"General Introduction to Biblical Theology. 
 cial Introduction to Prophetic Revelation. 
 he Doctrinal Content of the Prophecy of Hosea. — 
 
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Wartield Library 
 
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 SYLLABUS Leovanrat_ seas 
 
 OF 
 
 Lectures on Biblical Theology 
 
 BY 
 
 ve 
 Geerhardus Vos, Ph.D., D.D. 
 
 I. General Introduction to Biblical Theology. 
 II. Special Introduction to Prophetic Revelation. 
 III. The Doctrinal Content of the Prophecy of Hosea. 
 
 (PRINTED NOT PUBLISHED] 
 
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 C. S, ROBINSON & CO,, UNIVERSITY PRINTERS. 
 
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LECTURES ON BIBLICAL 
 THEOLOGH: 
 
 I, Genera [ntTRopuUcTION to BrBiicaL THEOLOGY, 
 
 The nature of Theology in general should be understood in 
 order to reach a clear conception of Biblical Theology in par- 
 ticular. Etymology of the word @eodoyea shows that it origin- 
 ally means a knowledge concerning God. This is confirmed 
 by encyclopeedic principles. The classification of sciences 
 follows the dividing lines existing in reality. If Theology is 
 to be a separate scieuce, it must have a separate object. 
 This can be none other than God as distinct from every 
 created being. Theology deals with God alone. All other 
 things discussed in it, the kosmos, man, ete., are considered 
 in their relation to God. To make other things, in them- 
 selves, the object of Theology deprives the latter of its in- 
 dependent existence. HL. g.,some say: Theology is the science 
 of religion. But religion means either the subjective relig- 
 ious states and phenomena in man, and then Theology - 
 would become a part of Anthropology, the science of man; 
 or religion means the true religion as objectively revealed by 
 God, and in this case, we would for the sake of scientific 
 precision and thoroughness have to recur from what God 
 has revealed upon what God is, his nature determining his 
 revelation. In other words: we should discuss God’s revela- 
 tion as expressive of his nature, which would lead back to 
 the first definition: Theology is the science concerning 
 God. 
 
 Theology has 1.) a unique object; 2.) a unique origin. 
 In all other sciences the scientist is active and aggressive 
 over against the object of his science. In Theology, the 
 object, God, is the first active cause of all knowledge con- 
 cerning Himself that is acquired. He is not first investi- 
 gated, but He first reveals Himself. Creation of man as the 
 
4 
 
 subject, who is to know God, is itself a revelation. All 
 nature is a revelation. The work of redemption is a revela- 
 tion. This unique origin of Theology determines its method. 
 It being a science produced by self-revelation of the object 
 (God) to the subject (man), Theology must begin not with 
 producing but with appropriating. The first great depart- 
 ment of Theology, therefore, is 
 
 Exegetical Theology. In the development of Theology a 
 group of studies have been separated from the rest and begun 
 to form a smaller organism among themselves, because the 
 receptive attitude of the theological consciousness toward the 
 source of revelation is common to them. This was not a 
 matter of accident, nor of agreement among Theologians, 
 the immanent law of development of the science, as rooted 
 in its nature, brought it about. To Exegetical Theology 
 belong various studies, some more auxiliary and lying on the 
 periphery, some more central, . g, the science which as- 
 certains the sense of the Scriptures== Exegesis Proper; the 
 science which traces the commitment of the Word of God to 
 writing and its collection into a Canon = Introduction and 
 Canonics. But after knowing what the Bible means, and 
 how the Bible was written, we must take one more step. 
 Back of the writing of the Bible lies the historical revela- 
 tion of God, to perpetuate and transmit which the Bible 
 serves asa means to an end. In tracing this historical reve- 
 lation scientifically Exegetical Theology performs its highest 
 and last function. 
 
 Preliminary definition: Biblical Theology is that part of 
 Exegetical Theology which deals with the revelation of God from 
 the point of view of the revealing activity of God Himself. Not 
 with revelation as a finished product (this Systematic The- 
 ology does), but as a historical process. Biblical Theology 
 describes revelation as a divine work. Its nature, therefore, 
 is determined by the characteristics of God’s work of revela- 
 tion. The first of these characteristics is its historical pro- 
 gress. God has not revealed the full content of the truth at 
 once, but one part after the other in historic sequence. 
 Revelation has run its course through ages. The reason for 
 this is that revelation is not an independent activity of God, 
 but closely associated with that other activity of God which 
 we call redemption in its widest sense, as a regeneration of 
 the kosmos. Now, the latter being historical, the former 
 
5 
 
 must be so likewise. Redemption is historical because. it 
 proceeds on the basis of and in contact with the natural 
 development of this world and of the human race which takes 
 place in the form of history. In the process of redemption 
 two stages must be distinguished: 1.) Odjective and central 
 redemption, consisting of those redemptive acts of God which 
 aim at the production of an organic centre for the new order 
 of things. The whole series of redeeming acts described in 
 the Bible, culminating in the incarnation and atoning work 
 of the Mediator and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit be- 
 long to this. These acts are objective, that is they take place 
 outside of man, they take place once for all, and at the same 
 time for the whole body of the elect; 2.) Subjective and indi- 
 vidual redemption, consisting in the application ot objective 
 redemption to individuals in a series of repeated single acts. 
 ff. g., the incarnation, the atonement, the Pentecostal pour- 
 ing out of the Spirit cannot be repeated, but regeneration, 
 justification, glorification are daily repeated. Observe: a.) 
 Objective redemption has been always accompanied by sub+ 
 jective redemption from the beginning, but subjective 
 redemption is no longer ac companied by objective redemp- 
 tion since the close of the Apostolic times. b) Nevertheless 
 subjective redemption in all its fulness could only begin after 
 the other had been accomplished and in so far the distinetion 
 in character is also a distinction in chronological sequence. 
 The O. T. Saints were not so completely redeemed subjec- 
 tively as those under the N. T. c.) The relation between 
 objective and subjective redemption is organic. The former 
 is the center of a circle from which the influences radiate in 
 every direction. The center is Christ, cfr. Phil. III, 21. All 
 regeneration, justification, glorification result organically 
 from the atonement, the resurrection, the intercession of 
 Christ. 
 
 Revelation is not coextensive with the whole process of redemp- 
 tion, but only with its objective slage. Those who make objec- 
 tive redemption and miracles go on, therefore, must also 
 make revelation continue after the Apostolic age. This the 
 Roman Church virtually does. Revelation belongs to the 
 stage of objective redemption because it addresses itself not 
 to individual needs, but tothe common and objective needs 
 of God’s people asa whole. This alone will explain why 
 the promulgation of God’s oracles to the world coincides with 
 
6 
 
 the accomplishment of the work of redemption; they were 
 both finished together; as God gave a finished redemption, 
 so He gave a finished revelation to the world. The mystical 
 view fails to appreciate this objective and universal character 
 of revelation. It holds that revelation is a matter for indi- 
 viduals, inteuded to solve personal questions; consequently. 
 it believesin continued revelations to individual men. Some 
 hold that all redemption, also that which is now going on in 
 individuals, should be subsumed under revelation. But, 
 although God continues to work supernaturally, yet this 
 work in regeneration, justification, etc., does not communt- 
 cate new truth to us. We experience these acts and dis- 
 cern their true nature and significance only by the light of 
 God’s past revelation. In themselves they would be blind 
 and not reveal anything. All the truth interwoven with 
 them is derived from the Scriptures. There is only one 
 sense in which revelation can be said to be unfinished. At 
 the Parousia of Christ there will be new objective redemp- 
 tive acts of a central and universa) character. But even 
 those have been partially predicted and described in past 
 revelation. 
 
 The second characteristic of revelation hes in its Azstori- 
 cal embodiment in distinction from its historical progress. It 
 follows not merely the course of history but it 7s history to a 
 large extent. for, 1.) To a large ea the historic acts of 
 redemption are revealing acts. In themselves they are a 
 disclosure of truth. Sacred History is full of such revelation- 
 acts. Hence distinguish between word-revelation and act- 
 revelation. ®.) These revelation-acts are not merely embed- 
 ded in Sacred History, but they furnish its great joints and 
 ligaments, the skeleton on which the body is constructed. 
 God’s revelation-acts mark the critical epochs of Sacred His- 
 tory. 8.) Revelation-acts are seldom for the purpose of 
 revelation alone. They usually serve an ulterior purpose. 
 Hy. g., the atonement served primarily the satisfaction of 
 divine justice and only secondarily the revelation of that 
 satisfaction. Only in the cases of some miracles revelation 
 is the only purpose. 4.) Revealing acts never appear sep- 
 arated from verba] communications of truth. Without God’s 
 acts the words would be empty, without his words the acts 
 would be blind. The usual order is that the words come 
 first to announce and introduce and prepare for the acts. 
 
7 
 
 ‘Then follow the acts to be followed in turn by an interpre- 
 tation in words. The distinction between word-revelation 
 ‘and act-revelation should not be interpreted to mean that 
 the two ever appear independently of one another. 
 
 The third characteristic of revelation is its practical 
 aspect, It is not given for an intellectual purpose primarily. 
 It is intended to enter into the life of man, to be worked out 
 by him. To know in the Shemitic sense is to become prac- 
 tically acquainted with a thing, to have the consciousness of 
 its reality and of its properties interwoven with one’s life. 
 Because God wishes so to be known, He has made the dis- 
 closure of his revelation dependent upon its practical appro- 
 priation in the historic life of a people. Revelation is con- 
 nected with the life of Israel; it is the moulding power of 
 that life. As the Bible puts it: God has revealed Himself 
 in the covenant and not inaschool. The covenant is an all- 
 comprehensive communion of life. Of course the imparting 
 ‘of new knowitedge is essential to revelation, but this knowl- 
 edge is imparted in an experimental form. 
 
 The combination of the historical and practical features 
 of revelation yields its third characteristic, that of organic 
 growth. The adjustment of revelation to the historic life of 
 the people, who had to appropriate it, required an unfolding 
 -of the truth in which everything was determined by the Jaws 
 of historic development. That this is so may be further 
 shown 1.) By the fact that only in this way the absolute 
 character of revealed truth from the beginning can be made 
 consistent with its gradual perfection. In the organic pro- 
 cess the end is more than the beginning and yet the begin- 
 ning also is perfect in itself. Perfection here is no correction, 
 no elimination of any impure element. 2.) The truth, being 
 given, for a practical purpose, must have been in principle 
 the same ut all times, because the fundamental wants of the 
 people of God, who were to be saved, were the same. The 
 heart of divine truth, that by which men live, must have 
 been there, through all the stages of growth of the truth. 
 3.) The course of revelation follows the course of objective, 
 central redemption. But it can be shown that the latter 
 itself was an organic growth. The purpose of redemption 
 is the renewal of the kosmos with elect humanity as its cen- 
 ter. God effects this renewal not mechanically by changing 
 one part after another, but by preparing an organic center, 
 
8 
 
 and building up the new world around this. This organic 
 eenter is the Incarnate Christ. The O. T. is the stage of 
 preparation for this center. All its periods show organic 
 progress. And the advance of revealed knowledge in the O. 
 T. can be shown to follow this progress stage by stage. At 
 critical junctures where the history of redemption takes rapid 
 strides, so does the history of revelation, In long periods 
 where the former rests, so is the latter silent. It is the same 
 in the N. T. The N. T. times brought the full-grown re- 
 demption; the N. T. times brought also the full-grown Word 
 of God with all its wealth of truth. 4.) A feature of organic 
 growth is progressive multiformity, differentiation. This 
 also is found in revelation. These are various types of truth, 
 such as the legal, prophetic, Chokma types in the O. T. and 
 in the N. T. the Gospels, the Epistles, the Apocalypse. 
 Besides these there are numerous minor variations associated 
 with the individual character of the writers. The multt- 
 formity grows with the growth of revelation; it is greater in 
 the N. T. than inthe Old. The more fully the whole divine 
 counsel is disclosed, the more necessary it became to use 
 various human instrumentalities to represent its various 
 aspects. Individual coloring is not to be conceived of as an 
 unavoidable weakness and inadequacy in the human instru- 
 ment of revelation, but as a result of prearranged adaptation 
 to the inherent needs of revelation. God had by providence 
 and grace prepared all these organs. 
 
 Full definition of the subject: Biblical Theology is the 
 exhibition of the organic progress of special revelation in its historie 
 continuity and multiformity. 
 
 Biblical Theology has been often treated in a way at 
 variance with this definition. -At first it was nothing more 
 than a collection of proof-texts to establish the Loci of Dog- 
 matics. The Pietists cultivated it as an attempt to substitute 
 a more simple and Scriptural phraseology for the scholastic | 
 forms of the current Dogmatics Neither of these attempts, 
 however, marks the true birth of our science. A new science 
 must rest on a new scientific principle and such was lacking 
 here, Biblical Theology with these parties being merely an 
 unscientific variation of Dogmatics. Biblical Theology asa 
 distinct science originated when the historical principle was 
 recognized as differentiating it from Dogmatics. Unfort- 
 unately this was first done in a more or less Rationalistic 
 
9 
 
 sense, and with Rationalistic animus. To Rationalism his- 
 tory was the realm of the contingent, the relative, the arbi- 
 trary as over against the deliverances of pure reason. The 
 first writers on Biblical Theology, accordingly, studied the 
 historical element in the Bible, not as subservient to a better 
 understanding of the truth, but as something to be set aside 
 in order to reach the truth. The historical principle with 
 them eliminated or neutralized the revelation-principle. And 
 ever since that time Biblical Theology has been influenced 
 by the successive philosophical currents At present the 
 evolutionistie philosophy is largely shaping its treatment. 
 Biblical Theology is affected by this philosophy more than 
 any other branch of theological study because its principle 
 of historical progress presents certain analogies with the 
 evolutionary scheme. The harmful eftect of this influence 
 may be observed in two directions: 1.) Evolutionistic philo 
 sophy is bent upon showing a development from the lower 
 and imperfect to the higher and more perfect forms. This 
 is applied to the erowth of truth as observed in Sacred 
 History. A development i is traced from gross, sensual, phys- 
 ical conceptions to ethical and spiritual ideas, from Animism 
 and Polytheism to Monolatry and Monotheism. This, of 
 course, rules out the revelation-factor. What God has re- 
 vealed cannot be gross, sensual, physical, imperfect in this 
 sense. 2.) The philosophy of Evolutionism is agnostic. It 
 teaches that only phenomena can be known. But Theology 
 in the old sense dealt with such metaphysical realities as God 
 and heaven and immortality. Such a Theology has no place 
 in the evolutionary scheme, which recognizes only phenom- 
 ena. Hence Theology must be so reconstructed as to become 
 a science of phenomena. This is done by making it the 
 science of religion, in the sense of a phenomenology of 
 religion, wherein the objective correlates of religion, the 
 existence and nature of God, etc., are neglected. This being 
 the new idea of Theology in seneral, Biblical Theology in 
 particular must be defined accordingly, thus becoming the 
 science of the development of the religion recorded in the 
 Biblical writings, the history of the religion of Israel and of 
 primitive Christianity. From this standpoint no distinction 
 ean be allowed between Sacred History and Church History 
 inasmuch as both trace subjective developments. There are 
 three degrees in the thoroughness with which this principle 
 is applied. 
 
10 
 
 1.) Some recogiize special revelation as a fact, but 
 think that as such it is not accessible to scientific research ; 
 that the utmost we can do is to observe its influence after it 
 has blended with the religious consciousness of the people to 
 whom it was given; that consequently the object of Biblical 
 Theology is the religion of the Bible and that from this 
 religion we reason back to the revelation that produced it. 
 Our answer to this is twofold: a.) The investigation of the 
 Biblical religion belongs to another department, viz., to 
 Sacred History; b.) the Biblical records themselves do not 
 follow this method; they everywhere describe first the self- 
 revelation of God and show only in the second place its 
 effect upon the life of Israel. 
 
 2.) Others recognize special revelation as to super- 
 natural facts but not as to supernaturally communicated 
 words. The whole doctrinal content of the Scriptures, they 
 say, has sprung from human reflection upon such facts. 
 The facts were strictly divine, their interpretation was 
 imperfect and human, subject to development. ‘To this we 
 reply: a.) Man reveals himself not by acts alone, but chiefly 
 by words; how can we ascribe to God a mode of self-revela- 
 tion less perfect than that of man, who yet was made in 
 God's image? b.) This theory is at variance with the facts 
 of revelation. All prophecy would remain unexplained on 
 its basis, cfr. Amos II], 7. 
 
 3.) Still others do not even recognize objective divine 
 acts of a supernatural character. Revelation with them is 
 so defined that it no longer means the communication to 
 man of divine thoughts either by word or act. It is made 
 to mean the production of certain religious thoughts and 
 feelings within the mind of man, which are divine in no 
 other sense than that the Spirit of God has had some share 
 in causing them to issue into consciousness. The product 
 of revelation, so conceived, is of course fallible and imper- 
 fect. Revelation is a gift of the Spirit to Israel in the same 
 sense as aesthetic development was a gift of the same Spirit 
 to Greece. Against this: a.) It is contrary to the view of 
 the Biblical writers themselves; b.) It can no longer be 
 distinguished from, nor scientifically upheld against the view 
 of others, who deny every special influence of the Spirit and 
 explain everything from naturalistic evolution. In their 
 treatment of the phenomena of Biblical History the adher- 
 
11 
 
 ents of both views are equally unscrupulous. The only dif- 
 ference is that one posits something mysterious behind the 
 process, the other does not. 
 
 Over against these erroneous views we must lay down the 
 following principles as regulative for our study of Biblical 
 Theology. 
 
 1.) We must maintain the infallible character of revelation. 
 Revelation as infallible is of the essence of Supernaturalism 
 and even of Theism. There is usually connection between 
 the philosophy of a writer and his view of revelation. Not 
 all views of revelation will fit into every explanation of the 
 universe. In general it may be said that such views as 
 postulate a revelation conditioned and obstructed in its 
 genesis by the imperfection of man, fit into a Pantheistic 
 theory of the universe. If God be the unconscious back- 
 ground of the universe, we would a priori expect his truth 
 and light so to reveal themselves. If, on the other hand, 
 God be conscious and personal, the inference is that in his 
 self-disclosure He will maintain his personality and place 
 his thoughts before us with the stamp of divinity upon them, 
 1. @., a8 Ynfallible thoughts. But we may reason in the 
 reverse order also. If God has so imperfectly revealed [im- 
 self, the inference is probable that he is conditioned and 
 obstructed by the media of revelation, which is clearly 
 Pantheism. If He has perfectly and infallibly revealed 
 Himself, the inference seems justified that He is free person- 
 ality, which is clearly Theism. 
 
 2.) The historical character of revelation is not antithetical 
 ibut subordinated to its infallible character. The truth of the 
 Bible is not absolute, nothwithstanding its historic setting, 
 but in virtue of it. The history of Israel is Sacred History 
 not merely because it is the depository of divine revelation, 
 ‘but for the other reason also that God has specially designed 
 -and shaped it to become the receptacle for the truth from 
 above. 
 
 3.) Revelation should be defined sufficiently wide to sub- 
 sume inspiration under it. Inspiration is the last act in 
 the process whereby God has given us the new truth 
 belonging to the new world of redemption. Biblical Theol- 
 ogy is not content with enumerating the single acts of direct 
 verbal communication of truth; it seeks likewise to exhibit 
 the plan and system of these acts, to write the history of 
 
12 
 
 revelation in the light of the principles which have shaped 
 its course. Now, the Bible throughout has and emphatically 
 states its own interpretation of the facts in the light of prin- 
 ciples. The Bible contains a philosophy of the history of 
 revelation. If we believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures 
 we can not reject or pass by this divine philosophy and sub- 
 stitute for it one of our own making. On‘the other hand, 
 if we desire to be scientific in our treatment of Biblical 
 Theology we cannot leave the facts uncorrelated and unin- 
 terpreted, but must choose some philosophy that will explain 
 them. The question of inspiration, therefore, is not one that 
 can be ignored or left undecided in dealing with our subject. 
 Biblical Theology, in order to be truly Biblical, must not 
 only derive its material from the Scriptures, but must also: 
 accept at the hands of the Bible the order in which this 
 material is to be grouped and located. & g, Paul’s views 
 concerning the historic organism of the Oid Testament 
 economy are authoritative for us as believers in inspiration 
 and invaluable for us as students in Biblical Theology. 
 
 The name Biblical Theology is open to serious objections : 
 1.) It is too wide. Apart from so called Natural Theology 
 all Theology rests on the Scriptures and may in this sense 
 be called Biblical. 2.) If it be said that the adjective Biblical 
 is not meant in this sense, but refers to Theology as it is 
 found in the Bible, we reply: a.) that in the scientific sense 
 there is no Theology in the Bible. The contents of the Bible 
 are to the work of Theology, what the realities of creation 
 are to the secular sciences, material to operate upon, not 
 science itself. The utmost that can be conceded would be 
 that in the Apostolic teaching of the New Testament the 
 first signs of theological thinking are discernible. There is. 
 no “History of Dogmaties for Biblical Times”; b) that 
 Theology in the sense of practical, subjective appropriation 
 of the revealed knowledge of God by fallible men, is indeed 
 found in the Bible, but cannot as such belong to Biblical 
 Theology, because it has already found its place and must 
 ever find its place in Sacred History; c.) that even if we 
 conceded the right to make of the latter a separate science,. 
 there would not be sufficient data in the Bible to construct 
 a continuous history of the growth of subjective religious. 
 thought. The truth is that the Scriptures were not meant 
 to make provision for that and we cannot extract it from 
 
18 
 
 them. 3.) The name is incongruous because it is not ad- 
 justed to the other terms of our nomenclature. We speak 
 of Exegetical Theology, Historical Theology, Systematic 
 Theology, Practical Theology; how then can we all at once 
 name a subdivision of one of these departments Biblical 
 Theology? All this ambiguity and looseness of speech is 
 avoided by the name History of Revelation, which expresses 
 precisely the specific character of our science and fits into 
 the scientific theological terminology. Even when meant in 
 a harmless sense, the name Biblical Theology has wrought 
 serious harm by its misleading character. 
 
