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THE 
 
 RELIGION OF ISRAEL, 
 
 % Panual; 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE DUTCH OF 
 
 J. KNAPPERT, 
 
 PASTOR AT LEIDEN ; 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD A. ARMSTRONG, B.A. 
 
 WILLIAMS AND NORGATE, 
 
 14, HENRIETTA STREET. COVENT GARDEN, LONDON; 
 AND 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET. EDINBURGH. 
 
 1877. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY ^yOODFALL ANL KINDER^ 
 
 MtX.FORD LANE, STRAND, W.C. 
 

 
 ¥i.i'^" 
 
 TRANSLATORS PREFaM 
 
 '^THE Appendix wliicli will be found at the end of this 
 little volume forms, in the Dutch original, the second 
 section of a systematic catechism on the history of religion, 
 drawn up by H. G. Hagen, W. Scheffer, K. Koopmans van 
 Boekeren, and J. Knappert, pastors of the Eeformed 
 Church of Holland. The book here translated is a guide 
 or key to that section of the catechism and to that 
 section only, and was prepared by the last-mentioned 
 of these associated authors subsequently to the catechism 
 itself. Hence a certain baldness and angularity which 
 unquestionably characterize it. Dr. Knappert has con- 
 tented himself with simply following Prof. Kuenen in this 
 work, without introducing the speculations or opinions of 
 other scholars. A better guide through the labjTinth of 
 Israelitish history he could not have found, had he 
 searched the world through. Those who desire a fuller 
 exposition of the literary and historical views here pro- 
 pounded will find it in Prof. Kuenen's great work on the 
 Religion of Israel, an English version of which has been 
 published, by Messrs. Williams and Norgate, in the 
 Theological Translation Fund Library. 
 
IV TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 
 
 The present translation is literal, except in one or two 
 cases where I have made verbal alterations necessitated by 
 the fact that, while the work appears in English by itself, 
 in the Dutch it is but one link in the chain of manuals 
 to the catechism mentioned above. This same fact has 
 led me to add a very few explanatory foot-notes of my 
 own. But I have, in each instance, signified that the 
 note is mine by appending the letters [Tr.]. 
 
 A compressed work of this kind necessarily confines 
 itself chiefly to the mere statement of critical conclusions, 
 without exhibiting the facts and arguments which have 
 led to them. When we further reflect that the book 
 expresses the convictions of a school of critics, who, 
 however assured their ultimate victory, are still regarded 
 by many with dislike and suspicion and branded as 
 " destructive," we cannot but fear that there may be those 
 who vdW be painfully startled by some of the statements 
 made in the following pages. I have, however, undertaken 
 the translation of this little book in the comdction that 
 its general position is absolutely unassailable, even though 
 I may not concur in every opinion expressed in it, and 
 that the immense majority of its statements are such as 
 are every year becoming more indisputable. It appears to 
 me to be profoundly important that the youthful English 
 mind should be faithfully and accurately informed of the 
 results of modern research into the early development of the 
 
TRANSLATORS PREFACE. V 
 
 Ismelitisli religion. Deplorable and irreparable mischief 
 ■will be done to the generation now passing into manhood 
 and womanhood, if their educators leave them ignorant or 
 loosel}' informed on these topics ; for they will then be 
 rudely awakened by the enemies of Christianity from a 
 blind and unreasoning faith in the supernatural inspiration 
 of the Scriptures ; and, being suddenly and bluntly made 
 aware that Abraham, Moses, Da^id, and the rest did not 
 say, do, or write what has been ascribed to them, they will 
 fling away all care for the venerable religion of Israel and 
 all hope that it can nourish their own religious life. How 
 much happier will those of our children and young people 
 be who learn ^Aiiat is now known of the actual origin of 
 the Pentateuch and the "Writings, from the same lips which 
 have taught them that the Prophets indeed prepared the 
 way for Jesus, and that God is indeed our Heavenly Father ! 
 For these will without difficulty perceive that God's love is 
 none the feebler and that the Bible is no less precious, 
 because Moses knew nothing of the Le-vitical legislation, 
 or because it was not the warrior monarch on his semi- 
 barbaric throne, but some far later son of Israel, who 
 breathed forth the immortal hymn of faith, " The Lord is 
 my Shepherd : I shall not want." 
 
 Works like the present are to be regarded by no means 
 as substitutes for the study of the Bible, but as aids to it ; 
 and that study will only the more enlarge the mind and 
 
VI TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 
 
 expand the soul, as a freer spirit of inquiry and a fuller 
 information are brought to its pursuit. 
 
 It only remains to state that this translation has been 
 undertaken with the kind sanction of Dr. Knappert ; and 
 that I have enjoyed the assistance of the Rev. Philip H. 
 Wicksteed, M.A., so far as to give me some confidence 
 that I have faithfully represented the original which I 
 have had before me, but not so far as to fix on him any 
 responsibility for inaccuracies which may, in spite of my 
 care, still remain. 
 
 R. A. A. 
 Nottingham, January, 9, 1877. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sources of Information ........ 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Same Continued 6 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Same Continued 16 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Tribes in Goshen 22 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Same Continued 27 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Moses 32 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 The Period of the Judges 42 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Samuel and Saul 51 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 David and Solomon 61 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 IIehuboam akd the Disruption of the Kivgdum . . . . 7J 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XT. 
 
 PACE 
 
 The KrxGDOM of Israel ........ 84 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 TiiK Kingdom (f Jtdah . . 96 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Prophecy ............ 109 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 The MESsrANic Expeotation 120 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 The Sages 126 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 The Babtlomsh Captivity 135 
 
 CHAITER XVII. 
 Ezra akd his Times 144 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 Public Worship akd the Synagogue 155 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The Jews in the Age immediately Preceding the Christian Era 168 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 The Same Continued 186 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 The Collection of the Books of the Old Testament . . . 198 
 
 Al'PENDIX 205 
 
THE RELIGION OFIMIeL. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 
 
 l^EFORE we describe the religion of Israel we must 
 consider the sources from which we get our knowledge 
 of it. And of these the Old Testament is the first and 
 most important that we must notice. "VYe give this 
 name to a collection of books which the Israelites wrote 
 before the time of Christ. These books give us authentic 
 evidence about Israel's religious condition in the days 
 when they were respectively composed ; so that, by their 
 help, we can trace the religious development of that people. 
 The word " Testament " is not to be understood in its 
 usual meaning here. The Fathers of the Latin Church 
 used it to translate a Greek word which means " covenant '* 
 or "agreement"; and accordingly that is the sense in 
 which we must understand the word here. This name has 
 been given to the collection of the literature of the ancient 
 Israelites, because their religion is regarded as a covenant 
 or agreement between God and their nation. The name 
 of the religion was transferred to the books ; first to 
 the five which are called after Moses, because in these 
 the terms of the covenant were described, and afterwards 
 to all the rest. In the course of time, however, the 
 Christians began to apply this name to a collection of 
 
 B 
 
2 THE KELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 their own religious writings ; and then, for the sake of 
 distinction, people were obliged to call one the " Old 
 Testament" or "Covenant," and the other the "New." 
 We call these both together the " Bible," that is, 
 " Biblia," which is Greek for " books." 
 
 These are the books which belong to the Old Testa- 
 ment: — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuter- 
 onomy, Joshua, Judges, Kuth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 
 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, 
 Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, 
 Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, 
 Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, 
 Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. They are 
 written in Hebrew, all except a few short passages, 
 namely, Ezra iv. 8 to vi. 18; vii. 12 to 26; Jeremiah 
 X. 11 ; and Daniel ii. 4 to vii. 28. These are written 
 in Chaldee. Hebrew, the language of the ancient Israel- 
 ites, is the same as that of the Canaanites, and pretty 
 much the same as that of the Phoenicians. Like every 
 other language, Hebrew has its history. This history 
 may be traced in sundry words and forms, which have 
 undergone changes or have dropped out of use altogether^ 
 After the Babylonish captivity, Hebrew got more and 
 more mixed with Chaldee, till at last it died out entirely. 
 This circumstance makes it possible for us to settle the 
 dates of the different writings with more or less accuracy. 
 
 These questions of date are of the very utmost im- 
 portance to us, if we wish to understand the religious 
 development of Israel. Each book of the Old Testa- 
 ment contains evidence for us about the opinions and 
 the ideas entertained by its author and the men of his 
 day. If, then, we are to become acquainted with the 
 manner in which the religious ideas of the Israelites 
 
SOUECES OF INFORMATION. 3 
 
 grew up one after another, we must first find out when 
 each of the books was written ; then, by comparing 
 these same books together, we shall be able to show how 
 the Israelites advanced from one way of thinking to 
 another. If we could not do this, we might at once give 
 up the idea of any history at all in the proper sense of 
 the word, and we should wander about at random without 
 discovering any process of development. Happily, how- 
 ever, the ages of these books are now known with 
 sufficient certainty, and we can arrange them with tolerable 
 accuracy in chronological order. Of course this does not 
 prevent doubt and difference of opinion from still existing 
 among learned men about certain books, and above all 
 about many shorter sections of some of the writings ; but 
 still we can get at the truth in the main. It is only 
 within the last hundred years that men have devoted 
 themselves earnestly to the investigation of the age of 
 these books. Before that time people did not pay enough 
 attention to it. They simply accepted whatever tradition 
 had handed down about the age of the writers ; and if 
 only a book had once had some name attached to it, they 
 relied on it without a second thought. The consequence 
 was that people got a totally wrong conception of Israel's 
 religion, and ascribed to ideas of comparatively recent 
 date a much higher antiquity. 
 
 It is not only with the religion of Israel that we gain 
 acquaintance from the Old Testament, but it also teaches 
 us the political history of this famous nation. Indeed, for 
 a vast proportion of that history it is actually the only au- 
 thority we have to go to. In this connection we must take 
 especial notice of the so-called historical books, from Genesis 
 to Esther. The other books contain, it is true, scattered 
 
 b2 
 
4 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 historical information, but they do not give us any 
 regular narrative of Israel's fortunes. In the books just 
 now alluded to, we find narrations about the most ancient 
 period of Israel's national existence. These stories go 
 right back to the creation of the world, and then run 
 down almost continuously to the time of Nehemiah, in 
 the fifth century before Christ ; while here and there in 
 the later books we come upon many records of the follow- 
 ing centuries too. 
 
 We shall see by and by what we are to think about the 
 value of all these narratives. All that we have to do 
 with at present is the connection between the history of 
 the people and that of its religion. In the first place, it is 
 obvious that the latter must be fitted into the frame- 
 work of the former ; but, on the other hand, Israel 
 always regarded its history from a religious point of view, 
 and the course of its fortunes exercised great influence 
 over its religious ideas. Every Israelite believed that his 
 people was led by God with peculiar love as the chosen 
 people, and that everything that happened was intended 
 either to bless it or to punish it. This is why it is im- 
 possible for any one to form a just conception of Israel's 
 religion without knowing its history. 
 
 For the knowledge of the last period of Israel's national 
 existence we have authorities of more or less importance 
 in the Old Testament Apocrypha, the Judceo-Alexandrian 
 literature in which the writings of Philo are conspicuous, 
 Flavins Josephus, the books of the New Testament, and 
 the Talmud. As we shall have to speak more at length 
 about most of these writings by and by, we shall say 
 very little about them at present. The Apocryphal books 
 are in part of great importance, especially for the war 
 in which the Israelites threw ofi" the yoke of Antiochus 
 
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 5 
 
 Epiphanes in the first half of the second century before 
 Christ, and for their subsequent fortunes, the first book 
 of Maccabees containing very trustworthy records concern- 
 ing the war itself and the events which succeeded it. 
 Philo, a Jew of Alexandria, and a contemporary of Jesus, 
 devoted himself to religious and philosophical composi- 
 tions, rather than historical ; and we have hardly any one 
 else to go to if we wish to know the opinions of the Greek 
 Jews of that time. Flavins Josephus, a Jew of priestly 
 family, who lived in the second half of the first century after 
 the birth of Christ, wTote a work in seven books on the 
 Jewish War ; and as he himself played an important part 
 in that war, his book is of great value to the historian. In 
 another work in twenty books on Jewish Antiquities, he 
 relates the history of the Jews from the creation of the 
 world down to his own day. The writings of the New 
 Testament, too, can be used with great advantage for the 
 times in w4iich they were written ; while the oldest parts 
 of the Talmud, a collection of the oral tradition current 
 among the Israelites, contain some particulars which help 
 to fill up our knowledge of the history of Israel. Finally, 
 a few works of Gentile origin belonging for the most 
 part to later times, together with sundry monuments, 
 inscriptions, and coins, both Israelitish and otherwise, 
 furnish us with contributions of more or less weight 
 towards a knowledge of various periods of Jewish history. 
 Of all these authorities, by far the most important for 
 us are the books of the Old Testament ; not merely because 
 there is a good deal of Israel's history which we cannot 
 learn anywhere else, but also because it is only by read- 
 ing them that we can come to know what were the pecu- 
 liarities of its religion, and how excellent it was. Were 
 it only on this ground, they would deserve a special and 
 
6 THE EELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 more detailed examination ; but such examination is still 
 more needful, inasmuch as many mistaken ideas still pre- 
 vail about the origin and historical value of these books, 
 and because we must form, at any rate, an approximately 
 correct conception on these points before we pass on to 
 consider the history itself. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SAME CONTINUED. 
 
 A CCORDING to the arrangement in vogue among the 
 Jews, the Old Testament contains, first, the Law, 
 secondly, the Prophets, and, thirdly, the Writings. This 
 arrangement did not originate in any simultaneous col- 
 lecting of the books after they were all completed, or in 
 any very precise system of division ; though, in a general 
 way, it is based upon differences in character and in date. 
 It was only by degrees that men began to collect and 
 arrange the books already in existence. One division was 
 already closed before other writings appeared ; and then 
 these in their turn were subsequently admitted as a 
 constituent part of the whole. But we shall have more to 
 say on this subject when we are telling how all the books 
 of the Old Testament came to be collected together. 
 
 Christians generally follow the arrangement given above.'* 
 They borrow it from the Latin version of the Old Testa- 
 ment called the Vulgate, which took it with hardty any 
 change from the Greek translation known as the " Septua- 
 gint." On this basis, we, too, divide the books of the 
 Old Testament into three classes, grouping them, however, 
 
 * See page 2. 
 
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 7 
 
 Bot in relation to the time when they were written, but 
 according to certain rough analogies of character. We 
 thus have, first, the Historical Books, from Genesis to 
 Esther, then the Poetical Books, from Job to Solomon's 
 Song, and lastly, the Prophetic Books, from Isaiah to 
 Malachi. 
 
 The first division of the Old Testament, according to 
 the Hebrew division, the Law, comprises five books. We 
 follow the example of the Greek translators, and name 
 each of them after the chief thing it relates. Thus we call 
 them Genesis (which means beginning or origin). Exodus 
 (or departure), Leviticus (or Levitical legislation), Numbers, 
 and Deuteronomy (or repetition of the law), because they 
 tell us of the creation of the world, the departure of 
 the Israelites from Egypt, the laws for the priests and 
 Levites, the numbering of the people in the wilderness, 
 and the repetition of the law by Moses before the invasion 
 of Canaan. The whole Law, which the Jews call * * Thorah,' * 
 or teaching, is known to us also by the name of Pentateuch, 
 which means " the book in five parts." 
 
 The Jews who lived after the Babylonish captivity, and 
 the Christians, following their example, ascribed these 
 books to Moses ; and for many centuries the notion was 
 cherished that he had really written them. But strict 
 and impartial investigation has shown that this opinion 
 must be given up, and that nothing in the whole Law 
 really comes from Moses himself except the Ten Com- 
 mandments. And even these were not delivered by him 
 in the same form as we find them now. If we still 
 call these books by his name, it is only because the 
 ' Israelites always thought of him as their first and greatest 
 law-giver, and the actual authors grouped all their narra- 
 
8 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 tives and laws around his figure, and associated them 
 with his name. 
 
 There is a greater variety of elements, and those, too, 
 helong to a greater variety of periods, in these books 
 of Moses than in any other book in the Old Testament. 
 We can trace three principal redactions of the Pentateuch; 
 that is to say, the material was worked over and re- 
 edited with modifications and additions by different people, 
 at three distinct epochs. The first redaction was made 
 about 750 years before Christ. We generally call its 
 author the " Yahwist," because, from the very be- 
 ginning, he calls God ''Yahweh;"* while the third 
 author tells us that God was only known in the 
 beginning as " Elohim," that, later on, the Patriarchs 
 called him " El-Shaddai," and that Moses was the first 
 man to whom he revealed himself as Yahweh. For 
 this reason, this third author is called the " Elohist." 
 The first, the Yahwist, was a prophet, w^ho was able 
 to use and weave into his work, certain documents 
 that existed even before his day, such as the so-called 
 Book of Covenants, which is pieced in at Exodus 
 from chapter xxi. to chaj)ter xxiii. He had certain laws 
 and precepts also ; but it was with the history of Israel 
 that he concerned himself most. He begins, at Genesis 
 ii. 4, with a short, account of the creation ; and then he 
 carries the story on regularly till the Israelites enter 
 Canaan. It is to him that we are indebted for the 
 charming pictures of the patriarchs. He took these 
 from other writings or from the popular legends. The 
 principal idea which we find standing out in his work 
 is that Israel is Yahweh' s chosen people. 
 
 * Through an error, we pronounce this name "Jehovah." See pages S4, 
 35 ; also, " The Teachers' Manual," Vol. II. No. 4, (Oct. 1873) pages 155 to 
 158. [Tr.] 
 
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 9 
 
 The Pentateuch remained in this, its first form, till 
 620 years before Christ. Then a certain priest of marked 
 prophetic sympathies wrote a book of law which has come 
 down to us in Deuteronomy iv. 44 to xxvi., and xxviii. 
 Here we find the demands which the Mosaic party of 
 that day were making, thrown into the form of laws. 
 It was by king Josiah that this book was first intro- 
 duced and proclaimed as authoritative. Yery soon after- 
 wards the author himself wove it into the work of the 
 Yahwist, and at the same time added a few new passages, 
 some of which related to Joshua, the successor of Moses. 
 
 Finally, the third redaction of the Pentateuch was pub- 
 lished 444 years before Christ. At that time Ezra added 
 to the work of his two predecessors a series of laws and 
 narratives which had been drawn up by some of the 
 priests in Babylon. These he himself revised to some 
 extent. The elements thus introduced were of a priestly 
 character and comprised many instructions for the guid- 
 ance of the priests and Levites, for ofi'erings, and for feasts, 
 as well as regulations concerning clean and unclean. 
 
 Later still, a few more changes and additions vvere 
 made ; and so the Pentateuch grew into its present form. 
 
 The second division of the Old Testament, according 
 to the Jewish arrangement, contained the prophetic books. 
 They were divided into two parts. The first subdivision 
 comprised the "former" prophets: Joshua, Judges, 
 Samuel, and Kings, which were reckoned in this class 
 because they were written by prophets and regarded 
 things from the prophets' point of view.^ The second 
 
 * We, however, place these books and Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and 
 Chronicles after the Pentateuch and include them in the historical division. 
 The second section of what the Jews called the Prophets is nearly identical 
 with the whole of what we call by that name. This second section they 
 called the lattr Prophets. [Tr.] 
 
10 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 subdivision was called the '^ later " prophets ; and these 
 were still further sub-divided into the ^' greater," Isaiah, 
 Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and the "minor," namely, the 
 twelve from Hosea to Malachi. These fifteen books 
 of the later prophets are chiefly made up of prophetic 
 -discourses ; but they contain as well a few passages of 
 history — especially Isaiah and Jeremiah. With regard to 
 Samuel and Kings we have further to remark that the Jews 
 did not divide them each into two, as we do, but considered 
 them each only one book. They treated Chronicles in 
 the same way. Thus they made the whole number of 
 books in the Old Testament 36, while we make it 39. 
 
 "VVe shall not at present say very much about the origin 
 and contents of these books ; but here is a word concern- 
 ing each : 
 
 Joshua. This book is not called after its author, but 
 after the person whose deeds it relates. At first it was 
 regarded as part of the Pentateuch. The chief things it 
 tells of are the conquest of Canaan and the division of 
 the territory. 
 
 Judges. The 30tli verse of the 18th chapter of this 
 book makes it clear that it was not written till after the 
 first set of Israelites had been carried into captivity, and 
 perhaps not till still later. The book comprises a sketch 
 of the times between the conquest of Canaan and Samuel, 
 with the exploits of the judges. 
 
 Samuel. This book is made up of different parts of 
 very unequal value. It was written shortly before or 
 during the Babylonish captivity, and relates the history 
 of Samuel, Saul, and David. 
 
 Kings. The author of Kings wrote during the Baby- 
 lonish captivity, and made use of many older materials. 
 He looks at things from a similar point of view to the 
 
SOURCES OP INFORMATION. 11 
 
 writer of Deuteronomy. He begins with the story of David's 
 death and winds up with the devastation of Jerusalem. 
 
 Isaiah belonged to a distinguished family, and in the 
 year 757 before Christ he came forward at Jerusalem as 
 a prophet. He saw the war of Syria and Ephraim 
 against Judah, the fall of Samaria, and the siege of 
 Jerusalem by Sennacherib. There are many passages 
 in the book bearing his name, which are not really 
 written by him. Chapters xxxvi. to xxxix., which 
 embrace historical narratives, especially that of Senna- 
 cherib's invasion of Judah, belong to a later author. 
 Chapters xl. to Ixvi. are by a prophet at the time of the 
 captivity, whom we generally call, for want of any other 
 name, the second Isaiah. Probably, these prophecies 
 were not collected together till after the fall of Babylon. 
 The following passages, too, belong to later times : chapters 
 xiii. 1 to xiv. 23 ; xxi. 1 to 10 ; xxiv. to xxvii ; xxxiv. 
 and XXXV. Though they cannot all be ascribed to one 
 author, they all belong to the days of the captivity. 
 
 Jeremiah was of priestly descent, and appeared in 
 Jerusalem in the year 626 before Christ, in the reign of 
 Josiah. He saw the fall of Judah, and stayed there after 
 the devastation of the capital. He afterwards went with 
 many of his countrymen to Egypt, where he died. The 
 two last chapters of the book bearing his name do not 
 really come from his hand. 
 
 EzEKiEL, a priest, was carried off to Babylon together 
 with Jehoiachin, in the year 597 before Christ. There he 
 laboured as a prophet for twenty- two years. It is in his 
 writings that we find the first traces of priestly legislation. 
 This was afterwards carried out in much greater detail by 
 writers of kindred mind. 
 
 HosEA, who lived in the northern kingdom, that of the ten 
 
12 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 tribes, prophesied between the years 775 and 745 before 
 Christ, during the reign of Jeroboam the Second and 
 after his death. 
 
 Joel. It is uncertain when Joel lived; he is pro- 
 bably one of the latest of the prophets. 
 
 Amos was not a prophet by birth or education, but a 
 herdsman from Tekoa, in Judah. It was in the kingdom 
 of the ten tribes, however, that he came forward as a 
 prophet. This was in the reign of Jeroboam the Second, 
 between 790 and 780 years before Christ. 
 
 Obadiah prophesied immediately after the devastation 
 of Jerusalem, 586 years before Christ. 
 
 Jonah. The prophet Jonah is an historical personage, 
 and we hear of him in 2 Kings, xiv. 25. But the 
 w^riter of the book of Jonah is not the prophet, but some 
 one who lived in the fifth century before Christ, and wrote 
 this wholly fictitious story to teach the loving-kindness of 
 Yahweh, showing how it embraces even the heathens. 
 
 MiCAH, wdio lived at the same time as Isaiah, preached 
 at Jerusalem in the early part of Hezekiah's reign. 
 
 Nahum announces the approaching fall of Nineveh. 
 Probably he was a contemporary of Josiah. 
 
 Habakkuk lived at the same time as Jeremiah, and pre- 
 dicted the judgment of Yahweh on the Chaldeans. 
 
 Zephaniah prophesied in the first half of Josiah's reign. 
 The occasion of his prophecy lay in the reports of the 
 inroads of the Scythians, who inundated Asia as far as to 
 the borders of Egypt. 
 
 Haggai came forward in the year 520 before Christ, and 
 vehemently urged that the rebuilding of the temple 
 should be continued. 
 
 Zechariah. This book contains utterances by three 
 different prophets. The first of these wrote chapters i. 
 
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 13 
 
 to viii. He was really the latest of the three, and a 
 contemporary of Haggai, whom he aided in his strenuous 
 efforts to stimulate the Jews to rebuild the temple. The 
 second author, a contemporary of Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, 
 wrote chapters ix. to xi. It is likely that he came from 
 Judah, but prophesied in the kingdom of the ten tribes. 
 The third prophet, who was the author of chapters xii. 
 to xiv., lived shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 at the same time with Jeremiah and Habakkuk. It is not 
 improbable that it was the similarity of name of the three 
 prophets that led to their writings being united in a single 
 book. 
 
 Malachi. Whoever collected together the writings of 
 the lesser prophets gave this name erroneously to an author 
 whom we know nothing about, except that he lived in the 
 days of Ezra and Nehemiah, and was active in promoting 
 their ideas. 
 
 The Jews grouped all the rest of the books of the Old 
 Testament together, and called them the ''Writings." 
 These comprise the Psalms, the Proverbs, Job, the Song 
 of Solomon, Kuth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, 
 Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles.* They called them 
 simply Writings, to distinguish them from the Law on the 
 one hand, and from the Prophets on the other. No doubt, 
 some of these writings already existed when the Law and 
 the Prophets were collected — for instance. Proverbs, Job, 
 and the Song of Solomon ; but they were so very different 
 from them that it was felt they could not be put into the 
 same class. So they were made into a separate class ; and 
 the books that were written later, whatever their character, 
 
 * The division which the Jews called "Writings" thus embraces some 
 books which we are accustomed to place in the historical group, and two 
 (Lamentations and Daniel) which we insert among the Prophets. [Tr.] 
 
14 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 were joined on to tliem, because it was considered that the 
 collection of the Prophets was already closed once for all. 
 
 These writings vary very much both in contents and in 
 origin. The Psalms are a collection of religious songs, 
 composed some before and some after the captivity. They 
 are called David's because he was well known as a poet ; 
 though in all probability he did not write a single one 
 of them. We count three different collections : first, from 
 Psalms i. to xli. ; secondly, from xlii to Ixxxiii. ; and thirdly, 
 from Ixxxiv. to cl. The collector of the last group lived 
 150 or 140 years before Christ. The whole collection 
 was used as a hymn-book by the Jewish Church. 
 
 The Proverbs are a collection of short and pithy moral 
 saws. They were mistakenly attributed to Solomon, 
 but they were brought together long after his day by dif- 
 ferent people. 
 
 The Book of Job is a didactic poem. The author 
 relates the tragic fortunes of the pious Job, the tradition 
 of which maybe in part historical. The unknown writer's 
 object is to discover how the calamities that befal godly 
 men can be reconciled with the righteousness of God. 
 But he cannot solve the problem completely. He lived 
 shortly before the Babylonish captivity. 
 
 The Song of Solomon is a poem in which the praises 
 of pure love are sung. It is not really by Solomon, but 
 by an unknown author, who probably lived about 80(> 
 years before Christ. 
 
 KuTH contains the story of the fortunes of Euth, a 
 Moabitess, from whom David was descended. Probably 
 it is based on an historical tradition and dates from 
 after the time of Ezra. 
 
 Lamentations comprise five songs of mourning, in 
 which the deplorable condition of Judah and Jerusalem after 
 
SOUECES OF INFORMATION. 15 
 
 tliey have been conquered b}^ Nebuchadrezzar, is sketched. 
 They are by different authors. Though it is a mistake to 
 ascribe them to Jeremiah, they are quite in his spirit. 
 
 EccLEsiASTES, or the Preacher, though it bears 
 Solomon's name, was not written by him. Indeed, it was 
 not drawn up till towards the end of the third century 
 before Christ. The author tries to show that everything is 
 vanity and that life is hardly worth anything at all to men. 
 
 The Book of Esther is intended to explain the origin 
 of the festival of " Purim," and to encourage the Israel- 
 ites to adopt it. This is the purpose which the tale of 
 Esther's being made queen and of Haman's revenge is 
 meant to serve. The story is altogether unhistoricaL 
 The writer lived long after the Babylonish captivity and 
 is quite unknown. His book breathes an irreligious spirit 
 full of the most narrow Judaism. 
 
 Daniel, written 165 years before Christ by an unknown 
 author, tries to encourage the pious of that day in the 
 struggle against Antiochus Epiphanes, and promises them 
 a speedy and complete deliverance. 
 
 The Book of Ezra, which was originally united with 
 NehemiaHj relates many things about these two men, 
 which were partly written by themselves, and were after- 
 wards collected by a third person who furnished sundry 
 explanations and additions of his own. 
 
 Chronicles contain an account of the history of Israel 
 from David till after the Babylonish captivity. Though 
 the writer made use of many authorities and probably of 
 Samuel and Kings among the rest, it is impossible as a 
 rule to rely upon the information he gives ; for he allowed 
 his religious views to influence very largely his represen- 
 tation of the facts. He lived in the middle of the third 
 century before Christ. 
 
16 THE RELIGION OF ISEAEL. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SAME CONTINUED. 
 
 XfROM wbat we have said about the dates of the 
 historical writings of the Old Testament, the reader 
 will have perceived that their authors, almost without 
 exception, lived many years and even many centuries after 
 ^the events which they relate. In the prophets, too, we 
 find statements and narratives about previous ages ; and 
 they refer to events in olden times which, in their own 
 day, were universally accepted as facts. Now, when well 
 informed and pious men tell us anything that they them- 
 selves have seen, or inform us what thoughts they and 
 the men of their times entertain about God and religion, 
 we willingly receive it all on their authority. There is, 
 indeed, always a possibility that they have made a mis- 
 take in their observations or their reasonings ; and this 
 we have to investigate in each case. But if they deserve 
 credit on account of their culture and character, we jol^ce 
 confidence in their testimony. And this is the attitude 
 we assume towards the writers of the Bible. 
 
 But it is another thing when they tell us about earlier 
 times than their own. In that case we ask for their 
 authorities, and want to know where they got what they 
 tell us from. It does not matter whether it be historical 
 events or religious ideas that they are dealing with. 
 When prophets or priests, living in the eighth or the sixth 
 century before Christ, begin to tell us the adventures of 
 
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 17 
 
 Moses and his contemporaries, or offer us accounts of the 
 religious conceptions and customs of the men of those 
 early times, it is of the utmost importance for us to know 
 where they get their information from. On this it 
 depends, in very large measure, what value we set on 
 the information. 
 
 Now, it has been shown that the great majority of the 
 writers of the Old Testament have no other source of informa- 
 tion about the past history of Israel than simple tradition. 
 Indeed, it could not have been otherwise ; for in primitive 
 times no one used to record anything in writing, and the 
 only way of preserving a knowledge of the past was to 
 hand it down by word of mouth. The father told the 
 son what his elders had told him, and the son handed it 
 on to the next generation.* In this way it was preserved 
 for hundreds of years ; and it was only at a comparatively 
 late period that the traditions of Israel were written down 
 in books. The earliest traces of such a thing belong to 
 the eighth century before Christ. 
 
 We need hardly point out that it will not do to take for 
 granted the historical accuracy of such narratives in the 
 Bible as are drawn from tradition, or to rely implicitly on 
 their authority. Although tradition was more easily pre- 
 served in olden times than it could be now, because the 
 narratives to be remembered all fell within a certain 
 limited range of ideas ; yet, as they passed from mouth 
 to mouth, these narratives were adorned and enriched 
 with all kinds of details, which, whether they were added 
 on purpose or unconsciously, deprived them of their 
 historical character. Narratives of this sort are called 
 sagas or legends. 
 
 We must now take notice of another circumstance, that 
 
 * Exod. xii. 26 ; Ps. xliv. 1 ; Joel i. 3. 
 
 C 
 
18 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 is of great importance in forming an opinion of the 
 sources of our knowledge. Not only did the historians of 
 Israel draw from tradition with perfect freedom, and write 
 down without hesitation anything they heard and what 
 was current in the mouths of the people, but they did not 
 shrink from modifying their representation of the past in 
 any way that they thought would be good and useful. It 
 is difficult for us to look at things from their point of 
 view, because our ideas of historical good faith are so 
 utterly different. When we write history, we know that we 
 ought to be guided solely by a desire to represent facts 
 exactly as they really happened. All that we are concerned 
 with is reality ; we want to make the old times live again, 
 and we take all possible pains not to remodel the past from 
 the point of view of to-day. All we want to know is what 
 happened, and how men lived, thought, and worked in 
 those days. 
 
 The Israelites had a very different notion of the nature 
 of historical composition. When a prophet or a priest 
 related something about bygone times, his object was not 
 to convey knowledge about those times ; on the contrary, 
 he used history merely as a vehicle for the conveyance of 
 instruction and exhortation. Not only did he confine his 
 narrative to such matters as he thought would serve his 
 purpose, but he never hesitated to modify what he knew 
 of the past, and he did not think twice about touching it 
 up from his own imagination, simply that it might be 
 more conducive to the end he had in view and chime iii 
 better with his opinions. All the past became coloured 
 through and through with the tinge of his own mind. 
 Our notions of honour and good faith would never permit 
 all this; but we must not measure ancient writers by our 
 standard ; they considered that they were acting quite. 
 
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 19 
 
 within their rights and in strict accordance with duty 
 and conscience. 
 
 The influence exercised by the writers' opinions on 
 their representation of history differed with the point of 
 view at which they stood. When a prophet was describing 
 the events of the past, he gave them quite a different 
 complexion to what a priest would give to the same 
 facts. As a proclaimer of the will of Yahweh, the 
 prophet sought above all things to impress his readers 
 deeply with the might and majesty of Israel's God. The 
 grand point to be brought out was that Israel's mis- 
 fortunes were due to its neglect of Yahweh's service, and, 
 on the other hand, that the nation's only salvation lay in 
 a, genuine attachment to the God of its fathers. But it 
 was on the Law — the statutes and institutions — that the 
 priest laid stress. With him, Israel's salvation depended 
 on its faithfulness to this Law ; ceremonial cleanness was 
 the chief thing ; offerings were to be brought and feasts 
 celebrated. We can often prove from facts that the 
 accounts of former times have been completely transformed, 
 since we now and then meet with two narratives of the 
 same thing from two different pens. We have a notable 
 •example of this in 2 Chronicles xxii. 10 to xxiii. 21. 
 The author of this passage was a priest, and he has 
 entirely changed the story as it is told in 2 Kings xi., 
 to suit his own point of view. For, according to his 
 version, the priests and Levites played a chief part in 
 raising Joash to the throne ; while in the version given 
 in the secon'd book of Kings they had so little to do with 
 it that they are not even mentioned. Then, again, the 
 prophetic author in the Pentateuch (the Yahwist) tells 
 us that Yahweh promulgated no other law on Mount 
 Sinai besides the ten commandments ; but the later 
 
20 THE EELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 priestly author makes Yahweli declare to Moses a v/liole 
 series of other laws on this occasion. There are many in- 
 stances of this kind, and they show us how necessary it is 
 to be most cautious in using the narratives of writers who 
 allowed themselves such freedom in the treatment of 
 history. 
 
 Nothing but a most scrupulous and impartial investi- 
 gation will serve to separate what is historical in this 
 literature from what is unhistorical. This is essential, 
 before we can come to any true knowledge of Israel's 
 past. We must know w^hat did really happen and what 
 did not, what the author himself is responsible for and 
 what he took from trustworthy sources. It is only when 
 we have accomplished this that we are in a position to 
 form a correct conception of the history of Israel. 
 
 What has been said, however, by no means prevents 
 the unhistorical parts from helping us, just as much as 
 the historical parts, in understanding the gradual progress 
 of Israel in religious thought and feeling. It is true that 
 the unhistorical parts do not really teach us anything 
 concerning those times which the writer wishes to inform 
 us about ; but they do enable us to understand the 
 opinions entertained by the writer himself and generally 
 held in his own day. For example, all the stories about 
 the patriarchs belong to a much later period and are quite 
 unhistorical. They do not really teach us anything at all 
 about the patriarchs themselves, and are utterly worthless 
 as authorities about those ancient times. But they do 
 acquaint us with the opinions which the author and his 
 contemporaries entertained as to those times. They 
 show us what Israel thought about the days that were 
 gone by ; and in this way we get to know by their help 
 what were the religious views current at a much later 
 
SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 21 
 
 time than tliat of which they treat, but a time no less 
 interesting to us. Every legend or myth is a witness 
 about the author and his times, just as much as a real 
 historical narrative would be. 
 
 The Old Testament is rich alike in legends and in 
 myths.* We may take as examples the stories of the first 
 human pair, the fall, Cain and Abel, the deluge, the tower 
 of Babel, God's appearance to Abraham, and Jacob's 
 WTestling. These stories have no historical foundation 
 whatever ; but, nevertheless, they give us an insight into 
 the religious conceptions of the ancient Israelites. 
 
 And here we must not forget to speak of the exceeding 
 value which many books of the Old Testament have for 
 us, quite independently of their importance for the history 
 • of Israel and the Israelitish religion. In many of these 
 books there breathes a pure and lofty religious spirit, 
 wdiich can hardly fail to arouse and to invigorate our own 
 religious life. They are written by good and pious men, 
 and often glow with a passionate, burning love of God and 
 his Law. They introduce us to men whom we may well 
 take as examples in the difficult battle of life. It is true 
 that this cannot be said of all the books ; some of them 
 are of no interest except from an historical point of view, 
 and give us no moral or spiritual food at all. But in 
 many others — the Pentateuch, the prophets. Job, the 
 Psalms — there are passages which reveal pure enthu- 
 siasm, strong sense of duty, or burning devotion to 
 Yahweh. Such utterances as these can never fail to 
 nourish the noblest dispositions in the reader's heart. 
 
 * In Lis former work, on the pre-Christian religions outside Israel, our 
 avithor says : " Myths are stories which express some religious idea in such 
 form as to introduce the powers of nature or the gods playing some part in 
 the events narrated." See also, "The Bible for Young People," Vol. I. 
 Images 5 to 11, on "myths" and "legends." [Tr.] 
 
22 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE TEIBES IN GOSHEN. 
 
 'l^'HE history of the religion of Israel must start from 
 the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt. Formerly 
 it was usual to take a much earlier starting-point, 
 and to hegin with a discussion of the religious ideas of 
 the patriarchs. And this was perfectly right, so long as 
 the accounts of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were con- 
 sidered historical. But now that a strict investigation 
 has shown us that all these stories are entirely unhistori- 
 cal, of course we have to begin the history later on. 
 About the times which preceded the sojourn of the 
 Israelites in Goshen, we can only make more or less 
 likely guesses. Of the sojourn itself, however, we know 
 a few circumstances with certainty ; and from that time 
 forward we can trace the course of Israel's religious 
 progress pretty regularly. 
 
 Besides the accounts of the patriarchs, we find in 
 the book of Genesis many other stories which carry 
 us back to the creation of the world. For Israel 
 was not content with picturing its own origin, but, like 
 all other ancient peoples, constructed myths or gave play 
 to its imagination about the creation of the universe, the 
 first human beings, and the primitive races and their 
 fortunes. Some of the stories on these matters are very 
 old and were borrowed by the writers from tradition 
 
THE TRIBES IN GOSHEN. 23 
 
 while others are of more recent date and were invented 
 by the authors themselves. 
 
 We shall not here discuss what is said of the primitive 
 men and races ; but we must make a remark or two about 
 the accounts of the patriarchs. The Israelites had similar 
 ideas about the origin of their nation, to those which we 
 find among other peoples. Thus, it was generally supposed 
 that a nation sprang from a single ancestor, and that tribes 
 which were akin to each other owed their origin to the same 
 ancestor ; and in this way the Israelites thought that the 
 twelve tribes which made up their nation were descended 
 from twelve brothers, who were sons of one father. Such 
 tribes as w^ere in any way still more closely connected, had 
 had the same mother too ; and those tribes which were rather 
 looked down upon,* are, according to the tradition, children 
 of concubines. This is how we get the stories about 
 Jacob or Israel with his two wives and two concubines. 
 
 Again, the Israelitish people was closely related to the 
 people of Edom. But this name stands for the same as that 
 of Esau. The result of this is that the forefathers, Jacob 
 and Esau, were regarded as brothers ; and Esau was the 
 elder, because the Edomites had had a settled habitation 
 and had been regularly established under kings earlier 
 than the Israelites. But Esau was also the inferior in 
 rank, because with its own people Israel naturally stood 
 in higher repute than Edom. Isaac is the father of these 
 two tribal fathers. Once more, Israel was conscious that 
 it was related to the Ishmaelites, who dwelt in Arabia, 
 and so their supposed forefather, Ishmael, becomes Isaac's 
 brother; but, to signify that he was not held in such high re- 
 pute, his mother is made a slave, Hagar. But then, again, 
 Isaac and Ishmael must have the same father, — namely, 
 Abraham ; and he, according to a later account, is the 
 
24 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 forefather of other less important Arab tribes, called 
 Midianites, Dedanites, and so forth. Their mother was 
 called Keturah, which means '' incense," because the 
 Arabs dwelt in the land of incense. The Ammonites 
 and Moabites, too, were related to the Israelites, and 
 they likewise obtain a place in the genealogy, and are 
 sons of Lot, himself a son of Abraham's brother. In 
 this way all the mutually related tribes are made de- 
 scendants of one man, Terah, Abraham's father and 
 Lot's grandfather. They are, therefore, called by the 
 common name of Terachites. 
 
 As we have already said, we find similar representa- 
 tions among other peoples also. The Hellenes — or Greeks, 
 as we generally call them — had their imaginary fore- 
 father, Hellen, the son of Deucalion and father of ^^olus, 
 Dorus, and Xuthus. Xuthus, again, was the father of 
 Ion and Achseus. Thus they explained the connection 
 of the four great divisions of the Greeks, the ^olians, 
 Dorians, lonians, and Achseans. In the same way, the 
 Batavians were considered descendants of Bato, and the 
 Frisians of Friso. But, however simple such explana- 
 tions may seem, they are utterly unhistorical. That is 
 not how nations arise. By slow degrees families unite ;. 
 tribes migrate and intermarry. Through strife and con- 
 quest some become masters and others slaves ; and thus, 
 out of very diverse elements, a nation is compounded, 
 till a time comes when it is no longer possible to distin- 
 guish all the separate elements. The Old Testament 
 itself gives us ample ground to go upon in this matter ; 
 so that the fact is firmly established, that these fore- 
 fathers did not call the nation into being, but, on the 
 contrary, the nation, in trying to imagine its own his- 
 tory, called these forefathers into being. 
 
THE TPvIDES IN GOSHEN. ZJ 
 
 In saying tins, we do not mean to assert, that there 
 can be nothing historical underlying all these narratives 
 in Genesis. In the first place, it is quite j^ossible, in the 
 abstract, that there may have been men who bore these 
 names. But, if so, they were not the fathers of the 
 tribes, nor did they play the part which Genesis assigns 
 to them. And, indeed, their very existence remains a 
 mere supposition, and does not help us with the history 
 of Israel. But it is another thing when we find certain 
 indications in these traditions, which do give us at least 
 some hint about Israel's origin. From them we gather 
 that, in very ancient times, Semitic tribes travelled west- 
 ward from Mesopotamia. Some stayed in Canaan or on 
 the further side of the Jordan and in Arabia. Others, 
 again, strengthened by a fresh migration from the old 
 home, and perhaps preceded by a single tribe, went on to 
 Egypt and established themselves in Goshen, the north- 
 east part of that country. This is the only thing that 
 we are able to affirm about the origin of Israel. 
 
 According to the tradition preserved in Genesis, it was 
 the promotion of Jacob's son, Joseph, to be viceroy of 
 Egypt, that brought about the migration of the sons of 
 Israel from Canaan to Goshen. The story goes, that this 
 Joseph was sold as a slave by his brothers, and after 
 many changes of fortune received the vice-regal office at 
 Pharaoh's hands through his skill in interpreting dreams. 
 Famine drives his brothers — and afterwards his father 
 — to him, and the Egyptian prince gives them the land 
 of Goshen to live in. 
 
 It is by imagining all this that the legend tries to 
 account for the fact that Israel passed some time in 
 Egypt. But we must look for the real explanation in 
 
26 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 a migration of certain tribes which could not establish 
 or maintain themselves in Canaan, and were forced to 
 move further on. We find a passage in Flavius Josephus, 
 from which it appears that in Egypt, too, a recollection 
 survived of the sojourn of some foreign tribes in the 
 north-eastern district of the country. For this writer 
 gives us two fragments out of a lost work by Manetho, 
 a priest, who lived about 250 years before Christ. In 
 one of these we have a statement that pretty nearly 
 agrees with the Israelitish tradition about a sojourn in 
 Goshen. But the Israelites were looked down on by the 
 Egyptians as foreigners, and they are represented as 
 lepers and unclean. Moses himself is mentioned by 
 name, and we are told that he was a priest and joined 
 himself to these lepers and gave them laws. 
 
 Josephus himself wants to identify the well-known 
 " Hyksos " or shepherd-kings who ruled over Egypt for a 
 time, with the Israelites. He is led into this opinion by 
 his desire to glorify Israel. But it is a mistake ; for the 
 probability is that the Israelites never entered Egypt till 
 after the Hyksos had been driven away, — that is to say, 
 till after the year 1600 before Christ. But we cannot yet 
 say for certain when they came to Egypt ; and so, we 
 cannot say how long they stayed there. The Old Tes- 
 tament says 430 years ; but it cannot have been so long. 
 
