Chapter XI: Part 11

And so the old limitations of Israel's popular religion,--the same limitations that encumbered also the religions of all the neighbouring races that succumbed in turn to Assyria's invincible progress,--now began to disappear. Therefore, while every other religion which was purely national was extinguished in the nation's overthrow, the religion of Israel survived even amid exile and dispersion. For Amos and Isaiah were able to single out those loftier spiritual and ethical elements which lay implicit in Mosaism and to lift them into their due place of prominence. National _sacra_ and the ceremonial requirements were made to assume a secondary role or were even ignored.[24] The centre of gravity in Hebrew religion was shifted from ceremonial observance and local sacra to righteous conduct. Religion and righteousness were henceforth welded into an indissoluble whole. The religion of Yahweh was no longer to rest upon the narrow perishable basis of locality and national sacra, but on the broad adamantine foundations of a universal divine sovereignty over all mankind and of righteousness as the essential element in the character of Yahweh and in his claims on man. This was the "corner-stone of precious solid foundation": "I will make judgment the measuring-line and righteousness the plummet" (Isa. xxviii. 16, 17). The religion of the Hebrew race--properly the Jews--now enters on a new stage, for it should be observed that it was Amos, Isaiah and Micah--prophets of Judah--who laid the actual foundations. The latter half of the 8th century, which witnessed a rapid succession of reigns in the northern kingdom accompanied by dismemberment of its territory and final overthrow, witnessed also the humiliating vassalage and religious decline of the kingdom of Judah. Unlike Amos and Micah, Isaiah was not only the prophet of denunciation but also the prophet of hope. Though Yahweh's chastisements on Ephraim and Judah would continue to fall till scarcely a remnant was left (Isa. vi. 13, LXX.), yet all was not to be lost. A remnant of the people was to return, i.e. be converted to Yahweh. The name given to an infant child--Immanuel--was to become the mystic symbol of a growing hope. God's presence was to abide in Jerusalem, and, as the century drew near its close, "Immanuel" became the watchword and talisman of a strong faith that God would never permit Jerusalem to be captured by the Assyrians. In fact it is not improbable that the words of consolation uttered by the prophet (Isa. viii. 9-10) in the dark days of Ahaz (735-734 B.C.) were among the oracles which God commanded Isaiah "to seal up among his disciples" (verse 16), and that they were quoted once more with effect as the armies of Sennacherib closed around Jerusalem. The talismanic name Immanuel became the nucleus out of which the later _Messianic_ prophecies of Isaiah grew. To this age alone can we probably assign Isa. ix. 1-7, xi. 1-9, xxxii. 1-3. The hopes expressed in the word Immanuel, "God with us," were to become embodied in a personality of the royal seed of David, an ideal righteous ruler who was to bring peace to the war-distraught realm. Thus Isaiah became in that troubled age the true founder of _Messianic_ prophecy. The strange contrast between the succession of dynasties and kings cut off by assassination in the northern kingdom, ending in the tragic overthrow of 721 B.C., and the persistent succession through three centuries of the seed of David on the throne of Jerusalem, as well as the marvellous escape of Jerusalem in 701 B.C. from the fate of Samaria, must have invested the seed of David in the eyes of all thoughtful observers with a mysterious and divine significance. The Messianic prophecies of Isaiah, the prophet of faith and deliverance, were destined to reverberate through all subsequent centuries. We hear the echoes in Jeremiah and Ezekiel and lastly in Haggai in ever feebler tones, and they were destined to reawaken in the Psalter (Pss. ii. and lxxii.), in the psalms of Solomon and in the days of Christ. See MESSIAH (and also the article "Messiah" in Hastings's _Dict. of Christ and the Gospels_).

The next notable contribution to the permanent growth of Hebrew prophetic religion was made about a century after the lifetime of Isaiah by Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The reaction into idolatry and Babylonian star worship in the long reign of Manasseh synchronized and was connected with vassalage to Assyria, while the reformation in the reign of Josiah (621 B.C.) is conversely associated with the decay of Assyrian power after the death of Assur-bani-pal. That reformation failed to effect its purifying mission. The hurt of the daughter of God's people was but lightly healed (Jer. vi. 14, 15; cf. viii. 11, 12). No possibility of recovery now remained to the diseased Hebrew state. The outlook appeared indeed far darker to Jeremiah than it seemed more than a century before to Isaiah in the evil days of Jotham and Ahaz, "when the whole head was sick and the whole heart faint" (Isa. i. 5). Jeremiah foresaw that there was now no possibility of recovery. The Hebrew state was doomed and even its temple was to be destroyed. This involved an entire reconstruction of theological ideas which went beyond even the reconstructions of Amos and Isaiah. In the old religion the race or clan was the unit of religion as well as of social life. Properly speaking, the individual was related to God only through the externalities of the clan or tribal life, its common temple and its common _sacra_. But now that these external bases of the old religion were to be swept away, a reconstruction of religious ideas became necessary. For the external supports which had vanished Jeremiah substituted a basis which was _internal, personal and spiritual_ (i.e. _ethical_). In place of the old covenant based on external observance, which had been violated, there was to be a _new covenant_ which was to consist not in outward prescription, but in the law which God would place _in the heart_ (Jer. xxxi. 30-33). This was to take place by an act of divine grace (Jer. xxiv. 5 foll.): "I will give them an heart to know me that I am the Lord" (verse 7). Ezekiel, who borrowed both Jeremiah's language and ideas, expresses the same thought in the well-known words that Yahweh would give the people instead of a heart of stone a heart of flesh (Ezek. xi. 19, 20, xx. 40 foll., xxxvi. 25-27), and would shame them by his loving-kindness into repentance, and there "shall ye remember your ways and all your doings wherein ye have been defiled and ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight" (xx. 43).

