, dis
cipline, or service. It is worth while, in a sense in which
the Buddhist escape by the denial of personality is not
worth while. Finally, the vision of the Kingdom of God
in social righteousness gives just that strength and
stimulus to humanitarian effort and social progress which
they need for permanent and vital success. Sooner or
later, the religious consciousness will raise the question
as to the source and the goal of those social duties which
the moral consciousness prompts. The Old Testament
lays the foundation of the only satisfying answer.
Ideas which thus continue to meet the deepest needs of
men must have an intrinsic worth, establishing their claim
to truth. They have received one convincing testimony
in the arena of history, a testimony supported by a multi
tude of lesser testimonies, but supreme and unique. The
life of Jesus Christ was based on faith in those ideas,
and that life, issuing in apparent defeat, is the clearest
example of victory history knows. The story of the
Cross is the most terrible indictment of the Providence
of God that experience can offer till we penetrate to
the intrinsic worth of the Sufferer s self-surrender, and
see that the Resurrection is the crown of a victory already
won. We may apply to that story words written in
a very different connection, yet even more true here :
* the heroic being, though in one sense and outwardly
he has failed, is yet in another sense superior to the world
in which he appears ; is in some way which we do not
seek to define, untouched by the doom that overtakes
i Phillips Brooki, The Influence ofJtsvs, p. 13L
230 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
him ; and is rather set free from life than deprived of it
... an idea which, if developed, would transform the
tragic view of things. It implies that the tragic world,
if taken as it is presented, with all its error, guilt, failure,
woe and waste, is no final reality, but only a part of reality
taken for the whole, and when so taken, illusive ; and that,
if we could see the whole, and the tragic facts in their true
place in it, we should find them not abolished, of course,
but so transmuted that they had ceased to be strictly
tragic .*
It is in this way that Jesus demonstrates the truth
of the Old Testament, rather than by the use He makes
of its literature. The ideas supply the one interpreta
tion of life which the religious consciousness seeks. The
prophets and Christ declared certain things to be true of
God and human life. We cannot gain the ultimate proof
that they spoke divine truth, except by following their
footsteps up the peaks of spiritual fellowship with God,
along tracks which their feet have made possible. Is there
not a certain divine purpose apparent in the fact that
religion itself becomes the one test of religious truth ?
Here, as elsewhere, the co-operation of man is essential
to the result. If a man does not in some measure
share in the purposes of God, they will not convince him of
their ultimate reality. But, if any man willeth to do His
will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God .
3. The Practical Value of the Literature
There remains a final question of great practical import
ance, which to-day perplexes the minds of many who are
concerned with the teaching of Biblical religion. Suppose
the general contention of Old Testament criticism to be
admitted, viz. that the Old Testament is a progressive
1 Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy, pp. 324 f. (with special reference to
King Lear).
ix.] PERMANENT VALUE OF OLD TESTAMENT 231
and not an absolute revelation of the fundamental Christian
truths, containing much that is not history, much imperfect
morality judged by a Christian standard, many state
ments about God which have dramatic rather than
dogmatic value how far can we continue to make use
of it in public worship and private devotion, and especially
in the teaching of religion to the young or the uneducated ?
In rejecting such direct appeal to the letter of Scripture
as would imply that this, and not the life behind it, were
the primary revelation, have we not deprived it of its
authoritative place and power ?
In answer to such questions, it is not enough to say
that we must take the Bible as we find it, and that if the
facts to which criticism appeals are indeed facts, we must
make the best of the conclusions. Such an answer might
imply that we have lost something by the newer inter
pretation of the Old Testament, whereas he argument
of this book has been that we have gained immeasurably,
so far as the vital and permanent elements of the Old
Testament are concerned. The difficulty really springs
from the inability of many to realise that Old Testament
criticism attacks not the authority of revelation but only
the supposed externalism of it. The great ideas still
possess whatever authority they once possessed ; moreover,
they are brought out more clearly, just as the light and
shade of a country are brought out by the study of its
contour lines. More intelligent study and a deeper
spiritual response are needed in order that we may hear
God s voice with full confidence, but are not these demands
gain instead of loss ?
