he knew; if we were as faithful in proportion to the fuller light which
has come to us, religion would be a very real and inclusive thing. We
should also learn to take heart, if from these beginnings such mighty
movements have sprung. The mistakes inevitable to the human mind do not
destroy the possibility of revelation, the error cannot everlastingly
obscure the truth, nor in the long run will evil triumph over good.
It was possible in that far off age, it was possible in all ages, it
is possible now, for a mind still far from the true conception of the
ultimate nature of God to yet grasp something, and by a supreme faith
in the leading of a Mighty Power to lift a whole nation, and through it
the world, one stage further on in goodness and truth.
THE INFLUENCE OF CANAAN
As an introduction to Lecture IV. the reader is advised to make a
careful study of Judges i. 1-ii. 5, a mutilated fragment of a very
early and reliable account of the invasion of Canaan. The opening
words (verse 1) refer the events which follow to the period after
the death of Joshua; but the Book of Joshua has already recorded
the complete conquest of Canaan, so that there can be no place for
this further invasion on a far less ambitious plan, and apparently
with less successful results. It will be noticed, however, that
this account easily falls away from the main body of the narrative;
Judges ii. 6 follows naturally after Joshua xxiv. 28, and ignores
what comes between. We have, therefore, in this account another
history of the conquest of Canaan, which contradicts altogether the
impression--which we get from reading the Book of Joshua--that the
conquest of Canaan was effected by the tribes acting in unison, that
it was complete, and that the conquered were exterminated; it records
a movement of tribes acting independently, there is no "conquest" in
the ordinary sense of the term, but a footing is obtained alongside
the original inhabitants of the land.
This account of a gradual immigration of tribes is confirmed by the
discovery of inscriptions, which seem to show that there were some
tribes of the Hebrews in Palestine before the traditional date of the
Conquest, and even before the Exodus.
Until quite lately the history of Egypt has thrown no light on these
events. It has not even been possible to identify with any certainty
the Pharaoh under whom the Exodus took place. One identification
is now fairly certain. The Pharaoh who enslaved the Israelites was
Rameses III., for discoveries have proved that it was he who built
Pithom (Exod. i. 11); the Exodus has therefore been referred to
the reigns of Merneptah or Seti II., his immediate successors. The
objection to this is that in these reigns both the peninsula of
Sinai and the land of Palestine were under full Egyptian control,
and therefore the Exodus must be put later on, when this control
slackened. This would bring the Exodus to the date of 1200-1180 B.C.
and the Conquest some fifty years later.
The latest discoveries tend to throw this result into confusion.
Names, which it is proposed to identify with tribes of the
Israelites, have been found in inscriptions belonging to earlier
reigns. On an inscription of Rameses II. the name of Asher is found
as dwelling in North Palestine. In a list of Thotmes III. (still
earlier, Sixteenth Century, B.C.) we find the names Jacob and Joseph
in the significant combination, Jacob-el and Joseph-el, used to
describe the Dan-Ephraim district of Palestine. This makes it more
likely that the Tel-el-Amarna tablets (dated Fourteenth Century,
B.C.) refer to the Hebrews. In these letters, addressed to Amenophis
IV., the King of Jerusalem appeals for help against an invasion of
the _Habiri_, who are led by Abd Ashera. The invasion is not by a
large force, as may be seen from the fact that it is thought thirty
or forty Egyptian soldiers will be sufficient for the purpose of
resisting their attacks. More certain than any of these references
is the occurrence of the name of Israel on a Stele of Merneptah,
in connection with a recital of his triumphs in Syria. The form in
which this reference is made leaves no doubt that, by this period,
Israel was already settled in Palestine. ("Israel is laid waste,
its corn is annihilated.") There is no confirmation of a Syrian
campaign under Merneptah, and it may be that in accordance with the
fashion of the age, he is including among his victories the exploits
of his predecessors; this would agree with the earlier date for the
occupation of Canaan by Israel which the previous references seem to
require.
The exact bearing of these discoveries has yet to be determined, but
they either require us to put the date of the Exodus earlier, which
would in itself be difficult, or, what would bring light on many
problems, assume that not all the tribes were in bondage in Egypt,
and that the invasion of Canaan by various tribes, only long after
welded into a nation, was spread over a long period.
Lecture IV
THE INFLUENCE OF CANAAN
If the nation of Israel may be said to have been born in captivity,
baptised in the Red Sea, and awakened to national consciousness at
Mount Sinai, then the settlement in Canaan corresponds to the no
less critical period of adolescence, when, training and tutelage
being over, youth must choose its own path and fight its way in the
world. Certain it is that the entrance into Canaan largely determined
the future of this people, for it must have profoundly modified the
national character, turning as it did nomadic tribes into a settled and
civilised people; but above all, and what more concerns us, it proved
extremely critical for the fate of that as yet untried revelation of
Jehovah, which had still to win its way against the heathenism of
the common people, and was now by this new experience called upon to
measure its strength against the attraction of a competing faith.