_Personal religion_ now became an important element in Hebrew piety and upon this there logically followed the idea of _personal responsibility_. The solidarity of race or family was expressed in the old tradition reflected in Deut. v. 9, 10, that God would visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, and it lived on in later Judaism under exaggerated forms. The hopes of the individual Jew were based on the piety of holy ancestors. "We have Abraham as our father." But _Ezekiel_ expressed the strong reaction which had set in against this belief in its older forms. He denies that the individual ever dies for the sins of the father. "The soul that sinneth, it (the pronoun emphasized in the original) shall die" (Ezek. xviii. 4). Neither Noah, Daniel nor Job could have rescued by his righteousness any but his own soul (xiv. 14). And as a further consequence _individual freedom_ is strongly asserted. It is possible for every sinner to turn to God and escape punishment, and conversely for a righteous man to backslide and fall. In the presence of these awful truths which Ezekiel preached of individual freedom and of impending judgment, the prophet is weighted with a heavy responsibility. It is his duty to warn every individual, for no sinner is to be punished without warning (Ezek. iii. 16 foll. xxxiii.).

The closing years of the Judaean kingdom and the final destruction of the temple (586 B.C.) shattered the Messianic ideals cherished in the evening of Isaiah's lifetime and again in the opening years of the reign of Josiah. The untimely death of that monarch upon the battlefield of Megiddo (608 B.C.), followed by the inglorious reigns of the kings who succeeded him, who became puppets in turn of Egypt or of Babylonia, silenced for a while the Messianic hopes for a future king or line of kings of Davidic lineage who would rule a renovated kingdom in righteousness and peace. Even in the darkness of the exile period hopes did not die. Yet they no longer remained the same. In the Deutero-Isaiah (chaps. xl.-lv.) we have no longer a Jewish but a _foreign_ messiah. The onward progress of the Persian Cyrus and his anticipated conquest of Babylonia marked him out as Yahweh's anointed instrument for effecting the deliverance of exiled Israel and their restoration to their old home and city (Isa. xli. 2, xliv. 24, xlv.). This was, however, but a subsidiary issue and possesses no permanent spiritual significance. Of far more vital importance is the conception of Israel as God's _suffering servant_. This is not the place to enter into the prolonged controversy as to the real significance of this term, whether it signifies the nation Israel or the righteous community only, or finally an idealized prophetic individual who, like the prophet Jeremiah, was destined to suffer for the well-being of his people. Duhm, in his epoch-making commentary, distinguishes on the grounds of metre and contents _the four servant-passages_, in the last of which (lii. 13-liii. 12) the ideal suffering servant of Yahweh is portrayed most definitely as an individual. In the "servant-passages" he is innocent, while in the rest of the Deutero-Isaiah he appears as by no means faultless, and the personal traits are not prominent. These views of Duhm, in which a severe distinction is thus drawn between the representation of Yahweh's servant in the servant-passages, and that which meets us in the rest of the Deutero-Isaiah, have been challenged by a succession of critics.[25] It is only necessary for us to take note of the ideal in its general features. It probably arose from the fact that the calamities from which Israel had suffered both before and during the exile had drawn the reflective minds of the race to the contemplation of the problem of suffering. The "servant of Yahweh" presents one aspect of the problem and its attempted solution, the book of Job another, while in the Psalms, e.g. Pss. xxii., xlii.-xliii., lxxiii., lxxvii., other phases of the problem are presented. In the Deutero-Isaiah the meaning of Israel's sufferings is exhibited as vicarious. Israel is suffering for a great end. He suffers, is despised, rejected, chastened and afflicted that others may be blessed and be at peace through his chastisement. This noble conception of Israel's great destiny is conveyed in Isa. xlix. 6, in words which may be regarded as perhaps the noblest utterance in Hebrew prophecy: "To establish the tribes of Jacob and bring back the preserved of Israel is less important than being my servant. Yea, I will make you a light to the _Gentiles_ that my salvation may be unto the end of the earth."[26] This passage, which belongs to the second of the brief "servant-songs," sets the mission of Israel in its true relation to the world. It is the necessary corollary to the teaching of Amos, that God is the righteous lord of all the world. If Jerusalem has been chosen as His sanctuary and Israel as His own people, it is only that Israel may diffuse God's blessings in the world even at the cost of Israel's own humiliation, exile and dispersion.

The Deutero-Isaiah closes a great prophetic succession, which begins with Amos, continues in Isaiah in even greater splendour with the added elements of hope and Messianic expectation, and receives further accession in Jeremiah with his special teaching on inward spiritual and personal religion which constituted the new covenant of divine grace. Finally the Deutero-Isaiah conveyed to captive Israel the message of Yahweh's unceasing love and care, and the certainty of their return to Judaea and the restoration of the national prosperity which Ezekiel had already announced in the earlier period of the exile. To this is united the noble ideal of the suffering servant, which serves both as a contribution to the great problem of suffering as purifying and vicarious and as the interpretation to the mind of the nation itself of that nation's true function in the future, a lesson which the actual future showed that Israel was slow to receive. Nowhere in the Old Testament does the doctrine taught by Amos of Yahweh's universal power and sovereignty receive ampler and more splendid exposition than in the great lyrical passages of chap. xl. It marks the highest point to which the Hebrew race attained in its progress from henotheism to monotheism. Here again we see the wholesome influences of the exile. The Jew had passed from the narrow confines of his homeland into a wider world, and this larger vision of human life reacted on the prophet's theology. This closes the evolution of Hebrew prophetism. What immediately follows is on a descending slope with some striking exceptions, e.g. the book of Job and the book of Jonah.

