k mnChl COMMENTARY GENESIS UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRAIIY Class Book Volume Je 07-lOM Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. A charge is made on all overdue books. University of Illinois Library SFP --8 IS mi 19 f9S0 APR ^ 3 19;7 *APR 1 7 m OCT 1 3 m OCT 10 1979 M32 CRITICAL COMMENTARY ON GENESIS II. 4— III. 25 HonKon: C. J. CLAY and SONS, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AVE MARIA LANE, ffilasflofaj: 50, WELLINGTON STREET. ILeip^ig: F. A. BROCKHAUS. i^eb) lork: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. ISomftag anti aTalctitta: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. [All Rights reserved'] A CRITICAL COMMENTARY ON GENESIS II. 4— III. 25 by H. H. B. AYLES, D.D., M.R.A.S. Author of ''Destination, Date, and Authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews." London : G. J. Clay and Sons Cambridge University Press Warehouse Ave Maria Lane 1904 A (ITambritige: PRINTED BY J. AND C F. CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. PREFACE. IN this essay an endeavour has been made to explain the vocabulary of the Jehovist by comparison with other Semitic languages and his theology by comparison with other Semitic religions. In dealing with the Old Testament it is necessary to distinguish sharply between two classes of theories. There are some, which are so supported by the facts, that they may be regarded as proved. There are others, which although they explain some facts — and what theory is there which does not? — flatly contradict others and therefore must be rejected. The main position of the critical school belongs to the former class but it in no way detracts from the religious value of the Old Testament. Theories of morality and inspiration are, however, quite distinct from questions of date and authorship and must be judged on their own merits. The matter is too important to allow of their being accepted in deference to external authority. Barrow, June^ 1904. 10y569 CONTENTS. PAGE List of Abbreviations .... . viii The Author i The narrative 6 The Sources of the Narrative . . . . ii Date 22 Commentary 35 Additional Note on Sentences without a copula 73 The Theology of the Jehovist .... 75 ■ The Monotheism of the Jehovist . . . - 79 ^ The Ethical Conception of God .... .99 Additional Note on the prefix Ya . . .112 Appendix I. Was Jehovah ever the name of a heathen god? 118 II. Pronunciation of the name Jehovah . 130 III. The Hebrew Tenses . . . . 138 ABBREVIATIONS. B. S. S. Beitrage zur Assyriologie. H. W. B. Handworterbuch. J. D. Th. Jahrbiicher fur deiitsche Theologie. J. R. A. S. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. K. A. T. Die Keilinschriften und das alte Testament (third edition). K. B. Schrader. Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek. P. S. B. A. Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology. R. J. Revue des Etudes juives. T. S. B. A. Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology. Th. Tijd. Theologisch Tijdschrift. W. Z. K. M. Vienna Oriental Journal. Z. A. Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie. Z. A. T. W. Zeitschrift fiir die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. Z. D. M. G. Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandischen Gesell- schaft. THE AUTHOR. When we pass from verse 4^ to verse 4^ of the second chapter of Genesis, we meet for the first time with an author who differs from the writer we are just leaving in style, language, and even in ideas \ The one author has been precise, methodical, chrono- logical, attaching importance to numbers, putting each day's work in its proper place, and connecting the whole with the sacred number seven. The other writer gives us a picturesque description, with so little regard to strict chronology that he relates the creation of man before the creation of the trees on which he is to live. The style of the one is stereotyped ^, condensed, and prosaic : that of the other is free, flowing, and poetical. The history of the one forms a rigidly connected whole: that of the other consists of a. number of quite independent narratives, very loosely connected and arranged in accordance with the author's plan. The interest of the one is ^generic rather than / 1 These questions are carefully discu^sqii by Dillmann, Harper (Hebraica, Vols. 5 and 6), and Holzinger {Einleitung in d. Hexateuch). 2 In the account of the Creation he repeats himself with the greatest regularity: " Godt said, Let there be... and there was... and God saw that it was good... and there was evening ^nd there was morning." Cf. also Gen. v. i — 27. 2 COMMENTARY ON GEN. II. 4 — III. 24 individual, he considers the universal law rather than its special application. The other deals with persons rather than with classes and illustrates the working of God's laws by the lives and fortunes of individual men and women. The account of the one is imposing and sublime: the narrative of the other vivid and simple. This diversity of style is supported by difference in language and vocabulary ^ Gen. i. i—ii. 4* Gen. ii. 4^ — iv. 26 D\nbx nin'' or n'rhi< nin>2 [D'^'^n nn] D^'-n ni2m nt^y or «nn n^r or iv*' iy niTDH riN n^y, he made the altar of wood. See Gesenius-Kautzsgh, §117 /i /i ; Ewald, Aus/, Lehrb.^ § 842 <2 ; Konig, Syntax^ p. 372 ; Davidson, Syntax^ p. 109. nron^^n is added to connect DIK and n^DIN- Sym., Theod., Syr., eTrXao-c tov 'A8a/x...a7ro riys *A8a/xa. D''''n HD^J. sVOm and tJ^DJ are connected together as 40 COMMENTARY cause and effect. The t^DJ depends on the nD^J and goes out with it. Compare Ps. civ. 29. The possession of the "breath of life'' in no way distinguished man from other animals. See vii. 22. rrri C^^aj. P., with his stronger sense of the division between man and the beasts, uses nn of the former and restricts s^d: to the latter (i. 20, 24). The Targum is therefore mistaken in translating c^Dj by ^hhcD nn and Rosenmiiller in explaining it as anima rationalis. 8. p, an enclosure, in contrast to the open country. LXX., Sym., Syr., Vulg., translate by 7rapa8eto-os and com- pare it to the domains set aside for their pleasure by Assyrian and Persian kings. Compare Cant. iv. 13, Ecc. ii. 5, Neh. ii. 8. The preposition denotes the locality and enables us at once to reject the translations of the LXX. (in v. 15) rrjs Tpv(f>7j<;, and the Vulg. voluptatis. This Eden is always in the Old Testament written Eden (Isa. li. 3, Ez. xxviii. 13, xxxi. 9, 16, 18, xxxvi. 35, Joel ii. 3) and is carefully distin- guished from other places, which are written Eden. Thus in Ez. xxvii. 23 we get nJDI pn, but in xxviii. 13 P H.??? DM^^^. Eden is doubtless the same as the Assyrian edinu, low plain, prairie, steppe. DIpD. Dip can mean (i) old time, as in the phrase Dip ""DS (2) east, as in the title Dip ''Jn, (3) front, as in Ps. cxxxix. 5, ''jni^ Dip"! "iinj^. Dip alone means either (i) of old, or (2) in the east. There is no instance of its use in the sense of " in front." Two translations are there- fore possible. The early versions, with the exception of LXX., explain the phrase as referring to time, "of old." It is, however, probable that the author rather wished to define the position of the Garden, as situated in that part of the world which the Hebrews called "the East." It is less GEN. II. 7-14 41 likely that "in the east" means, "in the eastern part of Eden.'' 9. Sd. Every kind of tree. See Ewald, Ausf. Lehrb.^ § 290 and compare iv. 22. Trees are especially mentioned because of their connection with the subject of these chapters. D'^Tin l^y. The meaning of this phrase is rendered certain by the usage in Proverbs and Psalms. (Compare Prov. iii. 18, xiii. 12, xv. 4, and D''^n "T)pD in Ps. xxxvi. 10.) It denotes a tree which bestows life on those who partake of it. There is no need to regard the mention of it as a later insertion or as a sign that the narrative is- composite. Both the tree of life and the tree of knowledge are essential parts of the narrative. Lenormant i^Les origines, i. 83 f ) asserts that the Sumerian name for the vine, "ges-tin," strictly means "tree of life." nyin. On the construction see Gesenius- Kautzsch, § 115 d] and compare Jer. xxii. 16. There is no need (with Wellhausen) to explain yi1 nitO of what is beneficial or injurious. It is true that the phrase sometimes has this meaning (Jer. xlii. 6, Job xxx. 26), but in the great majority of instances (Deut. i. 39, i K. iii. 9, Isa. v. 20, Am. V. 15, Mic. iii. 2) it denotes what is morally right or wrong. Rosenmiiller supposes the expression to mean that our first parents were still like infants, ignorant of moral distinctions. At first sight this opinion appears to be supported by Deut. i. 39, but the true explanation is different. The innocence, that is now only possessed by very young children, was once characteristic of humanity. 10—14. In these verses the Jehovist describes to us the position of the Garden. He does this by mentioning the names of the four rivers on which it depended for its fertility, and in the case of three of these streams he adds 42 COMMENTARY further particulars to enable us to identify them. In this section our simplest course will be to give an uninterrupted discussion of the locality of Paradise and to prefix such other notes as may be necessary. lo. The first question that has to be decided is whether the verbs in this verse are to be translated by the present or the past : in other words, whether the writer is describing what is still in existence or is referring to a state of things that has long since been altered and changed. Now as a participle, can only refer to the past if this is distinctly indicated by the context. Bottcher indeed (§ 996 f.) asserts that participles can denote past tense, but his instances do not bear him out\ They either refer to the present or they denote action contemporaneous with that described by the finite verb. Thus in Gen. xxxix. we get the full expression in v. 22, and this must be understood to apply also to r\^1 {= ns"l rTTl) in v. 23. Again in xlii. 35 the time is distinctly indicated by the verb, with which the verse begins: "And it came to pass — while they were emptying their sacks — that &c." Gen. xxxvii. 7 is a vivid present, as is shown by the repeated use of njn. In accordance with this must be present, unless the contrary is distinctly indicated by the context. Now the verbs in verses 7 — 9 are certainly past and the verbs in verses 11 — 14 as certainly present. Further the verbs inD'^ and n\'Tl are more simply explained as real than as historical presents. We have therefore to decide whether still carries on the time indicated in v. 9 and the break is at the end of the first half of v. 10, or whether the break 1 The statement also applies to the infinitive. It can only refer to past tense, when this is indicated by the context (Koch, Z>^r sem. Infinitif^ p. 57). The careless statement in earlier editions of Gesenius is corrected in Gesenius-Kautzsch, § 115. 3. GEN. II. lO 43 is at the end of ik 9 and the verbs \x\ v, 10 are present throughout. Both views are possible and both have been held. The LXX. translates both and by the present: kKiropeo^rai, . A^opit^^Tai. The Vulgate on the other hand uses different tenses: egrediebatur...dividitur. The decision between the two is difficult, but on the whole the translation of the Vulgate seems preferable. The thoughts of the writer pass, almost unconsciously, from the care bestowed by God on the formation of the Garden to an enumeration of the still existing means of locating its position. In the former description he naturally uses the past, in the latter he can only employ the present. In V. 10 it would seem that pn n« nip2^^nS n:^'' nn3 refers to God's original arrangement and therefore must be rendered by the past tense, while D*'2^^^ is frequentative and indicates that the stream repeatedly divided itself, must be pronounced most improbable. If the reference were to continuance in the past (Delitzsch dirimebat se), we should get the past tense. The correct explanation is given by Ewald {Ausf. Lehrb.^ § 342 a) and Ys^oxiv^ (^Syntax ^ p. 61). D''2^5<"). The word denotes the commencement of anything, a road (Ez. xvi. 25, xxi. 24), a river, or a canal. Knobel exactly gives the meaning in this passage : " They are called beginnings, because they are thought of as in their beginnings ; after their farther course they are desig- nated in z/. 13 f. by nni" Accordingly the Targum translates II. ^*The name of the first is Pishon." A sentence, in which there is no verb, can only refer to the past when this is distinctly indicated by the principal verb. Konig {Syntax, p. 427) indeed asserts the contrary, but his in- stances do not bear him out. The matter is further discussed in the additional note at the end of this section. \ "THNn. nnx is employed by choice in such enumerations as the first ordinal number. pC^^N"i rather denotes "the first" absolutely or "the former" in contrast with the latter. nno is often used in the sense of " going round one side of" just as the English "surround." Compare Numb. xxi. 4, Jud. xi. 18, I S. vii. 16. inrn. The article is probably generic (Gesenius- Kautzsch, § 126, 3), as in nbnnn, UT\^r\ px. Konig {Syntax, p. 291), however, thinks that it denotes the gold as the well-known gold, and compares v. 12, GEN. II. 10-14 45 12. Two explanations have been given of the use of the compound shwa. {a) Ewald {Ausf. Lehrb. § 15^) and Gesenius-Kautzsch (§ 10^) explain it as intended to render the sibilant more audible after the u sound. {b) Bottcher (§ 386) regards it as due to the guttural which follows. It is probable that both causes operated, for either would be sufficient by itself. XI nn. It is still maintained by Konig that this form may be original, but philology shows conclusively that the distinction in the pronoun between the masculine and the feminine can be traced to the original Semitic language from which Hebrew is derived. 13. nnj denotes a river or canal whose waters are constant. The Arabian wady is rendered in Hebrew by 'pm. 14. riDIp occurs elsewhere in Gen. iv. 16, i S. xiii. 5, Ez. xxxix. II. In all these passages the translation ''east of" adipirably suits the context. In Ez. xxxix. 11 the translation "in front of" is equally admissible, but in this instance "east of the sea" and "in front of the sea" mean exactly the same thing. The position of the Garden. This section of Genesis is one where commentators have agreed to accuse the Jehovist of utter ignorance of the locality he is describing. We are informed that the Pishon is the Indus or Ganges, that the Gihon is the Nile, and that the writer imagined that the four rivers, Euphrates, Tigris, Ganges, and Nile rose near one another. The difficulty that the Euphrates and Tigris flow from N. to S. in Asia while the Nile flows from S. to N. in Africa, is met by the supposition that the Nile flowed underground from its source in Asia till it reached Africa, where it reversed its direction. There is the further difficulty that the Nile was as well known to the Hebrews 46 COMMENTARY as the Euphrates and that its name was not Gihon at all. Nor is there any reason for assigning such extreme ignorance to the author of this chapter \ In reality he shows that he is perfectly acquainted with the locality of the Garden and describes it so fully that it must have been equally well known to his readers. We are told that Jehovah planted a garden in a district called Eden, where were the sources of four rivers, whose names are given. Nor is this all. The Euphrates was so well known that no further definition was needed, but in the case of the other three streams explanations were added to enable them to be easily identified : the Pishon compasseth the whole land of the Havilah : the Gihon compasseth the whole land of Gush : the Tigris flows eastward of Assur. Of these rivers one is certainly the Euphrates. The name Prath, usually given it in the Old Testament, is the Hebraized form of the Assyrian Puratu. Puratu or Buratu — the same sign is used for Bu and Pu in the Assyrian syllabary — also occurs in the form Bu-ra-nu-nu and is said to be the Sumerian for "great river." Accordingly in the Old Tes- tament it is often called simply "the river.'' Our name Euphrates comes through the Greek from the Persian. Another river is the Tigris. Hiddekel would become in Babylonian, with the dropping of the guttural and the regular change of k to I-diglat or Diglat, which is the form adopted in the Targum. Digla becomes in Persian Tigra, and in Greek and English Tigris. To modern readers the Tigris is as familiar as the Euphrates, but it ^ If we accepted this explanation, it would be necessary, with Zcickler {Bibl. Studien, v. lo), to abandon the attempt to define the position of Paradise: "A district, traversed by a river, from which the Nile, the Ganges, the Tigris, and the Euphrates take their rise, can only be sought for in Utopia, in some mythical fable land." GEN. II. 14 47 lay beyond the range of vision of most Hebrew writers and is only mentioned in one other passage of the Old Testament, in Dan. x. 4. Consequently the Jehovist defines its position by the statement that its course is " eastward of Assur." The name Assur must be taken to denote, as it does in the cuneiform inscriptions, the ancient capital and not the kingdom of Assyria. The statement just quoted is literally and exactly true of the town, but cannot by any ingenuity be made to apply to the kingdom, a large part of whose territory and several of whose most important towns lay to the east of the Tigris. The translation of the R. V. " in front of Assyria only disguises the difficulty from the English reader: to the Hebrew "in front of" w^ould mean "east" not "west" of Assyria. Knobel, indeed, boldly translates " west of Assyria," but even this does not solve the problem, for the Tigris bisected that empire, and it is no more correct to say it flowed "west" of it than to say it flowed "east." When, however, we understand Assur as referring to the town of that name, all difl^iculties disappear, and the description exactly describes the position of the Tigris. It should also be noticed that, while in the other two cases the writer says "the land of Havilah," "the land of Cush," in this case he merely says "eastward of Assur." The identification of the other two rivers, Pishon and Gihon, is uncertain, but fortunately we are able to identify the countries watered by them and that serves exactly the same purpose.. The land watered by the Pishon was Havilah, or rather the Havilah, and its position is fairly certain. In Gen. xxv. 18 and i S. xv. 7 it is mentioned as forming the eastern boundary of the Desert, as Shur forms the western. It is true that in both verses critics regard the words as a gloss, but the gloss must be so early 48 COMMENTARY that the value of its evidence is scarcely diminished. In accordance with this the Jehovist speaks of Havilah as a son of Joktan, i.e. he connects the land of Havilah with the Arabian desert. Its name, the Havilah, ''the sand land," tells the same tale. Moreover the products of the country — gold, bdellium, and the soham stone — are those associated by ancient writers, the Old Testament, and the Jehovist himself, with the land of Arabia. In classical and mediaeval times Arabia always possessed the reputation of being the great gold country^, and in modern times Sir R. Burton inspected the former gold washings and found they would still repay working. The Assyrian inscriptions speak of gold and precious stones being brought from various parts of Arabia. In the lists of tribute from the kings of Arabia gold, spices, and precious stones are regularly mentioned^. These statements are repeated in the Old Testament. We are told in i K. x. 1 5 that Solomon obtained gold from the kings of Arabia. Similarly Ezekiel (xxvii. 