CHAPTER XX

MINOR PROPHETS

The Minor Prophets--so called not in depreciation, but because their

books are smaller than those of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel--form in

the Jewish Bible one book, in which are brought together oracles in

the name of various prophets from the eighth century B.C. (Amos,

Hosea) to the fifth (Haggai, Zechariah), and one anonymous book

(Malachi). As in the collections which bear in their titles the names

of Isaiah and Jeremiah, so in the collection of the Twelve, prophecies

have been attributed, by error or conjecture or accident, to prophets

to whom they do not belong, and additions and alterations have been

made by compilers or editors. The extent of this alien matter differs

in different books; Hosea, for example, seems to contain little of it,

while in Micah it is considerable.

HOSEA.--In our Bibles, in which the Minor Prophets stand and are

counted individually, the first is Hosea. This position, which it has

also in the Hebrew Bible, may have been given the book, partly on

account of its age, partly on account of its length; but it might also

claim it by reason of its worth, for Hosea is one of the greatest of

the prophets, not in Minor company alone, but in the canon. No other

contributed so much, through his own words and through his great

successors, Jeremiah and the Deuteronomists, to deepen and

spiritualize the conception of religion.

Hosea was an Israelite who began to prophesy to his countrymen in the

reign of Jeroboam II., probably about 750 B.C., and after Jeroboam's

death witnessed at least the beginning of that procession of

assassinations and revolutions through which the kingdom hurried to

meet its fate; but it does not appear from his book that he lived to

see the invasion of Tiglath-Pileser and the loss of Gilead and Galilee

in 734 B.C. in which his own predictions of impending doom had so

signal a verification. Their complete fulfilment came in 721, when

Sargon made an end forever of the kingdom of Israel, and deported many

of the people of Samaria to remote quarters of his empire.

The Book of Hosea opens with chapters out of the prophet's experience

with his unfaithful wife, in which he sees a counterpart and symbol of

God's experience with Israel. This discovery of this significance in

the tragedy of his life is what made him a prophet. He saw then that

it was for this he had been led to marry a woman who turned out a

gross adulteress. When he drove her from his house, when later he

bought her out of the servitude into which she had sunk, and by

seclusion and a discipline at once firm and kind tried to win her back

by love to virtue, that, too, was an apologue of God's dealing with

his people (see specially Hos. i. 2-9; iii. 1-5). He is the first,

apparently, to use the metaphor adultery, or fornication, for

religious defection. The oracle, ii. 2-23, translates it into its

historical terms and discloses Hosea's construction of the religious

history of Israel. The root of Israel's apostasy was the belief that

the gods of the soil of Canaan, the baals, gave the corn and the wine

and the oil which in reality its own God, Jehovah, bestowed. Therefore

he will take away all these, which she deems the gift of the baals,

the wages of her prostitution, and will lead the people into the

desert of exile. But he will be with them there to comfort and

encourage, and Israel will return to its first love as in the early

days when it was alone with God in the desert of the exodus. Then the

old relation will be restored, never to be broken, and the gifts in

the new betrothal are uprightness and justice and charity and kindness

of heart and faithfulness and the knowledge of God (Hosea's word for

religion). That will be the golden age! (See Hos. ii. 18-23.)

When the Jew says his _Shema_ or the Christian his Great Commandment,

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all

thy soul and with all thy might," it is Hosea's great thought he is

repeating. Hosea interprets God's dealing with his people by his faith

in God's inextinguishable love. Outraged love may smite harder than

offended righteousness, but its blows are remedial, not retributive or

expiatory; its aim not to satisfy justice, but to recover the erring.

The exile, which for Amos is the final vindication of God's

righteousness in the death of the sinful nation, is for Hosea a

chastisement which leads to repentance and restoration. He is

therefore the author of that ideal of a golden age of godliness and

uprightness and happiness, beyond the impending judgment or the

present oppression, which is one of the leading motives of the

so-called messianic prophecy.

The rest of the book (cc. 4-14) consists of a collection of oracles,

without titles, and often without obvious boundaries. They contain an

appalling picture of the sins of the nation as a whole and of all

classes of society; kings and princes, priests and prophets and

people--all are corrupt. The theme of the whole may be read in Hos.

iv. 1 f.: "There is no truth, nor charity, nor knowledge of God

(religion) in the land; naught but swearing and breaking faith and

murder and theft and adultery." Therefore ruin yawns before the

nation. Yet God will not destroy utterly; all the pathos of the divine

love finds words in such passages as xi. 8 ff., "How can I give thee

up, Ephraim?" or xiv. 1 ff., "O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God."

This book of a prophet of the northern kingdom has come down to us

through Judæan hands; the title, with its list of Judæan kings

(exactly the same as in the title of Isaiah), is doubtless due to a

Jewish editor, and we are not surprised to find in the text itself

Jewish touches, such as the words "and David their king" in iii. 5, or

i. 11, but these are not numerous nor important. The text of Hosea is,

however, unusually corrupt. The prophet's style is very difficult, and

scribes did as they commonly do with a difficult text, they made

mechanical mistakes because they did not understand and false

emendations because they thought they understood what they did not.

JOEL.--Joel was probably put between Hosea and Amos because the

editors of the Book of the Twelve thought that he was one of the

earlier prophets, and, chiefly because of its position, this opinion

has been general until recent times. In the book itself there are

neither names nor identifiable historical allusions by which its age

can be determined. The whole situation, however, is that of the

so-called post-exilic times.

The occasion of the prophecy with which the book begins was a

portentous plague of locusts, whose invasion and ravages are described

in Joel 1-2 in highly poetical imagery. Locusts and drought together

have so devastated the land that both men and beasts are perishing,

and--the last touch of the extremity--the obligatory daily offerings

in the temple have been cut off. The prophet calls to fasting and

supplication; perhaps God may be entreated to have mercy on them (ii.

12-17). God had pity on his people; the following oracle (ii. 18-27)

promises relief and everlasting prosperity. The visitation seems to

the prophet an omen of the dread "Day of the Lord." He sees the

nations gather beneath the walls of Jerusalem (in the valley with the

ominous name, Jehoshaphat, "Jehovah judges") for the last onset, to be

annihilated by the intervention of God. Then the golden age will be

ushered in.

The heads of the people are priests and elders; of king and princes

there is no word. The Judah and Jerusalem which the prophet addresses

are the religious community which assembles in the temple; people and

congregation are the same thing. This one observation takes Joel out

of the company of Amos and Hosea and puts him by the side of Malachi.

All the other features of the book confirm this date. Assyrians or

Babylonians, without whom no picture of the Day of the Lord in the

pre-exilic prophets would be complete, are not here; Israel has

disappeared.

The author has read much prophetic literature; reminiscences in

thought and phrase meet us at every turn. The heathen in the Valley of

Jehoshaphat are Ezekiel's hordes of Gog (Ezek. 38 f.); the fountain

that flows from the house of the Lord is a modest counterpart of the

river that sweetens the Dead Sea (Ezek. 47). The thumb-prints of

editorial hands have been thought to betray themselves in several

places, and some students would give a larger range to this

observation. The additions, if such they are, are not far remote in

time from the original book, and reflect the same religious

conceptions.

AMOS.--A dramatic scene in Amos vii. 10-17 describes the appearance of

Amos at Bethel on a high festival, with his presages of swift and

utter ruin for Israel (cf. vii. 1-9). That his hearers greeted the

message with incredulity can well be believed, for under Jeroboam II.

Israel was at the very culmination of its power and prosperity. The

chief priest of Bethel was not minded to let such speech pass in his

diocese; as scornfully as Creon dismisses the prophet Teiresias in the

Antigone, he bids Amos be gone: "O Seer, be off, flee to the land of

Judah; make thy living there, and there do thy prophesying. But

prophesy no more at Bethel, for it is a royal temple and a residence

city." Spurning the contemptuous insinuation, Amos answers: "No

prophet am I, and no member of the prophetic order, but a herdsman am

I and a ripener of sycamore figs. Jehovah took me from following the

flock, and bade me, Go prophesy against my people Israel."

Incidentally we see in how low esteem the professional prophet stood,

that the priest should make a taunt of the name and the prophet

indignantly repel it.

The priest followed up his warning by a report to the king, and we may

safely conclude that Amos prophesied no more at Bethel. Perhaps it was

the rude end of his mission that prompted him to collect his oracles

into a book, the earliest example of such a collection, as a witness

to his own generation and to that which should see the fulfilment.

The title, this part of which may well be original, describes Amos as

a shepherd from Tekoa, in the wilderness of Judah. Beyond the brief

scene at Bethel nothing more is told of him in the book or out of it.

But the book is his monument.

It is one of the easiest of the prophetic books to understand and one

of the best preserved. Chapters 1 and 2 contain a series of brief

oracles, on the same plan, against the neighbours of Israel, the

Syrians of Damascus, the Philistines, Phoenicians, Edomites,

Ammonites, Moabites, Judæans, leading up to a longer indictment of

Israel and denunciation of God's judgment upon it. This is followed by

prophecies against Israel (cc. 3-6), which seem to be formally divided

into three parts by the introductory formula, "Hear this word" (iii.

1; iv. 1; v. 1), but by subject would naturally fall into a larger

number of oracles. Chapter 7 begins with three visions, the delivery

of which at Bethel may have provoked Amaziah's interference (vii.

10-17); c. 8 again opens with a vision, in which the basket of summer

fruit _(kais)_ is to the prophet a symbol of the coming end

_(k[=e]s)_ of Israel; in c. 9 Amos sees the Lord standing beside the

altar and pronouncing the word of destruction and inescapable doom

(ix. 1-8^a), from which an awkward transition (ix. 8^b-10) carries us

to a prediction of the restoration of David's kingdom and the

prosperity of the golden age.

The doom which Amos sees impending over Israel is visited upon it in

retribution for the wrongs which men inflict upon their fellows, the

oppression of the poor by the rich, the small man by the great; the

injustice, often in the forms of law, by which men are deprived of

property and liberty; the luxury, aping foreign modes, which is not

only corrupting in itself, but is the chief motive of injustice and

oppression and fraud. The very prosperity of the nation was its ruin.

With all this, Israel is very religious; it acknowledges the success

in war and the profit of commerce as the gift of the national God and

evidence of his favour, and does not grudge him his share even of

ill-gotten gains. Amos's God has a conscience--that was a new idea

about gods!--and abhors such religion; he hates their festivals,

refuses their sacrifices, spurns their hymns of praise. "But let

justice roll down like floods, and right like an unfailing stream."

That is the only worship he owns.

The standard of right is not one thing in Israel and another among the

heathen: Amos summons the Philistines and the Egyptians to behold

with amazement and horror the doings in Samaria. In the oracles with

which the book opens, he pronounces the judgment of God on the peoples

neighbour to Israel, not solely because they have wronged Israel, as

in so many of the prophecies against the nations, but because they

have violated the principles of humanity. It is the first assertion in

the Old Testament that there is such a thing as an international

morality. Amos is the first in the succession of ethical prophets, the

author, so far as we know, of a new idea of religion. It is deeply

significant that he and Hosea are contemporaries; hardly more than ten

years can lie between Amos's appearance at Bethel and the earliest of

Hosea's prophecies against the house of Jehu. The God of Amos is the

apotheosis of right, the conscience of the world that can neither be

corrupted nor sophisticated; the God of Hosea was born in the heart of

a man whose love the grossest wrong could not quench. Retribution is

the divinity of the one, redemption of the other.

Amos's conception was the first to take hold; the earlier prophecies

of Isaiah against Judah are wholly in that mood. Hosea had to wait a

century before his greater thought found a fruitful soil in Jeremiah

and the Deuteronomists.

The predictions of judgment in Amos are so sweeping and ultimate that

later readers found the message incomplete. Especially the last

oracle (ix. 1 ff.) was an ill-omened close. Consequently, a messianic

pendant was attached to it (ix. 11-15) by a Judæan editor, and an

imperfect juncture made by the introduction of vs. 8^b (which flatly

contradicts the first half verse) and 9^b (no grain shall fall to the

ground) perhaps displacing some words of the original.

It seems that some imitative pieces have been inserted also in c. 1;

the prophecy against Judah in ii. 4 f. with its deuteronomic sins,

falls out of the scheme and is generally recognized as editorial.

Slight retouches elsewhere (e.g. iv. 13; v. 8 f.; ix. 6) need not

detain us. In general the book has suffered little from the improvers,

and the text is in relatively good preservation.

OBADIAH.--The single chapter of Obadiah, the shortest of the Old

Testament books, is a prophecy against the Edomites, toward whom, as

we have repeatedly seen, the Jews cherished an implacable animosity

from the time of the fall of Jerusalem. Obadiah vss. 1-9 has close

parallels in Jer. xlix. 7-22 (cf. Obad. vss. 1-4 with Jer. xlix.

14-16; Obad. vs. 5 f., Jer. xlix. 9 f.; Obad. vs. 8, Jer. xlix. 7).

The question which is the borrower has been differently answered.

Obadiah vss. 15-21, in which Edom gets its judgment in the Day of the

Lord on the nations, is probably later than vss. 1-14, but the whole

is post-exilic.

JONAH.--The Book of Jonah has already been discussed along with the

stories of Esther and Ruth.

MICAH.--The prediction of Micah, the Morashtite, that Zion should be

plowed as a field and Jerusalem be a heap of ruins and the temple hill

become like forest shrines (Mic. iii. 2), is quoted under his name in

Jer. xxvi. 18--the only example of such a prophetic quotation in the

Old Testament. The author, a resident of Moresheth-Gath in the Judæan

Lowland, is said in the title to have prophesied in the days of

Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, which is the editor's way of saying that

he was a younger contemporary of Isaiah. The reign of Hezekiah is

attested by the tradition in Jeremiah. It is probable that only cc.

1-3 (with perhaps some dubious possibilities in the following

chapters) can be attributed to Micah.