 The practical advantages of the study of Biblical Theology. 
 1.) It exhibits the organic growth of the truth of special 
 revelation and its organic structure resulting therefrom. This 
 is of twofold advantage: a.) It explains to us the meaning 
 and relative importance of the single elements of truth. If 
 the truth be a living organism its parts and their functions 
 can be understood only from the organic knowledge of the 
 whole; b) it has apologetic value. The organic develop- 
 ment of revelation traced in the Bible bears exactly the 
 same relation to Supernaturalism, as the argument from 
 design bears to Theism. 2.) Biblical Theology furnishes an 
 antidote to the critical views now so largely prevailing. 
 These critical views do not merely oppose the opinions of 
 certain theologians concerning the Bible and its origin, they 
 do oppose and do confessedly oppose the views of the Bible 
 itself, that is of large parts of the Bible, concerning its own 
 origin. The Scriptures as a whole profess to be a historical 
 organism; the historical books of the Bible represent a 
 definite view of the course taken by the history of redemp- 
 tion and revelation, This is not a secondary element in the 
 Bible, it is its fundamental structure. The newest eritical 
 theory asserts that this fundamental structure, as found in 
 the historical books, is unhistorical and unreliable through- 
 out. In other words, it disorganizes the Bible, and torces 
 upon it another organism. Biblical Theology, by exhibiting 
 the organic progress of revelation set forth by the Bible 
 itself, is best qualified to show to what an extent the critical 
 theory involves rejection of the Bible on a large and funda- 
 mental scale. 8.) Biblical Theology imparts new life and 
 freshness to the old truth by placing it in its original historic 
 environment. The Bible is not a dogmatic system but a 
 
14 
 
 historical book full of dramatic interest. Familiarity with 
 the history of revelation will enable the student to utilize the 
 realistic historical interest attaching to the truth and so to 
 guard against excessively abstract presentation of the same. 
 4.) Biblical Theology constantly bears witness to the high im- 
 portance and indispensableness of objective knowledge of the 
 truth for pure religion. It shows what infinite care God has. 
 taken to reveal truth to his people, leading us to infer from 
 this how much must depend on truth. 5.) Biblical Theology 
 meets the charge that the fundamental doctrines of our faith 
 rest on an arbitrary exposition of isolated proof texts. As. 
 long as this is believed, and as long as divergent views. 
 appear able to adduce an equal number of similar texts, the 
 conflict between sound and false doctrine will remain unde- 
 cided. But there is a higher ground on which conflicting 
 systems have to meet. ‘hat system will hold the field 
 which can show that its doctrines grow organically from 
 the stem of revelation and are interwoven with its whole 
 structure from the beginning. This our Biblical Theology 
 should do for our Dogmatics. 6.) Biblical Theology con- 
 tributes to keep Systematic Theology in living contact with 
 the realities of act- and word-revelation, thus guarding it 
 from groundless speculations. 7.) The highest practical 
 aim of Biblical Theology is one it possesses independently of 
 its usefulness for other sciences. It grants us a new vision 
 of God and of that peculiar glory of God which attaches to 
 his historical revelation. As of all Theology so of this 
 special study the ultimate aim lies in God, not in man. 
 
 The relations of Biblical Theology to other branches of the- 
 ological study. 1.) Its relation to Sacred History. The two 
 are closely related. Revelation follows redemption. The 
 history of revelation follows the history of redemption. 
 But in Sacred History also redemption is the determining 
 factor. This shows that neither can be written without due 
 regard to the other. The question may even arise whether 
 it is possible to keep them distinct. The right of distinction 
 rests on the following consideration: Redemption in its 
 widest sense does two things: it creates a world of new real- 
 ities, in historic succession; it creates a world of truth to 
 accompany these new realities. These two lines of creative 
 activity run parallel, but do not cvincide. Neither is more- 
 over simply accessory to the other. We cannot say that the 
 
15 
 
 truth is for the sake of the facts alone, nor that the facts are 
 for the sake of the truth alone. The one is for setting man 
 right in his relation to God in the sphere of being, the other 
 for setting him right in his relation to God in the sphere of 
 knowing. 2.) Its relation to Biblical Introduction. Biblical 
 Theology presupposes the results of Introduction. We must 
 approximately know when books were written and their con- 
 tents revealed before we can correlate them with the contents. 
 of other books and assign them their place in the plan of the 
 whole. Sometimes, however, when Introduction has not 
 sufficient data to determine the date of a writing, Biblical 
 Theology may render it service, by showing where it would 
 best fit into the gradually unfolding scheme of revelation, 
 3.) Its relation to Systematic Theology. The name Biblical 
 Theology has been frequently exploited to aggrandize our. 
 science at the expense of Systematic Theology and to enter. 
 a protest against the alleged un-Biblical character of the 
 latter. There is nothing in the nature and aims of Biblical 
 Theology to justify such an implication. Systematic The- 
 ology can never be supplanted by it, because the two are 
 different in principle. The difference lies not in this that the 
 one is dependent on, the other independent of the Scriptures. 
 Systematic Theology is just as much bound to the Bible as. 
 Biblical Theology. Nor is the difference that Biblical The- 
 ology can furnish the truths of the Bible as they are in them- 
 selves, whereas Systematic Theology would make them un- 
 dergo a transformation. The truth 1s that both Biblical and 
 Systematic Theology operate upon the Biblical material, as 
 they find it, according to a certain constructive principle. 
 In Systematic Theology this principle is logical, in Biblical 
 Theology it is historical. Systematic Theology endeavors. 
 to construe a circle, Biblical Theology seeks to draw a line 
 of development. The line is, however, like unto the line of 
 upward growth in a living tree, a line consisting of a suc- 
 cession of rings, each of which is more or less rounded off in 
 itself. There is a degree of systematizing, even apart from 
 the historical construction, in Biblical Theology also. In, 
 Systematic Theology usually a distinction is drawn between 
 Dogmatics and Ethics. In actual revelation, however, the 
 two are so closely interwoven, that we cannot separate them 
 in the history of revelation. Every distinction between 
 Biblical Dogmatics and Biblical Ethics would be purely 
 artificial. 
 
16 
 
 The Method of Biblical Theology Two methods have 
 been employed in the construction of our science, sometimes 
 combined, sometimes to the exclusion of one another. They 
 are the topical and the historical method. The former takes 
 the topics of Systematic Theology and asks what in regard 
 to each of the topics has been revealed. If this is done with- 
 out all distinction of historical periods nothing but a crude 
 Dogmatics will result. The historical method places emphasis 
 on the principle of historical growth and seeks to show 
 everywhere how the truth has been progressively revealed. 
 If this is done without grouping the facts at all, it leads toa 
 monotonous recital of single items and yields no real history. 
 Hence the two methods should be combined. Within the 
 limits of the historical periods certain general topics should 
 be distinguished and of each of these the development should 
 be traced. These topics, however, should not be borrowed 
 indiscriminately from Systematic Theology, for some of the 
 general conceptions with which the latter operates are either 
 foreign to the mind of the Biblical writers, or at least belong 
 to a particular stage of revelation. The general heads under 
 which the elements of truth are grouped are to be taken as 
 much as possible from the range of thought of the writers 
 themselves and of their time. # g., the idea of the cove- 
 nant is an idea familiar to revelation itself in almost all its 
 stages. So is that of the kingdom of God. Nevertheless in 
 some stages these ideas are more prominent than in others. 
 On the other hand, to discuss the Biblical material from the 
 point of view of an abstract topic like justification would be 
 an unhistoric proceeding. Again, in the treatment of Pauline 
 revelation justification as a topic is in its place. Still other 
 topics belong entirely to the post-Biblical development of 
 theological thought. This does not mean that they are 
 without foundation in the Scriptures, but only that as formal, 
 unified doctrines they do not occur there, the elements of 
 truth that are now dogmatically crystallized in them lying 
 scattered in the Bible in various quarters. But not only the 
 topics within the historical periods are to be adjusted to the 
 stage of revelation, the periods themselves must be deter- 
 mined not according to any modern view of history, but in 
 agreement with the immanent historic consciousness of the 
 Bible itself. #. g,, the Bible divides the history of redemp- 
 tion into a succession of covenants. Biblical Theology has 
 
17 
 
 ' 
 
 to recognize this division in its fundamental importance, and 
 should not allow it to be obliterated by any critical construc- 
 tion of a totally different development in which prophetism 
 would come before the law. Within the limits of this com- 
 bination of the historical and topical methods there is still 
 a wide scope for divergence. The chief problem is how the 
 individual peculiarities of the single writers shall receive just 
 recognition. These individual traits subserve the historic 
 plan “and as such are of vital importance. Accordingly some 
 propose to discuss each author separately. This, however, 
 leads, where the differentiation is not extremely developed, 
 to much repetition of the elements which all authors have 
 incommon, The better plan isto apply a treatment accord- 
 ing to groups to the earlier stages where the truth is not 
 yet so strongly differentiated and to apply the principle of 
 a discussion of single books to the later stages, where the 
 combination of authors into groups would obliterate indi- 
 vidual traits too seriously. In the group-treatment the 
 statement of what is common property should be accom- 
 panied with due exhibition of what the single authors have 
 individually contributed to the progressive development. 
 
 The definition of Biblical Theology as history of Bibli- 
 eal religion has greatly influenced its method. Many modern 
 writers begin with a discussion of the principal features of 
 this religion i in distinction from other religions. ‘They con- 
 sider its monotheistic principle and its ethical contents. 
 This manner of introducing the subject betrays the philo- 
 sophical tendency that has given rise to this whole sub- 
 jectivizing treatment. Further, with many the historical 
 development of Biblical religion and its doctrinal precipitate 
 are separately discussed. This division is necessary if the 
 object of Biblical Theology be knowledge come out of the 
 life of the people; it is impossible if its object be the reveal- 
 ing activity of God and its contents, both in the historic facts 
 and in the verbal disclosures of truth. The facts to us come 
 under consideration in two aspects only: 1.) As revelation- 
 facts of a supernatural character; 2.) as events in the historic 
 development of Israel influencing the course of revelation in 
 its adjustment to them. In both these aspects the facts are 
 so interwoven with the truth that a separate treatment of 
 both would result either in repetition or in externally uniting 
 into one book an inadequate and mechanical Sacred. History 
 and Biblical Theology. 
 
18 
 
 The Division of Biblical Theology. The idea of revela- 
 tion is commonly associated with that of redemption for the 
 reason that the fall coming close after the creation, nearly 
 the whole course of revelation has actually taken place under 
 an economy of redemption, and for the further reason that 
 in redemption special revelation is everything. Neverthe- 
 less this association of redemption and revelation is not 
 logical or necessary. For: 1.) Revelation is wider than 
 special revelation; the manifestation of God in nature, in 
 creation and providence is revelation in the strict sense of the 
 term. What we learn from nature, at least would learn 
 apart from sin, are not scattered observations or inferences, 
 but a coherent knowledge of God, perfect and harmonious 
 in its kind. God has intentionally so created nature and 
 intentionally so governs it as to make it a speech to us. 
 Hence the theologians speak of the two books, the one of 
 nature, the other of the Scriptures, a figure which aptly 
 describes the natural world as a pre- arranged medium of 
 communicating truth concerning God. 4%.) Special revela- 
 tion itself is wider than redemptive revelation. There were 
 special communications of truth from God to man before the 
 fall under the covenant of works. God is represented as 
 speaking to man. The distinction between God’s dealings 
 with the race before and after the fall is a distinction 
 between works and grace, not to be confounded with the dis- 
 tinction between general and special revelation. All this 
 makes it necessary to point out in general the relation 
 between revelation in the wider and in the narrower sense. 
 1.) Special revelation cannot be discussed in Biblical Theol- 
 ogy without reference to the self-disclosure of God in 
 nature, both within man and without man. General revela- 
 tion remains the basis of special revelation. The Scriptures 
 constantly presuppose that which still remains known of 
 God, notwithstanding the darkening influence of sin, and 
 attach their disclosures to it. 2.) Special revelation not 
 merely adds to the knowledge acquired from nature, but 
 it transforms and purifies the latter. It is to be observed 
 that only under the influence of the truth as known 
 from special revelation has an adequate sense of God’s 
 self-disclosure in the natural world been revived. In the 
 Bible we find the best interpretation of nature and history; 
 it is Christianity under the influence of the Bible that has 
 
—— ee, a 
 
 A, 
 
 produced the scientific -embodiment of this knowledge 
 which is called Natural Theology. 3.) Even apart from 
 special grace, God has made provision by common 
 grace to prevent this natural basis from being utterly 
 destroyed by sin. Common grace as exemplitied in the 
 covenant with Noah (Gen, LX, 1-17) is itself of supernatural 
 origin, but its aim is to perpetuate the natural order of the 
 universe, physical and ethical, by restraining sin. Here then 
 we have special revelation entering into the natural world 
 and becoming a part of it. 4,) Sin entering has a threefold 
 effect: it subjectively obscures the mind of man in his per- 
 ception of natural revelation; it transforms the latter ob- 
 jectively so that instead of a revelation of love it becomes a 
 revelation of wrath, Rom. [,18; it renders a new special 
 revelation necessary. 5.) The new features in this special 
 revelation concern partly its subject-matter, partly its form. 
 As to the latter: revelation partakes more of the uncommon 
 and fearful, because the separation between God and man 
 is felt more keenly in the same proportion that God comes 
 personally nearer to man to communicate with him directly. 
 To sinless man such communication is perfectly natural. 
 Further, revelation assumes a more external form, because 
 it becomes attached not merely to the general covenant- 
 fellowship between God and man, but to ‘the specific work 
 of redemption, and this work necessarily assumes first of all 
 an objective, external form. The center of redemption lies 
 in the incarnation and the work of the Incarnate Christ and, 
 corresponding with this, revelation assumes the character of 
 an external, abiding Word of God embodied in the Scriptures. 
 Neither for the incarnation nor for the formation of the 
 Scriptures would there have been any necessity, if sin had 
 not entered. In regard to subject-matter, special revelation 
 as adjusted to the fact of sin and of redemption has two new 
 elements: it discloses to us the divine grace, his love of 
 sinners and, in a more emphatic sense than revelation in 
 nature does, his punitive justice, and involves an inter- 
 pretation of all the acts of God in which grace and justice 
 are embodied. Besides this it interprets all the subjective 
 changes which the redemption of man requires. Special 
 revelation instructs those who experience the work of grace 
 concerning the nature of this work, and for this likewise 
 there was no necessity apart from sin. 
 
20 
 
 The first division in the history of special revelation, 
 then, is that between what precedes and what follows the 
 fall. The history of redemptive revelation cannot be under- 
 stood without a preliminary discussion of revelation under 
 the covenant of works. Notwithstanding the great difference 
 between them, there are fundamental principles which the 
 two schemes have in common. This will appear from the 
 fact that the Bible, though to ail intents a record of redemp- 
 tive revelation, yet opens with a sketch of the self-disclosure 
 of God before the fall. 
 
 In regard to the redemptive stage of revelation the main 
 division is that between the Old and the New Covenant. 
 The term covenant is to be preferred to that of testament. 
 The R. V. has in most places rightly substituted covenant 
 for the testament of the A. V. Except perhaps in Heb. rx, 
 16, 17, another meaning than that of covenant cannot be 
 established for Biblical Greek. But the Latin translation 
 rendered the Greek dcafyxyn bv testamentum and this gave 
 currency to the term testament. The phrases Old Covenant 
 and New Covenant are found in II Cor. 111, 6, 14; Heb. viur, 
 13; 1x, 15; x11, 24, and in the first passage even the sense 
 of a covenant deposited in writing seems to be in the mind 
 of the Apostle. Jeremiah speaks of a new covenant which 
 will take the place of the old Ch. xxx1, 31, and our Lord in 
 the words of institution of the supper lhkewise of a new 
 covenant. The one passage in Paul excepted, these sayings do 
 not refer to a body of writings, but to a historic dispensation 
 of redemption. It is to be observed moreover that they do 
 not contrast the new dispensation introduced by Christ with 
 the whole old dispensation of the covenant of grace from 
 Paradise onward, but only with the covenant as concluded 
 at Sinai. The old covenant is the Sinaitic covenant in the 
 mind of these writers, not what goes before. Nevertheless 
 the extension of the name old covenant to the whole period 
 before the advent rests on a Scriptural basis, because the 
 Bible discusses the pre-Mosaic period of redemption and of 
 revelation under the aspect only of a preparation for the 
 Sinaitic covenant, and not for its own sake. Note the Scrip- 
 tural terminology which speaks of old covenant and new 
 covenant, whereas dogmatically we are accustomed to speak 
 of the old and new dispensation of the one covenant of grace. 
 Each is correct from its own standpoint, Dogmaties in plac- 
 
21 
 
 ing itself above the temporal aspect of things and recogniz- 
 ing in both periods the unveiling of the same eternal decree 
 of salvation; the Biblical writers, who stand in the midst 
 of the historic movement and carry it onward, in emphasiz- 
 ing the relative newness and distinctness of the final revela- 
 tion of God in Christ. 
 
 Our conception of Biblical Theology limits 1ts sources 
 to the Canonical Scriptures. What lies between the two 
 canons cannot come under consideration, because it is not 
 revelation. From the point of view of most modern writers, 
 who make Biblical Theology describe a subjective religious 
 development, there is no reason to exclude the Apocrypha. 
 The subjective development of religion went on after the last 
 prophet as before. Hence some writers include the Apocry- 
 phal books. This becomes all the more necessary, since the 
 new critical views make important sections of the canonical 
 O. T. as late as the date of the Apocrypha, so that there is no 
 longer any distinction as to date. The claim that the Apocry- 
 pha represent a stage in the development of Israel, during 
 which religion was no longer active, growing, independent, 
 will be difficult to prove, and from the subjective standpoint 
 this claim can be upheld with equal force in regard to some 
 of the canonical books. The truth is that on this modern 
 principle there is no place for drawing a line between what 
 is canonical and extra-canonical, The exclusion of the extra- 
 canonical writings does not imply that Biblical Theology has 
 nothing to learn from them. They portray the religious 
 history of Israel between the two covenants. This religious 
 history in more than one sense determined the character and 
 course of N. T. revelation. #. g., it is impossible to under- 
 stand Pau! and his work without a thorough study of Juda- 
 ism. Modern criticism obliterates still other important 
 boundary-lines within the limits of the canonical books. 
 Following the Bible we must distinguish between Patri- 
 archal, Mosaic, Prophetic revelation. The critics maintain 
 that no historic records of the Patriarchal period are in 
 existence, and that we know next to nothing concerning the 
 religious development of that time. The figures of the 
 Patriarchs are not historic personalities but legendary 
 characters created to express the consciousness of relation- 
 ship between the various Shemitic tribes or idealisations of 
 the national character as it existed afterwards. As to the 
 
22 
 
 Mosaic period, the Pentateuch and its codes being considered 
 later than most of the Prophetic writings, there is no longer 
 any distinction between this and Prophetism. Hence noth- 
 ing remains but the development of Israel’s religion from 
 the time of early. Prophetism onward, and the whole beauti- 
 ful organism of the three great Biblical periods is destroyed. 
 
 Il. Sprcrat IntrRopuction to PrRopHetTic REVELATION. 
 
 The term Prophet is used in the Bible with a certain 
 degree of latitude. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 describes the whole revelation of the Old Covenant as a 
 revelation through prophets, I. 1. Abraham is called a 
 prophet by God in his revelation to Abimelech, Gen. xx, 7. 
 In Ps. cv, 15, all the patriarchs are so designated. Moses is 
 pre-eminently the ideal prophet according to Numb. x11, 6. 
 On the other hand, the customary division of the Old Testa- 
 ment Scriptures into law and prophets, followed by our Lord, 
 shows how the term lrophets is restricted elsewhere to the 
 post- Mosaic organs of revelation and stands fora part of the 
 Scriptures forming an organism by itself. Cfr. for the double 
 sense Acts 111, 21, ‘“ Whereof God spake by the mouth of 
 his holy prophets, which have been since the world began,” 
 with vs. 24, ‘All the prophets from Samuel and them that 
 followed after.” It is clear, then, that in one sense all Old 
 Testament organs of revelation are prophets, and that in 
 another sense prophetism assumes a more specific form, be- 
 comes a new institution in the theocracy since the time ot 
 Samuel. | 
 
 This double aspect of prophecy is reflected in the names 
 the prophets bear. The most general name is 8°33 and this 
 is applied to all Old Testarnent messengers of God in the 
 widest sense, although historically it seems to have come 
 first into use when prophetism as a specific institution arose. 
 The derivation and original meaning of Nabhi have been 
 subjects of much controversy. The points in dispute are: 
 1.) Whether the form Nabhi is active, passive or intransitive ; 
 2.) What is the original meaning of the root of which Nabhi 
 is a derivative. The following views have been defended : 
 
 I. The derivation proposed by Hupfeld from an assumed 
 root 823 coinciding in origin and meaning with the root ox) 
 (cfr. Ne’um Jehovah “oracle of Jehovah.) Nabhi then 
 
23 
 
 would be a passive form, literally ‘‘one who is oracled into.” 
 Riehm and Schultz have adopted this view. The objections 
 to it are: 1.) The identification of the two roots is precar- 
 ious, because it assumes at the same time the interchange of 23 
 and 1 and the transposition of the two last radicals; 2.) it is 
 artificial to give the verb a personal object. The passive par- 
 ticiple of such a verb would naturally mean ‘“ that which is 
 oracled,” the oracle itself and not the one who receives it. 
 
 II. Many connect Nabhi and its root x3) with the verbs 
 333, 23, 32) all meaning “to spring, to gush forth.” Cfr. Ps. 
 xIxX, 2 and Lxxvil, 2. The defenders of this view divide on 
 the question whether Nabhi.be an active or a passive form. 
 Keil and Redslob favor the passive sense explaining Nabhi 
 as ‘‘the one gushed or poured upon.” The Spirit, it is said, 
 was compared to a fluid and the prophet under its influence 
 as baptized with it. Oehler and others give a different turn 
 to the passive meaning making it ‘‘ one who is spoken through 
 by the Deity.” The active interpretation is favored by 
 Kuenen who says: ‘So the prophet was probably called 
 from the impression his manner of acting produced; his 
 violent gesticulations, the rushing torrent of his speech re- 
 minded of a spring violently gushing forth.” Against the 
 passive rendering of the word on this view it must be urged, 
 that the verbs meaning “ to gush or spring forth ” are intran- 
 sitives and cannot naturally take an object in the Qal species. 
 Kuenen’s explanation makes too much of the element of 
 violent gushing torth, which does not belong to the verbs as 
 such. 
 
 Iff. A peculiar derivation has been proposed by some 
 Jewish scholars (Witsius, Miscellanea Sacra I, 3) and more 
 recently by Land. Nabhi is by them connected with the © 
 verb xia ‘“‘ to enter in.” It is considered the Niphal Participle 
 of this verb ‘‘ one who has been entered in,” that 1s hy the 
 breath or spirit of the Deity. But in such a designation the 
 more important part ‘ by the Spirit of God” would have to 
 be supplied. If the phrase “* Nabhi of the Spirit of Jehovah” 
 occurred, the explanation might be accepted for reason of 
 its simplicity, but it does not occur (cfr. however Ezek. 
 mie) 
 
 IV. The best view is that of Ewald, Fleischer, Konig 
 and others, who make Nabhi the active participle of a root 
 2) which still exists in Arabic in the sense ‘to speak.” 
 
24 
 
 The prophet is so cailed because he is the speaker of 
 Jehovah. It is both the manner in which he receives his 
 communications from God and the announcement of them 
 to others, but especially the latter, which is described by the 
 name. It may be objected, that on this view also the more 
 important part of the meaning, viz., that the Nabhi is a 
 speaker of God, must be supplied. This objection, however, 
 is not fatal. The Greek word mooyntnc (see below) here 
 offers an analogy. And here the combinations Nabhi Jeho- 
 vah, Nabhi?Baal, do actually occur. Exod. tv, 16 is an im- 
 portant passage for determining the Biblical conception of 
 the prophet. Here Moses is represented as God to Pharao 
 and Aaron as Moses’ mouth. But in Ch. vir, 1 the same 
 thought is thus expressed: Moses God to Pharaoh and 
 Aaron Moses’ prophet. This implies that prophet = mouth 
 of God. 
 
 Our English word prophet is derived from the Latin 
 propheta which in turn is the Latinized form of the Greek 
 mzoogytyc. The latter is a compound of zoo and the noun 
 ae from gy, which means to speak, but is especially used 
 
 omer, Herodotus, the Tragoedians of the divine speech 
 of revelation. The force of the preposition zo in the Greek 
 word is not that which we commonly ascribe to it in our 
 English word prophet. It does not relate to time and to the 
 element of prediction, but has a local force. The zpogyrn¢ 
 is either the one who speaks for or stands before the oracle to 
 interpret its enigmatic sayings, or else the one who speaks 
 forth what the oracle communicates to him. Plato e. g., in 
 the Timaeus draws a distinction in this sense between the 
 pavtec or oracle-giver and the zoogyry¢ or interpreter. 
 
