PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
A Dictionary of the Bible — Volume 5
James Hastings · 1,128,046 words · 1137 reading sections
Section 841
times the use made of the blood must have held an slaughtered ; the women and children, the cattle important place in the same connexion. And, seeing that in the case of the offering of children and other property, are to be regarded as spoil. This rule is followed in the case of the Midianites, the blood in question …
984 wordsSECTION 842Section 842
Regarding the usual sacrificial transaction we have information in the very word for altar, namely mizbéah, t.e. ‘place of slaughter.’ This shows that the victims, as is presupposed also in Gn 222, were slain upon the altar itself. The horns of the altar, which afterwards played a réle in connexion with the application…
967 wordsSECTION 843Section 843
s 27°, and the late addition to Is 178). With the exception perhaps of Mic 5%, none of these pas- sages goes further back than the time of Josiah. There is, of course, a complete distinction between the ’dsheradh as the sacred pole, and the goddess Asherah, whose existence appears to be now placed beyond doubt by the T…
1,038 wordsSECTION 844Section 844
6. Whether in pre-Mosaic times there was a sacrificial cultus practised at fixed, frequently re- curring periods, cannot be determined. An observ- ance of the Sabbath is extremely improbable, although its sacred character is carried back in Gn 2 (P) to the very beginning of the world. More conceivable—and here again …
1,023 wordsSECTION 845Section 845
* Toy (‘The Meaning of Pesach,’in JBL, 1898, p. 178 ff.) thinks otherwise, holding that the pesah was originally a ritual dance, accompanied by the sacrifice of a lamb, and that it was only afterwards that the name was transferred to the sacrifice, + Of. on the most recent explanations of the term (including its compa…
900 wordsSECTION 846Section 846
rescues him from the attack of Jahweh by cir- cumcising her son with a (sharp) stone (cf. also the stone knives of Jos 5°, a proof of the high antiquity of the practice), and touching the pudenda of Moses with the severed (and still bleeding) fore- skin, while she exclaims, ‘Thou art to me a bride- groom of blood.’ Thi…
1,135 wordsSECTION 847Section 847
roved to have once prevailed among the tribes of srael, yet we certainly meet with a conception of sacrifice which regards sacramental communion between the Deity and the offerer as the princi- pal feature—a communion which is established by their jointly partaking of the sacrificial blood (after- wards by the god rece…
1,376 wordsSECTION 848Section 848
* So esp, Schiller in his brilliant essay, ‘Die Sendung Mose’s’ (first published in Heft 10 of Thalia). We leave quite out of account the fables cited by Josephus (c. Apion. i. 26, 28) from Manetho’s Egyptiaca about the identity of Moses with the priest Osarsiph of Heliopolis, RELIGION OF ISRAEL It is true that elsew…
904 wordsSECTION 849Section 849
2. The most natural course is to seek to explain the name ‘ Jahweh’ (7°) from itself, that is, from the etymology underlying the form of the word. This seems all the more proper, because in at least one of the sources of the Pentateuch (E) we meet with an actual interpretation of the name (Ex 3!**), When Moses asks wha…
978 wordsSECTION 850Section 850
(6) Among the explanations which start from a different meaning of the root hawdah, special favour has been accorded to that which finds it in hawdah ‘to fall’ (so esp. de Lagarde and Stade). Upon this view Jahweh may be explained either as=‘the falling One’; i.e. the name originally stood for a meteoric stone that fel…
912 wordsSECTION 851Section 851
* We here leave out of account, of course, the controversy as to whether in the oldest tradition Sinai and Horeb were already identified, as well as: the question where the Sinai or Horeb of our present narratives is to be found. See art. Sinai in vol. iv. +So esp. Budde, Die Religion des Volkes Israel, Giessen, 1900,…
972 wordsSECTION 852Section 852
4. The beliefs cherished by Moses and his con- temporaries regarding the mental and moral char- acter of Jahweh will form the subject of discussion presently (see p. 629 ff). But we must here say a word about the conceptions of His bodily person- ality. For there are quite a number of the strongest testimonies which pl…