The book opens with an oracle against Samaria (Mic. i. 2-8). Samaria

fell in 721 B.C., while the sequel (vs. 9 ff.) portrays the imminent

peril of Judah, presumably in the time of Sennacherib (701 B.C.). The

case seems to be similar to Isa. xxviii. 1 ff.: the fate of Samaria,

though it is already fact, is represented prophetically for a closer

parallel to the following. Verses 10-16 are little more than a string

of ominous puns on the names of towns in the author's Lowland, which

in translation lose what little point they have. The second chapter

gives the cause of the woe much as in Amos or Isaiah, but perhaps with

local emphasis on the wrongs the capitalists of the great city inflict

on the peasant proprietors. His forebodings and censures are not well

received, men bid him stop his preaching, it is a different sort of

prophet they like (ii. 6-11). "If a man, walking in wind and

falsehood, should lie, 'I will preach to thee of wine and drink,' he

will be the preacher for this people." Micah has more to say, but not

better, about the demagogue prophets in the following oracle (iii.

5-7). The predictions of disaster in ii. 1-11 have their point blunted

in vs. 12 f. in the way the editors of the prophetic books so often do

it.

Chapter 3 returns to condemnation, which turns at last on the heads of

the rulers "who build up Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity,"

and ends with the prediction of the total destruction of the city

which has already been quoted.

Then the unexpected follows, in the prophecy that Jerusalem shall

become the religious centre of the earth, to which all nations flow,

and the law of God the universal arbiter in an age of universal peace

(Mic. iv. 1-5). Verses 1-3 are found also, in no more suitable

context, in Isa. ii. 2-4. They belong to neither Isaiah nor Micah. For

the rest, Mic. 4-5 and cc. 6-7 contain a number of pieces of diverse

age and origin. Chapters iv. 6-v. 1 are as a whole of good omen, yet

after the promise of restoration in iv. 8, Jerusalem is suddenly in

desperate straits; exile awaits its people, and only beyond the exile

(the words "thou shalt come even unto Babylon" may be a gloss, but the

meaning is not essentially changed) redemption waits (iv. 9 f.). In

iv. 11-13, again, many nations gather against Zion, but it crushes

them like sheaves on the threshing floor. There follows (v. 2-9,

10-15) a messianic prophecy, in which an allusion to Isa. vii. 14

appears.

No less strangely assorted are the oracles in Mic. 6-7, of which there

are four: vi. 1-8; vi. 9-16; vii. 1-6; vii. 7-20. The first of these

contains the quintessence of the prophetic conception of religion: God

does not demand holocausts and costly offerings in expiation of sin;

nor the supreme expiation which the prophets and the laws of the

seventh century so often reject and condemn: "Shall I give my

first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of

my soul? He hath showed thee, O man. What is good and what doth God

require of thee, but to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with

thy God?"

Trenchant condemnations of the sins of the times fill vi. 9-16 and

vii. 1-6, the former of which, at least, is pre-exilic; while the book

closes in the situation and spirit of Isa. 40 ff. Thus the Book of

Micah, like that of his contemporary Isaiah, has been a depository for

prophecies differing in age by several centuries. Perhaps the book

once stood at the end of a roll, and was therefore the natural place

to add stray and nameless pieces, as happened later to the Book of

Zechariah at the end of the volume of the Minor Prophets.

NAHUM.--In the three larger prophetic books we have found groups of

oracles against foreign nations, some relatively old, many late and

literary variations on given motives--it was evidently a grateful

theme. In Nahum we have a whole book occupied with the impending fall

of Nineveh and the Assyrian empire, which had so long and so brutally

tyrannized over all western Asia. Now its hour has struck, and the

prophet triumphs over the fate of the old lion, who "rent in pieces to

satisfy his whelps and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his

dens with prey and his lairs with ravin." His imagination revels in

the terrors of the onslaught, the horrors of the sack, which he

depicts with unsurpassed vividness and great poetic power. It is the

judgment of the Lord, long deferred, but sure and final (Nah. 1).

In Nah. iii. 8-10 the fate of the Egyptian Thebes is adduced as an

historic example: all her power could not save her, and it shall fare

no better with Nineveh. The reference is probably to the capture of

Thebes by Assurbanipal in 661 B.C. Nineveh itself fell about 606 B.C.

under an attack of enemies from the north (Medes or Scythians), and

was destroyed never to be restored. With it the Assyrians disappear

from history. The prophecy of Nahum was probably delivered shortly

before this event, though a date twenty years earlier, when, according

to Herodotus, Nineveh barely escaped from a similar onset by Cyaxares,

is not strictly impossible.

It is thought by many scholars that the first chapter (with which ii.

2 must go) is a later composition, a poem, much deranged, originally

in acrostic form.

HABAKKUK.--The Book of Habakkuk predicts that Jehovah is about to

raise up the fierce Chaldæan nation, which marches through the breadth

of the earth to occupy habitations not belonging to it, which scoffs

at kings and has dynasts in derision, laughing at all fortresses,

against which it casts up a mound and takes them (Hab. i. 5-11). Such

a prophecy would be timely in the last years of the seventh century:

the Chaldæan, or New Babylonian, kingdom dates its independence from

625, and is hardly likely to have attracted much attention in the West

before the fall of Nineveh in 606 B.C. and the defeat of Pharaoh Necho

on the Euphrates in 605 B.C.

The prophecy, which does not specifically threaten Judah, intrudes

between i. 4 and i. 12 ff., where the plaint of vss. 2-4 is continued,

so that vss. 5-11 are at least misplaced. This complaint is of the

oppression of "the righteous" (Judah) by "the wicked" (heathen, i.

13-17). From his watch tower the prophet sees a vision of a distant

time, which he is bidden record, and of whose ultimate fulfilment he

is assured (ii. 1-3). What follows is a series of invectives which the

nations he has gathered under his robber rule shall heap upon the

fallen oppressor, "the man who was greedy as hell, insatiable as

death."

The date of the prophecy depends on the identification of this tyrant

of the nations. If it is Babylon, the oracle must be considered later

than i. 5-11, which greets the rise of the Babylonian power to execute

God's judgment on the world. An ingenious solution of the difficulty

has been proposed, viz., to transfer i. 5-11 from c. 1 to a place

after ii. 4, and see in it the contents of the vision spoken of in ii.

3: the Babylonians would then be the ministers of God's avenging

justice on the Assyrian robbers of the world, and the whole might have

been uttered about 615 B.C. All parts of these chapters abound in

reminiscences of the eighth-century prophets; the resemblances to

Jeremiah may be explained by the contemporaneousness of the authors.

Habakkuk 3, entitled "A Prayer by Habakkuk the Prophet," with a

musical direction following, as in the Psalms, is in fact a psalm, and

the presence of the musical directions, implying liturgical use,

suggests that it once stood in a hymn book like the Psalter. It is a

fine ode, by an author well read in the classic literature of his

nation. The theophany (iii. 2 ff.) is indebted to Exod. xxxiii. 2 ff.

and Judg. v. 4 ff. The ode belongs with the Psalms of the Persian

period. It is imitated in Ps. 77. The title ascribing it to Habakkuk

the prophet is of no greater authority than the ascription Pss.

146-148 in the Greek Bible to Haggai and Zechariah.

ZEPHANIAH.--The pedigree of Zephaniah is carried back to his

great-great-grandfather, Hezekiah. As such genealogical proper names

have seldom more than three terms, it has been conjectured that the

particular reason for adducing two extra generations here was that the

prophet boasted royal blood--Hezekiah was the king of that name. The

thing is possible, though the generations are somewhat rapid; the

parallel royal line counts four. It would be a romantic touch if the

prophet was a great-grand-nephew of Manasseh, and a second cousin of

Josiah, of the manners and morals of whose courts he has so bad an

opinion.

The title says that he prophesied in the reign of Josiah, and with

this the tenor of a large part of the book agrees. Like the earliest

prophecies of Jeremiah (Jer. 1-6) Zephaniah's Day of the Lord is

inspired by the irruption of the Scythian hordes which threatened to

engulf the civilized nations of western Asia in a common ruin, as the

Mongol and Turkish hordes, pouring out of the same cradle of the

commissioned races, the scourges of God, did successively in later

ages. For Judah it is the day of reckoning for the sins which made the

reign of Manasseh a by-word with prophets and historians, and which

went on unrestrained through the short years of his successor and the

minority of Josiah down to the reforms of his eighteenth year. Nowhere

is the state of things in that three quarters of a century more

clearly exposed than in the first oracle of Zephaniah.

The second chapter holds out the possibility that repentance may still

save Judah; the wave of invasion has taken, as we know from historical

sources it did, the way by the coast, bringing calamity on the

Philistine cities. It surged on to the very frontier of Egypt, where

it was stayed, more likely by the payment of a great indemnity than by

force of arms, and rolled back whence it came. Zephaniah sees the

storm break over Assyria, and predicts the total destruction of the

proud city of Nineveh which had so long said in her heart, "I, and

none beside me." Several verses in this chapter are suspected of being

later amplifications, viz. ii. 7^a (Judah profits by the ruin of the

Philistine plain; vs. 7^b connects directly with vs. 6), and

especially the oracles against Moab and Ammon, which accuse them of

their enmity to Judah in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, a generation

after Zephaniah.

The first oracle in Zeph. 3 is incomplete; the original conclusion, a

sentence of doom upon Judah, the only imaginable sequel to vss. 1-7,

is supplanted by the inconsequent pouring out of God's fury on the

nations, whereupon the heathen are converted, the dispersion returns,

and, purified and chastened the remnant of Judah enjoys a modest

golden age (iii. 8-13). The book closes in a more jubilant salutation

of the good time coming (iii. 14-20).

Thus in Zephaniah, as in so many other prophetic books, all turns out

well in the end; but as in most of the others, the happy endings are

an afterthought of later generations for whom the judgment was in the

past but the golden age had not yet come.

HAGGAI.--Haggai dates his first revelation to the very day of the

month--a new fashion which he and his contemporary Zechariah have--the

first day of the sixth month (of the Jewish calendar) in the second

year of Darius (Hystaspis), that is, 520 B.C. He has the word of the

Lord for Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah, and Joshua, the chief

priest, that it is high time to rebuild the temple; the lean years

they have been having are due to God's displeasure that he is thus

neglected. The civil and religious heads of the community stir up the

people and the work begins; again the exact date is given.

Three other oracles follow, all in the same year. The first of these

(ii. 1-9) encourages Zerubbabel and the people to more zeal by the

prediction that the great crisis of history is at hand: yet a little

while and the Lord will shake the heavens and the earth; he will shake

all the nations, and the treasures of all the nations shall flow to

his temple (cf. Isa. lx. 9 ff.), and God will fill the house with his

glory. The third (ii. 20-23), to Zerubbabel, foretells the overthrow

and destruction of the kingdoms of the nations; and, in prudently

veiled phrase--since such great expectations might have ill

consequences if they reached Persian ears--the restoration of

Zerubbabel to the throne of his fathers, fulfilling the messianic

predictions of earlier prophets. The intervening oracle (ii. 10-19) is

another spur to zeal in rebuilding the temple.

The immediate restoration of Jewish nationality which Haggai and

Zechariah so confidently foretold was not merely the expression of a

general faith or the result of studies in their predecessors. For in

reality God was shaking the nations; in particular the Persian empire,

newly made master of the world, was shaken to its foundations by the

usurpation of the pretended Smerdis, the death of Cambyses, the

conspiracy of the nobles against Smerdis, and the elevation of Darius

to the throne. In the years when the Jewish prophets were making their

predictions, Darius was confronted by formidable rebellions in every

quarter of the empire except the west. It might well appear to Haggai

that the armies of the nations were falling every one by the sword of

his fellow.

In the end Darius put down all opposition and welded the empire

together more strongly than ever; the brief dream of Jewish

independence under a Davidic prince and the brighter vision of the

golden age faded.

ZECHARIAH.--Zechariah's first oracle is dated in the month after that

in which Haggai's first was delivered. It is a brief exhortation to

his countrymen to repent, and not neglect the warnings of the prophets

as their fathers had done, to their sorrow when the predicted

judgments overtook them (Zech. i. 1-6). Then follow, in i. 7-vi. 15,

under the common date (second year of Darius, 11th month, 24th day), a

series of eight visions, the meaning of which is interpreted to the

prophet by an angel. They symbolize the shattering of the power of the

nations; the rebuilding of the temple and city, and the golden age to

follow; the removal of the sin of Judah; the recognition of the

Messiah (Zerubbabel); the harmony of prince and priest.

At the end of this group of visions is a bit of history of high

interest. A crown was made of gold and silver brought by some

representatives of the Babylonian Jews, and set by the prophet on the

head of Zerubbabel, who was saluted as "the Scion," i.e., the Messiah

(Jer. xxiii. 5), with the prediction that he should rebuild the

temple, assume majesty, and sit and rule upon his throne. The

coronation, it need hardly be said, was in the secrecy of a private

house, and is to be regarded as a symbolical act; the Babylonian

envoys kept the crown as a memento. But its significance is

unmistakable.

The prediction was not fulfilled. Whatever became of Zerubbabel--he

disappears with this scene--he never wore a real crown nor sat upon

the throne of his fathers. This has led to more than one change in the

text, which, however, as in many other cases, were not sufficiently

thorough-going to pass unnoticed. First, the crown is once made

plural, "crowns," as though the intention was to crown both the prince

and the priest; when it comes to the coronation, however, only Joshua,

the high priest, receives the honour (vi. 11). But vss. 12, 13^a,

which are left untouched, can refer only to Zerubbabel. Verse 13^b

originally read, "and [Joshua] shall be priest _at his right hand_ (so

the Greek Bible, instead of "on his throne"), and there shall be

harmony between the two." In vs. 14 there is only one crown.

In Zech. 7 the question is asked of the prophet by some pilgrims from

Bethel, whether, now that the temple was rebuilding, they should

continue to keep the fast for the burning of the temple in the fifth

month; his response, that what God wants of them is not fasting but

justice, charity, compassion, that none should oppress his neighbour

nor devise evil against him, is quite in the spirit of the earlier

prophets to whom he appeals.