 The other names for prophet are more expressive of the 
 character of prophetism in the narrower sense as a specific 
 institution for the disclosure of truth since the days of 
 Samuel. Prophetism proper, as a new factor in revelation, 
 arose in connection with certain developments in the history 
 of Israel. Ifin general revelation follows redemption, the 
 appearance of a new and influential movement in the sphere 
 of the former must find its explanation in important events 
 in the sphere of the latter. Prophecy is not abstract preach- 
 ing, but attaches itself to concrete facts, which may either 
 belong to the past or to the future. In its hortative as well 
 as in its predictive character it plants itself upon the basis 
 
25 
 
 of history. The prophets advocated no purely ideal con- 
 struction of things lacking contact with reality, but the en- 
 forcement and perfection of what had been in principle 
 realized, or was beginning to be realized among Israel. 
 The development of prophetism divides itself into two periods 
 distinguished by the manner in which the prophetic word 
 attaches itself either to the old realities of the past or to the 
 new realities of the future. Besides this close association 
 with historical conditions and events, prophetism at its 
 various stages more or less assumes a realistic character in 
 itself, by symbolically and typically embodying the truths it 
 proclaimed in its own life. 
 
 1.) The historic basis of prophetism in the past. The 
 fundamental passages are Deut. xi, 1-5; xvi, 9-22. 
 Divination, augury, enchantments, sorcery, etc., are for- 
 bidden, because there will be no need of these, Jehovah 
 promising to raise up a prophet from the midst of the people 
 to whom they may hearken. The whole succession of 
 prophets is referred to. The Messianic import of this pas- 
 sage is certainly not its primary sense. But no prophet, 
 though he give signs or wonders, is to be heard, if he 
 preach against the former commandments of Jehovah. The 
 covenant mediated by Moses remains the norm of all sub- 
 sequent prophetic teaching. 1.) Prophecy must apply and 
 enforce the principles of Mosaism in the varying circum- 
 stances and situations of national life. It simply maintains 
 and watches over established institutions. The distinction 
 between law and prophecy in this sense is not strongly 
 marked. The law itself, especially in Deuteronomy, con- 
 tains a prophetic element inasmuch as it not merely com- 
 mands for the present, but provides for future contingencies. 
 2.) Prophecy is to warn and threaten in the danger of in- 
 fidelity to the covenant-obligations on I[srael’s part, and to 
 announce the judgment and call to repentance in case of 
 actual apostasy. This function of prophecy also has been 
 anticipated by the law. In Lev. xxvr and Deut. xxvitt, a 
 possible breach of the covenant is assumed and the evils in- 
 separable therefrom are described at Jength. In regard to 
 the latter point, however, a distinction must be made 
 between the pre-canonical prophets and the canonical 
 prophets. The former warn and threaten and eall to re- 
 pentance under the supposition, that conversion without 
 
26 
 
 total rejection of Israel and by a return to the old is still 
 possible; the latter recognize the inevitable character of the 
 judgment of destruction for the majority. In so far this 
 denunciatory function pertains even more to prophetism as 
 a herald of new realities than as merely vindicating the old. 
 
 These two retrospective functions characterize prophet- 
 ism in the first period of its development from Samuel up 
 to Joel, Amos, Hosea. They are less prominent in the 
 later development of canonical prophetism. The distinction 
 between retrospective and prospective prophecy is, however, 
 not an absolute one, The elements pointing to a new future 
 were at work in prophetism from the beginning and the 
 appeal to the historic law of the covenant was never silenced. 
 The only difference lies in the stress placed in the successive 
 periods upon each of these elements. 
 
 The relation of prophetism to the future developments in the 
 history of redemption. Redemption as embodied in the events 
 of the Mosaic period and in the Mosaic institutions, was not 
 the final realization of the divine purpose. It bore a pro- 
 visional character and was intended to be followed by other 
 events and other institutions on a higher plane. The theo- 
 cratic lite of Israel was not permitted to run a quiet and 
 uneventful course, but new crises and new conditions were 
 constantly created by God, to call out and bring to conscious- 
 ness, the inherent limitations and inadequacies of the Mosaic 
 eovenant and of life under it, thus to make room for the 
 development of the new out of the old. Prophecy accompa- 
 nies the recurring crises and the newly-arising conditions to 
 announce and interpret them. Hence, side by side with its 
 historic and conservative features, prophecy bears the char- 
 acter of a progressive revelation, ever pressing forward, a 
 continual ferment in the covenant life of Israel. These 
 changes, prophetic of new and higher things, were produced 
 partly by the force of expansion inherent in the Mosaic cove- 
 nant itself. Such a change e. g., was the institution of the 
 human kingdom. Toa greater extent, however, they were 
 produced in a more violent way, by influences of a radical 
 and revolutionary character, which threatened to destroy the 
 Mosaic institutions, instead of developing them. Influences of 
 this kind were the national apostasy of Israel, the division 
 of the tribes into two kingdoms, the advance and attack of 
 the great monarchies of the East. To both these classes of 
 
27 
 
 changes prophecy attaches itself, and both were, historically 
 speaking, necessary to create the beginnings of a new order 
 of things out of the old. The former ciass would of itself have 
 yielded only a higher and perfected Mosaism. But the new 
 covenant is not merely a perfection of the old, it is something 
 new substituted for the old, the body replacing the type. Hence 
 such changes were required as betokened the destruction of 
 the historic forms in which the covenant had hitherto been 
 embodied, It will be observed that the new conditions of 
 the former class, though important in themselves and pro- 
 ductive of prophetic activity from the outset, yet obtained 
 their full significance and became the theme of a richer and 
 more progressive prophetic revelation only after they were 
 viewed in the light of the more radical changes and critical 
 conditions of a later day. EK. g., the institution of the human 
 kingdom in Saul, David, Solomon, gives rise to Messianic 
 prophecy, but Messianic prophecy does not show the full 
 possibility of its development, until the crisis in the national 
 life of the vith century B. C., stimulates it to renewed 
 activity. While considering both classes of events separ- 
 ately, we must remember that they constantly interacted. 
 
 It will be seen from this that the prospective element is 
 essential to prophecy. Once the tendency was to emphasize 
 this element to an undue extent and in a mechanical man- 
 ner, so as to make the prophet a foreteller of isolated future 
 events in their concrete definiteness. No doubt there are 
 instances of such concrete, definite prediction in the pro- 
 phetic writings, but, while of great value for Apologetics, 
 these instances do not impart its main significance to pro- 
 phetic revelation even inits prospective function. The otber 
 extreme is to make the prophet a mere preacher of moral 
 and religious truth, considering the predictive feature as 
 altogether secondary and unessential. This tendency, largely 
 prevailing at the present time, is just as unhistorical as the 
 opposite view. The truth is that prophecy in a broad way 
 accompanies with its message the development of the future 
 out of and in contrast with the present and past. Taken 
 in this sense of organic prediction, concerned not so much 
 with single events as with large developments, the announce- 
 ment of the future will be found to occupy a much larger 
 place in the prophetic writings than modern ideas lead one 
 to expect. ‘The prophets are designated as ‘ watchmen” 
 
28 
 
 DD'¥y or o'Bx¥D from this prospective function of their office. 
 Sometimes the figure involves no more than the spiritual 
 supervision of the people. Cfr. Jer. v1, 17; Ezek. 111, 17. 
 Elsewhere, however, the prophet is represented as watching 
 for the new developments which the carrying out of Jeho- 
 vah’s counsel involves; Is. xx1, 11,12; Hab. 1, 1. Inas- 
 much as the prophet is the representative of Jehovah, this 
 watching is predicated of Jehovah Himself. Jer. xxx1, 28; 
 XLIv, 27. Under a different figure the same idea is ex- 
 pressed when the prophetic word is compared to a living plant 
 or tree to indicate that it produces ever new developments, 
 just as the new things that Jehovah works are said “‘to spring 
 font, eile Se Bo UR LIAO sx La at os Ute bb, 
 
 1) The first advance beyond the Mosaic conditions in 
 the history of Israel to which prophecy attached itself was 
 theinstitution of the kingdom. In the theocracy no provision 
 was made for an executive as Moses himselfhad been. The 
 kingship of Jehovah had no visible embodiment in a vice- 
 gerent ruling over the people. The inadequate realization 
 of the kingdom of Jehovah in the national life of Israel led 
 to all the misery of the period of the judges. A represent- 
 ative of Jehovah was wanted to organize and lead Israel in 
 the wars with the Canaanitish tribes and the surrounding 
 nations. Cfr. Jud. v, 7,11. The rule of judges was of a 
 temporary intermittent character. Permanent relief was 
 created in the human kingdom of Saul and afterwards of Da- 
 vid. Itis true, Israel desired this kingdom from sinful 
 motives; nevertheless Jehovah’s granting it proves that the 
 human kingship is consistent with the divine, and can be 
 employed in the history of redemption to foreshadow the 
 perfect realization of the latter. The institution, then, of the 
 human kingdom and, through it, the subjugation of Israel’s 
 enemies is the first great outstanding fact in Sacred History 
 after the Mosaic epoch. Its significance may be measured 
 by this that henceforward the idea of the kingdom remains 
 the central idea of all hopes of Israe!, the highest ideal 
 possession in which the better spirits of Israel rejoiced. The 
 beginning of prophetic activity in the narrower sense 
 through Samuel coincides with this institution of the human 
 kingdom, or, strictly speaking, with the theocratic revival, 
 which resulted in the liberation and ascendancy of Israel, 
 for whose accomplishment the kingdom was the chosen 
 
29 
 
 instrument of God. But not merely at its beginning did 
 the kingdom give rise to prophetic revelation. The human 
 kingdom could be an instrument of salvation only in so far 
 as it was perfectly representative of Jehovah and did not in 
 any respect belie its representative character. This perfec- 
 tion the kings of united Israel and later of Judah never 
 attained. There remained a wide distance between the 
 idea and the reality. Hence it was seen that the first king- 
 dom was not the final embodiment of Jehovah’s rule. The 
 true kingdom is projected into the future. Messianic prophecy 
 attaches itself to the experience of the imperfections of the 
 present and the resulting expectation of a perfect represent- 
 ative of Jehovah in a new era. 
 
 2.) A second impulse prophetic revelation received 
 from the contact between Israel and the Gentile nations. 
 This contact was largely a hostile one. Nevertheless even 
 so the extension of Jehovah’s rule over the neighboring 
 peoples gave rise as early as the time of David to revela- 
 tions of universalistic import. The subjugation of all the 
 earth to the Davidic house is a prophetic promise attach- 
 ing itself to the great conquests David had made. 
 Canonical prophecy later took up these predictions and 
 further developed them. The first canonical prophets 
 clothe this idea in the same form which it had acquired in’ 
 David’s time, that of external, warlike conquest. Soin 
 Obadiah, Joel, partly even in Amos and Hosea. The reason 
 was that the Israelites had not yet come in contact with 
 nations whose gigantic power excluded the thought of 
 external conquest. A new historical situation had to be 
 created to introduce the idea of a higher, spiritual submis- 
 sion of the nations to Jehovah. This historical situation 
 arose on the appearance of the great Eastern powers, Assyria 
 and Babel. From Isaiah onward universalistic prophecy 
 enters upon this new development. These Eastern powers 
 claimed world-wide dominion and over against this revela- 
 tion posits the idea of a universal kingdom of Jehovah, to 
 be founded on voluntary surrender to Israel’s God rather 
 than to Israel itself. A third impulse was given to uni- 
 versalistic prophecy by the expulsion of the ten tribes from 
 their land and the threatening deportation of the Judeans. 
 This led to dissociating the worship to be brought by 
 the Gentiles to Jehovah from Jerusalem and the temple. 
 
30 
 
 Cir. Zeph. 11, 11; 11,9. It appears, then, that in respect 
 to its great message of the extension of the true religion to: 
 the Gentiles, prophetism was determined by critical events. 
 ingihe history of the covenant people. The prophetic 
 promise of the removal of one of the chief limitations of the 
 Mosaic redemption attaches itself to important changes in 
 the condition of Israel. 
 
 3.) The third and most important fact which called 
 forth a new development of prophecy was the well-nigh 
 total apostasy of Israel and the consequent inevitably 
 threatening destruction of the existing form of the cov- 
 enant. As. pointed out above all prophetic preaching in- 
 volves the rebuke of sin. But this element in itself does. 
 not become an element of progress until the truth is 
 grasped that sin had advanced too far to leave room for 
 return by simple repentance. The judgment is now re- 
 cognized as the only means of regeneration. How im- 
 portant this recognition was for the history of prophetism 
 may be seen from the fact that it has determined the devel- 
 opment of pre-canonical into canonical prophecy. The usual 
 way of formulating the distinction as one between prophets 
 of action and prophets of the word is not entirely correct, 
 The earlier prophets, like Samuel and Nathan, made use of 
 the word likewise, though not to the same extent as the later 
 ones. The difference lies in this that the word of the later 
 prophets from the former half of the vitth century onwards 
 was committed to writing and made permanent, whereas 
 with the earlier prophets it remained a spoken and transient 
 word. The word of the pre-canonical prophets related to 
 the present; that of the canonical prophets belonged to the 
 future, because it bore in itself the germs of truth of ever- 
 lasting significance. Kuenen thinks, the prophets about this 
 time resorted to writing, because they had abandoned all 
 hope of obtaining a hearing with their cotemporaries and 
 hence naturally turned to posterity. This rests on Kuenen’s 
 view, that the prophets of the vri1th century had made such 
 rapid progress towards ethical monotheism as to leave the 
 rest of the people far behind. But this explanation is un- 
 satisfactory. What guarantee had the prophets that sub- 
 sequent generations would be more disposed to hear them ? 
 To ascribe to them the idea of historical evolution would be 
 an obvious anachronism. The prophets wrote because they 
 
31 
 
 felt the time was coming in which the old would be 
 destroyed to make way for something new, and because they 
 wished their word to stand as a witness to the continuity 
 between the old and the new. They first instinctively 
 grasped the idea of a history of redemption and revelation, 
 Hence we find that their literary activity is not confined to 
 the preservation of spoken oracles, but extends likewise to 
 sacred historiography. 
 
 The influence of this crisis on prophecy may be traced 
 along the following lines: 1.) It has developed the idea of 
 the national covenant between Jehovah and Israel in a more 
 individualistic direction. The Sinaitic covenant was in the 
 first place a national covenant. In this national form, how- 
 ever, the covenant was inseparable from the existing polit- 
 ical structure of the theocracy. The latter collapsing in judg- 
 ment, those faithful to Jehovah were unavoidably led to 
 reflect more upon their individual relation to Jehovah, and 
 to conceive of it as to some extent separable from the 
 national covenant, inasmuch as they continued to know 
 and serve Him, while the nation was rejected. Prophecy 
 distinctly assumes a more individualistic tone since the time 
 of Hosea. In Jeremiah this is most pronounced. 2.) Along- 
 side with this runs the growing recognition that the typical 
 and external forms of the theocracy are inadequate for the 
 highest service of Jehovah. There was a deepening sense 
 of sin, which the typical sacrificial system could no longer 
 allay. The sacrifices were effective on the basis of the 
 covenant only and it was felt that the covenant had been 
 broken. Hence the prophetic polemic against reliance on 
 the external cult. With the breaking down of the cere- 
 monial system, communion with Jehovah bound to ap- 
 pointed times and places and mediations, was no longer 
 possible. In its predictions of a spiritual and direct com- 
 munion prophecy announced the removal of an inherent 
 limitation of the Sinaitic covenant which had been accentu- 
 ated by the peculiar conditions of general apostasy. 3.) It 
 was recognized that the same causes which had brought 
 about the ruin of the external theocracy, would operate 
 with the same effect in the future, unless a new creation of 
 Jehovah so changed the people as to guarantee the stability 
 of the covenant. ‘The need of regenerating grace was more 
 deeply felt and, in response to this, prophetic revelation 
 
32 
 
 promised a new order of things in which the law would be 
 written on the heart. God will make such a covenant that 
 future apostasy is forever excluded. 
 
 It is to be observed that while making these bold dis- 
 closures of a future perfect state, prophecy did not place 
 itself in opposition to, nor even loosened its connection with 
 the law. Prophetism was not a revolutionary but a thor- 
 oughly historic movement. The law itself, while conditional 
 in one respect, contained absolute promises in another 
 respect. The Sinaitic covenant itself was a creation of God’s 
 free and sovereign grace, irrespective of Israel’s desert, and 
 is so far the principle on which it rested, left room for a new 
 adoption, after the breach of the covenant on Israel’s part. 
 Here was a historic basis on which prophecy could stand in 
 predicting a new and better dispensation, after the judg- 
 ment of casting out. In prophecy, notwithstanding its 
 intensely ethical character, there is an element of absolute- 
 ness. Some of its promises may be conditional, others are 
 not. As to the protest of prophecy against ceremonialism, 
 this proceeded from the most profound respect for the law, 
 because only on the basis of an acceptable covenant-status 
 did the law make the ceremonial system effective. 
 
 The typical adumbration of coming realities in the life of 
 prophecy itself. The chief significance of prophecy lies in its 
 being the organ of verbal revelation. The word is its great 
 instrument. But by its very existence and nature also, as an 
 institution within the theocracy, prophecy anticipated and 
 embodied future realities. Prophecy was a favor as well as 
 a service. In this respect the following features should be 
 noticed: 1.) Corresponding with its rebuke of sin and its 
 calling back to the observance of the covenant, prophecy 
 symbolizes in its own life the necessity of repentance. As 
 such it bore somewhat of an ascetic character. Its outward 
 appearance was sometimes austere, as we see in Elijah. The 
 prophets are placed on a line with the Nazirites for the same 
 reason, Amos 11,10, 11. 2.) The future universalism of 
 the knowledge of Jehovah has found typical expression at 
 least in the history of Jonah. Cfr. also Luke tv, 25-27. 
 3.) The individualism of religion foretold by the prophets 
 was illustrated in the intimate relation of the prophets 
 themselves to Jehovah. The prophet calls Jehovah “ my 
 God.” Hosea 1x, 8,17; Joel 1,18; Mic. vit, 17; Hab. 1, 12. 
 
33 
 
 Also“*myLord,’: Is. 1x, 7; x; l230xx1, 6. eSome; suppose 
 that the common use of the form Adonaj in address to 
 Jehovah, in which the force of the suffix is scarcely felt 
 any longer, resulted from the prophetic manner of speech. 
 4.) The more spiritual communion with Jehovah, and the 
 higher plane of religion promised for the new covenant 
 generally, are distinctly foreshadowed in the endowments of 
 the prophetic office. The prophets, for receiving their 
 revelations, stood in direct intercourse with Jehovah, an 
 intercourse not mediated by any external agencies. This 
 was a form of communion higher than had yet been attained 
 among Israel, something by which the whole people felt 
 honored. As soon as the word of Jehovah became scarce, 
 Israel felt that something was wanting. The silence of 
 prophecy was interpreted to mean a withdrawal of Jeho- 
 vah’s favor, Amos vill, 11,12. Ilence the constant com- 
 plaint in the captivity, that there is no vision, no prophecy 
 from Jehovah, Lam. 11, 9; Ps. txxiv, 9. The prophet is 
 called & man of the Spirit, ” Hosea i 7, not merely because 
 the Spirit is the organ of revelation, but likewise because 
 He is the medium of close communion with Jehovah. 
 Moses wishes that all God’s people were prophets, ‘ that 
 Jehovah would put his Spirit upon them,’ Numb. xt, 29. 
 Joel foretells that the chief blessing of the Messianic era 
 ee consist in a making common of “prophecy i in this sense, 
 
 28. Jeremiah promises that under the new covenant all 
 eral know Jehovah, as at that time only the teachers of Israel 
 knew Him. xXxXxI, 34; efr. Hebr. vit1, 11. Prayer is con- 
 nected with prophecy. Gen. xx, 7. Nay, the bestowal of 
 the prophetic gift is even described as a renewal of him who 
 receives it, 1 Sam. x, 6, “‘ Thou shalt prophesy — — — and 
 shalt be turned into another man”’; vs. 9, ‘“*God gave him 
 another heart.” The Spirit equips the prophet with a high 
 degree of spiritual strength, so that he can stand as the 
 representative of a higher “righteousness in the midst of an 
 unfaithful people. Mic. mi, 8. The divine word, which 
 the prophet receives, is a nourishing word, strengthening 
 his inner life, Jer. xv, 16. All which, of course, does not 
 mean that prophetic truth was simply the necessary product 
 of a higher religious experience. The reverse was the fact : 
 not the higher life produced the truth, the revealed truth be- 
 got the higher life. But there was special fitness in the 
 
34 
 
 prophet’s thus exemplifying to a degree in his own life the 
 realities of the new covenant. 
 
 ‘“* The Schools of the Prophets.”’ Probably the develop- 
 ment thus called finds its explanation in the typical function 
 of prophetism. The term “schools” is not Scriptural. In 
 1 Sam. x, 5, Samuel speaks of ‘“‘a band of prophets.” In 
 Ch. x1x, 20, we read of “the company of prophets.” After 
 this these designations are not met with again. In the 
 history of Ehjah, however, appear ‘‘ sons of prophets,” first 
 in I Kings xx, 35, living at Bethel (11 Kings 1, 3,) at Jericho, 
 (vs. 5,) and at Gilgal (1v, 88). Evidently Elijah and Elisha 
 possess a certain authority over them. The only reference 
 after this to *‘ the sons of prophets” is in Amos vu, 14. But 
 throughout the period of canonical prophecy, side by side 
 with the canonical prophets, we meet with a prophetic order 
 in a more or less fixed organization. Cfr. Is. 11, 2,3; Jer. 
 xvilt, 18. The canonical, prophets distinguish themselves 
 from this order, and denounce them as they do kings and 
 priests. In Jer. xx111, 33, these prophets are represented as 
 coming to Jeremiah to enquire about the burden of Jehovah. 
 This prophetic order seems to be the continuation of the 
 assemblies in Samuel’s and Elijah’s period. The banding 
 together of these prophets is their characteristic feature, 
 wherever they appear. Various explanations have been 
 offered of this phenomenon: 1.) Kuenen and other natural- 
 istic critics assume that prophetism at its beginning was but 
 a form of Canaanitish enthusiasm, transplanted into the soil 
 of Israel. Ecstatic emotion of this kind is always dependent 
 on intercourse between kindred spirits; it is contagious, and 
 this would lead a the flocking together of such as wished 
 to cultivate it. 2.) Others have assumed that the prophets 
 gathered together for the purpose of receiving instruction 
 from some accredited teacher, which instruction they were 
 afterwards to propagate among the people. 3.) The correct 
 view is that these assemblies constituted centers of spiritual 
 life. They belong to prophecy in the wider sense as represent- 
 ing a higher plane of intercourse with Jehovah. As far as 
 we can observe, verbal revelation was never communicated - 
 by a body of men collectively. Its instruments are always — 
 individual. On the other hand, the higher spiritual life of 
 the future was something that concerned the people of 
 Israel as a whole. As the priestly representation of Israel 
 
35 
 
 was entrusted to a tribe and family, so it was appropriate 
 that an order or companies of spiritual men should typify 
 the new Israel endowed with new gifts and powers. The 
 Spirit was to be a joint-possession of this new Israel ; hence 
 everybody coming into this prophetic circle was drawn into 
 the sphere of the ‘Spirit’s operation. So e g, Saul and his 
 messengers. That the prophets belonging to such bands 
 exercised any systematic teaching-function is not probable 
 on the face of the records. The difference between the other 
 prophets like Samuel and them lay precisely in this point, 
 that the former did, the latter did not receive disclosures of 
 truth for communication to others. Though all these 
 prophets stood under the direct influence of the Spirit and 
 were supernaturally instructed, they did not carry the truth 
 beyond their own immediate environment. It was simply 
 intended to produce within their: private circle the higher 
 spiritual life they were to represent. The wider and “nar- 
 rower aspect of prophecy could, of course, be united in one 
 person. Every revelation-prophet like Samuel was at the 
 same time a living example of spiritual intercourse with 
 God, a personal prophecy of the new covenant with its 
 privileges. As such he would enter into contact with the 
 wider circle of prophets. Frequently the revelation- prophets 
 will have been selected also from the circle of the assembly- 
 prophets. In later times the relations between the two 
 classes of prophets underwent a change. Amos disclaims 
 connection with the order of prophets. As the order 
 degenerated it seems to have encroached upon the specifie 
 functions of the revelation-prophets and to have called forth 
 the open antagonism and opposition of the latter. This ex- 
 plains the origin of that remarkable development on Biblical 
 soil, false prophetism in the name of Jehovah. False 
 prophetism was a mixture of fraud and illusion. It need 
 not have been the product of conscious fraud pure and 
 simple. Ifeven in the sphere of idolatry phenomena are 
 witnessed which present a certain formal analogy with 
 Biblical prophetism and to which a certain degree of sin- 
 cerity cannot be denied, the inference is that prophetie 
 intercourse with the Deity is a necessary element in all 
 religion, and is instinctively simulated by man, where ob- 
 jective revelation does not provide it. In the later 
 times there prevailed among the apostate part of Israel a 
 
36 
 
 false conception of Jehovah, and a false worship of Jehovah, 
 which assimilated Him to the gods of the heathen. From 
 this false conception of Jehovah, an erroneous view of 
 revelation and self-deception as to reveiving personal dis- 
 closures from Him were inseparable. But, as elsewhere, 
 so here also to the illusion, conscious fraud inevitably 
 attached itself. Even from the moral pointof view of sincerity 
 it is unhistorical to place these false prophets on a line with 
 the organs of true revelation, as the critics are coustantly 
 endeavoring to do, with the evident aim of making prophet- 
 isin resemble, as much as eal uote phenomena of 
 natural religion. Cfr. Jer. xxi, 27. 
 
