Now it is self-evident that in the OT, in the numerous passages, particularly in the Prophets and the Psalms, where the ‘name of Jahweh? is introduced in various connexions, such crass and superstitious notions as underlie heathen magical formulas are entirely absent. The con- ception of God found in the Prophets (including Deuteronomy, as the specifically Prophetical law- book) and the Psalms permits of no other view than that all those manifold expressions are used from a thoroughly purified religious and ethical standpoint. But, on the other hand, Giesebrecht 1s certainly right in declaring the (almost univers- ally) current explanation of these expressions to be inadequate, and, in attributing to the ‘name of Jahweh,’ in at least a great number of in- stances, a far deeper meaning. Most are content to explain the ‘name’ as the expression of the character, the connotation of the Divine attri- butes, in so far as these have become known to the Israelites, or have manifested themselves for
* Cf. Giesebrecht’s monograph, Die alttest. Schdtzung des Gottesnamens und ‘thre religionsgeschichtliche Grundlage (K6nigsberg, 1901), which is at once thorough-going, and opens up a number of new points of view.
+ A trace of this notion may be discovered with certainty in Gn 8230 and Jg 1318, In both passages the manifestation of Jahweh (for such is originally meant) declines to give its name, thus escaping, as it were, any further annoyance. It may be, again, that in the Decalogue the commandment not to take Jahweh’s name ‘in vain’? meant originally that men were not to compel action on the part of the sacred name by invoking it. So, too, Am 610 is best explained, with Giesebrecht (p. 128), as expressing a dread of provoking the fiercely enraged Deity still further by uttering His name (cf. also 8%), Consideration ig due, finally, to the remark of Giesebrecht (Friede fiir Babel und Bibel, Konigsberg, 1903, p. 41), that the abstract notion el, ‘ deity,’ is employed so frequently in personal names because, like the terms expressing relationship, this served as a protec- tion to the Divine name, which might not be uttered. Of. the numerous examples of such name-taboos collected from all quarters by Giesebrecht, J.c. p. 88, note 1; see also Frazer, Golden Bough 2, i, 403 ff.
With the magical and at the same time irresistible efficacy of the solemnly invoked Divine name is plainly connected the firm belief in the terrible power of the curse. Thus Abimelech succumbs to the curse of Jotham (Jg 920. 57b) ; Micah escapes the effects of his mother’s curse by prompt restitution of the money he had stolen from her ; and his mother at once removes the curse by pronouncing a formula of blessing, in which the name of Jahweh is invoked (Jg¢ 171); the curse of Elisha ‘in
the name of Jahweh? brings summary destruction upon forty- two children (2 K 224),
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RELIGION OF ISRAEL 641
their protection or deliverance. In point of fact, a number of frequently employed expressions are more or less satisfactorily explained in this way (e.g. when we read of proclaiming, praising, cele- brating, glorying in, the name of God); there are even others where the name appears to be in- tended only in the sense familiar to ws—as a com- bination of particular sounds (so in all connexions where a pronouncing of the Divine name is spoken of, such as calling upon, profaning, blaspheming the name, or putting it [in blessing] upon any one, Nu 6”, Ps 1298). But there remains a very large number of passages in which these two methods of interpretation, so far from being satisfactory, yield no sense at all—passages in which the name, in short, appears to be identical with the person of God. This applies where such expressions as ‘fear,’ ‘love,’ ‘honour,’ ‘confess,’ ‘trust in,’ ‘ wait for,’ are prefixed to the name of God. That a manifestation-form of Jahweh as present to help is here thought of, is evident from such instances as Ps 207@) (‘the name of the God of Jacob defend thee !’) 446) (‘through thy name we tread down our foes,’ cf. 1181-12) 543@ («help me, O God, through thy name,’ cf. 1248), Pr 18" (‘a strong tower is the name of Jahweh’).*
If in the above passages the ‘name’ is really a personified ‘power placed side by side with the proper person of Jahweh’ (Giesebrecht, /.c. p. 66), this throws a clear light not only upon the above (p. 639%) cited passage Ex 23% (‘My name is in him’), but also upon the expressions just noticed, such as ‘call upon, praise, thank, the name of Jahweh.’ They refer not to the name ‘Jahweh’ as the pronunciation of certain sounds, but to the ‘power’ which has become hypostatized in it; otherwise, passages like Ps 548(* (‘TI will declare to the praise of thy name, Jahweh, that it is good, that it hath delivered me out of all trouble’) would be quite unintelligible.
All the more intelligible, on the other hand, be- come the very numerous passages which speak of a localizing of the name at particular sanctuaries, notably at the temple in Jerusalem. Favourite forms of expression with Deuteronomy and with the Deuteronomic redactors of the Historical books are, that Jahweh ‘causes’ His name ‘to dwell’ in the temple, or ‘sets’ it in the place chosen by Him, or that ‘a house is built for his name,’ so that now He is to dwell for ever at Jerusalem (2 K 23”, 2 Ch 334). It might be supposed that this applica- tion of the ‘name of Jahweh’ took its rise in the age of Deuteronomy, perhaps because the purified Prophetical conception of God urgently demanded. such a distinction between the unapproachable, immanent Jahweh and His earthly forms of mani- festation. But that this was not so is shown by Ex 20%, which stands at the very head of the Book of the Covenant: ‘In every spot [more exactly, ‘at every place of worship’) where I will cause my name to be remembered [i.e. simply, ‘ where I will cause my “name” to be honoured as a mani- festation of my being localized there’), will I come to thee and bless thee.’ We are thus entitled not only to regard the theologumenon of the ‘name of Jahweh’ as one of the most significant attempts at distinguishing between the real essential being of Jahweh and His more or less perfect manifesta- tion-forms—analogous to the angel, the face, and the glory, of Jahweh—but to carry it back even to the pre- Prophetic period of the religion of Israel. Nay, in this very period the belief in a magical efficacy of the name must have played a more important réle than later, when men, while laying emphasis upon the ‘name’ in expressions