1,035 wordsSECTION 853Section 853
How this substitute for Jahweh’s own presence is to be understood comes out unmistakably in two very ancient verses preserved in Nu 10% (prob, J). There we pane ‘When the ark [which, according to v.%3, went before the people to search a a cainping-place for them] set forward, Moses said— Rise up, Jahweh, and let thine…
942 wordsSECTION 854Section 854
RELIGION OF ISRAEL RELIGION OF ISRAEL 629 again, there are numerous indications that the Ark primarily represented Jahweh as the war- God. On the one hand, there is the fact that down to the time of David the Ark (cf. 2S 72: °) was as a rule kept in a tent, the natural place of abode in war [even in the temple at Shi…
1,063 wordsSECTION 855Section 855
These statements and requirements of the Priests’ Code are all the more surprising, as there can be no doubt that the Ark perished in the de- struction of the temple in B.c. 586.* This agrees with the cireumstance that Ezekiel, in his sketch of the new order of the theocracy, has no mention of the Ark, and the Holy of …
1,014 wordsSECTION 856Section 856
In carrying back the theocracy to Moses, Josephus has accordingly been guilty of a glaring anachronism. But those go to the opposite ex- treme who admit that Moses proclaimed Jahweh as the God of Israel, but deny anything beyond this, and cast doubt in particular upon any funda- mental act of his which could be spoken…
991 wordsSECTION 857Section 857
Under the head of external evidence we must reckon not only the strength and unanimity of the tradition, which it would need the very strongest reasons to set aside, but also the narrative of Ex 244%, The deviation here from the traditional rites at sacrifices and covenants, which meet us elsewhere, testifies at least …
1,066 wordsSECTION 858Section 858
* Of., on the above, the admirable discussion by F, Giese- brecht in Die Geschichtlichkeit des Sinaibundes, K6nigsberg, 1900; on ‘Jahweh’s relation to the people of Israel according to the ancient Israelitish conception’ in general, see Sellin in the Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 1894, pp. 316 ff., 376 ff. [also publish…
1,000 wordsSECTION 859Section 859
We insist, then, upon a bérith between Jahweh and the people of Israel as the starting-point of Jahwism, and at the same time as the source of its peculiar character. This of itself sets aside the view recently maintained * that there was actually a bérith concluded at Sinai—not, however, between Jahweh and Israel, but…
1,043 wordsSECTION 860Section 860
* According to Stade and others, the figure of Aaron is utterly unknown to the older stratum of J. might have retained their tribal and household gods without seeing in this any repudiation of the claims of Jahweh. But, while it is not impossible that a syncretism of this kind still continued to pre- vail for a consid…
1,292 wordsSECTION 861Section 861
Tn view of all this there would be no valid reason for refusing to attribute to Moses himself a primi- tive concise form of the Decalogue, were it not * Noteworthy indications pointing to this view are already supplied by A. Menzies (Sermons on the Ten Commandments, London, 1888), according to whom the Decalogue belon…
965 wordsSECTION 862Section 862
As a source of the first rank must be reckoned the ancient biography of Saul and David, which, now interwoven with many later—notably even Deuteronomistic—elements, is incorporated in the Books of Samuel. But what we have said is true in quite a special sense of the so-called ‘ Jerusalem source’ in 2S 9-20, which revea…
926 wordsSECTION 863Section 863
(a) This is the case almost exclusively in war. There the name of Jahweh is the connecting link which brings the otherwise heterogeneous elements into the closest union with one another, inspires them with enthusiasm, and leads them to victory. He is the war- God, Jahweh, whose commander-in-chief appears to Joshua in G…
903 wordsSECTION 864Section 864
RELIGION OF ISRAEL That Zéb@ 6th is the plural of zabd, ‘ host,’ and thus signifies ‘hosts’ or ‘armies,’ is generally admitted. It is equally recognized that ‘Jahweh Zéb@ 6th’ is simply an abbreviation-for the complete formula ‘ Jahweh *klohé Zéba@ oth,’ or, with the article, ‘ Jahweh ?Llohé hazg-Zéba@ oth,* i.e. ‘Jah…
958 wordsSECTION 865Section 865
