■ ■:^m^mm 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029278764 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BS1171 .C67 
 
 Bible and modern thought, by the Rev. J 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 278 764 
 
THE BIBLE AND MODERN THOUGHT 
 
Sy THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF 
 THE CHRISTIAN 
 MINISTRY. (The 
 Modern Churchman's 
 Library.) 
 
THE BIBLE AND 
 MODERN THOUGHT 
 
 BY THE REV. J. R. COHU, M.A. 
 
 RECTOR OF ASTON CLINTON, BUCKS 
 SOMETIME FELLOW OF JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 AUTHOR OF '"the OLD TESTAMENT,' 'THE GOSPELS,' AND 'ST. PAUL* 
 
 m THE LIGHT OF MODERN SESEARCH," "oREMUS," "THROUGH 
 
 EVOLUTION TO THE LIVING GOD," " VITAL PROBLEMS 
 
 OF RELIGION," "THE EVOLUTION OF THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN MINISTRY," ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 
 
 ig20 
 
PREFACE 
 
 A NEW book on " The Bible and Modern Thought " 
 calls for some words of explanation. Its publication 
 has come about in this way. In 1908, I published 
 "The Old Testament in the Light of Modern Research." 
 Troubled and perplexed by the moral and intellectual 
 difficulties of the Bible, I had found much light poured 
 on its pages by the writings of, e.g. Robertson Smith, 
 Driver, Wellhausen, etc., and, with a convert's zeal, I 
 wanted to help others in their perplexity. Reviewers 
 were unduly kind, the book was on " popular " lines, 
 the edition soon sold out, and I was pressed for 
 another. I refused, because an eminent and friendly 
 reviewer had meanwhile sent me, at my request, a 
 long list of corrigenda which opened my eyes. I 
 resolved to suppress the book, devote ten years to 
 further study, and then rewrite it on entirely new 
 lines. I wish it to be clearly understood that, although 
 this book covers the same ground and bears a similar 
 title, the whole subject is so differently treated that 
 the two works have nothing in common and might 
 well have been written by independent authors. 
 
 In its present form I cannot claim the book as 
 entirely my own work, and for this reason. After I 
 had completed the MS. in 1918, Prof C. F. Burney 
 and Mr. C. G. Montefiore graciously allowed me to 
 submit it to them for revision. Each of them read the 
 MS. critically throughout, and each also sent me close 
 on a hundred sheets of notes and suggestions which 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 have materially improved the original. Prof. Burney s 
 notes covered practically the whole book, except 
 Chaps. I, II, III, V, and the two chapters on the Jewish 
 Law and its influence ; Mr. Montefiore devoted himself 
 mainly to the chapters and passages directly bearing 
 on Judaism. Moreover, they have greatly assisted 
 me in reading all the proof-sheets. Of course, neither 
 of them is responsible for the shortcomings of this 
 book. With all their unstinted labour of revision and 
 correction, their invaluable notes and suggestions, 
 they have respected my individuality^ and merely 
 corrected what was wrong, toned down what was too 
 harsh, suggested what was lacking. Such as it is, 
 they have materially added to the value of the book, 
 and it may now possibly deserve the praise they give it. 
 "The Bible and Modern Thought" is intended for 
 educated laymen, students, and ordination-candidates. 
 As its title implies, its aim is to place before the 
 reader the present attitude of Modern Thought to- 
 wards the vexed problems of the origin, composition, 
 and historical trustworthiness of the Old Testament. 
 " The Old Testament scholar who would keep abreast 
 of his subject must spread his nets wide if he is to 
 gather in the available material for his studies" (cf 
 St. Matt, xiii, 52). I can honestly say that, in my 
 endeavour to keep abreast of modern Biblical scholar- 
 ship, not only have I read practically all the classical 
 books, English and foreign, on the subject, but I have 
 also spent many years in trying to learn what God is 
 teaching us through Science, Comparative Religion, 
 . Anthropology, Folk-lore, etc. I have done my utmost 
 to make these pages simple, lucid, and interesting, 
 and I do hope that the book will be found readable. 
 One chapter, however, defies all attempt at simplicity, 
 viz. Chap. IV., especially pp. 4i-5S- Here, "truth is ob- 
 scure, and simplicity fallacious," for it is impossible to 
 differentiate between the documents (J, E, D, H, P) 
 
 * E.g., Dr. Bumey does not share my views on the Decalogue, and 
 especially on the ephod, nor Mr. Montefiore my estimate of Ezekiel. 
 
PREFACE Vll 
 
 which constitute the Pentateuch, or to present the 
 problem in an accurate form intelligible to the reader, 
 without entering into technical details which may try 
 the patience of some readers. Yet these dry pages 
 are of vital import, for here lies the key to the whole 
 problem of the so-called five " Books of Moses." For 
 the benefit of the general reader, and at Mr. Murray's 
 suggestion, a fl3it-leaf, explanatory of the symbols (J, 
 E, D, H, P) commonly employed to denote these 
 source-documents, will be found at the beginning of 
 this book for easy reference. 
 
 My standpoint is not radical, neither is it likely to 
 be called conservative, but a writer is bound to speak 
 up to the level of his convictions. My one humble, 
 earnest, reverent desire has been to promote, so far as 
 in me lies, the interests of true religion. 
 
 J. R. COHU. 
 
 Aston Clinton : 
 July, 1920. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 CHAPTER 'ACB 
 
 I. A Bible Hard to Read To-day .... 3 
 
 MI. The Poetry of the Bible not Our Prose . 14 
 
 III. Truth of Idea Truer than Truth of Fact . 25 
 
 IV, Misleading Order and Titles of Biblical Books 33 
 V. Early Man and His Creed 56 
 
 VI. Babylonia, its Influence on Israel ... 70 
 
 PART II 
 
 dawn of Israel's history 
 
 VII. Moses 95 
 
 VIII. Period of the Judges 109 
 
 PART III 
 
 historical ISRAEL 
 
 IX. Saul to Amos. {c. 1050-760 b.c.) . . . .123 
 
 X. Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah . . . .141 
 
 XI. The Book of the Law, and Jeremiah . . .164 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 PAGB 
 
 XII. The Captivity; Ezekiel; II Isaiah . • .181 
 
 XIII. The Return from Exile; The Priestly Code 199 
 
 XIV. Moral and Spiritual Values of Priestly Code . 214 
 XV. (I) The " Holy Writings " : Introductory . . 238 
 
 XVI. (II) The "Holy Writings" Examined : Psalms 253 
 
 XVII. (Ill) The "Holy Writings": Job, Ecclesiastes, 
 
 Proverbs 266 
 
 XVIII. (IV) The "Holy Writings": Canticles, Ruth, 
 
 Esther, Lamentations 289 
 
 XIX. Messianic Hope— Daniel and Apocalypses . 306 
 
 INDEX 337 
 
KEY TO THE SYMBOLS J, E, D, H, P 
 
 As stated and explained in Chap. IV., pp. 41-5S, the Hexateuch (w. 
 Gen. to Josh.) is not bjr one author, but a composite work, formed out 
 of several documents wide apart in date and representing distinct stages 
 of development. These various groups were gradually welded together, 
 till at last the Hexateuch assumed its present form about 450-400 B.C. 
 
 J = the Jehovistic narrative, so called because it regularly uses the 
 term Jehovah (or Yahweh) for God. Date c. 850 B.C. 
 
 E = the closely cognate Elohistic narrative, so called because it prefers 
 Elohim for the Divine Name, never using Jehovah till Exod. iii. 
 i4sqq. (where God reveals it to Moses), and very sparingly after 
 that. Date c. 750 B.C. J (of Judah origin), and E (of Northern 
 Kingdom, or Israel, origin), are independent parallel narratives 
 drawing mainly on a common stock of tradition. 
 
 JE = J and E skilfully welded together into one narrative. The symbol 
 JE is used when it is not possible, or not necessary, to distinguish 
 the two sources. Date c. 700 B.C. or shortly after. 
 
 D = Deuteronomy, the " Book of the Law " discovered in the Temple in 
 621 B.C. It was written some little time before its discovery. 
 
 \i = the " Law of Holiness," i.e. roughly speaking. Lev. xvii.-xxvi. It is 
 the oldest part of the Priestly Law, and its kernel ; " holiness " is 
 its keynote ; its date is the age of Ezekiel, say, c. 580 B.C. 
 
 P =the Priestly narrative, the work of the legalistic school of the 
 latter part of the exile and later, though based on older material. 
 Date c. 500 B.C. 
 
 [For C, Ei*, JED, and full details of the above symbols, refer to 
 Index.] 
 
PART I 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
THE BIBLE AND MODERN 
 THOUGHT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A BIBLE HARD TO READ TO-DAY 
 
 Sixty years ago Englishmen knew and loved their 
 Bible well. It was to them God's own Word, written, 
 indeed, by human pens, but edited in heaven and 
 miraculously dictated to men on earth. And as our 
 fathers read the Bible, their own sense of its 
 quickening power was proof positive of its heavenly 
 source. So it was man's daily companion and daily 
 bread, his one guide and stay, the Book of books. 
 "Read to me," said Sir W. Scott on his deathbed. 
 "What book would you like?" asked Lockhart. 
 " Need you ask ? There is but one book." 
 
 Do men know and love their Bible as well to-day ? 
 No! say all the churches. They point to empty 
 churches and unread Bibles in proof of Religion at 
 a low ebb. Is this true, or the whole answer? 
 Materialist our age may outwardly seem, irreligious 
 at heart it is not. God, Life, Duty are in men's 
 thoughts to-day as never before. They may hold 
 Church-going and Bible-reading at a discount, but 
 may not the Bible's own enlightening spirit in their 
 hearts be the clue to their questionings both of its 
 letter and of our creeds ? For centuries England has 
 so steeped her soul in the Word of God that its spirit 
 is now part and parcel of her spirit. Men's hearts tell 
 them that the God of the Bible, a God of sincerity and 
 truth, asks of us personal convictions, not lip-service. 
 
 3 
 
4 A BIBLE HARD TO READ TO-DAY 
 
 For a man to profess beliefs which his heart and mind 
 do not endorse is, in their eyes, akin to sacrilege and 
 degrades and darkens the man's own soul Hence 
 to-day, when Bible or creed contradict verified facts 
 of science, history, or conscience, man's heart puUs in 
 one direction, his head in another. He feels acutely 
 the wrench of breaking with his old creed, but his 
 principles forbid him to force his head to keep step 
 with his heart when the two clash. 
 
 Tens of thousands of " God's good men " to-day 
 still treasure every syllable of the Bible as God's own 
 Word ; they feed their souls on it, and they are more 
 than satisfied. Like Cowper's peasant woman, they 
 "just know, and know no more, their Bible true," and 
 its God-given treasures are dearer unto them than 
 thousands of gold and silver. But most thinking men 
 to-day cannot adopt this simple attitude to the Bible. 
 How can they with the stupendous revolution in our 
 ideas during the last sixty years, a revolution which 
 affects our whole outlook on the Bible? Evolution 
 has given us a new knowledge of Nature which makes 
 even the man in the street look askance at the 
 Genesis Creation-story. Science, with its Reign of 
 Law, has taught man to pull a wry face at the word 
 " miracle." Modern scholarship compels even the 
 most orthodox to question some of the Bible's 
 historical facts and to challenge its ascription of the 
 Pentateuch to Moses or the Psalms to David. The 
 study of other creeds and their sacred books has 
 opened out the long vistas of Comparative Religion, 
 and proved that all religions, the wide world over, 
 have the same roots, a strong family likeness, and all 
 claim a divine origin. Chief stumbling-block of all, 
 the morality of the Bible is at times imperfect. Men 
 ask : How can God have inspired such Hymns of 
 Hate as Pss. cix. 6 sqq., cxxxvii. 8 sq.? How can 
 God have given strict orders to kill enemy captives : 
 "man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and 
 sheep"? How can God approve of deed upon 
 
CHRIST'S KEY TO OUR BIBLE DIFFICULTIES 5 
 
 deed condemned by our conscience, yet which the 
 Bible applauds as done in His name and service ? ^ 
 
 These moral and intellectual difficulties trouble, 
 and should trouble, men to-day. Their plea is this : 
 If the Bible is God's Word, it should be flawless. 
 We open it, and what do we find ? Its science and 
 history often inaccurate, its morality at times low, its 
 very conception of God not infrequently repelling. 
 How can such things be in God's own Book ? And, as 
 a rule, men ask the question in no cynical or carping 
 spirit, but craving for light and guidance. " Under- 
 standest thou what thou readest?" asked Philip of 
 the Ethiopian officer. " How can I except some one 
 should guide me ? " was the reply. Thousands of 
 thinking men are saying the same thing to-day of the 
 Bible that officer was reading. At heart they are 
 athirst for God, but their intellectual and moral 
 questionings create a yawning gulf between twentieth- 
 century minds and a right understanding of the Bible. 
 Yet this gulf can be spanned. Christ Himself bridges 
 it for us. In so many words, as we shall presently 
 see, He tells us : You read your Bible and understand 
 not, because you read it amiss. Ascribing every 
 word of it to God, you all unconsciously wrong Him. 
 You stumble at its moral and intellectual short- 
 comings, forgetting the darkness and "hardness of 
 men's hearts " then, forgetting that man's reason and 
 conscience were not as educated then as yours is, or 
 should be, after 3000 years more of God's light and 
 training. 
 
 We want to read our Bible as Jesus read His. 
 Follow His lead there and your view of Inspiration 
 
 ' Of course, it is grossly unfair to gauge either O.T. or N.T. by what it 
 is at- its lowest levelv Cf. Montefiore (Liberal Judaism and Hellenism, 
 p. 32 sqq.), "The O.T. does contain the law of retaliation and hymns of 
 hate ; it does say that God ' hated ' Esau ; it does describe God's awful punish- 
 ments on His foes, etc. But these things are no more the only teachings of 
 the O.T. than the dull, obscure, or indecent passages in Shakespeare are the 
 only things in his works"; and he rightly retorts that we do not only 
 remember the N.T. "everlasting fire," "devil," and "goats," and forget 
 its great and noble things. 
 
6 A BIBLE HARD TO READ TO-DAY 
 
 will broaden, all your difficulties will vanish of them- 
 selves. His only Bible was the Old Testament; 
 there was no other. No man ever revered His Bible 
 more than CJirist did, For Him it enshrines God's 
 own Word, In every emergency it was His food and 
 stay. He steeps His very soul in its spirit. Its 
 (Words are on His lips at every turn. It was His final 
 court of appeal : " it is written." 
 
 But Christ by no means looks upon all the Bible 
 as the final Word of God, nor upon all its pages or 
 books as of equal value. If He had, would He have 
 restated large portions of it and cancelled others 
 altogether ? Practically \ He personally adopts three 
 distinct attitudes in dealing with the (i) Prophets; 
 (2) Moral Law; (3) Ritual Law. 
 
 (i) The Prophets, e.g. Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, He 
 wholeheartedly endorses. They are for ever telling us : 
 Religion is character and a life of service in which 
 love of God and love of man go hand in hand ; God 
 infinitely prefers this loving service to many rites and 
 sacrifices. This prophetic teaching is exactly Christ's 
 own view : " Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, 
 Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven, but he 
 that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven " 
 (Mt: vii. 21). Even as He assures us (Mt. xxv. 
 34 sqq.) that, at the last Day, His one test of \as will 
 be our possession or lack of a warm heart going out 
 of self in ministering love to our fellow-man. Again, 
 Christ is wholly at one with these prophets in their 
 
 1 Of course, this must not be taken au pied de la lettre as if Jesus, con- 
 sciously and deliberately, had mapped out His attitude towards the Prophets, 
 the Moral Law, and the Ceremonial Law, in the definite way stated above. 
 He did not. Jesus and His disciples looked upon the Hebrew Scriptures 
 exactly as did the Jews themselves. All we imply is that in the light of His 
 inspired meditations, His experience, His conflicts. His teaching, etc., He 
 intuitively reached, as His own, the positions which we ascribe to Him above 
 on the strength of a mass of evidence given in the Gospels. Even though to 
 Him, as to all Jews, the Law was Mosaic (and the Psalms DavidicTand 
 inspired, more assuredly inspired still were the intuitive teaching and con- 
 victions that swelled up from the depths of His heart regarding the Law. The 
 general statement in the text holds good, but must not be pressed as to details 
 e.g. Christ would not see eye to eye with much in Ezekiel or parts of Jeremiah 
 
CHRIST'S ATTITUDE TO THE MOSAIC LAW ^ 
 
 conception of God, their worship of God in spirit and 
 in truth, their value of heart-motives as far above 
 external actions, their lofty inspiring principles. To 
 their progressive teaching He set His seal, completing 
 it by bringing their scattered rays to a focus, still 
 further illuminating it with a bright light of His 
 own creation. 
 
 (2) The Moral Law. Here Christ makes dis- 
 tinctions, (a) The Ten Commandments He restates, 
 or rather, amplifies. In their application, He'stresses 
 inward motives as alone giving real value to the 
 outward acts. Of course. He endorses the spirit of 
 the Ten Words, but corrects their partial statements 
 with His : " It hath been said to them of old, Thou 
 shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt do no murder, 
 but / say unto you " (Mt. v. 27 sqq. R.V.). He does 
 not set in their place new rules to be literally obeyed, 
 but, in the spirit of Jer. xxxi. 31 sqq., states universal 
 heart-searching principles to guide man's heart and 
 make him a law unto himself. 
 
 (i) The old moral laws on, e.g, oaths, divorce, 
 retaliation, Jesus radically transforms in a way that 
 condemns much of it (Mt. v. 31 sqq.). 
 
 (3) The Ritual Law, Still rnore radical is Christ's 
 treatment of the ritual and ceremonial law, e.g. the 
 ceremonial cleansing of vessels and washing of hands, 
 the distinction between clean and unclean meats, the 
 tithing of herbs, etc. Christ sweeps much of this law 
 aside with a ruthless hand, and for this reason. As 
 He openly tells us in Mk. vii. 2-23, religion is a 
 character and a life in which heart-motives alone 
 count, while the ritual law, divorced from the 
 spiritual elements of religion, converts it into the due 
 performance of outward rites and ceremonies, and 
 tends to deaden men's consciences and turn them into 
 self-satisfied Pharisees. It would be an exaggeration 
 to say that Christ will have none of the ritual law : 
 " Ye pay tithe of mint, anise and cummin, and have 
 oniitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, 
 
8 A BIBLE HARD TO READ TO-DAY 
 
 mercy and faith ; these ought ye to have done, and not to 
 leave the other undone " (Mt. xxiii. 23). Similarly He 
 tells His disciples : "the Scribes and Pharisees sit in 
 Moses' seat : all therefore whatsoever they bid you 
 observe, that observe and do " (Mt. xxiii. 2 sq.). His 
 disciples certainly took Him at His Word, for they 
 were strict observers of this law (cf. Ac. xxi. 20 sqq.). 
 But Christ's attitude to the Priestly Code, with its 
 scrupulous attention to Sabbaths, meats, " cleanness," 
 tithes, was, as a rule, so radical and independent that 
 it shocked Jewish susceptibilities terribly. 
 
 Surely, Christ's own attitude to the Bible gives 
 us our clue to Bible-Inspiration and our other 
 difficulties. Would Christ have thus restated or set 
 at nought much of the Mosaic Law — the holiest part 
 of the Bible to Jews— had He believed the Bible 
 to be the actual Word of God, every jot and tittle of 
 it? For Him it enshrined God's Word. Every jot 
 and tittle of it had its day and its use and its goal 
 (Mt. V. 18), but the Gospels clearly show that our 
 Lord does not by any means regard all parts of the 
 Bible as of equal value. 
 
 Christ and our moral difficulties. — Christ was not 
 blind to the moral shortcomings of the Bible. Thus 
 He will have none of either Ex. xxi. 23, " Life for life, 
 eye for eye," or Deut. xxiii. 3-6, Love thy friend, 
 hate thine enemy to the tenth generation.^ Again, 
 when the Jews appealed to Deut. xxiv. i (see R.V.) 
 to justify their lax divorces, Christ plainly tells them : 
 Yes, that may have been excusable with Jews of 
 that day "because of the hardness of their hearts" 
 (Mt. xix. 8), but shame on you if, with all the fresh 
 light God has poured on you in the thousand years 
 
 ■ He does endorse Lev. xix. 17 sq. : " Thou shall not hate thy brother in 
 thy heart. . . . Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children 
 of thy people ; but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself " ; one of the noblest 
 passages in the O.T„ and out of the Priest.y Code, too. It is almost, though afar 
 off, anticipatory of Jesus' Golden Rule, were it not so particularistic (but see 
 xix. 34, for love to strangers). Both Lev. xix. 18 and the Sermon on the 
 Mount deal with private, not public, enemies. 
 
GOD'S PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION OF MAN 9 
 
 since Moses, your moral sense has not outgrown this 
 primitive moral code. Or again, when a Samaritan 
 village treated Christ discourteously, James and John, 
 wanting to copy Elijah, said : " Lord, wilt Thou that 
 we command fire to come down from Heaven and con- 
 sume them, as Elias did ? " Christ, shocked, " turned 
 and rebuked them " for the bare thought (Lk. ix. 54 sq.). 
 
 Hence, if we are to read our Bible as Christ read 
 His, two facts clearly stand out from His attitude 
 to it : (i) His restatement and cancelling of large 
 sections of it spell death to our seeing the eternal 
 Word of God in its every chapter and verse ; 
 (2) From His speaking of this deed and that law as 
 well and good in their day " because of the hardness 
 of men's hearts " then, but as deeds and laws which 
 the conscience of a later age should condemn and not 
 copy, it is plain that He sees in the Bible a Progressive 
 Revelation, the record of God's education of man. 
 St. Paul looks at it exactly in the same light when he 
 speaks of the Law as " our schoolmaster unto Christ." 
 
 " Remember their date and the state of culture 
 then," is Christ's key to the Bible's moral diflficulties. 
 It is the key to much more. Logically driven home, 
 what does Christ's " because of the hardness of men's 
 hearts," in justification of this imperfect law or tliat 
 immoral deed, imply ? An imperfect law or immoral 
 deed in the Bible clearly proves that, even under 
 God's inspiration, the human element comes in. 
 Inspired men are not dummies, mere passive channels 
 of God's communications ; they remain their own full 
 selves — all their faculties intensely quickened ^ — and 
 " we have this treasure in earthen vessels " (2 Cor. 
 iv. 7). In a word, both Christ and St. Paul see in the 
 Bible man's progressive education under God as 
 schoolmaster. Here is our clue to Inspiration. 
 
 How does a teacher educate his pupils? Is his 
 pupil's mind a passive receptacle into which he is to 
 
 ' I.e. heart, reason, fancy operative at their highest power and intensity, 
 as in the intuitions and creations of genius in the poet or artist. 
 
lO A BIBLE HARD TO READ TO-DAY 
 
 pour all he himself knows ? Such cramming jj^oduces 
 an abnormal memory in the pupil, but inevitably 
 throttles thought, crushes originality, stunts the whole 
 mental growth— and character too. Education— the 
 very word says so— is educing or drawing out the 
 pupil's own powers, coaxing his faculties into full play, 
 actualising his possibilities by stimulating him to full 
 self-expression. Education is self- development under 
 judicious prompting. The teachef is there to watch, 
 guide, prompt, stimulate ; ^ the pupil must do all the 
 rest. The tutor who solves his pupil's problems is 
 his worst enemy ; the teacher who braces him pain- 
 fully to solve them for himself, his best and only 
 friend. Throughout, he gauges his pupil's actual 
 knowledge, starts on that and leads him stage by 
 stage from his old truth to new, so that the new is 
 but the old transfigured into a higher truth. From 
 start to finish, the master sees, as the pupil does not, 
 the far-away ideal goal to which he is leading the 
 pupil; so there is unity of direction and unity of idea 
 in all the teaching. There are no "double truths," 
 one for the child and quite another for the adult. 
 Their form may differ, the root-idea is the same. The 
 seed and flower are all of one piece. 
 
 This is precisely God's method in His education 
 of man, what we mean by Inspiration. He guides, 
 prompts, stimulates man's own thoughts, suggests the 
 line they are to follow, and leaves it to the man to do 
 the rest. God's revelation does not come in the form 
 of a ready-made thought, a vision full and complete,^ 
 but as a quickening suggestion hinting at the diredtion 
 which man's thought must follow, and needing man's 
 thought if the revelation is to take articulate form. 
 
 » Cf. Socrates' "maieutic art or midwifery," the name he gave to Ms 
 plan of eliciting from others what was in their mind without their Icnowing it ; 
 obliging others by his questions to open out their minds, "find themselves " 
 " bring to the birth " the latent thought of which they were unconscious (Plato 
 That, 151 c, 161 E.). * ' 
 
 ' An Isaiah, St. Paul, etc., show that the train of thought is so often sub- 
 conscious that, when the conclusion flashes on the prophet, he views it as a 
 supernatural vision, voice, or communication. 
 
INSPIRATION AND REVELATION II 
 
 Clearly, the God-revelation must needs receive its 
 colouring and character from the character and 
 emotions of the mind in which it is produced ; it must 
 also needs reflect the mental and moral atmosphere 
 of the age and place of its birth. This is Inspiration, 
 well defined by Dean Stanley as "a divine impulse 
 given to man's own thoughts." Hence God's revela- 
 tions to man are never communications mechanically 
 or miraculously imparted from a far-away heaven. 
 They are the thoughts of man's own spirit quickened 
 and suasively influenced from within by God's Spirit. 
 And Inspiration is for all, not for the few. No man 
 is without the " Light that lighteth every man that 
 Cometh into the world." God spake to Bible-prophets 
 exactly as He speaks to us all now, but more clearly 
 because their hearts were more attuned to, and there- 
 fore more receptive of. His Spirit. How spirit — 
 God's Spirit or man's spirit — thus directly speaks to 
 spirit, we cannot tell. It does, and neither life nor 
 death, nor height nor length nor breadth act as a 
 barrier. But this direct action of spirit on spirit lies 
 in a region of which even the natural features baffle 
 human science. 
 
 If Inspiration is this, then the Bible is both the 
 most human and the most divine of books. Divine, 
 jjecause, in the Bible, the Voice of God's own Spirit it 
 is which speaks to us from hearts so full of His Spirit 
 that in His Light they see light. Human, beqause in 
 the Bible God's message comes to us in and through 
 man. Herein lies both the Bible's strength and its 
 weakness. Truth is never so effective as when 
 incarnate, and, as the most intensely human of 
 books, the Bible is all the more helpful just because 
 it is the heart-experience of men of God. None the 
 less "we have this treasure in earthen vessels." It is 
 God's message coloured by the human mind through 
 which it passes. The Bible contains God's Word, 
 but all of it is not the Word of God. 
 
12 A BIBLE HARD TO READ TO-DAY 
 
 Note on Inspiration 
 
 To-day many ask : Must we confine Inspiration to the Bible? 
 Is Canticles inspired, and Paradise Lost not, Eccksiastes divine, 
 and the Vita Nuova human ? Is not such a verdict the outcome 
 of an arbitrary canon, a leaden rule, on a par with the artificial 
 distinction which calls, e.g. preaching sacred and healing secular? 
 
 Timely and well-grounded is this protest against the " pro- 
 vincial departmentalism " of theology, its tendency to divide what 
 God has united, placing this in the category of the Divine, and 
 that outside the Divine pale. For undoubtedly this artificial 
 distiriction has a prejudicial and narrowing influence upon the 
 conception we form of God and His universe, and our idea of the 
 sphere and method of the working of God. 
 
 If "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above" 
 (Jas. i. 17) ; if " there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit" 
 (i Cor. xii. 4); if St. Paul includes "healing" (= medicine), 
 " wisdom " (= philosophy), " knowledge " (= letters), " miracles " 
 (= (say) great scientific discoveries), "prophecy" (= inspiring 
 eloquence), under Inspiration, then can we deny Inspiration to 
 geniuses in poetry, music, philosophy, art, science, literature? 
 Isaiah says of the ploughman : " His God doth instruct him to 
 discretion,. and doth teach him " (Is. xxviii. 26) ; and if the craft 
 of Bezaleel (Ex. xxxi. 3 sq.) and the sagacity of Solomon (i Kgs. 
 iv. 29), as well as the spiritual insight of Isaiah and St. Paul, were 
 direct from God, as the Bible tells us, then our arts and trades, 
 our discoveries and inventions, our wisdom and knowledge are 
 " gifts " of God's Spirit, " inspired." Surely there is One and 
 only One source of Truth, Goodness, Knowledge, if the Universe 
 is one organic whole and God the source, goal and meaning of it 
 all. Place this or that outside God's sphere, and God's universe 
 becomes a house divided against itself. A God who is an absentee 
 from any part or interest of His world, or despises anything that He 
 has made, is now an impossibility for rational theology. Therefore, 
 we are told, we cannot deny God's Inspiration to-day to Shake- 
 speare, Lister, Huxley, Handel, or a great many more, and only 
 give it to Bible-writers.i 
 
 ' Every religion makes the same claim for its "Scriptures " etr Indians 
 say theirs fell straight down from heaven, or were " breathed out'" by Brahma • 
 Persians said their Avesta was directly communicated to Zarathustra by 
 Ahuramazda's word of mouth, like the Law at Sinai ; Islam holds the Koran 
 to be the earthly copy of an original heavenly text, revealed to Mohammed 
 
NOTE ON INSPIRATION 1 3 
 
 With all this we fully agree. Inspiration (in its application to 
 creations of genius) no one can define. We feel it, we know it 
 when we see it, but it eludes definition, even as its exact frontier 
 defies delimitation. The common sense of mankind declines to 
 limit its application to Bible-writers, as the universal use of the 
 word " inspiration " for all works of creative genius clearly shows. 
 Goethe is right, these fruitful and inspiring genius-creations are 
 " gifts from above, pure children of God," and their creators " the 
 agents of the Supreme Ruler of the world, vessels found worthy to 
 receive a divine inspiration " ; and he adds, " I find many leaves 
 written by such God-favoured men, both ancient and modern, 
 quite as beautiful and useful and indispensable to mankind as 
 many Bible-books." 
 
 Yet the common sense of mankind, the acclamation of souls 
 in every creed, face to face with the Holy Books that form their 
 daily food and stay, be it O.T., N.T., Feda, Avesta, or Koran — 
 seem to be instinctively right in recognising degrees and kinds of 
 Inspiration, though all inspiration is one in essence and in aim : 
 " There are diversities of gifts, though the same Spirit." All said 
 and done, not food, not health, not knowledge, not art, not 
 happiness, not power, but Character, is the human goal. And by 
 driving home to man's heart their pure moral teaching on God, 
 Life, Duty, bidding us " lose life to find it," Bible-writers have 
 done more for Character, than all other influences put together, 
 humanly speaking. Therefore the common sense of mankind 
 sees, and rightly sees, in the Bible a " double portion " of God's 
 Spirit and calls it the inspired Book/ar excellence. 
 
 during his ecstasies by the Angel of Revelation. At bottom, these views all 
 spring fromthe deep-rooted popular idea that, under inspiration, men of 
 God were in such a state of passive ecstatic unconsciousness that their 
 personality counted for nothing ; they were, as St. Gregory and Justin Martyr 
 call them, merely the "lyre," "flute," or "pen" of the Holy Spirit, who 
 dictated to them the exact words to say or write dowUr This ides is with us 
 still and dies hard. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE NOT OUR PROSE 
 
 Intellectual difficulties of the Bible. — Intellectually, we 
 are out of touch with our Bible because (i) its poetry 
 is not our prose ; (2) its history and science are often 
 not true to fact ; (3) its first two chapters clearly 
 contradict each other, and this tendency rvins through 
 the whole Bible ; (4) many of its books look like 
 literary forgeries. 
 
 This states the case bluntly and overstrongly ; but 
 these intellectual difficulties are there and repel many 
 modern minds. The three following chapters discuss 
 these points in the above order. 
 
 (i) Bible poetry and imagety. — The Bible is a 
 Hebrew creation. We think and speak mainly with 
 our heads; with these old Hebrews, heart and 
 imagination think and speak as well as brain. So 
 there is much more colour, feeling, music, imagery in 
 their speech than ours. In a word, poetry is their 
 speech, bald prose ours. Hence it is not too much to 
 say that a number of what are called Bible difficulties 
 would never have existed had Western minds realised 
 the tendency to highly poetical and allegorical forms 
 so natural to Hebrew writers. 
 
 "In prophets and psalmists," writes Professor 
 Robertson Smith, " we have the most glowing utter- 
 ances of emotional minds." We forget how differently 
 
 head and heart speak. As Theodore Watts tells us ' : 
 
 " In grief or pain at its tensest, when man is all feeling, 
 
 • Art. " Poetry" in Encycl. Brit., gthed. (abridged). 
 »4 
 
POETRY INSPIRES, PROSE INFORMS 1 5 
 
 one ' wild sea of emotion,' no words avail, only moans. 
 When man's heart is still aglow with .feeling, but 
 imagination and thought dwell there too, his 'sea of 
 emotion curdles into warm thoughts,' and poetry, 
 steeped in colour and music, but embodying ideas, is 
 his speech. If man is all head, the ' sea of emotion ' 
 goes; his ideas "cool, clear themselves of feeling 
 altogether, and prose of fact is his speech." 
 
 Prose of fact, with words as mere colourless 
 counters of as definite value as OH2 (= water) in 
 chemistry, is the ideal of a scientific age where in- 
 tellect is all in all. In Bible days, when heart and 
 imagination were as alive as brain, poetry was man's 
 natural speech, and it is the mother-tongue of us all. 
 Poetry is man's natural speech so long as he has ears 
 to hear the song of the birds, the whisper of the 
 leaves, the voice of wind or sea, the song or wail of 
 the human heart's joy or sorrow, and eyes to see 
 " the lilies of the field, how Solomon in all his glory 
 was not arrayed as one of these." * Poetry does what 
 bald prose never can do : (a) no sooner does it speak 
 than the whole scene rises vividly before the hearer's 
 imagination in all its warm colour and clear outline ; 
 (b) as the self-utterance of the whole man — heart, 
 imagination, brain — it appeals to the hearer's senses, 
 feelings, imagination, thought, and moves him to be 
 and to do. In a word, prose of fact produces a 
 literature of knowledge that teaches, poetry a literature 
 of power that moves. And De Quincey's words are 
 true : The meanest of authors that moves stands above 
 all who merely feach, for to-day's literature of know- 
 ledge is soon superseded by the better knowledge of 
 to-morrow, while the literature of power that moves 
 is " triumphant for ever so long as the language exists 
 in which it speaks." 
 
 ' Cf. Tennyson: "Little flower — but if I could understand what you are, 
 root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is " ; and 
 Wordsworth : " To me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that 
 do often lie too deep for tears." Cf. Linnaeus on seeing fte unfolding of a 
 flo.wer f " I saw God in His Glory passing near me, and bowed my head in 
 worship." 
 
1 6 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE NOT OUR PROSE 
 
 A concrete illustration may give point to these 
 general remarks. About iioo b.c. took place the 
 battle of Megiddo. Prose of fact describes it thus :— 
 The Israelites are sore oppressed by the Canaanites 
 leagued together under Sisera. The plain of Esdraelon 
 is their headquarters whence they make raids north 
 and south. Israel is strangely helpless and dis- 
 organised. It was as if neither shield nor spear could 
 be found among their 40,000 men. At last Israel finds 
 its Joan of Arc in Deborah. In Jehovah's name, she 
 summons the tribes to fight for God and the right. 
 Ephraim, Benjamin, Zebulun, Issachar, Naphtali, 
 respond loyally ; Reuben, Gad, Dan, Asher, stay at 
 home. She sets Barak at the head of Israel's army. 
 He marches against the kings of Canaan under 
 Sisera's command by the brook Kishon. Sisera's 
 huge army and his 900 chariots of iron strike terror 
 into Israel's smaller force of infantry. Fortunately, 
 a terrific storm breaks into torrents of rain. The 
 horses and chariots of Sisera sink deep in the mud 
 and throw the rest of his host into disorder. So the 
 foe falls an easy prey to the impetuous onrush of the 
 agile and now eager highland Hebrew footmen. 
 Sisera takes to flight, hides in the tent of Jael, wife of 
 Heber the Kenite, a neutral. She professes friend- 
 ship, acts the kind hostess, and kills him in his sleep; 
 
 This is how Hebrew poetry pictures it : Scene I. : 
 Jehovah, the Lord of Storm, comes, from Sinai His 
 home, to His Israel's rescue : "Lord, when Thouwentest 
 forth out oj Seir, when Thou marchedst out of the field of 
 Edom,the earth trembled, the heavens dropped (or ' rocked '), 
 yea, the clouds dropped water. The mountains quaked ai 
 the presence of the Lord, even that Sinai, at the presence of 
 the Lord, the God of Israel." Scene II. : The desolation 
 of Israel under its foreign oppressor : " In the days of 
 Jael, the highways were unoccupied, travellers walked 
 through byways ; the inhabitants of the villages ceased. 
 Until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in 
 Israel; then was war in the gates, was there a shield or 
 
SONG OF DEBORAH 17 
 
 Spear seen among 4.0,000 in Israel?" Scene III.: The 
 tribes summoned, some come readily, others hold back : 
 " My heart is toward the governors of Israel that offered 
 themselves willingly among the people. Bless ye the 
 Lord. . . . Out of Ephraim came down they whose root 
 is in Amalek ; " after thee, Benjamin,' 1 among the 
 peoples. Out ofMachir ( = Manasseh) came out governors, 
 arid out of Zebulun they that handle the marshals staff. 
 And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah. As was 
 Issachar, so was Barak ( = Naphtali) ; into the valley they 
 rushed forth at his feet. For the divisions of Reuben there 
 were great searchings of heart. Why abodest thou among 
 thy sheepfolds, io hear the pipings for the flocks ? Gilead 
 { = Gad) abode beyond Jordan, and why did Dan remain 
 in ships ? Asher sat still at the haven of the sea and abode 
 by his creeks. Zebulun was a people that jeoparded their 
 lives unto the death, and Naphtali, upon the high places of 
 the field. . . . Curse ye Meroz, curse ye bitterly the in- 
 habitants thereof, because they came not to the help of the 
 Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty." 
 Scene IV. : The battle in a terrific storm : " The kings 
 came and fought, then fought the kings of Canaan in 
 Taanach by the waters of Megiddo ; they- took no gain of 
 money.^ They fought from heaven, the stars in their 
 courses fought against Sisera. The river Kishon swept 
 them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. O my 
 soul, thou hast trodden down strength. Then did the horse- 
 hoofs stamp by reason of the pransings, the pransings of 
 their strong ones." Scene V. : Jael : " Curse ye Meroz. 
 . . . Blessed above women shall Jael be, the wife of Heber 
 the Kenite, blessed shall she be among women in the tent 
 He asked water and she gave him milk, she brought forth 
 butter in a lordly dish. She put her hand to the nail, and 
 her right hand to the workman's hammer. And with the 
 hammer she smote Sisera, she smote through his head,yea, 
 
 ' Cf. Hos. V. 8 esBenjamin's battle-cry. 
 
 ' I.e. (a) they were no mere mercenaries or (b) accepted no ransom, but slew 
 without quarter, The old explanation: " they got no spoil or profit in this 
 campaign," is now discounted. 
 
 C 
 
1 8 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE NOT OUR PROSE 
 
 she pierced and struck through the temples. At her feet he 
 bowed, he fell, he lay down ; at her feet he bowed, he fell; 
 where he bowed, there he fell down dead." Scene VI. : 
 Sisera's mother awaits his triumphant home-coming: 
 " The mother of Sisera looked out at a window and cried 
 through the lattice. Why is his chariot so long in coming ? 
 Why tarty the wheels of his chariot ? Her wise ladies 
 answered her ; yea, she returned answer to herself, Have 
 they not found, have they not divided the spoil ? A 
 damsel, two damsels to every man. To Sisera a ipoil of 
 divers colours, a spoil of divers colours of needlework, of 
 divers colours of needlework on both sides, meet for the 
 necks of them that take the spoil." Finale : " So let all 
 Thine enemies perish, O Lord, but let them that love Him 
 be as the Sun when he goeth forth in his might." ^ 
 
 This Te Deum — among the oldest passages, if not 
 the oldest, in the Bible ; almost if not quite con- 
 temporary with its events (Driver and Cheyne)— is a 
 good sample of the dramatic and inspiring power of 
 the bulk of Old Testament literature. It is a literature 
 of power because it mirrors the Hebrew genius. The 
 Bible is the creation of Hebrews born of a passionate 
 and imperious Arab stock. Nomad shepherds in the 
 desert for ages, living a hardy and precarious life in 
 the open, the Hebrew race grew up self-reliant, 
 versatile, imperious, nature-loving, and never lost the 
 passionately emotional Arab temperament ^ apt tq 
 tense outbursts of love and hate, rage and grief, pride 
 and scorn. Their tough wrestle with Nature in the 
 inhospitable wilderness, where they had to adapt 
 themselves to the changes and chances of each day, 
 
 ' The text in the middle of the poem has suffered greatly, but the poetic 
 art and inspiration of this very old Song are of the highest kind. Its valuS to 
 the historian is immense ; it clearly indicates the independence of all the 
 tribes, the subjection of those along the Great Plain to the Canaanite kings 
 with their walled cities and formidable chariots, the summons "to the help 
 of Jehovah." Judah and Simeon, isolated in the South, are ignored. 
 
 ' Cf. King, Schweich Led., p. lo. "Throughout the settled Hebrew com- 
 munity as a whole the spark of desert fire was never extinguished, and by 
 kindling the zeal of the Prophets it eventually affected nearly all the white 
 races of mankind." 
 
THE HEBREW GENIUS 1 9 
 
 gave them a wondrous faculty of self-adaptation to 
 any environment and a vast reserve of power for any 
 emergency. But it also fostered the tendency to 
 subordinate everything to the action and feeling of the 
 moment and see only one thing at a time. 
 
 This imperibus will, glow of imagination, reserve 
 of power, love of Nature, and lack of the organic sense, 
 are all stamped on Hebrew literature from the Song 
 of Deborah (c. iioo b.c.) to the last psalm (c. 150 b.c.). 
 Hence its poetry and power. But it also has the 
 defect of its qualities. These old Hebrews are weak 
 where we are strong and strong where we are weak. 
 Subordinating head to heart, thought to action, truth 
 of idea appeals to them far more than truth of fact 
 (Ch. HI.), they are lacking in speculative reflection, 
 their critical faculty is all but undeveloped, they know 
 nothing of historical or scientific exactness. Un- 
 critical and apt to see only one thing at a time, they 
 lack the sense of organic unity and hang absolutely 
 inconsistent pictures side by side without any sense 
 of their incongruity, e.g. their two accounts of the 
 Creation, the Flood, the election of Saul as king. So 
 in their judgment of men and things, they are often 
 one-sided and extreme. 
 
 On the other hand, in all that makes for character 
 and conduct, all that concerns God, Life, Duty, where 
 heart and will are a far truer guide than brain, they 
 come easily first, e.g. their " Wisdom Literature " and 
 lofty prophetic ideals. In the realm of spirit we are 
 but echoing to-day what these seers saw intuitively 
 close on 3000 years ago. Speaking of the Old 
 Testament as a whole, it is eminently fresh and 
 graphic, full of shrewd observation of Nature and 
 men^ and works on the reader, not by elaborate 
 description, but by dramatic presentation of character 
 and action. Poetry is its natural speech. Its first 
 history was all in song, e.g. the Book of Jashar. Its 
 earliest " prophesyings " were sung to the accompani- 
 ment of "psaltery and tabret and pipe and harp." 
 
2 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE NOT OUR PROSE 
 
 Throughout, it sees everything through the atmo- 
 sphere which floats before the poet's eyes. The 
 Psalms are the world's Great Lyric. Song of Songs is 
 simply a love-poem. Lamentations (cf. David's elegy, 
 2 Sam. i.) is pure elegiac poetry. Job is a dramatic 
 poem. Ruth is a graceful idyll. Esther, and largely 
 Daniel and Jonah, are of the nature of poetical romances. 
 Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, not only embody 
 poems, but throughout have the deep emotional basis, 
 the artistic form, the true rhythm, the glowing 
 imagination, which constitute poetry. Genesis, por- 
 tions of Exodus and Numbers ; Joshua, Judges, Samuel 
 often read like pages of Homer. 
 
 Hebrew word-pictures are mainly from Nature. 
 Born and bred in the desert for ages, they knew and 
 loved Nature in all her moods, as sailors the sea. 
 Practically up to Moses' day she was at once their 
 mother, home, house of God, and actually their God. 
 In the infancy of the race, Hebrews, as all other 
 races (cf. even classical Greece and Rome), were 
 nature-worshippers. Sun, Moon, Wind, Earth, Sky,— 
 real living persons with human feelings and passions 
 — were their gods. This belief died hard. Right up 
 to the Captivity, as Deut. iv. 19 and xvii. 3 prov«, 
 popular Hebrew religion harked back to the worship 
 of " sun, moon, stars and all the host of heaven." Of 
 course, Israel had long outgrown this superstition,, 
 but language is very conservative, apt to retain old 
 expressions and ideas (cf our "sun- rise, sun-set ") long 
 after they are emptied of their 'original meaning. 
 Even when the Sun had long ceased to be in Hebrew 
 eyes a gigantic Being, or the Wijid a god with wings, 
 the old phrases of Hebrew nature-worshipping days 
 are retained : " The Sun cometh forth as a bridegroom 
 out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run 
 his course." "He rode upon a cherub and did fy>,yea,, 
 He did fly upon the wings of the Wind." More often, 
 Jehovah's supremacy ousts the old nature-gods and 
 makes them His servants or tools : " Who coveresf, 
 
HEBREW WORD-PICTURES FROM NATURE 21 
 
 thyself with Light as with a garment; who stretchest out 
 the Heavens like a curtain " ; " who layeth the beams of 
 His chambers in the Waters; who maketh the Clouds 
 His chariot ; who walketh upon the wings of the Wind ; 
 who maketh Winds His messengers, His ministers aflame 
 of Fire." Thunder, lightning, and earthquake, as at 
 Sinai, are still symbols of Jehovah's Presence " : ^ 
 " The earth shall tremble at the look of Him; if He do 
 but toufh the hills they shall smoke." " Tremble, thou 
 earth, at the presence of the Lord. What ailed thee, O 
 thou sea, that thou fleddest, or thou Jordan, that thou 
 wast driven back f ye mountains, that ye skipped like 
 rams, or ye little hills, like young sheep ? " Mere poetry 
 on our lips, these word- pictures were very real to 
 old Hebrews. It was their old faith baptised into 
 Jehovah. 
 
 Nature also supplies exquisite similes : " The godly 
 like a tree planted by the waterside " ; " He shall feed me 
 in green pastures " ; "ye shall be as the wings of a dove 
 covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold " ; 
 " Thy wife as the fruitful vine upon the walls of thine house, 
 thy children like olive-branches." "As panteth the hart 
 ajter the water brooks." But Hebrew fancy invests even 
 the commonest things of daily life with grandeur and 
 beauty : " In the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the 
 wine is red; it is full mixed, and He poureth out of the 
 same. As for the dregs thereof, all the ungodly of the 
 earth shall drink them and suck them out." "Thou hast 
 anointed my head with oil, at^d my cup shall be full." 
 " The Lord shall light my candle." " Moab is my wdshpot, 
 over Edom will I cast my shoe." " 
 
 Such expressive imagery appeals to us all. Far 
 harder is it for sober undemonstrative Englishmen to 
 enter into the passionate emotions and equally im- 
 passioned words and gestures of Hebrew hearts. 
 
 ' I.e. as the Storm-God whose voice is heard in the crash of the thunder 
 (Ps. xxix.), and who manifests himself in the l^htning-ilash, in fire and in 
 smoke and earthquake. 
 
 ' Cf. Ps, cvii. 23 sqq. for a storm at sea. 
 
22 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE NOT OUR PROSE 
 
 Oriental emotions are much more physical than ours, 
 and physical terms and actions alone can voice them. 
 In great fear, it is literally true of an Oriental that 
 "his heart melts within him and becomes as water" ; 
 "the joints of his loins are loosed and his knees smite one 
 against another" In acute grief he does "lift up his 
 voice and weep." " / will howl; I make a wailing as the 
 jackals and mourning as the owls." Their grief is not 
 only vocal, they beat their breasts, tear their hair and 
 beard. So of their hate and rage : " My heart was hot 
 within me, the fire kindled, and I spake with my tongue," 
 puts it mildly ; more true to life are : " They hiss and 
 gnash the teeth," "grin like a dog," "clothe themselves 
 with cursing as with a raiment." For an ideal Hymn of 
 Hate read Ps. cix. It is the " grin of a dog," like the 
 snap of a terrier before he fleshes his teeth. The 
 same thing holds of their love, joy, pride, scorn. In 
 this intensity of feeling lies the immense Hebrew 
 driving-power for good or ill. This heart of fire, with 
 an imperious Hebrew will behind it, is the stuff that 
 produces saints or devils, a Hymn of Hate or a Ps. li, 
 an Isaiah's whole-hearted zeal for God or a David's 
 awful sin. " There is in my heart a burning fire shut 
 up in my bones, and I cannot contain " (Jer. xx. 9). No 
 wonder that such enthusiastic souls, under the Spirit's 
 impulse, feel themselves seized physically with over- 
 powering force, as by a mighty hand, see visions, hear 
 audible voices, and act at times as though beside 
 themselves.^ i 
 
 Emotionalism also explains Oriental love of hyper- 
 bole, flowing from a heart so full that words are too 
 tame for it : " / will multiply thy seed as the stars of 
 heaven and as the sands upon the seashore " ; " the cities 
 are very great and walled up to heaven." The phenomenal 
 
 ' As Sanday notes, there was something of the In^&n fakir in these 
 emotional prophets, and their dramatic symbolic actions show it, e.g. Isaiah 
 walks for three years naked and barefoot (Is. xx. i-6), Jeremiah wears a 
 yoke of wood upon his neck (xxvii, xxviii), Ezekiel lies for months on one 
 side with limbs bound (iv. 3-17), — these acted parables would naturally drive 
 home their meaning in a way that speech never could. 
 
HEBREW LOVE OF HYPERBOLE 23 
 
 ages of the patriarchs ^ and the gigantic size of men 
 before the Flood, or the Tower of Babel whose top is 
 to reach unto heaven, do not impress Orientals as they 
 do us. It is so much their normal way of speaking, 
 their equivalent of a superlative. No Oriental would 
 take literally : " Give to him that asketk of thee, and from 
 him that would borrow turn thou not away "; " if any smite 
 thee on the one cheek, turn to him the other also" ; "it is 
 easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than 
 for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God " ; 
 " if thy right eye cause thee to stumble, pluck it out and 
 cast it from thee," ^ any more than he would read 
 as actual fact : " The stars in tHeir courses fought 
 against Sisera," or, " Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, 
 and thou. Moon, in the valley of Aj'alon." More than 
 one miracle lies at the door of poetical Hebrgw 
 hyperbole. 
 
 Ruskin said at Oxford : " To my Bible I owe the 
 best part of my taste in literature and the most 
 precious, indeed, the essential part of my education." 
 Our English Bible gave John Bright "that robust, 
 powerful and vigorous style in which he gave fitting 
 expression to the burning and noble thoughts he 
 desired to utter." Setting aside altogether, for the 
 moment, the Bible's religious value, it is our best 
 educational asset. It supplies, and places within 
 
 ' A striking parallel to this, and to much else in early Gen., is found in a 
 Sumerian document (c. 2000 B.C.) just unearthed at Nippur. It bears on the 
 Creation, Antediluvian history, and Deluge. (See King, Schweich Led., 1916.) 
 
 ' Cf. " If any man hate not his father, mother, wtfe, children, yea, and his 
 own life also, he cannot be My disciple. " " Be ye perfect, even as your jPather in 
 heaven is perfect" It is just this tremendous trumpet-call, this enthusiastic and 
 confident appeal to man to do what he cannot do, that fans the divine spark in 
 him into flame, enabling him to work miracles. Just because Christ moved among 
 men seeing the image of God in every man, full of enthusiasm and faith in 
 man, demanding the noblest achievements of the most unlikely, He turned 
 weaklings into heroes and sinners into saints. By kindling a man's enthusiasm 
 for a supreme ideal, you spur him forward upon the road towards it, and as 
 he goes forth upon his arduous quest, glad and eager, heedless-of all danger 
 and all lower enticements, " losing life he finds it," and Jacob is transfigured 
 into Israel. Sut, strange as it sounds, only the impossible ideal transfigures 
 the actual. Ideals that can be fulfilled are no ideals at all. " A man'? reach 
 must exceed his grasp." "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is 
 perfect." 
 
24 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE NOT OUR PROSE 
 
 every cottager's reach, the very qualities in which 
 our temperament and system of education are most 
 lacking, imagination, the sense of beauty, power of 
 expression. Both for its judgments of value and its 
 words of power, our English Bible is the one book 
 we cannot do without. 
 
 {NbU.—ln quoting the Psalms in this chapter, the Prayer-Book version has 
 been used, because most of us are so familiar with it, and because of its finer 
 rhythm. In the Song- of Deborah, the R.V. is mainly followed, but some 
 passages retain the A.V. renderings. — ^J. R. C.) 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 TRUTH OF IDEA TRUER THAN TRUTH OF FACT 
 
 The second Bible difficulty on our list, " The science 
 and history of our Bible are often not true to fact," 
 is perhaps the greatest stumbling-block to-day, and 
 for this reason. Truth of fact is the gospel of our 
 scientific age. To state what is not true to fact is the 
 twentieth-century sin of sins, " stamps the authority 
 behind the statement as false and at once brands it 
 beyond redemption in our eyes." Now the Bible sets 
 truth of idea far above truth of fact. Let us define 
 these terms. 
 
 " Truth of fact" or "judgment of existence" Our age 
 rightly prides itself on its determination to see every- 
 thing in the coldest and whitest of lights exactly as it 
 is ; also on its accuracy of statement so that its 
 assertions may tally exactly with actual fact. This 
 is "truth of fact." Our motto to-day is:— Accept 
 nothing on trust and base your statements on none 
 but positive facts. Sift, weigh, measure, analyse, verify 
 all your evidence. Allow neither likes nor dislikes, 
 sentiments of religion nor dogmas of authority, to 
 colour or distort your clearness of vision, and follow 
 fearlessly wherever verified facts lead. Till yoiir 
 evidence affords a solid basis for a positive conclusion, 
 suspend your judgment ; if you suggest a possible 
 conclusion, mark it with a note of interrogation, or 
 candidly say " I don't know." 
 
 Thus a " truth of fact " or "judgment of existence " 
 is exact correspondence between thought or statement 
 and what is or has been : e.g. 24-2 = 4; the Lusitania 
 
 25 
 
26 TRUTH OF IDEA TRUER THAN TRUTH OF FACT 
 
 was torpedoed ; water seeks its own level. The cold 
 white light of Intellect is its final court of appeal and 
 it knows no other. Truth of fact must be capable of 
 proof on such clear and positive evidence that, when 
 this evidence is examined and weighed by competent 
 and unbiassed minds, there can be no disagreement 
 as to the verdict. 
 
 This pas.sion for truth of fact is our age's great 
 contribution to civilisation, God's gift, lesson and 
 revelation to our generation. It has revolutionised 
 knowledge in every department, made it infinitely more 
 exact and reliable, and enabled us to harness Nature's 
 forces to man's service by carefully observing the 
 uniform methods (= laws) according to which they 
 work. This zeal for the naked truth has also made 
 our age fearlessly honest and sincere ; hence it is a 
 note both of material and moral progress. 
 
 " Truth of idea " or "judgment of value" — Science 
 confines itself to what it calls the world of reality. 
 It will deal with none but material or objective facts 
 which lie within the range of the senses and the 
 intellect. If I ask science : What of my heart-motives, 
 my ideals, my sense of duty and responsibility ? it 
 shrugs its shoulders, and either questions that kind of 
 reality or bluntly says : Knowledge to-day has to do 
 with the brain, not the emotions ; it deals with solid 
 facts and knows nothing of that fanciful or subjective 
 side of the picture. 
 
 What then ? If I accidentally shoot a man, are the 
 gun and corpse alone real, and my remorse not real ? 
 If I jump into a rough sea to save a drowning man, is 
 the sea real and the man real, but the sense of duty 
 that prompts my action not real ? In the war, were 
 the deeds of bravery and atrocity real, but the ideals 
 of right, chivalry, humanity, inspiring our self- 
 sacrifice not real? True, the remorse, the sense of 
 duty, the inspiring ideals are subjective facts outside 
 the range of Science's intellect, but is Intellect the 
 whole of man ? Surely, I am Heart and Will as well as 
 
JUDGMENTS OF VALUE 27 
 
 Brain, and heart and will have big claims of their own. 
 "What I am and what I do," says Jacob Boehme, 
 "all depends on what I set ray affections upon." 
 The affections stimulate the will to make for a 
 certain goal ; if the will says Yes, then it sets the 
 intellect to think out ways and means to that goal. 
 Now if it is the heart that prompts and the will that 
 steers the course, while intellect is only called in to 
 find ways and means to their ends, then a right 
 heart and will are every whit as vital as their 
 servant's clear brain. Those old Hebrews are right : 
 " Keep the heart with all diligence (lit. ' above all that 
 thou guardest '), for out of it are the issues of life." 
 In man or nation, it is the ideals which kindle the 
 heart and stimulate the will, the aspirations after 
 " whatsoever things are true and honest and just and 
 pure and lovely and of good report," that raise the 
 whole level of life or make the line of human progress 
 swerve upwards. We see them moulding beautiful 
 characters, inspiring men to do and die for a great 
 cause, stimulating great and noble enterprises. These 
 aspirations and ideals, this sense of high duty and 
 responsibility, which have their seat in the heart and 
 will, we call "judgments of value," "truths of idea." 
 They fall within the province of Religion and Ethics, 
 even as " truth of fact " comes under Science. We 
 want both, but a character-buildingi Bible naturally 
 exalts judgments of value. 
 
 In "judgments of existence" exact correspondence 
 of statement with fact is vital; in "judgments of 
 value" it is quite immaterial. Obviously, if the 
 captain's chart, the doctor's formula, the statesman's 
 data, the engineer's plans do not exactly correspond 
 with things as they are, they court disaster. Not so 
 with judgments of value. The warm heart and good 
 example of Christ's Good Samaritan inspire me just 
 the same whether such a man ever existed or not. 
 So far as their appeal to the human heart goes, it 
 matters not one jot whether Abraham, Jacob, Joseph 
 
28 TRUTH OF IDEA TRUER THAN TRUTH OF FACT 
 
 are actual persons* or ideal types. Our Lord's 
 parables prove that the deepest truths of the human 
 heart can often be more truly and forcibly expressed 
 by story or fable than by the most logical and literal 
 statement of fact.** 
 
 Bearing in mind these two points : (a) For cha- 
 racter, truth of idea is more real and vital than truth 
 of fact ; (b) truth of idea is independent of truth of 
 fact for its embodiment or setting, — we can now deal 
 with the objection so often levelled at the Bible : "Its 
 history and science are not true to fact." The objec- 
 tion is perfectly just, and we are not serving the best 
 interests of either God, Truth, or the Bible itself when 
 we indignantly, in our mistaken zeal, give the lie to 
 this plain fact. Edification, judgment of value, not 
 objective history or science, is the Bible's aim. The 
 Bible is the record of man's moral education by God, 
 culminating in Christ's revelation, and the record is 
 so framed as to enable us to understand the whole of 
 God's will for us. No other book has so influenced 
 mankind and civilisation in the way of character and 
 rightness of life. This is its one aim — edification. 
 We must read it in the spirit in which it was written, 
 with eyes open to its priceless judgments of value. 
 But we must not ask it for an absolute truth of fact 
 which it does not profess to give. It is nof there 
 for several reasons, e.g.: (i) Our modern conception 
 of history, with its exacting demand for accuracy, is 
 but some fifty years old and the child of our scientific 
 spirit and methods. No ancient historian faced 
 history from its critical standpoint. Even a Thucy- 
 dides and a Tacitus unblushingly place fictitious 
 
 * See Burney, Judges, cix. sq. 
 
 ' The deepest heart-readers — poets, seers, prophets — all embody truth in 
 story or symbol. Thus when Plato wished to embody some truth deep in the 
 mystery of being, he would instinctively glide into what he called " myth " or 
 "truth embodied in a tale"; e.g. Gorgias : "Listen, as story-tellers say, 
 to a very pretty tale which I daresay you may be disposed to regard as a fable 
 only, but which, as I believe, is a true tale, for I mean to speak the truth. . . . 
 Perhaps there might be reason for your contemning such tales, if by searching 
 we could find out anything better or truer." 
 
MORAL EDIFICATION THE BIBLE'S AIM 29 
 
 speeches in their characters' mouths. Early history 
 is essentially artistic and written with a moral or 
 pQlitical aim. (2) For a large portion of their history, 
 truth of fact was an impossibility to Bible-writers. 
 Even the earliest books of the Bible (c. 800 b.c.) were 
 written hundreds, often thousands, of years after the 
 events they record. At times they incorporate older 
 narratives, but certainly for the period up to Moses, 
 for instance, they have little but folk-lore to go upon ; 
 and up to the monarchy, though we have crossed the 
 borderline between history and legend, we have still 
 much that is legendary. 
 
 Even if the Bible-writers had had our scientific 
 training and the most reliable material for their facts, 
 it IS more than likely, and greatly to be hoped, that 
 they would have written exactly as they did, setting 
 judgments of value far above truth of objective fact, 
 and for this reason. The bent of their peculfar 
 genius marked out Israel's world-mission. God's gifts 
 to Greece were thought and taste ; she specialised in 
 these, and became man's teacher in philosophy, art, 
 literature. God's gifts to Israel were will and heart : 
 she specialised in these, and religion and ethics were 
 her special province : " salvation is of the Jews." 
 With their strong sense of moral responsibility, 
 character and conduct were in Hebrew eyes, not 
 three-fourths, but the whole of life : " Fear God, and 
 keep His commandments, for this is the whole (duty) 
 of man" (Eccl. xii. 13). Moral geniuses, experts in 
 judgments of value, they were born to move man's 
 heart and mould his character. They have done it, 
 and are doing it in their Bible as much as ever 
 to-day, just because they were true to their genius. 
 
 Can we expect or wish men of this type to write 
 history like ours to-day ? Thank God they did not ! 
 Let us see how they actually do write it. God, Life, 
 Duty is their one theme. History is an open page in 
 which they clearly read God's handwriting in His 
 education of man. Before their eyes, as in a drama. 
 
30 TRUTH OF IDEA TRUER THAN TRUTH OF FACT 
 
 lies the whole scene. The nations are the actors, 
 Israel especially do they watch with bated breath, 
 longing to prompt him. To them each moment in 
 the drama is pregnant with vital issues. They know 
 how each act must inevitably end, long before the 
 curtain drops, for they know God's invariable rule. 
 Jehovah is a righteous God ruling His world on 
 moral lines. Eternal right and truth must eventually 
 triumph, self-destructive wrong and error go to the 
 wall. Thus, with a holy and righteous God and a 
 stiff-necked sinful Israel before their eyes, an Amos, 
 Hosea, Isaiah foresee the Captivity long before it 
 comes. Where other Israelites see in the invading 
 Assyrians powers of darkness sacrilegiously swooping 
 upon God's Israel, they see in these foreign foes 
 Jehovah's own chosen agents to stamp out Israel's 
 delusion and wrong : " You only have I known of all 
 the families of the earth ; therefore I will visit upon 
 you all your iniquities " (Amos iii. 2). 
 
 Such men are ever interpreters of history, not 
 choniclers of bare facts. A fact interests them only 
 in so far as it is the outward expression of some idea 
 or principle which constitutes its soul and renders it 
 intelligible. In their eyes this inner meaning is all 
 that matters. Even when they are dealing with the 
 history of their own day with all its facts staring 
 them in the face, they see the facts, but facts as facts 
 interest them not at all. They want to get at the heart 
 of the facts, at the root-idea Which lights up the fact and 
 gives it its full significance. Of one fact they are 
 quite sure : — God, not Chance^ is at the helm of His 
 universe with hand ever on the tiller. If man makes 
 history, God far more. Will and character, human 
 and divine, are stamped deep on every page of man's 
 history. Man can promote or retard, never frustrate, 
 God's eternal plan. Our good is His ally ; even our 
 evil subserves His ends to its own undoing. 
 
 Reading history in this light, is it strange that the 
 one clear lesson it is ever preaching in their ears, and 
 
IDEALISED HISTORY 3 1 
 
 they in ours, is ever the same : God, Life, Duty ? 
 Hence it is that even Kings, composed by men who 
 had the fullest records of their period and were 
 themselves all but abreast of it, is written from what 
 we should call a purely moral and religious stand- 
 point. 
 
 Still more is this the case with their history of 
 Israel before Moses' day. Here the material at their 
 disposal is very meagre, mostly tradition and folk-lore. 
 Living in an uncritical and credulous age, they 
 probably shared the popular belief in the truth of the 
 old songs, traditions, legends and stories of olden 
 times, still current in their day. But they approach 
 them exactly as they do contemporary facts, not 
 caring for fact as fact but probing to the heart of the 
 story for its inner meaning. They seize the truths of 
 idea, the judgments of value lying buried under this 
 crude mass of folk-lore, and these stories leave their 
 hands with their clay turned into gold. Thus they 
 take primitive Babylonian myths of the Creation and 
 the Flood, seize the truth these stories were groping 
 after all along, and make them vehicles of eternal 
 verities which man can never outgrow. So with the 
 stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph.^ They 
 found traditions of these national heroes, handed 
 down from mouth to mouth for ages and treasured-by 
 the Hebrew race. Out of these floating stories these 
 seers recall the patriarchs to life in a form that appeals 
 to all that is truest in the human heart. Not that these 
 prophetic writers, J or E, ever stop to point a moral. 
 They are far too sympathetically in living touch with 
 their national heroes for that. Their creations are 
 real living men in flesh and blood, a series of life-like 
 portraits without parallel even in the Bible, so 
 dramatically presented that, all unconsciously and all 
 the more effectively, they drive home to our hearts 
 the very judgments of value the author intended. 
 
 ' See Burney, Judges, p. cix., as to how'far these names represent " tribes 
 under the guise of individuals," and footnote, p. 34, inf. 
 
32 TRUTH OF IDEA TRUER THAN TRUTH OF FACT 
 
 Of Biblical history before Moses we no more ask 
 " Is it all true ? " than we ask if our Lord's story of 
 the Prodigal Son or of the Good Samaritan is actually 
 true. Such stories are eternally true. Well may 
 Carlyle write of these old Bible-writers : " They are 
 the only true seers, interpreting the entirely mdubitable 
 Revelation of the Author of the Universe. There is 
 a terrible veracity in every line of the Hebrew Bible. 
 But how can Dryasdust interpret such things, the 
 dark chaotic dullard, who knows the meaning of 
 nothing cosmic or noble, nor ever will know ? Poor 
 wretch, one sees what kind of meaning he educes from 
 man's history. Unhappy Dryasdust, thrice unhappy 
 world that takes Dryasdust's readings of the ways of 
 God." 
 
 But a word of caution. The Bible-writers preferred 
 truth of idea to truth of fact ; wisdom has been 
 justified of her children and we can implicitly steer our 
 course by the Bible's judgments of value. BUT we 
 must not ask it for absolute veracity of fact. " What 
 we have to learn is to give to history what belongs to 
 history and to idea what belongs to idea." Three- 
 quarters of the theological wranglings and of modern 
 unbelief would never have arisen if men, especially 
 theologians, had borne this in mind. The Bible's 
 value rests not at all on its science or its historical dates 
 or details. Our salvation in this life and the next does 
 not in the least hang on our accepting as literal and 
 eternal truths its story of the Creation, its biographies of 
 the patriarchs, its ascription of this law or that book to 
 Moses, Solomon, David, Paul or Peter. Its value lies 
 wholly on its spiritual side, in its judgments of value ; 
 and " our full persuasion and assurance of their 
 infallible truth and divine source is from the inward 
 work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness to them in 
 our own hearts." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 MISLEADING ORDER AND TITLES OF BIBLICAL BOOKS 
 
 The third and fourth difficulties on our list are 
 these : — (3) The two very first chapters of the Bible 
 flatly contradict each other, and this tendency runs 
 through the Bible; (4) Many Bible-books look like 
 literary forgeries. We hope to show that (3) is largely 
 due to the wrong chronological order of our Bible- 
 books, while (4) has much in it to elicit praise, not 
 blame, for it flows from a high ideal ^nd a true 
 principle. 
 
 (3) Chronological order of our Bible-books. — We 
 speak of "The Bible" ( = Book) in the singular as if 
 it were one Book. In a sense it is. From cover 
 to cover there is a wondrous unity underlying all 
 the Bible's variety. Read in the right order, each 
 book dovetails into the next, and the various books 
 seem so many chapters of one author giving us the 
 story of his life, but written at difierent stages of that 
 life as his spiritual experience and mental horizon 
 broadened. Yet we know that the Old Testament is 
 the work of a large number of independent writers 
 from 850-150 B.C. How, thfen, are we to account for 
 the wondrous unity? There is but one answer. 
 The Bible is the story of his own life and education as 
 given us by one Servant of. God, Israel, at successive 
 stages of his life ; moreover, behind that life-education 
 and the writers of its record stands all the while One 
 guiding Master-Mind, the divine Educator. So (i) the 
 education itself is all of one piece, an organic whole ; 
 (2) the long record of it, the work of many different 
 
 33 D 
 
34 MISLEADING ORDER OF BIBLICAL BOOKS 
 
 pens, also forms one book and not a disconnected 
 library. This is why we instinctively speak of the 
 Bible as the one Wordoi God, not as the words of many 
 voices. 
 
 But the term "Bible" is of late origin. For 
 hundreds of years after Christ men spoke, not of " The 
 Bible," but " the bibles," " the books " (Dan. ix. 2), " the 
 holy books," " the scriptures" (= writings),." the holy 
 scriptures." This really best expresses the actual fact 
 that the Bible does consist of a vast number of in- 
 dependent writings setting forth Israel's progressive 
 education, at God's hand, at different stages of its 
 life. We want to trace these different stages. We 
 shall not rightly understand God's education of man, 
 or appreciate Israel's own history or character, till we 
 trace this education step by step from Israel's infancy 
 onward. The Bible's aim is to set these various 
 stages clearly before us. Roughly stated, they are as 
 follows : — 
 
 (a) The Hebrews came from Babylonia to Canaan ' (after a 
 
 ' We follow the view of Jastrow (Heb, and Babn. Tradns., viii. and 23, etc.). 
 — Dr. Burney (Judges, pp. cvi. sqq.) and others uphold the following view 
 of Israel's ancestors (patriarchal names stand in it for tribes) : — ^The Hebrew 
 westward movement forms part of a larger Aramaean movement lasting 
 centuries. The Heb. movement begins with "Abraham " (c. 2100 B.C.) from 
 Ur to Harran and then to S. Canaan (Beersheba). Next arrives the 
 Aramaean tribe Rebekah, which united with "Isaac," Abraham's "son"; 
 the issue is two tribal groups, Esau-Edom and " Jacob." They dwell together 
 awhile in S. Canaan, but Edom's hostile pressure forces "Jacob" across Jordan 
 eastward again, where, later, the tribe unites with fresh Aramaean elements 
 ( = Jacob's wives) . Ultimately, the whole tribal body moves once more towards 
 Canaan, compelled by the westward pressure of other Aramaean migrators 
 (=the pursuit of Laban), with whom a friendly treaty and boundary is formed. 
 The Hebrew group, modified by fresh accessions, re-enters Canaan, no longer 
 as " Jacob," but "Israel." The " Habiru " of the Tell el Amarna Letters, 
 c. 137s B.C., Burney identifies with Hebrews, i.e. the Israel, Edom, Moab, 
 Ammon of later days. 
 
 This school also maintains that not all Israel, but only a few tribes (».«. the 
 house of Joseph and, for a while, Simeon and Levi) were in Egypt under 
 Moses. The elements ultimately forming the other tribes entered Canaan, not 
 with the Exodus tribes, but gained their heritage there by other means and at 
 other periods. Gad, Dan, Asher ("handmaid tribes") belong to the group 
 " sons of handmaid and not full wives," i.e. inferior tribes, probabfe because 
 not of pure Israelite race, as long since dwelling among CanaanitesT In J's 
 account of the settlement, Asher, Naphtali, Dan do not appear as recent and 
 successful invaders, i.e. they had not gone into Egypt but maintained * 
 
ISRAEL'S PROGRESSIVE feDUCATION 35 
 
 long sojourn in the desert), and brought with them much of 
 Babylonia's " popular " religion, a kind of nature-worship with its 
 many gods, spirits, and superstitions. We know next to nothing 
 of them up to Moses' day. 
 
 {b) Moses mainly laid the foundation of Israel's knowledge of 
 one God, Israel's national God («.e. monolatry= worship oi only one 
 god among many; not yet monotheism, = worship of the one and 
 only God). The Sinai Covenant first gave Hebrew religion a 
 higher moral element, the seed of all its after-development. The 
 Hebrews were then a mixed rabble, very rude, clannish, super- 
 stitious — the Arab strain strong in them still. 
 
 (<:) Their settlement in Canaan introduced them to civilisation, 
 also to new gods and superstitions. Moreover, their centuries of 
 war, while effecting a settlement in the land, kept them rude in 
 character; and their fusion with the Canaanites made them 
 material in their ideas of God, apt to revert to their old poly- 
 theism, for Canaanite religion and culture were largely Babylonian 
 in type. 
 
 [d) Philistia's crushing defeat of Israel in Samuel's day 
 produced an intense patriotic and religious revival. From it arose 
 new religious leaders, schools of prophets, religious and national 
 reformers. But popular religion is still crude and materialistic, 
 mere sacrifice with superstitious (often licentious) rites at any 
 one of the thousand altars and high places scattered throughout 
 the land. 
 
 {e) From 760 B.C. arise a succession of great prophets who 
 try to wean Israel from its superstitious worship of Jehovah 
 to real heart-worship and right life. Old ideas and habits are 
 too deep-rooted and they make little headway in their own 
 day. 
 
 (/) Between 700-600 b.c, these prophets (backed by Jerusalem 
 priests) try to abolish the many local shrines and high-places, 
 hotbeds of superstition and vice, and to centralise all worship in 
 Jerusalem. Hezekiah (727-698) begins this reform, with little 
 success; Josiah (621) fairly succeeds. 
 
 (£) The Captivity (586-538) deepens Hebrew religion and 
 
 precarious footing in Canaan. Burney tends to include Issachar and Zebulun 
 among the tribes left in Canaan, and in the actual conquest of Canaan he 
 follows J, who only records conquests of (l) Judah and Simeon by a northward 
 move from Kadesh-Barnea, and (2) the house of Joseph under Joshua from E. 
 of Jordan. — This school's view has two great advantages : (i) it adheres closely 
 to Genesis tradition ; (2) it is supported by valuable external evidence and recent 
 " finds," Babylonian, etc. (see Burney, Judges, cviii.). 
 
:i6 MISLEADING ORDER OF BIBLICAL BOOKS 
 
 creates an intense reverence for the law. No longer a nation, 
 Israel after the Exile is a Church under priests and scribes; 
 worship is now definitely centralised in Jerusalem. But contact 
 with other nations has broadened some Jews, while synagogue- 
 worship has weaned many more from mere ritual cultus and 
 spiritualised their religion. After 400 B.C. prophets wane, 
 practically cease ; men have to learn God's revealed will from the 
 study and meditation of the written " Law and the Prophets." 
 
 ^Hence after the Exile we have side by side (i) pronouncedly 
 legal and ecclesiastical writings; (2) a reflective and broad- 
 minded " Wisdom " hterature ; (3) spiritual psalms ; (4) apocalypses 
 based on prophetic writings. 
 
 This is the story the Bible-books tell us of Israel's 
 religious education, when they are placed in their 
 natural or chronological order. But as at present 
 arranged, the Bible is apt to confuse and mislead the 
 reader, for the different stages are all mixed up 
 anyhow. The very first chapter of the Bible is of 
 the period of the Exile and gives us the views ot 
 c. 500 B.C., while the next chapter is some 300 years 
 earlier. 
 
 The Books of Moses, so-called, give us an excellent 
 illustration of this haphazard arrangement and the 
 wrong perspective it creates. Instead of being one 
 organic whole and a good picture of Israel in Moses' 
 day (c. 1250-1200 B.c.)S we find in these Mosaic Books 
 three distinct layers of religious thought, in themselves 
 widely apart in date (c. 850-750 b.c. ; 650 B.C. ; c. 500 b.c.), 
 and one and all very far in advance of the elementary 
 religious views of Moses' day. At the end of this 
 chapter the problem of the Mosaic Books is fully 
 discussed, here we briefly indicate the three layers of 
 religious thought, each of which exactly corresponds 
 
 1 "We know that the Exodus probably took place under Mineptah 
 (1225-1215), successor of Ra'messe II. (1292-1225)/' the Pharaoh of the 
 oppression. As we also know, by aid of Assyrian chronology, the ap- 
 proximate date of Solomon's accession {c. 970), this enables us to correct the 
 artificial chronologjf of I Kgs. vi. i, giving 480 years for the period from the 
 Exodus to the building of the Temple in the fourth year of Solomon's 
 rule, whereas it can only have been about 250 years. (From Burney, 
 Judges, p. liii.) 
 
THREE STAGES OF RELIGIOUS GROWTH 37 
 
 with a well-known stage in the actual religious history 
 of Israel long centuries after Moses : — 
 
 Roughly speaking (i) a large portion of Gen., 
 Exod. XX. 22-xxiii. 33,^ and many sections of Exod. 
 and Numb, give us the Hebrew religious outlook of 
 the earlier prophetic school (see {d) and very early (e) 
 sup.), just before Amos' day. This older portion is 
 known as J and E.^ 
 
 (ii) Deuteronomy exactly represents stage (/) 
 above, when the prophets wanted to centralise all 
 worship in Jerusalem. Its religious outlook is 
 deeply spiritual. Its date is c. 650 b.c. For brevity 
 Deut. is called D. 
 
 (iii) In practically all Lev., and in much of the 
 legislation of Exod. and Numb., we see worship 
 definitely centralised ; there is but one sanctuary 
 (Tabernacle) and one altar, and all the legislation has 
 an eye to this centralisation. Moreover, it riepresents 
 this centralisation, with all the ordinances as to 
 worship, ritual, sacrifice, priesthood, etc., as ordained 
 from the very first by God through Moses at Sinai. 
 In a word, both in its laws and historical setting, this 
 section breathes, throughout, the priestly spirit and 
 religious atmosphere of the ecclesiastical age (see 
 {g) sup) which gave it birth about 500 b.c. This 
 Priestly Code is known as P. 
 
 The same wrong order and confusion pervades 
 the whole Bible. Hence the following chronological 
 scheme, based mainly on Robertson Smith, Driver, 
 and Cheyne, may prove useful : — 
 
 (A) Oldest literature — 
 
 Lyric poems. Song of Deborah ; David's elegy ; 
 
 • This is known as the " Book of the Covenant " (C). Exod. xxxiv. 1 1-27, 
 a very ancient fragment, is the " Little Book of the Covenant," and many 
 scholars believe that this may possibly have been the original Ten 
 Commandments. 
 
 ' In our chronological scheme (p. 38, inf.) we refer to this section I. as 
 J and E, because as stated pp. 48 sqq. , this oldest section was written by 
 "Jehovah" writers and " Elohim " writers. [The old narratives of Judg!, 
 and certainly i Sam. i.-xii., if not further, are essentially of a piece with 
 J and E of the Mosaic Books (see Burney, Judges, xxxviii.).] 
 
38 MISLEADING ORDER OF BIBLICAL BOOKS 
 
 are all but contemporary with their 
 events. 
 Some four or five psalms may possibly be 
 David's. 
 Prose. The 2 Sam. ix.-xx. and i Kgs. i.-ii. docu- 
 ment consists, mainly, of a single very 
 early source narrating the court-history 
 of David, and almost certainly written by 
 a contemporary.^ 
 
 (B) Early monarchy (850-750 B.C.). Vivid and 
 dramatic prose-narratives, e.g. of Pentateuch,^ J and E, 
 i.e. "The older strata of Gen., Exod,, Numb., Josh., 
 Judg., and i Sam. — the work of prophetic schools in 
 the Southern (=J) and Northern ( = E) kingdoms, 
 which in all probability originally formed two con- 
 tinuous history books. Also the later elements in 
 2 Sam., and the oldest portions of Kings." 
 
 (C) Earlier writing prophets, and historical works 
 of their school (760-586 B.C.): Amos (c. 760-750); 
 Hosea (c. 750-737); Isaiah (740-700) ; Micah (724—); 
 Deuteronomy (c. 650); [the editorial framework of 
 Judg. and i and 2 Sam., which brought the books into 
 the form in which they have come down to us]; 
 Zephaniah (c. 627); Nahum (610-608); Ruth (?); 
 Jeremiah (626-586); Habakkuk (c. 605-600); i and 2 
 Kgs. (sources largely much earlier); Obadiah (before 
 and after 586); Lamentations (possibly Jeremiah's, 
 probably later, c. 550 e.g.). 
 
 (D) Exile and after (586-150 b.c.) ; 
 
 Ezekiel (593-573); Proverbs (early 6th century); 
 II Isaiah xl.-lv, (c. S40);* P (c. 520); Haggai and 
 
 ' Burney, Judges, xxxviii. note, supplemented by a note ,in his revision 
 of this MS., from which the above is taken. He adds, " Perhaps written by 
 Gad or Nathan. It is the oldest prose-document in the O.T. and of unique 
 historical value. This is generally acknowledged by Biblical critics," The 
 quotation under (B) sitp.is also Prof. Burney's. 
 
 2 Pentateuch ( = the 5 works) = Mosaic Books ; Hexateuch ( = the 6 works) = 
 Mosaic Books -|- Joshua. 
 
 » ni Isaiah (Ivi.-lxvi.) "certainly in the main post-exilic, and as certainly 
 the work of different writers. The term " Trito-Isaiah " is used for convenience 
 not as a single author, but to indicate the post-exilic character of Ivi.-lxvi. in 
 distinction from Is. xl.-lv." (Burney, see note^) (See also Jastrbw (Ileb. and 
 Bab, Trad., pp. 285 sqq.), who writes an excellent note on this subject.) 
 
LITERARY TORGERtES IN THE BIBLE 39 
 
 Zech. i.-viii. (c. 520) ; Job (late 6th century) ; Malachi 
 {c. 450); Sources of Ezra and Nehem. (450-430); 
 Jonah and Joel (date unknown ; possibly after Exile). 
 
 332 B.G. and somewhat later: Eccles.; i and 2 
 Chron. ; Esther; Ezra and Neh.; Dan. (c. 160 B.C.). 
 
 (Psalms practically all written between 600-1 50 b.c. 
 
 To Solomon's Song is ascribed any date from 
 970-400; see Ch, XVII. inf.). 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 (4) Many Biblical books look like literary forgeries. — 
 This brings us to the fourth and last of the difficulties 
 in our list. The question is often asked: Why did 
 late writers, living centuries after Moses, ascribe 
 their laws and books to Moses? Or why is the 
 Psalter, mostly written after the Captivity, entitled 
 " The Psalms of David," while equally late Proverbs 
 and Ecclesiastes are fathered on Solomon? Is not 
 this literary forgery ? 
 
 From our " truth of fact " standpoint, the Mosaic 
 Books are a literary forgery ; from the Hebrew 
 " truth of idea " outlook, they are Moses' very own. 
 In Israel's eyes, Moses was the father of all laws, for 
 it was directly through Moses that God gave to 
 Israel that oral law which is the source and basis of 
 all after-legislation ; similarly David is the father of 
 all psalms (2 Chron. xxix. 30; i Chron. xvi. 4, cf. 
 2 Sam. xxii.) ; and Solomon of all " wisdom " literature 
 and proverbs (i Kgs. iv. 30 sqq.). Therefore, any 
 legislator after Moses, or psalmist after David, or 
 wisdom-writer after Solomon, felt in honour and duty 
 bound not to take to himself the credit of his own 
 laws or hymns or proverbs, but to ascribe them to 
 the source of his inspiration. He blotted himself out 
 as the mere copyist, pupil and expounder of his great 
 predecessor, and realised that he could lay no claim 
 to originality for his own writings ; in his eyes they 
 were not new creations, only the old adapted to the 
 ideas and needs of a later day. Each of these great 
 names was therefore regarded as fully entitled to 
 
40 MISLEADING ORDER OF BIBLICAL BOOKS 
 
 receive all the credit for anything new discovered in 
 his own particular line of thought; the new author 
 counted for nothing, Strange as this procedure 
 seems to us, it was a high ideal, and to call it a 
 literary forgery would be a gross libel. 
 
 But, praiseworthy as is this ideal, it has the defects 
 of its qualities, two in particular : (i) The ascription 
 of all legislation to Moses absolutely prevents us 
 to-day from knowing what laws or what command- 
 ments Moses actually made, especially if we bear in 
 mind another point. It was considered not only 
 right, but due to the memory of Moses, over and 
 above giving him the credit of new laws, to revise, 
 modify and alter his actual laws so as to bring them 
 up to the requirements of a later day ; to tone down 
 what was too harsh, to add what was lacking so as 
 better to fulfil and bring up to date the religious 
 purpose Moses himself had in view. For instance, 
 in what form did the Ten Commandments leave 
 Moses' hand? "They are not Moses'" at all, say 
 some scholars. Many more would say : " They were 
 originally given in a much briefer form, to which 
 from time to time reflexions and promises were added 
 which strengthened their appeal to the mind and will " 
 (Dr. W. P. Paterson).^ (2) The original idea may 
 have be^n simply to give Moses, David and Solomon 
 their due, but it^was always liable to the great danger 
 of also giving the weight or authority of these great 
 names to productions not their own. As the Bible 
 itself proves, this is precisely what happened after 
 the Captivity. From the time of Chronicles, certainly, 
 it was fully believed by the Jews themselves that, 
 even as Moses had completed the Law of Israel for 
 all time, before the Chosen People entered Canaan, 
 
 1 Cf. Montefiore, ffibbert Lectures, p. 553 : "That the Ten Words in 
 the form in •which they nbw appear in Exodus cannot be Mosaic in their 
 origin, is obvious and almost undisputed." Many modern scholars see Moses' 
 Ten Commandments in Exod. xxxiv. and not Exod. xx. nor Deut v • and 
 Exod. xxxiv., distinctly suggests that the sacred wrriter thought so too. " ' 
 
MOSAIC BOOKS, A COMPOSITE WORK 4 1 
 
 SO David completed the theory and contents of the 
 Temple-psalaody before the Temple itself was built 
 {e.g. 2 Chron. xxix. 30).' 
 
 H would be untrue to say there are no real " literary 
 forgeries " in the Bible, but they only occur in writings 
 after the Captivity. Oppressed Israel, no longer 
 a nation, groaned under present ills. The outlook 
 was black : " We see not our signs ; there is no more 
 any prophet, neither is there any among us that 
 knoweth how long." God's direct revelations to man 
 were things of the past, now contained only in the 
 written " Law and the Prophets." In this pessimistic 
 mood they were not likely to appreciate the religious 
 geniuses {e.g. a "Job") standing in their midst (cf. 
 St. Jo. i. 26). These bad perforce to approach their 
 countrymen through writings which claimed to be 
 the' work of some great figure in the past, e.g. Job, 
 Solomon {Ecclesiastes), Daniel. 
 
 Books of Moses, their Date and Authorship 
 
 Even in an uncritical seventeenth century, the 
 Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch was questioned 
 on the following grounds : — 
 
 An author does not minutely describe his own death (Deut. 
 xxxiv. s), record his own virtues (Numb. xii. 3), or favourably 
 compare himself with men living centuries later (Deut. xxxiv. 10). 
 Again, such passages as Gen. xii. 6, " The Canaanite was then in 
 the land," and Gen. xxxvi. 31, "Before there reigned any king 
 over the children of Israel," prove that the writer is writing after 
 1000 B.C. The frequent repetitions, duplicates and contradictions 
 in the Pentateuch point to the same conclusion. 
 
 But although the Mosaic authorship of the historical 
 portion of these five books was open to question, 
 the legislation was fully believed to be the work of 
 Moses, 
 
 Astruc's clue. — The first real clue to the Mosaic 
 
 ' On the whole subject, see Jastrow, Ifei. and Bah, Trad., pp. 285, sqq. 
 
42 MISLEADING ORDER OF BIBLICAL BOOKS 
 
 problem was Jean Astruc's (1753)- He found that 
 entire sections of the Pentateuch called God Jehovah, 
 while equally large portions seem to know Him only 
 as Elohim. 
 
 De Wette's clue.— In 1805 de Wette added, another 
 link to the chain of evidence. Confining himself 
 mainly to the historical side, he made these dis- 
 coveries : — 
 
 A study oi Judg., Sam. and Kgs. shows the laws of Moses 
 unknown or ignored for many centuries after him. Thus, if 
 Deut. xvii. 14-20 is Moses' own, why does i Sam. viii. 7 make 
 it a heinous sin to ask for a king ? Again, Israel's history shows 
 that the Deuteronomic Law abolishing local shrines and altars and 
 forbidding images was not known till about 700 B.C. Clearly, 
 then, Deiit. is a late work. Moreover, the Genesis history is 
 untrustworthy, the moral and religious tone of the Pentateuch is 
 centuries ahead of Moses' day, and the Pentateuch bristles with 
 contradictions. 
 
 Grafs clue. — But it was chiefly Graf, and his pupil 
 Kuenen, who discovered the true clue. 2 Kgs. xviii. 
 {cf., for Josiah, 2 Kgs. xxii.) tells us that in Hezekiah's 
 reign a reform was set on foot to abolish village 
 high-places and centralise all worship in one place, 
 Jerusalem; a reform legalised by Josiah in 621 b.c. 
 Turning to the Hexateuch, even an uncritical reader 
 can see that : — 
 
 {a) In Gen. and Exod. xx. 23-xxiii. 33, most of their contents 
 were written at a time when local shrines were recognised, 
 hallowed and dotted all over the land, (b) Deut. shows a com- 
 plete change. Jehovah is to be worshipped only in one place. 
 But this is only an order (xii.), not yet an accomplished fact, "ye 
 shall not do after all the things that we do here this day " (xii. 8). 
 (f) In the legislative portion of £xod. (except £xod. xx. 22- 
 xxiii. 33 and xxxiv. 11-26), Numb., and practically all Lev., we 
 find sacrificial worship confined to a single altar, that is, worship 
 definitely centralised at a single sanctuary, and precise rules of 
 worship clearly defined. The reform proposed by Deut. is an 
 accomplished fact; one sanctuary, one altar, only priests can 
 oflfer sacrifice. 
 
SAME THREE STAGES IN ISRAEL'S HISTORY 43 
 
 Now these three stages exactly correspond with 
 three actual stages in Israel's history: (a) Up to 
 Josiah's reign local shrines and altars were all over 
 the land, and any man could offer his own sacrifice^ 
 be his own priest. This was hallowed custom ; Exod. 
 XX. 24 gives it as God's own order, (b) Hezekiah 
 (727-698) ^ tried to reform worship and do away with 
 the superstitions and abuse of the high places and 
 local altars, but his success was small, (c) Josiah 
 (621) was more or less successful, and did practically 
 put down these local shrines and centralise worship 
 awhile in Jerusalem, but not till after the Exile was 
 the reform an accomplished fact and priests the only 
 ministers at the altar. 
 
 Ministration at the altar. — The same three stages 
 can be equally illustrated if we confine ourselves to 
 the altar and its ministers : — 
 
 {a) Before the Deuteronomy stage, priestly duties were not 
 confined to Levites; any one could be hjs own priest, (p) In 
 Deut. priestly duties are confined to Levites. Deut. xviii. 6-8 
 stipulates that, with the abolition of local shrines, provincial 
 Levites officiating there, on coming up to the central sanctuary, 
 are to have full priestly rights at the central altar equally with the 
 ministers at the altar {= Jerusalem Levites) in "the place which 
 the Lord shall choose." (c) As a matter of fact, Josiah's reform 
 of 621 would not allow this; " The priests of the high places 
 (==provincial Levites) came not up to the altar of the Lord in 
 Jerusalem (i.e. were not allowed by the Jerusalem hierarchy to 
 sa.cx'Aceth.ete), hit fhey did eat unleavened dread among their irethren" 
 (2 Kgs. xxiii. 8. sq.). About thirty years later, Ezek. xliv. 10 
 also definitely means to exclude these Levites from the altar, 
 because, as priests of the local shrines, they have as good as 
 served idols. The legislation of the later portion of the Pentateuch 
 (Priestly Code) definitely excludes them from offering sacrifice 
 and relegates them to subordinate duties. 
 
 • A glance at e.g. Hastings, D. B., art. O.T. Chronology, i. p. 401, 
 shows how uncertain is our chronology of the monarchy. There are three 
 ways of reckoning it. The Assyrian £anou is our gener^ly accepted standard 
 to-day. 
 
44 MISLEADING ORDER OF BIBLICAL BOOKS 
 
 We dwell on this point, the status of Priests and 
 Levites, for it marks the transition from Deuteronomy 
 to the Priestly Code. 
 
 Now even qa these two lines alone,— the transi- 
 tion from local shrines to a central sanctuary, and the 
 status of the Priests and Levites,— the Pentateuch 
 naturally subdivides into three distinct groups and 
 periods of composition. And a closer examination 
 (literary and historical) of the Hexateuch confirms 
 this evidence and carries it further to more definite 
 results. For instance, the Hexateuch is full of duplicate 
 and often contradictory accounts of the same events, 
 e.g. two inconsistent accounts of the Creation, the Flood, 
 Joshua's distribution of the land of Canaan among the 
 tribes. Exactly the same variety meets us respecting 
 the legislation at Sinai (= Horeb), the Festivals, the 
 treatment of slaves and, as already seen, the mode of 
 worship. Moreover, side by side we see distinct 
 layers of religious and moral thought which could 
 not possibly have been co-existent in Moses' day, 
 neither can they be attributed to one author. We 
 shall briefly glance at these different strands of 
 evidence. 
 
 Moral and religious ideas — 
 
 {a) In Gen., and the narrative portion of Exod., Numb, and 
 Josh, we have a very primitive conception of God. He appears 
 in human form and acts as a man, even talks, walks, eats with 
 man, and actually wrestles with Jacob. The state of morality 
 reflected in these sections is also very primitive, {b) In Beut. 
 we have a conception of God and a morality so lofty that only in 
 the canonical prophets can we find its parallel, (c) In the 
 .legislative portions of Exod,, Lev., Numb., the religious attitude 
 has hardened to an ecclesiastical creed. Religion and worship 
 are clothed in a web of ceremonial formalities. God is " holy " and 
 transcendent and only to be approached through His priests. The 
 Tabernacle, altar, sacrifice, and ritual are all in all. Ritual and 
 morality are all but on a level. In a word, we are in the periofi of 
 Israel after the Exile. 
 
