(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 fell from heaven and was hence the object of worship (a so-called Batrdduov ; see below, in the discussion of the sacred Ark, p. 628); or, again Causative, as=‘He who fells ov causes to fall (by lightning),’ i.e. as the storm-God. This last explanation would seem to be favoured at least by a number of features which from the first appear to be bound up with the representation of Jahweh. It is, above all, as a God of the desert that Jahweh appears, for Moses is in the first instance to lead the people into the wilderness, there to serve God by offering sacrifice (Ex 3 5° e¢al.). But it is in the desert that the most imposing effects are produced by storm ; hence the natural abode of the storm-God is a desert range like Sinai with frequent lightning playing about its peaks. It may be added that thunder and lightning and _storm-clouds play a prominent part not only at Jahweh’s appearances in connexion with the giving of the Law at Sinai (Ex 191619 2018 e¢ al.), but upon the occasion of
_* We purposely leave out of account the latest attempts to discover the name ‘Jahweh’ (as presumably introduced into PRT Pe ites) in yew, Anoley eee texts (so,
Jey . ZS! n his muc at Bibel, Leipzig, 1902, p. 46f.), becaiae preteen rs ae Pe
interpretation of the names in question still form the subject of controversy amongst Assyriologists.
RELIGION OF ISRAEL
ee
almost all the later theophanies, whether_these present themselves as historical events (¢.g. Jg 5%, 1 K 19"), or as prophetic visions (¢.g. Is 30°, Mic 1%, Nah 1®, Hab 3%), or merely as poetical descriptions (Ps 18° 7718 974), But these argu- ments are not sufficient to prove that Jahweh was originally thought of as the storm-God only. In all ages thunder and lightning have been regarded as the special accompaniments and principal marks of Divine majesty and glory, and nothing is more natural than that these should have been assocl- ated also with the God of Israel, especially upon occasions when He appeared for extraordinary ends, whether to fight with and chastise His people’s enemies, or solemnly to conclude a cove- nant with the people themselves.
Upon the whole, then, the above attempts to find another explanation of the name ‘J ahweh’ than that offered in Ex 3% must be regarded as doubtful. And the same remark also applies, in ~ the judgment of the present writer, to the ex- planation of Wellhausen, who falls back upon the onomatopoetic root hawah ‘to breathe,’ and thus makes Jahweh = ‘the Breather’ (which comes again in the end to the same thing as the storm- God).
3. But, even if the attempt to arrive by the way of etymology at the origina conception underlying the name ‘Jahweh’ must be abandoned, there may be another possibility, namely, to assign the home of the God proclaimed by Moses. Moses fled from Egypt to Sinai, where he became son- in-law to the priest of a Midianite (according to another, more specialized, tradition, a Kenite) tribe. There the God who dwelt enthroned on Sinai appeared to him and called him to be His instrument. Thither he led the rescued tribes of Israel, and there the will of the God of Sinai was solemnly announced to them and the covenant with Him concluded. What does all this mean, it is asked, but that Moses made acquaintance at Sinai with Jahweh, the god of the Kenites, and proclaimed him thenceforward as the God of Israel? ‘As a matter of fact, Jahweh would thus have been a foreign god so far as Israel was concerned, and it is nothing but a naive anachronism when the Jahwistic source employs the name ‘Jahweh’ even in its narrative of the Creation (Gn 2**), and represents the worship of God under this name as beginning as early as the time of Enosh, the grandson of Adam.
This ‘Kenite hypothesis,’ since the example was set by Stade, has found favour with many, and it cannot be denied that it contains much that is worthy of notice. It appears to be sup- ported, above all, by the circumstance that Sinai (evidently identical with the Horeb of other sources)* is regarded as the proper dwelling- eee of Jahweh not only at the time of the
xodus, but till far into the monarchical period (cf. Jg 5°, and the passages dependent upon it, namely Dt 332, Hab 3°, Ps 68° © ; and esp. 1 K 198, where Elijah journeys to Horeb to obtain an oracle from his God). But this was possible only on the ground of a general conviction of the people that He was enthroned there prior to the call of Moses. Then, again, very great stress is laid upon the narrative of Ex 18,+ which is interpreted as de- scribing the admittance of Israel to the Jahweh cult of the Kenites. Jethro rejoices (v.°*-) in the evidences of power displayed by his god, Jahweh, on behalf of Israel; he finds an evidence therein that this god of his is mightier than all gods;