Another objection to our interpretation is raised by Borchert, who argues that all the passages in which 2éba@’dth means the hosts of Israel belong to the latest elements in the Canon (20 of them to the latest source of the Pentateuch), and, moreover, that they speak, not of military hosts but of multitudes of people i…
1,043 wordsSECTION 866Section 866
3 Another weighty question connected with the conception of the Deity is this : Are there to be discovered, even in the pre-Prophetic period, tend- encies towards overcoming the initial crass concep- tion of the bodily form of God, or, in other words, a disposition to free the Divine being from the realm of the visible…
928 wordsSECTION 867Section 867
| a redactor, and occasioned perhaps by the redac- tory addition in y.¥, which also speaks of the angel of Jahweh]. In Gn 31" (E) the angel of God calls to Jacob ‘in a dream,’ so that here too any allusion to direct personal intercourse is avoided. But the angel of Jahweh expressly iden- tifies himself with the God of…
1,036 wordsSECTION 868Section 868
The theologumenon of the ‘angel of Jahweh’ is wholly wanting in the pre-exilic prophets ; and in Zee Lif 31-58 where it reappears after a long interval, there can be no doubt as to the creaturely character of this ‘angel of Jahweh.’ For he prays to Jahweh, and Jahweh answers him in comforting words. He delivers the Div…
925 wordsSECTION 869Section 869
by the circumstance that in Carthaginian inscriptions the god- dess Tanit very frequently receives the honorific title ‘Face of Baal’ (pené Ba'al), te. personal (as it were, incarnate) repre- sentation of the Deity in general. S * A very thorough examination of the history of this notion will be found in yon Gall’s Di…
1,045 wordsSECTION 870Section 870
Now it is self-evident that in the OT, in the numerous passages, particularly in the Prophets and the Psalms, where the ‘name of Jahweh? is introduced in various connexions, such crass and superstitious notions as underlie heathen magical formulas are entirely absent. The con- ception of God found in the Prophets (incl…
1,140 wordsSECTION 871Section 871
* The most striking instance of this usage would be found in Is 3027 (‘The name of Jahweh cometh from afar, glowing is his anger,’ etc.), if the text has come down to us correct. EXTRA VOL.—4I that had become quite current, had no longer any clear consciousness of its once deeper signification. 4, All the above-des…
1,291 wordsSECTION 872Section 872
Now, it may naturally be asked how the Divine image and the priestly ‘waistcoat’ could be desig- nated by one and the same name.* The view that *éphéd stands properly for the gold or silver over- laying or casing of an image of wood, clay, or even brass, can appeal for support to Is 30”, where the certainly equivalent …
936 wordsSECTION 873Section 873
im. _ t That ’eohim in this passage cannot be understood, accord- ing to the usual interpretation, as meaning ‘judges’ (as repre- sentatives of God), is proved by Dt 1517, where, in the otherwise RELIGION OF ISRAEL might also be understood of a téraphim; but there, as well as in v.°@), the reference is more likely t…
1,325 wordsSECTION 874Section 874
(6) To the realm of angels belong, beyond doubt, the séraphim (naw). Although mentioned only in * According to the oldest form of this narrative, as comes out plainly in 181-3-10-15, Jahweh alone appears to Abraham. Offence is naturally taken at this by a later recension, which is now skilfully interwoven with the ear…
987 wordsSECTION 875Section 875
It is hard to say what form we ought to attri- bute to the cherubim with which we are dealing. In Ex 25” they have only one face each, whereas in Ezk 4118* each has a man’s and also a lion’s face. Still more complicated is the description of them in the first vision of Ezekiel (15%). Here each of the four cherubim has …
983 wordsSECTION 876Section 876
When we take all the above considerations into account, the conclusion we inevitably draw is that it was almost impossible that Israel should escape being involved in the cult of Baal if it desired to maintain its existence on is soil, in the midst of Ais people, who were ill affected towards Israel. The only question …
931 wordsSECTION 877Section 877
