CHAPTER XI. THE THEOCRACY AS IDEA AND AS INSTITUTION.

Writers of the present day play with the expressions "theocracy,"

and "theocratic" without making it clear to themselves

what these words mean and how far they are entitled to use them.

But we know that the word theokratia was only coined by

Josephus; /1/

-- Footnote

1. )OUKOUN )APEIROI MEN (AI KATA MEROS TWN )ETHWN KAI TWN NOMWN PARA

TOIS )APASIN )ANTHRWPOS DIAFORAI. )OI MEN GAR MONARXIAIS, (OI DE

TAIS )OLIGWN DUNASTEIAIS, )ALLOI DE TOIS PLHTHESIN )EPETREPYAN THN

'ECOUSIAN TWN POLITEUMATWN. (O D' (HMETEROS NOMOQETHS )EIS MEN

TOUTWN OUD' (OTIOUN )APEIDEN, (WS D' )AN TIS )EIPOI BIASAMENOS TON

LOGON QEOKRATIAN )APEDEICE TO POLITEUMA, QEW| THN )ARXHN KAI TO

KRATOS )ANAQEIS (contra Apion ii. 17). (" There are innumerable

differences in the particular customs and laws that are among

mankind; some have intrusted the power of their states to

monarchies, some to oligarchies, and some to democracies: but our

legislator had no regard to any of these forms, _but he ordered

our governmernt to be what I may call by a strained expression a

theocracy_, attributing the power and the authority to God."

Compare also, on this whole chapter, Die Pharisaer und die

Sadducaer, Greifswald, 1874.

-- Footnote

and when this writer speaks of the Mosaic constitution, he has

before his eyes, it is well known, the sacred community of his

own day as it existed down to the year 70 A.D. In ancient Israel

the theocracy never existed in fact as a form of constitution.

The rule of Jehovah is here an ideal representation; only after

the exile was it attempted to realise it in the shape of a Rule of

the Holy with outward means. It is perhaps the principal merit

of Vatke's Biblical Theology to have traced through the centuries

the rise of the theocracy and the metamorphosis of the idea to an

institution.

XI.I.

XI.I.1. The upholders of the prevailing view do not assert that

Moses wrote the Pentateuch, but they maintain all the more firmly

that he organised the congregation of the tabernacle in the

wilderness after the fashion described in the Priestly Code. They

seem to think that Moses had no importance further than this; as

if it were an act of no moment to cast into the field of time a

seed which the action and reaction thence arising bring an

immeasurable time after to maturity (Mark iv. 26 seq.). In fact

Moses is the originator of the Mosaic constitution in about the

same way as Peter is the founder of the Roman hierarchy. Of the

sacred organisation supposed to have existed from the earliest

times, there is no trace in the time of the judges and the kings.

It is thought to have been a sort of pedagogic strait-waistcoat,

to subdue the ungovernable obstinacy of the Hebrews and to guard

them from evil influences from without. But even should it be

conceded that a constitution could come into existence in ancient

times which was so utterly out of relation to the peculiar life

and temper of the people, the history of the ancient Israelites

shows us nothing so distinctly as the uncommon freshness and

naturalness of their impulses. The persons who appear always

act from the constraining impulse of their nature, the men of

God not less than the murderers and adulterers: they are such

figures as could only grow up in the open air. Judaism, which

realised the Mosaic constitution and carried it out logically,

left no free scope for the individual; but in ancient Israel

the divine right did not attach to the institution but was in

the Creator Spirit, in individuals. Not only did they speak

like the prophets, they also acted like the judges and kings,

from their own free impulse, not in accordance with an outward

norm, and yet, or just because of this, in the Spirit of Jehovah.

The different view of different times is seen very characteristically

in the views taken of Saul by the two versions above sifted and

compared <VII.II.2 >.

XI.I.2. It is a simple and yet a very important remark of Vatke,

that the sacred constitution of the congregation, so circumstantially

described to us in the Priestly Code, is after all very

defective, and presupposes the existence of that which it was the

chief task of the age of Moses to bring about, namely the state,

in the absence of which the church cannot have any subsistence

either. To maintain an elaborate and expensive worship, and an

immense swarm of clergy, must have required considerable rates and

taxes: and to raise these, as well as to uphold the authority of

the sacred persons and institutions, and most of all to enforce

the strict centralization and uniformity of the legitimate

worship, all this among a people not yet very civilised, must have

required an executive power which embraced and was able to

control, the whole people. But where is this central authority

in the period of the judges? Judicial competence resided at that

time chiefly in the smallest circles, the families and houses.

These were but little controlled, as it appears, by the superior

power of the tribe, and the very notion of the state or of the

kingdom did not as yet exist. Houses related to each other

sometimes united for common undertakings, as no doubt also did

neighbouring tribes; but this was not on the basis of any

constitutional order, but from necessity, when it happened that

a well-known man came forward to take the command and his summons

to the levy was obeyed. These transient combinations under generals

were the forerunners of a permanent union under a king: and even

at the time of the Midianite war an attempt seems to have been

made in this direction, which, however, was not quite successful.

In the severe and protracted struggle with the Philistines the

necessity for a solid union of the tribes was cryingly manifest,

and the man came forward to meet the hour. Saul, a distinguished

Benjamite of Gibeah, was overcome by anger at the scornful

challenge which even the Ammonites ventured at such a time to cast

in the teeth of his people: he called his fellow-countrymen to battle,

not in virtue of any office he held, but on the strength of his

own impulses; his enthusiasm proved contagious, none dared to say

him nay. He began his career just like one of the earlier judges,

but after he had led his people to victory they did not let him

retire again. The person sought for, the king, was found.

Out of such natural beginnings did the state at that time arise:

it owed nothing to the pattern of the "Mosaic theocracy," but

bears all the marks of a new creation. Saul and David first made

out of the Hebrew tribes a real people in the political sense

(Deuteronomy xxxiii. 5). David was in the eyes of later generations

inseparable from the idea of Israel: he was the king par

excellence: Saul was thrown into the shade, but both together are

the founders of the kingdom, and have thus a much wider importance

than any of their successors. It was they who drew the life of

the people together at a centre, and gave it an aim; to them the

nation is indebted for its historical self-consciousness. All the

order of aftertimes is built up on the monarchy; it is the soil

out of which all the other institutions of Israel grow up. In the

time of the judges, we read, every man did that which was right

in his own eyes, not because the Mosaic constitution was not in

force, but because there was no king in those days. The

consequences were very important in the sphere of religion as well:

since the political advance of the people brought the historic

and national character of Jehovah to the front again. During the

time of the judges the Canaanite festival cultus had gradually

been coming to be embodied in the worship of Jehovah, a process

which was certainly necessary; but in this process there was for

some time a danger that Jehovah would become a God of husbandry

and of cattle, like Baal-Dionysus. The festivals long continued

to be a source of heathenism, but now they were gradually divested

of their character as nature-festivals, and forced at length to

have reference to the nation and to its history, if they were not

to disappear completely. The relation of Jehovah to people and

kingdom remained firm as a rock: even to the worst idolaters He was

the God of Israel; in war no one thought of looking for victory

and success to any other God. This was the result of Israel's

becoming a kingdom: the kingship of Jehovah, in that precise

sense which we associate with it, is the religious expression of

the fact of the foundation of the kingdom by Saul and David. The

theocracy was the state of itself; the ancient Israelites

regarded the civil state as a miracle, or, in their own words,

a help of God. When the later Jews thought or spoke of the

theocracy, they took the state for granted as already there, and

so they could build the theocracy on the top of it as a

specially spiritual feature: just as we moderns sometimes see the

divine element in settled ordinances, such as marriage, not in

their own nature, but in the consecration added to them by the church.

XI.I.3. The kingdom of Saul and David did not long remain at its

height. Decay set in even at the separation, and when once the

Assyrians were heard at the door, it advanced with steps not to be

arrested. But the memory of the period of glory and power was

all the greener, and the hope arose of its return. From the

contrast between the sorrowful present and the brilliant past there

arose the picture of the state as it should be; when ruin was

seen without and anarchy within, the prophets set against this

the pattern of the theocracy. The theocracy as the prophets

represent it to themselves is not a thing essentially different

from the political community, as a spiritual differs from a secular

power; rather, it rests on the same foundations and is in fact

the ideal of the state. Isaiah gave this ideal its classical form

in those pictures of the future which we are accustomed to call

Messianic prophecies. These passages are not predictions of this

or that occurrence, but announcements of the aims which, it is true,

the prophet only expects the future to realise, but which are of

force or ought to be of force in the present, and towards which the

community, if true to its own nature, must strive.

The first feature of these Messianic descriptions is the expulsion

of the Assyrians; but most emphasis is laid on the restoration of

the inner bases of the state, the rottenness of which has brought

about and rendered inevitable the present crisis. The collapse of

the government, the paralysis fallen on the law, the spoliation of

the weak by the strong, these are the evils that call for redress.

"How is the honourable city become a harlot; it was full of

judgment, righteousness lodged in it--but now murderers! Thy

princes are rascals and companions of thieves, every one loveth

gifts and followeth after bribes; they judge not the fatherless,

neither cloth the cause of the widow come unto them. Therefore

saith the Lord: Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge

me of mine enemies! And I will turn my hand against thee, Zion,

and as with Iye I will purge away thy dross, and I will restore

thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the

beginning; afterwards thou shalt be called a righteous and

honourable city. Zion shall be redeemed by judgment and her

inhabitants by righteousness" (Isaiah i. 21-27).

The state the prophet has before his eye is always the natural

state as it exists, never a community distinguished by a peculiar

holiness in its organisation. The kingdom of Jehovah is with him

entirely identical with the kingdom of David; the tasks he sets

before it are political in their nature, similar, we might say,

to the demands one would address to the Turkish Empire in our own

days. He is unconscious of any difference between human and divine

law: law in itself, jurist's law in the proper juristic sense of

the word, is divine, and has behind it the authority of the Holy

One of Israel.

In that day shall Jehovah of hosts be for a crown of glory and a

diadem of beauty unto the residue of His people, and for a spirit

of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and a spirit of strength

to them that drive back the battle from the borders " (xxviii. 5, 6).

Jehovah is a true and perfect King, hence justice is His principal

attribute and His chief demand. And this justice is a purely forensic

or social notion: the righteousness of the Sermon on the Mount can

only come into consideration when civil justice and order have come

to be a matter of course--which at that time they had not yet done.

The representative of Jehovah is the human king. The earthly

ruler is not in the way of the heavenly: even the glorious

kingdom of the future cannot dispense with him.

"Then a king shall reign in righteousness and princes shall rule

in judgment; each of them shall be as an hiding-place from the wind

and as a covert from the tempest; as rivers of waters in a dry place,

as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land" (xxxii. 1, 2).

As the reigning king is in general unsatisfactory, Isaiah hopes for

a new one who will answer the pattern of David of old, the Messiah.

"There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a

branch shall grow out of his roots: and the spirit of Jehovah

shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the

spirit of counsel and of warlike might, the spirit of knowledge

and of the fear of the Lord; and His breath shall be drawn in the

fear of Jehovah. And He shall not judge after the sight of His

eyes, nor decide by hearsay: but with righteousness shall He

judge the poor, and give sentence with equity for the meek of the

earth; but He shall smite the scorners with the rod of His mouth,

and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked, so that

righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness

the girdle of His reins. Then the wolf shall dwell with the lamb,

and the leopard shall lie down with the kid: and the calf and the

young lion together, and a little child shall lead them. And the

cow and the bear shall feed, their young ones shall lie down

together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox: and the

sucking child shall stroke the head of the adder, and the weaned

child shall put his hand on the eye-ball of the basilisk. They

shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain" (xi. 1-9)

This is generally considered to be a prediction of a universal

golden age on earth; but Isaiah only speaks of the holy

mountain as the scene, meaning by this the whole city of David

as the centre of his kingdom. The just and strict government of

the descendant of David is to bring it about that righteousness

and truth kiss each other, and that the strong do not dare to

injure the weak. Fear of the severity of the law engenders

general confidence; the lamb is no longer afraid of the wolf. The

opposite of this ideal is lawlessness and anarchy within, not war

without; the hope is not that of international peace, as we see

both from verse 1-5 and from verse 9. The Messiah is adorned just

with the virtues which befit a ruler; and this shows sufficiently

what is the nature of the kingdom of which he is to be the head,

i.e., what is the notion of the theocracy.

