Chapter XLI: Section VII: The Old Testament (4)

As in Jeremiah, so in Ezekiel we find traces of hostility towards rival prophets, whom he denounces in no measured terms. It is interesting, too, to observe that there were female prophets in his day, who prophesied out of their own hearts. To them also he conveys the reprobation of the Almighty (Ezek. xiii). The form in which he looks forward to the restoration of Israel and Judah to their homes, is somewhat different from that in which it was expected by his predecessors. In a very singular vision, he relates that his God took him into a valley which was full of bones, and told him that these were the bones of the whole house of Israel. Ezekiel is then informed that God will open the graves of the dead, and cause these bones to live again, and will bring them to the land of Israel. Afterwards, he is told to join two sticks into one, this junction representing the future union of Ephraim and Judah, who are to be gathered from among the heathen, and are to form one nation governed by one king. That king is to be David, who will be their prince forever. God will make an everlasting covenant of peace with them, and put his sanctuary in their midst for evermore. Here the resurrection of the dead, and the return of David, instead of the appearance of a new king, are peculiar features.

An anonymous prophet is supposed to have written Isaiah xxi. 1-10, and another Isaiah xiii. 2-xiv. 23, the latter referring to Babylon, and containing the imaginary exultation of the restored Israelites over the fallen Babylonians. After these fragments we have the work of one who is perhaps the greatest of all the prophets, but who also is unknown to us by name. As the most fitting description we may perhaps call him the anonymous prophet. The whole of the latter portion of Isaiah, from chap. xl. to the end, is his work. The anonymous prophet lived in Egypt. His peculiar conception was that Israel was the servant of the Lord for the peace and the salvation of nations, as Kyros was his servant in war (P. A. B., vol. iii. p. 20 ff.). Alike in beauty of language and sublimity of thought he is supreme among the writers of the Hebrew Bible. He is the prophet of sorrow: yet also the prophet of consolation. Whether by a curious accident, or whether by virtue of a tendency (not uncommon among truly great writers) to withdraw his personality from observation and confine himself wholly to the message he had to deliver, he tells us nothing of himself. Hence he has for centuries been hidden behind the figure of Isaiah, whom nevertheless he surpasses in the purity of his ideal. To him we owe the beautiful passage beginning "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people," with the description afterwards applied by Jesus Christ to John the Baptist. From him also we have the most exalted conceptions of the Messiah, the moral element in his character being raised as compared with the element of material power, to a height hitherto unexampled in prophetic vision. Take, for instance, this description of his mildness combined with indomitable perseverance:—

"He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench; he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth, and the isles shall wait for his law" (Is. xlii. 2-4).

It is the anonymous prophet, too, who has given us the familiar passage, "He is despised and rejected of men;" a passage describing the career of a great man whose teachings involved him in persecution and ultimately in martyrdom, but nowise applicable to the Messiah. That a historical incident, known to the writer, is alluded to in this touching account of suffering goodness, admits of no reasonable doubt.

The anonymous prophet is preëminently the prophet of consolation. Living in the days of Kyros and of the restoration of the Temple, he had the elements of soothing speech ready to his hand; and as his predecessors had prophesied destruction and woe, occasionally varied with strains of hope, so he prophesies in strains of hope, occasionally varied with sterner language. It is his especial mission to heal the wounds that have been made in the spirit of Judah. God had indeed forsaken her for a while; but he will now take her back as a deserted wife, who had suffered her punishment. He had hidden his face in a little wrath for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will he now have mercy upon her (Is. liv. 5-7). The concluding chapter of the anonymous prophet contains a magnificent description of the ultimate gathering of all nations and tongues, when Jerusalem will be the central point of human worship, and the glory of God will be seen by all. The picture is not indeed unmingled with darker shades, for great numbers are to be destroyed by Jehovah in his indignation. On the other hand, there is a trait exhibiting the superiority of this prophet to his predecessors in toleration for the Gentiles: namely, the remarkable prediction that some of them also are to be priests and Levites (Is. lxvi. 12-24). The man who could utter this sentiment had made a signal advance upon the ordinary narrow and exclusive notions of the prerogatives of the Jewish race.

It was mentioned that the fiftieth and fifty-first chapters of Jeremiah were added by a later hand. The same hand (in Ewald's opinion) composed the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth chapters of Isaiah, of which the second describes in very eloquent terms the coming glory, when "the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away" (Is. xxxv. 10). Another unknown writer (Isaiah xxiv.-xxvii.) predicts in the first place the desolation which the Lord is about to effect, and then the happiness of the Jews who will be brought to their own land again, to worship Jehovah in the holy mount at Jerusalem. One of his expressions, "He will swallow up death in victory," has been adopted by St. Paul; another, "The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces," by the author of the Apocalypse.

The interest of Haggai's prophecy is purely special: it refers to the building of the temple at Jerusalem in the reign of Darius. It was the unexpected obstacles by which the building was hindered that kindled his zeal; he made his five speeches in three months of the same year. Probably he had not seen the first temple, and he left his prophetic work to his younger contemporary Zechariah (P. A. B., vol. iii. p. 177 ff.).

