t So Schwally, Semit. Kriegsaltertiimer, i. 22.
RELIGION OF ISRAEL
RELIGION OF ISRAEL
651
pressed by deeds, which cannot fail to accomplish its purpose on the Syrians. Balaam, to whom (Nu 225) the magical power of effectually blessing or cursing an entire nation is attributed, appears, nevertheless, in the whole passage (Nu 22-24) as a genuine prophet of Jahweh. All these are instances of the survival of a primitive system of magic, which, however, it was found possible to reconcile with Jahwism. So, according to Gn 44°15, Joseph practised the so-called hydromancy, a method of divining by means of a liquid in a bowl; and in Nu 17!°@ * we have simply a peculiar form of rhabdomancy, or divining by means of a number of rods. Other forms of magic, such as necromancy, the art of the mé‘dnénim,* etc., were at all times regarded by the representatives of genuine Jahwism as illegitimate. + But all the zeal of the prophets did not avail to prevent sorcery and divining from continuing in vogue down to the Exile and even beyond it, as out- growths of superstition for which the Jahweh religion can no more be held responsible than, can Christianity for the countless forms of superstition which continue to hold sway within its pale down to the present day.
The prophetism which is called up to us by names like Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, etc., has its roots in two altogether different phenomena, which finally became one, and consequently both received the same designation. On the one hand, there are the ‘seers’? of ancient times, on the other the ecstatic figures of the nébi?’im. The latter name became in the 8th cent. the collective title for the proper prophets of Jahweh; hence it is usual— although less appropriate—to render the word nébiém, when it occurs in the time of Samuel and Saul, by ‘ prophets.’
2. The ‘seer’ (nyo r6’eh, or 73h hozeh) derives his name, not from foresceing the future, although this is not, upon occasion, outside his réle, but be- cause, with spiritual eye opened for him by his God, he sees what is hidden, and_is able to an- nounce it. A condition of ecstasy is not necessary for this, —we never hear of such, for instance, in the case of Samuel,—but it may be connected with the act of vision. Thus Balaam, who is nowhere, indeed, called ‘seer’ or ‘prophet,’ but who be- longs all the same to this category, speaks of himself as a man ‘ whose [outward] eye is closed,+ who heareth the words of God, who seeth visions of the Almighty, sunk down and with unveiled eye’ (Nu 24% 1), In the case of all in this period who are entitled to be regarded as ‘seers’ there is an unmistakable connexion with mantic and sorcery, and that in the belief not only of the people but of the ancient narrator. We have spoken of Moses as an expert in magic. True, he is never called ‘seer,’ while the name ‘ prophet’ (in its later sense) is first given to him in Deuteronomy (185 347), The earlier view (Nu 128 [prob. E)) distinguishes him, as one with whom God speaks face to face, from prophets elsewhere, to whom God reveals Himself by visions and dreams. The people of Tsrael must, however, in all ages have seen in Moses not only the ‘man of God,’ the powerful instrument of Jahweh in the establishing of the covenant at Sinai, the leader filled with the spirit of Jahweh (Nu 117%), but also the ‘seer’ ac-
* That is, either ‘cloud-gazers’ (weather makers?) or those who deliver their oracles in a nasal or murnvuring tone. In general, necromancers and other sorcerers have attributed to them a whispering, chirping, sighing, or murmuring. ;
+ The locus classicus for the various forms of sorcery is Dt 1910@:, which is admirably expounded by W. Robertson Smith in his art. ‘On the Forms of Divination and Magic enumerated in Deut. xviii. 10 fin Journ. of Philol. xiii. 273 ff., xiv. 113 ff. Of. also T. Witton Davies, Magic, Divination, and Demonology among the Hebrews and their eighbours, London, 1898.
{ This meaning of the word is, indeed, uncertain ; others prefer to interpret ‘ whose {spiritual] eye is opened.
quainted with the future. This is plain from the circumstance that two notable predictions of the future are put in his mouth: the Blessing of Moses, Dt 33 (see above, p. 650"), although in v.* it speaks of him in the third person; and the much later Song, Dt 32, although in v.7 it looks back to the time of Moses as the days of old, and in v.'" describes the experiences of Israel in Palestine as historical facts that belong to a far distant past.
In the case of Balaam a mantic element emerges in so far as, while he repeatedly insists that he can speak only what Jahweh gives him to say (Nu 228: 188. 35. 38), he yet has recourse to external measures (23'#:), and actually goes out for a vision, i.e. a revelation of Jahweh by outward signs (23° [where in v.‘ after the word ‘ Balaam’ a more pre- cise statement about the kind of revelation has in all probability dropped out] #*-?7"-), until, finally, (24:#-) he abandons the rdle of soothsayer, and utters his oracles simply at the impulse of the Divine spirit.