xxxviii. 7) and attendants on the celestial Yahweh, constituting His

retinue (1 Kings xxii. 19) which fought on high while the earthly armies of Israel, His people, contended below (Judges v. 20).

The atmospheric and celestial character which belonged from the first to the Hebrew conception of Yahweh explains to us the ease with which the idea of His universal sovereignty arose, which the Yahwistic creation account (belonging to the earlier stratum of J, Gen. ii. 4b foll.) presupposes. How this came to be overlaid by narrow local limitations of His power and province will be shown later. It is probable that Moses held the larger rather than the narrower conception of Yahweh's sphere of influence. While the ark carried with Israel's host symbolized His presence in their midst, He was also known to be present in the cloud which hovered before the host and in the lightning ('_esh Yahweh_ or "fire of Yahweh") and the thunder (_kol Yahweh_ or "voice of Yahweh") which played around Mount Sinai. Moreover, it is hardly probable that a great leader like Moses remained unaffected by the higher conceptions tending towards monotheism which prevailed in the great empires on the Nile and on the Euphrates. In Egypt we know that Amenophis IV. came under this monotheistic movement, and attempted to suppress all other cults except that of the sun-deity, of which he was a devoted worshipper. We also know that between 2000 and 1400 B.C. the Babylonian language as well as Babylonian civilization and ideas spread over Palestine (as the Tell el Amarna tables clearly testify). The ancient Babylonian psalms clearly reveal that the highest minds were moving out of polytheism to a monotheistic identification of various deities as diverse phases of one underlying essence. A remarkable Babylonian tablet discovered by Dr Pinches represents Marduk, the god of light, as identified in his person with all the chief deities of Babylonia, who are evidently regarded as his varying manifestations.[10]

Through the influence of Mosaic teaching and law a definitely ethical character was ascribed to Yahweh. It was His "finger" that wrote the brief code which has come down to us in the decalogue. At first, as Erdmanns suggests, it may have consisted of only seven commands. So also Kautzsch, _ibid._ p. 634. The most strongly distinguishing feature of the code is the rigid exclusion of the worship of other gods than Yahweh. Moreover, the definitely ethical character of the religion of Yahweh established by Moses is exhibited in the strict exclusion of all sexual impurity in His worship. Unlike the Canaanite Baal, Yahweh has no female consort, and this remained throughout a distinguishing trait of the original and unadulterated Hebrew religion (see Bathgen, _Beitrage_, p. 265). Indeed, Hebrew, unlike Assyrian or Phoenician, has no distinctive form for "goddess." From first to last the true religion of Yahweh was pure of sexual taint. The kedeshim and kedeshoth, the male and female priest attendants in the Baal and 'Ashtoreth shrines (cf. the _kadishtu_ of the temples of the Babylonian Ishtar) were foreign Canaanite elements which became imported into Hebrew worship during the period of the Hebrew settlement in Canaan.

Lastly, the earliest codes of Hebrew legislation (Ex. xxi.-xxiii.) bear the distinct impress of the high ethical character of Yahweh's requirements originally set forth by Moses. Of this tradition the Naboth incident in the time of Ahab furnishes a clear example which brings to light the contrast between the Tyrian Baal-cult, which was scarcely ethical, and of which Jezebel and Ahab were devotees, and the moral requirements of the religion of Yahweh of which Elijah was the prophet and impassioned exponent. It was this definite basis of ethical Mosaic religion to which the prophets of the 8th century appealed, and apart from which their denunciations become meaningless. To this early standard of life and practice Ephraim was faithless in the days of the prophet Hosea (see his oracles _passim_--especially chaps. i.-iv. and xiv.), and Judah in the time of Isaiah turned a deaf ear (Isa. i. 2-4, 21).

4. _Influence of Canaan._--The entrance of Israel into Canaan marks the beginning of a new epoch in the development of Israel's religious life. For it involved a transition from the simple nomadic relations to those of the agricultural and more highly civilized Canaanite life. This subject has been recently treated with admirable clearness by Marti in his useful treatise _Die Religion des A.T._ (1906), pp. 25-41.