22), when speaking of Arabia, says that the merchants of Sheba and Raamah traded in the markets of Tyre "with chief of all spices, and with all precious stones, and gold." It is even more important in this connection to re- member that this is the opinion of J. himself. He makes Sheba, Ophir, and Havilah three of the sons of Joktan — ^ This is elaborately proved by Sprenger, Alte Geog. Arabiens^ p. 5 if. For the trade of Arabia with other countries in metals and precious goods, see Ritter, Erdkunde, Xiv. 372 f. 2 Thus Esarhaddon [K. B. Ii. 130) exacts from the king of Arabia 10 minas of gold, 1000 precious stones, 50 camels, 1000 measures of spices. It must be remembered that in the cuneiform inscriptions and classical authors the name Arabia usually denotes the desert between Syria and Egypt. Pliny [Nat. Hist, v. 21) even speaks of Edessa, Callirhoe, and Carrhae as cities of Arabia. GEN. II. 14 49 in other words he connects the three gold countries of the Hebrew world with the Arabian desert. Similarly his statement that the gold of Havilah was good reminds us that great value is elsewhere attached to the gold of Ophir. The quotations cited have already shown that the next commodity mentioned must also be regarded as a product of the Desert. The addition of before Dnc^n and its omission before rhl2r\ prove that the latter cannot be a precious stone, and justify Josephus, Aquila, Theodotion, Symmachus, and Jerome in identifying it with the sweet- smelling gum, bdellium. Pliny tells us that bdellium was obtained from Arabia, Babylonia, Media, and India, and accordingly the Jehovist mentions it as the second product for which the land of Havilah was famous. In ancient times Arabia was generally regarded as the land of spices \ The Jehovist informs us (G. xxxvii. 25) that the Ishmaelites, to whom Joseph was sold, were going down into Egypt for the purpose of selling their spices. He makes Sheba the son of Joktan, and Sheba was as celebrated for its spices as for its gold. The queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon "120 talents of gold, and of spices very great store, and precious stones." Deutero-Isaiah (Ix. 6) equally speaks of gold and incense as the precious offerings of the people of Sheba. A hasty consideration of the ancient versions might make us despair of determining what precious stone was designated by the Hebrews, On^n. The LXX. translate it by 6 At^os 6 irpaaivo^ (the leek-green stone), beryl, emerald, onyx, sardius, and sapphire; the Targum and the Syriac by beryl; Aquila and the Vulgate by onyx and sardonyx; Theodotion and Symmachus by onyx. Fortunately philo- ^ See on this Ritter, Comp. Geog, of Pales tine ^j.. 97. COMMENTARY logical considerations show that the Hebrew soham is the same word as the Babylonian samu. The guttural h is always dropped in Babylonio- Assyrian and sahamu would become sa'amu or samu. The Assyrian a is regularly broadened in Hebrew into o ox u\ as Ass. bamati, Heb. bamoth ; Ass. kasidu, Heb. qotel Punic qutel ; Ass. kas-adu Heb. qtol; Ass. kal, Heb. koP. The Hebrew soham is the same stone as the Babylonian samu, and with the knowledge of this fact our difficulties disappear. For the Babylonian samu becomes in Assyrian samu, and samu in Assyrian is the name of a colour. In Babylonian as in Hebrew, s never lost its original pro- nunciation, but in Assyrian, as in the Ephraimitish dialect, it has become s'^. Thus Bab. Kusu, Dariavus, Kuras (Heb. ^ip), but Ass. Ursalimmu, Asdudu ; Heb. ynCT Ass. siba; Heb. nJD^^ Ass. samanati. The Hebrew soham, therefore, was so called on account of its colour, and it is quite possible to discover what that colour really was. In Assyrian samu denotes a shade of red and is more or less ^ The change would of course be gradual. Kittel (on i C. i. 2) thinks the Assyrians still heard as au the sound which the Massoretes have pointed as 6. Our only hesitation is due to the fact that the Assyrians had no and therefore may have represented the vowel by au. For the gradual broadening of the vowel Bottcher (§ 338) excellently compares the sound of a in the English " all " and of a in the Swedish abo. See further, Dalman, Gramm. d. jiid^-paldst. Aram. p. 58, 65; Noldeke, Mand. Gramm. p. 19 f.; Duval, Gramm. syr. p. 215; Luzzatto, Elem. gram, del caldeo biblico § 5; Schroder, Die phbn. Spr. p. 132 f.; Petermann, Linguae samar. Gram. p. 19, 59, 74. We meet with the same phenomenon in the Aryan languages when we compare Sanskrit with Greek and Latin. See Monier Williams, Sanskrit Gram. p. 18, 58; Bopp, Comp. Gram. I. 128; Giles, Manual of Comp. Phil. p. 87. 2 On the sibilants in Ass. and Heb., see Schrader, Zeitschr. /. Keilschriftforsch.^ I. 2. GEN. IL 14 synonymous with adamu. It is employed to denote the colour of gold, hurasu sa-a-mu, and the ancients always considered that Arabian gold was red\ It cannot have been a dark red, which in Assyrian and Hebrew is adamu, but was probably a paler shade. Hence it is used of the colQur of an ass, imeru sa-a-mu, and asses, which were light red in colour, were greatly prized by eastern nations ^ When, with this added knowledge, we turn back to the ancient versions ^ we see that the LXX. rightly regarded soham as the name of a colour, but hesitated between green and red. We decide with the majority of the ancient versions — LXX. (partially), Aquila, Theodotion, Symma- chus, and Vulgate — that the stone was some variety of onyx. We therefore conclude that it was the pale red sardonyx, for the dark red sardius is evidently denoted in Hebrew by odem. In ancient times, and indeed till very recently, the onyx and sardonyx were greatly valued^, and both stones have always been found in Arabia ^ The identification is, however, of no importance for the de- termination of the position of the land of Havilah, for we learn from the inscriptions that the soham-stone was obtained by the Assyrian monarchs from the desert bordering on the Euphrates ^ ^ See on this Sprenger, Alte Geog, Arabiens p. 56 f., Z. D. M. G, XLiv. 514 f. ^ Compare Jud. v. 10. ^ The ancient versions, like the Greek fathers, are lumina non numina. * Winer, W. B, article Edelsteine ; Streeter, Precious Stones p. 283. ^ Heeren,' Ideen u. d. Verkehr d. alten Welt, I. 82 ; Sprenger, op. cit, p. 61 f. ; Streeter, op, cit, p. 285. ^ The soham-stone was part of the tribute rendered by the kings of Laqi. B. i. 66, ma-da-tu sa sarrani (matu) La-qi-e...kaspi hurasi 4—2 52 COMMENTARY The position of the land of Havilah may, therefore, be regarded as certain, but no river or canal of the name of Pishon has yet been discovered. This, however, can scarcely be a cause of surprise, for the canals, which formerly inter- sected the country, have long since disappeared. In Assyrian pisanu is the name for a reservoir or collection of water \ and it is probable that some canal was called "the pisanu" and that the Hebrews took "Pisanu^" as a proper name. Professors Delitzsch ( Wo lag das Paradies p. 68) and Sayce {Higher Criticism^ p. 98), therefore, appear justified in identi- fying Pishon with the Pallacopas, a canal which left the Eu- phrates north of Babylon, and traversed the land of Havilah. The identification of the land of Cush is to some extent complicated by the fact that in Genesis there are at least two countries called by this name. In x. 6 we are told that Cush was the brother of Egypt and the land of Cush is evidently identified with Ethiopia. But this section of Genesis is by P. and not by J. In no single passage does the latter connect the land of Cush with Africa. Instead he states clearly and unmistakeably where it really was. "Cush begat Nimrod...and the beginning of his kingdom was Babylon, and Erech and Calneh in the land of Shinar.'' He therefore defines the land of Cush as the country which anaki siparri (abnu) sam-mu (abnu) ...am-hur. I received the tribute of the kings of the land of Laqi... silver, gold, lead, copper, the samu- stone, the... stone." The position of the land of Laqi is rendered certain by other inscrip- tions. K. B. I. TOO, Pu-rat-tu lu e-te-bir...matu La-qa-ai ina su-me-e ina mu-da-bi-ri Pu-rat-tu e-kul. '*The Euphrates I crossed... the land of Laqi I consumed with hunger in the desert of the Euphrates." In other v^^ords the position assigned to the land of Laqi is identical vi^ith that given in the O. T. to the land of Havilah. 1 See Delitzsch, Ass, H. W. B, *^ Assyrian has no article. GEN. II. 14 53 contained these cities, and adds that it was originally either part, or the whole, of Babylonia, though afterwards the empire of Nimrod comprised Assyria also. The Hebrew Cush is a broadening of an original Kash, the name by which both Egyptians^ and Babylonians desig- nated their neighbours. In the Assyrian inscriptions, just as in the Old Testament, the word Kash denotes both the country in Asia and that in Africa, and in the Tel-el- Amarna tablets the fact is sometimes a little confusing. The Kassites of Asia are found in two different localities. Kings of that race made themselves masters^ of the whole of Babylonia, and Karaindas, a monarch of that dynasty, calls himself " king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Accad, king of Kas, king of Kardunias,'' where Kas apparently denotes the north of Babylonia. On the other hand Ramman-nirari overthrew the people of Kas in extending the limits of his empire, and Sennacherib tells us that they lived in the mountains and that in attacking them he climbed on foot like a wild ox. Jensen^ suggests that the Kassi of Baby- lonia and those of the mountains were two branches of one and the same nation. The one received Babylonian culture, the other remained wild, robber bands. An equally prob- able suggestion^ is that the Kassites with whom Sennacherib ^ Lepsius, Nubische Gramm. p. xci. 2 The kings of this dynasty can be easily distinguished from the fact that their names end in sh. 3 Z. A. VI. 222 ; Z. D. M. G. l. 247 f 4 Schrader, K. A. T. (third ed.) p. 21. Hommel (in H. D. B.) thinks the founders of the Kassite dynasty came from the extreme south of Babylonia, but that the name was after- wards extended to the whole of Babylonia: Winckler (Alttest. Untersuch, p. 147 f.) that they came from Elam-Media and were non-Semites : Delitzsch [Paradies, p. 54) that they originally came from the mountains and extended their empire over Elam and Babylonia. 54 COMMENTARY fought were the remnants of a once mighty race, who had been driven out of Babylonia and forced to take refuge in the hills. At any rate Gen. x. lof. shows that J. placed the land of Cush in Babylonia, between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, and not in the Zagros mountains. The Gihon must have been a river or canal on the east of the Euphrates and between it and the Tigris, since it traversed the land of Cush. Gihon is however too common a name for a river to enable us to identify it with any certainty. The mention of the Euphrates and Tigris forces us to place the Garden in the vicinity of these two rivers, and either near their rise or their apparent junction. Further, the statement that from thence the river *'is divided and becomes four heads" compels us to place it^north of that point, as the rivers flowed from north to south. For ros in Hebrew and res in Assyrian denote the commencement of anything, a river, a canal, a street, or a road, and not its issue or end. The position of Havilah and Cush shows that the Jehovist was thinking of the apparent junction of the Euphrates and Tigris near Babylon, for their rise would be too far to the north. It will be remembered that he elsewhere makes this neighbourhood the cradle of the human race. This last fact effectually refutes the argument of Prof. H. P. Smith ^ that verses lo — 15 must be by a later writer than J. because they place Eden in Babylonia, whereas the earliest tradition would have located it in Syria ^. 15. p is generally mascuHne, and so Kuenen (Th. 1 O. T. Hisi. p. 24. 2 There is no need to do more than mention the view that Paradise was situated in Arabia. It is clearly stated by Hommel, Vier 7ieue arab. Landschaftsnamen p. 281 f. The whole theory of an Arabian Cush is keenly criticized by Konig, Fiinf neue arab. Landschaftsnamen^ p. 5if., 66f. GEN. II. 14-18 55 Tijd. XVIII. 138) would alter ^^^^7 to This, however, is quite unnecessary. See note on v. 21. may^. The task of attending to fruit trees is the lightest possible, and involves nothing in the way of toil. mos^^b. The Book of Jubilees explains : " He protected the garden from the birds, and beasts, and cattle." If this was the idea in the author's mind, it would be an instance of the simplicity of his narrative. 16. Dn5: Vulg. Adae vero : but for the man. til^h. This should be pointed ^1^^. In chapters ii. and iii. we always get DHNn, the man. The word first becomes a proper noun in chapter iv. (iv. 25, V. I, 3 f. )• The presence of the preposition is supported by all the early versions, so that there is no need for Olshausen's emendation D1&taTt irpos Kord- ij/v^iv rrj^ yfjiipa's. The LXX. and Targum give the meaning correctly : to SclXlvov : moS. DVn nn is opposed to DITl Din (xviii. i), when Orientals rest indoors. ^^n^n''V "And he hid himself, remained hidden." The explanation of the Hithpael, given by Ewald, "wished to hide himself," is not supported by the general usage of the Old Testament. It would suit the context in i C. xxi. 20, 2 C. xxii. 9, but not in i S. xiv. 22, 2 K. xi. 3, Job xxxviii. 30, 2 C. xxii. 12. in^^NI nii^n Nnnn''1. The verb, which precedes its subject, agrees with the nearest noun. See Konig, Syntax^ p. 466; Davidson, Syntax^ p. 158. 9. There is no need to suppose that God was really ignorant of their hiding place. His speech was rather an authoritative summons to appear for judgment. GEN. HI. 7-14 63 n'^rh^ N-ip"*!. Targum Jerushalmi '"'^'^ ^^^P''?? ^^'^pl Konig's statement {Syntax^ p. 420), that the form with a suffixed pronoun is employed in this verse owing to a desire for brevity, is based on a misconception. The suffixed pronoun is the invariable rule and such a form as nn?< IT'S^ nowhere occurs. 12. nnni Indirectly the blame is laid on God Himself. ^DNI. These pausal forms are carefully examined by Olshausen, § 241 a, 13. riKT n?^. The demonstrative pronoun emphasizes the question and directs attention to the magnitude of the offence. Compare i S. x. 11, xvii. 55, Jer. xlix. 19, Ps. xxiv. 8, Job xxxviii. 2. See Gesenius-Kautzsch, § 136 §148^. 14. The serpent is not questioned. His well-known character (v. i) renders his guilt certain. The sentence passed is to be explained as part of the Babylonian colouring of this narrative. See note orvv. i. nonin ^DD. Knobel correctly explains the JD as de- noting the whole from which the example is taken; as Ex. xix. 5, Deut. xiv. 2, Jud. v. 24, i S. ii. 28. Hitzig (on Isa. Hi. 14) has a full and careful note on this usage. Gesenius and Maurer less probably explain the )D as denoting the agent : hated by all beasts. It is an objection to this explanation that the hatred was to be between men and serpents, not between serpents and other animals. Rosenmiiller and Delitzsch regard the ]D as comparative — more cursed than all beasts — but other animals were not cursed at all. HDnnn are tame and domesticated animals as contrasted 64 COMMENTARY with mJ^n n^n. See Ex. xiii. 12, xxii. 9, Lev. xxvii. 9, Jud. XX. 48, and note on ii. 5. ^hn n^n: hV' Strack points out that the method of move- ment was not altered, but made a means of punishment. ^DwSn "isy. Isa. Ixv. 25, Mic. vii. 17. Mr Whitehouse (^Critical Review^ vii. 302) excellently compares the Descent of Ishtar, line 8 : asar ipru...bubussunu. 15. The central idea of this verse is that of unceasing enmity between the two partners in sin. n2^^. The main emphasis of the verse is on this word and therefore it is made the most prominent in the sentence. nyiT-.-^ynr. Rosenmiiller well says that, as the K^nJH is the whole brood of serpents, so the rw^r\ y"iT is the whole human race. Any direct Messianic interpretation becomes impossible, when it is acknowledged that the serpent is represented as an independent agent. i^in. A few Mss. of the Vulgate have ipsa. Two ways of translating this root are possible and both have received a large amount of support : (i) Knobel, Ewald, and Dillmann regarding as equivalent in meaning to to pant after, long for, eagerly desire. (2) Rodiger (in Gesenius, Thesaurus)^ Fiirst, Kalisch, and Delitzsch preferring to translate it by "crush, bruise." The ancient versions are divided : LXX. translating by Trfpetv, Targ. by : but Syr. by (a) medas, trample under foot, and (d) memha', smite : while the Vulgate varies between (a) conterere, and (d) insidiari. It is no fatal objection to the first mentioned explanation that occurs nowhere else in the sense of But the translation "he shall look for, eagerly desire thy head and thou shalt long for his heel " must be pronounced vapid and weak, even with the added explanation that the longing was a hostile one. We therefore adopt without hesitation the other translation, GEN. III. 14-16 65 "bruise, crush." This meaning of the root is firmly established in Hebrew and is strongly supported by the usage in other Semitic languages. It only occurs three times in the Old Testament, Gen. iii. 15, Job ix. 17, Ps. cxxxix. II. In Job ix. 17 the translation "crush" admirably suits the context and is generally accepted. In Ps. cxxxix. II neither "crush" rfor "desire" is admissible, though the LXX. translates by KaraTTaTrjcru and the Old Latin by concalcabunt. In Gen. iii. 15 the translation "crush, bruise" exactly describes the action of the man and may, without much difficulty, be applied to that of the serpent also. In the Targums or riQJ^ are the usual translations for crush or bruise: and "rub" or "crush" appears to be the meaning of r\^^ in Hebrew also. Lastly Delitzsch aptly points out that this is the most probable etymology of the Assyrian sepu, foot, and that the root has the same meaning in Syriac. It is quite inadmissible, with the Vulgate, to give one word two different meanings in a single sentence. 3py- -^5<"l. On the construction see Ewald, § 281 ^: Konig, Syntax^ p. 374. The idea is simply that each of the two enemies employs his natural method of attack : the man stamps on the serpent's head, the serpent flies at the man's heel. Either attack, if successful, is deadly. 16. The punishment of the woman corresponds to her offence. She had taught man knowledge and that knowledge is made the cause of her suffering and subjection. nt^J^n h^. The LXX. is probably right in prefixing 1 as in z;. 17, "And to the woman He said." ni"ii< nmn. It is interesting to notice that this phrase only occurs elsewhere in xvi. 10, xxii. 17, and in both cases in a special promise from God of a numerous posterity. It A. 5 66 COMMENTARY reminds us that the curse on man or woman, though always a punishment, can be turned into a blessing. inni "l^nvy. Tuch rightly says that the connection here is logical. The meaning of lU^y is made clear by the word which follows. It is not hendiadys in a grammatical sense. |13Vy is put first to explain the meaning of the sentence, for frequent conception would of itself not be any punishment. Delitzsch less probably holds that ])2^V is meant more generally of the troubles connected with the female constitution, apart from conception," and the Midrash explains it of the trouble of bringing up children. p2Vy. The word only occurs elsewhere in v. 17, v. 29. In the latter two places it is used of severe and painful labour, and here of the labour of childbirth. The LXX. translates it by Xvirrj, Targ. : Sym. KaKOTrdOeia : Theod. /xoxOos. "|i"in from ^''in. Hos. ix. 1 1, Ruth iv. 13. The form in this verse is probably due to the weakness of the third root letter. Olshausen (§ 215^) is inclined to consider it as an error. LXX. reads tov (rrevayixov gov, but this is no reason for altering the Hebrew text, supported, as it is, by the context and all the other versions. "inplS^n. This word only occurs elsewhere in iv. 7, Song vii. II. Symmachus yj opfXTj a-ov : Targ. "|>nni5m2h. 22. inXD iT'h. Most versions and editors have adopted the unfortunate translation " has become like one of us." LXX. yiyovev dk eh yfJLOjv : Vulg. quasi unus ex nobis factus est : Luther Adam ist geworden als unser einer : A.V. and R.V. the man is become as one of us. French rhomme est devenu comme Tun de nous. The Syriac and Samaritan simply reproduce the Hebrew idiom : the Targum gives a different explanation of )j'0J2. The idea that man became like God through transgression and sin is so opposed to the whole teaching of the Bible that nothing but necessity could justify us in adopting it. Budde well says (Urges. p. 56) that it ''sounds surprising in the mouth of God. In the mouth of the serpent we could regard it as a lie." In reality no such necessity exists. It is undisputed that, when joined to the particle b which denotes direction and destination, the verb iiM means to become, to be intended for, to belong to; but the D of comparison adds nothing to the original meaning of the verb but the idea of resemblance. For instance: i K. iii. 12, So that before thee TiDD rrri, no man was like thee — not, has become like : vii. 8, And his house, where he was to dwell, ntn nc^j;?03, was GEN. III. 20-24 69 like this work : 2 S. xiv. 25, n\-I DlS^DNDI, and no man was like Absalom. Compare also i S. iv. 7, 2 S. iv. 10, I K. xxi. 25, Ps. xxii. 15. Of course D riTI can also mean *^to become like," as it does in Isa. xxxiii. 