Feelings like those that inspired the Jewish chroniclers are still

more clearly visible in the history of Thibet than in that of China.

Here the orthodox compilers frequently inform us that the reign of a

king who observed the law and honored the clergy was distinguished

in a peculiarly high degree by the prosperity of the land and the

happiness of its people. Of one, for instance, who "entered the

portals of religion" at thirty-eight years of age, it is noted that

"he founded the constitution of the whole great nation on order, and

furthered its welfare and peace" (G. O. M., p. 201). His son made the

whole great nation happy by promoting religion and the laws (Ibid.,

p. 203). Another monarch receives a still higher panegyric. "By the

unbounded honor he showed towards the clergy, he exalted religion, so

that by the religious care which he bestowed on the inhabitants of

the snow-kingdom, the welfare of the people of Thibet equaled that of

the Tegri" (gods or spirits). A painful contrast is presented by his

successor on the throne, Lang-Dharma, who belonged to the heretical

"black religion," who destroyed the temples of Buddhism, persecuted

its adherents, burnt its books, and degraded its ministers. So impious

was he, that the very names of the three gems and of the four orders

of clergy ceased to be mentioned in the land. He met, however, with

his well-deserved punishment at the hands of a faithful Buddhist, who

assassinated him with a bow and arrow, at the same time using words

to the effect that, as Buddha overcame the unbelievers, so he had

killed the wicked king (Ibid., p. 49). Another king "showed respect

to the hidden sanctuaries, whereby his power and the welfare of the

land increased" (Ibid., p. 321). Comparable to Josiah in his piety and

reverence for the true religion was a king whose reign is described in

glowing language by his admiring historians. "This powerful ruler,"

they say, "who regarded the religion of Buddha as the most precious

gem, gave great freedoms and privileges to the clergy." He honored

temples and respected the pious endowments of his ancestors. Not only

did he punish thieves, robbers, and similar criminals, but if any man,

of high or low position, was inimical or ill-disposed towards the faith

he was deprived of his property and reduced to the greatest distress.

Some of those whose heresy was visited with this severe chastisement

were so unreasonable as to grumble, and pointed out that it was only

the clergy who were fattening on their misery and oppression. In saying

this they pointed at the spiritual men who passed by; whereupon the

faithful king issued a decree, saying, "It is strictly prohibited to

look contemptuously at my clergy and to point at them with the finger;"

whoever dared to do so was to have his eyes put out and his finger

cut off. Unfortunately "these orders of the pious king" led to the

formation of a party of malcontents, by two of whom he was strangled

in his sleep. The lamentations of the historian at this untoward

event are unmeasured. The power and strength of the Thibetan kingdom

ran away like the stream of spring waters; the happiness and welfare

of the people were extinguished like a lamp whose oil is exhausted;

the royal power and majesty vanished like the colors of the rainbow;

the black religion began to prevail like a destructive tempest; the

inclination to good dispositions and good deeds was forgotten like

a dream. Moreover, the translation of religious writings remained

unfinished—for this king had also resembled Josiah in his interest in

sacred books;—and those great men who adhered to the true religion

could only weep over its decline and fall (G. O. M., p. 361).

Not less pitiable was the fate of Judea under the irreligious monarchs

who followed upon Josiah. One was taken prisoner by the king of Egypt;

two others were carried off to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar; under the

fourth, the national independence was finally extinguished, and the

people reduced to a condition of captivity in a foreign land. This

calamity is distinctly ascribed to their neglect of the true religion,

and their contempt for the messengers of God (2 Chron. xxxvi. 14-17).

Strictly speaking, the history of the Jewish nation ends with the

Captivity. But there are still three books of a historical character in

the Old Testament, Ezra and Nehemiah, relating the fortunes of a small

number of Jews who returned to the land of their forefathers, when a

change of policy in their rulers rendered this return possible; and

Esther, containing the account of the reception of a Jewish woman into

the harem of a heathen king, and showing how ably she contrived to use

her influence in favor of the interests of her race.

SUBDIVISION 2.—_Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes._

The Book of Job, the Psalms attributed to David, and the Proverbs and

Ecclesiastes attributed to Solomon, resemble one another in teaching

religion and morality by the method of short sentences or maxims. They

do not, like the books we have just examined, convey their moral by

means of historical narrative; nor do they, like the prophets, impress

it in flowing and continuous rhetoric. Between the sober and even

course of the history, and the impassioned emotional torrents poured

out by the prophets, they occupy a medium position. They are more

introspective, more occupied with feelings and reflections, than the

first; more heedful of external nature, more able to contemplate facts,

apart from their peculiar construction of those facts, than the last.

Job is the story of a wealthy land-owner, concerning whom God and Satan

enter into a sort of wager; God, in the first instance, challenging

Satan to consider his piety and general good character, and Satan

replying that, if only his prosperity were destroyed, he would curse

God to his face. God then gives Satan leave to put his theory to the

test by attacks directed against Job's property, desiring at the same

time that his person may be spared. Job bears the loss of his wealth

with resignation; but at a second colloquy Satan insinuates that his

virtue would give way if his misfortunes extended to his person.

Hereupon God gives Satan leave to attack him in every respect so long

as he spares his life. Poor Job is accordingly covered with boils

from head to foot, and his patience, proof against poverty, breaks

down under this terrible infliction. He loudly curses the day of his

birth, and wishes he had died from the womb. After this introduction,

which, in its familiar conversations between Jehovah and the devil,

resembles the grotesque legends of the middle ages, the bulk of the

book is occupied with the complaints of Job, the discourses of his

three friends who come to comfort him, the reproaches directed against

his self-righteousness by a person named Elihu, and, finally, a long

address—containing as it were the moral of the tale—from the Almighty

himself. At the close of the book Job expresses his abhorrence of

himself and his profound repentance, and his former prosperity is

then not only restored but amplified to a high degree. He has seven

sons and three beautiful daughters, and dies one hundred and forty

years after the events narrated, having seen four generations of his

descendants. What was the effect on the mind of Satan of this result,

whether he considered himself defeated, or whether he was confirmed

in his malicious opinion that Job did not "fear God for nought," is

nowhere stated. But one of the most curious features of this book is

the picture it gives of that person, as a being not altogether bad,

though fond of mischief, taking a somewhat cynical view of the motives

of human conduct, and anxious, in the interests of his theory, to

try experiments upon a subject selected for him by his antagonist,

and therefore peculiarly likely to disappoint his expectations. It

does not appear that he had any desire to hurt Job further than was

necessary for his purpose, nor is there a trace of the bad character he

subsequently obtained as a mere devil, longing to involve men's souls

in eternal destruction.

In the Psalms we have a series of religious songs of varying

character—praising, blessing, supplicating, complaining, lamenting,

invoking good or evil upon others, according to the mood of the

several writers, or of the same writer at different seasons. Some of

them are of considerable beauty, and express much depth of religious

feeling. Others, again, are inspired by sentiments of malevolence, and

merely appeal to God in support of national or private animosities. As

examples of the latter class, take the 110th Psalm, supposed to have

been addressed to David, where it is predicted that "the Lord at the

right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath," and

that "he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound

the heads over many countries." In the immediately preceding Psalm,

the 109th, the writer is still more vindictive, and his enemy is more

exclusively his own. He begins by calling him "wicked," and says he has

spoken against him with a lying tongue. Premising that he is altogether

in the act of prayer, he prays against the adversary in somewhat

emphatic language:—

"Set thou a wicked man over him, and let the accuser stand at his

right hand. When he shall be judged, let him be found guilty, and let

his prayer become sin. Let his days be few, and let another take his

office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his

children wander about and beg, and seek food far from their desolate

places. Let the creditor catch all that he hath, and strangers rob the

fruit of his industry. Let there be none to extend mercy to him, and

let none be merciful to his fatherless children. Let his posterity be

cut off, and in the following generation let their name be blotted

out. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord, and

let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. Let them be before the

Lord continually, and let him cut off the memory of them from the

earth" (Psalms cix. 1-15).

In the following verse the enemy is declared to have persecuted the

poor and needy, and this is put forward as the excuse for imprecations

evidently inspired by personal ill-will. In another of these Psalms,

Jehovah is entreated to persecute the enemies of Israel with storm

and tempest, as fires burn up woods and flames set mountains on fire

(Psalms lxxxiii. 14, 15). Elsewhere the king is said to trust in the

Lord, and he therefore hopes that the Lord will find out his enemies,

and will make them as a fiery oven in the time of his anger; that the

fire will devour them; and that he will destroy their fruit from the

earth and their seed from among the children of men (Ps. xxi. 8-10).

Parallels to these Psalms of cursing may be met with in the Veda, just

as the Psalms in general are more nearly paralleled by the Vedic hymns

than by those of any other sacred book. One poet writes as follows:—

"Blinded shall ye be, O enemies, like headless snakes, and thus

plagued by Agni, may Indra always kill the best of you. Whatever

relation troubles us, whatever stranger wishes to kill us, him may

all the gods destroy; prayer is my powerful protection, my refuge and

powerful protection" (S. V., p. 297.—Sâma Veda, 2. 9. 3. 8).

Remarkably close is the similarity between the assertion of the Hindu

Rishi that prayer is his powerful protection, and that of the Hebrew

Psalmist that he is, or gives himself to, prayer. In another hymn

the aid of a goddess Apvā (said to mean "disease or fear") is invoked

against the enemies of the singer:—

"Bewildering the hearts of our enemies, O Apvā, take possession of

their limbs and pass onwards; come near, burn them with fires in

their hearts; may our enemies fall into blind darkness (O. S. T.,

vol. v. p. 110).... Attack, ye heroes, and conquer; may Indra grant

you protection; may our arm be productive of terror, that ye may be

unconquerable. Arrow-goddess, sharpened by prayer; fly past as when

shot off; reach the enemies; penetrate into them; let not even one

escape thee" (S. V., p. 297.—Sâma Veda, 2. 9. 3. 5).

But these expressions of hostility, directed apparently against enemies

who were engaged in actual war with the friends of the writer, make

no approach in the bitterness of their curses to the language of the

Psalmist when dealing with his personal foes. A parallel to this more

private enmity may be found in the Atharva-Veda, where the god Kama

is invoked to bring down the severest evils upon the objects of the

imprecation:—

"With oblations of butter I worship Kama, the mighty slayer of

enemies. Do thou, when lauded, beat down my foes by thy great might.

