with merely alluding to this, for it lies outside the scope of an article dealing with the history of religion.
3. Full notice must be taken, however, of the symbolical actions whereby the prophets gave, as it were, a concrete form to the truths they pro- claimed. We meet with an example of this even in very early times, when Ahijah of Shiloh (1 K 11°F) rent his new mantle into twelve pieces and gave Jeroboam ten of these. Here the interpreta- tion follows straight upon the action, whereas in 1 K 22" the latter comes after the prophetic oracle. With the writing prophets the state of things is the same with symbolical actions as with the vision. At first rare and simple, these actions occur in Ezekiel in considerable numbers, and at times in so complicated a form as to justify the question whether they are meant to be thought of as actually performed, and not simply as the literary garb given to prophetic ideas. In Amos, Hosea, Micah there are no examples.
(a) In Isaiah, as there is only one vision, so there is only one symbolical action (ch. 20). The prophet is to go about for three years naked (2.¢. without his upper garment) and barefooted, and thus to furnish an impressive emblem of the con- dition of the Egyptians and Ethiopians going into captivity. But this action of his serves also, as v.° shows, a practical purpose of extreme import- ance, namely, to keep Judah from foolishly revolt- ing from Assyria, through trust in the delusive aid of the Egyptians and the Ethiopians. The sym- bolical action then appears here in the direct service of the Divine guidance of the people by means of the prophet, and hence (like all the sym- bolical actions we meet with in the writing pro- phets) is directly commanded by God.
(0) After Is 20 the next instances of symbolical actions occur in the life of Jeremiah. In Jer 13 the prophet is told to buy a linen girdle, and first to put it upon his loins and then to hide it in a hole of a rock by the water.* The consequent destruction of the girdle is to symbolize the inevit- able destruction of Judah and Jerusalem. With a like aim he goes to Topheth (19™), the place of child-sacrifice, and before the eyes of many witnesses breaks an earthen pitcher—an action whose significance is heightened by the scene where it takes place. According to 27", Jeremiah, in order to symbolize the necessity for Judah’s sub- mitting patiently to the yoke of Nebuchadrezzar, places bands and yoke-bars upon his own neck (cf. also 2813), Jt is noteworthy that the explana- tion of this symbolical action, along with a corre- sponding warning, is sent also to the kings of the surrounding peoples—a strong proof that the prophet felt that he spoke on behalf of the God who rules over all. It is a very crass misconcep- tion that sees here an unbecoming interference with foreign politics, or even an evidence that the prophet are. thus because he was in the pay of the Chaldeans. Finally, our present category includes in a certain sense also 43°, where the prophet, by Jahweh’s instructions, buries great stones in the clay-ground in front of the palace of the Pharaoh at Tahpanhes, as a testimony to the
to be supposed ; cf. e.g. Am 526, Is 12M 95 132M 144M 162ff. 991b-4 3722". 471i. 527M. 57LE. E010, Jer 9206 158, Ezk 191bM: etc. Cf. art. Porrry in vol. iv.
*If by Pérath (n) of v.4% the river Euphrates must be understood, there is no alternative but to regard the account of the whole transaction as simply a literary device, or even (with Duhm in his Commentary on Jeremiah, p. 119) as the free invention of a late redactor. For Jeremiah cannot possibly have undertaken the long journey to the Euphrates twice over, merely to establish the fact that a linen girdle is ruined by damp. ButnowL. Gautier (cf. Bote aus Zion, July 1894, p. 62 f.) points to an ‘Ain (‘fountain *) Fara in the neighbourhood of Anathoth, the home of the prophet. Assuming this to be meant by Pérath, all difficulty disappears (cf. Ene. Bibl. ii. 1429).
678 RELIGION OF ISRAEL
RELIGION OF ISRAEL
a
fact that Nebuchadrezzar would one day set up his throne over these stones, to execute grim judgment upon Egypt.
The above instances, however, exhaust the sym- bolical actions of Jeremiah ; for his purchase, by Divine command, of a field, while he was in prison (327), is a legal transaction, whose symbolical sense, as we learn from v.”*, was not evident to the prophet himself till afterwards. Moreover, all the above enumerated symbolical actions are as simple as they are impressive ; they are easy to interpret and easy to remember.
(c) Much more circumstantial is even (a) the first of the emblematical transactions required of Ezekiel (44%). He is to draw upon a tile a plan of Jerusalem, to set in array various siege appliances, nay even whole armies, against the city, and, finally, to place an iron pan between himself (as God’s representative) and the city. Still the direc- tion to give the house of Israel a ‘sign’ in this way was quite capable of execution, whatever room there may be for difference of opinion as to the method by which the prophet depicted the besieging armies.—(8) But it is different with the ¢ase contemplated in 44%. Here Ezekiel is to lie upon one side, bound with cords to prevent his turning over on his other side, and first to bear for 190* days the guilt of Israel, and then for other 40 days the guilt of Judah—these numbers corresponding to the number of years, respectively, of the captivity of the two kingdoms. No appeal to the prophet’s alleged tendency to catalepsy will suffice to make a literal fulfilment of this com- mand conceivable : for this reason, apart from any other, that such a prolonging of the symbolical transaction over nearly eight months would have tended to rob it of effect, or at least would have been quite unnecessary for the purpose in view. We must therefore assume that the symbolical action was indeed actually carried on by the prophet for a time, but that its prolongation to 190+40 days is merely part of his subsequent ex- planation of it.—It is only upon this assumption, again, that (y) the prescription (4°) as to the stinted use of unclean food by the prophet while he was bound as above described,+ can be conceived as capable of being obeyed. A daily allowance of 20 shekels [about 5 oz. avoir.] weight of the com- posite bread prescribed would scarcely have sufficed to support life for 230 (not to speak of 430) days. —(6) Very graphic and impressive, on the other hand, is the fourth sign (5). The prophet, hav- ing cut the hair of his head and beard, burns a third of the hair, smites about another third with a sword, scatters the other third to the winds, and finally burns some of the hairs that have been concealed in the skirt of his mantle—all this as a sign of the fate that was reserved for the people of Judah. Even if the use of a balance (v.!) to eppctiion the hair suggests the somewhat mechani- cal fondness of Ezekiel for exact measures and numbers, the whole transaction is well fitted to make the most lasting impression; and one can well imagine the eager attention with which the onlookers watched the prophet at work, and lis- tened to the explanations that followed.—(e) No less impressive is the fashion in which he is told (121%) to give the people an emblematic repre- sentation of the cheerless departure into exile. He is to bring out his baggage by day in their sight,