The other prophets of this period agree with Isaiah (Lamentations iv.

20), only Hosea is peculiar in this as in other points. He

appears to have regarded the kingdom as such as an evil; in more

than one expression he makes it the antithesis of the rule of

Jehovah. But we have to remember that this judgment of his is

based entirely on his historical experience. In the kingdom of

the ten tribes the supreme power was constantly being seized by

usurpers, so that instead of being the pillar of order and law it

was the plaything of parties and the occasion of incessant

disturbances. It is this North-Israelite kingdom that Hosea has

in view; and he reprobates it for no other reason than that, in

the three hundred years of its existence, it has not approved

itself, and does not approve itself in the present time of need.

He does not proceed as on _a priori_ theory, he does not apply as

his rule a pattern of the theocratic constitution given

antecedently to any historical development. There can be no

doubt that it never entered his head that the form God desired the

community to take was not a thing to be determined by circumstances,

but had been revealed at Mount Sinai. /1/

-- Footnote

1. He even speaks with favour of David and the kingdom of Judah,

but I consider all such references in Hosea (as well as in Amos)

to, be interpolations. In i. 7 there is a reference to the

deliverance of Jerusalem under Hezekiah.

-- Footnote

XI.I.4. Nor did the theocracy exist from the time of Moses in the

form of the covenant, though that was afterwards a favourite mode

of regarding it. The relation of Jehovah to Israel was in its nature

and origin a natural one; there was no interval between Him and

His people to call for thought or question. Only when the

existence of Israel had come to be threatened by the Syrians and

Assyrians, did such prophets as Elijah and Amos raise the Deity

high above the people, sever the natural bond between them, and

put in its place a relation depending on conditions, conditions of

a moral character. To them Jehovah was the God of righteousness

in the first place, and the God of Israel in the second place, and

even that only so far as Israel came up to the righteous demands

which in His grace He had revealed to him. They inverted the

order of these two fundamental articles of faith. "If your sins

are as scarlet, how should they be reckoned white as snow? If

they are red like crimson, how should they be as wool? If ye

be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land,

but if ye refuse and rebel, ye must eat the sword, for the mouth

of Jehovah hath spoken it."

Thus the nature of the conditions which Jehovah required of His

people came to the very front in considering His relations with

them: the Torah of Jehovah, which originally, like all His dealings,

fell under the category of divine aid, especially in the doing of

justice, of divine guidance in the solution of difficult questions,

was now conceived of as incorporating the demands on the fulfilment

of which His attitude towards Israel entirely depended. In this way

arose, from ideas which easily suggested it, but yet as an entirely

new thing, the substance of the notion of covenant or treaty. The

name Berith, however, does not occur in the old prophets, not even

in Hosea, who certainly presents us as clearly as possible with

the thing, in his figure of the marriage of Jehovah and Israel

(Isaiah i. 21). That he was unacquainted with the technical usage

of Berith is strikingly proved by ii. 20 and vi. 7; and these

passages must decide the view we take of viii. 1, a passage which

is probably interpolated.

The NAME Berith comes, it is likely, from quite a different

quarter. The ancient Hebrews had no other conception of law nor

any other designation for it than that of a treaty. A law only

obtained force by the fact of those to whom it was given binding

themselves to keep it. So it is in Exodus xxiv. 3-8, and in

2Kings xxiii. 1-3; so also in Jeremiah xxxiv. 8 seq.--curiously

enough just as with the people of Mecca at the time of Mohammed

(lbn Hisham, p. 230 seq.). Hence also the term Sepher Berith for

the Deuteronomic as well as the Jehovistic Book of the Law.

This use of the phrase Berith (ie., treaty) for law, fitted very

well with the great idea of the prophets, and received from it in

turn an interpretation, according to which the relation of Jehovah

to Israel was conditioned by the demands of His righteousness, as

set forth in His word and instruction. In this view of the matter

Jehovah and Israel came to be regarded as the contracting parties

of the covenant by which the various representatives of the people

had originally pledged each other to keep, say, the Deuteronomic

law. /1/

-- Footnote

I This variation gained entrance the more easily as Berith is used

in various applications, e.g:, of the capitulation, the terms of

which are imposed by the stronger on the weaker party: that the

contracting parties had equal rights was by no means involved in

the notion of the Berith. See the wavering of the notion in

Jeremiah xxxiv. 13-18.

-- Footnote

After the solemn and far-reaching act by which Josiah introduced

this law, the notion of covenant-making between Jehovah and Israel

appears to have occupied the central position in religious thought:

it prevails in Deuteronomy, in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, in Isaiah xl.-lxvi.,

Leviticus xvii.-xxvi., and most of all in the Book of the Four

Covenants. The Babylonian exile no doubt helped, as the Assyrian

exile had previously done, to familiarise the Jewish mind with the

idea that the covenant depended on conditions, and might possibly be

dissolved.

XI.II.

XI.II.1. The tabernacle of David fell at last, and no king was born

to set it up again. The state suffered not a crisis, but

destruction. And the result was that such of the religious hopes

of the people as they still held fast, were no longer limited to

existing political conditions, but now took a freer flight, became

tinged with enthusiasm, and cast off all restrictions. In former

times there was always an enemy threatening in the background, a

danger really approaching, to give rise to the expectation of a

great conflagration, the materials for which had long been

collected in the nation itself: but after the exile fancy dealt

in general coalitions of God knows what peoples against the New

Jerusalem, vaticinations for which there was no ground whatever

in reality. /1/

-- Footnote

1 Ezekiel xxxviii. xxxix.; Isaiah lxvi. 18-24; Joel iv.;

Zechariah xii. xiv. In Isaiah v. 26, on the other hand, we must,

of course, read GWY, for GWYM, the singular instead of the plural.

-- Footnote

In earlier times the national state as it had existed under David

was the goal of all wishes. Now a universal world empire was

erected in imagination, which was to lift up its head at Jerusalem

over the ruins of the heathen powers. Prophecy was no longer

tied to history, nor supported by it.

But the extravagant hopes now built on Jehovah were balanced on

the other side by sober and realisable aims which the course of

history presented. Those who waited for the consolation of

Israel were then confronted from the nature of their situation

with practical tasks. The old prophets were satisfied with

expressing their ideas, with criticising existing evils; as to

practical points they had nothing to say, the leadership of the

people was in other hands. But the old community being now gone

and its heads having fallen with it, the godly both had the power

and felt the obligation to place themselves at the head of the

Israel now to be anew created, after which they had long been

striving, and their faith in which was still unshaken. In former

times the nation had not been so seriously threatened as that its

continued existence, notwithstanding the dangerous crises it might

have to pass through, should ever cease to be regarded as natural,

as a thing of course. But now this was by no means a thing of

course, the danger was a pressing one that the Jewish exiles,

like the Samaritan exiles before them, would be absorbed by the

heathens among whom they dwelt. In that case the Messianic hopes

also would have lost their point of application, for, however true

it was that the realising of them was Jehovah's concern, the men must

still be there to whom they were to be fulfilled. Thus everything

depended on getting the sacred remnant safe across this danger, and

giving it so solid an organisation that it might survive the

storms and keep alive the expectation of the promise.

But in the eyes of those whose words had weight in the restoration

the old community, as it had existed formerly, was not in good

repute. They could not but allow Jehovah's sentence of

condemnation to be just which He had spoken by the mouth of His

servants and through the voice of history. The utterances of the

prophets, that fortresses and horses and men of war, that kings and

princes, cannot help, were called to mind and turned into practical

principles: the sole rule of Jehovah was to be carried out in earnest.

Circumstances favoured the design, and this was the great point.

As matters then were, the reconstitution of an actual state was

not to be thought of, the foreign rule would not admit of it (Ezra

iv. 19 seq.). What plan was to be taken, what materials to be

used for such a building as the times allowed? The prophetic

ideas would not serve as building stones; they were not

sufficiently practical. Then appeared the importance of

institutions, of traditional forms, for the conservation even of

the spiritual side of the religion.

The Jewish royal temple had early overshadowed the other

sanctuaries, and in the course of the seventh century they were

extinct or verging on extinction. Under the shelter of the

monarchy the priests of Jerusalem had grown great and had at last

attained, as against their professional brethren elsewhere, a

position of exclusive legitimacy. The weaker the state grew, the

deeper it sank from the fall of Josiah onwards, the higher became

the prestige of the temple in the eyes of the people, and the

greater and the more independent grew the power of its numerous

priesthood; how much more do we feel it in Jeremiah's time than in

that of Isaiah! This advance of the priesthood indicates unmistakably

the rise into prominence of the cultus in the seventh century,

a rise rather helped than hindered by the long reign of Manasseh,

evil as is the reputation of that reign. It shows itself not only

in the introduction of more luxurious materials, incense, for example,

but even more in the importance given to great and striking services,

e.g., the sacrifice of children, and the expiatory offering. Even

after the abolition of the horrid atrocities of Manasseh's time,

the bloody earnestness remained behind with which the performance

of divine service was gone about.

So closely was the cultus of Jerusalem interwoven with the

consciousness of the Jewish people, and so strongly had the

priesthood established their order, that after the collapse of the

kingdom the elements still survived here for the new formation of

a "congregation" answering to the circumstances and needs of the

time. Around the ruined sanctuary the community once more lifted

up its head (1Kings viii.; Haggai i. seq.; Zechariah i. seq.).

The usages and ordinances were, though everywhere changes in

detail, yet not created afresh. Whatever creating there was lay

in this, that these usages were bound together in a system and

made the instruments of restoring an organisation of "the remnant."

Ezekiel first pointed out the way which was suited for the time.

He is the connecting link between the prophets and the law. He

claims to be a prophet, and starts from prophetic ideas: but they

are not his own ideas, they are those of his predecessors which

he turns into dogmas. He is by nature a priest, and his peculiar

merit is that he enclosed the soul of prophecy in the body of a

community which was not political, but founded on the temple and

the cultus. The chapters xl.-xlviii. are the most important in

his book, and have been called by J. Orth, not incorrectly, the

key of the Old Testament.

Thus arose that artificial product, the sacred constitution of

Judaism. In the Priestly Code we have the picture of it in

detail. /1/

-- Footnote

1. It is not the case that the hierocracy is based on the

Priestly Code: that code was only introduced after the

hierocracy was already in existence, but helped, no doubt, to

consolidate and legalise it. The written law afterwards

undermined the rule of the priests; and the scriptures played

into the hands of the scribes and Pharisees. (Compare the case

of the Parsees and Sabians, and <the reference given here,..

namely "p.157, note" is in error. There is no note on p. 157

and I do not know what is being referred to ..>.)

-- Footnote

The distinction, drawn with such pains between the Mosaic

theocracy and the post-exilic hierocracy, is too fine. Theocracy

as a constitution is hierocracy. If Moses founded such a

constitution, he did it prophetically, with a view to circumstances

which only arose a thousand years after his day, <V.II.1.; VII.II.4.>.

Old Israel had not shrunk to a religious congregation, public life

was not quite absorbed in the service of the sanctuary; the high

priest and the dwelling of Jehovah were not the centre round which

all revolved <p.170 is not correct; >. These great changes were

wrought by the destruction of the political existence first of

Samaria, then of Judah. In this way the people became "a kingdom

of priests and a holy nation," as we read in a Deuteronomistic

passage, Exodus xix. 6. If the divine rule was formerly a belief

supporting the natural ordinances of human society, it was now set

forth in visible form as a divine state, in an artificial sphere

peculiar to itself and transcending the ordinary life of the people.

