CHAPTER IX.

_PROPHETISM AND THE JAHVEH-RELIGION._

§ 1. The most brilliant point in the history of Hebrew Religion is distinguished by an ingenious original idea, imported by the Hebrews into the development of religion—a single thought, yet in itself sufficient to secure for that short history a permanent place on the pages of universal history. The idea of JAHVEH is what I allude to.[687]

To the question, when this idea was born, the sublimity of which exerted so powerful and irresistible an influence over the noblest minds, it can only be answered that we labour in vain if we try to find the exact point of time of its origin. As the Nile, to which those who have been cradled on its banks ascribe a great magic force, cannot be easily traced to its source, so with the idea of Jahveh: we do not see it spring into life, we only see it after its creation, and observe how it works and kindles new spiritual life in the souls of those who acknowledge it. The Mohammedan idea of Allâh is the only one which may perhaps vie with the sublimity of that of Jahveh; yet even that is far from occupying so lofty an eminence of religious thought as the idea of Jahveh.

If, translating the word Jahveh into a modern European language, we say that he is the one who ‘Brings to be,’ produces and works out Being, we do not in the most distant manner indicate the fulness of meaning which is embodied in that religious technical term. To appreciate it, a sympathising soul must be absorbed in all that the Prophets bring into connexion with the expression Jahveh. Shall I translate all that these inspired men declare of Jahveh? I should have to interpret the entire prophetic literature of the Hebrews, and yet should produce only a pale reflex of all the splendour which envelops Jahveh with glory in the speeches of the Prophets.

I have mentioned the Mohammedan idea of Allâh. Although etymologically identical with Elôhîm, that name may afford a parallel to the Hebrew idea of Jahveh, not only in its essence and meaning, but also in its history. It was not unknown as a technical religious expression to the Arabs before the time of Moḥammed. To the Preislamite or heathen system of Arabic theology, which had its centre in the sanctuary at Mekka, the Divine name Allâh was familiar. But with what a new meaning did the preaching of the epileptic huckster of Mekka inform it! Through the gospel of the Arabian Prophet Allâh became something quite new. Yet even in this respect Jahveh appears still grander. For, while the Mohammedan idea of God clings close to the etymological signification of the word Allâh, insisting primarily on might and unlimited omnipotence, in the Hebrew Prophets’ idea of Jahveh the name becomes a mere accident and accessory, and the true meaning presses with its full weight in a direction quite distinct from the signification and etymology of the word, which was formed in an earlier age. I have already declared my opinion as to the period in which the Divine name Jahveh may have emerged into notice among the people (p. 272), and the impulse which produced it. We can also demonstrate the existence of the name after that period from many proper names which are compounded with the name Jahveh, either full or abbreviated (into Jâhû or Jâ), that name forming either the first or the second member of the compound. From the fact that such names occur in the Northern as well as in the Southern kingdom, it is also evident that the name Jahveh itself had been formed before the separation.[688] On the other hand, we ought not to infer too much from the early occurrence of such names in the canonical books. For, in the first place, not every Jô- at the beginning of proper names is an abbreviation of the Divine name; if our knowledge of the ancient forms of Hebrew speech could be extended, this Jô- would probably in many cases be degraded into the first syllable of a verb, as has been shown by M. Levy to be probably the case in the name Yôʾêl (Joel);[689] secondly, it must be remembered that there is a possibility that many of these names received a Jahveistic colouring only from the theocratic writers. The possibility of this is seen in the fact that even the name Yôsêph, in which the first syllable has nothing to do with Yahveh, once occurs in the form Yehôsêph (Ps. LXXXI. 6 [6]),[690] and still more clearly in the conversion of the name Hôshêaʿ into Yehôshûaʿ (Joshua), which the Biblical narrator certainly refers to a very high antiquity (Num. XIII. 16).[691] But at all events, we must not seek the origin of the name Jahveh outside the Hebrew circle, and endeavour to explain it from foreign elements, as those did who used to see in Jov-is a namesake of Jahveh,[692] and even went to China to find the origin;[693] and as is still done by some in the interest of Egyptian antiquity, who find in the Egyptian _nuk pu nuk_, ‘ego qui ego,’ the prototype of the Hebrew Ehye asher ehye ‘I am who I am.’ But the identification of the Egyptian with the Hebrew formula was recently justly attacked by Tiele,[694] who, however, at the same time, has a private hypothesis of his own on the origin of this idea of God. After proving it to be neither Egyptian, nor Canaanitish, nor Aryan, he refers its origin to the Kenites; supposing the Hebrews to have borrowed the idea of Jahveh from that desert tribe, then to have forgotten it in Canaan, and subsequently to have made it their own again, when the Prophets had revived its use.

But whatever be the origin of the word Jahveh as a technical term of theology, the living and working idea of Jahveh was first introduced into the circle of Hebrew thought by the Prophets. For this reason I have not discussed Jahveism till now; which will be approved by all who see that we cannot speak of ideas as existing and living until they appear as factors in the history of human thought. What means the _existence_ of an idea (as I would say to those who fancy the Jahveh-idea to have been originally the property of a separate caste), if it lives in the brain or the heart of a few individuals, without exercising any force or influence on the world beyond? Could we say of electricity that it exists in nature, if we did not see it interfere as a factor in the life of nature? So the Jahveistic idea must be held to commence its life only when it begins to act upon the spiritual life of the nation. To have caused this is one of the most perennial leaves in the crown of glory won by the Prophets.