Zechariah also lived in the time of Darius, and dealt principally with the building of the temple (Ib., vol. iii. p. 187 ff.). A series of visions which he professes to see shows how his mind was running upon this absorbing theme; and he even expects the Messiah, whom Isaiah and Jeremiah had called a Branch of David, and whom he more emphatically terms _the_ Branch, to appear at the head of affairs and to carry the works to their completion (Zech., 8, and vi. 12). He supposes that he will then sit and rule upon his throne; a priest will be beside him, and there will be a counsel of peace between these two—the monarch and his ecclesiastical minister (Zech., vi. 13).

It was probably more than half a century later that the short book bearing the title of Malachi was written. The true name of its author is unknown, and that of Malachi, my messenger, was taken by its editor from the first verse of the third chapter (P. A. B., vol. iii. p. 214 ff.). He is not a prophet of a high calibre, as is shown by his denunciation, already quoted, of those among the Jews who offered Jehovah their least valuable cattle. Nor is his conception of the Messianic epoch in any way comparable to that of the great prophets whose works he might have studied. He says indeed that the Sun of righteousness will arise with healing in his wings; but it appears that this healing is to consist in the Israelites treading down the wicked, who will be as dust under their feet. He concludes by announcing the return of Elijah, before "the great and dreadful day of the Lord," and says, in his threatening tone, that this prophet will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and of the children to the fathers, lest God should come and smite the earth with a curse.

The Book of Jonah, which may have been written in the fifth or sixth century B. C. (P. A. B., vol. iii. p. 233 ff.), is a story with a moral rather than a prophecy. Jonah was desired by Jehovah to preach against Nineveh, but fled from his duty, and took passage in the ship to Tarshish, duly paying his fare. However, when a storm arose, Jonah knew that it was sent as a penalty for his disobedience, and told the sailors to throw him overboard. This they did, but he was swallowed alive by a large fish prepared for the purpose, and remained within it three days. By this lesson he was prepared to execute God's commands, and was accordingly thrown up by the fish on dry land. He preached to the people of Nineveh, as desired, the coming destruction of their city; but when they repented, Jehovah changed his mind, much to the annoyance of his prophet, who represented that his unfortunate tendency to clemency was the very reason why he had not wished to enter his service. But Jehovah, by causing him to regret the destruction of a gourd which had sheltered him, showed him that there would be much more reason to spare so large a city as Nineveh, which contained, not only a vast population, but also a great deal of cattle.

If Malachi and Jonah stand in unfavorable contrast to the works composed during the golden age of Hebrew literature, Daniel, the latest book of the Old Testament, represents the complete degeneracy of prophecy. It is from beginning to end artificial; professing to be written at one time and by an author whose name and personality are given; in reality written at another time, and by an author whose name and personality are concealed. Hence it contains pseudo-prophecies, which are comparatively clear, extending from the imagined date of the supposed prophet to the actual date of the real prophet; and it contains genuine prophecies which are obscure, and which extend from the actual date into the actual future. It contains also much that relates to the politics of the day, and which, for obvious reasons, is cast into an enigmatic form. Daniel was written about the year B. C. 168, a little before the death of Antiochus Epiphanes, and the allusions to that monarch are of course made under the veil of prophecy, in a style designed to be intelligible, without being direct. The predictions of the eleventh chapter refer to the wars of the Syrian and Egyptian kings, and especially to Antiochus Epiphanes, who is the "vile person" mentioned in the twenty-first verse. The purpose of the work was to set an example of fidelity to Jehovah to the powerful Jews who were connected with the Syrian court, and especially to the younger members of the great Jewish families, who were in danger of being corrupted by its seductions (P. A. B., vol. iii. p. 298 ff.).

The form chosen to effect the writer's object is autobiographical. In this way he was able to utter his political views—which, directly expressed, would have been dangerous to his safety—under the guise of sentiments uttered by Daniel, the fictitious narrator of the story. Daniel was taken as a captive child along with other children of Jewish race to serve at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, and remained at the Chaldean court until the death of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, and the subjugation of his empire by the Medes and Persians. He continued to hold an honorable position at the Persian court under Darius and Kyros. He first rose to distinction by relating and interpreting to Nebuchadnezzar a dream which the king had himself forgotten. Thus, from being a mere page he rose to be a sort of astrologer royal. His life was not, however, free from trouble. Among the children who had been brought with him from Judea he had three friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, whom the Chaldeans called Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. When Daniel had successfully interpreted the king's dream, he contrived to obtain lucrative situations in the province of Babylon for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. But these three having refused to worship a golden image which the king had set up in that province were by the king's orders cast into a burning fiery furnace, heated beyond its usual temperature. But though they fell bound in the midst of it, they were not burnt, and were seen walking about at their ease in it, accompanied by a fourth, who looked like the Son of Man (Dan. iii).