The sleeplessness which is displeasing to my mind and eye, which

harasses and does not delight me, that sleeplessness I let loose

upon my enemy. Having praised Kama, may I rend him. Kama, do thou,

a fierce lord, let loose sleeplessness, misfortune, childlessness,

homelessness, and want upon him who designs us evil.... May breath,

cattle, life, forsake them.... Indra, Agni, and Kama, mounted on

the same chariot, hurl ye down my foes; when they have fallen into

the nethermost darkness, do thou, Agni, burn up their dwellings.

Kama, slay my enemies; cast them down into thick [literally, blind]

darkness. Let them all become destitute of power and vigor, and not

live a single day.... Let them (my enemies) float downwards like a

boat severed from its moorings.... Do thou, Kama, drive my enemies

from this world by that [same weapon or amulet] wherewith the gods

repelled the Asuras, and Indra hurled the Dasyus into the nethermost

darkness" (O. S. T., vol. v. p. 404).

As corresponding to the many expressions to be found in the Psalms of

trust in God, of pious belief in his protection, and of sensibility to

his all-embracing knowledge, we may quote the language of a Chinese

monarch in one of the Odes of the She King. The first six lines are,

it appears, held by the current interpretation in China to contain the

admonition addressed by the ministers to the king, and the last six the

king's reply. But we may more reasonably suppose, with Dr. Legge, that

the whole Ode is spoken by the king himself:—

"Let me be reverent, let me be reverent [in attending to my duties];

[The way of] Heaven is evident,

And its appointment is not easily [preserved].

Let me not say that It is high aloft above me.

It ascends and descends about our doings;

It daily inspects us wherever we are.

I am [but as] a little child,

Without intelligence to be reverently [attentive to my duties];

But by daily progress and monthly advance,

I will learn to hold fast the gleams [of knowledge], till I arrive at

bright intelligence.

Assist me to bear the burden [of my position],

And show me how to display a virtuous conduct."[94]

We may fairly place this simple expression of the author's desire to

do his duty, and of his reverential consciousness that Heaven is ever

about us and "inspects us wherever we are," beside the words attributed

to David:—

"O Jehovah, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my

down-sitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar

off. Thou winnowest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with

all my ways" (Psalm cxxxix. 1-3).

We need not dwell upon the Proverbs, traditionally ascribed to Solomon,

but scarcely worthy of the renowned wisdom of that monarch. Some of

them are indeed shrewd and well expressed; others are commonplace; and

others again display more worldly wisdom than religion or virtue. Such

is the recommendation of bribery: "A gift in secret pacifieth anger,

and a reward in the bosom strong wrath" (Prov. xxi. 14); which, if

written by a king and dispenser of justice, would be a tolerably broad

hint to his loving subjects. It is noteworthy that Christ had studied

this book, and that it had sunk deep into his mind (_e. g._, Prov. xxv.

21, 22, and xxvii. 1). The two concluding chapters are not by the same

author, at least if we may believe in their superscriptions. In the

last of all, a king named Lemuel repeats for the benefit of posterity

the advice given him by his mother, and no doubt by many mothers to

many sons both before and after him, to be careful about women and not

to drink wine or spirituous liquors.

Ecclesiastes, or Koheleth, composed (according to Ewald) in the latter

end of the Persian dominion, is the work of a cynic who has had much

experience of the world, and has found it hollow and unsatisfactory.

He is not a man of very devout mind, and can find no comfort in the

ordinary commonplaces about the goodness of God, or the manner in which

misfortunes are sent as punishments for sin. There is much good sense

mixed with his lamentations over the vanity of life. He has seen all

the works done under the sun, and all are in his opinion "vanity and

vexation of spirit."

"Wisdom and knowledge do but bring more grief. Koheleth tried various

kinds of pleasure and found them vain too. He built, he planted, he

made pools of water. He procured men-servants and maid-servants, and

(as a natural consequence) had servants born in his house. All was

equally fruitless. But whatever a man does, he has nothing but sorrow

and grief. Even wisdom is of little use, for a dolt may inherit the

fruit of the wise man's labors. Men are no better than animals; they

all die equally; all return to the dust. Who can say that man's spirit

goes upwards, and the animal's downwards? Just men are often rewarded

like wicked men, and wicked men like just ones; this is one of the

many vanities on earth. So then the best thing a man can do is to eat,

drink, and enjoy life with an agreeable wife; for this life is all he

has. Once dead, there is no further consciousness, or participation in

anything that is going on. Whatever a man's hand finds to do, let him

do it with all his might; for there is neither action nor knowledge

in the grave. It is well to remember God in youth before the evil days

come. Words of the wise are as goads, but book-making and preaching

are both of them a bore." Lastly, Koheleth concludes with the pious

advice to the young man whom he is addressing, to fear God and keep his

commandments, for that God will judge every action, be it good or be it

bad.

SUBDIVISION 3.—_The Song of Solomon._[95]

It is a singularly fortunate circumstance that the Song of Songs, a

little work of an altogether secular nature and wholly unlike any

other portion of the Hebrew Scriptures, should have been admitted into

the Canon. Whatever may have been the delusion, whether its reputed

Solomonian authorship or some other theory about it, under which it

obtained this privilege, we owe it to this mistake that the solitary

example of the Jewish drama in existence should have been preserved for

the instruction of modern readers. I say modern readers, because it

is not until quite recently that the dramatic character of this piece

has been ascertained and established beyond reasonable doubt. Thanks

to the scholarship of Germany and France, we are now able to read the

Song in the light of common sense. The stern theology of Judaism is

for once laid aside, and we have before us a common love-story such

as might happen among any Gentile and unbelieving race. A young girl,

called a Sulamite, who is attached to a young man of her own rank in

life, has been carried off to the harem of Solomon against her will.

She is indifferent to the splendor of the royal palace, and resists

the amorous advances of the king. Thus she succeeds in "keeping her

vineyard;" and is rewarded by rejoining her shepherd lover in her

native village. The play is not without beauty, although it evinces

a somewhat primitive condition of the drama at the time of its

composition.

SUBDIVISION 4.—_The Prophets._

We have in the prophetical books a class of writings altogether

peculiar to the Hebrew Scriptures. The prophets were men who during

the whole course of the Hebrew monarchy, and even long after its

close, acted as the inspired organs of the Almighty; admonishing,

reproving, warning, or counseling in his name. At first the method

by which the revelations they received were made known by them, was

oral communication. Writing was not employed by them as an instrument

of prophetic discourse until after the earliest and most flourishing

stage of the monarchy was past. Perhaps they were the most powerful

of the prophets who addressed their exhortations directly to those

for whom they were intended in eloquent discourse or timely parable.

Such prophets were Samuel, Nathan, Elijah, and Elisha, at the courts

of the several kings in whose days they lived. Prophecy had declined a

little in its influence on the people when its representatives betook

themselves to the calmer method of written composition. Nevertheless,

some of the prophets who have left us their works in writing continued

at the same time to employ the older instrument of spoken addresses.

Isaiah and Jeremiah are conspicuous instances of this employment of

the two organs of communication downwards. During this same period

there were many prophets who trusted exclusively to writing; while

in the latest stage of prophetical inspiration, oral instruction was

altogether dropped, and literary means alone were employed to make

known the mind of Jehovah to his chosen people.

The constant theme of all the prophets whose works have come down to

us is the future greatness of the Hebrew race; their complete triumph

over all their enemies; the glory of their ultimate condition, and the

confusion or destruction of those who have opposed their march to this

final victory. The human agent by whom this great revolution is to be

effected is the Messiah. He is the destined weapon in the hand of God

by whom Jewish religion, Jewish institutions, and Jewish rulers are

to attain that supremacy over heathen religion, heathen institutions,

and heathen rulers which is their natural birthright. Continual

disappointment had no effect upon these sanguine expectations. The

Messiah _must_ come, Israel _must_ be victorious over every other

nation that came in the way: this was the word of God, and it could not

fail to be fulfilled. Troubles of many kinds might beset the people in

the meantime; but of the attainment of the goal at last there could be

no doubt.

Of course this ever-recurring burden of the prophetic song is varied

by many strains on subordinate or outlying topics. The prophets

constantly refer to the events of the day, and use them for their own

purposes. They reprove the sins of kings and people, endeavoring to

show that these bring upon them the misfortunes from which they suffer

and which postpone the day of their triumph over the Gentiles. They

connect special calamities with special offenses. They indicate the

conduct which under existing circumstances ought to be pursued. They

draw eloquent and beautiful pictures of the state of their own and of

foreign countries. And they endeavor to raise the popular conceptions

of the majesty of God, of his character, and his requirements, to the

level they have themselves attained.

Turning now to the individual books which have come down to us in

the Canon, and which must by no means be taken as comprehending all

the works of the prophets who wrote their prophecies, we find that

the oldest of these is that of Joel, the son of Pethuel.[96] Joel is

supposed by the highest authority to have lived in the time of King

Jehoash, or Joash, who is praised for his devout obedience to Jehoiada,

the priest (2 Kings, xii). His prophecy was occasioned by a devastation

of locusts. Locusts had wasted the land for some years, and there had

been drought at the same time. On the occasion of a long drought Joel

feared a fresh invasion of locusts, and therefore summoned his people

to a festival of repentance at the temple. This festival occurred,

and rain soon followed (P. A. B., vol. i. p. 87 ff.). Here the old

notion of a direct connection between the attention paid by the people

to Jehovah and his care for them is almost grotesquely manifested.

Locusts are to be averted by fasting; rain obtained by rather more than

usual devotion to God. On the other hand, the more spiritual view of

religion to which the prophets generally tend, is shown in the order

to the people to rend their hearts and not their garments. After thus

attending to immediate necessities, Joel in stirring language exhorts

the people to war, hoping that they would thus get rid of the foreign

oppressors who had broken into the sunken kingdom of David. He bids

them beat their plough-shares into swords, and their pruning-hooks into

spears, and desires the weak to say that they are strong. He promises

his people revenge over their enemies, and holds out the cheering

prospect of a time when, instead of their sons and daughters being sold

as slaves to strangers, they will themselves make slaves of the sons

and daughters of the heathen.

Some short passages subsequently embodied by Isaiah in his works are

considered by Ewald to belong to the same early age as Joel. The

next complete prophet, however, in order of time, was Amos, whose

revelations applied to the northern kingdom and threatened it with

invasion by the Assyrians. Amos in fact utters a series of threatening

predictions against various peoples, and his tone is mainly that

of reproof. While, however, he foretells the captivity of Israel,

and holds out nothing but the most depressing prospects of ruin and

misery throughout the bulk of his book, he falls at the end into the

accustomed strain of hopeful exultation. "The tabernacle of David"

is to be raised up; Israel is to be supreme over the heathen; and

the Israelites are not to be disturbed again from the land which

God has given them, where exuberant prosperity is to be their lot.