I cannot imagine that any of my readers are ignorant of the nature of the labours of the Hebrew Prophets, and therefore we need not here specially characterise their work. By Prophets we do not of course mean those soothsayers, or as they were called Seers (chôze, rôʾe), whom we meet with in the period preceding that of the Prophets, and also later[695]—to whom the young man could apply in confident expectation of finding lost property, when his father had sent him to look for his lost asses; nor do we mean those wonder-workers whose occupation was to suspend and interrupt the regular order of nature for special purposes and for a certain time; nor those who, before the priesthood had become a closed institution, occasionally attended to the sacrifices offered to Elôhîm. We mean those men who, when the people had exhausted all the inspiration which they could derive from the idea of Elôhîm, came forward as new representatives of the idealism, the inspiration and the waning conception of nationality, which they now announced in a still higher degree, and as preachers of the ideal in a nation in which ‘from the sole of the foot up to the head there was no soundness, but wounds, and stripes, and raw sores, which were not pressed out nor bound up nor softened with ointment,’ whose ‘princes’—themselves ‘rulers of Sodom’ over a ‘people of Gomorrah’—‘were dissolute, partners of thieves, all loving bribes and running after rewards, who judged not the orphan nor let the cause of widows come unto them;’ ‘who built up Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity,’ in which ‘the heads judged for bribes, and the priests taught for hire, and the prophets practised magic for silver,’ and which ‘drew down guilt with cords of lies and sin as with the rope of a cart;’ and who ‘called evil good and good evil, made darkness light and light darkness, made the bitter sweet and the sweet bitter’ (Is. I. 6, 10, 23, Mic. III. 10, 11, Is. V. 18, 20).

Into such a depth of immorality and carelessness was the Hebrew nation plunged by an institution which had grown up out of the Hierarchy. Centralisation of worship, formality, lip-service and a so-called piety quite mechanical, which are incapable of promoting either high idealism or morality of thought, and indeed discourage both, but which are well able to kill the most elevated soul, to cover the warmest temperament with a thick crust of ice, and to blunt the noblest heart,—these grew up at the bidding and after the pattern of the priests. A rude service of sacrifices, which brought down the idea of God more and more to the level of the senses, converted Mount Zion into a shambles, while the shameless practices of sacerdotal speculators turned the central sanctuary of Jerusalem, in the words of Isaiah, the noblest hater of that corrupt caste, into a ‘den of robbers.’

The Prophets knew their enemies, and perceived the roots of all the prevailing evil which gave life to the flourishing tree of immorality. They determined to dig up the tree and to clear away its roots. In the very front row stood the priesthood and the bloody service, upon which they turned with all the inextinguishable fanaticism of their noble passion. But the matter could not end here. The national enthusiasm which had been aroused in an earlier period, proved to be but a transient straw-fire; no noble element of that enthusiasm remained to help a new elevation of sentiment. For, independently of the corruptions of the priesthood, the political tendencies of the nation were such as to aid in slowly but surely undermining the idea of nationality. A tiny people, jammed in between great powers on the north and south, and itself nourishing vain desires of political power far above its capabilities and sufficient to wear it out, torn asunder as it was by internal dissensions,—such a people was constantly driven to seek alliance with those great powers. But these alliances soon put out the national fire which had blazed up for a short time in the temper of the people. The consciousness of being thrown on the protection of strangers kills the feeling of independent individuality. Moreover foreign, and especially Canaanitish, manners, were more and more naturalised at the courts of Hebrew kings; the kings connected themselves by marriage with adjacent courts, and the ladies obtained increased liberty for foreign habits in the midst of the Hebrews. The Canaanitish worships were again received in the capital, and soon obliterated whatever power and stimulus the Hebraised idea of Elôhîm still possessed in the direction of national elevation. It is an historical fact that the decline of nations begins when, instead of developing the elements and powers inherent in themselves, they carelessly throw up their own characteristics and yield themselves up without resistance to possibly more refined but foreign influences. What Cicero’s father said of the Hellenised Romans is very instructive on this point, that the better a Roman knew Greek the less he was worth.[696]

The Prophets were not philosophers of culture; they did not start from great principles abstracted from the study of experience, in pondering the course of the world; but conviction and enthusiasm lived in them. They were bad politicians, but unsurpassable representatives of the idea of Nationality. An experienced statesman of that age would have refrained from censuring the alliance with foreign powers; that was the only chance left to the Hebrew nation of adding a few hours of existence to those already counted. But the Prophets lash this political experiment at every step, and say that only the moral awakening of the nation can bring about a possibility of saving its political existence. ‘Ephraim delights in wind and pursues east-wind, while he daily perpetrates more lies and oppression, and they make covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried to Egypt,’ says Hosea (XII. 2 [2]), to the Northern kingdom. At the very last hour Jeremiah (II. 18) treats fraternisation with the foreigners as equivalent to abandoning Jahveh: ‘What hast thou to do with the road to Egypt to drink of the water of the Shîchôr [Nile]? and what hast thou to do with the road to Assyria to drink of the water of the River [Euphrates]?’ They were the purest and most ideal representatives of national individuality and independence. We are here especially interested in one point relating to the history of Religion—the Prophets’ mode of dealing with the two Divine names Elôhîm and Jahveh.

§ 2. It is well known that the Hebrew idea of God finds expression in the canonical Biblical literature in two distinct ways: in the direction of Elôhîm and in that of Jahveh. Each grasps the idea of God, and tries to use it for the instruction of the people, in its peculiar fashion. The Jahveistic school, which is identical with Prophetism, is opposed to the Elohistic, and avoids the employment of Elôhîm as a proper name of God; it treats Elôhîm as merely a universal generic name for Deity, but not as the proper name of the One God. We can easily convince ourselves of this by contemplating the collections of speeches of the Prophets, and the fundamental part of Deuteronomy, which stands nearer to the prophetic spirit than any other part of the Pentateuch. Here we have prevailingly only ‘Jehovah my (thy, our, Israel’s) Elôhîm,’ but these expressions are often abandoned for the simple hâ-Elôhîm, which is regarded as a proper name completely covering the name Jahveh.[697] But in prophetical books in which the Elohistic appellations occur here and there as proper names of the Deity, these cannot from their rare occurrence serve as a counterpoise to the extensive use of the name Jahveh. Their use can only be regarded as a reference to the past, in presence of the then modern view of the Deity. The immediate question, which still remains open after the results gained by the critical school, in establishing the mutual relation of the two Divine names, may be formulated thus: Whence comes it and what is the reason that the Prophets occupy a position of repulsion towards the theological validity of the idea of Elôhîm?