The idea had formerly informed and possessed the natural body, but

now, in order that it might be thoroughly realised, it was to have

spiritual body of its own. There arose a material, external antithesis

of a sacred and profane; men's minds came to be full of this, and

it was their great endeavour to draw the line as sharply as possible

and to repress the natural sphere more and more. Holiness is the

ruling idea in Ezekiel, in Leviticus xvii.-xxvi., and in the Priestly

Code. The notion is a somewhat empty one, expressing rather what

a thing is not than what it is; at first it meant the same as divine,

but now it is used mainly in the sense of spiritual, priestly, as if

the divine could be distinguished from the worldly, the natural, by

outward visible marks of that kind.

The Mosaic theocracy, the residuum of a ruined state, is itself not

a state at all, but an unpolitical artificial product created in

spite of unfavourable circumstances by the impulse of an

ever-memorable energy: and foreign rule is its necessary

counterpart. In its nature it is intimately allied to the old

Catholic church, which was in fact its child. As a matter of taste

it may be objectionable to speak of the Jewish church, but as a

matter of history it is not inaccurate, and the name is perhaps

preferable to that of theocracy, which shelters such confusion of

ideas.

XI.II.2. The Mosaic theocracy appears to show an immense

retrogression. The law of Jehovah should denote what is

characteristic of His people over against the heathen. But

this certainly did not consist in the cultus of Israel: it would

be vain labour to seek in this and that slight variation between

the Hebrew and the Greek ritual a difference of principle between

them. The cultus is the heathen element in the Israelite religion--

the word heathen not being understood, of course, in an ignoble or

unworthy sense. If the Priestly Code makes the cultus the principal

thing, that appears to amount to a systematic decline into the

heathenism which the prophets incessantly combated and yet were

unable to eradicate. It will be readily acknowledged that at the

constitution of the new Jerusalem the prophetic impulses were

deflected by a previously existing natural tendency of the mass on

which they had to operate. Yet in every part of the legal worship

we see the most decided traces of their influence. We have seen to

what a large extent that worship is everywhere marked by a

centralising tendency. This tendency is not connected in the Priestly

Code with opposition to improper or foreign worship; yet it must be

interpreted as a polemical measure; and if it be regarded as an

axiom necessary in the Priestly Code from the nature of the case,

that is only saving that the demands of the prophets had prevailed

most completely in a field where they had the greatest obstacles to

contend with. Exclusive monolatry is by no means innate in the

cultus; it can only be deduced from considerations which are

foreign to the nature of the cultus: it is the antitype of strict

monotheism. The prohibition of images, too, in the worship of the

Deity, is not expressly insisted on, as in Deuteronomy, but is a

provision which is taken for granted; so little is this position

in danger of question that even doubtful and repugnant elements are

embodied in the worship and assimilated by it without hesitation.

The golden ephod, denounced by Isaiah, has become an insignificant

decoration of the high-priest: talismans, forbidden even by

Ezekiel, are allowed (Numbers xv. 37-41), but the object of them is

"that ye may look upon them and remember all the commandments of

Jehovah, and do them, and that ye follow not after your own heart

and your own eyes, after which ye used to go a whoring." The gross

idolatry, with which the expression znh is always connected in

other passages, is by this time out of the question: the heart

itself with its lawless motions is the strange God, whose service

is forbidden.

We may go further and say that by the cultus-legislation the

cultus is estranged from its own nature, and overthrown in its own

sphere. That is most unmistakably the case with regard to the

festivals. They have lost their reference to harvest and cattle,

and have become historical commemorations: they deny their

birth from nature, and celebrate the institution of supernatural

religion and the gracious acts of Jehovah therewith connected.

The broadly human, the indigenous element falls away, they receive

a statutory character and a significance limited to Israel.

They no longer draw down the Deity into human life on all important

occasions, to take part in its joys and its necessities: they are

not HUMAN ATTEMPTS with such naive means as are at command to please

the Deity and render Him favourable. They are removed from the

natural sphere, and made DIVINE MEANS OF GRACE, which Jehovah has

instituted in Israel as sacraments of the theocracy. The worshipper

no longer thinks that in his gift he is doing God a pleasure,

providing Him with an enjoyment: what pleases Him and is effectual

is only the strict observance of the rite. The sacrifices must be

offered exactly according to prescription: at the right place, at

the right time, by the right individuals, in the right way. They are

not based on the inner value of what is done, on the impulse arising

out of fresh occasions, but on the positive command of a will outside

the worshipper, which is not explained, and which prescribes every

particular. The bond between cultus and sensuality is severed:

no danger can arise of an admixture of impure immoral elements,

a danger which was always present in Hebrew antiquity. Worship no

longer springs from an inner impulse, it has come to be an

exercise of religiosity. It has no natural significance; its

significance is transcendental, incomparable, not to be defined;

the chief effect of it, which is always produced with certainty,

is atonement. For after the exile the consciousness of sin, called

forth by the rejection of the people from the face of Jehovah,

was to a certain extent permanent: even when the hard service of

Israel was accomplished and the wrath really blown over, it would

not disappear.

If then the value of the sacred offerings lay not in themselves

but in obedience to the commandments of God, the centre of gravity

of the cultus was removed from that exercise itself and

transferred to another field, that of morality. The consequence

was that sacrifices and gifts gave way to ascetic exerctses,

which were more strictly and more simply connected with morality.

Precepts given originally in reference to the consecration of the

priests for their religious functions were extended to the laity:

the observance of these laws of physical cleanliness was of much

more radical importance in Judaism than the great public cultus,

and led by the straightest road towards the theocratic ideal of

holiness and of universal priesthood. The whole of life was

compressed into a certain holy path; there was always a divine

command to be fulfilled, and by thinking of it a man kept himself

from following after the desires and lusts of his own heart.

On the other hand this private cultus, which constantly required

attention, kept alive and active the individual sense of sin.

The great pathologist of Judaism is quite right: in the Mosaic

theocracy the cultus became a pedagogic instrument of discipline.

It is estranged from the heart; its revival was due to old

custom, it would never have blossomed again of itself. It no

longer has its roots in childlike impulse, it is a dead work, in

spite of all the importance attached to it, nay, just because of

the anxious conscientiousness with which it was gone about. At

the restoration of Judaism the old usages were patched together in

a new system, which, however, only served as the form to preserve

something that was nobler in its nature, but could not have been

saved otherwise than in a narrow shell that stoutly resisted all

foreign influences. That heathenism in Israel against which the

prophets vainly protested was inwardly overcome by the law on

its own ground; and the cultus, after nature had been killed in

it, became the shield of supernaturalistic monotheism.

The end of the Prolegomena

ISRAEL

Reprinted from the "Encyclopaedia Britannica"

I S R A E L.

1. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE NATION.

According to the Book of Genesis, Israel was the brother of Edom,

and the cousin of Moab and Ammon. These four petty peoples,

which may be classed together as the Hebrew group, must at one

time have formed some sort of a unity and have passed through a

common history which resulted in their settlement in

south-eastern Palestine. The Israelites, or rather that section of

the Hebrew group which afterwards developed into Israel, appear at

first to have been the immediate neighbours of Edom, and to have

extended westwards towards the border of Egypt. As regards the

ethnological position of the Hebrews as a whole, tradition has it

that they had connexions not only with the Aramaeans of Osrhoene

(Nahor), but also with certain of the old half-Arab inhabitants of

the Sinaitic peninsula (Kenites, Amalek, Midian). To the Canaanites,

whose language they had adopted, their relation was that of foreign

conquerors and lords to a subject race (Gen. ix, 26).

Some fifteen centuries before our era a section of the Hebrew group

left its ancient seat in the extreme south of Palestine to occupy

the not distant pasture lands of Egypt (Goshen), where they

carried on their old calling, that of shepherds and goatherds.

Although settled within the territory of the Pharaohs,

and recognising their authority, they continued to retain all

their old characteristics,--their language, their patriarchal

institutions, their nomad habits of life.

But in course of time these foreign guests were subjected to

changed treatment. Forced labour was exacted of them for the

construction of new public works in Goshen, an exaction which was

felt to be an assault upon their freedom and honour, and which in

point of fact was fitted to take away all that was distinctive of

their nationality. But they had no remedy at hand, and had

submitted in despair, until Moses at last saw a favourable

opportunity of deliverance. Reminding his oppressed brethren

of the God of their fathers, and urging that their cause was His,

he taught them to regard self-assertion against the Egyptians as

an article of religion; and they became once more a united people

in a determination to seek refuge from oppression in the wilderness

which was the dwelling-place of their kindred and the seat of their

God. At a time when Egypt was scourged by a grievous plague, the

Hebrews broke up their settlement in Goshen one night in spring,

and directed their steps towards their old home again. According

to the accounts, the king had consented to the exodus, and latterly

had even forced it on, but it was none the less a secret flight.

To a not very numerous pastoral people such an undertaking

presented no great difficulty. Nevertheless its execution was not

to be carried out unimpeded. The Hebrews, compelled to abandon

the direct eastward road (Exod. xiii. 17, 18), turned towards

the south-west and encamped at last on the Egyptian shore of the

northern arm of the Red Sea, where they were overtaken by

Pharaoh's army. The situation was a critical one; but a high

wind during the night left the shallow sea so low that it became

possible to ford it. Moses eagerly accepted the suggestion, and

made the venture with success. The Egyptians, rushing after, came

up with them on the further shore, and a struggle ensued. But the

assailants fought at a disadvantage, the ground being ill suited

for their chariots and horsemen; they fell into confusion and

attempted a retreat. Meanwhile the wind had changed; the waters

returned, apd the pursuers were annihilated./1/

-- Footnote

1. Exod. xvi. 21, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31. According to the Old

Testament the exodus took place 480 years before the building of

Solomon's temple, and 960 years before the end of the Babylonian

captivity. These figures are "systematic" or at least

systematised, but even so they are certainly more trustworthy

than the combinations of the Egyptologists.

-- Footnote

After turning aside to visit Sinai as related in Exodus, the

emigrants settled at Kadesh, eastwards from Goshen, on the

southern borders of Palestine, /2/

-- Footnote

2. The site of Sinai (= Horeb?) hardly admits of ascertainment.

The best datum would be the sanctuary of Jethro, if we could

identify it with Midian (Jakut, iv. 451), which lies

on the Arabian coast of the Red Sea obliquely facing the

traditional Sinai. With regard to Qadesh, see Quarterly

Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund (1871), pp. 20, 21.

-- Footnote

where they remained for many years, having at the well of Kadesh

their sanctuary and judgment-seat only, while with their flocks

they ranged over an extensive tract. In all probability their

stay at Kadesh was no involuntary detention; rather was it this

locality they had more immediately had in view in setting out.

For a civilised community of from two to three millions such a

settlement would, of course, have been impossible; but it was

quite sufficient for the immediate requirements of the Goshen

shepherds, few in number as they were and inured to the life of

the desert. That attempts may have been made by them to obtain

possession of the more fertile country to the north is very likely;

but that from the outset they contemplated the conquest of the

whole of Palestine proper, and that it was only in expiation of

a fault that they were held back at the gate of the promised land

until the whole generation of the disobedient had died out, is not

historically probable.

We can assign a definite reason for their final departure from

Kadesh. In the district to the east of Jordan the (Canaanite)

Amorites had, sometime previously, driven the Ammonites from the

lower Jabbok and deprived the Moabites of all their territory to

the north of the Arnon; on the plateau opposite Jericho Heshbon

had become the capital of Sihon, the Amorite king. This sovereign

now set himself to subdue southern Moab also, and not without

success.

"Fire went out from Heshbon, flame from the stronghold of Sihon,

devoured the cities of Moab upon the heights of Arnon.