 The revelation-function of prophecy in particular. The 
 important question is, in how far the prophets were the 
 instruments of communicating divine truth. The point 
 at issue between the various theories is not in the 
 first place the manner of God’s operation upon the 
 prophet, but rather the character of the prophet’s utterances. 
 The specific claim of the latter to be infallible expressions 
 of the divine mind may be established independently or 
 in connection with the mode of revelation. In ascertaining 
 the opinion of the prophets themselves on this subject we 
 observe: 1.) The prophets distinguished sharply between 
 their ordinary course of lite ard their official life as repre- 
 sentatives of Jehovah. The two were separated by a call. 
 This call has been circumstantially described by Isaiah, 
 Jeremiah, Ezekiel. It is referred to by Amos, vir, 15. 
 Numerous times it is said that Jehovah sent the prophets, 
 Jer, XXVI, 5; xxvitt, 9. This same term “sending” is employ- 
 ed also to designate the repeated commission of a prophet 
 for the deliverance of some specific message, Jer. xxv1, 15. 
 But in either case the call or the commission is a momentary 
 occurrence. This fact favours strongly the strictly represen- 
 tative nature of the prophetic word. Had this word been 
 divine in a looser sense only, as a product of the general 
 operation of the Spirit, then it would have acquired this 
 character of representing God gradually in dependence 
 upon the prophet’s subjective condition. If the prophet be- 
 comes a speaker of God at a definite point of time, then 
 his words from that time onward must be taken not figur- 
 atively but literally as the words of God. 2.) In many cases 
 there is not merely a distinction but even an antithesis 
 
37 
 
 between the natural thoughts and desires of the prophets 
 and the truth they were commissioned to proclaim. The 
 divine word was to them something dreaded which they 
 would gladly have escaped from. But the divine command 
 was so distinct and powerful that they could not resist. 
 Cfr. Jer. xx, 7, 8. 3.) All the indisputable instances of 
 definite prediction in the prophetic writings bear witness to 
 the fact that this much at least of their message was spoken 
 as a strictly divine, infallible truth. Such predictions have 
 no meaning as utterances of men, they must be revelation- 
 truth in the absolute sense. But the prophets make no- 
 where a distinction between this particular part of their 
 preaching and the other elements. Both are considered by 
 them divine in the same sense. To admit the infallible 
 character of these single predictions scattered through the 
 prophetic writings, and to assert imperfections and mistakes 
 in the other parts, is an intenable position. 4.) The divine, 
 infallible character of the prophetic word is most firmly 
 established by inquiring into the mode of its communication 
 from God to the prophet. 
 
 The mode of communication of the truth to the prophets. 
 The divine truth is disclosed in a twofold manner. Either it 
 is shown by visions which address themselves to the sight, 
 or it is spoken in words which address themselves to the 
 hearing of the prophet. These two forms of revelation are 
 not mutually exclusive. Sometimes the vision involves 
 speech and hearing, and at other times the word of revela- 
 tion seems to have been interrupted by visions. 
 
 I. Revelation by means of visions. The prophet is called 
 mo and mn. Some hold that originally these names were 
 expressive of the extraordinary insight into hidden things 
 possessed by the prophets, and not of visions as a mode of 
 receiving revelation. There is no evidence in favor of this 
 view; it is held by Kuenen in connection with the theory 
 that prophetism in Israel grew out of the practical sooth- 
 saying of ancient times. The canonical prophets are in their 
 own writings nowhere called seers, for a reason to be 
 explained below. On the other hand those constituting the 
 order of prophets are more than once so designated; cfr. 
 PATIOS Vil, U2 lox xix LO xxx AlO Mic, tir, 7.) [fis true 
 that the contents of the prophetic message are often called 
 vin ‘vision,’ but this term in later times obtained a wider 
 
38 
 
 meaning in which it was sy nonymous with prophetic revela- 
 tion in general, whether given in audible or visible form ; 
 efr. IT Sam. nigh Ogee IEE Jer. XxXvitl, 21; Hab. 1, 1. Visions 
 proper are recorded of: the canonical prophets in the follow- 
 ing cases: Amos vil, 1-9; vitt, 1-8; 1x, 1; Is. v1; Jer. 1 
 11-13; xxiv, 1; Ezek. 1-111; viti—x1; xxxvil, 1-10; xL—-xLVu1; 
 Zech. 1, 8—vi, 8. Taking the extended visions of Ezekiel 
 as units, we obtain the number of tw enty-one distinct visions. 
 This is a relatively-small number, and tends to disprove 
 Hengstenberg’s view that visions were the constant form of 
 prophetic revelation. There is evidence, however, that in 
 earlier times this mode of communication was more fre- 
 quently employed: 1.) According to Numb. x11, 6-8 visions 
 and dreams preponderated in the ‘Mosaic time as vebicles for 
 the disclosure of truth. Moses alone is singled out as repre- 
 senting a higher form of revelation. Deut. xvii1, 18 prom- 
 ised that later prophecy would be hke unto that of Moses. 
 It is not unlikely that the resemblance included this 
 very element of revelation without the aid of visions. 
 2.) From 1 Sam. 1x, 9, we learn, that he who was later 
 called a ‘‘ speaker ”’, Nabhi, was beforetime called in Israel 
 a “seer”, Roeh. This change of name must be considered 
 indicative of a change in the character of prophecy, and 
 such a change is most naturally found in the transition 
 from a pre- eminently visionary mode of prophecy, to one in 
 which visions became the exception. When the whole 
 process of revelation on its receiving as well as on its pro- 
 claiming side became a process of speech, the appropriate 
 name for the prophet became Nabhi, “Speaker.” 3.) This 
 view explains why, while the canonical prophets never call 
 themselves seers, yet the contents’ of their message are 
 called visions. In an earlier time, when visions were the 
 ordinary form of revelation, the term vision had become the 
 general name for truth supernaturally disclosed, and this 
 sense was retained after the form of revelation had changed, 
 “The vision of Isaiah” simply means his prophecy irrespec- 
 tive of the fact that its greater part did not come to Isaiah 
 in visions. 4.) We have but few data in regard to the early 
 history of prophecy, but what evidence there is tends to 
 confirm this view. Balaam’s revelations all came to him 
 while he was in a visionary state. For the time preceding 
 Samuel, “ word of Jehovah” and “frequent vision” are 
 
 ’ 
 
39 
 
 synonymous, I : Sam. m1, 1. 5.) This course of things would 
 indicate a natural progress in the form of revelation from 
 the more external and sensual to the more internal and 
 spiritual mode. Speech and sound come nearer in their 
 nature to the spiritual world than perceptible objects and 
 sight. 
 
 To determine the precise character of a prophetic vis- 
 ion as differing from cognate experiences distinctions can be 
 drawn: 1) As to the nature of the objects perceived. These 
 objects may be: a.) realities of the supernatural world tem- 
 porarily brought within the sphere of vision of the organ of 
 revelation. ‘’he numerous theophanies and appearances of 
 angels are examples of this. Paul speaks of ‘a man in Christ 
 caught up even to the third heaven—caught up into Para- | 
 dise—who heard unspeakable words ’”’; b.) reality supernat- 
 urally created for the moment, usually fora symbolic purpose, 
 e. g. the burning bush of Moses, the phenomena accompany- 
 ing the promulgation of the Decalogue at Sinai; c) Sym- 
 bolic images produced in the perception of the prophet by 
 some operation upon his body or soul without a correspond- 
 ing objective reality. 2.) As tothe mode of perception: a.) 
 the bodily eyes may be employed in seeing the object; thus 
 Elijah and Elisha saw the horses and chariots of fire II 
 Kings 11,11; Paul assumes the possibility that the man in 
 Christ saw the heavenly things in the body; sometimes a 
 special operation upon the eye was necessary to enable it to 
 see the supernatural appearances, cfr. II. Kings v1, 17; Eze- 
 kiel repeatedly mentions that before his visions the hand of 
 Jehovah was upon him, 1, 3,4; vitr, 2,3. Paul’s vision on the 
 way to Damascus was a revelation of the real exalted Christ, 
 because he puts it on a line with the appearances of the Risen 
 One to the other Apostles, and yet his companions did not 
 see it, Acts Ix, 7; b.) without the aid of the bodily eyes the 
 soul may be made to see directly the revelation-objects 
 presented to it. 
 
 Many find the specific character of the prophetic vision 
 in the combination of the features 1.) ¢ and 2.) b. To most 
 cases recorded in the prophetic writings this seems to be ap- 
 plicable, but a hard and fast line cannot be drawn. Noone 
 can affirm that the objects seen by the prophet in the vision- 
 ary state were always unreal phantasms; sometimes realities 
 may have entered into the field of visionary perception. On 
 
40 
 
 the other hand the Bible does not strictly exclude the cor- 
 poreal vision of supernatural realities from the class of visions. 
 II Cor. x11, 1,4—‘‘visions and revelations of the Lord.” Here 
 as elsewhere, the Bible makes no exact classification. In 
 discussing the prophetic vision in this commonly accepted 
 sense, we do not deny, therefore, that other elements may 
 have entered into it. 
 
 The reality of the visionary state in the narrower sense. Its 
 main feature is the direct vision by the soul of revelation- 
 images. Thatsuch a direct vision, without intervention of 
 the sense-organ, took place, follows from: 1.) The case of 
 Balaam. Balaam describes himself as ‘‘ the man whose eye 
 was closed”? and as the man ‘“ which seeeth the vision of the 
 Almighty— — — having his eye open.” Numb. xxiv. 8, 4. 
 The most natural interpretation is that the seer’s inner eye 
 was opened, whilst his bodily eyes were closed. 2.) What 
 the N. T. relates of the éxotaore accompanying the vision 
 proves the suspension of all sense-perception in the body (see 
 below.) 3.) Frequently the prophetic vision is mentioned 
 side by side with the revelation-dream, Numb. x11, 6; Joel 
 mi, 1; Dan.1,17. Now the point of comparison between 
 dreams and visions seems to lie precisely in this that in both 
 the soul sees things without the intervention of the bodily 
 organs. The body rests, the soul is active in visions and 
 dreams alike. The difference between dreams and visions 
 is, that in the latter the clearness and intelligence of the wak- 
 ing state are retained, whereas in the former the mental 
 faculties work inorderly and dimly. Dreams occupy a much 
 lower place in the seale of revelation-vehicles than visions; 
 the later prophets did not receive them, whereas the false 
 prophets seem to have relied on them exclusively, Jer. XX111, 
 25, 32. 4.) Thesymbolic nature of the objects seen by the 
 prophets in most of their visions, favors the view, that not 
 the bodily but the inner eye was engaged in perceiving them. 
 
 The psychological possibility of inner vision. Wemust re- 
 member that even external seeing is, strictly speaking, not 
 an act of the eye, but of the soul in response to certain im- 
 pressions conveyed by the eye. The internal mental act is 
 usually dependent on external processes, but is by no means 
 identical with these processes. If this be so, theré is no 
 imaginable reason why the soul should,if God so choose, 
 not receive these same impressions, on which it usually reacts 
 
41 
 
 by sight, in a different way, and respond to them in the usual 
 manner. If the optic nerve, instead of receiving the impres- 
 sion from an external object, were directly stimulated, the 
 same nervous process would take place and the same result 
 would follow. But, instead of the nerves affecting the soul, 
 the impressions usually caused by them in so mysterious a 
 manner, may be equally well made upon the soul directly, 
 and again the result willhave to be the same. Tor both of 
 these possibilities illustrations can be drawn from actual 
 experience. The nerves are frequently so affected by some 
 cause or condition in the body as to produce the sensation 
 of seeing, an external vision, to which no reality corresponds. 
 Such hallucinations of sight, though belonging to an abnor-. 
 mal state, nevertheless prove the possibility of sight being 
 caused in some other than the usual way. Our faculty of 
 recalling images once seen and placing them with various 
 degrees of vividness before our mental eye illustrates the 
 second case. God, who has perfect access toall created spirits, 
 can surely operate upon the prophetic mind in such a way 
 as to dispense with the help of the external eye. 
 
 The Bible furnishes no data to determine more precisely 
 how the visionary sensations were produced. Nothing as 
 to the actual procedure can be here determined a-priori. This 
 alone we learn, from what the Bible relates about ézxoraacc, 
 that frequently the operation of the sense-organs was sus- 
 pended, the body appearing as if the person were in a state 
 of sleep. Further than this everything is involved in ob- 
 scurity. Whether the power of God operated upon the 
 nervous system inwardly, or upon the soul directly we do not 
 know. In either case the vision may have presented itself 
 to the prophet with equal objectivity as when mediated by 
 the ordinary sense. That the subjective sensation cannot have 
 been greatly different from that experienced in ordinary see- 
 ing seems to follow from Paul’s uncertainty as to whether his 
 visions had taken place in the body or out of the body. II. 
 Conall, 2. 
 
 The visionary state on its subjective side.--The exact mental 
 state of the prophet while receiving the vision has been a 
 subject of long controversy. In the second century a. ¢. 
 the Montanists cultivated and defended a mode of prophecy 
 which rendered the prophet out of his senses. In order to 
 justify the phenomena current among themselves, the Mon- 
 
42 
 
 tanists claimed that the Biblical prophets had been subject 
 to the same conditions. Ilence the view that in the vision- 
 ary state the prophet is amens has been called the Montanist 
 view. Tertullian, who sided with the Montanists, spoke of 
 the amentia of the prophets. In modern times Hengstenberg 
 has been the foremost defender of this opinion. In the first 
 edition of his Christology this author approaches the Mon- 
 tanistic extreme, while in the second edition his statements 
 are more moderate, and he admits that, as between the 
 Montanists and the orthodox fathers, the truth lay in the 
 middle. Sometimes the Montanist view is identified with 
 belief in the ecstatic state of the prophet. But éxoracc is a 
 term which may be used in more than one sense, and the 
 question whether the Biblical prophets were in ecstasy will 
 have to be answered according to the sense in which the 
 word is taken. Nothing can be interred from the few pas- 
 sages where the word éxoraoc appears in Biblical Greek. 
 Literally it denotes ‘(a throwing of the mind out of its nor- 
 mal state.” In the Septuagint it occurs in’ two senses: 
 1.) as the rendering of the Hebrew D774 *‘ a heavy torpor of 
 sleep,’ Gen. 11, 21; xv, 12; 2.) in the sense of astonishment, 
 dread occasioned by some extraordinary event. In classical 
 Greek the word had a much stronger meaning, that of 
 temporary insanity, mania. In this sense, however, it 
 was not originally applied to the mania of Manticism. In 
 heathen, more particularly in Greek Manticism, the inspira- 
 tion from the deity was received in a semi-conscious or 
 unconscious state. The Pythia at Delphi e. g. lost all con- 
 trol of her own mind and body, and became the purely 
 passive instrument through which the god spoke. Philo has 
 first-applied the word éxorao¢ to this state of inspiration, 
 and with the word has transferred this heathen conception 
 to the O. T. prophets. According to Philo the voug takes 
 its departure when the divine Spirit arrives in the prophet, 
 because it would not be fitting for the mortal to dwell with 
 the immortal. The N. T. uses the word on two occasions, 
 Acts x, 10; x1, 5, of Peter at Joppa, and xxi1, 17, of Paul in 
 the temple at Jerusalem. It is obvious that these two 
 instances cannot clothe the Philonic use of the term with 
 Scriptural authority, the author of Acts simply describing 
 thereby the visionary state in a general way. What this 
 state in particular was like must be gathered from the inci- 
 
43 
 
 dental statements of the Bible in regard to it. The facts 
 show that eestasy in the Philonic sense, as an alienation of 
 the-mind from itself, is excluded: 1.) The Biblical proph- 
 ets on coming out of the visionary state have a clear remem- 
 brance of what they saw and heard while being in it. Not 
 so the heathen pavrecc, because during the vision their 
 consciousness ceased to operate. Manticism was an un- 
 natural thing, the supposed god coming and dislodging man 
 from his own mind; true prophecy is a process whereby the 
 spirit of man is honored and lifted to the highest plane of 
 conscious intercourse with God. 2) The prophets, while 
 in the visionary state, retained the faculty of reflection and 
 introspection. Isaiah compares with the holiness of Jehovah 
 sung by the Seraphs his own sinful condition. Ezekiel in a 
 later vision was aware of the similarity of what he saw to 
 what had been shown him on a former occasion, cfr. III, 
 23; vill, 4; X,15; Xx, 22; xu, 3. Interesting from this 
 point of view is Is. Xx1, 6-10, where the prophet’s person- 
 ality in its twofold aspect of receiving the vision on the one 
 hand and of reflecting upon it and speaking about it to 
 Jehovah on the other hand, is divided into the “ watchman” 
 
 and the prophet himself. The 8th vs. shows that these two 
 personalities are one, the watchman being none other than 
 the prophet himself. 3.) In the N. T. we have the explicit 
 declaration of St Paul, 1 Cor. xrv, 32, that the spirits of the 
 prophets are subject to the prophets, this being the very 
 point in which prophecy was distinguished from the Glosso- 
 lalia or speaking with tongues. 4,) ‘The distinction made 
 between visions and dreanis is in favor of the view that the 
 mind of the prophet in the vision retained intelligent con- 
 trol of itself, the lack of which is a characteristic feature of 
 the state of dreaming. For all these reasons the term 
 ecstasy can be applied to Scriptural visions only in the 
 sense of an alienation of the mind from the use of the sense- 
 organs, not in that of an alienation of the mind from itself. 
 Positively we observe: 1.) That the trance or loosening of 
 the soul from the body, together with the appearance of the 
 images, must have forced into the background of conscious- 
 ness every other content, except the revelation-content im- 
 mediately before it, which entirely absorbed the attention. 
 This happens frequently in result of the suddenness with 
 which any new experience rushes in upon us, so that after- 
 
44 
 
 wards we are not able to recall what we were thinking of, 
 when it came. 2.) The visionary state need not always have 
 affected the body in the same sense or to the same degree. 
 Sometimes the result may have been purely negative, so that 
 the body lay perfectly quiet ‘as inasleep. There were other 
 times, however, in which the vision called forth a reaction 
 in the body with symptoms of a more or less abnormal char- 
 acter. We read of a falling down of Ezekiel as soon as the 
 hand of Jehovah came upon him. This was not a voluntary 
 act of worship, but the eftect of the overpowering divine 
 influence. The Spirit had to set the prophet upon his feet 
 again, I, 28; 11, 1. Balaam also describes himself as falling 
 down, Numb. xxiv, 4, 16. Occasiona!ly there was the sensa- 
 tion of great heat manifesting itself in the throwing off of 
 the outer garments, I Sam. xix, 24. Cfr. Jer. xx, 9; Ezek. 
 vitt, 14, although in Saul’s and Jeremiah’s case this sensa- 
 tion is not explicitly connected with the visionary state. 
 Owing to such actions the prophet could make upon other 
 persons the impression of being a madman, II Kings rx, 11, 
 12; Jer. xxix, 26. These phenomena, however, were rare 
 among the Biblical, especially among the canonical prophets. 
 They prevailed extensively among the heathen Manteis, and 
 in Israel the false prophets or the prophets of idols culti- 
 vated them, to strengthen themselves and others in the 
 belief that they were inspired. Zech. x1, 5,6. 3) After 
 the vision had passed away a state of great mental and bodily 
 exhaustion seems to have ensued. In order to interpret to 
 him a new vision, the Angel had to awake Zechariah “as a 
 man that is wakened out of his sleep,” Zech. iv, 1.  Cfr. 
 also Jer. XxXI, 26. 
 