It is remarkable that a precisely similar prodigy occurred in one of the innumerable previous existences of the Buddha Sakyamuni. He was at this time the son and heir of a great king, and to prove his devotion to the true doctrine he literally obeyed the instructions of a Brahman, who desired him to fill a ditch ten yards deep with glowing coals and jump into it. On this condition the Brahman had consented to teach him the holy doctrine. Resisting all entreaties to preserve his life, the prince caused the pool of fire to be prepared and leapt into it without shrinking for a moment. On the instant it was converted into a basin of flowers, and he appeared sitting on a lotus-flower in its midst, while the gods caused a rain of flowers, that rose knee-deep to fall upon the assembled people (G. O. M., p. 14).

Nor is this the only other example of a wise discrimination being exercised by the fiery element. During the reign of the Indian king Asoka, who in the early part of his career was ferocious and irreligious, the public executioner enjoyed the singular privilege of being entitled to retain in his house every one, whatever his position or character, who might cross the threshold of his door. Now the outside of the executioner's house was beautiful and attractive, though within it was full of instruments of torture, with which he inflicted on his victims the punishments of hell. One day a holy monk, named Samudra, arriving at this apparently charming house, entered it, but on discovering the nature of its interior wished to make his exit. But it was too late. The executioner had seen him, and told him that he must die. After seven days' respite, he threw the monk into an iron caldron filled with water mixed with loathsome materials, and kindled a fire below it. But the fire would not burn. Far from experiencing any pain, the holy man appeared calmly seated on a lotus. The executioner having informed Asoka of this fact, the king arrived with a suite of thousands of persons. Seeing this crowd, the monk darted into the air, and there produced miraculous appearances. The king, struck by the extraordinary sight, requested the ascetic to say who he was, declaring that he honored him as a disciple. Samudra, perceiving that the moment had arrived at which the king was to receive the grace of instruction in the law, replied that he was a son of Buddha, that merciful Being, and that he was delivered from the bonds of existence. "And thou, O great king, thy advent was predicted by Bhagavat, when he said: A hundred years after I shall have entered into complete Nirvâna, there will be in the town of Pataliputtra a king called Asoka, a king ruling over the four quarters of the world, a just king, who will distribute my relics," and so forth. He proceeded to point out to Asoka the wickedness of establishing a house of torment like that he was in, and entreated him to give security to the beings who implored his compassion. Hereupon the king accepted the law of Buddha, and determined to cover the earth with monuments for his relics. But when the royal party were about to leave the place, the executioner had the audacity to remind Asoka of his promise that no one who had once entered his doors might ever go out. "What," cried Asoka, "do you wish then to put me also to death?" "Yes," replied the man. On this he was seized and thrown into the torture-room, where he died in the flames, and his house was destroyed (H. B. I., p. 365-372).

Daniel himself met with an adventure of the same perilous nature as that which had befallen his three friends, though under another government. Darius, by the advice of some counselors who desired to destroy Daniel, had made an order that no one should ask a petition of any god or man save himself for thirty days. But Daniel of course continued to worship Jehovah as before, and was sentenced in the terms of the edict to be thrown into a lions' den. But the lions would no more eat Daniel than the fire would burn his co-religionists; and just as Asoka, when he had witnessed the escape of the ascetic, worshiped Buddha, so Darius, having discovered Daniel uninjured in the lions' den, immediately ordered that in all parts of his dominions people should tremble and fear before the God of Daniel (Dan. vi).

Of the prophecies contained in this book the most remarkable is that concerning the Messiah, who is announced as destined to come at a time fixed by a mystical calculation expressed in weeks. The object of the writer was to fix a date for the Messiah's appearance, without expressing himself in such unambiguous terms as would be universally understood. Such is the true method of prophecy in all religions, for a prophet who utters his forecast of the future in such a manner as to render his meaning unmistakable, exposes himself to the hazardous possibility that the event in history may turn out altogether unlike the event foretold.

SUBDIVISION 5.—_The God of Israel._

One great question has hitherto been left untreated—that of the theology and morals of the Hebrew Bible. Theology and morals are so intimately blended in its pages that the one can scarcely be discussed without involving the other. The character of Jehovah is the pattern of morality; his will is its fundamental law; his actions its exemplification. Hence to consider the character of Jehovah is of necessity to consider also the Hebrew notions of ethics; while to inquire into the Hebrew standard of ethics is to enquire into the commands of Jehovah. Let us try then to ascertain what manner of deity Jehovah is. To do so, our best course will be to select the salient features of his history, as related by the sacred writers.