He goes on, in c. 8, to picture the coming golden age, when the fasts

shall all be turned into cheerful feasts, a prophecy which is one of

the finest of its kind in the Old Testament and a fitting crown to the

book.

The prophecies of Zechariah (cc. 1-8) are definitely dated; they

spring out of a definite historical and religious situation which is

everywhere apparent and consistent. Not so the chapters which follow

(cc. 9-14). The titles (ix. 1; xii. 1) have a different form

("Burdens"), the situations which give their background to the oracles

are wholly unlike that which stands out so clearly in Haggai and

Zechariah; the character of the prophecies, with their affected

obscurity, easily penetrable, doubtless, to contemporaries, but

impenetrable to us who have not the historical key, and their

apocalyptic eschatology, are in strong contrast to the manner of

Zechariah; the evidence of diction confirms that of situation and

content.

It has, therefore, long been recognized that none of these prophecies

can be by the author of Zech. 1-8: they are anonymous oracles which

have been appended at the close of his book or of the Book of the

Minor Prophets. They are not all by the same author: cc. 12-14

contain two pictures (xiii. 1-xiii. 6; xiv. 1-21) of the final onset

of the heathen on Jerusalem, their destruction, and the golden age of

pious prosperity that ensues, variations of Ezekiel's original in the

great prophecy of Gog (Ezek. 38-39) which gave the scheme for all

subsequent revelations on the last times. A notable difference between

the two pictures is that in Zech. 12 the heathen are destroyed by the

clans of Judah, who deliver Jerusalem; while in c. 14 Jerusalem is

taken by the heathen and subjected to all the horrors of a sack, half

of its inhabitants being carried into slavery, before Jehovah himself,

descending on the Mount of Olives, fights against the nations and

cleaves the mount itself in twain.

In cc. xii. 1-xiii. 6 concrete features of the author's time are

probably discernible, in the fact, for instance, that Judah (that is

the inhabitants of the other towns and the country) besieges Jerusalem

in company with the neighbouring heathen peoples, and in the striking

animosity displayed toward the prophets, who are in the same

condemnation with the idols and arouse much intenser feeling (xii.

2-6). Our ignorance of the internal history of the Jewish community

for two or three centuries is, however, so complete that these

allusions furnish us no clue.

In Zech. 9-11 also there are two sections, viz. ix. 1-xi. 3 and xi.

4-17 + xiii. 7-9. The age of these can be fixed with greater

confidence by the external historical situation. The heathen power

the overthrow of which ushers in the golden age is named, in ix. 13,

the Greeks. Egypt and Syria ("Assyria"), that is, the kingdoms of the

Ptolemies and the Seleucids, shall be brought low (x. 11). "The land

of Hadrach," to which the first oracle is directed, is in all

probability the region of Antioch, the Seleucid capital. The bad

"shepherds" of cc. 11; xiii. 7-9, who are over the flock of God, are

very good likenesses of the Jewish high priests of the Greek time,

though it is impossible to identify the concrete historical persons

and events of c. 11. Taking all together, we shall not go amiss in

ascribing these to the early part of the third century B.C.--say

between the year 200, when Judæa came under Seleucid rule and the

religious persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Maccabæan revolt,

to neither of which is there any allusion in the chapters. Chapters

12-14 may perhaps be put in the century before.

MALACHI.--A third appendix to the Book of Zechariah is the anonymous

book which we call Malachi. The earliest title, "The Burden of the

Word of the Lord against Israel," is word for word the same as that in

Zech. xii. 1 (cf. ix. 1), and doubtless was prefixed by the same

editor. Subsequently, perhaps to give the book an independent status

and thus round out the number of the Minor Prophets to twelve, the

words "by 'My Messenger'" (Heb. _malaki_; iii. 1 f.) were added.

Jewish tradition in later times identified this messenger with Ezra.

In the versions the word was naturally taken for a proper name.

The book consists of two parts, Mal. i. 2-ii. 9, which from i. 6 on is

addressed to the priests, and ii. 10-iv. 3, to the people at large.

The priests treat the worship in the temple with professional

disrespect, under which lurks an equally professional scepticism. Any

kind of blemished or diseased victim is good enough--the prophet

invites them to make such a scurvy gift to the governor! The perpetual

routine of sacred services they find tiresome. They are no less

negligent in their other great function as the religious teachers and

guides of the people. The _Tora_, that is, the revealed will of God,

is committed to them, and they, degenerate successors of the faithful

priests in the good old times, have not only themselves abandoned the

right way, but have caused many to fall by their false instructions.

They have earned the contempt in which men hold them. The curse of God

is on them.

One of the most notable words in the Bible stands in this indignant

denunciation (Mal. i. 11 f.). Jehovah's own priests in his own temple

treat his worship with contempt; he refuses their offerings: "For from

the rising of the sun to the setting, my name is great among the

nations, and in every place pure sacrifices are burnt to my name among

the nations, saith Jehovah of Hosts; but _ye_ profane it by thinking

that the table of Jehovah may be polluted and his food despised." That

the sacrifices of the heathen may be "pure" sacrifices, though not

according to the Mosaic rite, because all true worship is the worship

of the true God, is a conception quite unparalleled in the Old

Testament. The author's polemic against the priests of Jerusalem has

doubtless made him say more than he would have stood by as a dogmatic

statement; more, indeed, than any church has ever been ready to

acknowledge, but it was fitting that it should be said, for it is the

final consequence of the ethical conception of religion of which the

Hebrew prophets from Amos on are the exponents.

Of the remaining oracles, one (Mal. iii. 6-12) urges to the honest

consecration of the tithes (dues to the temple); another (ii. 10-16),

as commonly interpreted, condemns the marriages with heathen women

which so disturbed the soul of Nehemiah and Ezra, and especially the

divorce of native wives to take foreign ones; but the language should

perhaps rather be taken as figurative for foreign worship. The two

remaining prophecies (ii. 17-iii. 5; iii. 13-iv. 3) are addressed to

such as thought that God did not trouble himself about men's affairs:

the long threatened day of doom gave no sign of coming, nor was the

promised reward of serving God bestowed. The prophet declares that the

Day will come, sudden and terrible, and the ungodly will get their

deserts. The last verses (iv. 4-6) are not improbably an addition by

an editorial hand.

CHAPTER XXI

PSALMS. LAMENTATIONS

The Book of Psalms counts one hundred and fifty hymns, and this

evidently by design, for the Greek Version, which sometimes unites in

one what are two psalms in the Hebrew and divides one Hebrew psalm

into two, comes out with the same number. It is divided into five

books, as is indicated in the Revised English Version, vis. Book I.,

Pss. 1-41; Book II., Pss. 42-72; Book III., Pss. 73-89; Book IV., Pss.

90-106; Book V., Pss. 107-150, each book ending with a liturgical

doxology. The rabbis were probably right in the opinion that this

fivefold division was made in imitation of the five books of the

Pentateuch, but in some cases, as we shall see, the limits correspond

to those of older separate books. The psalter has not inaptly been

called the hymn book of the second temple. We learn from Jewish

tradition that certain psalms were used in the liturgy of the

Herodian temple on certain days or at certain seasons, and to many of

them musical or liturgical directions are prefixed and interludes are

noted ("Selah"), from which, apart from tradition, such a use would be

inferred. It is evident from the familiarity with the Psalms which is

shown in the New Testament and in contemporary Jewish writings, both

Greek and Hebrew, that, like our hymn books, the Psalter was largely

used for private devotion and edification.

The poems contained in the Psalter are from different ages and

authors, and of widely diverse religious worth and poetical

excellence. Some of them are unsurpassed in the religious literature

of the world; others are the tedious production of authors who, like

so many hymnists of all climes, were neither born nor made poets.

Thanks to the translators, such pieces are a great deal better, so far

as expression goes, in the Authorized English Version or in Luther's,

than the original.

A modern hymn book is seldom, if ever, a fresh compilation from the

sources; it is habitually made up from collections already in use,

with the addition, perhaps, of the editor's gleanings from the

sources, or of recent poems. The names of the collections thus used

may be given, and the names of the authors--often taken along without

verification. Editors of hymn books have also generally allowed

themselves great liberties with the text of hymns, altering them to

suit their own taste or the religious and theological idiosyncrasies

of their sect; abridging, transposing, expanding, without scruple; and

only in very modern times has a tardily awakened literary conscience

constrained them to give notice of such changes. In this way mediæval

Catholic poets are made to sing good Protestant songs, or Calvinists

and Methodists to drop their shibboleths and express themselves in a

manner acceptable to Unitarians. The familiar hymn,

"O for a thousand tongues to sing my dear Redeemer's praise,"

has been adapted to Buddhist use as,

"O for a thousand tongues to sing my holy Buddha's praise,

The glories of my teacher great, the triumphs of his grace,"

with similar changes throughout, and if we did not know the Christian

hymn, we might take the author for a good Shin-shu Buddhist, though an

indifferent poet.

The editors of the Psalter proceeded in the same way, and the older

recollections on which they worked can in part be recognized. It is

observed that Books II. and III. of the Psalter (Pss. 42-89), or, more

exactly, Pss. 42-83, must once have formed a collection by themselves,

whose editor was averse to the use of the proper name Jehovah, and

accordingly altered the text of the hymns where this name occurred by

substituting the appellative God (Elohim), giving rise to such strange

expressions as "O God, my God." Thus Ps. 53 is the same with Ps. 14,

but wherever Jehovah stands in Ps. 14, "God" takes its place in Ps.

53; Ps. 70 is merely an extract from Ps. 40 (vss. 13-17) with the same

change. In the latter, however, copyists, influenced by the parallel

passage, have restored "Jehovah" in one (Greek) or two (Hebrew)

places, as they have done in other of these psalms. This occurrence of

the same hymn in two parts of the Psalter, of which another instance

is Ps. 108 (made up of parts of two psalms in the elohistic book,

lvii. 7-11, and lx. 5-12), is itself presumptive evidence that these

parts once existed separately. At the time when the musical directions

were prefixed to the psalms, the last two books (Pss. 90-150) seem not

to have been included in the temple hymn book; for these directions,

scattered through Pss. 1-89, are lacking from that point on,

notwithstanding the fact that a larger proportion of the psalms in

Pss. 90-150 were manifestly composed for public worship than in Pss.

1-89.

The titles of Psalms give the names of other collections from which

individual psalms were taken. Thus twelve psalms, Pss. 42, 44-49, 84,

85, 87, 88, are hymns or songs of the Korahites, and eleven, Pss. 50,

73-83, of Asaph, who were according to the Chronicler--a good

authority on the worship of his time--families, or hereditary guilds,

of temple musicians, and seem, in this capacity, to have had special

hymn books containing psalms which they sang, and which may also have

been composed by members of the guild. The fact that the Korahite and

Asaphite psalms are not scattered through the present Psalter, but

appear in groups, and only in the elohistic hymn book (Pss. 42-89),

confirms this view. When they were incorporated in the collection, the

source was indicated by prefixing the name of the guild book to the

individual psalms.

Another group of fifteen psalms (Pss. 120-134) bear in their titles,

"The Song of the Ascents," a phrase which, by the irregularity of its

form, shows that it was transferred mechanically from the title of the

collection ("The Songs of the Ascents") to the individual poems. The

ancient interpretation makes the "ascents" the fifteen steps, or

ascending platforms, on which the levitical orchestra stood at the

festival of the water-drawing on the evening after the first day of

Tabernacles (hence the Authorized Version, Song of Degrees, i.e.

Steps). We need not discuss the question; that these psalms constitute

a liturgical unit selected for a specific ceremony is plain.

A considerable number of psalms have loosely prefixed to them the

words Hallelu Jah (Praise ye Jah), which in the Hebrew text are

frequently found at the end, having been erroneously carried back from

the beginning of a following psalm. When this displacement (which is

later than the Greek translation) is corrected, the Hallelujah psalms

are 105-107, 111-118, 135, 136, 146-150. Here also a liturgical

collection is naturally inferred. Jewish tradition informs us about

the use of the "Hallel" (Pss. 113-118) and the "Great Hallel" (Ps.

136) at the festivals, and the name Hallel is also sometimes given to

Pss. 146-148. Both the Hallels and the Songs of Degrees, it will be

observed, are in the last of the three parts of the Psalter (Pss.

90-150).

Of greater interest is the large collection of psalms which bear

individually the name of David. This name is found in the titles of

all the psalms in Book I. (Pss. 1-41), except Pss. 1 and 2, 10

(properly a part of 9, as in the Greek Bible), and 33 (in the Greek

Bible Davidic); further, in Book II., two groups, Pss. 51-65, 68-70,

and thereafter, scattering, Pss. 86, 101, 103, 108-110, 122, 124, 131,

133, 138-145--73 psalms in all, or almost half the Psalter.

Manuscripts of the Greek Bible add a varying number of others, and

other versions do the same.

In the light of the phenomena we have already observed, we may

confidently infer that there was once a collection of religious lyrics

bearing some such title as "Hymns of David." So long as this book had

a separate existence, the name would naturally not be repeated at the

head of the individual poems in it; such repetition became necessary,

however, when psalms from this book were taken up into a larger hymn

book containing not only psalms from the Korahite and Asaphite

collections but many anonymous hymns; just as the name of Charles

Wesley would be attached to one of his hymns only when it was taken

out of his own volume and included in a composite hymn book. By good

fortune we have the colophon of this Davidic Psalter in Ps. lxxii. 20,

in the words of a scribe: "The Prayers (an older name for Psalms) of

David son of Jesse are finished," that is, the roll containing them is

copied to the end--a very common Oriental form of colophon. Curiously

enough, the hymn to which this note is annexed is said in its title to

be by Solomon, to whom Ps. 127 (one of the Songs of Degrees) is

similarly attributed. In both cases the ground of the ascription is

plain: the editor thought that Ps. cxxvii. 1 referred to the building

of the temple, while the prayer for wisdom with which Ps. 72 begins

suggested to him Solomon's dream, 1 Kings 3.