 Many critics claim that the prophetic visions were not 
 real experiences, but simply a form of literary composition 
 employed by the prophets to add vividness and force to their 
 writings. Some have applied this to all visions; most writ- 
 ers restrict it to the later period of prophetism, holding that 
 the visions at first were real, but that. as prophecy developed, 
 they were nothing more than literary compositions, which 
 the prophets did not intend to be taken realistically. The 
 arguments adduced in support of this view are: 1.) Some 
 visions are so circumstantial and elaborate, that they cannot 
 have been perceived; they betray in numerous points the 
 careful artistic workmanship of the free composer. 2.) Some 
 
45 
 
 of the visions are made up of such grotesqne and fantastic 
 features, that no degree of imaginative power enables us to 
 combine them into a real picture. They elude the painter’s 
 skill for the simple reason that they are no real visions, but 
 ageregates of loosely combined sin gle representations. What 
 nobody can be made to see the prophets cannot have seen. 
 3.) The connection between the vision and the truth it is 
 intended to express is often far-fetched and artificial. Ifthe 
 visions had been objective manifestations, the truth would 
 of itself have assumed a more natural symbolic form. Cfr. 
 Jer. 1,12. 4.) The complicated and artificial visions occur 
 in the later prophets, Ezekiel and Zechariah ; the simple and 
 natural ones belong to the older period of prophetism. The 
 explanation is that the latter are real visions, the URS 
 literary products. To these arguments we reply : 1.) We 
 cannot from our own experience determine to how high a 
 degree the faculty of seeing and reproducing details of a 
 vision may have been developed in the prophets. The 
 prophets were Shemites; the ecstatic state allowed of intense 
 concentration of the soul upon a single scene. 2.) For the 
 same reason our inability to combine the single elements of 
 a vision into a picture does not exclude their having been 
 so combined in the prophetic mind. 38.) The argument sub 
 3) proves the opposite of what it is claimed to prove. In the 
 ease of free literary composition prophets like Amos and 
 Jeremiah would certainly have been capable of producing 
 more natural and striking symbols than their visions are. 
 They have proven their skill in poetic composition else- 
 where. Nothing remains, therefore, but to say that the 
 apparently artificial vision was objectively shown to them. 
 4.) It may be true that the unnatural visions are found only 
 in the later prophets, but these later prophets on other occa- 
 sions see visions of striking vividness and great natural 
 beauty. This shows that whatever artificiality there is to 
 our taste is not the result of their manner of literary com- 
 position. 5.) It is difficult to explain why the prophets 
 made such rare use of this form of symbolic representation. 
 An instrument appealing so strongly to the Shemitic mind 
 they would certainly have employed more freely, had the 
 use of it depended on their own choice. 6.) The prophets 
 make a clear distinction between symbolic actions as per- 
 formed by themselves and symbolic significance imparted to 
 
46 
 
 their persons on the one hand, and symbolic visions seen by 
 them on the other hand. If the visions were literary inven- 
 tions, why this distinction? Why did not Jeremiah exhibit 
 the almond-rod as a symbol, or Amos the basket of sum- 
 mer-fruit? The real rod and the real basket as symbols 
 would have been more effective than the bare statement of 
 their alleged appearance in a vision. 7.) Most writers now 
 admit that the earher prophets did see visions. But the 
 later prophets speak of theirs in precisely the same language. 
 This would have been misleading, had they not actually seen 
 them. 
 
 Revelation by Speech, Weterences to the speaking of 
 Jehovah are frequent in the prophetic writings. Sometimes 
 Jehovah’s speaking is a coinprehensive name for the whole 
 process of communicating the truth through the prophet to 
 his hearers. What we enquire about is Jehovah’s speech to 
 the prophets. fr. for the distinction Hagg. 1,1; Mal. 1, 1 
 with Hos. xu, 1. That the prophets knew of a revelation- 
 speech addressed to them will appear from the following con- 
 siderations: 1.) The terms 717 Vox, TN 737, TT oN); the 
 first and second of these are Perfects and mean, literally 
 translated, ‘‘ Jehovah hath said or hath spoken.” The last is 
 a Participle Passive and means literally ‘that which has 
 been oracled.” Now it need not be denied that in their 
 later frequent use these words have perhaps assumed a 
 looser meaning, so as to express the speaking of Jehovah 
 through the prophet also. But the Perfect form shows that 
 originally they related to revelations received before the 
 prophet spoke. God spoke first to him, afterwards he re- 
 peated or reproduced what he had heard in God’s name. 
 2.) The prophets distinguish between Jehovah as the speak- 
 ing God and the idols as dumb gods. This whole antithesis 
 loses its point, if the divine speech be not a speech to the 
 prophets. For as to speech through the prophets, in regard 
 to this there was no apparent distinction between Jehovah 
 and the idols. Baal spoke through his prophets as well as 
 Jehovah did. The difference lay precisely in this point 
 that in Heathen prophecy there was no objective speech 
 coming from the gods to the prophets, but only an assumed 
 entrance of the deity into the prophet to make him an un- 
 unconscious organ, Ofr. Is. xii, 22-26; xii, 9; Jer. 
 x, 5; Hab. 1m, 18. 3.) The divine speech must have 
 
47 
 
 been considered objective speech by the prophets, be- 
 cause it is represented as the expression of the planning 
 and thinking of Jehovah. Just as in man thought and 
 speech belong organically together, so in God. Now, if these 
 plans and thoughts are in God, then the speech must be in 
 God alco irae. xix, 17; Xxti/ OS er, Li 2o; Amos It, 7, 
 4.) As a matter of fact we find a mouth ascribed to Jehovah, 
 which, while not, of course, implying his corporeal nature, 
 yet admits of no other interpretation than that He has the 
 faculty of speech in the literal sense; Is. xxx1v, 16; Jer. 1, 
 7,17. 5.) The prophets ascribe to the speaking of Jehovah 
 various forms and various degrees of emphasis, and dis- 
 tinctly say that He spoke unto his servants. Amos It, 7; 
 Teo avait xt y 24> Ler ayn 0 eanios Ep. 82) G8) 
 The speaking of Jehovah is assigned by the prophets to a 
 definite point of time. Is. xvr, 18, 14; Jer. 1, 18. 
 
 The character of revelation-speech was twofold, external and 
 internal speech. By external speech we understand a divine 
 act which causes certain sounds to be conducted through 
 the ordinary organ of hearing to the mind of the prophet. 
 There is clear evidence that in some cases the divine speech 
 bore this character. Isaiah says that Jehovah spoke in his 
 ears, V, 9; xxl, 14; similarly Ezek. 11, 10. Other local 
 expressions are used describing the direction from which 
 the words came to the prophet’s ear, Ezek. 111, 12, ‘‘ behind 
 me”; ts, Xx1, 105 xxviti, 22; [Sami 11,8; 9. In the last case 
 the voice was so external that Samuel mistook it repeatedly 
 for Eli’s voice; cfr. also I Kings xrx, 11-13, where the wind, 
 the earthquake, the fire, the voice of gentle stillness are all 
 external, and consequently the revelation-voice following im- 
 mediately after must have been so likewise. It is probable, 
 however, that the prophets frequently heard the voice of 
 Jehovah in a different manner, internally, without the use of 
 their external organs of hearing. Some have attempted to 
 vindicate for all prophetic revelation the character of external 
 speech addressed to the bodily ear. Friedrich Eduard Konig, 
 the author of an able and exhaustive treatise on the idea of 
 revelation in the Old Testament, takes this ground, because 
 he thinks that only thus could an infallible assurance be 
 produced in the prophet’s mind regarding the objective 
 divine source of the revelation. But this a-priori ground is 
 in itself insufficient to prove the thesis. It cannot be proven 
 
48 
 
 that externality of revelation in this sense excludes all pos- 
 sibility of self deception. Nor can we assert that speech 
 entering internally into the heart must lack the marks of 
 objectivity so as to be no longer distinguishable from the 
 prophet’s own mental processes, As to the possibility of 
 internal speech, this rests on the same ground discussed 
 above under the subject of visions. The only question re- 
 maining 18s, whether there be sufficient evidence in the Script- 
 ures to assume that this mode was actually employed by God. 
 The following facts come under consideration: 1.) The 
 root oxi 18 cognate with the roots on: and nnn “ to grumble, 
 to rumble” and expressive of dull, low sounds. The 
 phrase 737 08) is, therefore, as Riehm says, ‘‘ an appropriate 
 description of the hollow, deadened tones of a voice from 
 the world of mystery.” But in all accounts we possess. of 
 revelation by external speech, there is nothing to.intimate 
 that this ever came in such low, whispered tones. The 
 ‘sound of gentle stillness” (‘“ still small voice’ }, I Kings 
 xIX, 12, was symbolical, the real revelation coming after- 
 wards. It is not unlikely, then, that this peculiar sensa- 
 tion was characteristic of internal hearing. 2.) We have the 
 New Testament analogy as illustrated in our Lord’s life. 
 Only in three instances did revelations come to Him as 
 external voices; in all other cases there must have been an 
 inward speech appropriated by inward hearing. Cfr. Jno. v, 
 30. Similarly, in the case of Paul, even the revelation which 
 effected his conversion and call, though it began with an 
 external voice, seems to have been continued by inward 
 speech. Gal.1,15,16. 3) The analogy of revelation by sight 
 seems to require a double mode of revelation by sound. If 
 the visions were not always seen by the bodily eye, we may 
 assume that the speech of God was not always heard by the 
 bodily ear. The prophets declare that some previous opera- 
 tion was necessary to enable them to appropriate the divine 
 speech when it came, which feature makes the analogy 
 between internal seeing and hearing all the more obvious. 
 This operation is called ‘“‘the wakening of the ear.” The 
 extraordinary faculty of hearing by the inward sense is 
 represented as asleep in the course of ordinary life. If God 
 wishes to address Himself to it, He must first wake the ear. 
 I Sam. rx, 15; Is. t, 4. We do not gain the impression, 
 however, that the subjective state of the prophet, while receiv- 
 
49 
 
 ing such internal revelation, resembled in any way, the 
 abnormal conditions of the visionary state. In this respect 
 there seems to have been a great difference between internal 
 hearing and internal seeing. 4.) The Spirit of God is accord- 
 ing to the prophets the organ for communicating the divine 
 truth to them, and this favors the view that in some cases at 
 at least the process of revelation was an inward one. 
 This has been denied by K6énig, who restricts the work of 
 the Spirit connected with revelation to preparing the human 
 mind and making it receptive, thus excluding from it all 
 impartation of truth. But there are numerous passages 
 which speak of the Spirit as revealing the truth. IL Sam. 
 Mie nee xKiIt 21s Joel ire di lsmxni Leia 
 Zech, vil, 12; Neh. rx, 30. St. Peter removes all doubt on 
 this point, saying that the Spirit of Christ testified in the 
 prophets beforehand, I Peter 1, 11. Cfr. also I Cor. 11, 10. 
 In what proportion verbal revelation took place by ex- 
 ternal or by internal speech cannot be determined. As 
 verbal revelation gradually supplanted visions, so the use of 
 the internal word may have marked an advance in the 
 development of prophetism. In the inner word God comes 
 nearer to man than in any other mode of revelation. It has 
 been suggested, that before the fall internal speech was the 
 only vehicie whereby God communed with man. If this 
 were so, it would explain the dread created in fallen man 
 by the first sound of the external voice of God, Gen. 111, 10, 
 and the return to this original mode of revelation would be 
 one of the aspects in which prophecy itself is a type of the 
 restored perfect communion between God and man. 
 Revelation by inspiration. The whole contents of the 
 prophetic writings are not. covered by the two modes of 
 revelation hitherto discussed. In numerous passages the 
 prophets speak in their own persons and without the usual 
 formula introducing words of Jehovah. The transition from 
 the reproductive to the more independent prophetic dis- 
 course is sometimes clearly marked, cfr. Amos v, 1, 2, 3; 
 Hosea xir, 16; x1v,1,4; Is.1, 2,4; vir, 8,9. It would be 
 entirely wrong to suppose, however, that in such passages, 
 the prophets ascribed a purely human authority to their 
 words. If this were so, they would have taken care to separ- 
 ate in each instance with precision between what was revela- 
 tion-truth and their own discourse. Instead of doing this, 
 
50 
 
 they continually interweave the two elements sometimes so 
 closely that it is impossible to disentangle them. Cfr. Hosea 
 Iv, 1-6; Is. 11, 4, 5, 9,10. The whole prophetic word is to 
 them the word of Jehovah possessing absolute divine author- 
 ity. Cfr. Jer. xxxvi, 10, ‘the words of Jeremiah,” vs. 11, 
 “the words of Jehovah.” In many cases the contents of the 
 prophetic message lay ready in the prophet’s mind, as the 
 product of his general knowledge of Jehovah applied to con- 
 erete circumstances, and there was no need of communicat- 
 ing new thoughts to him. In such instances there was no 
 revelation to the prophet, but the Spirit of Jehovah so con- 
 trolled his mental processes that the truth was spoken or 
 written in a form possessing equal divine authority with 
 other messages directly disclosed. In its significance for 
 those who heard, the prophetic word was in both cases 
 entirely the same. Here, then, inspiration transformed the 
 truth proceeding from the prophet’s consciousness into revela- 
 tion-truth. Of course the influence of inspiration must like- 
 wise be extended to all other revelations whether received 
 by hearing or by sight. In the case of the latter it is plain 
 that what Jehovah had disclosed would have to be described 
 in words, and on the choice of these words the correct repro- 
 duction of the vision depended. But also in the case of 
 verbal revelation, it is evident that the prophets did not 
 mechanically repeat what Jehovah had spoken to them. In 
 those passages where God is introduced as speaking, as well 
 as in those where the prophets speak, the individual char- 
 acter of the style of the writer is discernible. Some have 
 explained this on the principle that God in speaking to the 
 prophets accomodated Himself to their individual style. 
 It is much more reasonable to assume that the prophets freely 
 reproduced what they had heard and that the divine authorita- 
 tive character, which they claim for this reproduced speech 
 of Jehovah, was secured for it by the process of inspiration. 
 
 Ill. Tue DocrrinaL Content oF THE PRopuecy or Hosza. 
 The revelation-ideas of the book of Hosea may be suit- 
 ably grouped under the following heads: 
 
 1.) The covenant between Jehovah and Israel. 
 2.) Jehovah as the Covenant-Lord of Israel. 
 
51 
 
 3.) The breach of the covenant on Israel’s part. (Hosea’s 
 teaching on the subject of sin.) 
 
 4.) The covenant.judgment and its twofold purpose. 
 
 5.) The future restoration of the covenant-bond and its 
 ideal perfection. 
 
 1.) The Covenant between Jehovah and Israel. 
 
 The covenant-idea is with Hosea the central idea of 
 Israel’s religion, as may be seen from the first three chapters, 
 where the covenant is set forth under the figure of the mar- 
 riage -union between the prophet and his wife. Wellhausen 
 thinks, that this turn given to the idea is original with 
 Hosea and requires a definite historical event to account for 
 its origin. This definite historical event he finds in the 
 domestic experiences of the prophet, who was led to view 
 his own unhappy relations with his wife as an image of the 
 relation between Jehovah and Israel. This view involves 
 the realistic explanation of Ch. I and HI. Only the explicit 
 divine command to take a wife of whoredom was a subse- 
 quent interpretation of events. It is not necessary for 
 Biblical Theology to decide the vexed dispute between 
 allegorists and realists in regard to these chapters. The 
 religious significance of the description is precisely the same 
 whether it be history or allegory. Even if adopting the 
 realistic view, we need not with Wellhausen infer, that here 
 hes the origin of the marriage-conception as applied to the 
 covenant, for this conception is found in the Decalogue, 
 Re Xs Bi Deut. v, 9. Like that of fatherhood and king- 
 ship, the idea of a marriage-union between God and his* 
 worshippers is so primitive and fundamental as not to 
 require a definite historical explanation. It is not even 
 characteristic of revealed religion. Neither it nor the con- 
 ception of divine fatherhood and kingship were proper to 
 Israel ‘alone ; Numb. xx1, 29; Jer, 11, 27; Mal... 1, 11. 
 Especially among Israel, where Jehovah was represented as 
 Father of the covenant-people, and the nation as a unit was 
 called mother, a simple combination of these two ideas 
 would yield the conception of a marriage-union between 
 Jehovah and the nation. There was a great difference, 
 however, between the meaning attached to the figure by 
 Israel and by the Gentiles. In the language of nature-wor- 
 ship, the figure of marriage stands for nothing else than 
 
52 
 
 the natural physical intercourse between heaven and earth 
 on which the blessings of agriculture depend. This was 
 the kind of worship the Israelites fell into when they served 
 Baal, 11,6. Similarly the fatherhood of their gods was 
 frequently understood by the heathen in a physical sense. In 
 the language of revelation, these figures mean something 
 infinitely higher. Fatherhood, kingship, marriage, all 
 designate historical and redemptive relations between 
 Jehovah and his people. Of all these figures none is so well 
 adapted to express this historic and redemptive character as 
 the figure of marriage. Marriage has in itself a historical 
 element, originating in personal choice, and not being pre- 
 ceded by a natural and necessary bond between the parties 
 contracting it. Hosea, by his manner of developing this 
 figure, lifts the covenant out of the sphere of nature into the 
 sphere of redemptive history. The covenant is: 
 
 1.) A historical union. Israel has not been always thus 
 united to Jehovah. It was owing to a definite historical 
 event that the union had been concluded. Hosea lays great 
 stress on this historical elemeut, xi, 1; xi, 4. He distin- 
 guishes between Israel] and the 04 and oy, vir, 10; 
 1x, 1; cfr. also the numerous historical references in Ch. 
 LIU X5) Sy 2M, i KEE 
 
 2.) A spiritual union. UHosea’s. covenant-marriage is 
 a marriage of love, upon which both parties enter of their 
 free will, by an ethical choice, for the purpose of hold- 
 ing spiritual communion. It may be said that in Hosea’s 
 time marriage did not partake of this high ethical and 
 spiritual character, there being less equality between the 
 sexes and less freedom of choice on the woman’s part. This 
 was undoubtedly so, but it is all the more significant that 
 Hosea has not brought down the covenant-ideal to the level 
 of the imperfect conjugal relations of his own age. The 
 opening chapters of his book, whether allegory or history, 
 display a marvelous depth of spiritual love, a love so uncom- 
 mon that it glorifies an otherwise far from attractive story. 
 We must say, that either by special grace the prophet was 
 enabled to exhibit in his conduct toward his wife this high 
 type of love, or that the Spirit gave him such a vision of the 
 divine love and its spiritual heights, that the allegory 
 he wrote came to describe something far transcending 
 the ordinary experience of his day. This feature is 
 
53 
 
 found not only in the symbolic part of his book but likewise 
 in the subsequent chapters. The following points are to be 
 noted: a.) The origin of the covenant lies in the free love 
 of God. The term used of the divine love under this aspect 
 is yN, ‘to know,” ‘ to take Joving knowledge of,” (cfr. the 
 primitive meaning of the root “ to lay away in one’s heart”), 
 Migkeoee ens love was so one-sided in its origin that it can 
 be compared to paternal love, x, 1. Jehovah is the Maker 
 of Israel, vit1, 14. b.) Although one-sided in its origin, yet 
 the covenant was not made in any other way than by Jeho- 
 vah’s persuading Israel in acts and words to enter upon it 
 freely. Hosea represents God as suing for the love of 
 Israel, 11, 15. Jehovah took the highest pleasure in the 
 first awakening affection of his people, rx, 10. The strongest 
 expression this thought has found in x1, 4. “Cords of man” 
 as kind and affectionate means of guiding Israel in distine- 
 tion from the bands whereby animals are kept under control. 
 The divine love for Israel in its continuance is described as 
 the paternal care bestowed by Jehovah upon training up the 
 youthful people to a state of maturity, vir, 15; x1, L Even 
 after Israel became unfaithful, Ife continued to appeal to 
 their heart by proofs of his love, if he might move them to 
 repentance, and Ch. vr, 4 is the language of divine dis- 
 appointment at the failure of these efforts. All this shows 
 how deeply Hosea has cenceived of the covenant as a sphere 
 in which the noblest and purest spiritual attributes are 
 ealled into exercise. 
 
 3.) The covenant is a legal relation. Hosea conceives of it 
 just as much as a sphere of duty as he conceives of it as a 
 sphere of love. It has been asserted that the emotional 
 element is so supreme in the prophet’s character as to 
 obscure the legal and ethical side of the relation. The state- 
 ment in this form is unwarranted. Hosea emphazises strongly 
 the duty of covenant-obedience to which the people are 
 pledged. He reproaches Israel not merely with having been 
 deficient in love and affection, but with having violated dis- 
 tinct promises and made themselves legally guilty. ‘Jehovah 
 has a3), a controversy at law, with the inhabitants of the 
 land, because there is no truth, no mercy, no knowledge of | 
 God, but swearing and breaking faithwete:sivi I N22" xine 2. 
 A controversy of this kind presupposes a law giving right to 
 sue. This law to which the wife has become unfaithful dates 
 
54 
 
 back, of course, to the time when the marriage was con- 
 tracted, so that Hosea bears witness to the existence of an 
 ancient covenant-law among Israel enacted at the time of the 
 exodus, although, of course, nothing can be determined in 
 this way as to the precise extent of this law. From vitr, 12, 
 however, it follows, that it was not of small compass and had 
 been given in written form. As to the alleged obscuration 
 of the ethical elements, it must be said that Ilosea is as 
 emphatic in his ethical demands as the other prophets. In 
 Ch. vir, 1-3 the appeal to affection made by the }eople can- 
 not stem the judgment, which sin has called forth. vr, 6 is 
 a classical passage even among its kind. Only this much is 
 true that to Hosea the idea of the covenant as distinctively 
 religious (not purely emotional) colours all his ethical judg- 
 ments. The element of value in righteousness consists for 
 the prophet in this, that it be inspired by covenant-love and 
 loyalty to Jehovah. Religion and ethics interpenetrate. The 
 guilt of transgression is enhanced in his view by its offending 
 against the covenant-love of God. For this reason distrust 
 of Jehovah is one of Israel’s chief sins. 
 
 4) The covenant is an all-comprehensive union of life. The 
 formula which expresses this most adequately is u, 28 ‘I 
 will say, thou art my people, and they shall say, Thou art 
 my God.” The covenant involves community of all inter- 
 ests, reciprocal possession and enjoyment. It is so pervasive 
 as to leave no room for a distinction between what is secular 
 and religious Even so common a thing as the joy over a 
 plentiful harvest derives a specific character from it, 1x, 1. 
 All physical gifts are to become the means of realizing its 
 higher spiritual ends. The natural power of propagation 
 stands in the service of the covenant, I, 2; v, 7. The whole 
 of natural life is transformed and ennobled by the principle 
 of grace. 
 
 5.) The end of the covenant is that Israel shall become like 
 Jehovah. The covenant-lite is a transforming life. As in 
 human marriage there is a two-sided character-forming in- 
 fluence, so covenant marriage is intended to exert a forma- 
 tive influence upon Israel, the revelation of the divine 
 attributes gradually changing Israel into Jehovah’s likeness. 
 Hosea has formulated this idea chiefly in connection with 
 his’ portrayal of the future perfect covenant. The present 
 showed too little of it, just asin the figure his own noble 
 
ar) 
 
 character in vain strives to impress itself upon his unfaithful 
 wife. Cfr. 1x, 10. The great stress laid by the prophet upon 
 the indispensableness of knowledge of Jehovah for the regen- 
 eration of Israel’s covenant-life is to be expiained on this 
 principle. Again and again Hosea returns to the charge 
 that Israel’s failure is due to lack of such knowledge, Iv, 1; 
 LV .0 Nees Cin.als0 Vi, 5,6; Vill, 2; X11, 4; x1V,,9.\ lt.has 
 been said that Hosea was so much a man of feeling as to find 
 some more objective support for his preaching absolutely 
 necessary, and that thus he appealed to the knowledge of 
 Jehovah as an intellectual element counterbalancing the sub- 
 jective emotional element. Others have explained this feature 
 from the moral and religious confusion which reigned in the 
 prophet’s day, the only hope of bringing order into which 
 lay in an appeal to some outward norm of what was true 
 religion and morals. But the chief motive for Hosea’s in- 
 sistence on the knowledge ot Jehovah undoubtedly lies in 
 his covenant-conception. What he desires is practical knowl- 
 edge, the intimacy and understanding of love springing up 
 between husband and wife. Cfr. xirrt, 4, 5, where Israel’s 
 knowledge of Jehovah is placed on a line with the loving 
 knowledge of Jehovah in regard to Israel in the wilderness. 
 6.) Lhe covenant is a national covenant. Inthe main Hosea 
 occupies the standpoint common to all O. T. writers, in so 
 far as they speak of the present. The covenant is a union 
 between Jehovah and Israel, not between Jehovah and 
 individual Israelites in the first place, x, 1. Nevertheless 
 in nore than one respect Hosea has become instrumental in: 
 imparting to the development of the covenant-idea an indi- 
 vidualizing direction. a,) His emotional temperament was a 
 potent factor in this respect. From its emotional side, more 
 perhaps than from any other side, religion is a personal, ind1- 
 vidual matter. Even when Hosea speaks of the people col- 
 lectively, this element is so strong that it personities and indi- 
 vidualizes Israel and makes the nation speak with all the 
 warmth and living interest characteristic of a person. The 
 words which the prophet has put into the mouth of Israel 
 are such that almost without change the individual believer 
 may appropriate them. Cfr. mu, 7, 16, 23; vi, 1-3; vu, 
 2; xIv, 2-4, 8. This is not surprising if we remember 
 that at the basis of the prophet’s impersonation of this 
 character lay the figure of the relation between himself 
 
56 
 
 and his wife. Thus the ideal of the covenant, as it lived 
 in his soul, involved the most intimate personal relation- 
 ship, and such an ideal can be realized only when all the 
 single members of the people of God make the personal 
 appropriation for themselves of.what Jehovah is to the 
 nation as a whole. Jeremiah, who in his emotional tem- 
 perament strongly resembles Ilosea, has taken up this line 
 of thought and consciously developed what was implicitly 
 contained in Hosea’s prophecy. b.) If Jehovah be the hus- 
 band and the people as a whole the wife, then the single 
 Israelites naturally appear as children, and the conception of 
 Jehovah's fatherhood, usually applied to the nation, will thus 
 receive an individualizing application. 1, 10 (observe the 
 Plural “sons”’?}; 1, 1; x1, 8, 4 (observe the Plural gine 
 c.) The prophet predicts that the people will not be restore 
 to the favor of Jehovah until after a most terrible punish- 
 ment, in which the majority perish. The Israel, therefore, 
 that inherits the promise is not the whole people but a part, 
 and this part not in virtue of their carnal descent but of a 
 spiritual change of heart. It is obvious that in this he prin- 
 ciples, from which a much more pronounced individualism 
 might be developed, than Hosea has consciously reached for 
 himself. 
 
