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 place it beyond doubt that a bodily—and indeed a hwman—form was then and for centuries afterwards attributed to Him; and, even if in Ex 204 and Dt 58 the making of any figure representing Jahweh was forbidden, this would not amount to an absolute denial that, He possessed the bodily form of a man. But in any case the making of images of Jahweh was regarded as unobjectionable till about the 8th cent. B.C., although in all probability a distinction was drawn between the images carved in wood and stone, which had come down from very early times, and molten images of metal. The latter were undoubtedly of Canaanitish origin, and hence were prohibited in the worship of Jahweh (Ex 3417; this certainly ancient passage has nothing to saylagainst carved images).* And, although narra- tives like Gn 3% and the older form of Gn 18 had not their origin till the settlement in Canaan, the human form of Jahweh is assumed by them as so much a matter of course that it is impossible to see here anything but the reflexion of a very widely diffused notion. Again, the numerous ascriptions of human organs (eyes, ears, nose, hands, feet, etc.) to Jahweh may have been in the latest times regarded as conscious anthropomorph- isms, 7.¢c. shifts to which language is reduced when it would describe the action of a purely spiritual personality ; but at first they were cer- tainly meant as the literal expression of the pre- vailing conception of the bodily personality of Jahweh.*t
5. It is quite true that no notice has been preserved in the early sources of the Pentateuch of images of Jahweh in human form in the time of Moses; the mention even of the ephod (Jg 86
*iid. Konig in his art. ‘Die Bildlosigkeit des legitimen Jahwehcultus’ (Zischr. f. kirchl. Wissenschaft wnd kirchi. Leben, 1886, Heft 5, 6; also publ. separately under the title Beitrage zum positiven Aufbau der Religionsgeschichte Israels, i, Leipzig, 1886) denies that images of Jahweh were at any period allowed in His legitimate worship ; but this is opposed. to facts, as has been shown above and will be further demon- strated presently.
+ It is another question whether the theologumenon of the ‘Angel of Jahweh’ as a passing appearance of Jahweh is to be placed so early as the Mosaic period. This and other forms of manifestation of Jahweh (face, name, glory) will be discussed by us in connexion with the framework of Jahwism as we find it at the close of the time of the Judges and the commencement
of the monarchical period. See p. 638 ff. q
628 RELIGION OF ISRAEL
RELIGION OF ISRAEL
174 1814-17820, 1 § 21° etc.), which is most prob- ably to be regarded as an image of Jahweh, does not occur till the following period. On the other hand, in 2 K 184 there is the strange piece of in- formation that Hezekiah broke in pieces a brazen serpent which was made by Moses, and to which up till then incense had been burnt by the Israel- ites; who called it Néhushtan (i.e. ‘the brazen one’). The language plainly implies the paying of Divine honours in the form of sacrifice. as the Néhushtdn, then, an image of Jahweh? This is scarcely conceivable, and finds no analogy else- where. Te, on the other hand, it represented some demon, how could its construction have been traced back to Moses, and how could it have received Divine worship down to the time of Hezekiah? The enigma is not solved by pointing to Nu 21%, for there can be little doubt that in this passage we have simply a later attempt to account for (and justify) the presence of the well- known brazen serpent in Jerusalem. It is most probable that the deriving of this idol from Moses is to be set down to some misunderstanding of the popular belief. See, further, art. NEHUSHTAN in vol. iii.
6. There are, however, the clearest traces of another visible representation of Jahweh, which goes back to the time of Moses—in connexion with the history of the sacred Ark. The ancient and original designation of this object is ‘the Ark of Jahweh’ or ‘the Ark of God.’ The Deuterono- mistic writers are the first who know of the Ark as the receptacle of the two stone tables of the Law which Moses received from God at Horeb; and on this account they call it ‘the Ark with the Law of Jahweh’ (Dt 10! 316, 1 Kk 8%).* Wherever this designation occurs in ancient narratives (¢.g. 15 4°->, but not vy.) 1%. 19 22), Ggrith is a later addition by Deuteronomistic hands; it is still unknown to the LXX in the passages cited.
Seeing that both the early sources of the Penta- teuch in their account of the wilderness journey- ings give prominence to the Ark as a most sacred object, they must have somewhere given an ac- count of its origin. And indeed this narrative, which has now (on account of its proximity to the entirely different account given by P in Ex 251°") dropped out, must have stood before Ex 337, Here we are told all at once about the tent which Moses regularly pitched before the camp and called ‘the Tent of Meeting.’ This is the same name as is applied (in a different sense, indeed) by the Priests’ Code to the tent in which the sacred Ark was lodged. Prior to Ex 337, then, it must have been told how Moses used the ornaments stripped off by the people at Horeb (v.*) for the construction of the Ark and the tent that sheltered it, the Ark (as must be inferred from v.°) being intended as a substitute for the personal presence of Jahweh, which would have been fatal to so stiff- necked a people.