SAME THREE STAGES IN LAW-CODES 45 
 
 Festivals. — 
 
 (a) In the older sections, there are only three Feasts, all 
 agricultural, the Feasts of Unleavened Bread, Weeks, and In- 
 gathering. They are mainly times of rejoicing, with a sacrifice, — 
 " half-sacrifices, half-picnics, and largely secular" (Montefiore, H. L., 
 34S) — and not at a central sanctuary. (J) In Deut. we have the 
 same three Feasts, still mainly agricultural, but the Feast of 
 " Passover and Unleavened Bread " is now associated with the 
 departure from Eygpt, and the Feasts are to be held only at the 
 one sanctuary and in a spirit of holy worship. (J) In the later 
 priestly sections, there are six Festivals and only onels at all 
 agricultural (the Feast of Harvest or Weeks) ; the rest are strictly 
 Church Festivals and, now for the first time, their dates are 
 fixed. 
 
 Legislation} — 
 
 Exod. XX, 22-xxiii. 33 and xxiv. 3-8 give us a definite body of 
 laws, religious and civil, of singularly primitive character, originally 
 a very old Palestinian civil code. Described as written in a book 
 and making a covenant between God and man, it is known as 
 the Book of the Covenant,' or, for brevity, C. 
 
 Exod. XX. i-i 7 (cf. Deut. v.) gives us the moral Law ' (ten com- 
 mandments) of Sinai as written by God on Two Tables of stone, 
 which Moses dashed to the ground and shattered because of his 
 anger at the Golden Calf worship. 
 
 * Carefully distinguish between the age of the laws themselves and the dates 
 of their codification. So-called new laws, especially in olden days, merely embody 
 old ' ' custom law " brought up to date, and often reveal traces of their original 
 primitive character. Exod. xx.-xxiii., as it stands, reflects the age of Judges 
 and early monarchy. But Burney fudges, 329 sq.) rightly sees in it traces of 
 human sacrifice (Exod. xxii. 29) and other primitive customs, and traces its 
 laws back to pre-Joshua days and sees connecting links with Hammurabi's 
 Code (c. 200O B.C.). 
 
 ' Book of the Covenant Code, simple and on agricultural basis. Cattle and 
 crops are the main wealth. Its criminal and civil justice is on the nomad 
 Arab basis of retaliation and money compensation. It deals with murder on 
 the principle of blood-revenge, but the innocent man-slayer may seek asylum 
 at God's altar (xxi. 13). With murder are ranked man-stealing, offences 
 against parents, witchcraft. Other injuries are settled by decisions at the 
 sanctuary, or on the principle of self-help by retaliation. Slaves have some 
 rights ; women are the man's property. 
 
 ' As already said (p. 40 stip.) this version in Exod. xx. and Deut. v. has 
 almost certainly been revised by a prophetic redactor of c. 700 B.C. who has 
 greatly enlarged the original Ten Words, adding reflections and promises to 
 the original very short " Words," 
 
46 MISLEADING ORDER OF BIBLICAL BOOKS 
 
 Exod. xxxiv. professes to reproduce this same moral Law on 
 Two new Tables, yet it is totally different. It is not moral Law 
 at all, but consists of prescriptions for festivals and ritual rules. 
 Moreover, Deut. ix. 8-x. 5 tells us that it was the Decalogue of 
 I>eut. V. 6-21 which was restored. This clashes with Exod. 
 xxxiv. I sqq. The Exod. xxxiv. Code is very old, and many 
 scholars to-day see in it the original Ten Words.^ 
 
 The Leviticus legislation is a great mass of ritual and cere- 
 monial law. According to Lev,, all its ordinances of worship ; its 
 regulations for one sanctuary, one altar, one legitimate priesthood ; 
 and all its minutely prescribed ritual, were directly revealed by 
 God Himself at Sinai. ' 
 
 If the reader will carefully study (a) Exod. xx. 22- 
 xxiii. 33 and also Exod. xxxiv. ; (Jb) Exod. xx. 1-1:7, 
 Deut. V, Deut. ix. 8-x. 5 ; (c) any portion of Lev., he 
 will see what contradictory duplicates the Books of 
 Moses give us of the Law-giving by God at Sinai (or 
 Horeb). He will also see in this legislation the same 
 three stages [(a), (b), (c)], already so often noted. 
 
 Clearly, then, the existence of three distinct strata, 
 three stages at least in the composition of the 
 Hexateuch, is patent. But how distinguish them? 
 For at present they seem so inextricably mixed up as 
 to defy disentanglement. Scholars have laboured 
 long and assiduously at this problem and, by applying 
 Astruc's, de Wette's and Graf's clues, and also on the 
 basis of sound historical and textual criticism, have 
 achieved splendid results. They now unanimously 
 recognise four main sources for the Hexateuch. 
 
 ' Viz. (l) Worship no strange god. (z) Make no molten gods. (3) Keep 
 the Feast of Unleavened Bread. (4) All the first-born are Mine. {5) Keep 
 the Feast of Weeks and (6) the Feast of Ingathering. (7) Do not mingle un- 
 leavened bread with sacrificial blood. (8) The fat of my Feast not to remain 
 overnight. (9) Offer the best of thy first-fruits in God's house. (10) Seethe 
 not a kid in its mother's milk. (Better still, make (s) and (6) one, and insert 
 Exod. xxxiv. 21, " Six days work, rest the seventh" (= 5).) 
 
 ' Over and above Temple and sacrificial regulations, the Priestly Code 
 dealt with ceremonial laws concerning (i) the observance of sabbaths and 
 festivals ; (2) Meats permitted and forbidden ; (3) Laws respecting tithes, 
 first-fruits, etc. ; (4) Things " clean " and " unclean." Here, again, many of 
 these laws as to "meats" and " objects or persons clean and unclean,''^go 
 back to primitive taboo days ; see note ', p. 45, sup. 
 
FOUR MAIN SOURCES FOR HEXATEUCH 47 
 
 Three of these run, in varying proportion, from Gen. 
 to Numb., reappearing in Deut xxxi. 14-xxxiv. 12 and 
 Josh., while the fourth is found in Deut and Josh. 
 only. 
 
 Of these four sources, two are easily recognisable. 
 Any reader must see that Deul, in style and character, 
 differs so strikingly from the rest of the Hexateuch 
 that it stands in a class by itself. It is so highly 
 spiritual in tone, its conception of religion so pro- 
 phetic, its note so hortatory and inspiring that it 
 stands to the other " Books of Moses " as S. John to 
 the other Gospels. For brevity, Deut. is called D.i 
 
 The second source is the one so often referred to 
 as (c) in the above analysis of the Hexateuch, that 
 portion of it dealing with the ecclesiastical or priestly 
 laws, ritual, institutions which came into force in 
 Israel after the Exile. Technically it is called the 
 Priestly Code or P. It is interwoven in the narrative 
 from Gen. to Numb., reappears slightly in Josh, (see 
 n. p. t,e, inf.), and, including the Law of Holiness ^ 
 which forms a previous stage in its development, 
 forms the whole of Lev. Its peculiarities, literary, 
 religious, and historical, are so pronounced that, like 
 D, it may be distinguished with certainty almost in 
 any combination by reason of its love of ceremonial 
 law, its statistical details, its stereotyped phraseology. 
 
 Dand P eliminated, we come to a harder problem. 
 There now remain two other sources, so similar in 
 many respects that it would be hard to separate them 
 but for Astruc's clue '(p. 41 sup.). Throughout Gen. 
 
 _ '_ It is now generally admitted that Deut. v.-xxvi. and xxviii. represent the 
 original Deuteronomy. ~,Chs. i-iv. (Wellhausen says i.-xi.) were afterwards 
 written as an introduction ; xxix.-xxxiv. are also later additions. (From 
 Ryle and Driver.) 
 
 " Law of Holiness (=, roughly speaking, Lev. xvii.-xxvi.), a distinct body of 
 law, forms the oldest part of the P Legislation, and is the centre and kernel 
 of its new religious movement. It is marked off from the rest of P by its intense 
 feeling of reverence for the " holiness " of God and everything connected with 
 His service ; " ye shall be holy, for I am holy " is its keynote. In parts, e.g. 
 Lev. xxvi., it is almost akin to Deut. in its spirituality. The Law of Holiness 
 (H) is probably of the age of Ezekiel, and in matter, style and wording recalls 
 Ezekiel. It stands half-way between D and P. 
 
48 MISLEADING ORDER OF BIBLICAL BOOKS 
 
 and up to Exod. iii. 14,^ large sections know God as 
 Jehovah, while parallel sections as consistently call 
 Him Elohim. The clue is not infallible, for later 
 editors have effected some changes in names, but 
 in most cases the distinction is marked and clear. 
 For brevity, the Jehovah source is called J, the Elohim 
 E. By way of illustration, from this oldest section 
 of the Hexateuch we shall now give a few instances, 
 taken at random, out of the many (a) double and 
 divergent narratives of the same events, (h) double and 
 divergent explanations of proper names, — so as to 
 prove that this oldest section is itself a composite 
 work. 
 
 / and E duplicates ^ : — 
 
 Gen. xvi. 47-14 and xxi. 8-21 give us two totally different 
 accounts of, and reasons for, Hagar's flight. They are clearly 
 distinct versions of the same tradition, and we are not therefore 
 surprised to find their sources different, Gen. xvi. 4-14 using 
 Jehovah, Gen. xxi. 8-21 Elohim, exclusively. — In Gen. xxjcii. 
 1-2 (E) the dual form Mahanaim, " two hosts or companies," is 
 explained by the statement that the " angels of God" met Jacob, 
 so he called the place Manahaim, " two hosts," i.e. his own 
 and that of the angels. In Gen. xxxii. 4-14 (J) we are told 
 (7) that Jacob divided his people into "two companies," so 
 that if Esau attacked one the other might escape; in verse 
 10 he confesses his sense of Jehovah's mercies in that, whereas 
 
 • Because Exod. iii. 14 represents God as first revealing Himself then as 
 Jehovah. 
 
 » P also supplies many duplicates in Gen. Two good examples are : (l) 
 The Creation : Gen. i.-ii. 40 is P, ii. 4* sqq. is J ; (2) in the Flood Story (Gen. 
 vi. S-ix. 17) : Gen. vi. 9-22 ; vii. 6-9, II, 13-160, 18-21, 24 ; viii. 1-20, 3*-S) 
 13^-19 ; ix. 1-17 is P ; the rest is J. If P be read consecutively, it gives a 
 consistent and almost complete account of the Deluge. If the J sections be 
 read consecutively, they will be seen to give a different version of the same 
 events, though not so completely preserved as the other. — As P and E both 
 consistently use Elohim throughout Gen. one might expect to find it hard to 
 distinguish them. Not at all. E and J are simple, naive, primitive in style 
 and character, vfhile P's character is the reverse. So peculiar to P are its 
 style, characteristics and vocabulary that it can be recognised almost at a 
 glance. Gen. i. is out and away the finest chapter of P, and exceptional. — 
 Where there is some difiiculty is within the older E itself. There is an older 
 and a younger layer of E, one very like J, while the later stratum is close 
 akin to the teaclung of the prophets and almost Deuteronomic in character. It 
 is often called E'. Hosea's ideas and phrases colour it throughout and its date 
 is not earlier than 700 B.C. 
 
J AND E DUPLICATES DO NOT TALLY 49 
 
 he crossed Jordan on his outgoing journey with his staff only, 
 now he is become "two companies" (the plural Mahanbth 
 is used with the numeral two prefixed). This is clearly a 
 divergent explanation of the dual Mahanaim. — Gen. xxi. 22-32 
 (E) and xxvi. 19-33 (J) give us duplicate and inconsistent- 
 reasons and explanations of the proper name Beer-sheba, again 
 reproducing distinct versions of tradition. — Again, Gen. xvii. is P, 
 xviii. is J, and xx. 1-17 is E. In Gen. xvii. and xviii. Abraham 
 and Sarah are so old that the birth of a son to them is an unheard 
 of miracle, yet two chapters later (xx.) Abimelech is enamoured 
 of Sarah and takes her to wife, as Abraham had palmed her off 
 as his sister for fear of his life. — Note also how Gen. xx. (E) 
 makes God warn Abimelech in a dream and saves Sarah, while 
 Gen. xii. 10-20 (J) gives a totally different account. — Compare the 
 different explanations of Isaac's name in Gen. xvii. (P), xviii. (J) 
 and xxi. 6 (E). Similarly E explains the name Joseph as " God 
 hath taken away my reproach" (from Heb. 'asaph "to take 
 away"); J explains it as "may Jehovah add to me another 
 son." (Heb. yasaph " to add.") 
 
 At the end of this chapter we give a list of the 
 Genesis sections belonging to J, E, and P re- 
 spectively. It will be noted that E is not found in 
 Gen. i.-xi. It apparently began its history with 
 Abraham. J and E carry their history certainly 
 down to Joshua's death, " and when we find in Judg. 
 and I Sam. a similar combination of two old narratives 
 possessing much the same characteristics as J and 
 E, the question is at once raised whether these are 
 not to be regarded as the continuation of J and E 
 in Joshua, J and E thus representing, in their original 
 forms, continuous prophetic histories of the nation 
 of Israel down to the foundations of the monarchy, 
 if not further." Closer examination seems to prove 
 that this is the case. (Burney, Judges, xxxviii.) 
 
 Striking and persistent characteristics differentiate 
 J and E the one from the other. Even in our English 
 version, the reader will readily detect a difference in 
 the story-teller's art and manner in each case by 
 comparing e.g. : — 
 
 E 
 
50 MISLEADING ORDER OF BIBLICAL BOOKS 
 
 J's Gen. ii. 4 sqq. (Creation), iii. (Temptation and Fall), iv. 
 (Cain and Abel), xviii.-xix. (God a guest in Abraham's tent, story 
 of Lot and Sodom), xxiv. (Abraham's servant's quest for a wife 
 for Isaac), xxvi. (Isaac in Egypt risks his wife's honour), xxvii. 
 (Jacob deceives his father), xxxiv. (Story of Dinah), , xxxviii. 
 (Judah and Tamar), xxxix. (Joseph and Potiphar's wife), etc., etc. ; 
 And E's : Gen. xx. (Abraham risks his wife's honour), xxi. 8-32 
 (Stories of Hagar, and Beersheba), xxii. 1-14 (Sacrifice of Isaac), 
 xxxi. 4-47 (Jacob's flight from Laban), xl.-xli. (Joseph interprets 
 dreams), xlv.-xlvi. 5 (Joseph reveals himself and sends for his 
 fath^). 
 
 J and E are often closely akin in their ideas and 
 language. Ever simple and natural, their admirable 
 prose narratives are fresh and vivacious, full of rich 
 colour, life and movement, full of exact observation of 
 nature and men, always drawing directly from life, 
 and working on the reader, not by elaborate descrip- 
 tion, but by dramatic presentation of character and 
 action. Their characters are men and women of flesh 
 and blood, and certainly not drawn with a puritanical 
 pen, and often with an undercurrent of dry humour. 
 They tell their tale with sympathy, too intent upon 
 the story itself to point a moral, and all the more 
 effectively appeal to all that is best and truest in the 
 human heart. It is from J and E, with their 
 narratives so full of human interest, so rich in colour 
 and imagination (e.g. the loves of Jacob and Rachel, 
 the story of Joseph) that we must judge of Hebrew 
 literature in its first and best bloom. 
 
 Of the two, J is the more simple, fresh, dramatic. 
 He has more lightness and delicacy of touch and 
 warmth of colouring, producing the finest effects 
 with the fewest strokes, e.g. the scene of Rachel and 
 Jacob at the well (Gen. xxix. 2-12). There is a 
 charming Simplicity, quaint naivety, in the human 
 way in which he speaks of God and makes Him act. 
 Gen, ii., iii.-iv., xviii. are striking instances of God's 
 familiarity with His friends, and His homely way 
 
J MORE SIMPLE AND DRAMATIC THAN E 5 1 
 
 of doing things, in J's exquisite old picture. We see 
 God walking in the Garden in the cool of the day, 
 calling to Adam and Eve to ask where they are, 
 making coats of skins to clothe them, putting a mark 
 on Cain for his protection, shutting the door of the 
 Ark behind Noah, smelling the sweet savour of 
 Noah's sacrifice, coming down to see the tower of 
 Babel, and also to see whether Sodom was as bad as 
 represented (Gen. xi. 5, xyiii. 21). In Gen. xviii. God 
 comes to Abraham's tent, eats of his butter and milk 
 and veal, predicts the birth of a son to aged Sarah, and 
 asks why Sarah laughs at the statement. He wrestles 
 with Jacob in Gen. xxxii. 24 sqq., and seeks to kill 
 Moses, till Zipporah appeases God and saves her 
 husband (Exod. iv. 24 sqq.). In the same spirit J 
 reports the most wonderful events as if they were the 
 most natural things in the world, e.g. God brings the 
 animals to Adam to see what he will call them, Jacob 
 secures speckled herds and brown flocks' by placing 
 straked rods in the troughs, and a wind parts a sea in 
 two. In J heaven and earth blend into one, and his 
 whole atmosphere is full of a sweet poetic fragrance 
 and charm. 
 
 As a story-teller E is little inferior to J, but he is 
 less vivid and picturesque. His God is, if we may 
 say so, more dignified, stands more aloof from man, 
 and usually reveals Himself through heavenly voices, 
 dfeam-visions^ or by means of angels.^ Similarly E 
 explains the wonders of J's fairyland as due to the 
 dirfect intervention of God, and magnifies the miracle. 
 Thus in Gen. xxxi. 4-13, it is God in His Providence 
 who secures an abundance of speckled cattle for 
 Jacob, just as it is God, through the marvel-working 
 rod of Moses, that parts the Red Sea. Again, where 
 J openly reveals his heroes' human foibles, e.g. 
 Abraham's risking his wife's honour, Jacob's deceits, 
 
 ' In Gen. xxviii. 12 they seem to need ladders to go to and from heaven. 
 Contrast to E's "angels" (in verse 12), verse 13 (J), where Jehovah Himself 
 stands at the top of the ladder and speaks. 
 
52 MISLEADING ORDER OF BIBLICAL BOOKS 
 
 Hagar's expulsion, E tones down these objectionable 
 features. Thus in Gen. xvi. 4-6, Hagar's expulsion 
 is due purely to Sarah's jealousy, while in Gen. xxi. 12 
 Abraham is counselled of God to send her away ; even 
 as J in Gen. xii. simply states that Abraham palmed 
 off his wife as his sister in Egypt for fear of his life, 
 whereas E (xx.) is at pains to show how God saw to 
 it from the first that no harm came to Sarah."^ 
 
 Many local touches— e.^. the stress laid on the 
 sanctuaries of Bethel, Shechem, Beersheba, and the 
 prominence given to Joseph, father of Ephraim and 
 Manasseh, — point to the Northern Kingdom as E's 
 home, while similar local touches suggest Judah as J's. 
 From their general religious tone, their toleration of 
 much againstwhichcanonicalprophets ever protested, 
 and their never subordinating their evident interest 
 in their stories to a specifically religious purpose,^ 
 J and E must be earlier than the canonical prophets. 
 Their style and tone stamp their narrative as the 
 work of the early prophetic school. We speak of J 
 and E, but they are not the work of a single hand in 
 either case. The narrative of J in Gen. i.-xi. is 
 clearly composed of two strands, and throughout 
 J and E, from Gen. to Sam., considerable variations 
 are to be found within J and E alike. Each is the 
 outcome of a long literary process, the work of a 
 "school" of like-minded prophetic historians. In 
 their histories, they embodied pre-existing material, 
 
 • Besides the peculiarities noted, J and E have many other distingnisbing 
 characteristics. For instance, E is more of an antiquarian and more learned ; 
 he makes Laban, an Aramaic Syrian, call the boundary cairn Jegarsahadutha, 
 Jacob gives it the good Hebrew name Gal'Ed (Gilead) (Gen, xxxi, 47) ; he 
 knows Egyptian names (xli. 45) ; and refuses to use the name Jehovah till it 
 is revealed to Moses, for fear of anachronism. — E uses "Amorites" for J's 
 " Canaanites " ; Horeb (E) for Sinai (J) ; Jacob (E usually) for Israel (J) ; in J 
 Moses acts by and for himself, in E Aaron, Jethro, Joshua: help him much. 
 In E more is made of prophets than in J, e.g: Abraham, Moses, Miriam 
 are so called. 
 
 ' On the other hand, we must not fancy that J and E endorse all they ' 
 report. They often just repeat tradition without comment of their own. 
 Ancient ceremonies, however, the original meaning of which was forgotten, 
 they interpret in the light of their own day, e.g. Jacob disguising himself wift 
 skins. So of the names of sacred places, Beersheba, Bethel. 
 
"PROPHETIC" DEUTERONOMY 53 
 
 folklore, legends, poems, tradition of various date, 
 transmitted orally (or by writing ^) from very much 
 earlier times, as well as several collections of old laws. 
 
 Such were J and E. The date of J is assumed to 
 be c. 850 B.C., that of E c. 750 b.c. Genesis gives us the 
 best samples of both, but the narratives of Exod. and 
 Numb, also supply many of their masterly pictures. 
 Though they often closely resemble each other, they 
 were written independently, for E did not copy J. 
 Their resemblance is due to the fact that J and E 
 were parallel narratives drawing on a common stock 
 of tradition which had already crystallised into a 
 comparatively fixed form.^ 
 
 As parallel documents with much in common and 
 supplementing each other, the attempt to combine 
 them in a continuous narrative was natural and soon 
 adopted. About 700 b.c. J and E were welded into 
 one narrative JE, and so skilfully that at times it is 
 all but impossible to separate and reconstruct these 
 two sources. JE extends as far as Joshua, but may 
 go further. In JE the prophetic moral and religious 
 element is strong. 
 
 About 650 B.C., as already stated, "prophetic" 
 Deuteronomy was composed. At first it was all but 
 exclusively a Law-Book, beginning at Deut. v. ; v.-xi. 
 expounding the fundamental principles of religion, 
 xii.-xxvi. containing special laws, — laws, however, not 
 systematically and technically stated, but ethically 
 expounded, — and xxviii. as a fitting and effective con- 
 clusion of the whole, a peroration. So it is a Law- 
 Book in a class by itself, hortatory and homiletical 
 thought on the lines of the canonical prophets. It 
 deals mainly with religious reforms and regulations. 
 Both its religious code and its history are based on 
 
 ' A scribe chroniclel was attached to the royal court from David's day on- 
 wards. The earliest books were apparently Lyrics, e.g. "The Books of the 
 Wars-of Jehovah " (Numb. xxi.-i4), " The Book of Jashar " (Josh. x. , 2 Sam. i.). 
 
 ' Both J and E were revised and enlarged by later hands. There were 
 very many editorial revisions of the Hexateuch dovm to, may be, the third 
 century, and consequent additions and alterations. 
 
54 MISLEADING ORDER OF BIBLICAL BOOKS 
 
 JE adapted to the needs and ideas of 650 B.C. The 
 special laws in D, especially xxii. sqq., are similar to 
 those of Exod. xxi.-xxiii., and Lev. xvii.-xxv., and 
 embody ancient custom. Chs. v.-xi. form the core of 
 D and lay down its theocratic principles, embodying 
 the Decalogue of Exod. xx. 
 
 D, as it stands, is not the work of one hand or of 
 one date. The original nucleus (v.-xxvi., xxviii.) has 
 been revised, expanded and modified. " Some little 
 time after the kernel (chs. v.-xxvi., xxviii.) of Dt. was 
 composed, it was enlarged by a second Deuteronomic 
 writer or writers " (Driver). This done, the next 
 stage, during the Captivity, was the inclusion of D in 
 a new edition of JE. This is known as JED. 
 
 During the Exile also, a new body of ritual law, 
 the Code of Holiness, (H) (see p. 47, n. 2 sup), was 
 drawn up, abo&t Ezekiel's day, and probably by a 
 disciple of his. Later still, c. 500 B.C., was written P, 
 (p. 47, sup.) with its great mass of ritual and cere- 
 monial laws. Next, P (including H now) was united 
 with JED., about 420400 B.C., and a new historical 
 setting was written as a framework to P's legislation. 
 " The Editors took P as their basis, and introduced 
 in each period the parts of JE which seemed to them 
 to belong there" (Prof G. Moore).* Not content 
 with its large contribution to the Pentateuch, and the 
 new sacerdotal version of its history, the priestly 
 editors of P " revised the whole Hexateuch, pieced 
 together its writings in such a way as almost every- 
 where to make their own line of thought the founda- 
 tion of the whole, and, wherever possible, to adapt 
 the other writings to their own pattern." 
 
 • » * • « 
 
 The following Table gives Ryle's analysis of J and 
 E in Genesis : — 
 
 ' " Speaking very roughly, P embraces ii chs. in Gen., some 19 in Exod,, 
 all Leu., and 28 chs. in Numb. The Pentateuch, as we now have it, is a fusion 
 of these 8$ chs. with the two far older narratives, and with the Law of D " 
 (Montefiore, H.L., 315). Of course, this does not imply that JE, etc., wrote 
 in chaffers. 
 
P SECTIONS IN PENTATEUCH 55 
 
 T. »« aK . -29. £IS . » 1-5, 12, 16S, IV, 22, 23 , Q 2b, 8a, 6-12. ISS, 20-22 . n 18-27 . 
 
 J-*~4;5j°j7 > ° ■ > y > 
 
 J Q 8-19, 21, 24-30. jjl-9, 28-30. jjl"*""^^- j 5 1-S. '-11«. 12WS . j g lb. 2. J-U . jg . 
 J _ 1-28. 80-38. 3 J. lo, 20, 33. jz'""^- 24" 2 K ^"*' ''"' '^ ^"*'' ^'^ • 2 6 ^"^' '™- ^'' ''' " 
 „»l-16(iiuiiily). 281"' ^'"l"'^''' 2Q^"'^''*'""'''®''^'* 50^"^ ''°^°''''' ^"^^^ ?l''' 
 
 (2^27,3wfl),«,l^. 32«4,^. 33I-17. 34 (largely); 35""^; (i''-^; 
 
 3y)>35 (partly). 38_3g.4238_44 84. 4628_4y5, 13-26, 27., 29-31. 4glb-28a. gQl-ll, U. 
 
 E: IS (portions,^ according to some scholars), e.g. parts of 
 vv. I, 2,3,5 ; 20'""; 21'-^; 221-1*'"; 28 "•'='• "■"•^22. ggiis-w. 30 
 (portions); 3 1 2. *-*'(-• w*) j 32 8,i8!.22. 335M85-20. 351-8.16-20. 3^26-11.14.. is. 
 19. 2^, 28a, 28.-30, 36 . ^q (ghowing somc influencc of J) ; 41 ^"^^ *"'; 42 '"''; 
 4S'-465;48i-2'8-22;soi^»- 
 
 The following is Driver's list of P sections in the 
 Pentateuch'': — 
 
 Gen I to 2*"' e 1-28. 30-32 , g9-22, « 6, 7-9, lS-16a, 18-21, 24 . g l-2a, 3b-S. 14-19 . 
 „1t17,28-29. j_l-7, 20, 22-23,81-32. j j 10-27, 31-32 . jj*"^" j ■j 6, 116-12. . j g 1.. 8, 15-16 . 
 
 17; 1929; 2i"'2'-=; 23; 25'-"»'i^i''i^'^ 26'^;'27«t0 28'; 
 
 2-24,29. ,^186. .jilS.. , .1-2., 4, 6. 8-10, 13-1& 20, 24.25,27-29. 359-13, 15, 226-29. 35 /jj^ 
 
 the main) ; 37'-^; 41 "j 46 ''; 47^"" ""='■ '""• '"-^; 48'-^' "; 49'°' ^^"; 
 50I2-13. 
 
 ^*o^. ii-'' "-"; 2^'^f^; 6^ to ^^'■'^^^'^''-^^, 8^'' "=*-'«; 9^^; 
 
 J - 1-20, 28, 37a, 40-51 . j , 1-2, 20 . j ^^1-4, 8-9, 15-18, 21o, 21c-23. 26-27.. 28., 29 . j g 1-3, 6-24, 31-30 . 
 
 i7»»; 19I-2"; 24i^«»; 25' to 31^^; 34"^'*; 35 to 40. 
 Zev. I to 16 ; (17 to 26) ; 27. 
 Mimd. i4oio^; 131-17., 21, 25-20., 32.. 1^1-2,^,10,26-38. jg. j6i.,26-ii. 
 
 (16-17). 18-24, 27a, 326, 85, (36-10), 41-50 . j- jq jq . 20 1"' -'6,6,12-13,22-29. 2I*«'1''-11- 
 
 22I; as"^"; 26 to 31 ; 32'i^i9.2^'=j 33'to 36. 
 Deut. 32*8-52j 34i..8^. 
 
 ' "It is to be observed that the E passages are first to be identified in the 
 story of Abraham " (Ryle). 
 
 ' A document close akin to P is incorporated in Josh. xiii. iS-xxi. 42. 
 " This document, though of the same character and age as P in the Penta- 
 teuch, cannot be shown to be originally of the same source, and may have 
 originally formed an independent document. The part borne by the Priestly 
 writer in /osA. seems to be somewhat different to that fulfilled by P in the 
 Pentateuch. In Gen.-Num. the narrative of P is to a large extent complete 
 in itself, and forms as it were the framework of the narrative. In Josh, i.-xii. 
 the traces of the Priestly hand are comparatively insignificant, amounting in 
 all to some loj verses " (Burney, Schwdch Led., p. 26 n.). 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 EARLY MAN AND HIS CREED 
 
 If our plea in Chs. I-IV. is sound, two points now 
 stand out: (i) The Bible's one aim is edification, not 
 information ; character-building, not head-knowledge. 
 It is our spiritual guide, not a historical or scientific 
 handbook. " My Bible tells me how to go to heaven, 
 not how the heavens go," said Galileo to his inquisi- 
 tors. (2) The Bible sets truth of idea above truth 
 of fact, and we must read it in the same spirit. We 
 are bound by its judgments of value, but free to 
 challenge its statements of fact. On God, Life, Duty 
 it says all but the last word ; to it we must go for our 
 knowledge of God's will for us. But for our know- 
 ledge of God's methods, how He works in history 
 and Nature, our modern science and our history- 
 books are our true guides. 
 
 This chapter takes us far behind Israel's history 
 to the infancy of man. Yet omit it we cannot. It 
 alone explains that large quaint primitive element 
 which is at the root of every religion in the world. 
 We meet it constantly in Israel's religion in quaint 
 myths, customs, superstitions, which are " survivals " 
 from a lower level of culture, waifs and strays of 
 man's beliefs in the babyhood of the world. For 
 instance, how else can we explain these strange 
 Hebrew beliefs : — Man is formed out of clods, and 
 God breathes the breath of life into his nostrils, 
 while woman is created out of man's rib, "because 
 God saw he was lonely (Gen. ii. 7, 18); Lot's wife 
 turns into a pillar of salt ; Satan is a talking snake ; 
 
 56 
 
FOLK-LORE "SURVIVALS" IN THE BIBLE 57 
 
 Balaam's ass speaks ; God is worshipped as a bull ; 
 angels wed the daughters of men, and giants are 
 born ; God sets a mark upon Cain to stop others 
 from killing him; there are trees of life and know- 
 ledge, and forbidden fruits ; the ashes of a red heifer 
 remove sin, so does the placing of people's sins on 
 the head of a goat and sending it to Azazel, an evil 
 spirit in the desert ^j the belief in spirits lurking 
 everywhere, and in magic and witches ; the ordeal of 
 the "waters of bitterness or jealousy" which will 
 cause a faithless wife's body to swell and her thigh to 
 fall away ; the laws of " uncleanness " ; circumcision 
 so imperative that God "met and sought to kill" 
 Moses for omitting it; the various taboos, to break 
 which means disaster, disease or death, e.g. to eat 
 taboo fruit or touch " holy " (= taboo) objects (e.g. the 
 Ark) or persons (e.^> kings (2 Sam. i. 14, sqq.)) ; ladders 
 to heaven for the use of angels, and God eating butter, 
 milk and veal as Abraham's guest in his tent (Gen. 
 xviii., xxviii.); the magic power of names; Rachel 
 conceiving through eating mandrakes; cutting one- 
 self, shaving the hair, wearing sackcloth after a death, 
 necromancy, etc., etc. ? 
 
 Such passages — and they can be indefinitely 
 multiplied — read like so many pages out of Tylor's 
 Primitive Culture" or Frazer's Golden Bough? So 
 
 ' See Estlin Carpenter, Comparative Religion, in " Home University 
 Library " series, pp. 204-207, where this vicarious transference of sin to the 
 bodies of men, animals, and objects, is well illustrated by instances all over 
 the world. 
 
 ' This MS. was ready for press before Frazer's classic, Folklore in the O.T., 
 appeared. I meant to re-write this chapter and incorporate much of Frazer's 
 valuable matter, but critics advise me to let it stand as it is. Frazer's book 
 is, in discreet hands, invaluable to the Bible student. He flashes a powerful 
 sidelight from Primitive Culture on, e.g. : why it is forbidden to seethe a kid 
 in its mother's milk, (by sympathetic magic it hurts the cow and her milk) ; 
 or to leap on the threshold (Zeph. i. 9), (because it angers the spirits of theldead 
 buried under it) ; or to number the people ; why some slaves have their ears 
 bored ; why Jacob disguised himself with skins ; why an ox that gored was 
 stoned and his master put to death ; why priests had tinkling golden bells on 
 their robes, (to frighten away bad spirits). Specially interesting are Frazer's 
 chapters on j'acob : why he inherits before his elder brother (ultimogeniture, 
 of. the borongh-English custom), or marries the elder sister first and the next 
 as a matter of course, and serves Laban for his two wives. Bearing on what 
 we say in the text of spirits leaving the body in dreams, etc., is Frazer's 
 
58 EARLY MAN AND HIS CREED 
 
 they are. They are survivals of days when the 
 remote ancestors of Israel were, as in all other races, 
 rude savages ; and only a knowledge of primitive 
 man's beliefs can give us the key to them. Here we 
 need not go back to man's earliest or pre-animistic 
 stage, when man knew himself only as body and not 
 soul. How he came to know he had a spirit or soul 
 is still a moot point. The trance or dream theory at 
 present still holds the field.^ Men, animals, objects 
 are seen in dreams and trances. Therefore, says 
 primitive man : When I sleep I go to distant places, 
 see distant people, even see and speak with the dead. 
 So, beside my body-self, I have another self, "pale 
 and soft so that if any one tries to grasp it he feels 
 nothing " ; when I sleep, that " me " leaves my body, 
 travels in a moment any distance, and goes on its 
 own business. In death the spirit quits its body- 
 home. But its old body is still its very own, so long 
 as a particle of it is left ; so is its tomb. It hovers 
 around them, haunts them, and expects to find its 
 food and drink ready for it there. Woe betide any 
 one, especially a relative, who fails in his duty to the 
 spirit or its other self, its corpse ! Both by reason 
 of the mystery (baffling to savages) and horror of 
 death to early man, and also out of sheer terror of 
 the dead man's ghost, a human corpse^— and any 
 corpse— is to him the superlative type of awful power 
 for evil. So is blood ; it literally " shrieks from the 
 ground" for vengeance (Gen. iv. lo, sqq.), and though 
 
 explanation of I Sam. xxv. 29 : "... the soul of my lord shall be boundin the 
 bundle of life " the early belief that souls can be extracted from their bodies hy 
 owners, friends, or witches, to be tied up in a bundle for safety in friendly 
 hands, or, in hostile hands, the bundle could be undone and the souls 
 scattered to the winds. 
 
 ' Does the dream or trance explanation satisfy ? If man's personalitjr, 
 soul, spirit, " the immortal centre in us all," the god within us, be really spirit 
 of God's Spirit, " thirsting after God," restless till it finds its rest in Hinii 
 groping darkly after Him, a soul hungry and homesick, then, surely, here is 
 our key. Even neolithic man was not without an inner prompter (" His the 
 gentle voice we hear, soft as the breath of e'en . . . that speaks of heaven "). 
 The soul whispered, conscious man overheard, and dream or trance simply 
 gave a body to the subconscious inspiration. Hence the universal idea of 
 something after death, however vague, 
 
TABOOS, AND SPIRITS 59 
 
 the earth " opens her mouth to receive it," it poisons 
 and sickens her, and she cannot be healed except by 
 the blood of him that shed it (Numb. xxxv. 33, of. 
 Job xvi. 18, Ezek. xxiv. 6-Z). Thus corpses (Numb, 
 xix.) and exposed blood, even animals' blood (Lev. 
 xvii. 13), are very much tahoo, " unclean," much to be 
 shunned : " Do not touch or meddle with it, or woe 
 betide you!" This is the true meaning oi taboo or 
 "unclean." Unclean is noi a sanitary term (see 
 Frazer, " Taboo," Enc. Brit). It means " charged with 
 curse-power." Moreover, any person or object 
 infected with the virulence of the curse passes it on 
 to others, infects them with his " uncleanness," so is 
 put out of bounds as a positive source of danger to 
 all and any. 
 
 Spirits loom large to primitive man. The air 
 teems with spirits potent to help or, oftener, to hurt. 
 They hover all round and can enter, singly or in 
 troops, into man, animal, or object.^ Fertility or 
 barrenness, health or disease, accident or death, are 
 their work. A tree or boulder falls on a man, a bad 
 spirit lurked in it waiting for him to pass. Spirits 
 are riot always homeless; after a while they either 
 re-enter another body or go to a large pit in the 
 bowels of the earth. Their power to help or hurt 
 still remains. Hence ancestor-worship, chief-worship, 
 animal-worship.^ 
 
 Besides dead men's " spirits," there are other and 
 greater " spirits." Sun, moon, stars, wind, sea are 
 persons even as we. The Sun is a big man or giant, 
 the rays are his arrows ; when angry, his fierce and 
 burning arrows spread disease, famine, and death; 
 when friendlj', his arrows drive away the rain-gods 
 
 * Hence the law (Numb, xix. 14 sqq.) ordering all open vessels to be 
 covered on a death, though the Jews had forgotten the original meaning of the 
 custom. Funeral customs teem with survivals of early man's fear of ghosts. 
 Mourning ceremonies, dress, etc., were naive attempts at disguise, etc., to 
 mislead the ghost. 
 
 * Many tribes trace their descent from animals or plants ( = dumb animals), 
 and these "totems "are "holy," taboo, in their eyes. Persons of the same 
 totem may not intermarry (Frazer, " Totemism," Enc. Brit.), 
 
6o EARLY MAN AND HIS CREED 
 
 and storm-gods, and man's crops and herds thrive. 
 The Moon is the Sun's wife,i the Sea a huge snake- 
 monster, Fire an animal that bites. When a thunder- 
 storm is seen approaching in S. Africa, a whole 
 Kaffir village, led by its medicine-man, will rush to 
 the nearest hill, beat tom-toms, and yell at the Storm- 
 Spirit to divert him from his course. In the same 
 spirit early man would cut at the hot Wind of the 
 desert with his sword, hurl his spear into the swollen 
 River, stab the Earth, flog the Sea, shoot his arrows 
 at the Clouds or the scorching Sun,^ and build up 
 towers to carry Heaven by assault, or adorn a hand- 
 some or holy Tree with bracelets like a girl. A 
 natural force or power without body and personality 
 is an idea utterly beyond early man's comprehension. 
 Trees grow and bear children ; rivers run and steal 
 men and cows and huts ; the sun gets up and goes to 
 bed, and hurts or is kind, — because they are living 
 persons just as ourselves. Disease is a demon who 
 has entered the body, fights with man's spirit, and is 
 either beaten and driven out by man's spirit or the 
 demon goes off with it. By an effort of imagination 
 to-day, we speak of the Sun as a giant rejoicing to 
 run his course ; early man was in dead earnest in his 
 belief that the Sun was a giant. 
 
 Hence, naturally, looking upon wells and trees 
 and stones and everything as alive, invisible may be, 
 yet persons like himself and usually as arbitrary, he 
 lived in fairy-land or demon-land every moment of 
 his life. Everything that fills the savage with awe, 
 admiration, wonder, all that strikes him as unusual 
 and strange— and this includes most phenomena — he 
 
 ' But the Semitic Moon-god (Sin) is masculine, and many scholars identify 
 Yahweh (Jehovah) of Sinai with the Moon-god Sin (see Burney, Judg. 249 sqq.). 
 
 ' Just as our rudimentary organs {e.g. canine teeth, appendix, tail-bone), 
 are physical "survivals," so we retain mental survivals of the childhood of 
 our race. Who has not felt an impulse of hatred, or even expressed it in a 
 curse, against a sudden rainstorm or gust of wind, or an object that has hurt 
 one ? or a pang of pity for a flower torn and trampled in the dust ? Such 
 emotions, momentary in adults, more real in chil$lren, are survivals of a day 
 when we, too, were early men. 
 
SPIRIT-POSSESSION 6l 
 
 at once sets down to the presence of some invisible 
 superhuman being acting in a mysterious way. His 
 wife has a child, because a "spirit" seeking a home 
 entered into her as she passed his hiding-place. His 
 herds multiply, his crops thrive, — or the reverse, — 
 and all the credit or blame is due to friendly or harmful 
 spirits. Strange music — especially the buzzing of 
 the " bull-roarer " — is the voice of an angry god. A 
 stone peculiar in shape, size, or colour — a monolith, 
 volcanic boulder, bit of quartz— has "eaten ghost," 
 and becomes a "fetish" or "god." He carries it 
 about with him, and his sling, arrow, or spear kills 
 much game ; but if his " fetish " fails him, he discards 
 or beats it. Or he places stones round his hut or 
 crop, tells them to hurt strangers and bless all that 
 is his, and fully believes that they hear and do 
 accordingly (Gen. xxxi. 44 sqq.).^ 
 
 Primitive man's whole idea of the world is that of 
 a irealm wholly given over to the caprices of arbitrary 
 friendly or hostile powers. His one aim is to make 
 good spirits his allies, and propitiate or counteract 
 the evil demons. Most spirits are evil and savage 
 like himself, but the Nature-gods, Sun, Wind, Rain, 
 are sometimes good and kind. With a blend of 
 affection and dread he comes to them with prayers 
 and gifts, to plead or bribe. 
 
 Spirits, like men, set apart certain objects and 
 persons for their own special property and use, e.g. 
 a particular animal, food, tree, individual, tribe. 
 These instantly become "holy," taboo; whoso lays 
 hand on them is " accursed," under the wrath and ban 
 of the deity. Thus almost everywhere kings, chiefs, 
 priests, medidine-men are sacrosanct, "anointed," 
 
 '_ Frazer well brings out the original meaning of stones and cairns as 
 " witnesses " of a covenant or agreement (e.g. between Laban and Jacob ; cf. 
 Joshua). In very early days, the covenanting parties really attribute life ancl 
 consciousness to the stones, and call upon them to witness the agreement, as 
 in the Laban- Jacob and Joshua stories in Gen. xxxi. and Josh. xxiv. 26 sqq. 
 By sympathetic magic the bond was also strengthened and tightened by 
 absorbing the strength and solidity of the stones. To this day in Guernsey 
 certain projecting boundary-stones in walls are called " t^moins" (witnesses). 
 
62 EARLY MAN AND HIS CREED 
 
 taboo ; a whale tribe may be thus set apart. Anyone 
 who touches them touches the god, for the two are 
 now one. To show they are the god's property and 
 under his protection, they bear his mark in their 
 body, e.g. tattoo, filed teeth, a finger cut off. A world- 
 wide god-mark is circumcision. Thus his God meets 
 Moses and seeks to kill him for not bearing that mark 
 (Ex. iv. 24) ; and in proof of its stone-age antiquity, 
 note how both Zipporah and Joshua (v. 2-9) use 
 flints for the operation. 
 
 Among taboos, a god's name is specially so. In 
 olden times, names were not looked upon as mere 
 labels detachable from their owner ; they were viewed 
 as part and parcel of the person to whom they be- 
 longed, as much so as his flesh and blood, and a pro- 
 found meaning and magical power was attached to 
 them. This gave rise to strange fancies. It was 
 thought that any one who knew and correctly uttered 
 the true name of a god had magical power over him. 
 Hence gods and men took the greatest care to safe- 
 guard their names*1i?^fn wrong use. The best plan 
 was not to let anybody know it. Thus i;i Gen. xxxii. 
 29, and 27, after the wrestle between God and Jacob, 
 God asks Jacob his name and is told it, but when 
 Jacob asks : " Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name," God's 
 answer is : " Why askest thou after My name ? " and 
 He blesses Jacob but will not tell him His name. Or 
 if his votaries knew their god's name, it was kept 
 very secret, and to be uttered even by intimates only 
 in the most inner circles and very seldom. Thus, 
 even in historical times, Jehovah's name could only 
 be uttered on the great Day of Atonement in the 
 inmost temple and by the High Priest.^ Possibly the 
 Third Commandment originally had this secrecy in 
 view. Another plan, with' early men, to hide their 
 names, was to have several others, wrong names or 
 names not so intimately connected with them, so as 
 
 ' So secret was the name of Jehovah, as we call Him, kept, that its pro- 
 nunciation was utterly forgotten. 
 
GIFTS, MAGIC, AND SPELLS 63 
 
 to throw people off the right scent. Hence the more 
 names of a god or man one knew and could address 
 him by, the better, for thus was one likely not to 
 omit the "name of power" which gave a strong hold 
 on him. Thus a god's " name " was very " holy " or 
 taboo. 
 
 Gifts, magic, and spells are most potent to please, 
 appease, and have power with spirits. 
 
 Gifts are the natural and commonest way every- 
 where. Food comes first with savages living from 
 hand to mouth by the chase, and their natural idea is 
 that spirits are as hungry as themselves. If the 
 omens show that the spirit spurns the offering, {e.g. 
 as in Cain's offering,) he is angry; if (as in Noah's 
 sacrifice) the spirit "smells the sweet savour and 
 says in his heart: I will not curse the sacrificer 
 again," all is well. Also, as with men, so with spirits, 
 to eat with them binds them to you and you to them. 
 Magic and spells, however, are still more potent, 
 both with gods and men. We shall take magic in its 
 power on man first, for this gave the idea of its 
 universal potency. A savage medicine-man makes a 
 rough image of a man, puts it on a slow fire and 
 utters the spell : " I am burning the heart, liver and 
 spleen of So-and-so " ; or he wants to help or hurt 
 some one, cause or expel disease, trace guilt, etc., 
 and he gives them a strange potion or an amulet 
 made potent by the proper spell ; or he wishes to 
 make an agreement binding, and he hacks a victim to 
 pieces, uttering the spell : " So be it done, and more 
 also, to him who breaks the covenant," — and his 
 magic often works. We know how very credulous 
 and susceptible to suggestion are children, ignorant 
 people, and savages, and we can realise how these 
 awe-ful magic rites and spells so hypnotise and im- 
 press their victims that they have the desired effect. 
 The savage is not only a good actor but a good 
 spectator. When the medicine-man affirms that such 
 and such horrors or blessings are to be his lot, he 
 
64 EARLY MAN AND HIS CREED 
 
 meets that lot more than half way and actualises it 
 by the terror or confidence it inspires. Through self- 
 suggestion, the denounced so-and-so sees himself— 
 not the mere symbol of him— tortured, and he pines 
 away and dies; the magic potion or amulet has 
 " eaten ghost," and must help or hurt ; the covenant- 
 breaker is sure he is under the spirits' ban, and comes 
 to a sad end. Such repeated proofs of their efficacy 
 convince medicine-man and people alike that magic 
 rites and spells do work with power. If they seem to 
 fail, it is only because the other party has more potent 
 counteracting magic. Thus Aaron (Ex. vii. 9 sqq.) 
 not only turns his rod into a snake, like the Egyptian 
 magicians, but his swallows theirs. Primitive man 
 argues : If magic and spell are thus potent with men, 
 so also with spirits. Thus in New Caledonia sunshine 
 is made by kindling a fire and the spell : " Sun, I do 
 this that you may be burning hot " ; and plague is 
 averted thus : " Ha ! Spirit of death-dealing fever, 
 we fling you into the water, like these torches." ^ 
 
 Magic working through good spirits or for good 
 ends is white magic, and the medicine-man's rites and 
 spells are then akin to the religious priest's ritual and 
 prayers ; if through evil spirits or for evil ends, it is 
 black magic, and the medicine-man is first-cousin to 
 the wizard. Indeed, the primitive medicine-man is 
 usually medicine-man, priest, magician and seer. He 
 combines all the r6les of Deut. xviii. 10, 11, and 
 " maketh to pass through fire, useth divination, is an 
 observer of times, an enchanter, a wizard, a charmer, 
 a consulter with familiar spirits, a necromancer," He 
 is fully believed by himself and others to be " god- 
 possessed." Under the "spirit's" influence, stimu- 
 iated by fasting or drugs or loud music and dancing, 
 
 ' Babylonian religious literature, which was already full-grown in Hammu- 
 rabi's day {c. 2000 B.C., the Bible names him as Abraham's contemporary — 
 Amraphel), then remained stationary, is the half-way house between early man 
 and the O.T. In the Babylonian sacred books we get magic, incantations, 
 spells, omehs, ritual, etc., close akin to early man's, indeed, often exactly the 
 same. In the O.T. we meet them all again, but the prophetic writers have 
 toned them down in many cases. 
 
EARLY MAN'S VERSION OF CREATION>^«*ETC. 65 
 
 he works himself into ecstatic frenzy, collapses in a 
 trance, sees and reveals things hidden to others. 
 Gifted with second sight these men undoubtedly 
 often are (see A. Lang, Making of Religion, ch. iv.), 
 though savages are apt tricksters. As with Samuel 
 the seer, men consult them fee in hand, " for all they 
 say is sure to come to pass " (i Sam. ix. 6 sqq.). 
 
 As to how the world and man and death came 
 into being, early man's views are equally quaint. 
 Almost everywhere, the spirits form man out of 
 clay,^ making a figure of clay and breathing life into 
 it. Death and disease are due to the breaking of a 
 tahoo. Thus in Australia a woman was. forbidden to 
 approach a tree where dwelt a bat. She went near 
 it, the bat flew away, and men thereafter died. The 
 Ningphoos were banished from their paradise and 
 became mortal, because one bathed in forbidden water. 
 Universally, early man creates the world out of some- 
 thing already existing, e.g. out of a fragment of soil 
 fished out of the Big Waters, or out of the Big Water 
 itself, even as Gen. i. presupposes (i) darkness, (2) a 
 chaotic watery abyss, (3) air. Gen. i. bears even now 
 the clearest traces of its older form, representing the 
 Big Waters (Tehdm) as a monster serpent which a 
 god cut in half, and out of one half made the dome of 
 heaven (see Ch. VI. sub fin.). 
 
 Naturally, men who see in Sun, Wind, Sea, not 
 only persons, but savage persons as arbitrary as 
 themselves ; who believe that spirits can change 
 themselves and men into animals, plants, stones ; and 
 that the capricious will ^ of these arbitrary spirits 
 decides, anything and everything from moment to 
 moment, be it a thunderstorm or a stomach-ache,^ 
 such men will credit anything. Primitive man sees 
 nothing incredible in the spirits or their agent, the 
 
 ' When J in Gen. ii. 7 says that " the Lord God created man {adam) of 
 dust from the ground " (adamak), he evidently connects adam with adamah, 
 implying that Adam means "earth-born." The two terms, however, are 
 hardly to be philologically connected. 
 
66 EARLY MAN AND HIS CREED 
 
 medicine-man, causing solid iron to float, or streams 
 to split asunder to let men pass, or dead men to rise. 
 It is all on a level with much else in his strange daily 
 experience, uncanny every moment. 
 
 If early man's mind was crude, still more his 
 moral sense or conscience, and for this reason. To 
 - get bare food by the chase, and ward off death by 
 man or beast, was his one concern ; for this, cunning 
 and strength of body his essential need. The struggle 
 for bare existence took up all his time and all his wits. 
 He had none to spare for the higher life of being 
 good, which did not pay then. So strength and 
 cunning came easily first and conscience nowhere. 
 Savages to-day are in culture far ahead of primitive 
 man, yet when a modern Bechwana was asked what 
 it is " to be good," puzzled awhile he answered : " To 
 be good is to have a wife and cows and to steal your 
 neighbour's wife and cows." To Australian aborigines 
 the words "good" and "bad" only refer to bodily 
 taste and comfort. " Conscience," says Burton, " does 
 not exist in E. Africa. Repentance expresses regret 
 for missed opportunities of mortal crime. Robbery 
 constitutes an honourable man. Murder — the Imore 
 atrocious the midnight crime the better — makes the 
 hero." Only so much moral sense is asked for as 
 constitutes honour among thieves. The only law is 
 " tribal custom " ; any breach of it means expulsion, 
 every man's hand against you, and the tribal god's 
 dire curse. Even in the Judges' period, "no such 
 thing is zvoni to be done in Israel " was final. Every- 
 where "custom" exacted "eye for eye, life for life"; 
 vendetta was its code of honour ; some trace of 
 honesty or humanity inside the clan, but robbery, 
 lying, violence and even murder to all outside it, was 
 its policy. We shall see manifold instances of this 
 "particularism" in the Old Testament, a primitive 
 trait which dies hard in us all.^ 
 
 ' Cf. Bishop of Catlhle, ffibbert yournal,j3.n,, igig, p. 204: "Hitherto 
 nationhood has been exclusiveness, patriotism national selfishness, ensuring our 
 
O.T. SURVIVALS OF EARLY MAN'S CREED 67 
 
 Like all others, the Hebrew race passed through 
 this primitive stage, shared these beliefs, and never 
 quite forgot them. They are hardy plants and thrive 
 with us to-day.^ Hence Hebrew belief in spirits, 
 magic, witchcraft, demon-possession, exorcism, ne- 
 cromancy (Deut. xviii. 10, 11); their tendency to 
 worship sun, moon, stars (Deut. iv. 19); their idea of 
 certain stones, trees, wells, groves, heights as " houses 
 of god " ; their devils and gods in animal shape (Gen. 
 iii. i; Deut. iv. 16 sqq. ; Exod. xxxii., etc.); their idea 
 of taboo trees, ark, corpses, foods, even captive foes 
 and their belongings, as God's property {Gen. iii. 3 ; 
 2 Sam.vi. 6,7; Josh.vi.17 sq.); their strange ordeals and 
 recipes for removing " uncleanness," so reminiscent 
 of the medicine-man (Numb. xix. ; v. 15 sqq.); their 
 making their children pass through fire (Deut. xviii. ; 
 2 Kgs. xvi. 3 ; xxi. 6) ; and their law : " every first issue 
 of the womb among men and cattle " is " devoted " to 
 Jehovah (originally sacrificed) (Exod. xiii. 2, 12-16; cf. 
 Mic. vi. 7) ; and their tradition of a day when the first- 
 born was sacrificed by the builder of a house or city 
 and laid under the threshold or foundation-stone (Zeph. 
 i. 9 ; Josh. vi. 26), etc., etc. (see also Note, p. 69). 
 
 Some will say : " This may ail be true, but does it 
 not belittle our idea of Bible and Religion ? " Just the 
 reverse! Which is the more inspiring, the Eden 
 picture of man's degeneration from angel to brute, or 
 Evolution's picture of man's ascent from brute angel- 
 ward?^ Has evolution lowered our idea of God, 
 
 strength by others' weakness, our honour and glory by the shame and abase- 
 ment of others." And can it truly be said either of Christian nations or 
 Churches to-day : " See how these Christians love one another " ? 
 
 ' E.g. are mascots, belief in witchcraft and exorcism, ghosts, superstitions 
 about upsetting salt, sitting 13 at table, unlucky Fridays, evil eye, etc., etc., 
 Unknown to-day ? 
 
 * AH the same, as one of my ctitics points out, Romanes' difficulty ever 
 crops up : " Why 100,000 years of animalism and savagery ? True, at the end 
 we come to an Isaiah, Socrates, Shakespeare ; but what of the misery and 
 suffering of the savages themselves at whose cost we have reached our present 
 stage ? The ' Fall' was a gloomy doctrine, but it had its redeeming points." 
 He is right. Like the whole problem of evil, this puzzle is insoluble with our 
 present knowledge. Job's (xxxviii.-xlii. 7) frame of^mind is the present writer's 
 own attitude towards it. 
 
68 EARLY MAN AND HIS CREED 
 
 Nature or man by showing us one continuous upward 
 trend, with God at the source and helm of it all, a 
 trend upward from next-to-nothing beginnings to the 
 world of values we know ? As we see the infinite 
 trouble and patient pains God has taken with man's 
 education, the more do we believe in man's and our 
 own great possibilities in the loving hands of such a 
 Father. It braces us to actualise those immense pos- 
 sibilities and become what we are, children of God, to 
 "come to ourselves," as sons of God made in His image. 
 
 Really, we know not anything as we ought, or to 
 any purpose, till we know how it has come to be what 
 it is. Childish as early man's ideas seem to us, by 
 them we have climbed to our present outlook. The 
 beginnings of writing, mathematics, science, were all 
 rudimentary, yet they interest us profoundly and 
 excite scorn only in foolish minds. Just as the man 
 who invented the ABC was a creative genius of the 
 first rank, so was he who discovered the alphabet of 
 the moral law, or the first man whose heart-thrill of 
 awe made him see a superhuman something in thunder 
 or storm. We curl the lip at Sun-personification, 
 spirits, magic, taboo. God rejoiced to see it; He 
 prompted it. Thus early was He inspiring man, giving 
 " a divine impulse to man's own thoughts," suggesting 
 simple ideas which, ugly as they seem, will of them- 
 selves grow into ever deeper truths and ideals. One 
 and all of these early creeds were but " the baby 
 figures of the giant mass of things to come." hook 
 to the end, it crowns all and explains all. 
 
 Nature-worship led through Nature to Nature's 
 God ; the wide world over, it was at Mother Nature's 
 knees man learnt his first lessons of God. Out of 
 early man's idea of a phantom " double " of himself, 
 his wraith, sprang his belief in an undying soul. His 
 awe of superhuman beings, even demon-spirits, was 
 the seed of his belief in a Personal God. Taboo was 
 his first lesson in reverence and respect for others' 
 rights of property. Magic was his first step to a 
 
RELIGION IN THE MAKING 69 
 
 relationship with a deity; spell. and incantation his 
 first prayer and praise. The bloody ritual of early 
 sacrifices repels us, the common meal with a god 
 makes us smile ; yet in these lies the root-idea of all 
 religion,— fellowship with God and man. Our beautiful 
 faith in the Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of 
 Man is but the ripe fruit of this ugly seed sown in 
 man's infancy and long watered with the blood of 
 degrading sacrifices. 
 
 Baptise these primitive ideas into God, press them 
 into His service, and you start them on a career of 
 moral and spiritual development which makes them at 
 last the fit expression of the highest religious ideals, 
 as Gen. i.-iii. proves, for it turns their clay into gold. 
 But between primitive man and Genesis the interval 
 is big. In this interval, first Babylonia, then Sinai, 
 stamped indelibly on Israel its distinctive character- 
 istics, as the two following chapters show. 
 
 Supplementary Note To p. 67. 
 
 While correcting this proof-sheet, my attention has been called to 
 Ezek. viii. with its weird picture of primitive cults in a secret chamber of the 
 Temple as late as Jgo B.C. It gives us three scenes. (l) The ^^ chamber of 
 imagery'" : In a side-court, with the "image of jealousy" at its entry, the 
 prophet comes to a hole in the wall, digs into it, and finds a door to a dark 
 cave. There he sees " every form of creeping things and abominable beasts," 
 and " idols," portrayed on the walls round about, and 70 elders with a priest 
 in their midst, " every man with a censer in his hand," performing their black 
 rites in secret. — The cave, pictures, rites, strongly reproduce the wall-paintings, 
 magic, and totemism of palaeolithic cave-men and of Arunta natives to-day. 
 (2) Tammuz worship : At the N. door of the Temple, " behold there sat the 
 women weeping for Tammuz," i.e. the god of vegetation killed by the Sun's 
 fiery arrows. (3) Sun-worship: He sees 25 men "with their backs to the 
 Temple of the Lord, and they worshipped the Sun towards the east," with ^ 
 strange ritual : " and lo, they put the branch to their nose»" 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 BABYLONIA, ITS INFLUENCE ON ISRAEL 
 
 " The rediscovery of Babylonia and Assyria through 
 recent excavations has thrown much light on the 
 origin of the traditions and early beliefs of the 
 Hebrews ; it has demonstrated that Hebrew history 
 is unintelligible without constant recourse to the data 
 obtained from cuneiform literature." ..." Babylonia 
 by virtue of early associations and by almost con- 
 tinuous contact, though closer at some periods than 
 at others, is a most important element in Hebrew 
 life and thought." "We arer~-safe in placing the 
 Hebrews among the immigrants who drank deep of 
 Babylonian culture" (Jastrow, Heb. and Bab. Trad., 
 viii., ix., and p. 23). 
 
 Babylonia's influence on Hebrew thought is fully 
 admitted to-day. Hence this chapter in a history of 
 Israel. But what we want to know is at what period 
 or periods Babylonia's contact most influenced 
 Hebrew thought, (i) Was it in Abraham's day in 
 Ur of the Chaldees and in Harran (Gen. xi. 31)? 
 or (2) on Israel's arrival in Canaan? or (3) from 
 734-586 B.C. and during the Exile? Of course, there 
 is a possible fourth alternative : Babylonia, Israel; and 
 Canaan have all three very much in common as to 
 religion, customs and ideas, because they are all 
 Semites from the same cradle. The relationship 
 between Babylonia and Israel is much closer than 
 this, but let us take this clue first, for it will lead us 
 some way to our real goal. 
 
 70 
 
THREE WAVES OF SEMITIC MIGRATION 7 1 
 
 Babylonians (and Assyrians, their children), Ca- 
 naanites, and Aramaeans (and their offshoot, Hebrews) 
 are all Semites ^ whose original cradle is now admitted 
 to be central Arabia. As nomad Arabs they migrated 
 from Arabia in three movements, which are to be 
 viewed not as one big wave of invaders, but as a 
 series of waves lasting a very long period. The 
 Babylonian wave came first. Already in 3000 b.c. we 
 see these Semitic Arab invaders firmly settled in, 
 and owning, Akkad (N. Babylonia) under the famous 
 Sargon, who founded his Semitic dynasty and 
 extended his empire to the Mediterranean, including 
 Canaan. Now, as these Semites had by 3000 b.c. 
 ousted the original inhabitants from N. Babylonia, 
 driven them to Sumer (S. Babylonia),, assimilated the 
 advanced civilisation of the Sumerians,^ and already 
 established an imperial dynasty, they must clearly 
 have established themselves in Babylonia long before 
 3000 B.C. Their occupation of N. Babylonia indicates 
 that they entered it either by coming through Canaan 
 and Northern Syria or by following the West bank of 
 the Euphrates. 
 
 The Canaanite migration came next. Semites are 
 in possession of Canaan as far back as we know. A 
 Semitic wave from Arabia moving northward, then 
 westward, both founded the First Dynasty at Babylon 
 (2275-1926) of which the famous Hammurabi (2123- 
 2081) is a king, and also peopled the region to the 
 West of the Euphrates, including the iVIediterranean 
 seaboard. This whole district was known as "the 
 land of the Amurru " (= Amorites). It is impossible 
 to distinguish between these Amorites and Canaanites, 
 
 ' Semites maybe divided thus : E. Semites = Babylonians (and Assyrians) ; 
 — W. Semites = "men of Amurru," i.e. Canaanites and Amorites, hard to 
 differentiate; Aramaeans (and Hebrews); — Central Semites = Arabians ; — S. 
 Semites = Sabssans and Ethiopian Semites. 
 
 * Some scholars, e.g. Jastrow, Meyer, Price, say the Semites preceded the 
 Sumerians, but the weight of authority is against them, and, as Pinches points 
 out, so is the evidence of the oldest monuments where figures, with head and 
 face dean shaven, i.e. non-Semitic, precede those of the Semitic period in 
 dironological order. — Yet, strangely, the Snmerian deities are bearded. 
 
72 BABYLONIA, ITS INFLUENCE ON ISRAEL 
 
 if there is any racial distinction. " The Amorite or 
 West Semitic tongue was the ancestor of the Hebrew 
 language of later times, cf Is. xix. i8 " (Burney, Judges, 
 Ixi.), Now Babylonia's sway often extended to the 
 Mediterranean (e.g. under Sargon c. 3000 B.C.), and 
 Hammurabi's title " King of the Amurru " indicates 
 that it did also in 2100 B.C. Sargon already had 
 realised the value of the "Cedar Forest "( = Lebanon) 
 and the "Silver Mountains" ( = Taurus), and com- 
 mercial enterprise as well as conquest made this 
 " land of the Amurru " very valuable to Babylonia. 
 One plain fact which speaks volumes for Babylonia's 
 influence in Canaan is that — as the Tell-el-Amarna 
 Letters tell us — the Babylonian language and 
 cuneiform script were the official medium of inter- 
 course in Canaan, Syria, and Western Asia about 
 1400 B.C. Evidently Babylonian culture and in- 
 fluence in Canaan were pronounced, and the ties 
 binding the Euphrates Valley with Canaan very 
 close, from at least 2000-1400 B.c. (King, Schweich 
 Lect, 9 sq.). 
 
 We can draw the link between Babylonia and 
 Israel closer still and far more directly. Israel's own 
 tradition (Gen. x., xi.) looked persistently to Baby- 
 lonia as the cradle of their own race. They regarded 
 themselves, rightly, as of Aramsean stock (Deut. 
 xxvi. 5, R.V.), and Ur of the Chaldees and Harran in the 
 Euphrates Valley as their ancestral home (Gen. xi. 
 31). This is true in so far as nomad Arab tribes, 
 personified in Abraham, settled awhile in Babylonia, 
 and formed part of what is known as the third or 
 Aramaean Semitic wave. This movement consisted 
 in a gradual working up of Arabian tribes along the 
 desert or western side of the Euphrates towards 
 Syria their eventual goal. Hebrew tradition insists 
 that some of these nomad Aramaean tribes— the 
 Terahites — settled awhile in Ur, W. of the Euphrates, 
 then, crossing the river, settled more definitely in 
 Harran. Jastrow makes a strong case for this 
 
' HEBREWS SETTLE IN BABYLONIA 73 
 
 tradition of Ur and Harran ^ as Terahite stopping- 
 places in the movement which eventually brought 
 them to Palestine, As he points out {Heb. and 
 Bab. Trad., 19-23), the Genesis tradition of an old 
 Hebrew settlement in Babylonia indicates a deep- 
 rooted and permanent impress made upon the 
 Hebrews during their stay in Babylonia. He con- 
 cludes that the sojourn there "was not a short 
 one, not a mere passage of nomadic hordes on their 
 way from Arabia to Syria, . . . but a relatively per- 
 manent settlement involving partial assimilation to 
 the ways of the country, and we are safe in placing 
 the Hebrews among the immigrants who drank deep 
 of Babylonian culture, even though they relapsed 
 into the life of pastoral nomads when with other 
 Semites they passed into Syria and Palestine." In 
 1400 B.C., so the Tell-el-Amarna tablets tell us, 
 Habiru,^ nomads forming part of the great Aramaean 
 movement, are flocking into Syria-Palestine, and 
 taking forcible possession of many of its cities, 
 Shechem included. 
 
 Thus far three facts stand out : (i) Babylonians, 
 Canaanites, Hebrews, are all of one stock, Semitic 
 Arabs, and, even on this ground, will have much in 
 common; (2) Jastrow seems right in his conviction 
 that Hebrews settled in Babylonia and there " drank 
 deep of Babylonian culture"; or how are we to 
 account for the deep-rooted Hebrew tradition? (3) 
 Canaan, from 2000-1400 b.c. at least, was in direct 
 
 ' Very great and important religious and political centres in the days of 
 Hammurabi (" Amraphel, King of Shinar," Gen. xiv, l), " Abraham's " con- 
 temporary in 2123-2081 B.C. 
 
 ' See Burney, Judges, Ixxiv. sqq., for cogent reasons for identification of 
 Habiru with Hebrews. — On leaving Babylonia, and en route Canaanwards, the 
 Hebrews comprised Israel, Edom, Moab, Ammon of later days. Hence the 
 Bible calls Edom Israel's brother, and Moab and Ammon Israel's cousins. 
 Tradition also makes Israel akin, not only to Aramaeans, but to the Arab tribes 
 of the Sinai peninsula, i.e. the Kenites, Amalek, and Midian.' But Israel would 
 iwt recognise kinship with Canaan, and regarded it as a stranger and subject. 
 Yet they were close kinsmen, both speaking Hebrew. Even in Jewish blood 
 there was a non-Semitic strain (= Hittite) as, speaking of Jerusalem, Ezek. 
 xvi. 3 brings out : " Thy father was the Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite " 
 — not a moral comment, but an ethnographical fact. 
 
74 BABYLONIA, ITS INFLUENCE ON ISRAEL 
 
 touch with Babylonia and steeped in its culture. So, 
 if not in touch before, Israel's settlement in Canaan 
 brought it into full contact with Babylonian ideas. 
 
 Babylonian contact with Israel continues, of 
 course, long after this period. In historic days 
 Israel was never out of touch with Babylonia. Syria- 
 Canaan forms a bridge between Asia and Africa, and, 
 through the great caravan or trunk-roads, was the 
 natural channel of commercial intercourse between 
 the two earliest centres of civilisation. Babylonia and 
 Egypt, and the cultural effect of this intercourse must 
 have been very great. Moreover, from about 850 
 B.C., when Ahab fought as the ally of Benhadad of 
 Damascus at Karkar (854), Assyria became a menace 
 to Israel. It did not, however, directly intervene in 
 Israel's affairs till 734 when Tiglath-Pileser IV., at 
 Ahaz's request, came to Judah's rescue against the 
 Syria-Israel coalition. From that day Ahaz was his 
 vassal, and Assyria's direct influence on Judah 
 marked ; witness Ahaz at Damascus and his Assyrian 
 altar in Jerusalem. Under Manasseh (698-643) this 
 influence is intensified, and 2 Kgs. xxi. 3-8 shows us 
 Manasseh adopting Babylonian cults bodily. We 
 need not trace the sequel in Jerusalem's fall and the 
 Babylonian Captivity. 
 
 But the whole period covered by the last paragraph 
 comes too late for our purpose, which is to identify 
 the era when Hebrews acquired such a knowledge of 
 Babylonian traditions and ideas as we find in the 
 Deluge story and elsewhere in the Mosaic books ; for 
 J knew them already in 850 B.C., and from his tone 
 and style we can see that these traditions had been 
 part and parcel of Hebrew life and thought for 
 centuries before that date. For the moment of their 
 original adoption we must go far behind 850 b.c., 
 either to the Canaan settlement or to the Hebrew 
 sojourn in Babylonia. 
 
 The present writer's own persuasion is as follows : 
 As nomad Arabs the Terahite Aramaeans came to 
 
FROM BABYLONIA TO CANAAN 75 
 
 Babylonia, were long settled there, and left it im- 
 pregnated with Babylonian ideas. Arriving there 
 about 2100 B.C., how long they stayed we know not. 
 The next we hear of them is invading Palestine, 
 c. J400 B.C. The movement from Babylonia to 
 Canaan probably involved a long sojourn in the 
 desert and considerable reversion to nomad Arab 
 type. Reaching Palestine with a curious blend of 
 Arab and Babylonian ideas, there they came into 
 direct touch with Canaanite kinsmen steeped in 
 Babylonian views. This contact soon revived and 
 deepened their Babylonian habits of thought. Other 
 factors contributed to the same result. The caravan 
 route, commercially, and Assyrian influence from 734 
 onward, politically, will have helped not a little to 
 keep Babylonian ideas alive. These may be reckoned 
 as important factors safeguarding the early traditions, 
 but we must go to the Babylonia of 2000 b.c. for the 
 planting of the traditions and ideas, and to the Canaan 
 of 1400-1000 B.C. for their revival into vigorous life at 
 a time when they wer^ beginning to droop. 
 
 If we are to appreciate Israel's Babylonian loans 
 we must know something of Babylonia's history, 
 culture, and religion. The latter we must deal with 
 at some length, for it chiefly concerns us here, so we 
 must dismiss the history in a few lines. 
 
 Babylonian ^ Histofy. — From earliest days ^ of which 
 
 ' "Babylonia," strictly speaking, is a misnomer. We hear nothing of 
 Babylon till shortly before 2000 B.C., and there was no single name for the 
 whole country till about 1700 B.C., when it was called Karduniash (the O.T. 
 calls it Shinar, or, after the Captivity, " the land of the Chaldeans"). For 
 long ages it was not one compact empire, but a number of independent states, 
 each centred round a (sacred) city, e.g. Eridu, Nippur, Erech, Kish, Ur, Larsa, 
 Agaide,, Babylon, the last a late upstart by the side of Eridu and Nippur which go 
 back to very early days. From time to time, now one city, now another, all but 
 established an empire {e.g. Sargon and his equally great son Naram-Sin ruled up 
 to the Mediterranean), but, until Babylon's day, these empires were short-lived. 
 
 ^ It is impossible to fix early Babylonian chronology. Scholars once spoke 
 of "a high state of civilisation in Babylonia at least 9000 years ago" (H. S. 
 Williams, Enc. Brit., xxvii., p. xi., cf. Sayce, ibid., xxvi., 40). This may 
 be ; but our earliest historical, data begin with Sargon {f. 3000), though the 
 civilisation then is so high that we must allow at least 1000 years, if not 
 thousands, for its growth. But the fact remains that 3000 B.C. is our earliest 
 historical date. Even after 3000 our chronology is tentative, for dynasties once 
 regarded as consecutive are now known to have been contemporaneous. 
 
76 BABYLONIA, ITS INFLUENCE ON ISRAEL 
 
 we have any data the Euphrates valley was a rich, 
 populous, and highly civilised region. Its earliest 
 inhabitants were non-Semitic Sumerians, the practical 
 founders of Western civilisation. Their art and 
 literature ^ were very advanced, and so old that Prof 
 Hommel sees in Sumer not only "the cradle of 
 Western civilisation, but probably also of that of 
 ancient Egypt " (Hastgs. D. ofB. i. 214).^ The Semitic 
 invaders of Sumer adopted their civilisation, writing, 
 records, and legends ; long used their language for 
 their own records (Hommel), and up to the last care- 
 fully preserved and studied the Sumerian texts.^ In 
 3000 B.C. we find these Semites firmly settled in Akkad 
 (N, Babylonia) under Sargon,* head of a great empire, 
 the Sumerians retaining Sumer in the south. Gradu- 
 ally the Semites absorbed the original inhabitants. 
 As in classical Greece, so in Babylonia, one state 
 occasionally made itself overlord of others, but it 
 consisted mainly of several independent states till 
 about 2000 B.C. Then the First Dynasty (2225-1926), 
 of which Hammurabi is one famous king (2123-2081), 
 shook off an Elamite dynasty, and formed Babylonia 
 into a single monarchy with Babylon at its head. 
 Hammurabi extended his empire to the Mediterranean, 
 
 ' A Sumerian tablet just found at Nippur, of 2000 B.C., gives us an account 
 of the Creation, Deluge, and lists of kings of immense longevity, exactly 
 parallel to the Gen. accounts (see King's "Schweich Lecture" 1916). 
 
 ^ King, Schweich Led., 7, quotes evidence of Mesopotamian (Sumerian ?) 
 models of the flint age, loans from Mesopotamia, in Egypt (but see ibid., p. 22). 
 
 ' As we daily see more and more how absolutely Babylonian folklore, 
 legend, and tradition — and also Hebrew through Babylonia — flows from 
 Sumerian originals, scholars are questioning more than ever the other theory 
 of the separate and independent origin of much of this folklore, in dozens of 
 different places, through the similar workings of the human mind under similar 
 circumstances. Man is an imitative animal, and creative genius is far from 
 common, and the wide dispersion of many similar beliefs and traditions is now 
 often put down to "loans" through contact with others. The close contact 
 between, e.g., Mesopotamia and Egypt from early prehistoric days is admitted ; 
 moreover tribes were ever on the move, e.g. migrating from India to Europe, 
 and from Arabia north-westward. There is ample evidence of migratory 
 movements and of cultural drift. 
 
 * Of Sargon, legend tells how " he was born in concealment and set adrift 
 in an ark of bulrushes on the waters of the Euphrates," — the probable source 
 of the Moses legend. But it is a very common legend, repeated all over thq 
 world. 
 
BABYLONIAN HISTORY AND RELIGION 77 
 
 and his reign was an Augustan age of literature. 
 Even with changes of dynasty (e.g. Kassite), Babylon 
 remained the capital of the kingdom and " the ' holy 
 city ' of Western Asia " (Sayce). About 1400 Assyria 
 (offshoot of Babylonia) broke away from its allegiance 
 to Babylon, warred with it, captured it c. 1275, reign- 
 ing over Babylon for seven years. Babylon regained 
 its independence, but Assyria steadily increased in 
 power while Babylon fell more and more into decay. 
 In 729 Assyria again wrested the power from it, 
 razing Babylon to the ground in 689. But it was 
 soon rebuilt, and in 625 a new Babylonian Empire 
 arose. It only lasted to 538, but under Nabopolassar 
 and Nebuchadrezzar its grandeur eclipsed all previous 
 records, and Babylon's magnificence was one of the 
 wonders of the world. In 538 Cyrus captured Baby- 
 lon and made it Persia's vassal. 
 
 Babylonian Religion. — Babylonia's holy scriptures, 
 a whole library of very old (largely Sumerian)i^ re- 
 ligious epics, hymns, prayers, penitefltial psalms, 
 laws, ritual, from 3000 b.c. onward, prove the vast 
 scope, influence, and antiquity of this religion. The 
 age of Hammurabi {c. 2100) represents the high-water 
 mark of this religious literature. At its best, only 
 the Old Testament can really match it in ancient 
 times, and no other religion has so influenced, directly 
 or indirectly, man's religious thought. Israel's re- 
 ligion is cast in its mould ; Phoenicia's far more so ; 
 and from Phoenicia Greece and Rome largely got 
 theirs, turning Phoenician clay into Greek gold. 
 
 Babylonia's religion, with its "gods many and 
 lords many," and its strong colouring of nature- 
 worship, as well as its quaint legends, is the connect- 
 ing link between early man's creed and the Old 
 Testament, especially if we bear in mind that, even 
 
 ' Even as the Babylonian Semites borrowed Burner's gods (see inf.), and 
 Hammurabi's Code embodies much, earlier and Sumerian "custom law" 
 (Burney, Judges, Ixiii.), so his library of religious epics, etc. (copied by 
 Assurbanipal in 7th century B.C., and now ours), goes back far into Sumerian 
 days, and is, of course, from Sumerian texts. 
 
78 BABYLONIA, ITS INFLUENCE ON ISRAEL 
 
 in 650 B.C., the prophets were hard put to it to stop 
 Israel from worshipping "the sun, moon, and the 
 stars, even all the host of heaven." Indeed, in 
 Manasseh's reign, as 2 Kgs. xxi. 3-8 tells us, we have 
 fire-worship (passing children through fire), astral 
 worship (altars to the "hosts of heaven" in the 
 Temple), and divination, magic, and necromancy, ie. 
 the whole paraphernalia of Babylonian religion 
 publicly and officially practised in Jerusalem. Ashtart 
 and Tammuz-worship are also Babylonian loans. 
 
 The striking feature in Babylonian religion is its 
 early stagnation or arrested progress, its coming to 
 a dead stop. Already well-developed, systematic, and 
 fairly spiritual in 2100 b.c., with magnificent temples, 
 a good moral code of laws (Hammurabi's), an organised 
 priesthood, and a clearly-defined theological system, 
 it is not one whit more advanced in 600 b.c. Unfor- 
 tunately for Babylonia, it was priest-ridden and had 
 no prophets like Amos or Isaiah. Occasionally, 
 Babylonian (and still more, Assyrian) religion came 
 very near to henotheism (if not monotheism), but 
 popular and priestly conservatism was fatal to it. It 
 had no progressive prophets, as in Israel, to break 
 across popular superstition and priestly conservatism 
 with its love of tradition. Otherwise Marduk in 
 Babylonia, Ashur in Assyria, would have become 
 their one god, even as did Jehovah in Israel, originally 
 a tribal Storm-god dwelling in Sinai and appearing 
 in thunder, lightning and earthquake. 
 
 Of Babylon's gods, three from the outset stand in 
 a class by themselves as the Holy Trinity : the Sky- 
 god Anu (Sumerian " An " = heaven, with Semitic 
 ending), patron of the city Erech ; the stern Earth and 
 Storm-god, Bel, or rather Enlil (Sum. "En" = lord, 
 " lil " = wind) of the city of Nippur ; and the gracious 
 Water-Abyss 1 god, Ea (Sum. "E" = "house," and 
 
 ' Big Waters, " the ocean of heaven," waters behind the heavens and 
 running behind the horizon and under the earth, thus forming a complete circle 
 (cf. Gen. i, 7). This is "the waters above and under the firmament" of 
 
BABYLONIA'S GODS ; MARDUK 79 
 
 A = "water") of Eridu. Next in order come a second 
 Trinity: the Moon-god, Sin, of Ur; the Sun-god, 
 Shamash, of Larsa ; the goddess of reproduction in 
 Nature and man, Ishtar ^ (Heb. " Ashtoreth "). Noted 
 also were Ramman (or Adad, possibly W. Semitic), 
 the Storm-god; Nebo, the River-god, of Borsippa ; 
 Nergal, the Scorching Sun-god, god of disease, death 
 and battle ; the Fire-god, Nusku, lord of magic. 
 
 The supremacy of Babylon {c. 2200) made its 
 patron-god Marduk, or Merodach, (= the Spring-Sun 
 god). Babylonia's chief god, even as Assyria's inde- 
 pendence and power later made its patron god Ashur 
 supreme. In those days the conquest of the peoples 
 of other gods meant that the conqueror's god had 
 beaten those other gods. Conqueror Marduk could 
 not oust that powerful Trinity — Anu, Enlil, Ea, — con- 
 servative tradition and their established position^ are 
 too strong for that, and as a younger god he is called 
 their "son"; but at once he becomes de jure and de 
 facto " without a rival among the gods," Lord of lords. 
 He not only absorbs the other gods' powers but even 
 their titles, as an old tablet proves : " Ea is the Marduk 
 of canals, Ninib is the M. of strength, Nergal is the 
 M. of war, Enlil is the M. of sovereignty and control, 
 Nebo is the M. of possession, Sin is the M. of light of 
 the night, Shamash is the M. of justice, Adad is the 
 M. of rain," etc. This is henotheism on the way to 
 monotheism, but arrested. ' Beneath these superior 
 gods, and largely independent of them, were a whole 
 
 Gen. i. Both in Babylonia and Israel the heavens were regarded as a solid 
 vault or dome. 
 
 ' Ishtar was [a) Queen of heaven and all virtues ; (6) goddess of war ; {c) of 
 love. The last title led to abuses in her cult, but many hymns show her finer 
 side as a kind of " Queen of heaven," like the Virgin Mary (see in/, p. 85). 
 
 " Such gods as Anu, Enlil, Ea were as old as the hills, had been patron- 
 gods of their important cities for millennia, and these cities were jealous of the 
 honour of their god. In the Nippur Creation epic, our very oldest " find," 
 four gods unite to create the world, thus reconciling the rival claims of four 
 cities and their patron-gods. Christianity only succeeded in ousting pagan 
 deities, feasts and holy places by baptising them into Christ ; a monotheist 
 religion might do that, not a polytheistic creed. The priests and masses alike 
 would have rebelled had any liberties been taken with their time-honoured 
 hallowed gods. 
 
8o BABYLONIA, ITS INFLUENCE ON ISRAEL 
 
 host of spirits 1 or "demons," invisible, mysterious, 
 ubiquitous beings responsible for most mishaps in- 
 cident to daily life. Naturally, these spirits loomed 
 large in popular religion, and official religion recog- 
 nised, though it had partly outgrown, their cult. 
 
 We have hinted at the well-organised and stately 
 system of Babylonian worship. Each holy city had 
 a splendid temple, a fully-organised and scholarly 
 priesthood, ornate ritual and liturgical services, rich 
 prayers, hymns and psalms. Prayers and sacrifices 
 and divination rites, as well as incantation formulae, 
 were the recognised means of making the gods favour- 
 ably disposed towards man and his affairs, or learning 
 their will. Sacrifices^ were offered always once, 
 oftener twice, daily. Festival pilgrimages were made 
 from all parts to the great temples on solemn days. 
 Holy-days or Festivals were many ; New Year's Day 
 was a particularly prominent Festival, celebrated for 
 eleven days in the month Nisan. In certain months, 
 perhaps in all (Jastrow), the 7th, r4th, 19th, 21st, and 
 28th days were sabbaths,^ rest and fast days on which 
 nothing whatever was to be done ; the priest was not 
 to furnish oracles on that day, nor the physician to 
 heal, nor the ruler to put on festive robes, mount his 
 chariot, eat fire-cooked food, nor give official decisions. 
 Priests, highly-educated scholars and theologians, 
 were the most powerful class in the land. They 
 regulated every department of life. As the gods' 
 
 * Gods are only "superior spirits." The differentiation between the 
 "higher powers" (= gods) and the "lower " {= good or bad demons) wasa 
 gradual evolution and mainly the work of priests. 
 
 ' The sacrificial victim must be pure and withoirt blemish, so must the 
 priest be ceremonially "clean." Also he has to don the proper vestments, 
 assume the right position and use the proper rites and correct formulas, or woe 
 betide him I 
 
 ' See Jastrow (JTei. and Bab. Trad., ch. iii.) on Heb. and Babylonian 
 Sabbath. He connects it with Moon periods of transition, times of great 
 uncertainty and anxiety in olden days. Early man associates the waning and 
 disappearance of the moon with its capture by hostile powers. To this day 
 nomad Arabs welcome the new moon with rejoicings. Hence the moon's 
 transition-periods were "days of pacification," i.e. days on which restrictions 
 must be observed so as not to anger the gods. Cf. the association of new 
 moon and Sabbath in O.T., e.g. 2 Kgs. iv. 23 ; Is. i. 13, Ixvi. 23 ; Am» 
 viii. J. 
 
INFLUENCE OF PRIESTS 8 1 
 
 representatives, mediators between god and man, 
 their services were essential in all worship, and for 
 much else, for the gods had to do with all happenings 
 in life. The king undertook nothing without consult- 
 ing the gods through the priests, and the people 
 copied his example. On every emergency, great or 
 small, they were men's guides and counsellors. Men 
 came to them in the temple before setting on a journey 
 or building -a house, and for relief and guidance in 
 suffering or anxiety. Priests were judges in all suits, 
 and all agreements and contracts also came "before 
 the god," i.e. before them. They were the nation's 
 scholars and, as scribes, composed and preserved the 
 national records which amaze us to-day. Temples 
 and priests were under royal patronage and largely 
 endowed with lands and property, while the priests 
 were also entitled to portions of the sacrifices, tithes, 
 rates, fixed fees and offerings. Thus the organisation 
 of the priesthood, and their many functions, were met 
 and secured by a systematic and regular temple- 
 income. 
 
 Religious Literature. — We give a few samples of 
 Babylonian religious epics, prayers and psalms. 
 They are greatly abridged and, like the writers of 
 Genesis, we omit the grotesque, coarser, extravagant 
 elements which often mar these sacred books in our 
 eyes. This emasculates the original, but makes com- 
 parison with the Bible easier by merely bringing into 
 prominence the points of family-likeness. 
 
 Deluge-Story. — For man's sin * the gods resolve to send a 
 Flood, but kind Ea warns Utnapishtim to " build a ship, abandon 
 all you have and preserve life, bring into the ship the seed of all 
 living things." He is told its exact dimensions. " According to 
 the plan, the walls were to be ten gar' high, ten gar the measure 
 of its width. I divided it into seven parts. Six sar of pitch I 
 poured on the outer wall, three sar on the inner wall. I brought 
 
 ' As Jastrow points out, this judgment on sin is clear from the closing lines 
 quoted above : " On the sinner be his sin, but let no flood come again to punish 
 men." 
 
82 BABYLONIA, ITS INFLUENCE ON ISRAEL 
 
 to the ship all my family, cattle of the field, beasts of the field, all 
 my household I brought on board" . . . "Shamashhad fixed the 
 time : when the rulers of darkness cause a terrible rain-storm, 
 step into the ship and close the door. . . Six days and nights the 
 storm and hurricane ceaselessly swept over the land. When the 
 seventh day came, the storm ceased, the sea grew quiet, the evil 
 storm abated. I opened a window and light fell on my face. At 
 Mount Nizir the ship stood still. . . I sent forth a dove. The 
 dove went hither and thither ; not finding a resting-place, it came 
 back; a swallow, it came back. I sent forth a raven; it ate, 
 croaked, but did not turn back. I brought a sacrifice on the 
 mountain-top ; the gods smelled the savour, the gods smelled the 
 sweet savour," and were gracious; "the great goddess (= Ishtar) 
 lighted up the rainbow." Even stern Enlil relents when Ea pleads 
 with him : " On the sinner impose his sin, send wild beasts aijd 
 famine to minish men, but no rain-storm." Enlil graciously 
 assents and blesses Utnapishtim and his wife. 
 
 Creation-Story. — {Note. — In Gen. i. the chaotic abyss is 
 called Tehom (=Tiamat), and of this abyss the Bible makes 
 Rahab, a big sea-serpent, ruler. We are told in Job ix. 13 (R.V.), 
 where "the helpers of Rahab" are named, and in Job xxvi. 12 
 (R.V.), Is. xxvii. I, li. 9, Ps. Ixxxix. 10, that Rahab the dragon 
 fights with Jehovah, is vanquished by Him and cut in two. Note 
 also in Gen. i. 6-7 as to the making of the firmament and the 
 dividing of the waters. These points will elucidate the story.) — 
 In the beginning, " when the heavens above were not named, nor 
 the earth below, Apsu (= the watery deep), the primeval parent, 
 and Tiamat (= chaotic abyss), mother of all, mingled their 
 waters together; no soil, no seed, no shoot was to be seen." 
 Tiamat, ruler of dark chaos, hates the gods of light, and with her 
 eleven helpers (Job ix. 13 R.V.) fights them. The great god of 
 Light, Sun-god Marduk, cleaves Tiamat in two with his sword. 
 With one half of Tiamat (= watery abyss) he makes the firmament 
 of heaven, with the other half the earth (cf. Gen. i. 7). He sets 
 bounds to the waters above (by means of the firmament) and 
 draws a bolt' across the expanse. On the (?) day Marduk 
 creates sun, moon and stars to rule over the night and the 
 
 ' Jastrow {Heb. and Bab. Trad., io8 sqq.) aptly quotes Ps. Ixxiv. 13 sqq. 
 as a capital illustration of the Tiamat-Jehovah fight and the Creation generally; 
 and Job xxvi. 13, "the bolts of heaven are in terror before Him (Ixx.), His 
 hand has crushed the fleeing serpent," for "the bolts" drawn by Marduk 
 across the firmament made out of half Tiamat's body. 
 
BABYLONIAN CREATION-STORIES 83 
 
 day, and to be for years and months and seasons. [Tablets 
 here defective, but, says Hommel (Hastings' D. of B., i. 221), 
 " extant connected fragments make it plain that thereafter followed 
 the creation of plants, animals,^ and finally man. Another Baby- 
 lonian epic tells us Ea made man out of clay."] ^ Marduk creates 
 man blood of his blood and bone of his bone, i.e. in his image. 
 
 A jar older Sumerian Creation-Story, just discovered 
 at Nippur (Sumeiian text with Accadian translation, written 
 c. 2000 B.C., but the story itself is ages older), gives an account 
 of the Creation of the world (after the conquest of the Dragon 
 by Enlil), carries on the narrative to the Deluge, gives us Ante- 
 diluvian history, then a list of kings who each reigned hundreds 
 of years, e.g. " Galumum ruled for 900 years, Barsalnunna ruled 
 1200 years, etc., etc."; for a parallel to these patriarchs we have 
 to go to the lives of similar antediluvian patriarchs in Gen. 
 Briefly, this is the old Sumerian story ; In the beginning heaven 
 and earth were not, only the primeval dark waters. Four great 
 gods — Anu, Enlil, Enki, and Ninkharsagga — were the world- 
 creators. Man was created for the gods to receive worship, then 
 animals were made, then came kingdoms. Before the Flood there 
 were five cities: Eridu, Bad . . ., Larak, Sippar, Shuruppak. 
 The gods decree man's destruction by flood. The hero of the 
 Deluge is Ziusudu, king and priest, a godly man. Enki warns 
 him in a dream of the coming "flood to destroy the seed of 
 mankind," and bids him build a great ship, "AH the mighty 
 winds together blew, the flopd . . . raged. When for seven 
 days, for seven nights, the flood had overwhelmed the land, the 
 Sun-god' came forth lighting heaven and earth. Ziusudu opens 
 the opening of the great boat, bows himself down, sacrifices an 
 
 ' The passage reads : " he made living beings come forth, the cattle of the 
 field, the beast of the field, and the creeping thing." 
 
 ' General points of resemblance in Gen. : All that originally existed were 
 (l) darkness, (2) Tehom = chaotic watery abyss, (3) air. In both versions, 
 (a) God cleaves Tiamat (= the waters), (d) by means of the firmament divides 
 the waters above from the waters below the earth, (c) Sun, moon, stars created 
 "for signs and for seasons." From other tablets— (4 plants next, then 
 animals, and lastly man. In the Creation Story Maiduk makes man out of 
 his own blood and bone (" in the likeness of God " in Gen.). 
 
 • Marduk and Shamash, as Sun-gods, explain much in Babylonian legends, 
 e.g, in the Creation and Flood Story (Sumerian especially) is the underlying 
 truth that through the Sun of Spring (Marduk or Shamash) the storms and 
 rains of winter are driven back to the heavens and kept prisoners behind bolts 
 and bars ; also this symbolism explains why Shamash (cf. Apollo), dissipating 
 darkness, darting rays of light into the gloomiest corners, is the foe of "deeds 
 of darkness," and brings sunshine to sad hearts, a god pure and just and a 
 comforter. (See beautiful Shamash hymn, inf. p. 8^. 
 
84 BABYLONIA, ITS INFLUENCE ON ISRAEL 
 
 ox, a sheep he slaughters." Anu and Enlil are appeased by the 
 pleas of Ziusudu and grant him eternal life. 
 
 The chief interest of this story lies in its connected account 
 of the Creation, Antediluvian history, and the Deluge exactly 
 as in Gen. ; and also in its long list of enormously long-lived 
 patriarchal kings. The whole catalogue of kings sounds like a 
 long extract from "the book of the generations of Adam" in 
 Gen. " Galumum's nine hundred years seem to run almost like a 
 refrain; and Methuselah's great age is even exceeded by two 
 Sumerian patriarchs. The names in the two lists differ, but in 
 both we are moving in the same atmosphere and line of thought" 
 (King, Schweich Zect.). 
 
 Prayers and Hymns. — These reveal the spiritual 
 phase and higher aspirations of Babylonian religion. 
 Their number is vast ; we quote a few extracts : 
 
 A king thus prays to Marduk : " O eternal Ruler, Lord of 
 all, . . . lead in the right path the king whom Thou hast set up. 
 I, a prince, Thy servant, am the creature of Thy hand. Accord- 
 ing to Thy mercy, O Lord, which Thou vouchsafest to all, may 
 Thy almighty power be merciful. The fear of Thy Name implant 
 in my heart. Grant me what seemeth good to Thee, for Thou 
 art He who has given me life." Or again ; " Marduk, great 
 Lord . . . open my eyes that I may know Thee j place justice in 
 my mouth, plant mercy in my heart." 
 