 The children of Israel were terribly oppressed by the 
 Egyptians, at any rate during the latter part of their stay. 
 They had to do slaves' work in the quarries, and were 
 employed in building two fortified cities, Kameses and 
 Pithom. We may be sure that this oppression drew the 
 tribes closer to each other. It did not, indeed, draw them 
 so close that we could speak of the Israelites, while still in 
 Goshen, as one people ; but still the mutual ties, which had 
 
THE TEIBES IN GOSHEN. 27 
 
 hitherto been exceeclmgly weak, were now strengthened, 
 and the recollection of the oppression and of the subse- 
 quent exodus afterwards tended powerfully to call out and 
 invigorate the feeling of relationship and sympathy. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SAME CONTINUED. 
 
 TT/'E must now proceed to consider the religion of the 
 Israelites in the oldest form in which it is known to 
 us. From what has been said, it is clear that we must 
 once for all dismiss the common idea that this religion was 
 regularly handed down from Adam to Noah, from Shem 
 to Abraham and the patriarchs, and from these to Moses. 
 Everything that is said to that effect in the Old Tes- 
 tament is quite unhistorical. Indeed, even of the religion 
 of the tribes when in Goshen we know very little, and 
 that little we have to make out from later accounts, or 
 even to infer to a considerable extent from what we know 
 of the popular religion in the eighth and seventh centuries 
 before Christ, which of course had its roots in the past, 
 and so gives us some evidence of what that past must 
 have been. 
 
 In this way we discover that the religion of the sons of 
 Israel was originally Fetishism, and that out of this 
 Fetishism there slowly grew a Nature- worship, just as hap- 
 pened with the rest of the Semites.* We still find traces 
 
 * In his former work our author writes : '* Fetishism is the least advanced 
 stage of religion known to us. The name is given to the religion of those 
 savage tribes which regard all objects as endowed with life like that of men, 
 but of different degrees of power." " Nature worship " is the worship of 
 
28 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 of the former in what the Old Testament tells us of the 
 reverence paid to holy trees and stones. It is true that it 
 is made to appear as if these stones were dedicated to 
 Yaliweh ; but this is to be explained by the subsequent 
 desire of the writers of the Bible to bring all the idolatry 
 that still survived in the popular religion, into connection 
 with the worship of Yahweh by way of consecrating it. 
 They could not exterminate it, and so they did their best to 
 change its meaning. It was only on such conditions that 
 these remnants of the old popular religion could still be 
 tolerated at all. But they do not really fit in with the 
 service of Yahweh, as it was afterwards understood, and 
 they can only be explained as a relic from primitive times. 
 In later ages the Christian missionaries, in many parts of 
 Europe, followed the example of the Israelitish writers : 
 to those heathen practices which they found themselves 
 unable to exterminate, they gave a Christian colouring 
 and a Christian interpretation. 
 
 When the religion of a people rises to a higher 
 level, the old ideas and forms survive for centuries beside 
 the new. We find this general law exemplified all 
 through the history of Israel. Here the popular belief 
 Mas unusually strong, so that we cannot be surprised at 
 coming upon the traces of the ancient religion even in 
 much later times. But this must by no means blind us 
 to the fact that fetishism grew into nature-worship in 
 very early days. It is certain that the Israelites had 
 already advanced to nature-worship when they were in 
 
 the various powers of nature ; and our author elsewhere states that, while 
 the Aryan races worshipped those powers as manifested in the phenomena of 
 nature and intimately bound up with them, the Semites, the stock to which 
 the Israelites belonged, worshijiped those powers as terrildc and destroying 
 gods, — lords or kings standing above nature and more clearly distiuguished 
 irom it than was the case among the Aryans. [Tr.] 
 
THE TRIBES IN GOSHEX. 29 
 
 Goslieo. The general character of the religion of the sons 
 of Israel was like that of the rest of the Semites ; but 
 they modified it in their own way. The Semites used 
 to draw a contrast between the power of nature regarded 
 as the source of life and blessing, and the same power 
 regarded as the cause of death and destruction. Among 
 the Edomites, Ishmaelites, Ammonites, and Moabites — 
 the tribes with which Israel felt itself most nearly related 
 — the service of the rigorous and destroying god was most 
 prominent. The very names for God which are most 
 common among them — Baal, El, Molech, Milcom, and 
 Chemosh — are enough to show this. These names all 
 denote the mighty, violent, death-dealing god. It is true 
 that these tribes also worshipped the powers of nature 
 which confer life and blessing, but only in the second place. 
 We know, from the character of their national god, that 
 the Israelites formed no exception in this matter ; for, in 
 early times, he was regarded as a god of light and fire, who 
 was to be greatly feared, and was propitiated by human 
 sacrifices. The god of Israel was originally closely allied 
 in character with the Canaanitish or Phoenician Molech. 
 Hence he was worshipped in the likeness of a bull, as an 
 emblem of the power of the sun, so mighty to destroy. 
 Thus Molech, too, was representee! with a bull's head, and 
 a bull's horns were always given to Astarte. With this, also, 
 are connected the bull's horns which we find on Yahweh's 
 altar in later times, and the twelve oxen which support the 
 molten sea.* The cherubs, too, on which Yahweh sits, are 
 of Phoenician origin, and represent the heavy thunder-clouds 
 which hide the Thunderer from the eyes of men. The 
 representations of flowers and fruits which Solomon put in 
 the temple are in the same way symbols of the life of nature 
 
 * 1 Kings, vii. 23, 25. 
 
30 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 as awakened by the sun-god. Moreover, by the side of 
 Yahweh's altar we have what are called *' asheras," which 
 are lopped stems of trees and symbols of the goddess 
 Ashera, the female side of the beneficent sun-god; and 
 *' chamanim," or sun-images, which represent the rays of 
 the sun in the shape of a cone. All this shows that 
 Israel's god was originally regarded as a god of light and 
 of fire, and differed little or nothing in character from the 
 rest of the gods of the Semites. But in the conception 
 of Yahweh, as the stern and terrible god, lay the germ 
 of the higher conception which afterwards grew out of it. 
 He is pure and holy; no man can see him and live. The 
 first-born are his rightful -pro'pevtj ; circumcision, which 
 was afterwards the sign of the covenant, was originally a 
 bloody offering for the propitiation of a god of terror. All 
 this shows that the children of Israel were profoundly 
 impressed with the might of their national god: an 
 impression which could not fail to bring them by and by to 
 a loftier conception of his nature. Through the notion that 
 the best and dearest must be given up to the strong and 
 mighty god, the belief in his holiness was cultivated and 
 strengthened. More and more did men come to see that 
 nothing could serve such a god save holiness and a 
 strict morality; his claims exceeded those of other 
 gods, and he was gradually contrasted with them and 
 placed above them in the thoughts of his truest servants, 
 and at last he came to be looked upon as the only one 
 that really existed and was worshipped as such, whilst the 
 others were considered to be false gods which did not really 
 exist. This pure monotheism is the fruit of the 
 whole process of Israel's development, and it was not 
 distinctly and definitely expressed till the eighth century 
 before Christ. But the germ of it lay in the original form 
 
THE TRIBES IN GOSHEN. 31 
 
 of Israel's nature-worship, by means of which, under 
 favourable circumstances, this people was enabled to rise 
 far above the rest of the Semites. 
 
 According to the writer who put the Pentateuch into its 
 final shape, the name of Israel's chief or tribal god, El- 
 Shaddai, was afterwards changed by Moses into Yahweh. 
 We are told that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, even in their 
 days, called their god El-Shaddai.* This word means the 
 Mighty One or the Strong One, and it implies that the 
 tribes ascribed the character to him that we have explained 
 above. What customs, and offerings, and festivals may 
 have been associated with the service of El-Shaddai, we do 
 not know. 
 
 Other gods, besides the chief one, were honoured. First 
 came the stars, and especially the planet Saturn, which the 
 Israelites called Kewan. To Kewan the seventh day was 
 dedicated. Very likely other planets, too, were worshipped, 
 and the festival of the new moon belonged to the old 
 nature-worship. Besides this, each tribe must have had 
 its own special god or gods. Later on we find mention 
 of '' teraphim," a kind of household gods. They were 
 consulted about coming events, and were worshipped as 
 beneficent powers. But it is uncertain whether they were 
 worshipped so far back as the sojourn in Goshen. 
 
 And this meagre account is all that our sources of 
 information enable us to give of the primitive religion- 
 of the Israelites. It will be enough to keep in mind that 
 their polytheism had a chief god, and that they had a very 
 solemn conception of his nature. ; while his worship was 
 the bond that held the tribes together. And now we have 
 to fix our attention on the man who is renowned as Israel's 
 deliverer and lawgiver. 
 
 * Exodus vi. 3. 
 
32 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 CHAPTEK YI. 
 
 MOSES. 
 
 A S we have already related, the sons of Israel were 
 "^ cruelly oppressed during the latter part of their 
 sojourn in Egypt. It is constantly becoming more certain 
 that it was Rameses the Second who began this oppression. 
 Remains have been discovered of Rameses, one of the two 
 cities built by the Israelites. These remains confirm us 
 in the belief that Rameses II. was its founder, and con- 
 sequently that the oppression took place in his time. 
 Under his son and successor, Menephtha, the escape of 
 the Israelites known as the Exodus took place. This 
 was about 1320 years before Christ. 
 
 According to the account in the book of Exodus, the 
 oppression came to a climax when the king issued an edict 
 that all the new-born sons of the Israelites should be 
 drowned in the Nile. But one of these lads was rescued 
 in an extraordinary manner and brought up at court by 
 the king's daughter. His name was Moses, and he was 
 the son of Amram and Jochebed, of the tribe of Levi. 
 Destiny had appointed him to be the deliverer of Israel. 
 When he was forty years old he was obliged to flee from 
 Egypt, and he betook himself to Jethro, a priest of 
 Midian. He married Jethix)'s daughter, Zipporah, and 
 for a long time tended his father-in-law's flocks in the 
 desert. Then God appeared to him in a burning bush, 
 and charged him to deliver Israel from Egyptian bondage. 
 Moses goes to the king and begs permission to lead forth 
 
MOSES. 83 
 
 his people to the wilderness, that they may hold a religious 
 festival there. x\t first the monarch hesitates, but he is 
 afterwards forced to let the people go, by means of ten 
 horrible calamities or plagues. Israel quits Goshen in hot 
 haste, and presses towards the wilderness of Arabia. But 
 now the Egj^ptian king repents of the permission which 
 had been wrung from him, and is for bringing the 
 Israelites back by force. He pursues them, and would 
 certainly have subdued them again, had not Moses, by 
 Yahweh's command, waved his staff over the Gulf of Suez, 
 and caused the waters to separate, so that the Israelites 
 could cross and reach the other side dry-footed, while 
 Pharaoh and his soldiers, who were pursuing the fugitives, 
 met with a miserable death in the waters, which flowed back 
 into their place at a second command from Moses. Thus 
 was Israel liberated by the mighty hand of Yahweh. 
 
 This story, which was not written till more than five 
 hundred years after the exodus itself, can lay no claim to 
 be considered historical. The exodus itself remains a 
 firmly established historical fact. All the prophets, in- 
 cluding the very oldest of them, speak of it as a thing 
 universally known and believed. For the same reason it 
 is certain that Moses, Amram's son, was the soul of the 
 whole movement', and the leader of the people. He stirred 
 up the tribes to resume the old roaming life and to for- 
 sake their settled dwellings in Egypt. That his enterprise 
 would meet with opposition on the part of the Egyptians is 
 in the highest degree probable. The narrative of the priest, 
 Manetho, which we have already mentioned, also confirms 
 the main fact of the exodus ; and he, too, names Moses as 
 the leader of the people. The main fact, however, is all that 
 we know. Of the circumstances which may have accom- 
 panied the exodus we have no knowledge whatever. 
 
 D 
 
34 THE RELIGION OF ISHAEL. 
 
 From the nature of tlie case, we may infer that Moses 
 laid the utmost stress on the religious significance of the 
 escape from Egypt. The contest against the alien 
 nation was a contest hetween the god of the confederated 
 Israelites and the gods of the Egyptians. Moses must 
 greatly have quickened the people's love for their common 
 god ; and his successful efforts must have impressed the 
 sons of Israel deeply with the superiority of Yahweh's 
 might over that of the foreign gods. When the tribes 
 found themselves in the wilderness — free men, delivered 
 from the yoke of their oppressors, they must have felt 
 that they were bound by closer ties than ever before to 
 that faithful and mighty god. 
 
 Throughout all the ages that followed, Israel stead- 
 fastly cherished the memory of this deliverance from 
 Egypt. In later times the Israelites began to associate 
 the celebration of the Paschal feast — or Passover — with 
 that recollection. But we must not go into the origin 
 and meaning of this festival at present. 
 
 It is represented in the Old Testament that the god of 
 Israel was never called " Yahweh " till the time of Moses. 
 Moses was the first to whom El-Shaddai, the god of the 
 patriarchs — of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — made himself 
 known as "Yahweh."* The only explanation of such a 
 statement is that Moses proclaimed the national god by 
 this new name ; and no doubt there went along with this 
 a fresh interpretation and conception of the nature of 
 this god. "We are not quite certain of the meaning or 
 of the pronunciation of this name, " Yahweh." We 
 have been accustomed to say " Jehovah ; " a form which 
 we have constructed by adding the vowels of Adonai (pro- 
 nounced, Edona), namely, e, o, and a, to the consonants 
 
 * Exodus iii. 1 to H ; vi. 2, 3. 
 
MOSES. 35 
 
 JHVH, tliese four letters being all that is written in the 
 original Hebrew. This combination arose from the fact 
 that the Israelites themselves always refrained from 
 littering the proper name JHVH, saying "Adonai" (which 
 is Hebrew for " the Lord") instead. And in our authorized 
 English bibles the confusion is kept up by JHVH always 
 being wrongly translated ^'the Lord." The vowels 
 which really belong to JHVH are a and e."* 
 
 As for the meaning of this name, even the old 
 Israelites themselves could only guess at it. What is 
 certain is this, that the word is connected with the verb 
 ** To BE." But, granting that, this derivative word, 
 Yahweh, may either signify, ''He who is," or " He who 
 MAKES TO BE," wliich would mean, '' the Life-giver." 
 The writer of the third chapter of Exodus thinks that 
 the name refers to the unchanging and faithful character 
 of Yahweh, but it is certain that no such meaning is 
 directly involved in it. Our best plan will be not to look 
 for any fixed and sharply defined meaning in it, as if 
 Moses had devised a new name for the national god, 
 expressing the precise idea which he held of his nature. 
 It is better to try to make out what conceptions he had, 
 without expecting to get too much out of the etymology 
 of the word. 
 
 It has been suggested that Moses may have borrowed 
 a good deal of his religion from the Egyptians. In sup- 
 port of this, the account of his being brought up by 
 Pharaoh's daughter has been quoted from Exodus ii. 10, to 
 which was afterwards added (see Acts vii. 21, 22), that he 
 was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians ; and, 
 again, we have been reminded of the agreement between 
 
 * TMs makes "Jahveh." But iu English we get nearer to what was 
 most likely the true pronunciation by writing tMs, "Yahweh." Accord- 
 ingly, we have adoiDted this form in the text. [Tr.] 
 
 D 2 
 
86 THE BELIGION OF ISRA.EL. 
 
 many of the ideas and customs of the Israelites and those 
 of the Egyptians. Some have even thought that the mean- 
 ing of the name Yahweh had an Egyptian origin ; and it 
 is pointed out that the ark, the dress of the priests, the 
 bull- worship, and many of the moral laws and command- 
 ments are found among the Egyptians too. But it is not 
 very likely that Moses, who, after a violent contest, 
 wrested Israel out of the power of Egypt — Moses, who 
 represented this struggle as a struggle between the god 
 of Israel and the gods of Egypt, would borrow much of 
 his religion from the religion of his enemies. We do 
 not mean to say that no traces of Egyptian influence can 
 be pointed out in Israel. In the sphere of morals, at 
 any rate, such an influence cannot be denied. Whole 
 centuries before the exodus, the Egyptians had attained 
 to an advanced and exceptionally pure morality ; and we 
 find noteworthy instances of agreement with the Egyptian 
 code among the laws of the Israelites. Accordingly, we 
 may well suppose that Moses adopted some of these lofty 
 precepts, and announced them to Israel as the command- 
 ments of his god. But, though we have to allow that he 
 borrowed from Egypt here and there, it still remains part 
 of the original and peculiar essence of his religion, that 
 he connected the moral law itself directly with the nature 
 of Israel's god. 
 
 Moses not only preached Yahweh as the god of Israel, 
 but he wished the tribes to worship this god in contrast 
 to, and to the exclusion of, all other gods. But we do 
 not by any means intend to assert that Moses was a 
 monotheist, or that he supposed Yahweh to be absolutely 
 the only god and the other gods not to exist at all. Such 
 pure monotheism as that belongs to much later days. It 
 was not till many centuries after the time of Moses that 
 
MOSES. 37 
 
 the prophets attained to so lofty a conception. Moses 
 himself believed in the existence of other gods just as 
 much as in that of Yahweh ; hut he taught that Yahweh 
 was the only one to whom the Israelites ought to pray. 
 He was profoundly impressed with Yahweh's majesty and 
 power. Yahweh only was Israel's god. We find this 
 principle expressed in the phrase of the law — "Ye shall 
 have no other gods before me." But we shall come back 
 to this presently. 
 
 It is more difficult to answer the question what Moses 
 thought about the worship of images, and what was his 
 attitude towards the bull-worship. Bull-worship was still 
 a thoroughly national institution in Israel whole centuries 
 after Moses was dead. It has sometimes been compared 
 with the Egyptian worship of Apis. But such a com- 
 parison is a mistake ; for it was a real live bull that the 
 Egyptians adored, while Israel's bull-worship was only 
 the worship of Yahweh in the likeness of a bull. It is 
 quite clear, from the subsequent history of Israel, that 
 this was popularly regarded as pure Yahweh- worship. 
 And, however bitterly the later Israelites condemned it, 
 however zealous the priestly lawgiver after the captivity 
 showed himself against the worship of images, it is 
 easy to see that there was nothing in the traditions about 
 Moses to mark him out as an opponent of image-worship. 
 There is, however, on the other hand, nothing to show 
 that he defended it or approved of it. 
 
 The most noteworthy point in the representation of 
 Yahweh which Moses gives us, is the moral character that 
 he ascribes to him. We must, it is true, put out of our 
 heads altogether any such exalted ideas as those enter- 
 tained by the prophets of later times. To their minds 
 Yahweh was a purely spiritual being, who desired, not 
 
38 THE EELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 sacrifice, but purity of heart ; a god ^Yho, far from being- 
 identified with nature, was contrasted with nature as her 
 almighty lord and master. Now, although Moses acknow- 
 ledged the dominion of Yahweh over nature, he by no 
 means made any such sharp distinction between them. 
 To him Yahweh was still the light-god and fire-god, a 
 terrible and mighty being, whom none could either gaze on 
 or approach. But at the same time he regarded him as the 
 Holy One ; this god of his demanded morality ; it was 
 only by being good that men could serve him. Thus 
 Moses identified the command to lead a moral life with 
 the law of Yahweh, and it is his signal merit thus to 
 have laid the foundation of Israel's subsequent growth 
 and progress in religious thought and feeling. He was 
 the first of all the men of Israel to feel and say, 
 ** Yahweh is holy, and desires holiness." 
 
 We may well suppose that the sons of Israel were still 
 too backward to accept the teachings of Moses at once. 
 Tradition speaks of opposition to Moses, again and again 
 renewed, on the part of the tribes, and even of actual 
 insurrections. The union of the tribes, which the de- 
 liverance from Egypt had powerfully cemented for the 
 moment, did not prove strong enough in the long run. 
 It was not only that the people kept up the service 
 of other gods, — that went on for centuries ; but even in 
 serving the ancient god of their fathers, they failed to heed 
 the modified character which Moses ascribed to him. 
 The sequel of the history shows us that it was only 
 a few of the more thoughtful followers of Moses that 
 could sympathize with him, and that in them alone did 
 his views bear fruit. His work, like that of all great 
 reformers, was for the future ; fairly understood by pos- 
 terity alone, he stands at the opening of the history 
 
MOSES. 39 
 
 of Israel, the deliverer and legislator of his race, and suc- 
 ceeding centuries have set a seal upon his work. 
 
 "We must now speak further of the code of law which 
 Moses promulgated, and of certain institutions and usages 
 attributed to him. Moses represented the relation between 
 Yahweh and Israel as a covenant ; Yaliweh was Israel's 
 god, and Israel was Yahw^eh's people ; the code constituted 
 the basis of this covenant between the two. We have this 
 code complete in two separate passages of the Pentateuch, 
 Exod. XX. 2-17, and Deut. v. 6-21. When we compare 
 these two passages together, we find a great difference 
 between them, not only in a multitude of small points, 
 but especially in the commandment to keep the Sabbath- 
 day. It follows at once from this, that these command- 
 ments are not derived from Moses in their present form. 
 The commandments as we have them must be regarded as 
 later elaborations, the gist or kernel of them alone being 
 from Moses. Moreover, the tradition that Moses broke 
 the original tables of stone seems to indicate that the code 
 was not considered so holy but that it was permissible to 
 modify it. At any rate, it is probable that this story covers 
 some recollection of a remodelling of the code. 
 
 This code, which is generally known as the law of the 
 Ten Commandments, is called in the Pentateuch itself the 
 law of the Ten Words. The exordium itself — "I, Yah- 
 weh, am your god, who brought you out of Egypt, out of 
 the house of bondage," which is not generally counted, 
 inasmuch as it cannot be said to be a commandment, 
 must be reckoned as the first Word. This is the founda- 
 tion, the starting-point, of the whole set of laws. Yahweh, on 
 his part, makes the announcement that he regards himself 
 as the god of Israel, and founds upon it the obligation of the 
 
40 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 people to obey his commandments. Then, the second 
 Word will be what is usually called the first command- 
 ment, " Thou shalt have no other gods before me ; " while 
 what we call the second commandment, which contains a 
 prohibition of idolatry, is of later date, and must be 
 regarded as an elaboration of the first. Then follows the 
 third Word, the same as our third commandment, dealing 
 with the sacredness of an oath taken in Yahweh's name ; 
 and then we have the dedication of the seventh day of the 
 week to Yahweh, the commandment to honour our parents, 
 and the prohibitions of murder, adultery, theft, false wit- 
 ness, and covetousness. 
 
 According to the narrative in Exodus, Yahweh himself 
 proclaimed this set of laws on Mount Sinai, while all the 
 people were gathered together at the foot of the mountain, 
 and tumultuous tokens of Yahweh's majesty and power, in 
 earthquake and thunder, filled them with awe. All that is 
 likely to be historical in this account is that Moses 
 assembled, not indeed the whole of the people, but the 
 heads of the tribes, and gave them the code ; there was pro- 
 bably no lack of sacrifices and festivals on the occasion, while 
 the representatives of the Israelites solemnly pledged them- 
 selves to keep the commandments thus communicated to 
 them. 
 
 We can say nothing with certainty about any other laws 
 or precepts given by Moses. With regard to the great 
 majority of the laws which we find in the Pentateuch, it is 
 quite certain that they belong to a later day. At the same 
 time, it is possible that a few more injunctions are to be 
 ascribed to him. It is likely enough that he retained 
 much that was already current before he began to teach, 
 or, at any rate, that he adopted it with modifications. 
 Such was the case with the dedication of the Sabbath in 
 
MOSES. 41 
 
 the fourth Word. The seventh day, as we have ah-eady 
 seen, was originally dedicated to the planet Saturn, or 
 Kewan ; Moses adopted the institution, but made the day 
 a day of rest, and consecrated it to Yahweh. In the same 
 way, he retained the established customs of circumcision 
 and the dedication of the first-born. He probably laid it 
 down that all first-born sons must be redeemed from Yahweh 
 with an offering. Human sacrifice, though by no means 
 uncommon in Goshen, and not yet extirpated, even after 
 the time of Moses, was certainly not prescribed by him. 
 It was not necessary that the man who was due to Yah- 
 weh should be offered up ; he was redeemable, and, 
 indeed, was obliged to be redeemed. It is true that 
 human beings were sometimes dedicated to Yahweh, and 
 then burnt with all who belonged to them, and this 
 custom was called ''cherem," or ban; but this was a 
 punishment wreaked upon those who had been guilty of 
 grave transgressions of Yahweh' s law. It was not human 
 sacrifice, properly so called. 
 
 According to a later tradition, the code of laws was pre- 
 served in the ark, that is, the chest, of the covenant, which 
 was placed in the middle of a portable tent, called the 
 tabernacle. The description given of both of these in the 
 Pentateuch is utterly incorrect, inasmuch as it is at 
 variance with the much older accounts in Samuel and 
 Kings. It is in the highest degree probable that this ark 
 was regarded as the dwelling-place of Yahweh himself; 
 or, perhaps, a stone was kept in it, and this stone was 
 looked upon as Yahweh' s dwelling, and the ark only as 
 the place where it was kept. In any case, the Israelites 
 attached the greatest value to this chest, as we may 
 gather from their habit of carrying it with them into 
 battle. They attributed to it mighty powers and most 
 
42 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 formidable effect. Now, we may, witli considerable con- 
 fidence, take Moses to have been the originator of this 
 ark, and it is very probable, too, that he cherished that 
 material conception which, in times long subsequent, 
 we still meet with among the people. This ark, we may 
 suppose, stood in a simple tent, while a few priests were 
 attached to it, with Aaron, the brother of Moses, at their 
 head. 
 
 We know nothing more of any laws or institutions 
 given by Moses. But slight as our information is, it is 
 sufficient to justify us in the very high estimate of him 
 to which we have already given expression. We 
 recognize and esteem him as the founder of Israel's 
 national existence, the great legislator and religious 
 leader, who gave the first powerful and decisive impulse 
 to the development of Israel. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE TERIOD OF THE JUDGES. 
 
 I 
 
 F we wish to form a correct conception of the religious 
 condition of Israel during the period of the Judges, 
 that is between Moses and Saul, it will not do to be guided 
 by the opinions of the writer of the Book of Judges. 
 That writer did not live till the sixth century before 
 Christ, and he measured the condition of his countrymen, 
 in ages long gone by, according to the standard of his 
 own days. He was a monotheist ; and he held that the 
 good or ill fortune of his people depended on nothing 
 but attachment to Yahweh, or neglect of his service. That 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE JUDGES. 43 
 
 is the point of view from which he writes history. Ac- 
 cording to his representation, Israel had ah-eady heen 
 united into one nation and brought to pure monotheism 
 by Moses ; and had thus, with the powerful help of 
 Yahweh, possessed itself of the land of Canaan without 
 much difficulty. But the nation had fallen away from 
 Yahweh afterwards and served other gods ; and so Yah- 
 weh had given it over to foreign oppressors, or to the 
 Canaanites themselves. Israel had thus been brought 
 to its senses, and had turned again ; Yahweh had raised 
 up some valiant man, as a judge, to defeat the enemy 
 and bring about a fresh period of rest and peace. After 
 the lapse of some time the circumstances had repeated 
 themselves, and there had been the same idolatry on the 
 part of Israel, and the same deliverance by Yahweh. 
 
 This representation is not only altogether unhistorical, 
 but also psj'Chologically impossible and unreasonable. 
 That a nation, after once attaining to pure monotheism, 
 should again and again fall back into polytheism, is incon- 
 ceivable. Would any one deliberately serve other gods when 
 he Imew very well that they did not even exist, and that 
 there was but one sole God ? A pure monotheism is the 
 overthrow of polytheism. Moreover, we know from other 
 writings, much older than the Book of Judges, that the 
 people did not attain to monotheism till many centuries 
 later ; so that there are ample reasons for not abandon- 
 ing ourselves unconditionally to the guidance of the author 
 of Judges. We may, indeed, learn from him what people 
 thought in his day about the history of former times, 
 but not what that history really was. Happily, however, 
 he incorporated in his book certain passages of older, and 
 some even of very ancient, date, which give us more light ; 
 and from the sequel of Israel's history we can make out 
 
44 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 for certain what the state of affairs was in those olden 
 times, at any rate in the main. 
 
 We have seen that, though Moses was by no means a 
 monotheist in the sense of denying the existence of other 
 gods, he, nevertheless, preached Yahweh as the god of 
 Israel, wdiom the nation was to w^orship to the exclusion 
 of all other gods. But w^e cannot he surprised to find 
 that the people was not yet sufficiently advanced to under- 
 stand and appreciate Moses' point of view. The best men 
 in the nation, the heads of the tribes, may have been led 
 by the powerful influence of Moses, and the course of 
 their own fortunes, to accept the religion of Yahweh, but 
 the people itself stuck by the old gods and the old customs. 
 The tribes, so slightly bound together in Goshen, were 
 indeed brought into closer union by the worship of a 
 common god and by their common exodus ; but they soon 
 resumed the old wandering life, which did not tend to 
 strengthen their mutual ties. Things are not likely to 
 have improved after the death of Moses. We may see 
 how slight were the effects of their consciousness of a 
 common origin and a common religion from the fact that, 
 even in the conquest of Canaan, the tribes did not take 
 the field together against the enemy, but fought either 
 one tribe at a time, or at any rate only a few together. 
 Of a nation, properly so called, there was as yet no tracer- 
 there were only tribes, which pressed forward as oppor- 
 tunity offered and drove the feebler enemy before them. 
 Nor was the conquest of Canaan achieved in a single 
 year, or in a short space of time. The country was slowly 
 occupied bit by bit ; the former inhabitants were never 
 altogether expelled, but almost everywhere succeeded in 
 maintaining themselves. In some cases, indeed, they fell 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE JUDGES. 45 
 
 under the rule of the invaders, hut in others they remained 
 independent, or even got the upper hand. Thus, we can- 
 not credit Joshua, the successor of Moses, with having- 
 taken the whole of Canaan and divided it among the 
 tribes. He was only the most distinguished of the 
 Israelitish chiefs ; a man who, acting quite in the spirit 
 of Moses, united a few tribes, and with them conquered 
 part of Canaan. 
 
 From these general considerations we at once perceive 
 what we must think of the narratives of the invasion and 
 the establishment in Canaan. The author of the Book of 
 Joshua tells us that Joshua, while still on the other side 
 of the Jordan, united all the tribes, miraculously crossed 
 right through that river with them, no less miraculously 
 captured the city of Jericho, and after a few successful 
 battles found himself master of the whole land. There- 
 upon he proceeded, so we are told, to divide Canaan among 
 the tribes, and each tribe thenceforth enjoyed its inherit- 
 ance undisturbed. We see how unhistorical all this is, 
 when we remember that the Canaanites preserved their in- 
 dependence more than two centuries longer ; it was only 
 under Solomon that the last of them were thoroughly 
 absorbed in Israel. Thus Joshua's activity must have been 
 confined within a much narrower circle. A complete con- 
 quest of Canaan — to say nothing of an extermination of the 
 Canaanites — never entered his head. He sought and 
 found there a dwelling for himself and his followers, but 
 most of their enemies remained quite independent of them. 
 
 The Phoenicians in the north offered no opposition to 
 the invasion of the Israelites ; but neither did they suffer 
 anything at their hands. As for the Philistines, not only 
 did they keep their freedom, but they proved strong 
 enough by and by to subject more than one tribe to their 
 
46 THE RELIG-ION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 o-wn rule. Jabin, the King of the Hazorites, oppressed 
 Israel for many years. The Jebusites, the Gibeonites, 
 and others remained quite independent throughout the 
 whole period of the Judges. Now all this is proof enough 
 that the whole land was not conquered by the Israelites. 
 
 When we say that the Israelites are not to be considered 
 as one nation, or as an united whole, but only as a number 
 of tribes, not merely independent of each other, but often 
 hostile to one another, this does not hold good of Joshua's 
 day only, but of much later times. From Deborah's song 
 (Judges V.) which was composed in the period of the 
 Judges, we see clearly how weak were the bonds that 
 united the tribes. She was a most influential woman, 
 thoroughly imbued v/ith the spirit of Moses, a true servant 
 of Yahweh, an enthusiastic advocate of Israelitish nation- 
 ality. She judged Israel, and is described as ''a mother 
 in Israel." In her days Naphthali and Zebulon were op- 
 pressed by Jabin, King of Hazor, and she encouraged the 
 Israelites to resist him. Now, in the song referred to, 
 she complains that the brethren did not help one another 
 in the struggle with the common enemy (Judges v. 14- 
 18, 23) ; and this shows that there was no national unity, 
 and that the tribes were very loosely associated together. 
 It was only by slow degress that the need of a closer bond 
 made itself felt, and that the best men in Israel showed 
 themselves anxious for union. Thus, the period of the 
 Judges may be called the period of the gradual establish- 
 ment of an united nationality. 
 
 The tribes were not governed by the Judges, as is often 
 supposed. The elders were the chiefs of the tribes, and 
 the administration of justice was in their hands. The 
 Judges were only the leaders who commanded one or more 
 tribes, when they had to resist some enemy. 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE JUDGES. 47 
 
 But it is time to notice the influence which the invasion 
 of Canaan exercised upon the IsraeHtes. It compelled 
 most of them, at any rate, to choose settled dwelling- 
 places. Some tribes, or sections of tribes, might j)refer 
 to keep up the old wandering life, but the majority 
 were obliged to change their habits. The Canaanites 
 were in a much more advanced state of civilization than 
 they were, and had long lived in cities and villages. If 
 the Israelites were to maintain themselves against them, 
 they had nothing for it but to build villages and cities, too, 
 and say good-bye to their wandering life. But when they 
 took up their abode among the old inhabitants, their 
 relations with them grew slowly more amicable here and 
 there, and they even began to intermarry with them. 
 
 But another important step resulted from the settlement 
 in Canaan, and the change in the habits of the Israelites : 
 they began to apply themselves to agriculture. To say 
 nothing of the influence which this had upon their 
 civilization, it naturally led them to turn their thoughts 
 more towards those gods of the country who made the field 
 to yield its fruit. The worship of these gods by the 
 Canaanites could not but exercise a strong influence on 
 the Israelites, and some of them joined in it readily 
 enough. We must not forget that the Canaanites were 
 Semites just as much as they were, and thus came of a 
 common stock ; and as they spoke the same language, 
 they had no difficulty in holding intercourse together. Now, 
 the worship of Baal and Ashera, the god and goddess who 
 presided over the forces of life and fruitfulness, prevailed 
 among the Canaanites ; and they worshipped Baal in joyous 
 and noisy festivals of a very sensual kind. No wonder, then, 
 that when the Israelites came into closer contact with the 
 Canaanites, they fell into the worship of the gods of the 
 
48 THE EELIGICN OF ISRAEL. 
 
 country almost as a matter of course. This was all the 
 more natural, because, as we know, they were by no means 
 monotheists. According to their ideas, the gods of other 
 nations were just as much gods as their own tribal god, 
 Yahweh. It is even possible that at this time they some- 
 times called their own god, Baal. So little difference was 
 there in those days, according to their way of thinking, 
 between the Canaanites' god and theirs. Thus, there 
 was no difficulty in serving both together. They never 
 thought of stickling for the exclusive worship of their own 
 god ; and the result was, that, during that period, the reli- 
 gion of the Israelites was a mixture of very various elements. 
 All the Israelites, however, did not ally themselves so 
 closely with the Canaanites, or pass over so readily to the 
 service of their gods. There were many who remained 
 faithful to the old habits, and saw nothing but a 
 lamentable falling off in the way in which their brethren 
 entered into fellowship with the inhabitants of the land. 
 This was the case most of all with those who kept 
 to the nomadic life. With them, in all probabilitj^, 
 the worship of Yahweh was preserved from foreign 
 adulteration. They drew a contrast between the character 
 of their own god, so strong and stern, but, at the same 
 time, so pure, and the soft and sensual nature of Baal. They 
 were zealous for what was ancient, national, Mosaic, as 
 opposed to everything that could injure what was peculiar 
 to Israel. In this struggle they were in a minority at 
 first, but by degrees they increased in influence and power ; 
 and at the close of the period of the Judges, there was an 
 end to all danger that the Israelitish element would be 
 swallowed up by the Canaanitish. 
 
 We will not go into details in considering the narra- 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE JUDGES. 49 
 
 tives which we find about the Judges in the book which 
 is named after them. We will only notice a few minor 
 indications, which reveal the religious features of the 
 time as we have just sketched them. We have already 
 mentioned Deborah in another connection ; from the song 
 which bears her name, we see that she knew how to inspire 
 Barak, the Judge, and to fill the people with zeal for Yahweh. 
 It is her earnest desire that Yahweh should be served 
 as the god of Israel. In her, the love of the people 
 and the love of the people's god coalesce. She laboured 
 entirely in the spirit of Moses, and exercised a most 
 happy influence on her people. 
 
 In Gideon's own individual name, " Jerubbaal " — for 
 '' Gideon " is only a surname, — there is evidence that Baal 
 was served in Israel in those days. There are a great 
 many names compounded from Baal ; but by and by, when 
 people began to find this offensive, the " baal " was often 
 changed into '' bosheth," which means '' shame."* 
 
 It is related of Jephthah, that he made a vow to sacrifice 
 the first human being he met when he got home, to 
 Yahweh, if only the latter would give him the victory over 
 his enemies. And when he had defeated them and was 
 returning home, his daughter came out to meet him ; 
 and he fulfilled his vow by slaying her. From this it ap- 
 pears that in those days human victims were offered to 
 Yahweh, which is quite in keeping with the character as- 
 signed to him ; but it is equally clear that human sacrifice 
 was already an exceptional thing, and did not often take 
 2^1ace, so that Jephthah could regard it as likely to prove a 
 powerful agency in securing Yahweh's favour. 
 
 The story of Samson and his deeds originated in a 
 
 • For example, in " Ishbosbeth " (2 Samuel ii. 8, &c.). [Tr.] 
 
 E 
 
50 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 solar myth,* whicli was afterwards transformed by the 
 narrator into a saga about a mighty hero and deliverer of 
 Israel. The very name, " Samson," is derived from the 
 Hebrew word that means *' sun." The hero's flowing 
 locks were originally the rays of the sun ; and other traces 
 of the old myth have been preserved, pointing to a time 
 when the worship of the sun, borrowed from the Canaan- 
 ites, found a home among the Israelites. And this is 
 one more proof of what we said above. 
 
 "We know very little about the forms of worship which 
 prevailed in the time of the Judges. Yahweh was wor- 
 shipped at a great many places, in sanctuaries of larger 
 or smaller dimensions ; and we find mention made of 
 images of Yahweh there, which were probably images of 
 a bull. At Shiloh there was a temple of Yahweh, in 
 which the ark was kept. Towards the end of this period 
 especially this ark seems to have been held in the deepest 
 respect, if, that is, we may judge from the fact that in a 
 certain war against the Philistines it was borne by two 
 priests into the midst of the camp in order to make sure 
 of victory. But the plan was not successful, and tho 
 priests forfeited their lives in their efforts to defend the ark 
 against the enemy. All this goes to show that the worship 
 of Yahweh was rising into higher and higher estimation. 
 At this same Shiloh sacrifices were offered, and there were 
 great festivals held yearly, with choral dances in honour 
 of Yahweh. Any one might be a priest and offer sacrifice, 
 but the Levites were preferred for the purpose. 
 
 The political condition of Israel towards the end of 
 this period was such that the tribes began strongly to feel 
 
 * See page 21, note. A solar myth is a myth in wMch the sun is the 
 hero, and the alternations of cloud and sunshine, day and night, summer 
 and winter, or similar phenomena, afford the basis for the adventures des- 
 cribed. [Tr.] 
 
SAMUEL AND SAUL. 51 
 
 the need of closer union. There were many districts in 
 which they could with difficulty maintain their footing 
 against their enemies. Especially was this the case in 
 the south, where the Philistines penetrated a long way 
 into the Israelitish territory, and succeeded in reducing 
 more tribes than one to subjection. And now there were 
 not a few who began to see that the national existence of 
 Israel was in peril, and that the only safety lay in harmo- 
 nious action on the part of all the tribes. And religious 
 considerations pointed in the same direction. To these 
 we must now turn our attention; and it is thus that we 
 shall make acquaintance with the famous Samuel, and 
 come to understand the part he played in the religious 
 history of Israel.. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SAMUEL AND SAUL. 
 
 'I^HE character and the career of Samuel are sketched by a 
 very friendly hand in the books which bear his name. 
 The writer is certainly not always quite fair, and has ob- 
 viously exalted his hero especially at the expense of Saul. 
 He gets all the credit, for instance, of delivering Israel 
 out of the enemy's hands, though as a matter of fact it 
 was Saul and David who accomplished this. But, for all 
 that, Samuel's merit is really very great. His labours 
 were carried on quite in the spirit of Moses : he stirred 
 up the religious feeling of the nation, and the enthusiasm 
 which he succeeded in imparting to others, he guided 
 and preserved from running into excesses. Samuel was 
 
 E 2 
 
62 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 if 
 
 the precursor of Saul and David, and it was lie who made 
 their work possible. 
 
 He was the son of Elkanah and Hannah, and belonged 
 to the tribe of Ephraim. He was educated under Eli, the 
 priest, at the sanctuary of Shiloh ; and, after Eli's death, 
 he rose to high distinction and became very influential. 
 He made his home at Kamah, where he laboured as 
 Judge ; and, unlike any of the previous Judges, he held 
 courts of justice, and that not only in his own dwelling- 
 place, but also in other places in the neighbourhood. 
 
 It w\as in his days that that strong desire for political 
 unity showed itself of which we have already spoken ; 
 and at the same time a vigorous religious life was stirred 
 up. There had always been worshippers of Yahweh, and 
 he had always been looked upon as the national god ; but 
 the gods of the Canaanites were served along wdth him, 
 without any one seeing any harm in it, or supposing there 
 could bo any inconsistency in serving Yahweh at the same 
 time. Now, however, the opinion was growing more and 
 more common that the only salvation for Israel lay in 
 serving Yahweh in the spirit of Moses, that is to say, to 
 the exclusion of all other gods. Yery probably this viev»- 
 was powerfully promoted by a presentiment that, if Israel 
 allied itself too closely with the Canaanites, all that was 
 peculiar to it, including the very worship of Yahweh, would 
 inevitably perish. This feeling declared itself in those 
 Israelites especially who were most attached to the ances- 
 tral manners and the ancient habits of their tribes. As 
 an indication of this, we may mention the powerful 
 influence which Eli, the chief priest at Shiloh, where the 
 ark of Yahweh was kept, exercised towards the close of 
 this period, while we find no traces of any such respect 
 being paid to this sanctuary in earlier times. And with 
 
SAMUEL AND SAUL. 53 
 
 Eli's death the authority of the Shiloh priesthood was 
 hroken up, — a fact which must, indeed, be attributed in 
 the first place to the feebleness and insignificance of the 
 priests belonging to his family, but is due in part, also, to 
 the removal of the ark to Kirjath-jearim, and afterwards 
 to Jerusalem. The temple at Jerusalem totally eclipsed 
 the ancient sanctuary of Shiloh. 
 
 Now, Samuel, who, on the death of Eli, rose to the 
 highest pitch of influence and authority, was the repre- 
 sentative of those new tendencies which were working so 
 much in the spirit of Moses. With his whole soul he 
 urged the service of Yahweh. Indeed, he would tolerate 
 no other god in Israel. His whole career was actuated 
 by these feelings. He stirred Israel up to resist the 
 Philistines ; and perhaps even went to battle against them 
 himself. He preached that the Canaanites must be sub- 
 dued, and, if possible, altogether extirpated, and that all 
 the sons of Israel must be faithful to Yahweh. 
 
 It was about this time that the institution of the Nazirites, 
 connected, as it was, with the movement of Samuel, arose. 
 This was the name given to those who dedicated themselves 
 to the service of Yahweh alone, while, in honour of him, 
 they abstained from wine and strong drink and from cut- 
 ting their hair. In this abstinence from wine we perceive 
 an opposition to the service of the Canaanitish gods. For 
 the worship of the Baals was accompanied with the use of 
 the product of the vine, and at their festivals this was 
 carried to great excess. And so, by his solemn vow to 
 abstain from wine all his life, the Nazirite intended pubHcly 
 to declare himself against the Baals. Samuel himself 
 took the vow, as we are also told of Samson before him ; 
 and many others followed his example in those days, in 
 fervent enthusiasm for Yahweh. 
 
54 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 To Samuel's time, too, must be referred the rise of pro- 
 phecy. We are not at present in a position to examine 
 this phenomenon full}^, and we shall recur to it by and by. 
 But we must not defer the explanation of its origin. The 
 word ''nabi," which the Israelites used for a prophet, 
 signifies one who is inspired and moved by the divine 
 spirit. Probably the example of the Canaanites led to 
 the rise of this kind of inspiration among the Israelites. 
 At any rate, the Canaanites had their prophets too, and 
 the Israelites were far from denying that a man might be 
 inspired by other gods besides Yahweh. The only differ- 
 ence between what were called "true" and ''false" 
 prophets — between the early Israelitish prophets and 
 those of the Canaanites — was, that the former were sup- 
 posed to be inspired by Yahweh, and the latter by some 
 other *god. 
 
 The prophetic spirit manifested itself chiefly among 
 young men. In powerful language they gave utterance to 
 their zeal for Yahweh and his service, and they seem to 
 have stirred up the prophetic fervour with music and song. 
 They banded themselves together in fixed localities, where 
 they lived together. Some of them, too, were married. 
 The societies which they thus formed are known as the 
 '* schools of the prophets." But we must not imagine 
 that this term implies that they received any instruction ; 
 it was merely the name of the society. Later on, we find 
 them called " the sons of the prophets," and find a 
 " father " at their head. 
 