Woe to thee, O Moab! thou art undone, O people of Chemosh!"

From these straits the Moabites were rescued by their cousins,

the nomads of the wilderness of Kadesh. The Israelites came

forward on behalf of what was at once the common Hebrew cause

and their own particular interest; they took the field against

the Amorites, vanquished them in battle, and broke up the kingdom

of Sihon. The consequence was that the land to the south of the

Arnon remained in the undisputed possession of Moab, while the

victors themselves became masters of the territory immediately

to the north. Settled thus between Moab and Ammon their kinsmen,

the Israelites supplied the link that was wanting in the chain of

petty Hebrew nationalities established in the south of eastern

Palestine.

The army that went out against the Amorites from Kadesh was

certainly not exclusively composed of men who, or whose fathers,

had accomplished the passage of the Red Sea Israel was not a

formed nation when it left Egypt; and throughout the whole period

of its sojourn in the wilderness it continued to be in process of

growth. Instead of excluding the kindred elements which offered

themselves to it on its new soil, it received and assimilated them.

The life they had lived together under Moses had been the first

thing to awaken a feeling of solidarity among the tribes which

afterwards constituted the nation; whether they had previously

been a unity in any sense of the word is doubtful. On the other

hand, the basis of the unification of the tribes must certainly

have been laid before the conquest of Palestine proper; for with

that it broke up, though the memory of it continued. At the same

time it must not be supposed that all the twelve tribes already

existed side be side in Kadesh. The sons of the concubines of

Jacob--Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher--manifestly do not pertain

to Israel in the same sense as do those of Leah and Rachel;

probably they were late arrivals and of very mixed origin.

We know, besides, that Benjamin was not born until afterwards,

in Palestine. If this view be correct, Israel at first consisted

of seven tribes, of which one only, that of Joseph, traced its

descent to Rachel, though in point of numbers and physical strength

it was the equal of all the others together, while in intellectual

force it surpassed them. The remaining six were the sons of

Leah:--Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah; Issachar, Zebulon. They are

always enumerated in this order; the fact that the last two are

also invariably mentioned apart from the rest and after Joseph

has its explanation in geographical considerations.

The time of Moses is invariably regarded as the properly creative

period in Israel's history, and on that account also as giving

the pattern and norm for the ages which followed. In point of

fact the history of Israel must be held to have begun then, and

the foundations of a new epoch to have been laid. The prophets

who came after gave, it is true, greater distinctness to the peculiar

character of the nation, but they did not make it; on the contrary,

it made them. Again, it is true that the movement which

resulted in the establishment of the monarchy brought together

for the first time into organic unity the elements which

previously had existed only in an isolated condition; but

Israel's sense of national personality was a thing of much earlier

origin, which even in the time of the judges bound the

various tribes and families together, and must have had a great

hold on the mind of the nation, although there was no formal and

binding constitution to give it support. When the Israelites

settled in Palestine they found it inhabited by a population

superior to themselves both in numbers and in civilisation, which

they did not extirpate, but on the contrary gradually subdued

and absorbed. The process was favoured by affinity of race

and similarity of speech; but, however far it went, it never had

the effect of making Israelites Canaanites; on the contrary, it

made Canaanites Israelites. Notwithstanding their inferiority,

numerical and otherwise, they maintained their individuality,

and that without the support of any external organisation.

Thus a certain inner unity actually subsisted long before it

had found any outward political expression; it goes back to

the time of Moses, who is to be regarded as its author.

The foundation upon which, at all periods, Israel's sense of its

national unity rested was religious in its character. It was the

faith which may be summed up in the formula, Jehovah is the God

of Israel, and Israel is the people of Jehovah. Moses was not the

first discoverer of this faith, but it was through him that it

came to be the fundamental basis of the national existence and

history. /1/

-- Footnote

1. Jehovah is to be regarded as having originally been a family

or tribal god, either of the family to which Moses belonged or of

the tribe of Joseph, in the possession of which we find the ark of

Jehovah, and within which occurs the earliest certain instance of

a composite proper name with the word Jehovah for one of its

elements (Jeho-shua, Joshua). No essential distinction was felt to

exist between Jehovah and El, any more than between Asshur and

El; Jehovah was only a special name of El which had become

current within a powerful circle, and which on that account was

all the more fitted to become the designation of a national god.

-- Footnote

The exigencies of their position severe a number of kindred clans

from their customary surroundings, and drove them into his arms.

He undertook the responsibilities of their leader, and the

confidence of success which he manifested was justified by the

result. But it was not through any merit of his that the

undertaking (of which he was the soul) prospered as it did; his

design was aided in a wholly unlooked-for way, by a marvellous

occurrence quite beyond his control, and which no sagacity could

possibly have foreseen. One whom the wind and sea obeyed had

given him His aid. Behind him stood One higher than he, whose

spirit wrought in him and whose arm wrought for him,--not for his

personal aggrandisement indeed, but for the weal of the nation.

It was Jehovah. Alike what was done by the deliberate purpose of

Moses and what was done without any human contrivance by nature

and by accident came to be regarded in one great totality as the

doing of Jehovah for Israel. Jehovah it was who had directed each

step in that process through which these so diverse elements,

brought together by the pressure of necessity, had been caused to

pass, and in the course of which the first beginnings of a feeling

of national unity had been made to grow.

This feeling Moses was the first to elicit; he it was also who

maintained it in life and cherished its growth. The extraordinary

set of circumstances which had first occasioned the new national

movement continued to subsist, though in a less degree, throughout

the sojourn of the people in the wilderness, and it was under

their pressure that Israel continued to be moulded. To Moses, who

had been the means of so brilliantly helping out of their first

straits the Hebrews who had accompanied him out of Egypt, they

naturally turned in all subsequent difficulties; before him they

brought all affairs with which they were not themselves able to

cope. The authority which his antecedents had secured for him

made him as matter of course the great national "Kadhi" in the

wilderness. Equally as matter of course did he exercise his

judicial functions, neither in his own interest nor in his own

name, but in the interest of the whole community and in the name

of Jehovah. By connecting them with the sanctuary of Jehovah,

which stood at the well of Kadesh, he made these functions

independent of his person, and thus he laid a firm basis for a

consuetudinary law and became the originator of the Torah in

Israel. In doing this he succeeded in inspiring the national

being with that which was the very life of his own soul; through

the Torah he gave a definite positive expression to their sense

of nationality and their idea of God. Jehovah was not merely

the God of Israel; as such he was the God at once of law and

of justice, the basis, the informing principle, and the implied

postulate of their national consciousness.

The relationship was carried on in precisely the same manner as

that in which it had been begun. It was most especially in the

graver moments of its history that Israel awoke to full

consciousness of itself and of Jehovah. Now, at that time and

for centuries afterwards, the highwater marks of history were

indicated by the wars it recorded. The name "Israel" means

"El does battle," and Jehovah was the warrior El, after whom the

nation styled itself. The camp was, so to speak, at once the

cradle in which the nation was nursed and the smithy in which it

was welded into unity; it was also the primitive sanctuary.

There Israel was, and there was Jehovah. If in times of peace the

relations between the two had become dormant, they were at once

called forth into fullest activity when the alarm of danger was

raised; Israel's awakening was always preceded by the awakening

of Jehovah. Jehovah awakened men who under the guidance of His

spirit placed themselves at the nation's head; in them His proper

leadership was visibly expressed. Jehovah went forth with the

host to battle, and in its enthusiasm His presence was seen

(Judges. v. 13, 23). With signs and wonders from heaven Jehovah

decided the struggle carried on upon earth. In it He was always

upon Israel's side; on Israel was His whole interest concentrated,

although His power (for He was God) reached far beyond their local

limits.

Thus Jehovah was in a very real sense a living God; but the

manifestations of His life in the great crises of His people's

history were of necessity separated by considerable intervals

of time. His activity had something abrupt and tumultuary about

it, better suited for extraordinary occasions than for ordinary

daily life. Traces of this feeling appear very prominently in

the later stages of the development. But although the relations

between Israel and Israel's God came most strongly into

prominence in times of excitement, yet it did not altogether die

out in the periods of comparative repose. It was in the case of

Jehovah just as in the case of the human leaders of the people, who

did not in times of peace wholly lose the influence they had

gained in war. Jehovah had His permanent court at the places of

worship where in times of quietude men clung to Him that they

might not lose Him in times of trouble. His chief, perhaps in the

time of Moses His only, sanctuary was with the so-called ark of

the covenant. It was a standard, adapted primarily to the

requirements of a wandering and warlike life; brought back from

the field, it became, as symbol of Jehovah's presence, the central

seat of His worship. The cultus itself was more than a mere

paying of court to Jehovah, more than a mere expedient for

retaining His sympathies against times of necessity; the Torah of

Jehovah, the holy administration of law, was conjoined with it.

This had first of all been exercised, at the instance of the

priest of Midian, by Moses at the well of Kadesh; it was

continued after him, at the sanctuary, within the circle of those

who had attached themselves to him and were spiritually his heirs.

In cases where the wisdom or the competency of the ordinary

judges failed, men turned direct to the Godhead, i.e., to the

sanctuary and those who served it. Their decisions, whether

given according to their own lights or by lot (according to the

character of the question), were not derived from any law,

but were received direct from Jehovah. /1/

-- Footnote

1 They were consulted chiefly on points of law, but also on all

sorts of difficulties as to what was right and to be done, or

wrong and to be avoided.

-- Footnote

The execution of their decisions did not lie with them; they

could only advise and teach. Their authority was divine, or,

as we should say, moral, in its character; it rested upon that

spontaneous recognition of the idea of right which, though

unexpressed, was alive and working among the tribes--upon Jehovah

Himself, who was the author of this generally diffused sense of

right, but revealed the proper determinations on points of detail

only to certain individuals. The priestly Torah was an entirely

unpolitical or rather prepolitical institution; it had an

existence before the state had, and it was one of the invisible

foundation pillars on which the state rested.

War and the administration of justice were regarded as matters

of religion before they became matters of obligation and civil

order; this is all that is really meant when a theocracy is

spoken of. Moses certainly organised no formal state, endowed

with specific holiness, upon the basis of the proposition "Jehovah

is the God of Israel;" or, at all events, if he did so, the fact

had not in the slightest degree any practical consequence or

historical significance. The old patriarchal system of families

and clans continued as before to be the ordinary constitution, if

one can apply such a word as constitution at all to an unorganised

conglomeration of homogeneous elements. What there was

of permanent official authority lay in the hands of the elders

and heads of houses; in time of war they commanded each his own

household force, and in peace they dispensed justice each within

his own circle. But this obviously imperfect and inefficient

form of government showed a growing tendency to break down just

in proportion to the magnitude of the tasks which the nation in

the course of its history was called upon to undertake. Appeal

to Jehovah was always in these circumstances resorted to; His

court was properly that of last resort, but the ordinary authorities

were so inadequate that it had often enough to be applied to.

Theocracy, if one may so say, arose as the complement of anarchy.

Actual and legal existence (in the modern sense) was predicable

only of each of the many clans; the unity of the nation was

realised in the first instance only through its religion. It was

out of the religion of Israel that the commonwealth of Israel

unfolded itself,--not a HOLY state, but THE state. And the state

continued to be, consciously, rooted in religion, which prevented

it from quitting or losing its rapport with the soil from which

it had originally sprung. With the intermediate and higher stages

of political organisation, with the building of the upper structure,

however, religion had no concern; they were too far removed from

the foundation. The derivative, which did not carry immediately

in itself its own title to exist, was a matter of indifference

to it; what had come into being it suffered to go its own way

as soon as it was capable of asserting its independence. For

this reason it always turned by preference to the future, not

in a utopian but in a thoroughly practical way; by a single

step only did it keep ahead of the present. It prepared the

way for such developments as are not derived from existing

institutions, but spring immediately from the depths in

which human society has its secret and mysterious roots.