As for the supposition that a selective attitude to the
letter of the revelation must of necessity weaken its
authority as a whole, it is worthy of notice that the prin
ciple of selection as applied to Scripture is not new in
practice. Whatever theory has been held as to the
absolute value of revelation, men have, in practice, always
232 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
been drawn to attach more importance to some parts than
to others. The only authority worth the name exercised
by Scripture has been that which is involved in the
intrinsic worth of its ideas, the authority of truth over
life. The Bible is written in invisible ink, until its hidden
characters are brought out by the warmth of personal
experience. The real argument for the authority of the
written Word has always been the same, since the in
trinsic worth of certain parts of Jewish and Christian
literature was recognised and acknowledged. Men have
accepted the Bible in the past, as they will accept it
in the future, because they have been able to say with
Coleridge, I have found words for my inmost thoughts,
songs for my joy, utterances for my hidden griefs, and
pleadings for my shame and my feebleness .* The Bible,
as he says, proves its inspiration because it finds us. But
to admit this is already to recognise a selective principle.
Life brings its test to truth, as the father says to his son,
on visiting the school chapel :
* This is the Chapel : here, my son,
Your father thought the thoughts of youth,
And heard the words that one by one
The touch of Life has turned to truth .*
So far as the educational use of the Old Testament
is concerned, the practical difficulties that spring from
its critical interpretation can easily be exaggerated. In
the case of young children and this applies to all who
occupy the position of children from the standpoint of
instruction difficulties will hardly arise in such passages
as are chosen, and a wise selection of passages would have
to be made in any case. Children * should be familiarised
early with the text of the Bible. . . . Whatever is to be
added afterwards, a knowledge of the text is a primary
i Oonfetiwn* qfan Enquiring Spirit, p. 10 (d. 1840).
Hnr j Newbolt (Olifton Ohapd).
ix.] PERMANENT VALUE OF OLD TESTAMENT 233
essential V Nothing ought to be taught them, of course,
in this or in any other field of instruction, which could not
subsequently be accepted as relatively true. But it would
be not less fatal to sound instruction to call attention pre
maturely to those less obvious features on which criticism
fastens, and to suggest difficulties that have not yet been
felt. The simple narratives of the Old Testament, such
as the story of Joseph, and the simple statement of great
ideas, such as the 23rd Psalm, can be taught to a child
like any other story or poem within its range of com
prehension. As questions concerning historicity arise,
they must be frankly met. When the k lower morality
of the Old Testament as compared with the New has
become apparent, the time will be ripe for showing that
the history of Israel was itself an educative process, for
even a child notices that parents and teachers judge the
same act differently when done at different ages. Indeed,
such difficulties belong rather to the conventional view
of Scripture as a verbally inspired text-book of morals
and doctrine. It may fairly be urged that, even for a
child, the interpretation of the Old Testament as a pro
gressive revelation does away with more difficulties than
it creates. The child who has never been taught an un
true literalism will never be handicapped by the necessity
of unlearning it. The teacher can afford to neglect those
difficulties which a child taught on modern lines will never
feel. The teacher s aim is, firstly, to impart true and
sympathetic knowledge of the Old Testament, simply as
literature, and, secondly, to emphasise and bring into pro
minence those great ideas which are the true prophecies
of Christ and His Gospel. If teaching on these modern
lines does call for more skill, more patience in the teacher s
own acquisition of truth, less easy dogmatism and parrot-
like repetition of borrowed ideas, surely this should make
us thankful for that new light by which God has called
1 Drirer, The Higher Criticitm, p. 62.
234 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [CH.
us to devote ourselves with more whole-hearted applica
tion, and with greater expenditure of time and pains, to
the study of His holy Word.
A closer study of the Old Testament, critical in method,
yet devotional in spirit and aim, might well prepare men
for the better understanding of the Gospel of Christ as
the power of God unto salvation. Those who have escaped
from the naturalism and agnosticism of a past generation,
without yet finding firm anchorage in religious truth,
might well ponder the words with which Herbert Spencer
brings his autobiography practically to its close, words
which have their own pathos in view of the prison-wall
he built around himself and so many others : Largely,
however, if not chiefly, this change of feeling towards
religious creeds and their sustaining institutions, has
resulted from a deepening conviction that the sphere
occupied by them can never become an unfilled sphere,
but that there must continue to arise afresh the great
questions concerning ourselves and surrounding things ;
and that, if not positive answers, then modes of con
sciousness standing in place of positive answers, must ever
remain V Here, surely, the permanent value of the Old
Testament is apparent. Its great ideas can train men in
such * modes of consciousness as will be transformed
into positive answers by spiritual contact with Christ.