 Very beautiful are many hymns to Shamash : 
 
 " O Lord, who enlightenest our darkness. Thou merciful God, 
 who liftest up the lowly and watchest over the weak ... all 
 mankind Thou guidest as one man ; with uplifted eyes they wait 
 upon Thee ; when Thou dost show Thy face they rejoice and are 
 exceeding glad. . . . Thou boldest man's lot in Thy hand, 
 eternally just in heaven art Thou, and on earth Thou rulest in 
 righteousness. Thou knowest what is right. Thou knowest what 
 is wrong. . . . Whoso thinketh evil in his heart, his horn dost 
 Thou break ; whoso in setting landmarks annulleth rights, whoso 
 taketh a bribe and judgeth not aright, him with a mighty hand 
 dost Thou restrain and layest the sin at his door. But him who 
 is righteous dost Thou prosper and make his days long in the 
 land. . . . The seed of the wicked shall not prosper, their 
 judgments and devices wilt Thou bring to nought j Thou markest 
 
BABYLONIAN PSALMS 85 
 
 their transgressions. No one, be he where he may, is hid from 
 Thee ; all are in Thy hand ; Thou orderest their judgments. 
 Thou settest the captives at liberty. Thou hearest the prayer 
 and the cry of the humble. With loud voice the poor cry unto 
 Thee, the weak, the weary, the oppressed, mother, wife, and 
 maiden, and Thou hearest them." 
 
 Penitential Psalms, with their deep contrition and 
 earnest appeal for forgiveness, reach a high Spiritual 
 tone and constantly recall Hebrew Psalms. Here is 
 a penitent's appeal to Ishtar : 
 
 " Hear me. Queen of Heaven, when I, Thy servant, full of 
 sighs, call upon Thee, for the fervent prayer of a contrite heart 
 Thou dost not despise. . . . Besides Thee, there is no other 
 god to guide me ; look in mercy upon me, hear my supplication. 
 Speak peace, and let Thine anger be assuaged. How long, O 
 my Lady, wilt Thou turn away Thy face from me ? Like a dove 
 I wail, I am weary of my groaning. . . . When Thou lookest 
 down in loving-kindness, the dead revive, the sick are whole, the 
 mourner is comforted in the light of Thy countenance. I, Thy 
 servant, bowed down and sore afflicted, racked with pain, call 
 upon Thee; look graciously upon me; hear my supplication. 
 . . . Put my sin far from me, purge my iniquity, my transgression, 
 and my sin; forgive my transgression, accept my supplication. 
 ... Set my feet again in Thy path, then shall I again hold up 
 my head among men and, the divine indignation overpast, the 
 dark smoking embers shall again burst into ilame, and my candle 
 that was put out shalt Thou relight." 
 
 Moral Psalms. — We shall presently see that law 
 and morality in Babylonia in 2100 b.c. were certainly 
 at as high a level as in Israel in 850 b.c. and even 
 later. "As a man thinks of God, so is he," is an 
 axiorii largely true, and Babylonians who looked up 
 to Shamash as a god who loves justice and hates 
 iniquity, who takes up the cause of the weak against 
 his oppressor, of the righteous against the evil-doer ; 
 and who knew Marduk as " large-hearted, broad in 
 compassion, full of loving-kindness " — such men are 
 not likely to be lacking in moral principles. There 
 
86 BABYLONIA, ITS INFLUENCE ON ISRAEL 
 
 are many tablets with moral precepts very like 
 Proverbs, e.g. : — 
 
 " Thou shall not slander, speak what is pure. Thou shalt 
 not speak evil, speak kindly. He who slanders and speaks evil, 
 Shamash will visit his sin on his head. Let not thy mouth boast, 
 guard thy lip. When thou art angered, do not speak at once ; 
 for if thou speakest in anger, thou wilt regret it afterwards and in 
 silence sadden thy penitent heart. To thy God come with a pure 
 heart, for God loves the pure in heart. Prayer and penitence, 
 bowing thyself before Him, render unto God early in the morning, 
 and with God's help thou wilt prosper. The fear of God begets His 
 favour. Love and prayer cover many sins. Give to the needy 
 food to eat, wine to drink. Seek what is right and eschew what 
 is wrong, for this is well-pleasing in God's sight. It is pleasing to 
 Shamash and He will requite." 
 
 Law Codes. — These come-under holy scriptures, 
 for universally of old law-givers spoke as the direct 
 mouthpieces of God, and their words and decrees 
 were His own. The law was an oracle (Heb. tora, 
 Bab. tertu), and laws once given could not be re- 
 called, but could be re-worded to adapt them to the 
 ideas and needs of a later day — hence in Israel, " the 
 Book of the Covenant," the "Book of the Law" (Deut), 
 the " Book of the Law " (Priestly Code) are all one 
 and the same law given on Sinai, the law of Moses. 
 Thus Hammurabi introduces his famous Code of 
 2 ICO B.C. by stating he is the mouthpiece of Shamash, 
 Anu and Enlil "to spread justice in the land, to 
 destroy the wicked and the bad, so that the strong 
 may not oppose the weak." 
 
 Discovered in 1902, his code is a kind of Code Napoleon, 
 dealing with almost every case that can arise in connection with 
 agriculture, trade, contracts, family life, marriage, slaves, temple 
 property, etc. Its general spirit is humane and equitable, marked 
 by a keen sense of fairness and justice, quite on a level with the 
 
 ' " The law of the Medes and Persians which altereth not," was a principle 
 equally sacred in Babylon and Israel. 
 
CODE OF HAMMtfRABI 87 
 
 Israel Codes till Deut. and the (prophetic) ' Ten Commandments. 
 In many respects Hammurabi's Code is strangely like Israel's 
 1300-1600 years later. Yet it is not strange, for Hammurabi 
 was not only king of Babylonia, but "King of Amurru," that 
 is, the land of the Amorites, and his Code of course ruled in 
 Syria-Canaan as well as Babylonia (Burnqy, _/«^4?''^j, 329 sq. n.). 
 The law embodied in written Codes is always ages older than 
 the date of codification, and scholars all agree to-day that the 
 Hebrew Codes {e.g. "Book of the Covenant," Priestly Code,) 
 embody very largely the " custom law " of Canaan-Israel from a 
 period long anterior to the monarchy or even the Joshua-settle- 
 ment. The contrasts between Hammurabi's and the Hebrew 
 Codes are evident, but the parallels are too pronounced to be 
 explained away. They are "the same in literary form, they 
 contain numerous practically identical laws, not a few cases of 
 actual verbal agreement; and the parallels are too close to be 
 explained upon a theory of common tradition." 2 The laws on 
 leases, contracts, debt, embezzlement, distraint, usury, would be 
 thought equitable to-day and humane. "The Code also throws a 
 favourable light on the moral spirit in which relations between 
 husband and wife, father and children were regulated " (Jastrow). 
 Slaves were most humanely treated, were members of the family, 
 allowed great freedom, had rights of property. The old law of 
 retaliation is nominally retained, but in principle largely replaced 
 by money-compensation. The laws of marriage and divorce, and 
 the relationship of father to children are practically identical with 
 Israel's.^ 
 
 ^ "Prophetic,'' i.e. The Ten Words as enlarged by prophetic schools (see 
 p. 40, sup. and 104 inf.). With the exception of Commandments I, and 11., 
 Hammurabi's Code is as strong as the Decaldgue in its ethical legislation on 
 e.g. duty to parents, murder and deeds of violence, honesty, adultery, slander, 
 infringing others' rights. Not for one moment would we place Bab. and 
 Heb. ethical values on a par. They are not. They have much in common, 
 because Babylonia taught Israel as a child ; but they have very much not in 
 common, because Israel's prophets were Israel's next teachers, and, as them- 
 selves steeped in a conception of a God loving, just, and righteous, they 
 spiritualised and transfigured Israel's outlook, religious and moral, so that 
 morally and spiritually the world's " salvation is of the Jews." Our point in 
 the text is that Israel started at Babylon's level. 
 
 ' Hastings' D. of B., art. " Code of Hammurabi," gives its full text and an 
 exhaustive analysis and commentary, to which this paragraph is much indebted. 
 
 ' If anything, Hammurabi is more averse to polygamy than Israel, but 
 allows it when marriage is without issue ; he limits the man's power over wife 
 and children more than Israel does. Laws on incest, etc., are identical with 
 Israel's ; so on divorce, even to the ordeal, " waters of jealousy " (Numb, v.), 
 only Hammurabi allows the wife to declare her innocence on oath. So of 
 slaves and legitimatised children, very humanely treated in their property-rights. 
 
§8 BABYLONIA, ITS INFLUENCE ON ISRAEL 
 
 But spiritual as much of Babylonia's religion may 
 be, there is often a coarse, crude, childish materialism 
 in it. Its gods were nature-powers to the last, and 
 a religion that cannot rid itself of a materialistic 
 conception of God has definite barriers set to its 
 growth. Not till the days of Hebrew spiritual pro- 
 phetic religion do we find even Israel rising above a 
 semi-material olitlook on life to a higher form of 
 religious aspiration. The main concern of Baby- 
 lonia's religion was securing material blessings, 
 property, healthy success in war and in private 
 undertakings, and' a certain amount of tranquillity 
 of soul. With no conception of one holy, righteous, 
 loving God, but still steeped in nature-worship, 
 primitive beliefs died hard in Babylonia and, even in 
 the official priestly religion, there is a pronounced 
 popular and lower layer of religion exactly as in early 
 man's creed. This comes out strongly in their in- 
 cantation and omen literature, instructing man how 
 to have power yvith the gods and find out their will. 
 
 Incantations or Spells were used in seeking relief 
 from baneful spirits or their agents, witches in league 
 with these demons. Appeals were made to the gbds 
 through the priests, who were believed to be able to 
 exorcise the evil spirits and counteract witches' wiles, 
 if they prayed to the gods with the right words ; but 
 the greatest possible impo^rtance was attached to 
 the exact and precise wording of the formula used. 
 Even the slightest deviation from it spelled disaster. 
 Hence these incantation formulas were carefully 
 handed down from generation to generation in fixed 
 form. Over and above the fixed formula, it was 
 allowed to add more prayer as well, provided the 
 original formula came in. Hence, occasionally, im- 
 pressive hymns and strikingly beautiful prayers 
 are inserted amid a jumble of old spell-formulas. 
 No other civilised race so filled their world with 
 demons and witches as Babylonia. Here, primitive 
 man's whole spirit-creed ' was endorsed ; disease. 
 
OMEN-LITERATURE ; LIFE AFTER DEATH 89 
 
 accidents, evils of all kinds were spirits' work Spells 
 and magic rites alone could expel or avert evil spirits, 
 and only priests knew the right ritual and words for 
 it. Babylonian sacred literature on incantations is 
 the richest in existence. Here is a sample ; the priest 
 makes an image of, say, the witch, and acts as stated 
 in the words of the formula : 
 
 "Witch, I seize thy mouth, I seize thy tongue, I seize thy 
 piercing eyes, thy restless feet, thy active knees, thy outstretched 
 hands, I tie thy hands behind thee, may Sin (= Moon-god) blast' 
 thee, cast thee into an abyss of water and fire ! O witch, like the 
 setting of this seal-ring, may thy face glow and become pale." 
 
 Omens and Oracles. — It was vital to know the will 
 of the gods so as to court their favour and not oiTend 
 them, or to ascertain their good or evil intentions for 
 country, king or individual. Omens indicated the 
 favour or displeasure of the god, oracles foretold the 
 future. Thus observation of the signs in the heavens 
 or in Nature, the inspection of sacrificial victims, or 
 unusual phenomena in animals or babes, gave omens 
 or indications of the divine will. Eclipses, earth- 
 quakes, abnormal births, uncanny animals or occur- 
 rences intervening, smoke not ascending straight 
 from the sacrifice, defects in the liver and entrails of 
 the victim, were bad omens and showed divine dis- 
 pleasure. As to the foretelling of the future, this was 
 done by reading the stars,' casting lots, divination, 
 consulting sacred images or oracles. 
 
 Life after Death. — As in early man's creed, the soul,s 
 of the dead go to a pit in the bowels of the earth. 
 
 There the wraiths of good and bad are all huddled together, 
 though great men, e.g. kings, are in some honour there. In the 
 pit, life is dark and dreary ; no joy, no activity. They lie there, 
 shorn of all strength, activity and powers, barely conscious, lead- 
 ing a featureless existence without hope of release. One of the 
 finest Babylonian epics tells us of Ishtar's " Descent into Hell ' 
 " to the dark house whence those who enter do not return, to the 
 
90 BABYLONIA, ITS INFLUENCE ON ISRAEL 
 
 road from- which there is no path leading back, to the house in 
 which those who enter are deprived of hght, where dust is their 
 nourishment, clay their food. They do not see light, they dwell 
 in darkness, clothed like a bird, with wings as a covering ; on door 
 and lock dust has settled." Life in the lower world is well brought 
 out in the Gilgamesh epic. Gilgamesh (two-thirds god, one-third 
 man), the hero, wants to know what comes after death. The 
 spirit of his friend Engidu, like Samuel's, rises up from a hole in 
 the ground, and tells him not to ask : " I cannot tell thee, or thou 
 wouldst sit down and weep the whole day " ; another friend bids 
 him eat, drink, and enjoy life as long as it lasts, live with the wife of 
 his bosom, anoint his head, keep his body clean and his garments 
 white, and enjoy his home, wife, and children. It is Ecd. vs.. 7-9 
 to the letter, and Israel's idea of life in Sheol, " the Pit," " the Land 
 of Forgetfulness," " the Place of Silence," up to about 300 B.C., 
 Job's " land of darkness, of dense darkness, where even light is 
 dark " (x. 22). In Babylonia and Israel the place and idea of it 
 are identical, but Aralu is the Babylonian name for it, Sheol the 
 Hebrew. Hommel says, "Sheol is Bab. Sh^lu, from shu'-Mu, 
 ' place of judgment,' " but this is not generally accepted to-day. 
 
 The Hebrews left Babylonia sometime after 2000 fe.c. 
 steeped in this religion. It died hard, though the 
 prophetic writers (850-500 b.c.) of our Bible, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, veil the fact. It was 
 Israel's creed till Moses' day, and the popular belief 
 very long after. Traces of it in the Bible are many, 
 e.g. the Creation, Flood, and Babel stories and the 
 genealogies of long-lived men ; many Genesis legends; 
 the developed belief in spirits, magic, witchcraft; in 
 omens {e.g. Cain's sacrifice) and in oracles (cups of 
 divination, Ephod, Urira and Thummim, lots) ; Sabbath 
 and Sheol ; Ashtoreth, Molech, moon and star-worship 
 and their rites. Why then did they not also borrow 
 Babylonia's organised system of worship, its elaborate 
 temple-services, priesthood, liturgical services and 
 ritual? or much of its higher culture? In 2100 b.c. 
 Babylonia's temple-worship and institutions were far 
 ahead of Israel's in 700 b.c, when it slowly set about 
 
HEBREW REVERSION TO TYPE 
 
 91 
 
 elaborating them for itself.^ A possible, and probable, 
 solution of Israel's retrograde movement is that, on 
 leaving Babylonia, the Hebrews spent ages in the 
 desert, reverted to nomad Arab type,^ each man again 
 becoming his own priest, and "custom" their only 
 law. That is, the Hebrews left Babylonia fairly 
 civilised, and reached Sinai a horde of lax and super- 
 stitious Arabs. Our next chapter shows how Moses 
 set to work on this rough material. 
 
 Note on Deluge. 
 
 Prof. King (Schweich I^ct.) gives this most interesting comparative table 
 of the 5 principal Deluge versions : — 
 
 Sumeriatu 
 
 Gods decree man- 
 kind's destruc- 
 tion by floodt 
 Nintu protesting 
 
 Ziusudu, hero ^ of 
 Deluge^ king 
 and priest 
 
 Ziusudu's piet7 
 
 Warning of Z. by 
 Enki in a dream 
 
 Z.'s vessel a huge 
 ship 
 
 Flood and storm 
 for 7 days 
 
 Sacrifice to Sun- 
 god in ship 
 
 Anu and £nlil 
 appeased 
 
 Immortality of Z. 
 
 Gilgamesh Epic. 
 
 Gods decree flood, 
 the goddess Ish- 
 tar protesting 
 
 Ut-napishtim, herq 
 of Deluge 
 
 Warning of U. by 
 Ea in a dream 
 
 Ship : ISO X 120 
 X 120 cubits \ 7 
 stories ; 9 divi- 
 sions 
 
 All kinds of animals 
 
 Flood from heavy 
 
 rain and storm 
 
 for 6 days 
 Ship on Mt. Nisir 
 Abatement of 
 
 waters tested by 
 
 birds 
 Sacrifice with 
 
 sweet savour on 
 
 mountain 
 Ea's protest to 
 
 Enlii 
 
 Immortality of U. 
 and his wife 
 
 Berossus. 
 
 Xisuthros (—Kha- 
 sisatra), hero of 
 Deluge, king 
 
 Warning of X. by 
 Kronos in a 
 dream 
 
 Size of ship : S X a 
 stadia 
 
 All kinds of animals 
 Flood 
 
 Ship on mountain 
 Abatement of 
 
 waters tested by 
 
 birds 
 Sacrifice to gods, 
 
 after landing and 
 
 paying adoration 
 
 on earth 
 
 Apotheosis of X., 
 wife, daughter, 
 and pilot 
 
 Gen. (/)■ 
 Destruction of man 
 decreed, for his 
 wickedness 
 
 Noah, hero of 
 Deluga 
 
 Noah'i favour 
 
 Instructions 
 enter ark 
 
 7 (Xa) clean, 
 
 unclean 
 Flood from rain 
 
 for 40 days 
 
 Abatement of 
 
 waters tested by 
 birds 
 
 Sacrifice with 
 
 sweet savour 
 after landing 
 
 Divine promise to 
 N. not again to 
 curse the ground 
 
 Gen. (/>). 
 
 Destruction of all 
 flesh decreed, on 
 account of its 
 corruption 
 
 Noah, hero of 
 Deluge 
 
 Noah's righteous- 
 ness 
 
 Warning of Noah, 
 and instructions 
 for ark 
 
 Size of ark : 300 
 X 50 X 30 cubits ; 
 3 stories 
 
 a of all animals 
 
 Flood ; " fountains 
 of deep " and rain, 
 XSo days 
 
 Ark on Ararat 
 
 Abatement of 
 
 waters through 
 drying wind 
 
 Landing from ark 
 [after year (+10 
 days)3 
 
 Divme covaaant 
 not again to de- 
 stroy earth by 
 flood ; bow as 
 sign 
 
 * Cheyne believes that, during the Captivity, when the Jews once again 
 lived in Babylonia for 70 years, an Ezekiel and the spiritual leaders of Israel 
 at last adopted Babylonia*s well-organised priesthood, stately worship, ornate 
 liturgical services, and ritual as found in the Second Temple, and much else. 
 But those conscious loans from Babylonia are unduly exaggerated to-day. 
 Israel's debt is rather in the way of "suggestion " than actual loans. 
 
 ' See Jastrow, Heb, and BaS, Trad., p. 16 sqq. and pp. 73, 75 sup. 
 
PART II 
 DAWN OF ISRAEL'S HISTORY 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 MOSES 
 
 Of the history of the Hebrews from the day of their 
 migration from Babylonia to the days of Moses we 
 know next to nothing. The emigrants formed a 
 group out of which eventually sprang Israel, Moab, 
 Edom, and Ammon, races which only became differ- 
 entiated as portions of the group settled here, and 
 others there.^ Some of the Israel tribes, seeking 
 subsistence for their flocks or forced by the pressure 
 of other tribes behind them, crossed the Egyptian 
 border, while others their kinsmen settled in the 
 Sinaitic peninsula and worked up into Canaan inde- 
 pendently." The Egyptian settlers retained their 
 Arab customs and usages andj were regarded by the 
 civilised Egyptians as barbarians without part or lot 
 in their own public life. Impressed to work for public 
 purposes by Rameses II. (c. 1292-1225 b.c.),* these 
 pastoral tribes revolted against such compulsory 
 corvee, and went out of Egypt in King Mineptah's 
 {c. 1225-1215 B.C.) day under Moses' leadership. With 
 the passage of the " Red Sea," actual Hebrew history 
 dawns. 
 
 Of Moses' historicity there is no shadow of a 
 doubt. He is a historic personality of the very first 
 
 ' Moab, apparently, was the first to settle, on the E. of the Dead Sea ; 
 Ammon next, N.E. of Moab-; then Edom, E. and W. of Mt. Seir. 
 
 ' See p. 34 n. sufi. for Burney's plea that only the Joseph-tribes, and parts 
 of the Judah, Simeon, and Levi clans were in Egypt, whilst, e.g: Asher, 
 Naphtali, Gad, Vsa, Issachar, Zebuluu ("hand-maid" and kindred tribes, 
 because not so pure in blood) had long since been dwelling in Canaan before 
 Joshua's settlement in it. 
 
 ' For data for these dates, see Burney, Judges, civ. sqq. 
 
 ^'3 
 
96 MOSES 
 
 rank. He made history and civilisation as only 
 some half a dozen men have made it. The Jews 
 themselves have ever rightly maintained that to 
 Moses they owe the whole treasure of their religious 
 faith. In their eyes he is the Founder of their nation 
 and their religion, and he undoubtedly was an ex- 
 ceptional leader and a teacher with a unique revelation. 
 About parts of his life-work all scholars are agreed ; 
 much is also either shrouded in mist or idealised. 
 
 Of the broad general facts of the exodus from 
 Egypt there is no doubt. Right through the Bible, 
 from the Song of Triumph at the Red Sea down to 
 the latest psalms, the allusions to this epoch-making 
 crisis are endless and ever the same. The tradition 
 is persistent and never varies. This much seems 
 clear: Moses inspired and rallied the oppressed 
 Hebrews in Egypt by assuring them that their Jehovah 
 had seen their misery and, of His compassion, was 
 ^ resolved to free them. Prompted by Moses, they 
 broke away from bondage to seek a home in the 
 wilderness whence they came, the home of their kins- 
 men {e.g. Kenites and Edomites), and the seat of their 
 God. The Egyptians, unwilling to let these serfs go, 
 set in hot pursuit. That very old poem, the " Song 
 of Triumph," as well as uniform Hebrew tradition, 
 clearly prove that at the "Red Sea" Israel had a 
 wondrous escape ^ from a perilous situation, whatever 
 its nature. So miraculous did it seem that they gave 
 their Jehovah the credit for it all. He, and no other, 
 had manifested Himself as Israel's champion and 
 deliverer, enabling a rabble of shepherds to set 
 Egypt's hosts at nought and safely to reach their 
 destination and their kinsmen at Sinai, under Moses, 
 Jehovah's agent. 
 
 At Sinai, Moses now entered on his real life-work. 
 
 1 Exod. xiv. 21 attributes it to a strong east wind's action (upon shallow 
 water) that the Hebrews were able to cross it. See Rendel Harris and Chap- 
 man in Hastings' D. of B,, i. p. 8o2, where the head of Suez Gulf is indicated 
 as the place of passage, and actuil instances of similar phenomena are quoted 
 
MOSES' POLICY AT SINAI 97 
 
 He had in view two main ends : (i) He was bent on 
 welding his rude and clannish Arab horde into a 
 nation; (2) he meant to plant the fear of God in their 
 hearts. As a man of God, his heaft was set on it ; as 
 a statesman, he saw in this fear of God an essential 
 factor to his national policy. " Hear, O Israel, I am 
 the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the 
 land of Egypt; thou, shalt have none other gods 
 before Me," ishis one key-note. Absolute dependence 
 orf their Jehovah is what he means to drill, first and 
 last, into his wild Arab clans : " It is not you, O Israel, 
 who have chosen Jehovah; He, of His compassion, 
 has chosen you. Cleave to Him, obey Him, as your 
 one God and champion. If you do, you will be blessed 
 and prosper ; if you do not. His curse is upon you, 
 for He is a jealous God." 
 
 At Sinai in forty years Moses achieved both these 
 ends.' By his force of character and consummate 
 statesmanship he laid well and deep the foundations 
 of Israel's greatness. Rightly, in all their after-history, 
 Israel traced its real birth to Moses at Sinai. What 
 took place there? Three momentous events : (i) Moses 
 made Jehovah Israel's one God ; (2) Moses bound 
 Israel to its Jehovah by an awful and solemn 
 Covenant ; (3) Moses gave Israel laws. ^ 
 
 These bare facts are certain; all further details 
 misty. Our earliest Bible record of it dates, in written 
 form, 400 years after the events, and the other accounts 
 of these Sinaitic facts are much later still. In each 
 case, the writers throw back into Moses' day the ideas 
 and conditions prevalent in their own, and assign the 
 views and laws of 800-500 b.c. to Moses himself 
 Now, if the Books of Moses are unreliable for the 
 Mosaic age (see pp. 41 sqq. sup), can we reconstruct 
 at all this Mosaic age and its culture as it was c. 1200 
 B.C. ? Yes, and for this reason. J and E (p. 48 sup.) 
 
 ' Modern Japan, and militarist Germany before the war, prove how truly 
 an "emotional ideal," — to use Kidd's plurase, — drilled into a people, can 
 revolutionise national character even in one generation. 
 
 H 
 
98 MOSES 
 
 carried their history of Israel beyond the Gen. to Josh. 
 narrative, and in Judg. and i Sam. i.-xii. we have the 
 same two old documents as our authorities,^ as 
 well as other very old fragments" such as the Song of 
 Deborah [probably from " the Book of the Wars of 
 Jehovah" (Numb. xxi. 14)], all but contemporaneous 
 with their events. From this old material in Judg. 
 and Sam., " essentially of a piece with J and E in the 
 Hexateuch," also from indirect references in the 
 Hexateuch itself, and from Israel's religious and 
 moral standard even under the earliest kings, we can 
 reconstruct approximately Israel's cultural and reli- 
 gious stage in Moses' day. What picture do these 
 data give us of (i) the culture and morals, (2) the 
 conception of God, in Israel then? 
 
 Culture and Morals, — Very rude and primitive is 
 Israel's condition in the Judges' period.^ Dean 
 Stanley well says : " It would almost seem as if 
 Judges were in the Bible to impress upon us the 
 human, nay barbarian, element which plays its part 
 in sacred history. In any other history we should 
 regard Samson and Jephthah, even Gideon and 
 Barak, not as devout servants of God, but as free- 
 booters, stern sheikhs, passionate, revengeful, lax, 
 superstitious." — We^see the tribes, no compact nation 
 as we usually fancy, but, largely, disintegrated units 
 acting independently of their fellows, settling down 
 as best they can in the midst of an alien population 
 mostly unsubdued, adopting their superstitious ideas 
 and rites. Law and justice in our sense there was 
 none in that age. "Custom," not law or morality, 
 
 > Burney, Judges, § 3, cogently proves that "the document E of the" 
 Hexateuch continues beyond Josh, and provides material for the histofy of 
 Judg. This seems to be placed beyond the range of controversy (cf. Judg. ii. 
 6-9 = all but verbatim Josh. xxiv. 28-31 (E)). A similar conclusion must be 
 drawn v?ith regard to J, e.g. Judg. i.-ii. 5 is now generally admitted as from J." 
 The redactor of Judg. had evidently J and E gathered together into two con- . 
 tinuous prophetic histories, and it was these two documents which were brought 
 into one by him, i.e. not two collections of disconnected narratives. 
 
 ' Of course, due allowance must be made for laxity in times of war and 
 unsettlement, which always impairs the vitality of virtue. 
 
"CUSTOM"; CONCEPTION OF JEHOVAH 99 
 
 ruled everything. " Custom " demanded blood-re- 
 venge and retaliation, " eye for eye, life for life," and 
 laid this as a bounden duty on the next of kin. 
 Custom allowed as a matter of course adultery with 
 concubines and slaves, but not with married women 
 or free" maidens. This was prohibited «o^ as morally 
 wrong, but because they were others' property and 
 chattels. Ctistom gave parents power to sell or even 
 slay children. Custom expected some honesty towards 
 Israelites, but strangers could be cheated or robbed. 
 For centuries after Moses each man " did that which 
 was right in his own eyes " (Judg. xvii. 6, xxi. 25), 
 and had mostly to take the law into his own hands to 
 redress his wrongs. Fear, not moral motives, kept 
 man from wrong. Only dread of bodily hurt and 
 outlawry at men's hands, or of the wrath and curse 
 of national Jehovah, for breach of "tribal custom," 
 kept men from robbery, murder, or perjury. This is 
 the picture oi Judges and, largely, for 200 years later. 
 Conception of Jehovah. — In the "Books of Moses" 
 the ethical monotheism of 700-800 b.c. is thrown back 
 to Moses' and even Adam's day. Facts contradict 
 this flatly. Man's idea of God ever reflects his own 
 character and outlook. Hebrews of 1 250-1000 b.c., 
 themselves rude, arbitrary, vindictive, imagined God 
 such an one as themselves in body and passions, only 
 much greater and stronger. He was jealous of His 
 rights and exacting; e.g. certainly up to Saul's day 
 (i Sam. XV. 3)1 they believed that Jehovah exacted 
 the wholesale murder of " banned " foes — man, woman, 
 child, cattle, belongings, — and was terribly angry if 
 it was not done thoroughly. Nature-worship was 
 these old Hebrews' second nature, and largely 
 accounts for their idea of God." For ages they asso- 
 
 ' Cf. the same idea even in humane Deut. xx. 13 sqq., about 650 B.C. (but 
 long aftef it was possible to carry it out). 
 
 _' A god's character naturally reflects what he stands for. Thus in Baby- 
 lonia Nergal is the Sun of midsummer's torrid heat bringing suffering, disease, 
 famine, and death. Shamash is the Spring Sun driving away winter's cold, 
 darknessj and storms, and bringing light, warmth, joy, life. Shamash is 
 
too MOSES 
 
 ciated Jehovah with the awful and stern Storm-God 
 of Sinai (Judg. v. 4 sq. ; Josh. x. 11 ; i Sam. vii. 10; 
 Ps. xviii. 9 sqq.) appearing in or amid fire and lightning, 
 fire the symbol of His Presence and instrument of 
 His wrath (Ex. iii. 4; 2 Kgs. i. 10; Judg. xiii. 20; 
 Numb. xvi. 35), or as a pillar of- fire and cloud going 
 before them. He is terrible in His wrath at any 
 infringement of His rights. All that is in any way 
 His peculiar property, set apart for His use and 
 service, is " holy," awfully inviolable, taboo. Woe 
 betide any who dare approach or touch His " holi- 
 ness ! " Thus He instantly slays men wholesale for 
 daring to look into His Ark^ (i Sara. vi. 19); kills 
 Uzzah for touching it to save it from falling ^ (2 Sam. 
 vi. 6-8); warns His people not to draw near His 
 dwelling-place, Sinai, "lest the Lord break forth 
 upon them and they perish"^ (Ex. xix. 21-24). I" 
 keeping with His character He is specially, as 
 Deborah's Song shows, Israel's War-God and Battle- 
 Leader (Judg. v.). "Jehovah is a man of war, 
 Jehovah is His Name" (Ex. xv. 3). He is present 
 wherever His Ark is. It represents Jehovah (see esp. 
 Numb. x. 35 sq.), and with it He travels wherever His 
 Israel goes. Hence Israel's horror and dismay at the 
 
 worshipped as kind, loving, just; Nergal is pictured as "a destructive 
 warrior," a death-dealer, a giant, sword in hand, causing havoc. As in Baby- 
 lonia, so in Israel, as long as Jehovah was mainly the Sinai God of storm, 
 fire, earthquake, a limit was set to His moral and humane conception. 
 
 1 LXX {i.e. Septuagint, cf. n. ' inf.) has " saw," " looked a(," not " into." 
 God smote 70, because they were not glad to see the Ark, not for "looking 
 into " it. 70 often = a large round number. 50,000 seems to have come into 
 the text as a doublet, or a scribal error. The text is very corrupt. 
 
 ' But there are other versions of these two passages, e.g. I Sam. vi. 19 
 reads in the LXX : " And the sons of Jeconiah did not rejoice when they saw 
 the Ark, and He slew of them," etc. As to 2 Sam. vi. 6-8, Arnold in his 
 recent " Ephod and Ark " {Harvard Theol. Sttidies), with one slight emenda- 
 tion, gives a new interpretation : "And they came tg Nachon's threshing floor, 
 and Uzzah slipped against the ark and clutched it, for the oxen had been 
 dunging, and God, angry, smote him for the slip." A very slight Hebrew 
 emendation turns "stretched forth" into "slipped"; the verb translated 
 "had been dunging " means literally " had let fall," always a puzzle. Hence 
 Arnold interprets : Uzzah slips on the dung, tries to clutch the ark to save 
 himself, and cracks his skull on the rock. But both these interpretations 
 leave us where we were as to the conception of God. 
 
 _ ' Cf. Ex. iv. 24, where Jehovah meets Moses and seeks to kill him for 
 being uncircumcised. 
 
CONCEPTION OF JEHOVAH lOI 
 
 Ark's capture by tile Philistines. Even then Jehovah 
 asserts Himself. Before Him in His Ark their god 
 Dagon falls as dead, and plagues curse Philistia, so 
 that the Philistines exclaim : " Send away the ark of 
 the God of Israel that it slay us not and our people " 
 (i Sam. V. 1 1) ; even as the .people of Beth-shemesh, 
 when a large number of them died for looking into the 
 Ark, exclaimed : " Who is able to stand before the 
 Lord, this 'holy' God?" (i Sam. vi. 20). Jephthah's 
 vow proves that human sacrifices were popularly 
 thought acceptable to Him, especially the sacrifice of 
 the first-born, and this was clearly a very popular 
 belief up to 700 B.C. {e.g. 2 Kgs. xvi. 3 ; xxi. 6 ; Deut. 
 xviii. 10; Mic. vi. fy. Images of Jehovah (teraphim, 
 certainly, and probably ephod, = images) were common 
 («.^. Judg. viii. 27 ; xvii. 5), and no objection was raised 
 to them till the days of the canonical prophets. 
 
 Clearly, then, Israel's early God was not the 
 Moral Governor of the whole world as with us. He 
 is the one God of Israel, and belongs to Israel only. 
 His province begins and ends with Israel's borders. 
 Other nations are outside His sphere. They have 
 their gods as real as He is. Hence He is not 
 addressed as God simply, as if there were no other. 
 He has a proper name, Jehovah, to distinguish Him 
 from His peers, e.g. Chemosh, god of Moab, or Mil- 
 com, god of Ammon. Thus David is sure that his 
 flight to Philistia puts him outside Jehovah's protec- 
 tion and subjects him to Philistia's gods (i Sam. xxvi. 
 19 ; cf. Judg. xi. 24). 
 
 From this rapid sketch of early Israel's moral and 
 spiritual plane, we are in a better position to under- 
 stand Moses' three epoch-making deeds, his (i) revela- 
 tion of Jehovah,^ (2) Covenant, (3) Law, — at Sinai. 
 
 ' Directly given in the O.T., or preserved in proper names, is a long list 
 of titles of God. Some express the general notion of "god," others are de- 
 scriptive, e.g. El = god, Shaddai = Almighty (from LXX) — EI'ys, a very ancient 
 name of god, common to Babylonians, Canaanites, and Hebrews, and may 
 have been borrowed from Sumer ; it is found in Heb. proper names, e.g' 
 Isra-el,, Beth-el. Dr. Burney thinks its original Sumerian meaning may have 
 
I02 MOSES 
 
 (i) Jehovah. " I am the Lord thy God ; Thou shalt 
 have none other gods besides Me." This, Moses and 
 Israel could easily grasp. It meant : Jehovah is 
 "Israel's God and Israel's only; Jehovah has chosen 
 Israel for His own, reserves Himself for it alone, 
 links His fortunes with Israel's. But Israel must do 
 the same. Jehovah is a jealous God, brooks no 
 divided worship with Chemosh Or Baal. Israel must 
 serve Him and Him only. Thus it is henotheism, the 
 worship of one God only out of many ; not mono- 
 theism, the worship of the one and only God, beside 
 whom there is no other. We shall see that the moral 
 element enters into Israel's idea of Jehovah, but they 
 are far more alive to His strength and awful " holi- 
 ness." 
 
 (2) The Covenant, ratified with awe-inspiring rites 
 such as would impress a rude and superstitious 
 people, pledged Israel to loyalty to its Jehovah. In 
 Ch. V. we saw that in savage days, so as to make 
 a coiftpact inviolable, the priest cut a victim in 
 pieces, made two heaps of them, and uttered the 
 spell: "So be it done, and more also, to him who 
 breaks the agreement"; then the parties passed 
 between the two heaps, thus putting themselves 
 
 been " the bright one," " the pure one.'' Elohim is a plural of eminence, 
 equivalent to a superlative ; Elyon (poetical) = the most high ; El-Shcddai 
 = God Almighty. Adonai, another plural of eminence = mighty Lord. As 
 proper names show, e.g. Jerub-baal ( — Gideon) and Abi-melech, Baal ( = lord 
 or owner) and Melech ( = mighty king) were also titles of Jehovah, and, in 
 this connection, have no reference to the pagan gods of that same name. 
 
 Jehovah, or rather Yahweh, is now known to have been recognised as 
 " god " in Babylonia from c. 2000 B.C. onward, but not earlier, and Sayce, 
 Hommel, and Burney believe it was introduced there by the Amorite kings, 
 and make Yahweh an Amorite deity. He was early identified with the Moon- 
 god, Sin. J (not E), regards the use of the name Yahweh as primeval, e.g. 
 Gen. iv. 26 states that already in the days of Adam's grandson, Enos, " then 
 began men to call by the name of Yahweh." What the revelation of the 
 name in Exod. iii. 13, 14, means 'is that the name Yahweh was now given a 
 , uniquely new significance, full of the moral and spiritual meaning which 
 Israel's prophets afterwards drew from it. — We have seen how names in 
 olden days were kept secret for fear of the magic use to which they might 
 be put (p. 62 sup.). So Jahwe's or Yahweh's name was unutterable, and 
 concealed under the form JHWH so carefully that its pronunciation is 
 quite lost. (Cf. III. Commandment and especially I^ev. xxiv. 16 (H), a 
 very old law.) 
 
THE SOLEMN COVENANT AT SINAI IO3 
 
 under the god's blessing or curse (cf. Gen. xv. 9 sqq.). 
 Moses did much the same thing ^ : (i) A solemn and 
 bloody sacrifice is offered, at once bringing God in ; 
 (2) The terms of the agreement are clearly set forth 
 by Moses ; (3) A solemn pledge : God pledges Him- 
 self (as shown by the sprinkling of the blood on His 
 altar, i.e. on. Himself) to abide by His part of the 
 agreement; Israel pledge themselves (as shown by 
 the sprinkling of the blood on the people, and by 
 their express words) to be loyal to Jehovah and 
 abide by the contract ; (4) The slain oxen symbolise 
 Israel's fate, if faithless to its covenant; (5) The 
 passing between the pieces is protective (against evil 
 spirits), and also sacramental, uniting the covenanters 
 by the bond of common blood. 
 
 Never before, in any land, had the relationship 
 between a god and his people been based on such a 
 mutual agreement or Solemn Covenant between the 
 two parties. It was precisely this moral bond, this 
 mutual Covenant-relationship, that gave Israel's reli- 
 gion its unique religious character. It was a Covenant 
 based on duties as well as rights, i.e. it was a moral 
 covenant. On moral grounds, out of compassion for 
 their misery in bondage, Jehovah had chosen Israel 
 as His own; as if between man and man. He was 
 now entering into a mojral covenant with them ; but 
 He claimed in return their_ loyalty to their bond and 
 their undivided allegiance' to Himself Too much 
 stress cannot possibly be laid on this moral factor. 
 It is the seed, and the ethical monotheism and sublime 
 spiritual teaching of an Isaiah is but its flower. It 
 is precisely this moral element in Mosaic religion 
 which makes all the difference between Israel's and 
 other religions. This and this alone explains why 
 these nomad Arabs absorbed civilised Canaan instead 
 of being absorbed by it. It also explains why Judaism 
 
 • As elsewhere {e.g. Gen. xxii.), the prophetic writers adapt this scene to 
 their own day, e.g. introduce into it a "Book of the Covenant" written 
 400 years later, and give it a moral and religious setting. 
 
104 MOSES 
 
 is the seed of which Christianity is the ripe fruit. 
 The inspiration which prompted Moses to give the 
 Covenant this moral bed-rock foundation in itself 
 stamps him as the greatest of prophets, a spiritual 
 genius, a great outstanding Leader and Teacher of 
 men, whose moral teaching was so instinct with life 
 that it lived on and thrived when all its environment 
 was dead against it. True, a Joshua, Gideon, Nathan, 
 Elijah, Amos watered the plant, yet they but entered 
 into the fruit of Moses' immense labours and uniquely 
 inspired foresight during those forty years. We have 
 to jump 1250 years before we meet another prophet 
 equal to and greater than Moses. 
 
 Never did Israel forget this awe-inspiring Cove- 
 nant ceremony of Moses' day. It stamped itself deep 
 in Hebrew minds and awed them for all time; But 
 this "everlasting covenant" also filled them with a 
 national pride and faith in themselves under a 
 Jehovah now and henceforth their God and champion, 
 and theirs only. 
 
 (3) Moses' Law. — As we have seen (pp. 41 sqq.), it 
 is now admitted that the Book of the Covenant (C). 
 written about 800 b.c., Deuteronomy's Book of the 
 Law (c. 650) and the Priestly Code (c. 500) cannot 
 possibly be Moses' work. Even if any portions 
 go back to Moses, we have no means of identifying - 
 them. As said in Ch. IV. sup., not only were 
 all new laws ascribed to Moses, but the written 
 codes of 800 and 650 B.C. were, in Moses' name, 
 constantly revised, modified, altered to bring them 
 abreast of later ideas and needs. Hence, as Cheyne, 
 Paterson, and Montefiore assure us, there is good 
 reason to believe that even the Ten Command- 
 ments did not originally bear anything like their 
 present form and character. As Cheyne remarks, 
 the purely ethical tone of our Decalogue, "the 
 refinement which forbids even thoughts of covetous- 
 ness," would have been far above the heads of rude 
 Arabs of 1250 B.C. Moses' original Ten Words must 
 
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IO5 
 
 have been much shorter and less high-pitched, deal- 
 ing largely with rights of property and on less 
 Deuteronomic ethical principles. The moral element 
 was in Moses' Words from the first; the prophets 
 were not the first to enunciate it, they inherited from 
 Moses the conviction that true religion utters itself 
 in morality. The persistent Tradition assigning 
 these Ten Words to Moses proves that they were 
 fundamentally moral from the start, and all we imply 
 is that the various reflections and promises now 
 iound in them are later prophetic additions. The 
 original Ten Words were, rather, terse sentences 
 forbidding man to tamper wjth what belongs to God 
 or man as his by right. The long explanations in 
 Words II. and IV. are clearly late additions. In the 
 Second, all images are prohibited ; yet down to the 
 eighth century no one appears^ to be acquainted with 
 such a categorical prohibition of images of Jehovah. 
 Gideon, the Judge, had one ; so had Micah, and Mose^ 
 oz£)«^m««feo«, Jonathan, was its priest; David consults 
 the ephod,^ "most likely an image of Jehovah " (Pater- 
 son) ; Gideon's "ephod," made of 1700 shekels of gold, 
 was probably an image, and the association of ephod 
 with teraphim elsewhere {e.g. Hos. iii. 4) seems to 
 confirm this view. The parallel to Word II. in Ex. 
 xxxiv. 17, "Thou shall make thee no molten gods" i.e. 
 
 * In the Journal of Theol. Stud., Ap., 1908, Dr. Burney argues that there 
 were two forms of Yahwism in Israel from Moses' day. As already said 
 (p. 34, n.) his school holds that only a few tribes {e.g. Judah, Simeon and Joseph- 
 tribes) were in Egypt ; the fest, " handmaid " tribes, were already in Canaan. 
 The Mosaic tribes were steeped in Mosaic Yahwism and eschewed images. 
 This purer Yahwism was fostered by, e.g. the prophets, Nazirites, Rechabites. 
 The non-Mosaic tribes were Canaanite Yahwists, that is, Yahweh worshippers 
 but with more of the heathen element, e.g. images and other rites, in their cult. 
 After the settlement in Canaan, the Mosaic tribes would come under the 
 influence of the non-Mosaic and be prone to lapse into their lower religious 
 ideas. 
 
 ' Of course, we must carefully distinguish "ephod" before (say) 700 B.C. 
 from " ephod " in the Priestly Code, which is ever a'high-priestly vestment. We 
 must add that many modern scholars deny that ephod ever was an image, " but 
 the ordinary priestly vestment employed (e.g. Exod. xxviii. 4) in obtaining 
 an oracle" ; (see Burney, Judges, pp. 236 sqq. for " ephod" = vestment, not 
 idol ; and Hastings' D.o/B., i. 726, where Driver gives the reasons for both 
 views). 
 
I06 MOSES 
 
 images of strange gods, sounds much more like the 
 original Word and is fully in keeping with Moses' 
 resolve to stamp out polytheism. In the IVth Word 
 no doubt Moses commanded Sabbath-rest (cf. the 
 terse " Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh 
 thou shalt rest" in Ex. xxxiv. 21), but not till the 
 monarchy was it kept " holy " in our sense. Again, 
 Deut. V. 14: "that thy servants may rest as well as 
 thou, etc.," gives a totally different reason for Sabbath- 
 rest to that of Ex. XX. 1 1, " for God rested the seventh 
 day," an obvious reference to the late Gen. i. Creation- 
 Story of 500 B.C. These variations, anachronisms, 
 palpable prophetic spiritual colourings, and also the 
 disproportion in the Two Tables, one with 146 words 
 and only 26 in the other, all point to our Decalogue 
 as the outcome of many revisions. (Jastrow, Heb. and 
 Bab. Trad., p. 165, has excellent suggestions as to the 
 way in which the short Decalogue grew.) , 
 
 To sum up. The general conviction to-day is 
 that the original Ten Words were pithy one-line 
 commandments, e.g. Thou shalt have no other God 
 but Jehovah ; Thou shalt make thee no molten or 
 strange gods ; Thou shalt not utter the " holy " 
 Name; Thou shalt keep the Sabbath-rest; Thou 
 shalt obey thy father and mother ; Thou shalt do no 
 murder, adultery, robbery, perjury, nor falsely claim 
 thy neighbour's chattels. 
 
 Of course, the elaborate laws on priests, sacrifices, 
 ceremonial, ar^ not Moses' own. Up to Hezekiah's 
 day (727-698) worship was neither thus centralised 
 nor organised. Any Israelite could sacrifice without 
 priestly aid at any place with an altar, and these local 
 shrines were legion. The Book of the Covenant 
 expressly tells him to do so (Ex. xx. 24 sq.). Early 
 priests were rather caretakers of a shrine and its 
 belongings than ministers at the altar. Thus in 
 Moses' day they were caretakers of the Ark and its 
 Tent. Not the altar, but the oracle first gave them 
 dignity. Wherever there was a shrine with an image 
 
TORAH, LEVITES I07 
 
 of Jehovah (ephod or teraphim) ' there was an oracle, 
 where men could consult God's will by the sacred lot 
 and ephod (cf. Urim and Thummim, and i Sam. xiv. 
 41, 42). Israel's religion bade disputants thus to 
 " come before God " for His decision, and these 
 decisions were carefully kept as precedents. Through 
 long experience the priests alone had skill to interpret 
 oracles, apply old decisions to new cases, indicate 
 the proper usages, formulas, and ritual in approaching 
 God or performing sacred rites. Thus, as inter- 
 preters of God's will, they became soothsayers, 
 judges, teachers, and counsellors. Like Moses, as 
 God's spokesmen they interpreted God's will, decided 
 suits, gave guidance in social matters. This oral 
 teaching or priestly Torah,^ a deeply moral influence, 
 is the source and basis of all the Peritat€uch laws, 
 and dates from Moses' day onward. 
 
 Hence, priests grew in esteem and dignity, gradu- 
 ally appropriated one function after another till they 
 eventually became a sacrosanct guild or caste, and at 
 last monopolised the ministry at the altar (after 
 621 B.C. nominally, really after the Exile), and became 
 sole mediators between God and man. But this was 
 not so till long after Moses ; neither is the popular 
 idea correct that from Moses' day all priests had to 
 be of the tribe of Levi.^ Thus Judg. xvii. 7 speaks of 
 
 ' Teraphim not Jehovah-images, but probably household-gods, originally 
 connected with ancestor-worship. Tmages they were (Gen. xxxi. 30, 32), and 
 Michal places one in David's bed (i Sam. xix. 13 sqq.). They were used as 
 oracle-givers (in Micah's shrine, Judg, xvii. 5, cf. Hos. iii. 4). In a Kgs. xxiii. 
 24 they are associated with witchcraft. In early days, their cultus was not 
 thought disloyal to Jehovah. 
 
 ' Torak, or " oracle of God," oral or written, is a wide term covering 
 eventually both Scripture and Tradition. In early times it denotes oral 
 decisions, answers to hard questions, civil or ritual, by the priests acting as 
 God's interpreters and mouthpieces, »>. as judges (see Hag. ii. 11-13). Ex. 
 xviii. 13 sq., shows us Moses making known the Torah ; he is sitting all day 
 long "judging the people," i.e. giving decisions in hard cases as people come 
 to him "to enquire of God." He " makes known to them the statutes of God 
 and His Laws " (r6), i,e. he is. God's mouthpiece, so are the priests after him. 
 In this sense Moses gave Israel's Law, i.e. he was the first to actualise the 
 sense of law and justice and to begin the series of oral decisions, " oracles of 
 God," which priests and prophets continued after him. On these decisions all 
 Israel's Codes are based. 
 
 ' Were Levites a tribe at all ? Lewt, priest = "one attached" (to priestly 
 
I08 MOSES 
 
 "a Levite of the family of Judah"; Moses uses 
 " young men of the children of Israel " to offer the 
 covenant sacrifices (Ex. xxiv. s), and appoints the 
 Ephraimite Joshua as custodian or "priest" of 
 the all-holy Tent. So afterwards. The Ephraimite 
 Micah first appoints h^s son priest; Samuel is no 
 Levite ; the sons of Abihadab, no Levite, are " sancti- 
 fied " as priests to serve the sacred Ark (i Sam. vii. i ; 
 2 Sam. vi. 3). But although priests need not be 
 Levites, Levites were preferred if available. 
 
 Enough has been said to show that Moses did not 
 contribute to Israel's legislation and religious institu- 
 tions all that the " Books of Moses " imply. None 
 the less, he is Israel's greatest creative genius, the 
 Founder of Israel as a nation and of its religion, the 
 inspiration of after-prophets, and man's " schoolmaster 
 unto Christ." 
 
 functions). Thus Gen. xxix. 34 (J) connects Levi with lavah (R.V. m.) " to 
 be joined"; (cf. Numb, xviii. 2, 4, (P) : "They (Levi) shall be 'joined 
 unto ' thee (Aaron)." Many able scholars endorse this view, regarding the 
 term Levites not as a tribal name at all, but as, originally, a descriptive adjec- 
 tive = "those who attached themselves to" the Ark and priestly functions. 
 Hommel points out that already in Minsean inscriptions the word lawtu — 
 priest. Driver writes : " At one period the term Levite was merely a priest's 
 official title regardless of his tribe," i.e. the name of a priestly caste. He 
 instances Ex. iv. 14 (JE) where God, addressing Moses, speaks of " Aaron 
 thy brother the Levite." Driver adds : " As Moses, equally with Aaron, 
 belonged to the tribe of Levi (Ex. ii. i), the term, as applied distinctively to 
 Aaron, must denote, not ancestry, but profession," i.e. clerics as opposed to 
 laymen. 
 
 Other eminent scholars deny this, and hold that Le\'i was, as O.T, tradition 
 assumes, an independent Israelite tribe ; originally secular, it eventually 
 (possibly after its decimation and dispersal) came to be invested with priestly 
 functions, a privilege due to its close connection with Moses, himself a Levite 
 and represented in Ex. xxxiii. 7-1 1 (E) as sole intermediary between God and 
 Israel. Gen. xlix., " The Blessing of Jacob," a very early poem, endorses 
 this view strongly and all but conclusively. In it Levi is a purely secular tribe, 
 censured, with Simeon, for some act of violence leading to their being accursed 
 and dispersed among the other tribes ; probably referring to the treachery of 
 the Levi and Simeon tribes towards the Shechemites (Gen. xxxiv.) and its dire 
 requital by Shechem (cf. Burney, Judg. 436 sqq.). An etymology of Levi 
 widely accepted to-day : " Levi is simply a gentilic form of his mother's name 
 Leah = ' wild cow,' " (totemism,) favours the view of Levi as a tribe. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PERIOD OF THE JUDGES 
 
 With Moses we crossed the border-line separating 
 prehistoric from historic Israel, but lack of data 
 compelled us to confine ourselves to broad facts and 
 general outlines. Henceforth we are on surer ground. 
 Judges and Samuel, though seventh-century composi- 
 tions, incorporate far older sources (J and E) of real 
 historical value. But the seventh-century editors oi 
 Judg. (though probably pre-Deuteronomic, possibly 
 as early as 700 B.C.) are all but Deuteronomists in 
 tendency. Like Deuteronomy, they treat facts of 
 history with an eye to their judgments of value, for 
 their practical religious lessons. The main introduc- 
 tion (ii. 6-iii. 6) gives us the editors' key-note to 
 their scheme of " pragmatic " history. We are there 
 told that as soon as Joshua and his generation had 
 died, Israel fell away from Jehovah and worshipped 
 the gods of Canaan ; immediate punishment at once 
 falls upon Israel in the form of a foreign oppressor. 
 Thereupon Israel cries to Jehovah, and He promptly 
 raises a deliverer or Judge. Israel is faithful till the 
 Judge dies, then the wholesale apostasy begins all 
 over again, with the same iresults, six times over. 
 The editors see in all the Judges period one long 
 scene of idolatry and perpetually recurring apostasy, 
 Where an Amos or Isaiah ascribes Israel's downfall 
 to false worship and bad lives, these redactors dwell 
 exclusively on false worship. They artificially force 
 history to illustrate a Hosea's prophetic teaching, 
 and are imbued with his spirit. 
 
 109 
 
no PERIOD OF THE JUDGES 
 
 Yet the historical value of the stories in Judges is 
 very great. It is only the framework that is thus 
 artificial. The religious pragmatism of Judg. ii. ii 
 sqq. does not colour the stories themselves, the main 
 narratives representing the older material. It is only 
 applied, practically word for word, at the beginning 
 and close of the stories. As already said (p. 98 sup.), 
 the real historical sources oi Judges are J and E, two 
 very old collections of stories of the struggles of the 
 tribes, E. and W. of Jordan, with the older inhabi- 
 tants or with invaders during Israel's settlement in 
 Canaan. In this older material we discover the true 
 facts of the settlement, eg. its purely local and tribal 
 character, as Judg. i.-ii. 5, a very old J document, 
 tells us from the start. Moreover, in J and E, the 
 religious motive is much more true to fact and 
 primitive, exactly as in the J and E sections of the 
 Hexateuch. We find little (except in vi. 7-10 and 
 X. 6-16) of the pragmatic conception of sin, punish- 
 ment, and repentance; yet the utmost emphasis is 
 laid on the fact that the Judges are only enabled to 
 make headway against tremendous odds as Jehovah's 
 commissioned deliverers, and in the Divine strength 
 which supports and inspires them. ' 
 
 The period of Judges covers the whole interval 
 between Joshua and Samuel, c. 1 200-1000 b.c,* when 
 Israel was struggling for a firm foothold in Canaan 
 and settling there. In this long 2So-year process of 
 conquest, settlement, and fusion with the old inhabi- 
 tants, Canaan's influence on Israel was strong and 
 twofold, uplifting in civilisation, but reactionary in 
 religion. The Canaanites as Semites (= Amorites) 
 
 ' Chronology. — The systematic chronology of Judg, with its numerous 
 exact numbers, 20, 40 (5), 80, is very artificial. Forty years is the O.T. 
 equivalent to a generation. It is a favourite O.T. number, e.g. Moses' life 
 falls into three parts of 40 years ; Eli, David, Solomon, each rule 40 years. 
 1 Kgs. vi. I, reckons 480 years (= 12 generations) from the Exodus to the 
 buildinglof the Temple, Solomon's fourth year. According to Judg. numbers, 
 it would add up to nearly 6co. As already said, the Exodus was about 1250 
 B.C. probably, and the Judges period about 200 years or so (see Burney, 
 jfudgis, \.). 
 
ISRAEL AND BAAL-WORSHIP III 
 
 were Israel's kinsmen and spoke much as they did. As 
 we have seen,Canaan,certainly from 2 100-1400 B.C., was 
 steeped in Babylonian culture, religion, nature-wor- 
 ship. Israel had only just begun to cast off this nature- 
 worship,' and was still impregnated with many of its 
 views. The seductive influence of Canaan's nature- 
 worship had its effect on Hebrew religion. While 
 on the whole remaining loyal to its one Jehovah, 
 Israel borrowed many of Canaan's forms of worship, 
 her feasts and sacrificial rites, her altars upon high- 
 places and under green trees, her Asheras or sacred 
 poles, and not a few reverted to Canaan's nature-gods 
 and her Baals and Ashtarts.^ Yet the impression 
 conveyed by the pragmatic^ history of the Judges- 
 editors that the whole Judges period was one long 
 scene of Hebrew apostasy, is a gross exaggeration. 
 We know as a fact that all the national leaders, from 
 -Deborah to David, were loyal servants of Jehovah, 
 and invariably found nine out of every twelve 
 Israelites eager to rally " to the help of Jehovah." 
 As the footnote (^) shows, it was Jehovah Himself 
 that half the Israelites were worshipping under the 
 form of Baal and even Ashtoreth. 
 
 If we reconstruct the actual historical background, 
 the religious situation will stand out in bolder relief. 
 As often in the Bible, Judges gives us two versions 
 of the same events, sometimes three, by reason of 
 the two original sources J and E, themselves different, 
 and also the editors' own comments. Joshua^ and 
 
 ' If the modern idea of only Joseph-tribes being in Egypt with Moses is 
 accepted, while many of the rest were at the time already in Canaan, then only 
 the Mosaic tribes, imbued with Moses' ethical conception of Jehovah, would 
 be conscious of lapsing from a higher to a lower form of Jehovah-worship in 
 serving Him under the form of baals, and thereby infringing the Covenant. 
 
 ° Baal is not a proper name like^ehovah, but means " master," " owner," 
 and is applicable to any god. "Strange as it sounds, the title" was in early 
 times used to describe the God of Israel" (Burney, Outlines of O.T. Tkeol., 
 27 sq.). Proper names of Jehovah-worshippers have it, e.g. Jerub-baal = 
 " Baal (= Jehovah) strives." For Baal = Jehovah, cf. Hos. ii. i6, 17. 
 
 ' I.e. treating facts of history with reference to their practical lessons. 
 
 * Of course, at the back of the Joshua narrative lies a genuinely ancient 
 tradition like Judg. i.-ii. Si hut the Deuteronomist redactor of JE has obscured 
 it (Burney), 
 
112 PERIOD OF THE JUDGES 
 
 much of Judges represent the conquest of Western 
 Palestine as the work of a compact Israel welded in 
 unison. After extirpating the Canaanites, Israel is 
 pictured as laying the ownerless country at Joshua's 
 feet for him to divide it by lot among the tribes. 
 This is an idealised picture. Judg. i., an older and 
 more historical document, knows nothing of this 
 systematic organisation of the tribes with its well- 
 mobilised army and unity of direction. True, at 
 acute crises, the common danger at times welded 
 several tribes together — never all {e.g. Judg. v.). But 
 except on two or three such memorable occasions, 
 the tribes led each its own life and fought each for its 
 own hand. The conquest of Canaan took the form of 
 guerilla warfare, each tribe independently trying to 
 effect a more or less permanent settlement where it 
 could, and as best it could, in the midst of an alien 
 population largely unsubdued. Naturally, the con- 
 quest was far from complete. Whenever the 
 Canaanites, as split up as Israel, combined to strike 
 a united blow for freedom, the clannish and dis- 
 organised Israelites found themselves in sore straits, 
 even had to flee to caves or hills for refuge. Then 
 Some inspiring Hebrew champion, a Deborah or 
 Gideon,'^ would rise up, rouse Israel in Jehovah's 
 name, muster several tribes together and break the 
 power of the foe. But, the crisis over, the tribes flew 
 asunder again and lived each its own life as before. 
 Indeed, throughout this period, Israel had a clannish 
 foe to thank for such success as their invasion 
 achieved. Had the Canaanites possessed any cohe- 
 sion among themselves, Israel must inevitably have 
 been chased out of the land; but Canaan, with its 
 heptarchy, was hopelessly divided. Even so, far 
 from being exterminated, as Deuteronomy implies, 
 
 ' Just as the Deuteronomist editors turn local into national conflicts and 
 settlements, so they make of the Deliverers or Judges a succession of national 
 rulers, whereas they were mostly tribal captains with a purely local authority, 
 and only one (Gideon) handed down his office to his son. Only when face to 
 face with the foe did the other tribes obey them. 
 
CANAANITE CIVILISATION AND ISRAEL II3 
 
 vast numbers of Canaanites remained in the land, 
 and the old population amalgamated with the new. 
 This proved both a blessing and a curse to Israel. 
 
 Through the Canaanites, nomad Hebrews were 
 introduced to agriculture and civilisation. A period 
 of free open-country life intervened before they had 
 to settle down to the restricted life of cities, thus 
 making the transition-stage from nomad life to 
 civilisation easier. True, some cities were early in 
 Israelite hands {e.g. Judg. i. 10, 22), but, generally, 
 the Canaanites still held the cities while the Israelites 
 occupied the villages.^ Their villages, even, they 
 turned into fixed camps : " To your tents,^ O Israel," 
 was their signal cry for dispersing in those early 
 days, just as " every man to his own city " (i Kgs. xxii. 
 36) replaced it later. Thus in their first stage of 
 civilisation Israel had only to assimilate the culture 
 and agricultural pursuits of Canaanite peasants, with 
 whom they soon found much in common. As time 
 went on, Israel also made cities their own and adopted 
 Canaan's higher arts and civilisation. From the first, 
 fusion and intermarriage proceeded apace between 
 the two races. This largely explains Israel's rapid 
 growth in population as well as culture, and paved 
 the way for the populous and cultured empire of 
 David's and Solomon's days. 
 
 Israel's introduction to Canaan's higher civilisation 
 was politically an immense gain. Had they remained 
 nomad shepherds, their subsequent historical develop- 
 ment would, of course, have been impossible. Their 
 career would have been that of their first-cousins 
 Edom, Moab and Ammon. But as certainly did 
 Canaanite civilisation involve a great peril; it did 
 not improve their morals. Accustomed to a hardy 
 open-air life in the desert, where they had to wrestle 
 
 ' E.g. "The villages ceased in Israel " (Judg. v. 7), is looked upon as a 
 very heavy blow to Israel in Deborah's day. 
 
 • True, as Driver and Burney point out, " tent " is merely a " survival," 
 and really means " to your homes, 1 
 
114 PERIOD OF THE JUDGES 
 
 with hard Nature for bare sustenance for selves and 
 flocks, they now found themselves comfortably settled 
 in " a land flowing with milk and honey." This had 
 an enervating influence on the Hebrew sensuous 
 temperament. Moreover, the old inhabitants soon 
 introduced Israel to their native shrines, nature- 
 worship, superstitions and questionable feasts. This 
 new religion — practically their old one of Babylonia— 
 with its sensuous associations, appealed to Israelites, 
 and their religious practices and views underwent 
 considerable modification. It was a religion of feast, 
 laughter and easy morality, not making such heavy 
 demands on life and character as their own Jehovah- 
 creed with its many " Thou shalt nots." 
 
 This period of transition from the old to the new 
 left its scars on Israel. The lawless times of war, the 
 seductions of civilisation, the attractions of Canaan's 
 sensuous religion, the long spells of enervating peace 
 and plenty, one and all had a corrupting effect on 
 Hebrew character, religion and morals. " Every man 
 did that which was right- in his own eyes" (Judg. xvii. 
 6) and many "served Baal and Ashtart" (ii. 13, x. 6), 
 We need only instance Samson's 1 vagaries ; the story 
 of Gibeah (xix.), when a Levite (= priest) takes the 
 corpse of his abused concubine, cuts it up in pieces 
 and sends them to the various tribes ; or Jephthah's^ 
 vow, to show that it is a period of anarchy, laxity, and 
 superstition. 
 
 But under this unprepossessing exterior ,the 
 
 ' A semi-historical, semi- (solar) mythical folklore hero. The story is full 
 of the rough vigour arid broad humour of the rustic story-teller. He is " the 
 ideal of the country-hero ; the village-lion must be first with the female sex, 
 first in bodily strength, courage, brawling, mpther-wit " (Budde). Religiously, 
 Ije seems little of a divinely commissioned Deliverer, and his own wayward 
 passions are his one guide. The story has unique value as illustrating village- 
 life, and the Israelite-Philistine relations on the borderland. It is an old 
 story ; the editors have touched it up, and apparently would fain have 
 eliminated it, but his figure was too deep-rooted in popular imagination. 
 
 ' Mainly historical, but a blend of two varying traditions. Jephthah and 
 his vow are probable facts, but reflect the yearly festival commemorating the 
 sad death of the virgin-goddess (= Spring) then commonly celebrated in 
 Canaan (cf. Eiek. viii. 14, "women weeping for Tammuz"). 
 
THE EARLY "PROPHETS" II5 
 
 Hebrew heart was still sound. Moses' Jehovah- 
 covenant had struck deep root in those hearts. Even 
 in their blackest hour, when the fire of their zeal for 
 Jehovah and His cause seemed clean gone out, a 
 E)eborah or Gideon had but to appeal to their higher 
 feelings, and the spark of loyalty to God and country 
 at once leaped into flame. Israel was sound at heart, 
 but the Israelites were ever a sensuous race loving 
 the flesh-pots, and seductive temptations were many. 
 The iron had to enter deep into their soul before hard 
 experience taught them that self-indulgence is not life, 
 nor Baal-licence their best good. The Philistines 
 were the means of at last really rousing Israel from 
 its sloth and slumber. 
 
 At Aphek the Philistines smote Israel "hip and 
 thigh with a great slaughter"; worst of all, they 
 carried off Jehovah's Ark (i.e. Jehovah Himself, in 
 men's eyes then). Israel saw in this a direct visita- 
 tion of God. Conscience-smitten and ashamed, they 
 now braced themselves in dead earnest as one man to 
 action and loyalty to their Jehovah. A wondrous 
 spirit of inspiration came over Israel. Suddenly, and 
 apparently for the first time, " prophets," or troops of 
 ' ecstatic enthusiasts on whom the " Spirit of the Lord " 
 has come with overpowering force, appear in bands" 
 all over the land, men full of a new religious and 
 patriotic fervour, awakeners of the national con- 
 science. Like Moslem dervishes,^ these prophets 
 roused their hearers to a pitch of intense excitement 
 by their preachings to the accompaniment of music, 
 song and dance. So contagious was their enthusiasm 
 that soon the nation was roused to wipe out the 
 shame and hurt done to Jehovah and His Israel 
 by Philistia. All that was now needed was a leader 
 and deliverer. Samuel was Israel's judge (?)2 then 
 
 ' Kuenen and Montefiore believe that these dervish-like " prophets " were 
 on the model of the fanatic Baal prophets (cf. the quaint actions of the Baal 
 prophets at Carmel). Cf. I Sam. xix. 24 and Cheyne in £nc. Sib. 3857. 
 
 * A twofold inconsistent account of Samuel's r61e and of Saul's election is 
 given in (i) l Sam. ix.-x. 16, x. 27b-xi. 1-15 (J) ; (2) i Sam. viii., a. 17-24, xii. 
 
Il6 PERIOD OF THE JUDGES 
 
 but he was aged, and more than an old judge was 
 wanted now. The crisis called for a strong war- 
 leader for the coming life-and-death struggle with 
 the foe. Samuel saw his country's need. The neigh- 
 bouring nations had taught him the value of a king 
 for keeping a nation compact, well in hand, and giving 
 it unity of direction ; and combined action with unity 
 of direction was essential now, if Israel was to be 
 saved. Samuel well knew the dangers of kingship, 
 always grave in the East, but despotism was better 
 than absorption by the Canaanites or annihilation by 
 Philistia. In Saul, the son of Kish, he discovered the 
 very man wanted. He also saw to it that both king 
 and people should realise that only as Jehovah's 
 servant and representative did His anointed king 
 rule on earth. With king Saul begins a new era in 
 Israel's history. One of Moses' goals is reached. At 
 the outset of our Judges' period, Israel was still a 
 rude nomad race without any real land of its own. At 
 the end of it T:hey emerge, no longer a wild, disinte- 
 grated, mixed rabble, but well on the way to a 
 civilised compact nation with a land of their own. 
 
 Conception of God. — Still much as in Moses' day 
 (p. 99, sup.). Specially is Jehovah now Israel's War- 
 God. The joyful confidence in Jehovah as Israel's 
 
 (E, E*). la ( I ) , the older version, Samuel is an almost unknown ' ' seer.'' Israel is 
 without a leader against Philistine oppression, and God (through Samuel) 
 readily chooses and appoints Saul as king and deliverer. In (2) Samuel (cf. Eli 
 before him) is a well-known Judge. Israel is at peace, and Philistia already 
 beaten, Samuel grudgingly yields the rule to Saul at the people's urgent 
 request, while God and Samuel view Israel's petition for a king as an act of 
 religious apostasy, and prophesy endless calamities in consequence. The later 
 religious colouring of (2) is palpable. Cf. i Sam. vii. where Samuel beats 
 Philistia crushingly through the efficacy of his sacrifice and prayers. Gideon 
 and Jephthah and Deborah go about it more secularly. The Deuteronomist 
 historian's. moralising introduction in Judg. ii. ii-iii. 6 seems to require (cf. in 
 yosh. and Deut.) a correspondingly solemn hortatory conclusion, such as Moses 
 and Joshua deliver as their testament to Israel, and exactly such a discourse is 
 found in I Sam. xii., Samuel's address, marking the close of the Judges period, 
 (In including x, 27b in the older account, read x. 27b as given in R.V. m. : " And 
 it came to pass after about a month that Naboth," etc. (LXX). As Dr. Bumey 
 points out : " The LXX here is original. In the narrative (x. 7 Samuel had 
 told Saul, ' Let it be that thou do as occasion serve thee ' ; x. 27b (as the LXX 
 gives it,) resumes the narrative of x. 8.") 
 
CONCEPTION OF JEHOVAH II7 
 
 real Leader in battle comes out vividly in the Song of 
 Deborah, loud in its praise of Jehovah who has left 
 His home on Sinai to hasten by Mt. Seir to the 
 battle-field of Megiddo. Hence the inhabitants of 
 Meroz are cursed " because they came not to the help 
 of Jehovah, to the help of Jehovah among the heroes." 
 Hence, too, Deborah's panegyric on the valiant tribes 
 in the field with Jehovah against His and their foe, 
 and her bitter scorn on those! tribes that stayed at 
 home and fought not with Him. This conception of 
 God as Israel's War-God explains His new name, 
 Jehovah Sabaoth, Jehovah the God of the hosts ^ (of 
 Israel). We also begin to hear of Him under new 
 titles, e.g. "The Angel of the Lord,"" "The Name^ of 
 God." It is dawning on men's minds that He is too 
 great and "holy" (= unapproachable) for men to see 
 His actual face and live. He still appears to men, but 
 not in His actual body or person ; it is still Himself 
 and not another, but a paler manifestation of Him- 
 self in angelic form. As to the title "The Name of 
 God," we have already spoken of the magical power 
 of Names in olden days (p. 62, sup.). The name was 
 regarded as part and parcel of its bearer, a power in 
 itself, and " Name of God " is equivalent to Jehovah 
 Himself present with power. Again, as represented 
 by His Ark, His shrine, Jehovah accompanies His 
 Israel wherever they go. - Even in David's day the 
 Ark stood for Jehovah's Presence : " And David arose, 
 and went with all the people that were with him, from 
 Baale Judah, to bring up from thence the Ark of God, 
 
 ' yehovah-Sabaoth = J. of armies pr hosts. But what hosts ? Are they 
 the armies of (i) angels, or (2) " all the hosts of heaven," e.g. sun, moon, stars, 
 storms, etc., or (3) the armies of Israel? All these views find able supporters, 
 but (i) is improbable, for belief in angels is largely post-exilic (see Ch. XV.). 
 
 ' At a relatively early date, in passages originally representing Jehovah 
 as appearing, speaking, etc., to men, an attempt was made to replace Jehovah 
 by His Angel, which'was not very successful, e.g., in several passages, He 
 alternates with His Angel. 
 
 » This is a very ancient title of God. The name Samu-el is best explained 
 " The Name is God." The same expression appears in two (Amorite) names 
 of the First Babylonian Dynasty kings : Sumu-abi, " The name is my father " j 
 " Sumu-la-ilu," "The name indeed is God " (Dr. Burney). 
 
Il8 PERIOD OF THE JUDGES 
 
 which is called by the Name, even the Name of the Lord 
 of hosts " (2 Sam. vi. 2). This also comes out strongly 
 in that old fragment Numb. x. 35 : " When the Ark 
 set forward, Moses said : Rise up, O Lord, and let 
 Thine enemies be scattered ; and when it rested, he 
 said : Return, O Lord, to the ten thousands of the 
 thousands of Israel." Hence the appalling punish- 
 ments on men, like Uzzah, who ventured to touch it. 
 Images of Jehovah seem quite common in this period, 
 even with fervent worshippers of His, e.g. Gideon, 
 Micah. At this time the Ephod was all but certainly 
 an image, though not so after c. 700 b.c.^ 
 
 But if Jehovah is Israel's God, so is Baal Canaan's 
 god ; even Israel recognised that. They also firmly 
 believed that a god and his people were so identified 
 that their fortunes rose or fell together, in proportion 
 as a god's nation beat other nations or was beaten by 
 them. Through a nation's defeat, its god was eclipsed 
 by the more powerful god of the victorious nation, 
 but his existence was not ended, though he became 
 lower than the victorious god. Thus Babylon's 
 supremacy in 2225 b.c. made its god Marduk 
 (= IMerodach) chief god, Lord over the other gods, 
 but their worship still went on. Hence, in Hebrew 
 eyes, Israel's invasion was a trial of strength between 
 Jehovah and Baal.^ If Jehovah's Israel beat Baal's 
 
 ' Dr. Bumey insists that " epliod and teraphim were regarded as means of 
 enquiring the oracle of God, but were noi themselves regarded as images of 
 Jehovah." See Bumey, Judges, pp. 236 sqq. on the whole question. 
 
 ' Was Baal ««f particular god, or were there a legion of local Baals ? "the 
 worship oi Baalim" i.e. is Baalim an intensive plural, "the great Baal" (cf, 
 Elohim), or a collective plural ? Again, when we read that Israel served Baal, 
 does it — at this period — mean the actual god of Canaan, or that they worshipped 
 Jehovah under His Canaanite form, i.e. spoke of Jeliovah as Baal and also 
 adopted Baal rites in His worship? If Baal was not a proper name, but 
 descriptive and = Lord, master, owner, then quite easily, as actually happened 
 in Hosea's day, Israel could speak of Jehovah as Baal of His people, i,e. their 
 owner and husband (Hos. ii. 16). If we accept this view, then Baal-worship 
 at this period was largely, not sheer apostasy and idolatry, but a debased form 
 of Jehovah- worship, and Dr. Bumey's contention that there was at this time a 
 sharp conflict between (i) the purer worship of Jehovah on the part of the 
 Mosaic tribes, and (2) the lower Jehovah-worship of the " handmaid " tribes 
 longer settled in Canaan and tainted with Canaan's superstitions, is largely 
 confirmed. In the text above, I personally stand for the oldgr view that Baal 
 
BAAL ;— TEMPLES AND PRIESTS IN ISRAEL II9 
 
 Canaan, then Jehovah would dethrone Baal, rule in 
 his stead, make Baal His vassal. It took centuries to 
 rid Israel of the conviction that Baal still was god in 
 his land. The long and hard struggle from 1200 B.C. 
 onward showed Baal very much alive in his -fight 
 with Jehovah. Even when the Canaan conquest 
 was complete, Baal was not yet ousted so long as 
 he still had his Canaanites in the land. More- 
 over, as a nature-god, the giver of fertility, the 
 soil of his native Canaan was his, and its corn and 
 wine and oil (see Hos. ii. 8). Till Jehovah had 
 wrested it all from Baal, He could not leave His 
 Sinai and make Palestine His one dwelling-place. 
 Thus Israel, while cleaving to their own God Jehovah 
 as their one God, still believed in Baal as the God of 
 Canaan. 
 
 Of a regular hierarchy of priests, or of worship 
 only in official temples, we hear nothing in this 
 .period. Men continue to offer sacrifice in person, 
 and altars and sacred places are to be found every- 
 where. But temples are beginning to arise, though 
 on a modest scale. The most important was at 
 Shiloh, where the Ark was kept, and to which people 
 -resorted at the three great agricultural Festivals, the 
 Feasts of Unleavened Bread, Weeks, and Tabernacles, 
 the last a harvest-festival originally. Eli and his 
 house officiated at Shiloh. Although any one could, 
 and did, offersacrifice in person, a certain portion of the 
 sacrificial meat fell to the temple-caretaker or priest. 
 At Shiloh it was his " customary " and therefore legal 
 due, which he exacted at times by force {e.g. i Sam. ii. 
 12 sqq.). Priests, as in Moses' day, need not be 
 Levites, though they were preferred (see p. 108, sup.). 
 The Sabbath was observed mainly as a feast-day. 
 
 Thus the period of the Judges is one of partial 
 
 originally was one supreme god, afterwards broken up into many local baals 
 as his local cults became prominent. Even to Jehovah this happened, and He 
 had special names according as He was worshipped at Beersheba (Gen. xxi. 
 33), Bethel (xxxi. 13), Shechem (xxxiii. 20), or Ophrah (Judg. vi. 24), like 
 Baal-peor, Baal-Hermon, cf. Baal-berith, Baal-zebub. 
 
I20 PERIOD OF THE JUDGES 
 
 religious decay and partial advance. Its one great 
 redeeming feature comes towards its close. In the 
 religious revival after Aphek, and especially in the 
 rise of the new "schools of prophets," we have 
 the dawn of a great new religious era. It will 
 produce a Nathan and an Elijah as its first-fruits, and 
 culminate in an Amos and Isaiah with their highly 
 spiritual conception of God, out of which will spring 
 humaner thoughts of what man owes to God and to 
 his brother-man. 
 
 Note on the Historicity of "Judges." 
 
 Judges gives a true picture of morals and society then j but what of its 
 facts of history ? Its stories, for centuries, were handed down orally, not in 
 writing. But comparison of that historical gem, the contemporary Song of 
 Deborah (v.), with the parallel prose-version (iv.) clearly points to a large 
 amount of genuine history in such other old stories (e.g. Gideon (J), Abimelech, 
 Micah,) as contain intrinsic evidence of their truth to the circumstances of 
 their day. Broadly speaking, Deborah, Barak, Gideon, Abimelech, Micah 
 are certainly historical figures, and their stories largely true ; so, probably, of 
 Ehud and Jephthah. Probability inclines against Samson's historicity, hnl 
 the picture of Israelite-Philistine relations is true to fact. " Shamgar, son of 
 Anath " (v. 6) is a real person, but the late author of iii. 31 probably had only 
 the hint of v. 6 to go upon, and may have turned a foreign oppressor into a 
 deliverer. "Olhniel and the five minor Judges, Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elon, 
 Abdon, are undoubtedly not individuals, but personified clans." The one 
 story of no historical value, apparently, is the Gibeah outrage and the ensuing 
 vengeance of Israel on Benjamin xix.-xxi., evidently written out of animosity 
 to Saul's memory; yet some facts may be embedded in it, (See Burney, 
 Judg. cii.) 
 
PART III 
 HISTORICAL ISRAEL 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 SAUL TO AMOS (c. IOSO-760 B.C.) 
 
 Our authorities for this period (1050-760 B.c.) are 
 Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. Their historical value 
 varies greatly, as the following paragraphs may 
 show, 
 
 Samuel's subject is the creation of a united Israel 
 by Samuel, Saul, and David. It is mainly based on 
 three old documents or sources, J, E, and a still older 
 source for 2 Sam., nearly contemporary with the 
 events which it relates, and probably written in 
 Solomon's reign. The historical value of Samuel is 
 very high, and when we reach the history of David in 
 2 Sam. we have Hebrew style and history at their best. 
 From a literary point of view the admirable prose 
 narratives of 2 Sam. are as vivid, dramatic and poetic 
 as Genesis,^ and the history bears all the marks of a 
 contemporary who " not only knew the large political 
 events of the reign, but was intimately informed 
 about the life of the court, and the scandals, crimes, 
 and intrigues in the king's household which clouded 
 the end of his glorious career. These things he 
 narrates with an impressive objectivity and imparti- 
 ality."^ Samuel, throughout, is a graphic, simple, 
 
 . ' Greece, Rome, England show that great history-making epochs often pro- 
 duce an equally great literature. The life-and-death struggle with Philistia, 
 the consequent birth of a pronounced national and religious consciousness in 
 Israel j the welding of the tribes into a compact nation ; the glorious, if short- 
 lived, Hebrew empire under David and Solomon, would stir a people's soul 
 and be celebrated in song and story, — and with such heroes as Saul, Jonathan, 
 David, Joab, Abner, etc, , such as popular imagination loves, need we wonder 
 at the freshness, beauty, dramatic power of Hebrew literature in its first bloom 
 under David and Solomon ? 
 
 ' He is a great admirer of David, but not blind to his faults and sins 
 
 123 
 
124 SAUL TO AMOS {c. 1050-760 B.C.) 
 
 Straightforward narrative, with very simple religious 
 conceptions. As already stated, in i Sam. there is a 
 tendency to pragmatic history, side by side with an 
 older and more historical version. We have seen 
 how there are two contradictory accounts of Saul's 
 election, one which views the kingship as of divine 
 appointment, while the other regards it as a token 
 of national apostasy. Roughly speaking, up to 
 I Sam. xii. we are in the atmosphere of Judges, and 
 here and there, overlaying the older and more 
 historical version, there is a theocratic representation 
 of a different texture, reflecting the standpoint of 
 Hosea. As soon as we enter upon the history of 
 Saul and especially David, this moralising tendency 
 practically ceases,^ and in 2 Sam. {except ch. vii.) it has 
 vanished. Hence the ancient biographies of Saul 
 and David in Samuel are most reliable, even though 
 our Samuel only assumed its present form in the 
 early seventh century. 
 
 Kings takes up the history with David in his old 
 age and carries it on to the end of the monarchy. 
 Here and there the old documents incorporated in 
 Kings are left almost in their original form, e.g. i Kgs. 
 i,-ii. is as vivid and authentic as anything in Samuel, 
 while the splendid episodes of Elijah and Elisha 
 match in grandeur and interest anything in the Old 
 Testament. Evidently the sixth-century editor of 
 Kings had at his disposal rich material of various 
 kinds and worth, i Kgs. i.-ii. shows that he had 
 
 which he does not gloss over. AVe see vividly the weak father and the con- 
 sequent domestic tragedy ; even how David all but fought on Philistia's sid& 
 at Gilboa, only the Philistines suspected him and refused his aid. So of the 
 harem-intrigues to secure Solomon's succession from doting old King David, 
 and David's enjoining in his last will the murder of Joab, to whom above all 
 others the House of Jesse owed the throne. 
 
 * There is little room for pragmatic history in 2 Sam., for in Saul and 
 David's reigns there was no apostasy, or Baalising tendency, as in y«<^. The 
 national revival of religion after Aphek was still a living force, and loyalty to 
 Jehovah very much alive._ Till Solomon's Temple was built, even prophets 
 never dreamed of objecting to village altars ( = high places), e.g. Elijah at 
 Horeb, even in Ahab's reign, so far from condemning them, says : " The 
 children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine altars " 
 (I Kgs. xix. 14). 
 
HISTORICAL VALUE OF KINGS 1 25 
 
 access to the court-history of David which we get in 
 2 Sam., for this section is of a piece with 2 Sam. 
 I Kgs. xvii.-2 Kgs. X. (mostly) also proves that he had 
 a special source for the stories of Elijah and Elisha, 
 and, as these prophets were, politically as well as 
 religiously, outstanding figures both in home and 
 foreign policy, this fine old source has also preserved 
 for us much that bears on the Syrian wars. This 
 popular ^ old ninth-century source is of high historical 
 value; even its vesture of legend forms the natural 
 setting for such heroic figures as a titanic Elijah and 
 his " son " Elisha. It gives us a better total impression 
 of these supermen than any amount of exact truth of 
 fact ever could do. The editor of Kings had other 
 sources too. Scribes or recorders were attached to 
 the royal court from David's day onward, and, doubt- 
 less, the temple-priests kept their own records. In 
 either case, these would be brief chronicles of bare 
 events, not historical or biographical narratives 
 proper. Hence, as i Kgs. xiv. 19, 29 directly tells us, 
 part of the material in Kings comes from " the book 
 of the chronicles of the kings of Judah," or " of Israel." 
 Thus there was excellent material available for a 
 most reliable history from David onwards, yet the 
 actual record is not nearly so reliable in Kings as in 
 Samuel, and for this reason. The editor of Kings, a 
 pronounced Deuteronomist, writes with a deliberate 
 religious end in view. History is for him the vehicle 
 of certain religious lessons, drawn from the past, 
 which he desires to inculcate upon his own and future 
 generations. . . . His aim is to show that loyalty to 
 Jehovah means prosperity ; disobedience failure and 
 catastrophe, and that Jerusalem is the one and only place 
 0/ worship (see Burney, Hastings' D. of B., i. 857). He 
 is bent on the abolition of local altars, and the 
 centralisation of all worship in Jerusalem as 
 
 ' " Popular " in the sense that, before the sources come out on the stage of 
 history, popular imagination had woven a texture of legend around some of the 
 facts ; e.g. the Elijah and queen of Sheba stories. 
 
126 SAUL TO AMOS {c. 1050-760 B.C.) 
 
 Deuteronomy prescribes. Hence, barely referring to 
 David, he really begins his history with Solomon 
 and his Temple. In his eyes, the foundation, building, 
 and dedication of the Temple is epoch-making in 
 Israel's history, the beginning of Israel's true life; 
 for this centralisation of worship in Jerusalem must 
 eventually wean Israel from its false worship at the 
 many local shrines which his soul abhors. This 
 pronounced Deuteronomist spirit colours Kings 
 throughout and biases its history.^ 
 
 Chronicles (300-250 b.c.) begins with Adam and 
 ends abruptly in the midst of Cyrus' restoration decree 
 (538). Its writer is steeped in the ecclesiastical spirit 
 of his day, when Israel, no longer a nation, is rather 
 a Church,^ under a Priestly Code and a high-priest 
 as its head. The Jerusalefn Temple and its sacrosanct 
 priests are all in all, and everything is viewed from a 
 Church standpoint. This ecclesiastical spirit colours 
 every page of Chronicles and vitiates its history. It is 
 a purely " priestly " history, and, exactly as in its 
 pet Priestly Code, we get long dry lists of names, a 
 barren genealogical scheme takes the place of stirring 
 narrative, the language is poor and stereotyped, the 
 historical setting often artificial, and the one aim is 
 to magnify the ecclesiastical system. It is not history 
 deliberately falsified. The writers are too sincere 
 for that. Born ecclesiastics, their one aim is to im- 
 press on their readers their own (i) firm conviction 
 that the organised post-Captivity priestly system 
 always existed, and (2) their own intense belief in 
 
 ' History, for the editor of Kings, was prophecy teaching by example, and, 
 as each king is introduced, he is judged by the Deuteronomic standard, and the 
 stereotyped judgment, "he did that which was evil (or good) in the sight of 
 the Lord,'' is passed upon him. Hence the editor all but ignores some of the 
 greatest kings and periods, because they transgressed his Deuteronomic code, 
 or do not afford illustrations of his thesis ; e.g. Omri (i Kgs. xvi. 23-28), was 
 the founder of the greatest Israel dynasty, and one of its greatest kings. He 
 crippled Moab, and so impressed Assyria that, long after him, they call Israel 
 "thelandof Omri." Yet Kings dismisses him in two or tljree verses as a 
 
 •) 
 
 I fought the Romans so 
 desperately in 70 and 130.' 
 
HISTORICAL VALUE OF CHRONICLES 1 27 
 
 God's MoralrGovernorship of the universe as Israel's 
 creed from Adam onwards. In a word, they throw 
 back into a far-away past the condition of things of 
 their own day. The Chronicler overwhelms us with 
 his long list of books as his authorities for the history, 
 e.g. "The Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel," 
 "the Book of the Kings of Israel," "the Book of 
 Nathan, or Gad, or Ahijah, Iddo, Samuel the prophet " 
 {e.g. 2 Chron. ix. 29), as the case may be; whereas 
 examination proves that practically all his material 
 was taken from our Book of Kings or Samuel {e.g. cf 
 I Chron. x.-xi. with i Sam. xxxi. and 2 Sam. xxiii. 
 8-39; or I Chron. xvii.-xx. 8 with 2 Sam. vii.,viii. x., xii.), 
 sometimes verbatim, at others condensed, expanded, 
 or altered to suit his views.* 
 
 * » • « « 
 
 The main facts of the monarchy are too Well 
 known to be repeated here. We confine ourselves 
 to a rapid review of man's conception of God up to 
 760 B.C. ; the gradual rise of Jehovah's organs and 
 representatives in the persons of priests, prophets, 
 kings ; and the social condition of Israel. 
 
 Conception of God (1050-760 B.C.). — ^Jehovah is still 
 viewed as in human form, but a more spiritualised idea 
 of Him is dawning. As in Judges, the " Angel of the 
 Lord "still represents Him {eg. 2 Kgs. i. 3, 15), but 
 even this pale manifestation of God is beginning to 
 jar. In 2 Sam. xxiv. 16 (cf i Kgs. xix. 5-7; 2 Kgs. xix. 
 
 ' Chron,, from first to last, centres its interest in Jerusalem, magnifies Judah 
 at the expense of Israel, and extols David and Solomon ; David's census-sin is 
 put down to Satan, and we hear nothing of the bad influence of foreign wives 
 on Solomon ; indeed, Pharaoh's daughter is the only one named, and he will 
 not allow her to live in Jerusalem, near the holy Ark. His praise of David 
 and Solomon leads the Chronicler to huge exaggerations, e.g. David's army 
 is a million and a half, and (i Chron. xxii. 14), "of his low estate " he gives 
 ;f 1,000,000,000 {i.e. taking talent of gold = ;^6l50 ; of silver =;if4io) for the 
 building of the Temple, and Solomon sacrificed at its dedication 22,000 oxen 
 and 120,000 sheep and goats, and so on 1 The exaggerated interest in the 
 Temple liturgy, and the part taken in it by Levites, musicians, singers, 
 door-keepers, etc., culminates in ascribing the whole organisation of Temple 
 orchestra and song to David, who thus provided for the proper rendering of 
 the Psalter. Great importance is attached to genealogical lists, for clerical 
 pedigrees counted for much as to eligibility to office. 
 
128 SAUL TO AMOS {c. IP50-760 B.C.) 
 
 35) the "angel of Jehovah" is a creature angel, for 
 God commands him to leave ofi his work of destruc- 
 tion. In I Kgs. viii. 11, the "Glory of Jehovah" 
 exhibits Him as a cloud filling the new Temple, thus 
 receding still further from any visible human form of 
 God. But, as already stated (p. 100, sup.), the Ark is 
 still regarded as His " house " and the pledge of His 
 actual presence. 
 
 As before, Jehovah is purely Israel's God. He 
 has no claim on other nations, they lie outside his 
 sphere. Thus David is sure that in Philistia he is 
 outside Jehovah's protection and subject to Philistia's 
 gods (i Sam. xxvi. 19; cf. Judg. xi. 24). Similarly, 
 Solomon builds his Moabite wife a temple for her 
 god Chemosh, as he alone, not Jehovah, can protect 
 a Moabitess, and Ahab does exactly the same for 
 Jezebel. Naaman, to enable him to sacrifice to 
 Jehovah even in Syria, takes two mules' burden of 
 Israel's (= Jehovah's) earth for an altar. The whole 
 tone of the passage (2 Kgs. v.) shows that the sacred 
 writer shares Naaman's belief in the efficacy of this 
 method. 2 Kgs. iii. 26-27 clearly proves Israel's firm 
 conviction that Moab's god Chemosh is irresistible in 
 his own land and the cause of a signal Israelite 
 defeat. 
 
 Images of Jehovah are still common. We con- 
 stantly hear of ephod and teraphim. Many scholars 
 insist that ephod at this time still stands for an image 
 of Jehovah. It certainly seems to do so in Judges, as 
 Gideon's and Micah's ephods prove. So in David's 
 day : " There was an image, called an Ephod, in the 
 sanctuary of Nob, which Abiathar takes with him, 
 and by means of it serves David with divine oracles " * 
 
 ' (Montefiore, jy.Z., 43, $7.) As often stated, epioti and teraphim con- 
 stantly go together. Teraphim were idols, apparently in human form (e^. 
 Michal's), and were used in divination (Ezek. xxi. 21 ; Zech. x. 2), and so was 
 the ephod so used. The sword of Goliath was kept at Nob "behind the ephod " 
 ( I Sam. xxi. 9), and the ephod is Often named as an oracle which the priest 
 carries or bears with him " in his hand " (i Sam. xxiii. 6). It may have been 
 a receptacle in which the sacred lot was kept, but this hardly suits Micah's or 
 
PRIESTHOOD UNPER THE MONARCHY 1 29 
 
 (i Sam. xxi. 9 ; xxiii. 6, 9). After the Captivity ephod- 
 bad is always the priestly garment. David not only 
 consults such an oracle, but allows his wife Michal 
 to keep other images (teraphim) in his house ; such a 
 zealous Jehovah-worshipper would hardly allow any 
 purely pagan images in his home. Hos. iii. 4 mentions 
 " a sacrifice, an image, an ephod or teraphim " as 
 indispensable accompaniments in the Northern King- 
 dom of Israeli^ As a prophet he elsewhere condemns 
 images, even of Jehovah, for two reasons : (i) Like 
 the Reformers, the prophets viewed material images 
 of a spiritual God as pagan ; (2) they knew that the 
 image itself ended by becoming worshipped as a 
 deity. They were right. So pronounced was Israel's 
 tendency to turn every holy object into a fetish that 
 Hezekiah (727-698) had to break in pieces Moses' 
 Brazen Serpent, "for unto those days the children 
 of Israel did burn incense to it; and he called it 
 Nehushtan," i.e. " a mere piece of brass " (2 Kgs. xviii. 4, 
 R.V.). Though the prophets were right, yet the 
 custom, up to c. 700 B.C., was so hallowed in Israel 
 that their crusade against images met with as much 
 opposition as Leo the Isaurian's decree against image- 
 worship in 726 A.D., which the whole Christian Church 
 refused to obey. 
 