9, Ez. xxxvi. 17, 35, Ps. xxii. 15, but that is simply due to the fact that the verb has the double meaning of **to be" and "to become." The two translations ''has become like" and "was like" are both possible if this verse stood entirely by itself, but the former must be decisively rejected, because it contradicts the whole tendency of the Jehovist's narrative. His object is not to minimize the effect of the fall but to emphasize it and to represent it as the starting point of the gradual deterioration of mankind. "inx. For ini< in construction before a preposition see Gesenius-Kautzsch § 130 a. The Targum understands to mean "from himself" i.e. independent, free. mhv^ n'^rn nin onx. Tuch thinks the "us" refers to God alone : Dillmann that " God classes Himself with the angels, the so-called sons of God." In any case the use of the plural is parallel to, but scarcely so remarkable as, its employment in i. 26. Tl. The form H^H only occurs in Ecc. vi. 6. 24. Budde makes this verse a mere double of v. 23, but the two verses give us quite independent pieces of information and both are necessary to complete the narrative. p2^*'1. The LXX. reads koI KanoKicriv avrbv KOi erafc ra X^pov/Si/jL, but the amplification is awkward and unnecessary. D^'n'^DH. In order to make the account of the Cherubim as brief as possible it may be well to discuss firstly their office, secondly their form, and lastly the derivation of their name, (i) The duty of the cherubim appears to have 70 COMMENTARY been a very simple one — to guard holy persons or places from profane approach. They shut off the entrance to Paradise from guilty man (Gen. iii. 24, Ez. xxviii. 14). Their position in Tabernacle or Temple was merely an allegorical representation of the same idea. It is from their position on both sides of the Mercy Seat that we get the title so often applied to God in the Old Testament : " He that sits enthroned between the cherubim." Strikingly similar is the representation of the lamassi and sedi in the Assyrian inscriptions : ina ki-rib ekalli sa-a-tu sedu dumqu la-mas-si dumqi na-sir kib-si sarru-ti-ia mu-ha-du-u ka-bit-ti-ia da-ris lis-tap-ru-u. " In the midst of that palace may the favourable sedu and the favourable lamassu, guarding the path of my kingship, rejoicing my heart, always dwell." It should also be noticed that the Hebrew cherubim, like their Babylonian counterpart, form a class by themselves and are never confused with other celestial beings. (2) Eze- kiel (i. 10) represents the cherubim as possessing four faces, those of a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle. In other places, however, we get a much simpler representation. In Ez. X. 14 the cherub is distinguished from the man, the lion, and the eagle, and in i. 7 we are told that the feet of the cherubim were straight like those of an ox. In I K. vii. 29, 36 the cherub is equally distinguished from the lions and the oxen, and the only form left is that of winged human figures. It is highly probable also that this was the form of the cherubim in the Tabernacle and Temple. It would seem, therefore, that the form of the cherubim varied and that Ezekiel (i. 10) has combined the figures — man, lion, and ox — in which they were represented. The forms taken by the sedi and lamassi appear to have been equally various. They were identified by the Babylonians and Assyrians with the stone figures which guarded the GEN. III. 24 71 approach to temples and palaces ; sedi u lamassi sa abni, sedi and lamassi of stone which, according to their position, turn back the breast of the enemy, guard the path, bless the way of the king. But in Assyrian sculptures we some- times find lions or oxen, and sometimes winged human figures. (3) Lenormant, Sayce, and Delitzsch believe that they have discovered the name kirubu in the cuneiform inscriptions. But this reading is disputed by Zimmern {K. A. T.^ p. 632), who maintains that the form is really karubu. At any rate the existence in Assyrian of the root with the meaning "strong, mighty, powerful," is un- disputed. The root has the same meaning in Syriac, and probably also in Hebrew, the remaining language of the North Semitic group. It is in favour of this explanation that the Assyrian name sedu is also derived from the root ms^^, to be strong, and that strength is the prevailing characteristic of the cherub in the Old Testament. The root niD has also the meaning of "favourable, gracious," but this is probably derived from the fact that the sedu was a benevolent power to those whom he protected and is often denoted by the attribute dumqu, propitious, a-na ia-a-si u zer sangu-ti-ia ki-rib-ta tab-ta lik-ru-bu-ni, (May the gods) bless me and my priestly house with friendly blessings. nra is of the form bin:i, ^IDJ, bnt, mih, and has abundant analogy in Hebrew, but perhaps it is more prob- able that it was of the form Divy, and corresponded in form as well as in meaning to the Assyrian karubu. If so, the search in the cuneiform inscriptions for a noun of the form kirubu will be a thankless task\ ^ If the connection with the Assyrian had to be abandoned, the most probable explanation would be that of Le Page Renouf (P.S.B.A, 1884 p. 193) who derives cherub from the Egyptian xeref. It ought 72 COMMENTARY nnnn lOnS. The usual order would be lon^n inn. Com- pare xvi. 12, Prov. XV. 20. riDDnriD. The Hithpael shows that the sword turns itself and is not placed in the hand of the cherubim. yV T^l, the way to the tree. See Ewald, § 286 ^. D^'^nn fy. The Midrash finely compares Prov. iii. 18. The entrance to Paradise was barred for guilty man, but the way to the tree of life is still open to all. not to be necessary to mention the conjecture of Vatke [Bibl. TheoL P' 3^5)? which connects the Hebrew word with the Greek 7pi;\^'and the German Greif. I ADDITIONAL NOTE. In Assyrian, Hebrew, Arabic \ and Ethiopia no copula is inserted when a sentence refers to the present, but the connection between the subject and predicate is left to be supplied by the mind of the hearer. Thus Gen. xx. 12 Nin nn '•nnx, she is my sister, the daughter of my father : Ps. xlv. 9 yr\^:^2 nirvp nibnxi no : ex. 3 Dvn nm: n^y '^'pTl. Even when the time is future^ or the sentence is precative, the copula can be dispensed with, though it is often inserted. Thus G. iii. 16 ^np12^n ^^^^^ and to thy husband shall be thy desire : xviii. 14 p ni^^'^l, and Sarah shall have a son : ix. 26 "^rh^ niiT* ini^ blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem : 2 S. i. 21, Ye mountains of Gilboa, W^hv ^^'O 'pD "pN, let there not be dew or rain upon you. In this respect the modern dialects, Mishnic Hebrew, Modern Arabic, Mandaitic, and Tigrina agree with the ancient languages. Syriac and Amharic alone insert the copula, in both cases owing to foreign influence. ^ In chapter xxxv. of the Koran, which contains 45 verses, we get no less than 41 instances. ^ The Semitic languages originally made no distinction between present and future. ^ Compare atta lu muti-ma anaku lu assatka, would thou wert my husband and I were thy wife. 74 ADDITIONAL NOTE But, when the time denoted is past, the copula can only be omitted when the context removes all possibility of doubts Thus Ex. ix. 31, and the flax and the barley were smitten, byn: nnC^DHI n^N nny^n : Isa. Ixiii. 3, I trod the winepress alone, >n^^ t^^N D^^oyDI. In any other case the copula must always be expressed. In Arabic zaidun qa'imun can only mean " Zeid is standing " ; if we wish to say "Zeid was standing," we must write kana zaidun qa'iman. In Hebrew rhnp ''JN would mean, " I Koheleth am king " ; in Ecclesiastes, " I Koheleth was king," is expressed by •^n^Ti nSnp In Ez. xxviii. 12 we get rT'JDn Dnin nn5<, where the time is present, but in the next verse we read, n^Ti DTi^N p ]1]J2, because the time is past. Accordingly in sentences, which contain no copula, we can be certain that the time is present unless the contrary is clearly indicated by the context. In Ex. iii. 6 "'DJS can only mean " I am the God of thy father^" Our Lord's refutation of the Sadducees would hopelessly break down, if it were allowable to translate " I was the God of thy father." His argument was unassailable because both He and His hearers knew that such an explanation was im- possible. ^ The instances given by Konig (Syntax p. 427) are partly cases where all doubt is removed by the context (as Gen. i. i, xvi. i), partly examples of sentences without a copula denoting the present (as G. vi. 4, XX. 12). 2 The phrase is exactly parallel to one that repeatedly occurs in the cuneiform inscriptions : a-na-ku Assur-bani-pal ablu sar rabu-u, I am Assur-bani-pal, the son of the great king. A-na-ku Assur-aha-iddina ka-sid Si-du-un-ni, I am Esarhaddon, the conqueror of Zidon. Sarru-ukin sar A-ga-ne a-na-ku, I am Sargon, the king of the Agane. THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEHOVIST. In discussing the religious and moral teaching of the Jehovist it is necessary at the beginning to state clearly what features of that teaching we especially desire to illus- trate, what errors to refute, and what truths to maintain. Formerly it was admitted without dispute by all Christian theologians that the Jewish religion was separated by a broad line of division from the heathen religions of the other Semitic peoples. The teaching of the prophets was regarded as a development of the teaching of the writers who preceded them, but as fundamentally identical with it. At the present day all this is changed. The teaching of the pre-prophetic writers of the Old Testament is considered to be either identical with, or a natural development from, the religion of the other Semitic nations. On the other hand the teaching of the prophets is regarded, not as the natural result of the teaching which preceded them, but as an altogether new departure. The broad line of division is not between Semitic religions in general and the Jewish religion, but between the religion of the prophets and the religion of earlier writers. The teaching of these writers is not essentially distinguished from that of neighbouring peoples. The result is summed up by Baudissin ^ as follows : ^ Quoted and accepted in all essentials by Kuenen, Th, Tijd. xix. 497 f. 76 THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEHOVIST " The moral as well as the ritual law at the beginning falls away. The prophets found nothing of the sort before them ; the service of a god, who as a national god stands in a physical connection with Israel, who is regarded from a natural and scarcely from a moral standpoint, and therefore does not make moral demands on his people — that is it, which according to Kuenen the prophets found before them.... Only through the prophets by gradual develop- ment was the service of a naturally regarded national god changed into an ethically regarded God." Kuenen himself rightly says that this presentation of his views *'is not unfair, but such as no partisan would have written." Still he does not question its substantial accuracy nor dispute the statement that no pre-prophetic writer represents Jehovah in a moral light. Indeed elsewhere^ he himself states his position with all his wonted lucidity and precision : "As with a single feature our standpoint is denoted by the way in which this writing sees the light. It does not stand entirely by itself, but is one of the monographs on the principal religions. Of these religions the Jewish is for us one, nothing less but also nothing more." " Between these two (i.e. the Jewish and Christian) religions and all the rest there exists no essential difference." "If we see in all other religions so many revelations of the religious spirit of mankind, are we not then compelled to regard the Jewish and Christian religions from the same standpoint ? " The great critical insight and clearness of expression possessed by the new school of Dutch the^ologians have caused these views to be widely accepted by Continental ^ De Godsdienst van Israel^ I. pp. 5 — 13. Comparelalso De Profeten en de Profetie onder Israel^ Book I. Chapt. i, and \especially p. 5; Eerdmans, Th, Tijd, xxxvii. p. 23 f. \ THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEHOVIST 7/ theologians. Indeed they are often regarded as axioms, which no longer require to be proved, and Schwally^ puts the matter quite shortly : " Since the name Jahve for the God of Israel comes from natural religion, every explana- tion which forsakes this foundation is to be rejected." It will therefore be the main object of this investigation to discover how far these confident assertions are supported by facts. Mr Montefiore'^, in an able essay, classifies under three heads the distinctions usually drawn between the teaching . of the prophets and that which preceded them. The prophets taught {a) what was practically monotheism, {b) an ethical monotheism, {c) that God must be served, negatively by the renunciation of idolatry, positively by the practice of social morality. It may therefore be convenient to discuss the teaching of the Jehovist under these heads. In view of the comparison with other Semitic religions it has also been thought desirable to add a fourth, and to show in an appendix that there is no proof that Jehovah was ever the name of the god of any other Semitic people. Accordingly we have to consider : (1) the monotheism of the Jehovist, (2) his conception of God, (3) his view that God can only be served {a) by the abandonment of idolatry, {b) by a moral life. The chief objection to this arrangement is the im- possibility of keeping the headings distinct. The mono- theism of J. is largely due to his ethical conception of God. The view that Jehovah will only be satisfied with the moral lives of His worshippers is a most important element in the 1 Z. D. M. G. Lii. p. 136. '^Jewish Quarterly Review^ in. p. 253. 78 THE THEOLOGY OF THE JEHOVIST estimate formed of his character. Finally, the condemna- tion of idolatry is a result of the rigid monotheism of those who pronounce such a judgment. Accordingly it will be found more convenient to consider the author's position with regard to idolatry in the section which treats of his monotheism, and to discuss his teaching on social morality in the section which treats of his ethical conception of God. Under each heading it will be necessary to compare the teaching of the Jehovist with that of the prophets on the one hand, and with other Semitic religions on the other, in order to show the essential identity in the one case and the fundamental difference in the other. THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST. In discussing the monotheism of the early writers in the Old Testament we have to take account of two distinct and apparently contradictory theories. Some critics con- sider that monotheism was a natural product of the Semitic mind, so that the position of the Jehovist was in no way superior to that of the nations around him. Others maintain that the pre-prophetic writers were polytheists, and that we do not reach ethical monotheism till we come to the prophets. Both theories make the theology of J. identical with that of the Semites in general. The former view is clearly and strikingly stated by Renan^ : It is the glory of the Semitic race to have reached, since its earliest days, that notion of the divinity which all nations have been obliged to adopt owing to its example, and on the strength of its representation. This race has never conceived the government of the universe except as an absolute monarchy; the conception of God has not advanced a single step since the book of Job; the grandeurs and the aberrations of polytheism have 1 Hist, des lang. sem. p. 5 f. The language of Kuenen (Hibberf Lectures, p. 24) and Robertson Smith (0,T. in Jewish Church, p. 273) is much more cautious. 8o THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST always been strange to it... The Semites did not understand in God variety, plurality, sex ; in Hebrew the word goddess would be the most horrible barbarism. All the words by which the Semitic race has designated the Deity, El, Eloh, Adon, Baal, Elion, Shaddai, Jehovah, Allah, even when they adopt the plural form, imply the idea of supreme and incommunicable power, of perfect unity. Nature on the other hand occupies little space in Semitic conceptions... It would be an error to regard Mahomet as having founded monotheism among the Arabs. The worship of Allah the Supreme (Allah taala) had always been the foundation of the religion of Arabia." Renan^ thinks Semitic monotheism was originally due to their simple "tent life... Nomad life made impossible the paraphernalia necessary for an idolatrous worship." Schultze^ who also maintains that the Semitic mind had a natural bent towards monotheism, gives a slightly different explanation. He thinks the Arabs were influenced in this direction by their surroundings, for in the Desert the burning sun is the one great power of nature. Even the Hebrews must be supposed to have derived their mono- theism from Arabia. Levi and Simeon were nomad tribes^, who attacked the Israelites settled in Canaan. We are far from wishing to dispute the element of truth which forms the basis of these remarks, but we cannot disregard the fact that they are partly exaggerated and partly incorrect ^ It is true that the Semites everywhere worshipped the 1 Hist, du peuple d' Israel, I. 43 f. 2 Handb. d. ebr. Mythologies p. 10. 3 op. cit. p. 4. ^ So far from the idea of *' goddess" being abhorrent to the minds of the Semites, their religion was based on the sexual division of their deities. THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST 8 1 Sun-god and that the Hebrews often identified their national god with him; but it is equally true that this general recognition of Baal, the Sun-god, was compatible with a large amount of national and local polytheism. Nor is it safe to assume that the sun was the one heavenly body which would attract the attention of the Arab. Duncker^ indeed clearly proves the contrary. "That the tribes of the deserts should pay special reverence to the deities of the stars cannot surprise us. With the refreshing dew of evening not Venus only or the moon, but the whole glory of the starry heaven met the eye and touched the spirit of the Arabs. High above the tents and resting flocks, above the nocturnal ride or waiting ambuscade, and all the doings of men, the stars passed along on their glittering courses. They guided the Arabs on their way through the deserts ; certain constellations announced the wished for rain, others the wild storms, tjie changes of the seasons, the time for breeding in their herds and flocks. As these stars at one time brought abundance and good pastures for their flocks, and at another dried up the springs and scorched the meadows, so could they also bring joy and happiness or trouble and pain to men.'' Renan is able to assert the rigid monotheism of the Semites, because he regards the Hebrews and later Arabs as typical and considers the aberrations of Babylonians, Phoenicians, and Syrians as due to foreign influence. It will therefore be our first task to consider how far this view can be maintained. Semitic polytheism was the result of the local or terri- torial idea of the gods, which was ingrained in all Semitic peoples. This fact appears clearly in the common Semitic A. Hist, of Antiquity, I. 332. 