PRINCETON, N. J. Division X)W. . I. .L .1 (b Section .....\.\\\^C^ Shelf. Number itT JACOB AND JAPHETH: BIBLE-GROWTH AND RELIGION, FROM ABRAHAM TO DANIEL. ILLUSTRA TED B V CONTEMPORAR V HISTOR V. "WRITTEN FOR OUR LEARNING." BY The Author of "God in Creation," "God Enthroned in Re- demption," " Mrs. Ward Weighed and Found Wanting," etc. NEW YORK : THOMAS WHITTAKER, 2 AND 3 Bible House. Copyright, 1889, BY THE AUTHOR. PEEFACE This book traces the growth of the Old Testament as a preparation for the New Testament. It shows the currents of preparation in various inspired utter- ances, and that Hebrew theology was not developed from floating myths and legends. Genesis has some matters which are paralleled in Babylonian and Egyp- tian traditions ; they were revised and authenticated by the Divine Spirit speaking to Abraham and others of old time. The true was before the mythical ; the legendary arose from thoughts and endeavors to ex- plain facts. Ancient polytheism was derived from ideas about the angels of God and the angels of Eden ; animal worship arose from mistaken notions respect- ing the serpent that tempted mother Eve, and demon- ology from belief in evil spirits expelled from heaven, with Satan their chief. Genesis and Job spoke of him and of good angels many ages before Daniel. Hebrew legislation became interwoven with all later Scriptures from Samuel to Jeremiah, just as Homer was interwoven with other Greek writings. The ob- servance of law^s ever proves their existence. Israel's ancient judges and priests prove portions of the Penta- teuch. A chapter or a book may be forged or false, but not a whole literature ; so a wonder here or there may be explained by natural law, but not the series of Avonders from the calling of Abraham to the deliver- ance from Egypt and settlement in Canaan. We find little new theology after Abraham, little new ethic after Moses, and little new in ritual after the dedica- IV PREFACE. tion of Solomon's temple. But during those centuries prophets gave their expositions of them to successive generations, while the roots and principles of religion remained the same. The Bible is one long lesson of preparation for the Redeemer. Its aim and endeavor is to educate a peo- ple for God. Its voicings are now for one age, now for another, differing in tone and emphasis, sometimes thundering against apostasy and apostate kings, but ever calling in the same direction and urging toward the same goal. We need not weigh and measure the inspiration of one seer as compared with another, for whenever the Spirit speaks by a prophet he utters the word of God, even when the utterance is of local or personal application. Jacob's Bible was a growth of fifteen hundred years, each part being adapted to the age for which it was given, but the purpose was the same in all ages — to educate, to reform, to restore backsliding Israel. History supplies the authentication of what was be- lieved in the time of Moses and Joshua with as much certainty as in the days of Isaiah. For the prophets of Isaiah's day based their deliverances upon a law then known, a ritual then existing, a history then written, or waiting for a scribe. Thus Sinai prepared for the tragedy at Carmel, Shiloh for the worship of Zion. Circumcision and passover, fast and festival prepared for Him who ransomed the lost, that they might obtain eternal life. The miraculous was illus- trated to patriarchs and judges as well as by Samuel and Elijah. It was blended and woven with all He- brew literature, its songs and its sorrows in Palestine, PREFACE. V in Exile, and return from it. Jacob wrote with a pen which was ever guided by a Divine hand, and he wrote for Japhetli as well as for Israel. His writings have endured the beatings of many storms — storms of kings and critics ; of Antiochus and Julian, Celsus, Porphyry, and modern sceptics. God and Ilis Word can never be destroyed. We all have an equal interest in these matters. We all are in the same life-boat, needing a Divine Pilot to steer it. If she founder we shall all alike be lost ; but if we safely cross the tempestuous ocean, we shall all land on the peaceful shores of the blessed. As during forty years I have studied these matters, seeking to be helpful to others in fresh lines of old thought, it is not presumption to treat of the growth of the Book given as the chart by which to steer our bark while making the eternal voyage. If new objections have arisen, so have new answers to them ; new facts have come to light which illustrate Bible foundations and authority. Those who have trod the border-land know that the reasons which established one who doubted the value of certain things may be helpful to others. There are eternal truths which concern us all, and it behooves us, by God's help, to live according to their teaching. Guesses must not usurp the place of Pev- elation. In such spirit I have tried to say clearly what I have found touching Bible- Growth and Pelig- ion, but not to over-color anything. May the Divine Spirit guide us into all the Truth. The Author. 00]^TE]^TS. CHAPTER r. Jacob and Japheth : their God. PAGE Summary : Present Interest in Ancient Beliefs —Perver- sions—Ancient Testimonies Demonstrative — How Con- fronted—False Portraiture — Agreement of Genesis and Cuneiform Inscriptions —A Babylonian Spirit Breathes in them, yet True and Natural — Influence of Hebrews, Why and Whence — Divine Characteristics — Ever Wit- nessing to Man— Conscience the Outcome of Divine In- struction — God the Active Agent —Illustrations — Trend of Hebrew Theology and Morality —Course of Semitic Migrations — Ren an Corrected— Hebrew Tribes — Hostility— Language — Religion Monotheistic — Per- sonification OF Dn^iNE Attributes— The Divine Name In- corporated INTO Personal Names— About Angels, their Ministry, and Worship of — Semites now Monotheists and NOW Polytheists— Abraham, Sa.rgon, Elijah, Ahab, Ma- homet—Ideas OF God Variously Expressed —Seen in the Operations of Nature and Emphasized in Song, Proverb, and Notable Events 13 CHAPTER II. The Religion of Abraham, from the Bible and the Inscriptions. How Described —Dr. South — Revised for Abraham— Corrupt- ed by Others - Names for God and PRO^^:DENCE —Devel- opment OF Nature-Worship —Journey of Abraham from Ur to Haran— Passes the Birs-Nimrud and Temples of Babylonia —Description of and Worship — Legends of Eden— The Serpent and Sacred Tree — Authorities — Capture of Nana and Restoration — Accadian Legends and Ideas Revised by Abraham — Illustrations of the Fall — A Delfv'erer Expected by Semites, Japhethites, etc. — Endeavors after Righteousness— Ideas of Immor- viii CONTENTS. PAGE TALITY — PrEHISTOKIC TeEPANNING TO SeCUKE HaPPINESS AFTER Death — Belief in Immortality in Egypt and Baby- lonia — Sabbath-Observance— Characteristics of Abra- ham—How Nourished — Co\t:nant-Grace, Prayer, Sacri- fice, Divine Influence — Pillar Tokens of Covenant- Festal Kites and Fasts among Semites— Visions and Revelations — Incorporations of DmNE with Human Names— Father Orham and Abraham, Title to Esteem — Angelic Ministry — Michaf.l and Merodach— Evil Spir- its AND Prayer foe Deliverance from — The New Truth OF Divine Covenant with Abraham 37 CHAPTER III. The Patriarch in Palestine : Personal Incidents. Beginning of Revelation to Abraham — His "Worship of God — His Conservatism — Divine Behests and Bible— A New Departure — Covenant — Altar -Building — Luz -Bethel, Visions of Jacob at and God's Promise to Him — Long Veneration of the Place -Its Desecration— Shechem, ITS Altar and Memorial Stone— Joshua's Farewell — Famous Oak — Justin Martyr Born at Shechem— First Bible Parable Spoken there — Men of. Punished by Simeon and Levi — Ethical Standard of Israel and Phil- ISTINES, OF Greeks and Romans — Sajvison's Riddle — Treatment of Slaves — Jacob's Ethic in Genesis Com- pared with Classics— Conscience then as Sure a Guide AS UNDER Roman Emperors — Jacob's Culture and Ideas of God — Socrates — Other Illustrations— Abra- ham AN Example of Domestic Affection — Treatment of HIS Sons — His Chabacter Tested by Command to Sacri- fice Isaac — Heaven's Prohibition 62 CHAPTER IV. Israel in Egypt ^ at Sinai,' the Law. Time of Residence in Egypt — Hyksos or Ruling Dynasty Friendly to Israel — Modern Discoveries Confirm Bible Accounts— Dynastic Changes Changed Israel's Condi- tion— Apepi AND Ra-Sekenen— Hebrews Enslaved' — Re- nan's Misrepresentations — Thebans Dominant and Op- pressive—Authorities Touching Length of Sojourn — Time for Growth in Numbers — Culture — Deliverance BY Drv^NE Power— Defeat of Egyptian Gotjs — Jacob's Festivals and Written Revelation— Not Borrowed — The Ten Laws — Other Preparations — Israel Safe among CONTENTS. IX PAGE THE Mountains of Sinai — Wonders Paralleled in Other Hebrew History — Kenan's Criticism of Moses— Of Pre- tended Oracles, Giving of the Law, and Miraculous Stories -Antiquity of Ps/Sxm 68 and of Other Writings — The Regal Period Unfavorable to the Forging op a New Legislation and Kitual — Wars and Commotions — Relation of Prayer-Book to Missals Similab to that of Temple and Tabernacle Ritual wt:th Authenticated Scriptures in Israel 82 CHAPTER V. Al Home in Palestine: Miraculous Events. Commencement and Unfolding of Jacob's History — His Death in Egypt, Burial in Canaan, and Favorable Im- pression UPON the People — Changed to Hostility in Lapse of Centuries — Renan Corrected — Hebrew Prow- ess — Moral Force United with Divine Force for Israel — How Evidenced — Jordan's Waters Cut off by Jahveh — Memorial Thereof set up by Joshua — The Covenant Re- newed — An ancient Souvenir — Objections Considered — Dr. Geikie, Captain Condee — Druid-like Circles in Moab — Cromlech at Gilgal — Similar Inscriptions in Egypt and Hamath — Origin of Canaanites — Idolatrous AND Debased — Cultured, but without Patriotism — Their Gods Conquered — Bible Accounts Credible, Record- ed BY Prophetic Writers and Corroborated by Contem- porary History — Renan Corrected — Great Slaughter OF Ephraimites — Israel's Victories by Divine Power — God Attends at the Birth of Nations — Joshua Renews the Covenant — His Retirement — The Tabernacle a Cen- tre of Influence — Intellectual Cleverness of Jews — Episode of Micah — Chastisement of Benjamin — Seizure OF Wives at Shiloh — Dan's Idolatry — Summary of Jacob's Bible Evidence at this Era 104 CHAPTER VI. How Japheth Scrutinizes Jacob's Books. The Anabasis and Numbers Compared — Events and Record Contemporaneous — Dr. Kalisch's View of Balaam — SCHRADER AND ASSYRIAN ACCOUNTS ThE MoABITE StONE Balak and Mesha — The History and Prophecy of Bible Authenticated — Evidences of Writing among Ancient Hebrews — Sayce vs. Renan — Jacob Wrote his Annals — Old Testament Words in the Inscriptions Explained — aONlEHITS. PAGE Kenan's Account of Sun Standing Still, and Dr. Egar's — Heaven Gtods of Canaan Gloeify Jehovah — Lot in Syria — Bible Phrases Original, or not Borrowed from Assyrian Writers ; Bible Corrects them — Error of Schrader — How Foreign Words were Adopted by Hebrews — Mr. Lethaby's Letter from Moab — Kenan's Objection to Joshua Corrected — Inscriptions Mistake Jehu for Ahab — Growth and Authentication of Scripture — Greek Translation of — Preservation and Multiplication of Copies— Second-Century Collations and Safeguards — Kenan's Testimony — Objectors Answered — Acknowl- edged Prophets Expound Ancient Laws — Anticipatory Legislation Evidenced by History — Keasons for not NOW Accepting New Chronology — The Lists of Naram- SiN Contemporary Princes whom Sargon I. Subdued 131 CHAPTEK VII. The Era of Samuel and David: Jacob's Bible then. Prophetic and Koyal Functions — Catastrophe at Shiloh — Sacrifices of Atonement Cease for Years — Importance OF THE Ark — Certain Laws in Force at this Period — The Supernatural Manifested from Abraham to David — Samuel not Minimized by Comparison with Elijah — Special and Official Work — Kenan Corrected— Samuel AT Shiloh and Mizpeh — His Character Suggests a Na- tional Chief to the People — Two Centuries of Depres- sion, Disunion, Idolatry— Clericalism and Prophetism — Dynastic Change of Disobedient Saul for Jahvist David — His Character — Consecration of the Temple — Its Theology for Mankind —The Stranger may Worship in Jerusalem — Solomon's Prayer— Liturgic Enrichment — Canonization of a David-like Character in Christen- dom — Pentateuchal Provisions and Kestrictions for Kings — Growth and Contents of Jacob's Bible ; About Half the Old Testament then Written — Prophetic Au- thentication AND Writing of New Copies— The Truth Widely Known — Summary of Laws and History in Israel 160 CHAPTEK VIII. The Prophets and their Predictions. Ewald's Definition of Inspiration — Human Speech Unthink- able Without God — Dr. Kalisch on Balaam and Kuth — His Error— Wellhausen's Error Touching Ahab and CONTENTS. xi Elijah — Distinction between Prophets of Jehovah and OF Baal— The One Inspired, the Other Augurs and Soothsayers— Wellhausen Corrected— How TROPnETic IMks.sages WERE Conveyed— Prophets and Priests Char- acterized — International Trade and Literary Inter- course—A Constellation OF Prophets ; Micaiah vs. Ahab ; H. Spencer vs. Micaiah— All Voicings of Seers not Predictive — Revelations to Jacob —The Twofold Name OF Deity Known by him and by Abraham— Wellhausen Corrected— " The Swiss Guard of True Heligion " — Non-writing Prophets and a Non writing Age as Stated BY Wellhausen not Correct— Elijah as Masterful in Words as in Deeds— The Law not a Late Development — Ezekiel's Testimony —Ethics and Worship Out of Is- rael—Prophets OF SiNiooTH Things Desired — Interna- tional AND Theocratic Influence in the Sixth Century -Fulfilment of Prophecy in a Babylonian House of Exchange — A Second Isaiah and Relation of an Early Pentateuch to him — False Suppositions — Laws Exist Before their Incorporation into a Literature — Kuenen Corrected Touching Hosea and Ezra— Jewish Prosely- tism of Greeks a Preparation for the Messiah 183 CHAPTER IX. Jacob's Prophets Serve Japheih's Kings: A Light to Lighten the Gen- tiles. Hebrew Language and Prophets Defined by Renan — A Force Reforming the World — Jonah, his Place, Mission to Nineveh, and Sermon from its Walls — How Received — Reigning Monarch Characterized — Repentance of— Later Destruction of Nineveh — Its Ruins— Tomb op Jonah — ' ' Jahveh not Unser OotV ' — Isaiah and His Prophecies for Gentiles — Kuenen on his Era — Predic- tions Characterized by Dr. Briggs— Lofty Messianic Reaches— Mic AH, and how he Saved Jeremiah's Life — A Bold Truth-teller— Jeremiah and his Predictions vs. Jerusalem and the Nations — His Career— Ezekiel a Captive on the Chebar — Location — The Prophet Char- acterized — His Many Things for Jacob and the Gen- tiles—Authenticates Daniel — A Captive Honored and Educated at Babylon— Interprets Dreams of the King AND Saves the College of Chaldeans — Cannot be Rele- gated TO THE Second Century b.c. as Describing Anti- ocHus Epiphanes— Predictions of Messianic Kingdom, A Light to Lighten the Gentiles — Objections vs. Daniel — Porphyry and Other Critics Answered— Testi- xii CONTENTS. PAGE MONY OF JOSEPHUS, ETC. — FoRMER OBJECTIONS TO IsAIAH AND Sargon Paealleled IN Daniel— A Prophet Vindi- cated BY A King 211 CHAPTER X. General Review of Matters Considered in this Book. Story op How the Bible was Given — Its Legislation and Provisions for Nationai^ Development — Religious Me- morials AND Prophetic Reminders of them — Laws of the Twelfth Century not to be Relegated to 444 b.c. — Jacob's Bible as Authentic as the Classics — Early Origin OF his Religion — Illustrated by Prophets — Authority IN THE Christian Church Compared with that of Israel — Ancient Observance of Laws and Rites — Disruption OF the Kingdom Led to Disruption of the Religion op Israel and to Apostasy from Jahveh— Prophets Ex- horted Backsliders to Return — Preservation op Scrip- ture — Stuart' s Defence of Daniel — His Prophecy Shown to Alexander the Great — Testimony of Josephus — Justin Quotes Moses, Isaiah, Daniel ; he Lived a Century and a Half before Porphyry, and a Higher Au- thority —Origen — Antiochus Epiphanes Destroyed Scrip- ture Mss. — He is not Compared but Contrasted with Nebuchadnezzar — Fulfilment of Prophecy — Pyrrho- nism AND THE French Assembly — Bible Books not to be Decided by Votes — Fantastic Dogmatism — Homer and Herodotus less Credible than the Old Testament — Writing Prophets Recorded Predictions of those who DID NOT Write — Scripture Authentication — Remarkable Fulfilment of Isaiah in Egypt ; of Leviticus and Deu- teronomy IN the Roman Siege of Jerusalem — Prayer op EsDRAs — Author's Object in Writing this Book 237 JACOB AND JAPHETH : THEIR GOD. Our interest to-daj in tlie beliefs of mankind forty centuries ago arises from the things beheved and from the reasons for believing them. They were prepara- tions for what followed. Those truths and processes of religious thought are important in themselves and grand in their unfoldings. They arrest the attention of scientists, historians, linguists, and critics. But many seek to give their own setting and coloring to them. Some, indeed, reduce God to the Unknow- able, who has no revelation for mankind ; to a Force in nature that has no concern for men, and they are most emphatic in their voicings about that of which they are ignorant. Everywhere this echo is heard, in books and newspapers, in clubs and halls of assembly. We cannot ignore it, and the issues involved demand that we consider it. In the chapters on '* God Enthroned in Redemp- tion," I treated of the early beliefs about God, the first Sabbath and worship, prayer and sacrifice, the world's legends and expectations of a Redeemer, long- ings after immortality, the solidaric redemption of man by One ]3romised in Eden, and the founding of a kingdom for the Redeemed ; showing by facts and illustrations amounting to a demonstration that revela- 14 JACOB AND JAPIIETH : tioii, conscience, history, legend— all testify of the same grand truths. Now we are confronted witli attempts to strike off the roots of a God-given Word for man, and of Divine care of him. " He is only one of myriads of exist- ences. Let him run his course to its ultimate issue." Alas ! such writers know nothing about that final out- come ; about the steps which lead to it, nor what are its tremendous possibilities. They reduce sacred history to legend and myth, and the Hebrew religion to a natural development of Semitic civilization, according to the gospel of evolution. Ger- man and French Japheths encounter Jacob and lay him in the dust of humanity ; then slowly make him a ' ' force which sweeps the world of mankind along with it." By such a phantasmagorical representation of history the reader receives impressions which long remain. Thus vast injury is done to the cause of religion and to the souls of men. Jacob is portrayed as an " ignorant slave, yet allowed to make pilgrimages to his local god at Sinai, and becoming dissatisfied in Egypt, was ex- pelled by the Pharaoh who did not want him, and to whom lie was useless" ! His God is reduced to the rank of a "tribal deity," whose "oracles were of doubtful authority, because of doubtful authenticity, and whose Bible is said not to have been written be- fore the ninth century b.o." So Kenan and Well- hausen. We shall endeavor to present some leading facts in the history of Jacob, of his God and his Bible ; showing that He w^as also the God of Japheth, and often sent a prophetic word to him. Genesis and the cuneiform inscriptions show that the TUEIR THEOLOGY. 15 sons of Noah had much in common of reh'gions in- struction, similar ideas of God and how to worship Him. But corruption arose in life, ritual, and theol- ogy ; distinctions between sons of God and daughters of men, between Sethites and Anakites, which we broadly designate by Jacob and Japheth, the Church and the world ; the one accepting Divine revelation and covenant, the other following their own devices and suffering the penalty. They had descended from the same ancestry, had received similar training in the duties of life, in the knowledge of God and of duty toward Him. From Adam to Abraham there were no Heaven -appointed ecclesiastical differences. But with Abraham arose that distinction which made Israel to differ from the rest of mankind ; yet not till the new dispensation was completed under Moses was that difference very marked. First, the Covenant of circumcision differ- entiated the worshippers of Jahveh from the worship- pers of II u, Ra, and Bel. The Genesis of Jacob and the inscriptions of Japheth give similar accounts of creation, which are the earliest in human language of the origin of the world and of man upon it ; and they have been blended and interwoven into all later his- tories of primitive man. '^ The old Babylonian spirit breathes in them still," which is a pretty sure test of their truthfulness, or translators and copyists would long ago have changed them. A false statement of such matters is not true to nature, and, of course, not true in fact and principle. Hence ^* the old Baby- lonian spirit still breathes in the" records and legends of creation. Indeed, '' the great truth of the unity 16 JACOB AND JAPIIETU : of the world and of the solidaric unity of all its parts is clearly perceived in them. The nomad pastor would not have invented them, but he perpetuated them," and the Hebrew genius has given them greater simplicity and correctness than the Assyrian scribe. " What was grotesque in Berosus appears true and natural in the Bible. Israel effected this miracle^ (Kenan's "History of the People of Israel," vol. i., p. 68.) But that Israel could have done such a thing, without the inspiration and guidance of Heaven, is a still greater miracle. She was one of the later nations, with a later history of all that pertained to her ; how, then, if she rose from a savage state, could she have given a " true and natural " account of creation and the first men in her Bible ? No matter whence came the earliest accounts, the revised and corrected narra- tive is a '^miracle which Israel effected." How? We say by the Divine Spirit speaking to Abraham, to Moses, and by the prophets. In other words, by Divine guidance^ or by revelation. Since it could not have been invented it must have been revealed. Bar- barians could not have fabricated Genesis and Exodus. The origin of the world was w^ritten in Chaldaean bricks, was early taught, with many other things, to Abraham, who was enabled to transmit a "true and natural" account in Jacob's Bible. The prophets preserved and authenticated the history, the law, and the songs of Israel, while the priests preserved copies of the covenant and the sacred books in and near the Ark of God. But they were a growth, not even all tiie Pentateuch, as we have it, being as early as Moses, though the later matters generally indicate when they were, or that they were, added. THEIR THEOLOGY. 17 Semites, indeed, have made their presence felt in our world, but whence came those ideas which differ- entiated them from other dwellers in Babylonia ? for when they left that country, they possessed only what w\as ^ joint inheritance. It was not native culture and the inventive faculty ; for other nations were as cul- tured and as ingenious as they, and their regal history discloses an equal tendency to polytheistic forms of w^orsliip. But the unfolding of their religious char- acter reveals an aptness for Divine instruction and the hearing of Divine voices, together with the faculty of imparting what was communicated to them. They had in large degree the courage of their convictions. From Abraham to Moses they were as surely the sub- jects of derision as they have ever been, and they were often persecuted. But did ever an Israelite abandon the religion of the God of Abraham merely because he was derided or persecuted ? Did not He who cre- ated man know this tendency to be rooted in that race, of conservation and perpetuation of what they pos- sessed in religion as well as the material things of life ? Differ as we may about the miraculous in their history — about the exploits of Joshua, the frolicking revenges of Samson, the valor of the youthful David, the three young men in the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, and Daniel in the lion's den — there yet was disclosed in them all a loyalty to God which impressed itself upon the nation, and which was as marked when Jerusalem w^as surrounded witli enemies as when David con- quered the stronghold of Zion from the Jebusites (2 Sam. 5 : 6-8), or when Hebrew captives wept by the waters of Babylon. From Abraham to John Bap- 18 JACOB AND JAPIIETH: tist religious heroism is strikingly illustrated in their kinsmen. ]S"o word-painting is needed to identify the God of Japheth with Him of Jacob. Illustrations will be given that Jahveh of the Hebrews was the Supreme God of the Gentiles ; that He triumphed over the deities of Egypt, over Chemosh of Moab, over the gods of Canaan, over Dagon of Philistia ; and that He was the acknowledged One, supreme in heaven and earth, now by the early kings of Babylonia and Egypt, now by Nebuchadnezzar and Darius. And to Him ''the world is to be converted," to Him the Creator, the Father, the Kedeemer of mankind. His Fatherhood is distinctly seen in His choice of Abraham for the founding of a new nation ; in His prophetic messages to other nations, warning them of impending judg- ments ; and in the Son of His love dying upon the cross for the redemption of the world. Ammon and Ishmael, Egyptian and Persian, Roman and Greek may claim Him as Saviour if they will ; for in Him were fulfilled all Japheth' s expectations of an Avatar and Mediator by whom the world's ills should be removed. Even those who relegate Jehovah to the position of a local deity acknowledge those Scriptures which say : God came from Teman, rose up from Seir, and sinned forth from Mount Paran (Deut. 33 : 2 ; Hab. 3:3.) His efficient presence was manifested at the Ark of the Covenant. He is the Eternal and Per- sonal Energy which acts in all phenomena, orders and causes them. He is supreme in justice, in truth, in love, in power, as supreme in spiritual as in ma- THEIR TIIEOLOQT. 19 terial things ; wherefore His creatures need not com- plain nor despair, but rather believe in Ilini. Deep soul experiences of faith never lead to apostasy. Neither Judas nor Elsmere cherished that faith in the Christ of God which would enable them to die for Ilini. The regenerated of God by the Holy Ghost will ever love and serve their Father. In the loss of Eden Adam lost not all his nobility of character, and he looked to the saving seed prom- ised him. There were yet large possibilities for his recovery. Worshipping Sethites, Enoch, and Noah illustrate how they were preachers of righteousness. Abraham and Jacob succeeded them ; then followed Moses and the prophets of Israel ; Zoroaster, Indian sages, and Greek teachers of Japheth. God. left not Himself without witnesses of truth, virtue, and loy- alty. The dark places of mankind were not wholly dark ; there ever shone some rays which betokened a celestial origin. Barbarism has never been universal in our world. It is just as wise to affirm totality of sainthood among men as totality of wickedness. The true man, the true priest, has never died out, nor the Divine Oracles remained silent when they should have been vocal. By some one Heaven's message has been delivered to man. Hence his struggles and aspirations for the higher life and the diviner character ; hence his longings and endeavors through the centuries ; hence his thoughts and preparations for an expected Deliverer, in Babylonia and India, Judeaand Iran, and all those centres of civilization, where " hope eternal sprang in the human breast." For the opposite of this view, see Kenan's " History/' vol. i., p. 178. 20 JACOB AND JAPIIETH : Yet quite characteristically he says : '^ The human conscience unravelled itself, elevated itself, purified itself, conceived the idea of justice, asserted the prin- ciples of right and duty ; then came language to define and establish these conquests of mind over matter !" It lifted itself hy itself? Just as well try to lift one's self by one's suspenders ! How long could conscience exist before language ? What examples have we in history of any people illustrating the possession of con- science hefore they had a spoken language ? But our wonder at such statements is equalled only by our wonder at this writer of ancient story flying in the face of ancient records and inscriptions, which make God both the Creator and the Teacher of primitive men ; which tell of Sabbath-worship and sacrifice in the earliest times, thus indicating the possession of con- science then ; which tell of belief in immortality and the enjoyment of blessedness with the gods, or of ban- ishment from heaven. Scenes like the Judgment of Amenti, and the region where Queen Allat reigned, indicate a conscience in those who believed them. And they had ideas of the moral difference between virtue and vice. This knowledge was never restricted to Israel. The calling of Abraham was at a time when those ideas of religion were known which our second chapter sets forth. It was not possible for man to civilize and elevate himself before the historic period. Nor have we any instance of a barbarous people civih'zing themselves. Our American Indians are pretty hard to civilize, though surrounded with our modern influences. It devolves upon the cham- pions of barbarism developing into a high measure of THEIR THEOLOGY. 21 culture, of conscience, and of languajjjc to cite some examples which illustrate their theory. The general progress of man " in diverse centres'' is far too in- definite ; especially since '' primitive humanity" is said to have been '' very malevolent ; that force was met by force or by imposture ; love was accompanied by reverie ; the child knew only his mother, women being the cojnmon property of the tribe only six or seven thousand years ago !" Compare this with the account of parental love in Genesis ; with Abraham's love for Ishmael as well as for Isaac ; with Jacob's love for Joseph and Benjamin ; with David's love for the child of his sin as well as for Solomon ; all which remain unsurpassed after three thousand years. Surely the centre and source of all civilization is the family, where parents know and train their children, and need use no '' club" to preserve its purity. It is abhorrent to our history and experience that " millions of women stoned to death paved the way to conjugal fidelity ; that the male kept guard, and with a club stoned his adulterous female to death ; that thus emerged the morality which we see under the Aryan and Semitic types" (Renan's " History of the People of Israel," vol. i., pp. 3-7.) The incidents related in Genesis 12, 20, 26, 3i chap- ters, whenever written, were true to life, and are not the sort upon which to found such broad statements ; rather they contradict Renan's naturalistic theories. Affirmations of later practices of " the natives of the Maldive Islands and of Brittany" do not illustrate the condition of early Semites and Accadians ; nor do the irregularities of Olympian deities. We must have ex- 22 JACOB AND JAPHETH: amples from ancient Egypt and Babylonia duly au- thenticated to sustain this charge against woman, and authorities earlier than fifth-century Herodotus. The " club theory" was never true of Adamic man. What nations practised it ? What women thus be- came faithful to conjugal bonds ? What moral ideas did Israel have which had not been divinely imparted to ancient Egyptians and Chaldgeans ? Whence arose this difference from the neighboring nations? When the Semites "first appeared in Chaldsea they were less supplied, we are told, with material comforts than the older settlers, but they had inward fire, poesy, passion, and craving for another life. The secret of the future" was strong in them. Be it so ; but why this theological trend in Hebrew Semites f There were other Semites in early Baby- lonia, in Assyria, in Phoenicia ; but they were not famous for their monotheism. It was not till later that the regions about the Euphrates and Tigris be- came strongly monotheistic ; not till after Cyrus and his iconoclastic successors. The one simple answer is that He who knew what was in those Hebrews selected them to be the conservators of true religion in the world. And amid all their lapses and corruptions they certainly did preserve the knowledge and w^or- ship of One Supreme God better than any other an- cient people, not excepting those who descended from the same stock. The reign of David brought them into relations with all Palestinians, with Moabites, Sj^rians, Hamathites, and Edomites ; from Joppa to Damascus and the great River, David was respected and obeyed. Pagan treasure, vessels of gold, silver, TBEIR THEOLOGY. 23 and brass were dedicated to Jehovah, who thus became known among them. Such knowdedge was extended, because David had his recorder and scrihes as well as priests, who kept his accounts, narrated his deeds, and wrote his state papers to other nations, similar to onr State secretaries. See details in 2 Sam. 8 : 16-18. But the letter to Joab to compass the death of Uriah was written by the king (cli. 11 : 14, 15). Historians do not fabricate such accounts against kings. Early Semites cherished self-respect, devotion to God, regard for their tribe, love for their family, purity in women. He generally was more truly a monotheist and less of a polygamist than his Aryan contemporaries. Later Aryans, according to Plato and Aristotle, were both polygamists and polytheists, having gods many and women many. The tendency to a simple and reasonable worship of deity, such as some writers claim, is difficult to find among Greeks and Romans, how^ever it appears among early Persians and Iranians ; but even they were often polygamists. History cannot be wa-itten in broad generalizations. I do not understand the records of early Babylon and Egypt as showing a general practice of polygamy ex- cept by some of their kings, though a tendency to polytheism early appears. But by the eighteenth or the seventeenth century e.g. there were efforts in both regions to reassert monotheism ; and who can say how far that endeavor arose from the example and influence of Abraham ? '' Semites overflowed the whole plain of Sumer ;" they accepted much of Accadian civiliza- tion, and imposed their religion upon that country in exchange. Sargon and Kammurabi consolidated the 24 JACOB AND JAPIIETU : Babylonian empire and established monotheism ; while in Egypt the struggles of Apepi against Ra-Sekenen had a different result. But Moses at Sinai and Zoro- aster in Bactria put forth a manifesto showing that the God of Jacob and of Japheth was One Supreme Being. Such proclamation reappears with Cyrus and his successors in the restoration of Israel. Let those who treat these facts differently remember that truth may be varnished and suppressed, but shall rise again to justify itself. Easier is it to sketch at random than to detail events of far-off ages, and the personal traits and conduct of those who were prominent actors in tliem. M. Renan says : '' The nomad Semites came from Arabia and Sinai, while on their way to settlement in Southern Babylonia, where Ur was the chief city." But Schrader and others say, ' ' The Semites were orig- inal dwellers on the southern Euphrates f^ that Abraham Tnigrated thence to Syria-Palestine, and from thence his descendants^ through Ishmael and Keturah' s sons, peopled Arabia, This latter view is a very different, and probably the true account. The Book of Joshua is authority that God gave Esau Mount Seir to possess it ; but Jacob and his children went down into Egypt (24 : 4). When they were travelling toward Canaan, the priest of Midian and father-in-law of Moses met them ; he was a descendant of Abraham ; so was Amalek, who resisted the passage of Israel through that part of Arabia ; showing that two tribes of a common origin journeyed thither, first from near the Persian Gulf to Syria-Palestine, and thence southerly to the peninsula of Arabia. TUEIR THEOLOGY. 25 Nor do we find tlie cliaracter of a bri^jaiid — so Ilonau, p. 207 — in the opposition of Anialek to Israel. Tliey were cousins, one brancli being Jacobites, the other Esauites. The old feeling at loss of the birthright may have incited the Amalekites to avenge themselves on Jacob, now journeying through the wilderness. It was very wrong but very human, and marks the truth of the records. What a different history of those times would have been written if all the descendants of Abraham had early consolidated into one people ! See the lists in Genesis 36 and 1 Chronicles 1 : 28-42. Scattered as they became through Southwestern Asia, they yet exerted an influence upon Babylonians and those Japhethites whom they met in their various settlements. But the time was centuries after Abra- ham left Ur for Canaan, and his Arabian descendants received no civilization from Accad, because Accad was no longer a civilizing power. Any similarity in religious rites and worship between Abrahamites and Babylonians, between Hebrews from Palestine and Hebrews from Egypt, must be traced to him who cen- turies before had been called out of Ur. Moreover, the number of those Hebrew tribes whom Israel encountered serves to illustrate the num- ber of Jacobites at the era of the Exodus. Lot in Amnion and Moal), Esau in Amalek, and their cousin Midianites, were their foes while on the way from the Ked Sea to the Jordan. Tribe could cope with tribe, and at times with various fortune. All consolidated against Jacob would have extinguished him as surely as Abraham extinguished Chedorlaomer and his allies. Or Israel would have been lost in the multitude of 2 26 JACOB AND JAPIIETII : other Abralianiites ? But no ; consolidation was not to Ije, or the purpose of tlie call out of ITr would have been frustrated, and the preparation for the Promised One would have been delayed. National discipline would have been different. Even Midian proved a snare ; Milcom and Molech led to apostasy, which neither the priestly tribe of Levi nor remonstrance of Mosaic prophets wholly corrected. Baal-peor was more destructive to Israel than the arms of Amalek at Eephidim. (Of. Num. 25 : 1-9 ; Ex. 17 : 8-16 ; and Num. 31.) All this made an impression upon the na- tional mind, especially Amalek^s attempt to be avenged on Israel for the birthright. But Heaven gave victory to Jacob against Esau and against his descendants in the wilderness. One wrong was not to be righted by com- mission of another, nor by seizing and administering affairs which belonged to God. M. Renan is careful not to emphasize the command to " write it for remembrance in the hoolv^ (Ex. 17 : 11) ; a clear proof that writing was then known in Israel. While resting under the shady palms of Rephidim, after escaping from the grasp of Pharaoh, Amalek savagely attacked their kinsmen and were de- feated. The mission of the tribes was only begun while yet journeying to the promised land and the en- joyment of its good things. As Jacob and Amalek were grandchildren of the same parents, they were in point of numbers able to cope with each other ; but that was not the time for such encounter ; hence the injunction to record the attack in a book, that it might be ever renicmbered. The long lists of places, stations, and names of the leaders of each tril)e were also written. THEIR THEOLOGY. 