But all this humanity and mildness in Deutero- nomy goes hand in hand with an unbending strict- ness, not only against idolatry but against every form of lawlessness. The son who is hopelessly corrupt is, at the instance of his own parents, to be stoned to death (21'8), In like manner, in the case of adultery (22”), or of the seduction of a
688 RELIGION OF ISRAEL
RELIGION OF ISRAEL
(eee EEE SA
betrothed maiden within the city, the penalty of death is to be inflicted on both parties (22%), Seduction of a maiden who is not betrothed is punished by a money fine and the obligation to contract an indissoluble marriage with her (22). Shameless conduct on the part of a woman is avenged by her having her hand cut off (254%), A newly married woman who proves to be not a virgin is to be stoned (227), while a false accusa- tion on this score by the husband involves his paying of a considerable money fine and agreeing to hold his marriage with her indissoluble (22*'). If a husband wishes to put away his wife ‘ because he has found some unseemly thing in her,’ he is required to give her a bill of divorcement. To all appearance, dissolution of marriage was pretty frequent; it was only gradually that even the people of Israel shook itself free of the general Oriental conception of woman as a kind of chattel. Yet at least remarriage with a divorced wife who in the interval has been married to another man, is strictly forbidden as a defilement of the land (24%), Finally, a sort of compendium of the Deuteronomic ethics may be discovered also in the twelve curses of Dt 271°#:,
In all this, moreover, Deuteronomy implies that the demands put forward by it are not (with such exceptions as that relating to the concentration of the cultus) addressed to the people as something entirely new. Nay, Jahweh has from the first provided organs for the communication of His will, in the shape of priests and prophets. To the former of these the following functions are assigned in Deuteronomy : the decision of the more difticult law-cases (17912 1917 215); the service of Jahweh in the sanctuary, which gives them a means of livelihood in the absence of a tribal portion of the land (18 26*-) ; the encouraging of warriors before battle (207*-) ; and the supervision of leprosy (248), As regards the prophets, Deuteronom finds itself involved in a certain measure of self- contradiction in so far as, upon the one hand, it emphasizes the pre-eminence, nay perfection, of the code it promulgates (48 304"; cf. also Jos 18); while, on the other hand, it recognizes the import- ance of the Prophets, although these were, pro- perly speaking, rendered superfluous by the written Law. This contradiction, however, is resolved by considering that Dt 18% has manifestly in view only one particular function of the prophets—not the announcement of the Divine will in general, but the prediction of the future. Prophecy is Jahweh’s substitute for the soothsaying and prog- nosticating of other nations (v.4). Jahweh Him- self sees to it that this substitute is always * present ; but the only proof that a prophet has really spoken in the name of Jahweh is the fulfil- ment of his prediction (v.).
Of the prophets proper, Jeremiah indeed com- mends the observance of ‘the words of this law’ (112#-),-+ by which only Deuteronomy can be meant. But he can never have been of opinion that true Jahweh prophecy, the living word of Jahweh, which is as a fire, and like a hammer breaking the rock in pieces (23%), is ever to be rendered super- fluous by a written Law. Jahweh still acts as He has done since the choice of Israel, sending with- out intermission His servants, the prophets, to announce His will (7*5 254 26° 29). And only this immediate ¢orah (‘direction’) of God offers a guar- antee that it is a true Divine word—an assurance
_*The referring of ‘the prophet’ of v.15 and y.18 to a par- ticular individual, namely the Messiah (on which the old dog- matic founded the munus propheticum of Christ), is at once seen to be mistaken, when one looks at v.20 and v.22,
t In this connexion we should not omit to say that the stron objections taken by Duhm (in his Commentary on Jeremiah to Jeremiah’s authorship of this passage, rest on what is by no means an airy foundation.
which cannot be unreservedly felt regarding a written Law. It is only in this way that we can explain the remarkable words of Jer 8° ‘How can ye say, We are wise, and the torah (here=the [written] Law) of Jahweh is with us? Nay, the lying pen of the scribe hath worked so as to deceive.’* If this is not exactly a repudiation of the law-book discovered and introduced in Josiah’s reign, it is at least an allusion to the dangers which beset a written code; and hence the latter can never take the place of the living word com- municated through the prophets.
Amongst the earlier prophets, Hosea (8) as- sumes the existence of a multitude of written toréth+ (‘directions’); but the context of the passage shows that these cannot be regulations for the cultus, but only guides to a moral life, In Is 8"6 the torah that is to be laid up and sealed refers only to the immediately preceding predic- tions. Nowhere except in Jeremiah and Hosea do we find any allusion to a written Law. On the other hand, we encounter everywhere (cf. Am 2", Hos 6°, Is 6!# 81, Mic 38, Hab 2" etc.) the con- viction of the Divine mission and the direct com- ey eS of the genuine Jahweh prophets with their