Now, at the very outset of his proceedings we observe that he takes up towards mankind a very definite attitude: that of a superior entitled to demand implicit obedience. Whether the fact that he was man's creator justified so extensive a claim it is needless in this place to discuss. Suffice it that he had the power to enforce under the severest penalties the submission he demanded. But it might have been expected that a divine being, who assumed such unlimited rights over a race so vastly his inferiors in knowledge and in strength, should at least exercise them with discretion and moderation. It might have been expected that where he claimed obedience it would be with a view to the well-being of his creatures; not merely as an arbitrary exercise of his enormous power. What, on the contrary, is the conduct he pursued? His very first act after he had created Adam and Eve and placed them in Paradise was to forbid them, under penalty of death, to eat the fruit of a certain tree which grew in their garden. There is not even a vestige of a pretense in the narrative that the fruit of this tree would in itself, and apart from the divine prohibition, have done them any harm. Quite the contrary; the fact of eating it enlarged their faculties; making them like gods, who know good and evil. And Jehovah was afraid that they might, after eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, eat also that of the tree of life, after which he would be unable to kill them. So that it was his deliberate purpose in issuing this injunction to keep mankind feeble, ignorant and dependent. Nor is this by any means the whole extent of his misconduct. One of two charges he cannot escape. Either he knew when he created Adam and Eve that their nature was such that they would disobey, or he did not. In the first case, he knowingly formed them liable to fall, knowingly placed them amid conditions which rendered their fall inevitable; and then punished them for the catastrophe he had all along foreseen as the necessary result of the character he had bestowed upon them. In the second case, he was ignorant and shortsighted, being unable to guess what would be the nature of his own handiwork; and should not have meddled with tasks which were obviously beyond the scope of his faculties. And even in this latter case, the most favorable one for Jehovah, he acted with unpardonable injustice towards the man and woman in first creating them with a nature whose powers of resistance to temptation he could not tell, then placing temptation, raised to its utmost strength by a mysterious order, continually under their noses, then allowing a serpent to suggest that they should yield to it, and lastly punishing the unhappy victims of this chain of untoward circumstances by expulsion from their garden. A human parent who should thus treat his children would be severely and justly censured. It is a striking proof how rudimentary were the Hebrew conceptions of justice, that they should have accepted, in reference to their deity, a story which evinces so flagrant a disregard of its most elementary requirements (Gen. ii. 8, and iii). Just as in the case of Adam and Eve, he required implicit obedience to an arbitrary command, so in the case of Abraham he required implicit obedience to an immoral one. There was with him no fixed system of morality. Submission to his will was the alpha and omega of virtue. Observe now how superior is the feeling shown in the Hindu legend which has been quoted as a parallel to that of the projected sacrifice of Isaac. Although in that story the father was bound by a solemn promise to sacrifice his son, yet he is never blamed for his reluctance to do so, though Abraham is praised for his willingness; while the Brahman who is actually prepared to plunge the sacrificial knife into his child's breast is treated with scorn and reprobation for his unfeeling behavior. Even the service of the gods is not made supreme over every human emotion. But the conception of the existence of duties independent of the divine will seems not to have entered the minds of the Hebrew theologians who wrote these books.

The further proceedings of Jehovah are quite in keeping with his beginning in the garden of Eden. Throughout the whole course of the history he shows the most glaring partiality. In its earlier period he is partial to individuals; in its later, to the Hebrew race. Let us notice a few cases of this favoritism as shown towards individual favorites. Immediately after the curse upon Adam and Eve, and their banishment from Eden, we have the instructive story of Cain and Abel, so magnificently dramatized by Byron. These two brothers, sons of the original couple, both brought offerings to Jehovah; Cain, the fruit of the ground; Abel, the firstlings of his flock. But the Lord had respect to Abel and his offering, but not to Cain and his offering. Why was this difference made? Absolutely no reason is assigned for it, and it is not surprising, however lamentable, that it should have excited the jealousy of the brother who was thus ill-treated (Gen. iv. 1-8). Again, it has been remarked above that Abraham and Isaac had a singular way of passing off their wives as their sisters. Pharaoh was once deceived in this way about Sarah; Abimelech of Gerar, once about Sarah, and once about Rebekah. These two monarchs were plagued by Jehovah on account of their innocent mistake; the patriarchs were not even reproved for this cowardly surrender of their consorts to adulterous embraces (Gen. xii. 11-20, xx., xxvi. 7-11). Jacob is another favorite, while his brother Esau is coldly treated. Yet the inherent meanness of Jacob's character, and the comparative excellence of Esau's, are too obvious to escape even a careless reader. What can be more pitiful than the conduct of Jacob in taking advantage of a moment of weakness in his brother to purchase his birthright? (Gen. xxv. 29-34.) What more ungenerous than the odious trick by which he imposed upon his father, and cheated Esau of his blessing? (Gen. xxvii.) What again can be more magnanimous than the long subsequent reception by Esau of the brother whose miserable subserviency showed his consciousness of the wrong he had done him? (Gen. xxxiii. 1-15). Yet this is the man whom Jehovah selects as the object of his peculiar blessing, and whose very deceitfulness towards a kind employer he suffers to become a means of aggrandizement (Gen. xxx. 41-43).

