* The most striking instance of this usage would be found in
Is 3027 (‘The name of Jahweh cometh from afar, glowing is his anger,’ etc.), if the text has come down to us correct.
EXTRA VOL.—4I
that had become quite current, had no longer any clear consciousness of its once deeper signification.
4, All the above-deséribed attempts to distin- guish between the real being of Jahweh and His forms of manifestation * did not prevent men from seeking, even during this period, to realize a con- crete presence of the God of Israel by having recourse to images of Jahweh. A proof of this lies in the circumstance that presenting oneself at the sanctuary is spoken of as.‘ beholding the face of Jahweh.’*+ Although this expression may have come afterwards to be employed in quite a weakened sense (as, for instance, in Is 1"), it certainly referred originally (like the extremely frequent ‘before Jahweh’) to looking upon the image of the Deity. Exactly in the same way the expression ‘ stroke the face of Jahweh or of God,’ which had at first a literal sense, was afterwards weakened to the general meaning of ‘ propitiate God or beg His favour.’ As images of God we must reckon not only the very ancient pesel (>p8) or carved image and the bull-figures (prohibited in Judah), but also the ’éphéd and the téeraphim.
(a) The pesel was a Divine figure, originally carved from wood or hewn in stone, for the most
| part probably in the form of a man, or at least
with a human head. At first distinguished from the molten image (122) massékhah), the word comes at last to be used also of the latter (Is 40!9 441°, etc.). Of course, for our present purpose, we leave out of account all those passages in which pesel [pésilim, with the same meaning, serves as plural] stands for the image of a heathen god (Nah 1" e¢ al.). There are many passages, however, in which pesel means an image of Jahweh ; and such a carved image appears to have been for long regarded as unobjectionable, whereas the molten image (prob- ably with allusion to Israel’s bull worship) is already prohibited in the Jahwistic section of which Ex 34!” forms a part. Even if the prohibi- tion of the pesel in the Decalogue (Ex 20*, Dt 5°) extends to images of Jahweh, this would be simply a proof that the Decalogue (or at least the pro- hibition of images) originated later than J—a conclusion which is favoured by the circumstance that there were also other species (see below) of images of Jahweh which, till far into the mon- archical period, continued to be reverenced without opposition, or at least to be employed as a means of obtaining Divine oracles. No doubt, it isan image of Jahweh that we are to understand by the pesel ¢ of Micah (Jg 17%"), seeing that it was procured with a sum of money that had been dedicated to Jahweh. The original narrative is not intended to convey any censure of Micah’s action, but simply to give an account of the origin of the cult of the Jahweh-image at Dan (cf. 18°),
(6) The ’éphéd (iby) appears exclusively as an image of Jahweh, and more than once is clearly connected with the obtaining of oracles. The word means primarily ‘something thrown over’ (as applied
to a garment it answers to the German Uberwurf
* Among these may also be included in a certain sense the ‘ spirit of Jahweh or of God’; on which see below, pp. 653, 656 f.
+ It is simply a correction made in dogmatic interests (in view of Ex 3380), when already in the LXX, and consequently in the MT, by means of a pointing which is linguistically hardly con- ceivable, the beholding of the face of God is transformed into an ‘appearing before the face of God.’ In Hx 3423 and Dt 1616 (and hence also Ex 2317, where the Samaritan text still offers
correctly the accusative sign “MX instead of ~by) read MN} (‘let him behold’) for 4877 (‘let him appear’); and in Ex 34%4, Dt 3111, Is 112 read nix) (‘to behold’) for mint (‘to appear’). Even in Ex 2315 3420, where the passive 1N7) (in the sense of ‘my face shall not be seen’) might be possible, we should probably read the active 17? (‘ they shall behold’). ihe
¢ The ‘molten image’ named along with the pesel is, in all probability, a mistaken addition, and so is the téraphim coupled with the ’ephdd in v.5 (in the other recension of the narrative). In 1820f. only a pesel is spoken of.
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RELIGION OF ISRAEL
RELIGION OF ISRAEL
or Uberzug); coupled with bad, ‘linen,’ it stands for the ‘ waistcoat’ (see vol. i. p. 725%) worn by the priests or by people in general on ritual occasions (1S 28 worn by the youthful Samuel, 25 64 by David before the sacred Ark). In the Priests’ Code, finally, the ’éphéd (without bad) is the ornamental ‘waistcoat’ of the high priest, in which is the pocket with the sacred lots, the Urim and Thum- mim (Ex 25’, and esp. 284%). The attempt made, on the ground of these passages, to explain *éphdd in every instance as=‘ waistcoat’ or the like, and thus to get over the mention of an image of God, is shattered by a number of ancient passages, about whose true meaning no doubt can arise. When Gideon, according to Jg 87%, expended 1700 shekels of gold on the making of an *éphéd, and ‘set’ [it is the same word, +37, that is used else- where of the erecting of mazzébéth or monuments] it in Ophrah, it cannot be a ‘ waistcoat’ that is in view ; on the contrary, the writer means to record to the credit of Gideon how, out of the spoil, he had an image of Jahweh constructed. ‘The re- dactor of the Book of Judges, it is true, views his conduct differently (v.2"): ‘All Israel went a whoring after it,’ ¢.e. practised idolatry with it. But this very expression clearly indicates that the redactor, too, thinks of the ’éphéd as a Divine image, only that to him such an image is absolutely forbidden, under any circumstances, by the prin- ciples of the Deuteronomic legislation. Again, in Jg 17° the ’éphéd, being parallel to the pesel of the other recension of the narrative (see above, p. 641°, note +), is nothing other than an image of Jahweh. The same holds good of 1S 217°), where every- thing becomes clear if we think of the sword of Goliath, wrapped in a garment ‘ behind the ephod,’ as hanging upon the wall behind the image of Jahweh standing on a pedestal in the apse of the sanctuary. In like manner the ’éphéd of 18 2% 14°18 [here correcting the text by the LXX] 23° 9 307 is the portable image of Jahweh, which the priest brings forward at the command of Saul or of David, because it was required for the obtaining of an oracle from Jahweh. It is nowhere indicated that the ’éphéd itself contained any mechanism for casting lots. On the contrary, the lots would appear ae to have been cast in presence of the image, and thus as it were before the face of Jahweh, and the result was accordingly regarded as having His sanction. That such an employment of the image of Jahweh was still viewed as quite unobjectionable, is shown by Hos 34, where the prophet simply means that Israel (in exile) will have to dispense with all the requisites for a normal political and religious life, including ’@phéd and téraphim.