It is in the festivals of the annual calendar that this agricultural impress is most fully manifested. To the original nomadic _Pesah_ (Passover)--sacrifice of a lamb--there was attached a distinct and agricultural festival of unleavened cakes (_massoth_) which marks the beginning of the corn harvest in the middle of the month _Abib_ (the name of which points to its Canaanite and agricultural origin). The close of the corn-harvest was marked by the festival _Shabhuoth_ (weeks) or _Kasir_ (harvest) held seven weeks after massoth. The last and most characteristic festival of Canaanite life was that of _Asiph_ or "ingathering" which after the Deuteronomic reformation (621 B.C.) had made a single sanctuary and therefore a considerable journey with a longer stay necessary, came to be called _Succoth_ or booths. This was the autumn festival held at the close of September or beginning of October. It marked the close of the year's agricultural operations when the olives and grapes had been gathered [Ex. xxiii. 14-17 (E), xxxiv. 18, 22, 23 (J)]; see FEASTS, PASSOVER, PENTECOST and TABERNACLES. Another special characteristic of Israel's religion in Canaan was the considerable increase of sacrificial offerings. Animal sacrifices became much more frequent, and included not only the bloody sacrifice (Zebah) but also burnt offerings (_kalil_, _'olah_) whereby the whole animal was consumed (see SACRIFICE). But we have in addition to the animal sacrifices, vegetable offerings of meal, oil and cakes (_massoth_, _ashishah_ and _kawwan_, which last is specially connected with the 'Ashtoreth cult: Jer. vii. 18, xliv. 19), as well as the "bread of the Presence" (_lehem happanim_), 1 Sam. xxi. 6. Whether the primitive rite of _water-offerings_ (1 Sam. vii. 6; 2 Sam. xxiii. 16) belonged to early nomadic Israel (as seems probable) it is not possible to determine with any certainty.

Again, the conception of Yahweh suffered modification. In the desert he was worshipped as an atmospheric deity, who manifested himself in thunder and lightning, whose abode was in the sky, whose sanctuary was on the mountain summit of Horeb-Sinai, and whose movable palladium was the ark of the covenant. But when the nomadic clans of Israel came to occupy the settled abodes of the agricultural Canaanites who had a stake in the soil which they cultivated, these conditions evidently reacted on their religion. Now the local Baal was the divine owner of the fertile spot where his sanctuary (_qodesh_) was marked by the upright stone pillar, the symbol of his presence, on which the blood of the slaughtered victim was smeared. To this Baal the productiveness of the soil was due. Consequently it was needful to secure his favour, and in order to gain this, gifts were made to him by the local resident population who depended on the produce of the land (see BAAL, especially _ad init._). Now when the Hebrews succeeded to these agricultural conditions and acquired possession of the Canaanite abodes, they naturally fell into the same cycle of religious ideas and tradition. Yahweh ceased to be exclusively regarded as god of the atmosphere, worshipped in a distant mountain, Horeb-Sinai, situated in the south country (_negebh_), and moving in the clouds of heaven before the Israelites in the desert, but he came to be associated with Israel's life in Canaan. He manifested His presence either by a signal victory over Israel's foes (Josh. x. 10, 11; 1 Sam. vii. 10-12) or by a thunderstorm (1 Sam. xii. 18) or through a dream (Gen. xxviii. 16 foll.; cf. 1 Kings iii. 5 foll.) at a sacred spot like Bethel. Accordingly, whenever His presence and power were displayed in places where the Canaanite Baal had been worshipped, they came to be attached to these spots. He had "put his name," i.e. power and presence (_numen_) there, and the same festivals and sacrifices which had previously been devoted to the cult of the Canaanite Baal were now annexed to the service of Yahweh, the war-god of the conquering race. The process of transference was facilitated by two potent causes: (a) Both Canaanite and Hebrew spoke a common language; (b) the name Baal is not in reality an individual proper name like Kemosh (Chemosh), Ramman or Hadad, but is, like El (Ilu) "god," an appellative meaning "lord," "owner" or "husband." The name Baal might therefore be used for any deity such as Milk (Milcom) or Shemesh ("sun") who was the divine owner of the spot. It was simply a covering epithet, and like the word "god" could be transferred from one deity to another. In this way Yahweh came to be called the Baal or "lord" of any sacred place where the armies of Israel by their victories attested "his mighty hand and outstretched arm." (See Kautzsch in Hastings's _D.B._, extra vol., p. 645 foll.)