The Old Testament is more than ever the Word of God
to man, when its religious ideas are seen in their true
perspective, and its authority is recognised as not of the
letter, but of the spirit. The literature which is the
casket of these ideas is rightly to be called a divine revela
tion. It will still speak to the hearts of men, as with the
living utterance of the God and Father of Jesus Christ.
The truths it contains await our needs, not as pale and
remote abstractions, but embodied in the concrete history
of a national life, a history recorded in a literature aecond
1 Autobiography, ii. p. 469.
ix.] PERMANENT VALUE OF OLD TESTAMENT 235
only to that of the New Testament in the height of its
religious experience. The ideas come to us wedded to
striking phrase and vivid figure, which form the noblest
part of the vocabulary of religion, in all the generations.
They are accessible to all men, and comprehensive of all
needs through the variety of their expression, which ranges
from the simple story that a child can follow, up to the
vision of unseen things large enough to be the goal of a
life of saintly experience. They are the only vestibule
by which we can enter with understanding into the palace
of New Testament truth, prepared to reverence its greater
glory.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 1
I. LITERARY CRITICISM
BUDDE. Oeschichte der althebraischen Litteratur. 2nd ecL, 1900.
CARPENTER AND HARFORD-BATTERSBY. The Hexateuch, 1900.
CHAPMAN. An Introduction to the Pentateuch (Cambridge Bible),
1911.
CORNILL. Introduction to the Canonical Books of the Old Testament
(E.T.), 1907.
DRIVER. An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament.
8th ed., 1909.
DRIVER AND KIRKPATRICK. The Higher Criticism, 1912.
GRAY. A Critical Introduction to the Old Testament, 1913.
KAUTZSCH. Literature of the Old Testament (E.T.), 1898.
KIRZPATRICK. The Divine Library of the Old Testament, 1891.
KEHT. The Student s Old Testament :
Beginnings of Hebrew History, 1904.
Historical and Biographical Narratives, 1905.
Israel s Laws and Legal Precedents, 1907.
The Sermons, Epistles, and Apocalypses of Israel s Prophets,
1910.
1 Selected fr purposes of further study, and chiefly on the general lines of
the present volume. Copious bibliographies will be found in Kent, The
Student s Old Testament.
The only abbreviations employed which call for mention are :
D.B. . Hastings s Dictionary of the Bible.
. . The narrative by Ephraimite writers from 750 B.C., using
the name Elohim (God).
E. Bi, . Encyclopaedia Biblica.
E.R.E. Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.
B.T. . English Translation.
J . . The narrative by (Judaean ?) writers from 860 B.C., using
the name Yahweh.
P . . The priestly narrative and legislation (exilic and post-
xilic).
BIBLIOGRAPHY 837
M FADTEW. An Introduction to the Old Testament, 1905.
SMITH, G. A. Modern Criticism and the Preaching of the Old
Testament. 2nd ed., 1901.
SMITH, W. ROBERTSON. The Old Testament in the Jewish Church.
2nd ed., 1895.
SPROTT. Modern Study of the Old Testament and Inspiration, 1909.
WELLHAUSEN. Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der histori-
schen Biicher des Alien Testaments. 3rd ed., 1899.
II. HISTORY
BENZINGER. Geschichte Israels bis auf die griechische Zeit. 2nd
ed., 1908.
GUTHE. Art Israel , in Encyclopaedia Biblica, vol. il cols. 2217-
2289, 1901.
KENT. A History of the Hebrew People. 12th ed., 1905.
A History of the Jewish People. 7th ed., 1905.
Heroes and Crises of Early Hebrew History, 1909.
Kings and Prophets of Israel and Judah, 1909.
Founders and Rulers of United Israel, 1900.
Makers and Teachers of Judaism, 1911.
PIEPENBRINO. Histoire du Peuple D Israel, 1898.
SMITH, H. P. Old Testament History, 1903.
STADE. Geschichte des Volkes Israel, 1886-1888.
WADE. Old Testament History. 5th ed., 1907.
WELLHAUSBN. Sketch of the History of Israel and Judah. 3rd ed.,
1891.
Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels. 5th ed., 1907.
(E.T. as History of Israel , 1885.)
Israelitische und Judische Geschichte. 6th ed., 1907.