27 so Numbers 33 : 2 to 35tli chapter. But the Law of the Covenant was graven in stone (Ex. 20 : 2-17 ; Josh. 24: : 25-27). And they set up a memorial stone under the oak by the sanctuary, that it migiit be long preserved and its influence long endure. The lan- guage used was that of Abraham and Lot and of their ten sons. Abraham could talk with the priest-king of Salem, and Moses with the priest-chief of Midian, while the '^ Moabite Stone" of 875 b.c. proves even then the close affinity of speech between all these Terahites, between the children of Lot and the children of Abraham. Isaac conversed with Canaan ites and with Abimelech, the prince of Gerar. Edomites were brethren of the chosen people, not to be abhorred ; while Ishmaelites were not often hostile to their kins- men of the Jordan. (Cf. Gen. 11 : 31 ; 14 : 16 ; 17 : 20 ; 21 : 12-21 ; 26 ; Deut. 23 : 7.) These Semitic families had inter-tribal dealings with the nations near them, so the inference is clear that Jacob was a bene- fit to Japheth, and that Elohim-Jahveh cared for the Gentiles as well as His chosen Israel. Moreover, the tribal relationship, similarity of lan- guage, customs, culture, and original identity of relig- ion, rendered communication easy and natural among them. Even the name for God, Jahveh, Elohim, was as readily understood by those peoples as Zeus in Greece. It is mere poetry in Renan to say that, be- cause the Hebrew could not distinguish one El.oh from another Eloh, he used the plural Elohhn with a verb in the singular ! A pretty fancy, but at the same time he admits that " Elohim is everywhere ; is uni- versal life and causation ; brings to the birth, slays, 28 JACOB AND JAPIIETII : and governs all" (" History of tlie People of Israel," p. 25). Semitic monotlieisui only needed to express the idea of God by a verb in the singular, because it was so widely understood Who was the subject of that verb, and Wlio was recognized as the All and in all. We also use impersonal words and sentences, as "it rains, it snows, it blows, it freezes," which, by omitting the " it," is like the Hebrew expression, only the Hebrew was more religions in his thought, and would feel that God sent the rain, the wind, and the frost. So, " God luas wisdom, and impai-ted it to His children ; was strengtli, and made men strong ; had counsel and un- derstanding, with which He endowed the wise. He destroyed or broke down, and it could not be restored ; He shut up, and no man could open." I fail to see why any theist, especially any believer in Providence, can object to such expressions, even if of Hebrew origin. Certainly Socrates would so speak. And Pope's Indian " saw God in clouds and heard Him in the wind." Everywhere the Hebrew looked for God and found Him. Dominion and fear were with Him. The moon and stars were impure in His sight, and ceased to shine (Job 12 : 12-11 ; 19 : 26 ; Prov. 8 : 14). To impress God's creative power and ubiquity upon the mind the Divine uiune, or a part of it, was often incorporated with Hebrew proper names, as in Abihou, Elihou, Abdo, Davdo, which became Abd, Obed, David, etc. (Penan, pp. 26-28). We see it in Elijah, in Elisha, and this form of it in more than fifty names, according to Young's Concordance, while Professor Kuenen estimates " about one hundred and ninety personal names so compounded, or with Jahveh, in THEIR TUEOLOOY. 29 tho Old Testament^' (''Tlibbert Lectures," 1882, p. QS^ English edition). It was a perpetnal reiniuder of Deity, hence habitual prayer to and invocation of God. In the open fields while tending his flock, or sailing on the rivers in wintry storms, or engaged with an enemy in battle, or when suffering from disease, the Semite prayed to the Supreme Ruler of all things by whatever name he addressed Ilim. See " God Enthroned in Eedemption," pp. 48, GO, 02. ISTor did those different names imply a different Deity, but only different thoughts of Ilim, or different attributes, not in conflict, but expressing the character of the function to which the needs of the suppliant appealed. And as angels were, from the earliest ages, believed in, some of them were supposed to represent those various functions, and their offices w^ere invoked by man, and they were sometimes adored. Indeed, an- gelic beings and their worship are so familiar to Bible readers that the statement of the fact is sutticient. It would be easy to trace the worship of secondary gods in Babylonia and elsewhere to an earlier knowledge and adoration of angels. There were angels who ex- celled in strength, who were swift messengers to those in need, and who encamped around God's people for their protection. Now they appeared to utter warn- ings, as against Sodom ; now to announce the birth of a child to Manoali, to Zacharias, and Mary the Virgin ; now with a drawn sword to Joshua and to David (Gen. 19 ; Judges 13 ; St. Luke 1 ; Josh. 5 : 13 ; 1 Chron. 21 : 15-27). The covenant people were ever defended as with a shield, and ])unished as with the sword of the Lord. Invocation of Ilim would prevent threat- 30 JACOB AND JAPIIETII: ened evils and procnrc needful blessings for Jacob and for Japlietb. This sent tlieni to tlie study of Ilis law, the eternal law of right living, and to sundry acts of piety. Men believed themselves to be the sons of God, and their conscience and Divine instruction told them of their personal and religious duties. This is seen in the fear and confession of Cain, and in those self-willed sons from whom God withdrew the striv- ings of His Spirit (Gen. 4 : 9-15 ; 6 : 2, 3, 18, 22 ; 8 : 20, 21 ; 9 : 8-17 ; Job 2 : 1). They are Scriptures which teach at once Divine instruction to man, Divine punishment of him. Divine covenant with him, man's woi-ship and sacrifice in acknowledgment of his duty to God, and the promise of His continuance of tem- ]x>ral blessings to man. These are grand facts of Biblical and monumental history. Semites on the Euphrates and the Jordan were 2?urer monotheists than later Semites in Assyria. One striking fact is worth noting — viz., that the Aryan Persians, who succeeded in the government of that country, were for some ages as pure monotheists as the Hebrews in their best days. Aryan Greeks, with their developed Olympus and its celestial denizens, only make the question of lahy this vKis so more dithcult of sohition. But the fact is un- questioned, that those ethnic families are found to be now monotheists, now polytheists, alike in Egypt and Babylonia, in Judea and x\ssyria. It is not to be ex- plained by " Semitic tent-life," for Abraham and Darius were alike monotheists, as were Apepi, Sargon of Agade, and Ezra, the scribe of the law. Even Maliomet did the world some service by his crusades against polytheistic idolatry. From Adam to Seth, THEIR TIIEOLOQY. 31 to Noah, to Abraliairi, Sargon and Apepi, Moses and Zoroaster, David and llezekiali, Ezra and Darius, men and nations worshipped and acknowledged one God, either with the covenant or without tlie covenant. Renan's tent-life does not explain it. Human fancy and caprice do not explain it ; but " an eternal ten- dency in men'''' to worship^ and in most men to return to their first love, or to the primitive worship of One Supreme Being, does explain it, and explain it accord- ing to spiritual laws. This is the alphabet and primer of religion among men. In prophets like Elijah and Isaiah, in kings like Assurbanipal and Cambjses, it be- came a passion ; in pliilosophers like Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, and Socrates, it was the outcome of calm reason. The portraiture of religion in Genesis and Job finds its reality in those times and as read in the inscriptions. Generations lived in their father ; Levi paid tithes in Abraham, and the chief of a tribe was its priest and judge. The standard of right living was at first the inspiration of God, then conscience, then an explicit revelation duly authenticated by Divine covenant with mankind, now with patriarchs, with Moses ; renewed under Joshua, under Samuel, and later propliets. During all those ages the history of man was the unfolding: of theoloo^v and of laro-er Di- vine manifestations. M. Naville tells us that Pha- raohs, like Rameses II., preferred to mention in their religious inscriptions the names of the Great God, Amon, Turn, or Set, rather than the later local deity of each individual place (the Academy^ January 21st, 1888, p. 50). History has its contrasts even in the theology of 32 JACOB AND JAPIIETII: Semites. They are now nomads and monotheists, now dwellers in cities and polytlieists ; at once the most reh'gious and the most irrehgious of men, tena- cionsly holding the faith they profess, whether pure or corrupt ; and its effects are seen in their life and con- duct. If Persians conquered Semites and protected them in their religion, then more or less monotheistic, Semitic and other Mahomedans conquered all West- ern Asia, inclnding the holy places of Palestine, and forced their religion upon the vanquished, and they hurled back the hosts which Christians sent to regain those lands to the religion of Christ. Babylonian Semites were the first Puritans who fought for the altars of their fathers and the Oneness of God C'God Enthroned in Redemption," pp. 52, 56-60). Neither naturalism nor culture explains the facts, for the civilization of Sargon and Apepi was as high as that of Arabia at the appearance of Mahomet. In the twentieth century b.c. Abraham, leaving Ur, trav- elled through Babylonia ; in the sixth century b.c. his descendants were carried there captives, and now, in January, 1889, report comes that two Jews of Bagdad have bought up the old capital city, with all its ruined palaces and temples. It illustrates something more than the revenges of history ; rather that what was originally true shall be perpetuated. This bridge of time, four thousand years long, despite its broken arches here and there, connects the God of the past with our modern theoloocv, and leads to the One Su- preme, who was worshipped as really on the farther side as on the hither side of those millenniums. Con- science and culture do not explain it, but the hand of [THEIR THEOLOGY. 33 God in liistory and the voice of God in Revelation explain it clearly, saying, " Belief in One God Al- mighty is not a growtli in man^ hut a revelation to liimy It made known the Creator as supervising Ilis v:ork, exercising His providence over the affairs of mankind, directing and preserving all, rewarding the good and punishing the bad, alike in the era of Abraham and Chedorlaomer, as in that of Ahab and Elijah, of Jeremiah and Daniel. It was " very vague and confused up to the ninth century b.c," says Renan, " but it was in germ from the first." The size of that germ was pretty large, and its activity great, according to the inscriptions and our Bible, which portray men of the lirst ages as hav- ing definite ideas of God, a day for His worship, ideas of immortality with Him, the povv^er and activity of conscience specially seen in the sons of Jacob when standing before Joseph ; all this was as pronounced and emphatic in tiie days of the patriarchs as when Elijah remonstrated with Ahab and the priests of Baal, or against Israel's halting in the loyal service of Jehovah. The prophet had to deal with an apostate people, wdiose consciences were seared. A chapel to Baal had been established in Samaria, and the altar of Jehovah at Carmel had been broken down. The peo- ple were content to have it so. That never-to-be- forgotten vision at Luz-Bethel, of Abraham and Jacob, and the lesson of the brethren before Joseph (Gen. 17, 28, and 42), demonstrate that ideas of God and the workings of conscience were not vague and confused in those far-off times. Whatever the cause, the facts are indispntable. Those Hebrew shepherds were as 2* 34 JACOB AND JAPIIETII : truly monotheists as Elijah and the seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal, or as Mahomet and his Arabian iconoclasts. Dwelling in tents or within city walls had nothing to do with it. It was a fact of the soul and its God. Arabians who had eighty different names for honey, tw^o hundred for a serpent, five hundred for a lion, and a thousand for a sword, before their language was preserved in a written lexicon, might also have mau}^ different words for God and ideas of Him, the gift of personihcation, fertility of imagination and expression of religious thought, without being polytheists. It certaiuly had little to do with the theology of their remote ancestors, who, though building a temple to the Moon-god of Ur, stood stoutly for Jahveh in Pal- estine and in Egypt. That they did this in the nine- teenth and the seventeenth centuries b.c. is recorded in Genesis ; that many of them had become idolaters in the ninth century is recorded in 1 Kings, chapters 18 and 19. It corrects Renan, pp. 38, 30. They are passages which high authorities admit to be ancient and genuine. Moreover, the Jahveh of Israel did everything which is ascribed to Aryan deities, thus suggesting a common origin. Personification is frequent among both races. '^ Death comes hastily upon one, and takes hold of liim ; the earth opens her mouth ; the floods clap their hands, the hills skip about, the sea flies away" (Ps. 18 : 4, 7 ; 50 ; 55 ; 59 ; 68 ; 78 ; 106 ; 101 ; 10). That the Hindus applied such activities to their deva, who thus affected both animate and inanimate objects, should not prevent Jacob from ascribing them to THEIR THEOLOGY. 35 Eloliim. And it was lial)Itnal witli liim to do so 1)C- fore Aryans liad set foot in India ; for the Seniite was religious by nature. lie was less sceptical and less superstitious than the Hindus, and he bore about in his body the seal of his covenant God, when the Hin- dus doubted the personality of Bralini. Tliat Jahveh had promised to provide for His people quite ex])lains why they saw Divine power everywliere manifested. Others, however, who had no such promise, gave free play to their poetical imagination. Brahm somehow was all and in all, yet an abstraction ; inspired their thoughts, increased their joys, charmed the song, pointed the proverb, gave wisdom to philosophers, and skill in prose and in epic. Japheth lived by Brahm, as Jacob lived by Jahveh. Singularly, however, Eenansays '' the word Jahveh was never employed in (Hebrew) proverbial literature, hecaitse it related to an idea anterior to Jahvehism" (p. 235). But many Psalms which are anterior to the Exile, and many Proverbs ofteu contain that Divine name. (Of. Ps. 1 : 2, 6 ; 15 : 1 ; 19 : T-9 ; 27 ; 37 ; 132 ; Pro v. 3 : 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 19, 26, 32, 33 ; G : 16 ; 8 : 13, 22, 35 ; 9 : 10 ; 10 : 3 ; 11 : 1 ; 12 : 2 ; 14 : 2, 26, 27 ; 15 : 3.) These testify to the fre- quent use of Jahveh in Hebrew proverbial literature. Its songs and sayings were full of Jahveh. The Song of Moses and of Miriam, after the passage of the Red Sea, and of Deborah upon deliverance from Jabin and Sisera, were thenceforth among the most popular songs of Israel. '' The sea saw God, and fled ; Jordan was driven back." Yery thrilling was the response of Miriam — " Sing ye to Jahveh, for He hath triumphed 36 JACOB AND JAPIIETII. gloriously ; the horse and his rider hath lie thrown into the sea" ! (Ex. 15 ; Judges 5). So Balaam, wliose written account Kalisch places not later than 1030 B.C., introduces the covenant name, Jahveh, into his prophecy, and repeatedly into his conversations with Balak. The man of Pethor and the men of Ilamath knew it well. Kalisch indeed often corrects Renan, who, with all his attainments, has not attained to historico-Biblical criticism. Thus in one volume he objects to '' Joslma" for not telling about Samaria, and in another volume accepts the Bible account of its being built in the tenth century e.g., but has not the fairness to cancel his objection. Tlie Andover He- view smiles at his false derivation of words ; Ewald laughed at his " perverted history ;" while the Acad- emy censures him for calling Kiug David a brigand ! ("le brigand d'Adullam," January, 1888, pp. 92, 93) : '' Kenan's poetical history, which treats the Hexa- teuch as non-historical, cannot stand" before the added light of monumental knowledge, " attesting the accu- racy of our Biblical accounts, in the face of all redac- tors — Jahvistic, Elohistic, priestly, and prophetic edit- ing." The bricks of Pithom prove the bricks of Exodus. IT. THE RELIGION OF ABEAIIAM, FROM THE BIBLE AND THE INSCIIIPTIONS. The religion of Israel is best learned from tliat of Abraham, which also ilUistrates that of Japhetli. Our authorities are the Bible and monnmental inscrip- tions, which yield fresh light for the elucidation of this subject. They describe man as God-created and God-instructed ; not as first a savage who becomes a sage, nor as a nature- worshipper who develops into a worshipper of the God of nature. They say nothing about flintmen and cavemen as progenitors of the Adamic race. But they represent primitive man as a noble and intelligent being wdio was divinely created and divinely instructed. We Und conscience and the religious faculty early developed, \vith positive ideas of immortality and of deliverance from self-caused evils. Thus we learn that neither the world nor man was a " corae-by-chance." It is taught alike in the books of Jacob and the monuments of Japhetli. Sin was followed by punishment, and by the promise and hope of redemption. Yet, as Dr. South strongly says. '' An Aristotle was but the ruins of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise." Man wan- dered into devious ways and retained small prospect 38 RELIGION OF ABRAHAM. of return. Ilis best desires could not be fulfilled without Divine help. Hence God chose Abraham to found a new nation, with a revised or revealed religion. Others of that era knew little and said little about it. But some cen- turies later Israel emerged into contemporary history, now as slaves in Egypt, and now as tributary to As- syrian kings. Of David and Solomon the inscriptions have little to say, and mistake avenging Jehu for a lineal descendant of Ahab. Still those bricks are no more incorrect than Tacitus, and they contain pretty full accounts of the era of Abraham, of Nimrod who was before him, and of Noah a thousand years earlier. At the migration of the patriarch from Ur of Chaldea, we find a complex cosmology and theology had taken the place of the religion of Eden. From the different attributes He possessed, from different thoughts of Him, the names for God had increased ; and some had transformed the primitive manifes- tation and ideas about angels into as many deities. Some Divine names were Ilu, El, and Bel, Ann and Ea, Ra and J ah. They were also classified into Triads, and the goddess Nana or Istar had become recognized. A god gave name to each day of the week, and to each planet of the solar system. Creation of the heavenly bodies was said to have been by the great God who created man and vivified him b}^ His in- breathed Spirit. A legend tells how the blood which flowed from Bel's head, when severed from the body and mingled with the earth, became the living ele- ment in man's creation. Thus man was Divine by nature and by creation. Providence was expressed by BIBLE AND INSCRIPTIONS. 39 deities who presided over birth and death, work and pleasure, disease and pestilence, earth and sky, kind and water, heaven and helL It governed the orbs of h'ght, and they became symbols of deitj. Moreover, this religionsnessof man found expression in the altars and temples he erected to the Divine Being, in the sacrifices he offered to Him, and in the detailed ritnal of Ilis worship. To appease an angry God, to ])ro- pitiate Ilis favor and the bestowment of earthly good, to thank Ilim for blessings received and honor llim by worship in a temple or at an altar, this represents the pious practices of the men of the era 2000 b.c. Though primitive purity and simplicity had disap- peared, there yet remained, especially among Semites, much which testified of One Supreme God, of Ilis Providence rewarding the good and punishing the wicked, of the hopes of immortality, and of a prom- ised Deliverer from the ills of life. Myths and legends may conceal the spiritual charac- ter of God and of Ilis Providence, but God and Provi- dence are the facts and belief which they conceal, for the counterfeit proves a true original. The popular religion may have become as a wild oliv^e-tree, or, as Schelling happily says, it was " religion growing wild." Paganism could only represent the world-idea of spiritual powers imperfectly understood ; its ele- ments are called by St. Paul ^' the beggarly elements of the world." But in Abraham spiritual visions and spiritual realities are clearly unfolded. God dwells again with man and instructs him, lifts him up to a higher plane of life and thought, appoints and ordains him to carry out the grand purposes of Deity, and does 40 RELIGION OF ABRAHAM. not permit him to fail of accomplisliing that design, but to become a beacon and a benison to the nations. In Abraham we discover ghmpses of Ilim whose goings forth were from of old, who was the perfection of humanity and its Perfector. The patriarch believed in a personal God and in His directing Providence. He could not hesitate when he heard the voice which bade him leave a city which had become a worshipper of Sin, the Moon-god and of Istar his daughter. The theology and legends of Sumero-Accadians were familiar to him. From his observation of the starry heavens and his sacrifice at sunset, it is clear that he followed the usages of the people of Ur. And when he left that centre of Moon- worship he went and abode in another centre of Moon- worship. Schrader asks, whether Laban were not originally a name for the Moon-god of Ilaran, and says the more ancient xlssyrian proper names wear a Canaanite rather than an Aramaic form (p. 120). At all events, Abraham and his family long dwelt among the worshippers of Sin, of Istar, and of El, who, like the early Egyptians, made the orbs of heaven symbols and representatives of Deity. And there was an in- creasing tendency to idolatry and nature-\vorship, thus debasing that paid to the Supreme Being. Hence the need of a founder of a new nation which should ac- knowledge and adore Him, and shake off all contami- nation from its neighbors. But that was only slowly effected, a reformation yet to be achieved. On his way along the Euphrates, in journeying toward Haran, Abraham beheld the famous temple of Bel at Borsippa. The Birs-Nimrud was then in its BIBLE AND INSCRIPTIONS. 41 pristine glory, with a golden altar to Bel, and with splendid chapels at the hase of the structure. Tower and temple he saw, if not for the first, certainly for the last time, passing on northward to Babil above Babylon. He did not then know what was later re- vealed to him, and so he may have worshipped at those temples the God who had spoken to him in Ur. The founder of the Hebrew nation probably visited those temples, one of which was rebuilt by King Nebuchad- nezzar, who some fourteen centuries afterward con- quered the descendants of Abraham, and carried them to that same country through which he then passed. He was also cognizant of the Tower legends of Baby- lonia, which Schrader '' bases upon the actual exist- ence of some structure erected in former times, whose ruins still exist at Babel and Borsippa." The south- ern ruin is called Birs-Kimrud, where stood the temple of the '' Seven Lights of Heaven and Earth," dedi- cated to Bel-Nebo, which Nebuchadnezzar restored and dedicated to Bel-Merodach, the chief deity of Babylon at that time. The northern ruin above Babylon is Babil, which was a pyramid temple, a '^ house of tow- ering summit," built in stages like the temple at Borsippa. It was also called the " Palace of Heaven and Earth, the Dwelling of Bel, House of the highest god Merodach." Present infonnation cannot deter- mine which of these ruins nuirks the site of the fa- mous tower at wdiose erection " a god confounded their speech," but the trend of opinion inclines to the southern mound. It contains the remains of a large pyramidal structure which was crowned by a temple six hundred feet higher than the plain. Within it was 42 RELIGION OF ABUAIIAM. an altar of pure gold ; in later times an image of Merodacli ; but originally the sanctuary was without a statue. Chapels on the first story contained the image of a god sitting on a golden throne, behind a golden altar whereon a thousand pounds of incense were consumed at the annual festival. " The God of a great people was worshipped at great cost." And lie was w^orshipped where our fathers little expected. Schrader suggests that the God of Abraham was known as " Jahveli" to Hamathites, and Stade in his " Israel" that He was so known to the Kenites. Jahu seems to have been a synonym for Ilu in Assy- rian, and to have worked its way among Hebrews and Arameans. The word indicated a God who was the ^' Life-dispenser." Dr. Legge says that " King Yew who reigned four thousand two hundred and forty-five years ago, and King Shun four thousand and ninety- five years ago, both worshipped and sacrificed to the Most High God before Abraham was born. ' ' These kings illustrate how far true religion had then spread in the Chinese world. Then, too, the story of Eden and the Sacred Tree, of the Fall of man and the guarding seraphim, had the freshness of youth. Often is the serpent seen fisrnred on the monuments ; a tree with hano^ino; clusters of fruit occupies a prominent position in the representations which have been preserved for thou- sands of years. It is a " fruit-tree" in concrete or generic form, but not the palm ; so Schrader (p. 39). And as cherubim were sentinels at the entrance to Paradise, so we find them pictured on the monuments as colossal bulls and lions with human faces, guar- BIBLE AND INSCRIPTIONS. 43 diaiis alike of palaces, temples, and city walls. Prob- ably of iKihylonian oiigin, they appear in the account of the Fall, and reappear in the prophecy of Ezekiel, in the cherubim of the Ark of the Covenant, and in the Apocalypse of St. John. Anciently they were the mute sentinels and guardians in front of royal houses and temples, of the king upon his throne, and they symbolized the majesty of Heaven. When placed within a temple, they may have suggested care of the sacred edifice and faithfulness in the ministrations of the priests. Watchful eyes were ever gazing upon them. But whatever was meant by these cherubim, Eden and the Sacred Tree were popular legends in the Ur of Abraham. The word for garden was quite as likely original with Semites as with Accadians ; so Schrader (p. 2S), who sees no good reason for not re- garding the story of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge as closely connected with the narrative of the Fall on the Assyrio-Bab3donian monuments. The differences are a secondary matter, and probably arose with the Hebrews. Existence of such Icij^ends amonoj those peoples at that time is a point to be remembered. They did not originate them. Moreover, the story of the serpent at that time will not budge at our bidding. It is often seen on the monuments, figured in the tree, near the person, at an altar, seen with one head and with seven heads ; a tree also is seen with fruit, or with leaves only and branches in sets of sevens, thus early a sacred num- ber. We cannot exscind the tree nor the serpent from those ancient memorials. Thus Eden or Paradise may be regarded as thoroughly historical, locally de- 44 RELIGION OF ABRAHAM, fined and colored, and blended with the history of the region about the Euphrates and the Tigris. Sehrader makes it of Babylonian, not Hebrew, origin. Ewald accepts it as well authenticated. M. Lenorniant, the two Delitzsches, and Fritz Ilonimel, all emphasize the historical character of Abraham and of the leading ideas connected with him. Thus Ilommel says his " exodus from Babylonia, the battle of the Canaanites with the Elamite league in the valley of Siddim, and the journey of Abraham to Egypt are historical facts." Mr. G. Smith suggested that " Amar-phel" of Gen. 14 was to be found among Babylonian titles, and that ^' Arioch" is identical with Eriaku or Rim-agu, who was the son and successor of Kudur-Mabug ; showing that chapter to be in linguistic and historical harmony with the monuments. From them we learn that Elam- ite kings exercised at one time hegemony or sover- eignty in Babylonia, and that Chedorlaomer of Flam was the chief of the combination which Abraham rout- ed and extinguished, so that his name no more ap- peared in the history. lie belonged to the Elamite dynasty of Kudur-Mabug, whose bricks have been dis- covered, and disclose tlie power of the Kudurids. One of those kings, Kudur-Naklmnta, is reported to have " laid hands on the temple of Accad," carrying off an image of the goddess Nana, the Istar of that city, wdiich Assurbanipal, in 651 b.c. or sixteen hun- dred and thirty-five years afterward, recaptured and returned to Freeh, when he subdued the Elamite country to his rule. (G. Smith's "Assurbanipal;" Schrader's " Cunei. Inscrip.," p. 122; Kawlinson's '' Egypt and Babylon," p. 11.) BIBLE AND INSCRIPriONS. 45 Tliat first capture was before Apcpi's effort to liave only One God worsliipped at Thebe.s, when 11a- Sekenen was sub-king. Efforts to establisb nionotlie- isni were made in Babylonia, but after long struggles tlie adherents of Bel-Merodacli supplanted the elder Bel. (See Professor Sajce's " Ilihbcrt Lectures" for 1887.) It is conceded that the Semites of Ur appropriated to their use what suited them in the Accadian cultus and made it their own. Thus Babylonian ideas were scrutinized, perhaps changed in j^articuhu's to suit their views before ado])tion. Abraham may have He- braized current legends, winnowing the chaff' from the wheat, the false from the true, and so reproduced the early facts. True in substance, he preserved the truth in details and significance under the guiding Spirit of God ; true alike for Jacob and for Japheth. Originality in Hebrew records of the Fall and the Deluge is of less moment than their truthfulness. The monumental writings of Babylonia and Ass3a'ia affirm the same grand facts of history wliicli Israel ac- cepted. Careful sifting of the inscriptions from Ac- cad, Borsippa, Nineveh, etc., yields substantial agree- ment in all important facts. Their Flood account is not later than 800 b.c. , so Schrader, though the He- brews were familiar with it from a much, earlier date^ or when Abraliam migrated from Ur. But it is said tliat the moulding of traditions into literary form was after the settlement in Palestine. Isaiah (51: : 9) and Ezekiel (11: : 14, 20) speak of Noah and the Deluge as lono; known to Israel, so it must have been a recoir- nized fact of their early history. Its form and that of the creation narrative must have received their last 46 RELIGION OF ABRAHAM. Hebrew coloring before tiie oigbtli-centiiry prophets. Whoever was the original writer, our biblical version bears the impress of antirpiitj and the guidance of inspiration. Even ^' the great bow which Anu created" is verified in Hebrew and Assyrian, and was probably an original part of the account when Abra- ham first heard it ; when Accadian legends and poetry were in their bloom, and when critics were not con- cerned to make them of the date of Assurbanipal, or centuries before him. ('' Chaldean Account in Gen- esis ;" F. Lenormant, and the chapter on " Deluge Legends" in " God in Creation.") Witnesses of the Fall and wickedness of man were to be seen on all sides, in the lives of the people, in their worship, in their historic legends and family records, in their totems and their temples. But it may well be doubted whether the account given by Herodotus of the prostitution of women at religious rites in Babylonia is true in b.c. 2000. N'ot so early had that people adopted rites which dishonored wom- en. But the explanation of moral debasement may be found in the influence of fallen spirits who domi- nated the earth, called the dragon, the old serpent, or Typho ; among the Japhethites of Iran and India the evil being who led the first man astray, through whose lie the first of our race fell into sin and under the power of evil. Hence were permitted burning heats and freezing cold, disease and death, because the first man listened to the luring words of the serpent. Ejected from heaven he had fallen to earth, and the Divine majesty had departed. (" Khorda-Avesta," 35 : 7, -10 ;' " Yasma," \) : II, 21.) BIBLE AND INSCRIPTIONS. 47 Deliverance mnst bo the work of aiiotlier, of a Di- vine man who will acconiplisli salvation by the truth He preaches. Some Avatar, son of Zoroaster born in heaven, will effect this by appearing as the Medi- ator and Redeemer of man. Meantime, let cleansing tire ever burn in sacred offerings ; let sacrifice and worship appease the offended majesty of God, save from the evil one, prepare for the Sosiosh and immor- tal life. Indeed, was not the worship of men derived from that of lieaven ? Did not the Divine maker of the celestial sacrifice teach it to men ? The " Kig Yeda" identities the earthly priest with Agni who sacriticed and prayed as a Mediator. Barth says : " Thrice a day was the offering of libations ; a perpetual fire ; no idols, no temples ; the family hearth was the sanc- tuary" (" Heligion of India"). Thus men were to prepare in life, that when " dying they might go to the gods, the blessed abode where pious men rejoice." The consequence of sin was snpposed to be removed by confessing it, and by the mediation of Agni, who was invoked to intercede for man. " O Agni, turn away from us the anger of Yaruna !" Such was the early teaching of Japheth. " Conscience or the old man within" quickened the sense of riglit and duty. In the heart was believed to dwell the Supreme Spirit, the silent oljserver of all good and evil thoughts ; he sat as a god in righteous judgment. Sophocles de- scribes conscience as a god who grows not old. There is much more of a didactic sort in the " Rig Veda" (IV., VII. 93, 7 ; VIII., X. 40, 11 ; I. 125, S ; II. 29, 4, 5 ;) " Laws of Menu" (IV. 175) ; " God Enthroned in Creation and Redemption" (pp. GS, 70, 30-35). But 48 RELIGION OF ABRAHAM, not so early had tlio Hindus attained sucli knowledge ; in the days of Abraham they yet dwelt in their native home. The primitive centre of civilization after the Deluge was Babylonia, whence colonists migrated in all directions, carrying with them similar ideas of re- ligion and the standard of ethics which then prevailed. " As in this life we pass throngh childhood, man- hood, and old age, so death disrobing us of one body gives ns another. The arrows cannot pierce the soul, nor the fire burn it, nor the waters drown it, nor the winds dry it up ; it is imperishable. It is not born ; it does not die ; it is eternal." (Bhishma-parva, Y. 1157.) We are enjoined to remember that man is born alone, dies alone, and alone shall receive the rec- ompense of his deeds, good or bad ('' Laws of Menu," IV. 210-12). Purity, temperance, tnithfulness, self- control, returning good for evil, virtue, knowledge of the sacred books — this was how to attain the perfec- tion of Brahm. Tennyson tersely expresses it as : "Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control." But the Yeda were before the name of Brahm ; and before any Hymns to Yaruna, to Indra and to Agni, Egypt had formulated her Book of the Dead, with which Abraham proliably became acquainted during his sojourn in the Nileland. He was the equal of his peers in knowledge of human duty, ethics in the broad sense, loj^alty to God and to man, and in belief that present conduct would determine man's future happiness. Like Tennyson he would have " more of reverence in us dwell, that mind and soul might well accord." Apart from special inspiration he was an in- BIBLE AND INSCRIPTIONS. 49 telUgent, well-cnltured man, witli larc;c reli\i»-i()us at- tainiuents. From the Saints' Calendar and tlie De- scent of Istar, the Book of the Dead, and the legend of Osiris and Horns, Abraham's ideas of life and death were probably in advance of Hebrews generally in the period between Moses and David. The sacred name of his covenant God snggested to him the Life-giver and the Life-dispenser, the One who ever is, who had breathed the immortal spirit into man and made him a living soul. He certainly had no need to buttress liis faith by prehistoric inquiries about trepanning, proving, and illuvstrating how men of the Neolithic Age expressed their ideas of existence out of the body. To him it would probably appear like a grim joke to sec amulets placed in the skulls of dead men in order to secure happiness and exemption from evil in their disembodied state ! Writers in " Fossil Men" tell us that some ancients did this, and so disclosed the in- stinct of immortality which they early cherished. In men who hardly knew how to build a hut better than the lair of a wild beast, there was that which prompted them to provide an eternal habitation for their dead. Qui net is surely right in saying (in " La Creation"), '' After such a beginning of evidence of immortal cravings, all that remains is easy of belief." llealm of Allat, Descent of Istar, Life eternal in the land of the silver sky. Book of rules for guidance through Amenti — all nn'ght be developed from that small be- ginning ; rather it was the outcome of the inbreathed spirit of God and of original instruction to man ; to Abraham in large measure, with knowledge of defeat in Eden to l)e followed by One who was to be born of 3 50 RELIGION OF ABRAHAM. a woman in descent from him, and who would drive the evil worker into eternal darkness, and exalt the struggling sons of men nnto eternal life. It was then but the morning of God's world, which Satan tried to dominate, and ere the eventide drew on the perfect Light would illume the hearts of men and prepare them for the brighter light of Heaven. Thus the re- demption of mankind was revealed to Abraham as the eternal glory of his race. His Son and Lord should sway the sceptre of the world, because He would be- come the Saviour of the world, and by Divine grace draw all men unto Him. Did not the Spirit of Wis- dom enable Plato to say that men are allured to virtue and holiness by Divine influence and by intercourse with good men ? The godhke within us seeks its counterpart without. The spiritual loves the spirit- ual. The lofty soul seeks Divine and lofty souls. So we say with Bishop Martensen (" Christian Dogmat- ics," p. 807), the " Divine love that knew from eter- nity the possibility of the Fall, also found from eternity the way of Redemption." It was disclosed to Adam and to Abraham ; Japheth had adumbrations of it, dim indeed, but true. (See " God Enthroned in Ke- demption," Chapters IIL and I\^.) Opportunity to prepare for it was the seventh-day Sabbath, universally observed in the first ages. Hence seven became the number for sanctity and for the days of the week. On the seventh day no work was to be done. This was an old Babylonian institution which, as Schrader says, the Hebrews brought with them after their stay in South Babylonia, at Ur Kasdim — i.e., Ur of the Chaldees. The importance of this sub- BIBLE AND INSGItlPTIONS. 51 ject and want of space here may excuse a reference to the author's chapter on " The P'irst Sahljatli and Primitive Worship" in " God Enthroned in Eedemp- tion." Henan objects to the Semitic observance of the seventh day, because of their nomad condition. But where the skies during a long summer were al- ways clear, and where the agriculturist had no diffi- culty in gathering his harvest or in pasturing his flocks, such objection falls flat. And the inscriptions testify to a week of seven days, to prescribed sacrifices and details of worship for that day. They also name the god who was to be worshipped on the several Sab- baths. Of this evidence Renan says, " Assyria had from the very first her castes of servants and priests and the w^eekly Sabbath. The seven planets gave their names to the seven days of the week, and the seventh day had special characteristics which marked it as a day of rest," '^History of Israel." Again, " the dwelling-place of primitive humanity was Lower Chaldea, with its Paradise and Sacred Tree" (p. 59). Abraham had no relations with the then small Assyria, but he migrated from his native Ur to Haran, carrying with him all he approved of its religion, its art, and its literature. It was many centuries before the supremacy of the northern em- pire ; seven at least before its first Shalmaneser reigned ; it was when the Siimero-Accadians were yet strong and their poetry was in full bloom ; Sabbath observance was then regnant. The God worsliip])ed on that day disproves Kenan's saying, '' AVith our tears we make for ourselves a God." Tears, indeed, may suggest the need of a God, and urge men to seek 52 RELIGION OF ABRAHAM. Him ; l)iit the Gocl of Abraham was not evolved from tears and sorrow. He revealed Himself as his God and the God of all maidvind. Jacob and Japhetli, Ishmael and Esau knew Him. Not limited to Pales- tine, Jaliu was known at Hamatli in the north and by Kenite in the south. All holy men of old felt the in- fluence of His Spirit ; Zoroaster in Bactria, Numa in Italy, Socrates in Greece. Abraham did not lead the life of a recluse in his native city. Legend portrays him as often sitting in public places, speaking words of wisdom and counsel to those who heard him. Some, indeed, affirm that he was persecuted, like the later philosopher of Athens, and obliged to fly for safety. However that may be, we have Scripture authority for saying, he was con- federate with Mamre, the Amorite, that he made friends in Egypt, and with Abimelech, King of Gerar. The priest-king of Salem gave him his benediction, and the Canaanite chiefs whom he aided against Ched- orlaomer, publicly thanked him for his services (Gen. 14). If his intercession for the sinners of Sodom mark him as the benefactor of man, his bold and strong Jahvehism marks him as the friend of God. Even the covenant-seal of circumcision which he received and administered to his sons was also administered to three or four hundred trained servants. It was avail- able to all who would receive it. By the Arabians who are descended from him, his name is embalmed with precious memories, because of his character and influence. His moral force passed from one centre of civilization to another, blessing the world and prepar- ing the way for Him who took the sting from death BIBLE AND INSCRIPTIONS. 