6 82 THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST names for god — Melek, Baal, Adon. Melek^ as a name for god occurs in Assyrian, Phoenician, Hebrew, and Ethiopic. The names Milcom^ and Molech^ are either local variations or intentional corruptions of the general title, Melek. The name Baal occurs in Assyrian, Phoe- tiician, Hebrew, Ethiopic, and Amharic^ This distribution :shows decisively that it must have been original in Arabic ^Iso^ The name Adon is chiefly interesting because of the curious fate which made it in one form the recognized expression for Jehovah and in another the name of a Greek god'. All these nouns — Melek, Baal, Adon — are really common ^ On the Semitic conception of God as king, see Baethgeri, Beitrdge z. sem. Relig. p. 263; Wellhausen, Reste arab. Heide7ttums^ p. 145, 218; Robertson Smith, Religion of Semites, p. 66; Geiger, Urschrift^ p. 301, 306. ^ On the form Milcom, see Gesenius, s. v.; Kuenen, Th, Tijd. ii. 561. ^ Flirst explains Molech as an abstract word meaning "rule, dominion," which was afterwards used to express the concrete idea of *' ruler, king." More probably it is a combination of the vowels of Bosheth with the consonants of ^bo. Movers [Die Fhonizier, I. 356) points out that, whenever ^^PD has a suffix, we get a form derived from Tj^D and not from '^^'O. ^ Mondon-Vidailhet [Gramm. de la Ian gue abys sine, p. 180) points - out how general the name bal still is in Amharic, in the sense of master, possessor. ^ In this case, as in several other instances, Arabic has established a word of its own for the general Semitic term. In Arabic du has taken the place of the Semitic ba'al. ^ In the Phoenician inscriptions the word occurs in the forms Adoni and Adonan and refers to Baal. The Greeks understood Adoni as a divine name and made it a Greek word by adding the nominative ending, s. THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST 83 nouns ^ and refer to some particular god as the king, possessor, lord of some district or town. "In Semitic religion^ the relation of the gods to particular places... is usually denoted by the title Baal. As applied to men baal means the master of a house, the owner of a field, cattle, or the like... When a god is called simply 'the Baal,' the meaning is... the possessor of some place or district, and each of the multitude of local Baalim is distinguished by adding the name of his own place." We find this territorial idea of the gods in every branch of the Semitic race, and therefore it is not permissible to ascribe it to the foreign influence brought to bear on a particular nation, whether Babylonia, Phoenicia, or Syria. In Babylonia each district, each town, had its own god or gods^ Anu reigned thus in Erech, Bel in Nipur, Sin in Ur, Shamash in Sippara, Marduk in Babylon, Nebo in Borsippa, and Nergal in Cutha. Phoenician inscriptions and the records of the Old Testament have left us no doubt that in this the Phoenicians and Canaanites resembled other Semitic peoples. We read of the Baals of Tyre, Tarsus, Gad, Hermon, and many others. Even the Hebrews were too often influenced by the views of their neighbours, and it was not long before the Exile that Jeremiah^ exclaimed : " According to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah." The views of the Syrians are clearly shown by their supposition that the power of Jehovah was limited to the ^ K. B. I. 14. Belu be-lu sar gi-mir A-nun-na-ki. Bel, the lord, the king of all the Anunnaki. ^ Robertson Smith, op. cit. p. 92 f. See also Movers, op. cit. p. 174 f. ^ Lenormant, Chaldean Magic ^ p. 126 f. ; Sayce, Hibbert Lectures y p. 88 ; Oort, The Worship of Baalim in Israel, p. 11. ^ Jer. ii. 28. f 6—2 84 THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST hill country and did not extend to the valleys, or by the request of Naaman that by some fiction the power of Jehovah might be considered as extending to Damascus ^ The localization of the gods of Arabia is equally certain^ though centuries of Mohammedan belief have rendered it difficult to particularize. This territorial idea of the gods of necessity resulted in polytheism, or rather was itself polytheism. The Baby- lonian, Syrian, or Arab acknowledged the gods of other districts as readily as his own. Accordingly, whenever he was brought into intimate and lasting connection with another district, he accepted its gods and goddesses and added them to those he already possessed. A single campaign of Tiglath-Pileser 1. enriched his pantheon by 25 new deities ^ The foreign marriages of Solomon led to the worship of many strange gods in the neighbourhood of the Temple itself. The heathen colonists in Samaria found no difficulty in adopting the worship of Jehovah while they maintained their allegiance to their former gods. The result was that all Semitic religions were polytheistic with the single exception of that of the Old Testament. In Babylonia and Assyria we meet with many gods in the earliest inscriptions as well as in the latest. In an inscription of Ramman-nirari I.^ (about 1325 B.C.) we already find the following gods, Anu, Ashur, Bel, Ea, Ishtar, Ram- man, and Shamash. When we come to one of the latest ^ 2 K. V. 17. 2 Wellhausen, Reste arab. Heidentums, p. 77 ; Duncker, Hist, of Antiquity, I. 331 ; Robertson Smith, Religion ofSemites^ p. 92 f. 2 K. B. I. 28. Cf. also p. 178. 4 K. B. I. p. 4, 6. Cf. also K, B, iii. pt i. p. 22. THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST 85 inscriptions, the celebrated clay cylinder of Cyrus, the state of things has not in the least altered. Movers^ acknowledges that the, Phoenician religion is polytheistic as far back as history goes, but thinks that it was originally monotheistic and became corrupted. This is of course conceivable, but the account of the Canaanites in the Old Testament shows clearly that their polytheism was entirely Semitic in origin and was simply due to their worship of many local deities. Moreover Baudissin^ points out that, though the representation in ^olvlko. has been influenced by foreign ideas, the titles of the gods are genuine Phoenician names. The case is precisely similar when we turn to the Hebrews. The Israelites themselves were perfectly aware ^ of the fact that their ancestors worshipped many gods. Nor was there ever any natural tendency to alter this state of things. Indeed the writings of Jeremiah and Ezekiel assure us that it was carried on down to the Destruction of Jerusalem and even beyond. The fact of the original polytheism of the Arabs has been firmly established by the researches of Baethgen^ and Wellhausen^, while some writers even think that polytheism had advanced farther in Arabia than in Phoenicia or Palestine. It has, however, been maintained that, though the ^ Die Phonizier^ i. 168. 2 Studien z. sem. Relig. p. 38 f. ^ Josh. xxiv. 2, 14, 15. ^ Beitrdge z. sem. Relig. p. 109 f. (and especially p. 122). 5 Reste arab. Heidentums. The whole of this book is the best refutation of those who hold that monotheism was characteristic of Arabian religion in the centuries before Mohammed. In this connection we may especially refer to p. 77. \ 86 THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST Semitic religions were polytheistic, there was in each of them an element which tended to raise them to a higher level. It will therefore be necessary to consider how far this opinion can be justified. It may be quite true that the Semites everywhere worshipped Baal as the Sun-god, but the facts show con- clusively that this identification had no power to check their polytheism. In the case of the Hebrews, the only race that attained to monotheism \ this goal was not reached by the identification with, but by the differentiation of, Jehovah from Baal. The Assyrians, the Moabites, and the Arabians have been selected by different writers, as nations who gradually advanced to the idea of one supreme Deity. The case for the first is well stated by Lenormant^: " It was only among the Assyrians that the worship of a * deus exsuperantissimus,' the source and principle whence all the others originate, took almost as important a place as in that of Ahuramazda amongst the Persians, in the person of their national god, Assur.'' We certainly find splendid language used of Ashur. A-sur^ belu rabu mus- te-sir kis-sat ilani, Ashur, the great lord, who rules the company of the gods. A-sur^ belu rabu-u sar gim-rat ilani rabuti, Ashur, the great lord, the king of the assembly of the great gods. But Delitzsch^ destroys the force of such passages, when he appeals to the titles of Sin^ the moon-god, as showing the underlying monotheism of the Assyrian ^ Mohammedanism will be considered later. In this connection it must be regarded as, to a great extent, a development from Judaism and Christianity. 2 Chaldean Magic ^ p. 114. 3 K. B. I. 14. ^ op, cit. p. 150. ^ Wo lag das Paradies ? p. 164!. THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST 8/ religion. Sin is called bel ilani sa same u irsitim sar ilani ilu sa ilani asib same rabuti, lord of the gods of heaven and earth, king of the gods, god of the gods who inhabit the mighty heavens. Moreover in the clay cylinder of Cyrus we find similar language used of Merodach, the local god of Babylon. Prof. Sayce^ therefore appears perfectly justified in the account he gives of the Babylonian religion. '^Now it was precisely this conception which the Babylonians, at least as a people, never attained. Nebuchadnezzar may invoke Merodach as 'the lord of the gods,' 'the god of heaven and earth,' 'the eternal, the holy, the lord of all things,' but he almost always couples him with other deities — Nebo, Sin, or Gula — of whom he speaks in equally reverential terms. Even Nabonidus uses language of Sin, the moon-god, which is wholly incompatible with a belief in the exclusive supremacy of Merodach. He calls him, 'the lord of the gods of heaven and earth, the king of the gods, the god of the gods who dwell in heaven and are mighty.' Merodach was in fact simply the local god of Babylon... The Moon-god might be worshipped at Ur; it was out of place to offer him at Babylon the peculiar honours which were reserved for Merodach alone." Schultz^ considers that " such names... as the Phoenician Eliun, the Syrian Aziz, and indeed Jupiter optimus maximus and Father Zeus," though they "occur in polytheistic re- ligions... in such religions they form an element which points the way to monotheism." The comparison with the religions of Greece and Rome can scarcely be said to strengthen Schultz's argument, for those religions remained polytheistic to the end. Nor can ^ Hibbert Lectures^ p. 90. Cf. also M. Jastrow, Relig. of Bab. and Assyria^ p. 696. 2 A, T, TheoL i. 289. 88 THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST Eliun be pressed to mean **the Supreme" or "the Most High." is simply an ordinary adjective meaning **high." We find it used in the positive degree in i K. ix. 8, *'this house which is high"; and in the comparative, higher as opposed to lower, in Josh. xvi. 5, i Chron. vii. 24. In the Poenulus of Plautus alonim valonut, niJvbyi D^iV^y, simply means, "gods and goddesses." Some writers^ have supposed firom the language used of Chemosh in Mesha's inscription that the Moabites wor- shipped only one God and that Chemosh occupied the same position in Moab that Jehovah did in Israel. But if the Moabites only worshipped one God, Chemosh must be the same as the Baal of Peor, and the identification seems fatal to the theory. In the first place Chemosh becomes merely another name for Baal, and is worshipped either with lascivious rites (Numb. xxv. i, 3), or with human sacrifices (2 K. iii. 27). In the second place the name Baal-Peor shows that the Moabites, like other Semites, regarded Chemosh as the lord of a particular district and called him the Baal of Peor to distinguish him from the Baals of other places. In other words the religion of the Moabites was simply that of the nations round them. Duncker regards^ the Hebrews as the one great exception to the polytheism of the Semitic peoples. "This power... to pass beyond the rude naturalism of their kinsmen into the supernatural — from the varied poly- theism of Babel and Canaan to monotheism — this is it which gives the Hebrews the first place, and not among Semitic nations only, in the sphere of religious feeling and ^ Stade, Ges. d. Volkes Isr. I. ii3f. ; Sayce, Higher Criticism and the Monuments, p. 86. 2 Hist, of Antiquity, I. 387. Cf. also Jevons, Introd. to History of Religion^ p. 388. THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST 89 development." The facts are to some extent as Duncker has stated them, with the important reservation that any avoidance of the surrounding polytheism was entirely due to the revelation of God and not to the popular aspirations of the nation. On the contrary, the people continued their syncretism till the Babylonian Exile. In the period im- mediately preceding the Destruction of Jerusalem, the attitude of the Jews in Canaan is described in Ezek. viii. and that of the exiles at the Chabor in Ezek. xiv. In the time of the Captivity the idolatry of the Jews in Egypt is fully established by Jer. xliv. and that of their brethren in Babylon by Deutero-Isaiah. No statement in the whole of the Old Testament gives us the slightest reason to suppose that the Israelites would ever have attained to a loftier conception of God by their own unaided efforts \ ' It is well known that Sale^ maintained that the heathen Arabs worshipped one supreme God, Allah. DiesteP on the contrary asserts that the heathen Arabs had no tendency whatever towards monotheism, and appeals to the Koran itself : e.g. xxxviii. 4, "And the unbelievers said. This man is a sorcerer and a liar : doth he affirm the gods to be but one God?" Wellhausen^ takes an intermediate position and also appeals to the Koran : "In the sixth and seventh centuries of our era, Allah has quite gained the supremacy over the gods. This comes out clearly in the Quran. In ^ Cf. Hecker, Die Israeliten und d. Monotheismus^ p. 40, "We can- not and dare not represent the matter differently as regards the Israelites ; originally they were polytheists and in this respect neither better nor worse than all Semitic peoples; they reniained till the latest period susceptible of polytheistic impressions." ^ Frelimmary Discourse^ Section 3 /. D. Th. i860, p. 743. ^ Reste arab. Heidentums, p/. 2 1 7 i go THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST matters of serious importance, in any great danger or necessity, the heathen always turn themselves to Allah and not to the idols, says Muhammad." We may fairly accept both series of passages and conclude that the Arabs had learned from the Jews and Christians, with whom they were in daily contact, the idea of one supreme God, without being ready entirely to abandon their old heathen deities. Only we must be on our guard against accepting as a genuine product of the Semitic mind the views of Arabs who had for centuries been exposed to Christian and, still more, to Jewish influence. Our conclusion therefore is that none of the Semitic peoples showed any natural tendency to monotheism, and that we must seek for some other explanation of the theology of the prophets. Our next task is to show that in this respect the early writers of the Old Testament, and in particular the Jehovist, agree with the prophets and differ- entiate themselves sharply from the views of their heathen contemporaries. The very name, Jehovah, so persistently used by this author for the true God, would in itself do much. The common Semitic names, El, Elohim\ Melek, Baal, Adon, so far from distinguishing the God of the Hebrews from the gods of the heathen, rather tended to put Him in the same class with them. The name, Jehovah, as God's proper name, sharply distinguishes Him from all other gods. Jehovah is the God of Israel as contrasted with the gods of the heathen. In Ex. v. Jehovah is contrasted with the gods of Egypt : in Jud. v. with the gods of Canaan. In the Jehovistic account of the Flood we read : " Blessed be ^ Hence the Jehovist fully avoids the use of Jt j being addressed. A jUses Elohim of false gods, while he care- I^Byjhe heathen are either speaking or THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST 9I , Jehovah, the God of Shem : May Elohim enlarge Japhet." In the section of Genesis, which we are especially consider- ing, the name Jehovah is only used in connection with Adam and Eve : it is carefully avoided in connection with the serpent and Elohim is employed instead. This ex- clusiveness is as marked in the prophets as in the Jehovist, and provokes the ire of Prof. Delitzsch. He quotes a passage from Deutero-Isaiah and comments as follows : "The more deeply^ I immerse myself in the spirit of the prophetic literature of the Old Testament, the greater becomes my distrust of Yah we . . . who has but one favourite child... who uttered these words to Abraham, I will bless those who bless thee and those who curse thee will I curse ...and I put my trust in the God who is a loving and righteous Father over all men on earth." It may serve to emphasize the agreement in the theology of the Jehovist and the prophets to mention that the promise to Abraham, which has just, been quoted, comes from the writings of the former. We must not, however, conclude that the use of the name Jehovah was of itself a proof of monotheism. On the contrary it would have been compatible with a very thorough-going polytheism. The decisive feature which distinguished Jehovah from other Semitic gods was the ethical conception which we find in J. and other early writers of the Old Testament^. Nebo was the god of Borsippa, but he' was in no respect superior to Marduk, or Nergal, or Sin. Chemosh was the Baal of Moab, but there was no real difference between him and the Baals of other districts or towns. The Semite passed from the worship of one to that of the other without ^ Babel and Bible ^ p. T49. ^ The proof of this assertion is given in the next sec ion. 92 THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST any other difference than the change of name. But the dullest Israelite could appreciate the difference between the worship of such a god as the Jehovah of the Old Testament and that of a Baal or a Molech. As a rule he greatly preferred to worship the latter, or, which came to the same thing, to worship the former in the way most acceptable to himself The reason why God's people so often forsook Him for Baalim and Ashtaroth was simply that the condi- tions required by the latter were the natural product of the Semitic mind. The case is, as usual, clearly and strikingly stated by Kuenen^: "In the estimation of all who worshipped him, Yahweh was a mighty god,... There was nothing unusual in such a belief... In any case, Yahweh, if exalted in this way only, remained comparable with all the other gods, of one family with them, and of impulses like to theirs... The case was completely altered when... the central place was taken not by the might but by the holiness^ of Yahweh. From that moment it ceased to be a question of more and less between Yahweh and the other gods, for now he stood not only above them but in very distinct opposition to them.'' If Jehovah was God, then the others were not. From this point of view it would only be necessary to show that J.'s conception of God was an ethical one, in order to establish his monotheism. This, however, must be ^ Hibbert Lectures^ p. 1 1 8 f. Cf. Cornill, Das israel. Prophetismus^ p. 47. ^ Kuenen considers that "holiness" in the O.T. is ethical and denotes moral purity. T hat this cannot have been the original meaning of the word is show)i clearly by its usage to denote those dedicated to the immoral worship of the gods of Assyria and Canaan. See Delitzsch, Assyrisches H. W. B. s. v. qadfstu, Gesenius, Thesaurus s. v. qades. In this cor nection it is sufficient to draw attention to the sense in which Kuenen is employing the term. THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST 93 postponed till the next section. At present we are occupied in collecting more direct evidence of his views. The Semitic conception of the gods as local deities appears clearly in the view of the Syrians that the power of Jehovah was limited to the hills, or in the request of Naaman that he might take some of the territory of Israel with him in order to worship the national god. In strict accordance with this the critics explain i S. xxvi. 19 as meaning that the worship of Jehovah was only possible in the land of Canaan. Far different is the view of J. According to him God, the supposed local god of Horeb, selects Abraham, a member of a nation not subject to His authority, and summons him from his distant home in Mesopotamia. He is with him and his descendants in Babylonia, Canaan, Egypt, Syria, and Arabia. In accord- ance with Semitic ideas, Elijah, the zealous champion of Jehovah, would have needed to go to Horeb to seek the protection of God^ J. makes Jehovah omnipotent to protect His followers in all countries and against all foes. The Semites would have regarded Jehovah as the tribal god of the Kenites. J. considers that He was the God worshipped by the ancestors of the Ishmaelites and other Arab tribes, the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Hebrews, the Edomites — in short, of the Semites as a whole. Not that His rule is in any way limited to them. Jehovah enlarges Japhet and disposes as He pleases of the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites. It was the object of the removal of the plague of hail that 1 Cornill, Das israel. Prophetismus, p. 20 f. ; H. P. Smith, O. T, Hist. p. 190. 