 Samuel seems to have given a very happy bent to their 
 activity. Enthusiasm of this kind, as history teaches us 
 by many examples, easily passes into fanaticism and 
 excess, and afterwards degenerates into a dead formalism 
 and a mere counterfeit of enthusiasm. The prophecy of 
 
SAMUEL AND SAUL. 55 
 
 Israel did not, indeed, escape this latter danger ; but 
 Samuel preserved it from the former. It is true that it 
 was not Samuel who gave the first start to the growth of 
 prophecy ; for it originated among the Canaanites, or at 
 all events sprang from the example of the native inhabi- 
 tants, so that it did not begin in the spirit of Samuel. 
 But, for all that, when once it had found its way into 
 Israel, he guided it in accordance with the spirit of 
 Moses. And thus — together with the institution of the 
 Nazirites — it assisted in awakening the religious senti- 
 ment ; and we may safely say that the influence which 
 Samuel exercised on prophecy at its rise was auspicious in 
 the extreme. But for him, it could not have grown so 
 fair in later times ; and it was he who made it serve to 
 arouse the sentiment of nationality. The prophets in 
 the service of Yahweh believed in the calling of Israel to 
 be Yahweh 's people, and did all that in them lay to pro- 
 pagate and strengthen that belief. They collected the 
 songs of the people, and infused their own feelings into 
 the stories of the great events of the past. And they 
 began to look upon the popular faith as a degeneration from 
 the true, pure faith, which they themselves held, and 
 which they took to be the ancient and original belief. 
 Thus their thought and their labour tended in a definite 
 direction, and, however one-sided they might be some- 
 times, they always recognized the true greatness of Israel 
 and promoted it. 
 
 Samuel himself, too, is called a prophet. Indeed, the 
 name is even applied to one so far back as Moses, while 
 Deborah is described as a prophetess; and one other 
 individual, though not indeed an historical personage, 
 receives the title. But, from a note given in 1 Samuel 
 ix. 9, it is clear that no one really bore the appellation of 
 
56 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 prophet before Samuel ; for we there read that he who 
 was called a prophet in Samuel's time, was previousl}' 
 called a '' seer." Accordingly, when later writers call 
 Moses and others before Samuel prophets, we must sup- 
 pose that they are guilty of an anachronism. Samuel 
 himself was " seer" as well as prophet. That is to say, 
 it was believed by himself and others that he could know 
 hidden things and foretell future events. This belief in 
 the seer's knowledge of hidden things was general in 
 antiquity, so that we need not be surprised to meet with 
 it in Israel. Now, while the work of these seers was not 
 connected with religion, the prophets diifered from them 
 in this respect entirely. Their purpose was, at bottom, 
 something different from divining hidden things ; their 
 aim was higher, — they were zealous for Yahweh. They 
 worked on a distinct religious principle, which in later 
 ages gave rise to the loftiest religious thought. 
 
 So strong was the wish of the Israelites for a king 
 towards the close of Samuel's life, that at last it brought 
 about its own fulfilment. In the narratives which we 
 possess, Samuel is represented to have opposed this wish, 
 and to have given a reluctant consent only when he was 
 at last obliged to do so ; and Yahweh himself is made to 
 disapprove of the popular desire, and only to allow the 
 Israelites to choose a king in the end, when, in spite of 
 all that Samuel could say, they still insisted on the fulfil- 
 ment of their wish. The tradition itself did not give a 
 consistent report of these particulars. In 1 Samuel, 
 chapters viii. to xii., we find two very different and contra- 
 dictory accounts of the election of Saul, the first king. 
 According to one, Samuel anointed him on occasion of a 
 chance meeting, while, according to the other, he was 
 
SAMUEL AND SAUL. 57 
 
 appointed king by lot at an assembly of the people. 
 Thus we see how entirely men failed, at a later time, to 
 form a correct idea how it all happened. And indeed 
 it was very difficult to do so ; doubtless, the faithful 
 worshippers of Yahweh in Samuel's time must have been 
 very much opposed to the election of a king. Yahweh 
 himself was king ; and it might well be feared that the 
 freedom of former ages and the ancient simplicity of 
 manners would suffer by the institution of monarchy. 
 And Samuel, we may be sure, was no partisan of the new 
 form of government, nor was it at his instigation that 
 Saul was appointed, though no doubt his influence made 
 itself powerfully felt in the actual choice. The real 
 pressure came from the political party. They, like the 
 IH'ophets and like Samuel, were desirous of establishing 
 the unity and power of the nation. But Samuel sought 
 this result from his religious principles alone, from the 
 struggle in favour of Yaliweh, and against everything 
 Canaanitish. The political party, on the other hand, 
 were not interested in such a struggle, for they feared it 
 must weaken Israel, and they wished for a king solely 
 because they desired the unity of the nation and looked 
 upon it as the best safeguard against enemies at home 
 and abroad. Thus, up to a certain point, the two ten- 
 dencies told the same way, and each was auxiliary to the 
 other ; the unaided efforts of Samuel could never have 
 made Israel a great and powerful nation, while, but for 
 him, the true development of the Yahweh-religion Avould 
 have been impossible. But when at last he found himself 
 obliged to yield, he took care that a king was chosen 
 who sympathized with him in sentiment and in principle. 
 And if the selection of Saul was not at first so univer- 
 sally approved as could have been wished, when once 
 
58 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 it was perceived that he was the right man to con- 
 duct Israel to unity and power, all acquiesced in the 
 choice. 
 
 Saul was the son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, 
 which dwelt in the heart of the land. Perhaps the fact 
 that he belonged to so small a tribe was not without in- 
 fluence in his elevation to the throne, for it removed all 
 fear of the mutual jealousy of the larger tribes. A very 
 successful campaign which Saul conducted, with a view to 
 the deliverance of the city of Jabesh, in Gilead, attracted 
 general attention to him, and at once conferred upon him 
 much authority and power. He went on with the work of 
 Israel's liberation, which he had thus begun, and fought 
 many a successful battle against the Philistines. This 
 naturally brought him into great favour in the eyes of the 
 national party, and, on the whole, short as his reign was, 
 he managed to win the attachment of his people to a re- 
 markable degree, as we may gather from the faithful 
 loyalty manifested towards the son who succeeded him 
 on his death. 
 
 At first, too, Saul was on the best of terms with 
 Samuel. And, indeed, it was only to be expected that 
 he should be. It was in no small measure Samuel's 
 doing that he had been chosen king, and with all the 
 strength of his conviction he shared Samuel's views. 
 He was zealous for Yahweh ; he pursued the Philistines 
 and the Canaanites with fire and sword ; he was bent on 
 making Israel great and powerful. 
 
 But it was not long before a change came about in the 
 relations of these two men. They had a disagreement, 
 which led at last to an open breach. We cannot trace its 
 cause with certainty ; what we are told about it does not 
 
SAMUEL AND SAUL. 59 
 
 deserve to be believed in all particulars. According to 
 one account (1 Samuel xiii.), Saul was rejected by Yahweli 
 because be bad disobeyed a command of Samuel to wait 
 seven days for liim before be offered bis sacrifice to Yaliweb. 
 According to anotber account (1 Samuel xv.), Saul bad 
 been commanded to make war upon tbe Amalekites and 
 to lay tbe hcui (or " cberem ") upon tbem, tbat is, utterly 
 to extirpate tbem. Every buman being and every animal 
 was to be put to deatb. Saul discbarges bis commission 
 and puts all to deatb except Agag, tbe king of tbe Amale- 
 kites, wbom be carries off prisoner, wbile be also preserves 
 some of tbe cattle, and leads tbem away for tbe purpose of 
 offering tbem up to Yabweb. But tbis was contrary to 
 Yabweb's orders, and so Samuel is commanded to an- 
 nounce to Saul tbat Yabweb bas rejected bim. Tbe 
 propbet goes to Saul, informs bim of bis rejection, and 
 witb bis own bands bews Agag to pieces in bonour of 
 Yabweb. 
 
 Tbis version of tbe affair belongs to mucb later times, 
 wben people did not know bow to explain wbat bad 
 bappened, and looked for its cause in a direct rejection 
 of Saul by Yabweb. If we were obliged to accept tbis 
 story, we sbould tbink better of Saul's bebaviour tban 
 of Samuel's. Probably, bowever, tbere is a germ of 
 trutb in tbis representation, and it is tbis, — tbat tbe 
 ground of Samuel's enmity is to be sougbt in a cbange 
 in Saul's opinions. Tbougb tbe latter bad at lirst been 
 as zealous as Samuel bimself, be soon began to tbink 
 tbat sucb zeal would tend, not so mucb to strengthen as 
 to weaken Israel. It seemed to bim tbat it would be 
 better to absorb tbe Canaanites into Israel tban to ex- 
 terminate tbem, as Samuel proposed. Why sbould tbey 
 all be destroyed wben tbey might surely help so much in 
 
60 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 increasing tlie strengtli of Israel against its enemies? 
 Saul, who had formerly, with Samuel, given the preference 
 to religious considerations, now began to be guided more 
 by political ones. Perhaps, too, he was growing tired of 
 the over-ruling influence of Samuel and his party, and 
 this told in the same direction. It is certain that at a 
 later time ho set himself against the prophets, and also 
 put a great many priests to death. No wonder, then, 
 that the party of the strict Yahweh-worshippers began 
 to oppose him, seeing that they could no longer expect 
 any good from him. 
 
 And so these two found themselves opposed to one 
 another in spite of their former friendship. Nor did they 
 bring the quarrel to a conclusion. Samuel died, and he 
 was soon followed by Saul, who was wounded in an unsuc- 
 cessful battle against the Philistines, and, in his despair, 
 put an end to his life with his own hand. Three of his 
 sons, including the famous Jonathan, died at the same 
 time. If we must render high respect to Samuel, Saul, 
 too, holds an honourable place in the history of his 
 people. Though he had sprung from the soil, the splen- 
 dour of a court could not spoil the simplicity of his 
 character. He never became an Oriental despot. He 
 possessed both tact and courage, and he manfully con- 
 tributed his share towards the greatness and glory of his 
 people. 
 
61 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DAVID AND S L JJ N. 
 
 TT is time to direct our attention to David, that famous 
 king who exercised so powerful an influence on the 
 growth and progress of Israel. He was the youngest son 
 of Jesse, a man of Bethlehem, which was a city of Judah. 
 While Saul was still alive he had come to court, and for 
 a long time he had heen held in great respect there. 
 According to one of the two accounts given of his intro- 
 duction to Saul, he attracted the king's attention hy his 
 glorious combat with Goliath, the Philistine. Accord- 
 ing to the other account, the courtiers brought David to 
 the king to play the harp before him, at which he was 
 very skilful, thus affording Saul a desirable diversion in 
 the low spirits which troubled him towards the end of his 
 life. 
 
 David became conspicuous by his extraordinary valour 
 in war, and more and more attracted the notice of the 
 people. This led Saul to regard him with suspicion. 
 On the march home from a certain battle the strain had 
 been raised, " Saul hath slain his thousands, but David his 
 tens of thousands." This aroused the liveliest suspicions 
 on the part of the king ; and David, though he had con- 
 tracted a close friendship with Saul's son, Jonathan, 
 felt that he was no longer safe at court, and fled to the 
 wilderness of Judah, where other fugitives speedily joined 
 
62 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 him to the numher of four hundred. Saul pursued him, 
 and although David found a secure retreat among the 
 holes and caverns of the mountains, and once magnani- 
 mously spared the life of Saul, still he could not hold out 
 for long, and was obliged to take refuge in the co-untry of 
 Israel's bitterest enemies, the Philistines. And one of 
 their kings gave him the city of Ziklag to dwell in. 
 
 We may mention, moreover, in passing, that, being 
 afraid of Saul, David brought his parents to the king of 
 the Moabites, with whom they lived in security (1 Samuel 
 xxii. 3, 4) ; v/hich shows that he was on very good terms 
 with that monarch. "VVe refer to this circumstance 
 because, in the Book of Kuth, wbich was written at a later 
 time, it is said that David's family was related to the 
 Moabites through his great-grandmother, who was one of 
 them. It would seem, then, that this tradition, of which 
 we shall say more by and by, is founded on an historical 
 fact. 
 
 It was but natural that nothing short of absolute neces- 
 sity should induce David to leave his fatherland. Men 
 thought, in those days, that in Israel alone could Yahweh, 
 Israel's god, be served. His power and dominion did not 
 extend beyond Israel's boundaries. Outside those limits 
 reigned other gods. And so he who left his country, at 
 the same time left his god ; the Israelite in the land of 
 the stranger was an Israelite no more. 
 
 We see this clearly enough in a conversation between 
 David and Saul (1 Samuel xxvi. 19), where the former 
 says: "If Yahweh have stirred thee up against me, let 
 him smell an offering," that is, turn his anger away by 
 bringing him an offering; "but if they be men that set 
 thee at enmity against me, cursed be they, because they 
 are for driving me out from abiding in the inheritance of 
 
DAVID AND SOLOMON. b6 
 
 Yaliweh, and they say to me, Go, serve other gods.'* 
 When we hear him express such views as these, we can 
 hardly he surprised that nothing short of necessity could 
 make him leave his fatherland, and the more so that he 
 could already count so many faithful friends and retainers 
 there. 
 
 It is not likely that David made any attempts to obtain 
 the crown for himself during the life of Saul. Saul was 
 too securely fixed in the hearts of the majority of the 
 people, and David himself honoured him as the anointed 
 of Yahweh. But circumstances marked him out as the 
 leader of all such as could not reconcile themselves with 
 Saul's opinions and tendencies. We have seen above how 
 an estrangement gradually came about between Saul and 
 the prophets, with Samuel at their head. Saul began to 
 see that these enthusiasts, who were for the extirpation 
 of the Canaanites, were more likely to weaken than to 
 strengthen Israel. A coldness ensued, and even distinct 
 opposition. What could be more natural than that the 
 party of the prophets should look to David ? He was the 
 man marked out ; he was appointed, so to speak, by the 
 circumstances of his life, to serve the good cause. It was 
 represented in later times that Samuel himself had conse- 
 crated David as king ; such an account is, indeed, quite 
 unhistorical, but it is perfectly true that the prophets sup- 
 ported David in his opposition to Saul. The prophet 
 Gad, warns him not to stay in his hiding-place for fear of 
 a surprise from Saul ; Abiathar, the priest, flees to David, 
 and accompanies him on all his expeditions. This same 
 Abiathar was the only one who had escaped from a 
 massacre of the priests of Yahweh at Nob, instituted by 
 Saul, in which eighty-five priests perished; and this 
 massacre is pretty good evidence of the hostility which 
 
G-4 THE TvELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 had arisen between Saul and tlie party of Yaliweh. Thus 
 everjthmg concurred to unite David with these men, and 
 perhaps, by his very persecutions, Saul himself played no 
 slight part in establishing David as the leader of his 
 opponents. 
 
 The sojourn in Ziklag did not last long. "When David 
 received the news of Saul's death, he returned to his 
 Fatherland, and he was anointed king at Hebron, the chief 
 city of Judah, by delegates from the different cities 
 belonging to that tribe. The greater part of the people, 
 however, — in fact the whole of the northern part of the 
 country — remained true to Saul's son, Ishbosheth, or, as 
 his real name was, Eshbaal. This Ishbosheth was an in- 
 significant man ; but the fact that the people did homage 
 to him as king says a great deal for Saul, who had estab- 
 lished himself so firmly in the affections of his subjects 
 that they would not desert his family. 
 
 David's power greatly increased at Hebron, while that 
 of Ishbosheth rapidly diminished, especially when Abner, 
 who had been Saul's chief general, deserted him. Ish- 
 bosheth met his end at the hand of assassins; and the 
 voice of the people declared more and more decidedly 
 in favour of David, so that the delegates of the different 
 tribes very soon came to Hebron, and there did homage 
 to him as king. 
 
 David reigned at Hebron for seven years. After the 
 lapse of that time he established his court at Jerusalem. 
 This city had formerly been called Jebus, and had hitherto 
 remained in the hands of a Canaanitish tribe, known as 
 Jebusites. Its position was an admirable one, and so 
 strong, that it was a common saying on the part of its 
 inhabitants, that the blind and the lame could defend it. 
 Yet David undertook the sie<?e, and showed such valour 
 
DAVID AND SOLOMON. bO 
 
 and sucli strategy that he was very soon master of the 
 city. And there its unusually advantageous position in- 
 duced him to set up his seat of government. The site 
 included two hills ; and on one of these, Zion, which was 
 afterwards called the city of David, he built himself a 
 palace, and he brought thither the ark of the covenant. 
 
 After his removal to Jerusalem, David waged many 
 successful wars. Saul, in his time, had organized a small 
 force as a sort of standing army, and had thus broken 
 with the old custom of sending all the men home after a 
 war. This was a very advantageous measure, for Israel 
 was now prepared for defence or attack at a moment's 
 notice. So David followed Saul's example. He estab- 
 lished a body-guard, called the Cherethites and Pelethites ; 
 and, in addition to these, he had a very valiant band of 
 picked men, who always remained true to him. He 
 gradually extended his power ; he began by subduing 
 all enemies at home, so as to secure to Israel a- com- 
 plete supremacy over the Canaanitish elements of the 
 nation. Indeed, after Solomon, we hear no more about 
 them. David afterwards advanced against his foreign 
 foes and carried on his wars against them so successfully 
 that he extended the boundaries of his kingdom as far as 
 the Euphrates. With the Phoenicians he concluded a 
 treaty which remained in force all through his life. 
 
 Of course all this gained for David the cordial affection 
 of his people. But they did not love him quite so deeply 
 as is represented by later writers who saw in him an ideal 
 king. An Oriental monarchy involves many oppressive 
 burdens for the people. His subjects were obliged to 
 provide for the requirements of the royal household, 
 which were by no means trifling ; and if the inhabitants 
 of Judah found some compensation in having the king 
 
 r 
 
66 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 living amongst them, the rest of the Israelites were often 
 weary of the burden. Whatever share they might have 
 in the glory of their prince's wars, David's government 
 seems on the whole to have given them no little ground, 
 for complaint. It is to this that we must trace the 
 success that attended an insurrection "led by Absolom, 
 one of David's sons, when he actually succeeded in forcing 
 his father to flee from Jerusalem and in getting himself 
 proclaimed king. Soon afterwards, however, he was slain 
 in a battle with David, and his forces were beaten. This 
 was a happy event for the unity of the kingdom, for civil 
 war would soon have brought it to an end. 
 
 It is not very easy to estimate the influence which 
 David exercised upon the religious condition of Israel. 
 If we rely upon the accounts of later writers and accept 
 their estimate of David, we find him a man after God's 
 own heart, and after him was no king like him. And, 
 again, if we base our opinion of him on the psalms 
 which bear his name, he was a man of extraordinary 
 piety and of heartfelt religion. Many of these psalms 
 are marked by a pure and highly cultivated religious 
 sentiment, and if they are really the work of David, they 
 give us an exalted idea of his religious thought and 
 feeling. But this is at variance with all that history 
 tells us of him. He was a thorough soldier, rude and 
 fierce, and of vehement passions ; his deeds give no 
 sign of profound religious sentiment or of extraordinary 
 spiritual attainments. And, indeed, an impartial investi- 
 gation shows that it is a mistake to suppose that he 
 composed these psalms. It is highly probable that not 
 one of the seventy-three psalms that bear his name is 
 realJy his. It is true he was a poet (a song of his 
 
DAVID AND SOLOMON. 67 
 
 has been preserved outside the collection of psalms), so 
 that at a later time he figured in the thoughts of the 
 people as the father of the psalmists ; but what he really 
 composed were songs of war and love. 
 
 The glory, too, which was ascribed to him by later 
 generations was very much exaggerated and not justified 
 by history. We shall see by and by how his memory 
 came to be so exalted; for the present, we need only 
 observe that he did not by any means stand before the 
 most advanced of his contemporaries, and that the story 
 of his life shows that his religious ideas were far from 
 being so pure as was supposed in the eighth century before 
 Christ and afterwards. 
 
 But if David can no longer wear all the laurels with 
 which he was crowned by the traditions of the people 
 and the partiality of their pride, this does not detract 
 from his real merits. On the contrary, it is thus only 
 that he is restored to his proper rights. If he had really 
 composed those beautiful psalms and exhibited such 
 exalted piety as was afterwards ascribed to him, the 
 fierce and dissolute and violent deeds which he perpe- 
 trated would be quite inexplicable. In that case we 
 should have to look upon him as an impossible character, 
 combining gentleness, tenderness, and intense piety 
 with a disposition rude and rough, animated by sensual 
 passion and the thirst of blood. But, as it is, we must 
 judge him, not by the standard of those who sang his 
 praises in a later age, but by that of the times in 
 which he lived and the stage of religious development 
 which had then been reached. And to those who con- 
 template David from this point of view, he is really a 
 great man. We have already seen that he enjoyed the 
 support of the prophets and had attached himself to their 
 
68 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 party and to their religious movement. And in tliis 
 he never wavered. Perhaps his constancy may be as- 
 cribed in part to political reasons; for David saw clearly 
 enough that he could look to the prophetic party for 
 powerful support. The course of events had from the 
 first tended to bring this about. Saul's hostility to David 
 had increased in proportion to his estrangement from the 
 prophets. What, then, could be more natural than for 
 David to attach himself to the prophets, and for them in 
 their turn to fix on the opponent of Saul their hopes of 
 the realization of their views ? In later days David 
 thoroughly understood that nothing could be happier for 
 him than an alliance with the prophets. Thus it is open 
 to any one to say that his motives were political ; his 
 wish was to make Israel great and to strengthen the 
 foundations of his dominion. But for this purpose it 
 was essential to promote the national unity ; and this was 
 done partly by the wars which he waged with such admir- 
 able success, but in no small measure also by strengthening 
 the sympathies of the Israelites with the followers of 
 Samuel and leading them to feel that they must be 
 Yahweh's people. Thus much David perceived, that the 
 service of Yahweh as the national god could not but draw 
 the Israelites closer together and increase their feeling of 
 national unity. But this was just what the prophets 
 wanted ; and, happily, circumstances had so far changed 
 since Saul's time, that there was nothing to lead to any 
 collision between them and the king. Samuel had wished 
 that the Canaanites should be extirpated ; but Saul, 
 though he had at first shared the feeling, had afterwards per- 
 ceived that their extirpation would weaken Israel too much, 
 and that his kingdom could not afford to lose its Canaan- 
 itish element. And then Saul and Sam.uel had quarrelled. 
 
DAVID AND SOLOMON. 69 
 
 But in David's time the Canaanites were no longer any- 
 thing like so important as they had been in Saul's. Partly 
 through the activity of the prophets, and partly, too, 
 through Saul's assistance, the Israelitish element had 
 everywhere gained in strength ; it had got the upper 
 hand so completely that the prophets had no longer any 
 need to urge the extirpation of the Canaanites. They 
 were gathered up into Israel and absorbed by that people; 
 and thus the occasion for a quarrel like that with Saul 
 had vanished. 
 
 Thus, for David, policy and religion pointed in the 
 same direction ; and the removal of the ark of the 
 covenant to Jerusalem must be regarded from the same 
 point of view. This ark had formerly been kept in the 
 sanctuary at Shiloh, and after many changes of fortune it 
 had come to Kirjath-jearim. By way of promoting the 
 unity of the Yahweh-worship, David brought it to Jeru- 
 salem, his seat of government, and set a priesthood over 
 it. The sacrifices offered at Jerusalem and the festivals 
 ■celebrated there brought the people together, increased 
 the authority and influence of the priests, and gave the 
 national service of Yahweh a centre, which helped to 
 ■cement the nation together, and afterwards played no 
 small part in further developing the religion of Israel. 
 
 Now, though it is of course quite true that all this 
 served, as we have said, to promote the power and the 
 union of the kingdom, yet this would not justify us in 
 supposing that David's motives were solely political. On 
 the contrary, everything combines to make it clear that 
 he was himself a faithful adherent of Yahweh, and that 
 in bringing the ark of his god to Jerusalem he intended 
 to carry on his worship with new splendour. Only, we 
 must be on our guard against fancying on this account 
 
70 THE EELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 that he shared the pure conceptions of the prophets of a 
 subsequent age, or that he could be called a monotheist. 
 David was a child of his own times. He believed in the 
 existence of the gods of other nations just as much as in 
 that of Yahweh ; but he held that Yahweh was the god 
 of Israel, and that it was for Israel to serve him. We 
 find in David no trace of a spiritual idea of Yahweh' s 
 nature. From the story of the transportation of the ark 
 it is plain that David supposed that he was bringing^ 
 Yahweh himself into his capital with the ark. To him 
 Yahweh is the mighty and terrible being who sends 
 extraordinary disasters to punish sin, and whose anger 
 must be appeased by sacrificial offerings. From this 
 point of view the narrative in 2 Samuel xxi. is very 
 instructive and well calculated to acquaint us with the 
 opinions which David held in common with his con- 
 temporaries. In a certain famine the king and his peo2:)le 
 saw an indication of the wrath of Yahweh ; and they felt 
 that he must somehow or other be appeased. The oracle 
 declares that the cause of Yahweh's displeasure lies in a 
 transgression on the part of Saul, who had put some 
 Gibeonites to death and escaped unpunished for the deed. 
 The penalty could not be remitted; but Saul was no 
 longer living to make atonement for his sin. So seven 
 of Saul's sons and grandsons were put to death by David 
 instead of him, at the request of the Gibeonites, as an 
 offering to appease Yahweh. We see clearly enough from 
 this narrative how Yahweh was regarded at that time ; he 
 was a stern, fierce god ; he was easily provoked, and sent 
 heavy calamities to punish sin ; but he could be appeased 
 by human sacrifices. Nor does this story give us the 
 slightest reason to ascribe to David better knowledge than 
 his contemporaries possessed. 
 
DAVID AND SOLOMON. 71 
 
 David reigned for forty years and died at Jerusalem, 
 after appointing his son, Solomon, to succeed him. 
 When we contemplate him in the light of the age in 
 which he lived, we cannot deny him the glory of a great 
 statesman, a valiant warrior, and an upright and zealous 
 servant of Yahweh. But, for all that, we must not over- 
 look his faults. In domestic life ^le showed himself 
 feeble and destitute of the courage necessary for the 
 punishment of the guilty. He was no stranger to the 
 passion of revenge. His religious ideas were by no 
 means unusually advanced. And thus, however high a 
 place we may assign him in virtue of the powerful influ- 
 ence which he exerted on the history and the progress of 
 Israel, those after generations which looked upon him as 
 the ideal of an Israelitish king made a great mistake. 
 
 The reign of Solomon seems in many respects to form 
 a contrast to that of David. The latter was a warrior, 
 the former a man of peace. David remained zealous to 
 the last in his loyalty to Yahweh and his friendship to 
 the prophets ; but we read that Solomon in his old age 
 fell away from Yahweh, and thus lost the support of the 
 prophets. We shall see, however, that there was less 
 difference in policy and religious opinions than might be 
 supposed between the two kings, and that what difference 
 there was is completely explained by circumstances. 
 David had made Israel great and powerful by his wars, 
 while Solomon reaped the benefit and made the glory of 
 Israel still more conspicuous; but both were guided by 
 the same policy. Solomon favoured the worship of Yah- 
 weh, but did not uphold it exclusively ; he built a temple 
 for Yahweh, but for other gods as well. Now, it is true 
 that we do not read that David worshipped other gods, 
 
72 TEE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 but we know that lie ackDowleclged their existence just as 
 much as Solomon. In fact, there is no such great differ- 
 ence between them ; and we should be less struck by what 
 difference there is, if posterity had not conceived a mis- 
 taken idea of Solomon, just as it did of David. If we do 
 not wish, then, to go wrong, we must begin by letting the 
 facts speak for themselves, and try to form a correct notion 
 of the condition of the Israelitish people under this famous 
 monarch. 
 
 Solomon preserved almost the same boundaries as had 
 been established by his father. By w^ay of strengthening 
 the kingdom he fortified several cities which he had either 
 built or restored, and maintained a standing army of no 
 inconsiderable size for those days. A regular government 
 was instituted. He was at peace with the princes of 
 the neighbouring states, and he contracted marriage with 
 several foreign princesses, the king of Egypt's daughter 
 being amongst the number. In addition to all this, he 
 brought the last of the Canaanites, who even in David's 
 time had enjoyed a kind of independence, into complete 
 subjection. Of course all these things increased his fame 
 and glory, and the name of Israel came to be spoken with 
 respect by foreigners. 
 
 Moreover, Solomon began to direct his attention to com- 
 merce, which soon attained to large proportions. Up to 
 this time Israel had had nothing that could properly be 
 called commerce. Continual wars had made it impossible 
 in David's time ; and, before that, Israel was as yet too 
 rude and uncivilized to apply itself to trade. But times 
 were changed now. Solomon had formed treaties with 
 the surrounding nations, and as he wanted a great many 
 things which his own country did not produce, he en- 
 deavoured to procure them from his friends in foreign parts. 
 
DAVID A:;D SOLOMON. 73 
 
 It was thus that commerce arose ; and Solomon ac- 
 quired such great treasure by it, that his wealth became 
 proverbial. The result was, that the Israelites came to 
 have more intercourse with foreigners, and their views 
 were enlarged, and their knowledge and civilization 
 improved ; while foreigners, on the other hand, became 
 better acquainted with the Israelites, and began to have 
 a more exalted idea of their power and splendour. We 
 have a token of this in the friendly attitude of Egypt and 
 Phoenicia, both of which were far in advance of Israel at 
 the time, and in the journey undertaken by the Queen of 
 Sheba, in Arabia, in her anxiety to make acquaintance 
 with Solomon, whose praises she had heard so loudly spoken. 
 
 If we bethink ourselves how closely the conception of 
 Yahweh was connected with the growth of the national 
 civilization, we shall easily perceive what influence this 
 new state of things must have exercised on the religious 
 opinions of Israel. Even in David's time a higher 
 idea of Yahweh had been reached ; for his wars — 
 which were known as '' the wars of Yahweh " — had made 
 Israel great, and as the nation became conscious of its own 
 increased greatness, it began to believe more strongly in the 
 power of its god. It rose to a higher notion of wbat that 
 god could achieve, now that it saw that he could make his 
 people great and famous. Yahweh had grown great with 
 his people. And" under Solomon things proceeded further 
 still in the same direction. The Israelites became more 
 find more important in their own eyes, and began to feel 
 their own dignity. The splendour of Jerusalem^ and the 
 brilliancy of a monarch whose fame even foreigners 
 acknowledged, led the nation to a more exalted sense of 
 power ; and the mental development and the civiHzation 
 ^vhich accrued could not fail to react upon their religious 
 
74 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 conceptions. The season of rude strength — of barbarism — 
 was gone by for ever ; mental and spiritual progress had 
 begun, and gave promise of magnificent fruit in time to 
 come. No wonder, then, that Israel began henceforth to 
 form loftier ideas of Yahweh's power, and, ere long, of 
 his nature too. 
 
 But it is time to tell how Solomon built a temple 
 to Yahweh at Jerusalem. According to the writer of 
 2 Samuel, chapter vii., David himself had formed a project 
 for the erection of such a temple, but although Nathan, 
 the prophet, approved of the scheme at first, he came the 
 next day to inform the king that Yahweh did not wish for 
 a temple. Yahweh had, from the most ancient times, 
 wandered from place to place in a tent, and had never 
 desired to have a temple built for him. Solomon should da 
 this work, so. said Nathan, by and by, instead of David. 
 
 This story contradicts itself. For if Yahweh did not 
 wish for a temple, why should Solomon build one ? But 
 it suggests to us that the strictly religious or prophetic 
 party was not very well pleased with the idea of building 
 this sanctuary. They dreaded the luxury and splendour 
 of the new worship, and felt that the simphcity of the 
 old times, when Yahweh still dwelt in a tent, was better 
 and more pleasing to Yahweh himself. 
 
 In full accord with this is the fact that Solomon was 
 actuated in no small measure by political motives in 
 building the temple. He saw that the erection of a mag- 
 nificent temple to Yahweh, and the establishment of an 
 influential priesthood, could not fail to add lustre to his 
 government and his capital. The sacrifices offered there, 
 and the festivals there celebrated — and probably the 
 three great festivals of the Israelites were instituted by 
 
DAVID AND SOLOMON. 75 
 
 ]iini — drew together the inhabitants of different parts of 
 the country, and not only strengthened the hold of the 
 Yahweh-worship upon them more and more, but at the 
 same time impressed them deeply with the splendour and 
 power of the king. Thus religion once more proved a 
 useful political instrument. Nor must we see in this any 
 insincerity on the part of Solomon. He honoured Yahweh 
 as the god of Israel, and was genuinely anxious to 
 promote his service; and his earnestness is in no way 
 impaired by the fact that every stone which he added to 
 the temple, with this end in view, told likewise towards the 
 consolidation of his own kingdom. 
 
 The temple was a marvellously imposing and magni- 
 ficent building for those early times. We can form no 
 accurate idea of its arrangements, because it was so often 
 altered and embellished ; and the accounts which we now 
 possess are of much later date. It is true that the author 
 of Exodus XXV. describes the tabernacle in the wilderness 
 in such terms as to make it appear that its plan and that 
 of Solomon's temple coincided ; but this account proves 
 nothing with regard to the one or the other, for it was not 
 written till the age subsequent to the captivity, and it 
 follows the plan of the temple that was then standing at 
 Jerusalem. Solomon's temple, on the Hill of Moriah, was 
 built of stone, and wainscoted internally with cedar-wood 
 from Lebanon. In the centre was a wooden erection, the 
 true sanctuary, divided into " the Holy " and " the 
 Holy of Holies." In the latter stood the ark, above 
 which were two cherubs, symboHcal animal forms, the 
 probable signification of which we have already explained.* 
 Other symbols of a like kind, borrowed from nature- 
 w^orship, were to be found all about the temple. 
 
 * See page 29. 
 
lb THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 From one tiling and another, we see that to Solomon's 
 mind Yahweh and the Semitic gods were -not widely 
 different in character. Foreign workmen and artists from 
 Phoenicia built his temple, and decorated it with symbols 
 borrowed from their own religion ; proof enough that neither 
 the king, nor those who carried out the work for him, were 
 conscious of any such difference. And, indeed, as a matter 
 of fact, not only was Solomon no monotheist, but he had no 
 very exalted idea of Yahweh. He built smaller temples, 
 not far from Jerusalem, for other gods as well — the gods 
 of his foreign friends — one for Astarte, the goddess of the 
 Zidonians ; another for Chemosh, the god of the Moabites ; 
 and another for Milcom, the god of the Ammonites. He 
 felt no difficulty in combining the worship of these other 
 gods with that of Yahweh. Nor did he act thus — as the 
 waiter of 1 Kings xi. would have us believe — in his old 
 age, led away by his foreign wives, but he did it in full 
 accordance with what were, from the first, his religious 
 convictions. In the temple at Jerusalem itself Yahweh 
 alone seems to have been worshipped in his time, although 
 some of the later kings set up images of Ashera and of 
 Baal even there. But Solomon never in any degree what- 
 ever upheld the exclusive worship of Yahweh. 
 
 Attached to the temple there was a priesthood. The 
 priests were, no doubt, chosen by preference from the 
 tribe of Levi, although this w^as not insisted on. Every 
 Israelite was at this time permitted to offer sacrifice, and 
 the king did so frequently. It was only at a later epoch 
 that this became the exclusive right of the priests, and 
 that the offering of sacrifice was confined to Jerusalem. 
 In Solomon's time, and for centuries after him, offerings 
 were made on the "bamoth" or high places, just as much 
 as in the temple. Nor as yet was any distinction drawn 
 
\" \ 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
 ^ DAVID AND SOLOMON. 77 
 
 between Levites aiul priests ; all were equally qualified to 
 perform the sacrificial offerings. 
 
 Solomon is celebrated also as the first of the "sages" of 
 Israel. Those were known as *' sages" who were pos- 
 sessed of a skilful understanding, a ready w-it, and keen 
 powers of observation, and knew how to give lessons of 
 wdsdom in daily life. And posterity regarded Solomon as 
 a "sage" after this fashion to an extraordinary degree, and 
 supposed him to be the writer of the Book of Proverbs and 
 Ecclesiastes. We shall refer to these books again by and 
 by, and can here only assure the reader that it is a mistake 
 to ascribe them to Solomon. The wisdom or "chokma" of 
 Solomon was of a very difterent kind to that of the following 
 centuries which has been preserved to us — for example, in the 
 Book of Proverbs. The latter bears a rehgious stamp, and 
 is connected with the worship of Yahweh ; but the wisdom 
 of Solomon was worldl}^, and had nothing to do with reli- 
 gion. We must especially avoid estimating it too highly, 
 or measuring it by what we in our day should call wisdom. 
 With Solomon it consisted, in the first place, in the acute- 
 ness of his judgments, of which we have an example in 
 1 Kings iii. 16-28 ; in the next place, in his aptitude for 
 solving enigmas ; and lastly, in his sayings about plants 
 and animals. It was said of him, subsequently, that he had 
 composed three thousand proverbs and one thousand and 
 five songs. This is certainly very much exaggerated ; but 
 it affords good ground for regarding him as the first of the 
 "sages" of Israel, to whom those of later times could 
 look back as their great predecessor. 
 
 From this, too, we gather that Solomon's tendencies 
 were by no means identical with those of the prophetic 
 party. He was no more exclusive or strenuously Israeli- 
 
78 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 this in politics than he was in rehgion ; indeed, he might 
 rather be said to be cosmopolitan, and human rather 
 than national. If his spirit had become predominant, 
 the peculiar character of Israel and of the Israelitish reli- 
 gion would very soon have vanished, and Israel would have 
 coalesced with the surrounding peoples. It was a happy 
 thing, on the one hand, that his powerful government 
 strengthened the belief in Yahweh's might and grandeur; 
 and no less happy was it, on the other hand, that, thanks 
 to the prophets, Israel preserved its peculiar religion and 
 rose at last to a pure monotheism, such as no other people 
 of antiquity ever reached. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PtEHOBOAM AND THE DISRUPTION OF THE KINGDOM. 
 
 COLOMON died in the year 978 before our era. While 
 the southern part of the country at once acknowledged 
 his son, Eehoboam, as his successor on the throne, the 
 northern tribes made difficulties. Eehoboam had gone to 
 Shechem, the ancient capital of the north of Israel, to 
 receive homage as king. The representatives of the ten 
 tribes came to him, however, with demands for the 
 lightening of the national burdens, while they sent to 
 Egypt for Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who had raised an 
 insurrection in Solomon's lifetime, and had been obliged 
 to take refuge in flight. He now placed himself at the 
 head of the malcontents in opposition to Rehoboam. 
 
EEHOBOAM AND THE DISRUPTION OF THE KINGDOM. 79 
 
 After taking counsel, the latter announced, by way of reply 
 to the representatives of the northern tribes, that he could 
 not accede to their requests, but would make their yoke 
 yet more grievous than it had been in the days of his 
 father. This was the signal for revolt. Ten tribes 
 renounced the sovereignty of Eehoboam. It was in vain 
 that he endeavoured to regain the allegiance of the rebels ; 
 there was nothing for it but to take flight with all speed 
 to Jerusalem. 
 
 To discover the cause of this revolt, it is clear that we 
 must recur to an earlier date, and seek it in the reign of 
 Solomon himself. And, indeed, this king had aroused a 
 great deal of discontent among those who dwelt in the 
 northern parts of the country. Nor must we forget that 
 there had never been much sympathy between the 
 north and the south. In the period of the Judges the 
 tribes had felt hardly any interest in each other; 
 Ephraim, the most powerful of the northern tribes, had 
 exercised a kind of supremacy in the north, similar to 
 that of Judah in the south. United for a short time 
 under Saul, and after his death once more dissevered, 
 under David and Solomon they had at last become one 
 kingdom. But the old jealousy was not extinct. It is 
 true that the military fame and power of David had pre- 
 served his authority intact, and in like manner Solomon's 
 splendour had at first made all attempts at resistance im- 
 possible, and afterwards speedily suppressed them. But 
 still the fire smouldered. The taxes which had to be paid 
 to provide for the formidable requirements of the king's 
 court, and the compulsory labour which had to be suppHed 
 for the building of the strong places, for the preparation 
 of the pleasure-grounds and palaces, and above all for the 
 temple, made the yoke a heavy one. And the Israelite 
 
80 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 T\'as too fond of liberty, and remembered too well his olden 
 independence, to submit to such a yoke permanently. More- 
 over, all the advantages of the new state of things fell to 
 Judah ; there stood the temple, and there was the seat of 
 government ; and Judah had its share in the treasures of 
 the king and in the luxury of the royal court. Almost 
 all the offices and appointments, too, were enjoyed by 
 Solomon's fellow-tribesmen. And all these circumstances 
 strongly inflamed the jealousy of Ephraim. No wonder, 
 then, that the fire which had so long been smouldering at 
 last burst into full blaze. 
 
 And there were other causes which operated in the same 
 direction. We are told in the eleventh chapter of the 
 first Book of Kings how Ahijah, the prophet, a Shilonite, 
 announced to Jeroboam that he should be king over the 
 ten tribes of Israel. The address put into the mouth of 
 the prophet is, no doubt, unhistorical, since it is full of 
 the ideas of later times, but it is an indication that the 
 prophets were not passive in this matter. They supported 
 the revolt, and helped Jeroboam against Kehoboam ; they 
 were induced by their religious principles to come forward 
 on this occasion as a political party. 
 
 It is easy to understand what feelings actuated the pro- 
 phets and their friends. We have already seen that they 
 were not much pleased with the building of the temple, 
 because it conflicted with their attachment to the simpli- 
 city of the ancient service. Indeed, the whole tendency 
 of Solomon's government went against the grain with 
 them, for it seemed as if he wanted to get rid of every- 
 thing that was peculiar to Israel, and to put the worship 
 of Yahweh on the same level with that of the rest of the 
 gods ; while they, cherishing, as they did, the spirit of 
 Moses and of Samuel, were anxious to preserve all lines of 
 
EEHOBOAM AND THE DISRUPTION OF THE KINGDOM. 81 
 
 ■demarcation between Israel and the surrounding peoples. 
 The Canaanites they held accursed ; they hated commerce 
 for the changes it made in the simple manners of old ; 
 and the worship of strange gods was in their eyes abomi- 
 nation. On these grounds they supported Jeroboam ; for 
 they hoped from him the restoration of the ancient ways 
 and of the sole worship of Yahweh. 
 
 The two kingdoms were of different size. Jeroboam's 
 authority extended not only over the ten tribes, but over 
 the conquered districts of the north as well; though 
 these ere long recovered their independence. Rehoboam 
 reigned over Judah, to which a large part of the tribe 
 of Benjamin was added. This tribe was, indeed, con- 
 nected by descent, and by sympathy as well, with the 
 north : Benjamin was the full brother of Joseph, that is, of 
 Ephraim and Manasseh. But the city of Jerusalem stood 
 on the territory of Benjamin, so that that district was, so 
 to speak, welded to Judah, and could not attach itself to 
 Ephraim. The Simeonites, too, who no longer constituted 
 a distinct tribe, belonged to Judah ; and we must add to 
 these the Edomites, who had been conquered by David. 
 
 If religion had so much to do with the disruption itself, 
 we cannot be surprised that it exercised a distinct in- 
 fluence on the subsequent march of events. We perceive 
 this at once in the fact that Jeroboam introduced new 
 forms of worship. He founded or restored two sanctu- 
 aries, one at Dan, in the north, and the other at Bethel, in 
 the south of his kingdom. In these temples he placed 
 the images of a bull, overlaid with gold, as symbols of 
 Yahweh. Besides this, he issued instructions that his 
 subjects should henceforth keep the harvest-festival in the 
 eighth month at Dan and at Bethel, although at Jerusalem 
 
 a 
 
82 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 it was celebrated in the seventh month. By these mea- 
 sures he widened still further the breach between the two 
 kingdoms. 
 
 This bull-worship was the ancient form of the worship 
 of Yahweh. Jeroboam set himself against the tenden- 
 cies of Solomon, who had acted in defiance of the tra- 
 ditions handed down from ancestral times. Indeed, 
 Jeroboam went further still. Bull-worship, though a 
 genuine Israelitish institution, had never been the of&cial 
 worship. Although it may have been carried on in some of 
 the smaller temples, it had never occurred to David to in- 
 troduce it generally. But this was done by Jeroboam. He 
 went back to the time of the Judges. Nay, he did more : 
 he made bull- worship the state-religion. A later historian 
 reckons this against him as a sin, and always speaks of 
 " the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat ; "* but we must 
 not be guided by his opinion. What he condemned was 
 at the time approved. None of Jeroboam's subjects offered 
 any opposition. On the contrary, the great majority un- 
 questionably applauded him for his attachment to the 
 ancestral worship. 
 
 Still, it may be asked whether the attitude of the 
 prophets towards the king was in nowise modified by 
 the introduction of this bull- worship. But we cannot 
 answer the question with any certainty. On the one 
 hand, it appears that the prophets Elijah and Elisha, 
 who flourished at the end of the tenth and the beginning 
 of the ninth centuries before Christ, by no means opposed 
 the bull-worship, and it was only in the eighth century 
 that some of the most advanced of the prophets preached 
 against it, a proof, one would think, that the great 
 
 * 1 Kings, xvi. 26, 31 ; xxii. 52 ; 2 Kings, iii. 3 ; x. 29 ; xiii. 2, 11 ; xiv. 
 24 ; XV. 9, 18, 24, 28. 
 
TtEHOBOAM AND THE DISEUPTION OF TKE KINGDOM. 83 
 
 majority saw no harm in it. But, at the same time, it 
 is certainly possible that the conduct of Jeroboam was 
 disapproved of by the prophets of Jiis day : in the Book 
 of Kings"* we are told that a certain prophet of Judah, 
 whose name is not given, as well as Ahijah, did disapprove 
 of it. But we cannot place much confidence in the state- 
 ments, for both the narratives are of a later date and have 
 been embellished. At all events, the opposition was not 
 violent, and soon left off altogether. 
 