Such was the path of syncretism, and it was fraught with peril to the older and purer faith. For when Yahweh gradually became Israel's local Baal he became worshipped like the old Canaanite deity, and all the sensuous accompaniments of Kedeshoth,[11] as well as the presence of the _asherah_ or sacred pole, became attached to his cult. But the symbol carried with it the _numen_ of the goddess symbolized, and there can be little doubt that Asherah came to be regarded as Yahweh's consort. In the days of Manasseh syncretism went on unchecked even in the Jerusalem temple and its precincts, and it was not till the year of Jesiah's reformation (621 B.C.) that the Kedeshim and Kedeshoth as well as the Asherah were banished for ever from Yahweh's sanctuary (2 Kings xxi. 7, xxiii. 7), which their presence had profaned.

Now local worship means the differentiation of the personality worshipped in the varied local shrines, in other words Ba'alim or Baals. Just as we have in Assyria an Ishtar of Arbela and an Ishtar of Nineveh (treated in Assur-bani-pal's (Rassam) cylinder[12] like two distinct deities), as we have local Madonnas in Roman Catholic countries, so must it have been with the cults of Yahweh in the regal period carried on in the numerous high places, Bethel, Shechem, Shiloh (till its destruction in the days of Eli) and Jerusalem. Each in turn claimed that Yahweh had placed his name (i.e. personal presence and power or numen) _there_. Each had a Yahweh of its own.

On the other hand, old deities still lurked in old spots which had been for centuries their abode. It was no easy task to establish Yahweh in permanent possession of the new lands conquered by the Hebrew settlers. The old gods were not to be at once discrowned of might. Of this we have a vivid example in the episode 2 Kings xviii. 24-28. The inhabitants of Babylonia and other regions whom the Assyrian kings had settled in Ephraim after 721 B.C. (cf. Ezra iv. 10) are described as suffering from the depredations of lions, and a priest from the deported Ephraimites is sent to them to teach them the worship of Yahweh, the god of the land. Similarly in the earlier pre-exilian period of Israel's occupation of Canaanite territory the Hebrews were always subject to this tendency to worship the _old_ Baal or 'Ashtoreth (the goddess who made the cattle and flocks prolific).[13] A few years of drought or of bad seasons would make a Hebrew settler betake himself to the old Canaanite gods. Even in the days of Hosea the rivalry between Yahweh and the old Canaanite Baal still continued. The prophet reproaches his Ephraimite countrymen for going after their "lovers," the old local Baals who were supposed to have bestowed on them the bread, water, wool, flax and oil, and for not knowing that "it is I (Yahweh) who have bestowed on her (i.e. Israel) the corn, the new wine and the oil, and have bestowed on her silver and gold in abundance which they have wrought into a Baal image" (Hos. ii. 10).

External danger from a foreign foe, such as Midian or the Philistines, at once brought into prominence the claim and power of Yahweh, Israel's national war-god since the great days of the exodus. The religion of Yahweh (as Wellhausen said) meant patriotism, and in war-time tended to weld the participating tribes into a national unity. The book of Judges with its "monotonous tempo--religious declension, oppression, repentance, peace," to which Wellhausen[14] refers as its ever-recurring cycle, makes us familiar with these alternating phases of action and reaction. Times of peace meant national disintegration and the lapse of Israel into the Canaanite local cults, which is interpreted by the redactor as the prophets of the 8th century would have interpreted it, viz. as defection from Yahweh. On the other hand, times of war against a foreign foe meant on the religious side the unification, partial or complete, of the Israelite tribes by the rallying cry "the sword of Yahweh" (Judges vii. 20). In this way 'Ophrah became the centre of the coalition under Gideon in the tribe of Manasseh. Its importance is attested by Judges viii. 22-28, and we may disregard the "snare" which the Deuteronomic writer condemns in accordance with the later canons of orthodoxy. What 'Ophrah became on a small scale in the days of Gideon, Jerusalem became on a larger scale in the days of David and his successors. It was the religious expression of the unity of Israel which the life and death struggle with the Philistines had gradually wrought out.