From this Davidic hymn book came what is now the first book of the

Psalter entire, except Ps. 1 and probably 2; further the groups in

Book II. (51-65, 68-70, with 72), which probably stood immediately

after Ps. 41. For it will be noted that the second (elohistic) part of

the present Psalter (Pss. 42-89) is made up of Korahite, Asaphite, and

Davidic psalms, and that in their present position the Davidic

psalms, say Pss. 51-72, are thrust into the otherwise solid group of

Asaphite hymns Pss. 50 ... 73-83. Further, the transposition of the

Davidic psalms to the beginning of the book would bring the hymns of

the guilds together. The elohistic recension does not extend

consistently beyond Ps. 83; and Pss. 84-89 (Korahite) may therefore be

regarded as a supplementary extract from the guild book.

The titles of several of the Davidic psalms specify the occasion and

circumstances in which the poem was composed; these historical notes

are especially numerous in the group Pss. 51-72 (see Pss. 51, 52, 54,

56, 57, 59, 60, 63), but occur also in the First Book (Pss. 3, 7, 18,

34), and in Ps. 142 (cf. Ps. 57). The incidents referred to are, with

one exception, all narrated in the Books of Samuel. There is no reason

to imagine that the editor had any tradition about the origin of these

particular poems, much less authentic information on the subject.

Precisely as in the ascription of Pss. 72 and 127 to Solomon, he

combined what he took to be allusions to a historical situation in the

poems with the history as he read it. Psalm 51, for example, is a

confession of deep sinfulness, and seems to specify blood-guilt (vs.

14). When had David reason to express himself in this manner? Clearly

after his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah. It is a

very familiar procedure. Modern commentators have made many similar

guesses, but nobody attaches any authority to them.

Whether the scattered Davidic psalms in the last part of the Psalter

(Pss. 90-150) are a gleaning from the Davidic hymn book of poems which

had not been included by previous editors or come from some other

source is uncertain; the latter is the more probable hypothesis.

The Psalter, in the form in which we have it, is one of the latest

books in the Old Testament, for it contains poems in which the

religious persecution of Antiochus IV. and the Maccabæan struggle are

clearly reflected, and very likely events still further down in the

second century B.C. This was shown by an acute critic at the beginning

of the fifth century A.D., and in the Reformation century John Calvin

rightly referred Pss. 44 and 74 to the Maccabæan times, and admitted

the same possibility for Ps. 79. All these are from the Korahite and

Asaphite collections included in the elohistic hymn book, which itself

is not the youngest of the sources of our Psalter.

Numerous other psalms are, with greater or less probability, assigned

to the same age; thus, Ps. 149, where the saints, with the high

praises of God in their mouths and a two-edged sword in their hands,

execute judgment on the heathen, is singularly apt to the Maccabæan

victories. Psalm 110 ("Davidic") most naturally is understood as one

of the Asmonæan princes, since in them alone priesthood and royalty

were united.

There are, however, other and more conclusive criteria than references

to historical events or persons. The religious situation in the Jewish

community reflected in very many of the psalms is that of the Persian

and Greek period, not that of the days of the kingdom. The strife of

parties or of classes, on one side the righteous, the pious, the poor,

for whom the psalmists speak, on the other, the wicked, the ungodly,

the rich and the great; here those whose delight is in the law of God

(religion), there those who contemn it and pursue evil ways regardless

of its precepts and prohibitions, is a new condition, not in the

behaviour of the wicked, but in the self-consciousness of the pious,

who feel themselves a distinct class and are evidently crystallizing

into a party or a sect.

The religious conceptions and the conception of religion are drawn

chiefly from Jeremiah and the Deuteronomists, and from Isaiah 40 ff.,

but on the subjective side of religion, piety, the best of the psalms

represent a more advanced stage than the prophets of the seventh and

sixth centuries. The hopes of the future of God's people and of the

world run with the prophets of the Persian period and the contemporary

anonymous and editorial additions to the older prophetic books. That

the long rehearsals of the ancient history like Pss. 78, 105, 106, or

eulogies of the law such as Ps. 119, or litanies of the fashion of

Ps. 136, belong to a stage in the history of the liturgy such as

rouses the enthusiasm of the Chronicler is also apparent. The evidence

of language tends the same way. Fine hymns were written even at a late

time; but on a large part of the psalms the decadence has set its

mark.

Such is the impression the Psalter makes as a whole, and it indicates

that not only is the existing collection late, but that most of the

hymns in it were comparatively modern when they were brought together.

This is what would be expected in a hymn book, which for devotional

even more than for liturgical use, needs to express and nurture the

type of piety prevalent in its own time and circle. Protestant hymn

books fifty years ago, outside the Anglican communion, had hardly any

hymns in them more than a couple of hundred years old, except

versified translations of the psalms, modernized and Christianized in

the operation.

It would be going much beyond the evidence to say there were no psalms

in the Psalter that were composed in the days of the kingdom; there

may be a considerable number. But the proof that any particular psalm

came from that period is difficult and seldom very convincing. This is

true even of the psalms which speak of the king; for, aside from the

impossibility of deciding in some instances whether a reigning king is

meant or the king of the good time coming (Messiah), a foreign king

may sometimes be in mind (Ps. 45 is so interpreted by many), or an

Asmonæan king.

LAMENTATIONS.--The fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. is the subject of

five poems of considerable length which together make the Book of

Lamentations. The mistaken opinion that the prophet Jeremiah was the

author caused this book to be put immediately after Jeremiah in the

Christian Bible, with an introduction explicitly attributing the

poems, or the first of them, to the prophet. In the Hebrew Bible the

book stands among the miscellaneous Scriptures. The first four poems

are in the Hebrew elegiac metre, the verse used for dirges, the

characteristic of which is that each line is divided by a cæsura into

unequal parts, oftenest in the ratio of three to two, as in Amos v. 1.

Fállen no móre to ríse | is Ísrael's dáughter!

Próstrate to éarth she líes, | nó one to líft her.

In Lamentations 1-4 this is combined with an alphabetic acrostic. In

cc. 1 and 2 the poem consists of twenty-two tiercets, the first line

of each beginning with a letter of the alphabet in order; c. 4, of as

many couplets; while in c. 3 each line of the tiercet begins with the

proper letter. Chapter 5 is neither alphabetic nor in elegiac metre.

The alphabetic artifice is not uncommon with Hebrew poets, the most

elaborate example being Ps. 119, where in stanzas of seven verses

each line of the stanza begins with A, B, G, D, and so on.

The five Lamentations differ considerably in character and poetic

merit. Chapters 2 and 4 are distinctly superior to the rest, and

describe the agony of Jerusalem in vivid and moving images; peculiarly

direct and poignant is c. 5; while c. 3 has more the character of a

psalm.

The poems are not all by the same author. Those which seem to stand

nearest to the catastrophe (cc. 2 and 4 at least) were probably

written no very long time after it; the others perhaps in the

following generation. There is nothing in them that would lead us to

think of Jeremiah as the author. Perhaps the statement of the

Chronicler that Jeremiah made a dirge for King Josiah which was

written among the Lamentations, and recited in later times by the

professional singers of dirges, may imply that he ascribed one of the

poems to the prophet. At any rate, it became "tradition," and has

chiefly contributed to get Jeremiah the injurious reputation of the

weeping prophet.

CHAPTER XXII

PROVERBS

The Book of Proverbs bears the title "The Proverbs of Solomon son of

David, King of Israel." Other titles scattered through the book prove

that it is made up of several collections of proverbs which once

circulated independently. Thus Prov. 10 begins, "The Proverbs of

Solomon"; xxii. 17-21 is an introduction inviting the reader to give

attention to "Sayings of Sages," and dwelling on the profit of so

doing; xxiv. 23, "These also are by the Sages"; xxv. 1, "These also

are Proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah

edited"; xxx. 1, "The Sayings of Agur son of Jakeh"; xxxi. 1, "The

sayings of Lemuel King of Massa (?), which his mother taught him";

finally, xxxi. 10-31 is an anonymous alphabetic poem in praise of the

good housewife.

The inference of diverse origin drawn from these titles is confirmed

by diversity of character and form, and by the repetition of proverbs

in the different sections, especially in Prov. x. 1-xxii. 16 and cc.

25-29; on the other hand, the similarity of all parts of the book in

thought and expression indicates that there is among them no wide

difference in time. The theme of the book is "wisdom," by which is

meant primarily a practical wisdom in the conduct of individual life

under the social, political, and economic conditions of the time. The

end is a prosperous and happy life, and the motive is enlightened

self-interest. Experience shows that morality conduces to prosperity

and happiness, and immoral and unsocial actions to the opposite. To

inculcate this truth and to apply it is the aim of the wise, who make

this knowledge the foundation of virtue and of well-being.

Their instruction is not given in the form of a philosophical ethic,

with a discussion of the nature of the highest good and of the

principles and motives of conduct, but in sententious maxims, or

aphorisms, sometimes grouped upon a central theme, often without any

thread of connection. Religion is affirmed by the most reflective of

these authors to be the first principle of wisdom (Prov. i. 7; ix. 10;

cf. xv. 33), but there is no appeal to a divine law or to the

conscience of the individual; the maxims are based on observation and

experience. The opposite of wisdom is folly; it is an unintelligent

selfishness which ignores the consequences of its course, and sooner

or later involves itself in loss or ruin. For ruin is the end of

persistent folly as happiness is the fruit of wisdom. This is the

order of the world; God's ordering, no doubt, but working itself out

by natural law. Wise men and fools are two permanent classes of men,

divided by as hard a line as in the Stoic ethics is drawn between the

virtuous man and the rest of mankind. The authors know no degrees of

wisdom; they recognize different kinds of folly, but no difference in

fools.

The pictures of society they draw are chiefly of city life, with its

temptations and vices, and they closely resemble those which Jesus the

son of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) paints about 200 B.C. Monotheism is

taken for granted; among the many follies the sages condemn, the folly

of polytheism and idolatry does not appear. The national particularism

of the Jewish religion is nowhere in evidence; the cultus is hardly

referred to, except to say that the sacrifice of the wicked is an

abomination, or that justice is more acceptable to the Lord than

sacrifice.

These features are doubtless due in part to the distinctive tendencies

of the moralists, but they also reflect the times. We find them in

Job, in Sirach, and in Ecclesiastes, other products of Jewish "Wisdom"

which date from the later Persian or Greek period; and we have every

reason to believe that this peculiar development, of which we have no

trace earlier, was characteristic of that age. With this the evidence

of language accords.

Of the several parts of the book, Prov. x. 1-xxii. 16 seem to be the

oldest, and may be from the Persian period; the following chapters are

later. So also is Prov. 1-9, which may well have been written under

Ptolemaic rule (say 320-200 B.C.), when the Jews enjoyed times of

peace and prosperity. The latter author treats his topics more

sustainedly, though without logical disposition or connection, in a

warm and friendly tone such as an experienced elder might use toward a

youth. The style is easy and flowing, and sometimes rises to poetic

inspiration. The personifications of wisdom and folly in c. 9 give a

good example of his manner. A more philosophical mind is recognized in

c. 8, with its personification of the divine wisdom, first of God's

creations, the skilled artificer who was by his side at the making of

the world, rejoicing in God's habitable earth and the sons of men who

people it. Here the author comes near the conceptions of the Greek

"Wisdom of Solomon," and prepares the way for the theological

hypostases of Wisdom and the divine Reason and Word (Logos).

Even among the aphorisms of the older collections, there are few that

have the stamp of true popular proverbs, the wisdom of the generations

finding the pregnant phrase in the mouth of the people; they are, what

indeed they profess to be, maxims of the sages, fashioned with

conscious art for a didactic end. And these sages seem to have been,

like the Greek sophists, professional teachers of the youth of the

well-to-do classes.

That the bulk of this wisdom, when compilation of it came to be made,

should have been labelled Solomonic, is explained by Solomon's fame

for wisdom, which is the subject of numerous anecdotes in the

historical books (see 1 Kings iii. 4-15, with the examples, ibid. vs.

16-28; 1 Kings x. 1-14, etc.), coupled with the explicit statement

that he "spake three thousand proverbs," not to mention his songs and

his expeditions into natural history (1 Kings iv. 29-34). In later

times Solomon's fame for wisdom was not that of an ethical philosopher

but of an adept in magic. It is almost a pity to take away from

Solomon the urgent warnings against women in which the Proverbs

abound; they have in his mouth such a mordant irony.

CHAPTER XXIII

JOB

The Book of Job is the greatest work of Hebrew literature that has

come down to us, and one of the great poetical works of the world's

literature. In the form of a colloquy between Job and his friends, in

which at last God intervenes, it discusses the gravest problem of

theodicy, How can the suffering of a good man be reconciled with the

moral government of God?

In a prose introduction the reader is apprised of the true cause of

Job's sufferings, of which the parties to the colloquy are, of course,

ignorant: they are a trial of his uprightness, more specifically, of

his disinterested virtue. In this "prologue in heaven," Satan insists

that Job's exemplary virtue is no wonder, since God rewards him so

well for it, and God, who has full faith in the patriarch, gives Satan

permission to test him. In an hour all his wealth is swept away and

his children perish, but Job bows submissive to God's will. Then he

himself is smitten with a loathsome and distressful ailment which was

regarded as in a peculiar sense the stroke of God, his wife bids him

"bless" God (a euphemism for "curse") and die; but he rebukes her:

"What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not

receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips." His three

friends come to bemoan him and to comfort him, but the sight of his

misery makes them dumb; they sit down with him in silence for seven

days. So far the prologue.

On this scene the poem opens: Job's long suppressed grief breaks out

in bitter words; he curses the day of his birth, he envies the dead

who are at rest. The eldest of the three friends answers him, and so

the colloquy begins. The structure of the poem is symmetrical. Each

friend speaks in turn and to each Job replies. The cycle is thrice

repeated (cc. 4-14; 15-21; 22-26), but, at least in the present text,

the third round is incomplete--Zophar has no speech. The friends being

apparently convinced that it is useless to argue with him, Job

soliloquizes (cc. 27-31), contrasting his former prosperity with his

present adversity, and again protesting his good conscience before God

and men.