 Priesthood. — Local shrines and altars on heights 
 and hills and under green trees are as numerous as 
 before, and priests their caretakers. Far from object- 
 ing to them, Elijah names it a sign of a godless 
 generation that " the children of Israel have forsaken 
 Thy covenant, thrown down Thine altars " (i Kgs. xix. 
 14). At these hallowed shrines the priests are there 
 
 Gideon's ephods, nor the later strong reprobation of the Ephod-cult — Jehovah 
 could be consulted by Ephod, Urim, and Thummim, lots (usually headless 
 arrows or rods). The question put by the inquirer admitted of a plain answer, 
 "Yes" or "No,"" This "or "That,"^.^-. " Shalll go and Hght or not?", 
 " Is Saul or is Jonathan guilty ? " 
 
 ' It is admitted now that the golden bulls of Jeroboam (cf. Aaron's Golden 
 Calf) were noi pagan idols, but symbols of Jehovah Himself. The Deuterono- 
 mist writer brands this as "Jeroboam's sin" (in the full spirit of Kings, see 
 p. 125, sup.), but Israel certainly did not think so then. 
 
 K 
 
130 SAUL TO AMOS {c. 1050-760 B.C.) 
 
 to cast lots and give oracles before the image, to decide 
 suits "before God," to give directions to sacrificers 
 and others as to the proper ritual, and, if required, to 
 minister at the altar. But the sacrifice does not yet 
 need a priest. Elijah sacrifices Vi^ith his own hand 
 (i Kgs. xviii. 33) and Elisha (xix. 21), so do David and 
 Solomon (e.g. 2 Sam. vi. 17 ; i Kgs. viii. S ; ix. 25). 
 But 2 Kgs. xvi. IS shows that, at the royal sanctuaries, 
 regular public offerings were usually made by the 
 king through the priests. For reasons already stated 
 (p. 107, sup.), the priests greatly magnified their office 
 under the monarchy : (i) They were now recognised 
 judges in disputes, and the "decisions of the sanc- 
 tuary " formed a Torah or body of sacred law 
 administered . by the priests ; (2) The greatest im- 
 portance was attached to the exact use of the proper 
 ritual in approaching the deity,^ and it was elaborate 
 and only known to the priests in its fullness ; (3) Im- 
 portant sanctuaries were arising with tlieir regular 
 staff of priests, e.g. Shiloh, Bethel, Nob, Gilgal, Dan, 
 Beersheba, Gibeon, — all soon eclipsed by Solomon's 
 Temple. 
 
 Priests were entitled to payment for their services. 
 Their judicial functions brought in fees (Mic. iii. 1 1) ; 
 there was a customary fee in kind for each sacrifice 
 ^e.g. I Sam. ii. 12 sqq.) ; a tribute of first-fruits was 
 their due (Deut. xviii. 4);^ some form of tithe (Am. 
 
 1 Worship in our sense there was little or none. The Festivals were largely 
 " the occasions of merry thanksgiving and 'feasting," and " every slaughter of 
 cattle partook of the character of a sacrifice" and feast (Montefiore,/^.Z., J86). 
 The Sabbath was not yet a day of worship, though " holy " in the sense that 
 it had to be kept as a day of rest (Ex. xxxiv. 21 (C, c. 800), but 2 Kgs. iv. 23 
 allows riding on the Sabbath to visit a " man of God "). The worship of this 
 period was all but exclusively ritual and sacrificial, not at all a service of 
 uplifting moral and spiritual edification. Kitual = religion then ; hence 
 Amos' and Hosea's denunciations of such outward piety fell on deaf ears. 
 
 ' Deut. xviii. may be of 650 B.C., but its priestly "customs" go back to 
 very ancient days. — In Judg. xvii. 5, is a curious phrase, " iiicah filled the hand 
 of one of his sons and he became his priest," i.e. at the installing ceremony he 
 placed portions of the sacrifice in his hands. _ The same expression, however, is 
 found in Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions for "entrusting authority to 
 any one." As to tithe, Abraham is pictured as paying it to Melchizedek, and 
 gods had it paid them from earliest days. 
 
PRIESTS STATE-OPFIdlALS 13! 
 
 iv. 4); and fines were exacted. and paid to them for 
 certain offences (2 Kgs. xii. 16; Am. ii. 8). In the 
 smaller Village-shrines the priest depended largely 
 on the number and generosity of his clients, and often 
 his emoluments were small. But the greater priestly 
 offices were now important posts. The priests of 
 the royal and national sanctuaries were among the 
 high officials of the realm, men of wealth and culture, 
 rising more and more in dignity, and gradually con- 
 solidating into an aristocratic guild of their own. 
 But even these important priests of the royal chapels 
 were far from independent of State-control. They 
 were officials and creatures of the king, under his 
 patronage and protection, dependent on his favour as 
 servants under his orders. Ahiraelech the high-priest, 
 great-grandson of Eli, humbles himself as an inferior 
 before David, a mere subject of Saul (i Sam. xxi. i 
 sq.), and abjectly before Saul his king (xxii. 12 sq.). 
 Even though, through superstitious fear of laying 
 hands on God's "holy" (= taboo) man, Saul's body- 
 guard hesitated to slaughter Jehovah's priests (xxii. 
 17), no one interposed in the priests' defence when 
 they and their families fell victims to Saul's blind 
 fury. No doubt they expected to see Saul fall dead 
 on the spot.^ David took Abiathar, the sole survivor, 
 under his protection, but as in his service ; and the 
 sons of Zadok, priests of the royal chapel, were the 
 king's servants as absolutely as any other officials of 
 State. They owed their place to the fiat of King 
 Solomon, and his will was law in all matters religious as 
 well as civil ; he makes and dismisses chief priests at 
 his pleasure (i Kgs. ii. 26, 27, 35). In the cases of the 
 family of Eli and the sons of Zadok we already see the 
 
 ' Till the end of O.T., " suffering = sin " in Hebrew eyes, and especially 
 in connection with tampering with "holy " things and in priestly days. Thus 
 Kgs. calls both Asa and Uzziah godly men who did right in God's sight, but 
 one had gout, the other was a leper ; priestly Chron. assures us Uzziah's 
 leprosy was because he burnt incense on the altar (a priest's duty), and Asa's 
 gout because he (i) allied with Syria and did not rely on God, (2) put a 
 prophet in prison, (3) consulted a doctor (2 Ghron. xvi. 7 sqq.). 
 
t^l SAUL TO AMOS {c. 1050-760 B.C.) 
 
 hereditary principle at work. But the hierarchy was 
 not a hierocracy by divine right as it became after the 
 Exile. Robertson Smith is right : " The student who 
 carries the hierocracy back to these early monarchy 
 days has still to learn the very elements of what is 
 necessary to a true appreciation of Hebrew antiquity. 
 It is certain that as against the king, they represented 
 no distinct power in the State, but rather were entirely 
 the creatures of his smile or frown ; — on a faint 
 suspicion they actually were annihilated without a 
 single word of remonstrance being anywhere raised." 
 A Deuteronomist Kings, still more a priestly Chronicles, 
 magnify the priestly office under the monarchy all 
 they can; their picture is true of the priesthood of 
 their own day, not of the older period they are 
 portraying. 
 
 Prophets. — ;i Sam. ix. 9 tells us : " he that is now 
 called a prophet was beforetime called a seer." 
 Really the two are quite distinct. The seer of 
 I Sam. ix. 6 sqq. is the clairvoyant with the gift of 
 second sight found among primitive races the wide 
 world over (p. 64 sup.). Prophets, from the first, were 
 men of God with religious national aims. Seers fore- 
 tell coming events, so do prophets occasionally,' but 
 the rousing of the natiqn's slumbering conscience, 
 not prediction, is their essential function. By all 
 means let us call prophets "seers" if we will, so long 
 as we do not forget that national religious reform 
 was their one real work as God's commissioned 
 mouthpieces. There were prophets before the rise 
 of prophets proper. If we accept both versions that 
 
 ' These prophets are preachers of a Righteous God ruling His universe on 
 moral lines (p. 30, sup^). They are also trained watchers and readers of the 
 " signs of the times " m contemporary history, which is their text'book. With 
 a righteous God, a sinful Israel, Assyria knocking at the gate, they see Israel's 
 Captivity long before it comes ; also knowing God's compassion and Covenant 
 Promise, they are sure that a new and better Israel will arise from the ashes' 
 of the old. In some cases, e.g: Jer. xxviii., Jeremiah foretells Hananiah's 
 death within the year, — but these are very exceptional. Jer. xxxvi. I sqq. 
 is also suggestive as showing the way in which prophetic books were written 
 from memory, as much as 23 years after the events. 
 
PROPHETS THE NATION'S CONSCIENCE 1 33 
 
 Samuel gives us of Samuel, he was a seer, and he 
 also had the true note of the prophet, for his one life- 
 work was to rally Israel round their Jehovah and 
 raise their spiritual tone. Moses was a prophet 
 before him. Yet, strictly, we cannot call Moses 
 or Samuel " prophets " any more than " kings " or 
 " priests." They combined in themselves many func- 
 tions afterwards put into commission and distributed 
 among several separate and distinct "men of God." 
 Moses is at once ruler, judge, legislator, prophet, 
 priest; Samuel judge, priest, prophet, seer. As we 
 saw (p. IIS sup.), " prophets " proper were a quite new 
 departure of Samuel's day, the outcome of a wave of 
 religious and patriotic enthusiasm. Henceforth this 
 " national " and " religious " awakening is the pro- 
 phets' role. They are the nation's conscience, speak- 
 ing from within Israel's own heart as the Voice of 
 God Himself to prompt and rebuke, to vindicate the 
 laws of a righteous God in national matters, to re- 
 buke apostasy, sin, and wrong in Jehovah's name. 
 In the prophets' eyes Jehovah and Israel, religion 
 and nation, were so identified that they could not be 
 divorced. Hence the earlier prophets took an active 
 part in the State, morally and politically. It was 
 Samuel who placed Saul and David on the throne. 
 Nathan ^ not only denounces David's sin, but chooses 
 his successor. Elijah comes boldly to rebuke Ahab 
 for Naboth's murder, and also~ denounces the dynasty 
 of Omri ; while Elisha set in motion the revolution 
 
 ' Such instances as Gad (2 Sam. xxiv., the Census), and still more Nathan 
 (2 Sam. xii.), coming forward as a preacher of social morality before David in 
 the matter of Bath-sheba, and again, Elijah (i Kgs. xxi.) confronting Ahab and 
 pronouncing in God's name the punishment to fall upon Ahab and his house 
 because of the moral wrong done (Naboth's murder) in Jezreel, seem to mark 
 a new stage, a moral conception of God and of man, the beginning of that 
 great ethical movement culminating in an Amos or Isaiah. But is it a new 
 stage ? We have seen (p. 103, sufi.), the clear moral factor in Moses' Covenant. 
 No doubt it was above the heads of most Israelites of Moses' generation, and 
 the anarchy of the Judges' period was not calculated to foster it. But it was 
 there all the while in some hearts, and Nathan and Elijah voice it, while the 
 eighth-century prophets courageously brought out and preached all that Moses' 
 moral idea of God involves as against a sinful Church and State. 
 
134 SAUL TO AMOS {c. 1050-760 B.C.) 
 
 which overthrew it. Elisha was also the embodiment 
 of the national spirit in the Syrian wars. After 
 Elisha the prophets mostly withdraw from national 
 and party conflicts; but they continue to oppose, 
 warn, and counsel king and nation whenever occasion 
 demands, though rather as great national teachers 
 and reformers than politicians. 
 
 We are apt to look upon- prophets as isolated 
 figures rising up very rarely, one by one, here and 
 there. As the footnote (^) shows, it is a right instinct, 
 though not strictly true. Prophets were in one sense 
 a permanent order, and there were whole companies 
 of them, " schools of prophets," ^ societies or brother- 
 hoods, not celibate, living by themselves under a 
 superior for mutual edification, and sometimes turn- 
 ing their religious zeal into political channels {e.g. 
 
 1 Kgs. XX. 35). But side by side with these "pro- 
 phets " are other outstanding personalities, bearing 
 the same name of prophet, yet a class apart, head 
 and shoulders above the others,'* and often in opposi- 
 
 ' These "schools" were communities for edification, not education (though 
 
 2 Kgs. iv. 38, vi. I, imply that they "sat before" Elisha, as a kind of 
 instructor). They were not celibates (2 Kgs, iv. l). From I Sam. xix. 18. sqq., 
 where a locality Naioth (= " dwellings ") is named as their home near Ramah, 
 taken in connection with 2 Kgs. vi. I-7, it lias been assumed that they were 
 cenobites dwelling in huts, but Driver (Hastings, D. of B.~, iii. 478), questioos 
 this. Settlements of them are named at Bethel (2 Kgs. ii. 3), Jericho (ii. J), 
 Gilgal (iv. 38), At all times these prophets continued to be numerous (i Kgs> 
 xxii. 6, xviii.-4), and we hear much of them in the canonical prophets. At all 
 the places named as their settlements there were ' ' high places " or local shrines, 
 and constantly we hear of them in close league with the priesthood and acting 
 in concert with them, «.^. in Amos and Jeremiah ; thus it was the " priests and 
 prophets " (Jer. xxvf. 7 sqq.), who arraigned Jeremiah before the princes for 
 blasphemy against the Temple. 
 
 ' Dr. Burney writes me a valuable note : " The distinction I draw between 
 the 400 Yahweh prophets of i Kgs. xxii., and Elijah, Micaiah, Elisha (and, I 
 may add, the 100 prophets hidden by Obadiah), is that the former were 
 prophets of the Canaanite form of Yahvrism (according to which Y. was repre- 
 sented by the image of a bull), and the latter the prophets of Mosaic Yahwism. 
 The former were content to live and let live, and so did not come into collision 
 with Jezebel ; the latter by emphasising Yahweh's exclusive claim (the 1st 
 Commandment) came sharply into antagonism with her." 
 
 The older view of "false prophets " was that they were prophets who had 
 degenerated, become a time-serving, unprogressive guild ; like the priests, they 
 had become State-Church dignitaries, professional exponents of traditional 
 orthodoxy and conventional morality, apt to prophesy sweet and smooth 
 things so as to court popularity or position. 
 
FALSE PROPHETS; KINGS 135 
 
 tion to them, e,g. Nathan, Gad, Micaiah, Elijah, Elisha, 
 Amos, Hosea, and so forth. There were long periods 
 without such towering religious giants, but their work 
 was carried on all the same by such prophetic com- 
 munities as the "hundred prophets whom Obadiah, 
 wTio feared the Lord greatly, hid in a cave " (i Kgs. 
 xviii. 3 sq.). Under the monarchy we hear much of 
 " false prophets." Whichever view we take, (i) that 
 they were prophets of a lower or Canaanite type of 
 Jehovah-worship, or (2) that they were prophets who 
 had lost their first zeal, degenerated, and had be- 
 come unprogressive time-servers, dependents (like 
 the priests) on royal favour and acquiescing in the 
 royal lax policy,— their character and influence re- 
 main the same. In their own and the people's eyes 
 regarded as " prophets of God," they were no longer 
 inspiring national teachers, rebukers of wrong, 
 awakeners of the national conscience, but simply 
 time-serving preachers of respectable religionism, 
 shutting their eyes to glaring national or royal sins. 
 I Kgs. xxii. 6 gives us a graphic picture of these 
 "false prophets," with their narrow range of vision 
 and elastic traditional ideals. 
 
 Kings. — Israel's king ruled as Jehovah's chosen 
 representative and servant. He was king by divine 
 right. This comes out clearly in the purely religious 
 character of Saul's and David's appointment to office. 
 In both cases God Himself chooses the king through 
 His prophet. Immediately is the king anointed with 
 the holy oiP reserved for holy things and persons 
 wholly consecrated to God's own service. Saul is 
 presented to the people as " him whom the Lord hath 
 chosen " (i Sam. x. 24). The people have no voice in 
 the matter except to ratify God's choice of their king 
 as a matter of course : " And all the people said, God 
 save the king." As the Lord's " anointed," the king is 
 
 ' I Kgs. i. 39 : " And Zadok the priest took the horn of oil out of the tent 
 and anointed Solomon" (R.V.), i.e. not an (A.V.), but the oil-horn, filled With 
 the holy oil, out of the Tent where the all-holy Ark was kept. 
 
136 SAUL TO AMOS {c. 1050-760 B.C.) 
 
 "holy" unto God (= iaboo), and to lift a hand against 
 him is death. Thus David instantly sla:^s the Amale- 
 kite who, at Saul's own request, had put him out of his 
 agony : " How wert thou not afraid to stretch forth 
 thine hand to destroy the Lord's anointed ? , . . and 
 David smote him that he died " (2 Sam. i. 14 ; cf. i Sam. 
 xxvi. 9). As the Lord's " anointed," again, kings were 
 God's vicegerents on earth. His organs, and looked 
 upon themselves as the religious heads of the nation, 
 its chief sacrificing priests. David and Solomon not 
 only offered sacrifices in person at God's altar, but, 
 standing beside it, pronounced "the blessing in the 
 name of the Lord " upon the people, a very priestly 
 act^ (2 Sam. vi. 18; i Kgs. viii. 55). 
 
 Social Condition. — Foreign Trade, a new departure, 
 had far-reaching effects on Hebrew character and 
 life. As we saw (p. 113), the Canaanites introduced 
 nomad Hebrews to agriculture, and this was Israel's 
 normal occupation till the monarchy, except East of 
 Jordan and in the hills of Judah where they mainly 
 remained shepherds. But Palestine was a high-road 
 of commerce between Egypt, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, 
 Arabia and the East, from time immemorial. Two of 
 the best trade-routes ran through Palestine : one 
 between the Euphrates and the Nile, the other from 
 Arabia to the Levant. Till the end of Saul's reign, 
 the Hebrews were too busy fighting, settling down, 
 and adapting themselves to farming and civilisation, 
 to engage in trade. To dwell in peace under his own 
 fig-tree was the Hebrew's ideal then. Commerce he 
 left to the Canaanites dwelling in towns, so that 
 " Canaanite " got to mean "trader" in Hebrew. But 
 very soon Israel learnt to tread in Canaan's footsteps. 
 
 With David a new era opened. All the Canaanite 
 towns were soon his ; he had also founded his 
 important capital. With David now head of a peace- 
 
 ' Note also; "David danced before the Lord . . . ginied with a linen 
 ephod" (2 Sam. vi. 14), a priestly garment, as i Sam, xxii. 18 (cf. 'i Sam. ii. 18) 
 clearly proves. 
 
TRADE AND ITS SEQUEL 1 37 
 
 ful, united, and fairly organised kingdom, the trade- 
 routes through Palestine again offered a security for 
 traffic not enjoyed for centuries. Phoenician and 
 other commercial princes were only too glad to make 
 alliances with David on preferential-trade terms. 
 David and Solomon themselves engaged largely in 
 foreign trade, and their Hebrew subjects soon followed 
 suit. Commerce was far more profitable than farming, 
 and Israelites rapidly developed a genius for com- 
 mercial transactions large and small. From Solomon's 
 day onward trade and wealth boomed, and all enter- 
 prising Israelites naturally left the country districts 
 for the towns, which grew rapidly in numbers and 
 importance. Already behind the records of Solomon's 
 reign stands clear proof of vast trade and wealth 
 {e.g. I Kgs. X., cf. iii. 13), and Rosea (c. 750) calls Israel 
 a very " Canaanite " (= trader), while Is. ii. 6, 7 speaks 
 of the Hebrew of his day as " striking hands with the 
 children of strangers ; their land also is full of silver 
 and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures." 
 
 With this vast increase of prosperity and wealth 
 the usual evils naturally followed in their train. On 
 all sides we hear of luxury (e.g. Am. vi.), covetousness, 
 cheating, oppression of the poor and needy (e.g. 
 Am. ii. 6 ; viii. 4 sqq. ; Hos. xii. 7 ; Is. iii. 1 5 ; Mic. ii., iii.). 
 The smaller landholders were also in a bad way. 
 Heavy taxes, bad years, damage from invaders, com- 
 pelled them to borrow. Their land groaned under 
 heavy debts and mortgages at usurious rates, and 
 the poorer farmers had to sell their ancestral lands to 
 a new class of trade-rich men. Thus large estates 
 replaced the old yeoman-farms. Hence Is. v. 8 : 
 "Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay 
 field to field, that they may be placed alone in the midst 
 of the earth." The smaller men could not hold their 
 own against rich rivals, so they swelled the ranks of 
 wage-earners. Free men often literally became slaves 
 to cle^r their debts. 
 
 It may be asked : " Could these oppressed people 
 
138 SAUL TO AMOS {c. 1050-760 B.C.) 
 
 find no redress at law? " For long after the establish- 
 ment of the monarchy there was apparently no 
 written law. " Custom " (p. 99, sup.) ruled. The 
 first written Hebrew Code we know of, the Book of 
 the Covenant of about 800 B.C., is itself based on 
 "custom law" of great antiquity. Now "custom" 
 is fluid and elastic when the administration of justice 
 is more or less haphazard, as always in the East, 
 The king could be appealed to personally by the 
 humblest as judge (2 Sam. xiv. 5 sqq., xv. 2; i Kgs. 
 iii. 16 sqq., vii. 7), and his judges (2 Chron. xix. 5, 11) 
 and higher officials also administered justice after a 
 fashion, so did the priests and heads of districts 
 (= "elders"). But from 1050-800 b.c. " custom " was 
 fast losing its old power, and, with no written law to 
 replace " custom " and no uniform judicial system, 
 recourse to law tribunals for redress of wrongs was 
 precarious. As a rule, it was one law for the rich 
 and another for the poor; Oriental bribery and 
 corruption was rife, and a man had to depend mainly 
 on himself for redress of wrongs, while the poor had 
 to- suffer patiently. 
 
 As just stated, the first attempt at a comprehensive 
 Law Code is " The Book of the Covenant." It simply 
 sets down in writing such " customary " practices and 
 decisions as are old and well-established (Exod. xx. 
 22-xxiii. 33). Thus it deals with the legal position of 
 slaves, culpable injuries to life and limb, damage to 
 property, whether cattle or crop, daughter or slave. 
 It proceeds on the principle of retaliation (Exod. 
 xxi. 23 sqq.). Civil and moral or religious offences 
 are on a par. All violations of religious customary 
 observance are crimes at law. Cases are to be 
 brought before the " elders " of the district ; but the 
 weightiest matters are to come " before God " ^ (xxi. 6 ; 
 
 ' Dr. Burney writes me : "In the three Book of the Covenant passages, 
 Ex. xxi. 6, xxii. 8, 9, the phrase elohtm ' has the definite article. This I take 
 to mean ' the gods,' i.e. the household gods or teraphim in whose presence the 
 slave's ear is fixed to the door (of his master's liouse, as in Deut., not to the 
 
FAMILY LIFE 1 39 
 
 xxii. 9), ie. before the priests as judges, for their 
 decision. 
 
 Polygamy was allowable. David and Solomon 
 had many wives, and, probably, so had exalted 
 persons who could afford them. Elkanah (i Sam. i. 1-2) 
 was doubtless representative of a considerable class, 
 and a man might have as many concubines as he 
 chose. Even the late Deuteronomy Code (650) 
 legislates for such cases as : "If a man have two 
 wives, one beloved and another hated, and both have 
 borne him children," etc. (xxi. 15). The husband was 
 the master, the wife the " owned one," and every 
 woman in a family the " property " of its head. 
 Adultery was venial in the husband, a grievous sin 
 in the wife, and an unchaste wife was severely dealt 
 with ; an unchaste husband only if he sinned with the 
 wife of another, i.e. it was a question of infringement 
 of property-rights. A husband could divorce his 
 wife on suspicion of unchastity, or recourse was had 
 to trial by ordeal, but "putting away" a wife was 
 the prerogative of a husband for any trivial cause. 
 Parents had full power over their children and could 
 sell them or even put them to death. But as a rule 
 children and slaves were kindly treated, and slaves 
 were regarded almost as members of the family. 
 
 With increase of wealth the old simplicity of 
 manners disappeared. Private individuals copied the 
 palaces of kings, and magnificent houses of hewn 
 stone were common and gorgeously furnished. Wealth 
 and leisure, however, were not all spent in " lying 
 upon beds of ivory, chanting to the sound of the viol 
 and drinking wine in bowls '' (Am. vi.). During this 
 early-monarchy period music and literature, as well as 
 general culture, stood at their highest. The name of 
 David has ever been connected with music and song, 
 and the best written and most brilliant part of the 
 
 mpposed door of the local sanctuary), and the oath of compurgation is made. 
 If this is so, it presupposes a very early date for the Book of the Covenant. Cf. 
 my Judges, pp. 117 footnote § ; 330 footnote." 
 
I40 SAUL TO AMOS {c. 1050-760 B.C.) 
 
 Hexateuch is of 850-800 b.c, forming a series ot prose 
 narratives to which nothing in the later books can be 
 compared, except perhaps the equally old 2 Sam. 
 
 Travelling at this time was comparatively safe, 
 for public, if not private, law was strict (cf. Judg, xvii. 6; 
 xviii. I ; xix. i ; xxi. 25) ; kings saw to that. The refrain 
 \n Judges, "in those days there was no king in Israel," 
 to explain the mutilation and robbery of travellers 
 then, implies comparative freedom from such risks 
 under the monarchy ; but it was only comparative. 
 True, good and energetic kings, with a small standing 
 army at their back, and the land divided into admini- 
 strative circuits under governors, (i Kgs. iv. 7 sqq. ; 
 XX. 14 sqq.) did maintain some law and order; but the 
 king's eye was not everywhere, mdny were not good, 
 officials were lax and venal, men and manners rude, 
 justice was haphazard and corrupt. Hence travellers 
 were exposed to plunder and ill-usage on the way 
 (Hos. vi. 9; Jer. iii. 2; Ezr. viii. 22) and seldom went 
 alone, but in caravans, and mainly for "trade or 
 religious observances. Roads were often simple 
 bridle-paths; but there w6re also "king's high- 
 ways" (cf. Numb. XX. 17), (probably as bad as modern 
 " Sultan's roads,") which were repaired, levelled, 
 cleared of stones, whenever kings used them (cf. Is. xl. 
 3 ; Ivii. 14 ; Ixii. 10). Apparently there were no bridges 
 across rivers, only fords. (See art. "Roads and 
 Travel in O.T." in Hastings' D. of-B., v. 368-375). Some 
 went on foot ; others rode on asses or mules. Horses 
 and chariots were only for war, though kings at times 
 used them on their journeys. Travellers had to 
 provide for themselves in the way of food; but a 
 certain amount of hospitality to strangers has ever 
 been the rule in the East. Of inns or khans we hear 
 nothing in the Old Testament, but, on caravan routes, 
 they probably existed. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 AMOS, HOSEA, ISAIAH, MICAH 
 
 With an Amos (c. 760-750 b.c.)j Hosea (c. 750-737), First 
 Isaiah (740-700), Micah {c. 724 and later), Jeremiah 
 (c. 620-586), Ezekiel (593-573), and Second Isaiah (540), 
 we come upon a succession of religious geniuses, 
 spiritual giants, who dwarf all before or after them till 
 Christ. These great prophetic personalities represent 
 a religious tidal-wave that left its high-water mark far 
 and away beyond any point reached elsewhere in the 
 Old Testament. They gave Israel's religion its spe- 
 cific character and direction. It is to the religion of 
 these men that our monotheism to-day largely owes 
 its origin and its form. So highly enlightened are 
 their ideals, their picture of God and His relationship 
 to man, that even after twenty centuries of Christian 
 teaching, our souls are drawn out to these prophets. 
 As we read the two Isaiahs, we instinctively feel that 
 all that is best in us and noblest is being forcibly 
 appealed to by a noble spirit akin to that of Christ 
 Himself. Their God is the God whom Christ reveals, 
 a God righteous in all His ways and holy in all His 
 works, a God who loves mercy more than sacrifice, 
 and a right life more than correct services, a God 
 who wants to be worshipped in spirit and in truth. 
 
 And their teaching is so simple, so practical, so 
 direct. There is nothing esoteric about it, no abstract 
 theology, nothing that the simplest nian cannot grasp. 
 Seek God from the ground of your heart, clasp your 
 brother-man's hand, and do the right, is the sum of 
 their religion. From first to last, they make religion 
 
 141 
 
142 AMOS, HOSEA, ISAIAH, MICAH 
 
 a character and a life, a matter of the heart, and weld 
 together love of God and love of man in a bond that 
 cannot be broken. What God asks of man is a right 
 character and a life going out of self to the service of 
 others. Nothing else will satisfy Him. He is not to 
 be bribed by long prayers, gifts, sacrifices, or by many 
 Church-services, to wink at man's evil ways. The 
 creed of these prophets is : " God hath shewed thee, 
 O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require 
 of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to 
 walk humbly with thy God " (Mic. vi. 8). 
 
 This is the prophetic teaching to which Christ sets^ 
 His own seal. Forerunners of Christ, these men of 
 God foreshadow His Sermon on the Mount, His 
 revelation of the Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood 
 of Man, His idea of religion as a character and a life. 
 His Kingdom of God on earth.^ 
 
 To appreciate the better these prophets and their 
 life-work, let us rapidly reconstruct the political, 
 religious, and moral background of the Israel of their 
 day up to 700 b.c. 
 
 Political Sihiation. — Under Solomon and David a 
 united Israel had been a great power. On Solomon's 
 death it split up into two kingdoms, a northern Israel 
 and a southern Judah. There then existed around 
 Palestine a number of equally small nations and 
 kingdoms. In alliance or at feud with each other, 
 they paid little heed to the large world outside their 
 own circle. Suddenly, big Assyria menaced them 
 and filled them with a foreboding shared even by 
 Syria, by far the most powerful of the group. Already 
 between 885-860 B.C., the great Assyrian conqueror, 
 
 ' Throughout, these prophets are ever pointing to a Golden Age of peace, 
 goodness, joy on earth. Others before them have dreamed of such a bright 
 era, but always as a thing of the past. These prophets hail it, not as behind, 
 but as ahead of them. They hail it as men hail the dawn, nothing doubting 
 but that the night and the things of the, night are shortly to pass away, 
 swallowed up in the glorious light of the perfect day. A second Isaiah sees 
 the Golden Age dawn, iiot for Jews only, but for all Gentiles as well. God's 
 will is that all men, heathen nations included, shall share in this glorious con- 
 summation, the Divine goal for which all humanity is making. 
 
ASSYRIA AND ISRAEL 1 43 
 
 Ashur-nazir-pal, advanced as far as Lebanon and the 
 Phoenician coast. But it was his son Shalmaneser III. ^ 
 (859-825) who first came into conflict with Damascus, 
 Israel, and other adjoining states. In 854 he had to 
 meet an alliance against him formed by Benhadad II. 
 of Damascus and including Ahab, King of Israel, and 
 nine— other states. The battle at Karkar ended in 
 favour of Shalmaneser, but was inconclusive. In 842 
 Shalmaneser made a fresh attack on Syria, defeated 
 its king, Hazael, laid siege to Damascus and exacted 
 tribute from Tyre, Sidon and Jehu of Israel. From 
 that day, except for occasional revolts, Israel 
 was apparently Assyria's vassal. Adad-Nirari IV. 1 
 (811-783) forced Damascus to capitulate uncon- 
 ditionally, and exacted tribute of Israel, Edom and 
 Philistia. From 782-745, Assyria was under a cloud, 
 whilst Israel at the same time flourished under 
 Jeroboam II. Then came the great Tiglath-Pileser IV.i 
 (745-727), who raised Assyria to a height unreached 
 before. He is the real founder of the great Assyrian 
 monarchy; he brought Babylonia under direct As- 
 syrian sway and annexed a great part of Syria. In 733 
 he defeated Rezin, King of Syria, captured Damascus 
 (732), invaded Israel, took several towns, as well as all 
 the land of Naphtali, and compelled Israel's King 
 Pekah to pay heavy tribute. Pekah was murdered 
 in 731, and Tiglath-Pileser confirmed Hoshea as King 
 of Israel. A governor was set up in Damascus, and 
 Ammon, Edom, Moab, and Ahaz, King of Judah, were 
 forced to pay tribute — (Ahaz, as we mention later, 
 had asked Assyria to protect him against Syria and 
 Israel). On Tiglath-Pileser's death, Hoshea, Israel's 
 king, revolted against Assyria. Shalmaneser V. 
 invaded Israel, and besieged Samaria. After a three 
 years' siege the city {§\l in Sargon's first year (721). 
 Israel became a province of Assyria, 27,290 of its best 
 inhabitants were exiLefd, and foreign colonists re- 
 
 ' Shalmaneser III. (not II.), Tiglath-Pileser IV. (not III.), as a new earlier 
 Shalmaneser and Tiglath-Pileser have recently been discovered — Adad-Nlrari 
 rV, is also called Ramman-Nirari. 
 
144 AMOS, HOSEA, ISAIAH, MICAH 
 
 placed them. Israel's national independence was at 
 an end.^ 
 
 Judah staved off the same fate 130 years longer, but 
 from 740 B.C. its peril from Assyria was clear. Syria 
 and Israel had joined hands against Assyria, and, to 
 force Ahaz to join them, they threatened to invade 
 his Judah. Isaiah bade Ahaz pay no heed to these 
 " two tails of smoking firebrands " (Is. vii. 4), but he 
 was too frightened to listen. He invoked Assyria's 
 aid (734) and got it,^ but at the price of becoming 
 Assyria's vassal. His son Hezekiah (727-698) had 
 two alternatives open to him : (i) to form an alliance 
 with Egypt and defy Assyria; this was the scheme 
 of a political party in Judah, of which Shebna was 
 probably the head (Is. xxii. 15-25; 2 Kgs. xviii. sq.); 
 (2) to accept Assyria's yoke and protection, i.e. not 
 to break with Assyria; this was Isaiah's policy. 
 Hezekiah was a weak king and tried both policies. 
 He sent his tribute to Assyria, and favoured Egypt 
 on the sly.^ Assyria saw through his double dealing, 
 taught Hezekiah a sharp lesson,' and eventually 
 besieged Jerusalem, but, for some reason, had to beat 
 a hasty retreat (701). Judah obtained a short respite, 
 but, as Ch. XL will show, her doom was sealed 
 from the moment that Ahaz did homage to Tiglath- 
 Pileser at Damascus, and became his vassal in 734. 
 
 • FromBurneyi^""^^. 1; Hommel's " Assyria "in Hastings' Z).o/"5.; Johns' 
 Anct. Assyria. These Assyrian key-dates, e.g. 854 as Ahab's last year, 842 
 Jehu's first year, 722 as Samaria's fall, rectify defective Hebrew chronology, 
 Back-reckoning gives 931 as Jeroboam's and JRehoboam's accession, and 970 
 for Solomon's. Mineptah's date (p. 95 sup.) gives Exodus from Egypt = 
 c. 1225. Assyrian chronology proves 2 Kgs. jev. : " Pekahiah reigned 2 yrs., 
 Pekah 20, " to be wrong. Pekahiah and Pekah together only cover 3 years in all. 
 
 ' From Assyrian inscriptions we know (l) that in 711 Philistia, Jivlah, 
 Edom, and Moab were already seditious, and Sargon made a campaign against 
 Philistia (Is. xx.), Judah probably escaping by making timely submission and 
 paying heavy indemnity (Is. xxii. 1-14). Sargon describes himself as " subjector 
 of the land of Judah, of which the situation is remote." This failure of the 
 Egyptian policy gave Isaiah's policy the ascendant and led to Shebna's fall. 
 
 » Here, again, Assyrian history tells us that in 701 Sennacherib took 46 
 fenced cities and many smaller cities of Judah, and a vast number of their 
 people, and camped in Lachish (south-west corner of Judah) ; "and Hezekiah 
 himself I shut up like a bird in a cage in Jerusalem. . . . I added other tribute 
 to his former assessment." He gives a strong account of his humiliation of 
 Hezekiah. At present, 2 Kgs. xix. (cf. Hdt. ii. 141) and Assyrian facts do not 
 seem to tally, but his murder by his sons in 681 B.C. is a fact. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS SITUATION I45 
 
 Moral Situation. — This was at a low ebb (pp. 137 sq., 
 sup.). Justice was bought and sold (cf. Mic. iii. 11), 
 big estates swallowed up small proprietors, officials 
 and the aristocracy oppressed the poor and lived in 
 shameful luxury and laxity of life. The picture of 
 the treatment of the poor by the rich is a sad one in 
 the prophets : " they sell the righteous for silver, and 
 the needy for a pair of shoes " (Am. ii. 6). The poor 
 man cannot call his life (Jer. ii. 34), or honour, or 
 patrimony (cf. i Kgs. xxi.) his own. While the rich 
 " lie upon beds of ivory, eat the lambs of the flock, 
 chant to the sound of the viol, drink wine in bowls, 
 and anoint themselves with the chief ointments" 
 (Am. vi. 4 sqq.), the poor go naked and hungry 
 (Is. Iviii. 7), as helpless against the oppressor as the 
 widow or orphan (Is. x. 2 ; Zech, vii. 10), and a poor 
 man cannot hope for justice (Am. v. 12; Is. xxxii. 7; 
 Jer. V. 28). Of the Israelites of his day Hos. iv. 2 sq. 
 says : They swear, break faith, murder, steal, commit 
 adultery, and one bloody deed treads upon the heels 
 of another. Is. iii. 5 sq. speaks of the shamelessness 
 with which Israel, like Sodom, proclaims its sins with- 
 out blush or concealment (cf. Jer. xiii. 23). — It is a 
 sombre picture, even with full allowance made for the 
 pet tendency of preachers to paint things over-black. 
 
 Religious Situation. — With all the local or village 
 shrines and bigger sanctuaries in Israel, the worship 
 at these places did little or nothing to promote the 
 moral and spiritual life of Israel, either in individuals 
 or in the nation as a whole. True, the priests saw to 
 it that the sacrifices and ritual were elaborate and 
 correctly done. But of worship, in our sense, there 
 was little or none. The religious Festivals were 
 largely occasions of sacrifice and questionable mirth, 
 "sensuality, the unrestrained and secular jollity of 
 feasts, — half-sacrifices, half-picnics "(Montefiore,//.Z., 
 34S). The Sabbath was a day of rej8t, (Ex. xxxiv. 21) 
 and of sacrifice apparently. To the Hebrews,, .cer- 
 tainly up to 700 B.C., worship was all but exclusively 
 
 L 
 
146 AMOS, HOSEA, ISAIAH, MICAH 
 
 sacrificial and ritual, not a service of uplifting moral 
 and spiritual teaching and edification. It was ritual, 
 not moral acts, that constituted religion. 
 
 Hence Israel's views on its relationship with God, 
 and His requirements, were very simple. Jehovah is 
 our God ; us alone does He know of all nations of the 
 earth. He has covenanted with us to be on our side, 
 and His fortunes are linked with ours. We are His 
 chosen people. Provided we have no other God and 
 pay Him His dues, He is in honour bound to protect 
 and bless us.-^What were Jehovah's dues in their 
 eyes? In the eyes of priests and people alike, all 
 that Jehovah required was a due performance of the 
 proper sacrifices and ritual services at His shrines. 
 If it was desired to please Him still more, to draw, 
 the bond of union between Jehovah and His one 
 chosen people still closer, or to appease Him when 
 angry with Israel's sins (= neglect of sacrifice), all 
 that was needed was to redouble these sacrifices and 
 services. Hence, in times of peril, priests and people 
 feverishly turned to Jehovah's altars, and vied in pious 
 rites morally worthless, yet of magic power in their 
 eyes. Naturally, when the crash came in 721 and 
 586 B.C., many viewed the God of the beaten nation as 
 beaten too, and turned to the gods of Nineveh or 
 Babylon. 
 
 « • • • * 
 
 Such was the political, moral, and religious situa- 
 tion of Israel. How did these prophets face it as 
 God's commissioned mouthpieces and messengers to 
 His people ? To begin with, what kind of men were 
 these prophets, and what their gui;ding principles ? 
 
 Amos, Isaiah, and Micah were men of Judah, 
 Hosea was of Israel ; though Amos of Judah was 
 called to prophesy to Israel, not Judah. In social 
 rank they varied as much as the Apostles, and Isaiah 
 was their Paul. Amos was a herdman of Tekoa, " a 
 rustic, probably not very attractive in his exterior, 
 but whose words gush forth with all the power of a 
 
PROPHETIC INSPIRATION I47 
 
 mountain stream" (Jastrow, Heb. and Bab. Trad., 
 p. 284), Micah was probably an educated artisan, 
 Hosea possibly a priest, Isaiah a man of position and 
 a born statesman. 
 
 If we are to understand the message and life-work 
 of these great prophets, we must at once rid our- 
 selves of a common misconception already noted 
 (p. 132 sup. and n.). Prediction of future events was 
 not their essential rdle, neither were their messages 
 verbally imparted to them miraculously from heaven 
 while they were in a state of passive ecstatic uncon- 
 sciousness (cf. pp. 13 and 64 sq., sup.). They are 
 occasionally seers, but, as a rule, they foresee the 
 future mainly in the sense that a righteous God's 
 moral rule makes Israel's history to these trained 
 readers of the " signs of the times " an open page, in 
 which all who have eyes to see can read the future 
 in the present. As to their message, God spoke to 
 them exactly as He speaks to us all, from within their 
 own heart and mind. Ecstatic visions occupy a very 
 secondary place in the canonical prophets, and many 
 of these so-called " visions " are merely figurative 
 expressions.^ Under inspiration the prophets were 
 their own proper selves, fully conscious, but their 
 faculties were abnormally quickened, prompted, 
 enlightened by the Holy Spirit: Excitation there 
 
 * AU the prophets have a regular religious nomenclature, mannerism, 
 technique peculiar to them as a class. It is all the more striking, because it 
 retains old phrases and ideas truly descriptive of early "seers," such as, e.g, 
 Balaam, but not at all of the canonical prophets. Before 800 B.C. the seer's 
 state of ecstasy, trance, vision, is constantly met with exactly as in Numb. 
 3txiv. 4, 16. Then, " The Spirit of the Lord will come mightily upon thee " 
 (1 Sam. X, -6); was no empty phrase. We meet it even in Elijah's day. But 
 we know that the canonical prophets no longer normally saw visions, heard 
 voices, or fell in a trance. Yet the old phrases are still retained. The prophet 
 tells us he " sees " and "hears," and " the hand of the Lord comes mightily 
 upon him." The explanation is simple : it was the traditional mode of speech 
 in the "schools of the prophets." These, of course, were not "schools" in 
 our sense, but guilds for mutual edification or inspiration. In these guilds 
 grew up, during the ecstatic stage of_prophecy, a nomenclature exactly decripj- 
 tive of the actual experience of the earliest prophets, and — as ever in religious 
 institutions — language is very conservative, retaining phrases and ideas long 
 outgrown. So no wonder that prophecy had a language of its own ready to 
 hand for any prophet's use, even an Amos, who says of himself, " no prophet 
 was I, nor a_ prophet's son." 
 
148 AMOS, HOSEA, ISAIAH, MICAH 
 
 Still was, for these men are Orientals, but self-con- 
 sciousness was not lost. In the very few instances 
 where these canonical prophets still see visions and 
 hear voices, their faculties are very much awake, for 
 they have a clear memory of it all, and give us the 
 whole scene most accurately.^ 
 
 The key-note to all their teaching lies in their 
 conception ol God as the Moral Governor of His 
 world. In their eyes God is essentially Righteous 
 and rules the world on absolutely moral lines. In all 
 His works and in all His ways there is nothing con- 
 tingent or arbitrary ; it is all the necessary and 
 essential outcome of God being what He is in Him- 
 self. He can only will and act as His own perfect 
 character determines Him to will and act. What He 
 loves is righteousness, what He hates is injustice. 
 He has no respect of persons, neither is He to be 
 bribed by sacrifices. What He demands is clean 
 hands, pure thoughts, righteous conduct, rather than 
 sacrifices and new-moons, sabbaths and festivals. 
 Hence with a righteous Jehovah and a sinful Israel 
 before their eyes, these prophets foresee Israel's 
 punishment and Captivity long before it comes. 
 Assyria is not knocking at Israel's door by accident. 
 She is Jehovah's chosen instrument. His rod, to 
 stamp out Israel's delusion and wrong. Thus their 
 main business is to denounce iniquity as a breach of 
 Israel's Covenant, and to pronounce God's impending 
 judgment on a faithless nation. But they are also 
 very mindful of God's tender love for His prodigal 
 son, Israel, and well aware of His fidelity to His 
 "everlasting Covenant." Israel may break it, not 
 
 ' It was a mental process, not of cool reflection, certainly, but akin to the 
 intuition and creative genius of the poet or artist who, after dwelling long in 
 thought on a work of art he has in his mind's eye, suddenly sees it flash before 
 him in unthought-of finish and beauty so clearly that he can retain the vision 
 and carry it into execution. It is creative fancy, not dreaming, but awake 
 at the pitch of genius. It takes one form in excitable Orientals, another in a 
 Socrates, who was, at times, so rapt in meditation that he was deaf and blind 
 to all external impressions, once rooted twenty-four hours in one spot, seeing 
 such deep revelations that he was sure they were God-inspired. 
 
PROPHETIC MONOTHEISM 1 49 
 
 He. So they have also words of comfort and hope. 
 Not for one instant does their faith in Jehovah, and 
 in His final purpose for Israel, waver. Israel must be 
 purified of its dross as if by fire ; but a better and 
 stronger new Israel will rise from the ashes of the 
 old. Of this, Hosea and Isaiah have no doubt 
 at all. 
 
 God, to these prophets, is still Israel's Jehovah. 
 But what a change has come over the national phrase 
 in their minds ! He is no longer a God whose sphere 
 begins and ends with the boundaries of His land or 
 the fortunes of His people. Though His Israel is still 
 specially dear to Him, His hand controls all human 
 history, and Nature but does His bidding.* Calamity 
 comes from Him as well as prosperity. True, the 
 eighth-century prophets do not formally declare 
 Jehovah to be the one and only God; not till 
 Deuteronomy and II Isaiah is His Godhead thus 
 declared in set terms. Amos and Isaiah simply 
 ignore all other gods. All need of them is gone. 
 Jehovah has usurped all their functions and driven 
 them out of the field. To Amos He is all-powerful 
 in heaven and in hell, on Carmel and in the depths of 
 the sea, in Caphtor and Kir, in Edom and Tyre. More 
 majestic still is Isaiah's idea of God. As the thrice- 
 Holy One, Jehovah is immeasurably exalted above 
 everything in heaven or earth. Combining the 
 /'righteousness of God" in Amos with His "tender 
 arid long-suffering love" in Hosea, Isaiah gives us 
 His exquisite picture of a God who is "holy" or 
 a:loof from all that is unclean and wrong, but " very 
 nigh " to all who seek Him, longing for man's trust 
 and love. He even pleads with man : " Come now, 
 
 • But Jewish particularism dies very hard, and prophetic belief in God's 
 love for the nations was a slow growth. Up to 700 B.C., only in Iiaiah 
 (Is. ii. 8-4) do we find it, and in Micah. To Amos the nations are only 
 God's rod or tool for Israel's purification. Ezekiel regards them as God's and 
 Israel's wicked foes. We have to wait till the Second Isaiah (540) for the 
 true universalism where the nations are drawn in and converted for their 
 own sake. 
 
ISO AMOS, HOSEA, ISAIAH, MICAH 
 
 and let us reason together." As for the nations, He 
 includes them in His purpose of salvation (Is. ii. 2-4 ; 
 that fine passage, Is. xix. 19-25, is long after Isaiah).* 
 This ethical monotheism was bound to flow from 
 their lofty moral conception of God. Kuenen {Hibbert 
 Led.) rightly says: "When, in the consciousness of 
 the prophets, the central place was taken, not by the 
 might, but by the holiness of Jehovah, the conception 
 of God was carried up into another and a higher 
 sphere. From that moment it ceased to be a question 
 of 'more' or 'less' between Jehovah and the other 
 gods, for He stood not only above them, but in dis- 
 
 ' In reading an Isaiah, Hosea, etc., we must remember that in O.T. days 
 " a book was always a compilation, it grew from age to age . . , and there is 
 hardly a single O.T. book which does not contain portions of different periods, 
 at times centuries apart " (Jastrow, Jfeb. and Bab. Trad., 286), e.g. Isaiah is 
 as composite a work as the Pentateuch. We usually assign the first part of 
 Is. to I Isaiah ; xl.-lv. to II Isaiah ; and Ivi.-lxvi. to III Isaiah ; but the 
 problem is really much more complicated, and within these groups lie m^ny 
 chapters of quite different dates, e.g. Is. xxiv.-xxvii. are very late indeed. The 
 compiler evidently had several groups or loose leaves of Isaianic oracles, which 
 he put together more by affinity of subject than in order of time or authorship. 
 So with Hosea, the text is unusually corrupt. Hence often, when I appeal 
 to a chapter of Is. or Hos. (e.g. in Messianic prophecy), I do so very pro- 
 visionally, cf. my reference to Is. xix, sup., a magnificent chapter, but is it 
 I Isaiah's ? Many scholars doubt it, and assign it a very much later date. 
 
 Amos, Hosea, Isaiah characteristics. — " The God of Amos is the apotheosis 
 of right, He is the conscience of the world that can neither be corrupted nor 
 sophisticated ; the God of Hosea was born in the heart of a man whose love 
 the grossest wrong could not quench. Retribution is the divinity of the one ; 
 redemption of the other. Amos' was the first to take hold. Hosea had to wait 
 a century before his greater thought found a fruitful soil in Jer. and Deut." 
 Amos' motto is : "Let justice roll down like floods, and righteousness as a 
 mighty stream " (v. 24) ; even on foreign nations he pronounces God's doom, 
 not for wronging Israel, but for violating the principles of humanity. This is 
 the first O.T. assertion of international morality. Hosea is the father of 
 Deuteronomy and its spiritual and humane conception of religion. ... In 
 his faithless wife, first driven from his home, then brought back to it and tenderly 
 watched over and loved, he sees a parable of God's experience with Israel, 
 His spouse, and applies it throughout his prophecies. Faith in God's undying 
 love is his theme. " Outraged love may smite harder than offended righteous- 
 ness, but its blows are remedial and kind, not retributive ; its aim is npt to 
 satisfy justice, but to win back the erring." Isaiah, as said in the text above, 
 is a combination of Amos' righteousness and Hosea's love. In literary style 
 Isaiah is a past-master, he is a poetical genius, e.g. Is. v. 1-7, the parable of 
 the vineyard ; v. 26-30, the picture of the swift, irresistible onrush of Assyria j 
 i. 2-8, Judah's devastation ; ix. 8-21, the oracle against Samaria. From Amos 
 onward, these prophets not only strike a new moral note, they adopt a new 
 method. Their spoken messages to heedless ears they now commit to writing 
 as well, both to reach a larger audience and to be for a witness to future 
 generations. Hence they are known as canonical or writing prophets. 
 
ETHICAL MONOTHEISM 151 
 
 tinct opposition to them. If Jehovah, the Holy One, 
 was God, and if He was God as the Holy One, then 
 the others are not. In a word, the belief that Jehovah 
 was the only God sprang out of the ethical conception 
 of His Being." 
 
 From the same source springs the prophets' 
 crusade (i) against images, and (2) against the common 
 belief that mere prayers, sacrifices, ritual services and 
 pompous worship are in themselves all-powerful with 
 God. (i) The emphasis laid by these prophets on 
 imageless worship does not imply that these men had 
 such a transcendent idea of God that they wanted to 
 avoid all possible approach to anything like anthropo- 
 morphism. Quite the reverse. They commonly speak 
 of God as in human form, a God whose eyes are open 
 to our needs and His ears attentive to our prayers, 
 who lays bare His arm and with a mighty hand 
 delivers His people. Some of their figures of God 
 make Him act and speak so like a man and in so 
 homely a way that, at times, they almost startle and 
 shock us, and it is precisely because of this human 
 touch that these men of God give us a real living 
 picture of a Personal God who so strongly and warmly 
 appeals to our hearts. Yet these same prophets set 
 their face like a flint against all images of Jehovah, 
 and for three main reasons: (a) They are "Nehushtan," 
 mere things of brass and wood and clay, utterly unfit 
 to be symbols of a living holy Jehovah; {b) they 
 become, like the Brazen Serpent, fetishes, and end by 
 being not symbols of the deity, but gods in themselves, 
 so that men "burn incense unto the image" and 
 worship it^ (2 Kgs. xviii. 4) ; (c) (and this comes first 
 and foremost), they not only savour of, but lead to, 
 heathenism. The Books of Kings, and the writings of 
 the prophets themselves, show us that the Hebrews 
 had openly adopted the Asherah poles (rude images 
 of a goddess), and images of Molech and other deities, 
 and set them up in and around Jerusalem {e.g. 2 Kgs. 
 xxiii.). Hence Hosea deliberately calls the worship 
 
152 AMOS, HOSEA, ISAIAH, MICAH 
 
 of even Jehovah-images Baal-worship. Moses had 
 said, "Thou shall make thee no molten gods," i.e., 
 probably, images of strange gods; these prophets 
 go beyond this and set afoot a crusade against all 
 images, even of Jehovah. 
 
 (2) Equally must we ascribe to their lofty con- 
 ception of God the prophets' wholesale condemnation 
 of mere sacrifices, and ritual services, and all Israel's 
 parade of outward worship. Of course, we must not 
 take this to mean that there are to be no sacrifices 
 and no temple services. Both the one and the other 
 were as essential to true Jehovah-worship then as 
 Church-services and Holy Communion are to-day. 
 Their sweeping judgments are not on- the institutions 
 themselves, but on the false importance attached to 
 them in their day, both by people and priests alike. 
 To these prophets religion is essentially a character 
 and a life, and (unless such 'services bear fruit in a right 
 life,) they view correct services and many sacrifices 
 as nothing worth. Our Lord says exactly the same 
 thing in S. Matt. vii. 20 sqq. Hence the withering 
 terms in which Amos (v. 21) tells these priests and 
 people: "I hate (saith the Lord), I despise your 
 feast-days ; though ye offer Me burnt-offerings and 
 oblations, I will not accept them." Hosea openly 
 calls these altars, sacrifices, and ritual services 
 " whoredom " and " sin " (ix. i ; ii. 5 ; viii. 1 1 ; x. 8), 
 and blames the priests for it all : * they profane their 
 office, pander to the people's taste for these sensuous 
 services, and do it all for interested motives. " They 
 
 * This prophet and priest quarrel is a law of nature. A priesthood is 
 essentially conservative, not creative. The priests' business is to preserve 
 religious traditions unchanged, " the faith once and for all delivered to the 
 saints." The prophet re-states the old tradition, lets in new light and ideas, 
 brings it abreast of the best religious thought and aspirations of his day, puts 
 " new wine into new bottles, that both be preserved." Prophets, with their 
 progressive ideas and praclical ideals, are ever intensely distasteful to conserva- 
 tive priests, who hug the traditional creed which served their fathers well. 
 Religion needs the priest to keep the prophet from going too fast ; it needs 
 the prophet to keep the priests and their tradition from stagnation, from ever 
 lagging behind the needs and ideas of their day, and so losing all hold on 
 men's minds and hearts. 
 
PROPHETIC RELIGION 153 
 
 feed upon the sin (= ritual services) of My people and 
 set their heart on their iniquity" ; " I desire, saith the 
 Lord, mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of 
 God more than burnt-offerings" (vi. 6 ; viii. 13). The 
 most striking passage of all is Is. i. 10 sqq. Here 
 Isaiah hangs side by side two masterly pictures, the 
 picture of a religion of sabbaths and holy days and 
 many prayers and manifold sacrifices, or man-made 
 religion, and the companion-picture (i. 16 sqq) of a 
 religion which "ceases to do evil and learns to do 
 well," or God's idea of religion. The oft-quoted Mic. 
 vi. 6-8 pithily frames this fundamental prophetic 
 doctrine in a very telling form. 
 
 Such were the inspiring ideals >nd lofty moral 
 teaching of an Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah. As 
 God's mouthpieces and in His name they came before 
 the nation as the Voice of God Himself: "Thus saith 
 the Lord." Interpreters of His will, seeing God's 
 handwriting in all history, their moral lessons are all 
 learnt in the school of the actual history of their own 
 day. Their teaching is never in the form of general- 
 ising sermons as to-day. Point by point, it bears 
 directly on some event of their own day, or some 
 outstanding phase in their own generation.^ Their 
 one formula is, — not as to-day : " If you do this or 
 that, then this or that will come upon you," but — 
 
 ' E.g. all Messianic prophecy is (i) an idealised Golden Age picture, plus 
 (2) contemporary history, (i) The root-idea is ever a coming Golden Age. 
 The God of Israel is holy and good ; all history is His handiwork and reflects 
 His character and will ; man can hinder, not foil His eternal plan of a righteous 
 Kingdom on earth. His Israel, with whom He has made an everlasting 
 Covenant, is the chosen means for the establishment of God's Kingdom. 
 Sinful Israel will be purged of its dross by the fiery ordtal of affliction, and a 
 new and pure Israel will rise from the ashes of the old. Then God will 
 inaugurate His Kingdom of justice and goodness first in Israel itself, and, 
 through Israel, among all mankind. This is the root-idea in all prophets. 
 (2) But God usually works through great personalities whom He raises and 
 endows with His Spirit, e.g. Moses. Hence prophets frequently see the 
 coming Deliverer in big men of their own day, e.g. Zerubbabel, Cyrus. As 
 God promised David, through Nathan, a king in his house for ever (2 Sam. 
 vii. 1 1 sqq.), a Davidic king was also looked for. Is. vii.-xi. is an assurance 
 to the reigning, humbled Davidic house that this David-promise cannot fail, 
 so from its humility will rise a shoot of Jesse greater than David. Similarly, 
 the Suffering Servant of II Isaiah is Israel itself, purified by its terrible affliction, 
 and redeeming others as well. 
 
154 AMOS, HOSEA, ISAIAH, MICAH 
 
 " Woe unto you who have done this or that," or " Hear 
 the Word of the Lord, ye that have done thus or 
 thus, verily the judgment of God shall come upon 
 you." 
 
 And they themselves practised what they preached. 
 The Word of God spoke in their lives as clearly as 
 on their lips. Speaking in God's name, standing 
 before men as His heralds, battling with sin and 
 wrong as champions of truth and the right, their 
 whole life was that of "servants of a holy God." 
 Micah's picture of himself is true of them all : " Truly 
 I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of 
 judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his 
 transgression and unto Israel his sin." Most striking 
 of all is their unreserved self-surrender to God. The 
 call to prophecy comes : '' Go, prophesy to My 
 people." It must be instantly obeyed, though scorn, 
 derision, hatred are to be their only wage. The com- 
 mand comes to Hosea : Take back thy profligate wife 
 to thy home, love her still, watch tenderly over her; 
 or to Jeremiah: "Thou shalt not take to thyself a 
 wife " ; or to Ezekiel : Thy beloved wife shall die, and 
 thou shalt not mourn for her. They instantly obey. 
 Of course, these personal experiences were all sym- 
 bolical of Israel's coming plight, and, of themselves, 
 drove home the prophet's message as speech never 
 could do. Hosea, Jeremiah, Ezekiel saw this, but 
 they would equally have obeyed at once had they not 
 seen God's meaning in it all. 
 
 One famous historical scene will illustrate the 
 attitude and tone adopted by these prophets when 
 they came before the people in the name of God ; it 
 is so typical. 
 
 In the reign of Jeroboam II, about 760 b.c, there 
 suddenly enters into the holy city of Bethel a grim, 
 gaunt Judaean herdman, Amos of Tekoa. In the 
 cathedral city itself this layman rustic, with out- 
 spoken and uncompromising boldness, denounces to 
 the faces of priests and people alike the vice, arrogance, 
 
AMOS OF TEKOA 155 
 
 and oppression of Israel, especially its upper classes, 
 and pronounces all the sacrificial and ritual religious- 
 ness of the day a hollow sham, hateful to God. " You 
 say," exclaims Amos, "Jehovah is our God, us alone 
 does He know, therefore He must be on our side : 
 daily do we tread His courts and come before Him 
 with our offerings of rams and the fat of bullocks ; 
 we observe His sabbaths and new-moons, we keep 
 the appointed feasts." This is Jehovah's answer to 
 you : " I hate, I despise your feast-days, your burnt 
 and meal-offerings I will not accept." God is not a 
 man thus to be bribed by gifts and offerings. Your 
 routine of outward services He calls an offence and a 
 sin : "Come to Bethel, your sanctuary, and transgress ; 
 at Gilgal multiply transgression ; bring your sacrifices 
 every morning . . . for this liketh you, O ye children 
 of Israel, saith the Lord " ; " Seek not Bethel, nor 
 enter into Gilgal, saith the Lord. Seek ye Me, and 
 ye shall live, ... ye who turn judgment to wormwood 
 and cast down righteousness to the earth " (iv. 4 sq. ; 
 V. 4 sqq.). What Jehovah demands is a right life, not 
 sacrifices ; true service, not services. The worship 
 He wants is the practice of humanity and justice : 
 "let judgment run down as waters ; and righteousness 
 as a mighty stream." Nothing short of this will 
 satisfy Him. — Again, you expect a " Day of the Lord " 
 when your Jehovah will stand up for you and crush 
 your foreign foes. That "day of the Lord" is at 
 hand, but it is not going to be a bright day for you, 
 but dark and full of doom (v. 18). " The Lord hath 
 sworn by His holiness that they will take you away 
 into Captivity with hooks, and your residue with 
 fish hooks " (iv. 2) ; " for your Gilgal shall surely go 
 info captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought " (v. 5). 
 It is riot Assyria, it is your Jehovah Himself who is 
 bringing this doom upon you as a judgment for all 
 your sins. Say not to yourselves: Jehovah is our 
 God, us alone does He know. Hear Jehovah's 
 answer to that : " You only have I known of all the 
 
156 AMOS, HOSEA, ISAIAH, MICAH 
 
 families of the earth ; therefore I will punish you for 
 all your iniquities" (iii. 2). Not a whit more will 
 God spare you than other nations that do wrong; 
 indeed He will spare you less, for to whom much is 
 given, of him is much required. God has not two 
 standards of morality, one for you and one for other 
 nations. Jehovah is a righteous God, and with Him 
 right is right and wrong wrong all the world over. 
 You say: "Jehovah's;honour is at stake if Assyria 
 beats Israel." Not so ! Jehovah's honour is at stake 
 if He allows a sinful Israel to continue a nation. 
 Assyria's triumph over a sinful Israel is Jehovah's 
 triumph of righteousness over injustice and sin. 
 
 Naturally, Amos' outspoken language was sheer 
 treason and blasphemy in the ears of self-satisfied 
 priests and worshippers in holy Bethel. The head 
 priest, Amaziah, sent a letter of protest to the king, 
 indicting Amos of treason, and also ordered this rant- 
 ing preacher and socialist agitator to quit the northern 
 realm and go back to his Judah: ",0 thou seer, go, 
 flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat 
 bread, and prophesy" (vii. 12), i.e. go elsewhere and 
 ply thy trade of seditious fanatic and earn a precarious 
 livelihood with thy quack prophesyings ; go to thy 
 native Judah, we do not need thee here ! 
 
 What we read in Amos is but repeated in the 
 other prophets. Naturally, it was strongly resented 
 by priests and people alike. What was wrong with 
 the good old creed of their fathers, that they should 
 give it up for the new fads of these ranting upstart 
 preachers ! This lofty moral teaching was too high 
 for the degenerate, easy-going Israel of that day. It 
 fell on deaf ears and dull hearts. The people " heard, 
 indeed, but understood not ; saw, but perceived not. 
 The eyes of the people were holden, and their ears 
 heavy, and their heart fat." Even the most optimistic 
 of the prophets, Isaiah, has to own of his countrymen 
 so dear to his heart : " the whole head is sick and the 
 whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto 
 
RELIGION NATIONAL, NOT PERSONAL 1 57 
 
 the head there is no soundness in it" (i. 4 sqq.). 
 Jeremiah expects the Ethiopian to change his skin, or 
 the leopard his spots, sooner than Israel repent and 
 give up its evil habits (xiii. 23). The prophets failed 
 in their day, for Israel did not repent. But they 
 saved faith in Jehovah when the crash came. Then 
 the prophets' lesson, which had sunk deeper than the 
 prophets knew, came back to these Israelites and 
 they took it to heart. They saw then that their 
 Captivity was all due to their neglect of God's law 
 of righteousness. They saw, too, that a righteous 
 God could do no otherwise than punish them as He 
 had done. Thanks to the prophets, loss of faith in 
 Jehovah was not involved in the ruin of Judah in 
 586 B.C. 
 
 • « • • • 
 
 Three features in the prophetic teaching seem to 
 us to-day passing strange : — 
 
 (i) Extraordinary to us is the fact that, till about 
 600 B.C., religion is a national, not an individual 
 matter. With us religion is a personal relationship 
 between God and the individual soul, whereas, in 
 these prophets' days, religion is a matter between the 
 nation and its God. They are preachers, not to 
 individuals, but to the whole nation, and inveigh 
 against national sins. The individual counts practi- 
 cally for nothing till 600 b.c.^ The family is the 
 lowest unit recognised ; in himself the individual has 
 little or no standing at all. This is why when Achan, 
 or Dathan and Abiram sin, their guilt involves not 
 only themselves but their whole families as well. 
 Hence even these sublime prophets, — till Jeremiah 
 and Ezekiel — cannot rid themselves of the idea that 
 
 ' This must not be pressed too far. The prophets' idea of religion as a 
 matter of the heart involves moral responsibility, i.e. appeals implicitly to the 
 individual. Isaiah's " remnant," or " Holy seed," consisted of individuals 
 who realised their personal duty to God. The sense of sin, of repentance, of 
 prayer, was with men then. But the corporate sense predominated : " Our 
 fathers sinned, and we suffer" was the spirit of their general creed. The 
 nation came before the individual and all but blotted him out. 
 
158 AMOS, HOSEA, ISAIAH, MICAH 
 
 God deals with nations, not individuals. They appeal 
 to Israel and society at large to mend their ways, 
 but seldom to the individual soul. The corporate 
 sense is strongly developed, but not the sense of the 
 infinite value of the individual soul in God's eyes. 
 
 (2) This largely explains another very strange 
 feature common to these prophets and to all Israel 
 before the Exile. There is not a trace of any expecta- 
 tion of life after death in our sense of the term (see 
 Note, end of chapter). Naturally, if a man has no 
 distinct individuality on earth, he expects none in the 
 world beyond the grave. Rewards and punishments, 
 as well as a full active life, belong only to this life. 
 " That thy days may be long and prosperous in the 
 land," was all man looked and hoped for. True, he 
 believed in the " pit " or Sheol (cf. p. 89, sup). But 
 this Sheol-land of gloom and shadow beyond the 
 grave, a kind of vast subterranean tomb with barred 
 and bolted gates, in which ghosts retain but a shadowy 
 flickering outline of their old personality, forgotten of 
 God and man, did not concern the Hebrew much. If he 
 gave a second thought to himself at all beyond this 
 actual life, he consoled himself with the conviction that 
 he should not wholly die, for he should live on in his 
 family, tribe, and nation. He saw in anticipation the 
 good of his family, the welfare of his beloved nation, 
 and in their blessing he felt abundantly blessed. He 
 was more than content to have poured his little stream 
 of life and service into the tide of family and national 
 life, and in some degree to have swelled it. As to the 
 possible annihilation of his family or nation, this was 
 a calamity too awful even to contemplate. Jehovah 
 had established His Covenant with Israel, an invi- 
 olable and everlasting Covenant, so the nation at any 
 rate was safe. Jehovah had also promised to make 
 the days of them that love Him (= all Israelites) long 
 and prosperous in the land. As for any other hope 
 of immortality he had none. Hence his anxiety to 
 live on in his family, lest his name be clean blotted out. 
 
WHY PROPHETS WERE UNPOPULAR 159 
 
 It was this that made childlessness such a terrible 
 affliction in Hebrew eyes, and led, not only to poly- 
 gamy, but to the " custom " making it a brother's duty, 
 if his brother died childless, to marry his brother's 
 widow and raise seed unto him, so as to save his 
 brother's name from annihilation. 
 
 (3) This Hebrew conviction : "I shall not wholly die, 
 for I shall live on in my Israel which can never die," 
 in itself explains why these prophets were so univer- 
 sally unpopular with their gloomy prophecies of a 
 fallen Israel, a Holy Land desolate, and Israelites them- 
 selves serfs in a strange land. Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah 
 openly tell their countrymen that their days and their 
 Israel's days are numbered; though the two latter (not 
 Amos) do open a door of hope for Israel a/ier the Cap- 
 tivity. Not only do they proclaim the fall of the nation 
 as inevitable, but they set their faces as a flint against 
 all attempts to avert this catastrophe by alliances 
 with Egypt and other nations against the invader. 
 When Hezekiah and his court entered into negotia- 
 tions with Egypt and other neighbours for an 
 alliance against Assyria, they had to do it behind 
 Isaiah's back and without his knowledge. During 
 the actual siege of Jerusalem, Jeremiah bends his 
 whole energies to make his countrymen bow to 
 God's decrees, and surrender to the King of Babylon ! 
 Imagine our own feelings in the late war had the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury been for ever dinning in 
 our ears that, for our national sins, we must bow to 
 Gqd's decrees, and that our downfall at Germany's 
 hands was inevitable, while our alliance with France, 
 Italy, and America was only an additional sin and a 
 glaring act of disloyalty to God ! From their spiritual 
 standpoint the prophets were no doubt right, but, 
 from the practical and material point of view, their 
 attitude was past the comprehension of their fellow- 
 countrymen. They exasperated king, statesmen, 
 priests, soldiers, and people alike. Well can we 
 understand practical statesmen and army commanders 
 
l6o AMOS, HOSEA, ISAIAH, MICAH 
 
 begging the king : " We beseech thee, let this man 
 (= Jeremiah) be put to death ; for thus he weakeneth 
 the hands of the men of war that remain in this city, 
 and the hands of all the people, in speaking such 
 words unto them " (Jer. xxxviii. 4).^ 
 
 Yet at heart these prophets were the truest of 
 patriots. Jer. xx. 7 sqq. shows how he shrank from 
 the heart-breaking task of denouncing Israel and 
 predicting evil. The bare idea of Israel's downfall 
 stabbed them to the quick every whit as much as it 
 did their countrymen. Yet how could they do other 
 than they did ? If they refrained from speaking, or 
 couched their denunciations in mild form, it was 
 disloyalty to God, disloyalty to the people's best 
 good, disloyalty to their own truest and deepest 
 convictions. No better proof can we have of their 
 sublime grandeur than the self-sacrificing courage 
 with which they delivered a message as distasteful to 
 themselves as to their hearers. Here again they were 
 forerunners of Christ, treading the same hard road 
 He had to tread ; and even as Christ wept over the 
 Jerusalem whose doom He was predicting, so did 
 they. These prophets actually did weep over 
 Jerusalem (Jer. xiv. 17 ; ix. i ; xiii. 17). No words 
 
 ' Jeremiah's experience as a prophet is typical, though an extreme case. 
 His Cassandra forebodings made him bitterly hated, especially as their dire 
 fulfilment stared men in the face. His own town, Anathoth, plotted his 
 death ; his prophecy in the temple all but cost him his life ; his book of 
 prophecies (Jer. xxxvi.) so exasperated the king that Jeremiah ^d Baruch 
 had to hide for their lives. During the last siege, he was first a prisoner in a 
 private house, then cast into an empty cistern, then kept under military guard. 
 The Babylonians treated him well as one of their friends, and he irritated his 
 countrymen by dissuading them from fleeing to Egypt for refuge, so they forced 
 him to go there with them. The last we hear of him is ito Egypt, again 
 denouncing and prophesying evils to come. He suffered much from his 
 countrymen, he suffered much more from the anguish of his own soul. If 
 they loved their country, he loved it ten times more ; and he fully believed 
 that his "words of God" denouncing it and foretelling its doom were not 
 mere predictions, but the effectual cause of Judah's fall. Had not God's express 
 commission, " I have this day set thee over the nations, to root out and to 
 pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build and to plant " (i. 9- 
 10), made him the arbiter of his land's fate ? So awful is his anguish of soul 
 at this heart-breaking task thus set him that, in language as strong as Job's, 
 he bitterly reproaches God for placing such a burden upon him. Read Jer, 
 XX. 7-i8, and cf. xv. 15-18. 
 
LIFE AFTER DEATH l6l 
 
 better express their own heart-feelings than Christ's 
 own: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, . . . how often would 
 I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen 
 gathereth her chickens, and ye would not. Behold, 
 your house is left unto you desolate." The prophets 
 acted and spoke as they did, because', as God's spokes- 
 men, they could no other. They spoke their noble 
 convictions and lived their noble lives in the strength 
 of the one inspiring ideal : " Let even my country 
 perish, so long as God's right endures." 
 
 Note. 
 
 The statement on p. 158, " In Israel before the Exile there is 
 not a trace of life after death in our sense of the term," is sure to 
 be challenged. Later chapters should make my meaning clear, 
 but to avoid misconception, let me define my position. 
 
 (a) All along, Israel had an idea of life after death. They 
 always believed, as did all men everywhere then, that at death 
 man's wraith went to Sheol, where existence was rather vegetating 
 than living. Even this belief was something. The vitality of 
 this early belief is a standing witness to man's instinctive con- 
 viction that death does not kill personality. It is a proof of 
 immortality, for it is the voice of man's soul, spirit of God's spirit, 
 telling him that he does not all die. Poor substitute as is Sheol 
 for eternal life, it is the fertile germ out of which will spring a real 
 belief in life eternal. 
 
 (b) As already said, up to 600 B.C. the individual was all but 
 merged in the nation. The Israelite's Future Hope was centred 
 in his Israel. Jehovah had made an everlasting Covenant with 
 His Israel, linking His fortunes with Israel's. He had also made 
 a Covenant with David (z Sam. vii. 9-16) guaranteeing David's 
 throne and Israel's continuance for ever. On the strength of these 
 two sure promises, Israel's conviction of its own glorious future 
 never grew dim. In its darkest hour, black as was the outlook, 
 and heavy as was God's hand on a sinful nation, Israel knew 
 that God's glorious Covenant-promises must come true as soon 
 as Israel was purified of its dross. The Day of the Lord was at 
 hand, and with it will dawn God's Kingdom on earth in a regene- 
 rate and glorious Israel. This so-called Messianic Hope with its 
 Golden Age of prosperity, peace, and joy was Israel's real Future 
 
 M 
 
1 62 AMOS, HOSEA, ISAIAH, MICAH 
 
 Hope throughout the O.T., a glorified Israel the one thing to 
 which they looked forward. Prophets speak of this glorious 
 coining transfiguration of Israel as a resurrection (i;.^. Hos. vi. 2 ; 
 Ezek. xxxvii.), but metaphorically, i,e. they simply picture the 
 nation's restoration from captivity to prosperity in the new Israel 
 under the form of a resurrection. It is a national, not an individual, 
 Future Hope. On the subject of individual resurrection the 
 canonical prophets are silent. 
 
 {c) After the Exile religion becomes personal, and, in the 
 presence of the problem of the sufferings of the righteous and 
 the prosperity of the wicked (Jer. xii. i), men here and there 
 tentatively throw out hints of another life' in which, possibly, 
 earth's wrongs shall be righted. But it is only an aspiration, a 
 gleaip seen only by a thoughtful few groping after a clearer light 
 than the theology of their day warranted or revealed.' In all the 
 Old Testament, only some half a dozen passages embody a definite 
 hope of individual resurrection in our sense, and it is open to 
 question whether a single one of them is of earlier date than 
 300 B.C., the period of our next paragraph. The passages are : 
 Pss. xvi. 8-1 1 ; xvii. 15 ; xlix. 14, 15 ; Ixxiii. 23-26, and especi- 
 ally Is. XXV. 8; xxvi. 19; Dan. xii. We deal fully with the 
 question later, and state why Job xix. 25-27 is excluded. Even 
 in these passages, several come under {b), for their individual 
 resurrection is mainly with a view to the righteous dead sharing 
 in the Messianic Kingdom. 
 
 {d) From 300-1 B.C., the modern belief in an individual 
 resurrection to eternal life is frequently met with, but in apoca- 
 lypses (cf. Is. XXV .-xxvi., Dan. xii.), and almost without exception 
 outside the Bible. Several speak very definitely of Life after 
 Death, Judgment, Eternity, Heaven, and Hell exactly as we do. 
 Some speak of a resurrection of the body, others only of the soul 
 
 ' Two sources fed these aspirations : (l) contact with Persian (and Greek) 
 thought, with their belief in the soul's immortality ; (2) some Psalmists, in 
 their close mystical communion with God (e.g. Pss. Ixxiii. 23, 24 ; xvi. 8-h), 
 feel that not even death can sever their oneness with God ; this communion 
 with God must go on ; as if, like Enoch and Elijah, they too must be rapt 
 into heaven yet nearer to God. Hence two parallel lines of O.T. resurrection 
 hopes : (i) a resurrection upon earth out of Sheola/ the Messianic Age {e.g. Is. 
 XXV. 8, xxvi. 19, and Dan. xii.), and (2) s.n immediate escape from Sheol at 
 death in a continued life of conscious blessedness in heaven. 
 
 ' Cf. Socrates, who felt in his heart of hearts that man's "spirit" or 
 "personality," partaking of the essence of God, must rise after death, though 
 he candidly ovfns that it is only a pious hope for which he can give no reason, 
 and adds that he is not quite certain. He sees dimly, but feels strongly on 
 the subject (see Zeller's Socrates, pp. 147 sqq., English translation). 
 
LIFE AFTER DEATH l6^ 
 
 or personality clothed in a purely spiritual body. By the time 
 Christ came on earth, the conviction of individual resurrection to 
 an eternal life of communion with God was clearly and definitely 
 established in most Hebrew minds {e.g. Pharisees, not Sadducees), 
 The people generally, however, still clung to a national resurrec- 
 tion, i.e. a glorified Israel here on earth as the Kingdom of God. 
 Our Lord's Apostles shared this view, e.g. Acts i. 6 : " Lord, dost 
 Thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel ? " while 
 S. Mt. xxvii. 52 : "And the tombs were opened and many of 
 the saints that slept were raised," etc., proves that Christians of 
 that day fully believed that the righteous Jews who had died 
 would rise to share in the kingdom. 
 
 Note on P. 145 : The Sabbath a Day of Rest, and of 
 Sacrifice apparently. 
 
 We know nothing of Hebrew Sabbath-observance up to 700 B.C., except as 
 a day of rest ; all else is inference. In Babylonia (p. 80 sup.), the 7th, 14th, 
 2lst, and 28th of each month were "favourable days, evil days" (i.e. apt to be 
 unlucky), the others simply " favourable days." On these four days, great care 
 was taken not to offend the gods. Hence the Babylonian equation : «J»» nUkh 
 lihbi = shabattum, " Day of rest of the heart (of the deity) = sabbath," i.e. a 
 day for the gods to rest from their anger, a day for the pacification of a deity's 
 anger, = sabbath. The day was " holy " (p. 61 sup.), work taboo. So in 
 early Israel j but the Hebrews humanised it, made it a day of recreation from 
 labour (Hos. ii. 1 1), fixed it every seventh day irrespective of lunar phases (its 
 original idea, p. 80, n.),and gradually made it holy in our sense ; its strictness 
 also grew (Jer. xvii. 19-27). As "holy," it was probably a day of sacrifice, but 
 we have no direct evidence in early days ; Is. i. 13, etc.,^are all ambiguous 
 on that point. Burney derives Sabbath from Sumerian Sa (heart) Bat (to 
 appease) = ' ' heart appeasing." (See Jastrow, Heb. and Bab. Tradns., ch. iii., 
 and Driver in Hastings' D. of B., iv. 317 sqq.). 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE BOOK OF THE LAW, AND JEREMIAH 
 
 The Book of the Law (Deut.), embodying all the 
 prophets' ideals, and Jer. xxxi. 33, 34, with its great 
 ideal of religion as a relationship between God and 
 the individual soul, are two epoch-making revelations, 
 and need a chapter to. themselves. Israel's tragic 
 history led up to both. 
 
 In 721 the Northern Kingdom, Israel, -fell before 
 Assyria. 27,290 of its best inhabitants (p. 143 sup.) 
 were taken into captivity. 'Foreigners settled on 
 their lands. In Mesopotamia these Israelite exiles 
 were so completely absorbed by its native population 
 that they left not a trace behind them. This is worth 
 noting, and for this reason. It proves that Judah 
 has simply the 130 years' interval and its prophets to 
 thank for its escape from the same fate! For it is 
 unanimously admitted that Judah's deeper religion, 
 and it alone, saved the Jews 135 years later from the 
 same extinction. Had Judah gone into Captivity in 
 721, the Jewish name must equally have been blotted 
 out, for at that date there was little to choose between 
 the religious condition of Israel and Judah. Indeed, 
 it was in Israel, under an Amos and a Hosea, that a 
 reaction against a heathenish worship of Jehovah 
 originated and afterwards passed into Judah. Fortu- 
 nately for Judah's survival as a nation, geographical 
 and other considerations gave it over 100 years' 
 respite. In this interval an Isaiah, a Deuteronomy, 
 and a Jeremiah, backed by such kings as Hezekiah 
 and Josiah, did a good religious work- in Judah. Its 
 
 fruits did not come up to prophetic expectations. It 
 
 164 
 
HISTOT^ICAL BACKGROUND 1 65 
 
 produced at the time but a " remnant " of pious and 
 God-fearing souls ; yet from this " holy seed " (Is. vi. 
 13) sprang a new Israel which can never die. Thus 
 it came about that, whereas Israel clean dies out after 
 721 B.C., Judah's Captivity but gave it a new lease of 
 life. Isaiah and Jeremiah contributed much to this 
 result. In their generation they were but little 
 esteemed; after their death the Jews ranked them 
 only just below Moses. 
 
 Isaiah still plays an important part in our period, 
 and Isaiah, Deuteronomy, and Jeremiah, (740-586) 
 practically cover four long reigns. Two of these kings 
 are weak, bad, reactionary ; in each case they are 
 followed by kings good and progressive on the whole. 
 
 Israel's fall in 721 made a deep impression on 
 Judah, but they read it in a Pharisaic spirit. When 
 proud and powerful Israel was laid low and little 
 Judah saved, the Judseans saw in this a guarantee of 
 God's goodwill towards them, and a recognition of 
 their own superior piety. Judah had now entered 
 into Israel's inheritance as well as her own, and 
 Judah was now Jehovah's one land. 
 
 Isaiah's influence, politically, in the state was 
 immense. From 740 b.c. his one policy for Judah 
 was one of non-intervention in foreign politics. 
 By every means at his command, he sought to keep 
 Ahaz and Judah free from all entanglements in the 
 politics of the two great powers of that day, Assyria 
 and Egypt. _He wanted both king and nation to 
 devote their undivided energies to internal social and 
 religious reforms. " In quietness and confidence (in 
 the Lord) shall be your strength " (Is. xxx. 15) was 
 ever his motto, and when he and Ahaz first come on 
 the scene it was a wise policy. As already stated 
 (p. 144 sup.), Israel was still there to act as a buffer 
 northward, the wilderness eastward, and Egypt was 
 a friendly neighbour. Suddenly (c. 734), Israel and 
 Syria combined against Assyria, and tried to induce 
 Judah to join them. To force his hand they threatened 
 
1 66 THE BOOK OF THE LAW, AND JEREMIAH 
 
 to invade Ahaz' land. Isaiah bade Ahaz have no fear 
 and pay no heed. Too frightened to listen, Ahaz 
 invoked Assyria's aid. Assyria beat Israel and 
 Syria, but from this moment Judah was Assyria's 
 tributary and doomed. Had Isaiah's advice been 
 followed, Assyria for her own sake must have crushed 
 the Syria-Israel coalition, and Judah would equally 
 have been saved, while retaining her independence. 
 As it is, the next thing we see is Ahaz at Damascus 
 doing homage to Tiglath-pileser, and there borrow- 
 ing strange altars and cults for Jehovah's worship 
 (2 Kgs. xvi. 1 1 sqq.). — Hezekiah, son of Ahaz,~ as we 
 saw (p. 144 sup.), tried to play a double game. He sent 
 tribute to Assyria his overlord, yet secretly abetted 
 Egypt against Assyria, while professing not to break 
 with Assyria. Assyria saw through this double 
 dealing and besieged Jerusalem, but for some reason 
 had to beat a hasty retreat (701). This wondrous 
 preservation of Jerusalem may have contributed^ to 
 Hezekiah' s religious reformation, a reform such as 
 Isaiah longed for, but its success was partial. Under 
 King Manasseh (697-638), Judah, which had all along 
 remained Assyria's vassal, was whole-heartedly pro- 
 Assyrian. A reactionary religious movement also 
 set in, undoing all Hezekiah's good work. The old 
 idolatrous cults and images ^were reinstated in the 
 sanctuaries, from Assyria was introduced the worship 
 of sun, moon, and stars, while the Canaanite practice 
 of sacrificing the first-born to Moloch was transferred 
 to Jehovah-worship (2 Kgs. xxi. 3-8). Manasseh 
 himself, as Ahaz before him, made his son "pass 
 through fire." ^ 
 
 ' Dr. Burney writes : " I conjecture that Hezelciah's reformation (2 Kgs. 
 xviii. 4) was probably earlier than this. Jer. xxvi. 17 S. (very important as 
 showing that there actually was such an attempt at a reformation, and that 
 2 Kgs. xviii.'4 is not simply based on the Deut. redactor's conjecture that what 
 happened under Josiah was begun under Hezekiah), traces Hezekiah's reforma- 
 tion to the influence of Micah." Hezekiah's reform was on the lines of Josiah's 
 (621), but not nearly so far-reaching, still it paved the way for it. 
 
 ' " Pass through fire," the expression probably means "make over to the 
 deity by fire," i.e, it denotes a sacrifice in which the victim was first slain, then 
 b\irnt (Burney). 
 
THE "BOOK OF THE LAW" 167 
 
 A revulsion of feeling set in half-way in Josiah's 
 reign (638-608). The prophetic party was in the 
 ascendant then, and an epoch-making religious reform 
 came about in this way. A big Scythian invasion 
 from the North swept over all neighbouring lands, 
 even penetrated to Egypt, yet left Judah untouched. 
 This wondrous escape immensely impressed Judah, 
 and public opinion, now backed by the king, was all 
 for religious reform. This sentiment reached fever- 
 heat when Hilkiah the chief-priest announced that he 
 had found the " Book of the Law " (Deut.) in the 
 Temple. The elders and people were at once sum- 
 moned by the king to hear it publicly read. Josiah 
 and the " congregation " were so awed at the Divine 
 threats, therein made, against disobedience to God's 
 commands to abolish all images and high-places, and 
 to centralise all worship in the Jerusalem Temple,^ 
 and there only, that they at once set about radical 
 reforms. Hezekiah had apparently ^ spared the many 
 local shrines of Jehovah, merely purging them of 
 images and other heathenish rites and abuses. 
 Josiah resolved to abolish them altogether (2 Kgs. 
 xxii.-xxiii.) destroying and desecrating them, pulling 
 their altars to pieces, smashing the pillars and sacred 
 poles (Asheras), and forcibly carrying off the priests 
 to Jerusalem. For once, priests heartily endorsed 
 this prophetic reform. As they readily saw, this 
 abolition of local shrines would enormously enhance 
 the prestige of the Jerusalem Temple and their own. 
 Their provincial rivals, now no longer priests in 
 office (2 Kgs. xxiii. 9, this went beyond Deut. xviii. 
 6-8), would become mere assistant Levites to the 
 
 ' Of course, the Jerusalem Temple is not named in Deut. , which is pur- 
 posely set in a framework of fictitious aptiquity as the work of Moses himself 
 at Horeb. The phrase in Deut. rii. is " in the place which the Lord thy God 
 shall choose," and it dwells with msistent iteration on this as the one and only 
 -place for God's worship, 
 
 ' 2 Kgs. xviii. 4 (and Rabshakeh's speech, xviii. 22), make out that 
 Hezekiah treated the high-places exactly as did Josiah in 621. This is now 
 believed to be an exaggeration. Hezekiah probably only purged these high- 
 places of images, Asherahs, and other heathenish rites and practices. 
 
1 68 THE BOOK OF THE LAW, AND JEREMIAH 
 
 Jerusalem priests. So the Jerusalem priests were 
 heart and soul in this prophetic movement. Led by 
 prophets, priests, and king, the people there and then 
 made a sworn covenant with Jehovah to obey His 
 " Book of the Law " (Deut), which was henceforth to 
 be the one authorised Law of the land. Promising 
 as all this seemed, it was a momentary and spasmodic 
 reform, merely skin-deep for the majority, and its 
 influence was superficial. Far from the change of 
 heart and the regenerated social and national life 
 which Deuteronomy aimed at, all that the reform 
 really effected was, as Jeremiah feared, a redoubling 
 of ritual and sacrificial worship and a firmer belief 
 than ever in its magical efficacy. 
 
 This Josiah-reform coincided with an occurrence 
 of the greatest import within the Assyrian empire. 
 The Babylonians wrested themselves free from 
 Assyria, and the Babylonian king Nabopolassar 
 allied himself with Medo-Scythian hordes, who 
 eventually burst into Assyria, in 607, sacked and 
 destroyed its capital, Nineveh. Nahum's prophecy 
 was literally fulfilled, and Western Asia breathed 
 freely again now that this tyrant-stronghold was 
 demolished. Meanwhile, Egypt had invaded Judah 
 and defeated it at Megiddo (608), where Josiah fell, 
 but Egypt herself was crushingly defeated by Babylon 
 at Carchemish (605). Babylon at once stepped into 
 Assyria's empire and now became Judah's overlord. 
 Judah fretted under Babylonian sway, and constantly 
 rebelled. Instigated by Egypt, King Zedekiah re- 
 nounced his allegiance to Babylon ; Nebuchadrezzar 
 replied by laying siege to Jerusalem (2 Kgs. xxv. i^. 
 In 586 it was sacked, and, as Jeremiah had all along 
 foretold with plain outspokenness, Judah went into 
 Captivity, in spite of its worship-reformation and its 
 new " Book of the Law," which, as Jeremiah again 
 had told them, had done little or nothing to mend 
 their ways. We shall presently see why Josiah's 
 reformation, and even the Book of the Law, by no 
 / 
 
" PROPHETIC " DEUTERONOMY 169 
 
 means satisfied Jeremiah. As events proved, his 
 verdict was right. 
 
 With the Captivity (586-537) Israel as a nation dis- 
 appears, but the Jews survive as a Church, and the 
 whole aspect of religion changes. Religion hitherto 
 has been a purely national matter; henceforth it is 
 going to be, rather, a personal^ question between 
 God and the individual soul. Jeremiah had foreseen 
 this and made provision for it, as Jen xxxi. 33 sqq. 
 shows. 
 
 With this historical background, we are now in a 
 position to estimate the place and value, in Hebrew 
 religion, of the Book of the Law and of Jeremiah. 
 
 -Deuteronomy is called the " prophetic " Book of the 
 Law. Had Amos, Hosea, Isaiah combined to write a 
 religious code of rules embodying all their highest 
 ideals, they could not have done it better than their 
 disciples, the prophetic writers of Deuteronomy 
 about 650 B.C. It welds all their separate and partial 
 truths into one organic whole. It contains the best 
 conception of God and the highest moral teaching in 
 the Old Testament ; it is its Sermon on the Mount. 
 Deuteronomy is a body of laws and institutions so 
 framed as to direct the whole religious, social, and 
 civil life of the people, and to make them an Israel after 
 God's own heart. The monotheism of Deuteronomy 
 is absolute and of the purest: "He is the only God in the 
 heavens above or in the earth beneath ; there is none 
 else beside Him " (iv. 39, 35). To Him " belongeth the 
 heaven, and the heaven of heavens, the earth, with all 
 that is therein " (x. 14). Its conception of Jehovah 
 combines Amos' "righteousness" of God, Hosea's 
 "long-suffering love and tender mercy," Isaiah's 
 "holiness" ( = aloof from all that is unclean or wrong) 
 and "nearness" (="nigh unto all that call upon 
 
 ' Of course, this does not mean that the "corporate sense" vanished. 
 Fortunately, both for the nation and the individual, solidarity, or the sub- 
 ordination of the individual to the organic whole, was ever part and parcel of 
 every Israelite's creed. 
 
170 THE BOOK OF THE LAW, AND JEREMIAH 
 
 Him "). As a righteous God, He is still a terrible 
 avenger of wrong and oppression. But Love^ is 
 His dominant note. He requires obedience, yet is 
 infinitely compassionate and forgiving. He prefers 
 mercy to sacrifice, and the one sacrifice really accept- 
 able in His sight is the willing offering of a true and 
 contrite heart, for He asks to be worshipped in spirit 
 and in truth. If He is righteous and loving, He is 
 also " holy," aloof from all that is unclean or wrong, 
 for sin He hates and will assuredly punish. Israel is 
 His chosen people,* but Israel must not presume 
 upon this privilege. Constantly is Israel reminded 
 that the relationship between Jehovah and Israel is 
 purely moral and carries a heavy obligation with it. 
 To whom much is given, of him is much required, 
 and in their case sin is doubly heinous and its punish- 
 ment all the more severe (cf. Deut. xxx.). Another 
 note in Deuteronomy is its stress on justice and kind- 
 ness between man and man. Love of God and love 
 of man must go hand in hand. This spirit of justice 
 and humanity must be extended not only to the 
 Hebrew orphan, widow, hired servant, and slave, but 
 to the stranger settled in the land and to the cattle at 
 the plough. Israel is reminded of its own evil phght 
 in Egypt and urged to copy God's compassion for 
 them then. In Deut. v. the motive for Sabbath- 
 observance is wholly humanitarian : " that thy man- 
 servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as 
 thou, remembering that thou wast a servant in the 
 land of Egypt." All images of Jehovah in any shape 
 or form are now absolutely forbidden : " for ye saw 
 
 ' The influence of Hosea is particularly plain in Deut, In it the essence 
 of religion is love (Deut. vi. 5), the love of God to His people and their 
 responsive love to Him is the ruling motive in worship and conduct ; just as 
 humanity and charity are its prime virtues as between man and man. 
 
 ' Deut. is far more exclusive than e.g. Is. xix. The Ammonite and Moabite 
 are excluded from the congregation of Jehovah " even to the tenth generation" 
 (xxiii. 3) ; the Edomite, as a brother, and the Egyptian, because Israel once 
 dwelt in his land, can be admitted in the third generation and must not be 
 " abhorred " {7). But Deut. gives little or no thought to the nations outside 
 Israel's pale. C^aanites are to be annihilated (in 650 B.C. were there any ?). 
 
DEUTERONOMY CRITICISED lyi 
 
 no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord 
 spake to you in Horeb." All high-places and local 
 shrines, all worship and rites that in any way savour 
 of heathenism, are abolished, every trace of them 
 blotted out.* In Jerusalem alone is worship to be 
 done ; in the place where Jehovah chooses to " cause 
 His Name to dwell there."" 
 