 Of course, the mutual relations of the two kingdoms 
 could not be of the most friendly kind. At first, indeed, 
 they were distinctly hostile, and Jeroboam seems to have 
 conceived the design of bringing Judah into subjection to 
 himself. But in this he did not succeed ; and, however 
 small Judah might be, it generally contrived to maintain 
 its independence. Continuing under the same dynasty, 
 that of David, it escaped those court-intrigues and assas- 
 sinations which were to Ephraim so terrible a source of 
 weakness. Once only does Judah appear to have been 
 subjugated by its stronger neighbour, and that was in the 
 reigns of Jehoash and Jeroboam the Second. But circum- 
 stances were more favourable to Judah, to judge from the 
 fact that it maintained its national existence for about 150 
 years longer than Ephraim. 
 
 There were seasons, however, of reconciliation between 
 the sister nations. Some kind of intercourse, especially 
 on the frontier, no doubt there always was ; but in the 
 time of Ahab, whose daughter married the king of Judah, 
 their relations were distinctly those of friendship. 
 
 The condition of religion, too, remained more tranquil 
 in Judah thg^n in Israel or Ephraim. In the latter, as we 
 shall presently see, a fierce struggle was carried on con- 
 
 * 1 Kings, xiii. xiv. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 cerning the worship of Yahweh, a struggle which was of 
 the utmost moment in the further development of the 
 Israelitish religion, and most important from an historical 
 point of view. In that struggle the very existence of the 
 Yahweh-religion was at stake, and for a time it stood in 
 the greatest danger of extirpation. But the state of 
 affairs in Judah was altogether different. There, the 
 temple remained the national sanctuary, dedicated to the 
 nation's god ; and though in Judah, too, worship was 
 continually accorded to other gods, no struggle against 
 Yahweh ever took place there, as it did in Ephraim. On 
 the one hand, then, things went better here, and less risk 
 was run ; but, on the other hand, Judah rendered less 
 assistance during this early period in the development 
 of Yahwism. Judah shared in the benefit of Israel's 
 struggle, but for all that it does not interest us at first to 
 at all the same degree as Ephraim. To this latter king- 
 dom, then, we will in the first place turn our attention. 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 "E have already seen what was the condition of religion 
 in the kingdom of Israel shortly after the disruption. 
 Yahweh was worshipped there as the national god, in the 
 form of a bull, without any one offering any opposition. 
 This continued to be so under the succeeding kings. The 
 historian passes a very unfavourable judgment on most of 
 them, alleging that they did evil in the sight of Yahweh, 
 
THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL. 85 
 
 and that they cleaved unto the sins of Jerohoam, the son 
 of Nebat. Ahab, the son of Omri, is drawn in the 
 blackest colours of all. He had married Jezebel, y 
 daughter of Ethbaal, king of the T3Tians. He seems to 
 have been very much under this woman's influence. At 
 any rate, he built a temple to the Tyrian god, Baal, at 
 his residence of Samaria, and erected the '* ashera," a 
 stunted column symbolic of the goddess Ashera. 
 
 We must not assume on this account that Aliab did not 
 worship Yahweh. On the contrary, he would seem — at first, 
 at any rate — to have acknowledged Yahweh's prophets, and 
 to have accepted their word as that of Yahweh. More- 
 over, the names of his children are compounded of that 
 of Yahweh. From this we may gather that he not only 
 recognized Yahweh as the national god of Israel, but 
 accorded him service. But to this he added the service 
 of Baal. This Baal was not the god of the country, 
 whom the Israelites had almost always worshipped since 
 their arrival in Canaan, but the Tyrian god of the same 
 name, — not, indeed, very different from the Canaanitish 
 god, but still, as a matter of fact, an importation from 
 abroad. His foreign extraction made him seem to the 
 prophets all the more hostile to the national god, Yahweh. 
 To make matters worse, the king encouraged this Baal- 
 service at the court itself without the least disguise. A 
 multitude of priests — many of them, no doubt, foreigners 
 — served in the temple ; and their influence was very 
 powerful. We must remember, besides, that the worship 
 of Baal and Ashera was extremely sensual, so that it 
 could not fail to arouse the liveHest indignation in the 
 faithful followers of the stern and holy Yahweh. 
 
 It was under these circumstances that Elijah, the 
 Tishbite, appeared upon the scene as the leader of the 
 
86 THE RELIGION OF ISEAEL. 
 
 prophets and the whole party of the servants of Yahweh. 
 He and his friends began the quarrel. Ahab did not 
 oppose Yahweh at first, but the quarrel was forced upon 
 him. It would seem, indeed, that the prophets did not 
 confine themselves to spiritual weapons, but actualh' had 
 recourse to violence. This, however, Ahab could not pass 
 over ; and, no doubt, he was urged by Jezebel, too, to 
 make himself felt. So he began to persecute the prophets 
 of Yahweh and to put them to death. And now a season 
 of terrible woe broke upon the servants of Israel's god, 
 and there seemed at first to be great danger that Baal 
 would triumph, and that the service of Yahweh would be 
 uprooted. The historian paints a sad picture of the state 
 of things in those days. He puts into Elijah's mouth 
 the tragic cry, that they have thrown down the altars of 
 Israel's god, and slain the prophets, and that he alone is 
 left. And even he was obliged, for a time, to quit his coun- 
 try and seek a refuge elsewhere. Yet his courage never 
 flagged, and he never rested from the struggle, — soon to 
 meet wdth happier success. The accounts of this struggle 
 which have come down to us are too much interwoven 
 with legend for us to build upon, or even to extract much 
 from. Elijah is said to have foretold a three-years' 
 famine, and at its close to have challenged the priests 
 of Baal to a decisive contest between their o-od and 
 Yahweh. They accepted the challenge, so the story goes, 
 and set up an altar on Mount Carmel, and besought their 
 god to send fire down from heaven to kindle the sacrifice. 
 Their entreaties were of course in vain. But Elijah, we 
 are told, prayed to better purpose. A flash of lightning 
 consumed his offering, and proved that Yahweh was God 
 indeed. 
 
 Now this story, beautiful, and indeed sublime, as it is. 
 
THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL. 87 
 
 tas evidently been so much embellislied that we cannot 
 «ven tell for certain whether it has any historical founda- 
 tion at all. A famine may really have taken place and 
 led may Israelites to reflect, and re-awakened and in- 
 creased the zeal for Yahweh. At any rate, not only did 
 the persecution cease, but Ahab thenceforward treated the 
 prophets of Yahweh better and paid them more respect. 
 Towards the end of his life, his relations with them were 
 thus on a much better footing, and we find them once 
 more accepted as his counsellors. 
 
 It would not be easy to form too high an estimate of 
 Elijah's influence. He was a man of strong and impetuous 
 character, well calculated to produce a profound impression 
 upon his countrymen. H^ was a stern proclaimer of the 
 word that stirred within him, and his was a fiery zeal. He 
 shrank from no measures of violence, and from no perse- 
 cutions, to promote the honour of Yahweh. He would 
 suddenly appear when least expected, in his characteristic 
 costume, the hairy mantle of the prophet ; the people re- 
 cognized him and feared him as the servant of the mighty 
 god of the nation. And that character may be seen in the 
 miracles ascribed to him. He stands before the monarch 
 courageous and resolved ; a blood-stained struggle has for 
 him no terror, and he thinks to serve Yahweh well in ex- 
 tirpating the priests of Baal. He is a man of deeds, who 
 knows his own aims, and never falters in their accom- 
 plishment. 
 
 The influence of Elijah was all the greater, too, that 
 he stood at the head of the schools of the prophets, and, 
 indeed, of the whole prophetic party. They all looked 
 upon him as their master, and followed him as their 
 acknowledged leader. There is no trace among them of 
 difference of opinion. The great struggle between Yah- 
 
88 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 well and Baal united tliem in one mind, and this much 
 enhanced their strength as a party in the state. 
 
 Elisha is described as the disciple and successor of 
 Elijah ; and, like him, he appears as the leader of the 
 whole party, so that he is much respected even at court. 
 He wielded a powerful influence, hut hardly seems to 
 have produced so overwhelming an impression as Ehjah. 
 The power accorded to him by tradition is not so great, 
 and he only builds on the foundations laid by Elijah. 
 He has not the stern vigour of his predecessor. The 
 worship of Yahweh was, nominally at least, in the as- 
 cendant in his time, and all that he had to do was to 
 hold the ground which Elijah had won. 
 
 There are no other prophets in connection with whom 
 so TDdSLny miracles are related as these two men. They 
 predict coming events ; they heal the sick and raise the 
 dead; nay, they control the fire of heaven. Elijah is 
 fed by ravens, and, by the power of his word, prevents 
 the oil and meal of the widow of Zarephath from grow- 
 ing less ; he does not die, but rides to heaven in a chariot 
 drawn by fiery steeds. It is just the same with Elisha : 
 he makes iron float on water ; he renders poisonous viands 
 innocuous ; and he punishes the children who mock him, 
 with death. He restores to health the leprous Naaman 
 by making him bathe in the Jordan, and by his word 
 his deceitful servant, Gehazi, is stricken with a like 
 disease. 
 
 That such stories should be invented about them is not 
 at all surprising. It is only that legend reproduces in its. 
 own forms the impression which these men made on their 
 contemporaries. They are the heroes of Yahweh, men 
 of unshaken zeal and courage, whom no dangers can 
 Babdue. They are like a refining furnace, and they fill 
 
THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL. 89 
 
 all men with fear. Their own minds are impressed with 
 the terrible and awful might of that Yahweh whose repre- 
 sentatives they are, and the^^ themselves appear in the 
 self-same character which they ascribe to their god. 
 
 It has been thought that the famous account of Yah- 
 weh' s appearance to Elijah on Mount Horeb (1 Kings 
 xix.) ought to be interpreted as a condemnation of Elijah's 
 violence and of the slaughter of the priests of Baal, inas- 
 much as it is there said that Yahweh was not in the 
 rushing wind, the earthquake, or the lightning-flash, but in 
 the whispering of the gentle breeze. But those who urge 
 this have overlooked the fact that this is the very occasion 
 on which Elijah receives the commission to anoint as king 
 that same Jehu who was to extirpate the house of Omri 
 and to quench the worship of Baal in the blood of his 
 priests and followers. This, surely, is proof enough that 
 Yahweh has no reproaches for the prophet's zeal. 
 
 We have said that Jehu, the son of Nimshi, was des- 
 tined to put an end to the struggle between Yahweh and 
 Baal ; for we must not imagine that the efforts of Elijah 
 and Elisha were already crowned with all the success that 
 they desired. It is true that the persecution ceased, and 
 that Ahab himself, and his son, Ahaziah, after him, paid 
 honour to Yahweh and consulted him. Nevertheless, the 
 w^orship of Baal was not destroyed. Ahaziah' s successor, 
 Jehoram, the second son of Ahab, seems to have governed 
 in a different spirit from his father ; at least, we are told 
 that he removed the ''' pillar," that is the symbol of Baal 
 which Ahab had made. But this was not enough in the 
 eyes of those who were zealous for Yahweh : to begin 
 with, they could see nothing good in Jehoram, because he 
 was the son of that Ahab whom Yahweh had rejected ; 
 and then, after all, Baal was still worshipped in Israel. 
 
90 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 Thus it came about that the party of the prophets set 
 their hearts on having a new dynasty. They had no hope 
 of any salvation or any permanent improvement under the 
 old one. They thought that a new king, raised to the 
 throne by their aid, would more powerfully defend their 
 views and aims and allow himself to be guided by the 
 spirit that actuated them. Jehu was the very man for 
 them. His reign completely answered to the expectations 
 of the strict Yahweh party. He not only exterminated 
 the family of Omri, but razed the temple of Baal at 
 Samaria to the ground, and put all the followers of the 
 god there to death. Jehu was the first prince who was 
 animated by zeal akin to that of the prophets, and he 
 accomplished what Elijah had desired. The latter, it is 
 true, did not live to see the triumph, but it was he who 
 had made it possible. Yahweh had come off victor in 
 the struggle with Baal. 
 
 It would not be easy to overrate the significance of this 
 event. It is an important turning-point in the history of 
 Israel's religious progress, and not in Israel's only, but in 
 Judah's too ; for the influence of Elijah's labours and of 
 Jehu's zeal made itself felt in the southern kingdom a 
 
 o 
 
 few years later, as we shall presently see. Followers of 
 Baal did, indeed, long remain in Israel, as was only to be 
 expected ; but Yahweh was acknowledged once for all as 
 Israel's god. Henceforward there was no more change. 
 In the minds of the people the service of Yahweh was 
 established as the one purely national worship. And 
 although here and there it was still mixed with the ser- 
 vice of other gods, these took an inferior position ; none 
 of them could be compared with Yahweh. 
 
 We have no literary remains — or hardly any — of the 
 
THE KINGDOM OF ISP.AEL. 91 
 
 succeeding century, tlie ninth before Christ. Even the 
 accounts of this period in the second Book of Kings and 
 the second of Chronicles are meagre, and somewhat un- 
 trustworthy as well. It is only by comparing what we 
 know of the eighth century wath the ascertained state of 
 things in the tenth, that we find out that the intervening 
 century, the ninth, witnessed an important advance in the 
 religious ideas of the prophets. It is true that our in- 
 sight into details leaves much to he desired ; but the out- 
 line is perfectly distinct. 
 
 In the first place, we may reflect that the defeat of Baal 
 must have impressed the Yahw^eh- worshippers deeply with 
 the power of their god. The conviction that he was 
 something greater than other gods, which circumstances 
 suggested and confirmed, would lead them to ponder on 
 the question in wdiat the difference between him and 
 other gods consisted. They had already long believed, 
 indeed, in Yahweh's superiority ; but they had only ascribed 
 to him greater power and greater severity in his demands. 
 In his essence, in his nature, they had hitherto discerned 
 no difference. Yahweh w\as closely related to the 
 nature-gods, and above all to Molech and Astarte ; he 
 v;as the fire-god and light-god, jealous of his honour, 
 terrible in his chastisements. But now thoughts very 
 different began to enter into their notion of Yahweh's 
 nature. The movement of events and the national fortunes 
 rendered this almost inevitable. For the condition of 
 Israel, no less than that of Judah, was anything but happy. 
 Hazael, king of Syria, had defeated Ephraim, and almost 
 entirely deprived it of powder for the moment. Judah, too, 
 had trembled before the conqueror; and, meanwhile, 
 intestine quarrels between the sister peoples had intensified 
 their misery. Was it not natural that the prophets should 
 
92 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 ask themselves what all this meant ? And the only 
 possible answer was, that it was owing to Yaliweh's dis- 
 pleasure, and his anger at Israel's unfaithfulness and the 
 worship of strange gods. This mighty god was jealous 
 for his w^orship, and punished the unfaithfulness of his 
 people. And now comparisons were made with the 
 prosperity of earlier times, and the power and splendour 
 of the nation under David and Solomon. On account of 
 the indissoluble connection which was supposed to exist 
 between fidelity to Yahweh and outward prosperity, it was 
 taken for granted that in those good old times Yahweh had 
 been faithfully served to the exclusion of all other gods, 
 and that was why he had then conferred such abundant 
 blessing on Israel. And if the olden times were presented 
 in so fair a light to their imagination, they could not fail, 
 on the other hand, to be deeply impressed with the idea 
 that the present unhappiness of their nation w^as due to 
 the neglect of Yahweh's claims. And on this thought 
 they now concentrated their attention. Yahweh, originally 
 the nature- god, had been preached even by Moses as the 
 holy one, who required a holy and strictly moral life in 
 his followers. And now it was seen that this w^as the 
 most important thing in the eyes of Yahweh, and so 
 the prophets began to lay all the stress on it. They 
 began to see a difference between Yahweh and the nature- 
 gods, and to leave out of sight that side of his being 
 which he had in common with those gods, in order to 
 emphasize the moral and spiritual side. Thus that path 
 was entered on which could not but lead to a spiritual 
 monotheism. It is true that the other gods were not at 
 once definitely denied, and that the recognition of Yahweh's 
 sole spiritual supremacy did not in itself involve the im- 
 mediate refusal to believe in the existence of any other 
 
THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL. 93 
 
 gods, but still the first step in that direction had been 
 taken, and further progress had been made possible. 
 
 That this representation of the progress of prophetic 
 thought is in the main correct, maybe seen from the writings 
 of Amos, Hosea, and Zechariah ix.-xi. These prophets 
 appeared in the kingdom of the ten tribes, in the eighth 
 century before Christ. In the same century, Isaiah and 
 Micah, their spiritual kin, lived in Judah ; but we shall 
 speak of them by and by. Amos came from Tekoa, in 
 Judah, but he betook himself to the kingdom of Ephraim, 
 to prophesy there. Hosea preached at the end of the reign 
 of Jeroboam II. and subsequently, from 775 to 745 before 
 Christ. Of his story we know nothing. The prophet, 
 whose utterances are contained in the ninth, tenth and 
 eleventh chapters of Zechariah, who is not identical with 
 the authors of chapters i. to viii., and must be distinguished 
 from the writer of chapters xil. to xiv. as well, lived in 
 Judah, in the days of Isaiah, but in all probability, 
 preached in Israel. Now these three prophets occupy a 
 much higher point of view than their predecessors. In 
 opposition to the bull-worship, they preach a pure 
 monotheism. Apparently the other gods do not exist at 
 all for them ; they call them nothing and vanity, and 
 make no distinction between them and their images. To 
 the minds of these prophets Yahweh is Lord of the whole 
 earth, and guides the destinies of all nations. He is 
 a spiritual being, and cannot be worshipped in the image 
 of anything. He will have righteousness and not sacri- 
 fice; for he is a god of stern morality, and emphatically 
 demands obedience to his laws. 
 
 No one can help seeing that these prophets are very 
 different from Elijah and Elisha, their predecessors, and 
 stand far above them. If the latter contended for Yahweh 
 
94 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 against Baal, Amos and Hosea are zealous for a spiritual 
 interpretation of Yali well's nature. By tliem Yahweh is 
 made greater, |)^'ii'Gr, and more exalted. If the wars of 
 David had increased the might of Yahweh in the eyes of 
 the Israelites, here was something more than might : here 
 w^as a belief in the spirituality of Yahweh' s nature, and in 
 his moral perfection. 
 
 We shall recur to these ideas by and by, in referring to 
 the prophets of Judah ; we need only add, at present, that 
 Amos, and those who felt with him, must not be regarded 
 as representing the whole prophetic party. Earlier — in the 
 time of Elijah — the prophets all held the same views, and 
 constituted a party united by well-defined principles. But 
 things w^ere changed now. Amos and Hosea were opposed 
 to the majority of the prophets, and contended against 
 them, just as much as against the people. Amos ex- 
 pressly declares that he does not wish to be reckoned as 
 one of them. These circumstances can only be explained 
 by the fact that the great mass of the prophets still 
 entertained the old views, while Amos and Hosea had 
 acquired new ones. They had attained to a clearer in- 
 sight, a profounder interpretation of holy things, and a 
 purer piety, and had left their old allies far behind. 
 Henceforward, the great prophets stood alone, above the 
 people, and above the majority of the servants of Yahweh. 
 
 After the death of Jeroboam II., under whom Amos 
 and Hosea prophesied, the kingdom of Israel sped swiftly 
 towards its ruin. Once more, as in earlier times, king 
 after king lost his life by conspiracy, and perpetual changes 
 of dynasty weakened the kingdom more and more. And 
 foreign foes added to its troubles ; the Assyrians harassed 
 the unhappy inhabitants of Ephraim throughout a great 
 
THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL. 95 
 
 part of the eighth century. In the days of King Menahem, 
 (770 to 760 before Christ) the Assyrians threatened Israel, 
 but they were bought off for a great price. Against Pekah, 
 (758 to 728 before Christ) came the Assyrian prince, 
 Tiglath-Pileser, seizing several Israelitish cities, and 
 carrying away the inhabitants captive. And at last 
 Shalmanezer menaced Samaria ; Hoshea was now king of 
 Israel, and it was only by paying tribute that he averted 
 his threatened overthrow. But he soon broke faith, and 
 then he saw Shalmanezer besieging his capital, Samaria. 
 After an heroic defence of three years' duration, the city 
 was taken and ravaged. The king was borne off prisoner, 
 and the people were carried into Assyria. 
 
 Thus the kingdom of Ephraim came to an end 719 years 
 before Christ. Shalmanezer transplanted men of foreign 
 stock from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and Sephar- 
 vaim into the conquered land, and these, speedily mixing 
 with the remaining inhabitants, received the name of 
 *' Samaritans." We shall meet with them again in the 
 course of our history. But the ancient kingdom of 
 Ephraim was never re-established. 
 
96 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 
 
 A FTER the disruption, the state of religion in Judah 
 remained the same as it had been under Solomon. 
 In Israel the olden hull-worship was brought in again by 
 Jeroboam ; but such was not the case in Judah. No 
 change took place at first. The temple continued to be 
 the sanctuary of Yahweh, and the priests belonging to 
 the temple took care that Yahweh should continue to be 
 worshipped there as Israel's god. With this worship, 
 however, there still went along the worship of other gods 
 as well. The later historian makes this a reproach 
 against the kings of Judah, and lays the sin at their 
 door. But we must not judge them by the standard of an 
 age so long after their own. On the contrary, we must 
 remember that in the tenth and ninth centuries before 
 Christ the belief in the existence of many gods was uni- 
 versal among the Israelites, and that only a comparatively 
 small party, that of the prophets, generally called the 
 "Mosaic" party, insisted on the exclusive worship of 
 Yahweh. 
 
 Thus, we need feel no surprise that there were in Judah 
 numerous temples and images of the native gods and of 
 those of other countries. There were pillars and stumps 
 of trees (symbols of Baal and Ashera), teraphim (little 
 images which were worshipped as household gods), and on 
 
THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 97 
 
 liills and under large trees there were altars to Yaliweh, 
 as well as the so-called '* high places," which were smaller 
 sanctuaries with altars in the form of a truncated cone, 
 where Yahweh was served and other gods along with 
 him. At first this state of things continued without any 
 serious struggle between Yahweh and the other gods 
 like that in Israel. There was more peace and quiet 
 in the southern kingdom. But on that very account 
 there came to be no slight danger of Yahwism and the 
 service of the other gods getting mixed up together ; and, 
 as the people were particularly attached to the worship of 
 the old gods of the country, there seems to have been 
 some fear that the service of Yahweh might ultimately be 
 entirely absorbed by it. It was, then, a happy thing that, 
 in the kingdom of Ephraim, a struggle broke out between 
 Yahweh and Baal. For, as we have seen, that struggle 
 made manifest the difference between the two, and the 
 superiority which was latent in the representation of 
 Yahweh was brought to light and further developed. The 
 struggle was not without results for Judah too ; in- 
 deed, it was, in some degree, carried into that kingdom. 
 Among the earlier kings there was not one who did 
 not acknowledge Yahweh as god of Israel; and Asa 
 and Jehoshaphat are cordially praised for their zeal 
 for Yahweh. But Jehoshaphat's son, Jehoram, married 
 Athaliah, a daughter of Ahab ; and their son, Ahaziah, 
 was slain by Jehu when he exterminated the family of 
 Ahab. Upon this Athaliah took the reins of government 
 into her own hands. She built a temple to Baal at Jeru- 
 salem, not intending to show any hostility to Yahweh, 
 Yvhom she fully acknowledged as a god, but simply to put 
 Baal on a level with him, as her father had done before 
 her. But the strict worshippers of Yahweh could not 
 
 H 
 
98 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 acquiesce in this. Athaliali lost her life by an insurrection, 
 after a reign of no more than six years. Through the 
 instrumentality of Jehoiada, the chief priest in the 
 temple at Jerusalem, her grandson, Jehoash, ascended the 
 throne of his fathers, and a covenant was made between 
 Yahweh and his people. All this shows clearly that the 
 people acknowledged Yahweh as their national god, and 
 that, however prone to serve other gods besides him, they 
 insisted that he should be worshipped as the first and 
 foremost. Or, even if we may not attribute the rising 
 against Athaliali to the people at large, still the Mosaic 
 party, strengthened, no doubt, by the triumph of their 
 allies in Israel, must have been powerful enough to get 
 their own way now and then. Jehoash himself and his 
 three successors, Amaziah, Uzziah, and Jotham, are com- 
 mended for being faithful servants of Yahweh, although 
 the high places remained undisturbed. Indeed, however 
 much this angered the later historian, it was in perfect 
 harmony with the spirit of the day. Of Ahaz it is re- 
 corded, with the severest censure, that he sacrificed his son 
 to Molech. He seems to have been the first king to 
 worship Molech so openly, although it was no new thing 
 in Judah to serve him. But it is easy to understand how 
 indignant the prophets must have been at such doings ; 
 and, though our information on this point is extremely 
 scanty, we see from the sequel how vigorous a resistance 
 they must have offered. 
 
 A change most favourable to the views of the prophets 
 took place under H6zekiah, the son and successor of Ahaz. 
 He swept away the high places throughout the country, 
 and broke the pillars and the asheras and the images of 
 Yahweh. Beyond this our accounts of his action do not 
 
THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 99 
 
 go ; but it is clear that it was in harmony with the 
 opinions and wishes of the Mosaic party. They had been 
 very much averse to the state of things under Ahaz, and 
 no doubt they made every effort to bring about a change. 
 In Hezekiah they found a man after their own heart ; for 
 he was quite inclined to use strenuous and even violent 
 means to establish the exclusive worship of Yahweh. 
 
 We may now clearly discriminate two very different 
 parties in Judah. They were both for serving Yahweh as 
 the god of Israel, but one of them still continued in sym- 
 pathy with the ideas which prevailed in the days of 
 Solomon. The members of this party were cosmopolitan, 
 and not strictly national in their feelings, and thought it 
 right to serve other gods — the old Canaanitish ones, for 
 instance, and those of the surrounding peoples — as well as 
 Yahweh. They did, it is true, honour Yahweh as the 
 national god, but they seem to have done so in the fashion 
 characteristic of the high places. Opposed to these stood 
 the other party, that of the prophets, and, generally, of all 
 the strict Yahweh-worshippers, who still, indeed, acknow- 
 ledged the existence of the other gods, but wished the 
 worship of Yahweh to be the one sole worship of Israel, — 
 a sentiment which explains their zeal against sacrifice on 
 the high places and their abhorrence of the pillars and 
 the images of Baal. These two parties struggled for su- 
 premacy with varying fortune. It depended more on the 
 views of the king which should prevail, than on anything 
 else. This was seen in the case of Ahaz, and in that 
 of Hezekiah too. And thus there was nothing wonderful 
 in the Mosaic party being worsted again after the death 
 of Hezekiah ; for Manasseh, who succeeded him, and 
 Manasseh's son, Amon, too, adopted the opinions of 
 the other party, who, after suffering the opposition of 
 
 H 2 
 
100 THE EELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 Hezeldali, seem to liaTe left no stone unturned to hriuf]^ 
 things back to their former condition. To the Mosaic 
 party, indeed, things seemed even worse than they had 
 been before ; for the new policy amounted in their eyes to 
 apostasy, especially when Manasseh introduced once more 
 the abominable service of Molech, and slew one of his own 
 sons and burnt him in honour of that god. In his reign 
 the high places everywhere appeared again, and the sym- 
 bols of other gods were set up in the temple at Jerusalem; 
 for instance, the wooden stump belonging to Ashera. 
 In short, everything that Manasseh did was a thorn in 
 the side of the strict followers of Yahweli, and they 
 considered it a good riddance when his son, Amon, was 
 killed, after a reign of only two years. The Mosaic 
 party now had another opportunity of trying whether 
 they could manage to set up and maintain the service 
 of Yahweh, to the exclusion of all other worship. To 
 that end it was essential that they should try to estab- 
 lish an influence over Josiah, the new prince, who was 
 only eight years old at the death of his father, and 
 win him over to their interests. This they attempted, 
 and their efi'orts were crowned with the happiest results. 
 In the year 621 before Christ, Josiah, now in the eigh- 
 teenth year of his reign, began a thorough reformation, 
 which completely answered to the ideas of the Mosaic 
 party. Even before that he had given indications that he 
 was an upholder of the exclusive Yahweh-worship, but 
 now he took more thorough-going measures. The cir- 
 cumstances that led up to this are recorded for us in 
 detail, and they are sufiiciently important to detain us for 
 a moment. 
 
 Some repairs being required in the temple at Jerusalem, 
 the king sends his secretary to Hilkiah, the chief priest. 
 
THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 101 
 
 with a message about the contributions of the people 
 towards the expense ; whereupon Hilkiah takes the 
 opportunity of telling the prince's secretary that he has 
 found the book of the law in the house of Yahweh. The 
 secretary takes it with him to the palace and reads it to the 
 king, who is thrown into great consternation on dis- 
 covering how grievously the law of Yahweh has been 
 transgressed. So he sends to inquire of Huldah, a 
 distinguished prophetess at Jerusalem, whether this 
 law is in harmony with the will of Yahweh, and she 
 replies in the affirmative. Upon this Josiah hesitates no 
 longer. He calls the people together, and reads the book 
 of the law to the assembled multitude. Upon this the 
 whole people enters into a covenant to follow Yahweh and 
 to keep the words of this law. The priests are charged 
 to make a beginning immediately, and the first thing they 
 do is to remove from the temple everything which is con- 
 trary to the law, and everything which is connected with 
 the worship of other gods, whether Baal or Ashera or the 
 host of heaven. The temple of Molech and the chapels 
 built by Solomon are entirely demolished, the high places 
 all over the kingdom are destroyed, and the pillars and 
 images cut down. And those priests who had served 
 Y'ahweh on the high places are compelled to come to 
 Jerusalem and be attached to the temple ; but they are 
 not allowed to offer sacrifice like the Jerusalem priests. 
 In short, nothing was left undone to exterminate the 
 worship of images and of other gods, and the reformation 
 was as sweeping as ever it could be. 
 
 The account of this reformation in 2 Kings, chapter 
 xxiii., is full and clear. Nor is there any doubt what 
 objects Josiah had in view : he wanted to bring about 
 the realization of the wishes of the Mosaic party, and was 
 
102 THE BELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 for putting an end to the worship of any gods besides 
 Yahweh in Judah, and for confining the offering of sacri- 
 fice to the temple at Jerusalem. But if so, then these 
 must have been the main points in the book which had 
 been found by Hilkiah, and had stimulated the king to 
 play the reformer. Happily, we still possess this book, 
 and it is no other than Deuteronomy, the last of the five 
 books which are called after Moses. We have already 
 seen that in those books we have nothing from Moses 
 himself except the Ten Words. We shall have to speak of 
 the origin of the other books by and by ; but Deuteronomy, 
 from the 44th verse of the fourth chapter to chapter xxvi. 
 and chapter xxviii. with xxix. 1, was written at this time. 
 Who the author was we do not know, but he was a champion 
 of the Mosaic party, and expressed the views of that party 
 in this book of laws. He makes Moses speak as the 
 lawgiver ; for, both in those days and later on, it was 
 considered quite allowable to write in another person's 
 name ; and in the same way the Mosaic leaders had no 
 hesitation in representing the book to have been found 
 by Hilkiah, although, of course, he, at any rate, knew that 
 it had only just been drawn up. 
 
 The writer describes how, in the fortieth year of their 
 wanderings in the wilderness, Moses called the people 
 together that he might recall the main part of the law to 
 their remembrance before he died. He speaks with pro- 
 found earnestness, and in a tone of paternal authority. 
 He sternly forbids them to serve other gods, and strenu- 
 ously insists that, when the Israelites have entered Canaan, 
 they shall utterly exterminate the inhabitants of the land, 
 that they may not be infected by the worship of their 
 gods. Of course such a commandment had no bearing 
 on the author's own times, as the Canaanites had ceased 
 
THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 103 
 
 to have any separate existence ; but it served to bring into 
 bolder relief the danger and impiety of apostasy from 
 Yahweh. Great stress is laid on the injunction to confine 
 the worship of Yahweh to the temple at Jerusalem. 
 Moreover, none but priests of the tribe of Levi are to 
 serve in the temple ; although nothing is said about 
 limiting such service to those of the family of Aaron, a 
 limitation which belongs to a much later date. Besides 
 this, the lawgiver gives certain commandments concerning 
 the celebration of the three high festivals, the Passover, the 
 Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles. These 
 festivals were by no means new, and we meet with them 
 in more ancient sections of the Pentateuch, such as the 
 so-called Book of Covenants (Exodus xxi.-xxiii.) ; but 
 the Deuteronomist lays down more definite regulations. 
 Then, again, he gives sundry injunctions in relation to 
 things " clean " and " unclean," and to the prohibition of 
 certain kinds of food. In the commandments concerning 
 kings in chapter xvii., verses 14 to 20, it strikes us as 
 remarkable that he forbids precisely those things which 
 Solomon had practised. The king is not to trade with 
 Egypt, nor to have many wives, nor to gather together 
 much treasure, which are the very practices which history 
 ascribed to Solomon. And we may see from this how 
 little that famous prince answered to the ideal which now 
 possessed the minds of the prophetic party. 
 
 But we must not expatiate any further at present on 
 the contents of the Book of Deuteronomy. It is enough 
 for our purpose to know the principal commandments, so 
 as to be able to estimate the character of the reformation 
 which Josiah initiated. In this book the Mosaic party 
 had expressed their wishes, and now they had obtained 
 that triumph over their opponents which they had so long 
 
104 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 desired : the king governed in accordance with their views, 
 and everywhere put their principles into practice. And 
 now they were inspired with the brightest anticipations. 
 Surely now at last Yahweh would fulfil his glorious pro- 
 mises, and make Israel once more great and mighty as 
 of old ! Surely men now should see that Yahweh was 
 God, and that Israel was his people : his law was strictly 
 kept, and surely the blessing would not be held back ! 
 
 It did indeed seem at first as if the reign of Josiah 
 would see the realization of these anticipations. The 
 power of the Assyrians, always full of danger for Judah, 
 w^as more and more curtailed by the Medes, so that Judah 
 soon had no more to fear from them. But, alas, how 
 soon was the sun of her prosperity to set ! How soon was 
 the ground to slip away from under these fair hopes of 
 Judah's restoration ! In the year 610 before Christ, 
 when Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was besieged by 
 the allied Medes and Babylonians, Psammetichus, the 
 king of Egypt, died. Necho, his son, resolved to extend 
 his dominions at the expense of decaying Assjaia, and 
 to take possession of Syria. But these designs seemed 
 to Josiah fraught with peril for Judah, and, however feeble 
 he might be compared with Egypt, he made up his mind 
 that he would try to frustrate Necho' s purpose by force of 
 arms. The battle Avas fought in the plain of Megiddo, but 
 fought, alas ! with unhappy result for Judah ; for her troops 
 sustained defeat, and Josiah, her beloved prince, was slain. 
 
 The news of this disaster fell like a thunderbolt. It 
 was not only that the immediate future was very dark, 
 but the Mosaic party found themselves bitterly disap- 
 pointed in their religious hopes. Pious men asked in 
 bewilderment what must now be thoufrht of Yahweh's 
 
THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 105 
 
 promises, and, above all, of Yahweh's rigliteousuess. 
 Had the people failed, then, to serve him faithfully, or 
 could not the recent conversion blot out the sins of days 
 gone by ? Was it possible that Josiah had not been pious 
 enough, and could it be necessary to do still more than he 
 had done ? 
 
 All the writings which have come down to us from this 
 epoch (the end of the seventh and the beginning of the 
 sixth century before Christ) show what a stimulus to 
 reflection was afforded by the tragic termination of 
 Josiah's reign, and generally by the incongruity which 
 there seemed to be between tTudah's fortunes and her 
 zealous worship of Yahweh. To this period belongs the 
 composition of the Book of Job, to which we shall return 
 by ^nd by. And to this period belong Jeremiah, Habak- 
 kuk, and the unknown writer of the twelfth, thirteenth, 
 and fourteenth chapters of Zechariah; while Ezekiel wrote 
 down his prophecies in the company of the exiles them- 
 selves during the early years of the captivity. Other 
 vrritings, too, the greater part of Lamentations and some 
 of the Psalms, date from this season of woe. They are 
 all occupied more or less directly with this problem so 
 hard for them to understand, and strive to find some 
 adequate solution of it. 
 
 But to the old party, which Josiah had suppressed, 
 the solution did not by any means present so much 
 difficulty. They ascribed Judah's calamities to the extir- 
 pation of the worship of the other gods. And, in accord- 
 ance with this view, the worship of the Baals was begun 
 again, as well as that of the host of heaven, of the moon- 
 goddess, Astarte, and of Molech. Sacrifice was once 
 more zealously offered on the hills and under the green 
 trees. The worship of the gods of old was revived in full 
 
106 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 force. And bitter are the laments of the prophets, 
 especially of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, over this mournful 
 state of things. For our part, however, we can feel no 
 great surprise that things should have fallen out thus, 
 remembering that, though the w^orship of other gods than 
 Yahweh had been suppressed, it still had too strong a 
 hold on the heart of the people to be extirpated. Such, 
 then, was the attitude of either party, each standing in 
 marked opposition to the other and reproaching it with the 
 disasters of their common country. If they had but presented 
 a unanimous front, meanwhile, to their common foe ! But, 
 alas ! here, too, they were divided ; and by their divisions 
 they reduced the strength of Judah. And so the nation 
 marched swiftly towards its doom. Immediately on the 
 death of Josiah the people had proclaimed Jehoahaz king ; 
 but he was deposed by the victorious Neclio, and was 
 succeeded by Jehoiakim, his younger brother. In the 
 meantime Nineveh was taken by the Babylonians, so 
 that the struggle between them and the Egyptians could 
 no longer be averted. In the year 604 before Christ the two 
 armies met at Carchemis or Circesium, where the Babj^- 
 lonians, under Nebuchadrezzar, were completely victorious. 
 Syria at once fell into their hands, and Judah also was 
 obliged to submit in 602 before Christ. But dependence 
 on a foreign monarch was intolerable to the Mosaic party ; 
 and priests and prophets urged the people to rise and 
 throw off the yoke. Jehoiakim gave ear to these counsels, 
 and in 599 or 598 before Christ he revolted from Babylon. 
 He himself, however, died very shortly, and it Vs^as on his 
 son, Jehoiachin, that the consequences of his conduct fell. 
 Nebuchadrezzar laid siege to Jerusalem, and in the year 
 597 before Christ he took the city. Jehoiachin, together 
 with, a great many distinguished citizens, was carried off 
 
THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 107 
 
 to Babylon, and tlie victorious invader set up Zedekiali as 
 king. But the national party still refused to abandon the 
 struggle, and tried to fortify themselves against the 
 hated conqueror by means of alliances with the surround- 
 ing peoples. Especially did they put their hope in Egypt, 
 and when, on the death of Necho, Hophra ascended the 
 throne, Zedekiali, fancying that he might count on his 
 assistance, rebelled against Nebuchadrezzar, who conse- 
 quently laid siege to Jerusalem in the 3^ear 588 before 
 Christ. For a moment he was compelled to raise the 
 siege, since Hophra made an attempt to relieve the city. 
 But it was of no avail ; and Nebuchadrezzar soon appeared 
 again, and in the year 586 he captured Jerusalem. 
 Zedekiah was taken to Babylon, after having his eyes 
 put out. The city and the temple were given over to the 
 flames, and large numbers of the inhabitants were carried 
 captive to Babylon. Gedaliah became governor of the 
 remnant of the people, but ere long he fell by the hands 
 of assassins. Upon this most of the inhabitants of Judah 
 who were still left in their native land fled to Egj^pt, 
 carrying with them Jeremiah, who there found his grave. 
 Judah was utterly fallen, and the whole country w^as 
 desolated. 
 
 We may easily conceive what were the feelings of the 
 strict followers of Yahweh at these calamities. Up to the 
 last they had deemed such a result impossible. Both 
 priests and prophets were firmly convinced that Yahweh 
 w^ould come to the rescue ; and in that conviction they 
 steadfastly counselled resistance to the Chaldeans and 
 Babylonians. Did not the sacrifice smoke upon the altar 
 in the temple at Jerusalem ? Was not the law kept ? 
 Was not Yahweh served? How, then, should he give 
 Judah into the hands of the hated Babylonians, a people 
 
103 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 who knew not his name, and worshipped other gods ? 
 The people might not, indeed, be so prosperous as could 
 be wished, but that was no reason for supposing that the 
 heathen would triumph. Yahweh would bring them to 
 judgment. Yahweh would bring a strong hand against 
 them, and utterly destroy them. And so they had no fear, 
 but persisted to the last in preaching resistance to Nebu- 
 chadrezzar and holding up the prospect of deliverance at 
 the hand of Yahweh. 
 
 But Jeremiah was an exception. While priests and 
 prophets, ay, even such men as Habakkuk and Zechariah 
 (xii.-xiv.), blinded by their conviction that Judah was a 
 chosen people, and their faith in the permanence of their 
 nation, could not imagine that Jerusalem should fall, 
 Jeremiah interpreted things differently. So profoundly 
 was he impressed with Yahweh's holiness and righteous- 
 ness, that he saw how little the service in the temple 
 could please him. Kighteous Yahweh must punish 
 Judah, and give her over into the hands of her foes. 
 Jeremiah's love for his people yielded to his faith in the 
 holiness of Yahweh. He prophesies that Judah must 
 fall and go into captivity as a punishment for her sins. 
 Impossible for the service of Yahweh in Jerusalem and 
 the offerings in the temple to atone for all the wrong- 
 doing that had gone before. Sooner would Yahweh 
 reject his people than that his holiness should fail. But 
 he would not punish Judah for ever — only for a time. 
 After seventy years the people should come back from 
 Babylon. Then, but not till then, should Yahweh be 
 appeased, and Judah be converted. 
 
 Thus did Jeremiah, though left almost alone, hold fast 
 by his convictions, in spite of the insults of those to whom 
 he might have looked for sympathy and the charge of lack 
 
PROPHECY. 109 
 
 of patriotism, and thus did lie preach that Judah must how 
 her neck to Babylon. His countrymen would not listen 
 to him, hut Judah was overtaken by the ruin which he 
 had foreseen. The event showed that he was right, and 
 posterity accorded him the well-earned meed of honour 
 which his contemporaries had withheld. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PROPHECY. 
 
 "PEFOEE we pursue the thread of our story further, we 
 shall do well to devote some little special attention 
 to those classes of men who exercised a more than ordinary 
 influence upon the religious development of the people of 
 Israel. And we allude, first of all, to the prophets. It is 
 true that we have already had occasion from time to time 
 to notice them, inasmuch as up to the captivity almost all 
 that was great and noble in Israel proceeded from them. 
 But it is of the utmost importance that we should acquire 
 a correct idea of their character and their w^ork ; and for 
 this reason we shall now give the subject our special 
 attention. Thus we shall be able to sketch in general 
 outline the rise, the culmination, and the decline of that 
 peculiar phenomenon which is generally known as 
 *' Prophecy." 
 
 The Israelitish prophets occupy a distinct place of their 
 own among their people. They stand side by side with 
 the priests and the " sages," to both of whom they are 
 sometimes in antagonism. So thorough is their inde- 
 
110 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 pendence that they often oppose, not only the princes, 
 hut even the priests and the temple service, and with the 
 utmost freedom pronounce unfavourable judgments on 
 the sacrifices which are offered to Yahweh. And this is 
 what more than anything else distinguishes them from 
 the prophets whom we meet with among other peoples, 
 such as the Egyptians and the Greeks. The latter are 
 just as closely connected with the temple- service as the 
 priests themselves. Not so the prophets of Israel. They 
 come from all ranks of the people, high and low, and 
 some of them are of priestly families. But as prophets 
 they take a distinct rank of their own ; they are quite 
 independent of all others, and are themselves perfectly 
 conscious of their independence. 
 
 They bear various names. The prophet is usually called 
 ** nahi " — a word with which we have already made ac- 
 quaintance, meaning one who is incited or inspired by the 
 deity. He is also called "seer." These names, how- 
 ever, would not afford us sufficient knovs^ledge of the pro- 
 phet's character, if history threw no light upon the subject. 
 We may lay it down as the general characteristic of the 
 prophets that they w^ere pious men who, animated by a 
 holy enthusiasm, felt it laid upon them to bear testimony 
 to Yahweh, to declare his will, and to urge men to keep 
 his commandments. They believed that Yahweh held 
 direct communication with them, and even apprised them 
 habitually of his intentions. And this belief took all the 
 firmer root, because their ideas were not arrived at by slow 
 investigation or earnest reflection, but rather by sudden 
 intuition. Thus they ascribed the utterance of their 
 moral and religious convictions to the direct operation of 
 Yahweh; and so they called their sayings ''the word of 
 Yahweh," and expected others to recognize and acknow- 
 
PROPHECY. Ill 
 
 ledge them as such. They considered themselves the 
 interpreters of Yahweh, called by him to preach his word 
 to Israel and to reveal his will. 
 
 Prophecy had its birth in the days of Samuel. It is 
 true, as we have already mentioned,* that Moses was called 
 a prophet, and Deborah a prophetess ; but this is only the 
 mistake of later writers, and it is certain that the pro- 
 phetic inspiration, properly so called, did not show itself 
 till long after Moses, towards the end of the pe^od of the 
 Judges. It is by no means improbable that the example 
 of the Canaanitish prophets had some influence. There 
 were, indeed, seers in Israel at an earlier date, that is to 
 say, soothsaj'ers ; but they busied themselves with matters 
 altogether outside the sphere of religion, while the one 
 sole aim of the prophets was to promote the worship of 
 Yahweh. All at once we find large societies of prophets 
 appearing, known as the schools of the prophets. The 
 first mention we find of these again, after Samuel, is 
 in the time of Elijah and Elisha, whom the prophets 
 honoured as '' fathers." The members of these societies 
 were so numerous as sometimes even to be counted by 
 the hundred, like the prophets of Baal. They were con- 
 sulted by princes who wanted to know the will of Yahweh. 
 Thus they seem at this time to have constituted a class 
 strictly fenced off, and recognized and revered alike by 
 Idng and people. About a century later, in the time of 
 Amos, things were changed in this last respect ; and the 
 prophetic office had come to be regarded as a means of 
 livelihood, and many people joined the ranks without the 
 proper inspiration or the true enthusiasm, merely for the 
 sake of leading a quiet, comfortable life. The result was 
 that the popular respect for these men greatly declined, 
 * See page 55. 
 