7. _Deuteronomic Legalism._--The book of Deuteronomy was the product of prophetic teaching operating on traditional custom, which was represented in its essential features by the two codes of legislation contained in Ex. xx. 24-xxiii. 19 (E) and Ex. xxxiv. 10-26 (J), but had also become tainted and corrupted by centuries of Canaanite influence and practice which especially infected the cult of the _high places_. The existence of "high places" is pre-supposed in those two ancient codes and is also presumed in the narratives of the documents E and J which contain them. But the prevalence of the worship of "other gods" and of graven images in these "high places," and the moral debasement of life which accompanied these cults, made it clear that the "high places" were sources of grave injury to Israel's social life. In all probability the reformation instituted in the reign of Hezekiah, to which 2 Kings xviii. 4 (cf. verse 22) refers, was only partial. It is hardly possible that all the high places were suppressed. The idolatrous reaction in the reign of Manasseh appears to have restored all the evils of the past and added to them. Another and more drastic reform than that which had been previously initiated (probably at the instigation of Isaiah and Micah) now became necessary to save the state. It is universally held by critics that our present book of Deuteronomy (certainly chaps. xii.-xxvi.) is closely connected with the reformation in the reign of Josiah. It is quite clear that many provisions in the old codes of J and E expanded lie at the basis of the book of Deuteronomy. But new features were added. We note for the first time definite regulations respecting Passover and the close union of that celebration with _Massoth_ or "unleavened bread." We note the laws respecting the clean and unclean animals (certainly based on ancient custom). Moreover, the prohibitions are strengthened and multiplied. In addition to the bare interdict of the sorceress (Ex. xxii. 18), of stone pillars to the Canaanite Baal, of the Asherah-pole, molten images and the worship of other gods than Yahweh (Ex. xxxiv. 13-17), we now have the strict prohibition of _any employment whatever_ of the stone-symbol (_Massebhah_), and of all forms of sorcery, soothsaying and necromancy (Deut. xviii. 10, 11. Respecting the stone-pillar see xvi. 22). But of much more far-reaching importance was the _law of the central sanctuary_ which constantly meets us in Deuteronomy in the reference to "the place (i.e. Jerusalem) which Yahweh your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His name there" (xii. 5, xvi. 5, 11, 16, xxvi. 2). There alone all offerings of any kind were to be presented (xii. 6, 7, xvi. 7). By this positive enactment all the high places outside the one sanctuary in Jerusalem became illegitimate. A further consequence directly followed from the limitation as to sanctuary, viz. limitation as to the officiating ministers of the sanctuary. In the "book of the covenant" (Ex. xx. 22-xxii. 19), as we have already seen, and in the general practice of the regal period, there was no limitation as to the priesthood, but a definite order of priesthood, viz. Levites, existed, to whom a higher professional prestige belonged. As it was impossible to find a place for the officiating priests of the high places, non-levitical as well as levitical, in the single sanctuary, it became necessary to restrict the functions of sacrifice to the Levites only as well as to the existing official priesthood of the Jerusalem temple (see PRIEST). Doubtless such a reform met with strong resistance from the disestablished and vested interests, but it was firmly supported by royal influence and by the Jerusalem priesthood as well as by the true prophets of Yahweh who had protested against the idolatrous usages and corruptions of the high places.

The strong impress of Hebrew prophecy is to be found in the deeply marked ethical spirit of the Deuteronomic legislation. Love to God and love to man is stamped on a large number of its provisions. Love to God is emphasized in Deut. vi. 5, while love to man meets us in the constant reference to the fatherless and the widow (cf. especially Deut. xvi.). This note of philanthropy is frequently found as a mitigating element (e.g. in the laws respecting slavery and war)[27] that subdues or even removes the harshness of earlier laws or usages. It should be noted, however, that the spirit of brotherly love was confined within national barriers. It did not operate as a rule beyond the limits of race.

The book of Deuteronomy, in conjunction with the reformation of Josiah's reign (which synchronizes with the rapid decline of Assyria and the reviving prestige of Yahweh), appeared to mark the triumph of the great prophetic movement. It became at once a codified standard of purer religious life and ultimately served as a beacon of light for the future. But there was shadow as well as light. We note (a) that though the book of Deuteronomy bears the prophetic impress, the priestly impress is perhaps more marked. The writer "evinces a warm regard for the priestly tribe; he guards its privileges (xviii. 1-8), demands obedience for its decisions (xxiv. 8; cf. xvii. 10-12) and earnestly commends its members to the Israelites' benevolence (xii. 18-19, xiv. 27-29, &c.)."[28] (b) In many passages Jewish particularism is painfully manifest. Yahweh's care for other peoples does not appear. The flesh of a dead (unslaughtered) beast is not to be eaten, but it may be given to the "stranger within the gates"! (Deut. xiv. 21).[29] (c) Prophetic religion was a religion of the spirit which came to the messenger (Isa. lxi. 1) and expressed itself as a word of instruction of Yahweh (_torah_); see Isa. 1. 10. Now when the Hebrew religion was reduced to written form it began to be a book-religion, and since the book consisted of fixed rules and enactments, religion began to acquire a stereotyped character. It will be seen in the sequel that this was destined to be the growing tendency of Jewish religious life--to conform itself to prescribed rules, in other words, it became _legalism_. (d) Lastly, the old genial life of the high places, in which the "new moon" or Sabbath or the annual festival was a sacrificial feast of communion, in which the members of the local community or clan enjoyed fellowship with one another--all this picturesque life ceased to be. And though there was positive gain in the removal of idolatrous and corrupt modes of worship, there was also positive loss in the disappearance of this old genial phase of Hebrew social life and worship. It involved a vast difference to many a Judaean village when the festival pilgrimage was no longer made to the familiar local sanctuary with its hoary associations of ancient heroic or patriarchal story, but to a distant and comparatively unfamiliar city with its stately shrine and priesthood.

8. _Ezekiel's System._--Ezekiel was the successor of Jeremiah and inherited his conceptions. But though the younger prophet adopted the ideas respecting personal religion and individual responsibility from the elder, the characters of the two men were very different. Jeremiah, when he foretold the destruction of the external state and temple ritual, found no resource save in a reconstruction that was internal and spiritual. In this he was true to his prophetic impulse and genius. But Ezekiel was, as Wellhausen well describes him, "a priest in prophet's mantle." While Jeremiah's tendency was spiritual and ideal, Ezekiel's was constructive and practical. He was the first to foretell with clearness the return of his people from captivity foreshadowed by Jeremiah, and he set himself the task even in the midnight darkness of Israel's exile to prepare for the nation's renewed life. The external bases of Israel's religion had been swept away, and in exchange for these Jeremiah had led his countrymen to the more permanent internal grounds of a spiritual renewal. But a religion could not permanently subsist in this world of space and time without some external concrete embodiment. It was the task of Ezekiel to take up once more the broken threads of Israel's religious traditions, and weave them anew into statelier forms of ritual and national polity. The priest-prophet's keen eye for detail, manifested in the elaborate vision of the wheels and living creatures (Ezek. i.) and in his lamentation on Tyre (chap. xxvii.), is also exhibited in the visions contained in chaps. xl.-xlviii., which describe the ideal reconstructed temple and theocracy of the restored Israel. The foreground is filled by the temple and its precincts. The officiating priests are now the descendants of the line of Zadok belonging to the tribe of Levi. Thus the priesthood is still further restricted as compared with the restriction already noted in the Deuteronomic legislation. It is the sons of Zadok only that have any right to offer sacrifice at the altar of burnt offering (xliii. 19, xliv. 15 foll.). The Levites, who formerly ministered in the high places, now discharge the subordinate offices of gate-keepers and slaughterers of the sacrificial victims.

