IV. History of Idolatry among the Jews. — 1. The first undoubted allusion to idolatry or idolatrous customs in the Bible is in the accoimt of Rachel's stealing her fa- ther's teraphim (Gen. xxxi, 19), a relic of the worship of other gods, whom the ancestors of the Israelites served " on the other side of the river, in old time" (Josh, xxiv, 2). By these household deities Laban was guided, and these he consulted as oracles ("^Sdripj'Gen. xxx, 27, A. V. " learned by experience"), though without entirely losing sight of the God of Abraham and the God of Na- hor, to whom he appealed when occasion offered (Gen. xxxi, 53), while he was read}-, in the presence of Jacob, to acknowledge the benefits conferred upon him by Je- hovah (Gen. XXX, 27). Such, indeed, was the character of most of the idolatrous worship of the Israelites. Like the Cuthffian colonists in Samaria, who " feared Jehovah and served their own gods" (2 Kings xvii, 33), they blended in a strange manner a theoretical belief in the true God with the external reverence which, in differ- ent stages of their history, they were led to pay to the idols of the nations by whom tHey were surrounded. For this species of false worship they seem, at all events, to have had an incredible propension. On their jour- ney from Shechem to Bethel, the family of Jacob put away from among them "the gods of the/oreiffuer :" not the teraphim of Laban, but the gods of the Canaan- ites through whose land they passed, and the
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ami charms which were worn as the appendages of their worship (Gen. xxxv, 2, 4). See Jacob.
During their long residence in Egypt, the country of symbolism, they defiled themselves with the idols of the land, and it was long before tlie taint was removed (Josh, xxiv, 14; Ezek. XX, 7). To these gods Moses, as the Iierald of Jehovah, flung down the gauntlet of defiance (Kurtz, Gesch. d. A It. B. ii, 39), and the plagues of Egypt smote their symbols (Numb, xxxiii, 4). Yet, with the memory of their deliverance fresh in their minds, their leader absent, the Israelites clamored for some visible shape in which they might worship the God who had brought them up out of Egypt (Exod. xxxii). The Is- raelites, as dwellers in the most outlying and separate tract of the Shemitic part of Lower Egyi^t, are more like- ly to have followed the corruptions of the Shepherd- strangers than those of the Egyptians, more especially as, saving Josejjh, Moses, and not improbably Aaron and INIiriam, they seem to have almost universally preserved the manners of their former wandering life. There is scarcely a trace of Egyptian influence beyond that seen in the names of Moses and ]Miriam, and perhaps of Aa- ron also, for the only other name besides tlie former two that is certainly Egyptian, and may be reasonably re- ferred to this period, that of Harnepher, evidently the Egyptian har-nefru, " Horns the good," in the gene- alogies of Asher (1 Chron. vii, 36), probably marks an Egyptian taken by marriage into the tribe of Asher, whether a proselyte or not we cannot attempt to decide. There has been a difference of opinion as to the golden calf, some holding that it was made to represent God himself, others maintaining that it was only an imi- tation of an Egyptian idol. We first observe that this and Jeroboam's golden calves are shown to have been identical in the intention Avith which they were made, by the circumstance that the Israelites addressed the former as the God who had brought them out of Egypt (Exod. xxxii, 4, 8), and that Jeroboam proclaim- ed the same of his idols (1 Kings xii, 28). We next re- mark that Aaron called the calf not only god, but the Lord (Exod. xxxii, 5) ; that in the Psalms it is said "they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth hay" (cvi, 20) ; that no one of the calf-wor- shipping kings and princes of Israel bears any name con- nected with idolatry, while many have names compound- ed witli the most sacred name of God; and that in no place is any foreign divinity connected with calf-wor- ship in the slightest degree. Tlie adoption of such an image as the golden calf, however, shows the strength of Egyptian associations, else how woidd Aaron have fixed upon so ignoble a form as that of the God who had brought Israel out of Egj-^^t ? Only a mind thor- oughly accustomed to the profomid respect paid in Egj^jt to the sacred bulls, and especially to Apis and Mnevis, could have hit upon so strange a representation; nor could any people who had not witnessed the Egyptian practices have found, as readily as did the Israelites, the fidfilment of their wishes in such an image. The feast that Aaron celebrated, when, after eating and drinking, the people arose, sang, and danced naked before the idol, is strikingly like the festival of the finding of Apis, which was celebrated with feasting and dancing, and also, apparently, though this custom does not seem to have been part of the public festivity, with indecent gestures. See Golden Calf. The golden calf was not the only idol which the Israelites worshipped in the Desert. The prophet Amos speaks of others. In the Masoretic text the passage is as foUows : " But ye bare the tent [or tabernacle^ of your king and Chiun your images, the star of your gods [or your god], which ye made for yourselves" (v, 26). The Sept. has MoXox for " yoiu- king," as though their original Heb. had been asbp instead of 0=3^^, and 'Vaicpav for Chiun, be- sides a transposition. In the Acts the reading is almost the same as that of the Sept., '• Yea, ye took up the tab- ernacle of :Moloch, and the star of your god Reraphan, figures which ye made to worship them" (vii, 43). We