53 and secured innnortality for all l)elievers. Jesus could truly say to the Jews, '' Your father Abraham re- joiced to see my day ; he saw it, and was ^-Jad." It has o-latldened mankind. We need no other testimony to the religion of Abraham. His faith in God was strong, when faith was weak among men, and they were becoming naturalists and polytheists. For four and twenty years he had liv^ed in Palestine without seal or sacrament, wiien he received the sign of cir- cumcision. Before that he was sustained by prayer and promise, by sacrifice and by Providence. The old Saints' Calendar may have guided him in the daily worship of God, and he had the assurance that he pleased God. Moreover, he w^as one of Ilis elect for personal and national benefit. Many of his descend- ants perished in their wickedness, not because they were not elected to privilege, but because of their re- bellion against God, now in the matter of Korah, and now by apostasy ; for which they were punished, now by pestilence, now by serpents, now by earthquake. All the twelve disciples of our Lord heard His saving message, yet one of them betrayed Him and went to his own place. Baal or Chemosli called louder than Jail veil to six of Abraham's eight sons. St. Paul illustrates how one may know his duty, but persist in not doing it, till a lightning flash of grace arrests and saves him. Such has been the history of Redemption among men. Some, indeed, expect grace to become violence^ not content that the grace of privilege only precedes grace in activity ; the Divine suggests the human side of salvation. So far as we can see in the case of Abraham, there was notliing to prevent other 54 RFAAOION OF AJUiAIIAM. men of Ur and other men in Pcalestine, as witness the King of Salem, from serving Jehovah, except their own choice, which led them to neglect present oppor- tunities for securing eternal blessings ; which allowed them to sacrifice eternal joys for temporal pleasures. Lot was tiuice saved by Abraham, for he had chosen Sodom and the plain country about it. Thus few men of his time exerted a larger influence. " I know Abraham," said the Lord (have covenanted with him) *' that he will command his children and his house- hold after him, that the Lord may bring upon Abra- ham that wdn'ch He hath spoken of him" (Gen. 18 : 19). This teaches that man must do his part, in order that God may fulfil His promise. Children of the covenant must obey the terms of that covenant, otherwise the blood of the Bull of Mithra would be as efficacious as that of the promised Lamb to take away sin. The intercessor for Sodom was taught very emphat- ically to substitute a ram for a sacrifice instead of Isaac. The firstlings of Abel's flock were acceptable to God, while the ofl'ering of Cain was not, because not oSered with a right spirit, and was not a sacrifice. Noah took of every clean animal and of fowl, and offered burnt- offerings on the altar. Thus the prac- tice became universal and of a sacramental character, for part of the sacrifice was eaten ; compacts were thus solemnized, alliances rendered obligatory (Gen. 15 : 7-18 ; 31 : 43-51). The passing of fire between the pieces of a sacrificial victim indicated the Divine acceptance. In Gen. 15 : 17 it probably symbolized the presence of God ; the word there rendei'ed lamp BIBLE AND INSCRIPTIONS. 56 also moans a flame or tongue of flro ; so in tlie Divine appearance to Moses in the burning hush (Ex. 3 : 2), In both cases there was Are to symbohze, and there was a voice to emphasize the presence of God to Abraham and to Moses ; but there was no image or material form. Jacob and Laban made a hea]) of stones with a central one for a pillar, eating bread upon the heap, as a sacramental seal and witness of renewed friendship. Hence columns placed in the ground and consecrated by pouring oil upon them came into com- mon use, and in later times covered Arabia, especially the region of Mecca ; previous to Mahomet they were regarded as sacred. A similar custom of stone use extended northward through Phoenicia (Conder's '' Syrian Stone Lore ;" Renan's " History of Israel "). Besides the Sabbath, New Year, and royal days, whose observance generally prevailed in the era of Abraham, stated festivals were few. A great feast was made at the weaning of Isaac ; Isaac and Abim- elech feasted at the digging of a well and to seal a covenant between them (Gen. 2G). Fasting was practised by ancient Arabs, by Assyrians of the time of Jonah and Nahum, and previously by Hebrews. David fasted for iiis sick child. Fasting was probably enjoined by Moses ; it is mentioned in Judges 20 : 26 as continuing one day ; at the death of Saul and Jon- athan people fasted seven days(l Sam. 31 : 13). The custom extended and the time lengthened to forty days at Xineveh. Daniel fasted and prayed at Baby- lon (Dan. 9). Benan tells of an early Semitic cele- bration in the spring, characterized by the use of un- leavened bread ; but he cites no proof earlier than the 56 RELIGION OF ABRAHAM. Passover, wliicli was a complex festival. Slieepsliear- iiig', the vintage harvest, and the new moon were joy- ful occasions observed by Samuel and David, prob- ably much earlier. Festivals under tents and the feast of tabernacles, with some other rites, were, we are told, common to all Semitics. The feast of taber- nacles is said to be a souvenir of primitive life, pre- served even by those who had wandered farthest from their ancestral home. It was continued during seven days, and was celebrated alike under Moses and David, Solomon and Ezra, and in the time of our Lord. Its institution is mentioned in Lev. 23 : 33-43 ; Hosea makes its enjoyment a token of Divine favor ; Zecli- ariah speaks of it as to be observed even by nations hostile to Israel (Hosea 12 : 9 ; Zech. 14 : 16-19). Philo says '' the Hebrews had ten festivals (the number of completeness) : (1), a feast of every day with prayer and thanksgiving ; (2), the Sabbath-festival ; (3), that of New Moon ; (4), the Passover ; (5), Feast of First-fruits ; (6), of Unleavened Bread ; (7), the Seventh-day of the Feast of Seven Days ; (8), Feast of Trumpets ; (9), the Day of Solemn Fast ; (10), Feast of Tabernacles" (Bohn's ed., vol. iii., p. 265). Prophets of the eighth centur}^ refer to them and to the books of the Pentateuch which treat of them. Abraham and other patriarchs had visions and reve- lations, and the latest communications accord w^ith the first ; those to prophets of Jerusalem are of like pur- pose with those to prophets of Samaria (Gen. 15 : 1 ; 28 : 10-22 ; 37 : 5-10 ; Job 33 : 14-16 ; Isa. 1:1; Hosea 12 : 9, 10). They disclose similar conceptions of deity and ideas of duty in the shepherd nomad and BIBLE AND INSCRIPTIONS. 57 tlie sliepliercl king. Abraliam possessed ideas and moral precepts in advance of later times. Fancies yielded to maxims. Life in the tent was as pure and lofty as life in the city, and its memory left an im- press on all after ages. The early domestic standard moulded the subsequent character of the nation. It was God-instructed. Moreover, the Divine name was incorporated with local and proper names, as in Bethel and Bethuel, Ishmael and Ragucl, Caleb from Calbel, Isaac from Isaakel, Jacob from Jacobel. The name of the son of promise meant " he whom God smiles" upon, and who was the friend of El. Thus, says Renaa, " We may fancy Israel as being a sort of Geneva in the midst of varied populations, surrounded by Moab and Edom, Philistia and Phoenicia ; Puritans begirt with corruptionists in morals and theology" (" History of Israel," p. 92). The covenant name Jahveh was used in Assyria, and the Meslia inscription gives it like the Hebrew as J h v h. That was in 875 b.c. Centuries previously it had been given to Moses (Ex. 3 : 14). Earlier still it was probably known through Abraham to the Egyptian priests as '' Nuk Pu Nuh,^'' or "I am that I am." Very significant was the inscription on the temple at Sais, which Plutarch rendered, '^ I am all that was, and is, and will be." In Ra, Jah, Jahu, He was known as the God of Israel and of other nations, already blessed by the chosen man. He founded a people who became stronger than any other in moral force and religious fervor ; who existed when pyramids and temples were being erected whose ruins we study to-day. Old Sargon and Rameses, Shalman- "3* 58 BELIOION OF ABRAHAM. eser and Nebuchadnezzar concern us cliiefly because they represent nationahties which mark tlie course of human development in the ancient world and throw light upon Israel. Father Orham, the reputed founder and king, legislator and saint of Ur, has become inter- woven w^ith the early pages of history. He harmo- nizes with the character of Abraham, benevolent in aspect and seated in an arm-chair, speaking words of counsel and wisdom, if not of urgent warning against corruption in religion. For his chief title to the ven- eration of his admirers was much more tiian that he substituted the sacrifice of a ram for that of his son. So explicit and unique are the statements respecting him that it is necessary to regard him as an historical person (Renan, pp. 60-63). Abraham, indeed, was divinely chosen and taught. It was God speaking in his soul that lifted him out of those polytheistic sur- roundings in Chaldea, and gave him the lofty covenant of a pure faith in Canaan ; a covenant which was for him and his descendants. It was not the thought of one who protested against the errors about him, but it was revealed to him by a voice from heaven ; a cove- nant was made and ratified between him and the Di- vine Speaker, which should never be forgotten. Moreover, good angels were believed to be often engaged in ministry to men. If there were one thou- sand evil spirits, were there not four thousand good spirits who sang the praises and did the errands of the Most High ? Such a belief is evident in the inscrip- tions and in the Scriptures, from the angels of Eden to the angel who shall sound the last trump. They were of various orders, performing v^arious ofhces ; BIBLE AND INSCRIPTIONS. 59 angels of sacrifice and prayer, who placed tlieir incense on tlie celestial altar ; angels seen in iianiing lire ; the Angel of the Covenant, who appeared to Abraham ; the angels who delivered Lot from the doom of Sodom ; who appeared now to Gideon and Manoah, now to Moses and David, now to Elijah and Daniel, now to Zacharias and the Virgin Mary, now to onr Lord and His Apostles, now ministering to little chihlren, gaard- ing the open tomb of Jesus, ready in legions to do His bidding, or to speak words of comfort to broken hearts. The angel or prince of Persia was of a differ- ent sort, whom Michael helped another angel to with- stand (Dan. 10 : 13-21). The Hebrew word for angel is the same as that for king, malak or nielek, acting as an agent, messenger, or counsellor for another ; while sar^ the word for prince, is found incorporated w^ith old names for Deity, as Sar-ili, '' King of the gods," to whom Urukli, one of the earliest Babylonian kings, dedicated a temple at Zergul ^ God Enthroned in Redemption," pp. 58-60). Thus the angels of heaven became gods upon earth, and nnder various characters were adored by men. The angel Michael, which means 'Mike God," is found in the Babylonian Marduk or Merodach, one of its secondary gods, and was regarded as a Saviour by that people, who would raise men to life again and become their judge. A similar idea prevailed among early Zoroastrians and travelled to India. Thus, angelic appearances. Divine voices speaking to man, were commonly believed in, and prepared Abraham to accept God's revelation of Himself without hesitancy. It was not a new thought or experience, but was duly 60 RELIGION OF ABRAHAM. autheiiticated to the patriarch, and never developed into polytheism with the Hebrews, however thej may have added those ideas of Japhetli, which grew out of it to their own. Dent. 33 : 2 says the Lord came from the ten thousands of holy ones. Revised Version. (Cf. Job 5 : 1 ; 15 : 15.)' The " Faerie Queene," Book XL, says ; " That blessed angels He sends to and fro, To serve to wicked man, to serve His wicked foe !" And in his ^' Epithalamium," Spenser thus apostro- phizes them : *' Sing, ye sweet angels. Alleluia sing, That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring." Ages before the angels rolled away the stone from the door of the sepulchre, in ministry to the Lord and to man. It crowned their studies of Redemption. Belief in evil spirits, who for rebellion were expelled from heaven, was common at this time among Sem- ites, Accadians, and Japhethites, among dwellers at Ur, at Ilaran, and in Canaan. Witchcraft, too, wa-s then believed in as really as by people of the Middle Ages. And it arose from that early belief in fallen spirits from heaven. Hence, dread of being under their spell, of being possessed, diseased, and injured by them. Hence, prayers for deliverance from evil spirits, and the hope for One to arise who would crush tlieir power. Hence Merodach in Babylon, Horus in Egypt, Krishna in India, was the conqueror of evil and the adumbration of our Redeemer. The cliosen man was familiar with all this ; with ideas of creation and of Providence, prayer and sacrifice, BIBLE AND INSCIUPTLONS. Gl Sabbath-worsliip and Divine iiistniction ; with tlie ex- istence of good and of evil spirits. The new truth re- vealed to him was that of Jehovah entering into Cove- nant ivith him^ and appointing circumcision as its sac- ramental seah It was a covenant and personal relation with God, which lifted him far above others of his race. What chief from IS'oah to Moses had such a privilege ? What old Greek or Roman was so exalted ? For it was given to him in a high sense, by this cove- nant relation, " to repair (as Milton says) the ruin of our first parents by regaining to know God aright." W^hat if some philosophers by deep searchings found out the necessity of a God, and attributed to Ilim creation and oversight ? What if "Plato and Aristotle rose to the thought of God as a jealotis God,- ^ so Martensen, or of God as a Father, so Origen ? What if all primitive nations recognized and worshipped God, Syrians in Hamath, Assyrians in Nineveh, the old Babylonians and Fgyptians, Kenites of the era of the Exodus, as the One Supreme, the Creator and Life- giver ; yet it was 7iot as the cove7iant Jahvehoi Ah'a- hani, Jacob, and Moses, who revealed Himself for the purpose of providing the Saviour of mankind. This exalted Israel above all other nations, gave them a peculiar place in the world, and makes the study of their religion of supreme importance. iir. THE PATRIAECIl IN PALESTINE: PER- SONAL INCIDENTS. In the twentieth century b.o. Abraham settled in Palestine, or rather sojourned there, with hope of re- maining. He had brought with him the culture and the religion outhned in Chapter 11. He had no writ- ten revelation^ except what he himself had recorded of the Divine utterances. Belief in God the Creator enabled him to believe in God the Kevealer, who had spoken to and covenanted with him. His fathers in Southern Babylonia had served other gods (Josh. 2i : 2). A century passed, a thousand miles of coun- try had been travelled, but this could effect no relig- ious change in him, unless enjoined by a Divine voice which told him whom and how he was to worship ; which explained why the man who had departed from Ur must accept another ritual in Canaan. He was no Buddha nor Mahomet. He had left the region of one set of polytheists, and was now dwelling among another set equally polytheistic. Some of them, indeed, wor- shipped El-Eli un, " the Strong God," and some in his more southern home worshipped Sar-ili, '^ the King of the Gods," which worship Jahveh accepted as to Himself ? Urukh had built a temple to Him at PERSONAL INCIDENTS. 03 Zerghul ; Sargon built another to Sin, the Moon-god, at Ur, and to the Sun-god at Sippara, which were ded- icated to the Supreme God, in whom those kings be- lieved ; while Melchizedelv at Salem was known as the priest of El-Eliun. The One Supreme God of heaven and earth now revealed Himself to Abraham by His sacred and everlasting name, for a saving and world-wide purpose. Settled in a fertile land, no one of Abraham's prac- tical sense would leave it at tlie suggestion of a com- mon dream, or the uncertain whisperings of the night wind, to go to an unknown country. No mythical voice or nebulous appearance would root him out and send him off among strangers. He was a num of property and of large practical sense ; by birth and temperament a conservative, and his belongings re- quired careful guarding. The voice which spoke to him at Ur spoke again at Haran after the death of his father Terali, in such explicit terms that he left his kindred, passed through Canaan and came to Sichem, or Sychar, unto the plain or oak of Moreh, where he builded an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. Mark the Divine Name here used — Jehovah or Jahveh. Thence he removed to the east of Bethel, builded another altar, and called upon Jahveh (Gen. 12 : 1-8). In these eight verses Jahveh occurs six times. All admit that Abraham was a Semite, a strong monotheist, who had long dwelt among poly- theists ; yet how account for this building of altars to Jahveh and worship of Him, unless he was assured that he was doing right ? This Divine epithet was not the one familiar to his youth ; he had not the 64 ABRAHAM IN PALESTINE. guidance of a written standard or revelation ; if a polytlieist, he could nut have evolved it from his inner self ; the narrative is clearly ancient and credible, so that the rational explanation of Abraham's conduct on his migration, altar-building, and worship of Jahveh, is that he was thus doing the behests of Deity, who had unmistakably manifested His will to him, and that He would be his God forever. Thus began his authenticated Bible. He had taken this new departure, not as an adven- turer or fortune-hunter, but in obedience to what he believed to be the voice of God, and, from the faith of his fathers and according to his own knowledge, was justified in so believing. Mark the words, '' Unto thy seed will I give this land" — not an immediate pos- session for himself, but unto his seed was this charter- right given (ver. 7). Though we are not told pre- cisely how the Divine manifestation occurred, it was by no means an impossible conception to one who had heard of Jahveh talking with Adam, to Cain and Abel, and to Noah, being acquainted with the original Chaldean legends. The twelve centuries perhaps which had passed since the Deluge made its traditions not very ancient history to one who listed in the full bloom of Accadian poetry. As Noah had built an altar and kings had erected temples to El and Sar-ili, it was quite in order for Abraham to build an altar in obedience to the speaking voice. It is what other chiefs on the Jordan or the Euphrates would have done ; what Nimrod and Sargon I. actually did. In fact, the building of an altar to Jahveh became habit- ual with Abraham in every new place where he made PERSONAL INGIDENTS. 05 his home ; it was habitual with Jacob and hiter de- scendants. At every important step of their career tliey prepared for sacrifice to the covenant God of their fathers, the God of blessing and enlarg-ement, who was at once a Power, a Promise, and a Person, never a '' confused nebula" to them. Indeed, when Israel had no appointed liturgy, their theology was clearly expressed. Pefore Moses and any Hebrew Scriptures tlie sacred history of the world was known to them. Whatever may come of Penta- teuchal analysis and redactions of its text, the calling of the chosen man and God's covenant with him can- not be exscinded. To Adam was one revelation of Deity, to Seth perhaps another, to Noah a third, while to Abraham was the covenant which prepared for the unfolding of God's plan in the Redemption of the world ; it was a Revelation not only to Hebrews but to all mankind. So at every removal of his tent a new altar, now at Bethel, now at Hebron, now at Beersheba, was l:>uilt, and sacrifice offered thereon, in acknowledgment of duty and a reminder of covenant. The sojourn was never too short for a prayer, nor the place unlit for a sacrifice. In Palestine, the altar and its sacrifice, at the oak of Moreh and the Well of the Oath, certified to the God of that land in distinction from all others, and that He had given it to Abraham. It was in a sense the Divine manifesto to the people of that country that Jahveli possessed it, and that He had bestowed its title-deed upon Abraham and those who worshipped the Lord. This was the idea dis- closed at every altar and sacrifice to Jaliveh in Canaan. In after times they suggest a similar thought. The 66 ABRAHAM IiV PALESTINE. many sacred places and altars of Israel are for a pur- pose, not a fantasy. They dot the whole compass of Hebrew history and cannot be obliterated. There God meets man in covenant. Luz -Bethel was the place of sacred vision to Jacob, where he saw the celestial staircase or ladder reachino^ from earth to heaven, with the angels of God ascend- ing and descending on it ; angels of whom he had heard his grandfather speak, when narrating the build- ing of an altar there. Here he now enters into cove- nant and vows a vow with God, that if He will pros- per him in his way and restore him to his father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be his God ; the stone which he sets up shall be for a sacred pillar, and he will consecrate a tenth of all his gains to Divine service. It was a covenant vvith God for his preser- vation and restoration. He was a flying man endea- voring to secure the after-possession of what he had left, that Israel might become a blessing to the nations. Jacob then covenanted for more than he understood. That pillar was a precious memorial, and that j)lace became a famous sanctuary in Palestine. The God of Bethel was Supreme for Jew and Gentile. There Abraham had probably sacrificed a lamb when he called upon Jahveh ; but Jacob had only oil which he carried with him for food, and of that he pours upon the pillar as an offering to God. The narrative implies that it was favorably accepted (Gen. 28 : 10-22 ; 35 : 6-15). Here in after years the wanderer returned ; he had become a man of substance ; renewed his vow to God ; received enlargement of God's promise, the change of his name to Israel, and heirship of the land rERSONAL INCIDENTS. C7 fi^iven to Abraham and Isaac was transferred to liiin- self and to Jiis wed. Esan, iHliinael, and other kins- men had no share or title in it. Betliel was lield in great veneration by the TTel)rews as tlieir okiest sanctuary, given to them by the God of the whole earth ; the place of renewed covenant with Jahveh and of His manifestations to their fathers. It can no more be exscinded from their history than its altar or pillar memorial can be etherialized by modern fancies. Renan suggests that an old Canaanite sanc- tuary was there, which was a graduated pyrann'd like an Assyrian temple (p. 210). There, too, Jeroboam set np his calf-worship, which long continued in oppo- sition to Jerusalem, till the Assyrians carried Israel into captivity. But that could not change its original character, nor prove that its Jahveh- worship did not date from the remotest antiquity. There Jacob had his visions of God, and set up his pillar-altar in re- membrance of them. There and at Shechem Abra- ham entered into covenant with Jahveh for his poster- ity and for the nations that would accept it ; a cove- nant which Ruth, the Moabitess, accepted when she adopted the God of Israel as her God (Ruth 1 : 10). Were it possible for criticism to redact the entire Pen- tateuch to " the covenant there made with Abraham and renewed there with Jacob, and again with Moses at Sinai," it would endure as long as the stones of Luz ; for there Jahveh demonstrated His faithfulness. He was at once the God of all Palestine and of man- kind, thus seeking to save them. Yet in Canaan and out of it, man himself must be faithful to his part of the covenant or be rejected by 68 ABRAHAM IH PALESTINE. his Creator. The most ancient sanctuary cannot save him ; desecrated Bethel became Beth-aven, the house of nothingness, or idols, as the prophet Hosea calls it ; while Amos warns the people ''not to seek Bethel, nor enter Gilgal, nor pass on to Beersheba ; for the one shall be captured, and the other come to nought" (Amos 5:5; Hosea 4 : 15 ; 9 : 15 ; 10 : 5, 8). It is not even mentioned in the New Testament, and is now a mean village with few inhabitants. Ishmaelite Arabians were more loyal to the God of their illus- trious progenitor, for they long continued to offer the firstlings of their flock and of camels to Plim who had made them a nation in the land of their choice. The Shechem of Abraham lay about six miles south- east of the Samaria of Omri, between Mounts Ebal and Gerizim, on the way from Galilee to Jerusalem. It was the place of the patriarch's first stay in Canaan, and where he built the first altar to Jahveh in Pales- tine. It was the place where Jacob, on his return from Padan-aram, erected an altar on the land which he bought of the Shechemites, and which he called El-Elohe-Israel ; not only the God of Abraham as heretofore, but since the vision at Peniel and his change of name to Israel, Jahveh was to be known as his God also and of his sons, God the God of Israel (Gen. 33 : 18-20). It was the place to which Joshua brought delivered Israelites, with the women and children, and the strangers that were among them, to whom was rehearsed all the law as commanded by Moses, and there " upon an altar of whole stones they offered burnt-offerings unto Jahveh, and sacrificed peace-offerings (Josh. 8 : 30-35). And he w^rote PERSONAL INCIDENTS. 69 tlicre upon the stones a copy of the Law of Moses in the presence of Israel and of the strangers among them ; those stran^rcrs were not Israehtes, but were now " natnrahzed" and incorporated with the tribes. For the local God was also the God of nations. Ob- serve that some at least in Israel could tlien read and Avrite and engrave in stone ; a copy of the Law was written or graven' in stone ; written at that time and published to Israel for preservation. It is a fact of history of a character not easily interpolated, and it was received by all later Hebrews. It w^as in the vale of Shechem, where Jacob dug that well whicli was used by many generations, and which was rendered forever famous by the memorable dis- course of our Lord with the Samaritan woman : " True worshippers of the Father must worship Him in spirit and in truth ; not in Samaria alone, nor yet at Jerusalem ; for such the Father seeketh to be His worshippers" (John 4 : 21-24). As the springtide streams fertihzed the vale of Shechem, so the strangers among Israel in the days of Joshua and believing Sa- maritans in the days of our Lord were alike blessed by the Law of the Covenant and the grace of the Gospel. There, too, all Israel were assembled for sacrifice, and to hear the farewell address of Joshua, who, like Washington, gave them his last advice. He recounted their early history, their deliverance from Egypt, from the perils of the wilderness, and their peaceful settlement in Canaan — but not by their own sword, nor their own bow. Then he told them how they might continue to enjoy their present blessings — viz., by serving Jehovah in sincerity and truth ; by loyalty 70 ABRAHAM IN PALESTINE. to tlie Divine covenant. This tliej renewed and rati- tied by pnblic acclamation, and by setting up a me- morial of it in Sliechem. Joshua wrote the words thereof in the book of tlie Law of God, and set up a great stone there under an oak that was by the sanc- tuary (Josh. 24 : 1-27). Dean Stanley says : '' This oak remained for many centuries the object of national reverence, and the sanctity of the place has continued to this day." AVe cannot evade the force of such ancient memorials, testifying at once of God and His covenant with Abraham and Israel, and of the pub- lic acceptance of it by the people in solemn as- sembly. Moreover, the covenant privilege was available to all who would accept and keep it, as witness the strangers then in Israel. It is also ilhistrated in the case of Justin Martyr, who was born at Sliechem, now Nablus, of Greek parents, early in our second century. Israel had failed in duty to God ; the temple and holy places were defiled and possessed by strangers ; among whom were Justin's parents. He was born and edu- cated a pagan ; was in the pursuit of truth converted to Christianity ; but he retained his philosopher's cloak, diligently studied the holy Scriptures, wrote able de- fences of Christianity, and sealed his testimony to its truth by suffering martyrdom. It was Japlieth super- seding Jacol) in spiritual privileges. Probably the first Bible parable was spoken at old Sliechem— the trees would appoint a king over them ; but tliey sought in vain among the olives, and the figs, and the vines, for neither would leave its fatness, its sweetness, nor its cheering juice. Then they besought PERSONAL INCIDENTS. 71 the bramble to reig'ii over tliem. And tlie l)raiiil)lo deinaiKled of the trees instant submission and obedi- ence nnder pain of destruction. Thus Jotham fore- tohl tlie ruin of tliose who sought Abimelech to be their king ; he at first reigned well, then caused the death of many, till a wonian broke his skull (his brain- pan, so Coverdale) with a piece of her millstone with which she ground her morning meal (Judges 9 : 7-53). If Abimelech could reprove both Abraham and Isaac for duplicity through fear of losing their wives, and if Jacob overreached his brother Esau, yet their standard of morality in general w^as high for those times, of which the unfortunate incident in the matter of Dinah at Shechem is a striking illustration. The conduct of Jacob at that juncture disclosed his pru- dence and his fair dealing, while the pride and passion of Simeon and Levi incited them to avenge the wrong done to their only sister, a very queen to them. If it suggests little enthusiasm for Shechemites, it shows a high regard for virtue and chastity. The brothers felt that nothing could excuse the treatment by Shech- em of a noble lady who was visiting the daughters of the place, and however clear or cloudy his conduct might appear to others, to them it was an awful breach of good neighborhood, which not even a stipulated truce and conformity to their religious ritual should condone. Gen. 34: : 20-25 suggest a treaty. Their grandfather had earnestly pleaded for sinners, and Moses enacted how certain offences might be atoned, but these brothers decided the case before them, in which their deepest feelings were enlisted. They visited upon the offender the penalty of death. TZ ABRAHAM IN PALESTINE. and executed it under aggravated circumstances. It was probable that such otiences against chastity would not often occur ; with such brothers as fathers and husbands there was ample security for women. But among Hebrews generally the regard for human life was more sacred than among most nations. They are not known to have practised infanticide, when child victims in sacrifice were frequent among their neigh- bors. The exposal of infants was common in Sparta, and was approved even by Plato in his ideal Repub- lic ; it was practised more or less extensively from Home to China. Tlie Greek Helen and the captive Briseis of Troy, taken from Achilles by Agamemnon, illustrate for Aryans the practice of Philistines with Samson. His wedding guests even sought to w^in the prize for solving his riddle by tJireatening to hum down the house of his bride and father-in-law, if she did not persuade her husband to tell the riddle ! In honor and fairness they had lost by being unable of them- selves to explain it ; yet so low was their ethical stand- ard that they sought to find the secret by ^' ploughing with his heifer," and to threaten personal vengeance upon the bride if she did not discover to them the de- sired answer. Moreover, wdiile Samson was absent in slaying the thirty Philistines for the garments he wanted to pay his forfeit, his bride was given to the chief groomsman ! Here is free love and free mar- riage which led to a double tragedy ; the perfidious bride and her father were burned alive by her people for the revenges of Samson, and he avenged himself by a huge slaughter of them. Compare Achilles wit- nessing the defeat of the Greeks, as sung by Homer, PERSONAL INCIDENTS. 73 because of the seizure of his Briscis ("Iliad," Book L), " Samson," ns trulj' us Achilles, " quitted himself like Samson, And heroically finished a life heroic." Now if conscience teacliing righteousness is hered- itar}^ or the development of nature, how came the Hebrews, in " an outlandish corner of the world," to excel even the so-called classic nations ? Aryan Plato would deprive young children of parental care, and his ideas of women and marriage fall far below the standard of Jacob's sons twelve hundred years before his era. They would hazard the prospect of trade, comity, life itself, in a land wherein they were but sojourners, rather than condone the wrong done to Sister Dinah. Comparing the morality of these brothers in that far-off age with the morality of en- lightened Komans under the Empire, we may call that of the brothers very much superior. True, they gave vent to an outburst of righteous indignation and cruel punishment of Hamor, but it was evoked by a dishonor to their sister, which was oppugnant to their every sense of brotherhood and of manhood. The motives which protnpted that punishment of an un- pardonable wrong cannot be condenmed. But in the treatment of slaves by Roman masters, what do we see ? This — viz. : If a slave poured a little too much water in the wine at dinner, his arm would be broken as a punishment. If he let fall a goblet, he would be thrown into the fish-pond as food for its rapacious lam- preys. Indeed, did not senators and emperors glut themselves in the blood of the shiin, so that it ran in 4 74 ABRAHAM IN PALESTINE. the streets almost up to the liorses' bridles ! Who proscribed and killed the famous Cicero ? Then, what shall we say of those Roman ladies who much enjoyed the sight of gladiators slaughtering one another ; who could not look at the goddess of chastity without a blush for their own impurities ! No, the passage of those eighteen centuries developed little improvement in the morals of mankind, and the human conscience was no safer guide to the Emperor Augustus than to Simeon and Levi. Illustrations and proofs of this state- ment may be found in abundance in Juvenal, in Sen- eca, in Suetonius, in Tacitus, etc. For misplacement of a brooch on a lady's dress, or ill-arrangement of her hair, the enraged matron would order the offending slave to be lashed, or perhaps crucified ! This cer- tainly equalled the treatment of the young Joseph by liis half-brothers. His dreams had offended them, and the favoritism of their father aggravated the offence. Hence they plotted against him and sold him into Egypt. " They saw the anguish of his soul when he besought them, yet they would not hear." But when they stood before him as the viceroy of Pharaoh, their conscience smote them for the wrong they had done him, and therefore that evil was come upon them (Gen. 42 : 21-24). We have no record that the cruel- ties practised by later Romans caused them any com- punctions of conscience. So whose ideas of God were the more nebulous, and whose rule of conduct was the more confused ? What evidence have we that the Beni-Israel had but mythical notions of Providence ? Nay, down to their enslavement in Egypt, God to them was the Powerful One, the Ruler and Overruler, PERSONAL INCIDENTS. <5 the Avcn^-er and l]eneFiictor of men. IIo was to he ohej^ed, trusted, cand loved. lie was their Teaclier and Guide, now of Ahrahani and Ii?aac, now of Jacoh and floseph, througli the vicissitudes of hfe and on the bed of death. The details of the purcliase of that burial-field from the sons of Heth, its boundaries, and the weighing of a precise sum of money for it, possibly also the making of a deed of transfer, seem to suggest that Abraham, with others concerned, understood reading and writ- ing. He may easily have learned this at Ur, which was a literary as well as religious centre, or in Egypt, where even boys were then taught to read and write, which was in fact the way for them to rise to honor and position. The probability is that the chosen man had been thus instructed ; that he could record the Divine communications made him, and the important transactions touching a large household, which had three hundred to four hundred trained servants fit to bear arms. His great-grandson Judah, under less favorable conditions, wore a signet ring with certain letters graven upon it. And the necessities of a growing tribe called for various skill and handicraft. They had teachers among them as well as shepherds. Early calls to the shop and the factor}^ did not prevent the 3^oung Hebrew from gaining a fair education for those days. The long hours of a long summer favored study and converse. Something there surely was about their methods which enabled them to "occupy the foremost place in the In'story of humanity." They were fathers in religion, in domestic culture, in lofty manhood. 76 ABRAHAM IN PALESTINE. In the departing benediction of Israel we see the clearest conception of Deity — " God, before whom mj fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God who fed me all mj life long nnto this day, the Angel who redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads !" And to Joseph he said, " The God of thy father shall help thee, and tlie Almighty shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth un- der, blessings oifood and of hirth . . . these shall be abmidant upon Joseph who was separated from his brethren (Gen. 48 : 15, 16 ; 49 : 25, 26). Never have the power, the providence, the faithfulness of God been more emphatically expressed as the belief of a dying man. Compare it with the words of Socrates before drinking the fatal cup. He had taught truly, indeed, that the soul of man partakes of the Divine ; that he believed there are gods, in a far higher sense than his accusers believed, and to God he committed his cause. He w^ould follow the intimations of the Divine wnll ; for it certainly appeared that his soul was immortal, that arrayed in her proper jewels, tem- perance, justice, courage, nobility, and truth, she would dwell forever in the glorious mansions reserved for the elect. '' Crito" — and these were the philosopher's last words — " I owe a cock to Asclepius ; will you remem- ber to pay the dc])t ?'' We may call Socrates a j)rophet and mart^^r of truth, who did much to correct false notions about the gods of Olympus, and to lead his countrymen to right ideas of the Divine character, yet he fell into the popular superstition by asking for a cock to be sacrificed to the god of health. It marks the difference between the theology of Jacob and PERSONAL INCIDENTS. 