MIRACLE
MIRACLE 393
if it be a fact that the law was a παιδαγωγὸς els Χριστόν, and that Israel was chosen by the Almighty as His instrument for the teaching of the world, then it ceases to be @ priori improbable that, at exceptional crises in the history of the Hebrews, special manifestations of Divine power might be vouchsafed, which should enable men to say with
boldness, ‘ This is the finger of God.’ And, again, it is not to be forgotten that the use of the OT by Christ and His apostles sufficiently proves to Christians that the literature therein contained was a unique literature, and was produced under quite unique conditions of inspiration. ‘Thus the records must, at the least, be treated with respect greater than that which we bestow upon books like the Acta Sanctorum, and we are entitled to place fuller reliance on the accuracy of the writers than would be justifiable in a history which came to us without any such lofty guarantee and claim. It is in such a spirit that we approach their accounts of miracles.
The OT miracles are chiefly grouped round two epochs —the Deliverance from Egypt, and the Reformation of Elijah and Elisha. It is true that these periods are described in greater detail than any other periods in the history, but nevertheless it can hardly be without significance that it is at these two great crises in the fortunes of Israel that the tokens of God’s providence were most apparent to pious observers. Of the former cycle it should be observed that very few of the so- called miracles are difficult of credence, inasmuch as the majority of them are not (seemingly) in themselves out of the order of nature. The Ten Plagues (Ex 8-12), the Parting of the Red Sea (Ex 147!)), and of the Jordan (Jos 344, ef. 2 K 27-14), the Water from the Rock at Rephidim (Ex 17°), and at Kadesh (Nu 207), the Curing of the Waters of Marah (Ex 1628, ef. 2 K 271), the Budding of Aaron’s rod (Nu 17°), the deaths of Nadab and Abihu (Ly 10!), as of Korah and his company (Nu 1681), did not involve any apparent breach in the continuity of the physical order. We can readily conceive how similar occurrences might be brought about through the operation of the ordinary forces of nature. None of these events, considered singly, would seem a prodigy to an impartial observer. It is the concurrence of so many circumstances of the kind which forbids us to deny their signal character, and conveys to us the conviction that here was the finger of God. And it is even more important to observe that these remarkable events were associated in many cases with a word of power from God’s ministers. The predictive element, which we have spoken of above (see i. § 14) as char- acteristic of so many of our Lord’s miracles, is here conspicuous. The plagues are foretold; so was the dreadful death of the rebels in Korah’s rebellion; and the division of the waters of the Red Sea is described as having been connected with prayer and invocation on the part of Moses. Here we come upon the most prominent aspect of miracle in the OT, viz. the element of prophecy, which includes prediction. However this feature may have been exaggerated in Christian apolo- getics in the past, and however we may try to reduce it to lower dimensions, it is impossible to eliminate it from the Hebrew literature. The function of a prophet was not confined to predic- tion, but this was certainly within his powers, as indicated from time to time in the history of Israel. And true prediction is essentially miraculous ; it is beyond human powers, and it is a sign of a special revelation of God to man over and above that which is continually offered in His provi- dence (see PROPHECY). Prophecy being admitted as possible, and the actual prophecies of the OT seers being certified, the * wonders and signs’ with
which their ministry was accredited are deprived of much of that antecedent improbability which (as we have admitted) attaches itself to miraculous stories in general.
The miracles of Elijah and Elisha may be viewed in this light. They are, as it were, their credentials. Other prophets, both of OT and of NT, worked no signs indeed (Jn 10#), and this shows that it was not the habit of the Hebrews to surround the figure of every prophetical personage with a halo of miraculous glory. But Elijah and Elisha lived in an age of spiritual upheaval : great wicked- ness and deep piety came into conflict. ‘ Let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel’ (1 K 18%) was the perpetual burden of Elijah’s prayers. And perhaps nothing short of a miraculous sign would have satisfied the Israel of his day that the Lord was God. At the same time it may be freely conceded that the accounts of these two great pro- phets, Elijah and Elisha, stand somewhat apart from the general history of Israel. The miracles of Elisha are never alluded to in the OT after the story of their occurrence, and they are only once mentioned in the Apocr. (Sir 4813), It cannot be said that the miracles ascribed to these prophets are essential to the history, nor can it be maintained that all of their miracles are on the lofty moral level which we have found to be conspicuously the case with the miracles of Christ. It is an bypothesis with a good deal of prima facie evidence in its favour that the miracle-stories of 1 K 17. 18, 2 K 1-6 are rather of the nature of Jewish Haggadoth than of sober history.* With even greater probability may this be said of the stories of Daniel and the den of lions, and the Three Children in the furnace of Ne- buchadnezzar (Dn 3". 616), In the vest of the ΟἿ᾽ the miraculous element (if we exclude prophecy) is remarkably small. The song of the Bk. of Jashar, which speaks of the sun standing still at Gibeon (Jos 10!*), can hardly be taken as a scientific state- ment of fact ; itis poetry, not prose. Thesomewhat similar story of the shadow moving backward on the sundial of Ahaz (2 K 2011) is related in prose and interwoven with the history of Hezekiah, and cannot be dismissed so easily. But in the absence of fuller knowledge of the circumstances it would be impossible to be sure that in this there was any- thing ‘supernatural,’ beyond the foreknowledge which Isaiah seems to have had that this ‘sign’ would take place. The story of Balaam’s ass speaking has been referred to its parallels, s.v. BALAAM;t and the episode of Jonah and the whale seems to be of asimilar class. In the latter case, it has been urged, indeed, that our Lord’s application of the story (Mt 12%) forecloses all inquiry into its literal truth. But this is not the judgment of the most careful and devout scholars of our own time.f