Now a new disputant comes on the scene, whose name does not appear

among the dramatis personæ, the youthful Elihu; a short prose

introduction tells us who he is, and why he intrudes. He is incensed

at them all; at Job for justifying himself at God's expense, at the

friends for not having found arguments to put him down. For his part,

he is so full of words that he cannot hold in. He delivers himself,

accordingly, of four speeches (cc. 32 f.; 34; 35; 36), to which Job

vouchsafes no reply.

Suddenly God, whom Job had alternately challenged and implored to

appear, answers him out of the whirlwind (cc. 38-41); with Job's

confession of his presumption in speaking of things he understood not

(xlii. 1-6), the poem ends.

In the prose epilogue God condemns the three friends, whom he pardons

at Job's prayer; and the trial over, God, in poetical justice,

restores Job to a prosperity greater than the first.

In the argument, the three friends and Elihu maintain throughout the

view of divine retribution which was plainly the orthodoxy of the

author's time: God rewards piety and virtue with prosperity and

requites sin with adversity. This law is grounded in the righteousness

of God; it is inconceivable that he should act otherwise.

Consequently if a man is overwhelmed by calamity, as Job is, the only

explanation their religion can allow is that he is a great sinner; any

other interpretation would impugn the justice of God or bring into

question the existence of a divine providence. They recognize, indeed,

that in sending suffering God may design through chastisement or by

way of warning to bring the sinner to repentance and amendment; they

admit that suffering may be a trial of man's faith. They present the

matter to Job thus, especially in their earlier speeches; but the

character of Job's replies convinces them that neither of these is his

case, and they come at last to outspoken accusation.

Job denies their insinuations and their charges. He has done nothing

to deserve such a fate; if they insist on calling this God's justice,

he will say straight in God's face that he is an almighty tyrant, who

unjustly destroys an innocent man. If God slay him for it, he will not

belie his conscious rectitude.

The argument goes round and round, takes this or that turn, grows

hotter as it proceeds, but does not get beyond this deadlock. The

author's motive so far is clear: he means to controvert the dogma that

all suffering, or at least extraordinary suffering, is retributive,

and to show in the instance of Job how this doctrine may drive a godly

man to the denial of God's justice altogether. With remarkable

psychological insight, however, he makes Job not only cling to the

belief that God is more just than his dealings with him show, but

makes this faith grow in even steps with his passionate charges of

injustice. He appeals from the injustice of God to the just God who

some day will have to justify him.

The author meant to refute the doctrine that God's providence is

exhaustively explained by distributive justice. Had he his own

solution of the problem of theodicy to put in the place of that cruel

dogma? Job, we have seen, finds no solution. In the speeches of

Jehovah, where dramatic fitness would lead us to look for the author's

solution if he had one, there is no refutation of Job's charges, no

response to his pleadings. The speeches are splendid, but the gist of

them is that God's ways are inscrutable. If man cannot comprehend

God's operations in nature, what folly, what presumption, to pretend

to fathom his dealings in providence! In that Job acquiesces for the

soul of man. Let his sufferings be a mystery, he can submit and trust;

call them punitive, and he revolts against the injustice. That is the

end to which the author would bring his readers. Some one has said

that there is nothing about which men are usually so sure as about the

character of God, and nothing they are so ready to do as to interpret

his dealings by his character--especially his dealings with others.

Such were Job's friends. And from this point of view we have no

difficulty in understanding, what has stumbled some critics, how

they, with their zeal for God's character--that is, for their orthodox

conception of it--come off in the epilogue with so smart a rebuke,

while Job, whose words seemed to them sheer blasphemy, is praised for

saying what was right about God.

The theme of the Book of Job is one which exercised the greatest of

the Greek tragic poets, and it is treated with an Æschylean grandeur;

in conception and execution it declares the genius of its author. It

has not come into our hands altogether as it left his, and certain

parts of the poem are generally recognized as additions by other pens.

The most considerable of these are the speeches of Elihu (cc. 32-36).

It has already been noted that Elihu's name is not in the prologue, he

comes in with a bit of a prologue of his own (xxxii. 1-5); and when

the three friends are rebuked in the epilogue, he, who surely deserved

the same condemnation, is ignored. All his speeches, provocative

enough, draw no reply from Job. When, at the end of Elihu's discourse,

God answers out of the whirlwind (xxxviii. 1 ff.), "Who is this that

darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge," it is to Job he

addresses himself, not Elihu; and the appearance of God is naturally

taken as the response to Job's challenge in xxxi. 35, "O that I had

one to hear me," etc., just before Elihu breaks in. All these signs

indicate that Elihu is an intruder. This inference is borne out by

the arguments so pretentiously announced. They are in the main

variations on the themes in the preceding speeches of the friends,

with a certain evident predilection for the idea that suffering is a

warning. It would seem that another poet thought, as he makes Elihu

boast, that he could improve on the arguments of the friends. The

unbiassed reader, without depreciating the poetical merit of the

speeches, will be likely to differ with him.

The eulogy of the divine wisdom (Job 28) is a very fine poem, in the

vein of Prov. 8, of which it is probably not independent, but it is,

to say the least, inappropriate in the mouth of Job at this point in

the debate. The description of ancient mining is particularly

noteworthy. In the speeches of God, the long descriptions of the

hippopotamus and the crocodile (xl. 15-xli. 34) are not without reason

suspected of being purple patches, and in putting them in some damage

has been done to the margins. It has been questioned whether the prose

prologue and epilogue really belong with the poem; but it would not be

intelligible without them.

In Ezek. xiv. 14, 20 the name of Job occurs with Noah and Daniel as

exemplary righteous men, who, if they were alive, could nevertheless

not save the wicked city of Jerusalem from its doom; but whether the

story Ezekiel knew about Job had any resemblance to the prologue of

our book, no one can tell. It may very well be that there was a prose

book of Job (in which, possibly, the friends played the opposite rôle

from that given them in the poem), and that the poet took from it the

incidents and setting that he needed; but about that also nothing can

be known.

The age of the book is determined chiefly by the problem with which it

deals. The doctrine of individual retribution is the application to

the individual of the prophetic teaching about God's dealing with the

nation; it appears in a peculiarly crude and hard form in Ezekiel at

the moment of the break up of the nation. It was furthered by the

teaching of the sages, as in Proverbs, about the connection between

prosperity and happiness and virtue. Experience contradicted the

dogma, and so the problem of theodicy arose--arose in a peculiarly

difficult form, because all that befell a man was attributed to the

immediate act of God, who was not relieved of any part of his

responsibility by talk of second causes and natural laws, and because

the sphere of retribution was limited to this life, with no relief in

the possible compensations of another.

This is the problem of Job, and of itself suffices to put the book in

what is called the post-exilic age. It belongs to the literature of

Jewish Wisdom, with Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. The latter book, one of

the latest certainly in the Old Testament, is much concerned with the

same conflict of dogma with experience, though in a very different

spirit. Job may be a work of the fifth century B.C., or perhaps of

the fourth. The language would incline us to the earlier date.

CHAPTER XXIV

ECCLESIASTES. SONG OF SONGS

Two singular books remain, about the inspiration of both of which the

straitest sect of the Pharisees in the first century of our era had

grave difficulties, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs. Both are

attributed to Solomon, the Song by title, Ecclesiastes by implication

in the book itself, and doubtless the supposed authorship had much to

do with finally securing the two books a place in the Jewish Bible.

ECCLESIASTES.--The title of Ecclesiastes runs, "The words of Koheleth

the son of David, king in Jerusalem," under which pseudonym no one but

Solomon can be meant; see also Eccl. i. 12, and especially ii. 1-11.

In the body of the book, Koheleth is regularly used as a proper name;

it is apparently coined for the nonce. Like many pseudonyms in other

literatures, it is probably a mystification, piquant to the author's

contemporaries but impenetrable to us. That it means "Preacher"--an

ancient guess--is highly improbable; but even if the meaning were

transparent, there is no more reason for translating a fictitious

proper name than a real one.

The theme of this symphony of pessimism is stridently announced in the

first notes of the overture: "Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities!

Everything is vanity." The world and its happenings, man and his

strivings, pleasure, pain, wisdom, folly, good and evil--all is

utterly empty; existence has no meaning and no worth. All is chance

and change, in which things endlessly go round and round, but plan,

purpose, progress is nowhere to be seen. And as all have one lot, even

this senseless and inconstant fortune, so death sooner or later

overtakes all alike and ends the strange play without plot we call

human life.

Of a divine providence directed to any end or by any principle, of a

justice above which requites men according to their deeds, long years

and happiness to the wise and good, adversity and premature death to

the wicked and foolish, Koheleth, looking on the world of things as

they are with searching eyes, discovers no sign. Of another world and

an immortal soul, with which some of his contemporaries consoled

themselves, he, keeping his thinking within the bounds of experience,

knows nothing. Man dies as the beast dies, the same vital breath is in

them both, all are of dust and turn to dust again; nor has man any

advantage over the beast, they all have the same end (iii. 19-21; ix.

4-6). There is consolation in this thought, when the misery of the

world weighs too heavy on the heart. The dead are better off than the

living, but happier still it would be never to be born to see the

evils that are under the sun (iv. 2 f.).

When we look the facts squarely in the face, the only counsel of

wisdom is to make the most of what capricious fortune gives us in its

friendly moods, to enjoy the pleasures life offers while we can, with

abandon, but without excess. For the "too much" is always evil, even

too much wisdom and virtue! "Be not over righteous nor put on too much

wisdom, why shouldest thou die before thy time?" (vii. 16 f.).

The author's religion makes God somehow the cause of what happens

under the sun, the evil and the good. In one place he seems to express

the belief that all that God does is fine and opportune, if man could

only understand it; but God has denied man the intelligence to

penetrate the secret of his ways. So there is nothing better for man

to do than to be merry, and have a good time while he is alive!

It is easy to imagine what scandal all this gave to pious souls, and

it was very natural that orthodox editors should try to neutralize

Koheleth's scepticism and his epicurean counsels by notes in an

opposite sense. A modern editor would have put his protests into

footnotes, as for example to Gibbon's famous chapters on the spread of

Christianity; an ancient editor, having no footnotes, put his

incontinently into the text.

To these editorial improvements belong the last verses (Eccl. xii. 13

f.), with its conclusion, "Fear God and keep his commandments, for

this is the business of every man; for God will bring every deed into

the judgment on all secrets, whether it be good or bad." The judgment

after death is evidently meant. The warning against many books and

much reading in xii. 12 is also a gloss, while xii. 9-11 appears to be

written by an earlier editor of the book, commending it to reading and

study. In the body of the book, also, several verses are obviously

introduced to give an orthodox twist to the author's very heterodox

utterances.

That Ecclesiastes belongs to the latest stratum of Hebrew Biblical

literature is evident from both its matter and its style; but there is

nothing in it by which its age can be exactly fixed.

SONG OF SONGS.--A verse already quoted (1 Kings iv. 32) tells that,

besides three thousand proverbs, Solomon composed a thousand and five

songs. We shall probably not err in assuming that this verse was in

the mind of the editor who prefixed the title "The Song of Songs (that

is, the very best of songs), by Solomon." There is nothing in the

book to indicate that Solomon was the author or that the poet meant

his productions to be attributed to him.

The one theme of the book, running through many variations, is the

love of man and woman, passionate and sensuous. In the second century

of our era its songs were warbled at banquets or wedding feasts, a

profane abuse on which a scandalized rabbi denounced damnation. In the

first century it was, in spite of Solomon's name, no Holy Scripture

for the straitest sect, and was not finally admitted to the canon, we

may be pretty sure, until an allegorical sense had been discovered in

it, or rather imposed on it: it sang, under the figure of wedded love,

of the relation of the Lord to Israel. The Fathers took over all the

allegory, only making the lover Christ, the beloved the Church (as

still in the running titles of the Authorized Version), or the soul.

The mediæval church saw in the bride the Virgin Mary. The allegorical

interpretation was a necessary corollary of the dogmatic assumption

that the canon of inspired scripture could contain nothing but books

of religious instruction and edification. Allegorical love

poetry--usually the love of God and the soul--is not uncommon in

mystical sects or circles of various creeds; and the ultra-spiritual

poets often revel in an ultra-sensual imagery of passion and fruition;

but nothing in the Song of Songs suggests such an origin, nor have we

knowledge of a Jewish mysticism of this erotic type in the centuries

from which it must come.

The literary criticism of the last century chiefly spent itself in

endeavours to discover in the book a lyric drama with a moral

tendency, on some such theme as the triumph of pure love over lust.

Great ingenuity was expended in dividing the text into regular acts

and scenes and assigning the speeches to the leading actors and the

chorus. In its simplest form there were but two actors, the virtuous

village maiden and the harem-jaded Solomon; a more plausible scheme

gave the girl a rustic lover, which added much to the piquancy of the

scenes with Solomon, and to the _dénouement_, in which the king,

foiled by the maiden's constancy, confesses virtue triumphant, and

sends her back to her shepherd swain. More recent supporters of the

dramatic hypothesis have modified this scheme in a way to remove some

of its plainest difficulties, but have complicated it in proportion.

Other interpreters take the book for a collection of love songs, or,

more specifically, of wedding songs, such as are sung to-day at

village weddings in Syria and Palestine. A certain dramatic quality in

the songs, and their relation to successive stages of the festivities,

would give the appearance of a progressive action which has been urged

for the dramatic theory. The Syrian peasant to-day, in the region of

Damascus, is for his bride-week in song and salutation a king or

prince; a sledge on the village threshing-floor is his throne, and the

bride is queen. Through the week the royal pair are honoured by the

villagers with songs and dances. If in the Hebrew songs the

bridegroom-king is sometimes called Solomon, it is because Solomon was

the richest and most splendid of kings. This view of the nature of the

book is simpler and more probable. The several poems are not

distinguished by titles, and there is room for difference of opinion

about the divisions; but this is a small difficulty compared with the

partition into roles in the supposed play.