This antipathy is easily explicable and quite natural from the religious and national position of the Prophets. We have already seen that the idea of Elôhîm, if not actually borrowed, was at least confirmed by outside influences, and that the Hebrews held it in common with the Canaanites. And the consequences of its not having grown up in Hebrew soil were exhibited in its further development, when, after the idea of nationality had spent its short-lived flames, the Hebraised idea of God, allied with the equally borrowed sacerdotal institution, generated those immoral religious practices which are characteristic of the Canaanitish decadence. Moreover, the fact that this theological conception was originally borrowed and not native, was the very thing calculated to make it offensive to the Prophets; and their antipathy to it caused them to tie their religious view of the world, their moral convictions, nay their whole God-loving soul, to a name which had hitherto remained in the background, but which was now brought forward by their genius to the front rank, and became the bearer of all that they thought and felt concerning God.

In this sense, the Prophets were creators of Jahveism. The word Jahveh had previously been a meaningless breath, a _flatus oris_, as I said before. Now first it became an active power, as the expression of opposition to the existing evil, the centre of the new aspiration preached by the Prophets. Consequently, it is not the word and its meaning that have the chief import here, but the civilising power associated with the word, its force working on minds. This is not the only instance in which a watchword has had an influence far beyond that which was natural to it as a mere word; so that its original signification has become a matter of indifference. In the word Jahveh the National feature is the essential one.

§ 3. In connexion with this we must not forget that the Prophets have a very living conception of a Creator when they speak of Jahveh, and that most of the words existing in Hebrew for the idea of Creating, are employed most frequently by the Prophets and especially by the Babylonian Isaiah. Great stress is laid on the ‘Creation of Israel.’ Jahveh is the Creator of the Hebrew people. It is also undeniable that the Prophets occupied themselves with finding a metaphysical definition of the idea of Jahveh, and discovered a precisely expressed definition in the well-known Ehye asher ehye, ‘I am he who I am.’ They lay stress on the _unchangeableness_ of Jahveh: he is eternally unchangeable. But it must, on the other hand, be borne in mind that the recognition of Jahveh cannot have started from this sort of metaphysical speculation, which does not, on this or on any other subject, naturally spring up till a later stage of development of the original idea. The metaphysical foundation of the idea of Jahveh must be subject to this rule, and therefore the sentence Ehye asher ehye ‘I am who I am,’ must be assigned to a later time, when Jahveism was already fully formed. Thus then it is the Prophet Malachi, living late after the Captivity, who expresses the sense of this formula in more ordinary language by the words ‘For I Jahveh change not’ (III. 6). Another expression of the same idea is used frequently by the Babylonian Prophet—the words anî hû ‘I am He,’ where the pronoun hû does not refer back to anything mentioned before (Is. XLIII. 10, XLVI. 4, XLVIII. 12). The second of these passages especially shows that the formula anî hû expresses most emphatically the eternal unchangeableness of Jahveh:

Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, And all the remnant of the house of Israel, Ye that are carried from the belly, Or lifted up from the womb, Even to old age _I am He_.

And so the last passage has ‘I am He, I am the first, I am the last.’

We have this anî hû in a fuller form in the Song of Moses (Deut. XXXII. 39), as anî anî hû, and the former is probably an abbreviation of the latter. But the latter is itself grammatically only a mode of expressing by pronouns what Ehye asher ehye expresses by verbs.[698] Now the Song of Moses and the Blessing of Moses, which is connected with it, are easily proved by an examination of their contents to move in much the same prophetical circle of ideas, except indeed that these ideas are already mingled with views which prevailed later, at the time of the compromise. To mention a few examples: the assertion that Jahveh made and established Israel (vv. 6, 15), but that Israel forgot him that made him (v. 18), the exhortation to the people to remember the days of old (v. 7), and the reference to the Tôrâ appointed by Moses (XXXIII. 4), vividly recall the speeches of the second Isaiah (XLIV. 2, LI. 13, XLVI. 9 etc.) and Malachi (III. 22 [IV. 4]). Besides these passages, Deut. XXXII. 2 may be compared with Is. LV. 10 and Job XXIX. 22 _et seq._; v. 16 (where the idols are called zârîm ‘strangers’) with Jer. II. 25, III. 13, Is. XLIII. 12; v. 17 with Jer. XXIII. 23 (in both which the strange gods are called ‘gods from near’). If the reading êsh dâth in the Blessing of Moses v. 2 is correct, the word dâth points to a society accessible to Persian words; and the passage in Deut. XXXII. 39, where the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is mentioned as a recognised article of faith,[699] confirms this impression. Thus also the anî anî hû[700] which occurs in this passage, compared with anî hû which is used by the second Isaiah, is a proof that metaphysical speculation on the idea of Jahveh arose only in the latest period of the development of Prophetism.

§ 4. In the time of the earlier Prophets, however, the chief weight of the Jahveistic confession was given to national and moral ideas.

