The whole process of localizing Jahweh in Canaan, and the consequent destruction of the syncretism between Jahweh and Baal, presents itself to us as already accomplished in the patri- archal narratives of Gn 12ff. These have not a word to say about any places of worship of Baal in the land; ad/ the future Israelitish sanctuaries are already consecrated by the patriarchs (for the most part in consequence of manifestations of Jahweh) by the building of altars (Gn 127-8 1318 26” 33”) or the planting of a sacred tree (218), In two instances (12° 28"#-), indeed, there can still be clearly detected a recollection that the sacred- ness of these spots dates really from an earlier, Canaanite, period ; but for Israel it dates from the occasion when Jahweh came upon the scene as the numen loci, and manifested Himself to Israel’s ancestors.
(6) In all this we have not as yet mentioned one prime factor which explains very simply the per- manent triumph of Jahweh over Baal in the
bability is rather that it is the latter name itself that should be regarded as a surname], Jp 71 829. 35 Olt. ; but cf. also 2S 1121, where we have the form Jerubbesheth for Jerubbosheth. - The LXX retains Baal in the text, but means this to be read aicxivn (=bosheth, ‘shame’). Inno other way can we explain the presence of the feminine article in +7 Béawa of Ro 114 (=1K 1918), ‘
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RELIGION OF ISRAEL
RELIGION OF ISRAEL
647
capacity of the latter as god of the land—namely, the introduction of the conception of Jahweh as a God enthroned in heaven. ‘This implies of itself the idea of His supramundane elevation, not only above all earthly powers, but above all local divinities. From heaven Jahweh looks down and directs the actions and fortunes of men, or at least, in the first instance, of His people; from heaven He sends or withholds rain and dew and all the associated blessings of the soil; but from heaven also He rains down fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah (Gn 19%), and thus shows Himself to be the almighty supramundane Lord over all the elements.
According to the view just presented, this con- ception of Jahweh did not make its way all at once, and still less did it penetrate the whole body of the people; side by side with it there con- tinued to prevail for long an ill-defined mingling of the notions which localized Jahweh at Sinai (see above, p. 626°) or at Canaanite places of worship. But, on the other hand, traces of the conception of Jahweh as a God of heaven can be discovered comparatively early. We must not allow our- selves to be misled by passages where a different view appears to be presented, simply because the narrative form of the myth is adopted. In Gn 3°, for instance, the Garden of Eden is still God’s dwelling-place, but, according to the same source (J), Jahweh comes down from heaven [the context permits of no other meaning] to see the Tower of Babel (115-7). He sends down destruction from heaven from Jahweh (194, see above) ; He is called ‘the God of heaven’ (247, v.? ‘the God of heaven and earth’). In the E source the idea of Jahweh as the God of heaven has so completely gained the ascendency that even the mal’akh ’Llohim (cf. above, p. 638 ff.) calls from heaven (2177 22%, where ‘Jahweh’ instead of ‘Elohim’ is due to the redactor who inserted vv.!8). In 28" (E) the ladder upon which the angels ascend and descend establishes the connexion between earth and heaven, the dwelling-place of God. Hence Jacob (v.27) calls the place at once the house of God (corresponding to the earlier conception) and the gate of heaven.
4. The above assertion, that the cult of Baal was gradually superseded through the localizing of Jahweh at the Canaanite sanctuaries and the growing conception of Him as the God of heaven, appears at first to be violently contradicted by the circumstance that even in the reign of Ahab of Israel (i.¢. in the first half of the 9th cent. B.C.) the worship of Baal comes upon the scene once more, and in such force that we almost receive the impression that Jahwism had then to engage ina life-and-death struggle, and was brought to the verge of extinction. Elijah complains (1 K 19") that the altars of Jahweh had been thrown down and His prophets put to death, that he himself alone was left, and that they sought his life to destroy it. But apart from the answer of God (v.18), that the number of those who had remained loyal to Jahweh amounted to 7000, there are other points on which our judgment must be con- siderably modified with respect to the degree and the universality of the apostasy from J ahweh, particularly so far as Ahab is concerned (1 K 1622), The names of Ahab’s children (Ahaziah, Joram, ‘Athaliah) are one and all com ounds with the name of Jahweh. The fact that he built for his Tyrian consort Jezebel a Baal temple and altar at Samaria may be explained in the same way as Solomon’s building of a Chemosh sanctuary upon the Mount of Olives (see above, p. 635). The bloody persecution of the prophets of Jahweh is expressly (1 K 18! 19?) laid to the charge of Jezebel alone; it is at her table that the 450 prophets of