Incidentally, Amos tells us a little of his personal history, which is

not without interest. He attributes his consecration to the prophetic

office to the direct intervention of Jehovah. He had originally no

connection with other prophets, but was a simple herdsman, and was

employed to gather sycamore fruit. But Jehovah took him while he was

following the flock, and said, "Go, prophecy unto my people Israel."

His is thus a typical case of the belief in immediate inspiration, and

he is an example of the kind of character which led to the existence

among the Israelites of the peculiar and powerful class who were holy,

but not consecrated. Amos also tells us of a quarrel he had had with

Amaziah, a priest at the court of Jeroboam. This priest had complained

of his dismal predictions to the king, and had bidden him go to Judah

and prophecy there. In return for this evidence of hostility Amos

informs the priest that his wife is to become a prostitute in the town,

that his sons and his daughters are to fall by the sword, that his

land is to be divided by lot, and that he himself is to die on polluted

soil (Amos vii. 10-17). Such were the courtesies that passed between

rival teachers of religion at the court of Jeroboam.

Hosea also tells us something of his personal affairs, more especially

of his matrimonial relations, in which he was far from fortunate. We

feel, in his opening chapters, the soreness of a husband whose wife has

contemned his company and sought the amusement of a troop of lovers.

Gomer, in fact, was shockingly unfaithful, and Hosea uses her as a

type of the infidelity of Israel to Jehovah. At length she deserted

him altogether, and went to another house, but he brought her back as

a slave and put her under strict conjugal discipline. In like manner

is Israel to return to her God, whom she has deserted for a time, and

under the influence of God's love, freely bestowed after his anger

has passed away, is to enjoy a period of great prosperity. Hosea, it

will be observed, belonged to the northern kingdom, and his book is

preëminently the Ephraimitic book of prophecy. But he wrote it in

Judah. He worked in the north at two distinct epochs, first towards the

close of Jeroboam II.'s reign, afterwards in the time of Zachariah,

Shallum, and Menahem (P. A. B., vol. i. p. 171 ff.).

An anonymous prophet, contemporary with Isaiah, stands next in order

of time. He is the author of Zechariah ix.-xi. inclusive, and of

Zechariah chap. xiii. ver. 7-9 (P. A. B., vol i. p. 247 ff.). These

chapters contain the first distinct announcement of the advent of the

Messiah, who is described in the famous prediction of a King coming to

Jerusalem on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of an ass. Here too we

find the curious allegory of the two staves, Beauty and Bands, whereof

one was broken by the prophet in token of the breach of his covenant

with all the nations; the other, in token of the rupture of fraternal

relations between Israel and Judah. In the course of this allegory, the

prophet demands his price, thirty pieces of silver, and throws it into

the temple treasure; a passage which, by an accidental obscurity in

the Hebrew, has been mistranslated as referring, not to the treasure,

but to "the potter in the house of Lord," and then misapplied to the

betrayal of Christ and the purchase of the potter's field.

In the concluding words of this prophet it is announced that two-thirds

of the people will perish, but that the remaining third will, after

refining and trial, be accepted by God as his own people.

We enter now upon the consideration of a prophet who stands in the

foremost rank of those distinguished leaders of opinion whose works

have been included in the Canon. There is no greater name among the

prophets of Israel than that of Isaiah. But in speaking of Isaiah we

must not fall into the confusion of including under his writings the

compositions of a prophet of far later date, which have been mistakenly

bound up with his. Isaiah himself cannot receive credit for all that is

published in his name. But that which he has actually left us is enough

to entitle him to admiration as a master of rhetoric.

Isaiah lived in the reign of Hezekiah, and enjoyed a position of high

public consideration. Some of his prophetic sayings he wrote down soon

after he had uttered them; others not till long after. He had begun to

come forward as a prophet in the last year of the reign of Uzziah. When

he had labored a long time in his vocation of teacher, he determined to

collect his sayings in a book. His oldest work was written about the

year 740 B. C., just after the accession of the young and weak Ahaz

at Jerusalem, when the Assyrians had rendered the northern kingdom

tributary but had not yet come to Judea. His second was written

apparently in the reign of Hezekiah, in 724; and his third in the days

of the same king, when the service of Jehovah had been restored. Such

at least are the conclusions of the highest living authority on the

literature of the Hebrew race (P. A. B., vol. i. p. 271 ff.).

The earliest stratum discernible (according to that authority) in the

Book of Isaiah is from chap. ii. 2 to chap. v. inclusive, and chap ix.

7-x. 4. The last five verses of chap. v. should not be taken along with

the rest of the chapter, but should follow upon chap. x. 4 (Ibid.,

vol. i. p. 286 ff.). These passages begin with a beautiful description

of the happiness of the Israelites in the days of their coming glory,

when the mountain of the Lord's house will be established on the top of

the mountains, and exalted above the hills; and when all nations will

flow to it, to worship and to learn the true faith. It is remarkable

as evidence of the wide distinction between the view of Joel and that

of Isaiah, that Isaiah exactly reverses the image of his predecessor,

declaring that swords will be beaten into plough-shares and spears into

pruning-hooks. Joel was looking to the necessities of the immediate

present; Isaiah to the prospects of the future. These chapters also

contain an amusing ironical account of the finery of the Jerusalem

ladies, which might apply with slight alterations to the rich women of

all ages and countries. No doubt it was very offensive to Isaiah that

they should go about with necks erect and wanton eyes, walking with a

mincing gait; but a prophet who should threaten the women of London

or Paris with scab on the head and the exposure of their persons on

account of sins like these, would certainly bring more reprobation

on himself than on them. But manners in Isaiah's days were not so

delicate. A time is predicted when Jehovah will wash away the filth of

Zion's daughters, and when all in Jerusalem shall be called holy.

In the second part of his book (chap. vi. 1, chap. ix. 6, and chap.

xvii. 1-11) Isaiah gives an interesting, though only figurative,

account of his consecration to the prophetic office. In the year of

King Uzziah's death he says he saw the Lord sitting on his throne with

a train so long as to fill the temple. When he cried out that he was

undone, for that he, a man of unclean lips, had seen the King, the

Lord of hosts, a seraph flew up to him with a live coal in a pair of

tongs, laid the coal on his mouth, and told him that his iniquity was

now taken away and his sin purged. After this the voice of the Lord

was heard inquiring whom he should send, and Isaiah offered to take

the post of his ambassador: "Here am I, send me." The proposal was

accepted, and he at once received his instructions from headquarters.

The prophet began to preach in the manner desired, and among much

discouraging matter he uttered the magnificent description of the

Messiah, which is familiar to all:—

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the

government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called

Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the

Prince of Peace."

Isaiah's third work (composed in the reign of Hezekiah) begins at

the first chapter of the canonical book. It opens with a pathetic

lamentation over the infidelity of the children of Israel to their

God, and proceeds at chap. xiv. 28 to recount a "burden" which came in

the death-year of King Ahaz. A prophecy by which a much older prophet

(belonging, as is supposed, to the time of Joel) is embodied in "the

burden of Moab," and extends through chap. xv. and chap. xvi. 7-12,

after which Isaiah, having mentioned that this was formerly the word

of the Lord about Moab, proceeds to say that his present word is that

within three years the glory of Moab shall be contemned. The latter

part of chap. xxi. (ver. 11-17), dealing with Dumah and Arabia, also

belongs to this period.

Further divisions are distinguishable in the writings of Isaiah after

these three parts have been separated from the rest. Thus, we have a

fourth division consisting of the 22d and 23d chapters, and containing

a personal attack on Shebna and a prediction of the fall of Tyre. A

fifth division, from chap. xxviii. to xxxii. inclusive, ends with a

beautiful description of the happier time that is to come, when the

fruit of justice will be peace, and the result of justice quietness and

security, when the people will dwell in sure habitations and untroubled

abodes. There is another writing, the sixth in order, which begins at

chap. x. 5, and extends, in the first instance, to the end of chap.

xii. This prophecy is remarkable, even in this eloquent book, for

the marvelous eloquence with which, in his visions of future glory,

the inspired seer depicts the government of the "rod out of the stem

of Jesse," the "Branch" that is to "grow out of his roots," in whose

reign the wild beasts will no longer persecute their prey, nor Ephraim

and Judah keep up the memory of their ancient feud; who will cause

his beloved people to put the Philistines to flight, to conquer Edom

and Moab, and reduce the children of Ammon to submission. Prophecies

directed against Ethiopia and Egypt (chap. xvii. 12-xviii. 7, and chap.

xx.) belong to the same portion of Isaiah's collected works. Threats

against the Assyrians are contained in additional chapters, namely,

chap. xxxiii. and chap. xxxvii. 22-35. Lastly, a seventh portion of

Isaiah consists of chap. xix., which, after holding out the prospect

of great misfortunes to Egypt, ends in a somewhat unusual strain by

admitting both Egyptians and Assyrians to be equal sharers with the

Israelites in the ultimate prosperity of the earth, and declaring that

the Lord himself will bless them all, saying, "Blessed be Egypt my

people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance."

It should be noted that, if Ewald's supposition be correct, the

first four sections of the work, thus decomposed into its several

constituents, were edited by Isaiah himself, while the fifth, sixth,

and seventh were added by subsequent compilers to the collection he had

left behind (P. A. B., vol. i. p. 488).

A very short prophecy called by Obadiah's name follows upon the genuine

writings of Isaiah in chronological order. It is in fact anonymous. In

its present form it belongs to the time of the Captivity. The object of

the unknown prophet was to reprove the Idumeans for rejoicing in and

profiting by the destruction of Jerusalem. In his writing he embodied

an older prophecy by the actual Obadiah, referring to a calamity that

had befallen Edom, when a part of its territory had been surprised

and completely plundered by a people with whom it had just been in

alliance. The same old piece was used by Jeremiah (chap. xlix. 7) in

his prophecy upon Edom (Ib., vol. i. p. 489 ff.).