Die israelitisch-jiidische Religion, in * Die Kultur der Gegen-
wart , pp. 1-41. 2nd ed., 1909.
III. RELIGION
ADDIS. Hebrew Religion to the Establishment of Judaism under
Esvra, 1906.
BENNETT. The Theology of the Old Testament, 1896.
BERTHOLET. Biblische Theologie des Alien Testaments (roL it ; sea
Stede), 1911.
238 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OP THE OLD TESTAMENT
BUDDE. Religion of Israel to the Exile, 1899.
BURNET. Outlines of Old Testament Theology. 3rd ed., 1910.
CHEYNE. Jewish Religion* Life after the Exile, 1898.
DAVIDSON. The Theology of the Old Testament (posthumous), 1904.
UIKSEBRECHT. Die (.frnndzuge der israelitischen Religionsgeschichte.
2nd ed., 1908.
KAUTZSCH. Art. Religion of Israel , in Haatings s Dictionary of
the Bible (roL v. pp. 612-734), 1904.
LOIST. The Religion of I$rael (E.T.), 1910.
MARTI. Geschichte der Israelitischen Religion. 4th ed., 1903.
MONTEFIORE. Eibbert Lectures. 2nd ed., 1893.
PEAKS. The Religion of Israel, 1908.
PIKPENBRINO. Theologie de VAncien Testament, 1886 (E.T., 1893).
SCHULTZ. Old Testament Theology (E.T. of German 4th ed.), 1898.
SMEHD. Lehrbuch der alttestamentlichen Religionsgeschichte. 2nd
ed., 1899.
STADE. Biblische Theologie des Alten Testaments (vol. i.), 1905.
VALETON. Die Israeliten , in Chantepie de la Saussaye s Lehrbuch
der Religionsgeschichte (rol. i. pp. 384-467). 3rd ed., 1905.
WELCH. The Religion of Israel under the Kingdom, 1912.
IV. RELATION TO OTHER RELIGIONS
BAENTSCH. Altorientalischer und israelitischer Monotheismus,
1906.
BARTOK. A Sketch of Semitic Origins, 1902.
COOK. The Laws of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi, 1903.
COOK. The Religion of Ancient Palestine in the Second Millennium
B.C., 1908.
CDRTISS. Primitive Semitic Religion To-Day, 1902.
J AST ROW. The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 1898.
Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia
and Assyria, 1911.
Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens, 1902-1913.
JEKEMIAS. Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients. 2nd
ed., 1906 (E.T., 1911).
LAO RANGE. tudis sur les Religions Semitiques. 2nd ed., 1905.
MARTI. Die Religion del Alten Testaments unter den Religionen des
wrdern Orients (E.T. by Bienemann, 1907), 1906.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 239
ROGERS. The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 1908.
ROGERS. Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament, 1 1912.
SELLIN. Die alttestamentliche Religion im Rahmen der andern
altorientalischen, 1908.
SCHRADER, ZIMMERN, WiNCKLER. Die Keilinschriften und das Alte
Testament. 3rd ed., 1903.
SMITH, W. ROBERTSON. The Religion of the Semites. 2nd ed., 1894.
WKLLHAUSEN. Reste arabischen Heidentums. 2nd ed., 1897.
WINCKLBR. Religionsgeschichter und geschichtlicher Orient, 1906.
VINCENT. Canaan d apres Vexploration recente, 1907.
V. SPECIAL TOPICS
DAVIDSON. Art. God , in Hastings s Dictionary of the Bible (yoL ii.
pp. 196-205), 1900.
BURNEY. Israel s Hope of Immortality, 1909.
CHARLES. A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, in
Israel, in Judaism, and in Christianity (see also art. Eschat-
ology , in Encyclopedia Biblica, vol. ii. cols. 1335-1392), 1899
2nd ed., 1913 (?).
KOEBERLE. Natur und Geist, 1901.
LODS. La Oroyance a la Vie Future et le Culte des Morts, 1906.
LOHR. Sozialismus und Individualism, im Alien Testament, 1906.
ROBINSON, H. W. The Old Testament Doctrine of Man , in The
Christian Doctrine of Man (pp. 4-67), 1911.
SCHWALLY. Das Leben nach dem Tode, 1892.
TORGE. Seelenglaube und Unsterblichkeitsho/nung im Alten Testa
ment, 1909.