94 THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST Pharaoh might know that the land of Egypt' belonged to Jehovah. Looking at the scope of J.'s history and the extent of his geography, it is evident that he regarded Jehovah as the God of the whole inhabited world. An attempt has been made to meet this by the supposition that Jehovah, although a local or national god, went wherever His people went and was able to defend them in all circum- stances that might arise. We will not stay to prove that this explanation is more applicable to the gods of classical than to those of Semitic heathenism, or to show that it is inconsistent with the position of the very critics who adopt it. It is quite sufficient to point out that it utterly fails to account for the language of the Jehovist and of other early writers of the Old Testament. The inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah had committed no sin against Israel to account for the intervention of Jehovah. No reason can be assigned why the god of Horeb should increase the posterity of Japhet, or even why the god of Canaan should select a Syrian or a Babylonian in preference to his own subjects. The offences of the Egyptians might deserve punishment, but Pharaoh could not be expected to know that the land of Egypt belonged to the god of another district altogether. The very strength with which J. grasped the idea that Jehovah was the God of the Hebrews would have prevented him from associating Him with the ancestors of the other Semitic races if he had conceived of Him as a tribal god. It is usually urged as a proof of the monotheism of the prophets that they regard the mighty kings of Assyria and Babylon as merely the servants and instruments of Jehovah. ^ If we translate "the earth is Jehovah's," the case becomes much stronger. THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST 95 It is a striking characteristic of J.'s narrative that he adopts precisely the same attitude with regard to Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He was regarded by his subjects as almost a god\ but his opposition merely served to bring out his own powerlessness and the omnipotence of Jehovah. Nor is there anything to set on the other side. Baudissin^ indeed concludes from the repeated formula "the god of the Hebrews " that this writer regarded Jehovah as a local god. In reality the argument possesses little force. The phrase expresses an undoubted fact, and it is difificult to see in what other way Moses could have made his meaning clear to Pharaoh. The monotheism of the Jehovist appears equally strongly in his view of the gods of the heathen. The people of Jehovah are often brought into collision with their neigh- bours, the Egyptians, the Canaanites, and the Amalekites, but Jehovah never has to contend with the gods of these countries. They are regarded as non-existent before Him, they are powerless to help or to injure. In all the struggle in Egypt, in all the war in Canaan, there is no thought of any supernatural Being, who might oppose Jehovah, however feebly. It did not come within the scope of J.'s history to consider the reality of the heathen gods, he does not call them D'»^"'b«, or Sin, or as later writers do, but his silence is as eloquent as their words. Mr Ottley^ instances Ex. xv. 1 1 as showing that the author believed in the existence of other gods, but the passage has no bearing on our argument. We meet with ^ Cf. the language used in the Tel-el- Amarna letters : '*My lord is the sun which daily rises on the lands." "The king is the everlasting sun." '*To the king, my lord, my god, my sun, the sun from heaven.' ^ Studien z. sent. Religionsges . I. i56f. 3 Aspects of 0,T. p. 72. 96 THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST precisely similar language in Ps. xcvi. 4, but the following verse says distinctly that such gods are D"''?''^^^. In any case J. might have spoken of them as gods without acknowledging their real existence. A Christian writer has often to use similar language if he wishes to be understood \ and the general position of J. excludes the idea that he regarded the heathen gods as powers to be reckoned with. But even if he believed in their existence, it would not necesT sarily be an argument against his monotheism. In 2 Chron. xxviii. 23 the gods of Damascus are represented as smiting Ahaz, and therefore the author must have regarded them as beings possessing the power of inflicting injury ^ But in the case of so late a writer any tendency to polytheism is out of the question, and we must recognize in this passage the view, which afterwards became general, that the gods of the heathen were real and malevolent beings^, though not in any sense gods. Such an opinion was, however, con- sistent with the most rigid monotheism. It in no way interfered with St Paul's belief'^ in the unity of God. Friedlander-^ points out that the early Christians accepted the existence of the Roman gods, and the same fact appears in Mohammedanism and in the popular belief of the Middle Ages. Even in modern times some missionaries regard the gods of the heathen as evil spirits^. Several writers of the Old Testament may accept the existence of " so-called " ^ Compare Robertson, Early Religion of Israel^ p- 304. 2 See Bertheau, ad loc, ^ For the exceptional view of Philo, see Siegfried, Fhilo von Alexandria, p. 211 f.; Zeller, Die Philosophie d. Griechen ill. pt 2, p. 345 f. On the LXX. of Deut. xxxii. 8, see Kalisch on Leviticus, Vol. II. p. 308 f. ^ I Cor. X. 20. 5 Sittenges. Roms, ill. 545 f. 6 Schultz, A, T. Theologie, l. 264. THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST 97 gods, they may regard them with disHke and aversion, but they never consider them to be gods in the strict sense of the word, they never class them with the one true God, Jehovah. Mr Montefiore mentions as one of the characteristics of the monotheism of the prophets that they taught that God can only be served by the abandonment of idolatry : he might have added that this is equally the teaching of the writers who preceded them. The Jehovist as usual leaves us in no doubt on this subject. ''Thou shalt worship^ no other god : for Jehovah, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God." Nor is the case different with the Elohist. It is true that he mentions the polytheism of the patriarchs, but it is only to express his own disapprobation of it. Jacob^ bids his household carefully put away all their idols before they presume to appear in the presence of the true God. Joshua^ offers the Israelites the choice between serving Jehovah and serving the gods of their fathers and of the Amorites, but he warns them emphatically that the acceptance of Jehovah means the complete renunciation of idolatry. "And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve Jehovah... he is a jealous God... If ye forsake Jehovah, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you hurt and consume you, after that he hath done you good." Prof. Delitzsch is grieved* at the scathing irony poured by the prophets on the gods of his favourite Babylonians. The fact is undeniable, but the German professor should have included the pre-prophetic writers of the Old Testament in his censure. No irony could well be greater than the ^ Ex. xxxiv. 14. ^ Gen. XXXV. 2 f . ^ Josh. xxiv. 15, 19, 20. * Babel and Bible ^ p. 197. A. 7 98 THE MONOTHEISM OF THE JEHOVIST way in which E. describes how Moses took the idol which the Israelites had made, burnt it in the fire, ground it to powder, strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink it. No satire could be keener than the narrative^ of the misfortunes of Dagon in the presence of the Ark. No remarks of Deutero-Isaiah could be more humorous than those of Elijah on the possible occupations of the negligent Baal. In some subjects we discover an advance, when we come from the earlier writers to the prophets, but as regards monotheism their position is unchanged, while their writings are separated from those of other Semitic peoples by a broad line of division. No comparison could be more instructive than that between the account of the Temptation and Fall given in Genesis and the Babylonian legend of Eabani and the consecrated maiden. However far we go back in Babylonian history, we meet with the same degraded polytheism : however early be the Hebrew writer, we encounter an enlightened monotheism. We readily acknowledge the progressive character of the Old Testament revelation : TroAv/xepws kol TroADTpoVto? irdXai 6 ^€os XaXrjaas. We recognize as fully and freely as possible the human element in the work of the Jehovist. But we also recognize an element that is not human but Divine, and perceive in the history of the Jehovist, as certainly as in the Epistle to the Hebrews or the Gospel of St John, the inspiration of God. 1 This section of Samuel bears all the signs of extreme antiquity. THE ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD. Mr Montefiore^ gives as two prominent characteristics of the prophets — their ethical view of God and their teaching that He can only be acceptably served by the practice of social morality. The division is theoretically correct and in thought we can keep the two ideas distinct, but in such a discussion as the present it is impossible to separate them. The realization of the holiness of God necessarily leads to the acknowledgment that He can only be served by a holy life, while the stress laid on the fact that God especially regards the life and conduct of His worshippers shows clearly what view such teachers took of His character. Practically the two ideas are merely different aspects of one great truth and accordingly they will be considered together. Under both aspects we shall compare the teaching of the Jehovist and other early writers of the Old Testament with that of the prophets on the one hand and with that of other Semitic nations on the other. El is, perhaps, the oldest Semitic name for God and was once common to every branch of the Semitic family of nations. It was originally simply a common noun and Jeivish Quarterly Review, III. 253. 7—2 lOO THE ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD designated the gods as strong and powerful^ The same root is used of the strength of men and is employed to denote the oak as a strong tree, or the ram as a strong animal. It is true that El in Arabic is no longer a common noun, but Prof. Miiller^ gives an inscription which shows that this was still the usage in the sister dialect, Himyaritic. On account of the antiquity and universality of its use the word El is very important as indicating the conception formed of the gods by the early Semites. It shows that they, like other heathen nations, distinguished the gods from men rather by their possession of greater strength and power than by their character or moral qualities. In contrast with this the Jehovist lays especial stress on the moral character of Jehovah. Barrow^ considers the three principal attributes of God to be ''wisdom, power, and goodness incomprehensible." These are the attributes by which we, with our' present Christian enlightenment, distinguish God from men. But they are already character- istic of the Jehovist's conception of God. Reuss^ tells us that "the view of God in these old prophets (i.e. Amos, Hosea, Joel, Isaiah, and Micah) exhausts itself in the qualities of might, righteousness, pity, and truth." But these qualities also exactly describe our author's idea of God. The view taken by the Jehovist of the might of God ^ Other derivations must be considered less probable, (a) Noldeke derives it from , Arabic awv^ala, to be first. (d) Lagarde, from aiming at a mark. He thinks the name represents God as the goal of the human soul. (c) Halevy connects it with the Arabic wa'la, to protect. (d) Muss-Arnolt mentions also a derivation from '^^^j join, combine. '■^ Z, D. M, G. XXX VI I. 366. 3 Works, V. 261. Ges. d. heil, Schr, d. A. Z". p. 318. THE ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD lOI forms part of his monotheism and needs no further proof. His conviction of God's righteousness, pity, and truth appears clearly in such passages as the following : Gen. xviii. 25. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right. xxxii. II. I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth, which thou hast showed unto thy servant. Ex. xxxiv. 6. Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty. There may be advance when we pass from such teaching as this to that of the prophets, but the conception formed by the Jehovist of the moral character of God is so high that no essential difference is possible. El was one designation of God common to all Semitic races and the name Baal was equally general. It has been already shown that this latter word denotes the tutelary deity of a particular place, but this was only part of its meaning. It had a second, and at first sight, contradictory signification and was everywhere the designation of Shemesh, the Sun-god. This identification of Baal and the Sun-god appears clearly on the Phoenician monuments^; while in the cuneiform inscriptions^ we learn that the consort of Shemesh was Meleketh, the feminine of Melek : a-na Samas belu rabu-u be-li-ia u Malkatu kal-la-tum be-el-tum rabi-tum, To Shamash, the great lord, my lord, and Malkatu his spouse, the great lady. This identity of Baal or Melek with the Sun-god was the second reason which made his ^ Gesenius, Monum, Fhoen, Tab. 21. 2 K. B. III. pt 2, p. 106. I02 THE ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD worship so universal, for the Sun-god was worshipped by all Semitic peoples. "Wherever^ the Semite was wholly triumphant, wherever he succeeded in founding an empire ...the Sun-god acquired undisputed sway." That Shamash was one of the oldest Assyrian gods is shown by the fact that a temple was built in his honour by Pudi-ilu about 1350 B.c.^ His worship in Palestine is rendered certain by the names of the cities, Beth-shemesh and Ir-shemesh, and by the Phoenician inscriptions, Ebed-shemesh and Zevah- shemesh^ Prof. Sayce"^ quotes inscriptions with the compound name, Samas-Rammanu, showing the identity of Rammanu^, the god worshipped in Syria, with the Sun-god ; and there are equally clear indications of his worship among the various Arab tribes^. As the personification and embodiment of the sun, the Baal was symbolical not only of the life-giving and fertilizing, but also of the cruel and destructive power in nature. Some^ indeed have distinguished the two sets of attributes, and consider Baal to be the beneficent, and Melek the harmful principle. But this opinion must be decisively rejected. In the Phoenician inscriptions Baal and Melek are expressly identified^, and the usual designation of the god is JDn by2^. Under one aspect Baal was regarded as ^ Sayce, Hibbert Lectures^ p. 213. 2 K. B. I. 4. ^ Baethgen, Beitrdge z. sem. Relig. p. 61. ^ Assy7'ian Gfam. p. iiof. ^ In the O.T. his name is Hebraized as Rimmon. 6 See on this Z. D. M. G. vii. 468. ^ Kuenen, De Godsdienst van Israel^ i» 225; Baethgen, Beitrdge z, sem. Relig, p. 38. ^ Gesenius, Monumenta Phoen, p. 285. 9 Op. cit. p. 107, 165, 168, 174, 176, 197, 202, 207 f. THE ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD IO3 the giver of all plenty, was represented on the monuments with the sign of the pomegranate \ and was worshipped everywhere with wanton pleasure and unbridled lust. Under the other aspect, he was worshipped as the god of fire, and was propitiated with human victims^ and the slaughter of children, alike in the plains of Assyria^, the colonies of Phoenicia^ the land of Israel ^ and the deserts of Arabia I It is generally agreed that Jehovah was adopted as the national God of Israel at the time of the Exodus, but it is equally clear that for a long time the Israelites continued to call Him Baal as well. Colenso' has a note on the way in which Jah, Jehovah, El, Melech, Baal, Adon, interchange in proper names. The name of one town in Judah was called Kirjath-Baal because God's Ark stayed there : the name of Baal-perazim was given to another because '^Jehovah broke forth... as the breach of waters." There are few who will follow Kuenen^ in concluding from the names of the children of Saul and David that these kings worshipped the Canaanitish Baal. Finally the prohibition by Hosea of the use of the title Baal shows that it was customary at the time the prophet wrote. The use of the common Semitic 1 Op. cit. Tab. 23. 2 This must not be pressed too far. Geer i^Jaarboek voor wetensch. Theol. II. 112) reminds us that traces of the practice of human sacrifices are to be found among all nations. It was, indeed, a natural deduction from the fundamental idea of sacrifice. ^ Where many scholars suppose this conception of the Sun-god to have originated. ^ This is elaborately proved by Movers, Die Phonizier, I. 299 f. ^ Jer. xix. 5. ^ Wellhausen, Reste arab. Heidentums^ p. 115 f. In Oort, The worship of Baalim in Israel^ p. 86. See also Gray, Hebrew Proper Names ^ p. 1 39 f. ^ De Godsdienst van Israel, I. 301 f. , 401 f. I04 THE ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD name naturally led many Israelites to identify their national God with the Sun-god worshipped by their neighbours ^ Consequently He was regarded as representing both ideas of Baal, and was worshipped under the one aspect with wanton and lascivious rites and propitiated under the other with terrible and cruel sacrifices I Indeed for those who regarded Jehovah as Baal, as a particular modification of the Sun-god, such methods of worship were unavoidable. When, however, Oort^ maintains that this was the original and authoritative form of Jehovah worship, his case breaks down. Robertson Smith ^ easily refutes the view that animal sacrifices are a relaxation of human. No single writer in the Old Testament can be quoted^ as enjoining such offerings. On the contrary the Jehovist, the earliest author whose work we possess, clearly and unmis- takeably states that God requires nothing of the sort, although He recognized the spirit of faith ^ and self-sacrifice which prompted the action of Abraham. It almost seems as if this section of his narrative was written to show the ^ OoxU Het pienschenoffer 171 Israel, p. 54 f. Compare also Robertson (Early Religion of Israel, p. 173 f.: "Their lips and ears became familiarized first with the religious nomenclature, and then with the religious conceptions of their neighbours"); and H. P. Smith, O.T, Hist. p. 172. 