Another element in this ideal scheme which comes into prominence is the sharp distinction between _holy_ and _profane_. The word _holiness_ (_qodesh_) in primitive Hebrew usage partook of the nature of taboo, and came to be applied to whatever, whether thing or person, stood in close relation to deity and belonged to him, and could not, therefore, be used or treated like other objects not so related, and so was separated or stood apart. The idea underlying the word, which to _us_ is invested with deep ethical meaning, had only this non-ethical, ritual significance in Ezekiel. Unlike the old temple and city, the ideal temple of Ezekiel is entirely separate from the city of Jerusalem. In the immediate surroundings of the temple there is an open space. Then come two concentric forecourts of the temple. The temple stands in the midst of what is called the _gizrah_ or space severed off. The outer court lies higher than the open space, the inner court higher still, and the temple-building in the centre highest of all. No heathen may tread the outer court, no layman the inner court, while the holiest of all may not be trodden even by the priest Ezekiel but only by the angel who accompanies him. "The temple-house has a graduated series of compartments increasing in sanctity inwards" (Davidson). In the innermost the presence of Yahweh abides.

We are here moving in a realm of ideas prevailing in ancient Israel respecting _holiness_, _uncleanness_ and _sin_, which are ceremonial and not ethical; see especially Robertson Smith's _Religion of the Semites_, 2nd ed., p. 446 foll. (additional note B.) on holiness, uncleanness and taboo. It is, of course, true that the ethical conception of sin as violation of righteousness and an act of rebellion against the divine righteous will had been developed since the days of Amos and Isaiah; but, as we have already observed, cultus and prophetic teaching were separated by an immense gulf, and in spite of the reformation of 621 B.C. still remain separated. In the sacrificial system of sin-offerings (_hattath_ and _'asham_) we have to do with sin as ceremonial violation and neglect (frequently involuntary), or violation of holiness in the old sense of the term or as personal uncleanness (touching a corpse, eating unclean food, sexual impurity, &c.). In the historical evolution of Hebrew sacrifice it is remarkable how long this non-ethical and primitive survival of old custom still survived, even far into post-exilian times. (See SACRIFICE; also Moore's art. "Sacrifice" in _Ency. Bibl._)

One conspicuous feature of Ezekiel's system is the predominance of piacular sacrifice. It undoubtedly existed in pre-exilian Israel, especially in times of crisis or calamity, for the appeasement of an offended deity (2 Sam. xxiv. 18 foll.), and in Deut. xxi. 1-9, we have details of the purificatory rite which was necessary when human blood was shed; but now and in the future propitiatory sacrifice and ideas of propitiation began to overshadow all the other forms of sacrifice and their ideas. Ezekiel prescribes a half-yearly ritual of sin-offering whereby atonement was to be made (xlv. 18-20). We shall see subsequently to what great institution this led the way.

Ezekiel's system constituted an _ecclesiastical_ in place of a political organization, a _church-state_ in place of a nation. We clearly discern how this reacted on his Messianic conceptions. In his earlier oracles (xxxiv. 23 foll.) we find one shepherd ruling over united Israel, viz. Yahweh's servant David, whereas in the ideal scheme detailed in chap. xl. et seq. the role of the prince as a ruler is a very shadowy one. The prince, it is true, has a central domain, but his functions are ecclesiastical and subordinate and his powers strictly limited (xlvi. 3-8, 12, 16-18).

Thus the exile period marks the parting of the ways in the development of Hebrew religion. In the Deutero-Isaiah we reach the highest point in the evolution of prophetism. It is true that we have some noble resounding echoes in the lyrical passages lx.-lxii. In the Trito-Isaiah during the post-exilian period, and in such psalm literature as Pss. xxii., xxxvii., l., lxii., cvii., cxlv. 9-12 and others; and also in Isa. xxxv., which is obviously a lyrical reproduction of earlier literature. But it cannot be said that we possess in later literature any fresh contribution to the conception of God or any presentation of a higher ideal of human life[30] or national destiny than that which meets us in chap. xl. or in the servant-passages of the Deutero-Isaiah. It may with truth be said that _after Jeremiah we discern the parting of the ways_. The _first_ is represented by the Deutero-Isaiah, who constitutes the climax and close of Hebrew prophetism, which is henceforth (with the possible exception of the Trito-Isaiah, Malachi and Jonah, who reproduce some features of the earlier prophecy) a virtually arrested development. The _second path_ is that which is traced out by the priest-prophet Ezekiel, and is that of _legalism_, which was destined to secure a permanent place in the life and literature of the Jewish people. It is essentially the path which may be summed up in the word _Judaism_, though, as will be shown in the sequel, Judaism came to include many other factors. The statement, however, remains virtually true, since Judaism is mainly constituted by the body of legal precepts called the Torah, and, moreover, by the post-exilian Torah.

9. _Post-exilian Law--The Priestercodex._[31]--The oracles of Malachi clearly reveal the continued influence of the book of Deuteronomy in his day. But the new conditions created by the return of the exiles and the germinating influence of Ezekiel's ideas developed a process of new legislative construction. The code of holiness (Lev. xvii.-xxvi.) is the most obvious product of that influence. The ideas of expiation and atonement so prevalent in Ezekiel's scheme, which there find expression in the half-yearly sacrificial celebrations, are expressed in Lev. xvi. in the single _annual great fast of atonement_. It is impossible to enter here into the numerous details of that impressive ceremonial. Two special features, however, which characterize the celebration should here be noted: (a) The person of the _high priest_, who is throughout the entire drama the chief and indeed the sole actor. This supreme official, who was destined ultimately to take the place of the king in the church-nation of post-exilian Judaism, is mentioned for the first time in Zech. iii. 1[32] (in the person of Joshua). In the Priestercodex he stands at the head of the priests, who are, in the post-exilian system, the _sons of Aaron_ and possessed the sole right to offer the temple sacrifices. On the great day of atonement the high priest appears in a vicarious and representative capacity, and offers on behalf of the whole nation which he was considered to embody in his sacred person. (b) The rite of the _goat devoted to Azazel_. There can be little doubt that _Azazel_ was an evil demon (like an Arabic Jinn) of the desert. The goat set apart for Azazel was in the concluding part of the ceremonial brought before the high priest, who laid both his hands upon it and confessed over it the sins of the people. It was then carried off by an appointed person to a lonely spot and there set free.