The assertion which it is usual to insist upon, that Jahveh was the National God of the Hebrews, is therefore true in a certain degree. It is not true that the Prophets could conceive as the Familiar spirit of a handful of Hebrews that infinite Idea towards which their deepest desire and love was directed, which was to them the impersonation of that pure holiness which is the end of the Prophets’ ethics, and which in their eyes represents the infinite sublimity after which the prophetic spirit nobly strove. But it is true that in the view of the Prophets, the Hebrews were the first to understand Jahveh, and that the extension of this understanding over all mankind is the ideal of Prophetism as it affects the world’s history. If any one questions this cosmopolitan side of the Jahveistic theology, he will probably be cured of his error by impartially reading the speeches of the Prophets of all the various phases of prophecy; _e.g._ for the earlier time Is. II. 2–4, words which are almost literally repeated by Micah IV—a proof how deeply rooted in the mind of the Prophets was the conviction there expressed,—and for a later age, Is. LXVI. 18, 19. This great Prophet of the Captivity addresses mankind in general: ‘Hearken to me, ye islands, and attend, ye nations from afar’ (Is. XLIX. 1); and another Prophet of Israel in Babylonia, who speaks of a common festival of all mankind, knows of no Canaanites in the house of Jahveh (Zech. XIV. 16, 17). This cosmopolitan character of Jahveism is most precisely defined by a somewhat earlier Prophet, Zephaniah (III. 9, 10). No doubt it is true that in recognition of Jahveh the Prophets regard the Hebrew nation as the centre, and Mount Zion as the source of the streams of water which is henceforth to fill the whole earth ‘as water covers the bed of the sea’ (Is. XI. 9); and also that they treat Jahveh’s love of mankind as if the lion’s share of it would accrue to his own people. But on the other side it is equally true that, after the extension of the idea of Jahveh over the world, which the Prophets lay down as the ultimate and highest aim of spiritual effort, the prophetical view regards all nations of the earth, even Egypt and Assyria, as equal before Jahveh, the common God of them all. ‘In that day shall Israel be third in alliance with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the middle of the earth, whom Jahveh of hosts has blessed, saying Blessed be my people Egypt, and the work of my hands Assyria, and mine inheritance Israel’ (Is. XIX. 24, 25). It is, therefore, especially in reference to the then present time, at which ideals were only beginning to be framed by this free outlook to the future, that the distinctively National character of the idea of Jahveh is emphasised. This is very natural, since it was by national impulses that the Prophets were roused into enthusiasm for Jahveh; for that enthusiasm, as I have previously urged, was produced by an intense antipathy to the foreign elements which confronted them chiefly in the idea of Elôhîm, common to Israel and Canaan, and including all the abominations of the Canaanitish worship, and all the laxity of manners introduced from foreign parts into the higher ranks of society. With the Canaanites dissolute forms of worship were results naturally developed out of the previous history of their religion, and could be traced backwards to their origin in Mythology. Being such, they could not have so ruinous an influence on morals and character as among the Hebrews, who seized on the immorality as such, without having had any share in the previous historical stages which led to it. If for _unbelief_ we substitute _absence of historical preparation_, the correct observation made by Constant on Roman Polytheism is applicable to this case also: that indecent rites may be practised by a religious nation without detriment to purity of heart; but if unbelief takes hold of the nation, such rites are the cause and the pretext for the most revolting corruption.[701]

The idea of Jahveh, therefore, according to the intention of the Prophets, was to stimulate a return to National enthusiasm; and the zeal against the spreading vice and immorality is directed more against the foreign character of the vice than against the immorality itself. ‘O house of Jacob,’ says Isaiah (II. 5–7), in close contact with the speech in which he anticipates the moral redemption of mankind through beating their swords into scythes and their spears into ploughshares, ‘come ye! we will walk in the light of Jahveh. For thou hast forsaken thine own people, O house of Jacob, because they (_i.e._ the members of that house) are full of divination[702] and soothsayers, like the Philistines, and join hands (_i.e._ contract friendship) with the children of strangers, and their land was filled with silver and gold, and there was no end of their treasures, and their land was filled with horses and there was no end of their chariots.’ In these words we see unequivocally how the ‘light of Jahveh’ is contrasted with foreign customs. It ought to be observed that in Deuteronomy, the book which stands nearer than any other part of the Pentateuch to the Prophets’ views on the world and religion, the collecting of much silver and gold and horses[703] is censured (XVII. 16 _sq._), in fear lest the people should be denationalised thereby and inclined towards the ‘foreign,’ which in Deuteronomy always means Egypt.

Many scholars hold the utterly incorrect view that the idea of Jahveh was, even from the Egyptian age before the Exodus, the property of a few _élites_, either Levitical priests or Prophets; a sort of esoteric religion, into which no uninitiated could pry, and from which Prophetism grew up. If this view were as correct as it is impossible, considering the circumstances of the development of Hebrew religion, we should still have to consider the first appearance of the idea of Jahveh quite independently of any such secret society. And it must also be borne in mind that Egypt was to the Hebrews a ‘House of slaves’ (bêth ʿabhâdîm), as the Bible says (Ex. XIII. 3 etc.), not a Theological College. In Egypt they appropriated very few religious ideas. Were it otherwise, we should assuredly not have to wait till after the Babylonian Captivity to find the belief in immortality among them. It is also a special characteristic of the Prophetic Jahveism, that it insists that this idea was destined to be universally recognised in the Hebrew nation itself; and this contributes to the sublimity of the prophetic conception. In contrast to the secret society cautiously locking up its mystic knowledge, how grand looks a free corporation, whose hopes are concentrated on the idea that at that time ‘I [Jahveh] will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy, and upon your slaves and handmaids I will pour out my spirit in those days;’ ‘and all thy sons will be disciples of Jahveh;’ ‘and they shall all know me, from the least to the greatest of them,’ etc. (Joel III. 1 _sq._ [28 _sq._], Is. LIV. 13, Jer. XXXI. 34).