Despite the capture of the ark after the disastrous battle of Shiloh, Yahweh had in the end shown himself through a destructive plague superior in might to the Philistine Dagon. There are indeed abundant indications that prove that in the prevalent popular religion of the regal period monotheistic conceptions had no place. Yahweh was god only of Israel and of Israel's land. An invasion of foreign territory would bring Israel under the power of its patron-deity. The wrath with which the Israelite armies believed themselves to be visited (probably an outbreak of pestilence) when the king of Moab was reduced to his last extremity, was obviously the wrath of Chemosh the god of Moab, which the king's sacrifice of his only son had awakened against the invading army (2 Kings iii. 27). In other words, the ordinary Israelite worshipper of Yahweh was at this time far removed from monotheism, and still remained in the preliminary stage of henotheism, which regarded Yahweh as sole god of Israel and Israel's land, but at the same time recognized the existence and power of the deities of other lands and peoples. Of this we have recurring examples in pre-exilian Hebrew history. See 1 Sam. xxvi. 19; Judges xi. 23, 24; Ruth i. 16.

Material objects.

5. _Characteristics and Constituent Elements._--It is only possible here to refer in briefest enumeration to the material and external objects and forms of popular Hebrew religion. These were of the simplest character. The upright stone (or _massebah_) was the material symbol of deity on which the blood of sacrifice was smeared, and in which the _numen_ of the god resided. It is probable that in some primitive sanctuaries no real distinction was made between this stone-pillar and the altar or place where the animal was slaughtered. In ordinary pre-exilian high places the custom described in the primitive compend of laws (Ex. xx. 24) would be observed. A mound of earth was raised which would serve as a platform on which the victim would be slaughtered in the presence of the concourse of spectators. In the more important shrines, as at Jerusalem or Samaria, there would be an altar of stone or of bronze. Another accompaniment of the sanctuary would be the sacred tree--most frequently a terebinth (cf. Judges ix. 37 "terebinth of soothsayers"), or it might be a palm tree (cf. "palm tree of Deborah" in Judges iv. 5), or a tamarisk (_'eshel_), or pomegranate (_rimmon_), as at the high place in Gibeah where Saul abode. Moreover, we have frequent references to sacred springs, as that of _Beer-sheba_, _'Enharod_ (_'eyn-harod_) (Judges vii. 1; cf. also Judges 19, _'En-hakkore_ [_'eyn-haqqore'_]). (On this subject of holy trees, holy waters and holy stones, consult article TREE-WORSHIP, and Robertson Smith's _Religion of the Semites_, 2nd ed., pp. 165-197.)

The wide prevalence of magic and soothsaying may be illustrated from the historical books of the Old Testament as well as from the pre-exilian prophets. The latter indeed tolerated the _qosem_ (soothsayer) as they did the seer (ro'eh). The rhabdomancy denounced by Hosea (iv. 12) was associated with idolatry at the high places. But the arts of the necromancer were always and without exception treated as foreign to the religion of Yahweh. The necromancer of _ba'al 'obh'_ was held to be possessed of the spirit who spoke through him with a hollow voice. Indeed both necromancer and the spirit that possessed him were sometimes identified, and the former was simply called _obh_. It is probable that necromancy, like the worship of Asherah and 'Ashtoreth, as well as the cult of graven images, was a Canaanite importation into Israel's religious practices. (See Marti, _Religion des A.T._, p. 32.)

Priesthood.