BATTEN. The Hebrew Prophet, 1905.
BENNETT. The Religion of the Post-ISxilic Prophets, 1907.
DAVIDSON. Art. * Prophecy and Prophets , in Hastings s Dictionary
of the Bibk (voL IT. pp. 106-127), 1902.
Old Testament Prophecy, 1903.
GIESEBRECHT. Die Berufsbegabung der alttestamentlichen Propheten,
1897.
JOYCE. The Inspiration of Prophecy, 1910.
1 This contains the Assyrian and Babylonian texts (transliterated) and
translations of the more important documents referred to, bnt not quoted, in
Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament (KAT*; this is rery different
from the earlier form of the work, of which there ii an English translation).
240 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
KAPLAIT. Psychology of Prophecy, 1908.
SMITH, W. ROBERTSON. The Prophets of Israel 2nd ed., 1896.
VOLZ. Der Geist Gottes, 1910.
WOOD. The Spirit of God in Biblical Literature, 1904.
HERRMANK. Die Idee der Siihne im Alien Testament, 1905.
MOORE. Art. * Sacrifice , in Encyclopedia Biblica (vol. ir. cols. 4183*
4233), 1903.
BOEHMER. Der alttcttamentliche Unterbau de$ Reiches Gottes, 1902.
CHETNE. The Origin and Religious Contents of the Psalter, 1891.
DRIVER. Modern Research as illustrating the Bible, 1909.
GIESEBRECHT. Die Geschichtlichkeit des Sinaibundes, 1900.
GRAY. The Divine Discipline of Israel, 1900.
GRESSMANN. Der Ur sprung der israelitisch-jildischen Eschatologie.
1905.
KOEBERLE. Silnde und Gnade, 1905.
KRAETZSCHMAR. Die Bundesvorstellung im Alien Testament, 1896.
MEINHOLD. Die Weisheit Israels, 1908.
OESTERLET. The Evolution of the Messianic Idea, 1908.
PEAKE. The Problem of Suffering in the Old Testament, 1904
VOLZ. Mose t 1907.
WESTPHAL, a. Jahwes WohnstMtn t 190a
INDEX
AARON, 63, 113, 141.
Abimelech, 82.
Abraham, 30 n. 2, 31, 67 n. 1, 147,
187.
Achan, 88, 131.
Adam, 179, 181.
Advent, Second, 191.
Agriculture and Religion, 57, 138.
Ahab, 11, 120, 187.
Ahat, 12.
Alexander the Great, 16.
Allegorical interpretation, 3, 214.
Amos, 11, 34 f., 36, 67, 115, 165 f.,
190.
Ancestor-worship, 92.
Angel of Yahweh, 106.
Angelology, 127, 181, 183.
Animism, Semitic, 46 f. , 103 f.
Anointing, 199.
Anselm, 165.
Anthropomorphism, 61 f., 64 f., 148.
Antiochus Epiphanes, 16, 208 f.
Apocrypha, 3 n. 1.
Ark, 56, 63, 131 f., 136.
As her ah, 135.
Assyria, 11 f., 34, 60, 123.
Atonement, 167, 177.
Day of, 140 f., 146, 149.
Augustine, 115, 165, 1W.
A taxi, 146.
BAALIM (-ism), 9, 17 f., 46, 57 f., 78.
Babylon, 12 f., 802.
Babylonian influences, 18 f., 46, 52,
139, 179.
Barcochba Revolt, 209.
Bethel, 34, 62, 134, 190, 192.
Blood, 143 f., 1461
Revenge, 87 f.
Brahman, 51.
Buddhism, 29, 229.
Bunyau, 115.
Burnt-offering, 144.
CAIN AND ABBL, 45 n. 2.
Calvin, 74.
Canaanite influences, 17 f., 46, 57 f.,
63, 134, 138.
Canaanites, 9 f., 17 f., 33 f., 44, 57 f..
138.
Canon, 3 n. 1, 16, 123 f.
Causation, idea of, 73 and n. 8.
Cherubim, 105.
Circumcision, 19, 47, 207.
Clean and unclean, 1, 33 n. 1.
Covenant, 8, 13, 31, 35, 89, 125, 184
f., 166 f., 186 f.
Book of the, 5n. 1, 66 f., 80, 135.
Creation stories, 72, 84 f.