It is almost self-evident that to the national enthusiasm of the Prophets the political difference between the Northern and the Southern Hebrews scarcely exists. The Prophets extended their influence over the North as well as over the South; and Hosea especially addresses his exhortation to both kingdoms, mentioning Judah in the first division of his verses constructed in parallelism, and Ephraim in the second. The Prophets even announce the reunion of the two sections of the Hebrew state.[704] The Northern kingdom was naturally much farther removed from the religious ideas of the Prophets than the Southern. The hierarchy of Jerusalem, which grew out of a sort of theocratic system, might at least exhibit some appreciation of the preaching of Jahveism; some trace of monotheistic Elohism still existed there, but was quite foreign to the North. The persecution of the Prophets was accordingly much more violent and indiscriminate in the Ephraimite country than in the South, where however it was not absent. The story of the Prophet Elijah (Êlîyâhû ‘My God is Jahveh’), as given in the Book of Kings, is intended to depict the furious persecution of the preachers of Jahveh. Elijah is a typical Jahveist, placed by the prophetical writer who conceived him at a time before true Prophetism was in existence among the Hebrews. As the Prophet painted the character of the ‘Servant of Jahveh’ (ʿebhed Yahve) for the future, as a type of human perfection, so Elijah serves for a similar type in the past. The representatives of Jahveism succeeded in making the person of Elijah so popular as to attract to himself various remnants of ancient myths, as we saw in a previous chapter. But at bottom Elijah is nothing but a type of the persecutions to which Jahveism was exposed in the Northern kingdom on the part of the rulers and priests. The prophetical historians, fond as they are of painting historical personages of the Hebrew nation in colours borrowed from the ideal of Jahveism, are also no less addicted to drawing up descriptions of lives which are typical of Prophetism. Such a life is that of the prophet Samuel, who is regarded as founder of the Schools of the Prophets, and consequently of Prophetism itself. The portraiture of his character, as opponent of an untheocratic monarchy, of the king who showed himself deficient in national feeling by sparing the Amalekite chief, and of a corrupt priesthood, is only a program of Hebrew Prophetism, clothed in a biographical dress and expressing the Prophets’ sentiments in speeches. When the inevitable catastrophe came, and the Northern kingdom fell first, and the subsequent overthrow of the Southern kingdom put an end to all Hebrew independence, the Jahveists, the most earnest representatives of the idea of Hebrew nationality, accompanied the people into captivity. Then first began the time when the Jahveistic ideas bloomed most freely and were taken up with greatest enthusiasm. In the Captivity prophetic thoughts soared to their highest point in the speeches of that immortal prophet whose name is unknown, the so-called Second Isaiah. But we find there also representatives of the sacerdotal formal religion—not, indeed, of the coarse sacerdotalism of Jerusalem, for that was impossible without the central temple, bloody offerings, and political independence—but of a certain direction of religious thought. For, at the very time when idealistic Jahveism had worked itself up to the doctrine of the ‘historical vocation of the people,’ these were exciting the people’s hopes by visions, speaking of the architectural proportions of the new temple that was to be built, and drawing up arrangements for priests and sacrifices. Yet even this school was considerably penetrated by Jahveism; it tacitly appropriated the positive teaching of the Prophets, without, however, entirely giving up the positive part of the sacerdotal system. Thus, far from the Temple of Jerusalem, on the banks of the Chaboras, a compromise was effected between the Prophetic and the Sacerdotal schools. This held sway over the hearts of the Hebrews in the Captivity, and formed the mental and religious basis of the Hebrew commonwealth at its restoration. It finds its first expression in the Book of Ezekiel, which announces itself, and probably correctly, as produced in the Captivity.[705] The first beginnings of this compromise appeared before the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah, under a king who had equal respect for Priests and Prophets, and allowed himself to be influenced in religious matters by both equally. The mark of this tendency to sink all differences between Sacerdotalism and Prophetism is impressed on the Book of Deuteronomy, which appeared at that time. This cannot be called a defeat of the prophetical tendencies. It is not the destiny of ideals to be realised in their native form and natural regardlessness of social and physical obstacles; they are victorious if they succeed in forcing an entrance into their former opponents’ sphere of view, and modifying that in their own way. Now from the nature of the case, where a compromise is made, especially a compromise like the one before us, not settled and concluded by regular negotiation, but consisting of an unconsciously performed balancing of opposing energies, such a settlement is very fluctuating, and leaves open the possibility of a gradual leaning towards one or the other of the two opposite principles. We discover this fluctuation in the self-effected compromise when we contemplate two books of the Pentateuch, between the composition of which lies the whole catastrophe of the Captivity, the first throes and afterpains of which urged the completion of the compromise by bringing home the necessity of the cooperation of all the spiritual factors of human life: Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Both these books combine together sacerdotal worship and Jahveism; neither of them gives a direct negative to either of these originally contrary factors. In both books we find both elements represented, only with the difference that Leviticus sounds an eminently sacerdotal, and Deuteronomy a prevailing prophetic and Jahveistic tone. Both stand on the level of Jahveism, without however disdaining sacerdotal worship and sacrifice. In the prophetical Books of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, and in the postexilian interpolations occurring in that of the Babylonian Isaiah, the various stages of the compromise may also be studied. Observe, for instance, the endeavour of Haggai (II. 11–15) to employ the sacerdotal Law (tôrâ) in a Jahveistic sense by a moral application; Zechariah’s address to the High Priest (III. 3–7), in which he speaks of a purification of the restored priesthood; and especially the exhortation to the priests contained in the Book of Malachi, which enable us to form a picture of a priesthood formed on Jahveistic principles as conceived by the Prophet of the Restoration, in contrast to the priesthood of the age before the Captivity, which was the object of the passionate hatred of the Prophets.

§ 5. We have lingered over the general description of the Jahveism of the Prophets longer than the symmetry of these investigations would justify. There is now something to be said on the relation of Jahveism to the Mythology of the Hebrews.