The same partisanship which in these cases forms so conspicuous a trait in the character of Jehovah distinguishes the whole course of his proceedings in reference to the delivery of the Israelites from Egypt and their settlement in Palestine. Every other nation is compelled to give way for their advantage. Pharaoh and all the Egyptians are plagued for holding them in slavery, not in the least because Jehovah was an abolitionist (for he never troubled himself about slavery anywhere else), but because it was his own peculiar people who were thus in subjugation to a race whom he did not equally affect. Throughout the long journey from Egypt to the promised land, Jehovah accompanies the Israelites as a sort of commander-in-chief, directing them what to do, and giving them the victory over their enemies. As the Red Sea was divided to enable them to escape from their enemies on the one side, so the Jordan was cleft in two to enable them to conquer their enemies on the other (Ex. xiv. 21, 22.—Josh. iii. 7-17). The walls of a fortified city were thrown down to enable them to enter (Josh. vi. 20). The sun was arrested in his course to enable them to win a battle (Josh. x. 12-14). Hornets were employed to accomplish the expulsion of hostile tribes without trouble to the Israelites (Josh. xxiv. 12). Thus, as Jehovah afterwards took care to remind them, he gave them a land for which they did not labor, and cities which they did not build (Josh. xxiv. 13).

Nevertheless the lot of the race who were thus highly favored was far from happy. Their God was indeed a powerful protector, but he was also an exacting ruler. His service was at no time an easy one, and he was liable to outbursts of passion which rendered it peculiarly oppressive. Tolerant as he might be towards some descriptions of immorality, he had no mercy whatever for disloyalty towards himself. On one occasion he characterized himself by the name of "Jealous" (Ex. xxxiv. 14), which was but too appropriate, and implied the possession of one of the least admirable of human weaknesses. Now the Israelites were unfortunately prone to lapses of this kind. Such was the severity with which these offenses were treated that it is questionable whether it would not have been a far happier fate to be drowned in the Red Sea with the Egyptians than preserved with the children of Israel. A few instances of what they had to undergo will illustrate this remark.

Moses had impressed upon the people the importance of having no other deity but Jehovah, and had succeeded while he was actually among them in restricting them to his worship alone. But no sooner was he absent for a season than they immediately forsook Jehovah, and took to worshiping a golden calf. Worst of all, this new divinity was set up by Aaron, the brother of Moses, and high priest of the Jehovistic faith. That Jehovah should be rather vexed at such ungrateful behavior, after all the trouble he had taken in plaguing and slaughtering the Egyptians, was only natural; but it was surely an extraordinary want of self-control to propose to consume the whole nation at once, reserving only Moses as the progenitor of a better race. Here, as in other cases, Moses showed himself more merciful than his God. He ingeniously urged as a motive to clemency that the Egyptians would say extremely unpleasant things if the Israelites were destroyed; and after his return to the camp he contrived to appease him by inducing the Levites to perpetrate a fratricidal massacre, whereby three thousand people fell. This measure was described by Moses as a consecration of themselves to the Lord, that he might bestow his blessing upon them. It proved successful, for Jehovah now contented himself with merely plaguing the people instead of exterminating them (Ex. xxxii). Thus, he had scarcely finished plaguing the Egyptians before he began plaguing the Israelites in their turn. Indeed he was at this period peculiarly prone to sending plagues of one kind or another. Some complaints of the Israelites in the wilderness were visited by fire which burnt up those who were at the extremities of the camp (Num. xi. 1-3). When they began to pine for the varied food they had enjoyed in Egypt, and to lament the absence of flesh meat, he sent them quails indeed, but accompanied the gift with a very great plague, of which large numbers perished (Num. xi. 4-34). When they were dismayed by the reports brought them concerning the inhabitants of Palestine, and complained of their God for the position he had brought them into, he again fell into a rage and proposed to destroy them all by pestilence except Moses. But Moses a second time appealed to him on what seems to have been his weak side,—his regard for his reputation among the Egyptians. These had all heard of what he had been doing, and would not they and the other neighboring nations ascribe the destruction of the Israelites in the wilderness to his inability to bring them into the promised land? Moved by this reasoning, Jehovah consented to spare the people, but determined at the same time to avenge himself upon them by not permitting any of those that had come from Egypt (except Joshua and Caleb, who had reported in the proper spirit about Palestine) to set foot within the country to which he had solemnly engaged himself to conduct them (Num. xiv. 1-39). Thus, they were only saved from the Egyptians to perish in the wilderness. Truly, the tender mercies of the Lord were cruel.

But the miseries of these unfortunate wanderers were by no means ended. When, oppressed by the troubles and weariness of the way, they dared to murmur, and inquired of Moses why he had brought them out of Egypt to die in the wilderness, where there was neither tolerable bread, nor water, the resentment of Jehovah was excited by this audacity. They ought to have been only too grateful that they had remained alive. Jehovah had not caused the earth to swallow them as it had done Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with their wives and little children, because they had ventured to complain of the government of Moses; nor had he destroyed them by plague, as he had destroyed 14,700 people because there had been some expressions of dissatisfaction at the sudden death of those seditious men. If then they had hitherto escaped destruction, they were certainly foolish in complaining of the hardships of the desert. At any rate Jehovah soon convinced them that their grumbling was useless. No constitutional opposition was permitted in those days. Fiery serpents were despatched to bite them, and many of them died in consequence. Such was the extent of the calamity that Moses, always more merciful than his God, interceded for his people; and was directed to set up a brazen serpent, by looking at which the bites of the living serpents were healed (Num. xxi. 1-9).