77 Japlietli. Socrates and Plato would save men by knowledge and virtue, truth and nobility, yet allowed them a community of women, so that the father did not know his own child, and children should be brought up in common as wards of the State. Where, then, is the conscious nobility of man ? Many, indeed, practised better than they taught, for they also taught that virtue comes by a gift of Heaven to those who possess it. See this in Plato's '^ Meno." Such being the moral theology of tliose limes, is it anything better than poetical rhapsody to sing the praises of Greeks as being superior to Hebrews, in all that makes for the nobilit}^ of manhood ? Nay, is not the reverse of this the fact ? Do we not find the lofti- est nobility of character, the highest truth and knowl- edge, the brav^est courage, the most reasonable temper- ance, the most righteous justice, and the sweetest illus- trations of domestic life among the Hebrews in all the two thousand years b.c. of any nation under heaven ? True, they were not all of such exalted natures, and they attained to only a low measure of artistic and scientific culture. But compare the three Hebrew patriarchs, Moses and the prophets with those who originated or moulded other nations ; with Menes and Mahomet, Zoroaster and Lycurgus, Romulus and Numa, Buddha and Confucius ; or take the whole col- lection in "Plutarch's Lives," and say wherein any Hebrew fell short in duty, patriotism, and noblest man- hood as compared with persons in a similar position in those nationalities ? In legislation and leadership, in reformatory measures, in martial and moral heroism Jacob has ever been the peer of Japheth. Abraham, 78 ABRAHAM IN PALESTINE, Moses, and Samuel were men of robust character, physically and mentally cajjable, activ^e, and intelli- gent, with no mythical uncertainty or philosophical absurdity about them, and altogether befitted the dig- nity of their position. No names of founders read in the brick inscriptions have more reliable evidence of their personality and work. What, indeed, do we really know of Nimrod ? Of Chedorlaomer, "" the Ravager of the West," we are assured that Abraham cut short his career, so that he drops out of the page of history. Even those who were semi -deified at an early day less impressed their age than the victor of Dan and Ilobah (Gen. 14). ISTor does primitive his- tory give us a more unicjue character and personality than his. Witness his intercession for Sodom and Gomorrah. Other men would have furthered their destruction, in order the sooner to possess their lands ; but Abraham, who had been promised those lands, prayed for the preservation of the men who occupied them. Instead of portraying their iniquity in dark colors, he set an eternal example of humanity and beneficence. Strong in his faith that God would fulfil His promise to him, he yet reminds Jahveh that the Judge of all the earth will do right, which was an indi- rect way of pleading for mercy. The friend of God was also the friend of man. Where others were con- cerned he ever showed generosity, conscience, upright- ness, the true nobility of manhood. Witness his deal- ing with Lot wlien he chose the rich valley of the Jordan, and then rescued him from the hands of Chedorlaomer, though not having a quarter as many men as the enemy. The brilliant generalship which PERSONAL INCIDENTS. 79 accoinplislied the defeat of the allied invaders was fol- lowed by refusal to take even a tent thread or a sandal - strap for his pains and risk. Consider his hospitality to stranger-guests ; his purchase of the field and cave of Machpelah as a family burying-ground, paying for it a liberal price, though the whole country had been given him by Heaven's deed of transfer ; thus setting an example to our William Penn in his dealings with the Indians. Witness his grief at Sarah's treatment of Ilagar and Ishmael, and how he atoned for the con- duct of the proud mother of Isaac. Read his cove- nant of fealty and friendship with Abimelech at Beer- sheba, that ancient '* well of the oath," and now called the " well of the lion." Witness his provision for the members of his family before sending them away from the inheritance of Isaac ; thus executing and adminis- terino' durino^ his own lifetime a will which niio^ht otherwise have caused much discord after his death. These are illustrations of an upright and roundly de- veloped character, the parental part so natural and touching that both Ishmael and Isaac united in doing honor at his burial in the purchased field of Ephron the Ilittite (Gen. 25 : 9). For it was the character of the deceased more than the custom of the times which then brought together those half-brothers. And modern Arabs, descendants of the elder son, still cher- ish and revere the memory of Abraham, while his tomb at Hebron is carefully guarded by the Turk. Not for many centuries, till in 1863 the Prince of Wales visited the Holy Land, was a Christian per- mitted to enter that sacred enclosure. And now fifteen thousand Mahomedans dwell near it. 80 ABRAHAM IN PALESTINE. This chapter may properly coneliule with a remark touching the purpose to be seen in testing the faith and character of the Patriarch in the call to sacrifice Isaac. Every father will admit that it was a terrible trial of faith and character. Hopes long deferred had been just now realized, and these were to be blasted ! the father being then one hundred and fifteen to one hundred and twenty years old. He had experienced many providences in the course of his long life, but none like this, none which prepared for it. I venture to say that Abraham of his own volition would not have proposed that ordeal. It was not in his heart to sacrifice his son of promise. Everywhere before this possible tragedy we have found him a life-saving man, a grand intercessor, even a little double in his protecting efforts. It was not in the nature of things that his character should have become suddenly in- verted and changed. No matter what sacrificial cus- toms may have prevailed in old Ur of the Chaldees, which he had long left, or in Canaan where he dwelt the internal evidence of the narrative does not admit the thought that Abraham of his own volition pro- posed to sacrifice his son Isaac. Whatever may have been done in Egypt, we have no historic examples of such sacrifices in Palestine in the nineteenth century B.C. 2 Kings 3 : 27 is authority that Mesha, King of Moab, sacrificed his son and the heir to his throne ; but that was a thousand years after the trial of Abra- ham, when human victims were offered by Carthagin- ians and legendary Greeks. So this trial of Abraham was a method of indicating Heaven^ s lyvohibition of offering human victims in sacrifice, and the manifesto PERSONAL INCIDENTS. 81 was spread abroad. Yery significant is it tliat the Angel of Jeliov^ali called a second time out of heaven, '' Abraham, Abraham !" and repeated the injunction to withhold his son Isaac from sacrifice. Jlis seed should possess the gate of his enemies, and be a blessing to all nations (Gen. 22 : 11, 12, 15-18). The provided ram, caught in a thicket by his horns, emphasizes that human beings were not, while certain animals were, acceptable sacrifices to the Lord. 4* IV. ISEAEL IN EGYPT ; AT SINAI ; THE LAW. Eecent discoveries show pretty clearly that the Israelites were in Egypt for several hundred years. Abraham himself was there for a brief period. Joseph went there as a slave, and during a famine which pre- vailed was gladdened to find his lost brethren and to hear tidings of his father, whom he had not seen for many years. This led to the removal thither of all his kindred, and they may have been among those who sustained Apepi in his efforts to establish mono- theism. The defeat of that monarch by the King of Thebes accounts for the Bible phrase ''till another king arose who knew not eloseph." He probably was Ka-Sekenen, or his successor, who drove out the Ilyksos dynasty and reseated that of Thebes, according to Sayce and Mariette in 1703 b.c. Whoever those Hyksos were, llittites, Plia3nicians, or Arabians, they appear to have been friendly to He- brews flying from a widespread famine ; supplied their wants, and gave them suitable lands for pastur- ing their flocks. Herdsmen ranked low in Egyptian caste and estimation. If those Hebrew shepherds were also the friends of the hated Hyksos, they would be regarded with deeper detestation. Add the fact of their being monotheists who would not adopt the ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 83 Tliebaii polytlieism, and we may see liow unfavorable became the position of Israelites in Egypt under the eighteenth dynasty. There appears no sufficient reason for supposing the Hebrew shepherds migrated to the Delta in dilTerent bands and at different intervals ; while the govern- mental state of affairs certainly accords with their going down to Egypt during the Ilyksos supremacy, and then being compelled by Theban lords to do ser- vile labor on large private estates and on the public works. The circumstances all fit in with the Bible account of the descent to and humiliation in Egypt. At first the Beni-Israel were quite contented in that land of good pasture for their flocks, " with the bread and onions they ate," and with the position accorded to them. But when their religion came to be under- stood as 023pugnant to that of their masters, and many sharp angles of tribal differences presented as many disagreeable resemblances to the hated Hyksos wrho were but recently expelled, then Israel felt the weight of the yoke of the oppressor. They were " required to do a large amount of work for a small amount of pay ;" to make brick and gather the straw needed for baking them ; building storehouses and treasure-cities at little cost to the Egyptians. That was work of no small value to their masters, however much some try to minimize it. Indeed, the ruins of those cities are among the most precious of modern discoveries in the Nileland, and though not yet yielding names of the workmen, they have yielded data of great historical value, enabling us to determine when they were built and the names of reignin«: Pharaohs. Pictures of re- 84 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. lays of laborers may yet be found which will show the faces of the Hebrew slave and of the Egyptian task- master lasli in hand. Bricks made with straw and without straw have been discovered at Pithoni of an early age. Clearly, escape from that house of bondage and of cruelty was no easy matter for the Israelites. They had lived on good terms with the Hittites of Hebron and with the Hittites near Memphis and Zoan, obtaining favorable position and lands among people of kindred ideas with themselves. Zoan was built seven years after Hebron (Num. 13 : 22), and may have been a chief city of the Hyksos when dominant in Egypt. The presumption is they never " became Egyptian- ized," or why should they be expelled by the natives ? The account says that Apepi, with his Hyksos, was finally worsted in the revolution effected by Ea-Seko- nen of Thebes, and the domination of Memphian monotheism thus ceased, after a hard struggle, which Apepi provoked (" Eecords of the Past," vol. viii., p. 3 ; " God Enthroned in Redemption," pp. 58-00). Plow long these foreigners dwelt in Egypt is not cer- tain, but they resided there for a considerable period, and after their ejection the condition of the Israelites became oppressive. Soon thoughts arose among them how to effect their escape from what was now a state of vassalage. The country about Goshen allotted to them supplied the most they knew of Egypt, and the new rulers did not mean they should know much more of it. Brugsch says the men of Upper and Lower Egypt spoke a dif- ferent dialect. The Zoan connection with Hebron was SINAI AND THE LAW. 85 a ground of hostility. Yet Rcnaii says that some of the Ilyksos remained to aid Israel in effecting their escape ; who at once increased tlieir numbers and fought their battles. With marked inconsistency, ho also says that " the Hebrews had become useless to Egypt !" This seems to have been stated in order to contradict the Bible account that they were delivered from that " land of bondage with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm." Surely if they were " useless to Egypt," they would not need Hyksos aid to escape from a people who did not want them ? And if they were " allowed to make frequent pilgrimages to Sinai," there was all the less need of such assistance or of Divine interposition. Yet Renan says the '' govern- ment had no desire to keep by force a band of for- eigners whose presence, to say the least, had become useless ; who were a small unarmed set, whose escape was hardly missed ; that owing to dynastic weakness, fugitives who got beyond the Bitter Lakes were cer- tain of their freedom !" (" History of the People of Israel," pp. 132-'I0.) This way of writing " how things might have been," if applied to the history of our Southern States, would represent them as disgusted with their slaves and quite willing to be rid of the nuisance. Y^et it is precisely how Renan represents that the Beni-Israel were regarded in Egypt. They were useless, and they were allow^ed to make frequent pilgrimages to Sinai. Routed Hyksos or Hittites were permitted to remain with them to increase their num- bers and to light their battles ! Such history will not do for intelligent Americans who remember the late war for our Union. 86 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. And one motive for tliis misrepresentation seems to be to get rid of Moses, or to reduce his work to the least possible value. A people not wanted, and who were privileged " to make frequent visits to Sinai, the ancient abode of their god," would certainly not need a great Deliverer and Legislator to conduct them via the Bitter Lakes to freedom and nationality ! Nor would they need the aid of God's outstretched arm. But when our rhapsodist gets that " useless" people among the mountains of Sinai, beset by hostile Amale- kites, by seducing Midianites, by alarmed Moabites, he rehabilitates " Moses, who must be considered as almost an Egyptian, whose real part was much more, it would appear, that of a chief after the fashion of Abdel-Kader than that of a prophet like Mahomet" (p. 185). However that may be, Moses was no less a chief than a legislator and organizer, whose life-work is woven into the life and history of Israel, whose en- tire literature identifies him as the man who, by Jah- veh's direction, '^ brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." It is a char- acterization which must have been original at the time, and it would not be applied from the era of Solomon to Josiah. Some reduce the residence of Israel in that house of bondage to about a century ; Schrader and others make it at least two centuries ; and it may be much longer. The one-century idea is absurdly too short, especially when it is affirmed that the two Ilittite capi- tals, Hebron and Zoan, had large influence upon Israel during their sojourn in the Nileland. It was a cen- tury of revolution and migration. Jacob himself left SINAI AND THE LA W. 87 the region of Hebron and dwelt in Goshen among the Ilittites there, if there were any remaining. But in the course of a century the Ilittites and Ilyksos were expelled ; a new dynasty reigned over the Delta and all Egypt ; a new king arose w^ho knew not Joseph, and had no sympathy with his people or their fortunes. How, during such a revolutionary and transitional period, there could have been any great influence of Hittites upon Israel is not clear ; if there were, and it had been known to the Tlieban Dynasty, the snccessors of Ra-Sekenen would have cut it short as soon as possible. Still those Hyksos may have ren- dered the Hebrews more steadfast to the old mono- theism during their sojourn, and in other ways have strengthened them in preserving their religious differ- ences. But we can see that a century does not cover the period between Jacob's descent and the Exodus. Professor Maspero says : '^ Hebron no doubt was ac- quainted with the Hittite writing of Zoan, adopted it, and possessed writings from a remote date. Hence perhaps Genesis 14. The Ketas were familiar with handwriting about 1300 b.c." ('* History," pp. 22-1, 225). If, then, those Ketas or Hyksos had great influence upon the Hebrews of Hebron and Southern Palestine, and also in Zoan, why should not that influence include writing ? It was not regarded as a sacred art, and so kept as an exclusive possession by Hebronites. Rather it is another reason for sup- posing that the Hebrews of the Exodus understood writing, at least the well-to-do among them ; and their sub-ofticers were Hebrews, Shoterim, writers who kept their own records and reports (Ex. 5 : 14, 15, 19). 88 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. Since some formed the opinion that IsraeFs sojourn in Egypt was about two centuries, facts have come to light which indicate a much longer abode there. Rameses II., of the nineteenth dynasty, was the Pha- raoh of the Opi^ression, the builder of the treasure- cities Pithom and Pameses ; and under his successor Menephtah occurred the deliverance by Moses, about 1350 B.C. Add to this date the four hundred years from Jacob's descent to Egypt, and it puts us in the era of xVpepi and Ra-Sekenen, making all consistent with the Bible account, with the state of art, culture, and commerce, and bringing the date of the Exodus to the close of the Augustan era of the Egyptian Em- pire. Thus the four hundred years of bondage (Gen. 15 : 13 ; Ex. 12 : 40 ; xicts 7 : 0) find full confirma- tion, and Penan's "about a century" is clearly too short. It also places the wonders of Egypt and of the wil- derness by Moses and the exploits of Joshua in Canaan in the full splendor of a civilized age, wdien Shalman- eser I. was beginning to make Assyria famous, wlien Phoenicians and Ilittites, Babylonians and Egyptians were writing histories which have just now come to light, and when, says a living writer, " it would have been historical madness to associate such extraordinary occurrences with such times, unless there had existed a full knowledge that they w^ere real, and not fabulous events. From the time of Pameses the Great down to the Christian era, the mythological period of the East was closed ; literature and art and historical rec- ords were as autlientic as in the era of Augustus." This clears away " the mists of a remote antiquity," SINAI AND THE LAW. 89 and brings Moses, Joshua, and the Judges nearer to the brilliant age of David and Solomon. It sets Abra- ham where he seems historically to belong, dying in B.C. about 1833 ; naturally Jacob may hav^e gone to Egypt a century later ; after an enslavement of four liundrcd years his children were delivered in about 1350 B.C. Renouf makes the Exodus to have occurred in 1310 B.C.— Mr. R. S. Poole thinks about 1300 b.c. It was an era of civilization, when some Israelites had learned to read and write ; had skill to make all the furniture of the tabernacle, and to dye the brilliant colors of its curtains and hangings '' violet blue and red purple;" when cities like K.irj'a.th- sepher were celebrated for its hooks / and when imposture in na- tional literature and history could be as readily de- tected as in the age of the Antonines. The researches of modern scholars and explorers shed the light of day upon the night of Egypt. It is remarkable that when the Old Testament was vigorousl}^ attacked by histori- cal and scientific rhapsodists, those long buried records should be brought to light wdiich illustrate the very questions they had darkened by over-much criticism. Other '' finds" are expected in Palestine, in old Tyre, Byblos, Gibul, Kerjath-sepher, from their literary deposits. But already we have enough discovered to mark the era of the Hyksos, the oppression of Kameses, and the Exodus under his son Menephtah. It allows of sufficient time for the increase of Jacob's family, so that they could cope in manly force and numbers with hostile Amalekites and other opponents ; showing what a loss they must have been to their former masters, and why they would force them to 90 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. return. Nor were tlie Beni-Israel the sort of men who in a century would shik to the condition of shives. In the wilderness they illustrated the spirit of their ancestors in courage and dash against their foes. Even before they reached the holy mount, Joshua with his chosen men routed Amalek and his people (Ex. 17 : 8-13). It recalls how Abraham suddenly extinguished Chedorlaomer and his allies, who had cap- tured Lot and his belongings (Gen. 11). Equipped with the arms of drowned Egyptians, they proved as apt scholars in the art of war as in brick-making and calf- worship. Reliable history represents yonng slaves in Egypt as sitting side by side with the children of their masters, and learning all that was taught to noble youth. It was the one way to rise to wealth and dis- tinction. See this in Brugsch's " History." We are too apt to compare the condition of Israel in Egypt with that of slaves in modern times. And the schools of "destructive criticism" find it to tally with their purpose of portraying the ignorance of Israel at the Exode, in order to insist upon the inability to write and to legislate for an enlightened and developed na- tion. They also ignore and try to eliminate the hand of God in the deliverance of Israel. Oehler happily says : " Even in the heathen aocounts of the departure from Egypt, by Manetho and Diodorus, it comes out undeniably that there was a great religious struggle. The plagues rise step by step until the killing of the first-born." The obstinate heart of Pharaoh was to be humbled and his pride subdued by those plagues (Exodus, chs. T-il). Two of them directly attack the local deities — viz., the sun as the symbol of Osiris, who SINAI AND THE LAW. 91 was then worsliipped as a god ; and the river Nile, for causing bountiful harvests, was regarded as a beneficent deity. J3oth were to feel the superior power of Jah- veh, who would be acknowledged in Egypt. The waters of the Nile were changed into a blood-red color, and its fish died therein ; an unparalleled darkness fell on the land for three days, which terribly awed the Egyptians. This was followed by the death of all the first-born, as was threatened by Moses, from the first- born of Pharaoh to the first-born of the maid servant and of all Egyptian animals, including those regarded as sacred. To mark the visitation as more emphati- cally that of Jahveh, the Israelites were exempt from these atfiictions ; for the Lord would receive honor from Pharaoh. They are specific and terror-striking evidences of Divine power such as no later wTiter would think of inventing, and which no contemporary writer would dare to afhrni if not true. The intelli- i^ence of that a^e of commercial dealino^s with other nations witnessed the humbling of the deities of Egypt by the God of Israel. It is like the Philistine Dagon falling prostrate and broken to pieces before the Ark in a later age. And the fame thereof went abroad. Such a record could not have been published during the reign of Solomon, for he had married an Egyptian princess ; nor under that of Kehoboam, for he was punished by Shishak, King of Egypt (1 Chron. 12) ; nor under Jeroboam, for he looked to Pharaoh for recognition in his new kingdom, and ever trembled on his usurped throne (1 Kings 11:17; 14 : 1-12). Isaiah, cli. 31, tells us of an Egyptian party in Jerusalem which would invoke the help of Pharauh against Assyria. It 92 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. assuredly would not provoke Egypt by the publication for the first time of a Book of Exodus, with its groan- ings of Israel for the cruelties endured in that land of bondage ! Every consideration of affairs in Palestine goes to show that the record of the life of Hebrews in Egypt and their deliverance from it must have been originally published before Samuel. During the regal period it was a literary impossibility, and the substance of the Pentateuch is incorporated with the national literature. Any resemblance between the religious rites of these two peoples must be referred to that early acquaint- ance. The deep impression made upon Israel by the serpent god and Ilathor calves, which Kenan claims to crop out whenever they could elude the pressure of the Puritan influence (p. 125), may be otherwise ex- plained — viz., by the healing efficacy once derived from looking at the serpent of brass at the Divine command, and by the royal influence which would hold on to its power by setting up calf shrines at old Dan and Bethel, in order to keep the people from re- turning to allegiance with the House of David, if they went to the temple worship at eJernsalem (1 Kings 12 : 2G-33). The making of a golden calf during the j^rotracted absence of Moses in the holy mount was a symbolism never reijeated by loyal Israelites ; a sym- bol of their true God it was originallj^ intended to be. Aaron built an altar before it, and made proclamation that on the morrow was a feast to the Lord (Ex. 32 : 6). As it would inevitably lead to apostasy from the worship of Jehovah, who signified His hot displeas- ure at the abomination, Moses reduced the calf to SmAl AND THE LAW. 03 powder, mixed that with water, and made tlie people drink it. Israel may liave become prepared in Egypt to ac- cept tlie appointment and ministry of a priestly class, separate from the people, and without a murmur to acknowledge the tribe of Levi, who, unlike the priests of Egypt, at fii'st had but small provision for their support ; no tribal lands in Palestine were assigned them. But such an order is not conceded then to ex- ist by those critics whom Renan follows. However, they claim that the " sacred bark of Egyptian temples suggested to Moses the Ark described in Exodus ;" but it could not suggest the details of its making, nor its symbolic cherubim, nor the rich curtains and furni- ture of the tabernacle. According to Professor Mas- pero, the temple of the Sphinx was bare of such orna- ment (" Egyptian Archaeology," pp. 63-105 ; " God Enthroned in Redemption," p. 49). We may there- fore grant some genius to Moses and some skill to his myriads of Israelites, whatever our views of Inspira- tion among them. There is, however, much which they did not learn in Egypt : they did not learn their theology. This had been revealed to Abraham and Jacob, and repeated to Moses. On Mount Sinai, which w^^^^jpar excellence^ the Mount of Jahveh (Ex. 19 ; Deut. 33 : 2 ; Ps. 68 ; 78 ; Hab. 3:3), tlie grand Olyinpus of Israel for forty years, the Deity was manifested in Unity as the Jahveh of the Law and of sacrifice. There was pro- claimed the Divine manifesto against all polytheism ; the long-known Sabl)ath was re-enacted to be conse- crated to God and His worship for all generations. 94 ISRAEL m EGYPT. Circumcision, wliicli was tlie rite of initiation into His covenant, had been practised since the promise to Abraham. The Passover celebrated a recent event. Autumnal feasts were yet to be establislied ; not for four hundred years had Israel gathered its own liar- vests on its own lands. Only lesser details of ritual and sacrificial accompaniments remained to be pro- vided. Still, the Hebrew liturgy at the era of the Exodus was very simple. It was little indebted for enrichment to the ritual of Egypt, though, of course, that was known to Israel ; and the practice of the patriarchs was better known. AVith them began a writ- ten Revelation from God — a revelation for the estab- lishment of a covenant between man and his Creator, which should prepare for the redemption of the world. That Revelation was now added to ; but instead of the forty-two Egyptian commands of obligation, Jah- veh, through Moses, gave only te7i laws for righteous living, later supplemented by certain ritual and cere- monial observances. Moreover, Egypt had much to say about the dead and return to a second life on earth, and she had a long book of rules how to behave in Amenti. Of all this Moses saj^s so little that some have doubted if he taught anything respecting a future life. Surely the rising again of Osiris cannot have been the origin of Moses being regarded as the prophet who was thus preparing the way for One to whom the people would readily hearken ? Indeed, the contrasts between the Mosaic and Egyptian ritual are more striking than the agreements. But even if some ideas and laws were thus l)orrovved, they were adapted to the people for SINAI AND TllhJ LA W. 95 wliose use tliey were enacted. The borrowing also makes for tlieir antiquity ; for the anti(]uity of the things borrowed, and of him wlio incorporated tliern into his system. Singularly inconsistent are they who urge this charge of borrowing ; for they also allege a late date for the things so borrowed ! Their hoot- straps break while trying to lift themselves by them. Hence some objectors admit an early date for the legis- lation of Moses, though they try to mininn'ze the law- giver. But there are so many important matters con- nected with the man and his work, as well as his age, as to make credible all related facts touching his leader- ship, his legislation, his being the personal agent of Jaliveh in doing for Israel all that is claimed in Ex- odus and some remarkable Psalms. Later additions to a ritual which at first was very simple do not mili- tate against, but rather prove an original ; for what was enough for a primitive people might easily be found inadequate for a developed and established nation in the temple of Solomon. A study of the positive enactments of Moses enables one to understand the additions made by David and his successor. Thus we are prepared for the work of Ilezekiah and Josiali, then for that of Ezra. Yet they all disclose a similar idea of the (iod they worshipped. Throughout the two thousand years of Hebrew history their monotheism is essentially the same, and equally obligatory fi-om first to last. Thus Abraham, '' Shall not the Judire of all the earth do rif^ht ?" does not largely dilfer from our Lord's saying to the Samaritan woman, '' The Father seeketh spiritual worshippers," nor from certain petitions in the Lord's Prayer. So 06 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. tlie real question is how far tlie ritual of one period, as compared with that of another, really tended to pro- mote the worship of God in spirit and in truth ? This assuredly may be affirmed of the Ten Laws and taber- nacle service of Sinai. It was adapted to the condition of Israel at that time, and it nurtured some of the noblest souls which have eyer glorified humanity. Miriam, Deborah and Hannah, Moses, Manoah and Boaz, severally illustrate lofty types of character. In the child Samuel, the young David, the boy-king Josiah, the youthful Jesus, are seen what the system did for domestic life. Its faith, its truth, its purity, its docility — so beautiful, sincere, and strong — are unsur- passed to-day ; but was it not equalled by the love which placed the infant Moses in that pitched basket on the Nile, and in that watchful sister's care who, with the wit born of affection, asked Pharaoh's daugh- ter if she might call a Hebrew nurse for the weeping babe ? It was thus secured a royal home and educa- tion with a mother's tenderness, and due instruction in the faith of that mother's God. This accounts for the learning and the character of Moses, who heard the groans of his people, and was being prepared to deliver them. Ill-advised as was his iirst attempt, the study of years and the Divine appearance in the bush sent him forth as the spokesman of Israel to Pharaoh, that he must let them go. At length, by the interposition of an Almighty hand, they went forth ; were pursued, and their pursuers were destroyed ; Israel was safe among the mountains of Sinai. The wonders wdnch effected this deliverance arc ob- jected to as being miraculous ; but they are scarcely SINAI AND THE LA W. 97 more so tliau the events which mark the entire conrse of IsraeL The exph^its of Joshua and the Judges arc very marvellous, as are certain acts of Samuel and other prophets. The era of Ahab is confessedly his- torical, having contemporary records in Assyria ; but it is only events affecting both countries which are re- lated of Israel in Assyrian inscriptions. Still if the events so related are to be believed because of such confirmation, why should local doings, which do not touch outsiders, be discredited because they too are not narrated by a distant annalist ? Nay, if the mat- ters common to Israel and another country are cor- rectly given in Israelitish annals, we may watli all the more reason believe those wdiich are local. Thus at Carmel we have the tragedy of Baal's followers and Elijah testing the superior power of Jahveli ; at Iloreb it was the same Divine power now rending the moun- tains, breaking to pieces the rocks, shaking the earth, sending forth fire, then heard in a mysterious voice speaking words of encouragement to Elijah, and bid- ding him to anoint Elisha as his successor, Ilazael to be King of Syria, and Jehu King of Israel (1 Kings ISth and 19tli). Now^ as we find these three regal names in contemporary history, we surely ought to accept the record of all the prophet did, even though unattested by those whom it did not concern. It is the rule of law. ^Ye may also accept similar accounts of wonders by Moses. At Sinai there is hardly more grandeur or majesty or voice than at Carmel and Iloreb. At each mountain Jahveh speaks to man. M. Renan's criticism here is unique, if not witty. Thus he changes the " unto" of Exodus 19 : 3 for 98 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. i7ito, and reads, '^ Moses went np into Elohim," so as to suggest that it was a cloud or mjtliical something, not a personal God. Is the reader not expected to look at the next clause of the verse, which says, " The LoKD called unto hhn out of the onountain^^ \ In the one case as in the other the Hebrew word may be ren- dered by the same in English, However, Renan does not suggest that we should read '' called into Moses." Why not ? The absurdity would be no greater, nor the irreverence. He interprets Exodus 3 : 18 to mean that the Egyptian Semites made frequent pilgrimages to Sinai, and there offered sacrifices ; for they believed their God resided there (" History of the People of Israel," vol. i., pp. 159-62). This is to mislead those readers who do not see that the narrative means a very different thing. J^ot as to a sanctuary had Moses fled thither, but to be out of Pharaoh's reach ; and when, after many years' abode in that region, he saw the burning bush, he was astonished, but curious to examine it. Then a Divine voice spoke to him. The whole chapter of Exodus 3 corrects Renan, espe- cially verses 5 to 10, jnaking known the God of his fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; also proving the weakness of the assumption tliat Israelites were wont, while held in bondage, to make pilgrimages to Sinai, and offer sacrifices to a local god ! Jahveli is not thus to be reduced to the character and position of a mere tribal Deity. Nor does it help Renan to say that it was perhaps at this time (after the giving of the law at Sinai) that " they circulated the pretended oracles of the God of Bethel, who had promised the ancestors of the nation SJNAI AND THK LA W. 00 to give tlieiu this laud. Siutli a promise from the god of a country was bestowal of it upon whom he wished" (p. 172). However, as he says that " writ- ing was not known in Israel till al)out the ninth cen- tury B.C.," it w^ould be proper to inform us how those ^' pretended oracles" had been preserved during those dreary centuries for opportune circulation among the people, and that well-known book of Exodus IT : 1-i. But his representation of " how^ things might have happened" contains no evidence that the fathers of the Israel of the Exodas were ever at I^ethel, or liad ever had that land promised them. LTncertain persons could not be sure of anything, not even of a vision seen when sacriiicing at an altar. Of similar character is his comment upon the song in Numbers 21 : 17, IS ; it " became the orii^^in of miraculous stories. The spring was discovered by means of a divining rod" (p. 175) ! But in Psalm 6S he allows " w^e possess a religious song which is the most singular composition in Hebrew literature. We eeem to hear the distant echo of the triumphal deity travelling across the desert. The style is a sign of its antiquity. In it Sinai fig- ures as the place of the highest theophany. The taber- nacle of God with men existed from that moment" (p. 177). Now if at J>ethel, at Sinai, at Jerusalem, Jahveh did thus manifest Himself to Abraham and Jacob, to Moses and David (1 Cliron. IG ; 2 Sam. 24), why attempt to minimize the oracles which declare it i — which other critics of the Pentateuch admit to be genuine, which Kenan himself admits to be of high antiquity, and which perfectly accord with the early religious sentiment and theology of the Hebrews. 100 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. It was evidenced by the Law of the Covenant at Sinai, and its supplemental details and exposition. Knowl- edge of that Law and Ritual often reappears during the era of the Judges ; it existed in the time of Sani- nel, of David, and of Solomon. King Amaziah, b.c. 838-809, acted according to the written law of Moses (2 Kings 14 : 6). Jehu in Samaria, b.c. 884 to 856, took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel (2 Kings 10 : 31), while in chapter 11 : 12 and 2 Chronicles 23 : 11 and 18 we find repeated mention of '' the testimony" and " law of Moses." This was two hundred and fifty years before the finding of a copy of the law under Josiah, b.c. 640-609 (2 Chron. 34 : 14-19). " Written in the law of Moses" is the reason assigned why a new king did not avenge the death of his father (2 Chron. 25 : 4). Moreover, the Prophet Elijah (b.c. 919-889) sent an epistle in writ- ing to Jehoram of Jerusalem, because he walked not as his father had done (2 Chron. 