The expression "Jehovah is the God of Israel," accordingly, meant

that every tosk of the nation, internal as well as external, was

conceived as holy. It certainly did not mean that the almighty

Creator of heaven and earth was conceived of as having first made

a covenant with this one people that by them He might be truly

known and worshipped. It was not as if Jehovah had originally

been regarded as the God of the universe who subsequently became

the God of Israel; on the contrary, He was primarily Israel's

God, and only afterwards (very long afterwards) did He come to

be regarded as the God of the universe. For Moses to have given

to the Israelites an "enlightened conception of God" would have

been to have given them a stone instead of bread; it is in the

highest degree probable that, with regard to the essential nature

of Jehovah, as distinct from His relation to men, he allowed them

to continue in the same way of thinking with their fathers. With

theoretical truths, which were not at all in demand, He did not

occupy himself, but purely with practical questions which were

put and urged by the pressure of the times. The religious

starting-point of the history of Israel was remarkable, not for

its novelty, but for its normal character. In all ancient

primitive peoples the relation in which God is conceived to stand

to the circumstances of the nation--in other words,

religion--furnishes a motive for law and morals; in the case of

none did it become so with such purity and power as in that of

the Israelites. Whatever Jehovah may have been conceived to be

in His essential nature-God of the thunderstorm or the like--this

fell more and more into the background as mysterious and

transcendental; the subject was not one for inquiry. All stress

was laid upon His activity within the world of mankind, whose ends

He made one with His own. Religion thus did not make men partakers

in a divine life, but contrariwise it made God a partaker in the

life of men; life in this way was not straitened by it, but enlarged.

The so-called "particularism" of Israel's idea of God was in fact

the real strength of Israel's religion; it thus escaped from barren

mythologisings, and became free to apply itself to the moral

tasks which are always given, and admit of being discharged, only

in definite spheres. As God of the nation, Jehovah became the God

of justice and of right; as God of justice and right, He came to

be thought of as the highest, and at last as the only, power in

heaven and earth.

In the preceding sketch the attempt has been made to exhibit

Mosaism as it must be supposed to have existed on the assumption

that the history of Israel commenced with it, and that for

centuries it continued to be the ideal root out of which that

history continued to grow. This being assumed, we cannot treat

the legislative portion of the Pentateuch as a source from which

our knowledge of what Mosaism really was can be derived; for it

cannot in any sense be regarded as the starting-point of the

subsequent development. If it was the work of Moses, then we

must suppose it to have remained a dead letter for centuries,

and only through King Josiah and Ezra the scribe to have become

operative in the national history (compare sections 8 and 10).

The historical tradition which has reached us relating to the

period of the judges and of the kings of Israel is the main

source, though only of course in an indirect way, of our knowledge

of Mosaism. But within the Pentateuch itself also the historical

tradition about Moses (which admits of being distinguished, and

must carefully be separated, from the legislative, although the

latter often clothes itself in narrative form) is in its main

features manifestly trustworthy, and can only be explained as

resting on actual facts.

From the historical tradition, then, it is certain that Moses was

the founder of the Torah. But the legislative tradition cannot

tell us what were the positive contents of his Torah. In fact it

can be shown that throughout the whole of the older period the

Torah was no finished legislative code, but consisted entirely

of the oral decisions and instructions of the priests, as a whole

it was potential only; what actually existed were the individual

sentences given by the priesthood as they were asked for. Thus

Moses was not regarded as the promulgator once for all of a

national constitution, but rather as the first to call into

activity the actual sense for law and justice, and to begin the

series of oral decisions which were continued after him by the

priests. He was the founder of the nation out of which the Torah

and prophecy came as later growths. He laid the basis of

Israel's subsequent peculiar individuality, not by any one formal

act, but in virtue of his having throughout the whole of his long

life been the people's leader, judge, and centre of union.

A correct conception of the manner in which the Torah was made by

him can be derived from the narrative contained in Exod. xviii.,

but not from the long section which follows, relating to the

Sinaitic covenant (chap. xix. seq.). The giving of the law at

Sinai has only a formal, not to say dramatic, significance. It

is the product of the poetic necessity for such a representation

of the manner in which the people was constituted Jehovah's people

as should appeal directly and graphically to the imagination.

Only so can we justly interpret those expressions according to

which Jehovah with His own mouth thundered the ten commandments

down from the mountain to the people below, and afterwards for

forty days held a confidential conference with Moses alone on the

summit. For the sake of producing a solemn and vivid impression,

that is represented as having taken place in a single thrilling

moment which in reality occurred slowly and almost unobserved.

Why Sinai should have been chosen as the scene admits of ready

explanation. It was the Olympus of the Hebrew peoples, the earthly

seat of the Godhead, and as such it continued to be regarded by

the Israelites even after their settlement in Palestine (Judges

v. 4, 5). This immemorial sanctity of Sinai it was that led to

its being selected as the ideal scene of the giving of the law,

not conversely. If we eliminate from the historical narrative

the long Sinaitic section which has but a loose connection with it,

the wilderness of Kadesh becomes the locality of the preceding

and subsequent events. It was during the sojourn of many years

here that the organisation of the nation, in any historical sense,

took place. "There He made for them statute and ordinance, and

there He proved them," as we read in Exod. xv. 26 in a dislocated

poetical fragment. "Judgment and trial," "Massa and Meribah,"

point to Kadesh as the place referred to; there at all events is

the scene of the narrative immediately following (Exod. xvii. =

Num. xx.), and doubtless also of Exod. xviii.

If the legislation of the Pentateuch cease as a whole to be

regarded as an authentic source for our knowledge of what Mosaism

was, it becomes a somewhat precarious matter to make any

exception in favour of the Decalogue. In particular, the

following arguments against its authenticity must be taken into

account.

(1) According to Exod. xxxiv. the commandments which stood upon

the two tables were quite different.

(2) The prohibition of images was during the older period quite

unknown; Moses himself is said to have made a brazen serpent which

down to Hezekiah's time continued to be worshipped at Jerusalem as

an image of Jehovah.

(3) The essentially and necessarily national character of the older

phases of the religion of Jehovah completely disappears in the quite

universal code of morals which is given in the Decalogue as the

fundamental law of Israel; but the entire series of religious

personalities throughout the period of the judges and the kings--

from Deborah, who praised Jael's treacherous act of murder, to David,

who treated his prisoners of war with the utmost cruelty--make it

very difficult to believe that the religion of Israel was from

the outset one of a specifically moral character. The true spirit

of the old religion may be gathered much more truly from Judges v.

than from Exod. xx.

(4) It is extremely doubtful whether the actual monotheism which

is undoubtedly pre-supposed in the universal moral precepts of

the Decalogue could have formed the foundation of a national

religion. It was first developed out of the national religion at

the downfall of the nation, and thereupon kept its hold upon the

people in an artificial manner by means of the idea of a covenant

formed by the God of the universe with, in the first instance,

Israel alone (compare sections 6-10).

As for the question regarding the historical presuppositions of

Mosaism, there generally underlies it a misunderstanding arising

out of theological intellectualism-an attribute found with

special frequency among nontheologians. Moses gave no new idea

of God to his people. The question whence he could have derived

it therefore need not be raised. It could not possibly be worse

answered, however, than by a reference to his relations witb the

priestly caste of Egypt and their wisdom. It is not to be

believed that an Egyptian deity could inspire the Hebrews of

Goshen with courage for the struggle against the Egyptians, or

that an abstraction of esoteric speculation could become the

national deity of Israel. It is not inconceivable indeed,

although at the same time quite incapable of proof, that Moses

was indebted to the Egyptian priests for certain advantages of

personal culture, or that he borrowed from them on all hands in

external details of organisation or in matters of ritual. But

the origin of the germ which developed into Israel is not to be

sought for in Egypt, and Jehovah has nothing in common with the

colourless divinity of Penta-ur or with the God-forsaken dreariness

of certain modern Egyptologists. That monotheism must have been

a foreign importation, because it is contrary to that sexual

dualism of Godhead which is the fundamental characteristic of

Semitic religion, is an untenable exaggeration which has recently

become popular out of opposition to the familiar thesis about the

monotheistic instinct of the Semites (Noldeke, Literar.

Centralbl., 1877, p. 365). Moab, Ammon, and Edom, Israel's

nearest kinsfolk and neighbours, were monotheists in precisely

the same sense in which Israel itself was; but it would be foolish

surely in their case to think of foreign importation.

Manetho's statements about the Israelites are for the most part

to be regarded as malicious inventions: whether any genuine

tradition underlies them at all is a point much needing to be

investigated. The story of Exod. ii. 1 seq. is a mythus of

frequent recurrence elsewhere, to which no further significance is

attached, for that Moses was trained in all the wisdom of the

Egyptians is vouched for by no earlier authorities than Philo and

the New Testament. According to the Old Testament tradition his

connexion is with Jethro's priesthood or with that of the Kenites.

This historical presupposition of Mosaism has external evidence in

its favour, and is inherently quite probable.

2. THE SETTLEMENT IN PALESTINE.

The kingdom of Sihon did not permanently suffice the Israelites,

and the disintegration of the Canaanites to the west of Jordan in

an endless number of kingdoms and cities invited attack. The

first essay was made by Judah in conjunction with Simeon and

Levi, but was far from prosperous. Simeon and Levi were

annihilated; Judah also, though successful in mastering the

mountain land to the west of the Dead Sea, was so only at the cost

of severe losses which were not again made up until the accession

of the Kenite families of the south (Caleb). As a consequence of

the secession of these tribes, a new division of the nation into

Israel and Judah took the place of that which had previously

subsisted between the families of Leah and Rachel; under Israel

were included all the tribes except Simeon, Levi, and Judah,

which three are no longer mentioned in Judges v., where all

the others are carefully and exhaustively enumerated. This

half-abortive first invasion of the west was followed by a second,

which was stronger and attended with much better results. It was

led by the tribe of Joseph, to which the others attached themselves,

Reuben and Gad only remaining behind in the old settlements.

The district to the north of Judah, inhabited afterwards by

Benjamin, was the first to be attacked. It was not until after

several towns of this district had one by one fallen into the

hands of the conquerors that the Canaanites set about a united

resistance. They were, however, decisively repulsed by Joshua

in the neighbourhood of Gibeon; and by this victory the Israelites

became masters of the whole central plateau of Palestine.

The first camp, at Gilgal, near the ford of Jordan, which had

been maintained until then, was now removed, and the ark of Jehovah

brought further inland (perhaps by way of Bethel) to Shiloh, where

henceforward the headquarters were fixed, in a position which

seemed as if it had been expressly made to favour attacks upon

the fertile tract Iying beneath it on the north. The Bne Rachel

now occupied the new territory which up to that time had been

acquired,--Benjamin, in immediate contiguity with the frontier

of Judah, then Ephraim, stretching to beyond Shiloh, and lastly

Manasseh, furthest to the north, as far as to the plain of Jezreel.

The centre of gravity, so to speak, already lay in Ephraim,

to which belonged Joshua and that is mentioned as the last

achievement of Joshua that at the waters of Merom he defeated

Jabin, king of Hazor, and the allied princes of Galilee, thereby

opening up the north for Israelitish settlers. It is quite what

we should expect that a great and united blow had to be struck

at the Canaanites of the north before the new comers could occupy

it in peace; and King Jabin, who reappears at a later date,

certainly does not suit the situation described in Judges iv. v.