112 THE EELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 and Amos himself boasts that he is neither a prophet nor 
 the son of a prophet, meaning that he did not belong to 
 their rank, and had not come out of their schools — proof 
 enough that, in his opinion too, their olden glory was 
 departed and their olden spirit lacking. 
 
 This is the last trace of the schools of the prophets 
 that we find in history. After Amos they disappeared 
 entirely. It would seem that they were more numerous 
 in Israel than in Judah. At any rate, it is only in the" 
 former that we meet with them. 
 
 From what has now been said of the schools of the 
 prophets, it will be seen that here, too, we have to deal 
 with a development and a decline, as is the case in every 
 phenomenon in the history of religion. Nor need we be 
 surprised at this. At first these societies were very 
 favourable to the awakening and intensifying of national 
 feeling in Israel. Young men, taken from the midst of 
 the nation, penetrated with the spirit of Yahweh, bore 
 glowing witness to the calling of Israel to remain true 
 to the god of its fathers, wdio by mighty deeds had shown 
 that he had chosen Israel for his peculiar people. These 
 efforts were crowned with the happiest results, and it 
 would not be easy to exaggerate the influence over the 
 people which the prophets thus acquired. But, as we have 
 seen, it did not always remain so. In large societies, 
 enthusiasm cannot long maintain itself at the same pitch, 
 and by degrees here, too, it came to move along the track 
 of custom. Hence, in later times, many young men be- 
 came prophets, attracted by the honours and the gains 
 which the career offered, but without any of the pro- 
 phetic inspiration. But hence, too, when the schools of 
 the prophets were on the decline, the genuine prophets, men 
 really possessed by the spirit of Yahweh, stood aloof from. 
 
PROPHECY. 113 
 
 and even in contrast to, the old societies. That same Amos 
 who made it his boast that he was neither a prophet, in 
 the ordinary sense of the word, nor the son of a prophet, 
 dechired that Yahweh had taken him from tending the 
 flocks and commanded him to testify before Israel. 
 Thus prophecy advanced beyond the point to which 
 it was carried by the schools ; and its progress was due 
 to individuals, such as Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, and 
 Jeremiah, and not to the whole class. The consequence 
 was, that not only did differences of opinion arise among 
 the pro^^hets, but definite hostility. In Samuel's times, 
 and in those of Elijah and Elisha too, they still formed 
 an united party under the guidance of these men them- 
 selves, and we hear nothing of any differences of opinion 
 or of purpose ; whereas, in the eighth century and subse- 
 quently, the best and most advanced prophets opposed the 
 general body ; and just as Amos was ashamed of the 
 majority of the prophets, Jeremiah bitterly complains of 
 them, and denounces them in no measured terms. He 
 is conscious that there is a deep gulf fixed between his 
 views and theirs ; he opposes them with all his might, 
 and calls them false prophets, — just as they in their turn 
 resist his influence in every way in their power. 
 
 This advance is accompanied by a change in the pro- 
 phets' method of working which we must not overlook. 
 Up to the eighth century the prophets acted in union and 
 as a distinct party ; they spoke in the name of a large 
 body of persons, and were conscious of the power which 
 this circumstance secured to them in affairs of state. 
 Their activity had no small influence on national politics. 
 In Ephraim they effected several revolutions, and often 
 succeeded in placing a new dynasty on the throne, inas- 
 
 I 
 
114 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 mucli as they represented the sentiments of a large sec- 
 tion of the nation. This was the case with Samuel, and 
 with Elijah and Elisha also. They were not preachers, 
 properly so called, hut men of action who took part in 
 affairs. But the great prophets of the eighth and seventh 
 centuries were men of another stamp ; they were no 
 longer the spokesmen of a party ; they were no longer 
 supported hy a numerous following. On the contrary, 
 they stood almost alone. The fact of their heing so much 
 in advance of the majority of the prophets deprived them 
 of their assistance and co-operation, and at the same time 
 of much of their influence in affairs of state. They were 
 thus reduced to confine themselves more and more to the 
 one thing hy which they could exercise power, that is 
 their preaching. They made themselves heard wherever 
 they could, in the temple at Bethel, in that at Jerusalem, 
 in streets and squares, and wherever they could find ears 
 to listen to them. Thus they came to be men of speech, 
 and testified of Yahweh, and communicated his command- 
 ments to all who would hearken. 
 
 And it is these men that we have to thank for the sub- 
 limity to which the religion of Israel attained. Samuel 
 preserved Yahwism from perishing before the power of 
 the Canaanitish religion ; Elijah and his school defended 
 the reverence and service of Yahweh against the Tyrian 
 Baal ; but the prophets of the eighth and seventh cen- 
 turies ascribed an ever-increasing loftiness and purity to 
 Yahweh' s own being, and with great force urged and 
 further advanced the belief in his unity and his moral 
 and spiritual character. We have already come across 
 these men in dealing with the history of Judah and Israel ; 
 and we will now try to sketch in a few strokes the exalted 
 conception of Yahweh which we meet with in them. 
 
PROPHECY. 115 
 
 Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah are the first strict 
 monotheists. "While the other gods had hitherto been 
 beHeved to exist side by side with Yahweh, and the contem- 
 poraries of these men still held that view, they themselves 
 place these gods on a par with their images, and draw 
 no distinction between w^orshipping strange gods and 
 image- worship. The other gods are not real gods at 
 all. Yahweh is sole lord of heaven and earth ; and Yah- 
 weh only is to be served. 
 
 The duty of serving Yahweh rests in the first place 
 with Israel. For Yahweh has chosen Israel to be his 
 peculiar people, and loves Israel with the tenderest love, 
 as a man loves his wife. He has always poured out his 
 blessing upon Israel ; he has led it ever since he brought 
 it out from Egypt, and has never wearied in his loving- 
 kindness or his faithfulness. But Israel is bound in 
 return to honour Yahweh as its god. Israel must consider 
 the close and tender relation which subsists between 
 Y^ahweh and his people and keep his commandments 
 accordingly. And it is most of all worthy of notice that, 
 according to the prophets, these commandments are all 
 of a moral nature. Obedience is better than burnt-offer- 
 ings. Yahweh has no pleasure in rams and goats, but 
 desires righteousness and mercy, cleanness of heai-t and 
 life. In short, so deeply were the prophets impressed 
 with the holiness of their god, that they taught their 
 countrymen that only by a strictly moral life could they 
 serve him. 
 
 And their expectation with regard to the future of their 
 nation was closely connected with these views. We shall 
 presently deal with this subject at greater length, and 
 need now only mention the main point of that expecta- 
 tion. They cherished the hope that one day Israel should 
 
 I 2 
 
116 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 altogetlier belong to Yaliweli, and serve him with abiding 
 zeal ; so that here, too, their preaching bore a moral 
 character, which, however much it might vary according 
 to the peculiarities of the individual prophet, was always 
 conspicuous, and must ever excite our reverence for the 
 pure and holy spirit which animated them and for the 
 sincerity of their piety. 
 
 Seeing that the prophets looked at everything wdiich 
 concerned Israel in connection with the spiritual relation 
 between Yahweh and his people, it was natural enough 
 that they should express opinions about affairs of state. 
 They were not, however, guided by political principles, 
 but solely by their theocratic opinions. Thus Isaiah 
 warned his contemporaries against any alliance with As- 
 syria or Egypt, such as many were recommending at the 
 time, because he could see no hope of safety except in 
 a return to Yahweh and fidelity to his commandments. 
 Jeremiah, on the other hand, more than a century after- 
 wards, exhorted his countrymen to submit to the Chal- 
 deans, though the Mosaic party were doing all they could 
 to encourage resistance. The reason was, that he was 
 thoroughly convinced that the sins of Israel could not 
 escape punishment at the hands of Yahweh, and that 
 the fall of Judah could, therefore, no longer be averted. 
 Both Isaiah and Jeremiah were directly moved to take 
 the line they did by their religious convictions, and not 
 by political considerations. 
 
 If we proceed to inquire what influence the prophets 
 exercised on their contemporaries, it seems that the an- 
 swer cannot be of a very satisfactory nature. The prophetic 
 writings which have come down to us are full of endless 
 lamentations over the sins of the people, their going 
 
PROPHECY. 117 
 
 after strange gods, their image- worship, their unfaith- 
 fubiess to Yahweh, their frivolity and their immorality. 
 This kind of complaint is so general with the prophets, 
 that we can only suppose that it expressed their universal 
 experience ; from which it would appear that their influence 
 over the people was not very great. They did, of course, 
 find some kindred spirits who became their friends and 
 disciples, but as a rule these were but a small minority. 
 Nor can we be at all surprised at this when we reflect on 
 the changes that had come over the prophets themselves. 
 In the olden times, such men as Samuel or Elijah and 
 Elisha held opinions very like those of the rest of the 
 Yahweh party ; so that they were more in sympathy with 
 the people and were able to exercise a powerful influence 
 over them. But when some of the prophets had attained 
 to a deeper religious insight, and had risen above the mass 
 of their own colleagues, the divergence between them and 
 the people grew too great. Such a man as Isaiah was 
 not understood by the multitude ; with his monotheism 
 and his purely moral principles, he stood too far above 
 the men of Jerusalem, who were willing enough to wor- 
 ship Yahweh, but worshipped other gods along with him. 
 And Jeremiah was so much in advance of his contem- 
 poraries, that even such men as Habakkuk and Zechariah 
 (xii.-xiv.), most strict Yahweh- worshippers and prophets 
 though they were, were nevertheless opposed to him. 
 What must other people have thought of him, then, and 
 how scanty must his influence have been ! Nor was the 
 case different with the famous prophet of the captivity 
 generally known as the second Isaiah. Men might, in- 
 deed, listen to him, and even rejoice at his glorious 
 predictions ; but as for shaping their lives in harmony 
 with the spirit of his teaching, they never thought of it, for 
 
118 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 he, too, stood far in advance of the great mass of the 
 people. 
 
 To this we must add that a different spirit, that of 
 the scribes, began to make itself felt in Israel after the 
 captivity, while a different power, that of the priests, rose 
 to the ascendant. The authority of the Law now took the 
 place of the freedom of the prophets and their inspiring 
 utterances. Men no longer heard Yahweh's word, or 
 spoke from out of the treasure of their hearts, but they 
 cultivated a habit of intellectual reflection on what Yahweh 
 had uttered in ages gone by. This was the death-knell of 
 prophecy. It is true that here and there a voice might 
 still be heard, but this was but a faint and feeble echo of 
 the mighty voices of the past. The spirit of prophecy 
 was crushed out beneath the pressure of the Law, and after 
 Ezra no prophet arose in Israel. 
 
 We see distinct indications that prophecy was pining 
 away in Haggai, Zechariah (i.— viii.), and Malachi, the most 
 prominent prophets of the age which followed the captivity. 
 They speak under the shadow of a profound disappoint- 
 ment, from which they cannot escape. They cannot 
 conceal from themselves the fact that the fair anticipations 
 of the older prophets have not been fulfilled. Jeremiah had 
 spoken of seventy years ; the second Isaiah had predicted 
 the fall of Babylon and the ensuing restoration of Israel. 
 But, alas ! the seventy years were gone, and Babylon 
 was fallen, yet the woe of Israel was not removed. 
 What wonder that zeal should wane, when men had 
 lamentations such as these to utter, or that enthusiasm 
 could not sustain itself ? Its place is usurped by that 
 sober thoughtfulness and calm reflection which busies 
 itself with investigating a state of affairs which it no 
 longer understands. And if we further observe how 
 
PKOPHECY. 119 
 
 different is the ideal of a pious Israelite from what it used 
 to be, no longer of the free prophetic type, we cannot be 
 surprised at prophecy dying out of Israel. 
 
 We must not leave this subject without a word about 
 the so-called false prophets. We have already seen that 
 the great men of the eighth and following centuries had to 
 act in opposition to the majority. This was, above all, 
 the case with Jeremiah. He stood almost alone. AU 
 who were opposed to him were, to his thinking, false pro- 
 phets, that is to say, they did not testify rightly concerning 
 Yahweh. On the other hand, his opponents reproached 
 him with being no true prophet of the god of Israel. 
 The writer of the Book of Deuteronomy, too, utters 
 warnings against false prophets. No man may prophesy 
 what Yahweh has not put into his mouth, and no man 
 may prophesy in the name of other gods. And hereby 
 shall the people know whether a man be a true prophet : if 
 his words are not confirmed by the event, or, if he en- 
 courages men to worship other gods, then he is no servant 
 of Yahweh He only can be a true prophet who remains 
 faithful to Yahweh. 
 
120 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 THE MESSIANIC EXPECTATION. 
 
 TF we now turn our attention specially to the Messianic 
 Expectation of the prophets, it is not because what 
 they say on this subject constitutes a preponderating part 
 of their preaching, or is more important than all the rest, 
 but only because their expressions have hitherto been 
 represented in so perverse a manner as to render it 
 necessary that we should set ourselves to place them in 
 the true light of history. 
 
 We have made acquaintance with the prophets as 
 preachers of Yahweh, the god of Israel. They had a 
 lively idea of his power and glory, and his holiness and 
 righteousness. They were thoroughly convinced that his 
 rule extended to the whole world of nature and of man, 
 and that all his divine demands must be complied with. 
 And if this was not yet the case, they were well assured 
 that the time must come when it would be, since Yahweh 
 had dominion. These two conceptions were most inti- 
 mately connected together, just as, in general, all 
 pious men in every age have cherished the certain hope 
 that there was a good time coming, for which God had 
 destined mankind. The hopes which the prophets of 
 Israel indulged are peculiar only in the form in which they 
 are expressed. 
 
 "We usually call this hope of theirs the " Messianic 
 Expectation," from the Hebrew word " Messiah," in 
 
THE MESSIANIC EXPECTATION. 121 
 
 Greek, " Christ " ; and in English, '' an anointed one," or 
 a king. Many of the prophets gave expression to their 
 hopes of better times in the form of a prediction that a 
 king, or " Messiah," should appear. And because this 
 form of the expectation came to be the best known, and most 
 celebrated, it is called "Messianic" in all its forms, 
 although several of the prophets never said a word about 
 any such Messiah. 
 
 We need not be surprised to find traces of this hope of 
 a good time coming in other writings besides those which 
 are properly called prophetic. We find it definitely ex- 
 pressed in some of the historical books of the Old 
 Testament, which is the less to be wondered at when we 
 remember that these books were, to a great extent, written 
 by prophets. Thus, in Genesis xii. 2, the promise is 
 given to Abraham, " In thee shall all nations of the 
 earth be blessed"; which means, all nations shall gaze 
 upon you and desire such prosperity as yours for them- 
 selves. This is evidently meant to express the anticipation 
 of a glorious future for Israel. In 2 Samuel vii. 12-16, 
 a speech is put into Nathan's mouth, in which he promises 
 David that the crown shall be hereditary in his house. 
 Yahweh shall love his family as a father loves his child, 
 and establish his seat of government for ever. This is 
 an expectation belonging to a later period, and similar to 
 what we shall presently meet with again in some of the 
 prophets. 
 
 The most general form in which the older prophets 
 express their anticipations is this : that a blessed future 
 shall dawn for Israel as the people of God. The belief 
 in the immortality of man had not yet arisen; it was 
 thought that the spirit was annihilated at death, or 
 
122 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 returned to Yaliweli who had given it. But it was 
 believed that the nation would endure and be blessed. 
 Yahweh would hold a judgment, and a portion of the 
 people would repent and serve him as in the days of 
 old. Then it was thought that a time of peace and 
 happiness would dawn for Israel ; and the sister-peoples, 
 Ephraim and Judah, would be united and share the 
 blessing of Yahweh. The land would produce abundant 
 €orn and wine ; dearth and famine should be no more ; 
 there should be peace with the sarroundiug peoples ; 
 swords and spears should be beaten into scythes and 
 pruning-hooks. 
 
 Amos, Hosea, Zechariah (ix.-xi.), Micah and Isaiah 
 agree in this fair sketch of the coming time. They 
 express their anticipations in the most beautiful imagery, 
 and sometimes in language of great sublimity. Amos (in 
 ix. 11, with which may be compared, also, Hosea iii. 5) 
 expresses the further expectation that Yahweh will set up 
 the fallen tabernacle of David, meaning that Ephraim and 
 Judah shall be united under David's house, while Isaiah 
 and Micah direct the hopes of Israel tovv'ards a noble prince 
 who should spring from the family of the famous monarch. 
 They said that the prince would be anointed by Yahweh, 
 that he would rule his people in righteousness, and that the 
 spirit of Yahweh should rest upon him. He was to come 
 out of Bethlehem, that is, the house of David, which 
 had originally belonged to a little town of that name in 
 Judah. 
 
 It was in this form that the Messianic Expectation 
 became most widely known, especially when, in later times, 
 the Christians found in it a foreshadowing of Jesus and 
 his birth at Bethlehem. But we need hardly stop to 
 prove that the prophets had no such application as this in 
 
THE MESSIANIC EXPECTATION. 123 
 
 their tliouglits. For the interpretation which was subse- 
 quently given to their words, the significance which was 
 attached to them, or the stories which were tacked 
 on to them, the prophets themselves of course are not 
 responsible. All that we have to do at present is 
 to consider how they came to fix upon a king of the 
 house of David. We must recollect that to the minds of 
 the prophets- David was the ideal of a true theocratic 
 prince ; according to their views his reign had been the 
 golden age in the history of Israel. In his days the 
 nation had been great and prosperous ; in his days — 
 so they fancied — Yahweh had been served in a proper 
 manner ; and if it were ever again so in Israel, as 
 surely it must be, — if Israel were ever great again and 
 faithful to its god, then would times like the times of 
 David return once more, and a prince like him once 
 more sit upon the throne. Inasmuch as Yahweh was 
 gracious to his people, he would certainly some day give 
 them a king like David, and descended from his house. 
 Of course all the prophets did not represent things in just 
 the same light. These expectations were modified by the 
 idiosjmcrasies of the particular prophet, and the circum- 
 stances by which he was surrounded. Thus, about a 
 century after Isaiah, we find almost the same expectation 
 expressed by Habakkuk, and the unknown writer of 
 Zechariah, xii.-xiv. They said that Yahweh would judge 
 Israel, and Israel should repent and be blessed. The last- 
 mentioned prophet also expected the restoration of the 
 house of David. Bat their contemporary, Jeremiah, 
 although no less assured than they were of a restora- 
 tion in the remote future, expected a fearful judgment, 
 first. Judah must fall into the hands of the Chaldeans 
 and their king, Nebuchadrezzar. The inhabitants of 
 
124 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 Jerusalem and Judah were to be led captive to Babylon, 
 and to sojourn there seventy years — a round number. 
 Then, and only then, should Babylon fall, and the captives 
 return from all parts of the world to which they had been 
 scattered, — the men of Ephraim first, and then those of 
 Judah. All were then to be converted, and Yahweh would 
 grant them a season of much blessing. He would make 
 a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the 
 house of Judah, not according to the old covenant which 
 he had made with their fathers, in the day that he took 
 them by the hand to bring them up out of Egypt, for 
 they had broken the covenant of Yahweh, though he 
 was a lord to them. But this is the covenant which 
 Yahweh shall make with the house of Israel in those 
 days : he will put his law in their inward parts and 
 write it in their hearts ; he will be their god and they shall 
 be his people. And they shall teach no more every man his 
 neighbour and every man his brother, saying. Know 
 Yahweh, — for they shall all know him from the least of them 
 unto the greatest of them ; and Yahweh will forgive their 
 iniquity and remember their sin no more. Then shall 
 Yahweh raise up a righteous branch to David ; he shall 
 rule as king. There shall be peace under a line of princes, 
 shepherds of the people of that ancient house ; there shall 
 be abundance of cattle and sheep, of corn and wine ; and 
 unbroken joy shall dwell in Israel. There shall no longer 
 be an ark, and it shall not be missed ; for the whole of 
 Jerusalem shall be called the throne of Yahweh. 
 
 In the second Isaiah we meet with a further and most 
 important modification in the prophetic expectation with 
 regard to Israel's future. He sets aside all mention of a 
 j)rince of the house of David or of a personal Messiah. 
 
THE MESSIANIC EXPECTATION. 125 
 
 Times were altogether changed, and David's line had sunk 
 too low for him to cherish any hopes of its restoration. 
 Instead of the ideal put forward by the older prophets, we 
 find him expressing the expectation that Yahweh would 
 glorify himself in his servant. In speaking of " the 
 servant of Yahweh," the prophet does not mean any 
 individual, but the religious kernel of the nation, the 
 prophets themselves in the first place, and, in addition, all 
 who are faithful to Yahweh. Yahweh has chosen this 
 servant to himself, and for his sake he will be 
 gracious to the whole of Israel. But to that end the 
 servant must take the sins of his people upon himself ; 
 being a part of Israel, he must bear Israel's diseases, 
 be wounded for Israel's sins and bruised for Israel's 
 iniquities. Then, and not till then, shall the glory of 
 old be restored, and Israel have dominion over the 
 heathen. And even these shall be converted by the 
 servant of Yahweh. They shall be witnesses of his 
 patient suffering, they shall hearken to his preaching, and 
 become acquainted with Yahweh, and call upon him as 
 their god. Thus shall the servant of Yahweh be a light 
 to the G-entiles and lead them into righteousness. 
 
 Thus culminated the Messianic Expectation of the 
 l^rophets. In the second Isaiah it reached its loftiest 
 point, and showed in the most attractive manner its 
 moral and rehgious character. It burst the narrow 
 bonds of the sentiment of nationality and waxed more 
 broadly human. After this prophet it never appeared 
 in the same form again. Circumstances changed and 
 new modes of feeling arose in Israel. In Haggai and 
 Zechariah (i.-viii.), who appeared in Jerusalem shortly 
 after the second Isaiah, and in Malachi, the contemporary 
 of Ezra and Nehemiah, we find no more such high and 
 
126 THE EELIGION OF ISBAEL. 
 
 enthusiastic hopes. The thing is easily explained, for 
 we know that sad experience and hitter disappointments 
 had extinguished enthusiasm, and with its disappearance 
 hope could no longer maintain so high a pitch. We 
 have nothing hut continual repetitions of lamentations 
 over the times, with announcements that Yahweh will 
 surely hring judgment to pass, and promises that after 
 that a hotter day shall dawn. In Malachi we find the 
 further idea that Yahweh will send the prophet Elijah 
 before the day of judgment comes, to give Israel a 
 last chance of repenting. Thus was the hope kept 
 alive indeed, but bereft of ardour, until long afterwards 
 it acquired renewed force, and began to show itself in 
 other forms. 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 THE SAGES. 
 
 TT/'E have already had occasion* to mention " the sages," 
 and made acquaintance with Solomon as the first 
 of the line. It will be well to take this opportunity of 
 examining them and their work with closer and more 
 special attention and of giving a short sketch of their 
 history during the whole period that they flourished in 
 Israel. 
 
 Originally the character of these sages was not distinctly 
 religious. They were men who excelled in acuteness of 
 * See page 77. 
 
THE SAGES. 127 
 
 observation, and put their conclusions into sliort and pithy 
 sentences, often characterized by genuine wit. They 
 by no means confined their attention to Israel, but kept 
 their eyes open for anything good among other nations. 
 Like Solomon, they were inclined to cosmopolitanism. 
 They desired to exhibit and to instruct their contemporaries 
 in whatever was human, and not exclusively what was. 
 Israelitish. At first their -wisdom, which was called 
 *' chokmah," was very simple, without much depth, and 
 of a purely secular character. At that time the sage& 
 stood in opposition to the prophets, in so far as they 
 were devoid of sympathy with their efforts to keep 
 Israel from all contact with strange peoples, or with 
 their notion that safety was only to be found in strict 
 and exclusive Yahwism ; and they were no less 
 removed from any sympathy with the insistance of the 
 priests on the temple-observances. The wisdom which 
 they taught was at first the wisdom of daily life or of 
 ordinary common sense. It was neither high-flown nor 
 enthusiastic, and on that very account it had great in- 
 fluence with the people. For their proverbs, and riddles, 
 and lessons were easy to understand, being uttered by 
 men who stood in closer relation to the common people, 
 and were nearer to them in thought and spiritual capacity 
 than the priests or the prophets. 
 
 In the course of time, however, the sages began to 
 lay more stress on serving Yahweh, and applied them- 
 selves earnestly to the great problems of religion ; and 
 the tone of their utterances underwent a corresponding 
 change. Those books of the Old Testament which were 
 written by sages, namely, Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes, 
 afford proof of this gradual modification. We will 
 accordingly examine them one by one. 
 
128 THE KELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 The Book of Proverbs is not the work of a single 
 hand or of a single age, but contains eight collections of 
 various dimensions. The oldest group belongs to the 
 eighth century, and may, perhaps, embrace a few pro- 
 verbs to be ascribed to Solomon. An important section 
 belongs to the seventh century, while neither of the last 
 two chapters was written till after the captivity. Besides 
 Solomon, "sages" generally are mentioned as authors, 
 while " the men of Hezekiah," whoever they may be, 
 appear as the collectors of one group. 
 
 The book deals with a variety of topics. Truthfulness, 
 faithfulness, honour, industry, thrift, temperance, chastity, 
 self-restraint, mercy, obedience to parents — these, one and 
 all, are urged upon the reader. It is all put into the 
 shape of proverbs, in short and pithy saws. The form of 
 expression is rhythmical, which is the general character- 
 istic of Hebrew poetry. The proverbs are so arranged 
 that both members of the verse convey the same idea, 
 though clad in different words, or else so that the second 
 part contains a contrast to the first. Both these forms of 
 verse are called *' parallelism." Elsewhere, again, the 
 two sections of the verse express different truths, which 
 are nevertheless closely connected with one another, or 
 they comprise a comparison. 
 
 Of course all the different authors do not speak from 
 the same point of view. We saw just now how the 
 character of the " Wisdom " was gradually modified ; and 
 this may be seen clearly enough in the different collections 
 of adages which make up this book. In the oldest parts, 
 which belong to the eighth century before Christ, we have 
 the most simple lessons of practical wisdom, with nothing 
 \evy lofty about them, but yet, even then, all in the in- 
 terests of Yahwism. Many sages had then forsaken the 
 
THE SAGES. 129 
 
 teacliing of Solomon, and exchanged their indifference to 
 religion for genuine interest and respect. And this is 
 still more the case subsequently, — in the seventh century. 
 The author of Proverbs i. 7-ix. lived at that time, and 
 ap23roached so closely to the prophets that he often speaks 
 quite in their spirit. We are indebted to him for the beau- 
 tiful saying that **the fear of Yahwehis the beginning of 
 wisdom." This is his leading idea. Wisdom must be in 
 liarmony with Yahwism. He holds the belief in God 
 and his holiness and righteousness as firmly as the 
 prophets themselves. He conceives of " Wisdom " as 
 an attribute of Yahweh, or rather, by a kind of personi- 
 fication, as a companion of Yahweh' s from the foundation 
 of the world. In exalted language, she gives utterance 
 to pure conceptions of religion which may be likened to 
 those of the prophets. The writer of this part of Proverbs 
 reminds one above all of the Deuteronomist, and the simi- 
 larity extends even to forms of expression. And this shows 
 how Wisdom gradually developed in Israel, and did its 
 share towards increasing the popularity of the religion 
 of Yahweh. 
 
 The Book of Job is a sublime and wonderfully beauti- 
 ful poem, composed by a contemporary of Jeremiah, who 
 probably lived in the south of Judah. He tries to solve 
 the riddles of God's government in connection with the 
 calamities that befall the pious. It is by no means 
 improbable that he wrote under the stimulus of the 
 death of Josiah, a calamity the magnitude of which we 
 have described above,* and which was such a mournful and 
 insoluble riddle to all the faithful. This writer, like so 
 many others, had observed the apparent inconsistency 
 
 * See page 104. 
 
 K 
 
130 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 Ijetween Yaliweli's righteousness and the adversities of 
 his faithful worshippers, and he sets himself to discover 
 the reconciliation between the two. He dresses up his 
 argument in the story of the pious Job, a story likely 
 enough not without some historical foundation. At first 
 the favourite of fortune, rich in honours and blessings. 
 Job suddenly meets with the most terrible reverses, and 
 is bereft of all his possessions and all his children. He 
 has nothing left. Lonely, and stricken with a horrible 
 disease, he sits down upon the ground. His wife urges 
 him with scoffing words to forsake God, who has over- 
 whelmed him with such calamities ; but Job retains his 
 integrity : Yahweh had given and Yahweh had taken 
 away ; he had received good at his hand, and should he 
 not receive evil also ? 
 
 Three friends come to visit him, and, in accordance 
 with the popular belief of their day, urge him to confess 
 his sins; for they maintain that it must be for his 
 sins that Yahweh, the Holy One, is punishing him. God 
 is righteous, and therefore a man's fortunes must be the 
 measure of his piety. If any one is unfortunate he must 
 have sinned, though it be years ago, and though it entirely 
 escaped notice. God overtakes the guilty ; and the un- 
 fortunate is always guilty. Job's friends continually 
 revert to this fundamental conception. But Job himself 
 declares his innocence in the most emphatic language. 
 He can recall no sin that he has committed. His con- 
 science acquits him. His misfortunes cannot possibly 
 be the penalty or punishment of any transgression. He 
 bursts into bitter and vehement complaints over his misery 
 and the hardship of God's dealings with him ; and he 
 always has an answer ready for the assertions of his 
 friends. Nevertheless, he himself cannot find the solu- 
 
THE SAGES. 131 
 
 tion of the calamities that befall him ; the method of 
 God's government remains a riddle to him. 
 
 At last Yahweh himself is introduced to reply to Job's 
 complaints. But even Yahweh does not explain his deal- 
 ings ; he only adduces his divine power and wisdom to 
 awe Job into silence. So insignificant and humble a 
 being as man cannot fathom the counsels of God ; but 
 instead of withstanding him, he ought to yield him a 
 complete submission. 
 
 Such, then, is the conclusion to which the writer comes. 
 The relation between virtue and happiness neither is nor 
 can be understood ; it is in its very nature incomprehen- 
 sible. God is righteous, and therefore pious men must 
 prosper — of this the writer is firmly persuaded; again, 
 pious men are often unfortunate — of this experience gives 
 unquestionable proof; these two assertions contradict 
 (iach other, and yet they must both be true. To extricate 
 himself from the dilemma, our author makes his hero 
 quite prosperous again at the end : the prosperity which 
 Job found in his latter days far surpassed his former pros- 
 perity. In this the poet contradicts himself; but he 
 cannot help it, because he does not know where to find the 
 solution of the mystery. 
 
 In this sketch of the sages of Israel and their writings 
 we must, for the sake of completeness, say something 
 about EccLESiASTES, although this book belongs to a 
 much later period, and was written under entirely different 
 circumstances to those which we have hitherto been con- 
 templating. It dates from the end of the third century 
 before Christ, and is the work of an unknown author, who 
 writes in the name of Solomon, the son of David, king 
 in Jerusalem. As to this last point, writing in the name 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 of some celebrated character of antiquity is not, according 
 to our notions, a moral proceeding. But in those days 
 it was a pretty general practice, and was thought to be 
 justified by the hope of exercising a wider influence. 
 Probably this assumption of the name of Solomon 
 accounts for Ecclesiastes having been admitted by the 
 scribes of Jerusalem into the ranks of Holy Scripture. 
 There was a great deal in it that was at variance with 
 their opinions, but their respect for the name of Israel's 
 royal sage forbade them to leave this book out. 
 
 The writer gave Solomon the title of '* Preacher," 
 from which the book itself derives the name of 
 " Koheleth," rendered by the Greek word, " Eccle- 
 siastes," which, like the original, signifies one who 
 preaches. The author lived at a time when Israel's 
 fortunes were very low. The splendour of the people 
 of Israel had faded away, and their might was broken. 
 They were sighing under the yoke of the Greeks. 
 Anarchy and impious violence everywhere prevailed. 
 All this the Preacher beholds ; and he narrowly and 
 keenly observes the circumstances of the time. Appar- 
 rently he is a man of distinction among his people, 
 and his heart can find no satisfaction in what con- 
 stitutes the delight of the scribes. He therefore 
 finds no comfort in his pain, and knows no solution 
 to the riddles of life. On the one hand, he holds fast by 
 the belief in God and his righteousness. This belief is 
 so deeply rooted in Israel, that not even he can doubt it. 
 But, on the other hand, he beholds the frightful misery 
 and all the evil that happens under the sun, and he can 
 neither explain it nor reconcile it with the government of 
 God. Less bigoted than the strictly orthodox Jews — 
 especially the scribes — he was not interested exclusively 
 
THE SAGES. 133 
 
 in tilings purely Israelitish. But even his larger range of. 
 vision 3-ielded him no satisfaction. He tried to find peace 
 in pleasure, but it palled upon him ; he turned to wisdom 
 in search of what he wanted, but it was in vain ; there is 
 no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool. Hence 
 his saying that all is vanity on the earth. He has no 
 choice but to abide in this belief, but it is no haj)py faith ; 
 he acquiesces in evil out of despair. He is a thorough- 
 going pessimist ; and so he comes to the conclusion that 
 the best advice he can give men is, not to weary them- 
 selves, but just to enjoy whatever God lets them enjoy. 
 According to him, we ought to fear God, but not out of 
 devotion or because we love him ; simply because he is a 
 God of righteousness, who severely punishes the trans- 
 gression of his commands. Moreover, he has none of 
 that consciousness of the near presence of God which we 
 meet with in the prophets and several of the psalmists, 
 and which gives us so high an idea of their piety and their 
 sincere religious feeling. To his thinking, God is far 
 away in heaven, and so he tells us not to be rash before 
 God, and not to be hasty to utter anything before him. 
 His advice comes pretty much to this : fatigue yourself 
 as little as possible with doing God's commandments ; 
 you cannot neglect them altogether, because God would 
 punish you if you did ; but do not put yourselves to incon- 
 venience by troubling too much about them. And his theory 
 of morals is quite in harmony with this view. His principle 
 is to avoid all extremes ; we must not be too righteous or 
 too wise, but neither must we be too wicked, for if we are either 
 one or the other, we shall bring destruction on our heads. 
 Thus the Preacher's point of view is neither very reli- 
 gious nor highly moral. He stands below a great many 
 of his predecessors and contemporaries. However, we 
 
134 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 must not forget that he lived in the midst of a most 
 melancholy state of things, and that the efforts of the 
 scribes could not possibly satisfy him. The Law and the 
 temple filled others with enthusiasm ; but they had no 
 power to touch him. His range of vision was wider than 
 that of others, but his needs were greater too. 
 
 Nor must we forget to mention his disbelief in the 
 personal immortality of man. The belief in it existed in 
 his day, and he was well acquainted with it ; but he 
 denies it and argues against it. Man dies like the brutes, 
 and he is no better than they. Hence his gloom ; for 
 him there was no hope in the future, no comfort in the 
 present, no solution of the riddles of life. Truly, false as 
 is his point of view, his gloom is no longer a puzzle to us. 
 
 Yery shortly after the Preacher, Jesus, the son of 
 Sirach, w^rote his famous Proverbs, known as Eccle- 
 siasticus. This book did not obtain a place in the Old 
 Testament, but it has been preserved for us in a Greek 
 translation. This Jesus is also a sage, but in a better 
 sense than the Preacher. He is strongly attached to the 
 Law, the temple, the priests, and the services of religion. 
 He stands on the foundations of the ancient Israelitish 
 faith, and makes the ideas of the prophets his starting- 
 point. On these principles he founds his theory of 
 morals, which is far loftier than that of the Preacher. 
 
 These writers are the last of the sages of Israel. If 
 writers of this class do not occupy so prominent a place in 
 the history of the religious progress of this people as the 
 prophets, the scribes, and the priests, yet, by proclaiming 
 their moral ideas, they did their part in bringing the 
 application of the principles of the prophets home to their 
 countrymen. 
 
135 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE BABYLONISH CAPTIVITY. 
 
 "ITTE must now once more take up the thread of our 
 story, and turn our attention to the condition of 
 the Israelites after Nebuchadrezzar had laid waste Jeru- 
 salem and the temple. Those who were left in Judah 
 were deeply conscious of the wretchedness of their lot, 
 and the description of it preserved for us in the Book of 
 Xiamentations abundantly testifies how dire was their 
 misery. Obadiah, and possibly one other prophet as 
 well, still prophesied among them ; and from Ezekiel 
 xxxiii. 23-29 we see that they still cherished a feeble 
 hope that Israel's restoration would come from themselves. 
 But this hope proved altogether vain ; their power was 
 shattered once for all. 
 
 We have but little information with respect to the con- 
 dition of the captives. We know that one party — the 
 first who were carried away — settled on the river Chebar, 
 while it is said that the second and third detachments 
 were taken to Babylon — a term which may be used for 
 the surrounding country as well as for the city itself. 
 How they lived there we do not know. Probably some of 
 them, at any rate, continued to lead the life of husband- 
 men, or practised some handicraft, but there can be no 
 doubt that a great many soon began to apply themselves 
 to trade, to which circumstances naturally incHned them. 
 It is probable, too, that the majority of them, at any rate. 
 
136 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 rose to a certain degree of prosperity in the course of 
 time. So that their condition was, at the worst, perfectly 
 tolerable. 
 
 Those mutual differences in religious opinions and 
 ideas which we have seen among them from of old still 
 maintained themselves. The worship of strange gods 
 still flourished to such a degree that all the zeal of Ezekiel 
 was necessary to contend against it. Then, again, among 
 the faithful servants of Yahweh there were those who 
 thought that the sojourn in Babylon would not be for 
 long — an opinion which Jeremiah vehemently opposed in 
 a letter which has been preserved. On the other hand, 
 however, there was an increase of those who agreed with 
 that prophet in hoping for a restoration at some future 
 time, but, like him, did not expect it to take place for a 
 great many years, and, looking at things in much the 
 same way as the writer of the Book of Deuteronomy, 
 appealed to the holiness of Yahweh as an argument that 
 matters could never mend unless Israel were converted. 
 They appealed to the history of their people to show that 
 the only hope of salvation for Israel lay in unswerving 
 attachment to Yahweh. Most likely the Books of Judges, 
 Samuel, and Kings were written at this time, or a little 
 later. Perhaps they are by the author of Deuteronomy, 
 and, at any rate, they are just what he might have 
 written. 
 
 Ezekiel takes the most distinguished place among the 
 prophets who appeared in the first period of the captivity. 
 He was a priest who had been transported with the 
 earliest colony, as far back as the year 597 before Christ. 
 He was utterly overwhelmed by the tragic lot that had 
 overtaken his countrymen, and was profoundly impressed 
 with the righteousness of that God who had so heavily 
 
THE BABYLONISH CAPTIVITY. 137 
 
 punished the unfaithful. This gave his prophecies a 
 sombre and melancholy tone. Yet he was as confident 
 as the rest of the ultimate restoration of Israel, and 
 threw himself into the contemplation of the glorious 
 future with manifest delight, describing it at great length. 
 It is important to observe that we find in him the first 
 traces of those sacerdotal precepts in reference to the 
 temple and the worship there, which were subsequently 
 so fully developed in the Law. 
 
 The prophets Ahab, Zedekiah, and Shemaiah belong to 
 the same period. They predicted a speedy restoration, 
 and found plenty ready to listen to them. It was against 
 them that Jeremiah directed his zeal. The event proved 
 their expectations fallacious, and their influence soon 
 passed away. 
 
 It was not till after the death of Nebuchadrezzar and 
 his son, Evil-Merodach, that circumstances once more 
 stirred up hopes of deliverance among the Israelites. 
 Eumours then began to reach them of the conquests of 
 Cyrus, the Persian king, and their interest was naturally 
 aroused to the utmost. This appears from what the 
 prophets of the time have left us. We do not know the 
 names of any of them, although their utterances havo 
 been incorporated in the Books of Isaiah and Jeremiah. 
 Thus Isaiah xiii. 1-xiv. 23; xxi. 1-10; xxiv.-xxvii. ; 
 xxxiv. XXXV. ; and xl.-lxvi., as well as Jeremiah 1. and li., 
 belong to this last part of the captivity, and were subse- 
 quently gathered up into the books called after Isaiah and 
 Jeremiah. They all treat of the liberation of Israel, which 
 is to ensue on the fall of Babylon. Isaiah xL— Ixvi. is 
 especially important in this connection. We have already 
 made some acquaintance with the writer* who, because 
 
 * See page 124. 
 
138 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 we do not know his real name, is generally called " the 
 second Isaiah." He was profoundly impressed with 
 the power of Yahweh ; for he was persuaded that the 
 fortunes of foreign nations — the aggrandizement of Persia 
 and the approaching fall of Babylon — were ordained by 
 God solely with a view to enable Israel to return to the 
 fatherland. Every circumstance is arranged by God with, 
 an eye to this result. Thus the prophet perceives that 
 his God is the mighty ruler of all the nations of the earth,* 
 and that there are no other gods beside that One. No 
 one else so vigorously exposes the vanity of idols, and his 
 ■descriptions of Yahweh' s glory and majesty are strikingly 
 beautiful and sublime. Most touching are the words of 
 consolation with which he tries to encourage his country- 
 men, and strong is his faith in the future of Israel. 
 
 The events of the years immediately ensuing set the 
 seal upon his expectations. In the year 538 before Christ 
 the city of Babylon was taken by Cyrus, and the kingdom 
 of the Chaldeans came to an end. We know nothing 
 about the attitude of the Israelites while all this was going 
 on. It is possible that they found means of helping 
 Cyrus, and facilitating his capture of the city. But how- 
 ever that may be, one thing is certain : Cyrus was 
 remarkably gracious to them. His attention must have 
 been called to them very soon, and perhaps he was ac- 
 quainted with the expectations which their prophets had held 
 out ; or he may have been struck by the similarity of their 
 religion with his own. At any rate, it seemed to him 
 desirable to let them return to their country, that, bound 
 to him, as they would be, by every consideration of 
 honour and gratitude, they might constitute a strong 
 section of his immense kingdom out there in the far west. 
 
THE BABYLONISH CAPTIVITl'. 139 
 
 So lie very soon gave the captives leave to go back to 
 Judah, and to restore the temple. 
 
 They did not, however, all of them avail themselves of 
 the permission. According to the writer of the Books of Ezra 
 and Nehemiah, there were about 42,000 of them that did 
 so ; but probably the heads of families only are intended, so 
 that the women and children must be added. But this 
 computation is clearly too high if we remember the number 
 that were carried away ; and there is, no doubt, some 
 mistake here which we cannot now hope to get to the 
 bottom of. But there is no question that the number of 
 those who returned was very considerable. They set out 
 and arrived at their journey's end under the leadership of 
 Zerubbabel, a man of the house of David, and of Joshua, 
 the grandson of the last high-priest. 
 
 But a great many Israelites stayed behind in Babylon, 
 which shows clearly enough that they were not so very 
 miserable there. They kept up a constant and lively 
 intercourse with their brethren in Judah, and at a later 
 time many more of the exiles went back to their fatherland, 
 as we shall shortly see. We shall perceive, at the same 
 time, how powerful was the influence of the exiles on the 
 Israelites in Palestine ; indeed, it was they that gave its 
 special character to the religious life of the latter in its 
 subsequent development. 
 
 That this influence of theirs continued for centuries, is 
 shown by the Book of Esther. The author lived in the 
 third century before Christ, and his object in writing the 
 book was to promote the observance in Palestine of a 
 Persian festival, known as the Feast of Purim, which had 
 already been introduced among the Jews abroad. With 
 this view, he relates a,n entirely fictitious story about a 
 
140 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 marvellous deliverance of the Jews in the reign of 
 Ahasueras or Xerxes the First. He tells how this king 
 married a Jewess named Esther. His chief minister, 
 Haman, bore a grudge against Esther's uncle, Mordecai, 
 and determined to destroy all the Jews by way of punishing 
 him. He cast lots (Purim) to decide the day for carrying 
 out this project. But fortunately his plans were frustrated 
 by Mordecai and Esther; Haman was disgraced and put 
 to death ; and the king gave the Jews leave to fall upon 
 their enemies, and kill as many of them as they could. 
 This they did ; and in memory of their deliverance they 
 made the day on which the lot had fallen, and the ensuing 
 day, an occasion of annual thanksgiving, under the title 
 of the Feast of Purim. 
 
 We said just now that this story was entirely fictitious. 
 If is true, however, that the festival in question was of 
 Persian origin, and that the Jews in Persia gradually took to 
 observing it. The author of the Book of Esther wanted 
 to see it introduced into Palestine. And his wish was 
 fulfilled. As early as the second century before Christ 
 the feast was in general use, showing that the Jews did 
 not yet feel any difficulty in adopting new elements into 
 their ritual, and that there was still much intercourse 
 between the Jews in Palestine and those who were abroad. 
 For the rest, the writer was a narrow-minded man, full of 
 national prejudice. But he does not at all put the glory 
 of Israel in its religion, and never once mentions the 
 name of God in the whole course of his book. 
 
 This is the place to speak of the influence of the Persian 
 religion on that of Israel. There is nothing to be 
 surprised at in the existence of such an influence, or even 
 in its being in some directions very powerful indeed. 
 