21 : 12-15). It shows the care of the prophet of the Northern King- dom for the observance of the Law by the King of the South, and it shows that writing letters was then practised. We have seen why the Egyptian wife of Solomon, the Egyptian support of Jeroboam, the Egyptian fear in Rehoboam, who lost ten of the Tribes, and the Egyptian party in Jerusalem in the days of Isaiah, would prevent the putting forth such a book as that of Exodus during their time. It was not possible, for reasons just stated, to do so in the ninth century. The eighth century was stirred through and through by reforming prophets, and in 724 b.c. Shalmaneser IV. SINAI AND THE LAW. 101 disco\^ered King Ilosliea to be in hostile comnmnicii- tion against him with Egypt. This would prevent the pnbhcation of a book which retlected on that coun- try. Shahnaneser marched against Samaria, besieged it for three years, and it fell under Sargon, his succes- sor, B.C. 721, never to be rehabilitated as the capital of the Northern Kingdom, which had been apostate from Jahveh since Jeroboam 1. This sweeps away all prob- ability of the origin of the Pentateuch between David and the captivity of Israel. Its history recounts the violations of covenant hiw. In the remaining king- dom, of which Jerusalem was the head, the chances of a false publication were small indeed. The one prophet to whom such a work is attributed by Kenan was the least fitted for it. Jeremiah was too genuine and lofty a character ; he had suffered too much, and he knew too well the truth, to attempt to pahn off as a work of Moses any writing of his own. "While he '' lamented Josiah for his goodness and all that he had done according to the Law of the Lord," he would not provoke Egypt by writing a false history. See 2 Chronicles 35 : 20-25, and the last three chapters of 2 Kings. Josiah was slain by Pharaoh-Necho at Megiddo, though he remonstrated against his inter- ference that he had not come against him, but, at the command of the Lord, against Nebuchadnezzar. Babylon indeed triumphed. Even Jeremiah became a forced refugee in Egypt, where he uttered liis prophetic voice against her, that slie should be given into the hand of her enemies, chapters 40 to 44. That age of commotion and of Exile was clearly' unfavor- able to high legislative work. The forgery of a book 102 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. like that of Exodns or Deuteronomy, much more a whole Pentateuch, was out of human possibihty in Israel ; so was a new edition of them with large revi- sion of the text. Evidently Daniel, made captive in 605 B.C., had carried with him the Law of Moses and other sacred books, to which he makes emphatic refer- ence in chapters 9 : 2, 11, 13 ; 6 : 5. Indeed, from the Disruption of the Tribes under Jeroboam to the fall of (Samaria and of Jerusalem, the local conditions forbade the fabrication of a work like the Pentateuch. War and self-preservation, not literature and legisla- tion, occupied the mind of Hebrews. It was Egypt vs. Judah, or Assyria vs. Israel and Judah, or Baby- lon vs. each, or all these vs. Assyria ; " that the king- doms of the earth might know that Jehovah was the only Lord God." The testimony is unanimous, Moses, Menephtah, Joshua, Samuel, David, Ilezekiah, Nebuchadnezzar, Darius — all testifying to the great- ness, majesty, and sovereign power of the God of Jacob, who is the Ruler and Wonderworker in heaven and in earth. Read Exodus 15 ; 20 : 2-lT ; Deuter- onomy, chapters 5, 6, 7 ; Joshua 23 and 21 ; Judges 5 ; 2 Samuel 22 : 2-51 ; 2 Kings 19 : 15-35 ; Daniel 4:tli and 6th. The unanimity covers many centuries, and authenticates the testimony. Forgery in such case is impossible. The analysis of the Pentateuch is so thoroughlj^ dis- cussed by Professors Harper and Green that I beg to refer readers v/ho wish to study this question to their pages. My endeavor is to prove the early revelation and covenant of God to Abraham, and the fact of the Law and Covenant at Sinai with Israel, rather than SINAI AND THE LAW. 103 minute analysis of the text. Prophets ever authenti- cated that text, and even scattered Hebrews in Pales- tine could as easily know the Law of the Covenant as the early English before printing knew the teachings of the Christian Church. The parallel may include both priests and people in those ages. Perhaps the Book of Common Prayer bears a similar relation to ancient Missals as the worsliip and ritual of the Tem- ple bore to that of the Tabernacle, while back of each was the duly authenticated text of Holy Scripture. V. AT HOME m PALESTINE : MIEACULOUS EVENTS. The history of Israel began at the calling of Abra- ham. The descent to Egypt, departure from it, and receiving the Law at Sinai formed new chapters. Tlie desert wanderings constitute an episode without a paral- lel in history. Joshua's conquests before the settle- ment in Canaan accord with the previous record. But we must not fail to notice what a change had come over those peoples. Their fathers had beheld with sympathizing interest the burial of Jacob by his sons, with Joseph at their head, attended by a large company of Egyptians, both in chariots and on horses (Gen. 50 : 7-13). The Canaanites who savv the mourners and their grievous lamentation were deeply impressed. There was not a sign of disrespect, or of opposition. The seventeen years' absence of the pa- triarch had not obliterated from memory the esteem which the inhabitants had for him, which they still re- tained. That burial, with such a retinue in attend- ance, meant that there was the home of the departed and the home of his sons, who would at some future time make it their abode. Machpelah had been bought for a ]3ermanent burying-place. There were MIRACULOUS EVENTS. 105 buried Abraham and Sarah his wife ; there were buried Isaac and Ilebekah his wife ; there Jacob buried Leah ; and now his body is hiid beside hers (Gen. 49 : 31). It was a sad but peaceful interment, full of hope and promise to the dead who now slept with his fathers. But when Joshua arrived in the country four hun- dred years afterward, he found a very different state of feeling in the people, and had a very different re- ception from them. The Ilittites or Ilethites rose in force against him ; he routed them in battle, hanged their king, and destroyed his people (Josh. 10). It discloses changes since the burial of Jacob, which the absence of his children for " about a century in Egypt" does not explain. The various tribes of Ca- naan had become more numerous, more warlike, and more wicked. The inhabitants of Hebron were no longer friendly to, but fierce against them. Such Ilit- tites were not the men to stand by them in Egypt, to ''increase their numbers, and fight their battles." No wonder Renan regards the Book of Joshua with aversion : it upsets his theory of friendly Ilittites help- ing enslaved Israelites, and of their being only about a century in Egypt. As in the case of his objection, " because Samaria is not mentioned in Joshua," the truth would be jeoparded if such great changes were represented to have occurred among the Ilittites of Hebron in one short century. Clearly, three or four centuries are none too long to account for the altered condition of affairs ; for the increased numbers and rooted hostility of those old time friendly Ilethites. Home again in Palestine, therefore, is to be among enemies, fierce and well-armed, with walled cities for 106 ISRAEL IN PALESTINE. defence, very unlike the condition in wliicli Abraliam found tlie country, when, with three hundred and eighteen trained servants, he defeated Chedorlaoiner and his alHes, who for thirteen years had received their tribute, and for non-payment of it, ravaged and devastated tlieir villages and carried the inhabitants captive. Yet within about a century they are enabled to cope with Joshua and stoutly resist the settlement of Israel in tlieir country! Here again the facts of Genesis 14:th accord with those of Joshua lOth. And while they say nothing about the length of time which must have intervened between the two accounts, it devolves upon M. Renan to explain how things could have so changed in about a century. He says, '^ The period is obscure," but not too obscure for 2 + 2 to equal four ; not too obscure to be famous for heroic deeds ; to be illumined with the fires of burning cities ; to witness the wonders of the same God who had called Abraham from Ur to settlement in Canaan. It surely was no greater marvel to hear that Yoice in Chaldea than to see that Hand in Palestine. Failing to see this makes it hard for Renan to believe Joshua to be thoroughly historical. That book, true in its omis- sions, which the objector deplores, is equally true in those affirmations wliicli he doubts. Had we other and contemporary histories narrating the same events, perhaps he would not as soon believe the legendary age of Greece, " the greatest miracle in history ! For the golden age of the Aryans is only a dream when com- pared with the patriarchal." Now it is certain that no clearer light shines upon the page of early Aryan history than upon that of Israel at this era. There MIRACULOUS EVENTS. 1U7 was stubborn strength in Hebrew tnind and muscle then, or those deeds of prowess never couhl have been wrouirht. Israelis " exclusive tendencies" do not ex- plain her heroic achievements ; and something more than '' fanaticism" was needed to enable her to cross the Jordan after defeating her eastern foes, and go in to occupy the lands and fenced cities of hostile tribes who had been alarmed and aroused at what they heard. Let those who extol the golden age of Aryans not for- get the '^ fanaticism and exclusiveness" of Greece, that called all the rest of mankind barbarians ; that Athens in her glory held two or three hundred thou- sand human slaves ; that she was venial enough to be bought and sold, now by the gold of Persia and now by the hirelings of Macedonia. Surely the great men of Israel had no larger defects of character than the great men of Greece. If " the hardness and brutal abruptness of Xapoleon were part and parcel of his force," the meekness and learning of Moses and the valor and strategy of Joshua were part and parcel of their force. And they succeeded in advancing a movement which swept the world along with it. The effects of those moral forces which they accelerated we, in fact, feel to-day. Whether or not Abraham was the Oiham of Vir^ he was a character and a power in Palestine, which raised the standard of morals, sim- plified ideas of religion and of God, gave a legislation and a literature to his country which have blessed the world. Such are the ideas, facts, and characters which constitute the early history of Israel. As a man must live before his biography can be written, so must a nation exist before its history is recorded. In the case 108 ISRAEL IN PALESTINE. of Jacob, his Bible grew up with him. His life, thoughts, and rehgion form liis liistory ; it is what tlie founclcr acliievecl, what the legisUitor enacted, and the great warrior accomphshed. AVe have enough duly anthenticated of the life, work, and influence of eacli to stamp tliem as real characters as was Alexander the Great, or Julius Csesar. Moreover, a marked peculiarity of Israel is an abid- ing sense of the Divine presence and power. We see it in the call of Abraham ; in the birth of Isaac and a spiritual kingdom, wliich was confirmed at Peniel and at Bethel ; in the Divine voice wliich spoke at Ur and at Sinai ; in each it was just as siqyerw^twY^l as the w^onders of the Exodus and the settlement in Canaan. Joshua is no more miraculous than Moses ; and Moses was hardly more wonderful than the mani- festations seen by Jacob. From his ilight to Padan- aram to his wrestling with the Angel of God, which Ewald transmutes into a ghost or spirit of the night ; and from that grand theophany to ^the famine which sent him to Egypt, where he found his long-lost son, the hand of God may be seen in each event of his life. Tlieophanies form the striking portraiture of the brightest parts of Israel's history. It is God who fed him and led him through all his one hundred and forty- seven years of life's pilgrimage. Naturally, therefore, may we look for the supernatural in the Home again and settlement in Palestine. It is only the outcome and sequence of what preceded. Forgetting and ignoring this, Penan " would print his pages with different shades of ink, in order to mark the vaiions degrees of probability, ])lausibility, and MIBACULOUS EVENTS. 109 possibility" of their contents (p. 18). Yes, of tlic contents of liis pngcs, but not of the pages of an authenticated Joshua. For wliile " the great men of remote antiquity may be depicted without diminishing their proportions ; since a giant, even when placed in the background of a picture, is still a giant," quite enough has been said to show that Renan delights in ])lacing our Bible giants too far in the background of his picture, and to conceal their massive proportions. He suggests doubts about Moses, which the narrative disproves, because he assumes the accounts were writ- ten some centuries after his death (p. 20). So he paints Joshua, Samuel, and David in colors to express his own ideas of them. This is not history, but Jds story, a rhapsody of conceits and inductions, " in order to know how things might have happened." But the alleged obscurity of Joshua's era may be judged by the fact that it followed the Augustan era of Egypt, whose Pharaoh had just made a treaty of alliance with the Khatti or Ilittites of Syria, which is given in the ancient inscriptions, and that Shalmaneser I. had begun those incursions southwest of the Euphrates, which his successors continued till Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine w^ere subdued and ab- sorbed. In Israel's forty years' w^anderings, which Well- hausen says " were not m voluntary," the tribes were preparing for their grand attacks on the Canaan- ites. They crossed the Jordan in a most unexpected manner. A Divine power held it back. It seemed to be miraculous, and was so thought, and so recorded for after ages. It has remained for the naturalism of 110 ISRAEL IN PALESTINE. oiir day to explain that passage without a miracle. And the action taken at the time under Joshua is, to say the least, unaccountable, if it did not emphasize this belief of God^s Hand working for Israel. The first chapter of the Book which narrates his deeds, is better authority than any modern guesses. It repre- sents Jahveh speaking to the new leader and telling him what to do. Tlie people were to prepare three days' victuals, and pass over Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord gave them (verse 11). Then spies were sent to view the country about Jericho, which was first to be taken. They came pretty near failing in their errand, but were saved by the strategy of a woman, and so returned with a good report to the camp at Shittim (ch. 2 : 1-21:). This is told with the sequence and naturalness which are guarantee of truth. Chapter 3 describes the passage of the River in a quiet, matter-of-fact style, without a word of astonishment ; bat it giv^es two names which are rejected by modern critics, who will not allow any Ferizzites and Girgashites to be then in Palestine, and do not understand why the great Khatti people should have a fragment of their number west of the Jordan ! Well, suppose some transcriber has made a mistake in those names, or that M. Kenan is mistaken in his por- traiture of Ilittites in Hebron and in Zoan^ still, the passage of the Jordan by Israel is a fact of their his- tory, and their attack upon the inhabitants of Jericho is so well attested that it is universally admitted. But something was done of a religious character at which some men cavil ; Joshua set up a memorial of twelve stones taken from the bed of Jordan, according to the MIRACULOUS EVENTS. Ill number of tlie tribes, to be a sign to after generations that Jahveh cut off the waters and so let Israel pass over in safety. And the people went up from the Jor- dan on the tenth of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericlio (ch. 4 : 19-24). The hand of the Lord was in it. That cromlech testi- fied of it. The covenant was renewed at Giliral ; circumcision was administered, a religious festival was solemnized with the fruits and flour of the land, and the manna ceased thereafter. It is all recorded in chapter 5, and is often spoken of by eighth-century prophets. The vision of a man with a drawn sword, who an- nounced himself ^' captain of the Lord's host," deeply impressed Joshua, and he paid him reverence ; but there is nothing more extraordinary in that vision than in certain appearances to Moses. Surely that crom- lech would not offend the god of those Canaanites who had a sacred mound at Gilgal, for it did not intrude irreverently upon the old sanctuary. And the God whom Israel thus honored claimed to be Lord of the whole earth. But, says Renan, " It was afterward supposed that in these megalithic monuments had been found a souvenir of tXiQoairacidotcs passage of the Jor- dan" (p. 201). What less could it be ? Those Ca- naanites have left no inscriptions to designate the pur- pose of their megalithic piles, while here the purpose and end are defined, viz., that the God of all the earth might be glorified (Josh. 4 : 14, 24). Because any part of those events were then recorded in the " Book of Jasher," or in the " Wars of Jahveh," is surely no reason for doubting their truth. That they were subsequently incorporated into the Book of Joshua 112 ISRAEL IN PALESTINE. and repeated in Judges, as Wellliausen states, is, in fact, a confirmation of their supposed accuracy. What reader of Diodorus does not regret that historian's omission of his authorities for the story of Damon and Pythias ^ It might have removed the seeming uncer- tainty whether Dionysius the Elder, or Dionysius the Younger, ordered the surety to execution, and whether that ilhistration of loyal friendship was a contrivance devised by anti-Pythagorians, or a natural occurrence which really astonished the tyrant and others who wit- nessed it. After going over all the Greek and Latin authors who relate that incident, I feel safe in saying that it requires as much logic and inference to digest and correctly reproduce it for English readers as any incident in Joshua or Judges. Dr. Geikie, who lately visited " the Holy Land," relates how Gilgal was rediscovered by a German traveller, who heard the Arabs pronounce the words Tell Jiljal and Birket Jiljalia — the former a mound over the ancient town, and the latter its pond (vol. ii., p. 91). It was the ph\ce where the Israelites under Joshua erected a circle of twelve stones taken from the bed of Jordan to commemorate its wonderful pas- sage. Dr. Geikie says, " Within a mile of the pond are about a dozen mounds, three or four feet high, which may be the remains of the fortified camp of the Israelites." Captain Conder supposes those stones were set up like a Druidical circle, forming a rude sanctuary like the numerous rings of huge stones still found in Moab and other countries. However that may be, the text says that twelve men who represented the different tribes took each his stone for that pur- MIRACULOUS EVENTS. 113 pose. It is mere mference that those men had helpers to carry a very large stone ; and certainly twelve such stones as might be taken from the bed of Jordan would make but a small pile for a circle-sanctuary. Perhaps that altar built of whole stones mentioned in chapter 8 : 30-35, is confounded l)y Captain Conder with this at Gilgal. The last part of verse 4, chapter 3, " for ye have not passed this way heretofore," confirms the whole account. They are words which no late writer could have penned ; the Levitical procession was to be duly spaced and to proceed cautiously by the way,/br they had not passed that way Ijefore. So naturally put, these words prove the record. Preparation was carefully made, yet Divine aid was expected in the passage ; for the Loud of all the earth was to pass over before them (verse 11). The fact of that won- derful crossing over Jordan is as well established as the passage of the Red Sea, and it was attested to all Israel in aftertimes by the dolmen or cromlech of stones taken from the river's bed and set up at Gilgal. It was in accordance with the custom of the times and of the country. So was the altar of whole stones erected by Joshua at Mount Ebal, on which he wrote a copy of the law of Moses in the presence of the children of Israel. Moreover, on an outer wall of the temple at Karnak, in the previous century, the treaty of peace between Egypt and Kliita land was written. It is translated in "Records of the Past," vol. iv., pp. 25-32. Rameses II. married a daughter of the Kbit? king, and thus happily closed the long feud between those peoples. Ilamathite hieroglyphics which be- long to about this time show Jahveh was known by 114 ISRAEL IN PALESTINE. name at Ilamath ; so Sclirader. Any doubts wliether those Kliatti are the same race as the Ilittites of Ca- naan cannot change the facts which Joshua created, nor his memorials of them. Tiie change of Ilethites into Ilittites may at first have been local. Whether the Canaanites originally came from a Babylonian centre, like the Phoenicians, and the He- brews, who migrated later, does not concern the fact that Joshua found them hostile, and routed them in different Palestine centres. As in the time of Abra- ham so now, there appeared to be no difficulty in un- derstanding each otlier. They may also have been originally worshippers of one God, as was Melchizedec, but they debased and corrupted their worship to sucli a degree that it became an abhorrence to Jahveh, and their immoralities were detestable. The iniquity of the Amorite was now full. They were not slain with- out warning, nor proscribed without cause. God who created the world and man left him not uninstructed in his duty and how to live righteously. His worship of Baal, Chemosh, or Molech, if offered in sincerity, purity, and truth, would doubtless have been accepted by Him who was God over all. But the religious practice of those peoples had become an abomination in the sight of Heaven and a degradation in its dev- otees. Jahveh would no longer tolerate it. Physical and spiritual forces should co-operate in its destruction and extirpation. Prometheus bound, yet uttering de- fiance against Jupiter, as in classic legend, illustrates the stubborn persistency with which those Canaanites continued in their wickedness. Their rapid increase, their skill, their walled towns ; Jabin, with his nine MIRACULOUS EVENTS. 115 hundred chariots of iron, the giant Anakiiris of tlie mountains ; these were not to be confjuered bj the ^' enthusiastic eUin" of Israel, unless the God of Israel went before them. Superior in culture and civiliza- tion to the Israelites, Jahveh, God of Israel, caused them to fear Him. Retreating seas, divided rivers, falling walls, jea, the orbs of heaven seemingly halt- ing in their courses ; these were scarcely more won- derful or destructive than the thunderbolt and the hailstorm which beat down wicked Canaanites. Ad- mitting Joshua's care in preparations and the enthusi- astic elan of his troops, there were yet clear evidences to them and the men of that day that the Almighty God led them, inspired their courage, strengthened their arm, and achieved their victories. The reasons for such belief, like Wren's monument in St. Paul's, were to be seen all around them ; in the deeds they wrought, in the cities they captured, in the terror of the enemy, and in memorable indications of Omnipotence and natural phenomena co-operating with Israel's force. Tliere were human force, natural force, and Divine force all conspiring to one end, or, rather, two ends : victory for the Hebrews and acknowledg- ment of their God by all the people of that land and of the nations round about. Now the critics and ledactors of holy Scripture re- quire us to believe that Egyptian and Assyrian annal- ists have correctly recorded the deeds of their kings ; Greek historians portray the wonders achieved by the Spartan band, by the heroes of Thermopylee and the defenders of Athens ; so of Xlonum, German, French, and English, not to say our American, history, we are 116 ISRAEL IN PALESTINE. expected to credit ail that is related as history. And when based upon orio^inal and contemporary docu- ments, those accounts may generally be accepted as true. Why, then, should we not believe the Hebrew writers in wliat they say touching the history, the Law, and the predictions of Israel ? They are as consistent and consequent, as logical, and no more repetitious than other primitive records. And they are pene- trated through and through with a purity and a piety quite unique and national. In Joshua and Caleb, in Othniel and Barak, in Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson the religiousness and the patriotism are strongly marked. Redactions do not change it ; but in the classic accounts of Damon and Pythias, Brutus and Cato, Pyrrhus and Cgesar, it would be as difficult to find the presence and operation of a religious impulse as in Timur and Napoleon. Yet in many Hebrews, even their faults often arose from mistaken views of religion. The accompani- ments of the proclamation of the Law at Sinai were much more than " dramatic." Divine voices and forces intensified what was of lasting interest. The ninth century b.c. could not have produced it. Even Elijah was a product of the Law of the Covenant, not the Covenant a product of his age. Sanmel and Nathan, Gad and Micaiah, found their inspiration from the Law. It was by it and by Him who gave it that prophets caused kings to tremble on their thrones, and to ask what the King of kings woukl have them to do ? To build an altar, a temple, to offer a thousand bullocks and rams, lambs almost without number and incense in great weight, was small tribute to the Lokd MIRACULOUS EVENTS. 117 of the whole earth. Thus Israel's shrines ai)d holy places were so many npliftings and endeavors after righteousness, from Shecheni and Jjothel to Sinai and Sion, for at each Jahveh manifested the grandeur of His person as well as the grace and goodness of 11 is character. Carmel and Iloreb spoke of God. Tliere the Hebrews found an Olympns ; a monnt of sacrifice and Divine epiphanies which attested the authority of the messages and of the prophets who uttered them. If Nnma claimed to be visited by a goddess who tanglit him, if Brahmans claimed inspiration for the Veda, if Socrates claimed to hold converse with the Deity, a thousandfold stronger reasons had the teachers of Israel for claiming inspiration and direction from the Almighty. This impelled Abraham to a new depart- ure ; it animated Jacob for a hundred years ; it revo- lutionized the career of Moses, sent him from the desert to the throne of Pharaoh, enabled him to perform w^onders in Egypt, to deliver his enslaved people, and lead them to the Mount of God. There Jahveh gave him a civil and religious code, the Law of the Cove- nant, which for breadth and brevity, fulness and con- ciseness, still remains unparalleled. Given in that age, to that people, under those conditions, it bears on its face the stamp of a Divine Proclamation to man- kind. There was nothing in India, Crreece, Pome, Egypt, Babylon, which erpialled it, certainly iu>thing to surpass it. Not a clause of that Covenant Law has heen repealed ; nor does it contain a supertluous sen- tence for men in the highest state of civilization and culture. Those fifteen verses of Exodus 20 are the Laws of God to man. Thev have iruided the decisions of 118 ISRAEL IN PALESTINE, judges and seei's as embodying the principles of liiinian conduct ; they liav^e inspired the songs of poets and tlie tlioiights of philosophers ; they hav^e curbed the passions of savage men and bridled the anger of kings ; for in them God spoke to man from Sinai. The cloud and the thunder have long passed away, but the Words then spoken will abide forever. It was impossible that they should be forgotten. I^or has human wis- dom yet devised a substitute. Moreover, the Spirit and power of Him who gave that Law and renewed that Covenant, gave victory to Israel in Canaan, victory over Jericho and over Jabin. There was that in them eno^asred in those contests which certified to them whence their prowess and their triumphs came. It was confessed at the time ; it was ever conceded and so believed. We may well marvel that while modern writers affirm the superiority of Canaanites in arts and arms over Israel, and acknowl- edge the prodigies of valor which they achieved, they are content to attribute those astounding victories to Israel's ''enthusiastic elan.^^ Even those who sur- vived defeat and destruction allowed themselves to be " absorbed" by the invaders in their own country. They had no Alfred with a brave Saxon band among them ; no William Tell and Swiss heroes who should annihilate the foreign foe ! Art and culture those Canaanites may have had, hnt no pat?'iotis?n ; for God had given away their lands to a people who would better serve Him, and hence patriotism in the old inhabitants died out, and their civilization with it. Yet Wellhausen feebly explains those facts of history by saying, " The extraordinary disintegrated state of MIRACULOUS EVENTS. Ill) tlic country accounts for the ease witli wliicli the Ls- raehtcs achieved their success !" (" Encyclopaedia Biitannicn," ad loc.) But tlie In'story which narrates tlie victories of Israel also narrates the cond)inations among the Canaanites : " When all the kings which were on this side Jordan, in the hills, and in the valleys, and in all the coasts of the great sea over against Lebanon, the llittite and Aniorite, the Canaanite and Perizzite, the Hivite and Jebusite, lieard thereof [the taking of Jericho and Ai], they gathered themselves to- gether ^ with one accord to fight with Joshua,'''^ (ch. 9 : 1, 2). But the Gibeonites, by stratagem, made a league with Israel in order to save their lives, although their city was a greater and better defended city than Ai. " Wherefore the king of Jerusalem sent unto the king of Hebron, and unto the king of Jarmuth, and unto the king of Lachish, and unto the king of Eglon, saying. Come and help me, that we may smite Gibeon ; for it hath made peace with Joshua and with the children of Israel. Therefore these five kings gathered all their hosts together, and encamped before Gibeon ; and made war against it " (Josh. 10 : 1-5). That certainly indicates a strong coinVination for re- sistance, the very reverse of an " extraordinary disin- tegrated state of the country." Yet Joshua marched boldly against them, and the Lord discomlited them before Israel, with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and along the way to Beth-horon, Azekah, even unto Mak- kedah. Also the Lord sent a great hailstorm, cast down great stones from heaven upon them, and they died (verses 7-11). More died with hailstones than with the sword of the children of Israel. The victory 120 ISRAEL IN PALESTINE. was further memorable for Joshua's prayer to tlie Lord for a lengthening of the day — i.e., for continued op- portunity in which to linish his conquests over those combined Canaanites, and to leave them in an utterly *' disintegrated state." The account of this marvel seems to have been written at the time, and was later incorporated into our record of Joshua's deeds. Kenan's explanation is elsewhere considered. We as- suredly ought not to tone down the marvel of nature, much less discard the account, simply because it is marvellous and taken from the Book of Jasher (verse 13). Recent accounts tell us of unexpected and ter- rific hailstorms occurring in that region. And the unusual phenomena of protracted light or protracted darkness might impress surviving Canaanites with the supremacy of the God of Israel over all the gods they worshipped even more deeply than the terrible de- struction wrought by Joshua. Baal, Chemosh, Molech, were only different names for the heaven-gods in that country. And this interference with their authority, making them, in fact, do service to the enemy, was a defeat of the deities of Canaan as disastrous, in the people's estimation, as the arms of the invaders. This view tones down no text, and it is in accord with the providence of God over men. They are not pro- scril)ed or slain by Him till the end calls for it, till clemency is lost upon obduracy. But whatever ex- planation we accept of this Divine interposition for man, it would seem that the (piotation f rom " Jasher" was indorsement of that part of the book, which is also referred to in 2 Samuel 1 : 18. The whole is of a piece with the history of Israel in Canaan. The MIRACULOUS EVENTS. 121 Creator of mam's also his Ruler and liis Jiidpointmcnt of bis succes- JACOirs BOOKS. 133 sor, the mourning, and tlie announcement to Moses that he was not permitted to enter Canaan, are all his- toric matters quite in accord with its unfolding in Israel, and put the seal of authenticity upon chapter 20. The account of the plague of serpents, and of the brazen one made for the healing of those bitten (chapter 21), could not be palmed oif as historical among that people, unless genuine. The record linds confirmation in the fact that the serpent of brass then made was preserv^ed to the time of Ilezekiah, who de- stroyed it because the people had learned to burn in- cense before it, which was an abomination. The lift- ing up of that brazeu serpent by Moses for the healing of the wounded was made a type of the sin-healing power of our Lord to all who sincerely look to Him (St. John 3 : 14, 15 ; 2 Kings IS : 4). It hardly detracts from the historic credibility of chapters 22-2-1, if originally written by Balaam, who figures conspicuously in them. T)r. Kalisch, with some others, regards it as a separate document, later incorporated into our received text — about 1030 b.c. Because Balaam j^i'edicts the coming time when As- syria will carry the Kenites captive, " this threatening presupposes that lohen it was lettered the Assyrians had already acquired an imposing position in Western Asia ; and that the words had as their background the age of Tiglath-pileser II., or of Sargon 11. , or of Sanherib. So the inference is drawn that a redaction of the first four books of the Pentateuch was made in the second half of the eighth century b.c." Schrader well says there is no sufficient warrant for this conclu- sion. We know that Israel came in contact with As- 134 JAPUETU CRITICISES Syria at a much earlier period, being tributary to her in the ninth century d.c. ller king, Kininion-nirari (812-783), mentions the hind of Omri, Sidon, Tyre, Edom, and Phihstia as tributary to him. Assur- ndsir-habal (885-860) possessed the boundaries of Leb- anon, marched to the great sea of the west country, gathered his faithful ones, and sacrificed to the gods. He received tribute of Tyrians, Sidonians, and other nations of the west country ; the latter probably in- cluded Israel. Wherefore the redaction of a pre- Deuteronomy Pentateuch may have belonged to the last quarter of the ninth century b.c. But why should any relation of Israel with Assyria in the ninth or the thirteenth century b.c. have anything to do with the prediction of Balaam ? The real question is. Did Moab oppose Israel while on her way to Palestine ? Did her king send for Balaam to curse the intruder ? Have we the account of that opposition and the utter- ance of the seer? The Moabite stone of 875 b.c. is evidence of Moab's hostility to Israel then : for Mesha *' dragged the females of Jahveh before Chemosh, and slew seven thousand men and boys, women and maidens !" It discloses a fiercer oppugnancy than Balak exhibited ; for \\is,fear of Israel was aroused, not his religion. The narrative is in accord with other events. Balak sent for a man to help him against the people he feared and the God he did not adore. As- syria was then distant, and her kings had not yet marched so far to the southwest. There was no mo- tive for adopting the episode of Balaam and Balak, unless it accorded with Israel's historic tradition ; but the account being credible and genuine, that it was JACOB'S BOOKS. 135 Balaam's own gave it the greater value. The objec- tion to it largely arises from its containing a ]>ro|)hecy — ^' The Kenite shall be wasted ; Assiir shall carry her captive" (Num. 24: : 21--2-4). This came to pass in part under Sargon after Y21 e.g., nnder his son Sen- nacherib, and again under Nebuchadnezzar, who dev- astated that country. See the " Speaker's Commen- tary," ad loo, Tlie last quarter of the ninth century, when accepted by the redactor, still leaves at least two centuries before the fulfilment of the prediction ; when there was no seeming probability that Assyria would sweep the whole country to the southwest of the Euphrates. W hatever effect Balaam's deliverances may have had on Balak, the son of Beor was in fact slain before Israel crossed the Jordan. It is pitiful criticism which would explain away what he said, be- cause he was not a recognized prophet of Jahveh, or because the country in question was not then a likely agent to fulfil it. Deeds and dates may be matters of sequence, but a prophecy must belong to a period earlier than its fulfilment. So does this of Balaam's. We have dwelt on the character of the Book of Numbers to illustrate how very difficult it would be to memorize its verbal contents ; nuich more so would it be to invent them in a late age. Then there is the plague at Shittim (chapter 25), inflicted because of lustful idolatry. Chapter 26 is an impossible concep- tion unless true, and its place in the book proves it is true. Mad indeed must an author be who should try to invent it or chapter 27. Its historical genuineness ought not to be questioned. Writers do not fabricate such literature. The introduction of verses 12-23 in 136 JAPUETU CRITICISES that relation soarids like a thunder-clap in a clear sum- mer day. Passing to 33 : 38 we have the death of Aaron, which, and the subsequent matters related, show how much easier it would be to invent the ex- pedition of Cyrus, or remember all its details of sta- tions and parasangs, than to fabricate the contents of the fourth book of Moses. It must have originated in tlie age of its events, which must have been written out then, though some chapters may have been trans- posed or added since 1300 b.c. ; according to Kahsch in 1030 B.C. Eead Bible references. That the early Hebrews were familiar with reading and writing appears in Genesis, in Exodus 5 : 18-20 ; 17 : 14 ; 34 : 27, 28, and in the national census of Moses and David ; in the letter of David to Joab touching the treatment of T^riah, which David wrote to compass his death (2 Sam. 11 : 14, 15) ; in the writings of prophets and seers — Nathan, Gad, Iddo ; in David's Psalm and his charge to Solomon, and in the long lists of famous men. (Of. 2 Sam. 7 ; 1 Chron. 16 ; 21 : 9-30 ; 23-25 chapters ; 2 Chron. 12 : 15). Thej are details and matters not carried in a stranger's memory. The men of Hezekiah copied out Proverbs of Solomon (25 : 1). It suggests author- ship, and that writing was known in tlie eleven tli cen- tury B.C. The now famous Siloam inscription could not have been later than Hezekiah, and may have been Solomon's work. Professor Sayce says, " While there are several reasons which assign it to the age of Solo- mon, there are others which place it in the reign of Hezekiah" (2 Kings 20 : 20 ; 2 Chron. 32 : 30). '^' The forms of the letters used in this inscription make it JACOirS BOOKS. 137 quite clear that the engraver was accustomed to write on ])archnient or papyrus and not on stone. They are rounded, not angular, like the characters on the Moabite stone. Indeed, the alphabet employed in Judah was that of a people then in the habit of writ- ing and reading hooks. The engraver was probably one of the workmen delighted at the success of the conduit. Skill in engineering was then so advanced as to allow the workmen to commence tunnelling the hill simultaneously at the opposite ends and to meet each other in the middle of the tunnel, which winds in its course and is one thousand seven hundred and eight yards long from mouth to exit. This inscription was in a place never likely to be ;seen, was carefully executed, proving that writing was common at that time." Only by an accident was it discovered in June, 1880. Scribes, priests, and prophetical schools were as well practised in this art as writers in our day. ^^ This conclusion," says Sayce, '' is confirmed by the monuments of Egypt and Assyria. Books were com- mon there from the earliest times ; the profession of scribe was held in high esteem ; public and private monuments were covered with characters presumed to be read by every one. Long before Abraham libraries w^ere well stocked with clay or papyrus books which had numerous readers. New works were frequently added, and copies of old ones made. They were ar- ranged and catalogued as in a modern library ; treated of every department of knowledge, and represented every known class of subjects. If the Israelites had been illiterate, living midway between Assyria and Egypt, and bordering on the highly-civilized cities of 138 JAPIIETII CRITICISES Phoenicia, it would have been nothing sliort of a miracle. That they were not is put beyond cavil by the Siloani inscription. Consequently no arguments can be drawn against the credibility of the Old Testa- ment Scriptures on the ground that their historical statements are false or mythical, or that they could not have been written at the early date to which they lay claim. There is no reason why Abraham should not have been able to write ; most of his contemporaries in Ur could do so ; there is still less reason why his de- scendants, who had been brought into contact with the literature of Egypt, should not have written too. Biblical books composed at the time of the events de- scribed have the weight of contemporary evidence. A writer does not give a false account of things well known to his readers, or imagine events which his contemporaries can show never happened. The history of writing in the East makes it probable that the Biblical books were written at the time to which tradi- tion assigns them. It is not likely that the Israelites abstained from composing books when they were ac- quainted w^ith the art of writing, and when thej were surrounded by nations long in the possession of li- braries. That the Biblical books belong to the time which tradition supposes is confirmed by the deciphered monuments of Egypt and Assyria, and by the accuracy they display in the matters related by contemporary histories. " Kenan's positive statement to the contrary, which I have been disproving, excuses the length of this quotation. The proof is cumulative and irresisti- ble. Witness the contents of 2 Chronicles 10, re- lating the interview between the party of Jeroboam JACOirS BOOKS. 