The peculiar and pathetic love of the Jews for Canaan is largely due to
the remembrance that it was not their own land but the long promised
gift of Jehovah, standing therefore to all time as the material proof
of His love for Israel; while their estimate of it was intensely
deepened by the wilderness experience which preceded. That estimate
seems to us somewhat exaggerated, for to-day Palestine has almost given
up the struggle against the always threatening advance of the desert.
It has certainly changed for the worse under neglect and misrule, but
it can never have been a too indulgent land; only comparison with the
bare and awful desert can have called forth the description, "a land
flowing with milk and honey." With the long memory of restless nomadic
life and the bitter thought of bondage, any land would seem welcome
that offered them freedom and safety; while to those approaching it
from the desert it seemed as fair and fruitful a land as men could
desire.
All lands have contributed largely to the character of the nations they
have reared, and the wilderness ancestry and the character of Canaan
have played their part in the development of Israel.
The very geographical position of Canaan helps us to understand the
Hebrews, and even to see how it was that in this land it was possible
to nurture from such unpromising beginnings the wonderful development
of religion that was to make this smallest of all lands one of the most
sacred spots on earth, and this strange and limited people among the
greatest contributors to the moral and religious ideas of humanity.
Crushed in between the sea and the desert, hemmed in by great military
powers, the little buffer state itself the very crossways of East and
West, its roads never long at rest from the tramp of armies; here was
a land in which all dreams of fame and empire were hammered out, and
nothing left possible save an empire of spiritual power and the fame of
a unique religion. A people strangely proud and passionately exclusive,
they could never rest under the dominion of their great neighbours,
however light the burden imposed; and since sustained resistance was
out of the question by reason of their inferior numbers and lack of
military power, they resorted to irritating acts of rebellion, or
intrigued with the enemies of their overlords, and so brought down on
their land frequent vengeance. Such was their untameable nature that
the only practical policy open to Babylon, if she wished to insure the
loyalty, or at least, the neutrality of Palestine, was to deport the
Jews bodily to where they could be under observation.
So we find the greatest heroes of Jewish history--from Moses, through
Gideon and Samson, to David and Judas Maccabæus--are those who deliver
the nation from oppression; while Israel's prayers are largely cries
for succour against enemies, or for Divine vengeance on the oppressor;
only too eloquent a witness of the sense of their own impotence. Yet it
was precisely this experience that forced their religion to rise above
the common type, to conquer its natural tendencies, and to become the
most magnificent faith in God that the world has seen. Of this they
themselves were not ignorant; for one of their writers points to the
easy lot of Moab as the cause of their irreligion (Jer. xlviii. 11),
and one of the Psalmists says that it is the men who have no changes
who fear not God (lv. 19). We need not consider the utterly feeble
objection that all this makes the religion of Israel the outcome of
natural necessity, rather than of Divine revelation; for God made the
land that made Israel.
The entry into Canaan was therefore one of the most critical periods in
the history of this people and in the development of the religion of
the Old Testament. It is, however, extremely difficult to discover from
the means at our disposal just how or when that entry was effected. The
sources for this period are found in the Books of Joshua and Judges,
but, from comparison with much in the history that follows, it is clear
that they do not present us with absolute history; yet a critical
examination of these books enables us to recover the essential facts.
A study of the preface to this lecture will show that the story of
the Conquest is obscure in its details and difficult to reconcile
with modern discoveries. A careful examination of our sources shows
that the description of the entry of the Hebrews into Canaan as a
"conquest," which was settled by a few decisive battles, is at least
rather fanciful; and as a matter of fact we have quite another picture
in the first chapter of Judges, which partakes more of the character
of an "alien immigration," a method of "conquest" in which the Jews
have always been remarkably successful. The history in Joshua certainly
represents the Conquest as striking, complete, and followed by a
ruthless extermination of the defenders of their native land. In view
of the relations that were for long maintained between the Canaanites
and the Hebrews, the representation in Judges i. must be regarded
as nearer to the facts than the story of the Conquest according to
the Book of Joshua. The children of Israel dwelt side by side with
the Canaanites, simply because they were not able to drive them out;
and as a result the tribes were frequently divided by strong belts
of Canaanitish territory. Right through the time of the Judges we
get warfare between the Israelites and the inhabitants of the land;
sometimes in pitched battles between the Canaanites and the united
tribes of Israel (Judges iv. v.), but more generally in guerilla
warfare or in the sudden surprise of a Canaanitish garrison (Judges
xviii.). The result of the conflict seems to have been the gradual
absorption of the two elements into one nation. The records definitely
admit that it was not until the time of David that the Jebusites were
driven from Jerusalem (2 Sam. v. 6, 7), and not until Solomon that the
superiority of the Israelites was finally established (1 Kings ix. 20,
21). It surely is an immense relief to think that the huge slaughters
recorded in the Book of Joshua are, to say the least, exaggerations.