Micah, the next prophet, was a younger contemporary of Isaiah,

but lived in the country. When he wrote the northern kingdom was

approaching its end, and he threatens Judah with chastisement and

destruction. He foresaw the fulfillment of Messianic hopes as arising

only from the ruin of the existing order of things. No more than

the first five chapters are by Micah himself (Ib., vol. i. p. 498

ff.). His book is remarkable for the extremely warlike description

he gives of Messianic happiness. Many other prophets conceive it as

an important element in that happiness that the Israelites shall be

victorious over their enemies; but few, if any, have come up to Micah

in the fervor with which he foretells the desolation, the carnage, the

utter suppression of rival nations, which will accompany that age. The

author of the scenes of blood will be the ruler who is to come from

Bethlehem-Ephratah. The prophet who has added the last two chapters

also looks forward to an age when Jehovah will at length perform his

promises to Abraham and Jacob, to the terror of the unbelieving nations.

Next after Micah stands Nahum. The occasion of his prophecy was a

hostile attack directed against Nineveh. He must have seen the danger

with his own eyes, and he was therefore a descendant of one of the

Israelites who had been carried off to Assyria. He evidently lived far

from Palestine, and was familiar with Assyrian affairs. Elkosh, where

the inscription places his residence, was a little town on the Tigris.

His book may refer to the siege of Nineveh by the Median king Phraortes

about six hundred and thirty-six (P. A. B., vol. ii. p. 1). The

interest of Nahum's prophecy is merely local; he does not rise beyond

the politics of the hour, and we need not therefore stop to examine

his utterances in detail. It may be noted, however, that an expression

which has become famous through its adoption by a much later prophet,

"Behold, upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings,

that publisheth peace," is first found in Nahum.

Zephaniah's prophecy arose out of a great movement of nations. He lived

in the reign of Josiah, but wrote before the reformation effected by

that monarch. The movement alluded to by him must have been the great

irruption of the Scythians mentioned by Herodotus as having interrupted

the siege of Nineveh by Kyaxares, King of the Medes (Herod., i. 103).

These last days of the Assyrian kingdom gave rise to long disturbances

in which the Chaldeans became conquerors (P. A. B., vol. ii. p. 14).

After various threatenings against divers people, the prophecy of

Zephaniah ends with a beautiful vision of the age to come, when the

suppliants of Jehovah will come from beyond the rivers of Ethiopia; and

when a virtuous and happy remnant will be left in Israel.

When Habakkuk, the next prophet, wrote his thoughts, and composed

the public prayer or psalm which forms his concluding chapter, the

Chaldeans were already in the land. This "bitter and hasty nation" was

quite a new phenomenon there. Habakkuk lived after the reformation of

Josiah, and therefore in the reign of Jehoiakim (Ib., vol. ii. p. 29).

He seems to have written to plead with the Almighty for deliverance,

and to express unabated confidence in him; and he hoped that his

words, set to music and sung in public worship, would induce him to

abate his anger as manifested in the Chaldean scourge.

An anonymous prophet (Ib., vol. ii. p. 52) (Zechariah xiii. 1-xiii.

6, and xiv.) predicts the siege and capture of Jerusalem, with all

the miserable incidents of conquest: the rifling of her houses, the

ravishing of her women, the condemnation to captivity of half her

inhabitants. Like other prophets, however, he looks forward in sanguine

anticipation to a day when the heathen nations who now make war upon

Jerusalem will regularly go up there every year to worship Jehovah, and

keep the feast of tabernacles. At least if any of them do not, they

will have no rain. In that glorious age the very pots in the Lord's

house will be like the bowls for offerings; nay, every pot in Judah and

Jerusalem will be holy to the Lord of hosts.

We pass now to the consideration of a prophet who stands second in

eminence only to Isaiah, and to the unknown author of the later work

which in the Canon is included in the Book of Isaiah. Jeremiah began

to prophesy in the thirteenth year of Josiah, and continued to do so

during the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah. His active life, like that

of Isaiah, extended over a period of half a century (P. A. B., vol. ii.

p. 63 ff.). It is noteworthy that Jeremiah was a priest, and therefore

combined in his person the double qualification of consecration and of

exceptional holiness: that is, he was consecrated to Jehovah, and also

appointed expressly by Jehovah. The manner of his appointment to be

a holy person resembles the manner of the appointment of Isaiah. The

word of the Lord came to him, saying, that before God had formed him in

the belly he had known him, and before he had come forth from the womb

he had sanctified him, and ordained him a prophet unto the nations.

Jeremiah objected that he was but a child. But Jehovah told him not

to say he was a child, for that he was to go where he was sent, and

speak what he was commanded. He was not to be afraid of men's faces,

for he, the Lord, would deliver him. Then he touched Jeremiah's mouth

with his hand, and said: "Behold, I put my words in thy mouth. See, I

appoint thee this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root

out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build and

to plant." After this solemn dedication to his duties Jeremiah was

certainly endowed with the fullest qualifications for the prophetic

office. He immediately began to see images; namely, a rod of an

almond-tree and a seething pot, and it continued afterwards to be one

of his characteristics to employ material imagery of this nature for

the purpose of illustrating the truths he had to communicate.

After this introduction, we have a long section of the work, namely,

from the second chapter to the twenty-fourth, beginning with the

prophecies of the thirteenth year of Josiah. Among other things this

portion includes Jeremiah's bitter imprecation upon his personal

enemies, the "men of Anathoth," on whom he begs to be permitted to

witness the vengeance of God, and concerning whom he receives the

consoling assurance that their young men will die by the sword, and

their sons and daughters by famine, and that there will not be a

remnant left. This section contains also the terrible prayer against

those who "devised devices" against Jeremiah, in other words, did

not believe in his predictions. In its intense intolerance, in its

unblushing disclosure of private malignity, in its unscrupulous

enumeration of the ills desired for these opponents of the prophet, it

is perhaps unrivaled in theological literature. To do Jeremiah justice

it ought to be quoted at length:—

"Give heed to me, O Jehovah, and listen to the voice of my opponents.

Shall evil be recompensed for good, that they dig a pit for my life?

Remember how I stood before thee, to speak a good word for them, to

turn away thy wrath from them. Therefore give their sons to famine,

and deliver them into the power of the sword; and let their wives be

bereaved of their children and widowed, and let their men be put to

death; let their young men be slain by the sword in battle. Let a

cry be heard from their houses, when thou suddenly bringest troops

upon them; for they have digged a pit to take me, and hid snares for

my feet. Yet thou, Jehovah, knowest all their counsel against me to

slay me; and blot not out their sin from thy sight, and let them be

overthrown before thee; deal with them in the time of thine anger"

(Jer. xviii. 19-23).

In another chapter there is a curious account of an incident with

Pashur, superintendent of the Temple, who had caused Jeremiah to be

put in stocks for a day. Jeremiah complains bitterly of the treatment

he meets with on account of his prophesying, and wishes to resign

the office, but the impulse proves too strong for him. He consoles

himself with a pious hope that Jehovah will let him see his vengeance

on his enemies (Jer. xx. 1-12). He continues to predict misfortunes,

but intermingles with his gloomier forebodings a fine vision of the

time when God shall gather together the remnant of his flock from

the countries to which he has driven them, and raise up "a righteous

Branch" of the house of David, who will reign and prosper, who will

execute justice and equity, in whose days Judah will be saved, and

Israel dwell secure (Jer. xxiii. 2-6).

In a third section of his work (chap. xlvi. 1-12, and chap. xlvii. 49)

Jeremiah deals with foreign nations, and then (in chap. xxv.) declares

that he has been prophesying a long time without being able to get the

Jews to listen to him, foretells their subjugation by Nebuchadnezzar,

and (rather unfortunately for his own and Jehovah's reputation for

correct foresight) commits himself to the definite term of seventy

years as the duration of the coming captivity. A wise prophet would

have kept within the safe region of vagueness, where he could not come

into collision with awkward dates nor drive orthodox interpreters into

such pitiable straits as those in which Ewald, for example, finds

himself, when he is compelled to say that seventy years is a perfectly

general indication of a future that cannot be more precisely fixed, and

that it merely refers to the third generation from the writer (P. A.

B., vol. ii. p. 230). The remainder of this section (chap. xxvi.-xxix.)

relates certain encounters with other prophets whose predictions had

turned out false, and one of whom, as Jeremiah exultingly relates, died

during the year, exactly as Jeremiah had declared he would. Interesting

evidence is supplied by these chapters of the existence of numerous

prophets who differed from each other, and between whose claims only

the event could decide.

In the fourth section (chap. xxx.-xxxv.) Jeremiah prophesies the

restoration of Israel, and tells his readers how he bought a field

from his cousin on the strength of his hopes that the captivity would

have an end. A fifth part (chaps. xxxvi., xlv.) relates to Baruch,

Jeremiah's secretary; and an appendix (chap. xxxvii.-xliv., and chap.

xlvi. 13-28) contains historical matter, and predictions about Egypt,

but concludes with the usual promise of the ultimate return of the

Jewish nation to its ancestral home.

The last chapter of Jeremiah is purely historical, and, like the

historical portions of Isaiah, need not be considered under the

prophets; but it must be noted that chaps. l. and li. are not by

Jeremiah, being the work of a much later writer, who lived in

Palestine, and who composed them to show that the words of the genuine

Jeremiah were fulfilled in the destruction of Babylon by the Medes,

which was taking place at this time (P. A. B., vol. iii. p. 140 ff.).

The small Book of Lamentations over the unhappy fate of Jerusalem,

ascribed to Jeremiah, is an artistic attempt to embody the grief of

the writer in a song of which each verse begins with a new letter, in

alphabetical order.

We pass now to the prophet Ezekiel, a Jew who was taken into captivity

with Jehoiachin, and lived at a small town of Mesopotamia. He felt the

first prophetic impulses in the fifth year of the Captivity (Ib., vol.

ii. p. 322 ff.). At this time the heavens were opened; he saw visions,

and the word of the Lord came expressly to him. Such was the nature of

his consecration. The first section of Ezekiel extends from chap. i. to

xxiv., and contains utterances about Israel before the destruction of

Jerusalem. The second section (chap. xxv.-xxxii.) deals with foreign

nations, and the third (chap. xxxiii.-xlviii.) holds out promises of

restoration.

Ezekiel is very inferior to his great predecessors, Isaiah and

Jeremiah. He has neither the fervid, manly oratory of the first nor

the pathetic, though rather soft and feminine flow of the second. He

takes pleasure in rather coarse images, such as that of the bread baked

with human dung (Ezek. iv), that of Jehovah with his two concubines,

who bore him sons and vexed him with their licentious conduct (Ezek.

xxiii), or that of the child whose navel was not cut, who grew up into

a woman, over whom Jehovah spread his skirt and covered her nakedness

(Ezek. xvi. 8). And in general, Ezekiel is particularly prone to

teaching by means of similes and illustrations. Sometimes he sees

visions in which God explains his meaning; at other times he acts in a

manner which is designed to be typical of coming events. Thus, on one

occasion, he openly brings out his furniture for removal, as a sign to

the rebellious house of Israel (Ezek. xii. 1-7).