130 and Relioboam pendintr the disruption of the tribes. That was not left to Ezra after tlie Exile, bnt was doubtless recorded at the time. Its credibility is beyond cavil, and with all the evidences previously mentioned of writing bj Solomon, David, Joab, and those who aided in taking the national census, illus- trates how common writing was in the tenth and the eleventh century b.c. That letter of Elijah to Jeho- ram was written by a prophet who illuminates his era with moral heroism, and who, judging from the ]ilaco of his birth, had not the highest educational advan- tages in his boyhood ; jet he wrote an epistle to a king. From Moses to Samuel writing was the medium of preserving prophetic deliverances, and they were thus preserved. The early Hebrews were competent to write their history, compose a literature, and read books ; witness the well-known book mentioned in Exodus 17 : 14 ; Josh. 18 : 9 ; 8 : 30-34. But the existence of similar phrases in the Old Testament with certain cuneiform inscriptions decides not the priority of the latter, nor that one account was derived from the other, and is therefore more ancient. Schrader compares the words, " Burned the city with fire, or consumed with fire" (Judges 18 : 27), with wdiat is said of Tiglath-pileser I. at nearly the same period in his col. V., 60, 72, where Isatu=ash or esh is found, which by some vowel changes makes the word like one in Hebrew. No such device is needed to show that both Joshua and Tiglath-pileser L, like others before them, made ashes of hostile cities. Ex- odus 9- : 7 says, " The heart of Pharaoh was hardened or obstinate ;" so Sennacherib's col. (Taylor cyl., Y., 140 JAPIIETU CIIITICISES 7) has the phrase, " Their heart was obstinate, so that they offered resistance" to him ; the Khors. 91, 33 reads, ^' The heart . . . obstinate." Other reseni- bhmces between Hebrew and Assyrian are seen in the same word designating certain colors — viz., those of the sanctuary of the tabernacle, violet-blue, red-purple, seal of agate, etc. (Ex. 25 : 4 ; 28 : 19 ; Khors. 142, 182 ; Schrader, *' Cuneiform Inscriptions," p. 143). He also says Pliaro is found on the monuments ; Pethor, the home of Balaam, was on the west bank of the Euphrates, and called Pitru by the Syrians, and Shalmaneser took possession of it for himself. It ful- filled the prediction noted above. Expressions " like the stars of heaven" (Gen. 22 : 17 ; 27 : 4) are used by Assur-iiasir-habal, who carried away prisoners and booty, which, " like the stars of heaven, were not to be numbered." He flourished 88G-858 B.C., and was the father of the Shalmaneser just named. But it would be folly to say that therefore the phrases in Genesis were written after those of this Assyrian king. The use of the word seven in Leviticus 2G : 21, 24, 28, and in Deuteronomy 28 : 7, 25 is similar to its use in Genesis and in Daniel as the number of complete- ness. In Deuteronomy 28 : 36, 64, Leviticus 26 : 29, 30, we have emphatic proof that the passage was not w^ritten by a fifth-century Jew. Hebrews and Per- sians were then decided monotheists, and would not provide idolatry as a penalty for transgression of Jehovah's covenant, which would be adding sin to sin. Nor could the verses refer to the Babylonian cap- tivity, because Abraham had coine from Ur of Baby- JACOB'S BOOKS. 141 Ionia ; and a nation is spoken of wliieli their fathers did not know. The reference must therefore 1)e to tlie x\?syrian captivity, and was palpahly written be- fore 7:21 B.C., wlien Sarii;on took Samaria. So the verses clearly make against the fifth-ccntnrj-origin theory, whose advocates must either exscind the refer- ence or admit its early origin. It is amazing how some critics ignore dates. Again, Leviticus 26 : 20, Deuteronomy 28 : 53-58 are demonstrably prophetic, and did not find their complete fulfilment till the last war with the Romans, described with some attend- ant horrors by Josephus ('^ De Bell. Jud.," YI., 3, 4). Though strongly forbidden by the law, which did not permit one to touch a dead body without subsequent cleansing, the famine was so great that parents ate the flesh of their children for food. The terrible extrem- ity softened even the hearts of the tyrants who ruled the city, and verified the prophecy. So the fact that Abraham began his public life in Canaan by defeating a coml)ination of invaders who were as five to his one has no relation to the fact that Joshua began his career in that same land by defeating one combination after another of hostile forces, takino: Ave kings at one time, " whom he crucified," and a popular song celebrated this victory. ''In it," says Kenan, '' were found two lines : " ' Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, And thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon.' The poet would express the astonishment of nature at the prodigious effort of the Israelites. This rhetor- ical figure afterward gave jise to some curious mis- 142 JAniETll CRITICISES takes. The two lines were ascribed to Joshua, and in changing the meaning of the word wliicli signifies ' stood still with astonishment ' (struck witli terror), it was supposed tliat the sun really stood still at the order of Joshua." In the song of Deborah the stars are said to fight against Sisera. Some would feel relieved if the original narrative warranted Kenan's explanation. He acknowledges the personality and leadership of Joshua. While his version of the lengthened day dif- fers from that of many, it removes a difficulty ; but it also removes the honor done to Jahveh ; for Joshua makes the heaven-gods glorify Him by aiding His Hebrew serv^ants. A sermon on the passage by Rev. Dr. Egar, in the Cliurchman of October 13th, ISSS, suggests that the " battle was fought in the night, and the prayer was for the sun not to rise and frustrate the advantage of this night attack. It was not yet dawn ; let the sun be silent and not shine ; let the moon be obscured and the storm continue until the enemy be destroyed !" Let Jahveh be glorified in Israel's vic- tory. So also sang Deborah. What Itenan says of Lot and the Rotenu, the Egyp- tian name for the Syrians, accords with Geseniug ; they were the people of the country about the Dead Sea. Lot was among the new-comers into that region, and left his name in the Rotenu of Syria. His sons were Moabites and Ammonites, now at war with Israel and now seducing them to the worship of Chemosh. They were more often hostile than friendly to Jacob, and ever ready to aid Japheth against him. To-day they have no place in history. He said in his heart" ((icn. 17 : 17) — i.e., he ii. JACOB'S BOOKS. 143 tlion^'lit to himself, is found in G. Smith's '' Assiir- banipal," and also the Accadian legend which gives the creation of the moon as hefore that of the sun, following the usage of the Accadians, who placed the female l)efore the male, and gave the goddess Istar an indepen- dent position. Error of the inscriptions is also seen in locating Edom between the land of Omri and Pal- estav — i.e.^ between Samaria and Phoenicia, when, in fact, Edom was south of those two countries. Why, then, shall we correct the Bible by Assyrian records ? Their forms of greeting : " I salute you — my good wishes to yon — peace be to you," neither prove nor disprove that the forms in Genesis are Liter than the inscriptions, or that those of Assurbanipal, 667-47 B.C., are before our Bible forms. (Cf. Schrader's " Cuneiforms," p. 125 ; H. Bawlinson's ^' Asurhad- don," and G. Smith's '^Assurbanipal.") Moreover, if details of Israel's history do not appear in the inscriptions till the era of Shalmaneser XL, the omission does not militate against the probability that the Bible record was the earlier, nor that its idiomatic phrases — words for violet-blue, red-purple, seal of agate, its prophecies, and the facts of local history — were not origiiial ; for Jacob had artistic and linguistic skill enough at and after the Exode to imitate or orig- inate bright colors and expressive phrases for all his needs, before the Assyrian set foot in Palestine. Even before the house of Omri was known east of the Euphrates, Solomon, David, and Saul had reigned over a unified Israel. So, because the Persian word jxtJuit, meaning vicegerent, is used in 1 Kings 10 : 15 ; 20 : 24 ; rendered governors aiul captains, in the 144 JAPIlEril CRITICISES tenth and the ninth centnry B.C., it by no means fol- lows tliat it was first w^ritten in Hebrew after the time of Cyrus, nor tliat the passage is an interpolation. For careful examination finds the word used by Sargon II., who established \\h j^ahati over South Babylonia, and that he was enthroned in liis palace amid his pahdti near two centuries before Cyrus (Khors. 22, lYS). Yet some will have us suppose that this word came to the Hebrews through the Persians, when in fact it was used in Israel and in Assyria long before Cyrus conquered Babylon. Evidence is conclusive that the word for viceroy existed in Hebrew as early as we find it in Kings. Schrader rightly says that '^ interpolation in such cases is absurd" (pp. 175, 176). It was quite historic for Shalmaneser II. to mention the " land or house of Omri ;" for Rimmon-nirari and Tiglath- pileser II. mention it, and Sargon II., who extin- guished it. But Schrader errs in saying that ^' accord- ing to the Biblical account the king who captured Samaria can only have been the same king who laid siege to it" — viz., Shalmaneser IV. (p. 181). For 2 Kings 17 : 6 only says, " The King of Assyria took Samaria," without naming the king. It is not relating the history of Assyria, and so only states what was done to Israel ; therefore the inference of Schrader that Shalmaneser took Samaria is his mistake, not the writer's in Kings. Indeed, verses 4, 5, 6 do not men- tion the king's name, but leave it to the general his- tory of Assyria. Schrader correctly says that the Samirena of Assurbani])al, after 608 b.c, is not the Samaria of Israel and Omri (p. 182). Its national ex- istence terminated more than half a century before. JACOB'S BOOKS. 145 Assyrian kings pnnislicd her for disloyalty to tlie Lord God of Israel. Japlieth chastised Jacob. Egypt and Babylon chastised Judah. These are truths of his- tory. It would not make them false if the record of them were not found in contemporary annals. So of words used in describing any of those events. Dia- lects differ ; words used by a people at one stage of their history are not used at another period. We find this in the English of Chaucer, Shakespeare, the *' judicious Hooker," in Johnsonized Latin, and in De Qnincey, who tried to Anglicize " parvanimity" as the natural counterpart of magnanimity. Among the myriad of domestics in Solomon? s establishment were many non-Israelites, some of whose words may have become incorporated into Hebrew with the dawn of the tenth century b.c. This readily explains some supj^osed verbal anachronisms in our Bible. Some so- called "Americanisms" are clearly traceable to the English of the seventeenth century. Professor Green shows that in the decalogue is found the so-called Elohist writer, the Jahvist, and the Deuteronomist, all in a few verses ; so in other passages. Mr. William Lethaby recently wrote thus ; "On the east side of the Dead Sea, at the top of the mountain where Lot lied for refuge after the overthrow of the cities of the plain ; where since the Crusaders no West- ern couple has resided, and which, we are told, we must not think of as a possible abode, 1 find that Far- rar, Geikie, Ilarmer, Thompson, etc., have not con- veyed one half of the force of the argument for the utmost credibility of the Biblical books which resi- dence in the Holy Land conveys to an Occidental. 7 146 JAPIIETn CRITICISES If yon lived in Moab, to suggest that Moses was mid- way between a dupe, a braggart, and a myth, the sons of the desert would regard you as needing a close-fit- ting strait waistcoat for yonr suggestion, so supremely ridiculons would it appear to them. Anything ap- proaching to infidelity is not to be found in a single Arab or native of these lands ; nor, if he could read, and had the Bible in his hands, could such a thing be possible, when every page speaks to him, in emphatic language, of his forefathers." It may cause a smile to note Kenan's objection to ** the Book of Joshua, which relates the conquests of Joshua, but does not mention that of Samaria" (vol. ]*., p. 208). Because Samaria was not then hiiilt ! Late in the tenth century " Omri bought the hill Samaria of Shemer for two talents of silver, and built on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built, after the name of Shemer, owner of the hill, Samaria" (1 Kings 16 : 21). This Omri was the father of Ahab, and fiourislied 929-18 b.c. He and the name of his city are found on the Assyrian tablets, but he could not have been known to any early writer of the deeds of Joshua, who died several centuries before Omrihuilt Samaria! The contents and the silence of the Book will survive Renan's objection, although he calls it ^' the least historical of the Bible" (" His- tory of the People of Israel," p. 212). In his second volume, v/hile accepting the record in Kings, he does not cancel his false criticism. The Assyrian tablets say that Shalmaneser II. sub- dued Ahab with the loss of ten thousand men ; but Ahab was slain in battle in 892 ; and Shalmaneser JACOirS BOOKS. 147 in Ill's sixth year defeated Israel and lior allies, when fourteen thousand soldiers were put /lors de comhat. He reig-ned from 858 to 823, or, according to Schrader, 800-25 — i.e.^ he began to reign tliirt^^-two years after Allah's death. He twice came in conflict with Jehu, whom he wrongly calls the " son of Omri" ! Surely we shall not change our ]>ible record to suit these errors of the inscriptions ! It is only a verlKil mis- take, but it is a mistake in the bricks. Jehu was the son of Nimshi, who destroyed the house of Omri- Ahab, and seated himself on their throne, according to the word of Elijah (1 Kings 19 : 10 ; 2 Kings, chap- ters 9 and 10). Yet we m;iy accept the Assyrian ac- count that he paid tribute to Shalmaneser II. or to his predecessor, Eimmon-nirari II., . . . ^' bars of silver, bars of gold, a golden bowl, a golden ladle, golden goblets, golden pitchers, bars of lead, a staff for the hand of the king, and shafts of spears," a great many things of no great value, but paid to Shalmaneser's father. The text may be seen in Schrader's " Cunei- form Inscriptions" (p. 199). Another fragment says that Shalmaneser II. ^' received tribute of the Tyrians, Sidonians, and of Jehu ;" this was about 81:2 B.C. Thus early was the independence of the Northern Kingdom assailed. Indeed, an inscription of Tiglath- pileser I. about 1100 B.C. and in the time of Samuel's judgeship says : '' With the assistance of Assur, Samas, and Hamman, the great gods, the King of Assyria, ruling from the great sea of the west country [Mediterranean] to the sea of the land of Nairi, marched three times." That west country probably included Phoenicia-Palestine and Philistia, to which 148 JAPIIETH CRITICISES Israel was then partly subject. Only indirectly could it be said to be under Assyrian domination. Tiglath does not say that he conquered them, but only as *' ruling from the great sea." He does not claim to be receiving tribute from Israel then, which his annals would have claimed had the facts justified. As they read, they ilhistrate how the inscriptions were wont to embellish rather than omit royal exploits, and are cer- tainly not more reliable than our Biblical accounts. Yet Renansays : " It is only by modern criticism and philology that an insight has been obtained into the truth of these ancient texts. These, trustworthy in their way, with theocratic after-touches and sacerdotal revisions, are often met one upon another in the same paragraph, requiring a practised eye to detect them. The different wordings and the scissors of compilers capriciously used often make impossible the attempt to sort them out" (p. 21). But after this brief exam- ination we can see how very much more of doubt and uncertainty he suggests than his citations or the in- criptions warrant. Keuss, Graf, Kuenen, Noeldeke, Wellhausen, and Stade do not prove his version of how things may have been. In going through his first volume I marked every passage of seeming im- portance, and hav^e now fairly considered most of them. In " God Enthroned in Redemption" (p2>. 61, 62), I anticipated what might be said here of " Moses meeting Elohim in mountain defiles," and the attempt to mystify the Divine Personality (Renan, (p. 28). No ; the Ten Commandments will not budge at his bidding. Jaliveh then as now reigns over all, and gives laws to all, amid the thunders of JACOB'S BOOKS. 149 Sinai, or by the voice of conscience speaking in the hearts of men. Equally in the thunder and in the whisper a Personal (Jod speaks, and speaks to be re- garded : not often to destroy, but to guide and save. The learned logomachy about redaction, compila- tion, and use of the scissors linds its sufficient answer jn the fact that each inspired writer and editor did for his time precisely what was then needed for that time ; adding to the historical parts of sacred history to date, explaining the laws, enforcing its precepts, composing its Psalms, combining scattered accounts, and making the whole more complete and adapted to the new conditions of new generations. This culmi- nated and, so far as we know, ended for the Old Testa- ment under Ezra after the Exile, and with the prophets to Malachi. They were enabled to judge under the guidance of the Spirit of Truth what was of God's truth for future use to men. Thus it had been from Abraham to Moses, when revelation was small in vol- ume, and when it was added to under Moses the peo- ple knew what was God's truth for them. So it was under Samnel and Nathan, Ilosea and Amos, Elijah and Isaiah. Under Judges and Kings the Law of the Lord was, or might be, as well known to the men of Israel as the laws of the Government at Washington, applicable to the several States, are known by Ameri- cans. For Israel was a federation of tribes having Jahveh for their Head, who was honored by being obeyed. Hence He was to be worshipped at His sanc- tuary. Hence loyalty was seen in Sabbath observance and sacririce at His altars. Hence exhortations to obedience to the Divine covenant ; for national loyally 150 JAPHETU CRITICISES implied faithfulness to Israel's God, just as regard for the laws aud for the liag are implied in faith- fulness to our America. The Law of the Covenaut was to be kept in the Ark of God, and a copy of the appointed ritual was preserved beside the Ark. (See Dent. 9 : 9 ; 31 : 24-26 ; 2 Kings 22 : 8-11.) The priests would seem to have been the guardians of the books, and were aided by prophets in expounding them. Only by their consent could additions and ex- positions be made. Each king was required to have a copy of the law which he executed (Dent. 17 : 18-20). Probably another copy was made by each school of prophets. New Psalms were composed from time to time for public use and to be sung in the service of the temple. Thus the sacred books were authenti- cated, edited, and copies of them multiplied. Each copy was security for others ; the priests and prophets were joint security for all. Thus the Hebrew Scrip- tures became, ^j>a7' excellence^ the Bible for future gener- ations. Such authentication is what no other books possess, while it marks the Bible as the Word of God for all His people. That Word has been preserved to this day with re- markable care and exactness. Two centuries before our era it was translated into Greek at Alexandria, and was the best and fullest example of Alexandrine literature, as the Greek Testament was of the Syrian Greek literature. Thus in the Old Testament and in the New we have the best example of the Greek lan- guage in each period, as the Hebrew of the Old Testa- ment was for its day. Jewish colonies in most of the centres of Koman civilization rendered translation of JACOB'S BOOKS. 151 the Hebrew Scriptures necessary. This required authentication of them, and niulti))lication of copies. From Ezra and Malachi, tlie hist inspired editors, to the commencement of its translation into Greek, the time was too short for spurious books or amended copies to pass as genuine. Each book must be known at its true, recognized value before it passed to the translators at Alexandria. From the tenth century B.C. onward prophets like Elijah and Elisha, Joel and Hosea, Amos, Micah, and Isaiah must have known the sacred books, and they had the courage to repudiate and denounce the false. Never was Israel without a witness or without a testimony or law of God ; never before the Roman era were all the people driven from the land of their birth. After Sargon there were tens of thousands of Israelites left in the country of which Samaria had been the chief city ; after Nebuchadnez- zar there were other thousands of Hebrews left who had gone up to Jerusalem to worship. Among these it would be rash to say that not one copy of the Pen- tateuch, nor of the prophets who had then written, nor of the Psalms which had been chanted in the tem- ple and committed to memory, then existed in Israel, and that the Hebrew Scriptures at that date could not be found in Palestine. No ; we are not restricted to the existence of but one Hebrew copy of the Bible. Private copies, we may believe, were ever accessible, which could verify the official in the possession of prophets and of priests, and as read at the three great festivals. Nor is it too much to assume that many who returned with Ezra could verify his text of Scrip- ture as easily as they could compare or contrast the 152 JAPUETII CRITICISES new temple with the greater magnificence of the old one destroyed. Pliilometer, who is called the good Ptolemy, and who was killed e.g. l-iG, consented to build a temple at Bubastis, after the model of the Jerusalem temple, to be dedicated to Jehovah, where should minister Jewish priests and Levites, and in which Pliilometer, his queen and children, should be honored as Seolawaoi, or companion gods, as was then the fashion in Egypt (Mahaffy's '^ Greek Life and Thought," pp. 501, 508 ; Josephus, Book 13, chapters 3, 4 ; Isaiah 19 ; 19). Hence arose the tem- ple at Leontopolis, which lasted till a.d 70. It shows the deep interest which Alexandrian Jews and Egyptian rulers took in their writings and their ritual. The new learning at that centre produced fresh and im- proved copies of the text of earlier writers both in sacred and secular literature. Justin Martyr, a Greek convert to Christianity, testifies to Moses, Isaiah, Jere- miah, and Daniel. Origen, in the second century a.d. , took great pains to collate and arrange Hebrew and Greek versions of the Bible. These Jerome had to aid him in his Latin version two hundred years later, and since then there has been vast labor expended on the sacred volume. Josephus, Justin, Origen, the whole Christian Church, and our Lord Himself, testify to the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms of the Old Testament, the three divisions into which it was then classed and divided. They reached back in two short centuries to the era of the Alexandrian version, and that in two more centuries reached back to the laet Old Testament prophets. So the apostle might truly say, we have a very sure word of prophecy. Keligious JACOB'S BOOKS. 153 sects, Samaria upon Jernsaloin, and Jerusalem, witli her colonies, upon all, were i»;nardians of the Scriptures. Devout men watched the text of the several books, and that no unnuthorized additions were made. The law and the history find illustration in the Prophets and the Psalms. The 119th Psalm is a good exposition of the spiritual meaning of the Law, and may express the writer's opinion of Deuteronomy. The statutes of Jahveh were his study day and night. Thus Jacob certifies to the Divine AVord for Japheth. Appointed judges, anointed priests and kings, inspired prophets composed, expounded, and authenticated that Word for Israel and the world. It is not an ipse dixit of any one rnan. Its history demonstrates its character and purpose, resting upon evidence which commands conviction of its truth. Any occasional or protracted lapse from the law or the ritual was met by the voice of warning prophets, ^' who burned with anger over the abuses of the world, and whom to-day we should denounce as socialists and anarchists. They were impetuous in the cause of jus- tice ; if they could not reform they would destroy the world. This led to deeds of heroism, and awakened the forces of humanity. The founders of Christianity were successors of the prophets, invoked the end of the world, and so transformed it." This strong testi- mony of Renan (p. 10) makes against his theory that Jahveh was only a local god. " For the Bible," he says, ^' is the great book of consolation for huvianity. The prophecies of the ninth century b.c. have their root in the ancient ideal of patriarchal life — an ideal partly of the imagination, but it was a reality in the 7* 154 JAPUETU CRITICISES past of Israel. It lay at the root of a movement which swept the world along with it." Now those prophets were Elijah and Micaiah, Elisha and Joel, all true and earnest men of God, but not the origi- nators of their religion. The root of the movement which swept the world along with it dates from the patriarch who left Ur of the Chaldees, sojourned for a time in Haran, and then travelled southward to Shechem, Bethel, and Beersheba, thus taking posses- sion of the land promised him by his covenant God. '' A small tribe in an outlandish corner of Syria sup- plied the void which Greece never felt of the need of a just God and a universal religion." T/iat^ and not '' Greece herself, is the greatest miracle on earth." That has given mankind a universal rehgion and a Bible for the world. O that Renan saw this ! Moreover, if the inspiration of God was given to men for the preparation of the Coining One centuries before He came, why may not Divine inspiration have enabled Hebrew legislators to formulate laws for that nation in anticipation of its actual needs ? The two, in fact, are often found together in Holy Scripture ; prophets, judges, kings, uniting in edicts and exhorta- tion for observance of the law and for the worship of God. A " thus saith Jaliveh" both enjoined and ex- jplained His will. But from the positiveness which some critics now assume, one might suppose that im- portant discoveries had been made in the text of the Old Testament, which at least warranted, if they did not suggest, a new method of interpretation. But examination shows that Professor Green, of Princeton, for example, has possession of all the facts and data JACOB'S BOOKS. 155 possessed by Professors Kuenen and Wellhansen — i.e.^ the same text and the same mss. I have looked through Kiienen's *' Critical Inquiry into the Hexateuch," of 1886, for the purpose of seeing the grounds upon which he bases his claims for a late origin of the Pen- tateuch as we have it, and why he relegates now one part to the reign of Solomon, now anotlier to Ileze- kiah, nov/ another to Josiah, now another to some post-exilic date, while allowing this or that part to the era of the Exodus. But I fail to find any stronger reason for such redistribution of the several portions than that, ajyviori^ they are legislation in anticipation of the national history ! In a word, it is an *' I think" against '* thus it is written." Such and such things were not enacted till after the settlement in Canaan, hecause it was not needed, not called for ! That is the method of procedure. As ropes, for ex- ample, were before hanging and trees before fruit, so offenses were before the enactment of penalties, and before the laws which enforced them ; the law of the Sabbath before penalty for its violation ; settlement in Canaan before cities of refuge. These critics, how- ever, admit that Hebrew prophets exhorted the peo- ple to obey a law which existed before the reformation under Josiah, and before the reformation of Ileze- kiah ; that Amos, Ilosea, Micah, Isaiah, and perhaps Joel, delivered such utterances about the law which prove it must have been well known in the nintli cen- tury B.C. ; and that Elijah complained, " Lord, they have broken down Thy altars, slain Thy prophets, and I only am left in Israel !" But the Divine answer told him that seven thousand were still faithful to the 156 JAPEETII CRITICISES law of the covenant in that apostate kind. Isaiah also complained that Judah had transgressed the laws^ changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting cove- nant ; hence a curse upon the land (2-Jr : 5 ; compare 34 : 10). That was in the last quarter of the eighth century b.c. The antiquity of these prophecies is un- questioned. No recent "findings" qualify them; though some ask what law was meant ? Professor Briggs, of the Union Theological Seminary, who is not likely to die of conservatism, holds to this old legal teaching of the prophets named above (" Messianic Prophecy," pp. 109-219). The exhortations to obey legal requirements imply their existence. Though often blended with predictions of the Coming One, they cannot be relegated to a later date than when spoken. All fair principles of interpretation suggest that the commentai*y and the urging to obedience were later than the laws so enforced. Laws existed before exposition and penalty. Transgression was only pass- ing beyond what was permitted. The eye of the great legislator foresaw by prophetic vision the needs of his people. Hence much of his code was antic- ipatory of actual needs, and clearly referable to later requirements. To assume that nothing anticipatory in legislation is to be received as genuine and historic is to sweep away a large part of those national codes which are supposed to have originated in the early ao'es of mankind. Indeed, those nations which have made the largest mark in the world's history are all guilty of anticipatory legislation — Egypt by her Menes and " 13uok of tlie Dead ;" Eran l)y her Zoro- aster ; India by her " Yedic Hymns ;" China by her JACOB'S BOOKS. 157 Confucius ; Spurta by her Lycurgus ; Athens by her Solon ; Koine by lier Nunia ; Uabylonia by her " Lit- urgy and Saints' Calendar ;" Darius in reorganizing his enipire ; Charlemagne in legislation for the Franks ; William and his Normans legislating for England ; Napoleon in his " code" for France. Not till these can be explained away can critics explain away the anticipatory legislation of the Hebrews from Moses to David. When you have hloited out the Samaritan Pentateuch^ and have discovered genuine mss. and an authenticated text, which contain no aniicijpatory enactments for Israel^ then^ hat not till then^ can you decide upon all the dates of Hebrew legislation. \¥e have no fears for the results of any discoveries, what- ever they may be — Sinaitic, Alexandrian, Jerusalem, or Vatican. The Law of the Covenant, much of the ritual for worship and sacrifice, laws respecting vows, Nazarites, eating flesh with the blood, prohibiting witchcraft, and limiting the royal prerogative of Israel's king, were before the establishment of the Hebrew monarchy. Moreover, we need stronger evidence than that of Nabonidos, that " Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon, founded the temple of the sun-god at Sippara, b.c. 3750 years." And as this is the now accepted date by many current writers— Professor Sayce, the new Cham- bers' Encycloptedia, etc. — we are surprised to see how little noticed this chronological revolution has been, which radically changes so much of previously received Babylonian data, library collections, culture, and gov- ernmental development. As it adds about two thou- sand years to the supposed chronology heretofore fol- 158 JAPIIETU GRITICI8E8 lowed, it is worth considering whether we are criti- cally historical in accepting those additional two thou- sand years without some further proof. I base my reason for rejecting these added millenniums, at pres- ent, upon the facts of history, Babylonian and Egyp- tian. We all know that in Egyptian history the era and dates of several dynasties were contemporaneous. This, I suggest, was so with the tables of those Baby- lonian kings mentioned by Nabonidos, found in that Cyprian temple. Consider : Sargon I. was the great unifier of Baby- lonia, and consolidated the adjacent princedoms into one nation — viz., his own Agade and Ur, with Baby- lon, Nipur, Sippara, and Zerghul ; but it was not till the reign of Kammurabi, the third in succession after Sargon I., that Babylon was made the capital of the empire. And so Sargon' s so7i actually incor- porated into one series the names of all the kings or princes of those districts which the father had ab- sorbed and consolidated into the new empire over which Naram-Sin reigned. It is assuredly jyrobahle that such a reckoning was made for the twofold pur- pose of glorifying his ancestry and of conciliating his subject peoples, who were restive under his govern- ment, when they remembered their former and larger liberties. Example of this procedure he had in Egypt, while thus lauding the antiquity of his royal ancestors. Indeed, I have seen this principle acted upon in certain incorporated institutions of New York, and I feel confident that it explains the tables of the long list of kings claimed by Naram Sin as his pred- ecessors. It is literally true that he was the successor JACOB'S BOOKS. 