Criticism of Old Testament, 1 f., 4, 6,
216, 231 f.
results of, 5 n. 1.
Cyrus, 14, 199, 202.
DAMASCUS, 11.
Daniel, Book of, 16, 97 f., 127, 181,
195, 208 f.
David, 9 f., 59, 87 f., 186.
DayofYahweh, 121, 190 f.
Death, 47, 91 f., 153 f, 179.
Deborah, Song of, 9, 33 f., 36, 55.
Decalogue, 56, 63 n. 3, 66, 88 f., 131,
139 f., 155, 187 n. 3.
Deism, 49.
Demonology, 47 . 2, 104, 181
242 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Dependence on God, 83 f., 228
Deutero-Isaiah, 14, 121, 166, 192, 202,
205 f.
Deuteronomic Reformation, 12, 135 f.
Deuteronomy, Book of, 13, 15, 58,
123 f, 151, 162,188.
Aspersion, 20, 24, 128, 206, 210.
Dogmatic interpretation of Old Testa
ment, 3.
Dreams, 109, 118 n. L
Dualism, 75, 181 f.
EGCLBSIASTBS, 6 n. 2, 98, 171, 174.
Elephantine Papyri, 60 n. 5, 124 n. 1,
137 n. 1, 149 n. 4, 208 n. 3.
Elijah, 11, 39, 57, 63, 66, 80, 94 n.
2, 105, 178, 189, 193.
Elisha, 11, 63, 111.
Motom, 52, 61 n. 1.
Enoch, 94 n. 2.
Ephod, 47, 63, 109 . 1.
Eschatology, 90, 98, 191, 194.
Esther, Book of, 209 n. 2, 210.
Evil, problem of, 160, 178 f., 229 f.
Evolution, 100, 226.
Exile, 13 f., 19, 58 f., 186.
Exodus, the, 7 f., 189.
Experience and religion, 52 and *. 1,
70. 227 f.
Eiekiel, 14, 82, 86, 89 f., 04, 111, 115
f., 125, 142, 157, 163, 206.
Ezra, 15, 35, 37, 123, 207 f.
FAITH, 37, 40 and n. 8, 154, 186.
Fasting, 140 n. 3.
Fellowship of God and man, 25 f., 28,
37, 50, 65 f., 73, 114, 118 f., 127 f.,
177 n. 3, 217, 220, 227, 230.
Festivals, 17 f., 137 f.
Foreign influences, 17, 45 f.
Forgiveness, 160, 164 f.
For, George, 116.
Freedom, human, 38, 50, 72, 75, 98,
178, 218.
Funeral customs, 47, 92, 133 n. 1.
Future Life, 91 f.
OEZRR, 63.
Gibeonites, 88.
Gnostics, 75, 216.
God. See especially Chap. 111.
emphasis on, 31, 37, 49, 74, 78.
idea of, 61 f., 228.
in history, 61.
Greek influences, 20, 96 f., 208.
life, 20.
morality, 42, 154.
Guilt, 169.
Guilt-offering, 145, 177.
HABAKKTTK, 172, 192 n. 1.
Haggai, 15, 162.
Hammurabi, Code of, 19.
Hananiah, 120 f.
Hands, laying on of, 146.
Heart, 81.
Henotheism, 60.
Heredity, 89.
Hezekiah, 12.
History, interpretation of, 119.
outline of, 7 f.
Holiness of God, 69 f., 130 f.
moral, 154 f., 168.
1 Holiness, Law of, 125, 207.
Holy of Holies, 64, 140.
Holy Places, 183 f.
Hweb, 134.
Hosea, 11, 40, 68, 62 f. f 68 f., 166.
Humility, 155.
IMAGES, 62 f.
Immanence of God, 220.
Immanuel, 200 n. 5.
Immorality, sexual, 46, 136.
Immortality, 96, 173.
Individuality, 89, 164, 168.
Inspiration, 119, 121, 222, 232.
Intrinsic truth, 196, 221 f., 229 f.
Isaiah, 12, 69 f., 78, 115 f., 122, 156.
Israel and Judah (union of), 10.
JACOB, 184.
Jael, 33.
INDEX
243
Jealousy of Yahweb, 56 f.
Jehoiada, 57.
Jehu, 11, 45, 57, 63, 213.
Jeremiah, 13, 45, 89, 115 f., 120 f.,
122, 156 f., 168, 171, 139,203.
