3. Real worship, however, was rendered by Israel in the pre- Mosaic period to the many numina (’élim [sing. ’é/, ‘ deity,’ ‘ god ”]), which were believed to be the inhabitants and possessors of certain places, and which were venerated as such. These make their appearance most frequently in
RELIGION OF ISRAEL
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RELIGION OF ISRAEL
connexion with trees, stones, and springs, which thereby assume a sacred character. hether there ever was a time when a local numen of this kind (answering to the dryads, oreads, hyads of the Greeks) was believed to be connected with every tree, is a question that cannot be decided.* We should probably, however, find a trace of numina loci in every instance where, in spite of what was for Jahwism a matter of course, namely, the identification of the nwmen with Jahweh, the original sacredness of the particular tree, etc., has survived. This comes out most distinctly in Gn 28" (E, except vv.!8-16), where Jacob sets up the stone, by which he had lain and had a remark- able dream, as a mazgzébah and anoints it with oil, vowing at the same time that upon his return he will make this mazzébah a béth~él or § god’s house.’ As a matter of fact, after his return_and the erection of an altar, he calls the place ’Z1-béth-’él, “God of Bethel’ (357 [also E]). It is plain that the anointing with oil (288) was intended originally for the deity connected with the stone, and that the object of the whole narrative is to give a sanctity in the sense of Jahwism to the time- hallowed mazzébah of Bethel. A similar instance of Jahwism superseding an ancient view-point that had been taken over from the pre-Mosaic period, is present perhaps also in Jos 2426 (E), where the setting up of the sacred stone under the oak in the sanctuary of Jahweh is attributed to Joshua, whereas, according to Gn 12°, the sacred tree was in existence as early as the arrival of Abraham, appearing as ‘the soothsayer’s (Moreh) terebinth’; that is to say, in all probability it was a spot where the nwmen connected with the tree gave oracles through a priest or prophet. But the sacred stone probably stood from the first in connexion with the tree, to which circumstance, no doubt, the designation of the latter as ‘tere. binth of the mazzébah’ [read in J g 9° mazzebah for muzzab] is due. Pre-Jahwistic in all probability is also the sacred stone-circle near the Jordan at Jericho, from which a frequently named sanctuary (hag-Gilgal, ‘the [stone] circle’) derives its name. According to Jos 428 and y.2°%: these stones, twelve in number after the number of the tribes, were set up by Joshua at Gilgal in memory of the miraculous passage through the dry bed of the Jordan; according to v.9 (J ), on the other hand, they were erected in the midst of the river itself. Both statements are manifestly attempts to give to the originally heathen character of this stone- circle a stamp that would be unobjectionable to Jahwism.—An ancient sanctuary is, doubtless, to be discovered also in ‘the serpent’s stone’ (eben haz-zoheleth) beside ‘the fuller’s spring’ (‘En-régél) to the south of Jerusalem, for in 1 K I it SeIVes as a place of sacrifice.x—Of other sacred stones we hear nothing, there bemg no mention even of meteoric stones, although these played their part elsewhere on Semitic soil. The notion that the sacred Ark (see below, p. 628") contained meteoric stones, rests upon pure conjecture. On the em- ployment of mazzébéth in the cult of J ahweh, see below, p. 620.
Amongst sacred trees we have already made men- tion of ‘the soothsayer’s terebinth’ at Shechem, which is in all probability identical with the tere- binth under which, according to Gn 354 (E), Jacob buried the foreign idols, as well as with ‘the augurs’ or prognosticators’ (Mé énénim) terebinth’ of Jg 97. To the same category belongs the ‘ tere- binth of Mamre’ at Hebron, which is constantly brought into connexion with Abraham (Gn 1338
* That this was the case with ’éla@h and "elon, ‘terebinth,’ might be certainly assumed if these Hebrew names were really connected with ’é, ‘deity,’ and did not rather mean ‘the strony tree.’
14% 18', The circumstance that in all these pas- sages we find the plural, ‘ terebinths of Mamre,’ is due to a correction made in dogmatic interests, namely, to get rid of the single sacred tree : this is clear from 18‘ as well as from the LXX, which has uniformly the singular). We may compare, further, the tamarisk of Abraham at Beersheba (Gn 21%) ; ‘the oak of weeping’ (’allén-Bachith) named after Deborah at Bethel (35°) ; the palm of the female judge Deborah, between. Ramah and Bethel (Jg 4°); the terebinth at Ophrah, beside which the angel of Jahweh appeared to Gideon (6); the pomegranate (1S 142), and the tamarisk on the height of Gibeah (22%), under which Saul executed judgment ; and, finally, the tamarisk [in 1Ch 10” ‘terebinth’] at Jabesh, beneath which the bones of Saul and his sons were interred.
In all the above instances we have to do pre- sumably with trees which, as the abode of local numina, were already sacred to the Canaanites, and which for the same reason were so regarded by the Israelites as well, only that the process early began of bringing them into relation to the patri- archs, and thus to the cult of Jahweh, ey removing all ground of offence connected wit them. Nearly all of them now make their appear- ance as hallowed by the building of altars to Jahweh and by His worship in proximity to them. It is quite true that in the beliefs of the people the old conception of a special ’é/ of the particular tree may have maintained itself tenaciously, even if without a clear consciousness, till far into the monarchical period.—Of the trees and tree-stumps or poles (’dshériém), which till towards the end of the pre-exilic period were reckoned amongst the necessary apparatus of a place for the worship of Jahweh, we shall have to speak later on (see