The history in Judges also clearly shows that there was little cohesion
between the tribes. They filtered across the Jordan only by degrees,
and there is evidence that this process may have extended over a
considerable time. We have records of quarrels between Gideon and
Ephraim (Judges viii. 1), and between Jephthah and Ephraim (Judges xii.
1). These inter-tribal conflicts might have been serious, were it not
for the circumstance that the Israelites were no sooner settled in the
land than other tribes of desert invaders began to press upon them, and
they had to sink family differences in order to combine against the
common enemy.
The song of Deborah (Judges v.) is one of the most valuable documents
we possess for the light which it throws on the conditions of religious
and national life in this period, for it is probably the only document
in the Old Testament, earlier than the founding of the monarchy, that
is contemporary with the events it describes. It shows that the tribes
had somewhat improved their position, for they now seem to be in
possession of the highlands of Ephraim, although the plains are still
in the hands of the Canaanites. The growing power of the Israelites
and their threatening predominance moved the Canaanites to a united
effort to repress Israel. It is to face this danger that the Prophetess
Deborah calls the tribes; but from the way in which the praise and
blame is meted out we can see that a strong sense of national unity
was still lacking. The important point to be noticed is that the bond
of unity to which Deborah could appeal was the name of Jehovah. It
should be noted also that in the enumeration of the tribes, Judah,
Simeon, and Levi are altogether omitted. In the case of so important a
tribe as Judah this is significant, for it agrees with the fact that
until the time of David this tribe does not come into prominence. It
has been conjectured that Judah was only a small tribe, and may have
invaded Canaan from the south, for it is difficult to conceive how it
could have crossed the strong Canaanitish territory which separated it
from the other tribes. At any rate, at this time it was not regarded as
one of the tribes of Israel; it may have been that this tribe embraced
a strong Canaanitish element (Gen. xxxviii.), and this fact may have
contributed to the resentment which broke out among the other tribes
when Judah assumed the hegemony in the time of David, and which led in
the end to the disruption of the Kingdom.
In our sources the history of this period has attached to it a
religious interpretation: apostasy, and disobedience to the commands
of Jehovah were the causes of the people being sold into the power
of their enemies; when they returned to the worship of Jehovah and
penitently pleaded for His forgiveness then deliverers were raised
up who vanquished their oppressors. This can be nothing but a late
interpretation, for the religion of the Book of Judges is of quite
a fixed order, and many of the stories recorded in it will not lend
themselves to any such interpretation. The hand that supplied this
reading of the history of this period has been identified with the
author of Deuteronomy, or, as some would prefer to say, with the
school of thought that produced that work. There is a religious lesson
in this history, as in all history; but it is hardly to be found in
a series of apostasies and returns. There are really four separate
endeavours to account for the undoubted fact of the Canaanites being
spared. (1) Israel was not able to drive them out (Judges i. 19, 27).
(2) Israel was only commanded to drive them out by degrees, "lest
the beasts of the field increase upon thee" (Deut. vii. 22). (3) It
was a providential arrangement to keep the Israelites practised in
war (Judges iii. 1, 2). (4) It was due to direct disobedience to the
command of Jehovah (Judges ii. 20).
The history does not entitle us to assume that the judges were
officials who exercised kingly rights over a united Israel. The word
translated "Judge" more often means "Deliverer," and this is certainly
the part that they play. Of some of the so-called minor judges we know
nothing beyond their names, and there is evidence that they have simply
been used to fill out a traditional period of 480 years (1 Kings vi.
1). Whenever the "Judges" assumed kingly or judicial functions trouble
and rebellion always followed. The figure of Samson displays little
fitness for ruling a nation or guiding it in religion, but the stones
of his life are illuminating for the understanding of the morality and
interests of that age.
With this revised conception of the history of the Conquest, and of
the events which followed, we are in a better position to estimate the
effect of the change from nomadic life to a settled existence, and to
understand how critical for the future of the religion of Jehovah this
change was.
We see tribes possessing little national unity, but bound together by
a religion in which lay the germ of a mighty future, entering a land
where the inhabitants had reached a higher stage of civilisation, and
possessed a religion that drew its power from the fact that it was the
worship of Baal, the possessor and owner of the land. In face of these
conditions it was almost inevitable that many of the customs of the
original inhabitants should be gradually adopted, and that the religion
of Jehovah should borrow something from the religion indigenous to the
land. This was certainly the result which followed. For a considerable
period we find a religion prevalent among the common people, which is
simply a conflation of the two religions. There were certain elements
common to both, and certain advantages in the one, together with
corresponding weaknesses in the other, that prepared the way for this
syncretism.