 2. Jehovah the Covenant-Lord of Israel. 
 
 The unity and spiritual nature of Jehovah. Hosea dwells 
 but little on the nature of God apart from his relation 
 to Israel. So, when he speaks of the unity of Jehovah, and 
 that there is no other god besides Him, this means primarily, 
 for Israel, x1, 4. This feature should not be construed, 
 however, as involving an admission of the existence of the 
 heathen gods. According to Baudissin the development of 
 religious thought among Israel in the direction of Mono- 
 theism, passed through three stages: 1.) the heathen gods 
 were recognized as existing and as exercising power upon 
 Israel also; 2.) the heathen gods were recognized as existing 
 and as exercising power outside of Israel, but as not having 
 any significance for Israel. Jehovah is the only God for 
 Israel; 3.) the heathen gods are declared non-entities. 
 Baudissin makes Hosea represent the second stage. But, 
 though the prophet has not directly expressed his conviction 
 
57 
 
 in regard to the existence or non-existence of other gods, 
 with the exception of 1, 10, “the living God”, yet in 
 an indirect way we can show that to him they were 
 non-entities. Hosea polemizes in a peculiar way against the 
 gods worshipped among Israel. He speaks of them in no 
 other terms than the contemptible terms applicable-to a piece 
 of gold, silver or wood, vitt, 6; xt, 2, Uniess this polemic 
 was utterly unfair and unfounded it must have been based 
 on the supposition that there was nothing more to the 
 strange gods than the material image itself. That the image, 
 in distinction from the gods, was made of gold and silver 
 was such an obvious fact, that to assert it could have served 
 no imaginable purpose. What Hosea means to aflirm is 
 much rather, that the god is no more than the image and, 
 the image being so much matter, does not exist at all. Now 
 it may be said that the i images of which Hosea speaks thus 
 are Jehovah-images, and that nothing follows from this 
 polemic in regard to the he: phat gods. But it is probable 
 that in such passages as x1, 2; xrv. 3, Hosea speaks of 
 Baal-images as well as of Jehovah-images. And the same 
 reasoning which made the prophet conclude that a Jehovah 
 representable by an image was no god, applied with equal 
 stringency to all the heathen gods, who had images to 
 represent them. Finally, the polemic of Hosea certainly 
 presupposes the spiritual nature of Jehovah, and Jehovah 
 once being recognized as a spiritual Being, the non-divinity 
 of the other gods. who were not spiritual, followed by easy 
 inference. That Jehovah is more than Israel’s national 
 god is implied also in the fact of his using the other nations 
 for the punishment of Israel. Hosea nowhere formulates 
 this thought as Isaiah has done, but it underlies his state- 
 Mente: Cite hb. (3. Ve Os Vil Los ox eal 
 
 The conception of Jehovah whom the people mean to 
 worship in the calves is to Hosea a delusion as much as the 
 Baalim. What the Israelites had retained was little more than 
 the name of Jehovah, acreation of their own sinful hearts, 
 not the historical conception of Jehovah as acquired from his 
 self-revelation in the past. Jehovah is a God whose nature can 
 have nothing in common with material images As soon 
 as his name is associated with images it ceases to be ex- 
 pressive of his true being, and changes into the name of an 
 idol. The conception of Jehovah as a spiritual, immaterial 
 
58 
 
 Being underlies this way of thinking. Jehovah is not 
 merely contrasted with the Baalim, but the true, historical, 
 
 really existing Jehovah is contrasted with the false, idol- 
 atrous, free Jehovah of the calves. Observe the contrast. 
 in Ch. x, 2,4. The god represented by the calves is an, 
 idol ‘according to their own understanding.” The calf of 
 Bethel is called Israel’s own counsel, that is a god they have 
 thought out for themselves, x, 6. 
 
 Of the prophetic names of God Hosea once uses that of 
 Jehovah, the God of Hosts, nixayq ca>y nim, xi, 5. This 
 is the fullest form of the name and found in this passage and. 
 three passages in Amos only. Sometimes the article before 
 Zebaoth fails, sometimes Elohej or Jehovah fails. As in 
 other cases, so here many modern critics ascribe to prophet- 
 ism the creation of what used to be considered an ancient 
 inheritance of Israel. Wellhausen credits Amos with the 
 formation of the name Jehovah Zebaoth. Unless the his- 
 torical records are entirely unreliable, the name was used 
 long before the rise of canonical prophecy. Samuel’s mother 
 uses it, I Sam. 1, 11; Samuel himself, [ Sam. xv, 2; David, I 
 Sam. xvi, 45; Il Sam. vr, 18. It occurs three times in the 
 important chapter If Sam. vir, twice in the mouth of Jeho- 
 vah, once in David’s mouth. Elijah uses it several times, I 
 Kings xvi, 15; xix, 10, 14; Elisha once, If Kings 11, 14. 
 From some of these passages it is plain what was the original 
 meaning of the name. J avid explains it by the equivalent 
 vhrase “the God of the armies of Israel.” In the xxrvth 
 Psalm ‘“ Jehovah mighty in battle” stands parallel with 
 “ Jehovah of Hosts.’”? Some maintain that this is not merely 
 the first but the only meaning the name has in the O. T. 
 Others hold that the later writers connect with it a different 
 idea. Besides the ordinary sense of human army the word 
 say has the following significations: 1) The heavenly hosts 
 of Angels, Josh. v, 14; [ Kings xx11, 19; Luke 11, 13; 2.) 
 the stars, either as a host counted and marshalled by God, 
 or as objects of idolatrous worship; Is. xu, 26; Deut. rv, 19; 
 3.) the cosmical powers and forces in their totality; Gen. 1, 
 1; Ps. crrr, 21. Now the question is, whether in the proph- 
 etic writings, in the name Jehovah of Hosts, the term hosts 
 occurs in one of these three senses, so that a ‘development i in 
 the meaning of the name will have to be assumed. We 
 discuss this question with reference to the passage in Hosea 
 
59 
 
 only. That Hosea should use the name in the old military 
 sense does not seem probable, because the prophet does not 
 favor the idea of Gou's doing anything for Israel by might 
 of war. The Israelites trusted too much in the external 
 instrumetts of warfare ; 1,7; 11, 18; x,.183 xiv, 8. Onlyif 
 we could assume that Jehovah were called God of Hosts 
 because He marshals the nations against Israel for judgment, 
 would it be at all likely that Hosea used the name in its old 
 sense. There isan example of this in Is. x11, 4, but not in Hosea. 
 The context in Ch. x11 determines the meaning of the name 
 in Hosea’s mouth. Ephraim is charged with compassing 
 Jehovah about with falsehood and deceit, This deceitful 
 conduct makes them resemble the patriarch Jacob, who also 
 in the first period of his life by deceit and cunning strove to 
 make himself rich and powerful. But through Jacob’s 
 wrestling with the Angel, his character had been transformed, 
 and afterwards Jehovah had spoken to him words of bless- 
 ing and promise. The words ‘* He found him at Bethel, 
 there He spake with us” refer to Gen. xxxv, 9-15, where 
 Jehovah confirms the patriarchal promises to Jacob and in 
 so doing calls Himself 3 98 “ God Almighty.” The prophet 
 describes all this because he expects the re-enactment of 
 it in the life of Israel. The crisis which changes 
 Israel’s character will come as it came in Jacob’s life, and 
 after that the people also will have their Bethel, where 
 Jehovah finds them and speaks blessings to them. As He 
 who spoke to Jacob was El Shaddaj, so He who will speak 
 to Israel is Jehovah of Hosts, and in both cases the name 
 serves the same purpose, that of pledging the almighty power 
 of God for the fulfilment of a promise whose marvelous’ 
 greatness might awaken doubt. Jehovah Zebaoth, therefore, 
 is the prophetic equivalent for the patriarchal El] Shaddaj. 
 It designates Jehovah as the Ruler of all cosmical powers 
 and forces. The Septuagint has, in some books at least, so 
 understood the term. In the Minor Prophets with few ex- 
 ceptions it renders the name by 0 @eog 0 xavtoxpatwp or b 
 
 xvotos mavtoxpatwo, ‘God or the Lord the All-Ruler,” this 
 being also its rendering for El Shaddaj. The words “ Jeho- 
 vah is his memorial” in Hosea xir, 5 point back in similar 
 manner to Exod. m1, 15 and the two names together place 
 the omnipotence and faithfulness of God jointly at the dis- 
 posal of the regenerated Israel. 
 
60 
 
 Of the attributes of God the so-called communicable ones 
 stand in the foreground with Iflosea and among these his 
 love and mercy. Mercy is but the specific form which love 
 assumes in view of the misery of the covenant-people. It is 
 not general pity, but deepened and enriched by the divine 
 love, the pity which as husband Jehovah takes upon his 
 wifes 15 "°6;) Theo xtve 33 etre Psitorm 13. Le will“ be repre: 
 duced in Israel’s covenant-life in the future, 11, 19. The 
 word rendered ‘“‘mercy” in Chap. 11, 1; vi, 6, is, how- 
 ever, 70M meaning rather “ kindness ” Israel can exercise 
 Chesed towards Jehova h, vi, 4, but merey, o9N2 only 
 towards other men, in imitation of Jehovah. Also the op- 
 posites of love and mercy, those attributes which bring 
 judgment and misery upon the people, are described by 
 Hosea from the emotional side. The divine resentment of 
 sin is called “hating”, 1x, 15. The intention to chastise is 
 depicted as a strong desire on Jehovah’s part, x, 10. The 
 strongest expressions are found in Ch. vi, 14; xu, 7, 8. 
 Besides these figurative expressions the anger and wrath of 
 Jehovah are mentioned as the source of judgment, x1, 9; 
 xi, L1. It has been asserted that al! these passages speak 
 of judgment for the purpose of chastisement, that Hosea 
 does not ascribe to Jehovah the attribute of justice pure and 
 simple, nay, that the prophet’s merit lies exactly in this 
 interpretation of the jadgment as an instrument of love. 
 This view is irreconcilable with 1x, 15, ‘I will love them 
 no more.” It is also excluded by x1, 8, 9, where the heart 
 and the compassions of Jehovah are e represented as restrain- 
 ing his anger. If the latter were a specific form of love, 
 there would be no place for its restriction by love. As will 
 be shown later, Hosea represents the judgment partly as. 
 punishment for the majority of Israel, partly as chastise- 
 ment producing conversion, for those who are to come 
 forth from it as a new Israel. But such terms as ‘to visit 
 Upony” ie TSS Vie 18s Ixy 9s OV POWREG orvoe 50 kines 
 eto PSL iatks ix hs. to pay the gant, toepear toe 
 guilt,’x, 2, are all expressive of the retributive side of the 
 divine judgment, whereas the term ‘ to rebuke,” v, 2; x, 2, 
 describes the other aspect. 
 
 The attributes of holiness and righteousness are not 
 conceived of by Hosea as causing the judgment, but appear 
 in a different meaning. The holiness of Jehovah is that 
 
61 
 
 which guards the divine anger against all sinful excess of 
 passion, x1, 9. Thisistheonly passage where the divine holi- 
 ness occurs in Hosea, the text in xr, 12, being very obscure 
 and uncertain. To explain how the holiness of Jehovah 
 can here act as a restraint upon his anger, whereas else- 
 where it appears as the source of the divine anger, a brief 
 excursus on the subject of holiness in prophetic revelation 
 generally is required. 
 
 The Hebrew word translated by “holy ” is wp, the 
 noun “holiness” wjp. The primitive meaning of the root 
 is uncertain. It does not occur in Hebrew except in these 
 two words and in forms derived from them. The word has 
 been entirely appropriated for this one specific religious 
 usage. ‘Two derivations are to be considered: 1.) Accord- 
 ing to many wap shares with roots in which the letters 1p are 
 the ae radicals the general sense of “ cutting off, separat- 
 ing.’ 2.) Others connect wp with won ‘to be new,” origi- 
 nally, “to be clear, shining ”; on this view the fundamental 
 idea expressed would be that of purity or clearness. The 
 former of these derivations deserves the preference for three 
 reasons: 1.) It is easier to subsume the two principal appli- 
 cations of the term in reference to God under the general 
 conception of separateness than under that of purity; 2.) the 
 opposite of wimp is always On, whereas of WW “ pure,” the 
 opposite is 82v “impure.’”? Now 5n literally signifies that 
 which is loose or open, that is, accessible to common use, 
 and the fundamental conception opposite to this must be 
 something like “‘set apart, separated.” Cfr. [ Sam. xx, 5; 
 Ezek. xii, 20; Amos, 7. If in other passages Qadosh is 
 used as synonymous with Tahor, and Chol as synonymous 
 with Tame this proves only that the two have certain ele- 
 ments in common, not that they are strict equivalents. To 
 be holy presupposes being pure, the reverse is not true. 
 Holiness is a wider conception than purity; 3.) a synonymous 
 term of WIP and w43pn “ to sanctify” is ON) and the latter 
 undoubtedly starts from the primitive idea of separating. 
 (Cfr. the words ‘“ harein”? and Hermon probabiy=‘ inac- 
 cessible.”’ 
 
 The words “holy” and “holiness”? are used both of 
 God and of created beings. God Himselfis holy and places 
 times, things, persons are holy. The question has been 
 raised, which of the two usages is the more ancient one. 
 
62 
 
 Probably in the sphere of corrupt natural religion, created 
 things were first called holy as consecrated to thre deity, and 
 the name was afterwards transferred to the gods themselves, 
 the mediating link being the image of the de ‘ity. In the 
 sphere of revealed religion the ascription of holiness to men 
 and things was intended from the beginning to teach the 
 holiness of God. CirriGens i, 3. COF 6d the term 1s first 
 used Exod. xv, 11. 
 
 1.) In its most general sense the holiness of God signi- 
 fies his uniqueness, bis specifically divine character. This 
 most general sense 1s reflected in the words “ [am God and 
 not man” in the passage of [losea; it has found its clearest 
 expression in I Sam. i, 2, ‘¢ There is none holy as Jehovah, 
 for there is none beside thee” This idea of holiness is 
 associated with Jehovah’s dwelling on high, because the 
 latter symbolizes in like manner his exaltation above the 
 lower, terrestrial sphere, Is. tvu, 15; it is farther connected 
 with the several ine of God, as with his eternity, 
 dshovite 15 3) Hiab. 2; his absolute power, especially in 
 Ezekiel with whom awe great name and Jehovah’s holy 
 name are synonymous expression?, Xxxvi, 20-24; Exod. 
 xv; 11; Numb. xx, 12; his grace, Psiixetx, 4-9; cr, 1-5; 
 Is. pvr, 15. Although the divine holiness is associated 
 with these attributes, yet it would be incorrect to say that 
 holiness = eternity, power, grace. Not in themselves, but 
 through the unique manner in which they reveal the 
 divinity of God, are eternity, power, grace expressions of 
 the divine holiness. The state of mind in man which cor- 
 responds to holiness in this general sense, is awe and rev- 
 erence such as behooves the creature over against the 
 Creator. Jehovah’s holiness excites fear, apart from every 
 thought of sin. Hence holiness is sometimes equivalent to 
 inaccessibleness; I Sam. vi, 20; Is. virr, 18; Ps. cxr, 9. 
 
 2.) In a more specialized sense the holiness of Jehovah 
 means his separation from impurity, especially sinful impur- 
 ity, the ethical distinction between God and evil. Whilst 
 under the former aspect holiness is an irremovable dis- 
 tinctness of God, under this aspect it denotes a separation 
 which can be removed. The formal agreement between the 
 two applications of the idea lies in the following points: 1.) 
 Owing to the universal prevalence of sin, God’s ethical holi- 
 ness, distinguishes and separates Him from every human 
 
63 
 
 creature as well as his metaphysical holiness. 2.) Even in 
 the ethical holiness there is something incommunicable and 
 unique, which the holiest creature can never share with God. 
 Jehovah’s holiness does not merely mean that He is empiri- 
 eally free from sin, but that He is a-priori inaccessible to sin. 
 Man may be sinless, but in God sin cannot enter. 3) The 
 ethical perfection of God can be considered so much the 
 center and the controlling aspect of the divine nature, that 
 his essential divinity can by preference be placed in it. 
 Kspecially to the prophetic consciousness, this was the 
 supreme element in the nature of Jehovah. — It should be 
 observed that even in its restricted, ethical sense the term 
 holiness retains its comparative character. We may render 
 it by ethical sublimity or exalted purity; Is. v, 16. The 
 Shemite speaks of ethical qualities in terms of dimension, 
 where we are accustomed to apply terms of intensity, be- 
 cause to him the contrast between God and the creature, 
 the High and the low, is always present in his mind, 
 Civ beixve 1s) Xxiv, 3. Henee the consciousness of sin 
 awakened by the perception of the divine holiness is mixed 
 with extreme humiliation, Especially in Isaiah this idea of 
 holiness as the loftiness of ethical perfection, towering high 
 above human sin and levelling it in jadgment to the dust, is 
 very prominent; Is v, 14,15. In the ethical sense also the 
 holiness of Jehovah is an active principle, which not only 
 keeps aloof from sin but likewise reacts against sin and 
 destroys what is sinful; Is. x, 17; xxxri, 14. 
 
 The passage in Hosea alludes to the divine holiness as 
 absolutely exclusive of and inaccessible to sin. In case of a 
 man even righteous anger carries with it a strong temptation 
 to sin. In God’s case the resentment against sin is wholly 
 removed from this possibility, has nothing in common with 
 impure passion. The same holiness, therefore, which 
 inspires the divine anger against sin, also guarantees that 
 this anger will be free from sin in itself. 
 
 3.) The holiness of God is revealed to Israel alone; it 
 belongs to the sphere of special revelation. Jehovah says: 
 ‘““T am the Holy One in the midst of thee”’ The divine 
 majesty and the majestic purity of God are not recognized 
 by the heathen. The whole earth is full of the glory of 
 Jehovah, but nowhere is it said that the whole earth is full 
 of his holiness. The heathen Shemites may also have called 
 
64 
 
 their gods holy, but they did not attach to the term the 
 absolute meaning which it has in the Old Testament. Here 
 it is applied to Jehovah in distinct contrast with and to the 
 exclusion of the holiness of all other gods. Is. xvi, 7. The 
 holiness of heathen gods simply meant inapproachableness. 
 Israel, however, is not merely the sphere of the revelation 
 of Jehovah’s holiness, it is also the sphere in which his 
 holiness exercises a positive influence. Jehovah in virtue of 
 his holiness sanctifies Israel. Symbolically and typically 
 this 1s expressed in the numerous laws which provide for an 
 external separation between Israel and what is profane. 
 In a more real and spiritual sense the sanctifying influence 
 of the divine holiness upon Israel may be traced along the 
 following lines: 1.) As Jehovah is separated by his unique 
 divinity from all other beings and powers that are called 
 divine, so Israel should be likewise separated from these in its 
 life. In its wider sense the holiness of Jehovah issues into the 
 demand of strict Monotheism. 2.) As Jehovah is inaccessible 
 to everything impure, so Israel should keep itself from all 
 defilement of sin. In the restricted sense, the holiness of 
 Jehovah has for its correlate, the ethical purity of Israel. 
 It will be seen from this what an important part this con- 
 ception plays in Old Testament revelation. The two funda- 
 mental principles which the Old Testament had to em- 
 phasize and to enforce are given in it as in their comion 
 root. Hence the whole revelation of God can be viewed 
 under this one aspect and called ‘“‘his holy name.” 8.) If 
 Israel be separated from the same things Jehovah is separated 
 from, then such separation strengthens the consecration of 
 Israel to Jehovah. Holiness thus comes to mean the ap- 
 purtenance of Israel to Jehovah in a special sense, Jer. II, 8. 
 Just as the firstfruits of the harvest are set apart for the 
 exclusive use of Jehovah, so the chosen people have been 
 set apart for his use alone. This third sense of the idea, as 
 applied to man, is the one to which something remotely 
 analogous can be discovered among the heathen Shemites. 
 The heathen also seem to have conceived of those things 
 which belonged to the immediate environment of the gods 
 as in some sense their exclusive property, not to be devoted 
 to any common use. But the difference between this and 
 the revelation-idea lies in two points: a.) the holiness of the 
 heathen deities is a naturalistic, physical conception, being 
 
65 
 
 a vague divine influence passing over to persons and things. 
 It has been compared to an electric fluid with which every- 
 thing in the neighborhood of a shrine or dwelling-place of 
 the gods is charged and which renders it dangerous to the 
 touch. Among “Israel on the other hand the holiness of 
 Jehovah is a historical idea. What is holy has become so 
 not in virtue of a naturalistic influence, but in virtue ofa 
 free act of election and redemption; b.) the communicated 
 holiness of the heathen extended only to the immediate 
 surroundings of the gods; among Israel it extends to the 
 whole people, and thus distinguishes them as a whole from 
 all other nations in a religious point of view. This idea of 
 appurtenance to Jehovah in the further progress of revela- 
 tion has assumed more and more of an active meaning, so 
 that it passes over into the idea of positive, spiritual con- 
 secration, This, together with the fructifying contact upon 
 which the ethical element and this more strictly religious 
 element entered in the course of history, has produced the 
 profound N. T. conception of holiness, which is that of 
 active consecration to God by the love of a purified heart. 
 