In later post-exilian times this great day of atonement became to an increasing degree a day of humiliation for sin and penitent sorrow, accompanied by confession; and the sins confessed were not only of a purely ceremonial character, whether voluntary or inadvertent, but also sins against righteousness and the duties which we owe to God and man. This element of public confession for sin became more prominent in the days when synagogal worship developed, and prayer took the place of the sacrificial offerings which could only be offered in the Jerusalem temple. The development of the priestly code of legislation (Priestercodex) was a gradual process, and probably occupied a considerable part of the 5th century B.C. The Hebrew race now definitely entered upon the new path of organized Jewish legalism which had been originally marked out for it by Ezekiel in the preceding century. It became a holy people on holy ground. Circumcision and Sabbath, separation from marriage with a foreigner, which rendered a Jew unclean, as well as strict conformity to the precepts of the Torah, constituted henceforth an adamantine bond which was to preserve the Jewish communities from disintegration.

10. _The later Post-exilian Developments in Jewish Religion._--These may be briefly referred to under the following aspects:

(a) _Codified law_ and the written record of the patriarchal history, as well as the life and work of the lawgiver Moses (to whom the entire body of law came to be ascribed), assumed an ever greater importance. The reverence felt for the canonized _Torah_ or law (the Pentateuch or so-called five books of Moses) grew even into worship. Of this spirit we find clear expression in some of the later psalms, e.g. the elaborate alphabetic Ps. cxix. and the latter portion of Ps. xix. There were various causes which combined to enhance the importance of the written _Torah_ (the "instruction" _par excellence_ communicated by God through Moses). Chief among these were (1) _The conception of God as transcendent_. We have taken due note of Amos, who unfolded the character of Yahweh as universal righteous sovereign; and also the sublime portrayal of His exalted nature in Isa. xl. (verse 15; cf. 22-26, and Job xxxvi. 22-xlii. 6). The intellectual influence of Greece, manifested in Alexandrian philosophy, tended to remove God still further from the human world of phenomena into that of an inaccessible transcendental abstraction. Little, therefore, was possible for the Jew save strict performance of the requirements of the Torah, once for all given to Moses on Sinai, and, in his approach to the awful and unknown mystery, to rely on ceremonial and ascetic performances (see Wendt's _Teaching of Jesus_, i. 55 foll.). The same tendency led the pious worshippers to avoid His awful name and to substitute _Adonai_ in their scriptures or to use in the Mishna the term "name" (_shem_) or "heaven." (2) The _Maccabean conflict_ (165 B.C.) tended to accentuate the national sentiment of antagonism to Hellenic influence. The Hasidim or pious devotees, who arose at that time, were the originators of the Pharisaic movement which was conservative as well as national, and laid stress on the strict performance of the law.

(b) _Eschatology_ in the Judaism of the Greek period began to assume a new form. The pre-exilian prophets (especially Isaiah) spoke of the forthcoming crisis in the world's history as a "day of the Lord." These were usually regarded as visitations of chastisement for national sins and vindications of divine righteousness or judgments, i.e. assertions of God's power as judge (_shophet_). By the older prophets this judgment of God or "day of Yahweh" was never held to be far removed from the horizon of the present or the world in which they lived. But now as we enter the Greek period (320 B.C. and onwards) there is a gradual change from prophecy to _apocalyptic_. "It may be asserted in general terms that whereas prophecy foretells a definite future which has its foundation in the present, apocalyptic directs its anticipations solely and simply to the future, to a new world-period which stands sharply contrasted with the present. The classical model for all apocalyptic is to be found in Dan. vii. It is only after a great war of destruction, a day of Yahweh's great judgment, that the dominion of God will begin" (Bousset). Ezek. xxxviii. and xxxix. clearly bear the apocalyptic character; so also Isa. xxxiv. and notably Isa. xxiv.-xxvii. Apocalyptic, as Baldensperger has shown, formed a counterpoise to the normal current of conformity to law. It arose from a spiritual movement in answer to the yearning of the heart: "O that Thou mightest rend the heavens and come down and the mountains quake at Thy presence!" (Isa. lxiv. 1 [Heb. lxiii. 19]); and it was intended to meet the craving of souls sick with waiting and disappointment. The present outlook was hopeless, but in the enlarged horizon of time as well as space the thoughts of some of the most spiritual minds in Judaism were directed to the transcendent and ultimate. The present world was corrupt and subject to Satan and the powers of darkness. This they called "the present _aeon_" (age). Their hopes were therefore directed to "the coming aeon." Between the two aeons there would take place the _advent of the Messiah_, who would lead the struggle with evil powers which was called "the agonies of the Messiah." This terrible intermezzo was no longer terrestrial, but was a cosmic and universal crisis in which the Messiah would emerge victorious from the final conflict with the heathen and demonic powers. This victory inaugurates the entrance of the "aeon to come," in which the faithful Jews would enter their inheritance. In this way we perceive the transformation of the old Messianic doctrine through apocalyptic. Of apocalyptic literature we have numerous examples extending from the 2nd century B.C. to the 2nd century A.D. (See especially Charles's _Book of Enoch_.)