159 of each king or prince of each of the united districts of his empire. And lie needed to be strengtiiened on his throne ; hence the claim of a long line of ancestors was a short and pretty sure way of doing it. Hence his royal and thus lengthened pedigree. A thousand years later Sargon II. of Assyria likewise claimed de- scent from certain kings whom he called by name — viz., Eel-bani and Adasi, which claim his courtiers readily admitted. But both these Sargons were prob- ably 'Z^5'w;yj>^r^, certainly the latter. And "the three hundred and fifty kings" said to have preceded Sargon I. doubtless included all those who had reigned over the several districts which his arms subjugated. They are easily embraced in our former chronology, four fifths being contemporary princes. Wherefore there is no present cause for changing " the bloom of Ac- cadian poetry" to a period before 2300 b.c. We thank translators for telling us what the inscriptions say, but we claijn the right to explain those sayings according to the custom of the times and the methods of procedure then and now practised. VII. THE ERA OF SAMUEL AND DAYTD : JACOB'S BIBLE THEN. We have to deal with these celebrated Hebrews in their oflicial relations with the theocracy. Personally they stand hii^h upon the roll of fame. To call Sani- nel the Aristides of his country is to put an incident for a character, apart for the whole. Samuel, indeed, was an example of justice ; he was also the Reformer and organizer of a scattered and disunited people whom he moulded into a nation. Its centre was now at Ramah, now at Mizpeh, now at Gilgal, and then trans- ferred by David to Jerusalem. In their civic position they represent to us Washington as the first President of America, while in their religious position they rep- resent the body of American clergy in bringing the people to the God of their fathers, who had given them a free country and a Divine religion. From Joshua to Eli the centre of worship and of tribal meetino^s was Sliiloh. There only durino- that period atoning sacH'ifices could be offered for the peo- ple. The catastrophe which led to the capture of the Ark also involved the death of Eli and his sons. There was no high priest left in Israel. Samuel was but a Levite in j^edigree, though a highly-honored prophet JACOB'S BIBLE TUEN. 161 of Jehovah. At his home in Kaniah, he built an altar, and offered sacrifices there and at other centres of assembly ; but they were sacriiices which acknowl- edged Jehovah's victory over the Philistines ; which recognized Him as the Bestower of tribal blessings, or renewed the kingdom before Him, with Saul as its earthly sovereign, while the Lord alone was their King ; sacrifices of thanksgiving, of invocation, and of worship might properly be offered by Samuel or by Elijah, but not sacrifices of propitiation and atonement for sin ; these were prescribed to be offered by the priest alone before the door of the tent or tabernacle. And from the capture of the Ark to its reinstatement in the tabernacle by David, who brought it from the house of Abinadab to Jerusalem, there is no record of prescribed sacrifices of atonement for the nation's sin (2 Sam. 6). The call for Ahijah to bring the Ark of God to Saul (1 Sam. 14 : 18), was for a different purpose. Chapter 22 relates how Saul himself had put Ahimelech and the priests of Nob to death ; the young Abiathar alone escaped to David for protection. Thus no sacrifices of atonement were made at the door of the tent of the Ark during all that time. The burnt-offering of a lamb in 1 Samuel 7 : 9 was for invocation of the God of Israel against Philistines, which any prophet or national chief might properly offer, as had been the custom from Abraham to David at the threshing-floor of Araunah (2 Sam. 24 : 18-25). Hence, while sacrifices for purposes of atonement for sin were localized at the place of the Ark, other sacri- fices were not thus restricted in Israel. The best ex- planation of the meaning of a law is the practice under 102 ERA OF DAVID. it soon after its enactment. Thus we interpret the seem- ingly restrictive passages in Deuteronomy 12, which were doubtless known to Samuel and David. (Comp. Lev. Q:Q', 5 : 14-19 ; 19 : 21 ; 17 : 9 ; 16 : 33, 34.) So of 1 Samuel 14, which mentions Saul's calling for the Ark of God ; it certifies to the fact of its being with Israel at that time, while the related verses tell of his rash objurgation, made obligatory by the law then known and understood, against eating flesh with the blood in it (verses 24-35 ; Lev. 17 : 13, 14 ; 19 : 26 ; Deut. 12 : 16 ; 23 : 21-23 ; ^"um. 30 : 2) ; passages of high antiquity. So the later incident of Saul's life, when he inquired of the Witch of Endor, certifies to the law and its penalty (Lev. 20 : 6 Ex. 22 : 18 ; Deut. 18 : 10, 11). Saul had himself cut off those that had familiar spirits in obedience to that same law, and had disguised himself so as not to be known by the woman whose aid he sought (1 Sam. 28 : 3, 8-10). I repeat, the practice under a law proves its existence, and illustrates its meaning. Shiloh even when desolate, Samuel at Ramah, Saul lamenting that God no longer answered him, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets, suggest what comfort the Hebrew had in inquiring of his Covenant God at His Sanctuary. Our study of the Hebrew Scriptures of that time shows that they tended to produce one grand result — viz., to mould and educate a people to conserve the true knowledge and worship of God among men, and to bring the nations to Him for Redemption through His Son. Tlie same Spirit breathes in all Divine agents to this end, the same Hand guides in all Divine provi- I JACOB'S BIBLE THEN. 163 dences. Tlie snpeniatTiral permeates all the series of preparations for the Saviour of the world. During many aij^es it seemed that the chosen people were those alone for whom Jehovah manifested Himself ; made a way for them through the Red Sea, through the wil- derness, across the eTordan ; threw down the walls of Jericho, destroyed wicked Canaanites, crushed Moab and Jabin, Immbled the Philistines. His epiphanies were for Abraham and Jacob, Moses and Joshua, Othniel and Gideon, Deborah and Barak, for father Manoah, ISTazarite Samson, and the rash Jephthah. Then He appeared to Samuel as the vindicator of His Law against the sons of Eli, whose merited death caused his own, through shock at their fate and the capture of the Ark. Never again did the glory of Israel re- turn to Sliiloh. The sun of that place went down with Eli's house. With Samuel was ushered in a new and national era, a school of prophets for the Hebrew people, and a king for their state. He should lead their armies to victory over enemies far and near, over Amalek and Midian, Moab and Philistia. I can see no reason for minimizing Samuel while lauding Elijah, as is now the fashion with some critics. He was a judge and organizer, prophet and priest, while Elijah was a voice of warning from the wilder- ness, an ascetic in life, a reformer who struck at the root of evils. Both had a Divine mission to fullil, and they fulfilled it. They were two centuries apart in time, which largely accounts for the different charac- ter of their work. Elijah wrote one notable letter, Samuel compiled some national annals ; Elijah anointed two avenging kings, Samuel anointed the first and the 164 ERA OK DAVID, second king of Israel, who unified the tribes, consoli- dated the government, and established the kingdom, of which he wrote the account and laid it by the Ark of the LoKD (1 Sam. 10 : 25). Even Renan admits the practice of writing in Israel at this period, and that progress was made in the art under David (vol. i., pp. 309-311). He seems to forget that it was the eleventh century b.c, and only two centuries after the Exodus ; an era of wars and adjustments not favorable to the literary art. That it then flourished in the school of the prophets and elsewhere disproves the theory of Israel's previous illiteracy. Under Samuel were formed guilds for the educa- tion of young men in the law of God and for service in the State. They became advisers of the king, teachers of moral and political economy among a peo- ple who were fast becoming a nation. They pointed out the real bond which held the tribes together. Heretofore it was much like that which united our colonies after their Independence, not strong, nor de- fined, but felt ; now it was to be understood and ac- knowledged, a unio7i of which God Himself was the centre and head. The new prophets expounded this idea with greater emphasis than priestly teachers. They were preachers of righteousness in prnice and peasant ; Divine agents for uttering the Divine voice to men ; literally '' men of God " in a higher sense than Levites ; they w^ere cohens or priestly function- aries armed with supernal powers, seers of what others could not see, and readers of the inward thoughts of those who consulted them. Samuel in his dealings with Saul, Nathan with David, Elisha with ■ JACOB'S BIBLE THEN. 1G5 riazael, the minister of Ben-liaclad King of Syria, il- Instrate this power of ])rop]ietic tlionglit-reading. Dwelling at Damascus or in Israel, the prophet read the mind of the royal messenger, divined the conduct of his servant Gehazi, jnst as Ahijali had discovered the wife of Jeroboam in s]nte of her disgnises, when she consulted him about the recovery of the young prince (1 Kings 14 ; 2 Kings 5 and 8 ; 1 Sam. 9 and 10). Such powers are as wonderful as miracle, and must have been of vast influence with the people. Distant from the Ark of God, at Damascus, at Shiloh, at Carmel, at Gilgal, without an epliod or a breast- plate, wherever one found a prophet of Israel there he might learn the will of God toward him and hear the Yoice of a speaking oracle. The attested facts admit of no other explanation. At the door of the Taber- nacle and at the house of the Seer Jacob might receive the w^ord of Jehovah for himself and for Japheth. This alone suggests the influence of Samuel and Nathan with Saul and David, as well as the terror which Elijah caused in Ahab, wlio dared not hurt him, when he could hardly tolerate his presence, leaving to liis Zidonian wife to be avenged without scruple. In face of the record Renan says that " Samuel was always Saul's dreaded prophet," yet he " had been ]iis good genius ; deprived of him he could no longer live" (p. 340), but he did live many years after the rejection for disobedience about Amalek. It shows the importance of adherence to historic truth. While a writer gives his own coloring to a narrative, that narrative should seek to harmonize the several charac- ters which it j)ortrays. Thus the ruling ideas of that 1C6 ERA OF DAVID. age correspond with tlie description of the writer re- specting the downfall of Sauh There is no contradic- tion between the account and the times depicted. The king is represented as a strong, rough man, cruel, yet of generous impulses ; at times as mean-acting as any king need be : brave, too, patriotic, and passionately desirous that Jonathan shall succeed him ; religious withal, he died nobly on the field of battle, and his son with him. Xever was tenderer elegy penned than David composed upon Saul and Jonathan in the elev- enth century b.c. It amply refutes the charge of il- literacy. In one day fell the pride of Benjamin and the first regal dynasty of Israel. We never tire of reading 2 Sam. 1 : 17-27, a passage which Renan care- fully conceals in the background of his story ; rather a novel way of writing about heroes. Though priest and judge, Eli permitted his sons in a course of corrupt practices and of imposition equal to anything in the priests of Egypt and India, which caused the ruin of his house (1 Sam. 2 : 12-17 ; 4 : 3-21). The Philistines became the avengers of Heaven ; they seized the Ark of God, which had been profanely carried from the tent at Shiloh into battle ; but they became terrified at the mischief it wrought when placed in Dagon's temple, and after seven months' captivity they sent it back to Israel. Cared for by Abinadab it blessed his house for many years. This was at Kirjath-jearim. Shilolrs annual festivals ceased, and Israel lamented for Jehovah's worship. It w^as during this time of spiritual widowhood that Sam- uel commenced his work of reformation. He assem- bled the people at Mizpeh, the place of his famous JACOB'S niPyLE THEN. 167 victory over the Philistines, at old Bethel, and at Gil- gal, urging them to loyal service of the God of their fathers, to put away the Baalim from among them, and to renew the covenant with Jehovah, allowing no com- promises with the false religion about them. Like a true prophet-priest lie offered a burnt-offering to the Lord, who lieard him, and accepted the renewed ser- vice. The men of Israel fought the l^hilistines with fresh cournge, and routed them as fugitives flying be- fore them. This victory they commemorated by Samuel setting up a stone near Mizpeli, which he called Eben-ezer, the Stone of Help, where Jehovah then helped His people (1 Sam. 7). The place was in the canton Benjamin, some four thousand feet above the sea, and became a rendezvous for the tribal meetings for some years. The hill of Zion is said to have been visible from the heights of Mizpeli ; but no American would call it " the Washington" of the tribes ; rather it was their Philadelphia, lasting only for a time. Of special importance under the last judge of Israel, it was the local witness of the devel- oped idea of tribal federation, and where the diet as- sembled which chose Saul to be their king (1 Sam. 10 : lY-25). The strong character which Samuel ex- hibited as Reformer and Judge, Prophet and Priest must have suggested the advantages of national unity under a true leader, whom all would recognize and follow. His many virtues pointed to tribal federation under a national chief. The people thus paid a high compliment to the num who, most of all then living, had nourished, if not indeed evoked, the feeling wliich was expressed by asking him to aj)j)oint a king over 168 ERA OF DAVID. them. True, Jehovah was supremely their King, hut they wanted a snb-king, a Ra-Sekenen or !Narani-Sin, wlio visibly should lead their armies and manage all federal and extra-tribal affairs. Only Gideon since Joshua had approached to such an ideal, and he had erred in following after Baalim. Now, a school of prophets had arisen which could conserve religious purity, while a recognized sovereign would conserve political interests. Moreover, SamuePs annual circuits to Bethel, Gilgal, Mizpeh, and his abode at Ramah, where was his house, a sort of court, and where he built an altar unto the Lord, all illustrated, perhaps unconsciously to the prophet, those centralizing ideas then maturing in the public mind. Scarcely more than EH's were Samuel's sons fitted to succeed him, whose personal and official success emphasized the re- vived longing for a national chief. It was part of his life's work to render the people more religious and more observant of those rites which all acknowledged, though all did not practice, each man having learned to do what was right in his own eyes (Judges 21 : 25). The reh'gion of Israel, after two centuries of corrupt- ing influences from their neighbors, was revived and enthused with a new sjiirit by Samuel. Clearly there was no evolution of a new theology, but a restoration to a new life of the old covenant religion, and a wider, perhaps, deeper appreciation that Jehovah was its Head. Yery similar was it with our colonies after their independence. Religion had declined among them. Some shejDherds had left their flocks to the wolves, while they went with the army ; others had returned to their native land. Schools had become JACOB'S BIBLE THEN. ICO neglected, literature did not flourish, the art of writing languished. Israel's hostile neighbors, like Philistines and Zidonians, were poor teachers of letters ; rather they kept them as ignorant and untaught as possible. The power which could prevent the forging of an agri- cultural implement would not favor the cultivation of the liberal arts. Not even a smith to forge a spear, a sword, an axe, a coulter, or a mattock, was allowed in Israel while dominated by the Philistines (1 Sam. 13 : 19-22). It was a heavier oppression than that of hostile Indians and French Canadians upon our colo- nies. East of the Jordan, Ammon and Moab kept them subject ; in the south, Edom, Midianites, and Amalekites. The record narrates the religious and military disorganization, and the new-born hope under Samuel ; what he did to consolidate the tribes and to restore the powerful influence of religion. Jehovah was their King ; judges, prophets, even anointed sovereigns were only His vicegerents, administering, teaching, judging for Him. This was true in theory at Mizpeh and Jerusalem ; Tirzah and Samaria became apostate. It bears repeating, that the distinct! v^e mis- sion of Samuel was Reformer and Organizer of the Israelites into religious and political unity. He sought to restore the old ways, to exscind the ])oly theism copied from Canaanites, and to make Israel strong against all who were enemies of Jehovah. It was disintegration which had invited domination by neigh- boring cantons west and south of the chosen people. From Joshua to Samuel there had been no national chief over Israel. The leaders who had risen were but local captains of l)ordering tribes, who often disputed 8 170 ERA OF DA VTD. for snpreinacy. Shiloli, indeed, liad been a religious centre rather than a national capital of political unity. Its two centuries of attraction ceased after Ichabod was named upon a grandson of Eli (1 Sam. 4 : 21). ^National enthusiasm did not radiate from it. Even the joung priest Ahiah, who survived the fall of his family, was but a weakling at the behest of Saul (14 : 18, 19), who would bring again the Ark of God to battle ! But the prophet revived patriotism and a common interest and purpose in the tribes. He would have them Jehovists b}^ walking righteously before Him, as well as by sacramental seal of His covenant. Such revival was the outconie of the prophet's work, and in furtherance of his nation's needs. It set an example to Elijah and Micaiah, to Elisha and Jonah. ]^or does it minimize the importance of his grand mission to add that Samuel was a defender, if not the founder, of clericalism in Israel ; for then the cler- ical party was the Lord's party, who were profoundly concerned, jointly with the prophets, to elevate the people in the religious life as well as in civil privileges and aspirations. Saul had slain the priests of Nob, who were only just recovering the loss of Shiloh, and however much he might need their aid, he was too reckless to regard their lives. Ilenan says they were *' too powerful to be dominated by the king," yet he slew them at their innocent offending ! In David they found a more congenial chieftain, which, with the mandate of Jahveh, effected a change in the dynasty- even before the death of Saul. Jonathan had the good sense to recognize and yield to the Divine choice. It discloses the deep and far-reaching inHuence of JACOB'S BIBLE THEN. 171 wliat is called proplietlsm in the era of Samuel. Be- fore liis death his teaching had penetrated the minds and hearts of high and low in Israel, so that it dom- inated the governmentj changed a regal dynasty, won over the priests, and set an example of State control wliich Elijah could follow but in part ; for while he could change Ahal) for Jehu, who avenged the wicked- ness of Jezebel, he failed in winning over the priests of Samaria to his side. But the pro[)hets of Ramali and the priests of Jehovah were united in efforts for the national and Divine honor, and they were quite as successful as the prophet of fire and the guild of Elisha. They also had the courage of their convictions and of their order ; they as publicly proclaimed the son of Jesse as their successors proclaimed the son of Nimshi. But they patiently waited for the chances of war to remove Saul, and to put David, the chosen one, in his stead. In this also Elijah followed that first example. Jehovah is not precipitate in His dealings with man- kind (1 Sam. 15 ; 16 ; 19 : 18-22 ; 1 Kings 19 ; 15- 21 ; 2 Kings 8 : 7-15 ; 9 : 1-37 ; Eenan, vol. i., pp. 325-35). Saul's great offence was disobedience to the Word of God, which established a very bad precedent. If prophets could be disregarded and priests slain at will, what would become of religion in Israel ? How could preparation be made for the Advent of the Bedeemer ? At the root lay the danger. The redemption of man was jeoparded in the disobedience of Saul and rejection of the Divine voice. Here Ja[>heth had an interest in Israel's loyalty to the God of Jacob. Ko altar erected by an erring king would compensate for the moral 172 Ell A OF DAVID, terpitiidc and after consequences of his sin. It was inexpiable. Very characteristic is Renan's remark, that ^' man is thus shown to be punished for the good he does, and to be compensated for the evil. History is quite the contrary of virtue rewarded " (^5., p. 331). It is, however, apparent by the facts that Saul was personally a no better man than David, who was often obliged to fly from his deadly weapon while at dinner, though as often as SauTs life was in David^s hand, he scorned to take it, choosing rather to seek a home among Philistines, or in the cave of Adullam, or among the wild slopes of Carmel. It is pitiful criticism to ridicule the " pretty story of David in a cave ; taking the lance and pitcher of water from Saul, while improving the opportunity of a good laugh at the sleepy Abner," who should have guarded his king. (Renan, vol. i., pp. 341-46). It certainly speaks well for the son of Jesse, and suggests that his con- duct had nothing of the '' brigand " in it. Com- pare his character as portrayed in 1 Sam. 24 to 29 ; cutting off the border of Saul's robe at Engedi ; tak- ing his spear and cruse of water in the wilderness of Ziph ; restraining his anger against churlish Nabal ; seeking refuge with Achish at Gath and at Ziklag, then marching after invading Amalekites rather than lift his hand against his king. What gentleness and justice, what patriotism and faith are there illustrated ! Not doubting its historical correctness, we must accept the whole account. Even if legendary, we have no right to pick and choose this or that item or incident which may best support our theo7'y about a famous king of Israel. Salient facts in the life of David are JACOB'S BIBLE THEN. 173 correct!}^ narrated in Samuel ; tliere is no extenuation or condonenient for wronout to do as affecting their wel- fare. Now a prophet had a word for Judah, now for Zidon, now for Samaria and Damascus ; now ho must 190 rilE PROPHETS AND travel to a distant land and cry, '* Yet forty days, and jNineveli shall be overthrown !" and then write ont, and send his message to be read in the streets of Baby- lon, and. afterward sunk into the great river, saying, '' Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil brought upon her" (Jer. 51 : 6-1). No; God's truth was never barrelled up and restricted to Israel alone. The hand and voice that provided for Jacob provided also for Japheth. The God of Jeshuron w^as not a local deity, but the God of mankind. Where no Aaronic priest ever officiated, there prophetic voices might be heard from the coasts of Phoenicia to the regions of the two rivers and among the Egyptians. They denounced idolatry and polytheism, sensuality and all unrighteousness overreaching between man and man, and impiety toward God. They declared what would come to pass according to His will, and how His judgments might become blessings. They also had a word of comfort and encouragement for some lone widow, some fatherless child, some oppressed laborer, or some praying believer in the saving grace of Jahveh. And they thundered against the inconsis- tency of being among the covenanted of the Lord, while the national conduct l)elied its profession. Ever did they proclaim that conduct proved character and was the index of it, and that ]>unishment would follow transgression. The Judge of all the earth held a just balance ; rectitude and righteousness were the habita- tion of His throne ; adjustments and compensations were administered by Him. His prophets were pa- triots and seers, reformers and conservators of the old ways and truths and teachings of religion. The God THEIR PEEDWTIONS. 191 of tlie Law and the Testimony would deliver 11 is people froiu all oppressors : now by Deborah and IJarak from Midianites ; now by Samson and Samuel from the Philistines ; now by His angel from the hosts of Sen- nacherib. Joel would free them from PhoBnician cor- ruption and from the Northern Army ; Ilosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah from Assyrians, Babylom'ans, Chaldeans, and Zechariah from foreign captivity to a restored city and temple wherein God dwelt as their everlast- ing Lord. (Compare Amos, Micah, Zechariah 8th to 14th, Malachi 3d and 4th.) The prophets were thus political as well as religious reformers, heralds of the Messiah and precursors of Him, who should suddenly come to His temj^le. If there were indulgent priests like Eli, there were also austere priests like Ezra, who extirpated evils at the root ; a scribe of the law who enforced its f-aithful observance, its fasts as well as feasts, its marital and Sabbatic requirements. From Phinehas to Hilkiah and Mattathias, the father of Maccaba3us, there were never wahting priests and prophets who w^ere zealous, loyal, and ready to sacrifice their lives in defence of the law of their fathers and the worship of their God. It needed not a forged Book of Daniel to arouse the patriotism and religious enthusiasm of the Jews to en- dure the cruelties of Antiochus EpijJianes, and to be- lieve that He who had delivered their fathers from Egypt and from Captivity would also deliver them in the second century b.c. from a monstrous tyranny. Only the God of Daniel, not his hook, could achieve their civil and religious emancipation. The personal agents in it were the sons of Mattathias. 192 THE PROPUETS AND The sages and seers of Israel ever found the means of having their deh'verances reacli those for whom they were uttered, whether in Palestine or the regions be- yond. Already we have seen the affinity in language among the Semitic families, especially in the vicinit}^ of Canaan. As late as Sennacherib and Hezekiah, Jerusaleinites understood the Assyrian dialect. Trade and commerce made those people acquainted with each other's speech. Letters were conveyed to and commercial dealings had with many separated centres of civilization long before the establishment of the Persian posts. Nahum tells us how the merchants of Nineveh were multiplied above the stars of heaven (3 : 16). Ezekiel makes the traffickers a great multi- tude between Tyre and Bashan, Arvad, Lud and Phut, Tarshish and Meshech, Javan and Tubal, Togarmah and Dedan, Syria and Judah, Kedar and Arabia, Haran and Canneh, Asshur and Chilraad. They com- prised every class of artisans, skilled workers, seamen and merchants, traders in precious metals, gems, rich fabrics, spices and gums for sacrifice ; far excelling in quality and variety the trade of our American colonies. Ezekiel's twenty -seventh chapter contains names not written in our modern bills of laden. Herodotus tells of the traffic in " Assyrian wares," which were carried via Phoenicia and sold to the Greeks. In his time trade flourished between Armenia and Babylon and Susiana, up and down the Euphrates and Tigris. Diodorus makes the cities on those rivers marts of commerce with Assyria, Media, and Para^tucene. Thapsacus and Opis, Tadmor, Tyre and Joppa be- came centres of trade. Solomon built Tadmor as a THEIR PREDICTIONS. 193 grand depot and mart for traffic in gold, tin, ivory, lead, precious stones, cedar- wood, pearls, and en- graved seals, for export and for tribute. The route from Elatli to Jerusalem was via Babylon and Thap- sacus. The treasures of Arabia and Africa, Egypt and India, were shipped on boats and on camels to Tadmor, Damascus, and the Holy Land, or to Tyre and Zidon. Tin was early brought from Cornwall, Wales, and the Scilly Isles, to be exchanged for the rich fabrics of Babylonia, and the tin was mixed with native copper for the production of '^ Assyrian bronze." So during the entire era of the writing- prophets ancient carrier-merchants could promptly convey any prophecy to the several points between the most Eastern and Western civilization. Wherever trade went the customs-officer followed, and prophetic voices readily penetrated. From Susa, east of the Tigris, to Sardis in Western Asia Minor, there was a good military and commercial road which occupied ninety days to travel, and was provided with stations some fifteen miles apart ; and public hostelries had been established along it before Herodotus wrote. They are described as like the caravanseries of modern Persia, while the road they dotted formed the high- way of travel for post and potentate between the Ind- ian Ocean and the JSgean Sea. It was equally available to Phoenician merchants and Hebrew seers. (Layard's " Babylon and Nineveh,'^ p. 429 ; Rawlin- son's " Ancient Monarchy," vol. ii.) Isaiah could transmit his messages to Babylon and Egypt, to Dumah and Damascus (chs. 17-21). Be- tween Judea and Nineveh the route was better known 9 194 THE PHOPHETS AND and more frequented than in our day, so that it was as easy for Jonah to go and preach in the capital of Assyria as for a Bostonian to visit the capital of Texas in 1860. The servant of Jeremiah could as readily read what Jahveh had spoken concerning Babylon and its pending desolation in that famous city, as he could throw the roll on which it was written into the midst of Euphrates (Jer. 51 : 60-64 ; Ezek. 31 : 3-15). Early prophets of themselves could not foresee how corrupt and debased Assyrians would become. They were of the same Semitic family, and in the days of Isaiah were in the acme of their power and influence. He could not tell, except by revelation from God, that the Medes, who were then a rising nation, would over- turn the dynasty of Sargon and Sennacherib in about a century after their invasion of Palestine. '' In the argument from prophecy we have to do with a forest, not with a single bough or a basket of leaves ; with the whole trend of a coast, not with single headlands or inlets of the sea ; with a zone of constellations, not with a few scattered stars" ('^ Old Faiths in New Light," p. 248). And the stars of our prophetic zone illumine human history from the promise of Genesis to its j)erfect fulfilment. All critics admit the work of prophets from Samuel to Ezra ; prophets who wrote and who did not write their predictions. Eli- jah, with his one known letter to Jehoram, and Elisha of many messages ; Micaiah, who withstood the false prophets of Ahab as well as his sentence to bread of affliction and water of affliction, and whom Mr. H. Spencer misrepresents as advising that Jezebel-ruled king to war against Syria, when his advice was to the THEIR PREDICTIONS. 195 contrary, thus : ''I saw all Isroel scattered upon the mountains, as sheep that have no shepherd. ... If thou return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me" (1 Kings 22 : 17, 28). The whole chapter is a refutation of Mr. Spencer. As well say that the prophetess Huldah predicted the continued prosperity of Jerusalem and its king, when she foretold what would befall it because of prevailing wickedness (2 Kings 22 : 14 ; 2 Chron. 34 : 22-28). We count the non-wTiting prophets as about twice the number of those who recorded their deliverances. Their order expounded special revelations. Israelites w^ere watch- ful of new members, and asked with seeming surprise, Is Saul also among the prophets ? Will he leave his paternal acres and the vocation of his fathers ? Will he be yeoman, seer, or king ? (1 Sam. 10 : 1-27.) Of the predictions from Enoch to Anna enough remains for our instruction ; more would doubtless have been preserved if needed for our edification or for prepar- ing for the reign of the Lord. We have all that is necessary to occupy our minds and to interest our affections, and the Bible was not written to gratify our curiosity. We need not lament the loss of historical books which prophets incorporated into theirs. It is said that all voicmgs of seers ivere not the re- vealing of new ideas and events. Jacob, when pre- dicting the future prosperity of his sons, may have spoken from what he knew of their personal charac- ter, as well as by the insj^iring Spirit of God. Thus his ^rhecics and visions of Daniel. Whatever the additions in the Greek version, the old text affords no ground for doubting the account as we have it. Of course it contains the miraculous ; so does the history of Joseph and his brethren, of Samuel and Eli, of Elijah and Ahab, of Micah and Jeremiah, of Isaiah and Ezekiel ; why not, then, the visions and events of Daniel ? Pagan Porphyry would palm off upon his readers things more strange, and without sufficient reason. Every reader of his '' Pythagoras" knows how he tries to represent the followers of that philosopher as more enduring than Christians, more spiritual and charitable than those baptized disciples who distributed to every member of the Church according to his need. From his time till now there have been those who urcre ob- jections against Daniel as they read him, which, how- ever, arise not from want of authentication of the con- tents of the Book, but because portions of it are pal- pably supernatural, and Christians claim inspiration for the writer ! Precisely. But no Christian is bound to accept a line of the contents till competent men have sifted the evidence upon which its truthfulness de- 230 JACOB'S PHOPHETS pends. Clearly there is no a priori reason against the miraculous and the inspiration of Daniel, which may not be urged against his contemporaries, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Yet they are undoubted and accepted by all critics whom any Christian would recognize as authority in the matter. The fact that some fabrica- tions of second-century Jews got added to the Alexan- drine version — whether now accepted by the Roman Church matters not — does not bind any reader to ac- knowledge more than is duly authenticated in the He- brew and Aramaic text. All know that it is only the genuine, not the spurious, which is counterfeited. Of the miraculous, the one question for us is, Is it properly authenticated f And this brings us to chapter 4, the very crux of the book. The school of Kuenen and Renan admit that there was an increasing tendency to Jewish exclusive- ness after the return from Exile, and that this spirit was active and dominant in the second century e.g. We accept this admission as entirely true. But con- sider : no patriotic Jew of that era could therefore forge or fabricate a story like the account in Daniel 4 ; for it represents a heathen and idolatrous king as priv- ileged with visions from Jehovah touching his j?€7',9(9naZ concerns. And the account is found in the most re- liable text, not doubted by many who doubt about the last half of the book. It is genuine and historic. An enthusiastic Jew would as soon think of commit- ting suicide as of fabricating a Divine vision like that for a pagan. Surely, if he dared thus to symbolize the fall of Antiochus Epiphanes, he would not permit him to sprout and live and reign again, re-established SERVE JAPHETU'S KINGS. 231 in his kingdom (verse 36). That would be acting as insane as the king. Moreover, he would not atttict him with such 2in u7icommon disease^ occurring indeed but very seldom, and making behef in it as difficult and less credible than belief in the whole vision. Nor would he set a captive in Babylon as the chief minis- ter of affairs during Nebuchadnezzar's incapacity. Such critics have considered only half the case and its belongings. The supernatural of Daniel cannot be explained away by still more supernatural traits in Jews of the second century b.c. Reading the storj'- of the Maccabean princes in Josephus inspired me with enthusiastic admiration for them many years ago. This prompts me to say that not one of them, not one of their heroic com- panions and followers, would possibly allow to a con- quering king, who trampled down their rights and their religion, to be privileged with such visions from heaven, as warned him of his personal duty to God, and promised him a glorious restoration after a seven years' penance ! This is unparalleled in the history of the Jews, who would not invent such things of Antiochus Epiphanes. As I am writing for intelli- gent readers, 1 will not weary them by further re- marks. With the chapter open before them, they will see how absurd it is to attribute the writing of it to a Jew in the second century b.c. As every one knows who knows anything about this question, there is no pretence that it is the work of any one after the year 150 B.C. ; for then Daniel was done into Greek, with some additions by the translators and editors, which, however, all Protestant Christians reject, and 232 JACOB'S PROPHETS reject for similar reasons which compel them to receive the contents of our version. It was not till seven hun- dred years after Daniel was sleeping on the banks of Euphrates that any one is known to have doubted the authorship of his prophecies, and then it was a pagan who wanted to enthrone Pythagoras in his place ! A cuneiform copy may yet be found which shall confound all his detractors. It is quite evident that Daniel was a cuneiform writer as well as a He- brew prophet, and well read in the literature of the Euphrates and the Jordan. For years the chief min- ister of Nebuchadnezzar, he survived his death in 561 ; that of his successor. Evil Merodach, in 558 ; of Ner- gilissar in 555, and of Belshazzar in 538, becoming a prince councillor of the new government under Darius the Mede the same year, when, if born in 618, he was about eighty. Such a character was not to be fabri- cated in three hundred years, nor his work forgotten in Babylonia, Syria, or Judea. As well try to invent, in our day, a Lord Bacon or a Sir Edward Coke for the reign of Elizabeth ; but Daniel's life and work were even more closely identified with the govern- ment, while his voice and visions were for the instruc- tion of the court and a light for the Gentiles. His captivity in 605 to the decree of restoration by Cyrus covered the seventy years' Exile. It is proper to add the testimony of Josephus the Jew to Daniel the prophet, for he lived and died a Jew. Even if he exaggerated or embellished his account of Alexander's visit to Jerusalem, the fact that he mentions the prophecy of Daniel as being shown to Alexander is conclusive of Daniel's prophecy. And he may have SERVE JAPIIETH'S KINGS. 233 used the fact of that prophecy to give greater credit to what he said of Alexander. Josephus was too in- tent upon glorifying his country to seek support for his picture about Alexander's visit in a weak or worth- less frame. Rather he endeavors to sustain what he says of the king — even upon the supposition that it is pictorial — by citing Daniel, who was well known and believed. That this item is not mentioned by Greeks only suggests that the incident, occurring in Jerusalem and of local importance, in their judgment had no in- terest for Greeks. I care not a straw whether Par- menio questioned the king, or whether the king saw a vision at Dium, or in what robes the priestly proces- sion met him ; the facts remain that Alexander visited Jerusalem, pardoned the Jews for their disobedience, and conferred upon them the privileges allowed them by the Persians ; also that Josephus, writing of this in the first century a.d., says that the Book of Daniel was shown to Alexander as containing predictions re- specting the King of Greece ! This certifies that Josephus and those for whom he wrote knew of and recognized the ancient authority of Daniel. It is the inevitable conclusion from the narrative — viz., the ex- istence of DanieVs prophecies in the year 332 b.c. Josephus's ^' Antiquities," Book 10, 10 and 11 ; P. Smith's '' Ancient History of the World," vol. ii., pp. 60, 61 ; Justin Martyr and Origen also confirm the belief in the early existence of Daniel's book. 7. Consider what modern discoveries have done for Isaiah 20 : 1 : ''' Sargon., the King of Assyria, sent Tartan to Ashdod, and fought against it, and took it " — a time-mark of the prediction in that chapter. Yet 234 JACOB'S PROPHETS tlie world was troubled and puzzled at it for two thou- sand years, for want of the brick-knowledge which the discoveries at Nineveh have supplied in our genera- tion. Sargon was one of the most famous of Assyrian kings from 722 to 705 b. c. — about seven ten years. Yet the mention of his name by Isaiah was objected to by doubting critics as an error of the prophet ! He was the shuttlecock of historians and expositors ; now confounded with Shalmaneser IV., whom he slew; now, with Sennacherib, who was liis son ; and then doubted whether read out of or into the inscriptions ! Even as late as 1845, Dr. Kitto thought there was such a king who had reigned two or three years ; altogether presenting a striking illustration of current objections to our Daniel, and a similar exhibition of learned guesses touching Isaiah and Sargon. Wherefore that old usurper and warrior king had to wait two millen- niums before he was recognized as the most powerful monarch of the world during seventeen of the last years of the eighth century b.c. It was he who cap- tured Samaria, finishing the siege which Shalmaneser lY. had begun, and carried the Ten Tribes into As- syria and Babylonia, which he subjugated. His '' An- nals," written under his direction, occupy forty pages in the translation made in 1876. They tell how he plundered the country and house of Omri — Omri be- ing the Assyrian designation for the King of Israel, which was continued in use two centuries after the ex- tirpation of that dynasty, and is incorrect ; how he routed the king of the Moschians, overpowered Egypt, treated the King of Gaza like a slave ; the great Phoe- nicia, Syria in its totality, cities of remote Media, he SERVE JAPUETH'S KINGS. 235 made tributary, and forced under his authority. From Samaria he took 27,280 captives, 50 chariots, and mucli other booty. He exi)elled Merodach-Baladan from Babylon, and immediately immolated the ex- piating victims to the great gods, leaving that city in the thirteenth year of his reign, and capturing the ensigns of royalty, the throne of his royalty, the golden sceptre ; . . . oxen, camels, sheep, and lambs were taken. He carried off 80,570 men, 2070 horses, 700 donkeys, 6054 camels, 30,000 instruments of gold, etc. Sippara, Nipur, Babylon, Borsippa, he did not de- stroy, but of some places he made a desolation. And he closed the record of his deeds with a prayer for blessings upon himself and his successors, but a curse upon whomsoever should alter his writings or change his name — " May Assur, the great god, exterminate his name and his offspring, and never pardon his sin !" The details are translated in " Records of the Past," vols. vii. and ix. But they were unknown to Euro- peans for two thousand years ; not indeed changed, but buried amid the ruins of his palace. His name only was found in Isaiah the prophet, who lived before and after him. Emerging again into light after that long eclipse, Sargon now elucidates the writer who made him a time-mark of a prophecy. It was Sargon who fullilled the prediction in 21 : 16, that '' within a year, according to the years of a hireling, and all the glory of Kedar shall fail ; . . . the children of Kedar shall be few ; for Jehovah, the God of Israel, hath spoken it." Now, within that time, Sargon in- vaded Northern Arabia, punished Kedar and its Tsh- maelite inhabitants, b.c. 716. It was the enthrone- 236 JACOB'S PROPHETS SERVE JAPHETH'S KINGS. ment of proplietic truth. So of the prophecy against Tyre (Isa. 23), and against Egypt in chapter 30. The Egyptian party in Jerusalem would find no aid from the Nile land against Assyria ; '' for the tramp of her soldiers and the roll of her chariot wheels were soon heard in the defiles of Lebanon and in the valley of Orontes. The nations which spake treason Sargon chastised and rendered obedient. None could save the calf of Dan and the Baal of Samaria." For his many victories the king offered costly sacrifices to his god in acknowledgment of the greatness conferred upon him, and for his successes. He erected a mag- nificent palace near Nineveh, formed a large library, and placed in it the narrative of his royal deeds. At length he was slain in his court, as he had probably slain his predecessor, and was succeeded by his son Sennacherib, the foe of Hezekiah, who was obliged to retire from Jerusalem, according to the word of Isaiah. Thus time and Providence will solve all the difficulties of prophecy for the nations, illustrating how its light enlightened the Gentiles, and was a progressive prepa- ration for the Son of God. If there is any fact dem- onstrable from the history of mankind, it is that Je- hovah, the Elohim of Israel, has ever manifested Him- self as the God of Japheth. In Egypt, in Palestine, in Syria and Ilamath, in Babylonia and Assyria, and to the isles of the sea. He who was worshipped in Hebrew tents, in the Tabernacle and in the Temple, has all throu^rh the a^es soiis^ht to draw all men unto Him. For them He gave the Son of His Love. X. GENERAL EEVIEW OF MATTERS CONSID-^ ERED m THIS BOOK. We have learned the story of how the Bible grew and was written. We have seen that the legislation contained in the Pentateuch existed for the most part before the regal history ; that Hebrew judges and priests administered a law and urged obedience to a ritual which were of recognized obligation in the two centuries which preceded Saul ; that many precepts of the code were early incorporated into the national literature, and continued to be so used during six hun- dred years ; that Hebrew kings did at the outset sub- mit to certain restrictions and limitations of royal prerogative, and with some exceptions continued such submission to the last days of their history ; and that none of them ever repudiated the authority of Mosaic institutions, even when they added to them, or apos- tatized from the covenant religion. Critics admit that neither Ahab nor Manasseh, Jezebel nor Athaliah de- nied the authority of Moses and the prophets, even when they set up Baal instead of their teaching, or as supplementary to it. Jacob's Bible grew with his his- tory — psalms, parables, proverbs enriched his book. The facts related in Genesis 37 and 42 are of such a 238 GENERAL REVIEW. personal character, tliat each one concerned must have contributed his own share in the matchless storj of Joseph, which, like the blessing of Jacob, no late writer could have composed. We learn the religion of Abraham bj a careful study of the religion of Ur, where he long lived and whence he came to Haran and to Palestine, and that Joshua was quite right in saying their " fathers served other gods beyond the river." Days of Passover and Atonement now observed by the Jews are derived from similar observances in the time of Moses. Even when the ritual varied the substance remained the same. Micah's exhortation to remember '' the right- eous acts of Jehovah from Shittim unto Gilgal," in- cludes the memorable passage of the Jordan, and proves that Hebrews of the first half of the eighth century b.c. knew of and believed them. Yet some critics who acknowledge eighth and ninth-century prophets fail to see the folly of putting the writings of those prophets hefore the law on whose existence they depend, and without which lose all their force. Thus the life-work of Samuel proves Moses ; so does the conduct of King Saul ; so does the mission of Elijah to apostate Israel. But some forget the apos- tasy after Jeroboam, and that she never recovered from that fatal lapse. Prophets threatened and re- monstrated in vain. To relegate the origin of the Law to M4 b.c. is to ignore the veritable history of Israel, and to treat its literature as a forgery. But the great names of some who hold this view gain disciples to their error, not seeing that Church and nation were alike disrupted at MATTERS CONSIDERED. 