(e) In view of the above-described strong empha- sizing of the holiness of God as the absolute eleva- tion and unapproachableness, nay the awfulness, of the Divine essence, and, in no less degree, owing to the circumstance that the preaching of repent- ance was the main task of the prophets, it is readily intelligible that expressions about the love, the goodness, and mercy of God should recede more into the background. The terms so frequently used of human love are transferred to God first by Hosea (31 11°), more frequently by the Deuteronomist (4°7 7818 10% 1516 235, ef. 1 K° 109), once also by Jeremiah (31°). But, apart from Dt 108 (‘Jahweh loveth the gé’), it is always God’s love to the people of Israel that is spoken of ; and, besides, the words used for ‘love’ (both noun and verb) have always attached to them the notion of choice, nay, of preference; the full unfolding of the idea of the Divine love is not yet reached. In like manner, the expressions for ‘ mercy,’ ‘ grace,’ ‘compassion’ are in later linguistic usage trans- ferred to God, or at least somewhat frequently employed in making predications about Him. A collection of almost all the qualities of the love of God is brought together in Ex 34° (‘Jahweh, a
* Cf. Caldesaigues, La priere dans la religion de Jéhovah,
ete., Cahors, 1899 ; Kéberle, Die Motive des Glaubens an die Gebetserhérung tm AT, Erlangen and Leipzig, 1901.
God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in meroy and truth’), but this passage, too, is undoubtedly from the hand of a later redactor than the J pericope in which it is now inserted.
2. The relation of Jahweh to Israel.—That an intimate relation has subsisted from the first between Jahweh and Israel, is assumed in all the OT sources as a matter of course.’ They likewise hold that this relation is not based, as in the nature-religions, on some primeval and not to be explained condition of things, but upon a bérith (cf. above, p. 630°), or solemn transaction, at Sinai, whereby the nation becomes the ‘peculiar people’ of Jahweh, who by mighty acts has delivered it from the bondage of Egypt. oa
(a) Already in Ex 4” J speaks of the position of Israel as that of a firstborn son. This, in spite of Jer 3°, is not to be understood as if it meant to ascribe filial rights to all other peoples as well. The emphasis lies upon ‘firstborn’ in the sense that Israel alone possesses all the prerogatives which belong to the firstborn as the one who is loved and preferred before all others. These filial privileges, however, are predicated only of the people collectively, not of the individual Israelite. The latter, on the other hand, is a ‘servant’ of Jahweh (so in Nu 12%, and repeatedly, of Moses ; in Is 20% of Isaiah; in Jer 7 of the prophets). Even the OT, it is true, is acquainted with the notion of individual sonship, but only* in the person of the theocratic king (2S 74, Ps 27 8977 [of David]), not yet in the NT sense of sonship for which all men are destined.
We meet with this same conception of the son- ship of collective Israel not infrequently in the Prophetical period: Is 1* 301%, Dt 14! (where ‘children’ || ‘people holy to Jahweh,’ v.?), Is 43° (where sons and daughters are distinguished) 454.+ The necessary reverse side of this is the idea of the Fatherhood of God. Disregarding here passages where ‘father’ stands mainly for the physical Creator of the people (Dt 32°, Mal 21°), the fatherly relation is once more one that is sustained towards the nation collectively: so Jer 3*® 31° (towards Ephraim as ‘firstborn son’); cf. also Is 6316 (|| ‘redeemer’), Mal 1°.
(6) The foundation of this close relation is the election of Israel. Israel has been chosen out of allnations to be the people of God’s own possession, i.é. a highly prized and therefore carefully guarded and cherished piece of property. Thus Amos (38?) says, ‘You only have I known [i.e. made the object of my intimate knowledge and close care] of all the peoples of the earth,’ from which, indeed, he draws the inference, so startling to the popular view of the matter, that for that very reason Jahweh will visit upon them all their offences. The idea of a choice [verb 1032] of Israel from amongst the numerous nations makes its appear- ance first in the vocabulary of the Deuteronomist : Dt 487 75 10 142, 1 K 38 8°; ef. also Ps 33! 47° 4 1354 etc., and numerous passages in Is 40-66. Quite a unique contrast is drawn in Dt 4” between the choice of Israel and the fact that Jahweh has assigned to the other nations of the earth the stars as the object of their veneration.
The motive assigned for Israel’s election is in 1S 12” the good pleasure of Jahweh, but re- peatedly (so already in Hos 11', Dt 4°” 10) Jahweh’s love to Israel (coupled in Dt 78 with His oath to the patriarchs) is exhibited as the motive. A reason for this love itself is not stated. But
*In Ps 686(5) (‘father of the orphans’) ‘father,’ as the parallelism shows, is figurative=‘ protector,’ ‘provider’; ef. P. Bauer, ‘ Gott als Vater im AT’ in SK, 1899, p. 488 ff.