2 H. P. Smith, 0. T. Hist. p. 222, states the case excellently. "The people... so long as they are seeking Yahweh, suppose they are in the right way. Hosea does not so judge. He sees that Baal is Baal, even though he is called Yahweh." ^ Het menschenoffer in Israel', and especially p. 5, 28f., 30, 35 f. ^ Religion of the Semites, p. 342 f. See also Kuenen, Th. Tijd. I. 55, II. 692 f. ^ Accordingly Konig (Hauptprobleme d. A. T. Relig. p. 72 f.) absolutely denies that human sacrifices were offered to Jehovah. Nowack {Heb. Archdol. ii. 206) expresses himself more cautiously. ^ Heb. xi. 19. THE ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD I05 difference between Jehovah, the one true God, and the gods of Semitic heathenism. Equally removed are the writers of the Old Testament from the other conception of God which was common to the Semitic nations. It is rapidly becoming accepted as proved that this teaching on the necessity of uprightness and purity only began with the prophets ; and Stade^ asserts positively that, when Amos affirmed that the main thing required by Jehovah of His worshippers was a moral life, he laid down a principle "as yet unheard of in Israel." The best refutation of this opinion is the study of the authors who preceded the prophets. The Jehovist declares re- peatedly and emphatically that unrighteousness and impurity are sins which provoke God's anger and shut off the sinner from His protection and favour. The statement to Cain : **If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door " might, as far as its teaching is concerned, be taken from a passage in Isaiah- or Ezekiel. The guilty world was destroyed by the Flood, not because they neglected sacrifice, but because their moral life was wrong. Jehovah did not desire to investigate 1 Ges. des Volkes I sr. I. 573. Cf. H. P. Smith, O. T. Hist, p. 211, * ' We can hardly help feeling that this author, with all his religious earnestness, encouraged the blindness against which Amos made such an energetic protest. Conscious opposition to the popular religion can scarcely be attributed to J. Very different was Amos." It is surprising, considering the magnitude of the issues involved, that the late Prof. Davidson could regard the question as of small importance. "That other question referred to, whether the prophets of the eighth century created, or found, the lofty truths which they teach, is not of much consequence. These truths are taught by them ; and whether they be taught by them for the first time, or be several hundreds of years older, can affect us in these days very little" ((9. T, Prophecy^ p. 24. Cf. also p. 19). I06 THE ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD whether Sodom and Gomorrah had injured Abraham or Lot, but whether they had practised the impurities which other Semitic gods regarded with peculiar favour. The chief thing that restrained Joseph from immoraUty was that such conduct would be "sin against God." In the Babylonian legend of Eabani and the harimtu (the maiden dedicated to the worship of Baal the productive) we already find the foulness of the common Semitic religion. In the narrative of the Jehovist the same tradition is employed to impress on us the duty of self-control. Nor is the case different when we turn to other early writers of the Old Testament. The section of the Second Book of Samuel, which treats of David's sin and punishment, is unquestion- ably by an early writer and probably by a contemporary of the Jehovist. At any rate its teaching is exactly the same. In the whole of the Bible there is no more emphatic assurance that God will punish unrighteousness and impurity than in these chapters. David was the man after God's own heart, but his offence was punished as certainly as was that of Saul. The modern preacher, when he wishes to enforce the duties of social morality, turns as readily to the narratives of the early writers of the Old Testament as to the exhortations of the prophets, or the Epistles of S. Paul. It is characteristic of natural religions that the bond between a god and his worshippers is local and physical rather than ethical. The god is connected with a particular tribe or the inhabitants of a certain town because of their race, or position, or affinity, and not at all on account of their moral conduct. The difference between such a view and that adopted by the writers of the Old Testament is too striking to escape the notice of the most careless reader. Robertson Smith ^ brings out this feature in the religion of ^ Old Test, in the Jeivish Churchy 275. THE ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD 10/ the prophets clearly and well: "This relation between Jehovah and Israel is not a mere natural, unintelligent, and physically indissoluble bond such as unites Moab and Chemosh. It rests on free love and generous choice." The only wonder is that he limited this characteristic to the prophets, and did not point out that it was equally true of the Jehovist and other pre-prophetic writers. Whether Abraham was a Syrian or a Babylonian, there was no natural connection between him and Jehovah, before the call came to him to leave his home and his kindred. It wa,s no physically indissoluble bond which united Jehovah to Abraham rather than to Lot, to Isaac rather than to Ishmael. In each selection made by God we can see that the choice was made with deliberation and forethought and was based on recognition of character. Even in the case of Jacob and Esau, reflection shows us that the former always possessed the capacity for improvement while the reformation of the latter was hopeless from the first. Here as elsewhere the position of the Jehovist is ■ essentially the same as that of the prophets, but is radically different from that of the heathen Semites in the countries around him. Nor is this a modern opinion : it is the view taken by the prophets themselves. In fact they would have protested against this name being confined to them or its being supposed that they were in any way different from those who preceded them. Hosea already tells us that Moses was a prophet and that his especial work was to lead Israel out of Egypt. Kuenen^ indeed asserts that this is one of Hosea's mistakes, because Moses displayed none of the enthusiasm which was an essential characteristic of a prophet, but his arguments are far from convincing. In the ^ De Godsdienst van Israel^ I. 189. I08 THE ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD accounts of the prophets of Jehovah given us in the Old Testament this enthusiasm is the rare exception rather than the rule. Assyrian discoveries have shown that the deriva- tion of from a root V2^ \ to bubble or boil, is no longer probable. In any case, whatever were the qualifications of a prophet, Hosea must be supposed to have been aware of them and also to have known whether Moses possessed them or not. As the prophets of the 8th century did not regard themselves as a new order, neither did they consider that they were making any innovation^, but that on the contrary they were carrying on the teaching of those who preceded them. Here again Kuenen is compelled to assert that they were entirely mistaken. " Men came to antedate the purer conception of Jahveh's nature and worship, which was in reality the fruit of the meditations of the pious in those days of which we are treating, and to form an ideal, historically inaccurate notion of the bygone centuries.'' It is not a very probable suggestion that the prophets so completely misunderstood the religion of preceding teachers that they believed they were supporting it when in reality they were straining every nerve to overthrow it and substitute a new religion of their own. Such a theory could only be accepted if it were strongly supported by ascertained facts. When on the contrary we find that the facts are against, rather than in favour of, the theory, it becomes at once untenable. It 1 Op. cit. p. 212 f. Prof. H. P. Smith (O. T. Hist, p. no, note) endeavours to reconcile the supposed *' enthusiastic or orgiastic behaviour" of the prophets with the Assyrian meaning of the word Nabi'u, by translating Nabi *'one possessed by Nebo." 2 Kirkpatrick, Doctrine of the Prophets^ p. 26 ; Robertson Smith, Prophets of Israel, p. 108; Davidson, Bibl. and Literary Essays, p. 92, 109 f. THE ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD IO9 was a result of the Semitic conception of Baal that any purification of his religion and worship w^as rendered impossible : it was a danger that the very grandeur of the idea of Jehovah should remove Him far from the world He had created^ and place Him outside the sphere of human necessities ^ That the danger is no imaginary one is shown by the history of later Judaism^. So long, however, as the name Jehovah w^as used of God, the danger was only a possibility. The pronoun w^hich is placed in front of the word^ draws attention to the living, personal agent even more than to the notion conveyed by the root which follow^s. In the striking words of Mr Turner^ : " In the formations in question the abstract property of the root is represented as embodied in some living and personal existence and, so to speak, energized and made alive." It is this life, this personality, this energy, this activity, which especially characterize the Jehovist's idea of God. Jehovah forms man of the dust of the ground, He plants the garden. He causes the trees to grow, He causes a sleep to fall on the man and takes part of his body and makes it into a woman, He walks in the garden. He converses with Adam and Eve. Nor is the case altered when we come to later writers ; they simply continue the teaching of those who preceded them. It w^as Jehovah not Moses who delivered the Israelites^: it is Jehovah who speaks to His people, the prophet is merely His mouthpiece"^ : it is Jehovah w^ho is the real king of the nation, the priest and king are merely ^ We find traces of this tendency even in E. 2 Cf. Pfleiderer, Philosophy of Religion^ i. 12. ^ See Dalman, Der Gottesname Adonaj, p. 57. ^ See the additional note at the end of this chapter. ^ Studies Biblical and Oriental, p. 374. ^ Hos. xii. 14. Smend in St. K. 1876, p. 611; and cf. Am. iii. 3 — 7. no THE ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD His deputies. There is no such thing as chance in the whole of the Old Testament \ and hence the use of the sacred lot to decide even trivial questions^. ''If we wished^ to select the master-thought of the Old Testament, we should be justified in saying that it is belief in the providence and direct action of the living God." It is a consequence of this intense realization of the personality of Jehovah that anthropomorphic expressions^ are frequently applied to Him, for this is the way in which per- sonality is most readily and vividly conceived. Prof. Harper indeed is annoyed by what he designates as the Jehovist's "aggravating anthropomorphism," but the use of such expres- sions is merely a matter of taste. Moreover it is one of the points in which the theology of J. agrees with that of the prophets, who represent God as being angry ^, jealous, gracious, as loving, hating, repenting; and who speak of His eye, nose, ear, mouth, and hand. Ewald^ may be justified in remarking on such passages that " Jahvism fell back into almost too simple a method of speaking of the Divine," but it does not in the least follow that the conception of God in the Old Testament is less exalted than our own. Some accommodation to human weakness is necessary if we are to conceive of God at all; and Schultz^ rightly points out that it is anthropomorphic even to represent God as speaking. The avoidance of such expressions was due partly to 1 Oehler, TheoL of O. T. I. 177. 2 Prov. xvi. 33. 3 Ottley, Aspects of O.T.^. 115. 4 No account of J.'s theology would be complete, which failed to notice his anthropomorphism. 5 See on this Reuss, Ges. d. heil. Schr. d, A. T. p. 318. ^ Hist, of Israel^ n. 124. 7 A. T, TheoL i. 271. THE ETHICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD III different canons of taste and partly to an altered conception of God. Renan^ rightly says "The religious progress of Israel will be found to consist in reverting from Jahveh to Elohim...in stripping him of his personal attributes and leaving him only the abstract existence of Elohim"; but in the process Judaism lost just that aspect of the conception of Jehovah which, perhaps more than any other, constitutes the real value of the Old Testament. The God of the philosopher, however satisfactory regarded from the stand- point of abstract speculation, is of no assistance to a sinful, sorrowing, struggling humanity. The gods of classical heathenism, with all their failings, mean more to us than the Supreme of Neo-Platonism^. The later Jews carefully preserved the idea of God from the anthropomorphism of the Jehovist and the prophets, but in doing so they lost sight of the characteristic which endeared the mighty and terrible Jehovah to the hearts of the Israelites, yes, and to our hearts also : '^Thus saith the high and lofty One, that abideth for ever, whose name is holy ; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a humble and contrite spirit.'' ^ Hist, du peuple (T Israel, I. 86. 2 On Neo-Platonism see Schaff-Herzog, Encyclopaedia ; Zeller, Die Philosophie d. Griechen, ill. pt 2, p. 483 f. ADDITIONAL NOTE. The determination of the origin and significance of the prefix ya, which forms the first part of the name Yahweh, is a matter of extreme difficulty, where conjectures are many and certainty is small. There is no need to do more than mention the opinion, that the prefix is derived from the verb hayah, so that yiktob would be compounded of the infinitive and the auxiliary verb. Nix\ arguing from Assyrian, thinks that w and i were originally merely helping vowels. Y was afterwards prefixed in accordance with the law that every word must begin with a consonant. Against this argument we must place the fact that initial y has a tendency to become vocalic in Semitic languages generally. We see the same tendency in modern when compared with classical Arabic^, in late Ethiopic and Amharic^ and in Syriac when compared with Hebrew. Accordingly when we find that the Semitic y has become a vowel in Assyrian, we recognize this as being part of a general tendency. 1 Z. A. X. 189. ^ Spitta, Gramm, d. arab. Viilgdrdial. p. 14. ^ Guidi, Gramm. element, della lingua amariiia, p. 98. ADDITIONAL NOTE Dietrich^ argues strongly that yaqtul and taqtul are nouns of that form. He points out (p. 128 f.) that we should expect in Hebrew the third person to be without any distinctive sign^, and for the second and third persons to be distinguished from it by the addition of a pronominal element. He brings forward (p. 136 f.) many instances where the form yaqtul is used for nouns, and where the form is evidently not the tense of a verb. Finally (p. 154 f.) he urges the difficulty of regarding the ta as pronominal in the third person feminine. He considers the difference between the two nominal forms yaqtul and taqtul to be, that the former was used for the concrete, the latter for the abstract idea. Bottcher^ and Koch^ so far agree with Dietrich that they regard yaqtul as a nominal form but, somewhat incon- sistently, they consider that the prefix ta in taqtul is really pronominal. Philippi^ urges against the whole theory that, if yaqtul were the original form, we should expect the second person to be either tayaqtul or yaqtulta; an objection which Koch only partially meets by comparing the form biktob in modern Arabic. Barth^ points out that nouns of the form yaqtul are rare and that this method of formation had a tendency to be dropped even in the original language. It is a still more serious objection that this theory entirely disregards the plain parallelism between yiktob, on ^ Abhandlu7tge.n z. heb. Gramm. 2 In Tigre the 3rd person masc. has actually dropped the prefix as unnecessary. ^ Ausf. Lehrb. d. heb. Spr, §925. ^ Der se?n. Infinitif^ p. 7. 5 Z. D. M. G. XXIX. 171. * Nominalbild^ p. 226. A. 8 114 ADDITIONAL NOTE the one hand, and tiktob, ektob, niktob, on the other. It seems scarcely credible that in the former case the nominal base is yiktob, and that in the other it is ktob with the addition of the pronouns, t, n. Ewald^ and Schroder^ are of opinion that the form yiktob is derived from liktob, through weakening of the sound of 1 to i. Such a change is certainly possible, for we get isolated instances in other languages. Thus the Ethiopic qal, word, becomes in Amharic^ qay, thing: atali, sheep, becomes atay kel'et, two ,, kit ma'alt, day „ mai the preposition la „ ya. In just the same way the Latin 1 occasionally becomes i in Italian^ and Portuguese ^ But the change is comparatively so rare that this explanation, although possible, is not very probable and has never received much support. At the present day it is becoming more and more the received opinion of scholars that y, equally with the other prefixes, represents the pronominal element. What parti- cular pronoun it stands for is, however, not so evident, but is of comparatively little importance. The most obvious explanation is to make the prefix y another form of the pronoun hu\ he. We get exactly the same interchange of y and h, when we compare Sanskrit and Greek^. Mr Turner*^ however points out that y cannot ^ Lehrb, der heb. Spr. p. 504. ^ Gramm. der phbn. Spr. p. 195. 3 Pr'atorius, Amh. Gramm. p. 509. ^ Diez, Gramm. des langues rom. I. 194. ^ Reinhardstottner, Port. Gramm. p. 57. ^ Monier Williams, Sanskrit Gramm. p. 98. ^ Studies Biblical and Oriental^ p. 371. ADDITIONAL NOTE come from hu', because in Assyrian the prefix is i, while the pronoun is su\ Dietrich^ brings other strong objections, and it would seem that this derivation must be given up, though it is still accepted by Konig^ Ewald himself definitely abandoned it in favour of the theory that the prefix y is derived from 1. Benfey^ derives y from the Egyptian pronoun f. He thinks^ that f first became the Semitic w, and that w at the beginning of a word was changed into y, as is customary in Hebrew. He meets^ the obvious objection that we find the opposite tendency in Arabic, by the conjecture that Hebrew shows the original Semitic tendency, and that Arabic here is less original. Unfortunately for the theory, Ethiopic still remains and shows, as might be expected, that neither the tendency in Hebrew nor the tendency in Arabic belonged to the original language. On the whole it is probable, but not certain, that ya represents the original form of the pronoun. In Amharic we get a pronoun ya*^, and its extended use has given wonderful facility to the language ; e.g. berat means iron, ^ On the interchange of ^ and H in Semitic, see J?. E, J. xxxiv. 118 f. In Aryan languages, we may compare the relation of Latin or Sanskrit to Greek. ^ Abhandl. zur heb. Gramm. p. 122 f. ^ Lehrb. der heb. Spr. I. 156 f. ^ Das Verhdltn. der dgypt, Spr. zum sem. Spr. p. 213. ^ Ibid. p. 6. 6 jjyid^ p. 214. ^ The Amharic pronoun ya must however be regarded as a doubtful argument. Pratorius [Afnhar. Gramm. p. 126) derives it from the Ethiopic za and in Tigrina we actually get the intermediate form zya, while in one instance we find the Ethiopic zand becoming the Amharic yand (Pratorius, op. cit. p. 510). These considerations, though not decisive, must be allowed due weight. ii6 ADDITIONAL NOTE but yabrat is an ironmonger ^ It is the custom that this pronoun ya should always immediately precede the verb to which it refers, and the two parts combine to form one word. Thus Guidi^ says : ''The relative pronoun is ya, invariable for every gender and number. The usage, which is found in Amharic, is that the relative pronoun is always prefixed to the verb; e.g. the phrase, 'the man who came nearly with us' would be construed ' nearly with us who came man.'" It is probable that this pronoun once existed in other languages also. The original existence of this pronoun in Ethiopic would seem to be shown by the relative pronouns zi'aya, zi'aka, &c.^ while Schrader^ gives the most probable account of the a of the status constructus, when he explains it as a relic of the same pronoun. In Hebrew, Kraetzschmar^ derives ki from ka by the addition of ya, kaya becoming kia, and then ki ; while there are strong reasons for deriving the yod compaginis from the same pronoun^. It is likewise probable that the termination i, which is added to form gentilic nouns or to denote the agent, comes from the same root. In Amharic the agent can still be indicated either by prefixing or suffixing an i, and analogy ^ Numerous examples may be seen in Isenberg, Amharic Dictionary, This use of ya is one reason why the order of words in Amharic is different from that in most Semitic languages. 