We shall now turn to examine the religion of the Canaanites, which
we shall find to partake largely of the common elements of Semitic
religion. Their deities were personifications of natural forces,
and among these there is no one which is supreme, and nothing that
tends to Monotheism. The gods are friendly and destructive by turn,
and of unreliable character. It is nothing more than an undeveloped
Polytheism. The religion, as it is seen in the Old Testament, groups
itself around three names: Baal, Ashtoreth (often written in plural
form Ashtaroth), and Molech (otherwise written Moloch, Milcom, and
known to the Phoenicians as Melkart).
The name of Baal has a hateful memory in the pages of the Old Testament
as the Canaanitish deity to whom Israel constantly apostatised. The
exact significance of Baal in the Canaanitish religion is a matter of
dispute. He has been identified with the sun, and by the Greeks with
Zeus; so that it has been inferred that Baal was the President of the
Canaanitish Pantheon. This view is no longer generally accepted, for
it certainly fails to fit in with the records of the cult preserved in
the Old Testament. The word "Baal" is not a proper name, but signifies
"the Possessor"; it is used in Semitic language for "husband," as
the possessor of the wife, and is used as the name for deity, as the
possessor of the land. Every land, and indeed every locality, will
therefore have its own Baal; so that in the Old Testament we hear of
the "Baalim" (the Hebrew plural), and these local Baalim are further
distinguished by the addition of the name of their locality or of
some event with which they were connected, as Baal-Peor, Baal-Berith,
Baal-Zebul. The "Baal" is especially responsible for sending rain and
sunshine, and for giving fruitful seasons. He is, therefore, the god
of agriculture, and the great events of the agricultural year, such
as harvest and vintage, are observed as his festivals. It is natural
to find the uncertainty of the weather reflected in the character of
the Baalim, with the result that we get a religion alternating between
intoxicating joy and the deepest gloom. To appease the fickle god or to
win his favour sacrifices, even of human lives, are presented, and if
Baal continues unheeding, scenes of the most unrestrained fanaticism
prevail. It is this gloomy religion which darkens the times of the
later Kings of Judah.
The Canaanitish Baal should be distinguished from the Baal of Tyre
(Melkart) whose worship was introduced by Ahab. Here the introduction
of an alien Baal, with probably different rites and ceremonies, awoke
the resentment of the prophetic party under the leadership of Elijah,
but the worship of the Canaanite Baal was maintained for long unchecked.
Closely connected with the worship of the Baalim we find the worship
of the Ashtaroth (Judges ii. 13). The pronunciation of this word is
obscure; it was probably _Ashtart_, and the singular form, Ashtoreth
(1 Kings xi. 5), has been formed by inserting the vowels of the word
_bosheth_ (shame), a common device in the Old Testament for expressing
contempt. Ashtart is the female counterpart of Baal, and is spoken of
in the plural for a similar reason. Monuments of the worship of Ashtart
are still to be found, and from these it is evident that we have here
the worship of the goddess of sexual passion, as common in polytheistic
systems, and best known in the Greek worship of Aphrodite. The whole
conception of Ashtart can be traced to the famous goddess _Ishtar_
of Babylonian religion, and there is only too certain evidence that
in Canaan as elsewhere the degrading rite of religious prostitution
was used in this worship of female divinity (Hosea iv. 13). The
identification of Ashtart with the "Queen of Heaven" (Jer. vii. 18;
xliv. 15-25) is not so certain. As far as the worship of the latter is
described to us, it looks like an importation of the Babylonian worship
of Ishtar, who was identified with the planet Venus or sometimes with
the moon. The "cakes to pourtray her" (Jer. xliv. 19) may have been
crescent-shaped cakes.
Of a similar character was the worship that gathered around the name of
Molech. We have here simply the word for king (_Milk_) with the vowels
of _bosheth_. Of this name, Moloch, Milcom, and Melkart of Tyre are
variations. Molech is not to be distinguished from Baal, as may be seen
from Jer. xix. 5, where the practice of passing children through the
fire, which was certainly connected with the worship of Molech, is a
part of the worship of Baal. This burnt-sacrifice of children evidently
belonged to the Canaanitish religion (2 Kings xvi. 3).
This then was the religion of the Canaanites: in times of prosperity
and fruitful seasons, one of rejoicing and festivity; but in time of
famine, drought or national danger, one of the most hopeless gloom and
of the most fearful fanaticism. In conflict with this religion, the
purer worship of Jehovah yet presented certain weaknesses; these are
found chiefly in points of possible identification, which in the course
of the history actually took place. This may be difficult for us to
understand until we remember that Baal and Molech, to Semitic ears,
simply meant "Lord" and "King"; and Jehovah was the "Lord" and "King"
of Israel. If the character of Jehovah was not clearly apprehended as
moral by the common people, we can see how easy it was for confusion to
take place.