As in Jeremiah, so in Ezekiel we find traces of hostility towards

rival prophets, whom he denounces in no measured terms. It is

interesting, too, to observe that there were female prophets in his

day, who prophesied out of their own hearts. To them also he conveys

the reprobation of the Almighty (Ezek. xiii). The form in which he

looks forward to the restoration of Israel and Judah to their homes,

is somewhat different from that in which it was expected by his

predecessors. In a very singular vision, he relates that his God took

him into a valley which was full of bones, and told him that these

were the bones of the whole house of Israel. Ezekiel is then informed

that God will open the graves of the dead, and cause these bones to

live again, and will bring them to the land of Israel. Afterwards, he

is told to join two sticks into one, this junction representing the

future union of Ephraim and Judah, who are to be gathered from among

the heathen, and are to form one nation governed by one king. That

king is to be David, who will be their prince forever. God will make

an everlasting covenant of peace with them, and put his sanctuary in

their midst for evermore. Here the resurrection of the dead, and the

return of David, instead of the appearance of a new king, are peculiar

features.

An anonymous prophet is supposed to have written Isaiah xxi. 1-10, and

another Isaiah xiii. 2-xiv. 23, the latter referring to Babylon, and

containing the imaginary exultation of the restored Israelites over the

fallen Babylonians. After these fragments we have the work of one who

is perhaps the greatest of all the prophets, but who also is unknown

to us by name. As the most fitting description we may perhaps call

him the anonymous prophet. The whole of the latter portion of Isaiah,

from chap. xl. to the end, is his work. The anonymous prophet lived

in Egypt. His peculiar conception was that Israel was the servant of

the Lord for the peace and the salvation of nations, as Kyros was his

servant in war (P. A. B., vol. iii. p. 20 ff.). Alike in beauty of

language and sublimity of thought he is supreme among the writers of

the Hebrew Bible. He is the prophet of sorrow: yet also the prophet of

consolation. Whether by a curious accident, or whether by virtue of

a tendency (not uncommon among truly great writers) to withdraw his

personality from observation and confine himself wholly to the message

he had to deliver, he tells us nothing of himself. Hence he has for

centuries been hidden behind the figure of Isaiah, whom nevertheless

he surpasses in the purity of his ideal. To him we owe the beautiful

passage beginning "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people," with the

description afterwards applied by Jesus Christ to John the Baptist.

From him also we have the most exalted conceptions of the Messiah,

the moral element in his character being raised as compared with the

element of material power, to a height hitherto unexampled in prophetic

vision. Take, for instance, this description of his mildness combined

with indomitable perseverance:—

"He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the

street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall

he not quench; he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not

fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth, and

the isles shall wait for his law" (Is. xlii. 2-4).

It is the anonymous prophet, too, who has given us the familiar

passage, "He is despised and rejected of men;" a passage describing

the career of a great man whose teachings involved him in persecution

and ultimately in martyrdom, but nowise applicable to the Messiah.

That a historical incident, known to the writer, is alluded to in this

touching account of suffering goodness, admits of no reasonable doubt.

The anonymous prophet is preëminently the prophet of consolation.

Living in the days of Kyros and of the restoration of the Temple, he

had the elements of soothing speech ready to his hand; and as his

predecessors had prophesied destruction and woe, occasionally varied

with strains of hope, so he prophesies in strains of hope, occasionally

varied with sterner language. It is his especial mission to heal the

wounds that have been made in the spirit of Judah. God had indeed

forsaken her for a while; but he will now take her back as a deserted

wife, who had suffered her punishment. He had hidden his face in a

little wrath for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will he now

have mercy upon her (Is. liv. 5-7). The concluding chapter of the

anonymous prophet contains a magnificent description of the ultimate

gathering of all nations and tongues, when Jerusalem will be the

central point of human worship, and the glory of God will be seen by

all. The picture is not indeed unmingled with darker shades, for great

numbers are to be destroyed by Jehovah in his indignation. On the other

hand, there is a trait exhibiting the superiority of this prophet to

his predecessors in toleration for the Gentiles: namely, the remarkable

prediction that some of them also are to be priests and Levites (Is.

lxvi. 12-24). The man who could utter this sentiment had made a

signal advance upon the ordinary narrow and exclusive notions of the

prerogatives of the Jewish race.

It was mentioned that the fiftieth and fifty-first chapters of Jeremiah

were added by a later hand. The same hand (in Ewald's opinion) composed

the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth chapters of Isaiah, of which the

second describes in very eloquent terms the coming glory, when "the

ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs, and

everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness,

and sorrow and sighing shall flee away" (Is. xxxv. 10). Another unknown

writer (Isaiah xxiv.-xxvii.) predicts in the first place the desolation

which the Lord is about to effect, and then the happiness of the Jews

who will be brought to their own land again, to worship Jehovah in the

holy mount at Jerusalem. One of his expressions, "He will swallow up

death in victory," has been adopted by St. Paul; another, "The Lord

God will wipe away tears from off all faces," by the author of the

Apocalypse.

The interest of Haggai's prophecy is purely special: it refers to the

building of the temple at Jerusalem in the reign of Darius. It was the

unexpected obstacles by which the building was hindered that kindled

his zeal; he made his five speeches in three months of the same year.

Probably he had not seen the first temple, and he left his prophetic

work to his younger contemporary Zechariah (P. A. B., vol. iii. p. 177

ff.).

Zechariah also lived in the time of Darius, and dealt principally with

the building of the temple (Ib., vol. iii. p. 187 ff.). A series of

visions which he professes to see shows how his mind was running upon

this absorbing theme; and he even expects the Messiah, whom Isaiah and

Jeremiah had called a Branch of David, and whom he more emphatically

terms _the_ Branch, to appear at the head of affairs and to carry the

works to their completion (Zech., 8, and vi. 12). He supposes that he

will then sit and rule upon his throne; a priest will be beside him,

and there will be a counsel of peace between these two—the monarch and

his ecclesiastical minister (Zech., vi. 13).

It was probably more than half a century later that the short book

bearing the title of Malachi was written. The true name of its author

is unknown, and that of Malachi, my messenger, was taken by its editor

from the first verse of the third chapter (P. A. B., vol. iii. p.

214 ff.). He is not a prophet of a high calibre, as is shown by his

denunciation, already quoted, of those among the Jews who offered

Jehovah their least valuable cattle. Nor is his conception of the

Messianic epoch in any way comparable to that of the great prophets

whose works he might have studied. He says indeed that the Sun of

righteousness will arise with healing in his wings; but it appears that

this healing is to consist in the Israelites treading down the wicked,

who will be as dust under their feet. He concludes by announcing the

return of Elijah, before "the great and dreadful day of the Lord," and

says, in his threatening tone, that this prophet will turn the hearts

of the fathers to the children, and of the children to the fathers,

lest God should come and smite the earth with a curse.

The Book of Jonah, which may have been written in the fifth or sixth

century B. C. (P. A. B., vol. iii. p. 233 ff.), is a story with a

moral rather than a prophecy. Jonah was desired by Jehovah to preach

against Nineveh, but fled from his duty, and took passage in the ship

to Tarshish, duly paying his fare. However, when a storm arose, Jonah

knew that it was sent as a penalty for his disobedience, and told the

sailors to throw him overboard. This they did, but he was swallowed

alive by a large fish prepared for the purpose, and remained within it

three days. By this lesson he was prepared to execute God's commands,

and was accordingly thrown up by the fish on dry land. He preached

to the people of Nineveh, as desired, the coming destruction of their

city; but when they repented, Jehovah changed his mind, much to the

annoyance of his prophet, who represented that his unfortunate tendency

to clemency was the very reason why he had not wished to enter his

service. But Jehovah, by causing him to regret the destruction of a

gourd which had sheltered him, showed him that there would be much more

reason to spare so large a city as Nineveh, which contained, not only a

vast population, but also a great deal of cattle.

If Malachi and Jonah stand in unfavorable contrast to the works

composed during the golden age of Hebrew literature, Daniel, the

latest book of the Old Testament, represents the complete degeneracy

of prophecy. It is from beginning to end artificial; professing to be

written at one time and by an author whose name and personality are

given; in reality written at another time, and by an author whose name

and personality are concealed. Hence it contains pseudo-prophecies,

which are comparatively clear, extending from the imagined date of

the supposed prophet to the actual date of the real prophet; and it

contains genuine prophecies which are obscure, and which extend from

the actual date into the actual future. It contains also much that

relates to the politics of the day, and which, for obvious reasons,

is cast into an enigmatic form. Daniel was written about the year

B. C. 168, a little before the death of Antiochus Epiphanes, and

the allusions to that monarch are of course made under the veil of

prophecy, in a style designed to be intelligible, without being direct.

The predictions of the eleventh chapter refer to the wars of the Syrian

and Egyptian kings, and especially to Antiochus Epiphanes, who is the

"vile person" mentioned in the twenty-first verse. The purpose of the

work was to set an example of fidelity to Jehovah to the powerful Jews

who were connected with the Syrian court, and especially to the younger

members of the great Jewish families, who were in danger of being

corrupted by its seductions (P. A. B., vol. iii. p. 298 ff.).

The form chosen to effect the writer's object is autobiographical.

In this way he was able to utter his political views—which, directly

expressed, would have been dangerous to his safety—under the guise of

sentiments uttered by Daniel, the fictitious narrator of the story.

Daniel was taken as a captive child along with other children of Jewish

race to serve at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, and remained at the

Chaldean court until the death of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, and

the subjugation of his empire by the Medes and Persians. He continued

to hold an honorable position at the Persian court under Darius and

Kyros. He first rose to distinction by relating and interpreting to

Nebuchadnezzar a dream which the king had himself forgotten. Thus,

from being a mere page he rose to be a sort of astrologer royal. His

life was not, however, free from trouble. Among the children who had

been brought with him from Judea he had three friends, Hananiah,

Mishael, and Azariah, whom the Chaldeans called Shadrach, Meshach, and

Abednego. When Daniel had successfully interpreted the king's dream,

he contrived to obtain lucrative situations in the province of Babylon

for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. But these three having refused to

worship a golden image which the king had set up in that province were

by the king's orders cast into a burning fiery furnace, heated beyond

its usual temperature. But though they fell bound in the midst of it,

they were not burnt, and were seen walking about at their ease in it,

accompanied by a fourth, who looked like the Son of Man (Dan. iii).

