We pass over all further prescriptions regarding festal offerings and freewill services, and content ourselves with noting the fact that ald directions regarding holy places, times, persons, and actions have ever in view the one aim of realizing the idea of a God-consecrated people, the fact of its absolute dependence upon Him, and the necessity of ever renewed surrender to Him. It is quite possible that, in the working out of the system in detail, Babylonian + influences may have co - operated ;
* This waving (lit. ‘swinging’) of the offering or part of it denotes, according to what is surely the right interpretation, a moving backwards and forwards in the hands, the priest making as if he would cast the offering into the altar flame, but ending by taking it back as food assigned by God to the priests. A different explanation is given by Philo (in a fragment of his treatise de Victimis, edited by Wendland in 1891), who holds that the waving of the offering consisted in holding it up to- wards heaven.
+ According to the list of offerings in Nu 28f., the number of official sacrifices amounts yearly to 115 young bullocks, 1100 lambs, 38 rams, and 82 goats, besides the food- and drink-offer- ings pertaining to them.
t On this point cf. especially P. Haupt, ‘The Origin of the Mosaic Ceremonial’ in John Hopkins University Circular, xix. No. 145 (Baltimore, 1900), in which a Babylonian origin is claimed even for j297, min, na, and 12D; and the same author’s art. ‘Babylonian Elements in the Levitic Ritual’ in Journ. of Bibl. Lit. x1x. i. 55 ff.
RELIGION OF ISRAEL
but in any case these are so incorporated with, nay even subordinated to, the theocratic funda- mental ideas, that they are no longer felt to be a foreign element, hence requiring to be considered less from the standpoint of Biblical Theology than from that of the History of Religion in general.
5. On the other hand, we have still to answer another extremely important question, namely, as to the ethical system upon which P builds, and which he desires to see realized. What ideal of morality floats before his mental vision, and by what means does he aim at realizing it?
In dealing with these questions it is necessary at the very outset to repel a charge which, for reasons that are readily intelligible, is often brought against P, namely, that moral commands proper recede in his pages so far behind ritual ordinances that they seem to possess no importance at all. But we must not forget that P represents the close of a long development in the course of which the moral demands of the prophets, at least after the introduction of Deuteronomy, had long become flesh and blood in the case of the better portion of the people—certainly of all who accepted the future hope. It did not appear to P to be neces- sary to emphasize these demands afresh, seeing that in the form of the Decalogue they had long been a common possession of the people. More- over, there is not wanting, at least in the Law of Holiness (Lv 19 and 20), a collection of a whole series of essentially moral commands, although these are for the most part amalgamated in a remarkable fashion with ritual prescriptions (cf. e.g. 1 9%f 19. 21f. 238. 27%) and the way in which humani- tarian prescriptions, like those contained in 19"** 13 are based upon the motive of the fear of God (see especially vv. ®2) more than once vividly recalls Deuteronomy. The same remark applies to the exhortations to the strictest impartiality in judicial decisions (vv. 5), and to absolute honesty in busi- ness and uprightness of life (vv.1+ 4 6), Besides, v.33! contains not only a prohibition against op- pressing the gér,* but a command to love him as oneself. On the other hand, however, it cannot be disputed that the concept ‘neighbour’ in vv.’ ** is restricted solely to one’s fellow- countrymen. Amongst other instances, this comes out clearly in the prohibition to treat Israelites as slaves: the heathen and even settlers in Israel may be pur- chased as slaves and bequeathed as such to one’s children, but not so with Israelites (Lv 25**). Everything of heathen origin is eo ipso unclean, and hence so far beneath Israel that the latter recognizes no consideration or equal rights as be- longing to it. Deutero-Isaiah’s thought of Israel as having a missionary function to discharge to the heathen appears to be completely forgotten.
But, if we cannot thus speak of moral duties towards non-Israelites (with such exceptions as the general prohibition of murder, Gn 9°", and the above-mentioned kindly recommendation of the gerim, Lv 19°), it is true that otherwise the ethical system of the prophets may be regarded as binding for P. Only, in his estimation, the moral ideal is not exhausted in the fulfilment of specially ethical demands, but he places along with these, at least upon the same level, if not upon a higher one, regulations as to the cultus— nay, purely external, ritual requirements. Here, if anywhere, we see that P sets before him the realizing of the system sketched by Ezekiel. The aim to which every other interest must give way is the setting up of a pure God-consecrated people ;
* By the gér here is evidently to be understood not a heathen but an Israelite of another tribe or family, or even a foreigner who has settled in Israel and become completely incorporated therewith ; cf., on this controverted question, Bertholet, Die pong Tsraeliten wnd der Juden zu den Fremden, Frei-