It is to be observed on this subject that pure Jahveism, as preached by those Prophets who first formulated that ideal, had a long struggle with the conservative leanings of the people and their rulers, and that in the period before the Captivity it could not become a religious element fitted to penetrate all strata of society. Jahveism could therefore exercise but little influence on the narration of myths, _i.e._ on the mode in which myths were propagated in the mouth of the people; for only a new conception which penetrates the whole people can possibly determine and give a direction to the transformation of a myth. Moreover, Mythology was not a subject with which the Prophets felt much sympathy. Within the frame of the Puritanical Monotheism which they taught there was no suitable place for myths. Hence, also, the Prophets take so little notice of the myths of their nation (a very little is brought in by Hosea, chap. XII.); their frequent allusions to the story of the destruction of Sodom and ʿAmôrâ (Gomorrah), are accounted for by the obvious parallel which they drew between those ancient cities, proverbial for their vice, and Jerusalem and Shômerôn (Samaria), together with the respective fate of each. The silence of the Prophets is no proof, although many wish to use it as such, that in their times the stories of the Patriarchs were not yet in existence; sufficient answer is afforded by the few cases in which reference is made to those stories. Their silence is much rather a proof of the power which the idea of Jahveh exerted over their souls, so filling them, that by its side the forms of Patriarchs and Heroes shrivel into insignificant persons, and the narrated events are so dwarfed that no religious elevation can be derived from them. This also explains the tone of irony assumed by the Prophet when he has occasion to allude to Patriarchs and their stories. Thus, for example, Hosea in reference to Jacob, whom he describes as deceiving his brother, as fighting against God, as subservient to women (XII. 4, 5, 13 [3, 4, 12]), and the Babylonian Isaiah in reference to Abraham, whose smallness in comparison with Jahveh he expresses (LXIII. 16). I pointed out above (pp. 229, 230), that this apparent degradation of Abraham is only directed against the remembrance of the Patriarch’s divinity, and that in another passage (LI. 1 _sq._) Abraham and Sarah are referred to as the ancestors of the Hebrew nation. To keep alive the consciousness of derivation from special ancestors was obviously not out of keeping with the National tendency of Jahveism, but rather an essential means of promoting it. In this sense the Babylonian Prophet’s address should be understood: ‘Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness and seek Jahveh! Look to the Rock, whence ye were hewn, and to the Well-hole, from which ye were dug: look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah that bore you!’ (Is. LI. 1 _sq._) In the same sense Malachi also refers to the Patriarchal age, saying, ‘Is not Esau Jacob’s brother? and I love Jacob, and I have hated Esau’ (I. 2 _sq._). Therefore, also, there are special forms by which the Prophets address the nation, such as ‘House of Jacob,’ which is excessively frequent, and ‘House of Isaac’ (Amos VII. 16). These forms were intended to remind them of their proper ancestry, and to keep alive the consciousness of their national peculiarity, and thus it came about that the names of ancestors were identified with the nation itself. The words Jacob and Abraham are names of the Hebrew people, in Micah VII. 20 and Is. XXIX. 22, among the earlier representatives of Prophetism: ‘Thus saith Jahveh, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob;’ ‘Thou givest truth to Jacob and favour to Abraham,’ _i.e._ to the Hebrew nation.

The prevailing idea, therefore, emphasised by the Prophet, is that of derivation from ancestors other than those of heathen nations. The details of the Patriarchal history are devoid of interest for him, and personages without the character of ancestors still more so. Consequently even Moses remains in the background. Not even Hosea gives his name, though he says, ‘By a prophet Jahveh brought Israel up from Egypt, and by a prophet he was preserved’ (XII. 14 [13]). Only in very few passages, in one early prophet, Micah (VI. 4),[706] and one of the later period, the Babylonian Isaiah (LXIII. 11 _sq._), is the deliverance from Egypt mentioned coupled with the name of Moses. To the Exodus itself frequent reference is made, and the story of it does admirable service to the view of the theocratical vocation of the nation. But it is not till after the Captivity that the Legislator himself is brought into the foreground, in consequence of the compromise between Jahveism and the formal legality of the priesthood (Mal. III. 22 [IV. 4]).[706] Whatever of the truly mythical still lived in the memory of the people received from Jahveism a complete monotheistic transformation. Jahveh is made the conqueror of the Dragon of the Storm and of the Monsters of Darkness (see p. 27). Notice the numerous questions in the theodicy in the Book of Job, which Jahveh puts in opposition to the explanation of physical phenomena given by mythology: ‘Hath the rain a father, or who begot the drops of dew? Out of whose womb came the ice, and the hoar-frost of the sky, who bore it?’ (Job XXXVIII. 28 _sq._). Such are the questions asked by the Jahveistic monotheist. Removed to this new sphere, all the myths are at once beset with denials; the monotheist’s whole interpretation of nature and idea of causality lead to One only—to Jahveh; at this stage the myth is utterly overthrown. But the fact that a nation which in its primeval age formed myths, at a late period of its existence witnessed the growth of the direct negation of mythical ideas in its midst, is no reason for treating the former existence of myths as questionable.[707]

