ture, that the idea of the all-inclusive Divine pur- pose (.1^1! and ni3V'"7) in which lies predetermined the whole course of events — including every par- ticular in the life of the world (\m 3') and in the life of every individual as well (Ps 139'''''*, Jg P)— is speculatively wrought out. According to this developed conception, God, acting under the guid- ance of all His ethical perfections, has, by virtue of His eternal wisdom, whicli He ' possessed in the beginning of his way ' (Pr S"), framed ' from ever- lasting, from the beginning,' an all-inclusive jdan embracing all that is to come to pass; in accordance with which plan He now governs His universe, down to the least particular, so as to subserve His perfect and unchanging purpose. Everj'thing that God has brought into being, therefore, He has made for its specific end (Pr 16S cf. S'"-*", Job 2S-^ 38. 41, Is 40'-'-, Jer lO'-- "') ; and He so governs it that it shall attain its end, — no chance can escape (Pr 16^), no might or subtlety defeat His direction (Pr 2P»-3i 19=' IC^ cf. Is 14"=^-", Jer 10-=*), which leads straight to the goal appointed by God from the beginning and kept steadily in view by Him, but often hidden from the actors themselves (Pr 20-\ cf. 3" 16'-» 19-', Job 38= 42^, Jer lO^^), who naturally in their weakness cannot comprehend the sweep of the Divine plan or understand the place within it of the details brought to their observation — a fact in which the OT sages constantly find their theodicy. No ditiierent doctrine is enunciated here from that which meets us in the I'lophets and Psalmists, — only it is approached from a philo- sophical - religious rather than from a national- religious view-point. To prophet and sage alike the entire world — inanimate, animate, moral — is embraced in a unitary teleological world-order (Pa 19^ 33« 104'^ 148"*, Job 9^ 12'^ 37) ; and to both alike the central place in this comprehensive world-order is taken by God's redemptive purpose, of which Israel is at once the object and the instrument, while the savour of its saltness is the piety of the individual saint. The classical term for this all- inclusive Divine purpose (nyj') is accordingly found in the usage alike of prophet, psalmist, and sage, — now used absolutelj' of the universal plan on which the whole world is orderetl (Job 3S-' 42', cf. Delitzsch and Budde, in loc), now, with the addition of 'of Jehovah,' of the all-comprehending purpose, em- bracing all human actions (Pr 19-' and parallels; cf. Toy, in luc), now with explicit mention of Israel as the centre around which its provisions revolve (Ps 33" 107",' cf. Delitzsch, in loc. ; Is 14-'" 25' 46'"- "), and ai;on with more immediate concern with some of the details (Ps 100'^ Is 5'» 19", Jer 49*' 50« Mic 4'-').
There seems no reason why a Platonizing colouring should be given to this simple attributing to the etern.al God of an eternal plan in which is predetennined every event that comes to pass. This used to be done, e.g., by Delitzsch (see, e.g., on Job 2a^'^, Is 22" ; liihlii-al Pxycliologti, I. ii.), who was wont to attribute to the BiblicjU writers, especially of the Uokhmah and the latter portion of Isaiah, a doctrine of the pre-existeiice of all thintrs in an ideal world, conceived a» standing? eternally lM»for* God at least as a pattern if not even iis a quasi-objective mould imposing their tonus on all Ilia creatures, which smacked more of the IJrcek Academics than of the Hebrew sages. As a matter of course, the Divine mind was conceived by the Hebrew sages as eternally contemplating all possibilities, and we should not do them injustice in supposing them to think of its * ideas ' as the cai(»a exrmjilaris of all that occurs, and of the Divine intellect as the principinm dirigcnx of every Divine operation. But it is more to the point to note that the conceptions of the OT writers in regard to the Divine decree run rather into the moulds of 'purpose' than of 'ideas,' and that the rootj. of their teaching are planted not in an abstract idea of the Godhead, but in the purity of their concrete theism. It is because the\' think of God as a person, like other persons punwseful in His acts, but unlike other persons all-wise in His planning and all-powerful in His performing, that they think of Him as predetermining all that shall come to pass in the universe, which is in all its elements the product of His free activity, and which must in its form and all its history, down to the least detail, correspond with His puri>ose in making it. It is easy, on the other hand, to attribute too little ■ philosophy ' to the Biblical writers. The conceptira
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of God in His relation to the world which they develop is bevond <|iie»tion nntliropomorphic ; but it is no unrelli-ctiiif »ntliru|K.niorplusni thai they give us. Apart troui all iiuestiou ol revelation, they were not children prattling' on Bubjects on whicli they had exjKnded no thought; and the world-view they commend 'to us certainly does not lack in profundity. The aubtleties o( laniniaKc o( a developed scholasticism were foreign to their purposes and modes of composition, but they t«ll us as clearly as, »av, Spanheim himself (Mood. Tltcijl. vi. § 6), that they are deaiintt with a purjiosingr mind exalted so far above ours that we can follow its movements only with haltinj; steps, —whose ihouL'hts are not as our thoushts, and whose ways are not as our way. (U 65» ; ct. 40". 'is -i^a. Job 11"-, I's 9« \av«- 147' Kc3ii)- l-e-ast of all in such a theme as this were they liable to forget that infinite exaltation of Cod which constituted the basis on which their whole conception of God rested.