 It will be observed that in this last application of the 
 idea of holiness to Israel the parallelism between the holi- 
 ness of Jehovah and that of the people, which exists in the 
 two other aspects, is wanting. It cannot be said, that as the 
 holiness of Israel signifies their appurtenance to Jehovah, so 
 the holiness of Jehovah expresses his belonging to Israel. 
 Some indeed have claimed that this is the case, ‘holiness in 
 their view being always a relation-term, denoting what rela- 
 tion Jehovah sustains to Israel and Israel to Jehovah. But 
 there is no proof that the term when applied to God ever 
 has this sense. The name “ Holy One of Israel” frequent in 
 Isaiah (occurring also in Jeremiah and the Psalms) has been 
 appealed to and interpreted for this reason as ‘‘ the God who 
 has consecrated Himself in covenant to Israel.” A better 
 view is that the name implies a double truth: 1.) That 
 Jehovah is a holy God; 2.) that Jehovah belongs to Israel. 
 But the latter idea is expressed by the Genitive and not by 
 the adjective ‘ holy 
 
 The threefold application of the principle of the divine 
 holiness to Israel, may be said to correspond to the three 
 general spheres of metaphysical truth (unity and exclusive 
 divinity of Jehovah), ethical truth (ethical purity of Jehovah), 
 religious truth (spiritual appurtenance to Jehovah.) 
 
66 
 
 Righteousness p}¥ 1PI¥ as a divine attribute is men- 
 tioned in two passages of Hosea, 11, 19; and x, 12. In both 
 places it signifies the faithfulness of Jehovah in the fulfilment 
 of his covenant- -promises. This is a meaning we are little 
 apt to associate with the word, but which it ‘obtains natur- 
 ally in the following manner. p7¥ means originally “to be 
 straight,” and righteousness is conformity to a straight line. 
 Man is righteous, when conforming to the rule of God. But 
 in the Biblical way of thinking God’s righteousness also is 
 conformity toa rule. Not in the sense as if there were an 
 abstract norm of right above God, to which He is subjected, 
 for such a thought is utterly foreign to the spirit of the O. 
 T. God has freely laid down a rule for the government of 
 his nee and his righteousness consists in adherence to 
 this rule. 1.) In the widest sense God acts under the law of 
 his own nature, a copy of which is revealed in creation, and 
 his righteousness implies: a.) the giving of this law; b.) the 
 decision under it in cases of dispute, and the defense of the 
 oppressed against the oppressor; ¢.) the meting out of just 
 punishment to the transgressor; d.) the fulfilment of the gen- 
 eral promises which He has made to all creatures out of his 
 common grace; cfr. Ps. xxxvi,6. In this last case we would 
 rather speak of love and mercy, because we are apt to view 
 these gifts under the aspect of merit or demerit, under the 
 aspect of what God owes to man, not of what He owes to 
 his promise. The Bible knows both points of view; hence 
 what is righteousness in one sense, is lovingkindness in an 
 other sense, Ps. xxxvi, 6,7. 2.) All these four aspects of 
 the divine righteousness assume a more distinct form in 
 God’s dealings with Israel. a.) Jehovah is righteous in giv- 
 ing laws to Israel, Zeph, mtt,5; Deut. 1s 8 sexi, oy pe 
 He decides in cases of dispute, sometimes between the indi- 
 vidual members of his people, at other times between Israel 
 and Israel’s enemies; the Psalmists’ claim to be righteous 
 and their appeal to Jehovah’s righteousness, is to be inter- 
 
 reted frequently on this principle. Judg. v, 11; Mic. vu, 
 5, Is. LI, 22; Liv, 17; c.) Jehovah in virtue of his righteous- 
 ness punishes sin. His penal righteousness is conformity to 
 the rule of punishment laid down in the revealed law. Ps. 
 vil, 11; Is. v, 16; x, 22. This sense of the term is especially 
 frequent in penitential prayers belonging to the later period 
 of O. T. history, when the retributive significance of the 
 
67 
 
 national calamities had been disclosed to the pious. Lam. 1, 
 Teel Chrohaxi, 6: Ezra 1x,1o5.Neh- 1x) 33 oDan. Imckd. 
 Ritschl has denied that the punishment of sin appears 
 in the Old Testament as a direct result of the divine 
 righteousness; in his view the Bible means by righteous- 
 ness the activity of God to procure peace or salvation 
 for his people, and only as an incidental consequence of 
 this the destruction of the wicked is connected with his 
 righteousness, But there are passages in the Old Testament 
 which undoubtedly speak of righteousness revealed in judicial 
 condemnation, in punishment pure and simple, Ps. ur, 4; d.) 
 Jehovah’s fulfilment of the covenant-promises to Israel 1s 
 called his righteousness. This may be applied to the condi- 
 tional promises, and then such statements ensue as Ps. XvIIt, 
 25, 26; Is. xiviir, 18; according to which the wicked are 
 excluded from the operation of ‘the divine righteousness in 
 this special sense. More frequently it is applied to the uncon- 
 ditional promises, which God fulfills irrespectively of what 
 Israel may do; I Sam. xu, 7; Dan. rx, 15, 16 compared with 
 vs. 18, 19; righteousness here is eqnivalent to mercy ; else- 
 where it is equivalent to truth in the sense of fidelity, Ps. 
 ext, 1; Neh. rx, 33; I Jno. 1, 9. Sometimes it stands in 
 paralielism with salvation and passes from the abstract sense 
 of a divine attribute into the concrete one of the objective 
 embodiment of this attribute in saving deeds or gifts. This. 
 is especially the case in the second part of the prophecies of 
 Isaiah, xLvi, 8; u1, 5,6, 8; Lv, 1. Isaiah goes even one 
 step further when he calls the subjective righteousness to be 
 bestowed upon Israel “the righteousness of God,” Lx1, 10, 11. 
 
 It is in this fourth application of the idea to Israel that: 
 Hosea speaks of the righteousness of Jehovah. As there is 
 in Him a strict adherence to what He has promised, so the 
 people in the future will be made to fullfil what they have 
 vowed to Jehovah, 1,19. If they sow according to right- 
 eousness, they will reap in mercy; Jehovah’s attitude to 
 them is dependent on their own conduct. Here mercy on 
 God’s part corresponds to righteousness on Israel’s part, x. 
 12. But in the next clause the same thought is thus ex- 
 pressed: ‘It is time to seek Jehovah, till He come and rain 
 righteousness upon you,” so that mercy is also equivalent to: 
 righteousness in God. 
 
68 
 
 3.) Lhe Breach of the Covenant on Israel’s Part. (Hosea’s 
 teaching on the subject of sin.) bisee! 
 
 A list of prevailing .sins reminding strongly of the 
 Decalogue is found in Ch. 1v, 2. Elsewhere the prophet 
 ‘defines sin as forgetting and trespassing of the law, Iv, 6; 
 vill, 1. But this is not so much a formal as a material 
 definition of sin, the prophet meaning to teach not only 
 what is sin, but why it is sin. The law being the expres- 
 sion of Jehovah’s covenant-will, the law of the husband to 
 whom the married Israel] is subject, transgression is an as- 
 sault upon his rights as covenant-Lord. How much the 
 prophet views the various forms of sin as proceeding from 
 this one principle of covenant-unfaithfulness, may be seen 
 from vi, 7, where he compares the sin of Israel to the first 
 transgression of the ancestor of the race. 
 
 _ ‘The sin of Israel is of long standing. It began as early 
 as the days of wandering in the wilderness, 1x, 10. Israel 
 has sinned from the days of Gibeah, x, 9, probably since the 
 origin of Saul’s kingdom, who was from Gibeah in Ben- 
 jamin. All through her childhood Israel credited the 
 Baalim with what Jehovah did for her, x1, 2. Hosea, there- 
 fore, shares with the historical books of the O. T. the view 
 that Israel’s history was almost one continuous apostasy, 
 accompanied by unbroken prophetic protest, x1, 2. The sins 
 and errors denounced by the prophets do not represent in 
 his view a lower stage of development, to which at one time 
 nobody attached blame. This is the critical view. The 
 critics have always admitted that it is contradicted on every 
 point by the historical writings of the O. T. But the writers 
 or the redactors of these, it is said, have in later times, 
 under the influence of unhistoric views, so manipulated the 
 sources, that they no longer reflect the true course of events, 
 but the course of events as construed from the subsequent 
 legalistic standpoint. Thus the discrepancy between the 
 eritical view and the historical books is accounted for. 
 But now the prophets, as begins to be recognized more and 
 more, hold in principle the same view as the historical 
 books. Their testimony is that there was: a.) a perfect 
 .and pure beginning of Israel’s religion in revelation; b.) 
 -a falling away from this; c.) an effort on the part of 
 the prophets to reclaim the nation. Consequently the 
 
69 
 
 evolutionary critics must declare this testimony of the 
 prophets likewise historically unreliable. They say: the 
 prophets reasoned back from calamity in ancient times to sin 
 in ancient times. Thus it appears that the critical view is at 
 variance with the historic credibility of the larger part of the 
 Biblical writings, prophetic as well as historical. The sin of 
 Israel is wilful apostasy. Hosea characterizes it as  false- 
 hood, lying in reference to Jehovah, vil, 18; x, 18; x1, 12. 
 These terms are meant in the sense of denial of a previously 
 recognized relation. In several passages the conduct of 
 Israel is qualified as treachery, v, 7; v1, 7. 
 
 Hosea is conscious of standing at a point where the 
 crisis in this downward process has been reached.  [srael is 
 like a deceitful bow which has lost its tension v1, 16. Striving 
 and reproving have become useless, Iv, 4, cfr. with Deut. 
 xvi, 12. The condition of Ephraim is like that of a sick 
 man, the full extent of whose inner ruin is only realized in 
 the effort to cure him. vi1, 1. In Hosea for the first time 
 the idea of sin as an enslaving power, rendering its victims 
 unable to reform, is formulated, v,4; vit, 2. Back ofsingle 
 transgressions there is a sinful tendency, ‘‘ the spirit of 
 whoredom is within them,” ‘they are bent to backsliding 
 from Jehovah”, x1, 7. “Ephraim is a cake not turned ”; 
 he remains quietly on the wrong side, persists in doing evil, 
 however disastrous the consequences. 
 
 In two things the sinful character of Israel has chiefly 
 revealed itself. Hosea calls these ‘their two transgressions,” 
 x, 10. The context shows that the sin cornected with the 
 kingship and that of idolatry are referred to. Cfr. also vIIr, 
 14. The kingship is referred to in condemnatory terms in 
 the following passages: 1, 4; 111, 4,5; vir, 83-7; vir, 4; x, 
 3, 7; x11, 10,11. Some of these go farther than an attack 
 upon the character of individual kings. Hosea condemns 
 the kingship, because it is founded on pride and distrust of 
 Jehovah. ‘lhe king was to be a source of salvation, not a 
 representative of, but as substitute for God. The first thought 
 of having a king originated with the people although the 
 initiative ought to have iain with Jehovah, vir, 4. The 
 secession of the ten tribes was sinful in principle, because it 
 involved division of the one wife of Jehovah. That Jehovah 
 permitted it, Hosea would not have denied, for He punishes 
 sin by the permission of further sin, xm, 10, 11. This con- 
 
70 
 
 demnation of the whole Northern kingdom as an apostate 
 kingdom, because it was a secession from the legitimate 
 dynasty of David, is another point of agreement between 
 Hosea and historical books, in regard to which the critics 
 accuse the latter of applying dogmatic and unhistorical 
 standards. Hosea seems to condemn also the kingdom of 
 ‘Saul, as a product of the same spirit that gave rise to the 
 ‘secession, Ix, 9; x. 9. Hlence, though himself a North- 
 Israelite, he predicts the return of the renewed Israel to the 
 ‘house of David, 111, 5. Hosea frequently calls the Northern 
 kingdom by the contemptuous name of Ephraim, xii, 1, in 
 the use of which term he is followed by Isaiah. The spirit 
 out of which all this political transgression was born is “ the 
 pride of Israel,” v, 5; vir,.10. It is the haughtiness born of 
 self-reliance, the very opposite of humble trast in Jehovah, 
 Hosea does not speak of faith positively, as Isaiah does, 
 but this rebuke of the pride of Ephrain: shows that the idea 
 is familiar to him. This pride stands in the way of conver- 
 sion, VII, 10. Connected with it is Ephraim’s craving after 
 riches. The prophet compares them to Canaan, that is to the 
 Pheenicians, the great traffickers of the ancient world, x1, 7. 
 The charge implied i is threefold: 1.) They have missed their 
 theocratic vocation by counting it their highest : aim to become 
 rich and powerful like the P heenician’: ‘© at all events I am 
 become rich”; 2) in their immoderate desire to obtain 
 riches they have been altogether unscrupulous in regard to 
 the means employed. Balances of deceit were in their hand, 
 they loved oppression. This is one of the constant burdens 
 of prophetic denunciation. Of course it was a class sin, but 
 Hosea makes the nation reponsible for it, and views it from a 
 religious standpoint; 8.) they appeased their conscience with 
 avoiding the more external and flagrant forms of wickedness. 
 A distinction was made between iniquity in general and 
 iniquity that is sin, a curious example of admitting a third 
 category between good and evil. Their conscience itself had 
 become a meretricious organ, it warned them no longer 
 against what was sinful in “principle, but only against what 
 was dangerously sinful in consequences. 
 
 Finally the prophet speaks of Israel’s courting the favor 
 of foreign powers as flagrant sin against Jehovah, vi, 8, 11, 
 12; x11, 1. According to vin, 9, 10 this is a species of politi- 
 cal adultery. 
 
71 
 
 The second sin of Israel is idolatry. Hosea nowhere 
 sharply distinguishes between the open service of other gods 
 and the corrupt worship of Jehovah, because both fell under 
 the same condemnation. He traces back the idolatrous bent 
 of the people to the following causes: 1.) Sensuality. 
 ‘¢ Whoredom, wine and new wine take away the understand- 
 ing” Iv, ll. Physical whoredom is the cause of religious 
 whoredom, vs. 12. Sensuality promoted idolatry in a two- 
 fold way, by attracting to the sensual, heathen cults, and by 
 darkening the religious perceptions. The sweet sensual 
 cakes of raisin were “symbolic of this type of religion, 11, 1, 
 and the foolish people kissed the calves, XIII, 2. 2.) The 
 naturalistic belief that the chief function of religion was to 
 secure the regular eee of agricultural blessings. The 
 Israelites believed that the Baalim, the indigenous gods, gave 
 the bread, the water, the wool, the flax, the oil, the drink, 11, 
 5. The produce of the soil was the reward for which Israel 
 prostituted herself, 1x, 2. The feasts as connected with 
 agriculture became fruitful occasions of idolatry, 1, 11. This 
 worship of Baal, and the worship of Jehovah assimilated to 
 it, meant the empoverishment of religious life, because it 
 revolved around the physical facts of rain and drought, fertility 
 and famine, victory and defeat. The historical and spiritual 
 elements were eliminated. Hence the relation to the idols was 
 a caricature of the covenant-relation to Jehovah, rv, 17, and 
 in this covenant with idols the people became abominable like 
 that which they loved, 1x, 10, the opposite of such transfor- 
 mation in the image of Jehovah as the true covenant would 
 have effected. This naturalistic conception of religion lay 
 at the basis of the sacrificial cult of Jehovah as practised in 
 Hosea’s time, and later, and furnishes the explanation of the 
 prophetic polemic against this cult. The Israelites brought 
 their offerings from the Pagan motive of thereby inducing 
 Jehovah as by physical means to show them favor. It was 
 not merely the profoundly ethical, but likewise the pro- 
 foundly religious spirit of prophetism which repudiated this 
 spirit. That the sacrificial cult in itself is not condemned 
 by Hosea follows from such passages as 1x,4; xiv, 8. 3.) The 
 multiplication of the places of worship There was a nat- 
 ural connection between the unity of Jehovah as the God of 
 ‘Israel and the centralization of worship in the one legal 
 sanctuary. This unity was broken by Jeroboam 1. Hosea 
 
72 
 
 considers the numerous local shrines the seats of paganizing | 
 influence; Iv, 18; x, 8; the last passage mentions the Bamoth. 
 It is true Hosea does not explicitly condemn the Bamoth 
 because they are forbidden by the law, but simply because 
 they tempt to idolatry. This, however, is in harmony with 
 the general prophetic method of recurring upon principles 
 and enforcing the contents of the law in the light of past 
 experience. In vi, 11, 12 the prophet clearly refers to the 
 prohibition of numerous altars in the law. 
 
 The precise relation between the worship of Jehovah and 
 the cult of foreign gods in [osea’s time is not easily determined 
 from his statements. We observe: 1.) That probably none 
 of the Israelites went so far as to renounce Jehovah entirely 
 and to serve the Baalim exclusively. They served Jehovah 
 and Baal together. From the prophet’s point of view such 
 divided fealty was no fealty at all; v, 6; virr, 18; 1x, 4, 5. 
 Even in the worst times of Ahab the cult of the Tyrian Baal 
 was not intended tosupplant the worship of Jehovah entirely, 
 for in Ahab’s family the children were called after Jehovah. 
 2.) The official cult in the Northern kingdom had always 
 remained the cult of Jehovah ever since the reformation of 
 Jehu, Il Kings x, 28. The prophet nowhere ee the 
 kings with openly patronizing the cult of Baal. 3) The 
 worship of Jehovah had become so deeply corr upted by the 
 influence of the Baal-cult, as to be little better in the eye of 
 the prophet than the latter. It was affected by the Baal- 
 eult in the following respects: a.) The bull-form of the 
 image of Jehovah at Dan, Bethel, and perhaps elsewhere, 
 was proper to Baal. Whether derived from the Canaanites 
 or from Egypt, it symbolized in either case the fructifying 
 power of the sun. Thus Jehovah was assimilated to Baal. A 
 god represented by the image of a calf becomes sexually dif- 
 ferentiated, so that a femaie deity may be associated with 
 him. To the historical conception of Jehovah such differen- 
 tiation was utterly foreign, The Hebrew has not even a 
 word tor goddess. b.) Under the influence of Baal-wor- 
 ship, Jehovah became subject to the multiplying process, 
 which constantly divides the heathen deities into a num- 
 ber of gods, distinguished either according to the locali- 
 ties where they are worshipped or the various attributes — 
 and activities predicated of them. There were numerous 
 Baalim, u, 17. The Deuteronomic law warns against 
 
73 
 
 this danger, vi, 4. c.) From the cult of Baal certain 
 sacred objects passed into the worship of Jehovah. Such 
 were the Mazzeboth and Asheroth. The Mazzeboth were 
 originally memorial stones, Gen. xxvii, 18, but in Pagan- 
 ism they became objects of idolatrous worship as posses- 
 sing a certain inherent divinity. Hence the Mazzeboth, 
 at first inobjectionable, were forbidden by the law. They 
 stood by the side of Baal’s altar, and to erect them near 
 Jehovah’s altar meant to lower his conception to that of 
 a Baal. The Asheroth or Asherim (A. V. erroneously 
 ‘““sroves”’) were pillars of wood in the form of a tree- 
 stump. They were sacred to the female deity Ashtoreth or 
 Astarte, who represented the moon. The Asheroth were 
 the embodiment of a Pagan idea of the most sensual type; 
 their very form seems to have been obscene in some cases. 
 The goddess Ashtoreth was worshipped by fornication; the 
 Qedeshim and Qedeshoth,male or female temple-prostitutes, 
 originated in her cult. To place an Asherah near Jehovah’s 
 altar, meant to introduce into his service the most degraded 
 rites of nature-worship. T[losea protests against all these 
 corrupting influences. He speaks with more horror and 
 indignation of the calf-w orship than of the Baal-cult pure 
 and ‘simple, because he recognizes the desperately dangerous 
 character of the assimilation of Jehovah to Baal. A century 
 and a half before his time Elijah and Elisha had conteuted 
 themselves with opposing the worship of the foreign Baal in- 
 troduced from Tyre, without directly attacking the Jehovah- 
 worship associated with the calves. They chose the lesser 
 of two evils. In Iosea’s time the situation had changed, 
 the worship of Jehovah having become so corrupt as to be 
 hardly distinguishable from the Baal cult. This is the 
 explanation of the change of method in the prophetic 
 polemic, and not, as the critics assume, the fact that in the 
 interval between Elisha and Hosea, the first scruples in 
 regard to images arose in the minds of the more advanced 
 worshippers of Jehovah. Hosea goes so far as to call the 
 caltamage: Baal, i) Ss Vill, 4—6 3) Xi. KIT, Pe Ch 11, 16 
 shows how even the appellative use of Baal (Lord), as 
 applied to Jehovah, became a tempation to idolatry. ‘ My 
 Baal” could mean as well “that particular form of Baal 
 which I worship” a ‘‘ Jehovah my Lord” and on account 
 of this seductive ambiguity Hosea foretells that in the future 
 
74 
 
 its use will be avoided. This prediction was so literally 
 fulfilled that the later Biblical writers substitute for Baal 
 in ancient compound proper names, Bosheth, ‘ shame ” 
 making out. of Eshbaal, Ishbosheth, ete. ak 1x, 10: The 
 Mazzeboth Hosea mentions 18 lc tN The Asheroth 
 he does not mention, although they must ee existed in his 
 day. In how tar the flagrant forms of voluptuousness had 
 invaded the service of Jehovah cannot be determined. In 
 later times there were prostitutes in the temple of Jeru- 
 salem. Wellhausen thinks that Amos 0, 7, proves the 
 the same fact for the Northern kingdom at this early date, 
 but this is far from certain. Jehovah’s name would be 
 profaned by what is described there, by its happening in the 
 Jand, even if it did not take place in his house.  LILosea tv, 
 15 is not decisive, because at Bethel there may have been a 
 high-place of Baal as well as a sanctuary of Jehovah. That 
 human sacrifices were brought to Jehovah there is no proof 
 whatever, for x11, 2 should be rendered “ Let the men that 
 sacrifice kiss the calves.” low degraded in general the 
 service of sane had become may be inferred from the 
 character of its priests, vi, 9; Iv, 6-9. They desecrated 
 their office by promoting sin, because sin would be followed 
 by sin-offerings and the sin- offerings were to be eaten by 
 the priests. Wellhausen thinks that the word “sin” in Iv, 
 8. refers to the sacrificial cult in general, but such a con- 
 demnation of the cult in itself would be wholly unprec- 
 edented. Wellhausen is forced to this unnatural inter- 
 pretation, because of his theory that the sin-offering and 
 uilt-offering did not origipvate until shortly before the date 
 of Ezekiel, with whom he claims these technical terms are 
 first found. But there is in this passage of Hosea a clear 
 reference to the ritual of the sin-oftering, in which the meat 
 was eaten by the priest. The prophet lays on the double 
 meaning of the word nxn = sin and sin- offering. On both 
 the prie ests fed, metaphoric: ally on the former, “literally on 
 the latter. 
 
 The climax of Israel’s sin was reached by the persecu- 
 tion of those who rebuked sin, the prophets of Jehovah, rx, 
 8. In the prophets they attacked Jehovah Himself, and 
 thus revealed the inmost character of sin as enmity against 
 God. The prophet feels that this persecution is in reality 
 striking at God, and for this reason, he calls the latter ‘‘ my 
 
75 
 
 God ” and complains of enmity in “the house of his God.” 
 Cfr. Amos vit, 10-17. 
 