239 the same time, from Jeroboam to Aliab. Some diffi- culties in chronology and some errors of copyists exist, but there is nothing wliich disproves Hebrew law in the early ages — the law of the Kazarite, the law of Jehovah, and a ritual of worship, which we trace back from Ililkiah to Samson. Though we have no manu- scripts of that era, neither have we mss. of the era 444 B.C. Nor have we the original mss. of Homer and Plato, of Cicero and Caesar. But the uniform testi- mony of men who knew the writings, if not the writ- ers, renders it impossible for us to reject their works as genuine productions of the age which claimed them. Moses, indeed, was before Homer, and he was read by ]3riests, prophets, and kings many centuries before he was heard in the synagogues of post-exilian Jews. Tracing backward we find that Roman writers prove Hebrew history after the second century b.c. ; that Greek writers prove it for the two previous centuries ; that Persian and Babylonian history proves it for the iifth and sixth century b.c. ; while Assyrian, Hittite, Moabite, or Egyptian records prove it from the sixth to the fifteenth century b.c. Moreover, we also learn that Jehovah was the God they worshipped by a ritual observance and sacrifices, by Sabbaths and holy days, and that ever and anon during this long period they carefully obeyed certain laws, observed certain rites, practised circumcision, kept the passover, regarded the mandates of prophets who uttered predictions now for Jacob, now for Japh- eth, in Palestine and in Exile. Even the first eight verses of Zechariah ninth chapter would be remark- able, if not preceded by some still more striking pas- 240 GENERAL REVIEW. sages in Daniel and Ezekiel, in Jeremiah, Isaiah, and other prophets. So Hosea (12 : 3, 4, 9, 12, 13) proves the patriarchal history in Genesis and Exodus by the facts which the prophet mentions in detail. Before his birth Jacob took his brother by the heel ; in his man- hood he had power with the angel of God ; at Bethel he found the Lord God of hosts in His memorial or covenant name ; therefore his sons should wait on God continually. Ephraim should remember the deliver- ance from Egypt, and that his riches were from the Divine bounty. Prophets and visions had been multi- plied to secure the people's obedience to the covenant of Sinai ; but Ephraim had provoked the Lord most bitterly, therefore his blood should be upon him, and the reproach of Jehovah, because he had transgressed at Gilgal, offended in Baal, and made idol-gods ; his men had kissed the calves in sacrifice. We count a dozen historic facts in half as many verses. Early prophets epitomize both history and law for Israel. Modern history relates how English kings and Par- liaments often resisted the imposition of Papal laws upon the English people ; how French and German sovereigns often disobeyed Papal mandates ; how Hildebrand failed in his struggles against imperial power ; how Boniface VIII. failed to humble Philip lY. in a contest of which the world took notice. But none of those monarchs ever suggested that the Church of these haughty popes was only a new establishment of recent authority. Kather they were content with disputing Papal claims to dominate civil affairs. The peoples ruled by Jeroboam and Ahab, Ahaz and Man- asseh were as numerous and as religious as those of MATTERS CONSIDERED. 241 the European kings we have named ; but while they tried to introduce new ways of worship, or new gods to be honored, neither the son of Nebat nor the son of Omri ever excused his apostasy from the worship of Jahveh because His worship was a new thing in Israeh They admitted its antiquity. Even the most reforming of Hebrew prophets only demanded obedi- ence to the old covenant law of that people. Ezekiel reminds them of Noah, Job, and Daniel, while Elijah and his successors exhorted them to loyalty to Jahveh. The Jew was assured by his national teachers of the ancient character of his law. Without a page of new documentary evidence, and with many probabilities against them, some now as- sume that because Ezra or some other authority in Jerusalem may have made some additions or adapta- tions to the old law of Moses or to the ritual of the second temple, therefore the code itself and the ritual are of the date 444 e.g., when, in fact, there was then only a republication of it. Just as wisely could those European kings have based their resistance to Papal claims upon the assumption that the Church of which there were popes was a new thing, rather than that their claims to dominate over princes in civil affairs was recent. But neither Hebrew kings nor European monarchs made such objection ; rather they acknowl- edged the priority of the Church in each country to themselves. There is surely no objection to conced- ing that after the return from Exile some supposed safeguards were added to the Hebrew law and ritual, and that returned Jews became narrower and stricter than their fathers ; but there is every ol)jection to say- II 242 GENERAL REVIEW. ing that those laws and that ritual had not been long observed in Israel, and, in fact, are found interwoven with its history diVivmg fifteen hundred years, and are certified to by the prophets. That ^' Jewism began from that moment " means nothing. The teaching of Ezra depends on that of Moses and Abraham. The Hebrew religion began with the patriarch some two thousand years B.C. Wherever we find the observance of any law in Is- rael ; of the Sabbath, of sacrifice, of sin and penalty, of the Nazarite and other vows, of witches and necro- mancy, of the removal of dead bodies, of ceremonial uncleanness, eating flesh with the blood, of the place where atonement was to be made, laws about feasts and fasts, new moons and first days, circumcision and Pass- over, of priests, prophets, judges, kings — there we have proof that such laws then existed, existed in the era from Joshua to Saul. It is interwoven with the history of that period, and cannot be exscinded with- out fraud and violence, unless it can be shown that the records were forged, which is impossible. Not a King of Israel can be shown to be mythical ; not a recognized priest was without a duty or an altar ; not a prophet of Jahveh failed to deliver his message to whom he was sent — Jonah only hesitated. In Sa- maria, in Jerusalem, among other nations, the Divine voice was heard ; for there was great occasion for remonstrance, contrition, reformation ; nobles and people wandered from God. Yet the preparation for a new evangel went on in Palestine and in Exile. Perfection was not yet. Some writers ignore the consequences of the Disrup- MATTERS CONSIDERED. 243 tion of the nation nnder Relioboani upon tlie religion of Israel. Thereafter Israel and Judah were as distinct governments as Syria and Edom, or Moaband Plirenicia. They tell us how '^ priest and prophet reeled through the influence of strong drink in the very ministration of their sacred offices !" So might the priests of India ; so in Babylon, Egypt, Phoenicia, " prostitution was throned upon the altars !" But that had little to do with the development of Hebrew religion in Judea. In the century after Amos, when Hezekiah invited the remain- ing tribes after the capture of Samaria to keep the Passover with his people, they laughed at his proposal to go up to Jerusalem to worship. They followed the cultus of Bethel and Dan. It was all they recognized. From Jeroboam I. to Sargon II. there was no develop- ment of Jahvism in Israel. At Bethel, at Gilgal, transgression had not ceased. Some idol worship con- tinued after the capture of the shrines of Dan, and longer yet was the influence felt by the covenant peo- ple. Kuenen, Eenan, and others seem to forget that the Disruption of Israel applied alike to the govern- ment and to the Church of Jacob. Her drunken priests and prophets were those of Baal, not of Jah- veli, and though dent>unced by Amos, he sought to bring them back to covenant loyalty. " The nation, as a whole, was recreant." They did not go up to the tem2:>le at Jerusalem, and unless they repented as a nation and returned to Jahveh, He would avenge His cause by the Assyrians carrying them captive. But Judah had not wandered so far and so long from her covenant God. If '' Amos was the first to preach the principles of pure ethical monotheism^'' to the Ten 244 GENERAL REVIEW. Tribes after their separation, it does not follow that a similar ethical monotheism did not prevail in Jiidah nor under David and the early years of Solomon, nor when Samuel administered affairs in his annual cir- cuits from Ramah to Gilgal and Mizpeh. The prophets must not be severed from the local history of their times. During two hundred and fifty years those of the northern kingdom had to struggle against the sin of Jeroboam, to which was added the sin of Aliab and Jezebel ; but in the southern kingdom Jah- vism more generally prevailed, and the people went up to Jerusalem at the great feasts to sacrifice and wor- ship. Neither so far nor so long did they wander from the temple-service. But we are told that Ahab did not mean to apostatize from Jehovah worship ! It is difficult to see that he ever was a Jahvist. He was in succession from Jeroboam in Israel, who had made as radical a revolution in the religion as in the government of the country. He apostatized from the temple worship ; would not allow his people to attend the feasts at Jerusalem ; set up calf shrines at Bethel and at Dan, which were served by priests from the lowest of the people. The priests of the Law and the Temple would not serve him, for he had become a separatist and an apostate. So were his successors, from Nadab, his son, to Iloshea, who was carried cap- tive in Y21 B.C. Prophets of the ninth century had failed with Ahab ; prophets of the eighth century failed with the successors of Jehu. Prince and peo- ple were incorrigible. It is a perversion of history to give a different setting to these facts. From liehoboam to Sargon II. there was no true development of the- MATTERS CONSIDERED. 245 ology in Israel. Aliab was but one of a series of apostate kings, whom neither tiie warnings of prophets nor the preaching of the Law of the Lord could long restrain from following the rival cult set up by Jero- boam, chiefly in order to keep his new subjects from worship at the Jerusalem temple. The priests of Baal were slain by the hundred, and the prophets of the Asherah, but soon others took their places ; for the king would not risk his people attending the sanctuary of his rival in Judah. It is this, and not the develop- ment of a new theology, which is the key to the prophecies of Amos and others of his era. Theirs was a last effort to bring back apostate Israel to the God of Jacob. Only in Judah was there any true temple or altar of sacrifice. But to that, after the Disruption, the Ten Tribes did not return. The sword of Jehu did not exscind the calf worship of Samaria. Hence that baptism of blood was followed by deportation of Israel to Assyria, and of Judah to Babylonia. The Hebrews were not chosen to be the most illus- trious and powerful nation under heaven, but to be conservators and disseminators of true religion among men, now here, now there, a light to lighten the Gen- tiles in preparation for that Light who should illumine the darkened hearts of mankind. But the prophetic mission closed with the return from Exile. Thenceforth it was waiting time. From Malachi to John Baptist no new truth of God was given to men, leaving the old to leaven and permeate the world. And as there was no new prophet to authenticate Scripture, so no new book was admitted to the Sacred Canon. It is in evidence that Daniel was already enrolled into Jacob's 246 GENERAL REVIEW. Bible. He could not have been accepted for transla- tion into Greek, unless lie had been authorized by a prophet before the order ceased. The necessity of prophetic endorsement of a sacred book ruled out Sirach and 1 Maccabees, and it would have excluded Daniel if he had not already been admitted to the Sacred Canon. Hence it is really more difficult to ac- cept a second-century writer of Daniel than the re- ceived Daniel of the sixth century e.g. Ezra presents the same objection of being written in two languages, and there is a similarity with Ezekiel, yet the personal independence of these three writers remains intact. It is an honor to American scholarship that M. Stuart, in 1850, thoroughly refuted the criticisms of Lengerke and Knobel. Daniel's Hebrew in 2 : 4 to the end of chapter Y resembles that of the golden age ; he is always himself, now writing like an adept in Hebrew upon Plebrew matters, and now like a Babylonian in the Chaldean parts. In each the style is equally perfect. Grounded in his native tongue in his boyhood, his education as a youth in Babylon en- abled him thoroughly to master its language, so that he could pass from one to the other with the ease of modern Germans and French resident upon the border- lands of those nations in speaking those tongues. '^ The Greek liistorians, " says Stuart, '' do not men- tion Nebuchadnezzar as King of Babylon !" Was he therefore not a king there ? Josephus on such points is a better authority ; and he says that Daniel 8 : 3-7 and 11 : 2, 3 wxre shown to Alexander the Great, and produced a favorable impression upon him. His anger for the Jews not sending him the aid he asked and MATTERS CONSIDERED. 247 for not submitting to his authority was appeased. Ho forgave them, renewed their privileges granted by the Persians, and kindly treated them. This was in 332 B.C. It establishes the date of the prophet as before that time. Justin Martyr corroborates Josephus. (Stuart^s " Daniel,- ^ pp. 380-408 ; 1 Ifacc. 2 : 59, 60.) In his ^' Address to the Greeks" Justin shows the antiquity of Moses's writings ; his divine and pro- phetic gift ; that the heathen oracles testify of him, and that his works were early translated into Greek and written in the Greek character (chs. 9-13). In his " Dialogue with Trypho" he testifies of Isaiah and Jeremiah as quoting from Moses. In chaj^ter 70 he shows that priests of Mithras imitated some of the text of Daniel 2i^ well as Isaiah 33 : 13-19. His critical acumen is seen in his charging the Jews with recently ^' cutting out some passages in Jeremiah and Esdras " (ch. 72). And in his " Apology" (ch. 54) he says, " The prophet Moses was before all other writers. Even Plato borrowed from the Hebrews." As Justin was a converted Greek, a man of vast learning, who addressed a long epistle to the emperor in defence of Christianity, and suffered martyrdom for the faith in 1G5 A.D., his testimony is of great weight. He flour- ished a century and a half before Porphyry, and knew the authority of Daniel's prophecies. Only a little later Origen collated them in his famous " Hexapla." " The merits of Daniel," sa^^s Josephus, '' must ex- cite the w^onder of all who hear of them." And Jo- sephus was a thoroughly educated Hebrew, who had no Christian bias to prejudice him. Antiochus Epiphanes sought to destroy every copy of the Jewish Scrip- 248 GENERAL REVIEW. tures, and punished with death those who concealed them. No one well read in history would compare Nebu- chadnezzar with that mad persecutor of the Jews. Except in the matter of conquest and pillage, there are no analogies between them. To mistake one king for the other, or to identify them as equally hostile against the Jews, betrays an ignorance very uncomplimentary to the writer. No Hebrew would lack the skill, even if he lacked the courage, to detect and explode such a misconception of history in the second century b.c. Moreover, the Jews then were zealous and very strict, even fanatical in their ideas of religion. The Mac- cabean fought for his Church and his home against oppression. Nebuchadnezzar did not persecute in efforts to foist his creed upon others. The order touching the golden image was but a local and tem- porary injunction. No penalty came to Daniel ; his three friends were officers, punished for disobedience. Alexander the Great worshipped in the same temple which Antiochus desecrated in ways the most revolt- ing to a Jew. No wonder at the resistance and storms of war which followed ; stubborn rebellions and cruel usurpations ; till down went Pan and his pipers ; up went pseans and chants to Jehovah. Then came peace, and the temple of Janus was shut. The stone of the old altar at Bethel was said to have been removed to Jerusalem, where it became the ped- estal of the Ark, fit emblem of the conservation and perpetuity of truth. However that may be, it is cer- tain that the God of Bethel revealed Himself at Zion, and fulfilled His promise in the birth of One who MATTERS CONSIDERED. 249 crushed the serpent, broke in pieces the images of false deities, and became the Saviour of men, " wher- ever the earth bears a plant or the ocean rolls a wave." He has verified the Kevelation in Genesis, accomplished the Exodus, fulfilled Numbers, superseded the priests of Leviticus, perfected and amended Deuteronomy by the new law of Christianity, and proved Himself the Joshua of all believers by opening the way to a heav- enly inheritance. From Eden to Sinai, to Calvary, to Olivet, one voice was ever speaking toman ; one God w^atched over him from heaven. Abraham circum- cised all who would receive the rite ; it was renewed at Gilgal ; looking upon the brazen serpent gave healing to wounded Israelites ; even so shall all who look to Jesus and believe in Him be saved, whether of the seed of Jacob or of Japheth. (See " God En- throned in Redemption," chapters 4 and 5.) But Panism and Pyrrhonism now ignore the founda- tions of true religion, and would decide biblical texts and interpretation by a majority vote of persons igno- rant of monumental discoveries. Because some critics in Germany, in France, and their " captives" in Eng- land, adopt erroneous views of the dates and purposes of Scripture, why would you have us fall in their line and surrender our judgments ? We dare not do so. It is hardly a century since the French National As- sembly (September, 1792) abolished the Sunday or Sabbath of six thousand years' observance, and in its place enacted a Tenth-day as the '' Rest-day" of the people ; with five other holidays in the year, or a total of seventeen days for rest from ordinary labor ; poor substitute of man for God's gift of fifty-two Sabbaths 11* 250 GENERAL REVIEW. a year ! Bj so much less is human generosity when compared with the Divine bounty. And a woman of loose morals was enthroned as a goddess, to be worshipped by those new Reformers ! As might be expected, that change of calendar was tolerated but a short time, and in twelve years plus three months the government returned to the old-time Sabbath order, January 1st, 1806. (See Carlyle's " French Revohi- tion.") The votes of a majority cannot change the nature and needs of mankind, nor abolish the facts of ancient history. True, Charles I. lost his head by a majority vote, and Cromwell vaulted into his place ; but other votes and voices within a dozen years called another Charles to the throne of England. The Prayer book, rejected by one set of voters, was re-established by another set, and the old Church returned to her old place. Missals and liturgies may be enacted by votes ; but no votes ever provided an atonement for sin, or gave the world a revelation, or opened the door to everlasting blessedness. Moreover, some modern voters forget that they can- not expunge the records of human thought which lie buried in the ruins of Assyria and Babylonia, or are inscribed in the tombs and on the monuments of Egypt. Even now those treasures are being deci- phered, and flash new light upon some dark questions. They corroborate Genesis and Moses, the history and prophets of Israel ; they bid us not interpret his writ- ings by modern notions, but by contemporary records where such exist, and to wait for other unfoldings of buried scrolls which may supply all the aids we require MATTERS CONSIDERED. 251 to read and understand the heritage of the ages and the disclosures of God to man. No ; the pillars of monumental knowledge cannot be shaken by guesses of to-day. Inscriptions are older than mss., and may outlast them. Moses and Mesha speak louder than modern assemblies. Fantastic is the dogmatism which would fix abso- lutely 165 B.C. as the date of Daniel— so Mrs. Ward in the Nineteenth Century for March, 1889 — even while a party of explorers in the region of his exile may find jars of tablets containing an original copy of the book ! Neither our preferences nor our preju- dices should attempt to settle by a majority vote ques- tions of fact, especially the facts of ancient history. Its records cannot be disposed of or dispensed with in that way. The method was tried upon Homer, but the excavations of the spade have been turned upon, and buried those who denied him an early place in Grecian song and civilization. Nor is it long since German critics flouted his personality. So with He- brew and Christian writings. Few linguists are good historians ; speciab'sts are usually as narrow as they are positive. Critics may try to eliminate and explain away an author, but they neither make him nor de- stroy him. The Creator reserves that to Himself, for Jacob and for Japheth. Wonderful as was the origin of the Bible, its history and preservation are equally remarkable. Everywhere hunted, proscribed, burned, it is everywhere found and read of all nations. We can- not be more sure of the contents of Homer's Ihad than of the contents and books of the Old Testament. The authority of Herodotus touching Egypt and the 252 OENEBAL REVIEW. East is now past ; but the absolute credibility of the Old Testament is daily illustrated and confirmed. The Jews could truly say, We have a very sure word of prophecy. Fropliets and priests authenticated and guarded the Sacred Books, and were expounders of them. If seers of the ninth century b.c. did not record their utterances, others took pains to write them out. Hence were preserved the doings and sayings of Eli- jah, Micaiah, Elisha, and others of that era in the nation's history, constituting a large part of it. The prophetic and Messianic matters form the greater part of the later Bible. In 444 b.c. the whole then known seems to have been authenticated and republished by authority, and could be tested by the memories of in- telligent men. The history discloses that it was easier for books to be lost than for supposititious writings to be received as genuine. When the order of prophets ceased, men of the great synagogue guarded and certified to the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, which were read to the peo- ple every Sabbath ; and Scribes performed the duty of writing out copies for use and preservation. More- over, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the jealousies of the different sects — Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes— served for four hundred years like so many watchmen as cus- todians of the Mss. and their interpretation. Then the translation of the Hebrew books into Greek, com- pleted by 160 B.C., is further guarantee against errors, and rendered them more difficult. Of course, some verbal variations would occur in the passage of gener- ations, but there was too much jealous care for serious errors. No other ancient books are more pure and true to the original. MATTERS CONSIDERED. 253 The connection and relation of events in the later records emphasize the proplietic writings, their accu- racy and value. For six hundred years Hebrew kings reigned, but the prophets ever illumined the fore- ground of the historic scene, exhorting the sinners in Israel and Judah to truth and righteousness. Thus Elijah became more famous than apostate Ahab ; Isaiah sheds more lustre upon his king than Ilezekiali does upon his prophet and prime-minister. A hun- dred readers remember the character and predictions of Jeremiah to one who can recall the death of Josiah at Megiddo. Illustrious as was Nebuchadnezzar as conqueror and builder, Daniel of the captivity has in- creased his renown. And our Lord authenticated that prophet for ns and, in a sense, all the prophets. Even the fanaticism of second-century Jews proved their scrupulosity about the Scriptures, and illustrated their discrimination touching Hebrew literature. They could not be imposed upon by a Greek writer. They admitted no Greek book into their Sacred Canon. That the sceptre should not depart from Judah till Messiah came led to careful inquiry among those who cherished expectations of Him, and to earnest longings for His appearance. Many mothers fondly hoped to become the honored and favored one, the blessed among women, for giving the Redeemer to Israel. Jews in Palestine and in colonies among the Gentiles could not forget the predictions of Micah nor the last verses of Malachi. Their misunderstanding of Messianic prophecies may have narrowed their ideas of religion in Jerusalem, but they also intensified their convictions. They indeed thought, " Salvation is of the Jews," and 254 GENERAL REVIEW. often limited it to them ; but they looked for it with confident assurance. Yet their hiter intolerance, if such it were, could not hide the Light of Him and of His Gospel, who came to save both Jew and Gentile. Remarkable is the fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy (19 : 19), ^' There shall be an altar to Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt." Joseplius, in his " An- tiquities" (Book 13, chs. 3 and 4), narrates the build- ing of a temple at Bubastis, in the nome Heliopolis, like that at Jerusalem, with an altar to Jehovah, but smaller and poorer than that, and tells how a Jerusa- lem priest celebrated the worship of the Hebrews' God in that Egyptian temple. It furnishes a memorable fulfilment of the prophecy. In the " Wars," Book 6, chapter 3, section 3-5, he says, " The people ate what the dogs would not touch, even girdles and shoe- leather, which is testified to by innumerable witnesses. Nay, a woman of wealth and family was so terribly reduced by famine that she slew her nursing son, roasted him in an oven, and ate one half herself, and concealed the other half. The brutal robbers who had plundered her of all she possessed were attracted by the smell of food, and returned to get what they could find. The lady then produced the remainder of her hidden son, saying '' she had eaten the other part, and they might eat this !" They were too hor- rified to touch it, and departed. Thus literally was fulfilled Leviticus 26 : 29 ; Deuteronomy 28 : 49-57, in the terrible famine durino^ the sieore of the Romans under Titus. No Jew after the Exile would have written such prophetic cannibalism into the Penta- teuch, and no Jew like Joseplius would have invented MATTERS CONSIDERED. 255 its fulfilment. Both alike prove its truthfulness. Thus Jacob's Bible is authenticated by Jacob's history, as written by his sons and by the sons of Japheth. Very touching is the prayer of Esdras, " Where- fore, O Lord, is Israel given as a reproach to the heathen, and for what cause is the people whom Thou hast loved given over unto ungodly nations, and why the Law of our forefathers is brou^^ht to nauoht, and the written covenants come to none effect, . . . and our life is astonishment and fear, and we are not worthy to obtain mercy?" St. Paul answers him: That Israel had fallen for a time, for the saving of the Gentiles ; that all, both Jews and Gentiles, Semites and Aryans, may be saved (Romans, ch. 11). It was the Divine purpose in the calling of Abraham, in the legislation of Moses, and in the voicings of later pro- phets. I have endeavored in this book upon '' Bible Growth and Religion" to illustrate and establish the truth of Revelation, answering those current objections which strike at its origin and authority, especially those of the naturalistic school ; and I have purposely empha- sized the grand fact of inspiration rather than the mode of communication. Those who want a brief " Introduction to the Books of the Old Testament " will find it in Dr. Stearns's recent work, in any good Bible Dictionary, or in the Manuals published by Mr. Whittaker, New York. May the Holy Spirit give life to the words and conviction to the readers, that we all may rejoice to- gether with IIiM ! NEW NOTICES BY THE PRESS OF '* GOD IN CREA- TION" AND "GOD ENTHRONED IN REDEMPTION." The New York Evangelist said : "Some months ago we had the pleasure of noticing ' God Enthroned in Redemption,' which was the second part of a work of which the first part had appeared under the title, ' God in Creation and in Worship.' Between the two editions a book appeared containing statements which, with- out proof, tend to weaken the foundations of the author's argu- ment. A new introduction was written, showing the baselessness of some of ' Squire Wendover's ' statements, and the inadequacy of the results reached by him. It goes carefully over the question of the testimony of history to revelation, which forms the basis of the book, showing triumphantly that no fair-minded seeker after truth can be indifferent to ' the historical impressions of an eternal tendency in men.' This was also printed in pamphlet form, serv- ing a good purpose, both in setting the book to which it belongs upon a firm basis, and counteracting the harmful tendencies in others." The Standard of the Gross and the Church said : '' ' God in Crea- tion ' and ' God Enthroned in Redemption ' deserves careful read- ing. The author gives no clew to his identity, but he need not conceal it, or be ashamed of his work. He argues for the original belief in monotheism, and strongly combats the assumptions of Herbert Spencer on this point. The neglect of historic evidence by sceptical theorists is dwelt upon, the latest discoveries of archaeology are summarized, and the general purport of the work may be gleaned from the preface ; that God originally taught men how to live, and how to prepare for a future life, was the belief of the first ages. It is attested by Hebrew Scripture, by the monu- ments of Egypt, by the inscriptions and religion of Assyria and Babylonia. ' ' The Living Church said : " Incompact form, with ever}' evidence of the erudition needful to the task, and with keenness and good spirit, the author disproves prevalent naturalistic theories. He shows where Mr. Spencer is at fault historically, and where he has ventured upon false inferences, even from correct historic state- ments. We lay the book down with the conviction that it was well worth the author's while to write out his views upon the subjects treated and to give them to the Christian world. Part first contains Christianity not Evolved from Ghosts and Hero-worship, God in Creation and in Worship, Legends about God and Creation, Le- gends about Satan and Evil Spirits, Deluge Legends and Pagan Deification, with an examination of the testimony of Tacitus, of Tertullian's Apology, asserting the proposition of Tiberius to the Roman Senate that Jesus of Nazareth should be enrolled among the gods of the empire." Of the First Part, The Christian at Work said: "It is a well- written, interesting, and forcible argument. The inscriptions of Babylon and Nineveh and the records of old Egypt are found to corroborate the accounts of Moses.' ' The Old Ttsiameni Student calls it *' a vigorous book against the theory of worship and religious belief being an evolution from burial rites. These customs give no account of themselves in the most ancient times. Records inform us that temples were erected long before tombs. Nimrod was the first recognized hero. The oldest piece of literature in the world is a hymn to the Maker of Heaven and Earth. Herbert Spencer has even perverted the text of Scripture. Along a line of cumulative reasoning our author has marshalled an abundance of interesting citation and historic illustrations, the book being a good source of information." The Home Journal said : " The author maintains that the doc- trine of One God is older than belief in many gods ; polytheism is a degeneration of the idea taught to our first parents. He mar- shals history, tradition, and legend, making a very interesting show of learning and research." The Open Court said : *' The author's view concerning the fate of * creators of discord ' is anthropomorphic, and almost as pic- turesque as Breughel's famous paintings. The facts are as vivid as any romancer could present them." The Lowell Times said : " We readily recognize the conspicuous merits of this remarkable little treatise — the abounding research, the curious scholarship, the graphic and business stjde, and, above all, the scientific spirit which pervades and governs the whole. The central idea is easily grasped : that the conception of the Jewish and Christian God was not evolved at all in the his- torical sense, but was in the nature of a direct revelation." THOMAS WHITTAKER, 2 &3 BIBLE HOUSE, N. Y. GOD ENTHRONED IN REDEMPTION. Being THE Second Part of ''God in Creation." In Answer TO Modern Theories of the Evolution of Christianity. Of this book The Christian at Work said : " This is a small vol- ume, but it is compact with research, vigorous thought and pro- found truths. Its five chief divisions are : I. Legends and Expec- tations of a Coming Saviour. II. The first Sabbath and Primitive Worship. III. Immortality in Legends and Longings. IV. The Lamb Slain for Man's Redemption. V. The Spiritual Kingdom a Realm of Ransomed Souls. There are an hundred embryo volumes in this grand little book, which historically demonstrates the grand facts of Scripture upon which to day is shining new light and at- testation from the monuments of Egypt and from the inscriptions of Assyria and Babylonia. The reader will find it a remarkable volume." The New York Evangelist said : " The central point of the argu- ment is that the solidarity of mankind, being perfectly exemplified only in Adam, the salvation of the world was provided while man- kind was in solidaric unity, the sacrifice of Christ having been truly made at the time of Adam's fall. All men, therefore, having sinned in him were also saved in him. The substitution was a righteous substitution — viz., of a perfect Man for a sinful man ; and being accepted while man was a unit, all his children were thereby put in the same redeemed position. The author brings a good acquaintance with the most recent discoveries to support his position." The New York Mail and Rtpress said : " Among new publica- tions, ' God in Creation ' and ' God Enthroned in Redemption ' rightly command attention for condensed, vigorous statement and sustained power. It sweeps the whole field of historical research, especially recent discoveries in the East, presenting them in very readable form, and is buttressed by highest authorities. It is com- pact, clear, and strong, giving the substance of many volumes not readily accessible. Thus it truly enthrones God in creation, in primitive worship and sacrifice, giving the legends about Satan and evil spirits in early ages, with a valuable chapter on deluge legends and pagan deification. The second part enthrones God in redemption, as illustrated in legends and expectations of a Sav- iour, in the Sabbath of primitive times universally observed ; im- mortality in legends and longings among ancient peoples, and so prepares for a new treatment of the Lamb slain for man's redemp- tion." The Independent said : " The author asserts, and cites history tr prove that Christianity is not an evolution in history, but a force divine from the beginning which has shaped history. This vol- ume is the supplement of an earlier one on ' God in Creation,' which followed a line of reasoning similar to that pursaed in the volume before us, the author's aim being to show that the idea of God was not evolved either from ghosts or from hero-worship, but can be traced back through the history of the race. This volume applies the same reasoning to the hope of a Redeemer, traces of such hope being widelj'^ diffused in the oldest legends of the race ; those of the Sabbath, primitive worship, and the doctrine of sac- rifice. The two parts taken in connection form an interesting argument based on a patient and earnest study of the history of the race, for the truth of the Christian doctrine that God has never left himself without a witness in the world, and that religion was divinely taught to men from the beginning. " The Christian Advocate said : " The book sweeps the whole field of historical demonstration, and quotes from the recognized authorities. While compact and scientific it yet has the elements of interest to the general reader, and is an able argument against Spencer's ' Ecclesiastical Institutions.' It is an earnest defence of the foundations of Revealed Religion." Upon announcing that the second part was read}', The Church Chronicle said : " The author in a scholarly way sets the reader to thinking in fresh lines of old thought. The first part was warmly received in many quarters." The Church Record suid : " This is a marvellously strong book, suggestive of thought sufficient for many volumes, and meets the crude speculative heresies of modern materialism with unanswer- able power." The Board of Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church, at its May meeting, 1889, voted to place the completed work, two parts in one volume, among the approved books for the use of its Mis- sionaries and Teachers. THOMAS WHITTAKER, 2 <& 3 BIBLE HOUSE, N. Y. DATE DUE °^^LORD ^iiii;; Printed in USA