The extraordinary cruelty ascribed by the Hebrews to their national deity is shown in many other instances besides those that have been mentioned. And it is to be noticed that it is cruelty mingled with caprice. No one could tell beforehand precisely what actions he would visit with punishment, nor what would be the punishment with which he would visit them. Everything with him was uncertain. He had no fixed system of laws at all, and he sometimes condemned a criminal in virtue of _ex post facto_ legislation. The deluge is an example of all these vices combined. It was an excessively cruel punishment; it was inflicted capriciously, and once in a way only, because God had changed his mind as to the propriety of having created man; and it was the result of a resolution arrived at after the offenses it was designed to chastise had already been committed. No human being could possibly have guessed beforehand that his crimes would be punished in that particular way. And after the crimes of the antediluvians had been thus punished, the survivors received a promise that no misconduct on their part would ever be visited upon them in the same way. So that any conceivable utility which the deluge might have had as a warning for the future was utterly destroyed. Equal caprice, though not equal cruelty, was shown towards the builders of the tower of Babel, who were suffered to begin their labors without hindrance, but were afterwards stopped by the confusion of their languages. Why it was wrong to erect such a tower is never stated. Could any of those engaged upon it have guessed that the attempt was one deserving of punishment? Still worse was Jehovah's behavior to the prophet Balaam, for he first ordered him to go with the men who were sent for him, and then was angry with him because he went (Num. xxii. 20, 22). Such conduct was on a level with that of a pettish woman. Instances of barbarous severity may be found in abundance. Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, were devoured by "fire from the Lord," because they had taken their censers, and offered strange fire before him (Lev. x. 1, 2). A man who on the father's side was Egyptian, was ordered to be stoned for blaspheming and cursing the name of the Lord; Jehovah being peculiarly eager in avenging personal affronts (Lev. xxiv. 10-16). On this occasion no doubt a general law was announced affixing the penalty of stoning to the offense of blasphemy; but the law was _ex post facto_ so far as the individual who suffered by its operation was concerned. On another occasion the heads of the people were ordered to be all hung for whoredom with the daughters of Moab, and for idolatry. Phinehas, Aaron's son, seeing an Israelite with a Midianitish woman, ran then both through the body with a javelin; for which heroic exploit against an unprepared man and a defenseless woman he was specially praised; was declared to have turned away God's wrath from Israel, and received a "covenant of peace" for himself and his posterity (Num. xxv. 1-15). At a much later period, when David was causing the ark to be brought back from the Philistines, an unfortunate man who had put out his hand to touch it because the oxen shook it, was immediately slain; an act at which even the pious David was displeased, and which caused him, not unnaturally, to be "afraid before the Lord that day" (2 Sam. vi. 6-9). In the reign of Jeroboam a prophet who had only been guilty of the involuntary error of believing another prophet who had told him a falsehood, was killed by a lion sent expressly for his punishment, while the man who had deceived him escaped scot free (1 Kings xiii. 1-32). Another man suffered for refusing to obey the word of a prophet what this one had suffered for obeying it. Being desired by one of the "sons of the prophets" to smite him so as to cause a wound, and having declined the office, he was informed that for his disobedience to the voice of the Lord he would be slain by a lion, which accordingly happened (1 Kings xx. 35, 36). Mercy towards a conquered enemy was sometimes an actual crime. Because he spared Agag, Saul was rejected from being king over Israel, and the Lord repented that he had appointed so weak-minded a man. Samuel, who was made of sterner stuff, had no scruple in carrying out the behests of his God, for he "hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord" (1 Sam. xv). In like manner Ahab was reproved for sparing the life of Ben-hadad, King of Syria (1 Kings xx. 42, 43). The same monarch whose leniency had thus brought him into trouble was afterwards the victim of a sanguinary fraud practiced upon him by Jehovah. Tired of his reign, and eager to effect his destruction, the Lord put a lying spirit into the mouth of all his prophets, who were thus induced to prophesy victory in an engagement which actually terminated in his defeat and death (1 Kings xxii. 1-40). Observe, that however foolish Ahab may have been in believing the false prophets and disbelieving Micaiah, this does not excuse Jehovah, who according to his own chosen spokesman, deliberately arranged this scheme for the overthrow of the king in the court of heaven. Other barbarous deeds followed upon this. To gratify Elijah, a hundred men who were guiltless of any crime whatever, were consumed by fire (2 Kings i. 9-12). To assuage the wounded vanity of Elisha, forty-two little children were eaten by bears (2 Kings ii. 23, 24). To maintain the glory of the true God, Elijah slaughtered the prophets of Baal to the number of many hundreds (1 Kings xviii. 17-40). To reëstablish the orthodox faith, Jehu got rid of the worshipers of Baal, collected together by an infamous trick, in one indiscriminate massacre; an atrocity for which he was specially praised and rewarded by "the Lord" (2 Kings x. 18-30).