 Llosea’s references to Judah are of a twofold character. 
 On the one hand Judah is represented as comparatively faith- 
 ful to Jehovah, 1, 7; Iv, 15; perhaps xr, 12. On the other hand 
 there are numerous passages eqnaily condemnatory of Judah 
 as those referring to sie gl Sein. WV; ON 106 12181146) va, 
 4,11; vin, 14; x,11; xi, 2. Ewald ‘has explained the differ. 
 ence between these two classes of statements on the supposi- 
 tion that Hosea at first knew Judah from a distance only, and 
 that afterwards visiting the Southern kingdom he changed 
 his opinion. It is more probable that the altered judgment 
 was the result of a change for the worse in Judah’s condi- 
 tion. When Hosea began to prophesy Uzziah reigned at 
 Jerusalem, who did what was right in the eyes of Je ehovah as 
 did Jotham his son, I Kings xv, 3. To their reigns we must 
 assign 1, 7; tv, 15, in the former of which passages Jehovah is 
 called Judah’ s God. Even here, however, an indirect blame 
 of Judah is implied, because they trusted in warlike prepara- 
 tions. In Ahaz’ time Judah’s conduct was much more con- 
 demnable and to this period the remaining passages belong. 
 Hosea always mentions Judah in connection with Israel, 
 which fact, together with rv, 15, points to imitation of the 
 sins of Israel by the Judeeans. Bethel and Gilgal were near 
 enough the Southern kingdom to exercise a seducing in- 
 fluence. 
 
 Llosea does not refer to the worship of such outlandish 
 deities as Amos speaks of in the well-known passage, v, 26. 
 
 4.) The covenant-judgment and its twofold purpose. 
 
 Hosea opens that new development of prophecy which 
 proceeds to announce the judgment as an inevitable decree. 
 He is even more decisive in this respect than Amos, who 
 prophesied somewhat earlier. With his knowledge of the 
 actual outcome of I[srael’s history, he perceives that all pro- 
 phetic activity from beginning to end has had no other result 
 but to increase the people’s sin, x1, 2, and the severity of 
 the judgment in consequence, vi, 4. The judgment is a 
 harvest for which sin has been the seed, v1, 11; vi, 7. It 
 is strictly proportionate to the sin committed, which is care- 
 fully put away, so that nothing can be lost to remembrance, 
 
76 
 
 xu, 12.. As it is Israel who has sinned, so the judgment 
 will strike the nation as an organic whole and not merely 
 individuals; 'tv;'5, 6, 18; x1, 16; efr. 1, 4. 
 
 Hosea conceives of all single judgments as proceeding 
 from the one source of the personal withdrawal of .Jehovah, 
 v, 6, 15; 1x,12. Beyond all second causes the prophet finds 
 in this the one great calamity destroying Israel. The exile 
 appears as a gricvous punishment, because it expresses in 
 external form the fact of this separation 1x, 3, 8,17. Thisis 
 one more point where the idea of the marriage-covenant 
 shows its influence. The direct result of the withdrawal of 
 Jehovah's favor is that Israe] becomes subject to a process of 
 death. The truth that death is the wages of sin is here 
 revealed in the-national life of Israel, v, 12; Vil; 9F-xi11, 1 
 In the last-mentioned passage, it is best to render interroga- 
 tively: ‘Shall [ransom them from the power of the grave, 
 redeem them from death?”’ Jehovah Himself answers this 
 question in the negative by sammoning the plagues of death 
 to overwhelm them. I Cor. xv, 55 is not intended as a quota- 
 tion reproducing the sense of the prophet, but as a new turn 
 given to the words whereby they are changed into a triumph- 
 ant question of the believer in view of the victory over 
 death. Looking at second causes we may say that the 
 national decline of the Northern kingdom was brought about: 
 1.) By the instability of the governing power owing to the 
 frequent changes of dynasty. Selfishness was the principle 
 on which the kings ruled and each change, though intended 
 to give relief trom the oppression of the e preceeding dynasty 
 or king, still further curtailed the people’s freedom. Accord- 
 ing to x1, 1 the secession was the beginning of death for 
 Ephraim. 2.) By the moral degeneracy promoted by the 
 heathen cults. Sensuality undermined the national vigor, 
 Iv, 6,14. The corruption of sexual morality issues in “the 
 decrease of posterity and thus saps Israel’s strength, rv, 10 
 (of the priests); rx, 11,16 “The glory of Israel ” means 
 their posterity. In rx, 14, 15 the prophet himself in his zeal 
 for Jehovah’s honor invokes this curse of barrenness upon. 
 the people, for thus the words must be understood and not 
 as an intercessory prayer inspired by Hosea’s foresight of the 
 terrible fate in store for Israel’s children. 38.) By the social 
 sins of Israel, the oppression of the poor, the disastrous in- 
 fluence of the abuse of power and the increase of luxury, 
 xu, 7-14. 
 
17 
 
 To these factors at work in the national life of Israel 
 were added natural calamities.. In Ch. iv, 3 the prophet 
 speaks of something that had already come; a.great drought 
 sent by Jehovah to punish the people. Cfr. Amos Iv, 6-12. 
 
 The one great judgment which will overthrow Israel is 
 the Assyrian invasion. Since more than 100 years the 
 Assyrians had come in contact with the kingdom of Israel. 
 As early as 854 it seems, King Ahab fought in company with 
 the Syrians against Sulmanassar II. The same Salmanassar 
 received tribute from Jehu if we may believe the Assyrian 
 record. During the reign of Jehu’s dynasty the Assyrian 
 advance worked more or less in Israel's favor, because it 
 diverted the Syrians, whose attacks had greatly reduced the 
 Northern kingdom. The next Assyrian king to interfere in 
 Israel’s history was Tiglath Pilesar II (745-728), the Pul 
 of the Bible, cotemporaneous with Hosea.. Probably when 
 Hosea began to prophesy about 750, he had not yet ascended 
 the throne. In the first three chapters of Hosea, the Assy- 
 rians are not mentioned by name; in the second part they 
 are named repeatedly as the instrument of Jehovah’s judg- 
 ment. Side by side with Assyria, Hosea speaks of Egypt, 
 sometimes of Egypt alone. On the other hand the usual 
 rendering of Ch. x1, 8, makes the prophet declare that the 
 people shall not go to Egypt. Some propose as a solution 
 that [losea wavered at various times in his views concerning 
 the outcome of the conflict between Assyria and Egypt in 
 which Israel was implicated. Others assume that Egypt is 
 named by Hosea in a symbolic way, as the land of captivity. 
 The best explanation is that the prophet, while distinctly 
 foretelling the conquest of the land by Assyria, yet an- 
 nounces the removal of the people to both Egypt and 
 Assyria, x, 6; 1x, 6. No one ean affirm that his prophecies 
 on this point have not been literally fulfilled. According 
 to x11, 2, there existed a party among those in power who 
 courted the favor of Egypt. During the reign of Hosea, the 
 last king, a formal covenant had been concluded between 
 Egypt and Israel, and this covenant was the cause of Sal- 
 manassar IV’s march against Samaria. It was natural, then, 
 that many Israelites should seek refuge in Egypt when the 
 catastrophe came; cfr. further rx, 17; x1, 11. 
 
 The twofold purpose of the judgment is to punish for 
 sin and to lead to the renewal of Israel. Ch. x11, 13, is 
 
78 
 
 the clearest passage for the distinction between these two 
 aspects. Because the iniquity of Ephraim is remembered,. 
 
 the sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him. 
 
 Sin issues in pain. But at “the same time the pain leads to- 
 something new. Ephraim is a son to be born. In the former 
 respect Israel is the mother giving birth to the child, in the 
 latter respect the child born by the mother. The old Israel 
 must die in order that the new Israel may coine to life. 
 
 The birth is a process involving deadly pain, ‘“ Ephraim is. 
 an unwise son, for when it is time he entereth not in 
 the place of the breaking forth of children.” Ephraim 
 by continuing to sin lengthens the throes of judgment, 
 
 delays the birth of the new “people of God, besides endanger- 
 ing the life of the mother more: seriously with each hour. 
 
 This is the first definite reference in the O. T. to the idea of 
 the Messianic woes. Isaiah has taken up this idea,. and. 
 especially Micah has further developed it. Our Lord has. 
 applied it to the calamities of the last times. But its first 
 great fulfilment the idea has found in the sufferings of the 
 Messiah Himself, and the prophetic teaching on the twofold: 
 aspect of the judgment is of the greatest importance for the 
 doctrine of the atonement. 
 
 The judgment leads to conversion in the following 
 manner: 1.) It is a judgment enlightening as to the causes- 
 which have provoked Jehovah’s anger, and thus productive 
 of conviction of sin. For this reason it strikes precisely 
 those things that have been to Israel the instruments of 
 sinning, VII} 65 x, 2,0, 4,8, 141) 3 x16.) 2. TG compels 
 Israel to live a long time without the objects of their adulter- 
 ous love, 11, 9,12. The prophet, on taking back his wife, 
 keeps her in strict confinement to symbolize this idea, III, 
 8, 4,5. 38.) Inasmuch as Israel had not only served the idols 
 side by side with Jehovah, but also served Jehovah Himself 
 in a sinful way, the withdrawing of the instruments of sin 
 would of itself simply have led to a renewed zeal in the cor- 
 rupt naturalistic cult of Jehovah, but not to genuine con- 
 version. Such spurious conversion is described in II, 7; v, 63 
 vil, 14 (the rendering of the Septuagint, which read y1am is 
 probably to be preferred: ‘ they howl upon their beds, they 
 cut themselves for corn and wine”? cfr, I Kings xvitt, 28); 
 vit, 2. It takes place before Jehovah has: sealed the judg- 
 ment by finally withdrawing Himself from them. Ch. vI,. 
 
79 
 
 1-3 describes something midway between spurious and true 
 conversion, not insincere but transitory, deficient in this 
 also that it expects too confidently and too soon the restora- 
 tion to Jehovah’s favor, vs. 2; vs. 8 reflects still the influ- 
 ence of the old naturalistic conceptions: Jehovah’s return is 
 represented as partaking of the necessity which belongs to 
 the processes of nature, the dawn, the rain; the free, 
 spiritual love of God which hes above compulsion has not 
 been grasped as yet. From all this it appears that only by 
 a personal separation between Jehovah and Israel, could 
 the latter be led to a purer and higher conception of his 
 service, v, 15. Hence the prophet not merely separates his 
 wife from her lovers, but at the same time provides that 
 there shall be no fellowship between her and Himself, rr. 3. 
 
 After thus having been prepared by the judgment Israel 
 is finally won by a new revelation of the love of Jehovah 
 taking compassion upon her in her misery. The efficient 
 cause of the conversion is a positive act. Jehovah will speak 
 to her heart. He delivers them anew and leads them home 
 through the wilderness, 11, 14, 15. It 1s this returning favor 
 and love of God which turns Isracl’s heart and makes her 
 answer as in the day of her youth, vs. 15. Nevertheless even 
 the love of Jehovah could not have effected this, bad Israel 
 not previously passed through the experience of the judg- 
 ment. That this experience contributes a very essential 
 element to their repentance the prophet emphasizes in vs. 15, 
 “Twill give her her vineyards from thence.” Only as one 
 who has been in the desert and has learned ail the desert 
 has to teach, can Israel receive back her privileges. For 
 ‘the valley of Achor,” cfr. Josh. vir, 24-26. 
 
 The conversion itself is described as implying the fol- 
 lowing elements: 1.) The profound recognition of sinfulness, 
 xIv, 2; the emphasis lies on “all.” An entirely new record 
 must be begun, for the whole of the past is condemnable. 
 2.) A specific recognition of the two principal forms of sin, 
 political pride and idolatry, vs. 3. 3.) The conviction that no 
 external worship can do aught to restore the favor of Jeho- 
 vah, vs. 2. ‘ Accept that which is good” refers to the words 
 of confession, the bullocks of the lips, the only sacrifice 
 Jehovah can accept. 4.) The appreciation of the free, for- 
 giving love of Jehovah ready to receive them notwithstand- 
 ing their utter unworthiness, vs. 3 ‘“‘ for in Thee the father- 
 
80 
 
 less findeth mercy.’ They dare not call themselves Jehovah’s 
 wife, not even his children; Israel is an orphan, but Israel 
 knows nevertheless, that the orphan findeth mercy with 
 Jehovah. This element of trust mixed with fear entering 
 into the penitence of Israel is beautifully described in ti, 5 
 “they shall tremble unto Jehovah and to his goodness ” and 
 in xI, 16. 
 
 5.) The restoration of the covenant-bond and its ideal perfection. 
 
 Hosea’s references to the future state of Israel, as it will 
 be after the conversion, are contained in Ch. 1, 10, 113 1, 
 18-23; xiv, 4-9. The first of these three passages has been 
 attacked by many critics, partly because of its reference to 
 Judah, partly because of the abrupt transition from threaten- 
 ing to promise, between vs. 9 and 10. But if this, then all 
 passages referring to Judah must be expunged, and this the 
 more moderate critics themselves refuse to do. The abrupt 
 transition is not more remarkable than that between vss. 7 
 and 8 in Ch. x1 or vss. 8 and 4 in Ch. xur. Some try to- 
 remove it by separating vs. 10 and 11 from the first chapter, 
 making them introductory to Ch. 1, but this yields a denun- 
 ciatory discourse, opening with promises, and destroys the 
 harmonious structure of the first part of the book which 
 consists of three discourses each beginning with rebuke and 
 closing with promise. 
 
 These sections of Hosea contain the following promises: 
 
 1.) The union between Jehovah and Israel will be per- 
 fectly restored, 1,19. The verb wos always denotes the first 
 betrothal of a man and a woman, never the reunion of hus- 
 band and wife once separated. The past, therefore, will 
 entirely be blotted out and no guilt, no remembrance will 
 remain to cast a shadow on the new covenant. In Ch III 
 the prophet adheres to the figure of his own marriage only 
 long enough to describe the process of discipline, and im- 
 mediately drops it where it would have to be applied to the 
 re-adoption of Israel into a new covenant. Jehovah will 
 love Israel freely, x1v, 4, and she will respond freely, 1, 15. 
 And this union effects at its very beginning a transformation 
 of Israel into the likeness of Jehovah. The attributes 
 enumerated in 11, 19, 20, are neither attributes of Jehovah 
 
81 
 
 exclusively, nor of Israel exclusively, but the qualities in 
 which the new Israel will resemble her covenant-husband, 
 imparted to her as his bridal gifts. As there is in [im a 
 strict adherence to what [Le promises in covenant, so Israel 
 will be made to fulfill her vows: Ife will betroth her unto 
 Himself.in righteousness and judgment. Further, in case of 
 transgression, which still remains possible, Jehovah will be 
 willing to forgive: Ife will betroth her unto Himself in 
 loving kindness and mercy. And thus, in the exercise of 
 these combined attributes, there will be given an absolute 
 guarantee for the indissoluble character of the new covenant: 
 Ie will betroth her unto Iinself in faithfulness, Israel will 
 not only reflect, but will consciously reproduce these per- 
 fections of Jehovah. She will lovingly and intelligently ap- 
 preciate what Ile is and work out his attributes in her own 
 life: “ And thou shalt know Jehovah’.—In Ch. xiv, 4 the 
 transformation of Israel is described as a healing of her 
 backslidings, which perhaps implies a contrast to the con- 
 fidence of half-converted Israel, that Jehovah will heal her 
 external wounds, vi, 1. | 
 
 2.) The Israelites will become individually sons of Jeho- 
 vah, and not merely the son of Jehovah in their collective 
 eapacity, 1,10. “In the place” does not mean “ in stead 
 of” but in the land, where the sentence of rejection: had 
 practically been pronounced upon them, the land of the 
 captivity. They will be sons of the diving God, because in 
 the future they will realize the immense privile es which the 
 service of the true God confers upon Israel. “As once they 
 had been eager to make Jehovah like the heathen gods, so 
 now they will be profoundly conscious of the essential dif- 
 ference between Him and them. 
 
 This prophecy of Ifosea concerning the readoption of 
 Asracl is applied in Rom. Ix, 25, 26 and I Pet. 11, 10 to the 
 ‘incorporation of the Gentiles into the N, T. Church, Paul 
 and Peter do not quote Hosea’s words because they find in 
 ‘them an explicit prediction of the calling of the Gentiles, but 
 ‘because of the underlying principle, which is that a people 
 wholly rejected of God and estranged from his favor can 
 ‘by an act of sovereign love be adopted! into sonship. This 
 “principle applied equally well to the calling of the Gentiles 
 “as to the restoration of Israel. , 
 
82 
 
 3.) The readoption of Israel will be followed by an 
 unparalleled increase in posterity, 1,10. By ‘the children 
 of Israel” the Esphraimites are eau although, in point of 
 fact, the Judaeans share in the same promise. The prophet 
 predicts that the name Jezreel, ominously given to his first 
 child with reference to the place where Isracl’s power was 
 to be broken, 1, 5, will in the future obtain a totally difter- 
 ent meaning. Jezreel signifies * Jehovah sows” aud God 
 promises «“T will sow her unto me in the land, cra 2s. 
 Though those who return are a handful of seed, they will 
 grow into an innumerable multitade. In regard to this point 
 also a distinction must be made between the abstract prin- 
 eiple underlying the ae and its concrete expression. 
 “As to the former there can be no doubt of its having been 
 fulfilled in the ealling of the Gentiles. They are the num- 
 erous descendants promised to Israe}, the real sons of Abra- 
 ham, This is not a mere figure of speech but the organic 
 ‘view taken of the propagation of the Apostolie Chureh 
 ‘throughout the whole N. T, 9 The univers salistic Church of 
 the present has grown out of the Isracl-church of the old 
 ‘dispensation. The tormer is the ehild of the latter. Cir. I 
 ‘Cor. rf 1-5. 
 
 4.) The reunion of Israel and Jehovah will involve the 
 reunion of Israel and Judah. Having condemned the seces- 
 sion of the ten tribes as sin, [Losea could not but give a place 
 to the healing of this breach in a future, which would bring 
 the healing of all sin. Tere again, the question is not pri- 
 marily how Hosea may have conceived of the fulfilment of 
 ‘this promise, but what is the general principle expressed by 
 the spirit of prophecy in this concrete form. The external 
 reunion of Judah and Israel at the end of the exile is no 
 “more than a preliminary realisation of the idea, that all 
 divisions among the people of God will be done away with. 
 Observe that in vs. 11, the capivity of Judah is presupposed 
 as well as of Israel. 
 
 5.) This reunion will lead to the appointment over the 
 united people of one head. Like the other features, this 
 one is in the prophet’s mind the opposite of what had con- 
 stituted Israel’s sin. They had once set over themselves 
 two heads: now they will prove their conversion by setting 
 choosing of their own accord one head, 1, 11. According to 
 ul, 15, this head will be the Prince of God’s choice, “ David 
 
83 
 
 their King.’ The recognition of him as Ruler will be 
 equivalent to entire resubmission to Jehovah: they will 
 “seek Jehovah their God and David their King.” As early 
 as ILosea prophecy has adopted this remarkable mode of 
 speech which identifies the Messiah with David; efr. Ezek. 
 XXXIV, 23; xxxvil, 24. Much more is intended than that 
 the future Ruler will be a descendant of David In Lim will 
 be reproduced in a far higher seuse that which made David 
 an ideal representative of Jehovah and the instrument of 
 ‘great blessing for Israel. 
 
 6.) The appointment of David as Head serves the 
 immediate purpose of a victorious extension of Israel’s rule 
 over the neighboring peoples, J, ir. The land from which 
 the children of Isracl and Judah shall go up is not the land 
 of the captivity, but their own Jand restored to them by Je 
 hovah. They go up to give battle to the Gentiles. Their 
 united marching forth under so great a Prince is accounted 
 for by the greatness of the occasion: ‘¢ For great shall be 
 the day of Jezreel.” The prophet expects two days of erit- 
 ical unportance for the kingdom of God. The first is the 
 day of Jezreel ominously so called, the day of judgment. 
 The second day is that day of the battle of Jezreel which 
 brings victory for the new kingdom of God. The valley 
 of Jezreel was the ancient battle ¢ ground of northern Israel. 
 The day of Jezreel is the equivalent of IIosea for what Joel 
 and Amos call “ the day of Jehovah.” 
 
 It will be observed that this is the only form in which 
 the element of conscious universalism appears in Lfosea’s 
 delineation of the future. The prophet belongs to the same 
 stage in the development. of universalistic prophecy witb. 
 Joel, Obadiah and Amos. 
 
 7.) The preeeding events will usher in a new and final 
 stage in the history of the kingdom of God, and cuonse- 
 quently Ilosea describes them as taking place in ‘the latter 
 days.” This is not a purely chronological term: it denotes 
 not merely the end, but the end as issue of the whole 
 previous dev elopment. The term is a relative one as to its 
 chronological reference. To each prophet * the latter days” 
 js that crisis or issue in the history of redemption which bor- 
 ders hishorizon. Tothe patriarch Jacob it meant the period 
 ‘following the first conquest of Canaan, Gen, xtrx; 1. That 
 
 5 . . . 
 was his prophetichorizon. To the later prophets * the latter 
 
84 
 
 days” mean the period when the new Isracl will live, the 
 Messianic period, Still later prophets were given to see 
 that even the first advent of the Messiah left room for an 
 expectation of * latter days” in the future. Llosea, of course, 
 does not distinguish intervals of time within the future de- 
 picted by him. The Important point is that he expects a - 
 detinite conclusion to the drama of the history of his people. 
 As the history of redemption had a beginning so it will have 
 an end. 
 8.) The final blessedness of the new people of God is 
 described in two passages of transcendent beauty, 1, 18-22 
 and xiv, 5-8. According to the former it will be a condi- 
 
 tion of universal peace, both in the world of nature and in 
 ‘the world of man. Jehovah will make a covenant tor Israel 
 
 with the animal world. A covenant is a new order of 
 
 things, a natural appointment of God followed instinctively, 
 ‘the implication being that the natural world itself will be 
 
 transformed for the sake of Jehovah’s people. The word 
 eeuiee and the threefold division of the animal kingdom 
 
 ‘remind of Gen, rx. What had been partially secured in 
 
 -Noah’s covenant by a subjugation of the animal world will 
 
 ‘in the future covenant be secured by such grace as regener- 
 
 ates and transforms. To the peace in nature will corres- 
 pond the peace in the world of man. The bow, the sword 
 
 ‘and the battle will be broken out of the land. This coneep- 
 
 tion of the universal reign of peace has been further clab- 
 orated by Isaiah in some of the finest passages of lis prophecy. 
 Nature will in the future with all her forces serve Israel. 
 
 ‘Jehovah answers the heavens, Binge the earth, the earth 
 -eorn, wine and oil, they Jezreel, II, 21,22. The whole cir- 
 
 — 
 
 cuit of nature is set in motion to provide for Ged’s people. 
 The prophet, however, guards ‘carefully against any misin- 
 
 ‘terpretation of this figure in the sense of the old nature- 
 
 ‘worship. It is not for the sake of these blessings that the 
 ‘future Israel will serve Jehovah. Their highest happiness . 
 
 ‘will consist in realizing that all blessings are the gift of Je- 
 ‘hovah and that his love speaks through them. Here the 
 
 _ personal element of [osea’s idea of religion asserts itself in 
 its noblest form. The charm of the concluding ehapter of 
 ‘his book lies precisely in this feature that it represents Je- 
 
 ‘hovah as personally present in all his favors and as in them 
 
 ‘giving Himself to Israel for never-failing enjoyment. In the 
 
85 
 
 boldest metaphors this idea is carried out. Jehovah is the 
 dew that makes Israel blossom as the lily, nay a wonderful 
 tree from which the people pluck abundance of fruit. Here 
 every false separation between the Giver and the gift has 
 disappeared, the happy people in the blessings of the cov- 
 enant experience so directly the love of Jehovah, as the hus- 
 bandman tastes and enjoys the goodness of a tree in the fruit, 
 he gathers from off its branches.