*In 1K 1282 Jeroboam 1. is charged with having instituted a feast on the 15th day of the 8th month after the manner of the feast in Judah, but it is disputed whether this means that at that time the Feast of Harvest was celebrated even in Judah in the 8th month (instead of the 7th, as was the later practice). The fixing upon the 15th day (as in P) may be due simply to the author of this note about Jeroboam,
RELIGION OF ISRAEL
RELIGION OF ISRAEL 663
certain is that even in early times “%éirdm and tummim represented the sacred lot, which was handled only by priests: Dt 338, 1S 14% 41 28° [where ’@rém is no doubt merely an abbreviation for the complete expression ’dérim wéthummim, as in Nu 27?! (P)]. The suggestion that ’drim ex- ressed an affirmative (especially as to where guilt ay), twmmim a negative, answer to a question, is favoured by 1S 14#, where, in place of the corrupt MT, we are to read with the LXX: ‘If this guilt be in me or my son Jonathan . . . let ’dérim appear, but if it be in thy people Israel, let tammim appear.’ As to the nature of these lots, we should irrosend think of small stones (cf. géral, ‘lot’; ut properly, as the Arabic shows, ‘pebble,’ ‘small stone’), which were shaken in an urn till one ‘ came out’ (Jos 19!*),
If an oracle was to be obtained, the applicant must be on good terms with the Deity. ‘To one who is under the weight of guilt unatoned for, the oracle is silent. This happens even if it is not himself that has incurred the guilt (so in 18 14°, where Saul obtains no response because of the offence of Jonathan; and 28°, where Saul con- sulted Jahweh, but He answered him not, by dreams, nor by ’#érém, nor by prophets). The man to whom guilt attaches is to all intents and pur- poses unclean, and, as such, is zpso facto excluded from any approach to God or handling of objects consecrated to Him. How far these prescriptions as to cleanness were carried (even without a written law), we see from the casual notice of 1 S 20%, according to which a state of uncleanness excluded from participation in the sacrificial meal at the New Moon; and from 21°*-, where abstinence from sexual intercourse is the condition of being allowed to eat sacred bread.* How deeply such considerations, enforced by religious usage, had impressed themselves on the daily life, could find no better illustration than that usage of language whereby the male population is divided into those who are admissible to, and those who are excluded from, the cultus,} the mention of both serving to express the totality (1 K 14% 217, 2 K 98 14, Dt 32°58).
5. In regard to the morality of this period, we must refer once more to what was said above (pp. 624%, 633) as to the power of custom in the earliest times. But, if it had to be assumed even there that custom was not altogether unconnected with religion, this holds in increased measure of the period preceding that of the writing prophets. It is very significant that in 2S 124 Nathan, after he has acted as the mouthpiece of the outraged popular conscience in calling David to account for his crime, discovers the special guilt of the king in the circumstance that by his action he has shown contempt for Jahweh.t This requires the death of Bathsheba’s child as an atonement, although David has already been assured of the forgiveness of his sin.
* Of. J. O. Matthes, art. ‘De begrippen rein en onrein in het OT’ in Theol. Tijdschr. xxxiii. 293 ff. [these are, according to him, ‘cultus notions,’ an answer to the question, How am I fit to serve Jahweh %]. ;
+ This interpretation of any) Wy (lit. ‘restrained and left free’), which is that of W. Robertson Smith (RS2 456: ‘he who is under taboo and he who is free’), is to be preferred absolutely to. the interpretations formerly current (such as ‘bond and free,’ or ‘minors and of age,’ or ‘tribesmen and of no family’ [for which A. S. Jahuda contends with much learn- ing in the Ztschr. f. Assyr. 1902, p. 240ff.]). Cf. especially the expression used of Doeg ‘nézar before Jahweh,’ 7.e. ‘restrained’ [as it were, in confinement], 1 § 218(7). So in all probability “azarah, ‘a festal gathering’ (Am 52! e¢ al.), means originally ‘a state of being bound,’ namely, by the obligation to certain forms of abstinence. 5
+ So we should read with Lucian. The MT inserts ‘the enemies [of Jahweh]’ before ‘Jahweh,’ and the (linguistically objectionable) interpretation is usually offered :; ‘because thou hast given the enemies of Jahweh occasion to blaspheme.’
We have all the less right to judge of the general condition of morality from isolated deeds wrought in passion, seeing that these were almost always condemned by contemporary opinion. The outrage wrought by Amnon on Tamar (28 18) is to be viewed as an instance of rape rather than of incest. Tamar herself contemplates the possibility (v.18) of being given by the king to Amnon as his wife, although she is his half-sister ; while in Gn 202 it appears to be no way repugnant to E that Abraham’s wife should be his half-sister Sarah. But Amnon’s act was avenged by his murder by Absalom, who must have considered it a heinous offence. He thus carried out a species of blood- revenge, but, at the same time, exceeded the bounds prescribed by custom (just as Joab did when he treacherously murdered Abner, 25 377"), and had to expiate this by a lengthened term of banish- ment.