But Jahveism acknowledged the duty of reforming the subject-matter of legends, whenever a religious practice condemned by the Jahveists was supported by legendary authority. Such a practice was Human Sacrifice, which found support and justification in the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. Here, therefore, Jahveism interfered, in the manner which we had occasion to describe in the chapter on the method of investigating myths (p. 45). In this passage, even in the form in which we have it after the last revision, the will of Jahveh was manifestly introduced into the second half with a polemical purpose to oppose that of Elôhîm who in the first half demanded the sacrifice. But the case is quite different in what modern Biblical critics call the Jahveistic portions of the Pentateuch. As it is not the object of this book to write the history of the composition of the Biblical _Literature_, I cannot enter into an exposition of my views on the redaction to writing and piecing together of those literary fragments which compose the Pentateuch, including a full justification of those views. I will only briefly remark, that all the legendary literature which we now have in the Pentateuch is already more or less penetrated by Jahveism, and that only in the legal portion are a few remnants of strictly Elohistic legislation preserved. The literary form given to the mass of stories is itself the result of the compromise between the older and the Jahveistic religious tendency. Just as there are two books of law, Deuteronomy and Leviticus (to the latter of which a few passages of law in Exodus and Numbers must be added), both of which represent the compromise between the Sacerdotal and the Prophetical tendencies, the sacerdotal view giving the fundamental tone to the one, and the prophetical to the other, so is it also with the mass of stories. Even what are called Elohistic documents are strictly speaking Jahveistic in character, only that the name Elôhîm is admitted to be appropriate to the ancient Patriarchal age, and Jahveism is introduced as an historical event, dating from Moses. In opposition to this, another work represents the more thorough-going Jahveism. Now when the Jahveistic school came to terms with the popular religious views, and these were penetrated by the fundamental truths taught by the Prophets, the Jahveists did not disdain to get hold of the legendary matter and work it up according to their own principles. If the Patriarchs were really models of religious life, they must also have been strict Jahveists; and, therefore, these so-called Jahveistic documents describe the Patriarchs as living on completely Jahveistic ground, Eve, Lemech, and Noah as calling the Deity Jahveh, and Cain and Abel as offering sacrifices to Jahveh. As early as the time of Seth commences the general adoration of Jahveh. The historic Israel is of course to the Jahveistic writers more than to any others a ḳehal Yahve, ʿadath Yahve, ‘congregation, community of Jahveh.’ With this principle accords all else that the exegetical school has brought together to characterise the Jahveistic narrator.[708] Moreover, in the Jahveistic writings more than in any others particular attention is paid to what is popular and national;[709] and, as would be expected from the strictly national character of Jahveism, they are distinguished by a greater and more eager zeal. I will pick out and draw attention to some terms belonging to the peculiar circle of ideas of the Prophets, in order to indicate the closer mutual relationship of the so-called Jahveistic documents: viz. debhar Yahve ‘Word of Jahveh,’ and neʾûm Yahve ‘speech of Jahveh.’[710] To anyone acquainted with the Prophetic literature it is needless to dwell on the specifically prophetic character of these two technical expressions. I call them _technical_ expressions with special reference to debhar Yahve. For dâbhâr was used by the Prophets, especially those of the later times, of the speech which they proclaimed in the name of Jahveh (and in direct polemical opposition to another technical expression, massâ, Jer. XXIII. 33 _sq._, which nevertheless occurs again in later Prophets), just as the sacerdotal school which had entered on good terms with Jahveism, when they laid stress on accordance with the Law, called instruction in the Law tôrâ. Tôrâ and Dâbhâr bear the same relation to one another as Kôhên and Nâbhî (Priest and Prophet). Jeremiah (XVIII. 18) says, ‘They said, Come, we will devise devices against Jeremiah; for the Tôrâ will not be lost from the Priest, counsel from the wise, the Dâbhâr (word) from the Prophet: come, we will wound him on the tongue, and not attend to any of his words (debhârâv).’ The same opposition of Tôrâ and Dâbhâr is found also in the words of a prophet of the Restoration, Zechariah VII. 12: ‘They made their heart adamant, lest they should hear the Tôrâ and the Debhârîm which Jahveh of Hosts sent with his spirit by the agency of the former prophets.’[711]

How deeply the prophetic spirit after this compromise penetrated all other schools is observable in the profounder piety which thenceforth characterises Elohistic writings. We see this, for example, in the Elohistic Psalms, composed by religious singers not yet accustomed to the Prophets’ name Jahveh, but who now wrote to the glory and honour of Elôhîm those sublime Songs which to this day kindle the devotion of those who wish to raise their souls in prayer to God. In them a spirit taught by the Prophets has penetrated the representatives of Elohism. For as regards its outward manifestation in the choice of Divine names, Elohism continues to exist even in the age of the Captivity: we meet with strictly Elohistic narratives in the accounts of the Creation and the Deluge composed at Babylon.

But we must refer to a comparatively late period the working-out of this tendency to a compromise, in which the sacerdotal view had as much share as the prophetical—a tendency which joined together in a higher unity, as Teaching (tôrâ), the Statute (chuḳḳâ) and the Prophetic word of Jahveh (dâbhâr). Consequently, the writing down of the traditions conceived in this spirit must also be assigned to a much later age than is usually done. However, we cannot speak here of any exact number of years, but only indicate in general terms periods of various classes of culture. Accurate dates can only be reached by more advanced historical knowledge on the domain of Biblical Antiquity. Perhaps this will be promoted by the constantly increasing certainty of the information to be gathered from the historical texts of the Cuneiform Inscriptions with reference to the History of Civilisation. But from the facts recognised in recent times it may with confidence be inferred that the literary activity of the Hebrews belongs in large part to the epoch of the Captivity. It should also be mentioned in this connexion that Knobel insists that the affairs of the interior of Asia were well known to his Jehovist.[712] Such knowledge cannot be the result of the contact established by the invasion. It demands closer and more friendly relations, which would make it possible to learn such facts.

All this takes us into the epoch of the Captivity. That remarkable age enriched the Hebrews’ sphere of thought with many things, to which we will give our attention in the following chapter.

Footnote 687:

With respect to the originality and the specifically Hebrew character of the notion of Jahveh, I consider the most correct assertion yet made to be what Ewald declared in reference to the alleged Phenician Divine name Jah; for when we examine the passages and the data on which Movers’ and Bunsen’s opposite view is based, their apocryphal nature strikes us at the first glance. This is especially true (to mention one case only) of the passage of Lydus, _De mens._ IV. 38. 14: Οἱ Χαλδαῖοι τὸν θεὸν ΙΑΩ λέγουσιν ... τῇ Φοινίκων γλώσσῃ καὶ ΣΑΒΑΩΘ δὲ πολλαχοῦ λέγεται κτλ (See Bunsen, _Egypt’s Place in Universal History_, vol. IV. p. 193). As to the occurrence of the name Jahveh in the Assyrian theology there is not yet sufficient certainty. Eberhard Schrader, who refers to it, imagines the name to be borrowed from the Hebrew (_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_, p. 4).