now grounded only on considerations of humanity (the care of widows, orphans, and gérim). 646 RELIGION OF ISRAEL baals by Jahweh, at least so far as the better portion of the people were concerned. (a) One of the most essential factors in achiev- ing this result was unquestionably the localizing of Jahweh in Canaan,…
1,161 wordsSECTION 878Section 878
The whole process of localizing Jahweh in Canaan, and the consequent destruction of the syncretism between Jahweh and Baal, presents itself to us as already accomplished in the patri- archal narratives of Gn 12ff. These have not a word to say about any places of worship of Baal in the land; ad/ the future Israelitish s…
922 wordsSECTION 879Section 879
Baal * eat (18), Ahab chides Elijah as the author of a famine, but he does not seek his life. On the contrary, he did sincere penance (2177) when Jahweh’s decree of rejection on account of the judicial murder of Naboth had been announced to him by Elijah. From 1 K 22° (the closing period of Ahab’s reign) it is evident …
936 wordsSECTION 880Section 880
4. Priests.—1. We have already (p. 633%) pointed out how few and uncertain are the traditions of the Mosaic period regarding the founding of the Jahweh priesthood.* Even in the period with which we are now dealing, the stream of tradition is a tiny one. This is simply explained on the ground that priests were not requi…
930 wordsSECTION 881Section 881
* The subsequent correction of Moses to Manasseh by a super- linear m was due simply to a desire to save Moses the shame of having a descendant who held an illegitimate (because not derived from Aaron) priesthood, and, in addition, practised the worship of images. In the estimation of the original narrator, both these …
972 wordsSECTION 882Section 882
+ The mention of these in 18 619, 2 S 15% (but not v.29), and 1 K 84 (contradicting v.3), is due to a late interpolation. ; tIt is doubtful, on the other hand, whether, with Thenius and aes we should substitute ‘the ’¢phdd’ for ‘ the ark’ also in 1 K 226 . alone. | Blessing of Moses (see EE eee RELIGION OF ISRAEL …
1,091 wordsSECTION 883Section 883
We cannot wonder that in the Northern king- dom, where a central sanctuary was wanting, it took far longer than in Judah to form reputable and, in a certain measure, politically powerful priestly societies. But that this point was reached 1s testified to us by the saying regarding Levi in the (Ephraimite) Blessing of M…
1,002 wordsSECTION 884Section 884
t So Schwally, Semit. Kriegsaltertiimer, i. 22. RELIGION OF ISRAEL RELIGION OF ISRAEL 651 pressed by deeds, which cannot fail to accomplish its purpose on the Syrians. Balaam, to whom (Nu 225) the magical power of effectually blessing or cursing an entire nation is attributed, appears, nevertheless, in the whole pa…
903 wordsSECTION 885Section 885
In the time of the Judges we should doubtless assign Deborah to the same category. She is called in Jg 44 ‘a prophetess,’ i.¢., in this instance, a woman capable of magical possession by the spirit of Jahweh, and able when in this condition to pronounce judicial decisions (v.°). The really original account of her may, …
996 wordsSECTION 886Section 886
20-and 1028-, If we were to be guided merely by appear- ances, we should have to conclude that in ch. 9, in the most glaring opposition to the later record, Samuel is represented as a personage of purely local importance, a something betwixt seer and priest, such as was probably to be found then in every country town …
983 wordsSECTION 887Section 887
RELIGION OF ISRAEL ee ee EE ‘prophet’ (or néb?’ah, ‘prophetess’). This, how- ever, may safely be pronounced an anachronism. In earlier times, down at least to the middle of the 9th cent. and even later, nab’ (plur. néb?im) meant something so different that this name could | not have been given to Moses or Samuel. H…
906 wordsSECTION 888Section 888
24lf-) we meet with a representative of it in the remarkable personality of Nathan. Nowhere, in- deed, do we read of his special endowment with the spirit of Jahweh. After David’s sin in the matter of Uriah, we read in 28 12 simply: ‘ And Jahweh sent Nathan to David.’ But the combination of skill and courage in the wa…
945 wordsSECTION 889Section 889
(a) To begin with Elijah, it is noteworthy here once more that in the original text he is only once reckoned amongst the nébi’im, namely in 1 K 18”, in words put into his own mouth, but in a context where no other designation was possible. In 18°, on the other hand, the original text, according to the LXX, was simply, …