The doctrine of the _resurrection of the righteous_ to life in the heavenly world became engrafted on to the old doctrine of Sheol, or the dark shadowy underworld (Hades), where life was joyless and feeble, and from which the soul might be for a brief space summoned forth by the arts of the necromancer. The most vivid portraiture of Sheol is to be found in the exilian passage Isa. xiv. 9-20 (cf. Job x. 21-22). With this also compare the Babylonian _Descent of Ishtar to Hades_. The added conception of the resurrection of the righteous does not appear in the world of Jewish thought till the early Greek period in Isa. xxvi. 19. R. H. Charles thinks that in this passage the idea of resurrection is of purely Jewish and not of Mazdaan (or Zoroastrian) origin, but it is otherwise with Dan. xii. 2; see his _Eschatology, Hebrew, Jewish and Christian_. Corresponding to heaven, the abode of the righteous, we have _Ge-henna_ (originally _Ge-Hinnom_, the scene of the Moloch rites of human sacrifice), the place of punishment after death for apostate Jews.

(c) _Doctrine of Angels and of Hypostases._--In the writings of the pre-exilian period we have frequent references to supernatural personalities good and bad. It is only necessary to refer to them by name. _Sebaoth_, or "hosts," attached to the name of Yahweh, denoted the heavenly retinue of stars. The _seraphim_ were burning serpentine forms who hovered above the enthroned Yahweh and chanted the Trisagion in Isaiah's consecration vision (Isa. vi.). We have also constant references to "angels" (_malachim_) of God, divine messengers who represent Him and may be regarded as the manifestation of His power and presence. This especially applies to the "angel of Yahweh" or angel of His Presence [Ex. xxiii. 20, 23 (E). Note in Ex. xxxiii. 14 (J) he is called "my face" or "presence"[33] (cf. Isa. lxiii. 9)]. We also know that from earliest times Israel believed in the evil as well as good spirits. Like the Arabs they held that demons became incorporate in serpents, as in Gen. iii. The _nephilim_ were a monstrous brood begotten of the intercourse of the supernatural beings called "sons of God" with the women of earth. We also read of the "evil spirit" that came upon Saul. Contact with Babylonia tended to stimulate the angelology and demonology of Israel. The Hebrew word _shed_ or "demon" is no more than a Babylonian loan word, and came to designate the deities of foreign peoples degraded into the position of demons.[34] _Lilith_, the blood-sucking night-hag of the post-exilian Isa. xxxiv. 14, is the Babylonian _Lilatu_. Whether the _se'irim_ or shaggy satyrs (Isa. xiii. 31; Lev. xvii. 7) and _Azazel_ were of Babylonian origin it is difficult to determine. The emergence of _Satan_ as a definite supernatural personality, the head or prince of the world of evil spirits, is entirely a phenomenon of post-exilian Judaism. He is portrayed as the arch-adversary and accuser of man. It is impossible to deny Persian influence in the development of this conception, and that the Persian Ahriman (Angromainyu), the evil personality opposed to the good, Ahura Mazda, moulded the Jewish counterpart, Satan. But in Judaism monotheistic conceptions reigned supreme, and the Satan of Jewish belief as opposed to God stops short of the dualism of Persian religion. Of this we see evidence in the multiplication of Satans in the Book of Enoch. In the Book of Jubilees he is called _mastema_. In later Judaism _Sammael_ is the equivalent of Satan. Persian influence is also responsible for the _vast multiplication of good spirits or angels_, Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, &c., who play their part in apocalyptic works, such as the Book of Daniel and the Book of Enoch.

Probably the transcendent nature of the deity in the Judaism of this later period made the interposition of mediating spirits an intellectual necessity (cf. Ps. civ. 4). It also stimulated the creation of _divine hypostases_. First among these may be mentioned _Wisdom_. The roots of this conception belong to pre-exilian times, in which the "word" of divine denunciation was regarded as a quasi-material thing. (It is hurled against offending Israel, Isa. ix. 8.). In the post-exilian cosmogony it is the divine word or fiat that creates the world (Gen. i.; cf. Ps. xxxiii. 6, 9). Out of these earlier conceptions the idea of the divine wisdom (Heb. _hokhmah_) gradually arose during the Persian period. The expression "wisdom," as it is employed in the _locus classicus_, Prov. viii., connotes the contents of the Divine reason--His conscious life, out of which created things emerge. This wisdom is personified. It dwelt with God (Prov. viii. 22 foll.) before the world was made. It is the companion of His throne, and by it He made the world (Prov. iii. 19, viii. 27; cf. Ps. civ. 24). It, moreover, enters into the life of the world and especially man (Prov. viii. 31). This conception of wisdom became still further hypostatized. It becomes redemptive of man. In the Wisdom of Solomon it is the sharer of God's throne ([Greek: paredros]), the effulgence of the eternal light and the outflow of His glory (Wisd. vii. 25, viii. 3 foll., ix. 4, 9); "Them that love her the Lord doth love" (Ecclesiasticus iv. 14). This group of ideas culminated in the Logos of Philo, expressing the world of divine ideas which God first of all creates and which becomes the mediating and formative power between the absolute and transcendent deity and passive formless matter, transmuted thereby into a rational, ordered universe.

In later Jewish literature we meet with further examples of similar hypostases in the form of _Memra_, _Metatron_, _Shechinah_, _Holy Spirit_ and _Bath kol_.

(d) The doctrine of _pre-existence_ is another product of the speculative tendency of the Jewish mind. The Messiah's pre-existent state before the creation of the world is asserted in the Book of Enoch (xlviii. 6, 7). Pre-existence is also asserted of Moses and of sacred institutions such as the New Jerusalem, the Temple, Paradise, the Torah, &c. (Apocal. of Baruch iv. 3-lix. 4; Assumptio Mosis i. 14, 17); Edersheim's _Life and Times of the Messiah_, i. 175 and footnote 1.

11. _Christ resumes the Broken Tradition of Prophetism._--The Psalms of Solomon and the synoptic Gospels (70 B.C.-A.D. 100) clearly reveal the powerful revival of Messianic hopes of a national deliverer of the seed of David. This Messianic expectation had been a fermenting leaven since the great days of Judas Maccabaeus. The conceptions of Jesus of Nazareth, however, were not the Messianic conceptions of his fellow-countrymen, but of the spiritual "son of man" destined to found a kingdom of God which was righteousness and peace. The Torah of Jesus was essentially prophetic and in no sense priestly or legal. The arrested prophetic movement of Jeremiah and Deutero-Isaiah reappears in John the Baptist and Jesus after an interval of more than five centuries. The new covenant of redeeming grace--the righteousness which is in the heart and not in externalities of legal observance or ceremonial--are once more proclaimed, and the exalted ideals of the suffering servant of Isa. xlix. 6 and Isa. liii. (nearly suppressed in the Targum of Jonathan) are reasserted and vindicated by the words and life of Jesus. Like Jeremiah He foretold the destruction of the temple and suffered the extreme penalties of anti-patriotism. And thus Israel's old prophetic Torah was at length to achieve its victory, for after Jesus came St Paul. "Many shall come from the east and the west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. viii. 11, 12). The fetters of nationalism were to be broken, and the Hebrew religion in its essential spiritual elements was to become the heritage of all humanity.