 Deuteronomy is " one of the noblest monuments 
 of Israel's religion, its sublime and spiritual ideals 
 are all but Christian in spirit." Yet there is a grain 
 of truth, too, in the paradox: "Pharisaism and 
 Deuteronomy came into the world the same day." 
 This paradox implies that (i) in its centralisation of 
 all worship in Jerusalem ; (2) in its concentration of 
 all power in priests' hands; (3) in its translation 
 of prophetic principles into set rules, — a prophetic 
 Deuteronomy all unconsciously paved the way for a 
 legal 8 Judaism which it could not foresee. Let us 
 examine these three points more in detail. 
 
 (i) Centralisation of worship in Jerusalem. — The 
 prophets combated stoutly Israel's deep-rooted idea 
 that Jehovah, their tribal God whose fortunes were 
 
 ' 2 Kgs. xxiii. shows that the high-places were not only heathenish in 
 worship, but the scene of foul and immoral doings with their bloody Tophet 
 and its human sacrifices, as well as their consecrated sodomites and prostitutes, 
 etc., etc. No wonder Deut. orders (Deut. xiii. 12-18) the wholesale annihila- 
 tion of any city of Judah which should re-institute idolatry, and looked upon 
 idolatry as on a par with murder, if not worse. 
 
 ' This centralisation had its drawbacks as we shall presently see. The 
 village-shrines, because of their abuses, had to be abolished, but originally 
 their influence had been good. There every village could perform its religious 
 rites and hold its feasts of Passover, First Fruits, and Harvest. Beside that 
 local altar, with a simple religious rite, domestic animals were slaughtered 
 whenever hospitality or a family festival gave occasion. Henceforth, the 
 villagers could have no sacrifices, no religious rites, and, if they desired to 
 make offering to God or religiously observe the great festivals, they must now 
 go all the long distance to Jerusalem. Deuteronomy licenses the slaughter of 
 animals without the ebligation of any sacrifice or religious rite, just as it pro- 
 vides for the Levites, or village-priests, to rank in Jerusalem on a par with 
 Jerusalem priests (which they did not) ; but village religion must have suffered, 
 had not the abolition of local sanctuaries incidentally contributed to the 
 substitution of the synagogue for the Temple. 
 
 ' Legalism [e.g. I go to church, Holy Communion, confession, give to the 
 poor, keep the Commandments-^— what more can God ask ? (cf. S. Lk, xviii. 1 1- 
 iz)] views religion as a code of rules, and is apt to sacrifice spirit to letter, 
 -motive to deed. 
 
172 THE BOOK OF THE LAW, AND JEREMIAH 
 
 leagued with Israel's, must be on their side, provided 
 His chosen people duly paid Him His sacrificial dues. 
 Now the centralisation of worship in Jerusalem would 
 foster this very idea. Jerusalem naturally became 
 what Sinai was in Moses' day, Jehovah's home. Even 
 sixty years later, Ezekiel names Jerusalem "The 
 Lord is there " (xlviii. 35). According to him, Jeru- 
 salem is Jehovah's dwelling-place (xxxvii. 26 sqq.), 
 particularly His Temple there (x.), and He goes with 
 Israel to Babylonia, till the new untainted Temple 
 shall be built (xliii. 7). He is specifically the God of 
 Israel (xxxiv. 30) and only indirectly of the nations. 
 To this extent it may be true that centralisation of 
 worship in Jerusalem fostered Jewish particularism 
 and exclusiveness ; ^ but it is not true that it en- 
 couraged individual Pharisaism, i.e. the spirit of 
 legalism in religion. In theory it should have tended 
 in this direction, but as a matter of fact it^did just the 
 reverse, it fostered spirituality, and for this reason. 
 We have seen (p. 171, n.^) that villages and provincial 
 towns, now that their local altars were abolished, could 
 only offer sacrifice in a far-away Jerusalem, too far to 
 visit except rarely, on the great Festivals. Now we 
 have yet to learn the ABC of Judaism, if we fancy 
 that a Jew could be satisfied with such means of 
 grace as his one or two or even three annual services 
 provided at the Temple. The ordinary Jew was far 
 more "athirst after God" than are we Englishmen 
 to-day. The abolition of local sacrifices robbed him 
 of one means of grace, only to give him another and 
 more spiritual means of access to God.^ It created 
 
 ' Wellhausen writes : " The one Sanctuary naturally flows from the idea 
 of one God only," and, in a sense, a multiplicity of sanctuaries was in olden 
 times all but incompatible with strict monotheism. Just %s the localising of 
 Baal had made the Canaan-god to be split up into several independent deities, 
 e.g. Baal-Peor, Baal-Hermon, so was it likely that the localising of Jehovah 
 at e.g. Dan, Bethel, Gilgal, Beersheba, with their distinctive traditions, rites, 
 etc., might result in His becoming as purely a local Jehovah as the baals 
 He replaced (as happens to the Virgin and the Saints in Roman Catholic 
 countries). 
 
 ' Of course, a sacramental religion (t.g. Temple) can be deeply spiritual, 
 and the "ministry of the Word " (e.g. synagogue) may be very legal. 
 
CRITICISMS ON DEUTERONOMY EXAMINED 1 73 
 
 the synagogue with its edifying service of prayer, 
 praise, and the Ministry of the Word. In this way 
 Deuteronomy, with its centralisation of worship, far 
 from fostering Pharisaic legalism, promoted spiritu- 
 ality and encouraged the very spirit which the pro- 
 phets sought to inculcate, the conception of a Jehovah 
 not to be bribed with gifts, but to be worshipped in 
 spirit and in truth. 
 
 (2) Concentration of sacrificial power in priests' hands. 
 — Its critics maintain that Deuteronomy gives priests 
 alone the right to " stand before the Lord, minister to 
 Him, bless in His name," that is, they become the 
 sole mediators between God and man. Undoubtedly, 
 Deuteronomy does give priests the sole right to 
 minister at the altar. Moreover, it frames rules 
 respecting the ritual of sacrifice and Temple-worship, 
 as well as food and objects clean and unclean, and 
 any breach of these ceremonial rules is branded, in a 
 way that would certainly startle Isaiah, as a sin 
 against God's " holiness." Here we undoubtedly see 
 the hand of the priest. 
 
 Here again, in theory Deuteronomy should have 
 resulted in a priestly and sacrificial Judaism ; as. a 
 matter of fact, it worked out differently. The direct 
 effect of Deuteronomy's centralisation of worship in 
 Jerusalem, and its monopoly of the altar for the priests, 
 was to create the synagogue and a form of worship 
 needing no priest. Indeed, even if a priest was 
 present in the synagogue, the only part of the service 
 reserved for him was the benediction at the end of 
 the service ; laymen could do all the rest as well as 
 he. Thus Deuteronomy tended to supplant the priest 
 by the Teacher and Rabbi, held in higher esteem. 
 As Montefiore says: "Judaism knows no mediator 
 between man and God." 
 
 (3) Translation of prophetic principles into set rules. — 
 Its critics maintain that a prophetic Deuteronomy 
 dealt prophecy its death-blow by turning its prin- 
 ciples into dogmas. The prophets' one aim was to 
 
174 THE BOOK OF THE LAW, AND JEREMIAH 
 
 base conduct, not on outward rules, but on inner 
 principles, as Deut. xxx. ii-is urges: "This com- 
 mandment which I command thee this day is not 
 hidden from thee, neither is it far off . . . but the word 
 is very nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart that 
 thou mayest do it," etc. Such principles hold good 
 always and everywhere, while rules are rigid and, as 
 Christ shows of strict Sabbath-observance, constantly 
 contradict the spirit of the very principle that gave 
 them birth. Deuteronomy, says its critics, set a bad 
 precedent in this matter. In its zeal to reform a 
 heathenish cultus, it gave a body of hard-and-fast 
 rules on Temple-worship and ritual, with minute 
 details as to times, places, materials, and so on. 
 Moreover, from the moment of its becoming the 
 " Book of the Law " which Israel solemnly pledged 
 itself to obey as the law of the land, its principles 
 and rules alike became fixed and legalised. The Book 
 of the Law in its letter was henceforth regarded as the 
 sum total of all that could be said in theology, morals, 
 or worship. Scribes took this Book of the Law and 
 soon translated it into the Priestly Code, thus sapping 
 prophetic religion. 
 
 Prophetic principles and prophetic religion were 
 dealt their death-blow, forsooth, through Books of 
 the Law! Is there, in all the Old Testament, a more 
 prophetic or spiritual book than the Psalter? Yet 
 practically nine-tenths of it was written between 
 550-150 B.C. by Jews living under the Law. We shall 
 say no more here ; we deal fully with this very ques- 
 tion later on in our estimate of the Priestly Code. 
 
 To sum up, "Deuteronomy and Pharisaism were 
 born the same day " is no more and no less true than 
 " The Reformed Anglican Prayer-Book and Ritualism 
 were born the same day." A special pleader can 
 easily make out a strong case for either brief. There 
 is a ritual and sacrpn€ntal element in Deut, as in 
 our Prayer-Book, because it is an essential factor of 
 religion, and both books set it before us pure and in 
 
JEREMIAH 175 
 
 harmony and proportion. In one sense Deuteronomy 
 dealt prophecy its death-blow; the prophets are 
 progressive religious reformers, their function and 
 power lie in attack of abuses ; reform these abuses, 
 and their occupation is gone.* The reforms of 
 Hezekiah and Josiah, as formulated in Deut., removed 
 the abuses the prophets had denounced, and so the 
 Book of the Law superseded the voice of prophecy. 
 As a prophet, Jeremiah's quarrel is not with Deut.,* 
 he long advocated it, but with the superficial, skin- 
 deep character of the reform itself 
 
 Jeremiah (625-586 b.c.) 
 
 Under Josiah (621) the prophets' reforms were 
 carried out, local shrines abolished, images and all 
 heathenish practices banned, all worship centralised 
 in Jerusalem. Israel was solemnly pledged to obey 
 God's Law, a righteous Josiah was king. Prophets 
 and Book of the Law alike had promised a Golden 
 Age of peace, prosperity, and joy as the immediate 
 result of obedience to God's Law. Surely then, this 
 glorious Messianic Age must now dawn. Yet what 
 actually happens ? Josiah, now confident of a gratified 
 Jehovah's favour, faces Egypt at Megiddo, and is badly 
 beaten and killed! Judah is now Egypt's vassal at 
 Egypt's beck and call for its very kings. Josiah's son 
 is a prisoner in chains, and an Egyptian nominee 
 usurps the throne. Egypt in its turn meets with a 
 
 ' Other reasons for the practical cessation of prophecy after Jeremiah were : 
 (1) Amos, Hos., Is., Jer. had said all that could be said, and their writings 
 were in everyone's hands ; (2) With the fall of the State, the prophets' occupa- 
 tion as reformers of the nation was gone. With Israel a Church, they naturally 
 become rather theologians, and there is no more " open vision '* ; the Church's 
 mission is to spread the knowledge of God and prepare the way for the coming 
 of the Kingdom predicted by the prophets. All interest now centres on the 
 how and when of the coming of the Kingdom ; i.e. (3) Prophecy becomes 
 apocalyptic. 
 
 ' df course, as stated earlier in the text, the priestly hand is visible in 
 Deut, in the ritual and sacramental sections. In one sense Deut. is unique, 
 for prophet and priest worked together for once in its composition harmoniously. 
 Thus it is a blend of conservative and progressive elements. According to our 
 own outlook we can either call this the perfect ideal, or label it a weak com- 
 promise and half-measure, and therefore bound to fail. 
 
176 THE BOOK OF THE LAW, AND JEREMIAH 
 
 crushing defeat at Babylon's hands at Carchemish 
 (605), and Judah has a new overlord, Babylon. 
 
 What of the prophets' promise of a Golden Age 
 to a righteous Israel ? Their lot is worse than ever ! 
 Were all Deuteronomy's promises empty words? 
 Israel was bitterly perplexed and disappointed. One 
 of two things : the reform was on wrong lines, or it 
 had not gone far enough. Convinced that the 
 Reformation was wrong, many went back penitently 
 to the religion of their fathers, and high-places sprung 
 up again all over the land ; the majority, led by the 
 priests, were equally convinced that their present 
 disasters were God's call to complete their reform by 
 redoubling the sacrifices and paying more attention 
 to correct ritual. 
 
 Then it was that Jeremiah came on the scene with 
 his answer. The Deuteronomy-reform took place 
 only five years after his first appearance as prophet. 
 At first, as Jer. xi. shows, he was clearly impressed 
 by Deuteronomy's high moral tone, its denunciations 
 of images, its banning of all heathenish practices, and 
 he advocated it strongly. But he soon ceased to 
 cherish any illusions as to the Josiah-reform. He 
 sees its superficial character ; he sees, too, the futility 
 of trying to produce a change of heart by a change of 
 organisation engineered by the State. He even hints 
 that the Book of the Law is so much waste paper 
 (viii. 8). Moral reformation has not gone liand in 
 hand with ritual reforms. Outwardly man's service 
 of God has changed, at heart not at all. The same 
 old evils are all there : the same old idea of Jehovah 
 as Israel's tribal God, the same faith in the magic 
 power of sacrifice and ritual irrespective of a right 
 moral life ; it is the vanity and pure idolatry of the 
 old external ceremonial religionism all over again. 
 On one point Jeremiah sees eye to eye with the 
 priests: The reform has not gone far enough,— but 
 there he parts company with them. They say: It 
 wants far more of the ritual and sacrificial element, if 
 
JEREMIAH'S IMPEACHMENT OF ISRAEL \^^ 
 
 it is to satisfy Jehovah. Jeremiah replies : No ! but 
 it wants far more repentance and real change of 
 heart; that is what Jehovah demands, and nothing 
 else will satisfy Him. 
 
 Jeremiah's one complaint against Israel is exactly 
 that of Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah before him : — Israel 
 will not understand what the true service of Jehovah 
 means, because their whole conception of His cha- 
 racter is at fault. They are so steeped in the worship 
 of Baals that they liken Jehovah to Baal. The Je^ys 
 tell him to his face that this is a lie ; and that, at any 
 rate, if it was once true, they have now set that right 
 by their Reformation. Jeremiah retorts : " How canst 
 thou say, I have not gone after Baalim " (ii. 23), or, if 
 I did once, that sin is now laid aside? (ii. 35). The 
 whole of your idea of Jehovah as your tribal God, 
 whose fortunes are linked with yours, is Canaan's 
 idea of Baal all over again ; so is your belief in the 
 magical efficacy of ritual and sacrifices. No wonder 
 your character and conduct are as bad as can be, when 
 you liken Jehovah to a Baal whose sacrificial worship 
 goes hand in hand with foul lives, ribald laughter, 
 debauchery, and all manner of heathenish sins and 
 idolatry. Naturally, with such an idea of God, you 
 fancy that you can serve Jehovah and your own lusts 
 at the samC' time, if only you take care to give God 
 His Temple-dues ! What does God care for sacrifices ? 
 "Thus saith the Lord, ... I spake not unto your 
 fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I 
 brought them out of Egypt, concerning burnt-offer- 
 ings or sacrifices ; but this thing I commanded them, 
 saying. Hearken unto My voice, and I will be your 
 God and ye shall be My people ; and walk ye in all 
 the ways that I command you, that it may be well 
 with you " (vii. 22 sq.). You speak of your Reforma- 
 tion and your Book of the Law ! Your Book is the 
 work of a false scribe, and your Reformation a snare : 
 " How do ye say. We are wise, and the law of the 
 Lord is with us ? But, behold, the false pen of the 
 
 N 
 
178 THE BOOK OF THE LAW, AND JEREMIAH 
 
 scribes hath wrought falsely" (viii. 8, R.V.). Your 
 Reformation! it is your old creed all over again. 
 You are casting the new seed into the old foul fur- 
 rows. You must plough deeper than that, right down 
 to the virgin-soil of the heart. " Break up your fallow 
 ground, and sow not among thorns ; circumcise the 
 foreskins of your hearts, ye men of Judah and ye 
 inhabitants of Jerusalem" (iv. 3 sq.). Well says 
 Jehovah of your religion : " They have forsaken Me, 
 the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out 
 cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water" 
 (ii. 13). And your Temple ! very proud of ityou are 
 now that it is the one place of worship in the land, 
 Jehovah's one home ! " Hear the word of the Lord," 
 fulminates Jeremiah standing in the Temple-gate, " all 
 ye of Judah that enter in at these gates to worship the 
 Lord. Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The Temple 
 of the Lord, The Temple of the Lord, The Temple of 
 the Lord, are these. . . . Will ye steal, murder, com- 
 mit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense unto Baal, 
 walk after other gods, and come and stand before Me 
 in this house, which is called by My Name, and say. 
 We are delivered to do all these abominations? Is 
 this house, called by My Name, become a den of 
 robbers in your eyes ? . . . Therefore will I do unto 
 this house as I have done to Shiloh ; and I will cast 
 you out of My sight as I have cast out all your 
 brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim " (vii. 1-15 ; 
 cf. xxvi.). 
 
 Clearly, whatever hopes he may have entertained 
 of the Reformation and its Book of the Law at first, 
 Jeremiah soon saw that the vaunted reform had only 
 cleansed the outside of the cup and platter ; and, what 
 was far worse, men's consciences were so well satis- 
 fied with this outward polish that they never dreamed 
 of looking within. 
 
 Denunciation of sham and wrong was a main part 
 of Jeremiah's arduous mission, but he will ever be 
 best known as the founder of personal religion, or, 
 
PERSONAL RELIGION 1 79 
 
 rather, its first great apostle.^ Up to now in the Old 
 Testament (p. 157 sup.), religion had not been realised 
 as a relationship between God and the individual soul. 
 Jeremiah is the first to show God as dealing with men 
 one by one, and not merely in their family, clan, or 
 nation. "After those days, saith the Lord, I will put My 
 law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts, 
 and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, 
 saying, Know the Lord ; for they shall all know Me, 
 from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith 
 the Lord " (xxxi. 33 sq.). " In those days they shall say 
 no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape and the 
 children's teeth are set on edge. But every man shall 
 die for his own iniquity; every man that eateth the sour 
 grape, his teeth shall be set on edge " (29 sqq.). From 
 the Captivity onward, the great question is the 
 problem of personal religion, and this new outlook 
 soon has far-reaching results. We shall soon see a 
 "Job," psalmist, and Ecclesiastes alike asking : " How 
 can we reconcile a belief in a righteous God's moral 
 rule of His world with actual human experience? 
 Why do the righteous go to the wall and the wicked 
 flourish ? How justify the ways of God in His dealings 
 with individual men ? " 
 
 Jeremiah's new revelation will not only suggest 
 answers to this problem, but go far beyond this and 
 eventually ro"b Death of his sting and the grave of 
 her victory. Face to face, with the problem of the 
 righteous begging their bread and knaves on thrones, 
 one answer after another will awhile be current, e.g. 
 " Virtue and prosperity do go hand in hand ; adversity 
 means sin in self or parents " ; or, " suffering is essen- 
 tial to beauty of character and has its rich reward in 
 
 ' As already hinted, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah were all along labouring 
 towards this religious individualism. Their idea of religion as a matter of the 
 heart and of inner conviction was one to which no national life really can 
 conform. By its very definition, heart-religion involves a moral personality. 
 Isaiah half realises this when he narrows down the religious element in the 
 nation to a mere "remnant" or "holy seed." (Cf. i Sam.i. 10 sqq. = indi- 
 vidual prayer.) But not till Jeremiah is this logically driven home, and only 
 when the nation no longer exists, in the Captivity. 
 
l8o THE BOOK OF THE LAW, AND JEREMIAH 
 
 this life " ; or, " true blessedness is of the heart and 
 independent of material good things." But men will 
 not long be put off with half-answers. If men are to 
 be rescued from the pessimism of an Ecclesiastes, 
 there can be but one answer, and Jeremiah's discovery 
 suggests it. The universal instinct pointing to sur- 
 vival after death, even in Sheol, is true ; man's life- 
 story does not end on this side of the grave, only the 
 first chapter of it. The righteous man's communion 
 with God is too close to be broken by death : " I am 
 continually with Thee ; Thou hast holden my right 
 hand ; Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and 
 afterward receive me to glory " (Ps. Ixxiii. 23 sq.). 
 
 From the moment that religion became personal, 
 a belief in an actual life of fellowship with God beyond 
 the gr£ve was bound to be the outcome of it, sooner 
 or later. Not till long after Jeremiah, and only to a 
 very few at first, did this idea suggest itself, and, at the 
 outset, merely in the form of an aspiration. As stated 
 at the end of the last chapter, till about 300 b.c. the 
 one future hope of Israel was the Messianic Kingdom 
 here on earth. God would again visit and redeem 
 His people ; Israel would once more be a great nation 
 far exceeding in glory the splendour of David's and 
 Solomon's days ; God Himself would dwell in their 
 midst as their King. But this Kingdom of God they 
 expected on earth, not in heaven ; in their nation 
 and descendants, not in themselves. From 300 B.C. 
 onwards, a belief in individual resurrection began to 
 dawn faintly ; it was felt that the righteous dead must 
 share in this Kingdom. But, as already stated (p. 162 
 sup.), we have only some half a dozen allusions to 
 this resurrection-hope in the whole Old Testament, 
 and we have to go to the apocalypses for its full 
 history and picture. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 IHE captivity; ezekiel; ii. isaiah 
 
 Israel's true Captivity dates from 586 b.c. Ezekiel 
 reckons it from 597, and for this reason. In 598 
 Judah revolted from its Babylonian overlord, who 
 invested Jerusalem in 597. Its boy-king Jehoiachin 
 surrendered, and, with the noblest of the men of 
 Judah, Ezekiel included, was deported to Babylonia. 
 About 10,000 men and their families went into Cap- 
 tivity. But it was not till 586 b.c. that, after another 
 revolt, Jerusalem was sacked, its Temple and best 
 buildings burnt, its walls dismantled, and the Captivity 
 proper began after a wholesale deportation of the 
 inhabitants of Judah. 
 
 The picture of the earlier exiles of 597 in Babylonia 
 is given us by Ezekiel and supplemented by Jer. xxix. 
 They lived fairly comfortably there in a little colony 
 of their own, enjoying comparative freedom. They 
 watched eagerly the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, 
 with which they were in constant communication, 
 fully expecting a speedy restoration to their old place 
 at the head of the Judaean State. " False prophets " 
 amongst them predicted their speedy release and 
 fanned their delusive hopes, though Jeremiah (from 
 Jerusalem) and Ezekiel (in their midst) pronounced 
 these optimistic prophets liars. Jer. xxix. comforts 
 the exiles, bids them be patient, wisely urges them to 
 build houses, plant their fields, and settle down quietly 
 in their colony, for their release will come, but not 
 for'seventy years. 
 
 The fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of Jehovah's 
 
 181 
 
l82 THE CAPTIVITY ; EZEKIEL ; II. ISAIAH 
 
 Temple, the death of their nation, staggered the Jews 
 and filled them with horror and despair. In spite of 
 all prophetic warnings, not for one moment had they 
 at heart believed that Jehovah ever could thus cast 
 off His Israel. For 700 years, every Israelite had 
 been born and bred in the conviction that Jehovah's 
 union with Israel was closer than that of mother and 
 child, husband and wife. The fall of Jerusalem and 
 of the Temple, Jehovah's own City and House, 
 stunned them one and all and threw them into the 
 depths of hopelessness. Jehovah had done the im- 
 possible, cast off His people, cancelled His everlasting 
 Covenant, smitten Israel to the dust in His divide 
 anger. It was all over with the nation. Even if 
 repentance was not now too late, — it clearly was, — 
 how could they possibly show their penitence, cut off 
 as they were from all access to God ? They were far 
 away from Jehovah's land^ where He dwelt, away 
 from His Holy City and His House where alone 
 sacrifice and worship could be offered to Him 
 (Deut. xii.). They were literally under a vast Inter- 
 dict. In a strange and " unclean " heathen land, how 
 could they possibly approach Jehovah or worship 
 Him as required by His Book of the Law which they 
 had sworn to obey? They could not celebrate any 
 sacrifice, keep any holy Feast, hold any ritual ser- 
 vices ; by God's own order, these were absolutely 
 tied down to the Holy City and its Temple. Hence 
 the heart-cry of Ps. cxxxvii : " By the waters of 
 Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered 
 thee, O Sion." 
 
 Then it was that a Jeremiah and an Ezekiel 
 cheered them with bracing words of comfort and 
 hope. Hitherto, their one theme had been denuncia- 
 tions and woes, the downfall of Jerusalem and nation. 
 Now that God has set His seal to their words and 
 made them true, they strike quite a new note. They 
 
 ' Ezek. xi. IS ! Ye are "far from the Lord," say the inhabitants left in 
 Jerusalem to the exiles. 
 
TROUBLED AND PERPLEXED EXILES 1 83 
 
 bend all their energies to brace the crushed and 
 bleeding hearts of the people with the assurance of a 
 new and glorious Israel soon to rise from the ashes 
 of the old. Even a Jeremiah is optimistic now; but 
 he is far away. Ezekiel is with them, and how they 
 rally round him and treasure his comforting words in 
 their hearts ! A few years later, more welcome and 
 inspiring than either is II. Isaiah with his "Away 
 with sorrow, comfort ye My people.' I shall deliver 
 you, build up My Jerusalem, lay the foundations of 
 My Temple. Can a woman forget her sucking child ? 
 Yea, she may forget, yet will I not forget thee, my 
 Israel." 
 
 The fiery ordeal of 586 was terrific for Israel, and 
 it sifted the chaff from the wheat. Voicing the 
 popular creed of that day, some exclaimed : " Bel has 
 beaten Jehovah," and apostatised. Others, equally 
 puzzled and stunned by the paralysing shock, stopped 
 short of apostasy, but murmured bitterly. Others, 
 again, saw in it a punishment for sin, but their fathers', 
 not their own : " Our fathers have sinned and are not, 
 and as for us, we bear their iniquities," and they, too, 
 murmured. Some cleaved to God through it all as 
 never before. The more godly among them, "the 
 righteous," " the poor and humbled ones," saw that a 
 Righteous Jehovah could do no other than He had 
 done. With shame and sorrow of heart, they turned 
 to the God of their fathers, firmly resolved to cleave 
 to Him and obey His law. Probably this "holy 
 seed " of the future Israel formed but a remnant of 
 the Jewish exiles, but they were in dead earnest. 
 
 Cut off from sacrificial services, — a deprivation as 
 awful then as would be the total abolition of Holy 
 Communion to-day, — all the more assiduously did 
 pious Jews devote themselves to such religious duties 
 as were still open to them, e.g. prayer, Bible-study, 
 fasts, and penitence. Now it was, too, that Sabbath 
 observance and the rite of circumcision acquired an 
 exceptional importance as distinctive marks differ- 
 
184 THE CAPTIVITY; EZEKIEL ; II. ISAIAH 
 
 entiating Jews from all others. The meetings for 
 Bible-study, prayer, and mutual edification, out of 
 which synagogue-services afterwards arose, also first 
 came into vogue during this period. Possibly the 
 books of the prophets,— so real to them now, — were 
 read at the services ; but the Book of the Law stood 
 first and foremost by far. From Ezekiel's day onward, 
 it was the bed-rock foundation of Israel's religion. 
 
 The most striking feature of the Exile is the vast 
 stride in Israel's religious growth during these 70 
 years of trial and suspense. In religious thought and 
 production it was a period of healthy and prolific 
 activity. In 586 b.c. strange and crude was the medley 
 of popular beliefs and superstitions prevalent among 
 the exiles. Jeremiah and Ezekiel give us some notion 
 of it. Stunned by Israel's Fall men asked : Is Jehovah 
 beaten by Bel? Can Jehovah avail us in Bel's land? 
 Whence God's awful wrath ? Our fathers' sins or our 
 own ? If our own, why ? Our ruin ran on the heels 
 of our Reform ; was it to blame ? Were our fathers' 
 high-places and many sacrifices more pleasing to 
 Jehovah, and is He angry for our giving them up? 
 Yet Moses' Book of the Law (Deut.) is God's own 
 Word. Have we not obeyed it aright ? Which have 
 we neglected, its ritual or its moral laws ? 
 
 Each of these divergent views had its advocates. 
 We must remember how very recently these exiles 
 had been weaned from their superstitious creeds and 
 practices. Many were still wedded to them; most, 
 if not all, viewed Jehovah as God only in His own 
 land. Such was the unpromising material that Israel's 
 spiritual leaders had to cope with and correct. In 
 60 years, they stamped out these false ideas and 
 gave Israel a more or less coherent creed. Fully 
 coherent and consistent Judaism never was. , As 
 repeatedly stated, the organic sense is weak in Jews,' 
 and they constantly hang inconsistent pictures side 
 by side. To the end Judaism, more concerned with 
 heart than head, practice than knowledge, never had 
 
JUDAISM MANY-SIDED 1 85 
 
 a logically systematic theology. Its creed was ever 
 simple, childlike, many-sided, inconsistent ; but for 
 that very reason, it met admirably the equally simple 
 and incoherent needs of ordinary men; it proved 
 itself a creed not only admirably suited to the every- 
 day moralities of the common life of all sorts and 
 conditions of men, but also capable of evoking heroic 
 endurance and self-sacrifice. Its many-sidedness re- 
 flects the many-sidedness of the Bible on which it 
 is wholly based. A pious Israelite of Ezra's day and 
 after could mould his life on the Priestly Code, yes, 
 and on prophetic Deuteronomy, and Genesis, and "the 
 Prophets." 
 
 True, the Priestly Code had not been enacted in 
 580, but it was in practice even then all the same. 
 Many of its rites and traditions were in use long 
 before their codification, well-known and in constant 
 practice. Since 621, Deuteronomy with its pfophetic 
 ideals was also the law of the land. During the 
 Captivity, both these religious schools of thought, the 
 priestly and the prophetic, were largely developed, 
 and they gradually converged towards each other 
 {e.g. Malachi), though they never actually formed one 
 organic whole. Hence, from 586, a twofold character 
 is stamped on Israel's religion and literature. We 
 have a legal school, e.g. Ezek., Haggai, Zech., Priestly 
 Code, Chron., and a prophetic (or ethical) school, e.g. 
 Job, Eecl,, Proverbs. The Psalter is their ideal blend. 
 
 The Captivity also produced scribes — originally 
 priests, later not necessarily or generally priests — 
 men who devoted their lives to the^preserving, copy- 
 ing, editing, and interpreting of the Scriptures, especi- 
 ally the Law. Ezra is the first scribe mentioned by 
 name. The Priestly Code and Chronicles are their 
 work, but there were prophetic or Deuteronomic 
 scribes as well. After the Captivity, Israel's spiritual 
 leaders were conservative and reflective, rather than 
 creative. There is less "open vision," they rather 
 drive home old truths. 
 
1 86 THE CAPTIVITY; EZEKIEL ; II. ISAIAH 
 
 EZEKIEL. 
 
 Ezekiel's prophetic career covers the years 592- 
 570 B.C. He was one of the Temple-priests who shared 
 Jehoiachin's exile in 597. He is a particularly inter- 
 esting figure, the link between prophet and priest, a 
 blend of both. As prophet he is keenly alive to the 
 power of the spoken Word for man's conversion and, 
 even more than Jeremiah, sees in religion an inner re- 
 lationship between God and the individual soul (xviii.). 
 But if he is a preacher of righteousness, still more is he 
 a priest. His real claim to greatness is as the creator 
 of the Church-State with its Priestly Code. His ideal, 
 embodied in his Vision (xl.-xlviii.), was the model on 
 which the Jewish Church-State was formed. What 
 Augustine's " City of God " was to the Catholic 
 Church, that the "Vision" of Ezekiel was to post- 
 exilic Judaism. 
 
 Ezekiel's mission falls of itself into two distinct 
 periods.^ From 592-586 B.C., he is the stern prophet, 
 rebuking sin, predicting a Judah's Fall and Captivity, 
 expected by none but Jeremiah and himself. From 
 586-570 he is the consoler and organiser; he becomes 
 the exiles' "pastor," their comforter and teacher, 
 bracing and inspiring them for the brighter era he 
 foresees in store for God's people. In his Vision he 
 has before his mind's eye the whole organisation of 
 the new Church-State that is to be, even to minute 
 details, and ardently looks forward to Israel's Return 
 and its new Temple. 
 
 Hardly any other "man of God" is so hard to 
 define as Ezekiel. The most divergent estimates 
 have been formed of him, e.g. " a priest in prophet's 
 clothing " ; "a creative genius, the last of the prophets 
 and one of the greatest " ; " no prophet at all, merely 
 a pastor exercising the cure of souls, a spiritual 
 
 ' These two periods sharply divide the book of Ezekiel. Up to Ezek. 
 xxiv. he combats delusion ; from xxxii. 21 he combats despair ; in between 
 comes the group of prophecies against foreign nations (xxv. -xxxii.). 
 
ESTIMATE OF EZEKIEL 1 87 
 
 director and a dreamer"; "the first of great theo- 
 logical thinkers, and the most influential religious 
 personality since Moses." Each of these seems an 
 exaggeration and a half-truth. 
 
 Ezelsiel's position and environment made it next 
 to impossible for him to be a prophet in the old true 
 sense.* Prophets were national reformers, while even 
 in 592 Ezekiel is quite isolated from the main current 
 of national life. From the first day of his preaching, 
 his only audience is a small colony of exiles, and 
 he himself has been six years away from Judah. 
 Memories of Israel's past, hearsay of its present, 
 hopes for its future, are all he has to go upon. 
 While professedly addressing a handful of exiles as 
 his actual audience, in and through them he sees, in 
 his mind's eye, an ideal Israel of the future. This 
 imaginary Israel he mainly addresses. Picture an 
 Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, or Jeremiah in their study thus 
 addr£ssing an imaginary audience and framing a 
 constitution for an imaginary Israel ! In a word, in 
 Ezekiel, the prophet's living spoken word has largely 
 given place to the literary activity of the reflective 
 and creative theologian. Hence the true remark : 
 "Ezekiel the prophet takes for granted the moral 
 truths of his predecessors, but gives them more 
 definite and almost dogmatic expression, combining 
 them into a theological organic whole." Thus Ezek. 
 i.-xxxix. has hardly a single element not traceable 
 to the earlier prophets, while he borrows their 
 catalogue of Israel's vices. Even his famous chapter 
 xviii., on personal religion and responsibility, is but 
 Jer. xxxi. 29, 30 logically driven home and with more 
 distinct intellectual expression. The one feature 
 peculiar to Ezekiel the priest-prophet is his stress on 
 ceremonial holiness, e.g. his emphasis on the sin of 
 
 ' Mr, Montefiore criticises this picture of Ezekiel, whom he greatly admires. 
 In dealing with the Prophets and "Holy Writings" I have steeped myself in 
 the Bible-text at first hand, purposely avoiding commentaries, and simply state 
 my total impression. This method has the defects of its qualities. 
 
l88 THE CAPTIVITY; EZEKIEL; II. ISAIAH 
 
 Sabbath-breaking and other violations of the ritual 
 law, even as Ezek. xxxiii. 25 brands the eating of flesh 
 with the blood as a heinous sin. Sins of ritual are 
 once more placed on a level with moral sins^ and 
 called " a contempt of sacred things." 
 
 For reasons already given (p. 175 sup.), prophecy 
 virtually dies out with Jeremiah. The mission of 
 Ezekiel and other " men of God " henceforth is to 
 train the people, fit them to be God's Israel on their 
 return home, prepare the new Israel for its divine 
 mission to mankind. Prophecy virtually becomes 
 pastoral Church-work. Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah, 
 Malachi have little of the old prophetic fire. They 
 are earnest theologians rather than prophets. Of 
 course, II. Isaiah is a brilliant exception. Ezekiel's 
 conception of God is at once grand yet narrow. God 
 is the all-holy and almighty Ruler of the universe, 
 exalting or humbling whom He will. In all He does, 
 His guiding mtstive is the glory of His Name : " They 
 shall know that I am God " (cf. esp. xxxvi. 22 sq. ; 
 xxxviii. 23). But, side by side, Ezekiel gives us 
 another picture of Jehovah which rises but little 
 above the old tribal God who cares only for His own 
 people. He is essentially Israel's God, dwells in 
 Israel's land (xxxvii. 26 sq.), and the Temple is His 
 House (x.). The honour of Jehovah demands Israel's 
 restoration to its own land, lest other nations should 
 think meanly of Israel's God. The sin of other 
 nations is their hostility to Israel ; they are Israel's 
 and God's wicked foes. Ezekiel's God also lays 
 much stress on ritual. Ezekiel's idea of God has 
 been well described as "Isaiah's conception of the 
 thrice-holy One sacerdotalised." 
 
 EzekiePs Code of Holiness. — In the form of a Vision, 
 Ezek. xl.-xlviii. gives us a sketch of the new 
 Sanctuary and its worship as it is to be on Israel's 
 
 • Ezek. xxxvi. 26 sg., shows that Ezekiel was alive to the moral factor, so 
 does his famous ch. xyiii. ; but at heart a priest he was, and priestly his aims. 
 Throughout Ezek., not the prophet, but the priest with an eye to right cultus, 
 speaks ; cf. his idea of "holiness" with the prophetic. 
 
"HOLINESS" OF GOD 189 
 
 return to their land. Ezekiel's programme is note- 
 worthy, for it was largely carried out a few years 
 later in the Priestly Code of Holiness. The root- 
 idea is that God is, above all else, Holy, and His 
 people must be holy too. But " holy " is now used 
 in its priestly sense of "aloof from what is cere- 
 monially unclean." Thus a corpse is " unclean," so are 
 certain foods and any food prepared by a Gentile ; 
 and to touch unclean things debars a man from 
 coming near a " holy " God or His belongings, till the 
 man is ceremonially cleansed (cf " Early Man's Creed," 
 p. 59 sup.). Moreover, all that in any way belongs to a 
 Holy God is itself " holy." It must not be touched 
 or used for any common purpose; it is taboo (p. 61 
 sup.). These two ideas, — (i) everything "common or 
 unclean " defiles the " holiness " of God, and (2) every- 
 thing set apart for God is "holy," taboo, — are the 
 basis and key both of Ezekiel's Code and the Priestly 
 Code of Holiness. This alone explains why both 
 place moral and ritual offences exactly on the same 
 level ; and from their standpoint they are on a level, 
 for this reason. Anything that defiles the " holiness " 
 of God calls down instantly God's" anger and imperils 
 the whole nation ; the least contact of what is 
 " common or unclean " with what is " holy " is a dire 
 offence to God ; therefore neglect of any ceremonial 
 rule, even if wholly unintentional,^ is as defiling a 
 sin as any moral sin and deserves death. Similarly 
 of (2), "everything that belongs to God is 'holy' and 
 must on no account be used for any common pur^ 
 pose"; then what of the land of Israel, for it is 
 Jehovah's land. Holy Land? How then can its 
 ground or produce be used for the common purposes 
 of daily life ? Now it is precisely to safeguard the 
 new Israel from sins against God's "holiness," in 
 
 ' E.g. in 2 Sam. vi. 6 sq., Uzzah had no intention whatever of defiling the 
 Aik when he seized it to save a fall ; none the less his " unclean" hands had 
 touched and defiled God's "holiness." So far as actual results go, God's 
 "holiness" is equally defiled whether it be done intentionally or unin- 
 tentionally. Sacrifice covered ceremonial, net wilful moral, sin. 
 
IQO THE CAPTIVITY; EZEKIEL ; II. ISAIAH 
 
 either of the two ways just discussed, that Ezekiel 
 formulates His Code of Holiness : — 
 
 (a) All the Holy Land is Jehovah's and therefore " holy." But 
 if His Temple, its sacred precincts, and the quarters set apart 
 for its priests and Levites, are marked off as uniquely " holy " 
 and set apart for Jehovah's sole use, then the rest of the land is 
 pure in His sight and He gives the full enjoyment of it to His 
 holy people. Jerusalem, as Jehovah's home, is to be called 
 " Jehovah is there." 
 
 (b) The plan of the Temple is minutely given. Moreover, 
 " the form of the House, and the fashion thereof, and the goings 
 in and the comings out thereof, and all the forms and ordinances 
 
 —^nd laws thereof," as given to Ezekiel by God, are declared to be 
 vitally important. Scrupulous attention to them is of the essence 
 of Israel's religion. The Glory of the returning Jehovah fills the 
 Temple. Henceforth He dwells there in the midst of His people 
 in visible Glory. 
 
 (c) Only those priests of Levi who are sons of Zadok (i.e. the 
 hereditary Jerusalem priesthood) are to be regarded as priests. 
 The other Levites, who officiated at " high-places," are to " bear 
 their iniquity " and be_degraded to menial offices in the Temple. 
 Besides their true sacrificial work, the priests " shall teach My 
 people the difference between the holy and the profane, the 
 clean and the unclean." Levitical purity is to be emphasised. 
 
 (^ Immense stress is laid on the strictest attention to the 
 precepts regulating all details of worship, e.g. the ritual of the 
 consecration of the A,ltar, the materials and fixed times of sacri- 
 fices, the treatment of the sacrificial flesh, the priests' cells, the 
 measures and weights to be used in the cultus. 
 
 (if) Festivals ate to be no longer agricultural Feasts as of old, 
 but exactly-dated Church-Festivals pure and simple. Thus at 
 the beginning of each half-year there is to be a day of atonement, 
 not for a penitent people's sins, but an atonement of the Sanctuary 
 to purify it of any " uncleanness " contracted through error or 
 ignorance. 
 
 (/) Ezekiel has no place for a king in his Church-State, only 
 ioj a colourless prince with very limited functions. True to the 
 historical tradition of centuries, he retains a political head, but 
 only as a figure-head whose duty, is to guarantee the regular 
 performance of Temple-worship, and safeguard the new priestly 
 
EZEKIEL'S PROGRAMME 19I 
 
 constitution. He receives certain privileges and dues, but his 
 own duties are very strictly defined. 
 
 Very clear in all this is the priestly character of 
 Ezekiel's programme. A creative theologian and 
 original thinker, his whole tone is that of one who 
 himself belonged to the governing Sacerdotal body. 
 A Jerusalem Temple-priest, he was educated in the 
 priests' training college and taught its Torah.* The 
 Book of the Law (Deut.) and Jeremiah's teaching he 
 also knew well. The Book of the Law gave him his 
 cue for his Code of Holiness, Jeremiah suggested the 
 lines of his moral teaching. Ezekiel's own code 
 stands half-way between Deuteronomy and the 
 Priestly Code. 
 
 Did Ezekiel expect the fulfilment of his pro- 
 gramme ? Yes and No. Of course, a portion of it is 
 only pregnant symbolism with deep underlying ideas 
 of obvious meaning and easy practical application. 
 For instance, the Holy Hill of Sion is to be turned 
 into a "very high mountain," and a spring of "waters 
 is to issue from under the threshold of the Temple," 
 cleanse the land, and purify by its life-giving waters 
 that blot on the Holy Land, the Dead Sea. The 
 Holy City is to be spiritually and geographically the 
 heart of the Holy Land, with Jordan as Israel's east 
 boundary, for the country east of it is too heathenised 
 to be included in the Holy Land itself. Five tribes, 
 now including Zebulun, Issachar, and Gad, dwell 
 south of the Holy City, the others north of it. This 
 is all clearly symbolical. But elsewhere Ezekiel was 
 in deadly earnest. His expectations were fulfilled, but 
 with modifications. Before the Return, other priestly 
 circles entered into Ezekiel's labours, and bodily 
 transferred the main ideas of his Vision to the Priestly 
 Code which gave Judaism its final stamp. 
 
 ' Torah (p. 107, and n. sup.) : Priests acted as judges in matters of purity and 
 ceremonial and disputes that " came before God." Their oral teaching and 
 decisions in matters ritual and moral were preserved and became a kind of 
 " custom law." 
 
192 THE CAPTIVITY; EZEKIEL ; II. ISAIAH 
 
 II. Isaiah. 
 
 This " Great Unknown," the Second Isaiah, is a 
 genius of the first order, and by far the profoundest 
 of the prophets in his monotheistic revelation of God, 
 his enlightened universalism, and his vindication of 
 God's ways by the light of actual history. In him, 
 the barriers of a local Jewish religion are completely 
 broken down and the foundation laid for a universal 
 world-wide religion. Henceforth God's salvation has 
 for its objective the whole world of nations. Israel 
 is God's chosen people, only because through it 
 Jehovah wills to accomplish the salvation of all man- 
 kind (xlii., xlix.). Israel is Jehovah's " Servant," who, 
 in accordance with His divine purpose, is to expiate 
 through its fidelity, through its very sufterings, not 
 only its own guilt, but that of the heathen nations as 
 well (l.-liii.). God is already calling to all the ends of 
 the earth to turn to Him and be saved, so that every 
 knee shall bow to Him alone ; ISirael His Servant is 
 to be God's instrument in achieving this salvation. 
 
 It is the most profound revelation of the Old 
 Testament, just as Is. xl.-lxvi. is its greatest puzzle. 
 No one would any more dream of assigning Is. xL-lxvi. 
 to Isaiah (740-700^ B.C.) to-day than of ascribing 
 Ps. cxxxvii., " By the waters of Babylon we sat down 
 and wept," to David. But of the personality of the 
 " Great Unknown " (or " unknowns,") we can form no 
 sort of conception. Isaiah is as composite as the 
 Pentateuch. To-day, scholars usually assign Is. xl- 
 Iv., certainly, to one author, II. Isaiah (550-538), who 
 combines in this section a cycle of poems on the 
 " Servant of Jehovah," and also the great prophecy 
 of the Restoration. Some add Ix.-lxii., but they lack 
 II. Isaiah's spiritual breadth and depth.^ Is. Ivi.-lxvi. 
 
 ' Dt. Burney writes me! "Ix.-lxii. display little or no sense of moral Jewish 
 shortcoming, and refer not at all to II. Isaiah's great ideal of Israel's divine 
 mission to the world at large. True, in lx._ the nations flock to Jerusalem to 
 offer homage and gifts, but there is no allusion to their conversion to the true 
 
II. ISAIAH'S CONCEPTib"N OF GOD ig'S 
 
 is, as a rule, assigned to Nehemiah's day, and after ,■ 
 Ixiii. 7-lxiv. ii is usually put down to c. 360 b.c. 
 
 To appreciate the lofty grandeur and depth of the 
 Great Unknown, nothing but a long and close first- 
 hand knowledge of Is. xl.-lv. will do. Here we 
 merely glance at (i) his conception of God ; (2) his 
 Suffering Servant of Jehovah ; (3) his Salvktibn of the 
 nations ; ((2) and (3) can go together). 
 
 (i) Conception of God.— It appeals to our heart, 
 imagination, reason ; it is so winsome, sublime, and 
 altogether reasonable; it is monotheism at its best 
 and purest. It lies in the same line with the 
 monotheism of Deut. and Jer., but goes beyond them : 
 moreover, unlike the older prophets, it gives reasons 
 for its creed. 
 
 There is one God, the Eternal, and beside Him 
 there is no other. Creation and history alike prove 
 His omnipotence, while His wisdom, power, and 
 goodness are beyond our ken : — I am He ; before. 
 Me there was no god formed, neither shall there be 
 after Me ; I am the Lord, there is none else ; I form 
 the light, I create darkness ; I make peace, and create 
 evil. I the Lord do all these things ; I created the 
 heavens ; I formed the earth and made it (xlv.). He, 
 the Maker of all men, controls the fortunes of the 
 mightiest, and the nations before Him are but as a 
 drop in the bucket or a speck of dust on the balance 
 (xl). " My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither 
 are your ways My ways. For as the heavens are 
 higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than 
 your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts" 
 (Iv. 8 sq.). Jehovah is holy and jealous of His 
 honour: "I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One 
 of Israel, thy Saviour" (xliii.). But it is a moral 
 " holiness," without blemish, aloof from all that is 
 morally unclean or degrading. He hates to be 
 
 religion or of the extension to them of the Jew&' spiritual benefits. Fine as is Ix., 
 it is tinged with the arrogant Jewish exclusiveness marking post-exilic Judaism 
 and far removed from II. Isaiah's evangelical spirit," 
 
194 THE CAPTIVITY; EZEKIEL ; II. ISAIAH 
 
 likened to a silly image made of metal or wood which 
 " men bear upon the shoulder, carry and set him in 
 his place and he standeth, cry unto him, yet can he 
 not answer " (xlvi.) ; ^ "I am the ^Lord, that is My 
 name, and My glory will I not give to another, 
 neither My praise to graven images " (xlii.). The 
 holiness of God demands that all His acts shall reflect 
 His own character and honour : " For Mine own sake, 
 even for Mine own sake, will I do it ; for how should 
 My name be polluted ? and I will not give My glory 
 to another " (xlviii.). 
 
 God is long'suffering and of great kindness, full 
 of love and tender mercy : " Can a woman forget her 
 sucking child ? . . . Yea, they may forget, yet will I 
 not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the 
 palms of My hands " (xlix.). " God shall feed His 
 flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with 
 His arm and carry them in His bosom, and shall 
 gently lead those that are with young " (xl). "Fear 
 not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by 
 thy name; thou art Mine. When thou passest 
 through the waters, I will be with thee " (xliii.). " I 
 have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, 
 and, as a cloud, thy sins ; for I have redeemed thee ; 
 thou shalt not be forgotten of Me " (xliv.). " Comfort 
 ye, comfort ye, My people, saith your God. Speak ye 
 comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that 
 her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is 
 pardoned " (xl.). 
 
 God loves the nations for their own sake and' 
 embraces them all in His loving salvation : " Look 
 unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth ; 
 for I am God, and there is none else. I have sworn 
 by Myself, the word is gone out of My mouth in 
 righteousness and shall not return, that unto Me 
 every knee shall bow " (xlv. 22). 
 
 ^ It is a crusade, not against the worship of heathen gods, but against their 
 existence at all. He loves to take his readers to an image-maker's shop to see 
 how a god is made, e.g. see xliv. 9-20, 
 
JEHOVAH'S "SUFFERING SERVANT" I95 
 
 Even as Creation reveals God: "Lift up your 
 eyes on high and behold : Who hath created these 
 things ? " (xl.) ; . so is History His handwriting. 
 Israel's own history clearly shows it: "Remember 
 ye not the former things ? " " Ye are My witnesses " 
 (xliii., xlvi.). The fulfilment of prophecy reveals God ; 
 He can predict because He foreordains and brings to 
 pass. History is the unfolding of God's plan from 
 the beginning, which He reveals by chapters to His 
 servants the prophets (xli. 25 sqq. ; xlii. 9 ; xliv. 26 ; 
 xlv. 21; xlvi. 10; xlviii. 3 sqq.). In history's open 
 page the prophets foresaw the coming Captivity, and 
 in Assyria and Babylon God's rods. But they also 
 foresaw in it Israel's restoration. It is at hand now. 
 Babylon is about to fall, Israel to be delivered ; 
 Cyrus, now at Babylon's gate, is Jehovah's Deliverer 
 of His people by divine commission : " I am the Lord 
 that saith unto Cyrus, he is My shepherd and shall 
 perform all My pleasure. . . ^ Thus saith the. Lord to 
 His anointed (= Messiah), to Cyrus, whose right hand 
 I have strengthened to subdue nations before him " 
 (xlv.). Cyrus is God's servant to redeem Israel ; " For 
 Israel Mine elect, I have even called thee by name ; 
 I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known 
 Me " (xlv. 4). " I have raised him up in righteousness ; 
 I will direct all his ways ; he shall build My city and 
 he shall let go My captives, not for price nor reward " 
 (xlv. 13). 
 
 (2) Israel Jehovah's Suffering Servant. — Cyrus, in 
 whom the power of the world is thus gathered up, is 
 Jehovah's servant, but for Israel's sake and for 
 Israel's redemption : " For Jacob My servant's sake, 
 and for Israel Mine elect " (xlv. 4). In a far higher 
 sense than Cyrus is Israel Jehovah's elect Servant. 
 This " election " is an election to service, the service 
 of mankind in the highest interests of morality and 
 religion : " I will also give thee for a light to the 
 Gentiles, that thou mayest be My salvation to the end 
 of the earth " (xlix. 6) ; " for a light to the Gentiles, 
 
196 THE CAPTIVITY; EZEKIEL ; 11. ISAIAH 
 
 to Open the blind eyes, to_ bring out the prisoners 
 from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of 
 the prison-house " (xlii. 7)} 
 
 Israel's call was for this express purpose of being 
 God's Missionary to the ends of the earth, " a light 
 to the Gentiles," and Israel's grievous sufferings were 
 the indispensable condition of the world's salvation : 
 " Listen, O Isles, the Lord hath called me from the 
 womb . . . and said unto me. Thou art My Servant, 
 O Israel, in whom I will be glorified ... I will give 
 thee for a light to the Gentiles " (xlix.). God has put 
 His Spirit upon Israel His Servant: "My servant, 
 Mine elect in whom My soul delighteth. I have put 
 My Spirit upon him ; he shall bring forth judgment 
 to the Gentiles ; he shall not cry nor lift up his voice ; 
 a bruised reed shall he not break ; he shall not fail 
 nor be discouraged till he have set judgment in the 
 earth, and the isles shall wait for his law ... I, the 
 Lord, have called thee in righteousness, and will hold 
 thine hand and give thee for a light to the Gentiles " 
 (xlii.). But Israel, Jehovah's Servant, must first be 
 made "perfect through suffering." The righteous 
 " remnant's " patient submission to all manner of ill- 
 treatment and mockery is the decisive influence in the 
 work of salvation. Thus alone can it leaven the mass 
 of the nation and convert the world : " I gave my 
 back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that 
 
 ' " Salvation is of the Jews " implies no favouritism on God's part, neither 
 does "election." Salvation is of every race. God is no respecter of persons 
 or races, and is known to all (Mai. i. 11). He is the ".Light that lighteth 
 every man that cometh into the world." But as with individuals, so with 
 nations. Partly owing to environment, still more to personal "genius," their 
 gifts and functions differ, and, as in the physical body so in the Body of 
 Humanity, the gifts and functions of the various members are all wanted for 
 the good of the whole. Thus one member, Greece, developed an inborn 
 genius for thought and beauty, so she is "elected" to teach mankind art, 
 letters, philosophy. Rome's "election" was for law, organisation, govern- 
 ment. The Anglo-Saxon race is "called" of God with a mission to teach 
 man honour, truthfulness, freedom, respect for woman, chivalry. Hebrew 
 genius was for religion, and mainly through Israel have come the idea of One 
 righteous God, the idea of sin, of holiness, righteousness, forgiveness, the idea 
 of duties as higher than rights, and of self-sacrifice as above self-seeking, U. 
 " Salvation is of the Jews." 
 
JEHOVAH'S "SUFFERING SERVANT" 197 
 
 plucked off the hair ; I hid not my face from shame 
 and spitting" (1. 6). To their amazement it dawns 
 upon the nations and their rulers that Israel, Jehovah's 
 Suffering Servant, " marred more than any man," 
 despised, rejected, full of sorrows, stricken and 
 smitten of God, — as they fancied, — yet never crying 
 or lifting up his voice, was all along bearing the sins 
 of others, atoning for their sins, their saviour. 
 
 Throughout Is. xl.-lv. the Great Unknown unfolds 
 to his readers the depths of God's eternal plan of 
 salvation. God has chosen Israel, given His Servant 
 the knowledge of the one true God, but only as His 
 trustee to pass it on to others. From the day of 
 Israel's first call there has ever been, even in sinful 
 Israel, a godly kernel of good men, a " holy seed," a 
 righteous few. These have been the salt of Israel, 
 the leaven leavening its whole lump, the saviours of 
 mankind, the true Israel, God's elect Servant. Upon 
 this true Israel God's Spirit has ever been. It is 
 " glorious in God's eyes and God is their strength," 
 so that, even standing alone against the whole world, 
 it must prevail : " neither be thou confounded, for 
 thou shalt not be put to shame " (liv. 4). This true 
 Israel is despised and oppressed both by Jews at 
 home and Gentiles abroad, apparently God-smitten 
 and God-forsaken, put in prison and cut off, as it 
 were, from the land of the living by having to dwell 
 in a strange land, and often hounded to death. Yet 
 Israel, the Servant of God, comes out more than 
 conqueror, lives on, prolongs his days, sees his seed, 
 sees of the travail of his soul and is satisfied. By his 
 knowledge of the one true God, by loyalty to his 
 trust, by acting up to his divine mission of " a light 
 to the Gentiles," by his very sufferings and their 
 vicarious atoning power, thisjtrue Israel, God's elect 
 Servant, accomplishes in his own person the ideal 
 functions God had meant for the whole Chosen 
 People. He "justifies many, bears their iniquities, 
 njakes intercession for the transgressors." He is tl\^ 
 
198 THE CAPTIVITY; EZEKIEL ; II. ISAIAH 
 
 High Priest and Saviour of the rest of Israel and of 
 mankind. 
 
 Instinctively the Christian heart has ever turned 
 to this wondrously beautiful and lovable portrait of 
 the Righteous Suffering Servant as a prophecy of the 
 Christ. It contributes more elements, and these of 
 the profoundest kind, to the Christological ideal 
 realised in our Lord than all the rest of the Old 
 Testament figures put together. We can give it to- 
 day, and rightly give it, a Messianic interpretation. 
 But we must not go beyond this and say that thfe 
 Great Unknown himself had a clear vision of the 
 Christ 550 years before He came.i 
 
 ' Cf. p. 312 footnote on Is. vii. 14 sub Jin. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE RETURN FROM EXILE; THE PRIESTLY CODE 
 
 II, Isaiah had looked up to Cyrus, God's " servant," 
 "shepherd," and "anointed," to free the Jews from 
 Captivity and rebuild the City. So it proved. Cyrus' 
 imperial policy, like our own, respected the religious 
 views of subject races. In an extant cylinder-inscrip- 
 tion, Cyrus states that he was called by the god Mar- 
 duk to a mission of humanity. — " He (Marduk) showed 
 compassion upon all lands together. He looked for, 
 He found him, yea, He sought out an upright prince, 
 after His own heart, whom He took by his hand, 
 Cyrus, king of the city Anshan ; He named his name, 
 to the kingdom of the whole world He called him by 
 name," ^ This reads like a passage from Is. xliv.-xlv. 
 With his fine political tact, Cyrus knew how to win 
 subject hearts by redress of grievances and deference 
 to national religious views. No wonder that the 
 Jewish exiles based all their hopes of deliverance on 
 him, and not in vain. He gave orders to rebuild the 
 Jerusalem Temple and permission, general or partial, 
 to the Jews to return to do this work. 
 
 In 538 B.C. two Jews of royal descent, Sheshbazzar ^ 
 and Zerubbabel, together with Jeshua or Joshua 
 the high-priest^ and other prominent Jews, went to 
 
 ' From Dr. Burney, who calls my attention to ''whom he took by his hand" 
 (cf. Is. xlv. i), " He called him by name" (cf. xlv. 3), "after His own heart" 
 (cf. " the man of my cmnsel," x\.\\. 11); the two first expressions, applied to 
 Marduk, II Isaiah actually puts into Jehovah's mouth. 
 
 » Sheshbazzar is a puzzle to scholars ; but the old idea of his identity with 
 Zerubbabel, as well as the recent view that he was a Persian governor offici- 
 ally in charge of the expedition, are both generally discredited to-day. 
 
 ' Before exile, " chief-priest " (exc. a few anachronisms in Kgs.) ; after it, 
 "high-priest," and much more exalted. In N.T. " chief-priest " = (a) high- 
 priest, \b) ex-bigh-priests, (c) men of exclusive high-priestly families (Schiirer). 
 
 199 
 
200 RETURN FROM EXILE ; THE PRIESTLY CODE 
 
 Jerusalem and laid the foundations of the Temple. Be- 
 cause of *' adversaries " the work stopped there, and 
 seventeen years of inactivity follow. In 532 b.c. some 
 42,000 Jews, with their families, returned to the Holy 
 Land. Their departure from Babylon raised great 
 expectations which were not fulfilled. Many of these 
 new settlers just paid Jerusalem a short visit, relieved 
 their consciences by money-offerings for the rebuild- 
 ing of the Temple, then went " everyone to his own 
 city and to his own house," allowing God's House to 
 lie waste. There was no enthusiasm or esprit de corps. 
 Moreover, the returned Jews looked upon themselves 
 as the only true Jews, the one solid kernel of the 
 "new Israel," as compared with the actual Judaean" 
 residents. These they viewed as less pure in blood and 
 at a lower religious level. As for the " Samaritans," 
 descendants of the ten tribes and of foreign settlers, 
 the new-comers would have no dealings with them. 
 The native Jews of Jerusalem and Judaea strongly 
 resented the new home-comers' supercilious attitude, 
 feeling that they had equal rights and privileges 
 of their own (cf. Ezek. xi. 15). The neighbouring 
 Samaritans, now that their friendly overtures to the 
 returned exiles were so cavalierly repulsed, resorted 
 to open feud with the Jews generally, and put every 
 possible obstruction in their way. 
 
 With foes without and disunion within, the Temple 
 rebuilding made no headway. The prophets Haggai 
 and Zechariah had to goad the people to the work by 
 openly warning them that, until the "sin" of the unbuilt 
 Temple was removed, Jehovah refused to bless His 
 people. He would neither crush their foes, restore 
 their dispersed tribes, nor make the heathen come to 
 the Jews for salvation ; while if they show zeal in His 
 cause. He will shake the heavens and the earth and 
 all the nations, and their Golden Age is at hand.^ 
 
 ' Haggai and Zech. i.-viii. (520), because of Persian internal upheavals, 
 — the Smerdis usurpation, — see God "shaking the nations" and confidently 
 expect the restoration of Zerubbabel to the Davidio throne, fulfilling pro- 
 
REFORMS URGENTLY NEEDED 201 
 
 These words had the desired effect. By 516 the 
 Temple was rebuilt. Unpretentious as was Zerub- 
 babel's Temple, it was an important achievement. 
 Henceforth it was the nation's heart, the magnet 
 drawing Israel away from its many half-heathen local 
 shrines to the one true House and worship of God. 
 It also made Jerusalem the rallying-point for all 
 Israel. 
 
 But much else needed reform. There was now a 
 Temple, but how were the regular services in it to be 
 carried on? Kings had largely provided the ways 
 and means of old; now priests and services alike 
 were wholly dependent on the people's free-will 
 offerings, and these were only forthcoming from a 
 pious few. The rich cared only for themselves. 
 Oppression, greed, violence, injustice, calumny, fraud 
 were as rife as ever (Zech. vii.). Moreover, the re- 
 turned exiles wanted a form of Temple-worship in 
 line with Ezekiel's views, the native Jews clung to 
 the older Deuteronomic form. Worse still, the city 
 was composed of a mixed population, and inter- 
 marriage between Jews and non-Jews was by no 
 means rare. To crown all, the city-walls were still 
 dismantled, in ruins, and could not be rebuilt because 
 of the Samaritans. Such was the state of things 
 awaiting the exiles on their Return, and for seventy 
 years after. They tried to adjust themselves to their 
 new home amid surroundings that were neither 
 joyous nor secure. Was this, forsooth, the Golden 
 
 phetic Messianic predictions. Temple and city rebuilt, and Judah's "sin" 
 thus removed, Zerubbabel is to be recognised as Messiah, and prince and 
 priest are to walk hand in hand. Zech. vi. has a remarkjible scene represent- 
 ing Babylonian Jews with a crown which the prophet sets on the head of 
 Zerubbabel (see Hastings' D. of B.i'vi. 123, 967, 785 art. "Tobijah") in his 
 private house, saluting him as " the Branch " or " the Shoot," i.e. the Messiah 
 (Jer. xxiii. 5), and predicting that he will rebuild the Temple, rule on his 
 throne, with Joshua as priest by his side in harmony with him. The prediction 
 did not come oSF. Hence the many changes in the text — the " crown " 
 becomes " crowns," one for prince and one for priest ; vi. 1 1 now only crowns 
 the high-priest ; but vi. 12, 13a, left unchanged, palpably refer to Zerubbabel 
 only; as the LXX shows, 13b originally read "and he shall be priest at 
 his right hand" (cf. R.V. m.). The crown is to be laid up in the Temple as 
 a memorial of the donors. Oiily Zech. i.-viii. = Zechariah's own. 
 
202 RETURN FROM EXILE; THE PRIESTLY CODE 
 
 Age which all their prophets had told them was to 
 dawn at the close of their Captivity 1 
 
 A Holy Land sadly in need of a new Reformation 
 was what confronted Ezra the scribe, a man of high- 
 priestly family, on his arrival in Jerusalem (458), 
 armed with large powers in the Persian king's name, 
 and accompanied by a large number of Jews. What 
 most grieved him was to see Jews, — priests, Levites, 
 and rulers included, — commonly intermarrying with 
 the surrounding aliens in a way subversive of all 
 purity of religion or race. This evil must at once be 
 checked. He assembled the Jews before the Temple, 
 and his stirring words produced a deep impression 
 and the desired effect. But the reform of this evil, 
 and other moral abuses, kept him from dealing with 
 the real object of his mission (Ezra vii. 27), the worship- 
 reform which lay nearest his heart. 
 
 Fortunately, Ezra's hands were greatly strengthened 
 in 445 by the Arrival of a layman of exceptionally 
 strong personality, Nehemiah, a Jew in high favour 
 at the Persian court. ^ Invested with the governor- 
 ship of Judah, he came with a regular Persian military 
 escort and a high prestige. He found himself face to 
 face with a difficult task. Taking in the situation at 
 a glance he saw that, before attempting any religious 
 reforms, a defenceless and disunited Jerusalem must 
 
 ' JSera and Nehemiah, the subdivision into (wo books is very late ; the 
 Heb. Bible originally only hiad one, "Ezra." These books are Chronicles con- 
 tinned and by the same author, as Chron. xxxvi, 22, 23 = Ezrai. I, 2, implies.. 
 Chron. is an epitome of the pentateuch//»j the older historical books, but from 
 Cyrus onward is all new history, hence the division of "Ezra" from Chron. 
 The materials or sources used by the author are "Memoirs of Nehemiah," [of 
 which Neh. i.-vii. is a solid piece (exc. iii.) and possibly xii. 27-43 J xiii, 
 4-31] J and " Memoirs of Ezra " (as seen in Ezra vii. 27-ix, 15), distinguishable 
 in both cases bythe use of the first person, "I " or "we." These memoirs were 
 probably used elsewhere, but the compiler adapted them. Other sources are 
 professedly Persian official documents, e.g. Ezra i. ; iv. 7-vi. 12 and vii. 
 11-26, all, exc. Ezra i., couched in Aramaic, the official diplomatic language. 
 Driver considers them reliable. A large part of Ezra-Neh, exhibits the 
 Chronicler's familiar motives and manner (see p. 126, sup.) and, apart from the 
 Memoirs of Ezra and esp. Nehemiah, and the Aramaic documents, its historical 
 value is at times open to question. Ezra-Neh. profess to give us the history 
 from 537-432, yet of SiS~4S8 not a word is said. With this narrative O.T. 
 history closes, though its literature goes on to 160 B.C. {e.g. Dan.). 
 
NEHEMIAH THE REFORMER 203 
 
 be set in order. With great dexterity and tenacity, 
 Nehemiah promptly got the walls rebuilt, thus safe- 
 guarding Jerusalem from outside foes, while his 
 firmness, tact, and generosity restored Jerusalem to 
 peace, order, and good-will. 
 
 This great work done, he returned to Persia and 
 came back with a new commission. He now appeared, 
 not as a political, but a religious reformer. He set 
 about the reformation of the priesthood, the strict 
 observance of the Sabbath, general obedience to the 
 Book of the Law, provision for the maintenance of 
 regular services in the Temple, the prevention of 
 mixed marriages, and other ecclesiastical measures. 
 A thorough patriot and a born statesman, strong and 
 tactful, he was also a man of genuine faith, a strict 
 observer of the Law, and firmly convinced of his 
 divine call to the work of reform. His implicit faith 
 in God, in his vocation and in himself, enabled him 
 to achieve great things. His greatest achievement, 
 hand in hand with Ezra, was the introduction of the 
 new Book of the Law which converted Israel from a 
 nation into a Church under the high-priest as its king 
 and the priests as his assessors. 
 
 We have already seen (p. 167 sup.) how, in 621, 
 Hilkiah the chief-priest one day announced that he 
 had found the Book of the Law in the Temple. As a 
 matter of fact it was the newly-written Deuteronomy. 
 We also saw how it was at once publicly read to the 
 assembled people, and how king and people alike 
 were so awed by its words that there and then they 
 made a solemn covenant with God to obey all its 
 statutes. 
 
 Exactly the same thing occurs all over again in 444. 
 Neh. viii. gives us a graphic picture of it all. On the 
 first day of Tishri, " all the people gathered themselves 
 together as one man " to hear the (new) Book of the 
 Law read. The first day, " Ezra the scribe stood upon 
 a pulpit of wood, and opened the Book in the sight of 
 the people, and all the people stood up. And Ezra 
 
204 RETURN FROM EXILE ; THE PRIESTLY CODE 
 
 blessed the Lord, the great God : and all the people 
 answered Amen, with lifting up of their hands ; and 
 they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord 
 with their faces to the ground. And he read therein- 
 from the morning until midday, and the ears of the 
 people were attentive unto the Book of the Law." 
 Day after day it was again publicly read and explained, 
 and the people were so awed that they mourned and 
 wept : " for all the people wept when they heard the 
 words of the Law," conscience-smitten. They had an 
 immediate opportunity of proving their zeal for the 
 Law in a practical way. In the Book of the Law 
 " they found written that the Lord had commanded 
 by Moses that the children should dwell in booths 
 (= Feast of Tabernacles) in the feast of the seventh 
 month." Now this was the very month when the 
 Book of the Law was being publicly read ; so this 
 Feast was at once kept. Then on the 24th of Tishri, 
 at a great day of Humiliation, all "the children of 
 Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sack- 
 clothes, and earth upon them," and the whole com- 
 munity pledged itself by a sealed covenant to obey all 
 the Book of the Law. 
 
 What was this Book of the Law ? Was it the 
 Book of the Covenant (Ex. xx.-xxiv.) of c. 800 b.c, plus 
 Deut. (6so),plus the 85 new chapters now introduced? 
 Or was it only these new chapters recently written in 
 Babylon,! what is commonly called the Priestly Code? 
 
 ' As repeatedly stated, we must carefully distinguish between tie age of the 
 laws themselves and the dates of their publication as written codes. Most of the 
 P laws and ritual are extremely old and merely codify the oral priestly Torah 
 going back to very early days. The 70 years' Exile made such a written Code 
 imperative. For instance, suppose our Church services were completely 
 interrupted for 70 .years, and inexperienced priests, with nothing but our 
 Prayer-Book to guide them, had to conduct a full service, with Holy Com- 
 munion, how would the priest know what to say, e.g. before or after the sermon, 
 his exact ritual duties, how to serve the altar correctly, and many similar 
 details ? In an elaborate sacrificial Temple-worship, the ritual of sacrifice, 
 involving so much ma,uual work and traditional ritual, was infinitely more 
 complex, and it had not written rubrics instructing the priest what to do as with 
 us. The pre-exilic priesthood knew the oral and traditional rules through long 
 custom and practice. But a 70 years' interruption of Temple-services' and 
 sacrifices made it essential that the priests of the Return should h^ve a -written 
 
AIM OF THE PRIESTLY CODE 205 
 
 The latter is now the accepted view, just as it is clear 
 that the Book of the Law read and solemnly accepted 
 in 621 was Deut. only. The strongest pleas support 
 this view : e.g. The Book of the Covenant (Ex. xx.-xxiv.) 
 openly approves of, indeed orders, the many local 
 altars and the offering of sacrifices by laymen, two 
 practices which the Priestly Code absolutely con- 
 demns. Again, the highly moral, humanitarian, and 
 spiritual tone of Deuteronomy clashes with the 
 legalism of the Priestly Code. Would the reading of 
 mutually contradictory Books have produced the 
 desired effect ? 
 
 The Priestly Code (c. 500) views everything from 
 the priest's standpoint. Because God now actually 
 dwells amid His people in His Jerusalem Temple, 
 everything and everybody near Him must be " clean " 
 and "holy," or God's "holiness" will be defiled, the sin 
 of sins. Fearful for God's holiness, the Priestly Code's 
 one aim is, as Ezekiel wanted, to make the community 
 a " holy people," a Church existing solely for the glory 
 of God dwelling in their midst. Not the nation's 
 prosperity or greatness, not man's happiness, is the 
 end in view, but the one motive is "the Glory of 
 God" and the safeguarding of His " holin ess." Hence 
 there is no king ; God is the Churdtfs King ; even the 
 colourless " prince," introduced by Ezekiel for Church 
 purposes, disappears. The high-priest is God's one 
 vicegerent on earth. Naturally, Temple, altar, priests, 
 ritual, overshadow all else by divine decree. Not for 
 man to question the reasonableness, the why or where- 
 fore of ritual, fasts, and feasts. New Moons, Sabbaths, 
 foods allowed or forbidden, things clean or unclean, 
 scales or kinds of offerings, ceremonial purifications, 
 and so on, — one and all they are decreed of God 
 
 Priestly Code to guide them as to correct ritual, and also to teach the layman 
 his duties as regards purity and ceremonial. Ezekiel and his priestly disciples 
 wisely made provision for thi? during the Exile ; hence the Priestly Code 
 with its plans and specifications for the Tabernacle, the laws for priests, the 
 laws and ritual of sacrifice, the scales of offerings, the regulation of clean and 
 snclean, and so on. Huch of this.is very old custom, but there are also indi- 
 cations of amendments and innovations. 
 
206 RETURN FROM EXILE; THE PRIESTLY CODE 
 
 Himself as His will and law, and any the slightest 
 deviation from them is fraught with dire conse- 
 quences. It is God's divine Will, every jot and tittle 
 of it, even as by word of mouth He gave Moses minute 
 specifications of the furniture of His House down to 
 the very nails and pins (Ex. xxv. sqq., cf. Ezek. xliii.). 
 Where God orders, man obeys, and God sees to the 
 efficacy of His means of grace. 
 
 It may be asked : " But where does the moral factor 
 come in ? In the Code it seems infinitesimal, for nine- 
 tenths of it is ritual." " Thou shalt love thy neighbour 
 as thyself" (Lev. xix. i8); " Walk before Me, and be 
 thou perfect " (Gen. xvii. i = P), prove that the Code 
 prizes morality. Nine-tenths of P is ritual, simply 
 for this reason : Cultus, not morality, is the Code's 
 r61e in Judaism, not because it is indifferent to 
 morals, but because morality was already provided 
 for. Deuteronomy, equally the Book of the Law and 
 bound with it, and also the Prophets, had already 
 dealt amply with morality. We are not blind to the 
 Code's weakness. It is vastly inferior to Deut., full of 
 archaic semi-pagan ^ ideas and rites meaningless to 
 us ; but we shall presently see (Ch. XIV.) that, as the 
 Psalter proves, it did its work well and turned out 
 saintly lives. None the less, passing strange, nay, 
 childish to us are some of its rules, e.g. not only are 
 lepers " unclean," entailing a " sin-oiTering " after a 
 cure, but the walls of a house with fungus-patches 
 are " leprous " and need blood-atonement for sin Hke 
 human beings. Again, he who gathers sticks on the 
 Sabbath, or he who makes such sacred oil as priests 
 use, or eats sacrificial meats over two days after the 
 sacrifice, is as bad a sinner as if guilty of incest, 
 sodomy, or murder. Contact with a corpse also 
 involves purification for sin. Ritual and moral 
 offences are viewed by the Code as on a level for 
 the following reasons, exactly the reasons already 
 noted in Ezekiel's code (p. 189 sup.). 
 
 " Holiness " is the root-idea of the Code. Jehovah 
 
" HOLY " AND " CLEAN " 207 
 
 has set Israel apart for Himself and dwells in their 
 midst. He is Holy, they must be holy too. As in 
 Ezekiel, so in the Code, "holy" is used, not in its 
 moral, but in its pre-prophetic sense of " aloof from 
 all ceremonial taint," a kind of. physical purity. Again, 
 with all primitive peoples anything set apart for a 
 god's own use becomes his exclusive property. It is 
 taboo (p. 61 sup.). It must on no account be used for, 
 or come into touch with, anything common or unclean. 
 If it does, this at once defiles it for God's use, and this 
 breach of taboo involves awful consequences for the 
 offender, whether he did it wittingly or unwittingly, 
 for the pollution is the same in either case.^ Till 
 prophetic days (c. 800 b.c), " holy " and " taboo " 
 meant the same thing in Israel. Prophets are 
 progressive, priests conservative. For 300 years, 
 prophets tried to cut across this superstition and 
 to give "holy" and "clean" a moral sense, but old 
 habits and traditions were too strong for them. 
 Priests and people alike clung to the old view. Now 
 the Priestly Code is wholly based on priestly lore 
 and customs in- use from time immemorial. Thus 
 " holy " in the Code still means " set apart for God's 
 use"; "clean" still means physical or ceremonial 
 purity. For instance, the Temple and all its belong- 
 ings, its attendants and their vestments, its very 
 utensils, are "holy," taboo. Only the "holy" can 
 touch the " holy " ; and the " holy " person or thing 
 that comes near God's "holiness" or His "holy*' 
 property must take great care to be " clean." " Clean " 
 and "holy" are often interchanged, but much is 
 "clean" that is not "holy." A house, person, or 
 vessel is "clean" after due purifications, but only 
 
 ' Thus the Ark is "holy," and a layman touching it instantaneously falls 
 dead e.g. (2 Sam. vi. 6). Achan appropriates property "devoted" to God's 
 use, a,nd is itoned with all his family. Without his " holy " vestments cover- 
 ing him, even a priest dare not approach what is "holy," for " holiness" is 
 contagious, and the priest's ordinary dress (unprotected by vestments in the 
 sanctuary) would afterwards make all it touched " holy to God," i.e. unavail- 
 able to its former owner. Hence the phrase used of a Holy Book : " it defiles 
 the hand." 
 
208 RETURN FROM EXILE ; THE PRIESTLY CODE 
 
 becomes " holy " if set apart for God's exclusive use. 
 There are also degrees in "holiness." As set apart 
 for God's use, all Israel is " holy,"— the people, the 
 land and all in it. Everything in 1:he Holy Land, from 
 circumference to centre, must be holy. But the nearer 
 you get to God's House, the nearer to God, and the 
 holier the ground and all in it. So of God's House 
 itself, uniquely holy as is all the Temple, there are 
 positive, comparative, and superlative degrees in its 
 holiness. And the greater the holiness, the more 
 holy also must he or it be that comes near, the more 
 elaborate, too, must be the rules and precautions to 
 safeguard that holiness from whatever is common or 
 unclean. Now seeing that the Priestly Code, deals 
 all but exclusively with ceremonial laws bearing on 
 "holy" and "clean," the moral element in it is 
 naturally small. 
 
 The principles on which the Code is based are 
 very simple and modelled on Ezekiel's Code of 
 Holiness. The Code practically resolves itself into 
 this one idea : As set apart for God's own property 
 and use, all the Holy Land, with its people, their 
 goods, their time, their life, is God's own, and there- 
 fore " holy," taboo, not for common use, on pain of 
 death or disaster. But God does not exact His full 
 due. On condition that a portion of each is strictly 
 set apart for His exclusive use, He graciously releases 
 all the rest from taboo. It can freely be touched and 
 used. His blessing rests upon it, but it must remain 
 "clean," for Jehovah the Holy One dwells in the 
 midst of it all. Thus : — 
 
 (A) All the Holy Land is holy to Jehovah, but if one portion 
 is strictly marked off as uniquely " holy " to Him, as the place 
 where He has "caused His name to be placed there," His 
 Tabernacle, and if certain cities in each tribe are set apart for 
 His holy priests and Levites (Numb, xxxv.), then the rest of the 
 land is free and secure for Israel's use and enjoyment, with the 
 one further stipulation, that every seven years all land shall enjoy 
 absolute rest (Lev. xxv.). In the Tabernacle itself, the dark 
 
ROOT-IDEA OF PRIESTLY CODE 2O9 
 
 innermost shrine, with the Ark in it as God's Throne, is the " holy 
 of holies," taboo to all but the High-Priest ; even he can enter 
 it only once a year, and only after taking minutely scrupulous 
 precautions so as to be absolutely " clean '' (Ex. xxv, 22 ; Lev. 
 xvi.). Into the next " holy place " none but priests can enter. 
 Next comes the forecourt, in which the priests, assisted by the 
 Levites, attend to the sacrificial cultus. Between this forecourt 
 and the people's court are encamped the Levites, thus shielding 
 the people from the Divine " holiness," so that God's " wrath may 
 not come upon the congregation of the children of Israel" 
 (Numb. i. S3) for daring to come near His " holiness." Spotless 
 "cleanliness" is, of course, absolutely demanded of high-priests, 
 priests, and Lievites {e.g. Ex. xxviii. sq. ; Lev. xxi. ; Numb, viii.), 
 for the Divine " holiness " will smite anything " unclean " coming 
 near it (Lev. xxi. sq. ; Numb, xviii. 2 sq.), 
 
 (B) All time is Jehovah's in Israel, but if one day in seven 
 and certain specified Feasts and Fasts are set apart as " holy," 
 the rest of the time is released from taboo. 
 
 (C) All Israelites are " holy " to Jehovah, — their circumcision, 
 the consecration and redemption of the male first-born (Ex. xiii. ; 
 Numb, xviii.), and their poll-tax (Ex. xxx.) are Israel's own 
 acknowledgment of it, — ^but if a portion of the holy nation is set 
 apart, viz. priests and Levites,' God is content. 
 
 (D) All Israel's produce is "holy." But if the "first-fruits" 
 are set apart for God, and His priests get their tithes and dues, 
 the rest is free. 
 
 (E) In all cases of " sin" (= breaking rules of "holy" and 
 " clean ") the sinner's life is forfeit to Jehovah. But He graciously 
 pardons, if the sinner acknowledges his sin and forfeiture of life 
 by turning to Him with another victim in his stead, or the pre- 
 scribed offering as a substitute. But God only accepts and 
 forgives, if the offering is presented in the divinely prescribed 
 way. The forgiveness is a pure act of God's grace, but the 
 penitent must approach God in the correct way and according to 
 correct ritual j this is a sineqtid non of forgiveness, and only through 
 
 ' Carefully distinguish "priests" and "Levites," for in P Levites are not 
 priests of a lower grade. Properly speaking, all male Israelites should be 
 priests, but God has graciously arranged for a permanent representation of the 
 people in the priesthood chosen from the tribe of Levi. The Levites represent 
 the first-born who are really God's property. Hence, as Numb. iii. 40 sqq. 
 tells us, each first-born is Teplacsd by a Levite, but as only 22,000 Levites are 
 available, and there are 22,273 first-born, 273 first-born pay 5 shekels each 
 to equalise. 
 
 P 
 
2IO RETURN FROM EXILE; THE PRIESTLY CODE 
 
 the mediating priest's due performance of the proper ritual and 
 atoning usages can the sinner be saved from God's wrath. The 
 sinner must satisfy both God and His priests, for the priest is the 
 sole mediator between God and man. 
 
 As repeatedly stated, we must not fancy that 
 Ezekiel and his school, the priests and scribes of 
 550-450 B.C., invented these ritual rules. We hear 
 but little of this priestly teaching in the Bible before 
 586 B.C., because up to then the Bible Books emanate 
 from the prophetic school, and it is their moral teach- 
 ing that comes to the fore. But their endless denun- 
 ciations of ceremonial and ritual worship (p. 152 sup.) 
 prove how deep-rooted it was in their day. Priests 
 and people alike were convinced that the ritual 
 cultus of their fathers was a far truer worship than 
 the " morality " preaching of the prophets, a mush- 
 room growth of yesterday. The Fall of Jerusalem, 
 and the Captivity ensuing on the very heels of the 
 Reformation of 621, deepened this conviction. Post 
 hoc, ergo propter hoc. It was not ritual worship that 
 was wrong, but ritual worship prostituted to baalim 
 and idolatrous cults. So, with Ezekiel, ritual came 
 once more into its own as the essence of religion. 
 Right on from pre-Mosaic days it had really all but 
 monopolised the field in popular and priestly esteem ; 
 its precise rules for sacrifice, its proper forms of 
 purification from " uncleanness," its prescribed rites 
 on various occasions, were hallowed and viewed as 
 the religion alone acceptable to God. These precise 
 rules, rites, formulas had always been carefully, 
 jealously, treasured and safeguarded by the priests 
 of Israel from time immemorial. The rise of great 
 sanctuaries, and especially of Solomon's Temple, 
 furthered the systematisation of priestly ritual ; still 
 more was it fostered by the centralisation of all 
 worship in the Jerusalem Temple. The Exile, with 
 its synagogue worship, might be thought likely to 
 wean Israel from this ritual worship of God. As a 
 
CANON OF THE BIBLE 211 
 
 matter of fact it did the reverse. Feeble substitutes 
 these irregular synagogue-gatherings seemed to 
 many exiles, poor substitutes for the solemn and 
 effectual ritual of the Temple. This Temple-worship, 
 they felt assured, was but temporarily suspended,' 
 and, lest the old correct ritual customs and practices 
 should be forgotten in the seventy years of Captivity, 
 Ezekiel and his priestly disciples committed to writing 
 the true priestly tradition which had been orally 
 handed down before, so that the priests on their 
 Return should serve the altar correctly. Naturally, 
 when Israel became a Church after the Restoration, 
 with priests at its head, this priestly ritual and 
 ceremonial had the field all but to itself. Hence, 
 although our Priestly Code only dates from 550- 
 450 B.C., it is really extremely ancient in itself It 
 exhibits merely the final development, systematisa- 
 tion, and triumph of elements and principles in vogue 
 since Moses' day. 
 
 This ancient and semi-Mosaic character of the 
 Code alone explains why both the Book of the Law 
 (Deut.) in 621, and the Book of the Law (Priestly 
 Code) in 444, both brand-new literary creations, were 
 at once accepted by Israel as Moses' own. This 
 ascription to Moses seems passing strange to us, till 
 we remember {a) the archaic and Mosaic character of 
 the Code,^ and, still more, {b) that no one could tell 
 it was not Moses' own, for the simple reason that 
 there was no Bible in our sense till 444 b.c. True, 
 when the people pledged themselves in 621 to obey 
 the Book of the Law (Deut.), there and then 
 Deuteronomy was canonised and became Holy Scrip- 
 ture. But it was not till 444 that the real formation 
 of a Bible, with several Books in it, began, and the 
 first Canon of Scripture came into being. A Bible 
 
 ' As so often said, the Priestly Torah does go back to Moses' day. He 
 was the first to give at the door of the Tent those oral decisions on matters 
 "coming before God," which the priests continued to give after him. As 
 Ex. xxxiv. shows, the oldest laws were very like the Priestly Code. 
 
212 RETURN FROM EXILE; THE PRIESTLY CODE 
 
 now came into existence comprising the two Books 
 of the Law (Deut. and Priestly Code), plus the older 
 writings of Genesis, the Book of the Covenant 
 (Ex. xx.-xxiv.), and Joshua. There were other 
 " writings " extant then, e.g. Judges, Samuel, Kings, 
 also the Prophets, but they were not thought worthy 
 of a place side by side with the Holy Law. The 
 Hexateuch, or at any rate the Pentateuch, alone 
 formed the Bible of 444 B.C. Even in the Pentateuch 
 itself great changes were made. The older books 
 were first thoroughly revised and brought into closer 
 harmony with the spirit of the Priestly Code. The 
 Code itself was now given a historical setting of its 
 own to vindicate, as of Divine origin, the Priestly 
 Law and such new institutions as the enhanced value 
 attached to Sabbath-observance, circumcision, the 
 priestly ritual and hierarchy, the centralisation of 
 worship, and the new feasts and fasts. ^ The eighty- 
 five new chapters, and also shorter interpolations, 
 were distributed among the various books for this 
 very purpose, e.g. Gen. i. was inserted with its story 
 of the Creation leading up expressly to the Sabbath- 
 observance advocated by the Code; the Flood is 
 given a new setting closing with a command not to 
 eat blood; and the history of Isaac's birth has in 
 view the new meaning now attached to circumcision, 
 Similarly, to bring them into line with the Priestly 
 
 ' P might be called "Origins of the Institutions of Israel," for, according 
 to it, these institutions were not all at once, but progressively, revealed and 
 amplified from age to age as occasion demanded. Thus the sabbath-ordinance 
 has its origin and sanction in the Creation itself, as God's own Day of rest. 
 The Flood gives occasion to the first permission of animal-food, with the 
 proviso prohibiting ilesh with blood in it. Circumcision first comes in with 
 Abraham, while the Passover (and its name) is ordained in connection with 
 the last Egyptian plague ; and all the ordinances of worship were revealed at 
 Sinai. And, as P's only legitimate sacrifice presupposes one central temple 
 and altar, a legitimate priesthood, and regular ritual, the patriarchs in P never 
 offer sacrifice. No sacrifice before God's institution of the Tabernacle and its 
 cultus could be anything but impious, like heathen worship. On the same 
 principle of progressive revelation, rtiese institutions were not all first revealed 
 to Israel, e.g. the Sabbath is instituted at the Creation, i.e. a revelation to all 
 men ; but the extension of Revelation gradually narrows, e.g. Adam (all men) ; 
 Noah's son Shtm (= Semites) ; Terah's line, i.e. Abraham (= Hebrews). 
 Hence the genealogies and their value. 
 
ANACHRONISMS IN PRIESTLY CODE 213 
 
 Code, the Passover, an old agricultural festival, is 
 given quite a new significance, while the Day of 
 Atonement, of very late origin, is made out to be a 
 Mosaic institution, and the most important and 
 holiest of Holy Days ; the centralisation of worship 
 in the Tabernacle is also made out to be the rule 
 already in Moses' day, while priests and Levites are 
 represented as a caste set apart by Divine order from 
 the very first. 
 
 The Priestly Code thus cuts across plain facts of 
 history, is wholly based on theocratic motives and 
 ideals, and throws back its own ideals into a remote 
 past. Its symbolical ideas are transformed into 
 tangible history, simply because its authors honestly 
 and verily believed that what is done, and ought to 
 be done, in their day was always done by true 
 Israelites in all ages, exactly as we Churchmen throw 
 back, in all honesty of conscience, our own view of 
 episcopacy into the New Testament. In their eyes, 
 for instance, sacrifice not done by priests, or offered 
 outside the Temple, is sheer profanity ; hence in the 
 Priestly Writings the early patriarchs never offer 
 sacrifice in person, nor good kings either, yet we 
 know they constantly did so. 
 
 Such was the Priestly Code of Holiness. What 
 estimate are we to form of its moral and religious 
 value ? This question we discuss in our next chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 MORAL AND SPIRITUAL VALUE OF PRIESTLY CODE 
 
 What estimate are we to form of the Priestly Code's 
 moral and spiritual worth ? On this point, from New 
 Testament days onward, opinions have been very 
 divided. One school condemns it wholesale, the other 
 exalts it as a God-given guide to heaven. Let us 
 state the case for and against the Code as impartially 
 as we can; though it is very difficult for either 
 Christian or Jew i to hold the scales without bias. 
 
 (A) Against the Code. — The "case against the Code, 
 as it strikes the ordinary Christian steeped in Paul's 
 Epistles and the Gospels, is easily stated. From this 
 standpoint, its weak points "jump to the eyes," with 
 its meticulous attention to trivial external details, its 
 stress on the mechanical performance of mere ritual 
 and ceremonial acts, "its weak and beggarly elements." 
 This spirit of legalism seems such a sad fall off from 
 
 ' As Montefiore, H.L., 3SS sqq. and 467 sq. well points out, (i) The best 
 O.T. historian, if unversed in Rabbinical literature, is a most inadequate 
 authority for the post-Nehemian era, because (2) O.T. history ends with 
 432 B.C. and helps us practically not at all to a correct estimate of the evolution 
 of Judaism from 400 B.C. onward, its most important period. The apocalypses 
 give us but the mere fringe of it, and the O.T. Canon, already in existence 
 in 130 B.C., thus leaves us in mediis rebus. (3) Jn the O.T. we see only 
 tendencies to a fully established Judaism, still in the making even in Jesus' 
 day, and not complete till about 200 A.D. This is known as Rabbinism, and 
 it alone gives us the real clue we need for the delineation of the religious 
 evolution from 400 B.C. which led up to it. (4) Montefiore, f/.L., 358, rightly 
 adds that we must avoid two snares : (A) " Christian theologians too habitually 
 look at post-exilic Judaism through Pauline spectacles," (b) the Jew looks at 
 it from the standpoint of modern Judaism. The one safe guide, according to 
 Montefiore, is to steep yourself in such documentary evidence as we have in 
 post-exilic O.T. literature (for though O.T. history ends in 432, O.T. litera- 
 ture goes on to 160 B.C.), e.g. the Psalter ; while the only commentary of any 
 real use to a right understanding of post-exilic O.T. Judaism is to be found in 
 its child, Rabbinism, spirit of its spirit. The " end " explains the earlier stages 
 and gives them their true inner meaning. 
 
 214 
 
IMPEACHMENT OF PRIESTLY CODE 215 
 
 the living truths and inspiring principles of the 
 prophets, with their heart-religion and their worship 
 of God in spirit and in truth. In a word, the Priestly 
 Code, looked at in this light, does not fall into line 
 with our idea of religion as a character and a life. 
 Our idea of Religion is that it should work from 
 within outwards, as the self-utterance of a heart so 
 full of the love of God that it constrains us to upright- 
 ness of character and the service of our brother-man. 
 True religion should stress the spirit rather than the 
 letter, the motive rather than the deed, character above 
 action. 
 
 Now, says the Paulinist, the Priestly Code does the 
 very opposite. In it acts, not motives, count. The 
 moral factor, the man's frame of heart, is all but a 
 negligible quantity ; it is punctilious attention to the 
 Code's ceremonial etiquette alone that matters and 
 works with magical efficacy. From first to last the 
 Code tells us : Do this prescribed action, refrain from 
 this unclean thing, and you earn merit with God ; if 
 you do this wrong act or come in contact with that 
 unclean thing, then go straight to a priest with the 
 prescribed offering in your hand, and this will of itself 
 avert God's wrath and punishment. And what is the 
 outcome of such a Creed ? From fear of punishment 
 or hope of reward, men perform the duties prescribed 
 and go on their way rejoicing that it is so easy to 
 make God and the world thus walk hand in hand. 
 Morally and spiritually, such compliance does little 
 or ho good and almost invariably degenerates into a 
 hollow dead form. Religious observances which do 
 not touch will or heart leave men as they were, and 
 not infrequently beget hypocrisy and Pharisaism. 
 
 Moreover the Code, urge its critics, fosters a 
 totally wrong idea of God. He is a God so " Holy," 
 so aloof from all that is common or unclean, that He 
 is all but inaccessible in His awe-ful and unapproach- 
 able Glory. All immediate access to Him is forbidden 
 to His people. For a layman to draw near, except 
 
2l6 VALUE OF PRIESTLY CODE 
 
 by proxy through His priests, means instant death. 
 Even of the priests themselves, none but one, the 
 chiefest, dare enter the Holy of Holies into the 
 immediate Presence, and that only once a year. 
 Naturally, such a transcendent conception of God 
 gave the Jews the idea of a God to whom they looked 
 up with awe, but not a God who appealed to them as 
 a Father, neither could they feel for Him the love and 
 trust of children. He is a stern Judge, noting all 
 man's actions with an exacting eye, keeping a record 
 in which He credits to him all acts of obedience to 
 His Law, while debiting all transgressions of it, the 
 balance for or against him in God's Book deciding the 
 man's fate. Hence, in legal Judaism, religion becomes 
 increasingly a matter of pure calculation : not, How 
 much can I do for God ? but. How little may I do and 
 yet secure the reward I seek? The inevitable ten- 
 dency is for the relationship between God and man 
 to degenerate into a kind of legal contract, under 
 which man gives God only just so much as he is 
 absolutely obliged by the terms of the bond. 
 