947 wordsSECTION 890Section 890
_ * On the 400 prophets of the ’éshérah afterwards introduced into v.19, see above, p. 6475, note. RELIGION OF ISRAEL RELIGION OF ISRAEL 655 2K 8 and 9'* that he handed over to Elisha those commissions which it was impracticable for himself to carry out. All that he attended to personally was the call of Elisha (1 K…
1,005 wordsSECTION 891Section 891
In regard to the activity of Elisha it is note- worthy that, while he is called by preference (28 times) ‘man of God,’ he also appears in the Elisha- narratives as ndab@’, and that in the later sense of the term. Soin 1 K 191%, where Elijah is directed to anoint * him to be a nabi; 2 K 3", where Jehoshaphat recognizes …
1,014 wordsSECTION 892Section 892
anything to remind us of a connexion with the nébvim in the old sense. 6. With the néb?im of the latter class, as these belong to the time of Elijah and Elisha, we have still to occupy our attention here. Their affinity with the nébvim of the time of Saul consists, above all, in the circumstance that, like the latter,…
928 wordsSECTION 893Section 893
Now, it has been argued that none of the passages which speak of any public activity on the part of the néb?’tm belong to the Elijah- and Elisha-narratives, but to the very valuable ancient ‘ Ahab- source’ (1 K 20, 22). The latter, it is pointed out, knows nothing of guilds of nébvim or of their being directed by Elija…
1,003 wordsSECTION 894Section 894
Accordingly, the Nazirate of Samson is based exclusively upon his unshorn hair, and, as a matter of fact, the greatest stress is laid upon the latter in 1617, His enormous strength is bound up with his hair remaining inviolate, and that simply be- cause the presence of Jahweh is, in some mysteri- ous way, connected wit…
1,097 wordsSECTION 895Section 895
About the significance of the Nazirate, so far as the Priests’ Code is concerned, we are not left in doubt. The only other class that are commanded to avoid defilement by a corpse are the priests. But an exception is allowed, even in their case (Lv 212), when it is the corpse of their nearest blood relation. On the oth…
975 wordsSECTION 896Section 896
3. This last expression shows that their manner of life amounts to a kind of service of Jahweh. For it is a protest against the whole system of culture connected with the settled mode of life, with the tilling of the soil, and, above all, with vine-culture. The life of the nomads in the steppes knew nothing of all this…
1,045 wordsSECTION 897Section 897
The efficacy of the anointing of kings is not, however, exhausted by the notions of consecra- tion and the imparting of a sacrosanct character. The spirit of Jahweh is also communicated. This is plain already from the story of the anointing of Saul. Directly after it had been performed, Samuel announced to Saul (18 10°…
901 wordsSECTION 898Section 898
| cumstance which establishes an essential difference between the religion of Israel—even at this stage —and the other popular religions so closely allied to it in many respects. Apart from the priests, of whose anointing and consequent filling with the spirit no evidence can be adduced for the pre-exilic period, all …
922 wordsSECTION 899Section 899
form of shélamim-offerings’ (Ex 245 et al.), The meaning of the we have instructive instances in 15 14 and 9%, According to the latter passage, the guests at the meal number about 30 persons, specially invited ; and, before they begin to eat, a blessing is pro- nounced (something after the manner of our saying of grac…
1,002 wordsSECTION 900Section 900
(c) For the three regular annual festivals—apart, perhaps, from the Harvest festival—we have no real testimony for this period except the legal prescriptions in the Book of the Covenant (Ex 2348.) and the almost identical text of Ex 34!8#., According to these, all males are to appear three times a year before Jahweh (7…
997 wordsSource & rights
Public-domain historical reference work (1898–1905); OCR text from Internet Archive. Historical scholarship and terminology reflect its era; OCR may contain errors. Verify quotations and current scholarly claims independently.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.