The Book of Joshua represents the conquest of western Palestine as

having been the common undertaking of all the tribes together,

which, after the original inhabitants have been extirpated, are

exhibited as laying the ownerless country at Joshua's feet in

order that he may divide it by lot amongst them. But this is a

"systematic" generalisation, contradicted by the facts which we

otherwise know. For we possess another account of the conquest of

Palestine, that of Judges i., which runs parallel with the Book of

Joshua. It is shorter indeed and more superficial, yet in its

entire mode of presenting the subject more historical. According

to its narrative, it appears that Joshua was the leader of Joseph

and Benjamin only, with whom indeed Issachar, Zebulon, Dan,

Naphtali, and Asher made common cause. But before his time the

tribe of Judah had already crossed the Jordan and effected a

lodgment in the territory which lay between the earlier seat of

the nation in the wilderness of Kadesh and its then settlement on

the plateau of Moab, forming in some degree a link of connection

between the two. It might be supposed that the tribe of Judah had

not taken the longer route to the eastward of the Dead Sea at

all, but had already at Kadesh broken off from the main body and

thence turned its steps directly northward. But the representation

actually given in Judges i., to the effect that it was from the

direction of the Jordan and not from that of the Negeb that they

came to take possession of their land, finds its confirmation

in the fact that the southern portion of their territory was

the last to come into their possession. The tradition is

unwavering that Hebron was taken not by Judah but by Caleb,

a family which stood in friendly relations with Israel, but had

no connexion with it by blood. It was only through the policy

of David that Caleb, Othniel, Jerachmeel, and the rest of the

Kenites who had their homes in the Negeb became completely

incorporated with Judah, so that Hebron became at last the capital

of that tribe. Its oldest seats, however, lay further to the

north, in the region of Tekoa, Bethlehem, Baal Judah.

It harmonises well with this view to suppose that Simeon

and Levi must have made at the same time their attempt to

effect a settlement in the hill country of Ephraim. One

of their families, Dinah bath Leah, met with a favourable

reception in the town of Shechem, and began to mix freely with

its population, and thus the way was paved for the establishment

of peaceable relations between the old inhabitants of the land

and the new importations. But these relations were brought to

an end by the two brothers who, in concert it must be supposed

with their sister, fell upon the Shechemites and massacred

them. The final result proved disastrous. The Canaanites

of the surrounding country united against them and completely

destroyed them. There can be no doubt as to the trustworthiness

of the somewhat enigmatical records of those events which are

given in Gen. xlix. and xxxiv.; in no other way is it possible

to explain why Simeon and Levi, which originally came upon the

stage of history on an equal footing with Reuben and Judah, should

have already disappeared as independent tribes at the very

beginning of the period of the judges. Now, that the destruction

of Shechem by the Manassite Abimelech is quite distinct from the

attack made by Simeon and Levi need hardly be said. On the

other hand, the occurrence cannot be regarded as pre-Mosaic, but

must be assigned to a time previous to the conquest of the hill

country of Ephraim by Joseph; for after Joseph's settlement

there the two sons of Leah had manifestly nothing more to hope

for in that locality. We are shut up, therefore, to the

conclusion that they crossed the Jordan at the same time as Judah

separated himself from the main body in search of a suitable

territory. That Simeon accompanied Judah in the first westward

attempt is expressly stated in Judges i. The fate of Levi,

again, cannot be separated from that of Simeon (Gen. xlix. 5-7);

that he is not expressly mentioned in Judges i. ought not to

cause surprise, when it is considered that later generations which

regarded Levi as neither more nor less than a priest would have

some difficulty in representing him as a thoroughly secular

tribe. Such nevertheless he must have been, for the poet in Genesis

xlix. 5-7 puts him on a footing of perfect equality with Simeon,

and attributes to both brothers a very secular and bloodthirsty

character; he has no conception that Levi has a sacred vocation

which is the reason of the dispersion of the tribe; the

dispersion, on the contrary, is regarded as a curse and no

blessing, an annihilation and not the means of giving permanence

to its tribal individuality. The shattered remains of Simeon,

and doubtless those of Levi also, became incorporated with Judah,

which thenceforward was the sole representative of the three sons

of Leah, who according to the genealogy had been born immediately

after Reuben the first-born. Judah itself seems at the same time

to have suffered severely. Of its three older branches, Er, Onan,

and Shelah, one only survived, and only by the accession of

foreign elements did the tribe regain its vigour,--by the fresh

blood which the Kenites of the Negeb brought. For Zarah and

Pharez, which took the place of Er and Onan after these had

disappeared, belonged originally, not to Israel, but to Hezron or

the Kenites; under this designation are included families like

those of Othniel, Jerachmeel, and Caleb, and, as has been already

remarked, even in David's time these were not reckoned as strictly

belonging to Judah. Thus the depletion which the tribe had to

suffer in the struggle with the Canaanites at the beginning of the

period of the judges was the remote cause of the prominence which,

according to 1Chronicles ii., the Bne Hezron afterwards attained in

Judah. The survivors of Simeon also appear to have been forced

back upon these Hezronites in the Negeb; the cities assigned to

them in the Book of Joshua all belong to that region.

Even after the united resistance of the Canaanites had been broken,

each individual community had still enough to do before it could

take firm hold of the spot which it had searched out for itself or

to which it had been assigned. The business of effecting permanent

settlement was just a continuation of the former struggle, only

on a diminished scale; every tribe and every family now fought

for its own land after the preliminary work had been accomplished

by a united effort. Naturally, therefore, the conquest was at first

but an incomplete one. The plain which fringed the coast was

hardly touched; so also the valley of Jezreel with its girdle

of fortified cities stretching from Acco to Bethshean. All that

was subdued in the strict sense of that word was the mountainous

land, particularly the southern hill country of "Mount Ephraim;"

yet, even here the Canaanites retained possession of not a few

cities, such as Jebus, Shechem, Thebez. It was only after the

lapse of centuries that all the lacunae were filled up, and the

Canaanite enclaves made tributary.

The Israelites had the extraordinarily disintegrated state of

the enemy to thank for the ease with which they had achieved

success. The first storm subsided comparatively soon, and

conquerors and conquered alike learned to accommodate themselves

to the new circumstances. Then the Canaanites once more collected

all their energies to strike a blow for freedom. Under the

hegemony of Sisera a great league was formed, and the plain of

Jezreel became the centre of the reorganised power which made

itself felt by its attacks both northwards and southwards. The

Israelites were strangely helpless; it was as if neither shield

nor spear could be found among their 40,000 fighting men. But at

last there came an impulse from above, and brought life and soul to

the unorganised mass; Deborah sent out the summons to the tribes,

Barak came forward as their leader against the kings of Canaan who

had assembled under Sisera's command by the brook of Kishon. The

cavalry of the enemy was unable to withstand the impetuous rush

of the army of Jehovah, and Sisera himself perished in the

flight. From that day the Canaanites, although many strong

towns continued to be held by them, never again raised their

heads.

After these occurrences some further changes of a fundamental

character took place in the relations of the tribes. The Danites

proved unable to hold against the forward pressure of the

Philistines their territory on the coast to the west of Benjamin

and Ephraim; they accordingly sought a new settlement, which was

found in the north at the foot of Hermon. In this way all the

secondary tribes westward of Jordan (Asher, Naphtali, Dan) came

to have their seats beside each other in the northern division

of the land. Eastward of Jordan, Reuben rapidly fell from his

old prominence, sharing the fate of his next eldest brethren

Simeon and Levi. When Eglon of Moab took Jericho, and laid

Benjamin under tribute, it is obvious that he must previously

have made himself master of Reuben's territory. This territory

became thenceforward a subject of constant dispute between Moab

and Israel; the efforts to recover it, however, did not proceed

from Reuben himself, but from Gad, a tribe which knew how to

assert itself with vigour against the enemies by which it was

surrounded. But if the Hebrews lost ground in the south, they

materially enlarged their borders in the north of the land

eastward of Jordan. Various Manassite families, finding their

holdings at home too small, crossed the Jordan and founded

colonies at Bashan and northern Gilead. Although this

colonisation, on account of the rivalry of the Aramaeans, who

were also pressing forward in this direction, was but

imperfectly successful, it nevertheless was of very great

importance, inasmuch as it seemed to give new strength to the bonds

that united the eastern with the western tribes. Not only was

Gilead not lost; it even became a very vigorous member of the

body politic. /1/

-- Footnote

1. It is probable that Manasseh's migration to the territory

eastward of Jordan took place from the west, and later than the

time of Moses. The older portions of the Hexateuch speak not of

two and a half but only of two trans-Jordanic tribes, and exclude

Manasseh; according to them the kingdom of Sihon alone was subdued

by Moses, not that of Og also, the latter, indeed, being a wholly

legendary personage. In the song of Deborah, Machir is reckoned

among the western tribes, and it was not until much later that

this became the designation of the Manassites eastward of Jordan.

It is also worth noticing that Jair's colonisation of northern

Gilead did not take place until the time of the judges (Judges x.

3 seq.), but is related also in Num. xxxii. 39-42.

-- Footnote

The times of agitation and insecurity which followed upon the

conquest of Palestine invited attacks by the eastern nomads, and

once more the Israelite peasantry showed all its old helplessness,

until at last the indignation of a Manassite of good family,

Gideon or Jerubbaal, was roused by the Midianites, who had

captured some of his brothers and put them to death. With his

family, that of Abiezer, he gave pursuit, and, overtaking the enemy

on the borders of the wilderness, inflicted on them such

chastisement as put an end to these incursions. His heroism

had consequences which reached far beyond the scope of his original

purpose. He became the champion of the peasantry against the

freebooters, of the cultivated land against the waste; social

respect and predominance were his rewards. In his native town

of Ophrah he kept up a great establishment, where also he built

a temple with an image of Jehovah overlaid with the gold which

he had taken from the Midianites. He transmitted to his sons

an authority, which was not limited to Abiezer and Manasseh

alone, but, however slightly and indirectly, extended over

Ephraim as well.

On the foundations laid by Gideon Abimelech his son sought to

establish a kingship over Israel, that is, over Ephraim and

Manasseh. The predominance, however, which had been naturally

accorded to his father in virtue of his personal merits, Abimelech

looked upon as a thing seized by force and to be maintained with

injustice; and in this way he soon destroyed those fair

beginnings out of which even at that time a kingdom might have

arisen within the house of Joseph. The one permanent fruit of his

activity was that Shechem was destroyed as a Canaanite city and

rebuilt for Israel. /1/

-- Footnote

1. On the narratives contained in the Book of Judges see Bleek,

Einl. ins Alte Testament (4th ed.), 88-98, and especially the

sections on Barak and Sisera, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, the Danite

migration, and the Benjamites of Gibeah (93-98).

-- Footnote

The most important change of the period of the judges went on

gradually and in silence. The old population of the country,

which, according to Deuteronomy, was to have been exterminated,

slowly became amalgamated with the new. In this way the

Israelites received a very important accession to their numbers.

In Deborah's time the fighting men of Israel numbered 40,000;

the tribe of Dan when it migrated to Laish, counted 600 warriors;

Gideon pursued the Midianites with 300. But in the reigns of Saul

and David we find a population reckoned by millions. The rapid

increase is to be accounted for by the incorporation of the

Canaanites.

At the same time the Hebrews learned to participate in the culture

of the Canaanites, and quietly entered into the enjoyment of the

labours of their predecessors. From the pastoral they advanced

to the agricultural stage; corn and wine, the olive and the fig,

with them are habitually spoken of as the necessaries of life.

It was not strange that this change in the manner of their

everyday life should be attended with certain consequences in

the sphere of religion also. It is inconceivable that the

Israelites should have brought with them out of the desert the

cultus they observed in the time of the kings (Exod. xxii. xxiii.

xxiv.), which throughout presupposed the fields and gardens of

Palestine; they borrowed it from the Canaanites. /1/

-- Footnote

1. In the earliest case where the feast of the ingathering,

afterwards the chief feast of the Israelites, is mentioned, it is

celebrated by Canaanites of Shechem in honour of Baal (Judges ix.

27).

-- Footnote

This is confirmed by the fact that they took over from these the

"Bamoth" or "high places" also, notwithstanding the prohibition

in Deuteronomy xii.