It is needless to prolong the list of cruelties practiced upon private individuals. But the subject would be incompletely treated, did we not observe that the same spirit prevailed in the dealings of Jehovah with nations. Thus, when the Israelites were about to enter the land of Canaan, they were desired utterly to destroy the seven nations who possessed it already (Deut. vii. 2). When they captured Jericho, they slew all its inhabitants, young and old, except the household of the prostitute with whom their messengers had lodged, and who had shamelessly betrayed her countrymen. Her, with her family they saved (Josh. vi. 1-25). All the inhabitants of Ai were utterly destroyed (Josh. viii. 26). All the inhabitants of Makkedah were utterly destroyed (Josh. x. 28). All the inhabitants of many other places were utterly destroyed (Josh. x. 29-43, and xi. 11, 14). One city alone made peace with Israel; all the rest were taken in battle, and that because Jehovah had deliberately and of set purpose hardened the hearts of their inhabitants, that they might be utterly destroyed (Josh. xi. 20).

Such a catalogue of crimes—and the number is by no means exhausted—would be sufficient to destroy the character of any pagan divinity whatsoever. I fail to perceive why the Jews alone should be privileged to represent their God as guilty of such actions without suffering the inference which in other cases would undoubtedly be drawn—namely, that their conceptions of deity were not of a very exalted order, nor their principles of morals of a very admirable kind. There is, indeed, nothing extraordinary in the fact that, living in a barbarous age, the ancient Hebrews should have behaved barbarously. The reverse would rather be surprising. But the remarkable fact is, that their savage deeds, and the equally savage ones attributed to their God, should have been accepted by Christendom as flowing in the one case from the commands, in the other from the immediate action of a just and beneficent Being. When the Hindus relate the story of Brahma's incest with his daughter, they add that the god was bowed down with shame on account of his subjugation by ordinary passion (O. S. T., vol. i. p. 112). But while they thus betray their feeling that even a divine being is not superior to all the standards of morality, no such consciousness is ever apparent in the narrators of the passions of Jehovah. While far worse offenses are committed by him, there is no trace in his character of the grace of shame.

Turning now to the legislation which emanated from him, we shall find evidence of the same spirit which has been seen to mark his daily dealings. It is impossible here to examine that legislation in detail, and it may be freely conceded that much of it was well adapted to the circumstances under which it was delivered. Some of the precepts given are indeed trivial, such as the order to the Israelites not to round the corners of their heads, nor mar the corners of their beards (Lev. xix. 27), and others are [such as are] merely special to the Hebrew religion. But the mass of enactments may very probably have been wise, or, at least, not conspicuously the reverse. Those to which the chief exception must be taken, are such as demonstrate the essentially inhuman character of the authority from whom they emanated. Thus, death is the penalty affixed to the insignificant offense of Sabbath-breaking (Ex. xxxv. 2). If the nearest relation, or even the wife of his bosom, or the friend who is as his own soul, secretly entice a man to go and worship other gods, he himself is to put the tempter to death, his own hand being the first to fling the stones by which he is to perish (Deut. xiii. 6-11). The Inquisition itself could have no more detestable law than this. If it is a city that is guilty of such heresy, it is to be burnt down, and all its inhabitants put to the sword (Deut. xiii. 12-16). The mere worship of pagan divinities, apart from any effort to seduce others, is likewise punished with stoning (Deut. xvii. 2-7). In cities not in Palestine, taken in war, all the males only are to be put to death; but in the cities of Palestine itself, nothing that breathes is to be saved alive (Deut. xx. 13-18). A "stubborn and rebellious son" may be put to death by stoning, and that at the instance of his parents (Deut. xxi. 18-21). In appearance this terrible process for dealing with a naughty boy is less severe than the _patria potestas_ of the Romans, by which the power of life and death was lodged in the father alone. Practically, however, the exercise of this unlimited _legal_ right was prevented to a large extent, for a religious curse rested on the father who even sold his married son, and he could not pronounce sentence on any child till after consulting the nearest blood-relations on both sides, without incurring the same anathema (Mommsen, History of Rome, vol. i. p. 65). No doubt the purely legal power of the head of the family was unaffected by these restraints. Human authority still permitted him to expose his children at birth, to sell them, or to sentence them to death. But the difference between Roman and Jewish institutions was, that in Rome, religion sought to mitigate the cruelty of the civil law; in Palestine, religion not only did nothing to soften, but positively sanctioned, by its august commands the most revolting enactments of barbaric legislation. It is true that no instance is known to history of the employment of this law by Jews against their children, but this can only show that their parental morality was superior to the morality of the divine law. At a much later time than that at which this enactment was given, when the Israelites returned from the Captivity, the same harsh and intolerant spirit as we have observed in their earlier legislation broke forth again. By a cruel measure, enacted by Ezra, the representative of Jehovah, and taking the form of a covenant with God, the people were forced to repudiate all their wives who were not of pure Israelitish blood (Ezra ix, and x). Nehemiah, who was likewise zealous in the service of Jehovah, was no less an enemy to "outlandish women," and took rather strong measures against those who had married them, such as cursing them, smiting them, plucking off their hair, and making them swear not to give their sons or daughters in marriage to foreigners (Neh. xiii. 23-28).