THE BABYLONISH CAPTIVITY. 141 
 
 Those Israelites who had stayed behind in Babylon were 
 in perpetual contact with the Persians there ; indeed, 
 many of them moved into Persia and Media, while the 
 hearty goodwill that subsisted between the two peoples 
 was hardly ever disturbed. Moreover, there were several 
 points of agreement between their respective religious ideas. 
 The Persians were just as much opposed to images of 
 the deity as the Israelites ; their Ormuzd was revered, 
 like Yahweh, for his holiness, and was also looked upon 
 as the only god. They had almost exactly the same 
 regulations about clean and unclean, and .their myths 
 concerning the creation of the first human beings agreed 
 together, even in some of their details. 
 
 Many persons have been so struck with all this, that 
 they have supposed that the whole history of the Jewish 
 religion subsequently to the captivity might be explained 
 by reference to Persian influence. This, however, is an 
 exaggerated view. The growth of the Jewish religion 
 had its roots in the Jews themselves. Their religious 
 feeling was of sufficient character and force to determine 
 the lines of its own development, and all that the facts 
 warrant us in saying is that their opinions and ideas were 
 more or less modified by the influence of the Persians. 
 Let us now go a little further into the matter. 
 
 And, first of all, we have to deal with the doctrine of 
 angels. The belief in these beings was held by the 
 Israelites much further back, and we often hear of angels, 
 especially of " the angel of Yahweh." But the older 
 prophets did not feel any need of angels as a means of 
 communication between Yahweh and mankind. Yahweh 
 himself addressed men personally, without any go- 
 between, and concealed none of his counsels from his 
 servants ; but this mode of intercourse gradually declined. 
 
142 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 Yahweh, in his holiness, hegan to he further removed from 
 human heings, and no longer conversed with them him- 
 self, hut sent his angels. These hecame the indispensable 
 messengers for the proclamation of his will. In this 
 character they play a conspicuous part in the prophecies 
 of Ezekiel ; and Zechariah distinguishes himself by the 
 emphasis with which he insists on the activity of angels 
 as servants before the throne of Yahweh. It is in this 
 last prophet that we find the first distinct traces of Persian 
 influence ; in his representations and descriptions of 
 angels he ascribes attributes to them which he has 
 borrowed from the Persian Amshaspands. By and by 
 appears the belief in nations or individuals having guardian 
 angels ; in Daniel they have definite names ; and at last 
 there comes to be a universal belief, just as there was in 
 Persia, in an incalculable host of heavenly spirits or 
 angels, all of whom have their own special ranks and 
 characters and spheres of action. 
 
 In the second place, we can trace the influence of Persia 
 in the conceptions which the Jews entertained of evil 
 spirits. They already believed in a *' Satan," that is 
 to say, an accuser. In the Book of Job he takes his 
 place in the council of heaven along with the angels ; 
 he is just as much a servant of Yahweh as the rest, and 
 his office is to apportion calamity and sickness to men 
 according to Yahweh's supreme will. In the same way 
 the Isra,elites had formerly explained evil, disaster, and 
 sin as proceeding from the will of Yahweh. It was Yah- 
 weh who incited David to take a census of the people, 
 though the writer of 2 Samuel xxiv. 1, regarded it as 
 a grave sin. Amos asks whether there can be any evil 
 in a city which Yahweh does not cause (chapter 
 iii., V. 6) ; and the second Isaiah tells us (chapter 
 
THE BABYLONISH CAPTIVITY. 143 
 
 xlv., V. 7) that Yah well makes peace and creates eyil. 
 But these ideas were completely transformed. Satan 
 was reconstructed on the model of the Ahriman of the 
 Persians, the creator of evil, and thenceforth he stood in 
 opposition to Yahweh, as the wicked spirit heyond all 
 others, and all evil was his handiwork. Accordingly, the 
 author of 1 Chronicles xxi. 1, alters the story told in the 
 second Book of Samuel, to which we alluded just now, 
 and makes Satan, instead of Yahweh, incite David to 
 take a census of his people. In the same manner, the 
 Israelites now hegan to believe in an army of wicked 
 spirits too, as we have them in the New Testament, 
 where they are called devils or demons. A great deal 
 of power was ascribed to these demons. It must not be 
 understood, however, that monotheism was denied. The 
 Jews still maintained it practically, just as the Persians 
 did, although they were logically involved in dualism, or 
 the belief in two ultimate powers. 
 
 The Jewish belief about immortality, too, felt the in- 
 fluence of the Persians, though not very profoundly. In 
 its main outline it grew naturally and spontaneously out 
 of the thought and feeling of the Israelites themselves. 
 Yahweh was regarded as lord of life and death. His 
 prophets, Elijah and Elisha, waked the dead. Thus 
 Yahweh tad power to restore life to whom he would. 
 And in later times, when the relation between Yahweh 
 and those who believed in him had come to be looked 
 upon more as something personal, the belief in the per- 
 sonal immortality, not, indeed, of all men, but of the 
 Israelites, was a very natural consequence. In the days 
 of the Preacher it was held by some, though he himself 
 combats it ; and the writer of the Book of Daniel, about 
 sixty years later, supposes it to be more generally accepted. 
 
144 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 The Persians entertained the belief from remote antiquity, 
 and that, too, in the definite form of a resurrection of the 
 dead, that is to say, a restoration of man to life after 
 death ; and it is highly probable that the Jews were 
 indebted to them for that conception, or, at any rate, that 
 they were influenced by them in adopting it. 
 
 CHAPTEK XVII. 
 
 EZRA AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 TI7E must now return to the Israelites who had gone 
 back from Babylon to Jerusalem. They are usually 
 called " Jews," inasmuch as all of them, except the Levites, 
 were descendants of the old inhabitants of the former 
 kingdom of Judah, the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. 
 Although they considered themselves the true representa- 
 tives of the whole Israelitish people, there were no 
 members of the other ten tribes amongst them. 
 
 Great religious changes soon took place among those 
 who had returned. It was with high hopes and sacred 
 enthusiasm that they had undertaken and accomplished 
 the journey to Jerusalem, in spite of the inevitable diffi- 
 culties and hardships which awaited them. Shortly after 
 their arrival they had set up an altar and offered sacrifice 
 upon it, and this practice they continued regularly from 
 that time forwards. At the same time they celebrated the 
 Feast of Tabernacles. Nor did they lose any time in be- 
 ginning to build the temple, amid the joyful shouts of the 
 
EZRA AND HIS TIMES. 145 
 
 people ; iliough the older priests and Levites, who had seen 
 the temple of Solomon, could not hold hack then* tears 
 when they thougiit of the glory of that first house of 
 Yaliweh. 
 
 But this enthusiasm was not long-lived. Its first in- 
 terruption was due to the Samaritans, who dwelt where 
 the kingdom of the ten tribes had once been. These 
 people wanted to help in the building of the temple. 
 But their application was refused on the ostensible ground 
 that it was only to the returned exiles that Cyrus had 
 given permission to take part in the work, but really 
 because it was felt that the Samaritans could not be 
 acknowledged as Israelites. For they were in large 
 part descended from the foreigners whom the Assyrians 
 had introduced into Samaria after its devastation. At 
 first these colonists had worshipped their own gods; 
 but, not long after their arrival in their new home, 
 they began to worship Yahweh too, as the god of 
 the country, in order that by his help they might be 
 delivered from the ravages of the wild beasts which 
 over-ran the land. But they did not yet consider them- 
 selves to be Israelites ; and it was on this score that 
 Zerubbabel and Joshua held them at a distance. This 
 refusal made them very sore, and kindled the first spark 
 of that inextinguishable hatred which afterwards subsisted 
 between them and the Israelites. But they continued to 
 worship Yahweh, and by and by they even began to con- 
 sider themselves genuine Israelites. In the course of 
 time, too, they built a temple to Yahweh on Mount 
 Gerizim, and adopted from the Jews the Pentateuch and 
 the Book of Joshua, the latter of which contained the 
 history of Ephraim's great hero. 
 
 After being thus rebuffed, they determined upon re- 
 
 L 
 
146 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 venge. Tliey laid accusations against the Israelites be- 
 fore Cyrus, probably alleging that they were attempting 
 to make themselves independent. The upshot was that 
 the permission to rebuild the temple was withdrawn, so 
 that the work had to be discontinued. The Israelites felt 
 this to be a heavy blow, disappointing them in their 
 dearest hopes. How utterly different was their position 
 from what they had hoped ! Where were now the glori- 
 ous predictions of Ezekiel and the second Isaiah, who, 
 with so much fire, had foretold a good time coming and 
 declared so positively that Yahweh would return to his 
 peo^Dle ? Their lot was, if possible, sadder than of old. 
 Their hope had vanished, and so their strength w^as 
 broken and their courage oozed away. 
 
 Happily, after the lapse of a few years, men appeared 
 who knew how to inspire a worthier mood. These were 
 the prophets Haggai and Zechariah (i.-viii.). They ad- 
 monished and rebuked the people, but at the same time 
 uttered new and glorious promises, which kindled once 
 again their confidence in the god of their fathers. Under 
 their inspiration the people once more put their shoulders 
 to the wheel, and they succeeded in obtaining the permis- 
 mission of Darius, the king of Persia, to go on with 
 their task. From that moment the Israelties met with 
 no further disappointment, and in the year 516 before 
 Christ the temple was finished and solemnly consecrated. 
 
 We have no record of the period between the restora- 
 tion of the temple and the arrival of Ezra. All that 
 we can make out about the state of popular religion 
 during this time, from 516 to 458 before Christ, is from 
 what Ezra tells us of the condition of affairs on his 
 arrival at Jerusalem. From this it appears that uni- 
 
EZRA AND HIS TIMES. 147 
 
 Tersal discouragement and feebleness prevailed. Indeed, 
 there was some danger that the religion of the Jews 
 might he merged in that of the surrounding peoples. 
 !For there was much toleration, arising from indijBference, 
 as was shown, among other ways, by the numerous mar- 
 riages, even on the part of priests and Levites, with 
 foreign women. Thus it was no wonder that the in- 
 terest in Yahwism declined, and the door was opened 
 to foreign elements. And when we reflect that, though 
 the writings of the prophets existed, they had not yet 
 been collected, and that the Law, properly so called, was 
 not yet written, while what there was of it had not yet 
 acquired any binding force, so that religion had not yet 
 attained any definite, legal form in the popular conscious- 
 ness, we cannot but allow that it was a dangerous state 
 of things. All this was very disappointing to earnest men, 
 and left them powerless, even if they had had the courage, 
 to fight against this laxity of feeling. Such laxity is 
 far more dangerous than the most strenuous opposition. 
 
 Happily, Ezra was able to mend matters. He was 
 a priest and a Scrihe of the Law of Moses. It was his 
 endeavour to obtain a knowledge of that Law and to 
 bring it into use. Among the priests in Babylon a spirit 
 like his own prevailed, quite different from that of their 
 brethren in Judah. When Ezra learnt what the state 
 of things was there, he made up his mind to go and 
 bring about a reformation if he could. He asked leave 
 of King Artaxerxes to go to Jerusalem, and, with his 
 permission, he set out with a party of 1,496 men, besides 
 a number of priests, Levites, and singers, and a few de- 
 scendants of David. The journey was safely accom- 
 plished, and on his arrival at Jerusalem a great festi- 
 val was held. 
 
148 THE EELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 But tlie joy wliicli the success of the journey inspired 
 was soon rudely disturbed ; for Ezra learned that a 
 number of Israelites, actually including some priests and 
 Levites, had taken foreign wives. This seemed to him a 
 horrible sin, and pained him very deeply. He mourned 
 j)ublicly and humbled himself before Yahweh. But, when 
 the people were come together, he succeeded in persuading 
 them, almost to a man, to resolve to live in obedience to 
 the Law, and to send away their foreign wives and their 
 children. There were only four men who ventured to 
 resist, and their opposition was to no purpose ; the reso- 
 lution was shortly afterwards carried into effect, and 
 about a hundred sent away their foreign wives. 
 
 However harsh such a measure might be, it was to all 
 appearance absolutely necessary. If the Israelites had 
 not been kept strictly aloof from all alliances with the 
 surronnding peoples, they must inevitably before long 
 have lost all separate existence, and the further develop- 
 ment of their religion would have been for ever after 
 impossible. "We may easily guess, however, that it was 
 not every one that agreed with Ezra and his friends, and 
 that not a few considered the measures he adopted too 
 hard. There might well be those even among the faithful 
 worshippers of Yahweh who took a milder view about the 
 heathen, and that, too, not only from philanthropy, but 
 from the expectation which they entertained that, by 
 intercourse with the Israelites, the other nations would 
 be led to acknowledge the deity of Yahweh. Sach is the 
 view that we meet with in the Books of Ruth and Jonah, 
 the writers of which, in all likelihood, flourished at this 
 time. In the former of these books we have the story of a 
 Moabitish woman, who, by her marriage with an Israelite, 
 became the ancestress of David. This fact, which 
 
EZRA AND HIS TIMES. 149 
 
 is probably historical, is adduced in protest against 
 the aims of Ezra. That union between an Israelite 
 and a foreign woman, at any rate, had had Yahweh's 
 blessing in an extraordinary degree, and it was argued, 
 therefore, that he could not approve of the rough measures 
 which Ezra was taking. 
 
 The same thing is put still more forcibly in the Book 
 of Jonah. The writer applies fiction to show that 
 Yahweh abstains from executing the prophecies formerly 
 declared, out of compassion for the heathen. Many of 
 his contemporaries were both surprised and vexed that these 
 prophecies remained so long unaccomplished. Jonah, 
 the chief character in the book, affords a striking type 
 of this sentiment. He longs to see the destruction of 
 the heathen, and murmurs against Yahweh for being so 
 patient and compassionate towards them. The writer, on 
 the other hand, shows why Yahweh is so merciful. The 
 heathen are being converted and coming to the fear of 
 Y'ahweh ; and that is why the prophecies are not fulfilled. 
 It is clear from the above that this writer has quite a 
 different way of thinking from Ezra. Indeed, we may 
 affirm that there is no other book in the Old Testament 
 Y/hich judges the heathen so tenderly. 
 
 Ezra's measure in reference to the foreign women was 
 only the first step towards the reformation which he was 
 anxious to bring about. He intended nothing less than 
 the introduction of the priestly legislation ; and it is to 
 this momentous achievement that we must now turn our 
 attention. Ezra could not, however, carry this out all at 
 once. Shortly after his arrival at Jerusalem, and as soon 
 as he had accomplished the expulsion of the foreign 
 women, he seems to have withdrawn for thirteen years, 
 on account, we may surmise, of the political situation not 
 
150 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 being favourable to bis purpose. It is probable tbat be was 
 engaged during tbis interval in modifying tbe priestly 
 legislation wbicb be bad brougbt witb bim from Babylon, 
 and adapting it to tbe state of tbings in Judaea. At 
 tbe end of tbis period Nebemiab came to Jerusalem, 
 arriving tbere in tbe year 445 before Cbrist. He bad 
 been cup-bearer at tbe court of King Artaxerxes, and 
 being appointed governor by tbat prince, obtained leave 
 to rebuild tbe ruined walls of Jerusalem. He immedi- 
 ately manifested bis sympatby witb Ezra, and powerfully 
 seconded bis endeavours. Some time after bis arrival — 
 bow long, we are not told — be gatbered tbe people 
 togetber in Jerusalem to bear tbe Law, wbicb Ezra read 
 aloud, section by section, for several days running. Finally, 
 a day of repentance was bold, and tben botb priests and 
 . people made a solemn vow to keep tbe Law of God. 
 
 Nebemiab bimself left Jerusalem again in tbe year 
 433 before Cbrist ; but only to come back a little wbile 
 afterwards, wben be found many abuses being practised 
 in defiance of tbe Law ; and to tbese be set bimself in 
 violent opposition. Tbus, tbe Sabbatb was not kept boly, 
 and many Jews bad again married foreign wives. Tbese 
 women bad to be sent away again by bis orders. One of 
 tbe transgressors, a priest, probably Manasseb, a grand- 
 son of tbe bigb-priest, wbo bad married a woman of 
 Samaria, refused to yield, and was obliged to quit tbe 
 country. He witbdrew to Samaria, and became bigb- 
 priest in tbe temple on Mount Gerizim, wbicb was built 
 at bis earnest suggestion. 
 
 We see from all tbis tbat Ezra and Nebemiab could not 
 boast of universal acquiescence on tbe part of tbe people. 
 We bave already referred to tbe Books of Eutb and Jonab, 
 wbicb breatbe quite a different spirit to tbeirs. Opposition 
 
EZRA AND HIS TIMES. 151 
 
 began to sliow itself, too, among the priests, as we see 
 by tiie prophecies of Malachi, who lived at this time, and 
 severe^ blamed the people, and the priests too, for the laxity 
 of their allegiance to the Law of Moses. In estimating 
 this opposition, which was so earnest on the part of many, 
 we must observe that it was something neio that Ezra and 
 Nehemiah wanted to introduce. The Law which they 
 publicly read and made binding on the nation had not 
 hitherto been known in Israel, and comprised many 
 an injunction which trenched more or less on the olden 
 freedom. There were, as w^e have seen, not a few 
 who could not acquiesce in such complete separation 
 from other peoples. But the most important point was 
 that Ezra's reforms were conceived in altogether a dif- 
 ferent spirit from that which had been manifested of 
 old. Instead of the free word, there was now the written 
 Law ; instead of the independent attitude of the pro- 
 phets, who judged everything according to the word which 
 Yahweh spoke to them, there was now the submission to 
 the authority of the Law. It must not, however, be sup- 
 posed that Ezra was aware that he was following a 
 different path from the prophets : on the contrary, he 
 valued their writings very highly, and supposed himself 
 to be carrying on their work in perfect harmony with their 
 intentions. And, indeed, however anti-prophetic his 
 efforts may have been, they were the necessary fruit of 
 the work which the prophets had done. They had 
 preached Yahweh as the god of Israel, and it was under 
 the influence of this preaching that Josiah under- 
 took his reformation and carried it through. And 
 Ezra only followed the same track. But he sought what 
 the prophets had sought, in his own way. It had been 
 their endeavour to make their countrymen Yahweh' s 
 
152 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 people by means of a spirit of freedom, and they liad laid 
 stress on what was inward, to the exclusion of the outward 
 form. But they had failed to achieve their purpose, because 
 they stood too far above the people, and were never quite 
 understood by them. And now Ezra resolved to attempt 
 what they had failed in, employing, however, the fixed 
 forms and definitions of the Law instead of the prophetic 
 freedom of speech. Not that he himself clearly saw the dif- 
 ference, but that the changes which time had brought about 
 made it natural for him to proceed in this way. Ezra was no 
 prophet ; he was priest and scribe. Nor were there any 
 prophets after him. Malachi was the last of them, and 
 even he had a good deal of the scribe in him. When once 
 the Law had got a footing in Israel, there ceased to be 
 any sphere for the prophet, with his inspired and 
 spontaneous utterance. The Law prescribed everything 
 that was to be done, and squeezed the national life into 
 its own narrow mould of institutions and commandments. 
 This legislation which Ezra introduced is scattered 
 through the Pentateuch among passages of greater 
 antiquity. In a previous chapter we examined those 
 older passages. We saw that the five books of Moses, 
 as they are called, were first edited in the middle of the 
 eighth century before Christ. The author, who was a 
 prophet, wrote the history of his nation and incorporated 
 a few laws. And we discussed in detail the Deuterono- 
 mist, who wrote his laws during the reign of Josiah. 
 And now we must say a word about " The Book of 
 Origins," Such is the name which has been given to 
 that part of the Pentateuch which w^as written by priests, 
 or under priestly influence, in the captivity, between 538 
 and 458 before Christ. We find no traces of it before 
 the beginning of that period, and it was in tlie latter 
 
EZRA AND HIS TIMES. 153 
 
 year that Ezra brought the book with him from Babylon 
 to Jerusalem. He made some modifications in it and 
 constituted it a code of law for Israel, dovetailing it 
 into those parts of the Pentateuch which existed before. 
 A few alterations and additions were subsequently made ; 
 but these are of minor importance, and we may fairly say 
 that Ezra put the Pentateuch into the form in which we 
 have it. These priestly passages are partly occupied with 
 historical matter, comprising a very free account of things 
 from the creation of the world to the arrival of Israel 
 in Canaan. Everything is here represented from a 
 priestly point of view ; some events, elsewhere recorded, 
 are touched up in the priestly spirit, and others are 
 entirely invented. At the very outset, the account of the 
 creation from the hand of the priestly author (Gen. i. 1— 
 ii. 3) is utterly different from the older prophetic narra- 
 tive beginning at the fourth verse of Gen. ii. Here we 
 are told that God created heaven and earth in six days and 
 rested on the seventh day, obviously with a view to bring 
 out the holiness of the Sabbath in a strong light. There 
 is nothing about this in the more ancient passages. In his 
 accounts of the earliest generations of men, of the flood, and 
 of the patriarchs, the priestly writer is very brief, though 
 his endeavour to draw the reader's attention to a gradual 
 growth of God's revelation to his people is plainly dis- 
 cernible. At first God is called Elohim exclusively ; 
 further on, Abraham calls him El-Shaddai ; while he 
 finally reveals himself to Moses as Yahweh. According 
 to this author, no sacrifice was offered in olden times, 
 though, on the other hand, circumcision is put as early as 
 Abraham as a sign of the covenant wdiich El-Shaddai 
 made with him. He tells us nothing about the youth of 
 Moses, but in his account of the deliverance out of Egypt 
 
154 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 lie follows tradition. With the death of the first-born in- 
 Egypt he connects the institution of the feast of unlea- 
 vened bread together with the description of the paschal 
 offering. He, too, states that the Law was given on Mount 
 Sinai, but, for the rest, he by no means binds himself 
 down to tradition. He describes in detail the tabernacle 
 and the ark: Yahweh himself tells Moses exactly how 
 they are to be arranged. It does not trouble our author 
 in the least that he is here utterly at variance with history. 
 The real tabernacle was nothing but a simple tent ; but 
 the description which we find here is borrowed from the 
 temple of Jerusalem, and so, highly satisfied were the 
 priests with that temple that they refashioned the taber- 
 nacle of by- gone days on that model, and even shaped the 
 precepts of Yahweh accordingly. In harmony with this, 
 we are informed that sacrifice might only be offered at this 
 tabernacle. We are told, further, that Moses appointed 
 the sons of Aaron to be priests, and gave the rest of the 
 Levites lower offices in connection v/ith the services of 
 religion. Both statements are equally unhistorical, and 
 arise from the priestly opinions of the Babylonish law- 
 giver. 
 
 Besides this refashioning of history from a priestly 
 point of view, we have a great number of laws here, some 
 of which are incorporated in the Book of Exodus, and 
 many more in Leviticus and Numbers. The most 
 important of these will occupy our attention further on ; 
 at present we need only allude to the peculiarly priestly 
 character which is distinctly discernible in all these laws. 
 The author has evidently set himself to put the priestly 
 idea into a fixed form, and to incorporate it in the 
 framework of Israel's legislative code. There are full 
 regulations concerning the mutual relations of the priests 
 
PUBLIC WORSHIP AND THE SYNAGOGUE. 155 
 
 and all their duties ; settled rules are laid down about the 
 celebration of the Sabbath and the festivals, clean and 
 unclean, and the contribution of tithes for the support of 
 the priests and Levites. In short, it is a purely sacer- 
 dotal system that we have here, and the ideal which the 
 legislator held before him was clearly nothing less than 
 to make Israel a clean nation, keeping faithfully the com- 
 mandments of Yahweh. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP AND THE SYNAGOGUE. 
 
 TI/'E proceed to pass under review the principal regula- 
 tions of the priestly legislation in their action on 
 the religious life of Israel after Ezra. It must not, how- 
 ever, be understood that everything was now precisely and 
 unalterably settled, so as to admit of no modification 
 whatever. On the contrary, even after Ezra additions 
 were made to the existing Law here and there, while oral 
 tradition gave free scope for interpreting and applj'ing 
 certain commandments differently from the way which 
 the Law prescribed, in obedience to the necessity of the 
 moment, and according to circumstances. 
 
 Public worship and everything connected with it are 
 regulated in detail under the priestly legislation. The 
 temple itself was, in the main, similar to that of Solomon. 
 Except that it was not so splendid as his, the only differ- 
 ence was that the holy of holies was separated from the 
 holy place with a curtain, and not with doors that opened 
 and shut, as it had been before. The high-priest might 
 only enter once a year, on the great day of Atonement. 
 
( 
 
 156 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 This rule arose from the new conception of Yahweh's 
 nature, as being separated from his people by reason of 
 liis purity and holiness. In former times, the prophets 
 had taught that Yahweh spoke to his servants and entered 
 into more confidential intercourse with them ; but now 
 Yahweh's character was considered to be so highly exalted, 
 that he must always remain hidden from the unclean, and 
 even from the priests, with the single exception of the 
 high-priest himself; and this functionary was also now 
 regarded as the only person qualified to consult Yahweh by 
 means of the urim and thummim, which were used in a 
 sort of divination. 
 
 The respective functions of the priests and the Levites, 
 too, were now regulated minutely. We have already re- 
 marked that the new legislation adopted the idea that 
 none but the sons of Aaron might serve at th3 temple 
 sacrifices. But this limitation had no ground in history. 
 Those priestly families which had formerly offered sacrifice 
 in the temple of Solomon had acquired by degrees a cer- 
 tain precedence over the priests of the high places who 
 Avere attached to the temple at Jerusalem by King Josiah, 
 but were not qualified to kindle the offerings. And now 
 it was pretended in the legislative writings that these all 
 belonged to the tribe of Levi, but that the priests of higher 
 rank who had been attached to the temple all along were 
 the descendants of Aaron, while all the rest, being 
 descended from the priests of the high places, were ex- 
 cluded from all priestly employment, properly so called, 
 and were regarded as mere supernumeraries for executing 
 the minor duties. And for the future the singers were 
 ranked along, with them ; while everything connected with 
 the sacrifices and with the regulations about clean and 
 unclean was entrusted exclusively to the priests. 
 
PUBLIC WORSHIP AND THE SYNAGOGUE. 1^7 
 
 The sacrifices were very numerous. The most imj^ortant 
 were the " hurnt-offer'mgs,'' which were offered for the 
 honour and glory of Yahweh, as an acknowledgment of 
 his deity. One of them was kindled every morning and 
 every evening. The " tJiank- offerings''' were made both 
 at general festivals and at special ones, as an expression 
 of joy at the blessings given by Yahweh. Then there 
 were the "sin-offerings''' and the " guilt- offerings," which 
 were so much alike in many respects, that it is not quite 
 clear to us how they differed in signification. One of 
 these offerings might be made for every slip and every 
 unwitting neglect, but not for a sin deliberately committed. 
 The delinquent brought his victim to the temple ; he laid 
 his hand on the animal's head, and then slaughtered it ; the 
 blood was caught, and the priest sprinkled it on the altar 
 or the curtain, and, finally, the animal was partially burnt. 
 The signification of the sacrifice was not that the guilt 
 was transferred from the man to the victim, but that 
 Yahweh in his mercy accepted the animal's soul instead 
 of that of the sinner. The occasions on which people 
 were obliged to bring an offering of this kind were in- 
 numerable, and this diminished its significance very 
 much, and could not fail to lead the Israelite to be less 
 afraid, on the one hand, of uncleanness and the minor 
 transgressions resulting from carelessness or neglect, inas- 
 much as he could make atonement with an offering, and, 
 on the other hand, to become less sensitive to his moral 
 responsibility for graver offences, inasmuch as they might 
 easily be counted by the priest as among the delinquencies 
 admitting of expiation. Thus, in spite of the contrary 
 intention of the legislator, the sacrificial theory tended 
 from the first to anything but the strengthening of the 
 moral sentiment, and, by and by, when the national 
 
158 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 thought and feeling had thoroughly assimilated it, it led 
 to formalism. 
 
 Similar results accrued from the regulations about clean 
 and unclean. Great importance was attached to them in 
 the priestly legislation. The legislator set out from the 
 principle that Israel, being Yahweh's people, must be a 
 clean people jmr excellence. But every Israelite was 
 liable to incur uncleanness in a multitude of different 
 ways, some of them accidental and others unavoidable. 
 He might not eat blood ; he might never eat the 
 flesh of unclean animals, and that of clean ones only 
 if they had not died a natural death. Touching a dead 
 body, too, made a man unclean, and so did certain 
 diseases, especially leprosy. Accordingly, it was minutely 
 prescribed how to become clean again in all these cases, 
 and what offerings to make afterwards. 
 
 Detailed regulations were laid down for the three great 
 festivals. In general, the practices sanctioned by long 
 usage were retained, and only had a few injunctions 
 added to them. As we have already observed, it is 
 probable that these festivals were as old as Solomon. In 
 the Book of Covenants,* and especially in Deuteronomy, 
 they had been described with more or less detail, and 
 now, in the priestly legislation, they received some further 
 modification. 
 
 The Passover, or feast of unleavened bread, had origin- 
 ally been connected with the worship of nature. But at a 
 very early date, it had been brought into connection with 
 the recollection of the deliverance out of Egypt. Afterwards 
 the eating of the paschal lamb was added to it. A lamb had 
 been offered to Yahweh in old times, by way of redeeming the 
 first-born son — a practice in harmony with the conception 
 
 * See page 8. 
 
PUBLIC WORSHIP A-XD THE SYNAGOGUE. 159 
 
 of Yahweh as a nature-god who had a right to the first- 
 horn even of men. From this came the term " pascha " 
 or " phesach," meaning, Yahweh imsses over the first- 
 born because a sacrifice is ofi'ered to him in redemption. 
 Thus this offering bore a private character at first, but in 
 the course of time it came to be made on the same day 
 by everybody, and that, too, at the time of one of the 
 annual festivals, that of unleavened bread. The Deuterono- 
 mist does not say much about it, because it reminds him 
 of offerings of the same kind which were made to Molech. 
 But the priestly legislator, knowing nothing of any such 
 danger, finds a place in his legislation for this primeval 
 usage of his people, at the same time entirely transforming 
 its significance, and harmonizing it with Yahwism. 
 The offering of the paschal lamb is turned into a festive 
 meal for all the families of Israel, in commemoration of 
 the day when Yahweh slew all the first-born sons of 
 Egypt. 
 
 The Feast of Weeks, afterwards called Pentecost, from 
 a Greek word signifying the fiftieth day, continued to be 
 the feast of the first-fruits of the corn-harvest. It was 
 only at a much later time, after the commencement of the 
 Christian era, that it was brought into connection with 
 the legislation of Mount Sinai. The Feast of Tabernacles 
 was a harvest-festival, held when all the fruits of the soil 
 had been gathered, and served also as a commemoration 
 of the sojourn in the wilderness. Besides these festivals, 
 with which we are already acquainted, we find in the 
 priestly legislation a new one, that of the moon, which 
 was to be observed on the first day of every month, and 
 especially of the seventh month. 
 
 We ought here to note that the legislator shows no 
 little practical sagacity in his changes and additions. 
 
160 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 The origin of the paschal sacrifice was in anything but 
 conformity with his principles ; and the same may be 
 said of the feast of the moon, which was connected with 
 the worship of the moon-goddess. But both usages had 
 firmly established themselves in the national life. The 
 Deuteronomist had little sympathy with them, and the 
 prophets less, and they would have been glad enough 
 if it had been possible to banish them from Israel alto- 
 gether. The priest, on the other hand, incorporated them 
 in his legislation, but gave them a new significance. He 
 thus enabled the people to keep their old customs, while 
 so modifying them that they could no longer be hurtful to 
 Yahwism. On the contrary, the old usages, which had 
 struck their roots so deep, became integral parts of the 
 service of Yahweh. And the result was that the priests 
 got much more influence over the people than the prophets 
 had ever had. It was the priests who were the first to 
 achieve what the prophets had desired, and to make Israel 
 Yahweh's people. 
 
 Of course our legislator retained the Sabbath. He laid 
 the utmost stress on the rest with which that day was 
 to be consecrated to Yahweh, making death the penalty 
 of disobedience to this law. He gave precise directions 
 as to what kind of work was to be considered necessary 
 and what was not, and, as we have seen already, he 
 enforced the sanctity of the Sabbath with a reference to 
 Yahweh himself, who had worked six days at the creation 
 of the world and rested on the seventh day. 
 
 The most important day in the whole year in the legis- 
 lator's eyes was the Great Day of Atonement, which fell 
 on the tenth of the seventh month. Atonement was 
 then made for all involuntary sins. It was considered 
 that the whole nation and country had become unclean 
 
PUBLIC WORSHIP AND THE SYNAGOGUE. 161 
 
 through the transgression of the moral and the ceremonial 
 Law, and the Great Day of Atonement was intended as a 
 provision against this. It was a day of humiliation — the 
 only day on which every one was obliged to fast, refraining 
 from both meat and drink. The high-priest had first to 
 offer up a young bullock as a sin-offering for himself; 
 while for the people there were two goats, between which 
 lots were cast, and one was for Yahweh and the other for 
 Azazel, which was probably the name of a wicked spirit. 
 The goat which fell to Yahweh was then offered up as a 
 sin-offering by the high-priest, and its blood, as well as 
 that of the young bullock, was sprinkled in the holy place 
 and the holy of holies. This was the only day on which 
 the high-priest might go in before the face of Yahweh in 
 the holy of holies. Then he made confession of all the 
 sins and transgressions of the people, and laid them upon 
 the head of the second goat, which was thereupon sent away 
 into the wilderness, where Azazel was supposed to dwell. 
 Finally, the high-priest offered up one ram as a burnt- 
 offering to Yahweh for himself, and another for the people. 
 The underlying thought was that in the goat dedicated to 
 Yahweh a clean soul was offered to the Holy One, while 
 a whole year's sins, and all the uncleanness incurred by 
 temple, soil, or people were transferred to the scape-goat, 
 so that Israel was made clean again before the sight of 
 Yahweh. 
 
 We need not enter into the further regulations laid 
 down in the priestly Law. All that we want is to get 
 some notion of the spirit in which it was conceived, and 
 the ends that it proposed to itself. This legislation gave 
 a new direction to the life of the IsraeHtes, and impreg- 
 nated the national thought and feeling with the principles 
 of Yahwism. Henceforth progress became possible in 
 
 M 
 
162 THE RELIGION OF ISEAEL. 
 
 a new direction, nor was it long before such i^rogress was 
 actually made ; and it is on this, the necessary conse- 
 quence of the introduction of this legislation, that we 
 must now fix our attention. 
 
 Ezra's disciples, the scribes, inspired with a kindred 
 sentiment to his own, carried on his labours. We are 
 left in ignorance whether Ezra himself guided them in 
 their action and drew up fixed rules for them, or whether 
 such regulations were only dictated by the force of circum- 
 stances after his death. In any case, Jerusalem was the 
 head-quarters of their activity and the centre from Which 
 they spread themselves all over the country. Their very 
 name discloses the fact that they were skilled in the 
 knowledge of Scripture, especially the Law of Moses ; and 
 on this account they are also called '* lawyers " in the New 
 Testament, without any distinct difference of meaning in 
 the terms. They employed themselves in copying the 
 Law, and especially in explaining and applying it, which 
 was a particularly necessary thing to do ; for the legisla- 
 tion, having originally been drawn up in Babylon, frequently 
 came into collision with things as they actually existed in 
 Judaea. It is true that Ezra himself had introduced a great 
 many modifications ; but these did not always prove suffi- 
 cient. So whenever some change was manifestly required, 
 the Scribes modified or elaborated the text of the Law, 
 always, however, preserving the main principle unim- 
 paired. And if change of circumstances called for some 
 entirely new regulation, the case was met by what was 
 called " oral tradition," which continued to maintain its 
 place side by side with the Law. Its origin was ascribed 
 to Moses, just as that of the Law was ; so that it enjoyed 
 a divine authority no less than the Law. But being more 
 
PUBLIC WORSHIP AND THE SYNAGOGUE. 163 
 
 elastic than the Law, it coiilcl be used with advantage in 
 such contingencies as the Law had not provided for. 
 
 These changes in the text of the Law, and the new 
 regulations established by oral tradition in the centuries 
 subsequent to Ezra, are ascribed to ^' the men of the 
 Great Synagogue," at Jerusalem. Of these men we know 
 comparatively little. It may be taken as historical that, 
 from the time of Ezra until the second century before our 
 era, they formed a central association of scribes at Jerusa- 
 lem. Perhaps they met in some special building which 
 must be called " great " in comparison with the numerous 
 smaller synagogues which were erected in Jerusalem at 
 one time or another. Their influence and authority 
 extended far and wide. Judaism has to thank them for 
 its preservation and development. They spread the 
 knowledge of the Law among their countrymen, and 
 made its observance feasible. They found means to 
 keep the national religion of Israel free from foreign 
 elements which would have led to its dissolution. They 
 awakened and kept alive in the hearts of their people a 
 strong affection for the Law, which was to prove its 
 vitality in the midst of the fiercest struggles. 
 
 Since it was the aim of the scribes to bring the people 
 under the dominion of the Law, they naturally endea- 
 voured forthwith to make them familiar with it. Their 
 great instrument in this work was the Synagogue ; and it 
 was from this word that the persons mentioned above 
 derived their title. The word "synagogue" is Greek, 
 and means an assembly. It stands for a hall or building 
 in which the Jews assembled to listen to the reading of 
 the Law. We are but imperfectly informed about the 
 origin of this custom. We know that, towards the close 
 of the captivity, the Jews in Babylon used to meet 
 
 M 2 
 
164 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 together to hear an address from one of the prophets or 
 the reading of the older prophets, and subsequently of the 
 Law. And, although we are not told so in so many words, 
 it is more than probable that Ezra introduced this custom 
 into Jerusalem too, and that it found its way thence into 
 other cities of Judaea, and came to be adopted at last 
 wherever there were Jews living. By degrees there came 
 to be more unity and order in the arrangements of the 
 meeting, the synagogues of Jerusalem being made the 
 model for the rest. The chief thing always was, as it 
 had been at first, the reading and expounding of the Law. 
 To this was added the recitation of certain passages 
 of the Law containing the most important precepts ; 
 so was the rehearsal of a prayer, and, by and by, when 
 Hebrew was no longer spoken, the translation of the Law 
 into the vernacular. In the course of time a special 
 portion of the Law was appointed to be read on each 
 Sabbath-day, of such a length that the whole could 
 be got through in three years. By means of this 
 practice the whole of the people were made acquainted 
 with the Law, and the scribes had abundant opportunity 
 of explaining and propagating their own interpretations of 
 it. This would have been quite out of their power had it 
 not been for the synagogue. The temple at Jerusalem 
 could not possibly have served the purpose. True, the 
 temple was the seat of worship, and there it was that 
 sacrifice was offered and that the faithful gathered together 
 at the great festivals ; but it was beyond its scope to 
 spread the knowledge of the Law among the people. 
 And the synagogue was not in opposition to the temple, 
 nor was it any substitute for the temple in the towns and 
 villages of Judaea. It merely provided for a want which 
 the temple was not calculated to meet. Indeed, the 
 
PUBLIC WO?.SHIP AND THE SYNAGOGUE. 165 
 
 scribes regarded the function of the synagogue as neces- 
 sarily subordinate to that of the temple ; nor is there the 
 slightest indication to be found that it impaired in the 
 least the consideration in which the temple was held. 
 
 We may easily suppose that the scribes must have 
 exercised a most powerful influence. When once the Law 
 was received as the rule of faith and practice, a leading 
 place was secured to those who knew the Law and ex- 
 pounded it. The judges who were called upon by the 
 Law to decide matters of all kinds, could not do better 
 than. go to the scribes if they wanted to understand how 
 to apply the different precepts to a particular case. Week 
 by week, the synagogue brought the Law before the 
 congregation, and by that means brought it home to every 
 Israelite in his individual and domestic life. The result 
 could not be doubtful ; through the activity of the scribes, 
 the Law, and the oral tradition along with it, really became 
 the property of the people, and the universal rule of life 
 Nor must it be supposed that they looked upon it as an 
 oppressive burden, and only bent beneath its yoke because 
 they were obliged ; that was the case at a later period, 
 but not at first. The scribes' own love of the Law was 
 the fruit of the most sacred and profound conviction ; 
 their devotion to it was unbounded ; they regarded it with 
 the deepest piety, and revered it as the word of God. 
 They implanted their own convictions in the bosom of the 
 people ; and so far from following the Law with reluctance, 
 the people accepted it with their whole heart, and loved it 
 sincerely. There is abundant evidence of this. The 
 majority of the songs in the Book of Psalms were composed 
 in the centuries following Ezra's time, when the success of 
 the scribes was at its height Now in many of these psalms, 
 we find the most fervent praises of the Law, and so sincere 
 
166 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 and hearty are they, that it is out of the question to suppose 
 that the poet felt its yoke oppressive. Indeed, we may 
 affirm that it was the scribes who were the first to teach 
 the people in general to love Yahwism. The prophets, 
 the founders proper of Israel's religion, men of a sacred 
 enthusiasm, which could brook no fetters, were obliged to 
 fight against the popular opinions and attachment to 
 the worship of strange gods. The consequence was that, 
 while very exclusive towards other peoples, they were 
 by no means popular with their own. The scribes, 
 on the other hand, had no need to continue the struggle 
 against idolatry and image-worship ; the great thoughts 
 which had animated the prophets had become the property 
 of the people, and Yahwism had exclusive sway in 
 Israel. Its leading principles could now be further un- 
 folded and applied in a variety of w^ays ; the battle for 
 its establishment had already been fought and won, so 
 that there was no further occasion for confining all sym- 
 pathy to what was Israelitish ; things began to be looked at 
 from the point of view of our common humanity, and thus 
 the scribes approached, in this respect, the stand-point of 
 the sages ; they entered upon the inheritance of the 
 prophets, but avoided their one-sidedness. Amongst the 
 fruits of their teaching are most of those psalms in which 
 the simple sentiment of religion, common to various races 
 of men, finds such beautiful expression, that we ourselves, 
 though removed from them by so many centuries, still 
 repeat these hymns as the utterance of our own religious 
 impressions and aspirations. 
 
 One point more must be discussed here, and that is the 
 relations of the scribes with the priests. The question 
 suggests itself, whether the influence and authority of 
 the latter may not have been impaired by the activity of 
 
PUBLIC WORSHIP AND THE SYNAGOGUE. 167 
 
 the scribes. This was certainly not the case at first : 
 Ezra, the first of the scribes, was himself a priest, nor 
 would this combination seem to have been an unusual 
 one. As the priests derived their authority from the Law, 
 they could not be indifferent to it. On the other hand, 
 the scribes could not do otherwise than support the priests, 
 inasmuch as the Law assigned to them the first place. 
 Thus the power of the priests had really nothing to fear 
 from the scribes, and the high-priest retained the 
 influence which he possessed as the head of the state 
 under the Persian governor. Nevertheless, there was 
 something in the mutual relations of the scribes and the 
 priests that could not fail by and by to lead to the 
 exaltation of the former above the latter. In Ezra's time, 
 many priests had strenuously opposed his reforms ; and 
 thus it was impossible in the nature of things to entrust 
 them with the maintenance of the Law. And so, the task 
 of preserving, propagating, and developing the oral tradi- 
 tion was taken away from them, and their influence was com- 
 mensurately impaired. Before the Law was written, they 
 had had the support of its authority, and had been, indeed, 
 in a sense, themselves the Law. But now that the Law 
 was reduced to writing, its authority was co-ordinate with 
 theirs, or rather superior to it, inasmuch as they derived 
 all their power from it. Sothat they lost something; and 
 the scribes, being the official interpreters and preservers 
 of the Law, could not but grow more and more influen- 
 tial. No wonder, then, that, however little foreseen or 
 apprehended, conflict was destined one day to break out, 
 and that the Priest was doomed to succumb to the Scribe. 
 
168 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 CHAPTEK XIX. 
 
 THE JEWS IN THE AGE IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE 
 CHRISTIAN ERA, 
 
 TF the reader is correctly to understand the growth and 
 progress of reHgious thought and feehng among the 
 Israelites during the age immediately preceding the 
 Christian era, we must sketch in a few strokes the 
 condition in which they lived, politically speaking, during 
 that period. What makes it especially necessary to do 
 so at this point is, that it was in the course of the time 
 now under consideration, that they came into contact with 
 the civilization of the Greeks, which provoked a strenuous 
 opposition on the part of the stricter Jews, and exercised a 
 most important influence on their condition and opinions. 
 Under the Persian rule, the Jews enjoyed a certain 
 measure of freedom. It is true they were under a 
 foreign government ; hut things were largely left in the 
 hands of the high-priest, and as his power was continually 
 increasing, he may fairly be regarded as the head of the 
 state. We know little or nothing of how these high- 
 priests conducted the government during the century 
 following Ezra and Nehemiah. When Alexander the 
 Great, with his Greek armies, fell upon Asia to over- 
 throw the Persian monarchy, Jaddua was high-priest at 
 Jerusalem ; and while Alexander was laying siege to 
 Tyre, he sent to invite him to tender his submission. 
 Jaddua refused at first, but he was unable to resist the 
 
THE JEWS IN THE AGE PRECEDING THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 169 
 
 mighty conqueror. Alexander entered Jerusalem in the 
 year 332 before Christ, and Palestine was incorporated 
 in his dominions. After his death, it fell to the share 
 of Ptolemaeus, son of Lagus, who took Jerusalem one 
 Sabbath-day, and led numbers of Jews captive to Egypt. 
 After several wars, the battle of Ipsus secured him in the 
 possession of Judaea, in the year 301 before Christ. Up 
 to 203 before Christ, Palestine remained in subjection to 
 Egypt, in spite of numerous attacks on the part of the 
 Seleucidae, who ruled over Syria and Babylon. In that 
 year, however, it was incorporated in the kingdom of 
 the Seleucidse, and consequently, in 175 before Christ, 
 the Jews came under the sceptre of Antiochus the Fourth, 
 surnamed Epiphanes, the son of Antiochus the Third, 
 who was called the Great. In the reign of this prince, 
 they rebelled, and with such courage did they contend 
 against the generals of Antiochus, that, in 164, they re- 
 conquered Jerusalem, and, in 138, Syria acknowledged 
 their independence. 
 