The songs are fine examples of popular poetry, with traditional

subjects, forms, and imagery. Nothing requires us to suppose that they

are the production of one poet; we may think of them rather as an

anthology of love songs, not necessarily all composed for wedding

festivities, but all appropriate for use on such occasions.

The language of the songs proves that they belong to a very late

period in Hebrew literature, though the type is doubtless old enough.

Such popular poetry has no motive for preserving or imitating

archaism, as hymn writers do, but modernizes itself from generation to

generation. The wedding songs of old Israel may have been like enough

to these in character, but they were in another speech.

It was a fortunate misunderstanding that has preserved them; but the

accidental preservation of these few pages emphasizes the loss of

almost every other vestige of Hebrew secular poetry.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. =General.=--SMITH, W. ROBERTSON. _The Old Testament in the Jewish

Church._ 1892.--These lectures, first published in 1881, were meant to

give to laymen an account of the problems and methods of criticism.

They are a remarkably lucid exposition of the subject, and may still

be read with profit as a general introduction to criticism.

2. =The Canon.=--RYLE, H. E. _The Canon of the Old Testament._ 1892;

2nd ed. 1895.--A history of the growth of the Old Testament rather

than a history of the canon. In that growth there were, according to

the author, three stages; in the first, which began with the

ratification of Deuteronomy in 621 B.C., the Law (Pentateuch) was the

only recognized collection of Sacred Scripture; in the second the Law

and the Prophets; and in the third the Law, the Prophets, and the

"Writings." The latter part of the volume, which treats of the history

of the canon in the usual meaning of the term, is a convenient but not

very accurate compilation.

The article "Canon" (of the Old Testament) in the _Encyclopaedia

Biblica_, by Karl Budde, and the article "Old Testament Canon" in

Hastings' _Dictionary of the Bible_, by F. H. Woods, are concise

presentations of generally accepted opinions by competent scholars.

3. =Literature of the Old Testament.=--DRIVER, S. R. _Introduction to

the Literature of the Old Testament._ 6th ed., revised, 1897. A volume

of the _International Theological Library_, designed primarily for

ministers and students of theology. The technical matter (lists of

Hebrew words and the like) is, however, set off from the body of the

text, and the work can therefore be used with profit by laymen for

purposes of study. The synopses of the contents of Biblical books will

be found helpful. The author is a scholar of conservative temper and

cautious about accepting new or radical theories.

CORNILL, CARL. _Introduction to the Canonical Books of the Old

Testament._ Translated by G. H. Box. New York. 1907.--Originally one

of a German series of theological handbooks, this volume is on a

smaller scale than Driver's and goes less into details which are of

interest only to the professional student. The author's criticism is

much less conservative than Driver's and more original.

KENT, C. F. _The Student's Old Testament._ 1904-1910.--I. _Narratives

of the Beginnings of Hebrew History_, 1904; II. _Israel's Historical

and Biographical Narratives_, 1905; III. _The Sermons, Epistles, and

Apocalypses of Israel's Prophets_, 1910; IV. _Israel's Law and Legal

Precedents_, 1907. (Two volumes on the Poetical Books will complete

the series.) The sources of the Pentateuch and the Historical Books

are separated, and where the narratives are parallel they are printed

in parallel columns with headings indicating their origin. The

analysis is also set out in tabular form, and maps and chronological

charts are added. The oracles of the prophets are arranged, so far as

possible, in chronological order, additions and interpolations being

set in smaller type. The author is an experienced teacher and

book-maker, and has a fine talent for exposition.

CARPENTER, J. ESTLIN, and HARFORD-BATTERSBY, G. _The Hexateuch

according to the Revised Version._ 2 vols. 1900.--The first volume

(separately reprinted, 1902) contains an excellent history of

criticism, and develops fully and very clearly the evidence for the

prevailing theory concerning the sources and composition of the

Hexateuch. Tabular appendices exhibit the linguistic evidence in a

form which makes it available, as far as possible, to the reader who

does not know Hebrew; they also give a synopsis of the laws and

institutions, and an analysis and conspectus of the several codes. The

second volume presents in the text of the Revised Version the analysis

of the Pentateuch and Joshua in an extremely ingenious typographical

scheme.

The articles on the Books of the Old Testament, from Genesis to Judges

inclusive, in the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_, by the author of the

present volume, may be referred to for a fuller statement of the

reasons for his views and a more detailed analysis. The article

"Historical Literature" in the same Encyclopaedia gives a

comprehensive survey of the Hebrew historiography from its beginnings

down to the time of Josephus. The article on "Prophecy and Prophets"

in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, by A. B. Davidson, though not

dealing primarily with critical questions, may be strongly commended,

and the article on "Psalms," by W. T. Davison, in the same volume, is

good. An excellent article on "Proverbs" in the _Encyclopaedia

Biblica_ should also be mentioned.

INDEX

Abomination, Dan. 8, 186

Acrostics, 229 f.

Alexander and successors in Dan., 185 f.

Allegory, in Song of Songs, 247

Amos, Book, 196 ff.

Annals, royal and temple, 100

Antiochus Epiphanes, 186, 187 f.

Apocalypses, character of, 188

----age, how determined, 188

Apocrypha, older use of the name, 18

----Jerome, 17 f.

----Luther, 21 f.

----_See_ Canon

Aramaic, in Ezra, 130

----in Daniel, 189 f.

Asa, king, 123

Assyria, Greek kingdom (Syria), 155, 215

Astruc, analysis of Genesis, 32

Athanasius, 16

Augustine, 19 f.

Baal, Tyrian, 111

Baals and Astartes, 83, 192

Babylon, destruction, prophesied, 152

----taken by Cyrus, 153

Babylonian myths in Genesis, 43 f.

Baruch, scribe of Jeremiah, 166 f., 168

Bible, Jewish, _see_ Old Testament

Calvin, on Maccabæan Psalms, 226

Canaan, conquest, in Jos., 77 f., 88 f.

Canon, Jewish, formation of, 11

----of Greek-speaking Jews, 13

----Jewish, in Church Fathers, 14 ff.

----of Greek Church, 13 ff.

----Latin Church, 17 ff.

----Syrian churches, 20

----in the Middle Ages, 20

----the Reformation, 21

----Reformed churches, 22

----Council of Trent, 23

----_See_ also Apocrypha

Chaldæans, in Hab., 205

----in Dan., 189

Cherubim car, 178

Chron.--Ezra--Neh., one book 118

Chronicles, Book, 118 ff.

----sources, 124 f.

----genealogies, 119

----historical value, 124

Chronology in Judg., 82

----in Kings, 101

Commandments, Ten, 49 f.

Criticism, historical, 25 f.

----of Pentateuch, 31 ff.

Cyrus, edict of, 128

----deliverer, messiah, 160

Daniel, Book, 180 ff.

----two languages in, 189

----Nebuchadnezzar's dream, 183 f.

----the four beasts, _c. 7_, 184 f.

----ram and he-goat, _c. 8_, 185

----Seleucids and Ptolemies, _c. 11_, 187 f.

----age of the book, 188

Darius Hystaspis, 209 f.

David, history, 96 f., 109

----Psalms of, 223

Day of the Lord, in Zeph., 207

----in Joel, 195

----in Mal., 217 f.

Deborah, Song of, 89

Decalogue, 49 f.

Deluge, Babylonian myth, 43 f.

Deuterocanonic Books, 24

D (Deuteronomy, Deuteronomist), 35, 84

Deuteronomists, historians, 84

----_See_ also Jos., Judg., Kings

Deuteronomy, 58 ff.

----programme of a reform, 62

----age of the book, 64 f.

Dragon of the sea, 156

E (Elohist), 35

----characteristics, 39 ff.

----origin, 41

----age, 67 f.

----Horeb constitution in, 50

----in Jos. _1-12_, 75 ff.

----in Judg., 86

Ecclesiastes, Book, 243 ff.

Ecclesiastes, interpolations, 246 f.

----age, 246

----inspiration, 8 ff., 245

Ecclesiastical Books, 17, 24

Ecclesiasticus, in the Church, 15 f.

Eden, Garden in, 43

Eden, Prince of Tyre in, 177

Edom, prophecies against, 158 f., 177, 197, 199

----Obad., 200

Egypt, Ezekiel's prophecy, 177

Eli, a judge, 90

Elihu, in Job, 240 f.

Elijah, 110 f., 145

Elisha, 112 f.

Esther, Book, 135 ff.

----mythical interpretation, 137

----age, 138, 139 f.

----inspiration, 8, 138

----additions in Greek, 138

Exile, theory of the return, 122

Exodus, Book, 47 f.

Ezekiel, Book, 174 ff.

----against foreign nations (_cc. 25-32_), 176 f.

----state of the text, 180

Ezra, 129 ff.

----Priests' Code, 56 f.

----two languages in, 130

Ezra and Neh., sequel of Chron., 118

----contents, 128 ff.

----sources, 131 f.

----historical value, 133

----derangement, 132 (_cf._ 128-131)

Fast, the true, 212

Feasts, agricultural, 69

Fool, in Proverbs, 232 f.

Foreign nations, oracles against, 142, 152 ff., 158 f., 171 f.,

176 ff., 195, 197, 200, 204 f., 206, 214 f.

Genesis, Book, 33 ff.

Gerizim, temple on, 121

God, national idea, 146

----moral idea, 145

----in J, 37 f.

----in E, 39 f.

----in P, 47

----in Amos, 198 f.

----in Hosea, 193, 199

----in Deuteronomy, 59 f.

----in Isaiah _40-66_, 161

Gog and his hordes, 178, 200

----echo in Zech., 214

Golden age, prophecies of, 151, 157, 158, 169 ff., 176, 179,

193, 198 f., 213 f.

Golden calves, 104

Gospels, inspiration of, 10

Greek versions of O. T., 11

Greeks, kingdom doomed, 215

Habakkuk, Book, 205 ff.

Hadrach, 215

Haggai, Book, 209

Heavenly bodies, judgment on, 156

Hezekiah, king, 114 f.

High places, 65 f., 95, 103, 117

----untouched by good kings, 107

----Hezekiah's measures, 114 f.

----Josiah, 61 f., 116

Historical literature, 98 ff.

----oldest, 99 _cf._ 96 f.

History, religious lessons, 104

Holiness, Law of, Lev. _17-26_, 54 f.

Horeb, Mount of God, 48

Hosea, Book, 190 ff.

Idolatry, satire on, 161

Idols, _see_ Golden Calves, Serpent

Immortality, denied in Eccles., 244

Inspiration, cessation of, 10

----of Eccles. and Cant., 8 ff.

---of Gospels, 10

Isaiah, prophet, 115, 147

----genius of, 150

----earlier utterances, 150

----rejection of sacrifice, 151

Isaiah, Book, 147 ff.

----main divisions, 147 f.

----_cc. 1-12_, 149 f.

----_cc. 13-23_, 152 ff.

----_cc. 24-27_, 156 f.

----_cc. 28-33_, 157 f.

----_cc. 34-35_, 158 f.

----_cc. 36-39_, 147

----_cc. 40-66_, 159 ff.

J and E, characteristics of, 35 ff.

----in Gen., common tradition, 40 f.

----diversity of tradition, 70

----combined in one book (J E), 71

----in Jos., 78

----in Judg., 85

J (Jahvist), 35

J, literary quality, 36

----in Gen. _1-11_, two strands, 41 f.

----anthropomorphism, 37 f., 42

----religious element, 37 ff.

----origin, 41

----age, 67 f.

----fundamental law in, 50 f.

----in Jos., 74 ff.

----in Judg., 86

----in Sam., 99

Jehoash, king of Israel, 113

Jehoiakim, king, 165

Jehu, king, 112, 118

Jeremiah, prophet, 164

----his hard lot, 171 f.

----"confessions," 172

----not author of Lam., 230

Jeremiah, Book, 164 ff.

----later additions, 168 f., 171, 173

----Hebrew and Greek texts, 172 f.

Jericho, taking of, 75 f.

Jeroboam I., 104, 108

Jeroboam II., 114

Jerome, 17, 18

Jerusalem, two sieges, 117 f., 174

----in Chron., 121

Joash, king of Judah, 113

Job, mention of in Ezek., 241

Job, Book, 235 ff.

----prologue and epilogue, 241

----structure of the poem, 236 f.

----purpose of author, 239 f.

----age, 242 f.

----later additions, 240 ff.

Joel, Book, 194 ff.

Jonah, Book, 140 ff.

Joshua, Book, 73 ff.

Josiah, king, 116

----his reforms, 62

----reaction, 103 f.

Judas Maccabæus, 187

Judges, Book, 81 ff.

----stories of deliverance, 84 ff.

----interpretation of history, 81, 83

----original close of the Book, 91

Judgment, last, in Isa. _24-27_, 156 f.

Julius Africanus, 15

Kadesh, 70

Kingdom, founding, two accounts, 92

----division of, 108

Kings, Books, 100 ff.

----2 Kings _18-20_ = Isa. _36-39_, 114

Koheleth, the name, 243

Lamentations, Book, 229 ff.

Latin Bible, 17

Laws, given at Sinai, 49

----Ezra's, ratification of, 130

Legends, rise of, 98

Leviathan, 156

Levites, choice of, in Num., 55 f.

----in Chron., 123

Leviticus, Book, 52 ff.

Little Horn, Dan. 8, 185

Love, principle of religion in Hos., 192 f.

Malachi, Book, 215 f.

Manasseh, king, his sins, 104

Medes, 152

Merodach Baladan, 116, 153

Messianic prophecy, _see_ Golden Age

Micah, Book, 201 ff.

Micaiah ben Imlah, 112, 145

Midrash, of Kings, 124, 127

Minor Prophets, 190 ff.

Mixed marriages, 129, 130, 217

Myths, Babylonian, in Gen., 177 f.