It is remarkable that a precisely similar prodigy occurred in one of

the innumerable previous existences of the Buddha Sakyamuni. He was at

this time the son and heir of a great king, and to prove his devotion

to the true doctrine he literally obeyed the instructions of a Brahman,

who desired him to fill a ditch ten yards deep with glowing coals and

jump into it. On this condition the Brahman had consented to teach him

the holy doctrine. Resisting all entreaties to preserve his life, the

prince caused the pool of fire to be prepared and leapt into it without

shrinking for a moment. On the instant it was converted into a basin of

flowers, and he appeared sitting on a lotus-flower in its midst, while

the gods caused a rain of flowers, that rose knee-deep to fall upon the

assembled people (G. O. M., p. 14).

Nor is this the only other example of a wise discrimination being

exercised by the fiery element. During the reign of the Indian

king Asoka, who in the early part of his career was ferocious and

irreligious, the public executioner enjoyed the singular privilege of

being entitled to retain in his house every one, whatever his position

or character, who might cross the threshold of his door. Now the

outside of the executioner's house was beautiful and attractive, though

within it was full of instruments of torture, with which he inflicted

on his victims the punishments of hell. One day a holy monk, named

Samudra, arriving at this apparently charming house, entered it, but

on discovering the nature of its interior wished to make his exit. But

it was too late. The executioner had seen him, and told him that he

must die. After seven days' respite, he threw the monk into an iron

caldron filled with water mixed with loathsome materials, and kindled a

fire below it. But the fire would not burn. Far from experiencing any

pain, the holy man appeared calmly seated on a lotus. The executioner

having informed Asoka of this fact, the king arrived with a suite of

thousands of persons. Seeing this crowd, the monk darted into the

air, and there produced miraculous appearances. The king, struck by

the extraordinary sight, requested the ascetic to say who he was,

declaring that he honored him as a disciple. Samudra, perceiving that

the moment had arrived at which the king was to receive the grace of

instruction in the law, replied that he was a son of Buddha, that

merciful Being, and that he was delivered from the bonds of existence.

"And thou, O great king, thy advent was predicted by Bhagavat, when

he said: A hundred years after I shall have entered into complete

Nirvâna, there will be in the town of Pataliputtra a king called Asoka,

a king ruling over the four quarters of the world, a just king, who

will distribute my relics," and so forth. He proceeded to point out to

Asoka the wickedness of establishing a house of torment like that he

was in, and entreated him to give security to the beings who implored

his compassion. Hereupon the king accepted the law of Buddha, and

determined to cover the earth with monuments for his relics. But when

the royal party were about to leave the place, the executioner had

the audacity to remind Asoka of his promise that no one who had once

entered his doors might ever go out. "What," cried Asoka, "do you wish

then to put me also to death?" "Yes," replied the man. On this he was

seized and thrown into the torture-room, where he died in the flames,

and his house was destroyed (H. B. I., p. 365-372).

Daniel himself met with an adventure of the same perilous nature

as that which had befallen his three friends, though under another

government. Darius, by the advice of some counselors who desired to

destroy Daniel, had made an order that no one should ask a petition

of any god or man save himself for thirty days. But Daniel of course

continued to worship Jehovah as before, and was sentenced in the terms

of the edict to be thrown into a lions' den. But the lions would no

more eat Daniel than the fire would burn his co-religionists; and just

as Asoka, when he had witnessed the escape of the ascetic, worshiped

Buddha, so Darius, having discovered Daniel uninjured in the lions'

den, immediately ordered that in all parts of his dominions people

should tremble and fear before the God of Daniel (Dan. vi).

Of the prophecies contained in this book the most remarkable is that

concerning the Messiah, who is announced as destined to come at a

time fixed by a mystical calculation expressed in weeks. The object

of the writer was to fix a date for the Messiah's appearance, without

expressing himself in such unambiguous terms as would be universally

understood. Such is the true method of prophecy in all religions, for

a prophet who utters his forecast of the future in such a manner as

to render his meaning unmistakable, exposes himself to the hazardous

possibility that the event in history may turn out altogether unlike

the event foretold.

SUBDIVISION 5.—_The God of Israel._

One great question has hitherto been left untreated—that of the

theology and morals of the Hebrew Bible. Theology and morals are

so intimately blended in its pages that the one can scarcely be

discussed without involving the other. The character of Jehovah is

the pattern of morality; his will is its fundamental law; his actions

its exemplification. Hence to consider the character of Jehovah is

of necessity to consider also the Hebrew notions of ethics; while to

inquire into the Hebrew standard of ethics is to enquire into the

commands of Jehovah. Let us try then to ascertain what manner of deity

Jehovah is. To do so, our best course will be to select the salient

features of his history, as related by the sacred writers.

Now, at the very outset of his proceedings we observe that he takes up

towards mankind a very definite attitude: that of a superior entitled

to demand implicit obedience. Whether the fact that he was man's

creator justified so extensive a claim it is needless in this place

to discuss. Suffice it that he had the power to enforce under the

severest penalties the submission he demanded. But it might have been

expected that a divine being, who assumed such unlimited rights over a

race so vastly his inferiors in knowledge and in strength, should at

least exercise them with discretion and moderation. It might have been

expected that where he claimed obedience it would be with a view to the

well-being of his creatures; not merely as an arbitrary exercise of

his enormous power. What, on the contrary, is the conduct he pursued?

His very first act after he had created Adam and Eve and placed them

in Paradise was to forbid them, under penalty of death, to eat the

fruit of a certain tree which grew in their garden. There is not even

a vestige of a pretense in the narrative that the fruit of this tree

would in itself, and apart from the divine prohibition, have done them

any harm. Quite the contrary; the fact of eating it enlarged their

faculties; making them like gods, who know good and evil. And Jehovah

was afraid that they might, after eating the fruit of the tree of

knowledge, eat also that of the tree of life, after which he would be

unable to kill them. So that it was his deliberate purpose in issuing

this injunction to keep mankind feeble, ignorant and dependent. Nor

is this by any means the whole extent of his misconduct. One of two

charges he cannot escape. Either he knew when he created Adam and Eve

that their nature was such that they would disobey, or he did not. In

the first case, he knowingly formed them liable to fall, knowingly

placed them amid conditions which rendered their fall inevitable; and

then punished them for the catastrophe he had all along foreseen as

the necessary result of the character he had bestowed upon them. In

the second case, he was ignorant and shortsighted, being unable to

guess what would be the nature of his own handiwork; and should not

have meddled with tasks which were obviously beyond the scope of his

faculties. And even in this latter case, the most favorable one for

Jehovah, he acted with unpardonable injustice towards the man and

woman in first creating them with a nature whose powers of resistance

to temptation he could not tell, then placing temptation, raised to

its utmost strength by a mysterious order, continually under their

noses, then allowing a serpent to suggest that they should yield to

it, and lastly punishing the unhappy victims of this chain of untoward

circumstances by expulsion from their garden. A human parent who

should thus treat his children would be severely and justly censured.

It is a striking proof how rudimentary were the Hebrew conceptions of

justice, that they should have accepted, in reference to their deity,

a story which evinces so flagrant a disregard of its most elementary

requirements (Gen. ii. 8, and iii). Just as in the case of Adam and

Eve, he required implicit obedience to an arbitrary command, so in the

case of Abraham he required implicit obedience to an immoral one. There

was with him no fixed system of morality. Submission to his will was

the alpha and omega of virtue. Observe now how superior is the feeling

shown in the Hindu legend which has been quoted as a parallel to that

of the projected sacrifice of Isaac. Although in that story the father

was bound by a solemn promise to sacrifice his son, yet he is never

blamed for his reluctance to do so, though Abraham is praised for his

willingness; while the Brahman who is actually prepared to plunge the

sacrificial knife into his child's breast is treated with scorn and

reprobation for his unfeeling behavior. Even the service of the gods is

not made supreme over every human emotion. But the conception of the

existence of duties independent of the divine will seems not to have

entered the minds of the Hebrew theologians who wrote these books.

The further proceedings of Jehovah are quite in keeping with his

beginning in the garden of Eden. Throughout the whole course of the

history he shows the most glaring partiality. In its earlier period

he is partial to individuals; in its later, to the Hebrew race. Let

us notice a few cases of this favoritism as shown towards individual

favorites. Immediately after the curse upon Adam and Eve, and their

banishment from Eden, we have the instructive story of Cain and Abel,

so magnificently dramatized by Byron. These two brothers, sons of the

original couple, both brought offerings to Jehovah; Cain, the fruit of

the ground; Abel, the firstlings of his flock. But the Lord had respect

to Abel and his offering, but not to Cain and his offering. Why was

this difference made? Absolutely no reason is assigned for it, and it

is not surprising, however lamentable, that it should have excited the

jealousy of the brother who was thus ill-treated (Gen. iv. 1-8). Again,

it has been remarked above that Abraham and Isaac had a singular way of

passing off their wives as their sisters. Pharaoh was once deceived in

this way about Sarah; Abimelech of Gerar, once about Sarah, and once

about Rebekah. These two monarchs were plagued by Jehovah on account of

their innocent mistake; the patriarchs were not even reproved for this

cowardly surrender of their consorts to adulterous embraces (Gen. xii.

11-20, xx., xxvi. 7-11). Jacob is another favorite, while his brother

Esau is coldly treated. Yet the inherent meanness of Jacob's character,

and the comparative excellence of Esau's, are too obvious to escape

even a careless reader. What can be more pitiful than the conduct of

Jacob in taking advantage of a moment of weakness in his brother to

purchase his birthright? (Gen. xxv. 29-34.) What more ungenerous than

the odious trick by which he imposed upon his father, and cheated Esau

of his blessing? (Gen. xxvii.) What again can be more magnanimous than

the long subsequent reception by Esau of the brother whose miserable

subserviency showed his consciousness of the wrong he had done him?

(Gen. xxxiii. 1-15). Yet this is the man whom Jehovah selects as the

object of his peculiar blessing, and whose very deceitfulness towards a

kind employer he suffers to become a means of aggrandizement (Gen. xxx.

41-43).