 Hence, it is asked, how can such a religion, (i) in 
 which acts, not motives, count ; (2) in which a man's 
 heaven or hell is arithmetically computed ; (3) in which 
 it is so easy for a man to make terms with his con- 
 science and his God by merely conforming to a fixed 
 scale of outward formalities, — how can such a religion 
 produce in its votaries anything but formalism, 
 sanctimoniousness, and hypocrisy ? Is it any wonder 
 that heart-religion and true morality receded into 
 the background, as our New Testament shows? A 
 religion of the Law must produce either self-righteous 
 Pharisees, or else drive men into despair, as St. Paul 
 found. 
 
 With St. Paul, these critics of the Law deny it all 
 moral or spiritual value. St. Paul is not content with 
 branding it as worthless for righteousness. He 
 deliberately adds : it was given " for the sake (x"V"') 
 of transgressions," i.e. not to make us good, — this is 
 
ST. PAUL AND CHRIST ON THE LAW 217 
 
 Utterly beyond its power, — but only to make us see 
 how bad we are. This is its one objective. There- 
 fore, says Paul, God intended it merely for a season 
 as a temporary make-shift till Christ came. The Law, 
 far from ridding us of sin and making us better, has 
 but one aim, to bring us to the verge of despair and 
 thus drive us, as it drove St. Paul, to Christ for sal- 
 vation. That was its one divine purpose, to make us 
 realise our absolute need of a Saviour from sin and 
 death. It was " our schoolmaster leading us unto 
 Christ." Now Christ has come, its work is done. 
 Neither God nor man has any further use for it and its 
 " beggarly elements." Paul abolishes the whole law 
 with a stroke of the pen, not the ritual law only, but 
 the moral law as well with its " ministration of death 
 written and engraven on stones " (2 Cor. iii. 7 R. V. ; 
 cf. Rom. vii. 7, where he speaks of the sin-producing 
 effect of the Tenth Commandment). 
 
 This is a sweeping indictment ! But is Paul right ? 
 If so, how can his Master have seen good points in 
 the Law? He certainly did, or He never would have 
 said : " The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat ; 
 all things, therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, 
 that observe and do " (St. Mt. xxiii. 2) ; " ye pay tithe of 
 mint . . , and have omitted the weightier matters of 
 the law, judgment, mercy, and faith ; these ought ye to 
 have done, and not to leave the other undone " (ibid. 23) ; 
 " till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or tittle shall 
 in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled" (v. 18); 
 " I am not come to destroy (the law), but to fulfil "(17). 
 Some scholars discount these St. Matthew pro-law 
 passages ; but, surely, if Jesus had in any way by 
 practice or teaching set the Law at nought as value- 
 less, would His disciples have respected it as they did 
 after His Death? We are ready enough to accept 
 Paul's scathing denunciation of the Law, but we forget 
 that the Twelve were amongst its champions. They 
 devoutly observed it and expected their converts to 
 do so too : " Thou seest, brother (Paul), how many 
 
2l8 VALUE OF PRIESTLY CODE 
 
 thousands of Jews there are which believe ; and they 
 are all zealous of the Law, etc. " (Acts xxi. 20 sqq.). 
 Clearly, then, Christ and the Twelve do not see eye 
 to eye with St. Paul in their reading of the Law. 
 Which of the two verdicts are we to choose? The 
 next section may help us to see how far the right is 
 on the side of Jesus and the Twelve.* 
 
 • We shall plead fully the case for the Law on its own merits, but this by 
 the way. Sitting in judgment on Judaism, well for us if we took to heart four 
 . words of Christ : (i) " Ve shall know them by their Jruils." Judaism (550-1 
 B.C.) bore the Code and Chron., yes, and Psalms, Prov., Job, Ruth j it had 
 its Temple ritual and its edifying ministry of the Word in its synagogue-services. 
 What one label will serve for such nianifold expression of spiritual life? 
 (2) " We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced, we have mourned and ye 
 have not wept." We brand the Code as too" legal, and the wisdom-literature 
 (e.g. Prov.) as mere morality-preaching ; (3) This {legal rules) ought ye to 
 have done, and not to leave the other (prophetic heart-religion) undo9u." True 
 religion needs both Law and Prophets ; one alone leaves it one-sided and 
 lop-sided ; (4) " They have Moses and the Prophets, if they will not hear them, 
 neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead," i.e. Judaism meets 
 all wants. All said and done, religion is largely a matter of temperament, ».«. ' 
 men are bom High, Low, or Broad. There have always been and ever will 
 be those who prefer to be born into a Church which tells them what to believe 
 and what to do, categorically ; there have also always been and ever will be 
 others for whom religion cannot be tied down to mere obedience to, or 
 acceptance of, organisation, creeds, or rites, i.e. some prefer Mosaic legalism (cf. 
 James), others prophetic heart-religion (cf. Paul). Where good men in all 
 ages have thus agreed to differ, there must be good grounds for the difference. 
 The one test of an institution-,' creed, or rite is ; " Does it produce the frame of 
 heart responsive to and receptive of the Spirit and Presence of God ? " If so, 
 it is doing all God asks and wants and is God-blessed. God wants equally 
 a legalist James, a broad Paul,' a moderate Peter. If a true Churchis to 
 gather to her bosom men of a variety of thought, of "all sorts and conditions " 
 as God makes them, she herself must be, like Truth, many-sided. She must 
 have a Moses, Isaiah, and Job, each facing Truth from different aspects, yet 
 equally loyal to her leading principles. A living comprehensive Jewish 
 Church met all these wants in her " Moses and the Prophets as Christ assures 
 us (Lk. xvi. 29). 
 
 St. Paul's indictment is biased, yet essentially true in idea. He saw 
 Jews making a legalism, which did not suit his temperament, the one way to 
 heaven ; and Jewish Christians making Christ plus the law God's one way of 
 salvation ; i.e. James, Peter, etc., found "Moses and the Prophets" their true 
 spiritual meat, as Christ implies in Lk. xvi. 29. No I Paul retorts : It must 
 be the one or the other. " If righteousness come by the law," even in part, 
 " then Christ died in vain " f^af^iv). Salvation is of " grace," God's pure gift, 
 not at all man's own achievement by "works of the law." The tendency of 
 all reformers is to exaggerate. We can no more take au pied de la Itttrt 
 Paul's sweeping denunciation of the law, his old creed on which he had turned 
 his back, than we can unreservedly take Luther's denunciation of Rome. The 
 colours of the pictures are too strongs the values distorted, and give a false 
 impression. Tlie Twelve and Christians of 160 A.D. (2 Pet. iii.) found Paul 
 " hard to be understood," so do many of us to-day. His misinterpreted creed 
 led to abuses, even immorality, e.g. Antinomian Christians took his "faith 
 without works " literally, and acted accordingly, and so do some to-day. 
 
DEFENCE OF THE PRIESTLY CODE 219 
 
 (B) For the Code. — At first glance, one would cer- 
 tainly suppose that the Code, with its stress on outward 
 ceremonial, must have had a deadening effect on 
 religion, turned it into a lifeless theological creed 
 clothed in a web of formality and legalism, a religion 
 of the letter and not of the spirit. Daily experience 
 proves that the logic of theory is often at variance 
 with the logic of facts and, as a matter of fact, 
 Judaism did not produce these distressing results, 
 rather the very reverse. Far from producing merely 
 a crop of sanctimonious hypocrites, the Law nurtured 
 a vast number of saintly lives. " By their fruits ye 
 shall know them. A good tree cannot bring forth 
 evil fruit, neither a corrupt tree good fruit." What 
 were the fruits of Hebrew religion under the Law ? 
 If we really want to see these fruits, we shall look 
 for them in the actual picture of the post-exilic period 
 as painted for us by Chron., Prov.,Job, Eccles., Malachi, 
 Ruth, Dan., and especially Psalms, books written 
 under the Law, and the Psalter often by men so 
 steeped in the Law that they proudly declare : " The 
 Law of Thy mouth is better unto me than thousands 
 of gold and silver." May it not be that we Christians 
 are far too apt to judge Judaism by the picture 
 of it painted in our New Testament 500 years after 
 the codification of the Law? This plea is juster 
 than we may think, for many reasons. Would we 
 ourselves like Christianity or the Apostolic Church 
 to be gauged by its decadent successor 500 years or 
 even 200 years later ? Again, in the New Testament 
 we have a picture of Judaism as seen through the 
 eyes of writers who never could forgive the Jews, 
 becau^ certain Jewish priests and scribes had secured 
 the Death of their Master and were now showing 
 hostility and animosity to themselves. Moreover, 
 Jews themselves own that the age of Jesus was a 
 crucial and unsettled period for Judaism, one "of 
 religious ferment and fanaticism, an age of violent 
 oppositions. Sadducee and Pharisee and Zealot, 
 
220 VALUE OF PRIESTLY CODE 
 
 Essene and Outcast, all figure upon the religious 
 stage. The defects of all parties show themselves 
 strongly in fierce antagonism and morbid exaggera- 
 tion," a dark state of things very unlike 550-130 b.c. 
 or the real Judaism inaugurated by the Temple's fall 
 in 70 A.D. (Montefiore, Hibb. Led., 546). Confessedly, 
 in Jesus' day, there were some very bigoted, fanatical, 
 narrow scribes and Pharisees, or our Lord would not 
 have denounced them so uncompromisingly, and Jews 
 to-day own it. But there are extremists to-day, 
 scribes and Pharisees by the score ; yet we have no 
 right to judge either Judaism or Christianity by the 
 standard of that extreme militant section which 
 catches the public eye and ear precisely by reason 
 of its extreme views, and seems much larger than 
 it is simply because it shouts so loud. , We con- 
 centrate our gaze on those bigoted Jews, the extreme 
 wing, whom our Lord denounces rightly. We forget 
 the scribe of whom Christ said : " Thou art not far 
 from the kingdom of God," the " ruler " whom Jesus 
 " beholding, loved," the multitudes of simple respon- 
 sive souls who " heard Him gladly " and to whom His 
 own heart went out in love. We forget the large 
 class of "meek," "humble," quiet religiotis souls, 
 " Israelites indeed, in whom there is no guile," 
 thousands upon thousands of devout men and women 
 scattered up and down Israel, like Nathanael and 
 Simeon, watching for the " Consolation of Israel," the 
 main body of real God-worshippers who say little, 
 while the extremists shout loud and have the arena 
 to themselves. We forget the Twelve Apostles, stout 
 champions of the Law, who wofshipped in Jewish 
 synagogues and in the Temple side by side with non 
 Christian Jews, and only left these synagogues when 
 driven out. We forget that Christ was no foe to the 
 Law, only to its abuse, and urged His disciples to 
 obey it (p. 217 sup^. Would our Lord Himself so 
 regularly have worshipped in Temple and synagogue, 
 if Judaism had been all wrong in His eyes? Paul, 
 
EVIDENCE OF THE PSALTER 221 
 
 not Christ, condemns the Law. Christ saw that the 
 Law was good, but it was not the best; He had 
 no idea of abolishing it, only of stopping men 
 from making it the alpha and omega of religion : 
 "these ought ye to have done, and not to l;eave the 
 other undone." His criticism was constructive, not 
 destructive, with a sense of continuity and values. 
 
 Our Lord's reading of the Law appeals to all men, 
 even to many Jews to-day, it is so essentially simple 
 and reasonable, so unlike the sweeping and em- 
 bittered indictment of Paul. In that simple and 
 reasonable spirit we would fain approach the Law 
 now, in the belief that if we take a Psalter, written 
 by men living directly under the Law, steeped in it 
 and glorying in it, we may best be able to gauge the 
 real moral and spiritual value of the Law in the Israel 
 of 550-150 B.C., with which alone we have here to deal. 
 We might equally take Job, Prov., Chron., Malachi 
 and the rest of the post-exilic literature, but we 
 choose the Psalter here as our one guide and autho- 
 rity, because (i) it is the one Old Testament Book we 
 all know best ; (2) because nine-tenths of it was written 
 by men living under and loving the Law between 
 550-150; (3) because it was the Temple Prayer-Book 
 and Hymn-Book; (4) because its 150 psalms embody 
 the spiritual experience, not of one man, but of a vast 
 number of Jews for 400 years after the Exile, and 
 therefore cover the views of— if we may be allowed 
 the phrase — High, Low, and Broad Jewish Church- 
 men under the Law for a period of centuries.^ 
 
 ' One critic urges that my use of the Psalter as a test of the moral and 
 spiritual views of Judaism is as if "2000 years hence a writer, dealing with 
 the twentieth-century religion, took our Prayer-Book collects as expressive of 
 its spiritual depth, whereas our war-prayers to-day show the pitiful falling off 
 really existing to-day in that form of spiritual utterance." But surely this 
 analogy fails doubly : (i) Most of our Prayer-Book collects are of very great 
 antiquity and not Reformation collects at all, whereas nine-tenths of the 
 Psalms were written " under the Law " ; (2) our war-prayers may show a 
 falling off inform, but are they at all less spiritual than the collects, or written 
 by less spiritually-minded people ? Moreover, the Prayer-Book and its collects, 
 we maintain, would not be a bad guide for a writer, 2000 years hence, on the 
 Anglicanism of 1920 A.D., i.e. the views of the main body of English Church- 
 men and not extremists. But — and this is our point — we are concerned in 
 
222 VALUE OF PRiESTLY CODE 
 
 We want to gauge the heart-beliefs fostered by 
 legal Judaism, and in the prayers, confessions, praise, 
 meditations, aspirations, of the Psalter we have the 
 typical pious Israelite's inmost faith laid bare before 
 our eyes. Now does the Psalter give us that picture 
 of Judaism sketched by its critics ? Is its God an 
 unapproachable God, a stern Judlge to be feared, not 
 loved and trusted as a Father ? Is our pious Israelite 
 (a) self-righteous, or (i) on the verge of despair ? Is 
 legal Judaism a formal external religion of little moral 
 or Spiritual worth ? Let us see what the Psalter has 
 to tell us on these points. 
 
 Conception of God. — " Like as a father pitieth his children, 
 so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him, for He knoweth whereof 
 we are made." "The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, 
 long-suffering and of great kindness." " The Lord is my Shep- 
 herd, etc." " The Lord is nigh unto all that call upon Him." 
 "He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings 
 shalt thou trust." " Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there 
 is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee." " The 
 Lord is my refuge, ' my Rock,' ' my King,' * my Helper,' ' my 
 strength and my Redeemer.' " " The earth is full of the loving- 
 kindness of the Lord." 
 
 Loving-kindness, God is good, God is near,— this 
 is the note of notes of the Psalter, a faith in a living 
 and loving God, gracious and full of loving-kindness, 
 near to us in all our needs, a God who rules and cares 
 and helps and loves, our Father. 
 
 Is He a stern Judge, noting all our faults, balancing 
 our good and bad points and passing His verdict on 
 us accordingly ? 
 
 the text with the Judaism of the O.T., i.e. from SSO-'So B.C., not with 
 Rabbinism. It is admitted that (i) nine-tenths of the Psalms are exilic, or 
 post-exilic, i.e. written " under the Law " ; (2) that the Psalter was the Temple 
 Prayer and Hymn Book ; (3) that the Psalter represents many writers,' many 
 minds, many shades of thought, i.e. it is a good guide to the views held "under 
 the Law " from iy>-ie,o. If it be asked why Rabbinic Judaism did not go on 
 writing Psalms, this is beyond our present subject, but even if true, does death 
 of poetry also mean death of " spirituality " any more than our inartistic war- 
 prayers m:an spiritual stagnation? And Rabbinism of the SpanishrArabic 
 period did produce spiritual poets. 
 
CONCEPTION OF GOD IN THE PSALMS 223 
 
 "If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, Lord, who shall 
 stand? But there is forgiveness with Thee." "The Lord is 
 merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. 
 He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us accord- 
 ing to our iniquities. As far as the east is from the west, so far 
 hath He removed our transgressions from us." 
 
 God's tender mercy, however, does not dim the 
 psalmist's sense of sin as defiling the soul, hateful to 
 God, veiling God's face : Read Ps. li. : 
 
 " Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned." " Heal my soul, 
 for I have sinned against Thee " (xli.) ; " Hide not Thy face from 
 me"; "Cleanse Thou me from secret faults." 
 
 Again, if our Father is ever good and ever near, 
 so that I can " rejoice in the Lord, and be glad," our 
 pious Jew under the Law does not forget that He is 
 " Our Father which art in heaven" 
 
 " When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy hands, what 
 is man that Thou art mindful of him?" "Whither shall I go 
 then from Thy Spirit or flee from Thy presence ? If I ascend 
 into heaven. Thou art there ; if I make my bed in hell. Thou art 
 there also ; if I dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there 
 shall Thy hand lead me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover 
 me, — the darkness and light are both alike to Thee." 
 
 God so great, man so small; even though God 
 is our Father, rightly does the Psalter strike as our 
 key-note: "Stand in awe of Him." No servile fear 
 this, rather the spirit of loving trustful reverence : 
 "Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trem- 
 bling." The psalmist freely recognises that love is 
 higher than fear : " The fear of the Lord is the begin- 
 ning of wisdom " ; a man is to fear God so that he 
 may end by loving Him from the ground of the heart. 
 But, to the end, Judaism rightly saw that perfect love 
 should never forget" the reverence akin to awe which 
 every true child feels to the earthly or heavenly father 
 he loves and trusts. 
 
 Such is the God of the Psalter, a living and loving 
 
224 VALUE OF PRIESTLY CODE 
 
 Personal God, a Person as real as themselves to these 
 pious Jews. Without scruple or- hesitation do they 
 speak of Him almost as if He were a man with eyes, 
 ears, hands, feet. He is a God who rules the universe, 
 yes, and whose eyes are open to our needs. His ears 
 ever attentive to His children's cry. His eyelids try 
 the children of men, His right hand helps and His 
 strong arm delivers all who call upon Him. He opens 
 His hand and all things are filled with good. He hides 
 His face and we are troubled; He sends forth His 
 breath and life is created. He takes it back and we 
 die. Even as ourselves, He loves and hates, grieves 
 and is glad, is angry and pleased, chides and repents. 
 Very simple, but very warm and inspiring is the 
 psalmist's portrait of God. If we want the theolo- 
 gian's or philosopher's conception of God, we must 
 not seek it in the Psalter, it is not there. The psalms 
 speak not at all of G6d as "transcendent" or "im- 
 manent," neither do they seejc to define His meta- 
 physical nature. The Psalter's idea of God is 
 unsystematic, inconsistent often; yes, and just because 
 it is exactly the picture of God which the child of 
 God instinctively frames for himself, it appeals to 
 every man's and woman's heart, and through it we 
 are brought directly into the actual Presence of the 
 Lord, our Father and King, our Master and Saviour, 
 a God who " cares " and " loves " and " hearkens " and 
 " helps," a God who is holy and good and very near ; 
 and this is the living God we all want. 
 
 Personal Religion. — Is our pious Israelite under the 
 Law either self-righteous or on the verge of despair ? 
 Self-righteous ? Yes, and No. Roughly speaking, as 
 an Israelite he is self-righteous, as an individual he 
 is not ; and for this reason. From first to last in 
 Israel's conception of God, there is a note that jar^ 
 on modern ears. Israel ever laid claim to God as his 
 God in a way that made him narrow and exclusive. 
 Strange, for in all other respects the pious Jew had as 
 true an idea of God as ours. He knew Him as the 
 
JEWISH EXCLUSIVENESS 22$ 
 
 one and only God, the source, stay and goal of all 
 that is ; a God righteous, holy, loving, our Father in 
 heaven; a God of whom he spoke as a person, 
 though he well knew that a God who is everywhere 
 and knows every secret thought and is almighty 
 Creator is not like ourselves. But with it all, God, 
 Ruler of the Universe, was to a Jew Israel's God as 
 He was not the God of other men, He was Israel's 
 God, and Israel His people. This idea was a source 
 of weakness, yet of strength, in Israel's religion. Of 
 weakness, for it fostered a narrow national pride which 
 (except in II. Isaiah) ever made them look down upon 
 all outside their own race as "ungodly" heathen, 
 and on themselves as " righteous " Israel. Indeed, 
 even in the Psalter, the nations are constantly viewed, 
 not only as the wicked foes of Israel, but of God Him- 
 self. Say as Jews may, and do say, that their aloof- 
 ness and particularism are the defects of their qualities, 
 of their intense patriotism, intense faith in God, intense 
 zeal for His cause, the plain fact remains that, as a 
 nation, their divine election and consequent pride of 
 race made them the most exclusive and self-righteous 
 people on earth. And the individual Jew was not 
 quite free from this self-righteous spirit, and for this 
 reason. Even when, after Jeremiah and Ezekiel, 
 religion had become purely personal, so innate in 
 every Jew was the corporate sense, so essentially 
 did he identify himself with his Israel, that he was 
 ever apt to appropriate to himself a " righteousness " 
 to which, undoubtedly, Israel could rightly lay claim 
 above all other nations then. We see this note of per- 
 sonal self-righteousness in some psalms: "Judge me, 
 O Lord, according to my righteousness " (vii.). " The 
 Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness, 
 etc." (xviii., cf xxvi.) ; though we shall presently see 
 how keenly alive most psalmists are to this danger. 
 
 But if the claim : " Jehovah is our God, we are His 
 people," postered exclusiveness and national pride, it 
 was equally a source of great strength. The Israelite 
 
 Q 
 
2 26 VALUE OF PRIESTLY -CODE 
 
 knew well that noblesse oblige. Underlying Israel's 
 whole Law is this principle : " Be ye holy, as I am 
 Holy." This ideal of a people consecrated to God 
 body, mind, and soul, individually and collectively, is 
 grand and sublime, and it exercised a wondrous vitalis- 
 ing and inspiring influence for good on Israel and 
 Israelite alike. Each member of God's Israel realised, 
 not only God's nearness to himself as an Israelite, 
 but his own great responsibility to his Israel and 
 Israel's God. The individual Jew realised that, for 
 good or ill, he was pouring his little stream of life 
 into the tide of Israel's life, either speeding or retard- 
 ing the coming of Israel's Kingdom of God on earth. 
 And if "Jehovah, Israel's God and King," was an 
 inspiring ideal to the Jew, so was the Temple, God's 
 own House in His people's midst ; and what a sense 
 of responsibility and of the near Presence of God it 
 awakened in Jewish hearts! In a way all but im- 
 possible for us to realise, the Jew felt that, in God's' 
 Temple, he was in God's actual and immediate 
 Presence, a Presence even more real than Christ's 
 Presence in the Eucharist to a Roman Catholic. To 
 the Jew the Temple was as heaven itself, it awakened 
 all that was best and noblest in him, brought him 
 into an actual communion with God of the closest 
 kind. "My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the 
 courts of the Lord ; my heart crieth out for the living 
 God. . . . For a day in Thy courts is better than a 
 thousand." He meant it ; no empty words these. 
 There, rapt in God, all his troubles and puzzles 
 vanish : " It was too painful to me, until I went into 
 the sanctuary of God, then understood I " (cf. xxvii. 4 
 sqq.). Not only was it a great privilege to appear 
 before God in His Temple, it had a hallowing effect 
 on his character, for there especially did he realise 
 what a barrier sin created between the soul and its 
 God, as Ps. XV. shows. 
 
 Clearly then, if Israel's claim to Jehovah as Israel's 
 God fostered national pride, exclusiveness, and a 
 
ttUMILiTY, THE PSALTER'S NOTE 22^ 
 
 tendency to self-righteousness, it also acted as a keen 
 spur to personal religion and rightness of life. Indeed, 
 Humility, and not Pride, is the Psalter's note. No one 
 is more keenly alive than the psalmist to the danger of 
 that self-righteous pride which whispers to itself: 
 " Lord, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are." 
 The Psalter ever raises its voice against this self- 
 deceiving spirit. Over and over again, and in many 
 keys, does it harp on Christ's own stirring note : 
 " The meek shall inherit the earth " (Ps. xxxvii. 1 1) ; 
 
 " The meek will He guide in judgment " ; " The meek will He 
 teach His way " ; " Thou wilt bring down high looks " ; " The 
 Lord is nigh them that are of a broken heart, and saveth such as 
 be of contrite spirit." 
 
 Too keenly alive was the pious Israelite to man's 
 littleness and insignificance, his feebleness, his misery, 
 his sin, too conscious of the majesty of the infinite 
 and eternal God, to pride himself on his own " self- 
 righteousness." 
 
 St. Paul also tells us the Law's one aim is to con- 
 vict man of sin and bring him to the brink of despair. 
 Was our pious Israelite on this brink of despair? 
 No doubt the deepest contrition for sin is vividly 
 portrayed, e.g. in Pss. xxxii. and li., sometimes in 
 very forcible language : " I am weary with my groan- 
 ing; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water 
 my couch with my tears " (vi. 6). The contrite heart 
 in all ages has found no language more vocal of its 
 penitential sorrow or its joy of forgiveness than the 
 words of, e.g. Pss. xxxii., li., ciii., cxxx. But, strange 
 to say, the note of personal sin is not nearly so 
 pronounced as we are apt to fancy in the Psalter; 
 for most of its penitential psalms voice Israel's 
 contrition as a nation (see " I " psalms, p. 262, w/.). Far 
 from driven to the verge of despair by the Law's 
 terrors, the Israelite of the Psalter is, if anything, 
 over-confident, not because h^ is self-righteous, but 
 because he reposes such infinite trust in God's loving 
 
228 VALUE OF PRIESTLY CODE 
 
 kindness and abundant forgiveness, and looks up to 
 Him as a child to father, e.g. Ps. ciii. 
 
 Its critics tell us : " In Judaism, acts, not motives, 
 count." Is this true ? Our ovirn holiest service begins 
 with the prayer: "Almighty Gbd, unto whom all 
 hearts be open, etc." Did our pious Jew not know 
 God as one who reads all our motives and from whom 
 no secrets are hid ? 
 
 " Thou hast searched me and known me, Thou understandest 
 my thoughts afar off, there is not a word in my tongue but Thou 
 knowest it altogether. . . . Such knowledge is too wonderful for 
 me, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go then from Thy 
 Spirit, or flee from Thy Presence, etc." " Thou hast set our secret 
 sins in the light of Thy countenance." " If we have forgotten the 
 name of our God, shall not God search it out ? For He knoweth 
 the secrets of the heart." " If I regard iniquity in my heart, the 
 Lord will not hear me." "Search me, O God, and know my 
 heart." " Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right 
 spirit within me." " Blessed are they that seek Him with the 
 whole heart." 
 
 "Judaism is all ritual and little moral." If so, how 
 explain the Psalter as the Temple's Prayer and Hymn- 
 Book? In it we have not only 
 
 " I will go into Thine House with burnt offerings, I will offer 
 bullocks with goats " ; but also " Thou desirest not sacrifice, else 
 I would give it; Thou deUghtest not in burnt-offering. The 
 sacrifices of God are a broken spirit " ; and " Would I eat the 
 flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats ? " 
 
 The Psalter endorses the sacrifice of bulls, it also 
 exalts the sacrifice of heart-service, and the Temple- 
 congregation sing both kinds of psalms alike and 
 endorse both, well knowing that sacramental service 
 can be every whit as spiritual as prophetic service 
 and that each without the other is lacking and lop- 
 sided. If Judaism ignored the moral factor, how are 
 we to explain this anomaly ? or such a psalm as Ps. xv. : 
 "Lord, who shall abide in Thy Tabernacle?" and 
 promptly answering its own question thus: "the man 
 
THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD 229 
 
 whose life and character are right " ? or how explain 
 the equally plain fact that the Rabbis had as their 
 Atonement-Day Lesson Is. Iviii. — exactly as in our 
 own Ash- Wednesday service — a chapter which insists 
 that the only true fast is moral well-doing? 
 
 " The Law," say its critics, " was a heavy yoke ; 
 rewards and punishments the only incentives to a 
 religious life." Can any one read Ps cxix., writh its 
 refrain, repeated in many keys, "The Law of Thy 
 mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and 
 silver" ; " I delight in Thy Law " ; " Sweeter (is it) than 
 honey to my mouth " — and yet endorse that indict- 
 ment ? I readily own that it passes our understanding 
 how a Jew of those days could revel in the Priestly 
 Code with its strict Sabbath and Festival ordinances, 
 its dietary rules of meats allowed and forbidden, its 
 many regulations as to tithes and first-fruits, its pre- 
 cepts of " clean " and " unclean," and so forth. But 
 he did ! All we have said on the pious Israelite's 
 conception of God, as proved by the Psalter, has been 
 written in vain if it does not show that his implicit 
 love and trust towards his loving Father, even when 
 he did not understand the hard road along which that 
 Father was leading him, was a love and trust that 
 nothing could daunt. His attitude was akin to Job's 
 " though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." ^ Of 
 one thing he was sure and certain, Israel's God, his 
 God, might and did chasten him, His child, but only 
 because He loved him so, and had His son's best 
 interests at heart. And as he looked back — how he 
 loved to look back ! {e.g. Pss. Ixxviii., cv., cvi., cxxxvi.) 
 — and saw how lovingly God had fathered His Israel 
 from Egypt onwards, his own heart overflowed with 
 
 ' I am well aware that in Job's mouth "this rendering of the text 
 expresses a thought which is beautiful in itself, but inconsistent with the con- 
 text and the frame of mind in which Job is here speaking " (Driver, Job, 
 ad loc.) and that the real meaning is : " Behold, He will slay me, well, I wait 
 for the death-blow, but nothing will stop me from vindicating myself before 
 Him." But, in the text above I am using it as ordinarily understood, becaijs; 
 it exactly represents our pious Jew's' own feelings, 
 
230 VALUE OF PRIESTLV CODE 
 
 love and gratitude. He asked himself, noi "how little 
 can I do and yet be safe ? " but, " how can I ever let 
 Father see how I love Him as I long to do ? " His 
 one wish and happiness was to please Father, his one 
 fear and grief to pain Him by his character and con- 
 duct. For His people's best good, God had given 
 Israel the Law to keep for His sake as well as for 
 their own. That was enough for our pious Jew. 
 From that moment his one wish, as God's child, his 
 one privilege and joy, was to fulfil Father's will as 
 expressed in that Law. He might not, he did not, 
 always know why Father asked him to do this or that 
 which he did not understand. It was something to 
 be done for Father ; Father wanted it done, that was 
 enough for him, and he did it gladly. He knew Father 
 to be firm, yet at heart very gentle ; experience had 
 taught him that Father's grief or displeasure, punish- 
 ment even, invariably followed his violation of His 
 Law, and his evil deeds ; while Father's approval and 
 joy, maybe rewards, were his when he did well. He 
 loved the approval and reward, and looked forward 
 to them. But he did not do what pleased Father 
 because of the reward, but because Father asked him, 
 because he loved Him, because it was an honour, 
 privilege, pleasure to do it. The more God's express 
 wishes or laws had to do with the details of his daily 
 life — his food, his time, his work, his crops, his person, 
 his thoughts, his words— the more honour and pleasure 
 it was to him. Something to be done for Father from 
 morn to eve, something to be lovingly done which 
 transfigured earthly life, turned its common metal 
 into gold, made it beautiful and divine. 
 
 This is not mere play of fancy on our part. We 
 merely voice the spirit inspiring such psalmsas cxix. 
 or xix. 7 sqq. Their one theme is : Gladly obey the 
 Law, for it is so right, so sweet, so good ; here and 
 now it brings with it its own reward, intimate fellow- 
 ship with Father; the more freely you obey it, the 
 more joyously and lovingly you keep it for its own 
 
MORALITY UNDER THE LAW 23 1 
 
 sake, the more are you like Father (xvii. 15). Of 
 course, hope of reward and fear of punishment play 
 their part in Judaism as in every other religion, 
 Christianity included, but no more. So long as 
 religion is for the many and not for the few, the 
 stimulus of reward is a necessity. But to not a few 
 Israelite psalmists, the assurance of a close walk with 
 Father is reward enough. So close is this walk with 
 God that they feel sure that not even death can sever 
 it. Read those sublime psalms, Pss. xvi. 8-1 1, Ixxiii. 
 23-26. 
 
 Morality under the Law. — Naturally, a Temple 
 Hymn-Book is not nearly so good an index to 
 Judaism's moral background as would be Prov., 
 Chron., Job, its contemporaries ; but here we shall 
 use the Psalter as before. It limits our scope, for, 
 like other hymn-books, it deals but little with ethics 
 pure and simple, yet it is steeped in morality. Over 
 the Psalter might be written Isaiah's : " Cease to do 
 evil, learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the 
 oppressed, plead for the widow and orphan " ; or still 
 more, Micah's : " What doth the Lord require of thee 
 but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly 
 with thy God ? " Take Ps. xv., for instance : 
 
 " Lord, who shall dwell in Thy Tabernacle, or who shall rest 
 upon Thy holy hill ? Even he that leadeth an uncorrupt life, and 
 doeth the thing which is right, and speaketh the truth from his 
 heart ; he that hath used no deceit in his tongue, nor done evil to 
 his neighbour. He that setteth not by himself, but is lowly in his 
 own eyes ; he that sweareth unto his neighbour and disappointeth 
 him not, though it were to his own hindrance ; he that hath not 
 taken reward against the innocent. Whoso doeth these things 
 shall never fall." 
 
 Justice, compassion, loving-kindness are the notes 
 of psalmist morality. Their ideal is 
 
 " Mercy and truth are met together ; righteousness and peace 
 have kissed each other. Truth springeth out of the earth and 
 righteousness hath looked down from heaven." 
 
232 VALUE OF PRIESTLY CODE 
 
 Feed the hungry, help the poor and afflicted, 
 champion the oppressed, is also a dominant note. 
 
 " Thou art the helper of the friendless " ; " To help the poor 
 and fatherless unto their right " ; " Blessed is he that considereth 
 the poor and needy." " Righteousness and judgment for all that 
 are oppressed " ; " He will regard the prayer of the destitute, 
 . . . hear the groaning of the prisoner." 
 
 It is easy to take one-half of Judaism, the ritual 
 or Priestly Code section, and then say that Judaism 
 places ritual on a level with morality, but it is a 
 gross libel on Judaism as an organic whole. It would 
 be the easiest thing in the world to give a crushing 
 reply to this indictment out of post-exilic Old, 
 Testament books. Even in the Priestly Code itself 
 we find more than one anticipation of the Sermon on 
 the Mount, e.g. : 
 
 " Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the 
 children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as 
 thyself, saith the Lord ; thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy 
 heart" (Lev. xix. i8); just as Prov. xxv. 21 tells us: "If thine 
 enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat ; if he be thirsty, give 
 him water to drink"; and xx. 22 : " Say not thou, I will recom- 
 pense evil," and xxiv. 29 ; " Say not, I will do to him as he hath 
 done to me j I will render to the man according to his work." 
 Very modern, too, is Job on the slave : " Did not He that made 
 me in the womb make him ? and did not One fashion us in the 
 womb?" (xxxi. 15).^ 
 
 Such is the Psalter's portrait of Judaism under 
 the Law from SSo-^So B.C. It stops just where we 
 
 ' Rabbinic teaching is full of moral pearls, e.g./. " He that washes himself 
 because of a corpse and touches it again, what avails his washing ? So it is 
 with a man who fasls for his sins and goes again and does the same ; who will 
 hear his prayer, and what avails him his humbling ? " or, " Where the penitents 
 stand, the faultless self-righteous stand not." "This world is like a vestibule 
 before the world to come, preparei thyself in the vestibule that thou majfst 
 enter into the hall." " Better is one hour of repentance and good deeds in 
 this world than the whole life of the world to come ; and better is one hour of 
 blissfulness of spirit in the world to come than the whole life of this world." 
 Judaism is singularly well balanced here, it does not overexalt or depreciate 
 life here ; it preaches God's Kingdom on earth as well as in heaven. 
 
MANIFOLDNESS OF JUDAISM 233 
 
 most long for information; we should like it to 
 sketch in the next 150 years, so as to give us its 
 picture of it in our Lord's day. For our Old Testa- 
 ment period, however, it amply suffices. It will 
 perhaps be asked : — Even though the Psalter clearly 
 proves how good and spiritual a life God-fearing 
 Israelites lived under the Law, it seems paradoxical, 
 and how are we to account for it ? We study the 
 Priestly Code, and what does it consist of? It is 
 largely a long dry set of rules about ritual and 
 sacrifice ; Temple, priests, altar, Holy days ; dietary 
 laws ; regulations concerning tithes, first-fruits, fees ; 
 quaint archaic definitions of " clean " and " unclean." 
 How could such a legal and ceremonial code inspire 
 men to lead such holy lives ? No doubt the Priestly 
 Code in all this had some disciplinary, educative, 
 uplifting value. It held before men's eyes an ideal of 
 duty to be achieved, laws to be obeyed, sin to be 
 forgiven, a holy God to be glorified, a spirit of 
 holiness to be realised in a man's own life. More- 
 over, touching man's life at every turn, even as to 
 what he ate or drank, it gave a. dignity and sanctity 
 to life as a whole, even in its everyday homely details, 
 which cannot but have been of immense value. Still, 
 the fact remains that the Priestly Code in itself hardly 
 seems adequate for the production of such splendid 
 results as the Psalter undoubtedly reveals. 
 
 No one for a moment pretends that it was 
 adequate, Jews least of all ! Had Judaism only had 
 the Priestly Code for its Law or Torah, we should 
 never have had that vast array of saintly lives under 
 the Law. The word Law or Torah is a most elastic 
 and comprehensive term to a Jew. It means the 
 Priestly Code,* yes, and the whole Pentateuch, often 
 
 ' As Mr. Montefiore tells me : " That is the one thing it does not ever 
 mean as a separate entity. After all, the ' Priestly Code ' is a nineteenth- 
 century discovery ! No Jew, from, shall we say, 300 B.C. onward, ever heard 
 of it. He knew of the one and indivisible Pentateuch, and of that only. The 
 ordinary Jew did not ever know the Priestly Code as he knew, say, ' Numbers ' 
 or ' Deuteronomy,' as a separate part of the Torah." 
 
234 VALUE OF PRIESTLY CODE 
 
 the ^yhole Bible, and oral tradition as well. The 
 Code was only one of the portions of the Bible read 
 every Sabbath in the thousand Jewish synagogues, 
 and "meditated day and night" in Hebrew homes. 
 Equally with the Code, the lofty inspiring teaching 
 of Deuteronomy, with its warm moral and spiritual 
 ideals, formed the " Book of the Law " and Israelis 
 rule of life. The " Prophets " were not included in 
 the actual Bible for some time after the Pentateuch 
 had been canonised, but from 586 b.c. they were 
 undoubtedly read and studied, and soon publicly 
 read for edification in the synagogues. Together 
 with Deuteronomy, the Prophets ever remained the 
 eloquent and inspiring exponents of spiritual religion, 
 and the Psalter clearly shows how steeped in their 
 teaching was the Israelite, At no time were the 
 Jews under the sole rule of the Code. A Jew no more 
 confined himself to Leviticus than we do ; " he could 
 appreciate Leviticus, and he could also appreciate 
 Isaiah " (Montefiore). 
 
 We are too apt to cut up Israel's religious history 
 into so many watertight compartments, just as 
 Ezekiel in his Vision divides the Holy Land into 
 rectangular sections. We label 800-600 b.c. the age 
 of prophetic or spiritual religion ; 600 b.c.-i the age 
 of priestly legalism. No people, Israel or any other, 
 thus moves forward on one line or in the mass. As 
 repeatedly stated, ceremonial laws and sacrificial 
 ritual were rife in the prophetic age ; the Psalter 
 proves the vitality of prophetic spirituality in the 
 legal age. Really and truly there was far more living 
 religion of the spirit after than before the Exile, if we 
 gauge a nation's religious life, not by a few outstand- 
 ing personalities, but by its tone as a whole. 
 
 To judge post-exilic Judaism aright, look at its 
 varied literature : (i) priestly book's, e.g. The Code, 
 Chron., Ezra, Nehemiah ; (2) a Psalter which is both 
 priestly and prophetic ; (3) Prov. and Job, almost 
 exclusively prophetic (ethical); (4) Ruth, Esther, 
 
WHY JUDAISM IS MANIFOLD 235 
 
 Ecclesiastes ; (s) apocalyptic Daniel, — and what will 
 forcibly strike you is the richness and manifoldness of 
 post-exilic Judaism. How are we to account for it ? In 
 two ways : (a) Post-exilic literature is essentially reflec- 
 tive and conservative, rather than creative. It enters 
 on the labours of its predecessors, is wholly based on 
 the Pentateuch and " The Prophets," and these faced 
 Truth from many points of view. As Montefiore 
 writes {H.L., 543): "A main cause of the varied 
 character of its religious beliefs was the heavy burden 
 of a sacred Scripture whereof every sentence was 
 necessarily true. The Babel of different doctrines in 
 the Canon of the O.T, was regarded as equally 
 accurate and divine throughout." (b) Long ago 
 Robertson Smith gave us the clue to this " O.T. 
 Babel of different doctrines " : " The Semitic genius 
 does not at all lie in the direction of organic structure. 
 In architecture, in poetry, in history, the Hebrew 
 adds part to part instead of developing a single 
 notion." We have frequently referred to this Hebrew 
 trait. The Hebrew Bible proves it up to the hilt, e.g. 
 the Hexateuch is made up of four distinct and incon- 
 sistent layers, wide apart in date, style, tone, yet 
 welded together as if one organic whole ; so is Isaiah. 
 In the same Gen. and Sam. we have two inconsistent 
 accounts of the Creation, Flood, election of Saul as 
 king, and of Samuel's rdle. Independent documents, 
 mutually inconsistent pictures, are hung side by side 
 with little or no attempt at harmonising them. 
 Clearly the inconsistency did not jar on, or even 
 strike, a Jew as it does us. 
 
 Now exactly the same tendency, the same lack of 
 organic unity, — and for these two reasons, — comes 
 out pronouncedly in Hebrew post-exilic theology. 
 It is the reverse of logical, coherent, dogmatic, 
 systematic; it is full of contradictions. Yet, strange 
 as it sounds, herein lies its strength, and for 
 reasons already given. Not knowledge, but conduct, 
 is the end of life, and in actual practical life, as 
 
236 VALUE OF PRIESTLY CODE 
 
 H. Sidgwick {Methods of Ethics) was for ever telling 
 us, common sense prompts men to order their life, not 
 on one hard-and-fast line, but on two, three, or four 
 fundamental principles, each of which finds a response 
 in our nature. Hence, precisely because Judaism 
 was simple, undogmatic, incoherent, it satisfied and 
 quickened the religious aspirations of "all sorts and 
 conditions " of ordinary men, and proved itself a 
 religion, " not only admirably suited to the, everyday 
 moralities of common life, but also pre-eminently 
 calculated to evoke that constancy and heroism which 
 have sustained its adherents through centuries of 
 suffering and persecution." 
 
 We hold no brief for Judaism. No doubt, in 
 extreme cases, it did produce self-righteous Pharisees. 
 Human nature is too frail not to take advantage of a 
 creed which seems to attach high value to outward 
 ordinances, if its votaries choose to focus their eyes 
 on one of its factors and ignore the others. The 
 Psalter proves how alive to this danger Jews them- 
 selves were. But is Pharisfeism peculiar to Judaism, 
 and are we Christians in a position to cast the first 
 stone ? Again, not for one moment do we hold up 
 the Law as faultless. Its two weak points are self- 
 evident, and many Liberal Jews recognise them 
 to-day : (a) too much emphasis is laid on archaic 
 rules of ceremonial, many of them survivals of 
 primitive man's creed ; (6) a greater defect still is its 
 narrow particularism, making it all but monopolise 
 the God of the universe as Israel's God, and regard 
 other nations as in a very inferior position, both in 
 respect to Him and to themselves. Here our whole 
 contention is that the scathing impeachment of 
 Judaism ^ on the part of Paul and his modern disciples 
 is un-Christian and untrue. A religion should be 
 judged by the frame of heart it produces in its 
 
 ' I am not blind to such passages as Rom. iii. sqq., vii. 12, ix. 4, Gal. iii. 
 24, etc. ; but if we take St. Paul's estimate as a whole, the total impression he 
 means to convey, the wording of this sentence is not one whit too strong. 
 
JUDAISM BLENDS PROPHET AND PRIEST 237 
 
 adherents and by its fruits as seen in their lives. 
 Before we condemn Judaism wholesale, as we are so 
 apt to do, well for us if we study its Psalter, Job, and 
 II. Isaiah, and then ask with Christ : " Do men gather 
 grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? " '■ 
 
 ' Judaism is really the confluence of tjvo streams, the prophetic and the 
 priestly. Israel's spiritual leaders had to deal with men as they found them 
 then and as they are to-day. Prophetic ideals these post-exilic leaders still 
 regard as of the essence of religion. But they also find in men's hearts a 
 "sacramental" leaning, a tendency to view religious services, rites, insti- 
 tutions, not only as spiritual means of grace to those who come to them in a 
 right frame of heart, but as eflfective instruments of grace in themselves to all 
 and any who partake of them ; moreover, they see how great is its power as a 
 factor in man's religious life. They recognise that religion in this world of 
 men, if it is to influence all and not merely a select few, must appeal to the eye 
 and imagination as well as to the heart and mind. Ideals must be expressed in 
 symbolic institutions as well as in words, and, all said and done, rites and acted 
 deeds are as essential to a well-balanced religion as creeds. Call rites, if you will, 
 the "accident of Religion," even as you may call outward and visible tokens 
 of love the accidents of affection, yet neither religion nor affection can thrive 
 without them. So Israel's leaders try to correlate prophetic truths and priestly 
 ritual ; with what success, the Psalter shows ; it speaks for itself. 
 
 And they were perfectly right. Truth is many-sided, and no one-sided 
 expression (be it prophetic or priestly) of spiritual realities will do. We want 
 both the prophetic and the priestly atmosphere, though not their shibboleths, 
 for two reasons : (a) men are influenced by unconscious habits as well as by 
 conscious convictions, and (d), as already said (p. 218 su^.), religion is largely 
 temperamental. In religion, one man's bread is a stone to another. A 
 comprehensive Jewish Church (cf. Anglican to-day) saw that, and faced 
 religioiK Truth from different aspects to gather all to her bosom. Hence my 
 strong plea for Judaism. To me personally, legalism, Jewish or Anglican, 
 appeals not at all. It does not feed my soul ; it starves it. Yet when I see 
 its good fruits, how it kept a kingless nation compact for centuries, saved it 
 from the corrupting Hellenistic spirit, served as "schoolmaster leading men 
 unto Christ," and the many saints it produced, far be it from me to condemn 
 it, "lest haply I be found even to be fighting against God." 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 ^I.) THE " HOLY WRITINGS " : INTRODUCTORY 
 
 The Exile had quashed Israel politically. Hence- 
 forth the Jews are under foreign yoke. Amid their 
 present misfortunes, the memories of the past are 
 idealised and they live in that glorious past. In their 
 Captivity a Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and H. Isaiah had com- 
 forted them; now even that source of comfort is 
 gone. " We see not our signs, there is no more any 
 prophet ; neither is there any among us that knoweth 
 how long. O Lord, how long shall the enemy re- 
 proach ? Why withdrawest Thou Thy hand ? " ^ To 
 obey the Law of Jehovah and patiently await the 
 Deliverer that should redeem Israel was the only 
 vocation left. 
 
 Thus the political annihilation of Israel, the 
 present misery, and the dearth of prophecy, all 
 tended to hallow the past. Its sacred Books were 
 now Israel's sheet-anchor, both as enshrining their 
 glorious past and as God's own Word to them in 
 which He made known the perfect way of life. Here 
 is the key to post-exilic literature. Meditation on the 
 past, ardent study of the Law and the Prophets, an 
 eager looking forward to the "Day of the Lord" 
 which is jto usher in Israel's Golden Age, — are its 
 key-notes. So we now enter upon the age of psalms, 
 wisdom-literature, apocalypses, all drawing their 
 
 ■ I know well that this is a late Ps. (possibly Maccabsean), but it is 
 appropriate here, for Haggai, Zech., Mai,, Joel— even if we call them prophets 
 with "open vision" — close the prophetic list c. 450, except Trito-tsaiah, and 
 the fine apocalyptic Is. xxiv.-xxvii. For reasons given in p. 175 sup> and n., 
 prophecy practically ceases after the Exile. 
 
 238, 
 
THE " SCRIBES " AND THE " WISE " 239 
 
 inspiration from a deep meditation on the Law and the 
 Prophets. In this chapter we sketch the main types 
 and features of these " Holy Writings," in following 
 chapters we shall review the individual books. 
 
 Up to Ezekiel, prophets were Israel's main 
 teachers ; now the scribes and the " wise " replace 
 them. The prophet comes to the whole nation as God's 
 spokesman ; the scribe makes the Law the complete 
 revelation of God's Will and the chief guide of life ; 
 the " wise " man is the prophet's successor and incul- 
 cates the same moral truths, but seeks to gain the 
 individual's rather than the nation's ear. " The Law * 
 shall not perish from the priest (= scribe), nor 
 counsel from the wise, nor the Word from the 
 prophet" (Jer, xviii. 18). Clearly, the writings of 
 scribes will differ from those of the " wise " ; the 
 one will be more legal, the other more prophetic and 
 ethical. 
 
 (A) Scribal Writings. — The deification of the Law 
 by Ezekiel and the Code called into existence a new 
 class of men, scribes, originally priests, men of letters 
 who. devoted themselves all but exclusively to the 
 study of the Law (p. 187, sup.). Ezra is the great type 
 of the new order. Ezra vii. describes him as " a ready 
 scribe in the Law of Moses, . . . who had set his heart 
 to seek the Law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach 
 in Israel its statutes and judgments." With these 
 scribes the Law was the chief rule of faith and 
 practice. To them we owe Ezra, Nehemiah, and 
 Chronicles — all three form one book really — written 
 entirely from the Priestly Code standpoint. 
 
 (B) Wisdom-Literature. — Of quite a different stamp 
 are such books as Prov., Job, Eccl., (some) Psalms. 
 
 ' The A.V. and R.V. translation of Jer. xviii. 18 is not quite correct. 
 As Dr. Burney tells me : " Law {torah) is here without the definite article and 
 means, not the Law, but a verbal giving of judgment by the priest on a point 
 npon which he might be consulted : cf. same A. and R.V. misinterpretation 
 of Hag. ii: II, 12, which means: 'Ask now the priests a torah, saying, If 
 a man carry holy flesh, etc' " So, here again, it is not strictly correct to 
 identify " Law " and " the Law," or " priest " with " scribe." 
 
240 THE " HOLY WRITINGS » : INTRODUCTORY 
 
 They also draw their inspiration from the Law and 
 the Prophets, but not in the narrow legal spirit of the 
 scribes. With the exception of Job and Pss., the 
 wisdom-literature lacks the originality and fire of the 
 pre-exilic writings, but is full of the charm of genuine 
 feeling and sweet utterance, and ofteq rises to a 
 sublime energy of faith and devotion. 
 
 At first men were content, as in most of the 
 psalms, with utterances of thankfulness to God for 
 mercies received, with prayers for help, deliverance, 
 and guidance, or with words of praise, adoration, and 
 heart-felt trust. Soon, however, deep moral problems 
 confronted these saintly Hebrew thinkers, and had to 
 be faced. From the moment that Jeremiah (xxxi.) and 
 Ezekiel (xviii.) made religion a personal matter 
 between God and the individual soul, these problems 
 were bound to arise. This prophetic revelation 
 changed the whole aspect of religion, and the great 
 question now crying for an answer is this : " How 
 can we reconcile a belief in God's moral government 
 of the world with actual experience? Why does 
 vice prosper and virtue sufter?" So long as the 
 nation was all in all, and the fortunes of the individual 
 wholly merged in it, this moral problem was less 
 puzzling. In its adversity, as Isaiah's "Suffering 
 Servant " showed, a righteous Israel was bearing and 
 atoning for the guilt of its wicked members. But 
 from the moment that religion became personal, this 
 answer would not do. The only answer that really 
 meets the case is a belief in a life of actual fellowship 
 with God, not only here, but in a life beyond the 
 grave where all men's wrongs are righted by God 
 Himself. But the Hebrew mind was very slow in 
 reaching this solution of the problem. Did it reach 
 it before 300 b.c, if as early ? Meanwhile one writer 
 after another faced and tried to solve the problem, 
 never with complete success. By far the maturest 
 Hebrew thought on this subject is to be found in the 
 deep spiritual wrestlings of Job, and the pessimistic. 
 
WISDOM LITERATUJIE 24 1 
 
 half-cynical scepticism of Ecclesiastes, a baffled seeker 
 after truth who would believe and cannot. 
 
 Side by side with a Job, Eccles., and a psalmist 
 here and there, who face the problem of evil in its 
 depth, stands another class whose facile optimism 
 just skims the surface of it. They are moral thinkers 
 and also th? children of this reflective age, but on a 
 lower level. They are men who survey life from a 
 common-sense practical religious standpoint, without 
 troubling themselves much with deep moral problems, 
 moralists who seek to gain the ear of the young and 
 the general public with their moral maxims, and 
 inculcate upon them the principles of right conduct. 
 With shrewd common-sense and a practical faith in 
 God, they bring their moral insight to bear on life, 
 and show that the wise man is he who lives his 
 life with the fear of God in his heart, the fool he who 
 is self-willed and flies in the face of God's moral 
 law. Proverbs well represents this class of moral 
 reflection. More or less prudential and utilitarian, it 
 is not over-inspiring or inspired. 
 
 (C) Apocalypses. — The annihilation of the nation, 
 the foreign oppressor's yoke, and the present misery 
 also called into being a third class of literature at this 
 period, again drawing all its inspiration from the 
 older prophetical books. The present was blank; 
 only memories of a glorious past, written in books, 
 remained to God's Israel. Men were asking in 
 anguish : " Has God quite forgotten His People and 
 His Covenant-promises ? When will He again visit 
 and redeem His Israel ? " Men turned to the prophetic 
 books for some gleam of comfort and there made a 
 discovery. The prophetic woes and judgments they 
 knew by heart and by sad personal experience ; but 
 to their joy they found a number of still unfulfilled 
 promises, promises of the full restoration of the 
 kingdom to Israel, promises of a Golden Age of joy, 
 plenty, peace, of triumph over all their foes. These 
 promises they seized upon and were buoyed up with 
 
 R 
 
242 THE " HOLY WRITINGS " : INTRODUCTORY 
 
 new hopes, for the Word oi God must be fulfilled. 
 Out of the mass of these unfulfilled promises of the 
 new and perfect Israel, and along the line of their 
 Messianic visions, apocalyptic writers now mapped 
 out Israel's future according to their hopes, even in 
 the matter of fixing precise dates. Thus Daniel kept 
 Israel's hopes alive by showing that the 70 years 
 foretold by Jeremiah were 70 weeks of years, so that 
 the longed-for era was only just drawing near. 
 
 (D) Religious Romances. — Another feature of this 
 age is the production of religious romances, e.g. the 
 graceful prose-idyll oiRuth,^ the dramatic and popular, 
 though gi^eatly inferior Esther, and the pseudo- 
 historical setting oi Jonah and Daniel. 
 
 Perhaps the two points that most strike us in the 
 "Holy Writings" are: (i) their new notes, «.^. 
 angelology, eschatology, and universalism ; (2) the 
 miscellaneous and incongruous character of the " Holy 
 Writings " thus grouped together. 
 
 (i) Angelology. — Most noteworthy after the Cap- 
 tivity is the sudden growth of a system or hierarchy 
 of angels and demons in Judaism. Before the Exile 
 angels only rarely appear in the Old Testamejit, and 
 in the prophets hardly at all. Practically the only 
 references to them are Gen. xxviii. and xxxii. in con- 
 nection with Jacob, (and in these passages alone 
 called "angels"); Isaiah's Vision (Is. vi.), where 
 they are called " seraphim " ; i Kgs. xxii. 19-22, where 
 the host of heaven form Jehovah's Council; Gen. 
 
 ' As stated later on, the style of Ruth so closely approximates to the finest 
 examples of the golden period of pre-exilic literature tl:^t its post-exilic date is 
 open to question. Esther is undoubtedly late third or early second century, 
 and a romance. Jonah's date is much disputed, but probably late. The fable 
 portions of it are self-evident, e.g. the sea-monster story, and the singing of a 
 psalm (Jon. ii. 2-9, a later editor's interpolation) in the fish's belly ; but the 
 moral of Jonah is grand, viz. Jon. iv. lo-ii in which the nobler universalistic 
 spirit of Judaism rebukes the lower, narrow, exclusive particularism of the 
 Jews, to whom God's long-suffaring patience with their heathen foes was a 
 stumbling-block. Of Daniel we speak at length in our last chapter. Esther, 
 Ruth, Jonah are only a few survivors of a larger literature of this type, and 
 others are preserved for us in the Apocrypha, e.g. Judith, Tobit ; they give us 
 a good idea of the popular religious short stories recited by Hebrew story- 
 tellers c. 300-1 B.C. Esther and Ruth were written with a purpose. 
 
ANGELOLOGY 243 
 
 vi. 2, where " sons of God " probably mean angelic 
 beings. In the phrase " Angel of Jehovah," the Angel 
 is not a messenger of God, but God Himself. 
 
 So with devils. Before the Exile we only hear of 
 a devil in Gen. iii., under the form of a serpent; in 
 Lev. xvi. as Azazel, an evil spirit dwelling in the 
 wilderness; and in Is. xxsiv. 14, Lilith, a hag of the 
 night, is a female demon. In popular religion demons 
 abounded, but, before the Exile, an omnipotent God 
 is the source of evil as well as good to Bible-writers. 
 He hardens Pharaoh's heart; in His anger incites 
 David to the sin of a census; sends an evil spirit 
 upon Saul ; makes the heart of the people fat, shuts 
 their eyes and ears lest they repent (Is. vi.) ; " I make 
 peace and create evil " (Is. xlv. 7, during the Exile). 
 The " lying spirit " in Micaiah's vision, luring Ahab 
 to his doom (i Kgs. xxii. 22 sq.), is no devil, but from 
 the Lord (cf. Ezek. xiii., xiv.). 
 
 After the Exile we suddenly find a whole system of 
 angels and demons divided into regular orders from 
 archangels and arch-demons downwards. God heads 
 one hierarchy, Satan the other. How account for it ? 
 It must have arisen during the Captivity when the 
 Jews came under direct Persian influence. Persian 
 religion divides the universe between Ormuzd, a good 
 god of light, and Ahriman, an evil god of darkness. 
 Ahriman is ever at war with his rival Ormuzd, trying 
 to mar all he does. Each god heads his host of 
 angels or demons, who are respectively marshalled 
 under subordinate officers as in an army. This idea 
 of angels and devils appealed to Jewish thought in 
 two ways : (i) A " holy " God is too transcendent and 
 pure to come into direct contact with an " unclean " 
 and defiling world. This hierarchy of angels, as 
 intermediary agents, enables Him to deal with His 
 universe without coming into actual touch with it ; 1 
 
 ' In Pss. Iviii. (i sq. R.V. m.)i Ixxxii. i, 6, and Dan. x. 13-20 angels are 
 patron angels of the nations. In Dan. xii, i, Michael is Israel's guardian 
 angel, elsewhere in the O.T. only God is. 
 
244 THE " HOLY WRITINGS " : INTRODUCTORY 
 
 (2) the idea of God tempting to evil was offensive to 
 Jews after the Exile, so, in Chron., Satan replaces 
 God in tempting David to number the people (cf. 
 I Chron. xvi. i ; 2 Sam. xxiv. i). The other references ^ 
 to "the Satan " are twice in Zech. iii., and often in 
 Job, where he reminds God of man's sin or provokes 
 it. It has also been urged that Judaism saw in Satan 
 a solution of the problem of evil, otherwise irrecon- 
 cilable with the Providence of a righteous God ; but 
 this is questionable, for it practically makes no further 
 use of him beyond the cases quoted. In the apoca- 
 lyptic and apocryphal books, and throughout the New 
 Testament, Satan and demons are far more to the 
 fore. 
 
 Persian ideas also stimulated Jewish religious 
 thought in other ways. In the Persian Avesta there 
 is a picture of a new heaven and a new earth to follow 
 the final judgment and destruction of the powers of 
 evil (cf. Is. Ixv. 17 ; Ixvi. 22; and Is. xxiv. 21, according 
 to Charles and Moulton, Hastings' D. of B., iv. 990). 
 The idea of an individual resurrection and a millennial 
 expectation likewise developed early in Parsism. 
 
 Eschatology. — To this we give a separate chapter 
 later. Here we need only note that, from pre- 
 prophetic days, Israel looked forward to a "Day of 
 the Lord," a day of judgment when Jehovah would 
 stand up for His Israel, crush their foes, and make 
 Israel very great and prosperous. After the Exile 
 all signs of this glorious Hebrew kingdom, so often 
 foretold by the prophets, grew less and less, and 
 seemed all but past praying for. But the darker 
 the outlook, the brighter and stronger and more deep- 
 rooted was the Hebrew conviction that God would 
 somehow intervene, powerfully vindicate His own 
 and His people's honour (cf. Ezek. xxxviii. sq. and 
 Is. xlviii. 1 1), redeem and magnify His Israel. Apoca- 
 lyptic writers spring up on all sides about 300 b.c. 
 onward and fan this hope. They see the Golden 
 
 > Fs. cix, 6 is questionable. 
 
APOCALYPSES 245 
 
 Age suddenly bursting forth upon an astonished 
 earth, and Messiah appearing to redeem and avenge 
 God's Chosen People, With all their manifold 
 differences, almost all apocalypses agree on certain 
 points.: The present age is very evil and subject to 
 Satan and the powers af evil ; the age to come is very 
 good and to be brought in by direct act of God. The 
 end of the present age is to be heralded by an epoch 
 of unparalleled wickedness, like Daniel's " abomina- 
 tion of desolation." Then the " Day of the Lord " 
 will dawn and Messiah appear suddenly. At His 
 coming He will crush all His adversaries, and Satan 
 with his hierarchy of devils will fall. Messiah then 
 sits as Judge and metes out punishment to the wicked 
 angels and men. Then the Kingdom of God is estab- 
 lished on earth. The righteous dead Israelites are 
 raised to share in it, and a reign of joy, peace, plenty, 
 and righteousness is inaugurated. 
 
 Such is the broad outline, but the picture is 
 variously conceived in different apocalypses. Some- 
 times Messiah is human, sometimes superhuman, at 
 times the Deliverer is God Himself The Kingdom is 
 now political, now spiritual; at times it is to last 
 1,000 years, at others for ever. The resurrection is 
 in some writers for the righteous only, in others for 
 " many," in others again for " all," good and bad alike. 
 But always it is a Jewish kingdom : other nations are 
 either Israel's vassals or, if admitted on equal terms, 
 have first been converted to Judaism. If there is a 
 Messianic King — usually there is, but God is often 
 represented as the only King, — he is frequently made 
 out to be of Davidic lineage. Malachi adds that 
 Elijah must first appear to prepare the way for Him. 
 At times the present earth is the scene of the King- 
 dom, at others heaven and earth are transfigured and 
 a new Jerusalem comes down from heaven ; in later 
 apocalypses, the Kingdom is transferred to heaven 
 itself. 
 
 Universalism. — In large sections of the " wisdom- 
 
246 THE "HOLY WRITINGS": INTRODUCTORY 
 
 literature" or "Holy Writings" (= Hagiographa) 
 little or no stress is laid on those particularistic traits 
 which mark off the Jew from other religious people. 
 Only such moral and spiritual principles are empha- 
 sised as are the common inheritance pf the godly 
 everywhere. No special stress is laid on ritual or 
 sacrifice ; external exercises of worship lose their old 
 significance and the claims of the Priestly Code 
 practically fall into the background. The " wise " 
 had no quarrel at all with Israel's ritual, law, sacrifices, 
 and other institutions; far from it. But their one 
 aim was to train individual men's hearts in the ways 
 of righteousness, to give them moral and religious 
 principles of universal application wherever men 
 might live, so that each might be a law unto himself 
 as Jer. xxxi. 33 sqq. indicated. 
 
 Now, how account for this universalism ? The 
 spirit of the age partly explains it. Although legal- 
 ism is in the air, the prophetic school is also well 
 represented in Judaism, and its many adherents, 
 steeped in prophetic teaching, have risen through it 
 to universal conceptions of God and His world, and 
 are trying to win their fellows to adopt these large 
 truths and live by them. 
 
 But quite another factor contributed largely to 
 this universalism, viz., contact with other peoples 
 from 600 B.C. onward. Israel's long residence in 
 Babylonia was in itself a liberal education. The Jews 
 are uniquely adaptable, readily assimilate ideas and 
 weave them into their own system of thought. Not 
 that they just borrow foreign ideas and transfer them 
 bodily into their own creed; they are far too con- 
 servative and jealous of their religion for that ; but 
 they allow them to come in as suggestions to stimulate 
 Jewish religious thought. 
 
 Far too much capital can be made of Israel's 
 Babylonian and Persian loans ; for instance, take the 
 case of Jewish angelology and eschatology just dis- 
 cussed. It would be absurd to speak of Satan and 
 
BABYLONIAN AND PERSIAN LOANS 247 
 
 his angels as bodily borrowed from Ahriman and his 
 demon-host. In their popular religion the Jews 
 already had a Devil of their own and demon-spirits 
 in plenty. What the Jews did borrow was the idea 
 of a regular hierarchy of angels and demons each 
 under a supreme head. So of their eschatology and 
 belief in a resurrection. Not only did the Jews from 
 earliest days share the general idea of souls surviving 
 in Sheol, but along a (Messianic) line of their own they 
 were slowly aspiring after a life of real fellowship 
 with God after death (see p. 161 sq., sup. and Ch. XIX.). 
 Here, again, all we have the right to say is that the 
 Persian belief in a resurrection stimulated thoughtful 
 Jews to convert their aspirations into convictions, and 
 to develop this doctrine in a thoroughly Jewish 
 form. ^ 
 
 The same thing holds good of Babylonian influence 
 and loans. The Babylonian priesthood were a highly- 
 trained and fully-organised hierarchy, experts in the 
 ritual and sacred books of their religion, judges and 
 teachers, chroniclers and editors of the national 
 history, while their temples had a most elaborate 
 ritual and a rich stock of liturgical services (Ch. VI., 
 sup.). Cheyne is of opinion that from Babylonia 
 Ezekiel, Ezra, and other spiritual leaders received 
 their suggestion of literary activity, a well-organised 
 hierarchy, and an elaborate Temple-worship. True, 
 the Jews were already beginning to develop all this 
 for themselves before the Captivity ; but only after 
 the Exile does it actually and suddenly bloom in full- 
 grown form and vigour. We shall see Jewish thought 
 stimulated and broadened by foreign influences in 
 other ways. 
 
 This broader outlook is stamped on every bther 
 page of the Holy Writings. The "wise" now see 
 God fulfilling Himself in many ways ; they see that 
 man's moral life and the workings of Providence are 
 but elements in the one great divine system embracing 
 all things, both the world of Nature and the destinies 
 
248 THE " HOLY WRITINGS " : INTRODUCTORY 
 
 of men. The world is one organic whole, and God 
 is the meaning of it. To this great divine scheme 
 they give the name " The Wisdom of God " (Prov. 
 viii. ; Job xxviii.), while the wisdom of man consists 
 in grasping and falling into line with the Divine 
 Wisdom. The one motto of the " wise " is : " Thje 
 fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom." 
 Naturally, in such a universal divine system there is 
 no room for petty national particularism. 
 
 Did this new idea of Wisdom come to Israel' from 
 the East, even as the kindred idea of the " Word " in 
 St. John is undoubtedly a loan from Greek philosophy? 
 The East certainly was the home of " wisdom-litera- 
 ture " from time immemorial. Their sacred books 
 are full of it. But we can press this too far. We 
 have seen how near the eighth-century prophets 
 came to this universalistic note of one divine all- 
 embracing system, while the moral ideals of the 
 Hebrew prophets are clearly the source from which 
 the "wise" draw their inspiration. Stimulative 
 suggestion is all we can attribute to Eastern 
 influences, or to Greek, if, as many scholars hold, not 
 a few of the books of the " Holy Writings " come 
 within the Greek period. 
 
 (2) The "Holy Writings" a miscellaneous and in- 
 congruous group. — Prov., Ruth, Lament, Job, Esther, 
 Canticles, Psalms, Daniel, Eccles., Ezra, Nehemiah, 
 Chron., that is to say, moral philosophy, idylls, dirges, 
 romance, love-song, hymns, apocalypses, prophecy, 
 history, all massed into one group. What a strange 
 medley it all seems ! Why not, for example, have 
 put Daniel with the prophets, and Chron. with the 
 historical books ? The reason is perfectly simple. 
 It is all due to the fact that, by reason of late date or 
 other cause, these books were originally all excluded 
 from the earlier Canon of Scripture, and had to be 
 put all together in a group of their own under one 
 title, " Holy Writings," when they themselves became 
 "Scripture." 
 
THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE 249 
 
 Gradual Formation of the Canon. — As already stated 
 (p. 211 sq.), the first Canon of Scripture was formed 
 in 444 B.C., and only the Mosaic Books, under the 
 name of the " Book of the Law," found a place in it. 
 The Law came to Israel direct from the mouth of 
 God Himself, so it was " holy " as no other book is 
 holy. In 444 it alone was the Bible ; nothing else 
 was fit to stand by its side. But the Canon could not 
 always stand at that. Joshua, Sam.,Judg., Kgs., the 
 Prophets, were sacred books highly revered and 
 treasured, Israel's sheet-anchor with the Law in the 
 Exile. Yet for over 100 years these prophetic 
 writings were not added to the Canon. God un- 
 doubtedly " spake in and by the prophets," but the 
 Law was literally from His own lips, and the two 
 could not be bracketed together. Not till about 
 300-250 B.C. was a second Canon formed including 
 these other books. They were all massed in a 
 secondary group under the general title of "The 
 Prophets,"^ thus: {a) The Former Prophets: Josh., 
 Judg., Sam., Kgs. ; (b) The Latter Prophets, Is., Jer., 
 Ezfek., and the Twelve minor prophets, the latter all 
 massed into one book. Tradition ascribes the Second 
 Canon also to Nehemiah ; but its formation is of much 
 later date. 
 
 The Bible is now " The Law and the Prophets." 
 But- it could not stop at that either. Psalms, Prov., 
 Ruth, Canticles, Eccles., and other highly-prized re- 
 ligious writings already existed when the Second 
 Canon was formed and closed. Why were they not 
 admitted ? Simply because they were neither " Law " 
 nor " Prophets " ; i.e. they were not (i) from God's 
 own mouth as the Law, nor (2) Law-enforcing 
 "oracles of God" from His direct and inspired 
 mouthpieces, the Prophets. The Law was the actual 
 Word of God, the Prophets spoke His Word at His 
 
 ' Note that each subdivision of "The Prophets" contains four Books. 
 The historical '^0^., Judg., Sam., Kgs. are included under the " Prophets" 
 because (a) thej are the irork of prophetical schools, {b) the inculcation of 
 prophetical religious troths, and not mere history, is their aim. 
 
2SO THE " HOLY WRITINGS " : INTRODUCTORY 
 
 dictation, but how could these other books claim to 
 be the Word of God? If a gulf was felt to exist 
 between the " holiest " Law and the " holy " Prophets, 
 far wider still was the gap between the Prophets and 
 these other writings. Some considerable time had 
 to elapse before the idea of canonicity could be made 
 sufficiently elastic to include them. From the inclu- 
 sion oi Daniel, written about i6o b.c., the Third Canon 
 cannot date much before loo b.c Then these books 
 were all grouped under one heading as the Hagio- 
 grapha or " Holy Writings." Some only found their 
 way into the Canon at all with great difficulty; all 
 ranked distinctly below " The Law and the Prophets." 
 The claims of the various books to admission into 
 the Canon varied greatly. The Psalms, from their 
 supposed Davidic authorship and their sacred use in 
 Temple--worship, as well as on their own intrinsic 
 merits, were always recognised as inspired. Proverbs 
 early established its canonicity by reason of its 
 edifying religious tone and (especially) the authority 
 of its professed author. Ruth and Lamentations were 
 long regarded as forming a kind of appendix to Judg, 
 and Jer. respectively, and as unquestionably canonicalr 
 Job's inspiration was universally admitted, while its 
 venerable antiquity as Job's own work was fully 
 credited and carried great weight. Daniel was at 
 once received as an inspired prophecy and assigned 
 to a far earlier date than it can claim. Ezra and 
 Nehemiah (originally one book " Ezra ") were regarded 
 as the last inspired works, Nehemiah being regarded 
 as the last of the prophets ; together with Chronicles 
 they would be highly revered by an age living under 
 the Priestly Code ; Ezra and Neh. because of their 
 canonisation of the Law in 444, the foundation of 
 Judaism, and Chron. because of the prominence given 
 to Temple-worship and its priesthood. Canticles and 
 Ecclesiastes were fully believed to be Solomon's, and 
 Esther, assigned to the Persian period, still the age of 
 inspiration, with its glorious patriotism, its triumph 
 
CANON'S SANCTION HUMAN, NOT DIVINE 25 1 
 
 over heathen foes, and its explanation of the festival 
 of Purim, was also deemed worthy of canonicity. 
 But over Canticles, for its sensual tone, Ecclesiastes, 
 because of its cynical scepticism, and Esther, for its 
 omission of God's name and lack of spirituality, there 
 were very great questiotlings of heart, and, down to 
 90 A.D. and even later, the discussion waxed long and 
 furious as to their admission into the Canon. 
 
 The supposed antiquity — as gauged in 100 B.C. — 
 of all these Holy Writings contributed greatly to 
 their canonicity. The Spirit of God was held to have 
 been in full operation, inspiring " men of God," down 
 to the end of the prophetic period, Nehemiah's day. 
 The Spirit's province included not only "The Law 
 and the Prophets," but other sacred books as well. 
 Not so since that date : " We see not our signs, there 
 is no more any prophet." 
 
 To sum up. The formation of the Canon was a 
 long and gradual process from 444 b.c. to 90 a.d. It 
 really began from the day that the " Book of the 
 Covenant" (c. 800 B.C.) was written, and lasted to 
 90 A.D. We hear much of the part played in it by 
 Ezra, the " men of the Great Synagogue," and other 
 learned scribes, but their r6le in this important work 
 can be greatly exaggerated. Long before 444 b.c. the 
 older Books of the Bible had secured for themselves 
 a firm hold in the esteem and reverence of the people. 
 They would, in any case, have won their way into 
 the Canon. These scribes and rabbinic councils 
 simply gave official sanction to what public opinion 
 had already hallowed. No Church dogma ever con- 
 secrates anything that has not already passed into 
 practice for a century or two. It was enlightened 
 public religious opinion that formed the Canon, and 
 its value and finality must be judged by the same 
 test. The acclamation of souls, the spiritually-guided 
 intelligence and verdict, not of this or that individual 
 or body of individuals, but of the general body of 
 spiritually-minded men throughout the world, must 
 
252 THE "HOLY WRITINGS": INTRODUCTORY 
 
 be the final court of appeal. Really and truly, the 
 test of the canonicity of these Books lies within 
 themselves and nowhere else. When the question 
 arises : " Are Canticles, Eccles., and 'Esther'^ worthy of 
 a place in the Canon ? " The one answer is this : 
 " Do they, or do they not, bear clear witness within 
 themselves to their own inspiration as containing a 
 revelation and declaration of the Divine Will ? " As 
 the Westminster Confession well puts it : " We may 
 be moved by the testimony of the Church to an high 
 and reverend esteem of the Holy Scripture . . . yet 
 our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible 
 truth, and divine authority thereof, is from the inward 
 work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with 
 the Word in our hearts." With Westcott we believe 
 that the Canon was formed "almost by a divine 
 instinct, a providential inspiration." The acclama- 
 tion of souls, vox populi, in such matters often is vox 
 Dei. But we must not press this plea too far, or force 
 it to mean that the inspiration of a Book of the Bible, 
 or the authorship ascribed to it, is correct simply 
 because the Book happens to be in the Canon. The 
 Canon itself is based on human, not divitte, judgment 
 and sanction. 
 
 ' The Jewish phrasing of this question is curious and passing strange in 
 our ears : "Do Canticles, Ecclesiastes, and Esther ' defile the hand' ? " As we 
 saw (cf. p. 207 sup.) in the Priestly Code, "holy" and taboo are equivalent. 
 Contact with "holy " things involves purification, and for two reasons. If it is 
 unauthorised contact, it is a " sin " and sin-purification alone will ward off 
 God's wrath ; if it is authorised contact, the " holiness " is contagious, and the 
 hand or dress that has touched the "holy" thing is impregnated with 
 "holiness." Anything it touches now becomes "holy," set apart for God's 
 use and not fit any longer for ordinary use. In this sense, contact with 
 "holiness" defiles the hand. The Sacred Writings were "holy" things, so 
 " holy " that whoso touched them "defiled" his hand for common purposes 
 till it was "purified." Hence the phrase. It was long felt, then as now, 
 that Canticles, Eccles., Esther, do not "defile the hand," and that, had they 
 been excluded and Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom replaced them in the Canon, 
 it would have been a gain. N.T. writers knew the Apocr3T>ha well, i.e. 
 books on the border-line of the Canon but not in it, yet read for edification. 
 Jude quotes Enoch, and Hebrews quotes Maccabees j St. Paul and St. Peter are 
 familiar with Wisdom, St. James with Ecclesiasticus ; while ne reference is made 
 in the N.T. to Canticles, Esther, or Ecclesiastes. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 (ll.) THE " HOLY WRITINGS " EXAMINED 
 
 Psalms 
 
 The Psalter is the Hymn-Book of the Jewish Church, 
 a collection of hymns gradually compiled and mainly 
 intended for Temple use. Some psalms are earlier 
 than the Exile, a very few may go back to David's 
 day, probably nine-tenths are of the Exile and after. 
 The Second Temple was completed in 516 b.c. and 
 lasted till 70 ad. As soon as services were rendered 
 possible, a regular liturgy would be required, temple 
 singers and a fixed temple psalmody. But not till 
 about 450 B.C. did Ezra and Nehemiah make pro- 
 vision for full and regular services, by settling 
 definitely the revenues of the priests and singers and 
 other ministers of the Temple, who, till then, had 
 been ill-provided for. Sometime between 5x6-450 b.c. 
 the first collection of psalms (iii.-xli.) ^ was introduced. 
 
 ' The five divisions (see R.V.) of Psalter = Bk. I., Pss. 1-41 ; Bk. II. 
 = 42-72 ; Bk. in. = 73-89 ; Bk. IV. = 90-106 ; Bk. V. = 107-150, each 
 book ending with a liturgical Doxology. As Dr. Bumey writes me ; " 3-41 = 
 'of David,' 42-49= 'of the sons of Korah,' 50= 'of Asaph,* 51-72 (say, 
 really 51-65,68-70, 72) = 'of David,' after which comes the valuable note, 
 ' The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.' It looks therefore as if 
 group 3-41 should be immediately followed by 51-72, thus bringing together 
 all the earlier 'of David' Pss., attaching the single 50 'of Asaph' psalm 
 to group 73-83. I think the whole Davidic group 3-41, 51-72 was the 
 earliest collection." Be this as it may, Bks. II. and III., 42-83, apparently 
 once formed a single collection by itself, for it consistently avoids the name 
 Jehovah, substituting Elohim throughout, e.g. Ps. 53 = Ps. 14, but every 
 Jehovah ("the Lord") of 14 is changed into Elohim ("God") in 53. _Bks. 
 IV.,-V. were apparently not in the Temple hymn-book when the musical 
 directions (scattered throughout 1-89) were prefixed to the psalms, for they are 
 lacking in 90-150. The titles to the psalms : " Psalms of David " ; " of Asaph," 
 etc., simply mean that the Psalter is made up of collections once known as 
 "The Davidic," " The Korahite," " The Asaphite" collection of psalms. The 
 "sons of Korah," "of Asaph," were families or hereditary guilds of temple- 
 musicians, each apparently with their special hymn-book. The titles of several 
 
 353 
 
254 THE "HOLY WRITINGS": PSALMS 
 
 The "psalms of Asaph" and the "psalms of the 
 sons of Korah " are two later collections, for these 
 choir-guilds were not distinct till after Nehemiah's 
 day. As time went on, two later supplements were 
 added. Thus the Psalter grew exactly like our own 
 hymn-books. We shall not be far wrong in describing 
 the Psalter as a collection of several smaller groups 
 of psalms, of various dates, conipiled between 
 516-150 B.C. 
 
 Of course, the Psalter as it stands is no more 
 David's work than are the Mosaic Books from Moses' 
 hand. But as David was regarded as the founder and 
 organiser of Temple music and singing (i Chron. xvi. 4; 
 XXV. 3 ; Ezra iii. 10 ; Neh. xii. 36, 45 sq.), so also was he 
 held to have completed and arranged the whole Psalter 
 and to have written several of its psalms. A " cun- 
 ning player on the harp" he undoubtedly was, and 
 his famous elegy on Saul and Jonathan shows he was 
 a poet as well. But very few psalms in the Psalter 
 are now believed to be David's own. Gheyne and 
 Wellhausen insist that "David wrote none of the 
 psalms that have come down to us." Driver will not 
 commit himself : " A non liquet must be our verdict ; 
 but it is not clear that none of the psalms are of 
 David's composition." Sanday ("The Psalms ex- 
 plained," 1918) writes : "The only certain composition 
 of David is the Lament over Saul and^Jonathan ; to 
 this may possibly be added psalms 15 and parts of 18, 
 24, and it may be some others." Dr. Burney : " 18 
 (in the main), 15, and 24 (at any rate the latter half) 
 
 Davidic psalms give the occasion and circumstances of the Ps., really gathered 
 from the psalm itself, e.g. Ps. S' seems to suit David's contrition after his 
 great sin (cf. 72, 127 Solomon). Ps. 110 is called " of David," yet is generally 
 admitted to be Maccabasan ; in the Hasmonaean dynasty, " priest and king " 
 were one. Cf. Burney: "I think no refers to Simon Maccabee's appoint- 
 ment as priest and king. The opening letters of verses 1-4 make an acrostic 
 of his name." The title " Song of Ascents " may mean " Pilgrimage Psalms " 
 sung on going up to Jerusalem Feasts ; or may refer to the fifteen steps leading 
 from the woihen's to the men's court. The " Hallelujah " (Praise ye the 
 Lord) Psalms (105-107; Iii-n8; 135 sq. ; 146-150) = for festivals. The 
 psalms vary v/idely in religious worth and poetic merit j some are genius- 
 creations, others mediocre, though our fine A.V. (and especially the Prayer 
 Book Version) rendering veils the poverty partly. 
 
INTRINSIC VALUE OF PSALTER 255 
 
 seem to me the most probable. I suspect, however, 
 that there may be a fair number of Davidic fragments 
 worked in with later psalms." Some extend the list to 
 include 3, 4, 7, 8, 15, 18, 23, 24, 32, and perhaps loi, no, 
 but with the qualification "may be David's." Really, 
 it is not known who wrote any of the psalms and, all 
 said and done, the question is of very secondary 
 importance. They stand or fall on their own intrinsic 
 merits ; and on their worth all are agreed. The 
 Psalter was meant to be a Jewish Church hymn- 
 book and is undoubtedly Jewish in tone, yet it has 
 been universally accepted as the Christian's devo- 
 tional hand-book. " It supplies the model of worship, 
 of prayer, of praise, of penitence and hope, of comfort 
 and thanksgiving." It is to the Psalter that we 
 instinctively turn in order to express and to interpret 
 our inmost heart-thoughts and feelings. The human 
 soul whose experiences are depicted there is but our 
 own soul, true to the life in every detail,-and these 
 experiences are clothed in words which strike a 
 responsive chord in our own and in every human 
 heart, and tap a source of comfort which is ever 
 flowing, ever fresh, ever real and satisfying. And if 
 the Psaker can no longer be regarded as the record 
 of one man, David, but as the record of many men 
 covering many centuries, it becomes all the more 
 precious as embodying all the highest aspirations, 
 the purest joys, the noblest sorrows of many genera- 
 tions of Hebrew life. 
 
 We have dealt so fully with the theology and 
 ethics of the Psalter in Ch. XIV. that less need be said 
 here under that heading. We shall merely quote one 
 paragraph from Montefiore's H.L., p. 386, in support 
 of what we said there : " Close as is the connection 
 between the psalter and sanctuary . . . the psalmist's 
 religion was wider than that of the priest. ... It marks 
 the high religious level to which prophet, priest, and 
 sage had educated the national consciousness. . . . He 
 was less a specialist than either priest or sage, and is 
 
256 THE "HOLY WRITINGS": fSALMS 
 
 thus our best authority for the post-exilic religion." 
 The psalmist's conception of God is sublime. No- 
 where, outside Christ and the prophets, are we 
 brought so directly into the Presence of God Himself, 
 a God as inexpressibly lofty and pure as He is near 
 and gracious/ full of mercy and lovingkindness, a 
 God who will by no means spare the guilty, yet 
 " like as a father pitieth his own children, even so is 
 the Lord merciful unto them that fear Him, for He 
 knoweth whereof we are made." 
 
 Sufferings of the Godly. — This problem is often faced 
 in the psalms. The very first psalm tells us that the 
 righteous prosper, while the wicked come to a bad 
 end. So do Pss. xcii. 11 sq. ; cxii.; cxxviii. But it 
 was impossible to shut one's eyes to the fact that this 
 is not a safe rule in actual life. Pss. xxxvii., xlix., Ixxiii., 
 xcii. come to the conclusion that the ungodly may 
 flourish, but only for a season, " Suddenly they come 
 to a fearful end." In the psalms, however, the 
 question is never probed to its depths as in Job. 
 Deep-rooted in the Hebrew heart was the conviction 
 that sin and suffering were in exact proportion, 
 measure for measure. God's award on earth must 
 tally exactly with man's deserts. This is plainly 
 expressed in Ps. xviii. 25 sqq. : " With the merciful 
 Thou wilt show Thyself merciful; with an upright 
 man Thou wilt show Thyself upright ; with the pure 
 Thou wilt show Thyself pure ; and with the froward 
 Thou wilt show Thyself froward." This root-idea 
 pervades the Old Testament and is most pronounced 
 in Prov. and Psalter. Some psalms realise the 
 educative and disciplinary value of adversity, e.g. 
 " Before I was afflicted I went astray, ... it is good 
 for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn 
 Thy statutes." Another psalmist realises that the 
 suffering of the righteous is as nothing compared with 
 the joy and peace of that close fellowship with God 
 which is his, a joy and a peace which the wicked, 
 however prosperous, never knows ; he lives and dies 
 
PSALMS ON LIFE AFTER DEATH 257 
 
 like a beast {e.g. xHx. 12, 20, Ixxiii.). A few psalms, as 
 we shall presently see, rob suffering and misfortune 
 of its sting by looking forward to the day when the 
 righteous dead shall rise to share in the joy of the 
 Messianic kingdom. But, as a rule, trustful optimism 
 is the Psalter's note on this problem of suffering. 
 
 Life after Death. — Strong as is the psalmists' faith 
 in God {e:g. " I have set the Lord always before me, 
 because He is at my right hand, I shall not be 
 moved " ; " The Lord redeemeth the souls of His 
 servants, and none of them that trust in Him shall be 
 desolate "), close as is their walk with God here on 
 earth (e.g. " Thou art my portion, O Lord," " Whom 
 have I in heaven but Thee ? and there is none upon 
 earth that I desire beside Thee "), yet a blank is found 
 in the creed of by far the majority of these holy men 
 when life beyond the grave is in question. Almost 
 invariably, their hope ends with this life : " Before I 
 go hence and be no more" (xxxix. 13, R-V.); "In 
 death there is no remembrance of Thee, in the 
 grave ( = Sheol, R.V.) who shall give Thee thanks?" 
 (vi. 5). God Himself does not remember the dead 
 any more : " Wilt Thou show wonders to the dead ? 
 Shall the dead arise and praise Thee ? Shall Thy 
 lovingkindness be declared in the grave, or Thy 
 faithfulness in Destruction (= Abaddon, R.V. m.)? 
 Shall Thy wonders be known in the dark ? " (Ixxxviii. 
 losqq.). It is still, this land beyond the grave, a 
 land of darkness, silence, forgetfulhess, a place of 
 mere shadowy, lifeless, listless existence. 
 
 But there are brighter gleams in the psalms. As 
 repeatedly stated, from about 300 b.c. the belief began 
 to dawn that Sheol, " the Pit," " the Land of Forgetful- 
 ness," " Destruction," " the Place of Silence," was not 
 the final goal of man's life. The belief took a two- 
 fold form : (a) on the establishment of the Messianic 
 kingdom, the righteous dead should rise out of their 
 graves to share in it ; (b) or even — but a later belief 
 —a resurrection to a blessed life of fellowship with 
 
258 THE "HOLY WRITINGS"; PSALMS 
 
 God in heaven would follow immediately after death 
 for the righteous. The former view was by far the 
 more prevalent. In three or four passages in the 
 Psalter this belief in a resurrection seems to find 
 clear expression : " God will redeem my soul from 
 the power of the grave, for He shall receive me" 
 (xlix. 15); "Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, 
 and afterward receive me to glory " (Ixxiii. 24). In 
 these two psalms the resurrection-hope finds clear 
 expression. What shall we say of: "As for me, I 
 will behold Thy face in righteousness ; I shall be 
 satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness " (xvii. 15); 
 " Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell ; neither wilt 
 Thou suffer Thy holy one to see corruption. Thou 
 wilt show me the path of life ; in Thy Presence is 
 fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures 
 for evermore " (xvi. 9-11)?^ They seem so plainly to 
 refer to a life beyond the grave; yet most scholars 
 see in the former passage not the awakening from 
 the sleep of death, but the awakening every rnorning 
 to a renewed consciousness of God's immediate 
 Presence (cf. iii. S, cxxxix. 17, 18) ; while in the latter 
 passage, Burney and others see in : " Thou wilt not 
 leave my soul to Sheol," a reference to a temporal 
 deliverance from death : " Yahwe will not abandon 
 his soul to Sheol, but will rescue him from the danger 
 of physical death to which he is exposed^" The 
 present writer still sees in Ps. xvi. 9-1 1, as well as in 
 Pss. xlix. 15 and Ixxiii. 24, clear expression of a 
 resurrection-hope. 
 
 Three interpretations of these aspirations to life 
 hereaftef have been given : (i) Mystic. So close is 
 the psalmist's union with God here {e.g. xvi. 8 ; Ixxiii. 
 23 ; cf xlii. 1,2; Ixiii. i) that, by a splendid reach of 
 faith, he rises to the conviction that One who has 
 been his portion here will not forsake him hereafter. 
 
 ' Dr. Barney writei me ; "I doubt whether in these two Pss. there is 
 really any definite hope expressed of life after death." In his Outlitut of 
 O.T. Thtelogy, p. I37, he gives reasons as quoted above. 
 
MESSIANIC PSALMS 259 
 
 He cannot, will not, believe that " the Pit " ends all 
 for the friend of God. Death cannot snap the union. 
 (2) Messianic. — Most scholars see in these passages a 
 reference to the resurrection of the godly to share in 
 the Messianic kingdom on earth. (3) Enoch trans- 
 lation. Just as " Enoch was translated that he should 
 not see death," and " he was not, for God took him," 
 so the writers of these psalms may have hoped that 
 they too, even as Enoch and Elijah, might be "taken" 
 to God without tasting death. Strongly in support of 
 this last view is the fact that in the two most definite 
 resurrection-hope passages, xlix. 15, "He shall receive 
 me," and Ixxiii. 24, "and afterwards receive me to 
 glory," the Hebrew reads : " For He will take me," 
 "and afterwards take me gloriously." The verb in 
 each case is the same as in the passage with regard 
 to Enoch : " and he was not, for God took him." Thus 
 the allusion to Enoch in both Pss. seems clear. 
 
 Messianic Psalms. — If by Messianic psalm we mean 
 one directly and prophetically pointing to the person 
 of a coming Anointed King who, as God's vice- 
 gerent, is to set up God's Kingdom on earth, then the 
 list of Messianic psalms proper is very small. The 
 psalms usually quoted as Messianic are Pss. ii., xxi., 
 xlv., Ixxii., and ex., but most of these Pssr as Burney 
 {Outlines of O.T. Theology, p. in) notes, "refer not 
 to a future ruler, but to a reigning monarch, who, 
 as Yahwe's anointed, is idealised and in some cases 
 invested with attributes little short of divine. These 
 psalms may be considered Messianic just in so far as 
 they put forward the true ideal of kingship." We 
 must remember that kings, in Israel, are the Lord's 
 "anointed," God's vicg-gerents on earth, religious 
 heads of th« nation in David's and Solomon's persons, 
 its chief sacrificing priests, anointed with the holy oil 
 reserved for holy persons and things wholly conse- 
 crated to God's own service (p. 13s sup.). Hence, 
 in the psalms, language is used of kings which clothes 
 the monarch with attributes picturing him as a very 
 
26o THE " HOLY WRITINGS " i PSALMS 
 
 holy person, when all the time the psajmist has an 
 actual reigning king before his eyes ; e.g. Ps. ex. almost 
 certainly refers to Simon Maccabee (p. 254, n. sup)} 
 Personally, we should call Pss. ii. and Ixxii. distinctly 
 Messianic. As in the case of Zerubbabel, the Mes- 
 sianic prophecy of Ps. ii. may have been called forth 
 by the victory of a Maccabaean prince which moved 
 the writer to see in him the long promised Messiah; 
 but it has all the notes of a Messianic psalm. Ps. ii. 
 clearly indicates an anointed warrior-king ruling in 
 Zion as God's vice-gerent with absolutely unlimited 
 sway over the whole world, exalting the righteous and 
 crushing the wicked. We cannot, of course, press 
 the phrase " son of God," commonly used in the O.T. 
 of angels, judges, theocratic kings, and the theocratic 
 People, as well as of Messiah (cf. of David's " seed," 
 2 Sam. vii. 14, " I will be his Father, and he shall 
 be My son," a passage to which Ps. Ixxxix. 26 sq. 
 directly refers) ; but the King is clearly superhuman, 
 and in His anger breaks the rebellious stiff-necked 
 nations with a "rod of iron" and makes them His 
 vassals. Of course, as in the "Suffering Servant" 
 (p. 19s sup.'), it is quite possible that " The Messiah 
 here is the incarnation of Israel's universal rule. He 
 and Israel are almost identical, and it matters little 
 whether we say that Israel has or is the Messiah" 
 (see Sanday in Hastings' D. of B., iv. 571). In Ps. Ixxii., 
 verse 8 : " He shall have dominion from sea to sea, 
 and from the River unto the ends of the earth," shows 
 that the psalmist speaks of a future king with universal 
 sway, who rules with power, justice, and in righteous- 
 
 • Dr. Burney writes me: "I do not think that 45 and no, certainly, 
 should be included as Messianic. 45 is certainly a very ancient Ps. and has 
 simply as its object the congratulation of the reigning king on his wedding. 
 ' Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever ' is, I think, an incorrect reading. 
 It should probably be : • Thy throne is God's for ever and ever ' (the Heb. 
 says 'is God '/instead of 'is God's throne.' The construction is exactly 
 like that of a passage in the Babylonian Creation-epic where the gods con- 
 gratulate Marduk and say, ' thy command is Anu,' i.e. is Anu's). As I have 
 already said, I think Ps. _iio must refer to the appointment of Simon the 
 Maccabee as priest and king. The first four verses which form the oracle 
 make, in their opening letters, an acrostic of hi? name." 
 