Such being the moral characteristics of the Hebrew God, can it be said that the intellectual ideas of the divine nature found in the Old Testament are of a highly refined and spiritual order? On the contrary, as compared with the gods of other races, Jehovah is remarkably anthropomorphic and materialistic. He does not approach in spirituality to the higher conceptions of the Hindus, nor is he even equal to those of less subtle and speculative nations. He is on a level with the gods of popular mythologies, but not with those more mysterious powers who often stand above them. The evidence of this proposition is to be found in the whole tenor of the historical books. Thus, in the very beginning of Genesis, we find that he "rested on the seventh day," (Gen. ii. 2) as if he were a being altogether apart from the forces of nature, and might leave the world to go on without him. A little later he is found "walking in the garden in the cool of the day" (Gen. iii. 8). He clearly had a body resembling that of man, for on one occasion Moses was so highly favored as to be permitted to see his "back parts," and was covered with his hand while he was passing by. His face Moses was not permitted to behold, as it would have caused his death (Ex. xxxiii. 20-23). In order to pass by he "descended" in a cloud, implying local habitation, and at this time he magniloquently proclaimed his own titles and virtues, which he might more gracefully have employed an angel to do for him. Elsewhere it is stated that Moses and the elders "saw the God of Israel," and that he had some sort of paved work of sapphire stone under his feet. When Moses went up alone into the mount, "the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire." God was at this time supposed to be on the mount, and there held discourse with Moses (Ex. xxiv. 10-25). In the course of it he says that he will "commune" from above the mercy-seat in the tabernacle, again (as in so many other places) implying occupation of definite space (Ex. xxv. 22). He promises to "dwell among the children of Israel," that is, to be a national and local God (Ex. xxix. 45, 46). Confirmation of the view here taken of his limited nature is found in the fact that he thought it necessary to "go down" to Sodom and Gomorrah, to verify the reports which had reached him concerning the conduct of their inhabitants. And when Abraham appealed to him for mercy for those of them who were righteous, his several answers clearly implied that when he went to those cities he would discover how many of them came under that denomination. "If I find in Sodom fifty righteous," and so forth, is the language of one who does not know a fact, but is going to ascertain it. And accordingly at the end of the colloquy "the Lord went his way" (Gen. xviii. 20-33). So completely anthropomorphic is the conception of deity that, although the expression occurs only in a parable, it is not at variance with the mode in which he is usually spoken of when wine is said "to cheer God and man" (Judg. ix. 13). Evidently there was nothing shocking to the Hebrew mind in such an expression. And when they pictured their God as walking, talking, indignant, angry, repenting, jealous, showing himself to human beings, and generally indulging in the passions of mortals, it was perfectly easy to conceive that wine might exercise the same effect on him as it did on them.

No doubt the Hebrew mythology is free from all that class of stories in which a divine being is represented as making love to or cohabiting with women. Or, to speak more accurately, they never represent Jehovah himself as indulging in such amusements. There is a reminiscence of this form of myth in the statement that before the deluge the sons of God intermarried with the daughters of men (Gen. vi. 2); but their supreme Being was free at least from sexual passion. So far as it goes, this is well; but if I had to choose between a God who was somewhat licentious in his relations with mankind, and one who did not stick at deeds of bloodshed of the most outrageous character, I confess I should see no very powerful reason to prefer the latter.

That, in spite of all these drawbacks, there are some better elements in the Hebrew ideal I do not at all deny. The poetical description of God as a "still small voice" is both eloquent and spiritual; and the prayer of Solomon, with its admission that the heaven of heavens cannot contain the Infinite Power who is entreated to dwell in the Temple, is in many respects beautiful and admirable. So also the views of Jehovah attained and uttered by some of the prophets are far loftier than those generally expressed in the historical books. Many of the Psalms, again, are full of beauty in the manner in which they speak of him to whom they are addressed. In a nation so deeply religious as the Jews, and so much given to meditation on God, it was inevitable that the higher class of minds should conceive him more spiritually than the lower, and it is this class to whom we owe the poetical and prophetic writings. It was inevitable also that as civilization advanced, the grosser elements of the conception, which belonged to a barbarous people, should be eliminated, and that the finer ones should remain. The entire supersession of the older God by the newer was prevented by the fact that the Old Testament was a sacred book, and that hence every one of its statements had to be received as absolutely true. The inconsistency between the wrathful monarch of ancient times and the loving Spirit of more recent ages was sought to be surmounted by those processes of interpretation which have been shown to be invariably adopted when it is desired to bring the infallible Scriptures of any nation into harmony with the opinions of their readers. But happily the language of the historical portions of the Old Testament is singularly plain, and no ingenious manipulation of the text can with the smallest plausibility put aside the obvious meaning of the broad assertions on which is founded the above delineation of the God of Israel.