Jeroboam, 63.
Jerusalem, 12, 16, 24, 135 f., 140,
193, 197 f.
Job, 40, 94, 122, 174 f., 180, 182,
205.
Joel, 170, 193.
Jonadab, 45.
Jonah, Book of, 206 . 2, 210.
Joseph, 111.
Joshua, 111.
Josiah, 12, 45.
Jubilee, 140 n, 2.
Judaism, 14 f., 22, 127 f., 169, 206,
216.
Judges, the, 5 n. 1, 9, 11.
Justin Martyr, 213.
Kvndth, 22, 69.
Kenites, 63.
King (title of Yahweh), 194 f.
Kingdom of God, 193 f., 229.
Kingship (Davidic), 10, 195, 200.
LAW, 125, 127 f., 129.
authority of, 35, 37, 41, 123 f.
ceremonial, 42.
Prophets and Writings, 4, 124.
Legislation, nomadic, 38.
Lerites, 6 n. 1, 142.
Loving-kindness of God, 68.
MACCABJBAN KKVOLT, 16, 128, 208 f.
Magic, symbolic, 146 . 1.
Malachi , 172.
Man. See especially Chap. IV.
idea of, 77 f .
place of, 72, 85 f., 98 f.
Manasseh, 12, 57, 135.
Manifestations of Yahweh, 104 f.
Mazzebah, 135.
Meseiah, 198 f.
Messianic Hope, 30 f., 97, 191, 19.
Micah, 39, 147 n. 2, 200 . 6.
Micaiah, 120 f.
Mill, John Stuart, 182.
Miracle, l7f., 112.
Moabites, 22.
Monotheism, 59 f., 211
Assyrio-Babylonian, 17, 19 n. 1,
52.
Morality, customary , 162 f.
emphasis on, 32, 36 f., 38 f., 49,
65f.,77, 133.
as (divine) Law, 41, 154 f.
motive of, 44.
pre-prophetic, 39.
beauty and truth, 44.
and religion, 156.
Moses, 6, 8, 20, 38, 63, 77 n. 1, 106,
111, 113, 12(5, 132, 186, 219 n. 1.
Muhammedanism, 29, 216.
Mysticism, 50, 96, 100.
NAAMAN, 69.
Nahum, 192.
Name of Yahweh, 106.
Names of God, 52 f.
Nathan, 89, 66 f., 163, 189.
Nationalism, 206 f.
Natural and supernatural, 25, 78,
102 f., 107 f.
Nature, 60, 71 f., 98, 198.
Nazirites, 46 n. 1, 133 . 1.
NcWim, 18.
Nebuchadrezzar, 12 f.
Necromancy, 92.
Nehemiah, 15, 87, 207.
Newman, 74 f.
OBADIAH, 193 f.
Old Testament, difficulties of, 8 f.
214.
value of, 21 2 f., 230 f.
in relation to New Testament
213 f, 224.
Omri, 11, 45.
Oracle, 103 n. 8, 108, 112.
244 RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
PALBSTINB, conquest of, 7 f.
Paley, 228.
Pantheism, 75, 99 f.
Passover, 138.
Patriarchal stories, 30.
Peace-offering, 144.
Penitence, 166 f.
Pentateuch, 15, 42, 124.
Samaritan, 124 n. 1.
Pentecost, 137 f. , 139.
Persian influences, 15, 19, 181.
Personality, 64 f., 119, 227, 228 n. 1.
corporate, 87 f., 163 f., 185,
203 f.
dual, 116 n. 3.
influence of, 20.
and morality, 38.
unity of, 48, 83, 99, 118.
of Yahweh, 60 f.
Philistine!, 9 n. 1, 132.
Philo, 20.
Pompey, 16, 64.
Post-exilic community, 15 f., 19, 35,
127, 150 f., 167, 206 f, 210.
Prayer, 152.
Priest, 124, 141 f., 167, 184.
Prietly Code, 15, 40, 42, 123, 128,
133, 141 f., 188.
Prophecy, early, 111, 116 f.
falst, 120.
test of, 119 f.
written, 122.
Prophet, 124, 165, 167.
Prophetic consciousness, 23, 113 f.,
219 f., 225.
Proselyte, 210.
Prosperity, 169.
Providence, 70 f, 178.
Pgalms, Book of, 149 f.
Psychology, Hebrew, 48, 79 f., 117.