MESSIANIC PSALMS 26 1 
 
 ness (4, 12 sqq.), and eternally: "they shall fear thee 
 as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all 
 generations." But over against this we have to place 
 verse 17: "His name shall endure for ever, his name 
 shall be continued as long as the sun," and, here as 
 elsewhere (e.g. Jer. xxxiii. 14 sqq. where it is clear 
 that "the Branch or Shoot of Righteousness" of 
 David's line is not one particular king, but a con- 
 tinuous succession of rulers of David's line), it is 
 evidently not a single king who thus rules on for ever ; 
 it is his name or dynasty that has eternal continuance 
 and renown promised to it. Pss. Ixxxix. and cxxxii. 17 
 are far less certainly Messianic. Ps. Ixxxix. 3, 4, 19 
 sqq. clearly points to God's promise to David in 
 2 Sam. vii. 14 sqq., while verse 27 equally clearly 
 refers to Ex. iv. 22 addressed to Israel ; so the psalm 
 evidently has, here again, not an individual king, but 
 a Davidic dynasty in view, and speaks rather of 
 Israel as the Messiah and now heir of the old Davidic 
 promises. 
 
 In a truer sense, a great many psalms are Messi- 
 anic. From the earliest times, Israel looked forward 
 to a Golden Age of peace, joy, prosperity, a Kingdom 
 of Israel befitting Jehovah's Israel, with all God's 
 covenanted promises fulfilled and God Himself its 
 King. " By divers portions and in divers manners," 
 " here a little and there a little," separate contributions 
 to this total picture were contributed in O.T. days. 
 An ideal Figure — Messianic King or Messianic Israel 
 — was created and invested with all the attributes of 
 a Person, Jehovah's representative on earth. The 
 minds of all Israelites were turned towards this 
 Figure and this Kingdom in an attitude of keen 
 expectation. In many Biblical and apocalyptic pro- 
 phecies the Messianic King forms no part at all of 
 the Messianic Age. Jehovah is to manifest Himself 
 in His glory upon earth without any intermediary. 
 In that day righteousness and purity will blossom 
 on earth, sin will cease, the nations will either be 
 
262 THE " HOLY WRITINGS " : PSALMS 
 
 subdued to Israel or 'converted to God, the Law anxi 
 religion of Jehovah will triumph, and Nature herself 
 be transfigured. Now this expectation and picture 
 of " the perfect Israel of God " was never absent from 
 the mind and heart of the religious Israelite, and any 
 factor in the present that pointed to it he at once idealised, 
 projecting forward brilliant spiritual hopes and antici- 
 pations, prophetic ideals. The ideal Messianic King 
 or Messianic Israel became a centre around which 
 the present ideals, whether of glory or of holiness or 
 even of suffering, could be gathered. Here an actual 
 " anointed " King, there a holy " priest " or a righteous 
 suffering saint, or a victory over enemies, or even 
 smiling Nature, speaks to the psalmist of the perfect 
 time coming, and he idealises it. In this broader 
 sense, psalm upon psalm is truly Messianic as 
 descriptive of the glorious "age to come," and Jewish 
 readers would at once recognise it as such. Thus 
 bit by bit, here a little and there a little, and from 
 different originals, were drawn the lines of that 
 perfect Figure, only realised in our Lord. In Him, 
 the Sun of Righteousness, all their scattered rays are 
 absorbed in the full light of the One bright beam, and 
 the shadows disappear. 
 
 "/" Psalms. — This opens a keenly-controverted 
 question with a direct bearing on the Imprecatory 
 psalms of next section. In the " I " psalms, Does the 
 " I " stand (a) for the individual speaker, or {b) for 
 Israel, the Churc4j-and Servant of God, personified ? 
 
 Of course, all scholars alike agree that in occa- 
 sional psalms it is undoubtedly the psalmist himself 
 who speaks. As in our Church Hymn-books, so in 
 the Jewish, some hymns were originally personal 
 and for private edification, like Newman's "Lead, 
 kindly light." But many scholars reduce this "indi- 
 vidual speaker" element to the barest limits, and 
 (even in Ps. li.) insist that " I " and " me " almost in- 
 variably stand for -"we" and "us" throughout the 
 Psalter. Their plea is a strong one. They maintain, 
 
" I '• PSALMS 263 
 
 and rightly, that, throughout, the Old Testament 
 personifies Israel {e.g. " The Suffering Servant "), and 
 they insist that it is so in the Psalter, the " I " stand- 
 ing for Israel = the Jewish Church = the true people 
 of God, personified. 
 
 Equally able scholars deny this. They grant that 
 it may be true to some degree, but not nearly to the 
 extent claimed. Their plea is of this nature : It is 
 true that, before the Exile, Israel is constantly per- 
 sonified, and for an obvious reason. Religion then 
 was national, not a personal matter between God and 
 the individual soul; hence the individual sense of 
 right and wrong, of sin and guilt, was not so deeply 
 felt. The community was all in all, the corporate 
 sense very strong, while individual personality was 
 largely merged in the national life. No doubt, even 
 after Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's insistence on personal 
 religion, there was not an immediate recoil to indi- 
 vidualism pure and simple. The national instinct 
 was alive and the corporate sense was still there 
 {e.g. II. Isaiah's "Suffering Servant"), and rightly en- 
 couraged. But post-exilic Hebrew literature proves 
 that, after the Return, individualism grew by leaps 
 and bounds. And such a psalm as li., and most of the 
 " I " psalms, would lose more than half their mean- 
 ing and force if resolved into a mere expression 
 of national penitence or hope, corporate prayer or 
 praise. The personal note is too pronounced to be 
 thus easily eliminated. Indeed, it is precisely this 
 personal note which gives the Psalter its firm hold 
 on every human heart. 
 
 This is a strong plea, and doubly strong when we 
 bear in mind a point already noted. Although the 
 whole Psalter, as it stands, was edited for Temple 
 (and synagogue) service, there is little doubt that 
 many of its hymns were originally the expression of 
 individual experience, afterwards toned down and 
 adapted to congregational use. If the second alter- 
 native be not the true solution, then all we can say is 
 
264 THE " HOLY WRITINGS " : PSALMS 
 
 that Hebrew psalmists had an exceptional genius— 
 which died with them — for so wording national 
 hymns as to voice exactly the inmost feelings of each 
 individual heart, all the world over, for all time. 
 
 Imprecatory Psalms. — This is where the " I " ques- 
 tion mainly comes in. In such psalms as Iviii., Ixix., 
 cix., cxxxvii., we have Hymns of Hate which cast a 
 black shadow on the lovely picture of the Psalter. 
 These passionate outbursts of resentment against 
 domestic or foreign foes may perhaps not be so 
 shocking, if the " I " is Israel the down-trodden and 
 persecuted community, and not the individual speaker, 
 though our conscience to-day rightly condemns them 
 in either case.^ 
 
 Various pleas have been urged in justification of 
 these psalms, e.g. : (i) They are but the expression of 
 the Church's righteous wrath against the powers 
 of evil hurting God's cause through the persons of 
 His servants on earth ; or (2) such resentment is 
 only natural on the lips of a people long oppressed, 
 enslaved, and maltreated, and would find its ready 
 echo in Christian Belgium to-day; or (3) a Christ 
 who called His calumniators " a generation of vipers," 
 
 ' Pss. cxxxvii and cix, are generally condemned by all. But many advocate 
 the public singing of the rest, quoting Ps. xcvii. lo : " ye that love the Lord, 
 see that ye hate the thing that is evil," alleging that the clearer our realisation 
 of the beauty of holiness, the sharper our recoil from, and condemnation of, 
 all that is base and evil. Forgive personal enemies, they say, but express 
 vigorously in word and deed your antipathy to " enemies of Society in the 
 aggregate," even as Christ assailed Scribes and Pharisees who opposed His 
 regeneration of mankind, and assailed them in terms of the strongest invective. 
 These advocates see in ;.^. Ps. Iviii. : " Break their teeth, O God, in their mouths. 
 Smite the jawbones of the lions, O Lord," and "the righteous shall rejoice 
 when he seeth the vengeance : he shall wash his footsteps in the blood of the 
 ungodly," and see rightly, nothing but a poetical pictme, sketched with a few 
 bold strokes, of the defeat in battle of a criminal nation which has violated every 
 law of God and of civilised humanity, and man's joy that justice has been 
 done ; just as we rejoicedjwhen we had broken the teeth of the German eagle 
 by sending their boats to the bottom or killing their thousands in battle. The 
 Bible, they urge, isno pacifist book, neither should we erase from it passages which 
 paint God's righteous vengeance in terrible colours, just to avoid shocking the 
 susceptibilities of the weak. I have felt in honour bound to put their case 
 as strongly as possible. But (l) Do these men realise Jewish vindictiveness 
 of old under bitter wrongs ? (cf. p. 22 sup.). (2) Does Christianity endorse their 
 verdict? (3) Does natural man's vindictive spirit want prompting, and in 
 God's House ? 
 
IMPRECATORY PSALMS 265 
 
 and consigned them to the "damnation of hell" 
 (St. Il^t. xxiii. 33), would prefer the righteous resent- 
 ment of these strong Jews to the maudlin softness so 
 common to-day in the presence of evil. 
 
 All said and done, the one excuse for such Hebrew 
 Hymns of Hate, which are as wide apart as the poles 
 from Christ's Spirit and Golden Rule of St. Mt. v. 38 
 sqq., is that such resentment is the ready voice of the 
 natural man's heart under strong provocation, and 
 recent experience proves that it is not for us to cast 
 the first stone. Moreover, as we saw in Ch. II., the 
 Psalms are the impassioned utterances of a Hebrew 
 people full of the fire of passion, the strong love and 
 hate, the pride and scorn of their Arab ancestors. If 
 Hebrew depth of feeling and heart of fire vents itself 
 in half a dozen Hymns of Hate, it also gives us an 
 Amos, Isaiah, and the world's Great Lyric. Once 
 more, 400 b.c. is not 1920 a.d. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 (ill.) "holy writings": job, ecclesiastes, proverbs 
 
 Job 
 
 Job is the profoundest creation of Hebrew religious 
 thought, one of the great dramatic poems of the 
 world's literature. Its theme is that sphinx-riddle : 
 " If God is, and is good ; why does evil prosper and 
 goodness suffer ? " 
 
 Even in Job's day (probably about 500-400 B.C.), as 
 Psalms and Prov, show, traditional orthodoxy had its 
 facile answer to this insoluble problem : " Virtue is 
 ever rewarded and badness punished measure for 
 measure in this life by a just God. Each man fares 
 exactly as his character and deeds deserve. An 
 apparently good man's woes are proof positive of a 
 goodness only skin-deep " — e.g. Ps. xxxvii. 25 sqq. 
 
 Yet here is Job, a typically good man at heart, as 
 God Himself 1 and even Satan own (i. 8 sqq.), suddenly 
 grievously afflicted. Therefore, on the current view 
 of Providence, he is a great sinner. His three friends 
 firmly uphold this orthodox view and lay some great 
 sin at his door. This Job stoutly denies : "I am 
 innocent; I have ever feared God and eschewed 
 evil," is the clear and unwavering verdict of his con- 
 science, and, as we have seen, endorsed of God. TJie 
 whole plot of the book hinges on the clear under- 
 standing that, not only is Job's outer life morally 
 correct as all the world can see, but that, as Job and 
 
 ' One of the finest strokes of the poet's art is his placing in the reader's 
 hands from the very first this master-key to the whole position, so that the 
 reader knows what God and Satan and Job alone know, and the three friends 
 of Job do not know. 
 
 266 
 
JOB'S DILEMMA 267 
 
 Satan and God alone know, his heart is perfect and 
 upright too. We must also bear in mind that Job 
 himself is perfectly certain of two facts : (i) God is, and 
 is good ; (2) his own innocence. But how to recon- 
 cile a righteous God's justice with a righteous Job's 
 undeserved sufferings, this he does not see. In the 
 ground of his heart he feels that there is a solution of 
 this problem ; he is trying hard to understand God's 
 righteous rule ; he clings to the belief that God is 
 more just than His dealings with him suggest, but he 
 candidly owns that he is floundering in deep waters 
 and utterly in the dark. 
 
 Thus Job is a religious protest against the shallow 
 traditional interpretation of Providence which has 
 broken down in actual life-experience; a plea for a 
 wider, deeper, truer solution. The old answer will 
 not do, and may even drive a godly man to the denial 
 of God's justice altogether. Job's own experience 
 gives conventional orthodoxy the lie direct ; rest in 
 the Church dogma that all suffering is retributive he 
 cannot and will not. He chooses the darkness of 
 doubt rather than give the lie to his convictions and 
 conscience. Indeed, he is very outspoken with God. 
 He frankly spreads out all his doubts before God, 
 He goes further. He openly questions God's justice 
 in a way that shocks his three friends as rank blas- 
 phemy. 
 
 For Job the old conventional answer has gone 
 clean overboard. But he does not go to the other 
 extreme and say : " I do not believe the old answer ; 
 what is more, I do not think there is any answer at 
 all ; therefore I shall just cease troubling about it 
 altogether." He will not be dishonest with God or 
 himself by whittling down the new facts till they fit 
 into the old conventional creed, but neither will he 
 lightly deny God or surrender his faith in God's 
 goodness. He stands by his own experience, but he 
 stands also by his trust in God. Heart and head tug 
 hard in opposite directions. The position for Job is 
 
268 "HOLY WRITINGS"; JOB 
 
 awful.^ Egypt with its flesh-pots of conventional 
 orthodoxy he has left behind him; the Promised 
 Land of peace and conviction he sees very dimly in 
 sight with the eye of faith, but he cannot win through 
 to it ; the wilderness of doubt and uncertainty between 
 the two is an awful place, yet make it his home he 
 must or give the lie to life as he sees it and 
 knows it.^ 
 
 Does Job succeed in solving the great point at 
 issue, or does he leave it a riddle? Is the whole 
 poem one note of interrogation ? Even if it were, its 
 loud protest against the shallow current orthodoxy 
 in itself marks a stage in the history^ of religious 
 thought vastly in advance of anything that preceded 
 it. The inspired author himself stresses this point. 
 He shows, not only that doubting Job pleads as truly 
 for God as his conventionally orthodox friends, but 
 that he pleads ten times more truly for God. For he 
 shows us God Himself siding, not with the facile 
 advocates of a Tradition which has eyes and will not 
 see, but wholeheartedly with the maligned sufferer 
 who honestly pours out his soul and will not lie: 
 "And the Lord said to Eliphaz, My wrath is kindled 
 against thee and against thy two friends ; for ye have 
 not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My 
 servant Job hath " (xlii. 7). 
 
 The protest in itself is of immense value. And is 
 Job's patient endurance in his close' walk with God, 
 apart from all outward tokens of His favour, and 
 
 * "Job is an untamed eagle, dashing himself against the bats of his cage ; 
 he lages and flings himself against the moial iniquities of Providence ; the 
 Preacher (.ff^^/w.) looks out with a lustreless eye on the glorious heavens, where, 
 if he was free, he might soar, and only mourns and moralises " (Cheyne). 
 
 ' j^cii and Eccles, are the most intensely modern of Hebrew creations, they 
 so typically anticipate the fearless honesty and sincerity which is the spirit of 
 our own age. What J. M. Wilson said in his sermon to the British (scientific) 
 Association of the scientific temper of our own day might be said of them. 
 They " feel that truthfulness of mind is of vital importance not only to know- 
 ledge, but to character ; that to fear investigation even in matters of faith, 
 to conceal difficulties, to slur over inconsistencies, or to overstate convictions, 
 to become, in short, an advocate instead of a truth-seeker, are faults which 
 darken and degrade the soul." 
 
JOB ARRAIGNS GOD'S JUSTICE 269 
 
 sustained only by the witness of his conscience — is 
 this to count for little in estimating the positive value 
 oijob? Unaided, unconsoled, merely "holding fast 
 by truth and his great soul," Job, with all the odds 
 against him, has won, and helps us to win, through. 
 With all reverence be it said, yet say it we must, 
 there is truer and more heroic faith in a Job Who, 
 face to face with such a problem and no light what- 
 ever to pierce the gloom of the grave, still clings to 
 God and wins through, than in St. Paul's : " If in this 
 life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men 
 most miserable " (cf. 2 Cor. 4" ; but see Note p. 288). 
 But the book of Job carries us much further than 
 the protest, or the heroic faith, in the way of a solu- 
 tion. In the earlier chapters Job had spoken to 
 God with fearless frankness, accused God of making 
 Himself both accuser and judge in the case, with no 
 umpire for Job to appeal to as against his Almighty 
 Antagonist in the suit : " He is not a man, as I 
 am, that I should answer Him and we should come 
 together in judgment ; neither is there any daysman 
 (= umpire, R.V.) between us that might lay his hand 
 on us both. Let Him take His rod away from me, 
 and let His terror not make me afraid. Then would 
 I speak and not fear Him " (ix. 32 sqq.). Here Job 
 openly arraigns God's justice, accuses Him of acting 
 in this unequal controversy even as an Oriental 
 despot whose almighty power overrides, without 
 hope of redress, his weak subjects' claims, even 
 though all the right is on the weaker side. Exactly 
 in the same spirit, when Job's friends, voicing the 
 view of divine retribution which was tlie orthodoxy 
 of their day, outspokenly accuse him of being, as his 
 afflictions prove, a great sinner, Job indignantly re- 
 pudiates their insinuations and their charges. He 
 goes further. He declares point-blank that, if they 
 insist on calling this God's justice, he will say straight 
 in God's face that He is an almighty tyrant, who un- 
 justly destroys an innocent man, even though God 
 
270 " HOLY WRITINGS " ; JOB 
 
 slay him for it: "Behold, He will slay me; I wait 
 for Him" (Job xiii. 15 R.V.m.).^ 
 
 In the supplement to the poem, God Himself takes 
 up Job's challenge. Suddenly God, whom Job had 
 alternately challenged and implpred to appear, comes 
 on the scene and answers him out of the whirlwind 
 (xxxviii.-xli.). He shows Job that His Providence 
 all along is right and man's indictment of it wrong. 
 The line of argument is one that ever appealed to 
 Nature-loving' Jews. Nature is called as witness to 
 speak for her Maker. Her evidence clearly proves 
 that, while earthquake and storm may speak only of 
 God's almighty power, yet every star and leaf and 
 bird, summer and winter, rain and sunshine declare 
 God's wisdom and goodness. As Elihu' points out, 
 in the heavens above as on the earth beneath every- 
 thing has its season and function, everything moves 
 according to settled rhythm, law, order. So in the 
 moral realm. But both the natural and moral uni- 
 
 ' See p. 229, n. sup., and Driver " jfob " adloc, and R.V. As Driver says ; 
 " Tlie rendering, ' Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him ' expresses a 
 thought which is beautiful in itself, but inconsistent with the context, and with 
 the frame of mind in which Job is here speaking.' Whatever the true render- 
 ing, whether it means ' He will slay me, I wait for Him ' (i.e. for the death- 
 blow), or ' He will slay me ; I will not wait {i.t. nothing will stop me from 
 vindicating myself before Him) ' — the drift is the same, ' Though He slay 
 me, nevertheless I will argue the case and vindicate my ways before Him.' " 
 
 ' As Montefiore, ff.L., 426 (abridged) says, Jews ever saw in "Nature, 
 animate and inanimate, the object of God's perpetual care, a witness to His 
 glory and wisdom as its Creator and Sustainer." " Nature was no lifeless 
 product turned out once and for all from the Craftsman's hands." The Jews 
 might grudge other nations a share in their God, but to the God of Israel they 
 ascribed "a very tender feeling towards beasts and birds, mountains , and 
 seas, trees and flowers," and without budging one inch from their firm stand 
 on God's Transcendence, they saw God in Nature as clearly as the most 
 pronounced Immanent-ist. Our scientific idea of " Laws of Nature " they 
 certainly had not, but they instinctively felt something akin to it, seeing in 
 Nature's order and rhythm an expression of God's changeless Will and good- 
 ness. "Nature 'red in tooth and claw,' 'shrieking against faith in a flving 
 God ' — these aspects never occurred to the Jews." They saw Nature through 
 the poet's eye, lovingly and not critically. 
 
 » Many consider the Elibu speeches (xxxii.-xxxvi.) later additions. Elihu 
 is not named in the Prologue (ii. 11), and in the Epilogue he is ignored ^ain, 
 though he deserves the same rebuke as the three friends of Job. Again, not a 
 word does Job reply to his provocative speeches ; and in xxxviii. I sq. God's 
 reply, " Who is this that darkeneth counsel ? " etc. is a direct answer to Job's 
 " O that I had One to hear me," etc. of xxxi. 35, just before Elihu's speeches. 
 Clearly the Elihu section is no organic part of yia. 
 
GOD OPENS JOB'S EYES 271 
 
 verses are far too large and complex for man to be 
 able to gauge the depths of the Wisdom "^ which 
 directs it all. Man knows but one tiny corner of one 
 small field in a vast Universe, and knows even this 
 but imperfectly (xxxviij.). Surely the Creator and 
 Preserver of such a cosmos as we see may safely be 
 trusted to steer it morally right." 
 
 The argument may seem to us inconclusive, more 
 apt to awe and silence man than convince him. Our 
 Hebrew poet, like Tennyson or Wordsworth (p. 15, 
 n. sup.), judges otherwise. He represents Job as 
 convinced by what he sees all around him of God's 
 power, goodness, and wisdom, yes, and by the awe, 
 wonder, and mystery of it all. God's majestic Wisdom 
 is beyond puny man's ken. His ways inscrutable. If 
 man cannot grasp God's operations in a Nature which 
 stares him in the face, what folly and presumption to 
 pretend to fathom His dealings in Providence ! Here 
 Job acquiesces wholeheartedly. So long as the three 
 friends harped on the retributive or punitive aspect 
 of his sufferings, he rebelled and called God's justice 
 injustice ; now that he is called upon, in the light of 
 God's beneficent yet mysterious Providence in Nature, 
 to trust Him though He seems to frown, he at once 
 submits and trusts implicitly. Nay, he bows his 
 head in remorse, shame, adoration. At last his heart 
 has learnt to rest in God, even though he cannot 
 attain unto Him with his understanding. Rapt in 
 God as seen in His wondrous works, with heart all 
 
 ' yob xxviii, on the Wisdom of God (cf. Prov. rai.) is a very grand poem. 
 No earthly treasures lie too deep for human industry, — note Job's fine descrip- 
 tion of ancient mining, — but Wisdom is with God alone. By Wisdom (cf. 
 Logos) is meant the Reason originating and pervading Creation. This passage, 
 again, looks like an interpolation ; it is out of place just here. 
 
 ' Behemoth and Leviathan (xl. 15-xli. 34) are the hippopotamus and 
 crocodile. Jastrow (Heb. and Bab. Tradition, p. 114 sq., abridged) seems 
 right in seeing in xli. 1-8, a reference to the Tiamat monster of the Creation- 
 story which Jehovah alone (cf. Marduk) was able to subdue. ' ' The description 
 of the monster strong of fangs, raising himself up to a great height, to whom 
 iron is as straw, suggests in many ways Tiamat and her brood, with whom 
 Yahweh alone can deal. He catches him as one hooks a fish, uses him as a 
 toy, cf. Leviathan's appeal to the powerful Yahweh who has captured him, as 
 Marduk caught Tiamat, — all this is reminiscent of the Tiamat Story." 
 
272 " HOLY WRITINGS » ; JOB 
 
 along athirst after God and now perfectly attuned to 
 Him, the eyes and ears of job's soul are now open ; 
 he actually hears God's Voice, sees His Face, and is 
 at rest : " I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the 
 ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee" (xlii. s R.V.). 
 Long before, he had cried in his agony of darkness : 
 " I know that my vindicator ^ liveth and that he shall 
 stand up at the last upon the earth" (xix. 25 R.V.). 
 That prayer is answered now. "In the flesh" Job 
 has seen God face to face (xlii. 5) and God has vindi- 
 cated him (7) here on earth in his latter day. 
 
 Soaring now above the petty material things of 
 earth, Job's soul breathes a purer atmosphere. All 
 his resentment, arguments, doubts, he leaves behind 
 him now. He has seen God face to face, he knows 
 God now and is ashamed of his former attitude 
 towards Him : " wherefore I abhor myself, and re- 
 pent in dust and ashes " (xlii. 6). He calls it all back, 
 bows his head, and adores. 
 
 To modern readers the Epilogue (xlii. 10 sqq.), in 
 which " the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had , 
 before," seems a sad drop from the sublime to the 
 common-place, a bathos indeed. But Job was not 
 written for modern readers. We shall see in the 
 next section that its whole tone and thought prove 
 its author a firm adherent to the common belief thatj 
 this life ended, nothing remains but Sheol, the land 
 of forgetfulness and Silence. If the light shed upon 
 this life's changes and chances by the clear vision of 
 a resurrection to eternal life had been vouchsafed to 
 the author. Job would be quite a different book. His 
 eyes once open to see this world as only " the vesti- 
 bule to the world to come " (R. Jacob), all our modern 
 solutions of the problem of suffering would have 
 
 ' Goel, i.e. one who vindicates the claims upon him of those who are his, 
 and sees their wrongs righted. " Redeemer " is not only a mistranslation, but 
 misleading to Christian readers because of its association. Advocate is the 
 idea here. "The Hebrew of 25* is very difficult, and clearly has undergone 
 some corruption " (Biirney). The sense is " God willi stand up for me either 
 aliv« or dead (?).'' (Cf. Cheyne : " The text is both corrupt and interpolated.") 
 
LIFE AFTER DEATH IN JOB 273 
 
 instantly flashed upon this creative genius. But 
 from the standpoint of Job's day our present solu- 
 tions {e.g. " made perfect through suffering," or again, 
 "our outward woes do not affect the peace of God 
 within,") were out of court, quite inadequate and un- 
 satisfactory. Under a dispensation in which there 
 was no assurance of a future life, the return of Job's 
 prosperity in this life was indispensable to the vindica- 
 tion of Job's character and the justification of Job's 
 arguments in the eyes of contemporary readers, The 
 Epilogue with its : " The Lord gave Job twice as much 
 as he had before," (xlii. 10), not only satisfies poetic 
 justice, it was absolutely a sine qua non for the 
 harmonious solution of all the reader's difficulties, 
 even as he needed the Prologue to give him the key 
 to the whole situation at the outset* 
 
 Life after death in Job. — "As the cloud is consumed 
 and vanisheth away, so he that goeth to Sheol shall 
 come up no more " (R.V. vii. 9) ; " Before I go whence 
 I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and 
 of the shadow of death ; a land of thick darkness, as 
 darkness itself; a land of the shadow of death with- 
 out any order, and where the light is as darkness " 
 (x. 21 sq.); " Man dieth and wasteth away; yea, man 
 giveth up the ghost, and where is he ? As the waters 
 fail from the sea and the river decayeth and drieth 
 up ; so man lieth down and riseth not," etc. (xiv. lo 
 sqq.); "His sons come to honour and he knoweth it 
 not; are brought low and he perceiveth it not " (21) ; 
 "For when a few years are come, I shall go the 
 
 ' !)'c6 is "poetically treated history," a dramatic poem, freely and imagi- 
 natively treating facts handed down by tradition and here substantially 
 reproduced. As to the integrity of the book, most scholars question Elihu's 
 speeches, and several also Ch. xxviii., which is certainly inappropriate where it 
 stands. The arguments against the genuineness of other portions of yai are 
 mostly far from convincing. Thus Jastrow (cf. Cheyne) writes : " yo6 ended 
 originally with Ch. xxxi., where the closing words : ' Ended are the words of 
 Job,' are still found intact. Chs. xxxii.-xlii. 6 represent further attempts of 
 later writers to discuss the same enthralling theme. . . ." But for these subse- 
 quent chs., yoi, with its scepticism, would never have been canonised {//ei. 
 aftd £ai. Trad., 233 sq.). In force, diction, style, beauty, xxxii.-xlii. are quite 
 of a piece with the rest of this noble, dramatic poem. 
 
274 " HOLY WRITINGS » ; JOB 
 
 way whence I shall not return " (xvi. 22) ; " One dieth 
 in his full strength . . . and another dieth in bitter- 
 ness of soul, . . . they lie down alike in the dust and 
 the worm covereth them " (xxL 23 sqq.) ; " I know 
 that Thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house 
 appointed for all living " (xxx. 23). 
 
 Not a hint of a resurrection to eternal life in all 
 this ^ in Job. Many still see in Job xix. 25, " For I 
 know that my Redeemer (= Vindicator = Goel) liveth, 
 and that he shall stand up at the last upon the earth, 
 and though after my skin this body be destroyed, 
 yet from my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall 
 see for myself and mine eyes shall behold, and not 
 another," — a clear proof of the author's belief in a 
 resurrection to eternal life. To begin with, as all 
 scholars admit, "this famous passage is hopelessly 
 corrupt through later toning down and touching 
 up " ; and, even as it stands. Can such a view of 
 a resurrection be read into the passage in the face 
 of the plain fact that the conception of life after 
 death as set forth in Job is one and the same through- 
 out the whole poem, namely, a listless life in Sheol 
 for good and bad alike? As already shown, Job 
 xix. 25 clearly means this : " I know that my Vindi- 
 cator liveth, and that He shall manifest Himself to 
 me at the last here upon earth; and though at my 
 death my body shall be destroyed, yet from my fles"h, 
 in my own proper body before I die, shall I see God, 
 I myself." The sequel proves that Job's prophecy, 
 prayer, conviction — call it what you will — of xix. 25 
 was no delusion. Jo!b xxxviii.-xlii. shows us God 
 appearing in Person and speaking to Job here on 
 earth, in his lifetime, and xlii. 5 expressly makes Job 
 address these words to God : " I had heard of Thee 
 by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee" 
 
 ' Dr. Bumey writes me ! "I think Job xiv. 13-15 <'"'■' put forward the 
 theory of a future life tentatively as a possible solution, but only to withdraw 
 it again at once as beyond the range of credibility," C£ Eccles. ill. 20, 21, 
 where the Preacher does exactly the same thing. 
 
ESTIMATE OF ECCLESIASTES 275 
 
 He actually does see his hope (xix. 25) realised in 
 every detail on this side of the grave. 
 
 Neither Job nor his three friends extend their 
 horizon beyond this world, for all that remains for 
 man after this life is dark Sheol, where the dead lie 
 all huddled together drearily and listlessly. Why 
 should this surprise us? As we have repeatedly 
 seen, we can practically count on the fingers of one 
 hand all the clear revelations of an individual" resur- 
 rection in the Old Testament, and it is more than 
 probable that not a single one of them dates before 
 300 B.C. As Delitzsch nobly writes : " This is just the 
 heroic feature in the faith of the Old Testament, that 
 in the midst of the riddles of this life, and face to 
 face with the impenetrable darkness resting on life 
 beyond, it throws itself without reserve into the arms 
 of God." Could we have stood that strain and yet 
 cleaved to God as they did, with no heaven or hell 
 before us? Paul doubts it (i Cor. xv. 19). 
 
 ECCLESIASTES. 
 
 Over the inclusion of Ecclesiastes in the Bible, in 
 face of its cynicism, the discussion waxed long and 
 furious among the Jews themselves down to 90 a.d. 
 and even after. No wonder. To this day quot homi- 
 nes tot sententice on this vexed question ; in plain 
 English, the ablest scholars have literally boxed the 
 compass in their estimate of Ecclesiastes. As to its 
 real interpretation, we can only say in Origen's 
 words on the authorship of Hebrews : " God alone 
 knows for certain." 
 
 Are we to look upon Ecclesiastes as " the work of a 
 brilliant and refined pessimist almost without God in 
 the world," or shall we see in it a " triumph of faith 
 against tremendous odds, placing it on a level with 
 Job " ? Is its motto " Fear God, and pin not your 
 faith to this world," or " Let us eat and drink for to- 
 morrow we die " ? Does it preach " All is well, for 
 
276 " HOLY WRITINGS" ; ECCLESIASTES 
 
 God is at the helm of His world," or "All is the 
 sport of Chance " ? Is its last word : " Death is the 
 stepping-stone to life immortal," or "All ends at 
 the grave"? In short, is its creed: "Heaven is in 
 sight, be strong and fear not," or " Life is a hell, and 
 nothing after it, all hope abandon " ? ^ 
 
 Which set of alternatives are we to choose ? It 
 much depends on our answer to the question : Is Eccl. 
 xii. I, 13 sq., from the pen of the Preacher ^ himself or 
 a later interpolation in the interests of orthodoxy ? 
 Here, again, the ablest scholars split into two camps 
 and, unfortunately, the balance of evidence dips in 
 favour of those who reject these beautiful verses as a 
 later addition. 
 
 Perhaps the best way of letting the reader judge for 
 himself is to epitomise the Preacher's own chapters 
 one by one. We shall include the whole Epilogue, 
 merely bracketing its disputed verses. Without 
 these, the book is pessimistic and scarcely " godly," 
 while those three verses alter its whole complexion 
 and do make Ecclesiastes " a triumph of faith almost 
 without parallel in the Old Testament." 
 
 The Prologue (i. 2-12) gives us the root-idea or 
 theme of this " symphony of pessimism " : — 
 
 " All is vanity. Life and its toil are a hollow farce and lead 
 nowhere. The fixed and unalterable order of things hems us in 
 a vicious circle from which there is no escape. Everything in 
 Nature and man has to go endlessly round and round in the same 
 groove ; of the two, man is the worse oflF, for conscious man is 
 soon snuflfed out, while unconscious 'Earth abideth for ever.' 
 Fruitless is this wearisome eternal rojind and monotonous, 
 ' there is no new thing under the sun.' " 
 
 The Preacher, having stated his brief, now pro- 
 ceeds to prove it from his life-experience : — 
 
 ' The title of Eccles. is " The words of Kohtleth, son of David, King in 
 Jerusalem." Koheleth is a fem. participle and means " the one who causes 
 people to assemble" (i.e. in holy congregation before God). It may (?) mean "the 
 one addressing such assembly." The fem. may stand for Solomon = Wisdom 
 personified ; but some words of office are fem. (cf. Arabic " Khallfah "). 
 
EPITOME OF ECCLESIASTES 277 
 
 Ch. i. i2-ii. : " I gave my heart to seek out by wisdom " all it 
 could tell me of man and his lot and found that man's labours, 
 and wisdom itself, lead nowhere but to " vanity and vexation of 
 spirit." Then I tried pleasure. It, too, was all hollow-; " I said 
 of laughter, It is mad ; and of mirth. What doeth it ? " Industry, 
 wealth, fame proved equally Dead Sea fruits. True, "wisdom 
 excelleth folly," for " the wise man's eyes are in his head, but the 
 fool walketh in darkness." But is wisdom worth its heavy price ? 
 for it all ends at the grave where wise and fool are both aUke. 
 So I hated life, hated all my wearisome toil bringing me nothing 
 but vexed days and restless nights, and, perchance, merely to 
 leave all that I laboured for to a fool I The best thing is to 
 eat, drink, and enjoy such good things as God sets within your 
 reach.' Yet even this is vanity. 
 
 Ch. iii. All life's events are immutably fixed and our tether is 
 short. We have to be born or die, plant or sow, weep or laugh, 
 love or hate, by the time-table ; for puny man is as a puppet in 
 the hands of Almighty God. He fixes the what and the when of 
 everything, big or small, for man to reaUse his utter dependence 
 on his Maker and fear Him ; also for him to realise that man and 
 beast are both alike, out of the dust and back to the dust. There- 
 fore enjoy life while you can, for it is yours only from cradle to 
 grave. 
 
 Ch. iv. Life's tears and wrongs prove death better than life ; best 
 of all not to be born at all. Life is but knocking one's head 
 against the stone-wall of God's predestined order of things. 
 Labour is barren, and even success a mirage and a snare. In 
 this vale of woe there is some safety in friends and companion- 
 ship ; " two are better than one." 
 
 Ch. v. Remember the almighty power of God in His heaven and 
 your own pimy weakness as a man here on earth, so if you draw 
 near to God in prayer or otherwise, be very circumspect and let 
 your words be few, or it will be worse for you. Rich and poor 
 alike are in God's Iron hand, and men are much more on a level 
 than they seem, for none of us is his own master. Power and 
 riches bring anxiety and have wings. Best eat, drink, and enjoy 
 life J and not think too much. 
 
 Ch. vi. God at times gives a man all the gpod things of life, 
 
 ' N.B. — Kohelcth was no vulgar sensualist. Riot and excess would repel 
 him as madness. The enjoyment he recommends (and all true Jews) are the 
 simple pleasures of life as ix. 7-10 proves. He here gives the O.T. Hebrew 
 view which looked upon material blessings as the seal of Grod's favour. 
 
278 " HOLY WRITINGS " ; ECCLESIASTES 
 
 but not the power of enjoying them. There is a fly in most of our 
 ointment, vanity is our common lot and darkness our end 5 better 
 not be born. "All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet 
 the appetite is not filled," Better is contentment with what you 
 have than coveting what you have not, but both are vanity. 
 Man's lot is fated and it is vain to kick against the pricks ; if 
 man had his choice, it would be even worse for him. 
 
 Ch. vii. De&th is better than birth, mourning than feasting, 
 sorrow than laughter, patience than fretting, wisdom than money. 
 Avoid all extremes; be not righteous overmuch, or wise over- 
 much, or wicked overmuch. Wisdom is strength and gossip two- 
 edged. Woman is more bitter than death j you may find one 
 good man in a thousand, but not one good woman at all. 
 
 Ch. viii. Obey the king and rebel not even when he oppresses, 
 for he is mighty ; he will reap as he has sown in due time. Vice 
 prospers and virtue starves, yet better be good than bad. But 
 eat, drinkj and enjoy life, for that boon lasts all one's days. God's 
 ways are past finding out; even the wisest man, try as he will, 
 can see no purpose in it all. 
 
 Ch. ix. All men are in God's inscrutable iron hand; to all comes 
 the same end, death and the pit where all is blank nothingness. 
 Make the most of this life, for " there is no work, nor device, nor 
 knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest" "A living 
 dog is better than a dead lion," though even in life merit and 
 success do not go hand in hand ; it is all a matter of luck and 
 influence. Yet despised wisdom is better than successful folly. 
 
 Ch, X. Wisdom has eyes, folly is blind ; unhappy the land where 
 " folly is in great dignity and servants ride upon horses," where 
 princes are slothful and gluttonous. Curse not the king or the 
 powerful even in secret, or a " bird shall carry thy voice and tell 
 the matter." 
 
 Ch, xi. Be benevolent and you will have friends in time of 
 trouble. Do what work you have to do when you can and as 
 you can ; do not quarrel with your tools or delay action because 
 every little detail is not exactly as you wish. You must run 
 some risks and make your faith-venture, for the laws of Nature 
 are above your ken : " he that observeth the wind shall not sow, 
 and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap " ; it only paralyses 
 action. Life is sweet, but darkness its one end. " AH that 
 Cometh is vanity." 
 
 Epilogue. — Rejoice, young man, in thy youth, and walk in 
 
CONCEPTION OF GOD 279 
 
 the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes, — [but 
 know that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. 
 Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth] — ere the evil 
 days of old age come, old age with its tottering legs, its tooth- 
 lessness, dim eyes, deaf ears, loss of taste and desire, and its 
 general break up, old age when "thou shalt say, I have no 
 pleasure in them," all faculty of pleasure gone. Enjoy life ere 
 it is snuffed out and man returns to the dust whence he came. 
 " Vanity of vanities ; all is vanity." ' [" Let us hear the con- 
 clusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep His command- 
 ments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring 
 every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be 
 good, or whether it be evil."] 
 
 If only we could add these bracketed verses to the 
 Preacher's book, what a world of difference it would 
 make! All that goes before would merely give us 
 the cynic's creed just to pulverise it with one single 
 unanswerable plea, pricking its bubble and exposing 
 it as the plausible but empty thing it is. Setting 
 aside these verses for a moment, let us briefly sum 
 up the Preacher's (a) idea of God, (b) idea of death, in 
 the rest of the book. 
 
 Conception of God. — Koheleth's religion makes God a far-away 
 almighty God. His fiat pre-ordains all that is, and man cannot 
 break this fixed and immutable order of all things, of which 
 he himself forms a part. Of a divine Providence guiding all 
 things to a definite goal, and of any moral principle, the Preacher, 
 after a profound life-long study of things as they actually are, sees 
 not a trace. All is chance and change, in which things go end- 
 lessly round and round, but plan, purpose, progress is nowhere 
 to be seen in it all. Fate and Chance seem to rule the world 
 between them. No doubt, God is somehow the cause of every- 
 thing that happens under the sun, evil or good, and He may have 
 some plan and purpose in it all j but, if so, it is past human com- 
 prehension. God is a far-away, almighty God ; man but a puppet 
 m His hands. The object of this fixed iron rule is to show that 
 
 ' The recurrence of this refxain here seems;to imply " Finis" here the 
 book ends. At any rate, it does imply that the author's meditations are in 
 the same pessimistic key as when he began. Would " vanity of vanities, all 
 is vanity," have come in just here, if faith had gloriously triumphed ? 
 
28o " HOLY WRITINGS " ; ECCLESIASTES 
 
 God is all in all and man nothing, to strike fear and awe of God 
 in man's soul : " God is in Heaven, thou upon earth, therefore let 
 thy words be few " (v. 1-8). Koheleth does take God into his 
 reckoning : " It shall be well with them that fear God, but it 
 shall not be well with them that fear not God ; " the wicked shall 
 not prosper (viii. 12 sq.). The Preacher longs to believe that 
 God has some moral aim in it all, but the hard facts and 
 anomalies of life are too much for him as he looks facts squarely 
 in the face. Existence has no meaning and no worth ; pleasure 
 and pain, industry and ease, mirth and sadness, wisdom and folly, 
 all is empty vanity and it all comes to one and the same end, 
 dust thou art and unto dust thou returnest. The best plan is 
 to live while you may, enjoy the good things God sets within 
 your reach, but in moderation and without excess (vii. 16 sq,). 
 
 Life after death (see ii. 14 sqq. ; vi. 4 sqq. ; ix. 5 sqq.; 
 xi. 8). Eccl. ix. 3-10 gives us a most vivid picture of life after 
 death in Sheol where " the dead know not anything, neither have 
 they any more a reward ; for the memory of them is forgotten. 
 As well their love, as their hatred and their envy, is now 
 perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in 
 anything that is done under the sun " (cf. Pss. vi. 5 j xxxix, 13 j 
 Ixxxviii. 10-13); so, continues the Preacher, eat, drink and be 
 merry ; clothe thy|elf in white and anoint thy head ; live joy- 
 fully with thy beloved wife ; for that is thy portion ; ' and " what- 
 soever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might ; for there 
 is no work, nor device, nor knowledge nor wisdom, in Sheol 
 whither thou goest." In Eccl. iii. 18-21 ("That the sons of 
 men may see that they themselves are but as beasts. For that 
 which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts ; even one thing 
 befalleth them ; as the one dieth, so dieth the other "), he throws 
 cold water on some people's idea'' that " the spirit of man goeth 
 
 ' Cf. exactly the same advice given by Siduri-Sabitu to Gilgamesh in the 
 Babylonian epic : "Thou, O Gilgamesh, let thy belly be full ; day and night 
 be merry and feast. Clean be thy clothes, anointed be thy head ; be washed 
 daily in pure water. Look joyfully on the child that clasps thy hand ; be 
 happy with thy wife in thy bosom," the very words are alike. 
 
 ' Just as Job and Eccl. both show that the doctrine of the Prophets, e.g. 
 Jer. xxxi. and Ezek. xviii. (=God requites man measure for measure according 
 to his merits in this life) encountered definite opposition from _a sceptical 
 spiritual school, prompted, not by mere cynicism, but by a profound study of 
 life as it is, — so Eccl. iii. shows a clear polemic on the part of thinkers against 
 a new view of individual resurrection which differentiated between the fate of 
 man and beast, good men and bad. This polemic, as well as the matter and 
 style oi Eccles., its philosophy and its plea for "moderation," "nothing too 
 much '* (litiih iynv), suggest a third-century date, and Greek influence, {ox Eccl. 
 
JOB AND ECCLESIASTES COMPARED 28 1 
 
 upward, and the spirit of the beast goeth downward to the earth" 
 (xxi.)^: " as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one 
 breath ; and man hath no pre-eminence above the beasts. All go 
 unto one place ; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again." He 
 would fain believe this new-fangled creed that the fate in store for 
 man's spirit is different from that of the beasts, if there were a 
 particle of evidence for it, but there is not. " There is one event to 
 the righteous and to the wicked ; to the gobd and 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 j and he that sweareth, as 
 he that feareth an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under 
 the sun, that there is one event unto all" (ix. 2 sqq.). No one 
 can read Eccl. without seeing that Koheleth's whole plea is a 
 protest against the injustice of the grave swallowing up man's 
 spirit, man's character, man's acquisitions, so that he can retain 
 nothing of the experience, character, personality, he has spent 
 life in building. He would fain believe in a life after death, but 
 he cannot ; it is a delusion. 
 
 As already said, both Job and Ecclesiastes are 
 strangely modern. Both take their stand on life- 
 experience, and refuse to whittle down hard facts till 
 they fit into conventional theories that have broken 
 down in actual experience. Job sees the old answer 
 will not do ; he has no other to put in its place, but 
 in his heart of hearts he knows there is one. " Lead, 
 kindly light," is his heart-cry, sure that, to the true 
 seeker, light, God's own light, will come. In this spirit 
 Job wins through. Ecclesiastes also rejects the old 
 answer, but he questions whether there is any answer 
 at all. Even in the heart of the arid wilderness Job 
 sees the Promised Land with the eye of faith and 
 means to get there; Ecclesiastes sees nothing but 
 wilderness. He, too, has heard of a Promised Land, 
 but he is sure it is a mirage. For him the wilder- 
 ness is the be-all and end-all of existence; so, in 
 
 _' This in itself shows that xii. 7, "Then shall the dust return to the earth 
 as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it," dioes not mean 
 what it suggests to us. Of course, the Preacher believes that life comes from 
 God, but (as Job 27' clearly shows : " My breath is in me and the spirit of God 
 is in my nostrils ") here it simply means breath (cf. Job 33', 34", Ps. 104"), 
 
282 " HOLY WRITINGS " ; ECCLES. AND PROVERBS 
 
 deadly earnest and not in irony, he frames a practical 
 philosophy of life which may help him and others to 
 make the best of a bad job. Throughout, one feels 
 that his biting epigrams are " a suffering soul's efforts 
 to anaesthetise itself, narcotic drugs to deaden pain." 
 Our whole heart goes out to the Preacher, for his 
 " book of Confessions " is the travail of a soul in its 
 Gethsemane, exceeding sorrowful even unto death. 
 Each word is a heart-groan. Judged by the con 
 ventional standard, Koheleth is a light-hearted blas- 
 phemer. It is through such agonised souls (cf. 
 Thomas), who have braved the hell of honest doubt, 
 that mankind at times has been led a long stage 
 further in its spiritual life. 
 
 And it may be that the whole Epilogue after all is 
 his very own. Whether it is or not, we cannot spare 
 Ecclesiastes. But there has ever been and ever will 
 be a " school of Hillel " affirming that the Preacher 
 "defiles the hand " (see p. 252, n.), and also a "school 
 of Shammai " insisting that it does not. Thank God ! 
 Hillel's won the day ! 
 
 Proverbs. 
 
 After a Job And Eccles., Proverbs on the same theme 
 is very tame and uninspiring. In Ch. XV. p. 239, 
 sup., we spoke of one class of the " wise " whose duty 
 it was to teach the people the moral bearings of their 
 creed. They sought to gain the ear of the general 
 public, especially the young, and impress upon them 
 the principles of right conduct. No deep problems, 
 theirs, as in Job. They are just moral educators who 
 approach life from a common sense, practical, re- 
 ligious standpoint and set themselves to form men's 
 opinions and guide their actions by moral maxims. 
 Themselves reared in the traditional creed, and seek- 
 ing to influence the many and not the select few, 
 their ideas and ideals seldom rise much above the 
 level of conventional orthodoxy. They take for 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TEACHERS 283 
 
 granted that happiness is man's aim in life, en- 
 lightened self-interest his ordinary motive,' honesty 
 the best policy, religion the foundation of virtue and 
 of well-being. So they impress on their hearers that 
 only he is wise who shapes his life with the fear 
 of God before his eyes, while the self-willed man 
 who leaves God out of his reckoning is a fool blind 
 to his own truest interests. Hence their constant 
 refrain : "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wis- 
 dom " (Prov. i. 7 ; ix. 10 ; xv. 33). Proverbs and Psalms 
 are full of this teaching. It has its roots deep in the 
 Law and the Prophets, but, for a reason mentioned 
 below, it seldom alludes to either and runs on far 
 broader, almost cosmopolitan lines. These moral 
 educationists take two postulates for granted : " God 
 is," and " God's Law is," or in other words : " There 
 is a God and He rules His world on moral lines, 
 requiting man according to his merits and measure 
 for measure." No average Jew would dream of 
 questioning these simple axioms : all the " teacher " 
 has to do is to drive home these premisses to their 
 logical conclusion, showing that, as experience 
 proves, righteousness pays and is the only true 
 wisdom, while sin comes to grief and is sheer folly. 
 
 The tendency to-day is to stress the prudential 
 and utilitarian factor in Proverbs and unduly dis- 
 parage the specifically religious background and 
 atmosphere of its teaching. Proverbs lacks the fire 
 and depth of Job or the Prophets, but its creed is not 
 thin or colourless. It is 'no cosmopolitan theism or 
 a mere appeal to the " universal human conscience," 
 but a clear, firm, unquestioning faith in Jehovah, the 
 righteous God of Israel, as the one and only Maker 
 and Ruler of the Universe. We are too apt to forget 
 that the r6le of these "wisdom" teachers was to 
 apply to practical life the spiritual teaching already 
 given by others. Side by side with their moral 
 teaching, and paving the way for it, there were going 
 on at the same time two other Ministries of the 
 
284 " HOLY WRITINGS " ; PROVERBS 
 
 Word exclusively religious in character and aim : 
 "The Law shall not perish from the (scribe i), nor 
 counsel from the wise, nor the Word from the 
 prophet." All over Judah in every city there were 
 recognised teachers from Ezra's day (cf. Ez. viii. 16 ; 
 Neh. viii. 7 ; 2 Chron. xvii. 7 ; xxxv. 3), scribes who 
 taught Israel the statutes of the Law and the religious 
 teaching of the Prophets ; some stressed the statutes, 
 some the teaching. Moreover, the Temple-worship, 
 in which all Jews delighted, kept the ritual side of 
 religion ever before men's eyes, while the synagogue 
 saw to it that due heed was paid both to the Law and 
 the Prophets. If, in Prov., the higher side of spiritual 
 religion seems absent and we find no clear expression 
 of the Love of God, the sense of sin and repentance, 
 the joy of the service of God, the hope of the 
 Messianic Kingdom, it is simply because this bed-rock 
 foundation has already been well and truly laid. 
 The "wise" take it for granted, and would be the 
 first to own that without it their own building would 
 rest on a foundation of sand. The scribe and the 
 prophet deal amply with these vital articles of faith ; 
 the concern of the "wise" is to apply them to indi- 
 vidual life by way of moral exhortation and instruction 
 (cf our Catechism) ; and if, as Christ and the prophets 
 {e.g. Mic. vi. 8) insist, religion is a character and a 
 life, then these moral teachers were doing God's work 
 of the Kingdom every whit as truly as their fellow- 
 teachers. Repeat it too often we cannot, it is pre- 
 cisely because we forget the vast variety of ways in 
 which the living spirit of post-exilic Judaism, so full 
 of religious fervour and vitality, found its expression, 
 that we so often label and libel it as a legal yoke 
 throttling spiritual life and ending in stagnation. If 
 we want to judge the Judaism of 500-200 B.C. aright, 
 let us isee it steadily and see it whole. An age 
 which could simultaneously and spontaneously pro- 
 
 > For reasons stated (p. 338, n.), I have adapted this passage to suit my 
 context. 
 
CONTENTS OF PROVERBS 285 
 
 / 
 
 duce its Priestly Code, Job, Eccles., Prov., Chron., 
 Ruth, and wanted them all for its self-expression, was 
 very much alive and no spiritual invalid. 
 
 Proverbs falls into two main divisions: (i) A 
 Prologue (i.-ix.) or series of discourses descriptive of 
 wisdom, with one sublime passage on the " Wisdom 
 of God" in viii. 22 sqq., where it practically tallies 
 with the " Word " of St. John ; (2) x. i-xxii. 16, a 
 collection of proverbial couplets on the conduct of 
 life. Over and above these two, there are several 
 minor supplementary collections : ^ xxii. 17-xxiv. 22 ; 
 xxv.-xxix.; XXX.; xxxi. 1-9; and finally xxxi. 10-31, an 
 anonymous alphabetic poem in praise of the good 
 housewife. The contents of these various sections are 
 very various and hard to classify. The writers seize 
 on whatever touches practical life, counselling men 
 how to judge rightly and prudently every situation — 
 social, political, or economic, — in which they may 
 find themselves, and turn it to their best advantage. 
 Man's character, social virtues, man's private life, his 
 business, his intercourse with inferiors or superiors, 
 what persons to avoid or copy, all come within their 
 ken, and Terence's motto, "Homo sum, humaninihila me 
 alienum puto" might well be their own. In their word- 
 pictures of wisdom and folly (and, in their eyes, all men 
 are either "wise men" or "fools," two permanent 
 classes as sharply divided as is the Stoic virtuous man 
 from other men), these writers sometimes simply catch 
 the expression of men good or bad, sketching their 
 portrait in a few bold lines ; more often they pass a 
 verdict on their actions and thoughts, and urge their 
 hearers to copy or avoid such models. Madam 
 Folly (ix. 13 sqq.); the virtuous wife (xxxi. 10 sqq.); 
 the slothful man (xxiv. 30 sqq.) ; the drunkard 
 
 ' The two main divisions are called " Proverbs of Solomon " ; xxii. 17 bids 
 us hear "The virords of the wise" ; xxiv. 23, "These are also sayings of the 
 wise"; xxv. I, "These also are proverbs of Solomon, which the men of 
 Hezekiah, King of Judah, copied out " ; xxx. i, " The words of Agur, the son 
 of Jakeh ; the oracle " ; xxxi. ' ' The words of King Lemuel ; the oracle which 
 his mother taught him." 
 
286 " HOLY WRITINGS " ; PROVERBS 
 
 (xxiii. 29 sqq.) ; the mirror for princes (xxx. i sq.), 
 are cases in point. 
 
 Prov. x.-xxii. 16 is the oldest portion of the book, 
 probably of the Persian period. Prov. i.-ix. is clearly 
 later and probably of the early Greek period. It 
 seems to show traces of Hellenic influence. Its 
 author treats his topic "more sustainedly, though 
 without logical disposition or connection, in a warm 
 and friendly tone such as an experienced elder might 
 use toward a youth. The style is easy and flowing, 
 and sometimes rises to poetic inspiration." In this 
 Prologue (i.-ix.).we have a set of discourses tracing 
 the development of the " wise man " and the " fool," 
 two of the most striking of all ethical figures in the 
 O.T. They became household words in Israel, so 
 that wisdom was identified with godliness, and 
 wickedness with folly : " The fool hath said in his 
 heart. There is no God." Hence, to call a man a fool 
 was the grossest insult (= moral reprobate, e.g. Mt. 
 V. 22). These personifications of " wisdom," however, 
 are purely poetical {e.g. i. 20 ; viii. i sqq. ; ix. i sqq.). 
 Not so with the "Wisdom" of viii. 22 sqq.: "I was 
 set up from everlasting, or ever the world was. The 
 Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, 
 before the first of His works. When there were no 
 depths I was brought forth. . . . Then I was by Him 
 as a master-workman, and I was daily His delight, 
 rejoicing always before Him," etc. The quickening 
 Spirit and creative Word of Gen. i. are here so per- 
 sonified in Wisdom as to convert it almost into an 
 independent Person, though at the same time always 
 one with God Himself. 
 
 The teaching of the " wise," we said, has its roots 
 in the Law and the Prophets, though seldom alluding 
 to either. The tone oi Prov. is distinctly Deutero- 
 nomic ; Deut. iv. 6r-'; : " Keep therefore and do the 
 Lord's statutes, for this is your wisdom," is also the 
 motto of Proverbs, and from the Deuteronomic Book 
 of the Law did its writers draw their inspiration. 
 
PROVERBS BASED ON DEUTERONOMY 287 
 
 Thus they have caught its splendid humanitarian 
 spirit, e.g. "Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth" 
 (Prov. xxiv. If) ; " If he that hateth thee be hungry, 
 give him bread to eat," etc. (xxv. 21 sqq. R.V.). Akin 
 to the highest prophetic teaching are such fine 
 passages as e.g. " Despise not thou the chastening of 
 the Lord, for whom the Lord loveth He reproveth 
 even as a father the son in whom he delighteth" 
 (iii. 11), and "Love covereth all transgressions" 
 (x. 12); or "To do justice and judgment is more 
 acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice " (xxi., 3). 
 Deuteronomic, too, is the "Fear, of the Lord," the 
 wise man's motive for all he does. It is no servile 
 fear, but the feeling of reverent awe in the presence 
 of a Father, a holy God, who knows the innermost 
 secrets of His children's hearts (xxiv. 12), loves them 
 tenderly even when He reproves them (iii. 11), and 
 ever helps those of His children who seek goodness 
 and wisdom to find it. 
 
 The problem of the sufferings of the righteous 
 engages the attention of the writers of Prov., but their 
 attitude to it, as in most Pss., is summed up in the 
 conventional verdict : " Happiness is to the righteous 
 (= wise), woe to the wicked (= fools)." In Proverbs 
 virtue is ever rewarded, never is the righteous man 
 forsaken or his seed begging bread; the ungodly 
 always come to grief; while sin is sheer folly ending 
 in loss and disgrace, and worldly prosperity is sure 
 to follow a course of right conduct : " Honour the 
 Lord with thy substance and with the first-fruits of 
 all thine increase, so shall thy barns be filled with 
 plenty and thy fats shall overflow with new wine " 
 (iii 9-10). This facile optimism pervades Proverbs. 
 
 Even as the Psalter was ascribed to David, the 
 poet, musician, and singer, so Proverbs was fathered 
 on Solomon, " who was wiser than all men ; and he 
 spake three thousand proverbs, and his songs were a 
 thousand and five " (i Kgs. iv. 30 sqq.)- Proverbial 
 sayings, brief and pithy, condensing in witty or 
 
288 " HOLY WRITINGS " ; PROVERBS 
 
 Striking form the wisdom of experience, were common 
 in Israel as elsewhere, especially in the East. But this 
 secular wisdom was not much thought of by spiritu- 
 ally-minded pre-exilic sacred writers. Moreover, 
 Solomon's proverbs would hardly have belonged to 
 the moral or religious sphere ; and ironical, indeed, on 
 his lips would be the sayings in Prov. about women. 
 At any rate, the wise saws of Proverbs, as they stand, 
 betray an artificial literary technique and a conception 
 of " wisdom " clearly pointing to the age after the 
 Exile as the date of their composition. Of course, 
 many isolated maxims in Proverbs may go back to 
 high antiquity, while others may contain the sub- 
 stance of very old proverbs, e.g. " iron sharpeneth 
 iron" (xxvii. 17); "bray a fool in a mortar" (xxvii. 
 22) ; " a whip for the horse, and a bridle for the ass, 
 and a rod for the fool's back " (xxvi. 3) ; " the dog is 
 returned to his vomit " (xxvi. u) ; " stolen waters are 
 sweet" (ix. 17), etc. In their present form in Prov., 
 however, they are the artificial product of technical 
 mashal poetry. If this is true of the couplet and the 
 four-line, six-line, eight-line stanzas, still less can we 
 assign to early proverbial philosophy the long dis- 
 courses of Prov. i.-ix. or the alphabetical eulogy of 
 the virtuous woman. 
 
 Note to Pagb 469, 
 My allusion to Job's superb faith as more true and heroic than St, Paul's in 
 I Cor. XV. 19, is open to misinterpretation. Indeed, it is not fair to St. Paul 
 to judge him thus by isolated and somewhat rhetorical passages. His real creed 
 (still further developed by his disciple " St. John") is far truer, deeper, more 
 spiritual, and fully abreast of the best Christian thought to-day. His own ripe 
 spiritual experience shows him God's own Spirit so intimately indwelling in the 
 child of God, who does His will from the heart, that the Holy Spirit becomes 
 his spirit, transfigures his whole personality ; eternal life is his here and now, 
 and the spirit of God in him now is a sure pledge of the ideal perfection to.be 
 his hereafter (cf. Ps. Ixxiii. 23-26). This mystical union with God is so close 
 and real that Paul can only describe it as " I am in Christ and Christ in me." 
 Nothing can disturb or sever the blessedness of this union with God : " Neither 
 death, nor life, . . . nor things present, nor things to come shall be able to 
 separate us from the love of God" (Rom. viii. 38); "The Kingdom of God 
 is not meat, nor drink ; but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost " 
 (cf. Phil. iv. 4, 11). No question here of future compensation for present ills ; 
 eternal life, with its perfect peace and joy, is ours even here and now. — But 
 this is in a far higher key than the note of i Cor. xv. 19, and my words on 
 p. 269 only refer to that argtimenium ad homintm passage. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 (iv.) the holy writings : canticles, ruth, esther, 
 lamentations 
 
 Canticles 
 
 "Song of songs " (= the best of songs, of. " Holy of 
 holies ") well expresses the final Hebrew estimate of 
 this dramatic poem : " The whole world is not worth 
 the day on which the Song was given to Israel. For 
 all the Writings (= Hagiographa or ' Holy Writings ') 
 are holy, but the Song of songs is a Holy of holies " 
 (R. Akiba, c. 90 a.d.). But only after hot and long 
 controversy for centuries was this verdict accepted 
 about 90 A.D., when its advocates at last secured the 
 Song's admission into the Canon on the plea that this 
 exquisite love-poem was a grand spiritual allegory of 
 Jehovah's love for Israel His* spouse. 
 
 Allegorical love-poetry, expressive of the love of 
 God for the soul, is not uncommon in mystical circles, 
 and often revels in sensuous imagery. Indeed, so 
 apt and expressive is this conception of Jehovah the 
 husband and Israel His Bride, stressing as it does 
 the solemn covenant between the two, Jehovah's 
 authority over, and His tender love for, Israel His 
 spouse, and also her heinous sin in her unfaithfulness 
 to Him, that Hosea, — whether as a loan from Can- 
 ticles, as W. Robertson Smith ' thinks, or not, — puts 
 
 ' A critical genius, the father of English Bible-criticism at its soundest and 
 soberest. His findings, with a few up-to-date corrections, are mainly ours 
 to-day. Some scholars (e.g. Cheyne) openly claim him as Master and avow 
 their heavy debt to him ; others seem unaware of the real source of their 
 knowledge and inspiration. The last forty years have only cleared and paved 
 the way this pioneer genius mapped out, so that it may be a public highway. 
 
 289 U 
 
290 THE HOLY WRITINGS ; CANTICLES 
 
 it in the very forefront of his teaching ; so does Ps. 
 xlv. ; cf. Jer. iii. 14 ; xxxi. 32 ; Is. liv. 5. This apt 
 idea was taken up by the New Testament, Christ 
 now becoming the Bridegroom (Mt, ix. 15 ; Jo. iii. 29), 
 the Church His Beloved Bride (2 Coi-. xi. 2 ; Eph. v. 
 23-32), even as the mediaeval Church saw in the bride 
 the Virgin Mary. In the Christian Church the alle- 
 gorical interpretation of the Song, as a prophetic 
 picture of Christ's love for His Beloved (Church or 
 soul) and the Beloved's longing for loving union with 
 Him, was so deep-rooted that Theodore of Mopsuestia 
 was anathematised in 553 a.d. for literally interpreting 
 the Song of earthly wedded love. From the Reforma- 
 tion onward, however, the literal interpretation began 
 slowly to gain ground, and very few scholars interpret 
 Canticles otherwise to-day. As Herder (1778) well 
 puts it : " It is the beautiful picture of innocent and 
 tender love, and is not true love itself holy ? Let the 
 Song of songs speak for itself in this light, and it will 
 need no apology to justify its morality, no allegorising 
 to commend it as pure, lovely, and worthy of a place 
 in the Holy Book." Herder's fine and true instinct 
 also anticipated a view now again coming to* the front 
 with many scholars {e.g. Budde). For Herder it was 
 a Song of songs in the literal sense, that is, not one 
 Song, but a chaplet of several bridal songs, " separate 
 voices accordant only in the breath of love," strung 
 together into an organic whole by one dramatic hand. 
 In its present form, what is the Song of songs ? 
 Avowedly, it is a love-song, or rather a bridal song, 
 and its theme is tlie love of man and woman, expressed 
 in passionate words and sensuous imagery. But is it 
 a lyric drama, one organic whole with one central 
 idea or ideal pervading the whole play through all its 
 progressive stages? or is it merely a collection or 
 anthology of wedding-songs artistically strung to- 
 gether? An Eastern weddiiig-festival to this day 
 lasts a week, and the proceedings preparatory to the 
 marriage ceremony itself take five days. Daily, some 
 
EASTERN WEDDING-FESTIVAL 29 1 
 
 part of the ceremonial is done to the accompaniment 
 of singing and music. For instance, in one of the 
 earlier scenes, the bridegroom dresses himself up as 
 a pilgrim, leaves the bridal house accompanied by the 
 married women of the party singing in chorus and 
 preceded by instruments of music. His future 
 father-in-law meets him, asks why he is going away, 
 begs him to return, tells him he has a young virgin 
 daughter, and that, if he wishes, he will give her to 
 him in wedlock. So it is at every stage of the pro- 
 ceedings, over and above the endless wedding- 
 ceremonies, there are processions through the streets, 
 and choral songs either explanatory of each ceremony 
 or in fulsome praise of the bride or bridegroom. 
 Some of these songs are fine examples of popular 
 poetry and occasionally are little gems of art. 
 Scholars to-day are largely inclined to look upon the 
 Song of songs as an anthology of these, bridal- week 
 songs, as we shall presently see. 
 
 Since Ewald's day the general view, till quite 
 recently, has been that the Song is the glorification 
 of true love which remains stedfast under the most 
 trying ordeal. The heroine is a lovely maiden of 
 Shunem. There is direct allusion here to Abishag, 
 the Shunammite (i Kgs. i. 1-3), "a young virgin, whom 
 the king's servants sought for their lord, king David 
 old and stricken in years, and the damsel was very 
 fair, and she cherished the king, but the king knew 
 her not." This lovely maiden Solomon, now king, 
 wants for his harem.^ From the outset Solomon 
 fully believes that she is also in love with him. He 
 
 ' Abishs^ is still young and very lovely and pure when David dies. 
 Solomon's elder brother wants her, and Solomon kills him for it. The reason 
 was really political. But popular folk-lore, ever fanciful, romantic, and 
 dramatic, gives just so much of a story as it wants and leaves the rest. 
 Adonijah's murder by Solomon is an act of jealousy ; Solomon is himself in 
 love with her and wants her for his harem. The Shunammite's heart, however, 
 is given to another. Even as on the former occasion, when forced against her 
 will by the king's servants to "lie in his bosom, '^ she had saved her honour 
 and " he knew her not," so now with Solomon. We thus have every incident 
 here ready to hand for inventive folk-lore to develop the whole drama of the 
 Song, 
 
292 THE HOLY WRITINGS ; CANTICLES 
 
 does not know— as the readers know — that the 
 maiden's heart is already wholly given to a shepherd 
 to whom she is betrothed. So the king does not 
 realise that the passionate words of love on her lips 
 are meant, not for him, but for another. As usual in 
 the East, on one of the days of the wedding-week the 
 king, as bridegroom, proceeds with his friends to the 
 home of the bride and addresses her in impassioned 
 words. She replies^ with equal warmth, but her 
 heart is speaking to her beloved ; she longs for him 
 by day, she seeks him in her dreams by night. 
 Solomon, when the wedding ceremonial reaches its 
 climax, bends all his suasive powers and charms to 
 win her love, only to discover that her pure heart is 
 another's and never can be his. He is large-hearted 
 enough not to force his suit upon her. Armed only 
 with her own virtue and her affection for her beloved, 
 she comes out of the terrific ordeal more than con- 
 queror in all eyes (viii. 8-10). In the last act we see 
 her walking with her lover upon their native hills. 
 The moral of the piece is well given in viii. 5-7: 
 "Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, 
 leaning upon her beloved? . . . Set me as ETseal 
 upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm ; for love 
 is strong as death. . . . Many waters cannot quench 
 love, neither can the floods drown it. If a man would 
 give all the substance of his house for love, he would 
 utterly be contemned " (R.V.). 
 
 This interpretation flows most naturally from the 
 Song, and, without any dislocation or break, the 
 actions and songs, as they come in the' text, mark 
 perfectly the progressive stages of the marriage pro- 
 ceedings. It is quite probable that actual wedding- 
 songs are worked up and embodied in the Song, 
 but, even as with the folk-lore embodied in Gen., 
 
 ^ Both bridegroom and bride occasionally lead the singing and dancing j 
 e.g.i in the so-called sword-dance of the bride, she seeks to display her charms, 
 while the bridegroom sings the praises of her physical beauty, men and women 
 taking up the chorus in turn. Similarly the eulogy of the .physical charms 
 of the bridegroom comes from the lips of the bride. 
 
IS CANTICLES AN ANTHOLOGY ? 293 
 
 the poem is the creation of one author, and a dramatic 
 unity. We must not press its accuracy to historical 
 fact; as Chapter III. proves, Hebrew literature cares 
 far more for truth of idea. It is simply a beautiful 
 romance with a moral purpose, and i Kgs. i., ii., gave 
 folk-lore and our dramatic poet all the suggestions 
 they wanted. 
 
 To-day it is the fashion to sneer at this version of 
 the Song as a triumph of pure love over lust, and to 
 label it "Victorian literary criticism." "The enigma 
 of the Song," writes Budde, "is now definitely solved. 
 The new interpretation of it cuts away the roots of 
 the 'moral drama' idea of it, and now wins its 
 natural sense for the Song of songs." And what is 
 this "new interpretation"? In 1873, Wetzstein, 
 Prussian consul at Damascus, published an article on 
 marriage customs and wedding-songs in Syria. In 
 it, and in a later publication, he described the pro- 
 ceedings and ceremonial during the seven days' 
 marriage-festival, or "king's week"; for the Syrian 
 peasant bridegroom during his bridal-week is literallyy 
 in song and salutation, viewed as a king or royal 
 personage in the eyes of his fellows, and the bride is 
 his queen. Throughout the week the royal pair are 
 escorted by villagers in processions with songs and 
 dances in their honour. For the time being they are 
 village king and queen. Hence in Hebrew song, says 
 Budde, "as the bridegroom is compared with king 
 Solomon in his glory, and would not (just then) 
 exchange his fortune with Solomon, so for the beauty 
 of the bride no less a woman could be named than 
 the fairest, the maiden of Shunem who was admittedly 
 'the fairest virgin to be found in the whole land' 
 and also a queen." Here Budde finds " the solution 
 of the problem of our book." It is just a collection 
 of wedding-songs descriptive of the physical charms 
 and wedding-attire of the young pair. The " sixty 
 mighty men" are the companions of the bridegroom. 
 The " daughters of Jerusalem " are village maidens 
 
294 THE HOLY WRITINGS ; CANTICLES 
 
 taking part in the celebrations. The festive occasion 
 of the songs, and their relation to successive stages 
 of the festivities, naturally impart movement and 
 action and a dramatic quality to the whole work. A 
 cunning hand has artistically strung the various 
 independent songs together with some skill, but, 
 really and truly, the Song is no dramatic unity, the 
 creation of one poet; it is simply a collection or 
 anthology of wedding-songs of various origin and 
 date. 
 
 Such are the two views of the nature of the Song ; 
 the reader must choose between them. The trend 
 to-day is to give the Song of songs a very late date. 
 The text and the distinctly late Hebrew words (see 
 Cheyne), some of the Greek period, undoubtedly 
 prove the presence of late elements in its present 
 composition. Probably the Song was long orally 
 handed down, and did not assume its present written 
 form till comparatively late. Such popular poetry 
 modernises itself from generation to generation ; 
 hence the original wording has suffered. The fresh- 
 ness and power of this lyric drama, its Northern 
 dialect, heroine, and scenery, its Northern protest 
 against the corruption of a monarchical Southern 
 court, its mention of Tirzah (vi. 4) destroyed in 
 900 B.C. — this last touch may be due to poetic imagi- 
 nation — all tend to place the original Song in the 
 good period of Hebrew literature (8th century ),i the 
 hey-day of poetry and song on all themes of national 
 life, e.g. war, love, vintage. These popular songs 
 lived on in the memories of the people, but (like 
 much else in secular literature, e.g. popular proverbs) 
 were often without interest to the sacred writers of 
 Israel. Hence only a very few of the purely secular 
 songs survive in our Bible, e.g. this Song of songs, 
 also the Song of the Well (Numb. xxi. 17 sq.), and the 
 Vintage Song, " Destroy it not, for a blessing is in 
 
 * I am bound to add that this early date of the Song is very unpopular 
 to-day. The ablest scholars all but unanimously date it 4CX)-300 B.C. 
 
RUTH, A GRACEFUL lUYLL 295 
 
 it " (Is. Ixv. 8). Only the mistaken allegorical theory 
 providentially saved the Song of songs from oblivion. 
 
 Ruth. 
 
 Ruth is a graceful prose-idyll. Full of human 
 interest, rich in colour and imagination, this pleasing 
 dramatic picture of early days has all the freshness, 
 simplicity, sweet poetic fragrance of the living 
 portraits of Genesis. Its place on the line is side by 
 side with those other matchless Hebrew creations, 
 the loves of Jacob and Rachel, the story of Joseph, 
 the nature-pictures of Canticles. The author of Ruth 
 takes such evident delight in the pathetic and romantic 
 details of his sweet idyllic picture, enters so heartily 
 and sympathetically into the story. he has to tell, tells 
 it with such power, that the story thrills us from start 
 to finish. Through his eyes we see the charms of the 
 simple life in the innocent pastoral days of old. To 
 us as to him Naomi, Ruth, Boaz, the very harvesters, 
 are simple, kindly. God-fearing folk, and we yearn for 
 the love, simplicity and gentle manners of those good 
 olden days. The touching scene in which Naomi 
 bids her widowed daughters-in-law ^o back, each to 
 her mother's home ; Ruth's " entreat me not to leave 
 thee, for whither thou goest I will go ; thy people 
 shall be my people, and thy God my God " ; Naomi's 
 return to Bethlehem, and the people's : " Is this 
 Naomi ? " with her reply : " call me not Naomi 
 .(= 'pleasant'), call me Mara (= 'bitter'), for the 
 Lord hath dealt very bitterly with me " ; the picture of 
 the gleaners in the field of Boaz, and his kindness 
 and courtesy ; the chaste and delicate handling of the 
 scene in which Ruth comes to Boaz by night and 
 claims his protection; the quaint scene at the city 
 gate where a nearer kinsman waives his prior claim 
 to his brother Elimelech's (Ruth's father-in-law) 
 field and Ruth's hand with it, and, in the presence of 
 ten elders, passes on his rights to Boaz by removing 
 
296 THE HOLY WRITINGS ; RUTH 
 
 his shoe and giving it to Boaz ; the people's blessing 
 on Boaz and Ruth and their union; the women's 
 blessing on Naomi, who takes their first-born child 
 " and laid it in her bosom, and became nurse unto it," 
 " and the child's name they called Obed ; he is the 
 father of Jesse, the father of David," — all this is told 
 with an unaffected simplicity and fineness of touch 
 modelled upon the best period of Hebrew literature. 
 Scholars ask: "What was the author's aim and 
 object in Ruth ? Was it written for David's pedigree ? 
 or to throw light on the marriage-law ? or as a 
 political pamphlet against Ezra's new social- and 
 marriage reforms?" Probably for none of these. 
 Doubtless the author was a lover of the simple life ^ 
 and meant his old-world story to be an example for 
 his own age ; and he may have wished to protest 
 against the narrow particularism of his day; but first 
 and foremost he loved his idyll for its own sake, and 
 such a gem wants no moral to adorn its tale. Clearly 
 written long after the event, — probably a tale of folk- 
 lore long treasured before it was cast into literary 
 form — it is an idyll pure and simple and a gem of the 
 first water. Its "entreat me not to leave thee, for 
 whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest 
 I will lodge ; thy people shall be my people, and thy 
 God my God ; where thou diest will I die and there 
 will I be buried ; the Lord do so to me and more also, 
 
 * Cf. the whole prophetic teaching, ever exalting the simple life above the 
 materialism 6f a complex' civilisation, e.g. Abel the shepherd is good, Cain the 
 father of the builder of cities (Gen. 4") bad j the Patriarchs are shepherds, 
 and the Codes love agriculture and look askance at commerce, which the 
 prophets label**' Canaanite"; Deut. 17"-'" frowns on kingship (cf. I Sam. 8'-"); 
 the prophets all denounce civilisation's wealth, large estates, fine houses, 
 luxury, and want swords turned into ploughshares and each man living con- 
 tentedly under his vine and fig-tree ; the disastrous consequences of exchanging 
 the simple life for the grandeur of kingdoms and royal courts, higher culture 
 and militarism, are shown by pointing to David and Bathsheba's sin, or 
 Solomon's harem sapping_ his loyalty to God ; Jeremiah praises the austere 
 Rechabites who neither drink wine, nor live in houses, but in tents, and reinain 
 nomad shepherds (Jer. 35), and the prophets ever point to the simple wilder- 
 ness days as the ideal period when Israel lived closest to God. " This austere 
 Hebrew ethic may have diminished the pure Me dt vivre, but fostered the 
 sense of life's seriousness, the basic condition of firm attachment to ideals." 
 
ESTHER, ITS RELIGIOUS VALUE 297 
 
 if aught but death part thee and me," in itself hallows 
 Ruth: 
 
 Esther. 
 
 " In passing to Esther from the other books of the 
 Bible we fall as it were from heaven to earth," writes 
 Ewald. God's name occurs not once in it, — a fact 
 without parallel in the Old Testament — while the king 
 of Persia is named 187 times in it. The nearest 
 approach to a religious topic is the mention of fasting 
 (iv. 16; ix. 31), but there is no allusion to prayer, and, 
 in the Jews' celebration of their rescue and their 
 annual commemoration of it, Esth. ix. 17 sqq. tells us 
 much and repeatedly of " feasting and gladness," but 
 not a word of thanksgiving to God. In all other 
 Books of the Bible deliverance is ascribed to God, in 
 Esther all, is done by man ; irtdeed all reference to 
 God seems studiously avoided, e.g. Mordecai warns 
 Esther that, if she fails her people in their hour of 
 need, "then shall relief and deliverance arise to the 
 Jews /row another place " (iv. X4). Esther's moral tone 
 also leaves much to seek ; not Esther, but Vashti, is 
 the most respectable character in the book; and 
 narrow particularism, craft, and vindictiveness are 
 pronounced throughout its pages. From the religious 
 and moral standpoint, Luther's description of James 
 applies far more aptly to Esther : " a right strawy 
 book!" The Jews themselves had the gravest 
 scruples as to the right of Esther to a place in the 
 Canon, even after 90 a.d., and the early Christian 
 Church shared these scruples. In popular Jewish 
 esteem, however, Esther stood very high by reason of 
 its intense patriotism ; for its flattering glorification of 
 the Jews at the expense of their foes, the Wicked 
 heathen, 75,000 of whom they then slew (ix. 16) ; also 
 for its fine portrait of their Joan of Arc, and its Feast 
 of Purim to commemorate their great deliverance 
 (ix. 26). We can well understand how Esther's 
 
298 THE HOLY WRITINGS ; ESTHER 
 
 devotion to her oppressed fellow-countrymen, her 
 readiness to lay down her life for them — " I will go in 
 unto the king, and if I perish, I perish"— and her 
 dutiful bearing, even as queen, towards her foster- 
 father, would endear this national heroine to the 
 Jews and win her a place beside Deborah in the 
 nation's gratitude. 
 
 The story of Esther is told with dramatic power, 
 and the plot most artistically developed. Act I. — The 
 first act opens with a gorgeous banquet at the Persian 
 court ; the king, " merry with wine," orders queen 
 Vashti to be brought in " to show her beauty, for she 
 was fair to look on." She pays no heed to this 
 degrading command and is deposed to make room for 
 a more compliant successor. A decree promptly goes 
 forth that the fairest young virgins be all brought to the 
 king, so that the maiden most pleasing to him may be 
 queen in Vashti's stead. The choice falls on a beautiful 
 young Jewess, an orphan, Esther, whom her cousin 
 Mordecai had adopted. At Mordecai's suggestion 
 she keeps her Jewish origin secret. Act II. — Haman 
 is Grand Vizier, and so great his power that all bow 
 and cringe before him as to a king ; but Mordecai the 
 Jew " bowed not, nor did him reverence." Haman 
 discovers that he is a Jew, and induces the sensual 
 arbitrary king to decree the wholesale slaughter of 
 all Jews in his realm. Mordecai charges Esther to 
 plead with the king for her race ; she tells him that 
 even for her to comejnto the king's presence, uncalled, 
 is death, but "I will go in unto the king, and if I 
 perish, I perish." Act III. — The captivating Jewess 
 comes in to the king, becomingly dressed, finds favour 
 in the sensual monarch's sight, and he promptly 
 promises to grant her request, be it what it may, be- 
 fore she opens her lips. Cleverly, she simply begs the 
 king to dine with her in her rooms and bring Haman 
 too. At dinner, the king again offers to grant Esther 
 whatever she wishes, but she artfully still postpones 
 her request till the morrow, when the king and Haman 
 
ESTHER, ITS MISE-EN-SCENE 299 
 
 are to dine with lier again. Haman, meanwhile, 
 elated at these signal marks of queenly favour, builds 
 a gallows for Mordecai. The night before the second 
 dinner-party, the king, unable to sleep, has the records 
 of his reign read to him. There he finds that a certain 
 Mordecai once saved his life and nothing has been 
 done for him. In the morning he asks Haman, his 
 Grand Vizier : " What shall be done unto the man 
 whpm the king delighteth to honour ? " Thinking 
 this meant himself, he replies : " Let him ride in the 
 king's apparel and on the king's horse through the 
 city-streets, with a prince at the bridle to proclaim 
 that he is the object of the king's special honour." 
 "Do that for Mordecai, Haman, and hold his bridle 
 yourself," orders the king. Act IV. — Scene, the 
 queen's apartments ; the king, Esther and Haman at 
 dinner. " What is thy petition, queen Esther ? " again 
 asks the king. To his surprise — he has no inkling 
 that she is a Jewess— she answers : " If it please the 
 king, let my life be given at my petition, and my 
 people at my request. For we are sold, I and my 
 people, to be destroyed, and to be slain." Indignant 
 at this plot against his queen, the king asks : " Who is 
 he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart 
 to do so ? " Pointing to him the queen replies : 
 "This wicked Haman." The scene now becomes 
 very dramatic : the king is so angry that he walks out 
 of the room into the garden to recover ; Haman goes 
 down on his knees to the queen who spurns him ; the 
 king re-enters the room to find Haman now " upon 
 the bed whereon Esther was," which makes the king 
 ten times more furious ; the officials naturally all turn 
 against Haman and tell the king of the tall gallows 
 Haman has at home for Mordecai, and instantly comes 
 the royal order : " Hang him thereon." This done, 
 the king is pacified. Act V. — Esther tells the king 
 that Mordecai is her kinsman and foster-father, and 
 the king at once invests him with the royal ring and 
 makes him Grand Vizier in Haman's stead. By 
 
300 THE HOLY WRITINGS ; ESTHER 
 
 Persian law, the original royal order to massacre the 
 Jews cannot be repealed, but, by a masterly stroke of 
 policy, Mordecai gets the ;king to issue a decree 
 authorising the Jews to muster their forces, fully 
 armed, and fall on their would-be assailants. Thus 
 the Jews massacre 7S,ooo of the wicked heathen, 
 instead of being massacred by them. Esther and 
 Mordecai order the Jews to keep annually the Feast 
 of Purim in commemoration of this joyful end to 
 their troubles. 
 
 How far is all -this true to fact? No doubt, to all 
 doubters of its veracity Esther itself professes to give 
 two irrefutable proofs of its historicity: (i) Its state- 
 ments are all recorded in the Persian Chronicles and 
 can be verified there (x. 2 ; vi. i ; ii; 23) ; (2) The 
 Feast of Purim was instituted expressly to com- 
 memorate these very events and their glorious issue 
 (ix. 26 sqq.). So it was that ever after, at the Feast 
 of Purim, Esther was annually read in the synagogue 
 with much accompanying outward expression of feel- 
 ing, as telling passages moved the hearers to love or 
 hate, pride or scorn, rage or grief. In spite of the 
 local colouring and the lifelike representation of 
 Persian manners and customs, especially in connec- 
 tion with the palace at Susa and the vain, capricious, 
 sensual character of Xerxes, the story bears on the 
 face of it the features of a historical romance.^ But 
 the reader cannot fail to be forcibly struck by the 
 dramatic power and vividness of Esther, even though 
 its religious, moral, and historic worth can hardly be 
 said to be great. In date, it is probably of about 
 300 B.C., if not later. 
 
 ' In Mordecai and Esther, fictitious names, many scholars see adaptations 
 of the Babylonian deities' names Marduk and Ishtar, the kindly spring sun- 
 god and the goddess of fruitful vegetation who triumph over the winter storms, 
 the plotters of havoc and destruction. Be this as it may, this association 
 of Mordecai and Esther with Marduk and Ishtar certainly never entered the 
 Jewish author's head in this story. 
 
EPITOME OF LAMENTATIONS 3OI 
 
 Lamentations. 
 
 Lamentations, five elegies or dirges on the woes of 
 Judah and Jerusalem at the time of Zion's siege and 
 fall (588-586 B.C.), and after. Lam> i.-iv. are alpha- 
 betical acrostics ; all five poems clearly show the 
 literary artist's hand. They are not spontaneous out- 
 bursts of grief, but elaborate elegies in which every 
 note of pity and terror is brought out with con- 
 scious art to stir up the feelings of the hearers. The 
 scenes of woe are interwoven with confessions of 
 sin, calls to repentance, and prayers for a return of 
 God's favour. Each elegy is a whole in itself, inde- 
 pendent, and there is no traceable progress in the 
 thought from first to last. 
 
 Lam. i.-iv., alphabetic acrostics, each contains 22 
 three-clause verses, and each verse begins with its 
 proper letter of the alphabet. In Lam. iii., the proper 
 letter not only occurs at the beginning of each verse 
 but at the beginning of each of its clauses, i.e. it is 
 thrice repeated in each verse. Lam. v. also has 22 
 verses/ but it is neither alphabetic nor in elegiac 
 metre. 
 
 Lam. i. — Zion's solitude and desolation. Impreca- 
 tion on foes. 
 
 Zion, our queen, sits now solitary, widowed, tributary, weep- 
 ing, with none to comfort her, "her lovers (= old allies) and 
 friends have dealt treacherously with her," " Judah is in captivity 
 among the heathen." No more solemn assemblies, streets and 
 gates are desolate, priests sigh, princes are laid low. Jerusalem 
 so great and pleasant is now mocked of her foes. " She hath 
 grievously sinned, therefore she is removed and become an 
 unclean thing." The heathen have entered into her sanctuary, 
 her people sigh and seek bread. " Is it nothing to you, all ye 
 that pass by ? See if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow " ; 
 for my sins, the Lord in His anger hath delivered me to the 
 enemy, trodden me in the winepress, made me faint and desolate. 
 "Zion spreadeth forth her hands and there is none to comfort 
 her. . , . The Lord is righteous, for I have rebelled against 
 
302 THE HOLY WRITINGS ; LAMENTATIONS 
 
 His commandment." " Behold, O Lord, ... I have grievously 
 rebelled; abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as 
 death." " My enemies are glad that Thou hast done it. . . . Let 
 all their wickedness come before Thee, and do unto them as 
 Thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions." 
 
 Lam. ii.— Zion's destruction and woes. Call to 
 repentance. 
 
 " The Lord hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the 
 beauty of Israel," " He hath bent His bow like an enemy, with 
 His right hand as an adversary He hath slain all that were 
 pleasant to the eye, He hath poured out His fury like fire." Her 
 palaces, His strongholds. His Tabernacle, His solemn assembly 
 and sabbath, His altar. His priest and king. He hath swallowed 
 up, abhorred, despised in His anger. " He hath made the ram- 
 part and wall to lament, they languish together ; her gates are 
 sunk, her bars broken, her king and princes are among the 
 heathen, and the Law is notj the elders keep silence in dust 
 and sack-cloth, the maidens hang down their heads, mine eyes 
 fail with tears, children swoon in the streets for hunger." Our 
 sins and false prophets are to blame for it all. " All they that 
 pass by clap their hands, hiss and wag their heads, saying, ' Is 
 this the city that men called the perfection of beauty, the joy of 
 the whole earth ? We have swallowed her up ; certainly this is 
 the day we looked for, we have found, we have seen it.' " The 
 Lord hath fulfilled His word and done what He foretold of 
 old j He hath thrown thee down and exalted the horn of thine 
 adversaries. " Arise, pour out thine heart like water before the 
 face of the Lord. Behold, O Lord, to whom Thou hast done 
 thus ! " " Shall the women eat their fruit, their children ; the 
 priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary ? Young and old lie 
 in the streets, maidens and youths are fallen by the sword ! " 
 
 Lam. iii. — An "1" elegy. Desolation, Contrition, 
 Hope and Trust. Curse on foes. 
 
 " I am he that hath seen -affliction by the rod of His wrath j 
 He hath led me in darkness and not in light ; He hath broken 
 my bbnes and made me old and my chain heavy. He shutteth 
 out my prayer ; He was to me as a bear and a lion ; He hath bent 
 His bow and set me as a mark for the arrow. He hath filled me 
 with bitterness and sated me with wormwood." 
 
EPITOME OF LAMENTATIONS 303 
 
 The penitent " I " sees a righteous but compas- 
 sionate God, and from his depth of woe hears a voice : 
 " Fear not." 
 
 "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, 
 because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning ; 
 great is Thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul ; 
 therefore will I hope in Him." It is good for me that I have 
 been in trouble ; my soul, wait patiently upon God. " For the 
 Lord will not cast off for ever. For though He cause grief, yet 
 will He have compassion according to the multitude of His 
 mercies. For He doth not afflict willingly (= from His heart), 
 nor grieve the children of men." The Lord does not crush the 
 prisoners, nor turn aside the right, but loveth righteousness. 
 " Why doth man complain when his sins are punished ? Let us 
 search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord. We have 
 transgressed, we have rebelled. Thou hast covered Thyself with a 
 cloud that our prayer should not pass through. Thou hast made us 
 as the ofFscouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples. Mine eye 
 poureth down, till the Lord look down and behold from heaven." 
 " I called upon the Lord from the lowest dungeon. Thou heardest 
 my voice ; Thou drewest near and saidst, Fear not." " Thou wilt 
 render unto my foes a recompense, Thou wilt give them hardness 
 of heart, Thy curse upon them ; pursue them in anger and destroy 
 them." 
 
 Lam. iv. — Lurid picture of Zion's woes. Sinful 
 priests and prophets. Curse on Edom ; comfort for 
 Zion. 
 
 " How is the gold become dim ! " The sanctuary-stones lie 
 about the streets, Zion's precious sons are as earthen pitchers, 
 the sucking. child's tongue is parched for thirst, the children lack 
 bread, they that were in scarlet embrace the dunghills, Zion's sin 
 is greater than Sodom ; her Nazarites were purer than snow, their 
 visage is blacker than a coal, their skin cleaveth to their bones ; 
 those slain by the sword are better than those slain with hunger ; 
 women have sodden their children. The Lord hath accomplished 
 His fury. Neither kings nor men " believed that the enemy should 
 enter into the gates of Jerusalem. It is because of the sins of her 
 prophets and the iniquities of her priests ; they have wandered as 
 blind men in the streets, and polluted themselves with blood." 
 
304 THE HOLY WRITINGS ; LAMENTATIONS * 
 
 " Our eyes as yet failed in looking for our vain help ; in our watch- 
 ing we have watched for a nation that could not save"; our foes 
 pursued, laid wait for, harried us mercilessly on every Side, " the 
 breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord ( = our king) was 
 taken in their pits ; of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall 
 live among the nations." " Rejoice and be glad, Edom (at our 
 fall); the cup shall pass through unto thee also, thou shalt be 
 drunken and naked." " Zion, the punishment of thine iniquity 
 is ended, He will no more carry thee away into captivity. Edom, 
 He will visit thine iniquity ; He will discover thy sins." 
 
 Lam. V. — Alien oppression. (Unlike other Lam- 
 entations, V. begins with prayer and ends on the 
 wrath of God.) 
 
 " Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us. Behold, and see 
 our reproach." (Woes of foreign oppression.) Aliens have our 
 lands and homes, sell us our water and wood. " Our fathers have 
 sinned and are not; and we have borne their iniquities"; "servants 
 have ruled over us"; they starved us, ravished our wives and 
 maidens, hanged our princes, insulted our elders, sweated our young 
 men and children, turned our joy into tears ; foxes walked on 
 Zion's holy mountain. "Thou, Lord, abidest for ever, Thy throne 
 is from generation to generation. Wherefore dost Thou forget us 
 for ever, and forsake us so long time ? Turn Thou us unto Thee, 
 O Lord, and we shall be turned ; Renew our days as of old. But 
 Thou hast utterly rejected us. Thou art very wroth against us." 
 
 Tradition uniformly ascribes Lamentations to 
 Jeremiah. The Septuagint actually introduces the 
 first chapter with the words : " And it came to pass 
 that after Israel was carried into Captivity, and 
 Jerusalem was laid waste, Jeremiah sat weeping,^ 
 and made this lamentation over Jerusalem and said."^ 
 Even some who question Jeremiah's authorship as a 
 whole, attribute parts to him. Hence the placing of 
 Lam, immediately after Jer. in our Bible ; ^ even as 
 
 ' It is largely owing to the ascription of Lam. to Jeremiah that he is 
 known as the weeping prophet. 
 
 ' Cf. 2 Chron. xxxv. 25. 
 