The history of the rise of the priesthood in Israel is exceedingly obscure. In the nomadic period and during the earlier years of the settlement of Israel in Canaan the head of every family could offer sacrifices. In the primitive codes, Ex. xx. 22-xxiii. 19 (E), xxxiv. 10-28 (J), we have no allusion to any separate order of men who were qualified to offer sacrifices. In Ex. xxiv. 5 (E) we read that Moses simply commissioned young men to offer sacrifices. On the other hand the _addendum_ to the book of Judges, chaps. xvii., xviii. (which Budde, Moore and other critics consider to belong to the two sources of the narratives in Judges, viz. J[15] as well as E), makes reference to a Levite of Bethlehem-Judah, expressly stated in xvii. 7 as belonging to a clan of Judah. This man Micah took into his household as priest. This narrative has all the marks of primitive simplicity. There can be no reasonable doubt that the Levite here was member of a priestly tribe or order, and this view is confirmed by the discovery of what is really the same word in south Arabian inscriptions.[16] The narrative is of some value as it shows that while it was possible to appoint any one as a priest, since Micah, like David, appointed one of his own sons (xvii. 5), yet a special priest-tribe or order also existed, and Micah considered that the acquisition of one of its members was for his household a very exceptional advantage: "Now I know that Yahweh will befriend me because I have the _Levite_ as priest."[17] In other words a priest who was a Levite possessed a superior professional qualification. He is paid ten shekels per annum, together with his food and clothing, and is dignified by the appellation "father" (cf. the like epithet of "mother" applied to the prophetess Deborah, Judges v. 7; see also 2 Kings ii. 12, vi. 21, xiii. 14). This same narrative dwells upon the graven images, ephod and teraphim, as forming the apparatus of religious ceremonial in Micah's household. Now the ephod and teraphim are constantly mentioned together (cf. Hos. iii. 4) and were used in divination. The former was the plated image of Yahweh (cf. Judges viii. 26, 27) and the latter were ancestral images (see Marti, _op. cit._ pp. 27, 29; Harper, _Int. Comm._ "Amos and Hosea," p. 222). In other words the function of the priest was not merely sacrificial (a duty which Kautzsch unnecessarily detaches from the services which he originally rendered), nor did he merely bear the ark of the covenant and take charge of God's house; but he was also and mainly (as the Arabic name _kahin_ shows) the _soothsayer_ who consulted the ephod and gave the answers required on the field of battle (see 1 Sam. and 2 Sam. _passim_) and on other occasions. This is clearly shown in the "blessing of Moses" (Deut. xxxiii. 8), where the Levite is specially associated with another apparatus of inquiry, viz. the sacred lots, _Urim_ and _Thummim_. The true character of _Urim_ (as expressing "aye") and _Thummim_ (as expressing "nay") is shown by the reconstructed text of 1 Sam. xiv. 41 on the basis of the Septuagint. See Driver _ad loc._

Geniality of Worship.

The chief and most salient characteristic of the worship of the high places was geniality. The sacrifice was a feast of social communion between the deity and his worshippers, and knit both deity and clan-members together in the bonds of a close fellowship. This genial aspect of Hebrew worship is nowhere depicted more graphically than in the old narrative (a J section = Budde's G) 1 Sam. ix. 19-24, where a day of sacrifice in the high place is described. Saul and his attendant are invited by the seer-priest Samuel into the banqueting chamber (_lishkah_) where thirty persons partake of the sacrificial meal. It was the _'asiph_ or festival of ingathering, when the agricultural operations were brought to a close, which exhibited these genial features of Canaanite-Hebrew life most vividly. References to them abound in pre-exilian literature: Judges xxi. 21 (cf. ix. 27); Amos viii. 1 foll.; Hos. ix. 1 foll., Jer. xxxi. 4; Isa. xvi. 10 (Jer. xlviii. 33). These festivals formed the veins and arteries of ancient Hebrew clan and tribal life.[18] Wellhausen's characterization of the Arabian _hajj_[19] applies with equal force to the Hebrew _hagg_ (festival): "They formed the rendezvous of ancient life. Here came under the protection of the peace of God the tribes and clans which otherwise lived apart from one another and only knew peace and security within their own frontiers." 1 Sam. xx. 28 foll. indicates the strong claims on personal attendance exercised on each individual member by the local clan festival at Bethlehem-Judah.

It is easy to discern from varied allusions in the Old Testament that the Canaanite impress of sensuous life clung to the autumnal vintage festivals. They became orgiastic in character and scenes of drunkenness, cf. Judges ix. 27; 1 Sam. 14-16; Isa. xxviii. 7, 8. Against this tendency the _Nazirite_ order and tradition was a protest. Cf. Amos ii. 11 foll.; Judges xiii. 7, 14. As certain sanctuaries, Shiloh, Shechem, Bethel, &c., grew in importance, the priesthoods that officiated at them would acquire special prestige. Eli, the head priest at Shiloh in the early youth of Samuel, held an important position in what was then the chief religious and political centre of Ephraim; and the office passed by inheritance to the sons in ordinary cases. In the regal period the royal residence gave the priesthood of that place an exceptional position. Thus Zadok, who obtained the priestly office at Jerusalem in the reign of Solomon and was succeeded by his sons, was regarded in later days as the founder of the true and legitimate succession of the priesthood descended from Levi (Ezek. xl. 46, xliii. 19, xliv. 15; cf. 1 Kings ii. 27, 35). His descent, however, from Eleazar, the elder brother of Aaron, can only be regarded as the later artificial construction of the post-exilian chronicler (1 Chron. vi. 4-15, 50-53, xxiv. 1 foll.), who was controlled by the traditions which prevailed in the 4th century B.C. and after.