Moloch, 104

Monotheism, in Deut., 59

----in Isa. _40-66_, 161

Naboth's vineyard, 111

Nahum, Book, 204 f.

Nehemiah, mission to Jerusalem, 129 f.

----Memoirs, 129, 131, 183

----Book, 118, 128 ff.

New Year, 48

Nineveh, prophecy against, Zeph., 208

----Nah., 204 f.

Numbers, Book, 55 ff.

Obadiah, Book, 200

Old Testament, the name, 7

----Jewish, divisions, 8

----order of books, 8

----sacred scriptures, 25

----a national literature, 26 ff.

----literary quality, 28 f.

Omri, king, 109 f.

Origen, 16

P (Priestly authors), 35 f.

----Origins of Religious Institutions, 44 f.

----in Gen., contents, 45 ff.

----diction and style, 46

----conception of God, 47

----the revelation at Sinai, 51

----age of the laws in, 66 f.

----age and origin of P, 56 f., 65 f.

----united with J E D, 72

----in Jos., 78

Passover, 48

Patriarchs, in J and E, 35 ff.

Pentateuch, 29 ff.

----the law of Moses, 31

----names of the books, 29

----contents, 29-31

----beginnings of criticism, 32 ff.

----main sources, 33 ff.

----method of the author, 72 f.

----composition, 65 ff.

----age of, as a whole, 72 f.

----_See_ under the several Books, also, J, E, D, P.

Peoples of the land, 122

Porphyry, 187

Priesthood, in Chron., 121, 122 f.

Priests' Code, 56 f., 130, 134

Priests and levites, cities, in Jos., 78

Priests, invective in Mal., 216

Primeval History, sources, 41

----ultimate sources, 42 f.

Prophets, Former and Latter, 8

----in old Israel, 144 f.

----societies, or orders of, 145 f.

----popular, 202 f.

----bad repute of, 196, 214

----ninth century, 110 ff.

----eighth century, 146 f., 190, 199

Proverbs, Book, 231 ff.

Providence, scepticism in Eccles., 243, 244

Psalms, Book, 218 ff.

----older hymn books, 220

----liturgical and devotional use, 218 f.

----titles, 219

----Elohistic book (Ps. _42-82_), 220, 224

----Davidic, 223, 224, 225, 226

----Asaphite and Korahite, 221, 224

----Songs of Ascents, Hallels, 222

----Maccabæan, 226 f.

----age of the Book, 223 ff.

----religious conceptions, 227 f.

Purim, 139

Religion, idea of, in Hos., 191 f.

----in Deut. 59

----in Mic., 203

----in Isa. _40-66_, 161 f.

----in Proverbs, 232

----true, among the heathen, 216

Restoration, in Ezek., 179

----in Isa., 148 ff.

----_See_ Golden Age

Retribution, orthodoxy of Job's friends, 237

Ruth, Book, 139 ff.

Sacrifice, patriarchal, 51 f.

----ritual laws, in Lev. _1-7_, 52

----prophetic rejection, 151 f., 198

Samaria, Omri's new capital, 110

----fall of, 114

Samaritan sect, in Jewish eyes, 122

Samuel, last of the judges, 90 f.

Samuel, Books, 91 ff.

Sanballat, 130

"Scriptures," class of sacred books, 8

----disputed, 9

Scythians, 170 f., 207

Seers, 144

Sennacherib, siege of Jerusalem, 115

Septuagint, _see_ Greek Version

Serpent, idol, in temple, 114 f.

Servant of Jehovah, in Isa., _40_ ff., 164

Sheol, imagery, 152, 156, 177 f.

Shishak, invasion by, 109

Siloam tunnel, 116

Sinai, 48

Sirach, Book, _see_ Ecclesiasticus

Scepticism, 217

Solomon, 97

----character of his reign, 100

----his wealth and wisdom, 105

----reputation for wisdom, 234

----Proverbs ascribed to, 234 f.

----Eccles. ascribed to, 243

----Psalms ascribed to, 223 f.

Song of Deborah, 89

Song of Songs, 246 ff.

----allegorized, 247

----age, 249

----inspiration, 8, 247

Story books, Jewish, 134 ff.

Suffering of the good, in Job, 237 ff.

Susanna and the Elders, 15, 189.

Symbolical actions in Ezek., 178

Syria ("Assyria"), 155, 215

Syriac Bible, contents of O. T., 20

Syrian wars, 110

Tabernacle, in P, 51

Temple, dedication of, 106

----abode of Jehovah, 103

----no protection to the city, 166

----rebuilding of, 209

Theodicy, in Job, 237 ff., 242

Tyre, prophecy against, Ezek., 176

Uncanonical books, Hebrew and Greek, 12

----_See_ also Apocrypha

Valley of dry bones, 179

Visions, in prophets, 149, 178, 183 ff., 197, 211

Wedding songs, 248

Wisdom, in Proverbs, 232

----personified, 233

----divine, in Job _28_, 241 f.

Worship, prophetic attitude, 151 f.

----_See_ Sacrifice

Zechariah, Book, 211 ff.

Zech., _9-11, 12-14_, age, 214, 215

Zedekiah, king, 175 f.

Zephaniah, Book, 207 ff.

Zerubbabel, Messianic hopes, 210 f.

THE LONDON AND NORWICH PRESS, LIMITED, LONDON AND NORWICH

The

Home University

Library

of Modern

Knowledge

_A Comprehensive Series of New

and Specially Written Books_

EDITORS:

PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, D.Litt., LL.D., F.B.A.

HERBERT FISHER, LL.D., F.B.A.

PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A.

PROF. WM. T. BREWSTER, M.A.

1/-net

in cloth

256 Pages

2/6 net

in leather

_History and Geography_

_3. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION_

By HILAIRE BELLOC, M.A. (With Maps.) "It is coloured with

all the militancy of the author's temperament."--_Daily

News._

_4. HISTORY OF WAR AND PEACE_

By G. H. PERRIS. The Rt. Hon. JAMES BRYCE writes: "I have

read it with much interest and pleasure, admiring the skill

with which you have managed to compress so many facts and

views into so small a volume."

_8. POLAR EXPLORATION_

By Dr W. S. BRUCE, F.R.S.E., Leader of the "Scotia"

Expedition. (With Maps.) "A very freshly written and

interesting narrative."--_The Times._

_12. THE OPENING-UP OF AFRICA_

By Sir H. H. JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., F.Z.S. (With Maps.) "The

Home University Library is much enriched by this excellent

work."--_Daily Mail._

_13. MEDIÆVAL EUROPE_

By H. W. C. DAVIS, M.A. (With Maps.) "One more illustration

of the fact that it takes a complete master of the subject

to write briefly upon it."--_Manchester Guardian._

_14. THE PAPACY & MODERN TIMES (1303-1870)_

By WILLIAM BARRY, D.D. "Dr Barry has a wide range of

knowledge and an artist's power of selection."--_Manchester

Guardian._

_23. HISTORY OF OUR TIME (1885-1911)_

By G. P. GOOCH, M.A. "Mr Gooch contrives to breathe vitality

into his story, and to give us the flesh as well as the

bones of recent happenings."--_Observer._

_25. THE CIVILISATION OF CHINA_

By H. A. GILES, LL.D., Professor of Chinese at Cambridge.

"In all the mass of facts, Professor Giles never becomes

dull. He is always ready with a ghost story or a street

adventure for the reader's recreation."--_Spectator._

_29. THE DAWN OF HISTORY_

By J. L. MYRES, M.A., F.S.A., Wykeham Professor of Ancient

History, Oxford. "There is not a page in it that is not

suggestive."--_Manchester Guardian._

_33. THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND_

_A Study in Political Evolution_

By Prof. A. F. POLLARD, M.A. With a Chronological Table. "It

takes its place at once among the authoritative works on

English history."--_Observer._

_34. CANADA_

By A. G. BRADLEY. "The volume makes an immediate appeal to

the man who wants to know something vivid and true about

Canada."--_Canadian Gazette._

_37. PEOPLES & PROBLEMS OF INDIA_

By Sir T. W. HOLDERNESS, K.C.S.I., Permanent Under-Secretary

of State of the India Office. "Just the book which newspaper

readers require to-day, and a marvel of

comprehensiveness."--_Pall Mall Gazette._

_42. ROME_

By W. WARDE FOWLER, M.A. "A masterly sketch of Roman

character and of what it did for the world."--_The

Spectator._

_48. THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR_

By F. L. PAXSON, Professor of American History, Wisconsin

University. (With Maps.) "A stirring study."--_The

Guardian._

_51. WARFARE IN BRITAIN_

By HILAIRE BELLOC, M.A. "Rich in suggestion for the

historical student."--_Edinburgh Evening News._

_55. MASTER MARINERS_

By J. R. SPEARS. "A continuous story of shipping progress

and adventure.... It reads like a romance."--_Glasgow

Herald._

_61. NAPOLEON_

By HERBERT FISHER, LL.D., F.B.A., Vice-Chancellor of

Sheffield University. (With Maps.) The story of the great

Bonaparte's youth, his career, and his downfall, with some

sayings of Napoleon, a genealogy, and a bibliography.

_66. THE NAVY AND SEA POWER_

By DAVID HANNAY. The author traces the growth of naval power

from early times, and discusses its principles and effects

upon the history of the Western world.

_71. GERMANY OF TO-DAY_

By CHARLES TOWER. "It would be difficult to name any better

summary."--_Daily News._

_82. PREHISTORIC BRITAIN_

By ROBERT MUNRO, M.A., M.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E. (Illustrated.)

_Literature and Art_

_2. SHAKESPEARE_

By JOHN MASEFIELD. "The book is a joy. We have had

half-a-dozen more learned books on Shakespeare in the last

few years, but not one so wise."--_Manchester Guardian._

_27. ENGLISH LITERATURE: MODERN_

By G. H. MAIR, M.A. "Altogether a fresh and individual

book."--_Observer._

_35. LANDMARKS IN FRENCH LITERATURE_

By G. L. STRACHEY. "It is difficult to imagine how a better

account of French Literature could be given in 250 small

pages."--_The Times._

_39. ARCHITECTURE_

By Prof. W. R. LETHABY. (Over forty Illustrations.) "Popular

guide-books to architecture are, as a rule, not worth much.

This volume is a welcome exception."--_Building News._

"Delightfully bright reading."--_Christian World._

_43. ENGLISH LITERATURE: MEDIÆVAL_

By Prof. W. P. KER, M.A. "Prof. Ker, one of the soundest

scholars in English we have, is the very man to put an

outline of English Mediæval Literature before the

uninstructed public. His knowledge and taste are

unimpeachable, and his style is effective, simple, yet never

dry."--_The Athenæum._

_45. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE_

By L. PEARSALL SMITH, M.A. "A wholly fascinating study of

the different streams that went to the making of the great

river of the English speech."--_Daily News._

_52. GREAT WRITERS OF AMERICA_

By Prof. J. ERSKINE and Prof. W. P. TRENT. "An admirable

summary, from Franklin to Mark Twain, enlivened by a dry

humour."--_Athenæum._

_63. PAINTERS AND PAINTING_

By Sir FREDERICK WEDMORE. (With 16 half-tone illustrations.)

From the Primitives to the Impressionists.

_64. DR JOHNSON AND HIS CIRCLE_

By JOHN BAILEY, M.A. "A most delightful essay."--_Christian

World._

_65. THE LITERATURE OF GERMANY_

By Professor J. G. ROBERTSON, M.A., Ph.D. "Under the

author's skilful treatment the subject shows life and

continuity."--_Athenæum._

_70. THE VICTORIAN AGE IN LITERATURE_

By G. K. CHESTERTON. "The book is everywhere immensely

alive, and no one will put it down without a sense of having

taken a tonic or received a series of electric

shocks."--_The Times._

_73. THE WRITING OF ENGLISH_

By W. T. BREWSTER, A.M., Professor of English in Columbia

University. "Sensible in its teaching, and not over-rigidly

conventional in its manner."--_Manchester Guardian._

_75. ANCIENT ART AND RITUAL_

By JANE E. HARRISON, LL.D., D.Litt. "Charming in style and

learned in manner."--_Daily News._

_76. EURIPIDES AND HIS AGE_

By GILBERT MURRAY, D.Litt., LL.D., F.B.A., Regius Professor

of Greek at Oxford. "A beautiful piece of work.... Just in

the fulness of time, and exactly in the right place....

Euripides has come into his own."--_The Nation._

_Science_

_7. MODERN GEOGRAPHY_

By Dr MARION NEWBIGIN. (Illustrated.) "Geography, again:

what a dull, tedious study that was wont to be!... But Miss

Marion Newbigin invests its dry bones with the flesh and

blood of romantic interest."--_Daily Telegraph._

_9. THE EVOLUTION OF PLANTS_

By Dr D. H. SCOTT, M.A., F.R.S., late Hon. Keeper of the

Jodrell Laboratory, Kew. (Fully illustrated.) "The

information is as trustworthy as first-hand knowledge can

make it.... Dr Scott's candid and familiar style makes the

difficult subject both fascinating and easy."--_Gardeners'

Chronicle._

_17. HEALTH AND DISEASE_

By W. LESLIE MACKENZIE, M.D., Local Government Board,

Edinburgh. "Dr Mackenzie adds to a thorough grasp of the

problems an illuminating style, and an arresting manner of

treating a subject often dull and sometimes

unsavoury."--_Economist._

_18. INTRODUCTION TO MATHEMATICS_

By A. N. WHITEHEAD, Sc.D., F.R.S. (With Diagrams.) "Mr

Whitehead has discharged with conspicuous success the task

he is so exceptionally qualified to undertake. For he is one

of our great authorities upon the foundations of the

science."--_Westminster Gazette._

_19. THE ANIMAL WORLD_

By Professor F. W. GAMBLE, D.Sc., F.R.S. With Introduction

by Sir Oliver Lodge. (Many Illustrations.) "A delightful and

instructive epitome of animal (and vegetable) life.... A

fascinating and suggestive survey."--_Morning Post._

_20. EVOLUTION_

By Professor J. ARTHUR THOMSON and Professor PATRICK GEDDES.