It was natural enough that the Hebrews should also appropriate

the divinity worshipped by the Canaanite peasants as the giver

of their corn, wine, and oil, the Baal whom the Greeks identified

with Dionysus. The apostasy to Baal, on the part of the first

generation which had quitted the wilderness and adopted a settled

agricultural life, is attested alike by historical and prophetical

tradition. Doubtless Baal, as the god of the land of Canaan, and

Jehovah, as the God of the nation of Israel, were in the first

instance co-ordinated. /2/

-- Footnote

2. In Judges v. Jehovah retains his original abode in the

wilderness of Sinai, and only on occasions of necessity quits it

to come to Palestine.

-- Footnote

But it was not to be expected that the divinity of the land

should permanently be different from the God of the dominant

people. In proportion as Israel identified itself with the

conquered territory, the divinities also were identified. Hence

arose a certain syncretism between Baal and Jehovah, which had not

been got over even in the time of the prophet Hosea. At the same

time the functions of Baal were more frequently transferred to

Jehovah than conversely. Canaan and Baal represented the female,

Israel and Jehovah the male, principle in this union.

Had the Israelites remained in the wilderness and in barbarism,

the historical development they subsequently reached would hardly

have been possible; their career would have been like that of

Amalek, or, at best, like those of Edom, Moab, and Ammon. Their

acceptance of civilisation was undoubtedly a step in the forward

direction; but as certainly did it also involve a peril. It

involved an overloading, as it were, of the system with materials

which it was incapable of assimilating at once. The material

tasks imposed threatened to destroy the religious basis of the

old national life. The offensive and defensive alliances

among the tribes gradually dissolved under the continuance of

peace; the subsequent occupation of the country dispersed those

whom the camp had united. The enthusiastic _elan_ with which the

conquest had been achieved gave way to the petty drudgery by which

the individual families, each in its own circle, had to accommodate

themselves to their new surroundings. Yet under the ashes the

embers were still aglow; and the course of history ever fanned

them anew into flame, bringing home to Israel the truths that man

does not live by bread alone, and that there are other things of

worth than those which Baal can bestow; it brought ever again

into the foreground the divineness of heroical self sacrifice of

the individual for the good of the nation.

3. THE FOUNDATION OF THE KINGDOM, AND THE FIRST THREE KINGS.

The Philistines were the means of arousing from their slumber

Israel and Jehovah. From their settlements by the sea on the

low-lying plain which skirts the mountains of Judah on the west,

they pressed northwards into the plain of Sharon, and thence into

the plain of Jezreel beyond, which is connected with that of

Sharon by the upland valley of Dothan. Here, having driven out

the Danites, they came into direct contact with the tribe of

Joseph, the chief bulwark of Israel, and a great battle took

place at Aphek, where the plain of Sharon merges into the valley

of Dothan. The Philistines were victorious and carried off as a

trophy the Israelite standard, the ark of Jehovah. Their further

conquests included, not only the plain of Jezreel and the hill

country bordering it on the south, but also the proper citadel

of the country, "Mount Ephraim." The old sanctuary at Shiloh

was destroyed by them; its temple of Jehovah thenceforward lay

in ruins. Their supremacy extended as far as to Benjamin; the

Philistines had a nec,ib in Gibeah. /1/

-- Footnote

1. _nec,ib_ is an Aramaic word of uncertain meaning. In the name of

the town _Nec,ibin_ (Nisibis) it certainly seems to mean "pillars;"

according to 1Kings iv. 5 and xxii. 48 (where it is pointed

niccab), "governor", seems the best translation, and this is the

only rendering consistent with the expression in 1Samuel xiii. 3

("Jonathan slew the _necib_," &c.).

-- Footnote

But the assertion that they had confiscated all weapons and

removed all smiths must be regarded as an unhistorical

exaggeration; under their regime at all events it was possible

for the messengers of a beleaguered city on the east of Jordan

to summon their countrymen in the west to their relief.

The shame of the Israelites under the reproach of Philistine

oppression led, in the first instance, to a widespread exaltation

of religious feeling. Troops of ecstatic enthusiasts showed

themselves here and there, and went about with musical

accompaniments in processions which often took the shape of wild

dances; even men of the most sedate temperament were sometimes

smitten with the contagion, and drawn into the charmed circle.

In such a phenomenon, occurring in the East, there was nothing

intrinsically strange; among the Canaanites, such "Nebiim"--for

so they were styled--had long been familiar, and they continued

to exist in the country after the old fashion, long after their

original character, so far as Israel was concerned, had been wholly

lost. The new thing at this juncture was that this spirit passed

over upon Israel, and that the best members of the community were

seized by it. It afforded an outlet for the suppressed excitement

of the nation.

The new-kindled zeal had for its object, not the abolition of Baal

worship, but resistance to the enemies of Israel. Religion and

patriotism were then identical. This spirit of the times was

understood by an old man, Samuel ben Elkanah, who lived at Ramah

in south-western Ephraim. He was not himself one of the Nebiim;

on the contrary, he was a seer of that old type which had for a

long time existed amongst the Hebrews much as we find it amongst

the Greeks or Arabs. Raised by his foreseeing talent to a

position of great prominence, he found opportunity to occupy

himself with other questions besides those which he was

professionally called on to answer. The national distress

weighed upon his heart; the neighbouring peoples had taught him to

recognise the advantages which are secured by the consolidation of

families and tribes into a kingdom. But Samuel's peculiar merit

lay, not in discovering what it was that the nation needed, but in

finding out the man who was capable of supplying that need.

Having come to know Saul ben Kish, a Benjamite of the town of

Gibeah, a man of gigantic form, and swift, enthusiastic nature, he

declared to him his destiny to become king over Israel.

Saul very soon had an opportunity for showing whether Samuel

had been a true seer or no. The city of Jabesh in Gilead was

besieged by the Ammonites, and the inhabitants declared

themselves ready to surrender should they fail in obtaining

speedy succour from their countrymen. Their messengers had

passed through all Israel without meeting with anything more

helpful than pity, until at last tidings of their case reached

Saul as he was returning with a yoke of oxen from the field.

Hewing his cattle in pieces, he caused the portions to be sent

in all directions, with the threat that so should it be done

with the oxen of every one who should refuse to help in relieving

Jabesh. The people obeyed the summons, fell suddenly one morning

upon the Ammonites, and delivered the beleaguered city.

Having thus found Saul the man for their need, they refused to

let him go. In Gilgal, Joshua's old camp, they anointed him king.

The act was equivalent to imposing upon him the conduct of the

struggle against the Philistines, and so he understood it. The

first signal for the attack was given by his son Jonathan, when

he slew the _necib_ of the Philistines at Gibeah. These in

consequence advanced in force towards the focus of the revolt,

and took up a position opposite Gibeah on the north, being divided

from it only by the gorge of Michmash. Only a few hundred

Benjamites ventured to remain with Saul. The struggle opened

with a piece of genuine old heroic daring. While the Philistines

were dispersed over the country in foraging expeditions, Jonathan,

accompanied by his armour-bearer only, and without the knowledge

of Saul, made an attack upon the weak post which they had left

behind at the pass of Michmash. After the first had been

surprised and overmastered, the others took to flight, no doubt

in the belief that the two assailants were supported. They

carried their panic with them into the half-deserted camp, whence

it spread among the various foraging bands. The commotion was

observed from Gibeah opposite, and, without pausing to consult the

priestly oracle, King Saul determined to attack the camp. The

attempt was completely successful, but involved no more than the

camp and its stores; the Philistines themselves effected an

unmolested retreat by the difficult road of Bethhoron.

Saul was no mere raw stripling when he ascended the throne;

he already had a grown-up son at his side. Nor was he of

insignificant descent, the family to which he belonged being a

widespread one, and his heritage considerable. His establishment

at Gibeah was throughout his entire reign the nucleus of his

kingdom. The men on whom he could always reckon were his Benjamite

kinsmen. He recognised as belonging to him no other public

function besides that of war; the internal affairs of the country

he permitted to remain as they had been before his accession.

War was at once the business and the resource of the new kingdom.

It was carried on against the Philistines without interruption,

though for the most part not in the grand style but rather in a

series of border skirmishes. /1/

-- Footnote

1 As regards the position of Samuel in the theocracy and the

relation in which the stood to Saul, the several narratives in the

Book of Samuel differ widely. The preceding account, so far as it

relates to Samuel, is based upon 1Samuel ix., x. 1-15, xi., where

he appears simply as a Roeh at Ramah, and has nothing to do

either with the administration of the theocracy or with the

Nebiim. Compare Prolegomena above, chap. VII.

-- Footnote

It is not without significance that the warlike revival of the

nation proceeded from Benjamin. By the battle of Aphek Ephraim

had lost at once the hegemony and its symbols (the camp-sanctuary

at Shiloh, the ark of the covenant). The centre of Israel

gravitated southward, and Benjamin became the connecting link

between Ephraim and Judah. It would appear that there the tyranny

of the Philistines was not so much felt. Their attacks never were

made through Judah, but always came from the north; on the other

hand, people fled from them southwards, as is instanced by the

priests of Shiloh, who settled in Nob near Jerusalem. Through

Saul Judah entered definitely into the history of Israel; it

belonged to his kingdom, and it more than most others supplied him

with energetic and faithful supporters. His famous expedition

against the Amalekites had been undertaken purely in the

interests of Judah, for it only could possibly suffer from their

marauding hordes.

Among the men of Judah whom the war brought to Gibeah, David ben

Jesse of Bethlehem took a conspicuous place; his skill on the harp

brought him into close relations with the king. He became Saul's

armour-bearer, afterwards the most intimate friend of his son,

finally the husband of his daughter. While he was thus winning

the affections of the court, he at the same time became the

declared favourite of the people, the more so because unexampled

good fortune attended him in all he undertook. This excited the

jealousy of Saul, naturally enough in an age in which the king

always required to be the best man. Its first outburst admitted

of explanation as occasioned by an attack of illness; but soon

it became obtrusively clear that the king's love for his

son-in-law had changed into bitter hatred. Jonathan warned his

friend and facilitated his flight, the priests of Nob at the same

time providing him with arms and food. He went into the

wilderness of Judah, and became the leader of a miscellaneous band

of outlaws who had been attracted by his name to lead a roving life

under his leadership. His kinsmen from Bethlehem were of their

number, but also Philistines and Hittites. Out of this band David's

bodyguard subsequently grew, the nucleus of his army. They reckoned

also a priest among them, Abiathar ben Ahimelech ben Ahitub ben

Phinehas ben Eli, the solitary survivor of the massacre of the

sons of Eli at Nob which Saul had ordered on account of suspected

conspiracy with David. Through him David was able to have

recourse to the sacred lot before the ephod. In the end he found

it impossible to hold his own in Judah against Saul's

persecutions, especially as his countrymen for the most part

withheld their assistance. He therefore took the desperate step

of placing his services at the disposal of Achish the Philistine

king of Gath, by whom he was received with open arms, the town of

Ziklag being assigned him as a residence. Here with his band he

continued to follow his old manner of life as an independent

prince, subject only to an obligation to render military service

to Achish.

Meanwhile the Philistines had once more mustered their forces and

marched by the usual route against Israel. Saul did not allow

them to advance upon Gibeah, but awaited their attack in the plain

of Jezreel. A disastrous battle on Mount Gilboa ensued; after

seeing his three eldest sons fall one after another at his side,

Saul threw himself upon his sword, and was followed by his

armour-bearer. The defeat seemed to have undone the work of his

life. The immediate consequence at least was that the Philistines

regained their lost ascendancy over the country to the west of

Jordan. Beyond Jordan, however, Abner, the cousin and

generalissimo of Saul, made his son Ishbaal, still a minor, king

in Mahanaim, and he was successful in again establishing the

dominion of the house over Jezreel, Ephraim, and Benjamin,

of course in uninterrupted struggle with the Philistines.