2 Gramm. della lingua afnariiia^ p. 14. ^ Dillmann, Gramm. der dth. Spr. p. 304. ^ De linguae Aeth. indole^ p. 76. So also Ewald, Lehrb. der heb, Spr. p. 535- 5 B. S. S. I. 433- ^ Instances are given in Schroder, Gramm. der phbn. Spr. p. 178, Olshausen, Lehj^h. der heb. Spr. p. 236. This explanation of the yod compaginis is accepted by Ewald {Joe. cit.) but rejected by Philippi {Wesen und Ur sprung, p. i23f.). ADDITIONAL NOTE 117 would certainly lead us to assign the same derivation to the two forms. The argument could not be better stated than has been done by Donaldson^: "It is indeed difficult to believe that when '»n2y signifies a Hebrew man and n'^'^iDy a Hebrew woman^ while ariD"' means he is writing, and nriDT) she is writing, these parallel forms are not due to the same principle of phonology." It is of course merely a coincidence, but none the less interesting, that ya is a pronominal root in the Aryan languages also, as we see from the Sanskrit yas, ya, yat^, Greek 09, 17, o. The result of this investigation appears to be that the prefix in all probability is of pronominal origin and denotes *'one who, he who, that which." From what particular pronoun it is derived is of much smaller importance and must be considered uncertain. ^ Maskil V Sopher, p. 26. 2 Monier Williams, Sanskrit Grain, p. 98. APPENDIX I. WAS JEHOVAH EVER THE NAME OF A HEATHEN GOD? It is of great importance for our investigation to show that the name Jehovah — or rather Yahweh^ — was peculiar to the Israelites and not common to them and other Semitic peoples. If Yahweh was originally the name of a heathen god, it would be probable that the Israelites, in adopting the god, adopted at the same time some of the ideas connected with him by his former worshippers. But if Yahweh was distinctively the God of the Hebrews, all such a priori arguments fall to the ground, and the question of the original conception formed of Yahweh must be determined by other considerations. In this section there will be no need to discuss all the theories which derive the Name from non-Israelitish sources. There are, however, five views which require further examination either on account of their intrinsic probability or of their external support ; viz. the views which assign to the Name a Canaanite, Philistine, Egyptian, Babylonian, or Kenite origin. Land^ believes that the god of the Hebrews was ^ On the correct pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, see Appendix ii. 2 Th. Tijd. n. 1695. See also Lenormant, Lettres assyr, ii. 192 f. ; Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies p. 162 f. ORIGIN OF THE NAME JEHOVAH II9 El-Shaddai. Yahweh was a Canaanitish god, whose name gradually supplanted the name of the god of his conquerors. The reason for this belief lies in the fact that the name Yah or Yahu seems frequently connected with the nations of Canaan rather than with the Israelites, and therefore the simplest way of testing the strength of the theory is to examine such instances in detail. Delitzsch instances Mitinti, Sidqa, and Padi as Philistine names compounded with Yah, but Kuenen^ remarks that this conclusion is, to say the least, doubtful: ''That the Philistine royal names Mitinti, Sidqa, Padi are compounded with Yahu and therefore correspond exactly to the Hebrew names Mattityah, Sidqyah, Pedayah, is by no means apparent ; for what distinguishes the latter series of names from the former is the very syllable which raises the composition with Yahu beyond all doubt." Hamaker^ instances n''i")t^ (the Kethib of 2 S. xxiv. 18), and Bizjothjah (Josh. xv. 28), one of the cities taken from the Canaanites. We get Yau bi-i-di, the name of a king of Hamath, and Joram, the name of the son of another king, but the evidence in neither case is quite certain. Yau bi-i-di is also called Ilu bi-i-di and Jastrow^ is strongly of opinion that the form Yau is an error in transliteration. Joram in the lxx. of 2 S. viii. 10 and in the parallel text, i C. xviii. 10, is called Hadoram, which may possibly be the correct reading ^ Prof. Sayce^ is of opinion that Ilu bi-i-di was altered to Yau ^ Hibberi Lectures^ p. 311. ^ Quoted in Hengstenberg, Die Authentie des Pent. I. 217 f. 2 Z, A, x. 222 f. ^ Land {Th. Tijd. in. 858), however, thinks that Joram was altered to Hadoram. ^ Higher Criticism^ p. 8 f. I20 APPENDIX I bi-i-di and Hadoram to Joram after the alliance of Hamath with Judah, while Schrader^ hesitates between this view and the theory that both Hebrews and Arameans borrowed the name Yahu from Assyria. The name Joel is quoted in Nestle^ as occurring in a Phoenician inscription, but in reality the inscription^ merely has the consonants and the punctuation is wholly conjectural. Movers^ connects the names Abdai and Bithias with Yah, but we have no means of determining if this etymology is correct. The names of Tobiah the Ammonite and Jehohanan his son only serve to remind us that the persons who bore them worshipped Jehovah. Gesenius^ hazards the conjecture that the letters nn"' in a fragment in the Museum at Turin may possibly stand for Jehovah. We have reserved till last a statement of Porphyry^, which is often quoted to show that 'levtD was a Phoenician god. iCTTOpei Se TO, Trept 'Ioi>8aiW dXrjOeaTara, on kol rots TOTTot? KOL TOLS ovo/xao"tv avTOiV TO, crvv(^(iiV0TaTa^ %ay^ovviaOo}v 6 BTypvTtos, €l\r]te Relig. d. Volkes Isr, p. 1 5 f. ^ Hist, of Israel^ II. 46. 128 APPENDIX I of course." It was quite in accordance with the ideas of heathenism that a tribe should adopt the god of the nation in which they were incorporated. We may, therefore, safely conclude that the name Jehovah is of purely Israelitish origin, and we may add that its connection with Israel dates from the time of the Exodus. Winckler^ indeed ascribes the introduction of Jehovah as the national god to David I He thinks that David first amalgamated the various clans and formed the tribe of Judah, and afterwards united the tribes of Judah and Israel and made them a single nation. To solidify this union he established the worship of a new national god. But in order to establish this, Winckler has to make assertions which are sufficient to discredit any theory. He rejects the so-called early traditions as entirely unhistorical and supposes that they were invented by David's courtiers for political purposes. He regards as interpolations all the passages in Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, which are unfavourable to the date he selects. He supposes that Sinai was not the name of the celebrated mountain in Arabia, but of some height on the southern border of Judah. His arguments are chiefly important as showing the insuperable difficulties in the way of assigning a later date than the time of the Exodus to the revelation of the sacred Name. So long as it is agreed that the name Jehovah is of Israelitish origin and that its use dates from the time of Moses, theories as to details are of small importance and we need not delay to examine them. Ewald^ draws attention to the fact that no other person in antiquity bore a name compounded with Jehovah except Jochebed, the mother of ^ Ges. Israel's^ I. 30 f. 2 Before his time Jehovah had been the tribal god of the Calebites. 3 Hist, oflsr. II. 158. ORIGIN OF THE NAME JEHOVAH 1 29 Moses, and concludes that before Moses it was probably used only in the house of the maternal ancestry of Moses.'' Wellhausen^ thinks that Jehovah was originally the God of the Rachel tribes and was adopted from them by the other tribes; while Nowack^ considers that He was at first the God of the Leah tribes and only after the Exodus became the God of the united nation. These and similar theories are connected with the view we take of the origin of the Hebrew nation, but have no bearing on the conception of God formed by the early writers of the Old Testament, and consequently no immediate connection with our subject. ^ Encycl. Brit. Article '/Israel." 2 Entstehung d. israel. Religion, p. 16 f. A. 9 APPENDIX II. PRONUNCIATION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. Before we can determine the origin of the name Jehovah it is necessary to determine its real pronunciation. The dispute, which has arisen on this point, is due to the way in which the Jews shrank from uttering the sacred Name\ The original reason for this was doubtless that suggested by Dalman^, the desire of the scribes to "make a hedge " round the Name and so guard it from intentional or accidental profanation. Halevy^ conjectures with great probability that the practice arose with Hellenistic Jews, who lived where the heathen were in a majority and might with impunity have profaned the Name. From them it spread to the Jews who lived in Palestine. However that may be, the explanation of Dalman seems far preferable to the common one, supported by Reinke, Oehler, Dillmann, and Kuenen, that the practice owed its origin to a mistaken interpretation of Lev. xxiv. i6*, for this interpretation was ^ For an elaborate discussion of the shem hammephorash, see Griinbaum in Z. D. M. G. XL., XLI. " Der Gottesname Adonaj\ p. 72. » R. E.J. IX. 173. ^ On the substitution of Elohim for Jehovah in Elohistic psalms, see Robertson Smith, O.T. in Jew. Church, p. i86f. PRONUNCIATION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH 131 simply a reflection of the views of those who adopted it. When once adopted, the custom steadily gained ground. By the time of Christ the use of the name Jehovah was carefully avoided in ordinary intercourse^ and Josephus and Philo go even farther. Josephus^ states o ^cos avrS (T7]fxaivu rrjv iavTOv 7rpo(rr)yopLav. . .irepi 7)9 ov /xot Oipas etTreti/, and Philo ^ is stronger still : d Sc rts ov Xdyw jSXao-cjirjiJLTjo-eLev cts Tov dvOpoj7r(x)v Kol 0€(jjv KvpLov, aA.Xa Kat ToX/Jir^creLev cxKat/ows avTov cf>0 iy^aaOai rovvofxa^ Odvarov vTro/xctvarco ttjv Slkt^v. This feeling of awe was not peculiar to the Jews, but was shared by heathen nations. Tiele* states that the Egyptians equally shrank from uttering the name of their highest god, and Lenormant^ gives instances of the same feeling in other nations ^ How early the practice began is not absolutely certain, but the most probable account is that given by Maimonides'', that the Name had been pronounced as Adonai since the death of Simon the Just. We may at any rate accept this, tradition as fixing the date when the general use of the Name was abandoned, for it suits the facts so far as they can be ascertained. In foreign countries its use must have been discontinued before the translation of the lxx.^, as we see both from their use of the title KvpLo<; and also from their translation of Lev. xxiv. 16, d ovofxa^o^v to ovojuLa Kvptov. In ^ Dalman {op, cit. p. 38 f.) has a good note on this. 2 Ant, II. 12. 4. ^ De Vita Mosis, ill. p. 519. * Hist, of the Egyptian Religion, p. 218. ' ^ Chaldean Magic, p. 42 f. . ^ For the Samaritans cf. Josephus, Ant, xii. 5. 5. Moreh hanneboki?n^ I. 61, Yad hahazakah, xiv. 10. ^ The objections brought against this conclusion by Dalman (op. cit. p. 44 f.) possess no force. 9—2 132 APPENDIX II Palestine we find it employed as late as the time of the Maccabees, although the practice was then fast dying out. But determining the date is one thing and determining the pronunciation another. No Jewish authority gives us any hint what the true pronunciation really was. The Greek versions sometimes transliterate the Name by P I P I \ but this, as Jerome^ perceived, was merely a mistaken way of writing nin\ The traditional accounts fall into two classes ; Clement, Porphyry, Hesychius, and Diodorus Siculus sup- porting the form Yaho or Yahu; Epiphanius and Theodoret^ the form Yahweh. The received pronunciation, Jehovah, is altogether late and conjectural^ and results from a combination of the consonants of the name nin*' with the vowels of the name Adonai. The arguments adduced in its favour are feeble. It is true that it accounts for the form of proper names beginning with "I** or "Jn^., but other methods of punctuation do this equally well. Mr Chance^ urges that nin^ has not the exact pointing of Adonai, but has simple shwa where it should have compound, and long a where it should have short. Neither fact is of much importance. Ewald^ explains the use of simple shwa, either as being shorter in the case of a word so frequently employed, or else ^ On this see Swete, Introd. to 0. T. in Greek, p. 39 f. : Schleusner, Concordance, s. v. ; Hatch and Redpath, Concordance, s. v. 2 Ad Marcell. Ep. 136. ^ Quaestio 15 on Exodus: Ka\ov }D I know of a certainty. I Sam. xxiii. 3 Behold here in Judah ^JDJX we are afraid. In Syriac the participle and pronoun coalesce in speaking but not in writing. In the language of the Babylonian Talmud the two have become one word, -in^p^rjl •1nnp^5J Say ye that are wise. t In Aramaic the participle is very far advanced on its road to become a verb. In the words of Noldeke", *'It becomes almost altogether a tense, yet without entirely losing its nominal character." Even when we turn to the tenses, we find traces of the same process. In Assyrian the nominal force of the tense with suffixes is so strong that it can scarcely be denied. Indeed the tense and the adjective are so nearly allied that it is sometimes difficult to decide whether we have an adjective ^ Pratorius, Grapi^n. d, Trigrinaspr. p. 336. 2 Syr, Gratnm. p. 202. THE HEBREW TENSES or a tensed In yet other cases we find an adjective in its simple form, though surrounded by permansives; as K. B. i. 56, sar-ra-ku, bi-la-ku, na!du^ sira-ku, kab-ta-ku, I am the king, the lord, the exalted one, the high one, the mighty one. These examples also serve to show that the Perman- sive retains its original nominal or participial meaning, and denotes continuance rather than change. But even in Assyrian the form is on the way to become an ordinary tense. In the derived conjugations, Piel and Shafel, it becomes much more verbal and less nominal. Sargon, who for the subjection of his foes sutbii kakkusu sent forth his weapons. Even in Qal we get such examples as. Into whose midst none of the kings my ancestors tahu had penetrated; or enuma aldaku abbanu anaku, since I was born, was created; while after lu it is used as a simple tense, lu asib, may he dwell; may his reign ina dumki lu bullul with favour be crowned. In Assyrian the form is still on its way but in Hebrew it has taken the step forward and become a tense. But even in Hebrew it retains abundant traces of its original nominal or adjectival character. Ps. xcii. 6 riD How great are thy deeds, O Lord, thy thoughts IpDy Hi^D are very deep. Nu. xxiv. 5. IID riD How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob. Song vii. 2 ID'' riD How beautiful are thy feet in sandals. Again in Hebrew, equally with Assyrian, we find the ^ The case in Egyptian is precisely similar and the verb appears to have developed on the same lines as in the Semitic languages. See Erman in Zeitschrift f. dgypt. Spr. xix. 54 ; Egyptian Gram. p. 86 ; Benfey, Das Verhdltniss d. dgyp, Spr, z. sem, Sprachstamm, p. 1 59 f. 194 — 211. A. 10 146 APPENDIX III tense and the adjective interchange without any difference in meaning. Thus Prov. xxiii. 15 My son 1^^ C)?n if thy heart is wise (tense) but xxvi. 16 V^^'yn h^V DDHj a sluggard is wise in bis own eyes (adj.). Zech. ix. 2 Zidon IXD riDDn ""D, for she is very wise (tense) but Jer. iv. 22 ynn^? non D^DDH, for they are wise to do wrong (adj.). Gen. xxxii. 11 DHDnn t>DD Tl^tDp, I am too small for all the mercies (tense). I S. XV. 17 yyV2 nriN (top D^^, if thou art small in thine own eyes (adj.). It is because of their nominal force that the two tenses interchange so freely in Hebrew. But the interchange is strictly limited to the feature in which they resemble each other. When we turn to the other tense, we find the same facts repeated. In Arabic the terminations of the tense and the noun agree so closely that the late Prof Palmer^ could say quite shortly, the aorist is declinable like a noun." Nay more, we even find the tense taking a noun in con- struction before it ; as though it were a noun itself Job vi. 1 7 niT'' nyn Ps. Ivi. 4 Dr Jer. XX. 8 nini^ ''D. We find it joined to a preposition like a noun in Deut. xxxiii. 11 JlDIp"' JO, and this power of uniting the form with a preposition has given modern Arabic an additional tensed The nominal force of the tense is especially prominent in Ethiopic, where it is repeatedly 1 Arabic Gram, p. 27. ^ On this see Spitta, Gramm. d, arab, Vulgdrdial. p. 203. THE HEBREW TENSES equivalent to an adjective and serves to express not only the positive but also the comparative and superlative degrees \ We may quote Hen. xvii. i kama essat zayenaded, like flaming fire. Jub. p. 98, walda zayelheq....walda zayen'es, her elder son.... her younger son. P- i33j esma haila zi'ana yesane* emhailu, for our strength is greater than his strength. In the reflexive stems this tense is the usual equivalent for Latin adjectives ending in -bilis ; as za^yetre'ay, invisibi- lis ; za'iyetgasas, intangibilis ; za'iyetrakab, imperscrutabilis ; za'iyetWaq, incognobile. This usage in Ethiopic enables us at once to understand in the O. T. such instances as: Gen. xlix. 27 Benjamin is nJ^T a ravening wolf. Is. Ixii. I ll^2'^Tzh2, like a burning lamp. Is. H. 12 n)D'> mortal man. In Hebrew it is difficult in many cases to decide whether a given form is a noun or a tense, whether such names as Jabin (Intelligent), Jacob (Crafty), are nouns or verbs. At any rate such forms are useful as showing how nouns deve- loped into the tense with prefixes, and as showing that the original meaning of the tense was to denote the endurance of an attribute or the continual manifestation of a quality. This view of the tenses requires us to assume that originally they had the same meaning, and there are several arguments which can be advanced in support of such an opinion. The arrangement of words in a Semitic sentence^ was for a long time very free, so that the difference in meaning ^ Ludolf, Gramm. Aeth. p. 33. 