The same partisanship which in these cases forms so conspicuous a trait

in the character of Jehovah distinguishes the whole course of his

proceedings in reference to the delivery of the Israelites from Egypt

and their settlement in Palestine. Every other nation is compelled to

give way for their advantage. Pharaoh and all the Egyptians are plagued

for holding them in slavery, not in the least because Jehovah was an

abolitionist (for he never troubled himself about slavery anywhere

else), but because it was his own peculiar people who were thus in

subjugation to a race whom he did not equally affect. Throughout the

long journey from Egypt to the promised land, Jehovah accompanies the

Israelites as a sort of commander-in-chief, directing them what to do,

and giving them the victory over their enemies. As the Red Sea was

divided to enable them to escape from their enemies on the one side, so

the Jordan was cleft in two to enable them to conquer their enemies on

the other (Ex. xiv. 21, 22.—Josh. iii. 7-17). The walls of a fortified

city were thrown down to enable them to enter (Josh. vi. 20). The sun

was arrested in his course to enable them to win a battle (Josh. x.

12-14). Hornets were employed to accomplish the expulsion of hostile

tribes without trouble to the Israelites (Josh. xxiv. 12). Thus, as

Jehovah afterwards took care to remind them, he gave them a land for

which they did not labor, and cities which they did not build (Josh.

xxiv. 13).

Nevertheless the lot of the race who were thus highly favored was far

from happy. Their God was indeed a powerful protector, but he was also

an exacting ruler. His service was at no time an easy one, and he was

liable to outbursts of passion which rendered it peculiarly oppressive.

Tolerant as he might be towards some descriptions of immorality, he had

no mercy whatever for disloyalty towards himself. On one occasion he

characterized himself by the name of "Jealous" (Ex. xxxiv. 14), which

was but too appropriate, and implied the possession of one of the least

admirable of human weaknesses. Now the Israelites were unfortunately

prone to lapses of this kind. Such was the severity with which these

offenses were treated that it is questionable whether it would not have

been a far happier fate to be drowned in the Red Sea with the Egyptians

than preserved with the children of Israel. A few instances of what

they had to undergo will illustrate this remark.

Moses had impressed upon the people the importance of having no other

deity but Jehovah, and had succeeded while he was actually among

them in restricting them to his worship alone. But no sooner was he

absent for a season than they immediately forsook Jehovah, and took

to worshiping a golden calf. Worst of all, this new divinity was set

up by Aaron, the brother of Moses, and high priest of the Jehovistic

faith. That Jehovah should be rather vexed at such ungrateful behavior,

after all the trouble he had taken in plaguing and slaughtering the

Egyptians, was only natural; but it was surely an extraordinary want

of self-control to propose to consume the whole nation at once,

reserving only Moses as the progenitor of a better race. Here, as

in other cases, Moses showed himself more merciful than his God. He

ingeniously urged as a motive to clemency that the Egyptians would say

extremely unpleasant things if the Israelites were destroyed; and after

his return to the camp he contrived to appease him by inducing the

Levites to perpetrate a fratricidal massacre, whereby three thousand

people fell. This measure was described by Moses as a consecration

of themselves to the Lord, that he might bestow his blessing upon

them. It proved successful, for Jehovah now contented himself with

merely plaguing the people instead of exterminating them (Ex. xxxii).

Thus, he had scarcely finished plaguing the Egyptians before he began

plaguing the Israelites in their turn. Indeed he was at this period

peculiarly prone to sending plagues of one kind or another. Some

complaints of the Israelites in the wilderness were visited by fire

which burnt up those who were at the extremities of the camp (Num. xi.

1-3). When they began to pine for the varied food they had enjoyed in

Egypt, and to lament the absence of flesh meat, he sent them quails

indeed, but accompanied the gift with a very great plague, of which

large numbers perished (Num. xi. 4-34). When they were dismayed by

the reports brought them concerning the inhabitants of Palestine, and

complained of their God for the position he had brought them into, he

again fell into a rage and proposed to destroy them all by pestilence

except Moses. But Moses a second time appealed to him on what seems

to have been his weak side,—his regard for his reputation among the

Egyptians. These had all heard of what he had been doing, and would not

they and the other neighboring nations ascribe the destruction of the

Israelites in the wilderness to his inability to bring them into the

promised land? Moved by this reasoning, Jehovah consented to spare the

people, but determined at the same time to avenge himself upon them by

not permitting any of those that had come from Egypt (except Joshua

and Caleb, who had reported in the proper spirit about Palestine) to

set foot within the country to which he had solemnly engaged himself

to conduct them (Num. xiv. 1-39). Thus, they were only saved from the

Egyptians to perish in the wilderness. Truly, the tender mercies of the

Lord were cruel.

But the miseries of these unfortunate wanderers were by no means ended.

When, oppressed by the troubles and weariness of the way, they dared

to murmur, and inquired of Moses why he had brought them out of Egypt

to die in the wilderness, where there was neither tolerable bread, nor

water, the resentment of Jehovah was excited by this audacity. They

ought to have been only too grateful that they had remained alive.

Jehovah had not caused the earth to swallow them as it had done Korah,

Dathan, and Abiram, with their wives and little children, because

they had ventured to complain of the government of Moses; nor had he

destroyed them by plague, as he had destroyed 14,700 people because

there had been some expressions of dissatisfaction at the sudden death

of those seditious men. If then they had hitherto escaped destruction,

they were certainly foolish in complaining of the hardships of the

desert. At any rate Jehovah soon convinced them that their grumbling

was useless. No constitutional opposition was permitted in those days.

Fiery serpents were despatched to bite them, and many of them died in

consequence. Such was the extent of the calamity that Moses, always

more merciful than his God, interceded for his people; and was directed

to set up a brazen serpent, by looking at which the bites of the living

serpents were healed (Num. xxi. 1-9).

The extraordinary cruelty ascribed by the Hebrews to their national

deity is shown in many other instances besides those that have been

mentioned. And it is to be noticed that it is cruelty mingled with

caprice. No one could tell beforehand precisely what actions he would

visit with punishment, nor what would be the punishment with which

he would visit them. Everything with him was uncertain. He had no

fixed system of laws at all, and he sometimes condemned a criminal in

virtue of _ex post facto_ legislation. The deluge is an example of

all these vices combined. It was an excessively cruel punishment; it

was inflicted capriciously, and once in a way only, because God had

changed his mind as to the propriety of having created man; and it

was the result of a resolution arrived at after the offenses it was

designed to chastise had already been committed. No human being could

possibly have guessed beforehand that his crimes would be punished in

that particular way. And after the crimes of the antediluvians had been

thus punished, the survivors received a promise that no misconduct on

their part would ever be visited upon them in the same way. So that

any conceivable utility which the deluge might have had as a warning

for the future was utterly destroyed. Equal caprice, though not equal

cruelty, was shown towards the builders of the tower of Babel, who were

suffered to begin their labors without hindrance, but were afterwards

stopped by the confusion of their languages. Why it was wrong to erect

such a tower is never stated. Could any of those engaged upon it have

guessed that the attempt was one deserving of punishment? Still worse

was Jehovah's behavior to the prophet Balaam, for he first ordered

him to go with the men who were sent for him, and then was angry with

him because he went (Num. xxii. 20, 22). Such conduct was on a level

with that of a pettish woman. Instances of barbarous severity may be

found in abundance. Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, were devoured by

"fire from the Lord," because they had taken their censers, and offered

strange fire before him (Lev. x. 1, 2). A man who on the father's side

was Egyptian, was ordered to be stoned for blaspheming and cursing the

name of the Lord; Jehovah being peculiarly eager in avenging personal

affronts (Lev. xxiv. 10-16). On this occasion no doubt a general

law was announced affixing the penalty of stoning to the offense of

blasphemy; but the law was _ex post facto_ so far as the individual

who suffered by its operation was concerned. On another occasion the

heads of the people were ordered to be all hung for whoredom with the

daughters of Moab, and for idolatry. Phinehas, Aaron's son, seeing an

Israelite with a Midianitish woman, ran then both through the body with

a javelin; for which heroic exploit against an unprepared man and a

defenseless woman he was specially praised; was declared to have turned

away God's wrath from Israel, and received a "covenant of peace" for

himself and his posterity (Num. xxv. 1-15). At a much later period,

when David was causing the ark to be brought back from the Philistines,

an unfortunate man who had put out his hand to touch it because the

oxen shook it, was immediately slain; an act at which even the pious

David was displeased, and which caused him, not unnaturally, to be

"afraid before the Lord that day" (2 Sam. vi. 6-9). In the reign of

Jeroboam a prophet who had only been guilty of the involuntary error of

believing another prophet who had told him a falsehood, was killed by a

lion sent expressly for his punishment, while the man who had deceived

him escaped scot free (1 Kings xiii. 1-32). Another man suffered for

refusing to obey the word of a prophet what this one had suffered for

obeying it. Being desired by one of the "sons of the prophets" to

smite him so as to cause a wound, and having declined the office, he

was informed that for his disobedience to the voice of the Lord he

would be slain by a lion, which accordingly happened (1 Kings xx. 35,

36). Mercy towards a conquered enemy was sometimes an actual crime.

Because he spared Agag, Saul was rejected from being king over Israel,

and the Lord repented that he had appointed so weak-minded a man.

Samuel, who was made of sterner stuff, had no scruple in carrying out

the behests of his God, for he "hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord"

(1 Sam. xv). In like manner Ahab was reproved for sparing the life of

Ben-hadad, King of Syria (1 Kings xx. 42, 43). The same monarch whose

leniency had thus brought him into trouble was afterwards the victim

of a sanguinary fraud practiced upon him by Jehovah. Tired of his

reign, and eager to effect his destruction, the Lord put a lying spirit

into the mouth of all his prophets, who were thus induced to prophesy

victory in an engagement which actually terminated in his defeat and

death (1 Kings xxii. 1-40). Observe, that however foolish Ahab may have

been in believing the false prophets and disbelieving Micaiah, this

does not excuse Jehovah, who according to his own chosen spokesman,

deliberately arranged this scheme for the overthrow of the king in the

court of heaven. Other barbarous deeds followed upon this. To gratify

Elijah, a hundred men who were guiltless of any crime whatever, were

consumed by fire (2 Kings i. 9-12). To assuage the wounded vanity of

Elisha, forty-two little children were eaten by bears (2 Kings ii.

23, 24). To maintain the glory of the true God, Elijah slaughtered the

prophets of Baal to the number of many hundreds (1 Kings xviii. 17-40).