But he did not regain hold of Judah. David seized the opportunity

to set up for himself, with the sanction of the Philistines, and,

it may safely be presumed, as their vassal, a separate

principality which had its centre of gravity in the south, which

was inhabited, not by the tribe of Judah properly so called, but

by the Calebites and Jerachmeelites. This territory Abner

disputed with him in vain. In the protracted feud between the

houses of Saul and David, the fortunes of war declared themselves

ever increasingly for the latter. Personal causes at last

brought matters to a crisis. Abner, by taking to himself a

concubine of Saul's called Rizpah, had roused Ishbaal's suspicions

that he was aiming at the inheritance, and was challenged on the

point. This proved too much for his patience, and forthwith he

abandoned the cause of his ward (the hopelessness of which had

already perhaps become apparent), and entered into negotiations

with David at Hebron. When about to set out on his return he fell

by the hand of Joab in the gate of Hebron, a victim of jealousy

and blood-feud. His plans nevertheless were realised. His death

left Israel leaderless and in great confusion; Ishbaal was personally

insignificant, and the people's homage continued to be rendered to

him only out of grateful fidelity to his father's memory. At

this juncture he also fell by assassins' hands. As he was

taking his midday rest, and even the portress had gone to sleep

over her task of cleaning wheat, two Benjamite captains introduced

themselves into his palace at Mahanaim and murdered him in the

vain hope of earning David's thanks. The elders of Israel no

longer hesitated about offering David the crown, which he accepted.

His residence was immediately transferred from Hebron to Jebus,

which until then had remained in possession of the Canaanites,

and first derives historical importance from him. It lay on the

border between Israel and Judah,--still within the territory of

Benjamin, but not far from Bethlehem; near also to Nob, the old

priestly city. David made it not only the political but also

the religious metropolis by transferring thither from

Kirjathjearim the ark of the covenant, which he placed within

his citadel on what afterwards became the temple hill.

Still the crown was far from being a merely honorary possession;

it involved heavy responsibilities, and doubtless what

contributed more than anything else to David's elevation to the

throne was the general recognition of the fact that he was the man

best fitted on the whole to overtake the labour it brought with

it, viz., the prosecution of the war with the Philistines, a war

which was as it were the forge in which the kingdom of Israel was

welded into one. The struggle began with the transference of the

seat of royalty to Jerusalem; unfortunately we possess only

scanty details as to its progress, hardly anything more indeed

than a few anecdotes about deeds of prowess by individual heroes.

The result was in the end that David completed what Saul had

begun, and broke for ever the Philistine yoke. This was

undoubtedly the greatest achievement of his reign.

From the defensive against the Philistines David proceeded to

aggressive war, in which he subjugated the three kinsfolk of

Israel,--Moab, Ammon, and Edom. He appears to have come into

conflict first with the Moabites, whom he vanquished and treated

with savage atrocity. Not long afterwards the king of Ammon died,

and David sent an embassy of condolence to Hanun his successor.

Hanun suspected in this a sinister design,--a suspicion we can

readily understand if David had already, as is probable,

subjugated Moab,--and with the utmost contumely sent back the

messengers to their master forthwith, at the same time making

preparations for war by entering into alliance with various

Syrian kings, and particularly with the powerful king of Soba /1/

-- Footnote

1. Soba appears to have been situated somewhat to the north of

Damascus, and to have bordered on the west with Hamath. The

Aramaeans were beginning even at that period to press westwards;

the Hittites, Phoenicians, and Israelites had common interests

against them. To the kingdom of Soba succeeded afterwards that

of Damascus.

-- Footnote

David took the initiative, and sent his army under command of Joab

against Rabbath-Ammon. The Syrians advanced to the relief of the

besieged city; but Joab divided his forces, and, leaving his

brother Abishai to hold the Ammonites in the town in check,

proceeded himself against the Syrians and repulsed them. On their

afterwards threatening to renew the attack in increased force,

David went against them in strength and defeated them at Helam

"on the river." It seems that as a result of this the kingdom of

Soba was broken up and made tributary to Damascus. Rabbath-Ammon

could not now hold out any longer, and the Ammonites shared the

fate of their Moabite brethren. Finally, Edom was about the same

time coerced and depopulated; and thus was fulfilled the vision of

Balaam,--the youngest of the four Hebrew nationalities trod the

three elder under his feet.

So far as external foes were concerned, David henceforward had

peace; but new dangers arose at home within his own family.

At once by ill-judged leniency and equally ill-timed severity

he had completely alienated his son Absalom, who, after Amnon's

death, was heir-apparent to the throne. Absalom organised a

revolt against his father, and to foster it availed himself of a

misunderstanding which had arisen between David and the men of

Judah, probably because they thought they were not treated with

sufficient favour. The revolt had its focus in Hebron;

Ahithophel, a man of Judah, was its soul; Amasa, also of Judah,

its arm; but the rest of Israel was also drawn into the

rebellion, and only the territory to the east of Jordan remained

faithful. Thither David betook himself with precipitancy, for

the outbreak had taken him completely by surprise. At Mahanaim,

which had once before been the centre from which the kingdom was

regained, he collected his faithful followers around him with his

600 Cherethites and Pelethites for a nucleus, Absalom against

Ahithophel's advice allowing him time for this. In the

neighbourbood of Mahanaim, in the wood of Ephraim, the decisive

blow was struck. Absalom fell, and with his death the rebellion

was at an end. It was Joseph that, in the first instance,

penitently sent a deputation to the king to bring him back. Judah,

on the other hand, continued to hold aloof. Ultimately a piece

of finesse on the king's part had the effect of bringing Judah

also to its allegiance, though at the cost of kindling such

jealousy between Israel and Judah that Sheba the Benjamite raised

a new revolt, this time of Israelites, which was soon, however,

repressed by Joab.

David seems to have died soon afterwards. His historical

importance is very great. Judah and Jerusalem were wholly his

creation, and, though the united kingdom of Israel founded by him

and Saul together soon fell to pieces, the recollection of it

nevertheless continued in all time to be proudly cherished by

the whole body of the people. His personal character has been

often treated with undue disparagement. For this we must chiefly

blame his canonisation by the later Jewish tradition which made a

Levitical saint of him and a pious hymn-writer. It then becomes a

strange inconsistency that he caused military prisoners to be

treated with barbarity, and the bastard sons of Saul to be hanged

up before the Lord in Gibeon. But if we take him as we find him,

an antique king in a barbarous age, our judgment of him will be

much more favourable. The most daring courage was combined in him

with tender susceptibility; even after he had ascended the throne

be continued to retain the charm of a pre-eminent and at the same

time child-like personality. Even his conduct in the affair of

Uriah is not by any means wholly to his discredit; not many

kings can be mentioned who would have shown repentance public and

deep such as he manifested at Nathan's rebuke. Least to his

credit was his weakness in relation to his sons and to Joab.

On the other hand, the testament attributed to him in 1Kings ii.

cannot be justly laid to his charge; it is the libel of a later

hand seeking to invest him with a fictitious glory. In like

manner it is unjust to hold him responsible for the deaths of

Abner and Amasa, or to attribute to him any conspiracy with

the hierocracy for the destruction of Saul, and thus to deprive

him of the authorship of the elegy in 2Samuel i, which certainly

was not the work of a hypocrite.

Solomon had already reached the throne, some time before his

father's death, not in virtue of hereditary right, but by palace

intrigue which had the support of the bodyguard of the Six

Hundred. His glory was not purchased on the battlefield. So far

was he from showing military capacity that he allowed a new

Syrian kingdom to arise at Damascus, a far more dangerous thing for

Israel than that of Soba which had been destroyed, and which it

succeeded. During this reign Edom also regained its independence,

nothing but the port of Elath remaining in Solomon's hands. As

regards Moab and Ammon we have no information; it is not

improbable that they also revolted. But if war was not Solomon's

forte, he certainly took much greater pains than either of his

predecessors in matters of internal administration; according to

tradition, the wisdom of the ruler and the judge was his special

"gift." Disregarding the tribal system, he divided his kingdom

into twelve provinces, over each of which he placed a royal

governor, thus making a beginning of vigorous and orderly

administration. /1/

-- Footnote

1. Very possibly the Canaanites, whose complete absorption falls

within this period, were an element that helped to loosen the

bonds of tribal unity, and consolidate a state in its place.

-- Footnote

Judah alone he exempted from this arrangement, as if to show

special favour. For his aim was less the advantage of his

subjects than the benefit of his exchequer, and the same object

appears in his horse traffic (1Kings ix. 19), his Ophir trade

(1Kings x. 11), and his cession of territory to Hiram (1Kings ix.

11). His passions were architecture, a gorgeous court, and the

harem, in which he sought to rival other Oriental kings, as for

example his Egyptian father-in-law. For this he required copious

means-forced labour, tribute in kind, and money. He had

especially at heart the extension and improvement of Jerusalem as

a strong and splendid capital; the temple which he built was only

a portion of his vast citadel, which included within its precincts

a number of private and public buildings designed for various

uses.

It is plain that new currents were introduced into the stream of

the nation's development by such a king as this. As formerly,

after the occupation, Canaanite culture had come in, so now, after

the establishment of the kingdom, the floodgate was open for the

admission of Oriental civilisation in a deeper and wider sense.

Whatever the personal motives which led to it may have been,

the results were very importent, and by no means disadvantageous

on the whole. On the basis of the firmer administration now

introduced, stability and order could rest; Judah had no cause

to regret its acceptance of this yoke. Closer intercourse with

foreign lands widened the intellectual horizon of the people,

and at the same time awakened it to a deeper sense of its own

peculiar individuality. If Solomon imported Phoenician and

Egyptian elements into the worship of Jehovah at his court

temple, the rigid old Israelite indeed might naturally

enough take offence (Exodus xx. 24-26), but the temple itself

nevertheless ultimately acquired a great and positive

importance for religion. It need not be denied that mischievous

consequences of various kinds slipped in along with the good.

The king, moreover, can hardly be blamed for his conduct in

erecting in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem altars to deities of

Ammon and Egypt. For those altars remained undisturbed until

the time of Josiah, although between Solomon and him there

reigned more than one pious king who would certainly have

destroyed them had he found them as offensive as did the author

of Deuteronomy.

4. FROM JEROBOAM I. TO JEROBOAM II.

After the death of Solomon the discontent which had been aroused by

his innovations, and especially by the rigour of his government,

openly showed itself against his successor; and when Rehoboam

curtly refused the demands which had been laid before him by an

assembly of the elders at Shechem, they withdrew from their

allegiance and summoned to be their king the Ephraimite Jeroboam

ben Nebat, who already had made an abortive attempt at revolt

from Solomon, and afterwards had taken refuge in Egypt. Only

Judah and Jerusalem remained faithful to the house of David.

Among the causes of the revolt of the ten tribes, jealousy of

Judah must certainly be reckoned as one. The power of Joseph had

been weakened by the Philistines, and by the establishment of the

monarchy the centre of gravity had been shifted from the north

where it naturally lay. But now it was restored to its old seat;

for once more it was situated, not in Judah, but in Joseph.

Monarchy itself, however, was not abolished by the revolting

tribes, conclusively showing how unavoidable and how advantageous

that institution was now felt to be; but at the same time they did

not refrain from attempts to combine its advantages with those

of anarchy, a folly which was ultimately the cause of their ruin.

As for their departure from the Mosaic cultus observed at

Jerusalem on the other hand, it was first alleged against them as

a sin only by the later Jews. At the time religion put no

obstacle in the way of their separation; on the contrary, it

actually suggested and promoted it (Ahijah of Shiloh). The

Jerusalem cultus had not yet come to be regarded as the alone

legitimate; that instituted by Jeroboam at Bethel and at Dan was

recognised as equally right; images of the Deity were exhibited

in all three places, and indeed in every place where a house of

God was found. So far as the religious and intellectual life of

the nation was concerned, there was no substantial difference

between the two kingdoms, except indeed in so far as new displays

of vigorous initiative generally proceeded from Israel. /1/