 ' In the Hebrew Bible, Lam. stands among the " Holy Writings," and 
 " Ah how ! ", its opening word, is its title. In the Septuagint, it stands after 
 jfer., and its title is O/i^toi (= " Dirges," " elegies "), exactly as the Talmud, 
 
LAMENTATIONS REVIEWED 305 
 
 Ruth follows Judges in the Greek Bible and ours, 
 because the story of Ruth is laid in the time of the 
 Judges. Much of Lam. was certainly composed 
 before 516 b.c., the date of the completion of the 
 Second Temple. Lam. ii. and iv. are the best, and 
 probably oldest. Lam. iii. is deeply religious, but 
 artistically weakest, and latest in date. Lam. v. 
 shows dramatic power, but seems left in the rough 
 by its composer. Lam. i. is a beautiful, but rather 
 monotonous elegy. Lam. ii. and iv. may certainly 
 be Jeremiah's; but, generally speaking, the whole 
 book, like much in Ezekiel, shows the literary artist's 
 hand overmuch, and was apparently written in the 
 study towards the end of the Captivity. Lamentations, 
 in later days, was publicly read by the Jews on the 
 9th of Ab, the anniversary of the destruction of the 
 Temple, as part of the ritual of that great day of 
 mourning.^ 
 
 and Jewish writers generally, call it "elegies." Hence the Lamentationes, 
 Lanunta of Jerome and the Latin Church. (See W. Robertson Smith, jSnc. 
 Brit, (gth editn".), xiv. 240.) 
 
 • The only portions of the Hagiographa publicly read in the Jewish Church 
 are Canticles (at the Passover), Kuth (at the Feast of Weeks), Lam. (as above), 
 Eccla. (at Feast of Tabernacles), Esther (at Feast of Purim). These five 
 books together form the five MegiU6th ("rolls") or small books written on 
 separate rolls for liturgical use at the five Jewish festivals mentioned. " Chron., 
 Prov., Job, Dan., Neh., Ezra, are not read now, and have never been read, 
 in Jewish public worship" (Woods, O.T. Canon, Hastings' D.of B., iii. 604). 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 MESSfANIC HOPE — DANIEL AND APOCALYPSES 
 
 We speak of the Future Hope and associate it with 
 Life after Death, Judgment, Eternity, Heaven, and 
 Hell ; for us it has mainly to do with the individual. 
 To say that belief in individual immortality is not 
 found in the Old Testament would be untrue. It 
 certainly is from about 300 b.c. onward, e.g. Pss. xvi. 
 9-1 1, xlix. IS, Ixxiii. 24; Is. xxv. 8, xxvi. 19; Dan. xii. 
 1-2. But, in itself, the belief in a purely individual 
 immortality never appealed to any but a very few 
 isolated thinkers in O.T. days. Even when they did 
 arrive at a belief in a resurrection, it was all but 
 exclusively a national, not an individual, resurrection. 
 Israelites looked forward to a blessed future only as 
 members of a Holy People, as citizens of an Israel of 
 God or righteous Kingdom which should embrace all 
 good Hebrews, alive or dead, for the good dead 
 should rise to share in its blessings. In a word, our 
 eschatology is thai of the individual and its scene 
 heaven ; O.T. eschatology is that of Israel as a nation 
 and its stage of action is God's Kingdom here on 
 earth. 
 
 A clear idea of the Future Hope of Israel, as given 
 in the O.T. and as pictured by O.T. writers and readers, 
 is not easy to place before the modern reader, and for 
 two reasons : (i) The O.T. reveals its picture of it bit 
 by bit, here a little and there a little ; only in apoca- 
 lypses outside the Bible do we get these separate 
 ideas combined into a clear organic whole hardly 
 distinguishable from the New Testament picture. 
 
 306 
 
"THE DAY OF THE LORD" 307 
 
 ^2) But the modern reader's chief snare is that he will 
 read N.T. views into O.T. passages, and give a 
 Christian meaning which is not there to O.T, 
 Messianic ideals and aspirations. For instance, we 
 can easily read a Christological meaning into the 
 "Suffering Servant," the Immanuel Prophecy, the 
 Messianic King; but, for the original writers or 
 readers, was it there at all? Of course, we can 
 plead that God saw further than Isaiah, Micah, or 
 Jeremiah, and made these prophets say more and 
 better than they knew. , This may be ; but here our 
 one aim is to see what these O.T. Israelites themselves 
 thought of the Messianic Kingdom or of Life after 
 Death. And for this we must clear our minds Of all 
 Christian ideas on these subjects, or we shall see 
 the O.T. picture in quite a wrong perspective and 
 defeat our own ends. 
 
 From first to last, Israel's Hope clusters round 
 "The Day of the Lord " which is to usher in Israel's 
 great prosperity and blessedness. " The Day " plays 
 a vital part in it all, and we must begin with that. 
 " The Day " is not the blessed future itself, only the 
 divine act of judgment inaugurating it, or the Day of 
 God'.g,^vine interposition. The words of Amos 
 (760-750 B.C.) : " You that desire the day of the Lord," 
 (v. 18) prove that the phrase was already quite familiar 
 and on all lips. It dates much further back in Israel's 
 history.' 
 
 With Israel, as with their Arab kinsmen, "the 
 Day " had originally the definite signification of " the 
 day of battle "2 (cf Is. ix. 4, "the day of Midian"). 
 So in the popular mind the " Day of the Lord " was 
 
 ' For reasons given in Ch. III., we do not quote in the text so-called 
 earliest promises of x Future Hope as made e.g. to Adam (Gen. 3") or to 
 Abraham (Gen, la'), or Noah or Jacob. But the Song of Deborah, which 
 shows us Jehovah actually leading Israel in battle against His and their 
 enemies (Judg. v.) ; 2 Sam. vii. with God's express covenant with David j and 
 Ex. XX, 22-xxiii. 33, the Book of the Covenant (800 B.c), with its promises 
 of prosperity to Israel if true to its Jehovah, — all help to explain Amos' "you 
 that desire the day of the Lord." 
 
 " Cheyne, Enc, Bih. 1348 ; Robertson Smith, Prophets, 2, 397. 
 
308 MESSIANIC HOPE — DANIEL AND APOCALYPSES 
 
 to be the day when Jehovah, at the head of Israel's 
 hosts; would personally deliver them from their foes, 
 wreak dire judgment on His and His Israel's enemies, 
 usher in a Golden Era of everlasting material pros- 
 perity for His Chosen People, and Himself take up 
 His abode in their midst. This idea of an Israelite 
 Kingdom of God naturally flowed from the identifica- 
 tion of Jehovah with His Israel. Ever since His Sinai 
 Covenant with Israel, He is their God; they are His 
 people. Jehovah's and Israel's fortunes stand or fall 
 together. Hence Deborah curses Meroz " Because 
 they came not to the help of the Lord" (Judg. v.). 
 
 Universally, up to 800 b.c, " The Day of the Lord " 
 was viewed as a crushing day of Israel's judgment 
 on Israel's enemies. On that day Jehovah would 
 vindicate His own and His Israel's honour by crush- 
 ing their foes and setting up His glorious Kingdom. 
 On the people's lips "the Day" had a material and 
 national meaning pure and simple. From Amos 
 onward, prophet after prophet challenges this com- 
 fortable Hope of Israel, and tries to substitute one 
 based on moral grounds. They adopt the phrase, 
 but give it a moral note which converts it into a day, 
 not of God's blessing, but of His wrath on a sinful 
 Israel. They frankly tell Israel : You think your- 
 selves God's Israel to whom all His covenanted 
 promises are made. You are not it. The real Israel 
 of God and the actual Israel are poles apart ; till you 
 become the true Israel, the promises are not for you, 
 only God's wrathful judgment on you ! 
 
 Yet the prophets believe in an Israelite Kingdom 
 of God every whit as much as the people themselves. 
 Jehovah has pledged Himself to it, and, in spite of 
 Israel's badness, the prophet's implicit faith in 
 Jehovah and His Covenant-promises does not waver 
 for one instant. True, a sinful Israel must be purified 
 of its dross as if by fire, but from its ashes will rise 
 a new Israel, meet to be citizens of the Kingdom of 
 God. This Hebrew Kingdom of God must be, will 
 
THE KINGDOM OF GOD , 309 
 
 be. Indeed, they all see it very near at hand ; but of 
 the exact time of its coming knows no man, only God. 
 This, however, they do know: the Day of the Lord 
 must first come, a Day of terrible visitation on Israel 
 itself, sifting its wheat from the chaff. Yet with all 
 their emphasis on it as a Day of Judgment, they know 
 it is but a purifying judgment. Its cleansing work 
 done, at once the Golden Age will dawn on a 
 righteous Israel. Unlike the present evil age, the 
 Golden Era will be an age free from all ills and foes 
 within and without. God will bestow upon His 
 People such glory, peace, and well-being as David's 
 and Solomon's glorious reigns never knew ; the Jews' 
 fondest dreams wilt be more than realised. This 
 "redemption of Israel " is to be God's own act at His 
 appointed time. God Himself will suddenly and 
 miraculously intervene, manifest Himself visibly, 
 vindicate His own and His Israel's honour ; He will 
 be Israel's King, they His People in direct communion 
 with Him; to Him, and-to His Israel, shall every 
 nation bow the knee. 
 
 In some Messianic/prophecies God is spoken of as 
 raising some chosen human agent as His " anointed " 
 (= Messiah) for the express purpose of delivering 
 His Israel. At times he is a sublime Davidic king. 
 David's reign, the hey-day of Israel's glory, was ever 
 idealised by later generations, but 2 Sam. vii. gives 
 us a deeper reason for this expectation of a Davidic 
 Messiah. In God's own name, Nathan the Prophet 
 had covenanted with David that his house, his king- 
 dom, his throne should be established for ever, and 
 thatJsrael's immortality as a nation should be as sure 
 as that of David's own line (2 Sam. vii. 8-1 7V Hence 
 
 ' N.B. The phrases: "I will be his father, and he shall be My son"; 
 "thy throne and thy kingdom shall be established for ever"; "I have cut 
 off all thine enemies out of thy sight, and have made thee a great name " ; "I 
 will appoint a place for My people Israel and will plant them, that they may 
 dwell in a place of their own and move no more ; neither shall the children of 
 wickedness aiBict them any more."— These promises of God are the key to 
 two-thirds of the so-called Messianic expectations. 
 
3IO MESSIANIC HOPE — DANIEL AND APOCALYPSES 
 
 we often hear of the coming Deliverer as a righteous 
 Branch or Sprout of David's line, a Davidic King, 
 the Lord's "anointed," very gracious, full of the 
 strength and Spirit of the Lord, and abundant bless- 
 ings flow from the righteous rule of this ideal King. 
 Some prophets, however, have no Davidic king, but 
 some other Deliverer whom God has anointed and 
 upon whom He has poured His Spirit, e.g. Zerubbabel, 
 Cyrus. Others, again, have no human Deliverer at all ; 
 God Himself is Israel's Redeemer, the new Israel's 
 King, and Jerusalem His Holy City and abode. As to 
 the fate of the nations. Second Isaiah and the author of 
 Is. xix. are universalists, and show us God loving the 
 nations for their own sake and lovingly drawing them 
 to Himself; the majority of Bible-writers, however, 
 are particularists ; they reserve all the glory of the 
 Kingdom for the Jews and make the nations their 
 vassals. 
 
 The rich growth of these Messianic prophecies is 
 natural. Once given: (i) God's Covenanted promises 
 to Israel at Sinai ; (2) His Covenant with David ; (3) 
 David and his glorious kingdom as seen through the 
 eyes of later oppressed Jews ; (4) Israel's practical 
 monopoly of Jehovah as their God, — and we can 
 readily understand Israel's Hope, as well as the 
 bright colours in which a glowing Hebrew imagina- 
 tion would paint its picture of the Golden Age and 
 its Messianic King. It is a sketch rich in Oriental 
 poetry, imagery, hyperbole, but wondrously grand 
 and inspiring. 
 
 Such are the broad general outlines. We shall 
 now trace the gradual evolution of the Messianic 
 ideal in the prophets, taking them one by one, but 
 dividing them into three groups : (a) pre-exilic, {h) 
 exilic, (c) post-exilic, and for this reason. Roughly 
 speaking, before the Exile, the Day of the Lord is a 
 day of judgment on a sinful Israel itself; during the 
 Exile, " the Day " finds Israel chastened and purified, 
 so its judgment is on their foes ; after the Exile, Israel 
 
THE PROPHETS' FUTURE HOPE 3II 
 
 is constantly sinning again and always under foreign 
 yoke, so "the Day" is at times a judgment on Israel 
 itself, more often on their Gentile oppressors. 
 (A) Pre-exilic prophets. 
 
 Amos {c. 760-750 B.C.) tells Israel: You expect "the Day of 
 the Lord " to be a day of triumph over your foes. Not so. It is 
 going to be a terrible day of judgment, but upon you. "You only 
 have I known, Israel, therefore I will punish you for all your 
 sins." Amos has no reference to a better future (Am. ix. 8^-15, a 
 Messianic prediction of the riestoration of David's kingdom, with 
 nations subject to it, and the prosperity of the Golden Age, is 
 admittedly a post-exilic addition to counteract the ill-om6ned 
 close ix. i-la ; 8^ not only flatly contradicts 8« but gb as well). 
 
 Jlosea {c. 750-737 B.C.) also sees a day of judgment on Israel's 
 harlotries. But Jehovah is Israel's Husband and still loves His 
 faithless Bride, tenderly watching over her, so that even "the 
 valley of trouble shall be a door of hope " ; " In that day I will 
 betroth thee unto Me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in 
 lovingkindness, and in mercies." The old relations of full 
 Husband and Bride will be restored, and the Golden Age will come. 
 Hosea is the first prophet to declare the Messianic ideal of godli- 
 ness and happiness. If Hos. iii. 5 is his (?), a Davidic King is 
 promised: "Afterward shall Israel return, and seek the Lord 
 their God, and David their king.'" This is the first reference to 
 a Messianic ruler. 
 
 Micak (724 B.C.- ?). — Corruption and oppression cry to God 
 for vengeance. " Hear this, ye heads and rulers of Israel that 
 abhor judgment and pervert all equity. . . . Zion shall be plowed as 
 a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the 
 house as the high places of the forest" (iii. 9 sqq.). Yet imme- 
 diately follows a picture of the Golden Age, with the Temple 
 rebuilt and glorious, Jerusalem the world's religious centre to 
 which all nations, flock; and the Law of God universally obeyed 
 ushers in an age of universal peace and happiness. True, Assyria 
 is already at the gate, "thou shalt go even to Babylon," but a 
 glorious restoration is promised, and " thou shalt beat in pieces 
 many people" (iv.). Mic. v. 2 sqq„ like Hosea, foresees an 
 anointed King of iDavid's line, bom at David's birthplace, 
 Bethlehem. The strength and spirit of the Lord will be in him, 
 and " he shall be great unto the ends of the earth " ; Assyria will 
 
312 MESSIANIC HOPE — DANIEL AND APOCALYPSES 
 
 be humbled, and the Golden Age will conje (cf. vii. 7 sqq. But 
 
 the majority of scholars are puzzled as to how much of all this 
 
 (chs. iv.-v. and vii. 7 sqq.) is really Micah's). 
 
 Isaiah (740-7oaB.c.) = Is. i-xxxix. (but xiii. i-xiv. 23, against 
 
 Babylon, is exilic ; xxi. i-io ; xxiv.-^xxvii., is certainly post-exilic 
 
 and quite late j xxxiv.-xxxv. against Edom, is exilic ; xii. is also 
 
 probably exilic ; xxxvi.-xxxix. is noteworthy as = 2 Kgs. xviii.- 
 
 XX.). " The Day " is the dread Day of the Lord, first on Israel, 
 
 then, after a respite, on Judah, to purge God's people of their 
 
 dross. In the " remnant," or small band of faithful souls, Isaiah 
 
 sees the " holy seed " out of which is to spring God's new Israel. 
 
 The famous passages Is. vii. 14; ix. 1-6; xi. 1-9 all point to an 
 
 ideal Davidici Prince as the Lord's anointed King ruling, in 
 
 the strength and Spirit of the Lord, in righteousness over a 
 
 righteous and thrice-blessed Israel. This forms what is called 
 
 the "Immanuel Prophecy." Syria and Israel are threatening 
 
 Ahaz, who is greatly afraid. Isaiah bids Ahaz, Davidic king of 
 
 Judah, not be afraid, but trust implicitly God's promise (2 Sam. 
 
 vii.) of an everlasting throne to David ; he assures him that, 
 
 though his house may be humbled awhile, yet God's words : " I 
 
 will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever, I will be his 
 
 Father, he shall be My son. My mercy shall not depart from 
 
 him. . . . My people shall dwell in a place of their own and 
 
 move no more, neither shall the children of wickedness afflict 
 
 them any more, as beforetime " (2 Sam. vii.), must be fulfilled. 
 
 Out of. the root of Jesse a new glorious Shoot will" spring, a 
 
 sublime Immanuel or Davidic King will arise. " The maiden " ' 
 
 • "Virgin" (Heb. 'almdh), "a colourless term = any young woman of 
 marriageable age, without in itself stating whether single or married " (Burney, 
 Outlines of O.T. Theology, p. 103), e.g. in Joel i. 8 = young married w'oman. 
 " The maiden" here the article may = (a) a young woman well known at the 
 time, e.g. the wife of king Ahaz, or of Isaiah himself 5 {b) generic (as often in , 
 Heb.), i.e. marriageable maidens as a class, as in R.V. and A.V. ; (f) one long 
 since marked out in history to play a definite rSle, e.g. the mother of the 
 Messiah ; or even Israel, the Bride of Jehovah (Hos. ii.), cf. " The Virgin 
 of Israel" (Jer. 14", 18", 31", Lam. l"), and then "the maiden" = the 
 regenerate Israel. Che)me, Robertson Smith, Kuenen, favour the generic 
 meaning (i) ; Ewald, and most English scholars, advocate (c), as in the text 
 above. But, as Bleek and Prof. A. B. Davidson warn us, it does not follow 
 that Isaiah himself, in Is. vii. 14, had Christ's Virgin-Birth in view. "Historical 
 interpreters have to distinguish between the things which N.T. writers affirm 
 and corroborate by O.T. passages, and the proofs or corroborations {e.g. Mt. i. 
 22 sq.) which they adduce. ... It was more the actual life of Christ that 
 suggested to N.T. writers the application to Him of O.T. passages, than the 
 prevalent or authentic interpretation of the passages. They saw in His life the 
 full religious meaning of the passages, and the question of their original sense 
 or application did not occur to them." (Cf, pp. 198, 307 sup. \ esp. 'ilT inf.) 
 
THE PROPHETS' FUTURE HOPE 313 
 
 (Heb. has " the " = she who is famous as mother of that famous 
 son ; " maiden " = any young woman of marriageable age, single 
 or married) shall conceive and bear a son, Immanuel, an ideal 
 Davidic King, so full of the strength and Spirit of the Lord, 
 which God pours into His chosen agents, that he is. literally 
 Immanuel (= " God is with us "). In him, as His representative, 
 God will manifest Himself, and fully realised will be His promise 
 to David : " I will be his Father, he shall be My son," as also 
 that other promise, "his throne shall be for ever," Thus 
 Immanuel, " God is with us," will be as the everlasting Father in 
 his fatherhood of the people under his care, and as the God- 
 mighty One as against his people's foes ; and even as David was 
 a king righteous and just, who established an empire and a reign 
 of peace, so Immanuel will be a Wonder of a Counsellor — that is, 
 a wondrously righteous administrator of affairs in his kingdom, 
 and a Prince of Peace ushering in a period of peace and prosperity 
 after war and trouble. In Is. xi. 1-9 (probably post-exilic), this 
 " Shoot out of the stem of Jesse, and Branch out of his roots," 
 extraordinarily endowed with the Spirit of the Lord, and righteous 
 in his sway, is further developed ; and in a highly poetical passage 
 we see all Nature, and the wild animals, sharing in this paradise 
 of Messianic peace and bliss. Isaiah xi. 10 also gives us the first 
 sketch of religious universalism, for the God of Israel extends His 
 gracious care and love even to the nations : "a root of Jesse shall 
 stand as an ensign of the peoples, unto him shall the nations seek, 
 and his resting-place shall be glorious " (cf. the splendidly universal 
 Is. xix. 19 sqq., but it is almost certainly post-exilic). 
 
 Habakkuk (608 B.C.), Nahum (605-600 B.C.). — We are on the 
 eve of the Captivity and Israel is already suffering keenly at the 
 hands of the oppressor. Hence Hab. and Nahum no longer stress 
 Israel's sins, and the Day of Judgment is to strike the Gentiles. 
 This is the first note in this key. 
 
 Jeremiah (626-586 B.C.). — Before the Captivity the Day, in 
 Jeremiah, is one of sword, famine, pestilence, and irrevocable 
 doom on Israel, but a new Israel is to arise from its ashes ; the 
 end of tribulation will be good " when God will." 
 
 (B) During the Exile 
 
 Jeremiah now comforts. God will after 70 years restore Israel 
 and Judah to their land in peace and prosperity. True shepherds 
 will feed God's flock, a succession of kings of David's line ushered 
 
314 MESSIANIC HOPE—DANIEL AND APOCALYPSES 
 
 in 6y a " righteous Branch of David's stem," an ideal Davi(3ic 
 King who " shall execute judgment and justice on the earth and 
 be called ' the Lord is our Righteousness! " The name " Jehovah 
 (the Lord) is our Righteousness " of this king embodies a Theocratic 
 ideal even more emphasised than " God is with us," Immanuers 
 name. In Jer. xxx. 9 : " Israel shall serve the Lord their God, and 
 David their king, whom I will raise up unto them," this ideal king 
 is simply called David. In this Messianic age, God makes a new 
 Covenant with Israel and writes His Law, not in a Law-book as of 
 old, but in each man's heart, so that they may all spontaneously 
 know Him, from the least of them to the greatest (xxxi. 31 sqq.). 
 
 Ezekiel (593-573 B.C.) is at first stern. The Day is one of 
 judgment and doom on Jerusalem and on Judah. But after 586, 
 he comforts. God will restore both Israel and Judah to their 
 land and " I the Lord will be their God, and My servant David 
 a prince among them " (xxxiv. 24). In xxxvii. 24 sq. David is 
 more than a prince : " My servant David shall be king over them 
 and rule over them for ever." Israel and Judah are again to be 
 one kingdom. The New Covenant of Jeremiah is developed in 
 Ezek. xxxvii. 26. It is to be a "Covenant of peace," an "ever- 
 lasting Covenant," and Jehovah tells Israel :~" A new heart also 
 will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you. ... I 
 will put My spirit within you and cause you to walk in My 
 statutes, keep them, and do them " (xi.). " My tabernacle shall 
 be with them ; yea, I will be their God, and they shall be My 
 people" (xxxvii. 27). "The heathen shall know that I am the 
 Lord, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes " (xxxvi. 
 23). Ezekiel is an out and out particularist. The nations are God's 
 and Israel's wicked foe? and shall be destroyed ; the Assyrians 
 are to be set in the uttermost parts of the pit. 
 
 Second Isaiah {c. 540 B.C.). — The Day of the Lord is now a very 
 good day for Israel, whose righteous few, the "Suffering Servant," 
 have atoned for, and borne, all her sins and those of others. 
 Cyrus, God's servant and " anointed," whom God hath raised up 
 in righteousness and called by name, is to be the Deliverer. 
 Israel is to be gathered in from all quarters. Jerusalem is to 
 be gloriously rebuilt, and God will pour His Spirit abundantly 
 upon His People, and graciously bless them with every bless- 
 ing beyond anything He ever Ipromised to David. All nations 
 will gladly look up to Israel, and she will draw them to worship 
 her God and King. All barriers separating the nations from 
 
THE PROPHETS' FUTURE HOPE 315 
 
 a share in the Kingdom are broken down. Henceforth, God's 
 salvation has for its object the whole world of nations. The 
 fact that Second Isaiah has no Messianic King, also his abso- 
 lute universalism, mark him off from Jeremiah and Ezekiel. 
 (For fuller details of this paragraph see p. 192 sqq., sup.) 
 
 (C) After the Exile. 
 
 Haggai and Zechariah (c.520 B.C.). — The exiles are now in their 
 own land, but the promised Golden Age is not theirs. Foreign 
 yoke, foes within and without, no Temple, a desolate land — such 
 is their lot. Haggai and Zechariah declare God is angry because 
 His Temple is not rebuilt. This done, but not before, the Golden 
 Age will dawn. Haggai predicts Israel's foes will be brought low, 
 for "God will shake all nations and the desirable things (not 
 " desire," for the Heb. is a collective noun with a plur. verb), of 
 all nations shall come " to ornament the Temple and fill it with 
 glory (ii. 6-9). Both Zechariah (see p. 200, sup.) and Haggai 
 (ii. 20-23) mark out Zerubbabel as Messianic King, though 
 Zech. vi. adds that Joshua, the high-priest, "shall be a priest 
 upon his throne (= at Zerubbabel's right hand) and the counsel 
 of peace shall be between them both." Zech. viii. 20-23, makes 
 the nations voluntarily come "to seek the Lord of hosts in 
 Jerusalem, and to entreat the favour of the Lord ... ten men 
 shall take hold, out of all the languages of the nations, of the 
 skirt of him that is a Jew, saying. We will go with you, for 
 we have heard that God is with you." (Zech. ix.-xiv. aire not 
 Zechariah's. Zech. ix. 9-10 : " Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem ; 
 behold thy King cometh unto thee; he is just, and havirig 
 salvation (Heb. " saved," t.e. by Jehovah) ; lowly, and riding upon 
 an ass, even upon a colt the foal of an ass,'' i.e. after conquering 
 his enemies, he is now mounted upon the animal ridden in 
 times of peace, indicating that he is ushering in a reign of 
 universal peace : " he shall speak peace unto the heathen, and 
 his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to 
 the ends of the earth" (cf. Ps. ii. 8)). 
 
 Malachi (460-450 B.C.). — The Day is again " a great and dread- 
 ful day " of judgment on a morally and religiously lax Judah, and 
 upon its priests who are careless in Temple-worship, The Gentile 
 nations put Israel to shame in the honour they pay to God and in 
 their pure oiferings: "For from the rising of the sun even unto the 
 going down of the same My Name is great among the Gentiles ; 
 
3l6 MESSIANIC HOPE — DANIEL AND APOCALYPSES 
 
 and in every place incense is offered unto My Name, and a pure 
 offering" (i. ii). Israel must purge herself of her dross, then 
 Jehovah will come suddenly to His Temple, and Judah will again 
 be " pleasant unto the Lord," " and all the nations shall call you 
 happy; for you shall be a delightsome land" (iii. 12). "Unto 
 you that fear My Name shall the sun of righteousness arise with 
 healing in his wings " (iv. 2), But " I will send you Elijah the 
 prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord come " (iv. 5). 
 
 Trito-Isaiah (post-exilic, the work of a number of different 
 writers = Is. Ivi, to the end, called Trito-Isaiah for convenience, 
 and not to denote a single author). Jehovah is wroth with Israel's 
 sins, but a great future is in store for her : " Behold, the Lord 
 hath proclaimed unto the end of the earth, Say ye to the daughter 
 of Zion, behold, thy salvation cometh " ; " and they shall call 
 them the Holy People, The redeemed of the Lordj and thou 
 shalt be called. Sought out, A city not forsaken" (Is. Ixii. 11-12). 
 In the Messianic Kingdom (no king in it) there are to be new 
 heavens and a new earth (Ixv. 17); Jerusalem is to be thrice- 
 blessed. Men shall live to a patriarchal age (Ixv. 20), and there 
 will be such perfect peace that even the brute creation will 
 share in the prevailing harihony. The hostile nations will be 
 judged, and such as escape will flock to Jerusalem and its Temple 
 to worship God. 
 
 Joel (400 B.C. ?). — The Day is one of judgment on the nations, 
 which are gathered together to be judged and destroyed. It does 
 not hurt penitent Israel, but justifies her in the sight of all 
 nations ; plenty and many blessings are to be her lot. 
 
 Psalms (see Ch. XVII. sup. " Messianic Psalms "). — Note. — ^In 
 the Psalms, as in all hymns everywhere, we have the faith and 
 hopes (mainly eschatological) to which men cling, voiced in 
 prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. When the Psalms speak of 
 judgment (i. 5 ; vii. 6 sqq. ; xxxv. 23, etc.) \ of the meek 
 inheriting the earth {e.g. xxxvii. ii) ; of the day at hand for the 
 _wicked {e.g. xxxvii. 13) ; of seeing God's face in righteousness 
 (e.g. xvii. 15); of the upright speedily to have dominion over the 
 unrighteous; of a transfigured earth; of the subjection of the 
 nations to the King, and so forth, they refer to the Future Hope— 
 Pss. (f.g^ ii., Ixxii., are directly Messianic. 
 
 Summary. — From this survey we can see how fluid 
 and undefined is still the conception of the Future 
 Hope of Israel in the prophets (yOd-c. 300 b.c,). There 
 
O.T. MESSIANIC HOPE VARIES 317 
 
 is a great variety of idea, with a certain amount of 
 formal agreement, but over and over again, even in 
 the same writer, the statements are hard to reconcile 
 and all but contradictory. The fixed points seem to 
 be these : (i) On the " Day of the Lord " God inter- 
 poses suddenly, miraculously, and manifests Him- 
 self in judgment ; (2) the judgment is followed by the 
 perfect kingdom of God ; (3) the Kingdom is always 
 for Israel, but sometimes the nations share in it; 
 where they do not, they are either destroyed or sub- 
 jected; (4) God dwells in Israel's midst and the 
 people are in full and direct communion with Him;' 
 (5) it is an everlasting Kingdom ; (6) it is on earth ; 
 , (7) it is a national Future Hope, almost exclusively, 
 hardly individual till 300 B.C. The prophets are think- 
 ing far more of the Israel that shall be than of indi- 
 vidual Israelites. 
 
 As yet we have no fixed doctrine of a personal 
 Messiah, only the material, the separate ideas or 
 conceptions which will eventually be combined and 
 meet at last in a single complete Portraiture. In a 
 historical study of the Messianic Hope, we must be 
 careful not to attribute greater distinctness or scope 
 to the Messianic expectation at any period, e.g. in 
 Hosea, Isaiah, or Jeremiah, than had been attained. 
 They are so many steps, so many separate contribu- 
 tions to the total conception of Messiah that we 
 know so well now, but they must be treated as 
 separate while they are so. This does not in any 
 way detract from the divine value of the final Picture. 
 From that final standpoint, it matters not at all that 
 the lines of the Messiah, which all meet at last in a 
 single Portrait, are drawn from a series of different 
 originals. We could have no more conclusive proof 
 that all the course of the world and all the threads of 
 history are in one guiding Hand, the Hand of Him 
 
 ' With the prophets, this coming of the Lord to dwell amidst His people is 
 something personal and objective to a degree which we can hardly realise, 
 especially in Ezekiel. 
 
3l8 MESSIANIC HOPE — DANIEL AND APOCALYPSES 
 
 who rules His world on moral lines and makes all 
 things work together for the redemption of man. 
 
 What we want to know here is : " What did 
 Messiah mean to an Isaiah or Jeremiah ? What person 
 had he in his mind's eye in the passages quoted above ? 
 What was the Messianic Hope of O.T. days, as 
 pictured by O.T. writers and readers, and as actually 
 given in such O.T. passages as, e.g. Amos (?) ix. 8-15 ; 
 Hos. (?) iii. 5 ; Mic. v. 2 ; Is. vii., ix., xi. ; Jer. xxiii. 5-6, 
 XXX. 9; Ezek. xvii. 22-24, xxxiv, 23 sqq., xxxvii. 22-28; 
 Zech. iii. 8, vi. 12, ix. 9, sqq. ; Pss. ii., Ixxii., etc. ? We 
 shall see that the prophets were not reading into 
 their prophecies what we read into them. As has been 
 well said, " O.T. Messianic was, so to speak, uncon- 
 scious. The writers had not the future King distinctly 
 in their minds. They were speaking of other persons,: 
 or they were uttering presentiments, or what seemed 
 to them religious necessities, or projecting forward 
 brilliant spiritual hopes and anticipations" (Prof. 
 A. B. Davidson). 
 
 We shall see this for ourselves all the better and 
 clearer if we recapitulate what we have already said 
 in this chapter. Very old, very strong, very deep- 
 rooted was Israel's conviction from the very earliest 
 -days that Jehovah had entered into a Covenant re- 
 lationship with His Israel. This Covenant, in Israel's 
 eyes, linked Jehovah's fortunes with their own, and 
 assured the continuance of their race and its pros- 
 perity for ever. Such a Covenant, they held, did not 
 depend upon the goodness or badness of any par- 
 ticular generation of God's chosen People. Failure, 
 shortcoming, apostasy on their part would involve 
 dire divine punishment, and the wicked generations 
 or portions of Israel might for the time being forfeit 
 all the privileges of the Covenant blessings. But it 
 was an "everlasting Covenant" made with Israel 
 as a whole, and even if nine-tenths of Israel fell away, 
 God never would be without a "remnant," a "holy 
 seed," in His Israel, for whom His eternal Covenant 
 
GOD'S COVENANTED PROMISES 319 
 
 would Still Stand sure in the nation's darkest days. 
 This "holy seed," the true Israel, represents the 
 nation, is indestructible, and out of it is to spring the 
 new Israel of God in God's own good time. Happen 
 what may, the eternity and final Golden Age of Israel 
 as a nation is assured. Jehovah cannot prove Himself 
 untrue to the oath which He swore to Abraham, to 
 the solemn Covenant into which He entered with 
 Israel under Moses. 
 
 We have also seen that God entered into a solemn 
 covenant with David: "thy throne and thy kingdom 
 shall be established for ever " ; "I will be his Father, 
 and he shall be My son " ; "I have cut off all thine 
 enemies out of thy sight and made thee a great 
 name." Simultaneously, Jehovah renewed His cove- 
 nanted promises to Israel : " I will appoint a place 
 for My people Israel and will plant them, that they 
 may dwell in a place of their own and move no more, 
 neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them 
 any more, as beforetime." 
 
 We can readily understand how capable of indefi- 
 nite idealisation were these two ideas, these two 
 covenanted promises : (i) the indestructibility of 
 Israel as a nation; (2) the eternity of David's line 
 on Israel's throne. — Hence, in the darkest hours of 
 adversity, exile, or oppression, prophets and people 
 alike were confident that Israel, purged of her dross, 
 would come out of it all to enter upon the heritage of 
 a glorious future, when all her foes would be crushed 
 and Israel's Golden Age (material and spiritual) be 
 inaugurated on earth as the Kingdom of God. So, 
 too, of God's promise to David : " thy throne and thy 
 kingdom shall be established for ever." Even as 
 David had subjected the nations, established a mighty 
 empire, been a man after God's own heart, just and 
 righteous in his rule, and a prince of peace in his 
 latter years, so would God again visit and bless his 
 house and make it even more glorious. Israel and 
 Judah would again, in God's own time, be one ; Israel's 
 
320 MESSIANIC HOPE — DANIEL AND APOCALYPSES 
 
 empire would be restored with tenfold more power 
 and glory than in Solomon's palmy days, and the 
 nation would never be without a ruler of David's line 
 sitting on his throne, ruling in righteousness, full of 
 the strength and Spirit of the Lord. 
 
 Even before Amos' day, the minds of men were 
 turned towards these glorious promises in an attitude 
 of tense expectation. Amos, Isatah, Micah, and the 
 earlier prophets all refer to this Messianic Era as 
 something keenly expected. In the prophetic visions 
 of this Golden Age, the spiritual idea embodied is 
 ever the same, but the actual picture presented varies 
 in each succeeding age, because the prophet has to 
 make use of the materials lying to hand in his own 
 day, and these are constantly changing. To take a 
 concrete instance; when First Isaiah comes on the 
 scene as prophet in 740, Israel and Judah are still 
 independent kingdoms, though Assyria begins to 
 look threatening ; and a Davidic king sits on Judah's 
 throne. In Second Isaiah's day (S40) Israel and the . 
 ten tribes have ceased to exist, Judah has been fifty 
 years in Captivity, but her hopes are greatly raised 
 by Cyrus, who is about to crush her oppressor, 
 Babylon. With such different materials at hand out 
 of which to rear their Messianic fabric, is it any 
 wonder if their two visions differ in form, though the 
 spiritual ideal they embody is the same in both 
 cases ? 
 
 What is this ideal ? A righteous Israel with their 
 Jehovah dwelling in His People's midst ; " God with 
 us," "God is there." How can a sinful Israel thus 
 become fit for God's actual presence in their midst ? 
 There is only one way; only one Saviour to work 
 this radical change is even thinkable, God Himself. 
 He, and no other, can work this miracle; and in 
 many Messianic prophecies Jehovah, and no other, is 
 the immediate Saviour, Redeemer, Deliverer of Israel 
 But, as history reveals, Jehovah often works through 
 great personages, judges, kings, priests, prophets 
 
WH^ THE MESSIANIC PICTURE VARIES 32 1 
 
 men whom He "anoints" and fills with His own 
 Spirit for this very purpose. Even then, Jehovah 
 Himself is still the one Saviour ; it is His Spirit in 
 His mediator or representative, the God in and 
 through the man, that does the saving work. In 
 these men, God's "Anointed" (= Christ), His Messiahs 
 full of His Spirit and strength, we have Imraanuel, 
 "God with us." Hence in the prophetic Messianic 
 pictures, (i) at times, Jehovah is the one and only 
 Saviour and King ; (2) at times, he is manifested 
 mediately, e.g, in and through a Davidic king. Take 
 our concrete -instance of a moment ago by way of 
 illustration. In 735, Ahaz, Davidic king of Judah, is 
 trembling before a Syria-Israel coalition threatening 
 to annihilate him and his kingdom. Isaiah, full of 
 unbounded faith in God's covenanted promises to 
 David, bids Ahaz cast away his groundless fears ; 
 David's house may share the people's humiliations, 
 but David's "throne is established for ever." And 
 straightway, on the strength of his faith, an inspired 
 Isaiah sees the Messianic Age here with its Davidic 
 Prince of Peace, the God-Mighty One, the Wonderful 
 Counsellor, Immanuel, "God is with us." In 540, 
 during the Exile, Second Isaiah, with equally un- 
 bounded faith in God's covenanted promises to Israel 
 the nation, sees God's mediator or deliverer in Cyrus, 
 "Mine anointed, My shepherd, Mine elect, whom I 
 have called by name." He, too, in the strength of his 
 great faith, sees in his vision the Messianic Age here, 
 but there is no king in it but Jehovah Himself, " God 
 with us " in His own Person. 
 
 So it is throughout. The actual historical situation 
 at the time being always suggests the form of the 
 Picture to the prophet. The fundamental conceptions 
 embodied in it, — God dwelling in the midst of a 
 righteous Israel, .a glorious Israelite Kingdom of 
 righteousness, peace, and prosperity,— never vary; but 
 the setting of the Picture constantly varies, because 
 each prophet sees this Golden Era flow cut of the 
 
 Y 
 
322 MESSIANIC HOPE — DANIEL AND APOCALYPSES 
 
 conditions of his own day, and constructs the " new 
 Israel " out of ;the materials lying before him, e,g. the 
 actual state of things he sees in the Israel of his day, 
 the attitude to it of the nations, and so on. And 
 almost invariably, the prophets take a foreshortened 
 view of the appearance of the Messianic age and its 
 Messiah. Each prophet expects the ideal Israel at 
 once on the removal of the sins of his own age, which 
 alone stand in the way of the immediate coming of 
 God's Kingdom. Thus Isaiah regards the Assyrian 
 invasion as the last of Israel's troubles; Jeremiah 
 expects the " redemption of Israel " within 70 years 
 years of 586 b.c. ; Haggai and Zechariah as soon as 
 the Temple is rebuilt. 
 
 As to the personality of Messiah, — where Jehovah 
 Himself is ^not Saviour, Redeemer, Deliverer of 
 Israel, — there again the greatest variety comes in. 
 He may be some actual, prominent, historical person 
 alive at the time ; or an idealised Davidic King still 
 to come ; or he may be no special individual at all, 
 but e.g. the " house of David," or even Israel itself 
 For instance, if Amos ix. 1 1 sqq. and Hos. iii. 5 are 
 authentic, it is rather the renewed glory of the house 
 of David, and the reunion of all the tribes under it, 
 than the coming of one Messiah, to which they refer. 
 Similarly Jer. xvii. 25, xxii. 4, xxxiii. 15-17 dwell not 
 so much on one pre-eminent King, as on the succession 
 of kings of David's line ushered in by " a Righteous 
 Branch of David's Stem." On the other hand, in 
 Mic. iv., V. and Is. vii., ix., xi., attention is focussed on 
 a single idealised King of David's line, whose relation- 
 ship with God is so close that it exactly tallies with 
 God's promise to David : " I will be to him a Father, 
 and he shall be My son." From this time forward 
 there is a special Messianic Hope, the expectation of 
 an extraordinary King of David's line. One would 
 have thought that this Figure would henceforth 
 monopolise the field. Far from it ; for long periods at 
 a time He is not so much as hinted at. In Second 
 
APOCALYPSES 323 
 
 Isaiah, there is no king but God in the Messianic 
 Age ; the " Suffering Servant " is God's Redeemer 
 from sin, and Cyrus His deliverer frorn material 
 bondage. In Haggai, a mediocre Davidic Zerubbabel 
 is Messiah; in Zechariah, either Zerubbabel or 
 Joshua the priest. 
 
 Epough has been said to show how various, fluid, 
 figurative are the O.T. Messianic prophecies and 
 ideals up to 300 e.g. To interpret them aright, we 
 must throw ourselves back into the prophets' own 
 day, the condition of things then, their environment, 
 their mind. ' If we fail to do this, and see in their 
 ideals ideas and truths such as we ourselves associate 
 with Messiah to-day, we are good Christians, but bad 
 interpreters of O.T. prophets and their message. 
 The following pages will help us to see how, in the 
 apocalypses of the two centuries before Christ, these 
 separate prophetic ideals were gradually combined 
 together into a more or less compact organic whole 
 to express the personality of Him who is the complete 
 and perfect Ideal. 
 
 Daniel and Apocalypses. 
 
 The prophets foretold a coming judgment on Israel, 
 but also a glorious Kingdom of God as soon as the 
 judgment had done its purifying work. Grand and 
 inspiring was this ideal of God dwelling in the midst 
 of His righteous Israel, with its trumpet-call : " Be 
 ye holy, for I am Holy " ; but there was a weak side 
 to it. As we said a moment ago, the prophets 
 invariably foreshorten the view of the coming of this 
 Kingdom of God, speak of it as at hand, almost within 
 their own generation. Thus they lay themselves 
 open to discredit, and the people to disappointment, 
 if their anticipations of the future are not literally ful- 
 filled. In all conscience, said the people, Israel has had 
 its judgments in plenty, but where is this Golden Age ? 
 Promised as at hand since 750 b.c, it was not theirs 
 yet in i a.d. ! Yet this did not altogether discredit 
 
324 MESSIANIC HOPE — DANIEL AND APOCALYPSES 
 
 prophecy in men's eyes, and for this reason. Long 
 since, Jer. xviii. 7 sqq. had forewarned Israel that 
 God's promises and threats entirely depended for their 
 fulfilment on the behaviour of the people addressed : 
 " At what time I speak concerning a nation to build 
 and plant it, if it do evil in My sight, I will repent of 
 the good wherewith I said I would benefit them,"— so 
 of threats. This moral character of prophecy was 
 well understood by the spiritual-minded in Israel 
 (cf. Jer. xxvi. 17). They knew that if the Kingdom 
 was not here, the blame lay at their own door. 
 No doubt, God's promises of a glorious Israelite 
 Kingdom were sure ; but man's bad conduct could 
 retard, never invalidate, it; Israel's Kingdom and 
 Golden Age were certainties. 
 
 After the Captivity Israel's material conditions, 
 instead of getting better, grew worse and worse, as a 
 brief historical sketch may show. Up to 332 b.c. Israel 
 was under Persian yoke, then it passed under Greek 
 rule : at ^rst as subject to the Egyptian Ptolemies, 
 but about 200 B.C. Syria wrested it from Egypt, a 
 bad exchange for Israel as the sequel proved. Taxes 
 were doubled and their new masters tried to Hellenise 
 Palestine, though Judaea, and especially Jerusalem, 
 offered a stubborn resistance to Greek influence. 
 At last arose a Syrian king determined to Europeanise 
 even Jerusalem, and break down a Jewish exclusive- 
 ness which barred his pet scheme of a compact 
 Syrian kingdom "one people in religion, law, and 
 custom." Some Jews had compliantly Hellenised ; he 
 decreed that all Jews should adopt the Greek language 
 and religion. Sabbath - observance, circumcision, 
 abstinence from pork, even the possession of a Bible, 
 were forbidden on pain of death. Antiochus Epiphanes 
 (c. 160 B.C.) had overshot the mark. From the first, riots 
 had broken out here and there. A day came when 
 the Jews no longer raised riots, they rebelled as one 
 man. No sooner had Antiochus Epiphanes setup the 
 "abomination of desolation" in the Temple — a pagan 
 
WHY APOCALYPSES REPLACE PROPHETS 325 
 
 altar to Zeus * in the Holy of holies, and pigs sacrified 
 upon it ! — than a fiery spirit of religious patriotism 
 blazed up and Judaea, under the heroic Maccabees, 
 achieved her independence. A grateful nation made 
 the Maccabees " leaders, Ihigh-priests, and governors " 
 (cf. the " King-priest " of Ps. ex.), and the Hasmonsean 
 dynasty ruled from about 160-60 Bic. They abused 
 their high privilege, aped the splendour of their royal 
 neighbours, copied Greek manners, estranged the 
 " pious " by their worldly ways and, as a family, were 
 soon torn by feuds from within their own household. 
 Civil war broke out. Both sides appealed to Rome ; 
 a Herodian usurper, Rome's nominee and vassal, was 
 put upon the throne and cast his whole influence on 
 the side of Hellenism. Judaea, shortly after, was 
 made a dependency of Syria, placed under a procurator 
 or lieutenant-governor, and, of course, the Jews had 
 to pay tribute to Rome. 
 
 Thus after the Captivity, except for a brief period, 
 Israel is politically annihilated as a nation. All hope 
 of a glorious Israelite Kingdom of God seemed daily 
 to grow less and less. The yoke of foreign oppres- 
 sion rested heavily on the land ; Israel seemed under 
 God's ban. Had God cancelled His everlasting 
 Covenant with Israel ? The mere thought was 
 blasphemy! But what did God's silence and the 
 present dark cloud mean? The present was a blank; 
 Israel's former glory was but a memory of a far-away 
 past, written in a book ; prophets had ceased and no 
 direct revelation came from God : " We see not our 
 signs, there is no more any prophet ; neither is there 
 any among us that knoweth how long ; " " hath God 
 forgotten to be gracious ? " 
 
 Now that prophets are gone, visionary apocalyptic 
 writers step into their place, " revealers of hidden 
 
 ' It is not improbable that the words translated "abomination of desola- 
 tion" are a contemptuous distortion of the name of the heathen god, Baal 
 Shamaim, Baal of heaven, =^Zeus ; Shimem, "desolate," being just a punning 
 variation of Shamaim = "heaven." (See Hastings' D. of B. i. 12.) 
 
326 MESSIANIC HOPE — DANIEL AND APOCALYPSES 
 
 things" (= apocalypse) 1 who comfort pious souls in 
 days of dark trouble. These apocalyptists expect, 
 as we shall soon see, not a regenerated Jerusalem 
 and an actual king of David's line, but, as a rule, a 
 new heaven and a new earth, a new Jerusalem coming 
 down from heaven, and a superhuman Deliverer. 
 Practically for the first time, we now get clear and 
 unmistakable pictures of a Messiah and a Messianic 
 Kingdom in our sense of the word, though some still 
 make Jehovah the only Saviour. There are a few 
 instances of this new outlook in the Psalter, but 
 vDaniel is the real O.T. and classical type of all 
 apocalypses. 
 
 The apocalyptist is akin to, yet distinct from, the 
 prophet. The prophet has his eyes fixed on his own 
 generation and trusts to the spoken word ; the apoca- 
 lyptist turns his back on the hopeless' pi'esent and 
 writes of things beyond man's ken in the future. Yet, 
 really, the apocalyptist builds on the prophet's founda- 
 tion. In God's Word ( = the Prophets) hefinds a number 
 of unfulfilled promises. They are God's own and must 
 be fulfilled to the letter. By turning what was poetry 
 into prose, what was literal {e.g. Jeremiah's seventy 
 years) into figure of speech, and figure of speech into 
 literal fact ; by subtle rearranging or harmonising of 
 this passage with that — he is easily able to use this 
 vast mass of promises, fulfilled and unfulfilled, in such 
 a way as to map out the future according to his wishes, 
 and even arrive at precise dates.^ 
 
 ' II. Esdras (technically called 4 Ezra, date 81-96 A.D.) in ch.xiv. 44 sqq., 
 tells us he is told to wiite, under angelic prompting, 94 Books, of which 24 
 (= O.T.) arc to be published "that the worthy and unworthy may read 
 therein," "but the 70 last keep thou, to deliver them to the wise only. For in 
 them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the stream of 
 knowledge. " The point of this passage is to explain why these 70 very old 
 books (= Apocrypha) had not previously been known. Cf. the strict orders 
 to Daniel (xii. 4, 9 ; ix, 24) to " shut up the words, and seal the book, even to 
 the time of the end." 
 
 * Apocalyptists stress chronology. The "How" and the "When" was 
 all in all to them. "They spent much ingenuity in arranging history into a 
 fixed and symmetrical system of chronology which governed rather than 
 expressed its course " (Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake, Beginnings of 
 Christianity^ p. 131). 
 
APOCALYPTISTS, PROPHETS, COMPARED 327 
 
 In other ways apocalyptists and prophets differ, 
 ^'g' (i) Prophets are essentially religious reformers, 
 and only secondarily predictors ; their call is to 
 repentance. In apocalypses prediction is everything ; 
 their call is to patience and hope. (2) Prophets still 
 look upon this world as God's world, assured tha;t 
 on this earth will God's goodness be manifested. 
 Apocalypses view the present world as all but past 
 praying for, and all their interest lies in a supra- 
 mundane hereafter on a transfigured earth or up in 
 heaven. (3) The prophets mean men to trust in God, 
 but also work out their own salvation ; their inspiring 
 Messianic ideals are incentives to that rightness of 
 character and action which alone can speed the 
 Kingdom's coming. The apocalyptists cannot thus 
 wait for the coming of the Kingdom through the 
 working of moral forces in line with God's own 
 divine interposition.^ This mode of procedure is too 
 slow. They see the Golden Age at hand bursting on 
 an astonished earth. (4) The apocalyptic Messiah is 
 stili often a Davidic King, but altogether unique and 
 idealised beyond anything in the prophets ; he is a 
 superhuman being kept in store in heaven till the 
 moment of his manifestation, and then coming on the 
 clouds of heaven. (5) Prophets speak in their own 
 names ; apocalypses always claim to be the work of 
 some great figure in the past, e.g. Moses, Enoch, 
 Daniel, the Twelve Patriarchs.^ (6) The prophets 
 make God " near," and expect an objective and per- 
 sonal coming of the Lord, at all events in His Temple. 
 Apocalypses transcendentalise God more and more, 
 place a wide gulf between heaven and earth. (7) 
 Prophets are figurative and poetical in their language, 
 
 ' "The Apocalyptists are determinists, viewing history as the working out 
 of a predestined plan ; nothing can change it. The Prophets view God's 
 purposes as at least in part conditional on men's conduct " \fbid. p, 128, cf. 
 
 Ter. 18'). 
 
 ' A writer in e.g. 160 B,c. puts into the mouth of these great men, dead 
 hundreds or thousands of years, predictions of what has happened in the interval. 
 On the strength of these true predictions afttr the events, the reader is now 
 ready to believe other predictions before the events. 
 
328 MESSIANIC HOPE — DANIEL AND APOCALYPSES 
 
 but ever explicit ; apocalyptists are cryptic and speak 
 in riddles. By means of images, symbols, mystic 
 numbers, animal-figures, and so forth, they three- 
 quarters conceal what they profess to reveal. (8) 
 Prophetic eschatology is a national, rather than 
 individual, resurrection; apocalyptic eschatology is 
 largely that of the individual, which now at last 
 comes to the fore as with us to-day. 
 
 Daniel is the typical O.T. apocalypse, but by no 
 means the first or only one. Ezekiel, because of his 
 visions {e.g. i., x., xL), has been called the Father of 
 apocalypse. 
 
 Ezekiel, — God appears (ch. i.) seated on a heavenly chariot- 
 throne, supported and drawn by four creatures (called " Cherubs " 
 in ch. X.), each with four wings and four faces, — man, lion, ox, 
 eagle, — the- whole surrounded by a rainbow brightness. The 
 time of Israel's deliverance is to be preceded by an attack of the 
 nations on Jerusalem, a struggle with Gog and Magog (xxxviii.sq.). 
 All Israel (ten tribes included) are restored to their land in peace, 
 and God dwells in their midst in His Temple. 
 
 Isaiah xxiv.-xxvii. {c. 350-332 B.C.) is another and a far more 
 developed apocalypse; we shall often meet its eschatological 
 outline in later apocalypses. Its day of judgment is a catastrophic 
 and dread day ; " the earth is clean dissolved and reels to and 
 fro like, a drunkard" (xxiv. 19 sq.), the moon and the sun are 
 darkened (23), " the host of the high ones that are on high 
 ( = rebellious angels) and the kings of the earth " are judged, and 
 both principalities and powers and sinful men are then shut up 
 in prison in the pit, — an intermediate state, — to await their final 
 judgment (21 sq.). Then " the great trumpet shall be blown," and 
 the righteous scattered Jews shall be gathered together from all 
 lands (xxvii. 13). " Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead 
 body shall they arise (" Thy dead shall live j my dead bodies shall 
 arise " (R.V.)). Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust j for thy 
 dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead " 
 (xxvi. 19) ; " He will swallow up death in victory, and the Lord 
 God will wipe away tears from off all faces " (xxv. 8). The King- 
 dom of God is set up, the Golden Age is here, God dwells among 
 His people. There is no Messianic King; God alone is King. 
 
 Isaiah xxxiv.-xxxv. — Is. xxxiv. is a dark, rancorous picture 
 
O.T. APOCALYPSES 329 
 
 of a terrific and supernatural judgment on the nations, focussed 
 especially against Edom.^ Not only are they " utterly destroyed " 
 till their carcases stink and the " mountains are melted with their 
 blood," but " all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the 
 heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll ; and all their host 
 shall fall down " like falling leaves, Edom's very land is turned 
 into an uninhabitable waste, " and the streams thereof shall be 
 turned into pitch and the dust' into brimstone, and the land 
 become burning pitch." "It shall not be quenched night nor 
 day J the smoke thereof shall go up for ever." Dragons, owls, 
 and wild beasts alone shall live there. Is. xxxv. is the companion 
 prophecy and makes up for the horrors of xxxiv. It speaks of 
 the exiles' return to the Holy Land and the glorification of that 
 land : " The ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to 
 Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads ; they shall 
 obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." 
 The Messianic Age has dawned. 
 
 Zech. ix.-xiv. (c. 300-200 B.C.) is a very mixed and composite 
 apocalypse, the work of many hands. Zech. xii.-xiv. is the oldest 
 portion, and contains two different pictures of the final onset of 
 the heathen on Jerusalem. In xii. the heathen are all gathered 
 together agamst Jerusalem, but God mightily sides with the 
 countryfolk of Judah and gives them (so that Jerusalem may not 
 think too much of herself in her pride) the victory over the 
 heathen, then they rescue the capital. God sets up His Kingdom, 
 pours His Spirit upon His people. In that day the feeblest shall 
 be as David, " and the house of David shall be as God, as the 
 Angel of the Lord before them." In Zech. xiv. Jerusalem is 
 taken by the heathen, sacked, and half its people go into Cap- 
 tivity. Jehovah, as Jerusalem's Saviour, comes down to the 
 Mount of Olives, treads on it so that it cleaves in twain, and 
 through the great valley thus formed the other half of the people 
 flee into safety. " In that day, the light shall not be clear nor 
 dark," " and living waters shall go out from Jerusalem," eastward 
 and westward even to the sea. " And the Lord shall be King 
 over all the earth ; in that day there shall be one Lord, and His 
 Name one." God smites Jerusalem's foes so that " their flesh 
 consumes away while they stand upon their feet." The rest of 
 
 ' Edom is" viewed as the arch-enemy, because in the life and death struggle 
 of S87-6 B.C., Judah's kinsmen and neighbours backed Babylon, and were the 
 chief gainers by the Fall of Jerusalem and Judah (cf. Lamentations, p. 303, 
 sup\ occupyingpermanently part of Judah. This the Jews never forgot. 
 
339 MESSIANIC HOPE — DANIEL AND APOCALYPSES 
 
 the nations bring their gold and silver abundantly unto Jerusalem 
 and " go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of 
 Hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles." If the heathen 
 come not up to worship they shall have no rain, or plagues will 
 smite them. All Jerusalem and Judah in that day will be so holy 
 that even down to tiie horse-bells, bowls, and pots shall be 
 " Holiness unto the Lord " (xiv. 20 sq.). 
 
 Daniel, however, is the first extant apocalypse on 
 a large and complete scale. The book was composed 
 (c. 168-165 B.C.) during the terrible religious persecu- 
 tions under Antiochus Epiphanes, already described, 
 when life was made a hell on earth for true Jews. 
 The " abomination of desolation " was in the Holy of 
 holies, circumcised children and their mothers were 
 hurled headlong from the walls, any Jew refusing to 
 eat pork was put to death. Bibles were burnt whole- 
 Tsale. Like all apocalypses, Daniel is a "Tract for 
 hard times." Its aim was to foster endurance and 
 loyalty to the faith in the face of this fiery ordeal. 
 Hence the stories as to "unclean meats" (i.), the 
 "fiery furnace" (iii.), the "lions' den" (vi.), to show 
 how God stands by those who obey His Law and not 
 the decrees of men or evil kings. The stories of the 
 humbling of proud Nebuchadnezzar (iv.), and the fall 
 of Belshazzar (v.), as well as later visions, are to 
 comfort oppressed Jews with the assurance of their 
 present tyrant's impending fall.* 
 
 According to Daniel, this evil age is soon to end 
 by the judgment of the Day of the Lord on the wicked 
 nations, and a bright era dawn. Under the fantastic 
 and varied imagery of an image with head of gold, 
 breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, 
 legs of iron, and feet part iron and part clay (Dan. ii.) 
 — or, as in chs. vii., viii., under the symbols of four 
 monstrous beasts, a lion, a bear (or ram), a leopard, 
 
 ' Dan, (cf. Ezra, p. 202, n., sup.) is bilingual. Dan, i.-ii,, 4° is in Hebrew ; 
 ii. 4J-vii. (inclusive) is in Aramaic ; rest = Heb. Aramaic in ii. 4^ sqq. is 
 appropriate: "Then spalce the Chaldseans to tlie king in Aramaic" 
 (R,V. m,), but this motive soon ceases, yet Aramaic is used to the end of vii. 
 
DANIEL A "TRACT FOR HARD TIMES" 33 1 
 
 a he-goat with ten horns * — we have four succeeding 
 empires in a descending or deteriorating sc'ale. The 
 Golden Head (= lion) is the Babylonian Empire; the 
 silver breast (= bear, or ram) is the Median; 
 the brazen belly and thighs ( = leopard) is the 
 Persian; the iron legs and iron and clay feet (= ten- 
 horned he-goat) is Alexander's Empire and the king- 
 doms into which it was broken up, often allied but 
 essentially disunited. The "little horn" of vii. 8, 20, 
 24 sqq., " before whom there were three of the first 
 horns plucked up by the roots, and having eyes like 
 the eyes of a man," ..." and he shall speak great 
 words against the Most High, and shall wear out the 
 saints of the Most High, and think to change times 
 and laws" (25), is Antiochus Epiphanes, as Dan viii. 
 still more clearly proves. The empires of Babylon, 
 Media, and Persia have already fallen, and the fall of 
 Grecia with its "little horn" is soon to follow. In 
 Dan. ii., " a stone cut out without hands " smites the 
 image upon its iron and clay feet, and the iron, clay, 
 brass, silver, gold, all collapse into dust and are 
 whirled away by the wind, while " the stone that 
 smote the image becomes a great mountain and fills 
 the whole earth " (ii. 35)— that is, " in the days of these 
 (Grecian) kings shall the God of heaven set up a 
 kingdom which shall never be destroyed, it shall 
 break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and 
 it shall stand for ever " (44). In the case of the " little 
 horn," Dan. viii. sees him also "broken without 
 hand," though God's people are delivered into his 
 power for three and a half years (xii. 7), then the 
 power of the "king of fierce countenance," who 
 
 * "Are these beasts, etc., merely figures of speech, or- realities in the 
 writers' minds ? Believing that events on earth corresponded to events in 
 Heaven, did they think that there virere supra-mundane creatures whose 
 activities and conflicts in Heaven affected the nations corresponding to them 
 on earth ? In support of the latter view is the effect on the destiny of Israel of 
 the struggle in Heaven between its angel Michael and the ' Angel of Persia ' in 
 Dan. X. 13 sqq." (Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake, Beginnings of Christianity, 
 
 P- 369)- 
 
332 MESSIANIC HOPE — DANIEL AND APOCALYPSES 
 
 " destroys many and stands up against the Prince of 
 princes," shall be utterly destroyed. 
 
 The Kingdom of God is at hand, but catastrophic 
 days must first come. It has to be preceded by 
 this "abomination of desolation"; sin, oppression, 
 tyranny, anti-God, must do their worst for a short 
 season, but only to be crushed very soon by the 
 Most High. Daniel already sees the Ancient of 
 Days on His throne, judgment set and the books 
 opened, and "One like the Son of Man^ coming with 
 the clouds of heaven, to whom is given dominion, and 
 glory, and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations and 
 languages should serve Him ; His dominion is an 
 everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and 
 His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed " (vii. 
 13 sqq.); "And many that sleep in the dust of the 
 earth (lit. " the land of dust " = Sheol, see p. 90 sup.) 
 shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to 
 shame and everlasting contempt." 
 
 On Daniel^s model all following apocalyptic writers 
 shaped their predictions; roughly speaking, they 
 take this form : — 
 
 The present evil age is ending and the new glorious age all 
 but here. The Day of the Lord is at hand and will come suddenly 
 when evil is at its height and anti-God triumphing ; for the Day 
 is always preceded by an epoch of unparalleled wickedness, like 
 
 ' " Son of Man " has commonly been interpreted of the Messianic King. 
 But to-day it is mostly viewed as a personification of Israel, for two main 
 reasons : (i) Like the four beasts (lion, bear, leopard, he-goat), he is not an 
 individual but represents a kingdo^i of the world, viz. Israel. (2) vii. 27 is 
 decisive for this view ; there the Kingdom is given to " the people of the saints 
 of the Most High ; his (= the people's) is an everlasting Kingdom, and all 
 dominions shall serve and obey him." " Coming with the clouds of heaven," 
 said of the Son of Man, is an evident contrast to the heathen kingdoms, 
 ' ' rising out of the sea " — that is, of earthly origin. — See Driver's admirable 
 article "Son of Man," in Hastings' D. of B. iv. 579-589, proving "Son of 
 Man " = (a) poetical synonym of " man " ; (i) in Ezek. to mark man's 
 insignificance in the presence of God's majesty ; (c) in Dan. vii. " one like 
 unto a son of man " = a personification of Israel in human form (in heavenly 
 places) ; {d) in Enoch's " Similitudes " (see inf.) " Son of Man " = an august 
 superhuman being enthroned beside the Almighty ; {e) in N.T. " Son of Man " 
 = the ideal type or representative of the human race. Most scholars (p. 586) 
 question its application as a title of the Messiah in the Gospels, t.g. Westcott. 
 
APOCALYPTIC ESCHATOLOGY 333 
 
 Daniel's " abomination of desolation," and there is great tribula- 
 tion. Then God (or Messiah, if there is one; often a superhuman 
 Being kept in store in heaven for the fateful day) acts, overthrows 
 the world-kingdom and crushes all foes, angeUc or human. Next 
 comes the Judgment, and the righteous Israel (cf. Dan. vii, 27) is 
 given an everlasting kingdom with dominion over the nations, and 
 God dwells with His people. The righteous dead arise to share in 
 the Kingdom ; and often the wicked dead, too, to be judged and 
 cast into the pit. As Dr. Burney also reminds me : " Notice that 
 Dan xii. 2 interprets the last verse of Isaiah as referring to the 
 future punishment of the wicked. Out of this there was developed 
 the conception of a penal Gehenna." 
 
 These are the general lines of pre-Christian 
 apocalypses, but they vary in details, e.g. : — 
 
 The Judgment sometimes comes before, sometimes after the 
 Kingdom, and at times there are two judgments. The judgment 
 may be also on Israel onlyj at times it is universal and (cf. 
 Is. xxiv.) even fallen angels are judged. 
 
 The Kingdom is either (i) on a transfigured earth, (2) in a 
 new Jerusalem brought down from heaven, or (3) in heaven itself. 
 It is at times everlasting, at times only a millennium of prosperity, 
 peace, and righteousness. It may be material, or spiritual,' in 
 character. Its members live for ever, or else to a patriarchal age. 
 Its inheritors are only Israelites, or they are all righteous men. 
 When heaven is the scene of the Kingdom, the righteous are " as 
 the angels." 
 
 The Resurrection is (i) of the righteous only; (2) of many of 
 both sorts ; (3) of all men. It is (i) of the body ; (2) of the spirit 
 only. 
 
 Sheol is (i) an intermediate place of moral retribution for 
 good and bad; (2) a prison for wicked men and angels (cf. 
 Is. xxiv.); (3) divided into compartments for saints, bad men, 
 bad angels j (4) Hell. 
 
 Messiah. — As in the O.T., there is often no Messiah. If he 
 comes in, he may be (i) a man ; (2) superhuman ; and he may be 
 
 I We are too apt to stress the narrow, exclusive, material side of the 
 Jewish idea of the Kingdom of God, and to forget that, in the spirit of a 
 Second Isaiah and an Ethiopic Enoch (see inf.'), very many Jews hoped and 
 prayed for auniversal and purely spiritual Kingdom in which God's will should 
 be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Simeon's "Nunc Dimiitis" was the 
 aspiration of a large number of enlightened pious Jews long before his day. 
 
334 MESSIANIC HOPE — DANIEL AND APOCALYPSES 
 
 a warrior Messiah, or highly spiritual. Thus in the Ethiopic 
 Enoch 37-70 ("The Similitudes") he is more than a mere man 
 or mere angel, and almost God. He is called "the Christ" 
 (= Messiah = "Anointed"), "the Righteous One," "the Elect 
 One,^' " the Son of Man " ; He is revered ; prayed to, created 
 before Creation, preserved in heaven till the time of His showing, 
 God-like, destined to be a Light to the Gentiles and the hope of 
 those who are troubled at heart ; yet He is a little below God. 
 The date of this apocalypse is 94-64 B.C. 
 
 The Gentiles. — (i) Usually they are destroyed or subjected 
 by Israel; or (2) they are ignored ; or (3) they share in the King- 
 dom ; or (4) God has mercy on them, but gives them no honour 
 or glory.^ 
 
 Perhaps the most important new factor is the 
 emphasis laid in all apocalypses, from Is. xxv. 8 ; 
 xxvi. 19 ; Dan. xii. 2, onward, on individual resurrec- 
 tion. Here, at long last, do we find in apocalyptic 
 vision the solution of the problem which has so long 
 deeply exercised Old Testament saints. At length 
 the righteousness of God is vindicated in the eyes of 
 men. The righteous may go to the wall in this life, 
 while the wicked prosper; but on the Resurrection- 
 day all earth's wrongs will be righted at the Judgment- 
 seat of God, by God, or His Messiah, who is to be the 
 Judge of men and angels; and each man will reap as 
 he has sown. 
 
 Moreover, this resurrection doctrine — stimulated 
 as it may have been by Parsism— is the genuine 
 product of Jewish inspiration, for all its factors are 
 indigenous to Jewish thought. As already stated, 
 along three lines of thought this belief in man's life 
 after death was bound to arise sooner or later: — 
 (i) Israel's undying conviction of a coming Hebrew 
 Kingdom of God was bound to lead to the resurrec- 
 tion of righteous departed Jews to share in its 
 blessings, exactly as Is. xxvi. 1-19 puts it. (2) Along 
 
 ' Patriotism is apt to make good haters even to-day, far more of old. Cf. 
 even Plato congratulating the Athenians on the fact that they surpassed all 
 other Greeks in their hatred of the foreign nature. 
 
INDIVIDUAL RESURRECTION 335 
 
 another and totally different line of thoughtjeremiah's 
 and Ezekiel's revelation of the infinite value of the 
 individual soul in God's eyes must also lead to the 
 same goal. Since religion is a personal matter 
 between each man and his God, wherein every man 
 receives measure for measure according to his 
 character and deeds, then, seeing that the righteous 
 man's wrongs are often not righted here, God must 
 right them elsewhere. Hence the doctrine of retri- 
 bution was of necessity carried into the world beygnd 
 the grave, so that a personal blessed existence after 
 this life — whether as a member of the Messianic 
 Kingdom, or in heavenly glory — eventually and of 
 necessity became part and parcel of Hebrew thought. 
 (3) Pss. xvi. 8-1 1 and Ixxiii. 23-26: "I have set the 
 Lord always before me ; because He is at my right 
 hand I shall not be moved; therefore my heart is 
 glad, my flesh also shall rest in hope, for Thou wilt 
 not leave my soul in Sheol. Thou wilt show me the 
 path of life ; in Thy presence is fulness of joy." 
 "Nevertheless I am continually with Thee; Thou 
 hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide 
 me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive me to 
 glory " ; both these psalms show how vividly men 
 felt that not even death itself could snap the bond of 
 intimate communion between the faithful saint and 
 his God. In their heart of hearts they knew that 
 nothing could separate them from the care, love, 
 Presence of God, and that for them Sheol would 
 stretch out his arms in vain. As truly as St. Paul 
 were they persuaded that "neither death, nor life, 
 nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things 
 present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, 
 nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us 
 from the love of God." This conviction, again, was 
 in itself bound to lead to the belief in individual 
 immortality. 
 
 But to the very end, as Is. xxvi. 19 and Dan. xii. 2 
 prove, the strong Old Testament corporate sense 
 
336 MESSIANIC HOPE — DANIEL AND APOCALYPSES 
 
 makes national and individual resurrection go hand in 
 hand. The righteous man has his personal claims, 
 which must be satisfied as well as Israel's claims, 
 but they can both be met simultaneously. Hence 
 Is. xxvi. and Dan. xii. recompense the righteous man, 
 not with a solitary immortality in heaven or else- 
 where, but with a blessed resurrection-life shared 
 with his brethren in the Kingdom of God. And, all 
 said and done, this corporate sense is grand. One 
 " our " is worth many a " my." 
 
 Is. XXV. and xxvi. and Dan. xii. are probably among 
 the last, Dan. xii. may be actually the last, words of 
 the Old Testament. Could anything be more apt or 
 beautiful than their grand triumphant closing note; 
 " Thy dead men shall live. Awake and sing, ye that 
 dwell in the dust." "The Lord God will swallow up 
 death in victory, and He will wipe away tears from 
 off all faces " ? 
 
INDEX 
 
 {Pages of special reference value are given in Clarendon type.) 
 
 Abisbag, 291 
 
 Abominaiion of desolation, 324 
 
 "Abraham tribes," 34 n., 72, 74 sq. 
 
 Abyss, watery, 65, 7811,, 82 
 
 Adam, derivation of, 65 n, 
 
 Adonai, 102 n, 
 
 Adultery, 99, 139 
 
 Ahab, 74, 143 
 
 Ahaz, 74, 143 sq., 165 sq., 312, 321 
 
 Ahimelech, 131 
 
 Ahriman, 243 
 
 Akkad, 71 
 
 Amos, 38, Ch, X., 150 n., 154 sq., 311 
 
 Amurru, 71, 72 
 
 Ancestor-worship, 59 
 
 Angel of the Lord, 117, 127 
 
 Angelology, 242 
 
 Animal-worship, S9 
 
 Animism, 58 
 
 Anointed, Lord's, 61, 135 sq., 19S, 
 
 2S9i 321 
 Antiochus Epiphanes, 324 
 Anu, 78 
 Aphek, 115 
 
 Apocalypses, 241 sq., 325 sqq. 
 Apocrypha, 242 n., 252 n., 326 n. 
 Apsu, 82 
 
 Aramseans, 71 n., 72 
 Aramaean migrations, 34 n., 72 
 Ark, 100 sq., 117, 209 
 Asherah, iii, 151, 167 
 Ashtart, 79, in 
 Assyria, 74, 77, 142 sqq., 165 sq., 
 
 168 
 Astruc, 41 
 
 Atonement (of sanctuary), 190 (e) 
 — (Day of), 62, 209, 213 
 Azazel, 57, 243 
 
 Baal, 102 n., in sq., 118 n., 177 
 Babylon, 75 n., 76 sq., 168, 19S, 247 
 Babylonia, Ch. VI., 34 (a) 
 Babjjlonian chronology, 75 n., 144 n. 
 — history, 75 sqq. 
 
 Babylonian Law, 86 
 
 — life after death, 89 
 
 — loans to Israel, 90, 247, Ch. VI. 
 
 — magic and omens, 88 sq. 
 
 — prayers and psalms, 84 sq, 
 
 — religion, 77 sqq. 
 
 — stories of Creation and Flood, 81 
 sqq. 
 
 Ban, 99 
 
 Barak, 16 sq. 
 
 Before God, to come, 81, I07i 130, 
 
 138, 191 n. 
 Bel, 78 
 
 Benhadad, 74, 143 
 Bible, canon of, 2li, 249 sq. 
 
 — chronology, 36 n., no n., 144 n. 
 
 — chronological .order of Bks., 37 
 
 sqq. 
 
 — di£5culties, Chs. I.-IV. 
 
 — folk-lore in, 56 sq., 67, 76 n., 90 
 
 — literary forgeries, 39 
 
 — poetry and imagery, Ch, II. 
 
 — truth, 27 sqq. 
 
 — unity, 33 sq. 
 Blood taboo, 58 sq. 
 
 " Books of Moses," 36 sq., 41 sqq. 
 
 "Book of the Law," 167, 177, 203 
 
 Brazen Serpent, 129, 151 
 
 Budde, on Canticles, 293 
 
 Burney, 34 n., 36 n., 37 n., 38 n,, 
 
 45 n., 49. 55 o-. 72. 73 »•» 77 "•. 
 95 n., 98 n., 102 n., 105 n., in n., 
 H7 n., 134 n., 138 n., 144 n., 
 166 n., 192 n., 199 n,, 253 n,, 254, 
 258 sq., 272 n., 333 
 
 C, 45. 138 
 
 Canaanites, 35 if), 71, 73 n., 113, 
 
 170 n, 
 Canaanite migration, 71 
 Canon of Bible, 211, 249 sq. 
 Canticles, 20, 39, 250, 289 sqq. 
 Captivity, 35 Kg), 181 sqq. 
 Caravan-routes, 74, 13° 
 
 ' This book is a review— religious, social, doctrinal, literary— of the 0,T,, 
 not a history. Such historical sections as it contains are there to enable the 
 reader to recover the original background and atmosphere. Thus reference to 
 the text will reveal much on:«^. Ezrp.'^nd Nehemiah, but next to nothmg of 
 the biography of Solomon or David, Elijah or Elisha. 
 
 337 ^ 
 
338 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Carchemish, i68 
 
 Carlyle, T., 32 
 
 Carpenter, Estlin, 57 n. 
 
 Centralised worship, 35 (/), 37 (iii.), 
 
 42 sq., 106, 125, 171 sq. 
 Cheyne, 91 n., 104, 254, 268, 273 n., 
 
 289 n., 294 
 Christ's attitude to — 
 
 the Bible, S sqq. 
 
 the Law, 7 sq., 218 n, 
 
 the Prophets, 6 sq. 
 Chronicles, 39, 126 sq. 
 Chronological order of Bible Bks., 
 
 37 sqq. 
 Chronology, 36 n., 75 n., 110 n., 
 
 144 n. 
 Circumcision, 57, 62, ICX3 n.*, 183, 
 
 212 
 " Clean," S9, 80 n., 207 
 Commandments, Ten, 7, 40 sq., 46, 
 
 104 sqq. 
 Conscience, early, 65 
 Corpses taboo, 58 sq., 206 
 Covenant, Bk. of, 45, 138, 251 
 — , Sinai, 35 {6), 102 sq. 
 Creation, 65, 82 sq. 
 Culture and morals, 98, 113 sq., 137 
 
 sq., 14s, 231 
 Custom, tribal, 66, 87, 99, 138 
 Cyrus, 77, 19s, 199 
 
 D. 37 sq., 47. S3 sq. 
 
 Daniel 39, 242 n., 250, 330 sqq. 
 
 David, 123 n., 127 n., 128 sq., 130, 
 
 l36,-254, 259, 291, 319 sq. 
 Davidic Kiiig, the, 260 sq. , Ch. XIX., 
 
 3". 313. 3'9. 322 „. „,„ 
 Day of the Lord, 244 sq., Ch. XIX., 
 
 passim, e.g. 307 
 Death, 58, 65 
 — , life after, 89 sq., 158, 161, 180, 
 
 2S7 sqq., 280, 334 
 Deborah's Song, 16 sqq;, 37, 117 
 Decalogue, 7, 40 sq., 46, 104 sq. 
 Defiles the hand, 207 n., 352 n. 
 Delitzsch, 275 
 
 Deliverer, 112, 310 sq., 32O, 326 
 Deluge Stories, 81, 91 n. 
 " Descent into Hell," 89 
 Deutero-Isaiah, 38 (D), 192 sqq. 
 Deuteronomy, 37, 47, 167, 109 sqq., 
 
 176 
 De Wette, 42 
 Disease, origin of, 60, 65 
 Divination, 64, 89, 107, 129 n. 
 Driver, i8, 37, 47 n., S4. 5S. loJ n-. 
 
 113, 2S4» *70 n.i 332 n. 
 Duplicates in O.T., 19, 44, 48 sq., 
 
 Ill, IIS "■ 
 
 E, 37 sqq., 48, SO sqq., 98 n., 
 
 no 
 E», 48 n. 
 Ea, 78 
 
 Early man's creed, Ch. V, 
 Ecclesiastes, 39, 241, 375 sqq. 
 
 — Conception of God, 279 sqq. 
 
 — Epitome of, 276 sqq. 
 
 — life after death, 280 sq. 
 
 Edom, 34 n., 73 n., 95, 144 n., 
 
 ^ 303. 329 
 
 Education, Israel's divine, 9 sq. 
 
 Egypt, Israel in, 34 n., 95 
 
 El, loi n. 
 
 " Election " of Israel, 195 sq., 197 
 
 Elihu, 270 n. 
 
 Elijah, 9, 124 sq., 130, 133, 24S 
 
 Elisha, 124, 130, 133 
 
 Elohim, 102 n. 
 
 El Shaddai, 102 n. 
 
 Elyon, 102 n. 
 
 Enlil, 78 
 
 Ephod, 105, 118, I28.sq. 
 
 Eschatology, 244, 247, Ch. XIX. 
 
 Esther (Bk.), 20, 39, 242 n., 250, 
 
 397 sqq. 
 Ewald, 291, 297 
 
 Ezekiel, 38 (D), 186 sqq., 314, 328 
 Ezra, 202 sqq., 239, 251, 253, 296 
 Ezra and Nehemiah (Bks,), 39, 
 
 202 n., 2S0 
 
 Family Life, 139 
 
 Festivals, 45, 80, 119, 145, 190 (<), 
 
 204 
 Fetish, 61 
 
 Fill the hand, 130 n. 
 " Fire, pass through," 166 n. 
 Folk-lore in O.T., 57, 67, 76 n., 90 
 Forgeries, literary, 39 
 Frazer, 57 n. 
 Funeral customs, 59 n. 
 
 Genealogies, 126, 127 n. 
 Gentiles, 149 n., 195 sq., 334 
 Gifts to deity, 63 
 Gilgamesh, 90, 91 n., 280 ri. 
 Glory of Jehovah, 128, 188, 190 (*), 
 
 194, 205 
 God-marks, 62 
 
 God's Name = taboo, 62, I02 n. 
 God-possession, 13 n,, 64, 147 
 God, titles of, loi n. 
 Goethe, 13 
 Golden Calf, 129 n. 
 Graf, 42 
 Greek period, 324 
 
INDEX 
 
 339 
 
 H, 4Z n-i S4 
 
 Habakkuk, 38 {c) 
 
 Habiru, 34 n., 73 
 
 Hagar, 48 
 
 Haggai, 38, 200, 315 
 
 Hagiographa, Chs. XV. sqq. 
 
 Hainan, 298 sq. 
 
 Hammurabi, 71, 73 n., 76, 86 
 
 Hand, fill the, 130 n. 
 
 Handmaid tribes, 34 n., 105 n. 
 
 Harran, 34 n., 73 sq. 
 
 Hasmonsean djmasty, 325 
 
 Hazael, 143 
 
 Hebrew traits, 19 sqq., 29, 196 n. 
 
 — literature, Chs. II., III., IV. 
 Heifer, red, 57 
 
 Henotheism, 35 (b), 78, 79, loi sq., 
 
 128 
 Herder, 290 
 Hexateuch, 38 n., 41 sqq. 
 
 — sources, 47 sqq. 
 
 Hezekiah, 35 (/), 43, 129, 144, 166 
 
 sq. 
 Hilkiab, 167 
 
 History, old and new, 25, 28 sqq. 
 — , pragmatic, Ch. Ill,, 109, 124 n., 
 
 125, 126 n. 
 "Holy" (= taboo), 61, 100, 188, 
 
 189 sqq., 205 sqq., 207, 215, 252 n. 
 Holiness, Law of, 47 n., 188 
 " Holy Writings," Ch. XV. 
 Hommel, 76, 144 n. 
 Hosea, 38 (C), Ch. X., 150 n., 170 n., 
 
 289, 311 
 Hoshea, 143 
 Hymns (Babn.), 84 sq. 
 
 — of Hate, 4, 22, 264 sqq. 
 Hyperbole, 22 
 
 Ideals, 23 n,, 26 sq. 
 
 Images, 105 sq., 129, IJI, 194 ' 
 
 — of Jehovah, loi, 105 n., 129, 151, 
 170 
 
 Immanuel, 312, 321 
 Incantations, 63, 88 
 Inspiration, 9 sq., 12 sq., 22, 65, 
 
 147 sq. 
 Intermarriages, 113,201 sq. 
 Isaac (tribe), 34 n. 
 Isaiah, Ch, X., 37 (f), 144, 150 n., 
 
 16s sq., 312 
 — , Second, 38D, 192 sqq., 314 
 — , Third, 38 n., 316, 327 
 Ishtar, 79, 85, 89 
 Israel, st^es in histr. of, 34 sqq. 
 Israel (Kingdom), 143, 164 
 
 J. 37 sqq-, 48, 50 sqq-. "o 
 
 JE,S3 
 
 JED, S4 
 
 Jacob (tribe), 34 n. 
 
 Jael, 16 sq. 
 
 Jashar, 19 
 
 Jastrow, 34n., 38 n., 41 n., 70, 71 n., 
 72, 80 n., 81 n., 82 n., 87, 150 n., 
 271 n., 273 n. 
 
 Jehovah, 102 n. 
 
 — , conception of, 35 {fi), 44, Ji, 99, 
 116, 127 sq., 146, 148, l69sqq., 
 177, 183 sq., 188, 193 sqq., 
 Ch. XIV., 222 sqq., 230, 279 
 sq. 
 
 — , henotheism, 102 sqq., 128 
 
 — , images, loi, 105 n., 106, 129, 151, 
 170 
 
 — , storm-god, 16, 100 
 
 — , Sabaoth, 117 
 
 — , Suffering Servant of, 19S sqq. 
 
 — , war-god, 117 
 
 Jehu, 143 
 
 Jephthah, 98, loi, 114 
 
 Jeremiah, 159 sq., 175 sqq., 304. 313 
 
 Jeroboam's bulls, 129 n. 
 
 Job (Bk.), 20, 39, 250, 266 sq. 
 
 — on Life after death, 273 sqq. 
 Jonah, 242 n, 
 
 Joseph-tribes, 34 n., 95, 105, n., 
 
 Ill n. 
 Josiah, 3S (/), 167 
 Judah (kingdom), 144, 164 sqq., 175 
 Judaism, many-sided, 185, 218 n., 
 
 233 sqq,, 237 n. 
 Judges, 38 (B) and (C), Ch, VIII. 
 Judgment Day, Ch. XIX. 
 Judgments of existence, 25 sqq. 
 
 — of value, 26 sqq. 
 
 Karduniash, 75 n. 
 
 Karkar, 74, 143 
 
 King, 116, 135 sq., 259 
 
 Kingdom of God, Ch. XIX., 308, 
 
 319 sq., 332, 333 
 Kings (Bk.), 38 (B) and (C), 124 sq. 
 King's Schweich Led., 18 n., 23 n,, 
 
 72, 76 n,, 84, 91 n, 
 Kuenen, 42, 115 n., 153 
 
 Laban, 34 n,, 52 n., 61 n. 
 Lamentations (Bk.), 20, 38 (C), 250, 
 
 301 sqq. 
 Law-Codes, 45 sq., 86 sq., 167, 203, 
 
 204 n. 
 Law-courts, 138 
 Legalism, 171 n„ Ch. XIV. 
 Leo the Isaurian, 129 
 
340 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Levi, tribe, io8 n. 
 
 Levites, 43, 107 sqq., lo8 n., 167, 
 
 171 n., 190 (C), 209 n. 
 Levitical purity, S9. 80 n., 190, 207 
 Life after death, 89 sq., 158, 161 
 
 sqq., 180, 257 sqq., 273 sqq., 280 
 
 sq-. 334 
 Lihth, 243 
 
 Longevity, patriarchal, 83 
 Lord's Anointed, 61, 135 sq., 19S. 
 
 2S9, 321 
 Lots, 89, 107, 129 n. 
 
 Maccabees, 260, 325 
 
 Machir, 17 
 
 Magic, 63, 68, 88 
 
 Mahanaim, 48 
 
 Malachi, 38, 245, 31S 
 
 Manasseh (king), 74, 78, 166 
 
 Marduk, 79, 82, 83 n., 85 
 
 Medicine-man, 63 sqq. 
 
 Megiddo, 16, 168, 175 
 
 Melech, 102 n. 
 
 Messiah, 259 sq., 261 sq., 317, 320, 
 
 326. 333 
 Messianic prophecy, 153 n., 161, 198, 
 2CX), 259, Ch. XIX. 
 
 — psalms, 259 sqq. 
 Micah, 38 (C), 3U 
 Mineptah, 95 
 Miracle, 23, 66 
 
 Moab, 34 n., 73 n., 95, 144 n. 
 Monotheism, 35 (J>), 149, 169, 193 
 Montefiore, 5 n., 40 n., 104, 128, 
 130 n., 187 n., 214 n., 255, 270 n. 
 Moon-worship, 79, 80 n., 102 n. 
 Mordecai, 298 sq, 
 Moses, Ch. VII., 35 (*) 
 Mosaic Books, 36, 41 sqq. 
 
 — Covenant, 35, 102 sq. 
 
 — Law, 7 sq., 40, 104 sqq. 
 
 Naaman, 128 
 
 Naioth, 134 n. 
 
 Name of God, 117 
 
 Names taboo, 62, 102 n., 117 
 
 Nathan, 133 
 
 Nature-imagery, 20, 270 n. 
 
 — worship, 20, 60, 67 sqq., 78, 99 
 sq., Ill 
 
 Nebuchadrezzar, 77, 168 
 Nehemiah, 202 sqq., 251, 253 
 
 — (Bk.), 39, 202 n., 250 
 Nehushtan, 129, 151 
 Nineveh, 168 
 
 Nizir, Mount, 82, 91 n. 
 
 Omens, 63, 89 
 Omri, 126 n., 133 
 Oracles, 89, lo6 sq., 128 sq., 
 129 n. (See " Before God.") 
 Ormuzd, 243 
 
 P. 37 sq-. 47. 54 sq., 204 sqq., 
 
 2l2sq., Ch. XIV. 
 Particularism, Hebrew, 66, 149 n., 
 170 n., 172, 188, 193 n., 22s, 297, 
 310, 313 sqq., 329, 334 
 Passover, 212 n., 213 
 Paterson, W. P., 40 
 Patriarchal biographies, 31, 34 n. 
 — longevity, 83 
 Paul, St., and the Law, 214 sqq., 
 
 218 n. 
 Pekah, 143 
 
 Pentateuch, 38 n., 41 sqq. 
 Persian religion, 12 n., 162 n., 243, 
 
 244, 246 sq. 
 Personal religion, 179, 186, 224 sqq., 
 
 240 
 Pinches, 71 u. 
 Plato's myths, 28 n. 
 Poetry and prose, 14 sqq. 
 Polygamy, 87 n., 139 
 " Possession " (spirit), 64 
 Pragmatic history, Ch. III., 109 sq., 
 
 124 n., 125, 126 n. 
 Prayers and psalms (Babn.), 84 sq. 
 Priests, 63, 80, 88, 106 sq., 119, 129 
 sqq., 152 n., 167, 173, 199 n., 207 
 Priestly Code, 37 sqq., 46 sq.,S4 sq., 
 185, 204 sqq., 212 sqq., Ch. XIV. 
 Progressive revelation, 9 sq., 34 sq. 
 Prophets, 6, 22, 30, 35 (e), Ch. X., 
 132 sqq., 147 sqq., 152 n., 175, 
 188, 207, 251, 311 sqq. 
 Prophets, false, 134 n., 135, 181 
 — , schools of, 115, 134 n. 
 — , terminology, 147 n. 
 "Prophets, The" (Bks.), 249 
 Proverbs (Bk.), 20, 38 (D), 241, 250, 
 
 282 sqq. 
 Psalms (Bk.), 20, 39, 221 sqq., 250, 
 
 Ch. XVL.316 
 — , Davidic, 254 sq. 
 — , " I," 262 sqq. 
 — , Imprecatory, 264 sq. 
 — , Messianic, 259 sqq. 
 
 — on Life after death, 257 sqq. 
 
 — on sufferings of the good, 256 
 Purim, Feast of, 297, 300 
 
 " Queen of Heaven," 85 
 Quincey, De, 15 
 
INDEX 
 
 341 
 
 Rabbinism, 214 n., 232 n. 
 
 Rahab, 82 
 
 Rameses II., 95 
 
 Rebekah (tribe), 34 n. 
 
 Red Sea, 96 
 
 Religion, making of, 68 sq. 
 
 Resurrection, 162, 180, 245, 257 sq., 
 
 273 sqq., 280 sq., 333, 334 
 Retaliation, 66, 87, 138 
 Return, The, 199 sqj., 238 
 Revelation, progressive, 9 sq., 34 sq. 
 Rezin, 143 
 
 Robertson Smith, W., 132, 289 n. 
 Romances, religious, 242 
 Ruskin, 23 
 
 Ruth (Bk.), 38 (C), 242, 250, 29s 
 Ryle, 47 n., 54 
 
 Sabaoth, Jehovah, 117 
 
 Sabbath, 80, 106, 130 n., 152 sq., 
 
 183, 206, 212 
 Sacrifice, 43, 63, 69, 80, 106, 130, 
 
 '52. IS5. 171. 173. 177. 228 
 Salvation is of the Jews, 29, 196 n. 
 Samaritans, 20a 
 Samson, 114 
 Samuel, 115 sq., 117 n., 133 
 
 — (Bk.), 38 (B) and (C), 123 sq. 
 Sanday, 22 n., 2J4, 259 
 
 Sargon (c. 3000 B.C.), 71 sq., 76 n. 
 
 — (720-707 B.C.), 144 
 Satan, 243, 247 
 
 Saul's election, 11 j n., 116 
 Schwdck Lect. (King), i8 n., 23 n., 
 
 72, 76 n., 84, 91 n. 
 Scott, Sir W., I 
 Scribal writings, 239 
 Scribes, 81, 125, 185, 239, 284 
 Seer, 65, 132, 147 
 Semites, 18, 71 
 Sennecharib, 144 n. 
 Shalmaneser III., 143 
 Shamash, 79, 82, 83 n., 84, 85 
 Shebna, 144 
 Sheol, 59, 89, 158, 161, 162 n,, 257, 
 
 273 sqq., z8o sq., 333 
 Sheshbazzar, 199 
 Shiloh, 119, 130 
 Shinar, 75 n. 
 
 Sinai Covenant, 35 (i), 102 sq. 
 Sisera, 16 
 
 Socrates, 10 n., 148 n., 162 n. 
 Solomon, 127 n., 130, 142, 259, 2S7, 
 
 291 sq. 
 " Son of God," 260 
 Son of Man, 332 
 Song of Deborah, 16 sqq., 37, II7 
 
 — of Solomon, 20, 39, 250 sq., 289 
 sqq. 
 
 Song of Triumph (Red Sea), 96 
 
 Spells, 63, 88 
 
 Spirits, 59 sqq., 80, 88 
 
 Stages of Heb. evolution, 34 sq. 
 
 Stanley, II, 98 
 
 Stones, holy, 61, 67 
 
 Suffering = sin, 131 n., 179, 256, 266 
 
 sqq., 287 
 " Suffering Servant," 195 sqq. 
 Sumer, 71, 76, 77 n. 
 Synagogue, 173, 184, 211, 220 
 Syria, 74, 165 sq. 
 
 Taboo, 59, 61, 68, 100, 189, 207 
 Tammuz, 69 n., 78, 114 n. 
 Tehom, 65, 78 n., 82, 83 n. 
 Tell-el-Amarna tablets, 72, 73 
 Temple, 119, 126, 130 sq., IS5. '78, 
 
 190, 200 sq., 209 (A), 210, 226 
 Ten Commandments, 7, 40, 46, 104 sq. 
 Teraphim, 107, 128 sq., 138 n. 
 Theodore of Mopsuestia, 290 
 Tiamat, 82, 83 n., 271 n. 
 Tiglath Pileser, 74, 143 sq. 
 Titles of God, loi n. 
 Tophet, 171 n. 
 
 Torah, 107, 130, 191, 233, 239 n. 
 Totemism, 59 n. 
 Trade, 136 sq. 
 Travelling, 140 
 
 Trito-Isaiah, 38 and 38 n., 316, 327 
 Truth of fact, 25 sq. 
 — of idea, 26 sqq. 
 
 " Unclean," 59, 189, 206 sq. 
 Unlversalism, 149, 192, 195 sq., 245, 
 
 310, 313, 314 
 Ur, 34 n., 73 sq. 
 Urim and Thummim, 107, 129 n. 
 Utnapishtim, 81, 91 n. 
 Uzzah, 100 
 
 Vashti, 297 
 Vendetta, 66 
 
 Watts, 14 sq. 
 
 Wellhausen, 47 n., 172 n., 254 
 
 Westminster Confession, 252 
 
 Wette, De, 42 
 
 Wilson, J. M., 268 n. 
 
 " Wisdom Literature," 239 sqq. 
 
 Wisdom of God, 248, 271 n., 286 
 
 "Wise, the," 239, 246, 282 sqq. 
 
 Worship, 130 n., 145 sq., 155, 184, 21 1 
 
 Zechariah, 200, 31S, 329 
 Zedekiah, 168 
 Zerubbabel, 199 sqq., 323 
 Ziusudu, 83, 91 n, 
 
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