Psychoses, abnormal, 116 f.
Puritanism, 44 f.
RECHABITKS, 45.
Redemption, 81 f.
Rehoboara, 10.
Religion, disinterested, 175 f.
idea of, 28 f.
mystery of, 159 f., 175.
stages of Old Testament, 28, 33,
35 f.
and culture, 44 f., 17.
and history, 29, 217 f.
and philosophy, 226 f.
Remnant, righteous , 23, 197.
Resurrection, 97 f., 173.
Retribution, 43, 154, 170.
Return from exile, 14 f.
Revelation, 126, 152 f., 216 f., 284,
philosophy of, 24 f., 216 f.
progressive, 218, 233.
Righteousness, 168 f.
of God, 68.
Ritual, 49, 148, 190.
Roman religion, 31 and n. 2, 143.
Rome, 16, 20 f.
Ruth, Book of, 210.
SABBATH, 19, 139, 207.
Sacramental religion, 129, 157 f.
Sacrifice, 143 f., 165 f., 205 n. 1.
human, 18 n. I, 186 n. 1, 147.
nomadic, 143.
value of, 150 f.
Salvation, 73. (See also Fellowship
of God and man . )
Samaria, fall of, 12.
Samaritans, 208.
Samson, 82, 110.
Samuel, 10, 92, 105, 135, 195.
Sanctuaries, 17, 134 f.
Satan, 180 f.
Saul, 10, 82, 92, 110 f., 116 f., 148,
163.
Scepticism in Old Testament, 54 and
n. 2.
Schleicrmacher, 228.
Science and Old Testament, 71 n. 1.
Scripture, authority of, 3, 123 f.,225,
232.
unity of, 225.
Seasons, holy, 137 f.
INDEX
245
Sennacherib, 12.
Ssptuagint, 3 n. 1.
Seraphim, 105.
Serpent, brazen, 63.
in Eden, 18C.
Serrant of Yah web, 22, 91, 176 f., 185,
202 f.
Shades, 83, 92.
Shechinah, 106.
Bheol, 47, 92 f., 173.
Sin, 153, 160f.,179.
Sinai, 2, 8, 11, 84, 105 f., 134, 139,
187, 189.
Sin-offering, 144 f.
not penal, 146.
Social morality, 34.
Society and the individual, 87 f.
Socrates, 78.
Solomon, 10, 186.
Sons of God , 180 f.
Soul (nr.phesh), 80.
Spencer, Herbert, 234.
Spinoza, 75.
Spirit (ruach), 81 f., !!.
of Yahweh (or God), 48, 79, 84,
86 f., 110 f., 112, 116 f., 201, 222.
Sub-consciousness, 82.
Substitution, 147, 166.
Suffering, 154, 204.
disciplinary, 170.
retributive, 161 f.
vicarious, 177 n. 1, 204.
of the innocent, 160, 169 f.
theories of, 172.
Summary of argument, 26 f. , 223.
Supernatural beings, 54.
Survivals, animistic, 47.
Synagogue, 24, 149.
TABKRNACLKS (Ingathering), Fat
of, 137 f.
Taboo, 47, 131, 12 f.
Teleology, 23 f., 225 f.
Tell-el-Amarna Letters, 7, 18 and n.2.
Temple, 10, 14 f., 28, 58 f., 135 f.,
136 f. v 148 f., 151.
Teraphim, 47, 56 n. 3, 63.
Theism, 182.
Theophanies, 104 f., 112.
Transcendence of God, 62.
Trespass-offering, 145.
UNLBAVBNID BREAD, Feast of, 137 f.
Urim and Thummim, 92, 108 f.
Utilitarianism of Jewish morality
43.
Uzzah, 132.
VULOATS, 3 n. 1.
WAR AND RELIGION, 65, 131.
Weeks, Feast of, 137 f.
Wind, 82, 110,
Wisdom literature, 43.
Worship, 34, 57 f., 63, 68, 140, 149,
151, 166, 184, 210, 235 ; Chap. vi.
pa$sim.
YAHWIH. Ste especially Chap. Ill
pre-Mosaic use of name, 53.
as storm-god, 60 f., 105, 134 n,
4.
as war-god, 33, 36, 55 f.
ZKCHARIAH, 15, 115, 127.
Zephaniah, 192, 19.
Zerubbabel, 209.
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