6. _The Prophets._--The rise of the order of prophets, who gradually emerged out of and became distinct from the old Hebrew "seer" or augur (1 Sam. ix. 9),[20] marks a new epoch in the religious development of the Hebrews. Over the successive stages of this growth we pass lightly (see PROPHET). The life-and-death struggle between Israel and the Philistines in the reign of Saul called forth under Samuel's leadership a new order of "men of God," who were called "prophets" or divinely inspired speakers.[21] These men were distributed in various settlements, and their exercises were usually of an ecstatic character. The closest modern analogy would be the orders of dervishes in Islam. Probably there was little externally to distinguish the prophet of Yahweh in the days of Samuel from the Canaanite-Phoenician prophets of Baal and Asherah (1 Kings xviii. 19, 26, 28), for the practices of both were ecstatic and orgiastic (cf. 1 Sam. x. 5 foll., xviii. 10, xix. 23 foll.). The special quality which distinguished these prophetic gilds or companies was an intense patriotism combined with enthusiastic devotion to the cause of Yahweh. This necessarily involved in that primitive age an extreme jealousy of foreign importations or innovations in ritual. It is obvious from numerous passages that these prophetic gilds recognized the superior position and leadership of Samuel, or of any other distinguished prophet such as Elijah or Elisha. Thus 1 Sam. xix. 20, 23 et seq. show that Samuel was regarded as head of the prophetic settlement at Naioth. With reference to Elijah and Elisha, see 2 Kings ii. 3, 5, 15, iv. 1, 38 et seq., vi. 1 et seq. There cannot be any doubt that such enthusiastic devotees of Yahweh, in days when religion meant patriotism, did much to keep alive the flame of Israel's hope and courage in the dark period of national disaster. It is significant that Saul in his last unavailing struggle against the overwhelming forces of the Philistines sought through the medium of a sorceress for an interview with the deceased prophet Samuel. It was the advice of Elisha that rescued the armies of Jehoram and Jehoshaphat in their war against Moab when they were involved in the waterless wastes that surrounded them (2 Kings iii. 14 foll.). We again find Elisha intervening with effect on behalf of Israel in the wars against Syria, so that his fame spread to Syria itself (2 Kings v.-viii. 7 foll.). Lastly it was the fiery counsels of the dying prophet, accompanied by the acted magic of the arrow shot through the open window, and also of the thrice smitten floor, that gave nerve and courage to Joash, king of Israel, when the armies of Syria pressed heavily on the northern kingdom (2 Kings xiii. 14-19).

We see that the prophet had now definitely emerged from the old position of "seer." Prophetic personality now moved in a larger sphere than that of divination, important though that function be in the social life of the ancient state[22] as instrumental in declaring the will of the deity when any enterprise was on foot. For the prophet's function became in an increasing degree a function of _mind_, and not merely of traditional routine or mechanical technique, like that of the diviner with his arrows or his lots which he cast in the presence of the ephod or plated Yahweh image. The new name _nabhi'_ became necessary to express this function of more exalted significance, in which human personality played its larger role. Even as early as the time of David it would seem that Nathan assumed this more developed function as interpreter of Yahweh's righteous will to David. But both in 2 Sam. xii. 1-15 as well as in 2 Sam. vii. we have sections which are evidently coloured by the conceptions of a later time. We stand on safer ground when we come to Elijah's bold intervention on behalf of righteousness when he declared in the name of Yahweh the divine judgment on Ahab and his house for the judicial murder of Naboth. We here observe a great advance in the vocation of the prophet. He becomes the interpreter and vindicator of divine justice, the vocal exponent of a nation's conscience. For Elijah was in this case obviously no originator or innovator. He represents the old ethical Mosaism, which had not disappeared from the national consciousness, but still remained as the moral pre-supposition on which the prophets of the following century based their appeals and denunciations. It is highly significant that Elijah, when driven from the northern kingdom by the threats of the Tyrian Jezebel, retreats to the old sanctuary at Horeb, whence Moses derived his inspiration and his Torah.