AUTHORITIES.--1. On Semitic religion generally: Wellhausen's _Reste
des arabischen Heidentums_ (2nd ed.) and Robertson Smith's _Religion
of the Semites_ (2nd ed.) are chiefly to be recommended. Barton's
_Semitic Origins_ is extremely able, but his doctrine of the
derivation of male from original female deities is pushed to an
extreme. Bathgen's _Beitrage zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte_
(1888) is most useful, and contains valuable epigraphic material.
Baudissin's _Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte_ (1876) is
still valuable. See also Kuenen's _National Religions and Universal
Religions_ (Hibbert lectures) and Lagrange's _Etudes sur les religions
semitiques_ (2nd ed.).

2. On Hebrew religion in particular: specially full and helpful is
Kautzsch's article "Religion of Israel" in Hastings's D.B., extra
vol.; Marti's recent _Religion des A.T._ (1906) and his _Geschichte
der israelitischen Religion_, are clear, compact and most serviceable,
and the former work presents the subject in fresh and suggestive
aspects. Wellhausen's _Prolegomena_ and _Judische Geschichte_ should
be read both for criticism and Hebrew history generally. Duhm's
_Theologie der Propheten_ and Robertson Smith's _Prophets of Israel_
should also be consulted. Strongly to be recommended are Smend,
_Lehrbuch der alttestamentlichen Religionsgeschichte_; Bennett,
_Theology of the Old Testament_ and _Religion of the Post-Exilic
Prophets_; A. B. Davidson, _The Theology of the Old Testament_, as
well as the sections devoted to "Sacralaltertumer" in the _Hebraische
Archaologie_ both of Benzinger and also of Nowack. Budde's _Die
Religion des Volkes Israel bis zur Verbannung_, as well as Addis's
recent _Hebrew Religion_ (1906), is a most careful and scholarly
compendium. Harper's Introd. to his _Commentary on Amos and Hosea_ (I.
and T. Clark) contains a useful survey of the history of Hebrew
religion before the 8th century. Buchanan Gray's _Divine Discipline of
Israel_, and A. S. Peake's _Problem of Suffering in the O.T._, are
suggestive. See also S. A. Cook, _Religion of Ancient Palestine_.

3. On the history of Judaism till the time of Christ, Schurer's
_Geschichte des judischen Volkes im Zeitalter Christi_ (3rd ed.), vol.
ii. and in part vol. iii., are indispensable. Bousset's _Religion des
Judentums_ (2nd ed.), and Volz, _Die judische Eschatologie von Daniel
bis Akiba_, are highly to be commended. Weber's _Judische Theologie_
is a useful compendium of the theology of later Judaism.

4. On the special department of eschatology the standard works are R.
H. Charles, _Eschatology, Hebrew, Jewish and Christian_, and Schwally,
_Das Leben nach dem Tode_, as well as Gressmann's suggestive work _Der
Ursprung der israelitisch-judischen Eschatologie_, which contains,
however, much that is speculative. On apocalyptic generally the
introductions to Charles's Book of Enoch, Apocalypse of Baruch,
Ascension of Isaiah and Book of Jubilees, should be carefully noted.
See also ESCHATOLOGY.

5. On the religion of Babylonia, Jastrow's work is the standard one.
Zimmern's Heft ii. in _K.A.T._ (3rd ed.) is specially important to the
Old Testament student. See also W. Schrank, _Babylonische Suhnriten_.
(O. C. W.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Bathgen, _Beitrage zur semit. Religionsgesch._ p. 11 (Edom);
and cf. Schrader, C.O.T. i. 137; K.A.T. (3rd ed.), p. 472 foll. See
also _Beitrage_, pp. 13-15; K.A.T. (3rd ed.), pp. 469-472.

[2] _Z.D.M.G._ (1886). It is impossible to discuss the other theories
of the origin of this name. See Driver, _Commentary on Genesis_,
excursus i. pp. 404-406.

[3] The Tell el-Amarna despatches are crowded with evidences of
Canaanite forms and idioms impressed on the Babylonian language of
these cuneiform documents. _Ilani_ here simply corresponds to the
Canaanite _Elohim_. See opening of the letters of Abimelech of Tyre,
Bezold's _Oriental Diplomacy_, Nos. 28, 29, 30.

[4] "Magic and Social Relations" in _Sociological Papers_, ii. 160.

[5] See Kautzsch, "Religion of Israel," in Hastings's _Dict. of the
Bible_, extra vol., p. 614.

[6] See Benzinger, _Hebraische Archaologie_, pp. 152, 297 foll. (1st
ed.).

[7] The theory was opposed by Noldeke, 1886 (_Z.D.M.G._ p. 157
foll.), as well as Wellhausen, and since then by Jacobs and Zapletal.
(_Der Totemismus u. die Religion Israels_). See Stanley A. Cook,
"Israel and Totemism," in _J.Q.R._ (April, 1902).

[8] These sacred arks were carried in procession accompanied by
symbolic figures. We note in this connexion the form of a sacred bark
represented in Meyer's _Hist. of Egypt_ (Oncken series), p. 257, viz.
the procession carrying the sacred ark and the bark of the god Amon
belonging to the reign of Rameses II. (Lepsius, _Denkmaler_, iii.
189b). See also Birch, _Egypt_ (S.P.C.K.), p. 151 (ark of Khonsu);
cf. Jeremias, _Das A.T. im Lichte des alten Orients_ (2nd ed.), pp.
436-441.