"A many-coloured and romantic panorama, opening up, like no

other book we know, a rational vision of

world-development."--_Belfast News-Letter._

_22. CRIME AND INSANITY_

By Dr C. A. MERCIER. "Furnishes much valuable information

from one occupying the highest position among medico-legal

psychologists."--_Asylum News._

_28. PSYCHICAL RESEARCH_

By Sir W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S., Professor of Physics, Royal

College of Science, Dublin, 1873-1910. "What he has to say

on thought-reading, hypnotism, telepathy, crystal-vision,

spiritualism, divinings, and so on, will be read with

avidity."--_Dundee Courier._

_31. ASTRONOMY_

By A. R. HINKS, M.A., Chief Assistant, Cambridge

Observatory. "Original in thought, eclectic in substance,

and critical in treatment.... No better little book is

available."--_School World._

_32. INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE_

By J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A., Regius Professor of Natural

History, Aberdeen University. "Professor Thomson's

delightful literary style is well known; and here he

discourses freshly and easily on the methods of science and

its relations with philosophy, art, religion, and practical

life."--_Aberdeen Journal._

_36. CLIMATE AND WEATHER_

By Prof. H. N. DICKSON, D.Sc.Oxon., M.A., F.R.S.E.,

President of the Royal Meteorological Society. (With

Diagrams.) "The author has succeeded in presenting in a very

lucid and agreeable manner the causes of the movements of

the atmosphere and of the more stable winds."--_Manchester

Guardian._

_41. ANTHROPOLOGY_

By R. R. MARETT, M.A., Reader in Social Anthropology in

Oxford University. "An absolutely perfect handbook, so clear

that a child could understand it, so fascinating and human

that it beats fiction 'to a frazzle.'"--_Morning Leader._

_44. THE PRINCIPLES OF PHYSIOLOGY_

By Prof. J. G. MCKENDRICK, M.D. "It is a delightful and

wonderfully comprehensive handling of a subject which, while

of importance to all, does not readily lend itself to

untechnical explanation.... Upon every page of it is stamped

the impress of a creative imagination."--_Glasgow Herald._

_46. MATTER AND ENERGY_

By F. SODDY, M.A., F.R.S. "Prof. Soddy has successfully

accomplished the very difficult task of making physics of

absorbing interest on popular lines."--_Nature._

_49. PSYCHOLOGY, THE STUDY OF BEHAVIOUR_

By Prof. W. MCDOUGALL, F.R.S., M.B. "A happy example of the

non-technical handling of an unwieldy science, suggesting

rather than dogmatising. It should whet appetites for deeper

study."--_Christian World._

_53. THE MAKING OF THE EARTH_

By Prof. J. W. GREGORY, F.R.S. (With 38 Maps and Figures.)

"A fascinating little volume.... Among the many good things

contained in the series this takes a high place."--_The

Athenæum._

_57. THE HUMAN BODY_

By A. KEITH, M.D., LL.D., Conservator of Museum and

Hunterian Professor, Royal College of Surgeons.

(Illustrated.) "It literally makes the 'dry bones' to live.

It will certainly take a high place among the classics of

popular science."--_Manchester Guardian._

_58. ELECTRICITY_

By GISBERT KAPP, D.Eng., Professor of Electrical Engineering

in the University of Birmingham. (Illustrated.) "It will be

appreciated greatly by learners and by the great number of

amateurs who are interested in what is one of the most

fascinating of scientific studies."--_Glasgow Herald._

_62. THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE_

By Dr BENJAMIN MOORE, Professor of Bio-Chemistry, University

College, Liverpool. "Stimulating, learned,

lucid."--_Liverpool Courier._

_67. CHEMISTRY_

By RAPHAEL MELDOLA, F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry in

Finsbury Technical College, London. Presents clearly,

without the detail demanded by the expert, the way in which

chemical science has developed, and the stage it has

reached.

_72. PLANT LIFE_

By Prof. J. B. FARMER, D.Sc., F.R.S. (Illustrated.)

"Professor Farmer has contrived to convey all the most vital

facts of plant physiology, and also to present a good many

of the chief problems which confront investigators to-day in

the realms of morphology and of heredity."--_Morning Post._

_78. THE OCEAN_

A General Account of the Science of the Sea. By Sir JOHN

MURRAY, K.C.B., F.R.S. (Illus.) "A life's experience is

crowded into this volume. A very useful feature is the ten

pages of illustrations and coloured maps at the

end."--_Gloucester Journal._

_79. NERVES_

By Prof. D. FRASER HARRIS, M.D., D.Sc. (Illustrated.) A

description, in non-technical language, of the nervous

system, its intricate mechanism and the strange phenomena of

energy and fatigue, with some practical reflections.

_Philosophy and Religion_

_15. MOHAMMEDANISM_

By Prof. D. S. MARGOLIOUTH, M.A., D.Litt. "This generous

shilling's worth of wisdom.... A delicate, humorous, and

most responsible tractate by an illuminative

professor."--_Daily Mail._

_40. THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY_

By the Hon. BERTRAND RUSSELL, F.R.S. "A book that the 'man

in the street' will recognise at once to be a boon....

Consistently lucid and non-technical

throughout."--_Christian World._

_47. BUDDHISM_

By Mrs RHYS DAVIDS, M.A. "The author presents very

attractively as well as very learnedly the philosophy of

Buddhism as the greatest scholars of the day interpret

it."--_Daily News._

_50. NONCONFORMITY: Its ORIGIN and PROGRESS_

By Principal _W. B. Selbie_, M.A. "The historical part is

brilliant in its insight, clarity, and proportion; and in

the later chapters Dr Selbie proves himself to be an ideal

exponent of sound and moderate views."--_Christian World._

_54. ETHICS_

By G. E. MOORE, M.A., Lecturer in Moral Science in Cambridge

University. "A very lucid though closely reasoned outline of

the logic of good conduct."--_Christian World._

_56. THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT_

By Prof. B. W. BACON, LL.D., D.D. "Professor Bacon has

boldly, and wisely, taken his own line, and has produced, as

a result, an extraordinarily vivid, stimulating, and lucid

book."--_Manchester Guardian._

_60. MISSIONS: THEIR RISE and DEVELOPMENT_

By Mrs CREIGHTON. "Very interestingly done.... Its style is

simple, direct, unhackneyed, and should find appreciation

where a more fervently pious style of writing

repels."--_Methodist Recorder._

_68. COMPARATIVE RELIGION_

By Prof. J. ESTLIN CARPENTER, D.Litt., Principal of

Manchester College, Oxford. "Puts into the reader's hand a

wealth of learning and independent thought."--_Christian

World._

_74. A HISTORY OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT_

By J. B. BURY, Litt.D., LL.D., Regius Professor of Modern

History at Cambridge. "A little masterpiece, which every

thinking man will enjoy."--_The Observer._

_84. LITERATURE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT_

By Prof. GEORGE MOORE, D.D., LL.D., of Harvard. A detailed

examination of the books of the Old Testament in the light

of the most recent research.

_Social Science_

_1. PARLIAMENT_

Its History, Constitution, and Practice. By Sir COURTENAY P.

ILBERT, G.C.B., K.C.S.I., Clerk of the House of Commons.

"The best book on the history and practice of the House of

Commons since Bagehot's 'Constitution.'"--_Yorkshire Post._

_5. THE STOCK EXCHANGE_

By F. W. HIRST, Editor of "The Economist." "To an

unfinancial mind must be a revelation.... The book is as

clear, vigorous, and sane as Bagehot's 'Lombard Street,'

than which there is no higher compliment."--_Morning

Leader._

_6. IRISH NATIONALITY_

By Mrs J. R. GREEN. "As glowing as it is learned. No book

could be more timely."--_Daily News._

_10. THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT_

By J. RAMSAY MACDONALD, M.P. "Admirably adapted for the

purpose of exposition."--_The Times._

_11. CONSERVATISM_

By LORD HUGH CECIL, M.A., M.P. "One of those great little

books which seldom appear more than once in a

generation."--_Morning Post._

_16. THE SCIENCE OF WEALTH_

By J. A. HOBSON, M.A. "Mr J. A. Hobson holds an unique

position among living economists.... Original, reasonable,

and illuminating."--_The Nation._

_21. LIBERALISM_

By L. T. HOBHOUSE, M.A., Professor of Sociology in the

University of London. "A book of rare quality.... We have

nothing but praise for the rapid and masterly summaries of

the arguments from first principles which form a large part

of this book."--_Westminster Gazette._

_24. THE EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRY_

By D. H. MACGREGOR, M.A., Professor of Political Economy in

the University of Leeds. "A volume so dispassionate in terms

may be read with profit by all interested in the present

state of unrest."--_Aberdeen Journal._

_26. AGRICULTURE_

By Prof. W. SOMERVILLE, F.L.S. "It makes the results of

laboratory work at the University accessible to the

practical farmer."--_Athenæum._

_30. ELEMENTS OF ENGLISH LAW_

By W. M. GELDART, M.A., B.C.L., Vinerian Professor of

English Law at Oxford. "Contains a very clear account of the

elementary principles underlying the rules of English

Law."--_Scots Law Times._

_38. THE SCHOOL: An Introduction to the Study of Education._

By J. J. FINDLAY, M.A., Ph.D., Professor of Education in

Manchester University. "An amazingly comprehensive

volume.... It is a remarkable performance, distinguished in

its crisp, striking phraseology as well as its inclusiveness

of subject-matter."--_Morning Post._

_59. ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY_

By S. J. CHAPMAN, M.A., Professor of Political Economy in

Manchester University. "Its importance is not to be measured

by its price. Probably the best recent critical exposition

of the analytical method in economic science."--_Glasgow

Herald._

_69. THE NEWSPAPER_

By G. BINNEY DIBBLEE, M.A. (Illustrated.) The best account

extant of the organisation of the newspaper press, at home

and abroad.

_77. SHELLEY, GODWIN, AND THEIR CIRCLE_

By H. N. BRAILSFORD, M.A. "Mr Brailsford sketches vividly

the influence of the French Revolution on Shelley's and

Godwin's England; and the charm and strength of his style

make his book an authentic contribution to

literature."--_The Bookman._

_80. CO-PARTNERSHIP AND PROFIT-SHARING_

By ANEURIN WILLIAMS, M.A.--"A judicious but enthusiastic

history, with much interesting speculation on the future of

Co-partnership."--_Christian World._

_81. PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE_

By E. N. BENNETT, M.A. Discusses the leading aspects of the

British land problem, including housing, small holdings,

rural credit, and the minimum wage.

_83. COMMON-SENSE IN LAW_

By Prof. P. VINOGRADOFF, D.C.L.

_85. UNEMPLOYMENT_

By Prof. A. C. PIGOU, M.A.

IN PREPARATION

_ANCIENT EGYPT._ By F. LL. GRIFFITH, M.A.

_THE ANCIENT EAST._ By D. G. HOGARTH, M.A., F.B.A.

_A SHORT HISTORY OF EUROPE._ By HERBERT FISHER, LL.D.

_THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE._ By NORMAN H. BAYNES.

_THE REFORMATION._ By President LINDSAY, LL.D.

_A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA._ By Prof. MILYOUKOV.

_MODERN TURKEY._ By D. G. HOGARTH, M.A.

_FRANCE OF TO-DAY._ By ALBERT THOMAS.

_HISTORY OF SCOTLAND._ By Prof. R. S. RAIT, M.A.

_LATIN AMERICA._ By Prof. W. R. SHEPHERD.

_HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF SPAIN._ By J. FITZMAURICE-KELLY, F.B.A.,

Litt. D.

_LATIN LITERATURE._ By Prof. J. S. PHILLIMORE.

_THE RENAISSANCE._ By Miss EDITH SICHEL.

_ITALIAN ART OF THE RENAISSANCE._ By ROGER E. FRY.

_LITERARY TASTE._ By THOMAS SECCOMBE.

_CHAUCER AND HIS TIME._ By Miss G. E. HADOW.

_WILLIAM MORRIS AND HIS CIRCLE._ By A. CLUTTON BROCK.

_SCANDINAVIAN HISTORY & LITERATURE._ By T. C. SNOW.

_THE MINERAL WORLD._ By Sir T. H. HOLLAND, K.C.I.E., D.Sc.

_SEX._ By Prof. J. A. THOMSON and Prof. PATRICK GEDDES.

_THE GROWTH OF EUROPE._ By Prof. GRENVILLE COLE.

_BETWEEN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS._ By Canon R. H. CHARLES, D.D.

_A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY._ By CLEMENT WEBB, M.A.

_POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Bacon to Locke._ By G. P. GOOCH, M.A.

_POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Bentham to J. S. Mill._ By Prof.

W. L. DAVIDSON.

_POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Herbert Spencer to To-day._ By

ERNEST BARKER, M.A.

_THE CRIMINAL AND THE COMMUNITY._ By Viscount ST. CYRES.

_THE CIVIL SERVICE._ By GRAHAM WALLAS, M.A.

_THE SOCIAL SETTLEMENT._ By JANE ADDAMS and R. A. WOODS.

_GREAT INVENTIONS._ By Prof. J. L. MYRES, M.A., F.S.A.

_TOWN PLANNING._ By RAYMOND UNWIN.

London: WILLIAMS AND NORGATE

_And of all Bookshops and Bookstalls._

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Minor typographical errors and inconsistencies have been silently

normalized except for the following:

Page 27: "eighth century and Judah in the beginning of the sixth".

"of" has been added.

Page 100: "saying much more that the facts warrant". "that" has been

changed to "than".

Page 139: "the festiva of Purim". "festiva" has been changed to

"festival".

Page 224: "the editor thought that Ps. cxxv i. 1 referred to the

building of the temple". "cxxv i" has been changed to "cxxvii" which

according to the context appears to be intended.