2 In Assyrian examples can be quoted for almost any position of words in a sentence. In Ethiopic the arrangement is equally free, except for the fact that 148 APPENDIX III between " thou-killer " and " killer-thou " would be a later development. Again in certain special cases ^ one language employs one form, a second language uses the other, while in a third we can employ either^. A third argument is the constant connection of certain particles with a particular tensed Lastly, when the two forms with prefixed and suffixed pronouns denote continuance without any idea of time, they are used interchangeably and it becomes a matter of indifference which we employ. Still, although the forms were once identical, they were afterwards contrasted, and it now remains to consider in what the contrast consists. There is no difficulty in the fact that forms, which had originally the same meaning, were a word is no longer allowed to intervene between the governing and the governed noun. In Syriac the arrangement is not quite so free, but in this respect, as in many others, Mandaitic is more primitive than Syriac, for in the arrangement of words in a sentence it agrees with the two languages just mentioned. When grammarians speak of the rigidity of the structure of a Semitic sentence, they can only be thinking of Hebrew and Arabic. The reason why these languages adopted a fixed arrangement was, of course, their desire to avoid ambiguity. In Assyrian ki Elam dabab surrati Akkad ismi might mean When Akkad heard Elam speaking sedition or When Elam heard Akkad speaking sedition. We should not suppose the true rendering was, When he heard Akkad speaking sedition with Elam. 1 The construction in precative sentences is an excellent illustration of this. 2 The significance of this fact is clearly stated by Zimmern, Vergleich, Gramm. p. 94. ^ Delitzsch [Ass. Gram, p. 241) rightly uses this argument to establish the original identity of the present and preterite in Assyrian. THE HEBREW TENSES 149 afterwards differentiated. We find the same thing occurring under our own observation in Assyrian, where one tense is divided into past and present, and in Ethiopic, where it is separated into indicative and subjunctive. The only difficulty is to discover the contrast which would naturally be suggested by the different forms of the tenses and which will also satisfactorily explain all their varied uses. The Semites had before them two forms, in one of which the noun came first, in the other the pronoun. When the two came to be contrasted, the former naturally laid stress on the idea conveyed by the noun, the latter on the activity displayed by the agent. In Assyrian the result was that the one remained the more nominal, the other became the more verbal form. In the other Semitic languages the course of development was slightly different, for both forms are equally verbal. In these languages the form in which the pronoun precedes drew attention to the agent as still active, as still occupied in his work. On the other hand, the form in which the noun precedes emphasized the fact that a particular name is applicable to the person spoken of. This, of course, left it quite uncertain how the name was acquired, but in many cases it would have been earned by past conduct. An enemy is usually so called because of feeling already displayed : a murderer is one who has actually killed a man. Accord- ingly the one tense came to represent the present and the other to denote the past. To this broad line of division there is one apparent exception, but it is only so in appearance. In reality it is a necessary consequence of the different standpoint occupied by Western and Eastern nations. In accordance with English ideas, an action often repeated, like any other action, is regarded from the stand- APPENDIX III point of the person speaking, and is denoted by the past or present tense accordingly. In accordance with Semitic ideas, an action is regarded from the standpoint of the agent spoken of, and therefore an action often repeated is always denoted by the present tense, which lays especial stress on the continued activity of the agent. Thus we not only get Dyn '•^K fc^n*, the people keep coming to me (present): but also mi*' nc^D, Moses used to speak and God used to answer him. The past would denote that Moses spoke on some particular occasion. In Ps. xcv. lo the form oipN means "I was continually being grieved " : the past tense would denote that God's anger lasted 40 years. But, though the Semites consistently employed this idiom, they showed their feeling that it was a departure from the regular present meaning of the tense by frequently inserting an auxiliary verb. In Arabic we get kana. An excellent illustration of this is given in Koran vi. 158, where the simple tense stands for the present, the tense with sa for the future, and the tense with kana for repeated action in the past. Sanagzi' We will reward those who yasdifuna turn aside from our signs with a grievous punishment, because kanu yasdifuna they did turn aside. In Ethiopic we get hallo or kona. Jub. p. II. For these five days hallo Adam 'enza yere'i, Adam kept seeing all this. Kona yegaber he used to make iron implements. In the modern Ethiopic dialects^ the tense is no longer ^ With the exception of Tigre which adheres to the usage in Ethiopic (Noldeke in W. Z. ^. M. iv. 291). THE HEBREW TENSES employed in this way. In Tigrina we either get the present tense with nabare or else simply the past tense. In Amharic the present tense is used with nabara. In Syriac also this idiom has been lost. We occasionally get the tense with hwa but as a rule the participle is employed. In Biblical Hebrew alone the simple tense is used without any auxiliary verb. Mishnic Hebrew has followed the same course as the other modern Semitic dialects and altogether avoids this apparently irregular use. This explanation of the origin of the tenses enables us readily to account for their various uses. The one tense denotes all actions committed in the past, whether (i) instantaneous or (2) of long duration \ and answers to the Greek imperfect and aorist. I K. XV. 9 In the 20th year of Jeroboam fc^DH "l^D Asa began to reign. And 41 years D^t^n'^n l^D, he continued to reign in Jerusalem. Sometimes (3) the action was already past when another event took place, and in English we should use the pluperfect. And God saw everything which nsry He had made. In other cases (4) the action is contingent on another event taking place, and in English we should insert some auxiliary verb: "might have," "would have," "will have." I S. xiv. 10 But if they say thus. Come up unto us; then we will go up; nin"' D^D^ for (in that case) ^ It follows from this that when Donaldson (Maskil le-sopher^ p. 24, 32) distinguished the two tenses as denoting transient and continuous action respectively, he was wholly mistaken about one tense, however correct he might be in his judgment of the other. The statement in Gesenius-Kautzsch i^Heb, Gramtn. § 107), that the tense with prefixed pronouns denotes actions which lasted a shorter or longer time in the past, leaves no real distinction between the two tenses. 152 APPENDIX III Jehovah has delivered them (will have delivered them) into our hand\ Ex. X. 3 How long ni5n'' DID was yet in the earth. Finally (8) the same explanation must be given of the use of waw consecutive. And Jehovah Elohim formed man of the dust of the ground nS'^l and then He breathed in his nostrils the breath of Hfe •'HM and in consequence man became &c. Again; the explanation, which has just been given, enables us to readily understand the interchange of the tenses. When a state of things is described whose duration began in the past and still continues in the present, or when a phenomenon is spoken of which is common at any time, the Hebrews often express the idea that, though present, it was also past, by using first the present and then the past, and vice versa. This interchange is especially common in poetry, where it serves the additional purpose of giving variety to the style. Isa. V. 12 isn n^m ito-^n^ nin'* bya nxi They do not now nor have they ever done so. Prov. xxviii. i ndl'^ TDDD D'^pnVI V^^ T^'' The statement was true in the past, and is equally true now. This interchange is excellently illustrated by Lev. xi. 4-6, where in three consecutive verses a statement, which is true of all times, is expressed first by a participle, then by a present, and lastly by a past. In all three verses we get ^ Buhl (Hebraisk Syntax §83): "In this last way we can explain the use of the imperfect after 'az, then, which denotes that which, from the standpoint of the preceding sentence, had not yet happened." IP— 5 154 APPENDIX III exactly the same sense : Cheweth the cud but divideth not the hooP. It is a further argument in favour of this explanation that in the various Semitic languages, the reference of the one tense is to the past and that of the other to the present or future. Perhaps no stonger impression could be obtained of the past character of one tense, of the present character of the other, in Arabic and Ethiopic, than by reading uninterruptedly any large section of the Koran or of the Book of Henoch. In Hebrew it is the rare exception for one tense to refer to the present or the other tense to the past. In Syriac the two tenses have practically become past and future. Finally in Assyrian all grammarians are agreed that the division of the tense with prefixes was into past and future. This explanation also agrees with what grammarians, who are either natives of the countries or who lived where the languages were actually spoken, tell us about them. Arabic grammarians consistently assert that the one tense is past, the other present and future. Ludolf, who lived near the time when Ethiopic was still a spoken language, is equally clear. Schreiber and Guidi, though they retain the names Perfect and Imperfect, admit that in Tigrina and Amharic ^ It follows from this that the distinction drawn by Fleischer {Kleinere Schrifte7i I. 96) and accepted by Driver {^Heb. Tenses p. 35) must not be pressed too far. In Biblical Hebrew the exclusive use of the participle to denote simple continuance has not yet become the invariable rule as it has in Mishnic Hebrew. The distinction drawn by Miiller {Hebrew Syntax^ p. 4) that "the finite tense gives greater emphasis to the act and the participle to the quality" is exactly correct if for **act" we substitute "agent." THE HEBREW TENSES IS5 the one tense corresponds to our past and the other to our present and future. Lastly Syriac writers in referring to the tenses use the terms past and future. The view of the tenses, taken by the nations who spoke these langu^ages, can be shown in another way. We find that to a greater or less extent Arabic, Ethiopic, and Syriac mark off the pluperfect from the ordinary past by particles, or auxiliary verbs, or both. In just the same way Arabic and Ethiopic mark off the future or an act often repeated in the past from the ordinary present. But we never in any language get either particle or auxiliary verb when the one tense is used as a past and the other as a present. Our last argument is that this explanation enables us to understand the process by which the tense with prefixes developed in Syriac into a future. In Arabic and Ethiopic the tense denoted both present and future time. But the present was regarded as the fundamental meaning, and accordingly the future was de- noted, when it was considered necessary, by the addition of a particle or an auxiliary verb. Curiously, modern Arabic has followed another course. It has adopted a new form for the Present, and left the old tense free to express the Future only. An exactly similar method has been adopted in Syriac. Here the participle is regularly employed as a Present, and the tense with Prefixes as a Future. We find traces of the same usage of the participle both in Phoenician and in Biblical Hebrew. In Mishnic Hebrew it has become the rule, and the tense — just as in Syriac — is regarded as a simple Future. It would seem then that this explanation is not only simple and easy to understand but also that it sufficiently 156 APPENDIX III accounts for all the known facts. At present we know of no other theory that does so. One objection has, however, been urged against it, or at least against part of it — that one and the same form cannot stand for both' present and future. Indeed by some eminent Semitic grammarians the argument is regarded as decisive. Fleischer thinks he is justified in rejecting the temporal division of the so-called tenses, because in this way we should "have burdened one form with the representation of two ideas." Dietrich urges that no stress can be laid on the fact that native Arabic grammarians call the form yaqtul '^the present," because they are compelled to describe it also as future. It is, therefore, necessary to fully consider the objection. When we do so, we find that this two-fold reference of the tense, so far from being an argument against the theory, is really a strong argument in its favour. We learn that in every primitive language the distinction is two-fold between past and present, and that the distinction between present and future either does not exist or is a late development. In the Aryan languages the fact will scarcely be disputed by any one. When we turn our attention to the agglutinative group of languages, Prof. Sayce ^ informs us of the interesting fact that these languages only possess two tenses — present and past. Nor is the case different in the Semitic dialects. Here we find either that the various languages use the same forni for both present and future, or else that they have each adopted their own special method of differentiating the two, showing that the distinction is late. In Assyrian many assert that the future tense is distin- guished from the present by the addition of -u. But the 1 /. R. A. S, IX. 41. THE HEBREW TENSES 157 exceptions are so numerous, we so often find a present ending in -u and a supposed future without that the idea of such a future can scarcely be maintained. Thus we get the present. Nebuchadnezzar \ the great prince, sa din misari idinu^ who judges righteous judgment : and on the other hand : thy cities anaqar^ I will destroy : anaku allak^, I will march in front of Assur-bani-pal. These examples suggest the true explanation. Kraetz- schmar*, who has investigated the subject with the greatest care, has shown conclusively that the vowel-ending makes no difference to the time, but serves to mark off relative from independent sentences. Arabic hit on the happy expedient of adding saufa (lit. "end") to denote the future. "In the end I kill" is an excellent paraphrase for "I shall kill." But saufa or sa is little used when compared with the employment of kana to denote the past. In chapter ten of the Koran there are 30 clear instances of the future without any explanatory particle, and only 2 instances in which one is prefixed. Ethiopic distinguished the past by the insertion of hallo, he was. But when later they wished to mark off the future, they could think of no better expedient than the employment of this same word, hallo, which showed that the time was not present ; and they used the phrase " I was killing as a paraphrase for "I shall kill." Ethiopic never completely recovered from this initial mistake. Even Amharic, although it can not only distinguish the past from the present, but also a single action committed in the past from a continuous action^, can only distinguish the future by a very elaborate arrangement. ^ JC. B. III. pt. I, p. 164. 2 Assurbanipal- Smith, p. 179. ^ Op. cit. p. 221. ^ S, S. I. 381 f., and see especially p. 410 f. ^ Pratorius, Amkar, Gram. p. 356 f. 158 APPENDIX III In Hebrew the same form is used without any sign of difference to refer to both present and future time. Syriac alone of the early Semitic languages has two distinct forms for present and future, using the participle for one and the tense for the other. When we turn to the modern dialects, the case remains unaltered. Modern Arabic and Mishnic Hebrew have taken the same course as Syriac in using new forms for the present and restricting the tense to its future meaning. In Tigrina the present tense coalesces with alio (Eth. hallo) but the resulting form denotes either the present or future, and a new future is formed by the addition of iyu. In Amharic the present tense, when it is used in independent sentences, corresponds to the present and future of our language. In New Syriac two new present tenses have been formed^ but both of them can denote the future also. This investigation has been made with some care on account of its importance. It will have answered its pur- pose if it has shown that, whatever other objections may be brought against our explanation of the tenses, none can be derived from the fact that the same form denotes both the present and future. If it can be accepted as proved that the tenses arose from nominal forms and that their original and fundamental idea was that of continuance and duration, then the expla- nation of Prof. Driver must be incorrect. For he regards " completion " as the fundamental idea of one tense, and "incipiency" as the fundamental idea of the other, and assigns the idea of "continuance" to the participle. On this point his language is quite clear and precise and leaves no doubt of his meaning. An action may be contem- plated, according to the fancy of the speaker, or according to the particular point which he desires to make prominent, THE HEBREW TENSES 159 either as incipient, or as continuing, or as completed Now in Hebrew the three phases just mentioned, those namely of incipiency, continuance, and completion, are represented respectively by the imperfect, the participle, and the perfect." In examining this theory the following arguments seem worthy of consideration. In the first place such a theory offers no explanation of the origin of the tenses. It is difficult to see by what process a noun would reach the idea of incipiency, nor can we trace any nominal forms in the process of acquiring such a meaning. The problem set us is to explain how forms which originally meant "killer-thou " or "thou-killer" came eventually in Syriac to mean "thou didst kill" or "thou wilt kill." Now the idea of continuance or duration is both very near to the original meaning and also is an assistance in understanding how the other meanings arose. But the idea of incipiency is neither. The theory also fails to account for the origin of the tenses in another way. It is an objection to Bottcher's presentation of the case that incipiency is opposed not only to completion but also to continuance. Prof. Driver sees this difficulty and avoids it by making the division threefold, beginning, continuance, and completion. But in doing so he exposes himself to a more fatal objection, for the original contrast of the tenses was certainly between the form where the pronoun is prefixed and that where it is suffixed, and any threefold division is later and more complex. It is a further objection to such a theory that it entirely fails to account for the interchange of the tenses. Why should a tense, which tells us that winter is just beginning, alternate with a tense, which asserts that it is just over? But this interchange of the tenses is one of the great difficulties of Hebrew, and no theory can be pronounced satisfactory, which fails to explain it. i6o APPENDIX III. Again this explanation can only be considered if we restrict our attention to Hebrew and Syriac. But it is impossible thus to isolate Hebrew and to attempt to explain the Hebrew tenses without taking into account the usage in other languages. Finally the theory does not even explain Hebrew itself. It is a characteristic of both tenses that they express continuance or duration. But Prof. Driver takes away the idea of continuance from both tenses alike. Nor can the instances adduced by the Professor in support of his theory be said to add greatly to its probability. They are inter- mingled with instances of the historical present, and can all of them be easily explained otherwise \ Moreover equally probable examples could be given of similar usage in the other tense. 1 K. XV. 9 In the 20th year of Jeroboam XD&5 ^^D, Asa began to reign. 2 K. XX. I In those days irT'pTn nbn, Hezekiah became ill. Job xxxi. 18 n^CD for he grew up (lit. became great) with me as with a father. In all such instances the idea of incipiency is part of the meaning of the verb itself and not of any particular tense. A theory of the Hebrew tenses ought to take account of all the Semitic languages and to explain all the facts. It is the fatal objection to the theory, we have just been examining, that it fails to do so. ^ Gen. xxxvii. 7 is usually quoted as the most striking and probable example. To us it seems that we have here a vivid representation of the other sheaves standing humbly round Joseph's sheaf. Notice n^n, behold, three times repeated in a single verse. INDEX. Abbreviations, List of viii Adon, Adonis 82 Amharic 73, 82, 112, ii4f., ii6f., 140, 143, 151, 154, 157 f- Amos-Hosea, Relation of J. to 22 f. Anthropomorphism iiof. Arabic 39, 57 f., 73f., 82, 100, 112, 115, 135, i39f., 141, 146, 148, 150, i54f., i56f. Modern 73, 112 f., 140, 146, 155, 158 Aramaic, Biblical 32, 144 Assyrian i5f., 17, 38 f., 46, 5of., 52, 65, 71, 73f., io8, 112, 115, i25f., 135, 138, i4if., i43f-» 145, i47f-> I49> I54» I56f. Baal, Worship of 102 f. as name of Jehovah 103 f. Babylonian colouring of narrative 18 Cherubim 70 f. Date 22f. Date, Arguments for early 27f. for late 29f. Dialects, Hebrew 32 Double name, jehovah Elohim 36 f. Driver on Hebrew Tenses i58f. El, Derivation of Name 100 Ethical conception of God 9 if., 99f. Ethiopic 39, 73, 112, ii4f., 116, ^35' 138, 14O' i4i» I43» i46f., i49f., I54f., 157 Fall, Views of i8f. Garden, Position of 45 f. Infinitive, Time denoted by 42 Interpolations in narrative lof. J., Comparison with P. if. View of original position of man i2f. Patriotism of 23 Connection with Northern Israel 32 f. INDEX J., Theology of 75 f. Monotheism of 93 f. Ethical view of God loof. Anthropomorphism of no Jehovah. Connection with Israel 91, 106 Activity of i09f. Origin of Name ii9f. Pronunciation of Name i3of. Mandaitic 73, 140, 148 Mishnic Hebrew 32, 56, 73, 151, 155, 158 Molech 82 Monotheism of Semites 79, 86, 88 f. of J. 93 f. Participles, Time denoted by 42 Polytheism, Semitic 84 f. Supposed traces of, in J. 95 f. Prophets. Differences between them and earlier writers 77, 86, 105 Semitic names for God 8if., 99f. monotheism 79, 86, 88 f. polytheism 84 f. languages. Closeness of re- semblance of 138 Sentence, Order of words in a Semitic 147 f. Shoham stone 49 f. Sources of the narrative iif. Syriac 32, 65, 67, 112, 138, 140, 142, 144, 148, 151, 154 f., I58f. Tenses in Hebrew i38f. Tigrina 73, 115, 140, 144, 151, i54j 158 Unity of authorship 6f. Ya, Origin of prefix ii2f. CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.