We have hitherto dealt with isolated examples of prophetism and its rare and distinguished personalities. The ordinary Hebrew _nabhi'_ still remained not the reflective visionary, stirred at times by music into strange raptures (2 Kings iii. 15), but the ecstatic and orgiastic dervish who was _meshuggah_ or "frenzied," a term which was constantly applied to him from the days of Elisha to those of Jeremiah (2 Kings ix. 11; in Hos. ix. 7 and Jer. xxix. 26 it is regarded as a term of reproach). It is only in rare instances that some exalted personality is raised to a higher level. Of this we have an interesting example in the vivid episode that preceded the battle of Ramoth-Gilead described in 1 Kings xxii., when Micaiah appears as the true prophet of Yahweh, who in his rare independence stands in sharp contrast with the conventional court prophets, who prophesied then, as their descendants prophesied more than two centuries later, smooth things.

It is not, however, till the 8th century that prophecy attained its highest level as the interpreter of God's ways to men. This is due to the fact that it for the first time unfolded the true character of Yahweh, implicit in the old Mosaic religion and submerged in the subsequent centuries of Israel's life in Canaan, but now at length made clear and explicit to the mind of the nation. It became now detached from the limitations of nationalism and local association with which it had been hitherto circumscribed.

Even Elisha, the greatest prophet of the 9th century, had remained within these national limitations which characterized the popular conceptions of Yahweh. Yahweh was Israel's war-god. His power was asserted in and from Canaanite soil. If Naaman was to be healed, it could only be in a Palestinian river, and two mules' load of earth would be the only permanent guarantee of Yahweh's effective blessing on the Syrian general in his Syrian home.

That larger conceptions prevailed in some of the loftier minds of Israel, and may be held to have existed even as far back as the age of Moses, is a fact which the Yahwistic cosmogony in Gen. ii. 4b-9 (which may have been composed in the 9th century B.C.) clearly suggests, and it is strongly sustained by the overwhelming evidence of the powerful influence of Babylonian culture in the Palestinian region during the centuries 2000-1400 B.C.[23] Probably in our modern construction of ancient Hebrew history sufficient consideration has not been given to the inevitable coexistence of different types and planes of thought, each evolved from earlier and more primordial forms. In other words we have to deal not with _one_ evolution but with evolutions.

The existence of the purer and larger conception of Yahweh's character and power before the advent of Amos indicates that the transition from the past was not so sudden as Wellhausen's graphic portrayal in the 9th edition of this _Encyclopaedia_ (art. ISRAEL) would have led us to suppose. There were pre-existent ideas upon which that prophet's epoch-making message was based. Yet this consideration should in no way obscure the fact that the prophet lived and worked in the all-pervading atmosphere of the popular syncretic Yahweh religion, intensely national and local in its character. In Wellhausen's words, each petty state "revolved on its own axis" of social-religious life till the armies of Tiglath-Pileser III. broke up the security within the Canaanite borders. According to the dominating popular conception, the destruction of the national power by a foreign army meant the overthrow of the prestige of the national deity by the foreign nation's god. If Assyria finally overthrew Israel and carried off Yahweh's shrine, Assur (Asur), the tutelary deity of Assyria, was mightier than Yahweh. This was precisely what was happening among the northern states, and Amos foresaw that this might eventually be Israel's doom. Rabshakeh's appeal to the besieged inhabitants of Jerusalem was based on these same considerations. He argued from past history that Yahweh would be powerless in the presence of Ashur (2 Kings xviii. 33-35).

This problem of religion was solved by Amos and by the prophets who succeeded him through a more exalted conception of Yahweh and His sphere of working, which tended to detach Him from His limited realm as a national deity. Amos exhibited Him to his countrymen as lord of the universe, who made the seven stars and Orion and turns the deep midnight darkness into morning. He calls to the waters of the sea and pours them on the earth's surface (chap. v. 8). Such a universal God of the world would hardly make Israel His exclusive concern. Thus He not only brought the Israelites out of Egypt, but also the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir (ix. 7). But Amos went beyond this. Yahweh was not only the lord of the universe and possessed of sovereign power. The prophet also emphasized with passionate earnestness that Yahweh was a God whose character was righteous, and God's demand upon His people Israel was not for sacrifices but for _righteous conduct_. Sacrifice, as this prophet, like his successor Jeremiah, insisted (Amos v. 25; cf. Jer. vii. 22) played no part in Mosaic religion. In words which evidently impressed his younger contemporary Isaiah (cf. esp. Is. chap.