Footnote 688:

To this may be added that the Moabite Stone speaks of the vessels of Jahveh which king Mesha carried off as plunder from the Northern kingdom (line 18). Kuenen goes too far in finding a connexion between the worship of Jahveh in the Northern kingdom and the figures of bulls (_Religion of Israel_, I. 74 _et seq._)

Footnote 689:

In the article _Ueber die nabathäischen Inschriften von Petra, Hauran u.s.w._, in the _Zeitsch. d. D. M. G._, 1860, XIV. 410.

Footnote 690:

This must not be placed in the same category with cases in which the insertion of [ ] can be explained phonologically (Ewald, _Ausführliches Lehrb. der hebr. Spr_. § 192. _c_; _Böttcher_, I. 286). See the Agadic explanation of this, which I have quoted in the _Zeitsch. d. D. M. G._, 1872, XXVI. 769.

Footnote 691:

The changes of name mentioned in 2 Kings XXIII. 34, XXIV. 17, should also be considered here. It is not probable that these changes were ordered by the Kings of Egypt and of Babylon; for in that case the names received in exchange would have been quite different, Egyptian and Babylonian respectively in form (compare Dan. I. 7). The change of Elyâḳîm into Yehôyâḳîm is especially noticeable, for it is a direct alteration of an Elohistic into a Jahveistic name. Such a change is usually the simple consequence of a religious revolution, as is seen in other cases. Thus, e.g. King Amenophis IV., when he directs his fanaticism against the worship of Ammon, and places that of Aten in the foreground, changes his Ammonic name into _Shu en Aten_, ‘the light of the solar orb.’ See Brugsch, _L’histoire d’Égypte_ (1st ed.), I. 119, and Lenormant, _Premières civilisations_, I. 211. Of Moḥammed also we are told that he altered those portions of his followers’ names which savoured of idolatry, substituting monotheistic terms; thus one ʿAbd ʿAmr had his name changed to ʿAbd al-Raḥmân (Wüstenfeld, _Register zu den genealogischen Tabellen_, p. 27). The pious philologian al-Aṣmaʿî always calls the heathen Arabic poet Imru-l-Ḳeys, Imru Allâh, changing the name of the heathen god Ḳeys into the monotheistic Allâh (Guidi on Ibn Hishâmi’s _Commentary etc._, Leipzig 1874, p. XXI.).

Footnote 692:

As Pope in the Universal Prayer: ‘Father of all: ... Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!’—TR.

Footnote 693:

For instance Strauss, in the _Zeitsch. d. D. M. G._, 1869, XXIII. 473. But not only Jahveh, but even Elôhîm was brought from China. The glory of publishing this eccentric idea to the world belongs to M. Adolphe Saïsset, who wrote a whole book, entitled _Dieu et son homonyme_, Paris 1867, to prove very thoroughly that the Elôhîm of Genesis was really—the Emperor of China! The book is 317 octavo pages long.

Footnote 694:

_Vergelijkende Geschiedenis_, pp. 555, 561.

Footnote 695:

To this group belongs, on Arabian ground (besides the well-known ʿarrâf and kâhin), the muḥaddath ‘the well-informed;’ on whom see De Sacy’s _Commentary on Ḥarîrî_, 2nd ed., p. 686.

Footnote 696:

Mommsen, _History of Rome_, edition of 1868, III. 446 _et seq._

Footnote 697:

This is meant only as a general assertion, and is the general impression left by the Prophetical books. There are, in this as in other respects, various grades perceptible between the different Prophets. The prophetical Jahveistic idea is not so powerful and exclusive in all as in the Babylonian Isaiah.

Footnote 698:

‘I am I’ (hû being equivalent to the verb _to be_)='I am who I am.'—TR.

Footnote 699:

See Kuenen, _Religion of Israel_, III. 41.

Footnote 700:

Bunsen must be named as the writer who lays the most stress on the importance of this anî anî hû, bringing this formula into connexion with the metaphysical definition of the idea of Jahveh (_God in History_, I. p. 74 _et seq._). Lessing’s ‘Nur euer Er heisst Er’ (only _your_ He is called He, _Nathan der Weise_, I. 4) is with justice adduced by Bunsen.

Footnote 701:

B. Constant de Rebecque, _Du Polythéisme Romain_, II. 102, quoted by Buckle, _Civilisation_, II. 303.

Footnote 702:

It is best to read with Gesenius miḳḳesem for miḳḳedem.

Footnote 703:

Hosea XIV. 4 [3] must also be noted, where the alliance with Assyria is condemned in the words ‘Asshur will not save us; we shall not ride on horses.’ See also Zech. IX. 10, X. 5, Micah V. 9 [10].

Footnote 704:

See Ezek. XXXVII. 15–28.

Footnote 705:

See on the other side Zunz in the _Zeitsch. d. D. M. G._, 1873, p. 688, thesis 14 _et seq._

Footnote 706:

These two passages (Mic. VI. 4 and Mal. III. 22 [IV. 4]) appears not to have been noticed by Michel Nicolas in his '_Etudes critiques sur la Bible_,' Paris 1862, I. 351, where he says of Moses, ‘Son nom ne se trouve que deux fois dans les écrits des prophètes qui sont parvenus jusqu'à nous—(_Esaie_, LXIII. 12; _Jér._ XV. 1).’

Footnote 707:

I have given particular prominence to this on account of the opposite view taken by Max Müller in his _Chips_, I. 361 _et seq._

Footnote 708:

His fondness for humanising God by anthropomorphic expressions is the only feature, the reasons for which are not patent.

Footnote 709:

See Knobel, _Die Bücher Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua_, pp. 539, 554.

Footnote 710:

See Knobel, _Die Bücher etc._, p. 529.

Footnote 711:

The relative clause is dependent upon _Debharîm_ only.

Footnote 712:

See Knobel, _Die Bücher etc._, p. 579.