 And now Judaea was once more an independent state, 
 under the rule of the men who had placed themsekes at 
 the head of the rebellion and brought it to so successful a 
 conclusion. Judas, surnamed MACCABiEUS, or the ham- 
 mer, was their first leader; and was succeeded by his 
 brothers, Jonathan and Simon. It was under the last of 
 these that Judaea was declared independent. Their family 
 is generally called the Asmon.eans, after one of their an- 
 cestors. Simon, having been murdered in the year 135 
 before Christ, was succeeded by his son, John ; and he, 
 by successful warfare, greatly extended the kingdom, 
 bringing Samaria, Galilee, and the region beyond Jordan 
 into subjection, and incorporating the Idumaeans, as the 
 former Edomites were now called, in his dominions. His 
 
170 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 son, Aristobulus the First, was the first who assumed the 
 title of king, and, after reigning a year, he was succeeded, 
 in 105 before Christ, by his brother, Alexander Jannseus, 
 whose wife, Alexandra, reigned for nine years after his 
 death, bringing us down to the year 70 before Christ. 
 After this, a fierce contest broke out between her two sons, 
 Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, the latter of whom filled the 
 office of high-priest, but was defeated by his brother. 
 Antipater, the Idumsean, however, the favourite of Hyr- 
 canus, managed to induce him to renew the struggle. 
 But during the siege of Jerusalem by Hyrcanus, the 
 Piomans mixed themselves in the quarrel of the two 
 brothers and assumed the part of umpires. In the year 
 63 before Christ, Pompey the Great took Jerusalem, and 
 set up Hyrcanus as high-priest and king. Aristobulus and 
 his sons continued to oppose this arrangement, and the help 
 of the Eomans proved necessary to resist them, — a suffi- 
 cient indication how dependent on the Piomans the Jewish 
 state already v/as. Meanwhile, Antipater's influence was 
 on the increase, especially during the civil war between 
 Pompey and Caesar, which prevented the Eomans from 
 troubling themselves so much with Jewish affairs. Being 
 a foreigner, however, he failed to gain the affections of 
 the people, and after his death, which took place in the 
 year 43, Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, ventured upon 
 a fresh attempt to get the mastery. Herod, the son of 
 Antipater, who had married Mariamne, the grand-daughter 
 of Hyrcanus, tried to maintain himself in his father's 
 230sition, but he was obliged to fly before his foe, who took 
 Jerusalem in the year 40 before Christ. Herod sought 
 help at Pome, and the Roman Senate acknowledged him 
 king of the Jews. On his return to Judaea, he was en- 
 abled, by the help of the Romans, to bring his struggle 
 
THE JEWS IN THE AGE PRECEDING THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 171 
 
 with Ills rival to a successful issue. He took Jerusalem, 
 and Antigonus was killed in the year 37 before Christ. 
 
 Herod, surnamed the Great, had a prosperous reign 
 and gained considerable distinction for his kingdom. At 
 Jerusalem he built a new temple instead of the existing 
 one, of surpassing beauty and splendour. He always 
 strove to further the interests of his subjects, that he 
 might, if possible, win their attachment. But in this 
 he was not successful ; the Jews hated him, not only 
 because he was a foreigner, but because he was guilty of 
 many cruelties. He died in the year 4 before Christ. 
 
 His three sons succeeded him — Archelaus in Judaea, 
 Herod Antipas in Galilee, and Philip in the region be- 
 yond Jordan. Archelaus was deposed as early as the 
 year 6 after Christ, and Judaea was incorporated in the 
 Eoman empire. Herod Antipas lost his crown in the 
 year 39 a.d., and was banished. Philip died in the year 
 34 A.D. Judaea passed under the rule of the governor of 
 Syria, who stationed a subordinate officer at Caesarea, 
 under the title of procurator, to govern Judaea. Pontius 
 Pilate, who was at the head of Judaea from 26 to 37 
 A.D., held this office. But after his time Judaea was 
 again amalgamated entirely with Syria. 
 
 In the year 41 a.d., Palestine once more obtained a prince 
 of its own. Herod Agrippa the First, grandson of Herod 
 the Great, who had become prince of the region beyond 
 Jordan as far back as the 3'ear 37 a.d., and of Galilee in 
 40, now received from the Koman emperor, Claudius, 
 dominion over Judaea in addition. His reign was 
 not without merit, but it lasted a short while only, for 
 he died in the year 44 a.d. From that time Palestine 
 remained under the rule of the Roman governors. It 
 is true, indeed, that Herod's son, Herod Agrippa 
 
172 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 the Second, eDJ03^ed some authority, but it was incon- 
 siderable. The Jews found themselves virtually under 
 the immediate dominion of the Komans. This, however, 
 they could not bring themselves to endure. Kevolts 
 broke out ever and anon, till, in 66 a.d., a general re- 
 bellion burst forth, all Romans w^re put to death, and 
 the final war was begun. Though the Jews fought with 
 much good fortune at first, they were naturally unable 
 to maintain the unequal strife. Vespasian was entrusted 
 with the conduct of the war by Nero ; and when he him- 
 self was summoned to the imperial throne, his son, Titus 
 Vespasian, carried on the war to its conclusion. In the 
 year 70 a.d., Jerusalem was taken and the temple was 
 burnt. The Jewish State had for ever ceased to be. 
 
 And now that we have glanced at the condition in which 
 Israel found itself politically during the final period of its 
 national existence, we are once more in a position to give 
 undi\dded attention to what took place in the sphere of 
 religion. We have already made acquaintance with the 
 scribes and their work during the age succeeding Ezra, 
 and acquired some notion of the priestly legislation and 
 the oral tradition by means of which it was interpreted 
 and amplified. The scribes carried on their work in the 
 same spirit under the rule of Alexander the Great and 
 his successors. The people were more and more aff'ected 
 by their influence, and the Law became the guiding prin- 
 ciple by which the pious Israelite decided what he should 
 do and what he should not do. At the same time, the 
 tradition was continually undergoing amplification to meet 
 contemporary needs ; and many of the psalms in our 
 collection date from the period we are discussing. The 
 Book of Chronicles, which was WTitten about 250 years 
 
THE JEWS IN THE AGE PRECEDING THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 173 
 
 before Christ, is particularly important in indicating the 
 spiritual and intellectual tendencies of the day. It was 
 originally united in one work with Ezra and Nehemiah — 
 not that the whole came from one pen ; only, one author 
 gathered together the existing records of Ezra and Nehemiah 
 into a more extended work under his own hand. This author 
 treads in Ezra's footsteps, and, indeed, goes still further than 
 he did. He gives an account in his book of the history 
 of Israel, but supplements or amends the ancient narra- 
 tives as he pleases. He ascribes his own opinions to the 
 ancients, making David, for instance, project the organiza- 
 tion of the priests and Levites, though it was only finally 
 settled in his own day. He describes festivals and cere- 
 monies in the way in which they were kept in his own 
 times, while pushing them back for centuries by way of 
 endowing them with the authority of antiquity. Thus, 
 he permits himself great liberties in his treatment of 
 history, but it is with the distinct purpose of bringing 
 into relief the excellence of the Law, of the priestly ser- 
 vices, and of the sacrifices. And he is further distin- 
 guished from his predecessors by his endeavour to iden- 
 tify piety with a reverence for the priests and Levites. 
 He is thoroughly hierarchical in his temper, standing in 
 this respect below the majority of the scribes, since they 
 never allowed themselves to be swayed by selfishness. 
 Then, again, he pays extraordinary attention to the 
 singers and the porters, whom he includes among the 
 Levites, and affiliates to the tribe of Levi by means of 
 fictitious genealogies. All this shows that, even in the 
 middle of the third century before Christ, no divine 
 authority was attributed to the old historical books, and 
 people did not shrink from making important alterations 
 in them. 
 
174 THE EELIGION OP ISRAEL. 
 
 To this period, too, belongs the introduction of the 
 feast of Purim, which we have ah-eady mentioned in dis- 
 cussing the Book of Esther. The successful issue of the 
 efforts made by the author of Esther, in his desire to see 
 this festival observed universally by the Israelites, shows 
 us, in the same way, that there was still a sufficient 
 measure of freedom to render possible the introduction of 
 new regulations and usages. 
 
 We now approach that momentous era when the spirit 
 of Greek civilization began to make itself felt even in 
 Israel. Alexander had brought it into Asia, and in the 
 long run Israel could not escape its influence. We have 
 to inquire, then, whether Yahwism managed to hold 
 its ground against the power of that foreign civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 At first it seemed as if Yahwism must succumb. We 
 have already made acquaintance with the Preacher, who 
 could not sympathize with the movement of the scribes, 
 and took too large a view to feel quite at home in the nar- 
 row circle of ideas which constituted Judaism. For his 
 mind the spirit of the Greeks could offer no escape, but he 
 had not long been dead before many distinguished Israelites 
 showed a strong inclination to participate in the privileges 
 of that foreign civilization. In the year 174 before Christ, 
 Joshua, the brother of the high-priest, Onias the Third, 
 found means to bribe King Antiochus Epiphanes to transfer 
 the office to him. This Joshua was a friend of the Greeks. 
 He established a gymnasium in the capital. Numbers of 
 men, and some priests among them, took part in the 
 athletic exercises which were held there, to the great 
 scandal, we need hardly say, of the pious Israelites who 
 were attached to the Law. But Joshua was in a short 
 time supplanted by Menelaus, who had made a still higher 
 
THE JEWS IN THE AGE PRECEDING THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 175 
 
 bid to Antiochus for the office of higli-priest. From 
 that moment, there arose the most violent conflicts between 
 the two rivals, and Antiochus seized the opportunity to 
 march against Jerusalem himself with a view of chastising 
 it. The city and the temple were taken in the year 169 
 before Christ, and the king plundered the temple of its 
 sacred vessels. But this was only the beginning of the 
 misery which overtook the Jews. Stimulated by fresh 
 dissensions which arose among them, Antiochus, two 
 years afterwards, resolved to visit them with still heavier 
 punishment. He once more entered the capital, put many 
 of the inhabitants to death, and established a garrison of 
 his own troops in a fortress which he erected adjacent to 
 it. At the same time the temple was dissociated from the 
 worship of Yahweh, and on the great altar a smaller one 
 was set up, probably in honour of Jupiter Capitolinus, a 
 god with whom Antiochus had been made acquainted 
 through the Eomans, and whom he identified with the 
 Greek Zeus. Orders were also given that the Jews 
 should hold no more Sabbaths, and keep no more festivals, 
 and they were to leave off setting themselves against the 
 use of the flesh of unclean animals. It was in December, 
 167 before Christ, that the first sacrifice to the strange 
 god was kindled in the ancient sanctuary of Yahweh. 
 
 There were great numbers of Jews who were well enough 
 pleased at these doings on the part of the Greek prince, 
 and showed themselves quite ready to do as he bid ; and the 
 king himself seems to have supposed at first that he should 
 not meet with any serious resistance. It was not he, but 
 the high-priest himself, that had set the movement on 
 foot, so that he naturally concluded that the action mth 
 which he had followed it up would gain approval, especially 
 from men of distinction. He was soon to learn, however. 
 
176 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 that he had under-estimated the strength of Yahwism. 
 When he met with resistance he thought to carry out his 
 intentions by force ; and hence arose the fierce struggle of 
 Judaism against the genius of Grecian civilization. 
 
 Our chief authority for the history of this revolt is the 
 first and second Books of Maccabees. They tell us of 
 splendid instances of loyalty to Yahweh and fidelity to the 
 Law. The blood of martyrs flowed till, at last, the strain 
 was so great that rebellion broke out at Modin, not far 
 from Jerusalem. The servants of Antiochus visited that 
 place, as they had visited others, to see the king's orders 
 carried out. They set up an altar, and bade a priest named 
 Mattathias, who lived there, make an offering upon it. 
 On his refusal, a Jew came forward to make an offering, 
 but Mattathias fell upon him and killed him. This was 
 the signal for revolt. The foreigners were slain, and 
 Mattathias fled to the wilderness with his five sons. They 
 were speedily followed by many of the faithful. The 
 venerable priest himself only survived to the following 
 year (166 before Christ), but he was succeeded by his son, 
 Judas Maccabaeus, with whom the reader is already 
 acquainted. In a series of battles and skirmishes he was 
 constantly victorious over the troops which Antiochus sent 
 against him, and as early as the year 164 before Christ, he 
 was strong enough to march upon Jerusalem, take posses- 
 sion of the city, and purify the temple. On the very day on 
 which, three years before, the first offering had been made 
 to the god of the heathen, he was able to kindle sacrifice to 
 Yahweh, the god of his fathers, on a new altar for burnt- 
 offerings. From that time forward, it was an established cus- 
 tom in Israel to celebrate that blessed event every year ; and 
 it was called " the Feast of the Eenewal of theTemj)le," 
 or "of Lights." The terrible struggle had resulted in 
 
THE JEWS IN THE AGE PRECEDING THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 177 
 
 victory. Yaliwism stood more firmly than ever, liallowecl 
 by the blood of the martyrs. 
 
 A note-worthy book has been preserved to us in the 
 literature of the Jews, dating from this period, written 
 with the object of confirming the pious in their vehement 
 conflict with Antiochus. We allude to the Book of 
 Daniel. The author is not known to us, but he speaks in 
 the name of Daniel, a man of the time of the Babylonish 
 captivity, famous for piety and wisdom. He represents 
 Daniel as prophesying of the days to come, and he makes 
 him predict everything which he knew to have happened, 
 and everything which he wished to happen in the 
 future. He starts from the oracle in Jeremiah, to 
 the effect that after seventy years Yahweh would put an 
 end to Israel's misery and woes. That prophecy had not 
 been fulfilled ; but our author assumes that the period 
 stated by the prophet of old is to be interpreted otherwise, 
 and that he had not meant ordinary jesLYS, but Sabbath- 
 years, consisting of seven years apiece, so as to make 
 490 years altogether. If his readers based their calcula- 
 tions on this assumption, they would see that the year in 
 which Yahweh' s temple was defiled — 167 before Christ — 
 fell just in the middle of the last week of years. At the 
 end of that time deliverance would come. So the pious 
 must stand firm, and hold fast their trust in Yahweh. 
 By way of enforcing this lesson, our author tells how 
 Daniel and his three friends remained steadfast amid 
 trials yet more terrible, and how Yahweh saved them out 
 of the fiery furnace and out of the lions' den, into which 
 they had been cast. God would punish Antiochus as he 
 had punished Nebuchadrezzar, who was changed into an ox, 
 or Belshazzar, who, having desecrated the sacred vessels 
 
 N 
 
178 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 of the temple, forfeited his life as the price of that 
 heinous crime. The pious, then, had only to put their con- 
 fidence in their god, who was mighty to save them as well. 
 Our author describes in detail the future which he ex- 
 pects. After the last week of days comes the resurrection 
 of the dead. The pious shall live for ever. Then shall 
 God's chosen ones exercise lordship upon the earth. 
 Hitherto the heathen had ruled ; four kingdoms had arisen 
 one after the other — those of the Chaldeans, the Medes, the 
 Persians, and the Greeks. In the mouth of Daniel all 
 this was made a prophecy, although for the author himself 
 it belonged to the past. To the kingdom of the Greeks 
 belongs Antiochus, who is, of course, drawn in the darkest 
 colours. But now the end is at hand. God, who is here 
 called the Ancient of Days, seats himself on his throne 
 and holds his judgment. The kingdom of the Greeks, 
 represented in the likeness of an animal, is brought to 
 naught. Thereupon one like to a son of man draws near 
 to the throne of God amid the clouds of heaven, and 
 dominion and power are bestowed on him for ever. This 
 son of man is the image or representative of Israel, which 
 is here called '' the people of the saints of the Most High." 
 Israel, exalted far above the heathen, shall have dominion 
 for ever. 
 
 This book had very great influence, first and foremost, 
 on the writer's contemporaries ; and, in the second place, 
 as the first example of a new species of literature, known 
 as " apocalyptic." From that time forward, many writers 
 felt themselves stirred up to follow in the footsteps of the 
 author of Daniel, and to put into the mouths of the pious 
 of old such thoughts of their own as they desired to ex- 
 press. Prophecy was interpreted as a mechanical revela- 
 tion from God, and it was represented that God had given 
 
THE JEWS IN THE AGE PRECEDING THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 179 
 
 sundry revelations concerning tlie future to Enoch, Moses, 
 Ezra, and even the heathen Sybil, and that they had re- 
 duced them to writing. Hence the word " apocalyptic," 
 from apocalypsis, a revelation or unveiling. The last 
 book in the New Testament, too, is of the same character, 
 and contains predictions of the same sort about the days 
 to come. It is easy to see that this kind of writings, 
 however much prized by the pious, was no true outcome 
 of the ancient and genuine spirit of prophecy ; and it will 
 be understood how naturally such books led to an absorp- 
 tion in the future that was utterly idle. 
 
 The r.eader is already aware, from what has been said 
 above, that the fair hopes which the author of Daniel 
 entertained and awakened in the bosoms of others were 
 not fulfilled. True, the temple was once more purified, 
 and the Jews were even enabled once more to boast their 
 independence ; but their kingdom never again grew great 
 and powerful, and still less were they ever to rule over 
 the heathen. Nay, there broke out a new struggle, this 
 time among the Israelites themselves, a struggle the germ 
 of which had long been there, though it was only now that 
 its dangerous character appeared. We allude to the 
 struggle between the party of the Sadducees and that of 
 the Pharisees, and it is to it that we must now devote our 
 attention. 
 
 Even before the struggle with Antiochus Epiphanes, 
 there were two parties among the Jews. On one side 
 was the high-priest, together with the priestly families 
 and others of distinction ; on the other side was the great 
 body of the people. The high-priest had at his side a 
 council of elders, called the '' Gerusia," and probably 
 composed of the heads of the leading families. At first, 
 
 N 2 
 
180 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 the scribes were by no means hostile to them, but in the 
 course of time their goodwill gave way to other senti- 
 ments. The priests, who composed the ruling party, 
 came into frequent contact with foreigners, and were 
 ready to accommodate themselves to them as often as it 
 seemed necessary. The scribes, on the other hand, had 
 nothing to do with such considerations, and were bent 
 simply on the strenuous maintenance of the Law. By 
 degrees they began to draw off from the priests and to act 
 in opposition to them ; and the people sided with them, 
 partly out of sympathy with their aims and partly out of 
 dislike to the aristocracy. 
 
 Now, when Joshua, as high-priest, sought to introduce 
 the manners of the Greeks, the popular respect for the 
 priestly party naturally received a severe shock ; and 
 during the revolt it was utterly destroyed, while the 
 scribes, who distinguished themselves by their loyalty to 
 the Law, won the highest regard. The Asmonaeans made 
 common cause with them, so that the conflict between 
 them was for a time in abeyance. But it was only for a 
 time ; for the A-smonseans, actuated by the same principles 
 as the old aristocracy, gradually drew nearer to the latter, 
 while the scribes again drew off and once more sought 
 and found support at the hands of the people. 
 
 These two parties received the names of " Sadducees " 
 and " Pharisees." The derivation of neither word is 
 certain. The former means " Followers of Zadok," 
 probably some distinguished man of the day, who gave 
 his name to his party. The word '' Pharisee " signifies 
 separated, but we do not know how the party came by 
 the name. Probably it was that, in order to be the better 
 able to obey the precepts of the Law, they separated them- 
 selves from the masses, who could not possibly keep all 
 
THE JEWS IN THE AGE PRECEDING THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 181 
 
 the commands of the Law so strictly. The Sadducees 
 constituted a definite rank in society, being the aristocracy ; 
 but anyone could be a Pharisee, no matter what his social 
 position might be, if only he agreed in the principles of 
 the party. The majority of the scribes belonged to the 
 Pharisees, and so did a few of the priests. 
 
 The differences between the two parties did not lead 
 to any open rupture during the government of Judas, 
 Jonathan, or Simon; for these princes, having acquired 
 their authority during the revolt, could not but be 
 favourably disposed towards the Pharisees. But under 
 John Hyrcanus things underwent a change. According 
 to Flavins Josephus, it was quite an insignificant occasion 
 that led to the breaking out of hostilities. But the real 
 cause lay deeper ; sooner or later the principles of the 
 two parties could not but show themselves in violent dis- 
 agreement. And though Hyrcanus might pay respect to 
 the Pharisees at first, it could not last ; and he entered 
 into closer and closer alliance with his natural friends 
 and sympathizers, the Sadducees. 
 
 Under Alexander Jannaeus, it came to actual civil war. 
 Josephus tells us that 50,000 Pharisees perished. But 
 so deeply was the prince impressed with their power and 
 the popular support which they enjoyed, that on his death- 
 bed he advised his wife, Alexandra, to go over to the 
 €nemy; and, for the sake of peace and quiet, she did 
 so, and that, too, with much success, though her son, 
 Aristobulus, declared himself against her. In the wars 
 which followed, on her decease, between Aristobulus and 
 his brother, Hyrcanus the Second, the Pharisees did not, 
 iis a rale, take either side. 
 
 With regard to the religious opinions of the two parties 
 and their controversies, a few words will be enough. The 
 
182 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 Sadducees were the aristocracy. They ^Yere a political 
 party, and so we can only speak of their religious opinions 
 so far as they were the result of their political principles. 
 They were the conservatives. They systematically opposed 
 all the novelties which the Pharisees wanted to introduce ; 
 they held hy the Law and whatever had been established 
 by the Great Synagogue in accordance with the decisions 
 of oral tradition. It was formerly supposed that they 
 rejected the latter, only acknowledging and accepting the 
 Law among Israel's religious books, and not the prophets 
 and the other writings. But this is a mistake. In this 
 respect they agreed with their opponents. But they stood 
 by what already existed, and did not want to see anything 
 added to it. And so they did not believe in immortality, 
 or in angels or evil spirits. For such doctrines were 
 comparatively new, and so recent a writer as the Preacher 
 controverted the belief in everlasting life, while Jesus 
 Sirach did not even mention it. No wonder then, that 
 the Sadducees, true to their principles, declined to ac- 
 cept it. 
 
 The Pharisees constituted the popular party, properly so 
 called. They were anything but conservatives, and did not 
 shrink from new commandments more onerous than those 
 of old, so long as they helped them towards their ends. 
 In one point of view they were thus more liberal than the 
 Sadducees, and that too, because they were more earnestly 
 attached to the Law. They had a genuine love for that 
 Law, and so they ventured to modify the injunctions of 
 Moses as they thought desirable. In the estimation of the 
 multitude, ihej were the ipions par excellence; and although, 
 especially in later times, dissemblers and hypocrites v;ere 
 to be found among the members of their party, this was 
 not the case at first or with the majority. They were the 
 
THE JEWS IN THE AGE PRECEDING THE CHRISTIAN EEA. 183 
 
 true friends of Yahwism, the inheritors of the spirit of 
 Ezra. 
 
 The scribes were their leaders from the first. The most 
 distinguished of them stood at their head, and they are 
 always mentioned in pairs. Hillel and Shammai are 
 the best known pair. They were at the head of the 
 scribes of Jerusalem, and it was their duty to propagate 
 the oral law ; probably they also had seats in the council 
 of priests called the Sanhedrin. There they would come 
 into conflict with the aristocracy, and, though they were 
 in a minority, their position as leaders of the powerful 
 popular party gave them great influence there. 
 
 We should be guilty of a grave omission if we said 
 nothing about the Essen es, a third party in Israel, or 
 rather a religious order, who troubled themselves little 
 about the rest of the Jews. They had no influence worth 
 mentioning on the growth and progress of religion in 
 Israel ; but they constitute in themselves a phenomenon 
 so important that we cannot pass them by in silence. 
 
 The origin of the sect of the Essenes is buried in ob- 
 scurity. But in all probability it is to be sought in those 
 " pious " men who were the most strenuous in resisting 
 Antiochus Epiphanes, and after the revolt carried out the 
 precepts of the Law with the utmost possible stringency. 
 The Essenes, the signification of whose name is not ' 
 known, would seem from that time forward to have 
 separated themselves more and more from the unclean, 
 and ere long to have withdrawn from the towns and cities, 
 where their intercourse with others made it almost impos- 
 sible for them to keep the Law. At any rate, the accounts 
 which have come down to us place them in remote villages 
 in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea. Their mode of life 
 was minutely prescribed : prayers were to be said before 
 
184 THE RELIGTON OF ISRAEL. 
 
 sunrise, and then they were to work till eleven o'clock. 
 Then they had to take a bath, put on the white linen 
 dress of their order, and partake of the common meal, at 
 which there w^ere prayer and singing. They abstained 
 from meat and wine ; when the meal was over, they 
 betook themselves to work again until evening. 
 
 They took no part in the temple sacrifices, but in every 
 other respect they were scrupulously obedient to the Law, 
 especially in keeping the Sabbath, which they passed in 
 absolute rest. Novices were received into the order after 
 three years' probation ; but they had first to take a solemn 
 vow that they would keep the Law, be clean and holy in 
 their lives, and strictly preserve the books of the sect and 
 the names of the angels. We are not informed what the 
 last phrase meant. The stricter Essenes abstained from 
 marriage ; but some married and lived like other people ; 
 these, however, were not admitted to the colonies of 
 the strict members of the order. They had their goods 
 in common, and on entering the order put all their pos- 
 sessions into the common treasury. The government was 
 committed to leaders elected by the body at large, to 
 whom every one owed obedience. 
 
 At the first glance it seems strange that such a sect 
 should have had its birth among the Jews, and, in fact, 
 many have supposed that it must have been of foreign 
 origin. Josephus tries to show their agreement with the 
 Pythagoreans ; but he is evidently not to be trusted in the 
 matter, inasmuch as he is bent upon persuading the Greeks 
 and Romans that Israel too, has its sects of philosophers, 
 just as much as any other people. That the Essenes were 
 Jews is put beyond all dispute by their exaggerated regard 
 for the Law. Their abstinence, too, their strict asceticism, 
 however much opposed to the ancient ideas of Israel, which 
 
THE JEWS IN THE AGE PP.ECEDIXa THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 185 
 
 recognized in a prosperous and joyous life, the blessing of 
 Yahweh, is easily explained from the principles of a sub- 
 sequent age ; and even in ancient times abstinence from 
 wine is to be found.* Moreover, in the priestly legislation, 
 the consumption of meat containing blood was prohibited ; 
 and it was going only one step further to abstain from 
 meat altogether ; and with this is connected the fact of their 
 taking no part in the sacrificial festivals at the temple of 
 Jerusalem, or, indeed, in the sacrifices themselves. Then, 
 again, their dread of pollution and their exaggerated anxiety 
 to keep themselves separate, may be explained quite simply 
 from their attachment to the Law, which was continually 
 laying more and more stress upon cleanness. And so, 
 though the peculiarities of Essenism are not all thoroughly 
 explained, its Jewish origin is established beyond all 
 question. 
 
 * See page 53. 
 
186 THE RELIGION OF ISEAEL. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE SAME CONTINUED. 
 
 TF the reader is to be acquainted with the condition of 
 religion among the Jewish nation in the last century 
 of its existence, we must not omit to speak of the Jews 
 outside Palestine. There were great numbers of such Jews. 
 As we have seen already, many stayed behind in Babylon 
 even after the days of Ezra and Nehemiah ; and from Baby- 
 lon as a centre they spread into other regions, and during 
 the dominion of the Greeks many Jews moved from Pales- 
 tine to Damascus, to Antioch, and afterwards to the chief 
 cities of Asia Minor. Before long, they passed into Europe 
 and established themselves in Macedonia and Greece, as 
 well as on the islands ; while as early as the middle of 
 the second century before Christ, they were to be found 
 even at Rome. 
 
 They took up their abode, however, in Egypt in larger 
 numbers than elsewhere, especially at Alexandria, the cele- 
 brated commercial city founded by Alexander the Great. 
 Some of them came there of their own accord, while others 
 were carried there captive by Ptolemy. Their number was 
 very cousiderable, and no small part of Alexandria was in- 
 habited exclusively by them. A good many too, were to be 
 found in Cyrene, in Nubia, and in Ethiopia. 
 
 We have seen above that the Babylonian Jews had not 
 lost their interest in the religion of their fathers ; and this 
 continued to be the case, not ouly with them, but with all 
 
THE JEWS IN THE AGE PRECEDING THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 187 
 
 the Jews who were scattered abroad. They had been much 
 influenced by the thoughts and feelings of the scribes, and 
 had thus imbibed a deep affection for Yahwism. More- 
 over, there were sufficient numbers of them everywhere to 
 form congregations and to found synagogues. They were 
 so profoundly conscious of the difference between their own 
 religion and that of the alien peoples among whom they 
 dwelt, that they felt no difficulty in preserving their inde- 
 pendence ; moreover, they kept up communication with 
 their countrymen at home, sent their gifts to the temple at 
 Jerusalem every year, and went there to keep the great 
 annual festivals whenever they possibly could. 
 
 The influence of these Jews upon the peoples among 
 whom they were settled was very great. Were we study- 
 ing the spread of Christianity, we should see how much 
 the progress of that religion was forwarded by the fact that 
 there were Jewish congregations everywhere. We need 
 only remark here, that when the heathens came into con- 
 tact with the Jews, they made acquaintance with Judaism 
 and learnt to regard it with interest. Perhaps the very 
 contrast between the system of the Jews and that of the 
 heathens inclined many towards the former, at any rate 
 numbers of heathens joined the ranks of the servants of 
 Yahweh. These converts were called "Proselytes." They 
 were of two kinds, "Proselytes of Righteousness" and 
 " Proselytes of the Gate." The former observed the whole 
 of the Jewish Law, just like the Jews themselves ; the 
 latter, who perhaps derived their name from the fact that 
 they did not take their place in the synagogue among the 
 beHevers, but stayed in a separate part near the entrance or 
 gate, did not submit themselves to the w^hole Law, but only 
 observed a few commandments ; they were not to take the 
 name of Yahweh in vain, or to worship idols, or to e 
 
188 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 tilings containing blood, or to work on the Sabbath, and 
 during the feast of the Passover they were to use unleavened 
 bread. The first three of these commandments are called 
 the ''Noachic Commandments," after Noah, because they 
 were considered as binding upon all men, unlike the 
 Mosaic commandments, which were given to Israel only. 
 
 If the Jews thus exercised an important influence on 
 the heathen, Judaism outside Palestine, in its turn, felt in 
 no small measure the j^ower of the Greek civilization. 
 And this was the case in Alexandria more than anywhere 
 else. This city was not only a great centre of trade where 
 men were gathered together from all parts of the world, 
 but it was also a centre of art and culture and philosophy. 
 The Greek kings of Egypt did all they could to further 
 the interests of knowledge, and amongst other things, they 
 established a library, which was the finest in the whole 
 ancient world. In such a city, then, the Jews could not 
 help coming into contact with the Greek civilization, im- 
 bibing its spirit, and harmonizing it, as far as possible, 
 with their religious belief. The form of thought which 
 thus came into being, the union of the philosophy of 
 Greece with the spirit of Judaism, is called ''Hellenism," 
 just as, in the New Testament, the Jews in foreign lands 
 who had forgotten their mother tongue and spoke Greek, 
 nre called " Hellenists," in contradistinction to the He- 
 brews, who used their national dialect, which, however, 
 was not Hebrew, but the kindred Aramaic. 
 
 It was in Alexandria that the celebrated Greek version, 
 first of the Mosaic Law, and afterwards of the whole Old 
 Testament, arose. It was natural enough that the Jews 
 who dwelt there should strongly feel the want of such a 
 translation. Ic was probably prepared about the middle 
 of the third century before Christ. This, however, is not 
 
THE JEWS IN THE AGE PRECEDING THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 189 
 
 certain ; it is true, there are a number of stories about its 
 origin, but we cannot place any reliance on them, inas- 
 much as they are obviously due simply to the endeavour to 
 exalt the value and authority of the version in question. 
 It was related and for centuries believed, for example, that 
 Ptolemy II. sent an embassy to Jerusalem to request the 
 high-priest to send him seventy-two learned Jews, six of 
 each tribe, to translate the Law. The men came, and 
 accomplished their task in as many days as there were 
 men, and they all made the same translation precisely to 
 a letter. It is said that this translation derived its well- 
 known name of the " Septuagint " (that is, the Seventy) 
 from the number of its authors. All this, however, is 
 unhistorical ; the Alexandrian Jews themselves under- 
 took the task, and it is not improbable that the name 
 is taken from the seventy members of the Sanhedrin at 
 Alexandria, who, no doubt, gave the version their approval. 
 The literature of the Hellenists is pretty extensive. 
 Especially numerous are the writings published in the 
 names of more ancient authors, and all these aim at 
 impressing the heathen with the glory of Judaism. The 
 Alexandrian Jews do not hesitate to put words into the 
 mouths of many famous Greek writers of former times 
 in praise of monotheism and the moral precepts of the 
 Old Testament. To this class of works belongs the re- 
 velation of the Sibyl, to which we have already alluded ; 
 the name is borrowed from the famous priestesses of 
 Apollo, who were so called. One of these prophetesses is 
 here brought on to the stage to predict the events which 
 are related in the Old Testament. Ancient Jewish authors^ 
 too, were made to lend their names to the writings of the 
 Hellenists. They always present the same character, only 
 modified by circumstances and especially by the degree of 
 
190 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 favour in which the heathens stood among the Jews at the 
 time. In the earlier literature we find traces of nothing 
 hut a friendly and cordial temper, hut afterwards we also 
 meet with distinct signs of conflict and persecution. 
 
 In many of these works the influence of Greek ideas 
 is very distinct. This is most conspicuous in Philo, the 
 principal representative of Judseo-Alexandrian letters. 
 He was a contemporary of Jesus, and belonged to a dis- 
 tinguished Jewish family. His elder brother stood at 
 the head of his fellow believers in Alexandria, and he 
 himself was once sent to Kome to ask for the emperor's 
 decision in a dispute that had arisen. We do not know 
 any further particulars about his life ; but a great many 
 writings of his have come down to us. From these we see 
 that he was still better versed in the Greek philosophers 
 than his predecessors. He made himself master of their 
 ideas and concurred in many of their opinions. Neverthe- 
 less, he remained a Jew, and was fully persuaded of the 
 divinity of the Law. Hence he arrived of necessity at the 
 belief that those philosophical ideas which he recognized 
 as true must be contained in the Old Testament, and 
 must have been borrowed by the Greek philosophers from 
 the scriptures of the Jews. True enough, an ordinary 
 and superficial reader of these writings could not possibly 
 guess that they comprised the sources from which Greek 
 philosophy was derived ; but these books had a double 
 meaning, the ordinary one, which was obvious, and a 
 deeper one, which could only be understood by learned 
 thinkers. The allegorical explanation supplied the key ; 
 the simplest words, the names of things and persons and 
 places, received a spiritual interpretation, and thus ac- 
 quired an entirely new meaning. We can only call this 
 arbitrary, and we know well enough that Philo attributed 
 
THE JEWS IN THE AGE PRECEDING THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 191 
 
 ideas to the writers which were altogether strange to 
 them ; but he and others of his waj^ of thinking not only 
 thought such an interpretation quite right and fair, but 
 considered that this was the only way in which the real 
 meaning of an Old Testament writer could be understood. 
 All this makes it clear to us that Philo's ideas were much 
 in advance of the Old Testament, but he was too thorough- 
 going a Jew to acknowledge this, and the only course open 
 to him was to seek a remedy in the allegorical system of 
 interpretation. 
 
 Philo's peculiar system cannot here be described. We 
 shall only notice a single point, and this is one which 
 appears again in the New Testament. Philo was a dual- 
 ist, that is to say, he believed that the matter of which 
 everything consists had existed from all eternity and did 
 not proceed from God. He admitted that God had 
 formed whatever exists, but would not allow that he had 
 produced matter itself. God and matter are both eternal, 
 and are so entirely separate that God does not operate 
 upon matter directly, but only by means of intermediate 
 beings. Here he is thinking of the angels of the Old 
 Testament, and especially of the divine Wisdom, which, 
 by degrees, came to be represented as a personal being 
 associated with God. This idea we find even in the Pro- 
 verbs, and in the Book of Wisdom, which was produced 
 in Alexandria. It had become customary to speak of the 
 divine Word, too, as a personal being. The Greek term. 
 Logos, was applied to this, understanding thereby not 
 only the spoken word, by which God had created the 
 world, but also the divine thought itself. Carrying on 
 this idea, Philo taught that sundry powers proceeded from 
 God, and that the Logos was the highest of these ; it was 
 like God, or rather, it was God himself, but only God as 
 
102 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 he reveals himself in the world. Now, it is in the fashion 
 of this Logos that man is created ; spirit and matter are 
 at strife within him, but, by the power of the Logos, he 
 may, by slow degi-ees, come to God. 
 
 This doctrine of the Logos we find again in the New 
 Testament, namely, in the Fourth Gospel. The author 
 of this work begins his book with the words : ''In the 
 beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, 
 and the Logos was God." This is adopted from Philo. 
 But further on the Evangelist says that the Logos became 
 man in Jesus. It was an obvious step for him and 
 for the later Christians to make this application, and 
 to see in Jesus a manifestation of that divine being with 
 whom Philo had made them acquainted. Thus, the 
 famous Alexandrian prepared the philosophical forms in 
 which the youthful Christian church might express its 
 doctrinal convictions. 
 
 On the Jews themselves Philo and Hellenism in general 
 exercised but little influence. Indeed, this could hardly 
 be otherwise ; the spirit of Hellenism w^as too foreign to 
 Judaism. True, many Hellenists had settled at Jerusa- 
 lem, where we meet them in the Book of Acts, especially 
 Jews from Alexandria and from Cyrene ; but they made 
 their influence little felt there and were regarded and 
 treated not without suspicion by the leaders of the people. 
 Nor need this surprise us ; Hellenism discharged its mis- 
 sion in the world, and helped to prepare the way for a 
 higher religion ; but, in the history of Judaism, from 
 which it had proceeded, and above which, in some respects, 
 it raised itself, it was of no account whatever. 
 
THE JEWS IN THE AGE PEECEDING THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 193 
 
 Here we might bring this work to an end, inasmuch as 
 we have dealt with the history of the rehgion of the 
 Israelites up to the beginning of the Christian era, and 
 given a sketch of their fortunes up to the fall of Jeru- 
 salem in the year 70 after Christ. True, this is not the 
 end of their history ; do not Israel and its religion survive 
 to our own day ? But with this we have nothing to do 
 here ; the purpose we set before us was to present a 
 picture of the growth and progress of the noblest religion 
 of antiquity. We have contemplated that religion in its 
 first rude forms, hardly to be distinguished from the 
 fetishism and the polytheism of other peoples ; we have 
 w^atched it in its strenuous struggle to grow into mono- 
 theism ; wx have viewed it in its fairest and noblest mani- 
 festations. We have made acquaintance with its story, 
 step by step, during the lapse of thirteen centuries, and 
 we should now be prepared to fix our gaze upon that new 
 religion which originated in Israel and rose to be the 
 mightiest world-religion. Thus we might fairly plead 
 that we have fulfilled our task, were it not that we desire 
 to add a word about the writings of the Jews from which 
 we have drawn our information. It is true that we have 
 become acquainted with them in the course of our inves- 
 tigations, but they came to be valued as sacred writings 
 by the Israelites, who made a collection of all those to 
 which they attributed divine authority. Concerning this 
 collection we have yet to speak, and we shall dedicate 
 the next chapter to the purpose. But there is some- 
 thing more. It is of importance for a right understanding 
 of the origin and early history of Christianity that we 
 should allude to one more point in the condition of 
 Israel, which wdll help us to understand the readiness 
 with which numbers of Jews accepted Christianity ; and 
 
194 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 we must say something, too, about tlie general condition 
 of that Greek and Koman world in which Christianity 
 made its appearance soon after the death of its founder. 
 
 We have made acquaintance with the Sadducees and 
 the Pharisees, those two parties who contended for the 
 foremost place among the Jews. The latter of these had 
 the more influence on the people. The struggle between 
 these parties still went on, and the Pharisees generally 
 got the best of it. But by degrees another party arose 
 amongst the populace, which could not acquiesce in the 
 guidance of the scribes who stood at the head of the 
 Pharisaic party, for the scribes confined themselves more 
 and more to the study of the Law, and took less and less 
 interest in practical matters. At the beginning of the 
 Christian era especially, serious political difficulties arose, 
 in the solution of which they took no part, because the 
 questions involved were not immediately connected with the 
 main object of their endeavours. Nor did they seem much 
 inclined to oppose the Koman supremacy, since it hardly 
 affected their special interests, and they did not care to in- 
 terrupt their study of the Law for the sake of taking forcible 
 measures against their foreign rulers. A great part of the 
 people, however, felt quite differently. The masses, having 
 been instructed by the scribes, had accepted the Law, but 
 could not, like the scribes, be satisfied with a passive and 
 expectant attitude. If the Law was to be a reality, the 
 chosen people ought not to lie under the sceptre of the 
 heathen ; so they must resist the heathen in the name of 
 Yahweh, and they could not fail to be victorious. These 
 opinions led to a series of revolts against the autlio- 
 rity of the Eomans. In the year 6 a.d. when Judaa 
 was added on to Syria, and Quirinius, the governor, 
 held a census, which the pious regarded as a token of 
 
THE JEWS IN THE AOE PRECEDING THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 195 
 
 slavery, Judas the Galilean rose up against liim, and 
 received considerable support, although he proved un- 
 successful. The same thing occurred constantly. The 
 members of this party were called " Zealots ; " they were 
 for maintaining the Law by force of arms, differing in 
 this respect from the majority of the Pharisees. Thus 
 they practically withdrew from the guidance of the 
 Scribes. 
 
 The revival of the Messianic expectation must be coupled 
 with all this. It had never disappeared, but up to the 
 time we are discussing it had had no practical influence 
 on the attitude of the people. Now, however, matters 
 changed greatly. In the literature of this period, imme- 
 diately before and after the beginning of our era, we find 
 traces of the change. Nor is it surprising that the popu- 
 lace, groaning under the weight of Ebman oppression, 
 began to attach more value to the ancient anticipations of 
 the prophets, or rather, that these anticipations assumed 
 a more prominent place in their thoughts. Their idea of a 
 Messiah, a son of David, varied a great deal, no doubt, and 
 was, generally speaking, very indefinite and misty ; but the 
 expectation itself was none the less powerful for that, and 
 in the misery of those days it brought consolation to 
 many hearts, while it fired the courage of the Zealots. 
 At a later period these Messianic expectations wonder- 
 fully facilitated the spread of Christianity among the 
 Jews. 
 
 The religion of Jesus, though it owed its birth to 
 Judaism, speedily passed far beyond the narrow boundaries 
 of the Jews. Among the heathen it found a fruitful soil 
 well prepared for its reception, waiting, as it were, to 
 receive the seed of the gospel. Moreover, the circum- 
 stances of the time were exceptionally favourable for the 
 
 o 2 
 
196 ' THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 Spread of Christianity ; and to these circumstances we 
 must now devote a few sentences. 
 
 The Eomans did not hinder, hut rather promoted, the 
 subjection of Asia to the influence of Greek civilization, 
 which was the grand conception of Alexander the Great. 
 That universal dominion which they had established 
 carried the influence of knowledge and civilization to the 
 ends of the then known world. The peoples of the earth 
 learned to know and to respect each other ; their union 
 under a single sceptre snapped the cords of a narrow 
 patriotism, while leading all to regard one another as men 
 of like dispositions and like necessities. The conception 
 that all men are brothers took possession of the minds of 
 the best men of the age. Unity of language promoted 
 mutual intercourse and the spread of knowledge and in- 
 formation. The universal dominion of Rome brought 
 peace with it and a sentiment of fraternity among the 
 nations. In the sphere of religion a policy of toleration 
 was pursued, and, at first, no hindrance was put in the 
 way of the new faith. 
 
 Moreover, at the same time, the need of religion made 
 itself more felt. The old religions were superannuated ; 
 they had fallen before the might of philosophy. But that 
 philosophy had nothing to give in place of what it had 
 taken away. True, in its noblest representatives, the 
 Stoics and the Epicureans, it had declared the most exalted 
 truths, preached the unity of God, and laid the utmost 
 stress on the practice of virtue ; but the masses felt little of 
 its influence ; they imbibed the negations of philosophy, 
 and had lost all belief in the gods of old, but were unable 
 to rise to the new point of view which philosophy indi- 
 cated, for it was something else that they wanted. Human 
 nature is constitutionally religious, and if the influence of 
 
THE JEWS IN THE AGE PRECEDING THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 197 
 
 some new way of looking at things destroys the old ideas, 
 many may be led into doubt, but the majority seek 
 new forms to satisfy their needs. Nor do they usually 
 show much timidity in the examination and acceptance of 
 other forms of religion, provided only they find something 
 that seems likely to satisfy them. And so it was in the 
 old world of Greece and Eome. The belief in the ancient 
 gods had had its day, and was now only to be met with in 
 the lower ranks of society. Philosophy, however beautiful 
 and exalted in its noblest representatives, was not fitted 
 to take the place of religion, and could offer no compensa- 
 tion for what was lost. Men looked for something else. 
 It was thought by many that it must come out of the East, 
 and they attached themselves eagerly to every superstition 
 and secret rite which came from Asia or from Egypt. It was 
 a time of transition, full of doubt on the one hand and of 
 unbelief on the other, but ready to receive the new religion 
 when the hour should strike. 
 