To reëstablish the orthodox faith, Jehu got rid of the worshipers of

Baal, collected together by an infamous trick, in one indiscriminate

massacre; an atrocity for which he was specially praised and rewarded

by "the Lord" (2 Kings x. 18-30).

It is needless to prolong the list of cruelties practiced upon private

individuals. But the subject would be incompletely treated, did we

not observe that the same spirit prevailed in the dealings of Jehovah

with nations. Thus, when the Israelites were about to enter the land

of Canaan, they were desired utterly to destroy the seven nations

who possessed it already (Deut. vii. 2). When they captured Jericho,

they slew all its inhabitants, young and old, except the household

of the prostitute with whom their messengers had lodged, and who had

shamelessly betrayed her countrymen. Her, with her family they saved

(Josh. vi. 1-25). All the inhabitants of Ai were utterly destroyed

(Josh. viii. 26). All the inhabitants of Makkedah were utterly

destroyed (Josh. x. 28). All the inhabitants of many other places were

utterly destroyed (Josh. x. 29-43, and xi. 11, 14). One city alone made

peace with Israel; all the rest were taken in battle, and that because

Jehovah had deliberately and of set purpose hardened the hearts of

their inhabitants, that they might be utterly destroyed (Josh. xi. 20).

Such a catalogue of crimes—and the number is by no means

exhausted—would be sufficient to destroy the character of any pagan

divinity whatsoever. I fail to perceive why the Jews alone should be

privileged to represent their God as guilty of such actions without

suffering the inference which in other cases would undoubtedly be

drawn—namely, that their conceptions of deity were not of a very

exalted order, nor their principles of morals of a very admirable kind.

There is, indeed, nothing extraordinary in the fact that, living in a

barbarous age, the ancient Hebrews should have behaved barbarously.

The reverse would rather be surprising. But the remarkable fact is,

that their savage deeds, and the equally savage ones attributed to

their God, should have been accepted by Christendom as flowing in the

one case from the commands, in the other from the immediate action

of a just and beneficent Being. When the Hindus relate the story of

Brahma's incest with his daughter, they add that the god was bowed

down with shame on account of his subjugation by ordinary passion (O.

S. T., vol. i. p. 112). But while they thus betray their feeling that

even a divine being is not superior to all the standards of morality,

no such consciousness is ever apparent in the narrators of the passions

of Jehovah. While far worse offenses are committed by him, there is no

trace in his character of the grace of shame.

Turning now to the legislation which emanated from him, we shall find

evidence of the same spirit which has been seen to mark his daily

dealings. It is impossible here to examine that legislation in detail,

and it may be freely conceded that much of it was well adapted to

the circumstances under which it was delivered. Some of the precepts

given are indeed trivial, such as the order to the Israelites not

to round the corners of their heads, nor mar the corners of their

beards (Lev. xix. 27), and others are [such as are] merely special

to the Hebrew religion. But the mass of enactments may very probably

have been wise, or, at least, not conspicuously the reverse. Those

to which the chief exception must be taken, are such as demonstrate

the essentially inhuman character of the authority from whom they

emanated. Thus, death is the penalty affixed to the insignificant

offense of Sabbath-breaking (Ex. xxxv. 2). If the nearest relation,

or even the wife of his bosom, or the friend who is as his own soul,

secretly entice a man to go and worship other gods, he himself is to

put the tempter to death, his own hand being the first to fling the

stones by which he is to perish (Deut. xiii. 6-11). The Inquisition

itself could have no more detestable law than this. If it is a city

that is guilty of such heresy, it is to be burnt down, and all its

inhabitants put to the sword (Deut. xiii. 12-16). The mere worship of

pagan divinities, apart from any effort to seduce others, is likewise

punished with stoning (Deut. xvii. 2-7). In cities not in Palestine,

taken in war, all the males only are to be put to death; but in the

cities of Palestine itself, nothing that breathes is to be saved alive

(Deut. xx. 13-18). A "stubborn and rebellious son" may be put to death

by stoning, and that at the instance of his parents (Deut. xxi. 18-21).

In appearance this terrible process for dealing with a naughty boy

is less severe than the _patria potestas_ of the Romans, by which the

power of life and death was lodged in the father alone. Practically,

however, the exercise of this unlimited _legal_ right was prevented

to a large extent, for a religious curse rested on the father who

even sold his married son, and he could not pronounce sentence on any

child till after consulting the nearest blood-relations on both sides,

without incurring the same anathema (Mommsen, History of Rome, vol. i.

p. 65). No doubt the purely legal power of the head of the family was

unaffected by these restraints. Human authority still permitted him

to expose his children at birth, to sell them, or to sentence them to

death. But the difference between Roman and Jewish institutions was,

that in Rome, religion sought to mitigate the cruelty of the civil law;

in Palestine, religion not only did nothing to soften, but positively

sanctioned, by its august commands the most revolting enactments of

barbaric legislation. It is true that no instance is known to history

of the employment of this law by Jews against their children, but this

can only show that their parental morality was superior to the morality

of the divine law. At a much later time than that at which this

enactment was given, when the Israelites returned from the Captivity,

the same harsh and intolerant spirit as we have observed in their

earlier legislation broke forth again. By a cruel measure, enacted by

Ezra, the representative of Jehovah, and taking the form of a covenant

with God, the people were forced to repudiate all their wives who

were not of pure Israelitish blood (Ezra ix, and x). Nehemiah, who

was likewise zealous in the service of Jehovah, was no less an enemy

to "outlandish women," and took rather strong measures against those

who had married them, such as cursing them, smiting them, plucking off

their hair, and making them swear not to give their sons or daughters

in marriage to foreigners (Neh. xiii. 23-28).

Such being the moral characteristics of the Hebrew God, can it be said

that the intellectual ideas of the divine nature found in the Old

Testament are of a highly refined and spiritual order? On the contrary,

as compared with the gods of other races, Jehovah is remarkably

anthropomorphic and materialistic. He does not approach in spirituality

to the higher conceptions of the Hindus, nor is he even equal to those

of less subtle and speculative nations. He is on a level with the gods

of popular mythologies, but not with those more mysterious powers who

often stand above them. The evidence of this proposition is to be found

in the whole tenor of the historical books. Thus, in the very beginning

of Genesis, we find that he "rested on the seventh day," (Gen. ii.

2) as if he were a being altogether apart from the forces of nature,

and might leave the world to go on without him. A little later he is

found "walking in the garden in the cool of the day" (Gen. iii. 8). He

clearly had a body resembling that of man, for on one occasion Moses

was so highly favored as to be permitted to see his "back parts," and

was covered with his hand while he was passing by. His face Moses was

not permitted to behold, as it would have caused his death (Ex. xxxiii.

20-23). In order to pass by he "descended" in a cloud, implying local

habitation, and at this time he magniloquently proclaimed his own

titles and virtues, which he might more gracefully have employed an

angel to do for him. Elsewhere it is stated that Moses and the elders

"saw the God of Israel," and that he had some sort of paved work of

sapphire stone under his feet. When Moses went up alone into the mount,

"the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire." God was

at this time supposed to be on the mount, and there held discourse

with Moses (Ex. xxiv. 10-25). In the course of it he says that he will

"commune" from above the mercy-seat in the tabernacle, again (as in so

many other places) implying occupation of definite space (Ex. xxv. 22).

He promises to "dwell among the children of Israel," that is, to be a

national and local God (Ex. xxix. 45, 46). Confirmation of the view

here taken of his limited nature is found in the fact that he thought

it necessary to "go down" to Sodom and Gomorrah, to verify the reports

which had reached him concerning the conduct of their inhabitants.

And when Abraham appealed to him for mercy for those of them who were

righteous, his several answers clearly implied that when he went

to those cities he would discover how many of them came under that

denomination. "If I find in Sodom fifty righteous," and so forth, is

the language of one who does not know a fact, but is going to ascertain

it. And accordingly at the end of the colloquy "the Lord went his way"

(Gen. xviii. 20-33). So completely anthropomorphic is the conception of

deity that, although the expression occurs only in a parable, it is not

at variance with the mode in which he is usually spoken of when wine is

said "to cheer God and man" (Judg. ix. 13). Evidently there was nothing

shocking to the Hebrew mind in such an expression. And when they

pictured their God as walking, talking, indignant, angry, repenting,

jealous, showing himself to human beings, and generally indulging in

the passions of mortals, it was perfectly easy to conceive that wine

might exercise the same effect on him as it did on them.

No doubt the Hebrew mythology is free from all that class of stories

in which a divine being is represented as making love to or cohabiting

with women. Or, to speak more accurately, they never represent Jehovah

himself as indulging in such amusements. There is a reminiscence of

this form of myth in the statement that before the deluge the sons of

God intermarried with the daughters of men (Gen. vi. 2); but their

supreme Being was free at least from sexual passion. So far as it goes,

this is well; but if I had to choose between a God who was somewhat

licentious in his relations with mankind, and one who did not stick at

deeds of bloodshed of the most outrageous character, I confess I should

see no very powerful reason to prefer the latter.

That, in spite of all these drawbacks, there are some better elements

in the Hebrew ideal I do not at all deny. The poetical description of

God as a "still small voice" is both eloquent and spiritual; and the

prayer of Solomon, with its admission that the heaven of heavens cannot

contain the Infinite Power who is entreated to dwell in the Temple, is

in many respects beautiful and admirable. So also the views of Jehovah

attained and uttered by some of the prophets are far loftier than

those generally expressed in the historical books. Many of the Psalms,

again, are full of beauty in the manner in which they speak of him to

whom they are addressed. In a nation so deeply religious as the Jews,

and so much given to meditation on God, it was inevitable that the

higher class of minds should conceive him more spiritually than the

lower, and it is this class to whom we owe the poetical and prophetic

writings. It was inevitable also that as civilization advanced, the

grosser elements of the conception, which belonged to a barbarous

people, should be eliminated, and that the finer ones should remain.

The entire supersession of the older God by the newer was prevented

by the fact that the Old Testament was a sacred book, and that hence

every one of its statements had to be received as absolutely true. The

inconsistency between the wrathful monarch of ancient times and the

loving Spirit of more recent ages was sought to be surmounted by those

processes of interpretation which have been shown to be invariably

adopted when it is desired to bring the infallible Scriptures of any

nation into harmony with the opinions of their readers. But happily the

language of the historical portions of the Old Testament is singularly

plain, and no ingenious manipulation of the text can with the smallest

plausibility put aside the obvious meaning of the broad assertions on

which is founded the above delineation of the God of Israel.