[9] Cf. Zimmern in _Z.D.M.G._ (1904), pp. 199 foll., 458 foll. This
view is based on Dr Pinches's discovered list in which _Sapatti_ is
called the 15th day (_Proc. of the Soc. of Biblical Arch._, p. 51
foll.). See A. Jeremias, _Das A. T. im Lichte des alten Orients_ (2nd
ed.), pp. 182-187. Marti, in his stimulating work _Religion des
A.T._, pp. 5, 72, advocates the exclusive reference of the word
Sabbath to the full moon until the time of Ezekiel on the basis of
Meinhold's arguments in _Sabbat u. Woche im A.T._ The latter regards
Ezekiel as the organizer of the Jewish community and the originator
of the sanctity of the Sabbath as a seventh day (Ezek. xlvi. 1; cf.
Ezek. xx. 12, 13, 16, 20, 24, xxii. 8, 26, xxiii. 38, in which the
reproaches for the profanation or neglect of the Sabbath in no way
sustain Meinhold's view). In opposition to Meinhold, see Lotz in
_P.R.E._ (3rd ed., art. "Sabbath," vol. xvii. pp. 286-289). To this
Meinhold replies in _Z.A.T.W._ (1909), p. 81 f. Cf. also Hehn,
_Siebenzahl und Sabbat_. While admitting that a special significance
may have been attached in pre-exilian times to the full-moon Sabbath,
and that the latter may have been specially intended in the
combination "new moon and Sabbath" in the 8th-century prophets (Hos.
ii. 13; Amos viii. 5; Isa. i. 13), we are not prepared to deny that
the institution of a seventh-day Sabbath was an ancient pre-exilian
tradition. The sacredness of the number seven is based on the seven
planetary deities to whom each day of the week was respectively
dedicated, i.e. was astral in origin. Cf. _C.O.T._ i. 18 foll., and
Winckler, _Religionsgeschichtlicher u. geschichtlicher Orient_, p.
39. See also _K.A.T._ (3rd ed.), pp. 620-626. In the Old Testament
the sanctity of the number seven is clearly fundamental (e.g. in the
Nif'al form _nisba'_, "to swear," in the derivative subst. for
"oath," in Beer-sheba', &c.). The seventh day of rest was parallel to
the seventh year of release and of the fallow field. It is,
therefore, impossible to detach Ex. xxiii. 12 from Ex. xxi. 2. xxiii.
10 foll.; cf. Ex. xxxiv. 21. We therefore hold that the law of the
seventh-day Sabbath goes back to the Mosaic age. The general
coincidence of the Sabbath or seventh day with the easily recognized
first quarter and full moon established its sacred character as
_lunar_ as well as planetary.

[10] The tablet is neo-Babylonian and published by Dr Pinches in the
_Transactions of the Victoria Institute_, and is cited by Professor
Fried. Delitzsch in the notes appended to his first lecture _Babel u.
Bibel_ (5th German ed., p. 81 ad fin. and p. 82). On this subject of
Babylonian influence over Israel see Jeremias, _Monotheistische
Stromungen innerhalb der babylonischen Religion_, and E. Baentsch,
_Altorientalischer u. israelitischer Monotheismus_. The text and
rendering of the passage are doubtful in the cuneiform letter
discovered by Sellin in Ta'annek (biblical Ta'anach, near Megiddo)
addressed by Ahi-jawi (? Ahijah) to Ishtar-wasur, in which the
following remarkable phrases are read: "May the Lord of the gods
protect thy life.... Above thy head is one who is above the towns.
See now whether he will show thee good. When he reveals his face,
then will they be put to shame and the victory will be complete." The
letter appears to belong to about 1400 B.C. See A. Jeremias, _Das
A.T. im Lichte des alten Orients_ (2nd ed.), pp. 315, 316, 323.
Sellin, _Ertrag der Ausgrabungen im Orient_.

[11] The allusion in Amos ii. 7; Hos. iv. 13, 14 is sufficiently
explicit; cf. Jer. ii. 20-23, iii. 6-11, v. 7, 8. The practice is
prohibited in Deut. xxiii. 17.

[12] Column i. 15, 16, 42, 43, ii. 128, iii. 30, 31, iv. 47, 48, &c.
Probably we should regard them as differentiated _hypostases_.

[13] Hence the 'Ashtaroth or offspring of flocks in Deut. vii. 13,
xxviii. 18. A like function belonged to the Babylonian Ishtar. See
"Descent of Ishtar to Hades," Rev. lines 6-10, where universal
non-intercourse of sexes follows Ishtar's departure from earth to
Hades.

[14] _Proleg. Gesch. Israels_ (2nd ed.), p. 240 foll., cf. p. 258.

[15] _Internat. Crit. Commentary, Judges_, Introd. p. xxx., also p.
367 foll.

[16] [Hebrew: leva] "priest," [Hebrew: levat] "priestess"; see
Hommel, _Sud-arabische Chrestomathie_, p. 127; _Ancient Hebrew
Tradition_, p. 278 foll.

[17] Moore regards this verse as belonging to the J or older
document, _op. cit._ p. 367.

[18] Similarly in ancient Greece. See the instructive passage in
Aristotle, _Nic. Eth._ viii. 9 (4, 5), on the relation of Greek
sacrifices and festivals to [Greek: koinoniai] and politics: [Greek:
ai gar archaiai thusiai kai sunodoi phainontai gignesthai met a tas
ton karpon sugkomidas oion aparchai]; cf. Grote on Pan-Hellenic
festivals, _History of Greece_, vol. iii., ch. 28.

[19] Wellhausen, _Reste arabischen Heidentums_ (2nd ed.), p. 89.

[20] Though this be an interpolated gloss (Thenius, Budde), it states
a significant truth as Kautzsch clearly shows, _op. cit._ p. 672. In
Micah iii. 7 the _hozeh_ is mentioned in a sense analogous to the
_ro'eh_ or "seer," and coupled with the _qosem_ or "soothsayer," viz.
as spurious; cf. Deut. xviii. 10.

[21] No better derivation is forthcoming of the word _nabhi'_,
"prophet," than that it is a Katil form of the root _naba_ = Assyr.
_nabu_, "speak."

[22] In Isa. iii. 2 the soothsayer is placed on a level with the
judge, prophet and elder.