198 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE COLLECTION OF THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 T^OE many centuries botli the Christians and the Jews 
 supposed that Ezra had brought together the sacred 
 writings of his people, united them in one whole, and 
 introduced them as a book given by the Spirit of God — a 
 Holy Scripture. The only authority for this supposition 
 was a very modern and altogether untrustworthy tradition. 
 The historical and critical studies of our times have been 
 emancipated from the influence of this tradition, and the 
 most ancient statements with regard to the subject have 
 been hunted up and compared together. These statements 
 are, indeed, scanty and incomplete, and many a detail is 
 still obscure ; but the main facts have been completely 
 ascertained. 
 
 Before the Babylonish captivity, Israel had no sacred 
 writings. There were certain laws, prophetic writings, 
 and a few historical books, but no one had ever thought 
 of ascribing binding and divine authority to these docu- 
 ments. But after the captivity things underwent a 
 change. Ezra brought the priestly Law with him from 
 Babylon, altering it and amalgamating it with the narra- 
 tives and laAvs already in existence, and thus produced 
 the Pentateuch in pretty much the same form as we still 
 have it. These books got the name of the " Law of 
 
COLLECTION OF THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 199 
 
 Moses," or simply the " Law." Ezra introduced tliem 
 into Israel as a code of law, and gave them binding 
 authority, and from that time forward they were con- 
 sidered divine. 
 
 In the earliest period after Ezra, none of the other 
 books which already existed enjoyed the same authority 
 as the Pentateuch. All that we are entitled to infer as 
 probable on the strength of the statement in 2 Maccabees 
 ii. 13, is that Nehemiah made a collection of historical and 
 prophetic books, songs, and letters from Persian kings. 
 His object in doing this was to save them from being lost, 
 not to form a second collection analogous to the collection 
 of the Lav/. This was done for the first time by those 
 followers of Ezra, the scribes of Jerusalem, whom we 
 have made acquaintance with as the men of the Great 
 Synagogue. These were the real collectors of the second 
 and third divisions of the Old Testament. 
 
 The first thing these scribes did was to select out of the 
 existing collection such books as belonged to the times prior 
 to the captivity. These consisted of historical and j)i'0- 
 phetic books ; some of these were taken without any 
 alteration, while others were edited afresh ; this was the 
 case, for example, with the collection of the so-called 
 minor prophets. After the time of Malachi, however, the 
 opinion became established that there would be no more 
 prophets in Israel, and on this account the collection of 
 the prophetic books was closed with him. To this second 
 division also belonged the Books of Euth and Lamenta- 
 tions ; otherwise it comprised just the same writings which 
 are still included in it. 
 
 It was probably about the same time that the scribes 
 made a third collection, that, namely, of the Writings. 
 They put under this head such books as could not be re- 
 
200 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 garded as prophetic, and yet, on account of tlieir contents, 
 could not be passed over. The Songs, or Psahns, which had 
 ah-eady been collected by Nehemiah, constituted the first 
 portion of it ; the Proverbs, Job, and the Song of Solo- 
 mon, too, were already in existence, and, in the course of 
 time, they were added to the collection, together with such 
 books of later origin as were thought to deserve the dis- 
 tinction. It must not be supposed that any fixed plan 
 was pursued in this work, or that the idea was entertained 
 from the first, that these books would one day stand on the 
 same level as the Pentateuch. They were collected to prevent 
 their getting lost, and others were gradually added to 
 them, such as Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and 
 Ecclesiastes. The last of all to be included in the col- 
 lection was Daniel. For a long time, however, there was 
 great diflerence of opinion as to what books had a right 
 to claim a place among the Writings. The Alexandrian 
 Jews especially adopted books into the canon which those 
 of Jerusalem did not ; scribes of a subsequent time, too, 
 had doubts about some books which the men of the Great 
 Synagogue had already placed on the list of Holy Scrip- 
 tures. The books in question were Ezekiel, Ecclesiastes, 
 the Song of Solomon, Esther, and perhaps the Proverbs. 
 The reason for doubting Ezekiel was that he did not 
 agree with the Law; while, in the case of Ecclesiastes and 
 the Song of Solomon, it was impossible to find anything 
 religious about them, and their only claim to the honour 
 of inclusion was the supposition that Solomon had written 
 them. Like doubts were long entertained about Esther ; 
 nor need we be surprised at this, when we observe the 
 total absence of the religious spirit from the book. This 
 difference of opinion among the scribes as to whether 
 these books ought to be included or not, lasted till the 
 
COLLECTION OF THE LOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 201 
 
 second century after Christ ; and this is proof enough that 
 they did not consider themselves bound by the opinions 
 of their predecessors, and that these books about which 
 there was so much disagreement were not put on the 
 same level as the Law. The discussion, however, only had 
 reference to some particular writings ; in general we may 
 suppose that, in the first century before Christ, consider- 
 able unanimity prevailed concerning most of the books of 
 the Old Testament. By degrees they all acquired divine 
 authority ; involuntarily the Jews extended the homage 
 which they paid to the Law, to the Prophets, and subse- 
 quently to the Writings as well. This did not take place 
 suddenly or by general agreement, but in the lapse of 
 years the Jews came to the belief that God had inspired 
 the writers of all these books, and thus they came to be 
 accepted, as a rule of faith and morals. As the revealed 
 will of Yahweh they acquired the force of law for every 
 believer, and it was for him to submit himself to them 
 entirely. 
 
 These books, which were afterwards regarded as Holy 
 Scriptures by the Christians too, were called canonical, 
 from a Grreek word meaning a list. But the canon of the 
 books of the Old Testament must not be understood simply 
 as a list of the books of the Jews, but as a list of their 
 holy books, accepted by them as a rule of faith and 
 morals, to which every one must be faithful and obedient. 
 In contradistinction to these, all the rest of the Jewish 
 writings are called ax)ocryphal, which means hidden, a 
 word to which the unfavourable signification of spurious 
 or fictitious was afterwards attached. It was only by very 
 slow degrees that the books which do not appear in the 
 Hebrew canon at last acquired this name. At first some 
 of them stood in a position similar to that of the canoni- 
 
202 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 cal writings themselves. This was the case with those 
 Avorks which were found in the Greek version of the 
 Heptuagint, and which were thus regarded with just as 
 much respect as the rest by the Alexandrian Jews, and 
 hy every one else who used this version, even the early 
 Christians themselves. Some of them were orginally 
 written in Hebrew, others in Greek, although we do not 
 possess any of them, except in a Greek, ^Ethiopic, or 
 Latin dress. The most important are three books of the 
 Maccabees, Judith, Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, and 
 Barucli, as well as certain additions to Ezra, Daniel, and 
 Esther. These books were never called apocryphal in 
 ancient times, but on the contrary, were highly esteemed. 
 Those writings only were then called apocryphal which 
 were not found in the Septuagint, such as the book of 
 Enoch, the Psalms of Solomon, and the Kevelation of 
 Ezra. Subsequently, all these books were placed on the 
 same level, and it came to be the general opinion that 
 they were not holy or inspired by God, while all the 
 books of the Hebrew canon began to be considered holy 
 and divine. We, who know the origin of these books, 
 can make no such distinctions. 
 
 The Talmud, that is to say, the " Instruction," belongs 
 to the religious literature of the Jews. In this book are 
 included the oral tradition and the commentaries com- 
 posed by the scribes from the second to the fifth century 
 after Christ. The first part of the Talmud is called the 
 ]\Iishnah, or the Repetition, and contains the tradition 
 from the time of the older scribes, written in Hebrew, 
 and closed at the beginning of the third century. A 
 second part is added, called the Gemarah, or Supplement. 
 It contains traditions not previously noted down, and later 
 commentaries. We have two recensions of it — the Pales- 
 
COLLECTION OF THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 20o 
 
 tinian, edited by the scribes in Palestine, and closed 
 about the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth 
 century, and the Babylonian, edited by the doctors in 
 Babylon, and closed about the year a.d. 500. The Ge- 
 marah is not in Hebrew, but in the dialects of Palestine 
 and Babylon. Sundry other pieces were afterwards added 
 to the Talmud, such as the Targum, or version of the 
 holy books, while at the same time, in the sixth 
 and following centuries, the text of the Old Testament 
 was fixed by the Masorites, that is to say, the men of the 
 Masorah or tradition. This is the text which we still 
 use ; while the Talmud itself, in its integrity, is the most 
 important source of our knowledge of Judaism in the first 
 centuries after the destruction of Jerusalem. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 CATECHISM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 [Pages 1-6.] 
 SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 
 
 1. From what sources do we get our knowledge of the 
 religion of Israel? 
 
 We get our knowledge of the religion of Israel from the 
 Old Testament. P. 1. 
 
 a. What is the meaning of " Old Testament " or " Cove- 
 nant ? " 
 h. Enumerate the books of the Old Testament, 
 c. In what language are they written ? 
 
 2. How come these books to be the sources of our know- 
 ledge of the religion of Israel ? 
 
 The books of the Old Testament bear historical witness 
 of the religion of the Israelites at different periods of 
 their existence, and thus they give us a knowledge of 
 the growth of their religion. P. 1. 
 
 a. Why is some chronological arrangement of the books 
 
 so necessary to our studies ? 
 h. Can we tell for certain how old each of these books is ? 
 c. Has due stress always been laid upon this question ? 
 
 3. Are these books of value to us for any other purpose 
 besides the study of the religion of Israel ? 
 
206 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 These books teach us the history of the Israelitish people 
 as well ; but this is very closely connected with the 
 history of its religion. P. 3. 
 
 a. Which books are the most important for the j^olitical 
 history ? 
 
 h. How far is the history of Israel carried in the Old 
 Testament ? 
 
 c. Why is the political history of Israel so closely con- 
 nected with the history of its religion ? 
 
 4. Are there any other sources of information concerning 
 the religious and political condition of Israel ? 
 
 Vv'^e get important contributions towards a knowledge of 
 the latest periods of Israel's existence, as a nation, 
 from the Apocryphal Books, Flavins Josephus, Philo, 
 and the Talmud. P. 4. 
 
 a. What do you know about the Apocryphal Books ? 
 h. Who was Flavius Josephus, and what did he write P 
 
 c. How far do Philo and the Talmud help us ? 
 
 d. Are there any other monuments or writings besides 
 
 these, which throw a light upon some periods of the 
 history of Israel ? 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 [Page? 6-15.1 
 THE SAME CONTINUED. 
 
 T. Of what divisions does the Old Testament consist? 
 
 According to the division adopted by the Jews, the Old 
 Testament contains : 1st, the Law ; 2nd, the Prophets : 
 and 3rd, the Writings. P. 6. 
 a. How did this arrangement come about ? 
 &. How are these books arranged amongst ourselves ? 
 "1. What books constitute the Law ? 
 
 Tlie Law consists of five books, which are called Genesis, 
 Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. P. 7. 
 
CATECHISM. 207 
 
 a. What do these names mean ? 
 
 h. Why are these books also called the Pentateuch ? 
 
 c. When were they written ? 
 
 d. Can we discover different documents in these books? 
 
 e. In what sense are these books called " the books of 
 
 Moses "? 
 /. Why cannot they have been written by Moses him- 
 self? 
 
 3. What books are called " the Prophets " ? 
 
 Among the Prophets the Jews reckoned: 1st, the books 
 of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, v^hich arc 
 historical in their contents ; 2nd, the prophetic writ- 
 ings properly so called, viz. («.) Isaiah, Jeremiah, 
 and Ezekiel, which are called the Greater Prophets, 
 and (J.) the Minor Prophets, Hosea, Joel, Amos, 
 Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zepha- 
 niah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. P. 9. 
 
 a. Why are the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and 
 Kings considered to belong to the j^rophets ? 
 
 li. Do we find any history in the more distinctly prophetic 
 writings ? 
 
 c. What do you know of the origin and contents of each 
 of these books ? 
 
 4. Which books constitute the W^ritings ? 
 
 All the rest of the books of the Old Testament : viz. 
 Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Solomon, Ruth, 
 Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, 
 Nehemiah, and Chronicles. P. 18. 
 
 a. What is meant by calling these books "the Writings" ? 
 h. What have you to" say about each of these books indi- 
 vidually ? 
 
208 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 [Pages 16-21.] 
 THE SAME CONTINUED. 
 
 1. From what sources did the writers of tlie Old Testa- 
 ment derive their accounts of the history of Israel ? 
 
 The great majority of the writers of the Old Testament got 
 their knowledge of the history of Israel simply from 
 Tradition ; and the result is that we find a great many 
 sagas or legends in what they have written. P. 17. 
 
 a. What do you mean by " tradition " ? 
 
 h. At about what time did they begin to reduce tradition 
 
 to writing ? 
 c. What are sagas or legends ? 
 
 2. To what do these writers make their representations of 
 history subordinate ? 
 
 These writers are governed in their representations of 
 history by the overwhelming influence of their own 
 opinions, which differ according as their sympathies 
 are prophetic or priestly. P. 18. 
 
 a. What kind of opinions do we call prophetic ? 
 1). And what kind do we call priestly ? 
 
 c. Give an instance of the influence of each of these two 
 
 ways of thinking. 
 
 d. How does our modern way of writing history diff'er 
 
 from that of these authors ? 
 
 3. In spite of all this, are these books of any use in study- 
 ing the history of the religion of Israel ? 
 
 However strenuously we maintain the distinction between 
 what is historical and what is unhistorical, both these 
 elements are sources of information for us concerning 
 the growth of the religion of Israel. P. 20. 
 
 a. Why must this distinction be strenuously main- 
 tained ? 
 
CATECHISM. 209 
 
 Jj. How is it that tlie unhistorical elements are just as 
 
 useful to us as the historical elements ? 
 c. Are there any myths in the historical portions ? 
 
 4. Have not the books of the Old Testament a still higher 
 value for us ? 
 
 So mighty a religious spirit speaks to us from these books, 
 that our own religious life is still aroused and strength- 
 ened by it. P. 21. 
 
 a. Is this equally true of all the books ? 
 J). To what books does it chiefly apply ? 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 [Pages 22-27.] 
 THE TRIBES IX GOSHEN. 
 
 1. Where does the history of the religion of Israel begin ? 
 
 The history of the religion of Israel begins with the 
 sojourn of the tribes in Egypt. P. 22. 
 
 a. Where was it formerly considered to begin ? 
 h. Why do we reject this view ? 
 
 2. In what light are we to regard the narratives which 
 precede that period ? 
 
 The narratives which precede that period do not comprise 
 any history properly so called, but they represent the 
 ideas of the Israelites about their past. P. 22. 
 
 a. How far back do these narratives go ? 
 
 h. What did the Israelites believe about their ancestors? 
 
 c. Is this altogether destitute of historical foundation ? 
 
 3. What are we told about the coming of the Israelites to 
 Egypt ? 
 
 According to the tradition the elevation of Joseph, the son 
 of Jacob, to the post of viceroy of Egypt led to the 
 
 P 
 
210 THE EELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 emigration of his whole family to that country from 
 Canaan. P. 25. 
 
 a. What are we told of Joseph ? 
 
 h. Does the history of Egypt contain any additional traces 
 of the sojourn of Israel in Goshen ? 
 4. What rendered the sojourn in Egypt of great importance 
 to the Israelites ? 
 
 The Israelites, still divided as they were into tribes, were 
 prepared in Egypt for their amalgamation into a 
 nation. P. 26. 
 
 a. How long did the sojourn in Egypt last ? 
 h. How did their sojourn in Egypt prepare the way for 
 their amalgamation into a nation ? 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 [Pages 27-31.] 
 THE SAME CONTINUED. 
 
 1. In what respects did the religion of the Israelites in 
 Goshen agree with that of the other Semites ? 
 
 The religion of the Israelites in Goshen was, like that 
 of the rest of the Semites, a nature-worship. P. 27. 
 
 a. Are any traces of this preserved in the Old Testa- 
 ment? 
 
 h. Did this nature- worship continue to exist at a later 
 time ? 
 
 2. How far did the religion of the Israelites stand ahove 
 that of the rest of the Semites ? 
 
 The religion of the Israelites was especially directed to 
 the heavenly and invisible, and this made it capable 
 of developing into monotheism. P. 30. 
 
 a. How were the two things connected ? 
 h. When did this nature-worship first develop into mono- 
 theism amongst the Israelites ? 
 
catechis:m. 211 
 
 3. AVliafc do we know of the worship practised hy the 
 Israelites in Goshen ? 
 
 There are traces of the different tribes having worshipped 
 their own special gods as well as one deity common 
 to them all. P. 31. 
 
 a. What traces do we find of the existence of these special 
 
 gods ? 
 h. Under what names do these gods appear in the Bible ? 
 
 4. Under what name did the tribes in Goshen worship 
 their common deity ? 
 
 The tribes in Goshen called their common deity "El- 
 Shaddai" or the Mighty One. P. 31. 
 
 a. What idea is contained in the name ? 
 h. Who was the first to use this name, according to the 
 Bible? 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 [Pages 32-42.] 
 MOSES. 
 
 1, What influence had Israel's liberation from Egypt upon 
 the development of its religion ? 
 
 Ihrough their liberation from Egypt, under the leadership 
 of Moses, the belief of the Israelites in the power of 
 their national god was greatly strengthened. P. 34. 
 
 a. Who was Moses ? 
 
 h. How is the history of the Exodus related? 
 c. What festival was subsequently kept in remembrance 
 of the Exodus ? 
 
 2. What share had Moses in forming the religion of 
 Israel ? 
 
 Moses gave El-Shaddai the name of Yah web, and endea- 
 voured to induce the tribes to worship him to the 
 
 exclusion of all other gods. P. 34. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 a. What is the Tneaningr of the name Jehovah or Yahweh? 
 1). Did the belief in Yahweh at this time include the 
 belief in the unity of God ? 
 
 c. Was Moses indebted to the Egyptians foi* any element 
 
 of his religion ? 
 
 d. What attitude did Moses assume towards the worship 
 
 of images? 
 
 3. What was the special excellence of the religion of 
 Moses ? 
 
 The special excellence of the religion of ]\[oses lay in a 
 moral character higher than was to be found in other 
 religions. P. 37. 
 a. Was the people sufficiently advanced to appreciate this 
 
 moral character? 
 I). What is the connection between this moral character 
 
 and the worship of Yahweh as the Holy One ? 
 c. How did Moses represent the holiness of Yahweh ? 
 
 4. What was Moses' conception of the relation between 
 Yahweh and Israel ? 
 
 Moses represented the relation between Yahweh and Israel 
 as a covenant, of which the code of the Ten Com- " 
 maudments constituted the basis. P. .39. 
 a. What are we told about the inauguration of this 
 
 covenant ? 
 I). How does the code of the Ten Commandments run ? 
 c. Is this code, in the form in which it has come down to 
 
 us, derived from Moses ? 
 (7. Where was the code kept, according to the tradition ? 
 c. Are any other laws ascribed to Moses ? 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 [Pages 42-51.] 
 THE PERIOD OF THE JUDGES. 
 
 1. What course did the religion of Israel take after Moses' 
 death ? 
 
 Though some of the people kept to the service of Yahweh 
 
CATECHISM. 
 
 213 
 
 after Moses' death, it did not, for the next few 
 centuries prove strong enough to supplant the worship 
 of other gods on the part of the majority. P. 44. 
 
 a. How do you explain this ? 
 
 h. What did Joshua do for Mosaism ? 
 
 2. What influence did the settlement of the people in 
 Canaan exercise on the service of Yahweh ? 
 
 It led to the admixture with it of sundry elements of the 
 religion of the indigenous peoples. P. 47. 
 a. What peoples dwelt in Canaan, and what do we read 
 
 about their origin ? 
 I. AVhat are we told of the entrance into Canaan and the 
 
 settlement there ? 
 c. How was the people governed in times of peace and of 
 war respectively ? 
 
 3. In what religious condition were the Israelites during 
 this period ? 
 
 During the period of the Judges the Israelites were in a 
 transition state, marked by great barbarism. P. 49. 
 a. Did the Judges contribute anything towards the deve- 
 lopment of the religion of Israel ? 
 h. What do we learn from the song of Deborah in 
 Judges V. ? 
 
 c. What do the stories of Gideon, of Jephthah, and of 
 
 Samson show ? 
 
 d. What are we told about the ark of the covenant? 
 
 e. What forms of worship prevailed in those days ? 
 
 4. What result did this state of things lead to ? 
 
 The Israelites, frequently oppressed by their enemies, 
 began to feel more and more attachment to the service 
 of Yahweh, and strongly felt the need of being more 
 closely united. P. 51. 
 
 a. What enemies oppressed them ? 
 
 h. Is this pohtical misery to b3 ascribed in any measure 
 to the mutual relations of the tribes ? 
 
214 THE TiELIGIOX OF ISRAEL. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 [Pages 51-60.] 
 SAMUEL AND SAUL. 
 
 1. Who exercised an auspicious influence on the develop- 
 ment of the religion of Israel towards the close of the period 
 of tlie Judges. 
 
 Samuel, the last of the Judges, powerfull}' stirred up the 
 relig-ious feelino- of his nation and laid the foundations 
 of its political unity. P. 51. 
 
 a. What accounts have we of Samuel .P 
 
 Ij. In what relation did he stand to Mosaism ? 
 
 2. What new phenomenon do we meet with at this time ? 
 
 Prophecy. It originated in an exalted religious enthusiasm, 
 and was fostered and guided by Samuel. P. 54. 
 
 a. Is any mention made of prophets before this ? 
 h. What were the schools of the prophets ? 
 c. What were seers ? 
 
 3. How did the nation achieve political unity ? 
 
 The nation achieved political unity through the agency of 
 Saul, who obtained important victories over the 
 enemies of Israel and was raised to the throne. P. oG. 
 
 a. What tribe did Saul belong to ? 
 
 b. What were his distinguishing qualities ? 
 
 e. What are the diiferent stories that we have, in I. 
 Samuel, viii.-xii., about his elevation to the throne ? 
 
 4. In what relation did Saul stand to Samuel ? 
 
 At first Saul was very friendly with Samuel, but after a 
 time there was a serious rupture between them which 
 led Samuel to seek another king. P. 58. 
 
 a. What are we told about his searching for a suitable king ? 
 h. What was Saul's end ? 
 
CATECHISM. 215 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 [Pages 61-78.J 
 DAVID AND SOLOMON. 
 
 1. What political services did David, Saul's successor, do 
 to Israel ? 
 
 David subdued the enemies of Israel at home and abroad, 
 and thus made the kingdom powerful. P. 65. 
 
 a. Did he become king of the whole of Israel immediately- 
 after Saul's death ? 
 
 h. Why was the capture of Jebus, afterwards called Jeru- 
 salem, important ? 
 
 c. What measures did David take in reference to military 
 
 affairs ? 
 
 d. What danger threatened the kingdom through the 
 
 revolt of Absolom ^ 
 
 2. What influence did David exercise on the religion of 
 Israel ? 
 
 David worked in the spirit of Samuel for the promotion of 
 the service of Yaliweh, and prepared the way for the 
 unity of public worship. P. QQ, 
 
 ' a. What did David do for the promotion of the semce of 
 
 Yahweh ? 
 h. Was his private life in harmony with these measures ? 
 
 c. What must we infer from David's treatment of Saul's 
 
 seven sons and grandsons (II. Samuel, xxi.) ? 
 
 d. What claims has he to be regarded as the composer of 
 
 a number of the psalms ? 
 
 3. Who was David's successor ? 
 
 David was succeeded by his son Solomon, who carried 
 Israel to the highest pitch of prosperity. P. 71. 
 
 a. How did Solomon govern ? 
 
 h. What relations did he enter into with neighbouring 
 nations ? 
 
216 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 c. "What were his relations with the prophets, and how 
 
 were they afterwards modified ? 
 
 d. What was the condition of Israel politically at the 
 
 close of his life ? 
 
 4. What did Solomon become most famous for ? 
 
 Solomon became famous, not only for the erection of the 
 temple at Jerusalem, but also as the first of the 
 " Sages " in Israel. P. 77. 
 
 a. What was his object in building the temple ? 
 h. What were the " sages " of Israel ? 
 
 c. What instances are related of Solomon's wisdom ? 
 
 d. What books are attributed to Solomon as the founder 
 
 of the sages ? 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 [Pages 78-84.] 
 REHOBOAM AND THE DISRUPTION OF THE KINGDOM. 
 
 1. What befel Israel on the death of Solomon ? 
 
 On the death of Solomon Rehoboam became king, and in 
 his reign the kingdom was split in two. P. 78. 
 
 a. What led to this? 
 
 h. What attitude did the prophets assume under these 
 
 circumstances ? 
 c. Which tribes remained faithful to Eehoboam ? 
 
 2. Who became king of the ten tribes ? 
 
 Jeroboam, with the support of the prophets, became king 
 of the ten tribes. P. 78. 
 
 a. What do you know of Jeroboam's previous history ? 
 h. What relation did he sustain to the prophets as king ? 
 
 3. Had this disruption any influence on religion ? 
 
 This disruption caused religion in Israel to take quite a 
 different turn from what it took in Judah where 
 Mosaism was developed in greater purity. P. 81. 
 
CATECiriSM. 217 
 
 a. What was the condition of things from this time for- 
 ward in Israel ? 
 
 h. What influence had the disruption on the state of 
 religion in Judah ? 
 
 c. What did the prophets in Israel think of the worship 
 of Tahweh in the likeness of a bull ? 
 
 4. AVas there no further connection between the two 
 kingdoms ? 
 
 The two kingdoms were generally at enmity witli each 
 other, but now and then their relations w^ere friendly. 
 P. 83. 
 a. What shows the mutual hostility of the two king- 
 doms ? 
 &. When did they become more reconciled ? 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 [Pages 84-95.] 
 THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL. 
 
 1. What was the state of religion in Israel? 
 
 The service of Yahweh had to undergo a severe struggle 
 with the service of Baal in Israel. P. 85. 
 a. Of what nature was the service of Baal ? 
 h. What previous mentiou is there of religious service of 
 this kind, and how did that of these later times differ 
 from it ? 
 
 2. What prophets opposed the service of Baal ? 
 
 The prophets Elijah and Elisha powerfully opposed the 
 service of Baal, when king Ahab strove to impose it 
 by force. P. 86. 
 a. How did Ahab aud Jezebel seek to uphold the service 
 
 of Baal ? 
 h. What was the nature of Elijah's prophetic efforts ? 
 
 c. What measures did he take in opposition to the service 
 
 of Baal ? 
 
 d. What do we read about Elijah on Mount Horeb ? 
 
218 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 c. "Who was Elisha ? 
 
 /. What miracles are ascribed to these prophets? 
 
 .'). What prophets arose in Israel a century later ? 
 
 A century later Hosea, Zechariah (ix.-xi.), and Amos arose 
 in Israel and preached a pure monotheism in opposi- 
 tion to the bull worship. P. 93. 
 
 a. What do we know of the work of these prophets ? 
 h. How far were they in advance of Elijah and EHsha ? 
 c. Is the book of Zechariah the work of a single prophet ? 
 
 4. How did the kingdom of Israel come to an end ? 
 
 After existing for two centuries and a half, the kingdom 
 of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians, and it was 
 never again restored. P. 95. 
 
 /'. Do we know of any earlier invasions of Israel on the 
 part of the Assyrians ? 
 
 //. What new inhabitants did the conquered countr)'- re- 
 ceive ? 
 
 c. What people was descended from them ? 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 [Pages 96-109.] 
 THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 
 
 1. What do you know of the state of religion in the king- 
 dom of Judah ? 
 
 The service of Yaliweh was more prominent in Judah than 
 in Israel, and permanently established itself there. 
 P. 96. 
 
 a. Had Judah's possession of the temple any influence in 
 
 this respect ? 
 I). What did the priests do to promote the service in the 
 temple ? 
 ti. Had the kings any share in maintaining the service of 
 Yahwch ? 
 
CATECHlSai. 219 
 
 Many of the kings of Judali, especially Hezekiah and 
 Josiali, showed themselves powerful protectors of the 
 service of Yahweh. P. 98. 
 
 a. Which of the kings did so, besides those you have 
 
 named ? 
 h. Which of the kings showed sympathies in an opposite 
 
 direction ? 
 
 c. Were sacrifices offered anywhere besides at Jerusalem ? 
 
 d. Do we find any traces of the service of Baal as well, 
 
 in Judah ? 
 
 e. What do you know of Josiah and his reformation ? 
 /. What prophet supported hitn in it? 
 
 r/. How is the Book of Deuteronomy connected with this 
 reformation ? 
 
 o. In what spirit did the prophets of this time labour ? 
 
 The prophets, who were often opposed to the priests, wei-e 
 zealous for a purer development of Mosaism. P. 99. 
 
 a. What were the aims of the proj^hets ? 
 
 h. Whence sprang the opposition of the priests.^ 
 
 4. W^hat led to the fall of the kingdom of Judah ? 
 
 The kingdom of Judah, weakened by mixing in the wars 
 between Egypt and Babylon and by internal divisions, 
 was finally conquered by Nebuchadrezzar, who laid 
 waste the city and the temple, and carried off the 
 people to Babylon. P. 104. 
 
 a. What part did Judah take in the wars between Egyjjt 
 
 and Babylon .P 
 h. By what religious disputes was Judah weakened ? 
 G. What were the circumstances of its fall ? 
 d. Describe the behaviour of Jeremiah, and state what you 
 
 know of the last period of his life. 
 
220 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 CHAPTER Xlir. 
 
 [Pages 109-119.] 
 PllOPHECr. 
 
 1. What was prophecy ? 
 
 Propliecy was a peculiar phenomenon in Israel consisting 
 in the appearance of pious men, inspired with a sacred 
 enthusiasm to testify publicly of Yahweli and his 
 service. P. 109. 
 
 a. What was it that the prophets called God's word ? 
 
 h. Under what names do the prophets appear in the Old 
 
 Testament ? 
 c. Do we find traces of this phenomenon among any other 
 
 peoples ? 
 
 2. When did prophecy arise in Israel, and how long did it 
 continue to exist ? 
 
 From Samuel's time onwards, prophecy was on the in- 
 crease in Israel, but after the Babylonish captivity it 
 gradually died out. P. 111. 
 
 a. Was not the term prophet, ap^Dlied even to one so earl}^ 
 
 as Moses ? 
 h. What share had Samuel in the promotion of prophecy ? 
 
 c. When did the schools of the prophets fall into decay ? 
 
 d. When did prophecy reach its climax ? 
 
 e. Were all the prophets preachers, properly so called ? 
 
 3. What was the purport of the preaching of the pro- 
 phets ? 
 
 The prophets preached, in accordance with the spirit of 
 
 Moses, that a pure theocracy must be tlioroughly 
 
 realized in Israel as Yahweh's peculiar people. P. 112. 
 
 a. How did they conceive the relation between Yahweh 
 
 and Israel ? 
 h. What moral obligations did they deduce from it.P 
 c. In what light did they regard the heathen ? 
 
CATECHISM. 221 
 
 d. Had their preachinor any bearing on politics ? 
 
 e. In what respect did their preaching relate to the future? 
 /. What development can we trace in ])rophecy ? 
 
 4. What causes led to the decay of prophecy ? 
 
 The prophets got but little hold upon the people, and pro- 
 phetic inspiration gave way to intellectual reflection ; 
 and so, prophecy gradually fell into decay. P. 116. 
 
 a. In what respect were the prophets too advanced for the 
 people ? 
 
 h. What proof have we of the gradual decline of the pro- 
 phetic inspiration ? 
 
 c. When did prophecy cease to exist ? 
 
 d. Were there false prophets as well as true ones ? 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 [Pages 120-126.] 
 THE MESSIANIC EXPECTATION. 
 
 1. What do you mean by the Messianic Expectation ? 
 The Messianic Expectation consisted in the firm conviction 
 that the day would come when the service of the God 
 of Israel would prevail. P. 120. 
 a. What does the title, * Messiah/ signify ? 
 h. What was the origin of this conviction in the minds of 
 
 the prophets ? 
 c. Do we find any traces of this belief in the historical 
 books of the Old Testament? (Gen. iii. 15; xii. 2 ; 
 II. Sam. vii. 16.) 
 2. What form did this expectation take in the minds of 
 the prophets at first ? 
 
 At first their belief was confined to the expectation of a 
 happy future for Israel as God's people. P. 121. 
 a. Which of the prophets entertained this expectation ? 
 h. How did they represent the anticipated future ? 
 
222 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 3. What form did the Messianic Expectation take at a 
 later time ? 
 
 At a later time the prophets proclaimed their expectation 
 that the Messianic deliverance would be brought about 
 by a prince of the house of David. P. 122. 
 a. In which of the prophets do we meet with this 
 
 opinion ? 
 h. What made them fix upon a prince of the house of 
 
 David ? 
 e. Did they all advance this view in the same form? 
 
 4. Did the Messianic Expectation undergo still farther 
 modification? 
 
 Subsequently, in the second Isaiah, the religious nucleus 
 of the nation took the place of the personal Messiah, 
 P. 124. 
 a. Under what title does the second Isaiah speak of the 
 religious nucleus of the nation, and what does he say 
 concerning it? 
 h. What further special anticipation do we find in other 
 prophets of a later time? 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 [Pages 126-134.] 
 THE SAGES. 
 
 1. Who were the " sages," in Israel ? 
 
 Tlie name of "sages" was given, in Israel, to those men 
 who took an interest in increasing the culture of the 
 people by teaching them lessons of practical wisdom. 
 P. 127. 
 
 a. With whom have we already made acquaintance in the 
 character of the founder of the sages ? 
 
 /'. What books owe their origin to this school ? 
 
 c. In what did the special character of their wisdom 
 consist ? 
 
CATECHISM. 223 
 
 d. How were the sages clistingnished from the prophets 
 
 and from the priests ? 
 
 e. Had this school popular influence ? 
 
 2. What is the purpose of the Book of Job? 
 The writer of the Book of Job endeavours to solve the 
 riddles of the divine government in reference to the 
 calamities which befall the pious. P. 129. 
 a. Are we concerned with real history in this book ? 
 J). In what form does the writer deal with this problem ?' 
 c. Does he solve the problem satisfactorily? 
 
 0. What are the contents of the Book of Proverbs ? 
 
 The Book of Proverbs comprises a collection of all kinds 
 of lessons on a wise conduct of life. P. 128. 
 
 a. What are proverbs ? 
 
 h. What are the principal subjects treated of in this 
 
 book? 
 c. Are any writers or collectors of proverbs mentioned ? 
 4. What are the characteristics of the Preacher ? 
 The Preacher takes a very gloomy view of life in general, 
 and evidently feels his inability to explain the riddles 
 of life. P. 131. 
 a. When did he live ? 
 
 h. What are the principal contents of his book ? 
 c. Is it characterized by a pure morality or a genuinely 
 religious tone ? 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 [Pages 135-144.] 
 THE BABYLONISH CAPTIVITY. 
 
 1. What effect had the sojourn in Babylon on the religious 
 life of the Israelites ? 
 
 When deprived of their temple and their religious services, 
 the Israelites began to feel a deeper interest in the 
 religion of Moses and the preaching of the prophets. 
 P. 136. 
 
224 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 a. Do we find any psalms belonging to this period in our 
 
 collection ? 
 h. What was the condition of the captives ? 
 
 2. Did any prophets arise during the captivity ? 
 
 Ezekiel, the second Isaiah and others spoke vs^ords of con- 
 solation and encouragement to the people. P. 136. 
 
 a. Who was Ezekiel ? 
 
 h. What do we know of the second Isaiah ? 
 
 c. What was the nature of their labours ? 
 
 d. What other prophets were there ? 
 
 3. What brought the Babylonish captivity to an end ? 
 
 The Persian king, Cyrus, having conquered the kingdom 
 of Babylon, gave the captives leave to return to their 
 own country. P. 138. 
 
 a. How came Cyrus to be so favourably disposed towards 
 
 them? 
 h. Did they all avail themselves of this permission ? 
 
 c. Who were the leaders of those who returned ? 
 
 d. Did any of those who stayed behind afterwards return 
 
 from Babylon ? 
 
 e. What are we told in addition, in the book of Esther, 
 
 about those who stayed behind ^ 
 
 4. Did the Persians exercise any influence on the religion 
 of Israel ? 
 
 Under the influence of the Persians, the ideas and opinions 
 of the Israelites underwent important modifications. 
 P. 140. 
 
 a. What ideas did they borrow from the Persians concern- 
 ing angels and demons ? 
 
 h. What was their idea of Satan before the captivity ? 
 
 c. Did they afterwards adopt any ideas from any other 
 nations ? 
 
CATECHISM. 225 
 
 Cl-IAPrER XVII. 
 
 [Pages 144-155.] 
 EZRA AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 1. What was the state of religion among the people after 
 their return from Babylon ? 
 
 Religious feeling was at first very animated among those 
 who had returned, but it soon ceased to be so ; a result 
 to which the opposition of the Samaritans contributed 
 more than anything. P. 144. 
 
 a. How did this animation manifest itself.'' 
 
 h. Ho^ did the opposition of the Samaritans originate ? 
 
 c. What was the result ? 
 
 d. Did not the non-fulfilment of the prophecies of Ezekiel 
 
 and the second Isaiah also contribute to the popular 
 discouragement ? 
 
 e. When was the erection of the temple completed ? 
 
 /. Which of the prophets powerfully promoted this work ? 
 g. What name do the Israelites bear from this time 
 forward ? 
 
 2. Who brought about a favourable change in the religfious 
 feeling of the people ? 
 
 Ezra, who returned to Jerusalem from Babylon with a 
 number more of the captives, and stirred up new life 
 among the people by the powerful stimulus which he 
 gave to their love of the Law. P. 146. 
 
 a. Who was Ezra ? 
 
 h. How did he begin his work ? 
 
 c. What measure did he take in reference to the foreign 
 
 wives of the Jews ? 
 
 d. Did they all acquiesce in this measure ? 
 
 e. In which books of the Old Testament do we find a 
 
 milder opinion concerning the heathen ? 
 
 3. What did Ezra do for legislation ? 
 
 Q 
 
226 THE LELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 Ezra, himself a priest, introduced into Israel the priestly 
 legislation which we find in the Pentateuch, and made 
 it binding. P. 147. 
 
 a. How far were the efforts of Ezra in harmony with 
 
 those of the old prophets ? 
 h. In which books of the Pentateuch do we find the 
 
 priestly legislation ? 
 c. At what period was it composed? 
 
 At. Who supported Ezra in his efforts ? 
 
 Nehemiah, who came from Babylon soon after Ezra, 
 seconded his efforts loyally. P. 150. 
 
 a. What particulars do we know about Nehemiah ? 
 
 CHAPTER XYIII. 
 
 [Pages 155-167.] 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP AND THE SYNAGOGUE. 
 
 1. How was the temple-service conducted at this time ? 
 The temple-service was now conducted entirely in accord- 
 ance with the priestly legislation. P. 155. 
 
 a. How far did the second temple resemble Solomon's ? 
 h. What were the duties of the priests and of the Levites ? 
 c. What sacrifices were now offered ? 
 
 2. What great festivals were kept ? 
 
 The great festivals which were kept were the Passover, 
 Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles. P. 158. 
 
 a. How did these festivals originate ? 
 h. What was the Sabbath ? 
 
 c. Were there any other festivals ? 
 
 d. What was the Great Day of Atonement ? 
 
 3.][^How did the synagogues arise ? 
 
CATECHISM. 227 
 
 In Babylon the Jews began to assemble for the hearing of 
 the Law, and from this practice the synagogues 
 arose. P. 163. 
 a. What is the meaning of the term synagogue ? 
 h. "Were they intended to supersede the temple ? 
 c. Were they known so early as the first part of the 
 captivity ? 
 4. How was the synagogue introduced into Judaea ? 
 The synagogue was probably introduced from Babylon into 
 Judaea by Ezra, and there used for explaining and ex- 
 pounding the Law. P. 163. 
 a. What were the men called who were employed in ex- 
 plaining the Law ? 
 h. Were the lawyers distinct from them P 
 c. Was the authority of the priests impaired at all by 
 that of the scribes ? 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 [Pages 168-185.] 
 
 THE JEWS IN THE AGE IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE CHKISTIAN 
 
 ERA. 
 
 1. What course did the history of the Jews take after their 
 return from Babylon ? 
 
 The history of the Jews after their return from Babylon 
 embraces the following periods : I. the Persian rule ; 
 II. the Greek rule ; III. National independence 
 under the Maccabees ; IV. the rule of Herod and of 
 the Romans. P. 168. 
 a. How long did each of these periods last ? 
 6. Relate the most important events ? 
 
 c. What princes reigned over the Jews during the period 
 
 of Greek rule ? 
 
 d. Did the spirit of Greek civilization exercise any in- 
 
 fluence on Judaism ? 
 
228 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 2. What struggle was brought about by the despotic 
 measures of Antioehus Epiphanes ? 
 
 Antiochus Epiphanes wanted to force Greek civilization 
 upon the Jews, and this led them to offer that valiant 
 resistance which the Maccabees put themselves at the 
 head of. P. 174. 
 
 a. In what books do we find a history of this rebellion ? 
 1), Give an account of it. 
 
 r. What do you know about the government of the Mac- 
 cabees .^ 
 d. What Jewish festival dates from this epocli ^ 
 
 0. W^hat book of the Old Testament was written in refer- 
 ence to this struggle ? 
 
 The Book of Daniel, written in the year 165 before Christ, 
 aims at encouraging the pious in this struggle. P. 177. 
 
 a. Give an outline of the book. 
 
 1). AVith what character does the writer connect his 
 
 story 't 
 r. Of what class of literature was this book the beginning ? 
 d. How was it intended to sustain pious men in their 
 
 efforts. 
 
 1. AVhat influence had Greek rule on the state of religion 
 among the Jews ? 
 
 Under the influence of Greek rule the difierent religious 
 schools among the Jews began to become more dis- 
 tinctly defined. P. 171). 
 
 a. To what schools do we refer ? 
 
 h. What were the characteristics of the Pharisees ? 
 
 c. And of the Sadducees ? 
 
 (7. And of the Essenes ? 
 
CATECHISM. 229 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 [Pages 186-197.] 
 THE SAME CONTINUED. 
 
 1. When did tlie Jews lose their national existence alto- 
 gether ? 
 
 After having been dependent on the Romans for a consider- 
 able time, at the beginning of our era the Jews lost 
 their national existence altogether. [P. 170.] 
 a. When did they come under the sway of the Romans ? 
 h. "What royal family still ruled over the Jews ? 
 
 c. When were they incorporated in the Roman dominions ? 
 
 d. In what year did the Jewish state come to an end? 
 
 2. What had meanwhile befallen the religion of the Jews 
 out of Palestine ? 
 
 With a great part of the Jews abroad the religion of Moses 
 had acquired a peculiar character through contact -with 
 Greek civilization. P. 186. 
 a. AVhat was this character ? 
 h. AVhat do 3^ou mean by " Hellenism " ? 
 
 c. What are proselytes, and what distinctions were there 
 
 among them ? 
 
 d. What translation of the Old Testament dates from this 
 
 period ? 
 
 3. Where and in whom did this peculiar character manirL'c>t 
 itself in the most special manner ? 
 
 This peculiar character manifested itself especially at 
 Alexandria, in Philo, who was a contemporary of 
 Jesus. P. 190. 
 
 a. AVho was this Philo ? 
 
 h. What influence did Greek philosophy exercise on him ? 
 
 c. In what fashion did he endeavour to explain the Old 
 
 Testament ? 
 
 d. What do you mean by the " Logos " ? 
 
 e. What do we find on this subject in the Kew Testa- 
 
 ment ? 
 
230 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 4, What was there noteworthy in the religions condition 
 of the world about the beo^inninsr of the Christian era ? 
 
 While Judaism seemed perishing in formalism, and pa- 
 ganism was exhausted by doubt and immorality, pious 
 men, among Jews and heathen alike, were eagerly 
 seeking a better religion. P. 193. 
 
 a. What is formalism ? 
 
 h. What do you know about the doubt and immorality of 
 the heathen ? 
 
 c. How did this search for a better religion show itself? 
 
 d. What traces do we find of it in Greek and Latin 
 
 authors ? 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 [Pages 198-203.] 
 THE COLLECTION OF THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 1. When was the collection of the Old Testament writings 
 begun ? 
 
 The collection of the Old Testament writings was begun 
 after the Babylonish captivity, by Ezra, who joined 
 together the five books ascribed to Moses, and set 
 them up as a legal code. P. 198. 
 
 a. What did Ezra begin with ? 
 
 h. What are we told about Nehemiah in this connection ? 
 
 c. What books were written after the time of Ezra ? 
 
 d. Who carried on the work begun by Ezra ? 
 
 2. How did the work of collection proceed ? 
 
 First, the Prophets, and then, by degrees, the Writings 
 were added to the Law ; and the whole collection was 
 closed in the course of the century before Christ. 
 P. 199. 
 
 a. What were the last writings to be incorporated in this 
 collection ? 
 
CATECHISM. 231 
 
 I. Was there any difference of opinion about including 
 certain books ? 
 
 3. What value did the Jews finally set on this colleetion ? 
 This collection acquired canonical authority with the Jews ; 
 
 that is to say, it was regarded as a divine rule of faith 
 and morals ? P. 201. 
 
 a. What is the derivation of the word " canonical " ? 
 h. Did all these books acquire this authority at the same 
 time ? 
 
 4. How did the rest of the religious writing of the Jews 
 come to be regarded through these circumstances ? 
 
 The rest of the religious writings of the Jews, produced 
 in the last period of their national existence, are called 
 " Apocryphal " ; and, though the Jews were at liberty 
 to use them, they were not allowed to be publicly read 
 in the synagogue. P. 201. 
 
 a. What is the meaning of the term "Apocryphal".^ 
 h. Mention the most imiDortant of these books. 
 
 c. In what language have they been preserved .P 
 
 d. How did the Talmud arise ? 
 
 AVoodicdl & Kinder, Printers, Milford Lane, Etrand, London, W.C. 
 
BS1196.K67 
 
 The religion of Israel : a manual 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00058 6612